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上期翻译答案
The ideaisto reduce the stresses of poverty that cause health problems and make it harder for people to find and keep work.
这么做是为了减轻贫困给人们带来的压力，这种压力会导致健康问题，并使人们更难找到工作以及维持工作。
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现在称为 Delta（德尔塔） 的冠状病毒变种于 2020 年 12 月首次出现在印度马哈拉施特拉邦时，它似乎并没有那么引人注目。但几个月后，当它出现在新德里时，其影响是毁灭性的，4 月下旬每天报告近 30,000 例病例。
双语阅读
If researchers were predicting which coronavirus variant would take over the world, the Delta variant would not have been their first guess. But since its first appearance in India in December 2020, the highly contagious variant has become the predominant strain of the virus, accounting for more than 90 percent of new COVID cases in the U.S.
如果研究人员预测哪一种新冠病毒变异毒株会统治世界，德尔塔变异毒株不会是他们首先想到的。但自它从2020年12月首次在印度出现以来，这一具有高度传染性的变种已经成为新冠病毒的主导毒株，美国超90%的新冠肺炎新确诊病例都由它造成。
The virus’s rapid spread may in part result from a fast replication rate. One recent study found that people infected with Delta had, on average, around 1,000 times more virus in their bodies—known as viralload—than those infected with the original strain, allowing them to infect more people quickly. The variant’s advantage seems to stem from a combination ofmutationsin thespikeprotein: the part of the novel coronavirus thatbinds toACE2 receptors on the surface of cells and allows the virus to infect them.
病毒迅速传播的部分原因可能是复制速度快。最近的一项研究发现，平均而言，感染德尔塔病毒的人体内的病毒数量——即所谓的病毒载量——是感染原病毒株的人的1000倍左右，这使得他们能够迅速感染更多的人。这一变种的优势似乎源于刺突蛋白的变异组合：这种新冠病毒的一部分与细胞表面的ACE2受体结合，并使病毒得以感染它们。
Scientists have also wondered whether Delta—in addition to its increased transmissibility—is able to escape the human immune system. It lacks a mutation called E484K, which helps a number of other variants partially avoid beingneutralizedby antibodies. But lab studies suggested that that a Delta mutation called L452R was even better at performing the same function.
科学家们还想知道，德尔塔病毒除了具有更强的传染性之外，是否还能够避开人体免疫系统。它缺少一种名为E484K的突变，这种突变可以帮助许多其他病毒变体在一定程度上避免被抗体消灭。但实验室研究表明，一种名为L452R的德尔塔变种在执行相同功能方面表现得更好。
In a recent preprint study, which has not yet been published in a journal, epidemiologist Nathan Grubaugh of Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn., tested how 18 different variants reacted toserumtaken from the plasma—the liquid component of blood—from 40 fully vaccinated health care workers. They found the participants’ antibodies were able to neutralize the Alpha variants well, and Delta fairly well. But they were less effective against variants that carry the E484K mutations, such as Beta or Gamma, variants that were first identified in South Africa and Brazil, respectively.
在最近一项尚未在期刊上发表的预印本研究中，康涅狄格州纽黑文耶鲁大学公共卫生学院的流行病学家内森·格鲁博进行了一项测试，测试内容是从40名接种完疫苗的医护人员的血浆中提取血清（血液中的液体成分），并观察它们对18种不同变体的反应。他们发现，参与者的抗体能够很好地消灭阿尔法变异，对德尔塔的效果也相当好。但对于携带E484K突变的变异，如贝塔或伽马变种（分别在南非和巴西首次发现的变异），病毒清除效果较差。
The findings were surprising, given that Delta has been much more effective at spreading than Beta or Gamma. Even though the L452R mutation alone improved immune evasion, the actual Delta virus was not actually that good at it, suggesting that the specific combination of mutations on Delta gave the virus a unique function. Grubaugh says that Delta’s success suggests immune evasion might not give the virus as strong an evolutionary advantage as transmissibility, at least among unvaccinated people.
鉴于德尔塔的传播效率比贝塔或伽马都更高，这一发现有点令人惊讶。尽管L452R突变本身提高了病毒的免疫逃逸能力，但实际上德尔塔病毒在这方面的能力并不强，这表明德尔塔上特殊的突变组合给了病毒一种独特的功能。翻译划线句，长按文末小程序码打卡，答案下期公布~
本文节选自：Scientific American（科学美国人）
发布时间：2021.07.30
作者：Sara Reardon
原文标题：Why Do Variants Such as Delta Become Dominant?
词汇积累
1.load
英 /ləʊd/ 美 /ləʊd/
n.负载，负荷；工作量；装载量
vi.[力] 加载；装载；装货
2.mutation
英 /,mjuːˈteɪʃən/ 美 /,mjuːˈteɪʃən/
n.突变；变化；元音变化
3.spike
英 /spaɪk/ 美 /spaɪk/
n.长钉；钉鞋；细高跟
vt.扣球；阻止；以大钉钉牢；用尖物刺穿
4.neutralize
英 /ˈnjuːtrəlaɪz/ 美 /ˈnjuːtrəlaɪz/
vt.抵销；使…中和；使…无效；使…中立
5.serum
英 /ˈsɪərəm/ 美 /ˈsɪərəm/
n.血清；免疫血清；浆液；精华液
词组搭配
1.bind to 把...捆绑到...上；订约
写作句总结
The findings were surprising, given that Delta has been much more effective at spreading than Beta or Gamma.
结构: The findings were surprising, given that … has been much more effective at ….
鉴于…比…在…方面更有效，这一发现令人惊讶
例句: The findings were surprising, given that sports has been much more effective at losing weight than being on a diet.
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