There are about six billion people in the world. But every person is unique. Some people have black eyes; others have brown cyes, blue cyes, or gray eyes. Some have dark hairs others have light hair. Some are tall or thin; others are short or fat. Besides humans, there are millions of other living creatures. Some are so tiny that we simply can't see them with our own eyes. Whatever it is, every living creature is different from every other. Every living thing is a unique combination of characteristics.
Why is each living thing unique? Where do its characteristics come from? Do people receive characteristics from their mothers, or fathers, or both? Which characteristics do they receive? How? These are some of the questions that biologists try to answer. The work of a man by the name of Mendel a hundred years ago was especially important.
世界上約有60億人。每個人都與眾不同。有些人的眼睛為黑色，有些人的眼睛為褐色、藍色或灰色。有些人頭發(fā)烏黑，有些人頭發(fā)淺淡。有些人瘦長，有些人矮胖。除了人類之外，世界上還有數(shù)以百萬計的其他生物。有些生物微乎其微，是我們無法用肉眼看到的。無論何種生物，每一個都與眾不同。每一個生物都是諸多特點獨特組合的產(chǎn)物。
為什么每個生物都會與眾不同呢?生物的特性又是從何而來?人們的特性是遺傳自母親,還是遺傳自父親，或者是遺傳自父母雙親?人們從父母親身上所得到的又是哪些特性呢?他們又是如何得到這些特性的呢?生物學家試圖找到這些問題的答案。一百年前一個名叫門德爾的人所做的研究工作具有特別重要的意義。
Mendel studied plants, especially pea plants. In some ways these plants were all the same. For example they all had flowers. But some had red flowers, and some had white flowers. Some pea plants were tall, and some were very short.
Mendel was especially interested in these differences. He wondered why each plant was of a certain color, shape and size Mendel experimented with thousands of pea plants. First he mated a red flower plant with a white one. To Mendel's amazement, all the offspring plants had red flowers. Mendel was very curious to know what happened to the white color. Then he mated two offspring plants. Every time he did this, they produced three red flower plants and one white flower plant. Now Mendel knew that even red flower plants somehow passed on whiteness. Mendel decided that pea plants carried factors, and parents passed these factors onto their offspring. Today we call these factors genes.
門德爾的研究對象是植物，他尤其注重對豌豆植株的研究。從某些方面來看，豌豆植株都完全一樣，例如它們都開花。但是有些豌豆植株開紅花，有些卻開白花。有些豌豆植株長得很高，有些卻很矮。門德爾對這些差異特別感興趣。他很納悶，為什么某一棵植株會有某種顏色、某種形狀、某種尺寸呢?
門德爾對數(shù)以千計的豌豆植株進行了實驗。他先將一棵開紅花的植株與一棵開白花的植株交配。門德爾驚愕地發(fā)現(xiàn)交配后的植株的后
代都開紅花。他很想知道有關白顏色的結果，于是他又將兩棵子代植株進行了交配。實驗的結果是出現(xiàn)了三棵紅花植株和一棵白花植株，每次實驗的結果都一樣。門德爾明白了，即使紅花植株也會因某種原因而遺傳白顏色。他斷定，豌豆植株帶有遺傳因子，父輩植株將這些遺傳因子傳給了子代植株。今天我們將這種遺傳因子稱為基因。
Genes are tiny pieces of matter that carry information from parents to offspring. Based on Mendel's work, biologists began to ask such questions as "Can we apply our information about genes to people?" They discovered that in a person genes told whether he would have brown eyes or blue eyes, whether he would have dark hair or light hair, whether he would be tall or short, whether he would be thin or fat. Now we know that every person is unique. A major reason is that every person is a unique combination of genes.
What would happen if we combined animal genes with plant genes? What would happen if we combined animal genes with human genes? What would happen if we combined one species with another? Obviously, these are bold ideas that have upset many people for ethical reasons. Probably these questions will soon be answered.
基因是一種將遺傳信息從父代傳給子代的微小物質(zhì)。依據(jù)門德爾的實驗結果，生物學家開始提出了許多問題，例如，我們能否將基因理論運用到人的身上。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，一個人的基因可以告訴我們這個人的眼睛是褐色的還是藍色的，頭發(fā)是烏黑的還是淺色的，體形是瘦的還是胖的。現(xiàn)在我們知道每個人都是一個與眾不同的獨特體，原因之一在于每個人都是基因獨特組合的產(chǎn)物。
倘若我們把動物的基因與植物的基因交織組合起來，將會出現(xiàn)何種結果呢?如果我們把動物的基因與人的基因交織在一起，或把某一物種的基因與另一種物種的基因組合起來，那又將出現(xiàn)什么樣的結果呢?顯然，這些大膽的想法由于倫理方面的原因使很多人頗感不安，也許這些問題很快會有答案。
責任編輯：admin
上一篇：口譯例文——左腦之優(yōu)/Left Hemispheric Dominance
下一篇：口譯考試例文——The Effects of Music on Patients
微信公眾號搜索“譯員”關注我們，每天為您推送翻譯理論和技巧，外語學習及翻譯招聘信息。