ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jessica Green - Engineer and biodiversity scientist
Jessica Green wants people to understand the important role microbes play in every facet of our lives: climate change, building ecosystems, human health, even roller derby -- using nontraditional tools like art, animation and film to help people visualize the invisible world.

Why you should listen

Jessica Green, a TED2010 Fellow and TED2011 Senior Fellow, is an engineer and ecologist who specializes in biodiversity theory and microbial systems. As a professor at both the University of Oregon and the Santa Fe Institute, she is the founding director of the innovative Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE) Center that bridges biology and architecture.

Green envisions a future with genomic-driven approaches to architectural design that promote sustainability, human health and well-being. She is spearheading efforts to model buildings as complex ecosystems that house trillions of diverse microorganisms interacting with each other, with humans, and with their environment. This framework uses next-generation sequencing technology to characterize the “built environment microbiome” and will offer site-specific design solutions to minimize the spread of infectious disease and maximize building energy efficiency.

More profile about the speaker
Jessica Green | Speaker | TED.com
TED2013

Jessica Green: We're covered in germs. Let's design for that.

Jessica Green: Estamos cobertos em germes. Vamos projetar para isso.

Filmed:
1,040,941 views

Nossos corpos e casas são cobertos de microrganismos -- alguns bons para nós, alguns ruins e alguns que somente nos acompanham. Ao aprendermos mais sobre germes e microrganismos que compartilham nossos espaços, a TED fellow Jessica Green pergunta: Podemos projetar edifícios que encorajem ambientes microbianos felizes e saudáveis?
- Engineer and biodiversity scientist
Jessica Green wants people to understand the important role microbes play in every facet of our lives: climate change, building ecosystems, human health, even roller derby -- using nontraditional tools like art, animation and film to help people visualize the invisible world. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:13
Everything is covered in invisible ecosystems
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Tudo está coberto por ecossistemas invisíveis
00:17
made of tiny lifeforms: bacteria, viruses and fungi.
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feitos de minúsculas formas de vida: bactérias, vírus e fungos.
00:21
Our desks, our computers, our pencils, our buildings
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Nossas escrivaninhas, computadores, lápis, edifícios,
00:25
all harbor resident microbial landscapes.
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todos abrigam paisagens de microrganismos.
00:29
As we design these things, we could be thinking
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Ao planejar essas coisas, podíamos pensar
00:31
about designing these invisible worlds,
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em desenhar estes mundos invisíveis,
00:34
and also thinking about how they interact
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e pensar como eles interagem
00:36
with our personal ecosystems.
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com os nossos ecossistemas pessoais.
00:39
Our bodies are home to trillions of microbes,
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Nossos corpos são lar para trilhões de microrganismos
00:43
and these creatures define who we are.
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e estas criaturas definem quem somos.
00:45
The microbes in your gut can influence your weight and your moods.
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Os microrganismos no seu intestino podem influenciar seu peso e seu humor.
00:49
The microbes on your skin can help boost your immune system.
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Na sua pele, eles podem estimular seu sistema imunológico.
00:53
The microbes in your mouth can freshen your breath,
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Na sua boca, eles podem refrescar seu hálito,
00:56
or not,
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ou não,
00:57
and the key thing is that our personal ecosystems
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e o fundamental é que os nossos ecossistemas pessoais
01:00
interact with ecosystems on everything we touch.
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interagem com os ecossistemas de tudo que tocamos.
01:03
So, for example, when you touch a pencil,
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Então, por exemplo, quando se toca um lápis,
01:05
microbial exchange happens.
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ocorre a troca de microrganismos.
01:08
If we can design the invisible ecosystems in our surroundings,
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Se pudermos planejar os ecossistemas invisíveis ao nosso redor,
01:12
this opens a path to influencing
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isto pode influenciar
01:15
our health in unprecedented ways.
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nossa saúde de formas sem precedentes.
01:18
I get asked all of the time from people,
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Perguntam-me todo tempo,
01:21
"Is it possible to really design microbial ecosystems?"
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"É realmente possível planejar ecossistemas de microrganismos?"
01:25
And I believe the answer is yes.
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E acredito que a resposta seja sim.
01:28
I think we're doing it right now,
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Penso que estamos fazendo isso agora mesmo,
01:29
but we're doing it unconsciously.
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mas de maneira inconsciente.
01:33
I'm going to share data with you
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Vou compartilhar uns dados com vocês
01:35
from one aspect of my research focused on architecture
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de um aspecto da minha pesquisa em arquitetura
01:38
that demonstrates how, through both conscious
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que demonstra como, através de planejamento
01:41
and unconscious design,
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consciente e inconsciente,
01:44
we're impacting these invisible worlds.
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causamos impacto nesses mundos invisíveis.
01:47
This is the Lillis Business Complex at the University of Oregon,
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Este é o Complexo Empresarial Lillis na Universidade do Oregon,
01:51
and I worked with a team of architects and biologists
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e trabalhei com uma equipe de arquitetos e biólogos
01:53
to sample over 300 rooms in this building.
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para coletar amostras de mais de 300 salas deste edifício.
01:58
We wanted to get something like a fossil record of the building,
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Queríamos conseguir algo como um registro fóssil deste edifício,
02:02
and to do this, we sampled dust.
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e para tanto, coletamos amostras de pó.
02:05
From the dust, we pulled out bacterial cells,
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Do pó, retiramos as células bacterianas,
02:09
broke them open, and compared their gene sequences.
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partimo-las e comparamos sua sequência genética.
02:12
This means that people in my group
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Isto significa que as pessoas da minha equipe
02:14
were doing a lot of vacuuming during this project.
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usaram muito aspirador de pó neste projeto.
02:17
This is a picture of Tim, who,
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Este é uma foto do Tim, que
02:20
right when I snapped this picture, reminded me,
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quanto tirei esta foto, lembrou-me,
02:22
he said, "Jessica, the last lab group I worked in
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disse, "Jessica, o último grupo de laboratório onde trabalhei
02:25
I was doing fieldwork in the Costa Rican rainforest,
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fiz trabalho de campo nas florestas da Costa Rica,
02:28
and things have changed dramatically for me."
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e as coisas mudaram drasticamente para mim."
02:32
So I'm going to show you now first what we found in the offices,
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Vou lhes mostrar primeiro o que encontramos nos escritórios,
02:35
and we're going to look at the data through a visualization tool
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e observaremos os dados por uma ferramenta de visualização
02:38
that I've been working on in partnership with Autodesk.
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que estive trabalhando em colaboração com Autodesk.
02:42
The way that you look at this data is,
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Vejam esses dados assim,
02:44
first, look around the outside of the circle.
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primeiro, vejam a parte de fora do círculo.
02:48
You'll see broad bacterial groups,
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Vão ver um grande número de grupos de bactérias,
02:51
and if you look at the shape of this pink lobe,
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e se olharem para a forma deste lóbulo rosa,
02:54
it tells you something about the relative abundance of each group.
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ele diz algo sobre a abundância relativa de cada grupo.
02:57
So at 12 o'clock, you'll see that offices have a lot of
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Pelas 12 horas, vão ver que os escritórios têm muitas
02:59
alphaproteobacteria, and at one o'clock
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proteobactérias alfa, e à uma hora
03:02
you'll see that bacilli are relatively rare.
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vão ver que bactérias bacilli são relativamente raras.
03:06
Let's take a look at what's going on in different space types in this building.
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Vamos ver o que se passa em diferentes tipos de espaços neste edifício.
03:11
If you look inside the restrooms,
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Se olharem dentro dos banheiros,
03:13
they all have really similar ecosystems,
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todos têm ecossistemas parecidos,
03:16
and if you were to look inside the classrooms,
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e se fossem olhar dentro das salas de aula,
03:18
those also have similar ecosystems.
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estas também têm ecossistemas parecidos.
03:21
But if you look across these space types,
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Mas se olharem esses tipos de espaços,
03:23
you can see that they're fundamentally different
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podem ver que são fundamentalmente diferentes
03:26
from one another.
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entre si.
03:28
I like to think of bathrooms like a tropical rainforest.
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Gosto de pensar que os banheiros são como florestas tropicais.
03:31
I told Tim, "If you could just see the microbes,
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Disse a Tim, "Se você pudesse ver os microrganismos,
03:33
it's kind of like being in Costa Rica. Kind of."
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é como se estivesse na Costa Rica. Mais ou menos"
03:37
And I also like to think of offices as being a temperate grassland.
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E penso que os escritórios são como pradarias temperadas.
03:42
This perspective is a really powerful one for designers,
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Esta perspectiva é muito poderosa para os designers,
03:46
because you can bring on principles of ecology,
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porque eles podem acolher os princípios de ecologia,
03:50
and a really important principle of ecology is dispersal,
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e um importante princípio é dispersão,
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the way organisms move around.
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como os organismos se movimentam.
03:55
We know that microbes are dispersed around by people
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Sabemos que os microrganismos são dispersados pelas pessoas
03:59
and by air.
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e pelo ar.
04:00
So the very first thing we wanted to do in this building
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Então a primeira coisa que quisemos fazer neste edifício
04:03
was look at the air system.
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foi observar o sistema de ventilação.
04:05
Mechanical engineers design air handling units
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Engenheiros mecânicos projetam unidades de tratamento de ar
04:08
to make sure that people are comfortable,
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para assegurar que as pessoas se sintam confortáveis,
04:11
that the air flow and temperature is just right.
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e que o fluxo de ar e a temperatura estejam certos.
04:13
They do this using principles of physics and chemistry,
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Para tanto, usam princípios de física e química,
04:17
but they could also be using biology.
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mas poderiam usar também a biologia.
04:21
If you look at the microbes
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Se olharem os microrganismos
04:23
in one of the air handling units in this building,
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em um dessas unidades de tratamento de ar deste edifício,
04:26
you'll see that they're all very similar to one another.
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vão notar que são muito parecidos entre si.
04:30
And if you compare this to the microbes
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Se compararem isso com os microrganismos
04:34
in a different air handling unit,
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de uma unidade de tratamento de ar diferente,
04:36
you'll see that they're fundamentally different.
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vão notar que são fundamentalmente diferentes.
04:39
The rooms in this building are like islands in an archipelago,
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As salas deste edifício são como ilhas em um arquipélago
04:42
and what that means is that mechanical engineers
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e isso quer dizer que os engenheiros mecânicos
04:45
are like eco-engineers, and they have the ability
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são como engenheiros ecológicos e têm a habilidade
04:48
to structure biomes in this building the way that they want to.
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de estruturar biomas neste edifício do jeito que querem.
04:53
Another facet of how microbes get around is by people,
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Outro modo de movimentação dos microrganismos é através das pessoas,
04:57
and designers often cluster rooms together
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e os designers geralmente agrupam salas
05:00
to facilitate interactions among people,
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para facilitar a interação entre pessoas,
05:03
or the sharing of ideas, like in labs and in offices.
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e o compartilhamento de ideias, como em laboratórios e escritórios.
05:06
Given that microbes travel around with people,
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Dado que os microrganismos viajam com as pessoas.
05:09
you might expect to see rooms that are close together
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pode-se esperar que salas próximas
05:11
have really similar biomes.
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tenham biomas parecidos.
05:14
And that is exactly what we found.
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E foi exatamente isso que encontramos.
05:16
If you look at classrooms right adjacent to one another,
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Se olharem salas de aulas adjacentes,
05:19
they have very similar ecosystems,
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elas têm ecossistemas muito parecidos,
05:21
but if you go to an office
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mas se for a um escritório
05:25
that is a farther walking distance away,
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mais distante,
05:28
the ecosystem is fundamentally different.
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o ecossistema é fundamentalmente diferente.
05:30
And when I see the power that dispersal has
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E quando vejo o poder que a dispersão tem
05:35
on these biogeographic patterns,
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nesse padrões biogeográficos,
05:37
it makes me think that it's possible
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fico pensando que é possível
05:40
to tackle really challenging problems,
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enfrentar problemas desafiadores,
05:44
like hospital-acquired infections.
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como as infecções hospitalares.
05:46
I believe this has got to be, in part,
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Acredito que isso está relacionado, em parte,
05:49
a building ecology problem.
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com um problema da ecologia do edifício.
05:52
All right, I'm going to tell you one more story about this building.
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Tudo bem, contarei mais uma história sobre este edifício.
05:56
I am collaborating with Charlie Brown.
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Estou colaborando com Charlie Brown.
05:59
He's an architect,
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Ele é um arquiteto,
06:01
and Charlie is deeply concerned about global climate change.
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e Charlie é muito preocupado com a mudança climática global.
06:06
He's dedicated his life to sustainable design.
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Ele tem dedicado sua vida ao design sustentável.
06:09
When he met me and realized that it was possible for him
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Quando me conheceu e percebeu que era possível para ele
06:12
to study in a quantitative way
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estudar de um modo quantitativo
06:15
how his design choices impacted
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como suas escolhas de planejamento impactaram
06:17
the ecology and biology of this building,
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a ecologia e biologia deste edifício,
06:20
he got really excited, because it added a new dimension to what he did.
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ficou entusiasmado, porque acrescentou uma nova dimensão ao que fazia.
06:25
He went from thinking just about energy
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Ele passou de pensar apenas sobre energia
06:26
to also starting to think about human health.
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a começar a pensar na saúde humana.
06:30
He helped design some of the air handling systems
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Ajudou a projetar alguns dos sistemas de tratamento de ar
06:34
in this building and the way it was ventilated.
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deste edifício e como era a ventilação.
06:36
So what I'm first going to show you is
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Então primeiro vou mostrar-lhes
06:39
air that we sampled outside of the building.
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o ar que coletamos fora do edifício.
06:42
What you're looking at is a signature of bacterial communities
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Estamos olhando para a assinatura das comunidades bacterianas
06:46
in the outdoor air, and how they vary over time.
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ao ar livre e como variam ao longo do tempo.
06:50
Next I'm going to show you what happened
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Depois vou mostrar o que aconteceu
06:53
when we experimentally manipulated classrooms.
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quando manipulamos experimentalmente as salas de aula.
06:57
We blocked them off at night
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Fechamos completamente durante a noite
06:59
so that they got no ventilation.
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para que não tivessem nenhuma ventilação.
07:01
A lot of buildings are operated this way,
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Muitos edifícios operam dessa forma,
07:03
probably where you work,
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provavelmente onde vocês trabalham,
07:05
and companies do this to save money on their energy bill.
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e empresas fazem isso para economizar o custo de energia elétrica.
07:08
What we found is that these rooms remained relatively stagnant
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Encontramos que essas salas permanecem relativamente estagnadas
07:12
until Saturday, when we opened the vents up again.
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até sábado, quando abrimos a ventilação novamente.
07:15
When you walked into those rooms,
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Quando entramos nas salas,
07:16
they smelled really bad,
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elas cheiravam muito mal,
07:18
and our data suggests that it had something to do with
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e nossos dados sugerem que tinha algo a ver com
07:21
leaving behind the airborne bacterial soup
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ter deixado para trás a sopa de bactérias transportadas pelo ar
07:25
from people the day before.
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pelas pessoas do dia anterior.
07:27
Contrast this to rooms
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Comparem isto com as salas
07:29
that were designed using a sustainable passive design strategy
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que foram projetadas usando a estratégia de planejamento passivo sustentável
07:34
where air came in from the outside through louvers.
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onde o ar de fora entra através de venezianas.
07:37
In these rooms, the air tracked the outdoor air relatively well,
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Nestas salas, o ar acompanhou o ar de fora muito bem,
07:42
and when Charlie saw this, he got really excited.
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e quando Charlie viu isso, ficou entusiasmado.
07:44
He felt like he had made a good choice
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Sentiu que fez uma boa escolha
07:47
with the design process
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no processo de design
07:48
because it was both energy efficient
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porque era eficiente energeticamente
07:51
and it washed away the building's resident microbial landscape.
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e eliminava as paisagens de microrganismos do edifício.
07:56
The examples that I just gave you are about architecture,
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Os exemplos que dei foram de arquitetura,
07:59
but they're relevant to the design of anything.
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mas são relevantes para o planejamento de qualquer coisa.
08:01
Imagine designing with the kinds of microbes that we want
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Imaginem planejar pensando nos tipos de microrganismos que queremos
08:06
in a plane
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no avião
08:07
or on a phone.
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ou no telefone.
08:10
There's a new microbe, I just discovered it.
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Há um novo microrganismo, que descobri recentemente.
08:12
It's called BLIS, and it's been shown
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É chamado BLIS, e foi demonstrado
08:15
to both ward off pathogens
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que afasta os patogênicos
08:18
and give you good breath.
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e dá uma hálito bom.
08:20
Wouldn't it be awesome if we all had BLIS on our phones?
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Não seria demais ter BLIS nos nossos telefones?
08:26
A conscious approach to design,
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Uma abordagem consciente para o planejamento,
08:28
I'm calling it bioinformed design,
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o qual chamo de design bioinformado
08:31
and I think it's possible.
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e penso que é possível.
08:32
Thank you.
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Obrigada.
08:34
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jessica Green - Engineer and biodiversity scientist
Jessica Green wants people to understand the important role microbes play in every facet of our lives: climate change, building ecosystems, human health, even roller derby -- using nontraditional tools like art, animation and film to help people visualize the invisible world.

Why you should listen

Jessica Green, a TED2010 Fellow and TED2011 Senior Fellow, is an engineer and ecologist who specializes in biodiversity theory and microbial systems. As a professor at both the University of Oregon and the Santa Fe Institute, she is the founding director of the innovative Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE) Center that bridges biology and architecture.

Green envisions a future with genomic-driven approaches to architectural design that promote sustainability, human health and well-being. She is spearheading efforts to model buildings as complex ecosystems that house trillions of diverse microorganisms interacting with each other, with humans, and with their environment. This framework uses next-generation sequencing technology to characterize the “built environment microbiome” and will offer site-specific design solutions to minimize the spread of infectious disease and maximize building energy efficiency.

More profile about the speaker
Jessica Green | Speaker | TED.com

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