万物简史 第407期:生命的起源(1)

 19 The Rise Of Life 第十九章 生命的起源

In 1953, Stanley Miller¹, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, took two flasks²—one containing a little water to represent a primeval ocean, 1953年，芝加哥大学的研究生斯坦利·米勒拿起两个长颈瓶——一个盛着一点水，代表远古的大海洋，

the other holding a mixture of methane³, ammonia, and hydrogen sulphide gases to represent Earth's early atmosphere, 一个装着甲烷、氨和硫化氢的气体混合物，代表地救上早期的大气，

connected them with rubber tubes and introduced some electrical sparks as a stand-in for lightning. 然后用橡皮管子把两个瓶子一连，放了几次电火花算做闪电。

After a few days, the water in the flasks had turned green and yellow in a hearty⁴ broth⁵ of amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, and other organic compounds. 几个星期以后，瓶子里的水呈黄绿色，变成了营养丰富的汁，里面有氨基酸、脂肪酸、糖以及别的有机化合物。

"If God didn't do it this way," observed Miller's delighted supervisor⁶, the Nobel laureate Harold Urey, "He missed a good bet." 米勒的导师、诺贝尔奖金获得者哈罗德·尤里欣喜万分，说：“我可以打赌，上帝肯定是这么干的。”

Press reports of the time made it sound as if about all that was needed now was for somebody to give the whole a good shake and life would crawl out. 当时的新闻报道听上去让人觉得，你只要把瓶子好好地晃一晃，生命就会从里面爬出来。

As time has shown, it wasn't nearly so simple. 时间已经表明，事情根本不是那么简单。

Despite half a century of further study, we are no nearer to synthesizing life today than we were in 1953 and much further away from thinking we can. 尽管又经过了半个世纪的研究，今天我们距离合成生命与1953年的时候一样遥远——更不用说认为我们已经有这等本事。

Scientists are now pretty certain that the early atmosphere was nothing like as primed for development as Miller and Urey's gaseous⁷ stew⁸, 科学家们现在相当肯定，早斯的大气根本不像米勒和尤里的混合气体那样已经为生命的形成作好准备，

but rather was a much less reactive blend of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. 而是一种根本很不活泼的氮和二氧化碳的混合物。

Repeating Miller's experiments with these more challenging inputs⁹ has so far produced only one fairly primitive¹⁰ amino acid. 有人用这些更具挑战性的气体重新做了米勒的实验，至今只制造出一种非常原始的氨基酸，

At all events, creating amino acids is not really the problem. The problem is proteins. 无论如何，其实问题不在于制造氨基酸，问题在于蛋白质。

1 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

2 flasks   

n.瓶，长颈瓶， 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The juggler juggled three flasks. 这个玩杂耍的人可同时抛接三个瓶子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The meat in all of the open flasks putrefied. 所有开口瓶中的肉都腐烂了。 来自辞典例句

3 methane   

n.甲烷，沼气

参考例句：

• The blast was caused by pockets of methane gas that ignited.爆炸是由数袋甲烷气体着火引起的。
• Methane may have extraterrestrial significance.甲烷具有星际意义。

4 hearty   

adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的

参考例句：

• After work they made a hearty meal in the worker's canteen.工作完了，他们在工人食堂饱餐了一顿。
• We accorded him a hearty welcome.我们给他热忱的欢迎。

5 broth   

n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等)

参考例句：

• Every cook praises his own broth.厨子总是称赞自己做的汤。
• Just a bit of a mouse's dropping will spoil a whole saucepan of broth.一粒老鼠屎败坏一锅汤。

6 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

7 gaseous   

adj.气体的，气态的

参考例句：

• Air whether in the gaseous or liquid state is a fluid.空气，无论是气态的或是液态的，都是一种流体。
• Freon exists both in liquid and gaseous states.氟利昂有液态和气态两种形态。

8 stew   

n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑

参考例句：

• The stew must be boiled up before serving.炖肉必须煮熟才能上桌。
• There's no need to get in a stew.没有必要烦恼。

9 inputs   

n.输入( input的名词复数 )；投入；输入端；输入的数据v.把…输入电脑( input的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Uncheck the inputs checked for optimization in the previous stage. 不测试那些已经测试过的优化了的以前步骤的inputs.（变量参数）。 来自互联网
• Just in case, save in a file the inputs obtained at the previous stage. 以防万一，保存以前步骤获得的inputs（变量参数值）到一个文件中去。 来自互联网

10 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。