Why Your DNA Isn27t Your Destiny DNA不是一切 (英语原文+中文译文)).docVIP

Why Your DNA Isnt Your Destiny DNA不是一切 （中英对照） By John Cloud, TIME magazine Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2010 中文翻译：Quintessence [http://www.wretch.cc/blog/QuintEssence/] 瑞典北方，遥远而辽阔的冰天雪地中，似乎不会是顶尖遗传科学的发轫地。瑞典国境最北的北博滕省（Norrbotten）寥无人烟，平均每平方公里只有两个人。然而，透过这一小撮人，我们却能更加认识基因在日常生活中的作用。The remote, snow-swept expanses of northern Sweden are an unlikely place to begin a story about cutting-edge genetic science. The kingdoms northernmost county, Norrbotten, is nearly free of human life; an average of just six people live in each square mile. And yet this tiny population can reveal a lot about how genes work in our everyday lives.十九世纪的北博滕省对外交通不便，因此若当地收成欠佳，居民只好挨饿。由于难以事先预测荒年，使得情况更加严峻。比如说，1800、1812、1821、1836、1856年灾情惨重；但是1801、1822、1828、1844、1863年却是五个大丰年，使得之前挨饿的居民忽然能够暴饮暴食好几个月。Norrbotten is so isolated that in the 19th century, if the harvest was bad, people starved. The starving years were all the crueler for their unpredictability. For instance, 1800, 1812, 1821, 1836 and 1856 were years of total crop failure and extreme suffering. But in 1801, 1822, 1828, 1844 and 1863, the land spilled forth such abundance that the same people who had gone hungry in previous winters were able to gorge themselves for months.白葛恩（Lars Olov Bygren）博士是一名预防医学家，目前任职于斯德哥尔摩声望卓著的卡洛林斯卡医学研究院（Karolinska Institute）。他在八○年代开始研究十九世纪的北博滕省，想了解丰年与荒年对于当地孩童成长的长期影响。他的研究不仅针对当时的孩童，还包括那些孩童的儿孙辈。他随机挑选了99个1905年在北博滕省奥佛卡利克斯区（Overkalix）出生的人为样本，并利用历史数据回溯他们的父母与祖父母辈出生时的情形。藉由分析详实的农业纪录后，白葛恩博士与另外两名伙伴便能推知那些人年轻时的农作收成状况。In the 1980s, Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, a preventive-health specialist who is now at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, began to wonder what long-term effects the feast and famine years might have had on children growing up in Norrbotten in the 19th century — and not just on them but on their kids and grandkids as well. So he drew a random sample of 99 individuals born in the Overkalix parish of Norrbotten in 1905 and used historical records to trace their parents and grandparents back to birth. By analyzing m