想象一下女子水手隊(duì)。平均每周訓(xùn)練18個小時，游泳75英里，這些運(yùn)動員肌肉發(fā)達(dá)。但是，和史前女農(nóng)民相比，這些運(yùn)動員可以說沒有什么臂力。今天出國留學(xué)網(wǎng)小編就給大家介紹一下托福聽力科學(xué)美國人60秒 古代女性臂力驚人。
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I＇mKaren Hopkin.
Picture a women＇s crew team. Training 18 hours andcovering 75 miles in an average week， theseathletes are pretty ripped. Yet they don＇t hold abicep to prehistoric female farmers. Because a newstudy shows that， based on upper arm strength， theNeolithic ladies leave modern women—even elite athletes—in the dust. The work appears in thejournal Science Advances.
The study＇s researchers had previously examined the bones of prehistoric men. Becausebones adapt to the load they bear， they can provide a record of the sort of activities in whichan individual regularly engages. So， at the dawn of agriculture， men＇s leg bones were strong， like today＇s cross-country runners. But by the late Iron Age， their leg bones looked more likethat of the average couch potato.
＂So this kind of matched with declines in mobility as people became more sedentary throughtime.＂
Alison Macintosh， who did that work when she was an undergraduate student in archaeologyat the University of Cambridge.
＂But we didn＇t see these drops in women. Their leg bone strength was consistently lower thanmen＇s， it didn＇t change significantly through time. So really the women just looked quitesedentary pretty much right from the get-go. And we didn＇t think that was very probablynecessarily a very accurate representation of what they had been doing.＂
Now， it could be that prehistoric housewives sat around and lunched their way through theNeolithic. But Macintosh thought that unlikely. Instead， she and her colleagues figured that thebones of men and women react differently under pressure. So Macintosh， now a postdoctoralfellow with the same group， decided to look at the limbs of some ladies.
She recruited 18 championship rowers， 11 soccer players， 17 runners and 37 somewhat lesssporty undergrads. And she scanned their upper arms and lower legs. What she found is thatthe leg bone strength of prehistoric women was as variable as that of her living subjects， running the gamut from those who run marathons to those who engage in marathon studysessions. But the arms were a different story.
＂We found that prehistoric women had stronger arm bones on average than most livingwomen. That was pretty consistent through the first 5，500 years of farming or so. So this waseven stronger than the arm bones of the rowers. So for example women in the earliest timeperiod that we looked at， which is the early Neolithic period about 7，000 years ago， they hadarm bones that were 30 percent stronger than non-athletes today， so just recreationally activewomen in Cambridge. And they＇re about 16 percent stronger bones than those of the livingrowers.＂
That power most likely came from tilling the soil， harvesting crops， and spending hours a daymilling grain to make flour with a stone-age mortar and pestle. The findings shed light on thedaily duties of our female ancestors—manual labor that was a total grind.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I＇m Karen Hopkin.
這里是科學(xué)美國人——60秒科學(xué)。我是凱倫·霍普金。
想象一下女子水手隊(duì)。平均每周訓(xùn)練18個小時，游泳75英里，這些運(yùn)動員肌肉發(fā)達(dá)。但是，和史前女農(nóng)民相比，這些運(yùn)動員可以說沒有什么臂力。因?yàn)橐豁?xiàng)新研究表明，基于上臂力量，新石器時代女性把現(xiàn)代女性——甚至是精英運(yùn)動員——遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)甩在后面。這項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《科學(xué)進(jìn)展》期刊上。
這項(xiàng)調(diào)查的研究人員此前調(diào)查過史前男性的骨骼。因?yàn)楣趋琅c他們的負(fù)重相適應(yīng)，所以可以提供個體經(jīng)常參與活動的記錄。因此，在農(nóng)業(yè)初始時期，男性的腿骨就像現(xiàn)在的越野跑運(yùn)動員那樣強(qiáng)壯。但到了鐵器時代末期，他們的腿骨看起來和普通電視迷的腿骨更像。
“這種情況與人類隨著時間的推移久坐時間增加、活動量減少相匹配。”
艾莉森·麥金托什說到，她在劍橋大學(xué)讀本科期間參與了這項(xiàng)研究。
“但是我們沒有看到女性腿骨強(qiáng)度下降。她們的腿骨強(qiáng)度一直比男性低，隨著時間的推移并沒有發(fā)生明顯變化。因此，看起來女性從一開始就經(jīng)常久坐。我們認(rèn)為這很可能不一定是她們所做事情的準(zhǔn)確表現(xiàn)。”
現(xiàn)在人們通常認(rèn)為，史前女性可能只是坐在那里無所事事、吃吃飯，就這樣度過了新石器時代。但是麥金托什認(rèn)為那不太可能。相反，她和同事認(rèn)為，男性骨骼和女性骨骼在承受壓力時的反應(yīng)不同。因此，如今是博士后研究員的麥金托什和老團(tuán)隊(duì)決定研究一下某些女性的四肢。
她召集了18名冠軍槳手、11名足球運(yùn)動員、17名賽跑運(yùn)動員和37名不常運(yùn)動的本科生。她掃描了她們的上臂和小腿。她發(fā)現(xiàn)，史前女性的腿骨強(qiáng)度變化無常，與現(xiàn)在的實(shí)驗(yàn)對象一樣各有不同，實(shí)驗(yàn)對象的范圍從馬拉松運(yùn)動員到馬拉松式研究會議參與者。但是，史前女性的上臂則是另一回事。
“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，平均來說，史前女性的臂骨比大部分現(xiàn)存女性的都強(qiáng)壯。在耕種出現(xiàn)后約5500年以來一直如此。她們的臂骨甚至比槳手的還強(qiáng)壯。比如，生活在我們所研究時期最早期的女性，即約7000年前新石器時代早期的女性，她們的臂骨比如今非運(yùn)動員的女性強(qiáng)壯30%，非運(yùn)動員指在劍橋把運(yùn)動當(dāng)作娛樂的女性。史前女性的臂骨比現(xiàn)在的槳手要強(qiáng)壯16%?！?BR> 這種力量最可能來自耕種土地、收割莊稼、每天花幾個小時用石器時代的杵和臼研磨谷物制成面粉。這項(xiàng)研究揭示了古代女性的日常職責(zé)——完全是苦差事的體力勞動。
謝謝大家收聽科學(xué)美國人——60秒科學(xué)。我是凱倫·霍普金。
重點(diǎn)講解：
1. adapt to 適應(yīng)；
例句：We must adapt to a changing world， not defend outdated models.
我們必須適應(yīng)不斷變化的世界，而不是捍衛(wèi)過時的模式。
2. sit around 閑坐著；無所事事；
例句：Eve isn＇t the type to sit around doing nothing.
伊芙不是那種喜歡坐在那里無所事事的人。
3. running the gamut 涉及…的全部范圍；
例句：Machine learning uses run the gamut from game playing to fraud detection to stock-market analysis.
機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)可以應(yīng)用于各種目的，從游戲、欺詐檢測到股票市場分析。
4. engage in 參與；從事；
例句：It gives students a chance to engage in the creative process.
它們?yōu)閷W(xué)生提供了一個參與創(chuàng)造性過程的機(jī)會。
5. shed light on 使（某事）顯得非常清楚；使人了解（某事） ；
例句：Uponthe new experiment may shed light on how animals respond to dangers.
新實(shí)驗(yàn)將有可能揭示動物是如何應(yīng)對危險的。