Well, the plant from which maize derives, the teosinte, is wonderfully adaptable.

其实那种玉米进化而来大刍草具有很奇妙适应。

Which, in the case of teosinte's transformation into corn, was a major makeover.

比如大刍草转化玉米，这就是一个重大改造。

An ear of teosinte originally yielded somewhere between 5 and 12 small kernels, each with a hard shell called a pericarp.

每一个墨西哥野玉米能出 5 至 12 颗玉米粒，每一颗玉米粒都有一个硬壳，称“果皮”。

All the corn eaten today is derived from a tall grass called teosinte, which Indigenous people in what is now southern Mexico began selectively breeding about 9,000 years ago.

如今我们吃所有玉米都源自一种名“墨西哥野玉米”高大草本，现今墨西哥南部土著人大约在 9000 年前就已经开始选择培育这种了。

Over the last millennia, our ancestors have pursued this in basic ways, for instance, by improving milk production from cows and making a wild grass called teosinte into edible corn.

在过去几千年里， 我们祖先一直在以基本方式追求这一点，例如，通过提高奶奶量， 以及将一种叫做类蜀黍野草制成可食用玉米。

If turning aurochs into cattle, wolves into dogs or teosinte into maize sounds like a sideshow compared with transforming the composition of the atmosphere, looting the oceans or destroying the rainforests, consider a few facts.

如果说，与改变大气成分、掠夺海洋或破坏雨林相比，把古代野变成家、把狼变成狗或者把墨西哥类蜀黍变成玉米这种事听起来无关紧要，请仔细思考几个事实。

For teosinte to become a useful crop, it had to undergo drastic changes in its reproductive biology, to increase greatly its investment in seeds, and to lose those rock-like coverings of its seeds.

了使类蜀黍成一种有用作，它繁殖生学必须经历巨大变化，大大增加对种子投资，并失去种子上那些岩石般覆盖。

That contrast between the immediate virtues of wheat and barley and the difficulties posed by teosinte may have been a significant factor in the differing developments of New World and Eurasian human societies.

小麦和大麦直接优点与类蜀黍带来困难之间对比可能是新世界和欧亚人类社会不同发展一个重要因素。

Corn's probable ancestor, a wild plant known as teosinte, looks so different from corn in its seed and flower structures that even its role as ancestor has been hotly debated by botanists for a long time.

玉米可能祖先是一种被称类蜀黍野生，其种子和花结构与玉米非常不同，甚至它作祖先角色长期以来一直受到学家激烈争论。