决战1010精英组Economist阅读汇——amanda分贴

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Navigation and the sexes

15.Hunters and shoppers

Men and women navigate differently

Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Hunter-gatherers at work

MEN are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability, such as mentally rotating an object through three dimensions or finding their way around in a new environment. But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a woman’s way of navigating is probably more efficient.

spatial a.空间的，与空间有关的

Luis Pacheco-Cobos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues discovered this by following mushroom gatherers from a village in the state of Tlaxcala for two rainy seasons. Two researchers, each fitted with GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors, followed different gatherers on different days. They recorded the weight of the mushrooms each gatherer collected and where they visited. The GPS data allowed a map to be made of the routes taken and the heart-rate measurements provided an estimate of the amount of energy expended during their travels.

The results, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, show that the men and women collected on average about the same weight of mushrooms. But the men travelled farther, climbed higher and used a lot more energy—70% more than the women. The men did not move any faster, but they searched for spots with lots of mushrooms. The women made many more stops, apparently satisfied with, or perhaps better at finding, patches of fewer mushrooms.

Previous work has shown that men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on the maps. Women are more likely to remember their routes using landmarks. The study lends support to the idea that male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolution for different tasks. Modern-day hunter-gatherers divide labour, so that men tend to do more hunting and women more gathering. It seems likely that early humans did much the same thing.

hone  n.细磨刀石  v.磨刀

The theory is that the male strategy is the most useful for hunting prey; chasing an antelope, say, would mean running a long way over a winding route. But having killed his prey, the hunter would want to make a beeline for home rather than retrace his steps exactly. Women, by contrast, would be better off remembering landmarks and retracing the paths to the most productive patches of plants.

antelope  n.羚羊

winding
[ˈwaindiŋ] a.蜿蜒的，迂回的

beeline  [bi'lain] n. 直线 vi. 走直线

The research suggests that in certain circumstances women are better at navigating than men. Which might lend some comfort to a man desperately searching for an item in a supermarket while his exasperated wife methodically moves around the aisles filling the shopping trolley. He is simply not cut out for the job, evolutionarily speaking.

Exasperated adj. 恼怒的

aisle
[ail] n.过道，通道

trolley
[ˈtrɔli] n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

cut out for
对(某人)生来合适

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Seeking extraterrestrial intelligence
16.A deathly hushThe little green men may be on their wayApr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
hush
v /n 肃静，安静＝silence＝soothe＝quiet

FIFTY years ago, an American astronomer called Frank Drake started to search for signals coming from alien civilisations. Paul Davies, a British physicist, examines in a new book why it might be that mankind has not heard from extraterrestrials, the significance of this lack of response, whether aliens might yet make contact and how people might react to them. The short answer is: no one knows.

terrestrial
[tiˈrestriəl] a.地球的，陆地的

The universe is immense, which makes many scientists confident that life might have evolved elsewhere. Perhaps, concedes Mr Davies, but for life to signal its existence, it must be intelligent, which whittles things down a bit, and it must have developed science, which further slims the chances. Moreover, because the universe is so vast, it takes years for a signal travelling at the speed of light to reach only as far as the next star to our sun. Modern man evolved as a species 100,000 years ago but began broadcasting his existence (in the form of radio communications intended for domestic consumption but which might also be picked up by aliens) less than 100 years ago. If mankind were, this week, to receive a reply from extraterrestrials that had tuned in to the earliest broadcasts, they must be living less than 50 light-years from Earth. That is a tiny pocket in the universe. No surprise, then, that so far nothing has been heard.

concede  v （不情愿地）承认＝admit；屈服，让步＝yield

whittle  v 削（木头，用来成形）；逐渐削减

slim
[slim] a.苗条的；薄的；(机会)少的 v.减轻体重

Mr Davies points out that scientists who search for aliens using radio telescopes are assuming that other life would use this form of communication. But people are increasingly using the internet to talk to one another. Within the next 100 years, mankind may no longer use radio. Astronomers are using the only tools at their disposal but these may well be the wrong ones for the job.
Of course, there is the possibility that intelligent, scientifically minded alien species do evolve quite readily on extrasolar planets. This would be ominous for humanity, and is what makes the silence eerie. The lack of contact would suggest that intelligent life and technological civilisations may be inherently unstable, and destroy themselves before they can signal their existence to one another.

ominous  adj 预兆不祥的；不吉利的

eerie  adj （不可言状的因迷信）可怕的；阴森恐怖的＝weird；神秘怪异的

Given the great size not only of space but also of time, perhaps intelligent life looks different elsewhere. If mankind persists for a further 100,000 years, the species will surely change. Indeed, it has already developed intelligent machines and is well on its way to building devices that are more intelligent than their makers. Perhaps the baton of intelligence will be passed to these contraptions, in which case, those looking for extraterrestrial life should be seeking not little green men but little green machines.

baton  n 指挥棒（指挥家或鼓手用）；警棍＝truncheon；接力棒

contraption  [kən'træpʃən]  n. 奇妙的装置

Should mankind finally receive a message from the skies, Mr Davies considers the impact it might have, who should have the right to reply and what should be said. (One of the winning entries to a competition, run by the Daily Telegraph, for the best message Earthlings might send to extraterrestrials, reads, “Two thousand years ago, we had a very enlightening visit from the Creator’s Son. Has he been to visit you yet?”) Mr Davies provides a timely and thought-provoking account of a search that, after five decades, has not yet produced any sightings.

should
[ʃud, ʃəd] aux. v.[shall的过去式]；应当；可能

timely
[ˈtaimli] a.及时的，适时的

provoke
[prəˈvəuk] vt.对…挑衅，激怒；激起，引起

thought-provoking  ['θɔ:tprəˌvəukiŋ] adj. 令人深思的，发人深省的

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Polar ice shelves
17.Breaking wavesThe coup de grace that shatters ice shelves is administered by ocean waves(瓦解冰架的致命一击是海浪)Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

coup
n 意外而成功的行动；非常好的妙计

IN 2008 part of the Wilkins ice shelf on the edge of the Antarctic peninsular suddenly disintegrated. It was seen by some as a portend. If other, larger shelves—huge ice sheets that have slipped off the land but are not floating freely on the sea—were to break up in a similar way, their non-floating ice (which is not subject to Archimedes’s principle that it displaces its own weight of water) would be converted into floating ice (which is), and the sea level would rise.

portend
[pɔ:ˈtend] vt.预示

The Wilkins shelf may or may not have been the victim, ultimately, of climate change. Regardless of what weakened it, though, it was not rising temperatures that caused the sudden break up. Peter Bromirski of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego thinks he knows what did: a little-studied phenomenon called infragravity waves.
Ocean waves come in several varieties. Normal swells, known technically as gravity waves, are created by wind pushing the surface of the sea up and gravity then pulling it down, causing it to bounce. Gravity waves have a frequency of about once every 30 seconds. When such swells hit the coast, however, part of their energy is transformed into vibrations that have periods ranging from 50 to 350 seconds. These are infragravity waves, so called because they are sub-harmonics of the original gravity waves.

swell
v /n （由于内部压力）使肿胀；（力量、尺寸、数量或程度）增强；波浪起伏

harmonics
①谐波②调和函数

Most infragravity waves hug the coast. A few, though, break free—and such open-ocean waves are powerful and can travel great distances. Some generated off the coast of South America, for example, make it all the way to Antarctica.

hug
[hʌg]v./ n.热烈拥抱；怀抱.紧抱在一起，互相拥抱;
指船只﹑
汽车等）紧挨着（某物）; 坚持并乐於信守（某观点）

make it all the way to畅行无阻

Long-term monitoring of the vibrations induced by ocean waves in Antarctic ice shelves is a recent phenomenon. In the past the seismometers required to do so have not been robust enough to survive such brutal conditions. Dr Bromirski, however, knew of a study that had deployed seismometers successfully on the Ross ice shelf, and he was able to reanalyse the data from it.
seismometer
地震仪, 地震计
deploy v 展开；部署（系统地或策略地分布、布置部队准备战斗）
The original analysis had detected storm-driven swell shaking the ice. Dr Bromirski’s work showed a second signal. Waves with longer periods were also shaking the Ross shelf—indeed, they were inducing a much larger response than the storm waves were. Dr Bromirski and his colleagues report in Geophysical Research Letters that the movements caused by infragravity waves were three times larger than those induced by the swell.(
由亚重力波导致的变动是汹涌海浪导致变动的三倍。) Moreover, although floating sea ice damped the swell, reducing its impact on the shelf considerably, such floating ice had no significant effect on infragravity waves—even during the winter, when it was at its thickest.
The researchers suggest infragravity waves cause vibrations in shelves. These open new cracks and widen existing ones. The cracks then flood, and this speeds up the disintegration of the shelf by weakening its interior.
flood
布满
大量v.淹没，涌入 n.洪水，水灾；大量，大批
Applying this model to the Wilkins ice shelf, Dr Bromirski concludes the likely explanation for its sudden disappearance is that it was shivered to pieces by infragravity waves generated by a series of storms on the coast of Patagonia. A case, then, of being both shaken and stirred.

shiver v. 颤抖, 打碎, 碎裂n. (无法控制的)颤抖, 碎片

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18.A game of consequences?

One of the scourges of modern life may have been profoundly misunderstood

Mar 11th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

BEING fat is bad for you. On that, almost everyone agrees. It is just possible, though, that almost everyone is wrong. In fact, getting fat may be a mechanism that protects the body. The health problems associated with fatness may not be caused by it but be another consequence, another symptom, of overeating.( 实际上，发胖可能是保护身体的方法。与肥胖有关的健康问题或许并不是肥胖本身引起的，而是暴饮暴食的又一个后果，又一个症状。)

symptom
[ˈsimptəm] n.症状；征候，征兆

That is the heretical proposal of Roger Unger and Philipp Scherer. (这正是罗杰•昂格尔和菲利普•谢勒提出的颠覆传统的观点。)Dr Unger and Dr Scherer, who work at the University of Texas, in Dallas, have been reviewing the science of what has come to be known as metabolic syndrome. This is a cluster of symptoms such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and fatness that seem to increase the risk of heart disease and strokes, late-onset diabetes and liver disease. Metabolic syndrome is found in a sixth of the American population.

heretical  adj 异端邪说的；异教的

“Syndrome” is the medical term for a collection of symptoms whose common cause is not properly understood. The symptom of metabolic syndrome that appears first is usually obesity, so this is generally regarded as the underlying cause.

obesity  n.肥胖

underlying  adj 在下面的；根本的；基础的;
含蓄的，潜在的

Dr Unger and Dr Scherer, however, turn this logic on its head. They point out that there is usually a period of many years between a person becoming overweight and his developing the other symptoms. If the growth of adipose tissue (the body cells in which fat is stored) were directly harmful, that would not be the case. This is one of the lines of evidence that has led them to the conclusion that, in addition to its role in storing energy as a hedge against future famine, getting fat is a protective mechanism against metabolic syndrome.

adipose  ['ædipəus;'ædəˌpəus]   adj. 脂肪的n. 脂肪

hedge  n 树篱（一排密种的灌木或低树形成的栅栏或分界线）；（由一排人或物体组成的）障碍; 预防措施

Their thesis is that lipids (the group of molecules that includes fats), which are needed in small amounts to make cell membranes, are toxic in larger quantities. Absorbing them into adipose tissue is one of the body’s ways of dealing with that toxicity. But are lipids toxic? In one sense, it is obvious that they are. The build up of fatty plaques in blood vessels, which results in atherosclerosis, is a result of the inability of the cells lining the walls of these vessels to cope with too much fat.

thesis  ['θi:sis] n. 毕业论文，论题，论文

lipids  [;'lipidz] n. 脂质，类脂

membrane  n 薄膜（薄而柔软的组织层，覆盖在表面）细胞膜

plaque  n 血小板；斑（动脉血管壁内脂肪物质的沉积）

atherosclerosis  [ˌæθərəuskli'rəusis]  [医]动脉硬化

Fat, and proud of it

More subtly, though, the two researchers have dug up evidence that an excess of lipids damages heart-muscle cells, and even destroys pancreatic cells in rodents. This could help explain the fact that the form of diabetes that follows metabolic syndrome can involve damage to pancreatic cells.

subtly  ['sʌtli;'sʌtəli] adv. 敏锐地，巧妙地，精细地

dug up  v. 掘起(挖松，发现)

pancreatic  [ˌpæŋkri'ætik] adj. 胰脏的

It is generally thought that the growth of adipose tissue causes cells in the liver, muscle and fat tissue to become resistant to insulin (a hormone produced in the pancreas) and thus unable to absorb glucose from the blood. How this happens has been the subject of a lot of hand waving, though the tendency of adipose tissue to produce chemicals that encourage inflammation is often mentioned.( 这一现象的发生一直是一个扑朔迷离的话题，但是脂肪组织倾向于产生恶化炎症的化学物质这一点却经常被提及。)

pancreas n.胰脏
inflammation n 点火；发炎（表现为疼痛、红肿，有时丧失功能）；激怒
【反】mollification（n 缓和）"

Dr Unger and Dr Scherer attack this whole notion. In a paper in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism they argue that insulin resistance is another side-effect of metabolic syndrome whose cause is lipid molecules poisoning tissues in which they are not supposed to be present in large quantities. The problem of lipid damage, they believe, is linked to hormones produced not by the pancreas, but by adipose tissue itself. These hormones are called leptin and adiponectin.

leptin  n. 瘦素

Adiponectin  n. [医]脂联素

Leptin has several roles, but one is to encourage cells to oxidise lipids and thus destroy them. For example, in the cases of the heart-muscle cells and pancreatic cells mentioned above, dosing them with leptin keeps them healthy. Adiponectin, meanwhile, encourages the body’s adipose tissue to absorb lipids.

oxidize  v 使氧化，使生锈

As adipose tissue grows, however, its production of adiponectin falls. The ability of the tissue to absorb lipids and keep the rest of the body safe thus drops. Leptin production, meanwhile, grows along with the mass of the adipose tissue. In what is, admittedly, the least-tested part of their thesis, Dr Unger and Dr Scherer argue that other cells react to this increase in leptin concentration by becoming resistant to the hormone’s effects. That, in turn, stops them oxidising lipids and opens those cells to lipids’ toxic effects.( 昂格尔和谢勒博士的理论中有一部分证据最为不充分，在这一部分中，他们称其他细胞会对瘦素的累积产生反应，开始对激素的作用产生抵抗，从而不再对脂质进行氧化，是它们受到脂质毒性的攻击。)

Dr Unger and Dr Scherer suggest that this failure of the leptin mechanism, particularly its role in oxidising lipids, is crucial to the development of metabolic syndrome, and that it is a pathology of adipose tissue that has become overloaded.

In light of all this, they suggest that insulin resistance, like obesity, should be viewed not as a pathology but as an adaptive response by the body to an excess of circulating lipids. To save themselves when they are threatened with being overwhelmed by lipids, cells become insulin-resistant, which stops them taking up extra glucose which would then be converted into lipids.

circulate
[ˈsə:kjuleit]v.(使)循环；(使)流传，传播

In support of this hypothesis, the researchers point to studies on mice whose leptin receptors have been broken by genetic mutations. In a healthy mouse (one with working leptin receptors) even a diet that is 60% fat does not cause a build-up of lipids anywhere except in the adipose tissue. In one with broken receptors, a mere 6% is enough to overload other tissues to the point where lipids would be toxic. Such experiments cannot, of course, be done on people, but something similar occurs naturally. A few unfortunates are born without adipose tissue. These people rapidly develop the symptoms of metabolic syndrome.

mutation  n 突变（生物的基因或染色体产生父代没有的新的特征）

Sadly for self-indulgent humans, none of this affects the basic message about staying healthy, which remains to eat less and exercise more. It does, though, raise important questions about how metabolic syndrome is treated. The focus that many doctors have on controlling diabetes may be mistaken, possibly counterproductive, if insulin resistance is actually a protective mechanism. Even if it is not, the destruction of pancreatic cells that comes with diabetes may be unrelated to the development of insulin resistance. And liposuction (not, admittedly, something that most doctors would recommend) would be expected to make things worse, since it would get rid of the source of the hormones that regulate lipids.

indulgent  adj 放纵的；采取宽容放纵行为的＝lenient

liposuction  ['lipəuˌsʌkʃən]n. 吸脂术

Dr Unger and Dr Scherer, then, have attempted to apply some new thinking to a disease that affects more people as the world gets richer. Even if they are wrong, a little lateral thinking may help shake up the field(一点横向思维也能够给这一领域带来翻天覆地的变化). If they are right, a lot of people may thank them in the future.

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Homosexuality
同性恋
19.All creatures great and small
万物生灵

How homosexuality, widespread in the animal kingdom, may have evolved
同性恋如何在动物王国得以流传？或许是进化使然


The birds and the bees
WHAT is taught in a country's schools reveals much about the national psyche. The Norwegian curriculum requires that all 14-year-olds learn about homosexuality. Assisting with this education, the National History Museum at the University of Oslo has just opened an exhibition of gay animals.
“Against Nature?” does not tell zoologists anything new. Homosexuality has been recorded in some 1,500 species so far, and been well documented in about a third of these cases; it has been known since the time of Aristotle, who thought he witnessed two male hyenas having sex with one another. But the exhibition's purpose is not to educate zoologists. It is to persuade the public that, as there are gay whales and worms, gay humans do not disturb the natural order.

hyena
[haiˈi:nə] n.土狼，鬣狗

whale
[hweil] n.鲸

worm
[wə:m] n.虫，蠕虫

Aside from illustrating homosexuality among an extraordinary variety of creatures, the exhibition shows how sexual stimulation can vary when, at first blush, the mechanical details of how this might work are not obvious to people attempting to draw analogies from their own anatomies.(
本次展览不仅说明同性恋现象存在于种类繁多的动物之间，还表明，性刺激可能是那样千差万别，人们试图通过解剖人体作类推无法一览同性恋行为的具体机制。) Male Amazonian river dolphins, for example, penetrate the blowholes of other males; female bottlenose dolphins use their snouts as dildos on other females.

aside from
除 ... 以外(尚有)

blush  v （因害羞、激动、窘困等）脸红；n 泛出的红晕

analogy
[əˈnælədʒi] n.比拟，类比，类推

anatomy
[əˈnætəmi] n.解剖学

blowhole
n. (鲸等的)呼吸孔, 喷水孔, 通风孔, 通气孔

bottlenose dolphins
宽吻海豚

snout
[snaut] n.鼻子

dildo  ['dildəu] n. <俚>假阴茎 n. 电动阴茎

Why this behaviour might be favoured by
natural selection, though, is a difficult question to answer. In an attempt to do so, the exhibition picks on gay flamingos. Two males raising a chick after one of them had a one-night stand (of sorts) with a female are able to hold a larger territory than male-female partnerships. This suggests a chick with two dads could get more food and therefore have a better chance of survival. But explanations are harder when gay animals (such as some humans and, apparently, some killer whales) never try to mate with the opposite sex.
be favoured by得宠于
flamingo [flə'miŋgəu] n. 红鹤，火烈鸟
one-night stand一夜风流

chick
[tʃik] n.小鸡(鸟)；小孩；少妇

killer whales虎鲸
Theoretically, there are several possible ways homosexuality could have evolved. One is that homosexuals assist in the upbringing of their relatives
so much that they pass on more of their genes this way than by having children themselves. Another suggestion assumes the genes that confer homosexuality (引发同性恋的基因)in males are different from those that confer it in females. For the theory to work, these genes would have to confer some extra reproductive advantage to their straight carriers. This way, genes that increase the chances of one sex surviving and reproducing might not be discarded through the generations even though they inhibit making babies when they occur in the opposite sex.(
这样一来，尽管这些基因出现在某一性别的个体内时会抑制生殖，但这些能令异性个体的存活几率及繁殖能力的增加的基因也许不会随着代代进化而丢失。)But testing these theories is hard, so nobody knows if they are true.

confer  v 讨论（在一起交换意见）；授予（称号、学位、荣誉等）＝reward

Taking lessons on sexuality from the birds and the bees itself requires first accepting something not taught ubiquitously outside Norway—that evolution occurs by natural selection.

ubiquitously  [ju:'bikwətəsli;ju:'bikwi:təsli]  adv. 同时普遍存在的(处处存在的，随遇的)

Homosexual behaviour widespread in animals according to new study
Homosexual behaviour is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, according to a new study.

Dolphins have been known engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding Photo: GETTY
The pairing of same sex couples had previously been observed in more than 1,000 species including penguins, dolphins and primates.
However, in the latest study the authors claim the phenomenon is not only widespread but part of a necessary biological adaptation for the survival of the species.

penguin
[ˈpeŋgwin] n.企鹅

They found that on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, almost a third of the Laysan albatross population is raised by pairs of two females because of the shortage of males. Through these 'lesbian' unions, Laysan albatross are flourishing. Their existence had been dwindling before the adaptation was noticed.

Laysan莱珊岛

albatross  ['&aelig;lbətrɔs;'&aelig;lbəˌtrɔs]  n. 信天翁，沉重的负担，阻碍

dwindle
[ˈdwindl] vi.逐渐变小(或减少)

Other species form same-sex bonds for other reasons, they found. Dolphins have been known engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding while male-male pairings in locusts killed off the weaker males.

pairings 配对

locust
[ˈləukəst] n.蝗虫，贪吃的人

A pair of "gay" penguins recently hatched an egg at a German zoo after being given the egg that had been rejected by its biological parents by keepers.
Writing in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Dr Nathan Bailey, an evolutionary biologist at California University, said previous studies have failed to consider the evolutionary consequences of homosexuality.
He said same homosexual behaviour was often a product of natural selection to further the survival of the species.
Dr Bailey said: "It's clear same-sex sexual behaviour extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature – for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies.
"Same-sex behaviours – courtship, mounting or parenting – are traits that may have been shaped by natural selection, a basic mechanism of evolution that occurs over successive generations," he said.

courtship
[ˈkɔ:tʃip] n.求爱(时期)

"But our review of studies also suggests that these same-sex behaviours might act as selective forces in and of themselves."

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Science & Technology
Behaviour of the sexes
20.The hormone of laddishnessOestrogen, not testosterone, is what makes a male act like a male

laddish
如少年的; 男孩般的; 少年的

laddishness年轻酷男, 好斗

oestrogen  ['estrədʒən]  n. [化]雌激素

testosterone  [tes'tɔstərəun;tes'tɔstəˌrəun]  n. 睾丸激素

Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
IN ALL species that practise sexual reproduction, males and females show gender-specific behaviours. These range from the way they mate to the way they defend—or fail to defend—their territory. Both males and females start out with the same template at birth, but then something acts on the male to masculinise him for life. But nobody knows just how that happens.

practice  v /n 实践，练习（为获取或提高技能而反复做）

sexual reproduction  n. [生物]有性生殖

zoogamy  [zəu'ɔgəmi]n. 有性生殖，两性生殖

monogony  [mɔ'nɔgəni] 单性生殖，无性生殖

agamogenesis  [ˌ&aelig;gəmə'dʒenisis] n. 无性生殖

无性生殖: asexual reproduction ;

template
①模框，标准框，样板②属性单元，临时区

temperate  adj 自我克制的；温和的

temperament
[ˈtempərəmənt] n.气质，性格

masculinise  ['m&aelig;skjulinaiz] vt. 使男子化，使雄性化

It is well known that sex hormones like oestrogen, which is typically seen as a female hormone, and testosterone, similarly seen as a male one, play a role in shaping the neural circuits in the developing brain, and that much of that moulding takes place before birth. It has also been established that testosterone, as well as being a fully functional hormone in its own right, can be (and often is) converted into oestrogen in the body.

neural
/ ˈnjuərəl; ˋnjʊrəl/ adj (anatomy解剖学) of the nerves 神经的

mold
n 模子；霉；v 塑造

establish
[iˈst&aelig;bliʃ] vt.建立，创办，设立；确定，确立，证实

in its own right凭借自身力量(发挥它的头衔所具有的作用)

Male mice experience a short-lived testosterone surge on the day they are born. It lasts less than 36 hours and the level then remains low until puberty. (In human males, there appears to be a similar neonatal surge.) This pulse of testosterone is believed to be a key event in the masculinisation of the brain. Nirao Shah and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco wanted to find out which neurons in the brain were responding to it. What they discovered was a surprise.

surge
[sə:dʒ] vi./ n.蜂拥而出；洋溢；汹涌；猛增

puberty
n 青春期（在生理上有能力进行有性繁殖）

neonatal  [ˌni:əu'neitəl]  adj. 新生的，初生的

pulse
[pʌls] n.脉搏；脉冲 vi.搏动，跳动

neuron
神经元，神经细胞

neuron: 1 cell body, 2 dendrite(树突，树枝石，树枝状结晶), 3 axon((神经细胞的)轴索，轴突), 4 nerve ending

It was reasonable to think, as many people did, that androgen receptors—which respond to male hormones—were mediating the manly transformation. But androgen receptors were found to be nearly non-existent in the brains of newborn animals. Dr Shah could not find them earlier in development either, such as just after the fetal testes first started putting out testosterone in a 13-day-old embryo. Without male hormone receptors to respond to testosterone, the researchers started to suspect androgen receptors were not the players they had been assumed to be. Nor, perhaps, was testosterone.

mediate
[ˈmidieit]vi.调解，斡旋 vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成

androgen  ['&aelig;ndrədʒən]  n. 男性荷尔蒙，雄激素

oestrogen  ['estrədʒən]  n. [化]雌激素=estrogen(美)

fetal  ['fi:tl;'fi:təl] adj. 胎儿的

foetus
[ˈfi:təs] n.胎儿

In their study, published this week in Neuron, the researchers decided to look at male mice which had been genetically engineered to lack androgen receptors in their nervous systems. These males still had androgen receptors in their muscles and elsewhere, so they had masculine bodies, and they experienced the testosterone surge and responded to normally circulating testosterone. But their brains were simply not able to detect it.
The mice were compared with normal males in tests of masculinity. In one, a female was put into the cage. Interestingly, the genetically modified mice still showed the classic male-mating repertoire—mounting, penetration and ejaculation. But the researchers noted that they mounted less often, were less apt to penetrate and did not stick at it for as long as the normal mice. Another test turned up similar results. Typically, a strange male entering another male’s cage is met with a fight. Again, the mutant mice behaved appropriately, but they were much less aggressive, spent less time fighting and they took longer breaks between attacks. The same was found for scent-marking. Like normal males, the mutant mice urinated in various spots around their cage (unlike females, who create a single latrine). But they deposited significantly fewer urine marks than the normal males.

repertoire
n （演员剧团等）全部剧目

ejaculation
n.突然大叫

stick
[stik] n.棍，手杖 vt.刺；粘(钉，卡)住；留下

mutant  ['mju:tənt]  n. 突变异种

scent
[sent]n.气味；臭迹，线索；香水 vt.嗅到

urinate  ['juərineit;'jurəˌneit]  v. 小便

latrine
[lə`trin; ləˋtri:n]可数名词(尤指营房、露营地等之没有下水道的) 厕所

deposit
[diˈpɔzit]n.定金；存款；矿藏 vt.使沉淀；寄存；储蓄

Because male-typical behaviours developed as the result of a burst of testosterone, but in the absence of receptors for the hormone, the researchers suspect that the testosterone in the surge is being converted into oestrogen to carry out the newborn sexual-differentiation. “Masculinisation of neural pathways in response to the testosterone surge at birth proceeds primarily under the control of oestrogen(对雄激素高峰做出反应的神经通路的雄性特征最初是在雌激素的控制之下的),” they conclude. Androgen receptors are not the master regulators for male behaviours, but rather, the researchers say, a “gain control mechanism” which amplifies such behaviours—or, when the receptors are absent, dials laddish behaviour down.

gain control
增益调整，增益控制

dial  ['daiəl]  n. 刻度盘，钟面，拨号盘，日晷v. 拨号，打电话

rosanna1029UID: 2318257

21.Sleepy headsResearchers say an afternoon nap prepares the brain to learnFeb 25th 2010 | SAN DIEGO | From The Economist print edition

MAD dogs and Englishmen, so the song has it, go out in the midday sun. And the business practices of England’s lineal descendant, America, will have you in the office from nine in the morning to five in the evening, if not longer(甚至更长时间). Much of the world, though, prefers to take a siesta. And research presented to the AAAS meeting in San Diego suggests it may be right to do so. It has already been established that those who siesta are less likely to die of heart disease. Now, Matthew Walker and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that they probably have better memory, too. A post-prandial snooze, Dr Walker has discovered, sets the brain up for learning.

siesta  [si'estə] n. 午睡，晌觉

randial  ['pr&aelig;ndiəl]  adj. 膳食的，正餐的

snooze  [snu:z]  v. 打盹儿，懒散着打发掉日子n. 打盹儿

The role of sleep in consolidating memories that have already been created has been understood for some time. Dr Walker has been trying to extend this understanding by looking at sleep’s role in preparing the brain for the formation of memories in the first place. (沃克正在试图扩展这一认识，他的办法是观察睡眠在大脑记忆形成的初始阶段扮演的角色。)He was particularly interested in a type of memory called episodic memory, which relates to specific events, places and times. This contrasts with procedural memory, of the skills required to perform some sort of mechanical task, such as driving. The theory he and his team wanted to test was that the ability to form new episodic memories deteriorates with accrued wakefulness, and that sleep thus restores the brain’s capacity for efficient learning.(
他和他的团队想验证的理论是：一个人随着清醒状态的加深，其形成新的“事件记忆”的能力就会减弱；而睡觉因此就能恢复大脑高效学习的能力。)

consolidate
v 巩固（使坚强或牢固）＝strengthen；（企业等的）合并＝merge

in the first place
起初，首先

episodic  [ˌepə'sɔdik]  adj. 插曲式的，偶然发生的

episode
n （小说、人生、戏剧中独立的一部分）片段；插曲

accrue
v （利息等）增大；增多，积累＝accumulate

deteriorate
v （使）恶化（降低质量，性质或价值）＝depreciate

They asked a group of 39 people to take part in two learning sessions, one at noon and one at 6pm. On each occasion the participants tried to memorise and recall 100 combinations of pictures and names. After the first session they were assigned randomly to either a control group, which remained awake, or a nap group, which had 100 minutes of monitored sleep(100分钟的监控睡觉时间).
Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. Those who napped, by contrast, actually improved their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening than they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short-term memory and making way for new information.
It is already well known that fact-based memories are stored temporarily in an area called the hippocampus, a structure in the centre of the brain. But they do not stay there long. Instead, they are sent to the prefrontal cortex for longer-term storage. Electroencephalograms, which measure electrical activity in the brain, have shown that this memory-refreshing capacity is related to a specific type of sleep called Stage 2 non-REM sleep.

hippocampus
n. （希腊神化中的）马头鱼尾的怪兽n. 海马 [解剖]（脑内的)海马状突起

prefrontal  [pri:'frʌntəl]  adj. 前头叶的，前额骨的n. 前额骨

cortex  ['kɔ:teks]  n. 外皮，（大脑）皮层

The ideal nap, then, follows a cycle of between 90 and 100 minutes. The first 30 minutes is a light sleep that helps improve motor performance. Then comes 30 minutes of stage 2 sleep, which refreshes the hippocampus. After this, between 60 and 90 minutes into the nap, comes rapid-eye-movement, or REM, sleep, during which dreaming happens. This, research suggests, is the time when the brain makes connections between the new memories that have just been “downloaded” from the hippocampus and those that already exist—thus making new experiences relevant in a wider context(从而使新体验与更广阔的背景相关联。).
The benefits to memory of a nap, says Dr Walker, are so great that they can equal an entire night’s sleep. He warns, however, that napping must not be done too late in the day or it will interfere with night-time sleep. Moreover, not everyone awakens refreshed from a siesta.( 除此之外，也并不是所有人都能在午睡之后精神充沛的。)
The grogginess that results from an unrefreshing siesta is termed “sleep inertia”. This happens when the brain is woken from a deep sleep with its cells still firing at a slow rhythm and its temperature and blood flow decreased. Sara Mednick, from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that non-habitual nappers suffer from this more often than those who siesta regularly. It may be that those who have a tendency to wake up groggy are choosing not to siesta in the first place. Perhaps, though, as in so many things, it is practice that makes perfect.

groggy  ['grɔgi] adj. 头晕的，酒醉的，摇摇晃晃的

grogginess
东歪西倒

inertia
[iˈnə:ʃə] n.不活动，惰性；惯性

(午休时的60-90分钟期间，在大脑中形成新的episodic memory，清理了短期记忆，为吸收新信息铺平了道路。)

rosanna1029UID: 2318257

22.Stand up straight!Another fossil human, this time from South AfricaApr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
THIS year is shaping up to be a good one for human palaeontology. Two weeks ago, on March 24th, what appears to be an entire new species of human was announced on the basis of the DNA preserved in a single finger bone from Siberia. Now, another manlike species has been described using more traditional evidence, from a more traditional source of ancient human remains: Africa.
is shaping up进展顺利

Everything is shaping up quite well.一切都很顺利.

The new species, dubbed Australopithecus sediba, is reported in Science this week by Lee Berger and his colleagues at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. It is represented by the fragmentary remains of two skeletons found in caves at a site called Malapa, in South Africa. As a member of the genus Australopithecus, sediba is less manlike than the as-yet-unnamed Siberian discovery, which was a member of the genus Homo. Palaeoanthropologists are nevertheless excited because some of its features, particularly the shape of its pelvis (which would have made upright walking more efficient) and the size of its teeth (which were smaller than those of its ancestors), have a lot in common with members of Homo. At a bit less than 2m years of age, the new skeletons seem to be younger than the oldest known representatives of Homo, and therefore cannot be directly ancestral to that genus. Nevertheless, these features suggest to some that an ancestor of A. sediba was also an ancestor of Homo, and thus of modern humanity.

dub
[dʌb] vt.起绰号，把…称为；配音，译制片

skeleton
n （保护和支持脊椎动物的）骨骼；框架（支持建筑物）；adj 最基本的

genus
n （生物学的动植物的）类、属（介于科和种之间的特级，由包含显示相似特点的种所组成的群）

homo
人属

pelvis  ['pelvis]  n. 骨盘，盆骨

palaeontology  [ˌp&aelig;liɔn'tɔlədʒi]n. 古生物学

paleoanthropologist
古人类学家

That is still a guess. Human fossils, particularly of such an age as this, are rare in the extreme—so rare that each new discovery has a tendency to rewrite the history books. Nor is there the remotest possibility of extracting useful DNA from the new fossils.(
从新化石中提取可用的DNA的可能性微乎其微。) They are too old and Africa is too hot for significant traces of the molecule to have survived. But some new evidence has been added to the ascent of man, and that is always welcome.

ascent
n 上升；（地位，声望等的）提高，攀登

remote
[riˈməut]a.偏僻的；疏远的；微乎其微的；冷淡的