VOA标准英语2013--Scientists Search for Those Long Missing

 

Scientists Search for Those Long Missing

Researchers are developing new techniques to find hidden graves. They say it would help locate the remains¹ of a lone² murder victim or the mass graves of victims of war. The research has been presented at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico, co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union.

Jamie Pringle Said, “There are thousands of missing people around the world that could have been tortured and killed and buried in clandestine³ graves.” Pringle is a lecturer in geoscience at Britain’s Keele University.

“It’s important for families obviously to find their relatives – to give them closure – so they can find out what happened to them and give them someone to bury. But of course also it’s really difficult to get a successful criminal conviction without a body. It does happen, but normally it’s more unusual. You get charged with something like illegal deposition⁴ of a body or preventing a proper funeral, things like that,” he said.

He said that there have been a number of missing child cases in Britain where this has happened. It can be just as hard to locate mass graves of people who disappeared during wars.

“[In] some of the Africa conflicts obviously it’s very chaotic⁵. The perpetrators don’t obviously leave a map of where they’ve deposited people. Could be isolated⁶ graves or mass graves in a variety of environments and that can be quite difficult to find, I think, especially if there’s some significant area to search and you have limited resources. It’s really hard to be honest,” he said.

Pringle’s colleague, Carlos Molina of the National University of Colombia, will test the techniques in the South American country. Many people there have gone missing in drug and other crime related violence.

Molina not only wants to be able to find bodies, but evidence that can be used in criminal prosecutions⁷, such as the time of death. To do so, he’ll create simulated gravesites based on sites that have been found in the past.

Pringle said, “He’ll create some burials using normally animal cadavers⁸ rather than humans. Fill it in again and then basically survey them over set periods of time to see what technique works best and does that change over time. But obviously over time that gets vegetated⁹ again and often you get people called forensic¹⁰ botanists¹¹. They look at vegetation changes. It may be different plants might grow there or they might grow better perhaps if they’re well fertilized¹² to be a bit grizzly¹³ about it.”

The sites would be surveyed every eight days during the first month, every 15 days in the second and third months and then once a month for the next 15 months. Scientists will use instruments such as ground penetrating¹⁴ radar¹⁵ in their work.

Pringle said that there’s a specific workflow when trying to locate hidden graves.

“Normal work flow is you go from the big scale -- some remote sensing methods, some old aerial photos or modern ones, in fact, or some sort of nonvisible wavelength¹⁶ data to see if you can see where things might have been disturbed. And then you say well those areas look interesting. And then, ideally collect some data over there and see if you can see if there’s anything buried there.”

Forensic geophysicists from around the world, he said, are collaborating¹⁷ to solve disappearances¹⁸ stemming from conflicts.

“The Balkan civil wars from the 1990s, trying to find some of those graves in mountainous areas in the former Yugoslavia, for example. I have colleagues in Spain looking for some of these civil war mass graves, which is a little contentious¹⁹ over there. There are some people who want to find their relatives and other people – maybe the perpetrators or their colleagues – [who] don’t want them to find them. So there are colleagues working in Queens University in Belfast, they’re trying to find some of these victims from the 1970s and 80s in Northern Ireland,” he said.

It can be a very long, slow and painstaking²⁰ process.

Pringle said he’s currently helping²¹ to find the graves of some nomadic²² groups in West Africa before mining operations begin.

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

3 clandestine   

adj.秘密的，暗中从事的

参考例句：

• She is the director of clandestine operations of the CIA.她是中央情报局秘密行动的负责人。
• The early Christians held clandestine meetings in caves.早期的基督徒在洞穴中秘密聚会。

4 deposition   

n.免职，罢官；作证；沉淀；沉淀物

参考例句：

• It was this issue which led to the deposition of the king.正是这件事导致了国王被废黜。
• This leads to calcium deposition in the blood-vessels.这导致钙在血管中沉积。

5 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

6 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

7 prosecutions   

起诉( prosecution的名词复数 )； 原告； 实施； 从事

参考例句：

• It is the duty of the Attorney-General to institute prosecutions. 检察总长负责提起公诉。
• Since World War II, the government has been active in its antitrust prosecutions. 第二次世界大战以来，政府积极地进行着反对托拉斯的检举活动。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

8 cadavers   

n.尸体( cadaver的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Human cadavers were the only known source of hGH, and demand was intense. 人类尸体是hGH已知的惟一来源，而且需求广泛。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 口蹄疫疯牛病
• Will there be enough cadavers for each group this term? 这个学期每一个组都有足够的尸体吗？ 来自电影对白

9 vegetated   

v.过单调呆板的生活( vegetate的过去式和过去分词 )；植物似地生长；（瘤、疣等）长大

参考例句：

• The bacterial growth vegetated along. 细菌的生长繁殖很快。 来自互联网
• They vegetated the hills behind their house. 他们在他们的屋后的山上种植被。 来自互联网

10 forensic   

adj.法庭的，雄辩的

参考例句：

• The report included his interpretation of the forensic evidence.该报告包括他对法庭证据的诠释。
• The judge concluded the proceeding on 10:30 Am after one hour of forensic debate.经过近一个小时的法庭辩论后，法官于10时30分宣布休庭。

11 botanists   

n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Botanists had some difficulty categorizing the newly found plant. 植物学家们不大容易确定这种新发现的植物的种类。 来自辞典例句
• Botanists refer this flower to the rose family. 植物学家将这花归入蔷薇科。 来自辞典例句

12 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

13 grizzly   

adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊

参考例句：

• This grizzly liked people.这只灰熊却喜欢人。
• Grizzly bears are not generally social creatures.一般说来，灰熊不是社交型动物。

14 penetrating   

adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的

参考例句：

• He had an extraordinarily penetrating gaze. 他的目光有股异乎寻常的洞察力。
• He examined the man with a penetrating gaze. 他以锐利的目光仔细观察了那个人。

15 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

16 wavelength   

n.波长

参考例句：

• The authorities were unable to jam this wavelength.当局无法干扰这一波长。
• Radio One has broadcast on this wavelength for years.广播1台已经用这个波长广播多年了。

17 collaborating   

合作( collaborate的现在分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• Joe is collaborating on the work with a friend. 乔正与一位朋友合作做那件工作。
• He was not only learning from but also collaborating with Joseph Thomson. 他不仅是在跟约瑟福？汤姆逊学习，而且也是在和他合作。

18 disappearances   

n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案

参考例句：

• Most disappearances are the result of the terrorist activity. 大多数的失踪案都是恐怖分子造成的。 来自辞典例句
• The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. 间谍活动、叛党卖国、逮捕拷打、处决灭迹，这种事情永远不会完。 来自英汉文学

19 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

20 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

21 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。

22 nomadic   

adj.流浪的；游牧的

参考例句：

• This tribe still live a nomadic life.这个民族仍然过着游牧生活。
• The plowing culture and the nomadic culture are two traditional principal cultures in China.农耕文化与游牧文化是我国传统的两大主体文化。