科学美国人60秒:迷惑龙甩尾突破音障-托福听力下载

　　科学美国人60秒中文翻译：

　　It seems the first resident of Earth to break the sound barrier wasn't Chuck Yeager, after all. 似乎突破音障的第一位地球居民并非查克·叶格。

　　He was about a hundred million years ,too late. 查克是在地球诞生1亿年之后才有了那次创举，但为时已晚。

　　Apatosaurus was a cousin of Brontosaurus,but even bigger, 侏罗纪时期的迷惑龙是雷龙的表亲，但是体型则更为庞大,

　　with a 40-foot-tail more than three feet thick at the butt end but no wider than your pinky at the tip. 它的尾巴长达40英尺，尾部厚度超过3英尺，但尾部尖端比你的小手指还细。

　　That dainty end made the tail too fragile for clubbing attackers. 就是这样精致小巧的尾巴尖对于它们袭击进攻者而言实在是不堪一击。

　　So what was it for? 但是它有什么用处呢?

　　Maybe this: 可能是这样的:

　　The idea that Apatosaurus might have used its tail like a bullwhip—to scare off predators, communicate or even show off for potential mates—gained traction about 20 years ago. 迷惑龙用自己的尾巴作为鞭子—它通过甩尾吓跑捕食者，同潜在伴侣交流进行交流或甚至炫耀—这样的作用在20年前就引起了人们的注意力。

　　That's when paleontologist Philip Currie of the University of Alberta teamed with Nathan Myhrvold to create a computer simulation that showed the whip-cracking tail was plausible. 因此阿尔伯塔大学的古生物学家菲利普·柯里尔同内森·梅沃德合作研发了一款电脑模拟程序表明这样的甩尾存在一定意义。

　　Myhrvold is the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures 梅沃德则成为高智公司的创始人并出任CEO。

　　an invention firm in the Seattle suburbs—where I'm executive editor. 这是一家位于西雅图郊区的发明公司—而我则任职执行总监。

　　This week at a meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, Myhrvold, Currie and Dhileep Sivam, also of Intellectual Ventures, unveiled a quarter-scale physical model of an Apatosaurus tail made from aluminum vertebrae and steel tendons. 在本周古脊椎动物学会举办的一场会议上，梅尔沃德和同样是高智公司的德利普·斯瓦姆公布了1/4比例大小由铝骨及钢肌腱制成的迷惑龙尾椎骨模型。

　　Give the big end of the model a strong push and pull, and it does this: 给这个尾部模型施加一个强大的推力及拉力后就会产生这样的声音。

　　Our analysis of high-speed video of the tail in action found that the tip moves at more than 800 miles an hour—fast enough to break the sound barrier and create a small sonic boom. 通过对甩尾高速视频分析我们发现尾部末端每小时可移动超过800英里—速度之快足以打破音障并造成小型音爆。

　　A full-size apatosaur whipping its tail in this way could probably have produced a sound loud enough to shatter human eardrums. 而成年迷惑龙这种甩尾的方式足以震碎人类的耳膜。

　　Which must have really gotten their attention back in the late Jurassic. 这项研究也将人类的注意力转移到了侏罗纪时代末期。

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