9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I've been spending my summers

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the Marine Biological Laboratory in [br]Woods Hole, Massachusetts

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And there, what I've been doing is[br]essentially renting a boat.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What I would like to ask you to do

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is to come on a boat ride with me tonight.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, we ride off from Eel Pond into[br]the Vineyard South,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
right off the coast of Martha's Vineyard,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
equipped with a drone to[br]identify potential spots

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from which to peer into the Atlantic.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Earlier I was going to say

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into the depths of the Atlantic,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but we don't have to go too deep[br]to reach the unknown.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Here, barely two miles away,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from what is arguably the greatest[br]marine biology lab in the world,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we lower a simple plankton net[br]into the water

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and bring up into the surface things[br]that humanity rarely pays attention to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and oftentimes, have never seen before.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Here is one of the organisms[br]that we caught in our net,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this is a jellyfish.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But look closely, living inside this[br]animal is another organism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that is very likely entirely [br]new to science.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A complete new species.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Or how about this other [br]transparent beauty?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
With a beating heart, [br]asexually growing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on top of its head,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
progeny that will move on to[br]reproduce sexually.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now let me say that again,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this animal is growing asexually,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on top of its head,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
progeny that is going to reproduce[br]sexually in the next generation.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A weird jellyfish, not quite,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this is an ascidian,[br]this is a group of animals

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that now we know we share [br]extensive genomic ancestry with,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and it is perhaps the closest [br]invertebrate species to our own.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Meet your cousin,[br]Thalia democratica

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm pretty sure you didn't [br]save a spot

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in your last family reunion for Thalia.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But, let me tell you,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these animals are profoundly related to us

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in ways we are just [br]beginning to understand.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Next time you hear anybody [br]derisively telling you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that this type of research is a[br]simple fishing expedition,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I hope that you remember[br]the trip that we just took.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Today, many biological sciences[br]only see value

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in studying deeper what we [br]already know,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In mapping already discovered continents.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But some of us are much more [br]interested in the unknown,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we want to discover completely [br]new continents,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and gaze at magnificent vistas[br]of ignorance.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We crave the experience of being[br]completely baffled

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by something we have [br]never seen before.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And yes, I agree that there's a lot of [br]ego satisfaction in being able to say

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"Hey, I was the first one [br]to discover that."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is not a self-aggrandizing[br]enterprise

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because in this type of [br]discovery research,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you don't feel like a complete [br]idiot most of the time,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you're just not science-ing[br]hard enough.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Every summer, I bring onto the deck[br]of this little boat of ours,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more and more things that[br]we know very little about.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Very, very, very little about.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I would like to tell you tonight,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a story about life that[br]rarely gets told

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in an environment like this.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
From the vantage point of[br]our 21st biological laboratories,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our 21st century[br]biological laboratories,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we have began to illuminate[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
many mysteries of life with knowledge.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We sensed that after centuries[br]of scientific research,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we're beginning to make significant[br]inroads into understanding

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some of the most fundamental[br]principles of life.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Our collective optimism is reflected[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by the growth of biotechnology[br]across the globe.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Striving to utilize scientific knowledge[br]to cure human diseases,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
things like cancer, aging,[br]degeneretive diseases,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these are but some of the [br]undesirables we wish to tame.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What I often wonder is,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"Why is it that we are[br]having so much trouble

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
trying to solve the [br]problem of cancer?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Is it that we're trying to solve[br]the problem of cancer,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and not trying to[br]understand life?"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Life on this planet [br]shares a common origin.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I can summarize 3.5 billion years[br]of the history of life on this planet

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in a single slide.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What you see represented here

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
are all known species,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
representative of all [br]known species of our planet.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in this immensity of life[br]and biodiversity

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we occupy a rather[br]unremarkable position.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Homo sapiens,[br]the last of our kind.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And though I don't really[br]want to disparage

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
all the accomplishments[br]of our species,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as much as we wish it to be so,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and often pretend that it is so,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we are not the measure of all things.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We are, however, the measurers[br]of many things.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We relentlessly quantify, [br]analyze and compare,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and some of these are absolutely[br]invaluable and indeed necessary,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but this emphasis today,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on forcing biological research[br]to specialize,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and to produce practical outcomes,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is actually restricting our ability[br]to interrogate life,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to accept only narrow confines[br]and unsatisfying depths.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We are measuring an astonishingly[br]narrow sliver of life,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and hoping that those numbers[br]will save all of our lives.