In the spirit of Jacques Cousteau, who said, "People protect what they love," I want to share with you today what I love most in the ocean, and that's the incredible number and variety of animals in it that make light.
雅克 库拉多曾经说过: “人们都会保护自己所喜爱的事物。“ 本着这样的精神,我想将我的海洋之爱与你分享。 那就是这些品种繁多,不计其数的 会发光的海洋生物。
My addiction began with this strange looking diving suit called Wasp; that's not an acronym -- just somebody thought it looked like the insect. It was actually developed for use by the offshore oil industry for diving on oil rigs down to a depth of 2,000 feet. Right after I completed my Ph.D., I was lucky enough to be included with a group of scientists that was using it for the first time as a tool for ocean exploration. We trained in a tank in Port Hueneme, and then my first open ocean dive was in Santa Barbara Channel. It was an evening dive. I went down to a depth of 880 feet and turned out the lights. And the reason I turned out the lights is because I knew I would see this phenomenon of animals making light called bioluminescence. But I was totally unprepared for how much there was and how spectacular it was. I saw chains of jellyfish called siphonophores that were longer than this room, pumping out so much light that I could read the dials and gauges inside the suit without a flashlight; and puffs and billows of what looked like luminous blue smoke; and explosions of sparks that would swirl up out of the thrusters -- just like when you throw a log on a campfire and the embers swirl up off the campfire, but these were icy, blue embers. It was breathtaking.
我对海洋的热爱始于这件怪模样的,名为Wasp(黄蜂)的潜水衣, 这并不是首字母缩略词,只是有人觉得它长得像黄蜂。 实际上它是由海上石油工业开发, 用于海下2000英尺油井作业的潜水服。 当我刚博士毕业 我有幸加入一个科研小组。 这个科研小组首次将这种潜水服 应用于探索海洋。 我们在休尼梅港的一个水池中接受了训练, 接着我的第一次公海潜水 就在圣巴巴拉海峡开始了。 这是一次夜间潜水, 到达海下880英尺, 我就关掉了所有的灯光。 之所以关灯是因为我知道我将看到 生物体发光的现象 科学上称为“生物性光” 但它的壮观程度 和绚丽多彩 是远远出乎我的意料的。 我看到了名为“管水母”的水母链, 比这屋子的长度还长。 它们发出相当多的光, 即使潜水器里没有灯光, 我也能读出拨号盘和测量仪的数据。 还有或大或小的云状发光体 看起来就像是明亮蓝雾一样, 也有一些像是从助推器涡旋而出的 火光。 这些火光就像你把一根木头扔进篝火中,火花四溅, 但不同的是这些是冰冷的蓝色火花。 让人兴奋不已。
Now, usually if people are familiar with bioluminescence at all, it's these guys; it's fireflies. And there are a few other land-dwellers that can make light -- some insects, earthworms, fungi -- but in general, on land, it's really rare. In the ocean, it's the rule rather than the exception. If I go out in the open ocean environment, virtually anywhere in the world, and I drag a net from 3,000 feet to the surface, most of the animals -- in fact, in many places, 80 to 90 percent of the animals that I bring up in that net -- make light. This makes for some pretty spectacular light shows.
通常熟悉生物性光这个概念的人知道的, 是这些小东西,萤火虫, 以及少数陆居生物, 比如某些昆虫,蚯蚓和真菌等。 总体来说,陆居发光生物体是很少见的。 但在海洋里,这是生存法则, 并非特例。 试想,我进到公海区域, 世界上哪里的海域都可以, 在海峡3000英尺处撒张网,一直拽上海面, 大多数捕到的生物, 实际上,在很多地方, 80%-90%捕到的生物 都可以发光。 这足以组成一场盛大的灯展了。
Now I want to share with you a little video that I shot from a submersible. I first developed this technique working from a little single-person submersible called Deep Rover and then adapted it for use on the Johnson Sea-Link, which you see here. So, mounted in front of the observation sphere, there's a a three-foot diameter hoop with a screen stretched across it. And inside the sphere with me is an intensified camera that's about as sensitive as a fully dark-adapted human eye, albeit a little fuzzy. So you turn on the camera, turn out the lights. That sparkle you're seeing is not luminescence, that's just electronic noise on these super intensified cameras. You don't see luminescence until the submersible begins to move forward through the water, but as it does, animals bumping into the screen are stimulated to bioluminesce.
接下来我想分享一段 我从潜水器里拍摄的短片。 首先我将这项技术应用于 名为“深海漫游者”的单人潜水器上, 随后便运用于你现在所看到的 琼森海洋连接器 请看,安装在观察区前的是 一个直径为三英尺的铁环, 环上铺设了一层屏幕。 在潜水器内我架设了一架高敏相机, 其敏感度不亚于完全适应黑暗的人眼 唯一美中不足的是图像稍微有一点模糊。 然后打开摄像机,关上光设备 你现在看到的并不是生物性光, 是高敏相机上的 电子噪音。 当潜水器在水中前行时 就可以看到荧光了。 但正如所设计的那样,这些生物无意中撞到屏幕上 受了刺激而发了光。
Now, when I was first doing this, all I was trying to do was count the numbers of sources. I knew my forward speed, I knew the area, and so I could figure out how many hundreds of sources there were per cubic meter. But I started to realize that I could actually identify animals by the type of flashes they produced. And so, here, in the Gulf of Maine at 740 feet, I can name pretty much everything you're seeing there to the species level. Like those big explosions, sparks, are from a little comb jelly, and there's krill and other kinds of crustaceans, and jellyfish. There was another one of those comb jellies. And so I've worked with computer image analysis engineers to develop automatic recognition systems that can identify these animals and then extract the XYZ coordinate of the initial impact point. And we can then do the kinds of things that ecologists do on land, and do nearest neighbor distances.
起初使用设备拍摄时, 我只想去统计发光体的数量。 我知道潜水器的前行速度,也知道(这个屏幕的)面积 我就能算出 每立方米有几万个发光体。 后来我开始意识到,我能通过这些发光体所产生的不同类型的光 去辨别这些生物的种类。 然后我就这样做了, 缅因湾海下740英尺, 你能看到的发光生物我差不多都能叫出它们的种类 比如这些大爆炸,蓝焰 都来自一种小栉水母。 还有这些是磷虾,甲壳类动物 以及水母, 这里看到的也是栉水母的一种。 接着我和计算机图形分析工程师合作, 共同开发出一种自动识别系统, 这个系统能够辨别出这些生物种类, 并提取原始碰撞点的立体坐标。 然后就能和生态学家研究陆地生物一样(来研究海洋生物), 做最邻近搜索(NNS)。
But you don't always have to go down to the depths of the ocean to see a light show like this. You can actually see it in surface waters. This is some shot, by Dr. Mike Latz at Scripps Institution, of a dolphin swimming through bioluminescent plankton. And this isn't someplace exotic like one of the bioluminescent bays in Puerto Rico, this was actually shot in San Diego Harbor. And sometimes you can see it even closer than that, because the heads on ships -- that's toilets, for any land lovers that are listening -- are flushed with unfiltered seawater that often has bioluminescent plankton in it. So, if you stagger into the head late at night and you're so toilet-hugging sick that you forget to turn on the light, you may think that you're having a religious experience. (Laughter)
但你不必为看这些灯展 而总潜到深海去。 实际上水面上就可以了。 这是由SCRIPPS机构的麦克 拉兹博士拍摄的一段 海豚在发光浮游生物间穿行的录像。 而且拍摄地也不像PURTO RICO湾 有那么多奇特怪异的发光体。 实际上这段录像拍摄于圣地亚哥港。 其实你还可以更近距离地观察这种发光现象。 因为“船头”(heads on ships) 对许多在听的不熟悉海上生活的人来说,其实就是厕所—— 是用未经过滤的海水来冲马桶的。里面通常 都含有发光浮游生物。 当某个晚上你跌撞的冲进厕所 难受的太厉害,恨不得抱着马桶大吐。 忘记了开灯, 那是你也许会觉得自己看到了神明下凡呢。
So, how does a living creature make light? Well, that was the question that 19th century French physiologist Raphael Dubois, asked about this bioluminescent clam. He ground it up and he managed to get out a couple of chemicals; one, the enzyme, he called luciferase; the substrate, he called luciferin after Lucifer the Lightbearer. That terminology has stuck, but it doesn't actually refer to specific chemicals because these chemicals come in a lot of different shapes and forms. In fact, most of the people studying bioluminescence today are focused on the chemistry, because these chemicals have proved so incredibly valuable for developing antibacterial agents, cancer fighting drugs, testing for the presence of life on Mars, detecting pollutants in our waters -- which is how we use it at ORCA. In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for work done on a molecule called green fluorescent protein that was isolated from the bioluminescent chemistry of a jellyfish, and it's been equated to the invention of the microscope, in terms of the impact that it has had on cell biology and genetic engineering.
那么这些生物是怎么样发光的呢。 唔,这是十九世纪研究的问题。 法国生理学家Raphael Dubois 对这些发光蛤进行了探索研究。 他将这些蛤碾碎,并成功的从中提取出几种化学物质。 其中之一是一种酶,Dubois命名为荧光素酶, 依据素有“明亮之星”之称的金星, 他将这种发现的酶作用物称之为“荧光素”。 这些化学术语沿用至今,但事实上由于这些荧光化学物质 种类繁多,形态各异,这个术语并不代表任何具体的化学物质。 其实,当代从事生物性光研究的学者 都将化学性质作为研究重点。 因为这些化学性质 在很多领域都有宝贵的应用。 比如用此开发些抗病毒药剂, 抗癌药物, 测试火星生命体迹象, 或测试生活用水中的污染物。 这项探测技术正用于ORCA。 2008年, 诺贝尔化学奖 的研究成果是一种 名为绿荧光蛋白的分子, 这种分子是从 水母的发光物质里提取出来的。 从其对细胞生物学和基因工程 的影响来看, 这无异于显微镜的发明。
Another thing all these molecules are telling us that, apparently, bioluminescence has evolved at least 40 times, maybe as many as 50 separate times in evolutionary history, which is a clear indication of how spectacularly important this trait is for survival. So, what is it about bioluminescence that's so important to so many animals? Well, for animals that are trying to avoid predators by staying in the darkness, light can still be very useful for the three basic things that animals have to do to survive: and that's find food, attract a mate and avoid being eaten. So, for example, this fish has a built-in headlight behind its eye that it can use for finding food or attracting a mate. And then when it's not using it, it actually can roll it down into its head just like the headlights on your Lamborghini. This fish actually has high beams.
所有的这些分子还告诉我们, 显然,发光性生物至少进化过40次。 有可能进化了 50次也说不定。 这也很清楚的表明, 这种发光能力, 对生存是及其重要的。 那么,究竟是什么, 使得这种生物性光对深海生物如此重要。 为了躲避捕食者, 他们躲在黑暗里。 然而为了生物体的存活, 光的重要性至少能体现在最基本的三件事上 那就是寻找食物, 吸引异性,以及躲避天敌。 请看,这条鱼眼背后 有一个内嵌灯, 可以用来发现食物 或吸引异性。 当不需要光时,鱼就能将其翻向颅内 类似你的兰博基尼汽车的车头灯。 再看这条鱼,装备的还是远光灯。
And this fish, which is one of my favorites, has three headlights on each side of its head. Now, this one is blue, and that's the color of most bioluminescence in the ocean because evolution has selected for the color that travels farthest through seawater in order to optimize communication. So, most animals make blue light, and most animals can only see blue light, but this fish is a really fascinating exception because it has two red light organs. And I have no idea why there's two, and that's something I want to solve some day -- but not only can it see blue light, but it can see red light. So it uses its red bioluminescence like a sniper's scope to be able to sneak up on animals that are blind to red light and be able to see them without being seen. It's also got a little chin barbel here with a blue luminescent lure on it that it can use to attract prey from a long way off. And a lot of animals will use their bioluminescence as a lure.
这条,也是我最喜欢的鱼之一, 头的两侧各有三个灯。 这个灯发蓝光, 蓝色也是深海生物性光最普遍的颜色。 优胜劣汰,适者生存, 蓝色是海水中传播最远的光束, 也借此来优化深海信息传播。 大部分深海生物发蓝光, 而且大多数只能看到蓝光。 但这条鱼却异常奇特 因为它有两个红光器官。 我不知道为什么是两个, 这也是我将来想研究的问题。 这样看来,他们不仅能看到蓝光, 还可以看见红光。 所以,这种生物性红光就像狙击手的瞄准仪 让这类鱼偷偷靠近看不到红光的生物, 在不被看见的情况下, 看见其他生物。 在这,下巴须这还有一个蓝色诱饵, 在这,下巴须这还有一个蓝色诱饵, 借此来吸引远距离猎物。 其实很多生物都用它们的生物性光来吸引猎物。
This is another one of my favorite fish. This is a viperfish, and it's got a lure on the end of a long fishing rod that it arches in front of the toothy jaw that gives the viperfish its name. The teeth on this fish are so long that if they closed inside the mouth of the fish, it would actually impale its own brain. So instead, it slides in grooves on the outside of the head. This is a Christmas tree of a fish; everything on this fish lights up, it's not just that lure. It's got a built-in flashlight. It's got these jewel-like light organs on its belly that it uses for a type of camouflage that obliterates its shadow, so when it's swimming around and there's a predator looking up from below, it makes itself disappear. It's got light organs in the mouth, it's got light organs in every single scale, in the fins, in a mucus layer on the back and the belly, all used for different things -- some of which we know about, some of which we don't.
这是另一条我喜欢的鱼。 毒蛇鱼 在它长长背鳍上有一个捕食诱饵, 这个诱饵从它长满牙的下巴拱起, 这也是它名字的来源。 这条鱼的牙齿很长, 如果这些牙齿合在这条鱼的嘴里, 它会刺穿自己的脑袋。 所以,它的牙齿 只能在头部外滑动。 这个毒蛇鱼像一棵圣诞树, 它身上的每处都会发光。 它不光是有那个会发光的捕食诱饵, 它(还在头上)长了个手电筒。 它(还)在腹部发出这些珠宝般的亮光, 来当作一种保护色, 因为这种亮光能使它的影子消失。 当有捕食者从下往上看这条游鱼时, 它能(通过这种腹部的亮光)让自己消失。 在它的嘴内也有发光器官, 它身上每处都有发光器官, 鳍上,在背部的粘液层上,腹部等。 它们的作用都各不相同, 有些为我们所知,有些则不然。
And we know a little bit more about bioluminescence thanks to Pixar, and I'm very grateful to Pixar for sharing my favorite topic with so many people. I do wish, with their budget, that they might have spent just a tiny bit more money to pay a consulting fee to some poor, starving graduate student, who could have told them that those are the eyes of a fish that's been preserved in formalin. These are the eyes of a living anglerfish. So, she's got a lure that she sticks out in front of this living mousetrap of needle-sharp teeth in order to attract in some unsuspecting prey. And this one has a lure with all kinds of little interesting threads coming off it.
对于在生物性光研究取得的进步,要归功于皮克斯公司, 是皮克斯公司让我与大家分享我喜欢的主题。 对此,我感激不尽。 我也希望, 他们给研究生的预算可以多那么一点点。 要知道,这些经费不足,求知欲强的大学生 本来可以向他们展示这些 保存在福尔马林里的鱼眼。 这是一条活琵琶鱼(安康鱼)的眼睛。 她有针尖的牙齿, 活像一个生物捕鼠器。 它的发光器官从牙齿上突出, 从而吸引这些未设防的猎物。 这条鱼的发光器官 是从这里穿出的针,相当有意思。
Now we used to think that the different shape of the lure was to attract different types of prey, but then stomach content analyses on these fish done by scientists, or more likely their graduate students, have revealed that they all eat pretty much the same thing. So, now we believe that the different shape of the lure is how the male recognizes the female in the anglerfish world, because many of these males are what are known as dwarf males. This little guy has no visible means of self-support. He has no lure for attracting food and no teeth for eating it when it gets there. His only hope for existence on this planet is as a gigolo. (Laughter) He's got to find himself a babe and then he's got to latch on for life. So this little guy has found himself this babe, and you will note that he's had the good sense to attach himself in a way that he doesn't actually have to look at her. (Laughter) But he still knows a good thing when he sees it, and so he seals the relationship with an eternal kiss. His flesh fuses with her flesh, her bloodstream grows into his body, and he becomes nothing more than a little sperm sac. (Laughter) Well, this is a deep-sea version of Women's Lib. She always knows where he is, and she doesn't have to be monogamous, because some of these females come up with multiple males attached.
我们过去认为这些形状各异的发光器光 是为吸引不同类型的猎物. 但科学家,更多的是他们的研究生, 对这些鱼的内容物进行分析, 发现 他们吃的东西几乎一模一样。 所以现在我们认为在琵琶鱼上这些不同类型的发光器官, 是为了让雄性鱼能够 识别雌性鱼的。 因为很多雄性鱼 都有"侏儒男"之称。 这些小东西 没有可见的自给工具。 他们没有诱饵吸引食物, 即使食物就在嘴边,他们也没牙去咬。 在这种环境里,他的一线生机 就是吃软饭。 他要为自己找到一个 可以依附一生的伴侣。 自然, 这个小东西找到了伴侣, 你会注意到,这条矮雄鱼还挺聪明的,“他“这么一粘上去, 这辈子“他“连瞅也不用瞅“她“了。 (笑) 但当他看到雌鱼时,他还是挺积极的。 他通过给她一个永恒的“吻“, 通过和她血肉相连, 巩固下它们之间的联系。 他现在活似一个精囊了。 (笑) 嗯,这是妇女解放运动的深海版。 雌鱼总知道雄鱼的所在, 而且她也不需要嫁夫随夫, 因为很多雄鱼都会依附于 一条雌鱼。
So they can use it for finding food, for attracting mates. They use it a lot for defense, many different ways. A lot of them can release their luciferin or luferase in the water just the way a squid or an octopus will release an ink cloud. This shrimp is actually spewing light out of its mouth like a fire breathing dragon in order to blind or distract this viperfish so that the shrimp can swim away into the darkness. And there are a lot of different animals that can do this: There's jellyfish, there's squid, there's a whole lot of different crustaceans,
所以说,这些生物会利用发光特性来寻找食物,吸引异性。 更多的是它们用发光特性来防御天敌,具体的方法多种多样。 许多生物都能释放他们的荧光素,或者荧光酶 就好像乌贼或章鱼释放的墨团。 很神奇,这条虾 会从嘴里射出一道光, 像喷火龙一样, 这样毒蛇鱼就看不见了,或者注意力被分散了。 然后这条虾就能蹿回黑暗里。 很多种类各异的生物都有这种能力。 水母,章鱼, 以及各种各样的甲壳类生物。
there's even fish that can do this. This fish is called the shining tubeshoulder because it actually has a tube on its shoulder that can squirt out light. And I was luck enough to capture one of these when we were on a trawling expedition off the northwest coast of Africa for "Blue Planet," for the deep portion of "Blue Planet." And we were using a special trawling net that we were able to bring these animals up alive. So we captured one of these, and I brought it into the lab. So I'm holding it, and I'm about to touch that tube on its shoulder, and when I do, you'll see bioluminescence coming out. But to me, what's shocking is not just the amount of light, but the fact that it's not just luciferin and luciferase. For this fish, it's actually whole cells with nuclei and membranes. It's energetically very costly for this fish to do this, and we have no idea why it does it -- another one of these great mysteries that needs to be solved.
甚至鱼类也有这种能力。 这条鱼被称为“光亮肩管”鱼。 因为在它的肩上 有一个能喷光的管子。 我很有幸能捕到这样一条鱼 那是在非洲西北岸进行的一次捕捞作业, 是为了(探索频道的)“蓝色星球”的节目做的。 准确地说是“蓝色星球”节目的深海探险部分。 当时我们使用了一种特殊的捕捞网, 这些网可以把生物活着捞上来。 我们这样捕捞到了这条鱼。我把它带进了实验室。 这是我正捉着它, 我现在要触碰它肩上的管子, 当碰到以后,大家就看到有生物光流出来。 对我来说,让我惊讶的 不只是有大量的光喷出, 而是,这些光不仅仅是由荧光素和荧光素酶组成, 这些鱼喷出的, 是具有细胞核和细胞膜的完整细胞。 这样看来,喷光对这条鱼来说是极其消耗能量的, 我们也不明白为什么它要这样做, 这也是需要解决的谜团之一。
Now, another form of defense is something called a burglar alarm -- same reason you have a burglar alarm on your car; the honking horn and flashing lights are meant to attract the attention of, hopefully, the police that will come and take the burglar away -- when an animal's caught in the clutches of a predator, its only hope for escape may be to attract the attention of something bigger and nastier that will attack their attacker, thereby affording them a chance for escape. This jellyfish, for example, has a spectacular bioluminescent display. This is us chasing it in the submersible. That's not luminescence, that's reflected light from the gonads. We capture it in a very special device on the front of the submersible that allows us to bring it up in really pristine condition, bring it into the lab on the ship. And then to generate the display you're about to see, all I did was touch it once per second on its nerve ring with a sharp pick that's sort of like the sharp tooth of a fish. And once this display gets going, I'm not touching it anymore. This is an unbelievable light show. It's this pinwheel of light, and I've done calculations that show that this could be seen from as much as 300 feet away by a predator. And I thought, "You know, that might actually make a pretty good lure." Because one of the things that's frustrated me as a deep-sea explorer is how many animals there probably are in the ocean that we know nothing about because of the way we explore the ocean.
另外, 还有一种名为“防盗警钟”的防御模式。 因为它的原理同你私家车上的防盗报警器是一样的。 鸣笛和闪灯, 满怀希望地想吸引警察的注意, 警察来了就可以带走这个偷车贼。 当一个生物落入它的天敌的魔爪中, 这个生物唯一的潜逃机会 就是去吸引更大的,更危险的, 能够袭击自己天敌的生物, 这样就能为他们提供潜逃机会。 比如这条水母, 上演了一场精彩的发光秀。 这是我们在潜水器里的追捕画面, 这里(你看到)的光并不是生物性光,而是来自生殖腺的反射光。 我们在潜水器前方安装了一种特殊的装置来捕捉水母, 这个装置能让我们捕获最原始状态的水母, 并带到船上的实验室。 然后就产生了大家即将看到的。 我用像鱼牙齿一样的尖状物, 以每秒一次的频率 去刺激它的神经环。 开始发光之后,我就不再去刺激它了。 这是一场难以置信的光展, 这像是光做的风车。 我曾经计算过, 300英尺以外的捕食者也能看到这些光。 所以我认为, 这些光着实是相当不错的诱饵。 因此,作为一名深海探索者, 有一个问题一直困扰着我, 那就是,海洋里究竟有多少生物, 是由于我们的探索手段的问题, 而使我们对他们一无所知的?
The primary way that we know about what lives in the ocean is we go out and drag nets behind ships. And I defy you to name any other branch of science that still depends on hundreds of year-old technology. The other primary way is we go down with submersibles and remote-operated vehicles. I've made hundreds of dives in submersibles. When I'm sitting in a submersible though, I know that I'm not unobtrusive at all -- I've got bright lights and noisy thrusters -- any animal with any sense is going to be long gone. So, I've wanted for a long time to figure out a different way to explore.
我们认识了解海洋生物的主要方法就是 出海,撒网, 我不认为任何其他的科学研究领域 还在使用这么老掉牙的技术。 其它主要途径就是乘潜水器下海, 以及使用遥控的工具。 我曾随潜水器下水几百次, 即使当我只坐在潜水器里 什么都不干,我也是非常招摇的。 随我而来的是很亮的探照光,推进器产生的噪音。 任何稍有知觉的生物都躲得远远的了。 所以,很长一段时间内 我一直想研究出一种别的探索方法。
And so, sometime ago, I got this idea for a camera system. It's not exactly rocket science. We call this thing Eye-in-the-Sea. And scientists have done this on land for years; we just use a color that the animals can't see and then a camera that can see that color. You can't use infrared in the sea. We use far-red light, but even that's a problem because it gets absorbed so quickly. Made an intensified camera, wanted to make this electronic jellyfish. Thing is, in science, you basically have to tell the funding agencies what you're going to discover before they'll give you the money. And I didn't know what I was going to discover, so I couldn't get the funding for this. So I kluged this together, I got the Harvey Mudd Engineering Clinic to actually do it as an undergraduate student project initially, and then I kluged funding from a whole bunch of different sources.
接着,前不久,我想到了利用摄像系统来探索。 这其实并没那么复杂,我们称这个系统为“海洋之眼”。 科学家们多年来在陆地上已经用类似的手段, 我们只是换了一种深海生物看不到的, 但摄像机却可以识别的颜色。 海洋里无法使用红外线, 因而我们使用的是远红光。但还有个问题就是, 光被吸收的太快了。 所以我们设计了高敏相机, 来制造这只“电水母”。 问题是作科研, 你得告诉筹资机构你能发现什么, 然后你才能得到科研资金。 我不知道我能发现什么, 自然也没能得到资金。 所以我就只好七拼八凑。起初我委托哈维姆德工程院 将(这个假水母的研究)作为本科生的研究项目。 再后来,通过各种各样的渠道,我终于凑得了科研基金。
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute gave me time with their ROV so that I could test it and we could figure out, you know, for example, which colors of red light we had to use so that we could see the animals, but they couldn't see us -- get the electronic jellyfish working. And you can see just what a shoestring operation this really was, because we cast these 16 blue LEDs in epoxy and you can see in the epoxy mold that we used, the word Ziploc is still visible. Needless to say, when it's kluged together like this, there were a lot of trials and tribulations getting this working. But there came a moment when it all came together, and everything worked. And, remarkably, that moment got caught on film by photographer Mark Richards, who happened to be there at the precise moment that we discovered that it all came together. That's me on the left, my graduate student at the time, Erika Raymond, and Lee Fry, who was the engineer on the project. And we have this photograph posted in our lab in a place of honor with the caption: "Engineer satisfying two women at once." (Laughter) And we were very, very happy.
蒙特利湾水族馆研究中心 将他们的水下机器人给了我。 然后我就能进行些测试和研究。 比如,应该用什么样的红光,使让我们看到海洋生物, 而他们看不到我们, 还得确保这台电水母顺利工作。 大家可以看到我们的预算确实有限, 因为,当我把这16个蓝色二极管粘到这个塑料圈上时—— 这里你可以看见我们用的塑料模子, 你还看得见ZIPLOC(生产厨房用品的厂家)的字样。 不用说,在对各种光进行组合搭配时, 我们经历了许多尝试和失败,才得以研究出这种符合条件的光。 这样的时候,就是所有工作就绪, 所有设备都能投入使用, 我们兴奋不已。而这弥足珍贵的一刻 被刚好在那里的摄像师 马克 瑞查德拍摄了下来。 这时刻我们知道整个事情成了。 左边的是我, 然后是我带的毕业生 艾丽卡 莱蒙德 以及该项目的工程师 李 弗莱 我们把相片挂在实验室最显著的地方, 图注为“工程师同时满足了两个女人” 当时真的是太开心了。
So now we had a system that we could actually take to some place that was kind of like an oasis on the bottom of the ocean that might be patrolled by large predators. And so, the place that we took it to was this place called a Brine Pool, which is in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico. It's a magical place. And I know this footage isn't going to look like anything to you -- we had a crummy camera at the time -- but I was ecstatic. We're at the edge of the Brine Pool, there's a fish that's swimming towards the camera. It's clearly undisturbed by us. And I had my window into the deep sea. I, for the first time, could see what animals were doing down there when we weren't down there disturbing them in some way. Four hours into the deployment, we had programmed the electronic jellyfish to come on for the first time. Eighty-six seconds after it went into its pinwheel display, we recorded this: This is a squid, over six feet long, that is so new to science, it cannot be placed in any known scientific family. I could not have asked for a better proof of concept.
现在终于有了能将我们带到 海底天堂的设备了。 而这片海底天堂很可能是 大型捕食者的天下。 所以,我们将设备 安置在墨西哥湾北部的 盐池区内。 这个地方很神奇。 我猜这段录像不足以吸引大家的眼球, 鉴于那时逊色的摄像机 但我却狂喜不已。 这是在盐池边上, 有条鱼正向相机游来, 显然,我们没打扰到它。 这样子我找到了通向深海的窗口。 这是第一次。我看到这些不受任何人影响的 深海生物究竟在干什么。 四个小时的准备工作之后, 我们第一次 将电水母投入使用 我们的电水母开始发光,(就像前面提到的真的水母所作的光风车一样,)86秒之后, 我们拍摄到了 这个画面。 这是条章鱼,足有六英尺长。 我们对它没有一点了解, 所以不能将它归入任何现存的动物种类中去。 这是我能得到的最好的证据,来说明我的研究方法是正确的。
And based on this, I went back to the National Science Foundation and said, "This is what we will discover." And they gave me enough money to do it right, which has involved developing the world's first deep-sea webcam -- which has been installed in the Monterey Canyon for the past year -- and now, more recently, a modular form of this system, a much more mobile form that's a lot easier to launch and recover, that I hope can be used on Sylvia's "hope spots" to help explore and protect these areas, and, for me, learn more about the bioluminescence in these "hope spots."
依靠拍摄到的内容,我又回头找到国家科学基金1, 并告诉他们,“(如果你们给我们资金)这就是我们会发现的”。 他们就给了我足够的资金去更好地做这项研究, 其中也包括开发第一架深海网络摄像头, 这个摄像头 去年被安装在蒙特利的海底峡谷。 现在,也就是最近, 我们开发出了比这个摄像头 更为灵活的模型。 这个模型更便于水下作业,而且能够再回收。 我希望这个装置可以用来 探索和保护 西维亚所说的“希望之地”。 同时让我加深对 “希望之地”的更多生物性光的了解。
So one of these take-home messages here is, there is still a lot to explore in the oceans. And Sylvia has said that we are destroying the oceans before we even know what's in them, and she's right. So if you ever, ever get an opportunity to take a dive in a submersible, say yes -- a thousand times, yes -- and please turn out the lights. I promise, you'll love it.
有一点需要指出的是 海洋里我们需要探索的东西仍然很多。 西维亚曾说, 我们尚未弄清海洋里究竟有些什么却已经在破坏它了。 她说的很对。 如果你非常有幸 可以乘潜水器下水, 请一定把握机会。就算你有一千次机会,每次都请下水。 你会关上灯。 我保证,你会爱上那番景象。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
鼓掌