VOA慢速英语2019 研究人员研究蜘蛛丝以制造新材料（在线收听）

Researchers Study Spiders’ Silks to Make New Materials

Cheryl Hayashi began examining the body of a silver garden spider under her microscope.

谢丽尔·林开始在显微镜下研究一只银色园蛛的身体。

Using two sets of tweezers, she soon found what she was looking for: hundreds of silk glands, the organs spiders use to make their webs.

借助两套镊子的帮助，她很快发现了她寻找的东西：数百个丝腺体，这是蜘蛛用来织网的器官。

Each gland lets a spider produce a different type of silk.

每个丝腺体会帮助蜘蛛产生一种不同的丝。

“They [spiders] make so many kinds of silk!” Hayashi said. “That’s just what boggles my mind.”

林表示：“蜘蛛能产生好多种丝！而这就是困惑我的问题。”

Hayashi’s lab at the American Museum of Natural History is studying the genes behind each kind of silk. She has collected spider silk glands of about 50 species.

林就职的实验室隶属于美国自然历史博物馆，该实验室正在研究每种丝背后的基因。她收集了约50个物种的蜘蛛丝腺。

The goal is to make a kind of “silk library,” she said. The library could become an important information resource for designing new products from space equipment to clothing.

她说，目标是建造一个“蜘蛛丝图书馆”。这一图书馆可能成为重要的信息来源，用于设计涵盖从太空设备到服装等各个领域的新产品。

However, the library’s work is far from complete. There are more than 48,000 spider species known worldwide.

然而，图书馆的工作远未完成。目前全球已知的蜘蛛物种超过4.8万种。

Spider silks all start out in the same way: as a wet and sticky substance. It is like rubber cement or thick honey, as Hayashi describes it. Spiders make the substance and store it in a gland until they want to make silk.

蜘蛛丝的起源都是一样的：一种又湿又黏的物质。根据林的描述，这种物质类似于橡胶胶水或黏稠的蜂蜜。蜘蛛在丝腺中产生并储存这种物质，直到其想制造蜘蛛丝。

Then, a short tube called a spigot opens. As the substance flows out, it changes into a solid silk strand that joins with other strands coming from other spigots.

之后，短短的吐丝管开启。随着黏性物质的流出，其会变成一条结实的丝线，并与其它吐丝管中流出的丝线交织在一起。

Nobody knows how many kinds of spider silks exist. But, some species can produce many kinds. Orb-weaving spiders, for example, make seven kinds.

没有人知道世上存在多少种蜘蛛丝。但是，有些蜘蛛物种可以产生许多种蜘蛛丝。比如，圆网蜘蛛能产生7种蜘蛛丝。

Hayashi has been studying spider silk for about 20 years. Only recently has improved technology let scientists quickly study the genetic material, or DNA, of spiders and produce synthetic spider silk in large amounts.

林研究蜘蛛丝已有20年的时间。直到最近，改进的技术才让科学家得以迅速研究蜘蛛的遗传物质或DNA，并大量生产人造蜘蛛丝。

Until recently, scientists had to first cut the glands’ DNA into pieces. They then used a computer to try to put the DNA back in order, like a jigsaw puzzle. The task is especially difficult for the DNA of spiders because their genes are very long and repetitive.

直到最近，科学家们还不得不先将丝腺的DNA切成碎片。然后用电脑像拼图一样将DNA重新按序排好。就蜘蛛的DNA而言，这项任务尤其困难，因为蜘蛛的基因非常长，而且具有重复性。

That is the problem Sarah Stellwagen from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County faced. She was studying genes, and DNA, related to spider silk. She thought she could do it quickly, but it took almost two years.

这是美国马里兰大学巴尔的摩分校的莎拉·施特尔瓦根面临的问题。她曾研究与蜘蛛丝有关的基因和DNA。她本以为她能很快完成研究，但实际上她花费了近两年的时间。

Scientists have to recover the full gene to truly copy natural silk, she said. If they try to produce silk from only part of a gene or something produced in a laboratory, “it’s not as good as what a spider makes,” Stellwagen said.

她说，科学家必须还原完整的基因才能真正地模仿天然蛛丝。施特尔瓦根表示，如果他们尝试仅用一个基因的一部分或实验室制造的某种不完全版本来制造人造蜘蛛丝，“那就无法像蜘蛛产的丝那样好”。

It was only last year that a research group was able to make a small amount of silk that perfectly matched the kind of silk that an orb-weaving spider dangles from. But that was only one kind of silk from one species.

直到去年，一个研究小组才得以制造出少量与圆网蜘蛛吐出的丝完全吻合的人造蜘蛛丝。但这只是一种蜘蛛产生的一种蜘蛛丝。

Hayashi asked: “What about the other 48,000?”

林问道：“那其他4.8万种呢？”

As technology has improved, researchers can now map genes much better without first chopping them up. And companies have gotten closer to successfully recreating spider silks.

随着技术的进步，现在研究人员可以在不用先将基因切碎的情况下更好地了解基因。多家公司已经离成功重现蜘蛛丝越来越近。

Now, the task remains to discover the secrets of the thousands of other spider silks out there, which is not easy.

现在的任务依然是：探索其他数千种蜘蛛丝的秘密，而这项任务并不容易。

“But hey, you know, we all have goals,” Hayashi said.

林说：“但是，嘿，我们都有目标。”

Words in This Story

tweezer – n. a small tool that is made of two narrow pieces of metal which are joined at one end and that is used to hold, move, or pull very small objects

boggle – v. to make (the mind) unable to think clearly : to amaze or overwhelm (the mind)

species –n. a group of animals or plants that are similar and can reproduce

synthetic – adj. made by combining different substances : not natural

repetitive – adj. happening again and again : repeated many times

dangle –v. to hang down loosely in a way that makes it possible to swing freely