【科學(xué)60秒】強大的人類竟不如小小鳥 (雙語有聲)
作者:alexfanfan
來源:滬江部落
2012-03-24 00:08
詼諧的語言,生動的內(nèi)容一分鐘快速掌握科技最新動態(tài)
Birds Show Price Humans Pay for Good Clotting
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But sometimes what makes you stronger can kill you, at least when it comes to blood clotting. Because the stickiness that allow platelets to heal your wounds also raises your risk of heart attack.
人們總說殺不死你的,能讓你更強大。但有時候,你卻可能死于一些令你強大的因素。至少就血液凝固這一人類優(yōu)勢來說,能證實這一觀點。因為粘稠的血小板不但能愈合我們?nèi)祟惖膭?chuàng)傷,同時也會增加我們患心臟病的危險。
All mammals use platelets to help prevent blood loss after traumatic injury. But birds don’t have ‘em, nor do reptiles or fish. Instead, these critters have blood cells called thrombocytes, which are about twice the size of platelets. But is bigger necessarily better when it comes to clotting? Scientists took thrombocytes from parakeets and put them to the test. The work appears in the journal Blood. [Alec A. Schmaier et al., "Occlusive thrombi arise in mammals but not birds in response to arterial injury: evolutionary insight into human cardiovascular disease"]
所以哺乳動物在遭受創(chuàng)傷后都是依靠血小板來防止出血過多。但是鳥類、魚類以及爬行類動物沒有這一功能。它們體內(nèi)有一種凝血細(xì)胞,是我們血小板的兩倍大。但是不是凝血細(xì)胞越大,凝血效果就越好呢?科學(xué)家提取了鸚鵡體內(nèi)的凝血細(xì)胞,進(jìn)行實驗。實驗結(jié)果刊登在‘Blood’這本期刊上。
They focused their attention on birds because our feathered friends have a cardiovascular system much like our own, in that blood exerts pressure on the walls of blood vessels.
科學(xué)家們之所以把注意力集中在了小鳥上,是因為在我們那長滿羽毛的朋友體內(nèi),血液施加給血管壁的壓力我們?nèi)祟惖南嘞瘛?梢哉f我們有相似的心血管系統(tǒng)。
The results: parakeet thrombocytes don’t stick together like platelets do. They also don’t block blood flow in the birds’ arteries the same way that platelets do when they form clots in mice.
實驗的結(jié)果是:鸚鵡的凝血細(xì)胞不如我們?nèi)祟惖难“迥敲唇o力。它們也不能在鳥類的動脈中起到類似血小板在小白鼠體內(nèi)的凝塊作用。
Which means that mice may be more likely to survive a bloodletting-pecking. But birds are far less likely to suffer from the clot formation called economy class syndrome—despite being frequent fliers.
這就意味著小白鼠更可能在浴血肉搏中幸存下來。但盡管小鳥是空中常客,它們不太可能患上我們?nèi)菀谆忌系慕?jīng)濟艙綜合征。
ps: 簡單介紹一下“經(jīng)濟艙綜合征”,因長時間飛行后,腿部腫脹的癥狀。在經(jīng)濟艙中病發(fā)幾率更高,因為經(jīng)濟艙的狹小空間,使乘客的腿部長時間不能自由動彈。因此,血液容易積壓在腿部,增加了血塊凝結(jié)的可能性。
聲明:音視頻均來自互聯(lián)網(wǎng)鏈接,僅供學(xué)習(xí)使用。本網(wǎng)站自身不存儲、控制、修改被鏈接的內(nèi)容。"滬江英語"高度重視知識產(chǎn)權(quán)保護(hù)。當(dāng)如發(fā)現(xiàn)本網(wǎng)站發(fā)布的信息包含有侵犯其著作權(quán)的鏈接內(nèi)容時,請聯(lián)系我們,我們將依法采取措施移除相關(guān)內(nèi)容或屏蔽相關(guān)鏈接。