科学美国人60秒 SSS 酒店有臭虫？可能是假的！（在线收听）

Some Hotel Bed Bug Sightings May Be Bogus 酒店有臭虫？可能是假的！

If you're a savvy traveler, when you hunt for a hotel you probably search TripAdvisor for any mention of bed bugs. But here's the dirty secret behind those bed bug sightings: "The fact that roughly two thirds of travelers can't pick a bed bug out of a lineup means that probably in some cases these are unsubstantiated reports." Mike Potter, an entomology professor at the University of Kentucky.

如果你也是个精明的旅行者，那么你找酒店时可能会通过“猫途鹰”（TripAdvisor）搜索一切提到臭虫的信息。但在这些发现臭虫的事件背后，有一个晦暗的秘密:“事实上，大约三分之二的旅行者无法辨认出臭虫，这就意味着在某些情况下，那些可能是查无实据的报告。”迈克·波特——肯塔基大学的一名昆虫学教授。

\He and his colleagues quizzed 2,000 business and leisure travelers on their bedbug ID skills, through an online survey—asking them to select the bed bug silhouette in a lineup that also included ants, termites, lice and ticks. Only a third of the respondents correctly nailed the bed bug.

他和同事们通过一项在线调查，对2000名商务和休闲旅行者进行了臭虫识别技能调查。调查中要求他们在一组包括蚂蚁、白蚁、虱子和扁虱在内的虫子中选出臭虫。只有三分之一的调查对象正确地认出了臭虫。

And those incorrect insect IDs could hit hotel owners hard. Because more than half the survey takers said they'd book a different hotel if they saw just one review mentioning the bloodsuckers. Potter's co-author Jerrod Penn, an economist: "The implications of not knowing what a bed bug really is, and just kind of jumping to the worst conclusion—it can be costly for people."

而那些没有正确识别出臭虫的人可能会给酒店带来沉重打击。因为半数以上的受访者表示，哪怕他们仅看到一篇提及臭虫的评论，他们也会预订一家不同的酒店。波特的合作者、经济学家杰罗德·佩恩说:“不了解臭虫的真正含义，就给出最糟糕的结论——这会使他人付出高昂代价。”

The study is in the journal American Entomologist.

这项研究发表在《美国昆虫学家》杂志上。

Some cities, like New York, already require landlords to disclose past bed bug infestations. And 80 percent of survey respondents want hotels to do the same—even if the infestation is long gone. Armed with that knowledge, good luck sleeping tight.

一些城市，如纽约，已经明确要求房东公开曾经有无臭虫侵扰的信息。80%的受访者希望酒店也能做到这一点——即使臭虫侵扰早已不复存在。了解了这些信息以后，希望你能睡个好觉。