(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
One of the drawbacks of researching blue whales is that most of the time you can't see what your study subjects are doing, or how many there are—or even, where they are. Satellite tags have revealed some of their diving behavior and where they migrate. But tags will never give a complete picture of the population at large.
"Because it's really hard to fit a tag on a whale." Ana Širović, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We have 121 tags that have been deployed on blue whales. And we're talking about 16 or so years of field work. So it's not realistic to think we can actually go out and just tag all the animals and figure out that way how many there are."
But Širović is using another method to track the underwater giants—eavesdropping on their songs and calls. (B type call) (That's sped up so you can hear it by the way—much of the sound they produce is outside of our hearing range.)
Širović and her team analyzed more than a decade's worth of blue whale sound. And found that in general, males seemed to be more vocal than females (D type call) Especially at night... perhaps because they prefer feeding by day.
"In a way, it's kind of like they don't like to speak with their mouth full. When they're feeding, they're focusing on that, and when they start calling, that's what they're doing."
And though no one's actually seen blue whales having sex, Širović says this song (A call–B call) may have something to do with it: cause when the whales are getting more in the mood during the year, that song gets more common. She presented these findings at the recent 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
Širović's goal is bigger than simply understanding the way whales communicate. "Ultimately the idea is we'd be able to say, 'oh look, there's X number of calls in this area, and we know that means that that is Y number of animals.'" And thus use sound to better understand the lives of these most elusive of study subjects.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
研究蓝鲸的其中一个阻碍是，很多时候你不知道你的研究对象在做什么，或是数量有多少，甚至连它们在哪里都不知道。卫星标记揭示了一些蓝鲸的潜水习性和迁徙地点。但标记永远不会呈现蓝鲸群体的完整信息。
“因为在鲸鱼身上做标记真的很难。”斯克里普斯海洋研究所的海洋学家安娜·斯罗维奇说到。“我们已经在蓝鲸身上设置了121个标记。这是我们进行了约16年的实地工作的成果。因此，去给所有蓝鲸都做上标记并计算出蓝鲸的数量是不切实际的想法。”
但斯罗维奇现在正在用另一种方法来追踪蓝鲸这一水下巨兽——偷听它们的歌声和叫声。（B型叫声）（因为叫声经过了加速，所以大家可以听到——蓝鲸发出的大部分声音都超过我们人类的听觉范围。）
斯罗维奇团队10多年来一直在分析蓝鲸发出的声音。该团队发现，一般来说，雄性蓝鲸比雌性蓝鲸更爱说话（D型叫声）。尤其是在晚上，这可能是因为蓝鲸更喜欢在白天进食。
“在某种程度上，可以说蓝鲸不喜欢在嘴里塞满食物时说话。它们在进食时会专心进食，开始说话时就只是说话。”
虽然没有人看到过蓝鲸进行性行为，但斯罗维奇说这种声音（A叫声—B叫声）可能与性行为有关：当蓝鲸在一年中处于发情期时，这种叫声出现的次数会更加频繁。斯罗维奇在近期于俄勒冈州波特兰市举行的2018年海洋科学大会上发表了这些研究结果。
斯罗维奇的目标不只是简单地了解蓝鲸的交流方式。“我们最终的想法是，我们能这样说：‘哦，你看，这个地区有X叫声，我们知道这意味着在这一地区活动的是Y类动物。'”这样一来，就能利用声音来更好地了解这些行踪最难以捉摸的研究对象的生活。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. at large 大多数；一般；普遍；
To society at large they are therefore part of the expenses of production.
所以，对整个社会来说，付给他们的报酬也就是生产开支的一部分。
2. figure out 想出；理解；弄清；
We need to figure out a way to settle all this fighting.
我们必须想办法解决这场斗争。
3. eavesdrop on 偷听；窃听；
The size of the data and the computing power needed mean hackers likely won't be able to eavesdrop on conversations at will, analysts say.
分析人士说，数据的规模和所需的计算能力意味着黑客们很可能无法随意窃听手机通话。
4. in a way (用于缓和语气)在某种程度上，在某些方面；
It would be a return, in a way, to a time when older steam engines once worked in the fields.
从某种程度上说，人们可能会回到旧蒸汽机工作在田野上的时代。
