每日英語跟讀 Ep.K476: About Science - Scientists grow plants in lunar dirt, next stop moon

Scientists grow plants in lunar dirt, next stop moon

科學家從月球土壤中種出植物 下一步登月種植

For the first time, scientists have grown plants in soil from the moon collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts.

科學家從美國航太總署阿波羅登月計畫太空人收集的月球土壤中，成功種出植物，這是史上首見。

Researchers wanted to see if the moon soil could be used to grow food by the next generation of lunar explorers. The results stunned them.

研究員希望了解月球土壤能否被下一個世代的月球探索者用於栽培糧食作物，而實驗結果令他們大為驚喜。

"Holy cow. Plants actually grow in lunar stuff. Are you kidding me?" said Robert Ferl of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

佛羅里達大學食物和農業科學研究所的羅伯特‧費爾讚嘆：「我的天啊，月球土壤居然真的長出植物，不是在說笑吧？」

Ferl and his colleagues planted thale cress in moon soil returned by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and other moonwalkers, and all of the seeds sprouted.

費爾和同事從阿波羅11號計畫的尼爾‧阿姆斯壯、伯茲‧艾德林和其他登月者帶回的土壤中栽種阿拉伯芥，而且所有種子都發芽了。

The downside was that after the first week, the coarseness and other properties of the lunar soil stressed the small, flowering weeds so much that they grew more slowly than seedlings planted in fake moon dirt from Earth. Most of the moon plants ended up stunted.

壞消息是，1週過後，月球土壤的粗糙和其他特性，讓這種小型開花植物承受極大壓力，其生長速度比人造月球土中的幼苗還慢，且大多數發育不良。

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Do spiders sleep? Study suggests they may snooze like humans蜘蛛會睡覺嗎？研究表明牠們可能像人類一樣打盹

It’s a question that keeps some scientists awake at night: Do spiders sleep?

這是一個讓一些科學家夜不能寐的問題：蜘蛛會睡覺嗎？

Daniela Roessler and her colleagues trained cameras on baby jumping spiders at night to find out. The footage showed patterns that looked a lot like sleep cycles: The spiders’ legs twitched and parts of their eyes flickered.

丹妮拉‧羅斯勒和她的同事在夜間用相機對準跳蛛幼蛛拍攝，以找出答案。畫面顯示的模式看起來很像睡眠週期：蜘蛛的腿抽搐，部分眼睛來回轉動。

The researchers described this pattern as a “REM sleep-like state.” In humans, REM, or rapid eye movement, is an active phase of sleep when parts of the brain light up with activity and is closely linked with dreaming.

研究人員用「快速眼動睡眠狀態」形容他們觀察到的這種模式」。人類睡眠的快速眼動（REM）指的是睡眠過程中的活躍階段，大腦有一部分處於清醒活動狀態，與作夢有密切關係。

Other animals, including some birds and mammals, have been shown to experience REM sleep. But creatures like the jumping spider haven’t gotten as much attention so it wasn’t known if they got the same kind of sleep, said Roessler, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany.

其他動物，包括一些鳥類和哺乳動物，已被證明會經歷快速眼動睡眠。但德國康斯坦茨大學的進化生物學家羅斯勒說，像跳蛛這樣的生物並沒有受到太多關注，所以不知道牠們是否有同樣的睡眠。Source article: https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1536258 ; https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1538995