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2 音乐| 精读 | 翻译 | 词组 What’s the buzz? 嗡嗡声是什么？ 本文英文部分选自经济学人Science and Technology版块 What’s the buzz? 嗡嗡声是什么？（解读蜜蜂嗡嗡声） A new app listens to the problems of bees 一款新应用可以辨识蜜蜂的烦恼 Matching honeybee noises to their ailments 将蜜蜂的声音和它们的疾病关联起来 YOU might expect to hear an angry buzzing when honeybees have been disturbed. But some apiarists reckon they can also deduce the condition of their bees from the sounds they make. A steady hum could be the sign of a contented hive; a change in tone might indicate that the bees are about to swarm. That intuition is about to be put to the test. Soon, beekeepers will be able to try to find out what is troubling a colony by listening to the buzz using a smartphone app. 蜜蜂被打扰时，你可能以为会听见一阵愤怒的嗡嗡声。但是一些养蜂人表示他们也能根据蜜蜂发出的声音推断它们的状态。连续而平稳的嗡嗡声标志着一个惬意舒适的蜂窝。改变音调也许意味着蜜蜂正要成群飞出。这种直觉判断即将得到验证。不久，养蜂人就能通过手机应用听取蜂鸣声的方式，尝试找出困挠蜂群的问题。 注释： Hum: 英 [hʌm] 美 [hʌm] 发出连续而低沉的声音;发嗡嗡声 If something hums, it makes a low continuous noise. ● The birds sang, the bees hummed... 鸟儿叫，蜂儿鸣。 ● Within five hours, the equipment will be humming away again... 用不了5小时，设备就又能嗡嗡地运转了。摘自《牛津高阶英汉双解词典》 The app, which is in the final stages of testing, has been developed by Jerry Bromenshenk and a group of fellow bee experts at the University of Montana. It uses a form of artificial intelligence to analyse the sound that bees are making in order to deduce whether they are suffering from a number of maladies. 这款应用程序由杰里布罗梅什克(Jerry Bromenshenk)和一群蒙大拿大学的蜜蜂专家开发，目前正处于测试的最后阶段。它运用人工智能分析蜜蜂制造的蜂鸣以判断它们是否被疾病困恼。 Those afflictions might provide an indication of an impending Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a mysterious syndrome that has plagued beekeepers in North America and Europe. Unlike a natural swarm, in which a large group of worker bees leave with their queen to form a new colony, CCD involves bees suddenly disappearing for no obvious reason, leaving their queen behind. Although recent reports suggest there has been a reduction in bee die-offs, according to some estimates 10m hives in America alone were wiped out by CCD from 2006 to 2013. Besides hitting honey production, this can also hinder the pollination of certain crops. 这些疾病可能表明即将出现蜂群崩溃综合征（Colony Collapse Disorder，CCD）-一种困扰北美和欧洲养蜂人的神秘综合征。 与天然蜂群不同，一大群工蜂带着蜂后离开，组成一个新的蜂群；CCD导致大批工蜂突然无故消失，，蜂巢里只留下孤零零的蜂后。 尽管最近有报道表明蜜蜂的死亡率降低，但据估计，2006年至2013年间，仅美国就有1000万蜂巢因CCD而消失。CCD除了影响了蜂蜜产量外，也会阻碍某些农作物的授粉。 注释： 1.Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD: 蜂群衰竭失调，又称为蜂群崩溃综合症，是一个近代发现而至今不明的自然现象，导致大批蜂巢内的工蜂突然消失。CCD于2006年末出现于北美的蜜蜂群。 从1971年至2006年，美国野生蜜蜂的数目大幅减少（至今差不多完全消失），而养殖场的蜂群数量亦不断减少。减少的原因包括有郊区城市化、杀虫剂、虫害以及蜜蜂养殖场的减少。然而，2006年末至2007年初，蜂群的减少幅度突然增快，致使学者使用“蜂群崩坏综合症”一名以表述蜂群大幅减少的不正常现象。 2008年冬，蜂群衰竭失调(CCD)导致美国失去近36%的商业蜂箱。这种综合症使蜂群里的工蜂突然死去，只剩下孤零零的蜂王在蜂箱里做垂死挣扎。蜂群衰竭失调已经传播到包括法国、比利时、意大利、葡萄牙和西班牙在内的几个欧洲国家。人们已经提出几种有可能导致这种疾病的因素，其中包括全球出现的瓦螨、某些杀虫剂、以色列急性麻痹病毒(APV)、气候变化和手机盛行等，但是至今没有一种因素被证实是杀死工蜂的罪魁祸首。目前也没找到拯救工蜂的方法，随着不断有新国家报道出现这种现象，蜂群衰竭失调很有可能会在全球爆发，最终导致蜜蜂灭亡。 2.wipe out : ① (informal) to fall over,especially when you are doing a sport such as SKING or SURFING（尤指做滑雪或冲浪等体育运动时）跌倒，翻跌下来； ② (informal) wipe sb out , to make sb extremely tired使疲惫不堪： All that travelling has wiped her out. 一路舟车劳顿让她疲惫不堪。 ③ wipe sb/sth out [ofen passive] to destroy or remove sb/sth completely 彻底消灭，全部摧毁； Whole villages were wiped out by the earthquake. 地震把整座整座的村庄夷为平地。 a campaign to wipe out malaria 消灭疟疾的行动 摘自《牛津高阶英汉双解词典》 The development of the app has an unusual back story. The idea came from one of the many bee projects which Dr Bromenshenk and his colleagues are involved in. This work involves training bees to hunt for landmines. Landmines leak traces of explosive chemicals into the ground and the air. These tiny emissions can be detected by well-trained sniffer dogs. Since dogs can be heavy enough to detonate mines, some instead use rats that have been trained to do the same thing. 这款应用的开发背后还有一个不同寻常的故事。 这款应用的灵感源于一项训练蜜蜂搜寻地雷的项目。这个项目是Bromenshenk博士和他的同事参与的众多蜜蜂项目中的一项。地雷中的爆炸性化学物会有少量泄漏到地面和空气中。训练有素的嗅探犬也能探测出这些微量的化学排放物。 但是狗体积较大，易引爆地雷，因此有些人则使用经过训练的老鼠扫雷。 Explosive reaction 爆炸反应 Training dogs and rats to find mines is slow and expensive. However, the Montana researchers reckon they can train bees to find mines in only a few hours. They do this by spiking a syrup feed with a small sample of explosive chemicals. The bees then associate the scent of the chemicals with food. This influences them to fly towards and around any source of the chemicals when foraging for nectar. As there could be some 20,000 bees flying, some means of tracking them is required. To do that, the researchers use lidar, a form of radar, which they tune to the frequency of the bees’ wing beats. This way an electronic map can be built up showing where the bees fly to, and thus where any landmines might be. In tests with the American army, the researchers found bees were more than 97% accurate in locating landmines. 训练狗和老鼠探测地雷成本高昂又效率低下。不过，蒙大拿州的研究人员认为他们可以训练蜜蜂在几小时内探测到地雷。他们给蜜蜂喂食含有少量爆炸性化学物质的糖浆。这些蜜蜂就会将化学物质的气味同食物联系起来。它们在搜寻花蜜的时候就会飞向这类化学物质。因为可能会有大概20,000只蜜蜂在飞行，就需要一些追踪它们的方法。对此，研究人员使用一种激光雷达，可以调整到蜜蜂翅膀振动的频率。通过这种方式，可以建立一个电子地图，展示蜜蜂飞到哪里，确定地雷的大概位置。在美国军队的测试中，研究人员发现蜜蜂定位地雷的准确性超过97%。 This work is ongoing, but it has also led to other research. The academics came to realize that if minehunting bees are to be deployed successfully by soldiers or civilian contractors, then the operators would need to have good beekeeping skills. Such skills, of course, can be taught but it would take a long time for novices to acquire the knowledge of an experienced beekeeper, let alone be in tune with the many ailments that bees are susceptible to. This led in turn to the idea of developing a machine that could, like a seasoned beekeeper, listen to the buzz of bees to help determine their health. 这一工作还在继续，还引发了其他一系列的研究。学者开始意识到如果士兵或民间承包商想成功地使用扫雷蜜蜂，操作人员需要具备良好的养蜂技术。当然，这些技术能够通过培训获得，但是对于新手而言，需要花很长的时间学习才能成为经验丰富的养蜂人，更别说掌握那些蜜蜂易感的疾病了。由此引出新的想法，开发一种机器，它就像一位经验丰富的养蜂人，可以倾听蜜蜂的嗡嗡声，帮助确认它们的健康问题。 For such an idea to work, it is necessary to attribute specific bee ailments to particular sounds. To do that, the university tapped into its worldwide network of beekeepers to find colonies that were known to suffer from only one problem, and to obtain sound recordings of bees in those colonies. The sounds that bees make come from their beating wings (although movements by other parts of their bodies may also be involved). Having built up a database of sounds, an artificial neural network, a form of machine learning used for pattern recognition, was employed to help build algorithms that can match bee sounds to those associated with certain hive problems. 要实现这一想法，需要将蜜蜂的病症同相应的声音关联起来。为此，蒙大拿大学利用其全球养蜂人人际网络，找出只患有某种疾病的蜂群，并对这些蜜蜂进行录音。蜜蜂发出的声音来自于翅膀的震动（虽然他们移动身体其他部位也会发出声音）。随着声音数据库的建立，一种有助于改进算法的人工神经网络（一种用于模式识别的机器学习方式）正用于将蜜蜂发出的声音与相关疾病对应起来。 Rather than produce a stand-alone device, the group developed a system which could be used on a smartphone. The resulting app, which is called Bee Health Guru, is being produced by Bee Alert Technology, a company spun out from the university. 研究小组并没有开发独立设备，而是研发了一款用于智能手机的系统。这款名为蜜蜂健康导师（Bee Health Guru）的应用程序由蜜蜂预警技术公司(Bee Alert Technology)开发, 这是一家从蒙大拿大学独立出来的公司。 To check on the health of a colony of bees it is usually necessary to open the hive, a procedure which involves using smoke to pacify the bees. That is a time-consuming process for commercial beekeeping operations, some of which may have several thousand colonies to take care of. With the app, all a beekeeper need do is to hold their smartphone near to the hive’s entrance for 30 seconds while it analyses the sound of the bees. The app then lists any health problems which it detects. 为了查看蜂群的健康情况，我们通常是要打开蜂房，这个过程中会用烟雾来安抚蜜蜂。对于商业蜜蜂养殖户来说，这会耗费大量时间，有些养殖户可能要照顾几千只蜜蜂。有了这款应用，蜜蜂养殖户只要将手机靠近蜂房入口处30秒，手机就会分析蜜蜂发出的声音，列出检测到的一些健康问题。 Seven different disorders will at first be checked, says David Firth, a team member who is helping to bring the app to market. These include the presence of hive beetle, a serious honeybee pest, parasitic mites and “foulbrood”, a bacterial infection which can destroy bee colonies. 一位致力于推广该应用于市场的成员戴维·菲斯（David Firth）称，首先他们会检测7种不同的症状，包括是否有蜂巢甲虫，一种厉害的蜜蜂害虫；寄生螨是否存在；污仔病是否存在（可以消灭蜂群的一种细菌感染）。 The results might also point to early signs of CCD, which is now regarded as being caused by a combination of problems rather than one particular disease. In a 2010 paper in PLoS One, Dr Bromenshenk and his colleagues found that a bee virus and a fungus from a species known as Nosema were often prevalent in collapsed honeybee colonies, and that it was likely the two working together were more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone. 从检测结果中也可能发现蜂群崩溃综合征的早期症状。现在，人们更相信这种综合征是由多种问题而非某一种特定的疾病引起。2010年，Bromenshenk博士和他的同事在影响因子（PLoS One）上发表了一篇论文，在论文中指出，崩溃的蜂群中经常会流行一种蜜蜂病毒和微孢子虫（Nosema）的真菌，而且，比起单打独斗，这两种病原体的联合很可能对蜂群更致命。 注释： 1. PLOS One : 影响因子 (stylized PLOS ONE, and formerly PLoS ONE) is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS) since 2006. The journal covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine. The Public Library of Science began in 2000 with an online petition initiative by Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus, formerly director of the National Institutes of Health and at that time director of Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center; Patrick O. Brown, a biochemist at Stanford University; and Michael Eisen, a computational biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. All submissions go through a pre-publication review by a member of the board of academic editors, who can elect to seek an opinion from an external reviewer. According to the journal, papers are not to be excluded on the basis of lack of perceived importance or adherence to a scientific field. In January 2010, the journal was included in the Journal Citation Reports and received its first impact factor of 4.411. PLOS One papers are published under the Creative Commons licenses. Link: https://en./wiki/PLOS_One 2. nosema 英 ['nəʊsi:mə] 美 ['noʊsimə] n. （疾）病; Nosema [医]小孢子虫属：一种细胞内的原生动物属〔小孢子虫目(Microsporida)，无泛孢母亚目(Apansporoblastina)〕，寄生于无脊椎动物类，主要为昆虫的病原体。 With the permission of users, data from the app can be shared with the researchers, who plan thereby to update the software to detect other diseases and problems, says Dr Firth. This could include exposure to pesticides, in particular a group called neonicotinoids which are suspected of harming honeybees (pesticide producers reject such claims). Finally, if all works to plan, bees will get to have their say about the things that cause them harm. 菲斯博士称，用户许可后，研究人员可以分享该应用中的数据，据此更新软件以检测其他疾病、问题。检测范围会涵盖杀虫剂，特别是被怀疑危害蜜蜂的新烟碱类杀虫剂（杀虫剂制造商拒不承认这项指控）。最后，如果一切工作都依计划进行，蜜蜂也能对伤害它们的事物发表看法了。 注释： 1.Neonicotinoids 新烟碱，又称类尼古丁，是一种和尼古丁相关的神经活性杀虫剂的总称。近年来不断有研究发现，新烟碱类杀虫剂可能“误伤”到蜜蜂等授粉类昆虫，德国专家还发现，这类杀虫剂会减少蜂王浆中的乙酰胆碱，从而妨碍幼蜂发育。 链接：http://www.sohu.com/a/169572812_170973 https://www.cnbeta.com/articles/science/627303.htm 2.have your say (informal) to have the opportunity to express yourself fully about sth 有机会充分发表意见 She won't be happy until she's had her say.她要把话都说出来才舒畅。 翻译组： Li Xia, 女， HR, 经济学人发烧友 Frank，男，小硕，经济学人爱好者 Yifei：女，英专硕士，专八，catti二笔 Jane，女，卫生民工，经济学人爱好者 Minjia，女，广告策划，经济学人读者 Helga，女，笔译民工，经济学人爱好者 校核组： Xingyi，男，小硕，经济学人爱好者 Vambie，女，互联网民工，经济学人爱好者 3 观点 |评论|思考 本次观点为Xingyi独家奉献 Xingyi，男，小硕，经济学人爱好者 This essay reminds me of two controversial linguistic issues: Animals’ communication system and Natural language processing To begin with, I dun know whether you have ever felt curious about animals’ language, how they start a conversation with their counterparts? How they educate their next generation? Is there any accent or dialect among animals who live in different regions? Take dogs for example, let’s imagine a scenario with full of exotic feeling and hilarious plots. when a husky meet a shiba—a Russian creature encounter a Japanese creature , why they two can communicate with each other no language barrier? Moreover, even you settled down in another city where it is airplane-distance far from your old house with your husky, he may even bark a whole night to respond his neighboring dog friend. You may has no idea of what he is talking, at least, you know he was in fun of it. When it comes to animals’ language, it has been a controversial issue for many years among linguists and biologists. Obviously dogs have no lingua franca, but most of scholars tend to believe that animals communicate with a help of a simple information system. For instance, When a dog makes a constant and low sound, this sound may indicate several purposes, like threatening, declaring or annoying etc. the decipherable ability may come with nature, like human beings’ cry. Once a baby is crying, we know he is feeling uncomfortable, but we cannot be sure of whether he is crying for the hunger of the hurt, baby know crying by nature, we decipher it with a natural reaction. As for the application mentioned by the essay, which may have a lot commons with the natural language processing(NLP) technology, an innovative technology based on artificial intelligence and data analysis can be used on translating, also, a new branch of linguistic study. In the past, linguists mainly focus on elements, structure，linguistic ecology of language and the connection between two languages, After Chomsky camp up his own theory, his thesis dominates the mainstream of linguistic study. However, now things may go differently. NLP, like the way scientists used on bee sound research, is opening a new way to analyze language, they borrowed a lot from theoretical linguistic study to improve their algorithm but try to do more. Since they can skip some parts of linguistic parts and use data analytic technologies to redesign the language structure, in which theory, the deciphering of machine is more important that deciphering by human. Overall, from the science prospective, I always believe that we belong to a lucky generation who can enjoy various innovations our last generation cannot imagine. Like language area, it won’t take much time for us to witness many breakthroughs on language realm. 4 愿景 小组 小编理工男，建筑底层民工，经济学人铁粉，和小伙伴(经济学人小群不超过8个人）看经济学人到现在已经将近700多天。现有一经济学人大群,如果您也有兴趣，可加入我们学习小组，群规甚严，请三思后而入群，WeChat : foxwulihua |
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