 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from The Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. On today's program, John Russell has a story on new research that suggests bright lights confuse insects. Dan Friedel reports on problems found in many scientific research papers. Brian Lin has the science report on the end of NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter. Later, Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins present the lesson of the day, but first... Many people have long believed that bright lights draw or attract flying insects. But that is not exactly what is going on. A new study suggests. Researchers believe that artificial lights at night may cause problems with flying insects' natural navigation systems. As a result, the creatures fly in confusion around porch lamps, street lights, and other artificial lights. Insects have a navigational problem, said Tyson Hedrick of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Hedrick was not involved in the research. He added they're accustomed to using light as a cue to know which way is up. Insects do not fly directly toward a light source, but actually tilt their backs toward the light, said Sam Fabian of Imperial College London. Fabian was a co-writer of the study that appeared recently in nature communications. This tilting action would make sense if the strongest light source was in the sky. But in the presence of artificial lights, the result is mid-air confusion. For the study, researchers attached very small sensors to moths and dragonflies in a laboratory. They then filmed motion capture video of flight, similar to how filmmakers attached sensors to actors to follow their movements. Researchers also used high-resolution cameras to film insects flying around lights at a field in Costa Rica. Such films permitted researchers to study in detail how dragonflies circle endlessly around light sources, positioning themselves with their backs facing the light. Researchers also documented that some insects fly upside down and often crash land in the presence of lights that shine straight upward like searchlights. Insect flight was least disrupted by bright lights that shine straight downward, the researchers found. For millions of years, insects oriented themselves by sensing that the sky is light, the ground is dark, until people invented artificial lights, said Avalon Owens of Harvard University. Owens was not involved in the research. I'm John Russell. A major cancer hospital and research center recently announced it is asking for withdrawals or corrections to at least 37 research papers. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston is taking action after its research included false images. The cancer hospital is connected with Harvard University's medical school. Harvard's last president, Claudine Gay, recently left her position after being accused of plagiarism. Plagiarism is when a person claims someone else's work as their own. In the Dana-Farber case, a blogger from Wales in Britain said the cancer center published documents that had manipulated images. Sholto David is a 32-year-old blogger who investigates scientific reports in his free time. On January 2, David wrote on his blog that he found suspicious images in 30 papers published by four Dana-Farber scientists, including top leaders Lori Glimker and William Hahn. He said some of the images made the research look stronger. The papers discussed how cells work, another documented samples of bone marrow from human volunteers. Similar investigators found problems with some of the Dana-Farber papers and pointed them out on a website called PubPure. Reporters from Harvard's student newspaper started writing about the problems on January 12. Dana-Farber answered the news coverage by saying it had already been looking into the problems. On January 22, the center said it asked for six of the papers to be retracted or withdrawn from publication because of problems. It also asked for corrections in 31 other papers. Dr. Barrett Rollins is the research integrity officer at Dana-Farber. He said the center and its scientists took prompt and decisive action in most cases that David pointed out. David is not the only person who studies scientific research and looks for errors. Elizabeth Bick is a microbiologist in California. She has been looking at journals and papers for 10 years. Based on her work, over 1,000 articles have been pulled back. Over 1,000 have been corrected and 153 times journals have printed their concerns about previously published work. She has seen manipulated images of bacteria, cells, and more. Bick wrote about her work in a paper published by the American Society for Microbiology in 2016. Science should be about finding the truth, she said. Bick does get some money for her work. Some people who like her work subscribe to a journal, she writes. She earns about $2,300 per month for the work she does. David said he earns just over $200 a month for his work. Ivan Oronsky is an expert on the science sleuths. He teaches medical journalism at Columbia University in New York City. He said some of the detectives use software tools to look for problems in scientific writing. Many do not use their names when they write about their findings. Oronsky said the sleuths want science to do and be better. He said they are upset that people in publishing and at universities do not seem interested in correcting mistakes. Some of the bloggers are worried that the number of people who trust science is falling. Bick said the problem that leads to false research is that many doctors and scientists feel pressure to get published and they make mistakes because they are in a hurry. Oronsky, the journalism teacher at Columbia, said pressure to publish means if the images do not match the story the paper is trying to tell, you beautify them. Scientific journals look at errors brought to their attention, but do not often do a public investigation. They keep the process quiet and then release their decision. Usually they will ask for a correction or withdraw the paper. Some journals told the Associated Press they were looking into the issues that David raised. I'm Dan Friedel. NASA's experimental helicopter Ingenuity has officially ended its service on Mars after what the U.S. space agency called a history-making mission. Ingenuity arrived on Mars with NASA's Perseverance Explorer or rover in February 2021. The experimental helicopter has completed many test flights on the red planet to support NASA's efforts to build a new aircraft that can fly in the atmospheres of other planets. Ingenuity became the first aircraft to complete a powered, controlled flight on another planet in April 2021. At first NASA described Ingenuity as a demonstration mission that was expected to last about one month. The aircraft aimed to test flight on Mars, including taking off, flying short distances, and landing. The helicopter quickly demonstrated its abilities during a series of tests. In May 2021 NASA officially extended Ingenuity's experimental mission. In total the helicopter performed 72 flights on Mars, the space agency said. The aircraft flew 14 times farther than planned and completed more than two hours of total flight time. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised Ingenuity as the little helicopter that could. He noted that officials were surprised with each new flight progression. But Nelson noted that because of damage to a rotor, the helicopter had finally taken its last flight. The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to an end, he said. Nelson added that mission controllers discovered during an attempt by Ingenuity to land that at least one of the aircraft's rotor blades had been damaged. The damage is currently being investigated, but the NASA chief said the blade might have struck the ground during the landing attempt. NASA said Ingenuity rose to 12 meters on its final flight last week, staying in the air for a few seconds before heading back down. Most flights only last a few minutes because the helicopter has energy and temperature limitations. Nelson said the helicopter was able to fly effectively in the thin Martian atmosphere. But he noted that additional progress showed the aircraft far exceeded what we thought possible. Ingenuity's mission, Nelson said, had opened the door to future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond. After Ingenuity performed well in flight tests, NASA decided to expand the helicopter's mission to assist perseverance with its rover operations. This change officially turned the aircraft's mission into an operations demonstration. NASA reports Ingenuity helped to identify additional exploration areas for perseverance. Both the rover and helicopter have been collecting data and images while exploring an area known as Gisaro crater. The goal is to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. NASA noted that Ingenuity had helped map a path from above to help perseverance take on new exploration activities. Flight controllers on the ground have been collecting data on all of Ingenuity's operations. They said this data will be valuable in helping NASA design future aircraft for Mars. The success of the helicopter mission led the space agency in 2022 to approve the development of two small helicopters to be deployed on future missions. While Ingenuity continued its operational mission, teams on the ground experimented with new rotor blades. During ground tests completed last year, engineers reported the rotor blades had reached speeds nearly equal to Mach 1, the speed of sound. The blades tested on Earth are made of carbon. They are more than 10 cm longer than Ingenuities and are designed to be stronger and to move faster. NASA has said the rotor blades are designed to support bigger, more complex helicopters. I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin joins me now to talk more about his science report. Thanks for being here, Brian. Of course, Dan. Thank you for having me. This week's report was about NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which recently ended its Mars mission after several successful flights. The report says NASA is using data from Ingenuity to develop new helicopters for Mars. What can you tell us about that? So, yes. NASA was very clear about how successful Ingenuity's experiments were on Mars. The agency learned a lot of things and wants to use that data to design new aircraft for future space deployments. NASA did share results late last year about some tests happening on the ground with a new rotor blade design. Engineers reported some good early results with those tests, particularly getting the blades to spin at near supersonic speeds. The idea is to make parts to support larger, more powerful and faster helicopters than Ingenuity. And how does NASA carry out such testing here on Earth? Well, in testing the new rotor blade designs, NASA says it used a simulator at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that sought to recreate the Martian atmosphere. The simulator can actually be set up to recreate a variety of atmospheres, depending on what equipment is being tested. In this case, of course, engineers had to simulate the atmosphere of Mars, which is extremely light compared to Earth's. And scientists say the Martian atmosphere is estimated to be about 100 times thinner, in fact, than Earth's. Alright. Thanks again for answering my questions, Brian. You're welcome. Thank you, Dan. And now it's time for the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. My name is Andrew Smith and I'm joined by Dr. Jill Robbins. Hi, Jill. Hi, Andrew. Our lesson is based on our video series. Let's learn English. The series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Here's Anna introducing herself. Hello. My name is Anna Matteo. What do these words have in common? Myself, yourself, himself, herself, oneself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and finally, themselves. If you said they are pronouns, you are correct, but they are a special kind of pronoun. These pronouns are called reflexive pronouns. And like a mirror, they reflect or refer back to the subject. For example, I can talk about myself and Jill can talk about herself. And you can talk about yourself and so on. We're going to hear lots of these pronouns in lesson 17 of level two of Let's Learn English. In the lesson, Anna and her work colleague, Pete, have to take care of babies all by themselves. But Anna and Pete don't have any children. That's right, but these are special kinds of babies. Let's find out more. And be sure to listen for the reflexive pronouns. Anna, Pete, I have a new assignment for you. A show on single parents. What is it like for a mother or a father to raise a child by herself or himself? We can interview single parents. They can share their experiences themselves. Yes, but you need to experience parenthood yourselves. Ourselves. Yeah, how do we do that? We're not parents. I asked myself the same question. I said, Katie, how are they going to do that? Then an idea came to me. We'll give you the babies. Hmm. This still seems a little confusing, Jill. How is Ms. Weaver going to give them babies? That's a good question. Professor Butt was asking, wait a minute, is Professor Butt himself, itself, theirself, maybe? We don't know often what to call artificial intelligence, so I'm going to say this. Professor Butt was asking the same thing. You may be asking yourself the same thing that I'm asking myself. What is Ms. Weaver talking about? I am sure we will find out shortly. Next, let's find out what Ms. Weaver really means by listening to the next part. Here are your babies. Those are bags of flour. No, Pete. For the next six days, this is your baby. Here are your instructions. Do not leave your babies alone. A baby cannot take care of itself, and you too must do everything by yourselves. We will meet next Friday. Oh, and the person who does the best research will get an extra day of vacation. Help yourself to a baby. Ah, yes. It's the take care of a baby exercise, except instead of a real baby, a person has to take care of an object. I remember when I was in high school, we had a teacher who gave students eggs, and they had to carry the egg with them at all times for a week and make sure they never broke the egg. At least bags of flour are stronger than eggs. Yes, but they're also heavier, and in that way they're more like a real baby. Flour, by the way, is spelled F-L-O-U-R, and it is what we use to make bread. And lots of other goodies. Let's see how Anna and Pete begin to take care of their flour babies. And we should explain that after Anna makes a comment about Pete's baby, he pushes her bag of flour off of the table. And that's why she calls him a monster. And later, Pete throws Anna's bag of flour to her after she forgets it. Okay, let's listen. Pete, look, my baby is organic and whole grain. Your baby is ordinary. Monster! This is a great idea, Ms. Weaver. This is a terrible idea. If you speak for yourself, Pete, we need to throw ourselves into the research. I'm starting right now. Hey, Anna, you forgot your baby. Come to mama! Good girl! Good girl! I think this is going to be a fun project for Anna and Pete. Now, let's talk about a few common expressions in English that use reflexive pronouns. Sometimes we say a machine can do something by itself. For example, if a computer is programmed in a special way, an artificial intelligence program allows the computer to teach itself. Or we can say a robot vacuum cleaner can vacuum the floor of a room by itself. Similarly, a player piano is a special musical instrument that plays songs by itself without a person pressing the keys. We also commonly give advice about people's health, telling them to take care of themselves. That's right. Jill, I know you work hard, and so make sure to take care of yourself, too. Thanks. I tried to. I started a Tai Chi class last week, you know. Oh, that's right. Well, I hope that is good for you. Also, in situations where we know that we or someone else must do work to get a job done, we say things like these examples. That paper's not going to write itself. That car won't fix itself. The wall's not going to paint itself. We use the word not and then the verb and the reflexive pronoun itself. There are lots of things in life we just have to do ourselves. No one else can do them for us. That's right. Like with learning another language, other people can help us and teach us, but in the end, we have to learn a lot of it ourselves without other people always helping us. Now, before we finish, we should listen to Professor Bott explain the difference between singular and plural reflexive pronouns. Singular reflexive pronouns end in self. Plural ones end in selves. Anna says, We need to throw ourselves into the research. The subject we is plural, so we must use the plural reflexive pronoun ourselves. Listeners, ask yourselves, do you understand how to use reflexive pronouns? Remember that each lesson of Less Learn English comes with a lesson plan that you can download for free from our website. The lesson plan for lesson 17 explains more about reflexive pronouns. So do yourself a favor and look at the lesson plan. Haha, caught that one, Andrew. And remember that you can also find us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Thanks for listening to The Lesson of the Day. I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.