(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
Six years ago, the fish ecologist Rodney Rountree was on a skiff in the Peruvian Amazon. He was holding a piranha in his hand...underwater...in a river filled with other piranhas. Maybe, hungry ones. "That thought crossed my mind a little bit. The water was essentially no visibility. So I did worry a little bit about that but there was no other way to do it."
The job he needed to do? "Audition them, for sound production." Because Rountree studies the sounds fish make. His nickname—and the name of his company: "The Fish Listener." So his team would catch a fish, reel it in and identify it. And then Rountree would hold it underwater, near a hydrophone, to capture the sounds it made. Like this one, from a red piranha. (CLIP: piranha sound)
"A lot of people call it a bark. I sometimes thought of it as a honk." The fish make the sound, he says, by pushing and pulling on their swim bladder with the surrounding muscles. Overall, Rountree auditioned 129 piranhas, of four different species. Along with dozens of other river species, like catfish. And he found that he could differentiate individual piranha species by analyzing factors like pitch and harmonics and number of barks.
His colleague Francis Juanes presented the work at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Victoria, Canada.
Rountree also recorded 10 hours of underwater soundscapes, like this one, captured during a piranha feeding frenzy. (CLIP: noisy river) There's a piranha honk, he says, and lots of catfish screeching. Which suggests that, with a bit more study, underwater recordings like these might give us a clearer glimpse of who's doing what, in murky waters.
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。
六年前，鱼类生态学家罗德尼·朗特里乘坐小艇航行在秘鲁亚马逊河上。当时他手里拿着一只从水下捉住的水虎鱼，这条河里到处都是水虎鱼。也许，这些水虎鱼很饿。“这种想法从我的脑中划过。基本上来说，当时河水的能见度几乎为零。所以我的确有些担心，但除此之外别无他法。”
他需要做的工作是什么？“为了声音制作，让鱼儿试唱。”因为朗特里研究的是鱼类发出的声音。他的绰号是“听鱼者”，这也是他公司的名字。他的团队在捕到鱼后收线，然后鉴定鱼的种类。之后，朗特里将鱼放在水中接近水听器的位置，录制鱼发出的声音。就像红水虎鱼发出的这种声音。（音频片段：水虎鱼发出的声音）
“许多人称之为‘咆哮’。我有时认为这是‘鸣叫’。”他说，鱼类通过鱼鳔周围的肌肉推拉鱼鳔来发出声音。朗特里一共录制了4个不同种类的129只水虎鱼的声音。他还录制了鲶鱼等其他河流中数十只鱼的声音。他发现，他能通过分析音高、和声以及咆哮次数等因素来区分个体水虎鱼的种类。
他的同事弗朗西斯·胡昂斯在加拿大维多利亚市举行的美国声学学会会议上介绍了这项研究结果。
朗特里还录制了10个小时的水下环境音，比如这段水虎鱼疯狂捕食时的录音。（音频片段：喧闹的河流）朗特里表示，这段录音里有水虎鱼的咆哮声，还有很多鲶鱼的尖叫声。这表明，随着更多研究的展开，这些水下录音可能让我们更清楚地看到，在浑浊的水中谁在做些什么。
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. be filled with (使)装满；(使)注满；(使)充满；
The room was filled with cases of liquor.
房间里堆满了整箱整箱的烈性酒。
2. cross one's mind (想法)掠过心头，被想到，进入脑海；
It had never crossed his mind that there might be a problem.
他从未想过可能会有问题存在。
3. reel in 收线；绕线；
Gleacher reeled in the first fish.
格里奇收线钓起第一条鱼。
4. along with 与…一起；
Eventually, he was excommunicated along with his mentor.
最后，他和他的导师一起被开除教籍。
