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上期翻译答案

But fair comparisons can be made with excess mortality—the gap between the number of deaths from all causes and the number expected under normal conditions.

但可以通过“超额死亡率”做公平的比较，即因各种原因实际死亡的人数与正常情况下的预计死亡人数之间的差距。

《本期内容》

双语阅读

To the Swedes, there are few odours moredelectablethan the scent of surströmming, a type offermentedherring. To most non-Swedes there are probably few odours morerepulsive—the fish has been described variously as smelling like rancidcat litter, vaguely faecal or even corpse-like. In determining which scents people find pleasant and which they do not, surströmming suggests culture mustplay a sizeable part.

对瑞典人来说，很少有气味比盐腌鲱鱼（一种发酵的鲱鱼）更美味。对大多数非瑞典人来说，可能很少有气味比盐腌鲱鱼更让人反胃——人们用各种词语形容这种鱼的味道：腐臭的猫砂味，隐约的粪便味或者甚至像尸臭味。在人们对什么气味感到愉悦的决定因素里，盐腌鲱鱼表明文化一定起到了很大的作用。

New research, however, suggests that might not be the case. Artin Arshamian, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and Asifa Majid, a psychologist at the University of Oxford, began with the expectation that culture would play an important role in determining pleasant smells. This was not just because of examples like that of fermented herring. They had noticed from their own previous work that people from different cultures described odours differently.

然而一项新的研究表明，情况可能并非如此。瑞典卡罗林斯卡学院的神经学家阿丁·阿沙米安和牛津大学的心理学家阿西法·马吉德，最初的设想是，文化在决定人们对于何种气味感到愉悦方面起到很重要的作用，这不仅仅是因为发酵鲱鱼的例子。他们从自己此前的工作中发现，不同文化背景的人对气味的描述不同。

The cultures doing the smelling varied widely too. They included hunter-gatherer communities along the coast of Mexico,subsistencefarmers living in the highlands of Ecuador, shoreline foragers, swidden horticulturalists living in the tropical rainforests of Malaysia, and city folk from Thailand and Mexico City. All 235 participants were asked to rank odours according to pleasantness. Writing in Current Biology this week, the researchers noted that pleasantness rankings of the odours were remarkably consistent regardless of where people came from.

文化对于嗅觉影响的差异也很大。参与实验的人包括墨西哥沿海的狩猎-采集社区，生活在厄瓜多尔高地的自给农民，生活在马来西亚热带雨林的海岸采集者，以及来自泰国和墨西哥城的城市居民。所有235名参与者都被要求根据令人愉悦的程度对气味进行排序。研究人员在本周的《当代生物学》杂志上撰文指出，无论人们来自哪里，他们对气味喜爱程度的排序都非常一致。

Overall, the chemical composition of the odourants that the researchers presented explained 41% of the reactions that participants had. In contrast, cultural upbringing accounted for just 6% of the results. Dr Arshamian and Dr Majid point out that this is very different from how visual perception of faces works—in that case a person’s culture accounts for up to 50% of the explanation for which faces they find beautiful.

总的来说，对于参与者的反应，研究人员提供的气味的化学成分起到的作用占41%。相比之下，文化受教育程度只占了6%。翻译划线句，长按文末小程序码打卡，答案下期公布~

Even so, while culture did not shape perceptions of odours in the way that it is known to shape perceptions of faces, the researchers did find an “eye of the beholder” effect. Randomness, which Dr Arshamian and Dr Majid suggest has to be coming from personal preferences learned from outside individual culture, accounted for 54% of the variance in which smells people liked.

尽管如此，虽然文化对气味感知的影响并没有像我们所知道的文化对面孔感知的影响那样大，但研究人员确实发现了一种“观察者的眼睛”效应。阿沙米安博士和马吉德博士认为，随机性来自于从外部个体文化中习得的个人偏好，该因素在人们对气味的偏好差异因素中占54%。

本文节选自：The Economist（经济学人）

发布时间：2022.04.06

作者：Science and technology

原文标题：Around the world, people like (and dislike) the same scents

词汇积累

1.delectable

英 [dɪˈlektəbl] 美 [dɪˈlektəbl]

adj. 美味的；令人愉快的

2.ferment

英 [fəˈment] 美 [fərˈment]

v. （使）发酵；挑起，激起（麻烦，动乱）

n. 动荡，骚乱；<古>酵素，酶；发酵

【名】 （Ferment）（法）费尔芒（人名）

3.herring

英 [ˈherɪŋ] 美 [ˈherɪŋ]

n. 鲱鱼；鲱鱼肉

n. （Herring）（美）赫林（人名）

4.repulsive

英 [rɪˈpʌlsɪv] 美 [rɪˈpʌlsɪv]

adj. 排斥的；令人厌恶的；击退的；冷淡的

5.subsistence

英 [səbˈsɪstəns] 美 [səbˈsɪstəns]

n. 勉强生存，维持生计；赖以活命的食物（或钱）；<法律>有效

adj. 自给自足的，仅够自用的

词组搭配

1.cat litter 猫砂

2.play a sizeable part 起到重要作用

写作句总结

原句：Even so, while culture did not shape perceptions of odours in the way that it is known to shape perceptions of faces, the researchers did find an “eye of the beholder” effect.

结构：While XX did not shape perceptions of XX in the way that it is known to shape perceptions of XX, XX did find XX.

例句：While corporate culture did not shape perceptions of work efficient in the way that it is known to shape perceptions of work spirit, executives did find corporate culture plays an important role in management.

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