The Brain Activity Map

　　繪制大腦活動地圖

　　Hard cell

　　棘手的細胞

　　An ambitious project to map the brain is in theworks. Possibly too ambitious

　　一個繪制大腦活動地圖的宏偉計劃正在準備當中，或許有些太宏偉了

　　NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America s next big science project continues todribble out.

　　有關其發起人心中下一個科學大工程的資訊報道層出不窮。

　　A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with areport that Barack Obama s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known asthe Brain Activity Map.

　　2月17日，《紐約時報》刊登的一位線人報告終于泄露了秘密，報告稱奧巴馬政府正在考慮贊助將被稱為大腦活動地圖的計劃。

　　And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project inScience.

　　3月7日，部分發起人在《科學》雜志上發表聲明證實了這一計劃。

　　The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood.

　　大腦活動地圖計劃的目標是改變人們在認知大腦時采用的度量方法。

　　At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels.

　　眼下，神經學的研究處在兩個斷開的層次。

　　The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has manytechniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-resonance imaging, whichmeasures changes in tissues fuel consumption.

　　在相對宏觀的層次當中各個特征的規模用厘米來衡量，有很多技術可以使用，尤其是用來測量組織中能量消耗變動情況的核磁共振成像技術。

　　This lets researchers see which bits ofthe brain are active in particular tasksas long as those tasks can be performed by aperson lying down inside a scanner.

　　該技術可使研究人員找出在完成具體的任務時，大腦的哪些部分處于活躍狀態。

　　At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research hasbeen done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another,and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed.

　　而另一個度量的層次則要求用微米來測量各種特征，這一層次的研究很多都是關于單個神經細胞是如何工作的、信息在神經細胞之間是如何傳遞的以及當產生記憶的時候神經細胞之間的聯系是如何得到加強和減弱的。

　　Between these two, though, all is darkness.

　　然而，位于這兩個層次之間的研究還處于一片漆黑當中。

　　It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and themain highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing inbetween.

　　這就好比當你要在美國尋找自己的前進方向時，手里卻只有一副如下的地圖冊：上面只顯示各州輪廓、各都市的坐落點、干線公路以及一些社區街道，除此之外別無它物。

　　BAM, if all goes well, will yield plans of entire towns and villages, and start to fill in the roadnetwork.

　　如果大腦活動地圖計劃進展順利的話，就能得到完整的城市和村落規劃圖，道路網也將完善。

　　It will also, to push the analogy to breaking point, let a user look at actual traffic flows onthe roads in question, and even manipulate the road signs, in order to understand howparticular communities work.

　　它還能使用戶能夠看到自己備選道路的實際交通情況，甚至還能通過操縱道路標志來了解具體地區是怎樣運作的，將腦圖、地圖這一類比給打破。

　　The mappers aim is to find out how nerve cells collaborate to process information.

　　制圖者的目標是找出神經細胞是如何共同處理信息的。

　　That means looking at the connections between hundreds, thousands and even millions ofadjacent cellsand doing so, crucially, while those cells are still alive, rather than after theyhave been sliced and diced for microscopic examination.

　　這就意味著要研究成百上千甚至上百萬的相鄰細胞之間有何種關聯，關鍵在于這一研究還要在這些細胞存活的時候進行，而不是把它們切片后放在顯微鏡下觀察。

　　This will require a new set of tools.

　　要做到這一點就需要一套新的工具。

　　And the guts of the BAM proposal are that the American taxpayer should provide those tools.

　　大腦活動地圖提案的大膽之處在于它認為美國納稅人應該出錢提供這些工具。

　　It is thus no coincidence that the lead author of the paper, Paul Alivisatos, the director ofthe Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a materials scientist, not a neuroscientist.

　　因此，由材料學家保羅?阿里維薩多而非神經學家來主筆該提案并非什么巧合。

　　Dr Alivisatos and his ten colleagues would like their new tools to be able to record,simultaneously, the activity of millions of nerve cells.

　　阿里維薩多博士和他的10個同事希望他們的新工具能同時記錄數百萬神經細胞的活動情況;

　　Then, having done the recording, they would like a second toolkit that lets themmanipulate each cell at will, to see what effect that has on the rest of the circuit.

　　做完記錄后，他們還想要能自由操縱每個神經細胞的第二套工具，以便找出這樣的操作對細胞周圍有何影響;

　　Finally, to handle the unprecedented amounts of data that the first and second steps willgenerate, they would like a new set of computing hardware and software.

　　最后，為了處理前面兩個步驟所產生的空前的海量數據，他們還想要一套新的計算機軟硬件。

　　A modest proposal, then.

　　如此看來這提案還不算過分嘛，

　　And one which is inducing polite scepticism from many neuroscientists who are not part of thecharmed circle, and who fear their subject is about to be sacrificed to a juggernaut.

　　但它卻也引來了許多此小圈子外的神經學家客氣的猜疑，他們擔心實驗被試會成為這一計劃的犧牲品。

　　Such scepticism is reasonable.

　　這種懷疑是合乎情理的。

　　The third part of the project, the computer side, should be doable.

　　該計劃的計算機部分是可行的，不論如何，這只不過是提高計算機的原有水平而已。

　　That is just a question of pushing harder in a direction things are, in any case, going.

　　但是前面兩部分你要怎么完成呢?誰都不知道。

　　How you would do the first two, though, is anybody s guessand Dr Alivisatos and hiscolleagues are pretty sketchy about the details.

　　而且阿里維薩多和其同事對相關細節也說得相當籠統。

　　Thinking big, thinking small

　　高瞻遠矚也要低頭看路

　　What ideas there are draw heavily on the nascent field of nanotechnology.

　　現在能想到的辦法主要就是利用納米技術這一新領域，

　　This is Dr Alivisatos s particular province, and also that of the Kavli Foundation, which existsto advance fundamental research in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscienceand theoretical physics.

　　這是阿里維薩多的專攻領域，也是美國科威利基金會專門支持的領域。該基金會的宗旨是推動天體物理學、納米技術、神經學和理論物理學等領域的基礎研究，

　　A brain map would push two of those buttons, which accounts for the fact that five of themanifesto s authors work for institutes sponsored by this foundation.

　　一個大腦地圖計劃就會涉及到里面的兩個領域，這也解釋了《科學》雜志上的聲明人中有五個在該基金贊助的機構工作這一事實。

　　But any successes that nanotechnology has enjoyed so far have been small beer comparedwith the devices that would be needed to interrogate nerve cells, record the results andtransmit them back to base, let alone tell those nerve cells what to do.

　　但是，和審問神經細胞、記錄審問結果并將審問結果傳回大本營所需要的設備相比，目前納米技術領域所取得一切成果都是些小把戲，就更別指望能用它來控制神經細胞的行為了。

　　The protagonists would, they say, build up slowly, using humbler creatures than humanbeings as experimental subjects to start with.

　　該計劃的發起人說，他們會慢慢推進，首先使用比人類低級的生物作為實驗對象。

　　This was the approach taken by the Human Genome Project, which began with bacteriaand yeast, progressed to worms, flies and mice, and only then tackled people.

　　人類基因組工程當初便是采取的這一途徑：一開始是細菌和酵母，再升級到蠕蟲、蒼蠅和老鼠，最后才是人類。

　　But the analogy is not quite a fair one.

　　但拿它做類比還不大合適，

　　When the genome project started,genomicists already had a basic understanding of how togo about it.

　　因為在基因組工程啟動時，遺傳學家對該如何進行已經有了一個基本理解，

　　That understanding was vastly refined and improved by the application of several billiondollars.

　　這一理解在花費了數十億美元后得到了大大的提煉和改善。

　　But it was there from the beginning.

　　但人家一開始就有理解啊。

　　Going from existing methods of recording and manipulating cell activity, which rely on largeelectrodes, often connected to the outside world by physical wires, to the massively parallel,wireless system envisaged by Dr Alivisatos, is a different proposition.

　　記錄和操縱細胞活動的現有技術要依靠一些很大的電極，從這些技術跨越到阿里維薩多博士所設想的無線平行體系，相對基因組計劃而已，則是一個不同的命題。

　　It may be possible. But it requires a leap of faith.

　　這也許是可能的，但要讓人相信則需要信心的大飛躍。

　　The next few weeks will reveal whether that faith is shared by a cash-strapped president.

　　囊中羞澀的總統是否也有這種信心呢?答案將會在后面的幾周內揭曉。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.continue to 繼續

　　One-off projects will continue to attract capital.

　　一次性的項目會繼續吸引資本。

　　U.s. natural-gas producers continue to increasesupply.

　　美國天然氣供應商的供給持續增加。

　　2.in particular 尤其，特別

　　Progress is needed in three areas in particular.

　　尤其需要在三個方面取得進展。

　　Unemployment in particular has risen less than once seemed likely.

　　特別是失業率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。

　　3.breaking point 轉換點;斷點

　　You were my breaking point.

　　你是我的突破點。

　　Achieving this package will stretch the eurozone s inter-governmental decision-making to breaking point.

　　執行上述一攬子方案，將達到歐元區政府間政策制定能力的極限。

　　4.in order to 為了

　　In order to focus effectively, reverse the order.

　　為了有效地專注，將工作順序反過來。

　　He arranged the accident in order to fake his own death.

　　他策劃了這次事故以便造成他自己死亡的假象。

　　The Brain Activity Map

　　繪制大腦活動地圖

　　Hard cell

　　棘手的細胞

　　An ambitious project to map the brain is in theworks. Possibly too ambitious

　　一個繪制大腦活動地圖的宏偉計劃正在準備當中，或許有些太宏偉了

　　NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America s next big science project continues todribble out.

　　有關其發起人心中下一個科學大工程的資訊報道層出不窮。

　　A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with areport that Barack Obama s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known asthe Brain Activity Map.

　　2月17日，《紐約時報》刊登的一位線人報告終于泄露了秘密，報告稱奧巴馬政府正在考慮贊助將被稱為大腦活動地圖的計劃。

　　And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project inScience.

　　3月7日，部分發起人在《科學》雜志上發表聲明證實了這一計劃。

　　The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood.

　　大腦活動地圖計劃的目標是改變人們在認知大腦時采用的度量方法。

　　At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels.

　　眼下，神經學的研究處在兩個斷開的層次。

　　The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has manytechniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-resonance imaging, whichmeasures changes in tissues fuel consumption.

　　在相對宏觀的層次當中各個特征的規模用厘米來衡量，有很多技術可以使用，尤其是用來測量組織中能量消耗變動情況的核磁共振成像技術。

　　This lets researchers see which bits ofthe brain are active in particular tasksas long as those tasks can be performed by aperson lying down inside a scanner.

　　該技術可使研究人員找出在完成具體的任務時，大腦的哪些部分處于活躍狀態。

　　At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research hasbeen done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another,and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed.

　　而另一個度量的層次則要求用微米來測量各種特征，這一層次的研究很多都是關于單個神經細胞是如何工作的、信息在神經細胞之間是如何傳遞的以及當產生記憶的時候神經細胞之間的聯系是如何得到加強和減弱的。

　　Between these two, though, all is darkness.

　　然而，位于這兩個層次之間的研究還處于一片漆黑當中。

　　It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and themain highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing inbetween.

　　這就好比當你要在美國尋找自己的前進方向時，手里卻只有一副如下的地圖冊：上面只顯示各州輪廓、各都市的坐落點、干線公路以及一些社區街道，除此之外別無它物。

　　BAM, if all goes well, will yield plans of entire towns and villages, and start to fill in the roadnetwork.

　　如果大腦活動地圖計劃進展順利的話，就能得到完整的城市和村落規劃圖，道路網也將完善。

　　It will also, to push the analogy to breaking point, let a user look at actual traffic flows onthe roads in question, and even manipulate the road signs, in order to understand howparticular communities work.

　　它還能使用戶能夠看到自己備選道路的實際交通情況，甚至還能通過操縱道路標志來了解具體地區是怎樣運作的，將腦圖、地圖這一類比給打破。

　　The mappers aim is to find out how nerve cells collaborate to process information.

　　制圖者的目標是找出神經細胞是如何共同處理信息的。

　　That means looking at the connections between hundreds, thousands and even millions ofadjacent cellsand doing so, crucially, while those cells are still alive, rather than after theyhave been sliced and diced for microscopic examination.

　　這就意味著要研究成百上千甚至上百萬的相鄰細胞之間有何種關聯，關鍵在于這一研究還要在這些細胞存活的時候進行，而不是把它們切片后放在顯微鏡下觀察。

　　This will require a new set of tools.

　　要做到這一點就需要一套新的工具。

　　And the guts of the BAM proposal are that the American taxpayer should provide those tools.

　　大腦活動地圖提案的大膽之處在于它認為美國納稅人應該出錢提供這些工具。

　　It is thus no coincidence that the lead author of the paper, Paul Alivisatos, the director ofthe Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a materials scientist, not a neuroscientist.

　　因此，由材料學家保羅?阿里維薩多而非神經學家來主筆該提案并非什么巧合。

　　Dr Alivisatos and his ten colleagues would like their new tools to be able to record,simultaneously, the activity of millions of nerve cells.

　　阿里維薩多博士和他的10個同事希望他們的新工具能同時記錄數百萬神經細胞的活動情況;

　　Then, having done the recording, they would like a second toolkit that lets themmanipulate each cell at will, to see what effect that has on the rest of the circuit.

　　做完記錄后，他們還想要能自由操縱每個神經細胞的第二套工具，以便找出這樣的操作對細胞周圍有何影響;

　　Finally, to handle the unprecedented amounts of data that the first and second steps willgenerate, they would like a new set of computing hardware and software.

　　最后，為了處理前面兩個步驟所產生的空前的海量數據，他們還想要一套新的計算機軟硬件。

　　A modest proposal, then.

　　如此看來這提案還不算過分嘛，

　　And one which is inducing polite scepticism from many neuroscientists who are not part of thecharmed circle, and who fear their subject is about to be sacrificed to a juggernaut.

　　但它卻也引來了許多此小圈子外的神經學家客氣的猜疑，他們擔心實驗被試會成為這一計劃的犧牲品。

　　Such scepticism is reasonable.

　　這種懷疑是合乎情理的。

　　The third part of the project, the computer side, should be doable.

　　該計劃的計算機部分是可行的，不論如何，這只不過是提高計算機的原有水平而已。

　　That is just a question of pushing harder in a direction things are, in any case, going.

　　但是前面兩部分你要怎么完成呢?誰都不知道。

　　How you would do the first two, though, is anybody s guessand Dr Alivisatos and hiscolleagues are pretty sketchy about the details.

　　而且阿里維薩多和其同事對相關細節也說得相當籠統。

　　Thinking big, thinking small

　　高瞻遠矚也要低頭看路

　　What ideas there are draw heavily on the nascent field of nanotechnology.

　　現在能想到的辦法主要就是利用納米技術這一新領域，

　　This is Dr Alivisatos s particular province, and also that of the Kavli Foundation, which existsto advance fundamental research in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscienceand theoretical physics.

　　這是阿里維薩多的專攻領域，也是美國科威利基金會專門支持的領域。該基金會的宗旨是推動天體物理學、納米技術、神經學和理論物理學等領域的基礎研究，

　　A brain map would push two of those buttons, which accounts for the fact that five of themanifesto s authors work for institutes sponsored by this foundation.

　　一個大腦地圖計劃就會涉及到里面的兩個領域，這也解釋了《科學》雜志上的聲明人中有五個在該基金贊助的機構工作這一事實。

　　But any successes that nanotechnology has enjoyed so far have been small beer comparedwith the devices that would be needed to interrogate nerve cells, record the results andtransmit them back to base, let alone tell those nerve cells what to do.

　　但是，和審問神經細胞、記錄審問結果并將審問結果傳回大本營所需要的設備相比，目前納米技術領域所取得一切成果都是些小把戲，就更別指望能用它來控制神經細胞的行為了。

　　The protagonists would, they say, build up slowly, using humbler creatures than humanbeings as experimental subjects to start with.

　　該計劃的發起人說，他們會慢慢推進，首先使用比人類低級的生物作為實驗對象。

　　This was the approach taken by the Human Genome Project, which began with bacteriaand yeast, progressed to worms, flies and mice, and only then tackled people.

　　人類基因組工程當初便是采取的這一途徑：一開始是細菌和酵母，再升級到蠕蟲、蒼蠅和老鼠，最后才是人類。

　　But the analogy is not quite a fair one.

　　但拿它做類比還不大合適，

　　When the genome project started,genomicists already had a basic understanding of how togo about it.

　　因為在基因組工程啟動時，遺傳學家對該如何進行已經有了一個基本理解，

　　That understanding was vastly refined and improved by the application of several billiondollars.

　　這一理解在花費了數十億美元后得到了大大的提煉和改善。

　　But it was there from the beginning.

　　但人家一開始就有理解啊。

　　Going from existing methods of recording and manipulating cell activity, which rely on largeelectrodes, often connected to the outside world by physical wires, to the massively parallel,wireless system envisaged by Dr Alivisatos, is a different proposition.

　　記錄和操縱細胞活動的現有技術要依靠一些很大的電極，從這些技術跨越到阿里維薩多博士所設想的無線平行體系，相對基因組計劃而已，則是一個不同的命題。

　　It may be possible. But it requires a leap of faith.

　　這也許是可能的，但要讓人相信則需要信心的大飛躍。

　　The next few weeks will reveal whether that faith is shared by a cash-strapped president.

　　囊中羞澀的總統是否也有這種信心呢?答案將會在后面的幾周內揭曉。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.continue to 繼續

　　One-off projects will continue to attract capital.

　　一次性的項目會繼續吸引資本。

　　U.s. natural-gas producers continue to increasesupply.

　　美國天然氣供應商的供給持續增加。

　　2.in particular 尤其，特別

　　Progress is needed in three areas in particular.

　　尤其需要在三個方面取得進展。

　　Unemployment in particular has risen less than once seemed likely.

　　特別是失業率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。

　　3.breaking point 轉換點;斷點

　　You were my breaking point.

　　你是我的突破點。

　　Achieving this package will stretch the eurozone s inter-governmental decision-making to breaking point.

　　執行上述一攬子方案，將達到歐元區政府間政策制定能力的極限。

　　4.in order to 為了

　　In order to focus effectively, reverse the order.

　　為了有效地專注，將工作順序反過來。

　　He arranged the accident in order to fake his own death.

　　他策劃了這次事故以便造成他自己死亡的假象。