2015考研英语阅读医用植入设备_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读医用植入设备

　　Singhal博士将设备原型移植进了甲虫活体。放入了一个一便士大小的能量池，这些甲虫在2周实验期内产生了20微瓦。

　　That is only around a fifth of the power that a pacemaker requires, but Dr Singhal reckonsthat a human-sized version of his cell would be able to deliver enough juice. There is a catch,though: a process called biofouling, in which foreign objects implanted in the body becomeencrusted with proteins and tissue. That could render Dr Singhal s device inoperable afteronly a few months. Equally worrying are the enzymes, which tend to break down over time.Losing enzymes means losing power.

　　这只是一个起搏器所需能量的15分之一，但是Singhal博士认为人类体积大小的细胞量能够产生足够的能量。这里有个欠缺点：被称做生物污垢的过程，即被移植进人体的外来物会嵌入蛋白质和组织中。这会使得Singhal博士的设备在移植后的几个月内便无法使用。同样使人担忧的是酶，这种物质随着时间的推移会被分解。而丢失酶就意味着丢失能量。

　　Rahul Sarpeshkar, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has asolution to both these problems. In a paper published on June 12th in Public Library ofScience, Dr Sarpeshkar and his colleagues describe building a glucose fuel cell which uses aplatinum catalyst that does not degrade over time.