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🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20160920sa_science.mp3

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🎁 中英文稿：
Last week, tens of thousands of gallons of sewage gushed into urban streams in Baltimore, because of leaky pipes and flooding rains. And when that happens, it's not just organic matter and microbes that get flushed into aquatic habitats. It's drug residues, too: caffeine, antihistamines, headache drugs... even amphetamines and heroin.
上周，由於管道洩露以及大量降水，成千上萬加侖的污水流入巴爾的摩的城市河流中。流入水中棲息地的，不僅有有機物質、微生物，同時還有殘留的藥物：咖啡因、抗組胺藥、頭痛藥……甚至還有安非他命以及海洛因。
Researchers actually detected all those drugs a few years ago, in a survey of urban and suburban streams in Baltimore. And they wanted to see what effect illegal drugs, like amphetamines, might have on aquatic ecosystems. So they built artificial streams in the lab, stocked with insects and real creek rocks—slippery ones with biofilms of algae and bacteria growing on them. Then they doped half the streams with amphetamine residues—similar to the concentrations found in real urban streams.
實際上，在幾年前，研究人員就測量的巴爾的摩河流中的那些藥品。他們調查的目的是想要瞭解一些非法藥物，如安非他命、對水生系統產生什麼樣的影響。所以，研究人員在實驗室建立了一個人工河流，河流裡面有昆蟲以及真的小溪岩石——光滑的岩石上面長有藻類和細菌。然後他們在一半的人工河流中投放了安非他命殘留物——這時其濃度與現實中的城市河流中的濃度相似。
After three weeks, the mix of microbial life in the amphetamine-laced streams changed significantly, compared to the untainted waters. And insects like midges emerged earlier than usual—suggesting that drug residues might be able to alter food webs underwater, and on land, too. The results appear in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
三周之後，與未受污染的河流相比，加有安非他命的河流物種微生物發生了重大的變化。搖蚊等小昆蟲出現的時間縮短——這表明藥品殘留物可能會改變水中的食物網，以及陸地上的食物網。該研究結果發表在《環境科技》雜誌上。
Previous studies have shown that even treated sewage has lots of drug residues in it—because most wastewater treatment plants weren't built to filter out pharmaceuticals. One solution, the researchers say, is more up-to-date wastewater infrastructure. Think of it as preventive medicine…for the nation's aquatic life.
先前的研究表明：處理過的污水中也含有大量的藥物殘留——因為大多數的汙水處理廠並不是用於過濾藥物的。研究人員表示，一種解決方案就是更新汙水處理設備。就把這看作水生生物的預防藥吧。
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