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This week a massive quake off the coast of Chile killed six and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate in fear of a tsunami.
这周智利沿海一带的地震造成6人死亡，成百上千人因恐惧海啸爆发而被疏散。
The shaking evoked memories of the events off the coast of Japan in 2011 that triggered meltdowns at a nuclear power plant that the country is still struggling with.
而这次地震唤醒了人们对于2011年日本沿海地震海啸爆发引起核电站倒塌熔毁的那段恐怖记忆，而且那个国家至今仍然没有完全走出那段阴影。
Scientists have long dreamed of ways to predict and even protect regions from such devastation.
科学家们一直以来梦想着找到预测甚至是保护地区免受自然灾害的有效途径。
Now a group of French scientists hopes to help, building on work that showed how light can be manipulated to make objects invisible.
现在一组法国科学家希望能找到可靠的办法来帮助人们，他们便是利用光使得物体隐形。
The cloaking technique renders an object invisible by bending light of specific frequencies around the target.
这一隐身技术通过将围绕物体特殊频率的光线弯曲使得该物体消失。
In theory, the same principles might be used to deflect incoming seismic waves.
理论上讲，这种原理也可以用于使得即将到来的地震波发生偏斜。
A precisely tuned array of boreholes around a city or a nuclear power plant that resonate at the frequencies characteristic of quakes could thus dampen the vibrations and shield objects.
在城市或核电站周围地上通过一系列精确调整过的钻孔可以起到与即将到来的特征地震波产生共鸣的效果，从而因此起到减震缓冲并且屏蔽物体免受伤害的作用。
The French team's small demo with acoustic waves in soil worked, deflecting the incoming energy around the target area.
这一法国团队制作的埋于土壤中声波减震的模拟演示起到了效果，该措施确实将接近目标区域周围的能量成功偏离原路线。
That research is in the journal Physical Review Letters.
这项研究已在《物理评论信函》杂志上发表。
Of course, that energy still has to go somewhere.
当然，这些到来的能量还是要到达某个地方的。
Should this work pan out, the trick will be to find a way to absorb the massive energy of a major earthquake—or find a better place to send it.
该项研究工作应该是有进展的，诀窍就是找到一种可以吸收大地震带来的能量的方法—或者是找到另外一个可以安全接受这些能量的地方。
