(完整word版)研究生英语精读教程课文原文+翻译+短文unit2

Cancer & Chemicals

-Are We Going Too Far?

Marla Cone

Last year, California governor George Deukmejian called together many of the state's best scientific minds to begin implementing Proposition 65, the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. This new law bans industries from discharging chemical suspected of causing cancer (carcinogens) or birth defects into water supplies. Some claim it will also require warning labels on everything that might cause cancer.

去年，加利福尼亚州州长乔治·德米加召集本州许多优秀的科学家开会，开始执行第65号提案，即州安全饮用水和毒品实施法案。这一新法令禁止各工业部门向水源中排放被怀疑致癌和引起先天缺陷的化学物质。有些人宣称，新法律还要求在一切可能致癌的物品上贴上警告标签。

A day of esotericscience and incomprehensible jargonwas predicted. But Bruce Ames, chairman of the department of biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, had plans to liven the proceedings.

原来预计，开会那天将全是些玄妙的科学和难懂的术

语，但加州大学伯克利分校生物化学系系主任布鲁斯·爱姆兹却打算使会议开得更有生气。

Walking into the room, Ames looked like the quintessential scientist: wire-rimmedbifocals, rumpled suit, tousled hair and a sallow complexion that showed he spent more time in his laboratory than in the California sunshine.As someone intoned about the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, Ames began to interject his own views.

当爱姆兹走入会议室时，他看上去完全是一个典型的科学家形象：金丝边双光眼镜，皱褶的西服，蓬乱的头发，菜色的面庞，显示出他总是呆在实验室里而很少享受加州的阳光。当某人振振有词地大谈致痛机理时，爱姆兹开始打断他，插进来陈述自己的观点。

"The whole world is chock-full of carcinogens," Ames declared.“ A beer, with its 700 parts per billion of formaldehyde and five parts per 100 of alcohol is a thousand times more hazardous than anything in the water. If you have beer on your breath, does that mean you have to warn everyone who comes within ten feet of you?"

“整个世界都充满了致癌物”，爱姆兹宣称。“啤酒中有十亿分之七百的甲醛和百分之五的乙醇，比水中的任何物质都要危险1 000倍。如果你呼出的气息中有啤酒味，那是否意

味着你必须向你周围10英尺以内的所有人发出警告?”

In an era when headlines shout about the latest cancer scare, Ames has a different message: the levels of most man-made carcinogens are generally so low that any danger is trivial compared with the levels of natural carcinogens.

在大肆宣传最新癌症恐怖的时代里，爱姆兹带来了不同的信息：大多数人造致癌物的含量一般来说都很低。与天然致癌物含量相比其危险微乎其微。

Ames is not a quack. At age 59, he is one of the nation's most respected authorities on carcinogenesis. His resume is packed with honors, including the Charles. Mott Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, one of the most prestigious awards in cancer research, and membership in the National Academy of Sciences.Even his critics say the Ames test—his simple, inexpensive laboratory procedure that helps determine whether a substance might cause cancer—is a remarkable achievement.

爱姆兹不是个冒充内行的人。他59岁，是全国最受人尊敬的研究致癌问题的权威之一。他的简历中尽是各种荣誉，包括通用汽车癌症研究基金会颁发的查尔斯·莫特奖(这