字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Inbred Songbirds Croon out of Tune / 近親生的鳥兒易跑調~

洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，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。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/2016/20160801sa_mind.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：
Just like humans have to learn to talk, songbirds aren't just born singing—they have to learn to carry a tune. "So in the beginning they just babble." Raissa de Boer, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. "And they learn from a tutor, so they need an example song in order to learn it."
就如同人們必須學說話一樣，鳴禽也並不是天生就會唱歌——它們必須學會唱歌不跑調。“所以，開始它們只是呀呀學語。”Raissa de Boer，是比利時安特衛普大學的行為生態學家。“它們跟從導師學習，為了學會，它們都需要一首典型歌曲。”

She says the example song might come from the chick's father. And over time, the baby bird tweaks that tweet, to make it its own. "And then it takes almost a year until they're fully adult, until the next spring, for the final song to come out."
Raissa de Boer表示，這首典型的歌曲可能來自於幼鳥的父親。隨著時間的推移，幼鳥吱吱的叫聲，最後變成自己的歌聲。幼鳥完全長成成鳥，大約需要一年的時間，直到來年春天，最終的歌曲終於成形啦!

De Boer and her colleagues investigated that song-learning process in canaries, using two groups of baby birds: the first consisted of inbred birds, whose parents were siblings; the second had parents that were. And the researchers found that the songs of inbred birds [sound of inbred birds singing] and those of the other, outbred birds sound… pretty similar to the human ear. "I cannot tell the difference."
Raissa de Boer和同事們利用了兩組幼鳥，調查了金絲雀學習唱歌的過程：第一組是近親繁殖生出的幼鳥，幼鳥的雙親是兄妹;而第二組幼鳥有父母陪伴。研究人員發現，第一組和第二組鳥兒的歌聲對人耳都非常的熟悉。“我不能分辨兩者的區別。”

But computer analysis revealed that the inbred birds sang notes at slightly different pitches—and with tones that were not quite as pure. "So basically they sang out of tune, in comparison to outbred birds." The results appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
但是電腦分析表明，近親生出的鳥兒唱出的哥兒音高不同——音調不純。“所以，基本上與非近親生出的鳥兒相比，第一組鳥兒已經跑掉啦!”該研究結果發表在《皇家學會學報B》

And even though our untrained ears have a hard time telling the tones apart, female canaries seemed to notice. They tended to lay smaller eggs, and fewer of them, when they mated with inbred birds as opposed to the better songsters. Suggesting that the quality of a songbird's genes may be revealed in its tunes.
儘管我們人類未經訓練的耳朵很難區分這兩種音調，但是雌性金絲雀卻能注意到兩者的區別。當與更好的歌手相比，雌性金絲雀和近親交配後，它們下的蛋的數量會減少、同時蛋的體積也較小。這表明鳴禽基因的數量可能會顯示在它們的歌聲中哦！