(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
Beluga whales rely on a sharp sense of hearing to communicate, to navigate and to feed. (beluga sounds) But the ocean is a noisy place. There's commercial shipping, there's navy sonar, oil and gas extraction, pile driving, underwater explosions.
So one way to tell if all that noise is affecting belugas: capture them for a routine physical. "So it's kind of like going to the doctor's office for them, but they're also kind of abducted by aliens at the same time."
Aran Mooney, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He and his team captured 26 belugas in Alaska's Bristol Bay for a battery of checkups, including a hearing test.
"We can play a very controlled, designed sound to the animal, a hearing test tone." (hearing test tone) Then they measured the beluga's brain response using an electrode on the animal's head.
The diagnosis? "They're doing fantastic—and they're better than what we thought they were going to be." And older belugas seemed to have less age-related hearing loss than aging dolphins screened in previous studies. The full bill of health is in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
These belugas live in a relatively pristine environment, which might explain why they aced the hearing test. Animals in noisier waters might not fare so well, Mooney says. And the same might go for belugas as the volume slowly rises in the underwater Arctic.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
白鲸依靠敏锐的听觉来交流、导航和进食。（白鲸的声音）但是海洋是一个嘈杂的地方。商业航运、海军声呐、石油和天然气开采、打桩、水下爆炸都发生在那里。
判断这些噪音是否对白鲸构成影响的一种方法是：捕获几只白鲸做常规体检。“对它们来说，这有点儿像去看医生，同时也像是被外星人绑架了。”
伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的海洋生物学家阿伦·穆尼说到。他和团队在阿拉斯加布里斯托尔湾捕获了26只白鲸，对它们进行了一系列检查，其中包括听力测试。
“我们会给白鲸播放严格控制且精心设计的听力测试音。（听力测试音）随后他们利用放置在白鲸头上的电极测量了它们的大脑反应。
诊断结果如何？“它们的听力非常好，比我们预想的要好。”与此前研究中检查的年长海豚的听力相比，年长白鲸的增龄性听觉损失似乎更少。完整的健康报告发表在《实验生物学》期刊上。
这些白鲸生活在相对原始的环境中，这或许可以解释为什么它们在听力测试中表现优异。穆尼表示，较嘈杂水域中的动物，可能不会有这么好的表现。而随着北极水下音量逐渐上升，白鲸的听力也会受到影响。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. rely on 依赖；依靠；
He can rely on my support when the crunch comes.
关键时刻，他可以依靠我的支持。
2. at the same time 同时；
She looked so beautiful, and at the same time so remote.
她相貌如此美丽，同时又如此清高不群。
3. a battery of 一系列（测试、检查等）；
We give a battery of tests to each patient.
我们给每个病人都做了一系列的检查。
4. go for 适用于；
I told him to work harder, and that goes for you, too.
我告诉他工作努力些，这句话对你也适用。
