Marine biology

　　海洋生物

　　Flea market

　　跳蚤市場

　　A newly discovered virus may be the mostabundant organism on the planet

　　一種新發現的病毒可能是地球上最豐富的物種。

　　WHAT is the commonest living thing on Earth?

　　地球上最常見的生物是什么?

　　Until now, those in the know would probably have answered Pelagibacter ubique, the mostsuccessful member of a group of bacteria, called SAR11, that jointly constitute about athird of the single-celled organisms in the ocean.

　　直到現在，那些很專業的人可能會說是遍在遠洋桿菌細菌群中最成功的細菌，稱為大洋微小細菌,占了海洋單細胞有機體的三分之一。

　　But this is not P. ubique s only claimto fame, for unlike almost every other known cellular creature, it and its relatives haveseemed to be untroubled by viruses.

　　但是，這不是它成名的原因，因為它和它的親戚不像其它大部分已知的細胞生物，它們似乎是些不會給你造成麻煩的一族。

　　As Jonathan Swift put it in a much-misquoted poem, So, naturalists observe, a flea/Hathsmaller fleas that on him prey.

　　就像喬納森-斯威福特的一首詩表達的一樣雖然這里引用很不貼切，所以，博物學家們觀察，正在捕食的跳蚤/小跳蚤們。

　　Parasites, in other words, are everywhere.

　　換句話說，寄生蟲無所不在。

　　They are also, usually, more abundant than their hosts.

　　通常，它們的數量也遠遠多于它們的寄主。

　　An astute observer might therefore have suspected that the actual most-common specieson Earth would be a flea that parasitised P. ubique, rather than the bacterium itself.

　　精明的觀察者可能因此會猜測，地球上真正最常見的特種是一種跳蚤寄生的遍生遠洋桿菌，而不是細菌本身。

　　The absence of such fleas has puzzled virologists since 1990, when the SAR11 group wasidentified.

　　自從1990年研究SAR11組群以來，病毒學家對沒有發現這種跳蚤即以所謂攻擊細菌的噬菌體的形式存在而感到很困惑。

　　Some thought the advantage this absence conferred explained the group s abundance. Butno.

　　一些人認為沒有發現這種組群的好處解釋了它們之所以大量存在的原因。但是，事實不是這樣的。

　　As they report in this week s Nature, Stephen Giovannoni of Oregon State University and hiscolleagues have discovered the elusive phages.

　　正如本周自然雜志上刊登的一樣，俄勒岡州立大學的斯蒂芬尼-喬凡諾尼和他的同事們發現了這種難以發現的噬菌體。

　　Swift s wisdom, it seems, still holds good.

　　看起來，斯威福特的智慧仍舊閃閃發光。

　　Tracking down a particular virus in the ocean makes finding a needle in a haystack look atrivial task.

　　與在海洋中跟蹤一種特定的細菌相比，大海撈針簡直是小菜一碟了。

　　A litre of seawater has billions of viruses in it.

　　一公升的海水中有數十億的細菌。

　　Modern genetic techniques can obtain DNA sequences from these viruses, but that cannottie a particular virus to a particular host.

　　現代基因技術可以獵取這些細菌的DAN序列，但是卻不能把一種特定的細菌固定在一個特定的寄主身上。

　　To do so, Dr Giovannoni borrowed a technique from homeopathy: he diluted someseawater to such an extent that, statistically speaking, he expected a 100-microlitre-sizedaliquot to contain only one or two viruses.

　　為了實現這個目標，喬凡諾尼博士借用了順勢醫療論的一項技術：他把一些海水的濃度稀釋到，從統計學角度上講，即稀釋后的100微升海水中只含有一種或兩種病毒。

　　The difference between his approach and a homeopath s was that what homeopathy dilutesalmost to nothing are chemicals, and thus cannot breed. A virus can, given a suitable host.

　　他的方法和順勢療法的區別是，后者將藥液稀釋后幾乎沒有什么合成物了，因此也無法培育繁殖。而提供一個合適的寄主的話，病菌就可以繼續繁殖。

　　So he mixed each of several hundred aliquots into tubes of water containing P. ubique.

　　因此，他把稀釋后的海水分成幾百份，再把每一份混合到含有遍在海洋桿菌的水里。

　　Then he waited.

　　然后他就等待著。

　　After 60 hours, he looked to see what had happened.

　　六十小時后，他看到了結果。

　　In most cases the bacteria had thrived.

　　在大部分試驗品中，病菌都繁殖得很好。

　　In a few, though, they had been killed by what looked like viral infection.

　　但是，在少數的試驗品中，病菌似乎由于某種病毒感染而消失了。

　　It was these samples that he ran through the DNA-sequencing machine, in the knowledgethat the only viral DNA present would be from whatever it was had killed the bacteria.

　　這些少數試驗品就是他用DNA測序儀檢測，想知道僅有的病毒DNA，無論是不是它殺了病菌，為什么會出現的原因。

　　His reward was to find not one, but four viruses that parasitise P. ubique.

　　他最終發現了不只一種病菌，而是四種寄生的遍海洋桿菌。

　　He then compared their DNA with databases of DNA found in seawater from around theworld, to find out how abundant each is.

　　后來，他把發現病菌的DNA與世界海洋的DNA數據庫相對比，發現：

　　The upshot was that a virus dubbed HTVC010P was the commonest.

　　四種中的每一個的存在數量都非常多。

　　It thus displaces its host as the likely winner of the most-common-living-thing prize.

　　結果是，一種稱為HTVC010P人病菌是最常見的。因此，它便取代了它的寄主，成為可能最常見的生物。

　　That does depend, of course, on your definition of living thing.

　　當然，這不是你們所定義的那種生物。

　　Some biologists count viruses as organisms.

　　一些生物學家認為病菌是微生物。

　　Some do not.

　　一些則不這么認為。

　　The reason is that a virus relies for its growth and reproduction on the metabolicprocesses of the cell it infects.

　　原因是，病菌依靠它所感染細胞的新陳代謝來生長和繁殖。

　　This means viruses themselves are hard to parasitise, since they do no work on whichanother organism can free-ride.

　　這就意味著病毒本身很難寄生，因為在其它可以免費寄生的微生物上它們無法正常生存。

　　Which is why the next two lines of Swift s poem, And these have smaller fleas to bite em/Andso proceed ad infinitum, are wrongand why, because HTVC010P itself can have noparasites, it probably really is the commonest organism on the planet.

　　這也解釋了為什么斯威失特接下來的兩句這些更小的跳蚤在咬它們，因此這些進程循環往復著是錯誤的，也是HTVC010P為什么是地球上最常見的微生物，因為它本身沒有寄生蟲。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.claim to 聲稱

　　Both political parties in america claim to loveentrepreneurs.

　　美國兩大黨派都聲稱喜歡創業者。

　　America can claim to be tackling its troubledassets.

　　美國也終于可以宣稱正在處理有毒資產了。

　　2.rather than 而不，與其倒不如

　　His film is propaganda rather than documentary.

　　說他的影片是政治宣傳而不是紀錄片。

　　He is an explorer rather than a sailor.

　　與其說他是一個海員，不如說他是一個探險者。

　　3.tie to 拴于使被束縛

　　She bought a tie to go with his suit.

　　她買了一條領帶和他的一套衣服搭配。

　　Tie to the post of unconcern the goats of vice and virtue.

　　把惡習與美德兩頭山羊綁在漫不經心的柱子上。

　　4.mix into 把混入

　　Those who practice should conform to the tao of nature and should not mix much emotioninto their deeds.

　　對修行的人言，不順應自然之道，過度地滲入人的情感，都不是修練者應有的作為。

　　Divide the melted white chocolate into two equal parts. Mix the green tea powder into onepart.

　　把融化的白巧克力分成均等的兩份，其中一份加入綠茶粉。

　　Marine biology

　　海洋生物

　　Flea market

　　跳蚤市場

　　A newly discovered virus may be the mostabundant organism on the planet

　　一種新發現的病毒可能是地球上最豐富的物種。

　　WHAT is the commonest living thing on Earth?

　　地球上最常見的生物是什么?

　　Until now, those in the know would probably have answered Pelagibacter ubique, the mostsuccessful member of a group of bacteria, called SAR11, that jointly constitute about athird of the single-celled organisms in the ocean.

　　直到現在，那些很專業的人可能會說是遍在遠洋桿菌細菌群中最成功的細菌，稱為大洋微小細菌,占了海洋單細胞有機體的三分之一。

　　But this is not P. ubique s only claimto fame, for unlike almost every other known cellular creature, it and its relatives haveseemed to be untroubled by viruses.

　　但是，這不是它成名的原因，因為它和它的親戚不像其它大部分已知的細胞生物，它們似乎是些不會給你造成麻煩的一族。

　　As Jonathan Swift put it in a much-misquoted poem, So, naturalists observe, a flea/Hathsmaller fleas that on him prey.

　　就像喬納森-斯威福特的一首詩表達的一樣雖然這里引用很不貼切，所以，博物學家們觀察，正在捕食的跳蚤/小跳蚤們。

　　Parasites, in other words, are everywhere.

　　換句話說，寄生蟲無所不在。

　　They are also, usually, more abundant than their hosts.

　　通常，它們的數量也遠遠多于它們的寄主。

　　An astute observer might therefore have suspected that the actual most-common specieson Earth would be a flea that parasitised P. ubique, rather than the bacterium itself.

　　精明的觀察者可能因此會猜測，地球上真正最常見的特種是一種跳蚤寄生的遍生遠洋桿菌，而不是細菌本身。

　　The absence of such fleas has puzzled virologists since 1990, when the SAR11 group wasidentified.

　　自從1990年研究SAR11組群以來，病毒學家對沒有發現這種跳蚤即以所謂攻擊細菌的噬菌體的形式存在而感到很困惑。

　　Some thought the advantage this absence conferred explained the group s abundance. Butno.

　　一些人認為沒有發現這種組群的好處解釋了它們之所以大量存在的原因。但是，事實不是這樣的。

　　As they report in this week s Nature, Stephen Giovannoni of Oregon State University and hiscolleagues have discovered the elusive phages.

　　正如本周自然雜志上刊登的一樣，俄勒岡州立大學的斯蒂芬尼-喬凡諾尼和他的同事們發現了這種難以發現的噬菌體。

　　Swift s wisdom, it seems, still holds good.

　　看起來，斯威福特的智慧仍舊閃閃發光。

　　Tracking down a particular virus in the ocean makes finding a needle in a haystack look atrivial task.

　　與在海洋中跟蹤一種特定的細菌相比，大海撈針簡直是小菜一碟了。

　　A litre of seawater has billions of viruses in it.

　　一公升的海水中有數十億的細菌。

　　Modern genetic techniques can obtain DNA sequences from these viruses, but that cannottie a particular virus to a particular host.

　　現代基因技術可以獵取這些細菌的DAN序列，但是卻不能把一種特定的細菌固定在一個特定的寄主身上。

　　To do so, Dr Giovannoni borrowed a technique from homeopathy: he diluted someseawater to such an extent that, statistically speaking, he expected a 100-microlitre-sizedaliquot to contain only one or two viruses.

　　為了實現這個目標，喬凡諾尼博士借用了順勢醫療論的一項技術：他把一些海水的濃度稀釋到，從統計學角度上講，即稀釋后的100微升海水中只含有一種或兩種病毒。

　　The difference between his approach and a homeopath s was that what homeopathy dilutesalmost to nothing are chemicals, and thus cannot breed. A virus can, given a suitable host.

　　他的方法和順勢療法的區別是，后者將藥液稀釋后幾乎沒有什么合成物了，因此也無法培育繁殖。而提供一個合適的寄主的話，病菌就可以繼續繁殖。

　　So he mixed each of several hundred aliquots into tubes of water containing P. ubique.

　　因此，他把稀釋后的海水分成幾百份，再把每一份混合到含有遍在海洋桿菌的水里。

　　Then he waited.

　　然后他就等待著。

　　After 60 hours, he looked to see what had happened.

　　六十小時后，他看到了結果。

　　In most cases the bacteria had thrived.

　　在大部分試驗品中，病菌都繁殖得很好。

　　In a few, though, they had been killed by what looked like viral infection.

　　但是，在少數的試驗品中，病菌似乎由于某種病毒感染而消失了。

　　It was these samples that he ran through the DNA-sequencing machine, in the knowledgethat the only viral DNA present would be from whatever it was had killed the bacteria.

　　這些少數試驗品就是他用DNA測序儀檢測，想知道僅有的病毒DNA，無論是不是它殺了病菌，為什么會出現的原因。

　　His reward was to find not one, but four viruses that parasitise P. ubique.

　　他最終發現了不只一種病菌，而是四種寄生的遍海洋桿菌。

　　He then compared their DNA with databases of DNA found in seawater from around theworld, to find out how abundant each is.

　　后來，他把發現病菌的DNA與世界海洋的DNA數據庫相對比，發現：

　　The upshot was that a virus dubbed HTVC010P was the commonest.

　　四種中的每一個的存在數量都非常多。

　　It thus displaces its host as the likely winner of the most-common-living-thing prize.

　　結果是，一種稱為HTVC010P人病菌是最常見的。因此，它便取代了它的寄主，成為可能最常見的生物。

　　That does depend, of course, on your definition of living thing.

　　當然，這不是你們所定義的那種生物。

　　Some biologists count viruses as organisms.

　　一些生物學家認為病菌是微生物。

　　Some do not.

　　一些則不這么認為。

　　The reason is that a virus relies for its growth and reproduction on the metabolicprocesses of the cell it infects.

　　原因是，病菌依靠它所感染細胞的新陳代謝來生長和繁殖。

　　This means viruses themselves are hard to parasitise, since they do no work on whichanother organism can free-ride.

　　這就意味著病毒本身很難寄生，因為在其它可以免費寄生的微生物上它們無法正常生存。

　　Which is why the next two lines of Swift s poem, And these have smaller fleas to bite em/Andso proceed ad infinitum, are wrongand why, because HTVC010P itself can have noparasites, it probably really is the commonest organism on the planet.

　　這也解釋了為什么斯威失特接下來的兩句這些更小的跳蚤在咬它們，因此這些進程循環往復著是錯誤的，也是HTVC010P為什么是地球上最常見的微生物，因為它本身沒有寄生蟲。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.claim to 聲稱

　　Both political parties in america claim to loveentrepreneurs.

　　美國兩大黨派都聲稱喜歡創業者。

　　America can claim to be tackling its troubledassets.

　　美國也終于可以宣稱正在處理有毒資產了。

　　2.rather than 而不，與其倒不如

　　His film is propaganda rather than documentary.

　　說他的影片是政治宣傳而不是紀錄片。

　　He is an explorer rather than a sailor.

　　與其說他是一個海員，不如說他是一個探險者。

　　3.tie to 拴于使被束縛

　　She bought a tie to go with his suit.

　　她買了一條領帶和他的一套衣服搭配。

　　Tie to the post of unconcern the goats of vice and virtue.

　　把惡習與美德兩頭山羊綁在漫不經心的柱子上。

　　4.mix into 把混入

　　Those who practice should conform to the tao of nature and should not mix much emotioninto their deeds.

　　對修行的人言，不順應自然之道，過度地滲入人的情感，都不是修練者應有的作為。

　　Divide the melted white chocolate into two equal parts. Mix the green tea powder into onepart.

　　把融化的白巧克力分成均等的兩份，其中一份加入綠茶粉。