Latif Nasser: You have no idea where camels really come from
拉蒂夫·納賽爾: 你絕不知道駱駝是從哪來的
Latif Nasser is the director of research at Radiolab, where he has reported on such disparate topics as culture-bound illnesses, snowflake photography, sinking islands and 16th-century automata. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
in digging up really old dead stuff.
就是挖掘那些古老的死東西。
I had someone call me "Dr. Dead Things."
是的,有些人就稱我為「死物博士」
she's particularly interesting
而且我覺得她特別有趣,
in the remote Canadian tundra.
偏遠的加拿大苔原地區。
the Fyles Leaf Bed,
岩層挖掘現場,
away from the magnetic north pole.
going to sound very exciting,
這聽起來並沒那麼有趣。
with your backpack and your GPS
背著你的背包、GPS、
anything that might be a fossil.
去撿任何看起來可能是化石的東西。
she noticed something.
她發現了一些東西。
it was just a splinter of wood,
一小塊碎木頭而已。
people had found
prehistoric plant parts.
——史前植物的一部份。
more closely and realizing
like this has tree rings.
of that exact same bone,
都來自同一塊骨頭。
It fits in a small Ziploc bag.
一個小密封袋就能裝得下。
together like a jigsaw puzzle.
把碎片都拼在一起。
into so many little tiny pieces,
and it's not looking good.
但是效果並不是很好。
3D 表面掃描儀。
NR: Yeah, right?
娜:沒錯!很棒吧?
to do it virtually.
用虛擬的方式更簡單啊。
when it all fits together.
一起的時候,感覺就像魔法一樣!
that you had it right,
in the right way?
把它們拼起來的?
put it together a different way
當你換一種方式拼的時候,
或什麽其他的東西?
No, we got this.
呃不會,我們肯定是拼對了。
was a tibia, a leg bone,
是一根脛骨,也就是一根腿骨。
to a cloven-hoofed mammal,
偶蹄類哺乳動物的脛骨。
it was huge. It's a really big animal.
確實很大,這是個大型動物。
one of the fragments
她把其中一小片碎片
and we nicked just the edge of it,
在碎片邊緣切了個小切口,
smell that comes from it.
in her gross anatomy lab:
切割骨頭的時候聞到過:
structure to our bones.
骨頭結構的物質。
like a natural freezer and preserved it.
天然的冷凍箱將它保存了下來。
Natalia was at a conference in Bristol,
去布里斯托參加一個研討會,
of hers named Mike Buckley
that he called "collagen fingerprinting."
他稱之為「膠原蛋白指紋技術」。
have slightly different structures
of an unknown bone,
膠原蛋白分析圖,
to those of known species,
膠原蛋白進行比對。
有可能就配對成功了。
It's kind of important.
到了哪啊,這很重要的。
and modern-day mammal species.
物種進行比對,
the 3.5 million-year-old bone
娜塔莉亞在北極圈裡
out of the High Arctic
That's amazing -- if it's true.
如果這是真的,那就太神奇了!
a bunch of the fragments,
of the bone that they found,
那塊骨頭的尺寸,
larger than modern-day camels.
about nine feet tall,
「駱駝」一詞的時候,
of East and Central Asia.
you have in your brain
like the Middle East and the Sahara,
像是中東或者撒哈拉地區,
for those long desert treks,
tromp over sand dunes.
end up in the High Arctic?
到底是如何跑到北極圈呢?
for a long time, turns out,
originally American.
that camels have been around,
大概有 4000 萬年的時間,
或許更多。
would they look different?
看起來會有區別嗎?
different body sizes.
牠們的體積差別很大。
functionally like giraffes.
從功能來說更像是長頸鹿。
early ones would have been really small,
早期駱駝可能非常小;
would not recognize.
我好想要隻「兔駱駝」寵物啊!
wouldn't that be great?
聽起來很棒不是嗎?
to seven million years ago,
300 萬至 700 萬年前,
went down to South America,
向南遷徙到了南美洲。
the Bering Land Bridge
of the last ice age,
how Natalia found one so far north.
是怎麼在那麼北的地方發現駱駝的。
the polar opposite of the Sahara.
簡直就是撒哈拉的反義詞。
warmer than it is now.
高攝氏 22 度。
six-month-long winters
of straight darkness.
Saharan superstars
those arctic conditions?
think they have an answer.
她們找到了答案。
make the camel so well-suited
並不如我們所想,
那樣的環境而產生,
get through the winter?
度過嚴寒才演化出來的呢?
to tromp not over sand,
不是爲了踏過沙丘,
which, huge news to me,
對我來說,真是天大的新聞!
get through that six-month-long winter,
it crossed over the land bridge
for a hot desert environment?
改進成適應炎熱的沙漠環境的呢?
may be helpful to camels in hotter climes
在炎熱的氣候下可能非常有用,
to have that insulation
quintessential desert nature
駱駝典型的沙漠特性的證據,
of its High Arctic past.
生活在北極圈裡的證據。
to tell this story.
to marvel at evolutionary biology
以此讚歎生物進化的神奇,
of climate change.
以此來看未來的氣候變化。
different reason.
有一個完全不同的原因。
a lot of scientists are historians, too.
同時也是歷史學家。
of our planet, of life on this planet.
宇宙、星球、地球生命的歷史。
of how the story goes.
關於故事是如何發展的。
and we stick with it,
然後以此繼續講下去。
It's totally adapted for that.
駱駝非常適應沙漠環境,
uncover some tiny bit of evidence.
發現一些細小的線索,
everything you thought you knew.
你自以為知道的一切。
finds this one shard
new and totally counterintuitive theory
反直覺的理論,
Dr. Seuss-looking creature
像極了蘇斯博士筆下的生物,
the way I think of the camel.
它完全顛覆了我對駱駝的認知,
this ridiculously niche creature
one specific environment,
that just happens to be in the Sahara,
只是恰好出現在撒哈拉沙漠。
one of these for you here.
from her regular gig
as a living reminder
作為一個鮮活的例子,
is a dynamic one.
瞬息萬變的。
to readjust, to reimagine.
大膽想像。
just one shard of bone away
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Latif Nasser - Radio researcherLatif Nasser is the director of research at Radiolab, where he has reported on such disparate topics as culture-bound illnesses, snowflake photography, sinking islands and 16th-century automata.
Why you should listen
The history of science is "brimming with tales stranger than fiction," says Latif Nasser, who wrote his PhD dissertation on the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962. A writer and researcher, Nasser is now the research director at Radiolab, a job that allows him to dive into archives, talk to interesting people and tell stories as a way to think about science and society.
Latif Nasser | Speaker | TED.com