研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译

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科技英语课文翻译

科技英语课文翻译

Unit 1大规模研究发现:地球的“健康”每况愈下有史以来对地球进行的最大规模的科学分析结果表明,地球上的许多生态系统都达不到标准。

由联合国主持的《千年生态系统评估综合报告》指出,由于不可持续的使用,地球上将近三分之二的用来维持生命的生态系统(包括干净的水源、纯净的空气以及稳定的气候)正遭受破坏。

以上大部分的破坏都是人类在过去的半个世纪里造成的。

据报告分析,随着人类对食物、淡水、木材、纤维以及燃料等资源的需求日趋激增,环境发生了极大的变化,引发了诸如滥伐森林、化学污染等问题。

因此,该报告的作者警告说,照此下去,本已岌岌可危的生态环境将会在21世纪的上半叶进一步恶化。

这项历史性的研究由来自世界95个国家的政府部门以及民间组织的1,300多位科学家共同完成。

四年来,他们考察了地球上许多生物的生长环境、物种以及将他们联系起来的生态体系。

联合国环境规划署对该报告进行了编辑整理并于昨天在中国北京公布了研究结果。

在公布该报告的新闻发布会上,联合国秘书长科菲·安南指出:“只有了解环境及其运作过程,我们才能制定出必要的措施加以保护它。

”他还说,“只有珍惜所有宝贵的自然资源和人类资源,我们才有希望去建设一个可持续发展的未来。

”对社会经济的影响该报告对自然界的大部分生物多样性持悲观态度,地球上可能有10%—30%的哺乳动物,鸟类以及两栖动物濒临灭绝。

这次大规模生态调查是根据安南的《千年发展目标》展开的,该发展目标是由联合国发起的,旨在2015年之前大幅减少饥饿与极度贫困等社会经济问题。

总部位于内罗毕的联合国环境规划署执行主席克劳斯·托普弗说:“从某些方面来说,《千年生态系统评估综合报告》让我们首次认识到生态系统服务功能的经济价值,并使我们对尊重和保护地球生命维护系统有了新的见解。

”目前由于人类社会对地球环境的开发利用,食物供应不断增加,然而增长的速度仍然太慢,难以完成联合国制定的在2015年之前消除全球一半饥饿人口的目标。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译8

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译8

Why We're Fat1 So why is obesity happening? The obvious, clichéd-but-true answer is that we eat too much high-calorie food and don't burn it off with enough exercise. If only we had more willpower, the problem would go away. But it isn't that easy.为什么会有肥胖症?一个明显、老生常谈但又真实的答案就是我们吃太多高热量食物并且没有进行足够的运动消耗它。

要是我们的意志力更强大,这个问题便迎刃而解了。

但是,问题并不是那么简单。

2 When warned about the dangers of overeating, we get briefly spooked and try to do better. Then we're offered a plateful of pancakes smothered in maple syrup, our appetite overpowers our reason, and before we know it, we're at it again. Just why is appetite such a powerful driver of behavior, and, more important, how can we tame it? 当我们被警告说吃得太多的时候,一时总会被吓倒并努力做好一些。

然后一碟涂满槭糖浆的煎饼摆在面前,我们的食欲战胜了我们的理智,等到我们意识到它的时候,我们又重蹈覆辙了。

到底为什么食欲具有如此强大的推动力?更重要的是,我们怎么才能够控制它?3 Within the past few years, science has linked our ravenous appetites to genes and hormones. Among the hormones that fuel these urges are ghrelin and leptin, known as the "hunger hormones." Ghrelin is produced mostly by cells in the stomach lining. Its job is to make you feel hungry by affecting the hypothalamus, which governs metabolism. Ghrelin levels rise in dieters who lose weight and then try to keep it off. It's almost as if their bodies are trying to regain the lost fat. This is one reason why it's hard to lose weight and maintain the loss.近几年来,科学将我们迫不及待要吃的食欲跟基因和激素联系起来。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译9

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译9

Unit 91 In popular culture, the term UFO–or unidentified flying object–refers to a suspected alien spacecraft, although its definition encompasses any unexplained aerial phenomena. UFO sightings have been reported throughout recorded history and in various parts of the world, raising questions about life on other planets and whether extraterrestrials have visited Earth. They became a major subject of interest–and the inspiration behind numerous films and books–following the development of rocketry after World War II.通俗地说,所谓 UFO--或者不明飞行物--指疑似外星人的飞船,不过它的定义也包括无法解释的空中现象。

在全世界各地不同时期都有 UFO 目击的报告,引起人们关于外星生命以及地外生命是否访问过地球的争论。

在二战后火箭技术的发展下,它们成了人们感兴趣的一大主题--也是数不清的电影和书籍背后的灵感来源。

Flying Saucers2 The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane. Arnold estimated the speed of the crescent-shaped objects as several thousand miles per hour and said they moved “like saucers skipping on water.” In the newspaper report that followed, it was mistakenly stated that the objects were saucer-shaped, hence the term flying saucer.飞碟首个著名的飞碟目击事件发生在 1947 年,一个叫 Kenneth Arnold 的商人声称他在华盛顿的雷尼尔山附近玩小型飞机模型时看到了一组9个高速移动的物体。

研究生科技英语阅读翻译

研究生科技英语阅读翻译

英⽂写作翻译频道为⼤家整理的研究⽣科技英语阅读翻译,供⼤家参考:)Group: Number 1 Members: Yu Zhehua Yang Jing Rong Wei Wangxiaoqiao Li Ni Liu Qian2011-12-231.What is it that makes mathematics mathematics?Mathematics n. 数学,数学运算,数学应⽤译:是什么使数学成为数学?是什么使数学成为数学?成为数学2.What are the precise characteristics that make mathematics into a discipline that is so central to every advanced civilization, especially our own?Precise adj. 精确的,准确的译:到底是数学的哪些特性使得数学成为对每⼀种⾼等⽂明,数学成为对每⼀种⾼等⽂明,尤其是对我们现在的⽂明如此重要的学科?3.Many explanations have been attempted.对此,译:(对此,)我们已经试着做出了⼀些解释。

解释。

4.One of these sees mathematics as the ultimate in rational expression; in fact, the expression “the light of reason” could be used to refer to mathematics.Ultimate In fact Refer to n.终极,顶点事实上,实际上把…归因(于),认为…起源(于)译:有⼀种解释认为数学是⼀种终极的理性表达⽅式;⽽实际上,极的理性表达⽅式;⽽实际上,我们可以⽤“ 理性之光”们可以⽤ “ 理性之光 ” 这个说法来形容数学。

研究生科技英语阅读课文及课文翻译第五章

研究生科技英语阅读课文及课文翻译第五章

The end of e-mail ageEmail has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold -- services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate -- in ways we can only begin to imagine.We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet -- logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public'status' on the site telling the world so. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time.Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.'The whole idea of this email service isn't really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks,' says Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.So, how will these new tools change the way we communicate? Let's start with the most obvious: They make our interactions that much faster.Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cellphones aren't automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we're nearby. (A number of services already do this.)These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal -- more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. No need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. Now those friends, if they're interested, can watch it unfold in real time online. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do.Consider Twitter. The service allows users to send 140-character messages to people who have subscribed to see them, called followers. So instead of sending an email to friends announcing that you just got a new job, you can just tweet it for all the people who have chosen to 'follow' you to see. You can create links to particular users in messages by entering @ followed by their user name or send private 'direct messages' through the system by typing d and the user name.Facebook is part of the trend, too. Users post status updates that show up in their friends' 'streams.' They can also post links to content and comment on it. No in-box required.Dozens of other companies, from AOL and Yahoo Inc. to start-ups like Yammer Inc., are building products based on the same theme.David Liu, an executive at AOL, calls it replacing the in-box with 'a river that continues to flow as you dip into it.'But the speed and ease of communication cut both ways. While making communication more frequent, they can also make it less personal and intimate. Communicating is becoming so easy that the recipient knows how little time and thought was required of the sender. Yes, your half-dozen closest friends can read your vacation updates. But so can your 500 other 'friends.' And if you know all these people are reading your updates, you might say a lot less than you would otherwise.Another obvious downside to the constant stream: It's a constant stream.That can make it harder to determine the importance of various messages. When people can more easily fire off all sorts of messages -- from updates about their breakfast to questions about the evening's plans -- being able to figure out which messages are truly important, or even which warrant a response, can be difficult. Information overload can lead some people to tune out messages altogether.Such noise makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. Without software to help filter and organize based on factors we deem relevant, we'd drown in the deluge.Perhaps the biggest change that these email successors bring is more of a public profile for users. In the email world, you are your name followed by a 'dot-com.' That's it. In the new messaging world, you have a higher profile, packed with data you want to share and possibly some you don't.Such a public profile has its pluses and minuses. It can draw the people communicating closer, allowing them to exchange not only text but also all sorts of personal information, even facial cues. You know a lot about the person you are talking to, even before you've ever exchanged a single word.电子邮件作为通信之王经历了飞速发展。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译4

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译4

1 Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions, such as: is time travel possible? Can we open a portal to the past or find a shortcut to the future? Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become masters of time itself?大家好,我是斯蒂芬-霍金,是物理学家、宇宙学家及梦想家,尽管身体不能活动,只能通过电脑与大家交流,但从内心中我是自由的,自由地探索宇宙,思考以下重大问题:时间旅行是否可行?能否打开一个回到过去的通道,或找到通向未来的捷径?我们最终能否利用自然规律成为掌控时间的主人?2 To see how this might be possible, we need to look at time as physicists do - at the fourth dimension. It's not as hard as it sounds. Every attentive schoolchild knows that all physical objects, even me in my chair, exist in three dimensions. Everything has a width and a height and a length.为了让这一切从虚幻变成现实,我们应以物理学家的角度来重新审视时间——即第四维。

新世纪研究生公共英语教材阅读b原文翻译unit-10

新世纪研究生公共英语教材阅读b原文翻译unit-10

Unit 10 Is Science Dangerous? Uite10课文译文科学危险吗?Lewis Wolpert 刘易斯·沃尔珀特Does society need protecting from scientific advances? Most emphatically not, so long as scientists themselves and their employers are committed to full disclosure of what they know.人类社会需要保护以抵挡科学发展带来的危险吗?当然不需要,只要科学家及其雇主们致力于公开他们所知道的一切详情。

1. The idea that knowledge is dangerous is deeply embedded in our culture. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the biblical Tree of Knowledge, and in Milton’s Paradise Lost the ser pent addresses the Tree as the ―Mother of Science‖. The archangel Raphael advises Adam to be ―lowly wise‖when he tries to question him about the nature of the Universe. Indeed, Western literature is filled with images of scientists meddling with nature, with disastrous results. Scientists are portrayed as a soulless group, unconcerned with ethical issues.1.知识是危险的这一观念在我们的文化中根深蒂固。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译(1-10).

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译(1-10).

Unit 1 Genetically modified foods -- Feed the World?If you want to spark a heated debate at a dinner party, bring up the topic of genetically modified foods. For many people, the concept of genetically altered, high-tech crop production raises all kinds of environmental, health, safety and ethical questions. Particularly in countries with long agrarian traditions -- and vocal green lobbies -- the idea seems against nature.如果你想在某次晚宴上挑起一场激烈的争论,那就提出转基因食品的话题吧。

对许多人来说,高科技的转基因作物生产的概念会带来诸如环境、健康、安全和伦理等方面的各种问题。

特别是在有悠久的农业生产传统和主张环保的游说集团的国家里,转基因食品的主意似乎有悖自然。

In fact, genetically modified foods are already very much a part of our lives. A third of the corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the US last year were the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the US this year. The genetic is out of the bottle.事实上,转基因食品已经成为我们生活重要的一部分。

研究生科技英语阅读翻译2-10单元(全)

研究生科技英语阅读翻译2-10单元(全)

课文翻译21 10年之前当时在西澳大学的人类学家Nina Jalonski被要求做一项关于人类皮肤的演说。

作为灵长类进化研究的专家,她决定对肤色的进化史研讨一番,可是当她对课题进行文献研究时,结果却使她倍感失望。

在1970年之前的较为新的理论都存在种族主义,而另外的文献则相当缺乏说服力。

比如,有研究发表说白色皮肤可以更好的抵御寒冷。

1970年之后,研究人员渐渐认识到对于研究皮肤这样的课题变的无足轻重,因为这样的研究总是收获甚微。

Jalonski说:这个事实人人皆知,只是无人再议而已。

2 不久之后,Jablonski和她的丈夫Geoge Chaplin(一位地理信息系统专家)发表了第一份综合性肤色论。

该文章发表于人类进化日报中,该文章说明了肤色与全球光线强度之间存在强烈且可预测的关联。

但同时他们的发现也产生了一个深层次且令人吃惊的结论:肤色与维他命存在密切的联系。

3 作为加利福尼亚学术研究部门的领导,Jablonski首先假设我们最早的人类祖先有着与大猩猩(生物学角度最密切)类似的皮肤。

在450万年到200万年以前,早起人类从热带雨林中脱离,开始走向非洲东部大草原。

在以前的大草原上,人们不仅仅要更多的暴露于阳光下,而且他们忙于收集食物。

哺乳动物的大脑非常害怕过热,只需要5、6个级别的热量就能使他们中暑,因此我们祖先不得不发明更好的解暑办法。

4 答案很简单,那就是通过蒸发带走热量。

早起人类可能汗腺极少就像大猩猩一样,汗腺可能主要集中于他们的手掌中和脚底。

然而有时,某些个体会比通常的个体长更多汗腺。

这些汗腺更多的人,他们可以在热量驱逐他们躲在阴凉下之前有更长的时间去找食物。

因此他们能得到更多食物,使得他们能孕育更健康的后代,并且将发达的汗腺遗传给后代。

5 在几百万年的自然选择后,人类的身体上已经拥有大约200万个汗腺。

人类的皮肤相对于大猩猩的毛减少许多。

加利福尼亚大学的人类学家Adrienne Zihlaman 说:这样使得我们人类在沐浴后毛发干燥的更快。

科技英语阅读课文翻译

科技英语阅读课文翻译

第一单元什么是罗素悖论?约翰·T·鲍德温,奥利弗·莱斯曼撰胡志国译罗素悖论是建立在这样的实例基础之上的:想象有一群理发师,他们(给所有,而且)只给不给自己刮胡子的人刮胡子。

假设这个集体中有一个理发师,他不给自己刮胡子,那么,按照这个集体的定义,他就必须给自己刮胡子。

但这个集体中的任何理发师都不能给自己刮胡子。

(否则,他就是在给自己刮胡子的人刮胡子了。

)伯特兰·罗素1901年发现的这个悖论是对他的一位数学同行的打击。

十九世纪晚期,戈特洛布·弗雷格试图通过符号逻辑为所有的数学建立一个基础。

他在形式表达式(如x=2)和数学特征(如偶数)之间建立了一种对应关系。

在他的推导中,人们可以随意使用任何特征为后来的特征定义。

罗素在他1903年出版的《数学原理》中公布了自己的悖论,证明了弗雷格系统存在根本缺陷。

在今天看来,这类系统最好通过所谓的集的结构式用集合的概念来描述。

例如,对于由数字4、5、6组成的集体,我们可以描述为:x是一个整数的集体,若用字母n表示这些整数,则n大于3小于7。

对这一集合的描述,在形式上我们写作x={n: n为整数,3<n<7}。

集合的对象不一定是数字。

我们可以设y={x:x为美国男性居民}。

很明显,对x的任何描述都可以填入冒号后的区域。

但罗素(恩斯特·策梅洛也独立地)发现,x={a: a不属于a}会导致矛盾的结论,就像对理发师集体的描述一样。

x自身是否属于x?无论是与否,结论都是矛盾的。

罗素发现这一悖论之后,弗雷格马上认识到他的系统被全盘推翻了。

即便如此,他无法解决这个悖论,而为了绕开这个悖论,人们在二十世纪做了许多尝试。

罗素本人对这一悖论的回答是他的“类型论”。

他分析道,之所以会产生悖论,是因为我们混淆了对数的集合的描述与对数的集合的集合的描述。

于是罗素引入了对象的分级系统:数,数的集合,数的集合的集合,等等。

这个系统曾被作为手段用于对数学基础的第一次形式化,并且在今天的某些哲学研究和计算机分支学科中仍有运用。

科技英语课文翻译及课后答案

科技英语课文翻译及课后答案

第一单元自动化第二部分阅读A自动化的含义“自动化”已经是,而且现在仍然是,一个被大量滥用的词。

但是,人们对其确切的意义以及所包括的内容,正在逐渐地有了较为正确的了解。

如果不是下一个定义的话,我也许可以尝试作些解释,把自动化说成是一个概念。

运用这个概念,人们通过对机器装置的性能进行充分的测量、观察和控制,从而使其以最高的效率运转。

这需要对这种装置的功能有一个详细而连贯性的了解,以便需要时便能运用最佳的矫正操作。

自动化按其确切的意义,只有全面运用通信、计算和控制三个主要组成部分(“三C" )才能完全实现。

我认为,确保人们对合为一体的三个组成部分对我们的社会所蕴含着的某些意义有所认识和了解,是很有必要的。

首先,我们不妨考虑工业部门之一的炼钢工业。

在炼钢工业中,自动化已经开始成型。

到过钢厂的人都会知道从高炉开始的各种工艺流程的一些情况,成品条钢或板钢生产出来之后,再准备送往制造工艺车间或汽车厂,这些工艺流程是相互链接的。

为了使工厂中各个车间充分发挥效率,可以使用计算机来控制每个车间。

在此之前,计算机工作所需要的一切资料均输入机内。

就高炉来说,需要给计算机提供装人高炉的原料的信息、高炉工作温度的信息和处理各种各样配料的最好方法等方面的资料。

钢厂的高炉操作是一项复杂而要求技术熟练的作业,需要大量的知识和大量的综合信息,并迅速地做出判定选择,以便确保高炉工艺流程中的下一阶段的有效工作。

计算机对所有这一切都了解得很透彻,能够做出非常大量的中间判定,并且能够把全部信息立刻和不间断地提供给管理人员,以使他们做出高效管理这个工厂所需要的最后决定。

由此产生的信息数据和判定要进行处理,然后转送到下一个工序。

在这里,对操作的一些专门细节再次进行整理,提出最佳和最终的判定,然后对这些信息再一次进行处理并输送给下一道工序。

同时,当信息数据从生产单元的一道工序输送到下一工序并完全结合成为一项新的操作时,每次变化的结果反馈到最初阶段,而且,不断地做进一步的调整,结果是整个工厂的工艺流程便能够高效率地进行下去。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译10

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译10

1 Playing video games before bedtime may give people an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams, LiveScience has learned.LiveScience网站获悉,在睡觉之前玩视频游戏可以让人们有一种不寻常的清醒做梦和控制梦的水平。

2 That ability to shape the alternate reality of dream worlds might not match mind-bending Hollywood films such as "The Matrix," but it could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma.尽管这种塑造现实品梦境的能力与让令人费神才能理解的好莱坞电影《黑客帝国》不同,但它还是能为与噩梦和心理创伤斗争的提供一点优势。

3 Dreams and video games both represent alternate realities, according to Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada. But she pointed out that dreams arise biologically from the human mind, while video games are technologically driven by computers and gaming consoles.据加拿大Grant MacEwan大学的心理学家Jayne Gackenbach说,梦和视频游戏都代表另一种现实。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译3

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译3

Can Dirt Do A Little Good?1 Infants are enchanting all over the world, as the new movie 'Babies' shows. But their standards of hygiene sure vary.如最近一部电影《阳光宝贝》(Babies)所展现的,世界各地的宝宝都如此可爱迷人,但他们所处的卫生条件却各不相同。

2 The film captures the first year of life for four diverse babies. In a nomadic family in Namibia, Ponijao drinks from muddy streams, chews on dry bones and uses her many siblings' body parts as toys.影片追随四个身处不同地方的婴儿在这个世界上第一个年头里的生命历程。

彭力交(Ponijao)出生在纳米比亚(Namibia)一个游牧民族家庭,从小喝脏水,啃干骨头,和她的许许多多个兄弟姐妹们扭打,作为自己的玩耍方式。

3 On a small family farm in Mongolia, a rooster struts around little Bayar's bed, a goat drinks fromhis bathwater and livestock serve as babysitters.在蒙古国一个家庭小农场里,一只大公鸡在小小的巴亚尔(Bayar)的床边来回踱步,一只山羊过来喝他的洗澡水,周围的家畜就是照料他的保姆。

4 By contrast, Mari, growing up in high-rise, high-tech Tokyo, and Hattie, whose doting parents live a 'green' lifestyle in San Francisco, both have modern conveniences and sanitation.与此形成鲜明对比的是,玛丽(Mari)出生在高楼林立的科技之城东京,海蒂(Hattie) 的父母将其视为掌上明珠,在旧金山过着“绿色”的生活方式,两个孩子都享受着便捷的现代生活和干净的卫生环境。

中科院博士研究生英语精读-课文翻译及原文

中科院博士研究生英语精读-课文翻译及原文

中科院博士研究生英语精读-课文翻译及原文第1课知识的悖论The Paradox of KnowledgeThe greatest achievement of humankind in its long evolution from ancient hominoid ancestors to its present status is the acquisition and accumulation of a vast body of knowledge about itself, the world, and the universe. The products of this knowledge are all those things that, in the aggregate, we call "civilization," including language, science, literature, art, all the physical mechanisms, instruments, and structures we use, and the physical infrastructures on which society relies. Most of us assume that in modern society knowledge of all kinds is continually increasing and the aggregation of new information into the corpus of our social or collective knowledge is steadily reducing the area of ignorance about ourselves, the world, and the universe. But continuing reminders of the numerous areas of our present ignorance invite a critical analysis of this assumption.In the popular view, intellectual evolution is similar to, although much more rapid than, somatic evolution. Biological evolution is often described by the statement that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"--meaning that the individual embryo, in its development from a fertilized ovum into a human baby, passes through successive stages in which it resembles ancestral forms of the human species. The popular view is that humankind has progressed from a state of innocent ignorance, comparable to that of an infant, and gradually has acquired more and more knowledge, much as a child learns in passing through the several grades of the educational system. Implicit in this view is an assumption that phylogeny resembles ontogeny, so that there will ultimately be a stage in which the accumulation ofknowledge is essentially complete, at least in specific fields, as if society had graduated with all the advanced degrees that signify mastery of important subjects.Such views have, in fact, been expressed by some eminent scientists. In 1894 the great American physicist Albert Michelson said in a talk at the University of Chicago:While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice .... The future truths of Physical Science ate to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.In the century since Michelson's talk, scientists have discovered much more than the refinement of measurements in the sixth decimal place, and none is willing to make a similar statement today. However, many still cling to the notion that such astate of knowledge remains a possibility to be attained sooner or later. Stephen Hawking, the great English scientist, in his immensely popular book A Brief History of Time (1988), concludes with the speculation that we may "discover a complete theory" that "would be the ultimate triumph of human reason--for then we would know the mind of God." Paul Davies, an Australian physicist, echoes that view by suggesting that the human mind may be able to grasp some of the secrets encompassed by the title of his book The Mind of God (1992). Other contemporary scientists write of "theories of everything," meaning theories that explain all observable physicalphenomena, and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, one of the founders of the current standard model of physical theory, writes of his Dreams of a Final Theory (1992).Despite the eminence and obvious yearning of these and many other contemporary scientists, there is nothing in the history of science to suggest that any addition of data or theories to the body of scientific knowledge will ever provide answers to all questions in any field. On the contrary, the history of science indicates that increasing knowledge brings awareness of new areas of ignorance and of new questions to be answered.Astronomy is the most ancient of the sciences, and its development is a model of other fields of knowledge. People have been observing the stars and other celestial bodies since the dawn of recorded history. As early as 3000 B.C. the Babylonians recognized a number of the constellations. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras proposed the notion of a spherical Earth and of a universe with objects in it chat moved in accordance with natural laws. Later Greek philosophers taught that the sky was a hollow globe surrounding the Earth, that it was supported on an axis running through the Earth, and chat stars were inlaid on its inner surface, which rotated westward daily. In the second century A.D., Ptolemy propounded a theory of a geocentric (Earth-centered) universe in which the sun, planets, and stars moved in circular orbits of cycles and epicycles around the Earth, although the Earth was not at the precise center of these orbits. While somewhat awkward, the Ptolemaic system could produce reasonably reliable predictions of planetary positions, which were, however, good for only a few years and which developed substantial discrepancies from actual observations over a long period of time. Nevertheless, sincethere was no evidence then apparent to astronomers that the Earth itself moves, the Ptolemaic system remained unchallenged for more than 13 centuries.In the sixteenth century Nocolaus Copernicus, who is said to have mastered all the knowledge of his day in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and theology, became dissatisfied with the Ptolemaic system. He found that a heliocentric system was both mathematically possible and aesthetically more pleasing, and wrote a full exposition of his hypothesis, which was not published until 1543, shortly after his death. Early in the seventeenth century, Johannes Kepler became imperial mathematician of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of Tycho Brahe, and he acquired a collection of meticulous naked-eye observations of the positions of celestial bodies chat had been made by Brahe. On the basis of these data, Kepler calculated that both Ptolemy and Copernicus were in error in assuming chat planets traveled in circular orbits, and in 1609 he published a book demonstrating mathematically chat the planets travel around the sun in elliptical orbits. Kepler's laws of planetary motion are still regarded as basically valid.In the first decade of the seventeenth century Galileo Galilei learned of the invention of the telescope and began to build such instruments, becoming the first person to use a telescope for astronomical observations, and thus discovering craters on the moon, phases of Venus, and the satellites of Jupiter. His observations convinced him of the validity of the Copernican system and resulted in the well-known conflict between Galileo and church authorities. In January 1642 Galileo died, and in December of chat year Isaac Newton was born. Modern science derives largely from the work of these two men.Newton's contributions to science are numerous. He laid the foundations for modem physical optics, formulated the basic laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, and devised the infinitesimal calculus. Newton's laws of motion and gravitation are still used for calculations of such matters as trajectories of spacecraft and satellites and orbits of planets. In 1846, relying on such calculations as a guide to observation, astronomers discovered the planet Neptune.While calculations based on Newton's laws are accurate, they are dismayingly complex when three or more bodies are involved. In 1915, Einstein announced his theory of general relativity, which led to a set of differential equations for planetary orbits identical to those based on Newtonian calculations, except for those relating to the planet Mercury. The elliptical orbit of Mercury rotates through the years, but so slowly that the change of position is less than one minute of arc each century. The equations of general relativity precisely accounted for this precession; Newtonian equations did not.Einstein's equations also explained the red shift in the light from distant stars and the deflection of starlight as it passed near the sun. However, Einstein assumed chat the universe was static, and, in order to permit a meaningful solution to the equations of relativity, in 1917 he added another term, called a "cosmological constant," to the equations. Although the existence and significance of a cosmological constant is stillbeing debated, Einstein later declared chat this was a major mistake, as Edwin Hubble established in the 1920s chat the universe is expanding and galaxies are receding from one another at a speed proportionate to their distance.Another important development in astronomy grew out ofNewton's experimentation in optics, beginning with his demonstration chat sunlight could be broken up by a prism into a spectrum of different colors, which led to the science of spectroscopy. In the twentieth century, spectroscopy was applied to astronomy to gun information about the chemical and physical condition of celestial bodies chat was not disclosed by visual observation. In the 1920s, precise photographic photometry was introduced to astronomy and quantitative spectrochemical analysis became common. Also during the 1920s, scientists like Heisenberg, de Broglie, Schrodinger, and Dirac developed quantum mechanics, a branch of physics dealing with subatomic particles of matter and quanta of energy. Astronomers began to recognize that the properties of celestial bodies, including planets, could be well understood only in terms of physics, and the field began to be referred to as "astrophysics."These developments created an explosive expansion in our knowledge of astronomy. During the first five thousand years or more of observing the heavens, observation was confined to the narrow band of visible light. In the last half of this century astronomical observations have been made across the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays, and from satellites beyond the atmosphere. It is no exaggeration to say chat since the end of World War II more astronomical data have been gathered than during all of the thousands of years of preceding human history.However, despite all improvements in instrumentation, increasing sophistication of analysis and calculation augmented by the massive power of computers, and the huge aggregation of data, or knowledge, we still cannot predict future movements of planets and other elements of even the solar system with ahigh degree of certainty. Ivars Peterson, a highly trained science writer and an editor of Science News, writes in his book Newton's Clock (1993) that a surprisingly subtle chaos pervades the solar system. He states:In one way or another the problem of the solar system's stability has fascinated and tormented asrtonomers and mathematicians for more than 200 years. Somewhat to the embarrassment of contemporary experts, it remains one of the most perplexing, unsolved issues in celestial mechanics. Each step toward resolving this and related questions has only exposed additional uncertainties and even deeper mysteries.Similar problems pervade astronomy. The two major theories of cosmology,general relativity and quantum mechanics, cannot be stated in the same mathematical language, and thus are inconsistent with one another, as the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories were in the sixteenth century, although both contemporary theories continue to be used, but for different calculations. Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, in The Emperors New Mind (1989), contends that this inconsistency requires a change in quantum theory to provide a new theory he calls "correct quantum gravity."Furthermore, the observations astronomers make with new technologies disclose a total mass in the universe that is less than about 10 percent of the total mass that mathematical calculations require the universe to contain on the basis of its observed rate of expansion. If the universe contains no more mass than we have been able to observe directly, then according to all current theories it should have expanded in the past, and be expanding now, much more rapidly than the rate actually observed. It istherefore believed that 90 percent or more of the mass in the universe is some sort of "dark matter" that has not yet been observed and the nature of which is unknown. Current theories favor either WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) or MACHOs (massive compact halo objects). Other similar mysteries abound and increase in number as our ability to observe improves.The progress of biological and life sciences has been similar to that of the physical sciences, except that it has occurred several centuries later. The theory of biological evolution first came to the attention of scientists with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. But Darwin lacked any explanation of the causes of variation and inheritance of characteristics. These were provided by Gregor Mendel, who laid the mathematical foundation of genetics with the publication of papers in 1865 and 1866.Medicine, according to Lewis Thomas, is the youngest science, having become truly scientific only in the 1930s. Recent and ongoing research has created uncertainty about even such basic concepts as when and how life begins and when death occurs, and we are spending billions in an attempt to learn how much it may be possible to know about human genetics. Modern medicine has demonstrably improved both our life expectancies and our health, and further improvements continue to be made as research progresses. But new questions arise even more rapidly than our research resources grow, as the host of problems related to the Human Genome Project illustrates.From even such an abbreviated and incomplete survey of science as this, it appears that increasing knowledge does not result in a commensurate decrease in ignorance, but, on thecontrary, exposes new lacunae in our comprehension and confronts us with unforeseen questions disclosing areas of ignorance of which wewere not previously aware.Thus the concept of science as an expanding body of knowledge that will eventually encompass or dispel all significant areas of ignorance is an illusion. Scientists and philosophers are now observing that it is naive to regard science as a process that begins with observations that are organized into theories and are then subsequently tested by experiments. The late Karl Popper, a leading philosopher of science, wrote in The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1960) chat science starts from problems, not from observations, and chat every worthwhile new theory raises new problems. Thus there is no danger that science will come to an end because it has completed its task, clanks to the "infinity of our ignorance."At least since Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), it has been generally recognized that observations are the result of theories (called paradigms by Kuhn and other philosophers), for without theories of relevance and irrelevance there would be no basis for determining what observations to make. Since no one can know everything, to be fully informed on any subject (a claim sometimes made by those in authority) is simply to reach a judgment that additional data are not important enough to be worth the trouble of securing or considering.To carry the analysis another step, it must be recognized that theories are the result of questions and questions are the product of perceived ignorance. Thus it is chat ignorance gives rise to inquiry chat produces knowledge, which, in turn, discloses newareas of ignorance. This is the paradox of knowledge: As knowledge increases so does ignorance, and ignorance may increase more than its related knowledge.My own metaphor to illustrate the relationship of knowledge and ignorance is based on a line from Matthew Arnold: "For we are here as on a darkling plain...." The dark chat surrounds us, chat, indeed, envelops our world, is ignorance. Knowledge is the illumination shed by whatever candles (or more technologically advanced light sources) we can provide. As we light more and more figurative candles, the area of illumination enlarges; but the area beyond illumination increases geometrically. We know chat there is much we don't know; but we cannot know how much there is chat we don't know. Thus knowledge is finite, but ignorance is infinite, and the finite cannot ever encompass the infinite.This is a revised version of an article originally published in COSMOS 1994. Copyright 1995 by Lee Loevinger.Lee Loevinger is a Washington lawyer and former assistant attorney general of the United States who writes frequently for scientific c publications. He hasparticipated for many years as a member, co-chair, or liaison with the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, and he is a founder and former chair of the Science and Technology Section of the American Bar Association. Office address: Hogan and Hartson, 555 Thirteenth St. NW, Washington, DC 20004.人类从古类人猿进化到当前的状态这个长久的进化过程中的最大成就是有关于人类自身、世界以及宇宙众多知识的获得和积聚。

研究生科技英语阅读课文及课文翻译第五章

研究生科技英语阅读课文及课文翻译第五章

The end of e-mail ageEmail has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold -- services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate -- in ways we can only begin to imagine.We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet -- logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public'status' on the site telling the world so. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time.Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.'The whole idea of this email service isn't really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks,' says Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.So, how will these new tools change the way we communicate? Let's start with the most obvious: They make our interactions that much faster.Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cellphones aren't automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we're nearby. (A number of services already do this.)These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal -- more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. No need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. Now those friends, if they're interested, can watch it unfold in real time online. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do.Consider Twitter. The service allows users to send 140-character messages to people who have subscribed to see them, called followers. So instead of sending an email to friends announcing that you just got a new job, you can just tweet it for all the people who have chosen to 'follow' you to see. You can create links to particular users in messages by entering @ followed by their user name or send private 'direct messages' through the system by typing d and the user name.Facebook is part of the trend, too. Users post status updates that show up in their friends' 'streams.' They can also post links to content and comment on it. No in-box required.Dozens of other companies, from AOL and Yahoo Inc. to start-ups like Yammer Inc., are building products based on the same theme.David Liu, an executive at AOL, calls it replacing the in-box with 'a river that continues to flow as you dip into it.'But the speed and ease of communication cut both ways. While making communication more frequent, they can also make it less personal and intimate. Communicating is becoming so easy that the recipient knows how little time and thought was required of the sender. Yes, your half-dozen closest friends can read your vacation updates. But so can your 500 other 'friends.' And if you know all these people are reading your updates, you might say a lot less than you would otherwise.Another obvious downside to the constant stream: It's a constant stream.That can make it harder to determine the importance of various messages. When people can more easily fire off all sorts of messages -- from updates about their breakfast to questions about the evening's plans -- being able to figure out which messages are truly important, or even which warrant a response, can be difficult. Information overload can lead some people to tune out messages altogether.Such noise makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. Without software to help filter and organize based on factors we deem relevant, we'd drown in the deluge.Perhaps the biggest change that these email successors bring is more of a public profile for users. In the email world, you are your name followed by a 'dot-com.' That's it. In the new messaging world, you have a higher profile, packed with data you want to share and possibly some you don't.Such a public profile has its pluses and minuses. It can draw the people communicating closer, allowing them to exchange not only text but also all sorts of personal information, even facial cues. You know a lot about the person you are talking to, even before you've ever exchanged a single word.电子邮件作为通信之王经历了飞速发展。

科技英语阅读课文翻译-Unit3

科技英语阅读课文翻译-Unit3

Unit 3当所以人的朋友,是私人的事情吗脸谱网有一个重要的隐私人员,但是我怀疑他将从现在存在10年。

那不是因为脸谱不顾一切去掉隐私保护,但由于脸谱和其他社交网站的普及促进了共享个人的一切事物,消除了从公共分离出私事的结点。

由于共享的个人信息的范围扩展到,几个朋友一起归入脸谱的许多杂项的个人的“朋友”标签中,披露的事情成为很常态和私人的事情变得古怪和不合时宜。

脸谱的年轻成员,是那些高中生或者大学生,以及脸谱开始出现在校园里的时候那些舒适共享任何东西分应届毕业生。

它的老成员是仅仅在2006年打开网络工作场所后加入的。

任何人都调整到一个新的善于自我表达超过沉默的价值体系。

脸谱表示它有1.75亿会员,是世界上最大的社会网络。

但在美国,大多数成员都还比较年轻。

脸谱提供广告给5440万成员的目标,且不分年龄人人共享。

但是,如果广告客户想缩小它的目标观众到那些25岁或更老的,数量就会下降到2880万。

它缩小到30或以上岁数的人,脸谱只有仅仅提供2030万。

许多超过30 岁的人尚未注册,因此脸谱有一个惊人的增长机会。

每个星期,新成员是在美国以百万和全球范围会员和个人网络的增长,似乎不受公司在其短暂的五年历史的失态的影响。

其中的一个实例是在二月,当它与它的服务条款拨弄时。

新的语言似乎断言脸谱“不可撤销”的权利是去保留和使用一个成员的个人信息。

即使成员已经关闭了他或她的脸谱帐户,也应该多一点编辑。

这个强烈抗议是大声的,仅仅一些成员需要增加他们的声音去创建一个喧嚣声,然后脸谱恢复旧的语言。

几天后,它为公司和另一项权利和责任的草案,提供了一个草案原则,对将被批准的成员。

脸谱提供给成员很多隐私选项。

我算43个可以调整的设置,不包括一堆限制的、可以看出一个人的脸谱朋友安装软件应用程序的信息。

脸谱的默认设置是为在某些方面的新的帐户保护用户。

例如,在一个人的个人资料只限于朋友和其他人的学校,工作场所或地理网络。

它不是朋友的朋友访问。

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译10教学文案

研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译10教学文案

1 Playing video games before bedtime may give people an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams, LiveScience has learned.LiveScience网站获悉,在睡觉之前玩视频游戏可以让人们有一种不寻常的清醒做梦和控制梦的水平。

2 That ability to shape the alternate reality of dream worlds might not match mind-bending Hollywood films such as "The Matrix," but it could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma.尽管这种塑造现实品梦境的能力与让令人费神才能理解的好莱坞电影《黑客帝国》不同,但它还是能为与噩梦和心理创伤斗争的提供一点优势。

3 Dreams and video games both represent alternate realities, according to Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada. But she pointed out that dreams arise biologically from the human mind, while video games are technologically driven by computers and gaming consoles.据加拿大Grant MacEwan大学的心理学家Jayne Gackenbach说,梦和视频游戏都代表另一种现实。

新世纪研究生公共英语阅读B第十二单元课文翻译

新世纪研究生公共英语阅读B第十二单元课文翻译

雷华德•加德纳科技在学校里发起了一场革命。

教育界人士应该迎头赶上,积极应变了。

1. 如果真有一个人能够神奇地从一九零零年来到我们现在这个时代,那么他对于今天教室里的情形大多觉得似曾相识——上课方式一成不变、练习重视有加、材料脱离上下文、课堂活动不是枯燥无味的阅读就是每周一次的拼写测验。

可能除了教堂外,没有哪个机构会象肩负着下一代人的正规教育责任的学校一样根本没有发生变化。

2. 学校里静如止水,跟围墙外面孩子的经历形成了极大的反差。

在现代社会里,孩子得以接触到各种各样的媒体:电视机、移动电话、带有光盘驱动器的个人电脑、传真机、影碟、个人立体音响、照相机、摄影机——早些年这些东西简直让人难以想象。

(在工业化程度不那么发达的国家或地区,它们仍然令人诧异不已。

)3. 旧时代的人可以轻而易举地辨认出今天的课堂,但却很难理解现代社会十岁孩子的校外世界。

说老实话,我自己经常遇到那样的困难。

4. 如果不把学校教育视作泛指意义的教育,那么它本来就应该是比较保守的。

我还是很赞同这种保守思想的。

但当今世界的变化实在是太快、太重要了。

学校不可能老是维持过去的样子或只是做一点表面的调整。

真的,如果学校不能快速从根本上改变自己,就可能会被其它积极应变的机构所代替(虽然那些机构也许还不够舒适、不够合法)。

5. 当今时代最重要的科技大事就是电脑主宰一切。

从通讯传输到个人簿记及娱乐方式,电脑在生活的许多方面已经起到了很重要的作用。

许多学校几乎没有注意到这个趋势,直到现在才购买电脑,建立网络。

虽然经常是用更为便捷有效的工具去上同样的课,但不妨这么说,科技产品已经渗入了校园生活。

6. 然而将来的教育大多是要围绕电脑进行的。

电脑允许有一定的个性化——个人辅导或学习——过去只有有钱人才能这么做。

现在学生上课可以根据他们的需要、学习方式、进度和学习情况及过往的成绩来量身定做。

确实如此,有史以来第一次,电脑可以帮助我们实现面向全世界学生的“个性化”和“积极亲身学习”的教育革新思想。

科技英语阅读课文翻译UNIT1-8

科技英语阅读课文翻译UNIT1-8

科技英语阅读1-8单元译文:Unit 1罗素悖论的提出是基于这样的一个事例:设想有这样一群理发师,他们只给不给自己理发的人理发。

假设其中一个理发师符合上述的条件,不给自己理发;然而按照要求,他必须要给自己理发。

但是在这个集合中没有人会给自己理发。

(如果这样的话,这个理发师必定是给别人理发还要给自己理发)1901年,伯特兰·罗素悖论的发现打击了他其中的一个数学家同事。

在19世纪后期,弗雷格尝试发展一个基本原理以便数学上能使用符号逻辑。

他确立了形式表达式(如:x =2)和数学特性(如偶数)之间的联系。

按照弗雷格理论的发展,我们能自由的用一个特性去定义更多更深远的特性。

1903年,发表在《数学原理》上的罗素悖论从根本上揭示了弗雷格这种集合系统的局限性。

就现在而言,这种类型的集合系统能很好的用俗称集的结构式来描述。

例如,我们可以用x代表整数,通过n 来表示并且n大于3小于7,来表示4,5,6这样一个集合。

这种集合的书写形势就是:x={n:n是整数,3<n<7}。

集合中的对象并不一定是数字。

我们也可让y={x:x是美国的一个男性居民}。

表面上看,似乎任何一个关于x的描述都有一个符合要求的空间。

但是,罗素(和策梅洛一起)发现x={a:a不再a中}导致一个矛盾,就像对一群理发师的描述一样。

x它本身是在x的集合中吗?否定的答案导致了矛盾的出现。

当罗素发现了悖论,弗雷格立即就发现悖论对他的理论有致命的打击。

尽管这样,他还不能解决这个问题,并且上世纪有很多的尝试,去解决这个问题(但没有成功)。

罗素自己对这个悖论的回答促进了类型理论的形成。

他解释说,悖论的问题在于我们混淆了数集和数集的集合。

所以,罗素介绍了对象的分级系统:数、数集、数集的集合等等。

这个系统为形式化数学的形成奠定了基础,至今它还应用于哲学研究和计算机科学分支。

策梅洛对于罗素悖论的解决方法用新的公理:对于任意公式A(x)和任意集合b,都会有一个集合满足y={x:x既在b中又满足A(x)}取代了以前的公理:对于任意公式A(x),都会有一个集合满足y={x:x满足A(x)}。

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Genetically modified foods -- Feed the World?If you want to spark a heated debate at a dinner party, bring up the topic of genetically modified foods. For many people, the concept of genetically altered, high-tech crop production raises all kinds of environmental, health, safety and ethical questions. Particularly in countries with long agrarian traditions -- and vocal green lobbies -- the idea seems against nature.如果你想在某次晚宴上挑起一场激烈的争论,那就提出转基因食品的话题吧。

对许多人来说,高科技的转基因作物生产的概念会带来诸如环境、健康、安全和伦理等方面的各种问题。

特别是在有悠久的农业生产传统和主张环保的游说集团的国家里,转基因食品的主意似乎有悖自然。

In fact, genetically modified foods are already very much a part of our lives. A third of the corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the US last year were the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the US this year. The genetic is out of the bottle. 事实上,转基因食品已经成为我们生活重要的一部分。

根据农业部的统计,美国去年所种植玉米的1/3,大豆和棉花的一半以上都是生物技术的产物。

今年,美国将种植6500多万英亩的转基因作物。

基因妖怪已经从瓶子里跑出来了。

Yet there are clearly some very real issues that need to be resolved. Like any new product entering the food chain, genetically modified foods must be subjected to rigorous testing. In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is tempered by the fact that we have a rich array of foods to choose from -- and a supply that far exceeds our needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations; the issue is simpler and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks?但是,显然还有一些非常现实的问题需要解决。

就像任何一种要进入食物链的新食品一样,转基因食品必须经过严格的检验。

在富裕的国家里,由于有大量丰富的食品可供选择,而且供应远远超过需求,所以关于生物技术的争论相对缓和一些。

在迫切想要养活其迅速增长而又吃不饱的人口的发展中国家,问题比较简单,也更加紧迫:生物技术的好处是否大于风险呢?The statistics on population growth and hunger are disturbing. Last year the world's population reached 6 billion. And by 2050, the UN estimates, it will probably near 9 billion. Almost all that growth will occur in developing countries. At the same time, the world's available cultivable land per person is declining. Arable land has declined steadily since 1960 and will decease byhalf over the next 50 years, according to the International Service for the Acquisition ofAgri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA).关于人口增长和饥饿的统计数字读来令人感到不安。

去年,世界人口达到了60亿。

联合国预测,到2D0年,这个数字很可能将接近90亿,而增加的人口几乎都来自发展中国家。

与此同时,世界人均耕地正在减少。

国际农业生物工程应用技术采购管理局(ISAAA)称,自1960年以来,耕地面积一直持续下降,并将在今后50年减少一半。

The UN estimates that nearly 800 million people around the world are undernourished. The effects are devastating. About 400 million women of childbearing age are iron deficient, which means their babies are exposed to various birth defects. As many as 100 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a leading cause of blindness. Tens of millions of people suffer from other major ailments and nutritional deficiencies caused by lack of food.联合国估计,世界上有近8亿人口营养不良。

它产生的效应是破坏性的。

大约有4亿的育龄妇女体内缺铁,也就是说,她们的婴儿将可能有各种天生的缺陷。

数量多达1亿的儿童缺乏维生素A,这是导致失明的主要原因。

还有数千万的人患有因食物匮乏而导致的其他严重疾病和营养不良症。

How can biotech help? Biotechnologists have developed genetically modified rice that is fortified with beta-carotene -- which the body converts into vitamin A -- and additional iron, and they are working on other kinds of nutritionally improved crops. Biotech can also improve farming productivity in places where food shortages are caused by crop damage attribution to pests, drought, poor soil and crop viruses, bacteria or fungi.生物技术对此能做些什么呢?生物技术专家已经培育出了含有β—胡萝卜素(身体可将之转化为维生素A)和更多铁元素的转基因水稻,目前正在研究培育其他一些增进营养成分的农作物。

生物技术还可以帮助提高因虫害、干旱、土壤贫瘠和作物病毒、细菌或真菌导致作物减产而出现食物匮乏的地区的农业生产率。

Damage caused by pests is incredible. The European corn borer, for example, destroys 40 million tons of the world's corn crop annually, about 7% of the total. Incorporatingpest-resistant genes into seeds can help restore the balance. In trials of pest-resistant cotton in Africa, yields have increased significantly. So far, fears that genetically modified,pest-resistant crops might kill good insects as well as bad appear unfounded.虫害带来的损失令人难以置信。

例如,欧洲玉米螟每年毁掉4000万吨玉米,占世界玉米总产量的7%。

把抗虫害的基因植入种子可以帮助避免这一损失。

在非洲进行的抗虫害棉花试验中,棉花的产量已大幅度提高。

有人担心,抗虫害的转基因作物不仅将害虫杀死,而且有可能连益虫也一起杀死,但到目前为止,这种担心似乎没有根据。

Viruses often cause massive failure in staple crops in developing countries. Two years age, Africa lost more than half its cassava crop -- a key source of calories -- to the mosaic virus. Genetically modified, virus-resistant crops can reduce that damage, as can drought-tolerant seeds in regions where water shortages limit the amount of land under cultivation. Biotech can also help solve the problem of soil that contains excess aluminum, which can damage roots and cause many staple-crop failures. A gene that helps neutralize aluminum toxicity in rice has been identified.病毒常常在发展中国家造成主要粮食作物的大面积歉收。

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