双语•智库 | 《自然》预测2018十二大科学事件 影响人类命运

作为智库型资讯与研究平台，译世界【官方微信号译•世界（YEEWORLD）】现推出“智库”栏目，以中英双语的形式为您精选全球重要智库及著名媒体等在语言服务、文化交流、人工智能、公共政策、国际关系等相关领域的前沿研究成果，并同时展现相关英文表达，欢迎关注！本期为“双语•智库”第十四期。

新的一年科学界有什么值得期待的大事？从各国斥巨资的太空任务到将基因编辑技术应用于临床，英国《自然》杂志1月2日列出了可能会在2018年给科学界带来重要影响的12件大事。

Scientific-unit revamp

科学单位重新定义

After decades of work, the redefinition of four units of measure should get the go ahead in late 2018. At the General Conference on Weights and Measures in November, delegates from 58 countries will vote on adopting new definitions of the ampere, the kilogram, the kelvin and the mole. These will be based on exact values of fundamental constants, rather than on arbitrary or abstract definitions. If approved, the changes should take effect in May 2019.

经过几十年的努力，2018年底，4个测量单位将获批进行重新定义。在2018年11月举行的国际度量衡大会上，来自58个国家的代表将就是否采用安培、千克、开尔文、摩尔4个单位的新定义进行投票。新定义将基于基本常数的精确值制定，而非随意或抽象的定义。如果投票通过，新版定义将于2019年5月生效。

Climate landmarks

气候里程碑

Countries that have signed on to the 2015 Paris climate agreement will outline how much progress they have made towards meeting their individual commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions — all in the hope of holding the average global temperature to 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels — as part of a report called the Facilitative Dialogue 41 36744 41 15231 0 0 1891 0 0:00:19 0:00:08 0:00:11 32092018. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will also release a special report outlining the consequences of a 1.5-degree temperature increase. And in September, California Governor Jerry Brown will host a major climate conference in support of the Paris agreement.

签订2015巴黎气候协定的国家将简单总结各自在实现其温室气体减排承诺方面所取得的进展，各方一致希望将全球平均气温控制在比前工业化时期高1.5-2℃的水平，以此作为“促进对话2018”报告的部分内容。政府间气候变化专门委员会还将发布一份特别报告，概述气温上升1.5℃造成的各种后果。2018年9月，加州州长杰里·布朗将举办一场重要的气候大会，以支持巴黎协定。

Open access

开放存取

Who will blink first in the stand-off between German scientists and publishing giant Elsevier? Around 200 German institutions were set to lose access to Elsevier journals from 1 January until the sides could reach an agreement in a long-running battle over subscription prices. Open-access advocates will also watch the fate of the website Sci-Hub — which provides unauthorized free access to millions of paywalled papers — after a US court order in November shut down some of its domains.

在德国科学家与出版巨头爱思唯尔之间的对峙中，哪一方会先妥协？如果双方在这场关于订阅价格的长期争论中不能达成共识，那么200多家德国机构将从2018年1月1日开始，失去爱思唯尔期刊的访问权。开放存取的拥护者同时也在关注Sci-Hub网站的命运。去年11月，美国一法院下令关闭了该网站部分域名后，该网站仍能提供对数百万付费论文的未经授权的免费访问。

Power play

高压攻势

Midterm elections are approaching in the United States. History suggests that whichever party controls the White House — in this case, the Republicans — is likely to lose seats in Congress. But it’s not clear whether Democrats will be able to flip enough positions in the House of Representatives or the Senate to gain a majority in either chamber. Eyes will also be on the record number of scientists running for local, state and federal offices. Elsewhere, the United Kingdom will enter phase two of Brexit negotiations to determine the nation’s scientific collaboration with the European Union after the country leaves the bloc in 2019.

美国即将进行中期选举。历史表明，无论哪个党派控制白宫（当下是共和党），都可能失去国会的席位。但目前尚不清楚民主党能否在众议院或参议院赢得足够席位，使之成为其中任何一个议院的多数党。同样值得关注的还有寻求地方、州和联邦公职的科学家人数达到空前水平。此外，英国将进入脱欧谈判的第二阶段，以确定2019年脱欧之后与欧盟的科研合作事项。

Particle surfing

粒子冲浪

It’s crunch time for a new method of accelerating particles. Scientists with the AWAKE experiment at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, have shown that the principle behind a proposal to accelerate electrons on a wave of plasma is sound. Now, they must actually do it. If successful, the technique could eventually lead to smaller and cheaper colliders.

对于一种加速粒子的新方法来说，现在正是关键时刻。在瑞士日内瓦附近的一家欧洲粒子物理实验室——欧洲核子研究组织，科学家通过高级尾场实验证明了在等离子体波中加速电子的原理是正确的。现在，他们有必要试一试。如果成功，这项技术最终将能制造出体积更小、成本更低的对撞机。

Extreme imaging

极端成像

Expect a raft of studies on how matter evolves under extreme conditions, such as in a planet’s core. New tools at X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facilities worldwide will enable scientists to image samples changing under high temperature and pressure. Biological and chemical reactions could also become cheaper to study when the first tabletop XFEL facilities open, at the German Electron Synchrotron near Hamburg and Arizona State University in Tempe.

众多关于物质在极端条件（如行星内核）下如何演变的研究指日可待，世界各地的X射线自由电子激光设备的新工具可以让科学家用影像记录高温高压下样本的变化情况。位于汉堡附近的德国电子同步加速器研究所和位于坦佩的亚利桑那州立大学拥有首批台式X射线自由电子激光器，这些设备投入使用后，生物学和化学反应的研究成本也会降低。

Cosmic data

宇宙数据

▲快速电波爆发

Fast radio bursts could become much less mysterious when the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) begins full operations this year. Astronomers hope to use CHIME to observe tens of these phenomena every day, boosting the current tally of just a few dozen in total. In April, astronomers will pounce on the second data set from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which will reveal the position and motion of more than one billion stars in the Milky Way. The data could help to improve our understanding of the spiral structure of the Galaxy.

2018年，加拿大“氢强度图谱实验”项目将开始全面运行，这有助于解开快速电波爆发的谜团。天文学家希望每天都能通过该实验观测到几十个这样的天文现象，大大提高目前仅有的几十个观测总量的水平。2018年4月，天文学家将利用欧洲航天局“盖亚”任务采集到的第二轮数据，分析银河系超过十亿颗恒星的位置和运行状态。这些数据有助于科学家更好地了解银河系的螺旋结构。

To the Moon and beyond

探测月球及太阳系

While NASA works on US President Donald Trump’s order to send astronauts back to the Moon, two other space agencies will attempt to land rovers on the lunar surface. In early 2018, India’s Chandrayaan-2 will mark the country’s first attempt at a controlled landing in space. Then, in December, China’s Chang’e-4 will become the first probe to target the far side of the Moon. Elsewhere in the Solar System, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa-2 should reach the primitive Ryugu asteroid by July, and NASA’s Osiris-Rex is set to reach the asteroid Bennu in late 2018. Both will return samples to Earth in the 2020s.

美国宇航局正在执行特朗普总统将宇航员送往月球的指令，而另两家航天局正计划在月球表面着陆。印度计划在2018年初发射“月船2号”太空飞行器，这是印度首次尝试对太空船进行受控的着落。2018年12月，月球永远背向地球的那一面将首次迎来人类的着陆探测器——中国的“嫦娥四号”。日本航空宇宙研究开发机构的“隼鸟2号”小行星探测器将于7月抵达目标小行星“龙宫”，美国宇航局研制的Osiris-Rex探测器将于2018年底抵达小行星“贝努鸟”。两者都将在本世纪20年代将样本带回地球。

Space-industry battles

航天业的竞争

Up to five teams competing for the US$30-million Google Lunar XPrize have until 31 March to land and manoeuvre the first privately funded rover on the Moon, then beam back images. And aerospace firms Boeing and SpaceX plan to launch their first crewed flights to the International Space Station for NASA by November.

谷歌月球XPrize竞赛的奖金高达3000万美元（约合人民币1.95亿元），已有五支队伍参与角逐。2018年3月31日前，将有队伍登录月球，并在月球上运作首个由私人赞助的月球车，传回相关图像。同时，航空航天公司波音和SpaceX计划将于11月为美国宇航局向国际空间站发射第一批载人飞船。

Ancient Americans

古代美洲人

Results from a slew of ancient-genome studies expected in 2018 could help to explain how humans spread across the Americas. Scientists hope to narrow down estimates of when and how people expanded into the region beginning around 15,000 years ago, and to clarify the timing and routes of subsequent migrations. The work might also help to explain the genetic diversity seen in today’s Native American populations.

2018年，大量古代基因图谱的研究结果将有助于解释人类是如何遍布美洲大陆的。科学家希望能够将人类在大约15000年前进入这片区域的时间范围和方式进一步缩小，并弄清随后迁徙的时间和路线。这项研究也会有助于解释今天美洲原住民的遗传多样性。

Cancer’s bigger picture

癌症大图谱

Insights into the genes that regulate cancer could emerge this year as scientists pore over the first large-scale multiple-cancer sequencing effort of whole genomes. They will also get results from another large sequencing project, the Cancer Genome Atlas, which will release its analysis of the protein-coding regions — known as the exome — of 33 types of tumour.

2018年，科学家将深入了解控制癌症的基因，首次大规模对多种癌症的全基因组进行测序。他们进行的另一个大型序列项目——“癌症基因图谱”也将取得成果，公布对33类肿瘤蛋白质编码区（即“外显子组”）的分析结果。

Disease treatments

疾病治疗

Efforts to bring gene-editing tools such as CRISPR–Cas9 to the clinic are growing. The first phase I trial of CRISPR in people — editing immune cells to tackle lung cancer — will end in April. Firms including Locus Biosciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Eligo Bioscience in Paris will work towards trials using engineered viruses called bacteriophages to harness the CRISPR system against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And the first trial using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to treat Parkinson’s disease is set to begin in Kyoto, Japan, by the year’s end.

将诸如CRISPR–Cas9的基因编辑工具应用于临床的努力正在不断增多。作用于人体的CRISPR一期试验，即编辑免疫细胞以对抗肺癌的试验将于4月完成。三角公园研究区的Locus 生命科学公司、北卡罗来纳州公司、巴黎的Eligo生命科学公司等多家公司将尝试用被基因工程改造过的噬菌体借力CRISPR系统，对抗耐药细菌。2018年年底，首次使用诱导多能干细胞（iPS）治疗帕金森的试验将在日本京都展开。

编译：Yee君

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