Earth and Sky:Electric Fish 发电鱼

Electric Fish 发电鱼

One way that Harold Zakon and his team find fish to study is to put electrical detectors¹ into the bottom of murky² streams in Venezuela. This works because certain fish emit pulses of electricity. Discover electric fish -- on today's Earth and Sky.

DB: This is Earth and Sky. You won't feel a shock. In fact, it takes a special instrument to detect the electric pulses made by a group of fish known as "weakly electric fish".

JB: Unlike eels³, which zap their prey⁴ with electricity, weakly electric fish use electricity to navigate⁵ and locate objects -- and other fish. Harold Zakon studies them at the University of Texas at Austin.

Harold Zakon: ... each species has a different pattern, each of the sexes within a species and each individual. If they approached another fish, they could detect its discharge and determine what species, sex and individual it was. If it was a member of their own species, they might even recognize it.

DB: The electrical pulses of these fish might provide some insight into the workings of the human brain. That's because human brains also work electrically. But electrical discharges made by fish are easier to study than the electricity in the brain.

Harold Zakon: You always have to crack the brain and stick an electrode in. Here, the animals just emit this signal, and we can watch these changes and infer what's going on in the membranes⁶ of their cells, just from their behavior.

JB: There's more about electric fish and human brains at today's show at earthsky.org. Thanks to the National Science Foundation -- where discoveries begin. We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

1 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技

2 murky   

adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗

参考例句：

• She threw it into the river's murky depths.她把它扔进了混浊的河水深处。
• She had a decidedly murky past.她的历史背景令人捉摸不透。

3 eels   

abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system）

参考例句：

• Eels have been on the feed in the Lower Thames. 鳗鱼在泰晤士河下游寻食。
• She bought some eels for dinner. 她买回一些鳗鱼做晚餐。

4 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

5 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

6 membranes   

n.（动物或植物体内的）薄膜( membrane的名词复数 )；隔膜；（可起防水、防风等作用的）膜状物

参考例句：

• The waste material is placed in cells with permeable membranes. 废液置于有渗透膜的槽中。 来自辞典例句
• The sarcoplasmic reticulum is a system of intracellular membranes. 肌浆网属于细胞内膜系统。 来自辞典例句