科学美国人60秒:远古人类为生存致鸟类灭绝-托福听力下载

　　科学美国人60秒中文翻译：

　　Extinction. When species go bye-bye forever, we usually blame things like climate change, volcanic eruption or asteroid impact. 物种灭绝。当物种永远离开我们时，我们通常会将责任归咎于气候变化、火山喷发或行星碰撞等因素。

　　But for the giant flightless birds that once roamed the Australian outback, it was an omelet station what did'em in. 但对于一种曾经在澳大利亚生活无法飞行的鸟类而言，该物种灭绝的原因是它们成为煎蛋的材料。

　　A new study finds evidence that about 47,000 years ago, humans helped to wipe out this avian leviathan by collecting and cooking its eggs. 一项新的研究发现大约47,000年前，人类通过采集并烹饪这种鸟的蛋加速了它们的灭亡。

　　The study is in the journal Nature Communications. 这项研究已经在《自然通讯》杂志上发表。

　　Before humans swept over the land down under, animals of enormous proportions were not uncommon. 在人类抵达疯狂席卷这片大陆之前，各种各样的动物并不罕见。

　　A two-ton wombat, a thousand-pound kangaroo, and a 500-pound bird now known as Genyornis newtoni were spread across the continent. 2吨重的袋熊、1000磅的袋鼠及500磅重现在名为牛顿的这种巨鸟，在当时的大陆上随处可见。

　　But most of these so-called megafauna disappeared once humans hit the scene. 但人类抵达后，这些巨型动物就消失了。

　　Coincidence? Well, it could be. 这是巧合吗?可能吧。

　　Which is why researchers set out to look for proof that human predation played a role in the demise of Genyornis. 因此研究人员们搜集证据，希望找出远古人类的捕猎对这种巨鸟灭绝产生的影响。

　　Which is only coincidentally sounds like Genyornis.They collected eggshells from hundreds of sites around the country. 这可能听起来像是远古巨鸟。研究人员在数百个地方收集到鸟蛋的化石。

　　And they found that the shell fragments exhibited scorch marks that suggested that the eggs had been purposefully cooked over an open flame. 结果他们发现蛋壳碎片被烧焦的痕迹显示它们可能经过明火烹调。

　　Marks that were not consistent with the eggs getting, say, burned up in a wildfire. 而这些烧痕迹同野火不同。

　　Three different dating methods put the eggs'age in the correct era, and thus place the smoking gun—or in this case, firepit—directly in the hands of hungry humans. 研究人员使用3种不同的方法正确定位这些蛋的所处年代并且找到确凿的证据—或者这种情况下当时人类使用的是火坑。

　　Which suggests that our ancestral appetite for over-easy compromised the fitness of this species. 这表明我们的祖先为了自己的生存猎杀这种鸟类。

　　Ultimately leading to its egg-stinction. 最终导致了这个物种的灭绝。

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