美国国家公共电台 NPR 'One Of A Kind' Collection Of Animal Eyeballs Aids Research On Vision Problems

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In a little room at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there's a scientific collection like no other, a room full of animal eyeballs. Want to see an eyeball from a duck-billed platypus¹ - and who doesn't? Let's face it - or a two-toed sloth²? This lab has it all. And, as NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports, these eyeballs give us a look into the anatomy³ of the eye.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE⁴: Opening the mail can be pretty fun at the Comparative Ocular Pathology Laboratory of Wisconsin.

DICK DUBIELZIG: It's just like Christmas, yeah.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Dick Dubielzig founded this lab back in the 1980s. He says they get about 20 deliveries a day.

DUBIELZIG: So about two thirds of what we get are globes. That means the whole eyeball.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The day I visited, he and his colleagues had just opened up a box that contained globes from okapi. That's a relative of the giraffe, which has zebra stripes on its legs. Dubielzig says, this is a real prize because it's a species they didn't already have.

DUBIELZIG: Which is unusual - we pretty much have any kind of animal you can think of, any kind of a mammal you can think of.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: They've got more than 56,000 specimens⁵. Most are from dogs, cats and horses - sent in by vets⁶ who want help in diagnosing eye disease.

DUBIELZIG: We think we're the largest collection of animal eyeballs. Maybe we should go to the Guinness people and see...

(LAUGHTER)

DUBIELZIG: ...If they have an answer to that.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The collection includes about 6,000 eyes from exotic animals, such as those newly arrived okapi eyeballs from the Bronx Zoo. Pathologist Gillian Shaw puts on gloves and picks one up. It's a wet, gray hunk of ragged⁷ flesh about the size of a golf ball.

GILLIAN SHAW: I think this animal had sudden blindness or something.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Sudden blindness, yeah.

SHAW: Yeah.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: She uses a razor blade to slice the top off the eyeball so she can peer down at the vitreous jelly in the lens.

SHAW: I don't...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Probably some (inaudible)

SHAW: ...See anything grossly wrong or obviously wrong, though I admit this is the first okapi I have seen myself.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: She says they'll run tests, take photos and embed⁸ the eye in paraffin wax to preserve it. Preserved samples fill blue boxes that are stacked up against the walls. It's all carefully organized. So if you're a scientist who wants to study the architecture of the eye or eye disease or anything eye-related, this is the place for you. Leandro Teixeira pulls out a small black case filled with teeny tiny eyes.

LEANDRO TEIXEIRA: Here's the list of - so a nautilus, dragonfly, jumping spider, a cockeyed squid.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Then he pulls out some plastic bags filled with fluid and the big gray eyes of elephant seals.

TEIXEIRA: So these are very large eyes.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: And the collection even has a very special human eye. Dick Dubielzig says one of the reasons he got interested in eyes is that one of his eyes had very poor vision since childhood. Eventually, his eye had to be surgically⁹ removed, and he added it to the rest.

DUBIELZIG: What I say is that you're not really an eye pathologist unless you have your own eye in your eye collection.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, there are other animal eyeball collections out there. But ophthalmologist Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis says this one eclipses them all.

IVAN SCHWAB: This is a resource that's unlike anything else in the world. It's a one of a kind.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He wrote a book about the evolution of eyes, and he used this lab a lot.

SCHWAB: It's the Taj Mahal of ocular specimens.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Still, it doesn't have everything. What eye would Dick Dubielzig love to get?

DUBIELZIG: I usually answer that question by saying the giant squid, which is the biggest eye of any animal.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Its eye is the size of a dinner plate. He also needs eyes from the spiny¹⁰ anteater and some of the bigger whales. So if you've got any, you know where to send them. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

1 platypus   

n.鸭嘴兽

参考例句：

• The platypus spends a great deal of its time looking for food. 鸭嘴兽要用大量的时间去觅食。
• One of the mascots was the platypus.吉祥物之一是鸭嘴兽。

2 sloth   

n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散

参考例句：

• Absence of competition makes for sloth.没有竞争会导致懒惰。
• The sloth spends most of its time hanging upside down from the branches.大部分时间里树懒都是倒挂在树枝上。

3 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 vets   

abbr.veterans （复数）老手，退伍军人；veterinaries （复数）兽医n.兽医( vet的名词复数 )；老兵；退伍军人；兽医诊所v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的第三人称单数 )；调查；检查；诊疗

参考例句：

• I helped train many young vets and veterinary nurses too. 我还帮助培训了许多年青的兽医和护士。 来自互联网
• In fact, we've expanded mental health counseling and services for our vets. 实际上，我们已经扩大了退伍军人的心理健康咨询和服务。 来自互联网

7 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

8 embed   

vt.把…嵌(埋、插)入，扎牢；使深留脑中

参考例句：

• The harpoon struck but did not embed.鱼叉击中了但并没有插入。
• This photo showed us how did the root of plant embed the soil deeply.这张照片显示植物的根是如何深入到土壤里去的。

9 surgically   

adv. 外科手术上, 外科手术一般地

参考例句：

• Unsightly moles can be removed surgically. 不雅观的痣可以手术去除。
• To bypass this impediment an almost mature egg cell is removed surgically. 为了克服这一障碍，通过手术，取出一个差不多成熟的卵细胞。

10 spiny   

adj.多刺的，刺状的；n.多刺的东西

参考例句：

• This is the Asiatic ornamental shrub with spiny branches and pink blossoms.这就是亚洲的一种观赏灌木，具有多刺的枝和粉红色的花。
• Stay away from a spiny cactus.远离多刺仙人掌。