So, I want to start out with this beautiful picture from my childhood. I love the science fiction movies. Here it is: "This Island Earth." And leave it to Hollywood to get it just right. Two-and-a-half years in the making. (Laughter) I mean, even the creationists give us 6,000, but Hollywood goes to the chase. And in this movie, we see what we think is out there: flying saucers and aliens. Every world has an alien, and every alien world has a flying saucer, and they move about with great speed. Aliens.
好,我先由 我這幅美麗的童年照開始講起 我喜愛看科幻電影 這套: "飛碟征空" 最適合在美國荷里活上映. 用了兩年半的時間製作. (笑聲) 我是說,當時創作人給了我們$6000 但荷里活緊緊跟隨 還有在這電影裡, 我們看到所認為的外太空: 飛碟和外星人. 每個世界都有外星人, 而每個外星人世界都有飛碟, 他們行動很快捷. 外星人.
Well, Don Brownlee, my friend, and I finally got to the point where we got tired of turning on the TV and seeing the spaceships and seeing the aliens every night, and tried to write a counter-argument to it, and put out what does it really take for an Earth to be habitable, for a planet to be an Earth, to have a place where you could probably get not just life, but complexity, which requires a huge amount of evolution, and therefore constancy of conditions. So, in 2000 we wrote "Rare Earth." In 2003, we then asked, let's not think about where Earths are in space, but how long has Earth been Earth? If you go back two billion years, you're not on an Earth-like planet any more. What we call an Earth-like planet is actually a very short interval of time.
我和我的朋友唐布朗利都覺得 我們厭倦開電視 每一晚都看著太空船和外星人 也厭倦寫有關外太空正反觀點 改為想有什麼條件令地球適合居住 就是地球, 不單有地方住 能讓人生存, 更有複雜性 這需要長時間的進化 所以需要環境的稳定性 所以2000年我們寫了 "Rare Earth". 在2003年,我們便說 不要只想著地球在太空的位置,而去想想地球有幾長時間為地球 如果你回到20億年前, 那行星不像你今日所見的地球 我們所稱為地球的行星其實很年輕
Well, "Rare Earth" actually taught me an awful lot about meeting the public. Right after, I got an invitation to go to a science fiction convention, and with all great earnestness walked in. David Brin was going to debate me on this, and as I walked in, the crowd of a hundred started booing lustily. I had a girl who came up who said, "My dad says you're the devil." You cannot take people's aliens away from them and expect to be anybody's friends. Well, the second part of that, soon after -- and I was talking to Paul Allen; I saw him in the audience, and I handed him a copy of "Rare Earth." And Jill Tarter was there, and she turned to me, and she looked at me just like that girl in "The Exorcist." It was, "It burns! It burns!" Because SETI doesn't want to hear this. SETI wants there to be stuff out there. I really applaud the SETI efforts, but we have not heard anything yet. And I really do think we have to start thinking about what's a good planet and what isn't.
在"Rare Earth"裡 教導我極多關於面對群眾的要訣 有次我收到一個科幻電影會展的邀請 我帶著一股熱誠步入場地 David Brin 正在與我爭辯 當我行入會塲,幾百人開始發出很大的噓聲 有個小女孩走到我面前說:"我爸說你是一個魔鬼." 你不可以從別人身上取走外星人 然後同所有人做朋友. 第二部分,這之後.. 我和Paul Allen 聊天,因我在觀眾席見到他 我給他一本"Rare Earth" Jill Tarter 聽到,她臉向我 她看我的表情就像剛才那女孩在看"驅魔人" 就像說"著火了!著火了!" 因為SETI不想聽到這話. (SEIT: Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence 尋找外太空星球智慧生命計畫) SETI一直想在太空找到外星人 我要為SETI的努力鼓掌,但我們未聽到什麼消息. 我真的認為我們要開始思考 怎樣才是一個好或不好的行星
Now, I throw this slide up because it indicates to me that, even if SETI does hear something, can we figure out what they said? Because this was a slide that was passed between the two major intelligences on Earth -- a Mac to a PC -- and it can't even get the letters right -- (Laughter) -- so how are we going to talk to the aliens? And if they're 50 light years away, and we call them up, and you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then 50 years later it comes back and they say, Please repeat? I mean, there we are.
現在我放這投影片因它向我顯示 就算SETI真的聽到什麼,我們如何理解那些話? 因為這張投影片經過 兩個地球上智能產品 -- Mac 和 PC 但它們都不能辨認那些字 (笑聲) 所以我們如何和外星人溝通? 如果他們在50光年以外,而我們打電話給他們 然後你叭啦叭啦說了一大堆 50年後訊號回來是:請再說一遍 所以我們就是這樣
Our planet is a good planet because it can keep water. Mars is a bad planet, but it's still good enough for us to go there and to live on its surface if we're protected. But Venus is a very bad -- the worst -- planet. Even though it's Earth-like, and even though early in its history it may very well have harbored Earth-like life, it soon succumbed to runaway greenhouse -- that's an 800 degrees [Fahrenheit] surface -- because of rampant carbon dioxide.
我們的地球是一個好行星因它能儲存水. 火星是一個差的行星但它仍可接受 如果我們受到保護就可以住在它的表面 但金星很差-最差-的行星 就算它外表像地球,就算它以前 可能有海洋生態 它最終敗合一發不可收拾的溫室效應 攝氏800度的表面 因為二氧化碳的泛濫
Well, we know from astrobiology that we can really now predict what's going to happen to our particular planet. We are right now in the beautiful Oreo of existence -- of at least life on Planet Earth -- following the first horrible microbial age. In the Cambrian explosion, life emerged from the swamps, complexity arose, and from what we can tell, we're halfway through. We have as much time for animals to exist on this planet as they have been here now, till we hit the second microbial age. And that will happen, paradoxically -- everything you hear about global warming -- when we hit CO2 down to 10 parts per million, we are no longer going to have to have plants that are allowed to have any photosynthesis, and there go animals. So, after that we probably have seven billion years. The Sun increases in its intensity, in its brightness, and finally, at about 12 billion years after it first started, the Earth is consumed by a large Sun, and this is what's left. So, a planet like us is going to have an age and an old age, and we are in its golden summer age right now.
我們從天體生物學裡能預測 地球將會發生的事 我們正處於這漂亮的Oreo時期 可能是地球上最後存在的生物 接著是可怕的微生物時代 寒武紀大爆發時生物從沼澤出來 成為更複雜的生物 由此可見我們己經歷了一半 動物在地球上一早生存著 就如現況 直至我們經歷第二次微生物時代 接著反常態的情況- 所有你聽到有關全球暖化- 當減少二氧化碳到百萬分之十 我們便不再有植物 產生光合作用,然後動物也沒有 之後估計我們會有70億年時間 太陽會更猛烈更光 最後,120億年後 地球會被太陽取代 這是所剩下的 因行星就如我們有年輕和年老 而我們正處於它的黃金時期
But there's two fates to everything, isn't there? Now, a lot of you are going to die of old age, but some of you, horribly enough, are going to die in an accident. And that's the fate of a planet, too. Earth, if we're lucky enough -- if it doesn't get hit by a Hale-Bopp, or gets blasted by some supernova nearby in the next seven billion years -- we'll find under your feet. But what about accidental death? Well, paleontologists for the last 200 years have been charting death. It's strange -- extinction as a concept wasn't even thought about until Baron Cuvier in France found this first mastodon. He couldn't match it up to any bones on the planet, and he said, Aha! It's extinct. And very soon after, the fossil record started yielding a very good idea of how many plants and animals there have been since complex life really began to leave a very interesting fossil record. In that complex record of fossils, there were times when lots of stuff seemed to be dying out very quickly, and the father/mother geologists called these "mass extinctions."
但凡事都有兩面不是嗎? 很多人都在年老時才去世 但有些人,很慘,因他們是死於意外 這也是行星的命運 如果我們夠幸運,在未來70億年內不被彗星Hale-Bopp 或附近的超新星擊中 我們腳下的地球仍在 但那意外性的死亡呢? 古生物學家在過去200年 不斷記錄死亡數據. 很奇怪 沒有人對絕種這概念有深入研究 直至法國的Baron Cuvier 發現第一隻乳齒象 他不能找到地球上找到相類似的骸骨 所以他說:呀哈!這已經絕種 不久,化石記錄變得更齊全 有一個很好的主意,估計多少種動植物 只從複雜的生命體開始留下 一些很有趣的化石記錄 在這齊全的化石記錄 發現有很多物種 很快便全部死亡 地質學家"之父"或"之母" 稱此為"大滅絕"
All along it was thought to be either an act of God or perhaps long, slow climate change, and that really changed in 1980, in this rocky outcrop near Gubbio, where Walter Alvarez, trying to figure out what was the time difference between these white rocks, which held creatures of the Cretaceous period, and the pink rocks above, which held Tertiary fossils. How long did it take to go from one system to the next? And what they found was something unexpected. They found in this gap, in between, a very thin clay layer, and that clay layer -- this very thin red layer here -- is filled with iridium. And not just iridium; it's filled with glassy spherules, and it's filled with quartz grains that have been subjected to enormous pressure: shock quartz.
有人猜想這可能是神的作為 或許是更漫長的氣候變化 直到1980年有了改變 在古比奧附近的岩石面 Walter Alvarez希望在這裡弄清楚 這些白色的岩石是出現在那個時期 那些岩石是白堊時期 有些粉色的是第三紀化石. 從一個時期到另一個需要多長時間? 他們發現一些意料之外的事 他們發現有一個隙縫中有一層很薄的黏土層 那黏土層有一層很薄的紅色表層 裡面充滿銥 不單止銥; 還有玻璃球粒 和石英顆粒 曾遭受很大的壓力壓下去:撞擊石英
Now, in this slide the white is chalk, and this chalk was deposited in a warm ocean. The chalk itself's composed by plankton which has fallen down from the sea surface onto the sea floor, so that 90 percent of the sediment here is skeleton of living stuff, and then you have that millimeter-thick red layer, and then you have black rock. And the black rock is the sediment on the sea bottom in the absence of plankton. And that's what happens in an asteroid catastrophe, because that's what this was, of course. This is the famous K-T. A 10-kilometer body hit the planet. The effects of it spread this very thin impact layer all over the planet, and we had very quickly the death of the dinosaurs, the death of these beautiful ammonites, Leconteiceras here, and Celaeceras over here, and so much else.
在這投影片白色的部分是白堊 白堊是在溫暖的海洋沈澱 由浮游生物組成 浮游生物由海面沉到海底 所以有九成的沈積物是生物的骸骨 你們看見幾毫米厚的紅色層 然後是黑色的石頭 黑石頭是海藏的沉積物 並沒有浮游生物 小行星撞擊地球時, 就是因為這事,當然就是著名的K-T 一個十公里大的星體撞擊行星. 這現象導致全個行星蒙一層薄薄的土層 之後恐龍開始死亡 還有這些美麗的鸚鵡螺化石 這是Leconteiceras,那是Celaeceras(兩者都是化石的一種) 還有很多
I mean, it must be true, because we've had two Hollywood blockbusters since that time, and this paradigm, from 1980 to about 2000, totally changed how we geologists thought about catastrophes. Prior to that, uniformitarianism was the dominant paradigm: the fact that if anything happens on the planet in the past, there are present-day processes that will explain it. But we haven't witnessed a big asteroid impact, so this is a type of neo-catastrophism, and it took about 20 years for the scientific establishment to finally come to grips: yes, we were hit; and yes, the effects of that hit caused a major mass extinction.
我意思是,這肯定是真的 因從那時起荷里活有兩套風靡一時的電影 這例子在1980 至2000年期間 完全改變了地質學家對行星撞擊的想法 之前均變說是主要的學說: 事實是如果行星以前發生了什麼事 都會成為當代的理論 但我們沒有親眼目睹一個大的小行星撞擊的影響 這是新災變論其中一種 科學家用了20年的時間才能 確定:是, 地球曾被撞擊 而這撞擊導致大滅絕
Well, there are five major mass extinctions over the last 500 million years, called the Big Five. They range from 450 million years ago to the last, the K-T, number four, but the biggest of all was the P, or the Permian extinction, sometimes called the mother of all mass extinctions. And every one of these has been subsequently blamed on large-body impact. But is this true?
一共有五次主要的大滅絕 在過去的五億年, 它們被稱為 Big Five (大五) 由4.5億年前 到最後, K-T, 第四個 但最嚴重是P, 或作二疊紀滅絕 有時被稱為大滅絕之母 而每次大滅絕也歸咎於 龐大行星帶來的影響 但是否屬實?
The most recent, the Permian, was thought to have been an impact because of this beautiful structure on the right. This is a Buckminsterfullerene, a carbon-60. Because it looks like those terrible geodesic domes of my late beloved '60s, they're called "buckyballs." This evidence was used to suggest that at the end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, a comet hit us. And when the comet hits, the pressure produces the buckyballs, and it captures bits of the comet. Helium-3: very rare on the surface of the Earth, very common in space.
最近二疊紀滅絕有個影響 因這右面美麗的生物 這是巴克敏斯特富勒烯,碳60的一種 因它看來像我60年代心愛的 網狀球頂 他們叫作巴克球 這證據通常指出 在二疊紀的後期,2500萬年, 一顆彗星打中地球 當彗星撞擊地球,壓力產生巴克球 它捉住了少許彗星的尾巴 氦-3:在地球上很罕有,在太空卻常見
But is this true? In 1990, working on the K-T extinction for 10 years, I moved to South Africa to begin work twice a year in the great Karoo desert. I was so lucky to watch the change of that South Africa into the new South Africa as I went year by year. And I worked on this Permian extinction, camping by this Boer graveyard for months at a time. And the fossils are extraordinary. You know, you're gazing upon your very distant ancestors. These are mammal-like reptiles. They are culturally invisible. We do not make movies about these. This is a Gorgonopsian, or a Gorgon. That's an 18-inch long skull of an animal that was probably seven or eight feet, sprawled like a lizard, probably had a head like a lion. This is the top carnivore, the T-Rex of its time. But there's lots of stuff. This is my poor son, Patrick. (Laughter) This is called paleontological child abuse. Hold still, you're the scale. (Laughter)
但是否屬實? 1990年,用了十年鑽研K-T 絕種 一年兩次我會搬到南非卡魯沙漠 工作 我很幸運能看到南非轉變 成一個新的南非因我每年都去 我研究二疊紀絕種 在波爾墓地露宿了幾個月 那裡的化石很特別 你知道嗎,你在注視著遙遠的祖先 他們都是類似哺乳動物的爬蟲 他們的文化已消失了, 所以我們不能拍有關他們的電影 這是Gorgonopsian (一種爬行動物),也叫Gorgon 這是一隻動物18寸長的頭骨 大概7-8尺, 四肢爬起來像一隻蜥蜴 大概頭像獅子 這是頂級食肉動物, 在那時期是T-Rex 但還有很多東西 這是我可憐的兒子 Patrick (眾笑) 這叫作古生物式的兒童虐待 別動, 你要作標準尺 (眾笑)
There was big stuff back then. Fifty-five species of mammal-like reptiles. The age of mammals had well and truly started 250 million years ago ... ... and then a catastrophe happened. And what happens next is the age of dinosaurs. It was all a mistake; it should have never happened. But it did. Now, luckily, this Thrinaxodon, the size of a robin egg here: this is a skull I've discovered just before taking this picture -- there's a pen for scale; it's really tiny -- this is in the Lower Triassic, after the mass extinction has finished. You can see the eye socket and you can see the little teeth in the front. If that does not survive, I'm not the thing giving this talk. Something else is, because if that doesn't survive, we are not here; there are no mammals. It's that close; one species ekes through.
後面還有很多 55種類似哺乳動物的爬蟲 哺乳動物時代已經開始 由2500萬年前開始 然後有一個災難發生 接著是恐龍時代 這完全是一個錯失, 事情不應這樣發生,卻發生了 幸運地 這蛇頸龍,羅賓蛋的體積 在拍照前我發現這骸骨 這鉛筆作比較,可見它很細小 這是下三疊統,大滅絕之後結束 你可以見到眼窩和前面的小牙齒 如果這沒生存過,今天我不會在此分享 另一點是,如果它沒有生存過,我們不會在此 這裡不會有哺乳動物, 很近, 一個物種之隔
Well, can we say anything about the pattern of who survives and who doesn't? Here's sort of the end of that 10 years of work. The ranges of stuff -- the red line is the mass extinction. But we've got survivors and things that get through, and it turns out the things that get through preferentially are cold bloods. Warm-blooded animals take a huge hit at this time. The survivors that do get through produce this world of crocodile-like creatures. There's no dinosaurs yet; just this slow, saurian, scaly, nasty, swampy place with a couple of tiny mammals hiding in the fringes. And there they would hide for 160 million years, until liberated by that K-T asteroid.
那我們可以說有一個模式決定誰生存嗎? 這差不多十年的工作 還有其他--紅色線代表大滅絕 但我們發現有大滅絕的生還者 其中優先生還都是冷血動物 恒溫的動物卻無法生存 能經過大滅絕的生還者 繁殖了類似鱷魚的生物 未有恐龍,只有這種又慢又蜥蜴狀的又有鱗又惡心的 沼澤地方有些細小的哺乳動物在邊緣之間躲藏著 牠們能躲藏1600萬年 直至K-T小行星幫牠們擺脫約束
So, if not impact, what? And the what, I think, is that we returned, over and over again, to the Pre-Cambrian world, that first microbial age, and the microbes are still out there. They hate we animals. They really want their world back. And they've tried over and over and over again. This suggests to me that life causing these mass extinctions because it did is inherently anti-Gaian. This whole Gaia idea, that life makes the world better for itself -- anybody been on a freeway on a Friday afternoon in Los Angeles believing in the Gaia theory? No.
如果不是影響,是什麼? 我想我們會不斷重複又重複經歷 前寒武紀, 第一個微生物時代 微生物還存在 它們討厭我們這些動物 它們很想要回自己的地方 而它們也不斷不斷地嘗試 這提起我導致大滅絕的生命 因這是反生態的固有天性 這個生態主意,是生命會改變環境使它們更適應 有無人星期五下在洛杉磯的高速公路上 相信生態主意?沒有
So, I really suspect there's an alternative, and that life does actually try to do itself in -- not consciously, but just because it does. And here's the weapon, it seems, that it did so over the last 500 million years. There are microbes which, through their metabolism, produce hydrogen sulfide, and they do so in large amounts. Hydrogen sulfide is very fatal to we humans. As small as 200 parts per million will kill you. You only have to go to the Black Sea and a few other places -- some lakes -- and get down, and you'll find that the water itself turns purple. It turns purple from the presence of numerous microbes which have to have sunlight and have to have hydrogen sulfide, and we can detect their presence today -- we can see them -- but we can also detect their presence in the past.
所以我懷疑有另一種可能性 生命真的有嘗試自己做 不是有意識地,只是它確實如此 這個是武器,好像有5億年歷史 微生物會透過新陳代謝 生產硫化氫 它們能大量生產 硫化氫對人類是致命的 只需每百萬分之200就可以殺死你 你只需要去黑海和一些湖 然後落水,便會發現水變成紫色 因大量的微生物存在而變成紫色 但首先需要陽光和硫化氫 今天我們仍能察覺它們, 我們能看見它們 我們也能察覺以前的它們
And the last three years have seen an enormous breakthrough in a brand-new field. I am almost extinct -- I'm a paleontologist who collects fossils. But the new wave of paleontologists -- my graduate students -- collect biomarkers. They take the sediment itself, they extract the oil from it, and from that they can produce compounds which turn out to be very specific to particular microbial groups. It's because lipids are so tough, they can get preserved in sediment and last the hundreds of millions of years necessary, and be extracted and tell us who was there.
前三年 在全新的領域上有一個重大的突破 我差不多絕種 我是一個搜集化石的古生物學者 但新的古生物學者浪潮, 我已畢業的學生 搜集生物標誌物 他們拿了沉澱物,把裡面的油提煉出來 然後再製成複合物 這複合物對某些微生物是很特別 因脂質很硬,能保存在沉澱物中 如有需要能保存過千萬年 再被我們提煉出來
And we know who was there. At the end of the Permian, at many of these mass extinction boundaries, this is what we find: isorenieratene. It's very specific. It can only occur if the surface of the ocean has no oxygen, and is totally saturated with hydrogen sulfide -- enough, for instance, to come out of solution. This led Lee Kump, and others from Penn State and my group, to propose what I call the Kump Hypothesis: many of the mass extinctions were caused by lowering oxygen, by high CO2. And the worst effect of global warming, it turns out: hydrogen sulfide being produced out of the oceans.
我們知道誰曾在那裡.二疊紀的最後期 有很多類似的大滅絕界限裡 找到: isorenieratene (化學物的一種),它很獨特 它只能出現在沒有氧氣的海洋 它完全被硫化氫飽和 足夠的份量,例如,便會分解 這是李·孔普, 其他人從賓夕法尼亞州立大學和我那隊 提出我名為孔普假設 很多大滅絕都是因氧氣含量下降 二氧化碳含量上升.最慘是全球暖化導致: 硫化氫不斷在海洋裡產生
Well, what's the source of this? In this particular case, the source over and over has been flood basalts. This is a view of the Earth now, if we extract a lot of it. And each of these looks like a hydrogen bomb; actually, the effects are even worse. This is when deep-Earth material comes to the surface, spreads out over the surface of the planet. Well, it's not the lava that kills anything, it's the carbon dioxide that comes out with it. This isn't Volvos; this is volcanoes. But carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide.
源頭在那裡? 這事的源頭都是洪水玄武岩 這是地球,如果我們提取從地球很多 每個都像氫氣炸彈 其實,影響更加差 因當地球深層的物質移到表層 就能廣散到行星的表面 不是熔岩殺死生物 而是從熔岩出來的二氧化碳 這是火山 二氧化碳怎樣也是二氧化碳
So, these are new data Rob Berner and I -- from Yale -- put together, and what we try to do now is track the amount of carbon dioxide in the entire rock record -- and we can do this from a variety of means -- and put all the red lines here, when these -- what I call greenhouse mass extinctions -- took place. And there's two things that are really evident here to me, is that these extinctions take place when CO2 is going up. But the second thing that's not shown on here: the Earth has never had any ice on it when we've had 1,000 parts per million CO2. We are at 380 and climbing. We should be up to a thousand in three centuries at the most, but my friend David Battisti in Seattle says he thinks a 100 years. So, there goes the ice caps, and there comes 240 feet of sea level rise. I live in a view house now; I'm going to have waterfront.
這些新數據是我和Rob Berner 從耶魯裡放在一起 現在我們試著 記錄二氧化碳在全部石頭裡的含量 我們可以用不同的方法 把紅色的線放在一起 這就是我說溫室大滅絕發生的時刻 有兩樣對我來說是很可信的證據 一是這絕種發生在二氧化碳含量上升時 第二樣未能在這裡顯示: 地球上完全沒有冰 當有每百萬分之1000的二氧化碳 我們現在在380的水平,水平在上升 我們在三個世紀便能升到1000的水平 但我在西雅圖的朋友David Battisti 認為只需100年 接著是冰冠 如果水平線上升240呎 我的屋外有境觀 我將會看到海旁區
All right, what's the consequence? The oceans probably turn purple. And we think this is the reason that complexity took so long to take place on planet Earth. We had these hydrogen sulfide oceans for a very great long period. They stop complex life from existing. We know hydrogen sulfide is erupting presently a few places on the planet. And I throw this slide in -- this is me, actually, two months ago -- and I throw this slide in because here is my favorite animal, chambered nautilus. It's been on this planet since the animals first started -- 500 million years. This is a tracking experiment, and any of you scuba divers, if you want to get involved in one of the coolest projects ever, this is off the Great Barrier Reef. And as we speak now, these nautilus are tracking out their behaviors to us.
好,但結果是?海洋會變成紫色 我們以為這原因太複雜需要 很長時間才會在地球上發生 我們有這些硫化氫的海洋已經很長時間 它們讓複雜的生命不再存在 我們知道硫化氫正在侵蝕地球幾處地方 我插入這投影片--這是兩個月前的我-- 我放這投影片因是有我最喜歡的動物,鸚鵡螺 它從5億年前就在在行星上 這是一個追蹤實驗, 有無人是潛水員 如因你想參與最酷的計劃 你就要到大堡礁 當我們在聊天 我們也在追蹤鸚鵡螺的行為
But the thing about this is that every once in a while we divers can run into trouble, so I'm going to do a little thought experiment here. This is a Great White Shark that ate some of my traps. We pulled it up; up it comes. So, it's out there with me at night. So, I'm swimming along, and it takes off my leg. I'm 80 miles from shore, what's going to happen to me? Well now, I die. Five years from now, this is what I hope happens to me: I'm taken back to the boat, I'm given a gas mask: 80 parts per million hydrogen sulfide. I'm then thrown in an ice pond, I'm cooled 15 degrees lower and I could be taken to a critical care hospital. And the reason I could do that is because we mammals have gone through a series of these hydrogen sulfide events, and our bodies have adapted. And we can now use this as what I think will be a major medical breakthrough.
但是每隔一段時間 潛水員便會遇到麻煩 所以我想現在做一些思想性實驗 這是一條大白鯊吃掉我的魚餌 我們拉它上來,它便來,到晚上便與我一起 我在游泳,它咬掉我的腿 我離岸80哩,我可以怎樣做? 這樣的話我死定了 五年後, 我希望會發生在我身上: 我被帶回船上, 有人給我面罩 千萬分之80的硫化氫 我被丟到冰湖,我的體溫降了15度 我應該被帶到特級護理的醫院 我能這樣做是因我們哺乳動物 已經經歷過一連串硫化氫的事件 我們的身體已經適應 這例子我認為可作為醫學上的大突破
This is Mark Roth. He was funded by DARPA. Tried to figure out how to save Americans after battlefield injuries. He bleeds out pigs. He puts in 80 parts per million hydrogen sulfide -- the same stuff that survived these past mass extinctions -- and he turns a mammal into a reptile. "I believe we are seeing in this response the result of mammals and reptiles having undergone a series of exposures to H2S." I got this email from him two years ago; he said, "I think I've got an answer to some of your questions." So, he now has taken mice down for as many as four hours, sometimes six hours, and these are brand-new data he sent me on the way over here. On the top, now, that is a temperature record of a mouse who has gone through -- the dotted line, the temperatures. So, the temperature starts at 25 centigrade, and down it goes, down it goes. Six hours later, up goes the temperature. Now, the same mouse is given 80 parts per million hydrogen sulfide in this solid graph, and look what happens to its temperature. Its temperature drops. It goes down to 15 degrees centigrade from 35, and comes out of this perfectly fine.
他是Mark Roth,受DARPA贊助 想辦法救受戰傷的美國人 他幫豬放血 再灌入千萬分之八十的硫化氫-- 就是與以前大滅絕生還的東西一樣-- 他由哺乳動物變成爬蟲類 "我相信這反應是哺乳動物和爬蟲類 經過一連串在H2S暴露的結果" 我兩年前收到他的電郵 他說"我想你的問題我有了答案" 所以他現在用老鼠作實驗 一試就4小時,有時甚至6小時 於是有全新數據傳送給我 最上面,是一隻老鼠的溫度記錄,經過 虛線,溫度 溫度由攝氏25度開始 不斷下降 6小時後,溫度上升 同一隻老鼠現在給牠千萬分之八十的硫化氫 在這固體圖 看溫度的轉變 牠的體溫下降 由35度下降到15度 但完全無事
Here is a way we can get people to critical care. Here's how we can bring people cold enough to last till we get critical care. Now, you're all thinking, yeah, what about the brain tissue? And so this is one of the great challenges that is going to happen. You're in an accident. You've got two choices: you're going to die, or you're going to take the hydrogen sulfide and, say, 75 percent of you is saved, mentally. What are you going to do? Do we all have to have a little button saying, Let me die? This is coming towards us, and I think this is going to be a revolution. We're going to save lives, but there's going to be a cost to it.
這就是我們帶人到特級護理 這也是如何使人凍到要帶入特級護理的時候 你們全在想,對,那腦細胞呢? 這是最富挑戰性 你在一個意外. 你有兩個選擇: 你就快死或你就快要吸入硫化氫 當中75%生還,只是精神上 那你怎樣辦? 那我們可能要有個按鈕說:讓我死? 這正朝著我們 我想這會是一塲革命 我們要拯救生命,但這是在代價的
The new view of mass extinctions is, yes, we were hit, and, yes, we have to think about the long term, because we will get hit again. But there's a far worse danger confronting us. We can easily go back to the hydrogen sulfide world. Give us a few millennia -- and we humans should last those few millennia -- will it happen again? If we continue, it'll happen again. How many of us flew here? How many of us have gone through our entire Kyoto quota just for flying this year? How many of you have exceeded it? Yeah, I've certainly exceeded it. We have a huge problem facing us as a species. We have to beat this. I want to be able to go back to this reef. Thank you.
這是大滅絕的一個新觀點,對,我們被撞中 對,我們要向長遠方向想 因我們可能再被撞中 但我們面對著更危險的事 我們很容易回到硫化氫的世界 給我們幾千年 - 我們人類應該可活多幾千年 -- 會再發生嗎?如果我們繼續,它會再次發生 有多少人在這裡? 在這有多少人經歷迥 整過京都配額 只是今年飛行? 有多少人已經超過? 我就一定已經超過 我們作為一個物種正面對很大的難題 我們要擊敗它 我希望能夠回到這珊瑚礁. 多謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Chris Anderson: I've just got one question for you, Peter. Am I understanding you right, that what you're saying here is that we have in our own bodies a biochemical response to hydrogen sulfide that in your mind proves that there have been past mass extinctions due to climate change?
克里斯安德森 (CA): 我有條問題給你,彼得 我是否理解正確,你是說 我們體內 對硫化氫有生化反應 你的思想證明以前的大滅絕 都是因氣候變化而形成?
Peter Ward: Yeah, every single cell in us can produce minute quantities of hydrogen sulfide in great crises. This is what Roth has found out. So, what we're looking at now: does it leave a signal? Does it leave a signal in bone or in plant? And we go back to the fossil record and we could try to detect how many of these have happened in the past.
彼得沃德(PW):對,我們每個細胞 在遇到大危機時都能產生一定數量的硫化氫 這是羅斯所找到的 所以現在我們要探究:它有無剩下一個? 它有無剩下一個在骨頭裡或植物裡? 當我們看化石報告,我們嘗試偵測 有多少發生在在以前
CA: It's simultaneously an incredible medical technique, but also a terrifying ...
CA: 同時 這是令人難以置信的醫學技術,卻又好可怕
PW: Blessing and curse.
PW: 是福又是禍