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Parents worried that they may pass on their short stature to their children can rest easy,
担心自己身材矮小会遗传给孩子的父母可以放宽心了，
as a new study reveals nurture is more important than nature when it comes to a person's height.
因为一项新研究发现，对一个人的身高而言，后天因素比先天因素更重要。
A landmark piece of research has found that more than 12,000 genes are responsible for determining how tall a person becomes, but this hereditary aspect is just 40 percent of the picture.
一项具有里程碑意义的研究发现，影响一个人身高的基因超过1.2万个，然而在决定身高上，但遗传因素只占40%。
The other 60 percent is caused by nurture-based traits like environment, upbringing and quality of life.
另外的60%取决于环境、养育和生活质量等后天因素。
Analysis of more than 5.4 million people discovered the culpable chunks of DNA involved in height determination and found them to live in parts of the genome that are responsible for skeletal growth.
这项研究在分析了逾540万人的资料后发现了决定身高的DNA片段，并发现它们存在于与骨骼生长有关的部分基因组中。
"Our study identified 12,111 genetic markers -- or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) -- associated with height in more than 5 million individuals from participating studies,"
“我们的研究从参与的500多万人中确定了12111个与身高相关的遗传标记--或单核苷酸多态性(SNPs)。”
study author Dr Eirini Marouli, associate professor in computational biology at Queen Mary University of London, told the Telegraph.
该研究的作者、伦敦玛丽女王大学计算生物学副教授艾利尼·马柔里博士在接受《每日电讯报》采访时如是说。
The study, published in Nature, also predicted how tall a person would become based on their genes alone
这项发表在《自然》上的研究还单独根据基因预测了一个人的身高，
and found it to be more accurate than the current method, which estimates a child's length by the height of their parents.
并发现这一预测结果比根据父母身高预测孩子身高的现有方法更为准确。
This more accurate height prediction could be useful in healthcare.
这种更精确的身高预测可能在医疗保健领域很有用。
For example, if a child does not reach their predicted height, it could indicate an underlying condition that might be affecting growth, for example, related to hormonal deficiencies.
例如，如果一个孩子没有达到预期身高，则可能意味着存在影响长高的潜在条件，比如激素缺乏。
