跟李想死磕TED｜01-05 The tiny creature that secretly powers the planet

So just as your smartphone tells us something about how you live your life, your lifestyle, reading the genome of a Prochlorococcus cell tells us what the pressures are in its environment. It's like reading its diary, not only telling us how it got through its day or its week, but even its evolutionary history. As we studied -- I said we've sequenced hundreds of these cells, and we can now project what is the total genetic size -- gene pool -- of the Prochlorococcus federation, as we call it. It's like a superorganism. And it turns out that projections are that the collective has 80,000 genes. That's four times the size of the human genome. And it's that diversity of gene pools that makes it possible for them to dominate these large regions of the oceans and maintain their stability year in and year out. 所以，就像你的智能手机告诉我们你是如何生活的，你的生活方式那样，读懂绿原球藻的基因序列就能告诉我们它们的生存环境的压力。就像读一本日期，不只是告诉我们它们是如何度过一天或一周的，甚至还可能读到它们的历史。就像我们研究的，我刚刚说过我们对几百种绿原球藻测序，我们现在可以预估出总的基因数，基因池，针对的是我们称之为的整个绿原球藻种群。这就像一个超级有机体。最终的估计是总计8万个基因。这是人类基因组的4倍。它们这样多样化的基因池使得它们在如此广大海域内占统治地位，年复一年地生存下来。 13:40 So when I daydream about Prochlorococcus, which I probably do more than is healthy -- 所以，当我整天想着绿原球藻，但我更应该考虑的是健康…… 13:46 (Laughter)（笑声） 13:48 I imagine them floating out there, doing their job, maintaining the planet, feeding the animals. But also I inevitably end up thinking about what a masterpiece they are, finely tuned by millions of years of evolution. With 2,000 genes, they can do what all of our human ingenuity has not figured out how to do yet. They can take solar energy, CO2 and turn it into chemical energy in the form of organic carbon, locking that sunlight in those carbon bonds. 我想象着它们从那儿浮出来，干着它们的工作，维护着地球，滋养着动物。但是最终我在想，它们是多么宏伟的篇章，在百万年的进化中完美调整自己。用2000个基因，他们就能做出人类迄今为止无法做到的。他们用太阳能，把二氧化碳转变成有机碳化合物的生物化学，把阳光锁定在碳键里。 14:25 If we could figure out exactly how they do this, it could inspire designs that could reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, which brings my story full circle. 如果我们能够制造出和它们一摸一样的功能，就能鼓励我们设计出减少对于原油燃料的依赖，让我的故事圆满了。 14:39 The fossil fuels that are buried that we're burning took millions of years for the earth to bury those, including those ancestors of Prochlorococcus, and we're burning that now in the blink of an eye on geological timescales. Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere. It's a greenhouse gas. The oceans are starting to warm. So the question is, what is that going to do for my Prochlorococcus? And I'm sure you're expecting me to say that my beloved microbes are doomed, but in fact they're not. Projections are that their populations will expand as the ocean warms to 30 percent larger by the year 2100. 那些被我们已经燃烧掉的和正在燃烧的石油燃料是花了千百万年地球埋藏的，包括那些绿原球藻的祖先，我们一眨眼就烧掉了，相对于地质时间坐标来说。二氧化碳在大气中浓度升高，这是一种温室气体。海洋开始变暖。 这样一来，问题就来了，我们原绿球藻将会怎样？我肯定大家希望我说我所挚爱的微生物大难临头，但事实是它们不会。据预测，如果海洋温度升高，他们的数量到2100年将增加30% 15:24 Does that make me happy? Well, it makes me happy for Prochlorococcus of course -- 这会令我高兴吗？嗯，他会令我为原绿球藻高兴…… 15:29 (Laughter)（笑声） 15:31 but not for the planet. There are winners and losers in this global experiment that we've undertaken, and it's projected that among the losers will be some of those larger phytoplankton, those charismatic ones which are expected to be reduced in numbers, and they're the ones that feed the zooplankton that feed the fish that we like to harvest. 但高兴不是对地球的。在我们正在进行的全球实验中有赢家也有输家，而且预计在输家中会有体形大一些的浮游植物，那些神一般的物种在数量上肯定会减少，它们可是浮游动物的食物，而浮游动物是我们喜欢的鱼的食物。 15:56 So Prochlorococcus has been my muse for the past 35 years, but there are legions of other microbes out there maintaining our planet for us. They're out there ready and waiting for us to find them so they can tell their stories, too. 所以在过去的35年里，原绿球藻已经成为我的缪斯女神，但是还有很多其他的微生物在那儿，为我们维持着我们的星球。它们就在那儿，等待着我们发现它们，它们就可以讲述它们的故事了。 16:12 Thank you. 谢谢 16:13 (Applause)（掌声）