字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Gut Microbes Lessen Mice Malarial Malaise  小鼠腸道微生物減少瘧疾

洪欣老師推薦：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 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voa…/2016/20160309sa_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：
Malaria infection begins when a mosquito injects the Plasmodium parasite into the blood. But getting sick is not a certain outcome. "The vast majority of people really only develop either mild malaria or even asymptomatic infections." Nathan Schmidt, a cellular immunologist at the University of Louisville. "It's a very small subset of the hundreds of millions of cases that progress to severe malaria."
瘧疾是由於蚊子叮咬瘧原蟲。但是被這些蚊子叮咬過的人不一定會生病。“大部分人只會得輕度的瘧疾甚至沒有任何症狀。”路易斯維爾大學的細胞免疫學家南森•施密特，說到“只有極小的幾率會發展成為嚴重的瘧疾。”

Some of the variation in illness severity is genetic. Or whether the patient is partially immune, thanks to past exposures. But Schmidt and his colleagues have found another factor that could influence the disease: the host's microbiome.
有一些疾病的變異是遺傳。由於過去的疾病，一些病人會有部分的免疫力。但是施密特和同事們發現影響瘧疾的其他因素：宿主的微生物。

The first clue came during an experiment in lab mice: even though the mice were almost identical genetically, mice that had been bought from different vendors showed variability in their response to infection by the malaria parasite. Turns out, the mice had different microbiomes.
第一條線索來自於對老鼠所作的實驗：即使老鼠們基因基本相同，但這些來自不同商販的老鼠對瘧原蟲所引發的疾病反應不同。結果表明，這些老鼠體內含有不同的微生物。

So the researchers did more tests—they transplanted the gut bugs of both the resistant and the susceptible animals into other mice that had no gut bacteria. And again, mice that now had the resistant microbial mix were spared the worst of a malaria infection—possibly through some sort of 'booster effect' on their immune system thanks to the microbes. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
所以，研究人員進一步進行試驗——施密特和同事們將具有抵抗性和敏感動物的腸道細菌移入體內不含腸道細菌的老鼠體內。結果再次表明。具有混合細菌的老鼠不會發展為最嚴重的瘧疾疾病——可能是由於細菌的免疫系統的推動作用。該研究結果發表在《美國國家科學院院刊 》上。

As for optimizing our microbiomes? "I think that we're pretty far away from this having any kind of real therapeutic potential for humans." Yogurt alone, for example, did not much help the mice. But if and when we do find the right recipe for the anti-malarial microbiome, the researchers say, it could lessen the parasite's effects. And perhaps save thousands of lives.
優化微生物?我認為現在我們離人類真正的治療潛力還差很遠。例如，優酪乳就對這些小老鼠沒有太大的益處。但是如果我們發現抗瘧疾微生物的合適配方，研究人員表示，就會減少寄生蟲的影響。可能也會拯救千萬人的生命。