周三快樂！今天也給大家安排了一篇官方文章，作者Duncan Geere，譯者SPGoding，主要講了咱們關於海洋大更新之後加入的【珊瑚】。小編自己也是非常喜歡珊瑚，當在遊戲中第一次發現一大片珊瑚礁的時候，別提有多興奮了！有沒有跟我一樣的小夥伴，一起來擊個掌！
TAKING INVENTORY: CORAL
背包盤點：珊瑚
Are you a fan?
你是珊瑚扇的粉嗎？
「Darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter, take it from me.」 The immortal words of Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian, the true hero of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, ring out across the ages. And never have they been more true than in this week’s Taking Inventory, in which we focus our lens of enquiry on coral.
「有海水滋潤，有海藻作伴，多麼愜意」這是迪士尼電影《小美人魚》中真正的英雄霍雷肖·費隆尼俄斯·伊納肖斯·克魯斯特雷索斯·塞巴斯蒂安不朽的話語，跨越年代來到我們耳畔。在本周的背包盤點中這句話顯得更加深入人心，因為我們將把鏡頭切向珊瑚。
Coral is a relatively new addition to Minecraft, but its history goes back a long way. The devs expressed interest in adding it to the game way back in 2009, very early in development. Then it was teased in 2012 in a fake snapshot, alongside 「fish blocks」. But it took until the Update Aquatic, released in July 2018, before coral finally began populating Minecraft’s deep, dark oceans.
珊瑚算是最近才加入遊戲的新事物，不過它其實已經策劃了很久了。追溯到 2009 年，在開發的初始階段，遊戲開發者就對加入這一方塊有了興趣。之後是在 2012 年的一個假快照中，它和「魚塊」作為一個玩笑一同出現。一直到了 2018 年 6 月，水域更新發布，珊瑚終於加入到了 Minecraft 那深邃的海洋當中。
Coral comes in five types – tube, fire, horn, bubble and brain. Which are the names I will be giving the next five dogs I adopt. There are also fan-shaped variants of all five, which grow on the sides of blocks as well as the tops.
一共有 5 種珊瑚 —— 管、火、鹿角、氣泡和腦紋。我將來養的 5 條狗也會叫這些名字。這 5 種珊瑚還有相應的扇形變種，可以生長在方塊的側面和頂部。
All corals generate naturally in parts of warm ocean biomes called coral reefs, but they need water to survive! Otherwise they turn into dead coral, and no-one wants dead coral. Except maybe skeletons? I don’t think anyone’s ever asked a skeleton what it wants, but I would guess it might want dead coral.
所有種類的珊瑚都會自然生成在暖水海洋生物群系中成為珊瑚礁。它們需要水來生存，否則就會失活！沒人會想要失活的珊瑚的。不過骷髏可能是個例外？大概沒人問過骷髏喜歡什麼，不過我猜它們會喜歡失活的珊瑚的。
To collect coral, you』ll need a tool enchanted with silk touch – but the good news is that it mines instantly, so you won’t need to hang around waiting like you do with obsidian. You can’t craft coral into anything – its sole purpose in life is to look pretty and act as a home for lil fishies. What a life!
想要收集珊瑚的話，你需要一個有著精準採集附魔的工具 —— 不過好消息是，珊瑚是可以被立刻挖掘的，不像黑曜石那樣需要讓你站著挖好久。你不可以用珊瑚合成任何物品 —— 它一生中唯一的目的就是要長得令人賞心悅目，同時充當小魚的棲息處。這就是生命！
Image credit:Toby Hudson//CC BY-SA 3.0
圖片版權：Toby Hudson//CC BY-SA 3.0
Real-world coral is also mostly found in coral reefs within warm oceans, but it comes in far, far more than five variants. In Australia’s Great Barrier Reef alone, there are estimated to be more than 600 different species of both hard and soft corals, and marine biologists are discovering new ones all the time.
現實中的珊瑚同樣也大多生長在暖洋的珊瑚礁中，不過它有著遠遠多於 5 種的變種。僅僅是在澳大利亞的大堡礁就有大致 600 多種不同的品種，其中既有石珊瑚也有軟珊瑚。海洋生物學家還在不斷地發現新的珊瑚品種。
Coral might look a bit like a plant, but it’s actually an animal and distantly related to the jellyfish. They live in little colonies made up of identical clones called 「polyps」, which are a few centimeters long with a mouth at one end surrounded by tentacles, and a hard exoskeleton at the bottom. Over many centuries, these exoskeletons build up into the hard structures we know as 「reefs」.
珊瑚看起來可能像是植物，但它事實上是一種動物，和海蜇是遠親。它們居住在由很多叫做「珊瑚蟲」的個體組成的群落中。這些珊瑚蟲只有幾釐米長，在一端有被觸手環繞的口，而在底部有著堅硬的外骨骼。經過數個世紀，這些外骨骼搭建出了堅硬的結構，我們稱之為「珊瑚礁」。
Unfortunately, coral can’t really move once they’re anchored to the ground, and so they don’t cope well with disturbances. Mining, fishing, oil drilling, pollution, disease, and ocean warming and acidification are all making life harder for corals around the world. On particularly hot years, the coral simply dies – causing the reef around it to lose all its colour, turning white. In 1998, about 16% of the world’s reefs died. In just ten years, it’s expected that about half of the world’s coral reefs will be dead.
不幸的是，珊瑚一旦固定到地面上就不能移動了，因此它們不能很好地應對幹擾因素。礦業、漁業、石油鑽探、汙染、疾病，還有海洋變暖與酸化使得全世界的珊瑚更難生存。在尤其熱的幾年裡，珊瑚會直接死去 —— 導致它們周圍的珊瑚礁失去顏色，從而變白。在 1998 年，世界上有大約 16% 的珊瑚礁失活。據推測，在僅僅十年後世界上將有大約一半的珊瑚礁會失活。
But there’s some good news. More and more of the world’s coral reefs are coming under legal protection, and some that were on the brink of extinction are returning to life. Plus, there appear to be species that can cope better than others with warmer temperatures and higher acidities.
不過還是有些好消息的。全世界有越來越多的珊瑚礁被納入了法律保護之下，有些瀕臨滅絕的珊瑚品種已經在逐漸恢復。此外，似乎還有一些品種能夠較好地應對溫度的升高和酸度的增強。
Still, if you want to see a coral reef, do it now. In ten years, there might not be many left.
然而，如果你想去看珊瑚礁的話，還是儘快行動吧。十年以後它們可能就剩得不多了。
怎麼樣？看過這篇文章有沒有提高了你對珊瑚的認識啊？不過看到最後還是有一點難過，儘管我們出臺法律保護珊瑚礁，也在儘可能恢復一些瀕危珊瑚，但全球環境已難逆轉，珊瑚還是大片大片地死去。希望大家都能養成良好的習慣，保護環境，從自身做起，否則很有可能有一天，我們只能在遊戲中看到珊瑚了。