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.
我想請你們摸一下自己的臉。 摸摸看。 有什麼感覺? 柔軟?濕軟? 這就是你,對嗎? 你感覺到的是你自己? 這樣說並不準確, 你感覺到的其實是 數以千計的顯微生物, 它們就在你們的臉上、手指上。 你們還感覺到了一些真菌, 它們來自冷氣管, 今天飄落到你的皮膚上。 它們會觸發我們的過敏症狀, 也會造成霉味。 你們也感覺到約千億個 活在我們皮膚表面的細菌細胞。 它們嚙食皮膚上的油脂, 然後複製繁殖, 產生了我們的體味。 你們甚至可能也摸到了排泄物細菌, 是你們上一次沖馬桶時 噴濺到你們身上的, 或是那些生活在水管裡的細菌, 在你們上次洗澡時噴在你們身上。 抱歉。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
你們剛剛甚至可能還做了微擊掌, 擊掌對象是住在我們臉上的兩種蟎。 我們滿臉都是。 它們夜晚在你臉上蠕動爬行, 在你們的鼻樑上做愛。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Many of them are now leaking their gut contents onto your pores.
有許多蟎現在還正在把腸子裡的 東西排到你們的毛孔裡。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
現在看看你們的手指。 感覺如何?噁心嗎? 非常需要肥皂或漂白劑嗎? 這是你們現在的感覺, 在未來你們就不會這樣覺得了。
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.
在過去的一百年裡, 我們一直和那些離我們最近的 顯微生物保持著敵對關係。 如果我跟你說,你家裡有病菌, 或水槽裡有細菌, 人類針對這情況設計了解決方案, 一種產品可以用來根除、消滅、 消毒。 現在我們努力在消除世界上 大部份的顯微生命, 但這麼做時,我們其實也忽略 地球上最棒的新科技來源。 過去一百年的特點是針對 微生物問題提出人類解決方案, 接下來一百年的特點會是
I'm a scientist, and I work with researchers
針對人類問題提出微生物解決方案。
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.
我是科學家, 我與北卡羅來納州立大學 和科羅拉多大學的研究者合作, 探究最靠近我們的顯微生命, 通常就存在於我們 最熟悉且無聊的環境中, 比如就在我們的沙發下、後院裡、 和我們的肚臍裡。 我做這項研究,是因為事實證明, 我們對於最靠近我們的 顯微生命所知非常少。 一直到幾年前, 都沒有科學家能告訴你 你家裡住了哪些病菌或微生物── 你家裡,那是你最熟悉不過的地方。
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.
所以我和其他人組成的團隊 帶著棉花棒、鑷子、 還有先進的 DNA 技術, 來探索離我們最近的顯微生命。 光靠這麼做,我們就發現 有超過六百種蟲子、病菌 住在美國的住家中, 從蜘蛛到蟑螂 到附在羽毛上的小蟎類。 我們發現了超過 十萬種的細菌和真菌, 住在都是灰塵的兔子玩偶身上, 還有另外數千種住在 我們的衣服上或是淋浴間裡。 我們還再進一步研究, 我們去研究那些住在 我們家中的蟲子,看它們 身體裡面又住了哪些微生物。 針對每一隻蟲子,比如,一隻黃蜂, 我們都會在培養皿上 發現一個顯微叢林, 數百種品種的活躍生物 所居住的世界。 看哪!看看這個生物宇宙! 你們現在看到的是許多都還沒 被命名的品種。 我們身邊大部份的生命 都還是未知的。
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."
我還記得我第一次發現了 一個新品種且得以為它命名。 那是一種真菌, 住在黃腰泥壺蜂的巢裡。 它是白色的,且毛茸茸的, 我把它叫做「mucor nidicola」, 這是拉丁文,意思是 它住在別人的巢裡。 這是它的照片, 它長在一隻恐龍身上, 因為每個人都覺得恐龍很酷。 那時,我還在讀研究所, 對於發現新物種,我感到相當興奮。 我打電話給我爸爸,說: 「爸!我剛發現了 一種新的微生物品種。」 他笑了,然後說: 「好極了。我希望你也 發現了它的解藥。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"Cure it."
「治好它。」
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.
我爸爸是我的頭號粉絲, 所以,在他想要殺掉 我的新物種的毀滅性時刻, 我了解到我身為女兒和科學家, 兩個身份都讓他失望了。 多年來我在實驗室及 別人家的後院裡苦幹, 調查我們身邊的顯微生命 並將它們編入目錄, 我卻從未讓他了解我真正的使命。 我的目標並不是要找到技術 來殺掉我們周圍的新顯微生命。 我的目標是要從這生命找到新技術,
The diversity of life in our homes is more than a list of 100,000 new species.
來協助拯救我們。
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.
在我們家中的生命多樣性, 有高達十萬種新物種。 也就是說,人類問題又多了 十萬個新的解決方案來源。 我知道很難相信這麼小的生物 或是只有一個細胞的生物, 可以做出強大的事來, 但確實可以。 這些生物是顯微鍊金術士, 有能力用一堆化學工具 來轉變它們的環境。 這意味著,它們能存活 在地球上的任何地方, 且它們可以吃身邊的任何食物。 也就是說,它們什麼都能吃, 從有毒的廢料到塑膠都可以, 它們可以產生廢料產品, 像是油和電池電力, 甚至是真正黃金做的小金塊。 它們可以把不能吃的東西, 轉變為有營養的東西。 它們能把糖變成酒精。 它們讓巧克力有其味道, 讓土壤有種植的力量。
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.
我在此告訴各位, 接下來一百年的特點 會是用這些顯微生物, 來解決更多我們的問題。 我們有許多問題可供選擇。 我們有世俗問題: 臭衣物或淡而無味的食物。 我們也有重大的問題: 疾病、污染、戰爭。 所以,這是我的使命: 不只是要把我們身邊的 顯微生命編入目錄中, 也要找出它特別能 協助我們的地方是什麼。
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.
這是一個例子。 我們從一隻害蟲說起, 很多人的房子都會住有黃蜂。 在黃蜂體內,我們找出了 很少人知道的一種微生物物種, 它有種獨特的能力: 它能製造啤酒。 地球上只有少數幾種 物種有這項特性。 事實上,你曾喝過的 所有商業製造啤酒, 很可能就是來自僅三種 微生物物種的其中一種。 但我們談的這個物種, 它製造出的啤酒嚐起來像蜂蜜, 它也能製造出讓人愉悅的酸啤酒。 事實上,住在黃蜂肚子裡的 這種微生物物種, 它能夠製造出很有價值的酸啤酒, 且比地球上任何其他物種 製造出來的都還要優。 現在,共有四種物種 會製造商業啤酒了。 以前,你會看到害蟲, 現在,試著想想品嚐 你未來最愛的啤酒。
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.
第二個例子, 我和研究者合作去挖別人後院的土。 在那裡,我們發現了一種微生物, 它可以做出新的抗生素, 這種抗生素能殺死 世界上最糟的超級病菌。 這是個很棒的發現, 但有個秘密: 在過去六十年, 市場上大部份的抗生素 都來自類似的土壤細菌。 每天,你、我、這裡的每個人、 地球上的每個人, 都是靠類似的土壤細菌來保命, 它們為我們製造絕大部分的抗生素。 以前,你會看到泥土, 現在,試著想想藥物。
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.
我最愛的也許是來自我同事的例子, 他們在研究某種浮在死水上的藻類, 因為它最初是在牛粪中被發現, 因此不幸地以之命名, 它非常平凡,不值得討論, 除了一點,研究者發現, 若拿它餵食老鼠, 會對創傷後壓力症候群免疫, 會對恐懼免疫。 以前,你看到的是死水上的藻類, 現在試著想想希望。
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.
還有好多微生物的例子, 今天沒時間一個一個談。 我剛舉的例子,僅是來自 三種物種的解決方案, 但是想像一下那些附在灰撲撲的 兔子玩偶身上的其他十萬種物種, 它們可能具有的潛力。 在未來,它們可能 可以讓你變得更性感、 更聰明、 或是更長壽。
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.
所以,請再看一眼你們手指。 想想所有這些未知的微生物。 想想在未來它們可能可以做什麼、 可以製造什麼、 可能可以拯救誰的性命。 現在你的手指感覺如何? 有點強大嗎? 那是因為你感覺到了未來。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)