近日，比尔·盖茨“出道”了，哦不，是火了。发生了什么呢？
据外媒报道，比尔·盖茨捐赠了四百万美金（约合2600万人民币）用于研究能够通过交配来互相杀死对方的蚊子，对那些自带吸蚊效果的人来说简直是福音！
究竟是怎么回事？我们一起来看看相关报道。
英国《太阳报》(The Sun)的标题为：Bill Gates donates ￡3million to create mosquitos that kill each other using SEX.
《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)标题的标题更为详细，Bill Gates donates $4 million to creating self-destructive mosquitoes in (a) desperate bid to eradicate malaria 'within a generation'.
○ self-destructive: “自我毁灭”，相当于前面的“kill each other”，
○ eradicate: “根除；消灭；杜绝”的意思，根除的对象可以是疾病、腐败、贫穷等等，英文解释为to get rid of something completely or destroy something bad，可以用wipe out来替换(见下图新闻标题)
举个🌰
The government claims to be doing all it can to eradicate corruption.
政府声称正尽其所能根治腐败。
○ malaria: 疟疾，可见此举是为了对抗疟疾通过蚊虫传播，“根除”或者后面用的词“抑制”(curb)疟疾。
It's a bold bid to curb malaria, a deadly disease typically transmitted through the bite of infected mosquitos.
Tech mogul Gates will use funds from his own charity organisation – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – to eradicate malaria "within a generation".
○ tech mogul: mogul表示“大人物，巨头”，例如，电影／传媒／工业巨头 movie/media/industry moguls 这里即科技巨头比尔盖茨，通过其基金会——比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)对这项研究进行捐资援助。
They're developed by a UK company called Oxitec. The plan is to create genetically-modified male mosquitos that mate with their female counterparts in the wild.
开展这项科技研究的是一家名为Oxitec的英国生物技术公司，Oxitec通过释放基因改造(genetically-modified)过的雄性蚊子，让它们与可能携带有疟疾的雌性蚊子交配。
○ mate: 这里作动词表示“（使）交配”(to have sex and produce young, or to make animals do this)，下文则作为名词，可以表示“（动物的）配偶，朋友，伙伴等”。
What's important is that these male mosquitos contain a self-limiting gene that gets passed onto female mates. When the females give birth, their offspring will die before adulthood thanks to the gene.
这些雄性蚊子中携带有自我限制基因。
并且！！！
改造的基因有什么用？
他们的后代出生后很快久就会死去！
有多快？before adulthood！
在叮咬人之前！
Mosquitos only start biting people once they're adults, so given enough time, the danger of blood-sucking female mosquitos could be eradicated. This means it would be possible to stem the spread of malaria through mosquito bites.
○ stem: “阻挡；阻止；遏制”的意思(to stop something unwanted from spreading or increasing)，可以替换上面提到的“curb”
举个🌰
These measures are designed to stem the rise of violent crime.
这些措施旨在遏制暴力犯罪的增加。
当然，有些人可能会担心，这些经过基因改造的蚊子咬了人，人会不会出事？不用担心，只有雌性蚊子才会吸血，而被改造的是雄性蚊子。
Only female mosquitos bite, so Gates' army of gene-engineered male mosquitos would be safe to humans.
- END -
这个故事告诉我们：“不要去咬你惹不起的人”
顺便提个建议，
“吸脂肪的蚊子”要不要考虑研究研究？
LearnAndRecord
2015年2月8日
2018年6月28日
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