【BBC学英语】还熬夜，你知道这可以引起多少疾病么？

文/Ryan

让2017年诺贝尔生物学奖获得者们告诉你，熬夜打乱生物钟的后果是什么：

今天带来的是：

The secret behind body clock

We spend around a third of our lives like this. Sleeping at night and being active during the day is second nature.That's because we're at the mercy of the constant ticking of clocks inside nearly every cell of our bodies. Our mood, strength,hormone levels, body temperature,metabolism and even the risk of a heart attack all fluctuate in a daily rhythm.

This clock is not controlled by cogs and pendulums.Instead, it's the swing in gene activity over 24 hours that keeps our body's time. The US’s trio Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young found the genes involved. Dr Michael Hastings, a circadian rhythm scientist in Cambridge, said it took the discovery for the field to be treated seriously.

Nobody now doubts the importance of our body clocks. Ask someone who is jet lagged or working shifts what it's like to live out of sync with your internal clock.

Long-term circadian rhythm disruption is linked to a host of diseases, from cancer to type 2 diabetes, but understanding how the body’s timepiece works is also unlocking new ideas,like taking medicines at the time of day when they will have the biggest impact on the body.

这篇报道是来自10月23日BBC learning English的一篇新闻：报道讲述的是2017年诺贝尔生物学奖获得者们，通过分离基因，为我们揭示了到底是什么样的机制使得细胞内的生物钟持续工作。

先看标题The secret behind body clock

Body clock就是我们中文所说的“生物钟”。但是在考试阅读中，生物钟会被表述成下列说法：internal clock; living clock; biological clock; bioclock; biochronometer;circadian clock.

首段讲述，我们的生活作息都是受生物钟所影响：We spend around a third of our lives like this. Sleeping at night and being active during the day is second nature. That's because we're at the mercy of the constant ticking of clocks inside nearly every cell of our bodies. Our mood, strength,hormone levels, body temperature,metabolism and even the risk of a heart attack all fluctuate in a daily rhythm.

nature是我们认识最早的单词之一了，意思是自然；但，其另外常用的含义是特征，等于characteristic，second nature即“第二天性”;首字母大写Nature则是表示《自然》这本杂志，很多四六级、考研的文章都会提到这本著名的杂志。

A at the mercy of B指“A任由B摆布”，说成人话就是“B决定A”，在阅读的时候，要反应过来B是因，A是果；而在写作的时候，当你想用A is decided by B或B caused A，就可以用这个词组来替换它们，来表达因果关系。比如：人类活动造成了全球变暖Global warming is at the mercy of human activities.

hormone(荷尔蒙)metabolism(新陈代谢)都是认知词汇。

第二段科学家的发现，生物钟的运作涉及到基因：This clock is not controlled by cogs and pendulums. Instead, it's the swing in gene activity over 24 hours that keeps our body's time. The US’s trio Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young found the genes involved. Dr Michael Hastings, a circadian rhythm scientist in Cambridge, said it took the discovery for the field to be treated seriously.

Cog(嵌在一起的齿轮) ,pendulum(钟摆),trio(三人小组),circadian(昼夜节奏的,生理节奏的)都是认知词汇。

对于…it took the discovery for the field to be treated seriously的理解，需要稍加注意：首先it指代的谁？在此it做形式主语，指的是后面to be treated seriously；其次took怎么理解，这里它的含义比较偏，表示“需要”，如：He didn’t take much persuading.即不需要多少口舌就能说服他。所以，这句话的含义是“对该领域，人们认真对待需要这次的发现”稍加调整即“这次发现，让人们更加严肃对待该领域”

第三段说生物钟的重要性不言而喻，人尽皆知：Nobody now doubts the importance of our body clocks. Ask someone who is jet lagged or working shifts what it's like to live out of sync with your internal clock.

jet lagged(倒时差)和working shifts(倒班制)，对于学习商务英语BEC的同学应该不会陌生。

out of sync表“不协调”，同理in sync则表示“协调”。

末段说打破生物钟的危害：Long-term circadian rhythm disruption is linked to a host of diseases, from cancer to type 2 diabetes, but understanding how the body’s timepiece works is also unlocking new ideas, like taking medicines at the time of day when they will have the biggest impact on the body .

a host of= a lot of,这里有个阅读小窍门:如果阅读中见到“a ### of +名词复数”这种结构，###代表你不认识的单词，把“a ### of”看做a lot of即可。

timepiece是合成词，即“钟、表”。

本期的分析就到这里。

PS：

生物钟被打破了，会带来很多疾病。所以，年轻人，熬夜需谨慎！

请将此篇转发到朋友圈，提醒你身边的朋友们吧。

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