蜜蜂和狗能比机器更早识别癌症吗？
📖 逐句对照翻译
Researchers at Michigan State University recently found that bees’ sense of “smell” is sensitive enough to identify chemical smells of cancer.
密歇根州立大学的研究人员最近发现，蜜蜂的“嗅觉”非常灵敏，足以识别出癌症的化学气味。
Bees sense chemicals in their environment using antennae, structures on their heads, which serve as “noses” to sense smells.
蜜蜂利用头上的触角来感知环境中的化学物质，触角充当“鼻子”来感知气味。
The researchers wrote in a study published last month that honeybees can sniff out lung cancer on a patient’s breath.
研究人员在上个月发表的一项研究中写道，蜜蜂可以嗅出病人呼吸中的肺癌。
Debajit Saha is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Michigan State University.
德巴吉特·萨哈是密歇根州立大学生物医学工程助理教授。
He was part of a team that published the research.
他是一个发表该研究团队的一员。
“Our world is visual. [The] insects’ world is all based on smell, so their sense of smell is very, very good,” Saha said.
萨哈说：“我们的世界是视觉的。昆虫的世界完全基于嗅觉，所以它们的嗅觉非常非常灵敏。”
“There is quite a bit of research that shows that when some cancer grows inside our body, our breath actually changes. Our research does show that honeybees can detect lung cancer and possibly other diseases based on the smell of those cells.”
有相当多的研究表明，当某些癌症在体内生长时，我们的呼吸实际上会发生变化。我们的研究确实表明，蜜蜂能够根据这些细胞的气味来探测肺癌，甚至可能探测其他疾病。
Saha and his team placed bees in small harnesses and attached small wires to their brains.
萨哈和他的团队将蜜蜂固定在小型固定装置中，并将细小的电线连接到它们的大脑上。
The insects were then placed near chemicals that are like the breath of a person with lung cancer.
随后，这些昆虫被放置在类似肺癌患者呼出气体的化学物质附近。
The scientists said that the bees could tell the difference between the cancer breath and the laboratory copy of the healthy human breath 93 percent of the time.
科学家们表示，蜜蜂有93%的概率能分辨出癌症患者呼出的气体和实验室复制出的健康人呼出的气体。
The scientists added that the bees could also tell the difference between different kinds of lung cancer.
科学家们补充说，蜜蜂还能区分不同类型的肺癌。
The discovery could help doctors detect many cancers, including lung, breast, head and neck, and colorectal cancers, earlier than other methods.
这一发现可以帮助医生比其他方法更早地检测出多种癌症，包括肺癌、乳腺癌、头颈癌和结直肠癌。
Saha says detecting cancers this way would be an improvement.
萨哈表示，用这种方法检测癌症将是一种进步。
“The reason is, many times we detect the cancer late,” when a growth has become too big to control easily.
“原因在于，很多时候我们发现癌症时已经太晚了，”此时肿瘤已经长得太大，难以轻易控制。
But, he added, when cancer starts growing the breath starts changing much earlier.
但他补充说，当癌症开始生长时，呼吸的变化要早得多。
He hopes to develop a system that a patient will be able to breathe into and which can be carried around easily.
他希望开发一种系统，病人可以向其中呼气，而且这种系统便于随身携带。
This would deliver test results immediately.
这将立即提供测试结果。
“Hopefully, within the next five years, we'll have something to show that humans can be diagnosed using these insect brain disc sensors,” Saha said.
萨哈说：“希望在接下来的五年内，我们能拿出成果，证明可以利用这些昆虫大脑圆盘传感器来诊断人类疾病。”
Dogs can also help find cancer
狗也能帮助发现癌症
Using animals to detect cancer is not a new idea.
利用动物来检测癌症并不是一个新想法。
At the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers are training dogs to smell some kinds of cancer.
在宾夕法尼亚大学的宾大兽医学院工作犬中心，研究人员正在训练狗嗅出某些种类的癌症。
Cindy Otto is executive director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia.
辛迪·奥托是费城宾夕法尼亚大学兽医学院工作犬中心的执行主任。
She said many other animals also have very good senses of smell.
她说许多其他动物也有非常灵敏的嗅觉。
“But part of what makes dogs so good is that they cooperate with humans, and so, they communicate that information,” she added.
但她补充说：“但狗之所以如此出色，部分原因在于它们会与人类合作，因此它们会交流这些信息。”
The dogs are in a program where they live with families and are brought to “work” each day.
这些狗参与了一个项目，它们在项目期间与家庭一起生活，每天被带到“工作”地点。
Not all dogs can do this work.
并非所有的狗都能胜任这项工作。
Otto said,
奥托说，
“They need to love it to be engaged. And so, it's a really fun game for them.”
他们需要爱上它才会投入其中。所以，这对他们来说是一款非常有趣的游戏。
Some researchers say that dogs detect cancer better than machines.
一些研究人员表示，狗比机器更能检测出癌症。
They note that a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times sharper than that of humans.
他们指出，狗的嗅觉比人类灵敏1万到10万倍。
Amritha Mallikarjun is another postdoctoral researcher at the center.
阿姆丽塔·马利卡琼是该中心的另一位博士后研究员。
She said dogs are more sensitive to smells than any machines sold today.
她说，狗比现今出售的任何机器都更敏感于气味。
But the scientists hope to create a machine that will identify disease just as well as dogs.
但科学家们希望制造出一台能像狗一样准确识别疾病的机器。
Otto said doctors in ancient Greece and Rome used odor as a tool to identify disease.
奥托说，古希腊和古罗马的医生将气味作为识别疾病的工具。
She hopes the researchers can build on that “and advance the health of not only humans, but dogs and other species as well.”
她希望研究人员能在此基础上继续努力，“不仅促进人类的健康，也促进狗和其他物种的健康”。
I’m Jill Robbins.
我是吉尔·罗宾斯。
Dora Mekouar reported this story for VOA News.
多拉·梅库阿尔为美国之音新闻频道报道了这则新闻。
Jill Robbins adapted it for Learning English.
吉尔·罗宾斯为《学习英语》改编了它。
