快，点击上方
蓝字
关注并置顶
这
个公众号，一起涨姿势～
给打算真心学习外刊提高阅读能力的宝贝们一个建议：
无论标题看似多么无趣，都要点进来看一看、学一学，因为潜意识里最抗拒的通常就是自己最薄弱的，越是无聊的题材和内容越会提高能力😂
Finance is not the only industry looking for a way to profit （from even the small, unstable quantum computers）
that mark the current state of the art
; sectors from aerospace to pharmaceuticals are also hunting for a “quantum advantage”.
即使量子计算机目前规模很小，也不够稳定，金融业并非唯一一个试图从代表着目前最高水平的量子计算机中获利的行业，从航天航天到制药等行业都在追求“量子优势”。
1.profit在这里是一个动词
2.that mark the current state of the art这里的art指的是工艺、技巧，即代表着当前最高工艺水平的量子计算机
狗最初由狼进化而来，人类发现了这些更温顺的狼的很多用处。例如捕猎、守卫、警戒等，人类与狗的关系有着非常悠久的历史。
Man's best friend is also his oldest. The partnership between dogs and people may go back as much as 40,000 years—long predating any other domestication. And it is based not, as is the
case
with many subsequent domestications, on a human desire to eat the animal concerned, or to consume some associated product such as milk or eggs, but rather on genuine companionship,
albeit
with
a little work- and hunting-related exploitation on the side.
狗是人类最好的朋友，也是人类最久的朋友。人类和狗之间的友谊大概要追溯到4万年前——这比对其他任何动物的驯化都要早。和后来的很多驯化不同，人类对狗的驯化并非因为人类想吃动物或者想吃一些相关产物，比如牛奶或鸡蛋，而是建立在人与狗之间真挚的友谊之上，尽管也涉及到一些与工作和狩猎相关的剥削。
How this partnership got going, though, is debated. In particular, unlike other domestications, which involved groups of people who had taken up farming, the domestication of the wolves that became dogs happened while all human beings were still hunter-gatherers. The two species were, in other words, competitors. Yet they managed to become soul mates.
不过，这段友谊是如何发展起来的？这一问题仍存争议。尤其是，其他动物的驯化和一群开始从事农业的人相关，狗则不同，狗的驯化是在所有人类仍以狩猎采集为生的时期，从对狼的驯化开始的。换句话说，人类和狗本是竞争对手，最后却成了灵魂伴侣。
One popular theory is that the wolves which became dogs acted as rubbish-disposal agents for groups of people, by eating their waste, possibly including their
faeces
. That, though, would be a service more useful to settled farmers than mobile hunter-gatherers.
一种比较普遍的说法是：变成狗的狼充当了部分人的垃圾处理员这一角色，吃人类的甚至可能是它们自己的排泄物。不过，比起居无定所的狩猎采集者，垃圾处理这一服务对有固定住所的农民用处更大。
As she writes in Scientific Reports, however, Maria Lahtinen of the Finnish Museum of Natural History thinks she might have the answer as to how wolves and people
squared
the competitive circle while both species were still hunters.
It was, she and her colleagues suggest, simply a matter of
surplus
calories.
翻译划线句，长按文末小程序码打卡，答案下期公布~
她和她的同事们认为，这只是卡路里过剩的问题。
Dr Lahtinen calculates that, given the large size of prey animals in this environment, and humans' need to eat a balanced diet with plenty of plant matter in it as well as flesh, there would have been a lot of surplus meat around from kills. What better way to use some of it than to feed a few wolf
cubs
to provide entertainment and companionship? And thus, she suggests, were dogs born.
拉赫蒂宁博士计算，考虑到这种环境下被捕食动物的体型较大，而人类需要均衡饮食，需要摄入大量的植物和肉，因此，人类在捕杀猎物后周围就会有大量剩肉。为了利用这些剩肉，有什么比用这些肉喂养几只狼崽来娱乐和陪伴更好的方式呢？因此，她认为，狗就是这样诞生的。
本文节选自：The Economist（经济学人）
发布时间：2021.01
作者：The Economist
