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Emma Teeling, like many of her colleagues, came to bats "completely, utterly, and totally by chance."
艾玛·提林跟许多同事一样，都是“完完全全、彻彻底底出于意外”进入蝙蝠的研究领域。
Teeling is a co-founder of Bat1K, a project to sequence the genomes of all 1,400 or so species of bats, and one of the founding advisers of Paratus Sciences, a start-up devoted to mining bat biology for ways to fight human diseases.
提林是Bat1K的共同创办人，Bat1K是一项为全部一千四百多种蝙蝠进行基因体定序的计划；提林也是Paratu Sciences的创办顾问之一，这家新创公司致力于探索蝙蝠生物学，以寻找对抗人类疾病的办法。
"We believe," its website states, "that bats hold the key to a safer and healthier world."
这家公司的网站上写道：“我们相信，蝙蝠是通往更安全、更健康的世界之钥。”
After initially working with foxes and deer, Teeling quickly became fascinated by the weird biology of bats.
提林起初研究的是狐狸和鹿，后来她很快就着迷于古怪的蝙蝠生物学。
Live small, die young is the general rule for mammals. But bats the size of mice can survive for decades.
“体型小，死得早”是哺乳动物的普遍规则，但与小鼠体型相当的蝙蝠可以存活数十年。
"They live for a ridiculously long time," for their size, she said.
提林说，以蝙蝠的体型而言，“它们的寿命长得离谱”。
They rarely get cancers. "They can carry all these viruses without getting sick."
蝙蝠很少罹患癌症。“它们可以携带各种病毒，却不会生病。”
Teeling, now a professor at University College Dublin, had to know why.
提林（如今已是都柏林大学学院教授）决心要找出这些特征的原因。
The answer she has become more and more convinced of over the years is one that at first blush seems hard to comprehend: They fly.
经过了这些年，她越来越相信，答案是一个乍看似乎很难理解的答案，那就是：蝙蝠会飞。
Her hypothesis is that flight led bats to evolve unusual immune systems, which in turn led to longevity, even resistance to cancer.
她的假设是飞行使蝙蝠演化出特殊的免疫系统，进而让蝙蝠很长寿，甚至能抵抗癌症。
Bats need to burn a lot of fuel to catch bugs on the wing, to dive and pitch and roll like a scarf in the wind.
蝙蝠需要耗费巨大能量才能在飞行时捕捉昆虫，像风中的围巾一样俯仰翻滚。
One study estimated the metabolic rates of flying bats to be three to five times those of similar size land mammals.
有一项研究估计，与相似体型的陆栖哺乳动物相比，蝙蝠飞行时的代谢率大约是三到五倍。
Cellular engines called mitochondria have to work overtime to produce energy for flight.
称为粒线体的细胞发电机必须超时工作，才能制造出用于飞行的能量。
As a side effect, they also produce chemicals called free radicals that are known to harm DNA.
副作用之一是它们也会制造自由基，这是已知会伤害DNA的化学物质。
"We should see this high level of damage" to DNA in bats, Teeling said.
提林说:“我们应该会在蝙蝠的DNA里看到高度损伤。”
But in experiments, that is not what she and her colleagues have found. In fact, they discovered that as the bats they studied aged, their ability to repair their DNA increased.
但在实验中，她和同事却发现并非如此。不仅如此，他们还发现，随着研究中的蝙蝠逐渐老化，它们修复DNA的能力也增强了。
Another side effect of energy production in flight is that the mitochondria break down, and the results can look to the immune system like foreign invaders.
飞行时制造能量的另一项副作用是粒线体分解，而免疫系统可能将它视为外来入侵者。
So flight could produce a surging immune response -- and inflammation. Bats would need to control that.
因此，飞行可能引发强烈的免疫反应及发炎。蝙蝠必须控制这些反应。
Studies have shown that they not only respond to viruses that infect them, but they also tamp down that response, avoiding a damaging overreaction.
研究显示，它们不仅会对感染的病毒产生反应，也会减弱这些反应，避免反应过度造成破坏。
That could also have evolved as a result of flight.
这可能也是因飞行能力而演化出来的。
The connection is far from proven, and there are plenty of skeptics, Swartz among them.
这些特征与飞行能力之间的关联尚未证实，而且有许多人持怀疑态度，史沃兹也是其中之一。
"I'd be more confident in that line of reasoning if we saw enhancements of immune function and longevity in other animals that have elevated metabolism, like birds or migratory mammals," said Swartz.
史沃兹说：“如果我们在其他高代谢率的动物身上也发现免疫功能增强和长寿特征，例如鸟类或迁徙型哺乳动物，这个推论就会变得比较可信。”
Teeling said that, actually, many birds do live longer than might be expected given their size.
提林称，从体型来看，许多鸟类确实活得比预期寿命长。
She noted that in one survey of many species, the single best producer of long life was the ability to fly.
她指出，在一项囊括了许多物种的调查中，长寿的唯一最佳因素是飞行能力。
She recognized, however, that this kind of correlation is far from proof and that more investigation is needed -- the Bat1K project's genome sequencing, for instance.
但是她也承认，这种相关性称不上是证据，仍然需要进行更多研究，例如Bat1K计划的基因体定序工作。
By comparing the genomes of many bat species, scientists can see what they have in common, pinpoint which genes are active in DNA repair and immune activity, and calculate when those abilities might have evolved.
通过比较多种蝙蝠的基因体，科学家能够找到不同蝙蝠的共通之处、确认哪些基因在DNA修复和免疫活动中发挥了作用，并且估算这些能力演化出来的可能时间点。
If they came with flight, that would be a strong indication that the two are linked.
如果这些能力是伴随飞行能力出现的，那就强烈显示两者之间有关联。
