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The second reason is technological.
第二個原因是技術上的。
Marine biologists find about 2,000 new species a year, a rate hardly changed since Darwin’s day.
海洋生物學家每年可以發現大約2000個新物種，這一速度自達爾文時代以來幾乎沒有變化。
Ocean Census is betting it can go faster.
海洋普查是在賭自己可以做的更好。
“Cyber taxonomy”, for instance, involves feeding DNA sequences from animals into computers, which can quickly decide whether it is a new species.
例如，“網絡分類學”涉及了將動物的DNA序列輸入計算機，由此迅速確定它是否是一個新物種。
The ability to describe new creatures, as well as simply cataloguing them, has also improved.
描述新生物的能力以及對它們進行簡單分類的能力也提高了。
Fancy cameras on remote-operated vehicles, for instance, allow scientists to make laser scans of deep-sea creatures such as jellyfish without removing them from their habitat.
例如，科學家可以遠程操作車輛上的高級攝像機，對水母等深海生物進行激光掃描，而無需將它們從棲息地移走。
Just as the immense pressures of the deep sea are fatal for humans, taking such a jellyfish to the surface for examination reduces it to gooey slime.
就像深海的巨大壓力對人類來說是致命的一樣，把這里的水母帶到水面進行檢查會讓它死亡并變成粘稠的黏液。
Ocean Census is not the first attempt to conduct a systematic survey of life in the oceans.
海洋普查并不是對海洋生物進行系統調查的第一次嘗試。
The Census of Marine Life was a ten-year effort, begun in 2000, to seek out new species.
海洋生物普查是一項為期十年的嘗試，始于2000年，旨在尋找新物種。
The Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, which ran from 2004 to 2006, aimed to catalogue microbial life in the sea by sampling waters from across the world.
2004年至2006年的“全球海洋采樣考察”旨在通過對世界各地的海水進行采樣，將海洋中的微生物生命分類。
(It was funded by Craig Venter, a biologist-cum-entrepreneur, and carried out on his personal yacht.)
(這項研究由生物學家兼企業家克雷格·文特爾資助，并在他的私人游艇上進行。)
Exactly what the new effort might turn up, of course, is impossible to predict.
當然，新的嘗試究竟會帶來什么結果是無法預測的。
But history suggests it will be fruitful.
但歷史表明，這會是成果豐碩的。
Half a century ago scientists discovered hot vents on the sea bed that were home to organisms living happily in conditions that, until then, had been thought inimical to life.
半個世紀前，科學家們在海床上發現了熱噴口，這是生活在該環境下有機生物的家園，在此之前，人們一直認為這種環境對生命有害。
These days, such vents are one plausible candidate for the origin of all life on Earth.
如今，這樣的噴口似乎是地球上所有生命起源的一個可能候選。
There are more practical benefits, too.
該嘗試還有更多實際的好處。
Many drugs, for example, come originally from biological compounds.
例如，許多藥物最初都來自生物化合物。
An ocean full of uncatalogued life will almost certainly prove a rich seam from which to mine more.
一個充滿了未分類生物的海洋幾乎就是一個豐富的礦藏，可以從中開采更多的藥物。
One type of marine snail, Conus magus, was recently discovered to produce a painkilling compound 1,000 times more potent than morphine.
最近有研究發現，一種名為僧袍芋螺的海蝸牛能產生比嗎啡強1000倍的止痛化合物。
To help make use of its data, Ocean Census plans to make it freely available to scientists and the public, who will be able to scour it for anything useful or surprising.
為便于利用這些數據，海洋普查計劃向科學家和公眾免費提供數據，他們將能夠從中尋找有用或令人驚訝的東西。
The point of exploration, after all, is that you never know what you might find.
畢竟，探索的意義在于，你永遠不知道你會發現什么。
