英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

The mass extinction of large animals in the Pleistocene era caused today’s dearth of soil nutrients, scientists said, and warned of further damage if modern giants like the elephant disappear.

科學家指出，更新世時期大型動物的大滅絕導致現今土壤養分不足，並警告一旦大象之類的現代巨大動物消失，將進一步損及地力。

The Pleistocene epoch, which dated from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago, saw large animals dubbed megafauna take over domination of the planet from extinct dinosaurs, only to die out en masse themselves.

距今260萬至1萬1700年前的更新世時期，經歷了稱為「巨型動物」的大型動物在恐龍滅絕後接管地球，卻集體絕跡的現象。

During their peak, much of the world resembled a modern-day African savannah.

在牠們最活躍的時期，世界許多地區類似現代的非洲大草原。

South America, for example, was teeming with 5-tonne ground sloths, armadillo-like glyptodonts the size of a small car, and herds of elephant-like cuvieronius and stegomastodonts.

例如，5公噸重的巨爪地懶，約一輛小車大、類似犰狳的雕齒獸，以及類似大象的成群居維象與劍乳齒象等，在南美各地四處橫行。

These megafauna, animals weighing more than 44 kilograms, played a key role in fertilizing soil far away from the areas near rivers where they fed — plowing the nutrients they consumed back into circulation through their dung or their decomposing bodies when they died.

這些重逾44公斤的巨型動物，在使遠離其覓食的濱河地區土壤肥沃上扮演重要角色──經由牠們的糞便與其死後分解的屍體，將牠們消耗的養分進入地力的循環中。

Chemists have found a new way to halve the fat of chocolate using liquids which does not change the "mouthfeel". Low-fat preparations of chocolate are well known, but their textures tend not to match the real thing.

化學家發現使用液體減半巧克力脂肪，也不會改變「口感」的新方法。低脂巧克力已經很普遍，但口感往往比不上貨真價實的巧克力。

A report at an American Chemical Society meeting described a method using the popular gelling agent agar to make tiny "sponges" that displace fat.

一份在「美國化學學會」會議上發表的報告，描述利用頗受歡迎的凝膠劑石花，製造微小「海綿」取代脂肪的方法。

Normal chocolate gets much of its velvety feel from an emulsion of fat globules suspended within the solid.

正常巧克力的絲滑口感，大部分是從懸浮在固體狀巧克力中的脂肪球凝膠而來。

Replacing those is tricky - any substitutes have to remain dispersed throughout the chocolate as it is heated and cooled to a solid, and they have to remain small.

要取代那種口感很難，替代品必須在巧克力加熱及冷卻成固體時，都能維持散布在巧克力中，也必須要小。

新聞辭典

The leader of North Korea apparently has learned a lesson from Hollywood： Image is everything.

北韓領導人顯然從好萊塢那裡學到一課：形象就是一切。

The man known to the Western world as running a country that starves its population and menaces neighboring countries with a nuclear weapons program is a rock star, a photo released by North Korea’s Central News Agency would have you believe.

北韓中央通信社發布的一張照片會讓你相信，這名西方世界熟知以讓人民餓肚子來治國，並利用核武計畫威嚇鄰國的男子，是一位搖滾巨星。

More Lil’ Kim than Kim Jong Un, the picture shows the leader mobbed by workers at a mushroom farm. From the looks of it, the leader is loved by his people.

與其說像金正恩，不如說更像美國女饒舌歌手Lil’ Kim，這張照片顯示，這位領導人被一座蘑菇農場的工人包圍。看樣子，這位領導人深受他的人民愛戴。

Dressed in dark shirt and pants, the 29-year-old stands in the middle of a crowd of women wearing immaculate white jumpsuits, with some grabbing his arms and others who appear to be weeping.

穿著深色上衣與褲子，這位29歲的領導人矗立於一群身穿潔白工作服的女性中間，有些人抓著他的手臂，還有些人顯然喜極而泣。

Is it staged? Reuters, which distributed the photo, notes that it is unable to "independently verify the authenticity, content, location, or date of this image."

這是事先刻意安排好的嗎？發布這張照片的路透指出，無法「獨立確認此影像的真實性、內容、地點與（拍攝）日期。」

Children born from obese women were 35 percent more likely to die prematurely in adulthood, according to a study Wednesday that warned of a growing epidemic.

過胖女性生下的小孩在成年時早逝的機率多了35%，根據週三一項警告該流行病日益盛行的研究指出。

Researchers in Scotland traced 37,709 children of 28,540 women who gave birth between 1950 and 1976.

蘇格蘭的研究人員追蹤在1950至1976年間、由2萬8540名女性所生下的3萬7709名孩童。

The children were aged from 34 to 61 at the time of the study published in the online journal bmj.com. Researchers included the data of 6,551 children that had already died prior to the start of the study.

當這研究刊載於「英國醫學期刊」線上版時，這些子女年齡介於34至61歲之間。研究人員把在研究開始前已死亡的6551名子女也納入資料。

Of the mothers, 21 percent were overweight -- meaning a body mass index （BMI） or height-to-weight ratio of 25 to 29.9 -- and four percent obese, with a BMI of 30 or more, when they gave birth.

這些母親在生產時，有21%屬於過重，也就是身體質量指數BMI值在25至29.9之間；另有4%是屬於肥胖，也就是BMI值大於或等於30。

"The offspring of obese mothers were 35 percent and those of overweight women 11 percent more likely to die before the age of 55 years than those of normal-weight mothers," study co-author Rebecca Reynolds, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Edinburgh, told AFP.

「肥胖與過重母親的子女，比正常體重母親的子女，在55歲以前死去的機率分別多出35%與11%」，研究共同作者、愛丁堡大學新陳代謝醫學教授雷蓓佳．萊諾斯告訴法新社。

Britain’s class-conscious public have voiced their dislike of men in red trousers, associating them with elitism and garish buffoonery, according to a recent survey.

根據最近的一項調查顯示，對階級向來敏感的英國民眾表示厭惡男性穿著紅褲子，並把紅褲子與菁英主義和浮誇的滑稽行為聯想在一起。

Just under half the respondents （46 percent） to a survey released by market research firm YouGov said they don’t like men in red trousers.

在市場調查公司YouGov公布的調查結果中，有近半數（46%）的受訪者表示不喜歡穿紅褲子的男性。

"Gentlemen be warned. Wearing red trousers will not win you many admirers," YouGov said in an article about the sartorial study on their website.

「紳士們小心了。穿紅褲子可不會替你贏來許多愛慕者」，YouGov在其網站上一篇有關男性服裝研究的文章裡寫道。

Words such as "idiot", "odd" and "clown" sprang to the minds of respondents when confronted with the sight of a man sporting red trousers, YouGov said.

看到穿著紅褲的男子時，受訪者的腦袋裡會浮現「白痴」、「古怪」和「小丑」等字眼，YouGov表示。

British Esquire magazine’s Senior Fashion Editor Gareth Scourfield said that although continental men in France and Italy have been getting away with colourful clothes for years, Britons tended to be more reserved. "I think the problem is it has a connotation as a rich man’s casual wear," he said.

英國版「君子」雜誌資深時尚主編史考爾菲德說，雖然多年來法國和義大利等歐陸國家男性穿著色彩鮮艷的服裝都未曾遭受責難，英國人的態度則偏向保守。「我想問題在於它會讓人聯想到有錢人的休閒服」，他說。