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以从未有过的方式，发现简·奥斯汀的机智、浪漫与魅力。
Discover the wit, romance, and charm of Jane Austen like you've never heard before.
从《傲慢与偏见》到《爱玛》，六部经典作品全阵容BBC广播剧演绎。
From Pride and Prejudice to Emma, experience all six classics in full cast BBC audio dramatizations.
由大卫·田纳特和本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇主演，这些制作让奥斯汀的永恒世界栩栩如生。
Featuring David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch, these productions bring Austen's timeless world to life.
我无法形容您的话多么令人欣慰，我多么渴望听到这些话。
I cannot tell you how welcome your words are, how I have wished for them.
我最亲爱的伊丽莎白，难道
My dearest Elizabeth, can it
你也爱我是真的吗？
be true that you love me too?
是真的。
It is true.
欢迎收听BBC广播剧《简·奥斯汀全集》，在您获取有声书的所有平台均可收听。
Listen to the Jane Austen BBC radio drama collection available wherever you get your audiobooks.
现在，为纪念梅尔文·布拉格在我们节目中长达27年的难忘主持生涯，他将亲自为我们介绍这个系列中他最珍视的最后一期节目。
And now to mark the end of his twenty seven memorable years presenting in our time, we have Melvin Bragg to introduce the final edition in our series of his most cherished episodes.
艾米莉·狄金森曾写道：希望是长着羽毛的东西。
Emily Dickinson wrote, hope is a thing with feathers.
我们曾在节目中探讨过狄金森、希望、执鹅毛笔的作家们、羽箭的飞行、当然还有鸟类等等话题。
We've discussed Dickinson on In Our Time and hope and writers with quill pens in their hands and the flight of fletched arrows and birds, of course, and more.
但在我最珍视的节目中，有一期是关于我成长过程中完全不知道其长有羽毛的生物。
Yet one of my most cherished episodes is on something that growing up, I had no idea had feathers.
这正是那种我在这里初次接触后就终生难忘的话题类型。
It's just the kind of topic I learned about here first, and it stayed with me.
因此我从近1100期节目档案中精选了这期关于带羽毛恐龙的节目。
And that's why I plucked feathered dinosaurs from our archive of almost 1,100 episodes.
其中展现的科学探秘过程令人叹为观止。
The scientific detective work here is astonishing.
你好。
Hello.
你好。
Hello.
直到二十年前，人们普遍认为恐龙是数百万年前就已灭绝的笨重大型蜥蜴类生物。
Until twenty years ago, dinosaurs were widely assumed to be large, lumping lizards that became extinct millions of years ago.
此后中国的发现戏剧性地表明，许多恐龙其实行动敏捷且身披羽毛，其中一些甚至躲过了大灭绝事件，成为现代鸟类的祖先。
Discoveries in China have since shown dramatically that many were fast and feathered, and some survived the great extinctions and are the ancestors of our modern birds.
中国新近发现的带羽毛恐龙化石保存极为完好，科学家甚至能分辨羽毛颜色及其在恐龙身体的分布位置，并推测这些羽毛用于展示、保温，某些情况下或许还能辅助飞行。
The recently discovered Chinese fossils of feathered dinosaurs are so well preserved, scientists can even work out the feathers' color and where they were found on dinosaurs' bodies and theorize about their use for displays, insulation, and in some cases, perhaps flight.
就连庞大的霸王龙可能也曾覆盖绒羽，而小型迅猛龙的前肢则排列着类似翅膀的羽管状长羽毛。
Even the large Tyrannosaurus may have had downy feathers, and it appears as the small velociraptors had long quill like feathers arranged on arms that look like wings.
与我共同探讨带羽毛恐龙的是迈克·本顿。
With me to discuss feathered dinosaurs are Mike Benton.
迈克·本顿，布里斯托大学脊椎动物古生物学教授。
Mike Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol.
爱丁堡大学脊椎动物古生物学研究员兼校长研究员史蒂夫·布鲁萨蒂，以及科克大学学院地质学高级讲师玛丽亚·麦克纳马拉。
Steve Brusati, reader and chancellor's fellow in vertebrate paleontology at the University of Edinburgh, and Maria McNamara, senior lecturer in geology at University College Cork.
迈克·本顿，恐龙是行动迟缓、体型笨重的蜥蜴这种观念是如何变得普遍的？
Mike Benton, how did the idea become commonplace that dinosaurs were slow, heavy lizards?
我认为这是我们许多人从小接受的观点，尤其是30或40岁以上的人。
I think this is what many of us were brought up with, and I think those over the age of maybe 30 or 40, definitely.
我们现在仍常用'恐龙'这个词来形容某种失败者或笨拙无能的事物。
And we still commonly use the word dinosaur to mean a sort of failure or something that's lumbering and hopeless.
我们从小看的书里描绘的都是些灰色的大型爬行动物。
So we were brought up with books that show large, gray colored reptilian creatures.
人们当时认为它们会拖着尾巴在沼泽里缓慢爬行。
And the assumption is they'd be kind of dragging their tails and and crawling around in the swamps.
这种印象符合它们已经灭绝、被遗忘已久、风光不再无法存续的观点。
And that fitted an idea that they're extinct and they're long forgotten, and and that they'd had their day and they couldn't survive.
但正如你在开场白所说，新发现彻底改变了这种认知。
But as you said in the introduction, that's massively changed as a result of new discoveries.
因为如果人类能像它们那样长寿，我们就算很幸运了，不是吗？
Because they live for if we if we, the human species, lives as long as they did, we would be lucky, wouldn't we?
嗯，确实如此。
Well, yes, indeed.
或许吧。
Or not.
不过
But And
我认为，考虑到它们在世的时间之长，它们显然是非常成功的。
I think thinking of thinking of the time they were on the Earth, they clearly were massively successful.
没错。
Yeah.
这些新发现帮助我们理解其中的原因。
And so the new discoveries help us to understand why.
那么为什么这种观点会在公众，尤其是年轻一代的想象中如此根深蒂固呢？
And did it why did it catch on so firmly in the imagination of the general public and particularly the younger general public?
为什么它们如此庞大、笨重且行动迟缓？
Why the largeness and the lumberingness and the sleepy slowness?
为什么暴龙的召唤力如此强大？
Why was that and the power of the Call of Tyrannosaurus in that?
你认为它为何如此受欢迎？
Why do you think it caught on so much?
我想人们喜欢这个想法是因为它像一个虚构的世界。
I think I think people liked the idea because it was something like a a fictional world.
它就像是龙和怪物之类的东西，而我们都愿意相信这类事物的存在，而它们确实存在过。
It was something like dragons and and and monsters, and we all want to believe in those kinds of things, and there they were.
所以你和它们都被赋予了正当性，因为它们是真实存在的。
And so you you you and and they were legitimated because they were real.
你可以去自然历史博物馆亲眼看看这些巨大的骨架。
You could go to the Natural History Museum and see these great skeletons.
而且我认为对科学家来说，许多恐龙如梁龙和雷龙体型极其庞大这一事实也很重要。
And I think also for the scientists, the fact that many of them, Diplodocus and Brontosaurus, were absolutely huge.
所以它们的体重可能有50吨，而最大的大象也只有5吨。
So they would have weighed maybe 50 tons compared to the biggest of elephants weighing five tons.
你得想想，怎么可能有体型那么大的大象呢？
You have to think, how could you have an elephant of that size?
因此，那时的世界肯定大不相同。
Therefore, the world must have been massively different.
它们一定是以不同的方式生活着，可能行动缓慢。
They must have been living in a different way, maybe living in slow motion.
当然，孩子们一直很喜欢恐龙，因为能激发想象力，让人幻想英雄和那些他们可能向往生活的异世界。
And then kids have always loved it, of course, because of the the the the the imagination and and and sort of thinking of heroes and other other worlds where where they might have liked to live.
考虑到Kindle一开始的兴趣，它确实花了很长时间才起步。
Given the interest at Kindle once it got started, it it took a long time to start.
托马斯·赫胥黎，19世纪被称为达尔文的斗牛犬，是最早深入研究化石理论的人之一。
Thomas Huxley, Darwin's bulldog, he was called in the nineteenth century, was someone who dug into the theory into the fossil theory of of that as as early as anybody else roundabout.
是的。
Yes.
所以赫胥黎的见解是正确的。
And and so Huxley got it right.
大约在1860至1870年间，他研究了一些早期恐龙，特别是我们通常称为两足食肉动物的兽脚类恐龙。
Around 1860, 1870, he was studying some of the early dinosaurs, particularly the two legged ones that we generally call the the meat eaters that we generally call theropods.
他还观察了始祖鸟——最古老的鸟类，至今仍被认为是最原始的鸟类。
And he noticed and he looked also at Archaeopteryx, which was the oldest bird and still is reckoned to be the most primitive bird.
这些化石刚在德国被发现，他注意到除了羽毛外，始祖鸟的骨骼结构就像一只小型恐龙。
They had just been discovered in Germany, and he noticed that apart from its feathers, Archaeopteryx had the skeleton of a a little dinosaur.
因此他构想这些生物更为活跃，并且早在那个年代就明确指出鸟类与恐龙是近亲。
And so he had a vision of them as a bit more active, and he was pretty clear then, so long ago, that birds and dinosaurs were close relatives.
他当时能接触到哪些研究材料？
What material did he have to work from?
那时候可用的材料并不多。
So there wasn't a great deal at that time.
自19世纪20年代以来，英格兰已陆续收集到许多零散的巨型骨骼化石。
There were a number of isolated large bones that had been collected in England from the eighteen twenties onwards.
实际上没有完整的骨骼标本，我认为他深受1860年左右南德地区发现的科摩普斯纳图斯小型恐龙和始祖鸟骨骼的影响。
No complete skeletons really, and then I think he was very influenced by discoveries in South Germany around 1860, where they found skeletons of a small dinosaur called Kompsognathus and of Archaeopteryx, Archaeopteryx.
当然，还有一只鸽子大小的生物，翅膀展开时可见清晰的羽毛，但他能看出它具有爬行动物的骨骼结构。
And, of course, there was a a creature the size of a pigeon with its wings outspread with clear feathers along the wings, and yet he could see that it had a reptilian skeleton.
赫胥黎的发现当时是如何被接受的？
How it was how was Huxley's news received?
我认为他极力推广这个观点，因为正如你所说，他是达尔文的坚定支持者。
Well, I think he pushed it because he was, as you said, Darwin's bulldog.
他非常明确地将这视为进化论的证据。
He was he very clearly saw this as evidence of evolution.
这正是爬行动物与鸟类之间缺失的过渡环节。
Here was the sort of missing link between reptile and bird.
因此他充满热情，我想当时许多人也一样。
And so he was enthusiastic, and I think a lot of others at the time.
但后来奇怪的是，我们某种程度上倒退了约一百年，从1870年直到1970年左右。
But then very oddly, we sort of reversed for about a hundred years, really from 1870 to about 1970.
就在那段时期，更完整的巨型骨骼化石从美国、蒙古以及世界其他地区出土。
That and it was during that time that more complete giant skeletons were coming out of The United States and Mongolia and other parts of the world.
我不太确定人们为何会从赫胥黎的观点后退。
And I'm not quite sure why people stepped back from Huxley's view.
也许仅仅是这些巨型恐龙的庞大数量和体型让他们认为，那个世界确实截然不同。
Maybe it was just the sheer size and numbers of these giant dinosaurs that they thought, you know, the world was truly different.
史蒂夫·布鲁萨特，在我们深入之前，能否用几个惊人事实概括它们的存在时期、行为特征、为何能统治如此之久，以及绝大多数为何突然灭绝？
Steve Brusselli, before we go further, can you give us a few astonishing facts about the lifetime and the what they did and why they were there so long and how the how most of them were extinguished so quickly.
好吧，我会尝试用三十秒左右讲完恐龙进化的故事。
Well, I'll try to do the story of dinosaur evolution in thirty seconds or so.
你继续，
You go on,
伙计。
man.
不用着急。
Don't rush.
真的，别着急。
Really, don't rush.
我会挥手示意，如果
I'll wave my hands if
你讲得太久的话。
you've gone for too long.
嗯，它们存在了很长时间。
Well, it was a long time they lived.
最早的恐龙出现在约2.3亿至2.4亿年前。
So the first dinosaurs show up about two thirty or two forty million years ago.
当时地球正从有史以来最严重的灭绝事件中恢复，即二叠纪末的大灭绝，当时约95%的生物都灭绝了。
And this is when the Earth is recovering from the worst extinction that ever happened, this extinction at the end of the Permian period, when maybe 95% of all things went extinct.
于是在灭绝后的新世界里，出现了开放的竞争舞台，恐龙就在这时登场，同时出现的还有哺乳动物、海龟等许多其他类群。
So you had this new world after the extinction, open playing field, and that's when dinosaurs entered the scene, along with a lot of other groups like mammals and turtles.
这些最早的恐龙，它们起步很缓慢。
And so then these first dinosaurs, they got their start slowly.
它们并非突然崛起。
They didn't take off all of a sudden.
它们没有像传染性病毒那样迅速蔓延全球。
They didn't spread around the world like an infectious virus or something like that.
它们用了约五千万年时间慢慢分化，直到另一次大灭绝消灭了许多早期竞争对手。
They took their time, about fifty million years it took for them to slowly diversify until another extinction wiped out a lot of their early rivals.
随后在侏罗纪时期，恐龙开始遍布全球。
And then in the Jurassic period, dinosaurs spread around the world.
巨型恐龙开始演化，出现了长颈的庞然大物和巴士体型的肉食者。
You got enormous dinosaurs evolving, the big colossal long neck dinosaurs, the bus sized meat eaters.
它们栖息在所有大陆上。
They were living on all continents.
当时大陆还是一个整体——盘古大陆，但已开始逐渐分裂。
The continents were one at that time, Pangaea, the single landmass, but it was breaking up gradually.
恐龙随着大陆漂移继续演化，直到6600万年前白垩纪末期，一颗六英里宽的小行星从天而降。
The dinosaurs were along for the ride and they continued to evolve until the end of the Cretaceous period, sixty six million years ago when this six mile wide asteroid fell out of the sky.
很快地。
Quickly.
霸王龙、三角龙和雷龙无法适应，但有些鸟类可以，所以现在我们仍有鸟类存在。
The T Rexes and Triceratopses and Brontosauruses, they couldn't cope, but some birds could, and now we have birds still with us.
我们应该把它打印出来，挂在大多数教室的墙上。
We should print that out and hang it on the wall of most classrooms.
谢谢。
Thank you.
现在恐龙群体中有哪些重要的分类？
Now what are the significant divisions divisions in in the the dinosaur mass?
现在恐龙种类很多。
There's a lot of dinosaurs now.
已经发现的恐龙种类超过1500种，而且人们还在不断发现新的种类。
There's there's over 1,500 species that have been found, and people are finding new ones all the time.
我们正处在一个真正不可思议的时刻，因为现在全球平均每周都有新恐龙物种被发现。
It's really an incredible moment that we're all in right now because somewhere around the world right now, somebody's finding a new species of dinosaur on average about once a week.
所以我们每年大约会发现50个新物种。
So we're getting about 50 new species a year.
这是恐龙研究的黄金时代，新发现遍布全球各地。
This is the golden age, and they're coming from everywhere.
中国当然是个重要地区（我们稍后会谈到），但各大洲都有恐龙发现，甚至在苏格兰也有新发现。
China, of course, as we'll talk about, but every continent dinosaurs are found on, and we're even finding them up in Scotland.
所以物种数量非常庞大。
So there are so many species.
目前存在多种分类体系。
There are lots of classification schemes.
这些分类正是许多孩子热衷记忆、学者们热衷争论的内容。
These are the things that a lot of young kids memorize and a lot of people like to argue about.
但在我看来，恐龙最重要的分类可以划分为三大类群。
But the really, to me, the most important divisions of dinosaurs, there's three main groups.
第一类是像雷龙这样的长脖子恐龙。
There's the long neck ones like Brontosaurus.
我们称这些为蜥脚类恐龙。
We call those the sauropod dinosaurs.
还有长着喙的植食性恐龙。
There are the plant eaters with beaks.
这些是我们所称的鸟臀目恐龙，比如三角龙和剑龙。
These are what we call the Ornithischian dinosaurs, so things like Triceratops and Stegosaurus.
然后还有兽脚类恐龙，即肉食性恐龙。
And then there's the theropod dinosaurs, the meat eaters.
有哪一类特别是有羽毛的恐龙所属的吗？
Is there one group in particular that the feathered dinosaurs enter into?
就是这第三类，兽脚类恐龙。
It's this third group, the theropod dinosaurs.
所以鸟类是从兽脚类恐龙演化而来的。
So birds come from theropod dinosaurs.
它们从兽脚类进化而来，就像人类从猿类进化一样。
They evolved from theropods the same way humans evolved from apes.
因此鸟类就是兽脚类恐龙。
So birds are theropod dinosaurs.
是什么特征让兽脚类恐龙能够长出羽毛？
What distinguished theropod dinosaurs to make them carry the feathers?
这正是个重大问题，也是我们近几十年来在中国不断深入研究的内容。
Well, this is the big question, and this is what we're learning so much about, you know, in China over the last couple of decades.
看起来羽毛的起源可以追溯到最早的兽脚类恐龙，后来其中一支兽脚类恐龙逐渐体型变小、骨骼改变、羽毛进化，最终演变成了鸟类。
It looks like feathers go way back to the earliest theropods, and then it looks like one group of these theropods over time gradually got small, changed their skeleton, evolved feathers, changed those feathers and turned into birds.
比如有些兽脚类恐龙像霸王龙，
So some theropods like T.
这些是体型庞大的伏击型肉食动物。
Rex, for instance, these were enormous plotting meat eaters.
还有些背部生有冠饰和骨板。
Other ones had crests and cells on their backs.
另一些则体型娇小。
Some were tiny.
兽脚类恐龙种类繁多，而鸟类正是从这种巨大的多样性中演化而来。
There were lots of variety of these theropods, but birds emerged from that great diversity.
超过五千万年的时间。
Over fifty million years.
是的。
Yes.
这是个漫长的过程。
It was a long process.
鸟类并非某天突然进化而成的。
A bird didn't just evolve one day.
一只霸王龙
A T.
不会突然变异成鸡。
Rex didn't mutate into a chicken.
进化并非如此运作，而是经过漫长的渐进变化过程。
That's not how evolution works, but it was a long process of gradual change.
在这个过程的最后，鸟类出现了，一种小型有羽毛、会飞的恐龙。
And at the end of that, a bird emerged, a small feathered winged flying dinosaur.
玛丽亚·麦克纳马拉，我们正在讨论羽毛。
Maria McNamara, we're about feathers.
我们的听众对羽毛的理解是什么？他们知道羽毛是什么吗？
What are what what do our listeners do understand by feathers?
好的。
Okay.
羽毛是非常了不起的表皮结构。
So feathers are really remarkable integumentary structures.
它们源自我们的表皮或皮肤。
So they're derived from our integument or our skin.
通过研究小鸡胚胎中羽毛的发育过程，我们实际上可以弄清楚它们的来源。
And we know that by studying the development of feathers in chick embryos we can actually work out where they come from.
我们知道在小鸡成长过程中，随着皮肤发育，会在皮肤最外层形成一个小小的增厚区域。
So we know that during growth of a chick that as the skin is developing you form a little thickened region in the outermost part of your skin.
这个增厚区域开始向内生长，形成毛囊，而构成毛囊内壁的细胞来自真皮层，也就是皮肤的深层部分。
This thickened region starts to project inwards, forms a follicle and the cells lining that follicle, they're from the dermis, the lower part of the skin.
这些细胞逐渐凋亡，开始形成羽毛的内部结构。
They die off and they start to form the interior part of the feather.
与此同时，一些细胞从皮肤向外突出，形成中空的羽轴。
At the same time that this is happening, some cells that project outwards from the skin to form a hollow shaft.
这基本上就是羽毛的基本结构。
And this is basically the fundamental structure of a feather.
它是一个中空的管状结构。
It's a hollow tube.
但当你观察现代鸟类时，羽毛通常比这复杂得多，它们实际上是脊椎动物（有脊椎的动物）皮肤衍生物中最复杂的结构。
But when you look at modern birds today, feathers are actually much more complex than that usually, they're actually the most complex structures derived from the skin in vertebrates, animals with backbones.
以乌鸦或寒鸦的典型飞羽为例，它们实际上具有多级分支结构。
So a typical feather flight feather in a crow or a jackdaw, it actually has several levels of branching.
那个中央羽轴或管状结构（读者或听众可能熟悉为羽毛的羽管部分）会分叉成更小的结构，称为羽枝。
So that central shaft or tube, which would be familiar to readers or listeners as the quill part of the feather, that branches into into smaller structures called barbs.
这些羽枝上又有更小的分支称为羽小枝，而这些羽小枝的末端又分化出小钩子，可以相互扣合形成完整闭合的羽片。
In turn, those barbs have little branches called barbules, and these barbules are in turn differentiated at their tips into little hooklets that can zip together to form a nice closed vein.
对我来说有一点很特别——接续史蒂夫刚才提到的——那就是在这漫长的恐龙生存年代里，羽毛似乎没有任何进化发展。
One thing that it is for me, picking picking up from what Steve said, is that there doesn't seem to be inside this long range of life that the dinosaurs had any development of evolution of feathers.
羽毛在开始时就有，在中间阶段，最后在结尾阶段也有羽毛。
There are feathers at the beginning, are feathers in the middle, there are feathers at the end.
是这样吗？
Is that right?
它们是否出于我们尚不清楚的原因突然出现？
Did they just pop up for reason we, as yet, don't know?
好的。
Okay.
当我们纵观恐龙演化树，观察兽脚类恐龙和鸟臀目恐龙时，可以看到不同发育阶段、不同进化阶段的羽毛证据。
So when you look across the dinosaur tree, when you look across the theropods and also the ornithischian dinosaurs, we can see evidence of feathers at different developmental stages, different evolutionary stages.
我们看到一系列化石羽毛，从结构上非常现代的复杂羽毛开始，一直延续到其他阶段。
So we see a spectrum of fossil feathers that go right from the very complex feathers that are anatomically modern.
它们看起来与现今鸟类身上的羽毛完全相同，从成簇的丝状结构一直回溯到简单的丝状物，甚至更早时期看起来就像毛发一样。
They look identical to what we have in birds today, right back to clumps of filaments and even further back to just simple filaments that for all, you know, intents and purposes look like hairs.
所以存在进化过程？
So there was evolution?
是的，我们可以追踪这种进化过程，就像观察小鸡胚胎中羽毛发育那样。
Yes, we can we can track the evolution that what we see in the developing chick as a feather develops in a in an embryo.
我们能在化石中看到这些不同阶段的形态发育过程。
We can see these different stages of morphological development in fossils.
迈克提到过那个倒退百年的研究阶段。
Mike talked about the the the the hundred years backward step.
随着中国东北地区绵延数公里的巨型化石群的发现，这一领域获得了巨大的研究突破，似乎彻底改变了你们的研究方向。
It was given a huge acceleration forward with the discovery of this great field of fossils, miles, kilometers of fossils in Northeast China, which seems to have changed everything in your area of study.
你能向听众解释下这个发现过程吗？
Can you tell listeners how that happened?
好的。
Okay.
在90年代中期，最初报道了一种名为中华龙鸟的新恐龙。
So in the early mid nineteen nineties, there came the initial report was of a new dinosaur called Sinusopteryx.
这一标本的发现彻底震惊了古生物学界，因为这只恐龙保存了羽毛。
And the discovery of this specimen absolutely electrified the world of palaeontology because this dinosaur preserved feathers.
当然这些羽毛极具争议性，因为中华龙鸟的羽毛非常非常短。
So these were very controversial, of course, because the feathers in Sinusaropteryx, they're very, very short.
它们只有约10毫米长，看起来并不像现代鸟类复杂的羽毛。
They're only about 10 millimetres long, and they don't really look like the complex feathers we see in modern birds.
它们看起来像简单的毛发状丝状结构。
They look like simple hair like filaments.
最初的报道在古生物学家和媒体中都引起了巨大关注，因为这是鸟类与恐龙之间存在联系的首个直接证据。
So the initial reports, you know, which gained huge attention among paleontologists and the media alike, because it was the first direct evidence for a link between birds and dinosaurs.
这是第一具带有羽毛的恐龙化石。
It was the first dinosaur bearing feathers.
这些发现实际上极具争议，因为有些古生物学家将这些羽毛重新解释为其他结构，认为只是皮肤纤维。
And these were actually very controversial because you had some paleontologists who claimed that who reinterpreted those feathers as other structures, as just fibers from the skin.
能否请您介绍一下中国东北地区可获取的化石材料范围以及那里广阔的化石田野情况？
Can you give us some idea of the range of material available and the vast, as it were, fossil fields there are in Northeast China?
我们讨论的大部分化石来自两个主要的化石生物群。
Most of the fossils that we're talking about, they come from two main fossil biotas.
一个是早白垩世的界河生物群，另一个是年代稍晚的侏罗纪大后沟生物群。
The Jiehaw biota, which is early Cretaceous in age, and this the slightly younger Jurassic Dahougou biota.
我曾在其中一些地点进行过实地考察。
And so I've done fieldwork at some of these localities.
遗憾的是，由于挖掘活动频繁且当地农民采集化石的积极性很高，现在部分遗址已通过监控摄像头进行严密保护。
And unfortunately, there's been so much activity and the local farmers are so eager to recover fossils that some of these sites are now very heavily protected by CCTV.
所以作为一名古生物学家
So as a paleontologist
你能从中获得什么？
do you get out of it?
什么？你能从中获得什么？
What what do you get out of it?
是的。
Yeah.
哦，我是说，就某些类群而言，你能发现成千上万的标本。
Oh, I mean, well, in terms of some taxa, you can recover thousands of specimens.
比如有一种叫孔子鸟的原始鸟类，现在已知的标本就有数千件。
So there's there's a primitive bird called Confucius ornus, which is known from thousands of specimens now.
但你之前提到的德国那个，我想是用了'恐惧'这个词，大约有一公里长的那个。
But did you referred early on, like, to the thing coming out of German, I think, used, fear, which is about a kilometer or so long.
这可是数百公里啊。
This is hundreds of kilometers.
这彻底改变了游戏规则。
This changed the game.
这就像陨石砸进世界这口锅，不是吗？
This is like the sort of meteor into the pot of world, wasn't it?
中国的这颗陨石彻底改变了一切。
The Chinese meteor came in change changed utterly.
确实如此，因为——没错。
It did because I I That's right.
我记得人们曾将德国的始祖鸟视为极其独特的存在，甚至称其为世界上最珍贵的化石，价值百万乃至千万美元。
And I remember people would view Archaeopteryx, the German one, as something really unique, and people talked about it as the most valuable fossil in the world worth a million or $10,000,000.
随后多年间，陆续发现了更多标本，每一次都引发巨大轰动。
And then over the years, a number of additional specimens were found, each raised a great deal of excitement.
目前已有约12具。
There are now about 12.
正如玛丽亚所说，在中国发现的同类品质或更优的个体化石已达数千件。
As Maria said, from China, there are thousands of individual fossils of the same quality or better.
有些化石板保存得如此完好，简直让人怀疑是伪造的——但它们确实真实存在。
And some of the slabs, you you'd swear they make them up, but they don't.
是什么让中国东北和德国那个特定区域的化石保存得如此完好？
What is it that preserves them so well in Northeast China and in that particular part of Germany?
偶尔听说苏格兰也有类似发现。
Occasion is we're told in Scotland.
但我们还是专注于中国吧，因为那里资源丰富。
But let's stick with China because that's a big that's a big resource.
中国的化石，正如玛丽亚所说，分布在绵延上千公里的多个地点。
The Chinese the Chinese ones, they they they occur in, as Maria said, in numerous localities over maybe a thousand kilometers or more.
哇。
Wow.
这些化石主要保存在湖泊的细粒沉积物中，这些沉积物是通过湖水沉淀形成的。
And these are just great series of lakes, and and they're preserved mainly in the fine sediments that would be settling down through the water in the lakes.
当时火山活动频繁，人们认为这与化石的异常完好保存有关，火山灰沉降形成了一种密封保护。
And there's a great deal of volcanic activity going on, so people think that has something to do with the extraordinary preservation, that the ash is kind of settling and that has a way of sealing them in.
火山灰阻挡了什么不该进入的东西？
What does the ash not let in that's good not to have let in?
它阻止了腐烂。
It's it prevents decay.
关键在于，通常动物死亡后，无论是落入湖中还是暴露在地表，软组织都会在几天内腐烂或被食腐动物分解。
The key thing is normally when an animal dies, and if it falls into a lake or just lies on the surface, within a matter of days, the soft tissue will go either to decay or scavengers.
所以如果能隔绝腐败细菌和食腐昆虫及其他生物
So if you can keep the decay bacteria and the scavenging insects and other creatures out
这里有这个。
There's this one here.
抱歉。
Sorry.
打扰一下。
Excuse me.
那你就成功了一半。
Then you're in business.
这时有位叫约翰·奥斯特姆的人登场了。
There's this man called John Ostrom comes onto the scene.
能告诉我们他的生卒年份并介绍一下他吗？
Can you tell us about give us his dates, please, and tell us about him.
好的。
Yes.
约翰·奥斯特罗姆是美国一位伟大的古生物学家。
So John Ostrom was a great paleontologist in The United States.
1963年他在耶鲁大学工作。
He was at Yale University in 1963.
他当时正在中西部地区挖掘恐龙化石。
He was excavating dinosaurs in in the Midwest.
他发现了一种非凡的小型兽脚类恐龙——恐爪龙。
He he found this remarkable little theropod called Deinonychus.
有些人可能见过这种恐龙的照片。
Some people may have seen pictures of this.
它经常被描绘成单脚旋转的姿态，用后脚上像刀锋般锐利的爪子扑向猎物。
It's often shown pirouetting on one foot, leaping at its prey with a great slashing flick knife type of claw on its hind foot and sort of leaping and slashing the side of the prey.
他推测这是一种快速移动的恐龙，可能具有非凡的平衡能力才能完成这些动作。
And he he speculated this was a fast moving dinosaur, and there was a critical point in 1969 when Austrian published on this dinosaur with illustrations showing its extraordinarily slender body that it must have balanced in a remarkable way to be able to achieve these movements.
这完全不同于我们过去所认知的那种笨拙老式的恐龙。
And this was not a lumbering old fashioned kind of dinosaur that we'd been used to.
他还注意到了第二点。
And he noted second thing.
他重复了赫胥黎在一百年前所做的研究，并称这种生物就是始祖鸟。
He repeated what Huxley had done exactly a hundred years before, and he said this thing is Archaeopteryx.
这是一只鸟，只是我们看不到羽毛，但他推测它应该长有羽毛。
This is a bird, except we don't see the feathers, but he speculated it would have had feathers.
不久后，我参加了1994年在纽约举行的美国脊椎动物古生物学会会议。
And then soon after, I was at a meeting, of the American Society of Vertebrae Paleontology in New York in 1994.
奥斯特罗姆当时已是一位年迈的老人。
Ostrom was there as then quite an old man.
正如玛丽亚所说，中国人带着这些中华龙鸟的照片出现了。
The Chinese turned up, as Maria said, with these photographs of Sinoceropteryx.
这是在它被正式发表之前。
This was before it was published.
他们正在四处展示这些照片。
They're showing them around.
他的观点得到了证实。
He was vindicated.
发现你从未听过的简·奥斯汀的机智、浪漫与魅力。
Discover the wit, romance, and charm of Jane Austen like you've never heard before.
从《傲慢与偏见》到《爱玛》，体验BBC全阵容广播剧演绎的六部经典作品。
From Pride and Prejudice to Emma, experience all six classics in full cast BBC audio dramatizations.
由大卫·田纳特和本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇献声，这些制作将奥斯汀永恒的文学世界生动呈现。
Featuring David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch, these productions bring Austen's timeless world to life.
我无法言表你的话语多么令人欣慰，我多么渴望听到这些。
I cannot tell you how welcome your words are, how I have wished for them.
我最亲爱的伊丽莎白，你真的也爱我吗？
My dearest Elizabeth, can it be true that you love me too?
是真的。
It is true.
简·奥斯汀BBC广播剧系列可在各大有声书平台收听。
Listen to the Jane Austen BBC radio drama collection available wherever you get your audiobooks.
史蒂夫，你能帮我们调查一下这些恐龙中哪些是带羽毛的，以及它们的数量吗？
Can you give us can you survey the field, Steve, about which of these dinosaurs were feathered and in the mass?
你能把它们挑出来给我们一些概念吗？
Can you pick them out to to give us some idea where we are?
是的。
Yeah.
这些中国恐龙确实改变了游戏规则。
These Chinese dinosaurs, they they really have been a game changer.
我觉得我们对恐龙的夸张描述已经习以为常了。
And I think we're so used to hyperbole about dinosaurs.
你知道的，新闻里总会出现新恐龙——要么是公交车大小的掠食者，要么是飞机大小的恐龙。
You know, you see a new dinosaur in the news, and it's, you know, a predator the size of a bus or a dinosaur the size of a plane.
有时候我们确实会有点夸大其词。
And sometimes we can overdo it a little bit.
但这些中国带羽毛恐龙，绝对是迄今为止最重要的化石发现——至少在我有生之年是这样。
But with these Chinese feathered dinosaurs, they are definitively the most important fossils that have been found, at least in in in my lifetime.
它们之所以如此重要，是因为保存状况极佳。
And they're so important because the preservation is great.
要知道，这些火山活动帮助保存了那些羽毛。
You get, you know, this this volcanic activity help preserve those feathers.
但同样重要的是因为恐龙种类繁多。
But also because there are so many dinosaurs.
目前已发现多种带羽毛的恐龙物种，它们遍布整个恐龙家族谱系。
There are different species that are found with feathers, and these things really span the dinosaur family tree.
因此你可以在家族谱系图上标出哪些物种有羽毛，并观察这些羽毛的演变过程。
So you can map out which species have feathers on the family tree, and you can see how those feathers change.
这不仅讲述了羽毛进化的故事，更广泛地说，也揭示了鸟类进化的历程——恐龙如何演变成鸟类。
And that tells the story of feather evolution, but even more broadly, the story of bird evolution, how a dinosaur turned into a bird.
我们现在可以确定，几乎任何兽脚类恐龙——那些在中国这些沉积层中发现的大型肉食恐龙群体成员——都长有某种羽毛，甚至连暴龙类也不例外。
And so what we know now is pretty much any theropod dinosaur, any member of that great group of meat eaters that is found in China in these deposits has feathers, some kind of feathers, even tyrannosaurs.
那里发现了一种名为始暴龙的九米长暴龙，全身覆盖着非常简单的毛发状羽毛。
There's a nine meter long tyrannosaur called Eutyrannus there that is found covered in a coat of these very simple hair like feathers.
此外还有许多其他小型兽脚类恐龙也长有类似的简单羽毛。
And then there are lots of other small theropods with simple feathers like that.
那里还有一些植食性恐龙也长着类似的简单羽毛。
There are some plant eating dinosaurs there with simple feathers like that.
因此在我看来，既然这些肉食性和植食性恐龙都拥有羽毛，这表明羽毛很可能可以追溯到恐龙演化的最早期。
So to me, that indicates, because you have all these meat eaters and plant eaters that have these feathers, that probably feathers go all the way back to the base of dinosaurs.
很可能所有恐龙都拥有某种类型的羽毛。
Probably all dinosaurs had some type of feather.
但后来兽脚类中的某一支——即进步的手盗龙类兽脚亚目——它们开始改变这些简单的羽毛。
But then this one group of theropods, this derived group of theropods, of manoraptoran theropods, they started to change those simple feathers.
对大多数恐龙而言，那层毛发状结构已经足够，但这些手盗龙类开始延长这些羽毛。
For most dinosaurs, that coat of hairy stuff was enough, but these manoraptorans started to lengthen those feathers.
这些羽毛开始分叉生长。
The feathers started to branch out.
它们开始变得扁平。
They started to flatten out.
它们开始进化出玛丽亚提到的羽枝和羽小枝。
They started to evolve the barbs and the barbules that Maria was talking about.
这些恐龙开始将部分羽毛排列在它们的前肢上。
These dinosaurs started to line up some of those feathers on their arms.
翅膀形成了。
Wings formed.
这些恐龙体型逐渐变小，正是这个类群中发生了所有激动人心的变化，也正是这个类群演化成了鸟类。
These dinosaurs were getting smaller, and it was that group where all of the exciting change was happening, and it was that group led to birds.
体型变小非常重要。
And getting smaller was very important.
而且，这也改变了人们对巨大笨重野兽的认知——它们可以快速移动，可以敏捷行动，这彻底改变了恐龙世界的生活本质及其在人们心中的形象。
And, also, it changed the idea of the the great horrible lumberer, beast could move fast, could be swift, could be it changed the nature of life in the dinosaur world the perception of it.
确实如此。
It did.
而且它彻底改变了我们所有人对恐龙的认知。
And and it changed the perception of dinosaurs really for all of us.
虽然我觉得自己没那么老，但我记得九十年代上学时，课本里教的还是那些。
And and even though I I I don't think I'm that old, but I remember when I was in school in the nineties, we still were taught that.
当时学校里所有的书都画着这些行动迟缓、呆头呆脑、浑身绿色鳞片的恐龙在沼泽里游荡。
All of our books in school had these lumbering, plotting, really stupid looking green scaly dinosaurs hanging out in swamps.
但我清楚记得1997年，当第一种带羽毛的恐龙——中华龙鸟被正式命名和描述时，在美国中部伊利诺伊州奥塔瓦的玉米地里（我的家乡小镇），我在报纸上看到了这个消息。
But I remember in 1997 when the first feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx, was, officially named and described, I remember seeing that in the newspaper growing up in the middle of America, Ottawa, Illinois, this little town where I'm from in the cornfields.
它就登在我们当地的报纸上。
It was in our newspaper.
我至今记得那个报道，它彻底颠覆了我对恐龙的认知，因为展现的是完全不同的恐龙形象。
I remember seeing that, and it blew my mind because it was such a different image of dinosaurs.
玛丽亚，我们能回到你这边吗？
Maria, can we come back to you?
能否谈谈毛发、鳞片与羽毛的区别，以及这些特征在恐龙羽毛化进化过程中的作用机制？
Can we talk about the differences between hairs and scales and feathers and how that works in the in the process of evolution to the feathered dinosaurs?
好的。
Okay.
羽毛和毛发其实有很多共同特征。
So feathers and hair, they share, you know, they have a lot of common characteristics.
它们都是从毛囊中生长出来的。
They each have they each grow from a follicle.
这些毛囊内衬着来自真皮（皮肤下层）的细胞。
They each that follicle is lined by cells from the dermis, the lower part of the skin.
两者最终都源自表皮（皮肤外层）。
They're both derived ultimately from the epidermis, the outer part of the skin.
但羽毛和毛发的主要区别在于羽毛是中空的，而毛发不是。
But a major difference between feathers and hair is that feathers are hollow, and hairs are not.
毛发具有实心的皮质层。
Hair's have a solid cortex.
已知两者都发育自这种增厚的表皮结构——发育过程中称为基板的结构。
And they are both known to develop from this structure, this thickened epidermis called a placode during development.
直到最近，多年来都没有证据表明爬行动物皮肤中存在这种发育结构——基板。
And for years, until recently, there was no evidence for these placodes, this developmental structure in reptile skin.
因此人们曾认为羽毛和毛发实际上代表了两个独立的进化事件，即鸟类（或者说恐龙）和哺乳动物各自独立进化出了这些表皮衍生物。
So it was thought that feathers and hairs actually were represented two independent evolutionary events that these two different groups, birds or, you know, dinosaurs and mammals had each independently evolved these epidermal outgrowths.
但两年前有个令人振奋的发现，美国的一个研究团队在爬行动物的鳞片中发现了一些生物化学证据，证明存在某些酶和基因前体与基板相关。
But then very exciting two years ago, a group based in The States uncovered some biochemical evidence for certain certain, you know, enzymes genetic precursors for placodes in reptile scales.
然后在2016年，也就是去年，一项关于爬行动物鳞片进化发育的研究确实发现了非常早期的基板发育阶段。
And then in 2016, so last year, a study looking at evo devo of reptile scales actually found a very early stage development placodes.
所以鳞片、毛发和羽毛在胚胎中都是从相同的——实际上是相同的结构发育而来的。
So you have scales, hairs and feathers all developing in the embryo from the same, effectively the same structure.
由此可以推断它们具有共同的进化起源。
So the inference is they have a common evolutionary origin.
最终，毛发、鳞片和羽毛都是从相同的原始结构进化而来的。
Ultimately, hairs, scales and feathers evolved from the same primitive structure.
这能得出什么结论呢？
And what does that lead you to?
嗯，这意味着我们在恐龙和哺乳动物身上看到的毛发和羽毛具有共同的起源。
Well, so that implies that, you know, the hairs and the feathers we're seeing in these dinosaurs and mammals, they have a common origin.
要知道，实际上我们很多研究工作都在试图理解这些结构的深层起源。
So you know, really, when we're trying to find a lot of the work that we do is we try and understand the deep origins of these structures.
我们在原始鸟类和带羽毛恐龙身上看到的美丽羽毛，它们讲述的是故事尾声阶段——当一切已变得相当复杂时的情形。
The wonderful feathers that we see in primitive birds and feathered dinosaurs, they tell us about the end of the story when things are already becoming quite complex.
但我认为这个故事真正有趣的部分其实潜藏在更古老的化石中。
But I think actually a lot of the interesting part of the story will lie in much older fossils.
因此我们正试图揭示这些皮肤附属物进化过程中最初始的步骤。
So trying to uncover the very early steps of evolution of these integumentary outgrowths.
迈克·本顿，我们能否回到始祖鸟——这个被认为是第一种鸟类的话题？
Mike Benton, can we go back to the Archaeopteryx, the supposed first bird.
据我了解，当时存在近5000万年的认知空白期。
As I understand it, there was there was a gap in knowing what was going on bit of almost 50,000,000.
嗯。
Mhmm.
各种理论都曾放弃解释这段时期。
And various theories gave up.
嗯，说，哦，进化在这里没有发生。
Well, said, oh, evolution didn't happen here.
时不时地，某些事件发生并推动了它，一些可怕的怪物或充满希望的怪物。
Now and then, some event happened and pushed it forward, some horrible monster or hopeful monster.
抱歉。
Sorry.
充满希望的怪物。
Hopeful monster.
就是这个说法。
That was the phrase.
没错。
That's right.
出现并推动了整个进程。
Turned up and pushed the whole thing forward.
让我们跨越那五千万年吧。是的。
Let's get over those fifty million years Yes.
然后继续推进。
And then get on with it.
大致如此 实际上当时的情况就是那样，但后来发生了变化。
That was more or less So actually what was going on, but then it changed.
是的。
Yes.
你说得对。
You're right.
始祖鸟改变了这一点。
Archaeopteryx changed that.
确实如此，而且新的发现也起到了作用，因为始祖鸟被视为缺失的一环。
It did, and and and the new discoveries did, because Archaeopteryx was seen as a missing link.
人们使用这个术语。
People use that term.
它其实并没有确切的定义，但我们大致明白他们指的是介于爬行动物和鸟类之间的过渡形态。
It doesn't really have any precise definition, but we sort of know what they mean between reptile and and and bird.
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它确实独树一帜，因为我们讨论过的所有恐龙——食肉恐龙和其他无羽毛恐龙都与之不同。
And it did stand on its own because you had all the dinosaurs as we've been talking about, flesh eating dinosaurs and others without feathers.
我们有始祖鸟，然后经历了大约五六千万年的空白期，才出现更多鸟类化石。
You have Archaeopteryx, and then there was a long gap of maybe fifty or sixty million years before further fossil birds.
人们常说，鸟类化石保存不易，因为它们体型娇小脆弱，容易腐烂消失，难以被发现。
And people said, oh, birds birds don't preserve very well as fossils because they're delicate and small and they'll tend to disappear, they'll rot away, they won't be found.
进化理论家们由此解读道：这究竟是如何发生的？
And so this was then read by evolutionary theorists to say, how how how did this happen?
要知道，如何实现从鳄类到鸟类的过渡？
You know, how do you make a transition from crocodile to bird?
它们确实是现存的近亲物种。
They're they're they're close living relatives.
于是在二十世纪三四十年代，出现了关于宏观突变和所谓'希望怪物'的理论构想。
And so there were some ideas of macromut mutations and hopeful monsters, as you say, around the nineteen thirties, nineteen forties.
有些人认为，要完成如此巨大的进化跃迁，必须依靠某种超乎寻常的基因革命——这是现代遗传学尚未认知的机制。
And and some people thought, yes, the the the only way you can make such an enormous transition is to have some extraordinary genetic revolution, something that we don't know about in in current genetics.
遗传学。
Genetics.
这让人们感到非常不安，因为这听起来像是正常自然过程的崩溃。
And And and that that made people very uncomfortable because it it it it sounds like a a a breakdown of normal natural processes.
当然，这种所谓的'希望怪物'的风险在于它很可能会失败。
And the risk, of course, of a kind of hopeful monster is it'll be a failure.
这就像是一个如此巨大的突变，以至于它成功的几率微乎其微。
This is like such a huge mutation that that the chances of it working.
这至今仍是一个困扰着那些对进化论有疑虑的人的论点。
And it's still an argument that confuses people who who are troubled with evolution today.
他们会说，你看一只鸟，比如鸽子，它适应得多么完美。
They'll they'll say, oh, you look at a bird, you know, you look a pigeon, and it's so beautifully adapted.
它有轻量化的骨骼结构。
It it's got lightweight skeleton.
它拥有极高的新陈代谢率。
It's got a it's got a very high metabolic rate.
它有羽毛。
It's got feathers.
它有翅膀。
It's got wings.
适应飞行，而我们想到人类努力制造飞机飞行。
The adaptation to fly, and we think of human endeavor to make an airplane fly.
但关键是，自九十年代以来所有这些化石填补了前后的空白，它们向我们展示了半成品的鸟类也能飞行。
But the point is, then all of these fossils since '9 the nineteen nineties have filled these gaps both before and after, and they show us that half a bird works.
你实际上不必成为一只完整的鸽子。
You don't actually have to be a complete pigeon.
你可以拥有原始羽毛和有限翅膀就能飞行。
You can you can be a flyer with primitive feathers and, you know, limited wings.
史蒂夫，你愿意帮我们填补这五千万年的空白吗？
Do you want to help us out in this fifty million year gap, Steve?
好的。
Yeah.
这个话题我特别喜欢讨论，因为我的博士研究就与此相关。我和迈克、玛丽亚一样，非常幸运能去中国研究这些新发现的化石，投入了大量时间。
This is a subject I love to talk about because a lot of my PhD work was on this, and I spent all this time, like, you know, Mike and Maria, very privileged to be able to go to China and study a lot of these new fossils.
实际上，当你把这些化石标记在恐龙族谱上时，它们会向你讲述进化的故事。
And really, what they do is when you map these fossils out on the dinosaur family tree, it tells you that story of evolution.
你几乎能看到进化在实时发生，就像一部动态播放的影片。
And you can kind of see evolution happening like something of a, you know, running film in action.
这向我们表明，鸟类并非突然出现的'幸运怪物'。
And and what it shows is, you know, this wasn't a hopeful monster situation.
鸟类是经过漫长岁月，从某一类恐龙中逐渐演化而来的——它们一步步获得了现代鸟类的各项特征。
A bird was something that emerged very gradually from this one group of dinosaurs over time as piece by piece, it evolved feature by feature of modern birds.
现代鸟类有着非常独特的身体结构。
I mean, modern birds have a very distinctive body plan.
它们体型娇小。
You know, they're small.
全身覆盖羽毛。
They have feathers.
它们有翅膀。
They have wings.
它们很轻巧。
They're lightweight.
它们有叉骨。
They have wishbones.
它们能将前肢折叠贴在身体两侧，这些特征使鸟类在所有现存动物中独一无二。
They could fold their, arms against their body, hundreds of things that make birds unique among any other living animals.
但这些化石表明，这些特征是由恐龙逐渐演化而来的，而且通常与飞行无关。
But these fossils show that those things evolved one by dinosaurs over time and usually for reasons that had nothing to do with flight.
它们是为了其他用途而演化的。
They were being evolved for other things.
比如叉骨对现代鸟类的飞行至关重要。
So, you know, the the wishbone is instrumental for how birds fly today.
它是翅膀中储存能量的弹簧结构，但最早出现在小型肉食恐龙身上，这些恐龙可能用于捕猎。
It's a spring that stores energy in the wings, but that first turns up in small meat eating dinosaurs that were probably hunting.
所以它们是在强化自己的肩带结构。
And so they were, you know, reinforcing their their shoulder girdle.
就像发明螺旋桨的人——虽然我不知道是谁——他们绝不会想到莱特兄弟会把它用在飞机上。
So the same way that, whoever invented the propeller, I don't know who that person is, but they would have had no idea the Wright brothers would have put it on a plane.
这就是进化的作用。
This is what evolution was doing.
它改变了这些恐龙的特征，后来这些特征共同作用，使这种新型小型恐龙能够飞行。
It was changing features of these dinosaurs, and later on, those things would work together to allow this new small type of dinosaur to fly.
最初的目的是什么
What was the purpose of
羽毛？
the feathers?
这是当前研究中非常有趣的领域，存在很多争议。
This is such an interesting area of research, a lot of debate now.
我们基本可以确定的是，这些化石告诉我们最早的羽毛结构很简单。
What fundamentally we know is that these fossils tell us that the first feathers were simple.
最初的羽毛是这种绒状的、看起来像毛发的羽毛。
The first feathers were these downy kind of hair looking feathers.
它们存在于像暴龙和一些肯定不会飞的植食恐龙身上。
They were present in dinosaurs like tyrannosaurs and some of the plant eaters that definitely weren't flying.
那些动物是不会飞的。
Those animals couldn't fly.
它们体型太大了，那些羽毛就像毛发一样。
They were too big, and those feathers were just like hair.
我是说，我头上稀疏的毛发可没法让我飞起来，我确实飞不了。
I mean, I can't fly with my thinning head of hair, but I can't fly.
所以羽毛最初很可能是为了保温而进化出来的。
So feathers first evolved probably for insulation.
这很合理。
It makes sense.
我们并不确定，但要知道，这些恐龙非常活跃且精力充沛。
We don't know for sure, but, you know, these dinosaurs were active and energetic.
它们需要保持体温。
They needed to retain their body heat.
所以最初的羽毛很可能是为了保温而进化出来的。
So probably the first feathers evolved for insulation.
但后来有一群小型肉食恐龙改变了它们的羽毛，将羽毛变成了可以形成翅膀的结构。
But then that one group of small meat eating dinosaurs changed their feathers, turned their feathers into things that could form wings.
但现在我们发现——这在过去几年才惊人地浮现——最早拥有翅膀的恐龙其实也不会飞。
But now we see, amazingly, this has emerged over the last few years, that the first dinosaurs with wings couldn't fly either.
它们的体型太大了。
They were too big.
它们的翅膀太小了。
Their wings were too small.
所以看起来，甚至连翅膀最初也不是为了飞行而进化的。
So it looks like even wings did not evolve for flight.
也许它们是作为一种展示用的'广告牌'进化出来的，你知道，用来吸引配偶或威慑竞争对手。
Maybe they evolved as some kind of display billboard on the arms, you know, to attract mates or intimidate rivals.
包括现今的鸟类在内，动物们总是将羽毛用于展示目的。
Animals, including birds today, are always using their feathers for display purposes.
因此我认为我们看到的许多羽毛进化与飞行无关，飞行功能是后来才出现的。
So I think what we're seeing is a lot of feather evolution had nothing to do with flight, and flight only came later.
玛丽亚，由于主要来自中国及其他地区的大量化石发现，加上技术的突飞猛进，我们现在甚至能判断这些生物羽毛的具体颜色。
Maria, because of the plethora of stuff coming from China mostly and from other places, and because of the massive development in technology, you can even begin to tell what color the colors that these creatures have.
能请你简要谈谈这方面吗？
Can you just tell us a bit about that, please?
好的。
Yeah.
没问题。
Sure.
你看，如果观察现代鸟类的羽毛，将其剖开放在高倍电子显微镜下，就能看到这些微小的微观结构。
So, you know, if when you look at the feathers of modern birds and if you crack them open and put them under a powerful electron microscope, you'll see these tiny little microscopic structures.
它们可能看起来像微型小球或是微型小香肠。
They can look like tiny little balls or tiny little sausages.
这些是黑色素颗粒。
And these are granules of the pigment melanin.
黑色素只是现代鸟类羽毛中众多色素之一。
And melanin is just one of the many pigments which modern birds have in their feathers.
真正令人惊叹的是，过去十年左右我们意识到这些黑色素证据实际上能在化石羽毛中保存下来。
And what's really remarkable is over the last ten years or so we've come to realise that this evidence of melanin pigment can actually survive in fossil feathers.
你看，研究人员已经研究了几种古代鸟类和带羽毛的恐龙，我们一直在利用这些黑色素颗粒来观察它们羽毛中保存的颜色记录。
So, you know, several ancient birds and feathered dinosaurs have been studied by researchers and we've been looking at the record of colour preserved in their feathers using these melanin granules.
这些被称为黑色素颗粒或黑色素体的结构最显著的特点是，它们的形状实际上各不相同，而这些不同形状的黑色素体能够产生不同的颜色。
And what's really remarkable about these melanin granules or melanosomes as they're called is that their shape actually varies and these different shaped melanosomes can generate different colours.
因此，香肠状的黑色素体产生黑色和棕色，球状的黑色素体则产生红褐色、狐狸色和姜黄色。
So the sausage shaped melanosomes produce blacks and browns, the spherical ball shaped melanosomes produce reddish, foxy, ginger colours.
例如，对于中华龙鸟，也就是我提到的最早被报道拥有羽毛的恐龙。
So instance, for Sinoceropteryx, that first dinosaur that I mentioned that was reported to have feathers.
迈克和一些同事参与了一项研究，他们主导的研究表明中华龙鸟那些原始的毛发状结构中确实含有黑色素体。
Mike and some colleagues were involved in a study where they led a study where they showed that the Sinoceropteryx, that those primitive hair like structures, they contain melanosomes.
所以它们绝对是羽毛。
So they're very definitely feathers.
它们不仅仅是皮肤纤维。
They're not just skin fibres.
但真正令人兴奋的是，他们发现中华鸟龙体内的这些黑色素体呈小球状。
But, know, what was really exciting was they showed that those melanosomes in Sinoceropteryx are shaped like little balls.
所以中华鸟龙是只姜黄色的恐龙。
So Sinoceropteryx was a ginger dinosaur.
那我可以说你们发现了姜黄色恐龙吗？
Can I come to so you discovered the ginger dinosaur then?
确实如此。
Indeed.
是的。
Yes.
嗯，这确实是件了不起的事，对吧？
Well, that's that's something to do, isn't it?
我是说，我们大多数人根本达不到那种成就。
I mean, most of us don't get anywhere near that.
你能给我们讲讲手盗龙类吗？
Can you tell us about the maniaraptorans?
它们如何完善了这个新兴图景？
How they add to the emerging picture?
我们还在讨论翅膀对吧？
We're we're still on wings, aren't we?
我们快说到翅膀部分了吗？
Are we getting towards wings?
确实如此。
We are indeed.
而且看起来这两件事是同时发生的——就像我们提到的，兽脚类恐龙普遍存在体型增大和前肢缩短的趋势，我们都把霸王龙视为这个趋势的终点，每个孩子都会告诉你它的前肢短得甚至够不到嘴巴。
And and it seems that the the the two things were happening as we've we've mentioned that mostly in the theropod dinosaurs, they had a trend to large size and shortening the arms, and we think of T Rex as the kind of end of the story, and every child will tell you that the arms are so short, it couldn't even reach its mouth.
但在手盗龙类中，这个名字的意思是'用手捕猎的猎人'。
But in the Manorapturans, the name means hand hunter.
它们的前肢正在延长，这正是奥斯特罗姆在恐爪龙身上注意到的特征，恐爪龙属于手盗龙类。
Their arms were extending and this is what Ostrom noticed in Deinonychus, which is a Manorapturan.
我们现在知道前肢的延长是为了承载羽毛，功能，但体型缩小却同时在进行。
And we now know that the extension of the arm was so that it would carry feathers, but the shrinking of size was happening at exactly the same time.
所以这是一个体型微型化与前肢延长的过程。
So there's miniaturization and extension of the the arms.
正如史蒂夫所说，它们当时还不能飞行，但可能偶尔能通过伸展前肢进行滑翔，不过几乎可以肯定它们将这些肢体用于其他目的。
And as Steve said, these were not flying or they may have been able to use them at times for gliding just by spreading them out, but almost certainly they would be using them for other purposes.
而姜黄色羽毛的发现——中华龙鸟不仅是姜黄色的，它属于手盗龙类，是一种恐龙。
And the discovery of the ginger color, it wasn't just ginger in Sinoceropteryx, it is a manoraptor and it is a dinosaur.
它的尾巴像理发店旋转彩柱一样有环纹。
It the the the tail was and striked like a barber's pole.
所以它的尾巴是姜黄与白色条纹有规律地交替重复：姜黄、白色，姜黄、白色，姜黄、白色。
So it was it was repeated regular stripes of ginger and white, ginger and white, ginger and white.
身体其余部分背部覆盖着姜黄色羽毛，腹部可能较浅，面部则有各种斑纹图案。
And the rest of the the body was covered with sort of ginger color over the back and maybe pale on the belly and various patterns over the face.
所以我们当时在想，为什么它会有条纹尾巴？
And so we were thinking, why would it have a stripy tail?
这可能是伪装吗？
Could this be camouflaged?
想想老虎或斑马。
You think of a tiger or a zebra.
不对。
No.
因为只有尾巴是这样。
Because it's only the tail.
为什么要伪装尾巴却不伪装身体其他部位？
Why camouflage your tail but not the rest of your body?
因此，是为了展示。
Therefore, display.
正如史蒂夫提到的，这实际上将行为功能、类似鸟类的行为推前了。
And as Steve mentioned, this actually shifts behavioral functions, bird like behavior down.
于是我们想象这些小恐龙蹦蹦跳跳地摇着尾巴说：看我呀。
And so we imagine these little dinosaurs hopping around waving their tails and saying, look at me.
那我能过来找你吗，史蒂夫？
Can I come to you then, Steve?
看看作为
Look at as
你在逆向研究时，目前对鸟类的研究能告诉我们它们从何而来吗？
you were researching backwards, what does your present study of birds tell us about where they came from?
嗯，我们现在可以明确地说——古生物学家中已无人质疑——鸟类确实起源于恐龙。
Well, we now know, you know, unequivocally, nobody really argues this anymore among paleontologists that that birds came from dinosaurs.
这个结论意味着很多。
And what that means, it means a lot of things.
但我想特别强调一点：这个认知能帮助我们更好地理解恐龙。
But one thing I would just like to highlight there is that it helps us, this realization helps us understand dinosaurs better.
它帮助我们理解雷克斯暴龙。
It helps us understand T.
雷克斯暴龙、三角龙和雷龙，因为我们知道它们有现存的后代。
Rex and Triceratops and Brontosaurus better because we know that they have living descendants.
这帮助我们更好地理解这些远古恐龙——它们的体型常常远超现今任何生物——至少能更清晰地构想它们作为真实动物的样貌，需要成长、进食和移动。
And so this helps us to better understand how these ancient dinosaurs, which oftentimes are so out of scale to anything that's around today, it helps us to at least better envision what they were like as real animals, as things that had to grow and feed and move.
我们现在普遍认识到，总体而言，恐龙，无论是霸王龙，
And we now recognize that by and large, dinosaurs, whether it's T.
还是像雷龙这样的巨型生物，它们的行为模式更接近鸟类而非蜥蜴或鳄鱼。
Rex or these enormous creatures like Brontosaurus, they were much more birdlike in their behaviors than lizards or crocodiles.
这一切为我们描绘了一幅全新的恐龙图景，我认为这些化石的发现以我们从未想象过的方式让恐龙活了过来。
So all of this has led to a bit of a new picture of what dinosaurs were like, and I think has brought dinosaurs to life in a way that we could have never imagined before these fossils were found.
你能解释恐龙中羽毛分布不均的现象吗？
Can you explain the uneven distribution of feathers among the dinosaurs?
好的。
Okay.
近年来浮现的一个认知是：鸟类如何获得羽毛以及我们传统认知中的翅膀。
So, you know, one thing that has emerged in recent years is is a picture of how birds acquired feathers and, what we would conventionally consider wings.
我们现在了解到，羽毛并非随时间逐渐复杂化的渐进式演变。
And what we now understand is that there wasn't a progressive change whereby feathers gradually became more complex over time.
实际情况要复杂得多。
It's actually a lot more complicated than that.
羽毛和翅膀。
Feathers and wings.
它们是以一种非常零散的方式进化的。
They evolved in a really piecemeal fashion.
例如，像近鸟龙这样的早期有羽毛恐龙，其前肢和后肢都长有精美羽脉的复杂羽毛。
So, for instance, you know, you have some early feathered dinosaurs like Ankiornix, Ankiornus, which has, you know, beautiful veins, so complex feathers on the forelimbs and the hind limbs.
但当你观察中华龙鸟等较年轻化石时，它们的羽毛远没有这么复杂。
But then you look at some younger fossils like Sinusopteryx, and it doesn't have feathers that are this complex at all.
因此羽毛和翅膀的进化更像是马赛克拼图，不同部位独立发展。
So what's happening with feather evolution, the evolution of wings, it's more like a mosaic, different feet.
后肢、前肢和尾巴几乎都在独立进化。
So the hind limbs and the forelimbs and the tail, they're all almost evolving independently.
这些向鸟类外观的转变，是在不同恐龙身上以某种爆发式的方式发生的。
And these these changes towards a bird like appearance, they're happening in kind of spurts in different dinosaurs.
迈克·本，我能再问你一个问题吗？
Mike Ben, can I come back to you?
在这五千万年的时间跨度里，它们究竟是什么时候开始拥有真正的翅膀并飞行的？这样我们今天才能将它们识别为鸟类。
When in this fifty million year span, when did they actually start to have proper wings and fly so we would recognize them among the birds today?
我认为那应该是始祖鸟。
I think that's Archaeopteryx.
所以有趣的是它一直保持着稳定性
So the interesting thing is has been stability
他是什么时候出现的？
When did he come on?
那大约是在1.5亿年前的侏罗纪末期，之后我们又经历了5000万年的演化。
So that's about a 150,000,000 years ago at the end of the Jurassic, and so we have 50,000,000 years, leading up to that.
为了说得更清楚些，当我接受教育以及后来开始教学时，始祖鸟一直被认为是拥有大约50种独特鸟类特征的物种。
So just to make it really clear, when I was taught and when I started to teach as well, Archaeopteryx stood there as the possessor of maybe 50 unique bird characters.
正如史蒂夫所说，现在几乎所有这些特征都回溯了，包括叉骨、中空骨骼、小型体型，以及手盗龙类翅膀的发育。
And now almost all of those features have gone back, as Steve was saying, the wishbone, the hollow bones, the small body size, the development of wings and manoraptans.
所以实际上所有这些独特的鸟类特征都在进化树上逐步回溯，被零散地获得。
So virtually all of these uniquely bird characters have sort of gone back down the evolutionary tree being acquired piecemeal.
因此始祖鸟仍然以能够主动飞行为特征，我们也可以说鸟类也是如此。
And so Archaeopteryx is still characterized, and we would say birds as well, by the ability to fly in a powered way.
这意味着通过复杂的肌肉群上下拍打翅膀，并利用这种拍打保持在空中。
That means beating the wings up and down with the complex of muscles and using that wing beat to keep aloft.
让我们来确认一下。
So let's get let's nail it.
我对百万年这个单位不太在行。
I was the millions are rather above me.
大约是什么时候？
When about when?
误差在几百万年内。
You're within a couple of millions.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
所以这一过程始于两亿多年前恐龙的起源。
So the process would have begun over two hundred million years ago with the origin of dinosaurs.
然后在一亿五千万年前，出现了始祖鸟，拥有真正的肌肉翅膀拍打和动力飞行能力，大多数人会称之为第一只鸟。
And then at a 150,000,000, you have Archaeopteryx with proper muscular windbeats and powered flight and the first bird, as most people would say.
之后继续发展，在中国发现了更多鸟类化石记录，一直延续到六千六百万年前。
And then you carry on in going through into further Chinese deposits and and good record of birds right through to 66,000,000 years ago.
恐龙灭绝了，许多早期鸟类也灭绝了，随后现代鸟类大爆发，才有了今天一万种鸟类的繁荣。
The extinction of the dinosaurs, the extinction of a lot of these early bird types, and and then the massive explosion of modern birds and 10,000 species of birds today.
这些发现在过去几年里有多大的革命性意义？
How revolutionary have these discoveries been these last last few years' discoveries?
对我来说，这些发现至少是我一生中见证的革命。
To me, these are the revolution in my lifetime, at least.
我认为它们改变了我们对恐龙的认知。
And I think they have changed our perception of dinosaurs.
我认为它们正开始改变公众对恐龙的看法。
I think they're starting to change the public perception of dinosaurs.
当然，公众认知有时需要一些时间才能跟上科学的视角。
Of course, the public perception takes some time to catch up sometimes with the scientific, way of seeing things.
但确实很难真正夸大它们的重要性，而且这些都是精美的化石。
But they it it's it's hard to really overstate their importance, and they are beautiful fossils.
其中许多看起来应该被陈列在艺术博物馆里。
A lot of these look like they should be in art museums.
研究它们令人兴奋，而中国辽宁省的农民们每天都在发现这些化石。
They are a thrill to study, and farmers across Liaoning province in China are finding these every day.
我相信现在就有农民正在发现更多这样的化石。
There are farmers out right now, I'm sure, that are finding more of these fossils.
所以这场革命尚未结束。
So this revolution has not ended.
这一进程仍在继续。
It is still ongoing.
谁知道下一个重大发现会是什么，但很可能就在未来几周内出现。
And who knows what the next big find is gonna be, but it'll probably happen in the next few weeks.
所以大家应该保持，你知道的，时刻关注
So everybody should keep their, you know, eyes peeled
新闻动态。
to the news.
把注意力集中在东北地区，别管北京或其他地方发生了什么。
Peeled on Northeast China and forget about what's happening in Beijing or anywhere else.
没错。
That's right.
迈克，能再请教你一下吗？
Mike, can come back to you for a moment?
为什么它们能幸存下来，而其他恐龙都灭绝了？
Why did they survive when none of the other dinosaurs did?
这确实是个非常棘手的问题，因为事实上，许多鸟类确实与恐龙同时灭绝，那些体型较大的恐龙是在6600万年前消失的。
And and and that's a very difficult question because, in fact, very many of the birds did die out at the same time as the dinosaurs the the the heavier dinosaurs did at sixty six million years ago.
那么为什么一些看起来非常怪异、类似鸭子的生物——它们是现代鸟类的祖先——能够在那场危机中幸存下来？
And so why a number of very weird looking duck like creatures, which were the precursors of the modern birds, survived through that crisis?
我们不知道原因。
We don't know.
它们体型虽小，但这并不能让它们免受所有威胁。
They're small, but that doesn't save them from everything.
它们新陈代谢率高，因此对食物需求量大。过去人们常说，乌龟和鳄鱼之所以能存活，是因为它们可以挖洞躲藏，睡上一觉，一周后爬出来时陨石威胁已经过去。但事实并非如此。说实话，这仍然是个谜，因为幸存鸟类的生活方式几乎肯定与那些灭绝的原始鸟类相似 😅。
They they they were they had high metabolic rates, so a big need for food, because people used to say, oh, well turtles and crocodiles survive, they just burrow into a hole and just kind of sleep it off and crawl out a week later and the meteorite is gone and everything is kind But no, so frankly, is a mystery because the the the the the lifestyle of the birds that survived would have been almost certainly similar to that of the primitive forms that went extinct.
所以这仍然是个未解之谜，可能永远无法解答。
So that is still a mystery that may not be solved.
玛丽亚，面对每天不断涌现的这些化石，你最迫切想解答的问题是什么？
Maria, what's the most pressing question you have that you want answered by these fossils that are coming through every day, go into Steve?
我是说，就在我们说话的时候，问题可能已经堆积如山了。
I mean, as we speak, it's probably mountainous.
算了，没关系。
Anyway, never mind.
好的。
Okay.
所以，在理解羽毛起源和羽毛进化方面，我们需要重点关注两个明显的领域。
So so there were there were two main there were two obvious areas that we need to be focusing on in terms of understanding feather origins and feather evolution.
例如，我们现在知道恐龙的两大主要类群——兽脚类和鸟臀类恐龙都有羽毛。
So for instance, we now know that two major groups of dinosaurs, the theropods and the ornithischians had feathers.
而就我们目前所知，第三大恐龙类群——蜥脚类恐龙则没有羽毛。
And as far as we're currently aware, the third major group of dinosaurs, the sauropods didn't.
这对像我、迈克还有史蒂夫这样的人来说是个大难题。
So and this is a major thorn in the sight of people like myself and Mike, you know, and Steve.
我们都认为羽毛是在恐龙演化初期就出现的。
We all believe that dinosaurs evolved very that feathers evolved at the base of dinosaurs.
我们需要在蜥脚类恐龙中寻找羽毛的证据。
We need to look for feathers in sauropods.
要真正理解这一点，我们需要追溯到比恐龙更古老的类群。
And to really understand, we need to go way back into into groups that are older than dinosaurs.
非常感谢玛利亚·麦克纳马拉、迈克·本顿和史蒂夫·布鲁萨蒂。
Well, thank you very much, Maria McNamara, Mike Benton, and Steve Brusati.
下周我们将讨论巴勃罗·毕加索的《格尔尼卡》，这幅画作以及1937年的事件。
Next week, we'll be discussing Guernica by Pablo Picasso, the painting and the events in 1937.
非常感谢大家的收听。
Thank you very much for listening.
《我们的时代》播客现在获得了一些额外时间，将播放梅尔文和嘉宾们的几分钟加料内容。
And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.
是的。
Yes.
好的。
Okay.
这次非常迅速。
That was very quick.
我没意识到你在最后关头这么紧张。
I didn't realize you were so so tight at the very end.
我以为我还有半分钟时间。
I thought I had another half a minute.
是啊。
Yeah.
你得冒着显得粗鲁的风险，这很糟糕，但别无他法。
You you have to sort of risk being rude, and then which is awful, but yet there's no other way.
玛丽亚，你还没谈到分子在有机体存活中的作用呢。
And Maria, you didn't get onto the molecules in the survival of organic No.
不过就这样吧。
But there we are.
是啊。
Yeah.
因为这是个重要问题，人们对此感到困惑。
Because that's that's an important question that people have difficulty We'll
现在看到了。
see it now.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
那么问题来了，我将把这个问题转给玛丽亚——人们报告发现了DNA，报告发现了红细胞，报告了各种化石中非凡的有机物质留存。
So the question is, and I'll pass it to Maria, which is people report DNA, people report red blood cells, they report all kinds of extraordinary organic survival in fossils.
目前的观点是什么？
What's the current position?
目前的观点是，如果你在乳齿象或猛犸象等约10万年历史的年轻化石中发现DNA，人们对此不会有异议。
So, the current position is, if you find DNA in young fossils like a mastodon or a woolly mammoth that's about 100,000 years old, people aren't going to have a problem with that.
但DNA和其他生物分子，如蛋白质、由角蛋白构成的羽毛组织等，这些分子极易降解，不可能在地质时间尺度上存留数百万年。
But DNA and other biomolecules, proteins, tissues like feathers which are made of the protein keratin, these molecules very decay prone, and they're not going to hang around over millions of years on geological timescales.
因此，关于这类生物分子能够长期存活的说法极具争议性。
So claims that these kinds of biomolecules can survive are very, very controversial.
而且其中很多是基于古生物学家坦白说并不使用的技术所获得的证据。
And a lot of them are based on evidence from techniques that palaeontologists quite frankly don't use.
所以我们不知道如何验证
So we don't know how to test
从化学角度来说，黑色素呢？
Chemically, the what about melanin?
我是说，关于黑色素有什么说法？
Mean, what's the thing about melanin?
好的，你知道的，关于黑色素，我们都有确凿的化学证据表明这种生物分子在中国某些化石中保存完好。
Okay, so, you know, melanin, we all know that there's really good and robust chemical evidence for survival of the melanin biomolecule in some of these Chinese fossils.
人们已经使用了各种不同的技术。
So people have used various different techniques.
你知道，有两三种关键技术可以用来证明分子和实际物理颗粒本身的保存状况。
You know, there's two or three key techniques that you can use to show that the molecule is surviving as well as the actual physical granules themselves.
所以它们并不像某些人声称的那样是腐败细菌。
So they're not, as some people claim, that they're not decay bacteria.
基本上，你看到的这些微小颗粒看起来就像黑色素颗粒，而且它们确实含有黑色素。
Basically, you have these little granules and they look like melanin granules and they contain melanin.
最合理的解释就是它们确实是黑色素颗粒。
The most plausible interpretation is that they are melanin granules.
然后这就涉及到你的狗了。
Then it's got to your dog.
没错。
Exactly.
黑色素的保存其实并不太令人惊讶，因为它是一种非常坚韧的分子，无论是酸还是碱都无法使其降解。
Survival of melanin, you know, it's not too surprising because it's a really tough molecule, you throw acids at it, you throw alkalis at it, and it doesn't degrade.
唯一能降解黑色素的是高浓度的过氧化物，必须通过强烈的氧化作用才能破坏它。
The only thing that degrades melanin is really strong concentrations of peroxide, You've got to really oxidise it really heavily to destroy it.
这就是为什么当你观察恐龙化石中的羽毛时，羽毛能够保存下来正是因为黑色素的存在。
So that's why, you you look at a fossil feather in a dinosaur, the feather is preserved because of the melanin, you know.
而这又引出了另一个重大问题。
And this is another big question.
那么，如果是这样的话，角蛋白去哪儿了？
Well, if that's the case, where's the keratin gone?
有没有角蛋白存留的证据？
Is there any evidence for keratin survival?
这是我们一些人正在研究的问题。
So this is a question that some of us are working on now.
我们能否在羽毛中发现任何角蛋白的痕迹？
You know, can we find any traces of keratin associated with the feathers?
但角蛋白更容易分解。
But keratin is more decay prone.
它会更难被发现，而且需要更有力的证据。
It's going to be harder to find, and you've got to have better evidence.
你在这儿啊。
There you are.
还有另一个项目人们正试图引进。
Another programme people are trying to bring.
当你状态不错时，我只是想激发你再多收集几块化石的冲动。
When you well, I'm just giving you the urge to mass a few more fossils.
没错。
That's right.
史蒂夫，你有什么想说却没说出口的话吗？
What did you didn't say what did you not say you would like to have said, Steve?
我就简单提个建议吧。
I'll just, you know, put out a pitch.
我的意思是，我们都在教学，而且有很多学生对这些内容非常着迷。
I mean, we all teach, and we all have a lot of students that are, you know, fascinated with this stuff.
而且我认为，这一代人面临着大量机遇。
And and there's so many opportunities, I think, for the generation.
仍有许多重大谜题等待破解。
There's some big mysteries still to solve.
所以我想对听众中那些年轻有为的古生物学者或考虑研究这一领域的人说，无论你身处美国中西部、苏格兰还是中国，总之任何地方——都需要有人去发现带羽毛的蜥脚类恐龙。
So I think, for anybody who's listening out there who's kind of a young budding paleontologist or thinking of studying this stuff, whether you're back home in the Midwest US or up in Scotland or in China, indeed, wherever, somebody needs to go out and find a feathered sauropod.
那将是个重大发现。
That's gonna be a big deal.
需要有人发现更古老的羽毛化石。
Somebody needs to find some older fossil feathers.
我们现有的所有带羽毛恐龙化石都来自侏罗纪或白垩纪时期。
Everything we have with these feathered dinosaurs is either Jurassic or Cretaceous in age.
因此在恐龙羽毛进化和鸟类起源早期的许多重要时刻，我们并未在化石记录中真正捕捉到。
And so a lot of the big moments and evolution of dinosaur feathers and in the early part of the origin of birds, we're not really recording it in the fossil record.
我们能在侏罗纪和白垩纪岩层中看到相关迹象，但这些进化很可能更早就开始了。
We're seeing signs of it in these Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks, but a lot of it was probably actually happening earlier.
所以如果有人能找到保存羽毛的遗址——虽然这很难做到。
So if somebody can find some of these sites that preserve feathers, and it's hard to do.
如果容易的话，人们早就发现了。
If it was easy, people would have found them.
这需要些运气，但一旦发现将彻底改变游戏规则。
So you need a bit of luck, but that would be a big game changer.
对我来说，最大的问题之一就是飞行究竟是如何进化的？
And then the big question for me or one of the big questions is how did flight actually evolve?
我的意思是，我们知道这些恐龙正在发生变化。
I mean, we know that these dinosaurs are changing.
它们的体型正在变小。
They're getting smaller.
它们的骨骼结构正在改变。
They're changing their skeletons.
它们正在发育羽毛。
They're developing feathers.
它们将羽毛转化为翅膀。
They're turning their feathers into wings.
但进化究竟是如何迈出这一步，使这些生物能够熟练地在空中移动的？
But how did evolution actually make that step to allow these things to start moving about competently in the air?
因此，这需要的远不止是发现化石那么简单。
And so that's gonna require a lot more than just finding fossils.
这将需要大量跨学科的工作，可能还需要许多超出常规古生物学范畴的工程类研究。
It's going to require a lot of interdisciplinary work, probably a lot of engineering style work that is a little bit beyond normal paleontology.
所以我认为未来工作存在许多绝佳的机会。
So I think there's some great opportunities for future work.
另一个完全未被探索的领域是——这简直就像房间里的大象——如果恐龙进化出羽毛，你不可能让羽毛直接从鳞片上长出来。
And another area that people haven't looked at at all is, and it's almost like the elephant in the room, you know, if dinosaurs are evolving feathers, you can't just have a feather sticking out of a scale.
必须要有高度特化的皮肤结构来固定这些羽毛，并能够操控它们、控制其方向。
You have to have a very modified skin structure to actually hold those feathers, be able to manipulate them, control their direction.
因此我们实际上还应该寻找的是：与羽毛协同进化的皮肤特征，这些特征使有羽恐龙能够操控羽毛，因为这些都是对飞行至关重要的特征。
So what we actually should be looking for as well is, you know, features of the skin that have co evolved with the feathers to enable feathered dinosaurs to manipulate their feathers, to control them, because these are all characters that are really important for flight.
所以我们还应该关注这些有羽恐龙皮肤的保存状况。
So we should be looking at also preservation of the skin in these feathered dinosaurs as well.
迈克尔，你怎么看？
What about you, Michael?
我同意她的观点。
I agree with her.
我同意他的观点。
I agree with him.
没什么可说的了。
Nothing more to say.
不。
No.
佩里根也一样。
Same with Perrigan.
如果我那么做，佩里根大约九点一刻就能结束。
If I did that, the Perrigan would end at about quarter past nine.
你是负责人，而他刚好及时赶到担任制片人。
You're the man on he's the producer just in time.
玛丽亚要赶火车，我们保证
Maria's got a train, and we promise
去训练。
to train.
对吗？
Right?
是的。
Yep.
没错。
Yeah.
我们与梅尔文·布拉格合作的节目由我西蒙·蒂洛森制作，是BBC工作室的作品。
In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by me, Simon Tillotson, and it's a BBC Studios production.
我是拉格纳·奥康纳。
I'm Ragnar O'Connor.
来自BBC广播四台和历史播客。
From BBC Radio four and the History Pod cast.
这里是伟大的奥康纳家族。
This is the magnificent O'Connor's.
在饱受战争摧残的伦敦，一名男子被谋杀。
In war torn London, a man is murdered.
警方逮捕了23岁的吉米·奥康纳。
The police arrest 23 year old Jimmy O'Connor.
他被判处死刑，但吉米是我的父亲。
He's sentenced to death, but Jimmy is my dad.
八十年来，我的家人一直在努力证明他的清白。
For eighty years, my family has fought to prove his innocence.
现在我们正进行最后一次尝试，以揭开真相。
And now we're making one final attempt to uncover the truth.
但我们准备好面对即将发现的一切了吗？
But are we ready for what we'll find?
辉煌的奥康纳家族。
The magnificent O'Connor's.
BBC Sounds平台首播。
Listen first on BBC Sounds.
以你从未体验过的方式，发现简·奥斯汀的机智、浪漫与魅力。
Discover the wit, romance, and charm of Jane Austen like you've never heard before.
从《傲慢与偏见》到《爱玛》，体验BBC全阵容音频剧演绎的六部经典作品。
From Pride and Prejudice to Emma, experience all six classics in full cast BBC audio dramatizations.
由大卫·田纳特和本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇倾情献声，这些制作将奥斯汀永恒的文学世界生动呈现。
Featuring David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch, these productions bring Austen's timeless world to life.
我无法形容您的话多么令人欣慰，我多么渴望听到这些话。
I cannot tell you how welcome your words are, how I have wished for them.
我最亲爱的伊丽莎白，可
My dearest Elizabeth, can
是真的你也爱我吗？
it be true that you love me too?
是真的。
It is true.
简·奥斯汀BBC广播剧系列全集，可在您获取有声书的所有平台收听。
Listen to the Jane Austen BBC radio drama collection available wherever you get your audiobooks.
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