For the past few years, I've been spending my summers in the marine biological laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And there, what I've been doing is essentially renting a boat. What I would like to do is ask you to come on a boat ride with me tonight.
Proteklih nekoliko godina, provodio sam leta u morskoj biološkoj laboratoriji u Vuds Holu u Masačusetsu. A tu sam u suštini iznajmljivao čamac. Želeo bih da vas zamolim da večeras krenete na vožnju čamcem sa mnom.
So, we ride off from Eel Pond into Vineyard Sound, right off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, equipped with a drone to identify potential spots from which to peer into the Atlantic. Earlier, I was going to say into the depths of the Atlantic, but we don't have to go too deep to reach the unknown. Here, barely two miles away from what is arguably the greatest marine biology lab in the world, we lower a simple plankton net into the water and bring up to the surface things that humanity rarely pays any attention to, and oftentimes has never seen before.
Dakle, krećemo sa Il Ponda u Vinjard Saund, tik do obale Martinih Vinograda, opremljeni dronom kako bismo odredili tačke s kojih ćemo zuriti u Atlantik. Ranije, hteo sam da kažem u dubine Atlantika, ali ne moramo ići suviše duboko da bismo dosegnuli nepoznato. Ovde, svega 3,2 kilometra dalje od onoga što se smatra najvećom morskom biološkom laboratorijom u svetu, spuštamo u vodu prostu mrežu za planktone i podižemo na površinu nešto na šta čovečanstvo retko obraća pažnju, a često to nikad pre nije ni videlo.
Here's one of the organisms that we caught in our net. This is a jellyfish. But look closely, and living inside of this animal is another organism that is very likely entirely new to science. A complete new species. Or how about this other transparent beauty with a beating heart, asexually growing on top of its head, progeny that will move on to reproduce sexually. Let me say that again: this animal is growing asexually on top of its head, progeny that is going to reproduce sexually in the next generation. A weird jellyfish? Not quite. This is an ascidian. This is a group of animals that now we know we share extensive genomic ancestry with, and it is perhaps the closest invertebrate species to our own. Meet your cousin, Thalia democratica.
Ovo je jedan od organizama koje smo zarobili u mreži. Ovo je meduza. Ali pogledajte bolje, a unutar ove životinje živi drugi organizam koji je najverovatnije potpuno nov za nauku. Potpuno nova vrsta. A šta je sa ovom drugom providnom lepoticom sa srcem koje kuca, aseksualno na vrhu svoje glave gaji potomstvo koje će da se odvoji i razmnožava seksualnim putem. Dozvolite da to ponovim: ova životinja aseksualnim putem gaji na vrhu svoje glave potomstvo koje će se razmnožavati seksualno u sledećoj generaciji. Čudna neka meduza? Ne baš. Ovo je ascidija. To je grupa životinja za koje sad znamo da delimo s njima ogromno genetsko nasleđe, i verovatno nam je ona najbliži beskičmenjak. Upoznajte svog rođaka, Thalia democratica.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I'm pretty sure you didn't save a spot at your last family reunion for Thalia, but let me tell you, these animals are profoundly related to us in ways that we're just beginning to understand. So, next time you hear anybody derisively telling you that this type of research is a simple fishing expedition, I hope that you'll remember the trip that we just took.
SIguran sam da niste ostavili mesto na vašem poslednjem porodičnom okupljanju za Thalia-u, ali dozvolite da vam kažem, ove životinje su suštinski u srodstvu s nama na načine koje tek sad počinjemo da razumemo. Pa, sledeći put kad čujete da vam neko podrugljivo govori da je ovaj vid istraživanja samo ribarska ekspedicija, nadam se da ćete se setiti putovanja na kom smo upravo bili.
Today, many of the biological sciences only see value in studying deeper what we already know -- in mapping already-discovered continents. But some of us are much more interested in the unknown. We want to discover completely new continents, and gaze at magnificent vistas of ignorance. We crave the experience of being completely baffled by something we've never seen before. And yes, I agree there's a lot of little ego satisfaction in being able to say, "Hey, I was the first one to discover that." But this is not a self-aggrandizing enterprise, because in this type of discovery research, if you don't feel like a complete idiot most of the time, you're just not sciencing hard enough.
Danas mnogi biolozi jedino vide značaj u proučavanju onoga što je dublje od poznatog - u pravljenju mapa već otkrivenih kontinenata. No neki od nas su daleko zainteresovaniji za nepoznato. Želimo da otkrijemo potpuno nove kontinente i da zurimo u veličanstvene vidike neznanja. Žudimo da iskusimo potpunu očaranost onim što nismo videli nikad pre. I, da, slažem se, prilično godi egu kad možete da kažete: "Hej, ja sam to prvi otkrio." Međutim, ovo nije preduzeće za lično veličanje jer kod ovog tipa istraživačkog otkirivanja, ako se ne osećate kao potpuni idiot većinu vremena, prosto se ne bavite naukom dovoljno posvećeno.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So every summer I bring onto the deck of this little boat of ours more and more things that we know very little about. I would like tonight to tell you a story about life that rarely gets told in an environment like this. From the vantage point of our 21st-century biological laboratories, we have begun to illuminate many mysteries of life with knowledge. We sense that after centuries of scientific research, we're beginning to make significant inroads into understanding some of the most fundamental principles of life.
Dakle, svakog leta iznosim na palubu ovog našeg čamčića sve više stvari o kojima znamo veoma malo. Želeo bih večeras da vam ispričam priču o životu koju retko pričaju u sličnim sredinama. Sa tačke gledišta naših bioloških laboratorija iz 21. veka, počeli smo znanjem da osvetljujemo mnoge tajne života. Osećamo da nakon vekova naučnog istraživanja, počinjemo značajnije da prodiremo u razumevanje nekih od najtemeljnijih principa života.
Our collective optimism is reflected by the growth of biotechnology across the globe, striving to utilize scientific knowledge to cure human diseases. Things like cancer, aging, degenerative diseases; these are but some of the undesirables we wish to tame. I often wonder: Why is it that we are having so much trouble trying to solve the problem of cancer? Is it that we're trying to solve the problem of cancer, and not trying to understand life?
Naš kolektivni optimizam se ogleda u rastu biotehnologije širom sveta, težimo da iskoristimo naučno znanje da bismo lečili ljudske bolesti. Stvari poput raka, starenja, degenerativnih bolesti; to su neke od nepoželjnosti koje bismo želeli da ukrotimo. Često se pitam: zašto nam je toliko teško da rešimo problem raka? Da li mi to pokušavamo da rešimo problem raka, a ne pokušavamo da razumemo život?
Life on this planet shares a common origin, and I can summarize 3.5 billion years of the history of life on this planet in a single slide. What you see here are representatives of all known species in our planet. In this immensity of life and biodiversity, we occupy a rather unremarkable position.
Život na ovoj planeti deli zajedničko poreklo, i mogu da sumiram 3,5 milijardi godina istorije života na ovoj paneti samo jednim slajdom. Ovde vidite predstavnike svih poznatih vrsta na našoj planeti. U ovom obilju života i biodiverziteta, zauzimamo krajnje beznačajno mesto.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Homo sapiens. The last of our kind. And though I don't really want to disparage at all the accomplishments of our species, as much as we wish it to be so and often pretend that it is, we are not the measure of all things. We are, however, the measurers of many things. We relentlessly quantify, analyze and compare, and some of this is absolutely invaluable and indeed necessary.
Homo sapiens. Poslednji naše vrste. Iako zaista uopšte ne želim da potcenjujem dostignuća naše vrste; koliko god da želeli da bude tako, i često se pretvaramo da jeste, mi nismo mera svih stvari. Mi smo, međutim, merioci mnogih stvari. Neumorno merimo količinu, analiziramo i poredimo, a nešto od toga je potpuno neprocenjivo i zaista neophodno.
But this emphasis today on forcing biological research to specialize and to produce practical outcomes is actually restricting our ability to interrogate life to unacceptably narrow confines and unsatisfying depths. We are measuring an astonishingly narrow sliver of life, and hoping that those numbers will save all of our lives. How narrow do you ask? Well, let me give you a number. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently estimated that about 95 percent of our oceans remain unexplored. Now let that sink in for a second. 95 percent of our oceans remain unexplored. I think it's very safe to say that we don't even know how much about life we do not know.
Ali ovaj trenutni naglasak na forsiranju biološkog istraživanja da se specijalizuje i da proizvodi praktične ishode zapravo ograničava našu sposobnost da istražimo život, da neprihvatljivo suzimo međe i nezadovoljavajuće dubine. Merimo zapanjujuće uzak ogranak života i nadamo se da će te cifre sačuvati naše živote. Da li se pitate koliko uzak? Pa, dozvolite da vam dam broj. Nacionalna okeanska i atmosferska administracija je nedavno procenila da je oko 95 procenata naših okeana i dalje neistraženo. Neka vam se to slegne na tren. 95 procenata naših okeana je i dalje neistraženo. Mislim da pouzdano možemo reći da čak ni ne znamo koliko o životu ne znamo.
So, it's not surprising that every week in my field we begin to see the addition of more and more new species to this amazing tree of life. This one for example -- discovered earlier this summer, new to science, and now occupying its lonely branch in our family tree. What is even more tragic is that we know about a bunch of other species of animals out there, but their biology remains sorely under-studied.
Stoga ne iznenađuje što svake sedmice u mojoj oblasti počinjemo da vidimo kako se sve više i više novih vrsta dodaje ovom neverovatnom drvetu života. Ova, na primer - otkivena je ranije ovog leta, nova je u nauci i trenutno zauzima usamljenu granu na našem porodičnom stablu. Još je tragičnije da znamo za gomilu drugih vrsta tamo negde, ali njihova biologija ostaje krajnje loše izučena.
I'm sure some of you have heard about the fact that a starfish can actually regenerate its arm after it's lost. But some of you might not know that the arm itself can actually regenerate a complete starfish. And there are animals out there that do truly astounding things. I'm almost willing to bet that many of you have never heard of the flatworm, Schmidtea mediterranea. This little guy right here does things that essentially just blow my mind. You can grab one of these animals and cut it into 18 different fragments, and each and every one of those fragments will go on to regenerate a complete animal in under two weeks. 18 heads, 18 bodies, 18 mysteries. For the past decade and a half or so, I've been trying to figure out how these little dudes do what they do, and how they pull this magic trick off. But like all good magicians, they're not really releasing their secrets readily to me.
Siguran sam da su neki od vas čuli za činjenicu da morska zvezda zapravo može da regeneriše svoju izgubljenu ruku. No neki od vas možda ne znaju da sama ruka zapravo može da obnovi celu morsku zvezdu. A postoje životinje koje rade istinski zapanjujuće stvari. Skoro da sam spreman da se kladim da mnogi od vas nikad niste čuli za pljosnatog crva Schmidtea mediterranea. Ovaj mališan ovde radi nešto što me prosto raspamećuje. Možete da uzmete jednu od ovih životinja i isečete je na 18 različitih delova, i baš svaki od ovih delova će se regenerisati u celovitu životinju za manje od dve nedelje. 18 glava, 18 tela, 18 tajni. Poslednjih oko deceniju i po, pokušavao sam da otkrijem kako ovi mališani rade to što rade i kako izvode ovaj magični trik. Ali kao i svi dobri mađioničari, zaista mi ne odaju rado svoje tajne.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So here we are, after 20 years of essentially studying these animals, genome mapping, chin scratching, and thousands of amputations and thousands of regenerations, we still don't fully understand how these animals do what they do. Each planarian an ocean unto itself, full of unknowns.
Dakle, tu smo, nakon 20 godina temeljnog izučavanja ovih životinja, mapiranja genoma, češanja brade, i hiljada amputacija i hiljada regeneracija, i dalje u potpunosti ne razumemo kako ove životinje rade to što rade. Svaki planar je okean za sebe, pun nepoznanice.
One of the common characteristics of all of these animals I've been talking to you about is that they did not appear to have received the memo that they need to behave according to the rules that we have derived from a handful of randomly selected animals that currently populate the vast majority of biomedical laboratories across the world. Meet our Nobel Prize winners. Seven species, essentially, that have produced for us the brunt of our understanding of biological behavior today. This little guy right here -- three Nobel Prizes in 12 years. And yet, after all the attention they have garnered, and all the knowledge they have generated, as well as the lion's share of the funding, here we are standing [before] the same litany of intractable problems and many new challenges. And that's because, unfortunately, these seven animals essentially correspond to 0.0009 percent of all of the species that inhabit the planet.
Jedna od zajedničkih osobina svih ovih životinja o kojima sam vam govorio je da se čini kako nisu primile memorandum da moraju da se ponašaju prema pravilima koja smo izveli iz pregršti nasumično odabranih životinja, koje trenutno naseljavaju ogromnu većinu biomedicinskih laboratorija širom sveta. Upoznajte naše dobitnike Nobelove nagrade. U suštini, sedam vrsta koje su imale najveći uticaj na naše trenutno razumevanje biološkog ponašanja. Ovaj mališa ovde - tri Nobelove nagrade za 12 godina. Pa ipak, uz svu pažnju koju su privukli i uz sve znanje koje su proizveli, kao i najveći deo fondova, eto nas kako stojim ispred iste litanije tvrdoglavih problema i mnogih novih izazova. A to je zato što, nažalost, ovih sedam životinja se u suštini poklapa sa 0.0009 procenata svih vrsta koje naseljavaju planetu.
So I'm beginning to suspect that our specialization is beginning to impede our progress at best, and at worst, is leading us astray. That's because life on this planet and its history is the history of rule breakers. Life started on the face of this planet as single-cell organisms, swimming for millions of years in the ocean, until one of those creatures decided, "I'm going to do things differently today; today I would like to invent something called multicellularity, and I'm going to do this." And I'm sure it wasn't a popular decision at the time --
Te počinjem da sumnjam da naša specijalizacija počinje, u najboljem slučaju, da ometa naš progres, a u najgorem nas navodi na pogrešan put. To je zato što je život na ovoj planeti i njegova istorija je istorija kršilaca pravila. Život je počeo na površini ove planete u vidu jednoćelijskih organizama, koji su plivali milionima godina u okeanu, dok jedno od tih bića nije odlučilo: "Danas ću da radim drugačije; danas želim da izumim nešto što se zove višećelijski organizam i ja ću to da uradim." I siguran sam da to tada nije bila popularna odluka -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
but somehow, it managed to do it. And then, multicellular organisms began to populate all these ancestral oceans, and they thrived. And we have them here today. Land masses began to emerge from the surface of the oceans, and another creature thought, "Hey, that looks like a really nice piece of real estate. I'd like to move there." "Are you crazy? You're going to desiccate out there. Nothing can live out of water." But life found a way, and there are organisms now that live on land. Once on land, they may have looked up into the sky and said, "It would be nice to go to the clouds, I'm going to fly." "You can't break the law of gravity, there's no way you can fly." And yet, nature has invented -- multiple and independent times -- ways to fly.
ali nekako je uspeo to da uradi. A onda su višećelijski organizmi počeli da naseljavaju sve te drevne okeane i bujali su. I tu su i danas. Zemljane mase su počele da se pojavljuju na površini okeana, a drugo biće je pomislilo: "Hej, ovo se čini kao zaista lepo parče nekretnine. Želim da se preselim tamo." "Jesi li lud? Osušićeš se tamo. Ništa ne može da živi van vode." Ali život je našao način i trenutno organizmi žive na kopnu. Čim su stigli na kopno, pogledali bi u nebo i rekli: "Bilo bi lepo stići do oblaka, ja ću da letim." "Ne možeš da prekršiš zakon gravitacije, nema šanse da poletiš." Pa ipak, priroda je izumila - više i to nepovezanih puta - načine da se leti.
I love to study these animals that break the rules, because every time they break a rule, they invent something new that made it possible for us to be able to be here today. These animals did not get the memo. They break the rules. So if we're going to study animals that break the rules, shouldn't how we study them also break the rules?
Volim da izučavam ove životinje koje krše pravila jer svaki put kad prekrše pravilo, izume nešto novo što nam omogućava da trenutno budemo tu. Ove životinje nisu dobile memorandum. One krše pravila. Zato ako želimo da izučavamo životinje koje krše pravila, zar ne bi trebalo takođe da izučavamo kako krše pravila?
I think we need to renew our spirit of exploration. Rather than bring nature into our laboratories and interrogate it there, we need to bring our science into the majestic laboratory that is nature, and there, with our modern technological armamentarium, interrogate every new form of life we find, and any new biological attribute that we may find. We actually need to bring all of our intelligence to becoming stupid again -- clueless [before] the immensity of the unknown. Because after all, science is not really about knowledge. Science is about ignorance. That's what we do.
Mislim da moramo da obnovimo naš istraživački duh. Umesto da donosimo prirodu u naše laboratorije i da je tu ispitujemo, moramo da odnesemo nauku u veličanstvenu laboratoriju prirode, i tu, uz naš moderni tehnološki armamentarijum da ispitamo svaki novi oblik života koji otkrijemo, kao i bilo koju novu biološku osobinu koju možda zateknemo. Zapravo moramo da dovedemo svu našu inteligenciju do toga da budemo opet glupi - bezidejni pred ogromnošću nepoznatog. Jer, naposletku, kod nauke se ne radi o znanju. Kod nauke se radi o neznanju. To je ono što radimo.
Once, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea ..." As a scientist and a teacher, I like to paraphrase this to read that we scientists need to teach our students to long for the endless immensity of the sea that is our ignorance. We Homo sapiens are the only species we know of that is driven to scientific inquiry. We, like all other species on this planet, are inextricably woven into the history of life on this planet. And I think I'm a little wrong when I say that life is a mystery, because I think that life is actually an open secret that has been beckoning our species for millennia to understand it.
Jednom je Antoan de Sent Egziperi napisao: "Ako želite da sagradite brod, ne mobilišite ljude da sakupljaju drva i ne dodeljujte im zadatke i poslove, već pre ih naučite da žude za beskrajnom ogromnošću mora..." Kao naučnik i nastavnik, volim ovo da parafraziram u smislu da mi naučnici moramo da učimo naše đake da žude za beskrajnom ogromnošću mora, koje je naše neznanje. Mi Homo sapiensi smo jedina poznata vrsta koju privlači naučno ispitivanje. Mi, kao i sve druge vrste na ovoj planeti, smo neodvojivo utkani u istoriju života na ovoj planeti. I mislim da malo grešim kad kažem da je život tajna jer smatram da je život zapravo otvorena tajna koja milenijumima poziva našu vrstu da je razume.
So I ask you: Aren't we the best chance that life has to know itself? And if so, what the heck are we waiting for?
Stoga vas pitam: zar mi nismo najbolja prilika za život da razume samog sebe? Ako jesmo, šta kog vraga čekamo?
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)