Then, in a geological eyeblink, they become common.

然而，只过了地质史上一瞬间的功夫，它们便多得不足为奇了。

Paul remained standing for another eyeblink.

保罗仍然站着再眨眼。

In scientific terms Homo sapiens is an oddly hairless species of ape that has existed for 200,000 years-an eyeblink in Earth's 4.5bn-year history.

用科学术语来说，智人是一种奇怪的无毛猿类，已经存在了20万年——不过在地球45亿年的历史中只是一眨眼的功夫。

And, as a paper just published in Science describes, that includes the behaviour of human beings, which can force drastic changes on a species in an evolutionary eyeblink.

正如刚刚发表在《科学》杂志上的一篇论文所描述的那样，人类的行为可以迫使一个物种在进化的瞬间发生巨大变化。

How they will explain our love of plastic or the fact that within a geological eyeblink, we exploded out of Africa to colonize virtually every inhabitable space on earth.

他们将如何解释我们对塑料的喜爱，以及我们在一眨眼的功夫就冲出非洲，几乎占领了地球上每一个可居住的空间。