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.
Keď som vyrastal v Montane, mal som dva sny. Chcel som sa stať paleontológom, dinosaurím paleontológom, a chcel som mať domáceho dinosaura. A o to som sa celý svoj život usiloval. Na začiatku kariéry som mal veľké šťastie. Šťastie na nachádzanie vecí. Čítanie mi veľmi nešlo. Vlastne ani veľa nečítam. Mám totiž ťažkú dyslexiu, a tak je pre mňa čítanie tá najťažšia vec. Ale miesto toho som vonku a nachádzam veci. A potom tie veci zoberiem. Je to cvičenie na hľadanie peňazí na ulici. (smiech) A pri túlaní sa po kopcoch som našiel niekoľko vecí.
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.
Mal som toľko šťastia, že som našiel veci ako prvé vajce na západnej pologuli, prvé dinosaurie mláďatá v hniezdach, prvé dinosaurie embryá a obrovské kopy kostí. A to sa stalo v dobe, keď si ľudia len začínali uvedomovať, že dinosaury neboli žiadne veľké hlúpe zelené plazy, ako sa myslelo dlhé roky predtým. Ľudia začínali tušiť, že dinosaury boli výnimočné.
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.
A tak v tej dobe som spolu so svojimi kolegami vytvoril zopár zaujímavých hypotéz. Boli sme schopní povedať, že dinosaury – na základe dôkazov, ktoré sme mali – že dinosaury stavali hniezda a žili v kolóniách a starali sa o svoje mláďatá, prinášali im potravu a presúvali sa v gigantických stádach. Takže celkom zaujímavé materiály. Pokračoval som v nachádzaní ďalších vecí, a zistil som, že dinosaury boli naozaj veľmi spoločenské. Našli sme množstvo dôkazov o tom, že dinosaury sa menili od mladých rokov až po dospelosť. Ich vzhľad sa menil – čo platí pre všetky spoločenské zvieratá. V spoločenských skupinách zvierat vyzerajú mláďatá vždy inak ako dospelí. Dospelí poznajú svoje mláďatá, mláďatá poznajú svojich rodičov. Takže si vytvárame lepší obraz o tom, ako vyzeral dinosaurus. A že všetky len nenaháňali džípy po parkoch.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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."
Ale práve táto spoločenskosť zrejme priťahovala Michaela Crichtona. Vo svojej knihe hovoril o spoločenských tvoroch. A potom samozrejme Steven Spielberg zobrazuje dinosaury ako vysoko spoločenské tvory. Našou témou je vytvorenie dinosaura, a tak sme sa dostali k scéne z Jurského parku. Michael Crichton bol naozaj jedným z prvých, ktorí hovorili o vzkriesení dinosaurov. Všetci ten príbeh poznáte, však. Predpokladám, že ste všetci videli Jurský park.
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.
Ak si chcete vyrobiť dinosaura, idete von, nájdete si kúsok skamenelej miazgy – inak známej tiež ako jantár – ktorá v sebe ukrýva nejaký krv sajúci hmyz, dobre zachovaný, a vy si ten hmyz vytiahnete, navŕtate sa doň, vysajete trochu DNA, pretože je jasné, že všetok hmyz, ktorý vtedy vysával krv, vysával dinosauriu DNA. A túto DNA odnesiete späť do laboratória a naklonujete ju. A myslím, že ju potom vstreknete napríklad do pštrosieho vajca alebo niečoho podobného, a potom čakáte, a pozrime sa, už sa nám liahne dinosaurie mláďatko. A všetci sa z toho tešia. (smiech) A tešia sa znova a znova. Takto to pokračuje; jednoducho ich vytvárajú. A potom, potom... Potom tieto spoločenské dinosaury predvádzajú svoju spoločenskosť, dajú sa dohromady a konšpirujú. A toto je zárukou úspechu filmu Stevena Spielberga – konšpirujúce dinosaury prenasledujú ľudí.
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.
Všetci, dúfam, vedia, že ak by ste naozaj mali kus jantáru, ktorý v sebe ukrýva hmyz, a navŕtali by ste sa doň a získali niečo z toho hmyzu, naklonovali to a toto robili stále dokola, mali by ste miestnosť plnú komárov. (smiech) (potlesk) A zrejme aj lesík stromčekov.
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.
Ale ak chcete dinosauriu DNA, hovorím vám, bežte za dinosaurom. To sme urobili. Keď bol v roku 1993 uvedený tento film, naozaj sme dostali grant od National Science Foundation, aby sme sa pokúsili získať DNA z dinosaura a my sme si vybrali toho naľavo, Tyranosaura rex, čo bol naozaj skvelý exemplár. A jedna z mojich bývalých doktorandiek, Dr. Mary Schweitzer, mala vtedy výborné zázemie na tieto veci. A tak preskúmala kostru tohto T. rexa, jednu z jeho stehenných kostí, a naozaj tam našla niekoľko veľmi zaujímavých štruktúr. Našli tam tieto červené guľaté objekty, ktoré vyzerali takmer ako červené krvinky. Boli v niečom, čo vyzeralo ako krvné kanáliky, ktoré prechádzajú kosťou. A tak si pomyslela – hm, ale čo s tým? Odobrala z nich nejaký materiál. Ale nebola to DNA, nenašla sa DNA. Určite však našla hém, čo je biologický základ hemoglobínu. A toto bola fakt bomba. Bolo to zaujímavé. Mali sme 65 miliónov rokov starý hém. Skúšali sme to stále znova, ale už sme z toho nedostali nič iné.
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.
Ubehlo pár rokov a my sme zahájili projekt Hell Creek. Projekt Hell Creek bol obrovský počin, zhromaždiť toľko dinosaurov, koľko sme len vedeli nájsť a hádam aj nejaké dinosaury, ktoré v sebe majú viac materiálu. A tam vo východnej Montane je veľa miesta, samá pustatina a málo ľudí, takže sa tam dá ísť a nájsť mnoho vecí. A my sme teda našli dosť vecí. Našli sme dosť tyranosaurov a medzi nimi bol jeden výnimočný, ktorého sme pomenovali B-rex. B-rexa sme našli pod tisíckami kubických metrov skaly. Nebol to úplne kompletný T. rex, a nebol to ani veľký T. rex, bol to však veľmi výnimočný B-rex. Spolu s kolegami sme doň zarezali a podarilo sa nám určiť podľa niektorých rysov pozastaveného rastu, že B-rex zahynul vo veku 16 rokov. Zatiaľ nevieme, ako dlho žili dinosaury, keďže sme ešte nenašli toho najstaršieho. Ale tento zahynul vo veku 16 rokov.
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.
Vzorky sme poskytli Mary Schweitzerovej a jej sa podarilo určiť, že B-rex bola samica, a to na základe tkaniva z drene, čo sme našli vo vnútri kosti. Dreňové tkanivo je nahromadený vápnik, skladisko vápnika pre tehotné samice, pre vtáčie tehotné samičky. Čiže to bol znak, ktorý spájal vtáky a dinosaury. Ale Mary šla ešte ďalej. Vzala kosť a vložila ju do kyseliny. Všetci vieme, že kosti sú skamenelé, takže keď ich ponoríte do kyseliny, nemalo by z nich nič ostať. Ale tu niečo ostalo. Zostali krvné cievy. Boli to pružné čisté krvné cievy. Takže sme mali prvé mäkké tkanivo z dinosaura. Bolo to niečo mimoriadne. Ale našla aj osteocyty, čo sú bunky, z ktorých sa skladajú kosti. Napriek snahe sme nemohli nájsť DNA, ale ona našla stopu proteínov.
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.
Ale mysleli sme si možno – mysleli sme si, že možno sa materiál rozložil, keď sme ho vykopali. Možno sa príliš rýchlo zničil. Tak sme si postavili laboratórium na korbe 18-kolesového prívesu a doslova sme si vzali laboratórium do terénu, kde sa dali získať lepšie vzorky. A naozaj sme lepší materiál získali. Bunky vyzerali lepšie. Cievy vyzerali lepšie. Našli sme proteínový kolagén. Bol to krásny materiál. Ale nie je to DNA dinosaura. Tak sme zistili, že dinosauria DNA a akákoľvek DNA sa jednoducho rozkladá prirýchlo. Nikdy jednoducho nedokážeme to, čo urobili v „Jurskom parku“. Nebudeme vedieť vytvoriť dinosaura z jeho vlastných kostí.
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.
Ale vtáky sú dinosaury. Vtáky sú žijúce dinosaury. Naozaj ich klasifikujeme ako dinosaury. Rozdeľujeme ich na nevtáčie a vtáčie dinosaury. Takže nevtáčie dinosaury sú tie obrovské, neohrabané, vyhynuté. Vtáčie dinosaury sú naše novodobé vtáky. Takže ani nemusíme vytvárať dinosaura, keďže ho už vlastne máme.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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.
Ja viem, že ste zlomyseľní ako šiestaci. (smiech) Šiestaci sa na to pozrú a povedia: „Nie“. (smiech) „Môžeme to nazývať dinosaurom, ale pozrite na velociraptora: velociraptory sú drsné.“ (smiech) „Kurence nie sú.“ (smiech) Tak to je náš problém, ako si iste viete predstaviť. Kura je dinosaurus. Myslím to vážne. Nemôžete to poprieť, lebo my sme klasifikátori a my ich tak klasifikujeme. (smiech) (potlesk) Ale šiestaci sú dotieraví. „Opravte to kura.“ (smiech) Takže o tom vám poviem: ako chceme opraviť kura.
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.
Je mnoho spôsobov, ako sa dajú opraviť kurence. Pretože funguje evolúcia, máme niektoré evolučné nástroje. Hovoríme im biologické modifikačné nástroje. Máme selekciu. A vieme, že selekcia funguje. Začínali sme stvorením, ktoré vyzerá ako vlk, a skončili sme maltezáčikom. Chcem tým povedať, že... je to určite genetická modifikácia. Alebo ktorýkoľvek z tých smiešne vyzerajúcich psíkov. Máme aj transgenózu. Transgenóza je tiež dosť drsná. Vyberiete gén z jedného zvieraťa a strčíte ho do iného. Ľudia takto vyrábajú GloFish. Vezmete fosforeskujúci gén z koralu či medúzy, vrazíte ho do rybky zebričky a aha, oni svetielkujú. A to je fakt drsné. A zjavne na tom zarábajú kopu peňazí. A teraz vyrábajú aj svietiace králiky a všetko, čo môže svietiť. Možno sa dajú urobiť aj svietiace kurence. (smiech) Ale myslím, že ani toto šiestakov neuspokojí.
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.
Ale je tu ďalšia vec, ktorú nazývame aktivácia atavizmu. Aktivácia atavizmu je v podstate – atavizmus je znak po predkoch. Už ste asi počuli, že sem-tam sa rodia deti s chvostom, a práve to je znak po predkoch. Existuje mnoho atavizmov, ktoré sa môžu objaviť. Hady sa občas rodia s nohami. A tu je jeden príklad. Toto je kura so zubami. Kolega Matthew Harris z univerzity v Madisone v štáte Wisconsin objavil spôsob, ako aktivovať zubný gén, a dokázal ho skutočne prebudiť a vyvolať u kuriat rast zubov. Toto je dobrý znak. Ten si môžeme uchovať. Vieme, že ho môžeme použiť. Môžeme vytvoriť kurence so zubami. Už sa k tomu blížime. Je to lepšie ako svetielkujúce kura.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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.
Môj priateľ a kolega Dr. Hans Larsson z McGill University sa zameriava na atavizmy. Zaoberá sa tým, že skúma pôvod embryí vtákov a sleduje, ako sa embryá vyvíjajú. Zaujíma sa tiež o to, ako vlastne vtáky prišli o chvost. Zaujíma sa tiež o premenu končatiny, ruky na krídlo. A hľadá zodpovedajúce gény. Povedal som: „Ak ich nájdeš, môžem ich zameniť a vytvoriť to, čo potrebujem pre šiestakov.“ Tak súhlasil. A teraz to preverujeme.
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.
Ak sa pozriete na dinosaurie ruky, velociraptor mal drsne vyzerajúcu ruku s pazúrmi. Archaeopteryx, čo je primitívny vták, mal ruku ešte veľmi zaostalú. Ale ako vidíte, holub, kura alebo akýkoľvek iný vták má čudne vyzerajúcu ruku, pretože z ruky sa stalo krídlo. Ale drsná vec je, že ak sa pozriete na vývoj embrya, ruka vyzerá takmer ako ruka Archaeopteryxa. Na ruke má tri prsty, tri články. Ale potom sa aktivuje gén, ktorý ich spojí. Takže my vlastne hľadáme ten gén. Chceme mu zabrániť, aby sa aktivoval a spojil tie prsty. Tak môžeme získať kura, ktoré sa vyliahne s tromi prstami, ako má Archaeopteryx. A to platí rovnako pre chvosty. Vtáky majú v podstate zakrpatené chvosty. A my vieme, že v embryu, keď sa zviera vyvíja, má chvost pomerne dlhý. Ale s aktiváciou génu sa chvost vstrebe, zviera sa ho zbaví. To je ďalší gén, ktorý hľadáme. Chceme zachrániť chvost pred pohltením.
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)
Takže sa veľmi snažíme zobrať naše kura, pozmeniť ho a vytvoriť kurosaura. (smiech) Je to kura s drsnejším výzorom. Ale to je iba začiatok. Tak to naozaj robíme. Ľudia sa vždy pýtajú: „Prečo to robíte? Na čo vytvárať niečo také? Na čo je to dobré?“ To je dobrá otázka. Myslím, že to je skvelý spôsob, ako učiť deti evolučnú biológiu, vývojovú biológiu a podobné záležitosti. A myslím si, že ak by sa Colonel Sanders (zakladateľ KFC) vyjadroval prezieravejšie, mohol robiť reklamu aj na extra kus. (smiech)
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.
V každom prípade... Ak sa naše dino-kura vyliahne, bude to iste zaujímavý reklamný pútač, alebo možno by sme mali povedať reklamný vtáčik na technológiu, zábavu a dizajn.
Thank you.
Ďakujem vám.
(Applause)
(potlesk)