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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Cloning offers the possibility of making exact copies of ourselves. Should this be allowed? What benefits and dangers may cloning bring?
克隆技术使我们有可能分毫不差地复制自己。这一技术是否应该获准应用？克隆技术会带来什么裨益与危险？
A Clone Is Born
Gina Kolata
1 On July 5, 1996, at 5:00 p.m., the most famous lamb in history entered the world. She was born in a shed, just down the road from the Roslin Institute in Roslin, Scotland, where she was created. And yet her creator, Ian Wilmut, a quiet, balding fifty-two-year-old embryologist, does not remember where he was when he heard that the lamb, named Dolly, was born. He does not even recall getting a telephone call from John Bracken, a scientist who had monitored the pregnancy2 of the sheep that gave birth to Dolly, saying that Dolly was alive and healthy and weighed 6.6 kilograms.
克隆生命诞生了
吉纳·科拉泰
1996年7月5日下午5点，有史以来最出名的小羊羔问世了。它出生在苏格兰罗斯林镇的罗斯林研究院所在的那条路上的一个小棚里，这只羊羔是在该研究院创造出来的。而它的创造者伊恩·威尔莫特，一位正在谢顶的文质彬彬的52岁的胚胎学家，却不记得自己是在什么地方听到这头名叫多利的羊问世的消息的。他甚至不记得曾接到约翰· 布拉肯的电话，这位对产下多利的那头羊的整个妊娠过程进行监察的科学家在电话上说多利健康存活，体重6.6千克。
2 No one broke open champagne3. No one took pictures. Only a few staff members from the institute and a local veterinarian who attended the birth were present. Yet Dolly, who looked for all the world like hundreds of other lambs that dot the rolling hills of Scotland, was soon to change the world.
没有人打开香槟酒庆贺。没有人拍照留影。只有研究院的几位员工，以及接生的一位当地兽医在场。然而，多利，这头与苏格兰起伏的山丘上散布着的千百头其他的羊毫无异样的小羊羔，很快就改变了世界。
3 When the time comes to write the history of our age, this quiet birth, the creation of this little lamb, will stand out. The world is a different place now that she is born.
当后人编写我们这一时代的历史的时候，这一平静的降生，这头小羊羔的问世，将会引人注目。世界因它降生而从此改变。
4 Dolly is a clone. She was created not out of the union of a sperm4 and an egg but out of the genetic5 material from an udder cell of a six-year-old sheep. Wilmut fused the udder cell with an egg from another sheep, after first removing all genetic material from the egg. The udder cell's genes6 took up residence in the egg and directed it to grow and develop. The result was Dolly, the identical twin of the original sheep that provided the udder cells, but an identical twin born six years later.
多利是头克隆羊。它不是精卵结合的产物，而是由取自一头六龄羊的乳腺细胞的基因材料生成的。威尔莫特先将取自另一头羊的卵子中的所有基因材料取出，再将该卵子与这一乳腺细胞融合。乳腺细胞的基因在该卵子中安营扎寨，令其生长发育。其结果就是多利羊，即与提供乳腺细胞的那头羊一模一样的孪生羊，只是这头孪生羊晚出生了6年。
5 Until Dolly entered the world, cloning was the stuff of science fiction. It had been raised as a possibility decades ago, then dismissed, something that serious scientists thought was simply not going to happen anytime soon. Now it is not fantasy to think that someday, perhaps decades from now, but someday, you could clone yourself and make tens, dozens, hundreds of genetically7 identical twins. Nor is it science fiction to think that your cells could be improved beforehand, genetically engineered to add some genes and remove others. 在多利羊问世之前，克隆技术不过是科学幻想的故事。几十年前有人提出这种可能性，后来遭到摒弃，严肃的科学家那时认为克隆在近期根本不可能实现。现在这已不再是幻想，几十年之后，或许有朝一日你可以克隆自己，造出数十个，数百个，上千个基因完全相同的孪生的兄弟。事先改进你的细胞，运用基因工程注入某些基因，剔除某些基因，这样的事也不再是科学幻想。
6 True, it was a sheep that was cloned, not a human being. But there was nothing exceptional about sheep. Even Wilmut, who made it clear that he was opposed to the very idea of cloning people, said that there was no longer any theoretical reason why humans could not clone themselves, using the same methods he had used to clone Dolly. "There is no reason in principle why you couldn't do it." But, he added, "All of us would find that offensive."
没错，克隆的是头羊，而不是人。但羊并没有任何独特之处。甚至明确表示反对克隆人的威尔莫特也称，理论上，没有理由说人类不能使用与克隆多利羊同样的手段来克隆人类本身。“原则上没有不能这么做的理由。”但他补充说，“我们都会认为这样做令人厌恶。”
7 We live in a time when we argue about pragmatism and compromises in our quest to be morally right. But cloning forces us back to the most basic questions that have plagued humanity since the dawn of recorded time: What is good and what is evil? And how much potential for evil can we tolerate to obtain something that might be good? Cloning, with its possibilities for creating our own identical twins, brings us back to the ancient sins of vanity and pride; the sins of Narcissus, who so loved himself, and of Prometheus, who, in stealing fire, sought the powers of God. So before we can ask why we are so fascinated by cloning, we have to examine our souls and ask, What exactly so bothers many of us about trying to make an exact copy of our genetic selves? Or, if we are not bothered, why aren't we?
我们生活在这样一个时代，人们为了追求道德的完善对实用主义和妥协折衷的问题争论不休。而克隆技术迫使我们回到有史以来一直困扰人类的那些最本质的问题：何者为善，何者为恶？为了获得可能有益的东西，我们对邪恶的隐患能容忍到何种程度？克隆技术以其创造与我们自身完全一样的孪生兄弟的可能性，将我们带回到种种古老的罪孽：虚荣傲慢；那喀索斯式的自恋罪，以及普罗米修斯的罪孽，他以盗火来谋求上帝的权力。因此，我们在扪心自问为什么对克隆技术如此着迷之前，不得不首先审视自己的心灵，问一问：究竟是什么东西使得我们中的许多人对于尝试复制与自身基因完全等同的孪生兄弟那么不安？或者，如果我们并没有感到不安，其原因又是什么？
8 We want children who resemble us. Even couples who use donor8 eggs or donor sperm, search catalogs of donors9 to find people who resemble themselves. Several years ago, a poem by Linda Pastan, called "To a Daughter Leaving Home," was displayed on the walls of New York subways. It read:
Is it my own image
I love so
in your face?
I lean over your sleep,
Narcissus over
his clear pool,
ready to fall in --
to drown for you
if necessary.
Yet if we so love ourselves, reflected in our children, why is it so terrifying to so many of us to think of seeing our exact genetic replicas10 born again, identical twins years younger than we? Is it one thing for nature to form us through a genetic lottery11, and another for us to take complete control, abandoning all thoughts of somehow, through the mixing of genes, having a child who is like us, but better? Normally, when a man and a woman have a child together, the child is an unpredictable mixture of the two. We recognize that, of course, in the old joke in which a beautiful but dumb woman suggests to an ugly but brilliant man that the two have a child. Just think of how wonderful the baby would be, the woman says, with my looks and your brains. Aha, says the man. But what if the child inherited my looks and your brains?
我们希望子女像我们自己。即使是采用捐赠卵子或捐赠精子的夫妇也要查找精子捐献人名录，以发现与自己相像的人。若干年前，琳达· 帕斯坦写的一首题为《致离家的女儿》的诗曾出现在纽约地铁的墙上，诗中写道：
难道是我自己的形象
映在你的脸上
使我如此爱恋？
我俯视着安睡的你
就像那喀索斯俯视着
他那一潭清水，
随时准备跳下去――
如有必要
为你沉溺
然而，如果我们如此爱恋在子女身上映现出来的自我，那为什么我们当中有这么多人，一想到将目睹与我们完全一样的基因复制品、比自己年轻许多的双胞胎降生的时候，就会感到如此惊恐？难道大自然通过基因的任意组合将我们造就是一回事，而由我们自己实施全面控制，摈弃一切随意的念头，通过基因组合造就一个与我们相似但更为完美的孩子则又是另外一回事？当男女一起生育孩子时，孩子往往是两个人基因的不可预料的组合。显然，一个老笑话表明我们已经认识到了这一点。这个笑话说的是一位漂亮但蠢笨的女人向一个丑陋但才华横溢的男人建议两人一起生一个孩子。想一想吧，那女人说，孩子拥有我的容貌、你的大脑那将会多么出色。啊，那男人说，可要是孩子继承了我的容貌你的大脑呢？
9 Cloning brings us face-to-face with what it means to be human and makes us confront both the privileges and limitations of life itself. It also forces us to question the powers of science. Is there, in fact, knowledge that we do not want? Are there paths we would rather not pursue?
克隆技术使我们直接面对做人的意义这个问题，使我们直接面对生命本身的特权与限制。克隆技术也迫使我们对科学的力量提出质疑。是不是有些知识我们真的不要去获取？有一些路我们宁愿不去探寻？
10 The time is long past when we can speak of the purity of science, divorced from its consequences. If any needed reminding that the innocence12 of scientists was lost long ago, they need only recall the comments of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the genius who was a father of the atomic bomb and who was transformed in the process from a supremely13 confident man, ready to follow his scientific curiosity, to a humbled14 and troubled soul, wondering what science had let loose.
我们奢谈科学的纯洁性，将科学与其后果分离的时代早已过去。如果有谁还需要提醒，科学家的纯真早已丧失，他们只要回想一下J·罗伯特·奥本海默的话。奥本海默是一位天才，他是原子弹的缔造者之一。他在追求科学的过程中，从一个极其自信、随时准备跟着科学好奇心走的人，逐渐变成了一个谦恭困惑的人，他不知道科学放出了什么妖魔。
11 Before the bomb was made, Oppenheimer said, "When you see something that is technically15 sweet you go ahead and do it." After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in a chilling speech delivered in 1947, he said: "The physicists16 have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose."
在原子弹造出之前，奥本海默说：“当你看到某个技术完美的东西时，你就毫不犹豫地去实现它。”原子弹投在广岛、长崎之后，他在1947年发表的一则令人毛骨悚然的演说中指出：“物理学家们已经尝到过罪孽的滋味，这种滋味他们无法忘记。”
12 As with the atom bomb, cloning is complex, multi-layered in its threats and its promises. It offers the possibility of real scientific advances that can improve our lives and save them. In medicine, scientists dream of using cloning to reprogram cells so we can make our own body parts for transplantation. Suppose, for example, you needed a bone marrow17 transplant. Some deadly forms of leukemia can be cured completely if doctors destroy your own marrow and replace it with healthy marrow from someone else. But the marrow must be a close genetic match to your own. If not, it will lash18 out at you and kill you. Bone marrow is the source of the white blood cells of the immune system. If you have someone else's marrow, you'll make their white blood cells. And if those cells think you are different from them, they will attack.
如同原子弹一样，克隆技术带来的威胁与希望是复杂的、 多层面的。它提供了改善生活、拯救生命的真正科学进步的可能性。在医学上，科学家梦想着运用克隆技术改编细胞的编码指令程序，这样我们就可以制造出我们自己身体的某些部分进行移植。比如说，假定你需要进行骨髓移植。如果医生摧毁你自身的骨髓，用他人的健康骨髓来取代，某些致命的白血病就能得到彻底的医治。但骨髓的属型必须与你自己的相匹配。不然的话，移植的骨髓就会向你发起进攻，置你于死地。骨髓是免疫系统的白细胞的来源。如果你获得别人的骨髓，你就会造出别人的白细胞。如果这些白细胞认定你与它们不同，它们就会发起进攻。
13 But suppose, instead, that scientists could take one of your cells -- any cell -- and merge19 it with a human egg. The egg would start to divide, to develop, but it would not be permitted to divide more than a few times. Instead, technicians would bathe it in proteins that direct primitive20 cells, embryo1 cells, to become marrow cells. What started out to be a clone of you could grow into a batch21 of your marrow -- the perfect match.
不过，可以有别的办法。假定科学家能够用你自身的某个细胞――任何一个细胞――将它与人的卵细胞融合。卵细胞开始分裂，生长，但你可以控制它，只让它分裂若干次。技术人员将它置于蛋白质当中，指令原始细胞，即胚胎细胞，长成骨髓细胞。开始时本可以克隆你的东西却可以长成一批你的骨髓――与你完美相配的骨髓。
14 More difficult, but not inconceivable, would be to grow solid organs, like kidneys or livers, in the same way.
更为困难，但并非不可思议的，是以同样的方法长成完整的器官，如肾脏或肝脏。
15 Another possibility is to create animals whose organs are perfect genetic matches for humans. If you need a liver, a kidney, or even a heart, you might be able to get one from a specially22 designed pig clone.
另一种可能性是生成器官与人类基因完全吻合的动物。如果你需要肝脏，肾脏，甚至心脏，你或许能从一头特别设计的克隆猪身上获得。
16 The possibilities are limitless, scientists say, and so, some argue, we should stop focusing on our hypothetical fears and think about the benefits that cloning could bring.
科学家称克隆技术蕴藏着无穷的可能性，因此，有人争辩说，我们不应该喋喋不休地谈论种种假设的恐惧，而去想一想克隆技术能够带来的裨益。
收听单词发音 |
1
embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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3
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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4
sperm
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| n.精子，精液 | |
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5
genetic
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| adj.遗传的，遗传学的 | |
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6
genes
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| n.基因( gene的名词复数 ) | |
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7
genetically
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| adv.遗传上 | |
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8
donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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9
donors
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| n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者 | |
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10
replicas
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| n.复制品( replica的名词复数 ) | |
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11
lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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12
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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13
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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14
humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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15
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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16
physicists
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| 物理学家( physicist的名词复数 ) | |
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17
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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18
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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19
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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20
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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21
batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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