The Flood
語言詞匯
Experts are hard-pressed to explain this feat.
1. ADJ If someone is hard-pressed, they are under a great deal of strain and worry, usually because they do not have enough money. 窘迫的[journalism]
例：The region's hard-pressed consumers are spending less on luxuries.
2. ADJ If you will be hard-pressed to do something, you will have great difficulty doing it. 很難的[v-link ADJ to-inf]
例：This year the airline will be hard-pressed to make a profit.
例：He's focused on the Democrats, though he's hard-pressed to come up with their names.
例：While we've historically railed against custom Android skins, we're hard-pressed to pooh-pooh the Galaxy Note.
例：Yet most donors, if asked, would be hard-pressed to define what a "good" charity is.
As they pushed on, they encountered a strange universe of unknown creatures that included a 200- kilogram, two-metre kangaroo, and a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, that was the continent’s largest predator.
1. PHRASAL VERBWhen you push on, you continue with a trip or task. 繼續前進; 繼續進行
例：Although the journey was a long and lonely one, Tumalo pushed on.
例：But we'll get there, I hope, and we hope to push on in the one-day series.
例：At the same time Mr Abhisit hopes to push on with a reconciliation plan.
The giant diprotodon appeared in Australia more than 1.5 million years ago and successfully weathered at least ten previous ice ages.
3. V-T If you weather a difficult time or a difficult situation, you survive it and are able to continue normally after it has passed or ended. 經受住
例：The company has weathered the recession.
例：Can Aramark weather the economic uncertainties that come along with doing business in South America?
例：And two other factors also suggest Hong Kong's currency board will weather the storm.
例：But meanwhile, high-end retailers and casino VIP operators will have to buckle up to weather the storm.
例：McCain suggests looking at the manufacturing sector, especially firms with exposure to exports, to weather the storm. 渡過難關
4.PHRASEIf you say that you are under the weather, you mean that you feel slightly ill. 身體不適
例：I was still feeling a bit under the weather.
But there are certainly good reasons to believe that if Homo sapiens had never gone Down Under, it would still be home to marsupial lions, diprotodons and giant kangaroos
1.PHRASE People sometimes refer to Australia and New Zealand as down under. 澳大利亞及新西蘭[非正式]
例：For summer skiing down under, there is no better place than New Zealand.
就澳大利亞和新西蘭而言，夏季滑雪的最佳去處莫過于新西蘭。
For decades, palaeontologists and zooarchaeologists – people who search for and study animal remains – have been combing the plains and mountains of the Americas in search of the fossilised bones of ancient camels and the petrified faeces of giant ground sloths.
3. V-T If you comb a place, you search everywhere in it in order to find someone or something. 徹底搜查
例：Officers combed the woods for the murder weapon.
警官們徹底搜查了那片樹林，尋找殺人兇器。
The students will work from the public record, comb the Internet and conduct interviews.
Gen Troshev said it would take his forces two to three weeks to comb the mountains for remaining small pockets of rebels.
4.V-IIf you comb through information, you look at it very carefully in order to find something. 仔細查看
例：Eight policemen then spent two years combing through the evidence.
漢英積累
千秋萬代 aeon
旁證，間接證據 circumstantial evidence
爬上食物鏈頂端 climbed to the top rung in the food chain
腹囊 abdominal pouches
罪名成立 guilty as charged
重新洗牌 Food chains throughout the entire Australian ecosystem were broken and rearranged.
氣候無常 the vagaries of the climate
Eking out a living is tough, and the vagaries of climate that bring drought or floods can easily wipe away in a few days the gains of many years.
Some scholars try to exonerate our species, placing the blame on the vagaries of the climate (the usual scapegoat in such cases).
毫發無傷，安然無恙 without a scratch
大受打擊 suffered devastating blows
內容
認知革命前，人類探索的步伐為海洋所阻隔；認知革命后，人類憑著自身的智慧跨越海洋，并在距今約4.5萬年前殖民澳大利亞。短短幾千年后，澳大利亞土地上原生的巨大生物竟消失殆盡。智人是否是這一切的罪魁禍首？
這章讓我覺得...如果說地球是一個人，那么人類就是地球身上變異的癌細胞，不斷擴散，一路破壞，吃棗藥丸，呵呵呵呵。
節選
The first human footprint on a sandy Australian beach was immediately washed away by the waves. Yet when the invaders advanced inland, they left behind a different footprint, one that would never be expunged. As they pushed on, they encountered a strange universe of unknown creatures that included a 200-kilogram, two-metre kangaroo, and a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, that was the continent’s largest predator. Koalas far too big to be cuddly and cute rustled in the trees and flightless birds twice the size of ostriches sprinted on the plains. Dragon-like lizards and snakes five metres long slithered through the undergrowth. The giant diprotodon（巨型袋鼠，雙門齒獸？）, a two-and-a-half-ton wombat, roamed the forests. Except for the birds and reptiles, all these animals were marsupials – like kangaroos, they gave birth to tiny, helpless, fetus-like young which they then nurtured with milk in abdominal pouches. Marsupial mammals were almost unknown in Africa and Asia, but in Australia they reigned supreme
雙門齒獸？
雙門齒獸生活在45000年前的澳大利亞，體形大如河馬或犀牛，十分肥重，是已知最大的有袋類動物。其中麗紋雙門齒獸是體型最大的，也是最早被發現的。(百度百科)
The journey of the first humans to Australia is one of the most important events in history, at least as important as Columbus’ journey to America or the Apollo 11 expedition to the moon. It was the first time any human had managed to leave the Afro-Asian ecological system – indeed, the first time any large terrestrial mammal had managed to cross from Afro-Asia to Australia. Of even greater importance was what the human pioneers did in this new world. The moment the first huntergatherer set foot on an Australian beach was the moment that Homo sapiens climbed to the top rung in the food chain on a particular landmass and thereafter became the deadliest species in the annals of planet Earth.
This ecological tragedy was restaged in miniature countless times after the Agricultural Revolution. The archaeological record of island after island tells the same sad story. The tragedy opens with a scene showing a rich and varied population of large animals, without any trace of humans. In scene two, Sapiens appear, evidenced by a human bone, a spear point, or perhaps a potsherd. Scene three quickly follows, in which men and women occupy centre stage and most large animals, along with many smaller ones, are gone.
