A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by May Berenbaum and colleagues finds that bee colony collapse disorder seems to be related to bees' ribosomes breaking down, which keeps them from making the proteins they need to deal with stress and disease.

    May Berenbaum和他的同事發(fā)表在《美國國家科學院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）雜志上的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，蜂群崩潰癥候群（bee colony collapse disorder）似乎與蜜蜂的核糖體失調(diào)有關(guān)，這種失調(diào)使得蜜蜂不能制造它們所需要的用于抵抗壓力和疾病的蛋白質(zhì)。

    Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes

    A big clue about what's behind the disappearing honeybees, also known as colony collapse disorder, or CCD: May Berenbaum's team at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign found that bees' ribosomes were torn up.

    "The ribosomes make the proteins that allow bees to respond to pesticides, to respond to diseases, to respond to poor nutrition. So the ribosomal fragments that we were finding explain a lot of things, explains among other things the observation that CCD seems to be caused by everything. And in fact it very well might be that once the ribosomes cease functioning properly, then anything can cause bees to go under."

    A possible cause is multiple viral infections. "So the bee apparently has the capacity to deal with one or two of these, but multiple viral infections, basically the whole system breaks down." The finding, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doesn't pinpoint a cause or cure for CCD. But "we now have an explanation for what went wrong."

    解釋蜜蜂消失的原因：核糖體受損

    對于蜜蜂為什么會消失（也稱之為蜂群崩潰癥候群，簡稱CCD）的問題目前有了一個不錯的線索：來自伊利諾伊大學厄巴納-香檳分校（University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign）的May Berenbaum研究小組發(fā)現(xiàn)這些消失蜜蜂的核糖體完全被破壞了。

    "核糖體用于制造蛋白質(zhì)，這些蛋白質(zhì)讓蜜蜂對殺蟲劑、疾病、以及營養(yǎng)不良做出反應(yīng)。因此我們所發(fā)現(xiàn)的蜜蜂的核糖體片段能解釋很多的東西。除了其它一些因素，我們觀察到似乎所有的東西都能導致CCD,核糖體都能對這些做出解釋。實際上很可能的情況是，一旦核糖體不能正常工作，那么任何因素都能導致蜜蜂崩潰。"

    一個可能的原因是多發(fā)性病毒感染（multiple viral infections）"很顯然蜜蜂對于一兩種感染還是能對付，但是對于多發(fā)性病毒感染來說，它們的整個免疫系統(tǒng)基本上就癱瘓了。"這項發(fā)表在《美國國家科學院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）雜志上的研究并沒有精確指出導致CCD的原因，也沒有給出治療的方案。但是"對于蜂群崩潰癥候群，我們目前有了一種解釋。"

    Vocabulary:

    Colony:（昆蟲）群體

    Collapse:坍塌；崩潰

    Ribosome:核糖體

    Devastate:摧毀；破壞

    Clue:提示；線索

    Pesticide:殺蟲劑

    Nutrition:營養(yǎng)

    Fragment:碎片；片段

    Cease:停止

    Go under:沉沒；破產(chǎn)

    Viral:病毒的

    Infection:感染

    Apparently:明顯地

    Capacity:能力

    Pinpoint:精確指出

    Explanation:解釋