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All right. So, like all good stories,

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this starts a long, long time ago

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when there was basically nothing.

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So here is a complete picture of the universe

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about 14-odd billion years ago.

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All energy is concentrated into a single point of energy.

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For some reason it explodes,

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and you begin to get these things.

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So you're now about 14 billion years into this.

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And these things expand and expand and expand

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into these giant galaxies,

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and you get trillions of them.

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And within these galaxies

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you get these enormous dust clouds.

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And I want you to pay particular attention

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to the three little prongs

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in the center of this picture.

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If you take a close-up of those,

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they look like this.

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And what you're looking at is columns of dust

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where there's so much dust --

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by the way, the scale of this is a trillion vertical miles --

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and what's happening is there's so much dust,

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it comes together and it fuses

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and ignites a thermonuclear reaction.

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And so what you're watching

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is the birth of stars.

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These are stars being born out of here.

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When enough stars come out,

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they create a galaxy.

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This one happens to be a particularly important galaxy,

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because you are here.

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(Laughter)

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And as you take a close-up of this galaxy,

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you find a relatively normal,

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not particularly interesting star.

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By the way, you're now about two-thirds of the way into this story.

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So this star doesn't even appear

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until about two-thirds of the way into this story.

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And then what happens

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is there's enough dust left over

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that it doesn't ignite into a star,

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it becomes a planet.

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And this is about a little over four billion years ago.

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And soon thereafter

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there's enough material left over

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that you get a primordial soup,

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and that creates life.

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And life starts to expand and expand and expand,

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until it goes kaput.

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(Laughter)

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Now the really strange thing

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is life goes kaput, not once, not twice,

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but five times.

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So almost all life on Earth

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is wiped out about five times.

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And as you're thinking about that,

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what happens is you get more and more complexity,

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more and more stuff

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to build new things with.

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And we don't appear

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until about 99.96 percent of the time into this story,

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just to put ourselves and our ancestors in perspective.

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So within that context, there's two theories of the case

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as to why we're all here.

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The first theory of the case

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is that's all she wrote.

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Under that theory,

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we are the be-all and end-all

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of all creation.

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And the reason for trillions of galaxies,

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sextillions of planets,

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is to create something that looks like that

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and something that looks like that.

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And that's the purpose of the universe;

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and then it flat-lines,

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it doesn't get any better.

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(Laughter)

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The only question you might want to ask yourself is,

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could that be just mildly arrogant?

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And if it is --

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and particularly given the fact that we came very close to extinction.

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There were only about 2,000 of our species left.

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A few more weeks without rain,

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we would have never seen any of these.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So maybe you have to think about a second theory

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if the first one isn't good enough.

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Second theory is: Could we upgrade?

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(Laughter)

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Well, why would one ask a question like that?

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Because there have been at least 29 upgrades so far

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of humanoids.

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So it turns out that we have upgraded.

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We've upgraded time and again and again.

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And it turns out that we keep discovering upgrades.

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We found this one last year.

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We found another one last month.

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And as you're thinking about this,

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you might also ask the question:

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So why a single human species?

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Wouldn't it be really odd

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if you went to Africa and Asia and Antarctica

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and found exactly the same bird --

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particularly given that we co-existed at the same time

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with at least eight other versions of humanoid

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at the same time on this planet?

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So the normal state of affairs

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is not to have just a Homo sapiens;

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the normal state of affairs

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is to have various versions of humans walking around.

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And if that is the normal state of affairs,

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then you might ask yourself,

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all right, so if we want to create something else,

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how big does a mutation have to be?

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Well Svante Paabo has the answer.

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The difference between humans and Neanderthal

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is 0.004 percent of gene code.

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That's how big the difference is

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one species to another.

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This explains most contemporary political debates.

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(Laughter)

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But as you're thinking about this,

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one of the interesting things

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is how small these mutations are and where they take place.

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Difference human/Neanderthal

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is sperm and testis,

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smell and skin.

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And those are the specific genes

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that differ from one to the other.

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So very small changes can have a big impact.

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And as you're thinking about this,

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we're continuing to mutate.

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So about 10,000 years ago by the Black Sea,

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we had one mutation in one gene

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which led to blue eyes.

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And this is continuing and continuing and continuing.

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And as it continues,

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one of the things that's going to happen this year

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is we're going to discover the first 10,000 human genomes,

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because it's gotten cheap enough to do the gene sequencing.

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And when we find these,

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we may find differences.

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And by the way, this is not a debate that we're ready for,

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because we have really misused the science in this.

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In the 1920s, we thought there were major differences between people.

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That was partly based on Francis Galton's work.

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He was Darwin's cousin.

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But the U.S., the Carnegie Institute,

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Stanford, American Neurological Association

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took this really far.

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That got exported and was really misused.

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In fact, it led to some absolutely horrendous

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treatment of human beings.

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So since the 1940s, we've been saying there are no differences,

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we're all identical.

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We're going to know at year end if that is true.

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And as we think about that,

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we're actually beginning to find things

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like, do you have an ACE gene?

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Why would that matter?

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Because nobody's ever climbed an 8,000-meter peak without oxygen

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that doesn't have an ACE gene.

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And if you want to get more specific,

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how about a 577R genotype?

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Well it turns out that every male Olympic power athelete ever tested

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carries at least one of these variants.

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If that is true,

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it leads to some very complicated questions

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for the London Olympics.

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Three options:

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Do you want the Olympics to be a showcase

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for really hardworking mutants?

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(Laughter)

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Option number two:

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Why don't we play it like golf or sailing?

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Because you have one and you don't have one,

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I'll give you a tenth of a second head start.

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Version number three:

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Because this is a naturally occurring gene

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and you've got it and you didn't pick the right parents,

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you get the right to upgrade.

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Three different options.

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If these differences are the difference

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between an Olympic medal and a non-Olympic medal.

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And it turns out that as we discover these things,

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we human beings really like to change

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how we look, how we act,

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what our bodies do.

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And we had about 10.2 million plastic surgeries in the United States,

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except that with the technologies that are coming online today,

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today's corrections, deletions,

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augmentations and enhancements

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are going to seem like child's play.

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You already saw the work by Tony Atala on TED,

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but this ability to start filling

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things like inkjet cartridges with cells

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are allowing us to print skin, organs

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and a whole series of other body parts.

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And as these technologies go forward,

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you keep seeing this, you keep seeing this, you keep seeing things --

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2000, human genome sequence --

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and it seems like nothing's happening,

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until it does.

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And we may just be in some of these weeks.

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And as you're thinking about

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these two guys sequencing a human genome in 2000

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and the Public Project sequencing the human genome in 2000,

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then you don't hear a lot,

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until you hear about an experiment last year in China,

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where they take skin cells from this mouse,

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put four chemicals on it,

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turn those skin cells into stem cells,

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let the stem cells grow

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and create a full copy of that mouse.

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That's a big deal.

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Because in essence

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what it means is you can take a cell,

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which is a pluripotent stem cell,

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which is like a skier at the top of a mountain,

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and those two skiers become two pluripotent stem cells,

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four, eight, 16,

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and then it gets so crowded

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after 16 divisions

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that those cells have to differentiate.

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So they go down one side of the mountain,

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they go down another.

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And as they pick that,

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these become bone,

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and then they pick another road and these become platelets,

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and these become macrophages,

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and these become T cells.

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But it's really hard, once you ski down,

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to get back up.

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Unless, of course, if you have a ski lift.

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And what those four chemicals do

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is they take any cell

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and take it way back up the mountain

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so it can become any body part.

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And as you think of that,

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what it means is potentially

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you can rebuild a full copy

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of any organism

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out of any one of its cells.

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That turns out to be a big deal

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because now you can take, not just mouse cells,

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but you can human skin cells

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and turn them into human stem cells.

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And then what they did in October

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is they took skin cells, turned them into stem cells

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and began to turn them into liver cells.

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So in theory,

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you could grow any organ from any one of your cells.

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Here's a second experiment:

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If you could photocopy your body,

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maybe you also want to take your mind.

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And one of the things you saw at TED

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about a year and a half ago

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was this guy.

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And he gave a wonderful technical talk.

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He's a professor at MIT.

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But in essence what he said

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is you can take retroviruses,

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which get inside brain cells of mice.

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You can tag them with proteins

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that light up when you light them.

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And you can map the exact pathways

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when a mouse sees, feels, touches,

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remembers, loves.

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And then you can take a fiber optic cable

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and light up some of the same things.

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And by the way, as you do this,

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you can image it in two colors,

275
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which means you can download this information

276
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as binary code directly into a computer.

277
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So what's the bottom line on that?

278
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Well it's not completely inconceivable

279
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that someday you'll be able to download your own memories,

280
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maybe into a new body.

281
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And maybe you can upload other people's memories as well.

282
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And this might have just one or two

283
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small ethical, political, moral implications.

284
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(Laughter)

285
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Just a thought.

286
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Here's the kind of questions

287
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that are becoming interesting questions

288
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for philosophers, for governing people,

289
00:12:23,042 --> 00:12:26,408
for economists, for scientists.

290
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Because these technologies are moving really quickly.

291
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And as you think about it,

292
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let me close with an example of the brain.

293
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The first place where you would expect

294
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to see enormous evolutionary pressure today,

295
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both because of the inputs,

296
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which are becoming massive,

297
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and because of the plasticity of the organ,

298
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is the brain.

299
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Do we have any evidence that that is happening?

300
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Well let's take a look at something like autism incidence per thousand.

301
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Here's what it looks like in 2000.

302
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Here's what it looks like in 2002,

303
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2006, 2008.

304
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Here's the increase in less than a decade.

305
00:13:08,474 --> 00:13:12,891
And we still don't know why this is happening.

306
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What we do know is, potentially,

307
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the brain is reacting in

308
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a hyperactive, hyper-plastic way,

309
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and creating individuals that are like this.

310
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And this is only one of the conditions that's out there.

311
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You've also got people with who are extraordinarily smart,

312
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people who can remember everything they've seen in their lives,

313
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people who've got synesthesia,

314
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people who've got schizophrenia.

315
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You've got all kinds of stuff going on out there,

316
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and we still don't understand

317
00:13:37,654 --> 00:13:39,887
how and why this is happening.

318
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But one question you might want to ask is,

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are we seeing a rapid evolution of the brain

320
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and of how we process data?

321
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Because when you think of how much data's coming into our brains,

322
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we're trying to take in as much data in a day

323
00:13:53,569 --> 00:13:56,120
as people used to take in in a lifetime.

324
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And as you're thinking about this,

325
00:13:58,752 --> 00:14:01,094
there's four theories as to why this might be going on,

326
00:14:01,094 --> 00:14:02,421
plus a whole series of others.

327
00:14:02,421 --> 00:14:04,070
I don't have a good answer.

328
00:14:04,070 --> 00:14:07,686
There really needs to be more research on this.

329
00:14:07,686 --> 00:14:09,921
One option is the fast food fetish.

330
00:14:09,921 --> 00:14:12,370
There's beginning to be some evidence

331
00:14:12,370 --> 00:14:14,621
that obesity and diet

332
00:14:14,621 --> 00:14:16,252
have something to do

333
00:14:16,252 --> 00:14:18,020
with gene modifications,

334
00:14:18,020 --> 00:14:20,370
which may or may not have an impact

335
00:14:20,370 --> 00:14:23,887
on how the brain of an infant works.

336
00:14:23,887 --> 00:14:27,842
A second option is the sexy geek option.

337
00:14:27,842 --> 00:14:32,085
These conditions are highly rare.

338
00:14:32,085 --> 00:14:35,123
(Laughter)

339
00:14:35,123 --> 00:14:40,423
(Applause)

340
00:14:40,423 --> 00:14:42,056
But what's beginning to happen

341
00:14:42,056 --> 00:14:44,590
is because these geeks are all getting together,

342
00:14:44,590 --> 00:14:47,487
because they are highly qualified for computer programming

343
00:14:47,487 --> 00:14:49,805
and it is highly remunerated,

344
00:14:49,805 --> 00:14:52,955
as well as other very detail-oriented tasks,

345
00:14:52,955 --> 00:14:55,404
that they are concentrating geographically

346
00:14:55,404 --> 00:14:58,371
and finding like-minded mates.

347
00:14:58,371 --> 00:15:01,939
So this is the assortative mating hypothesis

348
00:15:01,939 --> 00:15:04,639
of these genes reinforcing one another

349
00:15:04,639 --> 00:15:06,756
in these structures.

350
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The third, is this too much information?

351
00:15:09,706 --> 00:15:11,203
We're trying to process so much stuff

352
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that some people get synesthetic

353
00:15:13,555 --> 00:15:16,155
and just have huge pipes that remember everything.

354
00:15:16,155 --> 00:15:18,824
Other people get hyper-sensitive to the amount of information.

355
00:15:18,824 --> 00:15:22,806
Other people react with various psychological conditions

356
00:15:22,806 --> 00:15:24,438
or reactions to this information.

357
00:15:24,438 --> 00:15:27,140
Or maybe it's chemicals.

358
00:15:27,140 --> 00:15:28,905
But when you see an increase

359
00:15:28,905 --> 00:15:31,256
of that order of magnitude in a condition,

360
00:15:31,256 --> 00:15:32,821
either you're not measuring it right

361
00:15:32,821 --> 00:15:35,339
or there's something going on very quickly,

362
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and it may be evolution in real time.

363
00:15:39,371 --> 00:15:41,874
Here's the bottom line.

364
00:15:41,874 --> 00:15:44,055
What I think we are doing

365
00:15:44,055 --> 00:15:45,771
is we're transitioning as a species.

366
00:15:45,771 --> 00:15:51,255
And I didn't think this when Steve Gullans and I started writing together.

367
00:15:51,255 --> 00:15:53,706
I think we're transitioning into Homo evolutis

368
00:15:53,706 --> 00:15:55,105
that, for better or worse,

369
00:15:55,105 --> 00:15:59,287
is not just a hominid that's conscious of his or her environment,

370
00:15:59,287 --> 00:16:02,506
it's a hominid that's beginning to directly and deliberately

371
00:16:02,506 --> 00:16:05,704
control the evolution of its own species,

372
00:16:05,704 --> 00:16:09,538
of bacteria, of plants, of animals.

373
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And I think that's such an order of magnitude change

374
00:16:12,373 --> 00:16:15,476
that your grandkids or your great-grandkids

375
00:16:15,476 --> 00:16:18,521
may be a species very different from you.

376
00:16:18,521 --> 00:16:20,107
Thank you very much.

377
00:16:20,107 --> 00:16:25,438
(Applause)