TED演讲:为什么应该喜爱'恶心'的科学(1)-英语课

时间：2018-12-30 作者：英语课 分类：TED演讲科学篇

英语课

　　Did you know that one of the first fertility drugs was made from the pee of Catholic nuns, and that even the Pope got involved? 你知道世界上第一例催孕药是用天主教修女的尿合成的，甚至与大主教也有关系？

　　So, this is totally true. Back in the 1950s, scientists knew that when women enter menopause, 这是真实的事件。20世纪50年代，科学家们发现当女人进入更年期时，
　　they start releasing high levels of fertility hormones in their urine. 她们的尿液中便开始出现含量极高的生殖激素。
　　But there was this doctor named Bruno Lunenfeld, 但有位名叫布鲁诺·卢内费尔德的医生想知道，
　　who wondered if he could actually isolate those hormones from the urine and use it to help women who are having trouble getting pregnant. 他是否能将那些激素从尿液中分离，并用其帮助不孕不育的妇女们。
　　Obviously, the problem with this was that in order to test this idea, he needed a lot of pee from older women. 问题很明显：为试验这一想法，他需要搜集许多年长妇女的尿液。
　　And that is not an easy thing to find. 然而那绝非易事。
　　So he and his colleagues got special permission from the Pope 他和他的同行获得了大主教的许可，
　　to collect gallons and gallons of urine from hundreds of older Catholic nuns. 从几百名年长的天主教修女那里收集了若干加仑的尿液。
　　And in doing so, he actually isolated hormones that are still used to help women get pregnant today, 这样一来，他就将那些仍利于今天的妇女怀孕的激素分离了出来，
　　though now, they can be synthesized in a lab, and gallons of pee aren't necessary. 虽然现在，这种生殖激素可以在实验室合成，并且也不再需要大量的尿液。
　　So why am I standing up here, telling this wonderfully intellectual audience about nun pee? 那么，为什么我要站在这里，向在座的各位精英讲述修女的尿液呢？
　　Well, I'm a science journalist and multimedia producer, who has always been fascinated by gross stuff. 事实上，我是一名总是痴迷于研究恶心事物的科学记者兼多媒体制作人。
　　So fascinated, in fact, that I started a weekly YouTube series called "Gross Science," 这种痴迷驱使我在一周前创立了一个名为“恶心科学”的每周Youtube视频系列，
　　all about the slimy, smelly, creepy underbelly of nature, medicine and technology. 展示了自然、医药和科技中所有黏滑的、难闻的、令人毛骨悚然的部分。
　　Now, I think most of us would agree that there's something a little gross about pee. 我认为大多数人会承认尿液有点恶心。
　　You know, it's something that we don't really like to talk about, and we keep the act of doing it very private. 尿液属于一些我们不喜欢谈论的事物，而我们会将其控制得极其私密。
　　But when Lunenfeld peered into the world of pee, he discovered something deeply helpful to humanity. 但当卢内费尔德仔细观察了尿液的世界，他发现了使人类受益匪浅的东西。