科學家們想要回答的10個古怪問題(上)

On its good days, science is incredible, enlightening and amazingly informative. On its bad days, science is gross, disturbing and downright bizarre. We had to sift through some pretty murky waters to compile this list of odd questions science has tried to answer. Talk about typing a word into the Google machine for perfectly innocent reasons and getting completely perturbing results for your efforts.

人們信奉科學的時候，科學是那樣的妙不可言，深諳哲理又瘋狂至極；可一旦人們背信科學，科學又是那樣的信口雌黃，荒誕離奇又不值一提。我們不得不從社會這潭渾水中摸索着回答那些科學曾試圖解釋卻無疾而終的一連串古怪問題。

Diamonds concocted from tequila, panda poop used as compost, uncontrollable coffee mugs, strangely swishy ponytails and the brain activity of dead salmon were some of the tame ones. Once we hit "how to make sure a patient receiving a colonoscopy doesn't explode" we were ready to call it a day. And yet we persevered, sorting through all the gory consequences of these ill-advised searches just for you. Here's what came out of that shudder-inducing process.

如何從龍舌蘭中提取鑽石，怎樣以熊貓糞便爲肥料,爲何有時握着咖啡杯的手突然不受控制，馬尾辮怎會嗦嗦作響以及對死去鮭魚的腦活動研究，這都是些平淡無奇的研究。一旦我們無法保證“做結腸鏡檢查的病人術中一直保持淡定”，恐怕我們也得收拾收拾東西，直接收工了。而我們堅持不懈，向你講述那一個個輕率的研究所導致的血淋淋的後果。以下，便是那些令人不寒而慄的研究過程。

the way you stand affect your ability to estimate?

10.難道你站立的方式也會影響到你的估算能力？

If you're leaning a little to the left, you're also probably going to be a little on the low side when it comes to guesstimating all sorts of approximations. Whether that's how many people live in a certain city, how much alcohol is in a particular bottle of booze, how many top-10 hits a band has released or how tall a specific building is -- if you're tilted slightly to the left, that number is more likely to be less than what it really should be.

如果你站着的時候稍稍向左傾，恐怕在各種各樣的近似值量取過程中，你都會比準確值低一點點。不論這個城市中住了多少個人，不論一瓶酒裏含有多少酒精，不論前十名的樂隊發行新專輯有多少點擊量，甚至不論一幢建築物有多高——只要你稍稍向左傾斜，那麼測量出的數字就極有可能比真實理論值低。

Participants in a study at Erasumus University Rotterdam didn't even know they were tilted during the experiment. But with a tad tip to the right, the numbers were higher, and with a little lean to the left the opposite was true. Interestingly, the difference between when people were leaning right versus standing upright wasn't significant – perhaps because all the participants were right-handed. We need more science, stat!

於鹿特丹伊拉斯謨大學從事該項科學研究的實驗員甚至都沒有發現，在整個研究過程中，他們自身也有些許的傾斜。但如果他們稍稍向右傾斜一點，測量值就會變高一點點，而且，如果向左傾斜測量值變低也是真實情況。然而，有趣的在於，人們若是站的端端正正，其實同他們稍稍向右傾斜相比，沒什麼太大的區別——不過這也有可能是因爲實驗人員都是右撇子呢！果然想要得出一份靠譜的實驗結果，我們還是需要後期大量的科學數據統計。

you name a cow, are you going to get more milk?

9.難道你的名字裏帶有“牛”字，你就會比別人更喜歡喝牛奶嗎？

It might not be all in a name, per se, but one study came to the conclusion that when stock managers know all the cows in a herd individually, the amount of milk those better-beloved cows can crank out is quite a bit higher. It came to about 68 gallons (258 liters) more a year, based on a survey of 516 stock managers on U.K. dairy farms. There are still some causation and correlation questions to be pondered regarding this conclusion, and more fieldwork to be done to verify the results. But if your preferred milk of choice comes from a cow who's a happy camper, you've probably got a lot more of it coming your way.

可能“牛”字並不會亮堂堂的出現在所有人的名字之中，但經研究指出，如果庫存經理清楚的瞭解牛羣中的每一隻牛，那些可愛善良的牛兒們就會產出比預期更多的牛奶！基於516所牛奶廠庫存經理提供的調查數據顯示，每年多產出的牛奶有68加侖（258升）！對於這一問題，還有很多相關性和因果性的因素需要深入的考量，爲驗證其結論，更是需要大量的實地考察數據作支撐。如若你選擇飲用一隻幸福的牛兒所產出的牛奶，說不定會攝取到更多的營養哦。

don't pregnant ladies tip over?

8.準媽媽挺着那麼大的肚子，竟然還能保持平衡不摔倒呢？

It's the sort of question a child wonders out loud – usually very loud – in line at the grocery store, much to the horror of mom or dad. Still, how do pregnant women manage to haul their baby-filled bellies around without falling over? Well, science is here to inform you, in the form of a study published in the journal Nature. Ladies can do something fancy with their backbones that men can't – they can compact the vertebrae in their lumbar area more easily. That means the bones in their lower backs are shaped more like wedges than those of males. So as women become increasingly pregnant, they can rock back on their spines to support and balance the additional weight. Good thing too, for our species, don't you think?

孩子會對這一類的問題感到特別納悶，尤其是在雜貨店排隊等待結賬這一百無聊賴的時間裏會非常在意，甚至比爸爸媽媽們都要擔心。不過這樣懷疑也無可厚非，準媽媽們到底是如何支撐着她們那裝着寶寶的大肚子以保持平衡還不會跌倒的呢？那麼，讓科學來告訴你吧。發表於《自然》雜誌上的一項研究結果中指出：女性的脊椎有男性所不具備的“奇特”作用——她們可以輕易地壓縮自己的腰椎。這就意味着，女性腰部的骨頭相對於男性來說形狀更接近於楔形。準媽媽們的肚子越來越大，她們依舊可以調整自己的脊骨來支撐和平衡肚子裏寶寶的重量。你不有沒有覺得，這也是我們人類的優勢之一呢？

much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

7.一隻小土撥鼠能啃掉多少木頭呀？

Woodchucks aren't actually fond of wood (well, of eating it anyway – they might get all Bob Ross if they tried painting happy little trees) so their reputation for "chucking" isn't particularly accurate. But, if a woodchuck were so inclined, what would his rate of his fibrous chomping be? Answer: 22.0859393 cubic inches (361.9237001 cubic centimeters) of wood per day. Yep. You heard it here first. An average of 22 cubic inches met a grisly fate each day researchers plunked a piece of lumber into a hungry woodchuck's enclosure. The little groundhogs subjected to this culinary madness had a limited menu during the 12-day study (a two-by-four a day keeps the doctor away) so luckily the study was wrapped up pretty rapidly. And oddly decisively. This study was so improbable that it made its way into the world in the Annals of Improbable Research.

土撥鼠實際上不怎麼喜歡木頭。不過但吃無妨呀，要是萬一它們想學習鮑勃·魯斯，用木屑裝飾出一顆顆萌萌的小樹呢！所以，說它們“啃”木頭其實並不太準確。不過，要是我們假設土撥鼠有這種傾向的話，我們一定想知道它們咀嚼木頭的速率有多快。答案是：一隻小小的土撥鼠每天能嚼22.0859393立方英寸（361.9237001立方厘米）的木材！這數據我可一點都沒有誇大，你也別因爲第一次聽說這麼巨大的數字而合不攏嘴哦。實驗中，研究人員投擲在一隻飢餓土撥鼠籠子裏的木塊，平均每天都有22立方英寸的木塊會遭遇到被“啃”掉的可怕命運。在這項爲期12天的研究裏，小土撥鼠們都有特定的“瘋狂大餐”（每天一塊木，疾病遠離我），慶幸的是這一研究項目以迅雷不及掩耳之勢宣佈終止。憑藉着這一研究的奇異程度，該實驗報告榮幸的被選刊登於《不可思議研究年報》。

cabbies' brains better than the rest of ours?

6.難道的哥的大腦比其他人的大腦都要發達嗎？

Thanks to everything from bad weather to cranky passengers, driving a cab must be challenging under the best of conditions. That could make driving a cab in a metropolitan labyrinth of lousy street planning an absolute nightmare. So how do taxi drivers manage it? By expanding pertinent parts of their minds. London cab drivers have to pass some rigorous exams to command one of the cabs that dots London thoroughfares. Some of the memory-storing parts of the drivers who pass are more developed than those of the drivers who fail, says a five-year study conducted at University College London. The hippocampi of the successful sedan savants grew decidedly more developed in certain respects than those of us who simply push the peddles to get to the nearest grocery store.

各種各樣狀況頻發，比如遭遇惡劣的天氣或脾氣暴躁的行人，使得司機師傅想要保持他們最好的狀態駕車變得頗具挑戰。同時，這些狀況也使得他們駕車行駛在大都市迷宮般千回百繞而又嘈雜污穢的街道成爲噩夢。那麼，出租車司機是如何克服這些困難的呢？答案是：靠開發大腦相關部位的功能。倫敦出租車遍佈大街小巷，司機必須通過嚴格的測試方能上崗。英國倫敦大學學院一項歷時5年的調查表明：通過測試的司機，其大腦的記憶存儲部分要比那些測試失敗的人發達。毫無疑問的是，相對於我們這些平常只用開開車到最近的雜貨鋪的人來說，技藝純熟的轎車司機的大腦某些特定區域要比我們發達的多。

審校：省略珺 來源：前十網