When I go to parties, it doesn't usually take very long for people to find out that I'm a scientist and I study sex. And then I get asked questions. And the questions usually have a very particular format. They start with the phrase, "A friend told me," and then they end with the phrase, "Is this true?" And most of the time I'm glad to say that I can answer them, but sometimes I have to say, "I'm really sorry, but I don't know because I'm not that kind of a doctor."
每當我去參加聚會, 人們不需要多久 便會發現 我是一位科學家,還是研究性學的。 然後我就會被問一些問題。 而這些問題通常有一定相似的模式。 它們以這樣一個語句開始, “一個朋友告訴過我”, 然後他們會這樣結束這個問題, “這是真的嗎?” 大部份時間, 我為我可以解答這些問題而感到開心, 但有些時候我必須說, “對不起, 但是我的確不知道, 因為我不是做那一行的醫生。”
That is, I'm not a clinician, I'm a comparative biologist who studies anatomy. And my job is to look at lots of different species of animals and try to figure out how their tissues and organs work when everything's going right, rather than trying to figure out how to fix things when they go wrong, like so many of you. And what I do is I look for similarities and differences in the solutions that they've evolved for fundamental biological problems.
是的,我並不是臨床醫師, 我是一位學習解剖學的比較生物學家。 而我的工作便是觀察很多不同種類的物種的 軟組織和器官,然後試圖理解當 生理正常時它們是怎麼運作的, 而不是在它們出問題後 找出以及解決問題, 就像在座很多人所做的一般。 而我所做的是研究不同的物種在遇到基本的 生物問題時如何進化出一樣或者 不同的解決方式。
So today I'm here to argue that this is not at all an esoteric Ivory Tower activity that we find at our universities, but that broad study across species, tissue types and organ systems can produce insights that have direct implications for human health. And this is true both of my recent project on sex differences in the brain, and my more mature work on the anatomy and function of penises. And now you know why I'm fun at parties.
所以今天我想說 雖然這不是一個 在我們很多的大學中都可以找到的 深奧的象牙塔學問, 但如此的關於物種, 組織以及器官系統的廣義研究 能夠產生對於人類健康有著 直接影響的信息。 而這點對於我近期的學習 不同性別的大腦區別的項目來說, 又或者我研究時間更長的 關於陰莖的解剖結構以及功能,都是成立的。 現在你知道我爲什麽在聚會中很受歡迎。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So today I'm going to give you an example drawn from my penis study to show you how knowledge drawn from studies of one organ system provided insights into a very different one. Now I'm sure as everyone in the audience already knows -- I did have to explain it to my nine-year-old late last week -- penises are structures that transfer sperm from one individual to another. And the slide behind me barely scratches the surface of how widespread they are in animals. There's an enormous amount of anatomical variation. You find muscular tubes, modified legs, modified fins, as well as the mammalian fleshy, inflatable cylinder that we're all familiar with -- or at least half of you are.
今天我將介紹一個從我的陰莖研究中 得出來的例子, 來告訴你們從 一個器官系統的研究中得到的知識 是如何提供另外一個完全不同的系統的信息的。 現在,就像在座的各位已經知道的 -- 上個星期我需要像我的9歲的小孩解釋 -- 陰莖的作用便是將精液從 一個人傳送到另外一個人。 而在我身後的幻燈片 未介紹到在自然界中這種現象發生的 頻率的千萬分之一。 它有著很大的結構差異。 你會找到肌肉管道,改造過的腿,改造過的鳍, 又或者是我們所熟悉的哺乳動物的肉質的, 可膨脹的圓柱體 -- 至少你們中間的一半吧。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)·
And I think we see this tremendous variation because it's a really effective solution to a very basic biological problem, and that is getting sperm in a position to meet up with eggs and form zygotes. Now the penis isn't actually required for internal fertiliztion, but when internal fertilization evolves, penises often follow.
而我們相信我們所看到的這種巨大的差異的原因 在於讓精子在一個特定的位置 遇到卵子并成為受精卵 是解決一個非常基本的生物問題的 一個很有效的辦法。 體內受精并不一定需要陰莖, 但當體內受精進化的時候, 陰莖通常緊隨其後。
And the question I get when I start talking about this most often is, "What made you interested in this subject?" And the answer is skeletons. You wouldn't think that skeletons and penises have very much to do with one another. And that's because we tend to think of skeletons as stiff lever systems that produce speed or power. And my first forays into biological research, doing dinosaur paleontology as an undergraduate, were really squarely in that realm.
而每當我講到這個話題,我得到的最多的問題是, “是什麽讓你對這個話題科感興趣的?” 而答案是骨骼。 你可能覺得骨骼和陰莖 并沒有什麽共同之處。 那是因為我們仍然覺得骨骼是 一種產生速度和力量的 杠杆系統。 而我在生物學做的最初的研究之一, 在本科是學習恐龍古生物學, 便是在這個範圍之內。
But when I went to graduate school to study biomechanics, I really wanted to find a dissertation project that would expand our knowledge of skeletal function. I tried a bunch of different stuff. A lot of it didn't pan out. But then one day I started thinking about the mammalian penis. And it's really an odd sort of structure. Before it can be used for internal fertilization, its mechanical behavior has to change in a really dramatic fashion. Most of the time it's a flexible organ. It's easy to bend. But before it's brought into use during copulation it has to become rigid, it has to become difficult to bend. And moreover, it has to work. A reproductive system that fails to function produces an individual that has no offspring, and that individual is then kicked out of the gene pool.
但當我在研究生是學習生物力學時, 我非常想找到一個可以增加我們對於 骨骼功能的知識的項目。 我嘗試很多不同的東西。 有很多都沒有成功。 但有一天我想到了 哺乳動物的陰莖。 它其實有一個很奇怪的構造。 在它能為體內受精做出貢獻之前, 它的機械運作必須 有跨越性的變化。 大部份時間它都是一個靈活的器官。 它很容易彎曲。 但在它可以在交配中 被使用之前 它必須變的堅硬, 並且難以彎曲。 更重要的,它必須可以工作。 一個不可以使用的生殖系統 帶來的是一個不能生育下一代的個體。 而這個個體會被從基因庫中被剔除。
And so I thought, "Here's a problem that just cries out for a skeletal system -- not one like this one, but one like this one -- because, functionally, a skeleton is any system that supports tissue and transmits forces. And I already knew that animals like this earthworm, indeed most animals, don't support their tissues by draping them over bones. Instead they're more like reinforced water balloons. They use a skeleton that we call a hydrostatic skeleton. And a hydrostatic skeleton uses two elements. The skeletal support comes from an interaction between a pressurized fluid and a surrounding wall of tissue that's held in tension and reinforced with fibrous proteins. And the interaction is crucial. Without both elements you have no support. If you have fluid with no wall to surround it and keep pressure up, you have a puddle. And if you have just the wall with no fluid inside of it to put the wall in tension, you've got a little wet rag.
所以我想到,“這個問題 似乎完全需要一個骨骼系統的解決方式 -- 不是像這樣的, 而是像這樣的 -- 因為,功能上來說, 一個骨骼是任何可以 支撐軟組織并傳送力的系統。 而我已經知道像蚯蚓一樣的動物, 事實上大部份動物, 都不不用骨頭來 支撐它們的軟組織。 反之,它們更像加強后的水氣球般。 它們用一個我們稱為铃静力骨架的骨骼系統。 而一個铃静力骨架 有著兩個要素。 骨骼支撐性來自一種壓縮后的液體 以及它周圍的組織牆壁 的互相影響 產生的拉力,并被纖維性蛋白質加強。 而這種相互影響非常重要。 兩者少一而你便不會有支撐力。 如果你有液體, 但沒有環繞的可以產生 壓力的墻, 你有的只是水坑。 但如果你只有墻 而裏面沒有液體對墻造成壓力, 你只有一個微濕的架構。
When you look at a penis in cross section, it has a lot of the hallmarks of a hydrostatic skeleton. It has a central space of spongy erectile tissue that fills with fluid -- in this case blood -- surrounded by a wall of tissue that's rich in a stiff structural protein called collagen.
當你觀察陰莖的橫切面時, 它有很多铃静力骨架 的特徵。 它的中心空間中 有一個充滿了液體的 可勃起海綿體軟組織 -- 血液 -- 被有著豐富的結構性膠原蛋白 的軟組織墻包圍。
But at the time when I started this project, the best explanation I could find for penal erection was that the wall surrounded these spongy tissues, and the spongy tissues filled with blood and pressure rose and voila! it became erect.
但當我開始這個研究課題的時候, 我可以找到的最好的陰莖勃起的理由是 因為包住海綿體組織的肉壁 在海綿體組織充血時 與它產生壓力然後造成勃起。
And that explained to me expansion -- made sense: more fluid, you get tissues that expand -- but it didn't actually explain erection. Because there was no mechanism in this explanation for making this structure hard to bend. And no one had systematically looked at the wall tissue. So I thought, wall tissue's important in skeletons. It has to be part of the explanation.
而這個現象解釋了擴張 -- 軟組織因為充斥更多的液體而膨脹 -- 但它其實並不解釋勃起的現象。 因為在這個解釋中并沒有任何一個可以 讓這個結構變堅硬的途徑。 而之前沒有人系統的觀察過構成牆壁的組織。 所以我想,壁組織在骨骼中很重要。 它肯定也在這裡有著重要的功用。
And this was the point at which my graduate adviser said, "Whoa! Hold on. Slow down." Because after about six months of me talking about this, I think he finally figured out that I was really serious about the penis thing.
而在這點上 我的導師說, “等等,慢點。” 因為在我6個月中斷斷續續的談起這個話題后, 我想他終於明白 我對這個陰莖的項目是很認真的。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So he sat me down, and he warned me. He was like, "Be careful going down this path. I'm not sure this project's going to pan out." Because he was afraid I was walking into a trap. I was taking on a socially embarrassing question with an answer that he thought might not be particularly interesting. And that was because every hydrostatic skeleton that we had found in nature up to that point had the same basic elements. It had the central fluid, it had the surrounding wall, and the reinforcing fibers in the wall were arranged in crossed helices around the long axis of the skeleton.
所以他讓我坐下,然後他提醒了我。 他說,“決定這麼做之前先想清楚了。 我不確定這個項目是否會有結果。” 因為我怕我正在走入一個圈套。 我想挑戰一個在社會上尷尬的問題, 而他覺得這個問題的答案 不怎麼會有意義。 而這時因為 到目前為止,我們 在自然中找到的每一個铃静力骨架 都有著同樣的元素。 它有著一個中央液體, 環繞的組織壁, 並且組織壁中的強化纖維 都已交叉螺旋結構排列在 骨骼的長軸上。
So the image behind me shows a piece of tissue in one of these cross helical skeletons cut so that you're looking at the surface of the wall. The arrow shows you the long axis. And you can see two layers of fibers, one in blue and one in yellow, arranged in left-handed and right-handed angles. And if you weren't just looking at a little section of the fibers, those fibers would be going in helices around the long axis of the skeleton -- something like a Chinese finger trap, where you stick your fingers in and they get stuck.
在我身後的圖片 是一個當你 切開組織并看著它的表面時 這種交叉螺旋骨骼組織的樣子。 箭頭指的是長軸。 你可以看到兩層纖維, 一個藍色一個黃色, 以左手和右手角度排列著。 而如果你不只是看一小片纖維的切面, 這些纖維會已螺旋的方式 包圍著骨骼的長軸 -- 有點像中國指套, 當你將手指放入時它會被卡住。
And these skeletons have a particular set of behaviors, which I'm going to demonstrate in a film. It's a model skeleton that I made out of a piece of cloth that I wrapped around an inflated balloon. The cloth's cut on the bias. So you can see that the fibers wrap in helices, and those fibers can reorient as the skeleton moves, which means the skeleton's flexible. It lengthens, shortens and bends really easily in response to internal or external forces.
而這些骨骼有一套特殊的行為, 我將在以下的短片中展示它。 這是一個 我用一張布料纏繞著一個充氣了的氣球 做成的骨骼模型。 布料是斜裁的。 所以你可以看到纖維以螺旋式纏繞, 而這些纖維可以在骨骼運動時重新適應, 所以骨骼是柔韌的。 在內部或者外部的力下, 它可以輕易的拉長,縮短以及彎曲。
Now my adviser's concern was what if the penile wall tissue is just the same as any other hydrostatic skeleton. What are you going to contribute? What new thing are you contributing to our knowledge of biology? And I thought, "Yeah, he does have a really good point here." So I spent a long, long time thinking about it. And one thing kept bothering me, and that's, when they're functioning, penises don't wiggle. (Laughter) So something interesting had to be going on.
而我的導師的擔憂便是 陰莖的壁組織會和 其他的铃静力骨架結構 一樣。 你對這方面的知識可以貢獻什麽呢? 你對生物的知識 可以貢獻什麽新的信息嗎? 我想,“他的想法的確是對的。” 所以我花了很長很長的時間去思考這件事。 但有一件事情持續的困擾著我, 那就是,當它在運作的時候, 陰莖們不會擺動。 (笑聲) 所以這裏面肯定有什麽有意思的事情。
So I went ahead, collected wall tissue, prepared it so it was erect, sectioned it, put it on slides and then stuck it under the microscope to have a look, fully expecting to see crossed helices of collagen of some variety. But instead I saw this. There's an outer layer and an inner layer. The arrow shows you the long axis of the skeleton.
所以我決定繼續,收集了壁組織, 將它預備成勃起時的狀態, 橫切了它,把它放在玻璃片下 然後放在顯微鏡下來觀察, 完全的指望著看到類似交叉螺旋形的膠原蛋白排列。 但我卻看到了這個。 它有著一個外層和一個內層。 箭頭指出骨骼的長軸。
I was really surprised at this. Everyone I showed it was really surprised at this. Why was everyone surprised at this? That's because we knew theoretically that there was another way of arranging fibers in a hydrostatic skeleton, and that was with fibers at zero degrees and 90 degrees to the long axis of the structure. The thing is, no one had ever seen it before in nature. And now I was looking at one.
我被這驚訝到了。 每個看到的人 都很驚訝。 爲什麽每個人都很訝異? 那是因為我們知道另外一種 理論上的 铃静力骨架的纖維排列方式, 那就是當纖維以和物體長軸的0度 和90度的角度排列。 但是沒有人在自然中觀察到過這種結構。 而現在我正在看著它。
Those fibers in that particular orientation give the skeleton a very, very different behavior. I'm going to show a model made out of exactly the same materials. So it'll be made of the same cotton cloth, same balloon, same internal pressure. But the only difference is that the fibers are arranged differently. And you'll see that, unlike the cross helical model, this model resists extension and contraction and resists bending.
這些在這種特殊的排列方向的纖維 帶給骨骼一種完全不同的行為。 讓我來展示一個 用完全一樣的材料製作的模型。 一樣的棉布料, 一樣的氣球,一樣的內部壓力。 而唯一不同的是 纖維的排列方式的不同。 而你可以看到,不像交叉螺旋的模型, 這個模型抗拒拉長,收縮, 以及彎曲。
Now what that tells us is that wall tissues are doing so much more than just covering the vascular tissues. They're an integral part of the penile skeleton. If the wall around the erectile tissue wasn't there, if it wasn't reinforced in this way, the shape would change, but the inflated penis would not resist bending, and erection simply wouldn't work.
而這告訴我們 壁組織不僅僅是 覆蓋著微管組織。 它們是陰莖骨骼中很重要的一部份。 如果勃起組織周圍的壁組織不在, 或者它是以另外一種方式加強的, 它的形狀會不同, 但充血的陰莖不會抗拒彎曲, 勃起也不會成功。
It's an observation with obvious medical applications in humans as well, but it's also relevant in a broad sense, I think, to the design of prosthetics, soft robots, basically anything where changes of shape and stiffness are important.
這個觀察也對人類有著 明顯的醫療運用, 但我覺得他們在廣義上也很重要, 比如義肢的設計,軟機器人, 基本上所有的 形狀和硬度的改變很重要的東西。
So to sum up: Twenty years ago, I had a college adviser tell me, when I went to the college and said, "I'm kind of interested in anatomy," they said, "Anatomy's a dead science." He couldn't have been more wrong. I really believe that we still have a lot to learn about the normal structure and function of our bodies. Not just about its genetics and molecular biology, but up here in the meat end of the scale. We've got limits on our time. We often focus on one disease, one model, one problem, but my experience suggests that we should take the time to apply ideas broadly between systems and just see where it takes us. After all, if ideas about invertebrate skeletons can give us insights about mammalian reproductive systems, there could be lots of other wild and productive connections lurking out there just waiting to be found.
所以,結論便是: 20年前, 一個大學顧問在我 上大學并說, “我對解剖學有些感興趣,”時 對我說,“解剖學已經新的發現的需要了。” 他不能更錯了。 我真心相信我們仍然有很多 關於普通結構以及我們身體的運作可以學到的東西。 不僅僅是它的基因以及分子生物學, 反之,在肌肉的等級。 我們的時間有限。 我們通常專注于一種疾病, 一種模型,一個問題, 但我的經驗告訴我 我們應該花更多時間在 不同的系統中廣義運用我們的想法 來看有什麽新的結果。 畢竟,如果關於無骨骨骼的想法 可以給我們關於 哺乳動物生殖系統的領悟, 那便可能有更多的奇怪但有用的聯繫 等著我們的發掘。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)