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進入《中英對照讀新聞》Dark winters led to bigger human brains and eyeballs 黑暗的冬天讓人大腦與眼珠較大
◎國際新聞中心
The Oxford University team said bigger brains did not make people smarter. Humans living at high latitude have bigger eyes and bigger brains to cope with poor light during long winters and cloudy days.
牛津大學團隊說，較大的大腦不會讓人更聰明。生活在高緯度的人，眼睛與大腦較大，才能在漫長的冬季與烏雲天裡處理光線不佳的問題。
The scientists measured the eye sockets and brain volumes of 55 skulls from 12 populations across the world. Lead author Eiluned Pearce told BBC News: "We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude and both eye socket size and cranial capacity."
這群科學家評估世界上12種人55顆頭顱的眼窩與大腦容量。領導研究者皮爾斯告訴英國廣播公司新聞網：「我們發現絕對緯度與眼窩大小以及頭顱容量都有正面關係。」
The team, from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, used skulls dating from the 1800s kept at museums in Oxford and Cambridge. The skulls were from indigenous populations ranging from Scandinavia to Australia, Micronesia and North America. The largest brain cavities came from Scandinavia, while the smallest were from Micronesia.
這個來自認知與進化人類學研究院的團隊，使用牛津與劍橋博物館內保存的、溯及西元1800年代的頭顱。這些頭顱來自斯堪地那維亞、澳洲、密克羅尼西亞與北美的原住民族，最大的腦腔來自斯堪地那維亞，最小的來自密克羅尼西亞。
Eiluned Pearce said: "Both the amount of light hitting the Earth’s surface and winter day-lengths get shorter as you go further north or south from the equator. We found that as light levels decrease, humans are getting bigger eye sockets, which suggests that their eyeballs are getting bigger. They are also getting bigger brains, because we found this increase in cranial capacity as well. In the paper, we argue that having bigger brains doesn’t mean that high-latitude humans are necessarily smarter. It’s just they need bigger eyes and brains to be able to see well where they live."
皮爾斯說：「光線照射地表的量，以及冬天白天長度，都是赤道以北越北越短，或赤道以南越南越短。我們發現人類眼窩隨著光線照射程度減少而增大，代表他們的眼球也會隨之增大；他們也有較大的大腦，因為我們發現這也會增加頭顱容量。在報告中我們主張，大腦較大不代表高緯度的人一定較聰明，只是他們需要更大的眼睛與大腦，讓他們在所住的地方看得更清楚而已。」
新聞辭典
cope with：片語，處理。例句：There was more work than I could cope with.（工作多得我應付不過來。）
date：動詞，年代溯及。例句：Archaeologists have been unable to date these fossils.（考古學家無法為這些化石定年。）
capacity：名詞，容量。例句：This hotel has large capacity.（這家旅館可接待大量住客。）
