Sometimes I go browsing [through] a very old magazine. I found this observation test about the story of the ark. And the artist that drew this observation test did some errors, had some mistakes -- there are more or less 12 mistakes. Some of them are very easy. There is a funnel, an aerial part, a lamp and clockwork key on the ark. Some of them are about the animals, the number. But there is a much more fundamental mistake in the overall story of the ark that's not reported here. And this problem is: where are the plants? So now we have God that is going to submerge Earth permanently or at least for a very long period, and no one is taking care of plants. Noah needed to take two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, of every kind of creature that moves, but no mention about plants. Why? In another part of the same story, all the living creatures are just the living creatures that came out from the ark, so birds, livestock and wild animals. Plants are not living creatures -- this is the point. That is a point that is not coming out from the Bible, but it's something that really accompanied humanity.
有次我瀏覽 一本非常老舊的雜誌。 裡面有一個觀察試驗 是關於諾亞方舟的故事。 這位作者畫下此實驗的過程 而這其中出現了幾個錯誤。 這裡至少出現了12處的錯誤。 有些錯誤非常明顯。 船上有個煙囪,就是這像天線的部分, 還有個照明燈和發條。 還有些錯誤是在動物身上。 這些都是整個方舟故事裡面 最常出現的基本錯誤, 我們不再多做說明。 問題來了:怎麼都沒看到植物? 現在我們的上帝 將要永久性的把地球淹沒, 或說至少會淹沒很長的時間, 結果根本沒人關心植物。 諾亞需要照顧任何成對的鳥類, 任何成對的動物, 任何能"行走移動"的成對生物, 但是根本沒關心到植物。 為什麼會這樣? 這個故事的另一部分是說, 當今所有生物, 都是當時方舟 所保護生存下來的種類, 像是鳥、家畜、和各種野生動物。 植物不規類在生物的範圍裡。 重點就在這裡。 這就是聖經裡面 沒有點到的地方, 因為聖經所說的內容 總是與人比較有關。
Let's have a look at this nice code that is coming from a Renaissance book. Here we have the description of the order of nature. It's a nice description because it's starting from left -- you have the stones -- immediately after the stones, the plants that are just able to live. We have the animals that are able to live and to sense, and on the top of the pyramid, there is the man. This is not the common man. The "Homo studiosus" -- the studying man. This is quite comforting for people like me -- I'm a professor -- this to be over there on the top of creation. But it's something completely wrong. You know very well about professors. But it's also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense. They are much more sophisticated in sensing than animals. Just to give you an example, every single root apex is able to detect and to monitor concurrently and continuously at least 15 different chemical and physical parameters. And they also are able to show and to exhibit such a wonderful and complex behavior that can be described just with the term of intelligence. Well, but this is something -- this underestimation of plants is something that is always with us.
讓我們來看看另一個很棒的編碼圖 這來自文藝復興時期的一本書。 這張圖是在描述 自然界的規律。 這張圖美妙的地方在於,先從左手邊看起, 世界先從石頭開始, 比石頭高階的是 能夠生長的植物。 再更高階的是能生長而且有知覺的各種動物, 在這金字塔的頂端, 就是我們人類。 這可不是一般人。 這是"會聆聽的智人",一種會學習的人。 這對於跟我一樣的人來說 會感到挺欣慰的,因為我是個教授, 我們自然而然就在這個頂端。 但是這種概念是完全錯誤的。 大家都知道教授不是這樣高高在上的。 這其中對植物的概念也是錯誤的, 因為植物不僅僅只是會生長而已, 它們也是有知覺的。 他們能感受到的知覺 甚至比動物還要更多。 讓我舉個例子, 每一個植物根尖(root apex) 能夠同時且持續地 偵測與監控 至少15種不同的 化學和物理現象。 它們也能展現 一種美妙且複雜的行為 這種行為能夠被我們用"智慧"來形容。 這些行為, 這些被忽視的植物所表現的行為, 其實都一直在我們眼前展現。
Let's have a look at this short movie now. We have David Attenborough. Now David Attenborough is really a plant lover; he did some of the most beautiful movies about plant behavior. Now, when he speaks about plants, everything is correct. When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist. The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong. The blue whale, it's a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent Sequoiadendron giganteum. (Applause) And this is a living organism that has a mass of at least 2,000 tons. Now, the story that plants are some low-level organisms has been formalized many times ago by Aristotle, that in "De Anima" -- that is a very influential book for the Western civilization -- wrote that the plants are on the edge between living and not living. They have just a kind of very low-level soul. It's called the vegetative soul, because they lack movement, and so they don't need to sense. Let's see.
讓我們先來看一部短片。 這位是大衛・艾登堡(David Attenborough)。 大衛・艾登堡是位喜好植物的人。 他拍攝了許多 有關植物行為的影片。 他針對植物所作的介紹, 大致上都是正確的。 當他介紹到動物的時候, 他會把植物的存在 給遺忘掉。 他說藍鯨, 是當今地球上最龐大的生物。 這是錯的,大錯特錯。 藍鯨,實際上是個小矮人, 如果牠真的和地球上 當今最大的生物來做比較的話, 就是這個,令人驚嘆的生物, 雄偉的世界爺(又名巨杉,Sequoiadendron giganteum)。 (掌聲) 這是個活生生的有機體 重量至少2000頓。 植物 是低等有機體的這件事 已經被亞里斯多德 傳頌了很長一段時間, 在他所著的靈魂錄(De Anima)這本書裡, 這本書在西方文化影響深遠, 這本書裡提到植物 是介於生命體和非生命體之間。 植物們擁有非常低等級的靈魂。 這稱之為植物靈魂(vegetative soul), 因為植物不會移動, 它們也沒有知覺。 看看這個。
Okay, some of the movements of the plants are very well-known. This is a very fast movement. This is a Dionaea, a Venus fly trap hunting snails -- sorry for the snail. This has been something that has been refused for centuries, despite the evidence. No one can say that the plants were able to eat an animal, because it was against the order of nature. But plants are also able to show a lot of movement. Some of them are very well known, like the flowering. It's just a question to use some techniques like the time lapse. Some of them are much more sophisticated. Look at this young bean that is moving to catch the light every time. And it's really so graceful; it's like a dancing angel. They are also able to play -- they are really playing. These are young sunflowers, and what they are doing cannot be described with any other terms than playing. They are training themselves, as many young animals do, to the adult life where they will be called to track the sun all the day. They are able to respond to gravity, of course, so the shoots are growing against the vector of gravity and the roots toward the vector of gravity. But they are also able to sleep. This is one, Mimosa pudica. So during the night, they curl the leaves and reduce the movement, and during the day, you have the opening of the leaves -- there is much more movement. This is interesting because this sleeping machinery, it's perfectly conserved. It's the same in plants, in insects and in animals. And so if you need to study this sleeping problem, it's easy to study on plants, for example, than in animals and it's much more easy even ethically. It's a kind of vegetarian experimentation.
沒錯,有些植物的反應動作是眾所皆知的。 這個植物的反應動作非常快速。 這是一種食蟲植物,捕蠅草 正在補食蝸牛的畫面。 我為蝸牛先生默哀。 有些事情被否認了好幾個世紀, 即使證據就在身邊。 沒人認為植物能吃動物, 因為這違反自然界的定律。 但實際上,植物 是能夠展現許多動作的。 有些是眾所皆知的,像是開花過程。 這需要一些手法才能顯現, 像是用間歇性拍攝(time lapse)。 有一些植物的運動是非常複雜的。 像是這個初生的豆苗, 它葉片每次的移動都是為了能獲取陽光。 非常優美。 像是個在跳舞的天使。 植物們也是可以表演的。 瞧瞧這群正在表演的。 這些是一群初生的向日葵, 它們正在做的 並沒辦法用 任合表演形式的名詞來描述。 它們自己訓練自己, 就像許多年幼的動物一樣, 要順利長大成年, 它們就必須一整天 都追著太陽跑。 當然,它們也對地心引力有反應, 這些幼苗的發芽成長 就是在對抗地心引力 而它的根是順著地心引力生長。 同時,植物也會睡眠。 這是一株含羞草。 在夜晚時分, 它們會把葉片捲起 並減少動作, 直到白天,它們才會再打開葉片, 然後做更頻繁的活動。 這非常有趣, 因為,它們的睡眠機制, 能夠非常完美的保護能量的流失。 植物在這方面的作用, 跟昆蟲、或是其他動物都一樣。 若想研究此類的睡眠問題, 從植物身上做研究 比在動物身上做更為容易, 而且也不會有道德上的疑慮。 在別人看來, 這不過是蔬菜實驗罷了。
Plants are even able to communicate -- they are extraordinary communicators. They communicate with other plants. They are able to distinguish kin and non-kin. They communicate with plants of other species and they communicate with animals by producing chemical volatiles, for example, during the pollination. Now with the pollination, it's a very serious issue for plants, because they move the pollen from one flower to the other, yet they cannot move from one flower to the other. So they need a vector -- and this vector, it's normally an animal. Many insects have been used by plants as vectors for the transport of the pollination, but not just insects; even birds, reptiles, and mammals like bats rats are normally used for the transportation of the pollen. This is a serious business. We have the plants that are giving to the animals a kind of sweet substance -- very energizing -- having in change this transportation of the pollen. But some plants are manipulating animals, like in the case of orchids that promise sex and nectar and give in change nothing for the transportation of the pollen.
植物彼此之間還會對話。 它們有著非常特殊的溝通器具。 它們會和其他種植物溝通。 它們能夠區分誰是近親誰不是近親。 它們會和植物溝通外 還會跟其他物種溝通, 植物們會製造出一種化學物質 來和其他動物做交談, 舉例來說,就是在受粉的時候。 受粉這件事情,對植物而言是非常嚴肅的事情, 因為它們必須把花粉從這朵花移到另一朵花上, 但是它們自己做不來這件事情。 所以,植物們需要一個媒介, 這個媒介, 就是動物。 許多昆蟲 被植物們當作一種媒介 來傳遞花粉, 但不僅僅是昆蟲,像是鳥類、爬蟲類 甚至像是蝙蝠鼠這種哺乳動物, 也會被當作傳遞花粉的媒介。 這真的是一件嚴肅的事。 植物會分泌一種甜甜的物質 用以吸引動物們, 給與動物們動力 去做傳播花粉的這份工作。 有些植物是直接操縱動物, 像是這種蘭花 為了傳遞花粉 就會透過性和花蜜的誘惑 讓動物們甘願為它做這件事情。
Now, there is a big problem behind all this behavior that we have seen. How is it possible to do this without a brain? We need to wait until 1880, when this big man, Charles Darwin, publishes a wonderful, astonishing book that starts a revolution. The title is "The Power of Movement in Plants." No one was allowed to speak about movement in plants before Charles Darwin. In his book, assisted by his son, Francis -- who was the first professor of plant physiology in the world, in Cambridge -- they took into consideration every single movement for 500 pages. And in the last paragraph of the book, it's a kind of stylistic mark, because normally Charles Darwin stored, in the last paragraph of a book, the most important message. He wrote that, "It's hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radical acts like the brain of one of the lower animals." This is not a metaphor. He wrote some very interesting letters to one of his friends who was J.D. Hooker, or at that time, president of the Royal Society, so the maximum scientific authority in Britain speaking about the brain in the plants.
現在,在我們看過這些行為後, 一個大問題就浮現出來了。 它們怎麼可能會沒有大腦呢? 我們先回到1880年, 當時有位大人物, 查爾斯・達爾文(Charles Darwin), 出了一本非常棒、非常精彩的書, 這本書也引起了一場革命。 這本書名為:植物運動的力量(The Power of Movement in Plants)。 在達爾文之前, 沒人會想討論有關植物的運動。 他的這本書, 由他兒子法蘭西(Francis)助力完成, 他兒子是世界上第一位,任職於劍橋大學的植物心理學教授, 在這500頁的書中,詳細記載了 植物每一個動作的含意。 書的最後一段講述中, 是一種語體標記(stylistic mark), 因為達爾文本身經常使用這種寫法, 書中最後的這段評論, 是一則非常重要的訊息。 他這麼寫著: "毫不誇張的說 植物幼根的頂端 就像是 有著低等動物的大腦。" 這不是在隱喻什麼。 他寫了許多非常有趣的信件給一位朋友, 在當時是英國皇家學會主席的虎克(J.D. Hooker), 他對著英國最高科學權威人物 說明有關植物的頭腦這件事。
Now, this is a root apex growing against a slope. So you can recognize this kind of movement, the same movement that worms, snakes and every animal that are moving on the ground without legs is able to display. And it's not an easy movement because, to have this kind of movement, you need to move different regions of the root and to synchronize these different regions without having a brain. So we studied the root apex and we found that there is a specific region that is here, depicted in blue -- that is called the "transition zone." And this region, it's a very small region -- it's less than one millimeter. And in this small region you have the highest consumption of oxygen in the plants and more important, you have these kinds of signals here. The signals that you are seeing here are action potential, are the same signals that the neurons of my brain, of our brain, use to exchange information. Now we know that a root apex has just a few hundred cells that show this kind of feature, but we know how big the root apparatus of a small plant, like a plant of rye. We have almost 14 million roots. We have 11 and a half million root apex and a total length of 600 or more kilometers and a very high surface area.
畫面上是個植物根尖 它正在對抗著這斜坡。 各位可以看出它的這種移動方式, 就跟幼蟲、蛇一樣, 甚至是跟任何 不用雙足在地面移動的動物一樣, 他們都是這樣。 這種移動方式可不容易, 因為,要做出這種動作, 在沒有大腦的情形下, 必須要移動根部的不同區域, 同時要做出同步一致性。 所以我們開始研究植物尖根這個部份, 我們發現這部分有個非常特別的區域, 就在這裡,用藍色標示的地方, 稱為轉變區(transition zone)。 這個區域非常微小。 小於1公厘。 在這個微小的區域 是植物體內 氧氣消耗量最大的地方, 更重要的是, 這個區域會發出一些訊息。 這些訊息會出現動作電位(action potential), 這種訊息 和人類大腦神經元在交換資訊時所發出的 是一樣的。 現在我們知道植物尖根 僅擁有數百個細胞 就能展現這種特質 我們了解到 植物尖根在小小的植物體內佔了多大的地位。 以一株黑麥為例,它就有著將近 1400萬支根。 而且擁有1150萬個 植物尖根 總長度超過600公里 涵蓋著非常廣大的區域。
Now let's imagine that each single root apex is working in network with all the others. Here were have on the left, the Internet and on the right, the root apparatus. They work in the same way. They are a network of small computing machines, working in networks. And why are they so similar? Because they evolved for the same reason: to survive predation. They work in the same way. So you can remove 90 percent of the root apparatus and the plants [continue] to work. You can remove 90 percent of the Internet and it is [continuing] to work. So, a suggestion for the people working with networks: plants are able to give you good suggestions about how to evolve networks.
想像一下 每一株植物尖根 與其它尖根共同在這個網絡中運作著。 現今網際網路就像左手邊的這張圖, 而右邊是植物的根部圖。 它們運作的方式相當類似。 這就像是 有著小型電腦的網絡 在這裡同時運作著。 為什麼這會非常相似? 因為這二者會這樣發展 是有相同的幾個理由: 在捕食中生存下來。 這運作方式是相同的。 你可以把植物90%的根部移除 植物仍然可以繼續生長。 你可以把90%的網路都斷絕, 但網路還是會不斷的自行運作。 所以,對於人們在網絡中工作 的一個啟示就是: 對於發展網絡, 植物本身也能 給予一個很好的示範。
And another possibility is a technological possibility. Let's imagine that we can build robots and robots that are inspired by plants. Until now, the man was inspired just by man or the animals in producing a robot. We have the animaloid -- and the normal robots inspired by animals, insectoid, so on. We have the androids that are inspired by man. But why have we not any plantoid? Well, if you want to fly, it's good that you look at birds -- to be inspired by birds. But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this. We have another possibility we are working [on] in our lab, [which] is to build hybrids. It's much more easy to build hybrids. Hybrid means it's something that's half living and half machine. It's much more easy to work with plants than with animals. They have computing power, they have electrical signals. The connection with the machine is much more easy, much more even ethically possible. And these are three possibilities that we are working on to build hybrids, driven by algae or by the leaves at the end, by the most, most powerful parts of the plants, by the roots.
另一個可能性 是有關技術方面的可能性。 想像一下 我們創造機器人的靈感來源 也能夠來自植物。 一直到現在, 人類在機械方面的的創意來源 不是來自人類本身 就是來自動物。 我們最常運用的是仿動物, 一般機器人(robots)靈感來源是來自動物 昆蟲等等。 而像是人形機器人(androids) 的創造靈感來源是人類。 為什麼就沒有仿植物的東西呢 若我們想到飛, 最棒的範本就是鳥, 飛行的靈感來源也是鳥。 不過,若想要探勘某地, 或是想要拓墾 新的土地, 最棒的仿效對象就是植物, 它們非常擅長於此道。 另一種可能性是, 我們能夠在實驗室裡面 開發出所謂的"混合體"。 這種混合體的開發非常簡單。 混合體是一種 半生命半機械的物體。 要開發這樣的物體,利用植物會比 動物更容易。 它們會有計算能力。 它們會發出電子信號。 開發這種機械更為容易, 而且不用考慮到道德問題。 有鑒於上述的三種可能性 我們正在努力於 混合體的開發, 這些機械能透過藻類運作, 或是透過葉片的化學作用運作, 或是透過植物身上最有利的部位 根部來運作。
Well, thank you for your attention. And before I finish, I would like to reassure that no snails were harmed in making this presentation. Thank you.
感謝今天各位的參與。 在我結束之前, 我想再次強調 沒有任何蝸牛因為這次演講而受傷。 感謝各位。
(Applause)
(掌聲)