每日一翻：Button Battery Coating Lessens Risk If Swallowed

They’re called button cells, coin cells or watch batteries. By any name, these tiny, round batteries pose a choking danger to small kids. And if a child succeeds in swallowing a button cell, the battery may short-circuit in the moist esophageal environment, burning the tissue. A few thousand kids wind up in emergency rooms each year after swallowing a button battery.有种电池被叫做纽扣电池、硬币电池或者是手表电池。不管叫什么，这些小的圆形电池都有对小孩造成窒息的危险。如果一个小孩吞下一个纽扣电池，在他潮湿的食道里电池会发生短路，从而烧坏食道粘膜组织。每年有数千名孩子因为吞下纽扣电池而在急救室被抢救。

But a team of Harvard and MIT researchers that includes prolific inventor Robert Langer thinks they have a partial solution: a protective coating.但是由哈佛大学和麻省理工学院的科学家，其中包括有大量发明成果的发明家罗伯特·兰格，组成的团队想到一个还不太完美的办法：一种保护性图层。

The scientists covered batteries with a material—technically a quantum tunneling composite—in which microparticles of conductive metal are suspended in an insulating layer. Under most circumstances, including inside of a child, the layer is nonconductive.科学家将一种技术上被称为量子隧穿复合技术材料的特殊材料覆盖在电池表面，在这种涂层里金属导电微粒被悬浮在一层绝缘层中。多数情况下，包括在孩子体内，涂层都是不会导电的。

But when the material is subjected to high pressure, the microparticles are squeezed close enough together to carry a current. One such pressurized environment is the typical battery compartment in a small device—you often have to force the battery into place. So the same battery that remains inert when swallowed works just fine when it’s jammed into its slot in a hearing aid.但是当这种材料在受到高压时，导电微粒又会被压到一起，从而又可以导电。小设备中的电池槽就是一种典型的受压环境，因为你常常需要使劲才能把电池压进去。所以同样的一块电池，在被吞下的时候会保持惰性不导电而被压到电池槽的时候又会变好。

The waterproof design would also protect batteries from corrosion in high humidity. The research is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. [Bryan Laulicht et al., Simple battery armor to protect against gastrointestinal injury from accidental ingestion]

防水设计还能阻止电池在高度潮湿环境下被腐蚀。这项研究被发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

Tests with pigs found the coated batteries to be gentle on the porcine esophagus. Next step: figure out a way to keep kids from putting the batteries in their mouths in the first place. Can a quantum tunneling composite be made to taste terrible?在猪身上的试验表明这种涂层电池对猪的食道危害特别小。下一步：首先找到办法阻止小孩把电池放到嘴里。量子隧道复合材料能做成可食用的吗？

—Cynthia Graber