跟李想死磕TED｜01-04 The tiny creature that secretly powers the planet

And collectively, they weigh more than the human population and they photosynthesize as much as all of the crops on land. They're incredibly important in the global ocean. So over the years, as we were studying them and found how abundant they were, we thought, hmm, this is really strange. How can a single species be so abundant across so many different habitats? And as we isolated more into culture, we learned that they are different ecotypes. There are some that are adapted to the high-light intensities in the surface water, and there are some that are adapted to the low light in the deep ocean. In fact, those cells that live in the bottom of the sunlit zone are the most efficient photosynthesizers of any known cell. And then we learned that there are some strains that grow optimally along the equator, where there are higher temperatures, and some that do better at the cooler temperatures as you go north and south. 它们的重量集中在一起超过人类，而且它们光合作用量和陆地上所有庄稼一样多。他们对全球海洋是不可思议的重要。所以过去几年，我们研究它们到底有多大的数量。我想，这真的是奇妙。一个单一的种类是如何有那么多的栖息地的？当我们隔离更多的绿原球藻在培养液中之后，了解到他们是不同的生态类型。有一些在水面的适应了直射的光强度，又一些在深水适应了低亮度的环境。实际上，那些我们已知细胞都是在阳光照射到的水域底部光合作用效率最高。遂而，我们又了解到有一些种类适宜在沿着赤道的水域生长，那儿有更高的水温；还有，当沿经线考察的时候，有一些种类在更冷的水温下生长得更好。 10:22 So as we studied these more and more and kept finding more and more diversity, we thought, oh my God, how diverse are these things? And about that time, it became possible to sequence their genomes and really look under the hood and look at their genetic makeup. And we've been able to sequence the genomes of cultures that we have, but also recently, using flow cytometry, we can isolate individual cells from the wild and sequence their individual genomes, and now we've sequenced hundreds of Prochlorococcus. And although each cell has roughly 2,000 genes -- that's one tenth the size of the human genome -- as you sequence more and more, you find that they only have a thousand of those in common and the other thousand for each individual strain is drawn from an enormous gene pool, and it reflects the particular environment that the cell might have thrived in, not just high or low light or high or low temperature, but whether there are nutrients that limit them like nitrogen, phosphorus or iron. It reflects the habitat that they come from. 所以，当研究越来越深入，发现多样性也越来越多， 我们会想：“我的天啊，得有多少种类啊！？”大概就在那个时候，基因组测序成为可能，我们可以真正的看看在外表之下的基因组合，所以现在我们已经能够对我们所培养的绿原球藻的基因组进行测序了，而且最近，我们用流血细胞分析仪计数器对从混杂的品种中隔离出的单一的绿原球藻细胞的基因组进行测序，已经测了几百种个了。虽然每一个细胞的基因大致有2000个，是人类基因数的十分之一。当测得越来越多，你就会发现这中间只有1000个是通用的，而另外1000个是从庞大的基因库中派生出来的，是反应它们得以茁长生长的特殊环境的，不只是光线的强弱或者温度的高低，还有比如是否养分是否充足，比如氮、磷、铁。这反应了它们的生存环境。 Think of it this way. If each cell is a smartphone and the apps are the genes, when you get your smartphone, it comes with these built-in apps. Those are the ones that you can't delete if you're an iPhone person. You press on them and they don't jiggle and they don't have x's. Even if you don't want them, you can't get rid of them. 咱们这么想。如果每一个细胞是智能手机，应用是基因，当你有了一台智能手机，有内置应用。那些是你不能删除的，如果你是iPone的用户。你长按它们，它们不抖动，也没有叉叉。即使你不想要它们，你也不能丢弃它们。 (Laughter)（笑声） Those are like the core genes of Prochlorococcus. They're the essence of the phone. But you have a huge pool of apps to draw upon to make your phone custom-designed for your particular lifestyle and habitat. If you travel a lot, you'll have a lot of travel apps, if you're into financial things, you might have a lot of financial apps, or if you're like me, you probably have a lot of weather apps, hoping one of them will tell you what you want to hear. 那些就像原绿球藻的核心基因。它们是智能手机的本质体现。但是你有巨大的应用池来根据你的特定的生活方式和习惯定制你的智能手机。如果你经常旅游，你会装很多旅游的应用，如果你专注于财务，你可能装了很多财务的应用，或者如果你像我，你可能有很多天气的应用，希望它们中的某一个能告诉你所在这个地方你想要的天气预报结果。 (Laughter)（笑声） And I've learned the last couple days in Vancouver that you don't need a weather app -- you just need an umbrella. So -- 不过在过去几天中我已经知道在温哥华，你不需要天气应用，你只需要一把伞，所以……