科普知识学英语 雄鸡报晓由生物钟驱使.docVIP

Of course, roosters?crow（啼叫，报晓）?with the dawn. But are they simply reacting to the environment, or do they really know what time of day it is? Researchers reporting on March 18 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have evidence that puts the clock in cock-a-doodle-doo (or ko-ke-kok-koh, as they say in the research teams native Japan). Cock-a-doodle-doo symbolizes the break of dawn in many countries, says Takashi Yoshimura of Nagoya University. But it wasnt clear whether crowing is under the control of a biological clock or is simply a response to external stimuli. ? Thats because other things -- a cars headlights, for instance -- will set a rooster off, too, at any time of day. To find out whether the roosters crowing is driven by an internal biological clock, Yoshimura and his colleague Tsuyoshi Shimmura placed birds under constant light conditions and turned on recorders to listen and watch. ? Under round-the-clock?dim（昏暗的）?lighting, the roosters kept right on crowing each morning just before dawn, proof that the behavior is entrained to a circadian rhythm. The roosters reactions to external events also varied over the course of the day. ? In other words, predawn crowing and the crowing that roosters do in response to other cues both depend on a circadian clock. ? The findings are just the start of the teams efforts to unravel the roosters innate vocalizations, which arent learned like songbird songs or human speech, the researchers say. ? We still do not know why a dog says bow-wow and a cat says meow, Yoshimura says. We are interested in the mechanism of this genetically controlled behavior and believe that chickens provide an excellent model. 当然，公鸡打鸣（啼叫，报晓）的黎明。但他们只是反应环境，还是他们真的知道它是一天中什么时间？研究人员报告在当前生物学，细胞出版社出版，于3月18日的证据，把时钟“公鸡的一个，涂鸦，斗”（或“劫-科- KOK-KOH，”因为他们说，在研究团队的本土日本）。“公鸡一个涂鸦斗破晓时分在许多国家的象征，”名古屋大学的吉村隆说。“但它是不明确的鸡鸣是否是一个生物钟的控制下，或仅仅是一个对外界刺激的反应。” ? 这是因为其他的东西 - 一辆汽车的前大灯，如 - 将设置一只公鸡，太，在一天中的任何时间。公鸡报晓要找出是否是由一个内部的生物钟，吉村和他的同事刚Shimmura放置鸟恒定光源条件下，打开录音机收听和观看。 ?