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科学美国人60秒 SSS Pesticide Additive Could Be One Culprit in Bee Deaths

时间:2017-03-06 07:03:10

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Springtime is flower season. And that includes some 90 million almond trees in California. It's the largest pollination1 event in the U.S.—and beekeepers truck in two thirds of the nation's captive honeybees to do the job. But for the last decade or so, the keepers have complained about failing colonies, with underdeveloped bees ejected from their hives. 

Now a study identifies one possible culprits. Not a pesticide2, but one of the many ingredients used alongside them. "So these are added into a formulation to enhance the efficacy of the active ingredients." Julia Fine, an entomologist at Penn State. "It's just called "other ingredients" and they often are the bulk of the formulated3 product." 

The chemical in question is known as an organosilicone surfactant. Fine and her colleagues fed the chemical to honeybee larvae4 over time, and exposed them to a cocktail5 of common beehive viruses. And they found that larvae exposed to the chemical and the viruses together appeared to die in greater numbers than did bees exposed to the viruses or the chemical alone—a possible synergistic effect. And the symptoms they saw mirrored the ones beekeepers observed in their hives. The study is in the journal Scientific Reports. [Julia D. Fine et al., An Inert6 Pesticide Adjuvant Synergizes Viral Pathogenicity and Mortality in Honey Bee Larvae]

Fine and her team still have to determine how much of these chemicals actually make it into the bees' food. But they do know hundreds of thousands of pounds of them are used in almond orchards7 each year. And elsewhere. "Agriculture is just one use for organosilicone surfactants. It's all over the place. So if we can find it has any effect in an organism, it will be relevant."

—Christopher Intagliata


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1 pollination FOGxH     
n.授粉
参考例句:
  • The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
  • Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉,谷物的长势就会受阻。
2 pesticide OMlxV     
n.杀虫剂,农药
参考例句:
  • The pesticide was spread over the vegetable plot.菜田里撒上了农药。
  • This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields.这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。
3 formulated cfc86c2c7185ae3f93c4d8a44e3cea3c     
v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 );规划;确切地阐述;用公式表示
参考例句:
  • He claims that the writer never consciously formulated his own theoretical position. 他声称该作家从未有意识地阐明他自己的理论见解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • This idea can be formulated in two different ways. 这个意思可以有两种说法。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
4 larvae w2CxP     
n.幼虫
参考例句:
  • Larvae are parasitic on sheep.幼虫寄生在绵羊的身上。
  • The larvae prey upon small aphids.这种幼虫以小蚜虫为食。
5 cocktail Jw8zNt     
n.鸡尾酒;餐前开胃小吃;混合物
参考例句:
  • We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
  • At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上,人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。
6 inert JbXzh     
adj.无活动能力的,惰性的;迟钝的
参考例句:
  • Inert gas studies are providing valuable information about other planets,too.对惰性气体的研究,也提供了有关其它行星的有价值的资料。
  • Elemental nitrogen is a very unreactive and inert material.元素氮是一个十分不活跃的惰性物质。
7 orchards d6be15c5dabd9dea7702c7b892c9330e     
(通常指围起来的)果园( orchard的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园,把平地变成了粮仓。
  • Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

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