(Mosquito buzzing)
(Zujanje komarca)
(Swat)
(Udarac)
Gotcha. Mosquitoes. I hate them. Don't you? That awful buzzing sound at night around your ears that drives you absolutely crazy? Knowing that she wants to stick a needle in your skin and suck out your blood? That's awful, right? In fact, there's only one good thing I can think of when it gets to mosquitoes. When they fly into our bedroom at night, they prefer to bite my wife.
Imam te. Komarci. Mrzim ih. Zar vi ne? Taj grozan zvuk zujanja oko vaše glave noću koji vas potpuno izluđuje? Znanje da on želi da zabode iglu u vašu kožu i isisa vam krv? To je grozno, zar ne? U stvari, ima samo jedna dobra stvar koje mogu da se setim u vezi sa komaracima. Kada ulete noću u našu sobu, radije ujedu moju ženu.
(Laughter)
But that's fascinating, right? Why does she receive more bites than I do? And the answer is smell, the smell of her body. And since we all smell different and produce chemicals on our skin that either attract or repel mosquitoes, some of us are just more attractive than others. So my wife smells nicer than I do, or I just stink more than she does.
Ali to je fascinantno, zar ne? Zašto nju više ujedaju nego mene? I odgovor je miris, miris njenog tela. I pošto svi imamo drugačiji miris i proizvodimo hemikalije u našoj koži koje ili privlače ili odbijaju komarce, neki od nas su prosto privlačniji od drugih. Tako moja žena miriše lepše nego ja ili ja više smrdim od nje.
Either way, mosquitoes find us in the dark by sniffing us out. They smell us. And during my PhD, I wanted to know exactly what chemicals from our skin African malaria mosquitoes use to track us down at night. And there's a whole range of compounds that they do use. And this was not going to be an easy task. And therefore we set up various experiments. Why did we set up these experiments? Because half the world's population runs the risk of contracting a killer disease like malaria through a simple mosquito bite. Every 30 seconds, somewhere on this planet, a child dies of malaria, and Paul Levy this morning, he was talking about the metaphor of the 727 crashing into the United States. Well, in Africa, we have the equivalent of seven jumbo 747s crashing every day. But perhaps if we can attract these mosquitoes to traps, bait it with our smell, we may be able to stop transmission of disease.
U svakom slučaju, komarci nas nađu u mraku tako što nas njuše. Namirišu nas. I u toku mog doktorata, hteo sam da znam tačno koje hemikalije iz naše kože komarci koriste, afrički malarični komarci, da nas nađu noću. I ima čitav niz jedinjenja koje koriste. Izgledalo je da to neće biti lak zadatak. I zbog toga, sproveli smo razne eksperimente. Zašto smo sproveli ove eksperimente? Zato što je polovina svetskog stanovništva pod rizikom da dobije smrtonosnu bolest kao što je malarija putem običnog ujeda komarca. Svakih 30 sekundi negde na ovoj planeti umre jedno dete od malarije i Pol Levi je jutros govorio o metafori Boinga 727 koji se ruši u Sjedinjenim Državama. U Africi imamo ekvivalent od sedam džambo džetova 747 koji se ruše svakog dana. Ali možda, ako bismo mogli da privučemo ove komarce u zamke, namamimo ih našim mirisom, možda ćemo uspeti da zaustavimo prenošenje zaraze.
Now, solving this puzzle was not an easy thing, because we produce hundreds of different chemicals on the skin, but we undertook some remarkable experiments that managed us to resolve this puzzle very quickly indeed.
Rešenje ove zagonetke nije bilo lako zato što proizvodimo stotine raznih hemikalija na koži, ali smo sproveli neke neobične eksperimente koji su nam omogućili da rešimo ovu zagonetku veoma brzo.
First, we observed that not all mosquito species bite on the same part of the body. Strange. So we set up an experiment where we put a naked volunteer in a large cage,
Prvo smo gledali da ne ujedaju sve vrste komaraca isti deo tela. Čudno. Tako da smo izveli eksperiment gde smo stavili nagog dobrovoljca u veliki kavez
(Laughter)
i u taj kavez pustili komarce
and in that cage, we released mosquitoes to see where they were biting on the body of that person. And we found some remarkable differences. On the left here you see the bites by the Dutch malaria mosquito on this person. They had a very strong preference for biting on the face. In contrast, the African malaria mosquito had a very strong preference for biting the ankles and feet of this person. And that, of course, we should have known all along, because they're called mosqui-toes, you see?
da vidimo koji deo tela te osobe ujedaju. I otkrili smo neke neobične razlike. Ovde levo vidite ujede holandskog malaričnog komarca na ovoj osobi. Oni su veoma naginjali ka ujedanju lica. Nasuprot tome, afrički malarični komarac je veoma naginjao ka ujedanju za članke i stopala ove osobe i to je naravno trebalo već da znamo jer se oni zovu "mosqui-toes" (toes - prsti na nogama), vidite? (Smeh)
(Laughter)
That's right.
Tako je. (Aplauz)
(Applause)
I tako smo počeli da se fokusiramo na miris stopala,
And so we started focusing on the smell of feet ... on the smell of human feet, until we came across a remarkable statement in the literature that said that cheese smells after feet rather than the reverse. Think of it. And this triggered us to do a remarkable experiment. We tried, with a tiny little piece of Limburger cheese, which smells badly after feet, to attract African malaria mosquitoes. And you know what? It worked. In fact, it worked so well that now we have a synthetic mixture of the aroma of Limburger cheese that we're using in Tanzania and has been shown there to be two to three times more attractive to mosquitoes than humans. Limburg, be proud of your cheese, as it is now used in the fight against malaria.
na miris ljudskih stopala, sve dok nismo naišli na neobičnu izjavu u literaturi koja kaže da sir miriše na noge, a ne obrnuto. Razmislite o tome. I ovo nas je podstaklo da napravimo neobičan eksperiment. Probali smo, sa komadićem limburškog sira, koji gadno smrdi na noge, da privučemo afričke malarične komarce. I znate šta? Uspelo je. U stvari, uspelo je tako dobro da sada imamo sintetičku mešavinu arome limburškog sira koji smo koristili u Tanzaniji i tamo se pokazalo da je dva do tri puta privlačniji komarcima nego što su to ljudi. Limburg, budi ponosan na svoj sir, jer se on sada koristi u borbi protiv malarije.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
That's the cheese, just to show you.
Ovo je taj sir, samo da vam pokažem.
My second story is remarkable as well. It's about man's best friend. It's about dogs. And I will show you how we can use dogs in the fight against malaria. One of the best ways of killing mosquitoes is not to wait until they fly around like adults and bite people and transmit disease. It's to kill them when they're still in the water as larvae. Why? Because they are just like the CIA. In that pool of water, these larvae are concentrated. They're all together there. They are immobile. They can't escape from that water. They can't fly. And they're accessible. You can actually walk up to that pool and you can kill them there, right?
Moja druga priča je isto tako neobična. Ona je o čovekovom najboljem prijatelju. O psima. I ja ću vam pokazati kako možemo da koristimo pse u borbi protiv malarije. Jedan od najboljih načina za ubijanje komaraca nije da čekamo dok ne počnu da lete kao odrasli i ujedaju ljude i prenose bolest, već da ih ubijemo dok se još nalaze u vodi kao larve. Zašto? Jer su oni baš kao CIA. U toj bari su ove larve koncentrisane. Sve zajedno su ovde. Nepokretne su. Ne mogu da pobegnu iz te vode. Ne mogu da lete. I pristupačne su. Možete da došetate do te bare i ubijete ih tu, zar ne?
So the problem that we face with this is that, throughout the landscape, all these pools of water with the larvae, they are scattered all over the place, which makes it very hard for an inspector like this to actually find all these breeding sites and treat them with insecticides. And last year we thought very, very hard, how can we resolve this problem? Until we realized that just like us -- we have a unique smell -- mosquito larvae also have a very unique smell.
Problem sa kojim se ovde suočavamo je taj da su, širom predela, sve ove bare sa larvama razbacane na sve strane, što znatno otežava nadzorniku poput ovog da nađe sva ova legla i poprska ih insekticidima. I prošle godine smo razmišljali intenzivno kako da rešimo ovaj problem. Dok nismo shvatili da kao što mi imamo jedinstven miris, tako i larve komarca imaju vrlo jedinstven miris.
And so we set up another crazy experiment, because we collected the smell of these larvae, put it on pieces of cloth, and then did something very remarkable. Here we have a bar with four holes and we put the smell of these larvae in the left hole. Oh, that was very quick. And then you see the dog. It's called Tweed. It's a border collie. He's examining these holes and now he's got it already. He's going back to check the control holes again, but he's coming back to the first one, and now he's locking into that smell, which means that now, we can use dogs with these inspectors to much better find the breeding sites of mosquitoes in the field, and therefore have a much bigger impact on malaria. This lady is Ellen van der Zweep. She's one of the best dog trainers in the world, and she believes that we can do a lot more. Since we also know that people that carry malaria parasites smell different compared to people that are uninfected, she's convinced that we can train dogs to find people that carry the parasite. That means that in a population where malaria has gone down all the way and there's few people remaining with parasites, that the dogs can find these people, we can treat them with antimalarial drugs and give the final blow to malaria. Man's best friend in the fight against malaria.
I tako smo izveli još jedan ludi eksperiment, zato što smo pokupili miris ovih larvi, stavili ga na komade tkanine i onda uradili nešto vrlo neobično. Ovde imamo gredu sa četiri rupe i stavili smo miris larvi u levu rupu. O, to je bilo brzo. I onda vidite psa. Zove se Tvid. On je Border Koli. On pretražuje ove rupe i sada je već našao. Vraća se da proveri kontrolne rupe ponovo, ali se vraća do prve, i sada pamti taj miris, što znači da sada možemo da koristimo pse sa ovim nadzornicima da mnogo lakše nađemo legla komaraca u polju i tako imamo mnogo veći uticaj na malariju. Ova dama je Elen van der Zvep. Ona je jedan od najboljih dresera pasa na svetu i ona veruje da možemo da uradimo mnogo više. Pošto znamo takođe da ljudi koji nose parazite malarije mirišu drugačije od ljudi koji nisu zaraženi, ona je ubeđena da možemo da dresiramo pse da nađu ljude koji nose parazite. To znači da u populaciji u kojoj je malarija pobeđena i malo je ljudi ostalo sa parazitima, psi mogu da nađu ove ljude, možemo ih lečiti anti-malaričnim lekovima i zadati konačan udarac malariji. Čovekov najbolji prijatelj u borbi protiv malarije.
My third story is perhaps even more remarkable ... and, I should say, has never been shown to the public until today.
Moja treća priča je možda još neobičnija. i nikada do danas nije pokazana javnosti.
(Audience cheers)
Da.
Yeah. It's a crazy story, but I believe it's perhaps the best and ultimate revenge against mosquitoes ever. In fact, people have told me that now they will enjoy being bitten by mosquitoes. And the question of course is, what would make someone enjoy being bitten by mosquitoes? And the answer I have right here ... in my pocket --
Priča je luda, ali verujem da je to možda najbolja i konačna osveta komarcima. U stvari, ljudi su mi rekli da će sada uživati u ujedima komaraca. I pitanje je naravno, zbog čega bi neko uživao u ujedima komaraca? I odgovor imam upravo ovde u džepu,
(Laughter)
ako ga nađem.
if I get it. It's a tablet. A simple tablet, and when I take it with water ... it does miracles. Thank you.
To je tableta, obična tableta i kada je popijem s vodom, ona čini čuda. Hvala.
Now, let me show you how this works. Here in this box, I have a cage with several hundred hungry female mosquitoes ...
Da vam pokažem kako ovo radi. Ovde u kutiji imam kavez sa nekoliko stotina gladnih ženki komaraca
(Laughter)
that I'm just about to release.
koje ću upravo pustiti. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Šalim se, šalim se.
Just kidding, just kidding.
(Laughter)
Gurnuću ruku unutra
What I'm going to show you is, I'm gonna stick my arm into it and I will show you how quickly they will bite. There we go. Don't worry, I do this all the time in the lab. There we go. OK. Now, on the video -- on the video here, I'm going to show you exactly the same thing, except that what I'm showing you on the video happened one hour after I took the tablet. Have a look. That doesn't work. OK. Sorry about that. I'm sticking in my arm, I'm giving them a big juicy blood meal, I'm shaking them off, and we follow them through time to see these mosquitoes get very, very sick indeed, here shown in fast motion. And three hours later, what we see at the bottom of the cage is dead mosquitoes ... very dead mosquitoes. And I'm going to say, ladies and gentlemen, we have swapped the cards with mosquitoes. They don't kill us. We kill them.
i pokazaću vam koliko brzo će oni ujedati. Idemo. Ne brinite, radim ovo stalno u laboratoriji. Tako. Okej. Sada, na snimku, na video snimku, pokazaću vam upravo istu stvar, osim što se, ono što vam pokazujem na videu desilo jedan sat pošto sam popio tabletu. Pogledajte. Ovo ne radi. Izvinite. Uvlačim ruku. Dajem im veliki sočni obrok od krvi, stresam ih sa ruke i pratimo ih kroz vreme da bismo videli da se ovi komarci razboljevaju, ovde je pokazano ubrzano i tri sata kasnije vidimo na dnu kaveza mrtve komarce, potpuno mrtve komarce i reći ću, dame i gospodo, zamenili smo uloge sa komarcima. Ne ubijaju oni nas. Mi ubijamo njih.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Now --
Sada - (Smeh) -
(Laughter) Maastricht, be prepared. Now, think of what we can do with this. We can actually use this to contain outbreaks of mosquito-born diseases, of epidemics, right? And better still, imagine what would happen if, in a very large area, everyone would take these drugs, for just three weeks. That would give us an opportunity to actually eliminate malaria as a disease.
Mastriht, budi spreman. Pomislite šta možemo da uradimo sa ovim. Možemo da iskoristimo ovo da zaustavimo izbijanje zaraza koje potiču od komaraca, zar ne? I još bolje, zamislite šta bi se desilo kad bi, na jako velikom podučju, svi uzeli ovaj lek, samo na tri nedelje To bi nam dalo mogućnost da u stvari eliminišemo malariju kao bolest.
So cheese, dogs and a pill to kill mosquitoes. That's the kind of out-of-the-box science that I love doing ... for the betterment of mankind, but especially for her, so that she can grow up in a world without malaria.
Znači sir, psi i pilula za ubijanje komaraca. To je vrsta kreativne nauke koju ja volim da praktikujem, za poboljšanje čovečanstva ali naročito za nju, da bi ona mogla da odraste u svetu bez malarije. Hvala vam. (Aplauz)
Thank you.
(Applause)