Glowing life in an underwater world
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0:00 - 0:03In the spirit of Jacques Cousteau, who said,
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0:03 - 0:05"People protect what they love,"
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0:05 - 0:08I want to share with you today what I love most in the ocean,
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0:08 - 0:11and that's the incredible number and variety
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0:11 - 0:14of animals in it that make light.
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0:14 - 0:17My addiction began with this strange looking diving suit called Wasp;
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0:17 - 0:20that's not an acronym -- just somebody thought it looked like the insect.
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0:20 - 0:23It was actually developed for use by the offshore oil industry
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0:23 - 0:26for diving on oil rigs down to a depth of 2,000 feet.
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0:26 - 0:28Right after I completed my Ph.D.,
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0:28 - 0:31I was lucky enough to be included with a group of scientists
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0:31 - 0:33that was using it for the first time
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0:33 - 0:35as a tool for ocean exploration.
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0:35 - 0:37We trained in a tank in Port Hueneme,
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0:37 - 0:39and then my first open ocean dive
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0:39 - 0:41was in Santa Barbara Channel.
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0:41 - 0:43It was an evening dive.
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0:43 - 0:46I went down to a depth of 880 feet
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0:46 - 0:48and turned out the lights.
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0:48 - 0:50And the reason I turned out the lights is because I knew I would see
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0:50 - 0:52this phenomenon of animals making light
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0:52 - 0:54called bioluminescence.
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0:54 - 0:56But I was totally unprepared
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0:56 - 0:58for how much there was
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0:58 - 1:01and how spectacular it was.
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1:01 - 1:04I saw chains of jellyfish called siphonophores
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1:04 - 1:06that were longer than this room,
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1:06 - 1:08pumping out so much light
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1:08 - 1:10that I could read the dials and gauges
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1:10 - 1:12inside the suit without a flashlight;
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1:12 - 1:14and puffs and billows
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1:14 - 1:17of what looked like luminous blue smoke;
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1:17 - 1:19and explosions of sparks
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1:19 - 1:21that would swirl up out of the thrusters --
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1:21 - 1:24just like when you throw a log on a campfire and the embers swirl up off the campfire,
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1:24 - 1:26but these were icy, blue embers.
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1:26 - 1:28It was breathtaking.
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1:28 - 1:31Now, usually if people are familiar with bioluminescence at all,
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1:31 - 1:33it's these guys; it's fireflies.
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1:33 - 1:35And there are a few other land-dwellers that can make light --
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1:35 - 1:37some insects, earthworms, fungi --
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1:37 - 1:40but in general, on land, it's really rare.
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1:40 - 1:42In the ocean, it's the rule
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1:42 - 1:44rather than the exception.
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1:44 - 1:46If I go out in the open ocean environment,
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1:46 - 1:48virtually anywhere in the world,
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1:48 - 1:51and I drag a net from 3,000 feet to the surface,
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1:51 - 1:53most of the animals --
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1:53 - 1:55in fact, in many places, 80 to 90 percent
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1:55 - 1:58of the animals that I bring up in that net --
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1:58 - 2:00make light.
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2:00 - 2:02This makes for some pretty spectacular light shows.
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2:02 - 2:05Now I want to share with you a little video
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2:05 - 2:07that I shot from a submersible.
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2:07 - 2:09I first developed this technique working from a little
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2:09 - 2:12single-person submersible called Deep Rover
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2:12 - 2:14and then adapted it for use on the Johnson Sea-Link,
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2:14 - 2:16which you see here.
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2:16 - 2:18So, mounted in front of the observation sphere,
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2:18 - 2:21there's a a three-foot diameter hoop
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2:21 - 2:23with a screen stretched across it.
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2:23 - 2:25And inside the sphere with me is an intensified camera
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2:25 - 2:28that's about as sensitive as a fully dark-adapted human eye,
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2:28 - 2:30albeit a little fuzzy.
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2:30 - 2:32So you turn on the camera, turn out the lights.
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2:32 - 2:34That sparkle you're seeing is not luminescence,
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2:34 - 2:36that's just electronic noise
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2:36 - 2:38on these super intensified cameras.
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2:38 - 2:40You don't see luminescence until the submersible
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2:40 - 2:42begins to move forward through the water,
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2:42 - 2:44but as it does, animals bumping into the screen
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2:44 - 2:46are stimulated to bioluminesce.
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2:46 - 2:48Now, when I was first doing this,
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2:48 - 2:50all I was trying to do was count the numbers of sources.
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2:50 - 2:52I knew my forward speed, I knew the area,
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2:52 - 2:54and so I could figure out how many hundreds of sources
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2:54 - 2:56there were per cubic meter.
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2:56 - 2:58But I started to realize that I could actually identify animals
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2:58 - 3:00by the type of flashes they produced.
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3:00 - 3:03And so, here, in the Gulf of Maine
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3:03 - 3:05at 740 feet,
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3:05 - 3:08I can name pretty much everything you're seeing there to the species level.
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3:08 - 3:10Like those big explosions, sparks,
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3:10 - 3:12are from a little comb jelly,
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3:12 - 3:15and there's krill and other kinds of crustaceans,
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3:15 - 3:17and jellyfish.
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3:17 - 3:19There was another one of those comb jellies.
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3:19 - 3:22And so I've worked with computer image analysis engineers
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3:22 - 3:25to develop automatic recognition systems
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3:25 - 3:27that can identify these animals
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3:27 - 3:30and then extract the XYZ coordinate of the initial impact point.
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3:30 - 3:33And we can then do the kinds of things that ecologists do on land,
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3:33 - 3:35and do nearest neighbor distances.
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3:36 - 3:38But you don't always have to go down to the depths of the ocean
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3:38 - 3:40to see a light show like this.
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3:40 - 3:42You can actually see it in surface waters.
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3:42 - 3:45This is some shot, by Dr. Mike Latz at Scripps Institution,
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3:45 - 3:47of a dolphin swimming through bioluminescent plankton.
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3:47 - 3:49And this isn't someplace exotic
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3:49 - 3:52like one of the bioluminescent bays in Puerto Rico,
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3:52 - 3:54this was actually shot in San Diego Harbor.
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3:54 - 3:57And sometimes you can see it even closer than that,
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3:57 - 3:59because the heads on ships --
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3:59 - 4:02that's toilets, for any land lovers that are listening --
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4:02 - 4:05are flushed with unfiltered seawater
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4:05 - 4:07that often has bioluminescent plankton in it.
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4:07 - 4:09So, if you stagger into the head late at night
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4:09 - 4:11and you're so toilet-hugging sick
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4:11 - 4:13that you forget to turn on the light,
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4:13 - 4:15you may think that you're having a religious experience. (Laughter)
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4:16 - 4:18So, how does a living creature make light?
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4:18 - 4:20Well, that was the question that 19th century
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4:20 - 4:22French physiologist Raphael Dubois,
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4:22 - 4:24asked about this bioluminescent clam.
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4:24 - 4:27He ground it up and he managed to get out a couple of chemicals;
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4:27 - 4:30one, the enzyme, he called luciferase;
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4:30 - 4:32the substrate, he called luciferin
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4:32 - 4:34after Lucifer the Lightbearer.
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4:34 - 4:37That terminology has stuck, but it doesn't actually refer to specific chemicals
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4:37 - 4:40because these chemicals come in a lot of different shapes and forms.
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4:40 - 4:42In fact, most of the people
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4:42 - 4:44studying bioluminescence today
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4:44 - 4:46are focused on the chemistry, because these chemicals
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4:46 - 4:48have proved so incredibly valuable
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4:48 - 4:51for developing antibacterial agents,
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4:51 - 4:53cancer fighting drugs,
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4:53 - 4:55testing for the presence of life on Mars,
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4:55 - 4:57detecting pollutants in our waters --
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4:57 - 4:59which is how we use it at ORCA.
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4:59 - 5:01In 2008,
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5:01 - 5:03the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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5:03 - 5:05was awarded for work done
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5:05 - 5:07on a molecule called green fluorescent protein
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5:07 - 5:10that was isolated from the bioluminescent chemistry
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5:10 - 5:12of a jellyfish,
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5:12 - 5:14and it's been equated to the invention of the microscope,
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5:14 - 5:17in terms of the impact that it has had
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5:17 - 5:20on cell biology and genetic engineering.
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5:20 - 5:22Another thing all these molecules are telling us
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5:22 - 5:25that, apparently, bioluminescence has evolved
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5:25 - 5:28at least 40 times, maybe as many as 50 separate times
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5:28 - 5:30in evolutionary history,
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5:30 - 5:32which is a clear indication
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5:32 - 5:35of how spectacularly important
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5:35 - 5:37this trait is for survival.
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5:37 - 5:39So, what is it about bioluminescence
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5:39 - 5:41that's so important to so many animals?
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5:41 - 5:44Well, for animals that are trying to avoid predators
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5:44 - 5:47by staying in the darkness,
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5:47 - 5:49light can still be very useful
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5:49 - 5:52for the three basic things that animals have to do to survive:
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5:52 - 5:54and that's find food,
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5:54 - 5:56attract a mate and avoid being eaten.
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5:56 - 5:58So, for example, this fish
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5:58 - 6:00has a built-in headlight behind its eye
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6:00 - 6:02that it can use for finding food
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6:02 - 6:04or attracting a mate.
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6:04 - 6:07And then when it's not using it, it actually can roll it down into its head
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6:07 - 6:09just like the headlights on your Lamborghini.
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6:10 - 6:13This fish actually has high beams.
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6:13 - 6:15And this fish, which is one of my favorites,
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6:15 - 6:18has three headlights on each side of its head.
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6:18 - 6:20Now, this one is blue,
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6:20 - 6:22and that's the color of most bioluminescence in the ocean
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6:22 - 6:24because evolution has selected
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6:24 - 6:26for the color that travels farthest through seawater
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6:26 - 6:28in order to optimize communication.
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6:28 - 6:30So, most animals make blue light,
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6:30 - 6:33and most animals can only see blue light,
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6:33 - 6:35but this fish is a really fascinating exception
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6:35 - 6:38because it has two red light organs.
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6:38 - 6:40And I have no idea why there's two,
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6:40 - 6:42and that's something I want to solve some day --
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6:42 - 6:45but not only can it see blue light,
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6:45 - 6:47but it can see red light.
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6:47 - 6:50So it uses its red bioluminescence like a sniper's scope
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6:50 - 6:52to be able to sneak up on animals
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6:52 - 6:54that are blind to red light
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6:54 - 6:56and be able to see them without being seen.
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6:56 - 6:58It's also got a little chin barbel here
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6:58 - 7:00with a blue luminescent lure on it
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7:00 - 7:03that it can use to attract prey from a long way off.
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7:03 - 7:06And a lot of animals will use their bioluminescence as a lure.
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7:07 - 7:09This is another one of my favorite fish.
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7:09 - 7:11This is a viperfish, and it's got a lure
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7:11 - 7:13on the end of a long fishing rod
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7:13 - 7:15that it arches in front of the toothy jaw
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7:15 - 7:18that gives the viperfish its name.
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7:18 - 7:20The teeth on this fish are so long
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7:20 - 7:22that if they closed inside the mouth of the fish,
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7:22 - 7:25it would actually impale its own brain.
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7:25 - 7:27So instead, it slides in grooves
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7:27 - 7:29on the outside of the head.
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7:29 - 7:31This is a Christmas tree of a fish;
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7:31 - 7:33everything on this fish lights up,
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7:33 - 7:35it's not just that lure.
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7:35 - 7:37It's got a built-in flashlight.
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7:37 - 7:39It's got these jewel-like light organs on its belly
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7:39 - 7:42that it uses for a type of camouflage
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7:42 - 7:45that obliterates its shadow,
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7:45 - 7:48so when it's swimming around and there's a predator looking up from below,
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7:48 - 7:50it makes itself disappear.
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7:50 - 7:52It's got light organs in the mouth,
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7:52 - 7:54it's got light organs in every single scale, in the fins,
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7:54 - 7:56in a mucus layer on the back and the belly,
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7:56 - 7:58all used for different things --
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7:58 - 8:00some of which we know about, some of which we don't.
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8:00 - 8:03And we know a little bit more about bioluminescence thanks to Pixar,
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8:03 - 8:05and I'm very grateful to Pixar for sharing
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8:05 - 8:07my favorite topic with so many people.
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8:07 - 8:09I do wish, with their budget,
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8:09 - 8:12that they might have spent just a tiny bit more money
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8:12 - 8:15to pay a consulting fee to some poor, starving graduate student,
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8:15 - 8:17who could have told them that those are the eyes
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8:17 - 8:20of a fish that's been preserved in formalin.
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8:20 - 8:22These are the eyes of a living anglerfish.
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8:22 - 8:24So, she's got a lure that she sticks out
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8:24 - 8:26in front of this living mousetrap
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8:26 - 8:28of needle-sharp teeth
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8:28 - 8:31in order to attract in some unsuspecting prey.
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8:31 - 8:33And this one has a lure
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8:33 - 8:36with all kinds of little interesting threads coming off it.
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8:36 - 8:39Now we used to think that the different shape of the lure
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8:39 - 8:41was to attract different types of prey,
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8:41 - 8:44but then stomach content analyses on these fish
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8:44 - 8:47done by scientists, or more likely their graduate students,
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8:47 - 8:49have revealed that
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8:49 - 8:51they all eat pretty much the same thing.
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8:51 - 8:53So, now we believe that the different shape of the lure
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8:53 - 8:55is how the male recognizes the female
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8:55 - 8:57in the anglerfish world,
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8:57 - 8:59because many of these males
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8:59 - 9:01are what are known as dwarf males.
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9:01 - 9:03This little guy
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9:03 - 9:06has no visible means of self-support.
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9:06 - 9:08He has no lure for attracting food
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9:08 - 9:10and no teeth for eating it when it gets there.
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9:10 - 9:13His only hope for existence on this planet
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9:13 - 9:15is as a gigolo. (Laughter)
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9:15 - 9:17He's got to find himself a babe
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9:17 - 9:20and then he's got to latch on for life.
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9:20 - 9:22So this little guy
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9:22 - 9:24has found himself this babe,
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9:24 - 9:26and you will note that he's had the good sense
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9:26 - 9:29to attach himself in a way that he doesn't actually have to look at her.
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9:29 - 9:31(Laughter)
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9:31 - 9:33But he still knows a good thing when he sees it,
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9:33 - 9:36and so he seals the relationship with an eternal kiss.
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9:36 - 9:38His flesh fuses with her flesh,
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9:38 - 9:40her bloodstream grows into his body,
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9:40 - 9:43and he becomes nothing more than a little sperm sac.
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9:43 - 9:45(Laughter)
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9:45 - 9:47Well, this is a deep-sea version of Women's Lib.
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9:47 - 9:49She always knows where he is,
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9:49 - 9:51and she doesn't have to be monogamous,
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9:51 - 9:53because some of these females
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9:53 - 9:55come up with multiple males attached.
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9:55 - 9:58So they can use it for finding food, for attracting mates.
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9:58 - 10:01They use it a lot for defense, many different ways.
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10:01 - 10:04A lot of them can release their luciferin or luferase in the water
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10:04 - 10:06just the way a squid or an octopus will release an ink cloud.
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10:06 - 10:08This shrimp is actually
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10:08 - 10:10spewing light out of its mouth
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10:10 - 10:12like a fire breathing dragon
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10:12 - 10:14in order to blind or distract this viperfish
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10:14 - 10:16so that the shrimp can swim away into the darkness.
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10:16 - 10:19And there are a lot of different animals that can do this:
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10:19 - 10:21There's jellyfish, there's squid,
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10:21 - 10:23there's a whole lot of different crustaceans,
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10:23 - 10:25there's even fish that can do this.
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10:25 - 10:28This fish is called the shining tubeshoulder
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10:28 - 10:30because it actually has a tube on its shoulder
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10:30 - 10:32that can squirt out light.
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10:32 - 10:34And I was luck enough to capture one of these
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10:34 - 10:36when we were on a trawling expedition
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10:36 - 10:39off the northwest coast of Africa for "Blue Planet,"
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10:39 - 10:41for the deep portion of "Blue Planet."
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10:41 - 10:43And we were using a special trawling net
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10:43 - 10:45that we were able to bring these animals up alive.
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10:45 - 10:48So we captured one of these, and I brought it into the lab.
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10:48 - 10:50So I'm holding it,
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10:50 - 10:52and I'm about to touch that tube on its shoulder,
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10:52 - 10:55and when I do, you'll see bioluminescence coming out.
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10:56 - 10:58But to me, what's shocking
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10:58 - 11:00is not just the amount of light,
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11:00 - 11:02but the fact that it's not just luciferin and luciferase.
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11:02 - 11:04For this fish, it's actually whole cells
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11:04 - 11:06with nuclei and membranes.
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11:06 - 11:08It's energetically very costly for this fish to do this,
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11:08 - 11:11and we have no idea why it does it --
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11:11 - 11:14another one of these great mysteries that needs to be solved.
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11:16 - 11:18Now, another form of defense
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11:18 - 11:20is something called a burglar alarm --
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11:20 - 11:22same reason you have a burglar alarm on your car;
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11:22 - 11:24the honking horn and flashing lights
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11:24 - 11:26are meant to attract the attention of, hopefully,
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11:26 - 11:28the police that will come and take the burglar away --
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11:28 - 11:30when an animal's caught in the clutches of a predator,
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11:30 - 11:32its only hope for escape may be
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11:32 - 11:34to attract the attention of something bigger and nastier
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11:34 - 11:36that will attack their attacker,
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11:36 - 11:39thereby affording them a chance for escape.
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11:39 - 11:41This jellyfish, for example, has
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11:41 - 11:43a spectacular bioluminescent display.
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11:43 - 11:45This is us chasing it in the submersible.
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11:45 - 11:48That's not luminescence, that's reflected light from the gonads.
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11:48 - 11:51We capture it in a very special device on the front of the submersible
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11:51 - 11:54that allows us to bring it up in really pristine condition,
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11:54 - 11:56bring it into the lab on the ship.
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11:56 - 11:58And then to generate the display you're about to see,
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11:58 - 12:00all I did was touch it once per second
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12:00 - 12:02on its nerve ring with a sharp pick
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12:02 - 12:04that's sort of like the sharp tooth of a fish.
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12:04 - 12:07And once this display gets going, I'm not touching it anymore.
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12:07 - 12:10This is an unbelievable light show.
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12:10 - 12:12It's this pinwheel of light,
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12:12 - 12:14and I've done calculations that show that this could be seen
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12:14 - 12:17from as much as 300 feet away by a predator.
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12:17 - 12:19And I thought, "You know,
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12:19 - 12:21that might actually make a pretty good lure."
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12:21 - 12:24Because one of the things that's frustrated me
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12:24 - 12:26as a deep-sea explorer
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12:26 - 12:29is how many animals there probably are in the ocean that we know nothing about
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12:29 - 12:32because of the way we explore the ocean.
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12:32 - 12:35The primary way that we know about what lives in the ocean
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12:35 - 12:38is we go out and drag nets behind ships.
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12:38 - 12:40And I defy you to name any other branch of science
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12:40 - 12:43that still depends on hundreds of year-old technology.
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12:43 - 12:45The other primary way is we go down
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12:45 - 12:47with submersibles and remote-operated vehicles.
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12:47 - 12:50I've made hundreds of dives in submersibles.
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12:50 - 12:52When I'm sitting in a submersible though,
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12:52 - 12:55I know that I'm not unobtrusive at all --
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12:55 - 12:57I've got bright lights and noisy thrusters --
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12:57 - 13:00any animal with any sense is going to be long gone.
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13:00 - 13:03So, I've wanted for a long time
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13:03 - 13:05to figure out a different way to explore.
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13:05 - 13:08And so, sometime ago, I got this idea for a camera system.
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13:08 - 13:11It's not exactly rocket science. We call this thing Eye-in-the-Sea.
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13:11 - 13:13And scientists have done this on land for years;
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13:13 - 13:16we just use a color that the animals can't see
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13:16 - 13:18and then a camera that can see that color.
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13:18 - 13:20You can't use infrared in the sea.
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13:20 - 13:22We use far-red light, but even that's a problem
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13:22 - 13:24because it gets absorbed so quickly.
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13:24 - 13:26Made an intensified camera,
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13:26 - 13:28wanted to make this electronic jellyfish.
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13:28 - 13:31Thing is, in science,
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13:31 - 13:34you basically have to tell the funding agencies what you're going to discover
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13:34 - 13:36before they'll give you the money.
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13:36 - 13:38And I didn't know what I was going to discover,
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13:38 - 13:40so I couldn't get the funding for this.
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13:40 - 13:43So I kluged this together, I got the Harvey Mudd Engineering Clinic
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13:43 - 13:46to actually do it as an undergraduate student project initially,
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13:46 - 13:49and then I kluged funding from a whole bunch of different sources.
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13:49 - 13:51Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
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13:51 - 13:54gave me time with their ROV
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13:54 - 13:56so that I could test it and we could figure out,
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13:56 - 13:59you know, for example, which colors of red light we had to use
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13:59 - 14:02so that we could see the animals, but they couldn't see us --
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14:02 - 14:05get the electronic jellyfish working.
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14:05 - 14:08And you can see just what a shoestring operation this really was,
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14:08 - 14:11because we cast these 16 blue LEDs in epoxy
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14:11 - 14:13and you can see in the epoxy mold that we used,
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14:13 - 14:16the word Ziploc is still visible.
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14:16 - 14:19Needless to say, when it's kluged together like this,
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14:19 - 14:22there were a lot of trials and tribulations getting this working.
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14:22 - 14:24But there came a moment when it all came together,
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14:24 - 14:26and everything worked.
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14:26 - 14:28And, remarkably, that moment got caught on film
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14:28 - 14:30by photographer Mark Richards,
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14:30 - 14:32who happened to be there at the precise moment
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14:32 - 14:35that we discovered that it all came together.
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14:35 - 14:37That's me on the left,
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14:37 - 14:39my graduate student at the time, Erika Raymond,
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14:39 - 14:42and Lee Fry, who was the engineer on the project.
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14:42 - 14:45And we have this photograph posted in our lab in a place of honor
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14:45 - 14:48with the caption: "Engineer satisfying two women at once." (Laughter)
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14:49 - 14:51And we were very, very happy.
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14:51 - 14:53So now we had a system
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14:53 - 14:55that we could actually take to some place
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14:55 - 14:57that was kind of like an oasis on the bottom of the ocean
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14:57 - 15:00that might be patrolled by large predators.
-
15:01 - 15:03And so, the place that we took it to
-
15:03 - 15:05was this place called a Brine Pool,
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15:05 - 15:07which is in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico.
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15:07 - 15:09It's a magical place.
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15:09 - 15:11And I know this footage isn't going to look like anything to you --
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15:11 - 15:13we had a crummy camera at the time --
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15:13 - 15:15but I was ecstatic.
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15:15 - 15:17We're at the edge of the Brine Pool,
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15:17 - 15:20there's a fish that's swimming towards the camera.
-
15:20 - 15:22It's clearly undisturbed by us.
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15:22 - 15:25And I had my window into the deep sea.
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15:25 - 15:28I, for the first time, could see what animals were doing down there
-
15:28 - 15:31when we weren't down there disturbing them in some way.
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15:32 - 15:34Four hours into the deployment,
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15:34 - 15:36we had programmed the electronic jellyfish
-
15:36 - 15:38to come on for the first time.
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15:38 - 15:40Eighty-six seconds after
-
15:40 - 15:42it went into its pinwheel display,
-
15:42 - 15:44we recorded this:
-
15:45 - 15:47This is a squid, over six feet long,
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15:47 - 15:49that is so new to science,
-
15:49 - 15:52it cannot be placed in any known scientific family.
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15:53 - 15:56I could not have asked for a better proof of concept.
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15:56 - 15:58And based on this, I went back to the National Science Foundation
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15:58 - 16:01and said, "This is what we will discover."
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16:01 - 16:03And they gave me enough money to do it right,
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16:03 - 16:06which has involved developing the world's first deep-sea webcam --
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16:06 - 16:08which has been installed in
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16:08 - 16:10the Monterey Canyon for the past year --
-
16:10 - 16:12and now, more recently,
-
16:12 - 16:14a modular form of this system,
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16:14 - 16:16a much more mobile form
-
16:16 - 16:18that's a lot easier to launch and recover,
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16:18 - 16:21that I hope can be used on Sylvia's "hope spots"
-
16:21 - 16:23to help explore
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16:23 - 16:25and protect these areas,
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16:25 - 16:27and, for me, learn more about
-
16:27 - 16:30the bioluminescence in these "hope spots."
-
16:30 - 16:33So one of these take-home messages here
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16:33 - 16:36is, there is still a lot to explore in the oceans.
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16:36 - 16:38And Sylvia has said
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16:38 - 16:41that we are destroying the oceans before we even know what's in them,
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16:41 - 16:43and she's right.
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16:43 - 16:45So if you ever, ever get an opportunity
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16:45 - 16:47to take a dive in a submersible,
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16:47 - 16:50say yes -- a thousand times, yes --
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16:50 - 16:52and please turn out the lights.
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16:52 - 16:54I promise, you'll love it.
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16:54 - 16:56Thank you.
-
16:56 - 16:58(Applause)
- Title:
- Glowing life in an underwater world
- Speaker:
- Edith Widder
- Description:
-
Some 80 to 90 percent of undersea creatures make light -- and we know very little about how or why. Bioluminescence expert Edith Widder explores this glowing, sparkling, luminous world, sharing glorious images and insight into the unseen depths (and brights) of the ocean.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:59
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