NASA said last week that the world was not ending--at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?
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美国国家航空航天局上周表示,世界并未走向末日,至少短时间内不会。欧洲核子研究中心去年也曾发表过同样的声明。我想这对我们当中那些动不动就心神不宁的人来说是个好消息。这类世界一流的科学权威机构双双向我们保证:万事皆安,这种事你多久赶上过一回?
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On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last blowout.; V6 |9 T$ I a8 @' u3 T
( G7 O2 j* p# a8 q# g% f5 z从另一方说,如果你正盼着用还房贷的钱去休假以享受最后的聚会,那么这样的保证有点令人郁闷。
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CERN's pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.8 H$ P5 C/ j" A, S: w0 @
: w2 Y/ j9 R% Z, u6 |7 Z+ j3 V欧洲核子研究中心的声明试图消除人们有关新建成的大型强子对撞机在实验时将产生一个黑洞,进而吞噬整个地球的恐慌。
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z9 l+ j8 x4 Z9 PThe announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close.6 O: c4 ?+ X7 g7 c6 N! g6 z9 @
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美国国家航空航天局在其官网上发了几次消息,并在YouTube上发了视频,就是为了回应人们对世界将在2012年12月21日终结的担心。在以“长历法”闻名的玛雅人的历法中,每5125年是一个轮回,据说在2012年12月21日这天是一个轮回的结束。* N5 S7 ?+ H- j# P
! m4 M8 S9 I. A% Q; d* FBut this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth's magnetic field flips.
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$ n1 `+ h1 C6 r9 L然而,这只是世界毁灭的一个版本而已。其他的版本还有名为Nibiru的行星撞向我们或者地球磁场翻转等灾难。
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2 Z% }( r$ @- s. V" ^% k% n7 h. tThere are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of "2012" and "doomsday" you type into Google. |