2018年12月四级第3套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick it up within five seconds? An urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won't have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food becomes contaminated, and we've done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.

当你把食物掉在地板上时，如果在五秒内捡起来，真的还能吃吗？一个都市食物神话声称，如果食物只在地板上停留几秒钟，污垢和细菌就没有太多机会污染它。我的实验室研究专注于食物如何被污染，并且我们对这个特定的智慧做了一些工作。

B) While the "five-second rule" might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of, it's still worth investigating food myths like this one because they shape our beliefs about when food is safe to eat.

虽然“五秒规则”对食品科学家来说可能不是最紧迫的问题，但研究像这样的食物神话仍然值得，因为它们塑造了我们对食物何时安全食用的信念。

C) So is five seconds on the floor the critical threshold (门槛) that separates a piece of eatable food from a case of food poisoning? It's a bit more complicated than that. It depends on just how many bacteria can make it from floor to food in a few seconds and just how dirty the floor is.

那么，地板上的五秒钟是否是将可食用食物与食物中毒案例分开的临界门槛？事情比这更复杂。它取决于在几秒钟内有多少细菌能从地板转移到食物上，以及地板有多脏。

D) Wondering if food is still OK to eat after it's dropped on the floor is a pretty common experience. And it's probably not a new one either. A well-known, but inaccurate, story about Julia Child may have contributed to this food myth. Some viewers of her cooking show, The French Chef, insist they saw Child drop lamb on the floor and pick it up, with the advice that if they were alone in the kitchen, their guests would never know.

想知道食物掉在地板上后是否还能吃是一种很常见的经历。这可能也不是新鲜事。一个关于Julia Child的著名但不准确的故事可能促成了这个食物神话。她烹饪节目《法国厨师》的一些观众坚持说，他们看到Child把羊肉掉在地板上并捡起来，并建议说如果独自在厨房，客人永远不会知道。

E) In fact it was a potato pancake, and it fell on the stove top, not on the floor. Child put it back in the pan, saying, "But you can always pick it up and if you're alone in the kitchen, who's going to see it?" But the misremembered story persists. It's harder to pin down the origins of the oft-quoted five-second rule, but a 2003 study reported that 70% of women and 56% of men surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule and that women were more likely than men to eat food that had dropped on the floor.

实际上，那是一个土豆煎饼，它掉在了灶台上，而不是地板上。Child把它放回锅里，说：“但你总是可以把它捡起来，如果你独自在厨房，谁会看到呢？”但这个被错误记忆的故事持续存在。更难确定经常被引用的五秒规则的起源，但2003年的一项研究报告称，70%的女性和56%的男性受访者熟悉五秒规则，并且女性比男性更可能吃掉在地板上的食物。

F) So what does science tell us about what a few moments on the floor means for the safety of your food? The earliest research report on the five-second rule is attributed to Jillian Clarke, a high school student participating in a research project at the University of Illinois. Clarke and her colleagues introduced bacteria to floor tiles (瓷砖) and then placed cookies on the tiles for varying times. They reported bacteria were transferred from the tiles to the cookies within five seconds, but didn't report the specific amount of bacteria that made it from the tiles to the food.

那么，科学告诉我们，食物在地板上停留片刻对其安全性意味着什么？最早的关于五秒规则的研究报告归功于Jillian Clarke，一名参与伊利诺伊大学研究项目的高中生。Clarke和她的同事将细菌引入地砖上，然后将饼干放在瓷砖上不同时间。他们报告说细菌在五秒内从瓷砖转移到饼干上，但没有报告从瓷砖到食物的具体细菌数量。

G) But how many bacteria actually transfer in five seconds? In 2007, my lab at Clemson University published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. We wanted to know if the length of time food is in contact with a contaminated surface affected the rate of transfer of bacteria to the food. To find out, we introduced bacteria to squares of tile, carpet or wood. Five minutes after that, we placed either bacon or bread on the surface for 5,30 or 60 seconds, and then measured the number of bacteria transferred to the food. We repeated this exact procedure after the bacteria had been on the surface for 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours.

但五秒钟内实际上有多少细菌转移？2007年，我在克莱姆森大学的实验室在《应用微生物学杂志》上发表了一项研究。我们想知道食物与污染表面接触的时间是否影响细菌转移到食物的速率。为此，我们将细菌引入瓷砖、地毯或木头的方块上。五分钟后，我们将培根或面包放在表面上5、30或60秒，然后测量转移到食物上的细菌数量。在细菌在表面上存在2、4、8和24小时后，我们重复了完全相同的程序。

H) We found that the number of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn't depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface—whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute. The overall number of bacteria on the surface mattered more, and this decreased over time after the initial introduction. It looks like what's at issue is less how long your food stays on the floor and much more how contaminated with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be.

我们发现，转移到任何一种食物上的细菌数量不太依赖于食物与污染表面接触的时间——无论是几秒钟还是整整一分钟。表面上的总细菌数量更重要，并且在最初引入后随着时间的推移而减少。看起来，问题不在于食物在地板上停留多久，而在于那块地板被细菌污染的程度。

I) We also found that the kind of surface made a difference as well. Carpets, for instance, seem to be slightly better places to drop your food than wood or tile. When a carpet was contaminated, less than 1% of the bacteria were transferred. But when the food was in contact with tile or wood, 45-70% of bacteria were.

我们还发现，表面类型也有影响。例如，地毯似乎比木头或瓷砖稍微好一些，适合掉落食物。当地毯被污染时，不到1%的细菌被转移。但当食物与瓷砖或木头接触时，45-70%的细菌被转移。

J) Last year, a study from Aston University in the UK used nearly identical parameters (参数) to our study and found similar results. They also reported that 87% of people asked either would eat or had eaten food fallen on the floor.

去年，英国阿斯顿大学的一项研究使用了与我们几乎相同的参数，并发现了类似的结果。他们还报告说，87%的被问者要么会吃掉在地板上的食物，要么已经吃过。

K) Should you eat food fallen on the floor then? From a food safety standpoint, if you have millions or more bacteria on a surface, 0.1% is still enough to make you sick. Also, certain types of bacteria are extremely harmful, and it takes only a small number to make you sick. For example, 10 bacteria or less of an especially deadly strain of bacteria can cause severe illness and death in people with compromised immune systems. But the chance of these bacteria being on most surfaces is very low.

那么，你应该吃掉在地板上的食物吗？从食品安全的角度来看，如果表面上有数百万或更多细菌，0.1%仍然足以让你生病。此外，某些类型的细菌极其有害，只需要少量就能让你生病。例如，10个或更少的一种特别致命的细菌菌株可以在免疫系统受损的人中引起严重疾病和死亡。但这些细菌出现在大多数表面上的机会非常低。

L) And it's not just dropping food on the floor that can lead to bacterial contamination. Bacteria are carried by various "media", which can include raw food, moist surfaces where bacteria have been left, our hands or skin and from coughing or sneezing (打喷嚏). Hands, foods and utensils (器皿) can carry individual bacteria living in communities contained within a protective film. These microscopic layers of deposits containing bacteria are known as biofilms and they are found on most surfaces and objects. Biofilm communities can harbor bacteria longer and are very difficult to clean. Bacteria in these communities also have an enhanced resistance to sanitizers (清洁剂) and antibiotics compared to bacteria living on their own.

不仅仅是把食物掉在地板上会导致细菌污染。细菌由各种“媒介”携带，可能包括生食、细菌残留的潮湿表面、我们的手或皮肤以及咳嗽或打喷嚏。手、食物和器皿可以携带生活在保护膜内的社区中的单个细菌。这些含有细菌的微观沉积物层被称为生物膜，它们出现在大多数表面和物体上。生物膜社区可以更长时间地容纳细菌，并且非常难以清洁。与独自生活的细菌相比，这些社区中的细菌对清洁剂和抗生素具有增强的抵抗力。

M) So the next time you consider eating fallen food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat it without getting sick. But in the rare chance that there is a micro-organism that there is a micro-organism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure that the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth.

所以，下次你考虑吃掉在地板上的食物时，你很可能可以吃它而不会生病。但在极少数情况下，如果食物掉落的确切位置上有一种能让你生病的微生物，你可以相当肯定那个细菌就在你即将放进嘴里的食物上。

N) Research or common sense tells us that the best thing to do is keep your hands, utensils and other surfaces clean.

研究或常识告诉我们，最好的做法是保持你的手、器皿和其他表面清洁。