原文標(biāo)題：
Malaria
Slumbering?swarms
A mystery about malarial mosquitoes’dry-season survival is solved
瘧疾
沉睡成群
瘧疾蚊子在旱季的生存之謎被解開(kāi)了
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The mosquitoes hide, and enter a state of torpor
原來(lái)蚊子躲起來(lái)進(jìn)入了休眠

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THE MOSQUITOES that transmit malaria in Africa have short and merry lives.
在非洲傳播瘧疾的蚊子擁有短暫且快樂(lè)的一生。
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Six or seven weeks is as much as their adults can manage.
它們成年后，最多能活六到七周。
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To maintain their populations they must lay eggs in water, in which their larvae then grow and pupate.
為了維持它們的種群數(shù)量，它們必須在水中產(chǎn)卵，然后它們的幼蟲(chóng)在水中生長(zhǎng)和化蛹。
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This means such mozzies fly all year round in wet places, but in those that experience?pronounced?dry seasons, they?vanish.
這意味著這種蚊子全年都在潮濕的地方飛行，但在那些經(jīng)歷明顯旱季的地方，它們就會(huì)消失。
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In theory, malarial mosquitoes should die out entirely during dry spells that go on for months, for their eggs are insufficiently?drought-resistant to last that long.
理論上，攜帶瘧疾的蚊子應(yīng)該在持續(xù)數(shù)月的干旱期間完全滅絕，因?yàn)樗鼈兊穆褯](méi)有足夠的抗旱性，無(wú)法持續(xù)那么長(zhǎng)時(shí)間。
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Nevertheless, days after rains return, so too do the mosquitoes.
事實(shí)并非如此，雨后幾天，帶有瘧疾的蚊子又回來(lái)了。
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This state of affairs, known as the “dry-season malaria paradox”, has confused mosquito researchers for decades.
這種被稱為“旱季瘧疾悖論”的情況困擾了蚊子研究人員幾十年。
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Some entomologists?propose that these early insects are long-distance migrants from places where standing water remains for them to breed in.
一些昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)家提出，這些早期的蚊子是長(zhǎng)途遷徙而來(lái)的，它們是從有水可供繁殖的地方遷徙過(guò)來(lái)的。
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But a report in Nature Ecology and Evolution?by Roy Faiman of the National Institutes of Health, in Maryland, and Alpha Yaro at the Malaria Research and Training Centre, in Mali, suggests they are actually locals that have endured the dry season by aestivating—the hot-weather equivalent of hibernating.
但是，馬里蘭州國(guó)立衛(wèi)生研究院的羅伊·費(fèi)曼和馬里瘧疾研究和培訓(xùn)中心的阿爾法·亞羅發(fā)表在《自然生態(tài)學(xué)和進(jìn)化》上的一份報(bào)告表明，這些蚊子實(shí)際上是土著，它們通過(guò)夏眠來(lái)度過(guò)旱季，一遇到炎熱的天氣就休眠。
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As with hibernation, aestivation means an animal enters a state of torpor, devoting its energies merely to surviving tough conditions rather than being up, about, and, well, animated.
和冬眠一樣，夏眠意味著動(dòng)物進(jìn)入一種麻木狀態(tài)，把精力僅僅用于在惡劣的環(huán)境中生存，而不是站起來(lái)，四處走動(dòng)，活躍起來(lái)。
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Entomologists sceptical of the migration theory have speculated that mosquitoes use this trick to survive in places with prolonged dry seasons—for example the Sahel, a band of semi-desert that stretches across Africa just south of the Sahara, traversing Mali as it does so.
對(duì)遷徙理論持懷疑態(tài)度的昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)家推測(cè)，蚊子利用這種方法在旱季較長(zhǎng)的地方生存。例如橫跨馬里的薩赫勒地區(qū)就是如此。薩赫勒地區(qū)是撒哈拉以南橫跨非洲的半沙漠地帶。
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But evidence has been elusive.
但一直難以找到證據(jù)。
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This is not because of a lack of interest in tracking mosquitoes through the seasons.
這并不是因?yàn)槿藗冊(cè)诤导緦?duì)追蹤蚊子沒(méi)興趣。
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Quite the contrary.?Their role as carriers of one of the world’s most deadly diseases means there is a lot of curiosity about the matter.
恰恰相反，它們作為世界上最致命疾病之一的攜帶者，人們對(duì)它們充滿了好奇。
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What has been lacking is a suitable tool to investigate.
只不過(guò)目前缺乏一種合適的調(diào)查工具。
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Mosquitoes are tiny.
蚊子是微小的。
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Following them any distance by eye is impossible, and, unlike larger animals, they cannot be fitted with radio collars or similar tracking devices.
用肉眼追蹤它們是不可能的，而且與大型動(dòng)物不同，它們無(wú)法安裝無(wú)線電項(xiàng)圈或類似的追蹤裝置。
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Instead, Dr Faiman and Dr Yaro borrowed an idea from ornithology.
取而代之的是，費(fèi)曼博士和亞羅博士借用了鳥(niǎo)類學(xué)的一個(gè)辦法。
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If you want to be able to find out in the future whether you have seen a particular bird before, one way is to mark it with a ring.
如果你想在將來(lái)知道你是否見(jiàn)過(guò)某只鳥(niǎo)，可以用戒指標(biāo)記它的方法。
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You cannot literally ring a mosquito, of course, any more than you can collar it.
當(dāng)然，你不能給蚊子戴上戒指，就像你不能給它戴上項(xiàng)圈一樣。
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But the two researchers came up with an alternative?marker: deuterium.
但兩位研究人員提出了另一種標(biāo)記:氘。
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Deuterium is a heavy but non-radioactive?isotope?of hydrogen. (It has a neutron?in its nucleus as well as the hydrogen-defining singleton proton.)

氘是一種重氫，是氫的同位素，無(wú)放射性。(它的原子核中有一個(gè)中子，還有一個(gè)定義氫的單態(tài)質(zhì)子。)
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Like ordinary hydrogen, deuterium can react with oxygen to yield water, known in this case as “heavy” water.
像普通的氫一樣，氘可以與氧反應(yīng)生成水，在這種情況下被稱為“重水”。
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Natural water does contain a small proportion of the heavy variety, but water enriched with the stuff is distinctive?and detectable.
自然界的水中確實(shí)含有一小部分重質(zhì)的種類，但是富含這種物質(zhì)的水是獨(dú)特的，可以被檢測(cè)到。
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During the final weeks of the wet season (which lasts from May to October), Dr Faiman and Dr Yaro therefore poured heavy water at intervals into 27 mosquito breeding sites in two Malian villages.
因此，在雨季的最后幾周（從5月持續(xù)到10月），費(fèi)曼博士和亞羅博士每隔一段時(shí)間就向馬里兩個(gè)村莊的27個(gè)蚊子繁殖點(diǎn)注入重水。
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They made sure, in particular, that they topped up?each site every time it rained, to stop the heavy water getting too diluted.
他們特別確保，每次下雨時(shí)都要給每個(gè)繁殖點(diǎn)加重水，以防止其被過(guò)度稀釋。
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They also checked that mosquitoes from these sites were, indeed, deuterium rich, and that those from comparable control sites were not.
他們還檢查了來(lái)自這些繁殖點(diǎn)的蚊子確實(shí)富含氘，而來(lái)自類似對(duì)照地點(diǎn)的蚊子則沒(méi)有。
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Sampled at random in the villages, a third of the insects were, by the end of the procedure, deuterium-positive.
在村莊中隨機(jī)取樣，三分之一的昆蟲(chóng)在檢查結(jié)束時(shí)，氘呈陽(yáng)性。
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Then they waited.
然后就陷入了等待。
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At the end of the wet season, the breeding sites duly dried up.
雨季結(jié)束時(shí)，這些繁殖點(diǎn)迅速干涸。
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They waited some more.
他們需要等待更長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間。
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In May, the rains returned, and so did the mosquitoes. And, lo, a fifth of them were full of deuterium. They had, in other words, been aestivating.
5月，雨水和蚊子如期而至。你瞧，其中有五分之一的蚊子是被氘標(biāo)記過(guò)的。換句話說(shuō)，它們一直在休眠。
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The next step is therefore to find out just where the insects were holing up while the rains were gone.
因此，下一步就是要找出旱季蚊子的藏身之處。
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If these shelters?can be identified, they can be attacked.

如果這些藏身之處能被識(shí)別出來(lái)，人們就可以將其搗毀。

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Alternatively, special efforts might be made to ambush?the aestivators as they wake up, by extensive insecticide-spraying campaigns at the beginning of the rainy season.
或者，人們可以在它們夏眠醒來(lái)之時(shí)采取特別措施伏擊它們，即在雨季開(kāi)始時(shí)大規(guī)模噴灑殺蟲(chóng)劑。
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Either or both of these could put a significant dent in local mosquito populations—which would, in turn, make malaria less of a problem.
這兩種方法中的一種或兩種都能顯著減少當(dāng)?shù)匚米拥臄?shù)量。反過(guò)來(lái)，這意味著瘧疾不再是一個(gè)問(wèn)題。
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（恭喜讀完，本篇英語(yǔ)詞匯量700左右）
原文出自：2022年10月14日《TE》Science&technology版塊。

精讀筆記來(lái)源于：自由英語(yǔ)之路

本文翻譯整理: Maree

本文編輯校對(duì): Irene
僅供個(gè)人英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補(bǔ)充資料】（來(lái)自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）

Malaria（瘧疾）是由瘧原蟲(chóng)屬寄生蟲(chóng)所致。受感染雌性按蚊通過(guò)叮咬將寄生蟲(chóng)傳給人類。共有五種寄生蟲(chóng)會(huì)導(dǎo)致人類瘧疾，其中惡性瘧原蟲(chóng)和間日瘧原蟲(chóng)危害最大。惡性瘧原蟲(chóng)是最致命的瘧疾寄生蟲(chóng)，在非洲大陸上最流行。間日瘧原蟲(chóng)是撒哈拉以南非洲之外大部分國(guó)家的主要瘧疾寄生蟲(chóng)。瘧疾最初的癥狀（發(fā)熱、頭痛和寒戰(zhàn)）通常會(huì)在受感染蚊蟲(chóng)叮咬10-15天后顯現(xiàn)。癥狀可能較輕，難以發(fā)現(xiàn)是瘧疾。如果不予以治療，惡性瘧原蟲(chóng)瘧疾可能在24小時(shí)內(nèi)發(fā)展成嚴(yán)重疾病，甚至死亡。2020年，世界將近有一半人口面臨瘧疾風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。一些人群感染瘧疾并發(fā)展為嚴(yán)重疾病的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)比其他人群高得多。高風(fēng)險(xiǎn)人群包括嬰兒、五歲以下兒童、孕婦和艾滋病毒感染者/艾滋病患者，以及搬到存在瘧疾密集流行地區(qū)的無(wú)免疫力的農(nóng)民工、流動(dòng)人口和旅行者。
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薩赫勒（Sahil，意為“邊緣”）是非洲北部撒哈拉沙漠和中部蘇丹草原地區(qū)之間的一條長(zhǎng)超過(guò)3,800千米的地帶，從西部大西洋伸延到東部非洲之角，橫跨塞內(nèi)加爾、毛里塔尼亞、馬里、布基納法索、尼日爾、尼日利亞、乍得、蘇丹共和國(guó)，南蘇丹共和國(guó)和厄立特里亞10個(gè)國(guó)家。
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【重點(diǎn)句子】（3 個(gè)）
This means such mozzies fly all year round in wet places, but in those that experience pronounced dry seasons, they vanish.
這意味著這種蚊子全年都在潮濕的地方飛行，但在那些經(jīng)歷明顯旱季的地方，它們就會(huì)消失。
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As with hibernation, aestivation means an animal enters a state of torpor, devoting its energies merely to surviving tough conditions rather than being up, about, and, well, animated.
和冬眠一樣，夏眠意味著動(dòng)物進(jìn)入一種麻木狀態(tài)，把精力僅僅用于在惡劣的環(huán)境中生存，而不是站起來(lái)，四處走動(dòng)，活躍起來(lái)。
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Either or both of these could put a significant dent in local mosquito populations—which would, in turn, make malaria less of a problem.
這兩種方法中的一種或兩種都能顯著減少當(dāng)?shù)匚米拥臄?shù)量。反過(guò)來(lái)，這意味著瘧疾不再是一個(gè)問(wèn)題。