有哪些发明你希望它从未诞生过？（系列一） [美国媒体]

-------------译者：龙腾翻译总管-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

What technology do you wish was never invented?

有哪些发明你希望它从未诞生过？（系列一）


-------------译者：Skyline AJ-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Emily Michele Intern at Discovery Lab Global (2017-present) Answered Jun 25
Flavors.

香精。



Foods are always being infused with flavors that they don’t actually possess. Basically someone in a laboratory develops compounds that taste a certain way and companies selling processed food add those compounds to their products in order to make those products more appealing to customers.

食物里总是被加入它们本没有的香精。基本上实验室的研究人员开发出有某种味道的化合物，然后出售加工产品的公司将这些化合物加入到他们的产品中，以使这些产品更能吸引消费者。

What about natural flavors you may ask? If they’re natural they must be coming from the real thing right? Wrong. Just because something has “natural vanilla flavor” doesn’t mean there’s actually vanilla in it. Just because something has “natural blueberry flavor” doesn’t mean it actually has blueberries in it. The only reason these flavors are “natural” is because they are derived from compounds in vanilla or blueberries. That is someone pinpointed which molecules were responsible for giving the real thing its flavor took the molecules out of the real thing (or replicated those molecules) and inserted them into a food that doesn’t contain the real thing.

你可能会问那天然香精怎么样？如果它们是天然的，那它们肯定是来自某个真实的东西对吗？错。只是因为某些东西上（标注着）含有“天然香草香精”，并不意味着真的有香草在里面。只是因为某些东西上（标注着）含有“天然蓝莓香精”，并不意味着里面真的含有蓝莓。这些香精之所以“天然”的唯一原因是因为它们是从香草或蓝莓中提取出来的化合物。某些人精准地找到负责给予实物香气的分子，他们将把该分子从实物中提取（或者复制这些分子），然后把它们摄入到那些不含实物的食物中。

Even if the food does contain the real thing the flavor is enhanced to unnatural proportions. This is thought to be part of what causes food addiction when it comes to processed foods. They are packed with so much more flavor than real food is that people start to . . . like them better.

即使食物中不包含实物，香精的比例也会被过高摄入。这也被认为是在食物加工过程中导致食物成瘾的部分原因。这些加工食物相比实物被塞满了香精，从而使人们开始....更喜欢它们。

 -------------译者：jimmy723-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

At least you can solve this all by eating organic right? Wrong!

至少你可以通过吃有机食物来解决这个问题?错了!



“Organic Natural Flavor.” They sure do put a lot of effort into making it sound appealing.

“有机天然香味。“人们确实付出了很多努力让它听起来很有吸引力。

Even organic food contains “natural flavor” which as discussed above isn’t as natural as food companies would you to think. Even when you eat organic food you aren’t tasting the real thing; you are still getting some enhanced version of the real thing. The only way to avoid food flavoring is to not eat processed food at all which is nearly impossible to do.

即使是有机食品也含有“天然香精”，正如上面所讨论的，这并不像食品公司所说的那样天然。即使你吃有机食物，你也不会品尝到真正的天然味；你只是得到了一些增强版的东西。避免食物香精的唯一方法是不吃加工过的食物，而这几乎是不可能的。

The next time you go shopping—or even to your kitchen—pick up any box and look at the list of ingredients. With extremely few exceptions you will see some sort of “flavor” listed on there unless it is a box of fresh unprocessed fruits or vegetables. Flavors . . . are . . . everywhere.

下次你去购物——甚至到你的厨房——去拿任何一个盒子，看一看它的配料表。除了极少数例外，你会看到一些“香精”成分，除非是一盒新鲜未加工过的水果或蔬菜。香精道...是.....无处不在的。

And I hate them. They are lies. They do nothing other than make our food taste unnaturally intense and then when people eat unprocessed food it tastes boring in comparison so they stick with processed food which is generally more unhealthy (not necessarily due to flavoring but still true). And then the word “natural” is attached to some flavors to make it seem more wholesome when really it’s not. Flavors are flavors. No matter where they are derived from they are not a natural part of food and a good portion of the world’s population probably doesn’t even know how food naturally tastes.

而且我讨厌香精。它们都是谎言。它们只会让我们的食物尝起来有不自然的强烈口感，然后当人们吃未经加工的食物时，相比之下它们的味道会比较乏味单调，所以他们会坚持吃那些通常不健康的加工食品(不一定是由于调味料，但仍然是不健康的)。然后给这些香精料添上“天然”这个标签，让它看起来更健康，其实不然。香精就是香精。无论它们来自从哪里提取出来的，它们都不是食物的天然组成部分，世界上有相当一部分人甚至可能不知道食物的本来味道。

-------------译者：jimmy723-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Louis Vaught Took Classes on Sustainability Answered Jun 20
Hand dryers. They’re a terrible solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

干手器。对于一个根本不存在的问题，它们是一个很糟糕的解决方案。



I’d bet that anyone who’s used a hand dryer (even the nicer ones) knows that they don’t work very well. Paper towels are faster to use and they do a better job drying your hands.

我敢打赌，任何使用过干衣机的人(即使是更漂亮的人)都知道他们的效果不佳。用纸擦速度更快，而且你的手可以擦得更干。

But did you know that hand dryers are less hygenic than paper towels? Studies show that the air around a normal hand dryer can have 20 times the germs around a paper towel dispenser. Cold hand dryers with powerful blowers like the Dyson Airblade are actually a lot worse.

但是你知道手烘干机比纸巾更不卫生吗?研究表明，普通的干衣机周围的空气可以有20倍于纸巾的细菌。像戴森Airblade这样的强力吹风机的冷手烘干机实际上要糟糕得多。

The real argument that dryer companies make though is that paper towel waste is bad for the environment. That's only a little true; life-cycle assessments show that paper towels are actually less wasteful than warm-air dryers (although cold dryers like the Airblade use about 1/5 the energy).

烘干机公司采用的能站得住脚的论点是，纸巾浪费对环境有害。这并不完全是事实;生命周期评估显示，纸巾实际上比暖空气干燥器更节省能源(尽管像Airblade这样的冷干燥器使用的能量大约是它的1/5)。

Some people worry about the trees we have to cut down but paper towels are usually made from recycled wood pulp and they don’t need the really nasty binders or bleaches. The related problem of paper waste can be solved if we just put a bit of effort in; paper towels are easily biodegradable and can be composted. We don't need to cut down trees and no trash has to go to a landfill.

有些人担心那些我们因此需要砍伐掉的树木，但纸巾通常是用回收的木浆做成的，且它们不需要用到胶合剂或漂白剂。如果我们倾注出一些努力，就可以解决与纸张浪费的相关问题；纸巾很容易被生物降解，并且可用于堆肥。我们不需要因此砍伐树木，也不需要把（纸张造成的）垃圾扔到垃圾填埋场。

Long story short paper towels are a clean hygienic and sustainable bathroom solution and hand dryers are a completely unnecessary replacement that’s actively worse.

简单来说，使用纸巾是一种干净卫生且可持续（利用）的在便后洗手后擦干手的方案，而干手器完全是没有必要的替代品而且它的效果更差。

I’m tired of having soggy hands for no good reason.

我已经厌倦了用湿软的手，没有什么好理由。

-------------译者：jimmy723-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Jalil Abdullayev works at KAIST Answered Aug 10
Vertical farming.

垂直农业



This bullshit technology has been growing in popularity recently. I can even see people hoping that one day we will feed the whole world with vertical farms. This is dead wrong.

这种扯淡的技术最近越来越流行。我甚至可以预见人们会希望有天我们可以用垂直农场来养活全世界。这简直是大错特错。

Let me explain why vertical farming will never be able to provide even 10% of the worlds nutritional supply.

让我来解释一下为什么垂直农业永远无法提供世界上10%的营养供应。

The idea behind vertical farming is that you can have many stacks of crops grown in closed environment that are exposed to artificial light. Isn’t it great? You can grow food regardless of space. You can have your crop grown nearby you city. And the light can be obtained from clean sources of energy such as solar panel (oh how great). There are even commercial farms that grow green leafs such as lettuce and sell it making profit.

垂直农业背后的理念是，在封闭的环境种植多种作物，使用人造光照射这些作物。这是不是很棒啊?无论空间大小如何，你都可以有效利用空间种植出食物。你可以在你的城市附近种植庄稼。而且人造光可以从清洁能源中获得，比如太阳能电池板(哦，真是太棒了)。甚至有一些商业农场种植像生菜这样的绿叶植物，并出售它以赚取利润。

Here is the problem. It does not work for most of the main crops. Lets check what the world’s arable land is used for:Land Use in Agriculture

那么问题来了。它对大多数主要农作物都不起作用。让我们来看看世界上可耕地的用途是什么:农业土地利用

Basically 90% of all arable land is used for grains pulses and oilseed. There is no shortage of arable land for lettuce or tomatoes since they occupy minuscule amount of land. Let’s for now focus on grains. The world produces about 2.5 billion tons of grains [1]. Typical grains have at best %1 photosynthetic efficiency. 1 kg of grain has about 5 kwh of energy in form of biomass. Another 5 kwh is for that part that is not eaten such as root and stalk. So to get 1kg of grain you need 1000 kwh of energy in form of light. 2.5 billion tons of grain if grown by vertical farming would require 2.5 million billion kwh of electricity. That is 500 times the USA consumption of electricity a year [2]. This is just a ridiculous amount of energy.

基本上90%的耕地都被用作耕种谷物、豆类和油籽。由于耕种生菜或番茄所占用的土地面积极小，所以不缺可耕地。首先我们来看看谷物。世界生产约25亿吨谷物。典型的谷物的光合作用效率最高可达1%。从生物量上看，1公斤的谷物可食用的部分能产生5千瓦时的能量。另外的5千瓦时是不可食用的那部分，如根和茎。所以要得到1公斤的谷物，你需要1000千瓦时的光能。如果用垂直农场种植25亿吨谷物，那则需要2.5亿亿千瓦时的电力。这是美国每年消耗电力的500倍。这么大的能量（需求）简直荒唐至极。

So for vertical farming to ever become viable the cost of kwh of electricity should go down from 5 cents today to 0.03 cents.

因此，对于垂直农业来说，电力的成本应该从现在的5美分降至0.03美分。

References:
FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief
Electricity sector of the United States - Wikipedia
Disclaimer: Some people have pointed out that the answer does not fit the questions. And they are right. Sorry. Do I really wish it was never invented? No I don’t. It has its own limited use. I just wanted to explain why it would not work in large scale. Peace

参考资料:
粮农组织谷物供求简报（译注：. 联合国粮食与农业组织（Food and Agriculture Organization））
美国的电力部门——维基百科
免责声明:有些人指出，答案与问题不相符。他们是对的。对不起。我真的希望它从来没有被发明出来吗?不，我不喜欢。它有自己的有限用途。我只是想解释一下为什么它不能大规模地使用。愿和平。

-------------译者：jimmy723-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Sully Bushell studies at University High School (2020) Answered Jun 20
Cars.

汽车

Yes hear me out.

我有一言请诸君静听。

When cars were popularized by Henry Ford they were only used by the rich. By the 50’s they had become commonplace. Every middle class family had one.

当汽车被亨利福特普及时，它们只被富人使用。到了50年代，汽车已经变得司空见惯。每个中产阶级家庭都有一个。

The road layout of Paris France.

这是法国巴黎的道路布局图。



The road layout of Phoenix Arizona.

这是亚利桑那州凤凰城的道路布局图。



Why so different?

 为什么如此不同?

Cars were popularized between the 1910’s and 1940’s in America. Phoenix had a population of 11314 when cars were introduced in the 1910’s. Paris had a larger population in 59 BC. By the 1910’s Paris had a population of 2.8 million people.

汽车在1910年到1940年间在美国流行开来。当汽车于1910年被引入时，凤凰城当时的人口是1万1314人，在公元前59年的巴黎人口都比这个数额多。到了1910年，巴黎人口已达到280万。

Because Phoenix was built during the rise of cars it was a city designed for cars. Built in nice grid shapes with a few skyscrapers in the middle and suburbs sprawling across the rest of the land. The introduction of freeways in the 1950’s further reinforced this.

因为凤凰城是在汽车崛起过程中建造的，它是一个为汽车而生的城市。在中央和郊区的几栋摩天大楼里，有几栋摩天大楼，建筑在漂亮的网格状结构中。1950年高速公路的引入进一步加强了这一点。

Paris was built in a time of walking and those who wanted to get to work in the center of the city quickly had a lot of money. These people would pay for a home in the middle of the city to reduce their time getting to work.
What is the result of this?

巴黎是在人人步行的时候建成的，那些想要在市中心工作的人很快就有了很多钱。这些人会为了减少上班时间而在市中心买一所房子。
这会造成什么结果?

In the center of the city all the wealth is accumulated. The rich live where all the people gather. The poor live on the outskirts of the city and farm.

在城市的中心，所有的财富都积累起来了。富人住在所有人都聚集的地方。穷人则住在城市的郊区和农场。

-------------译者：jimmy723-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Compare this with Phoenix:

将巴黎与凤凰城进行对比:



The poorest people in Phoenix live in the center of the city. Rich people move out of the center of the city to avoid crime and poverty and therefore end up interacting economically with the city less. Instead of shopping at local supermarkets they shop at a box store outside of the city limits.

凤凰城最穷的人住在城市的中心。富人搬离城市中心以躲避犯罪和贫穷，因此他们最终与城市的经济往来更少。他们不在当地的超市购物，而是在城市外围的一家（有限品种）商店里购物。

People who live in Phoenix live in an expensive suburban house that is too far away from work to be able to walk. These houses tend to look exactly the same which can have an effect on someone’s individuality.

生活在凤凰城的人们住在离工作地点过远的昂贵的郊区房子里，因路途遥远所以不能步行出行。这些（郊区）房往往看起来都是一样的，这可能会影响（辨别）一个人的个性。

The fact that these suburbs are unwalkable means that people will stay inside more socially isolated from others. In the city however people go out all the time to walk to the store or walk to a friend’s house.

事实上，这些郊区是无法行走的，这意味着人们（更倾向于）待在室内从而将在社会（社交）上与他人隔绝。然而，在城市里的人们则经常出门，步行去逛商店或者步行至朋友家里。

In an unwalkable suburb a child can especially feel lonely as children are generally curious and not having people outside to look at and be curious about is a bit of a buzzkill.

在一个不适宜步行的郊区，孩子们会感到特别孤独，因为孩子们通常都很好奇，没有人去外面看，也不会好奇。这是一个令人感兴趣的事实。

Suburbs are also an unnecessary pressure on the environment. Using your car to take the freeway every day to work undoubtedly uses a lot more fuel than walking there.

郊区也会对环境造成一种不必要的压力。每天使用汽车走高速公路上班无疑比步行上班要消耗更多的燃料。

I love cars but we could be at the same place we are at today without them. Our cities would just be nicer. We would use trains subways and ferries a lot more than we do now which is much less of a strain on the environment. Our cities would also be walkable and enjoyable.

我喜欢汽车，但今天要是没这个东西，在同一个地方。而且我们的城市会变得更好。我们会比现在更多地使用火车和渡轮，而这对环境的影响要小得多。我们的城市也将是适合步行和令人愉快的。