 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, you will hear stories from Brian Lin and Jill Robbins. Later, Gregory Stockle and Faith Perlow present this week's health and lifestyle report. Finally, we hear today's lesson of the day from Jill Robbins and Andrew Smith. But first... Japan's space agency says a spacecraft that landed on the moon earlier this month has regained power and is continuing its mission. Officials from the Japan Exploration Agency, JAXA, said Monday they had successfully re-established communication with the Slim Moon Explorer. Slim touched down on the moon on January 20th, but the spacecraft landed the wrong way up. Its solar equipment was unable to see the sun. JAXA said Slim was likely able to regain power because of a change in the sun's direction. After the landing, JAXA used the spacecraft's battery power to gather as much data as possible about the touchdown and the surrounding area. The power was then turned off to wait for the sun to rise higher in the lunar sky. Mission officials have said the Explorer landed within 55 meters of its target near the lunar equator. It also landed in between two craters in an area covered in volcanic rock. JAXA said these results demonstrated progress in what it calls pinpoint landing technology. Past moon missions generally aimed to hit flat areas at least 10 kilometers wide. But the ability to land on very exact targets is expected to help support future space vehicles traveling to the moon and other places. The main purpose of the mission was to test the possibility that spacecraft can land on very specific targets. But Slim is also capturing images and released two small explorers. The explorers are designed to examine mineral-rich rocks and collect data on the moon's development. JAXA has not named a specific date for when Slim will end its operations on the moon. But the agency has said in the past that the lander was not designed to survive a lunar night. The next lunar night begins on Thursday. The mission made Japan the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the surface of the moon after the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and India. I'm Brian Lin. The social media site X has blocked some searches for Taylor Swift in reaction to an online spread of pornographic deep fake images of the singer. A deep fake is an image, sound recording, or video created to make it appear that people in it are saying or doing things that they did not say or do. Attempts to search for her name without quotation marks on the site Monday resulted in a failure message. It asked users to retry their search. Don't fret, it's not your fault also appeared. However, putting quotation marks around her name permitted posts to show where her name appeared. The images of Swift began spreading widely on X last week. She is now the most famous victim of a danger that technology companies and anti-abuse groups have struggled to fix. This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue. Joe Benaroche, head of business operations at X, said in a statement. After the images began spreading, the singer's loyal fan base called Swifties quickly came to her defense. They launched a protective movement and flooded the site with more positive images of the singer. They used the hashtag Protect Taylor Swift on their posts. Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deep fakes. The deep fake search group Reality Defender said it followed many posts of pornographic material of Swift. Many of the posts were found on X formerly known as Twitter. Some images also made their way to Facebook and other social media sites. The researchers found at least 20 different images created by artificial intelligence or AI. Researchers have said the number of pornographic deep fakes has grown in the past few years. The increase continues as the technology used to produce such images has become more available and easier to use. In 2019, a report released by the AI company Deep Trace Labs showed these images were mainly weaponized against women. Most of the victims, it said, were Hollywood actors and South Korean singers. I'm Jill Robbins. Gene treatments are being credited with permitting several children born with deafness to hear again. Gene therapy is a medical treatment that aims to change a few of a patient's genes to cure a genetic disease. A small study recently published in The Lancet reported improvements in the hearing in five of six children who were treated in China. Around the same time, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the U.S. Eastern state of Pennsylvania announced similar improvements in an 11-year-old boy treated there. And earlier, Chinese researchers published a study showing similar improvements in two other children. The experimental methods or therapies target only one rare condition, but scientists say similar treatments could someday help many more children with other kinds of deafness caused by genes. Around the world, 34 million children have deafness or hearing loss. And information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says genes are responsible for up to 60% of cases. Deafness caused by genes is passed down from parents to children. It is called hereditary deafness. It is the latest condition scientists are targeting with gene therapy. Gene therapy is already approved to treat illnesses such as sickle cell disease and severe hemophilia. Children with hereditary deafness often get a device called a cochlear implant that helps them hear sound. No treatment could reverse hearing loss. That's why we were always trying to develop a therapy, said Zhuang Yi Chen, of Boston's Mass Eye and Ear, a treatment center for eye and ear problems. He is a writer of the study published in The Lancet. We couldn't be more happy or excited about the results. The team recorded videos of patients. One shows a baby who formerly could not hear at all, looking back in response to a doctor's words six weeks after treatment. Another shows a little girl 13 weeks after treatment, repeating father, mother, grandmother, sister, and I love you. All the children in the experiments have a condition that is believed to cause 2-8% of hereditary deafness. It is caused by changes in a gene responsible for an inner ear protein called autofirlen, which helps hair cells send sound signals to the brain. The researchers say that the one-time therapy gives a working copy of that gene to the inner ear during a medical operation. Most of the children were treated in one ear, although one child in the two-person study was treated in both ears. The study with six children took place at Fudan University in Shanghai. Dr. Yilai Xu helped lead the study and trained in Chen's laboratory. Chen was involved in the research. Chinese science organizations and biotechnology company Shanghai Refresh Gene Therapeutics helped provide financial support. Researchers observed the children for about six months. They do not know why the treatment did not work in one of them. But the five others, who were completely deaf, can now hear a normal discussion, the researchers said. Chen estimated they now hear at a level 60% to 70% of normal. The therapy caused no major side effects. Early results from other research have shown similar results. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is a biotech company based in New York State. It announced in October that a child under two years old showed improvements six weeks after gene therapy. The results came from a study Regeneron did with support from Decibel Therapeutics, a company in Boston. Columbia University's Dr. Lawrence Loestig is involved in the Regeneron study. He said although the children in these studies do not end up with very good hearing, even a moderate hearing loss recovery in these kids is pretty astounding. He added that many questions remain. They include how long the therapies will last and if hearing will continue to improve in the children. Some people question if gene therapy for deafness is ethical. Teresa Blankmeyer Burke is a professor who is deaf and who deals with medical ethics. She teaches at Gallaudet University, a university for deaf people in Washington DC. She said that there is no agreement about the need for gene therapy targeting deafness. She also pointed out that deafness does not cause severe or deadly illness. Blankmeyer Burke said that it is important to work with deaf community members about the importance of gene therapy. She added gene therapy is seen by many as a possible threat to signing deaf communities. However, Chen said, this is real proof showing gene therapy is working. And he added, it opens up the whole field. I'm Faith Perlow. And I'm Gregory Stockle. Gregory Stockle joins me now to talk more about this week's Health and Lifestyle Report. Hi, Greg. Glad to have you on the show. I'm happy to be here, Ashley. This week's story told us about how gene therapy has permitted several children to hear who were born with genetic deafness. You called it hereditary deafness. You might also call it inherited deafness. Could you tell us more about both of these words? Sure, Ashley. Both hereditary and inherited deafness describe deafness where the genes for that condition have been passed down from the parents. Other examples may include hair or eye color. So you could say, I inherited my eye color from my mom, or brown hair is hereditary in my family. Inherited can be used in other situations, too. Can you talk more about that? Yes. So inherit can also describe something that is passed down at the death of a family member. You can inherit art, money, or even a house when a family member passes away. Items that are inherited are usually protected and guided by law. Well, thanks again, Greg, for joining me today, and thank you for that report. You're welcome. Have a great week, Ashley. 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. Hey, Andrew. Our lesson is based on our video series, Let's Learn English. The series shows Anna Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Here's Anna introducing herself. Hello, my name is Anna Mateo. Today's lesson is going to be a mix. We'll teach you some useful expressions, explain something we call logical connectors, which are special words for connecting phrases, and we'll revisit the present perfect tense by focusing on the word since. And we're basing all of this on lesson 15 of level two of the Let's Learn English series. You know, Jill, we've talked about the present perfect several times in these podcast lessons. That's right. We've talked about it ever since we looked at lesson 48 from level one of the series. But it's so important. I think we should talk about it again. I do too. And we use the present perfect a lot in English. So it makes sense that we are revisiting it. We use the word since to refer to a specific time that something began in the past, but is continuing now. Let's hear the example from lesson 15 of level two. Anna and her friend Penelope are doing a kind of exercise called speed walking. You keep one foot on the ground at all times, but you try to move as quickly as you can. You swing your arms in a special way too, that looks a little like chicken's wings. It is a little funny looking. Let's listen. Penelope, even though we both love speed walking, can we slow down a bit? No way. I think because I'm walking with you, I'm walking faster. Come on, Penelope. Let's take a break. We've been speed walking since 8 a.m. You're so competitive. You even wore your medals. You brought your trophies. You're out of shape. When we were little girls, we could speed walk all day. Hey, wait for me. You know the speed walking rules. If both feet leave the ground, it's running. You ran. Did you hear when Anna used the word since and the present perfect tense? Here it is again. Come on, Penelope. Let's take a break. We've been speed walking since 8 a.m. We should also remind our listeners that the word since actually has two meanings. Informally, it can mean the same thing as because. Right. Like we could say, since it's getting dark outside, we should go home. Anna wants a break from her speed walking and gets some advice about exercise from Penelope. Whew. That was great. Well, Penelope, you're still really fast. Since I've been working in an office, my speed walking has been much slower. You are slower, Anna. Maybe you should hire a personal trainer. That will be great as long as the trainer understands speed walking. Try this company. After you fill out an online application, they will match you to the perfect trainer. As soon as I get home, I'll do it. Thanks. Hopefully the trainer will help Anna in her speed walking. But let's listen one more time to an example with the word since and the present perfect tense. Since I've been working in an office, my speed walking has been much slower. Here, a listener might get confused and think Anna is using the word since to mean the word because. But in a situation like this, where there seems to be two possible meanings, the speaker is probably just talking about what happens after a particular time. If they are not talking about time, they will usually say the word because if that is what they mean. Listeners, we know that might be a lot to understand. The good news is you can always go back and listen to that explanation again. Yes, you can. That's a good idea. Okay, now let's hear what happens to Anna when she meets her new personal trainer. Hi. Are you my trainer? If you're Anna, then I'm your trainer, Alaskan Albert. Because I'm from the Alaskan wilderness, I'm skilled in all outdoor activities of the wild. That's great. But what about speed walking? Speed walking? That's funny. Since I've been living in the city, I've combined wilderness training with a city workout. I call it called the wild parkour. Okay. But seriously, when do we speed walk? Your application did not say how funny you are. No, but it did say that I'm a speed walker. Did you read it? Forget it. We'll have to cancel. Why? We can't train today because it's too cold and too windy. No way. No pain, no gain. When you exercise in really cold weather, you feel alive. Really? Because right now I just feel cold. You're so funny. But seriously, after our training, you will be ready for any extreme physical... Let's get started. Anna, even though you're trying really hard, you're really bad at call of the wild parkour. And if you're wondering why Anna's trainer makes that extra sound when he says parkour, it's because in the video, he's imitating a wolf, a wild animal. Anna is not happy with her new trainer because he's not helping her with her speed walking. Instead, he tries to teach her parkour, which is running, jumping, and climbing over objects, usually in the city. However, he does say that Anna is trying hard. And this is where you can hear a logical connector with the words even though. Anna, even though you're trying really hard, you're really bad at call of the wild parkour. We use the words even though to connect one statement with another unexpected, surprising, or contrasting statement. For example, I might say even though it's cold outside, I'm not going to wear my jacket. And now, here's a few more expressions from lesson 15 of level two. Anna's trainer says he is skilled in all outdoor activities in the wild. We can be skilled in or skilled at something. To have skill or be skilled means to be very good at doing something. We can use the preposition in or the preposition at after the word skilled. Another expression Anna's trainer says is no pain, no gain. That means if you don't work extra hard and maybe feel some discomfort, you will not make the changes and improvement you need. This phrase is used a lot when we talk about exercise and getting in good physical shape. There's one more kind of connecting phrase we can hear in lesson 15 as well. Listen to Penelope and Anna again. You are slower, Anna. Maybe you should hire a personal trainer. That will be great as long as the trainer understands speed walking. When Anna says as long as she is not talking about time, instead the phrase as long as means we want something only if certain conditions or other situations happen. In this case, Anna only wants the trainer if he helps her with speed walking. Well, let's see if he does ever help her. Anna, even though you're trying really hard, you're really bad at Call of the Wild Parkour. I'm bad at Call of the Wild Parkour because I don't want to do Call of the Wild Parkour. Walker, it's what I do. It's part of who I am. Why didn't you say something? I did several times. You thought I was joking. Now I understand. Anna, I can help you. If you follow my advice, I'll put the speed back in your speed walk. Go, Anna! Go! At the end, Anna does get the help she wanted. And we hope you've gotten the help you wanted by listening to the lesson of the day. And remember, as long as you keep listening and studying, your English will keep improving. And even though it can sometimes be difficult, try to speak English as much as you can. Remember, no pain, no gain. That's right. Well, we've come to the end of today's lesson. Thanks for listening. Remember, you can also find us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. 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.