為什么我們不能接受死亡？

為什么我們不能接受死亡？

因為恐懼，因為疼痛——或許是所有這些負面的觀感，讓我們難以接受死亡。近日盛大創(chuàng)始人陳天橋和雒芊芊向加州理工學(xué)院捐贈1.15億美元用于大腦研究，目的是幫助人類接受死亡。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

institute協(xié)會；學(xué)院['?nst?tju?t]

mortality死亡率；必死性[m??'t?l?t?]

philanthropy慈善；慈善事業(yè)[f?'l?nθr?p?]

endowed賦予；捐贈[[in'dau]]

perception洞察力；獲取[p?'sep?(?)n]

neuroscience神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)科學(xué)['nju?r??sa??ns]

Chinese donors fund studies into acceptance of death（501 words）

By Jeevan Vasagar in Singapore

A billionaire couple who pioneered internet games in China are donating $115m to the California Institute of Technology for brain research in an effort to help humans accept mortality.

The gift by Tianqiao Chen and Chrissy Luo,founders of Shanda — which began life as an online games developer before transforming into an investment group with stakes in Lending Club and Legg Mason — underlines the increasingly prominent role played by mainland Chinese entrepreneurs in global philanthropy.

“How can we cure death? That is the key of our philanthropy vision,”Mr Chen told the Financial Times. Understanding how the brain and mind worked would enable people to master emotions such as pain and fear.

“Why can’t we accept death?”he said.“Because of fear,because of pain — all the negative perception.”

The gift,which includes endowed funds,will create a neuroscience institute at Caltech named after the couple. They say it is intended for pure research,the direction of which will be decided by the university.

This will include building a $200m biosciences facility at the university in Pasadena,California. Caltech is contributing resources to the project.

Thomas Rosenbaum,Caltech president,said the university and the couple shared a vision of translating scientific insights into the brain into a“deeper understanding of how human beings perceive and interact with the world”.

The initiative is the latest high-profile donation to elite US universities by a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs.

Chinese Ivy League graduates such as Neil Shen of Sequoia China have been generous donors to their alma maters. Zhang Xin,the real estate mogul,and Pan Shiyi,her husband,signed a $15m gift agreement with Harvard in 2014.

In May,Charles Chen Yidan,Tencent co-founder,launched a $7.6m annual award aimed at recognising outstanding research in education.

Mr Chen,43,and his wife,40,founded their business together in 1999 and have a fortune of $3.43bn,according to the Hurun Report’s annual China Rich List.

Nasdaq-listed Shanda Interactive became the largest Chinese games company by market capitalisation in 2004,later spinning off its games unit Shanda Games in a separate US initial public offering that raised $1.04bn — the biggest US public offering for a Chinese internet business at the time.

Shanda Group sold its stake in Shanda Games in 2014. The privately owned Singapore-based investment group has about $8bn in net assets under management,according to Mr Chen’s LinkedIn profile.

As well as its substantial stakes in US public companies,Shanda Group is an investor in ElMindA,an Israeli start-up specialising in medical technology analysing brain function,and SpaceVR,a US start-up that aims to offer virtual reality space tourism.

The couple plans to hire a chief scientist for Shanda Group to help direct future charitable giving and say the philanthropic support for brain research dovetails with an investment interest in technology that interfaces between computers and people.

“Our philanthropy is to find out the secret of the brain,but our technology is to leverage our brain,”Mr Chen said.