I was offered a position as associate professor of medicine and chief of scientific visualization at Yale University in the department of medicine. And my job was to write many of the algorithms and code for NASA to do virtual surgery in preparation for the astronauts going into deep-space flight, so they could be kept in robotic pods. One of the fascinating things about what we were working on is that we were seeing, using new scanning technologies, things that had never been seen before. Not only in disease management, but also things that allowed us to see things about the body that just made you marvel.
我曾經在耶魯大學 擔任醫學系 副教授 以及科學視覺化主任。 我的工作是替美國太空總署寫演算法及程式 讓即將出發進入太空飛行的宇航員 練習做虛擬手術, 因而太空人可以在太空裝內做實驗。 我們的計畫裡有一件很有趣的事, 就是我們透過最新的掃描科技 觀看那些前所未見的東西-- 我的意思是,新科技不僅運用於疾病管理, 還可以讓我們看到那些 讓你驚嘆不已的身體結構。
I remember one of the first times we were looking at collagen. And your entire body, everything -- your hair, skin, bone, nails -- everything is made of collagen. And it's a kind of rope-like structure that twirls and swirls like this. And the only place that collagen changes its structure is in the cornea of your eye. In your eye, it becomes a grid formation, and therefore, it becomes transparent, as opposed to opaque. So perfectly organized a structure, it was hard not to attribute divinity to it. Because we kept on seeing this in different parts of the body.
我記得我們最初幾次看膠原蛋白。 你全身所有的構造-- 你的頭髮、皮膚、骨頭、指甲-- 每一樣都由膠原蛋白組成。 它的結構很像繩子, 像這樣螺旋纏繞。 唯一一個膠原蛋白改變結構的地方 是你的角膜。 在你的眼睛裡, 它變成格狀的結晶結構, 因此它從原本的不透明變成透明的。 這個組織是如此的完美, 你很難不把它歸功於神蹟。 因為我們不斷地在身體的不同部位 看到這樣的結構。
One of the opportunities I had was one person was working on a really interesting micromagnetic resonance imaging machine with the NIH. And what we were going to do was scan a new project on the development of the fetus from conception to birth using these new technologies. So I wrote the algorithms and code, and he built the hardware -- Paul Lauterbur -- then went onto win the Nobel Prize for inventing the MRI. I got the data. And I'm going to show you a sample of the piece, "From Conception to Birth."
我曾有個機會 是與一位在美國國立衛生研究院 研究非常有趣的核磁共振的人共事。 我們做的事情 是發展一個新計畫, 要使用這些新科技 掃描從受孕到出生的胎兒發育。 所以我寫了一些演算程式, 而他--美國化學教授羅特博--則製造機器, 他後來因為發明核磁共振而得到諾貝爾獎。 而我得到了這些資料。 我現在要播出這個計畫的部分成果 從受孕到出生(又譯:孕─目睹子宮內的奇蹟。天下文化)
(Music)
(音樂)
[From Conception to Birth]
影片文字:從受孕到出生
[Oocyte]
卵母細胞
[Sperm]
精子
[Egg Inseminated]
受精的卵
[24 Hours: Baby's first division]
24小時:寶寶第一次細胞分裂
[The fertilized ovum divides a few hours after fusion...]
受精卵在新細胞完成融合後數小時開始分裂...
[And divides anew every 12 to 15 hours.]
每12至15小時分裂一次。
[Early Embryo]
胚胎早期
[Yolk sack still feeding baby.]
仍然由卵黃囊供給寶寶營養。
[25 Days: Heart chamber developing.]
25天:心室開始成長
[32 Days: Arms & hands are developing]
32天:手臂及雙手開始成形
[36 Days: Beginning of the primitive vertebrae]
36天:脊椎骨的原始形態出現
[These weeks are the period of the most rapid development of the fetus.]
這幾個星期是胚胎成長最快速的時期。
[If the fetus continues to grow at this speed for the entire 9 months, it would be 1.5 tons at birth.]
如果胚胎在這九個月都照這個速率持續成長, 寶寶出生時會重達1.5噸。
[45 Days]
45天
[Embryo's heart is beating twice as fast as the mother's.]
胚胎的心臟跳動比媽媽的快兩倍。
[51 Days]
51天
[Developing retina, nose and fingers]
52天:視網膜、鼻子以及指頭開始生長
[The fetus' continual movement in the womb is necessary for muscular and skeletal growth.]
胎兒在子宮裡不停地動 對肌肉及骨骼的生長不可或缺。
[12 Weeks: Indifferent penis]
12週:沒有性別之分的陰莖─
[Girl or boy yet to be determined]
尚不能分辨是男是女
[8 Months]
八個月
[Delivery: The expulsion stage]
分娩:胎兒脫出期
[The moment of birth]
出生的瞬間
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Alexander Tsiaras: Thank you. But as you can see, when you actually start working on this data, it's pretty spectacular. And as we kept on scanning more and more, working on this project, looking at these two simple cells that have this unbelievable machinery that will become the magic of you. And as we kept on working on this data, looking at small clusters of the body, these little pieces of tissue that were the trophoblasts coming off of the blastocyst, all of a sudden burrowing itself into the side of the uterus, saying, "I'm here to stay." Having conversation and communications with the estrogens, the progesterones, saying, "I'm here to stay, plant me," building this incredible trilinear fetus that becomes, within 44 days, something that you can recognize, and then at nine weeks is really kind of a little human being. The marvel of this information: How do we actually have this biological mechanism inside our body to actually see this information?
亞歷山大:謝謝。 不過正如你所見, 當你開始處理這些資料, 其實是很壯觀的。 而且當我們繼續的掃描, 持續進行這個計畫, 看著這兩個簡單的細胞 居然擁有這種令人無法置信的機制 可以長成神奇的「你」。 當我們繼續處理資料 看著身體的這個小小的部分, 這團小小的組織 從囊胚分化出來的滋養細胞群, 瞬間就在子宮壁上著床, 說:「我要在這停留。」 瞬間就跟雌激素及黃體素 對話及溝通, 說:「我要在這裡長大,養我。」 長成這個不可思議的三胚層胚胎, 在44天內 長成一個你可以辨識的胎兒雛形, 然後在九週內 長成一個小小的人。 這項資訊令人驚異之處在於 到底我們是如何在體內 擁有這樣的生物機制 能夠了解這樣的資訊?
I'm going to show you something pretty unique. Here's a human heart at 25 days. It's just basically two strands. And like this magnificent origami, cells are developing at one million cells per second at four weeks, as it's just folding on itself. Within five weeks, you start to see the early atrium and the early ventricles. Six weeks, these folds are now beginning with the papilla on the inside of the heart actually being able to pull down each one of those valves in your heart until you get a mature heart -- and then basically the development of the entire human body. The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go -- the complexity of these, the mathematical models of how these things are indeed done are beyond human comprehension.
我們來看一段非常特別的東西。 這個是胎兒在25週大時的心臟。 看起來只是兩股絞線。 就像美麗的摺紙, 細胞成長的速率 在第四週時為每一秒產生一百萬個細胞, 就好像自己在摺疊複製自己。 五週內你就可以開始看見心房及腦室的初始結構。 六週時,這些摺疊就開始 與心臟內的乳頭肌一起 能夠拉扯 你心臟裡的每一個瓣膜 直到你的心臟成熟為止-- 直到你的全身結構發展完成。 這些在每一個遺傳結構內 準確的告訴神經細胞要去哪裡的機制, 其不可思議之處在於-- 這些數學模型的複雜程度, 這些事情是怎樣發生的 遠遠超過人類所能理解。
Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us? It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity. Then you start to take a look at adult life. Take a look at this little tuft of capillaries. It's just a tiny sub-substructure, microscopic. But basically by the time you're nine months and you're given birth, you have almost 60,000 miles of vessels inside your body. And only one mile is visible. 59,999 miles that are basically bringing nutrients and taking waste away. The complexity of building that within a single system is, again, beyond any comprehension or any existing mathematics today.
即使像我身為數學家, 我也要驚嘆 當我們在成形的時候 是如何讓這些指令 不出錯? 這真神秘,真不可思議,真是神蹟。 然後你開始觀察成人的生命。 看看這些小小綹的微血管。 這只是一個微小的次次結構,非常微觀的。 但是基本上當你在體內九個月大,即將出生時, 你的體內擁有 將近六萬英哩(九萬六千多公里)的血管。 而且只有一英哩是看的見的。 其他的59,999英哩 基本上都在輸送營養及帶走廢物。 在一個單一系統內建造這個的複雜度, 再說一次,是超乎理解的, 也不是所有現存的數學公式可以解答的。
And then instructions set, from the brain to every other part of the body -- look at the complexity of the folding. Where does this intelligence of knowing that a fold can actually hold more information, so as you actually watch the baby's brain grow. And this is one of the things we're doing. We're launching two new studies of scanning babies' brains from the moment they're born. Every six months until they're six years old, we're going to be doing about 250 children, watching exactly how the gyri and the sulci of the brains fold to see how this magnificent development actually turns into memories and the marvel that is us.
而這些指令, 從頭腦到身體的每一部分-- 看看這些摺疊有多複雜。 到底身體從何而知 摺疊結構其實可以儲存更多的資料, 所以現在你在看的是寶寶的腦子成長-- 這也正是我們在做的事。 我們正開始作兩個新的研究 要從寶寶一出生起就開始掃瞄他們的腦子。 每六個月掃瞄一次,直到他們六歲為止-- 我們要掃描大約250個小孩-- 觀察他們的腦迴及腦溝如何發展 觀察這個令人讚嘆的發展, 如何轉化成記憶及奇蹟的「我們」。
And it's not just our own existence, but how does the woman's body understand to have genetic structure that not only builds her own, but then has the understanding that allows her to become a walking immunological, cardiovascular system that basically is a mobile system that can actually nurture, treat this child with a kind of marvel that is beyond, again, our comprehension -- the magic that is existence, that is us?
而且這奇蹟不僅僅在於我們的存在本身, 還在於女性的身體要如何理解 這些遺傳結構,不但讓她自己成長, 而且還能了解到 自己要成為 一個活的免疫及心血管系統 基本上就是一個行動保溫箱, 用這種奇妙的方法培育、對待孩子, 再說一次,這實在不是我們能理解的-- 而我們,人類的存在不就是奇蹟?
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)