双头蠕虫带来生物进化新认知(下)

And that means, for example, in the in the case of bifurcation, that when an animal is cut, and is regenerating, for example, the tail.

这意味着, 例如, 在分叉的状态下, 当动物身体被切割, 重新长出, 例如, 尾巴。

There needs to be some mechanism that specifies where this tail is going to be, how it's going to be oriented, what is posterior, what is anterior, what is left, what is right, what is dorsal, what is ventral.

需要有某种机制来明确尾巴的位置，尾巴的方向，什么是后，什么是前，什么是左，什么是右，什么是背部，什么是腹部。

And these mechanisms can be disturbed.

这些机制是可以被干扰的。

And these might lead to different anatomies.

这些可能会导致不同的解剖结构。

And that gives us clues about what is important during this process.

这给了我们一些线索，让我们知道在这个过程中什么是重要的。

Of course, these are the baby steps.

当然，这只是一小步。

So we are just pointing towards this process, this phenomenon, we are saying, Okay, hello, this happens, there are these animals that are doing these weird things.

所以我们只是指向这个过程，这个现象，我们会说，好吧，你好，这发生了，这些动物在做这些奇怪的事情。

We should not forget about them. Let's look into them.

我们不应该忘记它们。让我们研究它们吧。

They also realized that there's a strong correlation between the type of bifurcation and the internal organ development.

他们还意识到分叉的类型和内脏器官发育之间有很强的相关性。

Meaning, the way that the worms were split reliably indicated if extra sets of organs were present.

也就是说，蠕虫分裂的方式可以可靠地表明是否存在额外的器官。

With this type of intel, Ponz and his team were able to essentially draw up a blueprint, or how-to guide, for reliably and repeatedly creating bifurcated worms, which is potentially a very useful resource for scientists interested in studying the mechanisms of development.

有了这种类型的信息，庞兹和他的团队基本上能够绘制出一幅蓝图，或是一个研究指南，能够可靠地、重复地创造分叉蠕虫，这对于有兴趣研究发育机制的科学家来说是一个潜在的非常有用的资源。

This long-forgotten study of worm developmental anomalies seems poised for a comeback.

这项被遗忘已久的关于蠕虫发育异常的研究似乎准备卷土重来。

According to Ponz, this information could extend far beyond the annelid and even insect worlds to help us better understand how things like growth and development actually happen in both the normal and the monster ways.

根据庞兹的说法，这些信息可能会远远超出环节动物甚至所有昆虫，帮助我们更好地理解生长和发育是如何以正常和怪异的方式发生的。

In a sense, we are now following this trend that they started then, studying these animals to try to understand bigger pictures in nature.

从某种意义上说，我们现在正在追随他们当时开始的研究趋势，研究这些动物来试图理解自然界更大的图景。

Usually development leads to a certain way to assert them to a certain point.

通常情况下，发育会导致一种来断言它们到某一点的特定的方式。

So you have a development that ends up in anatomy that's more or less conserved. But sometimes it doesn't.

有些发育，最终在解剖学上或多或少是保守的。 不过有时并非如此。

And that can teach us something about development processes. And that's interesting.

这可以教给我们一些关于发育过程的东西。这是有趣的。

For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I’m Ashleigh Papp.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是阿什利·帕普。