(单词翻译:单击)
Their adaptability makes microbes the ideal companion for our turbulent times.
微生物的适应能力使它们成为我们在动荡时代的理想伴侣。
Microbes evolve in ways and at speeds that would have shocked Darwin and his contemporaries.
微生物的进化方式和进化速度甚至会震惊达尔文和他同时代的人。
Partly because they divide quickly and can have population sizes in the billions, and partly because they often have access to evolutionary tricks unknown to more complex lifeforms – rapidly swapping DNA between individuals, for instance – they have found ways to thrive in extreme environments.
部分原因是它们可以分裂迅速，种群规模可达数十亿，另一个原因是它们通常可获得更复杂生命形式所不具有的进化技巧，比如，个体间快速交换DNA。它们已经找到了在极端环境中繁荣发展的方法。
And, at this historical moment, humans are creating more extreme environments across the globe at an alarming rate.
而在现在这个历史时刻，人类在全球范围内正在以惊人的速度创造更加极端的环境。
Where other animals and plants have no hope of evolving a solution quickly enough to outpace their changing habitats, microbes are adapting fast.
当其他动物和植物无法进化出足够快的解决方案来赶上其不断变化的栖息地时，微生物正在迅速适应。
They bloom in acidified water, and are discovered chewing up some of the putrid chemicals we slough off into the natural world.
它们在酸化的水中繁殖，并被发现可以分解我们排放到自然界的一些腐烂化学物质。
Just as Kohei Oda suggested, for many of our self-created problems, they are proposing their own solutions.
正如小田耕平教授所说，它们正在为我们自己制造的许多问题提出它们的解决方案。
Finding new microbes and tinkering with them in the lab are the first steps, but scientists know that the final leap – into what they tend to call “the real world” or “industry” – can be elusive.
发现新微生物并在实验室对其进行改造是第一步，但科学家们知道，最终将其应用于“现实世界”或“工业领域”可能是一个难以实现的目标。
In the case of plastic-eating microbes, that leap has now been made.
就以塑料为食的微生物而言，现在已经实现了目标的飞跃。
Since 2021, a French company named Carbios has been running an operation that uses a bacterial enzyme to process about 250kg of PET plastic waste every day, breaking it down into its precursor molecules, which can then be made directly into new plastic.
自2021年以来，一家名为Carbios的法国公司一直在开展一项业务，每天使用细菌酶处理约250公斤PET塑料垃圾，细菌酶可以将PET 塑料分解成前体分子，然后直接制成新塑料。
It’s not quite composting it back into the earth itself, but Carbios has achieved the holy grail of plastic recycling, bringing it much closer to an infinitely recyclable material like glass or aluminium.
虽然这项技术并没有将PET 塑料制成堆肥放回土里，但Carbios已经实现了塑料回收的终极目标，使其更接近像玻璃或铝这样无限循环可再生的材料。
Carbios works out of a low-slung industrial facility in Clermont-Ferrand, on the very same grounds as the first Michelin tyre factory.
Carbios 公司位于法国克莱蒙费朗的一处低矮工业设施内，就在第一家米其林轮胎工厂的原址上。
But inside, it resembles less a noxious old factory and more an urban brewery, with processed plastic waste sitting inside great steel fermentation silos.
但在内部，它不像一个有毒的旧工厂，反倒更像一个城市啤酒厂--处理过的塑料垃圾存放在巨大的钢制发酵筒仓里。
There is the sound of liquid rushing through pipes, but no fumes or smell.
管道里有液体流过的声音，但没有任何烟雾或气味。
Dirty plastic from recycling depots sits in bales, ready to be transformed.
来自回收站的脏塑料成捆成捆地堆放着，准备进行改造。
