第十二篇 Men Smell of Cheese and Women of Onions
Little girls may be made of sugar and all things nice, but their armpits smell of onions. ______ (1) That’s the conclusion of research in Switzerland that involved taking armpit sweat samples from 24 men and 25 women after he had spent time in a sauna or ridden an exercise bike for 15 minute.
______ (2) “Men smell of cheese, and women of grapefruit or onion,” says Christian Starkenmann of Firmenich, a company in Geneva that researches flavours and perfumes for food and cosmetics companies.
The team found that the women's armpit sweat constrained relatively high levels of an odourless sulphur-containning compound – 5 milligrams per milliliter of sweat versus 0.5 milligrams in men.
When the researchers mixed this compound in the lab with bacteria commonly found in the armpit, the bugs turned it into a thiol - a previously discovered odour from armpits that is akin to onion.
“The more sulphur precursor we added, the more intense was the malodour,” says Starkenmann, whose team’s results appear in Chemical Senses. ______ (3)
The men, meanwhile, had relatively high levels of an odourless fatty acid which turned into a cheesy odour when exposed to the same types of bacteria. The balance of oniony to cheesy precursors in women’s sweat made it smell worse than men’s as rated by independent smell assessors.
______ (4) “We could make inhibitors that neutralise the precursors, or block the bacterial enzymes that do the conversion,” says Starkenmann.
Some researchers are sceptical that gender is the main deciding factor, arguing that the patterns found in Swiss volunteers might not apply to other populations with different diets and genetic background. ______ (5)
詞彙：
armpit n. 腋(部)
malodour n.難聞的氣味，惡臭
grapefruit n.葡萄柚
neutralize v.中和，抵消
sulphur n.硫
enzyme n.酶
thiol n.硫醇
註釋：
1. smell of onions：.....聞起來像洋蔥
2. ... is akin to onion：......近似於洋蔥
練習：
A Bacterial enzymes turn the otherwise odourless precursor into the malodour.
B And while free of slug or snail odours, men’s armpits pack a powerful cheesy whiff.
C Most cases of skin odor is associated with break down of the compounds found in sweat by bacteria that live on the skin.
D Nest; the team hope to develop new ingredients for deodorants that fight the smells.
E The researchers found marked differences in the sweat from men and women.
F “Other factors include what you eat. what you wash with, what you weat and what genes you inherit,” says Tim Jacob of Cardiff University in the UK.
答案與題解：
1. B 前一句講女孩的腋下氣味，後一句解釋說這是一項研究成果，所以為了完整性，此處應該講男性腋下的氣味是怎麼樣的。所以，正確答案是選項B。
2. E 上一段結尾處介紹了這個研究的基本情況，本段又具體講了一下試驗結果，所以此處句首所填的'句子應該起到承上啟下的作用，並且是本段的中心句。只有選項E概括了本段的主要內容。
3. A 前一句提到加入越多的硫前體，惡臭味就越濃烈，由此可以推測出後面應該講到惡臭味出現的原因。所以，正確答案是選項A。
4. D 根據本段第二句話可以判斷出，這句應該講研究團隊接下來要怎麼做。所以，正確答案是選項D。
5. F 本段第一句話在講其他研究者懷疑有其他因素的影響，可以推測本句會進一步闡釋其他因素。所以，正確答案是選項F。
