If I could reveal anything that is hidden from us, at least in modern cultures, it would be to reveal something that we've forgotten, that we used to know as well as we knew our own names. And that is that we live in a competent universe, that we are part of a brilliant planet, and that we are surrounded by genius.
如果我可以揭露任何事物, 我們看不到的事物, 至少對於現代文化來說, 那就只能揭露我們已拋之腦後的事物。 但我們曾經是知道它們的, 就像我們知道自己的名字一樣。 而且我們生存在充足的宇宙中, 身為這絕妙星球的一員, 身旁圍繞著一群天才。
Biomimicry is a new discipline that tries to learn from those geniuses, and take advice from them, design advice. That's where I live, and it's my university as well. I'm surrounded by genius. I cannot help but remember the organisms and the ecosystems that know how to live here gracefully on this planet. This is what I would tell you to remember if you ever forget this again. Remember this. This is what happens every year. This is what keeps its promise. While we're doing bailouts, this is what happened. Spring.
仿生科技是一門新的學科, 嘗試向那群天才學習, 聽取他們的建議,設計上的建議。 那是我住的地方。 也是我念的大學。 我被天才包圍,不由自主地... 一直記得這些生物和生態系統, 它們知道如何優雅地生存在地球上。 這是我想要你記得的一點, 不准再忘記它, 記得它。 這是每年都會發生的事, 信守諾言的事, 當我們正忙於紓困案,這已發生。 春天。
Imagine designing spring. Imagine that orchestration. You think TED is hard to organize. (Laughter) Right? Imagine, and if you haven't done this in a while, do. Imagine the timing, the coordination, all without top-down laws, or policies, or climate change protocols. This happens every year. There is lots of showing off. There is lots of love in the air. There's lots of grand openings. And the organisms, I promise you, have all of their priorities in order.
想像要設計一個春天。 想像一切和諧編排。 你覺得TED很難組織 (笑聲),是吧? 想像,如果你很久沒這麼做,現在做。 想像那些時機點,那些巧合。 完全沒有上對下的法律規則, 或政策,或氣候變遷草案。 每年都這樣發生。 有很多爭奇鬥艷。 空氣裡充滿愛。 有很多盛大的開場。 而這些生物體,我向你保證, 他們全都井然有序。
I have this neighbor that keeps me in touch with this, because he's living, usually on his back, looking up at those grasses. And one time he came up to me -- he was about seven or eight years old -- he came up to me. And there was a wasp's nest that I had let grow in my yard, right outside my door. And most people knock them down when they're small. But it was fascinating to me, because I was looking at this sort of fine Italian end papers. And he came up to me and he knocked. He would come every day with something to show me. And like, knock like a woodpecker on my door until I opened it up. And he asked me how I had made the house for those wasps, because he had never seen one this big. And I told him, "You know, Cody, the wasps actually made that." And we looked at it together. And I could see why he thought, you know -- it was so beautifully done. It was so architectural. It was so precise.
我曾經有個鄰居,讓我接觸這些。 因為他的生活,通常是躺著 往上看那些牧草。 有一次,他來找我, 那時他大約七或八歲,他來找我。 那時有個蜂巢, 我讓它長在我家後院裡, 就在我的門外。 大多數人會趁蜂巢還小,就將之打下。 但它對我來很迷人。 因為我看著這種細緻的意式襯紙。 而他來找我並敲敲門。 每天都帶些東西來給我看。 敲門敲得像隻啄木鳥,直到我開門為止。 然後他問我, 我是如何做出那些蜂巢的。 因為他從未見過這麼大的蜂巢。 我告訴他:「知道嗎?Cody 其實蜂巢是蜜蜂自己做的。」 然後我們一起觀察它。 而我可以了解為什麼他會那樣以為, 你知道嗎?它是如此美麗地完工。 它很建築,很精準。
But it occurred to me, how in his small life had he already believed the myth that if something was that well done, that we must have done it. How did he not know -- it's what we've all forgotten -- that we're not the first ones to build. We're not the first ones to process cellulose. We're not the first ones to make paper. We're not the first ones to try to optimize packing space, or to waterproof, or to try to heat and cool a structure. We're not the first ones to build houses for our young.
但我不禁想到,為何這麼小的孩子, 就已經相信一個神話, 那就是這樣完美的作品, 一定是我們人類做出來的。 他為何不知道一件事, 也是我們都忘記的事實, 就是我們並非第一個會建造的物種。 我們並非第一個會處理纖維, 並非第一個造紙,也並非第一個 嘗試加大收納空間的物種。 或是製作防水、或嘗試加熱和冷卻。 我們並非第一個為後代建造房屋的物種。
What's happening now, in this field called biomimicry, is that people are beginning to remember that organisms, other organisms, the rest of the natural world, are doing things very similar to what we need to do. But in fact they are doing them in a way that have allowed them to live gracefully on this planet for billions of years. So these people, biomimics, are nature's apprentices. And they're focusing on function. What I'd like to do is show you a few of the things that they're learning. They have asked themselves, "What if, every time I started to invent something, I asked, 'How would nature solve this?'"
正在仿生科技學領域中發生的, 是人們開始記得 生物體,其他的生物體, 自然界中的其他生物, 正在做與我們需求極相似的事。 但事實上,他們用的方式 可讓他們優雅生存在地球上 好幾億年。 所以說這些仿生科學家 是大自然的學徒。 他們注重功能。 我想要讓你們看一些 他們正在學習的東西。 他們這樣問自己: 「倘若每次開始發明前 我都問『大自然會如何解決?』呢?」
And here is what they're learning. This is an amazing picture from a Czech photographer named Jack Hedley. This is a story about an engineer at J.R. West. They're the people who make the bullet train. It was called the bullet train because it was rounded in front, but every time it went into a tunnel it would build up a pressure wave, and then it would create like a sonic boom when it exited. So the engineer's boss said, "Find a way to quiet this train."
而這就是他們正在學習的。 這驚嘆的照片由捷克攝影師Jack Hedley拍攝。 這個故事關於一位J.R. West的工程師。 他們製造子彈列車。 它之所以名為子彈列車, 是因為它圓頭的造型。 但每次駛進山洞時, 就會產生一股壓力波, 而在駛出山洞時製造音爆。 於是工程師的老闆說: 「找出讓列車安靜的方法。」
He happened to be a birder. He went to the equivalent of an Audubon Society meeting. And he studied -- there was a film about king fishers. And he thought to himself, "They go from one density of medium, the air, into another density of medium, water, without a splash. Look at this picture. Without a splash, so they can see the fish. And he thought, "What if we do this?" Quieted the train. Made it go 10 percent faster on 15 percent less electricity.
他正巧是位愛鳥者, 他去了奧杜邦學會相關的會議。 他研究和學習,一段翠鳥的影片, 他想:「牠們從一種密度的介質—空氣, 進入另一種密度的介質—水, 卻不會濺起水花。」看這張照片。 沒有濺起水花,所以牠們看得到魚。 然後他想到:「倘若我們這麼做?」 安靜的列車。 加快10%而且節省15%電力。
How does nature repel bacteria? We're not the first ones to have to protect ourselves from some bacteria. Turns out that -- this is a Galapagos Shark. It has no bacteria on its surface, no fouling on its surface, no barnacles. And it's not because it goes fast. It actually basks. It's a slow-moving shark. So how does it keep its body free of bacteria build-up? It doesn't do it with a chemical. It does it, it turns out, with the same denticles that you had on Speedo bathing suits, that broke all those records in the Olympics,
大自然如何抗菌? 我們並非第一個需要保護自己 免於某些細菌侵擾的物種。 原來答案在—直翅真鯊。 牠的表面沒有細菌,表面無垢,亦無藤壺。 並不是因為牠游得很快。 牠其實很愜意,是一種慢速鯊。 那牠如何保持身體不滋生細菌? 牠不是使用化學方法。 原來,牠身上的鋸齒狀物, 與Speedo泳衣上的材質的相同, 而那泳衣曾打破所有奧運記錄。
but it's a particular kind of pattern. And that pattern, the architecture of that pattern on its skin denticles keep bacteria from being able to land and adhere. There is a company called Sharklet Technologies that's now putting this on the surfaces in hospitals to keep bacteria from landing, which is better than dousing it with anti-bacterials or harsh cleansers that many, many organisms are now becoming drug resistant. Hospital-acquired infections are now killing more people every year in the United States than die from AIDS or cancer or car accidents combined -- about 100,000.
但它有一種獨特的樣式, 而那種樣式—那種牠皮膚上 鋸齒狀樣式的結構 讓細菌無法附著。 有間名為Sharklet Technologies的公司 正將這種結構鋪在醫院的牆面, 防止細菌附著。 此法遠優於使用抗菌或強烈洗劑, 讓許多許多生物產生抗藥性。 在美國,醫院院內感染 每年奪走的性命 比AIDS或癌症或車禍的死亡總數更多— 約十萬人。
This is a little critter that's in the Namibian desert. It has no fresh water that it's able to drink, but it drinks water out of fog. It's got bumps on the back of its wing covers. And those bumps act like a magnet for water. They have water-loving tips, and waxy sides. And the fog comes in and it builds up on the tips. And it goes down the sides and goes into the critter's mouth. There is actually a scientist here at Oxford who studied this, Andrew Parker. And now kinetic and architectural firms like Grimshaw are starting to look at this as a way of coating buildings so that they gather water from the fog. 10 times better than our fog-catching nets.
這隻住在納米比沙漠的小生物, 沒有新鮮水源可以喝, 但他從霧氣中攝取水分。 在牠覆蓋身體的翅膀外側有些突起物, 而那些突起物可像磁鐵搬吸住水, 它們有親水性的尖端和蠟質的側邊, 所以霧氣會凝結在尖端, 然後從側邊流下,流如這種生物的口中。 真的有位Oxford的科學家, 研究這項技術,他叫Andrew Parker. 而現在有些動力和建築公司,像是Grimshaw 開始著眼於把這技術應用在 建築物的塗裝, 於是它們能從霧氣擷取水分, 效果比我們的捉霧網好上10倍。
CO2 as a building block. Organisms don't think of CO2 as a poison. Plants and organisms that make shells, coral, think of it as a building block. There is now a cement manufacturing company starting in the United States called Calera. They've borrowed the recipe from the coral reef, and they're using CO2 as a building block in cement, in concrete. Instead of -- cement usually emits a ton of CO2 for every ton of cement. Now it's reversing that equation, and actually sequestering half a ton of CO2 thanks to the recipe from the coral.
把二氧化碳當作建材。 生物體不認為二氧化碳是有害的, 植物和一些製造貝殼、珊瑚的生物, 都把二氧化碳當作建材。 現在有間水泥製造公司 成立於美國,名叫Clara. 他們借用珊瑚礁的祕方, 並且把二氧化碳當作 水泥、混凝土的材料, 代替...水泥通常... 每頓水泥會排放一頓二氧化碳, 現在方程式被逆轉, 而實際上可節省半頓二氧化碳, 多虧了得自珊瑚的祕方。
None of these are using the organisms. They're really only using the blueprints or the recipes from the organisms. How does nature gather the sun's energy? This is a new kind of solar cell that's based on how a leaf works. It's self-assembling. It can be put down on any substrate whatsoever. It's extremely inexpensive and rechargeable every five years. It's actually a company a company that I'm involved in called OneSun, with Paul Hawken.
以上都沒有利用生物體, 他們其實都只利用了 生物的生命藍圖或祕方。 大自然如何收集太陽能? 這是新的太陽能電池, 建基於葉子的運作方式, 它可以自我組裝。 它可著根於任何生化基質, 它非常便宜, 而且每五年可再充電。 那其實是我參與的一家公司,名為OneSun, 與Paul Hawken合作。
There are many many ways that nature filters water that takes salt out of water. We take water and push it against a membrane. And then we wonder why the membrane clogs and why it takes so much electricity. Nature does something much more elegant. And it's in every cell. Every red blood cell of your body right now has these hourglass-shaped pores called aquaporins. They actually export water molecules through. It's kind of a forward osmosis. They export water molecules through, and leave solutes on the other side. A company called Aquaporin is starting to make desalination membranes mimicking this technology.
大自然有好多好多淨化水的方式, 取出水中的鹽分。 我們用水去推擠細胞膜, 然後好奇為何細胞膜會堵塞, 而且為什麼需要那麼多電流。 大自然使用更優雅的方式, 而且每個細胞都會用。 你現在體內的每一粒紅血球 都有沙漏形的小孔, 名為水孔蛋白, 它們讓水分子通過、輸出。 這像是一種正向滲透作用, 他們輸出水分子, 然後讓溶質留在另一邊。 一間名為Aquaporin的公司正開始製造 模仿這種技術的去鹽薄膜。
Trees and bones are constantly reforming themselves along lines of stress. This algorithm has been put into a software program that's now being used to make bridges lightweight, to make building beams lightweight. Actually G.M. Opel used it to create that skeleton you see, in what's called their bionic car. It lightweighted that skeleton using a minimum amount of material, as an organism must, for the maximum amount of strength.
樹木和骨骼經常 沿著壓力線自我重組。 這種演算法已被運用在一個軟體, 現在用於使橋樑輕量化, 使建築鋼樑輕量化。 事實上G.M. Opel已經運用這軟體 創造了你所見到的那種骨架, 在所謂的仿生車當中。 輕量化的骨架使用最少材料, 如同一個生物體必須做的, 並且得到最大的支撐力。
This beetle, unlike this chip bag here, this beetle uses one material, chitin. And it finds many many ways to put many functions into it. It's waterproof. It's strong and resilient. It's breathable. It creates color through structure. Whereas that chip bag has about seven layers to do all of those things. One of our major inventions that we need to be able to do to come even close to what these organisms can do is to find a way to minimize the amount of material, the kind of material we use, and to add design to it. We use five polymers in the natural world to do everything that you see. In our world we use about 350 polymers to make all this.
這隻甲蟲,與這餅乾帶子大不相同, 甲蟲運用的是一種材料 ─ 基丁質。 而且它找出好多好多種方法 讓基丁質有很多不同的功能。 它防水, 它堅固且有彈性, 它很透氣,藉由結構安排產生顏色。 反觀餅乾袋需要約七層材料來達成那些功能。 我們主要的發明之一 就是我們必須具備能力 與這些生物體更相近的能力, 那就是找到一個方法 減少材料用量,那種我們所用的材料, 然後加上設計。 大自然只使用五種聚合物 來達成你所能見到的所有事物。 而人類用了350種聚合物 來製造這一切。
Nature is nano. Nanotechnology, nanoparticles, you hear a lot of worry about this. Loose nanoparticles. What is really interesting to me is that not many people have been asking, "How can we consult nature about how to make nanotechnology safe?" Nature has been doing that for a long time. Embedding nanoparticles in a material for instance, always. In fact, sulfur-reducing bacteria, as part of their synthesis, they will emit, as a byproduct, nanoparticles into the water. But then right after that, they emit a protein that actually gathers and aggregates those nanoparticles so that they fall out of solution.
大自然是奈米專家。 奈米科技、奈米粒子,聽過很多相關憂慮, 鬆散奈米粒子。而我最有興趣的是 有多少人問過: 「怎麼諮詢大自然如何安全運用耐米科技?」 大自然已行之久遠。 例如它總是把耐米粒子固定在某種材料。 事實上,硫還原細菌 在它們合成的過程中, 會釋放一種副產品, 一種奈米粒子進入水中。 但那之後,他們釋放一種蛋白質 可以聚集、聚合那些奈米粒子, 於是它們得以解決。
Energy use. Organisms sip energy, because they have to work or barter for every single bit that they get. And one of the largest fields right now, in the world of energy grids, you hear about the smart grid. One of the largest consultants are the social insects. Swarm technology. There is a company called Regen. They are looking at how ants and bees find their food and their flowers in the most effective way as a whole hive. And they're having appliances in your home talk to one another through that algorithm, and determine how to minimize peak power use.
能量使用。生物體慎用能量。 因為牠們得工作或以物異物來獲得每一分。 而現今最大的領域之一, 世界能源網當中, 你聽過智能電網。 最重要的顧問之一就是群居昆蟲。 群技術。有家公司名為Regen. 他們觀察螞蟻和蜜蜂 如何尋找牠們的食物和花朵, 用對整體族群(蜂巢) 最有效的方式。 他們有一種家用設備, 透過那種演算法互相溝通, 然後決定如何把尖峰用電降到最低。
There's a group of scientists in Cornell that are making what they call a synthetic tree, because they are saying, "There is no pump at the bottom of a tree." It's capillary action and transpiration pulls water up, a drop at a time, pulling it, releasing it from a leaf and pulling it up through the roots. And they're creating -- you can think of it as a kind of wallpaper. They're thinking about putting it on the insides of buildings to move water up without pumps.
有一群Cornell的科學家, 正在製造他們所謂的人造樹。 因為他們說:「樹幹底下沒有泵浦。」 是毛細作用和蒸散作造成拉力, 一滴一滴把水拉上去, 拉上去,從葉面釋放然後從根部拉取。 然後他們創造—你可以把它想成一種壁紙。 他們正想將它用在建築內部, 把水抽高而不需要泵浦。
Amazon electric eel -- incredibly endangered, some of these species -- create 600 volts of electricity with the chemicals that are in your body. Even more interesting to me is that 600 volts doesn't fry it. You know we use PVC, and we sheath wires with PVC for insulation. These organisms, how are they insulating against their own electric charge? These are some questions that we've yet to ask.
亞馬遜電鰻,瀕臨絕種, 這些物種當中的一些, 能使用你身體當中的一些化學物質, 製造出600伏特的電力, 更讓我有興趣的是... 600伏特不會把牠自己炸熟。 你知道我們使用PVC來包住電線, 利用PVC當作絕緣體。 這些生物,牠們如何讓自己 跟自己產生的電力絕緣呢? 有些問題我們還尚無解答。
Here's a wind turbine manufacturer that went to a whale. Humpback whale has scalloped edges on its flippers. And those scalloped edges play with flow in such a way that is reduces drag by 32 percent. These wind turbines can rotate in incredibly slow windspeeds, as a result.
這是風扇製造商取法於鯨豚。 座頭鯨有扇形邊的鰭, 而那些扇形邊 用某種方式與水流相互作用, 減少32%的阻力。 於是,極小的風速便能轉動這些風扇。
MIT just has a new radio chip that uses far less power than our chips. And it's based on the cochlear of your ear, able to pick up internet, wireless, television signals and radio signals, in the same chip. Finally, on an ecosystem scale.
MIT剛製作一款新的無線電晶片, 用電量遠小於目前的晶片, 而且它取法於你耳朵裡的耳蝸, 可以接收網路、無線電、電視訊號, 以及電台訊號,使用同一張晶片。 最後,建立在生態系統規模上。
At Biomimicry Guild, which is my consulting company, we work with HOK Architects. We're looking at building whole cities in their planning department. And what we're saying is that, shouldn't our cities do at least as well, in terms of ecosystem services, as the native systems that they replace? So we're creating something called Ecological Performance Standards that hold cities to this higher bar.
在Biomimicry Guild, 也就是我的顧問公司, 我們與HOK建築公司合作, 我們正考慮建造整座城市, 在他們的規劃部門中。 而我們的訴求是: 以生態系統服務的角度來看, 我們的城市不是應該至少 跟他們取代的原始系統一樣好嗎? 於是我們正在設立生態性能標準, 能讓城市維持在這個標準。
The question is -- biomimicry is an incredibly powerful way to innovate. The question I would ask is, "What's worth solving?" If you haven't seen this, it's pretty amazing. Dr. Adam Neiman. This is a depiction of all of the water on Earth in relation to the volume of the Earth -- all the ice, all the fresh water, all the sea water -- and all the atmosphere that we can breathe, in relation to the volume of the Earth. And inside those balls life, over 3.8 billion years, has made a lush, livable place for us.
問題是—仿生科技是達到創新 一條極其有力的途徑。 我想問的是:「哪些事情值得去解決?」 若你之前沒看過,這個還滿令人吃驚的。 Adam Neiman 博士。 這張圖描述... 地球上所有的水 相對於地球體積, 所有的冰、淡水、鹹水, 和所有我們呼吸的大氣,相對於地球體積。 而在那些球裡頭的是... 生命,超過3.8億年, 幫我們造了蒼翠、適宜居住的地方。
And we are in a long, long line of organisms to come to this planet and ask ourselves, "How can we live here gracefully over the long haul?" How can we do what life has learned to do? Which is to create conditions conducive to life. Now in order to do this, the design challenge of our century, I think, we need a way to remind ourselves of those geniuses, and to somehow meet them again.
所有的生物當中, 我們排在長長的隊伍後面, 來到地球上並且問我們自己: 「我們如何優雅地、長遠地生存?」 我們如何才能做到生物早已學會的事? 也就是創造有利於生命的環境。 現在為了這個目的, 我們這一世紀的設計挑戰,我想, 我們需要時時提醒自己想起那些天才 並且以某種方式再次與他們見面。
One of the big ideas, one of the big projects I've been honored to work on is a new website. And I would encourage you all to please go to it. It's called AskNature.org. And what we're trying to do, in a TEDesque way, is to organize all biological information by design and engineering function.
其中一個大創意,其中一個大計畫, 是我有幸參與的, 關於一個新的網站。而我希望大家去瀏覽它。 這網站叫做 AskNature.org. 而我們嘗試沿用TED的風格, 依照設計上和工程上的功能, 組織所有生物資訊。
And we're working with EOL, Encyclopedia of Life, Ed Wilson's TED wish. And he's gathering all biological information on one website. And the scientists who are contributing to EOL are answering a question, "What can we learn from this organism?" And that information will go into AskNature.org. And hopefully, any inventor, anywhere in the world, will be able, in the moment of creation, to type in, "How does nature remove salt from water?" And up will come mangroves, and sea turtles and your own kidneys.
我們與 EOL (生物百科) 合作, 達成 Ed Wilson 的TED願望。 他正在蒐集各種生物資訊 於一個網站。 而為EOL貢獻心力的科學家都在問一個問題: 「我們可以從這種生物身上學到什麼?」 然後哪些資訊會放在 AskNature.org 網站上。 希望,任何發明家,不論在世界上的哪裡, 在他們創造的當下,可以輸入: 「大自然如何去除水中的鹽分?」 然後結果就會顯示紅樹林和海龜, 和你的腎臟。
And we'll begin to be able to do as Cody does, and actually be in touch with these incredible models, these elders that have been here far, far longer than we have. And hopefully, with their help, we'll learn how to live on this Earth, and on this home that is ours, but not ours alone. Thank you very much. (Applause)
然後我們會開始 有能力 做到 Cody 所做的事, 而且實際上去接觸 這些令人難以置信的模型, 這些存在久遠的長者, 比我們存在更久、更久。 而且希望,藉由他們的幫助, 我們能學習如何在地球上生存, 生存在我們的家園,但也不單是我們的。 謝謝大家。 (掌聲)