【正文】 point scale (with nine being highly unfaithful). The survey instructed them to think of the person that they were most attracted to besides their partner and then asked questions like how aroused they felt in that person’s presence, how emotionally intimate they had been with him or her, and how physically intimate they had been. In a second survey, participants were asked to state how strongly they agreed with statements like “my relationship with my partner is holy and sacred”, by rating levels of agreement on a ninepoint scale (with nine indicating very strong agreement).研究人員招聘了83名大學(xué)生，這些學(xué)生說自己既有戀愛關(guān)系也至少會(huì)偶爾祈禱。但這些科學(xué)家知其然卻不知其所以然。近期一項(xiàng)新研究顯示，祈禱可以確實(shí)引導(dǎo)人們避開沾花惹草的邪路。但不忠仍然相當(dāng)普遍，對(duì)不忠之徒的公開譴責(zé)并沒起到多少恫嚇的作用。人類也一樣。這種合作會(huì)使人人受益Psychology心理學(xué)Faith and faithfulness信仰和忠誠(chéng)Praying for your partner stops you straying 為你的情侶虔誠(chéng)祈禱使你不去沾花惹草Aug 26th 2010INFIDELITY is rampant in nature. Birds, mammals, amphibians and even fish all cheat if the conditions are right, forcing mates to remain perpetually vigilant. People are no different. Although cheats are publicly condemned, or in some cases impeached, infidelity is mon and public disapproval does little to dissuade the sinner. The disapproval of God, however, is a different matter, and a new study suggests that prayer can indeed guide people away from adulterous behaviour.不忠是自然界中濫生無控的現(xiàn)象。Any programme designed to remove satellites from orbit thus makes military types from other countries nervous. Some people, Mr Weeden among them, argue that such fears can be overe if there is international cooperation over exactly which objects are removed and who is doing what. It would certainly be in everyone’s interest to do so.無論哪種從軌道上清除衛(wèi)星垃圾的設(shè)計(jì)方案都使其他國(guó)家產(chǎn)生軍事緊張情緒。衛(wèi)星提供通訊聯(lián)系。 Satellites are crucial to modern warfare. They spy on battlefields and on even the peaceful activities of enemies, rivals and questionable allies. They provide munication links. Knocking them out—as the Chinese practised with Fengyun1C—would be a useful military trick.衛(wèi)星是現(xiàn)代戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的關(guān)鍵。On the face of things, all this consideration of the problem is good. But this being space, where matters military are never far from the minds of those who think about it, there remains a serious question.從形式上看，所有國(guó)家對(duì)太空碎片問題的關(guān)注都是善意的?；蛘卟坏?50年。這個(gè)熱議中廢棄物就是指的Envisat星，它是尚在運(yùn)行中的最大的地球觀測(cè)衛(wèi)星之一。 A knockout blow?ESA is thinking about this sort of solution, too. It is the owner of what has—perhaps unfairly—been termed “possibly the most dangerous piece of space debris” by a recent article in SpaceNews. The debris in question is Envisat, one of the largest Earthobservation satellites yet built. At the moment it is still working, but when its fuel runs out, sometime between 2016 and 2018, it will bee a giant piece of junk—one that will remain in a crowded orbit for 150 years. Or not. For even conservative estimates suggest there is one chance in four that it will be destroyed in a collision during that period.歐空局也在考慮這種解決方案。However, many space agencies are considering a third option: robot missions that would dock with dead satellites and fire rockets either to boost them into “graveyard” orbits or to deorbit them pletely, so they crashed into the sea. JerChyi Liou, an expert on orbital debris at NASA, estimates that if such a mission started in 2020, and removed the five objects most likely to create future debris, it would more or less solve the spacejunk problem.不過，許多航天局正在考慮的是選擇第三的類辦法：把機(jī)器人派上天去，由它們?nèi)グ涯切﹫?bào)廢衛(wèi)星和已燒盡的火箭殘?bào)w捉倒，然后將其推進(jìn)“死亡軌道”或?qū)⑵鋲嬋氪蠛?。碎片撞擊這種衛(wèi)星時(shí)，動(dòng)能減弱、其速度也因每次撞擊而慢下來。Another way of slowing junk down, and thus causing it to burn up in the atmosphere, was proposed this month by Alliant Techsystems, a firm based in Minneapolis. Alliant suggests building special satellites enclosed in multiple spheres of strong, lightweight materials. Debris hitting such a satellite would give up momentum—and thus velocity—with each collision. As a bonus, many objects large enough to cause damage would be shattered by the collisions into fragments too small to cause serious harm.還有一種方法是使碎片的速度降低，進(jìn)而進(jìn)入大氣層燒掉，這種方法是在本月由設(shè)在明尼阿波利斯能源公司Techsystems 提出的。這種方式會(huì)產(chǎn)生足夠大的推力使碎片重新進(jìn)入大氣層。清除太空碎片的主意迅速成熟起來，成熟的速度幾乎像太空垃圾的增長(zhǎng)速度一樣快。But even this would not be enough. What is needed is a way to clean up the junk so that it is no longer a problem. Ideas for doing this are growing almost as fast as space debris. One proposal, originally made a decade ago by the American armed forces, would be to use groundbased lasers to change the orbits of pieces between 1cm and 10cm across by vaporising parts of their surfaces. This would produce enough thrust to cause the debris to reenter the atmosphere. The proposal suggested a single laser facility would be enough to remove all junk of this size in three years.但這還不夠。甚至還包括通知中國(guó)？他說：“通知及于每個(gè)國(guó)家，俄國(guó)、中國(guó)、甚至尼日利亞”。Scouring the skies 太空大掃除The real threat now es from collisions between things that are already up there—so much so that since the demise of Iridium 33, the normally secretive Strategic Command (Strat) of America’s Defence Department has bee rather helpful. Brian Weeden, an expert on space debris at the Secure World Foundation, a thinktank, says Strat now screens every operational satellite, every day, looking for close approaches, and notifies all operators. Even the Chinese? “Everybody,” he says, “the Russians, the Chinese, even the Nigerians.” This means that satellites’ owners have better information with which to decide whether to use a small amount of their precious fuel reserves to avoid a collision.現(xiàn)在，真正的威脅來自那些已經(jīng)在軌道運(yùn)行的物體間的碰撞——這個(gè)問題已非常嚴(yán)重，以致于像美國(guó)國(guó)防部那個(gè)通常神秘兮兮的戰(zhàn)略安全處（戰(zhàn)備通信司令部）自從銥星33號(hào)撞毀以來，也愿意多多少少提供一些幫助。此外，自蘇聯(lián)解體以來，間諜衛(wèi)星的發(fā)射數(shù)量也下降了。Concerns like Dr Kessler’s have caused launch agencies to take more care about what they get up to. In particular, accidental explosions in orbit have been reduced by depressurising redundant rockets after they have released their satellites. Also, the number of spy satellites launched has fallen since the demise of the Soviet Union. Neverthel