科学美国人60秒:Saharan Dust Brings Bacterial Blooms to the Caribbean

Residents of the southern U.S. might be familiar with this dusty summer phenomenon:
美国南部的居民可能会熟悉夏天尘土飞扬的现象：

[TV Weather montage: "We are breathing dust that at one point originated over Africa… Dust particles are carried 15,000 feet into the atmosphere… Another dust cloud from Africa's Sahara Desert has made it all the way to Houston."]
电视天气预报片段：我们现在呼吸的尘土曾经来自非洲……，尘埃粒子漂浮15,000英尺到大气中…，另外的尘埃团从非洲的撒哈拉沙漠不远千里到达了休斯顿。

The dust clouds surf on trade winds towards the Caribbean. And since the dust is rich in minerals, like iron, it's like an airborne delivery of fertilizer to marine life there.
尘埃云随着信风前往加勒比海。由于灰尘中富含矿物质，所以这就像将肥料经过空运送给海洋生物。

"So when you get this pulse of iron that comes, it's a micronutrient, a trace metal that's needed by all of life that's all of a sudden available, at least for a short amount of time." Erin Lipp, a microbiologist at the University of Georgia. She and her team studied the phenomenon, sampling waters in Barbados and the Florida Keys. And they found that these fertilizer dumps seem to encourage bacterial blooms. Including Vibrio species, some of which can cause cholera or food poisoning.
所以，当铁这种微量元素被送达，突然之间，所有海洋生物所需要的这种微生物，在短时间内可获得。Erin Lipp，是乔治亚大学的微生物学家。她和团队收集了巴巴多斯和佛罗里达和海水样本，来研究这一现象。结果发现这些肥料的转储似乎有利于微生物的繁殖。这些微生物中就包括霍乱弧菌，这种细菌可导致霍乱或食物中毒。

"Vibrio and probably other bacteria that are really capable of responding to this feast that's provided to them, they just use it quite rapidly. So within that first 24 hours you see a very big population spike of these bacteria." A spike of five to 30 times their usual numbers. The finding is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
霍乱弧菌和其他细菌对于飞来的大餐，迅速享用。所以，在24小时内，这些细菌的数量就会激增。其数量会达到平常数量的5-30倍。该研究结果发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》。

If all this makes you want to skip the oysters after a sandstorm, "I would say that is a personal decision. But summer in general is the riskiest time to eat oysters." For now, she says, there's really no evidence to link Saharan dust to your risk of a bum oyster. So keep calm, and slurp on.
如果这些使你想避免食用沙尘暴后的牡蛎。“我想说，这只是你的个人想法，但是总体而言，夏天是食用牡蛎最危险的时间。” Erin Lipp，还说，尚未有证据显示撒哈拉沙漠的尘土与牡蛎之间的危险关系。所以，不要慌张，尽情开吃吧!