科学美国人60秒 SSS New Insecticide Makes Mosquitoes Pop
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：2016年Scientific American(十二)月
It's bad enough that mosquitoes suck our blood, and sometimes pass on disease. But there's more. "They can actually give you a disease and pee on you at the same time. Adding insult to injury if you will." Jerod Denton, a pharmacologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
"If you look up almost any picture on Google of a mosquito taking a blood meal you'll see a clear drop of fluid hanging out of the rear end of the mosquito. That's actually the urine the mosquito has made from your blood."
That pee production is vital to the mosquito's survival. Because blood is salty. "And as these mosquitoes digest the red blood cells to get at the proteins and other nutrients 1 hiding there, they release potassium chloride which can cause depolarization of the membrane 2 potential of excitable cells and induce ‘excitotoxic death.’" Translation: not good. So mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers have evolved a rapid diuretic process to expel salt from their bodies, using kidney-like structures. Basically, while still sucking blood, they start peeing.
But Denton and his colleagues found a way to block all that. They developed a chemical compound that blocks the bugs 3' salt-ejecting pores, "sort of like a cork 4 in a bottle." So when the skeeters come in contact with the compound, they swell 5 up—and stay that way. "And in some cases we can actually see the abdomen 6 rupture 7, because they've basically overfilled with food." The study is in the journal Scientific Reports. [Daniel R. Swale et al., An insecticide resistance-breaking mosquitocide targeting inward rectifier potassium channels in vectors of Zika virus and malaria]
The substance doesn't kill honeybees, and it works well on insecticide-resistant mosquitoes, too. So if it turns out to be safe enough to use around humans, the pesticide 8 will give a whole new meaning to "bye-bye, sucker!”
—Christopher Intagliata
- a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
- Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- A vibrating membrane in the ear helps to convey sounds to the brain.耳膜的振动帮助声音传送到大脑。
- A plastic membrane serves as selective diffusion barrier.一层塑料薄膜起着选择性渗透屏障的作用。
- All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
- Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。
- The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
- His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。
- How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
- He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。