上期答案来啦~这是5月份的。

(1) Ever since humans’ early ancestors first shellfish along the southern coast of France 300,000 years ago, food has been the measure of the bounty of the sea.

(2) These days, however, the notion of that bounty is expending. Increasingly, it includes genetic building blocks cradled in unique deep-sea creatures who thrive under conditions once thought impossible for sustaining life.

（1）30万年前、自从人类早期祖先在法国南部海岸第一次剥开有壳水生动物的外壳以来，食物一直是衡量海洋物产的标准。

    （2）然而近来，海洋物产的概念正在拓展，日益包括独特的深海生物中所蕴含的基因砌块。这些深海生物的生存环境曾被认为不可能维持生命。

    (3) But as biotech companies begin to eye these organisms as a potential mother lode of raw material for medicines and other products, calls are emerging for rules of the road to help ensure that the benefits of deep-sea gene prospecting are shared globally. Admittedly, most biotech and pharmaceutical companies are not yet rushing to hydrothermal vents, sea mounts, and other unique habitats to scoop up organisms and figure out if they can be useful. The vast majority of marine bioprospecting these days is done in shallower waters within a country’s 200-mile limit, notes Sam Johnston, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies of United Nations University, based in Japan.

(4) Yet as marine scientists learn more about deep-sea habitats, and the variety of organisms that live there, commercial interest is likely to grow. Moving now on some sort of regulatory scheme is a chance to get ahead of the curve, he says. And it would provide an antidote to regulatory uncertainty, which is preventing some companies and research groups from pursuing deep-sea bioprospecting more vigorously.

（3）但是，由于生物科技公司开始把这些微生物视为医药及其他产品原料的潜在丰富源泉，要求建立相应规则的呼声也随之产生，目的在于确保深海基因资源勘探所得利益的全球共享。应当说，绝大多数的生物科技和制药公司尚未急于动手勘探深海热泉、海底山脉和其他独特的海底生物居住地，抢夺那里的微生物并研究确定其是否有用。目前绝大部分的海洋生物勘探都在一国200英里海域以内的较浅水域进行，设在日本的联合国大学高级研究所的资深研究员萨姆·约翰斯顿这样说。

（4）然而，随着海洋科学家对深海生物生存生活环境和生存在那里的各种各样的微生物了解越来越多，商业开发的兴趣很可能会增加。他说，此时推动制定某种管制机制正是个未雨绸缪的时机。而且该机制还可以消除管理的不确定性，防止一些公司和研究团体更大力度地进行深海生物勘探。

    (5) “We have a window of opportunity,” says Dr. Johnston, who coauthored a UN report on the issue that was released last week. “The issues are much easier to deal with before commercial interests become heavily vested” in the hunt for deep-sea genetic material.

(6) The issue carries echoes of debates over mining minerals, such as manganese, in the deep ocean, which formed part of the backdrop for the international Law of the Sea Treaty in 1982.

（5）“我们拥有一线机会，”约翰斯顿博士说，他是上周发表的关于该问题的一份联合国报告的作者之一。在探寻深海基因材料牵涉大量既得的商业利益之前，解决这些问题要容易得多。”

（6）这个问题恰好呼应了关于在深海开采诸如锰等矿物的争论。上述争论是1982年制定“国际海洋公约法”部分背景因素。

    Costly venture

(7) Yet today, manganese remains on the seafloor. In the push to negotiate the treaty “people forgot the economics of it. It’s unbelievably expensive to do deep-sea mining,” says Andy Solow, director of the Marine Policy Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass. “That is also true of bioprospecting in the deep ocean—it’s expensive.”

昂贵的探索

    （7）时至今日，锰矿依然深藏海底。在协商制定该条约的努力中，“人们忘记了它的经济因素。进行深海采矿费用之昂贵是惊人的，”位于麻省伍兹霍尔的伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的海洋政策中心主任安迪·索洛说。“深海生物勘探也一样——非常昂贵。”

    (8) “The real prospects for bioprospecting in the deep oceans, especially in the near-and medium-term, are fairly low,” he says.

(9) But it differs from mining in significant ways. If the targets are deep-sea bacteria, for example, they can be cultured and preserved once they’ve been hauled to the surface. Exploiting the genetic information they contain doesn’t require a continuous presence on the seafloor.

（8）“进行深海生物勘探、特别是在近海和中海进行勘探的现实可能性非常之低，”他说。

（9）但是，这与采矿有很大不同。例如，如果把目标锁定于深海微生物，那么，它们一旦被弄出水面，可以进行培养和保存。开发它们所具有的基因信息并不总是需要在海底环境下进行。

(10) Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface at an average depth of slightly more than two miles. Little wonder that the oceans contain the majority of Earth’s biodiversity. This, the allure of the deep can be powerful, even for scientists whose main interest is in understanding how these creatures and their ecosystems w**fforts can yield insights into the difficulties associated with bioprospecting on the seafloor.

（10）海洋覆盖了地球表面的70%，平均深度略超过2英里。海洋无疑蕴含着地球上大部分生物物种。因此，深海的诱惑力可能十分巨大，甚至对那些主要兴趣在于了解这些生物与它们的生态系统是如何运作的科学家们来说也是如此。他们的工作可以为与海底生物勘探有关的难题提供拨云见日之见。

    (11) Doug Bartlett, for example, focuses his work on bacteria from ocean trenches—long, deep gashes in the undersea crust.

(12) “The physical rules that govern existence are so different” compared with what humans experience, says the researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. “Temperatures are close to freezing, the pressure is enormous, they live in perpetual darkness, and food is so variable that their physical basics are controlled in very different ways.”

（11）例如，道格·巴特利特便专注于研究海沟——海底地壳狭长而深的裂缝——中的微生物。

（12）与人类的生存经历相比，“支配深海生物存在的自然环境规律大为不同”，位于加利福尼亚州拉霍亚的斯克里普斯海洋研究所的这位研究员说。“那里的温度接近冰点，压力巨大，它们生活在永恒的黑暗环境中，而且食物变化不定，以致它们的基本生理需要被迥然不同的方式控制着。”

(13) Studying these creatures is a costly proposition. Ship time runs roughly $10,000 a day. Once bacteria are brought to the surface, they must be prepared quickly for culture before they begin to die. Once the preparations are complete, the petri dishes they now inhabit must be placed in steel-and-titanium vessels that can reproduce the temperatures and pressures the bacteria normally experience—as high as 7.5 tons per square inch. And it takes time to process and analyze samples.

（13）研究这些生物是件耗费昂贵的事。船时每天需要花费约1万美元。一旦微生物被带到水面，必须立刻准备好进行培养，否则即会死亡。一旦准备就绪，其此时赖以栖息的皮氏培养皿必须放人钢钛金属容器中。这种容器可以模拟其正常生存所处的温度和压力环境——每平方英寸高达7.5吨。此外，处理和分析这些样本也很费时。

    (14) “If all you’re doing is going out to collect DNA, you’ll really be limited in what you’ll discover,” he says.

    (15) More-targeted searches might yield better results, he says. But the investment of time and money remains large.

(16) Indeed, even in-shore prospecting can tax wallets—and local sea life. The UN study notes that a compound derived from sea sponges, known as spongistatin, is used as an agent. During research, it took 2.5 tons of sea sponges to isolate less than 1 ounce of the compound.

（14）他说:“如果所做的一切就是为了采集DNA，那么发现就会相当有限。

（15）目标更加明确的探索可能会带来更好的结果，他说。但时间和钱财的投人依然庞大无比。

（16）事实上，即使是近海勘探也会造成财政负担，对勘探地的海洋生物也有不利影响。联合国的研究指出，由海绵中提取的一种叫做软海绵素的化合物被用做抗癌剂。研究过程消耗了2.5吨的海绵才分离出不到1盎司的此种化合物。

    (17) Still, the study notes that the number of potentially useful compounds for every compound tested is higher for marine organisms than for land-based organisms.  This has led to global sales for marine biotech products worth roughly $100 billion a year.

(18) Over time, as technology improves for sampling and analyzing deep-sea organisms, interest in hunting for genes in trenches, along hydrothermal vents, along the slopes of sea mounts, and at cold seeps on the seafloor is expected to grow.

（17）不过，该研究指出，从来自海洋微生物的每一种被检化合物中所提取的具有潜在用途的化合物数量。比从陆生微生物中提取的要多。这已使海洋生物技术产品的全球年销售额达到约1000亿美元。

    （18）随着时间的推移以及深海微生物采样和分析技术的改进，人们对在海沟、海水热泉、海底山麓和海底冷泉探寻基因的兴趣会越来越高。

(19) Some analysts point out that the Law of the Sea Treaty draws a distinction between mineral resources under the sea and biological resources-namely fish. Mineral resources outside a country’s exclusive economic zone belong to everybody.  International panels were set up to ensure that a portion of the proceeds from mining would be channeled into aid or other help for developing countries. Fish hooked on the high seas, however, belonged to whoever caught them. Genetic material falls into the realm of biology and so should be available to whoever can haul it up and turn it into something useful.

（19）一些分析家指出，“海洋公约法”对海底的矿物资源和生物资源——即鱼类——作了明确的区分。一国专属经济区以外的矿物资源为世界各国所共有。设立国际专家组是为了确保海底矿产资源开采的部分收益转化为对发展中国家的援助或其他形式的帮助。但是，在公海捕获的鱼，则归捕捞者所有。基因材料属于生物范畴，因此，谁能获取并使之成为有用之物，谁就应当得到它。

(20) Yet the UN’s Dr. Johnston notes that in addition to costs, the lack of clear rules governing deep-sea bioprospecting is preventing many companies from taking the plunge—delaying the potential benefits experts envision for building new marine biological compounds into medicine, farming, industry, environmental clean-up, and cosmetics. Such research is important to undertake, he says.

（20）但是，联合国的约翰斯顿博士认为，除了成本因素，由于缺乏用以指导深海生物勘探的明确规则，使许多公司难以将勘探活动付之决断——也使专家们所预想的将新的海洋生物化合物用于医药、农业、工业、环境净化和化妆品等的潜在收益迟迟无法实现。进行这样的研究是非常重要的，他说。

    Deep-sea ethics

    (21) Beyond these stumbling blocks lie what Johnston and his coauthor Charlotte Salpin see as overriding ethical and environmental issues.

    (22) Biological materials under the high seas are “not just open-and free-access. They are actually the resources of the world community,” Johnston says. “Developing countries and other people should benefit from this research as well as the few who can afford to spend substantial sums at the bottom of the ocean.”

(23) What happens here could set precedents for tapping resources from other “commons” areas such as Antarctica, the Arctic, and outer space, he adds.

(24) Ms. Salpin notes that some of the techniques researchers use today can destroy portions of the ecosystems they are studying. Ground rules for preserving these ecosystems also should be part of any international agreements, she says.

深海开发准则

    （21）除这些障碍之外，还有被约翰斯顿和与其合著联合国报告的夏洛特·萨尔芬视为最最重要的伦理和环境问题。

    （22）公海海底蕴藏的生物原料“不能只讲开放和自由获取。它们实际上是整个世界的资源，”约翰斯顿说。“发展中国家和其他人应与那些有能力投入大量资金进行海底开发的少数人一样，从这项研究中获益。”

    （23）在这个领域开展的工作可以作为开发南极洲、北极圈和外太空等其他“公共”区域资源的示范标准，他补充说。

    （24）萨尔芬女士认为，目前研究人员所采用的一些技术可能会破坏部分他们所研究的生态系统。保护这些生态系统的基本准则也应成为任何国际协定的一部分，她说。

    (25) The UN report outlines a number of options with their pros and cons, ranging from modifying existing international agreements to inventing something out of whole cloth.

    (26) With so much already on the global agenda regarding the oceans, drafting a rule book for something as far into the future as bioprospecting the deep-sea floor might seem like an exercise for underworked international lawyers.

    (27) Yet the study represents a valuable contribution, notes David Balton, US deputy assistant secretary of State for oceans and fisheries. “It’s calling attention to the issue and educating us all a bit more on what’s out there.”

（25）这份联合国报告概述了大量备选方案及其利弊，从修改现有的国际协定到制定全新的规则都有。

    （26）随着有关海洋问题的事务被越来越多地提到全球议事日程上来，起草一份关于未来海底生物勘探的规章手册似可让缺少用武之地的国际律师们一试身手。

    （27）然而，这项研究却是一种宝贵的贡献，美国负责海洋与渔业事务的副助理国务卿戴维·博顿说。“它正引起我们对该问题的关注，也让我们所有人从中思考得更多了一点。”

练习指令：请各位同学认真阅读下列文章的每一个词和每一个句子，然后将每句话翻译成中文，并将全文读懂背熟。本文的全文翻译将在下周与新材料一起公布。

 (1) I have rarely seen the Commons so full and so silent as when it met yesterday to hear of the London bombings. A forum that often is raucous and rowdy was solemn and grave. A chamber that normally is a bear pit of partisan emotions was united in shock and sorrow. Even Ian Paisley made a humane plea to the press not to repeat the offence that occurred in Northern Ireland when journalists demanded comment from relatives before they were informed that their loved ones were dead.

    (2) The immediate response to such human tragedy must be empathy with the pain of those injured and the grief of those bereaved. We recoil more deeply from loss of life in such an atrocity because we know the unexpected disappearance of partners, children and parents must be even harder to bear than a natural death. It is sudden, and therefore there is no farewell or preparation for the blow. Across London today there are relatives whose pain may be more acute because they never had the chance to offer or hear last words of affection.

(3) It is arbitrary' and therefore an event that changes whole lives, which turn on the accident of momentary decisions. How many people this morning ask themselves how different it might have been if their partner had taken the next bus or caught an earlier tube?

(4) But perhaps the loss is hardest to bear because it is so difficult to answer the question why it should have happened. This weekend we will salute the heroism of the generation that defended Britain in the last war. In advance of the commemoration there have been many stories told of the courage of those who risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives to defeat fascism. They provide moving, humbling examples of what the human spirit is capable, but at least the relatives of the men and women who died then knew what they were fighting for. What purpose is there to yesterday's senseless murders? Who could possibly imagine that they have a cause that might profit from such pointless carnage?

(5) At the time of writing, no group has surfaced even to explain why they launched the assault. Sometime over the next few days we may be offered a website entry a video message attempting to justify the impossible, but there is no language that can supply a rational basis for such arbitrary slaughter. The explanation, when it is offered, is likely to rely not on reason but on the declaration of an obsessive fundamentalist identity that leaves no room for pity for victims who do not share that identity.

(6) Yesterday the prime minister described the bombings as an attack on our values as a society. In the next few days we should remember that among those values are tolerance and mutual respect for those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Only the day before, London was celebrating its coup in winning the Olympic Games, partly through demonstrating to the world the success of our multicultural credentials. Nothing would please better those who planted yesterday's bombs than for the atrocity to breed suspicion and hostility to minorities in our own community. Defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist.

(7) Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organization would turn its attention to the west.

(8) The danger now is that the west's current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us.

(9) The G8 summit is not the best-designed forum in which to launch such a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. Nor do any of them make up the outer circle of select emerging economies, such as China, Brazil and India, which are also invited to Gleneagles. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance.

(10) But the G8 does have the opportunity in its communique today to give a forceful response to the latest terrorist attack. That should include a statement of their joint resolve to hunt down those who bear responsibility for yesterday's crimes. But it must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of terrorism.

(11) In particular, it would be perverse if the focus of the G8 on making poverty history was now obscured by yesterday's bombings. The breeding grounds of terrorism are to be found in the poverty of back streets, where fundamentalism offers a false, easy sense of pride and identity to young men who feel denied of any hope or any economic opportunity for themselves. A war on world poverty may well do more for the security of the west than a war on terror.

(12) And in the privacy of their extensive suites, yesterday’s atrocities should prompt heart-searching among some of those present. President Bush is given to justifying the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that by fighting terrorism abroad, it protects the west from having to fight terrorists at home. Whatever else can be said in defence of the war in Iraq today, it cannot be claimed that it has protected us from terrorism on our soil.

 

答案请见下期