2017年12月四级第1套选词填空原文翻译及答案解析

Questions __26__ to __35__ are based on the following passage.

比考试更高级的问题基于以下段落。

A rat or pigeon might not be the obvious choice to tend to someone who is sick, but these creatures have some __26__ skills that could help the treatment of human diseases.

照顾病人时，老鼠或鸽子可能不是显而易见的选择，但这些生物拥有一些卓越的技能，有助于人类疾病的治疗。

Pigeons are often seen as dirty birds and an urban __27__ , but they are just the latest in a long line of animals that have been found to have abilities to help humans. Despite having a brain no bigger than the __28__ of your index finger, pigeons have a very impressive __29__ memory. Recently it was shown that they could be trained to be as accurate as humans at detecting breast cancer in images.

鸽子常被视为脏鸟和城市害虫，但它们只是最近被发现具有帮助人类能力的一系列动物中的最新一种。尽管大脑不比食指尖大，鸽子却拥有非常令人印象深刻的视觉记忆。最近研究表明，它们可以被训练得像人类一样准确地检测图像中的乳腺癌。

Rats are often __30__ with spreading disease rather than __31__ it, but this long-tailed animal is highly __32__ . Inside a rat's nose are up to 1,000 different types of olfactory receptors (嗅觉感受器), whereas humans only have 100 to 200 types. This gives rats the ability to detect __33__ smells. As a result, some rats are being put to work to detect TB (肺结核). When the rats detect the smell, they stop and rub their legs to __34__ a sample is infected.

老鼠常与传播疾病而非预防疾病联系在一起，但这种长尾巴的动物非常敏感。老鼠的鼻子里有多达1000种不同类型的嗅觉感受器，而人类只有100到200种。这使得老鼠能够检测到轻微的气味。因此，一些老鼠被安排工作来检测肺结核。当老鼠检测到气味时，它们会停下来并摩擦腿部，以指示样本是感染的。

Traditionally, a hundred samples would take lab technicians more than two days to __35__ , but for a rat it takes less than 20 minutes. This rat detection method doesn't rely on specialist equipment. It is also more accurate — the rats are able to find more TB infections and, therefore, save more lives.

传统上，实验室技术人员检查一百个样本需要两天多时间，但对老鼠来说，只需要不到20分钟。这种老鼠检测方法不依赖专业设备。它也更准确——老鼠能够发现更多的肺结核感染，从而拯救更多生命。