《中英對照讀新聞》Global warming "could make us shorter" 全球暖化「可能使我們變矮」 …詳全文
◎陳成良
Global warming could make humans shorter, warn scientists who claim to have found evidence that it caused the world’s first horses to shrunk nearly 50 million years ago.
科學家警告,全球暖化可能使人類變矮。科學家宣稱已找到證據,顯示近5000萬年前全球暖化曾讓世界上最早的馬體型變小。
In fact, a team from the universities of Florida and Nebraska says it has found a link between the Earth heating up and the size of mammals -- horses, in this case, the last time the world heated up.
事實上,來自佛羅里達州和內布拉斯加州大學的一個研究團隊稱,他們找到了地球變暖和哺乳動物體型之間的關係。在此一案例中,馬變矮的現象是上一次全球變暖時發生的。
The scientists used fossils to follow the evolution of horses from their earliest appearance 56 million years ago.
科學家用化石來追溯馬從5600萬年前最早出現至今的進化歷程。
As temperatures went up their size went down, and vice versa; at one point they were as small as a house cat, said Dr Jonathan Bloch, curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History, was quoted by the "Daily Mail" as saying.
隨著氣溫上升,馬體型變小,反之馬的個頭就變大。每日郵報援引佛羅里達自然歷史博物館館長強納森.布洛赫博士的話說,牠們曾一度像家貓那麼小。