VOA慢速英語聽力: 科學家發現咖啡的秘密

2024年3月17日發(作者：難受)

VOA慢速英語聽力： 科學家發現咖啡的秘密

Scientists Discover Secrets of Coffee

An international team of rearchers has created a quence, or map, of the

genes of the coffee plant known as Robusta. About one-third of the coffee drunk

worldwide comes from this plant.

The rearchers call coffee “the irresistible bean that delivers the most

widely consumed psychoactive drug in the world.”

Rearchers hope to u the map they created to make changes to the

plant’s genes.

The rearchers were surprid to discover the genes for caffeine. They

discovered coffee’s caffeine genes are not linked to the caffeine genes in the

cacao tree. Cacao beans are ud to make chocolate.

With the new gene map, rearchers say they may be able to develop plants

that can survive climate change. They may also be able to create a coffee plant

that does not have caffeine. The rearchers say that would let growers and

coffee makers produce coffee that tastes better than the kind that has the

caffeine removed.

We drink 2.5 billion cups of coffee every day. Coffee is the main agricultural

crop in many tropical countries.

The genetic map of the coffee plant Robusta was published in the journal

Science. The rearchers say the plant “joins a long list of crop species that have

been quenced using ever-improving” computer programs.

I’m Christopher Crui.

VOA health correspondent Jessica Berman reported this story from

Washington. Christopher Crui wrote it for Learning English. Jeri Watson edited

it.

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Words in This Story

psychoactive – adj. having an effect on the brain; ud to describe the effects

of a drug

plant - v. to put into the ground to grow; n. a living growth from the ground

which gets its food from air, water and earth

map - n. a picture of the earth’s surface or a part of it

discover - v. to find or learn something

produce - v. to make; to create; to cau something to be; to manufacture

crop(s) - n. plants that are grown and gathered for food, such as grains, fruits

and vegetables