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Rhinoceros horns are big business. Traditional Chinese medicine uses them to treat rheumatism and gout,
犀牛角是大生意。中醫用它們來治療風濕病和痛風，
even though they have no actual pharmaceutical properties beyond placebo.
盡管它們除了充當安慰劑之外沒有任何實際的藥效。
And Yemeni craftsmen carve them into dagger handles. A kilogram can thus command as much as $60,000,
也門工匠將它們雕刻成匕首柄。一公斤可買到6萬美元，
so there is tremendous incentive for poachers to hunt the animals.
所以偷獵者有巨大的動機去獵殺這些動物。
Since almost all rhinoceros populations are endangered, several critically, this is a serious problem.
由于幾乎所有犀牛都瀕臨滅絕，一些種類更為危急，這是一個嚴重的問題。
Some conservationists therefore suggest that a way to reduce pressure on the animals might be to flood the market with fakes.
因此，一些環保人士建議，減少動物壓力的一種方法或許是讓假貨充斥市場。
This, they hope, would reduce the value of real horns and consequently the incentive to hunt rhinos.
他們希望借此降低真犀牛角的價值，從而減少獵殺犀牛的動機。
That would require the fakes to be good. But Fritz Vollrath, a zoologist at Oxford University, reckons his skills as a forger are up to the challenge.
這就要求贗品必須是高質量。但牛津大學動物學家弗利茲·沃拉斯認為，他的偽造技能可以應付這一挑戰。
As he writes in Scientific Reports, he and his colleagues from Fudan University, in Shanghai,
正如他在《Scientific Reports》中所寫，他和他來自上海復旦大學的同事
have come up with a cheap and easy-to-make knock-off that is strikingly similar to the real thing.
已經想出了一個廉價且易于制造的仿制品，與真品驚人地相似。
The main ingredient of Dr Vollrath's forged horns is horsehair.
沃拉斯博士偽造犀牛角的主要材料是馬毛。
Despite their differing appearances, horses and rhinos are reasonably closely related. Horses do not have horns, of course.
雖然它們外面不相同，但馬和犀牛有著相當密切的關系。當然馬是沒有角的。
But, technically, neither do rhinos. Unlike the structures that adorn cattle and bison, which have cores made of bone,
但是，從技術上講，犀牛也沒有。和裝飾牛和野牛的結構不同，它們都有由骨頭組成的髓部，
the "horns" of rhinoceros are composed of hairs bound tightly together by a mixture of dead cells.
但犀牛的‘角’是由死細胞緊密結合在一起的毛發組成的。
Examination under a microscope showed that hairs collected from horses' tails
顯微鏡下的檢查表明從馬尾中收集的馬毛
had similar dimensions and symmetry to those found in the horns of rhinos.
和犀牛角中發現的有著相似的尺寸和對稱性。
They also shared a spongy core structure. Horse hairs had a scaly layer that was absent from those of the rhino,
它們還有著同樣的海綿核心結構。馬毛上有一層鱗片，這是犀牛沒有的，
but the researchers were able to strip this away with a solution of lithium bromide.
但研究人員可以溴化鋰溶液將其除去。
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