詼諧的語言，生動的內(nèi)容一分鐘快速掌握科技最新動態(tài)

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The November 26th issue of the journal Science included a study showing that the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago allowed puny mammals to get really big. But well before all that happened, another event triggered a different burst of evolutionary activity.
11月26日發(fā)布的《自然》雜志里有一項研究表明，6千5百萬年前恐龍的滅絕讓弱小的哺乳類動物變得強大起來。但是在恐龍滅絕之前，另一件事件引起了大規(guī)模的生物進化。

A new study finds that about 300 million years ago, the tropical rainforests along the equator fell apart. The familiar culprit—global warming.
一項新研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，大約在3億年前，赤道沿線的熱帶雨林坍塌了，罪魁禍首就是大家都熟悉的全球變暖。

Present-day Europe and North America were on the equator back then, and were covered with rainforests. But global warming made things even hotter and drier.
現(xiàn)在的歐洲和北美在當(dāng)時位于赤道，被熱帶雨林覆蓋著。但全球變暖讓當(dāng)?shù)刈兊酶蔁崞饋怼?/div>

The expansive rainforests broke up into smaller fragments, and reptile populations became isolated from each other in the fragments. Such geographical isolation allows different populations to evolve in different directions, which led to a great increase in reptile diversity. The research appears in the journal Geology.
一大片熱帶雨林瓦解成零碎的部分，零碎的雨林帶將爬行動物和其他物種隔離了起來。這種地理阻隔讓不同種群向不同方向進化，讓爬行動物種類大幅增加。這項研究刊登在《地質(zhì)學(xué)雜志》上。

The explosion in reptiles ultimately led to the evolution of the dinosaurs, which dominated the planet until they fell victim to the massive impact that allowed us mammals to take over. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.
爬行動物的激增最終導(dǎo)致了恐龍的進化，恐龍一直是這個星球的支配者，直到后來它們成為某次巨大的沖擊犧牲品，我們哺乳類動物才大權(quán)在握。正如馮內(nèi)古特說的，事情就是這樣。


—Steve Mirsky

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