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科学美国人60秒 SSS 吃白食的火蚁有助于工作流程

时间:2019-09-29 02:41:06

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(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Daniel Ackerman.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是丹尼尔·阿克曼。

Freeloaders. They just sit around while their hard-working colleagues get things done. But might freeloaders actually be necessary for society to function efficiently1? The answer could be yes—at least when it comes to fire ants and their efforts to dig nests underground.

吃白食者。就是指那些在勤奋的同事完成工作时自己却无所事事坐着的人。但是吃白食者对社会有效运转来说真的是必不可少的吗?答案可能是肯定的,至少就火蚁及其挖地下巢穴的努力来说是如此。

"Fire ants are quite common in Georgia and in fact most of the bottom third of the U.S., having come here in the '30s from South America."

“火蚁在乔治亚州和美国南方三分之一领土的大部分地区非常常见,它们在上世纪30年代从南美来到美国。”

Daniel Goldman, a physicist2 at Georgia Tech. Fire ants are highly social organisms. So, Goldman and his colleagues wanted to know how individual ants knew what to do without a central leader issuing orders.

乔治亚理工大学的物理学家丹尼尔·古德曼说到。火蚁是高度社会化有机体。因此,古德曼及其同事想知道,在核心领导没有下令的情况下,火蚁个体是如何知道应该做什么的。

To find out, Goldman's team labeled individual fire ants with paint and then watched them dig their slender tunnels—barely wide enough for two workers. Turns out, just 30 percent of the ants did 70 percent of the labor3. "I was surprised that we ended up with so few workers actually doing the work at any one time."

为了找到答案,古德曼团队用颜料对火蚁个体进行了标注,然后观察它们挖掘宽度仅够两只火蚁通过的细长隧道。结果发现,30%的火蚁干了70%的活。“最后的结果是,无论任何时候都只有极少的火蚁在工作,这令我非常惊讶。”

A quarter of the ants never even entered the tunnel. Others crawled inside, but left without excavating4 a single grain of dirt. These idling and retreating behaviors ensured the crowded tunnels did not get clogged5 with insect traffic, which would grind the construction process to a halt.

四分之一的火蚁甚至根本未进过隧道。其余火蚁倒是爬进了隧道,但是它们连一粒土都没挖就出来了。这些袖手旁观和后退式的行为确保了拥挤的隧道不会被火蚁堵住,堵塞会导致施工过程陷入停顿。

And when the scientists removed the five hardest-working ants from the colony, others immediately jumped in to compensate—with no reduction in the group's productivity. Seems that it doesn't matter which ants are working or freeloading at a given time, as long as there is some division of labor to keep the tunnels flowing smoothly6. The findings are the journal Science.

当科学家将工作最勤奋的5只火蚁从蚁群中移走时,其它火蚁会马上补位并投入工作——集体生产力没有丝毫损耗。看起来在特定时间内,哪些火蚁在工作或在不劳而获并不重要,只要劳动分工能确保隧道畅通即可。这项研究发表在《科学》期刊上。

Goldman's team also modelled the ants' nest-building on computers. And the most efficient excavation7 happened in the simulations where the electronic ants behaved similarly to their live counterparts.

古德曼的团队还在计算机上模拟了火蚁的筑巢过程。而在模拟实验中,当电子火蚁与现实中的火蚁行为相似时,挖掘效率达到最高值。

The study could have implications for robotics. Imagine groups of robots sent to search rubble8 for disaster survivors9. Or nanobots coursing through our bodies to diagnose illness and deliver targeted medical treatment. Such robot swarms10 will need to avoid getting jammed up in tight spaces. It might be necessary to program them so some just sit back and watch their comrades do the work.

这项研究可能会对机器人技术产生影响。想象一下,几组机器人被派去搜寻废墟之下的灾难幸存者。或者是纳米机器人进入我们的身体诊断疾病,并进行有针对性的治疗。这种机器人群需要避免被堵塞在狭小的空间里。也许有必要为它们编写程序,以便让一些机器人坐着休息,看着其他同事干活。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Daniel Ackerman.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是丹尼尔·阿克曼。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 efficiently ZuTzXQ     
adv.高效率地,有能力地
参考例句:
  • The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
  • Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。
2 physicist oNqx4     
n.物理学家,研究物理学的人
参考例句:
  • He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
  • The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。
3 labor P9Tzs     
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦
参考例句:
  • We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
  • He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后,他已经疲惫不堪了。
4 excavating 5d793b033d109ef3f1f026bd95b1d9f5     
v.挖掘( excavate的现在分词 );开凿;挖出;发掘
参考例句:
  • A bulldozer was employed for excavating the foundations of the building. 推土机用来给楼房挖地基。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • A new Danish expedition is again excavating the site in annual summer digs. 一支新的丹麦探险队又在那个遗址上进行一年一度的夏季挖掘。 来自辞典例句
5 clogged 0927b23da82f60cf3d3f2864c1fbc146     
(使)阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 ); 淤滞
参考例句:
  • The narrow streets were clogged with traffic. 狭窄的街道上交通堵塞。
  • The intake of gasoline was stopped by a clogged fuel line. 汽油的注入由于管道阻塞而停止了。
6 smoothly iiUzLG     
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地
参考例句:
  • The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作,所以工作进展顺利。
  • Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。
7 excavation RiKzY     
n.挖掘,发掘;被挖掘之地
参考例句:
  • The bad weather has hung up the work of excavation.天气不好耽误了挖掘工作。
  • The excavation exposed some ancient ruins.这次挖掘暴露出一些古遗迹。
8 rubble 8XjxP     
n.(一堆)碎石,瓦砾
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后,花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
  • After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。
9 survivors 02ddbdca4c6dba0b46d9d823ed2b4b62     
幸存者,残存者,生还者( survivor的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
  • survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者
10 swarms 73349eba464af74f8ce6c65b07a6114c     
蜂群,一大群( swarm的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • They came to town in swarms. 他们蜂拥来到城里。
  • On June the first there were swarms of children playing in the park. 6月1日那一天,这个公园里有一群群的孩子玩耍。

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