SSS 2009-04-17
时间：2019-01-08 作者：英语课 分类：Scientific American(四)月
This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Hinterthuer. Got a minute?
At Antarctica’s Blood Falls, the ice is stained red by ancient, iron-rich water pouring out of subglacial lakes formed millions of years ago. The cascading 1 water is extremely saline, has almost no oxygen and no real nutrients 2 to speak of. But that hasn’t stopped life from finding a niche 3. According to a report in the April 17th issue of Science, a population of microbes has called the frigid 4 place home for millennia 5.
Even though carbon-based nutrients are missing, these microbes thrive in pockets of water trapped under the glacier 6 by making do with what they have—which is lots of sulfates and iron. The microbes use iron molecules 7 that the glacier scours 8 from the bedrock to react with available sulfate, which lets the microbes then metabolize it into a useable form.
The report suggests this is one way life could have survived past eras when Earth was covered in ice. It also shows that life will spring up in the most unlikely places using some very clever chemistry. So when we’re looking for life on Mars, focus less on little green men and more on little red microbes.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Hinterthuer.
- First of all, cascading menus are to be avoided at all costs. 首先，无论如何都要避免使用级联菜单。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
- Her sounds began cascading gently. 他的声音开始缓缓地低落下来。
- a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
- Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
- The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。
- The water was too frigid to allow him to remain submerged for long.水冰冷彻骨，他在下面呆不了太长时间。
- She returned his smile with a frigid glance.对他的微笑她报以冷冷的一瞥。
- For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
- In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。
- The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。
- The upper surface of glacier is riven by crevasses.冰川的上表面已裂成冰隙。
- The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
- Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。