VOA慢速英语2020 新应用程序记录声音来识别危险的蚊子（在线收听）

New App Records Sound to Identify Dangerous Mosquitoes

Scientists have created a new app designed to identify dangerous mosquitoes based on sounds the insects make.

科学家发明了一款新应用程序，可以根据蚊子发出的声音来识别危险的蚊子。

The app, called Abuzz, is aimed at helping fight major diseases spread by mosquitoes. The diseases - such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever - kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.

这款名为Abuzz的应用程序旨在帮助抗击蚊子传播的主要疾病。疟疾、登革热和黄热病等疾病每年夺去数十万人的生命。

Haripriya Vaidehi Narayanan is one of the researchers who helped develop the app. She began work on the project as a graduate student at Stanford University. She is now with the Department of Immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

哈里普里亚·瓦迪希·纳拉亚南是帮助开发该应用程序的研究人员之一。她在斯坦福大学读研究生时就开始从事这个项目。她现在就职于加州大学洛杉矶分校免疫学系。

Narayanan told VOA that anyone with a mobile phone could use the app to identify mosquitoes. "If they see a mosquito around, they just open the phone, open up the app, point their phone towards the mosquito and hit the record button," she said.

纳拉亚南对美国之音表示，任何有手机的人都可以使用这款应用来识别蚊子。她说，“如果人们看到周围有蚊子，只需打开手机，点开应用程序，将手机朝向蚊子，然后点击录制按钮。”

"Then, when the mosquito flaps its wings and starts flying around, it makes that noise, that annoying buzzing noise. That noise is what gets recorded by the Abuzz app," she added.

她补充道，“之后，当蚊子拍打翅膀开始四处飞来飞去时，它会发出噪音，一种烦人的嗡嗡声。而Abuzz应用程序记录下的就是这种噪音。”

Many diseases that mosquitoes carry do not have cures or vaccines. So, targeting the flying insects is the best way to control them. "The most important step is to know where the mosquitoes are," Narayanan said.

蚊子携带的许多疾病没有治愈方法或疫苗。因此，将这种飞虫作为目标是控制它们的最佳方法。纳拉亚南说，“最重要的一步是知道蚊子在哪里。”

Traditional methods for hunting mosquitos are costly and can take a very long time. The process also requires labor-intensive trapping as well as trained scientists to identify the insects.

传统的捕蚊方法不仅费钱，还耗时。捕蚊过程还需要耗费体力的诱捕以及训练有素的科学家来识别昆虫。

Manu Prakash is a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University and a lead investigator on the project. He says that out of about 3,500 different mosquito species, only about 40 are dangerous to humans.

马努·普拉卡什是斯坦福大学的生物工程教授，也是该项目的首席研究员。他表示，大约3500种不同的蚊子中，只有约40种对人类构成危险。

Prakash says the goal of the project was to find out whether the mosquitoes around a person's house are just an annoyance -- or whether they are possibly dangerous. To find out, his team decided to listen.

普拉卡什表示，这个项目的目标是确定住宅周围的蚊子只是令人厌烦，还是具有危险。为了找出答案，他的团队决定聆听。

When mosquitoes move their wings up and down, they produce buzzing sounds. But each kind of mosquito makes a somewhat different buzzing noise. The app records these sounds.

蚊子上下摆动翅膀时，会发出嗡嗡声。但每种蚊子发出的嗡嗡声存在不同。应用程序会记录这些声音。

Users of the app can get an answer by recording as little as one or two seconds of the buzzing sound. The app compares this recording to a collection of other recordings. It then predicts which species of mosquito it is most likely to be.

这款应用程序的用户只需录制一两秒钟的嗡嗡声就可以得到答案。应用程序将录音与其他录音集合进行比较。然后预测出该声音最有可能来自哪种蚊子。

Billions of people around the world can use this tool with their phones. So, the researchers say they will be able to monitor mosquitoes on a much larger basis than in the past.

全世界数十亿人可以在手机上使用这个工具。因此，研究人员表示，他们将能够在比过去更大的基础上监测蚊子。

By crowdsourcing mosquito information worldwide, the app can help build maps of where dangerous mosquitoes are. This can help scientists and health officials identify areas where disease is likely to break out and where to target mosquito control.

通过在全球范围内众包蚊子信息，该应用程序可以帮助绘制危险蚊子所在地的地图。这有助于科学家和卫生官员确定哪里可能爆发疾病以及在哪里确定控制蚊虫的目标。

Prakash said he believes this kind of widespread community effort can be an important step in fighting mosquito-causing diseases.

普拉卡什说，他相信这种广泛的社区努力可以成为抗击蚊虫病的重要一步。

He added that the tool uses machine learning to get better as more people use it. "So, we're very excited that if ... hundreds of thousands of people are recording mosquitoes every day - especially around the world - it will create the kind of community that is needed," Prakash said.

他补充说，随着越来越多的人使用它，这种使用机器学习的工具会变得更好。普拉卡什表示，“所以，如果每天都有成千上万的人录制蚊子，尤其是全世界都参与其中，这将创造出所需要的社区。”

The development team is expected to release the Abuzz app to the public in the coming months.

开发团队预计将在未来几个月向公众发布Abuzz应用程序。

Another group of researchers at the University of Oxford in Britain has been developing a similar app, called Mozzwear. That app is designed to identify malaria mosquitoes by the sound they make.

英国牛津大学的另一组研究人员正在开发一个类似的应用程序，这款应用名为Mozzwear。该应用程序旨在通过蚊子发出的声音来识别疟疾蚊子。

Words in This Story

app – n. a mobile phone program that performs a special function

button – n. a switch you press to control a piece of equipment

flap – adj. to move up and down quickly and repeatedly

mobile – adj. able to move or be moved easily

annoy – v. to make someone slightly angry

species – n. a group of animals or plants that are similar and can produce young animals or plants

monitor – v. watch something carefully

crowdsourcing – n. he act of giving pieces of work to a large group of people or to the public in order to gather information