万物简史 第584期:生命的物质(10)

Finally, in 1944, after fifteen years of effort, a team at the Rockefeller Institute in Manhattan, led by a brilliant but diffident Canadian named Oswald Avery, succeeded with an exceedingly tricky¹ experiment in which an innocuous strain of bacteria was made permanently² infectious by crossing it with alien DNA³, proving that DNA was far more than a passive molecule⁴ and almost certainly was the active agent in heredity. The Austrian-born biochemist Erwin Chargaff later suggested quite seriously that Avery's discovery was worth two Nobel Prizes.

1944年，在位于曼哈顿的洛克菲勒研究所里，一个由才华横溢而生性羞怯的加拿大科学家奥斯瓦尔德·埃弗雷领导的研究小组经过15年的努力，终于在一次极其棘手的实验中获得了成功。他们在实验中将一株不致病的细菌和不同性质的DNA混合培养，使这株细菌具有了永久性传染能力，从而成功地证明DNA根本不是一种惰性分子，而几乎肯定是遗传过程中极为活跃的信息载体。奥地利出生的生化学家埃尔文·查迦夫后来严肃地指出，埃弗雷的发现值得获两次诺贝尔奖。

Unfortunately, Avery was opposed by one of his own colleagues at the institute, a strong-willed and disagreeable protein enthusiast⁵ named Alfred Mirsky, who did everything in his power to discredit⁶ Avery's work — including, it has been said, lobbying the authorities at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm not to give Avery a Nobel Prize. Avery by this time was sixty-six years old and tired. Unable to deal with the stress and controversy⁷, he resigned his position and never went near a lab again. But other experiments elsewhere overwhelmingly supported his conclusions, and soon the race was on to find the structure of DNA.

不幸的是，埃弗雷遭到研究所里的一个同事的反对，这入名叫阿尔弗雷德·米尔斯基，是一个生性顽固、令人讨厌的狂热的蛋白质研究学者，他利用他手中的权力竭尽全力地贬低埃弗雷的工作——据说，他甚至极力劝说斯德哥尔摩的卡罗林斯卡研究所当局不要授予埃弗雷诺贝尔奖。埃弗雷当时已经66岁，身心疲惫的他忍受不了工作的压力和喋喋不休的争论，辞去了工作，从此再也没有进行过研究工作。然而，别的地方的研究完全证明了埃弗雷的结论。没过多久，展开了一场搞清DNA结构的竞赛。

Had you been a betting person in the early 1950s, your money would almost certainly have been on Linus Pauling of Caltech, America's leading chemist, to crack the structure of DNA. Pauling was unrivaled in determining the architecture of molecules⁸ and had been a pioneer in the field of X-ray crystallography, a technique that would prove crucial to peering into the heart of DNA.

如果你在20世纪50年代初打一次赌，谁将在这一场破译DNA结构的竞赛中拔得头筹，你几乎肯定会把你的赌注押在美国首屈一指的化学家加州理工学院刘易斯·鲍林的身上。在分子结构的研究方面，鲍林是无与伦比的天才，他也是X射线晶体学领域的先驱之一，正是这项技术在破译DNA核心的研究中起了至关重要的作用。

1 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

2 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

3 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

4 molecule   

n.分子，克分子

参考例句：

• A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hygrogen and one atom of oxygen.一个水分子是由P妈̬f婘̬ 妈̬成的。
• This gives us the structural formula of the molecule.这种方式给出了分子的结构式。

5 enthusiast   

n.热心人，热衷者

参考例句：

• He is an enthusiast about politics.他是个热衷于政治的人。
• He was an enthusiast and loved to evoke enthusiasm in others.他是一个激情昂扬的人，也热中于唤起他人心中的激情。

6 discredit   

vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑

参考例句：

• Their behaviour has bought discredit on English football.他们的行为败坏了英国足球运动的声誉。
• They no longer try to discredit the technology itself.他们不再试图怀疑这种技术本身。

7 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

8 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。