Michael Archer: How we'll resurrect the gastric brooding frog, the Tasmanian tiger

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: Lucia Lichá Reviewer: Linda Magáthová

I do want to test this question we're all interested in:

Chcel by som preveriť otázku, ktorá nás všetkých zaujíma.

Does extinction have to be forever?

Vyhynuli niektoré druhy navždy?

I'm focused on two projects I want to tell you about.

Chcel by som vám povedať o 2 projektoch.

One is the Thylacine Project.

Prvý je Projekt vakovlk.

The other one is the Lazarus Project,

Druhý je Projekt Lazarus

and that's focused on the gastric-brooding frog.

a je zameraný na paropuchu bruchorodú.

And it would be a fair question to ask,

Dobrá otázka je,

why have we focused on these two animals?

prečo práve tieto 2 zvieratá.

Well, point number one, each of them represents a unique family of its own.

Po prvé, každé z nich reprezentuje vlastnú jedinečnú čeľaď.

We've lost a whole family.

Prišli o celé čeľade.

That's a big chunk of the global genome gone.

Zanechalo to veľkú dieru v celosvetovom genóme.

I'd like it back.

Chcel by som ju vyplniť.

The second reason is that we killed these things.

Po druhé, tieto zvieratá sme vyhubili my.

In the case of the thylacine, regrettably, we shot every one that we saw.

Čo sa týka vakovlkov, ľudia zastrelili všetky, ktoré našli.

We slaughtered them.

Zmasakrovali sme ich.

In the case of the gastric-brooding frog, we may have "fungicided" it to death.

Čo sa týka paropúch bruchorodých,

vyzerá to, že vyhynuli v dôsledku plesní.

There's a dreadful fungus that's moving through the world

Svetom sa totiž šíri pleseň Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis,

that's called the chytrid fungus,

ktorá napáda a zabíja žaby na celom svete.

and it's nailing frogs all over the world.

We think that's probably what got this frog,

Šíria ju ľudia a myslíme si, že vyhladila aj paropuchu bruchorodú.

and humans are spreading this fungus.

And this introduces a very important ethical point,

Dostávame sa k veľmi dôležitej morálnej otázke,

and I think you will have heard this many times

o ktorej ste už asi v rámci tejto témy počuli veľakrát.

when this topic comes up.

What I think is important

Podľa mňa, ak je jasné,

is that, if it's clear that we exterminated these species,

že sme tieto druhy vyhubili,

then I think we not only have a moral obligation

máme nielen morálnu povinnosť zistiť,

to see what we can do about it,

či sa s tým dá niečo urobiť,

but I think we've got a moral imperative to try to do something, if we can.

ale aj sa o to skutočne pokúsiť, ak je to možné.

OK. Let me talk to you about the Lazarus Project.

Dobre. Poviem vám o Projekte Lazarus.

It's a frog. And you think, frog.

Je o žabe. Pomyslíte si: „O žabe?“

Yeah, but this was not just any frog.

Nebola to však len taká obyčajná žaba.

Unlike a normal frog, which lays its eggs in the water

Obyčajné žaby nakladú vajíčka do vody

and goes away and wishes its froglets well,

a odídu dúfajúc, že sa žabkám bude dariť.

this frog swallowed its fertilized eggs,

Paropuchy prehltli oplodnené vajíčka bez toho, aby ich strávili.

swallowed them into the stomach, where it should be having food,

didn't digest the eggs, and turned its stomach into a uterus.

Takto sa ich žalúdok zmenil na maternicu.

In the stomach, the eggs went on to develop into tadpoles,

Z vajíčok sa tam vyvinuli žubrienky

and in the stomach, the tadpoles went on to develop into frogs,

a z tých sa tam vyvinuli žabky, ktoré tam rástli,

and they grew in the stomach

until eventually the poor old frog was at risk of bursting apart.

až kým dospelej žabe nehrozilo puknutie.

It has a little cough and a hiccup, and out comes sprays of little frogs.

Potom stačilo krátke zakašľanie a začkanie a z úst jej vytryskol prúd malých žabiek.

Now, when biologists saw this, they were agog.

Biológovia z toho boli celí preč.

They thought, this is incredible.

Bolo to niečo neuveriteľné.

No animal, let alone a frog, has been known to do this,

Žiadne známe zviera, a už vôbec nie žaba,

nedokázalo zmeniť niektorý zo svojich orgánov na úplne iný.

to change one organ in the body into another.

And you can imagine the medical world went nuts over this as well.

Vyvolalo to ošiaľ aj v medicíne.

If we could understand

Ak by sme pochopili,

how that frog is managing the way its tummy works,

ako funguje brucho tejto žaby,

is there information here that we need to understand

mohli by sme to použiť a pomôcť tak ľuďom?

or could usefully use to help ourselves?

Now, I'm not suggesting we want to raise our babies in our stomach,

Nenavrhujem, aby sa naše deti vyvíjali v žalúdku,

but I am suggesting it's possible

ale že by sme sa mohli naučiť ovládať produkciu žalúdočných štiav.

we might want to manage gastric secretion in the gut.

And just as everybody got excited about it, bang!

V čase, keď sa pre to nadchlo najviac ľudí... bum!

It was extinct.

Žaby vymreli.

Zavolal som profesorovi Mikeovi Tylerovi z Adelaidskej univerzity.

I called up my friend,

Professor Mike Tyler in the University of Adelaide.

Bol to posledný človek,

He was the last person who had this frog, a colony of these things, in his lab.

ktorý mal v laboratóriu kolóniu týchto žiab.

And I said, "Mike, by any chance --" This was 30 or 40 years ago.

Opýtal som: „Mike, náhodou...", bolo to asi pred 30 alebo 40 rokmi,

"By any chance had you kept any frozen tissue of this frog?"

"...nezostali ti náhodou zmrazené vzorky tkaniva tej žaby?“

And he thought about it,

Zamyslel sa a išiel prehľadať mrazničku, kde udržiaval teplotu - 20 °C

and he went to his deep freezer, minus 20 degrees centigrade,

and he poured through everything in the freezer,

a na dne našiel pohár,

and there in the bottom was a jar and it contained tissues of these frogs.

v ktorom bolo tkanivo týchto žiab.

This was very exciting,

Bol to vzrušujúci objav,

ale nemohli sme si byť istí,

but there was no reason why we should expect that this would work,

že to bude fungovať,

because this tissue had not had any antifreeze put in it,

pretože do vzoriek neboli pridané nemrznúce zmesi - kryoprotektanty,

cryoprotectants, to look after it when it was frozen.

ktoré by ich uchovali v dobrom stave po zmrazení.

And normally, when water freezes, as you know, it expands,

Voda po zmrazení expanduje a to platí aj pre bunky.

and the same thing happens in a cell.

If you freeze tissues, the water expands, damages or bursts the cell walls.

Voda v tkanive po zmrazení expanduje,

čo poškodí alebo roztrhá bunkové steny.

Tkanivo sme dali pod mikroskop.

Well, we looked at the tissue under the microscope.

It actually didn't look bad. The cell walls looked intact.

Bunkové steny vyzerali nedotknuté.

Povedali sme si, že to skúsime.

So we thought, let's give it a go.

Použili sme metódu,

What we did is something called somatic cell nuclear transplantation.

ktorá sa volá prenos jadra somatických buniek.

We took the eggs of a related species, a living frog,

Zobrali sme vajíčko príbuzného druhu žijúcej žaby

and we inactivated the nucleus of the egg.

a inaktivovali sme jeho jadro.

We used ultraviolet radiation to do that.

Na to sme použili ultrafialové žiarenie.

And then we took the dead nucleus from the dead tissue of the extinct frog

Potom sme zobrali bunkové jadro z „mŕtveho“ tkaniva vyhynutej žaby

and we inserted those nuclei into that egg.

a vniesli sme ho do pripraveného vajíčka.

Now, by rights, this is kind of like a cloning project,

Na prvý pohľad to vyzerá ako klonovanie použité pri Dolly,

like what produced Dolly,

ale pri Dolly sa prenášali živé bunky ovce do živých buniek ovce.

but it's actually very different,

because Dolly was live sheep into live sheep cells.

That was a miracle, but it was workable.

Bol to zázrak, ale uskutočniteľný.

My sme chceli preniesť mŕtve bunkové jadrá vyhynutého druhu

What we're trying to do is take a dead nucleus from an extinct species

and put it into a completely different species and expect that to work.

do buniek úplne iného druhu dúfajúc, že to bude fungovať.

Well, we had no real reason to expect it would,

Nemali sme reálny dôvod očakávať úspech.

and we tried hundreds and hundreds of these.

Urobili sme stovky a stovky pokusov.

And just last February, the last time we did these trials,

Pri pokusoch pred rokom vo februári som videl,

I saw a miracle starting to happen.

ako sa začal diať zázrak.

Vo väčšine prípadov sa nič sa nestalo,

What we found was most of these eggs didn't work,

but then suddenly, one of them began to divide.

ale potom sa v jednom vajíčku začali deliť bunky.

That was so exciting.

Bolo to vzrušujúce.

And then the egg divided again. And then again.

Potom sa rozdelili opäť.

A opäť.

And pretty soon, we had early-stage embryos

Čoskoro sme mali embryo v ranom štádiu so stovkami buniek.

with hundreds of cells forming those.

We even DNA-tested some of these cells,

Otestovali sme DNA v niektorých bunkách

a našli sme v nich DNA vyhynutej žaby.

and the DNA of the extinct frog is in those cells.

Sme z toho nadšení.

So we're very excited. This is not a tadpole. It's not a frog.

Nevytvorili sme žubrienku. Ani žabu.

But it's a long way along the journey

Zašli sme však ďaleko na ceste k tomu,

to producing, or bringing back, an extinct species.

že privedieme späť k životu vyhynutý druh.

And this is news.

Túto novinku sme ešte nezverejnili.

We haven't announced this publicly before.

Sme nadšení, ale musíme zájsť ďalej.

We're excited.

We've got to get past this point.

We now want this ball of cells to start to gastrulate,

Chceme, aby zo zhluku buniek vznikla gastrula

to turn in so that it will produce the other tissues.

a aby sa začali vytvárať ostatné tkanivá,

It'll go on and produce a tadpole and then a frog.

až kým by sa nevyvinula žubrienka a žaba.

Watch this space.

Sledujte to. Som presvedčený,

I think we're going to have this frog hopping

že táto žaba bude už čoskoro skákať od radosti, že je opäť na svete.

glad to be back in the world again.

(Applause)

(potlesk)

Thank you.

Ďakujem.

(Applause)

(potlesk)

We haven't done it yet, but keep the applause ready.

Ešte sme to nedokázali, ale ten potlesk si pripravte.

The second project I want to talk to you about is the Thylacine Project.

Druhý projekt, o ktorom vám chcem povedať, je Projekt vakovlk.

The thylacine looks a bit, to most people, like a dog,

Podľa väčšiny ľudí vakovlk vyzerá tak trochu ako pes,

or maybe like a tiger, because it has stripes.

alebo ako tiger, pretože má pruhy.

Nemá však s nimi nič spoločné.

But it's not related to any of those. It's a marsupial.

Bol to vačkovec.

It raised its young in a pouch, like a koala or a kangaroo would do,

Mláďatá žili vo vaku rodiča,

podobne ako je to u koál alebo kengúr.

Dlhá a fascinujúca história vakovlka siaha až 25 miliónov rokov do minulosti.

and it has a long history, a long, fascinating history,

that goes back 25 million years.

Je však aj tragická.

But it's also a tragic history.

The first one that we see occurs in the ancient rain forests of Australia

Prvé vakovlky žili v austrálskych dažďových pralesoch pred 25 miliónmi rokov

about 25 million years ago,

a fosílie z náleziska Riversleigh skúmame s pomocou Národnej zemepisnej spoločnosti.

and the National Geographic Society

is helping us to explore these fossil deposits.

This is Riversleigh.

In those fossil rocks are some amazing animals.

Našli sa tu fosílie úžasných zvierat.

We found marsupial lions.

Našli sme levy - vačkovce.

We found carnivorous kangaroos.

Našli sme mäsožravé kengury.

It's not what you usually think about as a kangaroo,

Neboli to obyčajné kengury, tieto žrali mäso.

but these are meat-eating kangaroos.

Našli sme aj najväčšieho vtáka na svete.

We found the biggest bird in the world,

bigger than that thing that was in Madagascar,

Je väčší ako ten z Madagaskaru a tiež to bol mäsožravec.

and it too was a flesh eater.

It was a giant, weird duck.

Bola to obrovská čudná kačica.

And crocodiles were not behaving at that time either.

Krokodíly sa v tom čase správali inak.

You think of crocodiles as doing their ugly thing,

Krokodíly si predstavujete,

ako ležia vo vode a striehnu.

sitting in a pool of water.

These crocodiles were actually out on the land

Tie pradávne krokodíly však behali po zemi

and they were even climbing trees and jumping on prey on the ground.

a dokonca sa šplhali aj na stromy,

z ktorých skákali na korisť.

We had, in Australia, drop crocs. They really do exist.

V Austrálii skutočne zo stromov padali krokodíly.

(Laughter)

But what they were dropping on was not only other weird animals

Padali nielen na rôzne zvláštne zvieratá,

but also thylacines.

ale aj na vakovlky.

There were five different kinds of thylacines in those ancient forests,

V pradávnych lesoch sme našli pozostatky piatich druhov vakovlkov rôznych veľkostí,

and they ranged from great big ones to middle-sized ones

od veľmi veľkých, cez stredné až po tie,

to one that was about the size of a chihuahua.

ktoré boli asi také veľké ako čivavy.

Paris Hilton would have been able

Takého by mohla Paris Hilton nosiť v kabelke,

to carry one of these things around in a little handbag,

kým by na ňu zo stromu nespadol krokodíl.

until a drop croc landed on her.

At any rate, it was a fascinating place,

Bolo to fascinujúce miesto,

but unfortunately, Australia didn't stay this way.

ale Austrália sa nanešťastie zmenila.

Climate change has affected the world for a long period of time,

Klimatické zmeny menia svet už dlhú dobu

and gradually, the forests disappeared, the country began to dry out,

a lesy postupne zmizli,

krajina začala vyschýnať

and the number of kinds of thylacines began to decline,

a počet vakovlčích druhov začal klesať.

until by five million years ago,

Pred 5 miliónmi rokov ostal už len jeden.

only one left.

By 10,000 years ago, they had disappeared from New Guinea,

Pred 10 000 rokmi úplne zmizli z Novej Guinei

and unfortunately, by 4,000 years ago, somebodies, we don't know who this was,

a pred 4 000 rokmi niekto, nevieme kto, nanešťastie priniesol do Austrálie dingov,

introduced dingoes -- this is a very archaic kind of a dog --

čo je veľmi starý druh divých psov.

into Australia.

Tvarom tela sa veľmi podobajú vakovlkom,

And as you can see,

dingoes are very similar in their body form to thylacines.

That similarity meant they probably competed.

čo asi viedlo k tomu, že začali súperiť.

They were eating the same kinds of foods.

Žrali to isté žrádlo.

Je možné, že niektorí domorodci dingov chovali ako domáce zvieratá,

It's even possible that aborigines were keeping some of these dingoes as pets,

and therefore they may have had an advantage in the battle for survival.

vďaka čomu mali v boji o prežitie výhodu.

All we know is, soon after the dingoes were brought in,

S istotou vieme len to,

že krátko potom ako sa v Austrálii zjavili dingovia, tam vyhynuli vakovlky,

thylacines were extinct in the Australian mainland,

and after that they only survived in Tasmania.

ktoré potom žili už len v Tasmánii.

Then, unfortunately,

Nešťastný vakovlčí príbeh pokračuje príchodom Európanov v roku 1788.

the next sad part of the thylacine story is that Europeans arrived in 1788,

and they brought with them the things they valued,

Tí so sebou priniesli veci, ktoré si cenili, vrátane oviec.

and that included sheep.

They took one look at the thylacine in Tasmania,

Pri prvom pohľade na vakovlky si povedali:

and they thought, hang on, this is not going to work.

„To nemôže fungovať.

Zožerú nám všetky ovce.“

That guy is going to eat all our sheep.

That was not what happened, actually.

V skutočnosti to tak nebolo.

Pár oviec zožrali divé psy,

Wild dogs did eat a few of the sheep, but the thylacine got a bad rap.

ale vakovlky získali zlú povesť.

But immediately, the government said, that's it, let's get rid of them,

Vláda sa okamžite rozhodla zbaviť sa ich

and they paid people to slaughter every one that they saw.

a platila ľuďom za to,

že zabili všetky vakovlky, ktoré našli.

By the early 1930s,

Do začiatku 30. rokov minulého storočia bolo zabitých 3 000 až 4 000 vakovlkov.

3,000 to 4,000 thylacines had been murdered.

It was a disaster, and they were about to hit the wall.

Bola to katastrofa

a koniec už nebol ďaleko.

Pozrite sa na toto video.

Have a look at this bit of film footage.

It makes me very sad because, while it's a fascinating animal,

Je smutné, že hoci sme mali technológiu,

and it's amazing to think that we had the technology to film it

aby sme toto fascinujúce zviera zachytili na film predtým,

before it actually plunged off that cliff of extinction,

ako urobilo posledný krok na ceste k vyhynutiu,

we didn't, unfortunately, at this same time,

nanešťastie nám vtedy absolútne nezáležalo na tom,

have a molecule of concern about the welfare for this species.

ako sa tomuto druhu darí.

These are photos of the last surviving thylacine, Benjamin,

Tu vidíte posledného vakovlka Benjamina,

who was in the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart.

ktorého držali v hobartskej zoo.

To add insult to injury,

Akoby nestačilo,

having swept this species nearly off the table,

že ľudia jeho druh skoro úplne zniesli zo sveta,

Benjamin zomrel na následky zanedbania,

this animal, when it died of neglect --

The keepers didn't let it into the hutch on a cold night in Hobart.

keď ho počas chladnej noci nepustili do búdy.

It died of exposure, and in the morning, when they found the body of Benjamin,

Zomrel na podchladenie

a keď ráno našli jeho telo,

they still cared so little for this animal that they threw the body in the dump.

stále im na ňom záležalo tak málo,

že jeho mŕtvolu len tak hodili na smetisko.

Does it have to stay this way?

Musia veci ostať tak, ako sú?

In 1990, I was in the Australian Museum.

V roku 1990 som bol v Austrálskom múzeu.

I was fascinated by thylacines.

Vakovlky ma vždy fascinovali.

I've always been obsessed with these animals.

Bol som nimi priam posadnutý.

V múzeu som skúmal ich lebky

And I was studying skulls,

trying to figure out their relationships to other sorts of animals,

a zisťoval ich vzťahy k iným zvieratám,

and I saw this jar,

keď som zrazu uvidel tento pohár,

and here, in the jar, was a little girl thylacine pup,

v ktorom bola sučka vakovlka,

ktorá mohla mať tak 6 mesiacov.

perhaps six months old.

The guy who had found it and killed the mother

Človek, ktorý zabil jej matku, ju naložil do alkoholu.

had pickled the pup, and they pickled it in alcohol.

I'm a paleontologist, but I still knew alcohol was a DNA preservative.

Som paleontológ, ale viem,

že alkohol je konzervačný prostriedok.

But this was 1990, and I asked my geneticist friends,

Písal sa však rok 1990.

Keď som sa opýtal známych genetikov,

couldn't we think about going into this pup

či by sme nemohli odobrať vzorku DNA,

and extracting DNA, if it's there,

ak tam stále nejaká bola,

and then somewhere down the line in the future,

ktorú by sme potom neskôr použili na oživenie vakovlkov,

we'll use this DNA to bring the thylacine back?

len sa zasmiali.

The geneticists laughed. But this was six years before Dolly.

Bolo to 6 rokov pred naklonovaním Dolly.

Cloning was science fiction.

Klonovanie bola sci-fi. Nič skutočné.

It had not happened.

But then suddenly cloning did happen.

Potom sa však zrazu stalo skutočnosťou.

And I thought, when I became director of the Australian Museum,

Keď som sa stal riaditeľom Austrálskeho múzea,

I'm going to give this a go.

chcel som to skúsiť.

I put a team together.

Vybral som si tím ľudí.

We went into that pup to see what was in it,

Pozreli sme sa na to šteniatko

a naozaj sme našli vakolvčiu DNA.

and we did find thylacine DNA.

It was a eureka moment. We were very excited.

Išlo o prelom. Boli sme nadšení.

Unfortunately, we also found a lot of human DNA.

Nanešťastie sme však našli aj množstvo ľudskej DNA.

Every old curator who'd been in that museum

Každý starý kurátor múzea videl tento nádherný exemplár,

had seen this wonderful specimen,

vytiahol ho z pohára a pomyslel si:

put their hand in the jar, pulled it out and thought,

„Fíha, to čumím,“ a čľup... pustil ho naspäť.

"Wow, look at that," plop, dropped it back in the jar,

Týmto vzorku kontaminoval.

contaminating this specimen.

And that was a worry.

To nám robilo starosti.

If the goal here was to get the DNA out

Chceli sme získať vakovlčiu DNA,

and use the DNA down the track to try to bring a thylacine back,

aby sme sa ho pokúsili znovu oživiť.

what we didn't want happening

Nechceli sme, aby potom, čo do „stroja“ zadáme všetky informácie,

when the information was shoved into the machine

potiahneme za páku a zablikajú svetlá,

and the wheel turned around and the lights flashed,

was to have a wizened old horrible curator pop out the other end of the machine.

na druhom konci vypadol nejaký vráskavý starý kurátor.

It would've kept the curator very happy, but it wasn't going to keep us happy.

Toho kurátora by to potešilo,

ale nás nie.

Pozreli sme sa ešte raz na náš exemplár,

So we went back to these specimens and we started digging around,

and particularly, we looked into the teeth of skulls,

pričom sme sa sústredili hlavne na oblasť zubov,

hard parts where humans had not been able to get their fingers,

kde sa ľuďom nepodarilo vopchať prsty.

and we found much better quality DNA.

Našli sme oveľa kvalitnejšiu DNA.

Našli sme mitochondriálnu DNA.

We found nuclear mitochondrial genes.

It's there. So we got it.

Získali sme ju.

OK. What could we do with this stuff?

Čo by sme s ňou mohli dokázať?

Well, George Church, in his book, "Regenesis,"

George Church v knihe Regenéza spomína

has mentioned many of the techniques that are rapidly advancing

mnoho techník na prácu s fragmentmi DNA, ktoré veľmi rýchlo napredujú.

to work with fragmented DNA.

We would hope that we'll be able to get that DNA back into a viable form,

Dúfame, že budeme schopní spracovať DNA tak, aby bola životaschopná

and then, much like we've done with the Lazarus Project,

a potom ju vniesť do vajíčka hostiteľského druhu podobne ako pri Projekte Lazarus.

get that stuff into an egg of a host species.

It has to be a different species. What could it be?

Musí to byť iný druh.

Ktorý? Čo takto diabol tasmánsky?

Why couldn't it be a Tasmanian devil?

They're related, distantly, to thylacines.

Je to priamy príbuzný vakovlka.

And then the Tasmanian devil is going to pop a thylacine out the south end.

Z diabla tasmánskeho by potom vypadol malý vakovlk.

Critics of this project say, hang on.

Tu sa ozvú kritici projektu:

„Vakovlk a diabol tasmánsky?

Thylacine, Tasmanian devil? That's going to hurt.

To bude bolieť.“

No, it's not. These are marsupials.

Nie, nebude. Sú to vačkovce.

They give birth to babies that are the size of a jelly bean.

Mláďatá sú pri pôrode asi také veľké ako fazuľky.

That Tasmanian devil's not even going to know it gave birth.

Samička diabla tasmánskeho si pôrod ani nevšime.

It is, shortly, going to think

Možno si však bude myslieť,

it's got the ugliest Tasmanian devil baby in the world,

že porodila najškaredšie mláďa na svete,

so maybe it'll need some help to keep it going.

a asi bude potrebovať pomoc, aby ho nezavrhla.

Andrew Pask and his colleagues have demonstrated

Andrew Pask spolu s kolegami nám ukázali,

this might not be a waste of time.

že to nie je zbytočná strata času.

And it's sort of in the future, we haven't got there yet,

Náš cieľ je ešte len hudba budúcnosti,

ale už sa nad tým musíme zamýšľať.

but it's the kind of thing we want to think about.

Pask s kolegami zobrali DNA toho „naloženého“ vakovlčieho mláďaťa,

They took some of this same pickled thylacine DNA

and they spliced it into a mouse genome,

vniesli ju do myšieho genómu a označkovali ju tak,

but they put a tag on it

aby boli všetky časti myšieho mláďaťa obsahujúce vakovlčiu DNA modrozelené.

so that anything that this thylacine DNA produced

would appear blue-green in the mouse baby.

Inak povedané, boli schopní rozoznať tkanivo obsahujúce vakovlčiu DNA.

In other words, if thylacine tissues were being produced by the thylacine DNA,

it would be able to be recognized.

To mláďa prišlo na svet plné modrozeleného tkaniva.

When the baby popped up, it was filled with blue-green tissues.

Vieme teda, že ak tento genóm poskladáme

And that tells us if we can get that genome back together,

get it into a live cell,

a vložíme ho do živej bunky,

it's going to produce thylacine stuff.

bude produkovať vakovlkov.

Is this a risk?

Je to riskantné?

You've taken the bits of one animal

Zoberieme kúsky určitého zvieraťa

and you've mixed them into the cell of a different kind of an animal.

a zamiešame ich do buniek iného zvieraťa.

Nevznikne Frankensteinovo monštrum?

Are we going to get a Frankenstein? Some kind of weird hybrid chimera?

Akási zvláštna hybridná chiméra?

And the answer is no.

Odpoveď znie nie.

If the only nuclear DNA that goes into this hybrid cell is thylacine DNA,

Ak do hybridnej bunky vnesieme len jadrovú vakovlčiu DNA,

that's the only thing that can pop out the other end of the devil.

diabol tasmánsky môže porodiť len vakovlka.

OK, if we can do this, could we put it back?

Dobre, ak to dokážeme, vypustíme ho?

This is a key question for everybody.

To je kľúčová otázka.

Does it have to stay in a laboratory, or could we put it back where it belongs?

Ostane v laboratóriu,

alebo ho vypustíme do prírody?

Could we put it back in the throne of the king of beasts in Tasmania,

Mohli by sme ho vrátiť späť na trón tasmánskych dravcov a obnoviť ekosystém?

restore that ecosystem?

Or has Tasmania changed so much that that's no longer possible?

Nezmenila sa však už Tasmánia natoľko,

že to nie je možné?

Bol som v Tasmánii.

I've been to Tasmania.

I've been to many of the areas where the thylacines were common.

Navštívil som miesta, kde žili vakovlky.

I've even spoken to people, like Peter Carter here,

Rozprával som sa ľuďmi ako je Peter Carter.

who when I spoke to him, was 90 years old,

Keď som s ním hovoril, mal 90 rokov,

ale v roku 1926 chytal vakovlky spolu s otcom a bratom.

but in 1926, this man and his father and his brother

caught thylacines.

They trapped them.

Chytali ich do pascí.

And when I spoke to this man, I was looking in his eyes and thinking,

Keď som sa s ním rozprával,

pozrel som sa mu do očí a uvedomil som si,

"Behind those eyes is a brain that has memories of what thylacines feel like,

že za nimi je mozog,

v ktorom sú uchované spomienky na to,

aké to bolo dotknúť sa vakovlkov, ako páchli a aké zvuky vydávali.

what they smelled like, what they sounded like."

He led them around on a rope.

Vodil ich na povraze.

He has personal experiences

Mal spomienky a skúsenosti,

that I would give my left leg to have in my head.

za ktoré by som dal všetko.

Všetci by sme to radi zažili.

We'd all love to have this sort of thing happen.

Anyway, I asked Peter, by any chance,

Spýtal som sa ho,

či by mi nevedel ukázať, kde ich chytal.

could he take us back to where he caught those thylacines.

Chcel som vedieť, či sa to tam zmenilo.

My interest was in whether the environment had changed.

Hlboko sa zamyslel.

He thought hard. It was nearly 80 years before this that he'd been at this hut.

Bol tam naposledy asi pred 80 rokmi.

At any rate, he led us down this bush track,

V každom prípade si spomenul na cestičku k tej chate, zaviedol nás tam

and there, right where he remembered,

was the hut,

and tears came into his eyes.

a do očí mu vyhŕkli slzy, keď ju zbadal.

He looked at the hut. We went inside.

Vošli sme dnu.

There were the wooden boards on the sides of the hut

Po bokoch chaty boli drevené dosky,

na ktorých s otcom a bratom spávali.

where he and his father and his brother had slept at night.

And he told me, as it all was flooding back in memories.

Keď ho zaplavili spomienky, povedal mi:

He said, "I remember the thylacines going around the hut

„Spomínam si, ako vakovlky chodili dookola

a chceli vedieť, čo sa skrýva dnu.“

wondering what was inside,"

and he said they made sounds like "Yip! Yip! Yip!"

Spomenul si, že pritom kňučali: „Jip, jip, jip!“

Všetko sú to spomienky na to, čo zažil.

All of these are parts of his life and what he remembers.

Opýtal som sa ho kľúčovú otázku:

And the key question for me was to ask Peter, has it changed?

„Zmenilo sa to tu?“

And he said no.

Odpovedal, že nie.

Chatu obklopovali pabukové lesy rovnako ako v roku 1926.

The southern beech forests surrounded his hut

just like it was when he was there in 1926.

The grasslands were sweeping away.

Boli tam rozsiahle trávnaté pláne.

That's classic thylacine habitat.

To je typické vakovlčie prostredie.

And the animals in those areas were the same that were there

Ešte stále tam žili tie isté zvieratá ako v čase vakovlkov.

when the thylacine was around.

Mohli by sme ich teda vypustiť? Áno.

So could we put it back? Yes.

Is that all we would do? And this is an interesting question.

Bude to stačiť?

To je zaujímavá otázka.

Sometimes you might be able to put it back,

Mohli by sme ich síce vypustiť do prírody,

but is that the safest way to make sure it never goes extinct again?

ale zaručíme tým, že už nikdy nevyhynú?

And I don't think so.

Myslím si, že nie.

I think gradually, as we see species all around the world,

Ak sa pozrieme na situáciu zvierat na celom svete,

it's kind of a mantra that wildlife is increasingly not safe in the wild.

uvedomíme si, že divá zver žijúca vo voľnej prírode tam nie je v bezpečí.

We'd love to think it is, but we know it isn't.

Radi by sme si mysleli, že je, ale nie je.

We need other parallel strategies coming online.

Potrebujeme paralelné stratégie.

And this one interests me.

Zaujala ma táto.

Some of the thylacines that were being turned in to zoos,

Niektoré vakovlky,

ktoré sa dostali do zoo, chránených oblastí alebo múzeí,

sanctuaries, even at the museums,

had collar marks on the neck.

mali na krku stopy od obojkov.

They were being kept as pets,

Predtým to boli domáce zvieratá.

and we know a lot of bush tales and memories

Poznáme veľa príbehov a spomienok ľudí,

of people who had them as pets,

ktorí vakovlky chovali,

a podľa nich boli úžasné a priateľské.

and they say they were wonderful, friendly.

This particular one

Tento vyšiel z lesa,

came in out of the forest to lick this boy

oblizol tohto chlapca

and curled up around the fireplace to go to sleep.

a uložil sa pri ohnisku, kde zaspal.

A wild animal.

Bolo to divé zviera.

And I'd like to ask the question. We need to think about this.

Rád by som sa teraz opýtal otázku na zamyslenie.

If it had not been illegal to keep these thylacines as pets then,

Keby v minulosti nebolo protizákonné držať vakovlky ako domáce zvieratá,

would the thylacine be extinct now?

vyhynuli by?

And I'm positive it wouldn't.

Som si istý, že nie.

We need to think about this in today's world.

Zamyslime sa nad tým v kontexte dnešnej doby.

Could it be that getting animals close to us so that we value them,

Ak budeme mať k zvieratám blízko a naučíme sa ceniť si ich,

maybe they won't go extinct?

zabránime tomu, aby vyhynuli?

And this is such a critical issue for us

Je to zásadná otázka,

because if we don't do that,

pretože ak to neurobíme,

we're going to watch more of these animals plunge off the precipice.

uvidíme, ako budú z tváre sveta miznúť ďalšie a ďalšie zvieratá.

As far as I'm concerned,

Pokiaľ ide o mňa, toto je dôvod,

this is why we're trying to do these kinds of de-extinction projects.

prečo sa v rámci projektov snažíme vzkriesiť určité druhy.

We are trying to restore that balance of nature

Pokúšame sa obnoviť v prírode rovnováhu,

that we have upset.

ktorú sme narušili.

Thank you.

Ďakujem.

(potlesk)

(Applause)