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(单词翻译)
Last week, tens of thousands of gallons of sewage gushed1 into urban streams in Baltimore, because of leaky pipes and flooding rains. And when that happens, it's not just organic matter and microbes that get flushed into aquatic2 habitats. It's drug residues3, too: caffeine, antihistamines4, headache drugs... even amphetamines and heroin5.
Researchers actually detected all those drugs a few years ago, in a survey of urban and suburban6 streams in Baltimore. And they wanted to see what effect illegal drugs, like amphetamines, might have on aquatic ecosystems7. So they built artificial streams in the lab, stocked with insects and real creek8 rocks—slippery ones with biofilms of algae9 and bacteria growing on them. Then they doped half the streams with amphetamine residues—similar to the concentrations found in real urban streams.
After three weeks, the mix of microbial life in the amphetamine-laced streams changed significantly, compared to the untainted waters. And insects like midges emerged earlier than usual—suggesting that drug residues might be able to alter food webs underwater, and on land, too. The results appear in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. [Sylvia S. Lee et al., Occurrence and Potential Biological Effects of Amphetamine on Stream Communities]
Previous studies have shown that even treated sewage has lots of drug residues in it—because most wastewater treatment plants weren't built to filter out pharmaceuticals10. One solution, the researchers say, is more up-to-date wastewater infrastructure11. Think of it as preventive medicine…for the nation's aquatic life.
—Christopher Intagliata
1 gushed | |
v.喷,涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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2 aquatic | |
adj.水生的,水栖的 | |
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3 residues | |
n.剩余,余渣( residue的名词复数 );剩余财产;剩数 | |
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4 antihistamines | |
n.抗组织胺药( antihistamine的名词复数 ) | |
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5 heroin | |
n.海洛因 | |
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6 suburban | |
adj.城郊的,在郊区的 | |
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7 ecosystems | |
n.生态系统( ecosystem的名词复数 ) | |
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8 creek | |
n.小溪,小河,小湾 | |
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9 algae | |
n.水藻,海藻 | |
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10 pharmaceuticals | |
n.医药品;药物( pharmaceutical的名词复数 ) | |
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11 infrastructure | |
n.下部构造,下部组织,基础结构,基础设施 | |
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