Longreads Best of 2014: Science Stories
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories.
我们要求一些作家和编辑在特定类别中选择一些他们今年最喜欢的故事。
Here, the best in science writing.
这里是最好的科学写作。
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Virginia Hughes
弗吉尼亚·休斯
Science reporter and soon-to-be science editor at BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed 的科学记者和即将成为的科学编辑。
## The Itch Nobody Can Scratch (Will Storr, Matter)
## 无人能抓的痒（威尔·斯托尔，Matter）
I’ve thought about this story (an excerpt from Storr’s book, The Unpersuadables) many, many times since reading it.
自从读完这个故事（摘自斯托尔的书《不可说服的人》）以来，我已经思考了很多很多次。
It’s superficially about Morgellons, a disease in which people think that they’re infected with bugs or fibers.
表面上看，这是一种莫吉隆斯病，人们认为自己感染了虫子或纤维。
But it’s really about the nature of disease and diagnosis, evidence and belief.
但这实际上与疾病的本质、诊断、证据和信念有关。
It’s creepy, fascinating, and profound.
它令人毛骨悚然、令人着迷且深刻。
The best part about it is the way Storr describes these patients and their delusions.
最精彩的部分是斯托尔描述这些患者及其妄想的方式。
It would be easy to make them seem stupid or crazy or worse.
很容易让他们显得愚蠢、疯狂或者更糟。
But Storr’s writing creates empathy and understanding.
但斯托尔的写作创造了同理心和理解。
The not-insignificant downside of this piece: it makes you feel itchy.
这件作品有一个不小的缺点：它会让你感到发痒。
## The End of Night (Rebecca Boyle, Aeon)
## 夜的终结（丽贝卡·博伊尔，Aeon）
Boyle describes an environmental tragedy that most of us never think about: light pollution.
博伊尔描述了我们大多数人从未想过的环境悲剧：光污染。
Her essay is broad and rich, moving effortlessly from a Chilean desert to newly hatched sea turtles to circadian biology to cell phone screens.
她的文章内容广泛而丰富，毫不费力地从智利沙漠到新孵化的海龟，从昼夜节律生物学到手机屏幕。
It’s an ambitious piece with many parts, but it doesn’t feel heavy.
这是一部雄心勃勃的作品，有很多部分，但并不感觉沉重。
I think that’s partly because of Boyle’s light touch, her sentences that often surprise and delight:
我认为这部分是因为博伊尔的轻柔触感，她的句子常常令人惊讶和高兴：
“If aliens ever do drop by, this might be their first sign that someone is home.”
“如果外星人真的来访，这可能是他们在家的第一个迹象。”
“We look at our glowing rectangles, and we opt out of that shared heritage.”
“我们看着我们发光的矩形，我们选择放弃这种共同的传统。”
“As Stevens puts it, it was like a light bulb going on when he realised that, in fact, a light bulb going on might be a culprit.”
“正如史蒂文斯所说，当他意识到实际上亮起的灯泡可能是罪魁祸首时，就像一个灯泡亮了一样。”
In short: It’s a beautiful piece of science writing with a poise and subtlety that I rarely see.
简而言之：这是一篇美丽的科学著作，有着我很少看到的平静和微妙。
## DIY Diagnosis (Ed Yong, Mosaic)
## DIY 诊断（Ed Yong，马赛克）
This is the story of a hero—a woman who’s diagnosed with two rare genetic diseases and becomes tech pioneer.
这是一个英雄的故事——一位被诊断患有两种罕见遗传病并成为科技先驱的女性。
I know what you’re thinking: another genetic disease story?
我知道你在想什么：另一个遗传疾病的故事？
But this one is far more plotty and exciting than most.
但这比大多数故事都更加情节和激动人心。
I love how Yong manages to make the genetics come alive, and he did that with meticulous reporting about his hippie athlete-turned-scientist protagonist.
我喜欢勇如何让遗传学变得生动起来，他通过对嬉皮运动员转变为科学家的主角的细致报道做到了这一点。
We learn the science by following how she learned it, and get invested in it because we’re invested in her.
我们通过跟随她的学习方式来学习科学，并因为我们对她的投资而对科学进行投资。
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Ed Yong
埃德·杨
Science reporter and freelance journalist.
科学记者和自由记者。
## My Great-Great-Aunt Discovered Francium.
## 我的曾曾祖母发现了钫。
And It Killed Her.
它杀了她。
(Veronique Greenwood, New York Times Magazine)
（维罗尼克·格林伍德，《纽约时报》杂志）
This story by Veronique Greenwood, about how her great-great-aunt discovered the element francium, is a story that starts off as a tale of tragic heroism but emerges as something far more surprising: It is a salve for our tendency to romanticise self-sacrifice without considering what that sacrifice means.
维罗妮克·格林伍德（Veronique Greenwood）的这个故事讲述了她的曾曾祖母如何发现钫元素，这个故事一开始是一个悲剧英雄主义的故事，但后来却变得更加令人惊讶：它是我们将自我牺牲浪漫化而不考虑这种牺牲意味着什么的倾向的一剂药膏。
It’s all of that, plus assured writing, and perfect structure.
这就是所有这些，加上有保证的写作和完美的结构。
## Arrested Development (Virginia Hughes, Mosaic)
## 发展受阻（弗吉尼亚休斯，马赛克）
“Science is often too slow, and life too fast.” This is an amazing story about girls with Syndrome X, who seem stuck in permanent infancy, and a scientist’s quixotic (and possibly futile) quest to study them.
“科学往往太慢，而生活却太快。”这是一个关于患有 X 综合症的女孩的精彩故事，她们似乎永远处于婴儿期，而一位科学家对她们进行不切实际的（可能是徒劳的）研究。
With her characteristic eye for detail and flair for description, Virginia Hughes offers a textbook example of covering uncertain science, with a protagonist who is fascinatingly painted but never glorified as an iconoclast.
弗吉尼亚·休斯以她特有的对细节的洞察力和描述的天赋，提供了一个涵盖不确定科学的教科书例子，主角的画风令人着迷，但从未被美化为反传统者。
## The Aftershocks (David Wolman, Matter)
## 余震（大卫·沃尔曼，Matter）
When a catastrophic earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy killed thousands of people, seven of Italy’s top scientists were convicted of manslaughter for failing to communicate the risks to the populace.
当意大利拉奎拉发生灾难性地震导致数千人死亡时，七名意大利顶级科学家因未能向公众传达风险而被判过失杀人罪。
David Wolman covers the tragedy, the trial, and what this means about our ability to predict—and discuss—the unpredictable.
大卫·沃尔曼 (David Wolman) 报道了这场悲剧、审判，以及这对我们预测和讨论不可预测事物的能力意味着什么。
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Amy Harmon
艾米·哈蒙
New York Times reporter covering science and society.
《纽约时报》记者报道科学和社会。
## We Are Entering the Age of Alzheimer’s (Kent Russell, The New Republic)
## 我们正在进入阿尔茨海默氏症时代（肯特·拉塞尔，《新共和》）
It’s a rare story that can issue an arresting call to arms without any actual exhortation.
这是一个罕见的故事，可以在没有任何实际劝告的情况下发出引人注目的武装号召。
But this one is virtually all show, no tell, and the showing is done with refreshing, welcome, weirdness: it is part-memoir, part-reporting, and, most affectingly, part imagination.
但这一部实际上完全是表演，没有讲述，而且表演的完成方式令人耳目一新、受欢迎、怪异：它一半是回忆录，一半是报告，最感人的是，一半是想象。
To bid us to reckon with Alzheimer’s, a degenerative brain disease likely to touch virtually everyone in coming years, Kent Russell does his best to inhabit his own father’s failing mind.
为了让我们正视阿尔茨海默氏症（一种在未来几年可能会影响到几乎每个人的退行性脑部疾病），肯特·拉塞尔尽了最大努力来平复他父亲的衰弱思想。
(“Calm.
（“冷静。
Remaining calm is the thing to do here, the old man concludes, glancing around the jetliner’s cabin.”) The channeling carries an authority earned from Russell’s reporting, the caregiving he performs, not always graciously, for his father, and simply from being his son.
保持冷静是这里要做的事情，老人总结道，环视了飞机的机舱。”）这一通灵带有一种权威，这种权威来自于拉塞尔的报道，以及他对父亲的照顾，但并不总是很仁慈，而且仅仅因为他是他的儿子。
It is both harrowing and heart-wrenching.
这既令人痛苦又令人心痛。
We learn here what is known about the biology of dementia—one longs for more research—and about the debate over how best to care for the expanding population of the afflicted.
我们在这里了解了有关痴呆症生物学的知识——人们渴望更多的研究——以及关于如何最好地照顾不断扩大的患者群体的争论。
But most provocatively, Russell asks what a disease that can rob both patients and caregivers of a sense of self means for our very conception of identity.
但最具挑衅性的是，拉塞尔问道，一种可以剥夺患者和护理人员自我意识的疾病对我们的身份概念意味着什么。
“If you can’t hold onto what makes you you, and if other people can deny it, anyway—what’s left?
“如果你不能坚持让你成为你的东西，并且如果其他人可以否认这一点，那么还剩下什么？
What was there to begin with?”
一开始有什么？
## How ‘Titanic’ Is Helping a South Pacific Tribe Understand Why Their Island Is Disappearing (Brooke Jarvis, Matter)
## 《泰坦尼克号》如何帮助南太平洋部落了解他们的岛屿为何消失（布鲁克·贾维斯，Matter）
It’s hard not to keep reading a story that starts out with human bones brushing against the author’s legs as she wades along the shore of an island in the South Pacific.
很难不继续阅读这个故事，故事的开头是作者沿着南太平洋一座岛屿的海岸涉水时，人骨擦过双腿。
And Brooke Jarvis’s essay on the effect of climate change on people whose homes are actually sinking as a result of it gets only more intriguing as it goes on.
布鲁克·贾维斯（Brooke Jarvis）关于气候变化对那些房屋实际上正在下沉的人们的影响的文章随着文章的继续下去只会变得更加有趣。
The story is great for how it humanizes a topic often discussed in terms of dry data, but it’s even better for showing how the visit to Papua New Guinea affects Jarvis, a veteran climate reporter, herself.
这个故事非常精彩，因为它如何将经常用干数据讨论的话题变得人性化，但它更能展示巴布亚新几内亚之行如何影响了资深气候记者贾维斯本人。
“No amount of climate journalism prepares you to explain the greenhouse effect to people fleeing their sinking homes,” she tweeted when the story came out.
“再多的气候新闻也无法让你向逃离正在下沉的家园的人们解释温室效应，”故事发表后她在推特上写道。
I won’t spoil it by revealing the details.
我不会透露细节来破坏它。
You will want to read to the end.
你会想读到最后。
## Seeds of Doubt (Michael Specter, The New Yorker)
## 怀疑的种子（迈克尔·斯佩克特，《纽约客》）
If you’re a journalist who wants to speak truth to power, Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmentalist who has been compared to Mother Teresa, called the “Gandhi of grain,’’ and whose opposition to genetically modified crops serves as an inspiration to food activists worldwide might not be the most obvious choice.
如果你是一名想要向权力说出真相的记者，被比作特蕾莎修女、被称为“粮食界的甘地”、对转基因作物的反对激励了全世界食品活动家的印度环保主义者万达娜·希瓦 (Vandana Shiva) 可能不是最明显的选择。
Yet as Michael Specter shows in this devastating profile, Shiva’s influence and popularity have been built on positions that repeatedly fly in the face of facts, and that stand to have serious consequences for world hunger.
然而，正如迈克尔·斯佩克特在这篇毁灭性的简介中所展示的那样，湿婆的影响力和受欢迎程度是建立在屡屡违背事实的立场之上的，而这种立场必将对世界饥饿产生严重后果。
I loved this piece particularly because Shiva’s claims are so routinely and sincerely invoked by the anti-GMO activists I have written about: it is precisely because of her reputation as a fierce champion for food justice that the she poses such a danger.
我特别喜欢这篇文章，因为湿婆的主张经常被我所写的反转基因活动人士真诚地引用：正是因为她作为食品正义的坚定拥护者的声誉，她才构成了如此大的危险。
Specter handles this by taking each claim seriously and methodically dismantling it.
斯佩克特通过认真对待每一项主张并有条不紊地予以驳斥来处理这一问题。
In doing so, he helps to facilitate a more rational debate on the use of biotechnology in agriculture.
通过这样做，他帮助促进了关于农业生物技术应用的更理性的辩论。
And more importantly, Shiva’s unraveling suggests that a simple standard—what is the evidence?—be applied to all claims, no matter how seemingly righteous, regarding the science and technology that increasingly shape how we live.
更重要的是，希瓦的揭示表明，一个简单的标准——证据是什么？——适用于所有关于日益影响我们生活方式的科学和技术的主张，无论看起来多么正义。
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Longreads Editor’s Pick (Mike Dang)
长读编辑精选（Mike Dang）
## The New Face of Richard Norris (Jeanne Marie Laskas, GQ)
## 理查德·诺里斯的新面孔（《GQ》珍妮·玛丽·拉斯卡斯）
A 22-year-old man named Richard Norris accidentally shoots himself in the face, and becomes one of the first people to successfully received a full face transplant with the help of a Baltimore reconstructive facial surgeon named Eduardo Rodriguez.
22 岁的理查德·诺里斯 (Richard Norris) 不小心朝自己的脸部开枪，在巴尔的摩面部重建外科医生爱德华多·罗德里格斯 (Eduardo Rodriguez) 的帮助下，他成为第一批成功接受全脸移植手术的人之一。
Rodriguez “likens the medically complex procedure to the Apollo moon landing.” These details alone could make for a very fascinating story, but Jeanne Marie Laskas takes a different approach, telling us about Norris’s life after the procedure and asking the question of whether or not these kinds of “life-enhancing” high-risk surgeries are even worth it.
罗德里格斯“将医学上复杂的程序比作阿波罗登月。”仅这些细节就可以构成一个非常引人入胜的故事，但珍妮·玛丽·拉斯卡斯采取了不同的方法，向我们讲述诺里斯手术后的生活，并提出这样的问题：这种“改善生命”的高风险手术是否值得。
“He’s not supposed to smoke,” his mom says.
“他不应该抽烟，”他妈妈说。
He can’t get sunburn.
他不会被晒伤。
He can’t get a cold.
他不能感冒。
He can’t drink.
他不能喝酒。
He can’t fall and risk injury.
他不能摔倒并冒受伤的危险。
He can’t afford to tax his immune system at all.
他根本负担不起自己的免疫系统的负担。
Even a cut could trigger rejection.
即使削减也可能引发拒绝。
It starts as a blotchy rash; it means his body is winning the fight to reject the transplant, and Richard has to be flown to the hospital to receive rounds of emergency drugs intravenously.
一开始是斑点状皮疹；这意味着他的身体正在赢得抵抗移植的斗争，理查德必须被空运到医院接受静脉注射紧急药物。
Uncontrollable rejection would mean an almost certain death; the only things left of Richard’s old face are his eyes and the back of his throat.
无法控制的拒绝几乎意味着死亡；理查德那张苍老的脸上唯一剩下的就是他的眼睛和喉咙后面。
Everything else is now gone for good.
其他一切现在都一去不复返了。
“I have to keep watch that his face doesn’t go yellow,” his mom says.
“我必须注意他的脸不要变黄，”他妈妈说。
“He’s had two rejections so far.”“I’ll leave you two talking,” Richard says, and he heads outside for a smoke.
“到目前为止，他已经被拒绝了两次。” “我会让你们两个谈谈，”理查德说，然后他走到外面抽烟。
“He’s not supposed to smoke,” his mom says.
“他不应该抽烟，”他妈妈说。
He can’t get sunburn.
他不会被晒伤。
He can’t get a cold.
他不能感冒。
He can’t drink.
他不能喝酒。
He can’t fall and risk injury.
他不能摔倒并冒受伤的危险。
He can’t afford to tax his immune system at all.
他根本负担不起自己的免疫系统的负担。
Even a cut could trigger rejection.
即使削减也可能引发拒绝。
It starts as a blotchy rash; it means his body is winning the fight to reject the transplant, and Richard has to be flown to the hospital to receive rounds of emergency drugs intravenously.
一开始是斑点状皮疹；这意味着他的身体正在赢得抵抗移植的斗争，理查德必须被空运到医院接受静脉注射紧急药物。
Uncontrollable rejection would mean an almost certain death; the only things left of Richard’s old face are his eyes and the back of his throat.
无法控制的拒绝几乎意味着死亡；理查德那张苍老的脸上唯一剩下的就是他的眼睛和喉咙后面。
Everything else is now gone for good.
其他一切现在都一去不复返了。
“I have to keep watch that his face doesn’t go yellow,” his mom says.
“我必须注意他的脸不要变黄，”他妈妈说。
“He’s had two rejections so far.”
“到目前为止，他已经被拒绝两次了。”
“I’ll leave you two talking,” Richard says, and he heads outside for a smoke.
“我会让你们两个谈谈，”理查德说，然后他走到外面抽烟。
It’s a story about a medical miracle, but one filled with complications, and Laskas tells it deftly.
这是一个关于医学奇迹的故事，但充满了并发症，拉斯卡斯巧妙地讲述了这个故事。