英語聽力文摘 長壽的奧秘！

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One Step Closer to Living Longer

D: You know, when I watch futuristic sci-fi movies, I notice everyone has a normal aging pattern. You don't encounter people who just having been107 years old. That's probably a mistake.

Y: A mistake? Why?

D: Because science is giving us longer lifespans all the time. Researchers these days are even starting to understand how the body sends signals to itself, determining how it ages.

Y: Now, that sounds like science fiction!

D: It's true. A study conducted by James Carey and his colleagues at the University of California, for example, found a link between how long a mouse lives and its ovaries.

Y: Its ovaries? What do they have to do with the aging?

D: The researchers removed the ovaries of one set of mice when they were a few weeks old. Those mice didn’t live as long as mice who still had their ovaries. Another group of mice had their ovaries removed but got young ones later.

The mice with the young ovaries implanted into them lived forty percent longer than the ones who kept their original ovaries, and sixty percent longer than the ones with no ovaries at all!

Y: Yalza! Sixty percent longer!?

D: Some chemical message is being sent from the ovaries to the rest of the body, telling it what stage of life it is in. By renewing their ovaries, the scientists were essentially able to set the clock back.

Y: So who wants mice to live longer?

D: Mice are just test. If we could understand how the body tells itself to age, maybe we could make other species live longer…like people.

人類接近長壽的又一步

D: 我看未來派科幻電影的時候，發(fā)覺里面的人物年齡都是很正常的，就像我們普通人一樣，活不了特別長。在這種電影里，你根本就不可能會看到一個活到一百多歲的人。我個人覺得這有問題。

Y: 有問題?你又有何憑證?

D: 因為科學一直以來都致力于延長人們壽命的研究。近日，又有了突破性的進展。

Y: 這樣聽來倒真的像是科幻小說了!

D: 這可是真的。比如說吧，加利佛利亞大學的James Carey和他的同事們進行了一項研究，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)老鼠的壽命和它的卵巢有很大關(guān)聯(lián)。

Y: 卵巢?卵巢和壽命會有什么關(guān)系啊?

D: 研究人員準備了三組老鼠。在老鼠幾星期大的時候，他們將一組老鼠的卵巢切除。結(jié)果表明，被切除卵巢的一組老鼠沒有未被切除卵巢的一組老鼠長壽。另外還有一組老鼠被切除了卵巢，但后來又被植入了年輕的卵巢。被植入年輕卵巢的一組老鼠比未被切除卵巢的一組老鼠壽命長40%，比被切除卵巢的一組老鼠壽命整整長了60%!

Y: 啊!60%!?

D: 卵巢可以將某些化學信息傳送至身體的其他部分，生命究竟處于哪個階段。科學家們再將卵巢植入老鼠體內(nèi)，可以說是讓時光倒流了。

Y: 誰那么無聊，想要讓老鼠長壽啊?

D: 老鼠只是試驗品。如果說我們能搞清楚老鼠的身體是怎樣來發(fā)送有關(guān)年齡的信息的，有可能，我們就能使其他物種長壽些……比如，人類!