What I want you all to do right now is to think of this mammal that I'm going to describe to you. The first thing I'm going to tell you about this mammal is that it is essential for our ecosystems to function correctly. If we remove this mammal from our ecosystems, they simply will not work. That's the first thing. The second thing is that due to the unique sensory abilities of this mammal, if we study this mammal, we're going to get great insight into our diseases of the senses, such as blindness and deafness. And the third really intriguing aspect of this mammal is that I fully believe that the secret of everlasting youth lies deep within its DNA. So are you all thinking? So, magnificent creature, isn't it? Who here thought of a bat? Ah, I can see half the audience agrees with me, and I have a lot of work to do to convince the rest of you.
我現在希望你們 思考一下我將描述的這哺乳動物。 我跟你們描述的第一項特徵, 是牠對我們生態系統是必要的。 如果我們的生態系統缺少了這哺乳動物, 生態系統便不能運作。 這就是第一項特徵。 第二項特徵是出於這哺乳動物獨特的感官能力, 如果我們研究這哺乳動物, 會對我們的感官疾病有深入了解, 如失明和失聰。 而這哺乳動物的第三項奇妙特徵, 我絕對相信這是保持青春的秘密, 深入地埋藏在牠的脫氧核糖核酸(DNA)裡。 你們所有人都在思考嗎? 如此看來, 這哺乳動物是隻很奇妙的生物,對嗎? 在座各位誰想到是一隻蝙蝠? 嗯,我看到有一半的觀眾認同我, 即是我有大量的工作去說服其餘的觀眾。
So I have had the good fortune for the past 20 years to study these fascinating and beautiful mammals. One fifth of all living mammals is a bat, and they have very unique attributes. Bats as we know them have been around on this planet for about 64 million years. One of the most unique things that bats do as a mammal is that they fly. Now flight is an inherently difficult thing. Flight within vertebrates has only evolved three times: once in the bats, once in the birds, and once in the pterodactyls. And so with flight, it's very metabolically costly. Bats have learned and evolved how to deal with this.
在過去的20年來, 我有幸地研究這些美麗迷人的哺乳動物。 世上五分之一的哺乳動物是蝙蝠, 牠們有很獨特的特性。 蝙蝠大約已在地球 六千四百萬年, 其中一項最獨特的特性 是蝙蝠會飛。 飛行是天性困難的, 懂得飛行的無脊椎動物只形成了三次: 一次是蝙蝠,一次是雀鳥, 和一次是翼手龍。 飛行十分消耗新陳代謝的能量。 蝙蝠學會並進化去處理這情況。
But one other extremely unique thing about bats is that they are able to use sound to perceive their environment. They use echolocation. Now, what I mean by echolocation -- they emit a sound from their larynx out through their mouth or through their nose. This sound wave comes out and it reflects and echoes back off objects in their environment, and the bats then hear these echoes and they turn this information into an acoustic image. And this enables them to orient in complete darkness. Indeed, they do look very strange. We're humans. We're a visual species. When scientists first realized that bats were actually using sound to be able to fly and orient and move at night, we didn't believe it. For a hundred years, despite evidence to show that this is what they were doing, we didn't believe it.
但蝙蝠另一個非常獨特的特點是 牠們懂得利用聲音去觀察環境。 牠們用回波定位。 現在,我說回波定位的意思是 牠們透過口或鼻,從喉頭發出一種聲音 這聲波發出, 聲音反射和回響到蝙蝠周遭的物件上, 蝙蝠聽到這些回音, 然後將這資訊轉化成聲像。 使牠們能夠在完全漆黑下定位。 的確,牠們看似很奇怪。我們是人類。 我們是有視覺的生物。當科學家第一次發現 蝙蝠其實是利用聲音令牠們能夠飛行 及在黑夜中定位和移動,我們不相信。 一百多年來,即使有證據顯示 這是蝙蝠的行為,我們都不相信。
Now, if you look at this bat, it looks a little bit alien. Indeed, the very famous philosopher Thomas Nagel once said, "To truly experience an alien life form on this planet, you should lock yourself inside a room with a flying, echolocating bat in complete darkness." And if you look at the actual physical characteristics on the face of this beautiful horseshoe bat, you see a lot of these characteristics are dedicated to be able to make sound and perceive it. Very big ears, strange nose leaves, but teeny-tiny eyes. So again, if you just look at this bat, you realize sound is very important for its survival.
現在,如果你看看這蝙蝠,牠有點像外星人。 甚至,很有名的哲學家湯瑪斯.內格爾曾經說: 「在地球上,要真正經歷外星人的生活, 你應該把自己和一隻懂飛及利用迴波定位的蝙蝠 鎖在全完漆黑的房間裡。」 如果你從這美麗的菊頭蝠的臉上, 看到牠的身體特徵, 你看到牠很多的身體特徵是用來 發出和觀察聲音。 大耳朵,奇怪的鼻葉,但很細少的眼睛。 再者,如果你只是看這隻蝙蝠, 你會發現聲音對生存很重要。
Most bats look like the previous one. However, there are a group that do not use echolocation. They do not perceive their environment using sound, and these are the flying foxes. If anybody has ever been lucky enough to be in Australia, you've seen them coming out of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, and if you just look at their face, you can see they have much, much larger eyes and much smaller ears. So among and within bats is a huge variation in their ability to use sensory perception. Now this is going to be important for what I'm going to tell you later during the talk.
大部分的蝙蝠看起來像之前一隻。 但是,有一類蝙蝠不用回音定位法。 牠們不會利用聲音來觀察環境, 這類是狐蝠。 如果有人有幸地到過澳洲, 你會在雪梨的植物園看到牠們。 如果你只是看牠們的臉, 你可以看到牠們有更大的眼睛和耳朵。 所以利用感官觀察環境的能力 在蝙蝠間存在很大的差異。 這部分對我稍後會談及的演講 是重要的。
Now, if the idea of bats in your belfry terrifies you, and I know some people probably are feeling a little sick looking at very large images of bats, that's probably not that surprising, because here in Western culture, bats have been demonized. Really, of course the famous book "Dracula," written by a fellow Northside Dubliner Bram Stoker, probably is mainly responsible for this. However, I also think it's got to do with the fact that bats come out at night, and we don't really understand them. We're a little frightened by things that can perceive the world slightly differently than us. Bats are usually synonymous with some type of evil events. They are the perpetrators in horror movies, such as this famous "Nightwing." Also, if you think about it, demons always have bat wings, whereas birds, they typically -- or angels have bird wings.
現在,如果這古怪的觀點令你害怕, 我也知道有些人看到蝙蝠的大圖像, 應該會感到噁心, 這不是令人意外的, 因為在西方的文化中, 蝙蝠被描繪成魔鬼。 實際上,當然著名的小說《德古拉》 由一個北方的都柏林人布拉姆.斯托克所寫, 應該為此負上大部分的責任。 但是,我亦認為這是由於 蝙蝠在夜間出現的事實, 我們不是很了解牠們。我們有點懼怕 跟我們察覺世界方法不同的事物。 蝙蝠經常等同某些邪惡的事件。 在恐怖電影中,牠們是行兇者, 如著名電影《夜翼》。 而且,如果你思考一下, 魔鬼經常有蝙蝠翼,而雀鳥,牠們通常 或天使擁有鳥的翅膀。
Now, this is Western society, and what I hope to do tonight is to convince you of the Chinese traditional culture, that they perceive bats as creatures that bring good luck, and indeed, if you walk into a Chinese home, you may see an image such as this. This is considered the Five Blessings. The Chinese word for "bat" sounds like the Chinese word for "happiness," and they believe that bats bring wealth, health, longevity, virtue and serenity. And indeed, in this image, you have a picture of longevity surrounded by five bats. And what I want to do tonight is to talk to you and to show you that at least three of these blessings are definitely represented by a bat, and that if we study bats we will get nearer to getting each of these blessings.
現在,這是西方社會,我今晚想做的是 利用中國傳統文化說服你們, 他們理解蝙蝠是 會帶來好運的生物,而的確, 如果你到中國人的家,你會看到這類的圖像。 這是五福。 中文字中的「蝙蝠」,聲音像中文字 「幸福」,他們相信蝙蝠 會帶來財富,健康,長壽,好德,平安。 而的確,在此圖像中,你看到這張長壽的照片 被五隻蝙蝠圍繞。 而我今夜想跟你會說 和證明給你們看至少三福 是代表著蝙蝠,如果我們研究蝙蝠, 我們會距離這些福更近。
So, wealth -- how can a bat possibly bring us wealth? Now as I said before, bats are essential for our ecosystems to function correctly. And why is this? Bats in the tropics are major pollinators of many plants. They also feed on fruit, and they disperse the seeds of these fruits. Bats are responsible for pollinating the tequila plant, and this is a multi-million dollar industry in Mexico. So indeed, we need them for our ecosystems to function properly. Without them, it's going to be a problem. But most bats are voracious insect predators. It's been estimated in the U.S., in a tiny colony of big brown bats, that they will feed on over a million insects a year, and in the United States of America, right now bats are being threatened by a disease known as white-nose syndrome. It's working its way slowly across the U.S. and wiping out populations of bats, and scientists have estimated that 1,300 metric tons of insects a year are now remaining in the ecosystems due to the loss of bats. Bats are also threatened in the U.S. by their attraction to wind farms. Again, right now bats are looking at a little bit of a problem. They're going to -- They are very threatened in the United States of America alone.
那麼,財富--蝙蝠怎為我們帶來財富? 現在,如同我之前所說的, 蝙蝠對我們的生態系統很重要; 令我們生態系統有效地運作。為甚麼如此? 在熱帶的蝙蝠是許多植物主要傳播花粉的媒介。 牠們亦以水果為食物,牠們把水果的種子傳播。 蝙蝠負責傳播龍舌蘭植物的花粉, 而這在墨西哥中是數百萬元的工業。 所以的確,我們需要牠們 令我們的生態系統正常運作。 沒有牠們,這將會是一個問題。 但大部分的蝙蝠也是貪食的昆蟲掠奪者。 在美國,估計一個細小的大棕蝠族群, 牠們一年會吃 超過一百萬隻昆蟲, 在美國,現在 蝙蝠受到一種名為白鼻子綜合症的疫病威脅。 以很慢的速度遍佈美國, 毀滅蝙蝠的總數,科學家估計 因為蝙蝠的減少, 每年有1,300公噸的昆蟲存活在生態系統中。 蝙蝠在美國亦受到 風力發電廠的引力威脅。再者,現在 蝙蝠看來有點問題。 牠們即將--牠們光在美國 就受到極大的威脅。
Now how can this help us? Well, it has been calculated that if we were to remove bats from the equation, we're going to have to then use insecticides to remove all those pest insects that feed on our agricultural crops. And for one year in the U.S. alone, it's estimated that it's going to cost 22 billion U.S. dollars, if we remove bats. So indeed, bats then do bring us wealth. They maintain the health of our ecosystems, and also they save us money. So again, that's the first blessing. Bats are important for our ecosystems.
現在這怎幫助我們? 嗯,根據計算,如果蝙蝠消失了, 我們將必須用 殺蟲劑去除掉 吃掉我們農作物的昆蟲。 如果我們失去了蝙蝠,據估計,光是在美國, 一年就需要多耗用220億美元, 所以確實地,蝙蝠為我們帶來財富。 牠們維持我們生態系統的健康, 和節省我們的金錢。 再者,這是第一個祝福。蝙蝠 對我們生態系統很重要。
And what about the second? What about health? Inside every cell in your body lies your genome. Your genome is made up of your DNA, your DNA codes for proteins that enable you to function and interact and be as you are. Now since the new advancements in modern molecular technologies, it is now possible for us to sequence our own genome in a very rapid time and at a very, very reduced cost. Now when we've been doing this, we've realized that there's variations within our genome. So I want you to look at the person beside you. Just have a quick look. And what we need to realize is that every 300 base pairs in your DNA, you're a little bit different. And one of the grand challenges right now in modern molecular medicine is to work out whether this variation makes you more susceptible to diseases, or does this variation just make you different? Again, what does it mean here? What does this variation actually mean? So if we are to capitalize on all of this new molecular data and personalized genomic information that is coming online that we will be able to have in the next few years, we have to be able to differentiate between the two. So how do we do this?
而第二福?健康又怎樣呢? 在你身體裡每個細胞中有你的基因體。 你的基因體是由DNA組成的。 你的DNA是你的蛋白質代碼, 這些蛋白質使你成為現在的樣子。 由於現在先進的分子科技, 現在我們可以以很快的時間和很低的成本, 排列自己的基因體 現在當我們這樣做時,我們會發現 我們基因體中的差異。 所以我要你看看坐在你身旁的那位。 就很快地看一看,我們需要知道的是 DNA中每300個鹼基對,你們就有點不同了。 而在現今分子醫學中, 其中一個重大的挑戰是找出 這差異是否令你更容易患上疾病 或只是令你與其他人不同? 再者,這代表甚麼?這差異其實代表甚麼? 所以如果我們在未來幾年利用所有 在網上可以得到的 最新分子數據和個人的基因資料, 我們必須要能夠分辨出 這兩種的不同。而我們怎樣做到呢?
Well, I believe we just look at nature's experiments. So through natural selection, over time, mutations, variations that disrupt the function of a protein will not be tolerated over time. Evolution acts as a sieve. It sieves out the bad variation. And so therefore, if you look at the same region of a genome in many mammals that have been evolutionarily distant from each other and are also ecologically divergent, you will get a better understanding of what the evolutionary prior of that site is, i.e., if it is important for the mammal to function, for its survival, it will be the same in all of those different lineages, species, taxa. So therefore, if we were to do this, what we'd need to do is sequence that region in all these different mammals and ascertain if it's the same or if it's different. So if it is the same, this indicates that that site is important for a function, so a disease mutation should fall within that site. So in this case here, if all the mammals that we look at have a yellow-type genome at that site, it probably suggests that purple is bad. This could be even more powerful if you look at mammals that are doing things slightly differently. So say, for example, the region of the genome that I was looking at was a region that's important for vision. If we look at that region in mammals that don't see so well, such as bats, and we find that bats that don't see so well have the purple type, we know that this is probably what's causing this disease.
嗯,我相信我們只須看自然環境的實驗。 所以透過天擇,隨年累月, 阻擾蛋白質功能的基因突變 隨著時間而被淘汰。 進化充當過濾器。它篩走了不良的變異。 所以,如果你看已進化成不同種類 的哺乳動物的基因體中 的同一區塊, 且已經在生態上分歧,你會 更明白這個區塊進化前的狀況, 即如果這是對哺乳動物的生存重要, 則在所有不同的後裔、品系、分類中, 牠們的基因會一樣。 所以,如果我們要研究這個, 我們需要做的是將所有不同哺乳動物的基因組排序 以及確定它們是一樣或不同。 所以如果基因組相同, 這代表那區對某項功能是重要的, 所以某疾病變化會落在這區上。 所以在這情況,如果我們觀察的所有哺乳動物 在這區中有黃類基因體, 這大概代表這紫類基因是不良的。 有如你看看哺乳動物,牠們做的事有些微不同 這證據會更有力。 所以假設,例如,我觀察這區的基因體 是對視力重要的區域。 如果我們觀察那些視力不好的哺乳動物的基因組區, 如蝙蝠,我們發現蝙蝠視力不好 有紫類基因,我們知道這大概是 疾病的原因。
So in my lab, we've been using bats to look at two different types of diseases of the senses. We're looking at blindness. Now why would you do this? Three hundred and fourteen million people are visually impaired, and 45 million of these are blind. So blindness is a big problem, and a lot of these blind disorders come from inherited diseases, so we want to try and better understand which mutations in the gene cause the disease. Also we look at deafness. One in every 1,000 newborn babies are deaf, and when we reach 80, over half of us will also have a hearing problem. Again, there's many underlying genetic causes for this. So what we've been doing in my lab is looking at these unique sensory specialists, the bats, and we have looked at genes that cause blindness when there's a defect in them, genes that cause deafness when there's a defect in them, and now we can predict which sites are most likely to cause disease. So bats are also important for our health, to enable us to better understand how our genome functions.
所以在我的實驗室,我們已透過蝙蝠 觀察出兩種不同的感官疾病。 我們觀察失明。現在為甚麼你要這樣做? 三億一千四百萬人視力受損, 當中有四千五百萬人失明。所以失明是個嚴重的問題, 而有很多失明失調的問題都是遺傳疾病。 所以我們希望能夠 更了解哪種基因變化導致疾病。 我們也研究失聰。在每一千個初生嬰兒中, 有一個失聰,而當我們八十歲時, 一半以上的人會有聽力問題。 再次的,這是很多不同基因引起的。 所以在我的實驗室裡, 我們正在觀察這些獨特的感官專家--蝙蝠, 我們觀察基因中有缺陷 而引致失明, 當基因中有缺陷而引致失聰, 現在我們預測哪些區域最有可能引發疾病。 所以蝙蝠亦對我們的健康很重要, 令我們更明白我們的基因體怎樣運作。
So this is where we are right now, but what about the future? What about longevity? This is where we're going to go, and as I said before, I really believe that the secret of everlasting youth lies within the bat genome. So why should we be interested in aging at all? Well, really, this is a picture drawn from the 1500s of the Fountain of Youth. Aging is considered one of the most familiar, yet the least well-understood, aspects of all of biology, and really, since the dawn of civilization, mankind has sought to avoid it. But we are going to have to understand it a bit better. In Europe alone, by 2050, there is going to be a 70 percent increase of individuals over 65, and 170 percent increase in individuals over 80. As we age, we deteriorate, and this deterioration causes problems for our society, so we have to address it.
這就是我們現在的情況, 但未來又怎樣呢? 長壽又怎樣呢? 這是我們將會研究的,如我之前所述, 我真的相信年輕的秘密 隱藏在蝙蝠的基因體中。 而我們為甚麼對衰老感興趣? 嗯,真的,這是1500年代的一幅 有關青春泉源的畫。衰老在生物學中被認為是 其中一種最熟識,但最不了解的一範疇, 而真的, 自文明以來,人類一直找方法去避免衰老。 但我們將會更了解它。 只是在歐洲,到2050年, 60歲以上的人將會上升70個百分點, 80歲以上的人將會上升170個百分點。 當我們漸漸衰老,我們退化,這退化 對我們社會造成問題,所以我們要面對它。
So how could the secret of everlasting youth actually lie within the bat genome? Does anybody want to hazard a guess over how long this bat could live for? Who -- put up your hands -- who says two years? Nobody? One? How about 10 years? Some? How about 30? How about 40? Okay, it's a whole varied response. This bat is myotis brandtii. It's the longest-living bat. It lived for up to 42 years, and this bat's still alive in the wild today. But what would be so amazing about this?
而青春的秘密實際上怎樣 隱藏在基因體內?有誰想大膽地 猜測蝙蝠可以生存多久? 誰--舉起手的人--誰說2年? 沒有?1位?那麼10年? 有些?那麼30年? 40年?不錯,各有不同的反應。 這蝙蝠是布氏鼠耳蝠。牠是最長壽的蝙蝠。 牠的壽命長達42年, 這蝙蝠至今仍生存在野外中。 但有甚麼驚人呢?
Well, typically, in mammals there is a relationship between body size, metabolic rate, and how long you can live for, and you can predict how long a mammal can live for given its body size. So typically, small mammals live fast, die young. Think of a mouse. But bats are very different. As you can see here on this graph, in blue, these are all other mammals, but bats can live up to nine times longer than expected despite having a really, really high metabolic rate, and the question is, how can they do that? There are 19 species of mammal that live longer than expected, given their body size, than man, and 18 of those are bats. So therefore, they must have something within their DNA that ables them to deal with the metabolic stresses, particularly of flight. They expend three times more energy than a mammal of the same size, but don't seem to suffer the consequences or the effects. So right now, in my lab, we're combining state-of-the-art bat field biology, going out and catching the long-lived bats, with the most up-to-date, modern molecular technology to understand better what it is that they do to stop aging as we do. And hopefully in the next five years, I'll be giving you a TEDTalk on that. Aging is a big problem for humanity, and I believe that by studying bats, we can uncover the molecular mechanisms that enable mammals to achieve extraordinary longevity. If we find out what they're doing, perhaps through gene therapy, we can enable us to do the same thing. Potentially, this means that we could halt aging or maybe even reverse it. Just imagine what that would be like.
嗯,正常地,哺乳動物中 體型大小,新陳代謝率 和你的壽命之間有關聯,如果知道某哺乳動物的體型大小 你可以預測牠可以存活多久。 所以一般而言,體型細小的哺乳動物很快很早便死去, 想一想老鼠。蝙蝠卻很不同。 如你看到的這圖表, 藍色代表所有其他的哺乳動物,但蝙蝠 超出預期的壽命9倍, 即使牠們有一個很高的新陳代謝率, 而問題是,牠們怎樣做到的呢? 根據體型大小,有19類的哺乳動物中比預期 更長壽,比人類更長壽, 而其中18種是蝙蝠。 所以,牠們DNA中一定有點甚麼 減低牠們新陳代謝的壓力, 尤其是飛行。牠們的預期的能量 是同體型中的哺乳動物的3偣。 但似乎沒有受到其後果或影響。 所以現在,在我的實驗室,我們正在結合 先進的蝙蝠生物學,出外和捕捉 長壽的蝙蝠,以最新 最先進的分子科技來更了解 牠們怎樣來停止衰老,如我們一樣。 而希望在未來5年,我會再在TED講這題目。 衰老是人類的一個大問題, 而我相信研究蝙蝠,我們可以發現 令哺乳動物非常十分長壽的分子結構。 如果我們找出 蝙蝠怎樣做,可能透過基因治療, 我們可以同樣達到長壽。 這代表我們可能可以停止衰老或者返老還童。 想像這是怎樣境界。
So really, I don't think we should be thinking of them as flying demons of the night, but more as our superheroes. And the reality is that bats can bring us so much benefit if we just look in the right place. They're good for our ecosystem, they allow us to understand how our genome functions, and they potentially hold the secret to everlasting youth. So tonight, when you walk out of here and you look up in the night skies, and you see this beautiful flying mammal, I want you to smile. Thank you. (Applause)
所以我真的,我不相信我們要把牠們想像成 夜間飛來飛去的魔鬼,而是我們的超級英雄。 而現實是如果我們正確地看 蝙蝠可以帶來很多好處。牠們對我們生態系統有利, 牠們讓我們了解我們的基因體如何運作, 以及牠們有可能擁有保持青春的秘密。 所以今天晚上,當你離開這裡,你抬頭看 晚上的星空,你看到美麗飛來飛去的哺乳動物, 我希望你會笑。多謝。(掌聲)