Plastic-eating Bugs? It’s a Great Story—But There’s a Sting in the Tail

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Caterpillars1caterpillar毛蟲。that can munch up2munch up食用。plastic bags have just been identified, fueling excited speculation3speculation猜測，推測。that this could one day eliminate global pollution from plastic waste.The chance discovery, initially made by a scientist and amateur beekeeper whose plastic bag had been eaten through by the moth caterpillars, was reported by researchers at Cambridge University and the Spanish National Research Council4西班牙高等科學研究理事會，是西班牙最大的多學科科研組織。.

日前，人們發現了能吃掉塑料袋的毛蟲。這激起了人們的無限遐想：或許有朝一日，全球塑料垃圾污染問題會因此而得以解決。這一偶然發現首先要歸功于一位科學家，他是個養蜂愛好者，發現蛾蛹咬破了他的塑料袋。劍橋大學和西班牙高等科學研究理事會的研究員報道了該發現。

[2]How thoughtful5thoughtful體貼的，關心的。of nature to provide bugs that eat our rubbish.Is this the end oflandfill, turtles with plasticcongested stomachs, and trees adorned with tattered ribbons of shopping bags?

[2]大自然如此體貼，竟然創造出蟲子來消化我們制造的垃圾！這是不是意味著垃圾場將不復存在？海龜將不再飽受胃里塞滿塑料的折磨？樹枝掛滿破爛購物袋的場景將一去不復返？

[3]Well, it’s never that simple, is it?Attempts to commandeer6commandeer征用，霸占。nature to do our dirty work never seem to turn out as hoped, whether these take the form of planting trees to soak up7soak up吸收。carbon dioxide, or introducing invasive species for pest control, or using microorganisms to clean up oil spills.Remember the Australian cane toad8toad蟾蜍。debacle9debacle（由于計劃無法實現而導致的）慘敗；崩潰。? The toads were introduced in the 1930s to control crop pests but instead gorged themselves on other local wildlife and spread across the country.

[3]答案絕非如此簡單。不管是通過植樹吸收二氧化碳，還是通過引入外來物種防治病蟲害，抑或是利用微生物清理溢油，強迫自然為我們效力，替我們干臟活兒，結果似乎都不盡如人意。還記得澳大利亞當年向甘蔗地里投放蟾蜍的前車之鑒嗎？20世紀30年代，為了控制作物害蟲，澳大利亞引入了蟾蜍，但結果發現，這些蟾蜍沒吃害蟲，反而大量吞食當地其他野生生物，并大肆繁衍，禍及整個澳大利亞。

[4]These creatures, the larvae10larva（昆蟲的）幼蟲，幼體。of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella),can devour polyethylene11polyethylene聚乙烯。, which along with the closely related polypropylene12polypropylene聚丙烯。is the main type of plastic found in waste.But you’d need an awful lot of them to make a significant dent13dent減少，耗減。on the plastic waste problem.The UK alone discards almost 2m tons of this stuff every year.At the rate of consumption reported by the researchers—one worm gets through about two milligrams of plastic a day—you’d need billions of caterpillars eating constantly all year round to deal with that.

[4]雖然大蠟螟（也稱大蠟蛾）的幼蟲能夠迅速吃掉聚乙烯（和聚丙烯關系緊密，二者同是塑料垃圾的主要類型），但是若想行之有效地解決塑料垃圾問題，需要的蠟螟不可勝數。僅在英國，每年就丟棄200萬噸塑料垃圾。按照研究人員報道的消耗速度——每條蟲子每天大概消耗2毫克塑料，那么處理掉這200萬噸塑料垃圾，需要數十億只毛蟲夜以繼日地吃上一整年。

[5]Quite aside from how and where you’d farm all these bugs, there’s something about them that news reports have failed to mention.Wax moths, which are found throughout the world, are so-called because they eat wax.Spe-cifically, they love to eat the wax from which bees make their honeycombs—and so they can devastate bee colonies14colony群體，群落。.The two common species of wax moth, of which Galleria mellonella is one, are thought to cause more than ￡4m worth of damage annually in the United States alone.

[5]如何養殖這些蟲子？在哪里養殖？拋開這些不談，有一些關于蟲子的問題新聞報道沒有提及。蠟螟遍布世界各地，因喜吃蜂蠟而得名。更確切地說，它們喜歡吃蜜蜂建造蜂巢所用的蜂蠟——因此，它們可能摧毀整個蜂群。有兩種常見蠟螟每年僅在美國就會造成400多萬英鎊的損失，大蠟螟是其中之一。

[6]With bee populations already under severe stress from pesticides,habitat loss and predators, we might want to think twice about breeding one of their common airborne155 airborne空氣的；飛行中的。enemies in huge numbers—even if the intention was to somehow keep them in plasticsprocessing centres.The idea that if bees disappear then humankind will follow four years later, popularly misattributed to Albert Einstein16自1994年起，社會上便流傳“如果蜜蜂從地球上消失，人類將只能再存活4年。沒有蜜蜂，沒有授粉，沒有植物，沒有動物，也就沒有人類。”是愛因斯坦說的，但其實沒有任何證據表明愛因斯坦曾經說過或寫下過這樣的言論。人們很早就發現一種蜜蜂神秘死亡的現象，稱為“蜂群崩潰混亂癥”（Colony Collapse Disorder）。在媒體開始關注蜂群崩潰混亂癥之后，愛因斯坦的這段話才開始風傳。, might be a touch17touch有點兒。hyperbolic.But without their pollinating18pollinate對……授粉。assistance, crop cultivation would be in deep trouble.

[6]由于受到殺蟲劑毒害、棲息地面積消減以及捕食者捕食的影響，如今蜜蜂的數量已不容樂觀。因此，大規模培養蜜蜂“會飛的”敵人——即使這樣做的初衷是控制蠟螟在塑料處理中心發揮作用，我們也要三思而后行。有一種說法是，如果蜜蜂滅絕了，那么人類在4年后也會隨之消失——人們普遍誤以為這是愛因斯坦說的。這種觀點聽起來可能有點兒夸張，但是如果沒有蜜蜂幫助授粉，莊稼種植會陷入困境。

[7]Polyethylene sits around in the environment because its molecules are so hard to break down.Ordinary soil microorganisms don’t have the resources for it.These plastics are built up from the hydrocarbon molecules in oil, and ideally we’d turn them back into oil after we had used them, regenerating a valuable substance rather than sacrificing it as waste.Chemists have been working long and hard to do that, using special catalysts to induce the chemical reactions.But it’s tough, and only very recently have they started to see progress.It’s precisely because wax is chemically similar to polyethylene that the wax moth caterpillars can biodegrade19biodegrade進行生物降解。it.

[7]聚乙烯分子很難降解，所以這種物質能夠長期存在于自然環境中。普通的土壤微生物對其束手無策。這種塑料由石油中的碳氫化合物分子合成而來，理想情況下，我們可以在使用完塑料后將其重新轉化成石油，使其擺脫淪為廢品的命運，重新成為一種有用的物質。化學家們一直為此而努力，他們致力于使用特殊的催化劑來誘導化學反應。但是這項研究困難重重，直到最近才開始有點兒進展。正是由于蜂蠟的化學性質與聚乙烯相似，所以蠟螟幼蟲可以將其生物降解。

[8]A far easier and less hazardous solution to the plastic problem could be found in bacteria, however.After all, it seems you can find bacteria that will eat almost anything.Some happily devour toxic chemicals, such as perchlorate(weed killer); others thrive amid radioactive waste.And indeed last year a team of Japanese scientists identified a bacterium existing in the wild that can feed on another common plastic, polyethylene terephthalate20polyethylene terephthalate聚酯合成纖維，聚乙烯對苯二甲酸酯。, which is used to make bottles for soft drinks and water.

[8]然而，就解決塑料問題而言，細菌比蠟螟更簡單，并且危害更小。畢竟，細菌似乎什么東西都能吃。有些細菌能夠肆無忌憚地吞食有毒化學物質，如高氯酸鹽（一種除草劑）；有些細菌則能在放射性垃圾中茁壯成長。其實，日本的一個科學家小組去年就發現了一種生存在野生環境中的細菌，這種細菌能夠以聚酯合成纖維為食。聚酯合成纖維是另外一種常見塑料，用來制作飲料瓶和水瓶。

[9]It’s possible that bacteria might,in fact, be responsible for the plasticdigesting ability of Galleria mellonella larvae.Another wax-eater, the Indian mealmoth, was found in 2014 to house bacteria in its digestive tract that can break down polyethylene.Galle-ria might prove to have such gut21gut內臟；腸子。bacteria too.

[9]實際上，蠟螟幼蟲之所以具備塑料消化能力，可能要歸功于這種細菌。除蠟螟之外，印度谷螟蟲也食用蜂蠟。2014年就有研究發現，印度谷螟蟲的消化道內存在能降解聚乙烯的細菌。很可能蠟螟體內也有這種腸道細菌。

[10]Those bacteria could provide the ideal solution.They could be brewed up22brew up釀造。in fermentation vats that would dissolve plastics without anyone having to contemplate breeding vast wax moth colonies.Alternatively, it might be possible to extract the particular enzymes23enzyme酶。the caterpillars use and put them to work on their own—a kind of concentrate of gastric juices24gastric juice胃液。.

[10]這些細菌可以提供理想的解決方案。我們可以在發酵桶中培養它們，不必擔心大量繁殖蠟螟的問題，它們就將塑料消化了。或者，我們也可以從毛蟲體內提取特定的幾種酶——類似于濃縮的胃液——并讓它們各自發揮作用。

[11]These are the real reasons why the new discovery is promising, and not because we’ll soon be feeding plastic bags to caterpillars.As usual with science, you don’t get the solution on a plate25on a plate現成地；不費力地。, but have to follow clues with patience and care.It doesn’t make for great headlines.But honestly, the bees would thank you for it.

[11]以上就是這項新發現充滿希望的真正原因。這并不是說我們馬上就可以將塑料袋投食給毛蟲。科研工作通常需要耐心細致地追查線索，不可能不費吹灰之力就得到解決方案。雖然這項新發現不會成為頭條新聞，但實事求是地說，蜜蜂會為此而對人類抱有感激之情。

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