【紐約客】Buzz Off! 滅蚊藝術家(連載完)
來源:紐約客
2011-10-28 15:57
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"You plug it in", Ashbaugh explained, "and then you just wait, maybe forever, for you prey to get within dangerous proximity."Last summer, Ashbaugh snagged about forty victims,exhibiting them "like stuffed moose heads," under pieces of Scotch tape stuck to his refrigerator in Maine."Killing these things fills me with a meditative, Luddite sense of bliss," he went on, fiddling with a mechanism that utilizes a clothespin to fatally squeeze mosquitoes once they have been lured by carbon dioxide exhaled by a human drinking straw."Who likes mosquitoes?" he said. "Not bats,not bees--nobody. More human beings have been killed by mosquitoes than by human beings. Mosquitoes have only one purpose: to evolve, which they've being doing for a hundred and seventy million years."
“接上電之后,你就等著,等蚊子進入這個危險地帶,當然也許蚊子永遠也不來?!卑⑹矊毥忉尩馈Hツ晗奶?,阿什寶抓住了約40只蚊子,他用透明膠帶把蚊子粘在他邁阿密家中的冰箱上,蚊子們就像填充鹿頭一樣展示在大家面前?!皻⑽米幼屛覐男牡子砍鲆环N為人民除害的滿足感,”他擺弄著一個用晾衣架做的陷阱模型,使用這個陷阱時首先要人們用吸管呼出二氧化碳以吸引蚊子,蚊子來了之后再將他們碾死,他接著說他接著說:“有誰喜歡蚊子?蝙蝠蜜蜂都討厭它們,別說人了!蚊子殺的人比被謀殺的人還多!它們只有一個目的,就是不斷進化,一億七千年來一直如此。”
On the same table as the Culicutron were several unnamed devices, including a slingshot attached to a rearview mirror, a rubberized bottle cap, and a corkscrew. Another insect-killer was a spring-loaded plunger that activates a four-pronged pincer and inflicts an electric shock on its winged captive, who has been lured by a light on the tip of the spring. Then, there was a rubber flip-flop remnant, rigged with nautical string so that it flexes upward and, on release-splat!-squishes its target. Nearby was an empty Mason jar labelled "Human Sweat" and a bunch of yellow sponges in a plastic bag marked "Human Bait." Both were left over from Ashbaugh's research phase, when, to the dismay of his Wainscott landlord, he bred mosquitoes in stagnant water on his porch. In the pursuit of science, Ashbaugh has also spray-painted spiderwebs with fluorescent paint.
桌子上還擺著很多像“K蟲”那樣的模型,只是還沒有命名,其中有連著后視鏡的彈弓,涂了橡膠的瓶蓋以及螺絲錐。有個陷阱是一個裝有彈簧的活塞,彈簧最上頭有個小燈,光會將蚊子吸引過來,然后激發(fā)一個由四根刺組成的小鉗子,隨后會產生電流將蚊子擊倒。還有一個是一只破爛的橡膠人字拖,一頭由繩子拉著向后彎,蚊子一來,就放開繩子,“啪”一聲將其打落!它旁邊放著一個擰著金屬蓋的玻璃瓶,上面標著“人汗”,再旁邊是一個標著“蚊餌”的塑料袋,里面放著一塊黃色的海綿。這些汗液和海綿都是阿什寶在溫斯科特做實驗時剩下的,那時他為了搞研究,在出租房走廊里的死水里養(yǎng)蚊子,惹的他的房東非常不快。他還曾用熒光油漆噴畫過蜘蛛網,一切都是為了科學!
"Next on my agenda: becoming a plant guy," Ashbaugh said. "I'm going to study the strategies and techniques of Venus flytraps to see what cool tricks they have to kill and scare their prey." Does this mean that mosquitoes can rest easy? Not a chance! "Venus flytraps get fat and hardy on meat," Ashbaugh said. "And mosquitoes are damn tasty meat!"
“下一步我打算成為一個花草匠,我將研究下維納斯捕蠅草的捕食策略和技巧,看看它們是耍了什么花招來嚇唬殺死獵物的?!彪y道這意味著蚊子們可以放松警惕了么?門兒都沒有!阿什寶接著說到:“維納斯捕蠅草是靠食肉來成長壯大的,蚊子肉的味道應該不賴!”?
滅蚊藝術家剩余連載:
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