TED英語演講：奇異而奇妙的發光世界

　　演講者：Alexis Ohanian

　　The Kraken, a beast so terrifying it wassaid to devour men and ships and whales, and so enormous it could be mistakenfor an island. In assessing the merits of such tales, it's probably wise tokeep in mind that old sailor's saw that the only difference between a fairytaleand a sea story is a fairytale begins, "Once upon a time," and a seastory begins, "This ain't no shit." (Laughter)

　　北海巨妖，一只恐怖的野獸，據說它吞食活人、船只和鯨魚，并且它是如此巨大以至于會被誤認為是一座小島。在評估這樣的故事的真實性時，聰明的做法也許是謹記著老水手對童話和海洋傳說的區別的看法是童話往往這樣開始：“很久以前……”而一個海洋傳說會這樣開始：“這不是胡扯。”(笑)

　　Every fish that gets away grows with everytelling of the tale. Nevertheless, there are giants in the ocean, and we nowhave video proof, as those of you that saw the Discovery Channel documentaryare no doubt aware.

　　每次講一個關于跑掉的魚的故事時，這條魚都會隨著故事講的次數而變大。然而大海中也有巨人，并且現在我們有了視頻為證，如果你們看過探索頻道的紀錄片，那肯定知道這個。

　　I was one of the three scientists on thisexpedition that took place last summer off Japan. I'm the short one. The othertwo are Dr. Tsunemi Kubodera and Dr. Steve O'Shea.

　　我是參與探索旅程的三位科學家之一，這次旅程于去年奇異而奇妙的生物發光世界夏天在日本開展。我是照片里最矮的那個。其他兩位是窪寺恒己博士和史蒂夫·歐謝伊博士。

　　I owe my participation in this now-historicevent to TED. In 20xx, there was a TED event called Mission Blue held aboardthe Lindblad Explorer in the Galapagos as part of the fulfillment of SylviaEarle's TED wish. I spoke about a new way of exploring the ocean, one thatfocuses on attracting animals instead of scaring them away.

　　我能參與到這個歷史性的事件中來這還要感謝TED。20xx年有一場TED活動叫做“藍色使命”這場活動在停靠于加拉帕戈斯群島的林德布拉德探險者號上進行作為西爾維亞·厄爾的“TED愿望”的一部分。我講了探索海洋的新途徑，其中一個重點是要吸引動物而不是將它們嚇跑。

　　Mike deGruy was alsoinvited, and he spoke with great passion about his love of the ocean, and healso talked to me about applying my approach to something he's been involvedwith for a very long time, which is the hunt for the giant squid. It was Mikethat got me invited to the squid summit, a gathering of squid experts at theDiscovery Channel that summer during Shark Week. (Laughter)

　　麥克·德葛魯也被邀請了，他很有激情的講了他對大海的熱愛并且他還講到了應用我的方法到一些他參與很久的項目中來，那就是尋找巨型烏賊。是邁克讓我能受邀參加烏賊研討峰會，那是在那個夏天的鯊魚周中在探索頻道開展的一次烏賊專家聚會。

　　I gave a talk on unobtrusive viewing andoptical luring of deep sea squid in which I emphasized the importance of usingquiet, unobtrusive platforms for exploration. This came out of hundreds ofdives I have made, farting around in the dark using these platforms, and myimpression that I saw more animals working fr-om the submersible than I did witheither of the remote-operated vehicles. But that could just be because thesubmersible has a wider field of view. But I also felt like I saw more animalsworking with the Tiburon than the Ventana, two vehicles with the same field ofview but different propulsion systems.

　　我發表了一個關于非介入觀察和使用光誘餌吸引深海烏賊的演講。我強調了探索應采用無聲、非介入的平臺。這個結論源自我幾百次的潛水活動，使用這些平臺在黑暗中四處觀察給我的印象是從潛水器中觀察比我使用遠程遙控潛艇能夠看到更多的動物。但這可能只是因為潛水器具有更廣闊的視角。另外我還發覺使用蒂伯龍潛艇比溫塔娜潛艇我觀察到了更多的動物，兩種潛艇的視野相同但采用了不同的推進系統。

　　So my suspicion was that it might havesomething to do with the amount of noise they make. So I set up a hydrophone onthe bottom of the ocean, and I had each of these fly by at the same speed anddistance and recorded the sound they made. The Johnson Sea-Link -- (whirringnoise) -- which you can probably just barely hear here, uses electric thrusters-- very, very quiet.

　　所以我懷疑這可能跟他們產生的噪音大小有關。因此我在海底安置了一個水聽器，然后我讓每一個潛艇以同樣的速度和距離經過并記錄它們發出的聲音。約翰遜深海鏈接潛艇---(呼呼聲噪音)的聲音可能只能被勉強聽到，它使用的是電動推進器---非常、非常安靜。

　　The Tiburon also uses electric powered thrusters. It'salso pretty quiet, but a bit noisier. (Louder whirring noise) But mostdeep-diving ROVs these days use hydraulics and they sound like the Ventana.(Loud beeping noise) I think that's got to be scaring a lot of animals away.

　　蒂伯龍潛艇使用的也是電動推進器。它也相當安靜，但是噪音要稍大一點。(稍大的呼呼聲噪音)但目前能潛到最深的那些遠程遙控潛艇大多使用的是液壓驅動系統它們的聲音與溫塔娜潛艇的一樣。(大聲蜂鳴音噪音)我認為它的聲音會嚇跑很多的動物。

　　So for the deep sea squid hunt, I proposedusing an optical lure attached to a camera platform with no thrusters, nomotors, just a battery-powered camera, and the only illumination coming fr-omred light that's invisible to most deep-sea animals that are adapted to seeprimarily blue. That's visible to our eye, but it's the equivalent of infraredin the deep sea.

　　所以對于深海烏賊的探索，我建議使用光誘餌，將光源安裝到一個沒有推進器、沒有發動機的相機平臺上，只有一個電池驅動的相機，并且唯一的光源來自紅光紅光是大部分的深海生物無法看到的它們適應了只能主要看到藍色光。這對我們是可見的，但它相當于深海中的紅外線。

　　So this camera platform, which we called the Medusa, couldjust be thrown off the back of the ship, attached to a float at the surfacewith over 2,000 feet of line, it would just float around passively carried bythe currents, and the only light visible to the animals in the deep would bethe blue light of the optical lure, which we called the electronic jellyfish,or e-jelly, because it was designed to imitate the bioluminescent display ofthe common deep sea jellyfish Atolla.

　　所以這個我們稱之為美杜沙的相機平臺可以直接從船后方扔到水中，平臺用長于610米的繩索連在船上，它會被動地由洋流驅使在周圍漂流，深海中動物們唯一可看見的光是光誘餌所發出的藍色光，我們將其稱之為電子水母，因為它的設計是模仿常見的深海棕色水母所發出的生物光。

　　Now, this pinwheel of light that the Atollaproduces is known as a bioluminescent burglar alarm and is a form of defense.The reason that the electronic jellyfish worked as a lure is not because giantsquid eat jellyfish, but it's because this jellyfish only resorts to producingthis light when it's being chewed on by a predator and its only hope for escapemay be to attract the attention of a larger predator that will attack itsattacker and thereby afford it an opportunity for escape. It's a scream forhelp, a last-ditch attempt for escape, and a common form of defense in the deepsea.

　　棕色水母所發出的這種旋轉光被認為是一種生物光報警和一種防御形式。電子水母能成為誘餌的原因不是因為巨型烏賊捕食水母，而是因為這種水母只會在它被捕食者咀嚼的時候發出這種光，水母唯一可以逃生的希望是吸引到更大型捕食者的注意，這樣它就會攻擊水母的捕食者從而讓水母有機會逃跑。這是呼喚幫助的尖叫，逃跑的最后希望，也是深海中一種常見的防御形式。

　　The approach worked. Whereas all previousexpeditions had failed to garner a single video glimpse of the giant, wemanaged six, and the first triggered wild excitement.

　　這個方法是有效的。之前所有的探索活動都沒能成功獲得巨型烏賊的影像資料，而我們成功錄了六段視頻，第一次拍到巨型烏賊的視頻時我們興奮極了。

　　Edith Widder (on video): Oh my God. Oh myGod! Are you kidding me?Other scientists: Oh ho ho! That's just hanging there.

　　(視頻中)伊迪絲·維達：哦，我的上帝。哦，我的上帝!你在跟我開玩笑嗎?其他科學家：哦呵呵!就在那里。

　　EW: It was like it was teasing us, doing akind of fan dance -- now you see me, now you don't -- and we had four suchteasing appearances, and then on the fifth, it came in and totally wowed us.

　　就像它在戲弄我們，跳著一種有趣的舞蹈---現在你看到我，現在你又看不到我了---我們先看到了四次這樣的“戲弄”，然后第五次時，它靠近了并完全震撼了我們。”

　　(Music) Narrator: (Speaking in Japanese)

　　(音樂)講述人：(日語)

　　Scientists: Ooh. Bang! Oh my God! Whoa!

　　科學家們：“哦，砰!哦，我的上帝!哇噻!”

　　EW: The full monty.

　　完全的震撼。

　　What really wowed me about that was the wayit came in up over the e-jelly and then attacked the enormous thing next to it,which I think it mistook for the predator on the e-jelly.

　　讓我真正震撼的是它來到電子水母上來的方式然后攻擊電子水母旁邊的巨大東西，我認為它誤認為電子水母上面的是水母的捕食者。

　　But even more incredible was the footageshot fr-om the Triton submersible. What was not mentioned in the Discoverydocumentary was that the bait squid that Dr. Kubodera used, a one-meter longdiamondback squid had a light attached to it, a squid jig of the type thatlongline fishermen use, and I think it was this light that brought the giantin.

　　但更令人難以置信的是從特里頓潛水器里拍攝的鏡頭。探索頻道紀錄片里沒有提到的是窪寺恒己博士使用的誘餌烏賊：一只一米長的菱鰭烏賊用延繩捕魚的漁夫使用的烏賊掛鉤將光源附到它身上，我認為正是這個光吸引到了巨型烏賊。

　　Now, what you're seeing is the intensifiedcamera's view under red light, and that's all Dr. Kubodera could see when thegiant comes in here. And then he got so excited, he turned on his flashlightbecause he wanted to see better, and the giant didn't run away, so he riskedturning on the white lights on the submersible, bringing a creature of legendfr-om the misty history into high-resolution video. It was absolutelybreathtaking, and had this animal had its feeding tentacles intact and fullyextended, it would have been as tall as a two-story house.

　　現在你們看到的是高敏感相機使用紅色光錄下的影像，這是窪寺恒己博士在巨型烏賊出現在這里時所看到的全部。然后他變得如此興奮他打開了他的手電想看的更清楚些，并且巨型烏賊沒有逃跑，因此他冒著風險打開了潛水器上的所有白色光，把一種傳說中的生物從朦朧的歷史變成了高清晰視頻。它是如此的驚人，如果這個生物將它的捕食觸手完全伸展開的話，它會有兩層樓那樣高。

　　How could something that big live in ourocean and yet remain unfilmed until now? We've only explored about five percentof our ocean. There are great discoveries yet to be made down there, fantasticcreatures representing millions of years of evolution and possibly bioactivecompounds that could benefit us in ways that we can't even yet imagine.

　　為什么如此巨大的東西生活在我們的海洋但直到現在才被拍攝到呢?我們目前只探索了海洋的大約5%。很多偉大的發現將會出現在水下，代表數百萬年的進化過程的偉大生物們和很可能發現的生物活性化合物這些發現可能會帶給我們無法想象的好處。

　　Yet wehave spent only a tiny fraction of the money on ocean exploration that we'vespent on space exploration. We need a NASA-like organization for oceanexploration, because we need to be exploring and protecting our life support systemshere on Earth.

　　然而相較于宇宙探索我們只花了一小部分錢用于海洋探索。我們需要一個類似美國國家航空航天局的組織來探索海洋，因為我們需要探索和保護地球上的我們的生命支持系統。

　　We need — thank you. (Applause)

　　我們需要---謝謝。(掌聲)

　　Exploration is the engine that drivesinnovation. Innovation drives economic growth. So let's all go exploring, butlet's do it in a way that doesn't scare the animals away, or, as Mike deGruyonce said, "If you want to get away fr-om it all and see something you'venever seen, or have an excellent chance of seeing something that no one's everseen, get in a sub." He should have been with us for this adventure. Wemiss him. (Applause)

　　探索是推動創新的引擎。創新驅動著經濟增長。所以讓我們一起去探索吧，但是讓我們要用一種不會嚇跑動物們的方式，或者如麥克·德葛魯曾經說過的：“如果你想要擺脫一切并且看到一些你從未見過的東西，或有絕佳的機會看到一些前所未見的東西，那么下到潛水艇里吧。“他本應和我們一起進行這次冒險。我們緬懷他。