TEDxDeExtinction
Michael Archer: How we'll resurrect the gastric brooding frog, the Tasmanian tiger
迈克•阿彻: 迈克•阿彻：我们如何复活胃育蛙和塔斯马尼亚虎
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胃育蛙像别的青蛙一样产卵--然后却把它们吞下来孵化，直到30年前它们灭绝的时候。古生物学家迈克•阿彻试图复活胃育蛙和通常被称为塔斯马尼亚虎的袋狼。（摄于TEDx反灭绝）
Michael Archer - Paleontologist
Paleontologist Michael Archer is working to bring back his favorite extinct animal: the Tasmanian tiger. Full bio
Paleontologist Michael Archer is working to bring back his favorite extinct animal: the Tasmanian tiger. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I do want to test this question we're all interested in:
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我很想检验一个我们都很感兴趣的问题：
00:15
Does extinction have to be forever?
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物种灭绝一定是永久的吗？
00:18
I'm focused on two projects I want to tell you about.
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我要告诉你们的是两个我所关注的项目，
00:21
One is the Thylacine Project.
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其中一个是关于袋狼的；
00:23
The other one is the Lazarus Project,
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另一个叫“拉撒路”项目，
00:25
and that's focused on the gastric brooding frog.
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着重于胃育蛙。
00:27
And it would be a fair question to ask, well,
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大家有可能会问，
00:29
why have we focused on these two animals?
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为什么我们选择把重点放在这两个动物上？
00:32
Well, point number one, each of them
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首先，这两个物种
00:35
represents a unique family of its own.
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都分别代表着一个独特的科。
00:37
We've lost a whole family.
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我们失去了整整一个科的生物，
00:39
That's a big chunk of the global genome gone.
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也就是说全球基因组的一大块被丢掉了，
00:41
I'd like it back.
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而我想把它找回来。
00:43
The second reason is that we killed these things.
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第二个原因是因为，是我们，使这两个物种灭绝的。
00:47
In the case of the thylacine, regrettably,
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以袋狼为例，令人遗憾的是
00:50
we shot every one that we saw. We slaughtered them.
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我们将所有袋狼都猎杀了。我们屠杀了整个种群。
00:54
In the case of the gastric brooding frog,
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而对于胃育蛙来说，
00:56
we may have "fungicided" it to death.
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我们可能用“真菌”将它们置于死地了。
00:59
There's a dreadful fungus that's sort of moving
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有一种可怕的真菌在全世界传播，
01:01
through the world that's called the chytrid fungus,
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叫作“壶菌”，
01:03
and it's nailing frogs all over the world.
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它们感染了世界各地的胃育蛙。
01:06
We think that's probably what got this frog,
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我们认为这很可能是胃育蛙灭绝的原因，
01:08
and humans are spreading this fungus.
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而正是人类使这些真菌到处传播。
01:10
And this introduces a very important ethical point,
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这就引出了一个很重要的道德问题，
01:13
and I think you will have heard this many times
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我想每当提起动物灭绝时，
01:15
when this topic comes up.
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大家可能就会听到这个问题了。
01:17
What I think is important is that,
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我认为重要的是，
01:19
if it's clear that we exterminated these species,
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如果很明显是我们使这些动物灭绝的，
01:23
then I think we not only have a moral obligation
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那我觉得，我们不仅有道德上的义务
01:26
to see what we can do about it, but I think we've got
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来看看我们能做点什么，而且我认为，
01:28
a moral imperative to try to do something, if we can.
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如果可能的话，我们有道德上的责任来尝试做点什么。
01:32
Okay. Let me talk to you about the Lazarus Project.
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好，我来跟你们说说“拉撒路”项目。
01:35
It's a frog. And you think, frog.
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是关于一种青蛙的。你可能会想，青蛙？
01:38
Yeah, but this was not just any frog.
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对，但这可不是一般的青蛙。
01:41
Unlike a normal frog, which lays its eggs in the water
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普通的青蛙，在水中产卵之后
01:44
and goes away and wishes its froglets well,
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就游走了，只是期盼幼蛙能活下来。
01:47
this frog swallowed its fertilized eggs,
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而胃育蛙会将受精卵吞下，
01:50
swallowed them into the stomach where it should be having food,
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吞到本来应该装食物的胃里去，
01:54
didn't digest the eggs,
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却不会将卵消化掉，
01:56
and turned its stomach into a uterus.
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而是将胃变成了子宫。
01:59
In the stomach, the eggs went on to develop into tadpoles,
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在胃里，这些卵发育成蝌蚪，
02:02
and in the stomach, the tadpoles went on to develop into frogs,
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蝌蚪也是在胃里长成青蛙，
02:06
and they grew in the stomach until eventually
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它们在胃里一直长，
02:09
the poor old frog was at risk of bursting apart.
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直到可怜的老青蛙都快被撑破了。
02:12
It has a little cough and a hiccup, and out comes
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然后它咳嗽一下，打个嗝
02:14
sprays of little frogs.
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小青蛙们就喷出来了。
02:16
Now, when biologists saw this, they were agog.
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生物学家们看到这一现象的时候大吃一惊，
02:19
They thought, this is incredible.
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他们觉得这太不可思议了。
02:20
No animal, let alone a frog, has been known to do this,
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没有任何已知的动物，更别说青蛙了，
02:24
to change one organ in the body into another.
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会像这样将体内的一种器官变成另一种器官。
02:26
And you can imagine the medical world went nuts over this as well.
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可想而知医学界也为之疯狂。
02:30
If we could understand how that frog is managing
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如果我们能够弄清楚胃育蛙是怎么
02:33
the way its tummy works, is there information
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控制它的肚子的，那我们是不是
02:36
here that we need to understand or could usefully use
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有可能找到一些有用的信息，
02:39
to help ourselves?
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来帮助我们自己呢？
02:41
Now, I'm not suggesting we want to raise our babies in our stomach,
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我可不是说要把我们的宝宝放在胃里养，
02:44
but I am suggesting it's possible we might want
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我的建议是我们或许可以
02:46
to manage gastric secretion in the gut.
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有办法来调整胃液的分泌。
02:48
And just as everybody got excited about it, bang!
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当大家都对此感到兴奋的时候，“砰”的一声，
02:51
It was extinct.
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这种蛙灭绝了。
02:53
I called up my friend, Professor Mike Tyler
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我打了个电话给我的朋友，
02:56
in the University of Adelaide.
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阿德莱德大学的迈克•泰勒教授。
02:57
He was the last person who had this frog,
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他是最后一个曾有过这种青蛙的人，
03:00
a colony of these things, in his lab.
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他的实验室里有过一群。
03:02
And I said, "Mike, by any chance -- "
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我说：“迈克，有没有可能，”
03:04
this was 30 or 40 years ago —
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这是三四十年前的事了，
03:05
"by any chance had you kept any frozen tissue of this frog?"
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“有没有可能你还留了一些这种青蛙的冷冻组织呢？”
03:09
And he thought about it, and he went to his deep freezer,
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他想了想，然后就到他的深度冷冻柜里，
03:12
minus 20 degrees centigrade,
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摄氏零下二十度的那种，
03:14
and he poured through everything in the freezer,
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把所有东西都翻了一遍。
03:15
and there in the bottom was a jar
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在最底下有一个罐子，
03:17
and it contained tissues of these frogs.
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里面就装着胃育蛙的冷冻组织。
03:20
This was very exciting, but there was no reason
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这让我们很激动，不过我们也没有理由
03:23
why we should expect that this would work,
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来确信这件事能成功，
03:25
because this tissue had not had any antifreeze put in it,
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因为这块组织中没有加过任何防冻剂，
03:29
cryoprotectants, to look after it when it was frozen.
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也叫冰冻防护剂，来保护它不被冻坏。
03:33
And normally, when water freezes, as you know, it expands,
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通常来说，水结冰的时候会膨胀，
03:35
and the same thing happens in a cell.
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在细胞里也是一样。
03:37
If you freeze tissues, the water expands,
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当你将组织冷冻时，水会膨胀
03:39
damages or bursts the cell walls.
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损坏或者撑破细胞膜。
03:41
Well, we looked at the tissue under the microscope.
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我们把组织放到显微镜下观察时，
03:44
It actually didn't look bad. The cell walls looked intact.
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发现看起来并不差，细胞膜还很完整。
03:46
So we thought, let's give it a go.
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所以我们想，就试一试吧。
03:48
What we did is something called
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我们用的是一种被称作
03:50
somatic cell nuclear transplantation.
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“体细胞核移植”的技术。
03:53
We took the eggs of a related species, a living frog,
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我们从与胃育蛙有亲缘关系的一个物种，一只活青蛙中取了卵，
03:57
and we inactivated the nucleus of the egg.
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然后我们将卵子的细胞核灭活，
04:00
We used ultraviolet radiation to do that.
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这是用紫外线辐射来做到的。
04:02
And then we took the dead nucleus from the dead tissue
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然后我们从已经灭绝的青蛙的死组织中，
提取出死了的细胞核，
提取出死了的细胞核，
04:06
of the extinct frog and we inserted those nuclei into that egg.
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再将它们植入到刚才说的活蛙卵中。
04:10
Now by rights, this is kind of like a cloning project,
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这看起来有点儿像克隆技术了，就是制造出多利羊的技术，
04:13
like what produced Dolly, but it's actually very different,
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不过实际上很不一样的。
04:16
because Dolly was live sheep into live sheep cells.
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因为“多利”是从活羊身上取细胞再放到活羊卵中，
04:19
That was a miracle, but it was workable.
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“多利”是一个奇迹，但是还是有可能做到的；
04:21
What we're trying to do is take a dead nucleus from an extinct species
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而我们试图做的是取出一个灭绝的物种的死细胞核，
04:25
and put it into a completely different species and expect that to work.
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然后放到一个完全不同的物种中，还期望能成功。
04:29
Well, we had no real reason to expect it would,
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我们其实没有什么理由能希望它成功。
04:31
and we tried hundreds and hundreds of these.
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我们试了好几百次，
04:34
And just last February, the last time we did these trials,
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然后就在二月份我们上一次试验的时候，
04:37
I saw a miracle starting to happen.
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我看到奇迹开始发生了。
04:40
What we found was, most of these eggs didn't work,
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大多数的卵都没有发育，
04:44
but then suddenly one of them began to divide.
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但是我们突然发现有一个卵开始分裂了。
04:47
That was so exciting. And then the egg divided again.
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这真是太让我们激动了。然后这个卵子又分裂了一次，
04:50
And then again. And pretty soon, we had
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然后又一次，很快，我们就有了一个
04:53
early stage embryos with hundreds of cells forming those.
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由几百个细胞组成的早期胚胎。
04:57
We even DNA tested some of these cells,
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我们甚至对一些细胞做了DNA测试，
04:59
and the DNA of the extinct frog is in those cells.
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而这些细胞的确含有胃育蛙的DNA。
05:04
So we're very excited. This is not a tadpole.
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所以我们非常兴奋。这还不是蝌蚪，
05:06
It's not a frog. But it's a long way along the journey
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也还不是青蛙，但它已经是我们制造，或者说复活，
05:10
to producing, or bringing back, an extinct species.
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已灭绝物种的征途中的一大步了。
05:13
And this is news. We haven't announced this publicly before.
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这无疑是一个重大新闻，我们之前还没有公开过这一消息。
05:15
We're excited. We've got to get past this point.
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我们非常兴奋。现在我们需要跨越这一阶段，
05:19
We now want this ball of cells to start to gastrulate,
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我们希望这些细胞开始形成原肠胚，
05:22
to turn in so that it will produce the other tissues.
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细胞向里移动，这样就能够开始形成其他的组织。
05:25
It'll go on and produce a tadpole and then a frog.
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继续下去就能形成一只蝌蚪，然后是一只青蛙。
05:28
Watch this space. I think we're going to have this frog
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看着这个地方，我认为我们会见到一只胃育蛙
05:31
hopping glad to be back in the world again.
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因为重新回到这个世界而高兴地跳来跳去的。
05:33
Thank you. (Applause)
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谢谢。（掌声）
05:39
We haven't done it yet, but keep those applause ready.
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我们现在还没做到，但是希望各位准备好为我们鼓掌。
05:42
The second project I want to talk to you about is the Thylacine Project.
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我想在这儿讲的第二个项目，是袋狼项目。
05:47
The thylacine looks a bit, to most people, like a dog,
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对于大多数人来说，袋狼看起来有点像狗，
05:50
or maybe like a tiger, because it has stripes.
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也有点像老虎，因为它身上有条纹。
05:52
But it's not related to any of those.
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但是它与狗和老虎都没有关系。
05:54
It's a marsupial. It raised its young in a pouch,
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它属于有袋动物，在育幼袋中抚养幼崽，
05:57
like a koala or a kangaroo would do,
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就像考拉或者袋鼠那样。
05:59
and it has a long history, a long, fascinating history,
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袋狼这个物种的历史很久远，
06:05
that goes back 25 million years.
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可以追溯到2500万年前，
06:07
But it's also a tragic history.
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不过也是一段很悲惨的历史。
06:10
The first one that we see occurs in the ancient rainforests
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最早的袋狼出现在2500万年前
06:14
of Australia about 25 million years ago,
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澳大利亚的古热带雨林中。
06:16
and the National Geographic Society is helping us
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国家地理协会正帮助我们
06:19
to explore these fossil deposits. This is Riversleigh.
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勘探那儿的化石沉积物。这里是里弗斯利（澳大利亚著名化石点），
06:23
In those fossil rocks are some amazing animals.
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在这些化石中保存了令人惊奇的动物。
06:26
We found marsupial lions.
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我们看到了有袋的狮子，
06:28
We found carnivorous kangaroos.
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还有肉食性的袋鼠，
06:31
It's not what you usually think about as a kangaroo,
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不是我们平常想象的那种袋鼠，
06:32
but these are meat-eating kangaroos.
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而是真正吃肉的袋鼠。
06:34
We found the biggest bird in the world,
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我们还看到了世界上最大的鸟，
06:37
bigger than that thing that was in Madagascar,
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比马达加斯加的那种鸟还大，
06:39
and it too was a flesh-eater. It was a giant, weird duck.
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而且它也是食肉的，是一种巨大而怪异的鸭子。
06:43
And crocodiles were not behaving at that time either.
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当时的鳄鱼的行为也和现在不一样。
06:45
You think of crocodiles as doing their ugly thing,
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你可能会认为鳄鱼就是丑丑地
06:48
sitting in a pool of water.
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呆在水里。
06:49
These crocodiles were actually out on the land
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可这些鳄鱼是呆在陆地上的，
06:52
and they were even climbing trees and jumping on prey
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它们甚至爬到树上，
06:55
on the ground.
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然后朝地上的猎物身上扑下来。
06:57
We had, in Australia, drop crocs. They really do exist.
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这种会跳下来的鳄鱼在澳大利亚确实存在过，
07:02
But what they were dropping on was not only
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而被它们扑倒的动物，
07:04
other weird animals but also thylacines.
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不仅有其他稀奇古怪的动物，还有袋狼。
07:07
There were five different kinds of thylacines in those ancient forests,
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在那片原始森林中有五种不同的袋狼，
07:10
and they ranged from great big ones to middle-sized ones
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它们的体型从大到中，
07:15
to one that was about the size of a chihuahua.
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到小得像吉娃娃狗那么大。
07:19
Paris Hilton would have been able to carry
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帕丽斯•希尔顿（如果生活在那时候）就可以
07:20
one of these things around in a little handbag,
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在小手提包中装一只带着走，
07:23
until a drop croc landed on her.
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直到一只鳄鱼扑到她身上。
07:25
At any rate, it was a fascinating place,
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无论如何，那是个令人惊奇的地方。
07:27
but unfortunately, Australia didn't stay this way.
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但不幸的是，澳大利亚并没有能保持原样。
07:30
Climate change has affected the world for a long period of time,
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气候变迁已经影响这个世界很久了，
07:33
and gradually, the forests disappeared,
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渐渐地，森林消失了，
07:36
the country began to dry out,
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气候开始变得干燥，
07:38
and the number of kinds of thylacines began to decline,
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袋狼的种类也开始减少，
07:40
until by five million years ago, only one left.
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到五百万年前，就只剩下一种了。
07:43
By 10,000 years ago, they had disappeared
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一万年前，它们从新几内亚
07:45
from New Guinea, and unfortunately
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消失了。更不幸的是，
07:49
by 4,000 years ago, somebodies,
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四千前，某些人，
07:52
we don't know who this was, introduced dingoes --
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我们也不知道是谁，把野狗
07:55
this is a very archaic kind of a dog — into Australia.
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--这是一种自古就有的狗--引入了澳洲。
07:58
And as you can see, dingoes are very similar
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你们看，这种野狗的体型
08:00
in their body form to thylacines.
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和袋狼很像，
08:03
That similarity meant they probably competed.
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这种相似性说明它们之间可能会相互竞争，
08:06
They were eating the same kinds of foods.
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它们可能会吃同样的食物。
08:07
It's even possible that aborigines were keeping
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很有可能当地人还把
08:10
some of these dingoes as pets, and therefore
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这种狗养来做宠物，这样一来，
08:13
they may have had an advantage in the battle for survival.
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它们在这场生存竞争中就占了优势。
08:16
All we know is, soon after the dingoes were brought in,
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我们只知道，野狗被引入澳洲后不久，
08:18
thylacines were extinct in the Australian mainland,
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袋狼就从澳洲大陆消失了，
08:21
and after that they only survived in Tasmania.
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之后仅存于塔斯马尼亚岛。
08:25
Then, unfortunately, the next sad part of the thylacine story
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这个袋狼故事的另一段惨剧，
08:28
is that Europeans arrived in 1788, and they brought
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就是1788年欧洲人来到了澳洲，并且带来了
08:31
with them the things they valued, and that included sheep.
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他们看中觉得重要的东西，其中就有绵羊。
08:35
They took one look at the thylacine in Tasmania,
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当他们看到塔斯马尼亚的袋狼时，
08:39
and they thought, hang on, this is not going to work.
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.他们想，等等，这不行呀，
08:42
That guy is going to eat all our sheep.
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这家伙会把我们的羊都吃了呀。
08:44
That was not what happened, actually.
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事实并不是这样的。
08:46
Wild dogs did eat a few of the sheep, but the thylacine got a bad rap.
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野外的狗吃了一些羊，但是袋狼却背了个恶名。
08:50
But immediately, the government said, that's it,
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但是政府立刻就说，我们受够了，
08:53
let's get rid of them, and they paid people
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得把它们除掉。他们付钱给民众们
08:56
to slaughter every one that they saw.
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去屠杀每一头袋狼。
08:58
By the early 1930s, 3,000 to 4,000 thylacines
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到三四十年代早期时，有三四千头袋狼
09:03
had been murdered. It was a disaster,
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被猎杀了。
09:06
and they were about to hit the wall.
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真的是一场灾难。
09:08
Have a look at this bit of film footage.
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来看看这一段电影片段，
09:11
It makes me very sad, because, while, it's a fascinating animal,
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这段电影让我很难过，因为这是一头很稀奇的动物，
09:15
and it's amazing to think that we had the technology to film it
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而且想想我们竟然在它们掉下灭绝的悬崖之前，
09:20
before it actually plunged off that cliff of extinction,
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已有了给它们录影的技术，真的是很奇特。
09:24
we didn't, unfortunately, at this same time, have
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不幸的是，当时我们对
09:27
a molecule of concern about the welfare for this species.
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这种动物的安危一丁点都不关心。
09:31
These are photos of the last surviving thylacine, Benjamin,
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这里拍的是世界上最后一头袋狼，叫本杰明，
09:34
who was in the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart.
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它当时在候巴特的布马里斯动物园。
09:37
To add insult to injury, having swept this species
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如同在伤口上撒了一把盐，当我们把这一物种搞得
09:40
nearly off the table, this animal, when it died of neglect,
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几近灭绝的时候，又让这头动物因疏于照料而死。
09:45
the keepers didn't let it into the hutch
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一个寒冷的晚上，
09:47
on a cold night in Hobart. It died of exposure,
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管理员没把它放回狼舍，把它冻死了。
09:51
and in the morning, when they found the body of Benjamin,
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早上人们发现本杰明的尸体时，
09:53
they still cared so little for this animal
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还是对它一点都不关心，
09:56
that they threw the body in the dump.
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把它扔到垃圾堆去了。
10:00
Does it have to stay this way?
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一直都只能是这样了吗？
10:03
In 1990, I was in the Australian Museum.
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1990年我在澳大利亚博物馆工作，
10:06
I was fascinated by thylacines. I've always been obsessed with these animals.
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对袋狼很着迷。我一直都对这种动物感兴趣。
10:09
And I was studying skulls, trying to figure out
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当时我正在研究头骨，试图研究
10:11
their relationships to other sorts of animals,
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袋狼和其他动物之间的亲缘关系。
10:14
and I saw this jar, and here, in the jar,
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在那儿我看到一个罐子，
10:17
was a little girl thylacine pup, perhaps six months old.
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里面装着一只小母袋狼仔，大约六个月大。
10:22
The guy who had found it and killed the mother
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发现它的那个人杀了它的母亲，
10:24
had pickled the pup and they pickled it in alcohol.
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然后把这只幼崽腌了起来，腌在了酒精里。
10:28
I'm a paleontologist, but I still knew alcohol was a DNA preservative.
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我虽然是个古生物学家，但我也知道酒精可以保存DNA。
10:32
But this was 1990, and I asked my geneticist friends,
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那还是1990年，我就问我的遗传学家朋友们，
10:36
couldn't we think about going into this pup
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我们可不可以想办法从这只幼崽身上
10:38
and extracting DNA, if it's there,
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提取DNA，如果能提出来的话，
10:41
and then somewhere down the line in the future,
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在将来某个时候，
10:43
we'll use this DNA to bring the thylacine back?
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可不可以用这些DNA来复活袋狼呢？
10:45
The geneticists laughed. But this was six years before Dolly.
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遗传学家们都笑了。不过那时距多利羊的出现还有六年，
10:50
Cloning was science fiction. It had not happened.
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克隆技术还没出现，还被认为是科学幻想。
10:53
But then suddenly cloning did happen.
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但是突然之间克隆技术出现了，
10:56
And I thought, when I became director
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我就想，等我当上
10:58
of the Australian Museum, I'm going to give this a go.
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澳大利亚博物馆的馆长，我得试试。
11:00
I put a team together.
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我组织了一队人马，
11:02
We went into that pup to see what was in there,
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看看我们能从这只幼崽身上弄出什么来。
11:05
and we did find thylacine DNA. It was a eureka moment.
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我们的确提取出了袋狼DNA，那真是一个鼓舞人心的时刻，
11:08
We were very excited.
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我们都激动坏了。
11:09
Unfortunately, we also found a lot of human DNA.
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不幸的是，我们也提出了很多人类的DNA。
11:13
Every old curator who'd been in that museum
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那座博物馆的每一位老馆长，
11:16
had seen this wonderful specimen,
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都看到了这个奇妙的标本，
11:17
put their hand in the jar, pulled it out and thought,
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他们把手伸进罐子里，把它拽出来，心想:
11:20
"Wow, look at that," plop, dropped it back in the jar,
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”哇，瞧瞧这个”，啪，又把它扔回罐子里了。
11:22
contaminating this specimen.
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这样他们就把这个标本污染了。
11:24
And that was a worry. If the goal here was to get the DNA out
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这有点令人担心。如果我们的目标是提出DNA来，
11:28
and use the DNA down the track to try to bring a thylacine back,
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以后再用这个DNA来试着把袋狼复活，
11:31
what we didn't want happening when the information
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那我们可不希望当我们把这些遗传信息
11:34
was shoved into the machine and the wheel turned around
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传到机器里去的时候，机器一转，
11:36
and the lights flashed, was to have a wizened old
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灯光一闪，然后从机器的另一头
11:38
horrible curator pop out the other end of the machine. (Laughter)
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出来个干瘪吓人的老馆长。(笑声)
11:42
It would've kept the curator very happy,
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老馆长会很高兴，
11:44
but it wasn't going to keep us happy.
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但是我们可就不会了。
11:45
So we went back to these specimens and we started digging around,
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所以我们又回去仔细研究这个样本，
11:49
and particularly we looked into the teeth of skulls,
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特别是头骨中的牙齿部分，
11:52
hard parts where humans had not been able to get their fingers,
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这些坚硬的部分没有人用手碰过。
11:55
and we found much better quality DNA.
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这回我们提出了更高质量的DNA，
11:57
We found nuclear mitochondrial genes. It's there.
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细胞核基因，线粒体基因，都在。
12:00
So we got it.
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我们得到了袋狼DNA。
12:01
Okay. What could we do with this stuff?
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那现在我们能做什么呢？
12:04
Well, George Church in his book, "Regenesis,"
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乔治•丘奇在《重生》那本书里，
12:06
has mentioned many of the techniques that are rapidly advancing
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提到了很多正在迅猛发展的技术，
12:09
to work with fragmented DNA.
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专门用于这类DNA片段。
12:11
We would hope that we'll be able to get that DNA back
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我们希望能把这些DNA连接成类似于从活体中提的DNA，
12:14
into a viable form, and then, much like we've done with the Lazarus Project,
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然后呢，就像我们在拉撒路项目中做的那样，
12:18
get that stuff into an egg of a host species.
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把它放到一个受体物种的卵中。
12:21
It has to be a different species.
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必须得是一个不同的物种，
12:23
What could it be? Why couldn't it be a Tasmanian devil?
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用什么呢？为什么不能用塔斯马尼亚袋獾呢？
12:26
They're related distantly to thylacines.
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它们是袋狼的远亲，
12:28
And then the Tasmanian devil is going to pop
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这样袋獾就会生出
12:30
a thylacine out the south end.
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一只袋狼了。
12:33
Critics of this project say, hang on.
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这个项目的批评家们说，等等
12:36
Thylacine, Tasmanian devil? That's going to hurt.
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袋狼，袋獾？生的时候会疼啊。
12:40
No, it's not. These are marsupials.
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其实不会的，它们都是有袋类，
12:43
They give birth to babies that are the size of a jelly bean.
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它们生的宝宝只有果冻豆那么大。
12:45
That Tasmanian devil's not even going to know it gave birth.
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袋獾都不会知道它生了什么，
12:49
It is, shortly, going to think it's got the ugliest
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不过它很快就会觉得它生下了
12:52
Tasmanian devil baby in the world,
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世界上最丑的袋獾宝宝了，
12:53
so maybe it'll need some help to keep it going.
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所以它可能需要我们帮它一下来留下这个宝宝。
12:58
Andrew Pask and his colleagues have demonstrated
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安德鲁•帕斯克和他的同事们已经证明了
13:00
this might not be a waste of time.
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这并非是纯粹浪费时间。
13:02
And it's sort of in the future, we haven't got there yet,
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这还是以后的事，我们还没到那一步呢，
13:04
but it's the kind of thing we want to think about.
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不过这是我们需要考虑的问题了。
13:06
They took some of this same pickled thylacine DNA
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他们取了一些这个袋狼的DNA，
13:10
and they spliced it into a mouse genome,
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然后把它接到老鼠的基因组中，
13:13
but they put a tag on it so that anything
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不过他们在上面加了个标记，
13:16
that this thylacine DNA produced
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这样任何从袋狼DNA产生的东西
13:18
would appear blue-green in the mouse baby.
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都会在这只老鼠宝宝身上发出蓝绿色的光。
13:22
In other words, if thylacine tissues were being produced
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换句话说，如果由袋狼DNA产生出了
13:24
by the thylacine DNA, it would be able to be recognized.
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袋狼的组织，是能辨认出来的。
13:27
When the baby popped up, it was filled with blue-green tissues.
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这只老鼠宝宝生出来的时候，全身到处都有蓝绿色的组织。
13:31
And that tells us if we can get that genome back together,
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这就说明如果我们能把袋狼的基因组拼接成功，
13:34
get it into a live cell, it's going to produce thylacine stuff.
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放到个活细胞里，是能产生出袋狼的东西的。
13:39
Is this a risk?
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有没有危险呢？
13:41
You've taken the bits of one animal
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你弄来一种动物的碎片，
13:43
and you've mixed them into the cell of a different kind of an animal.
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把它们混起来放到另外一种动物的细胞里，
13:45
Are we going to get a Frankenstein?
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我们会不会弄出一个科学怪物呢？
13:47
You know, some kind of weird hybrid chimera?
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某种奇怪的杂交混合体?
13:50
And the answer is no.
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答案是不会的。
13:51
If the only nuclear DNA that goes into this hybrid cell
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如果放到那个杂交细胞中的唯一的细胞核DNA
13:55
is thylacine DNA, that's the only thing that can pop out
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是袋狼DNA的话，袋獾生出来的
13:57
the other end of the devil.
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也只可能是袋狼。
14:00
Okay, if we can do this, could we put it back?
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好，如果我们能做到这一步，我们能把它们放回（大自然）去吗？
14:04
This is a key question for everybody.
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这是人人都关心的一个关键问题。
14:05
Does it have to stay in a laboratory,
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它只能呆在实验室里，
14:07
or could we put it back where it belongs?
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还是我们可以把它们放回它们原来生活的地方?
14:09
Could we put it back in the throne of the king of beasts
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我们能不能把它们放回塔斯马尼亚
14:11
in Tasmania where it belongs, restore that ecosystem?
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野兽之王的宝座，来恢复当地的生态系统？
14:14
Or has Tasmania changed so much
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还是说塔斯马尼亚岛已经改变了太多，
14:17
that that's no longer possible?
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这已经不可能了？
14:18
I've been to Tasmania. I've been to many of the areas
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我去过塔斯马尼亚，我去过那里很多
14:21
where the thylacines were common.
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袋狼曾经经常出没的区域。
14:23
I've even spoken to people, like Peter Carter here,
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我和很多人交谈过，比如这位，彼得•卡特，
14:26
who when I spoke to him was 90 years old,
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我和他谈话时他都90岁了，
14:28
but in 1926, this man and his father and his brother
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不过1926年的时候，他和他的父亲还有兄弟
14:32
caught thylacines. They trapped them.
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抓过袋狼。他们给袋狼下过套。
14:35
And it just, when I spoke to this man,
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1814
当我和他说话时，
14:37
I was looking in his eyes and thinking,
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我看着他的眼睛，心想，
14:39
behind those eyes is a brain
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这双眼睛后面的大脑里，
14:42
that has memories of what thylacines feel like,
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有关于袋狼的记忆，它们摸起来什么感觉，
14:46
what they smelled like, what they sounded like.
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它们发出什么味道，什么声音。
14:48
He led them around on a rope.
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他曾经用根绳子牵引着它们。
14:50
He has personal experiences
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他的亲身经历，
14:52
that I would give my left leg to have in my head.
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我宁愿割下我的左腿来把它换成我脑子里的记忆。
14:55
We'd all love to have this sort of thing happen.
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我们都希望这种事情能够成真。
14:58
Anyway, I asked Peter, by any chance,
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我问彼得，他能不能
15:00
could he take us back to where he caught those thylacines.
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带我们回到他曾经抓袋狼的地方。
15:02
My interest was in whether the environment had changed.
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我想知道的是当地的环境变了没有。
15:05
He thought hard. I mean, it was nearly 80 years before this
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他想了很久。你想，
15:08
that he'd been at this hut.
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他上次去这个小屋已经是差不多80年前了。
15:09
At any rate, he led us down this bush track,
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他领着我们走过这条灌木丛间的小路，
15:11
and there, right where he remembered, was the hut,
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然后，就在他记得的那个地方，立着这个小屋，
15:15
and tears came into his eyes.
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他不禁流下了热泪。
15:17
He looked at the hut. We went inside.
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他看了看小屋，我们走了进去，
15:19
There were the wooden boards on the sides of the hut
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小屋的墙边放着木板，
15:21
where he and his father and his brother had slept at night.
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是他和他的父亲及兄弟晚上睡觉的地方。
15:24
And he told me, as it all was flooding back in memories.
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当记忆如潮水一般涌现时，
15:26
He said, "I remember the thylacines going around the hut
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他说： “我记得袋狼围着小屋转，
15:29
wondering what was inside," and he said
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想知道里面是什么”，
15:32
they made sounds like "Yip! Yip! Yip!"
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他又说，它们发出“噎，噎，噎” 的叫声。
15:34
All of these are parts of his life and what he remembers.
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这些都是他生活的一部分，是他记得的。
15:37
And the key question for me was to ask Peter,
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我要问彼得的最关键的问题就是，
15:41
has it changed? And he said no.
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那里变没变? 他说没变。
15:42
The southern beech forests surrounded his hut
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围绕他的小屋的南方山毛榉森林
15:44
just like it was when he was there in 1926.
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还和他1926年来的时候一模一样，
15:47
The grasslands were sweeping away.
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到处都是草地，
15:49
That's classic thylacine habitat.
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这是典型的袋狼居住地。
15:51
And the animals in those areas were the same
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而且那些地方的动物也还和
15:53
that were there when the thylacine was around.
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袋狼存在的时候一样。
15:55
So could we put it back? Yes.
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那我们能把袋狼放回去吗?我想可以。
15:58
Is that all we would do? And this is an interesting question.
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我们仅仅要做这些吗？这个问题就有点意思了。
16:01
Sometimes you might be able to put it back,
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有时候你可以把他们放回去，
16:04
but is that the safest way to make sure
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但是这是不是最安全的办法，能保证它们
16:06
it never goes extinct again, and I don't think so.
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再也不灭绝了呢？我觉得不是。
16:09
I think gradually, as we see species all around the world,
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我觉得渐渐地，当我们观察全世界的各种物种时会发现，
16:12
it's kind of a mantra that wildlife is increasingly
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好像有个咒语似的，野生动物在野外
16:15
not safe in the wild.
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变得越来越不安全。
16:16
We'd love to think it is, but we know it isn't.
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我们希望是安全的，但我们知道不是的。
16:18
We need other parallel strategies coming online.
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我们还需要别的可以同时进行的计划。
16:21
And this one interests me.
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我看上的是这个:
16:22
Some of the thylacines that were being turned into zoos,
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有些袋狼被交到动物园，
16:25
sanctuaries, even at the museums,
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庇护所，甚至是博物馆里时，
16:27
had collar marks on the neck.
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它们脖子上有带过项圈的痕迹，
16:29
They were being kept as pets,
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说明它们曾被养做宠物。
16:31
and we know a lot of bush tales and memories
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我们知道很多传说和回忆中，
16:34
of people who had them as pets,
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就有人把袋狼当成宠物养，
16:35
and they say they were wonderful, friendly.
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而且他们说袋狼很好，很友善。
16:38
This particular one came in out of the forest
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这头袋狼从森林中跑出来，
16:41
to lick this boy and curled up
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舔舔这个男孩后就蜷身
16:43
around the fireplace to go to sleep. A wild animal.
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躺在壁炉边睡着了。一头野生动物啊。
16:46
And I'd like to ask the question, all of --
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我想问一个
16:49
we need to think about this.
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我们必须思考的问题，
16:50
If it had not been illegal to keep these thylacines as pets
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如果养袋狼做宠物不曾是非法的话，
16:55
then, would the thylacine be extinct now?
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袋狼现在会绝种了吗？
16:58
And I'm positive it wouldn't.
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我敢肯定是不会的。
17:00
We need to think about this in today's world.
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我们必须想一想在当今的世界里，
17:03
Could it be that getting animals close to us
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如果我们把动物养在身边，
17:06
so that we value them, maybe they won't go extinct?
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器重它们，也许它们就不会灭绝了？
17:09
And this is such a critical issue for us,
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这是一个至关重要的问题，
17:11
because if we don't do that, we're going to watch
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因为如果我们不这么做，我们就会看到
17:13
more of these animals plunge off the precipice.
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更多的动物掉下绝种的深渊。
17:17
As far as I'm concerned, this is why
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对我来说，这就是
17:19
we're trying to do these kinds of de-extinction projects.
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为什么我们要做这些反绝种的项目的原因。
17:22
We are trying to restore that balance of nature
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我们想要恢复被我们打乱了的
17:25
that we have upset.
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大自然的平衡。
17:27
Thank you.
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谢谢。
17:28
(Applause)
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（掌声）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Michael Archer - PaleontologistPaleontologist Michael Archer is working to bring back his favorite extinct animal: the Tasmanian tiger.
Why you should listen
Why do fascinating extinct species have to stay that way? Paleontologist Michael Archer says: They don't! He's working to de-extinct the gastric brooding frog and the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. These animals could have taught us humans a lot, says Archer, but we wiped them out. A severe missed opportunity.
Archer is a professor in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Archer's research includes: conservation through sustainable use of native resources -- including having native animals as pets -- and trying to bring extinct species back into the world of the living. Previously Archer served as the Curator of Mammals at the Queensland Museum and Director of the Australian Museum in Sydney.
Michael Archer | Speaker | TED.com