Angel Castillo once worked as a restaurant cook. But after losing his job and struggling with alcoholism, he has been sleeping on the streets for most of the last 16 years. It has been a while since he has worked in a restaurant, let alone eaten at one.

Yet there he was one recent evening, among the diners who crowded into a new restaurant in Madrid. It was a simple space, with red-tiled walls and paper napkins, but there were tablecloths, chandeliers and water glasses, and even someone to serve you.

“It’s special to get your food in a restaurant,” Castillo said, satisfied.

卡斯提約曾在餐館當廚師。在他失業且為酗酒所困之後，16年來大多露宿街頭。距離他上回在餐館工作已有好一陣子了，更別說進到餐館裡用餐了。

然而，就在最近的一個傍晚，他和其他用餐者擠進馬德里一間新餐廳。這是個有紅色磁磚牆面、使用紙餐巾的簡樸空間，不過桌上可舖了桌布，還放著玻璃杯，屋頂有枝形吊燈，甚至還有人為你服務。

卡斯提約滿足地說：「在餐廳裡享用食物很不一樣。」

The restaurant is one of four named Robin Hood that opened in the last November in Spain to serve those who cannot afford to dine out.

The minichain’s novel business model is not to steal from the rich, but rather to use revenues made by serving breakfast and lunch to paying customers to cover the costs of preparing free evening dinners for homeless people.

這間餐廳是去年十一月在西班牙開張的四家「羅賓漢」餐館之一，專門招待吃不起館子的人。

這個迷你連鎖的新奇產業模式不是劫富濟貧，而是為付費客人供應早餐與午餐，以營收支應提供遊民免費晚餐的費用。

It is the brainchild of the Rev. Angel Garcia Rodriguez, 79, one part clergyman, one part innovator and nonprofit entrepreneur, who has spent a lifetime working with the needy.

Unconventional down to his attire, Father Angel, as he is universally called, prefers a suit and loose tie to a collar, unless he is saying Mass, and is just as likely to hand out his business card as communion. “The priest habit is like my gala outfit,” he said with a chuckle.

這是79歲的羅德里格茲神父想出來的點子，他既是神職人員，也是富創意的非營利創業家，他這一生都在幫助窮人。

大家都叫他天使神父，他不遵從傳統，連穿著都不例外，除非他在主持彌撒，否則他偏愛穿西裝並打上寬鬆領帶，勝過神父的白領圈。他宛如發放聖餐般遞出名片，咯咯笑說：「神職人員的服裝就像我的節慶服。」

Rodriguez has had long experience finding new ways that sometimes push the boundaries of how to serve the poor.

He is president of Messengers of Peace, a nongovernment organization that employs 3,900 people and 5,000 volunteers. It runs homes for older people, orphanages, centers for drug addicts and other social services.

羅德里格茲對於尋找新方式來服務窮人很有經驗，有時會挑戰極限。

他是非政府組織「和平使者」的會長，該組織有3900名員工，5000名志工，經營老人院、孤兒院、戒毒中心，並提供其他社會服務。

But what all of his projects have in common is that they have helped sustain the most vulnerable Spaniards at a time of near-record unemployment and deep public spending cuts amid the lingering economic crisis. His organization also runs projects in about 50 developing countries.

These days, it is his budding string of Robin Hood restaurants that animates Rodriguez. On top of receiving basic help, he said, poor people need to regain a sense of dignity and purpose that is hard to achieve when eating in a soup kitchen.

“To get served by a waiter wearing a nice uniform and to eat with proper cutlery, rather than a plastic fork, is what gives you back some dignity,” he said.

不過他這一切計畫有個共通點，就是在這經濟危機徘徊不去，以致西班牙失業率逼近紀錄且政府大砍公共開支之際，協助西班牙那些最脆弱的人活下去。他的機構另在約50個開發中國家經營多項計畫。

這些日子，羅德里格茲草創未久的羅賓漢連鎖餐館讓他充滿活力。他說，窮人除接受基本協助，還需重拾尊嚴與人生目標，這是在慈善廚房用餐很難做到的。

他說：「接受穿著整齊制服的侍者服務並用適當的餐具用餐，而非塑膠叉子，能夠還給你一些尊嚴。」

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Soup kitchen有兩種解釋，一為救濟貧民的食物賑濟處，或稱湯廚或慈善廚房；一為美式俚語，指流動式汽車餐車。

湯廚又稱為食物中心、食物廚房或慈善廚房，這裡的食物通常以低於市場的價格，或免費發放給飢貧者。湯廚經常設在低收入社區，職員往往為教堂或社區團體的志工。湯廚通常透過食物銀行（food bank）免費或低價取得食材，因為是慈善用途，他們能夠服務許多需要幫助的人們。

許多老舊湯廚以及部分現代食物賑濟處只提供煲湯，湯廚因此得名，少數地方還會提供一些麵包。另外有許多機構雖然名為湯廚，但仍會供應其他種類的食物。社會研究者通常會將湯廚和其他形式的食物賑濟處一起討論。

最早的湯廚可追溯自1790年代，當時英國工業革命雖造就整體經濟繁榮，卻使一些處於社會最貧窮階層的人生活更加困頓，英國物理學家湯普森爵士（Sir Benjamin Thompson）因而發明這種食物賑濟的方法，當時僅倫敦一地每天就能餵飽6萬人。19世紀末，湯廚普遍在美國及歐洲城市出現。美國湯廚在20世紀經濟大蕭條後變多；21世紀歐元區危機迫使許多國家實施撙節政策，不少湯廚也隨之出現。

Inuit who live in Greenland experience average temperatures below freezing for at least half of the year. For those who live in the north, subzero temperatures are normal during the coldest months.

Given these frigid conditions, anthropologists have wondered for decades whether the Inuit in Greenland and other parts of the Arctic have unique biological adaptations that help them tolerate the extreme cold.

住在格陵蘭島的因紐特人，一年當中至少有一半的時間會碰上冰點以下的平均溫度。對住在北部的人來說，最冷的幾個月份零下的氣溫更是常態。

考量到這些寒冷的環境，數十年來人類學家一直想知道，格陵蘭島和北極圈其他地區的因紐特人是否具有獨特的生物適應性，幫助他們忍受極度寒冷。

A new study, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, identifies gene variants in Inuit who live in Greenland that may help them adapt to the cold by promoting heat-generating body fat. These variants possibly originated in the Denisovans, a group of archaic humans who, along with Neanderthals, diverged from modern humans about half a million years ago.

“As modern humans spread around the world, they interbred with Denisovans and Neanderthals, who had already been living in these different environments for hundreds of thousands of years,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of the paper. “This gene exchange may have helped some modern humans adapt to and conquer new environments.”

有一份新研究結果發表在《分子生物與演化》期刊上，研究者發現格陵蘭島因紐特人身上有些基因變異，這些變異可能透過促生更多能產生熱量的體脂肪的方式，來幫助他們適應寒冷。這些變異可能源自於一群古老人類─丹尼索瓦人，而他們與尼安德塔人大約50萬年前從現代人類分化出去。

研究報告作者之一、柏克萊加州大學綜合生物學系教授雷斯穆斯．尼爾森說：「當現代人類散布到世界各地時，他們與丹尼索瓦人和尼安德塔人交配繁殖，而這些人已生活在這些不同環境數十萬年。這種基因交換可能有助於一些現代人類適應和征服新的環境。」

The new study follows earlier research by Nielsen and colleagues, which found genetic mutations that might help the Inuit metabolize unsaturated fatty acids common in their diet of whales, seals and fish.

In this study, Nielsen’s team focused on another distinct region in the Inuit genome, which seems to affect body fat distribution and other aspects of development. The researchers compared the genomes of nearly 200 Inuit with genomes of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern populations around the world.

這項新研究接續著尼爾森與同事們的早期研究，早期研究發現因紐特人身上有一些基因突變，可幫助他們把常吃的鯨魚、海豹和魚類中的不飽和脂肪酸代謝掉。

在新的研究中，尼爾森的團隊專注於因紐特人基因組中的另個不同區塊，而它似乎影響身體脂肪的分佈與其他方面的發育。研究人員把近200名因紐特人的基因組跟尼安德塔人、丹尼索瓦人及全球各地現代人種進行比較。

Strikingly, all of the Inuit studied contained the same genetic variants in this particular region of their genomes. Compared to the same region in Neanderthals and other modern populations, the Inuit region showed at most a partial match. But compared to the Denisovan genome, it “was almost a complete match,” Nielsen said.

The region in question contains genes that may play a role in dictating levels of brown fat, a type that is abundant in newborns and generates heat by burning calories. In Inuit, the gene variants might promote more brown fat as a special adaptation to the cold, Nielsen said, although more study of this mechanism is needed.

引人注目的是，所有被研究的因紐特人在他們基因組的這個特定區塊內，均有著相同的基因變異。尼爾森表示，因紐特人的這個區塊與尼安德塔人及其他現代人種的同一區塊對照，最多只有部分吻合，但跟丹尼索瓦人基因組對照，卻「幾乎完全吻合」。

前述區塊包含了可能在決定棕色脂肪含量上發揮作用的基因，新生兒體內有很多棕色脂肪，可透過燃燒卡路里來產生熱。尼爾森表示，因紐特人的基因變異可能促生更多棕色脂肪，作為對寒冷的一種特殊適應方式，不過此一機制仍有待進一步研究。