科学美国人60秒 发现鸟类化石与霸王龙同一时代

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Who's your favorite superhero? Captain Marvel¹? Superman? Well, in a minute, you might just change your answer to the Wonderchicken.

你最喜欢哪位超级英雄?神奇队长?超人?嗯，很快你可能就会将答案改成神奇鸡。

(CLIP: "Yes, the Wonderchicken: Strange visitor from this planet. A 67-million-year-old fossil that's helping² researchers piece together the bird family tree.")

(音频剪辑：“对，神奇鸡：来自这颗星球的陌生访客。一块6700万年前的化石正在帮助研究人员拼凑鸟类家族树。”)

An amateur fossil hunter dug up this specimen³ 20 years ago in Belgium. But it wasn't much to look at—just some damaged broken rocks with a few limb bones poking⁴ out—that is, until researchers recently decided⁵ to peer inside.

0年前，一位业余化石猎人在比利时挖出了这个化石。但它没什么可看的，只是有几块肢骨突出的破损石头，也就是说，直到最近研究人员决定窥视其内部，才发现其意义。

"We took these not very promising⁶ looking rocks and CT scanned them. And when we did that, we were amazed to discover that inside the rock was a beautiful, nearly complete, three-dimensionally preserved bird skull⁷."

“我们用这些看起来不太有希望的石头进行CT了扫描。扫描时，我们惊奇地发现石头内部有个美丽的、几乎完整的、三维保存的鸟头骨。”

Paleobiologist Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge in the U.K.

英国剑桥大学的古生物学家丹尼尔·菲尔德说到。

The result was so striking that coming up with a nickname for this newly discovered species was easy.

这一发现如此惊人，以至于研究人员非常容易地就给这一新发现的物种起了个绰号。

"The combination of the shock and the chickeny nature of the fossil resulted in the name Wonderchicken."

“这块化石令人震惊之处，结合其内部的鸟类，就有了‘神奇鸡'这个名字。”

And the specimen isn't just special because of the incredibly preserved skull. The Wonderchicken is actually a record breaker.

这个标本的特殊性不仅仅是因为保留极为完好的头骨。神奇鸡真的打破了记录。

"So this is actually the oldest fossil ever found that's clearly a representative of the group of modern birds."

“这实际上是迄今为止发现的最古老的化石，而且其显然能代表现代鸟类组。”

The Wonderchicken walked the earth less than a million years before the asteroid⁸ impact that wiped out dinosaurs¹⁰. In fact, this approximately 400-gram—or about seven eighths of a pound—bird would have been a contemporary of many of the best-known dinosaur⁹ species, like Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.

神奇鸡在地球存在的时间，比小行星撞击地球导致恐龙灭绝要早不到100万年。事实上，这种重约400克或八分之七磅的鸟可能与霸王龙和三角龙等许多知名恐龙种类同一时代。

Even though great amounts of evolutionary¹¹ history can now be deduced by studying the genomes of living species, fossils like this one still play a valuable role. For example, they can help pin down the date of branches in a family tree. The Wonderchicken fits into the bird family tree right around the split between chickenlike birds and ducklike birds.

即使现在通过研究现存物种的基因组可以推断出许多进化史，但这种化石仍发挥着有价值的作用。比如，这种化石可以帮助确定家族树分支的日期。神奇鸡处于鸟类家族树中鸡类和鸭类分界附近。

"So fossils provide irreplaceable information for evolutionary studies, because they provide the only direct evidence we'll ever have for how evolution has actually taken place."

“因此，化石为进化研究提供了不可替代的信息，因为它们为我们提供了唯一直接的证据，可以证明进化发生的方式。”

And given the incredible detail in this specimen, the team are hoping that there's still plenty to learn from this fossil fowl¹².

鉴于标本中令人难以置信的细节，研究团队希望这块鸟类化石能提供大量研究内容。

"So I think there's still a number of mysteries that this fossil is going to shed light on."

“因此，我认为这块化石仍有许多未解之谜需要揭示。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Levy¹³.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是亚当·利维。

1 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 specimen   

n.样本，标本

参考例句：

• You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
• This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。

4 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

7 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

8 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

9 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

10 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

12 fowl   

n.家禽，鸡，禽肉

参考例句：

• Fowl is not part of a traditional brunch.禽肉不是传统的早午餐的一部分。
• Since my heart attack,I've eaten more fish and fowl and less red meat.自从我患了心脏病后，我就多吃鱼肉和禽肉，少吃红色肉类。

13 levy   

n.征收税或其他款项，征收额

参考例句：

• They levy a tax on him.他们向他征税。
• A direct food levy was imposed by the local government.地方政府征收了食品税。