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Set aside romantic sentiment. Sex is a biological insurance policy.
除了浪漫調情，性也是一份生物保險單。
By chaotically mixing their genetic information, animals generate extraordinary diversity.
通過將基因信息雜亂混合，動物繁衍出了特別的多樣性。
In general, the more different the genomes of the partners are,
總的來說，伴侶的基因組差異越大，
the greater the diversity in their offspring and the more likely it is that some of the combinations will survive.
他們后代的多樣性越大，這樣的雜交結合也越有可能存活下來。
Early humans had no inkling of evolutionary theory.
早期人類并不知曉進化論。
But the discovery of a teenage girl with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father shows they were happily participating in the practice.
但是一位少女（她的母親是尼安德特人，父親是丹尼索瓦人）的發現表明早期人類愉快地參與到了進化論的實踐中。
A team led by Viviane Slon and Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany,
由德國萊比錫城馬普進化人類學研究所的維維亞娜·斯隆和斯凡特·派伯領導的團隊
carried out genetic analysis on a fragment of bone, more than 50,000 years old, found in a cave in Russia.
對在俄羅斯一處洞穴中發現的五萬多年前的一塊骨頭碎片進行了遺傳分析。
It came from a girl, aged about13, who seemed to belong to the Denisovans,
這塊骨頭碎片來自于一個年紀約13歲的女孩，她似乎是丹尼索瓦人，
a poorly understood cousin of modern humans who evolved in Eurasia around 390,000 years ago
現代人類的表親，進化于約39萬年前的歐亞大陸，
and then were driven into extinction some 40,000 years ago.
然后在約4萬年前被迫滅絕，人類對這一族系知之甚少。
An analysis of a Denisovan fossil carried out in 2013 revealed that their genes differed substantially from those of modern-day humans.
2013年對一塊丹尼索瓦人化石的分析表明他們的基因和現代人類的基因有著本質上的區別。
Yet what really surprised researchers at the time was the discovery of a little Neanderthal DNA mixed in.
但那時真正讓研究人員驚訝的是他們在其中發現了一些尼安德特人的DNA。
Neanderthals are known to have successfully mated with humans
尼安德特人已經和人類進行了成功的交配
because they permanently inserted some of their DNA into the human genome.
因為他們將自己的的一些DNA永久地嵌入到了人類基因組中。
The discovery that the genetically distinct Neanderthals and Denisovans had also reproduced with one another
基因差異明顯的尼安德塔人和尼安德特人相結合產生了后代
raised the question of whether their interbreeding had been a regular affair.
這一發現也引出了一個問題：他們這種異血緣交配是常態么。
The results of the new study, published this week in Nature, show that,
本周發表于《自然》雜志上的新研究結果表明
instead of having just a little Neanderthal DNA mixed in with lots of Denisovan DNA,
這個少女的基因中并不僅是少量尼安德塔DNA和大量尼安德特人DNA的摻雜，
the girl's remains contain a much more balanced split: 38.6% of the DNA fragments matched versions of genes
她的遺骸中含有很多其他平衡分裂：在她的DNA碎片中，38.6%顯然是屬于尼安德特人基因組，
that clearly belong to the Neanderthal genome, and 42.3% to the Denisovan one. There was no clear match for the remainder.
42.3%屬于尼安德特基因組。剩下的基因版本尚未得到匹配。
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