国家地理:Attack of the Killer Bees 杀人蜂（在线收听） |
| Costa Rica, 1986. 30 years after Doctor Cur's fateful African trip, graduate students from the University of Miami are on a field trip exploring caves. Moving ahead of the group, 24-year-old Inn-Saing Ooi climbs into a deep crevasse. He's not alone. As he sweeps his flashlight around the interior of the cave, he startles a huge hive of Killer Bees. And these guys don't like surprises. They quickly retaliate. Stingers pierce his flesh, injecting venom into his bloodstream. As the bees try to fly away, their stingers are ripped from their abdomen. Defending the hive means certain death. But even without the bee, the stinger keeps pumping venom for as long as a minute. Inn-Saing Ooi quickly slides into a life-threatening condition known as anaphylactic shock. Like all victims, just how quickly depends on the dose of venom and his own sensitivity. Blood pressure plummets to a dangerously low level, his airways constrict. Inn-Saing Ooi's heart rate slows dramatically. In most cases, a shot of adrenalin will jump-start the heart, elevating his blood pressure, saving his life. But in an extreme case like this one, there is simply too much toxin for his immune system to handle. Tissue and body functions break down. His kidneys fail. Inn-Saing Ooi has nowhere to run, each sting sending out a chemical signal to the rest of the hive to keep up the assault. The young student suffers cardiac arrest and dies. He was stung over 8 thousand times, nearly 8 times the number of stings required to kill a man his size. Tragedies like this have earned these creatures the nickname---- Killer Bees. Despite its fearsome reputation, the killer bee is just a honeybee, a hard-working honeybee that produces some of the sweetest nectar in the world, but a honeybee that will sting its victim 10 times more frequently than its more docile cousin, and it will defend an area nearly 3 times as large. So just how do you tell these bees apart? It turns out you can't. They look almost exactly the same. Even the sting of the Africanized bee is virtually identical to an ordinary bee. It's just the number of Killer Bees who join the fight that makes their attacks so dangerous. New Words: field trip: (n.) A group excursion for the purpose of firsthand observation, as to a museum, the woods, or a historic place. 旅行考察 crevasse: (n.) A deep fissure, as in a glacier; a chasm. 裂隙 anaphylactic shock: (n.) A sudden, severe allergic reaction characterized by a sharp drop in blood pressure, urticaria, and breathing difficulties that is caused by the injection of a foreign substance, such as a drug or bee venom, into the body after a preliminary or sensitizing injection. The reaction may be fatal if emergency treatment, including the administration of epinephrine injections, is not given immediately. 过敏性休克 adrenalin: (n.) [生化]肾上腺素 cardiac arrest: (n.) Sudden cessation of heartbeat and cardiac function, resulting in the loss of effective circulation. 心搏停止 nectar: (n.) A sweet liquid secreted by flowers of various plants, consumed by pollinators, such as hummingbirds and insects, and gathered by bees for making honey. 花蜜 Africanize: (v.) To make African, as in culture. 非洲化 |
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