课文内容

Vocabulary: biotechnology 词汇: 生物技术

I am a massive science fiction geek. Ever since I was young, I’ve been captivated by tales ofinterstellar adventure, aliens, robots, and cutting-edge technology. I always loved the concept ofcyborgs. That’s a human-robot hybrid. They are ordinary humans who have been enhanced in some way by technology; more intelligence, faster speed or better resilience to disease and damage. Great ideas, but I never thought I’d see them in my lifetime.

Well, I stand corrected. Integrated biology and technology is already here and people have wasted no time utilising it to re-engineer their bodies. Take, for example, Neil Harbisson, who has an antenna protruding from his head that allows him to hear colour, or Moon Ribas, who has animplant that allows her to sense seismic activity. Now, neither are abilities that I particularlycovet, but it's a start.

And it doesn’t end there. As technology increases so too will our ability to enhance ourselves through it. One of the latest developments is the graphene tattoo. Not an actual tattoo at all, but more like a patch, the graphene tattoo could revolutionise biomedical monitoring.

It looks much like a transparent plaster, but with a gold coloured circuit board contained within it. This circuit is the graphene. Graphene is a form of carbon, but it’s 200 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than gold, which is the component typically used in electronics.

The human body is basically an electrical machine. When in contact with the skin, the graphene in the plaster is able to read and conduct the electricity – allowing it to easily be used as a medical monitor for heart-rate and pulse, among other things. And even more, graphene tattoos can be used as bioelectronic controllers, as demonstrated by one engineer who attached them to his eyelids in order to direct which way a drone flew, just by looking with his eyes!

I know that biotechnology is a long way from allowing humans to be able to lift a car or run half-way around the world in a single day, like I wanted to be able to do when I was a child. But, it’s improving all the time and once the price of graphene falls, who knows what else we’ll be able to do? I’ll see you in the future!

词汇表

geek 呆子，极客

interstellar 星际的

cutting-edge 前沿的

cyborg 半机械人

hybrid 混合体

enhanced 强化的，增强的

integrated 合成一体的

re-engineer 重建，重新组合

antenna 触角

protrude 伸出

implant 植入

seismic 地震的，造成严重破坏的

covet 渴望，贪求

graphene 石墨烯

patch 贴布，贴片

transparent 透明的

circuit board 电路版

carbon 碳

conduct 传导(电)

component 零部件，组成部分

bioelectronic 生物电子的

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