美国国家公共电台 NPR A New Way To Calculate Your Dog's Age

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Our dogs grow old more quickly than we want. The old rule of paw, if you please, is that for every human year, a dog ages seven. Scientists have come up with a new way to calculate that. And their formula may be more accurate, but it doesn't do much to help our hopes.

Our Peter Breslow and a member of his family explain.

PETER BRESLOW, BYLINE¹: This is Sadie.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG GROWLING)

BRESLOW: She's a black Australian labradoodle and pretty much the best dog in the world. She loves playing tug² of war, is obsessed³ with bunnies and sometimes accompanies me on the harmonica.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG HOWLING)

BRESLOW: And this is...

TREY IDEKER: Trey Ideker. I am a professor of genetics at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

BRESLOW: Professor Ideker was part of a team led by Dr. Tina Wang that helped come up with the new formula. He says that over the past decade or so, the old adage⁵ that a dog's age is human years times seven has been improved upon by molecular⁶ studies. The explanation is complicated.

IDEKER: Well, I - hopefully it's not dreadfully complicated.

BRESLOW: Let's start out with DNA⁷, says Ideker, which basically doesn't change over the life of humans or dogs, who live in much the same environment as we do and get pretty good health care, too.

IDEKER: However, on top of that basic genetic⁴ code, that DNA, we have these additional chemical marks called epigenetic marks. The particular epigenetic mark that has turned out to be pretty important for the study of age is called methylation. And we can there get as complicated as you want, but I probably will stop.

BRESLOW: So he dumbed it down a bit.

IDEKER: It's basically a wrinkle on your genome. So you have DNA that does not change. But then you have these additional marks that do change as you age. And they change in a very predictable way so that you can use the pattern of marks to read out your age.

BRESLOW: Scientists can use these molecular marks to read a human's age very accurately⁸. So why not apply them to man's best friend? For the study, they drew the blood of 104 Labrador retrievers ages four weeks to 16 years.

IDEKER: Now all I have to do is take dogs in a certain age group, like in the 1-year-old age group, and look at what are the most similar molecular profiles in the humans and what ages those humans are. And it turns out that if you do that for, like, a 1-year-old dog, you find that the matching humans at the molecular profile level are surprisingly old. They're about 30 years old.

BRESLOW: That's right. The bouncing, fluffy⁹ youngster happily gnawing¹⁰ the leg of your coffee table is really old enough to have a mortgage on a condo. But don't worry, the aging curve slows way down as your dog grows up. My dog Sadie is 7. So I have in front of me, at the smithsonian.com website, this handy-dandy calculator. So Sadie is 7. So we're thinking she's 49. But I punch in seven on the calculator, and it says Sadie is 62.1 years old, which - that's kind of a bummer.

IDEKER: So she's older than you thought. But what you'll see on that curve is she's currently aging at a much slower rate than 1 to 7. In the first couple of years of life, her molecular makeup¹¹ progressed really quickly. And now she's slowing down. So maybe that's the glass-half-full version of this.

BRESLOW: As a matter of fact, when I punch in 10 - Sadie's age in three years - which would be 70 in traditional dog years, the curve says she's only 67.8 years old. And maybe, according to geneticists Trey Ideker, there's another way to think about all this if, say, you're a baby boomer.

IDEKER: Maybe the question isn't, why is my 7-year-old dog 60? But, if I'm a 60-year-old, wow, I'm a 7-year-old dog (laughter).

BRESLOW: Which is a pretty good thing. Right, Sadie?

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG GROWLING)

BRESLOW: Peter Breslow, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG HOWLING)

1 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。

2 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

3 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

4 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

5 adage   

n.格言，古训

参考例句：

• But the old adage that men grow into office has not proved true in my experience.但是，根据我的经验，人们所谓的工作岗位造就人材这句古话并不正确。
• Her experience lends credence to the adage " We live and learn!"她的经验印证了一句格言: 活到老，学到老！

6 molecular   

adj.分子的；克分子的

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms.这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。
• For the pressure to become zero, molecular bombardment must cease.当压强趋近于零时，分子的碰撞就停止了。

7 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

8 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

9 fluffy   

adj.有绒毛的，空洞的

参考例句：

• Newly hatched chicks are like fluffy balls.刚孵出的小鸡像绒毛球。
• The steamed bread is very fluffy.馒头很暄。

10 gnawing   

a.痛苦的，折磨人的

参考例句：

• The dog was gnawing a bone. 那狗在啃骨头。
• These doubts had been gnawing at him for some time. 这些疑虑已经折磨他一段时间了。

11 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？