VOA慢速英语 美国发现两种最古老的珊瑚新品种

　　Oldest Examples of Two Coral Species Are Found

　　美国发现两种最古老的珊瑚新品种

　　VOICE ONE:

　　This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.

　　VOICE TWO:

　　And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week, we will tell about newly-found organisms that are said to be among the oldest living organisms on Earth. And, we will tell about the first complete report of bird populations in the United States.

　　(MUSIC)

　　VOICE ONE:

　　A research team says it has found corals that are more than four thousand years old. The corals were discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, near the Hawaiian Islands. The team made the discovery with a vehicle designed to operate deep underwater. At depths of nearly four hundred meters, the researchers found the oldest examples of two species of coral. One is a kind of deep-water black coral called Leiopathes. The other was a gold coral, called Gerardia.

　　A report on the team's discovery was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

　　VOICE TWO:

　　The team collected pieces of the coral and then used radio-carbon dating methods to find their age. The tests showed the organisms were, in fact, much older than reported in earlier estimates.

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