☊ 碧瓏司の→ßeℒongŚ

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🎁 中英文稿：
Extinction. When species go bye-bye forever, we usually blame things like climate change, volcanic eruption or asteroid impact. But for the giant flightless birds that once roamed the Australian outback, it was an omelet station what did ‘em in. A new study finds evidence that about 47,000 years ago, humans helped to wipe out this avian leviathan by collecting and cooking its eggs. The study is in the journal Nature Communications.
滅絕。當一些物種永遠和我們說再見時，我們通常會將責任歸咎於氣候變化、火山噴發或者行星碰撞。但是一種曾經生活在澳大利亞的鳥類，這種不會飛行的鳥滅絕的原因是它們成為了煎蛋的材料。一項新的研究發現，在大約47,000年前，人類採集並烹飪這種鳥類的蛋而加速了它們的滅絕。該研究結果發表在《自然通訊》雜誌上。
Before humans swept over the land down under, animals of enormous proportions were not uncommon. A two-ton wombat, a thousand-pound kangaroo, and a 500-pound bird now known as Genyornis newtoni were spread across the continent. But most of these so-called megafauna disappeared once humans hit the scene.
在人類席捲新奧大陸之前，這種大型動物非常的常見。兩噸重的袋熊、千磅重的袋鼠以及500磅重的鳥，人們現在稱之為牛頓巨鳥，在當時的新奧大陸上隨處可見。但是人類出現在該地區之後，這些所謂的巨型動物就消失了。
Coincidence? Well, it could be. Which is why researchers set out to look for proof that human predation played a role in the demise of Genyornis. (Which only coincidentally sounds like ginormous.)
這是巧合?可能是吧。這就是為什麼研究人員們開始著手搜集證據，希望查找人類捕獵對於牛頓巨鳥的滅亡的影響。
They collected eggshells from hundreds of sites around the country. And they found that the shell fragments exhibited scorch marks that suggested that the eggs had been purposefully cooked over an open flame. Marks that were not consistent with the eggs getting, say, burned up in a wildfire.
研究人員從澳洲數百個地方收集了鳥蛋的化石。他們發現，這些蛋殼碎片燒焦的痕跡表明這些蛋可能經過明火的烹調。同時這些痕跡與野火灼燒的痕跡不同。
Three different dating methods put the eggs’ age in the correct era, and thus place the smoking gun—or in this case, firepit—directly in the hands of hungry humans. Which suggests that our ancestral appetite for over-easy compromised the fitness of this species. Ultimately leading to its egg-stinction.
研究人員採用三種方法追溯這些蛋正確的時代背景，並且找到確鑿的證據——或者說，火坑就是人類採取的方法。這表明我們的祖先放棄了物種的生存，而選擇了雙面煎蛋。最終導致了物種蛋的滅絕。

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🎁 中英文稿：
Chimpanzees. They’re notoriously social creatures. They snack together, snooze together and work hard to keep each other flea- and tick-free. But this simian intimacy does more than just spread the love. It also helps to spread the bacteria that inhabit their guts—which is a good thing. That’s according to a new study in the journal Science Advances.
黑猩猩。眾所周知，是社會性動物。黑猩猩一起吃、一起睡，努力保持彼此跳蚤活躍。但是它們之間這種親密的關係傳播的不僅僅是愛意，同時有助於傳播寄居在內臟中的病毒——而這是一件好事。該研究結果發表在《科學進步》雜誌上。
When we think about the germs that get swapped during social interactions, we tend to focus on the bad guys: the bugs that cause everything from Ebola to the common cold. But could togetherness also promote the exchange of health-promoting microbes, like those in the intestine?
在談及社會交往過程中所交換細菌，我們常常會想到壞的方面：如埃博拉病毒、感冒病毒等。但是聚集在一起是否會促進對健康有益的細菌的傳播呢，例如腸道細菌?
To find out, researchers spent eight years scooping the poop from a troop of 40 chimpanzees in Tanzania. And they analyzed the bacteria present in the samples. What they found was that during the rainy season, when food is plentiful and the chimps are more chummy, the apes harbor an increased number of different bacterial species in their bellies—more microbiodiversity, if you will. Which could make them more resistant to infections.
為了查明結果，研究人員耗時8年搜集了坦尚尼亞群居在一起40只黑猩猩的糞便。他們分析了糞便中的細菌樣本。研究人員發現，在雨季時，食物比較充足，這是黑猩猩之間相處更加愉快，這時這些猿類肚子內的微生物種類就會增多——生物多樣性增多。而這就會增加黑猩猩對傳染病的抵抗能力。
And the chimps' increased microbe load was not due to them all eating the same stuff. In fact, the more time the animals spent together, the more varied they were in terms of how much fruit they consumed.
黑猩猩的微生物負荷增加，並不是因為它們都食用相同的食物。事實上，這些動物在一起的時間越多，它們食用的水果種類也就越多。
The researchers say it’s thus likely the hobnobbing chimps are indeed sharing the microbial wealth while they’re grooming or mating. Or when they’re otherwise too busy to watch where they step.
研究人員稱，事實上，這些關係親密的黑猩猩在梳洗或者交配時才會分享這些微生物財富。而在平時它們太忙了，根本無暇顧及此事。

  
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👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Alice…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是愛麗絲。
And I’m Neil.
我是尼爾。
The BBC’s 100 Women season is back this week. It will explore women’s stories of defiance. And it will include stories of women who inspired us.And that’s what we are going to talk about today.
BBC巾幗百名這周回歸了。該節目探索了女性反抗的故事。其中包含那些讓我們備受鼓舞的女性故事。這也是我們今天節目的主題。
And which woman has inspired you, Alice?
哪位女性曾經激勵過你，愛麗絲？
Oh, well, I have many female role models – and this means people looked to by others as examples to be followed. But I must say I have a great admiration for the suffragettes.
我有很多女性偶像，偶像是指人們將其視為榜樣，並追隨、學習榜樣。我必須說我很羡慕婦女參政權論者。
Ah, the women who fought for the right to vote in the UK!Yes, I think they were very brave.

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🎁 中英文稿：
You may have spotted V-shaped squadrons of geese heading south this fall. But for many migrants—like smaller songbirds—nighttime is the right time, when it comes to migration. Winds are gentler. And darkness helps them avoid airborne attacks. Of course darkness also makes it harder for us to see them. Which is where weather radar comes in.
今年冬天你會發現擺成V行隊的飛往南方的鴻雁.但是,對於許多遷徙的動物而言——如一些小的鳴禽——在遷徙的時候，夜晚是合適的時間。風更加柔和。同時黑暗幫助它們避免遭遇空中襲擊。當然，黑暗也增加了我們在黑夜看見它們的難度。這也就氣象雷達的所用之處。
"These radars were designed to detect water drops in the air, precipitation in the air." Jeff Buler, an ornithologist and aeroecologist at the University of Delaware. "They also detect any other large object that will reflect back radio energy. It essentially sees insects and bats and birds as large drops of water."
“這些雷達是用來檢測空氣中的水珠、空氣懸浮物。”Jeff Buler 是德拉瓦大學的鳥類學家和空氣學家。“這些雷達還可以檢測了可以反射無線能量的其他大型物體。它會把昆蟲和鳥類視為大型的水滴。”
Buler and his team used three weather surveillance radars to track migratory birds near the Great Lakes—observing four spring migrations in a row. And what they found was, as the night migration ended, and dawn broke, many birds in flight over the lakes turned back. Decided to quit for the day. Which meant crowded real estate on the south shore of the lakes, as the birds piled up there to wait out the day.
Buler和他的團隊使用了三個氣象監視雷達跟蹤五大湖附近的候鳥——連續觀察四個春季遷徙。最後研究結果發現，晚上遷移結束後,破曉時分,許多鳥兒在湖泊上方的鳥兒就會轉身。決定白天放棄飛行。這就意味著，鳥兒白天在這裡等待一天，五大湖的南岸房地產緊張啊~
The study is in the journal The Auk.
該研究結果發表在《海雀》雜誌上。
The message for conservators? "Restoring one hectare of forest along the shoreline of Lake Michigan might be able to support more migrants than a hectare of forest 50 km away from the shoreline." Because birds—just like humans—like that lakefront property.
“對於保護者這是什麼意思呢?”恢復1公頃的沿湖岸的森林可能會幫助鳥類遠離海岸多飛行50千米。因為鳥類——跟人類一樣——也喜歡海景別墅呢。

  
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👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Sophie…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是蘇菲。
And I’m Neil.
我是尼爾。
I see you’re wearing trainers today, Neil.
我看你今天穿了運動鞋，尼爾。
Of course, I don’t wear anything else.
當然了，我也不穿其他的鞋。
Well, trainers – or to use the American term, sneakers – are the subject of today’s show. They are ubiquitous – that means you can find them everywhere! People wear them across the globe – men, women, kids, teenagers and pensioners. And did you know that 85% of people who buy trainers don’t wear them for sport?
運動鞋，美語中稱為sneakers，是今天節目的主題。他們無所不在，也就是說你能在任何地方看到。全世界的人們都穿運動鞋，不論男女老少。你知道85%的人買運動鞋不是為了穿著運動嗎？
That makes sense to me. I wear mine because they’re comfortable.

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🎁 中英文稿：
Humans aren’t the only creatures who love junk food—many animals are known to enjoy sifting through our garbage to find edible treats. And now we learn that some storks have stopped migrating from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa in the winter—they’d rather feed at landfills.
不僅僅只有人類喜歡垃圾食品——據我們所知，許多動物也非常享受在垃圾箱裡尋找一些可口的免費食物。現在，一些鸛已經不再從歐洲向撒哈拉以南的非洲遷徙——因為它們寧可在垃圾堆裡尋找食物。
“They use landfill sites heavily during the winter and they travel very long distance to get to the sites.”
在冬天，即使要飛行很遠的距離才能到達垃圾站，鸛主要依賴垃圾填埋場來過冬。
Aldina Franco of the University of East Anglia, one of the scientists who studied the storks’ use of landfills in Portugal. GPS tracking devices on 17 birds showed that the landfill life might mean up to 100-kilometer round-trips to feed—healthy distances, but far shorter than their historic migration routes.
來自東安格利亞大學的科學家愛麗娜`弗朗哥研究了葡萄牙鸛們利用的垃圾填埋區。17只鸛安裝的GPS定位儀錶明，去垃圾填埋場覓食意味著要飛行來回100千米，但這與它們以往的遷徙路線相比，這些距離就變得微不足道了。
“And also they use the nests throughout the year and look after the nests. So these resident birds are in perfect condition, they are always ready to start breeding. So as soon as spring arrives they’re ready to go, the nest is in good condition, and they start breeding earlier.”
同時，鸛要需要棲居照顧巢穴。所有，這些沒有遷徙的鳥現在的生活狀態很好，因為它們可以準備隨時餵食幼鳥。所以，春天一到來，它們就可以離開巢穴，提前餵食。
The number of storks overwintering in Portugal has shot up from fewer than 2,000 in 1995 to 14,000 in 2014. The increase appears to reflect both changes in behavior and a booming stork population in general. The study is in the journal Movement Ecology.
在葡萄牙過冬的鸛的數量驟增，從1995年的不足2000只，到2014年的1.4萬隻。數量增長總體上反應了行為的變化以及鸛數量的激增。該研究結果發表在《運動生態學》雜誌。

  
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👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Sophie…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是愛麗絲。
And I’m Neil. Did you watch the Tour de France cycle race this summer, Sophie?
我是尼爾。你看今年夏天的環法自行車賽了嗎？
No, I didn’t. I’m not a cycling enthusiast, Neil – unlike you!
沒有。我不是自行車愛好者，像你一樣！
It was pretty exciting stuff – in fact just thinking about it, makes me want to jump on my bike and ride off right now!
騎自行車是一件挺有意思的事，光是想一想，我現在就像跳上自行車，開始騎行！
Don’t go just yet, because today’s show is all about bicycles and I’ve got a question for you. Who invented the first pneumatic – or air-filled – cycle tyre in 1888?Was it …a) John Boyd Dunlop? b) Charles Goodyear? Or c) Harvey Samuel Firestone?
現在你不能走，因為今天的節目都是關於自行車的，我還有一個問題要問你。是誰在1888年發明了第一個氣胎，充氣式自行車輪胎？a)約翰•登祿普？b) 查理斯•古德伊爾？還是 c) 哈威•撒母耳•費爾斯通?
Well, I’m going to go for a) John Boyd Dunlop. Can I go now?

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🎁 中英文稿：
Animals that live in the city are usually less wary of humans than their rural counterparts. Most people think the boldness comes from experience: since the majority of humans are rather harmless, the critters learn to go about their business without fear. But the truth turns out to be far more interesting, at least for Australian swans. Turns out the city birds are genetically different from their country counterparts.
與城市動物相比，生活在農村的動物更易懼怕人類。多數人認為勇敢源於經驗：由於大部分人類不會傷害動物，因此動物們可以無所畏懼的從事自己的活動。但是對於澳大利亞的天鵝來說，結果更為有趣。結果表明，城市天鵝和農村的天鵝基因不同。
Australian researchers looked at two groups of swans. One population lived on a pond in the center of Melbourne. The second hung out just 30 kilometers away in a more bucolic setting, surrounded by far fewer humans. The researchers measured what they call each bird’s “flight initiation distance”: basically, how close could a human get before the swan would fly away?
澳大利亞的研究人員調查了兩組天鵝。其中一組生活在墨爾本市中心的池塘裡。而第二組則生活在30公里外，人煙稀少的鄉村景色中。研究人員測量了每只天鵝的“飛行起始距離”：即，在天鵝起飛時，人類可靠近的距離。
“We found that the flight initiation distance for the swans at the urban environment was only 13 meters, and on average at the non-urban environment it was 96 meters. So that’s like an 83 meter difference, a really big difference in how wary these swans are at the two habitats.” Victoria University ecologist Wouter van Dongen.
“我們發現，在城市生活的天鵝其飛行起始距離只有13米，而在非城市環境中天鵝的平均飛行起始距離為96米。這83米的差距也揭示了這些天鵝對兩處不同棲息地謹慎程度。”瑞士維多利亞大學的生態學家Wouter van Dongen說到。
The researchers also took blood samples from some of the swans to analyze their DNA. And almost 90 percent of urban swans had the same variant of a gene for dopamine transport, while just 60 percent of rural birds had that version. And those swans were less wary of humans than were the swans with the rarer genotypes.
研究人員也從天鵝的身上採集了血液樣本分析其DNA。其中，幾乎90%的城市天鵝有多巴胺轉運體變體，而農村天鵝此資料僅為60%。擁有此變體的天鵝更不懼怕人類。
Dopamine influences a lot of brain function, so the gene variation could be behind the difference in swan attitudes. The study is in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

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🎁 中英文稿：
Old Yeller was a great smeller. Dogs in general have superior smelling abilities. They detect dead bodies, illegal drugs and explosives—even cancer. But dogs don't just have great olfactory gear. Another reason they're amazing chemical detectors? [sniffing sound] … is the sniff.
老黃狗(來自電影《老黃狗》)嗅覺非常的靈敏。一般而言，狗具有優越的嗅覺。它們可以發現屍體、毒品、炸藥——甚至癌症。但是狗狗們並不僅僅擁有強大的嗅覺器官。另外一個原因就是它們還具有神奇的“化學探測器”?那就是嗅。
"And it turns out almost every breed of dog does this at 5 Hz. Five times a second." Matthew Staymates, a mechanical engineer and fluid dynamicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Sniffing, he says, is really a two-part process. “Inspiration, expiration, right? Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale." That second part, the exhale, is key.
“結果表明，幾乎每個品種的狗吸氣的頻率都是5赫茲。即一秒鐘5次。”Matthew Staymates是美國國家標準與技術研究院的機械工程師和流體動力學家。他表示，嗅是有兩個過程。“吸氣和呼氣?”吸氣，呼氣，吸氣，呼氣。第二部分，呼氣才是關鍵。
"So when the dog is actively sampling or sniffing on the ground, there is a turbulent air jet that exits each nostril during the exhale phase. Just like when you and I exhale there's an air jet that comes out of our nostrils. But the dog is down on the ground and those air jets are vectored down and toward its rear. And in the world of fluid dynamics, if I pulse an air jet in one direction I basically pull air with it." So the dog is creating a pressure differential that effectively pulls new scents toward its nose.
“當狗狗在地上嗅賴嗅去的時候，在它呼氣的時候，每個皮孔都會噴出紊流空氣。就像我們呼氣的時候，我們的鼻孔就會有氣流噴出。但是狗狗是附身嗅地面，呼出的空氣流會反沖會自己的呼吸器官。在流體動力學領域，如果我們呼出空氣流是朝一個方向，最後，也會吸入這個空氣流。”所以，狗狗在製造一種壓力差，可以使鼻子嗅出新的氣味。
Staymates and his colleagues discovered that effect using a 3-D–printed model of a Labrador retriever's nose, which they tested with fluid dynamics equipment. They then outfitted a commercial vapor detector with sniffing nostrils, inspired by the dog nose. And they found that the actively sniffing detector was 16 times better at picking up the scent of explosives, compared to just continuously drawing in air—the usual method. The results are in the journal Scientific Reports.
Staymates和同事們利用拉布拉多獵犬鼻子的3維模型研究了效果並用以檢測流體動力學設備。受到狗嗅覺的啟發，他們在商業蒸汽探測器上也安裝了“嗅覺”裝置。結果發現，與通常的方法——僅持續的吸入氣流相比，這種嗅覺設備在識別炸藥氣味上更加卓越。該研究結果發表在《科學報告》雜誌上。
Staymates says he hopes next-generation sensors take sniffing seriously. "There's nanosensors out there that can detect very, very small amounts of materials. One of the things that's been overlooked: is how do you get the molecules of interest to the detector? So you can have the most sophisticated detector in the world, but unless you can get material to it, it's not very useful." Adding a sniffer though…could be just the thing to make those detectors more dogged.
Staymates表示，希望下一代的感測器可以認真考慮嗅覺裝置。有的納米感測器可以進行精微檢測。但有一點被人們所忽視：“如何獲得分子探測器?這樣你就可以擁有世界上最先進的探測裝置，或許裝置不太實用，但是前提是你得擁有裝置材料。”只添加一個嗅覺裝置，就可以讓那些感應器更加的靈敏。
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http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/1066.mp3

👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Sophie…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是愛麗絲。
And I’m Neil. Oh, hang on… I’ve just got a new tweet here. Listen to this: Hi Neil, about what you said the other day I…Oh, this is from a friend who doesn’t realize that regular tweets are in the public domain– and that anyone in the world could read them if they wanted to. I need to give her some lessons in cool – she just doesn’t get it!
我是尼爾。等一下，收到一條新推特消息。聽：嗨，尼爾，關於那天你說的，我……噢，這條消息是我一個朋友發的，她不知道普通的推特消息是在公共域顯示的，也就是說任何人只要想都能看到這些消息。我需要給她上一課，讓她跟得上潮流，她一點都不懂！
Well, Mr Cool, I don’t get Twitter either – which means I don’t understand why people like it. Why do you want to put tweets out there for everyone to read?
超酷先生，我也不會用推特，我不明白為什麼有人喜歡它。你為什麼想把推文發上去讓每個人去看呢？
You’d love it if you tried it, Sophie.
如果你試過，你會喜歡的，蘇菲。
I’m not so sure, Neil. Anyway, the subject of today’s show is online identity. There are lots of social media platforms out there – Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram – and they’re all different, and the question is, do we use different identities when we are using different digital spaces? And what’s all this tweeting, posting, and hashtagging doing to our language and our psyche?
我不確定。總之，今天節目的主題是網路身份。如今有很多社交媒體平臺，如Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram，他們各不相同。問題是，當我們使用不同的數字平臺時，我們是不是使用不同的身份？這些推文、貼子、熱門標籤對我們的語言和心智有什麼影響？

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20161130sa_science.mp3

🎁 中英文稿：
The Unnatural World is the title of a new book by former Scientific American environment editor David Biello. The subtitle: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age. And that age has been dubbed the Anthropocene—in which humanity (anthro) has become, as the book puts it, a world-changing force of nature.
《非自然的世界》是一本新書的名字，這本書的作者科學美國人前編輯大衛•比埃羅。副標題：重塑地球新時代的文明競賽。這個時代被稱為人類紀——就如書中所描述的，人類已經成為改變世界的自然力量。
Biello talked about The Unnatural World recently at the BookCourt bookstore in Brooklyn. He was asked who he met in his research who stood out as someone trying to take steps to address the issues of this age.
近期，比埃羅在布魯克林的BookCourt書店裡談論了這本書。在採訪中，他被問道，在研究中，會見了哪些試圖解決這個時代問題的傑出人物。
“His name is Fan Changwei, and he is an environmental bureaucrat in a small coastal town (Rizhao) in China. And he has been tasked by his provincial government and his local government with trying to turn a city carbon neutral. So this means that would emit no more CO2 than they also kind of took in and destroyed, which is a beautiful sounding circular economy kind of concept—turns out to be incredibly difficult in practice, as Fan is finding out. And that struggle is the one that we’re all facing. And certainly it’s a struggle that, it’s more important that it happen in China than anywhere else. And maybe India right after it…
他的名字叫範長偉，是中國沿海城市日照的一名環保官員。他的任務是負責省政府和地方政府的碳平衡。碳平衡也就意味著釋放的二氧化碳的量要少於吸收處理的二氧化碳量，這是一個美好的迴圈經濟的概念——但是範長偉發現，把這一概念轉化為實際非常的困難。這是我們都在面臨的難題。這是一個難題，並且這個問題在中國顯得愈發重要。也許，印度……
“You know, we have cleaner air, cleaner water, and that’ because we decided that we didn’t want killer smogs, and the Chinese people are deciding that right now, and perhaps the Indians will decide not to have killer smogs before they have them.”
我們有更清潔的空氣、更乾淨的水，這是因為我們不希望有毒霧的存在，現在，中國人們也決定這麼做。可能印度人在看見毒霧之前就決定這麼做了。
More from David Biello about his book The Unnatural World in an upcoming episode of the Science Talk podcast.
關於大衛•比埃羅書籍《不自然的世界》更多消息，請收聽科學談話播客節目。
➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟➟

👯 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/1065.mp3

👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Sophie…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是蘇菲。
And I’m Neil.
我是尼爾。
What are you reading?
你在讀什麼？
A news blog – it says here that the fossil of a two-headed dinosaur has been discovered in Greece. Look! Look at this picture!
一個新聞博客，上面說在希臘發現了兩個頭的恐龍化石。快看！看圖片！
Honestly, Neil, you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet! This story is from one of those fake news websites that float about on social media. And you aren’t the only one to get taken in– even serious news channels report these types of stories as if they were true.
老實說，尼爾，你不應該相信網路上你看到的每件事。這則新聞來自於在社交媒體上傳播假新聞的網站。你不是唯一一個上當的。一些嚴肅的新聞頻道也在報導這類故事，仿佛它們是真的一樣。

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20161026sa_science.mp3🎁

🎁 中英文稿：
The sound of supernatural spirits talking? Well, no. But that’s what it sounded like to Marco Polo as he travelled through China's Lop Desert in the 13th century. He also described the sound as “a variety of musical instruments.” And in reality, the mysterious noises are the product of what could be considered to be an unusual sort of instrument—the desert’s sand dunes.
這是超自然神靈的發出的聲音？不。但這聽起來像馬可波羅在13世界橫跨中國羅布泊沙漠時聽到的聲音。馬可波羅當時描述說，這種聲音是由多種樂器演奏而來。但是事實上，人們認為這種聲音是一種不尋常的樂器沙丘的作品。
"And it's a sound that's very similar to kind of the tones you'd get on a cello." Melany Hunt, a mechanical engineer at Caltech. The dunes sing when sand avalanches down the side, "which would then be somewhat equivalent to using the bow on the strings of the cello."
“這種聲音非常像大提琴的音調。”梅蘭妮•亨特說到。亨特是加州理工學院的一名機械工程師。沙丘在坍塌時，就會唱歌，“發出的聲音就跟用琴弓拉大提琴的聲音很像。”
Hunt and her colleagues recorded the sounds produced closer to home, by California's Kelso and Eureka Dunes. They used four dozen geophones—microphones you stick in sand. And they mapped the dunes' structure with ground penetrating radar.
亨特和同事們記錄了離家比較近的加利福尼亞凱爾索和尤里卡沙丘“唱歌”時的聲音。他們使用很多地震檢波器——一種可以插入沙中的麥克風——並利用探地雷達繪製了沙丘的結構。
Turns out, dunes that sing are built differently from silent dunes—they’re topped with an even layer of dry sand—about five feet thick—on top of all the damp sand below. And that layer of dry sand is like the body of an instrument—it traps and amplifies certain frequencies more than others. "And so really the size of the instrument is really going to set the range of frequencies that you get. And that's the same thing with this dune."
結果表明，會唱歌沙丘的結構不同於沉默的沙丘——最上層是一層均勻乾燥的沙子——約5英尺厚，而下層則是濕潤的沙子。而那層乾燥的沙子就像樂器的主體——會對特定的頻率聲波進行陷波和放大。“樂器的大小就會設定你聽到的頻率的範圍。沙丘也是這個原理。”
When sand avalanches, it shoots off sound waves of various frequencies. Those waves travel through the dry sand, hit the wet layer, bounce back, hit the air on top of the dune, bounce back, and so on. As that happens, a lot of the frequencies cancel out and dissipate. But certain waves have the goldilocks frequency, around 80 Hertz. As they travel back and forth, they amplify, creating that booming sound. The study is in the journal Physics of Fluids.
沙丘坍塌時，會發出不同頻率的聲波。這些聲波會穿越幹砂層，碰擊濕砂層，反彈後，碰擊沙丘上部的空氣，如此往復迴圈。與此同時，許多聲頻就會抵消消散。但是一些聲波擁有80赫茲的頻率。這些聲波就會往返運動，放大並發出轟鳴聲。該研究結果發表在《流體物理學》雜誌上。
The bad news? Since the 'instrument' requires a uniform, thick layer of dry sand, Hunt says the dunes tend to fall quiet in the cooler, wetter months. Meaning you'll have to brave summer heat if you want to hear the dunes when they're really in tune.

  
👯 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/5015.mp3

👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to The English We Speak with me Neil...
大家好，歡迎收聽地道英語，我是尼爾…
...and me, Feifei. In this programme, we’ve got an expression which means ’to be very rich’.
我是菲菲。在這期節目裡，我們要學一個表達方式，意思是“非常有錢”。
And, as usual, in order to demonstrate the meaning of something, I’m going to make a fool of myself. Now, Feifei, please describe what I’m doing.
像往常一樣，為了解釋短語的意思，我會讓自己出醜。菲菲，請描述一下我現在在做什麼。
OK, so now Neil is rolling around on the floor covered in... money.
好的，現在尼爾正在鋪著…錢的地板上滾來滾去。
So, Feifei, how much money does someone need to roll in it?
那麼菲菲，要想在裡面滾來滾去的話，一個人需要多少錢呢？

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20161030sa_science.mp3

🎁 中英文稿：
Ever wonder how the citizens of Metropolis somehow could not recognize Clark Kent once he ditched the glasses and became Superman? Well, now there’s an actual scientific explanation: When a person alters their appearance, even in small ways like adding a pair of glasses, it can indeed lessen the ability of others who do not know that person to recognize his or her face.
當克拉克•肯特(電影《超人》的主角)摘下眼鏡，成為超人的時候，市民就都不認識他了，這有沒有讓人感到奇怪呢?現在有切實的科學解釋：某人改變自己的面貌，即使發生小的改變，如添一副眼鏡，可以弱化對此人不熟悉的人對他的識別能力，
The study is in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
該研究結果發表在《應用認知心理學》雜誌上。
Psychologists Robin Kramer and Kay Ritchie from the University of York in the U.K. showed volunteers pictures of unknown people—not celebrities. The photos came from Google Images, and featured people in various poses, with different facial expressions and changing lighting.
來自約克大學的心理學家羅賓•克萊默和凱•裡奇在英國向志願者們展示了一些陌生人的照片——這些人不是名人。這些照片來自于穀歌圖片，這些人變換不同的姿勢、不同的面部表情以及改變周圍的亮度。
The participants saw two photos at the same time—either two pictures of the same person or a different person in each picture. Three possible pairs of pictures were presented: both people wore glasses; neither person wore glasses; or only one of the pair of people had glasses on.
志願者同時看到兩組照片——每組照片中這兩張照片要麼為同一人要麼為不同的人。共呈現了三組照片：兩人都帶眼鏡;兩人都不帶眼鏡;兩人中只有一人帶眼鏡。
Then the researchers asked the volunteers whether the pictures were of the same person or of two different people.
研究人員之後問這些志願者兩張圖片是否為同一人。

👯 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/1064.mp3

👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Sophie…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是蘇菲。
And I’m Neil. So, Sophie, the subject of today’s show is attraction– do you believe in love at first sight?
我是尼爾。蘇菲，今天節目的主題是（對異性的）吸引力，你相信一見鍾情嗎？
No, I don’t. I think it takes time to get to know somebody well enough to know if you love them. But I have a friend who says when she saw her husband for the first time…
我不相信。我覺得要花費很長時間去瞭解一個人，才能知道是否愛對方。但我有一個朋友說，當她第一次看到她丈夫時，
That was before they got married?
他們結婚之前的事嗎？
That’s right – when they met for the first time, that was it: a bolt out of the blue. And they got married three months later.
沒錯，他們第一次見面，真的是出乎意料。然後三個月後他們就結婚了。

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20161031sa_science.mp3

🎁 中英文稿：
Turns out, education pays off. That’s true whether you’re a doctor or a lawyer – or even a mobster, according to a new study.
事實證明，教育會獲得回報。根據一項新的研究表明，無論你是一名醫生或者律師，甚至是一名暴徒。
Researchers compared the FBI files of more than seven hundred Italian-American mafia men from the 30’s to the 40’s to other non-mob men from the 1940 census – some were neighbors, others were first and second generation Italian-American immigrants and some were U.S. born white men.
研究人員將FBI中的檔案700多名30到40歲義大利裔美國人黑手黨和1940名普查中的非暴徒進行了對比。他們有的是鄰居，有的人是第一和第二代義大利裔美國人移民和一些人是美國出生的白人男性。
They found that mobsters tended to have a year less schooling than their neighbors – but for those who stayed in school a little longer, they tended to do better economically. More education increased their income – or moolah - by about 8 percent, on average.
研究人員發現，暴徒接受教育的年限往往比他們的鄰居少一年——但是，對於那些在學校多停留時間一年的人來說，他們在經濟方面往往更好。一般而言，接受較多的教育將他們的收入提高了——金錢——約8%。
The Study is the Economics of Education Review.
該研究結果發表在《教育經濟學評論》雜誌上。
Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising. The mafia is essentially a corporation, involving complex organizational and numerical expertise. Weighing grams and running numbers takes more than basic math skills. And researchers found the mobsters with the highest return were the ones involved with more complicated schemes – think embezzling, racketeering and loan sharking. Their profit was about three times higher than the mobsters involved with criminal activity like robberies.
當然，這樣的結果不足為奇。黑手黨本質上是一個企業，涉及複雜的組織以及數位技術。稱重以及計算數位需要的不僅僅是基本的數學技巧。研究人員發現，收入最高的暴徒參與的最為複雜的方案——如貪污、敲詐勒索和放高利貸。這些暴徒的收益約是進行搶劫等犯罪活動歹徒利潤的三倍多。

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/2016/20161101sa_tech.mp3🎁

🎁 中英文稿：
Washington state is the country’s largest producer of cherries and blueberries. The state’s wine industry is second only to California’s in value. But one non-native, nuisance bird is wreaking havoc.
華盛頓是生產櫻桃和藍莓最多的州。該州的釀酒工業市值位於第二位，次於加州。但是，不是本地、一種令人討厭的鳥卻在搞大破壞。
The European starling was brought to North America more than a century ago, by unwitting naturalists who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. Today, the starlings do hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage to Washington’s crops. But one man has taken it upon himself to get rid of the birds—without killing them.
這種歐洲八哥在一個世紀以前由被不知情的自然法學家引入了北美，這些自然法學家想要引入莎士比亞戲劇中多提到的所有的鳥類。現在，這種鳥類對導致華盛頓的作物損失達數億美元。但是現在有人在擺脫鳥類對作物的損害——而不將鳥類殺死。
“We’re not terminators. Our job description would be more like security guards.”
我們並不是終結者，我們的職責更像是保安。
Vahé Alaverdian, raptor wrangler. It’s barely 6 A.M., but he’s been out in a field of cherry trees in Yakima Valley since much earlier. He’s working with a Peregrine falcon.
Vahé Alaverdian是一位猛禽牧人。現在是早上六點，但是他早已經到了雅吉瑪穀的櫻桃樹田地裡。他正在利用遊隼
And as long as the falcon flies over these fields, fruit-loving birds like robins, finches and starlings will not. Fourth-generation fruit grower Mark Roy estimates Alaverdian’s raptors save him a thousand dollars a day in otherwise lost produce.
只要遊隼在這些領域的上空盤旋，那麼知更鳥、雀和椋鳥等喜愛水果的鳥類就不會出現在這裡。馬克•羅伊是第四代果農，他估計Alaverdian這種猛禽每天能讓他少損失一千美元。

🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/2016/20161103sa_mind.mp3🎁

🎁 中英文稿：
Back in ancient times, philosophers like Aristotle were already speculating about the origins of taste, and how the tongue sensed elemental tastes like sweet, bitter, salty and sour. "What we discovered just a few years ago is that there are regions of the brain—regions of the cortex—where particular fields of neurons represent these different tastes again, so there's a sweet field, a bitter field, a salty field, etcetera." Nick Ryba, a sensory neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health
在古代的時候，亞里斯多德等思想家曾經猜測味道的起源，以及舌頭如何感知到酸、甜、苦、鹹、辣等味道。“就在幾年以前，我們曾經討論大腦區域——大腦皮層——特定領域的神經元代表著不同的味道嗎，這樣，就會有負責甜味的區域、苦味的區域、鹹味的區域等等。”尼克•裡巴美國國立衛生研究院的感官神經科學家，講述了上述言論。
Ryba and his colleagues found that you can actually taste without a tongue at all, simply by stimulating the "taste" part of the brain—the insular cortex. They ran the experiment in mice with a special sort of brain implant—a fiber-optic cable that turns neurons on with a pulse of laser light. And by switching on the "bitter" sensing part of the brain, they were able to make mice pucker up, as if they were tasting something bitter—even though absolutely nothing bitter was touching the tongues of the mice.
裡巴和他的同事研究發現，實際上，即使沒有舌頭，你也可是嘗出味道，而這僅需要通過刺激大腦中的“味覺”部分——島葉皮層即可。他們在老鼠身上做了實驗，老鼠植入了特殊的大腦結構——光纖電纜，通過激光束，此光纖電纜可以“刺激”神經元。研究人員通過刺激大腦中的“苦味”感官部分，而使老鼠脾氣暴躁，仿佛老鼠品嘗到了苦味的東西——而老鼠沒有嘗到任何苦的東西。
In another experiment, the researchers fed the mice a bitter flavoring on their tongues—but then made it more palatable by switching on the "sweet" zone of the brain. "What we were doing here was adding the sweetness, but only adding it in the brain, not in what we were giving to the mouse." Think adding sugar to your coffee—but doing it only in your mind. The findings appear in the journal Nature.
在另外一個實驗裡，研究人員老鼠吃苦味的東西——但是研究人員又刺激老鼠大腦中的“甜味”區，而讓苦味變得更加的可口。“我們做的是增加甜蜜，但僅僅是通過刺激老鼠大腦中的甜味區域，而不是喂老鼠吃填的東西。”想想在咖啡裡面加糖——而這次僅僅是在大腦裡面加糖。該研究結果發表在《自然》雜誌上。
Ryba says the study suggests that a lot of our basic judgments about taste—sweet means good, bitter means bad—are actually hard-wired at the level of the brain. As for that virtual-sugar-in-your-coffee idea? "I think it's basically science fiction to think that this would be something that would be applied to humans." But today’s science fiction might be tomorrow’s artificial sweetener.
裡巴稱研究表明，我們關於味道的許多基本的判斷——甜味意味著好，苦澀意味著壞，這實際上都是與大腦相關的。至於把那個在腦海中給咖啡加糖的想法?我認為，這是科幻小說的觀點，認為將來這將會適用於人類。但是今天的科幻小說，可能是未來人類虛擬的甜味劑。
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👯 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/5014.mp3

👯 中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, I’m Feifei.
大家好，歡迎收聽地道英語，我是菲菲。
…and I’m, Sian. Hello! How was your weekend Feifei?
我是西恩。大家好！你週末過得怎麼樣呀菲菲？
It was awesome! I went to that film première - and look who I managed to get a photo with on the red carpet!
非常棒！我去了電影首映式——看看我和誰一起在紅毯上合影了！
Oh wow! He’s even got his arm around you!
噢，哇哦！他甚至都摟著你呢！
I know – Exciting huh? I’m going to get this picture printed out and put on my wall!
我知道——很令人興奮對吧？我要把這張照片列印出來貼到牆上！
Ha ha oh dear – have you seen this guy behind you making a funny face? Look here on the left.