空氣汙染有害健康,但科學家表示,我們對長期的影響仍不甚了解。因此,加拿大和荷蘭的研究人員決定在城市工業環境中收集遺傳信息,方法則是觀察小鼠的精子。他們在《美國科學院院刊》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)上發表了這項研究。
在加拿大安大略省漢密爾頓市的兩個鋼鐵廠和一條主要高速公路附近,研究人員放置了裝有成年雄性小鼠的籠子,部分小鼠呼吸著滿是顆粒物的空氣,而對照組的小鼠則呼吸著純淨的過濾空氣。十周後,研究人員對兩組小鼠進行了檢查。暴露在受汙染空氣中的小鼠,精子突變率提高了60%,這些突變發生在……[查看全文]
Sperm Subject To Attack--By Pollution
Air pollution is bad for our health, but scientists say we don’t know much about the long-term effects. So researchers in Canada and the Netherlands decided to gather genetic information in an urban industrial environment—by looking at mouse sperm. They published the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists placed cages of mature male mice near two steel mills and a major highway in the city of Hamilton, in Ontario, Canada. Some of the mice breathed in the ambient, particulate-filled air. The control mice breathed pure, filtered air. After ten weeks, researchers checked the two groups. The mice exposed to the polluted air had a 60 percent higher rate of sperm mutation. It occurred...[full transcript]