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JaapDeRoode_2014Y-_蝴蝶如何自我治疗_
So infectious diseases , right? 说到传染病
infectious:adj.传染的;传染性的;易传染的; diseases:n.[医]病(disease的复数);[医]疾病;[植保]病害;疾病种类;
Infectious diseases are still the main cause of human suffering and death around the world. 传染病仍然是全球人类 生病和死亡的主因。
Every year, millions of people die of diseases such as T.B., malaria , HIV , around the world and even in the United States. 每年,数以万计的人们死于 肺结核、疟疾、以及艾滋病
malaria:n.[内科]疟疾;瘴气; HIV:n.艾滋病病毒; United:adj.联合的; v.联合,团结; (unite的过去分词和过去式)
Every year, thousands of Americans die of seasonal flu. 甚至在美国,每年都有成千上万的人因流感致命。
seasonal:adj.季节的;周期性的;依照季节的;
Now of course, humans, we are creative . Right? 人类不是很有创意吗？
creative:adj.创造性的;
We have come up with ways to protect ourselves against these diseases. 我们想出不少办法保护自己,
come up with:提出;想出;赶上;
We have drugs and vaccines . 用药物和疫苗抵抗传染病。
vaccines:n.[药][计]疫苗;
And we're conscious -- we learn from our experiences and come up with creative solutions. 我们十分谨慎地总结经验 得出创新的解决办法。
conscious:adj.意识到的;故意的;神志清醒的;
We used to think we're alone in this, but now we know we're not. 我们以为只有人类才懂医学
We're not the only medical doctors. 但是其实不然
Now we know that there's a lot of animals out there that can do it too. 许多其他动物也有类似的机制
Most famous, perhaps, chimpanzees . 最典型的是大猩猩
chimpanzees:n.[脊椎]黑猩猩(chimpanzee的复数);
Not so much different from us, they can use plants to treat their intestinal parasites . 和人类差不多 它们会利用植物清理肠道寄生虫
treat:v.治疗;处理;招待;款待;n.款待;乐事;乐趣; intestinal:adj.肠的; parasites:n.[基医]寄生虫;[生物]寄生生物(parasite的复数);
But the last few decades have shown us that other animals can do it too: elephants, porcupines , sheep, goats, you name it. 几十年的研究发现很多动物都会保护自己 大象、豪猪、绵羊、山羊…数不胜数
porcupines:[脊椎]豪猪;[脊椎]箭猪;
And even more interesting than that is that recent discoveries are telling us that insects and other little animals with smaller brains can use medication too. 更有趣的是,最近的研究发现 昆虫和其他小型生物也懂得医疗
medication:n.药;药物;
The problem with infectious diseases, as we all know, is that pathogens continue to evolve , and a lot of the drugs that we have developed are losing their efficacy . 我们都知道传染病的病原体 不断演化。 我们过去开发的一些药物 正在逐渐失效
pathogens:n.[基医]病原体;病原菌;[基医]致病菌; evolve:v.(使)逐渐形成;进化;进化形成; efficacy:n.功效,效力;
And therefore, there is this great need to find new ways to discover drugs that we can use against our diseases. 因此我们更需要不断开发新药物 来应对不断变化的病原体。
Now, I think that we should look at these animals, and we can learn from them how to treat our own diseases. 现在我们来研究一下这些动物 看看从它们身上哪些是值得借鉴的
As a biologist , I have been studying monarch butterflies for the last 10 years. 作为生物学家,我研究了十年帝王斑蝶
biologist:n.生物学家; monarch:n.君主,帝王;最高统治者;
Now, monarchs are extremely famous for their spectacular migrations from the U.S. and Canada down to Mexico every year, where millions of them come together, but it's not why I started studying them. 帝王斑蝶以它们壮观的迁徙而闻名 每年不计其数的帝王斑蝶来到一起 从美国和加拿大迁徙到墨西哥 但这并非我研究它们的原因
monarchs:n.君主(monarch的复数); extremely:adv.非常,极其;极端地; spectacular:adj.壮观的;壮丽的;令人惊叹的;n.壮观的场面;精彩的表演; migrations:[动][地质]迁移;
I study monarchs because they get sick. 我研究它们是因为它们会生病
They get sick like you. They get sick like me. 就像在座的你我
And I think what they do can tell us a lot about drugs that we can develop for humans. 我认为我们可以从它们身上得到启发 来开发适用于人类的药物
Now, the parasites that monarchs get infected with are called ophryocystis elektroscirrha -- a mouthful. 帝王斑蝶身上的寄生虫叫做
infected:adj.带菌的; v.传染; (infect的过去分词和过去式)
What they do is they produce spores , millions of spores on the outside of the butter fly that are shown as little specks in between the scales of the butter fly. 这些寄生虫在蝶身上 引起大量的孢子 可以从鳞片夹缝中看见这些细小的斑点
spores:n.[生物]孢子(spore的复数);v.形成芽孢(spore的三单形式); butter:n.黄油;奶油;v.涂黄油于;
And this is really detrimental to the monarch. 它们威胁着帝王斑蝶的健康
detrimental to:有害的;
It shortens their lifespan , it reduces their ability to fly, it can even kill them before they're even adults. 缩短了它们的寿命 影响它们的飞行能力 甚至导致它们还没成年就死亡。
shortens:vt.缩短;减少;变短;vi.缩短;变短; lifespan:n.寿命;预期生命期限;预期使用期限;
Very detrimental parasite. 这种寄生虫非常致命。
As part of my job, I spend a lot of time in the greenhouse growing plants, and the reason for this is that monarchs are extremely picky eaters . 我工作时经常需要在温室里种植植物 因为帝王斑蝶十分挑食
greenhouse:n.温室;暖房; picky:adj.挑剔的;吹毛求疵的;过分讲究的; eaters:n.食者;
They only eat milkweed as larvae . 它们只吃乳草的幼草
milkweed:n.乳草属植物;马利筋属植物;野参类; larvae:n.幼虫;幼体(larva的复数形式);
Luckily, there are several species of milkweed that they can use, and all these milkweeds have cardenolides in them. 幸好我找到了几种它们食用的乳草。 这些乳草中含有卡烯内酯,
species:n.[生物]物种;种类; milkweeds:n.乳草属植物;马利筋属植物;野参类;
These are chemicals that are toxic . 是一种具有毒性的物质
chemicals:n.化学制品;化学品;(chemical的复数) toxic:adj.有毒的;中毒的;
They're toxic to most animals, but not to monarchs. 奇怪的是它对帝王斑蝶无害
In fact, monarchs can take up the chemicals, put it in their own bodies, and it makes them toxic against their predators , such as birds. 帝王斑蝶吸收了这种毒素 携带这种毒素在体内 用于对付诸如鸟类的天敌
predators:n.捕食性动物;实行弱肉强食的人(或机构);掠夺者;(predator的复数)
And what they do, then, is advertise this toxicity through their beautiful warning colorations with this orange, black and white . 它们用身上鲜艳的黄黑白斑纹 来广告自己的毒性。 一种自然警告标志。
advertise:v.做广告;登广告;(在报纸、公共场所公告牌、互联网等上)公布;展现; toxicity:n.[毒物]毒性; colorations:n.着色;染色; black and white:adj.印刷的;黑白混合的;用笔写的;
So what I did during my job is grow plants in the greenhouse, different ones, different milkweeds. 当我在温室善尽己责, 种植不同乳草时,
Some were toxic, including the tropical milkweed, with very high concentrations of these cardenolides. 某些毒性很高,像是热带乳草, 有大量的强心甾 (cardenolides),
tropical:adj.热带的;热情的;酷热的; concentrations:n.关注点;[土壤]浓聚物(concentration的复数);
And some were not toxic. 某些却没有毒素。
And then I fed them to monarchs. 在我喂食帝王斑蝶时,
Some of the monarchs were healthy. They had no disease. 某些斑蝶没有染病,很健康。
But some of the monarchs were sick, and what I found is that some of these milkweeds are medicinal , meaning they reduce the disease symptoms in the monarch butterflies, 某些斑蝶则生着病, 我发现某些乳草有药效, 有效减低帝王斑蝶的症状
medicinal:adj.药的;药用的;治疗的(等于medicinable);有益的; symptoms:n.症状;征候;征兆;(symptom的复数)
meaning these monarchs can live longer when they are infected when feeding on these medicinal plants. 只要它们食用这些药草, 就可以延长自己的性命。
And when I found this, I had this idea, and a lot of people said it was a crazy idea, but I thought, what if monarchs can use this? 当我发现的时候, 我有了一很多人觉得很疯狂的想法 我想,如果帝王斑蝶可以应用呢？
what if:如果…怎么办?
What if they can use these plants as their own form of medicine? 如果它们可以把这些乳草当作药物呢？
What if they can act as medical doctors? 如果它们可以为自己开药房呢？
So my team and I started doing experiments. 我们的团队开始实验,
In the first types of experiments, we had caterpillars , and gave them a choice: medicinal milkweed versus non-medicinal milkweed. 在第一类实验里, 我们给幼虫两种选择: 有药性的乳草和没有药性的乳草。
caterpillars:n.毛毛虫(caterpillar的复数); versus:prep.对;与...相对;对抗;
And then we measured how much they ate of each species over their lifetime. 然后测量它们一生各自吃了多少。
measured:adj.缓慢谨慎的; v.测量; (measure的过去分词和过去式)
And the result, as so often in science, was boring : 就像大部分的科学研究结果一样,答案很无聊:
boring:adj.无聊的;令人厌烦的;n.钻孔;v.使厌烦;钻孔;(bore的现在分词)
Fifty percent of their food was medicinal. Fifty percent was not. 有药性和没有药性的各半。
These caterpillars didn't do anything for their own welfare . 这些幼虫没有为自己做出有利的选择。
welfare:n.福祉;(政府给予的)福利;
So then we moved on to adult butterflies, and we started asking the question whether it's the mothers that can medicate their offspring . 于是我们转为研究成蝶。 我们想 母蝶会对自己的幼虫用药吗？
medicate:vt.用药治疗;加药品于; offspring:n.后代,子孙;产物;
Can the mothers lay their eggs on medicinal milkweed that will make their future offspring less sick? 它们会把卵产在有药的乳草上, 减轻幼虫的症状？
We have done these experiments now over several years, and always get the same results. 我们复制这个实验多年, 得到一样的结果。
What we do is we put a monarch in a big cage, a medicinal plant on one side, a non-medicinal plant on the other side , and then we measure the number of eggs that the monarchs lay on each plant. 我们把帝王斑蝶放进大笼子里, 一边的乳草是有药性的,一边没有, 然后测量它们在两种乳草上的产卵数,
on the other side:另一面;在另一边;
And what we find when we do that is always the same. 获得的结果是一致的。
What we find is that the monarchs strongly prefer the medicinal milkweed. 我们发现帝王斑蝶偏好药性乳草。
prefer:v.更喜欢;宁愿;提出;提升;
In other words, what these females are doing is they're laying 68 percent of their eggs in the medicinal milkweed. 换句话说 雌蝶把 68％ 的卵产在药性乳草上。
Intriguingly , what they do is they actually transmit the parasites when they're laying the eggs. 事实上,在它们产卵的时候, 也不可避免的
Intriguingly:adv.有趣地;有魅力地; transmit:v.传送;发射;播送;传播;传染;
They cannot prevent this. 传播了寄生虫。
They can also not medicate themselves. 它们不能治疗自己。
But what these experiments tell us is that these monarchs, these mothers, can lay their eggs on medicinal milkweed that will make their future offspring less sick. 但这个实验告诉我们 帝王斑蝶把卵产在有药性的乳草上, 减轻幼虫的病况。
Now, this is a really important discovery, I think, not just because it tells us something cool about nature, but also because it may tell us something more about how we should find drugs. 这个发现很重要。 不只是因为它显示了大自然的奥妙, 更提醒我们应该如何开发药物。
Now, these are animals that are very small and we tend to think of them as very simple. 这些动物都很小, 我们曾经觉得它们构造单纯,
They have tiny little brains, yet they can do this very sophisticated medication. 它们的大脑很小, 但它们却懂得利用自然药草。
sophisticated:adj.复杂的;老练的;见多识广的;水平高的;
Now, we know that even today, most of our drugs derive from natural products, including plants, and in indigenous cultures, traditional healers often look at animals to find new drugs. 直至今日, 我们从自然中提取药物,包括植物, 在一些原始文化中, 传统疗法时常借镜动物来找新药方。
derive:vt.源于;得自;vi.起源; indigenous:adj.本土的;土著的;国产的;固有的; traditional:传统的,惯例的, healers:n.医治者;治疗物(healer的复数);
In this way, elephants have told us how to treat stomach upset , and porcupines have told people how to treat bloody diarrhea . 大象教我们如何治疗肠胃不适, 刺猬教我们如何处理腹泻。
upset:adj.沮丧; v.打乱; n.苦恼; (意外的)混乱; bloody:adj.血腥的;血淋淋的;v.血染; diarrhea:n.腹泻,痢疾;
What I think is important, though, is to move beyond these large-brained mammals and give these guys more credit, these simple animals, these insects that we tend to think of as very, very simple with tiny little brains. 我想,最重要的是, 除了那些大脑发达的哺乳类动物外, 我们也应该更加注重 那些构造简单的动物、昆虫。
large-brained:adj.有大脑的; mammals:n.哺乳动物;(mammal的复数)
The discovery that these animals can also use medication opens up completely new avenues , and I think that maybe one day, we will be treating human diseases 发现这些动物懂得用药, 让我们进入全新领域。 也许有一天,
avenues:n.[建]林荫道,[公路]大街; treating:v.以…态度对待;把…看作;处理;讨论;(treat的现在分词)
with drugs that were first discovered by butterflies, and I think that is an amazing opportunity worth pursuing . 我们会用蝴蝶找到的药物来治疗人类, 我想这个机会是值得把握的。
pursuing:v.追求;致力于;贯彻;跟踪;追赶;(pursue的现在分词)
Thank you so much. 谢谢各位。
(Applause) （掌声）