Getting out grandma's good flatware for the holidays? Then you're probably dreading the time it takes to polish all that silver. Now imagine you're in charge of the Silver Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!
为了节假日而偷祖母的银餐具？那么在你花很长时间来擦亮银器的时候，肯定会感到害怕。现在，设想你是一个大都会艺术博物馆里负责银器收藏的管理人员！

Fortunately for art conservators everywhere, scientists are hard at work on a process that may help keep silver shiny—and with a lot less elbow grease. Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park, together with the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, are using nanotechnology to prevent that nasty sulfide tarnish from forming. The method, called Atomic level Deposition, coats silver objects with a protective oxide film in layers just a single atom thick. Researchers discussed it at the recent 2012 AVS International Symposium, which covers materials, interfaces and processing.
幸运的是，对艺术品的保护无处不在。科学家们在努力研究不需要大量的擦拭就能使银器保持闪亮的方法。马里兰大学帕克学院以及巴尔的摩的沃尔特斯艺术博物馆的研究人员正利用纳米技术防止银的表面生成肮脏的硫化物污渍。这种方法被称作“原子级的沉积”，即在银器表面覆盖氧化物保护层，这层氧化物仅有一粒原子那么厚。在近期的2012年AVS国际研讨会上，研究人员讨论了材料、接触面和加工方式。

The technique is still being worked out and hasn't yet been used on priceless works of art. But researchers say that it offers a number of advantages over current methods. For one thing, conventional polishing can remove underlying silver. If the new method measures up, museum curators will surely take a shine to it.
这项技术目前仍处于研发阶段，还没应用到无价的艺术品上。但研究人员表示，相比目前的方法，它有许多优势。首先，传统的抛光会除去污渍下隐藏的银。如果这种新方法符合既定标准，博物馆馆长们肯定会看中它吧。