科学美国人60秒 SSS The True ＂Bottom＂ of the Food Chain Is Plenty Polluted
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：2017年Scientific American(二)月
The Mariana Trench 1 is the deepest spot in the world’s oceans. Only three humans have ventured into the trench in submersibles. But plenty of our pollution has made the voyage to the bottom of the sea: a new study finds that critters living more than six miles below the ocean surface contain high levels of harmful compounds like polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and flame retardants.
“An important thing is that, if you’re in the deepest place in world, there’s no place to go.”
Alan Jamieson, a marine 2 ecologist at Newcastle University in the U.K.
“You can’t be disturbed horizontally. You can’t go back up. So, for every nanogram of pollutant 3 that’s gone into the deep sea, there’s no mechanism 4 to put it back again. So, of course the values are going to be high, cause it’s only a one way traffic, right?”
Jamieson and his colleagues used robotic traps to collect deep-sea amphipods living in the most remote parts of the oceans. These creatures look a bit like shrimp 5, and they’re well adapted to their extreme environment, he says.
“The deep sea-ones are incredible scavengers. This is why they thrive in the deep sea, because it’s a low-food environment where most of their food comes from dead carcasses raining from the surface or particulates 6 coming down. So, everything from an organic particle to a dead whale is fair game to an amphipod.”
The food that floats down to the ocean bottom carries man-made contaminants, including PCBs, which entered the surface ocean from rivers and coastlines. Companies stopped manufacturing these chemicals in the 1970s, after they were found to be dangerous. But they don’t break down easily, so they’re still swirling 7 around in the oceans and working their way down to the seafloor, where amphipods gobble them up.
The research was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. [Alan J. Jamieson et al., Bioaccumulation of persistent 8 organic pollutants 9 in the deepest ocean fauna]
In many surface-dwelling species, PCBs have been shown to interfere 10 with animals’ abilities to reproduce. Jamieson says they don’t have enough data yet to know how deep-sea amphipods are faring, because they’re much harder to study. But he says that wasn’t his motivation for studying pollutants in the deep ocean.
“The point is that they are there. It’s to challenge people’s perception that the deep sea is not exempt 11 from what’s happening in the rest of the world. And that’s a perception we hear quite a lot of.”
— Julia Rosen
- The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
- The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。
- Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
- When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
- Coal itself is a heavy pollutant.煤本身就是一种严重的污染物。
- Carbon dioxide may not be a typical air pollutant.二氧化碳可能不是一种典型的污染物。
- The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
- The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。
- When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
- When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。
- Techniques for controlling particulates include filtering, washing, centrifugal separation, and electrostatic precipitation. 控制颗粒污染物的技术包括过滤、洗涤、离心分离、静电沉降。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
- Only micronic particulates penetrate to the depth of the lung. 只有微细粒子穿透到肺深部。 来自辞典例句
- Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
- She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句
- Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
- She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。
- Pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere. 污染物质正在不断地被排放到大气中去。
- The 1987 Amendments limit 301(g) discharges to a few well-studied nonconventional pollutants. 1987年的修正案把第301条（g）的普通排放限制施加在一些认真研究过的几种非常规污染物上。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法