报刊阅读理解1-5(学生).doc

1、And man-made life 背景常识介绍人造生命是指从其它生命体中提取基因，建立新染色体。随后将其嵌入已经被剔除了遗传密码的细胞之中，最终由这些人工染色体控制这个细胞，发育变成新的生命体。2007年10月8日，美国科学家克雷格·文特尔表示，他目前已经在实验室成功地制造出一个合成的人造染色体。2010年5月20日，美国私立科研机构克雷格·文特尔研究所宣布世界首例人造生命——完全由人造基因控制的单细胞细菌诞生，并将“人造生命”起名为“辛西娅”。这项具有里程碑意义的实验表明，新的生命体可以在实验室里“被创造”，而不是一定要通过“进化”来完成。 　　TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life. 　　Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unraveled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor. Pedants may quibble that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order. 　　That ability would prove mankind’s mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. The bomb, however justified in the context of the Second World War, was purely destructive. Biology is about nurturing and growth. Synthetic biology, as the technology that this and myriad less eye catching advances are ushering in has been dubbed, promises much. In the short term it promises better drugs, less thirsty crops, greener fuels and even a rejuvenated chemical industry. In the longer term who knows what marvels could be designed and grown? 　　On the face of it, then, artificial life looks like a wonderful thing. Yet that is not how many will view the annou