一、词汇

1. snippet /ˈsnɪpɪt/ n.小片,片断

2. manipulate /məˈnɪpjuleɪt/ vt. 操纵，操作，巧妙地处理，篡改

3. trigger /ˈtrɪɡə(r)/ v. 触发，引起，开动（装置）

二、文章节选

福奇说：“通过观察蝙蝠中病毒的进化过程及病毒现在的情况，（根据这些科学证据）几乎可以肯定地说，新冠病毒并非起源于人为制造或蓄意操纵。关于病毒逐步进化的一切证据都强有力地表明，该病毒首先是自然进化，然后越界到人类。”基于这些科学证据，他也不支持另一种理论，即有人在野外发现了新冠病毒，把它带到实验室，之后意外泄露。

他有信心的一个原因是，马萨诸塞州剑桥市Moderna Therapeutics公司生产的一种备选疫苗进行的动物试验结果“引人瞩目”，使其创纪录地在42天内进入人体试验阶段。这种疫苗被称为mRNA疫苗，是一种利用病毒遗传物质的片段而不是死亡或被削弱的病毒本身来制造蛋白质，从而触发人体保护性免疫反应的疫苗。

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.

One reason for his confidence is the “impressive” results being seen now in animals tested with a vaccine candidate made by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna Therapeutics, which brought it into human trials in a record 42 days. The candidate is what is known as an mRNA vaccine—a drug that uses snippets of a virus’s genetic material—rather than the dead or weakened virus itself—to build the proteins that trigger the body’s protective immune response.