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Is there any sound more annoying than the whine of a mosquito? Yes, mosquitoes are pests through and through. But there's more to their irritating whine than meets the ear. For mosquitoes, that's the sound of love. It's well known by scientists that the mosquitoes' distinctive buzz functions as a mating call. But one study shows that just before mating, members of a mosquito pair flap their wings just so to create a harmonic duet.
有什么比一只蚊子在你耳邊嗡嗡叫個不停更讓你惱火的嗎？是的，蚊子徹頭徹尾是一只害蟲，但更氣人的是它老在人耳邊發(fā)牢騷。對蚊子來說，這是愛的聲音。科學家們普遍認為蚊子的這種特殊聲音還擔任著求偶的功能。但是一項研究顯示，在一對蚊子進行交配之前，它們會拍打翅膀，這樣一個和諧的二重唱就產(chǎn)生了。
Probably the coolest part about this research is how the scientists involved studied mosquito harmonies. Basically, the researchers used little lassos to harness mosquitoes and fly them past each other. They also set up small microphones nearby to catch the insects' love songs. And they put sensors in the mosquitoes ears, or auditory organs, to record how they responded to mating calls. So if you're not a professional or amateur entomologist, why should you care that mosquitoes harmonize before mating?
在這份研究中最酷的一部份，可能是科學家研究蚊子怎樣保持協(xié)調。調查者們基本上都使用小的套索去套住蚊子，讓它們列隊飛。同樣為了聽清楚昆蟲的愛的聲音，他們就在附近安裝了一個小小的麥克風。他們把傳感器放在蚊子的耳朵里，或者聽覺器官里，來記錄它們交配時的聲音。所以，如果你不是一個專業(yè)人員，或者業(yè)余的昆蟲愛好學者，你是不會去注意蚊子在交配前的前奏。
Because mosquitoes aren't just annoying pests. They also spread dangerous diseases such as dengue fever, which affects more than fifty million people every year. There's no vaccine for the fever and no preventive measure other than avoiding disease-carrying mosquitoes. Which is where the new study could be important. Learning more about how mosquitoes mate could help scientists invent ways to target mosquitoes in areas at risk for dengue fever. For example, scientists could breed sterile male mosquitoes able to create the right tones and harmonies to compete with wild males and thereby reduce mosquito populations.
因為蚊子并不只是令人生厭的害蟲，它們同樣傳播像登革熱這樣危險的疾病。每年都有超過5000萬人感染上這種疾病。這里沒有預防發(fā)熱的疫苗，而且沒有辦法避免這種攜帶病毒的蚊蟲。這是一個新的研究，并且是非常重要的。學習更多的關于蚊子如何配偶的知識，將幫助科學家發(fā)明一種治療登革熱發(fā)熱的新方法。比如，科學家可以培育無菌的雄性蚊子，它們能發(fā)出正確的音調，來和狂熱的雄性蚊子競爭，以此減少帶病毒蚊子的總數(shù)。
