Electricity
電
The modern age is an age of electricity. People are so used to electric lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them. When there is a power failure, people grope about in flickering candlelight, cars hesitate in the streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food spoils in silent refrigerators.
當(dāng)今時(shí)代是電氣時(shí)代。人們對(duì)電燈、收音機(jī)、電視和電話(huà)早已習(xí)以為常以致于很難想象沒(méi)有它們的生活會(huì)變成什么樣。當(dāng)停電時(shí),人們?cè)陂W爍的燭光下摸索著, 因沒(méi)有紅綠燈的指示,汽車(chē)在道路上躊躇不前,食物也因冰箱停止工作而變質(zhì)。
Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more than two centuries ago. Nature has apparently been experimenting in this field for million of years. Scientists are discovering more and more that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity that could benefit humanity.
然而,人們只是在兩個(gè)世紀(jì)前一點(diǎn)才開(kāi)始了解電的使用原理。自然界顯然在這方面已經(jīng)歷過(guò)了數(shù)百萬(wàn)年。 科學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)越來(lái)越多生物世界里可能有益于人類(lèi)的關(guān)于電的有趣秘密。
All living cell send out tiny pulses of electricity. As the heart beats, it sends out pulses of record; they form an electrocardiogram, which a doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working.
所有生物細(xì)胞都會(huì)發(fā)出微小的電脈沖。當(dāng)心臟跳動(dòng)時(shí),把它發(fā)出的脈沖記錄下來(lái)就成了心電圖,醫(yī)生可以據(jù)此研究以確定心臟是如何工作的。
The brain, too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an electroencephalogram. The electric currents generated by most living cells are extremely small – often so small that sensitive instruments are needed to record them.
大腦也發(fā)出腦電波,這可在腦電圖上記錄下來(lái)。 大多數(shù)生物細(xì)胞發(fā)出的電流都是極微小的,小到要用靈敏儀器才能記錄下來(lái)。
But in some animals, certain muscle cells have become so specialized as electrical generators that they do not work as muscle cells at all. When large numbers of these cell are linked together, the effects can be astonishing.
但有一些動(dòng)物的'某些肌肉細(xì)胞能轉(zhuǎn)化成專(zhuān)門(mén)的發(fā)電機(jī),以致完全失去肌肉細(xì)胞的功能。這種細(xì)胞大量地連接在一起時(shí)產(chǎn)生的效果非常令人吃驚。
The electric eel is an amazing storage battery. It can seed a jolt of as much as eight hundred volts of electricity through the water in which it live. ( An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.) As many as four-fifths of all the cells in the electric eel's body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body.
電鰻就是一種令人驚異的蓄電池。 它可以在水中發(fā)出相當(dāng)于800伏特電壓的電流(家庭用戶(hù)的電壓只有120伏特)。 在電鰻的身體里,多達(dá)五分之四的細(xì)胞都專(zhuān)門(mén)用來(lái)發(fā)電,而且發(fā)出的電流的強(qiáng)度大約和它身體的長(zhǎng)度成正比。