A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by May Berenbaum and colleagues finds that bee colony collapse disorder seems to be related to bees' ribosomes breaking down, which keeps them from making the proteins they need to deal with stress and disease.

    May Berenbaum和他的同事发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）杂志上的一项研究发现，蜂群崩溃症候群（bee colony collapse disorder）似乎与蜜蜂的核糖体失调有关，这种失调使得蜜蜂不能制造它们所需要的用于抵抗压力和疾病的蛋白质。

    Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes

    A big clue about what's behind the disappearing honeybees, also known as colony collapse disorder, or CCD: May Berenbaum's team at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign found that bees' ribosomes were torn up.

    "The ribosomes make the proteins that allow bees to respond to pesticides, to respond to diseases, to respond to poor nutrition. So the ribosomal fragments that we were finding explain a lot of things, explains among other things the observation that CCD seems to be caused by everything. And in fact it very well might be that once the ribosomes cease functioning properly, then anything can cause bees to go under."

    A possible cause is multiple viral infections. "So the bee apparently has the capacity to deal with one or two of these, but multiple viral infections, basically the whole system breaks down." The finding, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doesn't pinpoint a cause or cure for CCD. But "we now have an explanation for what went wrong."

    解释蜜蜂消失的原因：核糖体受损

    对于蜜蜂为什么会消失（也称之为蜂群崩溃症候群，简称CCD）的问题目前有了一个不错的线索：来自伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校（University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign）的May Berenbaum研究小组发现这些消失蜜蜂的核糖体完全被破坏了。

    "核糖体用于制造蛋白质，这些蛋白质让蜜蜂对杀虫剂、疾病、以及营养不良做出反应。因此我们所发现的蜜蜂的核糖体片段能解释很多的东西。除了其它一些因素，我们观察到似乎所有的东西都能导致CCD,核糖体都能对这些做出解释。实际上很可能的情况是，一旦核糖体不能正常工作，那么任何因素都能导致蜜蜂崩溃。"

    一个可能的原因是多发性病毒感染（multiple viral infections）"很显然蜜蜂对于一两种感染还是能对付，但是对于多发性病毒感染来说，它们的整个免疫系统基本上就瘫痪了。"这项发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）杂志上的研究并没有精确指出导致CCD的原因，也没有给出治疗的方案。但是"对于蜂群崩溃症候群，我们目前有了一种解释。"

    Vocabulary:

    Colony:（昆虫）群体

    Collapse:坍塌；崩溃

    Ribosome:核糖体

    Devastate:摧毁；破坏

    Clue:提示；线索

    Pesticide:杀虫剂

    Nutrition:营养

    Fragment:碎片；片段

    Cease:停止

    Go under:沉没；破产

    Viral:病毒的

    Infection:感染

    Apparently:明显地

    Capacity:能力

    Pinpoint:精确指出

    Explanation:解释