听力原文

Marrow fat doesn't sound tremendously appetising, but it is hugely nutritious - fuel not just for physical strength but also for a large brain. The brain is an extremely power- hungry mechanism. Although it accounts for only 2 per cent of our body weight, it consumes 20 per cent of our entire energy intake, and it requires constant nourishment. Our ancestors of nearly two million years ago, secured their future by being really rather sneaky.

骨髓虽不是什么美味，但营养丰富，既能增强体力，又能滋养大脑。人脑是非常耗能的生理结构，尽管重量仅为体重的2%，却可消耗20%的能量摄入，并需要源源不断的养分供给。200万年前，我们的祖先正是用这样一种相当卑鄙的方式保障了他们的未来。

When stronger, faster fiercer predators were at rest out of the heat, 'they' were able to look for food. Using tools like this one to obtain bone marrow, the most nutritious part of a carcass, they set in train an ancient virtuous circle. This food for body and mind, meant that larger-brained individuals would survive to breed larger-brained children, capable in their turn of making ever more complex tools, and you and I are just the latest iteration of this continuing process.

那些强壮、迅捷、凶猛的狩猎者乘凉休息时，我们的祖先便伺机而动，寻找食物。他们利用这类工具获得最有营养的骨髓，建立起了远古时代的良性循环系统：脑体积较大的原始人生存下来，相应地繁衍出脑体积较大的后代，这些后代继而能制作出更加复杂的工具，你我不过是这一周而复始的循环过程的终端。

Lots of animals use objects, particularly of course apes, but what sets us apart from them at this moment in our evolution is that, unlike them, we make tools before we need them. And once we have used them we keep them to use again. It's the beginning of the tool box.

能够利用物品的动物不在少数，类人猿就是一典型代表。但在人类进化史的这一点上，能将我们和这些动物相区别的是，我们可以依据需求制作工具，使用过后，我们会保存工具以备不时之需——这就是工具箱的由来。

The human brain then carries on evolving steadily over thousands of years. And what's really interesting, is that our brain starts to become asymmetrical as it gets to grips with a whole range of different functions - logic, language, the co-ordinated movement needed for tool-making, imagination and creative thought - quite unlike the ape's brain, which remains smaller and symmetrical. So what we're looking at in this chopping tool is the moment at which we became distinctly smarter and with an impulse not just to make things, but to imagine how we could make things 'better'.

随后的几千年，人脑稳步进化。有趣的是，随着人脑功能的分化，衍生出逻辑、语言、以及与制作工具、想象力和创造性思维相关的协调运动等，人脑开始变得不再对称，与类人猿小而对称的大脑形成对比。所以，这个工具记录了这样一个时刻，我们不仅拥有了更加聪明的头脑和制作工具的冲动，而且尝试着精益求精。

"This object sits at the base of a process which has become almost obsessive amongst human beings. This object is something created from a natural substance for a particular purpose, and in a particular way, with a notion in the maker's mind of what he needed it for.

“这件工具是人类苛求完美的最初表现。这件物品是制作者依据需要，利用自然物加以创造，为特殊的目的服务，用特殊的方式打制。

Is it more complex than was needed to actually serve the function which he used it for? I think you could almost say it is. Did he really need to do one, two, three, four, five chips on one side and four on the other? Could he have got away with two? I think he might have done so.

那么这件工具的复杂程度是否已经超出所需？我想你可以这样讲。他真的需要在一面炮制一，二，三，四，五次，另一面四次吗？两次行不行？我想他本可以这样做。

I think the man or woman who held this, made it just for that particular job and perhaps got some satisfaction from knowing that it was going to do it very effectively, very economically and very neatly. In time, you'd say he'd done it beautifully but, maybe not yet ... the start of a journey." (David Attenborough)

我想拿着这件特别设计的工具的人，当预料到那些复杂工序将使它操作起来非常有效、省力、灵活时，大概是获得了某种满足感。最终，你会承认他把工具做的很精美，但现在还为时过早……这才仅仅是千里之行的第一步。”——大卫?阿滕伯勒(David Attenborough)

重点讲解

1. accounts for

占…比例

eg. Please send your accounts for the period finishing with 31 March.

请你寄出你截至三月底的账目。

eg. He sent his accounts for the period ending with the last day of May.

他寄来了截至5月底的账目。

2. at rest

静止；休息；安眠

eg. Your body size and composition. The bodies of people who are larger or have more muscle burn more calories, even at rest.

你体型的大小和构成。大块头或者肌肉较多的人消耗更多的卡路里，即使在休息的时候。

eg. We are not at rest; we are on a journey, our life is a movement, a tendency, a steady, ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal.

我们不是在休息，我们在旅途中。 生命是一种运动，一种趋势，一个稳步、持续的通往一个未知目标的过程。

3. get away with

侥幸成功，侥幸逃脱

eg. If the UN fails yet again, the message to every tyrant and repressive government will be clear: if you want to kill your own people with impunity, you will probably get away with it.

如若联合国对此再置之不理，那就是给了那些专治型和压迫型政府一个清晰的信号：即使你想屠杀自己子民而又不受到惩罚，也不会有人追究。

eg. Neat trick if you can get away with it!

干净利落的把戏，如果你能得以逃脱的话！