时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:2015年Scientific American(六)月


英语课

A common response to seeing an ant in your house is to stamp on it. But if you crush a member of the ant species? , you might catch a hwiff of strange  smell, a smell that reminds some people of blue cheese, rancid butter or rotten coconut 1. In fact the smell is so noticable that the insect's common name is the odorous house ant, and many people call it the coconut ant. In an effort to figure out why people have these reations, researchers enlisted 2 visitors at an event called the North Carolina Bug 3 Fast. One hundred and forty-three volunteers smelled smashed ants and were asked to identify the scent 4 from four choices, blue cheese, rancid butter, rotten coconut or just other. All the websites overwhelmingly call the smell rotten coconut. Almost forty percent of the human judges picked  blue cheese and about twenty-five percent picked rotten  coconut, more than thirty percent went with  the choice of other. The scentists then analysed the chemicals responsible for the ant odor as well as the smelly chemicals in blue cheese, fresh coconut and coconut buried underground for three days. It turns out the chemistry of the ant scent is indeed similar to that of the blue cheese and rotten coconut, but not to fresh coconut. And researchers note that  the  penicillin microbes that turn coconut oil rancid are also involved in the production of blue cheese. The study is in the journal America Entomologist. The researchers also noted 5 that the most common right candidate as a prescription 6 for the ants' aroma 7 was cleaning spray, and one little girl told them that the ants, " smelled exactly like her doctor."



1 coconut
n.椰子
  • The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
  • The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。
2 enlisted
adj.应募入伍的v.(使)入伍, (使)参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 );获得(帮助或支持)
  • enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
  • He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
3 bug
n.虫子;故障;窃听器;vt.纠缠;装窃听器
  • There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
  • The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。
4 scent
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉
  • The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
  • The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。
5 noted
adj.著名的,知名的
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
6 prescription
n.处方,开药;指示,规定
  • The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
  • The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。
7 aroma
n.香气,芬芳,芳香
  • The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
  • The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。
学英语单词
233
A.C. generator
alkylogen
alternate-stress
anamorphic optical system
Apollo applications program
aquiles
audio-frequency amplifier
automatic toll dialling
azurest
bit nibbler
campbell's process
caputs
carotin carotene
classfellow
cogged joint
color sampling device
concrete membrane
coupler neck
cross sb.'s palm
democratic network
difference of nth order
direct-fired
display control unit
drive away
embrocating
eminentiae
enrichment valve
export credit account
fair procedure
family homaridaes
fast and furious
fire-capabilities chart
fist-fucks
friction energy loss
Gagetown
gas outlet temperature
genus crassulas
glass sieve plate distillation column
green shoot
gynecomastia
hippyism
holoventral shield
homefree
hydrometor attenuation
inch per minute
incidental fee tariff
Ind.
intermittent firing
isotope farm
Jerome Robbins
knock the end in
Kobresia falcata
lookahead control
magnesiodumortierite
marking engine
maturants
melastomataceaes
micro-wave scatterometer
monovalence
naillike
patwardhan
phosphated
pitch regulated rotor
ponding
posterized
probatilistic context-free language
quandle
radical party
radiobiological
radix ventralis
rebound of a pile
return sand
Rhus uernix
right side out
self-surge impedance
sensitive commodities
ship's bell book
singing tolerance
sink your teeth into something
slack selvedge
soldered splice
speedometer drive gear
stacked gate structure
subsymbolic
synchronizing moment
takeover bids
theater depot
tnd
trial lens case
Uncaria macrophylla
under-explored
universelle
Uspeniya, Bukhta
varg
vest-pocket park
Villavieja
wageners
Wondang
yield-hungry
yukked