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這里是科學美國人——60秒科學系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

GPS has completely transformed how we get around. But other animals have long had their navigation systems built right in—like ants and bees.

全球定位系統(tǒng)（簡稱GPS）改變了我們的出行方式。但其他動物早已擁有了內(nèi)置的導航系統(tǒng)，比如螞蟻和蜜蜂。

"We know their eyes are quite sensitive to polarized light, and the sky has a particular pattern of polarized light, relative to the position of the sun." Barbara Webb, a bioroboticist at the University of Edinburgh.

“我們知道它們的眼睛對偏振光非常敏感，而天空中有一種與太陽位置有關(guān)的特殊模式的偏振光?！睈鄱”ご髮W的生物機器人學家芭芭拉·韋伯說到。

1. get around 到處旅行；游歷；

2.  be sensitive to 過敏的；易受影響的；敏感的

3. Bioroboticist  生物機器人學家

You can see polarized light firsthand if you take a pair of polarized sunglasses and rotate them against the sky—the light passing through the lenses changes. Webb says the insects have polarization like that built into facets of their compound eyes.

如果你拿起一副偏振光太陽鏡，將其對著天空旋轉(zhuǎn)，你可以親眼看到偏振光——穿過鏡片的光線會發(fā)生變化。韋伯表示，這些昆蟲復眼的小平面內(nèi)就有偏振現(xiàn)象。

"You can think of it as the equivalent of having a little polarization directional filter over them or lots of sunglasses pointed in different directions."

“你可以想象在它們眼睛上面有小型偏振方向過濾器，或有許多指向不同方向的太陽鏡。”

1. polarized  adj. 偏振的

2. polarization  n. 極化；偏振

3. equivalent  adj. （在價值、數(shù)量等方面）相等的

4. filter   過濾

But Webb was curious whether there's really enough information in the sky to give insects an accurate sense of direction. So her team built a sensor modeled after a desert ant eye and put it under artificial light meant to simulate the sky. They then fed that sensor input into a computational model meant to mimic the brains of desert ants, crickets and other insects with a celestial compass.

但韋伯很好奇，天空中是否真的有足夠的信息，能讓昆蟲擁有準確的方向感。因此，她的團隊制作了模仿沙漠螞蟻眼睛的傳感器，并將其置于模擬天空的人工光下。之后，他們將傳感器數(shù)據(jù)輸入計算機模型，該模型會模擬沙漠螞蟻、蟋蟀和其他擁有天文羅盤的昆蟲的大腦。

1. sense of direction 方向感

2. sensor  傳感器

3. artificial light   人造光

4. simulate  vt. 模擬

5. mimic vt. 模仿

6. celestial adj. 天上的

And they found that with the insects' innate sensing and processing equipment, they can likely sense compass direction down to just a couple degrees of error. The results are in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，有了這種昆蟲內(nèi)置的感知和處理設(shè)備，他們可能會感知到羅盤方向僅有幾度的誤差。研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《公共科學圖書館·計算機生物學》期刊上。

1. innate  adj. 先天的

2. compass  指南針

3. computational  計算的

A system based on that of insects could someday be a cheap, low-energy alternative to GPS. "Insects have very tiny brains. A brain the size of a pinhead that's using hardly any energy. And yet they're still able to navigate better than we can with GPS, which is a huge infrastructure."

Webb is now working on building a robot that can, like the desert ant, use light to get its bearings. Although after sundown, it may have to ask for directions.

基于昆蟲這種原理而建立的系統(tǒng)，有一天可能會成為GPS廉價且低能耗的替代品?！袄ハx的大腦非常小。這種針頭大小的大腦幾乎不消耗任何能量。然而，它們的導航能力卻能優(yōu)于GPS這種巨型基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施?！?/span>

韋伯目前正致力于研制像沙漠螞蟻那樣用光來確定方位的機器人。雖然太陽下山后，它可能就要問路了。

1. base on 以……為根據(jù)；在……基礎(chǔ)上

2. low-energy  低能耗

3. alternative   adj. 供選擇的；選擇性的

4. pinhead   n. 針頭

5. navigate vi. 導航 

6. infrastructure   n. 基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施；公共建設(shè)

7. bearing 方位

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