新概念英语2短文-大学新概念英语精美短文（八）

【#新概念英语# 导语】《新概念英语》是1997年由外语教学与研究出版社和培生教育出版中国有限公司联合出版的一套英语教材。作为一套世界闻名的英语教程，以其全新的教学理念，有趣的课文内容和全面的技能训练，深受广大英语学习者的欢迎和喜爱。进入中国以后，《新概念英语》历经数次重印，以大限度地满足不同层次、不同类型英语学习者的需求。®文档大全网为您整理了以下内容，仅供参考。希望可以帮助到您！如果您想要了解更多相关内容，欢迎关注®文档大全网！

【篇一】

Sleep

睡眠

Sleep is part of a person's daily activity cycle. There are several different stages of sleep, and they too occur in cycles.

睡眠是人每天日常活动循环的一部分。人的睡眠分几个阶段，而这些阶段也是循环发生的。

If you are an average sleeper, your sleep cycle is as follows. When you first drift off into slumber, your eyes will roll about a bit, your temperature will drop slightly, your muscles will relax, and your breathing well slow and become quite regular. Your brain waves slow down a bit too, with the alpha rhythm of rather fast waves predominating for the first few minutes. This is called stage 1 sleep. For the next half hour or so, as you relax more and more, you will drift down through stage 2 and stage 3 sleep. The lower your stage of sleep, the slower your brain waves will be. Then about 40 to 60 minutes after you lose consciousness you will have reached the deepest sleep of all. Your brain waves will show the large slow waves that are known as the delta rhythm. This is stage 4 sleep.

如果你是一个正常的睡眠者，你的睡眠循环会这样进行。在你开始昏昏入睡时，你的眼睛会滚动几下，体温略有下降，肌肉放松，呼吸变得缓慢而有节奏。除了开始几分钟比较快的α节奏外，脑电波也稍有减缓。这被称为第一阶段睡眠。在随后约半小时内，你进一步放松，进入第二和第三阶段睡眠。睡眠越深入，脑电波就越缓慢。大约在开始睡眠后的40到60分钟，你将进入沉睡状态。这时的脑电波表现为巨大的缓波，被称为δ节奏。这就是第四阶段睡眠。

You do not remain at this deep fourth stage all night long, but instead about 80 minutes after you fall into slumber, your brain activity level will increase again slightly. The delta rhythm will disappear, to be replaced by the activity pattern of brain waves. Your eyes will begin to dart around under your closed eyelids as if you were looking at something occurring in front of you. This period of rapid eye movement lasts for some 8 to 15 minutes and is called REM sleep. It is during REM sleep period, your body will soon relax again, your breathing will grow slow and regular once more, and you will slip gently back from stage 1 to stage 4 sleep - only to rise once again to the surface of near consciousness some 80 minutes later.

但你并不是整夜都保持这种沉睡状态。入睡后约80分钟左右，你的大脑运动水平会再度略有提高。δ节奏消失，并被脑电波的运动图形取代。你的眼睛会在闭着的眼睑下迅速转动，就好象你在看着眼前发生的什么事情。这种迅速的眼球运动持续约8-15分钟，这一阶段睡眠被称之为快速眼动(REM)睡眠。在REM睡眠阶段，你的肢体会很快再度放松，呼吸也再次放慢并变得有节奏，你会轻松地从第一阶段滑入第四阶段睡眠——直到大约80分钟后重新接近清醒状态。

【篇二】

Bacteria

细菌

Bacteria are extremely small living things. While we measure our own sizes in inches or centimeters, bacterial size is measured in microns. One micron is a thousandth of a millimeter: a pinhead is about a millimeter across. Rod-shaped bacteria are usually from two to four microns long, while rounded ones are generally one micron in diameter. Thus if you enlarged a rounded bacterium a thousand times, it would be just about the size of a pinhead. An adult human magnified by the same amount would be over a mile tall.

细菌是极其微小的生物体。我们用英寸或厘米来测量自己的大小，而测量细菌却要用微米。一微米等于千分之一毫米。针头直径大约一毫米。棒状细菌通常有2-4微米长，而圆形细菌的直径一般只有1微米。因此，即使你把一个圆形细菌放大1000倍，它也不过一个针头那么大。可是如果把一个成年人放大1000倍，就会变成1英里（或1.6公里）多高。

Even with an ordinary microscope, you must look closely to see bacteria. Using a magnification of 100 times, one finds that bacteria are barely visible as tiny rods or dots. One cannot make out anything of their structure. Using special stains, one can see that some bacteria have attached to them wavy-looking "hairs" called flagella. Others have only one flagellum. The flagella rotate, pushing the bacteria through the water. Many bacteria lack flagella and cannot move about by their own power, while others can glide along over surfaces by some little-understood mechanism.

用一般的显微镜观察细菌时，你必须仔细观察才能看见它们。使用100倍的显微镜时，你会发现细菌不过是隐约可见的小细棒或小点点，而它们的结构你却根本看不出来。使用特殊的着色剂后，你会发现有的细菌上长着不少波状的"毛发"即鞭毛，而有的细菌只有一根鞭毛。鞭毛的旋转可以推动细菌在水中行进。不少细菌没有鞭毛，因而不能自己行进。还有些细菌却能通过某些鲜为人知的机制沿物体表面滑动。

From the bacteria point of view, the world is a very different place from what it is to humans. To a bacterium water is as thick as molasses is to us. Bacteria are so small that they are influenced by the movements of the chemical molecules around them. Bacteria under the microscope, even those with no flagella, often bounce about in the water. This is because they collide with the watery molecules and are pushed this way and that. Molecules move so rapidly that within a tenth of a second the molecules around a bacteria have all been replaced by new ones; even bacteria without flagella are thus constantly exposed to a changing environment.

我们所熟知的世界在细菌眼中完全是另一个样子。对于细菌来说，水就同糖浆之于人类一样稠密。细菌是如此的微小，周围化学分子的一举一动都会对它们产生影响。在显微镜下，细菌，甚至包括那些没有鞭毛的细菌，经常在水中跳来跳去。这是因为它们与水分子相撞后，被弹向各个方向。分子移动很迅速，仅0.1秒之隔，一个细菌周围的分子就会完全更新。因此，即使是没有鞭毛的细菌也暴露在一个不断变化的环境中。

【篇三】

Folk Culture

民间文化

A folk culture is a small isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals.

民间文化是小型的、孤立的、紧密的、保守的、近乎自给自足的群体，具有同样的习俗、同样的人种和强有力的家庭或部族结构以及高度发展的宗教仪式。

Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family and interpersonal relationships are strong.Tradition is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor into specialized duties. Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade and subsistence economy prevails.

秩序由宗教或家庭的约束来维持，成员间的关系非常紧密，传统至高无上，很少有变动且变动缓慢。劳动专业分工相对较少。每个人都要做各类活计，尽管男女两 性分工不同。绝大多数物品是手工制造的，经济一般为自给自足型。

Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures as are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor saving devices of the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse drawn buggies still serve as a local transportation device and the faithful are not permitted to own automobiles. The Amish's central religious concept of Demut "humility", clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures and there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal mechanism for maintaining orders.

个人主义和社会阶层在民间文化群体中的发展十分薄弱。在象美国和加拿大这样的工业化国家里，一成不变的民间文化群体已不复存在了。在当代美洲的英语区，与民间文化最相似的群体也许算是Amish。Amish是美国的德裔农耕部落，他们基本上拒绝接受工业时代的大多数产品和节省劳力的设施。在Amish地区，轻便马车仍是当地的交通工具，信徒们不允许拥有汽车。Amish宗教中的核心观念Demut即谦卑典型地反映了在民间文化群中个人主义和阶级的不发达。而与此同时，Amish对群体的认同性却十分强。Amish人很少和他们宗派以外的人通婚。其宗教，作为Mennonite信仰的一种，提供了维护秩序的主要机制。

By contrast a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group often highly individualistic and constantly changing. Relationships tend to be impersonal and a pronounced division of labor exists, leading to the establishment of many specialized professions. Secular institutions of control such as the police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, "popular" may be viewed as clearly different from "folk". The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing nations. Folk-made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use or leads more prestige to the owner.

相反，大众文化是包含不同种族的大群体，通常高度个性化而且不断在变化。人际关系冷漠，劳动分工明确，由此产生了许多专门的职业。世俗的控制机构，比如警察和军队，取代了宗教和家庭来维持秩序，而且实行的是货币经济。由于存在着这些差异，"大众的"与"民间的"可谓大相径庭。在工业化国家以及许多发展中国家里，大众文化正在取代民间文化。民间制造的物品正让位于大众化产品，这通常是因为大众化的物品制造起来更快、更便宜，用起来更容易、更方便或者是能给其所有者带来更多的威望。

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