时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:2016年Scientific American(十二)月


英语课

 


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



1 nutrients
n.(食品或化学品)营养物,营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )
  • 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》
2 membrane
n.薄膜,膜皮,羊皮纸
  • 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。
3 bugs
adj.疯狂的,发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 );病菌;虫子;[计算机](制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的)错误
  • 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》
4 cork
n.软木,软木塞
  • 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。
5 swell
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强
  • 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。
6 abdomen
n.腹,下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)
  • 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。
7 rupture
n.破裂;(关系的)决裂;v.(使)破裂
  • I can rupture a rule for a friend.我可以为朋友破一次例。
  • The rupture of a blood vessel usually cause the mark of a bruise.血管的突然破裂往往会造成外伤的痕迹。
8 pesticide
n.杀虫剂,农药
  • The pesticide was spread over the vegetable plot.菜田里撒上了农药。
  • This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields.这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。
学英语单词
Adenophora wawreana
adiabatic ionization energy
administrative districts
Aldemir
alnico magnetic material
american chemical society
arithmetic routine
audio system
biomedical reactor
borchgrevink
brass up
broad-band random vibration
buying exchange
cannizaro
co-counsellors
colorfield
colour bias
combustion chamber superheater
command subsystem antenna
completion study period
constantinos
coral honeysuckle
deictic category
deleveraged
dihydrostilbenoid
dilaurylthiodipropionate
don't give it another thought
drain the cup of
drawing utensils
drum panelling
earthpea
elementary symmetrical polynomial
emulsifiable powder
extreme ultraviolet region (euv)
faanfictions
fhas
flashfloods
gaburri
genus Lasthenia
Gooris
head positioning cartridge
hff
hot air seasoning
hydroxyacetic acids
immunologic paralysis
interpersonally
Jesusolatry
jfk
judicial question
karyoplast
Laranjal Paulista
latewar
leak-off valve
lipophlic
low calorific power
lucrativenesses
magnetic meridian
market contract
medullary fasciculus
Mitox
multi-head automatic welding machine
multifont optical reader
neocatastrophism
neutral absorber
noncircumferential
nonsense suppression
on site maintenance
over-protection
Partida, I.
positive afterpotential
recopier
refractometric titration
Registrar of Companies
Roche's sign
seam basting
seekins
self-checking capability
self-luminous body
slag system
spatial scalability
spectrally pure colour
supervisor call instructions
sybra albomaculata albomaculata
true leaf
two port waveguide junction
underwater transmissometer
unformatted program interface
ununderstandingly
valley of corrugation
valvular obstruction
velvetweeds
verditer blue
weak foot
weary of
Webster's test
Weltbild
wettability effect
wire clasp
witch-broom
youthfest
zocolo
zone travel