Anybody here has been to Iceland? No? Okay, great
有人去过冰岛吗?没有吗?很好
So Iceland unfortunately these days, is sort of famous for a volcano that
很不幸,最近谈到冰岛,人们总想到火山爆发,
really slowed down Europe for a week and also for the banks which have really imploded
延误欧洲一周,以及当地金融体系的崩溃
And I have to say that I wrote my chapter and spent all my time in Iceland before they had had that financial meltdown
首先申明,我到冰岛去的时候,他们还没出现金融危机
So I'm not really sure what the situation is right now
后来的情况怎样我不很清楚
But Iceland is so fascinating because
冰岛是个奇妙的国度
here they are, this northernmost country where you can't really grow terribly much
这就是,那里的北国风光不适合耕种
And yet they have some of the highest rates of longevity on Earth
但却是地球上最长寿的地区之一
that are truly documented in the birth certificate
而且这里的人都有出生证明
It's not a bunch of people who are 40, who are claiming that they're 110
不像有些地方40岁的人声称自己110岁
They really, we know that they are quite old there
这里的人确实很长寿
And whenever I travel to a new country, I do what I call the cemetery tests
每当我到一个国家,我都会光顾墓地
Okay, I walk down one row in the cemetery and I see how many tombstones I can find of people who live over 100 and I count them up
我会看墓碑上的记述,数多少人活到了100岁以上
Well in Iceland, I had to go down like a quarter of a row to find
在冰岛,每1/4行就有一个人超过100岁
It was amazing, way more than anywhere else I've been
很惊人,人数比我去过的所有地方都多
I think that everybody lives beyond 100 in Iceland
似乎每个人都能活到100岁
What's really interesting is you might say it's genetics
你也许会说这是基因所致
But they did a sister study with Icelanders who emigrated to Canada
但研究者做过分居冰岛和加拿大的姐妹研究
and all this same sisters start to health problems and die young and so on
移居加拿大的总是健康问题严重,死得较早
So we know that it's not just protective genes
所以,这不只是因为保健基因
So this is another thing about Iceland. It's really interesting
关于冰岛还有一点很有趣