[科学美国人60秒] SSS 2015-09-23
时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:2015年Scientific American(九)月
英语课
You might blame your pets for shedding all over the house, but we humans do it, too, and our staff is alive.
We are constantly meeting microbes around us, and this is coming from shedding our skin, from exhaling 1, and our hair, and we are just full of these guys. Adam, a microbial ecologist at the University Of Oregon.
We have never been sterile 2 organisms. We are definitely masses of microbes both in and on us.
If you are picturing Peanut's character Pig Pen, you may not be far off, because biologists estimate we shed a million particles an hour, including of course a lot of bacteria. OTrictorand his collegues wanted to measue that clouds of particles, The Pig Pen Effect, if you will. So they asked eleven volunteers not to shower, trust them in shorts and tenctups and put them in sterile chamber 3 for hours at a time, all collecting microbial samples on surfaces and in the air. But they found those samples were ? of bacteria from the voluteers' skin, guts 4, genital tracts 5, lungs, noses and mouths. And for eight of the eleven study objects microbial cloud was unique enough to identify the individual who had left it, suggesting that this bacteria fingerprint 6 could some day be used in forensics. The study is in the journal" Peer J". Given that we spend ninety percent of our life indoors, our microbial clouds also colonize 7 the places we live and work, and yes, the people around us.
This is going to be interesting to think about how the people that we interact with classrooms or other environments how we could be sharing these microbial passengers between us, not even knowing anything about it.
And now you do know about it. Hopefully your view of the co-workers won't become clouded.
1 exhaling
v.呼出,发散出( exhale的现在分词 );吐出(肺中的空气、烟等),呼气
- Take a deep breath inhaling slowly and exhaling slowly. 深呼吸,慢慢吸进,慢慢呼出。 来自互联网
- Unclasp your hands and return to the original position while exhaling. 呼气并松开双手恢复到原位。 来自互联网
2 sterile
adj.不毛的,不孕的,无菌的,枯燥的,贫瘠的
- This top fits over the bottle and keeps the teat sterile.这个盖子严实地盖在奶瓶上,保持奶嘴无菌。
- The farmers turned the sterile land into high fields.农民们把不毛之地变成了高产田。
3 chamber
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所
- For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说,牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
- The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。
4 guts
v.狼吞虎咽,贪婪地吃,飞碟游戏(比赛双方每组5人,相距15码,互相掷接飞碟);毁坏(建筑物等)的内部( gut的第三人称单数 );取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 );内脏;消化道的下段;肠
- I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净,我只需烧一下即可。
- Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》
5 tracts
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文
- vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
- There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。
6 fingerprint
n.指纹;vt.取...的指纹
- The fingerprint expert was asked to testify at the trial.指纹专家应邀出庭作证。
- The court heard evidence from a fingerprint expert.法院听取了指纹专家的证词。