VOA慢速英语《农业报道》第41课-第60课（MP3+LRC字幕+文本，60份）

英语翻议讲解： This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。 Chicken feathers are useful, and not just to a chicken. Some go into pillows, coats and other products. But countless chicken feathers go to waste.鸡毛除了对鸡有益处，还具有很多其他用途。有些被制成枕头、大衣和其他产品，但更多的鸡毛被浪费了。 In the United States, billions of chickens are produced yearly. Most of their feathers are thrown away.美国每年养殖了数十亿只鸡，大多数的鸡毛都被扔掉。 But instead of being buried in landfills, some feathers could find a future in plastics.但是，有些鸡毛可以在塑料行业找到未来，而不是被当成垃圾填埋。 Scientists in the Washington area have been working with keratin, the main substance in poultry feathers. One of the products they have developed is a flowerpot. It may look like other flowerpots. But the container breaks down in the earth within one to five years. And as it breaks down, it naturally releases nitrogen into the soil.华盛顿地区的科学家一直致力于研究角蛋白，这是家禽羽毛中的主要成分。他们开发的产品之一是花盆，它看起来和普通花盆一样，但这种花盆使用一到五年时会在土壤中分解。分解时会在土壤中自然释放出氮元素。 The flowerpots are made by reducing chicken feathers to a powder. Then the powder is formed into pellets and shaped into pots.这种花盆是由碾碎成颗粒状粉末的鸡毛制成。 The environmentally friendly flowerpot is the work of two researchers. Walter Schmidt is with the Agricultural Research Service, part of the United States Agriculture Department. Masud Huda is with the Horticultural Research Institute, a private organization.这种环保花盆是两位研究人员的成果。他们是美国农业部下属农业研究局的Walter Schmidt，以及一家私人园艺研究所的Masud Huda。 The institute's research director, Mark Teffeau, says the flowerpot works well for vegetables and small flowering plants like geraniums and impatiens.该研究所主任Mark Teffeau表示，这种花盆可以很好的用于蔬菜，以及天竺葵和小凤仙花等小型花卉的种植。 Walter Schmidt has been working to find uses for chicken feathers since the nineteen nineties. Progress in two thousand two showed that plastic made from feathers could be formed like other plastics.自二十世纪九十年代以来，Walter Schmidt就一直致力于研究鸡毛的用途。2002年取得的进展表明，用鸡毛制成的塑料能够像其他塑料一样被塑造。 He says feathers are much stronger and last longer than another plant ma