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海底惊现巨大水母对人类的启示
添加时间:2019-08-13 12:02:32 浏览次数: 作者:未知
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  • Surprised by a giant jellyfish

    海底惊现巨大水母对人类的启示

    Nothing underscores the otherworldliness of the sea quite like the jellyfish. Balletic in its strange clench-and-flex propulsion through water, a jellyfish's alien parachute appears impervious1 to the laws of motion as it flits and glides2. One can only imagine how dislocating it must have been for a pair of divers3 off the coast of Cornwall in the UK this week to turn suddenly from examining slippery fronds4 of kelp to find themselves floating face-to-face with a ginormous tentacled5 sea medusa.

    没有什么比水母更能体现海洋的奇幻和魔力。水母在海水中的推进奇特而怪异,一张一合,仿佛在跳着芭蕾舞,诡奇的伞状体似乎不受制于力学定律,在水中轻盈地飞掠和滑动。最近,英国康沃尔海岸的两名潜水员在滑溜溜的海带中穿行时,突然在漂浮中发现自己正与这样一只张牙舞爪的海中美杜莎撞个正着。

    The two divers, Dan Abbott and Lizzie Daly, were filming a series of aquatic6 experiences for a social-media fundraising project, Wild Ocean Week, when the unexpected encounter occurred. A photo (taken by Abbott) of Daly swimming alongside the outsized jellyfish quickly went viral. What's so striking about the image isn't only the scale of the sea creature, but the collision of worlds that the photo poignantly7 captures. The clash of textures8 between the fully wet-suited and snorkel-sucking Daly, rubber masked and artificially finned9, and the fragile beauty and effortless grace of the diaphanous10 sea beast, accentuates11 how near yet distant our existence is from those with whom we share our world.

    这两名潜水员,阿博特(Dan Abbott)和戴利(Lizzie Daly),当时正在为一个名为“野生海洋周”(Wild Ocean Week)的社交媒体众筹项目拍摄一系列照片,捕捉海洋里的浮光幻影,就在这时,意外的“邂逅”发生了。这张照片拍摄到了戴利和超大水母共游的瞬间,随即在网上走红而疯传。惊人之处不仅在于这只水母的巨型体格,还在于照片神奇地捕捉到了两个世界的碰撞。戴利身着全套潜水服,嘴里含着呼吸管,头戴橡胶面具,脚蹬人工鳍。水母则呈现出一种脆弱的美丽,通体透明,姿态轻松优雅。两个物种质地上的冲突彰显出人类与我们共享同一地球的生物是多么的接近,同时又是多么的疏远。

    Still, even in the strangest of shapes and those furthest removed from our own experience, we are capable of glimpsing a semblance12 of ourselves. "A jellyfish, if you watch it long enough," the writer Ali Benjamin memorably13 opens her children's novel The Thing About Jellyfish, "begins to look like a heart beating... It's their pulse, the way they contract swiftly, then release. Like a ghost heart – a heart you can see right through, right into some other world where everything you ever lost has gone to hide." Ingenious shapeshifters (some are known to morph in order to fool predators), jellyfish are like living lava14 lamps or fluttering Rorschach tests; the way we perceive their almost amorphousness15 says more about who we are than what they are. They're the abstract art of the ocean.

    然而,即使是这种形状最怪异、最陌生的生物,我们也能够在惊鸿一瞥中照见我们人类自己的影子。“水母,如果你看的时间够长,”作家艾莉·本杰明(Ali Benjamin)在她的儿童小说《水母的那些事》(the Thing About Jellyfish)的开篇中写道,“它开始看起来像一颗跳动的心脏……它们的脉搏,迅速收缩,然后释放。就像一颗幽灵般的心——一颗你可以看穿的心,一颗你可以追随着到达一个彼岸世界的心,而在这个世界你所失落的一切都隐匿于此。水母是一种巧妙的变形者(有些变形是为了愚弄捕食者),有时像生命涌动的火山熔岩之灯,有时又像漂浮的水墨画。我们对水母模糊的认知,更好地说明了我们自己是谁,而不是水母它们是什么。水母是属于海洋世界的抽象艺术。

    Abbott's photo, which draws us into its mystery, recalls the power of a late painting by J M W Turner, Sunrise with Sea Monsters. Unknown to scholars until half a century after Turner's death in 1851, when it was discovered by chance in the basement of London's National Gallery in 1906, the large oil-on-canvas pulsates16 with the same pink golds and luminous17 peachiness vibrating from the jumbo jellyfish that Daly and Abbot encountered.

    阿博特拍摄的这幅照片将我们带入神奇秘境,使人们联想到英国19世纪风景画家威廉·特纳晚期的画作《日出与海怪》(Sunrise with Sea Monsters)。特纳生前这幅作品不为学者所知,他1851年去世,半个世纪后的1906年,人们才在伦敦国家美术馆的地库偶然发现了他这幅作品。

    Anticipating non-figurative art of the ensuing century, Turner's unfinished painting dares observers to be certain of what, exactly, it is they think they see, struggling to take form amid so much muscular light. Critics remain divided over whether the turbulent dawn depicted18 by the artist is alive with mythic dragons, with workaday fish, or with anything other than sloshing waves designed to churn up the imagination. Or perhaps, like the jellyfish itself, Turner's painting is a pulsing mirror in which we perceive who and how we are as we squidge across the universe: joyous19 or scared, lost or found, imperilled or free.

    特纳这幅未完成的画作预测到了下一个世纪出现的非具象艺术,此画挑战观赏者去表达自我的视觉认识,确切地说,是要让观画者在画作强烈的光线中尽力去发现他们自认为是某个生物的东西。这位艺术家笔下黎明时分波涛汹涌大海中的生物到底是是神话中的龙、普通的鱼?还是只为了激起观画者天马行空想象的波浪之外的任何东西?至今评论家们仍然意见不一。或许,就像水母本身一样,特纳的画作就像一面跳动的镜子,让我们在大千世界蹒跚前行时可以用来照视自己,让我们感知自己是谁,感知自己是如何的生存:是快乐还是忧心忡忡?是自我迷失还是自我已寻回?是身处危难之中还是身心均自由?

     11级    双语 


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    1 impervious [ɪmˈpɜ:viəs] 2ynyU   第9级
    adj.不能渗透的,不能穿过的,不易伤害的
    参考例句:
    • He was completely impervious to criticism. 他对批评毫不在乎。
    • This material is impervious to gases and liquids. 气体和液体都透不过这种物质。
    2 glides [ɡlaidz] 31de940e5df0febeda159e69e005a0c9   第7级
    n.滑行( glide的名词复数 );滑音;音渡;过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔
    参考例句:
    • The new dance consists of a series of glides. 这种新舞蹈中有一连串的滑步。 来自《简明英汉词典》
    • The stately swan glides gracefully on the pond. 天鹅在池面上优美地游动。 来自《简明英汉词典》
    3 divers [ˈdaɪvəz] hu9z23   第12级
    adj.不同的;种种的
    参考例句:
    • He chose divers of them, who were asked to accompany him. 他选择他们当中的几个人,要他们和他作伴。
    • Two divers work together while a standby diver remains on the surface. 两名潜水员协同工作,同时有一名候补潜水员留在水面上。
    4 fronds [frɔndz] f5152cd32d7f60e88e3dfd36fcdfbfa8   第12级
    n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 )
    参考例句:
    • You can pleat palm fronds to make huts, umbrellas and baskets. 人们可以把棕榈叶折叠起来盖棚屋,制伞,编篮子。 来自百科语句
    • When these breezes reached the platform the palm-fronds would whisper. 微风吹到平台时,棕榈叶片发出簌簌的低吟。 来自辞典例句
    5 tentacled ['tentəkld] dcde41df7658e58902ab39450619b761   第11级
    有触角[触手]的
    参考例句:
    6 aquatic [əˈkwætɪk] mvXzk   第8级
    adj.水生的,水栖的
    参考例句:
    • Aquatic sports include swimming and rowing. 水上运动包括游泳和划船。
    • We visited an aquatic city in Italy. 我们在意大利访问过一个水上城市。
    7 poignantly [] ca9ab097e4c5dac69066957c74ed5da6   第10级
    参考例句:
    • His story is told poignantly in the film, A Beautiful Mind, now showing here. 以他的故事拍成的电影《美丽境界》,正在本地上映。
    8 textures [ˈtekstʃəz] c5e62798e528da9080811018cbb27cd3   第7级
    n.手感( texture的名词复数 );质感;口感;(音乐或文学的)谐和统一感
    参考例句:
    • I'm crazy about fabrics textures and colors and designs. 我喜欢各式各样的纺织物--对它的质地,色彩到花纹图案--简直是入了迷。 来自辞典例句
    • Let me clear up the point about the textures. 让我明确了一点有关的纹理。 来自互联网
    9 finned [fɪnd] 98299c034f0436fa10b3a2d51549f312   第10级
    adj.有鳍的,有鳍状物的
    参考例句:
    • The cylinder head is heavily finned for strength. 汽缸头附有许多突片以增加强度。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
    • Auth imagines that not all the lobe-finned fish were pleased. 奥斯想象那时并非所有的总鳍鱼在水里都很快活。 来自互联网
    10 diaphanous [daɪˈæfənəs] uvdxK   第10级
    adj.(布)精致的,半透明的
    参考例句:
    • She was wearing a dress of diaphanous silk. 她穿着一件薄如蝉翼的绸服。
    • We have only a diaphanous hope of success. 我们只有隐约的成功希望。
    11 accentuates [ækˈsentʃu:ˌeɪts] e4b33fa9b42331305ce25fbde1d8b3ba   第9级
    v.重读( accentuate的第三人称单数 );使突出;使恶化;加重音符号于
    参考例句:
    • The dark frame accentuates the brightness of the picture. 深色画框更显出画的明亮色彩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
    • Her sunburnt skin accentuates the fairness of her hair. 她那晒黑了的皮肤突出了她的一头金发。 来自《简明英汉词典》
    12 semblance [ˈsembləns] Szcwt   第9级
    n.外貌,外表
    参考例句:
    • Her semblance of anger frightened the children. 她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
    • Those clouds have the semblance of a large head. 那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。
    13 memorably ['memərəblɪ] 1a63194b3d4f2fd75d22c5d173679af3   第8级
    难忘的
    参考例句:
    • The book includes some memorably seedy characters and scabrous description. 这本书包含了一些难忘下流的角色及有伤风化的描述。 来自互联网
    • Horowitz could play Chopin memorably. 霍洛维茨可以把肖邦的作品演奏得出神入化。 来自互联网
    14 lava [ˈlɑ:və] v9Zz5   第9级
    n.熔岩,火山岩
    参考例句:
    • The lava flowed down the sides of the volcano. 熔岩沿火山坡面涌流而下。
    • His anger spilled out like lava. 他的愤怒像火山爆发似的迸发出来。
    15 amorphousness [] b16a4ba46b1ccf04cff7dbc6c32e2dae   第10级
    无结构性
    参考例句:
    16 pulsates [ˈpʌlˌseɪts] 0a5209af6705e3ac5be65aa01ab18ddd   第11级
    v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的第三人称单数 );跳动;脉动;受(激情)震动
    参考例句:
    • My life pulsates with every movment of my country. 我的一生是随着祖国的脉搏而跳动的。 来自辞典例句
    • The sick cow frequently attempts urination and pulsates the urethra over the ischium arch. 病牛频频企图排尿,搏动坐骨弓上的尿道。 来自辞典例句
    17 luminous [ˈlu:mɪnəs] 98ez5   第9级
    adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的
    参考例句:
    • There are luminous knobs on all the doors in my house. 我家所有门上都安有夜光把手。
    • Most clocks and watches in this shop are in luminous paint. 这家商店出售的大多数钟表都涂了发光漆。
    18 depicted [diˈpiktid] f657dbe7a96d326c889c083bf5fcaf24   第7级
    描绘,描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 ); 描述
    参考例句:
    • Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
    • They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。
    19 joyous [ˈdʒɔɪəs] d3sxB   第10级
    adj.充满快乐的;令人高兴的
    参考例句:
    • The lively dance heightened the joyous atmosphere of the scene. 轻快的舞蹈给这场戏渲染了欢乐气氛。
    • They conveyed the joyous news to us soon. 他们把这一佳音很快地传递给我们。

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