【英语语言学习】狗狗们的鼻子

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

 

Conservationists around the world are using a new tool in the field. It can navigate¹ difficult terrain² and detect the faintest chemical signals. It's also pretty good at a spontaneous game of catch. Turns out dogs are better at sniffing³ out wildlife than any human or machine. NPR's Adam Cole reports.

 

ADAM COLE, BYLINE⁴: I met Dave Vesely for the first time in the middle of a soggy field. It was winter and it was Oregon, so of course it was raining.

 

DAVE VESELY: We've never been out here working in the rain before.

 

COLE: Vesely's here with a co-worker named Knife.

 

VESELY: He doesn't bark once we work.

 

COLE: Knife is an 11 month old Belgian sheepdog, jet black from nose to tail. He's here to learn. Not how to sit or stay, but how to find turtle nests. Western pond turtles are Oregon natives, but they're slowing disappearing as humans chip away at their habitat and foxes and raccoons gobble up their eggs. Vesely and his colleagues at the Oregon Wildlife Institute want to place small cages over the turtle nests to protect them from predators⁵, but there's just one problem.

 

VESELY: Finding these turtles nests is really, really difficult to do it by eye.

 

COLE: After laying her eggs in a small hole, the mother turtle needs to gather dirt, brush and her own urine to plug the opening. Once the mud dries, it's almost impossible to see.

 

VESELY: And after just hours and hours of walking across fields looking for nests, it just occurred to me, you know, I've got a dog at home that could probably do this better than I can.

 

COLE: A few years ago, Vesely started training his dogs to zero on in a turtle's scent⁶. Here in the grass field, he's hidden several cotton swabs. Some of them carry a few drops of water from a turtle aquarium⁷, others have tap water. Vesely's newest recruit, Knife, has to find the scented⁸ swabs. I watch from the sidelines with Vesely's human co-worker, Jennifer Gervais and we have to squint⁹ against the rain and rising wind.

 

JENNIFER GERVAIS: Oh, a tree just fell down. Dog's going: Great big stick, I'm gonna go check it out.

 

COLE: But Vesely calls Knife back and the dog becomes more businesslike, weaving back and forth¹⁰. He's searching for a scent bloom.

 

GERVAIS: If you've seen tobacco smoke drift on a breeze and how it curls and twists, and then imagine tracing that back to its source with your nose.

 

COLE: After a few minutes of frantic¹¹ sniffing, Knife plops down on the ground.

 

GERVAIS: He's got something. Yes. So Dave's gonna play with him for a few minutes and let him know he's been a really good boy.

 

COLE: Around the world, dogs like Knife are helping¹² conservationists track rare, endangered and invasive species. Their ability seems miraculous¹³ to us. Humans certainly couldn't find a few drops of water a turtle has touched in the middle of an Oregon rainstorm. But animal cognition expert Alexandra Horowitz says for dogs this kind of thing is no big deal.

 

ALEXANDRA HOROWITZ: The dog just has hundreds of millions more receptors lining¹⁴ the pathways of their nose than we do, and that probably means they have exponentially more ability to detect odors.

 

COLE: Horowitz studies dog cognition at Barnard College and she's collected some mind-boggling examples of canine¹⁵ olfaction.

 

HOROWITZ: So you have an Olympic size swimming pool full of water and then you have an identical pool full of water to which you add a teaspoon¹⁶ of sugar. They can detect the difference. That smells different to them.

 

COLE: The part of the dog's brain that processes this smell information is proportionally bigger than the part of our brain that processes sight. Horowitz says we humans tend to think of smells in binary¹⁷ - good or bad.

 

HOROWITZ: But for dogs, I think they really just are information.

 

COLE: Biologist Megan Parker has spent her career trying to get at that scent information. She says dogs are much more willing to share than other species with super noses.

 

MEGAN PARKER: Bears have a great sense of smell, but it would be really difficult to find a bear who wants to tell you consistently what it knows.

 

COLE: When Parker was a PhD student, she spent a lot of her time looking for African dog poop so she could collect DNA¹⁸ samples. The poop was really hard to find and Parker felt the sense of frustration¹⁹ that conservation biologists know well.

 

PARKER: The thing that they're looking for is the needle in the haystack or the needle on the moon.

 

COLE: Parker wondered if she could train her dog to help her find that needle, so she called up some people with experience training detection dogs: the police.

 

PARKER: And I'd say, hey, I'm a biologist and want to train my dog to find poop, and they would be - they would laugh.

 

COLE: Eventually, Parker did find someone willing to help her train her dog, and in 2000 she and a few like-minded biologists started Working Dogs for Conservation. Their dogs have teamed up with scientists around the world to find cheetah²⁰ scat in Zambia, giant tortoises in Nevada, and an invasive snail²¹ in Hawaii.

 

And when Oregon biologist Dave Vesely was looking for scientifically rigorous ways to train his dogs for field work, he turned to the organization for guidance. I stopped by another one of Vesely's training sessions, this time under clear skies.

 

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Good morning.

 

COLE: But his dog, Knife, wasn't there.

 

It turns out not every dog has the right personality for detection work.

 

VESELY: Knife had a lot of really early success and it's like right now he is just in the throes of his adolescent hormones²².

 

COLE: Detection dogs need an incredible amount of drive and focus. Today, Vesely's brought along Sharpie, another young Belgian sheepdog.

 

VESELY: Sharpie's the B team. You know, I think she's going to work out really well.

 

COLE: He gives Sharpie a quick reminder²³ whiff, turtle eggs shells he keeps in a jar.

 

VESELY: Search.

 

COLE: Sharpie weaves across the field, tail wagging, searching back and forth until suddenly she plops down in the grass.

 

VESELY: Good girl. Nice one for a beginner dog. Let's go find one more. That's good. Search.

 

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

 

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Singing) I'm a dog, I'm a working dog, I'm a hard working dog...

 

COLE: Adam Cole, NPR News.

1 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

2 terrain   

n.地面，地形，地图

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• He knows the terrain of this locality like the back of his hand.他对这一带的地形了如指掌。

3 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 predators   

n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 )；奴役他人者（尤指在财务或性关系方面）

参考例句：

• birds and their earthbound predators 鸟和地面上捕食它们的动物
• The eyes of predators are highly sensitive to the slightest movement. 捕食性动物的眼睛能感觉到最细小的动静。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

7 aquarium   

n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸

参考例句：

• The first time I saw seals was in an aquarium.我第一次看见海豹是在水族馆里。
• I'm going to the aquarium with my parents this Sunday.这个星期天，我要和父母一起到水族馆去。

8 scented   

adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词)

参考例句：

• I let my lungs fill with the scented air. 我呼吸着芬芳的空气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police dog scented about till he found the trail. 警犬嗅来嗅去，终于找到了踪迹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 squint   

v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的

参考例句：

• A squint can sometimes be corrected by an eyepatch. 斜视有时候可以通过戴眼罩来纠正。
• The sun was shinning straight in her eyes which made her squint. 太阳直射着她的眼睛,使她眯起了眼睛。

10 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

11 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

12 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

13 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

14 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

15 canine   

adj.犬的，犬科的

参考例句：

• The fox is a canine animal.狐狸是犬科动物。
• Herbivorous animals have very small canine teeth,or none.食草动物的犬牙很小或者没有。

16 teaspoon   

n.茶匙

参考例句：

• Add one teaspoon of sugar.加一小茶匙糖。
• I need a teaspoon to stir my tea.我需要一把茶匙搅一搅茶。

17 binary   

adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星

参考例句：

• Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
• Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试，把这个数本身变成二进制数。

18 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

19 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

20 cheetah   

n.(动物)猎豹

参考例句：

• The cheetah is generally credited as the world's fastest animal.猎豹被公认是世界上跑得最快的动物。
• The distribution of the cheetah ranges from Africa to Central Asia.印度豹的足迹遍及从非洲到中亚的广大地区。

21 snail   

n.蜗牛

参考例句：

• Snail is a small plant-eating creature with a soft body.蜗牛是一种软体草食动物。
• Time moved at a snail's pace before the holidays.放假前的时间过得很慢。

22 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

23 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。