美国科学60秒 SSS 2012-11-26
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：Scientific American(十一)月
英语课
This is Scientific American sixty seconds science. I am Karen Hopkin. This will take just a minute.
Your morning coffee. A baking pie. That turkey in the oven. There are some smells you just can’t get enough of. But mix them and other scents 2 all together and you get, well, nothing much.
According to a new study, a mash-up of 20 or 30 different odors gives you something entirely 3 nondescript: almost a non-smell, if you will. The finding appears in the Proceedings 4 of the National Academy of Sciences.
If you’ve ever taken physics, you might remember that combining colors of many different wavelengths 5 generates light that’s white. And blending sounds of many different frequencies produces white noise.
Well, researchers got to wondering whether there’s an equivalent phenomenon for olfaction: call it ‘white smell.’ So they whipped up various combinations of 80 distinct chemicals and had volunteers take a whiff. When the olfactory 6 ingredient list topped 30, one cocktail 7 smelled pretty much the same as any other, even when the mixtures didn’t have a single ingredient in common.
The scent 1 was not unpleasant. A professional perfumer called it “aromatic,” which is like saying that the light was, well, light. So enjoy the smells of the holiday season. But try not to sniff 8 too many at once.
Thanks for the minute for scientific American sixty seconds science. I am Karen Hopkin.
1 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。
2 scents
n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉
- The air was fragrant with scents from the sea and the hills. 空气中荡漾着山和海的芬芳气息。
- The winds came down with scents of the grass and wild flowers. 微风送来阵阵青草和野花的香气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
3 entirely
ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地
- The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
- His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
4 proceedings
n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报
- He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
- to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼
5 wavelengths
n.波长( wavelength的名词复数 )；具有相同的/不同的思路；合拍；不合拍
- I find him difficult to talk to—we're on completely different wavelengths. 我没法和他谈话，因为我们俩完全不对路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Sunlight consists of different wavelengths of radiation. 阳光由几种不同波长的射线组成。 来自辞典例句
6 olfactory
adj.嗅觉的
- He is to develop a sensor to substitute for the olfactory abilities of dogs.克罗克将研制一种传感器用以代替狗的嗅觉功能。
- Based on these findings, Keller suspects that each person has an olfactory blind spot.根据这些发现，凯勒推断，每个人都有一个嗅觉盲区。