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科学美国人60秒 SSS 鸟类学习同伴语言保护自身安全

时间:2019-09-29 06:38:49

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(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

People speak thousands of languages in the world today. And same goes for the bird world.

今天,全世界人类使用的语言有几千种。鸟类世界也是如此。

"Each bird species has effectively its own language." Andy Radford, a professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Bristol. "And there might be similarities between some languages just as there are in the human world. And then there are other languages that sound extremely different, even though they're conveying exactly the same meaning."

“实际上每种鸟类都有自已的语言。”布里斯托大学的行为生态学教授安迪·拉德福德说到。“一些鸟类语言可能很相似,就像人类世界一样。其他语言则听起来极为不同,尽管它们表达的是同样的含义。”

In fact some birds are known to pick up on the "language" of other species...in particular, they've learned to detect danger by eavesdropping1 on the alarm calls of other birds.

事实上,我们已经知道有些鸟类学会了其他鸟类的“语言”,特别是它们学会了通过偷听其他鸟类的警报叫声来察觉危险。

Radford and his colleagues wanted to investigate how that learning occurs. So they first played an alarm call that fairy wrens2, an Australian bird, shouldn't be familiar with - a computer-generated alarm call (synthetic3 call) meant to mimic4 a bird's. As expected, the unfamiliar5 sound had no effect on the fairy wrens.

拉德福德和同事想研究这种学习的发生过程。因此,他们首先播放了一种澳大利亚细尾鹩莺不可能熟悉的警报叫声,这一由计算机生成的警报叫声(计算机合成的叫声)对鸟类的声音进行了模仿。不出所料,这种陌生的叫声对细尾鹩莺没有任何影响。

But then the researchers paired the synthetic call with a chorus of alarm calls the wrens would recognize. (chorus) And after this training, the sound of the initially6 unfamiliar synthetic call alone (synthetic call) was enough to send the birds ducking HA! for cover. The results are in the journal Current Biology.

但随后,研究人员将电脑合成的叫声与细尾鹩莺能识别出的警报叫声和声组合在一起。(和声)经过这种训练,细尾鹩莺一开始不熟悉的合成叫声本身(合成叫声),就足以让这些鸟儿闪避躲藏。这项研究结果发表在《当代生物学》期刊上。

Radford says the study shows birds can learn from their peers, without ever seeing them...or a predator7 either. "And so I think that's the coolest thing of all, is that you can learn with your eyes shut about something really important in the natural world."

拉德福德表示,这项研究表明,鸟儿可以向同伴学习,即使从来没有看到过同伴或捕食者。“所以,我认为最酷的地方在于,闭上眼睛学习自然界中真正重要的东西。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 eavesdropping 4a826293c077353641ee3f86da957082     
n. 偷听
参考例句:
  • We caught him eavesdropping outside the window. 我们撞见他正在窗外偷听。
  • Suddenly the kids,who had been eavesdropping,flew into the room. 突然间,一直在偷听的孩子们飞进屋来。
2 wrens 2c1906a3d535a9b60bf1e209ea670eb9     
n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Other songbirds, such as wrens, have hundreds of songs. 有的鸣鸟,例如鹪鹩,会唱几百只歌。 来自辞典例句
3 synthetic zHtzY     
adj.合成的,人工的;综合的;n.人工制品
参考例句:
  • We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
  • It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。
4 mimic PD2xc     
v.模仿,戏弄;n.模仿他人言行的人
参考例句:
  • A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
  • He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。
5 unfamiliar uk6w4     
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的
参考例句:
  • I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
  • The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。
6 initially 273xZ     
adv.最初,开始
参考例句:
  • The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
  • Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。
7 predator 11vza     
n.捕食其它动物的动物;捕食者
参考例句:
  • The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
  • Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴,它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

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