評論
打印
These bacteria are not passive riders, these are incredibly important, they keep us alive.
這些細菌不是順從的乘客，他們難以置信得重要，他們讓我們活著。
They cover us in an invisible body armor that keeps environmental insults out so that we stay healthy.
它們是我們身上的無形盔甲，阻斷來之環境的傷，保持我們的健康。
They digest our food, they make our vitamins, they actually educate your immune system to keep bad microbes out.
它們消化食物，制造維他命，它們還指導你的免疫系統將有害微生物阻擋在體外。
So they do all these amazing things that help us and are vital for keeping us alive, and they never get any press for that.
它們盡心盡職干活，幫助我們，維護我們的生命，卻從沒有因此得到過報道。
But they get a lot of press because they do a lot of terrible things as well.
反而卻因為它們同時做的許多壞事而時常見報。
So, there's all kinds of bacteria on the Earth that have no business being in you or on you at any time,
地球上有無數種細菌，有些在任何時候都絕對不應該出現在你的體內體表，
and if they are, they make you incredibly sick.
然而假如你不幸遇到了，那你一定會病得很厲害。
And so, the question for my lab is whether you want to think about all the good things that bacteria do, or all the bad things that bacteria do.
所以, 我們實驗室研究的問題是，正是你想知道的，細菌做的所有好事或者細菌做的所有壞事。
The question we had is how could they do anything at all?
我們曾經提出一個疑問: 它們究竟是怎么做到的?
I mean they're incredibly small, you have to have a microscope to see one.
我指的是，它們是那么細微，用顯微鏡才能看到一個。
They live this sort of boring life where they grow and divide, and they've always been considered to be these asocial reclusive organisms.
它們的生活好像只是單調乏味的成長與分裂，而且長久以來被認為是不善社交的隱居生命體。
And so it seemed to us that they are just too small to have an impact on the environment if they simply act as individuals.
所以在我們看來，它們實在是太渺小，如果單槍匹馬，根本到無法對環境產生任何影響。
And so we wanted to think if there couldn't be a different way that bacteria live.
所以我們正在探討細菌是不是有著特殊的生存方式。
The clue to this came from another marine bacterium, and it's a bacterium called Vibrio fischeri.
解答這個問題的線索，來自一種叫做費氏弧菌的海洋細菌。
What you're looking at on this slide is just a person from my lab holding a flask of a liquid culture of a bacterium,
你們在這張幻燈看到的，是我實驗室的一個工作人員握著一瓶裝滿這種細菌的培養液，
a harmless beautiful bacterium that comes from the ocean, named Vibrio fischeri.
這是一種來自海洋的、美麗而且無害的細菌，叫做費氏弧菌。
This bacterium has the special property that it makes light, so it makes bioluminescence, like fireflies make light.
這種細菌的特性是會發光，產生生物熒光，像螢火蟲一樣。
We're not doing anything to the cells here.
我們沒有對這些細胞做任何處理。
We just took the picture by turning the lights off in the room, and this is what we see.
我們只是把房間燈關了，然后照了這張照片，這是我們所見到的情形。
