瑞士科學家：笨蒼蠅更長壽

It doesn't pay to be smart and ignorance really is bliss if you want a long life -- at least if you're a fly, according to new research by a Swiss university.

Scientists Tadeusz Kawecki and Joep Burger at the University of Lausanne said Wednesday they had discovered a "negative correlation between an improvement in a fly's mental capacity and its longevity".

As part of their research project, the results of which are published in the journal Evolution, they divided into two a group of flies from the Basel region of northwestern Switzerland.

One half was left in a natural state while the other had its intelligence boosted by Pavlovian methods, such as associating smell and taste with particular food or experiences.

These methods led to flies which clearly learned better and remembered things for longer.

The flipside was that the flies left in their natural state lived longer on average than their "cleverer" counterparts, with a lifespan of 80-85 days rather than the normal 50-60..

"In other terms, the more the fly becomes intelligent, the shorter its lifespan," the scientists said.

This is most probably because the increase in neural activity weakens the fly's life-support systems, they speculated.

"This would explain why flies, like most other animals, have hardly developed their neural capacities," they said.

瑞士一所大學開展的最新研究發現，聰明沒什麼好處，如果想長壽，還是傻一點好——至少對於蒼蠅來說是如此。

瑞士洛桑大學的科學家塔多茲•卡維基和約普•伯格於本週三稱，他們發現“蒼蠅的智力水平與其壽命呈反比”。

該研究結果在《生物進化》期刊上發表。在研究過程中，科學家將來自瑞士北部巴塞爾地區的一羣蒼蠅分成了兩組。

他們讓其中一組蒼蠅處於自然狀態，讓另一組蒼蠅接受“巴甫洛夫法”訓練以提高它們的智力，比如將嗅覺與味覺與特定的食物或生存經驗聯繫起來。

經過訓練的蒼蠅“學習能力”和記憶力明顯提高。

而研究發現，處於自然狀態的蒼蠅比“聰明的蒼蠅”平均壽命更長，這些蒼蠅的平均壽命超過了普通蒼蠅的五六十天，達到80天至85天。

科學家說：“換句話說，越聰明的蒼蠅，壽命越短。”

據科學家推測，這可能是因爲神經系統活動的增多會削弱蒼蠅的生命支持系統。

他們說：“這可以解釋爲什麼蒼蠅與多數其它動物一樣，幾乎不強化它們的神經系統能力。”