科学美国人60秒 SSS 古老艺术提供农业信息（在线收听）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Susanne Bard.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是苏珊娜·巴德。

Pieter Bruegel's iconic 1565 painting The Harvesters hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

彼得·勃鲁盖尔1565年所作标志性画作《收割者》挂在纽约大都会艺术博物馆。

The work depicts peasants cutting stalks of wheat nearly as tall as they are.

这部作品描绘的是农民在收割几乎和他们一样高的小麦麦秆。

"Nowadays, if you walk through a wheat field, you basically see that wheat is about knee-height.

“现在，如果你走过小麦田，看到的小麦大概只到膝盖。

The short stature is essentially a consequence of breeding from the second half of the 20th century."

这种矮小身材本质上是20世纪下半叶育种的结果。”

University of Ghent biologist Ive De Smet.

根特大学的生物学家伊夫·德斯密特说到。

Selective breeding favored genes for reduced height, because they came along with genes for increasing yields to feed a growing population.

“现在，如果你走过小麦田，看到的小麦大概只到膝盖。

De Smet says wheat is just one example of how historical artwork can allow us to track the transformation of food crops over time.

德斯密特表示，小麦只是一个例子，说明历史美术品如何让我们追踪粮食作物随时间变化。

He teamed up with art historian David Vergauwen of Amarant to catalogue such artwork around the world.

他与阿马兰特的艺术历史学家大卫·韦高文合作，将全世界的此类艺术伤口进行了分类。

"We have been mainly looking at things where we kind of can spot changes in shape, in color, in size."

“我们主要观察我们可以察觉到的形状、颜色、大小变化的东西。”

Friends since childhood, their interest in plants in artwork began with a visit to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia—

二人从小就是朋友，在参观完俄罗斯圣彼得堡艾尔米塔什博物馆后开始对艺术作品中的植物感兴趣，

where they noticed an odd-looking watermelon in an early-17th-century painting by Flemish artist Frans Snyders.

他们在博物馆注意到17世纪早期佛兰芒艺术家弗兰斯·斯奈德画的西瓜有点奇怪。

"So if you think of a watermelon, you cut it through, it should be dark red on the inside. But that one appeared to be pale and white."

“如果你认为那是西瓜，切开它，里面的瓤应该是暗红色的。但画中的看上去是灰白的白色。”

Biologist De Smet assumed the painter had done a poor job. But art historian Vergauwen had a different idea.

生物学家德斯密特猜测画家画错了。但是艺术史学家韦高文有不同的想法。

"He says, 'No, this is one of the best painters ever from that era. So if he paints it like that, that's the way it must have looked like.'"

“他表示，‘不对，他是那个时代最好的画家之一。所以如果他那样画，那肯定就是这样的。’”

Other paintings revealed that both red and white watermelons were cultivated during the 17th century.

其他画作显示，17世纪有种植红色和白色的西瓜。

The color is determined by a gene that controls the pigment lycopene.

颜色由控制番茄红素的基因决定。

"There must have been some sort of mutation preventing the accumulation of that color.

“一定是某种变异阻止了这种颜色的积累。

Now, with all the genetic knowledge that we have from various plant species, we can look in more detail how something comes about."

现在，我们掌握了各种植物的遗传知识，可以详细分析某种现象是如何发生的。”

For example, De Smet says carrots first started to be depicted as orange only in the 16th century, thanks to selective breeding for the beta-carotene pigment.

德斯密特表示，例如，由于β-胡萝卜素色素的选择性繁殖，胡萝卜只在16世纪被描绘成橙色。

And until the 18th century, European strawberries appear tiny in paintings—they then grew in size with the advent of crossbreeding with North American varieties.

直到18世纪，欧洲草莓在画作中仍显得很小，之后随着与北美品种杂交的出现，草莓的大小也随之增长。

The research is in the journal Trends in Plant Science.

这项研究发表在《植物科学趋势》期刊上。

Ultimately, the team hopes to create an online research database of historical plant artwork.

最终，该团队希望建立一个历史植物艺术品在线研究数据库。

They seek the contributions of art enthusiasts around the world via the social media hashtag #artgenetics.

他们可以通过社交媒体标签“艺术遗传学”来获得全世界艺术爱好者的艺术品。

But, they caution, the source paintings need to be realistic.

但是，他们警告称，绘画作品必须是写实的。

"If you're going to use, for example, Picasso to try and understand how a pear looked in the early 20th century, you might be misled."

“比如说，如果你打算用毕加索的作品来尝试了解20世纪初梨子的样子，你可能会被误导。”

Indeed, such an attempt could be fruitless.

的确，这样的尝试可能毫无结果。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Susanne Bard.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是苏珊娜·巴德。