字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Dino's Tail Might Have Whipped It Good 恐龍尾巴鞭打之妙

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/…/20151106sa_science.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：
It seems the first resident of Earth to break the sound barrier wasn't Chuck Yeager, after all. He was about a hundred million years, too late.
似乎地球上第一個突破音障的人類不是查克•葉格。他存在於地球誕生1億年之後，也太晚了。

Apatosaurus was a cousin of Brontosaurus, but even bigger—with a 40-foot-tail more than three feet thick at the butt end but no wider than your pinky at the tip. That dainty end made the tail too fragile for clubbing attackers. So what was it for? Maybe this: [bullwhip crack]
迷惑龍是雷龍的表親，但是體型比雷龍更大——其尾巴長達40英尺，尾部厚度超過3英尺，但是尾吧尖端比你的小手指還細。這個雅致的尾巴尖端對於襲擊進攻者來說，太脆弱了。但是其用處是什麼呢?可能是：~

The idea that Apatosaurus might have used its tail like a bullwhip—to scare off predators, communicate or even show off for potential mates—gained traction about 20 years ago. That’s when paleontologist Philip Currie of the University of Alberta teamed with Nathan Myhrvold to create a computer simulation that showed the whip-cracking tail was plausible. Myhrvold is the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures—an invention firm in the Seattle suburbs—where I’m executive editor.
迷惑龍把自己的尾巴當做大鞭子使用——嚇跑捕食者，與可能的伴侶交流或者甚至是顯示自己的本事——這種想法在20年前吸引了人們的注意力。那是，阿爾伯塔 大學的古生物學者菲力浦•柯里和 南森•梅爾沃德合作創建了一個電腦類比程式，表明用尾巴鞭打這是可以理解的。梅爾沃德是高智公司的創辦者和CEO。而高智公司是在西雅圖郊區的一個發明公 司——而我在那裡擔任執行總監。

This week at a meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, Myhrvold, Currie and Dhileep Sivam, also of Intellectual Ventures, unveiled a quarter-scale physical model of an Apatosaurus tail made from aluminum vertebrae and steel tendons.
本周古脊椎動物學會的會議上，梅爾沃德和Dhileep Sivam，公佈了一個1/4比例物理模型的由由鋁和鋼鐵肌腱製成的雷龍尾椎骨。

Give the big end of the model a strong push and pull, and it does this: [audio of model crack]. Our analysis of high-speed video of the tail in action found that the tip moves at more than 800 miles an hour—fast enough to break the sound barrier and create a small sonic boom.
給這個大模型尾部一個強大的推拉力，就會產生這樣的聲音。我們的尾巴在高速視頻中的動作發現，尾端每小時可移動800英里——速度之快足以打破音障並引發小規模的音爆。

A full-size apatosaur whipping its tail in this way could probably have produced a sound loud enough to shatter human eardrums. Which must have really gotten their attention back in the late Jurassic.
成年雷龍以這種方式鞭打自己的尾巴，引發的聲音之大足以震碎人類的耳膜。同時也將人類的注意力轉移到了侏羅紀時代末期。