SSS 2009-10-22
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：Scientific American(十)月
Did you know birds sing in dialect? They do. The song of a great tit from the countryside is a far cry from that of his city cousin. And some song dialects can change nearly as fast as human slang—the Indigo 1 Bunting changes tune 2 from year to year.
To investigate the cultural evolution of such songs researchers have recently completed a study of adjacent White-crowned sparrow dialects from 1969 to 1998 in San Francisco. Biologist David Luther of the University of Maryland and ornithologist 3 Luis Baptista of the California Academy of Sciences hypothesized that the pressures of urban noise would tend, over time, to eliminate the lower ranges of the bird's song and cause the sparrows to prefer to learn songs at the higher range. Simply put, birds that sang too low would be drowned out by rumbling 4 buses, honking 5 cars, or other typical city noises.
And that's exactly what they found.
The lowest frequencies of bird song in the Summer of Love were lower than those to be found during the Dotcom craze. And since sparrows are relatively 6 short-lived—average lifespan of just two years—this effect spanned generations. Much like humans, the sparrows seem to be raising their voices to be heard over the sounds of the city.
At least one birdsong dialect died out entirely 7, though there were some bilingual birds, and the so-called San Francisco dialect came to dominate all songs, likely because it was tuned 8 higher.
It seems that the need for effective communication in the local environment is the fundamental driver of cultural traits that are passed on from one generation to the next. Ya hear that?!
- The sky was indigo blue,and a great many stars were shining.天空一片深蓝，闪烁着点点繁星。
- He slipped into an indigo tank.他滑落到蓝靛桶中。
- He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
- The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。
- That area is an ornithologist's paradise.那个地区是鸟类学家的天堂。
- Now I know how an ornithologist feels.现在我知道做为一个鸟类学家的感受了。
- Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停，喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Flocks of honking geese flew past. 雁群嗷嗷地飞过。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
- The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
- The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。