So what does it mean to be a woman? We all have XX chromosomes, right? Actually, that's not true. Some women are mosaics. They have a mix of chromosome types with X, with XY or with XXX. If it's not just about our chromosomes, then what is being a woman about? Being feminine? Getting married? Having kids? You don't have to look far to find fantastic exceptions to these rules, but we all share something that makes us women. Maybe that something is in our brains.
做女人意味着什么? 我们都有XX染色体,对吧? 事实上,并非如此。 一些女性的性别特征并不清晰。 她们的染色体类型是X, XY和XXY的混合体。 如果不只是与我们的染色体有关, 那么成为女人的要素究竟是什么? 有女人味? 嫁人? 生小孩? 你不需要花很大力气就可以找到 这些规则的例外, 但我们都有让我们成为女人的东西。 也许这点就在我们的大脑中。
You might have heard theories from last century about how men are better at math than women because they have bigger brains. These theories have been debunked. The average man has a brain about three times smaller than the average elephant, but that doesn't mean the average man is three times dumber than an elephant ... or does it?
你也许听过上个世纪的理论, 男人的数学比女人要好, 是因为他们的大脑尺寸更大。 这些理论背后的真相已经被揭穿, 普通人的脑袋比大象的脑袋 要小三倍, 但并不意味着 普通人比大象要笨上三倍… 或者,的确是这样吗?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
There's a new wave of female neuroscientists that are finding important differences between female and male brains in neuron connectivity, in brain structure, in brain activity. They're finding that the brain is like a patchwork mosaic -- a mixture. Women have mostly female patches and a few male patches.
有一波新的女性神经科学家 正在发现女性和男性的 大脑在神经元连接, 大脑结构, 大脑活动方面的重要区别。 他们发现大脑就像拼接的马赛克—— 是一个混合体。 女性拥有大量的 女性模块和少量男性模块。
With all this new data, what does it mean to be a woman? This is something that I've been thinking about almost my entire life. When people learn that I'm a woman who happens to be transgender, they always ask, "How do you know you're a woman?" As a scientist, I'm searching for a biological basis of gender. I want to understand what makes me me. New discoveries at the front edge of science are shedding light on the biomarkers that define gender. My colleagues and I in genetics, neuroscience, physiology and psychology, we're trying to figure out exactly how gender works. These vastly different fields share a common connection -- epigenetics. In epigenetics, we're studying how DNA activity can actually radically and permanently change, even though the sequence stays the same.
有所有这些新数据背后, 做女人到底意味着什么呢? 这几乎是我毕生都在思考的事情。 当人们知道我碰巧 是个跨性别者的女人时, 他们总会问, “你怎么知道你是女人?” 作为科学家,我致力于 寻找性别的生物学基础。 我想要弄清楚是什么塑造了我。 前沿科学的新发现 给定义性别的生物标志带来曙光。 我和我的同事在遗传学、神经科学、 生理学和心理学方面都有研究, 我们试图弄清楚性别是如何起作用的。 这些截然不同的领域有共同的连接—— 实验胚胎学。 在实验胚胎学中,我们在研究DNA活动 是如何发生根本和永久性变化的, 即使序列保持不变。
DNA is the long, string-like molecule that winds up inside our cells. There's so much DNA that it actually gets tangled into these knot-like things -- we'll just call them knots. So external factors change how those DNA knots are formed. You can think of it like this: inside our cells, there's different contraptions building things, connecting circuits, doing all the things they need to make life happen. Here's one that's sort of reading the DNA and making RNA. And then this one is carrying a huge sac of neurotransmitters from one end of the brain cell to the other. Don't they get hazard pay for this kind of work?
DNA是一种缠绕在 我们细胞内的长链分子。 DNA的数量十分庞大, 以至于它实际上会形成 类似绳结的东西—— 我们就叫它们结吧。 外部因素改变了DNA结的形成。 你可以这样想: 在我们的细胞里,有各种各样的 精巧装置,它们可以制造东西, 连接回路, 做所有必要的事情来打造生命体。 这里展示的是读取DNA, 制造RNA的过程。 这个是携带着一个 巨大的神经递质囊 从脑细胞的一端 到另一端。 它们做这种工作 难道不会得到危险津贴吗?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
This one is an entire molecular factory -- some say it's the secret to life. It's call the ribosome. I've been studying this since 2001.
这是一个完整的分子工厂—— 有人说这就是生命的密码。 它叫做核糖体。 我从2001年起就在研究它。
One of the stunning things about our cells is that the components inside them are actually biodegradable. They dissolve, and then they're rebuilt each day, kind of like a traveling carnival where the rides are taken down and then rebuilt every single day. A big difference between our cells and the traveling carnival is that in the carnival, there are skilled craftsmen that rebuild the rides each day. In our cells, there are no such skilled craftsmen, only dumb builder machines that build whatever's written in the plans, no matter what those plans say. Those plans are the DNA. The instructions for every nook and cranny inside our cells.
我们的细胞令人惊叹的一点是, 细胞内的成分其实是可以生物降解的。 它们会分解, 然后每天都被重建, 有点像流动嘉年华, 游乐设施每天都被拆除和重建。 我们的细胞和流动嘉年华最大的不同是 在嘉年华中, 每天有技术熟练的工匠 来重建这些游乐设施。 在我们的细胞中,没有如此熟练的工匠, 只有傻呼呼的建设机器, 计划中写什么就建什么, 不管那个计划说的是什么。 这些计划就是DNA。 细胞中对每个细节的指示。
If everything in, say, our brain cells dissolves almost every day, then how can the brain remember anything past one day? That's where DNA comes in. DNA is one of the those things that does not dissolve. But for DNA to remember that something happened, it has to change somehow. We know the change can't be in the sequence; if it changed sequence all the time, then we might be growing like, a new ear or a new eyeball every single day.
如果我们大脑中的细胞 几乎每天都在溶解, 那么大脑如何记住超过一天的事情? DNA在其中起到了关键的作用。 DNA是那些不会溶解的部分之一。 但要让DNA记得发生的事情, 它得多少做点改变。 我们知道改变不能在序列中; 如果它一直在改变序列, 那么我们可能每天就会长出 一只新的耳朵,或一个新的眼球。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
So, instead it changes shape, and that's where those DNA knots come in. You can think of them like DNA memory. When something big in our life happens, like a traumatic childhood event, stress hormones flood our brain. The stress hormones don't affect the sequence of DNA, but they do change the shape. They affect that part of DNA with the instructions for molecular machines that reduce stress. That piece of DNA gets wound up into a knot, and now the dumb builder machines can't read the plans they need to build the machines that reduce stress. That's a mouthful, but it's what's happening on the microscale. On the macroscale, you practically lose the ability to deal with stress, and that's bad. And that's how DNA can remember what happens in the past.
所以,它改变了形状, 形成了DNA结。 你可以把它想成DNA记忆。 当生活中发生大事的时候, 比如童年的创伤, 应激激素就会充满大脑。 应激激素不会影响DNA的序列, 但它们会改变形状。 它们通过指令分子机器 减少压力的方式来影响DNA这一部分。 DNA片段被缠绕成一个结, 现在愚蠢的建造机器无法读取到用来 建造减轻压力的机器的计划。 这听起来有点拗口, 但这就是在微观层面发生的事情。 从宏观层面上看,你似乎 失去了应对压力的能力, 这很糟糕。 这就是DNA记得 过去发生的事情的方式。
This is what I think was happening to me when I first started my gender transition. I knew I was a woman on the inside, and I wore women's clothes on the outside, but everyone saw me as a man in a dress. I felt like no matter how many things I try, no one would ever really see me as a woman. In science, your credibility is everything, and people were snickering in the hallways, giving me stares, looks of disgust -- afraid to be near me. I remember my first big talk after transition. It was in Italy. I'd given prestigious talks before, but this one, I was terrified. I looked out into the audience, and the whispers started -- the stares, the smirks, the chuckles. To this day, I still have social anxiety around my experience eight years ago. I lost hope. Don't worry, I've had therapy so I'm OK -- I'm OK now.
我想这就是当我首次 开始我的性别转变时 发生在我身上的事情。 我知道我内心是个女人, 外表以女装示人, 但每个人都把我看作 一个穿裙子的男人。 我感觉不管我做过多少尝试, 也没人会真正把我当作一个女人。 在科学中,你的可信度决定一切。 人们在走廊里窃笑, 盯着我看, 露出厌恶的表情—— 害怕靠近我。 我还记得在性别转变后 进行的第一次大型演讲。 那是在意大利。 我以前做过口碑不错的演讲, 但这次,我害怕了。 我看着听众, 然后窃窃私语开始了—— 还有陆续而来的凝视, 嘲笑,窃笑。 直到今天,我仍然因8年前的 经历而怀有社交焦虑。 我失去了希望。 不要担心,我接受过治疗, 所以我的状态还不错—— 我现在很好。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Cheers)
(欢呼)
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
But I felt enough is enough: I'm a scientist, I have a doctorate in astrophysics, I've published in the top journals, in wave-particle interactions, space physics, nucleic acid biochemistry. I've actually been trained to get to the bottom of things, so --
但我觉得已经够了: 我是个科学家, 我有天体物理学博士学位, 我在顶级期刊中 与波粒相互作用,空间物理, 核酸生物化学相关的领域 都发表过论文。 事实上,我接受过 弄清事情真相的训练,于是——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I went online --
我上网了——
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
So I went online, and I found fascinating research papers. I learned that these DNA knot things are not always bad. Actually, the knotting and unknotting -- it's like a complicated computer language. It programs our bodies with exquisite precision.
于是我上网搜索, 发现了有趣的研究论文。 我了解到这些DNA结并非总是坏事。 事实上,打结和解结—— 有点像复杂的电脑语言, 它精确地控制着我们的身体。
So when we get pregnant, our fertilized eggs grow into newborn babies. This process requires thousands of DNA decisions to happen. Should an embryo cell become a blood cell? A heart cell? A brain cell? And the decisions happen at different times during pregnancy. Some in the first trimester, some in the second trimester and some in the third trimester. To truly understand DNA decision-making, we need to see the process of knot formation in atomic detail. Even the most powerful microscopes can't see this. What if we tried to simulate these on a computer? For that we'd need a million computers to do that. That's exactly what we have at Los Alamos Labs -- a million computers connected in a giant warehouse.
当我们怀孕时, 我们的受精卵可以成长为新生儿。 这个过程由成千上万个DNA决定。 胚胎细胞应该变成血细胞吗? 还是心脏细胞,或者大脑细胞? 这些决定发生在怀孕的不同阶段。 有些发生在早期妊娠阶段, 有些发生在中期妊娠, 有些则发生在晚期。 为了真正搞清楚DNA决策原理, 我们需要在原子水平观察结的形成。 即便是最强大的显微镜 也看不见这个过程。 如果我们试着在计算机上进行模拟呢? 这样一来,我们就需要 上百万台计算机。 这正是我们在洛斯阿拉莫斯 实验室所拥有的—— 上百万台计算机彼此连接, 并储存在一个巨大的仓库里。
So here we're showing the DNA making up an entire gene folded into very specific shapes of knots. For the first time, my team has simulated an entire gene of DNA -- the largest biomolecular simulation performed to date. For the first time, we're beginning to understand the unsolved problem of how hormones trigger the formation of these knots.
这里我们展示的是组成 整个基因的DNA 折叠成了形状非常特殊的结。 这是我的团队 在史上首次成功模拟了 整个DNA基因—— 这是迄今为止最大规模的 生物分子模拟。 这是我们第一次开始揭开激素 如何引发这些结的形成这一谜团。
DNA knot formation can be seen beautifully in calico cats. The decision between orange and black happens early on in the womb, so that orange-and-black patchy pattern, it's an exact readout of what happened when that cat was just a tiny little kitten embryo inside her mom's womb. And the patchy pattern actually happens in our brains and in cancer. It's directly related to intellectual disability and breast cancer.
漂亮的DNA结信息可以 在花斑猫上看到。 在橙色和黑色之间的选择 发生在怀孕早期, 所以这个橙黑相间的斑片状图案, 准确地描述了这只猫在 母猫子宫里还是 小猫胚胎时的情况。 这种斑块的模式实际上还发生 在我们的大脑和癌症中。 它与智力障碍和乳腺癌直接相关。
These DNA decisions also happen in other parts of the body. It turns out that the precursor genitals transform into either female or male during the first trimester of pregnancy. The precursor brains, on the other hand, transform into female or male during the second trimester of pregnancy. So the current working model is that a unique mix in my mom's womb caused the precursor genitals to transform one way, but the precursor brain to transform the other way.
这些DNA决策也发生在 身体的其他部分。 事实证明,生殖器前体 会在早期妊娠阶段 向男性或女性转变。 另一方面,前体大脑细胞 会在中期妊娠阶段转变成不同性别。 所以目前的工作模式是, 我母亲子宫里的一个独特的组合 导致了生殖器前体以一种方式转变, 但大脑前体以另一种方式转变。
Most of epigenetic research has really focused on stress, anxiety, depression -- kind of a downer, kind of bad things.
大多数的表现遗传研究 专注于压力,焦虑,抑郁—— 有点令人沮丧, 有点糟糕。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
But nowadays -- the latest stuff -- people are looking at relaxation. Can that have a positive effect on your DNA? Right now we're missing key data from mice models. We know that mice relax, but could they meditate like the Dalai Lama? Achieve enlightenment? Could they move stones with their mind like Jedi Master Yoda?
但如今—— 最新的情况—— 人们在寻找放松。 这会对你的DNA产生积极的影响吗? 现在我们缺少来自 老鼠模型的关键数据。 我们知道老鼠会放松, 但他们能像喇嘛那样冥想吗? 能够有所顿悟吗? 它们能像绝地大师尤达 那样用意念搬动石头吗?
(Yoda voice): Hm, a Jedi mouse must feel the force flow, hm.
(模仿尤达的声音):绝地老鼠 必须能感到原力的流动。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
I wonder if the support I've had since that talk back in Italy has tried to unwind my DNA. Having a great circle of friends, supportive parents and being in a loving relationship has actually given me strength and hope to help others. At work I wear a rainbow bracelet. Sometimes it raises eyebrows, but it also raises awareness. There's so many transgender people -- especially women of color -- that are just one demeaning comment away from taking their own lives. Forty percent of us attempt suicide. If you're listening and you feel like you have no other option, try to call a friend, go online or try to get in a support group. If you're a woman who's not transgender but you know pain of isolation, of sexual assault -- reach out.
我想知道,自从那次在意大利的 演讲之后,我得到的支持 是否曾试图解开我的DNA之谜。 有一个很好的朋友圈,支持我的父母, 以及拥有一个亲密的关系, 实际上给了我力量和希望去帮助别人。 上班时我戴着彩虹手镯。 有时它会令人侧目, 但也会提高人们的意识。 有如此多的跨性别人群—— 尤其是有色人种中的女性—— 仅仅是一个负面评论 就可能导致她们自杀。 有40%我们这样的人会尝试自杀。 如果你在听,而且你觉得没有其他选择, 试着打电话给一个朋友, 去上网或试着加入互助小组。 如果你不是个跨性别的女性, 但你懂得被孤立或者 遭受性骚扰的痛苦—— 记得向他人寻求帮助。
So what does it mean to be a woman? The latest research is showing that female and male brains do develop differently in the womb, possibly giving us females this innate sense of being a woman. On the other hand, maybe it's our shared sense of commonality that makes us women. We come in so many different shapes and sizes that asking what it means to be a woman may not be the right question. It's like asking a calico cat what it means to be a calico cat. Maybe becoming a woman means accepting ourselves for who we really are and acknowledging the same in each other.
那么,做女人意味着什么? 最新的研究显示 女人和男人的大脑 在子宫中的发育是不一样的, 可能给了我们女人天生的女人意识。 另一方面, 也许是我们对共性的 意识让我们成为女人。 我们生来具有各种不同的体型和身高, 问作为女人意味着什么 这样的问题可能并不恰当。 就像问花斑猫为什么是花斑猫一样。 也许作为女人意味着接受 我们到底是谁, 并承认彼此的共同之处。
I see you. And you've just seen me.
我看到你了。 你也看到了我。
(Applause and cheers)
(鼓掌和欢呼)