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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
You might want to set aside your cornflakes for a moment now. Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic about a substance he says, quote, "looks revolting but is also one of nature's more wondrous1 substances, unlike anything else that's been concocted2 by either evolution or engineers." Ed Yong, science writer for The Atlantic, joins us now. What are you celebrating here?
ED YONG: Hi. I am celebrating the slime produced by a type of fish called the hagfish. So the hagfish is, you know, a 2-foot long creature that lives in the deep ocean. It looks a bit like an eel3, but it's not. It has no backbone4. It has no jaws5. And, most tellingly, it has the ability to produce incredible amounts of this very, very weird6 and unusual slime.
SIMON: I guess we could both make a lot of jokes about how similar it is to members of the U.S. Senate, but (laughter)...
YONG: Can neither confirm nor deny that.
SIMON: Slime. A teaspoon7 of slime at first, but it really multiplies, doesn't it?
YONG: So a hagfish will release about less than a teaspoonful8 of the slime from the glands9 on its side. But in, like, less than half a second, that teaspoonful will expand into liters of slime. If you put a hagfish in a bucket, at first, it'll look like these thin wisps of, like, white, cloudy stuff have been released from its flanks. And then, if you stick your hand in and swirl10 it around, you'll just be pulling out, like, handfuls of this stuff. It's almost like the entire bucket will have converted into slime.
SIMON: But this is what they do to protect themselves?
YONG: Right, it's a defensive11 measure. They release it when they're attacked or when they're stressed.
SIMON: Because a lot of predators12 might say, ha-ha-ha, no backbone, no teeth? I know what I'm having for lunch.
YONG: Right, exactly. They often get bitten and attacked. But when they do, they instantly release this massive cloud of slime which is very, very good at infiltrating13 nooks and crannies, including the mouths and gills of predators. So there have been these incredible videos of sharks biting hagfish and then just recoiling14, their mouths and gills full of slime and just gagging and being forced to retreat.
SIMON: Sharks essentially15 saying, I'm sorry (laughter). I'm not a Spielberg shark. They don't pay me enough to swallow slime.
YONG: I think it's more like they're saying, (vocalizing).
SIMON: (Laughter) Now, hagfish slime is in the news because of a new fossil, right?
YONG: So partly, yes.
SIMON: A newly discovered fossil.
YONG: A newly discovered fossil. The fossil is interesting because the evolutionary16 relationships of hagfish to other fish have long been controversial. Like, a lot of scientists have thought of them as very primitive17 creatures, like some sort of transition from a kind of worm-like thing to a fish-like thing. But this new fossil helps us understand that it looks like hagfish are vertebrates. They are part of the backbone lineage. They just seem to have lost a lot of the traits that we have, things like complex eyes and bones and taste buds. So rather than being this weird, evolutionary throwback, they're actually very, very well-adapted animals to the somewhat grim and grotesque18 life that they live at the bottom of the ocean, feeding on corpses19, sliming things that might want to eat them.
SIMON: Oh, boy, does that sound - ah, what a life that sounds like.
YONG: (Laughter) Right. But I tell you what, I was serious when I said that it's one of evolution's marvels20. I think very rarely do you see a substance with this combination of properties produced by an animal that most people have never heard of.
SIMON: Ed Yong covers science for The Atlantic. Thanks so much for being with us.
YONG: Thanks for having me.
1 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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2 concocted | |
v.将(尤指通常不相配合的)成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 );调制;编造;捏造 | |
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3 eel | |
n.鳗鲡 | |
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4 backbone | |
n.脊骨,脊柱,骨干;刚毅,骨气 | |
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5 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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6 weird | |
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的 | |
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7 teaspoon | |
n.茶匙 | |
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8 teaspoonful | |
n.一茶匙的量;一茶匙容量 | |
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9 glands | |
n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
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10 swirl | |
v.(使)打漩,(使)涡卷;n.漩涡,螺旋形 | |
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11 defensive | |
adj.防御的;防卫的;防守的 | |
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12 predators | |
n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 );奴役他人者(尤指在财务或性关系方面) | |
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13 infiltrating | |
v.(使)渗透,(指思想)渗入人的心中( infiltrate的现在分词 ) | |
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14 recoiling | |
v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 );退缩;报应;返回 | |
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15 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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16 evolutionary | |
adj.进化的;演化的,演变的;[生]进化论的 | |
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17 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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18 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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19 corpses | |
n.死尸,尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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20 marvels | |
n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 );令人惊奇的事物(或事例);不平凡的成果;成就v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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