Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
人生就像騎腳踏車，為了保持平衡，你必須不斷往前走。
— Albert Einstein, Physicist 愛因斯坦 (物理學家)
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This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
這裡是科學美國人——60秒科學。我是克里斯多福·因塔利亞塔。
Sea otters are pretty petite compared to other marine mammals. Which means that, despite their fur coats, they tend to lose heat quickly, and need lots of energy to stay warm.
與其它海洋哺乳動物相比，海獺的體型相當嬌小。這就意味著，儘管它們身上有皮毛，但它們會迅速消耗掉熱量，因此需要大量能量來保暖。
"So they need to eat 25 percent of their body weight every day." Sarah McKay Strobel, a sensory ecologist at U.C. Santa Cruz. "So we noticed they eat that much, but in order to eat that much food, that means sea otters need to find all that food. And that's where we come in."
「所以它們每天需要吃掉相當於自身體重25%的食物。」加州大學聖克魯茲分校的感覺生態學家薩拉·麥凱·施特羅貝爾說到。「我們注意到了它們這種大量進食的情況，但要吃那麼多食物，意味著海獺得先找到所有食物。而這就是我們研究的切入點。」
She and her team studied the otter's senses, to solve the mystery of how they're such efficient foragers. Vision isn't reliable, she says—it's pretty dark and murky underwater, and crabs and clams tend to hide. Hearing is also tough for otters, in the noisy underwater environment. And sniffing's no good either. "When they're underwater they're holding their breath."
她和團隊研究了海獺的感覺能力，以揭開海獺高效覓食的謎團。她表示，對海獺來說視覺並不可靠，因為水下既黑暗又渾濁，而且螃蟹和蛤蜊往往會藏起來。由於水下環境非常嘈雜，海獺的聽覺也會受限。嗅覺同樣不起作用。「當它們在水下時，它們會屏住呼吸。」
What's left is touch. So Stroble and her team measured the sensitivity of the otters' paws and whiskers. They blindfolded an otter named Selka, then presented her with plastic plates engraved with tiny grooves, like corduroy. Selka's job was to select the plate with two-millimeter grooves, which she'd been trained to associate with tasty shrimp, instead of plates with differently sized grooves.
剩下的就只有觸覺了。於是，施特羅貝爾和團隊測量了海獺爪子和鬍鬚的敏感度。他們將一隻名為「塞爾卡」的海獺的眼睛蒙上，然後讓她觸摸刻有小凹槽的塑料盤子，那有點像燈芯絨。塞爾卡要做的是選出刻有兩毫米凹槽的盤子，她被訓練成將這種盤子與美味的蝦聯繫到一起，而不是認為這只是凹槽大小不同的盤子而已。
Turns out, Selka could perceive just a quarter millimeter difference in the grooves' width with her paws—above and below water—and half a millimeter difference with her whiskers. "The fact she was able to perform so well while moving incredibly quickly I think is really interesting and suggests that sea otters have very quick decision making abilities, and very quick sensory processing abilities, which makes sense when you think about the type of lifestyle they lead and how quickly they need to find food."
結果發現，無論在水上還是在水下，塞爾卡的爪子都能感覺到僅有0.25毫米差異的凹槽寬度，而她的鬍鬚能感覺到0.5毫米的差異。「事實上，她在迅速移動時還能精準地感覺到細微差異，我認為這很有趣，這表明海獺擁有極為快速的決策能力和感覺處理能力，考慮到它們的生活方式以及需要快速覓食的情況，這點就可以說得通了。」
The full details—and a cute photo of Selka—are in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
這項研究的完整細節以及塞爾卡的萌照刊登在《實驗生物學》期刊上。
For the record, humans can feel the difference too, but it takes us 30 times longer. Which might make sense. After all, we evolved in environments where touch was less important in a hunt than were sight and sound.
其實，人類也可以感覺到這種差異，只不過我們所需的時間是海獺的30倍。這可能也是合理的。畢竟，在我們所處的進化環境中，狩獵時觸覺不如視覺和聽覺重要。
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
謝謝大家收聽科學美國人——60秒科學。我是克里斯多福·因塔利亞塔。
英國人的一天！
每日一詞：挖牆腳
「挖牆腳」本意是指將牆的下半部挖掉，以至牆的整體失衡而倒塌。比喻「從根本上搞破壞（undermine the foundation），使對手不能成功（prevent the success of an enemy）」，為貶義詞。
現如今，「挖牆腳」一般指「從競爭對手處挖取相關人才」，英文可以翻譯為「poach talents （from）」，有時也有「搶走他人的對象（steal one’s girlfriend/boyfriend）」的意思。
例句：
你抽走了所有的資金，這是在挖我們公司的牆角。
You are hurting the fundamentals of our company by withdrawing all the funds.
由於銀行相互之間積極挖牆腳，薪酬水平迅速上升。
Salaries have risen fast, as banks become aggressive about poaching from each other.
Editor: Jade
1、本期每日一句，由編輯選優推薦。
2、本期每日一播，取自影視宣傳資源。
3、本期每日一聞，取自Scientific American — 60-Second Science.
4、本期每日一詞，取自紐約時報中文網.
本文僅供學習交流參考，未用作商業用途。如對本公眾號發布的文章存有異議，歡迎留言告知，編輯將在24小時內回復處理。
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