科学家检测头发竟能判断人的行踪

A new laser can tell scientists what you ate for breakfast - just by looking at one of your hairs.

通过一种新的激光束，科学家看一下你的头发，就能知道你早餐吃了什么。

The beam gives unprecedented sensitivity to chemical analysis and allows researchers to create an hour-by-hour picture of what an individual has eaten. They can even tell where a person has been by examining the chemicals which are in their hair.

这种激光束对化学物质极其敏感，通过它研究人员就能制出摄取食物的实时分析图，甚至还能通过分析头发里的物质，判断出这个人的行踪。

Previous techniques had burned hair samples but the new method breaks them down instead and allows far More precise readings.

以前的激光会把头发样品烧毁，而这种新的激光会将头发分解掉，使研究人员能读取更为准确的数据。

The researchers hope that it could be used for forensic science or by biologists exploring ruins - in theory they will be able to find out far more about the diet of ancient fossils they find.

研究人员希望这种激光能帮助法医或者生物学家，理论上讲他们就能更加了解古生物的饮食结构了。

Lead researcher Jim Moran, a geochemist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said: 'The carbon you eat goes into your hair, so hair is a record of carbon ratios. If you've been travelling, I could guess which countries you've been to or what you ate."

西北太平洋国家实验室的首席研究员，地球化学家吉姆 莫兰说：“你在食物中摄取的碳元素会储存在你的头发里，所以你的头发就记录了食物中的碳含量。假如说你在旅行，通过你的头发我大概就能猜出你去过那个国家，吃过什么东西。”

Currently the research is only looking at carbon in samples, but experts said that could soon expand beyond that.

目前的技术水平只能检测出样品中的碳含量，不过专家表示不久他们就能检测出更多的化学物质。

Geochemist Alex Sessions of Caltech University, who wasn't involved in the research, told : 'Carbon tells you what you're eating, but nitrogen could tell you whether it's meat or plants. Oxygen isotopes vary with the water cycle, and sulfur with bedrock, so they're location proxies. Put them together, and you've got some really powerful data in space and time.'

加州科技大学的地球化学家埃里克斯 赛申思并没有参与这项研究，不过他在接受采访时说：“通过碳元素研究人员能检测出你吃了什么，通过氮元素则能检测出你吃的是肉还是蔬菜。氧同位素会随着大气水循环而变化，硫同位素则根据地球岩床的不同而变化，通过它们我们就能确定地理位置。把所有这些数据放在一起，我们就能知道你在什么时间去了哪些地方干了什么事情。”