TE||Drinking in the last-chance saloon
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导读
北部白犀牛
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听力|精读|翻译|词组
Drinking in the last-chance saloon
（濒危物种）最后的机会
英文部分选自经济学人Science and technology版块
Animal conservation
动物保护
Drinking in the last-chance saloon
（濒危物种）最后的机会
Last chance saloon ：
1.a place frequented by unsavoury or contemptible people卑鄙的人常去的地方
2.a situation considered to be the last opportunity for success黎明前的黑暗
IVF may bring northern white rhinos back from the brink of extinction
体外受精技术或许能把北部白犀牛从绝迹边缘中解救出来
SUDAN, the last male northern white rhinoceros on Earth, died in March. He is survived by two females, Najin and her daughter Fatu, who live in a conservancy in Kenya. This pair (pictured) are thus the only remaining members of the world’s most endangered subspecies of mammal. But all might not yet be lost. Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, in Berlin, in collaboration with Avantea, a biotechnology company in Cremona, Italy, is proposing heroic measures to keep the subspecies alive. In a paper just published in Nature, he and his colleagues say that they have created, by in vitro fertilisation (IVF), apparently viable hybrid embryos of northern white rhinos and their cousins from the south. This, they hope, will pave the way for the creation of pure northern-white embryos.
三月，地球上最后一头雄性北部白犀牛“苏丹”死亡。它死后，只剩下两头雌性白犀牛Najin和它的女儿Fatu生活在肯尼亚保护区。这一对犀牛（如图）是世界上最濒危哺乳动物亚种仅存的活体了。不过这一切可能还没有结束。柏林莱布尼兹野生动物研究中心的托马斯·希尔德（Thomas Hildebrandt），通过与意大利克雷莫纳的生物科技公司Avantea合作，提出大胆的举措来保护亚种活体。刚刚在《自然》杂志上发表的一篇论文中，他和他的同事称，他们已经通过体外受精（IVF）的方式，创造并培育出了北部白犀牛和其南部表亲的杂交胚胎，这些杂交胚胎显然具有生命活性。他们希望，可以通过这种方式创造出纯种的北部白犀牛胚胎。
heroic measures：冒险措施；果断措施；孤注一掷的手段
IVF seems the last hope for the northern white rhino. Though stored sperm from Sudan and several other males are available, both Najin and Fatu now seem unable to conceive. This means, if the subspecies is to be preserved, that one or both of them will have to have some eggs removed from their ovaries and combined with stored sperm in a Petri dish.
体外受精（IVF）似乎是北部白犀牛的最后希望。尽管已经保存了“苏丹”和其它雄性犀牛的精子，并且都有活性。但是Najin 和Fatu现在都不能受孕。这就意味着：如果想要延续这一亚种，那么就需要从Najin或者Fatu的卵巢内提取出卵子，然后在培养皿中进行体外受精培育。
Extracting rhinoceros eggs is hard. The animals’ ovaries are over a metre deep inside them, meaning that the extraction procedure, which employs a probe with a sharp needle attached to it to suck the eggs out, is hazardous. But practice makes perfect, so the team started by obtaining instead some eggs from a southern white rhino, the northern’s close cousin. They combined these with some of their cache of northern sperm and coaxed seven of the resulting zygotes through the early stages of embryonic development, to the point where they could be implanted in the uterus of a southern white, who would act as a surrogate mother, with a reasonable hope of success.
抽取犀牛的卵子是一件很难的工作。雌性北部白犀牛的卵巢在体内一米多深处，要用带有锋利针头的探测器来把卵子吸出来，整个提取过程很危险。但是，所谓熟能生巧，这一团队最先从南部白犀牛（北部白犀牛的近亲）体内提取出卵子。他们把这些卵子和保存好的北部白犀牛精子结合在一起，培育了7个受精卵并使其度过早期的胚胎发育，达到一定阶段后再把受精卵植入到作为代孕妈妈的南部白犀牛的子宫内，这在理论上能够成功。
That has not yet happened. The seven embryos are now in a freezer awaiting the results of research on how best to transfer them to surrogates. In the meantime, having proved their technique with these hybrids, Dr Hildebrandt and his colleagues now hope to create more embryos, this time using eggs from the two remaining female northern whites.
但以上设想还未发生。现在这七个胚胎还处于冷冻状态，正等待科学家们研究出将它们转移至代孕者体内的最佳方法。与此同时，既然这些杂交胚胎证明了他们的技术水平，现在希尔德（Hildebrandt）博士和他的同事们打算从仅存的两头雌性北部白犀牛取出卵子，以期培育更多的胚胎。
Even if they succeed, though, it will be a long haul back for the northern white rhino. Members of any new generation resulting from IVF will have then to be bred with each other to create subsequent generations—with all the risks of reduced biological fitness which such incest entails. It is not so much a gene pool that Dr Hildebrandt is working with as a gene puddle.
即使这些都成功实现了，对于北部白犀牛来说，仍将会是一个漫长的过程。由体外受精（IVF）培育出的任何新一代的成员，随后将彼此交配繁衍出后代——这种近亲交配可能会降低生物适应性。与其说Hildebrandt博士研究的是基因库，倒不如说它是基因坑。
Then there is the question of what to do with the resulting animals. Analysis of other rhinoceros species, both in Africa and Asia, points to a viable population in the wild needing to be at least 500 strong. Even if such a group could be created, and not collapse from lack of genetic diversity, releasing it into the tender mercies of what remains of Kenya’s savannah would be risky. The reason the northern white has come so close to extinction—poaching—is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
接下来问题便是如何处理这些后代。根据其他亚非犀牛物种的分析指出，犀牛在野外得以繁衍生息的数量至少为500头。即使能够人为的创造这类种群，并且不会因为缺乏基因多样性而急剧减少，但是将其放生于肯尼亚大草原之中，在这几乎没有怜悯之心的地方还是危险重重。（因为）让北部白犀牛迅速濒临灭绝的偷猎行为，绝不会在短期消失。
Dr Hildebrandt’s work is thus a half step along what is likely to be a very long road indeed. Charismatic megafauna rhinoceroses may be. But whether that charisma can sustain enough effort for long enough to save the northern white is about to be tested.
因此，希尔德（Hildebrandt）博士的研究工作只是“万里长征”路上的一小步。巨型犀牛也许有无穷的魅力，但是这种魅力是否能使他们保持长久的努力去挽救北部白犀牛还有待考证。
翻译组：
Frank，男，小硕，经济学人爱好者
Oria，女，工科博士，经济学人粉丝
Jasmine， 女 ，税收专业大三学生， 经济学人粉丝
校核组：
Muyi，文产小研，经济学人初段读者
Helga，女，笔译民工，经济学人爱好者
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观点|评论|思考
本次观点由Xingyi独家奉献
Xingyi，男，小硕，经济学人爱好者
关于是否要保护濒危物种还存在争议。巨额预算，长期的投入，较低的成功率。最主要的是，人们无法在短期看到投入的回报。所以花大钱去保护别的物种，或许短期来看还不如直接用去扶贫济困更能帮助自己的同类。那么为什么要去保护他们呢？
从达尔文主义的角度看，灭绝是演化的过程。生物无法适应环境，那也没必要去保护他们，应该不管他们，把自然资源留给适应力更强的生物。不过主流意见还是赞成保护。认为生物多样性的价值可以分为直接价值，间接价值和潜在价值。物种的多样性有着许多我们未知且含巨大价值可能。生物多样性的直接价值是指对人类有食用、药用和工业原料等实用意义的，以及有旅游观赏、科学研究和文学艺术创作等非实用意义的价值。间接价值是指对生态系统起到重要调节作用的价值，如森林和草地对水土的保持作用，湿地在蓄洪防旱、调节气候等方面的作用。生物多样性的间接价值明显大于它的直接价值。物种多样性高的生态系统低于风险的能力也更强。潜在价值就是目前人类尚不清楚的价值，比如各个物种都有自己的基因库，他们各有特色的基因很可能在未来能作为救世主解救一些新的生物危机。
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