評論
打印
Recording 3
錄音 3
Skin may seem like a superficial human attribute, but it is the first thing we notice about anyone we meet.
皮膚似乎是人類的外表屬性，這是我們見到任何人所注意到的第一件事。
As a zoologist focusing on the studies of apes and monkeys, I’ve been studying why humans evolved to become the naked ape, and why skin comes in so many different shades around the world.
作為專門研究猿類和猴子的動物學家，我一直在研究人類為什么進化為裸猿，以及為何皮膚在世界范圍內以多種不同的膚色出現。
We can make a very good estimate from the fossil record that humans probably evolved naked skin around a million and a half years ago.
根據化石記錄，我們可以很好地作出估計，人類可能在大約一百萬年前進化出裸露的皮膚。
And meanwhile, they mostly lost their coat of fur. Today, we have a few patches of hair remaining on various parts of our bodies.
同時，他們大多失去了皮毛。現在，我們身體的幾個部位仍殘留著毛發。
But compared with apes and monkeys, we have very little.
但是與猿和猴相比，我們保留下來的毛發很少。
Basically, we turned our skin darker to serve as a natural sun-protector in the place of the hair we lost.
基本上，我們的皮膚變暗了，從而在失去毛發的部位起到天然的防曬作用。
We think we lost this hair because of the need to keep ourselves cool, when we were moving around vigorously in a hot environment.
我們認為，當我們在炎熱的環境中劇烈運動時，由于需要保持涼爽而褪去了這些毛發。
We can’t really lose heat by breathing quickly and loudly like dogs. We have to do it by sweating. So we evolved the ability to sweat plentifully, and lost most of our fur.
我們不能像狗一樣通過快速、大聲地呼吸來散發熱量。我們需要通過出汗來實現。因此，我們進化出了大量出汗的能力，并且失去了大部分的毛發。
Most animals protect themselves from the sun with fur. What we did in our ancestry was to produce more permanent natural coloring in our skin cells.
大多數動物都用皮毛保護自己免受陽光的曬傷。我們在遠古時代所做的是在我們的皮膚細胞中產生更永久的自然色素。
This was really an important revolution in human history, because it allowed us to continue to evolve in equatorial environments.
這確實是人類歷史上的一次重要革命，因為這使我們能夠在赤道環境中繼續進化。
It really made it possible for us to continue along the path toward modern humans in Africa.
確實，這使我們能夠繼續朝著非洲現代人類進化。
For most of the human history, we all had dark skin.
在人類的大部分歷史中，所有人的皮膚都是深色的。
What we see today is the product of evolutionary events, resulting from the dispersal of a few human populations out of Africa around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago.
我們今天看到的是進化事件的產物，這是大約6萬至7萬年前一些人散布到非洲之外的結果。
Our species originated around 200,000 years ago, and underwent tremendous diversification, culturally, technologically, linguistically, artistically, for 130,000 years.
人類物種起源于大約20萬年前，并且在13萬年的時間里，在文化、技術、語言、藝術上都經歷了巨大的多樣化。
After that, a few small populations left Africa to populate the rest of the world.
之后，少數人離開了非洲，遍布世界其他地區。
These early ancestors of modern Eurasians disperse into parts of the world that had more seasonal sunshine and much lower levels of sun radiation.
這些近代歐亞人的早期祖先散布到世界各地，這些地區的季節性陽光更多，太陽輻射水平低得多。
It’s in these populations that we begin to see real changes in the genetic makeup of natural coloring.
正是在這些人群中，我們開始看到天然膚色的基因構成發生了真正的變化。
Today, skin color is evolving via new mixtures of people coming together and having children with new mixtures of skin color genes.
現在，膚色通過新的人群融合而進化，不同種族的人聚集在一起，于是后代擁有新的膚色基因混合。
We can see this in almost every large city worldwide. Not only the coloring genes, but lots of other genes are getting mixed up, too.
我們在全世界幾乎每個大城市都能看到這一點。不僅膚色基因，而且許多其他基因也出現混合。
22.What does the speaker mainly talk about?
22.敘述者主要談論了什么？
23.What had probably caused humans to lose most of their hair one and a half million years ago?
23.一百五十萬年前，是什么導致人類失去了大部分毛發？
24.What does the speaker say protected early humans from the sun?
24.敘述者說什么保護了早期人類免受太陽曬傷？
25.What happened after humans migrated from Africa to other parts of the world?
25.人類從非洲分散到世界其他地方后發生了什么？
