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You are what you eat, the saying goes. It therefore follows that what you excrete gives away a lot about you.
俗話說，你吃什么就是什么。所以，你的排泄物泄露了很多關于你的信息。
Writ large, that information might yield useful demographic clues about particular neighbourhoods.
所以，這些信息或許為某個社區的人口結構提供了有用的線索。
This, at least, is the thinking behind a study by Saer Samanipour of the University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
至少，這是荷蘭阿姆斯特丹大學Saer Samanipour的一項研究背后的想法。
Dr Samanipour has been analysing sewage, and has shown that it gives a pretty good profile of an area's population.
Samanipour博士一直在研究污水，其研究已表明，污水能夠很好地反應一片區域內的人口。
To make sure that his analysis reflected the most up to date demographic information Dr Samanipour timed it to coincide with a census.
為了確保他的分析能夠反應最新的人口統計信息，Samanipour博士安排實驗和人口普查同步進行。
The one he chose was that conducted in Australia, in 2016, so he called on the assistance of a group of colleagues from the University of Queensland.
他選擇的是2016年澳大利亞的一次普查，所以他請求來自昆士蘭大學的同事給予幫助。
As they describe in a paper in Environmental Science and Technology Letters,
正如他們在《Environmental Science and Technology Letters》的一篇論文中所述，
team members collected samples from more than 100 sewage-treatment plants for five to seven consecutive days around the time of the census.
在人口普查期間，團隊成員連續5至7天從100多個污水處理廠收集樣本。
They analysed these for 40 chemicals that past research has suggested have socioeconomic significance.
他們分析了40種化學物質，過去的研究表明這些物質具有社會經濟學意義。
Nicotine, for example, is associated more with rural populations than urban ones, because people living in the countryside are more likely to smoke.
例如，尼古丁與農村人口的聯系比城市人口更多，因為生活在農村的人更有可能吸煙。
Caffeine consumption correlates with education levels. Amphetamine use tracks levels of crime.
咖啡因攝入與教育程度相關。安非他命的使用能追蹤犯罪程度。
In total, the team looked at the concentrations of six legal recreational drugs, caffeine and nicotine among them,
總體上，該團隊觀察了六種合法娛樂性藥物，其中包括咖啡因和尼古丁；
two illegal recreational drugs (amphetamine and methamphetamine),
兩種非法娛樂性藥物（安非他命和甲基苯丙胺）；
seven opioids (the legality of which depends on the circumstances), eight antidepressants and antipsychotics,
七種阿片類藥物（其合法性取決于所在環境）；八種抗抑郁藥和抗精神病藥；
nine other pharmaceuticals, two artificial sweeteners and six markers of diet,
九種其他藥物；兩種人工增甜劑以及六種飲食標志物，
such as enterolactone, a substance that shows how much fibre people are consuming.
如腸內酯，一種顯示人們攝入了多少纖維的物質。
All of the chemical information collected from each treatment plant was paired with data from the census
將所有從每個污水處理廠收集到的化學物質信息與普查進行匹配，
to create a model of what the wastewater chemistry of populations with particular socioeconomic characteristics looks like.
并創建一個模型，該模型反映了具有某種社會經濟學特征的人口的污水化學物質是什么樣的。
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