演讲MP3+双语文稿:改造过的超级植物如何延缓气候变化
听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:改造过的超级植物如何延缓气候变化，希望你会喜欢！
【演讲人】Joanne Chory
【演讲主题】改造过的超级植物如何延缓气候变化
【中英文字幕】获取完整版字幕
翻译者Jin Ge 校对者 Chen
00:05
Irecently had an epiphany. I realized that I could actually play a role insolving one of the biggest problems that faces mankind today, and that is theproblem of climate change. It also dawned on me that I had been working for 30years or more just to get to this point in my life where I could actually makethis contribution to a bigger problem. And every experiment that I have done inmy lab over the last 30 years and people who work for me did in my lab over thelast 30 years has been directed toward doing the really big experiment, thisone last big experiment.
我最近有了顿悟。我发现，其实我 可以扮演一个角色， 协助解决人类现今 所面临最大的一个难题， 那就是气候变化的问题。 我也开始明白， 我已经工作了三十年， 只是为了到达 人生中的这个节点，让我能为更大的问题贡献心力。 过去三十年， 我在实验室中做的每个实验， 以及过去三十年， 在实验室中 手下人所做的实验， 都是为了这个非常大的实验， 最后一个大实验。
00:46
Sowho am I? I'm a plant geneticist. I live in a world where there's too much CO2in the atmosphere because of human activity. But I've come to appreciate theplants as amazing machines that they are, whose job has been, really, to justsuck up CO2. And they do it so well, because they've been doing it for over 500million years. And they're really good at it. And so ...
所以，我是谁呢？我是一个植物遗传学家。我们居住的这个世界， 大气的二氧化碳浓度太高，而这是由于人类活动造成的。而我渐渐开始欣赏植物身为了不起的机器的那一面，它们的工作都只是 吸光二氧化碳。它们做得非常好， 因为它们做这件事已经做了超过五亿年。它们非常擅长做这件事。所以……
01:17
Ialso have some urgency I want to tell you about. As a mother, I want to give mytwo children a better world than I inherited from my parents, it would be nicerto keep it going in the right direction, not the bad direction.
我也有件急迫的事要跟各位谈。身为母亲，我想要给 我的两个孩子更好的世界， 至少比我父母给我的要更好， 我比较希望看到的是世界 朝对的方向继续前进， 而不是坏的方向。
01:30
ButI also ... I've had Parkinson's for the last 15 years, and this gives me asense of urgency that I want to do this now, while I feel good enough to reallybe part of this team. And I have an incredible team. We all work together, andthis is something we want to do because we have fun. And if you're only goingto have five people trying to save the planet, you better like each other,because you're going to be spending a lot of time together.
但是我也……我有帕金森氏症， 它跟了我十五年，这让我更急着想要现在就做这件事，趁我的状况还不错， 还能为团队尽力的时候。我的团队非常棒。我们都同心协力，我们想要做这件事 是因为我们做得很开心。而且，如果你们只有五个人 在试图拯救地球，你们最好喜欢彼此，因为你们会花很多时间相处在一起。
01:59
（Laughter）
02:00
OK,alright. But enough about me. Let's talk about CO2. CO2 is the star of my talk.Now, most of you probably think of CO2 as a pollutant. Or perhaps you think ofCO2 as the villain in the novel, you know? It's always the dark side of CO2.But as a plant biologist, I see the other side of CO2, actually. And that CO2that we see, we see it differently because I think we remember, as plantbiologists, something you may have forgotten. And that is that plants actuallydo this process called photosynthesis. And when they do photosynthesis -- allcarbon-based life on our earth is all because of the CO2 that plants and otherphotosynthetic microbes have dragged in from CO2 that was in the atmosphere.And almost all of the carbon in your body came from air, basically. So you comefrom air, and it's because of photosynthesis, because what plants do is theyuse the energy in sunlight, take that CO2 and fix it into sugars. It's a greatthing.
好，不要再谈我了。咱们来谈谈二氧化碳。二氧化碳是我这场演说的明星。在座大部分的人可能都认为 二氧化碳是污染物。或者，也许你们认为二氧化碳是小说中的反派。总是看到二氧化碳的黑暗面。但是，身为植物生物学家，我看的其实是二氧化碳的另一面。我们所看到的二氧化碳，我们会对它另眼看待是因为，身为植物生物学家，我们记得某件你们可能已经遗忘的事。那就是，植物会进行一个叫做光合作用的过程。当它们进行光合作用时——地球上所有的碳基生物，都来自于植物 和其他光合作用微生物把大气中的二氧化碳吸收进来。基本上，你们体内 所有的碳都来自空气。所以你们来自空气，因为光合作用，因为植物所做的就是 使用太阳的能量来吸取二氧化碳，放到糖类中。这是件好事。
03:08
Andthe other thing that is really important for what I'm going to tell you todayis that plants and other photosynthetic microbes have a great capacity fordoing this -- twentyfold or more than the amount of CO2 that we put up becauseof our human activities. And so, even though we're not doing a great job atcutting our emissions and things, plants have the capacity, as photosyntheticorganisms, to help out. So we're hoping that's what they'll do.
还有一件事，也对今天要谈的主题很重要，那就是，植物和其他 光合作用微生物做这件事的能力很强——比我们人类活动 所产生出来的二氧化碳量还要高二十倍以上。所以，虽然我们在减少排放方面没有做得很好，但是，身为光合作用有机体，植物或许有能力协助我们。所以，我们希望它们能够帮忙。
03:41
Butthere's a catch here. We have to help the plants a little ourselves, becausewhat plants like to do is put most of the CO2 into sugars. And when the end ofthe growing season comes, the plant dies and decomposes, and then all that workthey did to suck out the CO2 from the atmosphere and make carbon-based biomassis now basically going right back up in the atmosphere as CO2.
但是，没这么容易的事。我们自己得要先稍微协助植物，因为，植物会做的是把 大部分的二氧化碳放到糖类中。在生长季节要结束时，植物会死亡并分解，接着，它们之前做的所有工作：将二氧化碳从大气中吸掉以及制造碳基生物质，现在基本上都以二氧化碳的 形式回到大气当中。
04:07
Sohow can we get plants to redistribute the CO2 they bring in into somethingthat's a little more stable? And so it turns out that plants make this product,and it's called suberin. This is a natural product that is in all plant roots.And suberin is really cool, because as you can see there, I hope, everywhereyou see a black dot, that's a carbon. There's hundreds of them in thismolecule. And where you see those few red dots, those are oxygens. And oxygenis what microbes like to find so they can decompose a plant. So you can see whythis is a perfect carbon storage device. And actually it can stabilize thecarbon that gets fixed by the plant into something that's a little bit betterfor the plant.
所以，我们要如何让植物重新分配它们所带入的二氧化碳，制成稍微更稳定一点的东西？结果发现，植物会制造一项产物，叫做软木脂。它是一种天然产物， 在所有植物的根部都有。软木脂非常酷，因为各位可以在这里 看到，我希望可以，凡是看到黑点的地方，就代表碳。在这个分子中有数百个黑点。还可以看到少数的红点，它们是氧。微生物喜欢去找氧，这么一来它们就可以分解植物。所以各位可以看得出来这为什么是个完美的碳储存装置。事实上，它可以稳定植物所提供的碳，成为对植物更好一点的东西。
04:56
Andso, why now? Why is now a good time to do a biological solution to thisproblem? It's because over the last 30 or so years -- and I know that's a longtime, you're saying, "Why now?" -- but 30 years ago, we began tounderstand the functions of all the genes that are in an organism in general.And that included humans as well as plants and many other complicatedeukaryotes. And so, what did the 1980s begin? What began then is that we nowknow the function of many of the genes that are in a plant that tell a plant togrow. And that has now converged with the fact that we can do genomics in afaster and cheaper way than we ever did before. And what that tells us is that alllife on earth is really related, but plants are more related to each other thanother organisms. And that you can take a trait that you know from one plant andput it in another plant, and you can make a prediction that it'll do the samething. And so that's important as well. Then finally, we have these littlegenetic tricks that came along, like you heard about this morning -- thingslike CRISPR, that allows us to do editing and make genes be a little differentfrom the normal state in the plant.
所以，为什么是现在？为什么现在是个好的时机点， 很适合用生物解决方案来处理这个问题？因为，在过去三十年左右——我知道那是很长的时间， 你们说“为什么是现在？”——但是，三十年前，我们开始了解一般有机体中所有基因的功能。那包括了人类以及植物，还有许多其他复杂的真核生物。所以，80年代是什么的开端？那时，我们开始了解在植物中有许多基因的功能 在告诉植物要如何生长。那些知识现在被用在基因组学上，发明出比以前更快速、 更便宜的方法。我们从中学到的是，地球上的所有生命都是相关联的，但是，植物和彼此的关系 比和其他有机体之间的关系更密切。你可以选一项 你所知道的植物特性，放到另一株植物上，你便可以预测， 它会做出同样的事。这点也十分重要。最后，我们还有 这些小小的基因技俩，比如今天早上各位听到的那些——像是 CRISPR，可以用来编辑基因并制造出和植物中 正常状态不太一样的基因。
06:15
OK,so now we have biology on our side. I'm a biologist, so that's why I'mproposing a solution to the climate change problem that really involves thebest evolved organism on earth to do it -- plants. So how are we going to doit? Biology comes to the rescue. Here we go. OK.
好的，现在，生物学站在我们这一边。我是生物学家，那就是为什么我针对气候变化问题提出的解决方案会需要依赖地球上演化得 最好的有机体——植物。所以，我们要怎么做？生物学来救援了。来吧。好的。
06:37
Youhave to remember three simple things from my talk, OK? We have to get plants tomake more suberin than they normally make, because we need them to be a littlebetter than what they are. We have to get them to make more roots, because ifwe make more roots, we can make more suberin -- now we have more of the cellsthat suberin likes to accumulate in. And then the third thing is, we want theplants to have deeper roots. And what that does is -- we're asking the plant, actually,"OK, make stable carbon, more than you used to, and then bury it for us inthe ground." So they can do that if they make roots that go deep ratherthan meander around on the surface of the soil.
请各位记住这场演说的三个简单要点，好吗？我们要让植物制造出 比正常量更多的软木脂，因为我们需要它们比现在的状态再更好一些。我们要让它们制造更多根，因为，如果能制造多根，就能制造更多软木脂——现在，我们有更多 能够聚集软木脂的细胞，第三点，我们希望植物的根更深。那样的用途是——我们其实是在请求植物： “好，制造稳定的碳，比平常的还要多，接着，为我们 将这些碳埋在地下。 ”所以，如果它们的根很深，而不是在接近土壤表面处迂回， 它们就能做到这件事。
07:20
Thoseare the three traits we want to change: more suberin, more roots, and the lastone, deep roots. Then we want to combine all those traits in one plant, and wecan do that easily and we will do it, and we are doing it actually, in themodel plant, Arabidopsis, which allows us to do these experiments much faster thanwe can do in another big plant. And when we find that we have plants wheretraits all add up and we can get more of them, more suberin in those plants,we're going to move it all -- we can and we we will, we're beginning to do this-- move it to crop plants. And I'll tell you why we're picking crop plants todo the work for us when I get to that part of my talk.
这三项特性是我们想要改变的：更多软木脂、更多根， 以及，最后一项，更深的根。接着，我们想把这三项特性结合到同一株植物中，这很容易，我们将会这么做，其实，我们正在这么做，用的是模型植物，阿拉伯芥，这种植物让我们 做实验的速度能更快，比使用其他大型植物更快。当我们的植物有了 所有这些特性之后，我们就能从那些植物取得更多软木脂，我们打算全部移植——我们能且我们会这么做，我们已经开始着手——移植到作物植物上。我等下会告诉各位为什么要选作物植物来为我们做这项工作。
08:04
OK,so I think this is the science behind the whole thing. And so I know we can dothe science, I feel pretty confident about that. And the reason is because,just in the last year, we've been able to find single genes that affect each ofthose three traits. And in several of those cases, two out of the three, wehave more than one way to get there. So that tells us we might be able to evencombine within a trait and get even more suberin. This shows one result, wherewe have a plant here on the right that's making more than double the amount ofroot than the plant on the left, and that's just because of the way weexpressed one gene that's normally in the plant in a slightly different waythan the plant usually does on its own. Alright, so that's just one example Iwanted to show you.
好，这就是这种做法背后的科学。我知道科学的部分我们 没问题，这我有信心。 原因是因为，就在去年， 我们分别找出了影响 那三项特性的个别基因。 在许多情况中， 大概有三分之二的比例， 我们都有不只一种方法可以办到。那就表示，我们甚至可以 在单一项特性中做组合， 来取得更多软木脂。 这里呈现的结果是， 在右手边的植物， 它的根的数量，比左边的 一般植物高出两倍之多， 它会变成这样，是因为我们将这种植物中的一个常见基因 用和它自己一般的做法 稍微不同的方式来表现。 好，这只是我想 给各位看的一个例子。
08:53
Andnow I want to tell you that, you know, we still have a lot of challenges,actually, when we get to this problem, because it takes ... We have to get thefarmers to actually buy the seeds, or at least the seed company to buy seedsthat farmers are going to want to have. And so when we do the experiments, wecan't actually take a loss in yield, because while we are doing theseexperiments, say, beginning about 10 years from now, the earth's populationwill be even more than it is right now. And it's rapidly growing still. So bythe end of the century, we have 11 billion people, we have wasted ecosystemsthat aren't really going to be able to handle all the load they have to takefrom agriculture. And then we also have this competition for land. And so wefigure, to do this carbon sequestration experiment actually requires a fairamount of land. We can't take it away from food, because we have to feed thepeople that are also going to be on the earth until we get past this bigcrisis. And the climate change is actually causing loss of yield all over theearth.
现在，我想要跟各位谈的是，我们其实还要面对很多挑战， 才能解决这个问题， 我们得要让农夫 真的去买这些种子， 或至少让种子公司去买 农夫想要买的这些种子。 所以，当我们做实验时， 我们其实无法承受产出损失，因为，当我们在做这些实验时， 比如，从现在开始算起十年， 地球的人口将会比现在还多。 人口仍然在快速成长。 到这个世纪末， 我们将有一百一十亿人， 我们未能有效利用的生态系统，将无法处理 来自农业的所有负荷。 接着，还有土地竞争。 所以，我们认为， 要做这种碳隔离实验， 其实会需要相当大片的土地。 我们不能抢食物用的土地， 因为在我们渡过这次危机之前，我们仍然得要提供 食物给地球上的人。 而气候变化其实已经 在世界各地造成了产出损失。
10:06
Sowhy would farmers want to buy seeds if it's going to impact yield? So we're notgoing to let it impact yield, we're going to always have checks and balancesthat says go or no go on that experiment. And then the second thing is, when aplant actually makes more carbon and buries it in the soil like that, almostall the soils on earth are actually depleted of carbon because of the load fromagriculture, trying to feed eight billion people, which is what lives on theearth right now. And so, that is also a problem as well. Plants that are makingmore carbon, those soils become enriched in carbon. And carbon-enriched soilsactually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and they hold phosphate -- all theminerals that are required for plants to grow and have a good yield. And theyalso retain water in the soil as well. So the suberin will break up into littleparticles and give the whole soil a new texture. And as we've shown that we canget more carbon in that soil, the soil will get darker. And so we will be ableto measure all that, and hopefully, this is going to help us solve the problem.So, OK.
所以，农夫怎么会想要买会影响产出的种子？所以，我们不能让它影响产出，我们得要一直有制衡原则，来决定实验要不要进行。第二点，当植物 真的制造出更多碳，并这样将碳埋入土壤时，地球上几乎所有的土壤的碳 可能都已经耗尽了，原因是农业的负担，现在地球上有八十亿人，要提供他们食物所造成的负担。所以，那也是个问题。制造更多碳的植物， 那些土壤就会更富含碳。富含碳的土壤其实也含有氮，还有硫以及磷酸盐——这些都是植物成长并盛产 所需要的矿物质。它们也会让土壤中保有水份。所以，软木脂会拆开成为小粒子，让整体土壤有新的结构。我们已经展示过， 若土壤中有更多碳，颜色会变得比较暗。我们能够测量这项特性，希望这能协助我们解决问题。所以，好的。
11:16
Sowe have the challenges of a lot of land that we need to use, we have to getfarmers to buy it, and that's going to be the hard thing for us, I think,because we're not really salesmen, we're people who like to Google a personrather than meet them, you know what I mean?
我们的挑战包括 需要使用很多土地，要让农夫去购买，我认为，那对我们来说会很困难，因为我们不是推销员，我们这种人比较喜欢去 Google 别人而不是去和别人见面。你们能懂吧？（笑声）
11:31
（Laughter）
11:32
That'swhat scientists are mostly like.
大部分科学家都是这样子的。
11:35
Butwe know now that, you know, no one can really deny -- the climate is changing,everyone knows that. And it's here and it's bad and it's serious, and we needto do something about it. But I feel pretty optimistic that we can do this. SoI'm here today as a character witness for plants. And I want to tell you thatplants are going to do it for us, all we have to do is give them a little help,and they will go and get a gold medal for humanity.
但是我们知道，没有人能否认——气候正在变迁，大家都知道。事情发生了，状况很糟，很严重，而我们得要采取行动。但是对此我是相对乐观。所以，今天我是以植物的 品格证人身分来到这里。我想要告诉各位，植物会为我们做这些，我们只需要给它们一点点协助，它们就会为人类取得金牌。
12:01
Thankyou very much.
非常谢谢。
12:02
（Applause）
12:06
（Cheers）
12:08
Thankyou.
12:10
（Applause）
12:17
Ifinally got it out.
我终于把它说完了。
12:23
ChrisAnderson: Wow. Joanne, you're so extraordinary. Just to be sure we heard thisright: you believe that within the next 10 years you may be able to offer theworld seed variants for the major crops, like -- what? -- wheat, corn, mayberice, that can offer farmers just as much yield, sequester three times, fourtimes, more carbon than they currently do? Even more than that?
克里斯·安德森：哇。乔安妮，你真了不起。让我确认一下我们有听对：你认为在接下来的十年间，你们将会为世界创造出主要作物种子的变种， 比如小麦、玉米，也许还有稻子，而且农夫还是能保持产量，并捕捉到比目前还要高 三倍或四倍的碳量？甚至更多？
12:52
JoanneChory: We don't know that number, really. But they will do more.
乔安妮·乔里：我们其实 不知道确切数字。但是它们会产出更多。
12:56
CA:And at the same time, make the soil that those farmers have more fertile?
安德森：并且，同时，让那些农夫的土壤更肥沃？
13:01
JC:Yes, right.
乔安妮：是的，没错。
13:03
CA:So that is astonishing. And the genius of doing that and a solution that canscale where there's already scale.
安德森：那好惊人。且非常天才，这个解决方案能够将已经有的规模再扩大规模。
13:10
JC:Yes, thank you for saying that.
乔安妮：是的，谢谢你这么说。
13:12
CA:No, no, you said it, you said it. But it almost seems too good to be true. YourAudacious Project is that we scale up the research in your lab and pave the wayto start some of these pilots and make this incredible vision possible.
安德森：不，不，是你说的，你说的。但听起来太好了，不太像真的。你的“大胆项目”是要 把你的实验室研究扩大规模，并为一些试点计划铺路，让这了不起的远景成为可能。
13:28
JC:That's right, yes, thank you.
乔安妮：没错，是的，谢谢你。
13:30
CA:Joanne Chory, thank you so much. Godspeed.
安德森：乔安妮·乔里， 非常谢谢你。祝成功。
13:33
（Applause）
13:36
JC:Thank you.
