2006年VOA标准英语-Nobel Prize Science Winners Made Important Cont

By Deborah Block
Washington, DC
05 December 2006
 
watch Nobel Prize Science Winners

 
On Sunday, (December 10, 2006) this year's Nobel Prizes are being presented in Stockholm, Sweden.  The annual awards are given to people who have made outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, economics, and medicine or physiology¹.

Americans received four of the six Nobel Prizes.  Recently, VOA's Deborah Block spoke² with several of the winners in science about their breakthroughs -- ranging from an exciting new discovery in genetics, to a new look at the start of the universe.

People have long wondered when the universe began -- how the galaxies⁴ started, where the stars came from.  Most scientists agree with what is known as the "Big Bang" Theory -- almost 14 billion years ago the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across.  It has since expanded from a hot, dense⁵ state into the vast and much cooler cosmos⁶. 

 
Scientist John Mather 
Scientists John Mather and George Smoot won the Nobel Prize in physics for showing further evidence that the Big Bang occurred. Smoot is a Professor of physics at the University of California in Berkeley. He says, "We now have something that's essentially⁷ globally accepted by everyone as testable, reasonable. You can reason it through, you can test it with observations, a story of how the universe developed."

Smoot and Mather based their findings on measurements of what's called blackbody radiation -- a remnant of the earliest radiation in the universe.  Instruments onboard a satellite called Cobe measured that radiation.  According to the Big Bang theory, as the intense heat from the blackbody radiation gradually cooled, the universe expanded.

Mather is with the U.S. Space Agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in the state of Maryland.  He says measuring the radiation's spectrum⁸ of color and brightness was key.  “And so the spectrum measurement basically confirmed that the Big Bang Theory is basically the best theory we have for the origin of the universe -- that the whole universe that we're in now came from a volume no bigger than a golf ball about 13.7 billion years ago.  And with the Cobe satellite we saw the hot and cold spots in this radiation that are density⁹ fluctuations¹⁰ left over from the Big Bang itself.  And we believe that those particular regions are the ones that made galaxies and clusters of galaxies form so that we could exist."

 
Andrew Fire
Craig Mello and Andrew Fire received a Nobel Prize in the category of Physiology or Medicine.  Both are genetics experts who discovered a mechanism¹¹ in cells that can control the flow of genetic³ information by shutting down individual genes¹².

Known as RNA interference, it can be found in plants, animals and humans.  Fire is a genetics professor at Stanford University. "There was evidence of this very effective force in biology, essentially, that could shut genes down and the question is what triggered it.  And we were looking for clues about that and what we actually found was a very, very specific unique structure."

By controlling genetic information, RNA interference can provide a defense¹³ against viruses and control genes, which cause diseases like cancer.

 
Craig Mellow¹⁴
Craig Mello is a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.   He says he is hopeful RNA interference, or RNAI, will become one of several methods to control disease in the future. "It's not going to be a blockbuster drug right away.  It's not going to cure everything.  It's only going to work in certain cases at first.   And I think we have to keep our hopes down in terms of its actual potential use in the clinic.  But I do think -- I'm guardedly optimistic -- about the potential for RNAI getting into the clinic."

 
George Smoot
George Smoot thinks this year's American Nobel Prize winners in science will have an impact on young people who are considering becoming scientists. "This will encourage more young people to go into it.  But if you just look globally, you'll see that science has gotten to be strong in very many countries and it's coming up very impressively in China and India also."

Smoot says he is now on a new scientific quest -- to find out what happened before the Big Bang.

1 physiology   

n.生理学，生理机能

参考例句：

• He bought a book about physiology.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• He was awarded the Nobel Prize for achievements in physiology.他因生理学方面的建树而被授予诺贝尔奖。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

4 galaxies   

星系( galaxy的名词复数 )； 银河系； 一群（杰出或著名的人物）

参考例句：

• Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
• We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。

5 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

6 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

7 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

8 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

9 density   

n.密集，密度，浓度

参考例句：

• The population density of that country is 685 per square mile.那个国家的人口密度为每平方英里685人。
• The region has a very high population density.该地区的人口密度很高。

10 fluctuations   

波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table. 他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• There were so many unpredictable fluctuations on the Stock Exchange. 股票市场瞬息万变。

11 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

12 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

13 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

14 mellow   

adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟

参考例句：

• These apples are mellow at this time of year.每年这时节，苹果就熟透了。
• The colours become mellow as the sun went down.当太阳落山时，色彩变得柔和了。