在线英语听力室

科学美国人60秒 SSS 灭绝抹杀了进化的成果

时间:2020-05-26 00:49:56

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号:tingroom,领取免费英语资料大礼包。

(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列,我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

New Zealand once had a Dr. Seuss–worthy assortment1 of birds—take the giant moa, a flightless bird twice as tall as an adult human, which weighed more than a sumo wrestler2. Then there was the Haast's eagle, the largest eagle ever known to exist. It hunted the moa.

新西兰曾经有过值得苏斯博士写进书中的各种各样的鸟类——比如巨型恐鸟,这种不会飞的鸟身高是成年人的两倍,体重超过相扑选手。还有哈斯特巨鹰,这是已知存在过的最大型的鹰。它捕猎恐鸟。

But, as the story often goes, then came humans: first the Maori, about 700 years ago, and then European colonists3, a couple hundred years ago. And both sets of people drove many of New Zealand's unique birds to extinction4. And many of the surviving species are now threatened or endangered.

但就如故事中经常发生的那样,人类来了:首先是约700年前毛利人的到来,然后是几百年前的欧洲殖民者。这两组人让新西兰特有鸟类灭绝。许多幸存物种现在正面临威胁或濒临灭绝。

"So you have species like the kiwi, the kakapo, kea, the kaka, the takahe—all with nice Maori names, but all in danger of going extinct."

“像几维鸟、鸮鹦鹉、啄羊鹦鹉、卡卡鹦鹉、南秧鸟等物种,它们都拥有好听的毛利语名字,但都面临灭绝的危险。”

Luis Valente, an evolutionary5 biologist at the Natural History Museum of Berlin. Valente and his colleagues used genetic6 data to build a tree of New Zealand's living and extinct native birds. They then used a model to estimate how long it took new species to emerge. Which allowed them to assess humans' bird-killing habits—on an evolutionary time scale.

柏林自然历史博物馆的进化生物学家路易斯·瓦伦蒂说到。瓦伦蒂和同事利用基因数据建立了新西兰现存和已灭绝本土鸟类的树状图。之后,他们用模型来估计新物种出现所需的时间。这使他们能够从进化时间尺度上评估人类捕杀鸟类的习惯。

"In a couple of centuries, humans wiped out 50 million years of evolutionary history. So the little impact we think we have is having repercussions7 for millions of years." The analysis is in the journal Current Biology.

“在几百年时间内,人类消灭了5000万年的进化史。因此我们认为,人类造成的这种小冲击正在产生持续数百万年的影响。”这项分析发表在《当代生物学》期刊上。

Looking ahead, the scientists say it could take another 10 million years to recover species that are currently threatened, or near threatened, if nothing is done to save them. But it's not all doom8 and gloom.

展望未来,科学家表示,如果不采取任何措施拯救目前正遭受威胁或即将受威胁的物种,那要恢复这些物种可能还需要1000万年时间。但也并非全是不幸与黑暗。

"The conservation efforts being done in New Zealand at the moment are quite pioneering, and they've been quite successful. So I think we're still at a position where we can still prevent lots of millions of years of evolution from further being lost." As ecologist Aldo Leopold said, "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

“新西兰目前正在进行的保护工作非常具有开创性,而且非常成功。所以,我认为我们现在仍然能阻止数百万年的进化成果进一步消失。”正如生态学家奥尔多·利奥波德所言:“理想补救要兴起,零件齐全是前提”。

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。


分享到:


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 assortment FVDzT     
n.分类,各色俱备之物,聚集
参考例句:
  • This shop has a good assortment of goods to choose from.该店各色货物俱全,任君选择。
  • She was wearing an odd assortment of clothes.她穿着奇装异服。
2 wrestler cfpwE     
n.摔角选手,扭
参考例句:
  • The wrestler tripped up his opponent.那个摔跤运动员把对手绊倒在地。
  • The stronger wrestler won the first throw.较壮的那个摔跤手第一跤就赢了。
3 colonists 4afd0fece453e55f3721623f335e6c6f     
n.殖民地开拓者,移民,殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Colonists from Europe populated many parts of the Americas. 欧洲的殖民者移居到了美洲的许多地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Some of the early colonists were cruel to the native population. 有些早期移居殖民地的人对当地居民很残忍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 extinction sPwzP     
n.熄灭,消亡,消灭,灭绝,绝种
参考例句:
  • The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
  • The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。
5 evolutionary Ctqz7m     
adj.进化的;演化的,演变的;[生]进化论的
参考例句:
  • Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
  • These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。
6 genetic PgIxp     
adj.遗传的,遗传学的
参考例句:
  • It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
  • Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。
7 repercussions 4fac33c46ab5414927945f4d05f0769d     
n.后果,反响( repercussion的名词复数 );余波
参考例句:
  • The collapse of the company will have repercussions for the whole industry. 这家公司的垮台将会给整个行业造成间接的负面影响。
  • Human acts have repercussions far beyond the frontiers of the human world. 人类行为所产生的影响远远超出人类世界的范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》
8 doom gsexJ     
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定
参考例句:
  • The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
  • The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。

本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎 点击提交 分享给大家。