美国科学60秒 SSS 2013-01-04
时间：2018-12-02 作者：英语课 分类：Scientific American(一)月
英语课
This is Scientific Americans 60 second Science, I am Sophie Bushwick, got a minute?
Comparisons of different animals have shown that larger brains provide greater intelligence, but they also guzzle 1 more energy and have other consequences. Now scientists have observed the effects of varying brain size within a single species: guppies. The work is in Current Biology.
Swedish researchers bred two different lines of guppies, selecting one for larger brains and one for smaller. The fish quickly modified until brains were nine percent larger in the big-brained line than in the other.
Not surprisingly, when 48 guppies were given learning tests, large-brained female fish outperformed small-brained females. However, males from both lines scored about the same, possibly because the female guppies' visual system was more suited to the type of intelligence test used.
But big brains also had a downside—the brainier fish had smaller guts 2, by 20 percent for males and 8 percent for females. Plus, the large-brained guppies produced 19 percent fewer offspring. In order to provide energy to their bigger brains, the egghead fish made sacrifices that may be evolutionary 3 disadvantages. It may indeed be possible to be too smart for your own good.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific Americans, I am Sophie Bushwick.
guzzle: 吞掉
guppie: 孔雀鱼
egghead: 理论家；受过高等教育的人；书呆子
1 guzzle
v.狂饮，暴食
- Melissa had guzzled gin and tonics like they were lemonade.梅利莎像喝柠檬汽水一样大口地喝着加奎宁水的杜松子酒。
- Pigs guzzle their food.猪总是狼吞虎咽地吃东西。
2 guts
v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠
- I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
- Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》
3 evolutionary
adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的
- Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
- These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。