评论
打印
Hey there! Welcome to Life Noggin.
大家好！欢迎来到大脑洞开生命奇想。
We’re going to try our hand at surviving in another famous period of history— the ice ages!
我们要尝试在另一段有名的时代中存活下来-冰河时代！
So, just how hard would it have been to survive during an ice age?
所以，在冰河时代中存活下来有多难呢？
Well, just step outside and find out! That’s because the Earth is in an ice age right now — one of at least five that we know about.
出来自己看吧！这是因为，现在的地球就处于冰河时代，我们知道的至少五个时代中的一个。
Well… kinda. Depends on who you ask and what your definition of “ice age” is.
这取决于问的是谁，以及你对冰河时代的定义是什么。
A general definition of an ice age is a period of time — potentially lasting millions of years —
冰河时代的一般定义是一段时间-可能持续了数百万年-
where you have colder global temperatures and glacial expansion across the Earth’s surface.
那时的全球温度较低，冰川在地球表面扩张。
Within that, you have cycles of “glacial periods” and “interglacial periods”.
其中，有“冰期”和“间冰期”的循环。
Glacial periods are colder and have a greater ice sheet presence, while the interglacial periods are warmer and more like the Earth is now.
冰期更冷，冰盖更大，而间冰期更温暖，更像现在的地球。
We’re currently in an interglacial period called the Holocene.
我们现在正处于间冰期，被称为全新世。
The confusion here is that some people refer to the combination of these glacial-interclagical cycles as ice ages,
这里的混淆在于，有人把冰期和间冰期的循环称为冰河时代，
while others specifically just call the glacial periods ice ages.
而另外的人则只把冰期称为冰河时代。
But either way you slice it, I bet you’re more concerned about surviving those glacial periods.
但不管你怎么想，我打赌你更关心的是如何在冰河时期生存下来。
So let’s look at the Pleistocene Epoch — the most recent glacial period.
让我们来看看更新世——最近的冰河时期。
If you were living back then, the first thing you’d probably have to deal with is the weather.
如果你生活在那个年代，你首先要面对的可能就是天气。
On average, global temperatures were about 5 to 10 degrees Celsius colder than they are today.
平均而言，那时候的全球气温比现在低5到10摄氏度。
That might not seem like a lot at first, but that can mean the difference between the snow melting or not during the summer, especially in the more northern regions.
一开始，这可能看起来并不多，但是这可能意味着雪在夏季融化与否的不同，尤其是在更北部的地区。
According to the CDC, there were over 1500 hypothermia-related deaths back in 2010 in the US alone.
据美国疾控中心，2010年，仅在美国，就有超过1500例与低体温症相关的死亡。
Imagine how much surviving the cold would have been a problem back in a glacial period.
想象一下，在冰河时代，在寒冷中存活下来是个多么大的问题。
After you try and keep yourself warm, you’d probably need to be concerned about the animals.
在你试着让自己暖和起来之后，你可能需要担心动物问题。
There were some animals that didn’t really pose a threat, like deer and squirrels not too dissimilar from the ones we have now.
有些动物并不会真正构成威胁，比如鹿和松鼠，它们和我们现在看到的并没有太大区别。
Maybe you could use those for food or clothes to keep warm if you broke out your hunting skills.
如果你发挥你的狩猎技能的话，你可以把它们当食物，或者做衣服来保暖。
But with the rather… limited tools of the time, even the best hunters would find it hard to survive against the infamous saber-toothed cats that used to roam the Earth.
但是在当时有限的工具下，即使是最好的猎人也会发现，面对曾经在地球上游荡的臭名昭著的剑齿虎，他们很难生存。
Saber-toothed cats were similar in size to the lions and tiger of today, but with more muscular builds and long, dagger-like canines.
剑齿虎的体型与今天的狮子和老虎相似，但体型更强健，犬齿长得像匕首。
If you do manage to escape, you better watch out for the giant short-faced bears.
如果你逃走了，你最好得小心那些巨大的短面熊。
These ice age bears had stumpy faces and broad muzzles to go along with their extremely large bodies.
这些冰河时代的熊长着矮墩墩的脸，宽阔的嘴，配上他们硕大无比的身躯。
They likely stood over 3 meters tall on their hind legs and weighed in at around 700 kilograms.
它们用后腿站立时可能有3米多高，体重约700公斤。
These bears were the largest land carnivores of their time, though there is some speculation on whether or not they were actually omnivores.
这些熊是当时最大的陆地食肉动物，尽管有一些关于它们是否是杂食动物的推测。
Hey, even if they did also eat plants, still not somebody you want to mess with!
即使他们也吃素，那它们也不是你想招惹的动物！
And just like how your hunter’s tools back then weren’t up to the caliber of today,
就像那时候的猎人工具达不到今天的水平，
the lack of medicine and antibiotics left you pretty open to bacteria and diseases.
药物和抗生素的缺乏让你很容易感染细菌和疾病。
What’s really quite terrifying is that due to rising global temperatures,
真正可怕的事情是，由于全球气温上升，
you might not even need to step back in time to come into contact with some of the biological threats of the Pleistocene.
你甚至都可能不需要穿越回去才能遇到一些更新世的生物威胁。
That’s because ice and permafrost soils, which have been frozen for thousands of years, are melting, releasing ancient bacteria and viruses.
这是因为，已经冰冻了数千年的冰和永冻土壤正在融化，释放出古老的细菌和病毒。
For instance, scientists recently uncovered a giant virus that had been buried for 30,000 years in Siberian ice only to find that it was still infectious.
例如，科学家们最近发现了一种巨型病毒，它被埋在西伯利亚的冰层中长达3万年之久，结果却发现它仍然具有传染性。
Luckily for you humans, it only infects amoebae, but the implications are still pretty scary for what else could be dormant down there in the ice.
对你们人类来说幸运的是，它只会感染阿米巴变形虫，但对于可能隐匿在冰层下的其他东西来说，这暗示仍然相当可怕。
