演講MP3+雙語文稿:基因奇跡的時(shí)代

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聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學(xué)習(xí)使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:基因奇跡的時(shí)代，希望你會(huì)喜歡！

【演講者及介紹】Juan Enriquez

胡安·恩里克茲，作者、學(xué)術(shù)、未來主義者，他思考并寫下了基因組學(xué)和大腦研究將給商業(yè)、技術(shù)、政治和社會(huì)帶來的深刻變化。

【演講主題】基因奇跡的時(shí)代

【中英文字幕】

翻譯者 psjmz mz 校對(duì)者Xuying Wu

00:13

So let me with start with Roy Amara. Roy'sargument is that most new technologies tend to be overestimated in their impactto begin with, and then they get underestimated in the long term because we getused to them.

讓我從羅伊·阿馬拉開始。羅伊的觀點(diǎn)是，大多數(shù)新技術(shù)剛出現(xiàn)時(shí)，影響力往往被高估了，而在長時(shí)期內(nèi)，它們的影響又被低估，因?yàn)槲覀冏兊昧?xí)慣了。

00:27

These really are days of miracle andwonder. You remember that wonderful song by Paul Simon? There were two lines init. So what was it that was considered miraculous back then? Slowing downthings -- slow motion -- and the long-distance call. Because, of course, youused to get interrupted by operators who'd tell you, "Long distancecalling. Do you want to hang up?" And now we think nothing of calling allover the world. Well, something similar may be happening with reading andprogramming life.

這真是充滿奇跡和想象的日子。你還記得保羅·西蒙的那首美妙的歌嗎？里面有兩行歌詞。當(dāng)時(shí)人們認(rèn)為什么是奇跡呢？放慢速度——慢動(dòng)作——還有打長途電話。因?yàn)?，你顯然曾被接線員打斷過，她會(huì)告訴你，“長途電話喔，你想要掛斷嗎？”而今天我們習(xí)慣了在全球范圍都可以隨時(shí)連線。類似的事情也發(fā)生在生命信息閱讀和編程領(lǐng)域。

00:59

But before I unpack that, let's just talkabout telescopes. Telescopes were overestimated originally in their impact.This is one of Galileo's early models. People thought it was just going to ruinall religion.

但在我展開前，讓我們來聊聊望遠(yuǎn)鏡。望遠(yuǎn)鏡起初的影響被高估了。這是伽利略早期的模型之一。人們認(rèn)為這會(huì)毀了所有的宗教。

01:16

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

01:19

So we're not paying that much attention totelescopes. But, of course, telescopes launched 10 years ago, as you justheard, could take this Volkswagen, fly it to the moon, and you could see thelights on that Volkswagen light up on the moon. And that's the kind ofresolution power that allowed you to see little specks of dust floating arounddistant suns. Imagine for a second that this was a sun a billion light yearsaway, and you had a little speck of dust that came in front of it. That's whatdetecting an exoplanet is like. And the cool thing is, the telescopes that arenow being launched would allow you to see a single candle lit on the moon. Andif you separated it by one plate, you could see two candles separately at thatdistance.

所以人們并沒有花什么心思研究望遠(yuǎn)鏡。不過，你當(dāng)然也聽說了，10多年前發(fā)射的望遠(yuǎn)鏡，可以帶著這臺(tái)大眾轎車飛到月球上，你可以看到這輛大眾汽車的燈在月球上亮了起來。這種程度的分辨率可以讓你看到漂浮在遙遠(yuǎn)太陽周圍的小塵埃。想象一下，這是10億光年之外的太陽，在它前面有一小點(diǎn)灰塵。這就是探測(cè)系外行星的感覺。很酷的事情在于，如今發(fā)射的望遠(yuǎn)鏡可以讓你看到月球上點(diǎn)亮的一根蠟燭。如果你用盤子把它分開，你可以在那個(gè)距離看到兩根單獨(dú)的蠟燭。

02:11

And that's the kind of resolution that youneed to begin to image that little speck of dust as it comes around the sun andsee if it has a blue-green signature. And if it does have a blue-greensignature, it means that life is common in the universe. The first time youever see a blue-green signature on a distant planet, it means there'sphotosynthesis there, there's water there, and the chances that you saw theonly other planet with photosynthesis are about zero. And that's acalendar-changing event. There's a before and after we were alone in the universe:forget about the discovery of whatever continent. So as you're thinking aboutthis, we're now beginning to be able to image most of the universe. And that isa time of miracle and wonder. And we kind of take that for granted.

這就是你開始對(duì)太陽周圍的那一點(diǎn)小塵埃進(jìn)行成像，去看看它是不是藍(lán)綠色所需要的特征。如果它確實(shí)有藍(lán)綠信號(hào)，這就意味著生命在宇宙中普遍存在。你第一次在遙遠(yuǎn)的星球上看到藍(lán)綠色的標(biāo)志，這意味著那里有光合作用，那里有水，你看到唯一一個(gè)除地球外有光合作用的行星的幾率幾乎是零。這是一個(gè)劃時(shí)代的事件。這是我們?cè)谟钪嬷惺欠窆陋?dú)的分界線：別去想什么發(fā)現(xiàn)新大陸了。思考一下這個(gè)問題，我們現(xiàn)在開始能夠描繪大部分的宇宙。這真是充滿奇跡和想象的時(shí)代。我們卻有點(diǎn)視為理所當(dāng)然。

03:00

Something similar is happening in life. Sowe're hearing about life in these little bits and pieces. We hear about CRISPR,and we hear about this technology, and we hear about this technology. But thebottom line on life is that life turns out to be code. And life as code is a reallyimportant concept because it means, just in the same way as you can write asentence in English or in French or Chinese, just in the same way as you cancopy a sentence, just in the same way as you can edit a sentence, just in thesame way as you can print a sentence, you're beginning to be able to do thatwith life. It means that we're beginning to learn how to read this language.And this, of course, is the language that is used by this orange.

類似的事情正發(fā)生在生命領(lǐng)域。我們不斷聽到關(guān)于生命的碎片信息。我們聽說過CRISPR，聽說過這項(xiàng)技術(shù)，聽說過那項(xiàng)技術(shù)。但生命的本質(zhì)是編碼。生命就是編碼是個(gè)非常重要的概念，因?yàn)檫@意味著，就像你寫一個(gè)句子一樣，可以用英文或法語或中文，就像你可以復(fù)制一個(gè)句子一樣，就像你可以修改一個(gè)句子一樣，就像你可以打印一個(gè)句子一樣，你可以對(duì)生命也這樣做。這意味著我們正在開始學(xué)習(xí)如何閱讀這門語言。當(dāng)然，也是這個(gè)橙子使用的語言。

03:45

So how does this orange execute code? Itdoesn't do it in ones and zeroes like a computer does. It sits on a tree, andone day it does: plop! And that means: execute. AATCAAG: make me a little root.TCGACC: make me a little stem. GAC: make me some leaves. AGC: make me someflowers. And then GCAA: make me some more oranges.

那這個(gè)橙子如何執(zhí)行編碼？它不像計(jì)算機(jī)那樣用1，0來表示。它呆在樹上，有一天它會(huì)：撲通！ 這意味著：執(zhí)行。AATCAAG: 生根。TCGACC: 開枝。GAC: 生葉。AGC: 開花。然后GCAA：結(jié)更多的橙子。

04:09

If I edit a sentence in English on a wordprocessor, then what happens is you can go from this word to that word. If Iedit something in this orange and put in GCAAC, using CRISPR or something elsethat you've heard of, then this orange becomes a lemon, or it becomes agrapefruit, or it becomes a tangerine. And if I edit one in a thousand letters,you become the person sitting next to you today. Be more careful where you sit.

如果我在文字處理軟件上用英文編寫句子，緊接著你就可以從這個(gè)詞到那個(gè)詞。如果我在這個(gè)橙子中編輯東西，放入GCAAC，使用CRISPR 或其他你聽過的技術(shù)，然后這個(gè)橙子變成了檸檬，或者變成一個(gè)葡萄柚，或者變成橘子。如果我編輯千分之一的代碼，你就會(huì)變成今天坐在你旁邊的人。多用心看看你要坐在哪里。

04:43

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

04:45

What's happening on this stuff is it wasreally expensive to begin with. It was like long-distance calls. But the costof this is dropping 50 percent faster than Moore's law. The first $200 fullgenome was announced yesterday by Veritas. And so as you're looking at thesesystems, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, and then itdoes.

這項(xiàng)技術(shù)在初始階段成本非常高。有點(diǎn)像長途電話誕生的初期。但成本下降的速度比摩爾定律快50%。Veritas 昨天宣布了首個(gè) 200美元全基因組計(jì)劃。當(dāng)你看這些系統(tǒng)的時(shí)候，它無關(guān)緊要，它無關(guān)緊要，它無關(guān)緊要，然后它變得緊要了。

05:07

So let me just give you the map view ofthis stuff. This is a big discovery. There's 23 chromosomes. Cool. Let's nowstart using a telescope version, but instead of using a telescope, let's use amicroscope to zoom in on the inferior of those chromosomes, which is the Ychromosome. It's a third the size of the X. It's recessive and mutant. But hey,just a male. And as you're looking at this stuff, here's kind of a country viewat a 400 base pair resolution level, and then you zoom in to 550, and then youzoom in to 850, and you can begin to identify more and more genes as you zoomin. Then you zoom in to the state level, and you can begin to tell who's gotleukemia, how did they get leukemia, what kind of leukemia do they have, whatshifted from what place to what place. And then you zoom in to the Googlestreet view level. So this is what happens if you have colorectal cancer for avery specific patient on the letter-by-letter resolution.

我想給你看看這玩意兒的地圖預(yù)覽模式。這是一個(gè)大發(fā)現(xiàn)。有23條染色體。真酷?，F(xiàn)在讓我們啟動(dòng)望遠(yuǎn)鏡視角，不過用的不是望遠(yuǎn)鏡，而是通過顯微鏡放大看看這些染色體中較低級(jí)別的 Y染色體。它的大小是X染色體的1/3，是隱性和突變的。但是呢，只是個(gè)男性罷了。繼續(xù)來看，這有點(diǎn)像一個(gè)國家視圖，以400個(gè)堿基對(duì)的分辨率來看，然后你放大到500對(duì)，再到850對(duì)，隨著放大，你開始能識(shí)別出越來越多的基因。然后你放大到州級(jí)分辨率，你開始能說出誰得了白血病，他們是怎么得的白血病，得了哪種白血病，從何處被移動(dòng)到何處。然后你放大到谷歌街景的級(jí)別。這就是你從某個(gè)結(jié)腸直腸癌病人身上以字母分辨率級(jí)別，看到的情況。

06:18

So what we're doing in this stuff is we'regathering information and just generating enormous amounts of information. Thisis one of the largest databases on the planet and it's growing faster than wecan build computers to store it. You can create some incredible maps with thisstuff. You want to understand the plague and why one plague is bubonic and theother one is a different kind of plague and the other one is a different kindof plague? Well, here's a map of the plague. Some are absolutely deadly tohumans, some are not. And note, by the way, as you go to the bottom of this,how does it compare to tuberculosis? So this is the difference betweentuberculosis and various kinds of plagues, and you can play detective with thisstuff, because you can take a very specific kind of cholera that affectedHaiti, and you can look at which country it came from, which region it camefrom, and probably which soldier took that from that African country to Haiti.

所以我們正在收集信息和生成大量的信息。這是地球上最大的數(shù)據(jù)庫之一，它的增長速度比我們制造電腦存儲(chǔ)它的速度還快。你可以用這些東西構(gòu)建一些不可思議的地圖。你想了解鼠疫和為什么這種鼠疫是淋巴腺鼠疫，另一種是不同類型的鼠疫，還有一種不同類型的鼠疫嗎？這就是鼠疫的地圖。有些對(duì)人類絕對(duì)致命的，有些則不會(huì)。順便說一下，當(dāng)你看到底部的時(shí)候，注意把它與結(jié)核病對(duì)比觀察。這就是肺結(jié)核和各種瘟疫的區(qū)別，你可以用它來做偵探游戲，因?yàn)槟憧梢赃x擇一種影響了海地的特殊霍亂，你可以追蹤看它來自哪個(gè)國家，哪個(gè)地區(qū)，以及可能是哪個(gè)士兵把它從哪個(gè)非洲國家?guī)У胶５亍?/p>

07:17

Zoom out. It's not just zooming in. This isone of the coolest maps ever done by human beings. What they've done is takenall the genetic information they have about all the species, and they've put atree of life on a single page that you can zoom in and out of. So this is whatcame first, how did it diversify, how did it branch, how large is that genome,on a single page. It's kind of the universe of life on Earth, and it's beingconstantly updated and completed.

縮小。不僅僅只是放大。這是人類繪制的最酷的地圖之一。我們把獲得的所有物種的基因信息 放在一棵生命樹上，只用一頁，你可以放大和縮小。這就是第一眼看到的，它是如何多樣，如何多分支，如此龐大的一個(gè)基因組，全都展現(xiàn)在一個(gè)頁面上。它相當(dāng)于地球上生命的宇宙，而且還在不斷更新和完善。

07:47

And so as you're looking at this stuff, thereally important change is the old biology used to be reactive. You used tohave a lot of biologists that had microscopes, and they had magnifying glassesand they were out observing animals. The new biology is proactive. You don'tjust observe stuff, you make stuff. And that's a really big change because itallows us to do things like this. And I know you're really excited by thispicture.

當(dāng)你看到這些信息的時(shí)候，真正重要的變化是過去的生物學(xué)是被動(dòng)的。過去很多生物學(xué)家都有顯微鏡，他們帶著放大鏡在外面觀察動(dòng)物。新的生物學(xué)是主動(dòng)的。你不僅只是觀察事物，你還創(chuàng)造事物。這是個(gè)重大的變化，因?yàn)樗屛覀兛梢韵襁@樣做事情。我知道你們對(duì)這張照片很興奮。

08:13

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

08:14

It only took us four years and 40 milliondollars to be able to take this picture.

它只花了我們4年時(shí)間和4千萬美元來拍下這張照片。

08:18

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

08:20

And what we did is we took the full genecode out of a cell -- not a gene, not two genes, the full gene code out of acell -- built a completely new gene code, inserted it into the cell, figuredout a way to have the cell execute that code and built a completely newspecies. So this is the world's first synthetic life form.

我們把完整的基因編碼從細(xì)胞中提取出來——不是一個(gè)基因，不是兩個(gè)基因，是把整個(gè)基因編碼從細(xì)胞中提取出來，構(gòu)建一個(gè)全新的基因編碼，再注入到細(xì)胞中，找到方法讓細(xì)胞執(zhí)行編碼去創(chuàng)造一個(gè)全新的物種。所以這是世界上第一個(gè)合成生命形式。

08:46

And so what do you do with this stuff?Well, this stuff is going to change the world. Let me give you three short-termtrends in terms of how it's going to change the world.

那么有了這個(gè)技術(shù)后我們要做什么？它會(huì)改變世界。讓我給你們?nèi)齻€(gè)短期的趨勢(shì)，來理解它將如何改變世界。

08:57

The first is we're going to see a newindustrial revolution. And I actually mean that literally. So in the same wayas Switzerland and Germany and Britain changed the world with machines like theone you see in this lobby, created power -- in the same way CERN is changingthe world, using new instruments and our concept of the universe --programmable life forms are also going to change the world because once you canprogram cells in the same way as you program your computer chip, then you canmake almost anything.

首先，我們將看到一場(chǎng)新的工業(yè)革命。我是認(rèn)真的，毫不夸張。就像瑞士，德國和英國用你們?cè)谶@次會(huì)議的大廳里看到的機(jī)器改變了世界一樣，創(chuàng)造了力量——也如同歐洲核子研究中心（CERN）正在使用新的儀器和我們對(duì)宇宙的概念改變世界一樣——可編碼的生命形態(tài)也將改變世界，因?yàn)橐坏┠憧梢詫?duì)細(xì)胞編碼，就像你對(duì)電腦芯片編程一樣，然后你幾乎可以做任何事情。

09:33

So your computer chip can producephotographs, can produce music, can produce film, can produce love letters, canproduce spreadsheets. It's just ones and zeroes flying through there. If youcan flow ATCGs through cells, then this software makes its own hardware, whichmeans it scales very quickly. No matter what happens, if you leave your cellphone by your bedside, you will not have a billion cell phones in the morning.But if you do that with living organisms, you can make this stuff at a verylarge scale. One of the things you can do is you can start producing close tocarbon-neutral fuels on a commercial scale by 2025, which we're doing withExxon. But you can also substitute for agricultural lands. Instead of having100 hectares to make oils or to make proteins, you can make it in these vats at10 or 100 times the productivity per hectare. Or you can store information, oryou can make all the world's vaccines in those three vats. Or you can storemost of the information that's held at CERN in those three vats. DNA is areally powerful information storage device.

你的電腦芯片可以制作圖像，音樂，電影，可以寫情書，制作電子表格。這只是許多 1 和 0 在那里飛來飛去。如果你能讓 ATCG 在細(xì)胞中穿行，軟件就會(huì)創(chuàng)造自己的硬件，這意味著它擴(kuò)展的速度非常快。不管發(fā)生什么，如果你把手機(jī)放在床邊，你早上醒來不會(huì)有數(shù)十億部手機(jī)。但如果你對(duì)活的生物體這樣做，你可以大規(guī)模復(fù)制這些生命。到2025年，你其實(shí)可以開始以商業(yè)規(guī)模 生產(chǎn)接近碳中性的燃料，我們正在與?？松?就這個(gè)問題展開合作。你也可以用它來取代農(nóng)田。不再需要100公頃的土地來生產(chǎn)油或蛋白質(zhì)，相反，你可以在這些大桶里以每公頃10到100倍的產(chǎn)量生產(chǎn)。你也可以在這三個(gè)桶里儲(chǔ)存信息，或者制造世界上所有的疫苗?；蛘吣憧梢园袰ERN保存的大部分信息存儲(chǔ)在這三個(gè)容器中。DNA真是個(gè)非常強(qiáng)大的信息存儲(chǔ)設(shè)備。

10:49

Second turn: you're beginning to see therise of theoretical biology. So, medical school departments are one of the mostconservative places on earth. The way they teach anatomy is similar to the waythey taught anatomy 100 years ago. "Welcome, student. Here's yourcadaver." One of the things medical schools are not good at is creatingnew departments, which is why this is so unusual. Isaac Kohane has now createda department based on informatics, data, knowledge at Harvard Medical School.And in a sense, what's beginning to happen is biology is beginning to getenough data that it can begin to follow the steps of physics, which used to beobservational physics and experimental physicists, and then started creatingtheoretical biology. Well, that's what you're beginning to see because you haveso many medical records, because you have so much data about people: you've gottheir genomes, you've got their viromes, you've got their microbiomes. And asthis information stacks, you can begin to make predictions.

第二：你開始看到理論生物學(xué)的興起。醫(yī)學(xué)院是世界上最保守的地方之一。他們教解剖學(xué)的方法還像100年前一樣?！皻g迎，學(xué)生們，這是你的尸體?！贬t(yī)學(xué)院不擅長開設(shè)新的院部，這是為什么它很少見的原因。薩克·科哈尼現(xiàn)在在哈佛醫(yī)學(xué)院創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)基于信息學(xué)、數(shù)據(jù)和知識(shí)的部門。在某種意義上，生物學(xué)正在開始獲得足夠的數(shù)據(jù)，可以開始追隨物理學(xué)發(fā)展的步伐，物理學(xué)曾經(jīng)只包括觀測(cè)物理和實(shí)驗(yàn)物理，然后才開始創(chuàng)建理論生物學(xué)。這就是你們剛開始看到的，因?yàn)槟阌腥绱酥嗟尼t(yī)療記錄，因?yàn)槟阌嘘P(guān)于人的如此多的數(shù)據(jù)：有他們的基因組，有他們的病毒體，有他們的微生物群。隨著這些信息累加，你可以開始做預(yù)測(cè)。

11:52

The third thing that's happening is this iscoming to the consumer. So you, too, can get your genes sequenced. And this isbeginning to create companies like 23andMe, and companies like 23andMe aregoing to be giving you more and more and more data, not just about yourrelatives, but about you and your body, and it's going to compare stuff, andit's going to compare stuff across time, and these are going to become verylarge databases.

第三件發(fā)生的事情是，這一切正在走向消費(fèi)者。你也可以測(cè)序你的基因。這也導(dǎo)致了像23andMe 這樣的公司的誕生，這樣的公司會(huì)給你越來越多的數(shù)據(jù)，不僅關(guān)于你的親戚，也關(guān)于你和你自己的身體，它還會(huì)進(jìn)行比較，可以跨時(shí)間進(jìn)行比較，將會(huì)形成非常大型的數(shù)據(jù)庫。

12:19

But it's also beginning to affect a seriesof other businesses in unexpected ways. Normally, when you advertise something,you really don't want the consumer to take your advertisement into the bathroomto pee on. Unless, of course, if you're IKEA. Because when you rip this out ofa magazine and you pee on it, it'll turn blue if you're pregnant.

但這也將開始以不可預(yù)期的方式影響一系列其他商業(yè)。通常情況下，當(dāng)你做廣告的時(shí)候，你真的不希望消費(fèi)者在你的廣告宣傳頁上小便。當(dāng)然，除非你是宜家。因?yàn)楫?dāng)你從雜志上撕下這頁，尿在上面的時(shí)候，如果你懷孕了，它會(huì)變成藍(lán)色。

12:43

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

12:44

And they'll give you a discount on yourcrib.

他們會(huì)給你的嬰兒床打折。

12:48

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

12:50

Right? So when I say consumer empowerment,and this is spreading beyond biotech, I actually really mean that.

對(duì)吧？所以當(dāng)我說消費(fèi)者被賦能時(shí)，這已經(jīng)超越了生物技術(shù)，我是說真的。

12:59

We're now beginning to produce, atSynthetic Genomics, desktop printers that allow you to design a cell, print acell, execute the program on the cell. We can now print vaccines real time asan airplane takes off before it lands. We're shipping 78 of these machines thisyear. This is not theoretical biology. This is printing biology.

在Synthetic Genomics（合成基因公司），我們現(xiàn)在開始生產(chǎn)臺(tái)式打印機(jī)，可以讓你設(shè)計(jì)細(xì)胞，打印細(xì)胞，執(zhí)行細(xì)胞中的編碼。我們現(xiàn)在可以實(shí)時(shí)打印疫苗，就在飛機(jī)起飛時(shí)開始，在著陸前完成。我們今年將售出78臺(tái)這種機(jī)器。這不是理論生物學(xué)，這是打印生物學(xué)。

13:30

Let me talk about two long-term trends thatare coming at you over a longer time period. The first one is, we're startingto redesign species. And you've heard about that, right? We're redesigningtrees. We're redesigning flowers. We're redesigning yogurt, cheese, whateverelse you want. And that, of course, brings up the interesting question: How andwhen should we redesign humans? And a lot of us think, "Oh no, we neverwant to redesign humans." Unless, of course, if your child has aHuntington's gene and is condemned to death. Or, unless if you're passing on acystic fibrosis gene, in which case, you don't just want to redesign yourself,you want to redesign your children and their children. And these arecomplicated debates and they're going to happen in real time.

讓我再談?wù)剝蓚€(gè)長期趨勢(shì)，是將會(huì)在更長的時(shí)間內(nèi)發(fā)生在你身上的。第一個(gè)是，我們開始重新設(shè)計(jì)物種。你已聽說過了，對(duì)吧？我們重新設(shè)計(jì)了樹木，我們重新設(shè)計(jì)了鮮花。我們重新設(shè)計(jì)了酸奶，奶酪，隨便你要什么。當(dāng)然，這引出了一個(gè)有趣的問題：我們要怎樣以及何時(shí)重新設(shè)計(jì)人類？我們很多人會(huì)想，“哦，不，我們從來不想重新設(shè)計(jì)人類。”當(dāng)然，除非你的孩子有亨廷頓氏舞蹈癥基因并且被醫(yī)生判了死刑。或者，除非你遺傳了囊性纖維化基因，在這種情況下，你不只是想重新設(shè)計(jì)自己，你還想重新設(shè)計(jì)你的孩子和他們的孩子。這些都是復(fù)雜的爭(zhēng)論，它們當(dāng)下正在發(fā)生著。

14:23

I'll give you one current example. One ofthe debates going on at the National Academies today is you have the power toput a gene drive into mosquitoes so that you will kill all the malaria-carryingmosquitoes. Now, some people say, "That's going to affect the environmentin an extreme way, don't do it." Other people say, "This is one of thethings that's killing millions of people yearly. Who are you to tell me that Ican't save the kids in my country?" And why is this debate so complicated?Because as soon as you let this loose in Brazil or in Southern Florida --mosquitoes don't respect walls. You're making a decision for the world when youput a gene drive into the air.

我給你們一個(gè)最近的例子。今天在國家科學(xué)院進(jìn)行的一場(chǎng)辯論是關(guān)于 如果你有能力把基因注入蚊子體內(nèi)，這樣你就可以殺死所有 攜帶瘧疾的蚊子。有人會(huì)說，“這將會(huì)以一種極端的方式 影響環(huán)境，不要這樣做?！?其他人則說，“這是個(gè)每年造成數(shù)百萬人死亡的事情，你憑什么對(duì)我說我不能拯救我們國家的孩子們？”為什么這場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)論如此復(fù)雜？因?yàn)橐坏┠阍诎臀?，或在佛羅里達(dá)州南部放松管制—— 蚊子可不管什么墻。當(dāng)你把基因驅(qū)動(dòng)放到空中時(shí)，你是在為世界做決定。

15:14

This wonderful man won a Nobel Prize, andafter winning the Nobel Prize he's been worrying about how did life get startedon this planet and how likely is it that it's in other places? So what he'sbeen doing is going around to this graduate students and saying to his graduatestudents, "Build me life but don't use any modern chemicals orinstruments. Build me stuff that was here three billion years ago. You can'tuse lasers. You can't use this. You can't use that." He gave me a vial ofwhat he's built about three weeks ago. What has he built? He's built basicallywhat looked like soap bubbles that are made out of lipids. He's built aprecursor of RNA. He's had the precursor of the RNA be absorbed by the cell andthen he's had the cells divide. We may not be that far -- call it a decade,maybe two decades -- from generating life from scratch out ofproto-communities.

這個(gè)了不起的人獲得了諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)，在獲得諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)后，他一直在操心生命是如何在這個(gè)星球上誕生的，在其他地方存在的可能性有多大？所以他一直想招一些研究生，對(duì)他們說，“去創(chuàng)造生物，但別使用任何現(xiàn)代化學(xué)品或儀器。給我造些三十億年前出現(xiàn)的東西。你不能用激光，你不能用這個(gè)，你不能用那個(gè)?！彼o了我一小瓶他三周前做的東西。他做的是什么？看起來就像是用脂質(zhì)做的肥皂泡。他造出了RNA的前體。他讓RNA的前體被細(xì)胞吸收，然后讓細(xì)胞分裂。這一天可能不會(huì)太遠(yuǎn)—— 10年后，也許20年后——我們就能從原始群落中造出生命。

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