With all our modern technology, it can be easy to assume that we know everything.
有了现代技术，我们几乎无所不知。
With a few swipes of our finger, any of us can view detailed photos of the surface of Pluto or take a Google Street View tour through Antarctica's McMurdo Station. Truly, the age of mystery is over.
动一动手指，谁都可以看到展现冥王星表面细节的照片，或者通过谷歌地图街景功能到南极洲麦克默多考察站游览一圈。不言而喻，世界保持神秘的时代已经结束。
Or is it? In spite of all our miraculous tech, we're still a long way from understanding even some basic things about our planet. Here are 10 intriguing mysteries still surrounding our world.
果真如此吗？虽然科技先进，但对于地球基本情况的一些东西，我们仍不明白。下面便是10个吊诡的复杂现象。

10.The Unmapped Regions Of Our Greatest Cities
10.大都市在地图上的盲区
The phrase "off the map" conjures images of wild adventure in distant lands—places like the Amazon jungle or Antarctica.
说到地图上没有的地方，人们会想到位置偏远的原始自然地区，比如亚马孙雨林或者南极洲。
In reality, unmapped parts of the world could be closer than you think. Some of the world's greatest cities still have uncharted regions that no one has ever surveyed.
然而在实际生活里，没有在地图上标注的地方离我们并没有那么遥远。某些国际都会仍有一些区域没有被测量过，也因此没有呈现在地图上。
Typically, this is because it's extremely dangerous to do so. The Neza-Chalco-Itza mega-slum in Mexico City is one such place, an extremely deprived, sprawling neighborhood with a limited police presence.
原因往往在于这样做很危险。墨西哥城"Neza-Chalco-Itza"大贫民窟就是其中之一，这里的生活毫无秩序，极端贫困，并且警察数量不多。

Others, such as the Orangi shantytown in Karachi, Pakistan, have been mapped in basic 2-D but lack any of the detail that we'd associate with a map of a typical neighborhood.
其他地方，比如巴基斯坦卡拉奇"Orangi"贫民区，地图上只标明了它的位置，而没有我们想得到的任何其他详细信息。
Other times, the difficulty may come from rapid economic development. In some African and Asian cities, construction is now so fast-paced and rampant that mapping these districts with any degree of accuracy is impossible.
这一难度有时候还来自于经济高速发展。在亚非一些城市，基础建设迅速发展，几乎不可能全方位展现这些区域。
When fast-paced development takes place within a dangerous slum, you might as well abandon all hope of ever actually mapping the place.
当一个充满危险的贫民窟飞速发展起来，压根儿不可能标出它所在的位置。
Our failure to map these regions can have consequences. In 2012, the Nigerian government demolished the historic floating slum of Makoko in Lagos.
这个问题给我们带了一些麻烦。2012年，尼日利亚政府清除了历史上有名的马科科贫民窟——位于拉各斯的水上贫民窟。
Because it was unmapped, its layout, the work of over a century, has now been lost forever.
因为地图上没有标注，这个区域在一百多年里的变迁从此永远消失了。

9.Our Mysterious Unclimbed Mountains
9.人类从未登顶的山峰
In the 160 years since mountaineering became popular, we've traversed most of the world's great peaks. Everest, K2, and Mt. Kilimanjaro have been conquered repeatedly, as have hundreds of others that most of us have never heard of.
从登山开始流行至今，已经有160多年了。这期间，人们跋山涉水，登上了世界很多雄奇的山峰。珠穆朗玛峰、乔戈里峰、乞力马扎罗山不断迎来挑战自我的人，其他成千上百座我们连名字都不熟悉的山也同样如此。
But we're still a long, long way from getting to the summit of every mountain on Earth. The Mount Everest Screening Committee claims that there are "infinitely" more unclimbed mountains than there are climbed ones.
但是人类还远远没有登临地球上所有山峰。珠穆朗玛峰登山资格审查委员会称，人们没有去过的山顶比已经去过的"多得多"。
The only problem is, we're not 100 percent sure which ones are which.
唯一的难题在于，我们并不能十分确定地区别各个山峰。
There is no central database containing records of which mountains have and haven't been climbed. While some are obvious, others are a matter of severe contention.
没有统一的数据库记录哪些山已经被人们登顶。有些山峰明显已经有人去过，而有些则处于激烈争论中。

In the past, bringing back evidence of a successful climb on an obscure peak was hugely impractical.
过去想要从一个隐蔽的山头上带回证据证明这次登山活动成功，几乎无法实现。
As a result, we often have to rely on the word of long-dead people claiming that they'd successfully reached a summit, despite them having no compelling reason beyond "honor" to admit if they'd failed.
最终我们不得不依靠已故登山者的声明，承认他们成功登上过某座山，而只有"名誉"可以促使他们坦白自己的失败。
Then, there are troubles with the records themselves. Many, particularly from Japanese and Korean teams, have never been translated into English or made widely accessible. Many more have never been digitized.
此外，那些记录本身也是有问题的。很多登山记录，尤其是日本和韩国登山队的记录，都没有翻译成英语，大众也无法接触。数字化的记录更是少之又少。
We know that there are mysterious peaks out there that have never been climbed, but their identity is just as mysterious as the mountains themselves.
我们可以确定还有很多山峰没有人登过，但是到底是哪些山却无法知晓了。

8.Unknown Minerals
8.未知矿物质
The list of known minerals on Earth currently stands at around 5,000. That's an insane amount, and you might be forgiven for thinking we've located nearly all of them. After all, a single new mineral turning up in Western Australia made news headlines in 2014.
地球上目前已知的矿物质已有约5000种。这个数量让人惊讶，而你可能以为我们已经基本上掌握了它们的分布情况。然而，澳大利亚西部在2014年就出现了一种新矿物质，这条消息一时成为焦点。
According to an analysis last year by Robert M. Hazen at the Carnegie Institute for Science, we could still have a long way to go before we get the full set.
根据卡内基科学研究所的研究员罗伯特·海森去年的研究，发现所有矿物质还有很长的路要走。
His team used a highly sophisticated statistical modeling system to calculate the number of unknown minerals currently found on Earth. They returned with a figure of over 1,500.
这个研究团队使用一种十分复杂的数据模拟系统计算了地球上目前未知矿物质的数量，总共有1500多种。

This isn't as unlikely as you think. The majority of Earth's mineral species are rare, with most found at five or fewer locations on the entire planet.
这没有你想象的那样不可思议。大部分地球矿物质都很稀少，多数种类出现的地方在整个地球上不多于5个。
Given the sheer amount of land across the globe that's still never been surveyed by experts, it stands to reason that plenty of minerals could have slipped through the gap.
还没有被科学家研究过的陆地面积如此广袤，很多矿物质还不被知晓也在情理之中。
What's interesting about Hazen's figure is that it only includes minerals that still exist and are likely accessible.
海森的研究结果有一点很有意思，他的研究只包括了现在仍然存在和我们能够获取的矿物质。
The models he and his team designed also tracked minerals that have likely been created then lost again over the centuries. The total number of these "lost" minerals could be massive.
这个模型还能追踪过去几百年里出现后便消失不见的矿物质。这些已经"没有了"的矿物质数量可能很庞大。