今日主題：Life on the edge 遊走在邊緣的生命
凱妃老師&派老師共同推薦：雅思聽力最好的課外教材：BBC康康精選雅思會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!
建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。
#BBC 六分鐘英語 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://static.iyuba.com/sounds/minutes/1077.mp3
只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，
康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：
中英文稿：
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Alice…
大家好，歡迎收聽六分鐘英語，我是愛麗絲。
And I’m Neil. So Alice, what’s your ideal place to be?
我是尼爾。愛麗絲，你最理想的地方是什麼樣子的？
Curled up on the sofa with a good book in front of a log fire. Last night it was very cold.
拿一本書縮在沙發裡，坐在壁爐前。昨晚太冷了。
Well, for me, lying in a hammock under a palm tree on a tropical beach with a cool breeze. I don’t like when it’s too hot.
對我來說是躺在棕櫚樹下的吊床裡，熱帶沙灘上吹來陣陣涼風。我不喜歡太熱的時候。
Yes, true. Humans don’t cope well with extremes of temperature but some species do. The subject of today’s show is extremophiles– these are microorganisms that have adapted to live in what we would consider to be extreme conditions. For example, living in near boiling acidic water or frozen at the bottom of an Antarctic lake.
沒錯，人類不能應付極端的溫度，但一些物種可以。今天節目的主題是極端微生物，是指可以適應我們所認為的極端環境的微生物。例如，存活於滾燙的酸性水中，或冰冷的南極湖底。
Those do sound like pretty extreme conditions.
這些聽起來都是很極端的環境。
Yes. The thing is, what sounds hostile – or unfriendly – to us, are perfect environments for extremophiles and in fact they wouldn’t survive without them.Now, are you tough enough to face up to today’s quiz question, Neil?
沒錯，對我們來說充滿敵意的環境，對極端微生物來說再完美不過。事實上沒有這種環境，它們無法存活。你足夠堅強來面對今天的問題嗎？
I think so.
我覺得沒問題。
Alright then, here goes: which US National Park is home to geysers – or hot springs that shoot hot water and steam into the air– which have extremophiles living in them? Is it…a) Grand Canyon? b) Death Valley National Park? Or c) Yellowstone?
好的，問題是：那個美國國家公園有間歇泉，也就是噴出熱水，並冒有蒸汽的溫泉，其中有極端微生物存活？a) 大峽谷？b) 死亡谷國家公園？還是c) 黃石公園？
That’s easy - it has to be c) Yellowstone.
很簡單，一定是c) 黃石公園。
OK, well we’ll find out if you got the answer right later on in the show.But, moving on, now, Neil, did you know that extremophiles belong to an entirely different group of living things to other animals and plants?
好的，之後我們再看你回答得是否正確。現在我們繼續說，尼爾，你知道嗎，極端微生物和其他動植物相比，屬於完全不同的生物群。
No. I imagined extremophiles would be like insects, because insects are pretty tough, aren’t they?
不知道。我以為極端微生物和昆蟲一樣，因為昆蟲生命力很頑強，不是嗎？
Yes, that’s true. But remember, extremophiles are microorganisms – they’re really tiny.Let’s listen to Ian Crawford, Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck University of London. He tells us how in the 1970s a scientist called Carl Woese identified a new kingdom of living things that he called archaea– meaning ancient ones. The extremophiles belong to this group.
這沒錯。但要記住，極端微生物屬於微生物，他們非常小。我們聽聽倫敦大學伯貝克學院行星科學和天體生物學教授 Ian Crawford的看法。他會講述20世紀70年代，一位名叫Carl Woese的科學家如何發現他稱之為古生菌的新生物王國。archaea 是指古代的生物。極端微生物就屬於這個群體。
Well, the old tree of life idea basically talked about empires if you like, of plants, and animals, and things that we can see, essentially. We put a great deal of emphasis on large organisms and the traditional distinction in biology between botany and zoology. What it really did was say that’s all wrong– there’s really only three major groups in life: there’s the archaea, the bacteria, and the eukaryotes, which is all of this complex life; and so it kind of put humans into a small corner of the tree of life next to plants and whatever else. It kind of squashes us again after being the centre of the universe.
之前生命樹基本上談論植物王國、動物王國及我們能看到的事物。我們將重點放置於大的生物體，以及傳統地將生物劃分為植物學和動物學的觀點。古生菌的存在說明之前的觀點是錯誤的，生命有三大類：古生菌、細菌和真核生物，即所有複雜的生命。所以人類僅是生命樹的一角，和植物等並列。這讓自以為是宇宙中心的我們再次受挫。
So botany is the study of plant life, and zoology is the study of animal life.But maybe you can explain archaea, and eukaryotes, Alice.
所以 botany是研究植物的學科，zoology 是研究動物的學科。也許你應該解釋一下古生菌和真核生物。
Archaea are a group of single-celled microbes similar to bacteria but different to all other known types. Eukaryote is the scientific term for organisms with a much larger and more complex type of cell– and this group includes all animals, plants, and fungi.
古生菌是指單細胞微生物，類似於細菌，但是和已知的細菌類型不同。真核生物是指具有更大更複雜細胞的生物體，這一類包括所有的動物，植物和真菌。
But why are archaea so important? Why do they need a whole biological domain to themselves, while we humans get squashed up in one domain with plants and fungi?
為什麼古生菌如此重要？為什麼它們會佔據整個生物分支？然而我們人類要和植物、真菌擠在一個分類裡？
Well, Neil, it’s likely they’ve have been living on our planet ever since the Earth became habitable– and that’s billions of years. And they are still living and thriving in a whole range of different environments today.
尼爾，似乎自地球成為宜居的星球起，它們就已經存在了。已經有幾十億的光景了。如今它們依舊在不同的環境中欣欣向榮。
And when something is thriving it means it’s doing well! So tell us about where they live, Alice.
thriving是指某物不錯。愛麗絲，講講古生菌在哪裡存活吧。
Some live in hydrothermal vents – holes in the ocean floor hundreds of metres down where there’s lots of pressure and no sunlight. And mineral-rich superheated water is coming out of the Earth’s crust and then flowing out through these holes.
一些存活於噴汽口，據海平面上千米以下的洞，那裡壓力很大，沒有光照。礦物質豐富的過熱水來源於地殼，然後從這些洞流出。
I see… Well, what about cold-loving ?
我明白了。那喜歡寒冷環境的極端微生物呢？
Well, scientists have found them in hidden lakes trapped beneath ice sheets hundreds of metres thick in Antarctica.It takes days to drill through the ice to reach the water.
科學家在隱藏於南極上千米厚的冰層下的湖水中發現了極端微生物。要花費好幾天才能把冰打穿，夠到湖水。
And how do they survive down there?
他們怎麼存活的呢？
Well, these microbes have found a way of getting energy from certain minerals like iron and sulphur present in the water.
這些微生物會從水中的一些礦物質獲取能量，如鐵和硫磺。
That sounds clever for a microbe – how did they figure that out?
聽上去微生物很聰明，他們怎麼能辨認出呢？
It isn’t a question of cleverness - it’s a question of adaptation. Extremophiles are extremely well adapted to their environment and they appeared on Earth much earlier than more complex life forms. Let’s hear from Nick Lane, Reader in Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London.
這不是聰不聰明的問題，而是適應能力的問題。極端微生物能夠極好地適應環境，他們比更複雜的生命形式更早地出現在地球上。我們聽聽倫敦大學學院進化生物化學的學者 Nick Lane的看法。
The origin of the Eukaryotic cell, it seems to have happened once, it took about 2 billion years before that happened. Then there was kind of a great leap forward at the cellular level, but another billion years went by before we see animals.
真核細胞的起源，似乎是只出現過一次，花費了20億年才出現。之後在細胞方面有了跳躍式的發展，但幾十億年後，我們才看到動物出現。
So, basically, the animal kingdom is much newer than the archaean kingdom.
所以，動物王國比古生菌出現的晚。
Indeed. And now it’s time for the answer to today’s quiz question, Neil. I asked: which US National Park is home to geysers that have extremophiles living in them? Is it… a) Grand Canyon, b) Death Valley National Park or c) Yellowstone?
沒錯，是時候公佈今天問題的答案了。我問你：美國哪一個國家公園有間歇泉，其中生存著極端微生物？a) 大峽谷， b) 死亡谷國家公園，還是 c) 黃石公園？
And I said c) Yellowstone. I must be right.
我選黃石公園，一定是它。
Yes, Neil, you are right - it’s Yellowstone National Park. Every year, scientists discover remarkable new microbes in Yellowstone’s hot springs, with implications for medicine, agriculture and energy, as well as offering clues to the formation of the earliest life on Earth.
沒錯，尼爾，你答對了。是黃石國家公園。每年，科學家們會在黃石的溫泉中發現新的微生物，對醫藥、農業和能源方面產生重大影響，同時也為地球上早先生命的形成提供了研究線索。
Very interesting. Now, here are the words we heard today:
很有意思。現在我們聽聽今天學到的單詞。
extremophiles 極端微生物
hostile 敵對的；不友好的
geysers 間歇泉
microorganisms 微生物
botany 植物學
zoology 動物學
archaea 古生菌
eukaryote 真核生物；真核細胞
thriving 繁盛的，欣欣向榮的
hydrothermal vents 深海熱泉；熱液噴口
And that’s the end of today’s 6 Minute English. Don’t forget to join us again soon!
今天的六分鐘英語就到這裡。別忘了下次再會！
Bye!
再見！
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