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3/18/2024 (#34 this year)
Hi. This is my last English News for this school year. You will have to wait for April to get
the next one. I bet you can’t wait. This is also the last paper version of the English News.
From April, I will be going digital and I’ll upload it to teams every week. I hope people
will still read it. I know paperless is better, but I’m not sure people will still read thenews. It is good English practice, so I hope so. I have made the decision to go paperlessbecause I worked out1 that I have used over 150,000 pieces of paper over the years. I
started in 2009 and that is a lot of paper. Not to forget2 the ink, of course. So, have agreat spring vacation.
10 differences

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about Wasabi
1. Wasabi comes from the Brassica family3, which also contains cabbage.
2. Many people think we eat the roots4 of the wasabi plant, but we eat the stem5.
3. Chili hurts your mouth because they contain capsaicin6, which sticks to your mouth.
Wasabi hurts your nose because it contains allyl isothiocyanate7, which becomes avapor8 and travels up through the back of your mouth to your nose.
4. Wasabi is very difficult to grow. It needs to have running water9 for its roots, it needs
to be at about 1300 to 2500 meters altitude10, and it needs to have cooltemperatures, but not too cold.
5. Nagano produces the most wasabi in Japan.

Wasabi Saves Ancient Documents
Last month, scientists worked out that wasabi can save ancient
documents made of papyrus11. Papyrus is a type of paper made from thecrushed stems of the Cyprus papyrus plant. It was invented in ancient Egypt
and many ancient books and documents were written on it. The main problem
with papyrus is that it is made of an organic material12, which means it willbiodegrade13. We usually want things to biodegrade. Plastic doesn’t
biodegrade, and that is a big problem. However, we want to keep theseancient documents, and if they biodegrade, we will lose them. We can takephotos and keep them digitally, but it is nice to have the real document. The
documents are usually kept in climate and humidity controlled rooms, buteven then fungus14 can start growing on the documents. The fungus will slowly
break down the document until it has disappeared. But now, experts haveworked out a way to protect the documents. The secret is wasabi. The
scientists put wasabi on a piece of aluminium foil near the papyrus scroll andsealed it in a box. They left it there for three days and when they looked again,
the vapor from the wasabi had killed all of the fungus. As well as that, thewasabi didn’t damage the papyrus. So, wasabi is both delicious and a useful
tool for archaeologists.

1.work out 計算する 2.not to forget～もある 3.family 科 4.root 根 5.stem 茎 6.capsaicin
カプサイシン 7.allyl isothiocynate アリルイソチオシアネート 8.vapor 蒸気 9.runningwater 流水 10.altitude 海面からの高さ 11.papyrus パピルス 12.organic material 有機材
料 13.biodegrade 生物分解する 14.fungus 菌類

One thing we can do to help the environment

World record
My wife was very excited when she saw the news about Ohtani Shouhei getting marriedand even more excited when she saw his wife on TV. They are both very tall. Ohtani is 194
cm tall and his wife is 180. She is a basketball player.
A student said to me that she wanted to be verytall as well. She said she would like to be 2 m tall!
So, this week, here are some height world records.
The tallest woman in the world is Rumeysa Gelgi,
from Turkey. She is 215 cm tall. She is the tallest
living woman. The tallest woman of all time is Zeng
Jinlian. She was 248 cm tall. Unfortunately1, shedied when she was very young. The tallest living
man is Sultan Kosen. He is 251 cm tall. However,
he is small compared to Robert Wadlow, the tallest
living person of all time. He was 272 cm tall.
Unfortunately, he also died at a young age. It isdifficult for the bodies of very very tall people tosupport their weight and they get many diseases2.
Being tall is nice, but being very tall can cause
many problems. The best thing is to be happy atwhatever height we are.

#19 Carry a spork
Have you ever heard the word “spork4”? I don’t know if we have the sameword in Japanese, but I know that we have sporks because I have seen them.
A spork is a combination5 spoon and fork. It is spoon shaped with the tines6of a fork on the top. If you only carry a fork, it is hard to eat soup. If you only
have a spoon, it is hard to eat pasta. If you have a spork, you can eat
anything. Along with the spork, a pair of chopsticks are also good. The habitof carrying “my chopsticks” was a huge a few years ago, but it seems to have
faded away. Do you carry your own chopsticks? I know I don’t. But, I should.
In Japan, we get thorough7 roughly 24 billion pairs of chopsticks per year.
We also use an enormous quantity of plastic spoons and forks. 24 billion
chopsticks means roughly 200 pairs of disposable8 chopsticks9 per person
per year. It can be hard to carry things like that around because I don’t
always have a bag, but that is no reason not to start. And we often think that
I am only one person. What I do can’t make a difference! But that isnonsense10. With anything that we do, studying, exercising, trying to help
the environment, a little is always better than nothing. We can do it!

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a 1.unfortunately 残念ながら 2.disease 病気 3.innovative 革新的な 4.spork スポーク
sign you're not doing anything very innovative ." 5.combination 組み合わせる 6.tine フォークの歯 7.get through 使い果たす
3— Woody Allen

8.disposable 使い捨て 9.disposable chopsticks 割りばし 10.nonsense 無意味な