万物简史 第415期:生命的起源(9)

Life emerged so swiftly, in fact, that some authorities think it must have had helpperhaps a good deal of help. 实际上，生命出现得太快，有的权威人士认为肯定有什么东西帮了忙也许是帮了大忙。 The idea that earthly l

万物简史 第416期:生命的起源(10)

The Murchison meteorite was found to be 4.5 billion years old, 人们发现，默奇森陨石的年代已达45亿年， and it was studded with amino acidsseventy-four types in all, eight of which are involved in the formation of earthly proteins. 上面

万物简史 第418期:生命的起源(12)

We are all the result of a single genetic trick handed down from generation to generation nearly four billion years, 我们都是同一遗传戏法的结果。那种戏法一代一代地传下来，经历了差不多40亿年， to such an extent that

万物简史 第419期:生命的起源(13)

Any simple organisms, alas, would have been baked away by the processes that turned ocean mud to stone. 哎呀，任何简单的生物都会在海洋污泥变成石头的过程中被烘烤没了。 Instead what we would see if we crunched up the rock

万物简史 第420期:生命的起源(14)

Compston's machine allowed such rocks to be dated with unparalleled precision. 康普斯森的仪器能以无与伦比的精确度测定这些岩石的年代。 The prototype SHRIMP was built and machined in the Earth Science department's own worksho

万物简史 第421期:生命的起源(15)

Bob told me that it takes about seventeen minutes to read one zircon and it is necessary to read dozens from each rock to make the data reliable. 鲍勃对我说，识读一块锆石的数据大约要花17分钟；这了取得可靠的数据，每块锆

万物简史 第423期:生命的起源(17)

Anniversaries were few and far between in the Archaean world. 在太古代的世界里，结婚周年纪念日是完全没有的。 For two billion years bacterial organisms were the only forms of life. 在20亿年时间里，细菌是惟一的生命形

万物简史 第424期:生命的起源(18)

Even we can tolerate it only up to a point. 连我们对氧的耐受力也是有限度的。 The oxygen level in our cells is only about a tenth the level found in the atmosphere. 我们细胞里的氧气浓度，只有大气里的大约十分之一。

万物简史 第410期:生命的起源(4)

Yet we are talking about several hundred thousand types of protein, perhaps a million, 然而，我们在讨论的蛋白质有几十万种，也许是100万种， each unique and each, as far as we know, vital to the maintenance of a sound and happy

万物简史 第425期:生命的起源(19)

But about 3.5 billion years ago something more emphatic became apparent. 但是，大约在35亿年前，更加坚强的东西变得显而易见。 Wherever the seas were shallow, visible structures began to appear. 只要哪里的海水很浅，可见

万物简史 第426期:生命的起源(20)

This was most unexpectedso unexpected, in fact, that it was some years before scientists realized quite what they had found. 这完全是出乎意料的事太出乎意料了，因此科学家们实际上过了几年才充分意识到自己的发现。

万物简史 第427期:生命的起源(21)

It has been suggested that the cyanobacteria at Shark Bay are perhaps the slowest-evolving organisms on Earth, and certainly now they are among the rarest. 据认为，沙克湾里的叠层石也许是地球上进化最慢的生物，也肯定是现在

万物简史 第428期:生命的起源(22)

Mitochondria manipulate oxygen in a way that liberates energy from foodstuffs. 线粒体支配着氧，释放食物中的能量。 Without this niftily facilitating trick, life on Earth today would be nothing more than a sludge of simple microbes. 没有

万物简史 第429期:生命的起源(23)

Compared with the new eukaryotes the old prokaryotes were little more than bags of chemicals, in the words of the geologist Stephen Drury. 地球已经朝着真正有意思的行星迈出了第一步。与新的真核细胞相比，旧的原核细胞借

万物简史 第430期:小生物的世界(1)

20 Small World 第二十章 小生物的世界 It's probably not a good idea to take too personal an interest in your microbes. 要是你对身边的微生物过于在意，这很可能不是个好习惯。 Louis Pasteur, the great French chemist and

万物简史 第431期:小生物的世界(2)

Every human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial cells. 每个人体大约由1亿亿个细胞组成，但它却是大约10亿亿个细菌细胞的寄主。 They are, in short, a big part of us. 总而言之，

万物简史 第432期:小生物的世界(3)

Bacteria do it all the time without fuss, and thank goodness, for no larger organism could survive without the nitrogen they pass on. 而细菌一直在不慌不忙地干这件事。谢天谢地，要是没有它们来传送氮，大的生物就活不下

万物简史 第434期:小生物的世界(5)

They have been found living in boiling mud pots and lakes of caustic soda, deep inside rocks, at the bottom of the sea, 我们还发现细菌生活在沸腾的泥潭里和烧碱池里，岩石深处，大海底部， in hidden pools of icy water in t

万物简史 第435期:小生物的世界(6)

We now know that there are a lot of microbes living deep within the Earth, many of which have nothing at all to do with the organic world. 我们现在知道了，有大量微生物生活在地球内部的深处，其中许多与普通的有机世界毫

万物简史 第436期:小生物的世界(7)

In 1997 scientists successfully activated some anthrax spores that had lain dormant for eighty years in a museum display in Trondheim, Norway. 1997年，科学家们成功地激活了已经在挪威特隆赫姆博物馆休眠了80年之久的一些炭疽