Will our kids be a different species?
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0:00 - 0:02All right. So, like all good stories,
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0:02 - 0:04this starts a long, long time ago
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0:04 - 0:07when there was basically nothing.
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0:07 - 0:09So here is a complete picture of the universe
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0:09 - 0:12about 14-odd billion years ago.
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0:12 - 0:15All energy is concentrated into a single point of energy.
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0:15 - 0:17For some reason it explodes,
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0:17 - 0:19and you begin to get these things.
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0:19 - 0:22So you're now about 14 billion years into this.
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0:22 - 0:24And these things expand and expand and expand
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0:24 - 0:26into these giant galaxies,
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0:26 - 0:27and you get trillions of them.
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0:27 - 0:29And within these galaxies
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0:29 - 0:31you get these enormous dust clouds.
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0:31 - 0:33And I want you to pay particular attention
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0:33 - 0:34to the three little prongs
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0:34 - 0:36in the center of this picture.
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0:36 - 0:38If you take a close-up of those,
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0:38 - 0:39they look like this.
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0:39 - 0:42And what you're looking at is columns of dust
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0:42 - 0:44where there's so much dust --
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0:44 - 0:49by the way, the scale of this is a trillion vertical miles --
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0:49 - 0:52and what's happening is there's so much dust,
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0:52 - 0:53it comes together and it fuses
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0:53 - 0:57and ignites a thermonuclear reaction.
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0:57 - 0:58And so what you're watching
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0:58 - 1:00is the birth of stars.
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1:00 - 1:01These are stars being born out of here.
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1:01 - 1:04When enough stars come out,
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1:04 - 1:06they create a galaxy.
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1:06 - 1:09This one happens to be a particularly important galaxy,
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1:09 - 1:11because you are here.
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1:11 - 1:12(Laughter)
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1:12 - 1:14And as you take a close-up of this galaxy,
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1:14 - 1:16you find a relatively normal,
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1:16 - 1:19not particularly interesting star.
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1:19 - 1:23By the way, you're now about two-thirds of the way into this story.
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1:23 - 1:25So this star doesn't even appear
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1:25 - 1:28until about two-thirds of the way into this story.
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1:28 - 1:29And then what happens
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1:29 - 1:30is there's enough dust left over
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1:30 - 1:32that it doesn't ignite into a star,
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1:32 - 1:34it becomes a planet.
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1:34 - 1:39And this is about a little over four billion years ago.
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1:39 - 1:40And soon thereafter
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1:40 - 1:42there's enough material left over
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1:42 - 1:47that you get a primordial soup,
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1:47 - 1:49and that creates life.
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1:49 - 1:53And life starts to expand and expand and expand,
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1:53 - 1:54until it goes kaput.
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1:54 - 1:58(Laughter)
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1:58 - 1:59Now the really strange thing
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1:59 - 2:02is life goes kaput, not once, not twice,
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2:02 - 2:04but five times.
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2:04 - 2:06So almost all life on Earth
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2:06 - 2:09is wiped out about five times.
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2:09 - 2:10And as you're thinking about that,
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2:10 - 2:13what happens is you get more and more complexity,
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2:13 - 2:14more and more stuff
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2:14 - 2:18to build new things with.
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2:18 - 2:20And we don't appear
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2:20 - 2:25until about 99.96 percent of the time into this story,
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2:25 - 2:29just to put ourselves and our ancestors in perspective.
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2:29 - 2:33So within that context, there's two theories of the case
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2:33 - 2:34as to why we're all here.
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2:34 - 2:36The first theory of the case
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2:36 - 2:39is that's all she wrote.
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2:39 - 2:41Under that theory,
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2:41 - 2:42we are the be-all and end-all
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2:42 - 2:44of all creation.
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2:44 - 2:47And the reason for trillions of galaxies,
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2:47 - 2:49sextillions of planets,
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2:49 - 2:54is to create something that looks like that
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2:54 - 2:57and something that looks like that.
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2:57 - 2:59And that's the purpose of the universe;
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2:59 - 3:00and then it flat-lines,
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3:00 - 3:02it doesn't get any better.
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3:02 - 3:06(Laughter)
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3:06 - 3:09The only question you might want to ask yourself is,
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3:09 - 3:14could that be just mildly arrogant?
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3:14 - 3:16And if it is --
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3:16 - 3:21and particularly given the fact that we came very close to extinction.
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3:21 - 3:25There were only about 2,000 of our species left.
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3:25 - 3:27A few more weeks without rain,
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3:27 - 3:30we would have never seen any of these.
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3:30 - 3:36(Laughter)
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3:36 - 3:41(Applause)
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3:41 - 3:44So maybe you have to think about a second theory
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3:44 - 3:47if the first one isn't good enough.
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3:47 - 3:49Second theory is: Could we upgrade?
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3:49 - 3:52(Laughter)
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3:52 - 3:55Well, why would one ask a question like that?
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3:55 - 3:57Because there have been at least 29 upgrades so far
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3:57 - 3:59of humanoids.
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3:59 - 4:02So it turns out that we have upgraded.
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4:02 - 4:04We've upgraded time and again and again.
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4:04 - 4:07And it turns out that we keep discovering upgrades.
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4:07 - 4:09We found this one last year.
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4:09 - 4:12We found another one last month.
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4:12 - 4:14And as you're thinking about this,
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4:14 - 4:16you might also ask the question:
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4:16 - 4:19So why a single human species?
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4:19 - 4:21Wouldn't it be really odd
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4:21 - 4:25if you went to Africa and Asia and Antarctica
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4:25 - 4:27and found exactly the same bird --
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4:27 - 4:31particularly given that we co-existed at the same time
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4:31 - 4:34with at least eight other versions of humanoid
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4:34 - 4:37at the same time on this planet?
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4:37 - 4:38So the normal state of affairs
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4:38 - 4:41is not to have just a Homo sapiens;
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4:41 - 4:42the normal state of affairs
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4:42 - 4:46is to have various versions of humans walking around.
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4:46 - 4:49And if that is the normal state of affairs,
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4:49 - 4:51then you might ask yourself,
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4:51 - 4:53all right, so if we want to create something else,
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4:53 - 4:56how big does a mutation have to be?
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4:56 - 4:59Well Svante Paabo has the answer.
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4:59 - 5:01The difference between humans and Neanderthal
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5:01 - 5:05is 0.004 percent of gene code.
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5:05 - 5:06That's how big the difference is
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5:06 - 5:09one species to another.
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5:09 - 5:13This explains most contemporary political debates.
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5:13 - 5:15(Laughter)
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5:15 - 5:18But as you're thinking about this,
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5:18 - 5:19one of the interesting things
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5:19 - 5:23is how small these mutations are and where they take place.
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5:23 - 5:24Difference human/Neanderthal
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5:24 - 5:26is sperm and testis,
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5:26 - 5:27smell and skin.
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5:27 - 5:29And those are the specific genes
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5:29 - 5:31that differ from one to the other.
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5:31 - 5:35So very small changes can have a big impact.
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5:35 - 5:36And as you're thinking about this,
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5:36 - 5:39we're continuing to mutate.
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5:39 - 5:42So about 10,000 years ago by the Black Sea,
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5:42 - 5:44we had one mutation in one gene
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5:44 - 5:46which led to blue eyes.
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5:46 - 5:50And this is continuing and continuing and continuing.
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5:50 - 5:52And as it continues,
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5:52 - 5:53one of the things that's going to happen this year
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5:53 - 5:57is we're going to discover the first 10,000 human genomes,
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5:57 - 6:00because it's gotten cheap enough to do the gene sequencing.
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6:00 - 6:01And when we find these,
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6:01 - 6:04we may find differences.
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6:04 - 6:07And by the way, this is not a debate that we're ready for,
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6:07 - 6:10because we have really misused the science in this.
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6:10 - 6:14In the 1920s, we thought there were major differences between people.
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6:14 - 6:18That was partly based on Francis Galton's work.
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6:18 - 6:20He was Darwin's cousin.
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6:20 - 6:22But the U.S., the Carnegie Institute,
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6:22 - 6:25Stanford, American Neurological Association
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6:25 - 6:27took this really far.
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6:27 - 6:30That got exported and was really misused.
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6:30 - 6:33In fact, it led to some absolutely horrendous
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6:33 - 6:35treatment of human beings.
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6:35 - 6:38So since the 1940s, we've been saying there are no differences,
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6:38 - 6:39we're all identical.
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6:39 - 6:42We're going to know at year end if that is true.
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6:42 - 6:44And as we think about that,
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6:44 - 6:46we're actually beginning to find things
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6:46 - 6:49like, do you have an ACE gene?
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6:49 - 6:51Why would that matter?
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6:51 - 6:55Because nobody's ever climbed an 8,000-meter peak without oxygen
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6:55 - 6:58that doesn't have an ACE gene.
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6:58 - 7:00And if you want to get more specific,
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7:00 - 7:03how about a 577R genotype?
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7:03 - 7:07Well it turns out that every male Olympic power athelete ever tested
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7:07 - 7:11carries at least one of these variants.
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7:11 - 7:12If that is true,
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7:12 - 7:14it leads to some very complicated questions
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7:14 - 7:16for the London Olympics.
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7:16 - 7:18Three options:
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7:18 - 7:21Do you want the Olympics to be a showcase
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7:21 - 7:23for really hardworking mutants?
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7:23 - 7:25(Laughter)
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7:25 - 7:28Option number two:
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7:28 - 7:31Why don't we play it like golf or sailing?
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7:31 - 7:34Because you have one and you don't have one,
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7:34 - 7:38I'll give you a tenth of a second head start.
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7:38 - 7:39Version number three:
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7:39 - 7:41Because this is a naturally occurring gene
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7:41 - 7:44and you've got it and you didn't pick the right parents,
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7:44 - 7:47you get the right to upgrade.
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7:47 - 7:49Three different options.
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7:49 - 7:51If these differences are the difference
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7:51 - 7:54between an Olympic medal and a non-Olympic medal.
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7:54 - 7:57And it turns out that as we discover these things,
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7:57 - 8:00we human beings really like to change
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8:00 - 8:02how we look, how we act,
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8:02 - 8:04what our bodies do.
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8:04 - 8:08And we had about 10.2 million plastic surgeries in the United States,
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8:08 - 8:11except that with the technologies that are coming online today,
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8:11 - 8:14today's corrections, deletions,
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8:14 - 8:16augmentations and enhancements
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8:16 - 8:19are going to seem like child's play.
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8:19 - 8:23You already saw the work by Tony Atala on TED,
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8:23 - 8:26but this ability to start filling
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8:26 - 8:29things like inkjet cartridges with cells
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8:29 - 8:34are allowing us to print skin, organs
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8:34 - 8:37and a whole series of other body parts.
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8:37 - 8:38And as these technologies go forward,
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8:38 - 8:42you keep seeing this, you keep seeing this, you keep seeing things --
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8:42 - 8:452000, human genome sequence --
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8:45 - 8:49and it seems like nothing's happening,
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8:49 - 8:52until it does.
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8:52 - 8:55And we may just be in some of these weeks.
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8:55 - 8:57And as you're thinking about
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8:57 - 9:00these two guys sequencing a human genome in 2000
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9:00 - 9:04and the Public Project sequencing the human genome in 2000,
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9:04 - 9:07then you don't hear a lot,
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9:07 - 9:11until you hear about an experiment last year in China,
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9:11 - 9:15where they take skin cells from this mouse,
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9:15 - 9:17put four chemicals on it,
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9:17 - 9:20turn those skin cells into stem cells,
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9:20 - 9:22let the stem cells grow
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9:22 - 9:25and create a full copy of that mouse.
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9:25 - 9:28That's a big deal.
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9:28 - 9:29Because in essence
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9:29 - 9:31what it means is you can take a cell,
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9:31 - 9:34which is a pluripotent stem cell,
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9:34 - 9:36which is like a skier at the top of a mountain,
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9:36 - 9:40and those two skiers become two pluripotent stem cells,
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9:40 - 9:42four, eight, 16,
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9:42 - 9:44and then it gets so crowded
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9:44 - 9:45after 16 divisions
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9:45 - 9:48that those cells have to differentiate.
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9:48 - 9:49So they go down one side of the mountain,
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9:49 - 9:51they go down another.
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9:51 - 9:52And as they pick that,
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9:52 - 9:54these become bone,
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9:54 - 9:57and then they pick another road and these become platelets,
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9:57 - 9:59and these become macrophages,
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9:59 - 10:01and these become T cells.
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10:01 - 10:03But it's really hard, once you ski down,
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10:03 - 10:04to get back up.
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10:04 - 10:10Unless, of course, if you have a ski lift.
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10:10 - 10:12And what those four chemicals do
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10:12 - 10:14is they take any cell
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10:14 - 10:16and take it way back up the mountain
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10:16 - 10:18so it can become any body part.
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10:18 - 10:20And as you think of that,
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10:20 - 10:22what it means is potentially
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10:22 - 10:24you can rebuild a full copy
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10:24 - 10:26of any organism
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10:26 - 10:28out of any one of its cells.
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10:28 - 10:31That turns out to be a big deal
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10:31 - 10:34because now you can take, not just mouse cells,
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10:34 - 10:36but you can human skin cells
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10:36 - 10:39and turn them into human stem cells.
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10:39 - 10:43And then what they did in October
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10:43 - 10:46is they took skin cells, turned them into stem cells
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10:46 - 10:50and began to turn them into liver cells.
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10:50 - 10:51So in theory,
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10:51 - 10:56you could grow any organ from any one of your cells.
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10:56 - 10:58Here's a second experiment:
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10:58 - 11:01If you could photocopy your body,
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11:01 - 11:04maybe you also want to take your mind.
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11:04 - 11:05And one of the things you saw at TED
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11:05 - 11:07about a year and a half ago
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11:07 - 11:08was this guy.
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11:08 - 11:11And he gave a wonderful technical talk.
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11:11 - 11:12He's a professor at MIT.
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11:12 - 11:14But in essence what he said
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11:14 - 11:16is you can take retroviruses,
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11:16 - 11:19which get inside brain cells of mice.
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11:19 - 11:21You can tag them with proteins
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11:21 - 11:23that light up when you light them.
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11:23 - 11:27And you can map the exact pathways
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11:27 - 11:30when a mouse sees, feels, touches,
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11:30 - 11:33remembers, loves.
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11:33 - 11:35And then you can take a fiber optic cable
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11:35 - 11:39and light up some of the same things.
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11:39 - 11:41And by the way, as you do this,
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11:41 - 11:43you can image it in two colors,
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11:43 - 11:45which means you can download this information
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11:45 - 11:50as binary code directly into a computer.
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11:50 - 11:52So what's the bottom line on that?
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11:52 - 11:55Well it's not completely inconceivable
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11:55 - 11:59that someday you'll be able to download your own memories,
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11:59 - 12:01maybe into a new body.
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12:01 - 12:06And maybe you can upload other people's memories as well.
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12:06 - 12:09And this might have just one or two
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12:09 - 12:13small ethical, political, moral implications.
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12:13 - 12:14(Laughter)
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12:14 - 12:17Just a thought.
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12:17 - 12:19Here's the kind of questions
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12:19 - 12:21that are becoming interesting questions
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12:21 - 12:23for philosophers, for governing people,
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12:23 - 12:26for economists, for scientists.
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12:26 - 12:30Because these technologies are moving really quickly.
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12:30 - 12:31And as you think about it,
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12:31 - 12:34let me close with an example of the brain.
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12:34 - 12:36The first place where you would expect
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12:36 - 12:39to see enormous evolutionary pressure today,
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12:39 - 12:41both because of the inputs,
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12:41 - 12:43which are becoming massive,
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12:43 - 12:45and because of the plasticity of the organ,
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12:45 - 12:47is the brain.
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12:47 - 12:50Do we have any evidence that that is happening?
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12:50 - 12:55Well let's take a look at something like autism incidence per thousand.
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12:55 - 12:58Here's what it looks like in 2000.
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12:58 - 13:00Here's what it looks like in 2002,
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13:00 - 13:042006, 2008.
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13:04 - 13:08Here's the increase in less than a decade.
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13:08 - 13:13And we still don't know why this is happening.
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13:13 - 13:15What we do know is, potentially,
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13:15 - 13:17the brain is reacting in
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13:17 - 13:20a hyperactive, hyper-plastic way,
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13:20 - 13:22and creating individuals that are like this.
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13:22 - 13:25And this is only one of the conditions that's out there.
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13:25 - 13:29You've also got people with who are extraordinarily smart,
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13:29 - 13:31people who can remember everything they've seen in their lives,
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13:31 - 13:33people who've got synesthesia,
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13:33 - 13:34people who've got schizophrenia.
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13:34 - 13:36You've got all kinds of stuff going on out there,
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13:36 - 13:38and we still don't understand
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13:38 - 13:40how and why this is happening.
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13:40 - 13:43But one question you might want to ask is,
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13:43 - 13:45are we seeing a rapid evolution of the brain
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13:45 - 13:47and of how we process data?
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13:47 - 13:50Because when you think of how much data's coming into our brains,
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13:50 - 13:54we're trying to take in as much data in a day
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13:54 - 13:56as people used to take in in a lifetime.
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13:56 - 13:59And as you're thinking about this,
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13:59 - 14:01there's four theories as to why this might be going on,
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14:01 - 14:02plus a whole series of others.
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14:02 - 14:04I don't have a good answer.
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14:04 - 14:08There really needs to be more research on this.
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14:08 - 14:10One option is the fast food fetish.
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14:10 - 14:12There's beginning to be some evidence
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14:12 - 14:15that obesity and diet
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14:15 - 14:16have something to do
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14:16 - 14:18with gene modifications,
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14:18 - 14:20which may or may not have an impact
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14:20 - 14:24on how the brain of an infant works.
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14:24 - 14:28A second option is the sexy geek option.
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14:28 - 14:32These conditions are highly rare.
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14:32 - 14:35(Laughter)
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14:35 - 14:40(Applause)
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14:40 - 14:42But what's beginning to happen
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14:42 - 14:45is because these geeks are all getting together,
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14:45 - 14:47because they are highly qualified for computer programming
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14:47 - 14:50and it is highly remunerated,
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14:50 - 14:53as well as other very detail-oriented tasks,
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14:53 - 14:55that they are concentrating geographically
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14:55 - 14:58and finding like-minded mates.
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14:58 - 15:02So this is the assortative mating hypothesis
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15:02 - 15:05of these genes reinforcing one another
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15:05 - 15:07in these structures.
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15:07 - 15:10The third, is this too much information?
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15:10 - 15:11We're trying to process so much stuff
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15:11 - 15:14that some people get synesthetic
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15:14 - 15:16and just have huge pipes that remember everything.
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15:16 - 15:19Other people get hyper-sensitive to the amount of information.
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15:19 - 15:23Other people react with various psychological conditions
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15:23 - 15:24or reactions to this information.
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15:24 - 15:27Or maybe it's chemicals.
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15:27 - 15:29But when you see an increase
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15:29 - 15:31of that order of magnitude in a condition,
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15:31 - 15:33either you're not measuring it right
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15:33 - 15:35or there's something going on very quickly,
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15:35 - 15:39and it may be evolution in real time.
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15:39 - 15:42Here's the bottom line.
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15:42 - 15:44What I think we are doing
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15:44 - 15:46is we're transitioning as a species.
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15:46 - 15:51And I didn't think this when Steve Gullans and I started writing together.
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15:51 - 15:54I think we're transitioning into Homo evolutis
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15:54 - 15:55that, for better or worse,
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15:55 - 15:59is not just a hominid that's conscious of his or her environment,
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15:59 - 16:03it's a hominid that's beginning to directly and deliberately
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16:03 - 16:06control the evolution of its own species,
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16:06 - 16:10of bacteria, of plants, of animals.
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16:10 - 16:12And I think that's such an order of magnitude change
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16:12 - 16:15that your grandkids or your great-grandkids
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16:15 - 16:19may be a species very different from you.
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16:19 - 16:20Thank you very much.
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16:20 - 16:25(Applause)
- Title:
- Will our kids be a different species?
- Speaker:
- Juan Enriquez
- Description:
-
Throughout human evolution, multiple versions of humans co-existed. Could we be mid-upgrade now? At TEDxSummit, Juan Enriquez sweeps across time and space to bring us to the present moment -- and shows how technology is revealing evidence that suggests rapid evolution may be under way.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:48
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