詼諧的語言，生動(dòng)的內(nèi)容一分鐘快速掌握科技最新動(dòng)態(tài)

>>本期節(jié)目音頻下載<<

Four-Legged Biosensors Sniff Out Bird Flu
四條腿的生物傳感器

You’ve probably seen dogs working security at airports, sniffing for drugs, bombs and contraband food. Now our best-friend biosensors might have a new task: ferretting out the scent of bird flu.
你可能見過機(jī)場的安防狗，它們用鼻子檢測毒品、炸彈和違禁的食品。最近，我們這些最好的生物傳感器朋友們貌似接到一個(gè)新的任務(wù)：搜索禽流感的味道。

And they may not be alone on the job. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Monell Chemical Senses Center trained mice to identify duck droppings from animals infected with bird flu. The work was presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. [Bruce Kimball et al.]
它們不會(huì)勢單力薄的。美國農(nóng)業(yè)部門和莫奈兒化學(xué)感官中心的研究人員訓(xùn)練老鼠們來辨認(rèn)感染了禽流感的鴨子排泄物。這項(xiàng)工作在波士頓召開的美國化學(xué)協(xié)會(huì)的全國會(huì)議上提出。

The scientists trained six mice to run a maze in search of infected feces. Every time they found the right feces, they got a drink of water. The mice learned to choose infected over noninfected duck feces about 90 percent of the time.
科學(xué)家訓(xùn)練六只小老鼠走迷宮，以期找出感染的排泄物。每一次它們找出正確的排泄物，就能得到一口水做獎(jiǎng)賞。小老鼠們學(xué)會(huì)了在90%沒有感染的鴨子排泄物中篩選出感染過的。

The researchers believe the implications could be twofold. First, bird flu apparently leaves an odor imprint on bird feces, and so dogs—and even mice—could be trained to recognize it. Second, scientists might be able to isolate the cocktail of compounds that gives off the odor to develop lab instruments or automated field detectors. Until then, we may find four-legged sensors, large and small, sniffing away to protect us from a bird-borne epidemic.
研究人員認(rèn)為此項(xiàng)結(jié)果有兩重含義。首先，顯然，禽流感在禽類糞便上留下了氣味，于是狗兒們，甚至小老鼠們訓(xùn)練后都可以辨別出來。其次，科學(xué)家們可以從化合物中將散發(fā)氣味的混合物隔離出來用來改良實(shí)驗(yàn)室儀器或自動(dòng)探測器。到那時(shí)，我們就可以發(fā)現(xiàn)這些大大小小的四條腿傳感器們吸出鳥類的疫病保護(hù)我們。

點(diǎn)擊進(jìn)入?yún)⑴c科學(xué)60秒查看背景資料和單詞總結(jié)>>>


聲明：音視頻均來自互聯(lián)網(wǎng)鏈接，僅供學(xué)習(xí)使用。本網(wǎng)站自身不存儲(chǔ)、控制、修改被鏈接的內(nèi)容。"滬江英語"高度重視知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)保護(hù)。當(dāng)如發(fā)現(xiàn)本網(wǎng)站發(fā)布的信息包含有侵犯其著作權(quán)的鏈接內(nèi)容時(shí)，請(qǐng)聯(lián)系我們，我們將依法采取措施移除相關(guān)內(nèi)容或屏蔽相關(guān)鏈接。