新型原始人类(双语有声)
作者：melodyfangta
来源：沪江论坛
2010-04-26 14:27
Synchrotron Focuses on New Hominid Fossil
Last week, scientists announced the discovery of a remarkably well-preserved skeleton of what might be a new species of an ancient hominid that lived almost 2 million years ago. [See Kate Wong, Q]
上周科学家们宣布发现了一具保存得非常良好的骸骨，可能是属于约200万年前的一种新古代原始人类的。
The bones were found in 2008. This February, they were analyzed by one of the highest-tech tools available, the synchrotron at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. The device uses beams of x-rays a trillion times brighter than medical x-rays, and produces images at the atomic level.
骸骨发现于2008年。今年二月，科学家们用当前最先进的工具——位于法国格勒诺布尔欧洲同步辐射中心的同步加速器对其进行分析。这种设备使用的x射线亮度是医用射线的一万亿倍，可以形成原子级别的图像。
Paleontologist Paul Tafforeau developed a technique to use the synchrotron to study fossils even still partially entombed—with resolution at the micron scale.
古生物学家保尔·塔福罗发明了一种方法，使同步加速器能以微米级别的分辨率研究部分还埋在土里的化石。
Fossils of the age and significance of the new find are rarely moved. But discoverer Lee Berger oversaw the careful transport of the skull and skeleton fragments from South Africa to France for a two-week intensive study.
通常人们很少会移动这种时代的化石、具有重大意义的新发现，然而发现化石的人李·伯格负责监督将化石的头骨和骨骼部分从南非运往法国，以对其进行为期两周的集中研究。
The preliminary analysis has turned up fossilized insect eggs, left by ancient bugs that may have fed on the decomposing corpse. There’s also a region of low-density that could be a section of the hominid’s brain. The researchers hope that the synchrotron ultimately supplies what used to be impossible-to-get details about our distant relative.
先前的分析发现了已成为化石的虫卵，可能是由以腐尸为食的古代昆虫留下的。还有一个密度低的区域可能是原始人类大脑的一部分。研究者希望同步加速器最终能提供以前不可能找到的我们远亲的细节。
声明：音视频均来自互联网链接，仅供学习使用。本网站自身不存储、控制、修改被链接的内容。"沪江英语"高度重视知识产权保护。当如发现本网站发布的信息包含有侵犯其著作权的链接内容时，请联系我们，我们将依法采取措施移除相关内容或屏蔽相关链接。
初夏课程上线，和沪江网校一起天天向上！
- 相关热点：
- 编程方法论
