(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Sarah Witman.
(Bird singing) That's a female Northern Cardinal. And here's a female Venezuelan Troupial. (bird singing)
Many people assume that male songbirds are the ones doing the crooning. But more than 660 species of songbirds are known in which the females sing as well. And there are still 3,500 species of songbird in which the female singing status is unknown. Which implies that there could be plenty more female singers to be found.
"We often talk to people, both people who are scientists and ornithologists but also people who are birders and citizen scientists, who say, 'Yeah you know, I have this story where a female was clearly singing.'"
Biologist Lauryn Benedict, of the University of Northern Colorado.
These field reports inspired Benedict and Cornell behavioral ecologist Karan Odom to start the Female Bird Song Project with a group of colleagues in 2017. The goal is to get professional researchers and citizen scientists alike to submit recordings and field notes of birdsong from both males and females.
LB: "And we're hoping to really give them ways to report that and document it so that we can aggregate that information in useful ways."
On the project's website, FemaleBirdSong.org, you can hear various birds of both sexes—and complex duets sung by pairs of songbirds, like these Black Bellied Wrens. (birds singing)
Now Benedict and Odom are asking scientists to consider the existence of female birdsong in their research, even when it's not their primary focus—for example, from studying avian neurobiology to collecting population data for bird conservation. They wrote up their goals in the journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances.
Studying female birdsong is no simple task. Here's Karan Odom: "So the biggest thing is to see the bird, which is number one not trivial. And number two, in the past since birdsong has been thought of as a male trait, it might not be that researchers were always verifying the sex of the bird by finding it and looking at it. So we're asking people to please be aware that females sing and to actually get a look at the bird that you're recording."
These researchers hope that more awareness of female song will lead to better-informed studies that can tell us when and why female birds are singing. And perhaps reveal aspects of avian life that no one has yet considered.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Sarah Witman.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是萨拉·威特曼。
（小鸟鸣叫）这是雌性北美红雀的叫声。而这是雌性委内瑞拉拟黄鹂的叫声。（小鸟鸣叫）
许多人认为这些低声吟唱是雄性鸣禽发出的。但是目前已知有超过660种雌性也会鸣叫的鸣禽。而仍然有3500种鸣禽，其雌性的鸣叫状态仍未知。这意味着可能会有更多雌性鸟类“歌唱家”被发现。
“我们经常与科学家、鸟类学家以及观鸟者和公民科学家交流，他们会说，‘对，你知道，我确定雌鸟真的会唱歌。'”
北科罗拉多大学的生物学家萝琳·本尼迪克特说到。
这些现场报告赋予了本尼迪克特和康奈尔大学的行业生态学家凯伦·奥多姆灵感，他们在2017年与同事启动了“雌鸟鸣叫项目”。这个项目的目标是召集专业研究人员和公民科学家，提交雄性和雌性鸟类的鸟鸣录音和现场记录。
萝琳·本尼迪克特：“我们希望能为他们提供报告并记录的渠道，这样我们就能以有用的方式汇总这些信息。”
在这个项目的官方网站FemaleBirdSong.org上，你可以听到各种鸟儿雌雄两性的叫声——这些复合二重唱是由一对对鸣鸟发出的，比如这些黑腹鹪鹩。（鸟儿鸣叫）
现在本尼迪克特和奥多姆要求科学家在研究中考虑雌性鸟鸣的存在，即使这不是他们的主要关注点——例如，在研究鸟类神经生物学或收集鸟类保护的种群数据时。他们的具体目标发表在《海雀：鸟类学进展》期刊上。
研究雌性鸟鸣并不是简单的工作。凯伦·奥多姆说：“所以，最重要的是要看见这些鸟，这是最重要的，并不是微不足道的事情。其二，以前人们认为鸟鸣是雄性鸟类的特征，所以研究人员不会经常发现和观察鸟类，来验证其性别。因此，我们请人们注意雌鸟的鸣叫现象，在录音时观察一下它们。”
这些研究人员希望，对雌鸟鸣叫的更多了解能引导信息更详实的研究，告诉我们雌鸟鸣叫的时间和原因。这或许能揭示至今无人考虑过的鸟类生活的一些样貌。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是萨拉·威特曼。
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. inspire sb. to do sth. 激励；鼓舞；驱使；
May these stories encourage you, enlighten you, and enrich your soul. But most of all, may they inspire you to see the real value in life.
但愿这些故事鼓励你，启发你，并且丰富你的灵魂。但是最重要的，但愿它们激励你去发现生活的真正价值。
2. write up 把…整理成文；详细写出（所做的事或所说的话）；
They had to do a survey of the island and write up their findings .
他们得对这座岛屿进行考察，然后把调查结果写成详细的报告。
3. look at （尤指专家）检查，察看；
You run the software, you look at the output, you make modifications.
运行该软件，查看输出结果并进行修正。
4. lead to 招致；致使；导致；
In its present form, the law could lead to new injustices.
以其目前的形式而言，这项法规可能会带来新的不公。
