The natural time sense
天賦的時間感
1. One of the most amazing of living things, the honeybee, has recently been shown to possess still another remarkable skill. It has a built-in alarm clock that goes off exactly every 24 hours.
1、生物中最令人驚奇的東西之一是蜜蜂，在最近的研究里它又顯示出它持有的另一種非凡本領。蜜蜂身體里有一個天生的“鬧鐘”，它準確地每24小時循環(huán)一次。
2. Scientists have long known that bees carry a sort of wrist watch inside their bodies. They will return to the same spot, day after day, right to the minute, to feed on sugar-water left for them. To find out how the bees manage to tell time, an unusual experiment was carried out four years ago. Two young German biologists in Paris trained bees to come out for sugar-water every day at exactly 8:15 p.m. The scientists then set out to baffle the bees. When it is 8:15 p.m. in Paris, New York City's Eastern Day-light Saving time is only 3:15 p.m. If the hive were flown to New York between feedings, which time would the bees follow-Paris' or New York's?
2、科學家早已知道，蜜蜂在它的身體里帶著某種手表。蜜蜂能夠日復一日，精確到同一分鐘，返回同一地點去吃為它們準備的糖漿。為了研究蜜蜂如何辨別時間，四年前進行了一項不尋常的實驗。在巴黎，兩個年輕的德國生物學家訓練蜜蜂每天晚上8點15分準時出來喝糖漿。之后，科學家們設法迷惑蜜蜂。當巴黎是晚上8點15分時，美國紐約市的東部夏令時間是下午3點15分。如果蜂箱在兩次喂食之間被空運到紐約市，蜜蜂會遵循哪個時間？巴黎的或者紐約的？
3. So, immediately after a night feeding in Paris, the hive was sealed and rushed off on an air liner. In New York, scientists from the American Museum of National History placed the hive in a specially prepared laboratory in the museum. At exactly 3:15 p.m. New York time - a precise 24 hours after having been fed in Paris - the bees swarmed out of their hive. The experiment proved conclusively that in spite of a 3,500-mile flight and differences in local time, the bees' alarm clocks rang right on their 24-hour schedule.
3、為此，在巴黎進行了一次晚間喂食后，蜂箱立刻被密封，迅速送上飛往紐約的航班。在紐約，來自于美國國家歷史博物館的科學家們把蜂箱設置在博物館特別準備好的實驗室里。在紐約時間下午3點15分整，也就是在巴黎進食整整24小時之后，蜜蜂涌出它們的蜂箱。實驗確切證明，盡管經(jīng)歷了3500英里的飛行，以及不同地方的時間差，蜜蜂的“鬧鐘”仍精確地依照它的24小時時間表運行。
4. As further proof, the experiment was repeated-only this time the same hive of bees had its alarm set in New York and was flown to Paris. There, too. They emerged from their hive exactly 24 hours later for their accustomed feeding.
4、為了進一步證明，該實驗被重復進行，這次，同一只蜂箱的蜜蜂，在紐約設定了進食時間，然后飛往巴黎。這次蜜蜂同樣準確地在24小時后，按它們的習慣進食時間涌出蜂箱。
5. Scientists now believe that many, if not all, living things are born with some type of hidden clock. These clocks are sometimes set by the number of hours of light or darkness in a day, by the rhythm of the tides or by the seasons.
5、科學家們現(xiàn)在相信，即使不是全部，但仍然有很多生物具有天生的某種類型的潛藏時鐘。這些時鐘有時根據(jù)一天中白晝或黑夜的小時數(shù)目設定，有時根據(jù)潮汐的規(guī)律或者季節(jié)設定。
6. One of the most remarkable of nature's living clocks belongs to the fiddler crab, that familiar beach-dweller with the overgrown claw. Biologists have long known that the crab's shell is darkest during the day, grows pale in late afternoon, then begins to darken again at daybreak. This daytime darkening is valuable for protection against enemies and sunlight, and for many years it was thought to be a simple response by the crab to the sun-just as if we were to get a tan during the day and lose it at night.
6、大自然中最非凡的“活鐘”之一就屬招潮蟹，是人們熟悉的沙灘居民。它有著過分增長的螯，生物學家早就知道招潮蟹的殼在白天是黑暗的，傍晚時變成灰白，然后在破曉的時候又變黑。這種白晝黑化是針對敵人和陽光的有價值的自我保護，很多年以來，它被認為是蟹對于太陽光的一種簡單反應，就像我們?nèi)祟惏滋炱つw被太陽曬黑，晚上又會白回來。
7. But when an enterprising scientist placed a fiddler crab in darkness, he was amazed to find that the color of the crab's shell kept ticking off the time with the same accuracy.
7、但是，當一個勇于探索的科學家把招潮蟹放在黑暗中，他驚訝的發(fā)現(xiàn)蟹殼的顏色依然準確的按時間轉(zhuǎn)變。
8. Yet another startling fact was revealed: the crab's shell reached the darkest color about 50 minutes later each day. There was a second clock inside the crab, for the tides also occur 50 minutes later from day to day. Moreover, even when the crabs were taken from the beach and put back in the dark, they continued their tidal rhythm. More research disclosed that a crab from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, reached its darkest color four hours earlier than the one taken from a beach on a neighboring island. The tides on the nearby island were found to be exactly four hours later than the Cape Cod tides.
8、人們還發(fā)現(xiàn)了另一個令人驚愕的事實：蟹殼的顏色變得最深的時間每天推遲50分鐘。顯然在蟹的身體里存在著第二只鐘，因為潮汐進退的時間恰恰也是一天比一天推遲50分鐘。而且，即使把蟹從海灘上帶回來放在黑暗中，它們?nèi)匀槐３炙鼈兊某毕?jié)奏。更進一步的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，來自馬賽諸塞州CAPECOD的蟹達到它最深顏色的時間，比來自于鄰島的蟹早4個小時。同時觀察出，鄰島的潮汐極其準確地比CAPECOD的潮汐晚了4個小時。
9. Ants don't carry calendars around with them any more than fiddler crabs possess real wrist watches. But ants show amazing accuracy as to the day of the year. Each year, an ant nest sends out winged, young queens on mating flights. Hundreds of them may fly out of a single nest in the soil. Last summer, at the crest of my mountain, I watched an ant city prepare to send forth its young queens. At the precise moment that they took wing, a colony of the same species that my wife was watching near the bottom of the mountain, also sent its queen on a wedding flight. There was, of course, no way could the two colonies have checked take-off time with each other.
9、螞蟻不可能隨身攜帶日歷就像招潮蟹不可能帶著真正的手表一樣。但是螞蟻對一年中的特定一天有著驚人的精確判斷。每年，每一個蟻巢都會送出帶翅膀的、年輕的蟻后進行交配飛行。上百個這樣的蟻后有可能從土中的同一個蟻巢飛出。去年夏天，在我家的山頂，我看到一個蟻巢準備放出它們的年輕蟻后。在它們起飛的同一個精確時刻，由我的妻子負責觀察的山腳附近的另一窩同種的蟻族，亦放出它們的蟻后舉行飛行婚禮。顯然，這兩個蟻群根本沒有辦法校對彼此的起飛時間。
10. Entomologist Albro T.Gaul once jotted down in his notebook that a particular species of ant in northern Massachusetts began its wedding flight at a certain day and time. He later learned that another entomologist in New Jersey, 260 miles away, observed a wedding flight by the same species of ant, on the same day, and at exactly the same time! This split-second timing is not always the rule. However, most flights take place within a definite period of time.
10、有一次，昆蟲學家AlbroT、Gaul先生在他的筆記本里匆匆記下，在馬賽諸塞州北部某種螞蟻開始舉行飛行婚禮的準確“日”和“時”。他后來知道，在260英里以外紐澤西州另一個昆蟲學家也觀察到同一種類螞蟻舉行飛行婚禮的時間，竟和他記錄的在同一天、同一個時刻！這種分割到秒的記時并不總是有規(guī)律的�？傊^大多數(shù)的飛行婚禮開始時間在一個確定的時間段里。
11. Birds also have built-in timepieces which send them off on fall and spring migrations. What the birds really have is a clock-like mechanism which allows them to time hours of darkness or light in each day.
11、鳥類也有天生的時間感應器指導它們秋春遷移。鳥類真正具有的是一種“似鐘的裝置”，使它們能從時間上區(qū)分每天黑夜或白晝的小時數(shù)。
12. But what sends birds northward again in the spring? New research by Dr. Albert Wolfson of Northwestern University seems to indicate that the timing of return flight is extraordinarily complex. In the fall of the year the short days and long nights cause the "clocks" in migratory birds to undergo a kind of "winding" in preparation for their spring return and breeding. Then during the late fall and winter as the clock "ticks", certain physiological changes occur in the bird. The length of each day during the winter determines how fast the clock will run, and hence when the "alarm" will ring for the spring migration. The clock continues to run through breeding time, then stops-to be re-wound again the next fall.
12、但是，是什么讓鳥在春天北飛呢？西北大學AlbertWolfson博士的最新研究似乎指出決定回飛的時間是極其復雜的問題。每年秋季，短暫的白晝和長時間的黑夜令候鳥身體里的“時鐘”經(jīng)歷某種轉(zhuǎn)變，為它們春天的返回和繁殖做準備。在之后的深秋和冬天，如同鐘的轉(zhuǎn)動一樣，特定的生理變化在鳥類的身體上表現(xiàn)出來。在冬天里，每一天白晝的長短決定該時鐘的運轉(zhuǎn)快慢，因此“鬧鈴”將為春天的遷徙響起提示信號。時鐘在繁殖期間持續(xù)運轉(zhuǎn)，然后停止，再在下一個秋天復蘇。
13. Scientists are now learning that many of the clocks of nature can be reset, speeded up or slowed down-all for our benefit. Pioneering experiments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research center in Beltsville, Maryland, have shown that plants can be helped to develop faster in less time. By increasing or lessening the hours of darkness in each day, the scientists have been able to turn plant growth off and on like an electric switch.
13、科學家現(xiàn)在知道，從人類的利益出發(fā)，很多大自然的鐘都可以重置、加速、或者減慢。美國農(nóng)業(yè)部在瑪里蘭州BELTSVILLE的研究中心進行了開拓性的實驗，實驗表明人們能幫助植物在較短時間內(nèi)生長得更快。用增加和減少每天黑暗小時數(shù)的方法，科學家已經(jīng)能夠控制植物生長，如同控制一個電器開關。
14. New knowledge about nature's living clocks has practical applications. For man, too, seems to follow daily rhythms. The amount of sugar in our blood stream varies with the time of day, as does our temperature. More of the cells in our skin and muscles divide during the night hours than during the day. By tinkering with the clocks of plants and animals, scientists may learn more about the fascinating way our bodies work.
14、關于大自然的“活鐘”的新知識具有實際用途。人類似乎也遵循每天的時間節(jié)奏。我們血液中的血糖水平以及體溫隨一天的時間不同而不同。我們的皮膚和肌肉里的細胞分裂在夜間比在白天要多。通過調(diào)整植物和動物的生物鐘，科學家們可以更多了解我們身體運作的神秘方式。
