12。17更新
Oct.2-什么让我们与众不同？
What Makes us Different?You don't have to be a biologist or an anthropologist （人类学家）to see how closely the great apes--gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans--resemble （to have similarity）us.（1） Even a child can see that their bodies are pretty much the same as ours, apart from some exaggerated proportions and extra body hair. Apes have dexterous（skillful，adroitness） hands much like ours but unlike those of any other creature. And, most striking of all, their faces are uncannily（strange,frightening惊异的） expressive, showing a range of emotions that are eerily（supernature,mysterious）familiar. That's why we delight in seeing chimps wearing tuxedos（男士无尾晚礼服）, playing the drums or riding bicycles. It's why a potbellied（大腹便便的） gorilla scratching itself in the zoo reminds us of Uncle Ralph or Cousin Vinnie--and why, in a more unsettled reaction, Queen Victoria, on seeing an orangutan named Jenny at the London Zoo in 1842, declared the beast "frightful and painfully and disagreeably human."
It isn't just a superficial（apparent）resemblance. Chimps, especially, not only look like us, they also share with us some human-like behaviors. They make and use tools and teach those skills to their offspring（descendant后代）. They prey on other animals and occasionally（now and then） murder each other. They have complex social hierarchies（a series in which each element is graded or ranked等级，等次） and some aspects of what anthropologists consider culture. They can't form words, but they can learn to communicate via（by means of） sign language and symbols and to perform complex cognitive（认知的） tasks. Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic（of or relating to genetics or genes） level. When it comes to DNA, a human is closer to a chimp than a mouse is to a rat.
Yet tiny differences, sprinkled（to distribute or intersperse at random） throughout the genome, have made all the difference. （2）Agriculture, language, art, music, technology and philosophy--all the achievements that make us profoundly different from chimpanzees and make a chimp in a business suit seem so deeply ridiculous--are somehow encoded within minute fractions of our genetic code. Nobody yet knows precisely where they are or how they work, but somewhere in the nuclei （a plural of nucleus核子）of our cells are handfuls of amino acids（氨基酸）, arranged in a specific order, that endow（to give；to provide） us with the brainpower to outthink and outdo our closest relatives on the tree of life（a family tree）. They give us the ability to speak and write and read, to compose symphonies（交响乐）, paint masterpieces（an outstanding work of art） and delve into the molecular（simple or basic structure or form分子） biology that makes us what we are.
ape:Any of various large, tailless Old World primates of the family Pongidae, including the chimpanzee, gorilla, gibbon, and orangutan.种猩猩科大而无尾的东半球灵长目动物,包括黑猩猩、大猩猩、长臂猿和猩猩.
gorilla:The largest of the anthropoid apes (Gorilla gorilla) native to the forests of equatorial Africa, having a stocky body and coarse, dark brown or black hair. 大猩猩
chimpanzee:A gregarious anthropoid ape (Pan troglodytes) of tropical Africa, having long dark hair and somewhat arboreal habits and exhibiting humanlike behavior and a high degree of intelligence. It is now considered vulnerable to extinction in the wild. 黑猩猩
bonobo:(产于非洲刚果河以南的)倭黑猩猩
orangutan:An arboreal anthropoid ape (Pongo pygmaeus) of Borneo and Sumatra, having a shaggy reddish-brown coat, very long arms, and no tail.
答案：（1）如果不是他们那些夸张的大块头，以及超出常人的毛发，即使是一个儿童也可以发现他们的身体和我们是极其相似的。
（2）我们在农业，语言，艺术，音乐，技术以及哲学上取得的所有成就构成了我们遗传密码中的每一个微小部分，而正是这些使得我们在本质上与大猩猩不同，即便让大猩猩穿上我们工作服，也只会让人啼笑皆非。
[ 此贴被chyx66在2006-12-21 12:12重新编辑 ]
