I started a contest four years ago called Dance Your Ph.D. Instead of explaining their research with words, scientists have to explain it with dance.  四年前，我创办了一场比赛，叫“舞动博士”。科学家不能用语言来解释他们的研究，而必须用舞蹈来解释。

　　Now surprisingly, it seems to work. Dance really can make science easier to understand.  令人惊奇地是，这似乎很有用。舞蹈真的可以让科学变得更加容易理解。

　　But don't take my word for it. Go on the Internet and search for "Dance Your Ph.D."  但是不要相信我的一面之词。上网去搜“Dance Your Ph.D.”

　　There are hundreds of dancing scientists waiting for you. 成百上千的跳舞的科学家在等着你。

　　The most surprising thing that I've learned while running this contest is that some scientists are now working directly with dancers on their research.  举办这项赛事，最让我惊讶的是一些科学家现在就在和舞蹈演员直接合作开展研究。

　　For example, at the University of Minnesota, there's a biomedical engineer named David Odde, and he works with dancers to study how cells move.  比如，在明尼苏达大学，一位名叫大卫·奥迪的生物医学工程师和舞蹈演员合作研究细胞的运动。

　　They do it by changing their shape.  他们通过改变细胞的形状进行研究。

　　When a chemical signal washes up on one side, it triggers the cell to expand its shape on that side,  当化学信号出现时，就会刺激细胞朝那边扩展，

　　because the cell is constantly touching and tugging at the environment.  因为细胞总是不停地和周围的环境接触。

　　So that allows cells to ooze along in the right directions.  这使得细胞可沿正确的方向流动。

　　But what seems so slow and graceful from the outside is really more like chaos inside,  但是表面舒缓优雅，内部却如混沌不堪，

　　because cells control their shape with a skeleton of rigid protein fibers,  因为细胞通过一层硬蛋白质纤维控制形状，

　　and those fibers are constantly falling apart.  而这些纤维又总是在脱落。

　　But just as quickly as they explode, more proteins attach to the ends and grow them longer,  但是和纤维快速爆炸一样，更多的蛋白质附着在末端，使其增长，

　　so it's constantly changing just to remain exactly the same.  不断的变化就是为了保持原样。

　　Now, David builds mathematical models of this and then he tests those in the lab, but before he does that,  大卫先创建数学模型，然后再到实验室测试，但是在这之前，

　　he works with dancers to figure out what kinds of models to build in the first place.  他和舞蹈演员一起研究首先需要创建哪种模型。

　　It's basically efficient brainstorming, and when I visited David to learn about his research,  这属于高效的头脑风暴，我去拜访大卫了解他的研究时，

　　he used dancers to explain it to me rather than the usual method: PowerPoint. 他运用舞蹈演员给我解释而不是常用的办法：幻灯片。