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https://ieltsonlinetests.com/speaking-tips/what-would-differentiate-you-other-candidates-while-attempting-speaking-task

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Feeling hot hot hot

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We've had more than the expected five days of annual sunshine - and with temperatures across these fair isles tipping well into the 30s, we think it's time to call it. Summer is officially HERE. A ctual summer.

We've had the hottest day of the year so far, with Porthmadog, in north Wales reaching a very sweaty in 32.6C. And it's so hot in Glasgow that a roof is actually melting. Kind of like how we're feeling rn.

Some of us are absolutely loving this extra dose of Vitamin D:

But for some, the sun kind of sucks.

33°C. Things in the UK are critical. The bricks of my house are melting. The cold tap is now the hot tap. The hot tap is now the death tap. Every ginger I know is dead. Everything is on fire. Send help. #hottestdayoftheyear
- Queen Potato (@CarlyKawaii) June 26, 2018

Next year, if a British person moans about never having a good summer in the UK, I will strangle them! We've had a ton of boiling days this year and now i'm totally over it. BRING BACK THE SNOW!! #HeatwaveUK pic.twitter.com/psnYMWNbeL
- corey seville (@coreyseville) June 26, 2018

We understand the ire. Hot weather can equal some awkwardly painful chafing. Then there are the unavoidable sweaty underarm patches. And don't even get us started on the relentless tossing and turning during the night.

Also there's the hay fever. Hay fever, we hate you.

The Met office has issued a warning of heatwave conditions over the weekend, which got us to thinking about some of the bizarre things that can happen to our bodies in the heat. Did you know that...

You may be thinking that summer is the ultimate time to start smooth-talking the objects of your desire, but excessive heat can cause you to dehydrate (eerrrm, sweaty much?), which has been proven to have a pretty unsexy side effect - bad breath.

When you are dehydrated, your mouth becomes dry. Bacteria accumulates because there isn't enough saliva to wash it away. Hello halitosis.

"It won't come as a big surprise that we need to drink more water throughout the warmer months, as the body loses more water naturally through sweating," explains the bad breath and halitosis expert Dr Harold Katz in Metro.co.uk. "That, coupled with an increase in the use of hay fever medications, fad summer dieting, an increase in outdoor exercising and over-exposure to the sun, can also all exacerbate the problem."

*fills up (eco-friendly) water bottle*

You might feel like the sun is giving you an extra spring in your step. And this may actually be happening. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, which is linked to strong bones.

That is why public-health officials even advised us to take supplements in darker autumn months - because a scarcity of sunlight can lead to brittle bones. So get yourself to a park and stock up on some vit D while you can. Obviously be careful you don't get sunburnt in the process.

When we say 'serious' we mean it. You may think this sounds like a dream, but it can, in fact, be a sign of heat stroke - and needs to be treated as an emergency.

The body's normal temperature is 37-38C, but if it heats up too much (40-41C), you may find yourself getting heat stroke. At that point, your heat regulatory system can, essentially, pack in, which stops you from sweating, as your body tries to keep water around your vital organs. (*moves to the shade*)

If you suspect that someone is suffering from heat stroke, first call 999. Then you should try to cool them down by applying ice packs to the groin and armpits, where the crucial arteries are located.

Of course, we're not saying you shouldn't roll around in the park with your pals. Just make sure you pile on that sunscreen and fill up those (biodegradable) water bottles, too.

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Feeling hot hot hot: the weird things that happen to your body in extreme heat - BBC Three

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We've had more than the expected five days of annual sunshine - and with temperatures across these fair isles tipping well into the 30s, we think it's time to call it. Summer is officially HERE. A ctual summer. We've had the hottest day of the year so far, with Porthmadog, in north Wales reaching a very sweaty in 32.6C.

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Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model. | Cameron Russell | TED

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Facial recognition tech

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Facial recognition tech is becoming more sophisticated, with some firms claiming it can even read our emotions and detect suspicious behaviour. But what implications does this have for privacy and civil liberties?

Facial recognition tech has been around for decades, but it has been progressing in leaps and bounds in recent years due to advances in computing vision and artificial intelligence (AI), tech experts say.

It is now being used to identify people at borders, unlock smart phones, spot criminals, and authenticate banking transactions.

But some tech firms are claiming it can also assess our emotional state.

Since the 1970s, psychologists say they have been able to detect hidden emotions by studying the "micro expressions" on someone's face in photographs and video.

Algorithms and high definition cameras can handle this process just as accurately and faster, tech firms say.

"You're already seeing it used for commercial purposes," explains Oliver Philippou, an expert in video surveillance at IHS Markit.

"A supermarket might use it in the aisles, not to identify people, but to analyse who came in in terms of age and gender as well as their basic mood. It can help with targeted marketing and product placement."

Market research agency Kantar Millward Brown uses tech developed by US firm Affectiva to assess how consumers react to TV adverts.

Affectiva records video of people's faces - with their permission - then "codes" their expressions frame by frame to assess their mood.

"We interview people but we get much more nuance by also looking at their expressions. You can see exactly which part of an advert is working well and the emotional response triggered," says Graham Page, managing director of offer and innovation at Kantar Millward Brown.

More controversially, a crop of start-ups are offering "emotion detection" for security purposes.

UK firm WeSee, for example, claims its AI tech can actually spot suspicious behaviour by reading facial cues imperceptible to the untrained eye.

Emotions, such as doubt and anger, might be hidden under the surface in contrast to the language a person is using.

WeSee says it has been working with a "high profile" organisation in law enforcement to analyse people who are being interviewed.

"Using only low-quality video footage, our technology has the ability to determine an individual's state of mind or intent through their facial expressions, posture, gestures and movement," chief executive David Fulton tells the BBC.

"In future, video cameras on a tube station platform could use our tech to detect suspicious behaviour and alert authorities to a potential terrorist threat.

"The same could be done with crowds at events like football matches or political rallies."

But Mr Philippou is sceptical about the accuracy of emotion detection.

"When it comes simply to identifying faces, there are still decent margins of error - the best firms claim they can identify people with 90%-92% accuracy.

"When you try assess emotions, too, the margin of error gets significantly bigger."

That worries privacy campaigners who fear facial recognition tech could make wrong or biased judgements.

"While I can imagine that there are some genuinely useful use-cases, the privacy implications stemming from emotional surveillance, facial recognition and facial profiling are unprecedented," says Frederike Kaltheuner of Privacy International.

Straightforward facial recognition is controversial enough.

When revellers attended BBC Radio 1's Biggest Weekend in Swansea in May, many will have been unaware that their faces were being scanned as part of a huge surveillance operation by South Wales Police.

The force had deployed its Automated Facial Recognition (AFR) system, which uses CCTV-type cameras and NEC software to identify "people of interest", comparing their faces to a database of custody images.

One man on an outstanding warrant was identified and arrested "within 10 minutes" of the tech being deployed at the music festival, says Scott Lloyd, the AFR project leader for South Wales Police.

But human rights group Liberty points out that the tech has yielded large numbers of "false positive" matches at other events, such as the Champions League final in Cardiff last year.

And in July, Cardiff resident Ed Bridges - represented by Liberty - began legal action against the force, arguing that AFR violated people's privacy and lacked proper scrutiny, paving the way for a High Court battle.

Chinese police unveil camera sunglasses

Singapore airport tests face recognition

But the technology is becoming more reliable, says Patrick Grother, head of biometric testing at the National Institute of Standards & Technology, a US federal agency that conducts research into facial recognition.

He attributes the recent technological progress to the development of "convolutional neural networks" - an advanced form of machine learning that enables a much greater degree of accuracy.

"These algorithms allow computers to analyse images at different scales and angles," he says.

"You can identify faces much more accurately, even if they are partially obscured by sunglasses or scarves. The error rate has come down ten-fold since 2014, although no algorithm is perfect."

WeSee's Mr Fulton says his tech is simply a tool to help people assess existing video footage more intelligently.

He adds that WeSee can detect emotion in faces as effectively as a human can - "with around 60%-70% accuracy".

More Technology of Business

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The trick that turned seven bags of cocoa into 25

Are Instagram stars facing a brand backlash?

How trying to stay cool could make the world even hotter

"At the moment we can detect suspicious behaviour, but not intent, to prevent something bad from happening. But I think this is where it is going and we are already doing tests in this area."

This sounds a step closer to the "pre-crime" concept featured in the sci-fi film Minority Report, where potential criminals are arrested before their crimes have even been committed. A further concern for civil liberties organisations?

"The key question we always ask ourselves is: Who is building this technology and for what purposes?" says Privacy International's Frederike Kaltheuner. "Is it used to help us - or to judge, assess and control us?"

Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook

Click here for more Technology of Business features

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The cameras that know if you're happy - or a threat

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Facial recognition tech is becoming more sophisticated, with some firms claiming it can even read our emotions and detect suspicious behaviour. But what implications does this have for privacy and civil liberties? Facial recognition tech has been around for decades, but it has been progressing in leaps and bounds in recent years due to advances in computing vision and artificial intelligence (AI), tech experts say.

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http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180605-the-language-at-the-end-of-the-earth

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The ballet that caused an international row

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The ballet that caused an international row

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One day in 1926, Mikhail Kurilko, chief designer for the Bolshoi Theatre, noticed two interesting items in the 9 January edition of Pravda, the official paper of the still-young Soviet Union. One reported that a Soviet steamer called Ilyich - Lenin's middle name - had been detained in England. Authorities searched the ship for communist literature, but found nothing and sent it on its way. The other reported a "new phase in the struggle in China". The Soviets were supporting Chinese nationalists in their fight against Japanese-backed warlords, with the ultimate goal of bringing about revolution in the country. In Lenin's view, successfully converting other countries into socialist allies was crucial to the Soviet Union's survival.

At the time, the Bolshoi was still adjusting - painfully - to its new role as a tool of the state. Developing new, revolution-friendly repertoire for its in-house ballet company, the Bolshoi Ballet, was a priority. These two stories from Pravda inspired Kurilko to pitch what would become the first Soviet-themed and Soviet-endorsed ballet, The Red Poppy, which premiered at the Bolshoi 90 years ago this month. Its plot featured an opium-fueled dream sequence, a critique of Western decadence represented by people dancing the Charleston, an evil English dock master named Sir Hips, and star soloist Ekaterina Geltser in yellowface. A huge hit, it set the template for the Soviet ballets that followed it: concerned with revolutionary themes, and emphasising collective athletic movement. A few decades later, it would also trigger an embarrassing diplomatic moment between the Soviet Union and Mao's China, exposing the fault lines of socialist brotherhood.

Unsurprisingly for a work controlled by a committee of bureaucrats, the ballet was mired in conflict

Unsurprisingly for a work controlled by a committee of bureaucrats, the ballet was mired in conflict throughout its development. Virtually everyone involved fought over every element possible (aside from composer Reinhold Glière - a master of the art of playing it safe who kept his compositions light and uncontroversial, stayed out of ideological battles between artists, and coasted through the revolution unscathed). The original scenarist's treatment was rejected and his duties were passed to Kurilko, who is credited as its official author. A third person involved in the script fell out with ballet master Vasiliy Tikhomirov over the second act, and his name was removed from the project. One of the ballet's most crowd-pleasing dances, the folksy Yablochko (or "Little Apple"), is derived from a Russian sailor song, and as Glière later recalled, the Bolshoi orchestra's musicians considered it demeaning to play. "Pressure, endless pressure," reads an internal memo from the period, quoted by Elizabeth Souritz in her book Soviet Choreographers in the 1920s. "More than once the whole thing fell apart and we lost hope."
Flower power
The Stalinist era was difficult for new productions: higher-ups wanted them, but it was hard for them to survive the ever-shifting demands of the state bureaucracy and censorship. Usually, it was safer to simply rework old classics with the right ideological spin. The Red Poppy too was nearly killed. In the spring of 1927, the culture commissar ordered the Bolshoi to bump it in favour of an opera by Prokofiev, as part of an effort to woo the acclaimed composer back from abroad. But then, the ballet found its moment. On 6 April, Chinese police raided the Soviet embassy in Beijing. Meanwhile, crisis was building in Shanghai. Nationalists had allied with communists to take control of the city, but had turned on them. Soviet papers filled with headlines about the slaughter of Chinese communists. The Red Poppy suddenly "resonated with the current political situation and thus received approval for performance," writes Simon Morrison, a music professor at Princeton University, in his book Bolshoi Confidential.

One of the characters smokes opium and has a hallucinatory dream involving dancing flowers and flying dragons

In the version that premiered in 1927, the ballet opens to low strings and gongs. (In his manuscript, Glière labeled the passage "lifeless China.") Then comes a soaring Russian tune, representing the Soviet ship. The curtain rises on barefoot Chinese laborers unloading crates from the ship. Then the heroine Tao-Hua, who Morrison describes as "a combination of orientalist clichés at constant risk of sexual assault," is introduced, dancing for Englishmen at a restaurant nearby. A labourer collapses, worked to death by the English dock master, Sir Hips, a cruel man who beats the workers. The ship's Soviet captain intervenes, and he and his crew help unload the ship. Tao-Hua is moved and "flutters her fan at the captain and gives him a poppy," writes Morrison, who notes that flowers are symbols of beauty, splendour and youth, and red is the colour of love, revolution and communism. Tao-Hua's evil master Li Shan-Fu threatens her, and the Soviet captain intervenes. The scene concludes with the Chinese labourers joining the Soviet sailors, along with sailors from Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and the US, in a happy group dance.

In the next scene, Tao-Hua smokes opium and has a hallucinatory dream involving dancing flowers and flying dragons. The following scene takes place in a casino, where English revelers dance the Charleston. There's also a tango striptease, an umbrella dance from Tao-Hua, a Chinese ribbon dance, and a waltz. Evil Li Shan-Fu tells Tao-Hua to serve the Soviet captain poisoned tea. She refuses, and instead pantomimes to the captain a message of warning and affection. She seeks his love, he instead tells her about the joys of socialism. Li Shan-Fu aims a gun at the captain but kills Tao-Hua instead, and poppies rain on the now-liberated Chinese workers.
Diplomatic dance
Critics panned the ballet, especially the hallucinatory second act, which they viewed as a regressive throwback to the 19th-Century penchant for exoticism, completely at odds with the realism of the first act. Nonetheless, thanks to the Kremlin's backing, it was a wild success. It was programmed by state-controlled, state-financed opera and ballet theatres; performed at the Bolshoi more than 200 times in its first years, and some 3,000 times throughout the USSR. (Reviews became more positive once it was clear that the government supported it.) "It had everything a Soviet spectacle needed: exotica, politics, clear heroes and Western villains," writes Morrison.

But by the 1930s the ballet had fallen out of fashion, and by the end of the decade, it was hardly performed at all. In 1949, that long-awaited Chinese communist revolution finally arrived, not long before Stalin's 70th birthday. To mark both occasions, the ballet was revived.

A number of changes were made to the plot, which suggest an attempt at making it more acceptable to a Chinese perspective. The biggest change was that, where Tao-Hua had previously fallen in love with the Soviet captain, in the revival her love interest is one of the Chinese laborers on the dock, who not only gets his own solo dance, but is the one to lead the revolution. However, the overall vibe remained one of heroic Russians bringing enlightenment to the flawed Chinese. And in act two, Tao-Hua falls asleep without the aid of opium.

Even with these changes, the revival revealed how little the Soviets knew about their Chinese communist brethren. Mao Zedong was in Moscow at the time of the revival, seeking an alliance with Stalin; in February 1950, the two signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty. He was invited to see The Red Poppy, but declined. As it turned out, he had been warned not to go. The wife of the Chinese ambassador to the USSR had seen a dress rehearsal, and reported back that it distorted the Chinese revolution and the role of the Communist Party. Another member of Mao's delegation, Chen Boda, attended instead, and as later recounted by Mao's Russian interpreter in a memoir, Chen then informed the Bolshoi's top brass that he found the ballet offensive.

Ballet was used as an ideological and diplomatic tool, shaping how other countries saw Russia

Several other complaints are recorded in exchanges between the Soviets and not just Chen, but various other figures as well. Most upsetting was that, though Tao-Hua no longer smoked it, poppy flowers still represented opium. They conjured the Opium Wars, when China was forced to allow the drug's international trade and cede territory to Britain. In China, it is considered the most humiliating episode of the country's history and remains a source of resentment to this day. Moreover, one of the Chinese characters in the ballet wore a queue (a long, braided pigtail), a symbol of subjugation forced upon Han Chinese by Manchu conquerors during the 17th Century, which had been banned in China since 1912. Finally, the character Tao-Hua was a dancer, which to the conservative Chinese communists, suggested that she was a prostitute.

"Clearly [the Russians] thought this was going to be this moment where Mao would come and go, 'How wonderful that the Soviet Union is producing these sensitive, internationalist ballets about our common struggle.' And in fact it was exactly the opposite," says Edward Tyerman, a Slavic studies professor at Barnard College.

The Red Poppy was revived (and expanded) yet again in 1957, and this time, in deference to the Chinese, the pigtail was cut, the heroine was recast as a freedom fighter, and the title was changed to The Red Flower. Later, however, when Mao began to denounce Khrushchev and relations between the two countries fell apart, the title was changed back to The Red Poppy. That has been its title ever since, most recently for a 2015 Russian-Italian co-production in Rostov.

Ballet was used as an ideological and diplomatic tool, shaping how other countries saw Russia, ever since the Soviets first began sending dancers on overseas tours, to wow Western audiences with their mastery of the art form - and by extension, the strength of the Soviet Union. However, when the star dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West in 1961, followed later by Natalia Makarova in 1970 and Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1974, it also became clear how easily such 'soft power' efforts could backfire - the defections gave the West a new reason to see itself as superior. Western understanding of those events, and of Russian ballet in general, frames things as a struggle between East and West. But, as the ever-shifting saga of The Red Poppy reveals, ballet was not just a tool for asserting cultural superiority over enemy nations, but also for cultivating relations with socialist allies. And as such, it could also become a place for tensions to play out between those supposedly friendly nations.

The offense that Mao's delegation took at The Red Poppy was just one in an array of slights that left Mao stewing over his treatment by the Soviet Union - this resentment that would later culminate in the Sino-Soviet Split, which in turn helped ensure Western victory in the Cold War. All of that said, the wonder of ballet still left its mark on the Chairman during his Moscow stay. Though he declined to attend The Red Poppy, he went to see Swan Lake instead. It was Mao's first ballet, and reportedly, he enjoyed it very much.

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The ballet that caused an international row

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One day in 1926, Mikhail Kurilko, chief designer for the Bolshoi Theatre, noticed two interesting items in the 9 January edition of Pravda, the official paper of the still-young Soviet Union. One reported that a Soviet steamer called Ilyich - Lenin's middle name - had been detained in England.

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Most of us have shuddered on hearing the sound of our own voice. In fact, not liking the sound of your own voice is so common that there's a term for it: voice confrontation.

But why is voice confrontation so frequent, while barely a thought is given to the voices of others?

A common explanation often found in popular media is that because we normally hear our own voice while talking, we receive both sound transferred to our ears externally by air conduction and sound transferred internally through our bones. This bone conduction of sound delivers rich low frequencies that are not included in air-conducted vocal sound. So when you hear your recorded voice without these frequencies, it sounds higher - and different. Basically, the reasoning is that because our recorded voice does not sound how we expect it to, we don't like it.

Dr Silke Paulmann, a psychologist at the University of Essex, says, "I would speculate that the fact that we sound more high-pitched than what we think we should leads us to cringe as it doesn't meet our internal expectations; our voice plays a massive role in forming our identity and I guess no one likes to realise that you're not really who you think you are."

Indeed, a realisation that we sound more like Mickey Mouse than we care to can lead to disappointment.

Yet some studies have shown that this might only be a partial explanation.

For example, a 2013 study asked participants to rate the attractiveness of different recorded voice samples. When their own voice was secretly mixed in with these samples, participants gave significantly higher ratings to their voice when they did not recognise it as their own.

What's more, a complete explanation can be found in a series of early studies published years before the plenitude of reports offering the sound frequency and expectancy explanation.

Through their experiments, the late psychologists Phil Holzemann and Clyde Rousey concluded in 1966 that voice confrontation arises not only from a difference in expected frequency, but also a striking revelation that occurs upon the realisation of all that your voice conveys. Not only does it sound different than you expect; through what are called "extra-linguistic cues", it reveals aspects of your personality that you can only fully perceive upon hearing it from a recording. These include aspects such as your anxiety level, indecision, sadness, anger, and so on.

To quote them, "The disruption and defensive experience are a response to a sudden confrontation with expressive qualities in the voice which the subject had not intended to express and which, until that moment, [s]he was not aware [s]he had expressed."

Their following study showed that bilinguals who learned a second language after the age of 16 showed more discomfort when hearing their recorded voices in their first language - a fact not easily explained a lack of bone-conducted sound frequencies.

The complexity of vocal coordination is enormous and we simply don't have complete, conscious, "online" control. Indeed, the vocal larynx contains the highest ratio of nerve to muscle fibres in the human body. Moreover, when hearing a recording, we have none of the control of our speaking that we usually do; it's as though our voices are running wild.

Marc Pell, a neuroscientist at McGill University, specialises in the communication of emotion. He stands by the Holzemann and Rousey studies, saying: "when we hear our isolated voice which is disembodied from the rest of our behaviour, we may go through the automatic process of evaluating our own voice in the way we routinely do with other people's voices ... I think we then compare our own impressions of the voice to how other people must evaluate us socially, leading many people to be upset or dissatisfied with the way they sound because the impressions formed do not fit with social traits they wish to project."

So, even though we may be surprised by the "Mickey Mouse" quality of what we actually sound like, it is the extralinguistic content of what our voices may reveal that could be more disconcerting. Yet it is unlikely that others are similarly surprised by a high-pitched aspect of your voice, and moreover others probably aren't making the same evaluations about your voice that you might. We tend not to be critical of other people's voices, so the chances are you're the only person thinking about your own.
Topics

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The real reason the sound of your own voice makes you cringe

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Most of us have shuddered on hearing the sound of our own voice. In fact, not liking the sound of your own voice is so common that there's a term for it: voice confrontation. But why is voice confrontation so frequent, while barely a thought is given to the voices of others?

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In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, a submarine crew is shrunken to microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of a defector to remove a blood clot from his brain. Critics agreed that it was an entertaining movie but that the impossible premise took some swallowing.

Last month John McNamara, a leading IT specialist at IBM's research and development laboratory in Hursley, Hampshire, suggested to the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee that within 20 years 'We may see AI nano-machines being injected into our bodies. These will provide huge medical benefits, such as being able to repair damage to cells, muscles and bones - perhaps even augment them.'

We now read daily in newspapers the sort of stories once found only in the pages of the most fantastical science fiction novels. 'AI becomes world's best Go player in just three days'; 'Self-driving cars could run on unlit roads to conserve energy'; 'Robot behaviour is creeping beyond our control.' These were all recent headlines in the Guardian, the Times and the Financial Times.

McNamara, and many others, believe we are entering what they call the Second Machine Age. The Industrial Revolution heralded the advent of the First Machine Age, in which machines reproduced human physical labour. The Second Machine Age will see human mental capabilities reproduced and bettered and it will have a huge impact on medicine and healthcare.

Britain, incidentally, is a world leader in AI. That 'world's best Go player', which absorbed 3,000 years of knowledge of the board game in just three days and then improved upon it, was created by London-based DeepMind, which acquired by Google in 2014 for $400 million (about £309 million).

DeepMind's health division is currently working with the NHS foundation trusts of University College London Hospitals and Moorfields Eye Hospital on a research project to analyse medical scans.

Twitter and Amazon have, in recent years, snapped up British AI outfits - something that the government is keen to point out. Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has said: 'I want the UK to lead the way in artificial intelligence. It has the potential to improve our everyday lives - from healthcare to robots that perform dangerous tasks.'

The AI revolution is being driven by neural networks. Broadly speaking, a conventional computer programme is a detailed and precise set of instructions for accomplishing a particular task. A neural network is a collection of linked digital processing units roughly modelled on the human brain. It 'learns' - becomes more efficient - by being presented with examples.

To teach a neural network to identify a beech tree, you feed through it digitised images of beeches in all shapes and sizes, essentially saying 'Look! Beech!', and pictures of other types of tree, saying 'Not beech!'. Once 'trained', the network will correctly identify new hitherto unseen images.

To accomplish the same task in a conventional programme of yesteryear would involve writing screeds of code attempting precisely to define the image of a beech tree as distinct from an ash, sycamore and so on.

Pietro Valdastri is professor of robotics and autonomous systems at Leeds University and director of the Science and Technologies Of Robotics in Medicine Lab at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. 'We are witnessing an acceleration in AI-robotics mainly driven by the automotive industry with self-driving cars,' he says. 'Similarly to self-driving cars that are able to park without human intervention, medical robots of the next generation will be able to perform autonomous sub-tasks.

'They will be able to complete autonomous sutures and other time-consuming repetitive tasks under the supervision of the surgeon, achieving a higher reliability than the human operator.

'AI will help in the visual diagnosis of diseases by recognising lesions from images where clues are not evident to the human eye.

'Artificial limbs and exoskeletons will recognise the type of context - for example, walking up steps, running, dancing - and will adapt autonomously, providing a smoother experience to the user.

'And one of the most exciting innovations is the possibility of having advanced diagnostic tools for procedures such as gastroscopy or colonoscopy (for gastric or colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis) that, thanks to soft robotics and AI, will be easy to use and so ultra-low cost that they will be available in GP practices.'

Cancer is still seen by many as the condition that medicine must strive to conquer. Mortality rates for some cancers such as testicular have plummeted. But for others, such as pancreatic, brain and oesophageal, little progress has been made in recent decades.

Dr Áine McCarthy, of Cancer Research UK, says: 'The point we are at in our understanding of cancer, and with the level of AI technology we have reached, means we expect some of the potential of using AI in cancer research to start to be realised soon.

'One of the things researchers are looking at is whether AI could help improve cancer diagnosis. Could it help doctors to spot cancer more easily in its very early stages, which can be difficult to do using current conventional means? Where AI and machine learning could help with early diagnosis is pattern recognition.

'Pathologists are incredible at what they do but if we were able to use AI and machine learning to recognise patterns on scans or tissue samples as well, it could be used alongside these specialists to improve and potentially speed up cancer diagnosis.'

Eleni Vasilaki, professor of computational neuroscience at Sheffield University, believes that over the next decade AI's most significant impact will be in the field of personalised medicine.

'Not all people respond to treatments in the same way,' she says. 'For instance, there are genetic differences that can affect the effectiveness of drugs. AI can help sort patients into different groups and then identify the most appropriate and effective treatment.'

Professor Vasilaki is, like many experts, cautious about the Fantastic Voyage-like vision of IBM's John McNamara, who posits miniature robots at work inside our bodies. 'I don't think we are anywhere near this stage,' she says. 'The research vision is there, but I would not anticipate this happening in the near future.'

But then, 50 years ago, the very idea was nothing more than far-fetched speculative sci-fi. Now, the reality of it may lie just beyond the near future and that is getting closer every day.

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Neil Mesher, CEO at Philips UK and Ireland

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Welcome to the brave new world of artificial intelligence | The Spectator

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In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, a submarine crew is shrunken to microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of a defector to remove a blood clot from his brain. Critics agreed that it was an entertaining movie but that the impossible premise took some swallowing.

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The cave complex in northern Thailand where 12 boys and their football coach were trapped for more than two weeks is set to be turned into a museum.

Rescue officials said the museum would showcase how the operation unfolded, adding that it would be a "major attraction" for Thailand.

At least two companies are also looking to make a film telling the story of the rescue.

The rescued group are all now recovering in hospital.

Video has been released showing them in good health and in good spirits, though they will stay in quarantine for a week.

The Thai Navy Seals have also published dramatic footage of the operation itself, showing how expert divers navigated the Wild Boar football team through the perilous journey to the surface.

The Tham Luang cave is one of the largest cave systems in Thailand. It lies under the mountains around the small town of Mae Sai, in northern Chiang Rai province on the border with Myanmar.

The area is largely undeveloped with only limited tourism facilities.

"The area will become a living museum, to show how to operation unfolded," Narongsak Osottanakorn, the former governor and head of the rescue mission, told a news conference.

"An interactive data base will be set up. It will become another major attraction for Thailand."

However, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has said precautions would have to be implemented both inside and outside the cave to safeguard tourists.

It's not clear if the museum would be operational all year round, as Thailand is prone to heavy floods during the monsoon season, which lasts from June until October.

It was the sudden onset of that rainy season that trapped the boys deep underground while they were exploring.

A Hollywood movie?

Plans to turn the rescue operation into a movie are also in the works, with two production companies racing to turn the extraordinary story into a film.

Even before all 13 people had been brought out, US studio Pure Flix - which makes inspirational Christian films - had announced its producers were on the ground interviewing rescue workers for a potential film.

Studio co-founder, Michael Scott, lives in Thailand and said his wife grew up with Saman Gunan, the former Thai Navy Seal member who lost his life during the mission.

"To see all that heroic bravery in the cave, and to get all the divers out, it's just such a touching event and so personal to me," he said in a video on Twitter. filmed at the rescue site.

But according to Los Angeles-based Ivanhoe Pictures, they have been officially picked by the Thai government and navy to develop the film.

US media quoted the company as saying the film would be directed by Jon M Chu. He last partnered with Ivanhoe in directing the upcoming romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians.

Concerns are already being raised on social media that the movie could be "white-washed", focusing more on the international characters while downplaying the role of Thais.

But Mr Chu insisted on Twitter that the film would not be given that treatment.

"No way. Not on our watch. That won't happen or we'll give them hell.

"There's a beautiful story about human beings saving other human beings. So anyone thinking about the story better approach it right and respectfully," he said.

The trapped group in Thailand have now all been rescued from the cave, and are now recuperating in hospital.

Their plight and the massive, dangerous three-day-long operation to free them gripped the world's attention.

The 12 boys and their coach first made their way into the cave on the 23 June, but found themselves trapped inside after heavy rains poured down and caused the cave to flood.

They were found by British divers after nine days, and were eventually rescued days after in an operation that involved dozens of divers and hundreds of other rescue workers.

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The cave complex in northern Thailand where 12 boys and their football coach were trapped for more than two weeks is set to be turned into a museum. Rescue officials said the museum would showcase how the operation unfolded, adding that it would be a "major attraction" for Thailand.

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The IELTS band score tables below explain the scoring to will help you calculate and understand your score.

All IELTS scores are between 0 and 9. You can also get .5 scores as well (for example, 6.5 or 7.5). You will get a band score for each skill (listening, reading, writing and speaking) and also an overview band score. The overall band score is the average score of all the skills. See the table below as an example.

If your overall score is an average of 6.25, your score will be increased to 6.5.

If your overall score is an average of 6.75, your score will be increased to 7.

If your overall score is 6.1, your score will go down to 6.

Your score is rounded up or down to the nearest 0.5 or whole score as shown above.

The table below gives a description of each band score with information about the level of English required for band scores 5 to 9. Click table to enlarge.

To see all scores from 0-9, click here.

Your listening and reading scores are calculated by the number of correct answers you have out of the 40 questions in the test. You do not lose points for incorrect answers.

IELTS Listening Scores

IELTS Reading Scores (GT)

Both writing task 1 and task 2 are assessed using 4 criteria. Please see the table below for details of each marking criteria. Click table to enlarge.

IELTS Writing Task 1: Band Scores 5 to 8 Explained & Tips IELTS Writing Task 2: Band Scores 5 to 8 Explained & Tips

The band score descriptors below are the official band scores published by IELTS.

Below are the marking criteria for IELTS speaking. Click table to enlarge.

You should also spend time studying the band scores for each criteria in the speaking descriptors published by IELTS.

Main IELTS Pages
Develop your IELTS skills with tips, model answers, lessons, free videos and more.

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IELTS Band Scores: How they are calculated

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The IELTS band score tables below explain the scoring to will help you calculate and understand your score. All IELTS scores are between 0 and 9. You can also get .5 scores as well (for example, 6.5 or 7.5). You will get a band score for each skill (listening, reading, writing and speaking) and also an overview band score.

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Writing Task 1 - vocabulary and grammar 

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Writing Task 1 - vocabulary and grammar 

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This article will help you improve your score for IELTS Writing Task 1 vocabulary and grammar.

Firstly, you should know that the IELTS writing test marking scheme is divided into four parts:

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Task Achievement

Lexical Resource

Coherence and Cohesion

Therefore, grammar accounts for 25% of the marks in your writing test.

You are assessed on two things:

1. Your ability to produce grammatically accurate sentences;

2. Your ability to use a wide range of grammar structures.

As a result, grammar is often the area that students struggle with the most, as it can easily bring a student's scores down.

Accuracy of grammar

Examiners look for how many 'error-free' sentences you have. Therefore, you need to make sure each sentence has no errors. Even a small mistake like an article in the wrong place or misplaced plural counts towards this.

As a result, you must check your work after you finish writing. Always try to leave yourself two minutes at the end to proofread your work. Simple errors, which could be fixed with a quick check, will really damage your marks in this area.

Range of grammar

A good answer will have a range of appropriate structures and tenses. Many students try to insert complex sentences and tenses into their answers. This is a poor strategy that will make your answers look unnatural and can result in you making mistakes.

A good answer uses complex sentences (such as conditional and relative clauses) that flow naturally. In other words, don't insert complicated sentences or tenses just for the sake of it.

Below is some advice on certain grammar structures that will help boost your score in part one of the writing test if used appropriately. I have only included advice for charts, such as pie charts, line graphs and bar charts, in this post. I discuss process diagrams in a separate post.

Describing Trends

In IELTS writing task 1, you may have to describe trends. This may come up in a line graph, bar chart or when comparing more than one chart.

There are two main grammatical structures we can use to describe trends.

Example:

There was a gradual rise in the price of oil.

There has been a sharp drop in the price of oil.
Possible adjectives Possible nouns: Example:
The price of oil rose gradually.

The price of oil has risen dramatically.

Possible verbs:

Possible adverbs:

Describing Increases and Decreases

When describing any of the charts in IELTS writing task 1, you might have to describe increases and decreases. There are three main ways you can describe increases and decreases.
Example:
The price of property fell sharply

The percentage of homes dropped dramatically.
Example:
There was a fall in literacy levels.

There has been an increase in the cost of coffee.
Example:
The price of oil halved in less than a year.

The price of oil has halved since July.

By July, the price of oil has halved.

Making Comparisons

IELTS writing task 1 will often require comparing data sources, groups and times. Here are five grammatical structures you can use to make comparisons.
Example:
Overall, more people preferred public transport to taxis.
Example:
A higher number of people preferred public transport to taxis.

More/less + adj. of more than one syllable + than
Example:
Taxis were more popular than public transport.
Example:
The highest % of commuters preferred taxis.

The most/least + adj. of more than one syllable.
Example:
The least popular mode of transport was buses.

Summarising

IELTS writing task 1 is essentially a summarising task. Your overview paragraph should contain two or three sentences summarising the main features of the graph. To help you do this, here are some short phrases.

To summarise, the most marked change is....

Overall, it is clear....

Overall, the majority/minority....

In sum, the most noticeable trend is....

Don't say 'to conclude'. This is only for discursive essays.

Tenses

Using the appropriate tenses in IELTS writing task 1 is essential if you want to get a high band score.

The key is to look at the chart's title and the information on both axes to establish what time frame is used. This will help you establish what tense you should use.
Example:

If the time is one point in the past, for example, January 1990, then we should use the past tense.

If it has projections for the future, for example, 2045, we use future tenses.

If there is no time, we use the present simple.

Below are a range of tenses that could be used in task 1. Remember, the tense you use will depend on the information displayed in the graph. This is not a complete list of tenses, and an awareness of all the English tenses will help you achieve the IELTS score you need.

We use this tense generally to talk about an action that happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact period is not important.

In writing task 1, we use this tense to talk about changes in data that have happened over a period of time.
Example
The price of oil has fallen by $5 a barrel every week since July.

We use this tense to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now.
Example
Oil prices have been decreasing since July.

We use this tense to state that something will be finished at a particular time in the future.

We often use it with ' by' or ' in '.
Example
The price of oil will have reached $300 a barrel by 2020.

Use this tense to talk about an action that started and finished at a specific time in the past.
Example
The price of oil fell from $150 in Jan 2014 to $50 in Jan 2015.

Approximations, Percentages and Fractions

You will have to deal with percentages in many of the IELTS writing task 1 questions. This is a good opportunity to express these percentages differently and boost your score. A way of varying this language is to express them as fractions or proportions.

Remember that you should vary your language as much as possible to score high in the 'lexical resource' part of the test.

For instance, use approximations. E.g. 49% can be expressed as "nearly a half".

Below are a range of expressions that can be used to express percentages.

Fractions

73%- nearly three quarters

51%- just over a half

49%- just under a half

32%- nearly a third

3%- a tiny fraction

50%- exactly a half

26%- roughly one quarter

49%- around a half

24%- almost a quarter

77%- approximately three quarters

Proportions

70%- a large proportion

71%- a significant majority

15% a small minority

3%- an insignificant minority

IELTS Academic: Writing Task 1 in 6 Simple Steps

Hopefully, you have found this post on IELTS Writing Task 1 vocabulary and grammar useful. If you have any queries, please comment below or email me at chris@ieltsadvantage.com.
Would you like to see more posts like these?
The best way to keep up to date with our free IELTS resources is to like our Facebook, YouTube and Instagram pages.

***

For more help with Writing Task 1, check out these full lessons:
Writing Academic Task 1 in 5 Easy Steps Charts Lesson Maps Lesson Multiple Charts/Graphs Process Lesson
See the articles below for more help with Academic IELTS Writing Skills:
How to Paraphrase Task 1 Charts Checklist How to Write a Complex Sentence How Many Words? Task 1 Tips

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IELTS Writing Task 1 Grammar and Vocabulary Guide

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Updated for 2023- You need a detailed guide on IELTS Writing Task 1 Vocabulary and Grammar to get a Band 7, 8 or 9 on the IELTS Writing test.

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Last week, London-based transportation app Citymapper coined a new phrase: "floating transport". "It has no set stops or infrastructure," the company explained, "and it's filling a mobility gap in our cities."

It's a useful shorthand to lump together everything from dockless cycle hire, like Ofo and Mobike's London offerings, Bird and Lime's San Franciscan electric scooters, to Daimler's short-term car hire service Car2Go - all of which are now supported by Citymapper's app, alongside fixed urban transport options like buses and trains.

These services rely on a combination of GPS and cellular connectivity to track whichever vehicle is being rented, charging users by the minute and immobilising the device wherever it is left at the end of its trip. They've exploded in popularity this year, riding the wave of trends like declining car ownership and increasing preference for renting rather than owning outright.

These transport systems are quickly becoming ubiquitous - but what role can they play in the cities of tomorrow? The update to Citymapper offers an insight only if the kinks can be worked out - and it's both more and less transformative than we might hope.

Floating transport has obvious appeal to investors, especially those sore to have missed out on the Uber gravy train. Venture capitalists' enthusiasm to jump on the next big thing in transport is the best explanation for the astounding US $300m (£226m) raised by scooter company Bird, at a valuation of $1.7bn, last month. That was matched this week by Uber and Google's investment in Bird competitor Lime at a $1.1bn valuation, as the company rolls out (sorry) its bright green scooters to Paris, entering Europe for the first time

Unlike precursors such as docked cycle hire, or fixed-parking car hire (think Zipcar), the initial outlay is very small. There's no need to build docks or pay cities for permanent parking spaces, and while demand remains high, the numbers are good - really, really good.

A Bird scooter, for instance, will conservatively gross about $10 a day, according to Bloomberg's Brad Stone. That's five short rides, give or take. The scooter needs to be recharged - a job done by gig economy contractors who are paid $5 per recharged scooter - so the net profit per day is $5. With those figures, a $300 scooter with $50 worth of modifications including the GPS tracker and locking mechanisms, then pays for itself in two months.

But simply being profitable doesn't necessarily mean floating transport is good for a city, and the growth of the sector has been a bumpy ride. A big problem is that pavement is a shared space, and a limited resource. The overcrowding problems San Francisco has seen with Bird scooters are mirrored in London by Ofo bikes - a model where users abandon their vehicles wherever they want inevitably results in pavements littered with out-of-service rides.

That can be annoying, unsightly or actively dangerous, depending on the circumstances. In London, parents have complained of having to push prams onto the road to get round piles of bikes, while wheelchair users in LA can find a previously accessible route blocked by a wayward scooters.

While floating transport is free from many of the regulatory burdens faced by previous transport startups, it's not immune. Electric scooters, for instance, can't easily expand to the UK, because they aren't legal to use on the road or the pavement. Dockless cycle hire faces similar trouble in Australia, where helmets are required by law.

Citymapper is betting, though, that despite hurdles on a regional level, this is the future globally. The app currently has a slim level of integration with most floating transport providers - individual bikes, cars and scooters will appear on the map, along with information like charge level. But they aren't yet seamlessly combined with the company's flagship multi-modal journey planner.

When that does happen, as Citymapper has said, the services will be presented like any other mode of transport. If it's quicker to hop on an Ofo bike and cycle to the tube than it is to wait for a bus, it will show as an option.

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Citymapper's planned Ofo integration. Photograph: Citymapper

But the company's mock-up of how it might look in the app- showing a notional journey from transport-deprived Stoke Newington, in north-east London - conceals some of the potential flaws of floating transport. It's easy enough to plan a journey that begins with a three-minute walk to a bike and ends with 30 minutes on the tube, but it's somewhat harder to plan your return trip. Will the bike still be there? Or would you have been better off taking an entirely different route in the first place? (That's not a hypothetical concern - it has happened to me a few times. It's worse still when you arrive at a bike you'd intended to use to find it still there but not actually working, because it hasn't yet been reported and removed from the map.)

Floating transport also faces similar problems to those that docked cycle hire discovered in its early years: individuals' movement through cities is highly correlated. Rush hour is the obvious example, but other trends become clear if you spend long enough staring at data visualisations of where, say, London's Santander bikes are at any given time. Try to find a docking space outside Hackney's Victoria Park at 1pm on a sunny summer Saturday, and eight hours later, you'll have just as hard a time trying to find a bike to get home with.

Now imagine trying to solve that problem without docks where would-be renters can at least wait in the hope that a bike will be dropped off.

Many floating transport providers have realised these potential pitfalls, and are taking steps to address them. Some bike providers, for instance, have followed the lead of London's cycle hire network, and now collect bikes left in out-of-the-way places and drop them near transport hubs. Jump, an e-bike provider now owned by Uber, lets users "preorder" bikes, renting them in advance (and still paying by the minute) to ensure they're there when they need them.

And of course, smart transport planners play their own part. If we could give ourselves over fully to Citymapper and its ilk, religiously following instructions to the letter even on journeys which we think we know, then the app could merrily reroute as and when the circumstances on the ground change, diverting users towards bikes that have suddenly appeared for rent, or telling them to hop on a bus if someone's beaten you to a scooter.

But ultimately, floating transport is going to have to learn another lesson that conventional transportation bodies have taken to heart: flexible may be fun, but cities run on reliable.
Topics

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The future will be dockless: could a city really run on 'floating transport'?

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Last week, London-based transportation app Citymapper coined a new phrase: "floating transport". "It has no set stops or infrastructure," the company explained, "and it's filling a mobility gap in our cities."

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IELTS Listening
This YouTube Channel has all Listening Tests. Once a week there is one new test.
I hope you enjoy.

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IELTS LISTENING PRACTICE TEST 2018 WITH ANSWERS | 10.07.2018

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In 2009, my doctor told me that, like "a lot of women", I was paying too much attention to my body. Saying there wasn't an issue, he suggested I just relax and try to ignore the symptoms.

The decision seemed to run counter to what my records showed. A few weeks earlier, I had ended up in the emergency room with chest pains and a heart rate hitting 220 beats per minute. The ER crew told me it was a panic attack, gave me Xanax and told me to try to sleep.

I'd had panic attacks before. I knew this episode was not one. So I went to my doctor.

Find out more about the Health Gap, a special series about how men and women experience the medical system - and their own health - in starkly different ways.

He put me on a heart monitor overnight. Bingo: I had another episode, this time recorded. It didn't matter. I still left his office thinking it was perhaps anxiety. And so, listening to the advice, I tried to ignore the pain.

Until it happened again. And again. First every month, then every week. Over the following nine years, I would complain about it and be told again that I was having panic attacks or anxiety, that women don't feel heart pain the way I was feeling it, and that maybe I was just confused. (Find out more: Can you have a heart attack and not realise it?)

My experience was not uncommon. Abby Norman, author of Ask Me About My Uterus, went through a similar path to discovering she had endometriosis, a painful condition where endometrial tissue grows on other organs than the uterus. Several doctors told her she had a urinary tract infection - until she went to an appointment with her boyfriend, who could vouch for her pain. Norman writes that she also struggled to be diagnosed with appendicitis; one doctor decided her symptoms were the result of childhood sexual abuse, even though Norman was clear that that never had happened.

Both anecdotes and academic research point to a disturbing trend: in the medical industry, there's a long history of dismissing women's pain. More difficult to determine is whether this is due to gender bias, a lack of medical research on women, or actual differences between how the sexes interpret pain.

One study found that women in emergency rooms are less likely to be taken seriously than men

What we do know is that when it comes to pain, men and women are treated differently. One study, for example, found that women in the emergency department who report having acute pain are less likely to be given opioid painkillers (the most effective type) than men. After they are prescribed, women wait longer to receive them.

Another study found that women in emergency departments are less likely to be taken seriously than men. In a 2014 study from Sweden, once in the A&E women waited significantly longer to see a doctor and were less often classified as an urgent case.

This can have lethal consequences. In May 2018 in France, a 22-year old woman called emergency services saying her abdominal pain was so acute she felt she was "going to die." "You'll definitely die one day, like everyone else," the operator replied. When the woman was taken to hospital after a five-hour wait, she had a stroke and died of multiple organ failure.

Seeing women treated differently in the emergency department is a fairly well established phenomenon, says Esther Chen, an emergency medicine doctor at Zuckerburg San Francisco General Hospital and co-author of the study on opioid painkillers.

But "it's hard to tease out whether it's simply implicit bias - which all of us have - or whether it's the way we judge women and pain in terms of their presentation for different clinical conditions," Chen says.

Her study, for example, researched acute abdominal pain. She suspects that women who present to the emergency department with abdominal pain are often assumed to have a gynaecological problem, which is less likely to require opioids than an acute surgical disease.

Meanwhile, women are more likely to receive anti-anxiety medications than men when they come to a hospital with pain - and are more often written off as psychiatric patients.

"Women have been more often referred to psychologists or psychiatrists, whereas men are given tests to rule out actual organic conditions," says Christin Veasley, co-founder and director at the Chronic Pain Research Alliance who helped compile the above report.

As former executive director of the National Vulvodynia Association, Veasley saw an alarming track record of bad medical diagnoses and advice.

It's hard to imagine that a medical professional who took an oath to 'do no harm' could say these things - Christin Veasley

"The things I heard from women... that doctors told them were completely ridiculous," she says. "Things like, you must be having marital problems. Have a glass of wine before you have sex. It'll be better. The list goes on and on.

"It's hard to imagine that a medical professional who took an oath to 'do no harm' could say these things."
(Check back next week more on women and psychological diagnoses, our next story in the Health Gap).

The evidence that women are faster to go to the doctor is 'surprisingly weak and inconsistent'

The common assumption is that women are quicker to complain of medical problems than men. Indeed, one UK study found, for example, that men consulted GPs 32% less than women. It's possible that doctors therefore dismiss women's reports of pain as less serious.

But other evidence suggests that it is wrong to assume that women are more likely than men to complain about the same pain. A meta-analysis of studies on two common types of pain, back pain and headache, found that men and women were equally likely to go to the doctor. The evidence that women are faster to go to the doctor is "surprisingly weak and inconsistent", the researchers wrote. A similar study found women were no more likely to consult a GP than men with the same pain symptoms.

Still, many researchers and doctors point out that studies dating as far back as 1972 and as recently as 2003 show that women have a lower pain tolerance than men - something encouraged, of course, by cultural gender norms. Research also has found that women present with symptoms more closely resembling anxiety and have a higher tendency of becoming addicted to opioids, points out Karen Sibert, president of the California Society of Anesthesiologists.

When people are anxious, their pain tolerance becomes less - Karen Sibert

As a result, it might be entirely appropriate to dole out anti-anxiety medication to women before taking the extra step of painkillers, Sibert says. "When people are anxious, their pain tolerance becomes less," she says. "It may be best to try to get their anxiety and fear under control first and then see what the pain requirements are."

Another complication is that oestrogen alters both the perception of pain and the response to painkillers, says Nicole Woitowich, director of science outreach and education at the Women's Health Research Institute.

That means there are "sex differences in the way women experience pain", Woitowich says. So it's imperative that women and men are treated differently in order to develop a personalised approach to the patient's care.

If doctors want to focus on treating patients in a tailored, effective way, they "should at least start by treating patients based on their chromosomal makeup, either male (XX) or female (XY)," Woitowich says.
Sex study
But to know exactly what those differences are - and how they affect treatment - much more research is needed.

Before 1990, clinical trials and diagnoses in the US focussed on men

Before 1990, the year the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced the Office of Research on Women's Health, clinical trials and diagnoses in the US focussed on men. (These trials often were overseen by men as well.) In Europe, women have been similarly left out of studies. Same with Canada and the UK.

That led to a massive body of medical evidence, including pain-focused lab studies, with a predominantly male perspective.

"When the history of an ailment, including the defining of textbook cases, is largely being written by men about men, it becomes the precedent to which anyone else is held up," Norman says.

In 2015, the US's NIH introduced a policy that requires medical investigators to take sex into consideration as a biological variable. Now, anyone who applies for grant funding from the NIH must either research both males and females, or give compelling reasoning for why only one sex should be examined. We have yet to see, though, if it will make a difference. "Since this policy is relatively new, it may take a few more years before we see if it has made an impact on how research is conducted and if it has become more inclusive," Woitowich says.

In 2017, the National Health Service in the UK also issued a similar dictum that the NHS must " listen to women" - though this was only meant to speed up endometriosis diagnoses. Since the early 2000s, Canada and Europe have incorporated similar policies; however, none of these have become laws or requirements, instead operating as suggestions and advice for researchers.

That doesn't, however, eliminate the innate biases that physicians and other medical workers tend to have towards women's pain.

A study showed patients with more 'feminine' personality traits across both genders had a higher risk of poor access to care

Louise Pilote of Quebec's McGill University Health Center co-authored a study showing patients with more 'feminine' personality traits across both genders had a higher risk of poor access to care. On the surface it may seem like that backs an implicit bias between treating men and women. But she points out that it was more complicated: the variations actually stemmed from poverty and how 'feminine' the personality, according to traits outlined in the Bem Sex Role Inventory, not from biological sex.

Pilote also has an evidence-based explanation for why my own heart issues were postponed for so long. Heart disease is less prevalent in women than men. It occurs later in life in women. And when women are seen for cardiac issues, they often focus on symptoms outside the realm of chest pain, she says.

Indeed, I was mostly concerned with how I felt as a result of my chest pain and rapid heartbeat: lightheaded, out of breath, and dizzy. I can see why a doctor might consider it to be simple anxiety.

In January 2018, I finally found resolution in the form of a different cardiologist, a woman who listened and didn't explain away my pain as just a side effect of worrying or anxiety. I got back on a heart monitor, received an official diagnosis -and in March underwent surgery.

Perhaps I waited almost 10 years for treatment because heart disease is less common in women. Perhaps because my symptoms truly sounded like textbook anxiety. Or perhaps because of gender-based assumptions that women are more likely to complain of pain and less likely to have physical reasons for it.

Even if I think my gender had everything to do with it, I'm not sure it will ever be possible to know for sure. And all that says to me is we have a long way to go before women and their pain can be fully understood.
This story is part of the Health Gap, a special series about how men and women experience the medical system - and their own health - in starkly different ways. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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Pain bias: The health inequality rarely discussed

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In 2009, my doctor told me that, like "a lot of women", I was paying too much attention to my body. Saying there wasn't an issue, he suggested I just relax and try to ignore the symptoms. The decision seemed to run counter to what my records showed.

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Do you eat to live or live to eat? We have a complicated relationship with food, influenced by cost, availability and even peer pressure. But something we all share is appetite - our desire to eat.

While hunger - our body's way of making us desire food when it needs feeding - is a part of appetite, it is not the only factor. After all, we often eat when we're not hungry, or may skip a meal despite pangs of hunger. Recent research has highlighted that the abundance of food cues - smells, sounds, advertising - in our environment is one of the main causes of overconsumption.
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Our appetite is also not fixed, it changes across our lifespan as we age. As Shakespeare might have put it, there are seven ages of appetite, and a better understanding of these phases could help us to develop new ways of tackling under-eating and overconsumption, along with the health effects, such as obesity, that follow.
The first decade, 0-10
In early childhood, the body goes through rapid growth and dietary behaviour built up in early life can extend into adulthood, leading a fat child to become a fat adult.

Fussiness or fear of particular foods can also contribute to meal time struggles for parents of young children, but a strategy of repeated tasting and learning in a positive environment can help children learn about unfamiliar but important foods, such as vegetables.

Children should also experience some control, particularly in relation to portion size. Being forced to "clear the plate" by parents can lead youngsters to lose their ability to follow their own appetite and hunger cues, promoting overeating in later years. There are growing calls for governments to protect young children from targeted junk food advertising - not just on television but in apps, social media and video blogs - since food advertising increases food consumption, which can contribute to children becoming overweight.
The second decade, 10-20
In the teenage years, a growth in appetite and stature driven by hormones, signals the arrival of puberty. How a teenager approaches food during this critical period will shape their lifestyle choices in later years.

This means the dietary decisions that adolescents make are intrinsically linked to the health of the future generations that they will later become parents to. Unfortunately, without guidance, teenagers may adopt eating behaviours and food preferences associated with unhealthy consequences.

Young women in general are more likely to suffer from nutritional deficiencies than young men because of their reproductive biology. Teenage girls who become pregnant are also at greater risk since their bodies are supporting their own growth in competition with that of the growing foetus.
The third decade, 20-30
As young adults, lifestyle changes such as going to college, getting married or living with a partner, and parenthood can promote weight gain.

Once accumulated, body fat is often difficult to lose. The body sends strong appetite signals to eat when we consume less than our energy needs, but the signals to prevent overeating are weaker, which can lead to a circle of over-consumption. There are many physiological and psychological factors that make eating less difficult to maintain over time.

An area of new research is to develop satiety, the sense of having eaten enough. This is helpful when trying to lose weight, since feeling hungry is one of the main barriers to eating less than your body says you need.

Different foods send different signals to the brain. It's easy to eat a tub of ice cream, for example, because fat doesn't trigger signals in the brain for us to stop eating. On the other hand, foods high in protein, water or fibre content make us feel fuller for longer. Working with the food industry provides an opportunity to shape the future of meals and snacks in beneficial ways.
The fourth decade, 30-40
Adult working life brings other challenges beyond a rumbling stomach, but also the effects of stress, which has been shown to prompt changes in appetite and eating habits in 80% of the population, equally divided between those that gorge and those that lose their appetite.

These different coping strategies are intriguing: the phenomena of "food addiction" - an irresistible urge to consume specific, often high-calorie foods - is not well understood. Many researchers even question its existence.

Other personality traits, such as perfectionism and conscientiousness, may also play a role in mediating stress and eating behaviour.

Structuring the work environment to reduce problematic eating patterns such as snacking or vending machines is a challenge. Employers should strive to subsidise and promote healthier eating for a productive and healthy workforce, along with ways of managing stress and stressful situations.
The fifth decade, 40-50
The word diet comes from the Greek word diaita meaning "way of life, mode of living", but we are creatures of habit, often unwilling to change our preferences even when we know it is good for us. We want to eat what we want without changing our lifestyle, and still have a healthy body and mind.

There is much evidence to show that diet is a major contributing factor to ill-health. The World Health Organisation highlights smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and problem drinking as the main lifestyle impacts on health and mortality.

It is between the ages of 40-50 that adults should change their behaviour as their health dictates, but symptoms of illness are often invisible - for example high blood pressure or cholesterol - and so many fail to act.
The sixth decade, 50-60
After the age of 50, we begin to suffer a gradual loss of muscle mass, at between 0.5-1% per year. This is called sarcopenia, and lessened physical activity, consuming too little protein, and menopause in women will accelerate the decline in muscle mass.

A healthy, varied diet and physical activity are important to reduce the effects of ageing, and an ageing population's need for palatable, cost-effective, higher-protein foods is not being met.

Protein‐rich snack foods might represent an ideal opportunity to increase total protein intake in older adults, but there are currently few products designed to meet the requirements and preferences of older adults. (Read more about how much protein we need)
The seventh decade, 60-70, and beyond
A major challenge today in the face of increasing life expectancy is to maintain quality of life, or else we will become a society of very old and infirm or disabled people.

Adequate nutrition is important, as old age brings poor appetite and lack of hunger, which leads to unintentional weight loss and greater frailty. Reduced appetite can also result from illness, for example the effects of Alzheimer's disease.

Food is a social experience, but the loss of a partner or family and eating alone affect the sense of pleasure taken from eating. Other affects of old age, such as swallowing problems, dental issues, reduced taste and smell also interfere with the desire to eat and our rewards from doing so.

We should remember that throughout life our food is not just fuel, but a social and cultural experience to be enjoyed. We are all experts in food - we eat it every day.

So we should strive to treat every opportunity to eat as an opportunity to enjoy our food and to enjoy the positive effects eating the right foods can have on our health.
Alex Johnstone is the Personal Chair in Nutrition at The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen. This article If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

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The seven stages of life that affect how we eat

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Do you eat to live or live to eat? We have a complicated relationship with food, influenced by cost, availability and even peer pressure. But something we all share is appetite - our desire to eat. While hunger - our body's way of making us desire food when it needs feeding - is a part of appetite, it is not the only factor.

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Smart home gadgets domestic abuse warning 

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Smart home gadgets domestic abuse warning 

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Poster: Alan

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A list offering guidance to those affected by smart home devices being used to control or harass them within abusive relationships has been published online.

It is largely aimed at women.

A recent report by the New York Times detailed examples of "technology-facilitated abuse".

This involves devices being activated remotely in order to cause fear or confusion - such as remotely altering the temperature or locking doors.

A woman who runs a shelter for victims of domestic violence in the US told the newspaper some were "losing control" of their own homes.

The UK team behind the "tech abuse" list, including researchers from Privacy International and University College London, says it was created to "better inform and guide victims of technology-facilitated abuse as well as those working with them".

It is divided into advice about:

the internet of things - devices and gadgets connected and controlled via the net

digital security for women and children

Cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward, from Surrey University, told the BBC smart devices could be intimidating to use, especially if installed by others.

"Imagine how you can make someone feel small and stupid because they can't operate smart gadgets 'properly' - and how you can convince the abused person how much they need you because only you can operate it," he said.

"What everyone needs to remember is that user-shaming in whatever context shows a failure of the designers, not the users."

Security researcher Ken Munro said there were many cases of former partners using technology to abuse an ex. In some cases, he said, the only way to lock out the access partners used to enjoy was by replacing the gadget entirely.

He said it was "critical" to review smart home tech when a relationship ended.

"You would probably change the door locks on your home in the event of your partner moving out. You should seriously consider changing your smart locks too," he said in a blog exploring the subject.

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Smart home gadgets domestic abuse warning

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A list offering guidance to those affected by smart home devices being used to control or harass them within abusive relationships has been published online. It is largely aimed at women. A recent report by the New York Times detailed examples of "technology-facilitated abuse".

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Memes about be best:)

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On Monday, the White House announced that First Lady Melania Trump released a campaign called "Be Best" for children. The White House statement said that the purpose of the first lady's campaign was to "encourage children to BE BEST in their individual paths in life, and teach them about the importance of social, emotional, and physical health." Yes, in all caps. But as soon as Twitter found out about the Trump's "Be Best" campaign, the memes came out in full force.

According to the White House, Trump's initiative will "champion" programs that are focused on helping children develop "emotional, social, and physical well-being." The three main objectives of "Be Best" will be centered on "well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse."

The statement briefly touched upon social media and opioid issues in the country by citing studies. In one of its excerpts, the White House cautioned, "A study by the Clinical Psychological Science shows that after 2010, children who spent more time on new media were more likely to report mental health issues than those who spent time on non-screen activities." (By the way, here's what the Be Best website looks like.)

But the phrasing of Trump's campaign caused some confusion on Twitter. New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush seemed to earnestly ask, "For non-English speakers, preferably those from Eastern Europe: Is 'Be Best' an idiom in your language?" Although most said no, one Twitter offered an explanation, "Most Slavic languages use articles much less frequently than English does, if at all. Consequently, 'Be the best' and 'Be best' would look the same."

While some folks tried to figure out the phrase, other Twitter users came out with some humorous jokes. Here are just a few.

1. A New Spin On The MTV Show

Good bye, Beavis.

2. There's This Version, Too

Fair enough.

3. A New Edition Of Best Buy

The right place to get your gadgets and repairs from.

4. From "Cheers" To "Best" To "Be Best" Now

It's got a nice ring to it.

5. A PSA

"Ungreat."

6. Is It Code For Something Else?

To quote Liz from Comedy Central's Kroll Show, "Who can never be sure?"

7. Theories On Theories On Theories

Who knows.

8. A Dramatic Novel

Imagine.

9. Grammar Lessons

Quite a few observers commented on the grammatical structure of "Be Best" and it seems like folks did not approve.

10. This Photoshopped Image

A public request on grammar, it seems.

11. This Imaginary Exchange

Don't worry. It never happened.

12. A Suggestion

One Twitter user suggested that the first lady should have picked "Be Kind" over "Be Best."

13. Oh Lord

Plausible?

14. Hold On

It looks like people were not fond of the slogan. At all.

15. "Are We Going To Pretend?"

For other people, it was too hard to look past the campaign's phrasing.

16. Where's An Editor When You Need One?

"[Be Best] doesn't mean anything," this Twitter user lamented.

17. Some Examples For The 'Be Best' Campaign

Several Twitter users promptly shared Trump's husband's tweets to presumably remind her where to begin her program.

18. This Version Of Be Best

Imagine this in Hulk's voice, please.

19. One Way To Put It

Some Twitter users placed "Be Best" in their own sentences and, well, the meaning of the campaign kind of changed.

20. Jim's Face, Ladies And Gentlemen

Sure, John Krasinski stunned viewers with the terrifying and tense film, A Quiet Place, but people remember him as the oft-bemused Jim from The Office. And of course, Jim appeared in Monday's array of jokes on Trump's "Be Best" campaign. It was only a matter of time, folks.

21. Wait, Wait, Wait

Surprise!

22. Sneaky

I see what you did there.

23. Oof

I repeat, oof.

24. The Birds Rights Activist Has Arrived

Let the bird speak.

25. Why Not?

Good idea.

These are just a few of the many reactions to the first lady's children wellness campaign. But there might be some bad news for people concerned with grammar (you know, like wanting to see "Be Your Best" and not "Be Best"); it looks like Trump is going to stick with her slogan. Maybe people can try to "Be Best" at accepting it.

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Melania Trump Named Her Organization "Be Best" & The Internet's Got Memes

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On Monday, the White House announced that First Lady Melania Trump released a campaign called "Be Best" for children. The White House statement said that the purpose of the first lady's campaign was to "encourage children to BE BEST in their individu...

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IELTS Speaking Task 3 - How to get a high score

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IELTS Speaking Task 1 - How to get a high score