When I was growing up in Montana, I had two dreams. I wanted to be a paleontologist, a dinosaur paleontologist, and I wanted to have a pet dinosaur. And so that's what I've been striving for all of my life. I was very fortunate early in my career. I was fortunate in finding things. I wasn't very good at reading things. In fact, I don't read much of anything. I am extremely dyslexic, and so reading is the hardest thing I do. But instead, I go out and I find things. Then I just pick things up. I basically practice for finding money on the street. (Laughter) And I wander about the hills, and I have found a few things.
De cativo, en Montana, eu tiña dous soños. Desexaba ser paleontólogo, paleontólogo de dinosauros, e quería ter un dinosauro coma mascota. E por ese soño levo loitando toda a miña vida. Tiven moita sorte ao principio da miña carreira. Tiven a sorte de atopar cousas. Non era moi bo para ler cousas. De feito, non leo moito de nada. Son extremadamente disléxico e por iso me custa tanto ler. Pero, en lugar de ler, saio e atopo cousas. Logo as recollo. Basicamente practico para atopar cartos na rúa. (Risas) E percorro os outeiros, e deste xeito descubrín algunhas cousas.
And I have been fortunate enough to find things like the first eggs in the Western hemisphere and the first baby dinosaurs in nests, the first dinosaur embryos and massive accumulations of bones. And it happened to be at a time when people were just starting to begin to realize that dinosaurs weren't the big, stupid, green reptiles that people had thought for so many years. People were starting to get an idea that dinosaurs were special.
E tiven tanta sorte como para atopar os primeiros ovos do hemisferio occidental e os primeiros bebés dinosauro nos seus niños, os primeiros embrións de dinosauro e unha acumulación masiva de ósos. E isto sucedeu nun momento no que a xente recén chegada comezaba a darse de conta de que os dinosauros non eran eses grandes réptiles verdes e parvos como se pensou durante anos. A xente comezaba a facerse unha idea de que os dinosauros eran especiais.
And so, at that time, I was able to make some interesting hypotheses along with my colleagues. We were able to actually say that dinosaurs -- based on the evidence we had -- that dinosaurs built nests and lived in colonies and cared for their young, brought food to their babies and traveled in gigantic herds. So it was pretty interesting stuff. I have gone on to find more things and discover that dinosaurs really were very social. We have found a lot of evidence that dinosaurs changed from when they were juveniles to when they were adults. The appearance of them would have been different -- which it is in all social animals. In social groups of animals, the juveniles always look different than the adults. The adults can recognize the juveniles; the juveniles can recognize the adults. And so we're making a better picture of what a dinosaur looks like. And they didn't just all chase Jeeps around.
Por iso, nese momento puiden arriscar algunhas hipóteses interesantes xunto aos meus colegas. Estabamos en condicións de afirmar que os dinosauros -coas evidencias que tiñamos- que os dinosauros facían niños e vivían en colonias coidando das súas crías, alimentando aos seus bebés, e que viaxaban en manadas xigantes. Por iso foi algo bastante interesante. Fun máis alá e descubrín máis cousas, como que os dinosauros eran en verdade moi sociais. Atopamos moitas probas de que os dinosauros cambiaban dende a etapa xuvenil ata a etapa adulta. Que o seu aspecto fora diferente... algo presente en todos os animais sociais. Nos grupos sociais de animais os mozos sempre teñen un aspecto diferente ca os adultos. Os adultos poden recoñecer aos mozos; e os mozos poden recoñecer aos adultos. Isto dános unha mellor idea do aspecto dos dinosauros. E eles non só perseguían Jeeps por aí.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
But it is that social thing that I guess attracted Michael Crichton. And in his book, he talked about the social animals. And then Steven Spielberg, of course, depicts these dinosaurs as being very social creatures. The theme of this story is building a dinosaur, and so we come to that part of "Jurassic Park." Michael Crichton really was one of the first people to talk about bringing dinosaurs back to life. You all know the story, right. I mean, I assume everyone here has seen "Jurassic Park."
Pero é este aspecto social o que supoño que suscitou o interese de Michael Crichton. No seu libro falou dos animais sociais. Logo, Steven Spielberg, claro, retrata estes dinosauros como criaturas moi sociais. O tema de esta historia é "Crear un dinosauro..." e deste xeito chegamos á parte de "Parque Xurásico". Michael Crichton en realidade foi un dos primeiros en falar de resucitar dinosauros. Todos coñecen a historia, ¿non sí? Quero dicir, supoño que todos os presentes viron "Parque Xurásico".
If you want to make a dinosaur, you go out, you find yourself a piece of petrified tree sap -- otherwise known as amber -- that has some blood-sucking insects in it, good ones, and you get your insect and you drill into it and you suck out some DNA, because obviously all insects that sucked blood in those days sucked dinosaur DNA out. And you take your DNA back to the laboratory and you clone it. And I guess you inject it into maybe an ostrich egg, or something like that, and then you wait, and, lo and behold, out pops a little baby dinosaur. And everybody's happy about that. (Laughter) And they're happy over and over again. They keep doing it; they just keep making these things. And then, then, then, and then ... Then the dinosaurs, being social, act out their socialness, and they get together, and they conspire. And, of course, that's what makes Steven Spielberg's movie -- conspiring dinosaurs chasing people around.
Se un quere facer un dinosauro, sae fóra, atopa un anaco de zume de árbore petrificado -tamén coñecido coma ámbar- que conteña algúns insectos que chupen sangue dentro, bos exemplares, e colle o insecto e fura nel e saca un pouco de ADN, porque obviamente, todos os insectos que chupaban sangue daquela chupaban ADN de dinosauro. Un leva o ADN ao laboratorio e clónao. E supoño que quizais o inxecta nun ovo de avestruz, ou algo parecido, e logo espera, e... quén o ía a dicir! Sae un pequeno bebé dinosauro. E todos contentos. (Risas) Contentos unha e outra vez. Siguen facéndoo; siguen creando estas cousas E deste xeito... os dinosauros, seres sociais, deixan de lado a súa sociabilidade, xúntanse, e conspiran. Claro, iso é o que acontece na película de Steven Spielberg. Dinosauros que conspiran e perseguen xente.
So I assume everybody knows that if you actually had a piece of amber and it had an insect in it, and you drilled into it, and you got something out of that insect, and you cloned it, and you did it over and over and over again, you'd have a room full of mosquitos. (Laughter) (Applause) And probably a whole bunch of trees as well.
Supoño que todos saben que si un tivera unha peza de ámbar cun insecto dentro e fura nela, e lle saca algo ao insecto, clónao, e repite unha e outra vez, consigue unha sala chea de mosquitos. (Risas) (Aplausos) E probablemente unha chea de árbores tamén.
Now if you want dinosaur DNA, I say go to the dinosaur. So that's what we've done. Back in 1993 when the movie came out, we actually had a grant from the National Science Foundation to attempt to extract DNA from a dinosaur, and we chose the dinosaur on the left, a Tyrannosaurus rex, which was a very nice specimen. And one of my former doctoral students, Dr. Mary Schweitzer, actually had the background to do this sort of thing. And so she looked into the bone of this T. rex, one of the thigh bones, and she actually found some very interesting structures in there. They found these red circular-looking objects, and they looked, for all the world, like red blood cells. And they're in what appear to be the blood channels that go through the bone. And so she thought, well, what the heck. So she sampled some material out of it. Now it wasn't DNA; she didn't find DNA. But she did find heme, which is the biological foundation of hemoglobin. And that was really cool. That was interesting. That was -- here we have 65-million-year-old heme. Well we tried and tried and we couldn't really get anything else out of it.
Pero se un quere ADN de dinosauro, eu digo: vaian ata os dinosauros. E iso é o que fixemos. En 1993, cando a película foi estreada, nós conseguimos unha bolsa da National Science Foundation para tratar de extraer ADN dun dinosauro. Eliximos o dinosauro da esquerda, un Tiranosauro Rex, o cal era un exemplar moi bo. E unha das miñas ex-estudantes de doctorado, a Dra. Mary Schweitzer, tiña a formación para facer este tipo de cousas. Analizou un óso deste T-Rex, un dos ósos da coxa, e realmente atopou unhas estruturas moi interesantes alí. Atoparon estes obxectos vermellos de aparencia circular, que ante os ollos de todo o mundo semellaban glóbulos vermellos. E están dentro do que parecen ser canles sanguíneas que van a través do óso. Entonces ela pensou, veña, qué diantres. E tomou unha mostra do material. Non era ADN; non atopou ADN. Pero sí atopou hemo, que é a base biolóxica da hemoglobina. Isto foi algo xenial. Foi interesante. Foi como... Aquí temos hemo de 65 millóns de anos de idade. Ben, tratamos unha e outra vez pero non puidemos extraer nada máis.
So a few years went by, and then we started the Hell Creek Project. And the Hell Creek Project was this massive undertaking to get as many dinosaurs as we could possibly find, and hopefully find some dinosaurs that had more material in them. And out in eastern Montana there's a lot of space, a lot of badlands, and not very many people, and so you can go out there and find a lot of stuff. And we did find a lot of stuff. We found a lot of Tyrannosaurs, but we found one special Tyrannosaur, and we called it B-rex. And B-rex was found under a thousand cubic yards of rock. It wasn't a very complete T. rex, and it wasn't a very big T. rex, but it was a very special B-rex. And I and my colleagues cut into it, and we were able to determine, by looking at lines of arrested growth, some lines in it, that B-rex had died at the age of 16. We don't really know how long dinosaurs lived, because we haven't found the oldest one yet. But this one died at the age of 16.
Pasaron uns anos e comezamos o Proxecto Hell Creek. O Proxecto Hell Creek era esta empresa de gran envergadura para acadar tantos dinosauros como fora posible, coa esperanza de atopar algúns que contivesen máis material. Ao este de Montana hai moito espacio, gran cantidade de terras baldías, e non moita xente. Así que alí poden atoparse moitas cousas. E si, atopamos moitas cousas. Atopamos moitos Tiranosauros, pero demos cun en especial ao que chamamos B-Rex. Atopamos o B-Rex baixo case 800 metros cúbicos de rocha. Non era un T-rex moi completo, nin moi grande, pero era un B-Rex moi especial. E cos meus colegas, cortámolo e puidemos determinar, ao observar as súas liñas de crecemento freado, nalgunhas liñas del, que o B-Rex morrera aos 16 anos. Non sabemos canto vivían os dinosauros porque aínda non dimos atopado ao máis lonxevo. Pero este morreu aos 16 anos.
We gave samples to Mary Schweitzer, and she was actually able to determine that B-rex was a female based on medullary tissue found on the inside of the bone. Medullary tissue is the calcium build-up, the calcium storage basically, when an animal is pregnant, when a bird is pregnant. So here was the character that linked birds and dinosaurs. But Mary went further. She took the bone, and she dumped it into acid. Now we all know that bones are fossilized, and so if you dump it into acid, there shouldn't be anything left. But there was something left. There were blood vessels left. There were flexible, clear blood vessels. And so here was the first soft tissue from a dinosaur. It was extraordinary. But she also found osteocytes, which are the cells that laid down the bones. And try and try, we could not find DNA, but she did find evidence of proteins.
Démoslle as mostras a Mary Schweitzer, e ela puido determinar que o B-Rex era femia en base ao tecido medular atopado no interior do óso. O tecido medular é a acumulación de calcio, é o almacenamento de calcio, básicamente, para cando un animal está preñado, para cando unha ave está preñada. Este é o rasgo que une aves e dinosauros. Pero Mary foi máis alá. Tomou o óso e botouno en ácido. Todos sabemos que os ósos están fosilizados e, polo tanto, se un o bota en ácido, non debería quedar nada. Pero quedou algo. Quedaron vasos sanguíneos. Había vasos sanguíneos flexibles, dinstinguibles. Este foi o primeiro tecido brando dun dinosauro. Foi algo extraordinario. Pero ela tamén atopou osteocitos, que son as células que deixan os ósos. Por moito que o tentamos, non pudimos atopar ADN pero ela si atopou evidencia de proteínas.
But we thought maybe -- well, we thought maybe that the material was breaking down after it was coming out of the ground. We thought maybe it was deteriorating very fast. And so we built a laboratory in the back of an 18-wheeler trailer, and actually took the laboratory to the field where we could get better samples. And we did. We got better material. The cells looked better. The vessels looked better. Found the protein collagen. I mean, it was wonderful stuff. But it's not dinosaur DNA. So we have discovered that dinosaur DNA, and all DNA, just breaks down too fast. We're just not going to be able to do what they did in "Jurassic Park." We're not going to be able to make a dinosaur based on a dinosaur.
Pero entón pensamos... ben, pensamos que quizais o material estaba a descompoñerse unha vez era desenterrado. Pensamos que quizais estaba deteriorándose moi rápido. Por iso construimos un laboratorio no remolque dun camión articulado de 18 rodas, e levamos o laboratorio ao campo de traballo para acadar mellores mostras. E lográmolo. Conseguimos un material mellor. O aspecto das células mellorou. Os vasos sanguíneos víanse mellor. Atopamos coláxeno. Quero dicir, foi algo marabilloso. Pero non é ADN de dinosauro. Así que descubrimos que o ADN de dinosauro, e o ADN de todo, descomponse moi rápido. Nós, simplemente, non somos capaces de facer o que eles fixeron en "Parque Xurásico". Non vamos poder crear un dinosauro a partires dun dinosauro.
But birds are dinosaurs. Birds are living dinosaurs. We actually classify them as dinosaurs. We now call them non-avian dinosaurs and avian dinosaurs. So the non-avian dinosaurs are the big clunky ones that went extinct. Avian dinosaurs are our modern birds. So we don't have to make a dinosaur because we already have them.
Pero as aves son dinosauros. As aves son dinosauros vivintes. De feito, as clasificamos coma os dinosauros. Agora as chamamos dinosauros non aviares e dinosauros aviares. Os dinosauros non aviares son os grandes e torpes que se extinguiron. Os dinosauros aviares son as nosas aves modernas. Así, non temos que facer un dinosauro; porque xa os temos.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
I know, you're as bad as the sixth-graders. (Laughter) The sixth-graders look at it and they say, "No." (Laughter) "You can call it a dinosaur, but look at the velociraptor: the velociraptor is cool." (Laughter) "The chicken is not." (Laughter) So this is our problem, as you can imagine. The chicken is a dinosaur. I mean it really is. You can't argue with it because we're the classifiers and we've classified it that way. (Laughter) (Applause) But the sixth-graders demand it. "Fix the chicken." (Laughter) So that's what I'm here to tell you about: how we are going to fix a chicken.
Xa sei, vostedes sodes tan malos coma os cativos de sexto curso. (Risas) Eles cando ven isto dicen: "Non". (Risas) "Podes chamalo dinosauro pero mira para o velociraptor: o velociraptor mola". (Risas) "O polo non". (Risas) Así que este é o noso problema, como podedes imaxinar. O polo é un dinosauro. Quero dicir, en realidade o é. Non poden discutir iso, porque nós somos os clasificadores e nós o clasificamos asi. (Risas) (Aplausos) Pero os cativos de sexto curso esíxeno. "Melloren o polo". (Risas) Por iso estou aquí para contarlles iso, cómo imos mellorar o polo.
So we have a number of ways that we actually can fix the chicken. Because evolution works, we actually have some evolutionary tools. We'll call them biological modification tools. We have selection. And we know selection works. We started out with a wolf-like creature and we ended up with a Maltese. I mean, that's -- that's definitely genetic modification. Or any of the other funny-looking little dogs. We also have transgenesis. Transgenesis is really cool too. That's where you take a gene out of one animal and stick it in another one. That's how people make GloFish. You take a glow gene out of a coral or a jellyfish and you stick it in a zebrafish, and, puff, they glow. And that's pretty cool. And they obviously make a lot of money off of them. And now they're making Glow-rabbits and Glow-all-sorts-of-things. I guess we could make a glow chicken. (Laughter) But I don't think that'll satisfy the sixth-graders either.
Hai varias maneiras de mellorar o polo. Porque a evolución funciona e temos ferramentas evolutivas. Chamarémoslles ferramentas de modificación biolóxica. Hai selección natural. Sabemos que a selección funciona. Comezamos cunha criatura semellante ao lobo e rematamos cun maltés. Quero dicir... isto definitivamente é modificación xenética. Ou calquera dos outros tipos de cadeliños chistosos. Tamén temos a transxénese. A transxénese tamén é xenial. Trata de sacarlle un xene a un animal e poñerllo a outro. Así é como se fai un GloFish. Sácase un xene fluorescente dun coral ou dunha augamar e colócase nun peixe cebra, e xa está, xa resplandece. Isto é bastante xenial. Obviamente, gañan moito diñeiro con eles. Agora andan a facer coellos fluorescentes e todo tipo de cousas fluorescentes. Supoño que poderiamos facer un polo fluorescente. (Risas) Pero creo que iso tampouco contentaría aos nenos de sexto curso.
But there's another thing. There's what we call atavism activation. And atavism activation is basically -- an atavism is an ancestral characteristic. You heard that occasionally children are born with tails, and it's because it's an ancestral characteristic. And so there are a number of atavisms that can happen. Snakes are occasionally born with legs. And here's an example. This is a chicken with teeth. A fellow by the name of Matthew Harris at the University of Wisconsin in Madison actually figured out a way to stimulate the gene for teeth, and so was able to actually turn the tooth gene on and produce teeth in chickens. Now that's a good characteristic. We can save that one. We know we can use that. We can make a chicken with teeth. That's getting closer. That's better than a glowing chicken.
Pero hai outra cousa. Está o que chamamos activación de atavismo A activación de atavismo básicamten é... un atavismo é un rasgo ancestral. Terán escoitado que ocasionalmente tanto cativos como cativas nacen con rabo, e iso débese a que é un rasgo ancestral. Poden ocurrir moitos atavismos. Ás veces as serpes nacen con patas. Este é un exemplo. Este é un polo con dentes. Un compañeiro chamado Matthew Harris da Universidade de Wisconsin, en Madison, descubriu unha maneira de estimular o xene dos dentes, e foi capaz activar o xene dos dentes e producir polos con dentes. Este é un bo rasgo. Podemos recuperalo. Sabemos cómo usalo. Podemos facer un polo con dentes. Isto acércase máis o obxectivo. É mellor que un polo fluorescente.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
A friend of mine, a colleague of mine, Dr. Hans Larsson at McGill University, is actually looking at atavisms. And he's looking at them by looking at the embryo genesis of birds and actually looking at how they develop, and he's interested in how birds actually lost their tail. He's also interested in the transformation of the arm, the hand, to the wing. He's looking for those genes as well. And I said, "Well, if you can find those, I can just reverse them and make what I need to make for the sixth-graders." And so he agreed. And so that's what we're looking into.
Un amigo meu, un colega, o Dr. Hans Larsson da Universidade McGill está a estudiar os atavismos. O seu análise consiste en mirar a xénese do embrión das aves e en realidade mira como se desenvolven, e está interesado en determinar cómo foi que as aves perderon a súa cola. Tamén lle interesa a transformación do brazo, da man, nunha á. Tamén está a estudar eses xenes. E eu dixen: "Ben, se podes atopalos, podo revertilos e facer o que necesito para os cativos de sexto curso". Él estivo de acordo. Andamos niso.
If you look at dinosaur hands, a velociraptor has that cool-looking hand with the claws on it. Archaeopteryx, which is a bird, a primitive bird, still has that very primitive hand. But as you can see, the pigeon, or a chicken or anything else, another bird, has kind of a weird-looking hand, because the hand is a wing. But the cool thing is that, if you look in the embryo, as the embryo is developing the hand actually looks pretty much like the archaeopteryx hand. It has the three fingers, the three digits. But a gene turns on that actually fuses those together. And so what we're looking for is that gene. We want to stop that gene from turning on, fusing those hands together, so we can get a chicken that hatches out with a three-fingered hand, like the archaeopteryx. And the same goes for the tails. Birds have basically rudimentary tails. And so we know that in embryo, as the animal is developing, it actually has a relatively long tail. But a gene turns on and resorbs the tail, gets rid of it. So that's the other gene we're looking for. We want to stop that tail from resorbing.
Se un mira as mans dos dinosauros, un velociraptor ten esa man xenial coas súas poutas. O Archaeopteryx, unha ave, unha ave primitiva, aínda ten esa man moi primitiva. Pero coma poden ver, a pomba, ou o polo ou calqueira outra ave, teñen unha man un pouco rara, porque a man é unha á. Pero o xenial é que se un mira o embrión durante a súa xestación a man parécese, en realidade, bastante á man do Archaeopteryx. Ten os tres dedos, as tres xemas. Pero hay un xene que ao activarse os une. E por iso estamos buscando ese xene. Queremos evitar que ese xene se active, evitar que fusione esas mans, para acadar un polo cunha man de tres dedos, coma o Archaeopteryx. E o mesmo pasa coas colas. As aves teñen básicamente colas rudimentarias. E sabemos que no embrión, durante a xestación do animal, este ten unha cola relativamente longa. Pero aparece un xene que reabsorbe a cola, elimínaa. Ese é outro xene que andamos a procurar. Queremos deter a reabsorción da cola.
So what we're trying to do really is take our chicken, modify it and make the chickenosaurus. (Laughter) It's a cooler-looking chicken. But it's just the very basics. So that really is what we're doing. And people always say, "Why do that? Why make this thing? What good is it?" Well, that's a good question. Actually, I think it's a great way to teach kids about evolutionary biology and developmental biology and all sorts of things. And quite frankly, I think if Colonel Sanders was to be careful how he worded it, he could actually advertise an extra piece. (Laughter)
En realidade, o que estamos intentando é tomar un polo, modificalo, e facer o "polosaurus". (Risas) Isto é un polo cun aspecto mellor. Pero é algo moi elemental Iso é o que estamos a facer. E a xente sempre di: Por qué o fan? Por qué facer isto? De qué serve? Ben, ésa é unha boa pregunta. Creo que é unha gran forma de ensinar aos nenos bioloxía evolutiva, bioloxía do desenvolvemento e todo tipo de cousas. Francamente, penso que se o Coronel Sanders [de Kentucky Fried Chicken, NT] tivese coidado coa forma de dicilo, podería publicitar unha peza extra. (Risas)
Anyway -- When our dino-chicken hatches, it will be, obviously, the poster child, or what you might call a poster chick, for technology, entertainment and design.
Como sexa... cando o noso dino-polo rompa a casca será, obviamente, o rapaz da foto, ou o que vostedes chamarían o pito/rapaza da foto ["poster chick" no orixinal, NT]. Para tecnoloxía, entretemento e deseño [TED, NT].
Thank you.
Grazas.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)