This deep-sea mystery is changing our understanding of life | Karen Lloyd

Prevodilac: Aleksandra Ninovic Lektor: Ivana Korom

I'm an ocean microbiologist at the University of Tennessee,

Ja sam okeanski mikrobiolog na Univerzitetu u Tenesiju,

and I want to tell you guys about some microbes

i želim da vam pričam o nekim mikrobima

that are so strange and wonderful

koji su toliko čudni i divni

that they're challenging our assumptions about what life is like on Earth.

da izazivaju naše pretpostavke o tome kakav je život na Zemlji.

So I have a question.

Imam pitanje.

Please raise your hand if you've ever thought it would be cool

Podignite ruku ako ste ikada pomislili da bi bilo super

to go to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine?

ići na dno okeana u podmornici.

Yes.

Da.

Most of you, because the oceans are so cool.

Većina vas, jer su okeani tako super.

Alright, now -- please raise your hand

U redu, sada - podignite ruku

if the reason you raised your hand to go to the bottom of the ocean

ako je razlog zašto ste podigli ruku da idete na dno okeana

is because it would get you a little bit closer

taj što bi vas to dovelo malo bliže

to that exciting mud that's down there.

tom uzbudljivom mulju koji je tamo dole.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Nobody.

Niko.

I'm the only one in this room.

Jedino ja u ovoj prostoriji.

Well, I think about this all the time.

Pa, ja o tome mislim sve vreme.

I spend most of my waking hours

Provodim veći deo svojih budnih sati

trying to determine how deep we can go into the Earth

pokušavajući da odredim koliko duboko možemo ići u Zemlju

and still find something, anything, that's alive,

i i dalje naći nešto, bilo šta što je živo,

because we still don't know the answer to this very basic question

jer još uvek ne znamo odgovor na ovo vrlo bazično pitanje

about life on Earth.

o životu na Zemlji.

So in the 1980s, a scientist named John Parkes, in the UK,

Tako je u 1980-im naučnik po imenu Džon Parks, u UK-u,

was similarly obsessed,

bio slično opsednut,

and he came up with a crazy idea.

i pala mu je na pamet luda ideja.

He believed that there was a vast, deep, and living microbial biosphere

Verovao je da postoji ogromna, duboka i živa mikrobiološka biosfera

underneath all the world's oceans

ispod svih svetskih okeana

that extends hundreds of meters into the seafloor,

koja se prostire stotinama metara u morskom dnu,

which is cool,

što je super,

but the only problem is that nobody believed him,

ali je jedini problem bio što mu niko nije verovao,

and the reason that nobody believed him

a razlog što mu niko nije verovao

is that ocean sediments may be the most boring place on Earth.

je što su okeanski sedimenti možda najdosadnije mesto na Zemlji.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

There's no sunlight, there's no oxygen,

Nema sunčeve svetlosti, nema kiseonika,

and perhaps worst of all,

i možda najgore od svega,

there's no fresh food deliveries for literally millions of years.

nema isporuke sveže hrane bukvalno milionima godina.

You don't have to have a PhD in biology

Ne morate biti doktor biologije

to know that that is a bad place to go looking for life.

da biste znali da je to loše mesto za traženje života.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

But in 2002, [Steven D'Hondt] had convinced enough people

Ali 2002. godine, Stiven D'Hont je ubedio dovoljno ljudi

that he was on to something that he actually got an expedition

da je na tragu nečega da je zapravo dobio ekspediciju

on this drillship, called the JOIDES Resolution.

na ovu bušilicu, pod nazivom JOIDES Rezolucija.

And he ran it along with Bo Barker Jørgensen of Denmark.

I sproveo ju je zajedno sa Boom Barkerom Jorgensenom iz Danske.

And so they were finally able to get

Tada su konačno mogli da prikupe

good pristine deep subsurface samples

dobre čiste uzorke iz dubokog podzemlja,

some really without contamination from surface microbes.

neke zaista bez kontaminacije od površinskih mikroba.

This drill ship is capable of drilling thousands of meters underneath the ocean,

Ova bušilica je sposobna za bušenje hiljadama metara ispod okeana,

and the mud comes up in sequential cores, one after the other --

a mulj se pojavljuje u sekvencijalnim jezgrima, jedno za drugim -

long, long cores that look like this.

duga, duga jezgra koja izgledaju ovako.

This is being carried by scientists such as myself who go on these ships,

Ovo sprovode naučnici poput mene koji idu na ove brodove,

and we process the cores on the ships and then we send them home

obrađujemo jezgra na tim brodovima, a zatim ih šaljemo kući

to our home laboratories for further study.

našim laboratorijama na dalje proučavanje.

So when John and his colleagues

Kada su Džon i njegove kolege

got these first precious deep-sea pristine samples,

dobili te prve dragocene duboko morske čiste uzorke,

they put them under the microscope,

stavili su ih pod mikroskop,

and they saw images that looked pretty much like this,

i videli slike koje su izgledale prilično poput ovoga,

which is actually taken from a more recent expedition

što je zapravo napravio na novijoj ekspediciji

by my PhD student, Joy Buongiorno.

moj student doktorskih studija, Džoj Bonđorno.

You can see the hazy stuff in the background.

Možete videti nejasne stvari u pozadini.

That's mud. That's deep-sea ocean mud,

To je blato. To je duboko okeansko blato,

and the bright green dots stained with the green fluorescent dye

a sjajne zelene tačke obojene fluorescentnom zelenom bojom

are real, living microbes.

su pravi, živi mikrobi.

Now I've got to tell you something really tragic about microbes.

Sada vam moram reći nešto zaista tragično o mikrobima.

They all look the same under a microscope,

Svi izgledaju isto pod mikroskopom,

I mean, to a first approximation.

mislim, do prve procene.

You can take the most fascinating organisms in the world,

Možete uzeti najfascinantnije organizme na svetu,

like a microbe that literally breathes uranium,

poput mikroba koji bukvalno udiše uranijum

and another one that makes rocket fuel,

i drugi koji pravi raketno gorivo,

mix them up with some ocean mud,

pomešajte ih sa malo okeanskog mulja,

put them underneath a microscope,

stavite ih pod mikroskop,

and they're just little dots.

i oni su samo tačkice.

It's really annoying.

Zaista je iritirajuće.

So we can't use their looks to tell them apart.

Prema tome ne možemo ih razlikovati po izgledu.

We have to use DNA, like a fingerprint,

Moramo koristiti DNK, poput otiska prsta,

to say who is who.

da bismo rekli ko je ko.

And I'll teach you guys how to do it right now.

I sada ću vas naučiti kako da to uradite.

So I made up some data, and I'm going to show you some data that are not real.

Izmislila sam neke podatke i pokazaću vam neke podatke koji nisu istiniti.

This is to illustrate what it would look like

Ovo služi da ilustruje kako bi izgledalo

if a bunch of species were not related to each other at all.

da mnoge vrste nisu nikako povezane jedna sa drugom.

So you can see each species

Možete videti da svaka vrsta

has a list of combinations of A, G, C and T,

ima niz kombinacija A, G, C i T,

which are the four sub-units of DNA,

što su 4 podjedinice DNK,

sort of randomly jumbled, and nothing looks like anything else,

nasumično pomešane, i ništa ne liči ni na šta,

and these species are totally unrelated to each other.

i ove vrste apsolutno nisu povezane jedna sa drugom.

But this is what real DNA looks like,

Ali ovako izgleda prava DNK,

from a gene that these species happen to share.

iz gena koje ove vrste igrom slučaja dele.

Everything lines up nearly perfectly.

Sve se uklapa skoro savršeno.

The chances of getting so many of those vertical columns

Šanse da se dobije toliko tih vertikalnih kolona

where every species has a C or every species has a T,

gde svaka vrsta ima C ili svaka vrsta ima T,

by random chance, are infinitesimal.

sasvim slučajno, su beskonačne.

So we know that all those species had to have had a common ancestor.

Znamo da su sve te vrste morale da imaju zajedničkog pretka.

They're all relatives of each other.

Svi su rođaci jedni drugima.

So now I'll tell you who they are.

A sada ću vam reći ko su oni.

The top two are us and chimpanzees,

Prve dve smo mi i šimpanze,

which y'all already knew were related, because, I mean, obviously.

već znate da smo u srodstvu, jer, mislim, očigledno je.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

But we're also related to things that we don't look like,

Ali smo takođe u srodstvu sa stvarima na koje ne ličimo,

like pine trees and Giardia, which is that gastrointestinal disease

poput borova i giardioze, što je ono gastrointestinalno oboljenje

you can get if you don't filter your water while you're hiking.

koje možete dobiti ako ne filtrirate vodu dok planinarite.

We're also related to bacteria like E. coli and Clostridium difficile,

Takođe smo u srodstvu sa bakterijama poput E.coli i Clostridium difficile,

which is a horrible, opportunistic pathogen that kills lots of people.

što je grozni, oportunistički patogen koji ubija mnogo ljudi.

But there's of course good microbes too, like Dehalococcoides ethenogenes,

Ali postoje naravno i dobri mikrobi, poput Dehalococcoides etenogena,

which cleans up our industrial waste for us.

koji čiste naš industrijski otpad.

So if I take these DNA sequences,

Ako uzmem ove DNK nizove,

and then I use them, the similarities and differences between them,

i iskoristim ih, sličnosti i razlike između njih,

to make a family tree for all of us

da napravim porodično stablo za sve nas

so you can see who is closely related,

da biste videli ko je u bližem srodstvu,

then this is what it looks like.

onda to izgleda ovako.

So you can see clearly, at a glance,

I možete jasno videti, letimice,

that things like us and Giardia and bunnies and pine trees

da su stvari poput nas i giardioze i zečeva i borova

are all, like, siblings,

svi, kao, braća i sestre,

and then the bacteria are like our ancient cousins.

a da su bakterije kao naši prastari rođaci.

But we're kin to every living thing on Earth.

Ali mi smo u srodstvu sa svakim živim bićem na Zemlji.

So in my job, on a daily basis,

Na svom poslu, svakodnevno,

I get to produce scientific evidence against existential loneliness.

stvaram naučne dokaze protiv egzistencijalne usamnjenosti.

So when we got these first DNA sequences,

Kada smo dobili ove prve nizove DNK,

from the first cruise, of pristine samples from the deep subsurface,

sa prvog krstarenja, čistih uzoraka duboko ispod površine,

we wanted to know where they were.

želeli smo da znamo gde su bili.

So the first thing that we discovered is that they were not aliens,

Prva stvar koju smo otkrili je da nisu bili vanzemaljci,

because we could get their DNA to line up with everything else on Earth.

jer smo njihovu DNK mogli da uskladimo sa svim drugim na Zemlji.

But now check out where they go on our tree of life.

Ali sada vidite gde su oni na našem stablu života.

The first thing you'll notice is that there's a lot of them.

Prvo što ćete primetiti je da ih ima mnogo.

It wasn't just one little species

Nije samo jedna mala vrsta

that managed to live in this horrible place.

uspela da preživi na ovom groznom mestu.

It's kind of a lot of things.

Zapravo je to mnogo stvari.

And the second thing that you'll notice,

A druga stvar koju ćete primetiti,

hopefully, is that they're not like anything we've ever seen before.

nadam se, je da one nisu nalik ničemu što smo ranije videli.

They are as different from each other

Razlikuju se među sobom

as they are from anything that we've known before

koliko i od bilo čega što smo ranije znali,

as we are from pine trees.

koliko i mi od borova.

So John Parkes was completely correct.

Tako da je Džon Parks bio potpuno u pravu.

He, and we, had discovered a completely new and highly diverse

On, i mi, smo otkrili potpuno novi i vrlo raznovrsni

microbial ecosystem on Earth

mikrobiološki ekosistem na Zemlji

that no one even knew existed before the 1980s.

za koji niko nije ni znao da postoji pre 1980-ih.

So now we were on a roll.

Sada smo bili na dobrom putu.

The next step was to grow these exotic species in a petri dish

Sledeći korak je bio da gajimo ove egzotične vrste u petrijevoj šolji

so that we could do real experiments on them

da bismo mogli da vršimo prave eksperimente

like microbiologists are supposed to do.

što bi mikrobiolozi i trebalo da rade.

But no matter what we fed them,

Ali bez obzira na hranu,

they refused to grow.

odbijali su da rastu.

Even now, 15 years and many expeditions later,

Čak i sada, 15 godina i mnogo ekspedicija kasnije,

no human has ever gotten a single one of these exotic deep subsurface microbes

nijedan čovek nije naveo nijedan od ovih egzotičnih dubokih podzemnih mikroba

to grow in a petri dish.

da raste u petrijevoj šolji.

And it's not for lack of trying.

I to ne zbog nepokušavanja.

That may sound disappointing,

To može zvučati razočaravajuće,

but I actually find it exhilarating,

ali ja to smatram uzbudljivim,

because it means there are so many tantalizing unknowns to work on.

jer to znači da postoji toliko mučnih nepoznanica na kojima se može raditi.

Like, my colleagues and I got what we thought was a really great idea.

Moje kolege i ja smo dobili ono što smo mislili da je zaista dobra ideja.

We were going to read their genes like a recipe book,

Hteli smo da čitamo njihove gene kao knjigu recepata,

find out what it was they wanted to eat and put it in their petri dishes,

otkrijemo šta žele da jedu i stavimo to u njihove petrijeve šolje,

and then they would grow and be happy.

i oni će rasti i biti srećni.

But when we looked at their genes,

Ali kada smo pogledali njihove gene

it turns out that what they wanted to eat was the food we were already feeding them.

ispostavilo se da je ono što su želeli da jedu bila hrana koju smo im već davali.

So that was a total wash.

To je bio totalni poraz.

There was something else that they wanted in their petri dishes

Postojalo je nešto drugo što su želeli u svojoj petrijevoj šolji

that we were just not giving them.

što im nismo davali.

So by combining measurements from many different places

Kombinovanjem merenja sa mnogo različitih mesta

around the world,

širom sveta,

my colleagues at the University of Southern California,

moje kolege sa Univerziteta Južne Kalifornije,

Doug LaRowe and Jan Amend,

Dag Larou i Jan Amend,

were able to calculate that each one of these deep-sea microbial cells

su uspele da izračunaju da svaka od ovih dubinskih mikrobioloških ćelija

requires only one zeptowatt of power,

zahteva samo jedan zeptovat snage,

and before you get your phones out, a zepto is 10 to the minus 21,

i pre nego što izvadite svoje telefone, zepto je 10 do -21,

because I know I would want to look that up.

jer znam da bih ja volela da vidim šta to znači.

Humans, on the other hand,

Ljudi, s druge strane,

require about 100 watts of power.

zahtevaju oko 100 vati snage.

So 100 watts is basically if you take a pineapple

100 vati je zapravo ako uzmete ananas

and drop it from about waist height to the ground 881,632 times a day.

i ispustite ga sa visine pojasa na zemlju 881.632 puta na dan.

If you did that and then linked it up to a turbine,

Da ste to uradili, a zatim ga povezali za turbinu,

that would create enough power to make me happen for a day.

to bi stvorilo dovoljno snage da preživim jedan dan.

A zeptowatt, if you put it in similar terms,

Zeptovat je, jednostavno rečeno,

is if you take just one grain of salt

ako uzmete jedno zrno soli

and then you imagine a tiny, tiny, little ball

a zatim zamislite sitnu, sitnu, malu loptu

that is one thousandth of the mass of that one grain of salt

koja je jedan hiljaditi deo mase tog zrna soli

and then you drop it one nanometer,

a zatim ga ispustite jedan nanometar,

which is a hundred times smaller than the wavelength of visible light,

što je sto puta manje od dužine talasa vidljive svetlosti,

once per day.

jednom dnevno.

That's all it takes to make these microbes live.

To je sve što ove mikrobe drži živima.

That's less energy than we ever thought would be capable of supporting life,

To je manje energije nego što smo ikada mislili da može održati život,

but somehow, amazingly, beautifully,

ali je to nekako, zadivljujuće, predivno,

it's enough.

dovoljno.

So if these deep-subsurface microbes

Ako ovi dubinski podzemni mikrobi

have a very different relationship with energy than we previously thought,

imaju vrlo različit odnos sa energijom nego što smo prethodno mislili,

then it follows that they'll have to have

onda sledi da će oni morati da imaju

a different relationship with time as well,

različit odnos i sa vremenom,

because when you live on such tiny energy gradients,

jer kada živite na tako malim energetskim gradijentima,

rapid growth is impossible.

brzi rast je nemoguć.

If these things wanted to colonize our throats and make us sick,

Da su ove stvari želele da kolonizuju naša grla i razbole nas,

they would get muscled out by fast-growing streptococcus

nadjačale bi ih brzorastuće streptokoke

before they could even initiate cell division.

pre nego što bi i započele deobu ćelija.

So that's why we never find them in our throats.

Zato ih nikada ne nalazimo u našim grlima.

Perhaps the fact that the deep subsurface is so boring

Možda je činjenica da je duboko ispod površine tako dosadno

is actually an asset to these microbes.

zapravo prednost za ove mikrobe.

They never get washed out by a storm.

Nikada ih ne zbriše oluja.

They never get overgrown by weeds.

Nikada ne zarastu u korov.

All they have to do is exist.

Sve što moraju da rade je da postoje.

Maybe that thing that we were missing in our petri dishes

Možda ono što nam je nedostajalo u petrijevoj šolji

was not food at all.

uopšte nije bila hrana.

Maybe it wasn't a chemical.

Možda nije bila hemikalija.

Maybe the thing that they really want,

Možda je ono što oni zaista žele,

the nutrient that they want, is time.

hranljivi sastojak koji zaista žele, vreme.

But time is the one thing that I'll never be able to give them.

Ali vreme je jedino što ja nikada neću moći da im dam.

So even if I have a cell culture that I pass to my PhD students,

Čak i da imam ćelijsku kulturu koju prenosim na svoje studente,

who pass it to their PhD students, and so on,

koji prenose na svoje studente, itd,

we'd have to do that for thousands of years

morali bismo to da radimo hiljadama godina

in order to mimic the exact conditions of the deep subsurface,

kako bismo oponašali iste uslove duboko ispod površine,

all without growing any contaminants.

sve bez uzgajanja kontaminanata.

It's just not possible.

Jednostavno nije moguće.

But maybe in a way we already have grown them in our petri dishes.

Ali možda na način na koji smo ih već uzgajali u petrijevim šoljama.

Maybe they looked at all that food we offered them and said,

Možda su gledali u svu tu hranu koju smo im nudili i rekli:

"Thanks, I'm going to speed up so much

„Hvala, toliko ću ubrzati

that I'm going to make a new cell next century.

da ću napraviti novu ćeliju sledećeg veka.

Ugh.

Ah“.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

So why is it that the rest of biology moves so fast?

Zbog čega se onda ostatak biologije kreće tako brzo?

Why does a cell die after a day

Zašto ćelija umire nakon jednog dana,

and a human dies after only a hundred years?

a ljudsko biće umire nakon samo sto godina?

These seem like really arbitrarily short limits

Ovo izgleda kao stvarno proizvoljno kratka granica

when you think about the total amount of time in the universe.

kada pomislite na ukupnu količinu vremena u univerzumu.

But these are not arbitrary limits.

Ali ovo nisu proizvoljne granice.

They're dictated by one simple thing,

Njih diktira jedna jednostavna stvar,

and that thing is the Sun.

a ta stvar je Sunce.

Once life figured out how to harness the energy of the Sun

Čim je život ukapirao kako da upotrebi sunčevu energiju

through photosynthesis,

kroz fotosintezu,

we all had to speed up and get on day and night cycles.

svi smo morali da ubrzamo i uskočimo u cikluse dana i noći.

In that way, the Sun gave us both a reason to be fast

Na taj način nam je Sunce dalo i razlog da budemo brzi

and the fuel to do it.

i gorivo da to uradimo.

You can view most of life on Earth like a circulatory system,

Većinu života na Zemlji možete posmatrati kao cirkulatorni sistem,

and the Sun is our beating heart.

a Sunce je naše srce koje kuca.

But the deep subsurface is like a circulatory system

Ali duboko podzemlje je kao cirkulatorni sistem

that's completely disconnected from the Sun.

potpuno nepovezan sa Suncem.

It's instead being driven by long, slow geological rhythms.

Umesto toga je vođen dugim, sporim geološkim ritmovima.

There's currently no theoretical limit on the lifespan of one single cell.

Trenutno ne postoji teorijska granica životnog veka jedne ćelije.

As long as there is at least a tiny energy gradient to exploit,

Sve dok postoji bar mali energetski gradijent koji se može iskoristiti,

theoretically, a single cell could live

teoretski, ćelija bi mogla da živi

for hundreds of thousands of years or more,

stotinama hiljada godina i više,

simply by replacing broken parts over time.

jednostavno vremenom zamenjujući pokvarene delove.

To ask a microbe that lives like that to grow in our petri dishes

Pitati mikrob koji tako živi da raste u našoj petrijevoj šolji,

is to ask them to adapt to our frenetic, Sun-centric, fast way of living,

je pitati ih da se prilagode našem pomamnom, Sunčanom, brzom životu,

and maybe they've got better things to do than that.

a možda oni imaju pametnija posla.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Imagine if we could figure out how they managed to do this.

Zamislite da možemo dokučiti kako su uspeli da to urade.

What if it involves some cool, ultra-stable compounds

Šta ako to uključuje neke super, ultra stabilne smese

that we could use to increase the shelf life

koje možemo koristiti da povećamo rok trajanja

in biomedical or industrial applications?

u biomedicinske i industrijske svrhe?

Or maybe if we figure out the mechanism that they use

Ili ako shvatimo mehanizme pomoću kojih

to grow so extraordinarily slowly,

oni rastu tako izuzetno sporo,

we could mimic it in cancer cells and slow runaway cell division.

mogli bismo da prenesemo to na ćelije raka i usporimo deobu ćelija.

I don't know.

Ne znam.

I mean, honestly, that is all speculation,

Mislim, iskreno, ovo je sve spekulacija,

but the only thing I know for certain

ali jedino što zasigurno znam

is that there are a hundred billion billion billlion

je da postoji sto milijardi milijardi milijardi

living microbial cells

živih mikrobioloških ćelija

underlying all the world's oceans.

ispod svih svetskih okeana.

That's 200 times more than the total biomass of humans on this planet.

To je 200 puta više nego ukupna biomasa svih ljudi na ovoj planeti.

And those microbes have a fundamentally different relationship

A ti mikrobi imaju fundamentalno različit odnos

with time and energy than we do.

sa vremenom i energijom od nas.

What seems like a day to them

Ono što njima izgleda kao jedan dan

might be a thousand years to us.

za nas može biti hiljadu godina.

They don't care about the Sun,

Oni ne mare za Sunce,

and they don't care about growing fast,

i nije ih briga da rastu brzo,

and they probably don't give a damn about my petri dishes ...

i verovatno ih boli uvo za moje petrijeve šolje...

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

but if we can continue to find creative ways to study them,

ali ako nastavimo da nalazimo kreativne načine da ih izučavamo,

then maybe we'll finally figure out what life, all of life, is like on Earth.

onda ćemo možda shvatiti kakav je život, sav život, na Zemlji.

Thank you.

Hvala.

(Applause)

(Aplauz)