Searching for aliens

　　尋找外星人

　　The wow factor

　　防止再次意外

　　A new citizen-science project will improve thechances of finding ET

　　一個新的平民科學項目可以增大找到地外智慧的機會

　　EVER since 1993, when funding from America s space agency, NASA, was cut, the Search forExtraterrestrial Intelligence, which scans the sky looking for radio signals from intelligentaliens, has been inventive in its methods.

　　自從1993年，尋找地外智慧在失去了美國航天局的資助后，開辟了一個新的的研究途徑。

　　In particular, it was one of the pioneers of the field of citizen science, in which interestedamateurs are recruited to help professionals crunch data.

　　具體來說，這個新途徑是平民科學的先驅之一，它邀請感興趣的外行人來幫助專家處理海量數據。

　　In 1999 it started SETIhome, an application that uses spare processing power onvolunteers computers to sift the information generated by its radio telescopes.

　　1999年，在家尋找地外智慧項目啟動了，它通過一個應用程序利用志愿者的電腦上閑置的計算資源來篩選來自射頻望遠鏡的信息。

　　These days, SETIhome boasts more than 1m users.

　　今天，在家尋找地外智慧已經號稱擁有超過100萬的用戶。

　　On February 29th the SETI Institute launched another citizen-science project.

　　2月29號，尋找地外智慧協會啟動了一個新的平民科學項目。

　　This time, though, its researchers are less interested in the digital computers on volunteers desks than in the biological ones between their ears.

　　這次，研究人員們更加感興趣的是志愿者的雙眼，而不是他們桌上的計算機。實時尋找地外智慧，

　　SETILive, as the project is called, hopes to use the pattern-recognition capabilities of brainsto distinguish interesting signals from the cacophony of interference generated by thedenizens of planet Earthand to do so in real time.

　　就像它的名稱所說，它希望利用我們大腦的模式識別能力來辨認出夾雜在由地球原住民產生的信號中的有趣信號，實時地。

　　The basic idea behind SETI is to look for distinctive radio-frequency emissions that mightcome from advanced aliens rather than natural sources like stars.

　　尋找地外智慧的基本想法是尋找來自高級地外生命而不是其他自然來源如恒星的射頻信號。

　　To do this, the SETI Institute uses an instrument called the Allen Telescope Arraya groupof 42 small radio-telescope dishes in California, partly paid for by the eponymous co-founderof Microsoft.

　　其協會依靠的工具是坐落在加州的艾倫望遠鏡陣列，它由42個小的射頻望遠鏡組成，因為微軟的共同創始人提供了部分資金而得名。

　　Unfortunately, some parts of the radio spectrum are full of signals created by Earthlings,rather than aliens.

　　不幸的是，來自地球居民而不是外星人的信號擠滿了射頻頻譜的一部分。

　　Everything from passing satellites and tumbling space junk to ground-based radar and eventhe ignition systems of nearby cars can generate spurious radio waves that confuse thesoftware.

　　各種各樣的來源產生了欺騙性的信號迷惑了相關軟件，這些來源包括劃過天空的衛星和翻滾的太空垃圾，地面上的雷達甚至是附近汽車的點火系統。

　　Until now, the project has dealt with that by ignoring the more crowded bits of thespectrum.

　　目前，項目只能避開這些擁擠的頻段。

　　But SETILive will bring them into play.

　　但是實時尋找地外智慧就可以把這些被迫忽略的頻段拿來一起分析。

　　It will do so by feeding pictorial representations of data from these noisy chunks of thespectrum to its users in the hope that they will be able to filter out the noise and spotpotentially interesting signals buried behind the radio clutter from Earth.

　　它把在這些充滿噪聲的擁擠頻段內的信息轉換成圖像發送給用戶，希望他們能夠在這些噪音中發現潛在特別的信號。

　　Those interesting signals will not necessarily have come from alien civilisations, says ChrisLintott,

　　這些特別的信號不一定就來自外星文明。Chris Lintott說。

　　an astrophysicist at Oxford University who helps to run Zooniverse, a citizen-science websitethat manages several projects, including SETILive.

　　他是牛津大學的天文物理學家，

　　But even if they do not, some new astronomical phenomena may be discovered by theproject. And as the various sources of interference become better characterised, the resultswill be fed back into the automated-search algorithms, improving their ability to deal withEarth-generated noise.

　　幫助運作一個管理了包括實時尋找地外智慧在內的一些項目的平民科學網站-宇宙動物園。

　　Other citizen-science projects already use the superior pattern-recognition capabilities ofhuman wetware, but SETILive is different from these in one important way.

　　其他一些平民科學項目已經在利用人類自身濕件的模式識別能力了，但是實時尋找地外智慧在一個重要方面與它們都不同。

　　Rather than having its users pore at leisure over stored data, aliens are hunted on the fly.

　　外星人是被即時捕捉到的，而不是用戶從容地凝視那些儲存好了的數據。

　　Users logging on to the project s website view information that is hot from the Allen Array.

　　用戶登錄項目網站后看到的信息是剛剛從艾倫望遠鏡陣列傳來的。

　　They have to work quickly, though.

　　他們還必須看得快些，

　　Every 90 seconds, the array switches to looking at a different star, or a different frequencyrange, and a new image is generated.

　　因為每隔90秒望遠鏡陣列就會切換觀測另外一個星體或者一個不同的頻段，一幅新的信息轉換成的圖像就會顯示出來。

　　If, however, the humans do spot something interesting, the array can be told within threeminutes to switch back to observing the star or range in question, to see if the signal isstill there.

　　如果萬一有人確實看到了一些特別的信息，望遠鏡陣列會在3分鐘之內切換回那個特定的星體或者頻段，看看信號還是否在那。

　　That is a big advantage, says Dr Lintott.

　　Lintott博士說這是一個很大的優勢。

　　Volunteers working on SETIhome have found plenty of interesting signals,

　　在家尋找地外智慧的志愿者們就發現過很多有趣的信號，

　　but because the data they analyse are often months old, those signals have usually vanishedby the time anyone gets around to checking up on them.

　　但是因為那些數據大多是幾個月之前的，當研究人員有機會回頭查看時通常它們都已經消失了。

　　The most famous example of such delayed discovery, though it long predates the start ofSETIhome, is the so-called Wow! signal.

　　這類延遲事件最出名的一次，盡管早在在家尋找地外智慧啟動之前，是一個被稱為Wow!的信號。

　　This signal, which looked exactly like the sort of thing astronomers had theorised aliensmight use to get in touch was spotted in telescope printouts in 1977.

　　1977年，這個信號在一個望遠鏡輸出文件中被發現了，它完全符合天文學家理論預測的外星人用來和外界聯系的特征。

　　It was a powerful, finely tuned broadcast at the most important natural frequency for radioastronomersthe one generated by the flipping spin of the electron in a hydrogen atom.

　　這個信號不僅強烈，而且精確地在射頻天文學中最重要的自然頻率上發射出來。

　　But by the time astronomers had noticed it and set their instruments up to double-check, thesignal had vanished.

　　但是等到天文學家發現并且使用儀器進行二次確認的時候它已經消失了。

　　If a second Wow! signal were discovered by SETILive, astronomers could focus on it almostimmediately.

　　如果第二個Wow!信號被實時尋找地外智慧發現，天文學家就可以幾乎立即對準它。

　　First contact with aliens, then, might take place not in a lab full of computers but late onenight in a suburban bedroom. There could be a film in that.

　　第一次與外星人的接觸，說不定就不是發生在滿是電腦的實驗室里，而是深夜在一個城郊住宅區的臥室中。果真如此就可以拍一部電影了。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.improve v.改善;改進;提高

　　Your work will get by, but try to improve it.

　　你的工作勉強通過了,但要設法改善它。

　　2.extraterrestrial n.外星人

　　Extraterrestrial life has often become the subject ofscience fiction films.

　　科幻片經常以外星生命為主題。

　　3.amateur n.外行;業余愛好者

　　An amateur shouldn t play roulette for high stakes.

　　外行不該下大賭注賭輪盤賭。

　　4.application n.應用;申請

　　The application of new scientific discoveries to industrial production methods usuallyincreases efficiency.

　　把新的科學發現運用到工業生產上,通?？梢蕴岣咝省?/p>

　　5.biological a.生物的;生物學的

　　Biological warfare is terrible.

　　生物戰很可怕。

　　Searching for aliens

　　尋找外星人

　　The wow factor

　　防止再次意外

　　A new citizen-science project will improve thechances of finding ET

　　一個新的平民科學項目可以增大找到地外智慧的機會

　　EVER since 1993, when funding from America s space agency, NASA, was cut, the Search forExtraterrestrial Intelligence, which scans the sky looking for radio signals from intelligentaliens, has been inventive in its methods.

　　自從1993年，尋找地外智慧在失去了美國航天局的資助后，開辟了一個新的的研究途徑。

　　In particular, it was one of the pioneers of the field of citizen science, in which interestedamateurs are recruited to help professionals crunch data.

　　具體來說，這個新途徑是平民科學的先驅之一，它邀請感興趣的外行人來幫助專家處理海量數據。

　　In 1999 it started SETIhome, an application that uses spare processing power onvolunteers computers to sift the information generated by its radio telescopes.

　　1999年，在家尋找地外智慧項目啟動了，它通過一個應用程序利用志愿者的電腦上閑置的計算資源來篩選來自射頻望遠鏡的信息。

　　These days, SETIhome boasts more than 1m users.

　　今天，在家尋找地外智慧已經號稱擁有超過100萬的用戶。

　　On February 29th the SETI Institute launched another citizen-science project.

　　2月29號，尋找地外智慧協會啟動了一個新的平民科學項目。

　　This time, though, its researchers are less interested in the digital computers on volunteers desks than in the biological ones between their ears.

　　這次，研究人員們更加感興趣的是志愿者的雙眼，而不是他們桌上的計算機。實時尋找地外智慧，

　　SETILive, as the project is called, hopes to use the pattern-recognition capabilities of brainsto distinguish interesting signals from the cacophony of interference generated by thedenizens of planet Earthand to do so in real time.

　　就像它的名稱所說，它希望利用我們大腦的模式識別能力來辨認出夾雜在由地球原住民產生的信號中的有趣信號，實時地。

　　The basic idea behind SETI is to look for distinctive radio-frequency emissions that mightcome from advanced aliens rather than natural sources like stars.

　　尋找地外智慧的基本想法是尋找來自高級地外生命而不是其他自然來源如恒星的射頻信號。

　　To do this, the SETI Institute uses an instrument called the Allen Telescope Arraya groupof 42 small radio-telescope dishes in California, partly paid for by the eponymous co-founderof Microsoft.

　　其協會依靠的工具是坐落在加州的艾倫望遠鏡陣列，它由42個小的射頻望遠鏡組成，因為微軟的共同創始人提供了部分資金而得名。

　　Unfortunately, some parts of the radio spectrum are full of signals created by Earthlings,rather than aliens.

　　不幸的是，來自地球居民而不是外星人的信號擠滿了射頻頻譜的一部分。

　　Everything from passing satellites and tumbling space junk to ground-based radar and eventhe ignition systems of nearby cars can generate spurious radio waves that confuse thesoftware.

　　各種各樣的來源產生了欺騙性的信號迷惑了相關軟件，這些來源包括劃過天空的衛星和翻滾的太空垃圾，地面上的雷達甚至是附近汽車的點火系統。

　　Until now, the project has dealt with that by ignoring the more crowded bits of thespectrum.

　　目前，項目只能避開這些擁擠的頻段。

　　But SETILive will bring them into play.

　　但是實時尋找地外智慧就可以把這些被迫忽略的頻段拿來一起分析。

　　It will do so by feeding pictorial representations of data from these noisy chunks of thespectrum to its users in the hope that they will be able to filter out the noise and spotpotentially interesting signals buried behind the radio clutter from Earth.

　　它把在這些充滿噪聲的擁擠頻段內的信息轉換成圖像發送給用戶，希望他們能夠在這些噪音中發現潛在特別的信號。

　　Those interesting signals will not necessarily have come from alien civilisations, says ChrisLintott,

　　這些特別的信號不一定就來自外星文明。Chris Lintott說。

　　an astrophysicist at Oxford University who helps to run Zooniverse, a citizen-science websitethat manages several projects, including SETILive.

　　他是牛津大學的天文物理學家，

　　But even if they do not, some new astronomical phenomena may be discovered by theproject. And as the various sources of interference become better characterised, the resultswill be fed back into the automated-search algorithms, improving their ability to deal withEarth-generated noise.

　　幫助運作一個管理了包括實時尋找地外智慧在內的一些項目的平民科學網站-宇宙動物園。

　　Other citizen-science projects already use the superior pattern-recognition capabilities ofhuman wetware, but SETILive is different from these in one important way.

　　其他一些平民科學項目已經在利用人類自身濕件的模式識別能力了，但是實時尋找地外智慧在一個重要方面與它們都不同。

　　Rather than having its users pore at leisure over stored data, aliens are hunted on the fly.

　　外星人是被即時捕捉到的，而不是用戶從容地凝視那些儲存好了的數據。

　　Users logging on to the project s website view information that is hot from the Allen Array.

　　用戶登錄項目網站后看到的信息是剛剛從艾倫望遠鏡陣列傳來的。

　　They have to work quickly, though.

　　他們還必須看得快些，

　　Every 90 seconds, the array switches to looking at a different star, or a different frequencyrange, and a new image is generated.

　　因為每隔90秒望遠鏡陣列就會切換觀測另外一個星體或者一個不同的頻段，一幅新的信息轉換成的圖像就會顯示出來。

　　If, however, the humans do spot something interesting, the array can be told within threeminutes to switch back to observing the star or range in question, to see if the signal isstill there.

　　如果萬一有人確實看到了一些特別的信息，望遠鏡陣列會在3分鐘之內切換回那個特定的星體或者頻段，看看信號還是否在那。

　　That is a big advantage, says Dr Lintott.

　　Lintott博士說這是一個很大的優勢。

　　Volunteers working on SETIhome have found plenty of interesting signals,

　　在家尋找地外智慧的志愿者們就發現過很多有趣的信號，

　　but because the data they analyse are often months old, those signals have usually vanishedby the time anyone gets around to checking up on them.

　　但是因為那些數據大多是幾個月之前的，當研究人員有機會回頭查看時通常它們都已經消失了。

　　The most famous example of such delayed discovery, though it long predates the start ofSETIhome, is the so-called Wow! signal.

　　這類延遲事件最出名的一次，盡管早在在家尋找地外智慧啟動之前，是一個被稱為Wow!的信號。

　　This signal, which looked exactly like the sort of thing astronomers had theorised aliensmight use to get in touch was spotted in telescope printouts in 1977.

　　1977年，這個信號在一個望遠鏡輸出文件中被發現了，它完全符合天文學家理論預測的外星人用來和外界聯系的特征。

　　It was a powerful, finely tuned broadcast at the most important natural frequency for radioastronomersthe one generated by the flipping spin of the electron in a hydrogen atom.

　　這個信號不僅強烈，而且精確地在射頻天文學中最重要的自然頻率上發射出來。

　　But by the time astronomers had noticed it and set their instruments up to double-check, thesignal had vanished.

　　但是等到天文學家發現并且使用儀器進行二次確認的時候它已經消失了。

　　If a second Wow! signal were discovered by SETILive, astronomers could focus on it almostimmediately.

　　如果第二個Wow!信號被實時尋找地外智慧發現，天文學家就可以幾乎立即對準它。

　　First contact with aliens, then, might take place not in a lab full of computers but late onenight in a suburban bedroom. There could be a film in that.

　　第一次與外星人的接觸，說不定就不是發生在滿是電腦的實驗室里，而是深夜在一個城郊住宅區的臥室中。果真如此就可以拍一部電影了。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.improve v.改善;改進;提高

　　Your work will get by, but try to improve it.

　　你的工作勉強通過了,但要設法改善它。

　　2.extraterrestrial n.外星人

　　Extraterrestrial life has often become the subject ofscience fiction films.

　　科幻片經常以外星生命為主題。

　　3.amateur n.外行;業余愛好者

　　An amateur shouldn t play roulette for high stakes.

　　外行不該下大賭注賭輪盤賭。

　　4.application n.應用;申請

　　The application of new scientific discoveries to industrial production methods usuallyincreases efficiency.

　　把新的科學發現運用到工業生產上,通?？梢蕴岣咝?。

　　5.biological a.生物的;生物學的

　　Biological warfare is terrible.

　　生物戰很可怕。