(单词翻译:单击)
If you're ever seriously hurt, you can probably go to a hospital and get help. But animals don't have doctors.
如果受伤了,我们可以去医院看医生 。但是动物们没有医生 。
If they're injured, wounds can get infected pretty quickly or mean impending doom.
如果动物们受伤了,伤口很快便会感染或意味着死亡即将来临 。
Except… that might not necessarily be true for one species of ant.
除了一种蚂蚁外 。
In a paper published this week, researchers from Germany have discovered that
在本周发表的一篇论文中,来自德国的研究人员们发现
the African Matabele ants tend to each other's open wounds after vicious battles with termites.
非洲马塔贝勒蚁会在与白蚁激烈战斗后帮助处理彼此的伤口 。
And they think it's the first time a behavior like this has ever been observed in insects.
研究人员认为这是首次在昆虫类中发现这种行为 。
Two to four times every day, Matabele ants hunt termites.
贝勒蚁会对白蚁进行每天两到四次的搜索 。
A scout ant finds a vulnerable nest of termites and then leads a raiding party back to it.
一只侦查蚁会找到白蚁巢穴中脆弱部位,然后将突击小组带到这里 。
But termites have powerful jaws, called mandibles, so these raids are pretty dangerous for the ants.
但是白蚁有着强有力的颌,被称为下颌骨,这对突击小组来说相当危险 。
They often end up with one or more of their six legs bitten off.
通常在战斗后,它们六只腿中一只或多只会被咬断 。
Scientists already knew that these wounded ants secrete pheromones from glands in their mandibles that act as calls for help,
科学家们已了解到这些受伤的蚂蚁将下颌骨中腺体内的信息素藏匿起来用于呼救,
attracting their friends to carry them home.
引来它们的伙伴,将它们抬回家 。
And now, thanks to a combination of lab and field experiments, we also know what happens next.
而现在多亏了实验室和现场试验的结合,我们还了解到接下来会发生什么 。
Very badly injured ants — who have lost almost all of their limbs — are left behind,
受伤非常严重的蚂蚁—四肢几乎都被咬断—会被留下,
because they thrash around so much that helper ants can't carry them.
因为帮运蚂蚁一时也拿不定主意,所以无法把它们运回家 。
Ants that are less badly injured — like if they're missing one or two legs — keep still, cooperate with their rescuers,
那些伤情没那么严重的蚂蚁—比如断了一两条腿 —会保持不动并和它们的救援者合作,
and are more likely to be carried back. This keeps resources from being wasted on lost causes.
它们很有可能被抬回家 。这样就避免了资源的浪费 。
Once an injured ant gets home, other ants lick their wounds for several minutes.
一旦受伤的蚂蚁回到家中,其他蚂蚁就会舔舐伤员的伤口,过程持续几分钟 。
Ants don't really have tongues, but they carefully clean the injuries with their mouthparts.
蚂蚁并没有舌头,但它们会用自己的口器仔细清理伤口 。
According to these experiments, ants that lose limbs and don't receive this treatment have about an 80% chance of dying.
根据这些试验,80%失去四肢的蚂蚁以及那些没有得到治疗的蚂蚁会死去 。
But with the licking, that number drops to 10%.
但是通过舔舐伤口,死亡数量降至10% 。
The researchers think this treatment helps reduce the chance of infection in open wounds, removing dirt and debris that could carry pathogens.
研究人员认为这样的治疗帮助降低伤口感染的机率,清理掉了可能携带病原体的污垢和残骸 。
And while this hasn't been tested yet, it's possible the ants could be applying some sort of antimicrobial substance as well.
虽然这一点还未得到证实,但可能蚂蚁们也运用了一些抗菌物质 。
Once they heal up, ants that still have four or five legs left can get around just fine and contribute to the colony.
一旦伤员痊愈,剩下四五只腿的蚂蚁还能正常活动,为群体做贡献 。
So this treatment isn't just out of the goodness of their hearts — it's a useful adaptation.
所以这种治疗并非出于慈善—这是一种有效的适应 。
Those wounded veterans are still expected to earn their keep.
那些受伤的老兵仍被期待能够受雇佣 。
Ant medicine may be full of surprises, but we're still learning a lot about human medicine, too.
蚂蚁医疗或许充满惊喜,但对于人类医学也仍有许多需要了解的 。
And a study published in the journal Science this month gleaned some new insight into brain disorders.
本月《科学》期刊中的一项研究收集了一些关于脑功能障碍的新视角 。
Many medical conditions can be diagnosed based on physical signs, like a rash or a tumor.
许多医疗状况能够通过生理指标,如皮疹或肿瘤,进行诊断 。
But psychiatric conditions are different.
但是精神疾病却不同 。
Doctors can't spot them on a brain scan; they have to be diagnosed based on feelings and behaviors.
医生们无法通过脑部扫描发现它们;只能通过感知和行为进行诊断 。
We know that certain gene variations are linked to risks for certain psychiatric disorders,
我们知道某种基因变异和某些精神疾病风险有关,
but that part of biology involves a lot of questions, and not very many answers.
但是生物学的这个部分疑问很多,已知答案却很少 。
All of your cells have the same DNA, so sequencing your genome can reveal what gene variants you have.
你所有的细胞都有着相同的DNA,所以基因组排序能够揭示你是哪种基因变种 。
But analyzing all the RNA in a cell, which is called a transcriptome, actually shows which genes are being expressed.
但分析细胞中的所有RNA,也被称为转录组,能够显示被示性的是哪些基因 。
That's because the information stored in DNA is decoded into RNA to make all the different proteins our bodies need.
这是因为储存在DAN中的信息被解码成RNA,以形成我们身体所需的不同蛋白质 。
Cells in different organs need different proteins, and therefore different active genes, to do their jobs.
不同器官中的细胞需要不同蛋白质以及不同的活性基因才能进行自己的工作 。
But other things, like environments you've been exposed to, could affect gene expression too — including genes in brain cells,
但其他事物,比如你所处的环境,也会影响基因表现—包括脑细胞中的基因,
where tiny chemical changes can affect how you think, feel, and act.
在此类细胞基因中,微小的化学变化也能影响你所想、所感以及所做 。
This new study combined data from nine previous studies to form a meta-analysis of 700 brain tissue samples from deceased people.
这项新研究将之前的九项研究中的数据相结合并利用来自死者的700脑组织样本构成元分析 。
Specifically, the researchers were looking at RNA in cerebral cortex tissue —
研究人员特定地寻找大脑皮层组织的RNA—
the surface structure in the brain that's involved in a lot of information processing and decision making.
大脑皮层组织是大脑的表层结构,参与多数信息处理和决策 。
The tissue samples came from patients with autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and alcoholism,
组织样本来自患有孤独症、精神分裂症、躁郁症、抑郁症以及酗酒的病人,
and some brains of people without any diagnosed disorders for comparison.
以及一些没有诊断出病症人的大脑,以此来做比较 。
Using a lot of math, the scientists used all this transcriptome data to look for patterns of gene expression.
科学家们通过很多数学公式,利用所有转录组数据寻找基因表现模式 。
These are all different disorders with different symptoms, so it would make sense to think that their causes and effects in brain cells would vary, as well.
所有这些不同病症都有着不同的症状,所以认为它们的病因和对大脑细胞的影响各不相同也能说得通 。
But learning if and how these conditions overlap might give scientists new hints about how to help these patients.
但了解这些病症是否以及如何重叠,或许能也在如何帮助这些患者方面给科学家们新的提示 。
And some patterns the researchers found caught them by surprise.
科学家们发现的一些模式让他们感到意外 。
For instance, bipolar disorder and depression were fairly distinct, even though they're both considered mood disorders and share some symptoms.
比如,躁郁症和抑郁症相当不同,虽然它们都被认为是情绪障碍且有一些相似症状 。
Alcoholism also had basically no overlap with any of these other disorders,
酗酒也基本和任何其他病症毫无重叠,
despite previous studies that suggested that alcoholism and depression might share some genetic risk factors.
虽然之前有研究表明酗酒和抑郁有些相同的遗传危险因素 。
Schizophrenia and autism, on the other hand, showed some similarities.
另一方面,精神分裂症和孤独症有一些相似点 。
With both disorders, patients seemed to express fewer genes for communication between neurons and more genes related to inflammation.
同时患两种病症的患者,似乎在神经元中表现出更少的交流基因以及更多与炎症相关的基因 。
And inflammation-related genes were extra active in the autism brain samples, adding to evidence that gene overexpression could play a role in that condition.
炎症相关基因在孤独症大脑样本中格外活跃,为基因过表达在这种病症中起作用添加证据 。
There are other small results too, but no huge takeaways yet.
也有其他小结果,但还没有大的发现 。
Mostly, this study is another step toward learning how brain functions can go wrong.
这项研究是了解大脑功能如何出故障的另一个进步 。
Transcriptome research won't actually help with diagnoses and treatments until we do a lot more of it, and on more specific parts of human brains.
转录组研究并不能真的帮助诊断和治疗,除非我们对人类大脑的更多特殊部分进行更多研究 。
But by gradually learning about how psychiatric disorders might affect brains biologically, researchers hope to develop more effective treatments someday.
但通过逐步了解精神疾病如何在生物方面影响大脑,研究人员希望未来能够开发更有效的治疗 。
Thanks for joining me for SciShow News, and a special thanks to Patreon President of Space, Matthew Brant.
感谢SciShow News以及Space的董事Matthew Brant 。
Without Matthew and all of our patrons on Patreons, we wouldn't be able to make SciShow and bring you all up to date science news.
没有Matthew以及我们的Patreons赞助人,就无法呈现今日的科学秀 。