【英语语言学习】为什么有的人会超重

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Many young scientists are having a difficult time getting their careers going, and the reason is often funding - a lack of it. The National Institutes of Health agrees this is a problem, so it established the New Innovator¹ Award. It gives exceptional young scientists a boost. This year's recipients² were announced today, and as part of his series Joe's Big Idea, NPR's Joe Palca introduces us to one of the winners.

JOE PALCA, BYLINE³: Monica Dus says the way she got into science is fairly typical, but in some ways it's a bit different.

MONICA DUS: I was one of those kids that loved bugs⁴. And I would just go around with my grandpa, and he would catch bugs for me because I'm a little squeamish. And then I just put them in, like, little jars and plastic bags.

And then once I got my microscope, I would take off their legs. But I also really loved Barbies and dolls, and so I would do the same. I would take off the Barbie hair and look on the microscope at that.

PALCA: Monica Dus grew up in Italy and moved to the United States for college and grad school. She was initially⁵ interested in fruit fly genetics, but one day there was an incident with her two Bichon Frise dogs. It seems Cupcake and Sprinkles got into a large bag of dog treats, something Dus noticed immediately when she got home.

DUS: And I couldn't believe that these two tiny, 15-pounds animal had huge bellies⁷ for three days and that they couldn't stop themself from eating.

PALCA: So she turned her research to using fruit flies to help understand what controls eating. Recently I visited her lab at the University of Michigan. The first thing she did was introduce me to her lab members.

ANOMID VASIDI: My name is Anomid Vasidi.

OLGA GRUSHKO: I'm Olga Grushko (ph).

JENNA CLEM: I'm Jenna Clem.

CALEB VOGT: I'm Caleb Vogt.

CHRISTINA MAY: I'm Christina May.

PALCA: The lab reflects Dus's commitments to helping⁸ foreign students and women get a start in research. Dus focusing on how the brain controls what we eat. She's using a variety of scientific disciplines to do that. For example, in one lab, Christina May is working with Dus to study individual cells in a fruit fly's brain.

MAY: I stimulated⁹ my fly mouth with sugar, and I recorded from this part of the brain.

PALCA: Across the hall, Jenna Clem takes a very different approach. She's working with Dus to study the genes¹⁰ in the brain that control eating.

CLEM: This is an incredibly complex system, and there is no one factor in other words.

PALCA: So it's not going to have a simply genetic⁶ explanation.

CLEM: Right. That's correct. That's correct.

PALCA: The lab has a working hypothesis. Dus believes a diet high in sugar actually changes the brain, so it no longer does a good job of knowing how many calories its owner is taking in. She thinks that might help explain why some people become obese¹¹.

DUS: Perhaps it has nothing to do with will and a lot of do with biochemistry.

PALCA: Just like scientists in the last century showed there was a link between smoking and lung cancer, Dus thinks she can find a link between an early exposure to a diet high in sugar and obesity¹².

DUS: So that we can stop talking about really shaming people about the willpower and focusing on the biochemistry and the public health.

PALCA: If she can do that, she says...

DUS: I will be a very happy person (laughter).

PALCA: She now has five years of funding from the National Institutes of Health to try. Joe Palca, NPR News.

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