They’re on a roll
势如破卷
- be on a roll 连连获胜；连续交好运
Ancient, damaged Roman scrolls have been deciphered using AI
利用人工智能成功破译烧毁的古罗马卷轴
- scroll （供书写的）长卷纸，卷轴
- decipher 破译，辨认（难认、难解的东西）
The new techniques could help rediscover lost works from antiquity
这种新方法能帮助重新发现失传的古代作品
- antiquity 古代（尤指古希腊和古罗马时期）
“I CAN’T BELIEVE it worked!” says Nat Friedman, co-founder of the Vesuvius Challenge, which offered $1m in prizes to anyone who could use artificial intelligence (AI) to decipher papyrus scrolls carbonised by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. But work it did. On February 5th Mr Friedman announced that a three-person team had been awarded $700,000 for successfully extracting four passages of text, each at least 140 characters long, and with at least 85% of the characters legible, from a scroll known as Banana Boy. The three winners, Luke Farritor, Youssef Nader and Julian Schilliger, are all computer-science students.
“难以置信啊！它真的成功了！”维苏威火山挑战赛（Vesuvius Challenge）的发起人之一纳特·弗里德曼（Nat Friedman）说。该挑战赛设有多个奖项，奖金总计100万美元，只要能够利用人工智能（AI）破译在公元79年维苏威火山喷发中碳化的莎草纸卷轴，就能获得相应奖项。举办挑战赛的做法确实奏效了。2月5日，弗里德曼宣布一个三人团队获得了70万美元的奖金，因为他们从一个叫作“香蕉小子”（Banana Boy）的卷轴中成功辨认出四段文本——每段至少包含140个字母，且至少辨认出85%的字母。三位获奖者卢克·法里托（Luke Farritor）、尤瑟夫·纳德（Youssef Nader）和朱利安·席利格（Julian Schilliger）都是计算机科学专业的学生。
- papyrus （古埃及用的）纸莎草纸
- legible （手写或印刷文字）清晰可读的；清楚的（参见：小词详解 | legible）
The scroll is one of hundreds found in the library of a Roman villa in Herculaneum, which is thought to have belonged to the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Along with hundreds of other scrolls in the villa’s library, it was damaged by scorching gases that engulfed the town during the same eruption that also buried the nearby town of Pompeii.
香蕉小子是在赫库兰尼姆（Herculaneum）一座古罗马庄园的藏书楼中发现的，人们认为这座庄园的主人是凯撒大帝的岳父。它和庄园藏书楼里的其他数百个卷轴一道，被火山喷发时吞没了整个赫库兰尼姆的灼热气体毁坏。也正是这场火山喷发埋葬了附近的庞贝城。
- villa （尤指南欧的）乡间庄园
- scorch （把……）烫坏，烧煳；烤焦（物体表面）
- engulf 包围；吞没；淹没
