評(píng)論
打印
Going back, say, ten years ago, would you ever imagine that you would have been able to tell what colour any dinosaurs would have been?
回首過去，比如十年前，想象一下，你還能辨別出每一種恐龍可能是什么顏色嗎？
No, I mean I think at that time I would have said that it's one of the things we will never know. And so we just focus up and see what we've got here.
不能。我想那時(shí)候我會(huì)說這件事我們永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道。所以我們只是專注起來，看看我們?cè)谶@里留下的。
Using a scanning electron microscope, Mike can find clues about the pigmentation of these ancient fossil feathers.
在電子掃描顯微鏡的幫助下，邁克可以找到有關(guān)這些古老化石特征的線索。
And if we just have a look at this, the required time amount of locations, that's 9,000 times.
如果我們只是看這個(gè)，需要放大倍數(shù)為9000倍。
All these sausage shapes then are melanosomes, and then a living feather.
所有這些香腸形狀都是黑素體，然后是逼真的羽毛。
They would be full of the chemical melanin, which would in fact give the colour.
他們會(huì)充滿化學(xué)黑色素，這些才是真正有顏色的原因。
And these sausage-shaped ones are a sure indicator of a particular kind of melanin, which is the one that gives a black or dark brown colour.
這些香腸形狀的東西是一個(gè)特殊黑色素的標(biāo)志，也是羽毛顯現(xiàn)出黑色或者棕色的原因。
So in some cases like this, the field of views is completely packed with the sausage-shaped ones.
所以在某些情況下，能看見這一塊地方充滿了香腸形狀的物質(zhì)。
So we know this must have been intensely black. If they were more loosely spaced, we would know it was a paler colour, maybe dark brown or even gray.
所以我們知道這里一定是密集的黑色。如果他們是比較松散的排列的，它就會(huì)呈暗淡的顏色，也許是深棕色或者是灰色。
So is it just really the presence or absence of the black pigments that you are able to ascertain?
那么你能夠確定它是真的存在或缺少黑色的色素嗎？
Well, the wonderful thing is there is another form of melanin that gives a ginger colour.
嗯，奇妙的是，還有一種形式的能夠呈現(xiàn)出姜色的黑色素。
And so, and it is packaged in a different shape of melanosome, not this kind of cigar-shaped or sausage-shaped one, but a spherical one, a little ball. Close it up. We get the vacuum going.
所以，它存在于一個(gè)不同形狀的黑色體中，不是這種雪茄型或者香腸型的，而是球形的，一個(gè)小球。這塊地方還有很大的空間。
A sample taken from a different fossil shows what the structures that carried this ginger pigment look like.
從另一個(gè)化石中取得的樣品看起來像姜的形狀。
That's entirely different. This surface looks as if they've taken a melon baller and scooped up lots of little spherical hollows.
這是完全不同的。表面上看起來好像是他們搓球機(jī)在球的表面制作了很多凹槽。
So what colour would these melanosomes have made?
所以這些黑色素造成了什么顏色？
This is definitely ginger. And if you look at this ginger hair from a man of our human being, that's what you see ourselves.
很明顯是姜黃色。如果你看到一個(gè)人的頭發(fā)是姜黃色的，那么你看到的就是你自己。
So is it relatively easy to compare your dinosaur feathers with what's already known about, the feathers of a living bird, to get that comparison to know what colours you were looking at here?
因此通過已知的存活的鳥類的羽毛去比較恐龍的羽毛相對(duì)容易些，這樣你就可以知道你在這里看到的是什么？
We can put the specimens in one after the other. There is the modern one. There is the fossil. Spot the difference.
我們可以將標(biāo)本一個(gè)接一個(gè)的擺放。有現(xiàn)代的，也有化石。觀察它們的區(qū)別。
No difference at all. And who on earth would have thought a dinosaur was close to a bird?
一點(diǎn)差別都沒有。到底誰會(huì)覺得恐龍會(huì)和鳥有相似之處呢？
But here we are, you know, it's kind of proved in the skeletons. And now if you like, proved in the melatonin of the feathers.
但是我們會(huì)，你知道，在骨骼上這已經(jīng)得到證實(shí)?，F(xiàn)在如果你還想了解，可以證實(shí)在羽毛的褪黑激素里。
