(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
You probably don't think of scientific or medical instruments as the kind of instruments that actually make music. But now researchers have built a scientific instrument specifically designed to detect counterfeit medications through sound. (sound sample)
"Someone even made the comparison that we're making a scale in the sense that it measures mass, you know, but it also plays scales in the sense it makes musical notes!" William Grover, a bioengineer at U.C. Riverside.
He and his team took inspiration from the African musical instrument called the mbira. It has metal tines, which resonate over a small wooden board when you pluck them. (mbira sample)
Instead of tines, Grover's instrument uses a hollow metal tube. Just load a sample of medication inside, and it changes the tone of the instrument. "So a sample that's more dense creates a lower note. A sample that's less dense creates a higher note, in terms of pitch."
For example, here's the tube with air inside: (air sample)
Here it is again, with water inside: (water sample) It's denser, so the pitch is lower.
The World Health Organization reckons about 10 percent of the medications in low and middle-income countries are fakes. Sometimes, dangerous ones. So the idea here is to fill the tube with a sample that's known to be safe—cough syrup from a reputable source, for example. Then compare it to a bottle you're not so sure about.
"Now if you get the same pitch out of those two samples, it's very good evidence that they're probably the same material, and the suspect drug really is a safe drug to take. But if you get a different pitch out of the two samples that's absolute proof that those two samples are chemically different. And so that shows you there's something wrong with the sample you were given and you probably shouldn't take it."
The instrument is designed to test only liquid samples for now. And while the human ear is sensitive enough to hear the difference between samples of air and water, the difference between a real and a counterfeit drug might be imperceptible to our ears. So Grover built a free website where users can upload recordings of the instrument, from their smartphone or computer, and analyze the hertz. Then repeat it with the suspect sample.
The researchers published the work in an open-access journal called ACS Omega...
...in hopes of inspiring people around the world to build these things themselves. "I can literally make one of these out of junk in your garage in about five minutes probably, I bet, right? Yeah. The hardest thing to come by is tubing. We've made them out of bent copper tubing like you get out of a radiator, you know. Or it's just junk, lying around. It's remarkable how easy they are to make. My dream for this would be to have the instructions for making them and using them shared as widely as possible."
It is, admittedly, a pretty convincing pitch.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
你可能不认为科学或医疗仪器是能演奏音乐的乐器。但现在研究人员制造出了一种特别设计的科学仪器，可通过声音来检测假药。（声音样本）
“有人甚至做了这样的比较：就测量质量来说，我们制造了一个秤，但由于这个仪器能产生音符，所以它也在演奏音阶。”加州大学滨河分校的生物工程师威廉·格罗弗说到。
他和团队的灵感来源于非洲乐器“安比拉琴”。安比拉琴有一个小木板，上面排列着许多金属尖片，拨动这些琴尖会产生共鸣。（安比拉琴声音样本）
格罗弗的仪器没有使用金属尖片，而是换成了中空的金属管。只要在管中放入药品样本，仪器的音调就会改变。“如果样本密度较高，仪音会发出较低的音调。而如果样本密度较低，那仪器则会发出较高的音调。”
举例来说，这是管内只有空气时发出的声音：（管内有空气的样本）
这是管子装水后发出的声音：（管内装水的样本）。水的密度较大，因此音高较低。
世界卫生组织估计，在中低收入国家，大约10%的药品是假药。有时，假药会带来危险。因此，研究人员的想法是，在管子里填满已知的安全样品，比如来源可靠的止咳糖浆。然后将其与不能确定真假的那瓶药进行比较。
“如果两种样品的音高一致，那可以充分证明二者可能是同一种物质，存疑药品是可安全服用的药品。但如果两个样本的音高不一致，那绝对能证明这两个样本的化学成分是不同的。这表明你拿到的药品有问题，可能不应该服用。”
目前这个仪器只能用来测试液体样品。虽然人类的耳朵足够敏感，可以听出空气样本和水样本之间的差异，但我们的耳朵可能无法察觉出真药和假药之间的差异。因此，格罗弗建立了一个免费网站，用户可以用智能手机或电脑上传仪器的录音，并分析声音赫兹。然后填入存疑样本，再重复上述步骤。
研究人员将研究结果发布在开放存取期刊《ACS Omega》上。
希望能激励全球各地的人们自己制造这种仪器。“我可以在5分钟内用你车库里的垃圾做出一件这样的仪器。最难找的就是管子。我们做仪器用的是弯铜管，就是散热器里那种。或者从遍地都是的垃圾里找管子。制作方法如此简单，这简直令人感到惊奇。我的梦想是做出一份介绍制作和使用方法的说明书，然后尽可能广泛地与他人分享。”
无可否认，这是相当有说服力的宣传论点。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
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. instead of 代替…；而不是…；
We did the logo in lower-case letters instead of capitals.
我们的徽标用了小写字母，没用大写。
2. in terms of 在…方面；从…角度看；根据…来说；
He's talking in terms of starting a completely new career.
他正在谈论开创全新的事业。
3. compare to 比较；对比；
If you compare it to some of the other surveys that have been recently conducted, then it is in the general ballpark.
如果拿它与其他一些最近的调查作比较，结果大致相当。
4. come by 弄到；得到；
In rural France, English language magazines are rather hard to come by.
在法国乡村，很难找到英语杂志。
