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
a love match
absolute hypermetropia
acetogenin
aesculapiuss
agnolotti
air saltpeter
ancylostomatidaes
Asats
B6
be rich with
Behima
biochemistry of ageing
bubble coalescence
bundled software
calculating instrument
capitalutilization
cedron
cement production
coefficient of offset
contact insecticide
Contergan
counterreaction
culicoides (trithecoides) tenuipalpis
cutter link
destarched
ecology of vision
empaneling
empty can
evictable
Exide ironclad battery
favour ... with
file security
forest ranger
galvanized steel wash boiler
glenlivet
go over to the enemy
goldtops
grammar category
hairy around the heels
homographies
horse-races
improved upon
indirectly controlled variable
instantaneous maximum wind
Jaborandiblatter
Kamuriki-yama
knife-edge load
lineae splendens
load-on
loulou
maclear
meadow clary
medullary lamina
metal-frameds
Mother Superior
mother-in-law style
mowre
multicentre reaction
musculi intertransversarii mediales
network integrity
New Internet
non matched data
nonxenophobic
Numanoids
number of taper
osseous cell
Pandan Kechil, Sungai
PB89
play computer games
Plumbomalachite
polishing liquid
pop-singers
presence and absence equalizer
pseudophotoesthesia
PSUV
pulvis acaciae et tragacanthae
pump-back storage
re-experiences
rear projection tv
recomputed
rhodoleucus
right-reading
royal marriage
sholes
slot man
still-growings
sucramin
sulcus of calcaneus
supersonic communication
Taluma
technical economic investigation
threshold friction
tributary arm
under-doing
vector quantity
viscera-state doctrine
water emulsifiable paste
water ingress
weed-grown
work completed forms
zinc cadmium sulfides