Nathan Wolfe: What's left to explore?

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

翻译人员: Hom Liu 校对人员: Aili Huang

Recently I visited Beloit, Wisconsin.

最近我去了威斯康星州的伯洛伊特市。

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

我去那里是为了纪念一名20世纪的探险家，

Roy Chapman Andrews.

罗伊·查普曼·安德鲁斯。

During his time at the American Museum of Natural History,

当他在美国自然历史博物馆的时候，

Andrews led a range of expeditions to uncharted regions,

安德鲁斯领导了一系列对未知领域的探险，

like here in the Gobi Desert.

比如说在这里的戈壁滩。

He was quite a figure.

他是个了不起的人物。

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

他后来据说是印第安娜琼斯角色的原型。

And when I was in Beloit, Wisconsin,

当我在威斯康星州的伯洛伊特市的时候，

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

我给一群中学学生上了一堂公开课。

And I'm here to tell you,

我现在想告诉你们，

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

如果真的有什么比在TED做演讲还难的话，

it'll be trying to hold the attention

那就是尝试保持他们的注意力

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

一群上千个12岁的孩子，并保持45分钟。

Don't try that one.

别想了

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

在我讲完之后，他们问了很多问题，

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

但有一个让我自始至终难以忘记。

There was a young girl who stood up,

有个小女孩站起来，

and she asked the question:

问了一个问题：

"Where should we explore?"

“我们该去哪里探索呢？”

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

我想我们中的绝大多数有种观念，

that the great age of exploration on Earth is over,

那就是，地球上的大探索时代已经结束，

that for the next generation

我们的下一代人

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

应该去外太空或者海洋最深处

in order to find something significant to explore.

从而去寻找值得探索的东西。

But is that really the case?

但真的是这样吗？

Is there really nowhere significant for us to explore

真的没有重要的地方留给我们探索了吗？

left here on Earth?

整个地球上都没有？

It sort of made me think back

这让我回忆起

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

我最喜欢的生物领域的探险家之一。

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

他是位未知世界的探索家，马丁努斯·威廉·拜耶林克。

So Beijerinck set out to discover the cause

拜叶林克当初想找出

of tobacco mosaic disease.

引起烟草花叶病的原因。

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

他提取了受过感染的烟草汁液，

and he would filter it through smaller and smaller filters.

然后让这些汁液经过一层比一层更细的过滤。

And he reached the point

他得出一个结论，

where he felt that there must be something out there

剩下的（汁液）里面一定有什么东西

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

它们比那时最小的已知的生命形态 --

bacteria, at the time.

细菌，还要小。

He came up with a name for his mystery agent.

他给这个神秘的东西起了个名字

He called it the virus --

叫它们，病毒

Latin for "poison."

在拉丁文里是“毒药”的意思。

And in uncovering viruses,

在发现病毒之后，

Beijerinck really opened this entirely new world for us.

拜耶林克为我们打开了一个全新的世界。

We now know that viruses make up the majority

我们现在知道病毒构成我们

of the genetic information on our planet,

星球上绝大部分的遗传信息

more than the genetic information

超过所有

of all other forms of life combined.

其他生命的遗传信息的总和。

And obviously there's been tremendous practical applications

而且显然已经出现了无数有关病毒的

associated with this world --

切实应用在这个世界上 --

things like the eradication of smallpox,

像天花的根除，

the advent of a vaccine against cervical cancer,

子宫癌的疫苗的降临--

which we now know is mostly caused by human papillomavirus.

我们现在知道它大部分是由乳头瘤病毒引起的。

And Beijerinck's discovery,

而且拜耶林克的发现

this was not something that occurred 500 years ago.

可不是500年前的事情。

It was a little over 100 years ago

拜耶林克发现病毒这件事

that Beijerinck discovered viruses.

也就发生于100多年前。

So basically we had automobiles,

也就是说当汽车都已经出现在世的时候，

but we were unaware of the forms of life

我们还不知道这种

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

构成了我们星球上大部分的遗传信息的生物。

We now have these amazing tools

我们现在有些很了不起的工具

to allow us to explore the unseen world --

来帮助我们探索未知世界，

things like deep sequencing,

像基因深度测序，

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

可以让我们不只是停留在表面

and look at individual genomes from a particular species,

来看自某个特定物种的独立基因组，

but to look at entire metagenomes,

而是研究整个基因组--

the communities of teeming microorganisms in, on and around us

我们身体里面和周边无处不在的微生物群落，

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

并且记录下这些物种的遗传信息。

We can apply these techniques

我们可以应用这些技术

to things from soil to skin and everything in between.

来研究从土壤到皮肤和它们中间的一切。

In my organization we now do this on a regular basis

在我所在的机构里面，我们现在经常这么做，

to identify the causes of outbreaks

来寻找（疾病）暴发的原因，

that are unclear exactly what causes them.

那些我们还不清楚的原因.

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

稍微给你们讲下这是怎么做的，

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

想象下从你们每个人那里取一个鼻腔分泌物标本

And this is something we commonly do

像这种事是我们经常做的，

to look for respiratory viruses like influenza.

为了寻找呼吸道病毒，像流行性感冒病毒。

The first thing we would see

我们首先看到的是

is a tremendous amount of genetic information.

海量的遗传信息。

And if we started looking into that genetic information,

如果我们开始仔细看看这些遗传信息，

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

我们会看到一些常见的信息

of course, a lot of human genetic information,

当然了，有很多人类的遗传信息，

but also bacterial and viral information,

但也有很多细菌和病毒的信息，

mostly from things that are completely harmless within your nose.

大部分是你鼻子里面完全无害的东西。

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

但我们也会看到一些非常非常让人吃惊的东西。

As we started to look at this information,

当我们开始研究这些信息，

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

我们会发现你鼻子里面20%的遗传信息

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

跟我们所见过的东西--

no plant, animal, fungus, virus or bacteria.

任何植物，动物，真菌或者细菌，都对不上号。

Basically we have no clue what this is.

我们基本上对这些一无所知。

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

我们这里的一小部分研究这些数据的人们，

a few of us have actually begun to call this information

称呼这些信息为

biological dark matter.

生物暗物质。

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

我们知道以前从未见过这些生物暗物质；

it's sort of the equivalent of an uncharted continent

这似乎可以被称之为

right within our own genetic information.

我们自己遗传信息里的未知大陆。

And there's a lot of it.

而且数量非常之多。

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

如果你认为你鼻子里面20%的遗传信息

of biological dark matter,

有很多生物暗物质，

if we looked at your gut,

那当我们看你内脏的时候，

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

那有将近40%到50%的生物暗物质。

And even in the relatively sterile blood,

即使在相对无菌的血液里，

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

也有1%到2%的信息是暗物质--

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

无法被归类，无法被判别类别，跟我们所见过的东西都不同。

At first we thought that perhaps this was artifact.

开始我们以为这是人为的东西。

These deep sequencing tools are relatively new.

这些基因深度测序工具相当比较新。

But as they become more and more accurate,

但当它们变得越来越来精确，

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

我们认为这些信息是一种新的生命，

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

或者至少某一部分是种生命。

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

即使这些关于解释生物暗物质的存在的假设

are really only in their infancy,

还处于婴儿期，

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

一个让人非常非常激动的可能性存在着：

that buried in this life, in this genetic information,

那就是藏在这个生命里面，在这些遗传信息里，

are signatures of as of yet unidentified life.

有一种没有被识别的生命的标识。

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

当我们探索这些一串串A/T/C/G嘌呤的时候，

we may uncover a completely new class of life

我们也许会发现全新的生命，

that, like Beijerinck, will fundamentally change

就像拜耶林克，从根本上改变

the way that we think about the nature of biology.

我们对生物学特性的理解。

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

这也许会让我识别出困扰我们的某种癌症的原因，

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

或者识别出我们不熟悉的疾病暴发的根源，

or perhaps create a new tool in molecular biology.

或者创造出一种分子生物学的新工具。

I'm pleased to announce that,

我很高兴的宣布，

along with colleagues at Stanford and Caltech and UCSF,

和我的斯坦福、加州理工和旧金山加利福尼亚大学的同事们一起，

we're currently starting an initiative

我们正在开始开始一个新的行动

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

去探索生物暗物质来寻找新生命的存在。

A little over a hundred years ago,

100多年前，

people were unaware of viruses,

人们还不知道病毒的存在，

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

这些包含我们星球上大部分遗传信息的生命形态。

A hundred years from now, people may marvel

一百年以后，人类可能为

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

我们以前完全不了解的新的生命形态而感到惊讶

that literally was right under our noses.

而它们就在我们眼皮底下。

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

没错，我们或许已经绘制这个星球上所有大陆板块的地图，

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

我们或许已经发现了当前所有的哺乳动物，

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

但这并不代表地球上没什么好探索的了。

Beijerinck and his kind

拜耶林克和像他一样的人们

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

给下一代探索者上了重要的一课----

people like that young girl from Beloit, Wisconsin.

给那些像那个在伯洛伊特市的女孩一样的人们。

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

我想如果总结一下他给我们上的这一课，大概是：

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

不要假设我们现在想到的东西是一个完整的故事。

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

在不管你选择的任何领域里去探索那些暗物质吧。

There are unknowns all around us

未知的事物在我们身边无处不在

and they're just waiting to be discovered.

它们只是在等待人类的探索。

Thank you.

谢谢

(Applause)

(鼓掌声）