新奇事件簿 研究称睫毛防止眼睛干燥（在线收听）

Scientists have come up with answers to the age-old question of why eyelashes are the length they are. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a variety of tests on the lashes of 22 different mammals. One was to create a special wind tunnel and an artificial eye to provide mathematical models of how the wind blew over lashes. The conclusion of head researcher David Hu is that the function of eyelashes is to help protect the eyes from drying out and that the optimal eyelash length for this to happen is one-third as long as the eye is wide. Professor Hu found that across a wide variety of mammals, the ratio of eyelash length and eye width was consistently one-third.

关于睫毛为什么是现在这种长度这个古老的问题，科学家提出了答案。佐治亚理工学院对22种不同哺乳动物的睫毛进行了一系列不同的测试。其中一项测试是创造特别的风洞和假眼，创建一个数学模型，假设风吹动睫毛的情况。首席研究人员David Hu得出结论，眼睫毛的功能是防止眼球干燥，睫毛的最佳长度是眼睛宽度的三分之一。Hu教授发现，在各种哺乳动物中，眼睫毛的长度和眼睛宽度基本上都是三分之一。

Dr Hu started his investigation after the birth of his newborn daughter. He wondered why his baby kept on batting her eyelids. He told the International Business Times that: "Eyelashes that rim the eyes in mammals have been a mystery for a long time as to what their function was. There were a lot of hypotheses, from dust catchers to triggering the blink reflex….What we did was the first aerodynamic study of eyelashes. We showed using three independent means that eyelashes reduce evaporation of the eye by 70 per cent, and they reduce the deposits of small airborne particles." A colleague said Hu had a talent for, "looking at what everybody has looked at, and seeing what nobody has seen."

Hu教授在他的女儿出生后开始进行这项研究。他想知道他的宝宝为什么一直眨眼睑。他告诉《国际商业时报》：“长期以来，眼睛边缘的眼睫毛的作用一直都是一个奥秘。有许多猜测，从防止灰尘到触发眨眼反应。我们做的是关于眼睑的首次空气动力学研究。我们展示了使用三种独立的方法，眼睑可以使眼睛内液体蒸发的速度降低70%，还可以减少空气传播的微小颗粒的累积。”一位同事表示，Hu有着这样的天赋，能够看到每个人正在看的，也能看任何人都没有看到的。