英国新闻听力 寻找达芬奇的DNA

Who is this?

He was endlessly curious searching for answers in everything he did. We think of him as the ultimate renaissance¹ man. He created a new idea of beauty. He reinvented the art of painting.

Leonardo de Vinci. And that was from our BBC documentary about the ultimate renaissance man. Well now scientists are hoping to extract DNA² from de Vinci’s paintings and sketch³ books.

DNA is unbelievably powerful. Just think of what it’s doing in courtrooms and its transforming of our understanding of our world, of ourselves. And it will have a massive effect we believe in coming decades on our understanding of history including the history of art. Why not begin with Leonardo who was perhaps the personification of art and science together.

Yes we were wondering whether you wanted to clone him? I mean, why is it important to know what his DNA was?

Let me give you one particular reason of interest to me and that’s visual acuity⁴. Leonardo had incredible eyesight. One might say he could see birds and flight if you look at his drawings of birds, if you look at his drawings of water and hydrodynamics. Well, ten or twenty years from now we could have some of Leonardo’s genes⁵ for vision. So I give that as one reason, but there are others as well. His ancestry⁶, his mother was a servant girl, perhaps even a slave, Katerina from the north of the black sea. We’d like to know more about his origins, the genealogy⁷ of his mother and father.

This hybrid⁸ that created him obviously was very very special.

There’s also a bit of a historical question about where he was buried cuz there is a proposed site, but it’s not a certain thing, right?

Correct, the last few years of his life, Leonardo worked quite happily for the King of France in Amboise in the Loire Valley, a very beautiful place. He died on either May 2nd or May 5th, 1519. He was buried only three months later in August. And then the tomb where he was presumably buried was opened in the year 1802 and again in 1863. So because of the three-month hiatus between his death and the initial burial, and then the openings in 1802 and 1863, there are questions about whether the bones in Ambois are those of Leonardo himself.

这是谁呢？

他对自己所做的一切都有无限的好奇心，一直寻找答案。我们认为他是彻底的文艺复兴人。他创造了美的新概念，并彻底改造了绘画艺术。

他就是李奥纳多·达·芬奇。以上音频取自关于这个彻底的文艺复兴人的BBC纪录片。现如今，科学家们希望从达芬奇的绘画和素描簿中提取DNA。

DNA有令人难以置信的力量。可以想想它在法庭上起的作用，它是如何转变我们对世界、对自己的认识的。我们相信在未来几十年，DNA会对我们了解历史，包括艺术史，产生巨大影响。为什么不从李奥纳多着手呢？或许他是艺术和科学整体的化身。

是的。我们在想你是不是想克隆达芬奇？我的意思是，掌握他的DNA重要性何在？

让我跟你说我感兴趣的关键原因，那就是他敏锐的视觉。李奥纳多有惊人的目力。你看他画的鸟、水或是流体力学，就会觉得那些是真的。10年或20年后，我们可能会有李奥纳多的一些视觉基因。所以我觉得这是一个原因，当然也有其他原因。他的血统，他母亲曾是仆人，有可能甚至是奴隶，名叫卡特里娜，来自黑海北部。我们想知道更多他的身世、他父母的血统。

混血明显让他非常非常特别。

关于他埋葬在哪里，还有一点历史问题，有一个拟遗址，但并不确定，对吗？

没错，他人生的最后几年都在一个很美丽的地方——卢瓦尔河谷里的安博瓦兹为法国国王开心地工作。他死于1519年5月2日或是5月5日，三个月后即8月份才下葬。然后，在1802年和1863年，他假定的坟墓被两次开放。死亡和首次埋葬隔了3个月，然后1802年和1863年又开放，这些都致使人们怀疑安博瓦兹的遗骨是不是李奥纳多本人的。

1 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

2 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

3 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

4 acuity   

n.敏锐，（疾病的）剧烈

参考例句：

• We work on improving visual acuity.我们致力于提高视觉的敏锐度。
• The nurse may also measure visual acuity.护士还可以检查视敏度。

5 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

6 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

7 genealogy   

n.家系，宗谱

参考例句：

• He had sat and repeated his family's genealogy to her,twenty minutes of nonstop names.他坐下又给她细数了一遍他家族的家谱，20分钟内说出了一连串的名字。
• He was proficient in all questions of genealogy.他非常精通所有家谱的问题。

8 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。