英国卫报：人类的感官重要吗？该如何修复？(1)

　　How we lost our sensory¹ connection with food -- and how to restore it

　　我们如何失去与食物的感官联系的--以及该如何恢复

　　This is going to sound weird², but I want you to look closely for a moment at your thumbs.

　　这听起来会很奇怪，但我想让你仔细看看你的拇指。

　　See how they flex³ forwards as well as back.

　　看看他们如何向前和向后缩的。

　　Notice how responsive and grippy the skin is.

　　注意手指的反应和抓力。

　　The human thumb is not just a device for giving the thumbs-up sign or for picking up dropped keys.

　　人类的手指不仅仅是可以用来竖起大拇指或捡起掉在地上的钥匙。

　　It is also one of the most efficient and sensitive tools in existence for determining the ripeness of fruit.

　　它也是现有的确定果实成熟度的最有效和最灵敏的工具之一。

　　One of the hallmarks of being a hominid is having opposable thumbs: stronger, longer and more flexible than the thumbless hands of a spider monkey or the non-opposable thumbs of a marmoset.

　　作为原始人的特征之一是拥有对生拇指：比蜘蛛猴的无拇指或绒猴的不对生拇指更强壮、更长、更灵活。

　　These opposable thumbs are a trait that humans share with our primate⁴ cousins such as chimpanzees.

　　这些对生拇指是人类与黑猩猩等灵长类近亲的共同特征。

　　But it has only recently been discovered that our thumbs might have first evolved as a device for measuring whether or not fruit was ripe.

　　但直到最近才发现，我们的拇指可能最初是作为一种测量水果是否成熟的工具进化而来的。

　　In 2016, biologist Nathaniel Dominy studied the way chimpanzees pick figs⁵.

　　2016年，生物学家纳撒尼尔·多米尼克研究了黑猩猩采摘无花果的方式。

　　Dominy found that chimpanzees use their dexterous⁶ hands to give figs a quick squeeze to determine whether they are ripe or not -- a technique that works four times quicker on average than the method used by monkeys (plucking figs at random⁷, biting them to check for ripeness and spitting out the unripe⁸ ones).

　　多米尼克发现，黑猩猩用它们灵巧的手快速挤压无花果，以判断它们是否成熟--这项技术的运行速度平均比猴子快四倍(随机拔无花果，咬它们检查成熟度，然后吐出未成熟的无花果)。

　　Humans also have these incredible hands capable of identifying the ripest fruit from touch alone.

　　人类也有神奇的手，单凭触摸就能识别最成熟的水果。

　　But most of us don’t use them that way any more.

　　但我们中的大多数人不再使用这种方法了。

　　If you want ripe fruit, you no longer need to rely on your own sense of touch.

　　如果你想要成熟的水果，你不再需要依靠自己的触觉。

　　You can go into the nearest supermarket and buy a plastic tub of pre-peeled, pre-sliced mango or melon labelled “ripe and ready” or “ripe and sweet” and eat it with a fork.

　　你可以走进最近的超市，买一桶去皮、切好的芒果或甜瓜，上面标着“熟透了”或“熟了，很甜”的标签，然后用叉子吃。

　　One of the most striking things about eating in the modern world is that we do so much of it as if we were sense-blind.

　　在现代社会，吃东西最引人注目的一点是，我们吃得太多了，就好像我们是感官盲人一样。

　　We still have the same basic physiognomy as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, yet much of the time, we switch off our senses when choosing what to eat.

　　我们仍然拥有与狩猎采集祖先相同的基本相貌，但在很多时候，我们在选择吃什么时会关闭我们的感官。

　　Our noses can distinguish fresh milk from sour milk, and yet we prefer to look at the use-by date rather than sniffing⁹.

　　我们的鼻子可以区分新鲜牛奶和酸奶，但我们更喜欢看保质期，而不是闻一闻。

　　Senses, wrote the late anthropologist¹⁰ Jack¹¹ Goody, are “our windows on the world” -- the main tools through which humans acquire information about our environments.

　　已故人类学家杰克·古迪写道，感觉是“我们了解世界的窗口”——人类获取环境信息的主要工具。

　　Senses are instruments of survival as well as pleasure.

　　感官是生存的工具，也是快乐的工具。

　　But today, we have relinquished¹² many of the functions of our own senses to the modern food industry – which suits that industry just fine.

　　但今天，我们已经将我们自己感官的许多功能让给了现代食品行业--这正好适合这个行业。

　　It suits us less well, judging by the current epidemic¹³ of diet-related ill health.

　　从目前与饮食相关的流行病问题来看，它不太适合我们。

1 sensory   

adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的

参考例句：

• Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
• The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。

2 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

3 flex   

n.皮线，花线；vt.弯曲或伸展

参考例句：

• We wound off a couple of yards of wire for a new lamp flex.我们解开几码电线作为新的电灯花线。
• He gave his biceps a flex to impress the ladies.他收缩他的肱二头肌以吸引那些女士们的目光。

4 primate   

n.灵长类（目）动物，首席主教；adj.首要的

参考例句：

• 14 percent of primate species are highly endangered.14%的灵长类物种处于高度濒危状态。
• The woolly spider monkey is the largest primate in the Americas.绒毛蛛猴是美洲最大的灵长类动物。

5 figs   

figures 数字，图形，外形

参考例句：

• The effect of ring dyeing is shown in Figs 10 and 11. 环形染色的影响如图10和图11所示。
• The results in Figs. 4 and 5 show the excellent agreement between simulation and experiment. 图4和图5的结果都表明模拟和实验是相当吻合的。

6 dexterous   

adj.灵敏的；灵巧的

参考例句：

• As people grow older they generally become less dexterous.随着年龄的增长，人通常会变得不再那么手巧。
• The manager was dexterous in handling his staff.那位经理善于运用他属下的职员。

7 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

8 unripe   

adj.未成熟的；n.未成熟

参考例句：

• I was only ill once and that came of eating an unripe pear.我唯一一次生病是因为吃了未熟的梨。
• Half of the apples are unripe.一半的苹果不熟。

9 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

10 anthropologist   

n.人类学家，人类学者

参考例句：

• The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
• The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。

11 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

12 relinquished   

交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃

参考例句：

• She has relinquished the post to her cousin, Sir Edward. 她把职位让给了表弟爱德华爵士。
• The small dog relinquished his bone to the big dog. 小狗把它的骨头让给那只大狗。

13 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。