VOA标准英语2010年-Caterpillar Crawl Could Inspire New Ro

The gut¹ of the tobacco hawk² moth³ caterpillar⁴ used in the study moves forward independently of, and ahead of, the surrounding body and wall and legs.

By turning a powerful x-ray machine on a caterpillar, scientistists have discovered a novel way of  movement that could inspire new robotics to help humans.

The common tobacco hawkmoth caterpillar was studied at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

Collaborator⁵ Jake Socha, an assistant professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, says peering inside with a conventional x-ray simply doesn't work because the animals are soft, squishy and boneless creatures.

"What's special about these x-rays is they are almost like a laser light. And, what that allows you to do is to hone in directly on something that is really small, like the body of a caterpillar and to see details in there that you would not see with your doctor's office x-ray."

The slow moving caterpillar was positioned on a custom-made treadmill⁶.

On the move

Actually, it was a rubber band suspended between pulleys in the experiment room, explains team leader Michael Simon, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Tufts University.

"So all at the same time we have the caterpillar on the treadmill, which we have to control from the control room and we have the x-ray beam running through that and the visible light cameras so that we know what the caterpillar is doing," says Simon. "And it is by synchronizing⁷ all that information that we were able to determine what was going on inside the caterpillar."

 
Tufts University
Scientists take cues from caterpillars⁸ to design robots for medicine or for search and research operations.

What they saw, Simon says, looked like an open bag lined with muscle, with a simple digestive tube - or gut - running from head to rear. A finely branched network of air tubes supplying tissues with oxygen and venting⁹ carbon dioxide resembled waves of gently moving seaweed. 

"But as soon as the caterpillar started crawling, it was as if the tide came in and these great branch structures began to dramatically swing back and forth¹⁰ as the caterpillar crawled and it was immediately apparent that something was moving around very dramatically inside the body." 

Gut reaction

That "something" was the animal's gut. Simon says the strange thing about it was that it wasn't moving along with the body.

"The crawl would begin at the back of the animal and the gut would start moving forward immediately, even before the crawl wave had arrived at the middle of the animal. So we could predict the presence of a crawl wave in a couple seconds, based purely¹¹ on internal movements."

 
Tufts University
Study of soft tissues in caterpillars could lead to the re-examination of how soft tissues perform in humans.

This kind of two-bodied mechanical locomotion¹² system - where the gut slides independently from the surrounding tissues - has never before been observed by scientists. Simon says the novel biological system could be applied¹³ to the design of soft-material robots.

"Soft robots would have some of the advantages that caterpillars have, their incredible mobility¹⁴, their ability to squeeze their body into strange places, to enter weird¹⁵ contortions¹⁶, to be able to follow very complicated topologies." 

Human applications

A caterpillar-inspired robot could be used in various medical procedures or could wriggle¹⁷ into tight spaces to bring video cameras or even food and water to trapped survivors¹⁸ in the chaotic¹⁹ rubble²⁰ of buildings flattened²¹ by an earthquake.

Michael Simon says he hadn't expected to make any new discoveries about how caterpillars crawl. And he says he's amazed what still can be learned from these simple, commonplace creatures.

Simon and his colleagues' article on caterpillar locomotion appears in the August issue of the journal Current Biology.
 

1 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

2 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

3 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

4 caterpillar   

n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫

参考例句：

• A butterfly is produced by metamorphosis from a caterpillar.蝴蝶是由毛虫脱胎变成的。
• A caterpillar must pass through the cocoon stage to become a butterfly.毛毛虫必须经过茧的阶段才能变成蝴蝶。

5 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

6 treadmill   

n.踏车；单调的工作

参考例句：

• The treadmill has a heart rate monitor.跑步机上有个脉搏监视器。
• Drugs remove man from the treadmill of routine.药物可以使人摆脱日常单调的工作带来的疲劳。

7 synchronizing   

v.同步，整步adj.同步的

参考例句：

• How to monitoring synchronizing error, and using 80196KC to control exciter. 以及同步电动机失步检测及以80196KC进行控制的方法。 来自互联网
• A synchronizing labyrinth must be created at a special, predetermined place. 同步迷宫必须建立在一个特殊的，预先确定的地方。 来自互联网

8 caterpillars   

n.毛虫( caterpillar的名词复数 )；履带

参考例句：

• Caterpillars eat the young leaves of this plant. 毛毛虫吃这种植物的嫩叶。
• Caterpillars change into butterflies or moths. 毛虫能变成蝴蝶或蛾子。 来自辞典例句

9 venting   

消除； 泄去； 排去； 通风

参考例句：

• But, unexpectedly, he started venting his spleen on her. 哪知道，老头子说着说着绕到她身上来。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• So now he's venting his anger on me. 哦，我这才知道原来还是怄我的气。

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 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

12 locomotion   

n.运动，移动

参考例句：

• By land,air or sea,birds are masters of locomotion.无论是通过陆地，飞越空中还是穿过海洋，鸟应算是运动能手了。
• Food sources also elicit oriented locomotion and recognition behavior patterns in most insects.食物源也引诱大多数昆虫定向迁移和识别行为。

13 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

14 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

15 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

16 contortions   

n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Trimeris' compound, called T-20, blocks the final structural contortions from taking place. T-20是特里米瑞斯公司生产的化合物。它能阻止分子最终结构折叠的发生。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 癌症与艾滋病
• The guard was laughing at his contortions. 那个警卫看到他那难受劲儿感到好笑。 来自英汉文学

17 wriggle   

v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒

参考例句：

• I've got an appointment I can't wriggle out of.我有个推脱不掉的约会。
• Children wriggle themselves when they are bored.小孩子感到厌烦时就会扭动他们的身体。

18 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

19 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

20 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

21 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。