定制学 L8-U3-P1 Evolving Our Bodies

写在前面

原视频来自 TED Summit 讲座 Juan Enriquez: What will humans look like in 100 years?, June 2016，字幕 (subtitle) 参考自官方网站。

注：本文在字幕基础上会有一些笔者个人的笔记，而且字幕会根据笔者听记和具体课程内容进行修改，如有错误敬请告知。

Introduction: We can evolve bacteria, plants and animals -- futurist Juan Enriquez asks: Is it ethical to evolve the human body? In a visionary talk that ranges from medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, Enriquez sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.

导言: 我们可以让细菌和动植物进化，那么使人体进化呢？“人体进化是否合乎伦理？”未来学家 Juan Enriquez 带着这样的疑问，在本次演讲中罗列了从中世纪时期的修复学到当下的神经工程学与遗传学所运用的技术，为观众们梳理了其中与人体进化相关的伦理学问题，并对未来想在地球以外的地方生活的人类会如何改造身体进行了设想。

Video 1

本节共 1 小节，时长 01:50。

Here's a question that matters. ["Is it ethical to evolve the human body?"]

Right? Because we're beginning to get all the tools together to evolve ourselves.

And we can evolve bacteria and we can evolve plants and we can evolve animals,

and we're now reaching a point where we really have to ask, is it really ethical and do we want to evolve human beings?

And as you're thinking about that, let me talk about that in the context of prosthetics, prosthetics past, present, future.

prosthetics /prɑːsˈθetɪks/ pl. 假肢 n. 修复学、修补学，一种外科分支，研究假肢相关的内容

此处第四条中的 point 疑似有误，音频里出现的似乎是 flat，但官方字幕和课程里的文本使用了 point。

So this is the iron hand that belonged to one of the German counts.

Loved to fight, lost his arm in one of these battles.

No problem, he just made a suit of armor, put it on, perfect prosthetic.

That's where the concept of ruling with an iron fist comes from.

count n. 总数，总量 v. 统计，清点；包括
rule with an iron fist 实行铁腕统治

And of course these prosthetics have been getting more and more useful, more and more modern. You can hold soft-boiled eggs.

You can have all types of controls, and as you're thinking about that,

there are wonderful people like Hugh Herr who've been building absolutely extraordinary prosthetics.

So the wonderful Aimee Mullins will go out and say, how tall do I want to be tonight?

Or Hugh'll say what type of cliff do I want to climb?

Or does somebody want to run a marathon, or does somebody want to ballroom dance?

And as you adapt these things, the interesting thing about prosthetics is they've been coming inside the body.

So these external prosthetics have now become artificial knees. They've become artificial hips.

And then they've evolved further to become not just nice to have but essential to have.

soft-boiled egg 半熟的水煮蛋
ballroom dance 交谊舞 ballroom n. 舞厅，跳舞场
adapt v. (使) 适应；改编 adopt v. 采用，正式通过；收养，领养 adept adj. 擅长的，娴熟的
hip n. 臀部；野蔷薇果 adj. 时髦的，熟悉时尚的

此处第四条中提到的 Aimee Mullins 是一名残奥会短跑冠军、作家。

So when you're talking about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic,

you're talking about something that isn't just, "I'm missing my leg," it's, "if I don't have this, I can die."

And at that point, a prosthetic becomes a symbiotic relationship with the human body.

heart pacemaker 心脏起搏器

此处第三条中的 symbiotic relationship 表示共生关系，可以具体细分为 mutualism (互利共生), commensalism (偏利共生), parasitism (寄生) 等等。

Video 2

本节共 2 小节，时长 04:04。

And four of the smartest people that I've ever met -- Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- are working on a Center for Extreme Bionics.

And the interesting thing of what you're seeing here is these prosthetics now get integrated into the bone; they get integrated into the skin; they get integrated into the muscle.

And one of the other sides of Ed is he's been thinking about how to connect the brain using light or other mechanisms directly to things like these prosthetics.

And if you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity.

So how quickly you react to something depends on the diameter of a nerve.

And of course, if you have nerves that are external or prosthetic, say with light or liquid metal,

then you can increase that diameter. You could even increase it theoretically to the point where,

as long as you could see the muzzle flash, you could step out of the way of a bullet.

Those are the order of magnitude of changes you're talking about.

bionics n. 仿生学；生物机械学
fundamental adj. 根本的，十分重大的；基本的，不能再分的
muzzle flash 开枪时枪口处闪现的火光 muzzle n. 动物的口鼻处；给动物戴的口套；枪口，炮口 v. 给 ... 带上口套；阻止 ... 的言论
bullet /ˈbʊlɪt/ n. 子弹，弹丸
order of magnitude 数量级

This is a fourth sort of level of prosthetics. These are Phonak hearing aids,

and the reason why these are so interesting is ~~because~~ they cross the threshold from where prosthetics are something for somebody who is "disabled"

and they become something that somebody who is "normal" might want to actually have,

because what this prosthetic does, which is really interesting, is not only does it help you hear,

you can focus your hearing, so it can hear the conversation going on over there.

You can have superhearing, you can have hearing in 360 degrees, you can have white noise, you can record, and oh, by the way, they also put a phone into this.

So this functions as your hearing aid and also as your phone.

And at that point, somebody might actually want to have a prosthetic voluntarily.

此处第一条中的 Phonak 是一家瑞士公司，主要研制各类助听器。
此处第二条是口语化的非正式表达，在正式表达里，the reason is 后面的部分不能用连词 because 引导，但可以使用 that 引导的表语从句。
此处第二条中的 "disabled" 在讲座中用手势代表了双引号；此处第三条中的 "normal" 在讲座中的读法为 quote and quote, normal。

All these thousands of loosely connected little pieces are coming together,

and it's about time we ask the question, how do we want to evolve human beings over the next century or two?

And for that, we turn to a great philosopher [Yogi Berra]

who was a very smart man despite being a Yankee fan.

And Yogi Berra used to say, of course, that it's very tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

此处第四条中的 Yankee 指一只棒球队伍 New York Yankees。这支队伍的帽徽是叠写的 NY，如下图。

picture from wikipedia

So instead of making a prediction about the future to begin with, let's take what's happening in the present with people like Tony Atala,

who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs.

And maybe the ultimate prosthetic isn't having something external, titanium. Maybe the ultimate prosthetic is taking your own gene code,

remake your own body parts, because that's a whole lot more effective than any kind of a prosthetic.

But while you're at it, then you can take the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith.

And one of the things that we've been doing is trying to figure out how to reprogram cells.

And if you can reprogram a cell, then you can change the cells in those organs.

So if you can change the cells in those organs, maybe you make those organs more radiation-resistant; maybe you make them absorb more oxygen; maybe you make them more efficient to filter out stuff that you don't want in your body.

titanium /tɪˈteɪniəm/ n. 钛
gene n. 基因
absorb /əbˈzɔːrb/ v. 吸收，吸入；同化；理解，掌握

此处第一条中 Tony 是 Anthony 的简称；此处第五条中的 Ham 是 Hamilton 的简称。
数字-some-odd 表示比该数字多一点，例如此处第二条中的 30-some-odd 表示 30 余个。

And over the last few weeks, George Church has been in the news a lot

because he's been talking about taking one of these programmable cells and inserting an entire human genome into that cell.

And once you can insert an entire human genome into a cell, then you begin to ask the question, "Would you want to enhance any of that genome?

Do you want to enhance a human body?

How would you want to enhance a human body?

Where is it ethical to enhance a human body and where is it not ethical to enhance a human body?"

And all of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chessboard

where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS,

or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases, or we can change the environment,

and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations.

And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits

that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.

genome n. 基因组，染色体组 genetics n. 遗传学
do away with 消除，废除，终止
hereditary adj. 遗传性的；世袭的，有世袭身份的 heredity n. 遗传过程；遗传特征

此处第八条中的 AIDS 指 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (获得性免疫缺陷综合征)，音译为艾滋病。
此处第十条中的 epigenome 指表观基因组，它能记录生物体 DNA 与组蛋白的一系列化学变化，影响染色体结构以及基因作用，并且它具有遗传能力，可以被环境因素动态更改，例如环境导致的遗传性疾病就和其有关。

Video 3

本节共 2 小节，时长 04:44。

And a lot of people are very scared by this stuff.

And it does sound scary, and there are risks to this stuff.

So why in the world would you ever want to do this stuff?

Why would we really want to alter the human body in a fundamental way?

The answer lies in part with Lord Rees, astronomer royal of Great Britain.

And one of his favorite sayings is the universe is 100 percent malevolent.

So what does that mean? It means if you take any one of your bodies at random, drop it anywhere in the universe, drop it in space, you die.

Drop it on the Sun, you die; drop it on the surface of Mercury, you die; drop it near a supernova, you die.

But fortunately, it's only about 80 percent effective.

malevolent /məˈlevələnt/ adj. 充满恶意的，心肠狠毒的 benevolent /bəˈnevələnt/ adj. 仁慈怜悯的，乐善好施的
supernova /ˈsuːpərnoʊvə/ n. 超新星，某些恒星在演化接近末期时经历的一种剧烈爆炸 (注: 它是事件，不是物体)

此处第五条中的 Great Britain 指 Kingdom of Great Britain (大不列颠王国)，其与北爱尔兰构成联合王国，即英国。

So as a great physicist once said, there's these little upstream eddies of biology that create order in this rapid torrent of entropy.

So as the universe dissipates energy, there's these upstream eddies that create biological order.

Now, the problem with eddies is, they tend to disappear -- they shift; they move in rivers.

And because of that, when an eddy shifts, when the Earth becomes a snowball, when the Earth becomes very hot, when the Earth gets hit by an asteroid,

when you have supervolcanoes, when you have solar flares,

when you have potentially extinction-level events like the next election,

then all of a sudden, you can have periodic extinctions.

And by the way, that's happened five times on Earth,

and therefore it is very likely that the human species on Earth is going to go extinct someday.

Not next week, not next month, maybe in November, but maybe 10,000 years after that.

torrent n. 湍流，激流，洪流；迸发，连发，狂潮
entropy /ˈentrəpi/ n. 混乱无序的状态；(热力学) 熵，体系混乱程度的度量 trophy /ˈtroʊfi/ n. 奖杯，奖品；纪念品，战利品
dissipate /ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/ v. (使) 消散，驱散并慢慢消失；挥霍
solar flare 太阳耀斑 solar wind 太阳风 sunspot n. 太阳黑子

此处第一条和第二条中的 there's + 复数名词 是口语化的非正式表达，虽然一些语言学家认为这种表达是合理的，但是不建议在正式表达中使用。顺带一提，there're 算是 there are 和 there were 的缩写，在正式表达中也不建议使用。
此处第六条中的 the next election 和第十条中的 November 都是指 2016 年举行的美国第 58 届总统选举（每四年选举一次），选举初步结果（全民投票）在当年的 11 月揭晓，随后会产生代表在同年 12 月按照全民投票的意向进行实际投票。一般来说，初步结果可以代表最终结果，除非出现不可抗力导致无法上任。

As you're thinking of the consequence of that,

if you believe that extinctions are common and natural and normal and occur periodically,

it becomes a moral imperative to diversify our species.

And it becomes a moral imperative because

it's going to be really hard to live on Mars if we don't fundamentally modify the human body. Right?

You go from one cell, mom and dad coming together to make one cell, in a cascade to 10 trillion cells.

We don't know, if you change the gravity substantially, if the same thing will happen to create your body.

We do know that if you expose our bodies as they currently are to a lot of radiation, we will die.

So as you're thinking of that, you have to really redesign things just to get to Mars.

Forget about the moons of Neptune or Jupiter.

moral imperative 道德准则 imperative n. 重要紧急的事，命令；必要的事，需要；规则；祈使语气 adj. 迫切的，紧急的；必要的，不可避免的，势在必行的；命令的，专横的；祈使的
cascade n. (尤指一连串瀑布中的一支) 小瀑布；倾泻 v. 如瀑布般下落，倾泻而出
substantially adv. 充分地，极其，相当巨大地；实质上；大体上，基本上，总的来说
moon n. 行星的天然卫星；月亮 Neptune n. 海王星 Jupiter n. 木星

And to borrow from Nikolai Kardashev, let's think about life in a series of scales.

So Life One civilization is a civilization that begins to alter his or her looks.

And we've been doing that for thousands of years.

You know, you've got tummy tucks and you've got this and you've got that.

You've altered, you know, your looks, and I'm told that not all of those alterations take place for medical reasons.

Seems odd.

borrow /ˈbɔːroʊ/ v. 借入
tummy tuck (非正式) 腹部整形手术，即 abdominoplasty

此处第一条中提到的 Nikolai Kardashev 是一名俄国天体物理学家 (1932-2019)，他设计了一套度量体系 Kardashev scale 通过能够利用的功率来区分宇宙中文明发展的等级，其中一级文明能够使用一颗行星上其母星 (恒星) 对其辐射的全部能量 (例如太阳辐射到地球的能量)，二级文明能够使用一颗恒星辐射的全部能量 (例如太阳系中的能量)，三级文明能够使用一个恒星系辐射的全部能量 (例如银河系中的能量)，这和本篇讲座里提到的 Life N civilization 略有不同，不能对标。

A Life Two civilization is a different civilization.

A Life Two civilization alters fundamental aspects of the body.

So you put human growth hormone in and the person grows taller, or you put X in and the person gets fatter or loses metabolism or does a whole series of things,

but you're altering the functions in a fundamental way.

To become an intrasolar civilization, we're going to have to create a Life Three civilization,

and that looks very different from what we've got here.

Maybe you splice in Deinococcus radiodurans so that the cells can resplice after a lot of exposure to radiation.

Maybe you breathe by having oxygen flow through your blood instead of through your lungs.

intrasolar adj. 太阳系以内的 extrasolar adj. 太阳系以外的
splice v. 粘接，胶接，铰接，捻接 slice v. 把 ... 切成薄片 split v. (使) 分裂，(使) 分开

此处第三条中的 Deinococcus radiodurans 指抗辐射奇异球菌，其对辐射有极强的抵抗能力。

But you're talking about really radical redesigns,

and one of the interesting things that's happened in the last decade is we've discovered a whole lot of planets out there.

And some of them may be Earth-like.

The problem is if we ever want to get to these planets, the fastest human objects,

Juno and Voyager and the rest of this stuff, take tens of thousands of years to get from here to the nearest solar system.

So if you want to start exploring beaches somewhere else,

or you want to see two-sun sunsets, then you're talking about something that is very different,

because you have to change the timescale and the body of humans in ways which may be absolutely unrecognizable.

And that's a Life Four civilization.

radical adj. 根本的；彻底的；激进的 n. 方根；根式；自由基

此处第二条中的 that's 是错误表达 (可能读起来比较顺口)，正确的表达应该是 that've。
此处第五条中的 Juno 指朱诺号木星探测器，Voyager 指两颗旅行者号外层星系空间探测器。

Video 4

本节共 2 小节，时长 04:46。

Now, we can't even begin to imagine what that might look like, but we're beginning to get glimpses of instruments that might take us even that far.

And let me give you two examples. So this is the wonderful Floyd Romesberg,

and one of the things that Floyd's been doing is he's been playing with the basic chemistry of life.

So all life on this planet is made in ATCGs, the four letters of DNA.

All bacteria, all plants, all animals, all humans, all cows, and everything else.

And what Floyd did is he changed out two of those base pairs, so it's ATXY.

And that means that you now have a parallel system to make life, to make babies, to reproduce, to evolve,

that doesn't mate with most things on Earth or in fact maybe with nothing on Earth.

Maybe you make plants that are immune to all bacteria; maybe you make plants that are immune to all viruses.

But why is that so interesting? It means that we are not a unique solution.

It means you can create alternate chemistries to us that could be chemistries adaptable to a very different planet that could create life and heredity.

instrument n. 手段，促成某事的人或物；仪器，工具，器械；乐器
chemistry n. 物质的化学组成；化学，化学过程；两人间的某种强烈关系

此处第四条中的 is made in 是不恰当的表达 (据说母语者偶尔会用错搭配 ... 但他们能立刻搞懂含义)，个人认为恰当的表达应该是 is made up of。以下是部分介词搭配的辨析：
- 材料：be made of 强调制作过程没有改变原材料的形式 (成品中还能分离出原材料)，be made from 强调材料到成品产生了不可逆的变化 (例如化学反应，再例如制作后无法恢复如初)，be made out of 强调材料从某一种形式转化成另一种形式，be made up of 强调多种事物的组合构成了整体。
- 状态：be made by 强调制作的执行者，be made in 强调制作的环境 (例如时间、地点)，be made for 强调制作的目的。
- 其他：be made with 用于表达制作 (尤指食物) 时所用到的 (尤指主要的) 成分、工序等等 (可以是抽象事物)，此时可以只列举一部分信息，另外如果要包含非抽象的成分，通常制作的物品需要是多种成分混合。

The second experiment, or the other implication of this experiment, is that all of you, all life is based on 20 amino acids.

If you don't substitute two amino acids -- if you don't say ATXY -- if you say ATCG plus XY, then you go from 20 building blocks to 172,

and all of a sudden you've got 172 building blocks of amino acids to build life-forms in very different shapes.

amino acid 氨基酸

The second experiment to think about is a really weird experiment that's been taking place in China.

So this guy has been transplanting hundreds of mouse heads. Right?

And why is that an interesting experiment?

Well, think of the first heart transplants.

One of the things they used to do is they used to bring in the wife or the daughter of the donor

so the donee could tell the doctors, "Do you recognize this person? Do you love this person? Do you feel anything for this person?"

We laugh about that today.

We laugh because we know the heart is a muscle, but for hundreds of thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years,

"I gave her my heart. She took my heart. She broke my heart." We thought this was emotion

and we thought maybe emotions were transplanted with the heart. Nope.

So how about the brain? Two possible outcomes to this experiment.

If you can get a mouse that is functional, then you can see, is the new brain a blank slate?

And boy, does that have implications?

Second option: the new mouse recognizes Minnie Mouse.

The new mouse remembers what it's afraid of, remembers how to navigate the maze,

and if that is true, then you can transplant memory and consciousness.

And then the really interesting question is, if you can transplant this, is the only input-output mechanism this down here?

Or could you transplant that consciousness into something that would be very different,

that would last in space, that would last tens of thousands of years, that would be a completely redesigned body that could hold consciousness for a long, long period of time?

blank slate 白板，空白的石板
mechanism n. 机制，体制，结构方式；机械装置，机械部件

此处第四条中的 Minnie Mouse 原意是米妮老鼠，是一位卡通人物，这里比喻为恋爱对象。
此处第七条中的 this 为疑问句中的宾语成分。

And let's come back to the first question: "Why would you ever want to do that?"

Well, I'll tell you why -- because this is the ultimate selfie.

This is taken from six billion miles away, and that's Earth.

And that's all of us. And if that little thing goes, all of humanity goes.

And the reason why you want to alter the human body is ~~because~~ you eventually want a picture that says,

"That's us, and that's us, and that's us." Because that's the way humanity survives long-term extinction.

And that's the reason why it turns out it's actually unethical not to evolve the human body

even though it can be scary, even though it can be challenging,

but it's what's going to allow us to explore, live and get to places we can't even dream of today,

but which our great-great-great-great-grandchildren might someday.

Thank you very much.

此处第四条是口语化的非正式表达，在正式表达里，the reason is 后面的部分不能用连词 because 引导，但可以使用 that 引导的表语从句。
此处第十条中的 great- 指 ... 的孩子，例如 great-grandchild 指曾孙 (孙的孩子)，great-great-grandchild 指玄孙 (曾孙的孩子)，great-great-great-grandchild 指来孙 (玄孙的孩子)，great-great-great-great-grandchild 指晜孙 (kūn sūn, 来孙的孩子)。

Grammar & Speaking

malicious adj. 怀有恶意的，恶毒的
apathetic adj. 冷漠的，淡漠的，无动于衷的，缺乏兴趣的 indifferent adj. 不感兴趣的，漠不关心的；平庸的，一般的；中立的，不分化的

洒洒水啦～