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Science and Technolgy.
科技。
Deep-sea exploration.
深海探索。
The age of Aquarius 1.
"寶瓶"時代1。
Inner space is almost as hard to explore as outer space.
探太空難，察深海亦不易。
JAMES CAMERON knows how to make a splash. Literally. On March 25th the director of "The Terminator", "Titanic" and "Avatar" plunged into the Challenger Deep2 of the Mariana Trench, 500km (300 miles) from Guam. When he reached the bottom, he sent a self-congratulatory tweet, and then tootled about for a couple of hours before taking Deepsea Challenger, his lime-green one-man submarine, back up the 11km to the surface.
詹姆斯·卡梅隆知道怎么制造轟動。確實是這樣。3月25日，這位執(zhí)導(dǎo)過"終結(jié)者"、"泰坦尼克"和"阿凡達"的導(dǎo)演來到了距關(guān)島500千米（300英里）的馬里亞納海溝，一頭扎進了挑戰(zhàn)者深淵2 。當(dāng)他到達海底的時候，他發(fā)了一條慶祝自己的推特，接著又嘮叨了大概兩個小時，才上浮11千米將他石灰青色的單人潛艇-深海挑戰(zhàn)者號帶出海面。
This venture certainly scores high in the jaw-dropping department. The only other people to plumb the Challenger Deep-as its name suggests, the most profound point in the ocean—were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, who did so in 1960, in a vessel called Trieste. The latest dive, however, was not very successful on the scientific front. It brought back no specimens.
這次冒險在勁爆度這方面當(dāng)然是拿下高分。此外只有雅克?皮卡和唐納德·沃爾什探索過挑戰(zhàn)者深淵——正如其名，它是海洋的最深點——他倆于1960年駕駛里雅斯特號深海潛艇下潛至此處。然而，這新近一潛在科學(xué)層面卻并不那么成功，因為它沒有帶回任何標(biāo)本。
This was in sharp contrast to a less publicised mission, to the paltry depth of 2.5km, where the pressure is a mere 250 times that of the atmosphere (the Challenger Deep's pressure is four times that). This was organised by Ifremer, France's oceanographic institute. Its three-man craft, Nautile (named after the submarine in Jules Verne's novel, "20,000 Leagues under the Sea"), not only brought back samples, but brought them back alive.
這與一項不太為人所知的行動形成了鮮明對比，后者只下潛到區(qū)區(qū)2.5千米，承受了250個大氣壓（挑戰(zhàn)者深淵那里的壓強四倍于此）。這次行動是由法國海洋開發(fā)研究院（Ifremer）組織實施，派出三人潛艇鸚鵡螺號（以儒勒·凡爾納科幻小說《海底兩萬里》中的潛艇命名），不僅帶回了標(biāo)本，而且個個活蹦亂跳。
That is no mean feat. Because creatures of the deep ocean have evolved to tolerate so much pressure, their cell membranes tend to liquefy when that pressure is released. To stop this happening Nautile's samples were transported in a special chamber called PERISCOP. This chamber, designed by Bruce Shillito and Gerard Hamel, of Pierre and Marie Curie University, in Paris, is a tank with a capacity of 2.7 litres which is capable of containing a pressure of more than 200 atmospheres.
那可真不簡單。因為深海生物已經(jīng)進化得能夠耐受如此高壓，一旦壓力消失，它們的細(xì)胞膜就會溶解。為了不讓這種情況發(fā)生，鸚鵡螺號上的標(biāo)本被置于一個叫做"潛望鏡"的特殊腔體中進行運輸。這個腔體由巴黎居里大學(xué)的布魯斯·希利托和杰拉德·哈默設(shè)計，就是一個容量2.7升的水罐，能夠承受200個大氣壓的壓強。
In 2008 PERISCOP was used to reel in a live fish from a then-record depth of 2.3km. The fish had been living near an underwater hot spring, known as a hydrothermal vent, in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This time, Nautile's mother ship, L'Atalante, had spent three weeks trawling around a similar vent in the East Pacific Ridge as part of the MESCAL project, a collaboration between a dozen American and European oceanographic research institutions. On March 26th she sailed into Manzanillo, in Mexico, bearing a trove of specimens including a dozen or so Pompeii worms. These polychaetes (relatives of the common ragworm) are the most heat-tolerant animals known. They are able to live at 60°C. Biologists would like to understand how they do it.
2008年，"潛望鏡"曾被用來從深海打回一條活魚，2.8千米的深度在當(dāng)時創(chuàng)了記錄。那條魚生活在中大西洋海脊的一個水下熱泉附近，也就是所謂的深海熱液噴口。這一次，鸚鵡螺號的母船亞特蘭大號在東太平洋海脊一處相似的熱泉附近網(wǎng)了三個星期魚，這也是歐美十幾個海洋研究所合作項目"龍舌蘭"的一部分。3月26日，亞特蘭大號滿載著捕魚所獲——包括大約十幾只龐貝蟲在內(nèi)的眾多標(biāo)本，駛?cè)肓四鞲绲穆_尼略港。這些多毛類環(huán)蟲（和普通的沙蟲是近親）是已知最耐熱的動物。它們能在60攝氏度的環(huán)境中生存。生物學(xué)家想要了解它們?nèi)绾巫龅竭@點的。
To help them find out L'Atalante has been fitted with a second chamber, BALIST, into which PERISCOP's catch can be transferred. Researchers on board ship were thus able to study the worms alive for several weeks. For the unfortunate worms, however, Manzanillo was the end of the line. They were killed, frozen and transported back to France.
為了幫助生物學(xué)家找出所以然，亞特蘭大號安裝了一個附加的腔體"十字弓"，"潛望鏡"捕獲的生物可以轉(zhuǎn)移進去。這樣，載駁船上的研究人員就能夠在數(shù)周時間中研究活體蟲子。但是，對于這些不幸的蟲兒來說，曼薩尼略就是它們生命的終點。它們被殺死，冷凍后運回到法國。
Future trophies may be luckier. Ifremer's researchers are searching for a way to keep deep-sea animals alive indefinitely, so that their entire life cycles can be studied. This means building high-pressure, onshore fish tanks. On April 7th the Océanopolis, a big aquarium in Brest, will unveil two such chambers. Each Abyss Box3 , as the contraptions are known, costs
