優秀的英語文摘閱讀

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　　鳥類智商不算太糟

Research Shows Bird Brains Aren’t So Bad

鳥類並不笨頭笨腦

The next time someone calls you a “bird brain,” you should thank them.

下次有人對你說“頭笨如鳥”的話，你要謝謝他。

Changing Opinions

轉變觀點

Neuroscientists’ opinions about the brains of birds have changed. In humans and other mammals, the roof of the forebrain has evolved into the cerebral cortex, a structure responsible for flexible learning and reasoning.

神經系統科學家關於鳥類大腦的傳統觀念發生了轉變。人類和其他哺乳動物的前腦頂層已經進化爲大腦皮層，這一結構主管彈性學習和推理能力。

Early neuroanatomists thought that the forebrain roof was small and simple in birds, with its forebrain instead being dominated by structures in its base, called the basal ganglia. Without an elaborate forebrain roof, it seemed that birds couldn’t be very smart.

早期的神經系統科學家認爲鳥類的前腦頂層在大腦中面積小，構造簡單，且並非由大腦基底部名爲基底神經節的結構組成。因此，鳥類並不擁有複雜精妙的前腦頂層，這似乎決定了鳥類智商有限。

New Research

新研究

Recent research shows that birds are a lot smarter than scientists once thought. To give just a few examples, the New Caledonian crow can manufacture and use tools. The African grey parrot can learn to classify objects into categories, and the Florida scrub jay stores food in dozens of caches and can remember their locations for future use.

最近的研究表明鳥類要比科學家想象的聰明得多。例如，新喀里多尼亞烏鴉會製作和使用工具。非洲灰鸚鵡能學會對東西進行分類，佛羅里達灌叢鴉會將食物存儲在不同的地方，並且能記住位置，以備將來之需。

It turns out that neuroanatomists had it all wrong about bird forebrains. During more than 300 million years of separate evolution, the forebrain roofs of birds and of mammals each grew larger and more elaborate, but in different ways. The roof of a bird’s forebrain is so different from the cerebral cortex of a mammal that the neuroanatomists had confused most of it with enlarged basal ganglia.

結果是神經解剖學家 對鳥類前腦的研究完全錯誤。在3億多年各自的進化過程中，鳥類和哺乳動物的前腦頂層分別以不同的方式變大變精。鳥類的大腦頂層與哺乳動物的大腦皮層差別如此之大以至於神經解剖學家 將其與增大的基底神經節基本都弄混了。

　　玫瑰不叫玫瑰

A Rose By Any Other Name

玫瑰不叫玫瑰

Just saying the word “rose” conjures up images of romance, secret admirers, Valentines gifts, and bridal bouquets. Romantics imagine soft, red petals and long, graceful stems, but practical gardeners know all about painful, pointy thorns. As the saying goes, every rose has its thorn. But, what we call thorns are actually not thorns at all.

“玫瑰”很容易讓人聯想到浪漫的場景，神祕的愛慕者，情人節的禮物和結婚的花束。浪漫的人會想象出柔軟的、紅色的花瓣和修長的，優雅的花莖，但是實際上園丁們才知道那些尖銳的刺帶來的痛楚。常言道，每朵玫瑰都有刺。但是，我們所說的這種刺其實根本就不是刺。

Thorns

刺

Thorns, like those found on the Hawthorn tree, are modified branches that project from the stem and branches of a woody plant.

刺，例如山楂樹上的刺，實際上是一種改良的分枝，它會從木本植物的莖和分枝中生長出來。

They are very sharp and quite strong because they are made of the same stuff as the stem of the tree or bush. Thorns are deeply embedded in the woody structure of the plant and can’t be broken off easily. Those nasty points on the stem of the rose are not true thorns: they are what scientists call “prickles.”

它們非常鋒利並且相當堅硬，因爲它們的質地與灌木或樹的莖是一樣的。這些刺都深深地嵌在植物的木紋狀組織結構內，不會被輕易破壞。這些令人討厭的長在玫瑰莖上的刺其實並不是真正的刺，科學家們稱它們爲“皮刺”。

Prickles

皮刺

Prickles are smaller than thorns: they are sharp outgrowths of the plant’s outer layers, the skin-like epidermis, and the sub-epidermal layer just beneath it. Unlike a thorn, a prickle can be easily broken off the plant because it is really a feature of the outer layers rather than part of the wood, like a thorn.

皮刺比刺要小了許多：它們是這些植物外層的附屬物，看上去像皮膚的表皮，其下還有亞表皮層。不像刺，皮刺能夠被輕易地從植物莖上剝落，因爲它僅僅是植物外層的一種特徵，而不像刺那樣是莖的一部分。

Both prickles and thorns protect the plant from predators, and, maybe, from lovers looking for a free bouquet. But perhaps we call the rose prickles “thorns” because saying “every rose has its prickle” doesn’t seem to do justice to the pain of unrequited love.

不管是刺抑或荊棘，都可以保護這些植物不被捕食者所獵食，同樣，或許也能免於被那些尋找免費花束的情人所折斷。但是或許，我們應該叫這些皮刺爲“刺”，因爲“每一朵玫瑰都有它的刺”的說法似乎對那些暗戀者所感受的痛苦來說不太公平。