ONE PEPTIDE has recently transformed medicine. Drugs based on glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone released by the gut after a meal, began as treatments for diabetes before proving remarkably good at helping people shed weight. They have since shown benefits in the fields of heart disease, kidney disease, sleep apnoea and other ailments. Drugmakers are now betting that two other peptides, the orexins, could follow a similar path for a variety of brain-related ailments.
Orexins are a pair of neurotransmitters—chemicals that carry messages between neurons. One of the main jobs of these particular neurotransmitters is to regulate wakefulness. And a new generation of drugs designed to mimic their effects is approaching the market.
On August 5th America's drug regulator approved oveporexton, made by Takeda, a Japanese pharmaceutical firm, as the first orexin agonist (ie, molecule that stimulates the same cell-surface receptors) for narcolepsy, a disorder that leaves patients excessively sleepy by day and prone to nod off without warning. Alkermes, an Irish biotech, is developing a competitor. Eli Lilly, whose fortunes GLP-1s have transformed, does not intend to miss another peptide boom. In June it bought Centessa, a biotech with an orexin drug in early trials, in a deal worth up to $7.8bn, depending on the trials' success. Morgan Stanley, a bank, reckons orexin medicines could generate $16bn a year by 2035 from narcolepsy and related sleep disorders alone. The current crop of narcolepsy drugs, by contrast, have annual sales of some $3bn.
And the excitement is not just about narcolepsy, which is estimated to afflict one person in 2,000 in America. Orexins help co-ordinate sleep, attention, motivation and the brain's reward system. Drugmakers hope orexin medicines could eventually treat depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and addiction, conditions that burden hundreds of millions of people.
Orexins were discovered nearly three decades ago by two teams working independently. In January 1998 Luis de Lecea and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California found the peptides and called them hypocretins. Weeks later a group led by Yanagisawa Masashi, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas, reported that injecting the same peptides into rats' brains made the animals eat more. They named the molecules orexins, from the Greek orexis, meaning appetite.
Orexins' true role emerged the following year. Emmanuel Mignot, of Stanford University, was studying hereditary narcolepsy in Doberman pinschers and Labrador retrievers, dog breeds prone to sudden collapse mid-play. He showed that a mutation blocked the brain's ability to respond to them. That same year, Dr Yanagisawa's laboratory found that mice engineered to lack orexins repeatedly fell asleep and collapsed. Human confirmation followed: narcoleptic patients had lost the specialised neurons that produce orexins.
These neurons inhabit the hypothalamus, a brain region tucked behind the eyes. Once released, orexins lock, depending on their nature, onto one of two types of cell-surface receptors, OX1R and OX2R, in neighbouring neurons, switching them on. It is OX2R that is important for maintaining wakefulness. Its activation stimulates several wakefulness-promoting systems that rely on other neurotransmitters—norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine and so on—and keeps them working together, rather like the conductor of an orchestra. OX1R, is more involved with reward and motivation.
Drugmakers first learned how to turn the OX2R conductor off. Orexin antagonists (which block the molecules' actions rather than mimicking them, and thus promote sleep), have been available since 2014 as treatments for insomnia. They work differently from conventional sleeping pills, which enhance GABA, one of the brain's main inhibitory neurotransmitters.
Birgitte Kornum, an orexins expert at Copenhagen University, says such pills induce sedation rather than natural sleep and often lose efficacy with continued use. Orexin antagonists instead turn down the brain's wakefulness signal, letting its sleep-promoting systems take over.
The bigger prize may lie not in blocking orexin's signal, but restoring it—for many sleep disorders stem from faulty orexin signalling. The immediate application people have in mind is for narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), in which excessive daytime sleepiness is accompanied by cataplexy, a sudden loss of muscle control typically triggered by strong emotion. Further down the line narcolepsy type 2 (NT2), which lacks cataplexy, and idiopathic hypersomnia, a related type of excessive daytime sleepiness, are also in drugmakers' crosshairs.
NT1 is caused by abnormally low levels of the orexin that binds to OX2R. During REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the phase when dreams are most intense, the brain paralyses the body to stop it actually acting out movements involved in such dreams. When someone is awake, this paralysis is held in check by norepinephrine and serotonin—two neurotransmitters that orexin sustains. With insufficient orexin, the paralysis circuit may fire even if a person is fully conscious. They might be wide awake, in the middle of a burst of laughter for example, and then lose muscle control and crumple to the floor.
Turning orexins back on is, however, harder than switching them off. An antagonist need only fit into a receptor to prevent an orexin from binding. An agonist must actually reproduce the effect of a peptide many times the drug's own size. It must also cross the blood-brain barrier, which keeps potentially harmful molecules out of that organ.
Takeda's first attempt, an agonist called firazorexton, showed early promise, but was discontinued in 2021 after it caused liver damage to several patients. But results published in May 2025 on oveporexton, their follow-up OX2R agonist, created a stir. In an eight-week trial involving 90 patients, volunteers sat in a darkened room to see how long they could stay awake—a procedure called the Maintenance of Wakefulness test. Without oveporexton many fell asleep in a minute or so. On it, they managed to stay awake 12.5 to 25 minutes longer, depending on the dose, pushing many into the normal range. Cataplexy attacks were roughly a third as frequent in those taking the drug, compared with participants on a placebo. Side-effects included insomnia and, in about a third of patients, an uncomfortable urge to urinate.
What makes oveporexton different is not just its effect, but how that effect is achieved. Existing treatments, including stimulants such as methylphenidate and wakefulness-promoting agents such as modafinil, manage symptoms rather than the disease itself. They increase the activity of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine in many parts of the brain. That can improve alertness but may also cause anxiety, elevated blood pressure and poor sleep. Some drugs also carry a risk of addiction.
Orexins work further upstream. Rather than stimulating individual parts of the alertness system, they help bring them into line. Dr Yanagisawa says orexin agonists should produce more natural and stable wakefulness, with fewer side-effects and less potential for abuse than stimulants.
As to NT2 and idiopathic hypersomnia, Lilly's orexin agonist, acquired through Centessa, is being tested against both of these, as well as NT1. Preliminary data are encouraging, albeit that the sample is small. In a trial of 55 patients the drug improved wakefulness by more than 20 minutes in people with NT1 and by more than ten minutes in those with NT2.
Drugmakers are studying orexin agonists' effects on more prevalent conditions. Alkermes is testing one in adults for the treatment of ADHD (though current medications are seen as pretty effective), based on the observation that an added benefit in narcolepsy patients is sharpened attention, suggesting they might help with ADHD as well. Others are exploring their use for treating sleep apnoea, which is a far more common disorder.
There are more tantalising ideas, too, about the reward-and-motivation role of the other receptor, OX1R—though the science is less developed. Dr Yanagisawa says blocking OX1R shows promise curbing addictive cravings. Activating the receptor, rather than blocking it, is a more speculative approach, but he believes boosting the orexin signal into the brain's reward circuitry might help treat some kinds of depression and even enhance motivation.
These are hints, not proof, and will need robust tests before any drug reaches the market. Hunger and sleep, argues Dan Skovronsky, Lilly's chief scientific officer, are both "master homeostasis mechanisms"—systems that keep the body in balance. When they misbehave, illness follows. The broad usefulness of GLP-1-based medicine has shown what aiming an entire regulatory system can achieve. Drug companies are hoping orexin therapies will have similar success. ■
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| peptide | a small part of a protein; a chain of amino acids | 多肽 |
| hormone | a chemical made by the body that controls how the body works | 激素 |
| neurotransmitter | a chemical that carries messages between brain cells | 神经递质 |
| neuron | a nerve cell in the brain or body | 神经元 |
| wakefulness | the state of being awake, not sleeping | 清醒 |
| appetite | the feeling of wanting to eat food; hunger | 食欲 |
| receptor | a small part of a cell that receives signals | 受体 |
| agonist | a drug that turns a receptor on (makes it work) | 激动剂 |
| antagonist | a drug that turns a receptor off (blocks it) | 拮抗剂 |
| insomnia | a problem where you cannot sleep well | 失眠 |
| narcolepsy | a brain problem that makes you fall asleep suddenly | 发作性睡病 |
| cataplexy | sudden loss of muscle control, often from strong emotion | 猝倒症 |
| mutation | a change in a gene (the body's instructions) | 突变 |
| placebo | a fake treatment used in tests to compare results | 安慰剂 |
| trial | a test of a new drug on people | 临床试验 |
| dose | the amount of a medicine you take at one time | 剂量 |
| stimulant | a drug that makes you more awake and active | 兴奋剂 |
| addiction | the problem of not being able to stop using a drug | 成瘾 |
| craving | a very strong desire for something | 渴求 |
| mechanism | the way a system works inside the body | 机制 |
*本文由海宝整理翻译，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
Late last year New Yorkers noticed a series of strange advertisements on the subway. "Have your best baby," one promised. "IQ is 50% genetic," noted another. Predictably, they stirred controversy. Yet Kian Sadeghi of Nucleus, the embryo-screening startup behind them, was pleased. "This is a mass-market product. What's a better way of showing that it's a mass-market product than the subway?"
Nucleus is one of a growing number of Silicon Valley startups pushing the nascent technology. Noor Siddiqui of Orchid, a competitor, likes to say that "Sex is for fun; embryo screening is for babies." Herasight, another rival, began offering a screening service last year that allows parents to examine an embryo's risk of various diseases, and also estimates of its height, intelligence and longevity—at a cost of up to $50,000. Nucleus adds hair and eye colour to the mix. The burgeoning industry aspires to reshape the way humans are made.
Not everyone is pleased. In many jurisdictions, including Britain, screening embryos for sex, let alone for polygenic conditions such as hypertension or physical traits such as height, is illegal. Many geneticists and doctors' groups are sceptical that the technology works. Others say that it is unethical.
The visions of these startups may seem otherworldly. But change is coming fast. Cash is pouring into fertility research, leading to potentially rapid advances in genetic testing. Polygenic screening, particularly for common diseases, is popular among Americans, nearly three-quarters of whom say they would use it if they were already undergoing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). A fight is brewing over the future of these technologies—and the businesses promoting them.
For the moment, only a tiny share of babies are born via IVF, which is necessary for embryo screening. In 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available, 100,000 American babies were created using the process, representing 2.8% of the total. David Sable, an investor and formerly a practising reproductive endocrinologist, says the global fertility market is commonly estimated to be worth just $25bn-30bn a year.
Yet Silicon Valley's interest in fertility could expand access to IVF. Several years ago Peter Thiel and Elon Musk began to speak about low birth rates as a threat to America, and started putting money into fertility startups. They were joined by other investors. American venture-capital (VC) investments in fertility enterprises nearly doubled between 2019 and 2022, jumping from $254m to $496m, according to PitchBook, a data provider, even if they have since slowed a bit.
Many of these startups are focused on making IVF cheaper. At present, only 15 American states require the treatment to be included in health insurers' maternity benefits, meaning most Americans pay out of pocket. To reduce costs, a number of startups are selling fertility insurance and payment plans. Nader al-Salim of Gaia, one such firm, says its services save patients an average of $15,000 over the entire fertility process, largely by pooling risk.
Dr Sable reckons that if IVF does become much more widely available, the market could grow to $400bn-500bn annually. His estimate assumes that the cost will fall to around $15,000 for the entire process; currently, just one cycle of IVF in America costs $15,000-20,000. Dr Sable reckons that prices will drop thanks to technological innovations which may increase success rates, allowing people to go through fewer cycles. Falling labour costs as a result of automation and economies of scale, as well as greater standardisation, should also help.
Some screening is already common among IVF patients. An example is PGT-A, which checks that embryos have the right number of chromosomes, and which some studies claim lowers the miscarriage risk (many experts are sceptical). Certain clinics also offer PGT-M, which checks for disorders caused by a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington's.
Now startups are adding a third screen: PGT-P, which scores embryos for conditions and traits determined by multiple genes, potentially ranging from certain cancers to eye colour and IQ. Demand for such tests could be substantial. A survey published in 2023 in Science found that 43% of all IVF participants would use polygenic screening to increase their child's chance of getting into an elite university, provided it were safe and free. One third said the same for genetic editing.
Consider Arthur Zey, a tech worker, and his husband Chase Popp, a teacher. Mr Zey says he has always been a "tech nerd" and wanted to apply his skills to the process of having a child. "Most of my professional career I've been a product manager in tech, and so in some ways this is just like another product to manage," he says. Earlier this year the couple had a son using an embryo selected from a group of six on the basis of the results of polygenic screening provided by Herasight. That allowed them to see risk scores for monogenic diseases and more than a dozen polygenic diseases. The startup also gave them predicted ranges for IQ and height.
Messrs Zey and Popp say they hoped to maximise their son's lifespan, rather than his height or IQ. Yet Mr Zey knows there are advantages to being tall and smart. "All I could do is look at the results for my six embryos and say: 'Okay, it kind of seems like this one is better.'"
For now, Messrs Zey and Popp are unusual. Commercial PGT-P screening is a niche industry. Startups like Herasight cater to a small population of typically very rich people, mostly in America. Even so, that has not stopped them from drawing plenty of criticism.
Some question the underlying science. Polygenic risk scores are based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which use data from large populations to try to discern associations between genetic variants and specific conditions and traits. Companies that offer screening claim that comparing embryos' genomes to risk scores derived from these databases, sometimes with adjustments based on ancestry and family history, allows them to come up with individual assessments.
That is disputed, however. Although selecting on the basis of polygenic risk scores works across many offspring, as in animal breeding, it is less sure to have the desired result for a single child, notes Kevin Mitchell of Trinity College Dublin.
Herasight attempts to deal with this issue by validating its risk scores using sibling data from GWAS datasets to ensure its models retain predictive value within a single family. It claims that, if it tests ten embryos for a couple where both parents have type-2 diabetes, it can reduce their child's absolute risk of developing the condition by 12-20 percentage points, from a baseline of 40-60%.
Some argue that the magnitude of the benefits from embryo screening are overstated. If parents picked from ten viable embryos, the median boost to their child's height would be 2.9cm, according to a paper in Cell in 2019, based on technology at the time. If they selected for IQ, the gain would be three points—unlikely to be life-changing. Moreover, for those picking among fewer than five embryos, the expected gains drop precipitously. Dagan Wells of the University of Oxford adds that, for many conditions, genes are less important than environmental factors such as diet.
Selecting against some traits could also have unintended consequences. Genetic material can have different effects in different parts of the body, a phenomenon called pleiotropy. If parents select an embryo intending to lower their child's risk of a certain disease, they may be neglecting or exacerbating problems for which providers do not (or cannot) offer a score.
Yet many of the technical issues, not least the lack of training data among certain populations, should improve with time. The Cell paper estimated that increasing the sample size of the underlying databases could double the median gain in IQ points from polygenic scoring. With pleiotropy, some studies suggest that most genetic correlations between pairs of polygenic diseases are either positive—meaning cutting the chance of one decreases the chances of others—or insignificant. At present, the technology is "kind of a promissory note", says Trinity's Dr Mitchell. "They say, 'Trust us, this is a bit shit right now, but it'll be good soon.'"
If technological problems are resolved, ethical ones will grow. Some opponents are concerned that screening startups are promoting a friendlier version of eugenics. Others worry that embryo editing—on which America has applied a de-facto ban since 2016—could come next.
Industry insiders reject the fretting, sometimes bluntly. Risk scores may not be perfect, but they are "best in class", says Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund, a VC firm co-founded by Mr Thiel, which has invested in various fertility startups. "What I hate about some of the traditional health-care industry and genetic counsellors is they're like, 'You need to have a Harvard clinical-grade licence' to interpret genetic data. 'Fuck that,' he continues. 'I just want whatever the best statistical models are. I don't need a PhD to read this stuff.'" (Herasight, Nucleus and Orchid all have genetic counsellors to walk clients through their results.) As for ethics, Mr Asparouhov argues that all parents-to-be engage in a form of genetic selection when they choose a partner. "If this is eugenics, then so is Hinge," he argues.
Most of the companies offering PGT-P are more circumspect. They say their customers are mainly looking for ways to ensure their children are healthy, rather than to create "super-babies". Yet their decision to offer scores for intelligence and aesthetic traits suggests they recognise there is a market for the latter.
Arguments over the future of a small cohort of startups may seem like a niche concern. But if IVF gets cheaper and genetic data more abundant, as looks likely, the business of embryo screening will only grow—along with the ferocity of the debate. The nearly 50-year history of the fertility industry is full of technologies that were once considered contentious, including IVF. Startups such as Nucleus, Orchid and Herasight are, in that sense at least, nothing new. ■
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| embryo | a baby before it is born, at the very beginning of life | 胚胎 |
| genetic | relating to genes (the instructions in your body) | 基因的 |
| gene | a small part of your body that carries information from your parents | 基因 |
| screen (v.) | to test or check something carefully | 筛查 |
| fertility | the ability to have babies | 生育力 |
| IVF | a way of making a baby outside the mother's body | 试管婴儿 |
| trait | a quality or feature of a person, like height or eye colour | 特征 |
| disease | an illness; a health problem | 疾病 |
| lifespan | how long a person or animal lives | 寿命 |
| intelligence | the ability to learn and understand things | 智力 |
| estimate | a guess about a number or size | 估算 |
| database | a large collection of information stored on a computer | 数据库 |
| controversy | strong disagreement about something | 争议 |
| ethical | right or wrong; about good and bad behaviour | 伦理的 |
| eugenics | (old, bad idea) trying to make humans "better" by choosing genes | 优生学 |
| promising | likely to be good or successful in the future | 有前景的 |
| risk | the chance that something bad may happen | 风险 |
| dispute | to disagree with something | 质疑 |
*本文由海宝整理翻译，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
中国的心理健康问题正日益严重，但治疗资源却严重不足。33 岁的心理咨询师小姚（化名）透露，她一半客户（多为 20-40 岁女性）不敢告诉父母自己花了 500 元做咨询——老一辈常觉得"这只是不开心，是不是想太多了"。
一项发表于《柳叶刀》的研究提供了迄今最全面的估算：2023 年中国约有 1.91 亿人患有精神障碍，相当于每 7 个中国人中就有 1 个，比 1990 年增加 46%。焦虑和抑郁最常见，进食障碍增速最快。疫情期间封控导致抑郁焦虑激增，也促使更多人首次寻求咨询，线上心理服务蓬勃发展——2025 年政府心理热线接听超 70 万通，今年上半年已达 90 万通。
但治疗缺口依然巨大：2021 年《柳叶刀》另一项研究显示，1007 名抑郁症患者中仅 9.5% 获得治疗，只有 0.5% 得到充分治疗。政府计划到 2030 年建成全国心理支持和危机干预体系（每校设咨询室、每县至少一家医院提供精神科服务）。官方紧迫感部分源于社会不稳定担忧：2024 年多起驾车撞人、持刀伤人事件，以及今年 6 月一名焦虑抑郁的飞行员驾机撞楼事件，都让心理健康成为国家安全议题。新兴的心理治疗行业基本不受监管，且对多数人来说难以负担。
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| mental health | the health of your mind and feelings | 心理健康 |
| counsellor | a person who helps people talk about their problems | 咨询师 |
| depression | a mental illness that makes you feel very sad for a long time | 抑郁症 |
| anxiety | a feeling of worry and fear | 焦虑 |
| disorder | an illness; a problem with how the body or mind works | 障碍/失调 |
| stigma | a bad feeling in society about something | 污名 |
| prevalence | how common something is | 流行率/患病率 |
| treatment | medical care to make someone better | 治疗 |
| psychiatric | relating to mental illness and its treatment | 精神科的 |
| hotline | a phone number you can call for help | 热线 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
五年前，拜登总统从阿富汗撤军——并非被迫，而是选择。美国本可无限期保卫阿富汗虽有缺陷但民选的政府，但选民厌倦了这场美国最长的战争。塔利班几乎未遇抵抗便夺权，绝望的平民扒着起飞的美国飞机坠落身亡。一场二十年的建国努力以屈辱告终；六个月后，普京入侵乌克兰——其他国家由此看清了美国"是否愿意支持盟友"的底牌。
五年后，美国几乎遗忘了阿富汗。本刊记者实地驱车 1000 公里探访发现：塔利班牢牢掌权，国家大体平静（除与巴基斯坦的零星冲突），但这是"阴郁的稳定"——音乐被禁、武装分子统治街头、风化警察殴打"胡子不合格"的男人、女性不得工作上学、无男性监护人不得出行，女童被禁止上中学，童婚合法化后许多女孩直接从教室被推进婚姻。
西方试图孤立塔利班——拒绝承认、冻结阿富汗央行海外储备、制裁官员——但几乎一无所获。塔利班强硬派根本不在乎西方外交官和投资者远离。本刊主张：忽视阿富汗是错误——这个国家被忽视更可能再次制造地缘政治麻烦，其人民将遭受更多苦难，且更可能倒向中国或俄罗斯的势力范围。民主国家应当继续与塔利班接触，而非孤立。
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| democracy | a system where people choose their leaders by voting | 民主 |
| engage with | to talk and work with someone | 接触/交往 |
| regime | a government, usually a bad one | 政权 |
| isolate | to keep someone away from others | 孤立 |
| sanction | a punishment, often stopping trade with a country | 制裁 |
| withdraw | to take away; to pull out (soldiers, money) | 撤出 |
| civilian | a person who is not in the army | 平民 |
| warlord | a military leader who controls a region by force | 军阀 |
| guardian | a person who takes care of a child | 监护人 |
| stability | the state of being calm and not changing | 稳定 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
北半球正值盛夏，办公室空了、机场满了。理论上假期是用来彻底放松的，实际上从出发到回归工作，要经历好几个阶段——本文用幽默笔触剖析"度假心理学"：
第一阶段·准备期：出发前几天，你拼命赶完最紧急的工作，一边对团队说"我完全信任你们"，一边补一句"有任何事都联系我，多小都行"——结果大家反而觉得不被信任。你纠结要不要设自动回复，最终决定不设："偶尔看看手机真的没问题。"
第二阶段·拼命放松期：头几天你把度假当成工作来做——花大量时间让 AI 推荐"小众目的地"，早上开两小时车去 ChatGPT 推荐的早餐店，结果发现店关门了，再去参观一个"古法腌鱼"博物馆。你喝杯酒睡着，醒来懊恼"又浪费了放松时间"，捧起书却担心"休闲得不够休闲"——度假中的你非常紧张。
第三阶段·放手期：你开始隔一会儿查邮件，被拉进一个电话会，既恼火又得意（"没我不行吧？"）。你逐渐意识到：每周发生的事，大多（a）根本不需要你，（b）没有持久价值。你开始忽略大部分消息，并终于打开了自动回复。
第四阶段·错觉期：你终于开始放松，赖床久一点……
后面还有"内疚期"和"回归期"：假期结束前开始焦虑，回来后面对堆积如山的邮件，并发现"休假两周，真正放松的天数没几天"。（原文未完，全文见原文链接）
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| holiday | a time away from work to rest | 假期 |
| relax | to rest and feel calm | 放松 |
| urgent | very important and needing action now | 紧急的 |
| trivial | not important; small | 琐碎的 |
| tension | a feeling of worry or stress | 紧张 |
| leisure | free time to enjoy yourself | 闲暇 |
| immerse | to be fully involved in something | 沉浸 |
| out-of-office | a message saying you are away from work | 自动回复 |
| triage | to sort things by how important they are | 分拣/分级处理 |
| delusional | believing things that are not true | 错觉的 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
今年 1 月，特朗普总统派美国特种部队抓捕委内瑞拉独裁者马杜罗时，恢复民主似乎不是他的优先事项——他大谈自己如何掌控了委内瑞拉的石油，却几乎不提该国的政治前途，还任命被废黜暴君的副手德尔西·罗德里格斯为临时总统。许多人担心：没有美国对民主转型的坚定承诺，旧日残酷的窃贼统治会延续。
然而，委内瑞拉的民主前景似乎在改善。原因不是特朗普突然热衷于此，而是他的国务卿马尔科·卢比奥——他真心想终结拉美的左翼独裁——被赋予了相当大的自由，可以利用美国的巨大影响力推进这一目标。8 月 12 日，委内瑞拉政权与反对派人士的第一轮谈判结束，达成了一项适度协议，启动包括最高法院在内的司法改革进程。本刊调查发现乐观的理由：进一步谈判可能在 12 月前促成允许公平选举的改革。
没有美国的施压，这一切都不会发生。卢比奥深度介入，直接与反对派首席谈判代表迪诺拉·菲格拉对话，她的团队在加拉加斯坐美国车、有美国安保、住美国选定的酒店。绝大多数委内瑞拉人希望转型成功，这对特朗普也有利——他想要委内瑞拉破败的油田繁荣，而只有民主与法治之下，该国才能稳定到足以吸引投资。但问题重重：统治集团经常背弃公平选举的承诺，被卢比奥指导的反对派会被指责为美国傀儡，而饱受地震之苦的普通民众尚未从美国掌控的石油收入中获益。若谈判拖延，政权将有更多机会逃避承诺。
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| democracy | a system where people choose their leaders by voting | 民主 |
| dictator | a leader who has total power and is not elected | 独裁者 |
| regime | a government, usually a bad one | 政权 |
| opposition | people who fight against a government | 反对派 |
| negotiate | to talk to reach an agreement | 谈判 |
| judicial | relating to courts and judges | 司法的 |
| reform | a change to make something better | 改革 |
| election | a vote to choose leaders | 选举 |
| transition | a change from one state to another | 转型 |
| kleptocracy | a government that steals money from its people | 窃贼统治 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
1998 年出任中国总理后不久，朱镕基曾有名言：他订了 100 口棺材——99 口给腐败官员，1 口留给自己。在痛恨官僚贪腐这一点上，这位市场开放改革的先驱与现任领导人习近平有共同之处；但在许多其他方面，8 月 12 日逝世的朱镕基是当今领导层的对立面：务实、直言不讳、求知欲强，他在融入全球经济的过程中摒弃意识形态，并在习近平已拆解的集体领导体制中掌握过巨大权力。
"老板朱"以 97 岁高龄离世，不仅标志着一个非凡生命的终结，也提醒人们：在习近平掌权的 14 年里，中国的经济与政治生活发生了多大变化。作为 2001 年带领中国加入世贸组织的人，他被誉为开启了一段前所未有的经济增长时期。但他的努力也让数千万国企工人失业、助长了房地产泡沫，并为当前中美之间的部分紧张关系埋下伏笔。
新华社仅称朱镕基"因病"逝世，官方讣告称他为"久经考验的忠诚的共产主义战士、杰出的无产阶级革命家、政治家、领导人"，并称退休后他坚定支持习近平。但按照这个国家的惯例（领导人去世曾引发动荡），讣告省略了他生涯中许多有争议的细节，包括上世纪 50 年代和 70 年代两次被停职、90 年代受到保守派领导人批评等。朱镕基是 1920-30 年代出生、1949 年后接受教育（多为工程学）的"第三代"领导人中几乎最后一位在世者。
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| prime minister | the head of a government | 总理 |
| corrupt | dishonest; taking money illegally | 腐败的 |
| reform | a change to make something better | 改革 |
| ideology | a set of ideas and beliefs | 意识形态 |
| pragmatic | practical; focused on what works | 务实的 |
| economic | relating to money, trade and business | 经济的 |
| globalization | the way countries connect through trade | 全球化 |
| obituary | a notice about someone who has died | 讣告 |
| legacy | what someone leaves behind; their influence | 遗产/遗产影响 |
| bureaucracy | the system of government officials | 官僚体系 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
"科学最美好的日子已经过去、进步正在放缓"是个老生常谈的说法。科学本身很适合被科学家研究，因此很多人研究过它。最著名的贡献之一来自 2023 年：明尼苏达大学博士生 Michael Park 及同事在《自然》发表论文，分析了 4500 万篇论文和 390 万项专利的引用模式，得出结论：自 1950 年代以来，二者的"颠覆性"急剧下降。该结论被广泛报道（包括本刊），还进入了国会听证会和白宫官员的演讲。
8 月 12 日出现了反转：《自然》发表后续论文，认为 Park 博士等人的结论大多是幻象，源于他们分析的数据集存在问题。布鲁塞尔自由大学博士生 Vincent Holst 及合著者称，修正这些问题后，颠覆性的下降大部分消失了。
原始论文的核心是"整合-颠覆指数"（CD index）：将一篇论文的参考文献与后来论文的参考文献进行比较，从 -1（最大整合）到 1（最大颠覆）。Holst 指出，Park 的原始分析包含约 97 万篇 CD 值为 1 的论文和 14.2 万项专利——其中大多数获得满分是因为"没有参考文献"且被至少一篇后续文献引用。但 Holst 随机抽样了 100 篇论文和专利后发现，93% 的论文和 98% 的专利其实都含有参考文献——只是被数据库错误分类了。进一步的调查显示，错误分类的比例……（原文未完，详见原文链接）
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| scientific | relating to science | 科学的 |
| progress | moving forward; getting better | 进步 |
| disrupt | to change something in a big, new way | 颠覆 |
| citation | a note saying where information came from | 引用 |
| paper | a written study by scientists | 论文 |
| patent | a legal right to own an invention | 专利 |
| data | information collected for study | 数据 |
| illusion | something that looks real but is not | 幻象 |
| decline | a fall; becoming less | 下降 |
| analyse | to study something carefully | 分析 |
*本文由海宝整理，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
Soon after becoming China's prime minister in 1998 Zhu Rongji famously declared that he had ordered 100 coffins — 99 for corrupt officials and one for himself. In his hatred of bureaucratic graft, the pioneer of market-opening reforms shared a trait with China's current leader, Xi Jinping. In many other ways, Mr Zhu, who died on August 12th, was the antithesis of China's current leadership. Pragmatic, plain-speaking and intellectually curious, he eschewed ideology in his quest to integrate China with the global economy. He also wielded enormous power in a collective leadership system that Mr Xi has dismantled.
The loss of "Boss Zhu" at the age of 97 did not just mark the end of an extraordinary life. It was a reminder, too, of how much Chinese economic and political life has changed in the 14 years since Mr Xi took power. And it brought into focus unresolved questions over Mr Zhu's legacy. As the man who brought China into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, he is credited with initiating an unprecedented period of economic growth. His efforts also threw tens of millions of state workers into unemployment, helped to create a property bubble and laid the groundwork for some of the current tensions between China and America.
Xinhua, China's main state-run news agency, said only that Mr Zhu died of "illness". An official obituary described him as "a time-tested and loyal communist fighter, and an outstanding proletarian revolutionist, statesman and leader". It also said that in retirement, he had been a firm supporter of Mr Xi. But, as is customary in a country where leaders' deaths have sparked unrest in the past, the obituary omitted many of the more controversial details of Mr Zhu's career, including his suspensions from the Communist Party in the 1950s and 1970s and the criticism he faced from more conservative leaders in the 1990s.
Mr Zhu was nearly the last survivor of the "third generation" of Chinese leaders who were born in the 1920s and 1930s and educated, often as engineers, after the Communist Party took power in 1949. He was born in Changsha, in the south-central province of Hunan, and raised by relatively wealthy uncles following the death of his parents. A gifted student, he graduated in electrical engineering from Beijing's Tsinghua University and landed a job at the State Planning Commission. But after being labelled a "rightist" in the 1950s he spent two decades in relative obscurity, including five years as a farm worker.
Rehabilitated after Mao Zedong's death in 1976, his political career took off, and 12 years later he became mayor of Shanghai. There he worked alongside Jiang Zemin, who was the local party boss at the time but was promoted to China's top leadership post in the aftermath of the military crackdown on pro-democracy protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989. Mr Zhu won plaudits for peacefully defusing similar protests in Shanghai, as well as for his drive to modernise the city's waterfront. Two years later he too was summoned to Beijing and put in charge of economic management, first as a vice-premier and then as prime minister.
His main task was to reinvigorate the pro-market reforms that had faltered since 1989. Among his main achievements were reining in annual inflation, which had risen to a high of more than 24%, and overhauling China's tax system to fill government coffers and to tighten control over regional administrations. He slashed red tape in order to lure foreign investors and weeded out corrupt or incompetent bureaucrats. And he trained and promoted a cohort of economic and financial experts who occupied senior posts long after he retired. He is best remembered for privatising hundreds of loss-making state-owned enterprises and spearheading reforms and negotiations that brought China into the WTO.
That made him popular with Chinese business leaders and academics who favoured pro-market reforms. But he often irked other senior leaders, and since his retirement in 2003 no other prime minister has come close to matching his reformist record. Indeed, in recent years Mr Xi has sidelined many of Mr Zhu's protégés and reversed some of his reforms, reining in private enterprise and giving great powers to the state sector. Nor is there any prospect of Mr Xi appointing a prime minister with the powers and personality that made Mr Zhu so distinctive. In China today, there can only be one boss. ■
| 单词 | 简单英文解释（A1） | 中文 |
|---|---|---|
| prime minister | the head of a government | 总理 |
| corrupt | dishonest; taking money illegally | 腐败的 |
| graft | money taken illegally by people in power | 贪腐 |
| pragmatic | practical; focused on what works | 务实的 |
| ideology | a set of ideas and beliefs | 意识形态 |
| legacy | what someone leaves behind; their influence | 遗产/留下的影响 |
| obituary | a notice about someone who has died | 讣告 |
| rehabilitate | to give back someone's good name after unfair treatment | 平反 |
| inflation | prices going up quickly | 通货膨胀 |
| privatise | to sell state businesses to private owners | 私有化 |
| state-owned | owned by the government | 国有的 |
| reform | a change to make something better | 改革 |
| bureaucracy | the system of government officials | 官僚体系 |
| red tape | too many rules that slow things down | 官僚程序/繁文缛节 |
| protégé | a person helped and taught by a more powerful person | 门生 |
| sideline | to push someone away from power or attention | 边缘化 |
*本文由海宝整理翻译，仅供个人学习。原文版权归 The Economist 所有。*
| 周次 | 篇数 | 文件 |
|------|------|------|
| 2026-08-14 | 8 | 见下 |
📖 双语精读（全文翻译）
1. [001-大脑的Ozempic时刻-双语精读.md](2026-08-14/001-大脑的Ozempic时刻-双语精读.md) — 大脑或迎来"Ozempic 时刻"（AI/科技）
2. [002-聪明的宝宝值多少钱-双语精读.md](2026-08-14/002-聪明的宝宝值多少钱-双语精读.md) — 胚胎筛查生意（商业）
3. [009-朱镕基逝世-双语精读.md](2026-08-14/009-朱镕基逝世-双语精读.md) — 朱镕基逝世：中国已改变多少（中国）
📝 重点摘要
3. [003-中国心理治疗是奢侈品-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/003-中国心理治疗是奢侈品-重点摘要.md) — 中国心理健康（中国）
4. [004-塔利班之恶-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/004-塔利班之恶-重点摘要.md) — 阿富汗五年（政治）
5. [005-度假的六个阶段-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/005-度假的六个阶段-重点摘要.md) — 度假心理学（商业/职场）
6. [006-委内瑞拉的民主转机-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/006-委内瑞拉的民主转机-重点摘要.md) — 美国与委内瑞拉（政治）
7. [007-朱镕基逝世-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/007-朱镕基逝世-重点摘要.md) — 中国之变（中国）
8. [008-科学进步并未放缓-重点摘要.md](2026-08-14/008-科学进步并未放缓-重点摘要.md) — 科学颠覆性之争（AI/科技）