☊ 碧瓏司の→ßeℒongŚ

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http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20150924sa_science.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Parts of the planet warm and cool during El Niño and La Niña. And infectious diseases also wax and wane in step with the climate cycle. Please visit www.chinavoa.com

 to get more information. Take malaria—shown to spike in northern Venezuela during cool, La Niña conditions. Or flu pandemics, which often follow months after La Niña sets in. Now researchers have linked another public health risk to El Niño climate cycling: poisonous viper bites.
在厄爾尼諾和拉尼娜現象期間，地球上一部分地區冷熱交替。同時一些傳染性的疾病也跟氣候迴圈交替興衰。以瘧疾為例，在寒冷的拉尼娜現象期間，委內瑞拉北部的瘧疾病例上升。抑或流感，通常在拉尼娜發生幾個月後出現疫情。現在研究者們已經把另外一種危害公共健康的危險因素和厄爾尼諾氣候迴圈聯繫到一起：那就是毒蛇咬傷事件。
Their study area was Costa Rica—where health centers keep rigorous records on snakebites. They compared nine years of those snakebite records—including some 6,500 bites—to climate data over the same period. And they found that snakebites were two to three times as prevalent in the hottest and coldest years of the El Niño climate cycle.
他們研究的區域在哥斯大黎加——當地健康中心對毒蛇咬傷事件做了詳細的記錄。研究者們將近9年的毒蛇咬傷的記錄和——其中包括6500起咬傷事件——同期的氣候資料進行比較。研究發現，在厄爾尼諾氣候迴圈期間最熱和最冷的時期，毒蛇傷人事件的概率要高出2至3倍。
Sounds counter intuitive—you might expect the climate extremes to have opposite effects. But the researchers say in hot, dry years, plant productivity peaks, driving an increase in the number of rodents—aka snake food, potentially increasing the number of snakes. And snakes tend to move around more in hot, dry weather—increasing chances they'll encounter—and attack—an unlucky farmer.
聽上去挺反常的——你也許會認為極端氣候條件下應該有與之相反的結果。但是研究人員稱，在炎熱乾燥的年份，植物的生長速度處於旺盛階段，使得齧齒類動物的數量增加——而齧齒類動物又是蛇的食物，潛在的，蛇的數量也就增加了。蛇又喜歡在炎熱乾燥的天氣四處遊蕩——這就增加了撞見它們的機率——以及攻擊——倒楣農夫的幾率。
In cold, wet years, on the other hand, prey numbers plummet—forcing snakes to travel beyond their usual slithering grounds to eat—again increasing chances of an unlucky meeting. The study is in the journal Science Advances.
另一方面，在潮濕的年份，獵物的數量直線下降——迫使蛇類到通常活動的範圍外去覓食——這又一次增加了不幸碰面的幾率。該研究結果發表在《科學進步》雜誌上。
The researchers also found two more variables that correlate strongly with Costa Ricans' odds of being bit: poverty and destitute housing. A reminder that, when it comes to dangers from environmental disruption, it's often the least fortunate who are at the greatest risk.
研究者們也發現，哥斯大黎加人被咬傷，與這種罕見的事件有較強聯繫的還有兩個可變因素：貧困以及房屋破舊。需要提醒的是，當危險來源於環境惡化時，什麼都沒有的人風險最大。
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