Two or three times a month, Leslie B. Vosshall, the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, at the Rockefeller University, is required to feed the subjects under inquiry in her lab. In order to do so, she rolls up her sleeve and inserts her arm into the netting cage in which the creatures in question, mosquitoes, are kept. It’s not unusual for her to get two hundred and fifty bites in a few minutes, she explained the other day, with blasé good humor.
每个月城市有那么两三次，来自于Rockfeller大学神经以及行为学研究尝试室的Lesile B. Vosshall传授就要喂她的研究对象食物。她会怎么做呢？她会卷起他的袖子把本身的手伸进一个箱子里，那个箱子里养满了他们的研究对象，蚊子。她过后毫无豪情色彩的阐明说，关于她来说几分钟之内被咬250次其实很一般。
Vosshall is attempting to discover why some people seem more attractive to mosquitoes than others. “Some people are mosquito magnets—I think this has been reported anecdotally ever since there have been people,” she said. Vosshall herself is not particularly attractive to mosquitoes, unless she is sticking her arm into a cage of them. But last week, with mosquito season well under way, she visited Brooklyn to discuss the implications of her research for those New Yorkers for whom being made a meal of is an annual blight rather than a professional obligation.
Vosshall的研究目标在于摸索为什么有些人就是更随便吸引蚊子一些。她说有些人就像蚊子磁铁一样，那个说法在有人的时候就已经被传开了。但是Vosshall本人其实并非一个十分惹蚊子的人，除非她把手伸进养着蚊子的箱子里。就在上周，Vosshall在蚊子流行的季节来到美国的布鲁克林和纽约客的编纂们一路切磋他的研究内容，当然关于那些纽约客们，被蚊子饕餮是一年一次的不利日子而不是研究必需。
First stop: the Union Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal. Vosshall, who is a tall forty-six-year-old with long light-brown hair, was dressed boldly, under the circumstances, in a short black-and-white shift that covered her arms but exposed her legs. Native mosquitoes, Culex pipiens, are more likely to go for the face and the neck, she explained; it’s the mosquitoes that carry malaria, Anopheles gambiae, that like biting the feet. For illustrative purposes, Vosshall had brought along a test tube containing fetid water in which centimetre-long larvae frantically squiggled.
第一站就是位于Gowanus运河之上的结合街大桥。Vosshall那位46岁有着一头棕发的高个科学家穿戴十分夺目，她穿戴黑白相见的上衣，但是穿戴夏日的短裤，因而她的腿是路在外面的。他说美国当地的Culex popiens蚊子更倾向于叮咬脸和脖子；而传布疟疾的Anopheles gambiae则更喜欢叮咬脚部。为了进一步讲清晰工作，Vosshall从英国带来了一个有可能1厘米摆布长的蚊子幼虫拆载一个尝试盒子里，那些虫在污秽的水里快速的爬动着。
She peered from the bridge down into the water below, where leaf litter floated amid iridescent patches of kerosene. The stagnant edges of the canal, she noted, might provide a good breeding ground, as would pools of water in the hollows of wooden pilings. “Mosquitoes don’t like water too clean—Poland Spring is not going to be attractive,” she said. The reported presence of fish in the canal would, however, be some deterrent. “Fish are predators, so if you are a good mosquito mom you are not going to lay your eggs there,” Vosshall said. It is a little-known fact that only female mosquitoes bite. “The males are peaceable—they feed on flowers,” she said, conjuring the image of billions of teeny-tiny Ferdinand the Bulls, idling the days away among the milkweed.
她走在最前面进进了桥下的水里，在煤油灯的微光下水上的树叶闪现出来。在比力脏的运河边，他说陪伴那些树枝和树叶的堆积，那个蓄水池成了蚊子十分适宜的出生地。她说：蚊子不喜欢清洁水，波兰的温泉它们就不喜欢。但是运河里面的鱼会是影响蚊子生长的因素。因而假设你是一个称职的蚊子妈妈你就不会把蛋下在清洁水边。但是很少有人晓得，其实只要母蚊子才咬人。公蚊子其实比力和平，他们食花草。她又填补说：你能够想象万万只十分小的Ferdinand公牛在草原上游荡的场景。
Next stop: the shady Fort Greene back yard of a writer who has been a magnet for mosquitoes since childhood. Having cased the joint for standing water—a single empty plant dish with an inch of liquid was found, and declared uninfested—Vosshall explained that there are numerous theories about what draws mosquitoes to one person and not another. “There’s something about the composition of the blood—substance X—that they can figure out,” she said. One study has shown that mosquitoes prefer to bite people who have been drinking beer over those who have been imbibing water. The allure of wine for mosquitoes remains, unfortunately, unstudied.
第二站是一个做家的阴凉后院，那位做家从小就特殊招蚊子。因为各个跟尾处都是防水的，因而只在一个花盆里找到了大约1英尺的液体，但是被揣度为没有蚊子——Vosshall阐明说有良多种的可能能够阐明某些人特殊惹蚊子但是有人就不惹蚊子。到如今为行他们发现血液里的X成分可能是一个原因。一项研究表达蚊子更喜欢那些饮了啤酒的人而不是那些饮水的人。但是白酒对蚊子的吸引力还没有得到证明。
Vosshall dismissed much of the folk wisdom traded among residents of brownstone Brooklyn about effective mosquito deterrence. A fire pit? “You can confuse mosquitoes with fire, but it has to be a smelly, smoky fire—you can’t have one of those fancy hotel-fire displays,” she said. Growing lemon balm or planting marigolds? “People do use botanicals, but you have to have a lot of plants,” she said. She did endorse the use of the Mosquito Magnet, a device that first attracts mosquitoes by producing carbon dioxide and heat, then fatally sucks them up. “But it’s a little bit dangerous,” she added. “All the mosquitoes from far and wide will come, and you are gambling that they will be more attracted to the machine than they are to you.”
Vosshall肃清大部门在布鲁克林普遍传播的能够有效驱逐蚊子的办法。一个篝火？Vosshall表达已能够用火的烟来误导蚊子，但是必需长短常浓重的烟雾，你不成能在高级宾馆里获得那种待遇。种植金盏菊或者柠檬？他说那些工具确实是生物学里有效的办法，但是你必需有良多如许的动物。但是Vosshall附和利用一种喊做的蚊子磁铁的安装，那种安装通过产生二氧化碳和热量吸引蚊子等它们接近了间接搞死它们。但是Vosshall说那个比力求助紧急因为那个安装以至会吸引良多很远的蚊子，但是谁又能包管蚊子会对阿谁安装更有兴致而不是对你更有兴致呢？
If you should get bitten, the most effective treatment Vosshall has found is to immediately run the welt under the hottest water tolerable. How this works is as mysterious as the logic of mosquitoes’ blood preferences. “The mosquitoes leave a protein on the skin, so it could be that the hot water cooks it, like cooking an egg,” she suggested. “That’s one idea. The other idea is that you are exchanging one form of pain for another.”
假设你仍是不幸被叮咬了，那么Vosshall发现更好的办法就是快速用你能忍耐的最热的水来冲刷伤口。但是为什么那会起感化就和为什么蚊子对血感兴致一样还不克不及阐明。Vosshall说：蚊子在叮咬完了之后会留下卵白量，可能那些热水就像煮鸡蛋一样使那些卵白量变量了。但是你也要大白，那种办法只是搀扶帮助你在两种差别的痛苦之间转换罢了。
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