Bart Knols: Cheese, dogs and a pill to kill mosquitoes and end malaria

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

翻译人员: Karen SONG 校对人员: Renji Yu

(Mosquito buzzing)

（蚊子叫）

(Swat)

（拍打）

Gotcha.

打着了！

Mosquitoes.

我恨死蚊子了

I hate them.

你们也一样吧

Don't you?

That awful buzzing sound at night around your ears

夜晚那恼人的蚊子叫萦绕耳边

that drives you absolutely crazy?

真是让人崩溃

想象蚊子向你的皮肤里打进一根针

Knowing that she wants to stick a needle in your skin

and suck out your blood?

吸走你的血——真是太恶心了！

That's awful, right?

In fact, there's only one good thing I can think of when it gets to mosquitoes.

事实上，关于蚊子我只能想到

一点还能说得过去

When they fly into our bedroom at night,

就是它们晚上飞进我们的卧室

they prefer to bite my wife.

比较喜欢咬我太太

(Laughter)

But that's fascinating, right?

这其中大有玄机

Why does she receive more bites than I do?

为什么她比我招蚊子咬？

And the answer is smell,

答案是体味

the smell of her body.

我们的气味各不相同，皮肤制造不同的化学物质

And since we all smell different and produce chemicals on our skin

有些吸引蚊子，有些则排斥蚊子

that either attract or repel mosquitoes,

some of us are just more attractive than others.

有些人确实比较招蚊子

So my wife smells nicer than I do, or I just stink more than she does.

所以说我太太比我好闻

或者说我比她臭

Either way, mosquitoes find us in the dark by sniffing us out. They smell us.

不管怎么样，蚊子在黑暗中通过嗅觉找人

它们闻得出我们

And during my PhD, I wanted to know exactly

读博士的时候，我想搞清楚

蚊子通过我们皮肤上的哪种化学物质来挑人

what chemicals from our skin African malaria mosquitoes use

在夜晚，那些非洲疟蚊如何在黑暗中跟踪我们

to track us down at night.

它们使用一整组物质

And there's a whole range of compounds that they do use.

And this was not going to be an easy task.

这个任务可不容易完成

And therefore we set up various experiments.

于是我们设计了各种实验

我们为什么设计这些实验？

Why did we set up these experiments?

Because half the world's population

因为世界人口的一半面临着

runs the risk of contracting a killer disease like malaria

身患致命疾病——疟疾的风险

through a simple mosquito bite.

而关键是消除蚊子叮咬

Every 30 seconds, somewhere on this planet,

每30秒，世界上的某个角落

a child dies of malaria,

就有一个孩子死于疟疾。今天早上

and Paul Levy this morning, he was talking about the metaphor

保罗.莱维谈到了美国波音727飞机坠毁事故的隐喻

of the 727 crashing into the United States.

而在非洲，(疟疾导致的)死亡相当于7架大型747客机

Well, in Africa, we have the equivalent of seven jumbo 747s

crashing every day.

每天坠毁

But perhaps if we can attract these mosquitoes to traps,

也许，如果我们能把蚊子引入陷阱

bait it with our smell,

用我们的体味作为诱饵，也许就能够

we may be able to stop transmission of disease.

阻止疾病传播

解决这个问题可要花不少工夫

Now, solving this puzzle was not an easy thing,

because we produce hundreds of different chemicals on the skin,

因为我们的皮肤制造上百种不同的化学物质

but we undertook some remarkable experiments

但我们完成了一些了不起的实验

帮助我们迅速厘清了解开难题的关键

that managed us to resolve this puzzle very quickly indeed.

First, we observed that not all mosquito species

首先，我们观察到不是所有的蚊子

bite on the same part of the body.

都叮咬人类身体的同一个部位。这挺奇怪

Strange.

So we set up an experiment

我们设计了一个实验

where we put a naked volunteer in a large cage,

我们让一名全身赤裸的志愿者戴在一个大笼子里

(Laughter)

然后放进蚊子

and in that cage, we released mosquitoes

to see where they were biting on the body of that person.

看看这些蚊子叮咬哪些身体部位

And we found some remarkable differences.

我们发现了显著的差异

On the left here you see the bites

你们看到左边图片上的这些咬痕

是被荷兰疟蚊叮咬的

by the Dutch malaria mosquito on this person.

They had a very strong preference for biting on the face.

咬痕明显集中于面部

In contrast, the African malaria mosquito

而相反的，非洲疟蚊

却喜欢咬脚踝和脚

had a very strong preference for biting the ankles and feet of this person.

And that, of course, we should have known all along,

当然，（这可能是因为）众所周知——

because they're called mosqui-toes, you see?

蚊子被叫做“mosqui-toes” （蚊子的英文单词结尾toes是脚趾的意思） （笑声）

(Laughter)

That's right.

这太对了（掌声）

(Applause)

于是我们集中研究脚上的气味

And so we started focusing on the smell of feet ...

on the smell of human feet,

研究人类脚上的气味

我们在论文中得出了一个惊人的结论

until we came across a remarkable statement in the literature

that said that cheese smells after feet

奶酪不如脚丫子味道重

rather than the reverse.

可别搞反了。想想看吧。

Think of it.

And this triggered us to do a remarkable experiment.

这启发了我们去做另外一项重要的实验

We tried, with a tiny little piece of Limburger cheese,

我们试着用一小块林堡奶酪

它有一种近似脚臭的臭味

which smells badly after feet,

来吸引非洲疟蚊

to attract African malaria mosquitoes.

And you know what? It worked.

你们知道吗？竟然有效！

事实上，它的功效让我们开发出一种

In fact, it worked so well

that now we have a synthetic mixture of the aroma of Limburger cheese

林堡奶酪气味的人工混合物，在坦桑尼亚使用

that we're using in Tanzania

and has been shown there

事实证明它对于蚊子，较之人类，

to be two to three times more attractive to mosquitoes than humans.

有两到三倍的吸引力

Limburg, be proud of your cheese,

林堡，自豪吧

as it is now used in the fight against malaria.

你们的奶酪可是抗击疟疾的利器

(Applause)

（掌声）

That's the cheese, just to show you.

这就是我提到的奶酪

My second story is remarkable as well.

我的第二个故事同样精彩

It's about man's best friend. It's about dogs.

是关于人类最好的朋友——狗狗们

And I will show you how we can use dogs in the fight against malaria.

我会向你们展示

如何用狗来对付疟疾

One of the best ways of killing mosquitoes

杀死蚊子的最好办法

is not to wait until they fly around like adults

可不是等到成虫飞到我们身边

叮咬人类传播疾病的时候

and bite people and transmit disease.

It's to kill them when they're still in the water as larvae.

而是在它们还是水中的幼虫时候

Why?

为什么？因为它们就像CIA

Because they are just like the CIA.

In that pool of water, these larvae are concentrated.

在水塘里，幼虫集中在一起

They're all together there. They are immobile.

全部固守在一个地方

They can't escape from that water.

它们不能逃离那片水塘，它们还不会飞翔

They can't fly.

And they're accessible.

它们容易接触。你可以走到池塘边

You can actually walk up to that pool and you can kill them there, right?

把它们全杀光。是不是？

So the problem that we face with this

我们于是遇到的问题是

is that, throughout the landscape, all these pools of water with the larvae,

漫山遍野的水塘充斥着幼虫

they are scattered all over the place,

它们到处都是

which makes it very hard for an inspector like this

这让杀虫员

to actually find all these breeding sites and treat them with insecticides.

很难找到所有的据点来喷洒杀虫剂

去年，我们绞尽脑汁

And last year we thought very, very hard, how can we resolve this problem?

来找解决之道。直到我们意识到

Until we realized that just like us -- we have a unique smell --

就像人类有独特的气味一样

蚊子幼虫也有独特的气味

mosquito larvae also have a very unique smell.

And so we set up another crazy experiment,

我们开始着手另外一项大胆的实验

because we collected the smell of these larvae,

我们收集蚊子幼虫的气味

弄到布料上，然后做出一项壮举

put it on pieces of cloth, and then did something very remarkable.

Here we have a bar with four holes

这根横木上有四个洞

and we put the smell of these larvae in the left hole.

我们把沾有幼虫气味的布料放在最左边的洞里面

Oh, that was very quick.

哦，这段放的有点快

And then you see the dog. It's called Tweed. It's a border collie.

你们看到这只狗，他叫粗花呢，是一只边境牧羊犬

他在检查这些洞，他已经闻出来了

He's examining these holes and now he's got it already.

他回来又检查了一遍控制洞

He's going back to check the control holes again,

but he's coming back to the first one,

但又回到第一个洞

锁定了这个气味

and now he's locking into that smell,

which means that now, we can use dogs with these inspectors

这意味着我们可以使用狗

来帮助杀虫员更好地找到

to much better find the breeding sites of mosquitoes in the field,

这片田野里蚊子的繁殖区

and therefore have a much bigger impact on malaria.

更好地去打击疟疾

This lady is Ellen van der Zweep.

这位女士名叫艾伦.冯.德.兹威普。她是世界一流的训狗师

She's one of the best dog trainers in the world,

她认为我们能做的还远远不止这些

and she believes that we can do a lot more.

由于我们也知道疟疾寄生虫的携带者

Since we also know that people that carry malaria parasites

smell different compared to people that are uninfected,

与没有感染的人有不同的气味

she's convinced that we can train dogs to find people that carry the parasite.

她相信我们也可以通过训练狗

来找到这些携带者

That means that in a population where malaria has gone down all the way

这就意味着在一个疟疾基本得到控制的人群中

只有很少的人是携带者

and there's few people remaining with parasites,

that the dogs can find these people,

而狗能找到这些人

we can treat them with antimalarial drugs and give the final blow to malaria.

我们可以使用抗疟疾药物为他们治疗，彻底终结疟疾

Man's best friend in the fight against malaria.

狗也是人类抗击疟疾的最好朋友

我的第三个故事也许更有意义

My third story is perhaps even more remarkable ...

而且我得说今天是我第一次对公众讲述这个故事

and, I should say, has never been shown to the public until today.

(Audience cheers)

Yeah.

是的

It's a crazy story, but I believe it's perhaps the best and ultimate revenge

这很疯狂，但我相信这也许是最好的

向蚊子复仇的终极武器

against mosquitoes ever.

In fact, people have told me

事实上，有人告诉我他们现在居然

that now they will enjoy being bitten by mosquitoes.

享受被蚊子叮咬

And the question of course is,

这里的疑问当然是，

what would make someone enjoy being bitten by mosquitoes?

是什么让人们享受蚊子叮咬？

And the answer I have right here ...

答案是

我口袋里就有

in my pocket --

(Laughter)

if I get it.

我有这个

It's a tablet.

这是一个药片，很简单的一个药片

A simple tablet,

and when I take it with water ...

当我用水服下

it does miracles.

它能产生奇迹

Thank you.

谢谢你

（喝水）

Now, let me show you how this works.

让我告诉你们它有什么效果

Here in this box, I have a cage

在这个盒子里有一个笼子

关着好几百只

with several hundred hungry female mosquitoes ...

饥饿的雌蚊子

(Laughter)

that I'm just about to release.

我即将释放它们（笑声）

(Laughter)

Just kidding, just kidding.

开玩笑，我只是在开玩笑

(Laughter)

What I'm going to show you is, I'm gonna stick my arm into it

我要把胳膊伸进去

and I will show you how quickly they will bite.

向你们展示它们咬过来有多迅速

开始了！

There we go.

别慌，我在实验室里一直这么做

Don't worry, I do this all the time in the lab.

There we go.

好了，开始。

OK.

Now, on the video --

现在我放的这个录像

on the video here,

I'm going to show you exactly the same thing,

会向你们展示同样的情景

唯一的不同是拍这段录像时

except that what I'm showing you on the video

happened one hour after I took the tablet.

我已经服药一个小时了

Have a look.

看看吧。放错了……好。不好意思。

That doesn't work.

OK. Sorry about that.

I'm sticking in my arm, I'm giving them a big juicy blood meal,

我把胳膊放进去，我给了它们一顿大餐

I'm shaking them off, and we follow them through time

我把它们晃走，然后跟踪拍摄

它们变得非常非常虚弱

to see these mosquitoes get very, very sick indeed,

here shown in fast motion.

用快进来放

And three hours later, what we see at the bottom of the cage

三个小时后我们再来看笼子的底部

全是死蚊子

is dead mosquitoes ...

而且死透了。我要说，女士们先生们

very dead mosquitoes.

And I'm going to say, ladies and gentlemen,

we have swapped the cards with mosquitoes.

我们反败为胜了

They don't kill us. We kill them.

它们杀不了我们。我们能杀死它们。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）

好了——（笑声）——

Now --

(Laughter)

Maastricht, be prepared.

马斯特里赫特，准备好了！

让我们想想我们能做到什么

Now, think of what we can do with this.

We can actually use this to contain outbreaks

我们可以用这种药来控制

of mosquito-born diseases, of epidemics, right?

蚊子传播的瘟疫，对不对？

更进一步，想象一下这种情形

And better still, imagine what would happen

在一个广大地区，人人都吃了这种药

if, in a very large area, everyone would take these drugs, for just three weeks.

吃上三个礼拜

That would give us an opportunity

这就是个大好机会来真正消灭

to actually eliminate malaria as a disease.

这个地区的疟疾

用奶酪、狗、和药片来灭蚊

So cheese, dogs and a pill to kill mosquitoes.

That's the kind of out-of-the-box science that I love doing ...

这就是我喜欢研究的“偏门”科学

为了人类的福祉

for the betterment of mankind,

but especially for her,

特别是为了她。为了让她能在一个

so that she can grow up in a world without malaria.

没有疟疾的世界长大。谢谢大家（鼓掌）

Thank you.

(Applause)