Doctor Pigeon will see you now

[00:00.37] Next time you see a pigeon flying around, look at it with some respect.下次你看到一只鸽子飞来飞去的时候，带着一些尊重来看待它。

[00:04.88] it might be able to help with the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.它可能有助于人类疾病的诊断和治疗。

[00:10.40] A recent study has shown that these birds could be trained to detect breast cancer from images as accurately as humans.最近的一项研究表明，可以训练这些鸟从图像中像人类一样准确地检测乳腺癌。

[00:18.68] It's all about their visual memory - these birds have plenty of it even if their brains are very small. 这完全取决于它们的视觉记忆——即使它们的大脑很小，这些鸟也有很多视觉记忆。

[00:25.20] Professor Edward Wasserman from the University of Iowa, a co-author of the study, says: "Pigeons can distinguish identities and emotional expressions on human faces, letters of the alphabet, misshapen pharmaceutical capsules, and even paintings by Monet versus Picasso." 该研究的合著者、爱荷华大学的爱德华·瓦瑟曼教授说：“鸽子可以区分人脸、字母、畸形药物胶囊，甚至莫奈与毕加索的画作上的身份和情感表达。”

[00:44.53] And Wasserman adds that the birds' visual memory capacity is equally impressive, with a proven recall of more than 1,800 images.

[00:52.55] So how did the scientists find out about the amazing ability of these birds?Wasserman 补充说，鸟类的视觉记忆能力同样令人印象深刻，已证实可以回忆起 1,800 多张图像。那么科学家们是如何发现这些鸟类的惊人能力的呢？

[01:04.10] They taught different pigeons to distinguish microscope images of cancerous and non-cancerous tissue and rewarded them with food every time they got it right.他们教不同的鸽子区分癌组织和非癌组织的显微镜图像，并在每次它们做对时奖励它们食物。

[01:09.12] It didn't take long to get good results. After two weeks of training in 'pigeon medical school', the 'students' recorded 85% accuracy as they managed to identify cancerous tissue from images they had not seen before.没过多久就取得了不错的成绩。在“鸽子医学院”进行了两周的培训后，“学生”记录了 85% 的准确率，因为他们设法从他们以前从未见过的图像中识别出癌组织。

[01:23.18] But pigeons are not the only animals showing potential to help human diagnosis. 但鸽子并不是唯一显示出有助于人类诊断潜力的动物。

[01:28.19] A team at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has shown that a dog can be trained to smell urine samples of patients to identify thyroid cancer. 阿肯色大学医学科学的一个团队表明，可以训练一只狗闻病人的尿液样本来识别甲状腺癌。

[01:38.22] It lay down where it could smell cancer and turned away if not. The animals got it right in 30 cases out of 34.它躺在它可以闻到癌症的地方，如果没有，它就转身离开。这些动物在 34 例中的 30 例中做对了。

[01:46.24] So don't dismiss the abilities of these animals.所以不要忽视这些动物的能力。

[01:49.50] They might be much more intelligent than you think.他们可能比你想象的要聪明得多。