2023考研英語(yǔ)閱讀繪制大腦活動(dòng)地圖
The Brain Activity Map
繪制大腦活動(dòng)地圖
Hard cell
棘手的細(xì)胞
An ambitious project to map the brain is in theworks. Possibly too ambitious
一個(gè)繪制大腦活動(dòng)地圖的宏偉計(jì)劃正在準(zhǔn)備當(dāng)中，或許有些太宏偉了
NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America s next big science project continues todribble out.
有關(guān)其發(fā)起人心中下一個(gè)科學(xué)大工程的資訊報(bào)道層出不窮。
A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with areport that Barack Obama s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known asthe Brain Activity Map.
2月17日，《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》刊登的一位線(xiàn)人報(bào)告終于泄露了秘密，報(bào)告稱(chēng)奧巴馬政府正在考慮贊助將被稱(chēng)為大腦活動(dòng)地圖的計(jì)劃。
And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project inScience.
3月7日，部分發(fā)起人在《科學(xué)》雜志上發(fā)表聲明證實(shí)了這一計(jì)劃。
The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood.
大腦活動(dòng)地圖計(jì)劃的目標(biāo)是改變?nèi)藗冊(cè)谡J(rèn)知大腦時(shí)采用的度量方法。
At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels.
眼下，神經(jīng)學(xué)的研究處在兩個(gè)斷開(kāi)的層次。
The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has manytechniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-resonance imaging, whichmeasures changes in tissues fuel consumption.
在相對(duì)宏觀(guān)的層次當(dāng)中各個(gè)特征的規(guī)模用厘米來(lái)衡量，有很多技術(shù)可以使用，尤其是用來(lái)測(cè)量組織中能量消耗變動(dòng)情況的核磁共振成像技術(shù)。
This lets researchers see which bits ofthe brain are active in particular tasksas long as those tasks can be performed by aperson lying down inside a scanner.
該技術(shù)可使研究人員找出在完成具體的任務(wù)時(shí)，大腦的哪些部分處于活躍狀態(tài)。
At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research hasbeen done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another,and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed.
而另一個(gè)度量的層次則要求用微米來(lái)測(cè)量各種特征，這一層次的研究很多都是關(guān)于單個(gè)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞是如何工作的、信息在神經(jīng)細(xì)胞之間是如何傳遞的以及當(dāng)產(chǎn)生記憶的時(shí)候神經(jīng)細(xì)胞之間的聯(lián)系是如何得到加強(qiáng)和減弱的。
Between these two, though, all is darkness.
然而，位于這兩個(gè)層次之間的研究還處于一片漆黑當(dāng)中。
It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and themain highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing inbetween.
這就好比當(dāng)你要在美國(guó)尋找自己的前進(jìn)方向時(shí)，手里卻只有一副如下的地圖冊(cè)：上面只顯示各州輪廓、各都市的坐落點(diǎn)、干線(xiàn)公路以及一些社區(qū)街道，除此之外別無(wú)它物。
BAM, if all goes well, will yield plans of entire towns and villages, and start to fill in the roadnetwork.
如果大腦活動(dòng)地圖計(jì)劃進(jìn)展順利的話(huà)，就能得到完整的城市和村落規(guī)劃圖，道路網(wǎng)也將完善。
It will also, to push the analogy to breaking point, let a user look at actual traffic flows onthe roads in question, and even manipulate the road signs, in order to understand howparticular communities work.
它還能使用戶(hù)能夠看到自己備選道路的實(shí)際交通情況，甚至還能通過(guò)操縱道路標(biāo)志來(lái)了解具體地區(qū)是怎樣運(yùn)作的，將腦圖、地圖這一類(lèi)比給打破。
The mappers aim is to find out how nerve cells collaborate to process information.
制圖者的目標(biāo)是找出神經(jīng)細(xì)胞是如何共同處理信息的。
That means looking at the connections between hundreds, thousands and even millions ofadjacent cellsand doing so, crucially, while those cells are still alive, rather than after theyhave been sliced and diced for microscopic examination.
這就意味著要研究成百上千甚至上百萬(wàn)的相鄰細(xì)胞之間有何種關(guān)聯(lián)，關(guān)鍵在于這一研究還要在這些細(xì)胞存活的時(shí)候進(jìn)行，而不是把它們切片后放在顯微鏡下觀(guān)察。
This will require a new set of tools.
要做到這一點(diǎn)就需要一套新的工具。
And the guts of the BAM proposal are that the American taxpayer should provide those tools.
大腦活動(dòng)地圖提案的大膽之處在于它認(rèn)為美國(guó)納稅人應(yīng)該出錢(qián)提供這些工具。
It is thus no coincidence that the lead author of the paper, Paul Alivisatos, the director ofthe Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a materials scientist, not a neuroscientist.
因此，由材料學(xué)家保羅?阿里維薩多而非神經(jīng)學(xué)家來(lái)主筆該提案并非什么巧合。
Dr Alivisatos and his ten colleagues would like their new tools to be able to record,simultaneously, the activity of millions of nerve cells.
阿里維薩多博士和他的10個(gè)同事希望他們的新工具能同時(shí)記錄數(shù)百萬(wàn)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的活動(dòng)情況;
Then, having done the recording, they would like a second toolkit that lets themmanipulate each cell at will, to see what effect that has on the rest of the circuit.
做完記錄后，他們還想要能自由操縱每個(gè)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的第二套工具，以便找出這樣的操作對(duì)細(xì)胞周?chē)泻斡绊?
Finally, to handle the unprecedented amounts of data that the first and second steps willgenerate, they would like a new set of computing hardware and software.
最后，為了處理前面兩個(gè)步驟所產(chǎn)生的空前的海量數(shù)據(jù)，他們還想要一套新的計(jì)算機(jī)軟硬件。
A modest proposal, then.
如此看來(lái)這提案還不算過(guò)分嘛，
And one which is inducing polite scepticism from many neuroscientists who are not part of thecharmed circle, and who fear their subject is about to be sacrificed to a juggernaut.
但它卻也引來(lái)了許多此小圈子外的神經(jīng)學(xué)家客氣的猜疑，他們擔(dān)心實(shí)驗(yàn)被試會(huì)成為這一計(jì)劃的犧牲品。
Such scepticism is reasonable.
這種懷疑是合乎情理的。
The third part of the project, the computer side, should be doable.
該計(jì)劃的計(jì)算機(jī)部分是可行的，不論如何，這只不過(guò)是提高計(jì)算機(jī)的原有水平而已。
That is just a question of pushing harder in a direction things are, in any case, going.
但是前面兩部分你要怎么完成呢?誰(shuí)都不知道。
How you would do the first two, though, is anybody s guessand Dr Alivisatos and hiscolleagues are pretty sketchy about the details.
而且阿里維薩多和其同事對(duì)相關(guān)細(xì)節(jié)也說(shuō)得相當(dāng)籠統(tǒng)。
Thinking big, thinking small
高瞻遠(yuǎn)矚也要低頭看路
What ideas there are draw heavily on the nascent field of nanotechnology.
現(xiàn)在能想到的辦法主要就是利用納米技術(shù)這一新領(lǐng)域，
This is Dr Alivisatos s particular province, and also that of the Kavli Foundation, which existsto advance fundamental research in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscienceand theoretical physics.
這是阿里維薩多的專(zhuān)攻領(lǐng)域，也是美國(guó)科威利基金會(huì)專(zhuān)門(mén)支持的領(lǐng)域。該基金會(huì)的宗旨是推動(dòng)天體物理學(xué)、納米技術(shù)、神經(jīng)學(xué)和理論物理學(xué)等領(lǐng)域的基礎(chǔ)研究，
A brain map would push two of those buttons, which accounts for the fact that five of themanifesto s authors work for institutes sponsored by this foundation.
一個(gè)大腦地圖計(jì)劃就會(huì)涉及到里面的兩個(gè)領(lǐng)域，這也解釋了《科學(xué)》雜志上的聲明人中有五個(gè)在該基金贊助的機(jī)構(gòu)工作這一事實(shí)。
But any successes that nanotechnology has enjoyed so far have been small beer comparedwith the devices that would be needed to interrogate nerve cells, record the results andtransmit them back to base, let alone tell those nerve cells what to do.
但是，和審問(wèn)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞、記錄審問(wèn)結(jié)果并將審問(wèn)結(jié)果傳回大本營(yíng)所需要的設(shè)備相比，目前納米技術(shù)領(lǐng)域所取得一切成果都是些小把戲，就更別指望能用它來(lái)控制神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的行為了。
The protagonists would, they say, build up slowly, using humbler creatures than humanbeings as experimental subjects to start with.
該計(jì)劃的發(fā)起人說(shuō)，他們會(huì)慢慢推進(jìn)，首先使用比人類(lèi)低級(jí)的生物作為實(shí)驗(yàn)對(duì)象。
This was the approach taken by the Human Genome Project, which began with bacteriaand yeast, progressed to worms, flies and mice, and only then tackled people.
人類(lèi)基因組工程當(dāng)初便是采取的這一途徑：一開(kāi)始是細(xì)菌和酵母，再升級(jí)到蠕蟲(chóng)、蒼蠅和老鼠，最后才是人類(lèi)。
But the analogy is not quite a fair one.
但拿它做類(lèi)比還不大合適，
When the genome project started,genomicists already had a basic understanding of how togo about it.
因?yàn)樵诨蚪M工程啟動(dòng)時(shí)，遺傳學(xué)家對(duì)該如何進(jìn)行已經(jīng)有了一個(gè)基本理解，
That understanding was vastly refined and improved by the application of several billiondollars.
這一理解在花費(fèi)了數(shù)十億美元后得到了大大的提煉和改善。
But it was there from the beginning.
但人家一開(kāi)始就有理解啊。
Going from existing methods of recording and manipulating cell activity, which rely on largeelectrodes, often connected to the outside world by physical wires, to the massively parallel,wireless system envisaged by Dr Alivisatos, is a different proposition.
記錄和操縱細(xì)胞活動(dòng)的現(xiàn)有技術(shù)要依靠一些很大的電極，從這些技術(shù)跨越到阿里維薩多博士所設(shè)想的無(wú)線(xiàn)平行體系，相對(duì)基因組計(jì)劃而已，則是一個(gè)不同的命題。
It may be possible. But it requires a leap of faith.
這也許是可能的，但要讓人相信則需要信心的大飛躍。
The next few weeks will reveal whether that faith is shared by a cash-strapped president.
囊中羞澀的總統(tǒng)是否也有這種信心呢?答案將會(huì)在后面的幾周內(nèi)揭曉。
詞語(yǔ)解釋
1.continue to 繼續(xù)
One-off projects will continue to attract capital.
一次性的項(xiàng)目會(huì)繼續(xù)吸引資本。
U.s. natural-gas producers continue to increasesupply.
美國(guó)天然氣供應(yīng)商的供給持續(xù)增加。
2.in particular 尤其，特別
Progress is needed in three areas in particular.
尤其需要在三個(gè)方面取得進(jìn)展。
Unemployment in particular has risen less than once seemed likely.
特別是失業(yè)率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。
3.breaking point 轉(zhuǎn)換點(diǎn);斷點(diǎn)
You were my breaking point.
你是我的突破點(diǎn)。
Achieving this package will stretch the eurozone s inter-governmental decision-making to breaking point.
執(zhí)行上述一攬子方案，將達(dá)到歐元區(qū)政府間政策制定能力的極限。
4.in order to 為了
In order to focus effectively, reverse the order.
為了有效地專(zhuān)注，將工作順序反過(guò)來(lái)。
He arranged the accident in order to fake his own death.
他策劃了這次事故以便造成他自己死亡的假象。
The Brain Activity Map
繪制大腦活動(dòng)地圖
Hard cell
棘手的細(xì)胞
An ambitious project to map the brain is in theworks. Possibly too ambitious
一個(gè)繪制大腦活動(dòng)地圖的宏偉計(jì)劃正在準(zhǔn)備當(dāng)中，或許有些太宏偉了
NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America s next big science project continues todribble out.
有關(guān)其發(fā)起人心中下一個(gè)科學(xué)大工程的資訊報(bào)道層出不窮。
A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with areport that Barack Obama s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known asthe Brain Activity Map.
2月17日，《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》刊登的一位線(xiàn)人報(bào)告終于泄露了秘密，報(bào)告稱(chēng)奧巴馬政府正在考慮贊助將被稱(chēng)為大腦活動(dòng)地圖的計(jì)劃。
And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project inScience.
3月7日，部分發(fā)起人在《科學(xué)》雜志上發(fā)表聲明證實(shí)了這一計(jì)劃。
The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood.
大腦活動(dòng)地圖計(jì)劃的目標(biāo)是改變?nèi)藗冊(cè)谡J(rèn)知大腦時(shí)采用的度量方法。
At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels.
眼下，神經(jīng)學(xué)的研究處在兩個(gè)斷開(kāi)的層次。
The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has manytechniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-resonance imaging, whichmeasures changes in tissues fuel consumption.
在相對(duì)宏觀(guān)的層次當(dāng)中各個(gè)特征的規(guī)模用厘米來(lái)衡量，有很多技術(shù)可以使用，尤其是用來(lái)測(cè)量組織中能量消耗變動(dòng)情況的核磁共振成像技術(shù)。
This lets researchers see which bits ofthe brain are active in particular tasksas long as those tasks can be performed by aperson lying down inside a scanner.
該技術(shù)可使研究人員找出在完成具體的任務(wù)時(shí)，大腦的哪些部分處于活躍狀態(tài)。
At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research hasbeen done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another,and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed.
而另一個(gè)度量的層次則要求用微米來(lái)測(cè)量各種特征，這一層次的研究很多都是關(guān)于單個(gè)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞是如何工作的、信息在神經(jīng)細(xì)胞之間是如何傳遞的以及當(dāng)產(chǎn)生記憶的時(shí)候神經(jīng)細(xì)胞之間的聯(lián)系是如何得到加強(qiáng)和減弱的。
Between these two, though, all is darkness.
然而，位于這兩個(gè)層次之間的研究還處于一片漆黑當(dāng)中。
It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and themain highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing inbetween.
這就好比當(dāng)你要在美國(guó)尋找自己的前進(jìn)方向時(shí)，手里卻只有一副如下的地圖冊(cè)：上面只顯示各州輪廓、各都市的坐落點(diǎn)、干線(xiàn)公路以及一些社區(qū)街道，除此之外別無(wú)它物。
BAM, if all goes well, will yield plans of entire towns and villages, and start to fill in the roadnetwork.
如果大腦活動(dòng)地圖計(jì)劃進(jìn)展順利的話(huà)，就能得到完整的城市和村落規(guī)劃圖，道路網(wǎng)也將完善。
It will also, to push the analogy to breaking point, let a user look at actual traffic flows onthe roads in question, and even manipulate the road signs, in order to understand howparticular communities work.
它還能使用戶(hù)能夠看到自己備選道路的實(shí)際交通情況，甚至還能通過(guò)操縱道路標(biāo)志來(lái)了解具體地區(qū)是怎樣運(yùn)作的，將腦圖、地圖這一類(lèi)比給打破。
The mappers aim is to find out how nerve cells collaborate to process information.
制圖者的目標(biāo)是找出神經(jīng)細(xì)胞是如何共同處理信息的。
That means looking at the connections between hundreds, thousands and even millions ofadjacent cellsand doing so, crucially, while those cells are still alive, rather than after theyhave been sliced and diced for microscopic examination.
這就意味著要研究成百上千甚至上百萬(wàn)的相鄰細(xì)胞之間有何種關(guān)聯(lián)，關(guān)鍵在于這一研究還要在這些細(xì)胞存活的時(shí)候進(jìn)行，而不是把它們切片后放在顯微鏡下觀(guān)察。
This will require a new set of tools.
要做到這一點(diǎn)就需要一套新的工具。
And the guts of the BAM proposal are that the American taxpayer should provide those tools.
大腦活動(dòng)地圖提案的大膽之處在于它認(rèn)為美國(guó)納稅人應(yīng)該出錢(qián)提供這些工具。
It is thus no coincidence that the lead author of the paper, Paul Alivisatos, the director ofthe Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a materials scientist, not a neuroscientist.
因此，由材料學(xué)家保羅?阿里維薩多而非神經(jīng)學(xué)家來(lái)主筆該提案并非什么巧合。
Dr Alivisatos and his ten colleagues would like their new tools to be able to record,simultaneously, the activity of millions of nerve cells.
阿里維薩多博士和他的10個(gè)同事希望他們的新工具能同時(shí)記錄數(shù)百萬(wàn)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的活動(dòng)情況;
Then, having done the recording, they would like a second toolkit that lets themmanipulate each cell at will, to see what effect that has on the rest of the circuit.
做完記錄后，他們還想要能自由操縱每個(gè)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的第二套工具，以便找出這樣的操作對(duì)細(xì)胞周?chē)泻斡绊?
Finally, to handle the unprecedented amounts of data that the first and second steps willgenerate, they would like a new set of computing hardware and software.
最后，為了處理前面兩個(gè)步驟所產(chǎn)生的空前的海量數(shù)據(jù)，他們還想要一套新的計(jì)算機(jī)軟硬件。
A modest proposal, then.
如此看來(lái)這提案還不算過(guò)分嘛，
And one which is inducing polite scepticism from many neuroscientists who are not part of thecharmed circle, and who fear their subject is about to be sacrificed to a juggernaut.
但它卻也引來(lái)了許多此小圈子外的神經(jīng)學(xué)家客氣的猜疑，他們擔(dān)心實(shí)驗(yàn)被試會(huì)成為這一計(jì)劃的犧牲品。
Such scepticism is reasonable.
這種懷疑是合乎情理的。
The third part of the project, the computer side, should be doable.
該計(jì)劃的計(jì)算機(jī)部分是可行的，不論如何，這只不過(guò)是提高計(jì)算機(jī)的原有水平而已。
That is just a question of pushing harder in a direction things are, in any case, going.
但是前面兩部分你要怎么完成呢?誰(shuí)都不知道。
How you would do the first two, though, is anybody s guessand Dr Alivisatos and hiscolleagues are pretty sketchy about the details.
而且阿里維薩多和其同事對(duì)相關(guān)細(xì)節(jié)也說(shuō)得相當(dāng)籠統(tǒng)。
Thinking big, thinking small
高瞻遠(yuǎn)矚也要低頭看路
What ideas there are draw heavily on the nascent field of nanotechnology.
現(xiàn)在能想到的辦法主要就是利用納米技術(shù)這一新領(lǐng)域，
This is Dr Alivisatos s particular province, and also that of the Kavli Foundation, which existsto advance fundamental research in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscienceand theoretical physics.
這是阿里維薩多的專(zhuān)攻領(lǐng)域，也是美國(guó)科威利基金會(huì)專(zhuān)門(mén)支持的領(lǐng)域。該基金會(huì)的宗旨是推動(dòng)天體物理學(xué)、納米技術(shù)、神經(jīng)學(xué)和理論物理學(xué)等領(lǐng)域的基礎(chǔ)研究，
A brain map would push two of those buttons, which accounts for the fact that five of themanifesto s authors work for institutes sponsored by this foundation.
一個(gè)大腦地圖計(jì)劃就會(huì)涉及到里面的兩個(gè)領(lǐng)域，這也解釋了《科學(xué)》雜志上的聲明人中有五個(gè)在該基金贊助的機(jī)構(gòu)工作這一事實(shí)。
But any successes that nanotechnology has enjoyed so far have been small beer comparedwith the devices that would be needed to interrogate nerve cells, record the results andtransmit them back to base, let alone tell those nerve cells what to do.
但是，和審問(wèn)神經(jīng)細(xì)胞、記錄審問(wèn)結(jié)果并將審問(wèn)結(jié)果傳回大本營(yíng)所需要的設(shè)備相比，目前納米技術(shù)領(lǐng)域所取得一切成果都是些小把戲，就更別指望能用它來(lái)控制神經(jīng)細(xì)胞的行為了。
The protagonists would, they say, build up slowly, using humbler creatures than humanbeings as experimental subjects to start with.
該計(jì)劃的發(fā)起人說(shuō)，他們會(huì)慢慢推進(jìn)，首先使用比人類(lèi)低級(jí)的生物作為實(shí)驗(yàn)對(duì)象。
This was the approach taken by the Human Genome Project, which began with bacteriaand yeast, progressed to worms, flies and mice, and only then tackled people.
人類(lèi)基因組工程當(dāng)初便是采取的這一途徑：一開(kāi)始是細(xì)菌和酵母，再升級(jí)到蠕蟲(chóng)、蒼蠅和老鼠，最后才是人類(lèi)。
But the analogy is not quite a fair one.
但拿它做類(lèi)比還不大合適，
When the genome project started,genomicists already had a basic understanding of how togo about it.
因?yàn)樵诨蚪M工程啟動(dòng)時(shí)，遺傳學(xué)家對(duì)該如何進(jìn)行已經(jīng)有了一個(gè)基本理解，
That understanding was vastly refined and improved by the application of several billiondollars.
這一理解在花費(fèi)了數(shù)十億美元后得到了大大的提煉和改善。
But it was there from the beginning.
但人家一開(kāi)始就有理解啊。
Going from existing methods of recording and manipulating cell activity, which rely on largeelectrodes, often connected to the outside world by physical wires, to the massively parallel,wireless system envisaged by Dr Alivisatos, is a different proposition.
記錄和操縱細(xì)胞活動(dòng)的現(xiàn)有技術(shù)要依靠一些很大的電極，從這些技術(shù)跨越到阿里維薩多博士所設(shè)想的無(wú)線(xiàn)平行體系，相對(duì)基因組計(jì)劃而已，則是一個(gè)不同的命題。
It may be possible. But it requires a leap of faith.
這也許是可能的，但要讓人相信則需要信心的大飛躍。
The next few weeks will reveal whether that faith is shared by a cash-strapped president.
囊中羞澀的總統(tǒng)是否也有這種信心呢?答案將會(huì)在后面的幾周內(nèi)揭曉。
詞語(yǔ)解釋
1.continue to 繼續(xù)
One-off projects will continue to attract capital.
一次性的項(xiàng)目會(huì)繼續(xù)吸引資本。
U.s. natural-gas producers continue to increasesupply.
美國(guó)天然氣供應(yīng)商的供給持續(xù)增加。
2.in particular 尤其，特別
Progress is needed in three areas in particular.
尤其需要在三個(gè)方面取得進(jìn)展。
Unemployment in particular has risen less than once seemed likely.
特別是失業(yè)率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。
3.breaking point 轉(zhuǎn)換點(diǎn);斷點(diǎn)
You were my breaking point.
你是我的突破點(diǎn)。
Achieving this package will stretch the eurozone s inter-governmental decision-making to breaking point.
執(zhí)行上述一攬子方案，將達(dá)到歐元區(qū)政府間政策制定能力的極限。
4.in order to 為了
In order to focus effectively, reverse the order.
為了有效地專(zhuān)注，將工作順序反過(guò)來(lái)。
He arranged the accident in order to fake his own death.
他策劃了這次事故以便造成他自己死亡的假象。
