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Whether you've got a big ol' lumberjack beard or a pencil-thin mustache, if you have facial hair, you might refer to it as your "whiskers."
不论是老伐木工那样的胡子还是八字胡，如果你的面部毛发较多，你可能会把它们称之为“胡须”
But that is not what they are.
但胡须才不长成那样。
The fact is, humans don't have whiskers. True whiskers—like those on your dog or cat—are far more special than any human facial hair.
事实上，人类并没有胡须。真正的胡须，应该是你的狗和喵那样的，比人类的面部毛发要特别得多。
Whiskers are acutely sensitive and can help creatures hunt, sense the direction of the wind, and find their way around in the dark.
胡须非常的敏感，能帮助生物捕猎、辨别风的方向并帮助它们在黑暗中找到出路。
In fact, they are so useful, nearly all mammals have them… we're just one of the rare exceptions.
事实上，胡须是非常有用的，几乎所有的哺乳动物都有胡须... 而我们人类是稀有的例外之一。
So, what makes whiskers different from the stubble on your chin?
那么，胡须和我们下吧的胡茬到底有啥不同呢？
Well, whiskers are what scientists call vibrissae. And they are similar to regular hair ... they're made out of the same protein, keratin.
科学家将胡须称为触须。它们和普通头发相似... 它们都由同样的蛋白质、角蛋白组成。
But whiskers are usually thicker, stiffer, and more importantly, they grow out of completely different kinds of follicles than your hairs do.
但是通常胡须更粗、更坚硬，最重要的是，胡须生长于和头发完全不同的种类的卵泡。
The follicles for vibrissae are deep in the skin, and they're surrounded by pockets of blood, which are connected to nerves.
触须的卵泡深深的植入皮肤中，它们被小规模血液包围，血液连接着多个神经。
Researchers think that these pockets of blood help amplify any vibrations that come through the hairs to help make them extra-sensitive to touch.
研究者认为这些小规模血液帮助扩大来自头发的震动，提高它们对触摸的超高灵敏度。
And the nerves, of course, lead up to the brain, where huge sections of the somatosensory cortex are devoted to making sense of all the tactile information that the whiskers are picking up.
当然，神经会一直通向大脑。在大脑中，大部分躯体感觉皮层都在为理解胡须所收集的触觉信息而努力。
Now, whiskers can be found anywhere on an animal's body, but the most common spot is on the face, especially around the mouth or eyes, where they come in two main types.
如今，在动物身上到处能找到胡须，但是最常出现的地方是面部，特别是嘴和眼睛周围，主要分为两种类型。
The long hairs we usually think of as "whiskers" are called macrovibrissae, and they can be moved voluntarily.
通常被我们认为是“胡须”的长发被称为长触须，可以自由摆动。
But there are also shorter, stubbier whiskers, usually right under the nose, called microvibrissae.
还有一些较短的、更加坚硬的胡须，通常生长在鼻子正下方的则被称为微触须。
Many animals, like rats or mice, have both kinds.
像大鼠或老鼠之类的大多数动物都有这两种触须。
And in those creatures, it's thought that the big ones are used for spatial tasks, while the little ones are more important for recognizing certain objects.
在这些生物中，通常认为较大的可用于空间任务，而较小的则对于某种物体的识别更为重要。
If you can move your big whiskers, like a rat does, you can actually get lots of really valuable information about the space around you ... almost like seeing, but with your hair.
如果摆动你的大胡须，就像老鼠那样，你也可以在你周围获取一些有价值的信息...几乎就像用毛发看东西一样。
This behavior actually has a name—aptly enough, it's called whisking.
事实上，这种行为被成为挥动，真是太贴切了。
For example, if a rat is new to an area, it will move slowly, flicking its whiskers back and forth, letting them sweep over a broad area to get a good sense of the surroundings.
比如，如果一只大鼠到一个新地方，它会缓慢地移动，轻轻地前后摆动它的胡须，让胡须扫过大片区域，感触一下周围环境。
But if a rat already knows the space, it will move more quickly, and whisk over a smaller area just to make sure it doesn't run into anything.
但是如果大鼠已经熟悉了这一片区域，那么它们会更加快速地移动并用胡须扫过小片区域，确保此处不会有其他入侵者。
And if a rodent is especially interested in something, it will increase the speed of its whisking to get a higher resolution sense of what the thing is.
如果一个啮齿动物对某东西特别感兴趣，它会加快胡须摆动的速度以更清晰地感受这个东西。
Other animals use their whiskers for more nefarious purposes… at least, if you're a prey animal.
其他动物会将它们的胡须用于更加小邪恶的目的...至少，对被捕食者来说是这样的。
The tiny etruscan shrew, for example, uses its whiskers to find and capture insects nearly as large as itself, even inside dark tunnels.
例如，小臭鼩使用它们的胡须寻找并捕获和他们差不多同样大小的昆虫，甚至是黑暗隧道中的昆虫。
Seals, too, use the tactile hairs to hunt, and have whiskers so sensitive that they can actually sense fish breathing.
同样，海豹利用它们的触毛捕食，并且它们的胡须非常敏感，能让它们感受到鱼类的呼吸。
Biologists think that's because seals have as much as ten times the number of nerve endings per whisker follicle that land animals have.
生物学家认为这是因为海豹每个胡须卵泡的神经末梢数量是陆地动物的十倍。
OK, so you get that whiskers are super-useful, and on the right animal, they can be downright dashing.
所以，胡须可是超级有用的，胡须对于动物来说可是派头十足。
So in that case, why don't we have them? Well, we probably did at one point. Or, at least, our ancestors did.
这样看来，为什么人类却没有胡须呢？或许，在某一时期，我们还是有胡须的。至少，我们的祖先就有。
Whiskers are thought to have been an important adaptation in early mammals, including primates.
一直以来，胡须都是早期哺乳动物经过适应后的重要结果，包括灵长类动物。
But then, around 800,000 years ago, we appear to have lost the bit of DNA that allows for true whiskers.
但是在8000,000年前，我们的那一小块能生长真正胡须的DNA似乎已经消失了。
However, our distant cousins—the other great apes—still have it, and you can see their whiskers if you look closely.
而我们的远方表亲——其他类人猿，仍然有胡须。如果你近距离观察它们，还是能看到它们的胡须的。
They are not the big flashy whiskers your cat has, but chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all have microvibrissae all around their mouths and eyebrows.
它们的胡须不像你的喵那样浮夸，但是，黑猩猩、大猩猩和猩猩的嘴和眼睛周围都有微触须。
There's even evidence that some people today have vestigial muscles in their upper lips that are leftover from when our primate ancestors had whiskers —
甚至有证据表明，一些人的上唇仍留退化肌肉，这种退化肌肉自我们的灵长类祖先有胡须时起——
although, not all scientists are convinced about that.
虽然，并不是所有科学家都认同这一说法。
Either way, modern humans seem to have gotten along just fine without whiskers.
不管咋样，现代人类没有胡须似乎也过得不错。
All that brain space that was dedicated to getting information from whiskers is now used to map our sense of touch, with a big chunk going to our fingertips.
所有致力于从胡须中收取信息的脑空间现在都被用于安置我们的触摸感，其中大部分都流入指尖。
And we have pretty good visual systems for navigating, so we don't have to feel our way around with hairs.
我们有很好的导航视觉系统，所以我们不用头发感知出路。
So, if you're wishing you could go out for a nice whisking, or had a sweet set of whiskers that could make you into like a real-life Daredevil, take heart.
所以，如果你希望自己能找到摆动的胡须或是拥有一套胡须能将你变成现实中的超胆侠，那可是需要勇气的。
Not having them is part of what makes you human.
没有胡须，时让你成为人类的一部分。
But if you want to see me rocking some scientific cat ears, check out our Talk Show about the brain with Dr. Amanda Duley.
如果你想看我摇晃科学的猫耳朵，可以点击Dr. Amanda Duley关于大脑的脱口秀视频。
There's a link in the description. I move them with my mind.
简介中有链接。我可以用意念来摇晃哟~
