When I was a young boy, I used to gaze through the microscope of my father at the insects in amber that he kept in the house. And they were remarkably well preserved, morphologically just phenomenal. And we used to imagine that someday, they would actually come to life and they would crawl out of the resin, and, if they could, they would fly away.
Kur isha nje djale i ri Veshtroja ngultas ne mikroskopin e babait tim insektet ne qelibar qe ai mbante ne shtepi. Ato ishin te mire ruajtura mrekullisht, morfologjikisht thjesht fenomenale. Dhe imagjinonim se nje dite, ato realisht do ktheheshin ne jete dhe do zvariteshin jashte rreshires, dhe, nese do mundeshin, do fluturonin.
If you had asked me 10 years ago whether or not we would ever be able to sequence the genome of extinct animals, I would have told you, it's unlikely. If you had asked whether or not we would actually be able to revive an extinct species, I would have said, pipe dream. But I'm actually standing here today, amazingly, to tell you that not only is the sequencing of extinct genomes a possibility, actually a modern-day reality, but the revival of an extinct species is actually within reach, maybe not from the insects in amber -- in fact, this mosquito was actually used for the inspiration for "Jurassic Park" — but from woolly mammoths, the well preserved remains of woolly mammoths in the permafrost.
Nese do me pyesnit 10 vjet me pare nese do mund te ishim te afte te ndiqnim gjenomin e kafsheve te zhdukura do ju thoja eshte e pamundur. Nese do me pyesnit nese do ishim apo jo te afte te ringjallnim nje specie te zhdukur, do ju thoja, vazhdoni enderroni. Por realisht ndodhem ketu sot, mrekullisht, per t'ju thene se jo vetem eshte ndjekja e gjenomit te zhdukur nje mundesi, nje realitet i dites moderne, por ringjallja e specieve te zhdukura eshte aktualisht e prekshme, mbase jo nga insektet ne qelibar -- ne fakt, kjo mushkonje eshte perdorur per te frymezuar "Jurassic Park"-- por nga mamuthet puplor, me te mirembajturit prej tyre jane ne parangrirje.
Woollies are a particularly interesting, quintessential image of the Ice Age. They were large. They were hairy. They had large tusks, and we seem to have a very deep connection with them, like we do with elephants. Maybe it's because elephants share many things in common with us. They bury their dead. They educate the next of kin. They have social knits that are very close. Or maybe it's actually because we're bound by deep time, because elephants, like us, share their origins in Africa some seven million years ago, and as habitats changed and environments changed, we actually, like the elephants, migrated out into Europe and Asia.
Puploret jane vecanerisht interesant, persosmerisht imazhi i Epokes se Akullnajave. Ata ishin te medhenj. Ata ishin leshtor. Kishin catall te medhenj, dhe me sa duket ne kishim nje lidhje shume te thelle me ta, ashtu sic e kemi me elefantet. Mbase sepse elefantet ndajne shume te perbashketa me ne. Ata i groposin te vdekurit e tyre. Edukojne pasuesin e fisit. Kane nderthurje sociale qe jane shume afer me tonat. Ose mbase ndodh sepse ne jemi te lidhur thelle me kohe, sepse elefantet, si ne, e kane origjinen nga Afrika rreth shtate milion vite me pare, dhe ndersa habitatet dhe mjedisi ndryshuan ne faktikisht, si dhe elefantet, migruam per ne Europe dhe Azi.
So the first large mammoth that appears on the scene is meridionalis, which was standing four meters tall weighing about 10 tons, and was a woodland-adapted species and spread from Western Europe clear across Central Asia, across the Bering land bridge and into parts of North America. And then, again, as climate changed as it always does, and new habitats opened up, we had the arrival of a steppe-adapted species called trogontherii in Central Asia pushing meridionalis out into Western Europe. And the open grassland savannas of North America opened up, leading to the Columbian mammoth, a large, hairless species in North America. And it was really only about 500,000 years later that we had the arrival of the woolly, the one that we all know and love so much, spreading from an East Beringian point of origin across Central Asia, again pushing the trogontherii out through Central Europe, and over hundreds of thousands of years migrating back and forth across the Bering land bridge during times of glacial peaks and coming into direct contact with the Columbian relatives living in the south, and there they survive over hundreds of thousands of years during traumatic climatic shifts. So there's a highly plastic animal dealing with great transitions in temperature and environment, and doing very, very well. And there they survive on the mainland until about 10,000 years ago, and actually, surprisingly, on the small islands off of Siberia and Alaska until about 3,000 years ago. So Egyptians are building pyramids and woollies are still living on islands.
Pra mamuthi i pare i madh qe shfaqet ne skene eshte meridionalis, i cili ishte kater metra i gjate me pesh rreth 10ton, dhe ishte nje specie e pershtatur ne pyll dhe shtrihej qe nga Europa Perendimore deri ne Azine qendrore, permes ures tokesore Bering dhe ne disa pjese te Amerikes Veriore. Dhe me pas, perseri, ndersa klima ndryshoi sikurse ndryshon gjithmone, dhe vendbanime te tjera u hapen, kishim mberritjen e specieve pershtatur-stepesh te quajtur trongotherii ne Azine Qendrore duke i spostuar meridionalis ne Europen Perendimore. Dhe tokat barore (savanat) e Amerikes Veriore u hapen, duke na sjell mamuthin Kolumbian, nje specie e madhe, leshtore ne Ameriken Veriore. Dhe ishte rreth 500.000 viteve me vone qe ne kishim mberritjen e puploreve, ai qe ne te gjithe njohim dhe e duam kaq shume, duke u perhapur nga Beringiani Lindor deri ne Azin Qendore, serish duke e shtyre trogontheriin jashte neper Europen Qendrore, dhe per qindra mijera vite duke migruar poshte e larte neper uren tokesore te Bering, gjate kohes se kulmit te akullt, dhe duke ardhur ne kontakt te drejtperdrejte me farefisin Kolumbian qe jetonte ne jug, dhe aty ata mbijetuan per qindra mijera vite gjate ndryshimeve traumatike te klimes. Pra ekziton nje kafshe shume plastike e cila ka kaluar tranzicione te medha si ne temperatura ashtu dhe mjedis, dhe ja ka dal shume mire. Dhe ne ate kontinent ata mbijetojne deri para 10.000 viteve, dhe suprizisht, ne ishujt e vegjel ne dalje te Siberise dhe Alaskes deri para 3.000 viteve. Pra Egjiptianet po ndertojne piramidat dhe puploret jetojne akoma neper ishuj.
And then they disappear. Like 99 percent of all the animals that have once lived, they go extinct, likely due to a warming climate and fast-encroaching dense forests that are migrating north, and also, as the late, great Paul Martin once put it, probably Pleistocene overkill, so the large game hunters that took them down.
Dhe me pas ata zhduken. Si 99 perqind e te gjitha kafsheve qe kane jetuar ndonjehere here ata zhduken, me shume mundesi prej ngrohjes se klimes dhe shpyllezimin e pyjeve te dendur qe po migrojne ne veri, dhe gjithashtu, sikurse ka thene nje here madhi Paul Martin, me shume gjasa, vrasja ne mase e Pleistocene kane qene gjahtaret e kafsheve te medha qe i kane eleminuar.
Fortunately, we find millions of their remains strewn across the permafrost buried deep in Siberia and Alaska, and we can actually go up there and actually take them out. And the preservation is, again, like those insects in [amber], phenomenal. So you have teeth, bones with blood which look like blood, you have hair, and you have intact carcasses or heads which still have brains in them.
Fatmiresisht, ne gjetem miliona mbetje te tyre te shperndara neper ngrirje te thelle-groposura ne Siberi dhe Alaske, dhe mund te shkojme atje dhe realisht ti marrim. Dhe ruajtja eshte, perseri, si ato insektet ne (qelibar), fenomenale. Pra kemi dhembe, kocka me gjak i cili ngjasonte me gjak, kemi flok, kemi kufoma te paprekura ose koke te cilat kane akoma tru brenda tyre.
So the preservation and the survival of DNA depends on many factors, and I have to admit, most of which we still don't quite understand, but depending upon when an organism dies and how quickly he's buried, the depth of that burial, the constancy of the temperature of that burial environment, will ultimately dictate how long DNA will survive over geologically meaningful time frames. And it's probably surprising to many of you sitting in this room that it's not the time that matters, it's not the length of preservation, it's the consistency of the temperature of that preservation that matters most.
Pra ruajtja dhe mbijetesa e ADN-se varet nga shume faktor, dhe me duhet ta pranoj, shumicen e tyre ne nuk i kuptojme akoma, por ne varesi te momentit kur nje organizem shuhet dhe sa shpejt ai varroset, thellesia e asaj groposje, qendrueshmeria ne temperaturen e atij mjedisi groposjeje do diktoje perfundimisht se sa gjate do mbijetoje ADN-ja mbi kornizat gjeologjikisht kuptimplota te kohes. Dhe me shume gjasa eshte suprize per shume nga ju qe qendroni sot ne kete salle, qe nuk eshte koha ajo qe ka rendesi, nuk eshte kohezgjatia e ruajtjes, eshte qendrueshmeria e temperatures se asaj ruajtje qe ka me shume rendesi.
So if we were to go deep now within the bones and the teeth that actually survived the fossilization process, the DNA which was once intact, tightly wrapped around histone proteins, is now under attack by the bacteria that lived symbiotically with the mammoth for years during its lifetime. So those bacteria, along with the environmental bacteria, free water and oxygen, actually break apart the DNA into smaller and smaller and smaller DNA fragments, until all you have are fragments that range from 10 base pairs to, in the best case scenarios, a few hundred base pairs in length. So most fossils out there in the fossil record are actually completely devoid of all organic signatures. But a few of them actually have DNA fragments that survive for thousands, even a few millions of years in time. And using state-of-the-art clean room technology, we've devised ways that we can actually pull these DNAs away from all the rest of the gunk in there, and it's not surprising to any of you sitting in the room that if I take a mammoth bone or a tooth and I extract its DNA that I'll get mammoth DNA, but I'll also get all the bacteria that once lived with the mammoth, and, more complicated, I'll get all the DNA that survived in that environment with it, so the bacteria, the fungi, and so on and so forth. Not surprising then again that a mammoth preserved in the permafrost will have something on the order of 50 percent of its DNA being mammoth, whereas something like the Columbian mammoth, living in a temperature and buried in a temperate environment over its laying-in will only have 3 to 10 percent endogenous.
Pra nese do shkonim thelle brenda kockave dhe dhembeve qe realisht i mbijetuan procesit te fosilizimit, ADN-ja qe njehere ishte e paprekur, e mbeshtjellur fort perreth proteinave te kromatines, eshte tashme ne sulme nga bakterjet qe bashkejetonin me mamuthin per vite gjate jeteses se tij. Pra ato baktere, sebashku me bakteret e mjedisit, pa uje dhe oksigjen, ne te vertete e ndajne ADN-ne ne fragmente ADN-je shume te vogla deri sa te kesh fragmente qe shtrihen, ne cifte 10-she, ne rastine me te mire, ne pak qindra cifte baze ne gjatesi. Pra shumica e fosileve ne regjistrin e fosileve jane ne te vertete totalisht te lira nga te gjitha shenjat organike. Por shume pak nga ato kane fragmente te ADN-se qe mbijetojne per mijera, madje pak milion vite ne kohe. Dhe duke perdorur teknologjine me te fundit te zvhillimit, kemi shpikur menyra qe mund te ndajme ne te vertete keto ADN larg nga pjesa tjeter e ngatarruar aty brenda, dhe nuk eshte aspak suprize per ju qe ndodheni ne kete salle qe nese marr nje kocke ose dhembe mamuthi dhe i shkepus ADN-ne atehere do marr jo vetem ADN-ne e mamuthit, por gjithashtu edhe te gjitha bakteret qe kane jetuar dikur me mamuthin, edhe me e komplikuar, do marr te gjithe ADN-ne qe mbijetoi ne ate mjedis me ate, bakteret, qelizat dhe te tjera. Aspak suprizuese atehere qe nje mamuth i ruajtur ne parangrirje do kete dicka ne rangun 50 per qind te ADN-se se qenies se mamuthit, ndersa dicka si mamuthi Kolumbian, qe jeton ne temperatura dhe ne nje mjedis te permbajtur mbi shtresen e tij, do kete vetem 3 deri ne 10 perqind endogjen.
But we've come up with very clever ways that we can actually discriminate, capture and discriminate, the mammoth from the non-mammoth DNA, and with the advances in high-throughput sequencing, we can actually pull out and bioinformatically re-jig all these small mammoth fragments and place them onto a backbone of an Asian or African elephant chromosome. And so by doing that, we can actually get all the little points that discriminate between a mammoth and an Asian elephant, and what do we know, then, about a mammoth?
Por kemi zbuluar disa ide shume te zgjuara qe realisht ne mundemi te kapim dhe nxjerrim mamuthin nga nje ADN-ne jo e mamuthit, dhe me avantazhin e sekuencave te analizes se larte, mund te nxjerrim dhe ne menyre bioinfomatikuese te riprodhojme fragmentet e vogla te mamuthit dhe ti vendosim ne nje kocke shpine ne kromozonin e nje elefanti Aziatik ose Afrikan. Dhe duke bere kete, realisht mund te marim pikat e vogla qe dallojne ndermjet nje mamuthi dhe nje elefanti Aziatik, atehere, cfare dime ne per nje mamuth?
Well, the mammoth genome is almost at full completion, and we know that it's actually really big. It's mammoth. So a hominid genome is about three billion base pairs, but an elephant and mammoth genome is about two billion base pairs larger, and most of that is composed of small, repetitive DNAs that make it very difficult to actually re-jig the entire structure of the genome.
Gjenomi i mamuthit eshte pothuajse ne permbushje, dhe realisht e dime qe eshte shume a madhe. Eshte mamuth. Pra gjenomi njerezor eshte rreth tre miliarde cifte baze, por gjenomi i nje elefanti dhe i mamuthit eshte rreth dy miliarde cifte baze me i madh, dhe me e rendesishmja eshte e perbere nga ADN me te vogla te perseritura e cila e ben shume te veshtire rigjenerimin e struktures totale te gjenomit.
So having this information allows us to answer one of the interesting relationship questions between mammoths and their living relatives, the African and the Asian elephant, all of which shared an ancestor seven million years ago, but the genome of the mammoth shows it to share a most recent common ancestor with Asian elephants about six million years ago, so slightly closer to the Asian elephant.
Pra, duke pasur kete informacion na lejon ti pergjigjemi nje prej pyetjeve interesante mbi lidhjen ndermjet mamuthit dhe fisit te tij ekzistues, elefantin Afrikan dhe Aziatik, te cilet ndanin te njejtin stergjysh shtate milion vite me pare, por gjenomi i mamuthit tregon ndarjen e nje stergjyshi me te vonshem te berbashket me elefantet Aziatik rreth gjashte milion vite me pare, shume i afert me elefenatin Aziatik.
With advances in ancient DNA technology, we can actually now start to begin to sequence the genomes of those other extinct mammoth forms that I mentioned, and I just wanted to talk about two of them, the woolly and the Columbian mammoth, both of which were living very close to each other during glacial peaks, so when the glaciers were massive in North America, the woollies were pushed into these subglacial ecotones, and came into contact with the relatives living to the south, and there they shared refugia, and a little bit more than the refugia, it turns out. It looks like they were interbreeding. And that this is not an uncommon feature in Proboscideans, because it turns out that large savanna male elephants will outcompete the smaller forest elephants for their females. So large, hairless Columbians outcompeting the smaller male woollies. It reminds me a bit of high school, unfortunately.
Me perparimet ne teknologjine e ADN-se aktualisht mund te fillojme te rendisim gjenomet e atyre mamutheve qe une permenda, dhe ne fakt une doja te flija per dy nga ato, puplorin dhe mamuthin Kolumbian, te cilet qe te dy jetonin shume afer njeri tjetrit gjate kulmit te akullnajave, dhe kur akullnajat ishin masive ne Ameriken Veriore, puploret u shtyne ne nje rajon tranzicioni nenakujsh, dhe erdhen ne kontakt me fisin e tyre i cili jetonte ne jug, aty ndane strehat, dhe sic rezulton dicka me shume se vetem strehat. Me sa duket ata u shumuan mes tyre. Dhe kjo nuk ishte nje vecori e rralle ne Proboscideans, sepse rezulton se meshkujt elefant te savanave do jene me te afte me femrat se sa elefantet e vegjel pyjor. Pra, Kolumbianet e medhenj pa push tejkaluan meshkujt puploret te vegjel. Me kujton pak gjimnazin, fatkeqesisht.
(Laughter)
(Te qeshura)
So this is not trivial, given the idea that we want to revive extinct species, because it turns out that an African and an Asian elephant can actually interbreed and have live young, and this has actually occurred by accident in a zoo in Chester, U.K., in 1978. So that means that we can actually take Asian elephant chromosomes, modify them into all those positions we've actually now been able to discriminate with the mammoth genome, we can put that into an enucleated cell, differentiate that into a stem cell, subsequently differentiate that maybe into a sperm, artificially inseminate an Asian elephant egg, and over a long and arduous procedure, actually bring back something that looks like this. Now, this wouldn't be an exact replica, because the short DNA fragments that I told you about will prevent us from building the exact structure, but it would make something that looked and felt very much like a woolly mammoth did.
Kjo nuk eshte e parendesishme, me iden qe duam te ringjallim speciet e zhdukura, se rezulton qe nje elefant Afrikan dhe Aziatik mund te shumohen dhe te sjellin ne jete te rinj, dhe kjo ka ndodhur aksidentalisht ne nje kopsht zoologjik ne Chester, U.K., ne 1978. Kjo do te thote se ne realisht mund te marim kromozonin e nje elefanti Aziatik ta modifikojme ne keto menyra sic e kemi bere aktualisht te mundemi ta ndajme me gjenomin e mamuthit, ta vendosim ne nje qelize te cberthamuar, ta modifikojme ne nje qelize burimi, me pas ta modifikojme mbase ne nje sperm, artificalisht te plenojme nje veze elefanti Aziatik, dhe pas nje procedure te gjate dhe te lodhshme, mund te sjellim dicka qe ngjan si kjo. Ne rregull, kjo mbase nuk mund te jete kopja ekzakte sepse ato fragmentet e shkurta te ADN-se qe ju permenda do na pengojne te ndertojme strukturen ekzakte, por do bente dicka qe do ngjasonte shume me nje mamuth puplor.
Now, when I bring up this with my friends, we often talk about, well, where would you put it? Where are you going to house a mammoth? There's no climates or habitats suitable. Well, that's not actually the case. It turns out that there are swaths of habitat in the north of Siberia and Yukon that actually could house a mammoth. Remember, this was a highly plastic animal that lived over tremendous climate variation. So this landscape would be easily able to house it, and I have to admit that there [is] a part of the child in me, the boy in me, that would love to see these majestic creatures walk across the permafrost of the north once again, but I do have to admit that part of the adult in me sometimes wonders whether or not we should.
Kur e permend kete me miqte e mi, ne shpesh diskutojme, ne rregull, por ku do e vendosesh? Ku do te strehosh nje mamuth? Nuk ka klime dhe vendbanim te pershtatshme. Faktikisht, nuk eshte kjo ceshtja. Rezulton se ka disa vende te kopsitura vendbanimi ne veri te Siberise dhe Yukon qe realisht mund te strehojne nje mamuth. Kujtoni, kjo ishte nje kafshe shume elastike qe ka jetuar neper ndryshime te tmerrshme klime. Pra kjo toke mund te strehoje shume lehte ate, dhe me duhet te pranoj se nuk eshte pjesa e femijes brenda meje, djali brenda meje, qe do deshironte te shikonte keto krijesa madheshtore duke ecur pertej veriut edhe nje here, por me duhet te pranoj se pjesa e te rriturit brenda meje disa here pyet veten nese duhet apo jo.
Thank you very much.
Ju faleminderit shume.
(Applause)
(Duartrokitje)
Ryan Phelan: Don't go away. You've left us with a question. I'm sure everyone is asking this. When you say, "Should we?" it feels like you're reticent there, and yet you've given us a vision of it being so possible. What's your reticence?
Ryan Phelan: Mos u largo. Na le me nje pyetje. Jam i sigurte qe te gjithe jane duke pyetur. Kur thua "Duhet?" Duket sikur je i permbajtur aty, por nderkohe na dhe vizionin qe kjo mund te jete e mundur. Ku qendron heshtja jote?
Hendrik Poinar: I don't think it's reticence. I think it's just that we have to think very deeply about the implications, ramifications of our actions, and so as long as we have good, deep discussion like we're having now, I think we can come to a very good solution as to why to do it. But I just want to make sure that we spend time thinking about why we're doing it first.
Hendrik Poinar: Nuk mendoj se eshte heshtje. Une thjesht mendoj se duhet te mendojme thelle implikimet, degezimet e veprave tona, dhe per sa kohe kemi nje diskutim te mirefillte si ky i tanishmi, une mendoj se ne mund te gjejme nje zgjidhje shume te mire se pse duhet ta bejme. Por une dua te sigurohem qe ne te kalojme kohe duke menduar se pse po e bejme fillimisht.
RP: Perfect. Perfect answer. Thank you very much, Hendrik.
RP: Perfekte. Pergjigje perfekte. Te falenderoj Hendrik.
HP: Thank you. (Applause)
HP. Faleminderit. (Duartrokitje)