1、Science and technology 科学技术Solar-powered flight 太阳能动力飞行A REVOLUTIONARY solar-powered aircraft touched down recently at Moffett Airfield, in the heart of Silicon Valley. 一架革命性的太阳能飞机近日在硅谷中心的墨菲特联邦机场着陆。Bertrand Piccard, one of Solar Impulses founders, had been in the same situation before and knew that
2、success comes by learning from mistakes and moving on. 太阳驱动的创始人之一伯特兰皮卡德也曾深陷此境，他深知技术的推进只能是吃一堑，长一智。In 1999 he co-piloted Orbiter 3, the first balloon to circumnavigate the globe. 1999 年，皮卡德曾担任轨道飞行器 3 号的副驾驶，这是第一个实现环球飞行的热气球。He teamed up with Andre Borschberg, a fighter pilot and engineer, to form the So
3、lar Impulse project. 于是他与战斗机飞行员兼工程师 安德烈 博尔施伯格通力合作，共同发起了太阳驱动计划。The problem with the wing spar has set back the team a year. 这个团队花费了一年时间来解决翼梁故障。The plan is to take off in an easterly direction and land on every continent that touches the Tropic of Cancer. 飞机将于东部地区起飞，随后在北回归线附近的每一块陆地降落。To give Mr Piccar
4、d and Mr Borschberg room to exercise and lie down, the next aircraft will be about 15% bigger than the prototype, which tips the scales（称重为） at just 1,600kg. 为了给皮卡德和博尔施伯格足够的空间移动和躺卧，新的飞机将比原型机大 15%，总重达 1600千克。The wing spar that broke had been redesigned with an ultralight carbon-fibre process to shed
5、the grams. 先前破损的翼梁用超轻型碳纤维材料重新打造以降低克重。That is enough, the team calculate, to ward off some of the effects of sleep deprivation. 团队成员通过计算认为这些时间足够抵御睡眠不足带来的不利影响。The pilot must not be too groggy if he has to swing suddenly into action. 当飞行员突然驾驶时，他一定不可以过于疲劳。This procedure has been tested in a flight simul
6、ator for 72 hours non-stop, and seems to work. 这套流程已在模拟飞行器中进行了 72 小时不间断测试，效果卓著。At this altitude, though, the air is thin and an oxygen supply is needed. 由于海拔较高，空气稀薄，必须提供足够的氧气。It is not the sort of thing to try in a jumbo jet. 而这在巨型喷气式飞机上是不可想象的。 Battery technology 电池技术A pile of wood 一堆木头An old materi
7、al may find a new use in batteries 一种古老的原材料可能会在电池上发挥它的新用途。ON A list of cutting-edge materials for high-tech applications, you might not expect to see wood near the top. 在一个应用于高科技的尖端材料目录上，看到木材会名列前茅，你可能不会想到。As any high-school chemist knows, lithium and sodium are chemically similar. 任何一个高中的化学家都知道，锂和钠的
8、化学性质很相似。But engineers would still like to devise a commercially viable sodium battery, because sodium is much more abundant than lithium. 但是，从商业角度来讲，钠资源远比锂资源丰富，所以工程师们仍旧希望能够发明一种能够使用的钠电池。Dr Li and Dr Hu wondered if the problem of electrode damage might be ameliorated by using a more pliant material fo
9、r the frames on which the electrodes are suspended. 李博士和胡博士想弄清楚，如果使用一种构成电池框架的，更柔韧的材料以达到延缓电极的目的，这样是否可以改善有关电极损坏方面的问题。Wood, then, seems a plausible candidate for battery frames. 所以，木村似乎是电池架构的合理备用材料。Cheap storage is the missing part of the solar-energy jigsawfor solar cells themselves are now cheap enou
10、gh to compete with fossil fuels, in sunny climes at least. 便宜的太阳能储存是完善太阳能行业目前所急需的因为与化石燃料相比，现在的太阳能电池已经很便宜了，至少在阳光明媚的天气是这样的。It would be a delicious irony if the jigsaw was completed not by one of these snazzy new substances but by one of the oldest materials around. 如果太阳能行业这个拼图的完美不是来自于这些时尚的新材料，而来源于人们周围
11、一种最古老的材料，那将会是一个极大的讽刺。The origins of war 战争的起源Old soldiers? 古老的战士？The latest research suggests humans are not warriors in their genes, after all 最新研究发现人类骨子里有的不是杀伐EDWARD WILSON, the inventor of the field of sociobiology, once wrote that war is embedded in our very nature. 艾德华威尔森是生物社会学领域的创始人。他曾经写道战争深植于
12、我们的骨子里。This is a belief commonly held not just by sociobiologists but also by anthropologists and other students of human behaviour. 这种观点不仅生物社会学家普遍认同，人类学家以及一些研究人类行为的学者也认同。They base it not only on the propensity of modern man to go to war with his neighbours but also on observations of the way those
13、who still live a pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer life behave. 认同的基础有两点：现代的人们有与邻为敌的倾性；对那些仍然生活在农业社会以前的采集狩猎者的观察结果。Add this to field studies of the sometimes violent behaviour of mankinds closest living relative, the chimpanzee, and the idea that making war is somehow in humanitys genes has seemed quit
14、e plausible. 除此之外，还可以到野外观察一下与人类亲缘关系最为相近的黑猩猩，可以知道黑猩猩有时也有暴力行为。由此，威尔森的观点似乎相当有说服力。It has even been advanced as an explanation for the extreme levels of self- sacrificial altruism people sometimes display. 其实，这种观点早已有人提出过，用来解释自称牺牲的利他主义者有时表现出来的那种极端行为。But a paper in this weeks Science, by Douglas Fry and Pa
15、trik Soderberg of Abo Akademi University, in Finland, questions all this. 本周，芬兰埃博学术大学的道格拉斯弗莱和帕特里克 索德伯格在 科学杂志上发表了论文，提出了疑问。Dr Fry and Mr Soderberg have reviewed what is known about modern hunter-gatherers. 他们负责对被称为现代狩猎采集者的研究做出评论。They suggest that although such people are far from peaceful they are als
16、o far from warlike. 他们说，虽然这些人远不是和平之士，但他们也远不是好战之人。Most who die violent deaths in their societies do so at the hands of fellow tribesmen, not foreigners. 在他们的社会中，多数死于同族人暴力的人，而不是外来者暴力的人，也会施展暴力。Murderers, this research suggests, humans may often be. 论文称，人类可能经常会成为杀人者。But they are not the died-in-the-wool
17、 warriors of anthropological legend. 但是，又不是人类学传奇上的那种马革裹尸的武士。Dr Fry and Mr Soderberg came to this conclusion by scrutinising 21 hunter- gatherer societies from all over the world. 他们两人对全世界 21 个猎狩社会进行了仔细观察，得出了此项结论。They looked at ethnographic studies of these groups, published over the past 100 years o
18、r so. 他们浏览了这些族群的种族志研究结果。Inter alia, these studies recorded homicides and their circumstances. 这些研究发表于大约 100 年以前，特别纪录了杀人行为以及原委。The two researchers classified such deaths into interpersonal events, interfamilial feuds, group-sanctioned executions and intergroup events. 他们把死因分为人际关系矛盾，家庭不和，族群判决的死刑，族群间矛盾
19、。Only the latter could be described as war. 只有后两者称为战争。One of the 21 groups was extremely warlike. 21 个族群中有一个极度好战。More than half of recorded killings perpetrated by the Tiwi, an Australian people, were acts of warand nearly half of all homicides from all causes in all 21 groups involved the Tiwi. 这个族
20、群就是澳大利亚的提维人。研究中纪录了他们的杀戮行为，其中多半数的都属战争行为。21 个族群所有的杀戮原委中近半数的涉及提维族。This group was such an outlier that Dr Fry and Mr Soderberg did their analysis twice: once with and once without the Tiwi. 这个族群极度异常，两人进行了两次分析：一次涉及提维族，另一次没有。Nomads land 游牧民族的土地Excluding the Tiwi, deaths in war were only 15% of the total.
21、排除提维族，战争致死的人数是全部的 15%；Including them, the figure was 34%. 否则是 34%。But even that is still a minority. 但仍然不够充分，These numbers do not suggest hunter-gatherers are going out looking for trouble with their neighbours. 不能说明问题猎狩者跑出去找麻烦。This finding seems different from that arrived at in 2009 by Samuel Bowl
22、es of the Santa Fe Institute, in New Mexico. 这项发现与新墨西哥圣菲研究所的塞缪尔鲍尔斯 2009 年的研究结果不同。Dr Bowles looked at eight modern hunter-gatherer groups, including the Tiwi, and at archaeological evidence concerning 15 ancient ones. 鲍尔斯研究了 8 个现代猎狩族群和 15 个古代猎狩族群的考古证据，得出了结论：He concluded that death in warfare is so co
23、mmon in hunter-gatherer societies that it was an important evolutionary pressure on early Homo sapiens, and might easily account for the emergence of self-sacrificial altruism. 猎狩社会中发生的战争死亡现象非常普遍，变成了早期人类进化的压力。这就轻松地说明自我牺牲的利他主义的出现。Dr Bowless analysis did not, however, separate the Tiwi from the rest,
24、so was influenced by this outlier. 然而，鲍尔斯的分析并没有把提维族与其它族分离开来，因此受到了这种异常现象的影响。Treating outliers with caution is reasonable. 认真对待这种异常现象是合乎情理的。An analysis of modern warfare that looked at the 1940s would come to a different conclusion from one that looked at the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. 有一项分析
25、着眼于 1940 年代的现代战事，得出的结论与着眼于 1950 年代，1960 年代，1970 年代，1980 年代以及 1990 年代的不同。Nor could the archaeological studies clearly indicate which violent deaths were caused by war. 而且考古学研究也不能说明哪一项暴力致死的原因是战争。As Dr Bowles himself says, one cannot always distinguish between deaths due to intergroup violence and that
26、 occurring within groups. 正如鲍尔斯本人所说，总是分不清哪些死亡是族群间暴力所致，哪些是同族群暴力所致。Dr Bowles was not the first to conclude that war was common during human evolution. 战争是人类进化当中的普遍现象，得出此结论鲍尔斯并不是第一人。Early in the 20th century, studies of the Yanomami, who live in the Amazon rainforest, suggested as much. 20 世纪早期，对生活在亚马逊
27、雨林的诺马米人的研究已经进行了大量论证。But that idea was overthrown when, decades later, a researcher called Brian Ferguson re-examined all documented cases of Yanomami warfare. 但是，几十年后又被布莱恩弗格森推翻。These, he found, were overwhelmingly in areas penetrated by settlers rather than in places where the Yanomami dwelt undistu
28、rbed. 他重新研究了诺马米人所有的战事文献。他发现，这些战事都发生在有人迹的地方，而不是诺马米人安居的地方。Something similar happened to chimpanzee researchers. 那些研究黑猩猩的学者们也进行了方式相似的研究。The first big field study of these animals was done by Jane Goodall. 珍古德进行了首次大型野外研究。Her chimps, which live in Tanzania, are often aggressive, sometimes engage in canni
29、balism, and even steal and kill others infants. And they do engage in something that looks like warfare. 她研究的黑猩猩生活在坦桑尼亚，好斗性强，有时会残食同类，偷盗甚至杀死猩猩婴儿，跟战争相似。When a large group of chimps split, for instance, vicious intertribal conflict followed. 一大群猩猩内讧时，就会产生恶性冲突。All this suggests an evolutionary origin fo
30、r some of the darker aspects of human nature. 这些都表明了人性中那些较黑暗面的进化起源。A second study, though, conducted in Congo-Brazzaville by David Morgan and Crickette Sanz of Washington University, in St Louis, came to contrary conclusions. 华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校的大卫摩根和克瑞斯克特- 桑兹在刚果共和国进行了又一项研究，得出了相反的结论：It found chimps to be pe
31、aceful creatures. 此处的黑猩猩是安静的动物。For a while, that confused primatologists. 这又使灵长类学家迷惑不解。The difference between the two populations turns out to be density. 两处猩群的生活差别越来越大。The Tanzanian chimps are crowded together as deforestation around their reserve reduces the amount of habitat available. 在坦桑尼亚，黑猩猩所
32、生活的自然保护区周边地区进行了大量的森林采伐，减少了栖息之地的数量，只能团抱度日。Those in Congo do not, at least yet, suffer in this way. 刚果的则没有。Chimps, then, do offer a useful lesson on the origin of warfarejust not the one that was originally believed. 非洲黑猩猩确实能让人了解到冲突的起源并不是先前的那样。Groups of chimpanzees, like groups of people, will fight e
33、ach other if need be, but will otherwise leave each other alone. 群居的黑猩猩跟群居的人类一样，矛盾激化时也会打架，再不了就是谁也不理谁。Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. 跟人类的猎狩祖先相比，现代化、工业化之下的人是否更加好战，还是不太好战，已经不得而知。The machine gun is so much more lethal
34、 than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless. 机枪的杀伤力比弓箭要更大，但这种比较是无意义的。One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. 有一点是肯定的，近几个世纪来，警力扩大了，带枪的惯例减少了，谋杀率下降了。Modern society may no
35、t have done anything about war. But peace is a lot more peaceful. 现代社会可能没有改变战争，但社会秩序要更稳定了。 Commercial aircraft 商用飞机Bombardier lights a fuse 庞巴迪公司点燃了导火线Canadas new passenger jet threatens an old duopoly 加拿大新型客机给两强垄断集团带来威胁SINCE the late 1990s airlines wanting to buy short-to-medium-haul narrowbody pla
36、nes with 100-200 seats have had little choice but to pick either Boeings 737 or Airbuss A320. 从 20 世纪 90 年代末期开始，想要购买中短途 100 至 200 座窄身飞机的航空公司别无选择只能选择波音 737 或者空客 A320。As orders for such planes have boomed in recent years, aircraft-makers in China, Russia and Canada have been working on new contenders
37、to break this American-European duopoly. 近年来，随着对此类飞机需求的激增，中国、俄罗斯及加拿大飞机制造商们一直致力于研究新的竞争者来打破美欧两强垄断的局面。On September 16th Canadas Bombardier got there first, launching the maiden flight of its CSeries plane. 9 月 16 日，加拿大怕巴蒂公司首先达成目标，进行了其 C 系列飞机的首航。Bombardier is duelling the duopolists because the prospect
38、s for the planes it already makesregional jets of under 100 seats and corporate jetsare not as juicy as those for mainstream commercial airliners. 庞巴迪公司在与两强作斗争，因为他公司所制造的飞机100 座以下区域性飞机和公司商务机的前景并不像主流商用飞机那样报酬丰富。Global passenger traffic is set to grow by 5% a year for the next two decades, reckons Boein
39、g, and airlines are seeking ones that seat 100-200 to fill much of the new demand. 波音公司认为，接下来 20 年，全球客流量预期每年上升 5%，航空公司正在寻找那种 100到 200 座的飞机以满足新的需求。In regional jets Bombardier has enjoyed a near-duopoly of its own, with Embraer of Brazil. 在支线飞机中，庞巴迪与巴西航空公司享有几乎两强垄断的地位。But Japanese, Russian and Chinese
40、rivals are moving in to the market just as operators of regional jets are going for bigger planes. 但是，就在支线飞机运营商需要更大飞机时，日本、俄罗斯及中国的竞争对手正进入该市场。Corporate jets and their owners took a knock in the financial crisis, and their prospects still look weak. 公司商务机及其所有者在经济危机中受到了打击，而且他们的前景看起来仍很渺茫。Although lots of
41、 new metro systems are being built worldwide, Bombardiers other main business, building trains does not look so strong. About two-thirds of the divisions revenues come from Europe, where trains are largely bought with public purses drained by faltering economies. 虽然世界范围内都在建造大众捷运系统，庞巴迪另外一项主要业务，制造火车看起
42、来并非那么强。该部门 2/3 的收益来自欧洲。因为经济衰退造成国库空虚，欧洲大量购买火车。Bombardier is trying to slip in under the radar, not competing head-on with its rivals. 庞巴迪公司试图在雷达下偷偷溜进，而不是与竞争对手正面冲突。The first two versions of the CSeries will have only 100-150 seats, whereas most 737s and A320s sold are 150-200 seaters. 最初的两种 C 系列飞机只有 1
43、00 到 150 座，而大多数出售的波音 737 飞机和空客 A320 是150 到 200 座的。However, Bombardier hopes airlines will be attracted by its planes low fuel consumption20% less than its rivals,it claimsand 15% lower running costs. 但是，庞巴迪公司希望航空公司会被飞机的低耗油特点所吸引宣称比其竞争对手少 20%的耗油量并减少 15%的运营成本。Much of that advantage comes from a new eng
44、ine, the geared turbofan, made by Pratt Intermountain Power Producers Coalition.这一下激怒了当地的风力发电公司，他们正在向政策制定者请愿。这些公司在政客鼓动和政府津贴的诱惑下，在过去的 6 年间投入了数以百万美元，电力产能因此翻了 14 倍。但在今年，随着罕见的冬雪大量融化，涌入俄勒岗州和华盛顿州的河水流域中，风能发电的游说者对政府的出尔反尔大诉苦水。西北及内陆电力联盟的执行经理，罗伯特.卡恩就抱怨道：“你没法相信管理供电网络的人。”The guy in question is the Bonneville Pow
45、er Administration (BPA), a venerable federal bureaucracy that markets power from 31 federal dams in the Columbia river basin. Thanks to monstrous chunks of concrete like Grand Coulee Dam, completed 70 years ago and still the largest hydroelectric facility in North America, the north-west gets more o
46、f its power from hydro than any other region of the United States.卡恩所指的是邦纳维尔电力局，它是一所受人尊敬的联邦机构，管理着哥伦比亚河域盆地31 座联邦水坝所发出电力的市场销售。70 年前建造的大古力水坝，凭借其庞大坚固的建筑结构，至今仍为北美洲最大的水力发电站。而美国西北部水力发电供电量要比美国其它地区都多。BPA managers say near-flood conditions in the Columbia riverand strict laws protecting the rivers endangered
47、salmongive the agency no choice but to disconnect the windmills as it grapples with a large power surplus. Not making electricity is not an option on the river, the BPA argues, because only a limited amount of water can be kept out of turbines and spilled over federal dams. Too much spill dissolves
48、too much nitrogen in the river, which can kill migrating salmon. There is a particular irony in the agencys concern about fish, since the development of the hydroelectric system is largely responsible for destroying the Columbia as one of the worlds great salmon highways.BPA 的管理者认为，基于哥伦比亚河几近泛滥的现状,再加
49、上旨在保护其流域中濒临灭绝的鲑鱼的严格法案，使他们在面对电能过剩,需要消减时，只能将风力发电产生的电量并出电网，除此之外，别无它法。BPA 随后解释道，并不是说非要进行水力发电不可。因为只有额定的水量能流经涡轮机组，注入水坝中。太多的溢水量使水中氮含量过高，导致游入哥伦比亚河的鲑鱼致死。BPA 对于鲑鱼的担忧在人们看来，纯粹是个笑话。作为世界上最大的鲑鱼水域之一的哥伦比亚河，生态环境早已被破坏，而水力发电机组的发展要对此负很大的责任。Be that as it may, in the early morning hours of May 18th, BPA did something it has never done before. It took all the regions wind turbines offline for about five hours and it expects to continue to pull the plug on them for a few hours almost every night until well into July, when enough snow in the Cascades and northern Rockie
