voa英语听力下载：野生黑猩猩饮用酒精饮料

Wild Chimps Seen Drinking Alcoholic Beverage
发现：野生黑猩猩饮用酒精饮料
Chimpanzees. They’re much like us genetically, anatomically and, as it turns out, cocktailogically. Because we finally have solid evidence that chimps drink alcohol. So say researchers who have observed wild chimpanzees throw back fermented tree sap. The findings are served up in the Royal Society journal Open Science.
黑猩猩。它们在基因方面、解剖学方面跟人类非常像。现在事实证明，在饮酒方面也是如此。我们终于掌握了黑猩猩喝酒的确凿证据——观察到野生黑猩猩扔回发酵树液的研究人员如是说。这项研究结果发表于英国皇家学会期刊《开放科学》。
\Some biologists think that the reason we humans like adult beverages is because our primate ancestors were partial to super ripe fruits, which are high in calories and often in ethanol. But there’s one big problem with this so-called drunken monkey hypothesis: apes had not really been seen downing alcohol in the wild. That is, until now.
一些生物学家认为，人类喜爱成人饮料是因为我们的祖先——灵长类动物比较偏爱过熟的水果，而过熟的水果富含热量且时常含有乙醇。不过关于所谓的“醉猴假说”还有一个大巨大的疑问：野生猩猩还未被发现过有在野外饮用酒饮的现象。而那只是，到现在为止。
The researchers were studying chimps in Bossou, west Africa. In this region, people tap palm trees and allow the collected sap to ferment in small plastic containers, which they cover with leaves to prevent contamination.
研究人员在西非的博苏地区研究黑猩猩。在该地区，人们会取用棕榈树树液并使收集的汁液在小塑料容器里发酵，他们通常会用树叶覆盖塑料容器来防止污染。
Turns out, for chimps who hanker hooch, the leaves are like the straw in a banana daiquiri—the apes take the leaves, crumple them up, dip them in the sap and then suck them dry.
结果证明，对于那些渴望烈酒的黑猩猩来说，那些树叶就像一杯香蕉达其利里的吸管——黑猩猩会拿起树叶，把它弄弯，然后把它放到树液里利用它把树液吸干。
The drinkers were mostly male, shockingly, accounting for 34 of the 51 bouts of boozing observed, and they’d consume a couple of liters of the fermented brew each time they bellied up to the bar. I mean tree.
“令人震惊的”是饮酒者大多是雄性，在观察到的51次饮酒事件中雄性占34次。每次爬到酒吧——我是指树上，它们都会消耗几公升发酵的酒酿。
Whether chimps are simply taking advantage of an easily acquired, calorie-rich liquid or they especially enjoy the sap’s sweet flavor—or intoxicating effects—is not known. But the questions call for another round—of research.
那黑猩猩到底是仅想享用一种易得的、高热量的饮品，还是特别喜欢树液的甜味，又或者是它们喜欢树液醉人的效果，我们就不得而知了。不过这个问题又引来了另一轮的——研究。