(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Adam Levy.
Who's your favorite superhero? Captain Marvel? Superman? Well, in a minute, you might just change your answer to the Wonderchicken.
(CLIP: "Yes, the Wonderchicken: Strange visitor from this planet. A 67-million-year-old fossil that's helping researchers piece together the bird family tree.")
An amateur fossil hunter dug up this specimen 20 years ago in Belgium. But it wasn't much to look at—just some damaged broken rocks with a few limb bones poking out—that is, until researchers recently decided to peer inside.
"We took these not very promising looking rocks and CT scanned them. And when we did that, we were amazed to discover that inside the rock was a beautiful, nearly complete, three-dimensionally preserved bird skull."
Paleobiologist Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge in the U.K.
The result was so striking that coming up with a nickname for this newly discovered species was easy.
"The combination of the shock and the chickeny nature of the fossil resulted in the name Wonderchicken."
And the specimen isn't just special because of the incredibly preserved skull. The Wonderchicken is actually a record breaker.
"So this is actually the oldest fossil ever found that's clearly a representative of the group of modern birds."
The Wonderchicken walked the earth less than a million years before the asteroid impact that wiped out dinosaurs. In fact, this approximately 400-gram—or about seven eighths of a pound—bird would have been a contemporary of many of the best-known dinosaur species, like Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.
Even though great amounts of evolutionary history can now be deduced by studying the genomes of living species, fossils like this one still play a valuable role. For example, they can help pin down the date of branches in a family tree. The Wonderchicken fits into the bird family tree right around the split between chickenlike birds and ducklike birds.
"So fossils provide irreplaceable information for evolutionary studies, because they provide the only direct evidence we'll ever have for how evolution has actually taken place."
And given the incredible detail in this specimen, the team are hoping that there's still plenty to learn from this fossil fowl.
"So I think there's still a number of mysteries that this fossil is going to shed light on."
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Levy.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是亚当·利维。
你最喜欢哪位超级英雄？神奇队长？超人？嗯，很快你可能就会将答案改成神奇鸡。
（音频剪辑：“对，神奇鸡：来自这颗星球的陌生访客。一块6700万年前的化石正在帮助研究人员拼凑鸟类家族树。”）
20年前，一位业余化石猎人在比利时挖出了这个化石。但它没什么可看的，只是有几块肢骨突出的破损石头，也就是说，直到最近研究人员决定窥视其内部，才发现其意义。
“我们用这些看起来不太有希望的石头进行CT了扫描。扫描时，我们惊奇地发现石头内部有个美丽的、几乎完整的、三维保存的鸟头骨。”
英国剑桥大学的古生物学家丹尼尔·菲尔德说到。
这一发现如此惊人，以至于研究人员非常容易地就给这一新发现的物种起了个绰号。
“这块化石令人震惊之处，结合其内部的鸟类，就有了‘神奇鸡'这个名字。”
这个标本的特殊性不仅仅是因为保留极为完好的头骨。神奇鸡真的打破了记录。
“这实际上是迄今为止发现的最古老的化石，而且其显然能代表现代鸟类组。”
神奇鸡在地球存在的时间，比小行星撞击地球导致恐龙灭绝要早不到100万年。事实上，这种重约400克或八分之七磅的鸟可能与霸王龙和三角龙等许多知名恐龙种类同一时代。
即使现在通过研究现存物种的基因组可以推断出许多进化史，但这种化石仍发挥着有价值的作用。比如，这种化石可以帮助确定家族树分支的日期。神奇鸡处于鸟类家族树中鸡类和鸭类分界附近。
“因此，化石为进化研究提供了不可替代的信息，因为它们为我们提供了唯一直接的证据，可以证明进化发生的方式。”
鉴于标本中令人难以置信的细节，研究团队希望这块鸟类化石能提供大量研究内容。
“因此，我认为这块化石仍有许多未解之谜需要揭示。”
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是亚当·利维。
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. piece together 拼凑出（真相）；
They've pieced together his movements for the last few days before his death.
他们已理清了他去世前几天的活动情况。
2. wipe out 摧毁；毁灭；使灭绝；
The spill could wipe out the Gulf's turtle population.
这次原油泄漏可能会使波斯湾的海龟灭绝。
3. pin down 确定；证实；
It has taken until now to pin down its exact location.
直到现在才确定了它的准确位置。
4. shed light on 使（某事）显得非常清楚；使人了解（某事）；
A new approach offers an answer, and may shed light on an even bigger question.
新的方法提供了一个答案，并且可能让人们对一个更大的问题有进一步的了解。
