科技动态:用鼻子驾驭轮椅,发电邮（在线收听）

Dr. Anton Plotkin shows off technology he says could help quadriplegic stay mobile. The wheelchair is controlled by Anton's nostrils and lungs. As he breathes in and out, his motorized chair moves in any direction he chooses.

Anton Plotkin向我们展示了这项可以让瘫痪病人自由移动的新技术。可以想象吗，这辆轮椅受控于Anton的鼻子和肺。每当他吸气呼气，他就能自由控制轮椅去往不同的方向。

The technology was developed in Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. Using chips similar to those designed to deliver oxygen to patients, the system measures changes in nasal pressure. That pressure generates electrical signals which are passed to a computer via a USB connection. With a simple sniff, patients can move a cursor and tell the computer what they want to do.

这项技术由以色列的魏茨曼科学研究所发明。原理相当于自动输氧机，系统探测鼻内的压力，并根据压力大小来生成电子信号通过USB接口输入电脑。如此，病人通过吸气就能移动光标，以告诉计算机他们要做什么。

Professor Noam Sobel is among the team of researchers behind the sniff controlled wheelchair.

Noam Sobel教授是鼻控轮椅研究小组的一员。

"You can sniff in or out, or look at sniff onset or offset. And you have analog information because you can sniff either with more vigor or with less vigor, or for longer or shorter duration. Now, give me digital analog information I can fly a plane. I can do anything. So, from that the path is short to building a device that uses sniffs to write text, uses sniffs to drive a wheelchair, uses sniffs to do whatever you want."

“你可以通过呼吸来控制轮椅，你可以通过启动或暂停呼吸，吸气的强弱，吸气呼气的长短来控制轮椅。现在只要有鼻子传回的信号，你都可以用鼻子开飞机，或者做任何事。因此，用鼻子可做的事情就多了，也更简单了，比如用鼻子写短信，用鼻子遥控轮椅，或者用鼻子做任何事。”

The technology is also being used to help stroke patients and others with severe disabilities like locked-in syndrome to communicate. The breath controlled device uses predictive text methods and has helped many paralyzed people write and send email after years of communication limbo. Scientists say that the technology could be a breath of fresh air for patients.

这项技术同样应用于帮助中风病人和其他不能自理的病人，如植物人。这种呼吸控制系统使用智能文本输入法，这一系统已经帮助了许多孤立的瘫痪病人写并发送电子邮件。科学家们称这项技术很可能给重症病人带来福音。

"The key aspect of this whole story is that, we found that the ability to control the device is very highly conserved in a very severe disability. So people who are very severely injured, who are the locked-in, quadriplegic or really in a state where they can actually control nothing can still control this device. So it provides an opening for potential attraction with the world which is quite critical in this situation.”

“这项技术的关键就在于，即使是十分重症的残疾病人也能轻松控制它。因此，不管是重伤的病人，还是瘫痪，不能动的病人或是其他什么都不能做的病人都能使用这一系统。它向世界上所有有困难的人们展示了一项潜在的解决方案。”

So far, the device has been tested on more than a dozen people at the institute. But researchers want to make the technology more readily available, so that more patients could have the opportunity to express themselves.

目前，这项技术在实验室已成功实验了几十人。但技术人员还在降低成本，以使得更多的病人能够应用到这项技术，走出残败身体的牢笼。

quadriplegic n. adj. 四肢瘫痪

nasal a. 鼻的

locked-in syndrome is a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes.

limbo n. 地狱