(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.
Aflatoxins. They're produced by funguses that infect crops. And they can cause liver cancer, immune damage and other health problems. Rare outbreaks related to peanuts or corn happen in the U.S. But aflatoxins are a big problem in the developing world.
"Pretty much every study that's out there shows that the vast majority of the food system is contaminated with aflatoxin, ranging from a few-fold to thousands of fold above the legal limit in the United States." Justin Siegel, a biochemist at U.C. Davis.
He's part of a team "an exciting set of uncommon collaborators with Mars Incorporated, Thermo-Fisher and a bunch of great universities" that wants to try to create an enzyme to attack aflatoxins at a vulnerable point—a part of their molecular structure known as a lactone ring. "So it's been shown in studies a long time ago that breaking this lactone ring decreases toxicity by several orders of magnitude. So it should render the molecule non-toxic at that point."
Some soil microbes make compounds that can bust apart lactone rings. "They naturally break down lactones. They just can't do this specific lactone. They can't break down aflatoxin."
So Siegel hopes that an enzyme that has the ability to attack lactones can be modified so that it works on aflatoxins. And maybe you can help—by playing Foldit.
"Foldit is a massively multiplayer online game that was developed at the University of Washington...it's a game that puts proteins online and allows users to manipulate the structures of these proteins like, you can almost think of it like a three-dimensional Tetris...players are really driven by a goal to get a good score. But that score is driven by actually a physical reality of how stable this protein is."
The game goes live today.
"The game stays live for two to three weeks and anyone who wants to play it can play it, they just go to Fold.It and they can access it...and we collect the solutions and the shapes and the structures that these players create, and it's really a creative process...and once we have those, because of the technology that Thermo Fisher is bringing to the table, they're gonna synthesize hundreds if not thousands of genes that correspond to the players' designs and that'll be done within just a few weeks. So from the first time the puzzle's posted to when we're expecting the first results is on the order of two to three months. And there might be a solution for the problem."
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。
黄曲霉毒素，由真菌产生，可感染农作物。它还可导致肝癌、免疫系统损害和其它健康问题。美国很少爆发花生或玉米感染该毒素的事件。但是，黄曲霉毒素在发展中国家是重大问题。
“那里几乎所有研究都显示，绝大多数食品系统都感染了黄曲霉毒素，程度从高于美国合法限度几倍到几千倍不等。”加州大学戴维斯分校的生物化学家贾斯汀·西格尔说到。
他是一个团队的成员，这个团队包含“一些令人兴奋且不同寻常的合作者，还有玛氏公司、赛默飞世尔公司以及一大批优秀的大学”，该团队想创造一种酶，攻击黄曲霉毒素的弱点，即其分子结构中被称为“内酯环”的部分。“很久之前的研究显示，打破这种内酯环可使毒素降低好几个数量级。这样一来应该可使分子脱离毒性。”
某些土壤细菌产生的化合物能破坏内酯环。“它们能轻易地分解内酯环。它们只是不能分解这种特定的内酯环。它们不能分解黄曲霉毒素。”
因此，西格尔希望能改造一种可破坏内脂环的酶，使其可作用于黄曲霉毒素。也许你能通过玩《在线蛋白质折迭游戏》来帮忙。
“《在线蛋白质折迭游戏》是华盛顿大学开发的一款大型多人在线游戏，该游戏在线上放置了多种蛋白质，让玩家操控这些蛋白质的结构，你可以把这款游戏想成一种三维的俄罗斯方块，玩家达成目标便可获得高分。而分数高低取决于这种蛋白质稳定性的物理实相。”
该游戏今天上线。
“这款游戏会上线两到三周，任何想玩的用户都可以玩，只需登录Fold.It后便可进入，我们会收集各个玩家创造的解决方案、形状和结构，这确实是一个创意过程。我们一收集好这些信息，就可以利用赛默飞世尔提供的技术，合成数百上千个与玩家的设计相符合的基因，而这只需几周便可完成。所以，从我们首次提出这一谜题，到期待获得首批结果的时间，大约为两到三个月。可能会出现解决该问题的方法。”
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. break down 使）（物质）分解；
例句：Some washing powders break down proteins by chemical action.
有些洗衣粉能通过化学作用分解蛋白质。
2. think of 认为，以为；想；
例句：It would be unwise for the government to think of privatisation as a means of saving money.
政府要是把私有化当作省钱之道就不明智了。
3. correspond to 相类似；相关；相对应；
例句：The goods do not correspond to the samples you sent me.
这批货和你送来的样品不一样。
4. on the order of 大约，大概；
例句：We found this can take on the order of ninety days.
我们发现这会占用90天的时间。
