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(单词翻译)
When you’re looking for a table in a crowded cafeteria, you probably give wide berth1 to the family that sounds like it’s sharing a big dish of whooping2 cough. Well, not if you’re a house finch3, particularly a male. Because a study in the journal Biology Letters shows that male finches actually prefer feeding near males who are visibly ill.
Finches don’t get whooping cough. But they are susceptible4 to infection with something called Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a bug5 that leaves them lethargic6 and sporting a bad case of conjunctivitis, otherwise known as pinkeye. The disease is quite contagious7 and can be passed from one finch to another while dining beak8-to-beak. All the more reason, you’d think, for healthy birds to avoid sitting next to someone with crusty red peepers. Yet male house finches, when given a choice, opt9 to break breadcrumbs with males who are obviously under the weather.
Why risk catching10 a nasty infection when all you really want to catch is a quick bite? Because males infected with Mycoplasma tend to be less aggressive. So eating with the infirm means you’re more likely to wind up with seed in your beak than a beak in your eye.
——Karen Hopkin
1 berth | |
n.卧铺,停泊地,锚位;v.使停泊 | |
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2 whooping | |
发嗬嗬声的,发咳声的 | |
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3 finch | |
n.雀科鸣禽(如燕雀,金丝雀等) | |
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4 susceptible | |
adj.过敏的,敏感的;易动感情的,易受感动的 | |
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5 bug | |
n.虫子;故障;窃听器;vt.纠缠;装窃听器 | |
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6 lethargic | |
adj.昏睡的,懒洋洋的 | |
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7 contagious | |
adj.传染性的,有感染力的 | |
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8 beak | |
n.鸟嘴,茶壶嘴,钩形鼻 | |
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9 opt | |
vi.选择,决定做某事 | |
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10 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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