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KennethLacovara_2016-_搜寻恐龙告诉了我我们在宇宙中的处境_
How do you find a dinosaur? [00:13]
Sounds impossible, doesn't it? [00:15]
It's not. [00:18]
And the answer relies on a formula that all paleontologists use. [00:19]
relies:信任; formula:n.公式; adj.(赛车)方程式的(指赛车要符合规定的体积,重量及汽缸容量等); paleontologists:n.古生物学家;古生物学者;(paleontologist的复数)
And I'm going to tell you the secret. [00:24]
First, find rocks of the right age. [00:27]
Second, those rocks must be sedimentary rocks. [00:31]
sedimentary:adj.沉淀的;
And third, layers of those rocks must be naturally exposed . [00:35]
layers:n.层;表层;层次;阶层;v.把…分层堆放;(layer的第三人称单数和复数) naturally:adv.自然地;自然而然地;轻而易举;天生地;大方地; exposed:adj.无遮蔽的; v.暴露; (expose的过去分词和过去式)
That's it. [00:40]
Find those three things and get yourself on the ground, chances are good that you will find fossils . [00:41]
fossils:n.[古生]化石(fossil复数形式);
Now let me break down this formula. [00:48]
Organisms exist only during certain geological intervals . [00:50]
Organisms:n.[生物]生物体(organism的复数);[生物]有机体; geological:adj.地质的,地质学的; intervals:n.间隔;[声]音程(interval的复数);
So you have to find rocks of the right age, depending on what your interests are. [00:55]
If you want to find trilobites , you have to find the really, really old rocks of the Paleozoic -- rocks between a half a billion and a quarter-billion years old. [00:59]
trilobites:n.[古生]三叶虫; Paleozoic:n.古生代;adj.古生代的;
Now, if you want to find dinosaurs, don't look in the Paleozoic, you won't find them. [01:08]
They hadn't evolved yet. [01:12]
evolved:v.(使)逐渐形成;进化;进化形成;(evolve的过去分词和过去式)
You have to find the younger rocks of the Mesozoic, and in the case of dinosaurs, between 235 and 66 million years ago. [01:14]
Now, it's fairly easy to find rocks of the right age at this point, because the Earth is, to a coarse degree, geologically mapped. [01:23]
fairly:adv.相当地;公平地;简直; coarse:adj.粗糙的;粗织的;粗的;大颗粒的; geologically:adv.从地质学角度;
This is hard-won information. [01:31]
hard-won:adj.来之不易的;难得的;
The annals of Earth history are written in rocks, one chapter upon the next, such that the oldest pages are on bottom and the youngest on top. [01:34]
annals:n.年报;编年史;年鉴;
Now, were it quite that easy, geologists would rejoice . [01:43]
geologists:n.[地质]地质学家(geologist的复数形式); rejoice:vi.高兴;庆祝;vt.使高兴;
It's not. [01:47]
The library of Earth is an old one. [01:48]
It has no librarian to impose order. [01:51]
impose:v.推行;迫使;强制实行;把…强加于;
Operating over vast swaths of time, myriad geological processes offer every possible insult to the rocks of ages. [01:54]
swaths:n.细长的列;收割的刈痕;收割的宽度; myriad:adj.无数的;种种的;n.无数,极大数量;无数的人或物; processes:n.过程; v.处理(process的第三人称单数形式); insult:v.侮辱;辱骂;损害;n.侮辱;凌辱;无礼;
Most pages are destroyed soon after being written. [02:04]
Some pages are overwritten , creating difficult-to-decipher palimpsests of long-gone landscapes . [02:07]
overwritten:adj.覆盖的;重写的;v.写得过多;写满;重写(overwrite的过去分词); palimpsests:n.重写本;写在重写本上的; landscapes:n.风景; v.从事庭园设计;
Pages that do find sanctuary under the advancing sands of time are never truly safe. [02:14]
sanctuary:n.避难所;至圣所;耶路撒冷的神殿;
Unlike the Moon -- our dead, rocky companion -- the Earth is alive, pulsing with creative and destructive forces that power its geological metabolism . [02:21]
rocky:adj.岩石的;多岩石的;困难的;难以维持的; companion:n.同伴;伴侣;陪伴;手册;v.(与…)同行;(跟…)搭伴儿去; pulsing:adj.脉冲的;n.脉动;v.使跳动;搏动(pulse的ing形式); creative:adj.创造性的; destructive:adj.破坏的;毁灭性的;有害的,消极的; metabolism:n.[生理]新陈代谢;
Lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts all date back to about the age of the Solar System . [02:31]
Lunar:adj.月亮的,月球的;阴历的;银的;微亮的; Apollo:n.阿波罗(太阳神);美男子; date back to:追溯到;从…开始有; Solar System:[天]太阳系;
Moon rocks are forever. [02:37]
Earth rocks, on the other hand , face the perils of a living lithosphere . [02:40]
on the other hand:另一方面; perils:n.事故;风险(peril的复数);v.冒险;置…于危险中(peril的第三人称单数); lithosphere:n.陆界,[地物][地质]岩石圈;
All will suffer ruination , through some combination of mutilation , compression , folding, tearing, scorching and baking . [02:45]
ruination:n.毁灭;祸根; combination:n.结合;组合;联合;[化学]化合; mutilation:n.毁损;残缺;切断; compression:n.压缩,浓缩;压榨,压迫; scorching:adj.灼热的; v.把…烧焦; baking:n.烘焙,烘烤; adj.烘烤的; v.烤,烘焙; (bake的现在分词)
Thus, the volumes of Earth history are incomplete and disheveled . [02:53]
volumes:n.卷;体积;容积;大量;(volumes是volume的复数) incomplete:n.未完成;adj.不完整的;不完全的;不完善的; disheveled:adj.不整洁的;凌乱的;v.使(头发等)蓬松(dishevel的过去分词);
The library is vast and magnificent -- but decrepit . [02:59]
magnificent:adj.高尚的;壮丽的;华丽的;宏伟的; decrepit:adj.衰老的;破旧的;
And it was this tattered complexity in the rock record that obscured its meaning until relatively recently . [03:06]
tattered:adj.破烂的,衣衫褴褛的;v.变破烂(tatter的过去分词); complexity:n.复杂性;难以理解的局势 obscured:adj.遮蔽的;湮没的;v.掩盖;使含混;变得模糊(obscure的过去分词); relatively:adv.相当程度上;相当地;相对地; recently:adv.最近;新近;
Nature provided no card catalog for geologists -- this would have to be invented. [03:13]
provided:conj.假如; v.提供; (provide的过去分词和过去式) card catalog:n.卡片目录(或索引);
Five thousand years after the Sumerians learned to record their thoughts on clay tablets , the Earth's volumes remained inscrutable to humans. [03:18]
clay:n.黏土;陶土; tablets:n.药片;片剂;(固定于墙上作纪念的)牌,碑,匾;(tablet的第三人称单数和复数) inscrutable:adj.神秘的;不可理解的;不能预测的;不可思议的;
We were geologically illiterate , unaware of the antiquity of our own planet and ignorant of our connection to deep time. [03:26]
illiterate:adj.文盲的;不识字的;没受教育的;n.文盲; unaware:adj.不知道的,无意的;未察觉到的;adv.意外地;不知不觉地; antiquity:n.古代;古老;文物;古迹; ignorant:adj.无知的;愚昧的;
It wasn't until the turn of the 19th century that our blinders were removed, first, with the publication of James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth," [03:37]
blinders:n.马眼罩(blinder的复数); publication:n.出版物;发表;公布;发行;
in which he told us that the Earth reveals no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end; and then, with the printing of William Smith's map of Britain, the first country-scale geological map, giving us for the first time predictive insight into where certain types of rocks might occur . [03:47]
reveals:v.揭示;显示;透露;展示;(reveal的第三人称单数) vestige:n.残留部分;遗迹;(通常用于否定句)丝毫,一点儿; prospect:n.展望;前景;希望;前途;v.勘探;探矿; predictive:adj.预言性的;成为前兆的; insight:n.洞察力;洞悉; occur:v.发生;出现;存在于;出现在;
After that, you could say things like, "If we go over there, we should be in the Jurassic ," [04:05]
Jurassic:adj.侏罗系的;侏罗纪的;n.侏罗纪;
or, "If we go up over that hill, we should find the Cretaceous ." [04:10]
Cretaceous:adj.白垩纪的;似白垩的;n.白垩纪;白垩系;
So now, if you want to find trilobites, get yourself a good geological map and go to the rocks of the Paleozoic. [04:15]
If you want to find dinosaurs like I do, find the rocks of Mesozoic and go there. [04:23]
Now of course, you can only make a fossil in a sedimentary rock, a rock made by sand and mud. [04:29]
You can't have a fossil in an igneous rock formed by magma , like a granite , or in a metamorphic rock that's been heated and squeezed . [04:34]
igneous:adj.火的;[岩]火成的;似火的; magma:n.[地质]岩浆;糊剂; granite:n.花岗岩;坚毅;冷酷无情; metamorphic:adj.变质的;变性的;变态的; squeezed:v.挤压;捏;榨出,挤出,拧出;挤入;(squeeze的过去分词和过去式)
And you have to get yourself in a desert. [04:42]
It's not that dinosaurs particularly lived in deserts; they lived on every land mass and in every imaginable environment. [04:45]
particularly:adv.特别地,独特地;详细地,具体地;明确地,细致地; land mass:n.陆块;地块; imaginable:adj.可能的;可想像的;
It's that you need to go to a place that's a desert today, a place that doesn't have too many plants covering up the rocks, and a place where erosion is always exposing new bones at the surface. [04:52]
erosion:n.侵蚀,腐蚀; exposing:v.暴露;显露;揭露;揭穿;使面临;(expose的现在分词)
So find those three things: rocks of the right age, that are sedimentary rocks, in a desert, and get yourself on the ground, and you literally walk until you see a bone sticking out of the rock. [05:03]
literally:adv.按字面:字面上:确实地:
Here's a picture that I took in Southern Patagonia . [05:16]
Patagonia:n.巴塔哥尼亚(南美的一个地区);
Every pebble that you see on the ground there is a piece of dinosaur bone. [05:20]
pebble:n.卵石;水晶透镜;v.用卵石铺;
So when you're in that right situation, it's not a question of whether you'll find fossils or not; you're going to find fossils. [05:25]
The question is: Will you find something that is scientifically significant ? [05:31]
scientifically:adv.系统地;合乎科学地;学问上; significant:adj.重大的;有效的;有意义的;值得注意的;意味深长的;n.象征;有意义的事物;
And to help with that, I'm going to add a fourth part to our formula, which is this: get as far away from other paleontologists as possible. [05:35]
(Laughter) [05:44]
It's not that I don't like other paleontologists. [05:46]
When you go to a place that's relatively unexplored , you have a much better chance of not only finding fossils but of finding something that's new to science. [05:49]
unexplored:adj.[地质]未勘查过的;
So that's my formula for finding dinosaurs, and I've applied it all around the world. [05:57]
applied:adj.应用的;实用的;v.应用;使用;申请,请求;(apply的过去分词和过去式)
In the austral summer of 2004, [06:01]
austral:adj.南的,南国的;南方的,南部的;
I went to the bottom of South America , to the bottom of Patagonia, Argentina , to prospect for dinosaurs: a place that had terrestrial sedimentary rocks of the right age, in a desert, a place that had been barely visited by paleontologists. [06:04]
South America:n.南美洲; Argentina:n.阿根廷(位于拉丁美洲); terrestrial:adj.地球的;陆地的,[生物]陆生的;人间的;n.陆地生物;地球上的人; barely:adv.仅仅,勉强;几乎不;公开地;贫乏地;
And we found this. [06:19]
This is a femur , a thigh bone , of a giant , plant-eating dinosaur. [06:21]
femur:n.[解剖]股骨;大腿骨; thigh bone:n.股骨; giant:n.巨人;伟人;巨兽;adj.巨大的;特大的 plant-eating:食植物的;
That bone is 2.2 meters across. [06:25]
That's over seven feet long. [06:28]
Now, unfortunately , that bone was isolated . [06:31]
unfortunately:adv.不幸地; isolated:adj.偏远的; v.隔离,孤立,脱离;
We dug and dug and dug, and there wasn't another bone around. [06:33]
But it made us hungry to go back the next year for more. [06:36]
And on the first day of that next field season, [06:39]
I found this: another two-meter femur, only this time not isolated, this time associated with 145 other bones of a giant plant eater . [06:42]
associated:adj.有关联的; v.联想; (associate的过去分词和过去式) eater:n.食者;
And after three more hard, really brutal field seasons, the quarry came to look like this. [06:53]
brutal:adj.残忍的;野蛮的,不讲理的; quarry:n.采石场;猎物;来源;vi.费力地找;vt.挖出;努力挖掘;
And there you see the tail of that great beast wrapping around me. [06:59]
wrapping:n.包装材料;包装纸;v.包,裹(礼物等);用…包裹;(wrap的现在分词)
The giant that lay in this grave , the new species of dinosaur, we would eventually call "Dreadnoughtus schrani." [07:03]
grave:adj.重大的;严肃的;黯淡的;n.墓穴,坟墓;死亡;v.雕刻;铭记; species:n.[生物]物种;种类; eventually:adv.最后,终于;
Dreadnoughtus was 85 feet from snout to tail. [07:11]
snout:n.鼻子;猪嘴;烟草;鼻口部;口吻状物;
It stood two-and-a-half stories at the shoulder, and all fleshed out in life, it weighed 65 tons. [07:15]
fleshed:n.肉;肉体;vt.喂肉给…;使发胖;vi.长胖;
People ask me sometimes, "Was Dreadnoughtus bigger than a T. rex?" [07:23]
That's the mass of eight or nine T. rex. [07:26]
Now, one of the really cool things about being a paleontologist is when you find a new species, you get to name it. [07:30]
And I've always thought it a shame that these giant, plant-eating dinosaurs are too often portrayed as passive , lumbering platters of meat on the landscape. [07:36]
portrayed:v.描绘;描画;描写;表现;扮演(某角色)(portray的过去分词和过去式) passive:adj.被动的,消极的;被动语态的;n.被动语态; lumbering:adj.笨拙的; n.伐木业; v.伐树; platters:n.[轻]大浅盘(platter的复数);
(Laughter) [07:46]
They're not. [07:47]
Big herbivores can be surly , and they can be territorial -- you do not want to mess with a hippo or a rhino or a water buffalo . [07:48]
herbivores:n.[动]食草动物,植食动物;食草者(herbivore的复数形式); surly:adj.乖戾的;板面孔的,无礼的;阴沉的; territorial:adj.领土的;区域的;土地的;地方的;n.地方自卫队士兵; mess:n.混乱;餐厅;杂乱;肮脏;v.使不整洁;弄脏;弄乱;随地便溺; hippo:河马(hippopotamus的简写) rhino:n.犀牛(等于rhinoceros);钱;现金; water buffalo:[畜牧][脊椎]水牛;
The bison in Yellowstone injure far more people than do the grizzly bears. [07:56]
bison:n.北美野牛;欧洲野牛; injure:v.伤害,使受伤;损害,伤害; grizzly:adj.灰色的;n.灰熊;
So can you imagine a big bull , 65-ton Dreadnoughtus in the breeding season, defending a territory ? [08:01]
bull:n.废话;公牛;彪形大汉;v.大量买进以期抬高价格;吓唬; breeding:n.繁殖;饲养;教养;再生;v.生产;培育;使…繁殖;(breed的现在分词) territory:n.领土,领域;范围;地域;版图;
That animal would have been incredibly dangerous, a menace to all around, and itself would have had nothing to fear. [08:10]
incredibly:adv.难以置信地;非常地; menace:n.威胁;恐吓;vi.恐吓;进行威胁;vt.威胁;恐吓;
And thus the name, "Dreadnoughtus," [08:18]
or, "fears nothing." [08:20]
Now, to grow so large, an animal like Dreadnoughtus would've had to have been a model of efficiency . [08:24]
efficiency:n.效率;效能;功效;
That long neck and long tail help it radiate heat into the environment, passively controlling its temperature. [08:29]
radiate:vt.辐射; vi.辐射; adj.辐射状的,有射线的; passively:adv.被动地;顺从地;
And that long neck also serves as a super-efficient feeding mechanism . [08:35]
mechanism:n.机制;原理,途径;进程;机械装置;技巧;
Dreadnoughtus could stand in one place and with that neck clear out a huge envelope of vegetation , taking in tens of thousands of calories while expending very few. [08:38]
envelope:n.信封,封皮;包膜;[天]包层;包迹; vegetation:n.植被;植物,草木;呆板单调的生活; calories:n.[物]卡路里(热量单位,calorie的复数); expending:花费;支出(expend的现在分词);
And these animals evolved a bulldog-like wide-gait stance , giving them immense stability , because when you're 65 tons, when you're literally as big as a house, the penalty for falling over is death. [08:48]
stance:n.立场;姿态;位置;准备击球姿势; immense:adj.巨大的,广大的;无边无际的;非常好的; stability:n.稳定性;坚定,恒心; penalty:n.罚款,罚金;处罚;
Yeah, these animals are big and tough, but they won't take a blow like that. [09:03]
Dreadnoughtus falls over, ribs break and pierce lungs. [09:07]
ribs:n.[解剖]肋骨;排骨(rib的复数); pierce:v.穿透;扎;刺破;穿过;n.皮尔斯;
Organs burst . [09:10]
Organs:n.[生物]器官;机构;风琴(organ的复数); burst:v.破裂;爆炸;突破;冲进;n.爆发;点射;释放;(情感的)迸发;
If you're a big 65-ton Dreadnoughtus, you don't get to fall down in life -- even once. [09:11]
Now, after this particular Dreadnoughtus carcass was buried and de-fleshed by a multitude of bacteria , worms and insects, its bones underwent a brief metamorphosis , exchanging molecules with the groundwater and becoming more and more like the entombing rock. [09:17]
carcass:n.(人或动物的)尸体;残骸;(除脏去头备食用的)畜体; multitude:n.众多;大量;群众;民众;人群; bacteria:n.[微]细菌; worms:n.蠕虫;寄生虫;幼虫;v.蠕动,曲折行进;(worm的第三人称单数和复数) underwent:v.经验;遭遇(undergo的过去式); metamorphosis:n.变形;变质; molecules:n.[化学]分子,微粒;[化学]摩尔(molecule的复数); groundwater:n.地下水; entombing:vt.埋葬;成为…的坟墓;
As layer upon layer of sediment accumulated , pressure from all sides weighed in like a stony glove whose firm and enduring grip held each bone in a stabilizing embrace . [09:33]
accumulated:v.积累;积聚;(数量)逐渐增加;(accumulate的过去式和过去分词) stony:adj.无情的;多石的;石头的; enduring:adj.持久的;耐久的;v.忍耐;忍受;持续;持久;(endure的现在分词) grip:n.紧握;柄;支配;握拍方式;拍柄绷带;vt.紧握;夹紧;vi.抓住; stabilizing:v.(使)稳定,稳固;(stabilize的现在分词) embrace:n.拥抱,怀抱;v.拥抱;乐意采纳(思想、建议等);信奉;包括;
And then came the long ... [09:45]
nothing. [09:48]
Epoch after epoch of sameness , nonevents without number. [09:49]
Epoch:n.[地质]世;新纪元;新时代;时间上的一点; sameness:n.相同;千篇一律;单调; nonevents:n.大肆宣扬即将来临而结果未发生之事;被期望但未实现的事;
All the while, the skeleton lay everlasting and unchanging in perfect equilibrium within its rocky grave. [09:55]
skeleton:n.骨架,骨骼;纲要;骨瘦如柴的人;adj.骨骼的;骨瘦如柴的;概略的; everlasting:adj.永久的;永恒的;冗长的;n.永久;无穷; unchanging:adj.不变的; equilibrium:n.均衡;平静;保持平衡的能力;
Meanwhile , Earth history unfolded above. [10:03]
Meanwhile:adv.同时,其间;n.其间,其时; unfolded:v.(使)展开;打开;展示;透露;(unfold的过去分词和过去式)
The dinosaurs would reign for another 12 million years before their hegemony was snuffed out in a fiery apocalypse . [10:06]
reign:vi.统治;支配;盛行;君临;n.统治;统治时期;支配; hegemony:n.霸权;领导权;盟主权; snuffed:v.掐灭,闷熄,熄灭(小火苗);出声地嗅;(snuff的过去分词和过去式) fiery:adj.热烈的,炽烈的;暴躁的;燃烧般的; apocalypse:n.启示;天启;
The continents drifted . The mammals rose. [10:13]
continents:n.[地理]大陆,大洲(continent复数); drifted:v.漂流;漂移;缓缓移动;缓慢行走;(drift的过去分词和过去式) mammals:n.哺乳动物;(mammal的复数)
The Ice Age came. [10:16]
And then, in East Africa, an unpromising species of ape evolved the odd trick of sentient thought. [10:18]
unpromising:adj.无前途的,没有希望的; odd:adj.古怪的;奇数的;n.奇数; sentient:adj.有感情的;有感觉力的;意识到的;n.有知觉的人;
These brainy primates were not particularly fast or strong. [10:27]
brainy:adj.聪明的;脑筋好的;有头脑的; primates:n.灵长类;
But they excelled at covering ground, and in a remarkable diaspora surpassing even the dinosaurs' record of territorial conquest , they dispersed across the planet, ravishing every ecosystem they encountered , [10:32]
excelled:v.优于;超过;超越(excel的过去分词形式);胜过; remarkable:adj.卓越的;非凡的;值得注意的; diaspora:n.离散的犹太人;犹太人的离散; surpassing:adj.胜过的;卓越的;优秀的;adv.卓越地;非凡地;v.胜过(surpass的ing形式); conquest:n.征服;占领;占领(或征服)的地区;(爱情或性方面)被俘虏的人; dispersed:adj.散布的;被分散的;被驱散的;v.分散;传播(disperse的过去分词); ravishing:adj.迷人的;极其美丽的;v.强暴;强奸;使狂喜;使销魂(ravish的现在分词) ecosystem:n.生态系统; encountered:v.遭遇,遇到;偶然碰到;意外地遇见;(encounter的过去分词和过去式)
along the way, inventing culture and metalworking and painting and dance and music and science and rocket ships that would eventually take 12 particularly excellent apes to the surface of the Moon. [10:44]
metalworking:n.金属加工术;金属制造;adj.金属制造的;
With seven billion peripatetic Homo sapiens on the planet, it was perhaps inevitable that one of them would eventually trod on the grave of the magnificent titan buried beneath the badlands of Southern Patagonia. [11:00]
peripatetic:adj.漫游的;逍遥学派的;n.走来走去的人;逍遥学派的人; Homo sapiens:n.智人(现代人类); inevitable:adj.必然的,不可避免的; trod:v.践踏(tread的过去式和过去分词); titan:n.巨人;提坦;太阳神; beneath:prep.在…之下;adv.在下方; badlands:n.荒地;崎岖不毛的地区;
I was that ape. [11:14]
And standing there, alone in the desert, it was not lost on me that the chance of any one individual entering the fossil record is vanishingly small. [11:17]
individual:n.个人;有个性的人;adj.单独的;个别的; vanishingly:adv.难以察觉地;消遁似地;趋于零地;
But the Earth is very, very old. [11:28]
And over vast tracts of time, the improbable becomes the probable. [11:30]
tracts:n.神经束;广阔的地面(tract的复数); improbable:adj.不大可能的,未必确实的;不可信的;
That's the magic of the geological record. [11:34]
Thus, multitudinous creatures living and dying on an old planet leave behind immense numbers of fossils, each one a small miracle , but collectively , inevitable. [11:37]
multitudinous:adj.大量的,群集的;多种多样的; creatures:n.生物;动物;(具有某种特征的)人(creature的复数) leave behind:留下,丢下 miracle:n.奇迹,奇迹般的人或物;惊人的事例; collectively:adv.共同地,全体地;
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out the dinosaurs. [11:48]
asteroid:n.[天]小行星;[无脊椎]海盘车;小游星;adj.星状的;
This easily might not have been. [11:54]
But we only get one history, and it's the one that we have. [11:57]
But this particular reality was not inevitable. [12:00]
The tiniest perturbation of that asteroid far from Earth would have caused it to miss our planet by a wide margin . [12:02]
perturbation:n.[数][天]摄动;不安;扰乱; margin:n.边缘;利润,余裕;页边的空白;v.加边于;加旁注于;
The pivotal , calamitous day during which the dinosaurs were wiped out, setting the stage for the modern world as we know it didn't have to be. [12:08]
pivotal:adj.关键的;中枢的;枢轴的;n.关键事物;中心事物; calamitous:adj.灾难的,悲惨的;不幸的;
It could've just been another day -- a Thursday, perhaps -- among the 63 billion days already enjoyed by the dinosaurs. [12:16]
But over geological time, improbable, nearly impossible events do occur. [12:27]
Along the path from our wormy , Cambrian ancestors to primates dressed in suits, innumerable forks in the road led us to this very particular reality. [12:32]
wormy:adj.有虫的,虫蛀的;似虫的;卑躬屈膝的; innumerable:adj.无数的,数不清的;
The bones of Dreadnoughtus lay underground for 77 million years. [12:43]
Who could have imagined that a single species of shrew-like mammal living in the cracks of the dinosaur world would evolve into sentient beings capable of characterizing and understanding the very dinosaurs they must have dreaded ? [12:48]
cracks:n.裂纹; v.破裂; (crack的第三人称单数和复数) capable:adj.能干的,能胜任的;有才华的; characterizing:vt.描绘…的特性;具有…的特征;vi.塑造人物; dreaded:adj.令人畏惧的,可怕的;v.惧怕(dread的过去分词);
I once stood at the head of the Missouri River and bestraddled it. [13:04]
Missouri:n.密苏里(美国州名); bestraddled:vt.跨;跨骑;
There, it's nothing more than a gurgle of water that issues forth from beneath a rock in a boulder in a pasture , high in the Bitterroot Mountains. [13:11]
gurgle:n.咯咯声;汩汩声;vi.作汩汩声;作咯咯声;vt.用咯咯声表示; issues:n.重要议题;争论的问题;v.宣布;公布;发出;(issue的第三人称单数和复数) boulder:n.卵石,大圆石;巨砾; pasture:n.草地;牧场;牧草;v.放牧;吃草;
The stream next to it runs a few hundred yards and ends in a small pond . [13:20]
pond:n.池塘;水池(尤指人工的);v.把…挖成池塘;堵(溪流)水成池;
Those two streams -- they look identical . [13:25]
identical:adj.同一的;完全相同的;n.完全相同的事物;
But one is an anonymous trickle of water, and the other is the Missouri River. [13:29]
anonymous:adj.匿名的,无名的;无个性特征的; trickle:v.(使)滴,淌,小股流淌;(使)慢慢走;n.细流;涓流;
Now go down to the mouth of the Missouri, near St. Louis, and it's pretty obvious that that river is a big deal . [13:35]
obvious:adj.明显的;显著的;平淡无奇的; a big deal:na.要人;重要的事;
But go up into the Bitterroots and look at the Missouri, and human prospection does not allow us to see it as anything special. [13:42]
Bitterroots:n.一种齿苋; prospection:n.预期;勘察;
Now go back to the Cretaceous Period and look at our tiny, fuzzball ancestors. [13:51]
fuzzball:n.马勃科菌;牛屎菌;灰蘑菇;
You would never guess that they would amount to anything special, and they probably wouldn't have, were it not for that pesky asteroid. [13:55]
pesky:adj.讨厌的;麻烦的;adv.极端;
Now, make a thousand more worlds and a thousand more solar systems and let them run. [14:03]
You will never get the same result. [14:09]
No doubt, those worlds would be both amazing and amazingly improbable, but they would not be our world and they would not have our history. [14:11]
There are an infinite number of histories that we could've had. [14:17]
infinite:adj.无限的,无穷的; n.无限;
We only get one, and wow, did we ever get a good one. [14:20]
Dinosaurs like Dreadnoughtus were real. [14:23]
Sea monsters like the mosasaur were real. [14:27]
mosasaur:n.[古生]沧龙;
Dragonflies with the wingspan of an eagle and pill bugs the length of a car really existed. [14:31]
Dragonflies:n.[昆]蜻蜓(dragonfly的复数); wingspan:n.翼展;翼幅; pill:n.[医]药丸;药品; bugs:n.缺陷;虫子;窃听器;(bug的复数)v.窃听;使烦恼;(bug的第三人称单数)
Why study the ancient past? [14:39]
Because it gives us perspective and humility . [14:42]
perspective:n.观点;远景;透视图;adj.透视的; humility:n.谦卑,谦逊;
The dinosaurs died in the world's fifth mass extinction , snuffed out in a cosmic accident through no fault of their own. [14:46]
extinction:n.绝种; cosmic:adj.宇宙的;
They didn't see it coming, and they didn't have a choice. [14:55]
We, on the other hand, do have a choice. [15:00]
And the nature of the fossil record tells us that our place on this planet is both precarious and potentially fleeting . [15:03]
precarious:adj.危险的;不确定的; potentially:adv.可能地,潜在地; fleeting:adj.转瞬即逝的;短暂的;闪现的;
Right now, our species is propagating an environmental disaster of geological proportions that is so broad and so severe , it can rightly be called the sixth extinction. [15:11]
propagating:adj.传播的;繁殖的;v.传播(propagate的ing形式);繁殖; disaster:n.灾难,灾祸;不幸; proportions:n.[数]比例;大小(proportion的复数形式); severe:adj.极为恶劣的;十分严重的;严厉的;苛刻的; rightly:adv.正确地;恰当地;公正地;合适地;
Only unlike the dinosaurs, we can see it coming. [15:22]
And unlike the dinosaurs, we can do something about it. [15:27]
That choice is ours. [15:32]
Thank you. [15:35]
(Applause) [15:36]