万花筒 2011-01-12&01-13 2011动物成批死亡之谜？！

 The mystery of the dying birds. There has been another incident of mass deaths.

 

This time in Italy. Is this now a global phenomenon or are we just paying more attention to nature work? Here is Matt Guttman.

 

They’re calling this the Aflockalypse. Turtle Doves falling from the sky, Faenza, Italy

 

littering roads and

 

hanging lifeless in trees, it looked like a scene from the Hitchcock The birds.

 

It looked similar to the mass bird kill in Louisiana this week

 

which looked like Beebe, Arkansas. 3,000 dead birds there, leaving locals confused.

 

"Beebe police department,This is Mary. Yes, ma’am I was wondering why all the birds, are just

 

like, dying? We’re trying to find that out.

 

Mass deaths recorded this week from all across the world from Arkansas to New Zealand, each incident shocking on its own. 100 tons of dead fish in Brazil, 40,000 crabs¹ in Britain and just yesterday, this in Folly²

 

Beach South Carolina.

 

"Smelled like bad sea food. "

 

So what is going on?

 

These kinds of incidents of animal

 

die-offs take place every

 

single day. In fact, 163 incidents are

 

reported to the federal government every year.

 

So, if these animal deaths are not unusual, what causes them?

 

Conspiracy³ theorists would say UFOs, solar flares⁴

 

or secret air force tests. Medical

 

professionals offer more mundane⁵

 

answers.

 

"That was New Year’s Eve; it could have been fireworks that frightened the birds."

 

But there is maybe an invisible hand in all of this, our hand, or more connected, wired, viral

 

than that any time in history.

 

"Things that were below radar⁶ are now above the radar. Everyone’s amazed by something that

 

happens every day."

 

For Good Morning America, Matt Guttmann, abc News, Miami.

1 crabs   

n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• As we walked along the seashore we saw lots of tiny crabs. 我们在海岸上散步时看到很多小蟹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fish and crabs scavenge for decaying tissue. 鱼和蟹搜寻腐烂的组织为食。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 folly   

n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话

参考例句：

• Learn wisdom by the folly of others.从别人的愚蠢行动中学到智慧。
• Events proved the folly of such calculations.事情的进展证明了这种估计是愚蠢的。

3 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

4 flares   

n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开

参考例句：

• The side of a ship flares from the keel to the deck. 船舷从龙骨向甲板外倾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation. 他是火爆性子，一点就着。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

6 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。