雅思14test4passage3阅读翻译

雅思14test4passage3阅读翻译

第1段

Chelsea Rochman,an ecologist at the University of California,Davis,has been trying to answer a dismal question:Is everything terrible,or are things just very,very bad?

加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校的生态学家Chelsea Rochman一直在努力回答一个令人沮丧的问题：万事万物都很糟糕吗?还是事情仅仅是非常、非常坏而已?

第2段

Rochman is a member of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis marine-debris working group,a collection of scientists who study,among other things,the growing problem of marine debris,also known as ocean trash.Plenty of studies have sounded alarm bells about the state of marine debris;in a recent paper published in the journal Ecology,Rochman and her colleagues set out to determine how many of those perceived risks are real.

Rochman是国家生态分析与整合中心海洋废弃物工作组的成员之一。组成该工作组的科学家们在众多问题之中研究海洋废弃物，也就是海洋垃圾日益增长的问题。大量研究对海洋垃圾的状态发出警报。在最近一篇发表于《生态学》杂志的论文中，Rochman和她的同事着手确定那些认知中的风险有多少是真实存在的。

第3段

Often,Rochman says,scientists will end a paper by speculating about the broader impacts of what they’ve found.For example,a study could show that certain seabirds eat plastic bags,and go on to warn that whole bird populations are at risk of dying out.‘But the truth was that nobody had yet tested those perceived threats,’Rochman says.‘There wasn’t a lot of information.’

Rochman说，科学家经常会在论文结尾推测他们所做发现的更广阔影响。例如，一项研究可能显示特定的海鸟会吃塑料袋，进而警告整个鸟群都存在灭绝的风险。“但事实是，没有人检测过那些认知中的威胁”，Rochman说，“这方面并没有很多的信息”。

第4段

Rochman and her colleagues examined more than a hundred papers on the impacts of marine debris that were published through 2013.Within each paper,they asked what threats scientists had studied-366 perceived threats in all–and what they’d actually found.

Rochman和她的同事检验了2013年全年发表的有关海洋垃圾影响的一百多篇论文。每篇文章中，他们探询科学家研究的威胁是什么–共有366种威胁被注意到–以及他们实际发现了什么。

第5段

In 83 percent of cases,the perceived dangers of ocean trash were proven true.In the remaining cases,the working group found the studies had weaknesses in design and content which affected the validity of their conclusions–they lacked a control group,for example,or used faulty statistics.

83%的案例中，海洋垃圾的潜在威胁被证明是真实存在的。在剩下的案例中，工作组发现这些研究的设计和内容存在缺陷，会影响结论的有效性。例如，它们缺乏控制组，或使用存在错误的统计数据。

第6段

Strikingly,Rochman says,only one well-designed study failed to find the effect it was looking for,an investigation of mussels ingesting microscopic plastic bits.The plastic moved from the mussels’stomachs to their bloodstreams,scientists found,and stayed there for weeks–but didn’t seem to stress out the shellfish.

Rochman说，令人震惊的是，只有一项设计良好的研究没能发现它想要发现的影响。它是一项有关贻贝摄入微小塑料片的调查。科学家发现，塑料从贻贝的胃部移动到血液中，并在那里停留数周的时间，但这似乎没有使该甲壳生物感到什么压力。

第7段

While mussels may be fine eating trash,though,the analysis also gave a clearer picture of the many ways that ocean debris is bothersome.

虽然贻贝吃垃圾可能没有什么问题，但分析还是明确指出海洋垃圾令人烦恼的许多方面。

第8段

Within the studies they looked at,most of the proven threats came from plastic debris,rather than other materials like metal or wood.Most of the dangers also involved large pieces of debris–animals getting entangled in trash,for example,or eating it and severely injuring themselves.

在他们检验的研究中，大多数被证实的威胁来自塑料废弃物，而不是诸如金属或者木头等其他材料。大部分危险同时也包括大件垃圾–例如，动物可能被垃圾缠住，或者误食之后给自己造成严重伤害。

第9段

But a lot of ocean debris is‘microplastic’,or pieces smaller than five millimeters.These may be ingredients used in cosmetics and toiletries,fibers shed by synthetic clothing in the wash,or eroded remnants of larger debris.Compared to the number of studies investigating large-scale debris,Rochman’s group found little research on the effects of these tiny bits.‘There are a lot of open questions still for microplastic,’Rochman says,though she notes that more papers on the subject have been published since 2013,the cutoff point for the group’s analysis.

但许多海洋垃圾都是微型塑料，或者小于5厘米的碎片。这些可能是化妆品或者洗漱用品的原料，合成衣物洗涤过程中脱落的纤维，或者更大一些垃圾被腐蚀之后的残留。Rochaman的团队发现，与调查大规模垃圾的研究数量相比，对这些微小垃圾影响的研究很少。“针对微小塑料，仍然有许多等待解答的问题”，Rochman说，尽管她注意到从2013年开始(其团队分析的截止点)，有更多关于该主题的论文被发表出来。

第10段

There are also,she adds,a lot of open questions about the ways that ocean debris can lead to sea-creature death.Many studies have looked at how plastic affects an individual animal,or that animal’s tissues or cells,rather than whole populations.And in the lab,scientists often use higher concentrations of plastic than what’s really in the ocean.None of that tells us how many birds or fish or sea turtles could die from plastic pollution–or how deaths in one species could affect that animal’s predators,or the rest of the ecosystem.

她补充到，在海洋垃圾如何导致海洋生物死亡方面也有许多等待回答的问题。许多研究关注塑料如何影响个体动物，或者该动物的组织或细胞，而不是整个群体。实验室中，科学家经常使用比海洋真实情况聚集程度更高的塑料。所有这些都不能告诉我们有多少鸟类、鱼类或者海龟死于塑料污染–或者某一物种的死亡如何影响该动物的捕食者，或者生态系统中的其他物种。

第11段

‘We need to be asking more ecologically relevant questions,’Rochman says.Usually,scientists don’t know exactly how disasters such as a tanker accidentally spilling its whole cargo of oil and polluting huge areas of the ocean will affect the environment until after they’ve happened.‘We don’t ask the right questions early enough,’she says.But if ecologists can understand how the slow-moving effect of ocean trash is damaging ecosystems,they might be able to prevent things from getting worse.

“我们需要提出更多与生态学相关的问题”，Rochman说。对于油轮意外泄露整船石油并污染大面积海洋这种灾难来说，科学家直到发生之后才能确切的知道它们对环境的影响。“我们没能及早提出正确的问题”，她说。但如果生态学家能够理解海洋垃圾的影响如何正在缓慢地破坏生态系统，他们可能能够阻止事情变得更坏。

第12段

Asking the right questions can help policy makers,and the public,figure out where to focus their attention.The problems that look or sound most dramatic may not be the best places to start.For example,the name of the‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’–a collection of marine debris in the northern Pacific Ocean–might conjure up a vast,floating trash island.In reality though,much of the debris is tiny or below the surface;a person could sail through the area without seeing any trash at all.A Dutch group called‘The Ocean Cleanup’is currently working on plans to put mechanical devices in the Pacific Garbage Patch and similar areas to suck up plastic.But a recent paper used simulations to show that strategically positioning the cleanup devices closer to shore would more effectively reduce pollution over the long term.

提出正确的问题可以帮助政策制定者和公众弄清楚应该将自己的注意力放在哪里。看起来或者听起来最严重的问题可能并不是最佳的着手指出。例如，“太平洋大垃圾带”这样的名字–太平洋北部的一批垃圾–可能让人想起巨大的、漂浮着的垃圾岛屿。但实际上，这些垃圾中的大部分都很微小或者位于海洋表面之下。一个人可以乘船穿过该区域而看不到任何垃圾。一个叫做“海洋清理”的荷兰团体目前正在制定计划。他们打算在太平洋垃圾带和类似的区域中放置机械装置以吸附塑料。但近期的一篇论文通过模拟表明，长期来看，有策略地将清洁装置放在靠近海岸的地方可以更加有效的减少污染。

第13段

‘I think clearing up some of these misperceptions is really important,’Rochman says.Among scientists as well as in the media,she says,‘A lot of the images about strandings and entanglement and all of that cause the perception that plastic debris is killing everything in the ocean.’Interrogating the existing scientific literature can help ecologists figure out which problems really need addressing,and which ones they’d be better off–like the mussels–absorbing and ignoring.

“我认为清理这些错误的认知十分重要”，Rochman说。在科学家和媒体之中，她说，“大量关于搁浅和被困的图片造成塑料垃圾正在杀死海洋中一些生物的看法”。审视现存的科学文献能够帮助生态学家搞明白哪些问题真的需要解决，而哪些问题(比如贻贝)他们最好了解和忽略。

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