雙語達人:未來生活四大終極幻想

Food
飲食
Lab-grown meat feeds the world
人造肉類養活全世界
Petri meat, in vitro meat, cultured meat. Call it whatever you like, but get used to the name. Meat produced in a lab (and grown from animal cells) could be the future of nutrition.
試管肉，培養肉，或者其他任何名稱，不管怎麼叫，我們都得習慣它。因爲，實驗室通過動物細胞培養出來的食用肉將成爲人類未來的營養食品。
The scientists who are developing test-tube meat (and chicken!) say it is an important way to keep up with the world's growing appetite for protein while simultaneously reducing meat production's environmental impact like land requirements and CO2 emissions.
研究試管肉（包括雞肉！）的科學家們指出，我們一方面要滿足人類對蛋白質日益增長的需求，同時還要降低豬肉生產所造成的用地需求、二氧化碳排放等環境影響，要想實現這些目的，這種方法至關重要。
There are only about 30 people working on cultured meat globally, and they agree the stuff will take a while to get to grocers' shelves. The biggest hurdle to commercialization (besides the obvious "ick" factor) is lack of funding for research — though Money is trickling in from unconventional sources. A scientist in the Netherlands received 300,000 euros from an anonymous donor to produce a lab burger. And PETA is offering $1 million to the scientist who can make and sell cultured chicken by June 2012.
當下，全球僅有大約30名科學家正在研究人工培養肉；他們一致認爲，人工培養肉上市還需要一段時間。雖然有非傳統型渠道爲這項研究提供資金，但研究經費不足仍是人造肉實現商業化的最大障礙（當然，“令人噁心”也是另一個顯而易見的障礙）。荷蘭的一位科學家獲得了30萬歐元的匿名捐贈，用於生產實驗室漢堡。另外，善待動物組織（PETA）將出資100萬美元，用於資助能在2012年6月前生產和銷售人工培養雞肉的科學家
—Beth Kowitt
——貝斯·考維特

Medicine
醫學
A map of the brain leads to cures
大腦成像技術開闢醫療新境界
The key to curing many diseases may come only when scientists fully understand the human brain, a complex machine that hasn't been completely investigated.
許多疾病要想治癒，或許要等到科學家完全瞭解了人類大腦之後纔有可能。但目前這個“複雜的機器”仍存在諸多未解之謎。
Scientists will spend the next decade trying to map the mind, zooming in on single neurons (the brain has billions) to study each one's genetic information, shape, and electrical signals. Using tiny robotic tools such as an "auto patcher" — developed by MIT's Edward Boyden and Georgia Tech's Craig Forest — researchers will be able to turn off individual cells and plot patterns with its neighbors. The robot can check neurons much faster than humans, who need extensive training to do the process manually.
未來十年，科學家們將嘗試繪製大腦圖像，放大單個神經元（大腦共有數十億個神經元），用於研究每個神經元的基因信息、形狀和電子信號。利用微型機器人工具，如由麻省理工學院（MIT）愛德華??博伊登和佐治亞理工學院（Georgia Tech）克雷格??弗雷斯特共同研發的“自動補丁”，研究人員有望關閉單個細胞，並藉助相鄰細胞來重新繪製圖形。人類需要在接受大量培訓後才能手動檢查神經細胞，相比之下，機器人的速度卻要快得多。
Diagnosing the breakdowns within a neuron will allow for targeted gene therapy. As the process gets cheaper and less invasive, more patients will have access to treatment from such advanced tools. Among the first neurological disorders physicians can tackle when the brain is mapped? Tourette syndrome and narcolepsy.
診斷單個神經元的障礙使定向基因療法成爲可能。隨着這種療法成本下降，侵入性降低，越來越多的病人將有機會接受這種藉助高科技工具的治療。如果大腦成像技術取得成功，第一批可治癒的神經障礙疾病會是哪些呢？應該就是杜列特氏綜合症和嗜睡症。
—Alex Konrad
——亞歷克斯·康拉德

Education
教育
Schools learn from businesses
教學機構全面學習企業
A more market-minded approach is coming to a K-12 classroom near you.
我們身邊的中小學校將會採取更具市場意識的教育方式。
It may start with teachers, who will move up the educational equivalent of a corporate ladder. Forget tenure; educators would instead build to "master teacher" level. (The idea already exists in many New York schools, where they're called "mentor teachers.") "It's not just meant to prune lousy teachers, but also to make them more effective," says Bruce Fuller, a professor at UC Berkeley's graduate school of education.
首當其衝的是教師，他們需要遵守與企業類似的晉升制度來獲得升職。教齡不再是教育工作者能否達到“特級教師”級別的衡量標準，取而代之的是資質。（紐約的許多學校已經將這個理念付諸實施。在那裏，教師被稱爲“教學導師”。）加州大學伯克利分校教育研究院（UC Berkeley's graduate school of education）教授布魯斯??福勒說：“當然，這不僅意味着要淘汰不稱職的教師，而且還要提高教師的工作效率”。
Testing will become more centralized — and potentially more important, state assessment exams will give way to national ones, and skills-based testing could fast-track careers. "Credentials based on rigorous certification exams will be more valuable in the job market than a college degree," adds Sal Khan of the education nonprofit Khan Academy.
考試將變得更加集中——甚至會變得更加重要，州級評估考試將給國家考試讓路，而且以考覈技能爲主的測試將成爲實現職業規劃的快速通道。“與大學學位相比，通過嚴格的資格認證考試獲得的證書在就業市場上將具有更高的價值，”非盈利教育機構可汗學院（Khan Academy）的薩爾??汗補充道。
And corporations, frustrated by the skills gap of high school grads, may open schools of their own. Wal-Mart High, anyone?
除此之外，由於高中畢業生並未掌握技術，企業有可能創辦自己的學校。比如沃爾瑪高中（Wal-Mart High）。有人報名嗎？
—Daniel Roberts
——丹尼爾·羅伯茲

Banking
銀行業
Big U.S. banks get even bigger
美國銀行巨頭進一步擴張
Looking at them now, nursing self-inflicted wounds from the financial crisis, it seems hard to believe that America's big banks could be even bigger and stronger a decade from now. But that's the scenario many industry analysts envision.
美國的大型銀行自作自受，眼下正在舔舐着金融危機帶來的創傷。眼前的情形很難讓我們相信，在未來的十年內，美國的大型銀行將進一步擴大規模和勢力。但是，這確實是行業分析師們的預見到的情形。
Once the euro crisis clears and America fixes its mortgage mess, giants like J.P. Morgan will enter a new era of expansion. Yes, new regulations will impose higher costs and reduce once-lucrative trading profits, resulting in far slower growth for the largest players. But those regulations will also make it tougher for others to challenge their top positions. Investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley won't be able to use the levels of leverage they once did to boost revenue-generating trading operations, making them prey for the megabanks.
等到歐元危機平息，美國解決抵押市場的混亂狀態之後，摩根大通銀行（J.P. Morgan）等大型銀行將進入擴張的新時代。誠然，新出臺的法規將增加它們的成本，壓縮一度十分豐厚的營業利潤，從而導致這些最大型銀行的增長放緩。但是，這些法規也使其他銀行無力挑戰這些行業巨頭的地位。高盛投資銀行（Goldman Sachs）和摩根士丹利（J.P. Morgan）等投資銀行將無法故技重施，繼續利用槓桿比率來刺激產生收入的交易，最終，它們將淪爲銀行業巨頭的獵物。
Think of tomorrow's banks as highly regulated public utilities: They'll hold lots of capital, eke out profits, and hire managers who shun risk. Welcome to the big and boring future of banking.
其實，我們不妨把未來的銀行想象成受到政府高度監管的公用事業：它們將持有大量的資金，勉強維持盈利，並且會聘用經理人來回避風險。如果果真如此，未來的銀行將會進入龐大但缺乏生機的新階段。
—Scott Cendrowski
——斯科特·森多維斯