百科知识视频之煎蛋小学堂29 垃圾背后的真相

In addition to scientific equipment,the Voyager spacecraft each carry,out beyond the solar system,a golden record encoding information about the earth and our human civilization,These time capsules contain examples of the best aspects of humanity language,music,art,and scientific achievenments.

除了科学仪器之外 每艘旅行者号飞船也，向太阳系之外携带了，编译有地球和我们人类文明信息的金质唱片。这些文物密藏器携带着人性中最美好一面的代表 语言 音乐 艺术以及科技成就。

Environmental destruction,war and cable tv didn't make the list.Neither did garbage.And yet,every single time you throw something away,you're contributing to a collective time capsule.Because buried deep within the landfills that dot the Earth lies precious information about who we are,how we live and what we really care about.

环境破坏 战争和电视当然不在列表之内。垃圾也没有。但是 每次你把某些东西扔出去时，都在为一个“时光胶囊”做着贡献。因为无数宝贵的信息深藏在斑驳与世界各地的垃圾场底下 关乎到我们是谁 我们怎么生活和我们在乎什么。

Archaeologists use heaps of trash to study people and culture,and even have a special,nice-sounding name for garbage piles:middens.In one midden near Rome,archeologists uncovered 25 million containers for carrying olive oil,telling us that Romans used a LOT of olive oil,but almost none of it came from Rome,most was from Spain and Egypt.

人类学家利用一堆堆垃圾研究人类和文化。甚至还给垃圾堆起了个特殊而好听的名字。Midden(中文：垃圾堆)。在罗马附近的一个垃圾堆里，人类学家发现了2500万个盛放橄榄油的容器，这说明罗马人曾使用大量的橄榄油 但橄榄油都不产自罗马。大多数来自西班牙和埃及。

And we know from shell middens that the Maori people of New Zealand hunted moa and seals early on,but later had to switch to fish,shellfish,and small birds as the moa and seals became overhunted.Digging through more recent history,a midden outside of George Washington's home revealed the belt buckles he wore,the china he used,and the meat he and his guest ate off of that china.

我们从贝冢里可以发现 新西兰的毛利人早期曾捕猎恐鸟和海豹，但之后不得不转而捕捉鱼类 贝壳和小鸟 因为恐鸟和海豹被过度捕猎。纵观年代更近的历史。乔治。华盛顿家附近的一个垃圾堆里曾发现过他用过的皮带扣，他用过的瓷器 还有他与宾客曾从盘子中吃过的肉。

Even now,in our era of modern record keeping and date,we some time need to look through the garbage to see what we're really like,In the 1980's,there was huge outcry about the gross quantity of garbage humans were making,with many environmental groups painting a picture of disposable diapers and fast food packaging filling up our landfills.Around the same time,a professor in Tucson interviewed people about their eating habits,then went through their trash to see what they threw away.

即使现在 在我们以现代方法保存记录和信息的时代，我们有时还得翻遍垃圾堆来找到我们的真爱。1980年代 人类制造垃圾的总量的问题曾引起过一场大型抗议，许多环保组织打出了一次性尿布的照片 同时还有充斥着填埋场的快餐包装盒。

It's true that we were producing a lot of trash,but when researchers examined what was in those landfills,diapers and fast food containers accounted for less than 2 percent of new landfill volume,The majority was construction waste and paper.

我们的确在制造者无数垃圾，但当研究者调查垃圾堆里到底有什么时，尿布和快餐盒仅占到了新制造垃圾总体积的不到2%。绝大多数还是建筑废料和纸张。大约同时Tucson的一位教授调查了一群人的饮食习惯，之后翻遍了这些人家的垃圾来查看他们扔掉了什么。

It turns out that people and their garbage tell two very different stories,Participants overreported healthy foods,and underreported fools they considered bad,For example.they reported drinking only half as much alcohol as the bottles in their trash indicated.And everybody underreported how much fat they ate,except people who had lived through WWII.Those generations tended to overreport butter,which was heavily rationed during the war and consequently considered valuable and healthful.

结果证明 人们和垃圾所道出的事实截然不同。受访者夸大了健康食物的量 并低估了他们认为不好的食物的量。比如 他们仅报告了垃圾桶中酒瓶所体现 的一半的酒量。每个人都低估了他们所摄入的脂肪，除了曾生活在二战期间的人。那一代倾向于高估黄油的量，在战争期间黄油被严格限量供应 并以此被认为“有价值”及“健康”。

So a survey or carefully crafted time capsule is probably biased towards the best parts of our lives-the parts we want people to remember and extraterrestrials to know about.But our trash doesn't lie.

因此 调查和精心制作的时间胶囊 很可能会偏向人类最好的一面 我们想要人们记住的 让外星生命所知道的那些事。但是垃圾不会撒谎。