雅艾尔：发生什么事了，唐?你看起来很担忧。
Don:Well, Yael, you know how people are alwayspredicting that one day women will be able to havebabies without men? It turns out that some speciesof the Whiptail lizard have figured out how to dothis and completely eliminated the male sex.
唐：嗯，雅艾尔，人们通常预测，如果有一天没有男人，女人也可以自己生孩子，你知道是怎么回事吗?事实证明鞭尾蜥蜴已经做到这一点，并将雄性蜥蜴完全消灭掉了。
Yael:You mean that the species is all female?
雅艾尔：你是说所有的鞭尾蜥蜴都是雌性?
Don:Exactly. The females have the ability to lay eggs that hatch and grow into healthy lizardswithout needing to be fertilized by a male. The offspring are exact and complete geneticduplicates of the mothers.
唐：正是这样。雌性鞭尾蜥蜴能不通过受精就产卵并孵化出健康的小蜥蜴。而其后代的基因与母亲的基因完全一致。
Yael:So the females are cloning themselves.
雅艾尔：那么说雌性蜥蜴是在克隆自己。
Don:That's right. And if that weren't enough, the female lizards take turns role-playing. Theyperform a mating ritual in which one lizard acts like the male, and the second lizard acts likethe female. The ritual causes the lizard acting as the female to ovulate and lay her eggs.Then, a few weeks later, the two lizards switch roles and repeat this process so that the secondfemale will be able to ovulate and lay her eggs.
唐：说得对。如果那样还不够的话，雌性蜥蜴会轮流进行角色扮演。她们进行一个交配仪式，其中一个扮演雄性，另一个扮演雌性。这种仪式会引起扮演雌性角色的蜥蜴排卵并产卵。然后过几个星期，两只蜥蜴再交换角色，重复这种交配仪式，这样另一只雌蜥蜴就可以排卵，产卵了。
Yael:That is strange.
雅艾尔：太奇怪了。
Don:And it raises a lot of interesting questions. For example, it's not clear how well an all-female species can evolve and adapt to environmental changes. A species' survival dependsin part on variation among its members. If all the members of a species are identical,chances are greater that something like a change in the climate or a disease will wipe them allout.
唐：这也引发了许多有趣的问题。例如，对于这种全雌物种如何更好地进化以适应环境变化目前还不清楚。一个物种的生存要部分依靠成员的变异。如果所有的成员基因都一模一样，那么一遇到气候变化或者灾害，她们全军覆没的机会就很大。
Yael:So it might be a little early to do away with males.
雅艾尔：所以排除雄性还为之过早。
Don:Well, you know what they say. You can't live with them.
唐：嗯，你知道她们是怎么说的。你没办法和他们一起生活。
Yael:You can't live without them.
雅艾尔：但你的生活不能没有他们。
