演讲MP3+双语文稿:我们如何在DNA中存储电子数据
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:我们如何在DNA中存储电子数据，希望你会喜欢！
【演讲人及介绍】Dina Zielinski
生物信息学家迪娜·齐林斯基将生物数据带到了生活中，从解码癌症突变到编码DNA数据。
【演讲主题】我们如何在DNA中存储电子数据
【演讲文稿-中英文】
翻译 Xuying Wu 校对 SHUYING XU
00:12
I could fit all movies ever made inside ofthis tube. If you can't see it, that's kind of the point.
我可以把有史以来的所有电影装进这个小管里。如果你看不见它，那就对了。
00:20
（Laughter）
（大笑）
00:21
Before we understand how this is possible,it's important to understand the value of this feat. All of our thoughts andactions these days, through photos and videos -- even our fitness activities --are stored as digital data. Aside from running out of space on our phones, werarely think about our digital footprint. But humanity has collectivelygenerated more data in the last few years than all of preceding human history.
在我们理解这件事的可能性之前，重要的是先理解这项技术的价值。现在我们所有的想法和行动，通过照片和视频——甚至是我们的健身运动——都存储在电子数据里。要不是它们超出我们手机的存储空间，我们很少会去想我们到底存储了多少电子数据。但是人类已经携手创造了更多的数据，在过去的几年中，这些数据比先前人类历史所产生的还要多。
00:51
Big data has become a big problem. Digitalstorage is really expensive, and none of these devices that we have reallystand the test of time. There's this nonprofit website called the InternetArchive. In addition to free books and movies, you can access web pages as farback as 1996. Now, this is very tempting, but I decided to go back and look atthe TED website's very humble beginnings. As you can see, it's changed quite abit in the last 30 years. So this led me to the first-ever TED, back in 1984,and it just so happened to be a Sony executive explaining how a compact diskworks.
大数据已经开始成为一个大问题。数字化存储很昂贵，而且还没有一个设备能真正经得起时间的考验。有一个非营利网站，叫做“网络档案馆”。除了免费的书籍和电影，你还可以在上面找到 1996年以来的网页。这可是非常诱人的，但我决定回过头来，看看TED网站最初的样子。可以看到，它在过去30年里改变了很多。这使我回忆起第一次的TED，回到1984，太巧了，正是索尼的主管在解释一个简单的磁盘是如何工作的。
01:37
（Laughter）
（大笑）
01:38
Now, it's really incredible to be able togo back in time and access this moment. It's also really fasting that after30 years, after that first TED, we're still talking about digital storage.
这是让人难以置信的事，我们可以回到过去，并且与那个时刻紧密相连。这也是非常让人着迷的事，在第一次TED演讲过去的30年后，我们还在谈论着数字化存储。
01:54
Now, if we look back another 30 years, IBMreleased the first-ever hard drive back in 1956. Here it is being loaded forshipping in front of a small audience. It held the equivalent of one MP3 songand weighed over one ton. At 10,000 dollars a megabyte, I don't think anyone inthis room would be interested in buying this thing, except maybe as acollector's item. But it's the best we could do at the time.
如果我们回头看看另外一个30年，1956年，IBM破天荒地发布了它的第一个硬盘驱动器。这是它正在被装载上车，一小群人在围观。它承载着一首MP3歌曲的内容，却重达一吨多。一兆字节价值1万美元，我想这里不会有人有兴趣要买它，除非可能作为一个收藏品。但这是我们在当时最好的产品了。
02:26
We've come such a long way in data storage.Devices have evolved dramatically. But all media eventually wear out or becomeobsolete. If someone handed you a floppy drive today to back up yourpresentation, you'd probably look at them kind of strange, maybe laugh, but you'dhave no way to use the damn thing. These devices can no longer meet our storageneeds, although some of them can be repurposed. All technology eventually diesor is lost, along with our data, all of our memories. There's this illusionthat the storage problem has been solved, but really, we all just externalizeit. We don't worry about storing our emails and our photos. They're just in thecloud.
我们在数据存储的路上走了很久。设备已经显著进化了。但所有载体最终都会磨损或被废弃。今天，如果有人递给你一张软盘驱动器来备份你的演示文稿，你可能会奇怪地看着他们，可能还会大笑，但你肯定不会用这个落伍的东西。这些设备已经不能再满足我们的存储需求了，虽然它们有些可以被改作其他用途。所有的科技最终都会死亡或者消失，和我们的数据一起，包含我们所有的记忆。有一种错觉认为存储问题已经解决了，但实际上，我们只是把它外化了。我们不担心邮件和照片的存储。它们都在云端上。
03:15
But behind the scenes, storage isproblematic. After all, the cloud is just a lot of hard drives. Now, mostdigital data, we could argue, is not really critical. Surely, we could justdelete it. But how can we really know what's important today? We've learned somuch about human history from drawings and writings in caves, from stonetablets. We've deciphered languages from the Rosetta Stone. You know, we'llnever really have the whole story, though. Our data is our story, even more sotoday. We won't have our record recorded on stone tablets. But we don't have tochoose what is important now. There's a way to store it all. It turns out thatthere's a solution that's been around for a few billion years, and it'sactually in this tube.
但是在这些场景背后，存储问题依然存在。毕竟，云端只是许多硬盘组成的。我们认为大部分电子数据都不重要。当然，我们还可以轻易地删除这些数据。但是今天的我们怎么知道到底什么是重要的？我们从人类历史中得到了很多信息，从洞穴里的壁画和文字，还有石碑。我们破译了罗塞塔石碑上的语言。尽管我们还远没有了解整个故事。我们的数据就是我们的故事，这在今天更是这样。我们不再将记录刻在石碑上。我们现在也不需要去选择什么是重要的。有一种方法可以存储所有信息。我们发现，这种解决方案已经存在了数十亿年。它实际上就在这个小管里。
04:12
DNA is nature's oldest storage device.After all, it contains all the information necessary to build and maintain ahuman being. But what makes DNA so great? Well, let's take our own genome as anexample. If we were to print out all three billion A's, T's, C's and G's on astandard font, standard format, and then we were to stack all of those papers,it would be about 130 meters high, somewhere between the Statue of Liberty andthe Washington Monument. Now, if we converted all those A's, T's, C's and G'sto digital data, to zeroes and ones, it would total a few gigs. And that's ineach cell of our body. We have more than 30 trillion cells. You get the idea:DNA can store a ton of information in a minuscule space.
DNA是大自然最古老的存储设备。毕竟，它保存着构建和 维持一个人生命的 所有必要的信息。然而，DNA为何如此强大？ 让我们来看看 人类的基因组，如果我们将所有30亿个A（腺嘌呤），T（胸腺嘧啶），C（胞嘧啶） 和 G（鸟嘌呤），以标准字体，标准格式打印出来，然后我们把所有纸张叠起来，大概会有130米高，介于自由女神像和华盛顿纪念碑的高度之间。如果我们将所有这些A，T，C和G，转换为电子数据，0和1，这不过是几场演奏会的事。这会发生在我们身体的每个细胞中。我们有超过30万亿的细胞。估计你们已经想明白了： DNA可以在一个微小的空间存储大量信息。
05:07
DNA is also very durable, and it doesn'teven require electricity to store it. We know this because scientists haverecovered DNA from ancient humans that lived hundreds of thousands of yearsago. One of those is Ötzi the Iceman. Turns out, he's Austrian.
DNA也是持久耐用的，它甚至不需要供电来储存信息。我们知道这些，是因为科学家 已经从生活在千万年前的 远古人类身上复原了DNA。其中一个是Ötzi冰人。他是奥地利人。
05:24
（Laughter）
（大笑）
05:25
He was found high, well-preserved, in themountains between Italy and Austria, and it turns out that he has livinggenetic relatives here in Austria today. So one of you could be a cousin ofÖtzi.
他被发现时正完整的保存在意大利和奥地利之间的山中，证明他和现在的奥地利人有基因关系。所以你们其中有人可能是Ötzi的表亲。
05:36
（Laughter）
（大笑）
05:38
The point is that we have a better chanceof recovering information from an ancient human than we do from an old phone.It's also much less likely that we'll lose the ability to read DNA than anysingle man-made device. Every single new storage format requires a new way toread it. We'll always be able to read DNA. If we can no longer sequence, wehave bigger problems than worrying about data storage.
其中的关键是，我们拥有更好的从一个远古人类身上修复信息的机会，比从一台老电话上获得的更多。同时，相较于任何一种人造的设备，我们不太可能失去解读DNA的能力。每一种新的存储格式都要求一种新的解读方式。而我们将一直保持解读DNA的能力。如果有一天我们不能够进行基因排序，那问题可比数据存储更令人担忧。
06:05
Storing data on DNA is not new. Nature'sbeen doing it for several billion years. In fact, every living thing is a DNAstorage device. But how do we store data on DNA? This is Photo 51. It's thefirst-ever photo of DNA, taken about 60 years ago. This is around the time thatthat same hard drive was released by IBM. So really, our understanding ofdigital storage and of DNA have coevolved. We first learned to sequence, orread DNA, and very soon after, how to write it, or synthesize it. This is muchlike how we learn a new language. And now we have the ability to read, writeand copy DNA. We do it in the lab all the time. So anything, really anything,that can be stored as zeroes and ones can be stored in DNA.
在DNA中存储数据不是新鲜事。大自然在数十亿年中一直这么做。事实上，每一个生物都是一个DNA存储设备。但是我们怎么把数据存储进DNA呢？这是照片51。这是第一张DNA的照片，拍摄于大约60年前。也是大约这个时间，IBM发布了硬盘驱动器。可以说，我们对数字化存储的理解和我们对基因的理解是在同步进化的。我们最开始是学习测序，或者解读DNA，之后很快也学会了如何编辑它，或者合成它。这很像如何学习一门新语言。而现在我们有能力阅读、编辑和复制DNA。我们一直在实验室里这么做。所以，毫不夸张的说，任何东西可以以 0 和 1的形式存储在DNA中。
07:02
To store something digitally, like thisphoto, we convert it to bits, or binary digits. Each pixel in a black-and-whitephoto is simply a zero or a one. And we can write DNA much like an inkjetprinter can print letters on a page. We just have to convert our data, all ofthose zeroes and ones, to A's, T's, C's and G's, and then we send this to asynthesis company. So we write it, we can store it, and when we want to recoverour data, we just sequence it.
要以数字化的方式存储某些内容，比如这张照片，我们要先把它转换为比特，或者二进制数字。黑白照片中的每个像素就代表一个 0 或 1。我们可以像喷墨打印机打字一样书写DNA。我们只要将数据，所有这些 0 和1，转换为 A，T，C，G，然后将它们发送到合成公司。这样一来，我们既可以书写，也可以存储，当我们想要恢复数据，只需要测序就好。
07:32
Now, the fun part of all of this isdeciding what files to include. We're serious scientists, so we had to includea manuscript for good posterity. We also included a $50 Amazon gift card --don't get too excited, it's already been spent, someone decoded it -- as wellas an operating system, one of the first movies ever made and a Pioneer plaque.Some of you might have seen this. It has a depiction of a typical -- apparently-- male and female, and our approximate location in the Solar System, in casethe Pioneer spacecraft ever encounters extraterrestrials.
有意思的部分是决定要包含哪些文件。我们是严肃的科学家，所以我们必须留下一份手稿给我们优秀的后代。我们还放入了一份价值50美元的亚马逊礼卡——别激动，里面的余额已经被移除了——还有一个操作系统，人类制作的第一部电影，和一个“先驱者号”金属板。你们中可能有人见过它。它包含了代表性的信息，——显然，包括男女性别，还有我们在太阳系中的大致位置，以防万一“先驱者号”太空飞船遇见了外星人。
08:06
So once we decided what sort of files wewant to encode, we package up the data, convert those zeroes and ones to A's,T's, C's and G's, and then we just send this file off to a synthesis company.And this is what we got back. Our files were in this tube. All we had to do wassequence it. This all sounds pretty straightforward, but the difference betweena really cool, fun idea and something we can actually use is overcoming thesepractical challenges.
一旦我们决定了哪些类型的文件要编码，就可以把这些数据打包，将这些 0 和 1 转换为 A，T，C，G，然后将这个文件发送到合成公司。而这，就是我们拿回来的东西。我们的文件就在这个小管里。我们只需要对它进行测序就可以解读其中的信息。这听起来真的很简单，但一个很酷、很有趣的想法，与我们实际运用之间的不同之处，在于战胜实际的挑战。
08:35
Now, while DNA is more robust than anyman-made device, it's not perfect. It does have some weaknesses. We recover ourmessage by sequencing the DNA, and every time data is retrieved, we lose theDNA. That's just part of the sequencing process. We don't want to run out ofdata, but luckily, there's a way to copy the DNA that's even cheaper and easierthan synthesizing it. We actually tested a way to make 200 trillion copies ofour files, and we recovered all the data without error. So sequencing alsointroduces errors into our DNA, into the A's, T's, C's and G's. Nature has away to deal with this in our cells. But our data is stored in synthetic DNA ina tube, so we had to find our own way to overcome this problem. We decided touse an algorithm that was used to stream videos. When you're streaming a video,you're essentially trying to recover the original video, the original file.When we're trying to recover our original files, we're simply sequencing. Butreally, both of these processes are about recovering enough zeroes and ones toput our data back together. And so, because of our coding strategy, we wereable to package up all of our data in a way that allowed us to make millionsand trillions of copies and still always recover all of our files back.
而DNA虽然比任何人造设备更稳定，但它并不是完美的。它也有一些弱点。我们可以通过DNA测序来恢复信息，但每次数据找回，这个DNA都会被破坏。这只是测序过程的必要步骤。我们不想把数据耗尽，不过好在还有一种方法可以复制DNA，甚至比合成更便宜，更容易。我们测试了这种方法，将我们的文件复制了200万亿份，并精准的还原了所有数据。测序也会将误差引入DNA，引入 A，T，C，G 中。大自然有办法在细胞中处理这个问题。但我们的数据是存储在小管里的合成DNA中，所以我们必须找到自己的方法来解决这个问题。我们决定使用传输视频时用到的算法。当你在传输视频时，你实际上是在设法恢复原始的视频，原始文件。当我们在设法恢复原始文件时，我们只是在测序。但实际上，这两个过程都是在复原足够的 0 和1。将数据重新整合在一起。所以，根据我们的编码策略，我们能够以一种可以制造上万亿份拷贝的方式，将所有数据打包，同时仍然保证所有的文件可以复原。
10:04
This is the movie we encoded. It's one ofthe first movies ever made, and now the first to be copied more than 200trillion times on DNA.
这是我们编码的电影，是人类创作的首批电影之一，也是第一个在DNA中被复制出超过200万亿份拷贝的电影。
10:14
Soon after our work was published, weparticipated in an "Ask Me Anything" on the website reddit. If you'rea fellow nerd, you're very familiar with this website. Most questions werethoughtful. Some were comical. For example, one user wanted to know when wewould have a literal thumb drive. Now, the thing is, our DNA already storeseverything needed to make us who we are. It's a lot safer to store data on DNAin synthetic DNA in a tube.
很快我们的工作被公开发表，我们在Reddit网站上参与了“问我任何问题”的活动。如果你是一个资深学究，你应该对这个网站不会陌生。大部分问题都有很深的思考，也有一些问题很好笑。比如，一个用户想知道我们什么时候会拥有一个字面意义的拇指储存器。事实上，我们的DNA已经存储了所有塑造了我们的必要信息。将数据存储在DNA中，比在小管中合成DNA要安全得多。
10:46
Writing and reading data from DNA isobviously a lot more time-consuming than just saving all your files on a harddrive -- for now. So initially, we should focus on long-term storage. Most dataare ephemeral. It's really hard to grasp what's important today, or what willbe important for future generations. But the point is, we don't have to decidetoday. There's this great program by UNESCO called the "Memory of theWorld" program. It's been created to preserve historical materials thatare considered of value to all of humanity. Items are nominated to be added tothe collection, including that film that we encoded. While a wonderful way topreserve human heritage, it doesn't have to be a choice. Instead of asking thecurrent generation -- us -- what might be important in the future, we couldstore everything in DNA.
在DNA中写入和读取数据，明显比在硬盘中存储文件更花时间—— 目前是这样。所以，我们首先应该 关注长期存储的问题。大部分数据只能保存一段时间。目前还很难提炼出哪些信息是重要的，或者哪些对后人是重要的。但重点是，我们不一定要马上做决定。联合国教科文组织有一个叫做“世界的记忆”的项目，建立这个项目的初衷是保存历史的记忆，那些对全人类都有价值的记忆。被选中的信息会被加入集合中，包括我们编译的那部电影。而保存人类传统更好的方式，不是必须做一个选择。与其问我们这一代人，在未来什么东西可能是重要的，我们可以在DNA中存储一切。
11:47
Storage is not just about how many bytesbut how well we can actually store the data and recover it. There's always beenthis tension between how much data we can generate and how much we can recoverand how much we can store. Every advance in writing data has required a new wayto read it. We can no longer read old media. How many of you even have a diskdrive in your laptop, never mind a floppy drive? This will never be the casewith DNA. As long as we're around, DNA is around, and we'll find a way tosequence it.
存储不止是关乎有多少字节，而是我们可以多好地保存和恢复数据。一直以来，在我们会产生多少数据，可以恢复多少数据，以及可以存储多少数据之间，都存在着矛盾。数据写入的每次进步，都要求一种新的读取方式。我们已无法再读取那些老旧的存储设备了。你们还有多少人的笔记本电脑中有磁盘驱动器，或者软盘驱动器？有了DNA，这些情况再也不会出现。只要我们在，DNA就存在，我们总会找到排序的方式。
12:23
Archiving the world around us is part ofhuman nature. This is the progress we've made in digital storage in 60 years,at a time when we were only beginning to understand DNA. Yet, we've madesimilar progress in half that time with DNA sequencers, and as long as we'rearound, DNA will never be obsolete.
将我们周围的世界存档是人类天性的一部分。这是过去60年我们数字化存储的发展，60年前我们也刚刚开始理解DNA。而有了DNA测序技术，我们用一半的时间就达到了相似的发展进度，而且只要我们还存在，DNA就永不过时。
12:46
Thank you.
谢谢。
12:47
（Applause）
（鼓掌）
