I want you to touch your face. Go on. What do you feel? Soft? Squishy? It's you, right? You're feeling you? Well, it's not quite true. You're actually feeling thousands of microscopic creatures that live on our face and fingers. You're feeling some of the fungi that drifted down from the air ducts today. They set off our allergies and smell of mildew. You're feeling some of the 100 billion bacterial cells that live on our skin. They've been munching away at your skin oils and replicating, producing the smells of body odor. You're likely even touching the fecal bacteria that sprayed onto you the last time you flushed a toilet, or those bacteria that live in our water pipes and sprayed onto you with your last shower. Sorry.
Želim da si dotaknete lice. Slobodno. Što osjećate? Mekano? Gnjecavo? To ste vi, zar ne? Osjećate sebe? Pa, to nije posve točno. Zapravo osjećate na tisuće mikroskopskih stvorenja koja žive na vašem licu i prstima. Osjećate neke od gljivica koje su danas doletjele zračnim kanalima. Stvaraju alergije i mirišu na plijesan. Osjećate neke od 100 milijardi bakterijskih stanica koje žive na našoj koži. Grickaju masnoću s vaše kože, množe se, proizvodeći tjelesne mirise. Vjerojatno dodirujete i fekalne bakterije koje su doletjele na vas zadnji put kada ste pustili vodu u zahodu, ili one bakterije koje žive u vodovodnim cijevima, koje su vas poprskale za posljednjeg tuširanja. Žao mi je.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
You're probably even giving a microscopic high five to the two species of mites that live on our faces, on all of our faces. They've spent the night squirming across your face and having sex on the bridge of your nose.
Vjerojatno dajete mikroskopski pet dvjema vrstama grinja koje žive na našim licima, na licima svih nas. Provele su noć migoljeći se uzduž vašeg lica i seksajući se na vrhu vašeg nosa.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Many of them are now leaking their gut contents onto your pores.
Mnoge od njih sada ispuštaju sadržaj svojih crijeva na vaše pore.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Now look at your finger. How's it feel? Gross? In desperate need of soap or bleach? That's how you feel now, but it's not going to be how you feel in the future.
Sad pogledajte svoj prst. Kakav je osjećaj? Ljigav? Očajnički treba sapun ili izbjeljivač? Tako se sada osjećate, ali nećete se tako osjećati ubuduće.
For the last 100 years, we've had an adversarial relationship with the microscopic life nearest us. If I told you there was a bug in your house or bacteria in your sink, there was a human-devised solution for that, a product to eradicate, exterminate, disinfect. We strive to remove most of the microscopic life in our world now. But in doing so, we're ignoring the best source of new technology on this planet. The last 100 years have featured human solutions to microbial problems, but the next 100 years will feature microbial solutions to human problems.
Posljednjih stotinu godina imali smo neprijateljsku vezu s mikroskopskim životom u našoj neposrednoj blizini. Da sam vam rekla da je buba u vašoj kući ili bakterija u sudoperu, postojalo bi ljudsko rješenje za to, proizvod koji će istrijebiti, potamaniti, dezinficirati. Danas težimo uklanjanju većine mikroskopskog života u našem svijetu. No, čineći to, zanemarujemo najbolji izvor nove tehnologije na ovom planetu. U posljednjih 100 godina svjedočili smo ljudskim rješenjima mikrobnih problema, no u sljedećih 100 bit ćemo svjedoci mikrobnih rješenja za ljudske probleme.
I'm a scientist, and I work with researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado to uncover the microscopic life that is nearest us, and that's often in our most intimate and boring environments, be it under our couches, in our backyards, or in our belly buttons. I do this work because it turns out that we know very little about the microscopic life that's nearest us. As of a few years ago, no scientist could tell you what bugs or microorganisms live in your home -- your home, the place you know better than anywhere else.
Znanstvenica sam i radim s istraživačima na državnom sveučilištu Sjeverne Karoline i na Sveučilištu u Coloradu, kako bismo otkrili mikroskopski život koji nam je najbliži, a to je često u našem najintimnijem i najdosadnijem okruženju, bilo to ispod kauča, u dvorištu, ili pupku. Radim na ovome jer se ispostavilo da jako malo znamo o mikroskopskom životu koji nam je tako blizu. Do nedavno nijedan znanstvenik nije vam mogao reći koji kukci ili mikroorganizmi žive u vašem domu - u vašem domu, mjestu koje najbolje poznajete.
And so I and teams of others are armed with Q-tips and tweezers and advanced DNA techniques to uncover the microscopic life nearest us. In doing so, we found over 600 species of bugs that live in USA homes, everything from spiders and cockroaches to tiny mites that cling to feathers. And we found over 100,000 species of bacteria and fungi that live in our dust bunnies, thousands more that live on our clothes or in our showers. We've gone further still, and we looked at the microorganisms that live inside the bodies of each of those bugs in our home. In each bug, for example, a wasp, we see a microscopic jungle unfold in a petri plate, a world of hundreds of vibrant species. Behold the biological cosmos! So many of the species you're looking at right now don't yet have names. Most of the life around us remains unknown.
Tako sam ja s timovima drugih, naoružana štapićima za uši, pincetama i naprednim tehnikama DNK, kako bismo otkrili taj mikroskopski život. Čineći to, našli smo preko 600 vrsta kukaca koji žive u američkim domovima, od paukova i žohara, do sitnih grinja koje se drže za perje. Našli smo preko 100.000 vrsta bakterija i gljivica koje žive u našoj prašini, još na tisuće njih koje žive u našoj odjeći ili tušu. Išli smo i korak dalje te proučavali mikroorganizme koji žive u tijelima svih kukaca u našem domu. U svakom kukcu, primjerice, u osi, vidimo mikroskopsku džunglu u Petrijevoj zdjelici, svijet stotina živahnih vrsta. Pogledajte biološki kozmos! Mnoge vrste koje sada gledate još nemaju ni ime. Većina života oko nas ostaje nepoznata.
I remember the first time I discovered and got to name a new species. It was a fungus that lives in the nest of a paper wasp. It's white and fluffy, and I named it "mucor nidicola," meaning in Latin that it lives in the nest of another. This is a picture of it growing on a dinosaur, because everyone thinks dinosaurs are cool. At the time, I was in graduate school, and I was so excited that I had found this new life form. I called up my dad, and I go, "Dad! I just discovered a new microorganism species." And he laughed and he goes, "That's great. I hope you also discovered a cure for it."
Sjećam se svog prvog otkrića i imenovanja nove vrste. Bila je to gljivica koja živi u gnijezdu papirne ose. Bijela je i čupava i nazvala sam je "mucor nidicola," što na latinskom znači da živi u tuđem gnijezdu. Ovo je slika te gljivice kako raste na dinosauru jer svi misle da su dinosauri "kul". U to vrijeme, bila sam na početku studija i jako uzbuđena jer sam našla taj novi oblik života. Nazvala sam tatu i rekla, "Tata! Upravo sam otkrila novu vrstu mikroorganizma." Nasmijao se i odgovorio mi, "Odlično. Nadam se da si našla i lijek za nju."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
"Cure it."
"Lijek."
Now, my dad is my biggest fan, so in that crushing moment where he wanted to kill my new little life form, I realized that actually I had failed him, both as a daughter and a scientist. In my years toiling away in labs and in people's backyards, investigating and cataloging the microscopic life around us, I'd never made clear my true mission to him. My goal is not to find technology to kill the new microscopic life around us. My goal is to find new technology from this life, that will help save us.
Moj tata je moj najveći obožavatelj, pa u tom trenutku kad je htio da ubijem svoj novi mali oblik života, shvatila sam da sam ga zapravo iznevjerila kao kćer i znanstvenica. Tijekom godina mukotrpnog rada u laboratorijima i dvorištima, dok sam istraživala i popisivala mikroskopski život oko nas, nikad mu nisam objasnila svoju pravu misiju. Moj cilj nije naći tehnologiju koja će ubiti mikroskopski život koji nas okružuje. Moj cilj je naći novu tehnologiju u tome životu, koji će nas spasiti.
The diversity of life in our homes is more than a list of 100,000 new species. It is 100,000 new sources of solutions to human problems. I know it's hard to believe that anything that's so small or only has one cell can do anything powerful, but they can. These creatures are microscopic alchemists, with the ability to transform their environment with an arsenal of chemical tools. This means that they can live anywhere on this planet, and they can eat whatever food is around them. This means they can eat everything from toxic waste to plastic, and they can produce waste products like oil and battery power and even tiny nuggets of real gold. They can transform the inedible into nutritive. They can make sugar into alcohol. They give chocolate its flavor, and soil the power to grow.
Raznolikost života u našim domovima više je od liste od 100.000 novih vrsta. To je 100.000 novih izvora rješenja ljudskih problema. Znam da je teško vjerovati da išta tako sitno ili jednostanično može biti tako moćno, ali može. Ova bića su mikroskopski alkemičari, sposobni promijeniti svoje okruženje arsenalom kemijskih sredstava. To znači da mogu živjeti bilo gdje na ovom planetu i mogu jesti bilo što oko sebe. To znači da mogu jesti sve, od toksičnog otpada to plastike i mogu proizvoditi otpad kao što je ulje i baterijski pogon pa čak i sitne komadiće pravog zlata. Oni nejestivo mogu pretvoriti u hranjivo. Šećer mogu pretvoriti u alkohol. Oni čokoladi daju okus, a tlu snagu za rast.
I'm here to tell you that the next 100 years will feature these microscopic creatures solving more of our problems. And we have a lot of problems to choose from. We've got the mundane: bad-smelling clothes or bland food. And we've got the monumental: disease, pollution, war. And so this is my mission: to not just catalog the microscopic life around us, but to find out what it's uniquely well-suited to help us with.
Ovdje sam da vam kažem da ćemo sljedećih 100 godina gledati kako ova mikroskopska bića rješavaju naše probleme. Imamo problema na pretek. Imamo one dosadne: smrdljivu odjeću ili bezukusnu hranu. Imamo i one ogromne: bolest, zagađenje, rat. Ovo je moja misija: ne samo popisati mikroskopski život koji nas okružuje, nego naći i ono jedinstveno što nam odgovara, kako bi nam pomoglo.
Here's an example. We started with a pest, a wasp that lives on many of our homes. Inside that wasp, we plucked out a little-known microorganism species with a unique ability: it could make beer. This is a trait that only a few species on this planet have. In fact, all commercially produced beer you've ever had likely came from one of only three microorganism species. Yet our species, it could make a beer that tasted like honey, and it could also make a delightfully tart beer. In fact, this microorganism species that lives in the belly of a wasp, it could make a valuable sour beer better than any other species on this planet. There are now four species that produce commercial beer. Where you used to see a pest, now think of tasting your future favorite beer.
Evo primjer. Započeli smo sa štetočinom, osom koja živi u domovima mnogih od nas. Iz te ose iščupali smo slabo znanu vrstu mikroorganizma, jedinstvenu po tome što može stvarati pivo. Ovo je osobina koju ima samo nekoliko vrsta na planetu. Zapravo, sva komercijalna piva koja ste ikad kušali, vjerojatno su potekla od jedne od samo tri vrste mikroorganizama. No, naša vrsta može utjecati na to da pivo ima okus meda ili da stvori izvrsno tart pivo. Zapravo, ova vrsta mikroorganizma koja živi u trbuhu ose, može napraviti kiselo pivo bolje nego ijedna druga vrsta na ovom planetu. Trenutno postoje četiri vrste koje proizvode komercijalno pivo. Dosad ste vidjeli štetočinu, a sad pomislite na kušanje vašeg budućeg najdražeg piva.
As a second example, I worked with researchers to dig in the dirt in people's backyards. There, we uncovered a microorganism that could make novel antibiotics, antibiotics that can kill the world's worst superbugs. This was an awesome thing to find, but here's the secret: for the last 60 years, most of the antibiotics on the market have come from similar soil bacteria. Every day, you and I and everyone in this room and on this planet, are saved by similar soil bacteria that produce most of our antibiotics. Where you used to see dirt, now think of medication.
Za drugi primjer, radila sam s istraživačima i kopala po prljavštini tuđih dvorišta. Otkrili smo mikroorganizam koji može sačinjavati nove antibiotike, antibiotike koji mogu ubiti najgore superkukce svijeta. To je bilo odlično otkriće, ali evo tajne: posljednjih 60 godina, većina antibiotika na tržištu potekla je od slične bakterije iz tla. Svaki dan, vas, mene i sve u ovoj prostoriji i na ovom planetu, spašava slična bakterija iz tla koja proizvodi i većinu naših antibiotika. Dosad ste vidjeli zemlju, sad mislite na lijekove.
Perhaps my favorite example comes from colleagues who are studying a pond scum microorganism, which is tragically named after the cow dung it was first found in. It's pretty unremarkable and would be unworthy of discussion, except that the researchers found that if you feed it to mice, it vaccinates against PTSD. It vaccinates against fear. Where you used to see pond scum, now think of hope.
Moj najdraži primjer dolazi od kolega koji proučavaju mikroorganizam u močvarnom otpadu, a koji je tragično nazvan prema kravljem izmetu u kojem je prvotno nađen. Prilično je neupečatljiv i ne bi bio vrijedan spomena, da istraživači nisu otkrili da ako se time nahrani miševe, nastaje cjepivo protiv PTSP-a. To je cjepivo protiv straha. Dosad ste vidjeli samo otpad, sad mislite na nadu.
There are so many more microbial examples that I don't have time to talk about today. I gave you examples of solutions that came from just three species, but imagine what those other 100,000 species in your dust bunnies might be able to do. In the future, they might be able to make you sexier or smarter or perhaps live longer.
Još je mnogo primjera mikroba o kojima danas nemam vremena govoriti. Dala sam vam primjere rješenja koja su došla od samo tri vrste, no, zamislite što bi tih ostalih 100.000 vrsta u vašoj prašini moglo učiniti. U budućnosti bi vas mogli učiniti privlačnijima, ili pametnijima, ili dugovječnijima.
So I want you to look at your finger again. Think about all those microscopic creatures that are unknown. Think about in the future what they might be able to do or make or whose life they might be able to save. How does your finger feel right now? A little bit powerful? That's because you're feeling the future.
Stoga, želim da ponovno pogledate svoj prst. Pomislite na sva ta mikroskopska stvorenja koja su nepoznata. Pomislite što bi oni mogli učiniti u budućnosti, ili stvoriti, ili čiji život bi mogli spasiti. Kako sad osjećate svoj prst? Moćan je? To je zato što osjećate budućnost.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)