Ichthyology, the study of fishes. It looks like a big, boring word, but it's actually quite exciting, because ichthyology is the only "ology" with "YOLO" in it.
Ihtiologija, nauka o ribama. To se čini kao velika, dosadna reč, ali je zapravo prilično uzbudljiva jer je ihtiologija jedina "ologija" koja sadrži "YOLO" u sebi.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Now, to the cool kids in the audience, you already know, YOLO stands for "you only live once," and because I only have one life, I'm going to spend it doing what I always dreamt of doing: seeing the hidden wonders of the world and discovering new species. And that's what I get to do.
Sad, za kul decu u publici, već znate, YOLO stoji za "samo jednom se živi", i zato što imam samo jedan život, provešću ga radeći što sam oduvek sanjao da radim: gledajući skrivena čuda sveta i otkrivajući nove vrste. I to me je dopalo da radim.
Now, in recent years, I really focused on caves for finding new species. And it turns out, there's lots of new cavefish species out there. You just have to know where to look, and to maybe be a little thin.
Proteklih godina, zaista sam se fokusirao na pećine da bih otkrio nove vrste. I ispostavilo se da ima mnogo novih pećinskih riba u svetu. Samo morate da znate kuda da tražite, i možda da budete malčice mršavi.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Now, cavefishes can tell me a lot about biology and geology. They can tell me how the landmasses around them have changed and moved by being stuck in these little holes, and they can tell me about the evolution of sight, by being blind.
Sad, pećinske ribe mi mogu reći mnogo o biologiji i geologiji. Mogu da mi kažu kako su se kopnene mase oko njih menjale i pomerale tako što ostaju zaglavljene u ovim rupicama i mogu svojim slepilom da mi govore o evoluciji vida.
Now, fish have eyes that are essentially the same as ours. All vertebrates do, and each time a fish species starts to adapt to this dark, cold, cave environment, over many, many generations, they lose their eyes and their eyesight until the end up like an eyeless cavefish like this one here. Now, each cavefish species has evolved in a slightly different way, and each one has a unique geological and biological story to tell us, and that's why it's so exciting when we find a new species.
Sad, ribe imaju oči koje su u suštini iste kao naše. Kod svih kičmenjaka je tako, i uvek kad vrsta ribe počne da se adaptira ovoj mračnoj, hladnoj, pećinskoj sredini, tokom mnogih, mnogih generacija, izgube svoje oči i svoj vid dok završe poput bezoke pećinske ribe, poput ove ovde. Sad, svaka vrsta pećinske ribe je evoluirala na nešto drugačiji način, i svaka ima jedinstvenu geološku i biološku priču da nam ispriča, i zato je tako uzbudljivo kad otkrijemo novu vrstu.
So this is a new species we described, from southern Indiana. We named it Amblyopsis hoosieri, the Hoosier cavefish.
Dakle, ovo je nova vrsta koju smo opisali, iz južne Indijane. Nazvali smo je Amblyopsis hoosieri, hužer. (Hužer - stanovnik Indijane)
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Its closest relatives are cavefishes in Kentucky, in the Mammoth Cave system. And they start to diverge when the Ohio River split them a few million years ago. And in that time they developed these subtle differences in the genetic architecture behind their blindness. There's this gene called rhodopsin that's super-critical for sight. We have it, and these species have it too, except one species has lost all function in that gene, and the other one maintains it. So this sets up this beautiful natural experiment where we can look at the genes behind our vision, and at the very roots of how we can see.
Njegovi najbliži rođaci su pećinske ribe iz Kentakija, iz sistema pećina Mamut. I počele su da se razilaze kad ih je reka Ohajo razdvojila pre nekoliko miliona godina. A tokom tog vremena razvile su ove prefinjene razlike u genetskoj arhitekturi iza njihovog slepila. Postoji gen po imenu rodopsin koji je superključan za vid. Mi ga imamo, i ove vrste ga imaju takođe, samo što je jedna vrsta izgubila svu funkcionalnost tog gena, a druge su je zadržale. Te je ovo podesilo taj prelepi prirodni eksperiment gde možemo da posmatramo gene iza našeg vida i samu srž toga kako vidimo.
But the genes in these cavefishes can also tell us about deep geological time, maybe no more so than in this species here. This is a new species we described from Madagascar that we named Typhleotris mararybe. That means "big sickness" in Malagasy, for how sick we got trying to collect this species. Now, believe it or not, swimming around sinkholes full of dead things and cave full of bat poop isn't the smartest thing you could be doing with your life, but YOLO.
Ali geni u ovim pećinskim ribama nam takođe mogu reći o dubokom geološkom vremenu, možda ne dužem od ove vrste ovde. Ovo je nova vrsta sa Madagaskara koju smo opisali i imenovali smo je Typhleotris mararybe. To znači "velika mučnina" na malagasiju, po tome koliko nam se smučilo sakupljajući ovu vrstu. Sad, verovali ili ne, plivanje oko ponora punih mrtvih stvari i pećina punih šišmišove kake nije nešto najpametnije što možete da radite sa životom, ali YOLO.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this species in Madagascar, its closest relatives are 6,000 kilometers away, cavefishes in Australia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these species is that they've been separated for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the continents that moved them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these ancient geological events.
Sad, volim ovu vrstu, uprkos činjenici da je pokušala da nas ubije, a to je zato što su ove vrste s Madagaskara najbliži rođaci 6.000 kilometara udaljene pećinske ribe u Australiji. Nema šanse da je slatkovodna pećinska riba od osam centimetara mogla da prepliva Indijski okean, pa smo upoređivanjem DNK ovih vrsta otkrili da su razdvojene više od 100 miliona godina ili otprilike istovremeno kad su južni kontinenti poslednji put bili zajedno. Te se zapravo ove vrste uopšte nisu pomerile. Kontinenti su ih pomerili. Pa su nam dale, preko svog DNK, ovaj precizan model i meru kako da datiramo i tempiramo ove drevne geološke događaje.
Now, this species here is so new I'm not even allowed to tell you its name yet, but I can tell you it's a new species from Mexico, and it's probably already extinct. It's probably extinct because the only known cave system it's from was destroyed when a dam was built nearby. Unfortunately for cavefishes, their groundwater habitat is also our main source of drinking water.
Sad, ova vrsta ovde je toliko nova da mi i dalje nije dozvoljeno da vam kažem njeno ime, ali mogu da vam kažem da je to nova vrsta iz Meksika, i verovatno je već istrebljena. Verovatno je istrebljena jer je jedini poznati sistem pećina iz kog potiče uništen kada je brana u blizini sagrađena. Nažalost za pećinske ribe, njihovo stanište podzemnih voda je takođe naš glavni izvor pijaće vode.
Now, we actually don't know this species' closest relative, yet. It doesn't appear to be anything else in Mexico, so maybe it's something in Cuba, or Florida, or India. But whatever it is, it might tell us something new about the geology of the Caribbean, or the biology of how to better diagnose certain types of blindness. But I hope we discover this species before it goes extinct too.
Sad, zapravo još uvek ne znamo najbližeg rođaka ove vrste. Ne čini se da je bilo šta iz Meksika, stoga može da bude nešto s Kube ili Floride ili Indije. Ali šta god da je, moglo bi da nam kaže nešto novo o geologiji Kariba ili biologiji boljeg dijagnostikovanja određenih tipova slepila. Ali se isto nadam da ćemo otkriti ovu vrstu pre nego što bude istrebljena.
And I'm going to spend my one life as an ichthyologist trying to discover and save these humble little blind cavefishes that can tell us so much about the geology of the planet and the biology of how we see.
I provešću svoj jedini život kao ihtiolog, trudeći se da otkrijem i spasim ove skromne slepe pećinske ribice koje nam mogu reći toliko toga o geologiji planete i biologiji našeg vida.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)