英文長篇文章帶翻譯

　　閱讀在學習者的二語學習中佔有著非常重要的地位，它是學習者獲得資訊的主要渠道，也是幫助學習者提高其他語言技能的基礎。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!

　　古代生態系統中的線索

　　Science and Technology Palaeontology Remember the tooth

　　科技古生物學牙齒的痕跡

　　A link is made in an ancient ecosystem

　　古代生態系統中的線索

　　WHO ate whom in the food chains of the past is rarely clear.

　　在古代誰以吃誰為生是不清楚的。

　　Though it is obvious which species were predators and which prey, the subtle specialisations of feeding habit that allow many types of carnivore to co-exist are rarely preserved in the fossil record.

　　儘管誰是捕食者和誰是獵物是很明顯的,但是專門的微妙的捕食習慣,能讓多種食肉動物能夠共存的資料很少有儲存完好的化石記錄。

　　Rarely, but not never.

　　很少有記錄不表示沒有。

　　That is why the recent discovery of a Jurassic ammonite with a shark's tooth embedded in its shell has excited palaeontologists.

　　這就是為什麼最近發現侏羅紀菊石，連同殼上面的鯊魚牙齒讓古生物學家非常興奮。

　　The ammonite in question, Orthaspidoceras, a species that thrived 155m years ago, was part of the collection of an amateur who did not realise the significance of what he had found.

　　發現的鸚鵡螺是,一種叫Orthaspidoceras的生活在一億五千五百萬年前的生物，化石是由業餘愛好者收藏的，他沒有意識到他發現的化石的意義。

　　Romain Vullo of the University of Rennes, however, did-and he has brought the discovery to the attention of the scientific world in the pages of Naturwissenschaften.

　　法國雷恩大學的Romain Vullo卻明白，而他在《自然科學》雜誌上的幾頁論文吸引了科學界的注意。

　　Ammonites were both predators and prey.

　　鸚鵡螺既是捕食者也是獵物。

　　They occupied a position in the Mesozoic oceans similar to that of modern squid.

　　他們生活在中生代的海洋中，跟現代烏賊相似。

　　Like squid, they were swimming tentacled molluscs-a group called the cephalopods.

　　跟烏賊一樣，鸚鵡螺是遊動的有觸鬚的軟體動物，屬於頭足綱動物。

　　Unlike squid, though, they had protective shells.

　　不像烏賊,鸚鵡螺有保護殼。

　　These shells were divided internally into gas-filled chambers.

　　這些保護殼的裡面有充滿氣體的分隔小室。

　　The result had neutral buoyancy, allowing the animal to move like squid by jet propulsion.

　　結果就是鸚鵡螺有浮力,讓其像噴氣發動機推進一樣的運動，這點跟烏賊一樣。

　　Modern pearly nautiluses, whose relationship to ammonites is much debated, have a similar arrangement.

　　現代珍珠一樣的鸚鵡螺跟遠古鸚鵡螺的親緣關係儘管還有待驗證，但是現代鸚鵡螺也有類似的充氣推進機制。

　　What ammonites-or, at least, some of them-ate became clear earlier this year when an X-ray showed a small crustacean in the jaws of a species called Baculites.

　　鸚鵡螺吃什麼的問題今年有了答案，x光顯示杆鸚鵡螺的咽喉中有小甲殼類動物的痕跡。

　　But what ate ammonites has never been shown in such an unambiguous manner.

　　但是什麼吃鸚鵡螺從來沒有像現在一樣模稜兩可。

　　Some ammonite fossils have tooth marks that look as though they were made by huge reptilian predators called mosasaurs.

　　一些鸚鵡螺化石上有牙印，看上去彷彿是巨大爬蟲類捕食者比如滄龍留下的。

　　Some appear to have been attacked by the beaks of other cephalopods.

　　有些牙印似乎是被其他頭足綱攻擊的痕跡。

　　And some seem to have been bitten by sharks.

　　有些牙印似乎是鯊魚留下的。

　　On top of that, coprolites, as palaeontologists politely describe fossil faeces, have turned up with ammonite shells in them.

　　最重要的是,對古生物學家禮貌地描述中的糞化石的研究表明，有些糞便中有鸚鵡螺的殼。

　　Based on comparisons with modern evacua, these are probably from sharks.

　　隨著現代技術的發展，研究表明這些糞便來自於鯊魚。

　　But which sharks? Dr Vullo's ammonite nails one culprit.

　　但是哪種鯊魚吃鸚鵡螺呢?Vullo博士的化石標本確定了其中的一個罪魁禍首。

　　The tooth belongs to a species called Planohybodus.

　　化石中鸚鵡螺外殼上的牙齒屬於一種叫做平弓鯊的物種。

　　And that is a surprise.

　　這是一個驚喜的發現。

　　Those modern sharks that eat shelled animals have robust teeth for crunching through hard exteriors.

　　覓食有殼動物的現代鯊魚通常長著強壯的牙齒，可以咬穿堅硬的外殼。

　　The teeth of Planohybodus, in contrast, were slender and pointed-the sort usually associated with grasping and tearing at flesh.

　　相反，平弓鯊的牙齒,是那種纖細而突出的，一般讓人聯想到抓住和撕裂肉。

　　In a modern predator, that would indicate the habit of eating fish.

　　在現代掠食者中,擁有這種牙齒意味著習慣吃魚。

　　That a shark with teeth like this would try to make a meal of an ammonite is, at first sight, odd.

　　長著這樣牙齒的鯊魚,會試圖吃掉鸚鵡螺，美餐一頓的理論,乍一看有點古怪。

　　But second thoughts provide a possible explanation.

　　但想一想就有了合理的解釋。

　　Ammonites' manoeuvrability would have depended crucially on their buoyancy control.

　　鸚鵡螺的靈活性主要建立在浮力控制上面的。

　　Even a small puncture to the shell, which a pointed tooth would be well able to deliver, would let the water in and cause that control to vanish.

　　即使是殼上的一個小洞,可能就是這樣尖牙造成的,就會讓水進入殼內,鸚鵡螺從而無法控制浮力。

　　Since ammonites could not withdraw entirely into their shells for self-defence, it would then just be a question of dragging the creature out of its chamber in order to eat it.

　　鸚鵡螺不能完全縮回外殼內自衛,於是就很可能就會被從外殼中拽出，成了其他生物的美食。

　　And for that, sharp, pointed teeth are ideal.

　　這樣說來，鋒利的尖牙是完美的武器。

　　進化並不總是意味著改變

　　A new fossil shows that evolution does not always mean change

　　一個新的化石表明：進化並不總是意味著改變

　　WHEN a coelacanth, a type of lobe-finned fish once considered the missing link between fish and amphibians, was found off the coast of South Africa in 1938, it came as a shock to palaeontologists. Until then, the most recent traces of such a creature had been in rocks dating from the last days of the dinosaurs, 65m years ago. It was, in its way, as surprising as if a live Tyrannosaurus had been found hiding in an obscure part of Montana. Now the same experience is hitting palaeontologists again—but this time in reverse. Instead of finding a "living fossil" identical to an ancient beast, they have found a real fossil identical to a modern one.

　　以前人們一度認為一種叫做腔棘魚的鰭魚是魚類和兩棲類之間缺少的環節，1938年當腔棘魚在南非海岸沿海被發現時，古生物學家對它的出現大感震驚。在此之前，這種動物最近的遺蹟出現在6500萬年前恐龍時代後期的岩層中。而它這次的出現方式，就好像一個活生生的霸王龍屬被發現藏身在蒙大拿州的模糊地帶一樣令人驚訝。現在，同樣的經歷再次讓古生物學家碰上了，不過這次相反。他們不是找到了一個與古獸相同的"活化石"，而是找到了一個跟現代獸類相同的真正化石。

　　The fossil in question, a 100m-year-old specimen from north-east Brazil, belongs to the genus Schizodactylus. These are large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects whose feet splay out wildly in different directions. Modern Schizodactylus use their feet like snowshoes, to help them remain stable as they travel over sandy terrain in search of prey.

　　所討論的的化石採自巴西東北部，是一億年前的標本，屬於節肢動物類。這類節肢動物是大型類似板球的食肉昆蟲，其足向不同方向伸展開來。現代節肢動物在沙地爬行尋找獵物時用它們雪鞋般的腳來幫助身體保持穩定。

　　If the new fossil—whose discovery has just been published in ZooKeys by Sam Heads of the Illinois Natural History Survey and Léa Leuzinger of the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland—were merely similar to modern splay-footed insects, the find would not be particularly surprising: it simply demonstrates a phenomenon called evolutionary stasis, in which a specific type of body form hangs around for a long time. What is surprising is just how static Schizodactylus has been.

　　如果新化石其發現剛由伊利諾斯州自然史調查的負責人山姆和瑞士弗裡堡大學的李?勞伊辛格發表在《動物圖譜》上僅是類似現代的八字足昆蟲，那麼這個發現不會特別令人驚訝：它只是證明了一種被稱為進化停滯的現象，在這種現象中特定型別的體型存留很長一段時間了。令人驚訝的是節肢動物停止進化竟有這麼久了。

　　Evolutionary stasis is fairly common at the higher levels of the Linnaean system of biological classification class, order and family. Natural selection hits on a good design. That design is then adopted in slightly different forms by species after species. The shelled bodies of turtles, for example, evolved between 250m and 200m years ago, while the body plans of scorpions have been around for more than 400m years. That does not mean, however, that a zoologist would mistake a 200m-year-old turtle or a 400m-year-old scorpion for any species now alive.

　　在林耐生物分類類，屬和門系統的高等類別中進化停滯現象是相當普遍的。自然選擇的圖案都是最好的。然後，這種圖案就被一個接一個的物種以略有不同的形式所採納。例如，海龜的殼體是在2.5～2.0億年前進化的，而蠍子的體型方案已超過4億年的歷史。然而這並不意味著一個動物學家會弄錯2億歲的海龜或是4億歲的蠍子屬於現在存活的何種物種。

　　What is remarkable about the new find is that it is so similar to modern animals that it can be assigned to an existing genus—the lowest level of Linnaean classification above a species—rather than just to some higher taxonomic group. That is rare indeed. Even the modern coelacanth, on closer examination, had to be put in a different genus from any known fossil.

　　新發現引人注目的是它與現代動物如此相似，以致它可以被列入現有生物分類種類林奈物種以上分類的最低等，而不是隻被列入某一更高等的分類組。這的確罕見。經過仔細觀察，甚至就連現代腔棘魚都必須得歸類於不同於任何已知化石的種類。

　　Clearly the body plan of Schizodactylus is not merely good, but optimal, at least for the environment the animal lives in. Alas for Schizodactylus, the sandy deserts it prefers have retreated from north-eastern Brazil and its optimality there has vanished. But its discovery shows better what this part of the world was like 100m years ago—and also illustrates an important point about evolution that is often forgotten in biologists' understandable focus on the development of novelty. The first rule of natural selection is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

　　顯然，節肢動物的體型方案不僅是最好的，也是最佳的，至少對這種動物生活的環境而言是如此。唉，對節肢動物來說，它所喜愛的沙質沙漠已經從巴西東北部退卻，它在那裡的最佳體態已經消失。但它的發現恰好說明這部分的大千世界跟1億年前的樣子很象，也說明了進化論的一個重點，而這點在生物學家關注理解新穎性的發展時往往被遺忘了。自然選擇的第一條規則是："如果沒壞，就不要修理它。"

　　愛的代價 The price of love

　　The junta's policy of eliminating its enemies still fascinates Argentina's novelists;

　　軍政府清除異己的政策至今仍吸引著阿根廷小說家;

　　Purgatory. By Tomás Eloy Martínez. Translated by Frank Wynne.

　　《煉獄》，Tomás Eloy Martínez著，Frank Wynne譯。

　　An Open Secret. By Carlos Gamerro. Translated by Ian Barnett.

　　《公開的祕密》，Carlos Gamerro著，Ian Barnett譯。

　　Open Door. By Iosi Havilio. Translated by Beth Fowler.

　　《敞開的門》，Iosi Havilio著，Beth Fowler譯。

　　7 Ways to Kill a Cat. By Matías Néspolo. Translated by Frank Wynne.

　　《殺死一隻貓的7種方式》，Matías Néspolo著，Frank Wynne譯。

　　It seems appropriate now that Argentina's investigation into the fate of its desaparecidos—the 8,960 people officially known to have “disappeared” under the military dictatorship of 1976-83—was headed by a writer. Ernesto Sábato, who died in April at the age of 99, described his task as a “slow descent into hell”. Ever since “Never Again”, his 1984 report on the “dirty war”, generations of Argentine novelists have followed Sábato into the inferno.

　　1976-83年，在這段軍事獨裁時期阿根廷有8960人被官方確認為 “失蹤”，對這些失蹤者命運的調查，可以說走在最前沿的是一位作家。Ernesto Sábato，今年4月逝世，終年99歲，他將這項工作描述為“緩緩沉入地獄”。自從他對這場“骯髒戰爭”的報道《再也不會》Never Again於1984年發表後，一代代阿根廷小說家跟隨Sábato走入這段地獄般的歷史。

　　For Argentine society, the chapter never closes. Continuing revelations about hundreds of adopted children who were abducted with their parents, or born in custody, have resulted in DNA tests and legal challenges by a campaigning group, “Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo”. Two of these fine recent novels revisit events during the junta. The others—both exceptional debuts—focus on a disturbing present, yet are haunted by unexplained disappearances.

　　對於阿根廷社會來說，這一篇章永不會結束。當年數百兒童隨父母一同遭到綁架，有的或出生在拘留所中，這些兒童隨後被他人收養。隨著他們身世不斷被揭開，一個名為“五月廣場祖母協會”的人權組織呼籲進行DNA鑑定，並質疑法律的公正性。最近一批優秀小說中有兩部回顧了軍政府時期的事件。其餘幾部均是傑出的處女作小說，故事圍繞現代生活展開，但人們同樣被不明原因的失蹤事件困擾，終日惶惶不安。

　　Tomás Eloy Martínez pictured above, a prominent journalist, novelist and academic who spent years in exile and died in 2010, is known for his explorations of the psychology of Peronism, among them “Santa Evita” 1995. In “Purgatory” 2008, his last novel, an Argentine cartographer in suburban New Jersey senses that her husband has returned to her, no older than when he disappeared 30 years earlier. After years of searching, she remains impervious to evidence of his death as it would confirm that her father, a cheerleading propagandist for the junta, connived in his killing. The novel alludes to the mixture of hypocrisy and collusion that characterised that period, and the banal sentimentality of its distractions—flying saucers, soap operas, fatherland and fútbol the infamous 1978 World Cup hosted and won by Argentina. The heroine's state of denial and her ghostly and erotic delusions mirror a country still struggling with reality.

　　托馬斯·埃洛伊·馬丁內斯Tomás Eloy Martínez見上圖是一位傑出的新聞工作者、小說家和學者，曾度過數年流亡生活，在2010年去世。他以庇隆主義心理學研究著稱，代表作《聖埃維塔》Santa Evita1995。《煉獄》Purgatory2008是馬丁內斯的最後一部小說。家住新澤西郊區的阿根廷製圖師終於與丈夫重聚，但她發覺丈夫和30年前失蹤時一樣年輕。這些年她不停尋找，雖有證據證明丈夫的死亡，但她始終不為所動，因為這也可能證實她的父親，一名軍政府高階參謀，參與了這起謀殺。小說影射了當時社會的偽善，人與人相互勾結，精神生活和日常消遣平庸乏味——飛碟、肥皂劇、談論國事和足球由阿根廷舉辦並奪冠的不甚光彩的1978年世界盃。小說中的女主角拒絕接受現實，終日魂勞夢斷，反應出一個國家仍在與現實抗爭的社會現狀。

　　Craven complicity is at the heart of Carlos Gamerro's “An Open Secret”, a literary thriller first published in 2002 that has the makings of a classic. The perfect crime is “one committed in the sight of everyone—because then there are no witnesses, only accomplices.” A veteran of the war in the Falklands or Malvinas as they are known in Argentina returns in the 1990s to his hometown in the pampas to probe the disappearance in custody of a troublesome young journalist during the weekend of Diego Maradona's football debut 20 years earlier. He finds a “conspiracy of chattiness” rather than of silence, over a murder the whole town was in on.

　　懦弱的同謀是Carlos Gamerro小說《公開的祕密》An Open Secret的中心內容，該書最早出版於2002年，是一部有實力成為經典作品的驚悚小說。完美的犯罪是“眾目睽睽之下的犯罪——因為這樣沒有目擊者，只有同謀。”一位參加過福克蘭群島阿根廷稱之為馬爾維納斯群島戰爭的老兵上世紀90年代回到他在潘帕斯草原的家，對一起事件進行調查：20年前迭戈·馬拉多納首次登場比賽，就在那個週末，一個被拘留的麻煩纏身的年輕記者莫名失蹤。他發現這並不是一場沉默的陰謀，而是“人人都在談論的陰謀”，這起謀殺在全城人盡皆知。

　　Mr Gamerro, who was born in 1962, departs from a previous generation's reverence for eyewitness testimony and memorialising the dead. The tone is hard-boiled, its cynicism alleviated by rare lyrical flights, and the desaparecido emerges as a spoilt mama's boy and unsavoury womaniser. The “involuntary martyr” is no hero. The perspective is that of a generation seeking the unadulterated truth about their parents and grandparents during the “dirty war”—and hence their own identity. Amid the torrential self- justification of the townsfolk, from barbers to bankers, the subject becomes language itself, which is used to excuse and obfuscate. The stark epigraph is from William Burroughs: “To speak is to lie/To live is to collaborate.”

　　Gamerro出生於1962年，對於歷史見證者的證言和對死者的紀念方式，他沒有像上一代人那樣完全表現出敬畏。小說語調冰冷，偶有的情感抒發使文章少了些憤世嫉俗之感。失蹤者被塑造成受媽媽寵愛的男孩的形象，喜歡拈花惹草，令人反感。“非自願的犧牲者”絕非英雄。作者將視角投向一代人追尋真相，探查“骯髒戰爭”期間父輩和祖父輩最真實的經歷——同時這也是對自己身份的探尋。從理髮師到銀行家，市民們自我辯護的話語鋪天蓋地而來，人人自顧開脫，令真相撲朔迷離，而這部分語言也構成了小說的主體。書中令人警醒的題詞源自威廉·柏洛茲William Burroughs的語句：“語言即謊言/生存即勾結。”

　　The bereaved mother in “An Open Secret” appears mad, though the madness is all around her. In “Open Door” by Iosi Havilio, who was born only in 1974, Argentina resembles an asylum. A young veterinary assistant relates how her female lover went missing. She fears that she may have seen her commit suicide off a bridge in Buenos Aires's old port. Between trips to the morgue to identify corpses, she visits a pampas village named Open Door, after the psychiatric hospital that was founded there in 1898 as an “agricultural work colony”. In the countryside she moves between two partners: an ageing gaucho—whose name is the same as his ailing horse, Jaime—and an amoral, druggie country girl with plaits.

　　《公開的祕密》中失去兒子的母親顯得有些精神失常，事實上這種荒誕不經充斥於她周邊。《敞開的門》Open Door作者Iosi Havilio，是一位出生於1974年的年青作家。在阿根廷，open door被視為精神病院。故事中一個年輕的獸醫助理在敘述她的女朋友失蹤的情形。她似乎看到她從布宜諾斯艾利斯舊港口的一座橋上跳了下去，她很擔心。在幾次前往太平間辨認遺體的過程中，女主角拜訪了一個潘帕斯小鎮。小鎮名叫敞開的門，是以1898年在此建成的精神病院得名，這裡一直是“農業耕種殖民地”。在鄉下她往返於兩個情人之間：一個是老成的高楚牧人——名字和他的病馬一樣，Jaime;另一個是梳著辮子，不明事理、吸毒成癮的鄉下女孩。

　　As sexual encounters unfold in the woman's alienated voice, the characters merge with the village “loonies”. Events, like interchangeable lovers, have equal weight, from a stable fire to the brewing of maté tea, in an ambiguous tale that verges on dark comedy. A suspected UFO turns out to be the spotlit film set for a commercial. In an asylum without walls, there is “nothing to limit the illusion of absolute liberty”; ultimate control is when people no longer feel they are being coerced. With skill and subtlety, the novel hints that a whole society might labour under an illusion of liberty, manipulated by forces outside the frame.

　　故事在女主角迷茫的聲音中繼續上演，浪漫情事隨之展開，書中人物逐漸加入到小鎮“瘋子”的行列。對於女主角和各位情人之間發生的各種故事，作者給予了同等的筆墨，從描寫馬廄的熱火到沖泡馬黛茶的情節，整個故事寓意隱晦，充滿黑色喜劇味道。一個疑似UFO的物體原來是為商業廣告設定的聚光燈。在沒有圍牆的精神病院，“可以無限幻想絕對自由”;當人民不再感到壓迫，即是統治的最高境界。小說巧妙地暗示了整個社會都在一種自由的假象下勞作，而操縱這一切的是外圍的勢力。

　　What those malign forces might be is more explicit in “7 Ways to Kill a Cat” by Matías Néspolo, another debut novelist of Mr Havilio's generation. His shantytown tale from southern Buenos Aires, which recalls the “City of God” slum in the Rio favelas, is set during Argentina's 2001 financial crash, with protesters defying tear gas, from teachers to lorry drivers. It opens in a barrio at the “wolf's mouth”, where the asphalt and streetlights give out, with two peso-less youths butchering a cat for meat. As they become embroiled in a lethal turf war between drug lords, the narrator, Gringo, probes the mystery of his mother's disappearance, and that of his cousin—a reformed gangster turned pavement hawker.

　　這些邪惡勢力究竟是什麼，《殺死一隻貓的7種方式》7 Ways to Kill a Cat對此進行了詳盡的記述。作者Matías Néspolo，與Havilio是同時代人，也是一位初次亮相的作家。小說以2001年阿根廷經濟危機為時代背景，當時從教師到卡車司機，都參與到抗議者隊伍中，公然反抗警察鎮壓。這部窩棚區故事取材於布宜諾斯艾利斯南部，讓人想到位於里約貧民窟的“上帝之城”貧民區。故事在有著“狼口”之稱的地區展開，這是柏油路和路燈的盡頭，兩個身無分文的青年為了填飽肚子正在宰殺一隻貓。之後他們捲入與毒梟爭奪地盤的致命鬥爭，故事的敘述者Gringo對兩起神祕失蹤事件展開調查，一位是他的母親，另一位是他的表兄——曾是一個惡棍，改過自新後成了街邊小販。

　　Gringo, torn between moral scruples and the need to “look after number one”, learns that there are only two ways to kill a cat: civilised or savage. A police crackdown on the marchers prompts him to retaliate in what he sees as a “seriously civilised fashion”. One of the characters in “An Open Secret” claims bitterly that in Argentina, “the winners make history and the losers write it.” To judge from these novels that scour the past and mourn the future, it seems nobody won.

　　Gringo在道德和“一己私慾”之間倍受折磨，他意識到殺死一隻貓只有兩種方式：文明的方式或野蠻的方式。警察對遊行者的鎮壓迫使他以一種自認為“極度文明的方式”展開報復。《公開的祕密》中有人曾悲憤地說，在阿根廷“勝利者創造歷史，失敗者記錄歷史。”縱觀這些追尋過去、憂心未來的小說，這裡似乎並沒有贏家。