２００９年度科研職場的“燙手山芋”（節選）

在人們印象中，科學家是令人羨慕的職業，然而科研工作的艱辛往往不為外人所知。美國著名雜志Popular Science（《科技新時代》）總結了本年度最讓人瞠目結舌的科研工作，包括猴子性生活觀察者、理論物理學家、颶風獵人、醫療垃圾焚燒工、水蛭研究者……本文節選了其中五類工作的介紹，更多內容可登陸http://www.popsci.com/node/30908閱讀。

It might seem sad， after years of study， to wind up gathering 1)sewer rats or burning great， 2)stinking heaps of urine samples and bloody 3)gauze. But that’s the path some professionals choose—and you’re lucky they did.

If you 4)freak out when 5)turbulence threatens to 6)topple your 7)ginger ale， you probably won’t get into the U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather 8)Reconnaissance Squadron. Based at Keesler Air Force Base in 9)Biloxi， Mississippi， the 20 pilots and their crews fly into the eyes of dangerous hurricanes， usually four times on missions of up to 12 hours. Think of it: After making it through， they circle around to do it again. Why risk it when satellites and radar do a 10)bang-up job of tracking storms? Because it’s hard to 11)gauge the strength and growth of a hurricane without measuring the pressure in its eye， and although radar can map the center of a storm to within 60 miles， being inside it brings accuracy to within two miles. Missions are 12)round-the-clock when a storm is on， and the goal is to 13)parachute two-foot-long instruments called 14)dropsondes through the storm to measure 15)barometric pressure， wind speed， and so on. It’s a 16)maniac’s job. Since the 1960s， four flights—36 people—have been lost. One plane returned so damaged that it was sent directly to the 17)scrap heap.

Ever wonder where your 18)tonsils and 19)gallbladder go once the 20)anesthesia 21)wears off? If your doctors are following the law， those go out the door as medical waste. At BioMedical Waste Solutions， based in Port Arthur， Texas， a fleet of 22)leakproof trucks brings tons of trash each day to its processing facility， where a technician wearing gloves， 23)goggles and a protective suit pulls the bags of waste from the tubs and loads them into a plastic-lined stainless-steel 24)hopper， which is wheeled into a 6-by-13-foot 25)autoclave. The operator vacuums the air out of the chamber before injecting it with 45 psi of 300ordm;F steam， cooking and 26)sterilizing the 27)syringes， bloody gauze， and bottles of 28)semen and urine for 40 minutes. (Limbs and 29)chemo supplies go to specialty 30)incinerators.) The aroma is what 31)gets to you. “It smells like dog food mixed with burning plastic，” says Wes Sonnier， who began the company in 2005. The steaming 32)glop， which is full of melted rubber gloves， bandages and syringes， is then machine-compacted before being dropped off at the municipal dump.

For Mark Siddall and his colleagues from the leech lab at the American Museum of Natural History in New York， the primary tool for field research is a pair of shorts. “Fieldwork involves wading through swamps， allowing leeches to crawl onto us，” explains Siddall， the museum’s 34)curator， whose subjects are increasingly being used in 35)reconstructive surgery and in the development of 36)anticoagulants. In the past decade， Siddall has led leech walks everywhere from Argentina to Thailand. He says， “You can collect hundreds on your body just over one walk.” To remove a sucker， he simply peels off the edge with his fingernail， since burned leeches tend to 37)regurgitate into the wound. Why， God， why? Siddall has discovered or studied dozens of new species， including a leech that prefers frogs and one that likes hippo 38)anus. And the danger? “So far， no leech-borne diseases have been identified，” he says. “And to the best of my knowledge， nobody has ever been 39)exsanguinated.”

Dying is easy. The study of how an animal wandering the 41)tundra becomes a fossil underground: That’s hard. To familiarize themselves with the mechanics of death and decay， taphonomists study the 42)disintegration of worms， elephants and even humans. Travis Rayne Pickering， a taphonomist and 43)paleoanthropologist at the 44)University of Wisconsin， concentrates on big cat kills in Africa. The idea is to create a reference to help figure out whether fossil animals were killed by early humans or by predators like big cats. Pickering and his team 45)scour the countryside for the remains of a kill to assess the aftermath and 46)flay the 47)carcass. “Sometimes the flesh is loose enough to get your fingers in there and pull it off. But it usually takes quite a bit of boiling to get the skin off the head， and there’s the brain tissue to get out as well，” says Pickering.

There are plenty of technical problems on the way to Mars: how to avoid excess radiation， maintain food supplies， and generally not die. But the real 48)hazard between here and there is 49)going nuts. That’s why this spring， six participants in the European Space Agency and Russia’s Institute for Biomedical Problems’s Mars500 program are going to lock themselves in a series of metal tubes in a facility in Moscow for 520 days， roughly the time it should take to travel 100 million miles to Mars， spend 30 days there， and return. That’s a long time without a shower or a window. Psychologists and biologists will be observing the effects of cramped quarters and social isolation on the four Russians and two others chosen from an applicant pool of 5，000 pilots and scientists from 45 countries. The winners will drink reprocessed urine and eat freeze-dried food and whatever grows in the greenhouse. Any breakdowns， engineering or otherwise， must be remedied by the crew， who will be constantly recorded by 18 cameras. The reward: After 250 days， three lucky Marstronauts will be allowed to leave their 2，100-square-foot capsule， in spacesuits， to explore some other unit dolled up to look like Mars for a month， before crawling back inside for the final 240 days.

苦學經年，最后卻得跑去收集溝渠老鼠，或者得負責把那些堆積如山、臭氣熏天的尿液采樣和沾滿血的紗布燒掉，這看起來似乎很可憐。但那就是一些專業人士選擇的路——你該慶幸他們做了如此抉擇。

如果你那瓶姜汁汽水被大風刮倒了也會嚇壞你，那你恐怕無法進入美國空軍預備役第53氣象情報中隊工作。該中隊總部位于密西西比州拜洛希市的基斯勒空軍基地，每次颶風來臨，20名飛行員和他們的機組成員駕駛飛機沖進危險的颶風眼，通常得4次穿越颶風眼，每次穿越的時間長達12個小時。設想一下：飛機穿越風眼，在颶風圈周圍盤旋，再找機會沖進去。如今，衛星和雷達已能很好完成風暴跟蹤工作，為什么還要冒這個險？因為，只有通過測量颶風眼的壓力才能精確推算出颶風的威力及其發展趨勢。雖然用雷達勘測風暴中心的位置精確在60英里以內，但直接進入風暴內測量，精度在兩英里之內。當風暴來臨，氣象情報中隊得不分晝夜地工作。他們的目標是用傘投的方式把一個兩英尺長的下投式探空儀投進風暴眼，以測量大氣壓力，風速等數據。