万物简史 第417期:生命的起源(11)

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　　by suggesting that outer space brought us not only life but also many diseases such as flu and bubonic plague, ideas that were easily disproved by biochemists. 外层空间不但给我们带来了生命，而且带来了许多疾病，如流感和腺鼠疫，这就进一步削弱了胚种说的影响。生物化学家们很容易驳斥那些观点。

　　Whatever prompted life to begin, it happened just once. 无论是什么事导致了生命的开始，那种事只发生过一次。

　　That is the most extraordinary fact in biology, perhaps the most extraordinary fact we know. 这是生物学一最非同对常的事实，也许是我们所知道的最不寻常的事实。

　　Everything that has ever lived, plant or animal, dates its beginnings from the same primordial² twitch³. 凡是有过生命的东西，无论是植物还地动物，它的始发点都可以追溯到同一种原始的抽动。

　　At some point in an unimaginably distant past some little bag of chemicals fidgeted to life. 在极其遥远的过去，在某个时刻，有一小囊化学物质躁动一下，于是就有了生命。

　　It absorbed some nutrients⁴, gently pulsed, had a brief existence. 它吸收营养，轻轻地搏动几下，经历了短暂的存在。

　　This much may have happened before, perhaps many times. 这么多情况也许以前发生过，也许发生过多次。

　　But this ancestral packet did something additional and extraordinary: it cleaved⁵ itself and produced an heir. 但是，这位老祖宗小囊干了另一件非同寻常的事：它将自己一分为二，产生了一个后代。

　　A tiny bundle of genetic⁶ material passed from one living entity⁷ to another, and has never stopped moving since. 一小代遗传物质从一个生命实体转移给了另一个生命实体，此后就这样延续下去，再也没有停止过。

　　It was the moment of creation for us all. Biologists sometimes call it the Big Birth. 这是个创造我们大家的时刻。生物学家有时候将其称之为“大诞生”。

　　Wherever you go in the world, whatever animal, plant, bug⁸, or blob you look at, if it is alive, it will use the same dictionary and know the same code. “无论你到世界的什么地方，无论你看到的是动物、植物、虫子还是难以名状的东西，只要它有生命，它就会使用同一部词典，知道同一个代码。

　　All life is one, says Matt Ridley. 所有的生命都是一家。”马特·里德利说。

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