听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:过去40亿年的短暂旅行 ，希望你会喜欢！
【演讲者及介绍】 Lauren Sallan
TED的同事Lauren Sallan是“下一代”古生物学家，她运用大数据分析的尖端技术来揭示进化是如何在最大的尺度(宏观进化)中发生的，尤其是在海洋中。
【演讲主题】过去40亿年的短暂旅行(不包括恐龙)
A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included)
【中英文字幕】
翻译者 Wanting Zhong 校对者 Hua Bai
00:01
Paleontology, a science geared towards small children, focused on digging up dinosaurs while sporting a "Jurassic Park" costume. Skulls are popped out of the ground and put on display for public gawking. The relevance of this, beyond clickbait, coloring books and monster movies is unknown. No ... Wait. That's not paleontology at all.
古生物学， 一门面向小孩子的科学， 专注于挖掘恐龙时， 身着“侏罗纪公园”服饰。 从地里刨出骷髅头， 展示出来供公众围观。 除了与骗取点击量、填色绘本 和怪兽电影的关联， 似乎再无其他。 不对…… 等等。 那才不是古生物学呢。
00:29
Paleontology is nothing less than the study of past life. All past life. From ancestors to alien forms. It involves fundamental questions like "Who are we?" And "How did we get here?" -- using the broadest possible definition of "we": life itself.
古生物学就是研究过去生命的学科。 所有过去的生命。 从始祖到异形。 它涵盖了一些最基本的问题， 比如“我们是谁？”， “我们如何有了今天？” 这里的“我们”使用了 覆盖面最广的定义： 生命本身。
00:49
Dinosaurs, a category of birds, are just a small percentage of that.
恐龙，鸟类的一种， 只占了其中的一小部分。
00:54
(Laughter)
（笑声）
00:56
Yet they get the most media attention.
但它们却能吸引最多媒体关注。
00:59
[The incredible diversity of ancient life, Dinosaurs, Paleontology]
【左：“古生物惊人的多样性”； 右：“恐龙”；下：“古生物学”】
01:02
Anyway, most of us paleontologists consider dinosaurs to be a gateway drug. There is so much cooler stuff in the fossil record, and we know so much about it. Let's go on a brief, dinosaur-free tour of the last four billion years.
话说回来，我们大多数古生物学家 都把恐龙视为入门级“毒品”。 化石记录中有那么多 令人惊叹的东西， 我们也很了解其中奥义。 那么就让我们踏上一场没有恐龙的， 关于过去 40 亿年的短途旅行。
01:23
(Laughter)
（笑声）
01:24
First up, genetic material. Viruses, basically, started producing proteins and wrecking their environment. The Earth was infected with life. Some of these new bacteria learned how to eat sunshine, producing oxygen, pulling in carbon from the air and destroying the iron food of other microbes by turning it into rust. This went on for billions of years.
首先，来说说遗传物质。 病毒开始制造蛋白质， 在周遭环境里大搞破坏， 地球便“感染”上了生命。 一些新的细菌学会了分解阳光， 生产氧气， 从空气中吸取碳， 通过让铁生锈， 摧毁其他以铁为食的 微生物的口粮。 这个过程持续了几十亿年。
01:51
Some bacteria consumed other bacteria, gaining their power to turn oxygen into energy, becoming the precursors of animals and plants. But as a result, there were climate shocks, from hot to cold and back again, which ended up turning the Earth into a snowball covered with glaciers. The technical term for this time period is "Snowball Earth."
一些细菌摄食别的细菌， 获得了将氧转化成能量的能力， 成为了动物与植物的前身。 而结果造成了气候冲击， 从热变冷又变热， 最后把地球变成了 冰川覆盖的雪球。 地球在这个时期的术语 就是“雪地球”。
02:15
(Laughter)
（笑声）
02:18
Seven hundred, eight hundred million years ago. Anyway, microbes banded together, creating multicellular life.
大约七、八亿年前， 总而言之，微生物集结在一起， 创造出了多细胞生命。
02:25
Six hundred million years ago, geometric colonies appeared, sucking microbes from the water. These were soon replaced by the ancestors of modern animals. The Cambrian explosion. Lobster relatives ate other animals, capturing them using their grasping arms. Armored wriggling clam worms crawled across the seafloor and into it, creating new ecosystems. Our tadpole-like ancestors flitted along ancient coastlines, while their eel-like relatives with gnashing throat teeth swam above the ice-cream cone corals of the first reefs, dodging school-bus-sized krakens and hungry sea scorpions. Plant fungus came onto land. But then the glaciers returned, killing pretty much everything.
六亿年前， 几何形态的群体【注：如团藻】 出现了，从水中摄取微生物。 它们很快就被现代动物 的祖先所取代。 寒武纪生命大爆发。 龙虾的亲戚挥舞捉臂 【注：奇虾】 捕获其它动物吃掉。 身披铠甲蠕动的沙蚕 在海底爬行并钻进泥沙， 创造出崭新的生态系统。 我们蝌蚪般的先祖【注：如昆明鱼】 游过古老的海岸线， 它们的亲戚形似鳗鱼， 咽部长有牙齿【注：如华夏鳗】， 在最初的礁石， 即甜筒般的珊瑚上游过， 躲过校车大小的克拉肯（大鱿鱼） 和饥饿的海蝎。 菌类植物上了岸。 然而冰川卷土重来， 几乎抹杀了一切。
03:15
But mass extinctions open opportunities. Jawless fishes invaded the ocean, sporting points, prongs, and finally, fins. Spiders, scorpions, snails and worms came onto land. Somewhere around China, a fish developed jaws, and its descendants drove jawless fishes, sea scorpions and branching plankton to extinction. Some of these fishes, which had arm bones in their fins, sprouted fingers, seven or eight per flipper. On land, plants became trees, growing massive or spreading their spores only once before dying.
但大灭绝也开拓了机遇。 无颌鱼类入侵了海洋， 它们长有尖角、突刺以及鱼鳍。 蜘蛛、蝎子、蜗牛和蠕虫纷纷上岸。 在中国某地，一条鱼长出了下颌， 它的后代便把无颌鱼、 海蝎和树状浮游生物 赶尽杀绝。 有些鱼类 鱼鳍里长有前肢骨头， 它们生出了指头， 每条鳍状肢上有七八个指头。 在陆地上，植物成为了树， 变成庞然大物， 或是在死前仅仅播撒一次孢子。
03:54
But then the glaciers came back again, and it was mass extinction number two. It was the age of weird fishes and plated sea lilies. Sharks with wings. Sharks with buzz saw jaws. Sharks with fins covered in tiny teeth. Sharks with crushing tooth plates. Bony fishes that looked like modern angelfish and eels for the first time.
然而冰川再度回归， 这是第二次生物大灭绝。 这是古怪的鱼和 身披护甲的海百合的时代。 长翅的鲨鱼。 有锯齿牙的鲨鱼。 鳍上长满小锯齿的鲨鱼。 牙板能碾碎外物的鲨鱼。 类似现代神仙鱼和 鳗鱼的硬骨鱼 首次登场。
04:16
Wetlands developed, sporting ten-foot-long millipedes and giant dragon flies. These spread across the supercontinent of Pangaea and died, creating coal, leading to a 100-million-year Ice Age.
湿地形成， 其中生活着三米长的多足类动物 和巨大的蜻蜓。 它们在盘古大陆上分布广泛， 【注：古时所有大陆为一个整体】 死亡后形成煤炭， 导致了长达一亿年的冰川期。
04:30
Finally, vertebrates made it onto land on a permanent basis, leading to alligator-like amphibians and saber-toothed protomammals. But then, volcanoes erupted all over Siberia, everything almost died and it was mass extinction number three.
最后，脊椎动物永久地移居陆地， 诞生了形似短吻鳄的两栖类 和长着剑齿的合弓纲。 【注：似哺乳动物的爬行动物】 但随后西伯利亚全境火山爆发， 几乎一切都灭亡了， 这是第三次生物大灭绝。
04:47
(Laughter)
（笑声）
04:49
The day life nearly died. A single, lonely tusked mammal survived and thrived, but it was soon replaced by galloping crocodiles. In the ocean, marine reptiles, giant rafts made of the living relatives of sea urchins and armored squids, ammonoids, of every kind and form.
这一天，生命几乎消亡。 唯有一种长着獠牙的哺乳类 幸存并繁盛【注：水龙兽】， 但它很快就被奔跑的鳄鱼所取代。 在海里，海洋爬行类， 现在海胆的亲戚，巨大的筏型鱼， 身披盔甲的鱿鱼和菊石， 种类形态五花八门。
05:12
But then, Pangaea started to split apart, forming a sea of lava that would one day become the Atlantic Ocean, spewing toxic gas into the atmosphere and mass extinction number four.
然而，盘古大陆开始裂开， 形成了未来成为 大西洋的岩浆海洋， 将有毒气体喷进大气， 于是有了第四次生物大灭绝。
05:24
(Laughter)
（笑声）
05:25
Yeah, there's actually a lot more than these five, these are the big ones.
没错，灭绝次数远不止五次， 这些是最大的几次。
05:29
(Laughter)
（笑声）
05:23
So, finally, there were whale-sized fishes, and modern fishes mobbed corals, made gigantic by using their captured algae to eat sunshine. Crabs, stingrays and other fishes with crushing teeth appeared, smashing shells and leading to an arms race between predators and prey. There was an explosion of marine biodiversity.
最后，出现了鲸一般大小的鱼， 现代鱼类在珊瑚礁聚众， 用捕获的藻类摄食阳光， 从而变成庞然大物。 螃蟹、魟鱼和其它 有强力牙齿的鱼类出现， 咬碎贝壳， 导致了掠食者与猎物 之间的军备竞赛。 海洋生物多样性呈爆发式增加。
05:57
Mammals climbed trees, flew and did a lot of other things that are seemingly sort of modern. They were feeding on the first flowers pollinated by the first bees. There were ecological revolutions on land and at sea, leading to the modern world. Except that an asteroid hit Mexico, and then that triggered volcanoes on the other side of the world in India, and everything almost died again.
哺乳类爬树或飞行， 做了许多看上去很现代的事。 它们食用由最早的蜜蜂 授粉的最初的花朵。 陆地与海洋中都发生了生态变革， 形成了现代的世界。 只不过一颗陨石撞击墨西哥， 触发了世界另一边印度的火山群， 一切几乎再次死亡。
06:24
(Laughter)
（笑声）
06:25
But -- there's always a but, because we're still here -- mammals arose from the ashes, became small under extreme heat and then ever larger. There were palm trees and snakes in the Arctic. Predatory deer dogs frolicked along ancient rivers, while their relatives returned to the ocean to become the first otter-like whales. Not hyenas and other sort of carnivores were chased off by giant long-necked rhinos.
但是——总有一个“但是”， 因为我们还在这里—— 哺乳动物从灰烬中崛起， 在极端酷热下体型变小， 之后则一路变大。 北极有棕榈树和蛇。 肉食性鹿狗在古老的河畔嬉闹， 【注：中爪兽】 它们的亲属则返回海洋， 成为最初的形似海獭的鲸鱼。类鬣狗和其他类似食肉类的动物， 被巨大的长颈犀牛撵跑。
06:54
Everything at this point seems kind of familiar but not really. In Antarctica, an ice age started, forming the first permanent polar ice cap in two hundred million years. This dried out the rest of the world, but it allowed the rise of grasses, of rodents, of cats. Somewhere in Africa, an ape started walking across the new savannah. Oh, and there were giant saber-toothed salmon, I just have to mention that.
此刻的一切看上去都挺熟悉， 事实并非如此。 在南极洲，冰川时期开始， 形成了两亿年内 第一个永久南极冰盖。 世界其他地区因此变得干燥， 但这促成了草类、啮齿动物 和猫科的兴盛。 在非洲的某处， 一只猿开始在新生的草原上行走。 哦对了，还有巨大的剑齿三文鱼， 这个我必须提一下。
07:23
(Laughter)
（笑声）
07:26
So, we know all of this happened and so much more. How? Why? Paleontology is a thriving science at the intersection of multiple other fields and technologies. There is no bigger data than the fossil record, and we mine every bit of it. We use CAT scans, we use isotopes, we use genomes, we use robots, we use mathematical simulations and all kinds of analytics. We maximize all of it so that we can understand the past and how evolution works.
我们知道这些都发生过， 而且还知道更多。 如何知道的？ 为什么？ 古生物学正蓬勃发展， 并与其他学科和科技交融。 没有数据比化石的记录更全面， 我们充分发掘了其中的信息。 我们使用电脑断层扫描（CAT）， 同位素（测年法）， 基因测序， 机器人， 数学模拟， 以及各种数据分析方法。 我们充分利用所有方法， 以便了解过去， 研究进化运作。
08:01
It also lets us make predictions for the future. What will happen after the next mass extinction? What weird things will show up? Will mammals get smaller again? Will there even be mammals? In sum, we have learned a lot about dinosaurs. But there's so much left to learn from the other 99.9 percent of things that have ever lived. And that's paleontology.
它让我们能预测未来。 下一次生物大灭绝后会发生什么？ 会出现什么奇怪的东西？ 哺乳动物会再次变小吗？ 还会有哺乳动物存在吗？ 总而言之， 我们已经对恐龙了解甚多。 但剩下 99.9% 曾经存在的物种里， 还有许多知识仍待探究。 而这就是古生物学。
08:28
Thank you.
谢谢。
08:30
(Applause and cheers)
（掌声与喝彩）