本文選自《經濟學人》1月16日刊文章。微觀世界奧妙無窮,再小的細菌都是一個宇宙,充滿無限智慧,有眾多無解之謎。最新發現,噬菌體也會搭乘一些細菌的便車,來找到另一些細菌,並攻擊它們,來實現自身生存。病毒和細菌之間的這種夥伴關係是否可能用於醫療目的,還需要進行進一步研究,但它為有效利用噬菌體為人類服務,找到了一種途徑。
由於篇幅較長,本文節選全文重點段落進行精講,譯文僅供參考。如需閱讀英文全文,請掃描文末二維碼,加我微信,查看朋友圈,或加入《365天精選外刊精讀》課程,每天和我們一起精讀外刊,課程介紹見文末。
選文精講
Viruses hitch lifts on some bacteria, the better to kill others病毒會搭上一些細菌的便車,從而更好地殺死另一些細菌A hitchhiker’s guide to the microverseNOWADAYS, PATHOGENIC bacteria are generally dealt with using antibiotics. But some researchers argue that bactericidal viruses called bacteriophages should be added to the armory. One reason they have not found favour so far is that they are hard to deliver to their targets. However, Yu Pingfeng at Rice University in Texas and Zhu Liang at Zhejiang University in China may have found a way around that. As they report in Environmental Science and Technology, they have discovered that some phages can hitch lifts with certain bacterial species that they do not attack, to bring them to places rich in those that they do.pathogenic bacteria:致病菌、病原菌如今,病原菌一般都用抗生素來應對。但是一些研究人員認為,一種叫做噬菌體的殺菌病毒應該被列入抵抗病原菌的武器庫中。但到目前為止,他們還沒有得到支持,原因之一是他們很難實現自己的目標。然而,德克薩斯州萊斯大學的於平峰和中國浙江大學的朱亮可能已經找到了一種解決辦法。正如他們在《環境科學與技術》雜誌上報導的那樣,他們發現一些噬菌體可以搭乘它們不攻擊的某些細菌的便車,通過這些細菌把這些噬菌體帶到富含它們所攻擊的細菌種類的地方。As is often the way with intriguing findings, Dr Yu and Dr Zhu made this discovery by chance. They were studying microbe communities in treatment plants for waste water, and noticed that phages in these miniature ecosystems sometimes attached themselves to species of bacteria equipped with flagella. These are rotating, helical appendages which act as propellers, so flagellate bacteria are more mobile than those lacking such equipment. To the two researchers, the behaviour of the phages looked a lot like hitchhiking, so they conducted some experiments to find out what was happening.正如很多有趣的發現經常會發生的那樣,於博士和朱博士的這一發現純屬偶然。他們在研究汙水處理廠中的微生物群落時,注意到這些微型生態系統中的噬菌體有時會附著在帶有鞭毛的細菌上,它們是旋轉的螺旋狀附器,起著推進器的作用,所以帶鞭毛的細菌比那些沒有這種配置的細菌更容易移動。對這兩位研究人員來說,噬菌體的行為看起來很像搭便車,因此他們進行了一些實驗來弄清發生了什麼。1. 每天一篇精選最新外刊文章的英文原文(主要選自《經濟學人》雜誌)
2. 課程筆記講義(PDF格式),包括
全文中文譯文
詞彙、短語解析
長難句解析
文章導讀
重點講解高頻詞彙、熟詞生義、優秀表達等
3. 全文逐句詳細講解視頻
4. 微信學習群,用於答疑解惑、學習交流
5. 不定期分享優質英文外刊文章,作為泛讀材料
課程費用:
3個月:149元;6個月269元;一年449元
報課方式:
掃描下方二維碼,加我微信(madandan2020),直接轉帳即可
愛我,請給我「在看」
用英語看世界