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.
本著 Jacques Cousteau 的精神: 「人會捍衛其所愛。」 我今天想要跟你們分享,海洋中我的最愛, 那就是這些多到不可思議 讓海洋閃閃發光的生物
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.
一開始我是被這看起來很奇特的 WASP(黃蜂)潛水裝所吸引 這不是什麼字母的縮寫,只是有人覺得看起來像一種昆蟲 其實它本來是設計給近海石油工業使用的 可以潛到 2,000 呎深的鑽油平台 在我拿到博士學位以後 非常幸運的加入了一群科學家的行列 那是我第一次使用它 來做海洋探險的工具 我們在休尼米港(美國海軍設施用地)受訓, 然後我第一次的海潛 是在聖塔芭芭拉海峽 那是一次的夜潛 我下到 880 呎深的水中 關掉所有燈光 我關燈的原因是因為我知道我會看到 某種生物體發光的現象 科學上稱為「生物螢光」 但我完全沒有預料到 那數量之多 而且十分壯觀 我看到一連串稱為「管水母」的生物排成的水母鏈 比這個房間還長 發出的光之多 即使在潛水裝裡不開手電筒 我也看得到刻度跟儀表板的數字 還有一陣陣大小翻騰 看起來像藍色螢光的煙霧 或是像從推進器渦旋而出 蹦開的火花 就像你丟一塊木頭到營火裡,火花霹啪往上竄, 只不過這些是冰冷的藍色火光 美到讓人窒息
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.
如果熟悉生物螢光的人就知道, 其實就是這些傢伙,螢火蟲 有一些其他陸居的生物也會發光 像一些昆蟲,蚯蚓或真菌等等, 一般來說,在陸地上並不常見 但在海洋中,卻是生存法則, 而不是特例 如果我到一個開放的海域, 實際上就是世界上任何地方, 然後我拖著一個網子,從 3,000 呎深拖到海面, 我捕到的東西, 事實上,在很多地方, 有八到九成, 都會發光 夜夜上演著美麗絢爛的燈光秀
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.
現在我要給你們看看一段 我在潛艇中拍的小影片 我當初發展這個技術是從 一個叫做「深海漫遊者」的小型單人潛艇開始 然後改良成可以在「強生海連號」上用 就是你們現在看到的這個 所以登上觀測台以後 有一個直徑 3 呎的鐵環 這裡接著一個螢幕 然後在裡面就是我和強化攝影機 幾乎就跟適應了黑暗的肉眼一樣靈敏 不過是有點模糊的 所以打開攝影機,關掉燈光, 不過你們現在看到的火光不是生物螢光 只是在強化攝影機上的 一些電波雜訊 要等到潛艇開始在水裡移動的時候 你們才會看到生物螢光 就是這樣,鏡頭螢幕碰到生物的時候 生物會受到刺激發出生物螢光
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.
我剛開始試的時候 我一直在計算發光體的數目 我知道我前進的速度 也知道面積 所以我知道每平方公尺 就有幾百種發光體 之後發現我可以藉由牠們不同型態的閃光 來辨別那些生物 所以像這邊是緬因灣 深度 740 呎 我幾乎可以叫出所有你們現在看到的生物,到「種」的層次 像這些大爆炸呀 火焰呀 是來自於小的櫛水母 還有磷蝦 其他甲殼綱動物 和水母等等 這也是櫛水母的一種 然後我跟電腦影像分析的工程師合作 設計了一種自動辨識系統 可以辨別出這些生物 找出初始衝擊點的 X, Y, Z 座標 然後就可以跟生態學家在陸地上做的事一樣 計算最鄰近距離
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)
但是你不需要到海底深處 才能欣賞這些燈光秀 其實直接從海面上就看得到 這是史奎普斯研究院的麥克萊玆博士拍的一段影片 海豚游過一群生物螢光浮游生物 這裡也不像波多黎各灣 有很多生物螢光 這個其實是在聖地牙哥海港拍的 有時候你甚至可以更靠近點看 有些人可能不知道 船頭其實就是廁所 是用沒有未經過濾的海水沖的 裡面有許多會發出生物螢光的浮游生物 所以如果你狂歡到半夜 突然覺得很尿急 衝到廁所的時候忘了開燈 你可能會以為你看到了神蹟
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.
那麼,生物是如何發光的呢? 這個問題在十九世紀的時候被提出 一個法國的生理學家 Raphael Dubois 對生物螢光蚌有些疑問 他把這些蛤磨碎,想從中得到一些化學物質 有一種他稱作「螢光基因」的酵素 還有其它基質,他稱做「螢光素」 取自 Lucifer (上帝製造的第一個天使) 意為光明的持有者 這些術語沿用至今 但因為這些化學物質種類眾多且形態各異 所以它們並不代表特定的化學物質 事實上 大多數現在研究生物螢光的人 都把重點放在化學性質上 因為這些化合物已被證實極具價值 可以拿來生產抗生素 抗癌藥物 測試火星上的生命跡象 偵測我們飲用水裡的污染物 也就是我們在 ORCA 裡用的 2008年的 諾貝爾化學獎 就頒給了 綠色螢光蛋白(GFP)的分子研究 此種分子正是從水母的生物螢光物質中 分離出來的 以其在細胞生物 和基因工程上的影響來說 跟顯微鏡的發明有著同等的地位
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.
這些微小分子告訴我們的另一件事是 很顯然的,生物螢光在演化史上 已經演化了至少 40 次 甚至 50 次之多 這個特質很清楚的顯示 適者生存 在演化上的重要性 那麼,生物螢光對於這麼多生物來說 到底有多重要? 可以這樣說,生物要避免掠食者, 可以隱身於黑暗之中, 但光在三個基本需求上 是生存必備的法寶 也就是「覓食」、 「尋找伴侶」、以及「躲避掠食者」 舉例來說,這種魚 的眼睛上方有個內建式的頭燈(發光器) 可以用來覓食 或是吸引異性 如果不用的時候,也可以捲進頭部, 就像藍寶基尼跑車的車頭燈 再看這條魚,甚至還有遠燈
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.
這隻,是我最愛的魚之一 在頭上三側各有三個頭燈的魚 現在看到的這個燈是藍色的 也是生物螢光在海洋中最常見的顏色 因為演化的過程中 為了達到最有效的效率 選擇了在海水中穿透能力最強的藍光 所以多數生物發出藍色光 或是只能看見藍色光 但這種魚實在是一個美麗的例外 因為牠有兩個發紅光的器官 我不知道為什麼要有兩個 希望有朝一日我能解答 所以牠不只能看到藍光 也能看到紅光 牠的紅色生物螢光就像狙擊手的瞄準鏡 讓牠能偷偷摸摸地接近 那些看不見紅光的獵物 就像隱形一樣 在下巴這裡也有一個 是用藍色螢光當成誘餌 可以用來吸引比較遠的獵物 很多生物都會把生物螢光當成誘餌
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.
這是另一種我最愛的魚 毒蛇魚 在牠長長背鰭的尾端有個誘餌 在齒狀的下顎上拱起 毒蛇魚因此得名 這種魚的牙齒很長 長到如果牠們在魚的嘴巴裡合起來 就會刺穿到自己的腦袋裡 所以這些牙齒 是在頭部外面的齒槽上滑動 這是魚類中的聖誕樹 它身上的每個地方都是亮的 不只是發光的誘餌 還長了個手電筒 牠的腹部也閃耀著珠寶光芒 當成一種保護色 來把陰影消除 所以當牠游來游去,即使下面有個掠食者往上看時 也看不見牠 在牠嘴巴裡也有發光器官 大大小小的 像是鰭上 背部的黏液層和腹部等等 都有不同功用 有我們所知,也有我們所不知的
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.
多虧了皮克斯,我們對生物螢光多了一點熟悉感 我非常感激皮克斯的分享 讓更多人認識我最愛的主題 有這樣的預算之下 我希望他們能多花一點錢 去諮詢一些又窮又餓的研究生 這些學生能告訴他們 圖中魚的眼睛 是保存在福馬林(防腐)裡的那種 這才是活體鮟鱇魚的眼睛 上面有突起的誘餌 活像一個 佈滿針尖牙齒的捕鼠器 為了吸引一些意料之外的獵物 這條魚的誘餌 是從這裡面穿出來的針 很有趣
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.
我們通常會想 這些不同形式的誘餌 是用來吸引不同類型的獵物 但是科學家 或是說他們的研究生 對這些魚的胃內容物進行分析 卻發現了 他們吃的東西幾乎大同小異 所以我們相信在鮟鱇魚的世界裡 這些不同形式的誘餌 是雄魚用來辨別雌魚的 因為多數的雄魚 是我們所知的矮雄魚 這些小傢伙 缺少展現自我的方式 沒有吸引食物的誘餌 就算獵物到手了也沒有牙齒可以吃 所以牠生存在這個星球上的唯一希望 就是吃軟飯 牠必須要找到一個伴 生命才得以延續 所以這個小傢伙 為自己找了個伴侶 可以注意到 牠巧妙的黏上去就成了 不必真的看上眼 (笑聲) 但當他看著她的時候還是會知道 透過一個永恆之「吻」鞏固這段關係 他們的血肉相連在一起 她的血液流進他的身體裡 他就成了一個小精囊 (笑聲) 這是深海版本的女權解放運動 她掌握他的行蹤 而且也不需要遵守一妻一夫制 因為有很多雄魚 會依附於一條雌魚上
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,
所以說利用生物螢光來覓食 吸引異性 多數是用來防衛 很多種用途 很多生物會釋放螢光素和螢光基因到水中 就像烏賊或章魚會釋放墨團一樣 這隻蝦子正從嘴裡 吐出光來 就像一隻噴火龍 這麼一來毒蛇魚就看不見 或是注意力被分散了 然後這隻蝦子再逃進漆黑中 有很多生物都會這麼做 像是水母還有烏賊 及不同種類的甲殼綱動物
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.
甚至有些魚也行 這種魚叫做 閃亮的管肩魚 因為在牠肩上真的有一個管子 可以噴射出光 當我們在進行拖網遠征的時候 我很幸運的在非洲西北外海 捕獲到一隻,是為了「藍色星球」節目 的深海探險部份所做的 我們用一種特殊的拖網 使我們能活撈起來這些生物 我們捕獲了一隻,然後帶回實驗室 我抓著牠 打算要觸摸牠肩上的管子 當我動手的時候,你們會看到噴射出來的生物螢光 但是讓我震撼的 不只是大量的生物螢光 而是裡面不只有螢光素和螢光基因 對這種魚來說 是有細胞核和細胞膜的完整細胞 要這麼做是非常耗費精力的 而我們不明白牠為什麼要這麼做 這是另一個等待釐清的謎團
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.
還有 有種稱為「防盜警報器」的防衛模式 就像你在車上裝防盜警報器是一樣的道理 利用鳴響的喇叭和閃光燈 來引人注目 希望警察會趕來然後把竊賊抓走 當生物在掠食者的魔爪中時 唯一能逃脫的希望 就是去吸引更大或更恐怖的生物注意 來攻擊襲擊自己的生物 因而增加牠們逃脫的機會 舉例來說 水母能展現特別絢麗的生物螢光 這是我們在潛艇中追逐著牠的畫面 你們看到的這不是生物螢光,是來自於生殖腺的反射光 我們用潛艇前的一個特殊裝置中來捕捉牠 這個特殊裝置能讓我們把牠原原本本的帶上來 帶到船上的實驗室中 然後讓牠好好表現 你們將會看到 我用銳利的尖銳物品 像是魚銳利的牙齒一樣 每秒一次去觸碰牠的神經線 一旦表演開始 我就不再動牠 這簡直是一場不可置信的燈光秀 像是光漩風車 我曾計算過 最遠在 300 呎以外的掠食者都可以看見這個燈光秀 所以我認為 這確實是一個極佳的誘餌 身為一個深海探險者 有一件事令我感到非常挫折 就是海洋中有太多我們一無所知的生物 是因為我們探索的方法導致
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.
讓我們知道海裡有什麼生物最主要的方法 是去出海 在船後面拖個網 然後我倒想知道你們能不能說出任一個 還在這老方法的科學學派 另一個主要方式是 乘著潛艇和遙控潛具到水裡 我已經有上百次乘著潛艇深潛的經驗 雖然我知道只是坐在潛艇裡的時候 我也很難不引人注目 因為那些光亮的探照燈和很吵的推進器 任何還有知覺的生物早都躲得老遠了 所以其實我長久以來 都想嘗試用不同的方式來探索海洋
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.
因為如此 前一陣子 我對攝影系統有了個新想法 這方法並不困難 我們把這個叫做:「海洋之眼」 而且科學家在陸上也用了這個方法許多年 我們只是用了一種攝影機能夠辨識 但生物看不到的顏色 紅外線在海水裡是行不通的 所以我們用的是遠紅外線,但還是有一些麻煩 因為遠紅外線一下子就被(海水)吸收了 所以我們設計強化的攝影機 來製造這隻電水母 在科學上是這樣的 你必須要告訴贊助機構 你會有什麼新發現 然後才拿得到錢 而我不知道我會發現什麼 所以我拿不到錢 那麼就只好隨便拼湊 起初說是哈維瑪德工程科 使用這個作為大學生的研究計畫 然後我從不同管道湊到一筆研究基金
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.
蒙特瑞水族館和研究所讓 借了我水下無人載具(R.O.V.) 如此一來我就可以進行測試 比如說,我們可以找出我們要用哪一種色調的紅光 才能在生物看不見的情況下看見牠們 並且讓電水母成功運作 你們可以看到 預算是如何有限 因為當我把這 16 藍色二極體 黏在這個環氧樹脂模上時 還是看得到密封袋上的字 不用說,這樣七拼八湊的過程中 我們經歷了許多試驗和苦難,才得以使其運作 當我們全部的設備都已就緒 並且能夠開始運作的時候 我們的欣喜不言而喻 正是那彌足珍貴的一刻 被恰好在場的攝影師馬克理查 忠實的記錄下來 畫面左邊的是我 我那時候的研究生 艾莉卡 • 萊蒙德 還有計畫的工程師 李 • 弗萊 我們這張照片貼在實驗室一個榮耀的位置 註解是:「工程師同時滿足了兩個女人」 我們非常 非常開心
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.
所以現在我們終於有了一個 可以帶到海底其它地方的設備 而且有點像是海底 有些大型掠食者在巡邏的地盤 因為如此 我們把設備帶到這個 位於墨西哥灣北部的鹽池 這地方很神奇 我知道這個連續拍攝的片段毫不起眼 因為那時候用的是老舊的攝影機 但我可是欣喜若狂 我們在鹽池的邊緣 有一條魚正往攝影機這邊游過來 牠很顯然地不受我們干擾 我也有了一個通往深海的窗口 當我們不在那邊干擾牠們的時候 我第一次 看見生物在那下面做些什麼 在四小時的部署調度之後 我們第一次 操控著投入的電水母 86 秒鐘後 牠表演著光漩風車的畫面 過程被我們記錄下來 這是一隻烏賊 超過六呎長 在科學上很新穎(物種) 不能歸類到科學上任何一種「科」屬 我找不到更好的方法足以驗證我的研究概念
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."
所以有了這個,我回到國家科學基金會 告訴他們:『這就是我們發現的。』 然後他們就給了我足夠的錢繼續做下去 其中包括過去幾年被設置在蒙特里海底峽谷 這個世界第一架的 深海網路攝影機 現在,也就是最近 有了比這個攝影機 活動更為靈活的模型 同時也比較容易發動和回復 我希望能運用在Sylvia(海洋學家)所說的「夢想地」上 來探索 和保護這些區域 並且對我而言 在這些「夢想地」學到更多關於生物螢光的事
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.
而我想給你們的其中一個訊息是 大海還有很多值得探險的地方 Sylvia曾說過 我們還不知道海洋裡有什麼,卻已經開始破壞她了 她說得很對 如果你有幸 可以乘著潛艇到海中的話 請你一定要說願意,一千個願意 關掉所有燈光 我保證你們會愛死的
Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)