難句突破：

(1) Moreover, a study carried out eight years ago by researchers at the University of Aarhus, in Denmark, revealed that women who suffered the death of a child or spouse from some catastrophic illness around the time they conceived were much more likely to give birth to girls than to boys.

[主體句式] A study revealed that...

[結構分析]這是一個復合句，主語后面是一個過去分詞短語做定語；revealed后面的賓語從句比較復雜，從句的主體句式為women or spouse were likely to ...，狀語中that 引導的定語從句用來修飾time, 第一個主語women后有一個以who引導的定語從句。

[句子譯文] 。而且，八年前奧爾胡斯大學研究者們做的一項研究也表明經過了第一個孩子死亡的婦女或在懷孕期間經歷過一些災難性疾病的夫婦更有可能生女孩。

(2) If a mother's stress adversely affects the development of her fetus then selectively aborting boys, rather than wasting time and resources on bringing them to term, would make evolutionary sense.

[主體句式] If... then selectively aborting boys...would make sense.

[結構分析] 這是一個帶有條件狀語從句的復合句，主語由現在分詞短語構成。

[句子譯文]如果母親的壓力對胎兒的發展起了相反的影響，選擇性地將男孩流產，而不是浪費時間和資源將他們養足月，那么就能說明進化的問題了。

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