VOA慢速英语--科学家在实验室创造珊瑚，以更好地抵抗气候变化

When corals are mentioned, many people think of rock-life forms in the sea filled with colorful fish. But corals are made up of hundreds of thousands of small organisms which live and feed like any other sea life.

For the past five years, researchers in Hawaii and Australia have been engineering corals inside a lab to see if they could better resist the effects of climate change.

They say it is now time to see how their creations perform in nature.

The scientists say climate change linked to human causes has led to warming oceans that can harm sea life. They say if the more heat-resistant corals they developed do well in the ocean, the method can be used to help save suffering and dying reefs.

The team tested three methods for making corals that would be strong and healthy in nature.

One was the method of selective breeding. This method involves scientists choosing parents with desirable characteristics for reproductive purposes. The goal is to produce babies with the same desirable characteristics.

A second method subjected the corals to increasing temperatures to condition them to be able to survive in warm ocean environments. The third involved making changes to the algae¹ that provide corals with necessary nutrients².

The leader of the project, University of Hawaii researcher Kira Hughes, said all the methods proved successful in the lab.

She told The Associated Press that some scientists might worry that such methods go against the natural processes of nature. But with the planet continuing to warm more and more, she does not see any better options.

"We have to intervene in order to make a change for coral reefs to survive into the future," Hughes said.

When ocean temperatures rise, corals release algae that supplies nutrients and gives them color. This causes them to turn white, a process called bleaching³. When this happens, corals can quickly become sick and die.

But for years, scientists have been observing corals that have survived bleaching, even when others have died on the same reef. They are now centering on those healthy survivors⁴ and hoping to further increase their resistance to heat. Those corals were used as the parents for the newly created kinds.

A recent study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric⁵ Administration and other research organizations took a close look at bleaching events. It found them to be the biggest current threat to the world's coral reefs. Scientists found that between 2009 and 2018, the world lost about 14 percent of its corals.

"Corals are threatened worldwide by a lot of stressors, but increasing temperatures are probably the most severe," said Crawford Drury. He is the chief scientist at Hawaii's Coral Resilience Lab.

Madeleine van Oppen is a research scientist with the Australian Institute of Marine⁶ Science. She told the AP there were concerns about whether the experiments could result in a loss of genetic⁷ diversity. And there were critics who said the scientists were "playing god" by making such changes to the reef.

"Well, you know, (humans) have already intervened with the reef for very long periods of time," van Oppen said. "All we're trying to do is to repair the damage."

Rather than editing genes⁸ or creating anything unnatural⁹, the researchers are just attempting to begin what could already happen in the ocean, van Oppen added. In this way, she said, the team can center on a small area to keep and "enhance" what is already there.

Words in This Story

coral – n. a hard, usually pink or white substance produced by a type of very small sea animal

reef – n. a chain of rocks or coral or a ridge¹⁰ of sand at or near the surface of water

characteristic – n. a typical quality that makes one person or thing different from others

algae – n. usually small plants that grow in or near water and do not have typical leaves of roots

stressor – n. something that causes stress (great worry or emotional difficulty

diversity – n. a situation in which many different kinds of things or people are included in something

enhance – v. to improve the quality, amount or strength of something

1 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

2 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 bleaching   

漂白法，漂白

参考例句：

• Moderately weathered rock showed more intense bleaching and fissuring in the feldspars. 中等风化岩石则是指长石有更为强烈的变白现象和裂纹现象。
• Bleaching effects are very strong and show on air photos. 退色效应非常强烈，并且反映在航空象片上。

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

6 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

7 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。

8 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

9 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

10 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。