drugs in sports

Another one interesting article connected with dopping can be found here

Doping

What is it?

"Anabolic steroids are a group of hormones found naturally in our bodies. They are involved in growth, physical development and the function of the reproductive organs.

The drugs are manmade versions of the same or similar hormones. They come as pills or capsules. They are usually taken by mouth, but can be injected. Their medical use is limited to boosting red blood cell numbers in anaemic patients."

See here for the rest of the BBC article.

If you want to hear a short radio reports on this subject click here.

THE SEARCH FOR IMMUNISATION

Since we were talking about vaccination I thought I'd post these links to the In Our Time series which you might find useful;

" In 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, wrote a letter to her friend describing how she had witnessed the practice of smallpox inoculation in Constantinople. This involved the transfer of material from a smallpox postule into multiple cuts made in a vein. Lady Montagu had lost her brother to smallpox and was amazed that the Middle Eastern practice of inoculation rendered the fatal disease harmless. In Britain, the practice was unknown.

Inoculation was an early attempt at creating immunity to disease, but was later dismissed when Edward Jenner pioneered immunisation through vaccination in 1796. Vaccination was hailed a huge success. Napoleon described it as the greatest gift to mankind, but it met unexpected opposition after it was made compulsory in Britain in 1853.

How did a Gloucestershire country surgeon become known as the father of vaccination? Why did the British government introduce compulsory smallpox vaccination in 1853? What were the consequences of those who opposed it? And how was the disease finally eradicated?"

To listen to the rest of this podcast click here.

You may need to download Real Player in order to listen to this. Click here.

learning about blogging

These are useful links for people learning English.

The Times

Welcome

This is a list of different things you can do to improve your English outside class.

1 Use the internet - How ?

a Surf the web on a regular basis - 10 to 15 minutes a day is enough.

b Use chat rooms - Mirc or Yahoo have easy to use (and FREE) chat services.

http://www.mirc.co.uk

http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/chat/chatbylycos.html

c Listen to radio or download podcasts from the net.

www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Or download a book and listen to it. It costs nothing.

http://freeaudio.org
http://www.scottsigler.net
http://librivox.org

d Set up your own blog (web page). It's easy and costs nothing. Also it is a great way to practise your writing skills and come into contact with others

www.blogger.com
www.myspace.com

e Use Skype (www.skype.com), which allows you to make free phone calls over the internet in order to find speaking partners from all over the world. MSN and Yahoo also have similar services.

www.kantalk.com is a good place to start.

f Watch Youtube (www.youtube.com) in order to see clips in English. There are plenty of videos aimed at those learning English, e.g

http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/.

For longer programmes see;

Google Video (http://video.google.com)

2 Watch DVD's - without subtitles - at least once a week. This is a great way of preparing for the listening test.

3 Read something other than your course books. Literature, short stories, magazines, newspapers; In fact just about anything you can find in English. All reading is good practice for the Reading Comprehension part of the Cambridge exams. All these things can be found at the kiosks in Aristotelian square or in central bookshops.

4 Record yourself. If you have a cassette recorder, mobile phone that can record or a microphone for your PC, record yourself speaking. It's a great way of correcting errors in your spoken English. You can record part of a film you've seen, a page from an audio book, a listening exercise from the course book etc. Listen to the original and try to copy it as closely as possible.

5 Speak only English in class. This is probably the only chance you'll get to speak English before the exam so make the most of the opportunity.

Nobody expects students to do all of these things but if you try some of them during the course of the year then you'll see a great improvement in your language skills and of course you'll greatly increase your chances of getting a good grade in the exams.