听力文摘：雄性的未来 The Future Of Males

What's the matter,don?You look worried.

你怎么了唐，看起来有些着急。

You know how people are always predicting that one day women will be able to have babies without men?

你是否曾听说过某一天女性将不需要男性也可生小孩？

It turns out that some species of the Whiptail lizard¹ have figured out how to do this and completely eliminated the male sex.

事实上一些种类的长尾蜥蜴已经可以做到这一点，并将全部的雄性完全消灭掉了。

You mean the species are all female?Exactly.

你的意思是物种全部是雌性？的确是这样。

The females have the ability to lay eggs that hatch and grow into healthy lizards² without needing to be fertilized³ by a male.

无须借助雄性受孕，雌性蜥蜴有能力产下可以孵化出健康的小蜥蜴的蛋。

The offspring are exact and complete genetic⁴ duplicates of the mothers.

其后代完全是母亲们基因的复制品。

So the females are clonnig themselves.

这在本质上是雌性在克隆自己。

If that weren't enough, the female lizards take turns role-playing.

如果这还不够的话，雌性蜥蜴会轮流扮演角色。

They perform a mating ritual in which one lizard acts like the male, and the second lizard acts like the female.

她们在交配过程中，一只扮演雄性，另一只扮演雌性。

The ritual causes the lizard acting⁵ as the female to ovulate and lay her eggs.

交配将使扮演雌性的蜥蜴排卵产蛋。

Then, a few weeks later, the two lizards switch roles and repeat this process so that the second female will be able to ovulate and lay her eggs.

几周之后，两只蜥蜴互换角色重复交配过程从而使得另一只雌性得以排卵。

It raises a lot of interesting questions.

这引发了许多有意思的问题。

For example, it's not clear how well an all female species can evolve and adapt to environmental changes.

例如，我们尚不清楚一个完全由雌性组成的种群在面临环境变化是能否很好地适应和进化。

A species' survival depends in part on variation among its members.

一个种群的存在，部分地取决于其内部成员的多样性。

If all the members of a species are identical, chances are greater that something like a change in the climate or a disease will wipe them all out.

如果一个种群中所有的成员具有同一性，那么当环境剧变或疾病肆虐时，它们的灭绝概率也将更大。

1 lizard   

n.蜥蜴，壁虎

参考例句：

• A chameleon is a kind of lizard.变色龙是一种蜥蜴。
• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect.蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。

2 lizards   

n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nothing lives in Pompeii except crickets and beetles and lizards. 在庞培城里除了蟋蟀、甲壳虫和蜥蜴外，没有别的生物。 来自辞典例句
• Can lizards reproduce their tails? 蜥蜴的尾巴断了以后能再生吗？ 来自辞典例句

3 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

4 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

5 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。