科学家在深海底发现奇怪的生物，它们已经适应了极端环境，可以在完全无氧的'状态下生存。
As scientists delve deeper beneath the ocean’s surface, they find bizarre creatures that have adapted to harsh and extreme environments. Now comes a new one—the discovery of the first multicellular animals that survive and reproduce entirely without oxygen. [Roberto Danovaro et al, BMC Biology, ]
Researchers had thought that only single-celled organisms such as prokaryotes and protozoa could live in the oxygen-deprived environments of the deepest ocean. When scientists did find multicellular organisms, they assumed that they’d sunk from oxygen-enriched waters.
But over the past decade, scientists in Italy and Denmark sent three expeditions to fetch samples from sediment in what’s known as a deep hypersaline anoxic basin in the Mediterranean. And in these sediments, from almost two miles below the ocean’s surface, they found three distinct species of a tiny multicellular animal phylum called Loricifera.
They don’t have mitochondria. Instead, they seem to have organelles that resemble hydrogenosomes—similar to mitochondria, but that use anaerobic chemistry. Scientists don’t yet fully understand the biochemistry—but the discovery opens the possibility of complex life forms on oxygen-free planets.
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
e[delv] vi. 探究，查考，挖掘
She delved in her bag and pulled out a pen.
她在提包里翻找，拿出一枝钢笔。
rre[bi'zɑ:] adj. 奇异的，怪诞的 n. 奇异花
The story has a certain bizarre interest.
这个故事听起来别有风趣。
icellular adj. 多细胞的
nism n. 生物体，有机体
Germs may invade the organism.
细菌会侵入有机体。
dition n. 远征，探险队，迅速
They planned to organize a scientific expedition.
他们计划组织一次科学考察。
nelle n. 细胞器官
robic adj. 厌氧的
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