Longreads Best of 2020: Science and Nature
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020.
整个 12 月，我们都会精选 Longreads 的 2020 年最佳作品。
We’ve searched through our archives to find the science and nature stories that take you into ancient forests, through dark swamps, to the bottom of the sea, and right up into the stars.
我们搜索了我们的档案，寻找科学和自然故事，带您进入古老的森林，穿过黑暗的沼泽，到达海底，直达星空。
If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday.
如果您喜欢这些，您可以注册以每周五接收我们的每周前 5 名电子邮件。
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## The Social Life of Forests (Ferris Jabr, The New York Times Magazine)
## 森林的社会生活（Ferris Jabr，纽约时报杂志）
Old-growth forests in North America are like something out of a fairytale — huge trees, luminescent with moss, with boughs arching above your head, and “gnarled roots” beneath your feet, “dicing in and out of the soil like sea serpents.” And, as Ferris Jabr discovers in this story, the magic of these trees goes beyond what we see — with intricate fungal networks weaving them together into an inclusive community that links “nearly every tree in a forest — even trees of different species.” This is a fascinating piece that shows you these giant sentinels are more than you expect — more than just individuals.
北美的古老森林就像童话故事里的东西——巨大的树木，长满苔藓，发出发光的光芒，树枝在你的头顶上拱形，“粗糙的树根”在你的脚下，“像海蛇一样在土壤中进出”。而且，正如费里斯·贾布尔在这个故事中发现的那样，这些树木的魔力超出了我们所看到的范围——复杂的真菌网络将它们编织成一个包容性的群落，将“森林中的几乎每一棵树——甚至是不同物种的树木”联系在一起。这是一篇引人入胜的作品，它向您展示了这些巨大的哨兵超出您的预期——不仅仅是个体。
Jabr goes into the forest with Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia who has studied these systems and proved “a dynamic exchange of resources through mycorrhizal networks” between the two species of paper birch and Douglas fir.
Jabr 与不列颠哥伦比亚大学森林生态学教授 Suzanne Simard 一起走进森林，Suzanne Simard 研究了这些系统，并证明了纸桦和花旗松这两种树种之间“通过菌根网络进行动态资源交换”。
Her work has provoked a certain amount of controversy: “Since Darwin, biologists have emphasized the perspective of the individual …
她的工作引起了一定程度的争议：“自达尔文以来，生物学家一直强调个体的观点......
the single-minded ambitions of selfish genes.” Simard is proving this is not what is happening in old-growth forests; they are “neither an assemblage of stoic organisms tolerating one another’s presence nor a merciless battle royale: It’s a vast, ancient and intricate society.” And trees are not just interacting with each other, “trees sense nearby plants and animals and alter their behavior accordingly: The gnashing mandibles of an insect might prompt the production of chemical defenses …
自私基因的一心一意的野心。”西马德正在证明这并不是古老森林中发生的情况；他们“既不是一群相互容忍的坚忍的有机体，也不是无情的大逃杀：这是一个庞大、古老而复杂的社会。”树木不仅仅是相互影响，“树木还能感知附近的植物和动物，并相应地改变它们的行为：昆虫咬合的下颌可能会促进化学防御的产生……
Some studies have even suggested that plant roots grow toward the sound of running water.”
一些研究甚至表明植物的根部会朝着流水的声音生长。”
A forest operating as a complicated, sharing society is a powerful notion.
森林作为一个复杂的、共享的社会运作是一个强有力的概念。
Not only does it garner more respect for this ecosystem, but it could prove that cooperation is as central to evolution as competition: “Wherever living things emerge, they find one another, mingle and meld.”
它不仅为这个生态系统赢得了更多的尊重，而且可以证明合作对于进化来说与竞争一样重要：“无论生物出现在哪里，它们都会找到彼此，混合和融合。”
## The Mystery of Mountain Lions (Sarah Gilman, High Country News)
## 山狮之谜（莎拉·吉尔曼，高地新闻）
Last winter, Sarah Gilman saw a cougar near her home in Washington’s North Cascades: “…
去年冬天，萨拉·吉尔曼 (Sarah Gilman) 在华盛顿州北喀斯喀特的家附近看到一只美洲狮：“......
the cougar dropped to a crouch a few paces from me.
美洲狮蹲在离我几步远的地方。
It was still woolly with kittenhood, but big enough to send a chill down my spine.” She poetically describes the eeriness of knowing that an apex predator lives in her area, the feeling of being watched, the “sense of vertigo, disoriented by these fleeting brushes with a creature of foreign compass.”
它仍然像小猫一样毛茸茸的，但大得足以让我脊背发凉。”她诗意地描述了知道顶级掠食者生活在她的地区时的怪诞感、被监视的感觉、“眩晕感，被外国指南针生物短暂的擦过而迷失方向的感觉”。
Fascinated as much as fearful, Gilman joins Lauren Satterfield, a cougar researcher who comes to track her local cougars, bringing science into Gilman’s personal realm.
吉尔曼既着迷又害怕，加入了美洲狮研究员劳伦·萨特菲尔德（Lauren Satterfield），她来追踪当地的美洲狮，将科学带入吉尔曼的个人领域。
Aided by a houndsman, they began a search — an important one, as “chaotic as it looked from behind four retreating dog butts, studies like Satterfield’s have revealed patterns in cougars’ lives.” A lack of knowledge leads to exaggeration, and cougars have acquired a reputation for danger they do not deserve.
在一名猎犬人的帮助下，他们开始了一项重要的搜索，“尽管从四只撤退的狗屁股后面看起来很混乱，但像萨特菲尔德这样的研究揭示了美洲狮的生活模式。”缺乏知识会导致夸大其词，美洲狮因此获得了不应有的危险名声。
They avoid humans as much as possible and favor wild prey over easier-to-catch domestic animals, “but perception still outweighs science on so many fronts.” In California, complaints “resulting in permits to kill cougars climbed steadily with human population growth …
它们尽可能避开人类，更喜欢捕食野生猎物，而不是更容易捕捉的家畜，“但在很多方面，感知仍然胜过科学。”在加利福尼亚州，“随着人口的增长，导致发放捕杀美洲狮许可证的投诉不断增加……
Then, after cougars killed two people in 1994, they ballooned …
然后，在 1994 年美洲狮杀死了两人之后，数量激增……
less to a rise in cougar activity than to hyper-vigilance stoked by fear.”
与其说是由于美洲狮活动的增加，不如说是由于恐惧引起的高度警惕。”
Science has slowly drawn this mysterious animal out of the shadows and into focus — not dispelling all irrational fear, but helping.
科学慢慢地将这种神秘的动物从阴影中拉出来，聚焦在焦点上——这并没有消除所有非理性的恐惧，而是有所帮助。
In Washington, after years of study, sport hunt was restructured to preserve cougar social structures.
在华盛顿，经过多年的研究，狩猎运动被重组以保护美洲狮的社会结构。
Protecting them is significant, as cougars “build worlds” — with cougar-killed carcasses being “shown to sustain 39 species of scavenging mammals and birds, and 215 species of beetle.” This is something Gilman sees for herself, when they find a cougar kill surrounded by “tracks in blood and shadow — magpie, raven, eagle — the traceries of wingtips brushing the drifts, a roil of life pouring in after the cat’s kill, shown clear on the canvas of winter.”
保护它们意义重大，因为美洲狮“创造了世界”——被美洲狮杀死的尸体“被证明可以维持 39 种食腐哺乳动物和鸟类，以及 215 种甲虫”。这是吉尔曼亲眼所见，当他们发现一头美洲狮被猎杀时，周围环绕着“血迹和阴影——喜鹊、乌鸦、鹰——翼尖刷过雪堆的痕迹，猎杀猫后涌入的生命的骚动，在冬天的画布上清晰地展现出来。”
This is a beautiful piece, enhanced with wonderful drawings Gilman has done herself, and, in the end, her fear is replaced by reverence, as although still uncomfortable to be walking the same land as a cougar, she is also aware it is “a gift.”
这是一幅美丽的作品，加上吉尔曼自己创作的精彩图画，最终，她的恐惧被敬畏所取代，尽管与美洲狮走在同一片土地上仍然感到不舒服，但她也意识到这是“一份礼物”。
## The Drone Boat of Shipwreck Ally (Matthew Braga, The Verge)
## 沉船盟友的无人机船（Matthew Braga、The Verge）
Shipwrecks have always held a fascination in the human psyche, the mystery of the seabed where “ghostly hulls” of “twisted metal and weathered, blackened wood” lie is intriguing, precisely because that’s what it is — a mystery.
沉船一直对人类心灵着迷，海底的神秘之处在于，海底躺着由“扭曲的金属和风化、变黑的木头”组成的“幽灵般的船体”，这令人着迷，正是因为它就是这样——一个谜。
Enter Ben, an autonomous boat who is learning to map sea floors, an area we know comparatively little about, with estimates that “we’ve mapped just 9 percent of the world’s oceans to modern standards.”
Ben 是一艘自动驾驶船，他正在学习绘制海底地图，我们对这个领域知之甚少，据估计“我们仅按照现代标准绘制了世界海洋的 9%”。
Ben is short for Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator, but the way Matthew Braga describes the boat, he is definitely a Ben, infused with a real sense of personality — a little engine that could, an intrepid explorer that goes where humans cannot.
Ben 是 Bathymetric Explorer 和 Navigator 的缩写，但从 Matthew Braga 描述这艘船的方式来看，他绝对是一艘 Ben，充满了真正的个性——一个可以做到的小引擎，一个勇敢的探险家，可以到达人类无法到达的地方。
Ben is a “bright banana yellow” and “an ambitious little boat with its own challenges to overcome and opportunities to seize.”
本是“明亮的香蕉黄”和“一艘雄心勃勃的小船，有自己的挑战需要克服，也有机会抓住。”
This little boat still has a lot to learn, and is training in a stretch of water called Thunder Bay off Michigan’s northeastern coast.
这艘小船还有很多东西需要学习，目前正在密歇根州东北海岸附近一片名为雷霆湾的水域进行训练。
Braga joins one of the sessions where Ben is learning to “mow the lawn” — what oceanographers call the slow, tedious craft of making maps at sea.
布拉加参加了本正在学习“修剪草坪”的课程之一——海洋学家称之为在海上制作地图的缓慢而乏味的工艺。
Braga’s accessible description of Ben trundling back and forth, learning “to understand and respond to the world around it,” is reminiscent of a Roomba robot vacuum, learning to clean the house without knocking over the cat bowl.
布拉加对本来回滚动、学习“理解并回应周围的世界”的简单描述让人想起 Roomba 扫地机器人，学习在不打翻猫碗的情况下打扫房子。
But Ben has more to offer than a dust-free carpet — autonomous boats like Ben could gather an “unprecedented amount of data — data crucial to our understanding of climate change, and the effects it has had on everything from melting Arctic ice to undersea life.” The data that Braga sees sliding “into view like a side-scrolling video game” is the start of Ben’s contribution to answering such life-defining questions.
但本能提供的不仅仅是无尘地毯——像本这样的自主船可以收集“前所未有的大量数据——这些数据对于我们了解气候变化及其对从北极冰层融化到海底生物等一切事物的影响至关重要。”布拉加看到的数据“像横向卷轴视频游戏一样进入视野”，这是本为回答此类决定人生的问题做出贡献的开始。
On a smaller scale, Ben can also turn detective — trying to solve decades-old mysteries, such as the crash site of “the long-lost plane of storied pilot Amelia Earhart.” Ben has already been sent to investigate, although is yet to find the answer.
在较小的范围内，本还可以成为侦探，试图解开数十年的谜团，例如“传奇飞行员阿米莉亚·埃尔哈特失踪已久的飞机”的坠机地点。本已被派去调查，但尚未找到答案。
This is not the first autonomous boat, and certainly won’t be that last — so Braga’s exploration of this technology offers a clear insight into a scientific development that, in the not so distant future, will change our knowledge of the seas.
这不是第一艘自主船，当然也不会是最后一艘——因此布拉加对这项技术的探索为科学发展提供了清晰的见解，在不远的将来，它将改变我们对海洋的认识。
## An Atlas of the Cosmos (Shannon Stirone, Longreads)
## 宇宙地图集（香农·斯特罗内，长读）
This story continues the theme of maps — but on a much, much bigger scale.
这个故事延续了地图的主题——但规模要大得多。
Shannon Stirone’s passion for the subject is apparent as, with a tone of reverence, she discusses a project “to make the most detailed 3D map of the universe.” The sense of perspective this piece provides is daunting: “…
Shannon Stirone 对这个主题的热情显而易见，她带着崇敬的语气讨论了一个“制作最详细的宇宙 3D 地图”的项目。这件作品提供的透视感令人畏惧：“……
you and I are going about our days on an average rocky planet in just one of trillions of solar systems,” but rather than just making you feel small, Stirone provides a sense of wonder at what we are a part of.
你和我正在数万亿太阳系之一的一颗普通岩石行星上度过我们的日子，”但斯特罗尼不仅让你感到自己很渺小，还让你对我们属于其中的一部分感到惊奇。
For as long as we have existed, “humans have been trying to understand themselves in the context of physical location.” One of the oldest maps in the world “shows us that the ancient Babylonians were trying to place themselves and their location into the greater unknown regions beyond their understanding.” Why do we crave to see beyond our boundaries, learn about what we do not understand?
自我们存在以来，“人类就一直试图在物理位置的背景下理解自己。”世界上最古老的地图之一“向我们展示了古代巴比伦人试图将自己和他们的位置置于他们无法理解的更大的未知区域”。为什么我们渴望超越自己的界限，了解我们不理解的事物？
Perhaps this thirst for knowledge is the very essence of what makes us human.
也许这种对知识的渴望正是我们人类的本质。
Stirone argues: “To know where you are at any given time is a frame of reference in which to measure your life.”
斯特罗内认为：“知道你在任何特定时间所处的位置是衡量你生活的参考系。”
We are doing pretty well in this quest: “We know the Earth is about 4 billion years old, we know that 13.8 billion years ago there was nothing and then there was everything.” But there is still a lot we don’t know — and at the heart of that is dark energy.
我们在这个探索中做得相当不错：“我们知道地球大约有 40 亿年的历史，我们知道 138 亿年前什么都没有，然后就有了一切。”但还有很多我们不知道的事情——其中的核心就是暗能量。
Called “dark because scientists simply cannot see it and they don’t really have any idea what it is,” it is “the dominating force in the universe which accounts for 70 percent of everything in existence” and is “responsible for expanding our universe outward at speeds of tens of thousands of miles per second.” Stirone visits the team at Kitt Peak National Observatory studying dark energy — using DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.
被称为“黑暗是因为科学家根本看不到它，而且他们也不知道它是什么”，它是“宇宙中的主导力量，占现存一切事物的 70%”，并且“负责以每秒数万英里的速度向外扩展我们的宇宙”。斯特龙拜访了基特峰国家天文台使用暗能量光谱仪 DESI 研究暗能量的团队。
The science is complex, but she manages to disseminate the difficult concepts — explaining how this team is “looking back in time at ancient light to better understand the story of the universe.”
科学很复杂，但她成功地传播了困难的概念——解释了这个团队如何“回顾远古之光，以更好地理解宇宙的故事”。
The fact that this science, is, in fact, history, is somewhat mind-boggling; “the images we see of space are never from the present –– that light has taken billions or millions of years to reach us,” and DESI is “making a map of a universe that is constantly changing, forever expanding.”
事实上，这门科学实际上是历史，这有点令人难以置信。 “我们看到的太空图像从来都不是现在的——光花了数十亿或数百万年才到达我们，”DESI 正在“绘制一张不断变化、永远膨胀的宇宙地图。”
So what is the point of making a map that is out of date?
那么制作一张过时的地图还有什么意义呢？
Stirone explains that “in order to know where we are going, we must first know where we have been,” and for humans, it is all about knowing.
斯特罗内解释说，“为了知道我们要去哪里，我们必须首先知道我们去过哪里”，对于人类来说，一切都与了解有关。
## A Corridor Runs Through It (Will Wellman, The Bitter Southerner)
## 一条走廊贯穿其中（威尔·韦尔曼，《苦涩的南方人》）
There is a particularly striking image in this piece — an alligator that Will Wellman spots in a drainage ditch by a Florida gas station, “surrounded by trash — food wrappers, beer cans, plastic bags.” It is a visual representation of the plight of Florida wildlife.
这篇作品中有一个特别引人注目的图像——威尔·韦尔曼在佛罗里达州加油站的排水沟里发现了一条鳄鱼，“周围都是垃圾——食品包装纸、啤酒罐、塑料袋。”这是佛罗里达州野生动物困境的视觉呈现。
Traveling as a child, Wellman was asked about his Florida home: “Is it just a big swamp down there?
韦尔曼小时候旅行时被问及他佛罗里达州的家：“那里只是一片大沼泽吗？
Are there alligators in your backyard?” Now the questions have changed: “Is it just a bunch of snowbirds down there?
你家后院有鳄鱼吗？”现在问题发生了变化：“下面只是一群雪鸟吗？
Are there golf courses everywhere?” Seemingly innocuous, these questions are poignant for Wellman, demonstrating the changes that Florida has gone through, and is still going through — from “wild green to lifeless gray” as every day “1,000 new people move to the state, and each hour, 12 acres of land is developed.”
到处都有高尔夫球场吗？”这些问题看似无伤大雅，但对威尔曼来说却是令人心酸的，它们展示了佛罗里达州已经经历和仍在经历的变化——从“狂野的绿色到死气沉沉的灰色”，每天“有 1000 名新人搬到该州，每小时就有 12 英亩的土地被开发”。
Wellman’s sadness at what is happening to his home state is palpable, and his language hums with empathy for the creatures caught up in these changes.
威尔曼对家乡发生的事情的悲伤是显而易见的，他的语言充满了对陷入这些变化的生物的同情。
His writing also has an air of hopelessness, but Wellman is prepared to be convinced that something can be done by the team he is joining on a swamp expedition — the Florida Wildlife Corridor team.
他的写作也充满了绝望的气氛，但韦尔曼准备相信他所加入的沼泽探险队——佛罗里达野生动物走廊队可以做一些事情。
Their aim is to prove that it isn’t too late to protect a continuous stretch of natural land throughout the state.
他们的目的是证明现在保护全州连续的自然土地还为时不晚。
What the animals have to deal with daily is insufficient connectivity, with “one of the leading causes of death for the endangered Florida panther” being “collision with vehicles.”
这些动物每天必须面对的问题是网络连接不足，“濒临灭绝的佛罗里达黑豹死亡的主要原因之一”是“与车辆相撞”。
The team is joined by a documentary crew, something Wellman does not seem particularly comfortable with, especially when “some crew step over a cottonmouth, this one more than double the size of the last — earning gasps from these seasoned explorers,” but he accepts “that without the social media and documentaries, folks wouldn’t know about fractured landscapes and the value of wildlife corridors in Florida.” Despite the filming, there is still excitement going into the swamps, where Wellman feels the most alive: “…
该团队由一支纪录片摄制组加入，韦尔曼对此似乎不太适应，尤其是当“一些摄制组跨过一只比上一只大一倍多的棉口鲨时——让这些经验丰富的探险家惊叹不已”，但他承认“如果没有社交媒体和纪录片，人们就不会了解佛罗里达州破碎的景观和野生动物走廊的价值。”尽管拍摄完毕，进入沼泽地仍然令人兴奋，威尔曼觉得那里最有活力：“......
a sense of life fed by ever-present danger.
一种永远存在的危险所滋养的生命感。
Swamps are marked by death — all the rotting organic matter that mars its floor and gives it life — and by risk — every nook and cranny could hide snakes, gators, and more.” But then, in the middle of a dense swamp, the team hears a loudspeaker from Lowes, reminding them that the “wild-urban interface is razor-thin,” and, if nothing is done, all that will be left is alligators living in trash.
沼泽的标志是死亡——所有腐烂的有机物质玷污了它的地面并赋予了它生命——还有危险——每个角落和缝隙都可能隐藏着蛇、鳄鱼等。”但随后，在茂密的沼泽中间，团队听到洛斯的扩音器声音，提醒他们“野生城市的界面非常薄弱”，如果不采取任何措施，剩下的将是生活在垃圾中的鳄鱼。
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