突然意识到已有一年左右没来博客灌水了。这一年教学、科研、审稿、申请基金、着力创建新学科并购置新设备，确实忙得不可开交。这学期总算结束了，可以坐下来在博客上补补课。

今年给本科生上一门普通生物学课，为了更好地调动学生的学习积极性，激发他们的创造力，我鼓励他们以各种不同的艺术方式－包括诗、歌、说唱乐、绘画、动画、自制录像、模型等－来阐释课程中讨论到的生物学问题。但他们起初没有动静，直到我在课堂上给他们朗诵了我在周末赶写的这首诗之后。现与各位分享，各位为师乐教者也不妨一试，我的学生此后兴趣勃发。拙诗草就而成，未经雕琢，请不吝赐教。

Vertebrate Evolution

 

Our ancestors used to live in the ocean,

Moving onto land in a miraculous transition.

 

It started three hundred eight-five millions years ago,

And completed in twenty millions.

Fins became limbs,

Hair-like bones into digits,

There emerged the first amphibians.

 

Moving further onto the land,

Crawling with stronger limbs,

Still dragging their tails,

Here came reptilians.

 

They diversified into all shapes and sizes,

Dominated the land for years counting to 140 millions.

Pterosaurs, dinosaurs, ornithopods,

That was reptiles’ reign in culmination.

 

Too bad an asteroid hit the earth,

No giant could ever remain.

Sixty-five and one half millions years ago,

The reptilian dynasty came to an end.

 

Escaped if you had wings,

Or being small like mammalians.

With top competitors gone,

Mammals took over the reign.

 

Lucky marsupials isolated in Australia,

Everywhere else they were replaced by eutherians.

Rodents, primates, and artiodactyls,

Dominated the earth were now placental mammalians.

 

We share a common ancestor with all the other primates,

But humans did not evolve directly from monkeys.

Our closest relatives are great apes,

Most of them are also Africans.

 

God did not create humans,

We are the product of evolution.

Not in six thousand years,

But for about four millions.

 

Our ape ancestors had 24 pairs of chromosomes,

Two of them accidentally ended up in fusion.

Ancient humans walked on two legs,

Gradually changing the shape and size of the brain.

 

Many human species had evolved,

Overlapping in time and locations.

They competed with each other,

But also interbred on occasions.

 

Most recent is Homo sapiens,

Starting just 200 thousands years ago as Africans.

Some of them migrated out,

Probably to reduce the level of competition.

 

One lineage crossed the Arabian peninsula,

Walked along the coast to India and southeastern Asia,

Some ended up as native Australians.

Another wave went north,

From there split into Europeans and Asians.

 

When the Bering Strait was frozen with ice,

And the land was contiguous,

Some Siberians wandered into North America,

Going south and populated two continents.

 

Our early ancestors were hunters and gatherers,

But since ten thousand years ago,

They started plant and animal domestication.

With the advent of agriculture and job division,

Gradually came human civilization.

单词注释：
asteroid: 流星
pterosaur: 飞龙
dinosuar: 恐龙
ornithopod: 禽龙
eutherian: 真兽亚纲哺乳动物
plancental  mammal: 胎盘哺乳动物
artiodactyl: 偶蹄类动物


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