(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Jason Goldman.
Got a minute?
They grow to about 20 inches long and weigh less than 10 pounds. So you might not think they'd be the closest living relatives to elephants. Meet the rock hyrax, sometimes called the rock rabbit or the dassie, common in rocky areas of Africa and the Middle East. They live in groups of up to 80 individuals.
"The hyraxes are a mammal that has a rare phenomenon, which is singing. We know a lot of birds sing, but we don't have many mammals that actually perform a song, a complex song with different syllables coming in bouts. And these bouts are complex. And along the song, they get more and more complex, they get longer, they include more sounds."
Biomusicologist Yishai Weissman from Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University in Israel.
"We've tried to understand the meaning of all this—why a hyrax would waste time and energy and expose himself to predators by singing such a loud song."
Weissman and his team recorded the songs of male hyraxes during mating season, and they analyzed their structure.
"We found that the song is an advertisement for male quality. And in the song, the rarest thing, most interesting element, is the snort. It sounds like this—just like a snort. The whole song seems to be an introduction for these snorts."
In the earliest parts of the song, snorts are relatively rare. But as the song continues, they become more common, resulting in a snort crescendo. The increase in snorts reflects the animals' inner emotional state: as they become more excited or more aggressive, their songs become, well, snortier. And those snorts, according to Weissman's findings, also become louder and harsher. The snorty study is in the journal Animal Behaviour.
Weissman thinks that the snort crescendo, together with the increasing harshness, make the songs impossible to ignore and grabs the attention of other hyraxes—which makes sense. Harshness is a salient feature in the sounds of crying newborns, barking dogs and frightened piglets. Acoustic harshness is routinely used in movie soundtracks to increase tension—and attention.
"It might be that these snorts are what's keeping the listeners listening. A lot of times, the hyrax is just busy eating leaves, and they don't even turn their heads to someone that's singing. The snorts might be what serves as an attention grabber. And getting harsher and harsher might keep the listeners from droning off."
For Weissman, this work isn't only about understanding the nuances of hyrax communication. He believes that understanding why hyraxes sing, and how they construct their songs, could reveal something about the evolutionary origins of human speech and human music—which is no snorting matter.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是杰森·古德曼。
有一分钟时间吗？
它们长到大约20英寸长，体重不到10磅。所以你可能不会认为它们是大象的近亲。来认识一下岩蹄兔，有时被称为岩兔或蹄兔，常见于非洲和中东的岩石地区。它们群居生活，最多可达80只个体。
“岩蹄兔是一种哺乳动物，它有一种罕见的现象，那就是唱歌。我们知道很多鸟类会唱歌，但我们不知道许多哺乳动物也会唱歌，这是一种复杂的有不同音节的歌声。这些音调很复杂。而且随着歌曲的发展，音节会变得越来越复杂，越来越长，并包含更多声音。”
以色列巴伊兰大学和希伯来大学的生物音乐学家伊沙·魏斯曼说到。
“我们试图理解这一切的意义，为什么岩蹄兔会浪费时间和精力，这么大声地唱歌，将自己暴露在捕食者面前。”
魏斯曼和团队记录了雄性岩蹄兔在交配季节的歌声，并分析了这些歌声的结构。
“我们发现这首歌是雄性品质的广告。在这首歌中，最稀有、最有趣的元素是喷鼻息声。这听起来就像是喷鼻息声。整首歌似乎是对这些喷鼻息声的介绍。”
在歌曲的最初部分，喷鼻息声相对较少。但随着歌曲的继续，喷鼻息声变得越来越普遍，并继而达到喷鼻息声高潮。喷鼻息声的增加反映了动物内心的情绪状态：当它们变得更兴奋或更具攻击性时，它们的歌声中的“喷鼻息声”就会更多。根据魏斯曼的发现，这些喷鼻息声也会变得更加响亮和刺耳。这项研究发表在《动物行为》期刊上。
魏斯曼认为，喷鼻息声渐强，再加上越来越刺耳，使得歌声不可能被忽视，而且吸引了其它岩蹄兔的注意，这是有道理的。刺耳是新生儿哭声、狗吠声和受惊吓的小猪叫声的显著特征。电影配乐中经常使用刺耳声音来增加紧张感和注意力。
“可能是这些喷鼻息声让听众一直在听。很多时候，岩蹄兔只是忙着吃树叶，它们甚至不会把头转向唱歌的人。喷鼻息声可能被用来吸引注意力。而越来越刺耳可能会让听众不再喋喋不休。”
对魏斯曼来说，这项工作不仅仅是为了理解岩蹄兔交流的细微差别。他认为，了解岩蹄兔为什么唱歌，以及它们如何构造自己的歌声，可以揭示人类语言和音乐的进化起源，而这可不是嗤笑了事的事情。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。
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. result in 导致；引起；造成；
Food allergies can result in an enormous variety of different symptoms.
食物过敏会引发很多不同的症状。
2. according to 据（…所说）；按（…所报道）；
According to official statistics the disease killed over 500 people.
根据官方的统计数字，500多人死于这种疾病。
3. make sense (行为方式)有道理，合乎情理；
We're all told to save our newspapers for recycling, and the idea seems to make sense.
我们被告知将我们的报纸省下来回收利用，这个主意好像有点道理。
4. serve as 用作；可当…使用；充作；
She ushered me into the front room, which served as her office.
她把我领进了她用作办公室的前厅。
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