本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist 2016年第23期，Science and Technology版块。

Jumping to attention

Jun 4th 2016

The peppered moth[白桦尺蛾;桦天蠖] is one of the most famous animals in evolutionary biology[进化生物学]. Victorian[维多利亚时代] collections show how a melanic[黑化的] version of this normally speckled[有斑点的] species spread through sooty[乌黑的;煤烟熏黑的;阴沉的] urban areas because its black wings camouflaged[伪装;欺骗] resting moths[飞蛾,蛾] from hungry birds (see picture above). The exact genetic change involved, however, remained elusive[难懂的;难捉摸的]. But, in a paper in Nature, Arjen van’t Hof of Liverpool University[利物浦大学], in England, and his colleagues, say they have nailed it down[确定,明确;用钉钉住]. It is a transposable element[转座因子]—a piece of DNA that leaps from place to place in the genome. In this case it has leapt into a gene called cortex[脑皮层;皮质,皮层], which controls cell division[细胞分裂]. That promotes cortex’s expression. Just why this makes wings black, though, has yet to be worked out.

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以上言论不代表本人立场。

原文摘自The economist，仅外语学习之用。

其中生词解释来源于Cambridge Dictionaries

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