2023年经济学人 海洋普查的意义（在线收听）

The second reason is technological.

第二个原因是技术上的。

Marine biologists find about 2,000 new species a year, a rate hardly changed since Darwin’s day.

海洋生物学家每年可以发现大约2000个新物种，这一速度自达尔文时代以来几乎没有变化。

Ocean Census is betting it can go faster.

海洋普查是在赌自己可以做的更好。

“Cyber taxonomy”, for instance, involves feeding DNA sequences from animals into computers, which can quickly decide whether it is a new species.

例如，“网络分类学”涉及了将动物的DNA序列输入计算机，由此迅速确定它是否是一个新物种。

The ability to describe new creatures, as well as simply cataloguing them, has also improved.

描述新生物的能力以及对它们进行简单分类的能力也提高了。

Fancy cameras on remote-operated vehicles, for instance, allow scientists to make laser scans of deep-sea creatures such as jellyfish without removing them from their habitat.

例如，科学家可以远程操作车辆上的高级摄像机，对水母等深海生物进行激光扫描，而无需将它们从栖息地移走。

Just as the immense pressures of the deep sea are fatal for humans, taking such a jellyfish to the surface for examination reduces it to gooey slime.

就像深海的巨大压力对人类来说是致命的一样，把这里的水母带到水面进行检查会让它死亡并变成粘稠的黏液。

Ocean Census is not the first attempt to conduct a systematic survey of life in the oceans.

海洋普查并不是对海洋生物进行系统调查的第一次尝试。

The Census of Marine Life was a ten-year effort, begun in 2000, to seek out new species.

海洋生物普查是一项为期十年的尝试，始于2000年，旨在寻找新物种。

The Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, which ran from 2004 to 2006, aimed to catalogue microbial life in the sea by sampling waters from across the world.

2004年至2006年的“全球海洋采样考察”旨在通过对世界各地的海水进行采样，将海洋中的微生物生命分类。

(It was funded by Craig Venter, a biologist-cum-entrepreneur, and carried out on his personal yacht.)(这项研究由生物学家兼企业家克雷格·文特尔资助，并在他的私人游艇上进行。)Exactly what the new effort might turn up, of course, is impossible to predict.

当然，新的尝试究竟会带来什么结果是无法预测的。

But history suggests it will be fruitful.

但历史表明，这会是成果丰硕的。

Half a century ago scientists discovered hot vents on the sea bed that were home to organisms living happily in conditions that, until then, had been thought inimical to life.

半个世纪前，科学家们在海床上发现了热喷口，这是生活在该环境下有机生物的家园，在此之前，人们一直认为这种环境对生命有害。

These days, such vents are one plausible candidate for the origin of all life on Earth.

如今，这样的喷口似乎是地球上所有生命起源的一个可能候选。

There are more practical benefits, too.

该尝试还有更多实际的好处。

Many drugs, for example, come originally from biological compounds.

例如，许多药物最初都来自生物化合物。

An ocean full of uncatalogued life will almost certainly prove a rich seam from which to mine more.

一个充满了未分类生物的海洋几乎就是一个丰富的矿藏，可以从中开采更多的药物。

One type of marine snail, Conus magus, was recently discovered to produce a painkilling compound 1,000 times more potent than morphine.

最近有研究发现，一种名为僧袍芋螺的海蜗牛能产生比吗啡强1000倍的止痛化合物。

To help make use of its data, Ocean Census plans to make it freely available to scientists and the public, who will be able to scour it for anything useful or surprising.

为便于利用这些数据，海洋普查计划向科学家和公众免费提供数据，他们将能够从中寻找有用或令人惊讶的东西。

The point of exploration, after all, is that you never know what you might find.

毕竟，探索的意义在于，你永远不知道你会发现什么。