07.14 Autism 自闭症
Why it's not “Rain Woman”
为什么它不是“雨女”
Women have fewer cognitive disorders than men do because their bodies are better at ignoring the mutations which cause them
与男性相比，患有认知障碍的女性较少，因为她们自身的身体能更好的忽略导致认知障碍的基因突变
AUTISM is a strange condition.Sometimes its symptoms of “social blindne” (an inability to read or comprehend the emotions of others) occur alone.This is dubbed high-functioning autism, or Asperger's syndrome.Though their fellow men and women may regard them as a bit odd, high-functioning autists are often succeful (sometimes very succeful) members of society.On other occasions, though, autism manifests as part of a range of cognitive problems.Then, the condition is debilitating.What is common to those on all parts of the so-called autistic spectrum is that they are more often men than women—so much more often that one school of thought suggests autism is an extreme manifestation of what it means, mentally, to be male.Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls are.For high-functioning autism, the ratio is seven to one.
自闭症是一种奇怪的状态。有时它是由“社会失明”症状（无法阅读或理解他人的情绪）导致的孤独。这被称为高功能自闭症，或亚斯伯格症候群。虽然他们的男性和女性同伴会认为他们有点奇怪，但高功能自闭患者通常是成功的社会人士（有时非常成功）。然而，另一些场合，自闭症表现为一系列认知问题的一部分。那么，条件逐渐衰弱。对于那些所有被称为自闭症患者范围的人来说共同点是男性远多于女性，以至于一个学校认为自闭症意味着一种极端的在心理上表现为一名男性。比起女孩而言，男孩有四倍的可能性被诊断为自闭症。至于高功能自闭症，比率达到7比1。
Moreover, what is true of autism is true, to a leer extent, of a lot of other neurological and cognitive disorders.Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed around three times more often in boys than in girls.“Intellectual disability”, a catch-all term for congenital low IQ, is 30-50% more common in boys, as is epilepsy.In fact, these disorders frequently show up in combination.For instance, children diagnosed with an autistic-spectrum disorder[1] often also receive a diagnosis of ADHD.
此外，自闭症的真相，在较小程度上，就是神经病学的认知障碍的真相。被诊断为注意力缺乏症的男大约是女孩的三倍。“智力残疾”，一个全面概括先天性智商低下的术语，在男孩中常见比例多达30%~50%，癫痫症也是。事实上，这些疾病经常共同出现。例如，被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍的小孩经常也收到ADHD的诊断。
Autism's precise causes are unclear, but genes are important.Though no mutation which, by itself, causes autism has yet been discovered, well over 100 are known that make someone with them more vulnerable to the condition.
导致自闭症的确切原因还不知道，但是基因很重要原因。虽然还没发现是由于它自身的突变导致自闭症，但超过100个基因被认为是使某些人在环境影响下更容易受到攻击的对象。 Most of these mutations are as common in women as in men, so one explanation for the divergent incidence is that male brains are more vulnerable than female ones to equivalent levels of genetic disruption.This is called the female-protective model.The other broad explanation, social-bias theory, is that the difference is illusory.Girls are being under-diagnosed because of differences either in the ways they are aeed, or in the ways they cope with the condition, rather than because they actually have it le.Some researchers claim, for example, that girls are better able to hide their symptoms.
这些突变在男性和女性中是一样普遍的，所以一个对分歧发生率的解释是对于同等的基因毁坏，男性大脑比女性的更容易受伤害。这被称为女性保护模式。另一个广发的解释是社会偏见理论，认为这些不同是虚幻的。这些被诊断不足的女孩，因为她们被评估的方式或对环境的处理不同，而不是他们真的很少有这个症状。例如，一些研究者声称，女孩能更好的隐藏这些症状。 The weaker sex 弱势性别
To investigate this question, Sebastien Jacquemont of the University Hospital of Lausanne and his colleagues analysed genetic data from two groups of children with cognitive abnormalities.Those in one group, 800 strong, were specifically autistic.Those in the other, 16,000 strong, had a range of problems.
为了调查这个问题，洛桑医科大学的医生Sebastien Jacquemont和他的同事分析来自两组患有认识异常症状孩子的基因数据。一组有800人明显确定患有自闭症；另一组是明显有一系列问题。
Dr Jacquemont has just published his results in the American Journal of Human Genetics.His crucial finding was that girls in both groups more often had mutations of the sort aociated with abnormal neural development than boys did.This was true both for copy-number variants (CNVs, which are variations in the number of copies in a chromosome of particular sections of DNA), and single-nucleotide variants (SNVs, which are alterations to single genetic letters in the DNA meage).
医生Jacquemont刚将他的研究成果发布在美国人类遗传学杂志上。他的关键发现是两组中，女孩比男孩更多有伴随异常神经发展种类的基因突变。这在拷贝数量变异组（CNVs，一组对DNA特定部分的染色体进行复制）和单核苷酸变异组（SNVs，修改DNA信使中单独的基因字母）两组中都是对的。
On the face of it, this seems compelling evidence for the female-protective model.Since all the children whose data Dr Jacquemont examined had been diagnosed with problems, if the girls had more serious mutations than the boys did, that suggests other aspects of their physiology were covering up the consequences.Females are thus, if this interpretation is correct, better protected from developing symptoms than males are.And, as further confirmation, Dr Jacquemont's findings tally with a study published three years ago, which found that CNVs in autistic girls spanned more genes (and were thus, presumably, more damaging), than those in autistic boys. 从表面上看，这似乎是令人信服的女性保护模式证据。因为Jacquemont医生检验的所有孩子的数据都被诊断有问题，如果比起男孩，女孩有更严重的突变，那就表面他们生理机能的其他方面掩盖了结果。如果这个解释是正确的，因此女性比男性能在出现的症状中更好的保护自己。而且，作为进一步的确认，Jacquemont医生的发现与一个三年前发布的研究成果相符，研究发现CNVs在自闭症女孩中横跨多个基因（也因此假设更具破坏性），比患自闭症男孩的多。
The counter-argument is that if girls are better at hiding their symptoms, only the more extreme female cases might turn up in the diagnosed groups.If that were true, a greater degree of mutation might be expected in symptomatic girls as a consequence.However, Dr Jacquemont and his colleagues also found that damaging CNVs were more likely to be inherited from a child's mother than from his or her father.They interpret this as further evidence of female-protectedne.Autistic symptoms make people of either sex le likely to become parents.If mothers are the source of the majority of autism-inducing genes in children, it suggests they are le affected by them.
相反的观点认为如果女孩能更好的隐藏他们的症状，在被诊断的小组中，只有更极端女性案例会出现。如果这是正确的，那么在女孩症候群中预期有更多程度的突变。然而， Jacquemont医生和他的同事同样也发现受损的CNVs遗传于母亲的可能性大于他或她的父亲。他们解释这进一步证明了女性保护机制。自闭症症状使任何性别的人都不大愿意成为父母。如果母亲是孩子自闭症诱导基因的主要来源，因此建议孩子们能少受到影响母体的影响。
None of this, though, explains the exact mechanism that makes boys more susceptible than girls.On this question, too, there are two predominant theories.The first is that males are more sensitive because they have only one X-chromosome.This makes them vulnerable to mutations on that chromosome, because any damaged genes have no twin to cover for them.One cognitive disorder, fragile-X syndrome, is indeed much more common in men for this reason.Dr Jacquemont's study, however, found only a limited role for X-chromosome mutations.That suggests the genetic basis of the difference is distributed acro the whole genome.
即使没有这个，准确机制也说明男孩比女孩更易受到影响。在这个问题上，也有两个主要的理论。第一个理论认为男性更敏感， 因为他们只有一个X染色体。这使对染色体的突变更易受影响，因为任何受损基因都没有双胞胎来掩盖。认知障碍，X染色体易损综合症，确实因为这个原因在男性中很常见。然而Jacquemont医生的研究发现X染色体突变的作用有限。这表明该差异的遗传基础是分布在整个基因组的。
The other kind of explanation is anatomical.It is based on brain-imaging studies which suggest differences between the patterns of internal connection in male and female brains.Male brains have stronger local connections, and weaker long-range ones, than do female brains.That is similar to a difference seen between the brains of autistic people and of those who are not.The suggestion here is that the male-type connection pattern is somehow more vulnerable to disruption by the factors which trigger autism and other cognitive problems.Why that should be, however, remains opaque.
另一种解释则是解剖学意义上的。它基于男性和女性大脑内部连接模式差异的脑成像研究。男性大脑比起女性而言，有较强的本地连接，较弱的长范围连接。这与是否患有自闭症者大脑的不同相似。这表明男性类型连接模式在某种程度上更加易受因此自闭症的其他认知障碍因素得破坏。然而为什么会这样，仍是未解之谜。
05.27 Display screens 显示屏
Going through a phase 相转变
A new way to create electronic images 新的电子图案显示方法 Wave of the future? 未来之波
LIQUID-CRYSTAL displays are a familiar and ubiquitous technology.But if Harish Bhaskaran of Oxford University is right, their days may be numbered.The eential feature of LCDs is that the pixels in them switch between amorphous and crystal-like phases, which changes their optical properties.In a paper in this week's Nature, Dr Bhaskaran and his colleagues describe something similar in a solid material.At the least, that would stop the mey abstract-impreionist patterns which happen when an LCD is dropped too hard.At most, it might open up a new range of applications, from clothes that change colour to dimmable windscreens.
液晶显示屏是一项成熟而广泛应用的技术。但如果牛津大学的Harish Bhaskaran的想法实现，液晶屏的好景也就没几天了。LCD的基本特征是其像素在非晶相和类晶相间转化，因此改变其光学性质。在本周的《自然》杂志上，Bhaskaran博士及其同事陈述了一种类似的固体材料。至少该材质可以防止当LCD猛烈坠地后产生麻烦的抽象印象派图案。最理想情况下，它会有新的应用范围，从变色布料到可调光挡风玻璃。
Solid phase-change materials are already used to store data in optical memory disks.They are also being considered for use in memory chips, because the switch between amorphous and crystalline states alters their electrical properties in ways that can store electronic bits of data.Dr Bhaskaran, though, has shown that thin enough films of the right sort of material can be made to change colour, too. 固态相变材料已经用于在光储存盘中储存数据。也可能被用于记忆芯片，因为其非晶态和晶态之间的转变也改变了其电学性能，因此他们能储存电子数据。然而，Bhaskaran博士展示了一种特定材料膜，在足够薄的情况下也可以改变颜色。
This property would make them suitable both for displays that rely on reflected light (so-called electronic paper) and the older, backlit sort that rely on transmitted light.The resulting displays would be thin and could be flexible if printed on the right material—increasing the range of applications they might be used in.And they would consume little power, since energy need be used only when a pixel has to be flipped from one phase to another.
这一性能将使其适合于反射光显示（所谓电子纸）和早期的依赖透射光的背光显示。所得显示屏不仅薄，而且铺在合适材料上时非常灵活，增加了其应用范围。而且它消耗的功率更少，因为这种材料只需要在变相的时候消耗能量。 The researchers' material of choice is an alloy of germanium, antimony and tellurium.Both the crystalline and the amorphous phases of this substance are stable at any temperature a device is likely to experience, and thin films of it are more or le transparent.The power needed to effect the phase change could be fed to individual pixels by electrodes made of indium tin oxide, which is also transparent. 研究人员选择的材料是镓、锑和碲合金。这一物质的晶态和非晶态在任何设备适用温度下都很稳定。其薄膜也几乎透明。要激发相转变所需的能量可以由透明的铟锡氧化物电极向单个像素提供。
The colour of a pixel would depend not only on its phase, but also on its thickne, which would affect the way light waves being reflected within it interfere with one another, cancelling out some frequencies while amplifying others.(The effect is similar to the creation of colours by a thin layer of oil on a puddle.) Generally, the alloy layer needs to be thinner than 20 nanometres for that to happen. 单个像素的颜色不仅取决于其相态，也同其厚度有关。厚度会影响光波在两个像素间界面处的反射，削弱部分频率，加强其他频率。（此效应类似于池塘表面薄油层产生的色彩。）一般来说，合金层需要薄于20 nm才会发生这一现象。
To demonstrate their idea, the researchers sprayed films of their alloy onto pieces of silicon, quartz and plastic.They then used a device called an atomic-force microscope, which has a tip a few nanometres acro, to apply appropriate electric currents in a grid pattern acro the film's surface.This grid mimicked an array of pixels, creating a stable pattern.The result, as their picture of a Japanese wave shows, is a recognisable image—if not, yet, a perfect one.
为了证明其观点，研究人员将其合金铺覆到硅，石英和塑料上。然后他们使用所谓原子力显微镜的设备来施加合适的电流在横穿膜表面的网格上。原子力显微镜尖端仅有几个纳米大小。网格模仿像素排列，产生稳定的模式。他们对日本电波的拍摄结果是一个可识别的图像，即便不可识别，也是非常完美的。
Adding the indium-tin-oxide electrodes is a more complicated proce, but to show it can be done in principle, Dr Bhaskaran has made a single pixel this way.Whether his idea will get off the lab bench and into the shops remains to be seen.It is by no means the only suggestion around for a new generation of display screens.But it looks plausible.
加入铟锡氧化物电极是更为复杂的过程，但是可以从原理上展示其过程。Bhaskaran用这种方式制备了单个像素。他的想法能否从实验室走进商用还是未知。这绝不是新一代显示屏的唯一方案，但颇得看好。 05.18 Mitochondria and male lifespan 粒腺体影响男性寿命 Power down 粒腺体阻断
Women outlive men.An evolutionary curiosity may explain this 女性比男性寿命长久。欲知为何，请看进化学分解 Mankiller? 男性健康杀手？
WHY past generations regarded women as the weaker sex is a mystery to anyone who has examined the question objectively, for they are far stronger than men—outliving them in pretty well every society in the world.Partly that is because men are more violent, and their violence is largely directed at other men.But partly it is physiological.Men seem to wear out faster than women do.Yet no one knows why. 过去，人们认为女性比男性弱，而这对于客观地调查过此现象的人来说是个迷，因为女性比男性寿命长，很多国家或地区都是如此。在一定程度上，这可能是因为男性要狂暴一些，而且他们的狂暴是针对其他男性。但也有可能是受生理影响。男性精力耗损要比女性快。个中缘由还没有人知道。
Madeleine Beekman of the University of Sydney, Australia, and her colleagues, however, have a hypothesis.As they outline in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, they think at least some of the blame lies with subcellular structures called mitochondria (pictured), which provide the body with its power by burning glucose and using the energy thus released to make ATP, a molecule that is biology's universal fuel.
玛德琳·比克曼是澳大利亚悉尼大学工作者，她跟同事一起提出一种假说。他们在皇家学会哲学学报发表的一篇论文中指出，男性寿命比女性短的原因可能取决于亚细胞结构，也就是粒腺体。粒腺体通过燃烧葡萄糖为机体提供能量，利用该能量释放三磷腺苷，三磷腺苷是整个机体的燃料。
Mitochondria are intriguing.They are descendants of bacteria that teamed up with the ancestors of animal and plant cells about a billion years ago.As such, they retain their own genes.And this is where the problems start.To avoid fights between genetically different mitochondria in the same cell, most species have arranged for their mitochondria to come from only one parent—usually the mother.This means, as Dr Beekman notes, that a male's mitochondria are stuck in an evolutionary dead end.They cannot evolve in male-specific ways, because no matter how much good they do a male body they inhabit, they will not be paed on to the next generation. 粒腺体很有趣。他们是细菌与十亿年前的动物或植物祖先的衍生物。如此便保留住了基因。这就是问题的开始。从遗传学角度讲，为了避免同一个细胞内不同的粒腺体相互排斥，大多数生物都会选择系属同一个细胞的线粒体，通常是同一个雌细胞。如比克曼博士所提到的一样，雄性线粒体陷入进化死胡同。雄性线粒体不能逐渐形成雄性专一方式，因为雄性线粒体在雄性生物体上栖息的多么好，都不能繁衍到下一代。
Male and female physiologies are sufficiently similar for this not to be a central problem, but Dr Beekman thinks it may matter at the margins.She observes that one disease, called Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, which is caused by a faulty mitochondrial gene, occurs in only 10% of women whose cellular power-packs include the damaged gene, but in 50% of men whose mitochondria are so encumbered.The gene in question, in other words, is le likely to harm a woman than a man.She then lists a lot of other diseases, including ones far commoner than Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (such as cardiomyopathy, diabetes and several forms of deafne) that sometimes or always have a mitochondrial component, and speculates that some of these, too, may prove to be either more common or more serious in men than in women.As far as her searches of the literature can show, this is not something that has yet been looked into.
这和女性和男性生生理机能十分相似，但又不是中心问题。比克曼博士认为，这可能关系到margin。她仔细观察了一种名为利伯氏视神经病变的疾病，是有缺陷的粒腺体基因引起的。女性的发病率只有10%，女性细胞还包括受损细胞。而男性发病率高达50%，主要是粒腺体堵塞引起的 。比克曼博士又列举出了其他疾病，这比利伯氏视神经病变要常见的多（例如心肌病、糖尿病和其他耳聋症），这些疾病有时或经常含有粒腺体成分。男性患此类疾病的发病率比女性高，男性患者也比女性患者病情严重的多。此篇论文的研究程度所达程度并不是如此，而且这类问题早已有人考虑过。
Part of the reason for this absence of information may be that few doctors think like evolutionary biologists, so they fail to ask the appropriate questions.Dr Beekman's hypothesis may turn out to be wrong.But it sounds eminently plausible, and certainly worth investigating. 关于这些研究缺乏信息可能是因为没有几个医生研究这类问题，比如进化生物学，他们也无法提出合适的问题。比克曼教授的假说也许是错误的，但是，这种假说看起来很有道理，有研究价值。 0104 Astrophysics 天体物理 Dust to dust 尘归尘，土归土
A dramatic recent “discovery” in physics is looking rather dodgy 近期，物理学中的一项戏剧性发现看上出非常模糊
IN MARCH Chao-Lin Kuo, an astrophysicist at Stanford University, filmed himself knocking on the door of his colleague Andrei Linde.In the 1980s Dr Linde was one of several cosmologists who developed the theory of cosmic inflation, which holds that, in the first instants of its existence, the universe underwent a brief period of faster-than-light expansion.
三月，斯坦福大学天体物理学家郭兆林拍下了自己造访同事Andrei Linde的一幕。上世纪80年代，Linden博士是少有的几位发展了宇宙膨胀论的宇宙学家。宇宙膨胀论认为，在其出现的那一瞬间，宇宙经历了一段超光速膨胀。
Because inflation neatly cleaves several knotty problems in cosmology, many astrophysicists (though not all) subscribe to the theory.But direct, unambiguous evidence for it has been lacking.That was why Dr Kuo was visiting Dr Linde—to tell him that, thanks to the work of a telescope in Antarctica called BICEP-2, such evidence had now been found.After digesting the news, an emotional Dr Linde broke open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.The video has been viewed almost 3m times. 因为膨胀论能完整解释宇宙学中的一些难题，许多天体物理学家都倾向于该理论。但是膨胀论仍缺乏直接、清晰的证据。这正是郭博士拜访Linde博士的原因—在南极洲的BICEP-2天文望远镜发现了这种证据。收到消息后，Linde博士开了一瓶香槟来庆祝。这段视频已经被浏览了将近300万次。
It now seems that Dr Kuo might have to make a new video, informing Dr Linde that he has wasted a bottle of bubbly.A paper just released by the team behind Planck, a European space telescope, casts serious doubt on the BICEP-2 result.What looked like a clear window back into the earliest moments of the universe might simply have been a faint glow from the diaphanous clouds of dust that exist between the stars. 现在好像郭博士不得不再做一个视频，告诉Linde博士他浪费了一瓶香槟。新近有文献报道称，欧洲的普朗克天文望远镜拍到了对BICEP研究构成重大质疑的结果。回溯到宇宙最初时间，看上去似乎是清晰的窗户的图像可能仅仅是恒星间的透明灰云折射的淡淡光芒。 The BICEP-2 team, led by John Kovac of Harvard University, had been studying the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB)—a weak bath of radiation, left over from the Big Bang, that suffuses the universe.They were looking for evidence of primordial gravitational waves.These are ripples in the fabric of space, created, if the theory of inflation is correct, as the early universe was undergoing its post-creation growth spurt.
由哈佛大学John Kovac领导的BICEP-2小组长期研究宇宙微波背景辐射，即一种由大爆炸产生的微弱辐射，弥漫在宇宙中。他们在找寻原始引力波的证据。如果膨胀论是正确的的话，那么这种由宇宙在初创后迸发过程中产生的波会存在于空间架构中。 A dusty trail 布满尘埃的小径
Such waves should have left a distinctive, polarised mark imprinted upon the CMB.And, in a pre conference on March 17th, that is exactly what the BICEP-2 team claimed to have found.It was the biggest news in physics since the discovery, in 2012, of the Higgs boson, and it was widely covered (including in The Economist).Not only would the BICEP result have confirmed the theory of inflation, but studying the gravitational waves it purported to have found would have given cosmologists a way to look back to the very earliest moments of the universe.
这种波应该在宇宙微波辐射背景上留下了一个独特的、极化的记号。并且，在3月17日的新闻发布会上，BICEP-2小组宣布发现的，正是这个记号。这是从2012年希格斯玻色子发现以来，物理学界最大的新闻，并广为传播（包括《经济学人》）。BICEP的结果不仅确认了膨胀论这么简单，研究他们宣称所发现的引力波，将为宇宙学家提供一条回溯宇宙最开始的时刻的方法。
But gravitational waves are not the only things that BICEP-2 might have picked up.The Milky Way is filled with thin clouds of interstellar dust which, under the influence of the galaxy's magnetic field, scatter and polarise starlight.The BICEP team were confident that the contamination from the dust was small enough not to affect their detection of gravitational waves.But the behaviour of the dust is poorly understood, says Chris Lintott, an astronomer at Oxford University, and not everyone was convinced.
但是引力波并不是BICEP-2发现的唯一一件事情。银河中遍布的星级尘埃，在星系磁场的作用下，散射或极化星光。BICEP小组相信，灰尘的污染非常小，不足以影响其对引力波的测定。但是牛津大学的天文学家Chris Lintott称，对灰尘行迹我们理解不足，而且无法令所有人信服。
The Planck results suggest that they were right to be sceptical.The European telescope has just unveiled a map of dust density acro the entire sky.It suggests that, contrary to the BICEP team's hopes, the signal from the dust is so strong that the telescope might well have seen no primordial gravity waves at all. Planck小组的结果说明，怀疑论者是正确的。欧洲天文望远镜最近提出了一份整个天空中的灰尘的密度分布图。分布图显示，同BICEP小组的假定相反，灰尘发出的信号很强，天文望远镜甚至无法检测到任何的原始引力波。
That, at least, is the most likely interpretation, but it is not the only one.The Planck team are careful to stop short of saying that their results are fatal to BICEP's claims, pointing out that applying their data to the BICEP results involves considerable “statistical and systematic uncertainties”.There are, in other words, a couple of glimmers of hope that signs of inflation have actually been seen.One is that the precise behaviour of the dust is still mysterious, which means the mathematical transformations used to apply Planck's data to BICEP's results may turn out to be incorrect.And even if those maths are sound, statistics may ride to the rescue—for if the amount of radiation from the dust is at the lowest end of Planck's estimates, a small gravitational-wave signal may survive.
至少这是最有可能的解释。但却不是唯一的。普朗克小组谨慎地不曾宣称他们的结果对BICEP小组的声明有颠覆效果，而是指出，将他们所获得的数据应用于BICEP的结论中会产生可观的“统计学和系统上的不确定性”。换句话说，有些闪烁有望作为膨胀论确实存在的证据。一方面，灰尘行迹的精确表述依然是个谜，也就是说，将普朗克小组的数据转换为BICEP结果的数学过程可能是错误的。而且即使这些数学转换可靠，数据也可能出现问题。因为如果灰尘的辐射数量处在普朗克小组估计的最低端，可能会有一点点引力波信号留存。 Rowing back on a triumphant announcement about the first instants of creation may be a little embarraing, but the saga is a useful reminder of how science works.There is no suggestion that anyone has behaved dishonourably.Admittedly, the BICEP team's original pre conference looks, with hindsight, seriously overconfident.More information-sharing between the various gravitational wave-hunters, all of whom guard their data jealously, might have helped tone down the triumphalism.But science, ideally, proceeds by exactly this sort of good-faith argument and honourable squabbling—until the weight of evidence forces one side to admit defeat.
收回早期的胜利宣言可能有点尴尬，但是这个冒险非常恰当地提醒了我们，科学工作者的工作方式。没人会觉得谁的表现有愧其身份。固然，BICEP小组最初的新闻发布会，事后来看，过度自信了。在各种引力波守望者当中共享贡多信息可能有助于缓和这种胜利主义，可惜他们都视自己的数据如命根子。但是，想象中的科学，正是通过这种善意的争论和尊重彼此的吵闹，直到证据的分量迫使一方承认失败。
That could happen soon: the Planck and BICEP teams have pooled their data and are working on a joint paper, expected to be published in the next few months.Information from other gravity-wave hunting experiments—including some run by the BICEP team themselves—will shed extra light, too.It is not yet impoible that Dr Kovac and his colleagues will be proved right after all.But at this point it would take a brave cosmologist to bet on it.
这一幕可能很快上演：普朗克小组和BICEP小组已将各自的数据凑到一起，并联合撰写论文，预计将于接下来的几个月中发表。通过其他引力波探测实验，包括BICEP小组自己的，将会摆脱多余的光。可能最终Kovac博士及其同事无法自圆其说。但在这一时刻，需要勇敢的天文学家站出来孤注一掷。
