Japan Finds Its Own Unique Cure for Snoring
作者：Zoe
来源：《新高考·soojoo高一英语》2012年第02期
        日本发明打鼾的仪器
        打鼾虽说不是什么大病，但是却十分让人头疼。因为巨大的鼾声不仅危及人际关系，更加危及健康。据英国《每日邮报》报道，日本早稻田大学的一个研究小组发明了一种机器熊，可以在人们睡觉时翻转他们的头部，以保证呼吸道畅通无阻。
        A research group from Waseda University has come up a robotic bear that flips over people’s heads in their sleep to open their airways. The bear is used as a pillow, but has a built-in microphone.
        As soon as Jukusui-kun detects a loud snore, his paw reaches up gently, and pushes the sleeper’s head to the other side.
        The motion would push sufferers—the loud form of snoring that can be dangerous not o
nly to relationships but to health—into a position where they no longer snore.
        The bear was shown off at the International Robot Show in Japan. Jukusui-kun means “deep sleep”—and the robot is targeted specifically at snorers whose snoring curb their blood oxygen level, with a separate hand monitor sensing when blood oxygen levels drop.
        The only problem is that not only do they have to sleep on a bear-shaped pillow with jointed robotic hands, they also have to insert their hand into another bear-shaped monitor which monitors blood oxygen.
        Monitors are also built into the sheet under the sleeper—the idea being that electrical cords would disturb sleep.
        The bear waits until low blood oxygen and loud snores indicate that the person sleeping on Jukusui-kun is snoring loudly, then the paw strikes.
        The bear is unsold yet—and whether or not a robotic paw reaching up to turn one’s head over is any more effective than one’s partner shoving the person remains to be seen.