United States airdropped millions of live flies over the Panama-Colombia border.

美國在巴拿馬-哥倫比亞邊境空投了數百萬只活蒼蠅。

And no, it wasn't one of our classic pranks, like when we dropped that big pie on Belize.

不，這不是我們的經典惡作劇之一，就像我們在貝裡斯扔下那個大餡餅一樣。

No, this is a part of a decades-long collaboration that keeps nearly the entire North American continent safe from—and bear with me here—the exact species of fly we're dropping.

不，這是一項長達數十年的合作的一部分，它使幾乎整個北美大陸免受--請聽我說--我們正在丟棄的蒼蠅的確切種類--的危害。

But this massive, intricate, and deeply weird, quote, idiotic insect sex scheme is actually working, but how?

但是，這個龐大、複雜、詭異的昆蟲性愛計劃，引用 "白痴 "一詞，居然真的起作用了，但怎麼起作用的呢？

What on a day-to-day basis does it take to keep flying, flesh-eating freaks out of this much space?

每天需要做些什麼，才能讓會飛的食肉怪獸遠離這麼大的空間？

The short answer?

簡短的答案是什麼？

A 24-7 bug factory, planes, boats, trucks, loads of inspectors, x-rays, cow blood, wound paint, and—this is true—donut holes.

一個全天候的竊聽器工廠、飛機、船隻、卡車、大量的檢查人員、X 光、牛血、傷口塗料，還有--這是真的--椰子洞。

Also grit and gumption and the spirit of a champion.

還有勇氣、魄力和冠軍精神。

But as for the long answer, it starts with knowing our enemy—the New World Screwer.

至於長遠的答案，首先要了解我們的敵人--新世界吶喊者。

And I know neither you nor I want to look at them, so here's the plan.

我知道你我都不想看它們，所以計劃是這樣的。

One, we're putting in a progress bar, two, I've encouraged my editors to make this as metaphorical as possible, three, dancing clown.

第一，我們要在進度條上做文章；第二，我鼓勵我的編輯們儘量把它做成隱喻；第三，跳舞的小丑。

So here we go.

那麼，我們開始吧。

First, they're not nice guys.

首先，他們不是好人。

If they were still bugging around the US today, they'd be costing farmers somewhere in the ballpark of a billion dollars in dead livestock a year.

如果它們今天還在美國四處出沒，那麼農民每年就要損失大約 10 億美元的牲畜屍體。

And it's not just cattle at risk—these things can infect, even kill, any living, warm-blooded mammal.

不僅是牛有危險，這些東西還能感染甚至殺死任何活的溫血哺乳動物。

Yes, including people.

是的，包括人。

Yes, including your dog.

是的，包括你的狗。

Yes, including gritty.

是的，包括砂礫。

These bad boys are about twice the size of a normal housefly, and a thousand times as rude.

這些壞小子的體型大約是普通家蠅的兩倍，而且非常粗魯。

Their 10-30 day lifespan begins when females lay their eggs hundreds at a time in a live animal's open wound.

它們的壽命為 10-30 天，從雌蟲在活體動物的開放性傷口中一次產下數百枚卵開始。

Tick bites, scratches, fresh belly buttons.

蜱蟲叮咬、抓痕、新鮮肚臍。

They hatch as worms and hook into the animal's flesh, which they then eat, which is extremely painful and often deadly for the host animal.

它們孵化成蠕蟲，鉤住動物的肉，然後吃掉，這對宿主動物來說是極其痛苦的，而且往往是致命的。

Once the wormies are fattened up, they drop to the ground, pupate, emerge as flies, and the cycle repeats.

一旦蟲子長肥了，它們就會掉到地上，化蛹，然後變成蒼蠅飛出來，週而復始。

Okay, we're done.

好了，我們完成了。

This is Edward F. Knitley.

我是愛德華-F-克尼特利

He grew up dealing with screwworms on his family's farm and went on to spend most of his career researching them, and here was his big finding—female screwworms only mate once in their lives, which means that if you can mess that up, they'd destroy themselves in a couple generations.

他從小就在自家的農場裡與螺絲蟲打交道，後來他的大部分職業生涯都花在了研究螺絲蟲上。他的重大發現是--雌性螺絲蟲一生只交配一次，這意味著如果你搞砸了，它們會在幾代人的時間裡毀滅自己。

And after many years and many Thursday afternoon trips to the military hospital with his buddy

許多年後，他和他的戰友在星期四下午多次前往軍醫院

Raymond to blast worm larvae with x-rays, Knitley learned that you can sterilize a fly if you x-ray it 5.5 to 5.7 days into its pupal stage.

雷蒙德用 X 射線對蠕蟲幼蟲進行爆破，克尼特利瞭解到，如果在蒼蠅蛹期的 5.5 到 5.7 天用 X 射線對其進行照射，就可以對其進行消毒。

That discovery is the backbone of what I'm calling the Great American Worm Wall.

這一發現就是我所說的 "美國蠕蟲長城 "的支柱。

You can't see it from space—or from the ground, it's invisible—but it's nevertheless an extremely tight border.

從太空中看不到它，從地面上也看不到它，但這是一條極其嚴密的邊界。

Here's how it works.

具體操作如下

Here in Pecora, Panama, this factory employs 115 people to cook up and churn out sterile screwworms—20 million of them a week.

在巴拿馬的佩科拉，這家工廠僱用了 115 名員工，每週烹飪和生產無菌螺蟲--2000 萬條。

The young flies are raised in a series of humidity- and temperature-controlled rooms that mimic the warm and inviting atmosphere of an open wound.

幼蠅是在一系列溼度和溫度可控的房間裡長大的，這些房間模仿了開放性傷口的溫暖和誘人氛圍。

They eat a nasty brown goop made of reconstituted milk, egg, and powdered cow's blood thickened with some cellulose—which is actually good to know because I have all this powdered cow's blood in my cabinet, which I bought for like one recipe, and now I have all this leftover and nothing to use it for—so annoying.

它們吃的是一種噁心的棕色粘稠物，由重組牛奶、雞蛋和牛血粉製成，並用一些纖維素增稠--知道這一點其實很好，因為我的櫥櫃裡有這麼多牛血粉，我買這些牛血粉是為了一個食譜，現在我剩下了這麼多，卻沒有任何用處--太煩人了。

Once the worms are old enough, they each get hit with radioactive cobalt-60, and it's off to the airport!

一旦蠕蟲長大，它們就會被放射性鈷-60 感染，然後被送往機場！

The sterilized pupae arrive in coolers, then get sorted into trays, and once they grow into adult flies, they go to a cold room where they get nice and sleepy before what is sure to be one of the craziest possible days any creature on this planet can have.

經過消毒的蛹被裝進冷藏箱，然後被分類裝入托盤，一旦它們長成成蠅，就會被送進一個冷藏室，在那裡它們會睡得很香，然後就是這個星球上任何生物都可能度過的最瘋狂的一天。

But now, the fun part—airplanes!

現在，有趣的部分來了--飛機！

COPEG, the joint US-Panama commission that runs this whole thing, and also a heavy-lifting acronym, uses retired military turboprop planes that have been specially retrofitted to drop flies through the floor of the plane at an adjustable rate.

COPEG 是美國和巴拿馬的聯合委員會，負責管理整個項目，也是一個重型縮寫，它使用退役的軍用渦輪螺旋槳飛機，這些飛機經過特殊改裝，可以通過飛機地板以可調節的速度投放蒼蠅。

Once upon a time, technicians just threw cardboard boxes out, but those didn't always open on impact, which defeated the whole purpose.

從前，技術人員只是把紙板箱扔出去，但這些紙板箱並不總能在撞擊時打開，這就失去了全部意義。

Over the course of a four-hour flight, the plane will drop 2.1 million flies over this region of Panama—flies that will wake up as they hurtle down to Earth to eradicate their own species—or, as I like to put it, the screwworms screw worms to screw screwworms.

在四個小時的飛行過程中，飛機將在巴拿馬的這個地區上空投下 210 萬隻蒼蠅--這些蒼蠅會在急速降落到地球上時甦醒過來，消滅自己的同類--或者用我喜歡的說法，"螺絲蟲 "會用 "螺絲蟲 "來消滅 "螺絲蟲"。

Now, the math-wizzes among you may have worked out that 2.1 million flies over six weekly flights doesn't add up to the 20 million the factory produces weekly, but there's plenty of use for the leftovers.

現在，你們當中的數學天才可能已經算出，每週六次飛行的 210 萬架次與工廠每週生產的 2 000 萬架次相加並不多，但剩下的飛機還有很多用處。

See, the New World screwworm hasn't actually been eradicated from all of North America—Cuba, for example, still has them, and they're still rampant in South America.

你看，新世界螺旋蟲實際上並沒有從整個北美洲根除--例如，古巴仍然有這種蟲子，它們在南美洲仍然很猖獗。

So, all those excess worms fight outbreaks when they happen—Aruba had ones in 2004 and 2011, and when they popped up in the Florida Keys in 2016, the USDA rocked up with 190 million flies, released three generations, and re-eradicated them in a matter of months.

是以，所有這些過剩的蠕蟲都能在疫情爆發時發揮作用--2004 年和 2011 年，阿魯巴曾爆發過疫情；2016 年，當佛羅里達群島出現疫情時，美國農業部動用了 1.9 億隻蒼蠅，釋放了三代，並在幾個月內重新消滅了它們。

Also part of that effort, they had 200 people trawling around the Keys feeding infected deer anti-parasite meds stuffed in donut holes, which implies the existence of a federal donut budget or FDB, which is exciting to me.

在這項工作中，他們還派了 200 人在礁島附近巡邏，給受感染的鹿餵食塞在甜甜圈洞裡的抗寄生蟲藥物，這意味著聯邦甜甜圈預算或 FDB 的存在，這讓我很興奮。

But this also brings up another part of the worm wall—the ground game.

但這也引出了蟲牆的另一個部分--地面遊戲。

Yes, the It's Raining Men strat does a lot, but COPEG also monitors animals across the

是的，"男人雨 "組織做了很多工作，但 COPEG 還監測著整個地球上的動物。

Darien, ensuring fertile screwworms that slip through the cracks don't make it far.

達裡恩，確保從縫隙中溜走的肥沃的螺絲蟲不會跑遠。

They work from 13 field posts, traveling on boat, horse, and motorcycle to monitor at-risk farms.

他們在 13 個田間哨所工作，乘船、騎馬和騎摩托車去監測有風險的農場。

Every farm gets an inspection, either monthly, four-monthly, or annually, depending how COPEG has assessed their risk, and cattle leaving the Darien all get inspected, and any worms they have get coated in anti-parasite paint that would kill any screwworms that might be in there.

每個農場都要接受檢查，每月、每四個月或每年一次，這取決於 COPEG 如何評估其風險，離開達裡恩的牛都要接受檢查，它們身上的任何蠕蟲都要塗上抗寄生蟲塗料，以殺死其中可能存在的任何螺絲蟲。

In all, the worm wall costs about $15 million a year—more money than the worm wall in my apartment costs, but an incredible deal for the money and lives it saves.

總之，蚯蚓牆每年的成本約為 1500 萬美元--比我公寓裡的蚯蚓牆還貴，但它節省的錢和拯救的生命卻是一筆不可思議的交易。

But the project didn't come out of the gates this well-oiled, or this cheap.

但是，這個項目並不是一開始就這麼順利，也不是這麼便宜。

See, after scientists proved the sterile insect technique would work on screwworms in Curacao, the USDA took up the project here, east of the Mississippi, in 1957.

科學家們在庫拉索島證明了昆蟲不育技術對螺蟲有效之後，美國農業部於 1957 年在密西西比河東岸開始實施這一項目。

Two years later, screwworms were gone from the southeast, and the effort moved west.

兩年後，東南部的螺絲蟲消失了，這項工作也轉移到了西部。

We declared ourselves screwworm-free by 1966, and had a sterile fly factory up and running in Texas.

到 1966 年，我們宣佈自己已經沒有了螺蟲，並在得克薩斯州建立了一家無菌蒼蠅工廠。

But maintaining the border in the west proved challenging and expensive—maybe because, while the eastern range of the fly was bordered by water, the western range was bordered by… well, more range.

但事實證明，在西部維持邊界既具有挑戰性，又耗資巨大--也許是因為蒼蠅的東部活動範圍與水接壤，而西部活動範圍與......嗯，更多的活動範圍接壤。

With that in mind, in 1972, the US struck up a deal with Mexico—instead of having to maintain a 2,000-mile Great American Worm Wall at the US-Mexico border, how about we eradicate all the way down to here, the isthmus of Tejantepec, which is only 120 miles across?

有鑑於此，1972 年，美國與墨西哥達成了一項協議--與其在美墨邊境維護長達 2000 英里的 "美國大蟲牆"，不如將其一直剷除到這裡，也就是隻有 120 英里寬的特漢特佩克地峽，如何？

The two countries agreed to split the bill based on the value of the livestock it would save in each place—Mexico paid 20%, while the US paid 80%, and by 1982, the Texas worm factory was closed and replaced by one in Tuxla, Mexico, and Mexico declared Sonora and Baja California Norte worm-free.

1982 年，得克薩斯州的蠕蟲工廠關閉，取而代之的是墨西哥 Tuxla 的一家工廠，墨西哥宣佈索諾拉州和北下加利福尼亞州沒有蠕蟲。

But why stop there?

但為什麼要止步於此？

If you're going to move the worm border here, why not move it here?

如果要把蠕蟲邊界移到這裡，為什麼不把它移到這裡呢？

And so began the not-always-smooth process of trying to work an agreement with every individual country in Central America, having them work alongside the US, with whom they didn't all have the… awesome relationships at the time, to go screwworm-free.

於是，我們開始了一個並非一帆風順的過程，我們試圖與中美洲的每個國家達成一項協議，讓它們與美國並肩作戰，因為當時它們與美國的關係並不......融洽。

And it worked.

它成功了。

From 1987 to 2006, they eradicated the screwworm from all these places, with the Central American country splitting costs with the US at a ratio of 15 to 85, and the US and Panama ending up with shared responsibility for staffing the border, and Colombia still having to give monthly permission to COPEC to drop a bunch of screwworms in the part of the buffer zone they control.

從 1987 年到 2006 年，他們在所有這些地方消滅了螺蟲，中美洲國家與美國以 15 比 85 的比例分擔了費用，美國和巴拿馬最終共同承擔了在邊境配備人員的責任，而哥倫比亞仍不得不每月允許 COPEC 在其控制的緩衝區內投放大量螺蟲。

All to say, the Great American Worm Wall is a pretty amazing thing—it's effective, it saves tons of lives and money, and it does its job so well that most of us don't even know it's there.

總而言之，美國大蟲牆是一個非常神奇的東西--它很有效，能拯救大量的生命和金錢，而且它的工作做得非常好，以至於我們大多數人都不知道它的存在。

Put another way, it's a great example of what's possible when you combine passionate, if slightly wacky scientists with government agencies that are actually willing to foot the bill for weird, expensive, but ultimately great solutions to big problems.

換句話說，這是一個很好的例子，說明當你把充滿熱情、雖然略顯古怪的科學家與政府機構結合在一起時，會有什麼樣的可能。

Too bad that lesson isn't applicable literally anywhere else.

可惜這一教訓在其他地方並不適用。

Oh well.

哦，好吧。

Okay, so remember earlier when I said I had a bunch of powdered blood in my kitchen?

好了，還記得我之前說過廚房裡有一堆血粉嗎？

That was a lie.

那是個謊言。

What I actually have in my kitchen is delicious, pre-made meals from this video's sponsor,

實際上，我廚房裡有的都是本視頻贊助商提供的美味預製餐點、

Factor.

因素。

Factor is a service that delivers anywhere from 4 to 18 meals per week right to your doorstep.

Factor 是一種每週送餐上門的服務，送餐數量從 4 到 18 份不等。

They're each ready to eat in just minutes, and really have my back in weeks that are just too busy for cooking.

它們每種都能在幾分鐘內吃完，在我忙得沒時間做飯的幾周裡，它們真的是我的好幫手。

But with Factor, no matter what type of week I'm having, I know I'll be eating well, and not blowing all my money on takeout or settling for powdered blood sludge again.

但有了 Factor，無論我這周遇到什麼情況，我都知道自己會吃得很好，不會再把錢花在外賣上，也不會再吃粉末狀的血泥。

And you know you can trust Factor because they're owned by HelloFresh, another sponsor of mine whose service I genuinely use and love.

你知道你可以信任 Factor，因為它們的所有者是 HelloFresh，這是我的另一個贊助商，我真心使用並喜愛它的服務。

So if you want to eat well at home while putting in functionally zero effort, have I got a deal for you.

是以，如果你想在家裡吃得好，同時又不費吹灰之力，我有個好主意。

Head to Factor75.com or click the link below, and use code HAI50 to get 50% off your first

前往 Factor75.com 或點擊下面的鏈接，使用代碼 HAI50 即可享受首次購買半價優惠。

Factor box, and 20% off your next month of orders.

因素盒，下月訂單八折優惠。