2006年VOA标准英语-Georgia Aquarium Draws Enthusiastic Crowds

By Song Lin and Xiao Hong
Atlanta, Georgia
06 April 2006
 
watch Georgia Aquarium¹ report
 
  
  
Atlanta, the home of Coca Cola and cable news giant CNN, now has another landmark²: the Georgia Aquarium.

Since its grand opening last November, the world's largest aquarium has attracted tens of thousands of visitors from around the world. This report is narrated³ by Elaine Lu.

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Standing⁴ in front of the huge viewing windows inside the aquarium is a mesmerizing⁵ experience.  Thousands of fish of different species and size live more or less harmoniously⁶ in this wonderland.  How many are here?  Five thousand?  Ten thousand?  Actually, there are 65,000, representing 500 species.

Whale sharks are the stars. They are the world's biggest fish.  Ralph and Norton are both more than 16 feet long [about 5 meters], and they have not even reached adulthood⁷!   They are the only such sharks in captivity⁸ outside of Asia.

 
Ralph and Norton, whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium 
  
Ralph and Norton -- the names are a joke based on an old American TV show -- were caught off the coast of Taiwan.  Before they could be eaten, the folks from the Georgia Aquarium bought them and had them shipped to the U.S.  It took a 747 jetliner to transport the two babies,  who are doing well -- maybe too well.
 

Tim Berger   
  
Tim Berger was part of the team that brought them here. “They are doing amazingly well. In fact, they are so eating so voraciously⁹, they are eating so much, that we have to keep them on the diet or they get too fat, but they've each probably grown a foot or a little more [a third of a meter] since they arrived.  They've been doing great.”

Tim says an adult whale shark could grow to be 40 feet long [13 meters], the size of a bus.  This huge habitat houses six adult whale sharks.  Imagine six buses going back and forth¹⁰ without getting in each other's way.

Georgia Aquarium jellyfish   
  
Elsewhere in the tanks you can find the blue whale, the turtle, the leafy sea dragon, pacific octopus¹¹, and clown fish, and thousands of others whose names we don't even know. It's amazing.

These scuba¹² divers¹³ are not here for fun.  There are a dozen of them around, doing everything from safety checks, to cleaning the tanks and the coral.  And once in a while they pose for the visitors as well. 

Kimberly Hall is more than a scuba diver.  She is a marine¹⁴ biologist, in charge of a coral reef habitat.

  
  
That kind of hands-on experience is part of what the Aquarium wants people to find here. The idea is to give people a different way of seeing things and to make them care about ocean life and the environment.

The different experience includes the 100-foot long [33 meter] tunnel for viewing the whale sharks, and the unique perspective of looking at a river from underneath¹⁵ it.

“The tanks, especially the tank you walk through was amazing; the sharks, the whales, beluga whales…” exclaimed one visitor.

“It's great.  We loved it. It's the best aquarium ever; it's the best I've ever been to,” said a couple of other fans of the aquarium.

1 aquarium   

n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸

参考例句：

• The first time I saw seals was in an aquarium.我第一次看见海豹是在水族馆里。
• I'm going to the aquarium with my parents this Sunday.这个星期天，我要和父母一起到水族馆去。

2 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

3 narrated   

v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Some of the story was narrated in the film. 该电影叙述了这个故事的部分情节。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Defoe skilfully narrated the adventures of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. 笛福生动地叙述了鲁滨逊·克鲁索在荒岛上的冒险故事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 mesmerizing   

adj.有吸引力的，有魅力的v.使入迷( mesmerize的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I think you must be mesmerizing me, Charles. 查尔斯，我想你一定在对我施催眠术啦。 来自辞典例句
• The attendant one-dimensional wave equation has mesmerizing harmonic properties. 伴生的一元波平衡具有迷人的和谐特性。 来自电影对白

6 harmoniously   

和谐地，调和地

参考例句：

• The president and Stevenson had worked harmoniously over the last eighteen months. 在过去一年半里，总统和史蒂文森一起工作是融洽的。
• China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously. 中国和印度这两只猛兽不可能真心实意地和谐相处。

7 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

8 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

9 voraciously   

adv.贪婪地

参考例句：

• The bears feed voraciously in summer and store energy as fat. 熊在夏季吃很多东西，以脂肪形式储存能量。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

11 octopus   

n.章鱼

参考例句：

• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。
• One octopus has eight tentacles.一条章鱼有八根触角。

12 scuba   

n.水中呼吸器

参考例句：

• I first got hooked on scuba diving when I was twelve.12岁时我开始迷上了带水中呼吸器潜水。
• While on honeymoon in Bali,she learned to scuba dive.她在巴厘岛度蜜月时学会了带水肺潜水。

13 divers   

adj.不同的；种种的

参考例句：

• He chose divers of them,who were asked to accompany him.他选择他们当中的几个人，要他们和他作伴。
• Two divers work together while a standby diver remains on the surface.两名潜水员协同工作，同时有一名候补潜水员留在水面上。

14 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。

15 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。