Spotlight - 11.2019

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

8 Spotlight 11/2019 IN THE SPOTLIGHT


Foto: Maverick Pictures/Shutterstock.com; JohnGollop, CSA Images/iStock.com

Hundreds of people have registered to become the next US pres-
ident, but few of them have won as much attention as Demo-
cratic candidate Pete Buttigieg. If elected, Buttigieg, 37, would
be the youngest and first openly homosexual president in US
history. He doesn’t want people to elect him for those reasons,
however, but because of what he can do for his country. He said
on the TV show The View, “I think we need bold ideas. We need
a different perspective, and I think it’s not a bad thing to come
from a different generation.”
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg won a national contest
for a political essay he wrote when he was a teenager. While at university,
he was elected student president of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. After completing
his studies, he worked at a consulting firm in Chicago, before returning to South Bend
to begin his political career. Buttigieg, who describes himself as progressive, has been
the mayor of South Bend since 2012 and was a US Army lieutenant from 2009–17. He
is in favor of many of the things President Trump has been against, including environ-
mentally friendly policies, health care for all, and amnesty for undocumented youth.

WHO EXACTLY IS

Pete Buttigieg?
EASY US

Why visit Robot Captain Crabs Cajun
Seafood & Bar in the small US city of
Newark, Delaware? For the sci-fi
thrill of being served lobster,
crabs, and crawfish by four-
foot (1.2-meter) tall robots.
“These robots are the
most adorable thing I have
ever seen in my life,” one
patron told Philadelphia’s
Action News. “I don’t know
if I’m going to be able to look
away from them to eat my
food.”
As The Washington Post reports,
owner Guang Chen first saw hostess
and server robots in action while visiting

China. He decided to import several — for
$20,000 apiece. Now, if you walk into his
restaurant, a person welcomes you
and programs your table num-
ber into the computer. A host-
ess robot (named Shirley
or Calli) guides you with a
smiling “face” to your table,
where a person then takes
your order. A server robot
with trays built into its body
(either Dexter, Sheldon, or
Alvin) brings the food, but a
real person actually places the
meals on the table. Then the robot
says, “Please enjoy your meal,” and hur-
ries back to the kitchen.

adorable [E(dO:rEb&l]
, hinreißend, reizend
crab [krÄb]
, Krabbe

crawfish [(krO:fIS]
, Krebs, Languste
hostess [(hoUstEs]
, Servicekraft

lobster [(lA:bst&r]
, Hummer
patron [(peItrEn]
, Stammkunde, Stamm-
kundin

thrill [TrIl]
, Nervenkitzel
tray [treI]
, Tablett

grey seal [)greI (si:&l]
, Kegelrobbe
lull: ~ to sleep [lVl]
, in den Schlaf wiegen
mammal [(mÄm&l]
, Säugetier
pitch [pItS]
, Tonlage, Tonhöhe

seal pup [(si:&l pVp]
, Robbenbaby
twinkle [(twINk&l]
, funkeln, glänzen
ultimately [(VltImEtli]
, letztendlich
vocal tract
[)vEUk&l (trÄkt]
, Vokaltrakt, Stimm-
weg

UNITED STATES

Seafood and sci-fi
EASY US

Texts by Talitha Linehan and Claudine Weber-Hof

bold [boUld]
, mutig

consulting firm
[kEn(sVltIN f§:m]
, Beratungsunterneh-
men

essay [(eseI]
, Aufsatz

mayor [(meI&r]
, Bürgermeister(in)

SCOTLAND

Twinkle,


twinkle,


little seal
MEDIUM

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, / How I
wonder what you are...” While parents
sing this song to lull children to sleep,
researchers at the University of St An-
drews in Scotland have found a new
use: they taught it to seal pups, who
learned to sing it as part of a speech
development study.
“Surprisingly, non-human primates
have very limited abilities in this do-
main,” Professor Vincent Janik told
the press. “Finding other mammals
that use their vocal tract in the same
way as us to modify sounds informs
us on how vocal skills are influenced
by genetics and learning and can ulti-
mately help to develop new methods
to study speech disorders.”
Zola, Gandalf and Janice, three
young grey seals, were taught regular
seal sounds first. Researchers then
changed the pitch and tone to be more
like that of human speech and songs.
The result, while not perfect, is im-
pressive. Hear the seal songs at https://
youtu.be/-ahW_f5Sd3Q
Free download pdf