万物简史 第448期:小生物的世界(19)

Anyway, getting sick is a sensible response to infection. 生病正是对感染的一种能感觉到的反应。 Sick people retire to their beds and thus are less of a threat to the wider community. 病人躺在病床上，因此减少了对更多人的

万物简史 第454期:小生物的世界(25)

Some went on in this manner for months before dying. 有的几个月处于那种状态，然后死去。 A very few survived and regained consciousness but not their former liveliness. 极少的人幸免于难，恢复了知觉，但不再像以往那样

万物简史 第453期:小生物的世界(24)

Viruses prosper by hijacking the genetic material of a living cell and using it to produce more virus. 病毒掠夺活细胞的基因材料，用来制造更多的病毒，从而大量生长。 They reproduce in a fanatical manner, then burst out in

万物简史 第452期:小生物的世界(23)

Since then further research has shown that there is or may well be a bacterial component in all kinds of other disorders, 自那以来，进一步的研究表明，在所有别的疾病， heart disease, asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, several

万物简史 第451期:小生物的世界(22)

Soon one of these new strains, called Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, began to show up in hospitals. 过不多久，一种名叫抗甲氧苯青霉素葡萄球菌的新品种葡萄球菌开始在医院里出现。 Only one type of antibio

万物简史 第450期:小生物的世界(21)

Precisely the same thing happens with meningitis. 脑膜炎的情况完全一样。 At least 10 percent of young adults, and perhaps 30 percent of teenagers, carry the deadly meningococcal bacterium, 至少有10%的年轻人和也许30%的少年携带着

万物简史 第449期:小生物的世界(20)

One of the odder aspects of infection is that microbes that normally do no harm at all sometimes get into the wrong parts of the body and go kind of crazy, 感染有许多古怪的方面。其中之一是，有些在正常情况下完全无害的微生

万物简史 第447期:小生物的世界(18)

Any HIV the mosquito sucks up on its travels is dissolved by the mosquito's own metabolism. 蚊子在叮咬过程中吸入的人体免疫缺陷病毒被蚊子自身的代谢作用分解了。 When the day comes that the virus mutates its way around t

万物简史 第446期:小生物的世界(17)

The most rampantly infectious organism on Earth, a bacterium called Wolbachia, doesn't hurt humans at all, 地球上最具传染性的生物，一种名叫沃尔巴克体的细菌，根本有伤害人类， or, come to that, any other vertebratesbut

万物简史 第445期:小生物的世界(16)

It is a natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, 人们自然会不由自主地想到，进化是个不断完善的漫长过程， of a never-ending advance toward largeness and complexityin a word, toward us. 一个

万物简史 第444期:小生物的世界(15)

The specifics of Mayr's criticisms are too technical to need extensive airing herethey involve issues of meiotic sexuality, 迈尔的评论的具体内容提要技术性很强其中包括什么减数分裂性行为呀， Hennigian cladification, and

万物简史 第443期:小生物的世界(14)

Botanists and zoologists were much slower to admire its virtues. 植物学家和动物学家要过长得多的时间才看到它的优点。 It's not hard to see why. 原因不难明白， On Woese's model, the worlds of botany and zoology are relega

万物简史 第442期:小生物的世界(13)

A lot of little organisms that looked like bacteria and behaved like bacteria were actually something else altogether, 许多小生物看上去像细菌，表现得像细菌，实际上完全是另一类东西， something that had branched off from

万物简史 第441期:小生物的世界(12)

In the early days, this was an exceedingly painstaking process. 早年，这是个极费力气的过程。 Work on a single bacterium could easily consume a year. 研究一个细菌就可能一下子花掉一年时间。 At that time, according to Wo

万物简史 第440期:小生物的世界(11)

In 1969, in an attempt to bring some order to the growing inadequacies of classification, 1969年，为了整理一下越来越显得不足的分类法， an ecologist from Cornell University named R. H. Whittaker unveiled in the journal Science a pr

万物简史 第494期:多灾多难的生命进程(14)

Earth has seen five major extinction episodes in its time the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous, in that order and many smaller ones. 地球已经目睹了5次大的灭绝事件依次在奥陶纪、泥盆纪、二叠纪、三叠纪

万物简史 第495期:多灾多难的生命进程(15)

Two points need to be kept in mind. 我们需要记住两点。 First, these are all just informed guesses. 第一、这些都仅仅是根据资料作出的推测。 Estimates for the number of animal species alive at the end of the Permian range fro

万物简史 第497期:多灾多难的生命进程(17)

What all this leaves us with, as one researcher has put it, is tons of conjecture and very little evidence. 这一切留给我们的，正如一位研究人员所说，是大量的猜测和很少的证据。 Cooling seems to be associated with at lea

万物简史 第498期:多灾多难的生命进程(18)

The KT meteor had the additional advantage advantage if you are a mammal, that is that it landed in a shallow sea just ten meters deep, KT陨石还有一个优势那就是说，要是你是个哺乳动物的话，那是个优势它在只有10米深的浅

万物简史 第496期:多灾多难的生命进程(16)

Even after stripping out the more crackpot notions there are still more theories for what caused the extinction events than there have been events. 即使去掉了不大切合实际的观点以后，解释灭绝事件原因的理论依然多子事件本