Disgusting but useful
令人作呕却易见效
Two other areas look promising. One is more sophisticated deployment of the humble antibiotic, arguably the pharma industry's most effective invention. At the moment antibiotics are used mainly to kill infections. In the future they might have a more subtle use-to manipulate the mix of bugs within a human, so that good bugs spread at the expense of bad ones.
还有两个领域因这一发现而前景光明。一是关于抗生素，原理简单但效果明显，可以说是制药业最有效的发明。目前，抗生素主要用于治疗感染。未来它将出现在更加精密的使用方式中——混合人体内不同类型微生物，以此通过消耗有害微生物来传播有益微生物。
The other field that may be changed is genetics. Many of the diseases in which the microbiome is implicated seem to run in families. In some, such as heart disease, that is partly explained by known human genes. In a lot, though, most notably autism, the genetic link is obscure. This may be because geneticists have been looking at the wrong set of genes-the 23,000 rather than the 3m. For those 3m are still inherited. They are largely picked up from your mother during the messy process of birth. Though no clear example is yet known, it is possible that particular disease-inducing strains are being passed down the generations in this way.
另一个因此发生改变的领域是遗传基因，许多涉及微生物群的疾病限于家族内传播来，个别来看，比如心脏病，目前已知的解释部分归于基因学。普遍来看，特别是孤独症的基因联系还很模糊，这极有可能是基因学家研究对象的类别不正确——不是人体内23000个基因，而是细菌携带下的3百万个。因为这3百万个基因一样具有遗传性，它们绝大多数的选择性重组都发生在母体生育的过程中，尽管还没有可靠的例子证实这一说法，引发癌症的基因链很可能以这种方式在一代一代人体内传播。
As with all such upheavals, it is unclear where the microbiome revolution will end up. Doctors and biologists may truly come to think of people as superorganisms. Then again, they may not. What is clear, though, is that turning thinking inside out in this way is yielding new insights into seemingly intractable medical problems, and there is a good chance cures will follow. Vive la révolution!
尽管有许多变革如此动荡，却不知微生物革命将在哪里结束。医生和生物学家很可能相信人类是超级有机体的说法，也有可能不加理会。但明确的一点是，里外变革的想法的确为许多棘手的医学问题引入思路，使治愈的可能性也大大的提高了。革命万岁！