雙語：你不了解的蜘蛛絲的神奇秘密

羅漢小果1

　　What’s five times as strong as steel， twice as tough as Kevlar,， and can be stretched over thirty percent in length without breaking,？ The answer is spider silk。

　　什么東西的強(qiáng)度是鋼鐵的五倍,，什么東西的韌度是凱夫拉合成纖維（用于強(qiáng)化輪胎等橡膠制品）的兩倍,，什么東西在拉伸自身長(zhǎng)度的百分之三十后仍完好無損？答案是蜘蛛絲,。

　　Spiders make at least six different types of silk which they use for locomotion,， protecting eggs， wrapping prey,， and gluing pieces of web together,。 Silk is not only strong， it’s biodegradable and produced at low temperatures and pressures,， unlike many man made polymer fibers,。

　　蜘蛛會(huì)吐至少六種不同的蜘蛛絲，用于移動(dòng),、護(hù)卵,、包裹獵物，粘連結(jié)網(wǎng)等等,。不同于人造聚合物纖維,，蜘蛛絲不僅堅(jiān)韌，還具有可降解性質(zhì),，同時(shí)還可在低溫低壓環(huán)境下產(chǎn)生,。

　　Why don’t we use spider silk to make things？

　　為什么我們不用蜘蛛絲制造產(chǎn)品呢,？

　　Unlike silk worms,， spiders can’t produce much silk at a time。 It took eighty weavers and a million golden orb spiders five years to make a spider silk rug a little over twelve feet **,。

　　蜘蛛無法像蠶那樣一次性生產(chǎn)大量的絲,。比如說編織一張12平方英尺的的蜘蛛網(wǎng)需要80個(gè)蜘蛛以及100萬個(gè)金球蛛花花五年的時(shí)間才能完成。

　　Scientists decided to work on the silk quantity problem,。 And,， no， they didn’t create giant spiders,。 First,， they identified soft and crystalline components in the silk protein sequences that make it both stretchy and strong,。 Once they identified these elements,， they located the gene that codes for spider silk。

　　科學(xué)家決定研究蜘蛛絲的量,，并且他們沒有制造任何巨型蜘蛛,。首先,，他們對(duì)絲質(zhì)蛋白序列里的柔軟及透明晶狀成分進(jìn)行了鑒別，該成分能夠加強(qiáng)韌性和強(qiáng)度,。一旦科學(xué)家們鑒別出這些元素,，他們便能定位編碼蜘蛛絲的基因。

　　Genes

　　基因

　　With the gene in hand,， scientists decided to use a common intestinal bacteria named Escherichia coli to help them,。 They inserted the spider gene into the bacteria。 Because the protein was large,， they had to do some metabolic engineering to enable the bacteria to produce it,。

　　成功定位基因后，科學(xué)家決定使用一種普通的名為大腸桿菌的腸道細(xì)菌來幫助他們,，他們將蜘蛛基因植入大腸桿菌中,。因?yàn)橹┲氲鞍纵^大，所以科學(xué)家們不得不實(shí)施一些新陳代謝工程來驅(qū)使細(xì)菌對(duì)其進(jìn)行生產(chǎn),。

　　In the end,， they made spider silk， but it wasn’t as fine as the real thing,。 That’s because spiders enhance the uniformity of their silk as they pull it from their spinnerets,。

　　最后，大腸桿菌制造出了蜘蛛絲,，但是成品的質(zhì)量并不如真實(shí)的蜘蛛絲那樣好,。這是因?yàn)橹┲朐趶耐陆z器官里拉出蛛絲的同時(shí)也加強(qiáng)了其韌性。

　　The pulling process wasn’t replicated in the lab until scientists developed a device to mimic the fiber-pulling step,。 They have now created a thread rivaling natural silk,。

　　直至科學(xué)家發(fā)明了一種能夠模仿蜘蛛拉絲的工具，這一過程才能得以在實(shí)驗(yàn)室重現(xiàn)�,，F(xiàn)在他們已經(jīng)創(chuàng)造出了能與蜘蛛絲媲美的天然絲,。

　　This great fiber could soon be used for violin strings as well as bullet proof vests。

　　不久以后,，這種優(yōu)質(zhì)人造天然絲便可用于小提琴弦或防彈背心的生產(chǎn)中,。(愛語吧)