时间:2018-12-02 作者:英语课 分类:2016年Scientific American(十二)月


英语课

 


The little brown bat was once abundant in the eastern U.S. But within the last 15 years, a fungus 1 called Pseudogynmoascus destructans infiltrated 2 a cave in upstate New York. This fungus causes what’s called white-nose syndrome 3 in bats.


The illness has now spread throughout North America, causing widespread bat die-offs. But recently, little brown bats in New York have stopped declining. In fact, their numbers are actually going back up.


"That was exciting, but we had no idea how these bats were persisting with the disease." Harvard University epidemiologist Kate Langwig.


"Little brown bats, during the fall swarm 4 around hibernacula entrances. During that time period they're active, and they're feeding and fattening 5 for winter, they also mate during that time period. Then they go into hibernation 6, and that's really when infection peaks. Winter is the time period in which white nose syndrome is happening to bats."


To understand how the New York bats were surviving, Langwig and her team compared them to bats from Illinois and Virginia, in colonies that are still experiencing the initial mass die-offs. They wanted to see whether the New York bats had simply found a way to tolerate the presence of the pathogen, or whether they'd actually developed resistance to the infection.


"So we found that when bats first return to hibernacula, they still become infected. Both in areas where the fungus has recently invaded as well as in areas where the fungus is established, bats become infected at the same time. And then in both places we see the fungus begin to grow and start to increase. However in areas where the disease has been for a number of years, what we find is that the fungus then reaches kind of a plateau." [Kate E. Langwig et al. Resistance in persisting bat populations after white-nose syndrome invasion, in Philosophical 7 Transactions of the Royal Society B]


So in New York, the disease ramps 8 up starting in the early winter but then the fungus stops spreading. In Illinois and Virginia, it just keeps on growing.


"It suggests that the bats are somehow actually limiting the growth of the fungus on their skin."


Langwig still doesn't know how the bats are fighting off the disease. She also wants to find out why their resistance doesn't show up until so late in the winter. Does the response wait until it hits some threshold? Do the bats' immune systems just take longer to boot up during hibernation?


And last, of course, she wants to know what lessons bat researchers can learn from this population that might help them save other types of bats in other places.


“These results, that little brown bats have developed resistance, are really encouraging to think about. We could see bats abundant once again in the Northeast.”


—Jason G. Goldman


 (The above text is a transcript of this podcast)



1 fungus
n.真菌,真菌类植物
  • Mushrooms are a type of fungus.蘑菇是一种真菌。
  • This fungus can just be detected by the unaided eye.这种真菌只用肉眼就能检查出。
2 infiltrated
adj.[医]浸润的v.(使)渗透,(指思想)渗入人的心中( infiltrate的过去式和过去分词 )
  • The headquarters had been infiltrated by enemy spies. 总部混入了敌方特务。
  • Many Chinese idioms have infiltrated into the Japanese language. 许多中国成语浸透到日语中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
3 syndrome
n.综合病症;并存特性
  • The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
  • Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。
4 swarm
n.(昆虫)等一大群;vi.成群飞舞;蜂拥而入
  • There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
  • A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。
5 fattening
adj.(食物)要使人发胖的v.喂肥( fatten的现在分词 );养肥(牲畜);使(钱)增多;使(公司)升值
  • The doctor has advised him to keep off fattening food. 医生已建议他不要吃致肥食物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • We substitute margarine for cream because cream is fattening. 我们用人造黄油代替奶油,因为奶油会使人发胖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 hibernation
n.冬眠
  • Bears wake up in the spring after a winter of hibernation.熊经过一个冬天的冬眠后在春季苏醒。
  • The tortoise spends the winter months in hibernation.乌龟在冬眠中度过寒冬季节。
7 philosophical
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的
  • The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
  • She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。
8 ramps
resources allocation and multiproject scheduling 资源分配和多项目的行程安排
  • Ramps should be provided for wheelchair users. 应该给轮椅使用者提供坡道。
  • He has the upper floor and ramps are fitted everywhere for his convenience. 他住在上面一层,为了他的方便着想,到处设有坡道。
学英语单词
?-subunit
Acanthephippium sinense
amilorides
analytical geometry of space
Association of Oil Pipe Lines
at the furthest
automobilists
balanced incomplete type
Bartica
beautiness
bocion
bockwurst sausage
brownell
build up to
calorimotor
carrottop
caveator
continuity coefficient
core cavitation
correction and compensation device
counterextortion
cultural diffusions
Dactyloctenium aegyptium
Dazoxibin
DBMS drivers
dead water zone
dialling tones
dietary antigen
diguanidinobutanase
eclipsing star
Elliont type knuckle
equilibrium, temperature
erythrocythaemic
fdp management science
fruitshop
gear in train
grey-back
high quartz solid solution
hooking pass
Hungarian grass
incendiary leaf
incumbent upon
India lawn
iridium sulfite
j-invariant of elliptic curve
kulm
laid siege
lift distribution
low-order
major first face
meadow ferns
mid-latitudes
midget
multicolor emission
multident
multiviscosity oil
Ngoc My
non-independent accounting unit
nonweekly
objective force level
Okawville
P-T region
Pedicularis dolichoglossa
photoactive reaction
pipe valve tray
pointwise ergodic theorem
prolific writer
quinonyl
quotation board
rapid scanning spectrometer
rational form
reinforcement bending shed
remines
repressibility
riveros
Sena, R.
send back system
send sb into bankrupt
side toppling
startscummers
stiede
Stiegel, Henry William
stove drying
stress in beam
suirs
swab man
sweat over sth
swept
tabards
Take someone to the woodshed
Terezinha
theory of matrices
thiofuradene
tropical automatic weather station
tropicalist
tulie
ultrasonic cell disintegration
unirrigated soil
unlight
vieulence alteration
wage drift
wave length-ship length ratio