双语新闻:生活处处有辐射

2014-04-25 15:28:58来源：可可英语

双语新闻:生活处处有辐射

　　Do you believe, as I used to, that radioactivity is very rare and very dangerous, restricted to arsenals and power plants? Let's take a look at your kitchen. The bananas are radioactive from their potassium, the Brazil nuts have a thousand times more radium than any other food item, and your dried herbs and spices were irradiated to counter bacteria, germination and spoilage. There's thorium in your microwave oven and americium in your smoke detector.

　　你是否曾经与我一样，相信放射性是非常罕见并且极度危险的东西?并且只有在军工厂和核电站才能觅到它的踪迹?让我们来看看你的厨房吧。由于含有钾元素，香蕉具有放射性;巴西坚果里含有的镭元素是其他食物的上千倍;你的干香草和香料经受过辐射杀菌处理，目的是消灭细菌、抑制萌芽、防止腐败。你的微波炉里有钍元素，而你的烟雾感应器中则有镅元素。

　　Elsewhere in the house, cat litter, cigarettes, adobe, granite and brick are all actively radiating you. Always and forever, radiation is both raining down on you from the skies -- striking mile-high Denver two to three times as powerfully as San Diego -- and floating up at you from our bedrock's decaying uranium. Those all-natural mineral waters you soaked in on that spa vacation? Did the brochure mention that hot springs are hot in two senses, as the heat emanates from those same uranium combustions?

　　环顾你家四周，猫沙盆、香烟、土坯、花岗岩和砖块都在永不停歇地辐射你。每时每刻，你不仅会受到来自天空的辐射—高原之城丹佛市受到的辐射是地亚哥的两至三倍—还会受到来自地下基岩铀衰变的辐射。那么你在温泉假期时享受的全天然矿物质温泉水呢?宣传小册子有没有提到温泉水的热度有两个方面的含义，因为水温就来自于铀衰变所产生的热量?

　　Radiance is so pervasive that geologists have uncovered evidence of 14 naturally occurring nuclear reactors. It's coming out of the walls of the U.S. Capitol in Washington and New York's Grand Central Terminal. Your cat is radioactive, your dog is radioactive, your friends and your family are all radioactive, and so, as it turns out, are you. Right now your body is emanating radiant effluvia and, every time you and another human being get together, you irradiate each other.

　　辐射无处不在，地质学家们甚至已经发现了14处天然核反应堆存在的证据。辐射来自于华盛顿国会山和纽约中央车站的壁之中。你的宠物猫、宠物狗、朋友和家人都具有辐射性。你自己也同样如此。现在，你的身体正释放出生物电，每次你与另外一个人接触时，你们都会互相辐射。

　　By the way, do you live in the continental U.S.? In 1997, the National Cancer Institute reported that the Cold War detonations at the Nevada Test Site had polluted nearly the whole of the country with drifting airborne radioactive iodine, creating somewhere between 10,000 and 75,000 cases of childhood thyroid cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that of the nearly 600,000 Americans dying of cancer every year, 11,000 will be because of those tests. All those decades worrying about the Soviet Union attacking Americans with nuclear weapons? Instead, while Washington irradiated Americans from Nevada, Moscow irradiated its own citizens with tests from Kazakhstan.

　　顺便提一句，你是否居住在美国本土?1997年，美国国家癌症研究所(National Cancer Institute)发布的报告称，由于放射性碘在空气中的扩散，冷战时期在内华达试验场(Nevada Test Site)进行的核爆炸试验已经对整个国家构成了污染，并导致了10,000例至75,000例儿童甲状腺癌的出现。据美国疾病控制与预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) 估计，在每年近600,000名死于癌症的美国人中，有11,000名患者的病因是由内华达的核试验导致的。记不记得在冷战的几十年间对苏联使用核武器攻击美国人的担忧?事实上，美国政府用内华达的核试验辐射了美国人民，而苏联政府则用哈萨克斯坦的核试验辐射了苏联人民。

　　But there is, in all this, some good news.

　　但是，尽管如此，我还是有一些好消息。

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