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　　听力文本

　　Ever lit a citronella candle to ward off mosquitoes, only to have 'em appear in droves?

　　Well, believe it or not, you may have actually been attracting the bugs.

　　Because while high concentrations of those pine-and-lemon-scented chemicals might repel mosquitoes, at low concentrations they lure the bloodsuckers in.

　　Audrey Odom, who studies mosquitoes at Washington University, calls it the "Chanel hypothesis."

　　Too much perfume is awful, but a little is pretty nice.

　　Plants take advantage of that to advertise their nectar—because no, mosquitoes don't live on blood alone.

　　But here's where things get weird.

　　Plasmodium—the malaria parasite—also manufactures those alluring odor molecules, called terpenes.

　　It does so using a chloroplast-like organelle, like the one plants use to capture sunlight.

　　The malaria parasite's version can't trap light, but it can still manufacture plant perfume.

　　The study appears in the journal MBio.

　　The parasites produce these scents in the lab, and mosquitoes are attracted to them.

　　The only question left for Odom and her colleagues is whether these chemicals also appear in the breath of infected humans.

　　If they do, she says, the goal is to build a quick breathalyzer test for malaria, instead of the blood test used today—which would attract doctors to a patient in need before the next mosquito comes to bite.

　　参考译文

　　有没有试过点燃一支香茅蜡烛驱赶蚊蝇，结果发现招来一大群的经历?

　　不管你信不信，你实际上可能是在吸引这些蚊虫。

　　原因在于虽然高浓度下散发着菠萝与柠檬复合香味的那些化学制品能够驱散蚊虫，但在低浓度下却适得其反，成为招引这些吸血狂魔的利器。

　　华盛顿大学研究蚊子的专家奥德丽·厄多姆将此归结为“香奈儿假说”。

　　香水喷太多结果会很糟糕，但仅仅一点就会有非常好的效果。

　　某些植物就是利用了这一点来为自己的花蜜进行宣传造势—因为蚊子不单是靠吸血存活。

　　但接下来是令人费解的事情。