1. World Health Organisation¹ declares a public emergency of international concern over Zika

世界卫生组织宣布寨卡构成国际关注的公共卫生紧急事件

1 February

2月1日

In global health, 2016 will be remembered as the year a little known virus made a major impact. It felt strangely familiar, but this time it wasn't Ebola making headlines around the world, it was Zika - a mosquito-borne virus being linked to a huge spike² in the number of babies in Brazil born with brain defects.

因为一种鲜为人知的病毒所造成的重大影响，2016年将在全球卫生方面被人们铭记。这似曾相识，不过此次登上全球头条新闻的不是埃博拉病毒，而是寨卡——一种通过蚊子传播的病毒，大脑存在缺陷的新生儿数量在巴西急剧增加与此有关。

World Health Organisation declared that the cluster of microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders³ were a public health emergency of international concern, it was a rallying cry for the international community to respond.

世界卫生组织宣布小头症及其他神经系统紊乱疾病的爆发构成国际关注的公共卫生紧急事件，呼吁国际社会联手应对。

2.SpaceX demonstrates a big step towards fully reusable space craft

美国太空探索技术公司在航天器充分回收方面取得重大进展

8 April

4月8日

It was an incredible achievement for SpaceX. The first stage rocket of one of its Falcon⁴ 9 launchers, having successfully lofted⁵ cargo⁶ to the International Space Station, managed to turn itself around, bleed off the enormous kinetic⁷ energy it had acquired while its main engines were burning, fly back down to Earth and land vertically⁸ - with balletic precision - on a rather tiny looking robotic barge⁹ floating somewhere in the Atlantic.

美国太空探索技术公司取得了一项令人难以置信的成就。“猎鹰9号”发射器的一级火箭在成功将货物运送到国际空间站后，能够自主转向，释放了主发动机燃烧提供的巨大动能，飞回地球并垂直降落在漂浮在大西洋上的一艘相当小的自动驳船上，极其精准。

3. Portugal is entirely¹⁰ powered by renewable energy for four days

葡萄牙完全使用可再生能源供电四天

7-11 May

5月7日-11日

Moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy is surely the most important engineering and scientific challenge of our age.

从化石燃料转向可再生能源，无疑是我们这个时代最重要的工程挑战和科学挑战。

Portugal's achievement gives governments and energy companies a tangible¹¹ example of how it can and does work, and why they should be investing in solar, wind, wave and other renewable technologies now.

葡萄牙的成就说明这种转变是可行的，它为各国政府和能源公司提供了一个实实在在的范例，也告诉他们为什么现在应该投资太阳能、风能、波浪能和其他可再生技术。

4. New reserves of helium discovered

储氦新发现

28 June

6月28日

In June this year, a collaboration¹² between universities and industry announced that it had discovered a huge reserve of helium gas in Tanzania, using a new exploration technique.

今年六月，一项大学和工业界的合作宣布，他们通过一种新的勘探技术在坦桑尼亚发现了一个储量巨大的氦气田。

5. Confirmation¹³ of the discovery of a nearby habitable planet

确认发现近地宜居行星

24 August

8月24日

The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, has a planet orbiting it not much bigger than Earth. Its "year" is only 11 days. But it's in the habitable zone because Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf¹⁴ star about 100 times fainter than the sun. And there's hot news that a similar star, 40 light years away, may have three planets in its habitable zone.

有一颗大小与地球相近的行星围绕着距离太阳最近的恒星——半人马座比邻星运转。这颗行星的“一年”仅有11天。但因为比邻星是一颗红矮星，它比太阳暗100倍左右，因此行星位于宜居区。另一则热门消息称，40光年外的一颗相似恒星的宜居区可能存在三颗行星。

6. Our last universal common ancestor gets a makeover

对“最后的共同祖先”的认识发生了改观

25 July

7月25日

7. The legacy¹⁵ of a celebrated¹⁶ neuroscientist is contested

一位著名神经学家的遗作引发的争议

7 August

8月7日

In 1953, Patient HM had experimental brain surgery that left him with striking amnesia¹⁷. Decades of subsequent research with HM by neuropsychologist Suzanne Corkin made a major contribution to our understanding of memory.

1953年，病人HM因接受脑部实验手术患上了严重的健忘症。通过对HM进行数十年的后续研究，神经心理学家苏珊娜•科金在人类对记忆的认识方面做出了重大贡献。

Corkin died this year but shortly after, journalist Luke Dittrich published a book claiming Corkin buried inconvenient¹⁸ findings, shredded¹⁹ files, and acted unethically in gaining HM's consent.

科金今年去世不久后，记者卢克• 迪特里希出版了一本书，声称科金掩埋不利发现，撕毁文件，并且用不道德的方式取得了HM的同意。

8. Greenland sharks live for a very long time

格陵兰鲨活得很久

11 August

8月11日

On our increasingly human-dominated planet we can still learn much from the lives of other species. The discovery this year that the Greenland shark lives for 400 years, making it the longest-living vertebrate, puts our hectic²⁰ lives into perspective.

在这个越来越为人类所主宰的星球上，我们仍然可以从其他物种身上学习到很多东西。格陵兰鲨鱼可存活400年，是世界上最长寿的脊椎动物，这一发现让人类重新审视自己忙碌的人生。

9. CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere passes 400 parts per million

地球大气中的二氧化碳浓度超过了百万分之400个单位

28 September

9月28日

10. A bad marriage can lead to an early death

糟糕的婚姻会导致早逝

1 October

10月1日

This research involves a large longitudinal study of emotion in interactions within married couples.

这项研究需要对夫妻互动时的情绪进行庞大的纵向研究。

Scientists get couples into the lab and looking at their stress levels while they have “difficult” conversations, finding that couples that deal with stress with positive emotions like laughter become less stressed, and tend to stay together for longer.

科学家们让夫妻进入实验室，在他们开始“别扭”对话时观察他们的压力水平。研究发现，面对压力时，用大笑等积极情绪缓解压力的夫妻在一起的时间往往更久。

This year they looked at the use of negative strategies such as anger or stonewalling responses to conflict, and found that these predicted health-related changes over time in specific ways.

今年，科学家们研究了对冲突表现出愤怒、拖延的消极策略，他们发现，久而久之这些反应会以某些特定方式预示与健康相关的变化。

11. Arctic and Antarctic sea ice volumes both fall to an all-time low

北极和南极海冰量均降至历史最低水平

17 November

11月17日

12. Scientists modify photosynthesis²¹ to boost crop yield

科学家改良光合作用提高作物产量

18 November

11月18日

Last month scientists at Illinois University made a breakthrough that could herald²² a second green revolution for world agriculture – they improved the efficiency of photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into the biomass that is the source of all our food.

伊利诺伊大学的科学家们上个月取得的突破性进展预示着全球农业将迎来第二次绿色革命——他们提高了光合作用的效率，这是植物将阳光转化为生物量的过程，也是人类所有食物的来源。