英語長篇文章

　　閱讀幫助人們更多的瞭解世界。在英語學習中,閱讀是人們獲取英語知識、提高英語水平的有效途徑。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!

　　1

　　Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability. People with autism have trouble communicating and with social skills. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the person also might repeat some behaviors and not want change in their daily activities. Some people with the condition need a lot of help. Others need less.

　　自閉症譜系障礙是一種發育障礙。自閉症患者在溝通和社交能力上存在障礙。美國疾病控制和預防中心表示，患者還可能會重複某些行為，並且不希望改變他們的日常生活。有些患者需要大量幫助，還有些患者則不太需要幫助。

　　CDC officials say autism affects one in every 68 children in the United States. More boys than girls are believed to have the condition. But the number of cases appears to be growing. It is unclear whether the growing number shows a real increase or comes from more knowledge about this disorder.

　　美國疾病控制和預防中心表示，美國每68名兒童中就有一名兒童受自閉症影響。據認為這類患者中男孩比女孩多。但病例數似乎越來越多。目前尚不清楚這一數字增長是表明著患者確實增加，還是源自於對這種疾病認識的增長。

　　Symptoms of autism

　　自閉症的症狀

　　Common signs of autism include trouble making eye contact and a delay in learning how to speak. Some people with severe autism never learn how to talk. Many people with autism also have difficulty understanding facial expressions and the feelings of others. They also have trouble making friends of the same age.

　　自閉症的常見症狀包括眼神接觸障礙以及學說話推遲。有些嚴重的自閉症患者從未學會說話。許多自閉症患者還很難理解面部表情和他人感受。他們在與同齡人交友上也存在障礙。

　　Doctors have learned how to recognize autism, but much is still unknown about its causes.

　　醫生已經學會如何識別自閉症，但關於其成因尚有很多未知數。

　　Researchers at Harvard University have come closer to finding answers. They found that women exposed to the highest levels of fine particulate air pollution late in their pregnancies are two times more likely to give birth to a child with autism. The findings appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives -- a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

　　哈佛大學的研?a href='//' target='_blank'>咳嗽幣丫?詠?謖業秸嫦唷Ｋ?欠⑾鄭??a href='//' target='_blank'>懷孕後期暴露於高水平細顆粒物空氣汙染中的女性生下自閉症兒童的可能性翻了兩倍。這一研究結果發表在美國環境健康科學研究所發行的《環境健康展望》刊物上。

　　Marc Weisskopf led the Harvard researchers. Mr. Weisskopf studies environmental conditions that cause sickness, developmental disabilities and deaths. He and his team studied women who were late in their pregnancies, shortly before they gave birth. In all, they examined medical records from all 50 U.S. states for about 116,000 mothers and their children.

　　馬克?韋斯科普夫領導著這些哈佛研究人員。韋斯科普夫先生從事導致疾病、發育性殘疾和死亡的環境狀況方面的研究。他和他的團隊研究了懷孕後期即將生產的女性。他們一共檢查了來自美國50個州的11.6萬份母嬰醫療記錄。

　　The study found that the women who were around high levels of fine particulate matter air pollution were at highest risk of having an autistic child. The increased risk of these women was two times that of women who lived in areas with low levels of fine particulate pollution.

　　研究發現，接觸高水平細顆粒物空氣汙染的女性生下自閉症兒童的風險最高。與居住在低水平細顆粒物汙染地區的女性相比，這些女性的風險增加了兩倍。

　　The researchers found that the timing of exposure to pollution was important. They found no increased risk of autism in children whose mothers were around high levels of pollution before becoming pregnant. And the study found air pollution does not seem to increase the risk of children developing autism after they are born.

　　研究人員發現，暴露於汙染的時機非常重要。他們發現，在懷孕前接觸高汙染的母親生下自閉症兒童的風險沒有增加。該研究還發現，空氣汙染似乎並未增加出生後兒童患上自閉症的風險。

　　Marc Weisskopf says this finding does not prove there is a direct link between pollution and autism. But, he adds, it has ratcheted up, or increased, his team's confidence that there is a relationship between the two.

　　韋斯科普夫表示，這一研究結果表並不能證明汙染和自閉症之間有直接聯絡。但他補充道，該研究結果提升了他的團隊對兩者之間存在聯絡的信心。

　　"Finding an association like this that's very specific in time rules out a lot of other possible explanations for that. So, it really ratchets up the strength of our confidence that we've got something really related to the air pollution here."

　　他說，“找到這樣一種時機非常具體的關聯排除了其它很多可能的解釋。所以，它增加了我們的信心，讓我們相信我們已經找到一些確實涉及空氣汙染的東西。”

　　What can pregnant women do?

　　孕婦該怎麼做呢?

　　Mr. Weisskopf says pregnant women should avoid air pollution as much as possible. But he warns that other things may increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder.

　　韋斯科普夫先生表示，孕婦應該儘可能避免接觸空氣汙染。但他警告說，其它情況也可能會增加自閉症譜系障礙的風險。

　　"You can avoid being in extremely polluted cities during pregnancy if possible. You can also choose to go running in a park rather than next to a street. But that said, I think also it's very important to recognize that autism spectrum disorders is a very multi-factorial disorder. And there are lots of reasons why risk could be increased."

　　他說，“如果可能，你可以避免在孕期置身於極度汙染的城市。你也可以選擇在公園而不是街道邊跑步。話雖如此，我認為還得認識到，自閉症譜系障礙是一種非常多因素的疾病。可能增加患病風險的原因也非常多。”

　　Autism is believed to result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors.

　　據認為自閉症是環境和遺傳因素兩者的聯合產物。

　　Autism Speaks is an organization that helps families with autistic children. Paul Wang is head of medical research at Autism Speaks. He says the findings are very compelling. He notes that during the last three months of pregnancy, the brain of the fetus develops very quickly. He says the study does not change his group's main suggestion: focus on treatment and educational therapies.

　　自閉症之聲 是一家幫助自閉症兒童家庭的組織。保羅?王是自閉症之聲的醫學研究負責人。他說，這一研究結果非常引人注目。他指出，在孕期最後三個月，胎兒的腦部發育極快。他說，這項研究並未改變該組織的重要建議：專注於治療和教育療法。

　　"For parents of children who have already been diagnosed, the focus should continue to be on treatment for them, on the behavioral, educational therapies that are available and that we know can help kids who are diagnosed with autism."

　　他說，“對已經確診兒童的父母來說，重點應該是繼續對他們進行治療，繼續採用已有的行為和教育療法，我們知道這些可以幫助被診斷患有自閉症的孩子。”

　　For now, Marc Weisskopf says researchers are trying to identify the exact substances in air pollution that increase the risk of autism.

　　韋斯科普夫表示，目前研究人員正在試圖鑑定空氣汙染中會增加自閉症風險的確切物質。

　　2

　　Popular physics has enjoyed a new-found regard. Now comes a brave attempt to inject mathematics into an otherwise fashionable subject

　　科普物理再次得到新的關注。如今，學者大膽的嘗試將數學引入另外一個流行學科;

　　The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen. By Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw.

　　量子宇宙：一切可能發生的的確發生。布萊恩·考克斯和傑夫·福肖著。

　　Previously the preserve of dusty, tweed-jacketed academics, physics has enjoyed a surprising popular renaissance over the past few years. In America Michio Kaku, a string theorist, has penned several successful books and wowed television and radio audiences with his presentations on esoteric subjects such as the existence of wormholes and the possibility of alien life. In Britain Brian Cox, a former pop star whose music helped propel Tony Blair to power, has become the front man for physics, which recently regained its status as a popular subject in British classrooms, an effect many attribute to Mr Cox's astonishing appeal.

　　從前的學者保持著蓬頭垢面、身著花呢夾克的形象。在過去幾年裡，物理學迎來了驚人的全面復興。在美國，弦論學家米奇霍·卡庫創作出數本反響不錯的書。他對諸如蟲洞及外星生命存在的可能性等小眾課題的介紹贏得了電視觀眾和電臺聽眾的讚賞。在英國，其作品曾幫助託尼·布萊爾登上大寶的前流行歌星布萊恩·考克斯，現在成了物理學的領軍人物。近來物理學在英國學生中再次獲得了受歡迎的科目的地位。產生這樣的效果很大程度上歸功於考克斯先生驚人的感召力。

　　Mr Cox, a particle physicist, is well-known as the presenter of two BBC television series that have attracted millions of viewers a third series will be aired next year and as a bestselling author and public speaker. His latest book, “The Quantum Universe”, which he co-wrote with Jeff Forshaw of the University of Manchester, breaks the rules of popular science-writing that were established over two decades ago by Stephen Hawking, who launched the modern genre with his famous book, “A Brief History of Time”.

　　粒子物理學家考克斯先生，因推薦了兩部吸引了數百萬觀眾的BBC電視劇而知名第三部將於明年開播。他同樣是暢銷書作者兼公開演講家。他的新書《量子宇宙》，是由他和曼徹斯特大學的傑夫·福索合著的。該書打破了20年前由史蒂芬·霍金創立的科普寫作規範。霍金以其著作《時間簡史》開創了這一現代寫作流派。

　　Mr Hawking's literary success was ascribed to his eschewing equations. One of his editors warned him that sales of the book would be halved by every equation he included; Mr Hawking inserted just one, E=mc2, and, even then, the volume acquired a sorry reputation for being bought but not read. By contrast, Mr Cox, whose previous book with Mr Forshaw investigated “Why does E=mc2?” 2009, has bravely sloshed a generous slug of mathematics throughout his texts.

　　霍金在文學上的成功歸因於他避開了方程式。一位編輯曾警告他，每個寫進書中的方程式都會讓銷量減半。霍金就插了一個：E=Mc2。即使那樣，讓人感到遺憾的是，該書是靠購買量而非閱讀量贏得聲譽。相比之下，在上一本旨在探尋“為什麼是E=Mc2”2009的書中，考克斯與福索就已經大膽地通篇砍掉冗長的數學公式。

　　The difficulties in explaining physics without using maths are longstanding. Einstein mused, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility,” and “the fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.” Yet the language in which the world is described is that of maths, a relatively sound grasp of which is needed to comprehend the difficulties that physicists are trying to resolve as well as the possible solutions. Mr Cox has secured a large fan base with his boyish good looks, his happy turns of phrase and his knack for presenting complex ideas using simple analogies. He also admirably shies away from dumbing down. “The Quantum Universe” is not a dry undergraduate text book, but nor is it a particularly easy read.

　　不用數學解釋物理知識所造成的困難由來已久。愛因斯坦語重心長地說過：“世間永恆的神祕在於它的可瞭解性。”“可以瞭解這一事實本身就是一個奇蹟。”然而，用於描述世界的語言就是數學。在理解物理學家試圖解決的困難及可能的解決方案時，數學是一個相對合理的必要的抓手。憑藉其大男孩般的優質外表、習語的運用、簡單類比解釋複雜概念的竅門，考克斯擁有了一大幫粉絲。他同時成功避免過度簡化。《量子宇宙》非一本乾巴巴的大學教材，但也不是特別容易讀懂。

　　The subject matter is hard. Quantum mechanics, which describes in subatomic detail a shadowy world in which cats can be simultaneously alive and dead, is notoriously difficult to grasp. Its experiments yield bizarre results that can be explained only by embracing the maths that describe them, and its theories make outrageous predictions such as the existence of antimatter that have nevertheless later been verified. Messrs Cox and Forshaw say they have included the maths “mainly because it allows us to really explain why things are the way they are. Without it, we should have to resort to the physicist-guru mentality whereby we pluck profundities out of thin air, and neither author would be comfortable with guru status.”

　　有關物質的課題是艱澀的。眾所周知，用於詳細描述原子內部這個貓亦生亦死的虛無世界的量子力學很難領會。要解釋實驗產生的奇異結果，只能運用描述這些結果的數學。雖然量子力學理論對諸如反物質的存在所做出的預測是匪夷所思的，但這些預測後來得到了證實。考克斯和福索稱他們之所以在書中加入數學主要是因為數學讓我們真正去解釋為什麼事物是以這樣一種方式存在。沒了數學，我們不得不依靠物理大師般的心智，由是，我們憑空捏造出奧義，而任何一個作者都不會對這樣的大師頭銜心安理得。

　　That stance might comfort the authors, but to many readers they will nonetheless seem to pluck equations out of thin air. Yet their decision to include some of the hard stuff leaves open the possibility that some readers might actually engage in the slog that leads to higher pleasures. For non-sloggers alternative routes are offered: Messrs Cox and Forshaw use clockfaces to illustrate how particles interact with one another, a drawing of how guitar strings twang and a photograph of a vibrating drum. A diagram, rather than an equation, is used to explain one promising theory of how matter acquires mass, a question that experiments on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, will hopefully soon answer.

　　這樣的立場也許會使作者感覺不錯，但對很多讀者來說，他們似乎還是想憑空弄出方程式。作者決定加入一些生澀的東西，這樣就給一些苦心鑽研並從中獲得更多快感的讀者留下了餘地。他們還為一般讀者提供了另一條途徑：考克斯和福索以錶盤為例說明粒子是如何相互作用的，一副有關吉他琴絃如何發出聲音的圖畫，一張振動的鼓的照片。他們用圖表，而非公式去解釋物質是如何獲得質量這一前沿理論。在鄰近日內瓦的粒子物理實驗室，即歐洲核子研究委員會的巨型強子對撞機上進行的實驗產生的這個問題有望很快得出答案。

　　The authors have wisely chosen to leaven their tome with amusing tales of dysfunctional characters among scholars who developed quantum mechanics in the 1920s and beyond, as well as with accounts of the philosophical struggles with which they grappled and the occasional earthy aside. Where the subject matter is a trifle dull, Messrs Cox and Forshaw acknowledge it: of Heinrich Kayser, who a century ago completed a six-volume reference book documenting the spectral lines generated by every known element, they observe, “He must have been great fun at dinner parties.” And they make some sweeping generalisations about their colleagues who pore over equations, “Physicists are very lazy, and they would not go to all this trouble unless it saved time in the long run.”

　　為了加強這個大部頭的影響力，兩位作者明智地選擇了一些有趣的段子：在20世紀20年代以及更早時候發展量子力學的學者的怪癖;他們設法解決的哲學問題;間或出現的通俗旁白。有關物質的課題是枯燥的，考克斯和福索承認：海因裡希·凱瑟在一個世紀前完成了6部用以證明光譜是由每個已知元素產生的參考著作，據他們觀察，“他肯定在晚宴上很開心。”他們也對專注方程式的同事進行了高度概括：“物理學家非常懶惰，除非從長遠看這節約時間，他們不會招惹這些麻煩”。

　　Whether or not readers of “The Quantum Universe” will follow all the maths, the authors' love for their subject shines through the book. “There is no better demonstration of the power of the scientific method than quantum theory,” they write. That may be so, but physicists all over the world, Messrs Cox and Forshaw included, are longing for the next breakthrough that will supersede the claim. Hopes are pinned on experiments currently under way at CERN that may force physicists to rethink their understanding of the universe, and inspire Messrs Cox and Forshaw to write their next book—equations and all.

　　不論《量子宇宙》的讀者是否會關注所有與之相關的數學知識，作者對專業的熱愛貫穿整部作品。他們寫道：“沒有比量子理論更能展現科學方法的力量。”也許吧。但包括考克斯和福索在內的所有物理學家都渴望有新的突破去取代這一論斷。大家寄希望於目前在歐洲核子研究委員會進行的實驗，該實驗也許會迫使物理學家重新思考他們對宇宙的理解，並激勵考克斯和福索寫下一本書——方程式及所有其它的。

　　3

　　Science and technology

　　Air travel

　　Preparing for take-off

　　A cheaper, cleaner way for the long taxi to the runway

　　ENGINES on airliners are highly efficient when they are in flight, but not when operating on the ground.

　　When a plane is taxiing under its own power, the engines burn vast amounts of fuel.

　　A Boeing 747 can consume a tonne of fuel and emit several tonnes of carbon dioxide during an average 17-minute taxi to take-off.

　　And when the aircraft lands there is likely to be another long drive to the passenger gate.

　　Which is why there are various methods being developed for aircraft to use other means of propulsion while moving around an airport.

　　Towing aircraft with a tug, similar to how they are pushed back from the gate, is one way.

　　But constantly pulling on the front landing gear can lead to mechanical problems.

　　Many pilots would also prefer to be in control of the driving once their aircraft is on the taxiway.

　　One method that addresses both concerns is a semi-robotic tug called TaxiBot, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries.

　　Instead of using a tow bar attached to the aircraft's nose wheel, TaxiBot employs a mechanism which automatically scoops the wheel up into a rotating turret.

　　The TaxiBot also avoids having any complicated links to connect to the cockpit, yet still gives the pilots driving control.

　　It does this by accelerating to the speed set for the taxiway, using its inbuilt GPS map system.

　　The pilots then use their usual controls to steer with the nose wheel and to brake with the main landing gear.

　　A safety driver remains in the TaxiBot, and he also drives the vehicle to and from the aircraft.

　　With the high price of aviation fuel—a tonne can cost more than $1,000—the savings at a busy airport could be large.

　　At some airports the passenger gates can be several miles from the runway.

　　All told, the world's airlines spend $7 billion-8 billion a year taxiing between passenger gates and the runway, says Yehoshua Eldar, who is in charge of business development at IAI.

　　The TaxiBot, though, uses just 20-30 litres of fuel for a typical trip.

　　It also reduces the risk of debris being ingested by the engines and causing damage.

　　Germany's Lufthansa will trial the system at Frankfurt Airport from May 2013.

　　In the future some airliners may be driven to and from the runway with electric power.

　　The German Aerospace Centre has tested this idea in an aircraft using a fuel cell to power two electric motors built into the hub of an aircraft nose wheel.

　　The centre reckons that up to 19% of current airport emissions could be saved using such a system.

　　And it would also please the neighbours: there would be hardly any noise during taxiing.