英国新闻听力 山羊竟然吃轮胎

Now a story I can vouch¹ for from personal experience.

下面讲一个我亲身经历过的事情。

It's about goats and that they can eat just about anything.

说的是山羊，还有山羊什么都能吃。

I used to own one many years ago when I lived in Sudan.

我很多年前在苏丹的时候养过一只，

We bought it to keep the grass short on our little lawn.

我们买它是为了把小草坪上的草弄短一点。

But it preferred eating oily rags and bicycle tires if it could get to them.

但山羊更喜欢吃油布和自行车轮胎，能找着就吃。

This digestive ability of goats may have practical applications.

山羊的这种消化能力可能会有实际用途。

In a study published in the German Science, researchers say fungi² in goats' stomaches produce enzymes³ that can break down all sorts of things.

在德国《科学》杂志发表的一篇论文中，研究人员称山羊胃里的真菌产生的酶可分解各种物质。

What exactly can we learn from goats?

我们从山羊身上究竟可以学到什么呢？

Goats have been engineered by nature to break down really tough plant waste and agricultural waste into sugars for the animal.

山羊天生能够将难以咀嚼的植物性废弃物和农业废弃物分解为可供动物吸收的糖。

And what we wanna do is to understand how they are doing that and then translate that ability to microorganism so that we can revolutionize bioprocessing of plant waste and food scraps⁵.

我们想做的就是搞清楚整个过程，然后把这种能力转化为微生物学，从而为植物性废弃物和餐饮垃圾的生物处理带来革命性变革。

Am I right at thinking goats are the best at this or are other herbivores equally capable?

山羊是最擅长这个的，我这样理解对吗？还是说其他食草动物都有同样的能力？

That's a great question.

这个问题问得好。

So other herbivores are great at this because they have another compartment⁶ in their digestive tracts⁷

其他食草动物也很擅长，因为它们的消化道中有我们不具备的一个腔体，叫瘤胃，

that we don't have called the rumen which is sort of like a little bioreactor to break up tough woody things into sugar.

有点像一个小的生物反应器，它能将不易咀嚼的硬东西分解为糖。

And so it may be that the goats are particularly great at this but we would expect that all animals that have that sort of part of their stomach could actually be just as good.

所以可能山羊尤其擅长这个，但我们认为胃里有类似部分的动物也同样擅长。

These types of tough woody materials that have a lot of different polymers in them.

这些不易咀嚼的硬物质含有许多不同的聚合物，

And these polymers all put together can be broken down into sugar.

这些聚合物可以一起被分解为糖。

And so what we wanna do is to unlock the potential of these really tough to degree polymers through the action of enzymes.

而我们想做的就是通过酶的作用，开发这些坚韧到一定程度的聚合物的潜能。

And these are just power houses at breaking up that plant scrap⁴ into sugar which then you could convert to other things which might include fuels or chemicals or commodity products.

这些就是动力室，将植物碎片分解为糖，然后转化为其他东西，可以是燃料，化学品或商品产品等。

Ok. So now and how far down the road are you? Can you…?

好。那么现在你们进行到哪一步了？你们能……？

If I give you, I don't know, if I give you a rotten cauliflower, could you turn it into sugar?

如果我给你，比方说，我给你一个枯萎的菜花，你能把它转化为糖吗？

So part of what we could do is to feed that rotten cauliflower or corn stover or grasses growing in the great plants of the US to anaerobic⁸ microorganism.

我们可以做到的一点就是把那个枯萎的菜花或玉米秸或美国大型植物里长得草喂给厌氧微生物。

1 vouch   

v.担保；断定；n.被担保者

参考例句：

• They asked whether I was prepared to vouch for him.他们问我是否愿意为他作担保。
• I can vouch for the fact that he is a good worker.我保证他是好员工。

2 fungi   

n.真菌，霉菌

参考例句：

• Students practice to apply the study of genetics to multicellular plants and fungi.学生们练习把基因学应用到多细胞植物和真菌中。
• The lawn was covered with fungi.草地上到处都是蘑菇。

3 enzymes   

n. 酶，酵素

参考例句：

• It was said that washing powders containing enzymes remove stains more efficiently. 据说加酶洗衣粉除污更有效。
• Among the enzymes which are particularly effective are pepsin, papain. 在酶当中特别有效的是胃朊酶、木瓜酶。

4 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

5 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

6 compartment   

n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间

参考例句：

• We were glad to have the whole compartment to ourselves.真高兴，整个客车隔间由我们独享。
• The batteries are safely enclosed in a watertight compartment.电池被安全地置于一个防水的隔间里。

7 tracts   

大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文

参考例句：

• vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
• There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。

8 anaerobic   

adj.厌氧的

参考例句：

• Anaerobic respiration occurs only in particularly active tissues such as muscles during severe exercise. 厌氧呼吸只有在处于剧烈运动状态的肌肉等特别活跃的组织中才会发生。
• Infection,especially anaerobic infection, is much more apt to occur.感染，特别是厌氧感染很容易发生。