1 . Using needles to deliver drugs has been common for more than a century. The past hundred years have seen all manner of medical advances, from life-saving medicine and X-rays to mRNA vaccines and special cancer treatments. Yet the needle has stayed mostly unchanged. Although now available in a variety of different sizes, it remains a hollow (having a hole or empty space inside), pointy tube.

With luck, that may soon change. As Yichi Ma, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues outline in a review paper, researchers around the world are looking for ways to ease the pain when needles go into the skin. Many have been inspired by nature.

The team got their idea from mosquitoes, which manage to get their blood meals without causing great pain to people. One reason is that the insects use painkilling chemicals when they first puncture (刺穿) the skin. But there is another reason, The point of a mosquito's saw-like proboscis (锯齿状的喙) is softer at its tip. The insect makes the skin of its target tight before biting, and shakes its proboscis as it pushes the proboscis in. All of this helps reduce the force needed to puncture the skin.

One paper, published in 2020 by a group of researchers in America and China, found that a mosquito-inspired needle required 27% less puncturing force than an ordinary one. And less force means less pain Mosquito-inspired needles might also be useful for delicate procedures such as biopsies (the examination of tissue taken from a living body). A paper from the University of Michigan, also published in 2020, found that scientists could improve biopsies of tissue in some body organs. The lower force led to less movement of the organ itself, ensuring that the needles were guided accurately to the area that needed sampling.

For now, such devices remain limited to labs. But there is a big market for better needles. According to WHO, around 16 billion injections were given in 2018. With one person in four saying they suffer from a fear of needles, the savings on stickers and sweets for the brave souls who roll up their sleeves would be considerable.

5 . The British National Health Service (NHS) was set up in 1948 and was designed to provide equal basic health care, free of charge, for everybody in the countryside. Before this time health care bad to be paid for by individuals.

Nowadays central government is directly responsible for the NHS although it is administered by local health authorities. About 83 percent of the cost of the health service is paid for by general taxation and the rest is met from the National Insurance contributions paid by those in work. There are charges for prescription and dental care but many people, such as children, pregnant women, pensioners, and those on Income Support, are exempt from payment.

Most people are registered with a local doctor (a GP, or General Practitioner) who is increasingly likely to be part of a health centre which serves the community.

As the population of Britain gets older, the hospital service now treats more patients than before, although patients spend less time in hospital. NHS hospitals—many of which were built in the nineteenth century—provide nearly half a million beds and have over 480, 000 medical staff. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe although Britain actually spends less per person on health care than most of her European neighbours.

During the 1980s there was considerable restructuring of the Health Service with an increased emphasis on managerial efficiency and the privatization of some services (for example, cleaning). At the end of the 1980s the government introduced proposals for further reform of the NHS, including allowing some hospitals to be self-governing, and encouraging GPs to compete for patients. Patients would be able to choose and change their family doctor more easily and GPs would have more financial responsibility. The political questions continue of how much money should be provided to support the NHS and where it should come from.

Deeply     1    (affect) by her mother’s death, Lin Qiaoghi chose to study medicine instead of following the path of     2    (marry) like the majority of girls. Her brother complained     3     the high tuition fees. She respond, “I’d rather stay single to study all my life!”   

After graduating with the Wenhai Scholarship, Lin became     4    the first woman ever to be hired as a resident physician. When studying abroad, she     5     (reject) the offer from her American colleagues. She wanted     6    (serve) the women and children at home.

When the department     7    she worked was closed because of the war, she opened a private clinic and charged very low fees.

She held many important     8    (position). However, she was more interested in tending patients, publishing medical research, and training new doctors.

Having delivered over 50,000 babies in her lifetime, she     9    (know) as the “mother of ten thousand babies”. Dr Lin did not retire until the day when she died,     10    (leave) her savings to a kindergarten and a fund for new doctors.

7 . On January 7, David Bennett went into the operating room at the University of Maryland Medical Center for a surgical procedure never performed before on a human. The 57-year-old Maryland resident had been hospitalized for months due to a life threatening disease. His heart was failing him and he needed a new one.

Bennett’s condition left him unresponsive to treatment and ineligible (不合格) for the transplant list or an artificial heart pump. The physician-scientists at the center, however, had another-also risky- option: transplant (移植) a heart from a genetically-modified pig.

“It was either die or do this transplant,” Bennett had told surgeons a day before the operation. “I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s also my last choice.”

It took the medical team eight hours to finish the operation, making Bennett the first human to successfully receive a pig’s heart. “It’s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before,” Barkley Griffith, who led the transplant team, told the New York Times.

While it’s only been five days since the operation, the surgeons say that Bennett’s new pig heart was, so far, functioning as expected and his body wasn’t rejecting (排斥) the organ. They are still monitoring his condition closely.

“I think it’s extremely exciting,” says Robert Montgomery, transplant surgeon and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who was not involved in Bennett’s operation. The result of the procedure was also personally meaningful for Montgomery, who received a heart transplant in 2018 due to a genetic disease that may also affect members of his family in the future. “It’s still in the early days, but still the heart seems to be functioning. And that in and of itself is an extraordinary thing. Up to now most experimental heart transplant procedures have been done between pigs and other animals. This is the first time that surgeons have taken it into a living human.”

8 . From crystal-blue lakes to snow-capped mountains and thousand-year-old trees, Canada’s nature is admired around the world. Now it might also be just what the doctor ordered. An ambitious new programme allows doctors to write prescriptions (处方) for free annual passes to Canada’s national parks, encouraging their patients to improve their health — both mental and physical — by taking a stroll in nature.

The prescriptions are provided by PaRX, in partnership with Parks Canada. The first passes were handed out last month, giving holders access to more than 80 national parks, historic sites and nature reserves. PaRX, a health initiative (倡议) launched in 2019 by the British Columbia Parks Foundation, notes on its website that spending time in nature can lead to longer lives, increased energy, reduced stress and anxiety, improved heart health, less pain and better mood. Vitamin D from the sun’s rays has proven health benefits. The organization also hopes that the prescriptions will boost investment in conservation in Canada.

The initial provision covers four Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Manitoba. Participating doctors have only 100 annual passes to hand out for now, but PaRX hopes that the programme will be expanded.

“Medical research now clearly shows the positive health benefits of connecting with nature,” Steven Guilbeault, the environment minister, said. “I am confident this programme will quickly show its enormous value to the well-being of patients as it continues to expand throughout the country.”

Canada’s physicians are already in the habit of prescribing “nature therapy” as a treatment for anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, immune function and insomnia (失眠). Previously, though, they would write more general prescriptions, such as spending time in nature twice a week, for at least 20 minutes at a time. This is the first time that they have been able to equip their patients with tickets.

9 . Researchers say a new electrical device placed in three paralyzed patients has helped them walk again. The lower bodies of the three patients were left paralyzed after they suffered spinal (脊柱的) cord injuries. But a device implanted in the spinal cord was able to send electrical signals to the muscles to permit them to stand, walk and exercise.

Scientists have discovered that neurons—which receive and send signals for muscle movements—often still work in injured patients with serious spinal cord injuries. However, past research into spinal cord injuries has centered on the stimulation of neurons. Now in the latest experiment led by Gregoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, three paralyzed men were implanted a new electrical device designed to copy an action of the brain, in which it sends signals to the spinal cord that result in muscle movement. When the spinal cord receives the brain signals, it stimulates a collection of nerve cells that can activate different muscles.

The researchers reported that all three patients who got the spinal cord implants were able to take their first steps within an hour after receiving them. Over the next six months, the patients regained the ability to take part in more advanced walking activities, the study found. They were also able to ride bicycles and swim in community settings.

Unlike other attempts to help paralyzed patients walk by stimulating nerves through the back of the spine, Courtine said that his team redesigned the devices so signals would enter the spine from the sides. This method permits more direct targeting and activation of spinal cord areas, he said.

The team then developed artificial intelligence (AI) systems linked to the device. The AI controls electrodes on the device to send signals to stimulate individual nerves that control muscles needed for walking and other activities. However, because the patients’ muscles were weak from not being used, they needed help with supporting their weight, the researchers said. It also took some time for them to learn to work with the technology. Still, Bloch said, “The more they train, the more they start lifting their muscles, the more fluid it becomes.”