生命在于运动，老鼠也爱奔跑

If an exercise wheel sits in a forest, will mice run on it?
如果把跑轮放在森林里，小鼠会上去跑步吗？

Every once in a while, science asks a simple question and gets a straightforward answer.
科学时常会提出一个简单的问题，然后得到一个直截了当的答案。

In this case, yes, they will. And not only mice, but also rats, shrews, frogs and slugs.
这个问题的答案是，会。不仅小鼠会，大鼠、鼩鼱、青蛙和蛞蝓都会。

True, the frogs did not exactly run, and the slugs probably ended up on the wheel by accident, but the mice clearly enjoyed it. That, scientists said, means that wheel-running is not a neurotic behavior found only in caged mice.
当然，青蛙算不上在跑，蛞蝓可能也是偶然来到跑轮上的，但是小鼠明显是真的喜欢跑轮。科学家表示，这说明在跑轮上跑步并不是关在笼子里的老鼠才有的神经性举动。

They like the wheel.
它们喜欢跑轮。

Two researchers in the Netherlands did an experiment that it seems nobody had tried before. They placed exercise wheels outdoors in a yard garden and in an area of dunes, and monitored the wheels with motion detectors and automatic cameras.
荷兰的两名研究员做了一项似乎从来没人做过的实验。他们在室外的院子和一块沙地里放置了一些跑轮，并通过运动检测器和自动相机对这些跑轮进行监测。

They were inspired by questions from animal welfare committees at universities about whether mice were really enjoying wheel-running, an activity used in all sorts of studies, or were instead like bears pacing in a cage, stressed and neurotic. Would they run on a wheel if they were free?
他们的灵感来自一些大学的动物福利委员会所提出的问题。这些委员会质疑小鼠是否真的喜欢在轮子上跑步——所有研究都会用到这个活动，或者还是像在笼子里踱步的熊那样，出于压力和紧张。如果处于自由状态，它们还会在轮子上跑步吗？

Now there is no doubt. Mice came to the wheels like human beings to a health club holding a spring membership sale. They made the wheels spin. They hopped on, hopped off and hopped back on.
目前，这一点毫无疑问。到跑轮上跑步的小鼠，就像来到正在举行春季促销的健身俱乐部的人类一样。他们开始让轮子转动。它们跳上去、跳下来，然后再跳上去。

"When I saw the first mice, I was extremely happy," said Johanna H. Meijer at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. "I had to laugh about the results, but at the same time, I take it very seriously. It's funny, and it's important at the same time."
“当我看见第一只小鼠时，我非常高兴，”荷兰莱顿大学医学中心(Leiden University Medical Center)的约翰娜·H·梅杰(Johanna H. Meijer)说。“这些结果不能不让我觉得可笑，但同时，我也会认真对待它。这很有趣，同时也很重要。”

Dr. Meijer's day job is as a "brain electrophysiologist" studying biological rhythms in mice. She relished the chance to get out of the laboratory and study wild animals, and in a way that no one else had.
梅杰的正职工作是研究小鼠生物节律的“脑电生理学家”。她非常享受走出实验室，以前所未有的方式研究野生动物的机会。

She said Konrad Lorenz, the great-grandfather of animal behavior studies, once mentioned in a letter that some of his caged rats had escaped and then returned to his garden to use running wheels placed there.
她说，动物行为研究的鼻祖康拉德·洛伦茨(Konrad Lorenz)曾在一封信中提到，有些被他关在笼子里的大鼠逃走后，又回到他的花园，到放在那里的跑轮上跑步。

But, Dr. Meijer said, the Lorenz observation "was one sentence."
但是，梅杰说，洛伦茨的观察“只是一句话”。