Ants in space 螞蟻在太空的表現

媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

據觀察，被帶到國際空間站的螞蟻在從容器壁上摔落之后仍然能夠借助團隊合作來尋找新區域。研究人員想借鑒螞蟻的合作方法來更好地開發機器人。以下是 BBC Julie Peacock 的報道：

Researchers studying how microgravity affected their behaviour found the ants demonstrated an impressive ability to walk on surfaces aboard the space station. Crucially, the ants still worked as a team to map out their environment. But Professor Deborah Gordon, who led the research, said they reacted very differently from the astronauts in zero gravity.

(Professor Deborah Gordon)

(They) kind of skittered off to one side and tumbled around. And it was always really interesting to see how they got their hold back. Sometimes they would grab on to another ant and climb back down on the ant back on to the surface, and sometimes they somehow managed to flatten themselves back on to the surface. And so I think the biomechanics of that are interesting.

The results from this research could have applications here on Earth. It's hoped that information gathered from the ants' search patterns could help researchers create robots which could perform tasks like searching disaster zones or burning buildings for survivors.