Nathan Wolfe: What's left to explore?

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: Egzon Shaqiri Reviewer: Helena Bedalli

Recently I visited Beloit, Wisconsin.

Kohet e fundit vizitova Beloit, Wisconsin.

And I was there to honor a great 20th century explorer,

Vajta atje per te nderuar eksploratorin e shekullit te 20te

Roy Chapman Andrews.

Roy Chapman Andrews.

During his time at the American Museum of Natural History,

Gjate asaj kohe ne Museun Amerikan te Historise se Natyres

Andrews led a range of expeditions to uncharted regions,

Andrews udhehoqi nje sere ekspeditash ne regjione te panjohura

like here in the Gobi Desert.

si ketu ne Shkretetiren e Gobit.

He was quite a figure.

Ishte nje personalitet i shquar.

He was later, it's said, the basis of the Indiana Jones character.

Thuhet se ka frymezuar me vone personazhin e Indiana Jones.

And when I was in Beloit, Wisconsin,

Dhe, kur isha ne Beloit, Winsconsin,

I gave a public lecture to a group of middle school students.

dhashe nje leksion per nje grup nxenesish te shkolles tetevjecare

And I'm here to tell you,

dhe jam ketu per t'ju treguar,

if there's anything more intimidating than talking here at TED,

nese ka dicka me te frikshme se te flasesh ketu ne TED,

it'll be trying to hold the attention

do te ishte te perpiqesh te kesh vemendjen

of a group of a thousand 12-year-olds for a 45-minute lecture.

e nje grupi 12 vjecaresh per 45 minuta leksion.

Don't try that one.

Mos e provoni.

At the end of the lecture they asked a number of questions,

Ne fund te leksionit ata bene nje numer pyetjesh,

but there was one that's really stuck with me since then.

por njera me ka mbetur ne mendje qe atehere.

There was a young girl who stood up,

Ishte nje vajze e re qe u ngrit ne kembe,

and she asked the question:

the beri pyetjen:

"Where should we explore?"

"Ku duhet te eksplorojme?"

I think there's a sense that many of us have

Mendoj qe te gjithe ne ndjejme

that the great age of exploration on Earth is over,

se epoka e madhe e eksplorimit mbi Toke ka marre fund

that for the next generation

se gjenerata tjeter

they're going to have to go to outer space or the deepest oceans

duhet te shkoje ne hapsire ose ne thellesi the oqeaneve

in order to find something significant to explore.

per te bere eksplorime te rendesishme.

But is that really the case?

Por a eshte keshtu me te vertete?

Is there really nowhere significant for us to explore

A eshte e vertete qe nuk na ka mbetur asgje per te eksploruar

left here on Earth?

ketu mbi Toke?

It sort of made me think back

Me beri qe te rikthehesha

to one of my favorite explorers in the history of biology.

te nje nga eksploratoret e mi me te preferuar ne historine e biologjise.

This is an explorer of the unseen world, Martinus Beijerinck.

Ky eshte nje eksplorues i botes se padukshme, Martinus Beijerinck.

So Beijerinck set out to discover the cause

Beijernick ka filluar me zbulimin e shkakut

of tobacco mosaic disease.

te virusit mozaik te duhanit.

What he did is he took the infected juice from tobacco plants

Ai mori lengun e infektuar nga bimet e duhanit

and he would filter it through smaller and smaller filters.

dhe e filtroi nepermjet filtrave gjithnje e me te imta.

And he reached the point

Dhe arriti ne piken

where he felt that there must be something out there

ku ndjeu se duhet te jete dicka aty

that was smaller than the smallest forms of life that were ever known --

qe eshte me e vogel se format me te vogla te jetes qe kishim njohur deri tani--

bacteria, at the time.

bakteri, ne ate kohe.

He came up with a name for his mystery agent.

Ai gjeti nje emer per agjentin e tij misterioz.

He called it the virus --

E quajti virus --

Latin for "poison."

"helm" ne latinisht.

And in uncovering viruses,

Duke zbuluar viruset,

Beijerinck really opened this entirely new world for us.

Beijerinck me te vertete hapi nje bote krejtesisht te re per ne.

We now know that viruses make up the majority

Tani e dime se viruset kane shumicen

of the genetic information on our planet,

e informacioneve gjenetike ne kete planet

more than the genetic information

me shume se informacioni gjenetik

of all other forms of life combined.

i te gjitha formave te jetes se bashku.

And obviously there's been tremendous practical applications

Dhe natyrisht ka shume aplikime praktike

associated with this world --

te shoqeruara me kete bote --

things like the eradication of smallpox,

sic eshte zhdukja e lise,

the advent of a vaccine against cervical cancer,

zhvillimi i vaksines kunder kancerit cervikal,

which we now know is mostly caused by human papillomavirus.

shkaku i njohur i te cilit eshte virusi human papillomavirus.

And Beijerinck's discovery,

Zbulimi i Beijerinck,

this was not something that occurred 500 years ago.

nuk ndodhi para 500 vjeteve.

It was a little over 100 years ago

Ishte me pak se 100 vite me pare

that Beijerinck discovered viruses.

kur Beijerinck zbuloi viruset.

So basically we had automobiles,

Pra, ne kishim automobila,

but we were unaware of the forms of life

por nuk e dinim qe kishte forma te jetes

that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.

qe perfaqesojne pjesen me te madhe te informacionit gjenetik te planetit tone.

We now have these amazing tools

Tani ne kemi keto mjete te mrekullueshme

to allow us to explore the unseen world --

qe na lejojne te eksplorojme boten e "papare" -

things like deep sequencing,

gjera qe kerkojne zhvillim te thelle,

which allow us to do much more than just skim the surface

qe na lejojne te shkojme me thelle se siperfaqja

and look at individual genomes from a particular species,

e nje genomi individual i nje specie,

but to look at entire metagenomes,

por qe lejon te veshgohet nje gjithesi metagenomesh,

the communities of teeming microorganisms in, on and around us

komunitetet e mikroorganizmave

and to document all of the genetic information in these species.

dhe duke dokumentuar gjithe informacionin gjenetik ne ato specie

We can apply these techniques

Ne mund te aplikojme keto teknika

to things from soil to skin and everything in between.

prej lekures dhe gjithcka ne mes.

In my organization we now do this on a regular basis

Ne organizaten time e bejme rregullisht

to identify the causes of outbreaks

per te identifikuar shkaqet e epidemive

that are unclear exactly what causes them.

kur eshte e paqarte cfare i ka shkaktuar.

And just to give you a sense of how this works,

Dhe vetem qe ti japim kuptim gjithe punes

imagine that we took a nasal swab from every single one of you.

imagjinoni sikur te marrim nje monster nga hunda e secilit nga ju.

And this is something we commonly do

Kete e bejme ne pergjithesi

to look for respiratory viruses like influenza.

kur kerkojme per viruset si influenza.

The first thing we would see

Gjeja e pare qe do shihnim

is a tremendous amount of genetic information.

eshte nje sasi e madhe informacioni gjenetik.

And if we started looking into that genetic information,

Nese ne do te shikonim ne ate informacion gjenetik

we'd see a number of usual suspects out there --

do te ndeshim te dyshuarit e zakonshem-

of course, a lot of human genetic information,

natyrisht shume informacion gjenetik njerezor

but also bacterial and viral information,

por gjithashtu informacion te bakterieve dhe viruseve,

mostly from things that are completely harmless within your nose.

me te shumtat te pademshme ne hunde.

But we'd also see something very, very surprising.

Por gjthashtu do te shihnim dicka surprize.

As we started to look at this information,

Ndersa filluam te analizonim kete informacion

we would see that about 20 percent of the genetic information in your nose

shohim se rreth 20 perqind e informacionit gjenetik te hundes tuaj

doesn't match anything that we've ever seen before --

nuk perputhet me asgje qe kemi pare me pare--

no plant, animal, fungus, virus or bacteria.

as bime, kafshe, viruse, apo baktere.

Basically we have no clue what this is.

Ne fakt nuk kemi ide se cfare eshte.

And for the small group of us who actually study this kind of data,

Dhe ne grupin tone te vogel qe studion keto lloj te dhenash,

a few of us have actually begun to call this information

disa nga ne kane filluar ta quajne kete informacion

biological dark matter.

materie e erret biologjike.

We know it's not anything that we've seen before;

e dime qe eshte dicka qe nuk e kemi pare me pare;

it's sort of the equivalent of an uncharted continent

eshte ekuivalente me nje kontinent te paeksploruar

right within our own genetic information.

tamam brenda informacionit tone gjenetik.

And there's a lot of it.

Dhe eshte me shumice.

If you think 20 percent of genetic information in your nose is a lot

Nese mendoni se 20 perqind e informacionit tone gjenetik ne hunden tuaj eshte plot

of biological dark matter,

e materies se erret biologjike,

if we looked at your gut,

nese do te shikonit tek zorret,

up to 40 or 50 percent of that information is biological dark matter.

rreth 40 ose 50 perqind e ketji informacioni eshte materie e erret biologjike

And even in the relatively sterile blood,

Dhe ne nje kampion gjaku relativisht steril,

around one to two percent of this information is dark matter --

rreth 1-2 perqind te informacionit eshte materie e erret--

can't be classified, can't be typed or matched with anything we've seen before.

nuk mund te klasifikohet ne ndonje gje qe e kemi pare me pare.

At first we thought that perhaps this was artifact.

Njehere menduam se ishte lloj artifakti.

These deep sequencing tools are relatively new.

Mjetet e kerkimit te thelle jane relativisht te reja.

But as they become more and more accurate,

Por ndersa po behem gjithnje e me te sakta,

we've determined that this information is a form of life,

na lejuan te kuptojme se ky informacion ishte forme e jetes

or at least some of it is a form of life.

ose se paku nje pjese e tij eshte nje forme jete.

And while the hypotheses for explaining the existence of biological dark matter

E ndersa hipotezat qe shpjegojne ekzistencen e materies se erret biologjike

are really only in their infancy,

jane ne fillimet e tyre,

there's a very, very exciting possibility that exists:

ekziston nje mundesi shume premtuese:

that buried in this life, in this genetic information,

qe e varrosur ne kete jete, ne kete informacion gjenetik,

are signatures of as of yet unidentified life.

ka shenja te jetes se paidentifikuar ende.

That as we explore these strings of A's, T's, C's and G's,

Ndersa eksplorojme keto fije A,T C dhe G,

we may uncover a completely new class of life

mund te zbulojme nje forme jete krejt te re

that, like Beijerinck, will fundamentally change

qe, ashtu si Beijerinck, do te ndryshoje rrenjesisht

the way that we think about the nature of biology.

menyren qe ne mendojme per natyren e biologjise.

That perhaps will allow us to identify the cause of a cancer that afflicts us

Qe ndoshta do te na lejoje te identifikojme shkaqet e kancerit

or identify the source of an outbreak that we aren't familiar with

ose te identifikojme burimin e nje epidemie qe nuk e njohim

or perhaps create a new tool in molecular biology.

ose ndoshta te krijojme nje mjet te ri per biologjine molekulare.

I'm pleased to announce that,

Kam kenaqesine qe te njoftoj

along with colleagues at Stanford and Caltech and UCSF,

qe se bashku me koleget e universitetit Stanford, Caltech e UCSF

we're currently starting an initiative

kemi filluar iniciativen

to explore biological dark matter for the existence of new forms of life.

te eksplorojme materien e erret biologjike per ekzistencen e formave te reja te jetes.

A little over a hundred years ago,

Pak me shume se 100 vjet me pare,

people were unaware of viruses,

njerezit nuk i njihnin viruset,

the forms of life that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.

format e jetes qe perben shumicen e informacionit gjenetik ne planetin tone.

A hundred years from now, people may marvel

100 vjet me vone njerezit mund te habiten

that we were perhaps completely unaware of a new class of life

qe nuk njihnim ndoshta nje forme te re jete

that literally was right under our noses.

qe ishte vertet nen hunden tone.

It's true, we may have charted all the continents on the planet

Eshte e vertete, ndoshta i zbuluar te gjitha kontinentet ne planet

and we may have discovered all the mammals that are out there,

dhe mund te kemi zbuluar te gjithe gjitaret qe ekzistojne,

but that doesn't mean that there's nothing left to explore on Earth.

por kjo nuk do te thote qe s'ka mbetur asgje per t'u eksploruar ne Toke.

Beijerinck and his kind

Beijerinck dhe shoket e tij

provide an important lesson for the next generation of explorers --

japin nje mesim te rendesishem per eksploruesit e gjenerates se ardhshme -

people like that young girl from Beloit, Wisconsin.

si ajo vajza e vogel nga Beloit, Wisconsin.

And I think if we phrase that lesson, it's something like this:

Mendoj se mund ta formulojme ne kete menyre:

Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story.

Mos supozoni qe mendojme se e dime te gjithe historine.

Go after the dark matter in whatever field you choose to explore.

Beni kerkime ne materien e erret ne cdo fushe qe zgjidhni per te eksploruar.

There are unknowns all around us

Te panjohurat jane gjithandej rreth e rrotull nesh

and they're just waiting to be discovered.

dhe presin vetem per tu zbuluar.

Thank you.

Faleminderit

(Applause)

(Duartrokitje)