托福阅读材料--男女差异

　　如今社会，中性风潮越刮越烈，男性与女性之间的差异逐步在缩小。而下面的新托福考试阅读练习资料说，男性女性的外表已经前所未有的相似了。

　　They say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.But when it comes to their faces at least, the two sexes are more similar than you might think. Researchers looked at skulls of men and women dating back to the 16th century and found that over time they have grown alike. The facial structure of women in particular has changed and become noticeably larger than their older counterparts.

　　大家总说男人来自火星女人来自金星，但要是说到面容，这两性的共同之处可能比你想象中的要多得多哦。通过检查从16世纪以来男女两性的头骨，研究人员发现随着时代的发展，男女面容也越来越相近。特别是女性的脸，正向着轮廓变大的趋势发展。

　　Experts said it was not to do with women evolving to look more like their men, but that better diet and environmental factors had caused the changes.

　　专家说，这并不是说女人正在进化出更男性的面容，而是因为人们的饮食改善以及环境因素的作用。

　　They examined more than 200 skulls dating between the 16th and 20th centuries from Spain and around 50 skulls from 20th century Portugal to come to their conclusions.

　　研究人员详细检查了200颗来自于西班牙的头骨(从16世纪到20世纪)，还有50颗20世纪的葡萄牙头骨之后，才做出了这样的结论。

　　Having such a wide spread of samples was important to the team from North Carolina State University as it showed them how the changes happened over a long period of time.

　　对这一来自北卡罗来纳州立大学的研究团队而言，这样大规模的样本是非常重要的，这显示出这种变化并非一夜之间就发生了，而是在一段很长时间内形成的。

　　They found that not only were men and women more alike, but that the Spanish and Portuguese sample were alike too, suggesting that standards developed for one country could be applied for both.

　　他们同时发现，不仅男女的脸长得越来越想象，西班牙人和葡萄牙人之间的差异也越来越小，说明一个国家人们面容的发展方向到了另一个国家也能成立。

　　The team focused in on the differences between men and women because it could ‘help us establish the sex of the remains based on their craniofacial features,’ said lead researcher Dr Ann Ross from the North Carolina university department of anthropology.

　　北卡罗来纳州大学人类学系首席研究员Ann Ross 博士说，这一研究的重点是男女之间的差异，这是因为这将有助于“通过骨骸来断定死者的性别。”

　　‘Improving our understanding of the craniofacial features of regional groups can help us learn more from skeletal remains, or even help us identify an individual based on his or her remains,’ she said.

　　她说：“通过提高我们对特定团体的面部特征的了解，就能更好地认识骨骸，甚至可以通过骨头来判断死者的身份。”

　　Being able to carry this out is particularly important when an incomplete skeleton is found, she added. ‘This has applications for characterising older remains. Applying 20th century standards to historical remains could be misleading, since sex differences can change over time - as we showed in this study.’

　　这一点对所得骨骸不完整时尤为重要，她补充道。“这对判断古人的骨骸非常有用。如果按照20世纪的标准来判断出土的古人骨骸，可能因为两性面部的差异而做出不准确的结论。”

　　In addition to academic use, the research could be useful in criminal investigations as investigators will be able to tell a man from a woman more easily.

　　除了学术通途，这一发现也能帮助罪案调查人员更好的判断死者的性别。

　　craniofacial:颅面的