Researchers Seek Drought-Resistant Crops (1/2)

One cause of the current food crisis is drought. Food prices are high in part because of dry weather in places as far distant as Spain and Australia.

Around the world, the amount of land affected by drought has doubled in the past thirty years. So says the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the United States. And scientists concerned about climate change believe it will cause more drought in many areas in the future.

A lot of research is going into efforts to develop drought-resistant crops. One project involves tobacco plants genetically engineered to keep their leaves during water shortages. Eduardo Blumwald and Rosa Rivero at the University of California, Davis, led a team from the United States, Japan and Israel. Rosa Rivero says they chose tobacco because it has big leaves. Also, it grows fast and has structural similarities with some other plants.

The researchers did an experiment with two groups of tobacco plants. They worked with a set of normal plants and a set of transgenic plants. These had a gene added to interfere with the biological causes of leaf loss during drought.

参考译文：

导致当前粮食危机的一个原因就是干旱。居高的粮价部分是由于远及西班牙和澳大利亚这样的地方都出现干旱天气所引起的。

在过去的30年中，全球受干旱影响的土地数量增加了一倍。美国国立大气研究中心也公布了相同的结果。并且，科学家已经考虑到了气候变化，认为这将在未来导致更多的地区出现干旱。

很多研究都致力于培育抗旱作物。一项研究就是，通过基因改造烟草植物使其可以在水分短缺时保留叶片。 加州大学戴维斯分校的Eduardo Blumwald和Rosa Rivero领导一只来自美国、日本和以色列的小组（进行本研究）。Rosa Rivero说他们选择烟草的原因是：烟草的叶片很大；生长迅速；并且在结构上与其他植物有许多相似之处。

研究者在两组烟草植物中进行了实验。一组是正常的植物，另外一组是转基因植物。这些转基因植物被加入了基因。该基因可以在干旱时，干预由生物因素引起叶片脱落。