评论
打印
Most people with ovaries go through menopause. But most animals do not, and their reproductive organs last about as long as they do. We are an outlier. So are whales.
大部分有卵巢的人（指没有被摘除）都会经历更年期。但是大部分的动物却不会，它们生殖器官的活性几乎和他们的寿命一样久。我们是个例外，鲸类也是。
"it is very strange to not carry on reproducing,"
停止繁衍对于动物来说是种非常奇怪的行为。
In this hypothesis, an older woman helps her children's children thrive. After menopause, when she can no longer have children, she devote s her time and accumulated knowledge to aid her descendants.
这个假设是说，一个老年女性会帮助她孩子们的孩子在人生中获得成就。更年期之后，她本人不再能生育后代了，于是她能投入自己的时间和积累的知识来帮助她的后代。
Humans "are quite far away from whatever ancestral state we evolved in," Ellis said, removed from the selection pressures imposed on bands of early humans. But these whales live in similar environments and groups as their ancestors millions of years ago, he said.
Ellis 说，人类现在的状态已经进化得离我们的祖先很远了，我们已经脱离了早期人类面临的那些生存压力。但是现在的鲸类生存的环境依旧和它们百万年前的祖先很相似。
