2005年NPR美国国家公共电台五月-New Exhibit Updates Story of Dinosaur Era

 Tomorrow New York's American Museum of Natural History opens an exhibit designed to provide insight into dinosaur¹ lifestyles. The exhibit showcases new discoveries , many of them from China. They include feathered dinosaurs² and an ancestor of T-rex. Npr's Christopher Joyce visited the museum as exhibiters scrambled³ to put on the finishing touches.

At the heart of the new exhibit is a big open diorama shaped like a horseshoe. It's a platform covered in plants and small trees. The sounds of insects and the rumble⁴ of a distant volcano help set the scene. Workers on ladders are hanging reptilian-looking birds so they will soar through the scene.

Try that one first, and make a hook,and see if it'll come down from the truss, maybe if it came down from the truss, it was like halfway⁵ ...

The scene is meant to transport people to Northern China 130 million years ago. It looks like a state park in New Jersey⁶, but that's OK. It's supposed to. Artists made a painting of a New Jersey forest for the diorama's backdrop. It had the right kind of conifers. They even brought back real leaf litter. The animals re-created in the diorama, however, are not New Jerseyan, but cretaceous.

In the very center, we have a ,we have Dilong paradoxus, which is an early Tyrannosaur, which was actually discovered and described while we're working on this project.

Allen Walker is the project production manager, “Over here then, we have Caudipteryx, which are a lot like a ,kind of a bizarre turkey-like animal. And then, to the right of that we have Beipiaosaurus. It has huge front claws.The hands are bigger than the feet, and this is like one of the crazier cretaceous.

These terrestrial dinosaurs look bird-like , then they are the real birds, though some have extra claws and teeth. Walker is concerned about the way they're hanging over the diorama.

Right now these are all, kind of in a collision course. And when we put the things up, and we look at them for a while, it's like "This doesn't quite work." So part of our punch list is to Move Day, which is Sinornithomimus, that one, because there was a rhythm where they all look like they're facing the same way and they're same distance apart.

Most of these specimens⁸ came from Liaoning in China, many are being shown for the first time. They include the earliest known feathered dinosaur. These animals couldn't fly. Scientists are trying to figure out what the feathers were for and how they were related to the first fliers. On video screens sprinkled throughout the hall, scientists provide commentary on the fossils and where they came from.

Fantastic fossil animals at Liaoning beg another question, what did the place look like 130 millions years ago? It's only three main lines that's ever used to answer that sort of question.

My name is Steve Quinn, I'm senior project manager in the department of Exhibition and Graphics⁹. The site dates back to 130 millions years ago .Volcanic¹⁰ activity covered the site with very fine dust, and preserved everything from plants, insects, reptiles¹¹, amphibians¹² as well as the big mega form of the larger dinosaurs and birds, which enable the artists to bring prehistoric¹³ world back to life.

I'm Lauri Halderman. I'm the director of Exhibition Interpretation¹⁴. We've got lots of new information about dinosaurs, lots of new stories to tell you about how they moved, how they behaved, even how they died. But we've also got this thread going through, that says, we don't just want you to know what we know, but we want you to know how we know it.

To that end, the exhibit offers something unique: a life-sized Apatosaurus, the sixty-foot-long, plant-eating dinosaur with the long neck. It has ribs¹⁵ and vertebra and a skull¹⁶ like regular museum dinosaurs, but these are not bone-like bones-- they are cast in bright silvery metal.

I took a small group of people through here the other day, and a woman came around the corner and saw this, and said to me, "What is it?" and, that's exactly what we want you to ask. If you ask what is it, we've got you. Now, we can tell you.

"What it is" is a life-size model of a dinosaur that was first created on a computer. Scientists use digital models of dinosaurs to study how they would have moved. They can't push around giant skeletons with 200-pound vertebra and tails the size of trees, so they apply the laws of biology and physics to the digital versions. Next to the big silver dinosaur is a computer screen that gives visitors a chance to play puppet master to the digital version.

So, if I touch the screen to begin,I've got a couple options to see how these guys would move. You can give him a little poke¹⁷ in the rib⁷ cage, and see how he moves. And you can see it much more clearly since he doesn't have flesh on him. He's just metallic-looking bones.

The Apatosaurus on the screen wiggles and the spine¹⁸ undulates. You can do the same on another screen next to a life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex. Naturally the exhibit has to have one of the big carnivores. But there's also a six-foot model of a T-rex that actually walks, just the way scientists believe the real one did/. What visitors are supposed to learn here is that being big wasn't easy. T-rex was not fast, it was too heavy. Apatosaurus may have had necks like giraffes', but they could not lift them the way giraffes do, because their necks were too long and heavy.

The exhibit's curator is paleontologist Mark Norell. He helped find or identify many of the fossils of these animals. He says he hopes visitors also will learn something about the process themselves.

You know we just don't go out like collecting a bunch of stuff and sort of describeit. We go out with certain questions in mind when we collect data. And also that the answer is changing all the time as the question is. So I mean you know there are no real truth in science, it's just simply the best answer at the time with the data that you have.

After the exhibit finishes its run in New York City, it goes on the road.

Christopher Choice, NPR News.

And if you want to find photos of the new exhibit, go to our website: npr.org.

1 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

2 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 rumble   

n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说

参考例句：

• I hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.我听到远处雷声隆隆。
• We could tell from the rumble of the thunder that rain was coming.我们根据雷的轰隆声可断定，天要下雨了。

5 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

6 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

7 rib   

n.肋骨，肋状物

参考例句：

• He broke a rib when he fell off his horse.他从马上摔下来折断了一根肋骨。
• He has broken a rib and the doctor has strapped it up.他断了一根肋骨，医生已包扎好了。

8 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 graphics   

n.制图法，制图学；图形显示

参考例句：

• You've leveraged your graphics experience into the video area.你们把图形设计业务的经验运用到录像业务中去。
• Improved graphics took computer games into a new era.经改进的制图技术将电脑游戏带进了一个新时代。

10 volcanic   

adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的

参考例句：

• There have been several volcanic eruptions this year.今年火山爆发了好几次。
• Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。

11 reptiles   

n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Snakes and crocodiles are both reptiles. 蛇和鳄鱼都是爬行动物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Birds, reptiles and insects come from eggs. 鸟类、爬虫及昆虫是卵生的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

12 amphibians   

两栖动物( amphibian的名词复数 )； 水陆两用车； 水旱两生植物； 水陆两用飞行器

参考例句：

• The skin of amphibians is permeable to water. 两栖动物的皮肤是透水的。
• Two amphibians ferry them out over the sands. 两辆水陆两用车把他们渡过沙滩。

13 prehistoric   

adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的

参考例句：

• They have found prehistoric remains.他们发现了史前遗迹。
• It was rather like an exhibition of prehistoric electronic equipment.这儿倒像是在展览古老的电子设备。

14 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

15 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

16 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

17 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

18 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。