This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
Not all research begins with a plan. Some studies begin by accident. Meredith Schafer says that is what happened with her and Cynthia Sagers.
并非所有的研究都是有计划的开始的，一些研究的开始纯属偶然。梅勒迪·斯谢弗（Meredith Schafer）说，她和辛西娅·萨格斯（Cynthia Sagers）的研究就是如此。
Cynthia Sagers is a biology professor at the University of Arkansas. Meredith Schafer is a graduate student.
萨格斯是阿肯色大学的一名生物学教授。斯谢弗是一名研究生。
They were traveling in the state of North Dakota on a project. They noticed pretty yellow flowers.
她们在北达科他州进行一个项目时注意到一些非常漂亮的黄色花朵。
They recognized them as canola. Farmers grow canola for seeds to make cooking oil. Canola is also used for animal feed and biofuel.
她们认为这是卡诺拉。农民们种植卡诺拉，用其菜籽炼制食用油。卡诺拉还能用于动物饲料和生物燃料。注：Canola，卡诺拉，加拿大双低油菜。Canola是"Can（Canadian，加拿大）o（oil，油）, l（low，低） a（acid，酸）"的缩写。
But the canola plants they saw were not growing in farm fields. They were growing along the road.
但是他们看到的卡诺拉植株并非长在农田里，而是长在路边。
The researchers decided to test the plants. They had brought along special testing papers for the project they were working on. They crushed some of the
leaves in water and added the test strips.
研究人员决定对这种植株做个测试。他们随身携带了一种用于她们正在进行的项目的特殊试纸。她们将一些叶子碾碎后与水混合，然后将试纸放入。
The results showed that the weedy canola plants contained genetic changes. If a plant is genetically modified, that means its genes have been changed to
produce desired qualities.
结果显示，这种杂草般的卡诺拉植株存在基因变异。如果一种植物是转基因植物，则意味着它的基因被改造以获得更好的品质。
This summer, the researchers from Arkansas went back to North Dakota. This time they went on a road trip to find canola. They traveled more than five
thousand kilometers.
今年夏天，阿克色州的研究人员再次回到北达科他州。这一次，他们沿路寻找卡诺拉，行程超过5千公里。
They stopped about every eight kilometers to count plants and take samples to test in their vehicle.
他们每8公里停下来统计植株数目并采样在车上进行测试。
What they found, they say, was the first discovery in the United States of wild canola plants with modified genes.
他们称他们在美国首次发现基因变异的野生卡诺拉植物。
Meredith Schafer presented the findings at a recent meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
萨格斯在美国生态学会近期一次会议上提交了该发现。
The scientists found canola plants in almost half of the places they investigated. They tested a total of two hundred eighty-eight plants. They found that
eighty percent of those plants contained genes from genetically engineered canola.
科学家们在他们调查过的近一半地区发现了卡诺拉植株。他们对其中的288株进行了测试后发现，80%的植株携带转基因卡诺拉的基因。
Some crop plants are modified to resist damage from the chemicals that farmers spray to kill weeds. There are two proteins that can give canola the ability
to resist two commonly used herbicides. One protein gives resistance against glyphosate. The other protein gives resistance against glufosinate.
有些农作物被基因改造，以抵抗农民喷洒的除草剂的损害。有两种蛋白质可以使卡诺拉拥有抵抗2种常用除草剂的能力。其中一种产生草甘膦抗药性，另一种产生草胺磷抗药性。
Two of the plants growing in the wild showed resistance to both kinds of weed killers. Professor Sagers says canola varieties with these genetic qualities
have not been released on the market. This suggests the result of wild populations reproducing on their own.
2株野生植株对两种除草剂都显示出抗药性。萨格斯教授称，存在这种基因性状的卡诺拉品种并未在市场上发布。这意味着，这是野生种群自我繁殖的结果。