聯合翻譯有限公司/聯合翻譯社

The human nose can detect one trillion different odours, far more than we previously thought, say US scientists.

人類的鼻子可偵測1兆種不同的氣味，遠比我們先前認為的還多，美國科學家說。

Until now, the long-held belief was that we can sniff out about 10,000 smells.

直到目前為止，長期以來的看法都是我們可以嗅出約1萬種氣味。

New estimates published in Science suggest the human nose outperforms the eye and the ear in terms of the number of stimuli it can distinguish between.

刊登在「科學」期刊的新評估顯示，就可分辨的刺激物數量而言，人類的鼻子表現比眼睛及耳朵好。

Researchers at the Rockefeller University say we use only a tiny part of our olfactory powers.

洛克菲勒大學的研究人員說，我們的嗅覺力量只用了很小的一部分。

The human eye uses three light receptors that work together to see up to 10 million colours, while the ear can hear almost half a million tones.

人類的眼睛使用3種光接收體，合作辨識多達1000萬種顏色，耳朵可以聽到將近50萬種音調。

新聞辭典

sniff：動詞，嗅，聞。例句：He sniffed his socks to see if they needed washing.（他聞了聞襪子，看是不是需要洗。）

outperform：動詞，表現超越。例句：The Peugeot engine has consistently outperformed its rivals this season.（Peugeot的引擎本季表現持續勝過對手。）

olfactory：形容詞，嗅覺的。例如，the olfactory nerve，嗅覺神經。

聯合翻譯 引用自 自由時報 http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=773336&day=2014-04-24