字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Nicotine-Chomping Bacteria Could Help Smokers Quit
別怕尼古丁——細菌可以幫助吸菸者戒菸!

托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

​​​​​​​ 建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍(不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，是單字沒背過，還是單字發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

​​​​​​​ MP3音檔：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voa…/2015/20150825sa_health.mp3

​​​​​​​ 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

​​​​​​​ 中英文稿：
Quitting smoking is tough—so tough that only about 5 percent of smokers who try to quit in a given year actually succeed. Medications can double those odds—which still leaves a high failure rate. And a promising vaccine, meant to arouse an immune response to nicotine, could not beat a placebo in clinical trials. But researchers haven't given up on a vaccine yet. Instead of revving up the immune system, though, they've come up with a new idea: why not use an enzyme to break down nicotine—before it gives you a buzz?
戒菸真的很難——以至於實際上每年只有5%的吸菸者成功戒菸。藥物治療可以讓這一數字翻倍——但是戒菸的失敗率仍然很高。目前有一項有希望成功的疫苗，其 目的是激發人體對尼古丁的免疫力，雖然這種疫苗尚不能在臨床試驗中擊敗安慰劑，但是研究人員還在繼續研發此款疫苗。這款疫苗沒有採用刺激免疫系統的方法， 而是研發人員提出了新的想法：為什麼不使用酶來分解尼古丁——在尼古丁讓你著迷之前?

"For almost 50 years there's been reports of bacteria that can actually use nicotine to thrive on." Kim Janda, a chemist and immunologist at The Scripps Research Institute. "The bacteria uses nicotine as its sole source of carbon and nitrogen."
「近50年來，一直有關於細菌依靠尼古丁生長的報導。」吉姆‧讓達，一位斯克里普斯研究所的化學免疫學家說道。「這種細菌使用尼古丁作為唯一的碳、氮來源。」

It does the trick with a nicotine-chomping enzyme. So Janda and his colleagues added the enzyme to mouse serum, doped with a cigarette's worth of nicotine.
細菌就是利用了一種能消化尼古丁的一種酶。所以讓達和他的同事們在老鼠的血清裡添加了這種酶，同時也注射了約有一支菸含量的尼古丁。

The enzyme was stable at human body temperature—and was able to cut the half-life of nicotine from a couple hours to less than 15 minutes—that is, it greatly accelerated nicotine's disappearance. The study is in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
該種酶在體溫條件下很穩定——能夠將尼古丁的壽命從幾小時縮減到15分鐘以內——也就是說，它大大地加快了尼古丁的分解速率。該研究成果發表在《美國化學會》雜誌上。

But Janda says the enzyme isn't ready for prime time yet. It's bacterial—so "you're going to get an immune response, immune surveillance from it." And right now, the other important half-life, that of the enzyme in serum, is only 3 days. So it won't stick around long enough to be an effective vaccine. "A month would be great, a week or two would also be reasonable." While the researchers work out the kinks, smokers will have to rely on the tried-and-true methods of quitting: counseling, medication or good old cold turkey.
但是讓達說，目前這種酶還沒到使用的最佳時間。這種酶是細菌體內的——所以「首先要獲得這種細菌免疫，監控這種酶。」並且現在，這種酶在血清中，其壽命減 半，只能存活3天時間。所以它不會保持較長時間的活性，而產生出有效的疫苗。「活性保持一個月最好了，但是保持一、兩週也是可以接受的。」當研究人員還在 努力解決這一難題時，吸菸者們只能依賴這種久經考驗的方法：諮詢，採取藥物治療或是突然停止抽菸這種收效不錯的老辦法。