聊聊八卦更健康？

 　　Most people feel guilty after gossiping about a friend or colleague.

　　多数人总会在聊完朋友或同事八卦后感到愧疚。

　　But scientists have found that crafty¹ chats - dubbed² ‘gossip theory’ - are what makes us human, and may even help us live longer.

　　但科学家发现，正是这些狡诈的闲聊——称之为“八卦理论”——成为人类独有特点，甚至有可能延长寿命。

　　Gossip is what sets our species apart, as it helps us bonds with friends and learn important information about who to trust.

　　我们因谈论不同八卦分成不同的小群体，这有助于我们与朋友团结一致，并从这些信息中判断谁值得信任。

　　And it’s this vital communication that could prevent us from dying, something Robin³ Dunbar, professor of evolutionary⁴ psychology⁵ at Oxford⁶ University, believes is the ‘most important thing’ to keep us alive.

　　牛津大学进化心理学教授罗宾?邓巴称，正是这种交流可以防止我们死去，他坚信这是使我们保持生命力的“最重要的因素”。

　　聊聊八卦更健康？

　　Prof Dunbar told the Telegraph: ‘That has a bigger effect than anything, except giving up cigarettes.

　　邓巴教授对英国《电讯报》说：“除了戒烟，这便是延长生命的最有效方式。

　　‘Your social network has a huge effect on happiness and well-being⁷.

　　你的社交网极大地影响着你的幸福与健康。

　　‘The problem we have is how to maintain our social networks. Language evolved to allow us to keep the oil of the social network flowing, keep us up to date, and tell stories, which is really important for community cohesion⁸.

　　我们面临的问题是如何维护我们的社交网。语言的进化演变，使我们能够保持社交网不中断，实时更新消息，说故事，而这些对于社区凝聚力十分重要。

　　‘Gossiping is just chatting with people and keeping up to date with the social world in which you live. So gossip is what makes us human.

　　八卦只不过是与人闲聊，随时了解社交环境的最新资讯。这是人类的特性。

　　‘The use of gossip in a negative sense is not seen until the 18th century.’

　　直到18世纪，八卦的消极影响才开始出现。

　　The idea is that as language developed it let humans communicate better and made them more likely to pass on useful information, allowing them to live in larger groups.

　　语言的进化使人类沟通更顺利，互相传递有用信息的机会增多，因而能够融入更大的群体中。”

　　Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the paper: ‘The new linguistic⁹ skills that modern humans acquired about 70 millennia¹⁰ ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end.

　　耶路撒冷希伯来大学历史学教授尤瓦尔?诺亚?哈拉里表示：“7万年前，现代人类拥有的新语言技能使他们能够连续几个小时不断地闲聊。

　　‘Reliable information about who could be trusted meant that small bands could expand into larger bands.

　　知道谁值得信任这一可靠信息就意味着小团体可以扩充成大团体。

　　‘Even today the vast majority of human communication, whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns is gossip.

　　即便当下，人类沟通的主要内容，无论是通过邮件，电话或新闻专栏，都是八卦。

　　‘It comes so naturally, that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose.’

　　这些都十分自然而然地发生，似乎语言就是专门为了这个目的而进化。”

　　He added that ‘rumour-mongers’ were in fact the first journalists, helping¹¹ inform others about who to avoid and who to trust.

　　他还补充道，实际上，“谣言传播者”正是第一批新闻记者，告知其他人应避开何人，相信何人。

1 crafty   

adj.狡猾的，诡诈的

参考例句：

• He admired the old man for his crafty plan.他敬佩老者的神机妙算。
• He was an accomplished politician and a crafty autocrat.他是个有造诣的政治家，也是个狡黠的独裁者。

2 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

4 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

5 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

6 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

7 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

8 cohesion   

n.团结，凝结力

参考例句：

• I had to bring some cohesion into the company.我得使整个公司恢复凝聚力。
• The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality,creativity and cohesion of a nation. 文化的力量，深深熔铸在民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。

9 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

10 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

11 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。