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9/19/2023 (#17 this year)
Yesterday was Respect for the Aged Day1. What did you do? Did you go and visit yourgrandparents? I don’t have any grandparents anymore, but I respect my dad, who is 73
years old now. I gave him a call. I feel pretty aged as well recently. Haha. We are goingto have more and more elderly people in Japan in the future. Maybe we need to havemore public holidays for them. The Japanese government estimates2 that 40% of theJapanese population will be over 65 by 2070 and less than 10% will be under 14. I thinksociety is going to have to make a lot of changes in the coming years. Like I said last
week, the Japanese government is investing3 in care robots for the elderly.
10 differences

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about exoplanets:
1. An exoplanet is a planet that is outside of our solar system5.
2. The first exoplanet was discovered in 1990. Since then, 5,514 have been found.
3. There are hundreds of billions of exoplanets in our Milky Way Galaxy, but they arevery difficult to find because they orbit6 a sun that is much brighter than they are. Trying
to find an exoplanet is like putting a marble in front of a big light at night, standing really
far away, and trying to see the marble.
4. There are two ways of detecting7 exoplanets. The first way is by reducing the glare8
from the star, kind of like using sunglasses. This only works for very big planets. Thesecond way is by seeing how much the exoplanet dims the light from the star.
4

Possible Evidence of Life on Another Planet Found
Last week, experts analyzed datafrom the James Webb Space Telescope
and they said that they might possibly
have found a planet with life. They will
have to do a lot more testing before
they can make a stronger statement,and even then there is no way ofknowing for definite9, but it is certainly
exciting news. They were looking at aplanet called K2-18b, which is 124 lightyears away from us. It is much larger
than Earth and it orbits a star called K2-18. That sun is much smaller than oursun, but K2-18b is much closer to its sun than we are to our sun. Tests haveshown that the planet probably has water and it is close enough to its sun to
get enough energy. Water alone doesn’t mean that there will be life on theplanet. That evidence comes from what the James Webb Satellite found in theatmosphere. It found carbon dioxide, methane, and a compound10 called
dimethyl sulfide. Methane and carbon dioxide are important for life anddimethyl sulfide is only produced by living organisms. Here on Earth, it is only
produced by algae11. There is no way that it can be produced naturally.
However, the experts haven’t come out and said that they have found aliens
because there is really no way of knowing. Just because dimethyl sulfide canonly be produced by algae here on Earth, doesn’t mean it can’t be produced
another way on anotherworld. And just because life
here on Earth needs waterand carbon dioxide, doesn’tmean it is the same on otherworlds. Still, it is a very
interesting discovery and it
shows the power of theJames Webb Telescope. Whoknows what we will find.
1.Respect for the Aged Day 敬老の日 2.estimate 推定する 3.invest 投資する
4.exoplanet 太陽系外惑星 5.solar system 太陽系 6.orbit 軌道を回る 7.detect 発見する
8.glare 太陽のぎらつき 9.definite 絶対 10.compound 複合の 11.algae 藻One thing we can do to help the environment

World record
Have you ever wanted to go to space? I would love to go up on a space shuttle, spend
two days on the international space station and then come down again. I think 2 days
would be long enough to enjoy myself. Valeri Polyakov, a Russian astronaut has the record
for the longest time spent in space. He flew from Earth on the Soyuz TM-18 spaceship onJanuary 8th, 1994. He landed on the Mir space station and he stayed there until March
22nd, 1995. He stayed in space for 427 days! Nobody has come anywhere near his record
since then. When he returned to Earth, he had lost some muscle mass1, but other thanthat, he was in pretty good shape. Scientists are very interested in how human beings
survive in space for a long time because someday soon we will be travelling to Mars.

For every minute you are angry, youlose 60 seconds of happiness.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson#3 Drive lessThis is something I don’t really have much trouble doing because I don’t owna car, but driving less should be one of our goals. Whenever it is possible,
we should walk or cycle. Using public transport2 is also good. If we have todrive, then car sharing is a good idea because it is better to have four people
in one car than to have four cars on the road. How are cars bad for theenvironment? There are four things.
i) Cars produce enormous amounts of CO2 because they burn gasoline,
which is a fossil fuel3. Modern cars are more efficient4 than older cars, butthey still need to use gasoline. Burning 1 liter of gasoline releases 2.3 kg of
CO2 into the atmosphere. Around the world, cars use over 60% of all thepetroleum produced.
ii) Cars produce a lot of other types of gases as well. They produce nitrogenoxide, carbon monoxide, and other particulates5. These are bad for theenvironment and bad for us as well.
iii) Cars produce a lot of noise pollution. The noise from cars affects animals
and it affects us as well. People who live and sleep near busy roads have ashorter life expectancy6 than people who live in quiet areas.
iv) Car tires produce a lot of pollution as well. When cars accelerate7 orbrake8, rubber and other chemicals wear9 off the tires. These tires can end
up in the sea and car tires are the second greatest source of microplastics.

1.muscle mass 筋肉量 2.public transport 公共交通 3.fossil fuel 化石燃料 4.efficient
効率の良い 5.particulate 微粒子 6.life expectancy 平均余命 7.accelerate 早める
8.brake ブレーキする 9.wear すり減る