乡巴佬 vs 城市佬，生活在哪里的老鼠更聪明？｜外刊精讲第877期

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本文选自《经济学人》1月23日刊文章。这篇文章是一个非常有趣的研究，研究城市老鼠是否比农村老鼠更聪明、更善于解决新问题。研究人员分别从农村和城市捕捉相同种类的老鼠，饲养它们一年的时间让它们适应新环境，然后完成各种任务。实验表明，城市老鼠更擅长解决新问题，他们的成功率是77%，而农村老鼠仅为52%。在下结论之前，还需要大量研究，不过通过对老鼠的研究，可以推断人类是否也有这种现象，城市人是否真的比乡巴佬聪明。

选文精讲

Mice 老鼠
Where a rodent lives may determine how clever it is
老鼠生活的地方可能决定它有多聪明
  • rodent: 啮齿目动物（如老鼠等）
Country bumpkins and city slickers
乡巴佬和城市佬
  • country bumpkin: 土包子、乡巴佬
  • city slicker: （时髦世故的）城市人，城市滑头
Jan 23rd 2021 |
AESOP’S FABLE about the town mouse and the country mouse concentrates on the dangers of city living and rather sneers at its advantages. Yet advantages there are, for mice and men alike, as long as those involved are able to grasp them. That, though, requires an ability to respond successfully to novel problems. So a pair of researchers in Germany have looked to see whether urban mice are better at doing this than rural ones. Their conclusion, just published in Animal Behaviour, is that they are.
  • sneer at: 嘲笑、蔑视
《伊索寓言》中关于城市老鼠和乡村老鼠的故事关注的是城市生活的危险，而对城市生活的好处却嗤之以鼻。然而，无论对老鼠还是对人，只要生活在城市，就能明白它的好处，尽管，它需要成功应对新问题的能力。因此，德国的两位研究人员研究了城市老鼠是否比农村老鼠更擅长应对新问题，他们在《动物行为》杂志上发表的结论是：确实如此。
Valeria Mazza of the University of Potsdam and Anja Guenther of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, in Plön, captured 17 striped field mice from farmland and 14 others from various places in central Berlin. They kept these animals in a laboratory for a year, to acclimatise them, and then challenged them with various tasks which, if performed successfully, would yield a reward of food. Tasks included opening the window panes of a house made of Lego bricks; opening the lid of a Petri dish; and yanking out a wad of paper jammed inside a clear plastic tube. As a control, all the mice were also given a naturalistic task that involved digging through a heap of bedding to find a reward.
  • field mice：田鼠
  • yank out：拉出去、抽出
  • a wad of: 一团、一叠
  • dig through: 挖通
波茨坦大学的瓦莱里娅·马扎和普隆市马克斯·普朗克进化生物学研究所的安雅·冈瑟在农田里捕获了17只斑纹田鼠，在柏林市中心的不同地方捕获了14只斑纹田鼠。他们将这些动物在实验室里饲养了一年，让它们适应环境，然后让它们完成各种任务，如果成功完成，它们将获得食物奖励。任务包括打开乐高积木房子的窗玻璃；打开皮氏培养皿的盖子；抽出塞在透明塑料管里的一团纸。作为对照，所有的老鼠都被分配了一项自然任务，包括挖通一堆草垫以找到奖赏。

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