【读新闻学英语】喝牛奶已经OUT了，接下来人们打算喝鸭嘴兽奶！

The milk of the platypus may contain a protein that can fight drug-resistant bacteria.

鸭嘴兽的奶液中可能含有一种蛋白质，能够杀死耐药的细菌。

platypus：鸭嘴兽

drug-resistant：耐药的；抗药性的

Now, a new analysis of that protein reveals that its shape is as bizarre as the shape of the animal that excreted it. The protein has a never-before-seen protein fold thanks to its ringlet-like structure, according to researchers.

如今对该蛋白质的最新分析显示，这种蛋白质的形状和生产它的动物的形状一样奇特。研究人员说鸭嘴兽的蛋白质有一种前所未见的蛋白质折叠子，这要归功于它像卷发一样的独特结构。

excrete： 分泌

ringlet：卷发

"Platypuses are such weird animals that it would make sense for them to have weird biochemistry," study researcher Janet Newman said in a statement. Platypuses are monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. They suckle their young, but they don't have teats or nipples. Instead, they "sweat" milk from glands on their bellies. Baby platypuses gather around their supine mother, lapping up puddles of milk from her skin.

研究人员Janet Newman在一份声明中说：“鸭嘴兽是一种奇特的生物，它们拥有奇特的生物化学结构是合情合理的。”她说鸭嘴兽是单孔目、卵生的哺乳动物。它们会给幼胎哺乳，但它们并没有乳头。作为替代，它们用腹部汗腺以“出汗”的方式分泌出奶液。鸭嘴兽幼胎紧紧偎依在仰卧的母亲神榜，从她的皮肤上舔奶喝。

biochemistry：生物化学

suckle：哺乳

gland：腺；汗腺

supine：仰卧的；懒散的

Many types of mammal milk have antibacterial properties, according to a 2014 paper in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution. Platypus milk may be particularly protective, though, because baby platypuses are exposed to many pathogens throughout their infancy. Their milk sits on their mothers' exposed skin, and they live in microbe-rich burrows as soon as they hatch.

根据2014年发表在《基因生物学与进化》杂志的文章，许多种哺乳动物的奶都具有抗菌特征。鸭嘴兽的奶可能特别具有抗菌能力，因为鸭嘴兽幼胎在整个因而其会接触到各种病原体。它们一出生就生活在微生物密集的洞穴中，靠母亲裸露在皮肤上的奶存活。

pathogen：病原体；病菌

burrow：洞穴；地洞

Newman and her colleagues replicated an unknown protein from platypus milk in a laboratory and then studied its structure, discovering the unique ringlet shape. "Although we've identified this highly unusual protein as only existing in monotremes, this discovery increases our knowledge of protein structures in general, and will go on to inform other drug discovery work.” Newman said.

Newman和同事在实验室复制了来自鸭嘴兽奶的未知蛋白质，在研究它的结构中发现了独特的卷曲形状。“尽管我们只在单孔目动物身上发现如此不寻常的蛋白质，发现它增加了我们对蛋白质结构的整体认识。它将启发其他药品的研发工作。”Newman说。

replicate： 复制；折叠

monotremes：单孔目动物