科学家们想要回答的10个古怪问题(上)

On its good days, science is incredible, enlightening and amazingly informative. On its bad days, science is gross, disturbing and downright bizarre. We had to sift through some pretty murky waters to compile this list of odd questions science has tried to answer. Talk about typing a word into the Google machine for perfectly innocent reasons and getting completely perturbing results for your efforts.

人们信奉科学的时候，科学是那样的妙不可言，深谙哲理又疯狂至极；可一旦人们背信科学，科学又是那样的信口雌黄，荒诞离奇又不值一提。我们不得不从社会这潭浑水中摸索着回答那些科学曾试图解释却无疾而终的一连串古怪问题。

Diamonds concocted from tequila, panda poop used as compost, uncontrollable coffee mugs, strangely swishy ponytails and the brain activity of dead salmon were some of the tame ones. Once we hit "how to make sure a patient receiving a colonoscopy doesn't explode" we were ready to call it a day. And yet we persevered, sorting through all the gory consequences of these ill-advised searches just for you. Here's what came out of that shudder-inducing process.

如何从龙舌兰中提取钻石，怎样以熊猫粪便为肥料,为何有时握着咖啡杯的手突然不受控制，马尾辫怎会嗦嗦作响以及对死去鲑鱼的脑活动研究，这都是些平淡无奇的研究。一旦我们无法保证“做结肠镜检查的病人术中一直保持淡定”，恐怕我们也得收拾收拾东西，直接收工了。而我们坚持不懈，向你讲述那一个个轻率的研究所导致的血淋淋的后果。以下，便是那些令人不寒而栗的研究过程。

the way you stand affect your ability to estimate?

10.难道你站立的方式也会影响到你的估算能力？

If you're leaning a little to the left, you're also probably going to be a little on the low side when it comes to guesstimating all sorts of approximations. Whether that's how many people live in a certain city, how much alcohol is in a particular bottle of booze, how many top-10 hits a band has released or how tall a specific building is -- if you're tilted slightly to the left, that number is more likely to be less than what it really should be.

如果你站着的时候稍稍向左倾，恐怕在各种各样的近似值量取过程中，你都会比准确值低一点点。不论这个城市中住了多少个人，不论一瓶酒里含有多少酒精，不论前十名的乐队发行新专辑有多少点击量，甚至不论一幢建筑物有多高——只要你稍稍向左倾斜，那么测量出的数字就极有可能比真实理论值低。

Participants in a study at Erasumus University Rotterdam didn't even know they were tilted during the experiment. But with a tad tip to the right, the numbers were higher, and with a little lean to the left the opposite was true. Interestingly, the difference between when people were leaning right versus standing upright wasn't significant – perhaps because all the participants were right-handed. We need more science, stat!

于鹿特丹伊拉斯谟大学从事该项科学研究的实验员甚至都没有发现，在整个研究过程中，他们自身也有些许的倾斜。但如果他们稍稍向右倾斜一点，测量值就会变高一点点，而且，如果向左倾斜测量值变低也是真实情况。然而，有趣的在于，人们若是站的端端正正，其实同他们稍稍向右倾斜相比，没什么太大的区别——不过这也有可能是因为实验人员都是右撇子呢！果然想要得出一份靠谱的实验结果，我们还是需要后期大量的科学数据统计。

you name a cow, are you going to get more milk?

9.难道你的名字里带有“牛”字，你就会比别人更喜欢喝牛奶吗？

It might not be all in a name, per se, but one study came to the conclusion that when stock managers know all the cows in a herd individually, the amount of milk those better-beloved cows can crank out is quite a bit higher. It came to about 68 gallons (258 liters) more a year, based on a survey of 516 stock managers on U.K. dairy farms. There are still some causation and correlation questions to be pondered regarding this conclusion, and more fieldwork to be done to verify the results. But if your preferred milk of choice comes from a cow who's a happy camper, you've probably got a lot more of it coming your way.

可能“牛”字并不会亮堂堂的出现在所有人的名字之中，但经研究指出，如果库存经理清楚的了解牛群中的每一只牛，那些可爱善良的牛儿们就会产出比预期更多的牛奶！基于516所牛奶厂库存经理提供的调查数据显示，每年多产出的牛奶有68加仑（258升）！对于这一问题，还有很多相关性和因果性的因素需要深入的考量，为验证其结论，更是需要大量的实地考察数据作支撑。如若你选择饮用一只幸福的牛儿所产出的牛奶，说不定会摄取到更多的营养哦。

don't pregnant ladies tip over?

8.准妈妈挺着那么大的肚子，竟然还能保持平衡不摔倒呢？

It's the sort of question a child wonders out loud – usually very loud – in line at the grocery store, much to the horror of mom or dad. Still, how do pregnant women manage to haul their baby-filled bellies around without falling over? Well, science is here to inform you, in the form of a study published in the journal Nature. Ladies can do something fancy with their backbones that men can't – they can compact the vertebrae in their lumbar area more easily. That means the bones in their lower backs are shaped more like wedges than those of males. So as women become increasingly pregnant, they can rock back on their spines to support and balance the additional weight. Good thing too, for our species, don't you think?

孩子会对这一类的问题感到特别纳闷，尤其是在杂货店排队等待结账这一百无聊赖的时间里会非常在意，甚至比爸爸妈妈们都要担心。不过这样怀疑也无可厚非，准妈妈们到底是如何支撑着她们那装着宝宝的大肚子以保持平衡还不会跌倒的呢？那么，让科学来告诉你吧。发表于《自然》杂志上的一项研究结果中指出：女性的脊椎有男性所不具备的“奇特”作用——她们可以轻易地压缩自己的腰椎。这就意味着，女性腰部的骨头相对于男性来说形状更接近于楔形。准妈妈们的肚子越来越大，她们依旧可以调整自己的脊骨来支撑和平衡肚子里宝宝的重量。你不有没有觉得，这也是我们人类的优势之一呢？

much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

7.一只小土拨鼠能啃掉多少木头呀？

Woodchucks aren't actually fond of wood (well, of eating it anyway – they might get all Bob Ross if they tried painting happy little trees) so their reputation for "chucking" isn't particularly accurate. But, if a woodchuck were so inclined, what would his rate of his fibrous chomping be? Answer: 22.0859393 cubic inches (361.9237001 cubic centimeters) of wood per day. Yep. You heard it here first. An average of 22 cubic inches met a grisly fate each day researchers plunked a piece of lumber into a hungry woodchuck's enclosure. The little groundhogs subjected to this culinary madness had a limited menu during the 12-day study (a two-by-four a day keeps the doctor away) so luckily the study was wrapped up pretty rapidly. And oddly decisively. This study was so improbable that it made its way into the world in the Annals of Improbable Research.

土拨鼠实际上不怎么喜欢木头。不过但吃无妨呀，要是万一它们想学习鲍勃·鲁斯，用木屑装饰出一颗颗萌萌的小树呢！所以，说它们“啃”木头其实并不太准确。不过，要是我们假设土拨鼠有这种倾向的话，我们一定想知道它们咀嚼木头的速率有多快。答案是：一只小小的土拨鼠每天能嚼22.0859393立方英寸（361.9237001立方厘米）的木材！这数据我可一点都没有夸大，你也别因为第一次听说这么巨大的数字而合不拢嘴哦。实验中，研究人员投掷在一只饥饿土拨鼠笼子里的木块，平均每天都有22立方英寸的木块会遭遇到被“啃”掉的可怕命运。在这项为期12天的研究里，小土拨鼠们都有特定的“疯狂大餐”（每天一块木，疾病远离我），庆幸的是这一研究项目以迅雷不及掩耳之势宣布终止。凭借着这一研究的奇异程度，该实验报告荣幸的被选刊登于《不可思议研究年报》。

cabbies' brains better than the rest of ours?

6.难道的哥的大脑比其他人的大脑都要发达吗？

Thanks to everything from bad weather to cranky passengers, driving a cab must be challenging under the best of conditions. That could make driving a cab in a metropolitan labyrinth of lousy street planning an absolute nightmare. So how do taxi drivers manage it? By expanding pertinent parts of their minds. London cab drivers have to pass some rigorous exams to command one of the cabs that dots London thoroughfares. Some of the memory-storing parts of the drivers who pass are more developed than those of the drivers who fail, says a five-year study conducted at University College London. The hippocampi of the successful sedan savants grew decidedly more developed in certain respects than those of us who simply push the peddles to get to the nearest grocery store.

各种各样状况频发，比如遭遇恶劣的天气或脾气暴躁的行人，使得司机师傅想要保持他们最好的状态驾车变得颇具挑战。同时，这些状况也使得他们驾车行驶在大都市迷宫般千回百绕而又嘈杂污秽的街道成为噩梦。那么，出租车司机是如何克服这些困难的呢？答案是：靠开发大脑相关部位的功能。伦敦出租车遍布大街小巷，司机必须通过严格的测试方能上岗。英国伦敦大学学院一项历时5年的调查表明：通过测试的司机，其大脑的记忆存储部分要比那些测试失败的人发达。毫无疑问的是，相对于我们这些平常只用开开车到最近的杂货铺的人来说，技艺纯熟的轿车司机的大脑某些特定区域要比我们发达的多。

审校：省略珺 来源：前十网