VOA常速英语2018--回顾2018年的重要科学记忆点（在线收听）

For the residents of the English city of Salisbury, 2018 will be remembered as the year the nerve agent Novichok came to town. Professor Andrea Sela calls it a uniquely devastating poison. The nervous system just fires wildly, and so you get all these bizarre symptoms of paralysis and convulsions at the same time. Russian operatives are suspected of using the nerve agent, and they attempted poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter. The incident frayed relations between Europe and Russia.

对于英国索尔兹伯里的市民来说，2018年的记忆点将会是诺维乔克这种神经毒剂来袭这座城市。安德里亚·塞拉教授称其为具有独特破坏力的毒药。人的神经系统会剧烈反应，并会产生奇怪的症状——同时出现瘫痪和抽搐的情况。俄罗斯人被怀疑使用了这种神经毒剂，试图毒害前俄罗斯特工及其女儿。该事件导致欧洲和俄罗斯关系发生摩擦。

2018 will also be remembered as the year that genetic engineering made significant advances from the techniques modest beginning with Dolly the sheep in 1997. This year, scientists cloned pigs, dogs, mules and monkeys, and gene editing techniques are now being used to create designer animals, like these Holsteins genetically engineered to be hornless. Dairy cows like Holsteins grow horns and they’re quite dangerous for human workers and also for their fellow cows.

2018年的另一个记忆点是：基因工程取得重大进步。上一次重大进步是1997年多利羊成功克隆的技术。今年，科学家克隆了猪、狗、骡子、猴子。而且人类还用基因编辑的技术来创造设计动物。比如，这些毫斯坦奶牛可以通过基因工程变为无角牛。毫斯坦奶牛等奶牛长出来的角对于工作人员来说十分危险，对于同族群的牛来说亦是如此。

Scientists also uncovered some odd behavior in an ancient species of the humble but painful wasp. X-rays uncovered a 30 million year-old species of parasitic wasps about the size of a grain of rice that even way back then was feeding on ancient flies. Either the host is paralyzed or it continues to feed and breathe in and live relatively normally but with this parasitoid thing, living and growing inside it and eventually of course it kills the host.

科学家还解密了一些远古生物的怪异行为，比如这种安分守己又把人蜇得生疼的黄蜂。X射线下，我们发现了一种3000万年前的寄生黄蜂，其大小跟一粒米差不多。直到现在，这种黄蜂依然以古代苍蝇为食。黄蜂的宿主只要不瘫痪，黄蜂就会继续以其为食并正常生活，寄生在苍蝇的身上，直到最后宿主死亡 。

Another puzzle the natural world was solved when scientists figure out how the annoying dandelion manages to be so good at spreading through the air. Scientists are using this new information as a possible way to create micro flying objects that could stay afloat on wind currents for extended periods of time.

还有一个自然世界的谜题得以解开，那就是：科学家解答了恼人的蒲公英是如何实现在空气中如此强的散播能力的。科学家通过这项新信息作为一种途径来制造微型飞行物，这种飞行物可以借助风流保持漂浮很长的时间。

And finally using The Very Large Telescope in Chile, scientists were able to monitor a small star passing close to a black hole, and see how its light was distorted and warped by the black holes super gravity. The observation confirmed one of the basic predictions of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The universe is not just made up of space, but a bizarre combination of space and time that can be affected by gravity. Now that was a busy year.

最后解密的是：智利科学家用甚大望远镜观测到了一颗小恒星近距离飞过某黑洞，并观测到了这颗恒星的光是如何因受到黑洞的超引力而发生失真扭曲的。这次观测证实了爱因斯坦相对论的基本预测。宇宙并不是只由空间组成，而是时空的奇异混合体，是可以受到重力影响的。今年这是收获颇丰的一年。