9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So let me with start with Roy Amara. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So Roy's argument is that[br]most new technologies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 tend to be overestimated[br]in their impact to begin with, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then they get underestimated in[br]the long term because we get used to them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These really are days[br]of miracle and wonder. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You remember that[br]wonderful song by Paul Simon? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There were two lines in it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what was it that was considered[br]miraculous back then? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Slowing down things, back then,[br]and the long distance call. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because, of course, you used[br]to get interrupted by operators 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who would tell you long distance calling,[br]do you want to hang up? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And now we think nothing of calling[br]all over the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, something similar may be happening 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with reading and programming life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But before I unpack that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 let's just talk about telescopes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So telescopes were overestimated[br]originally in their impact. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is one of Galileo's early models. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People thought it was just[br]going to ruin all religion. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we're not paying that much[br]attention to telescopes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But of course telescopes[br]launched 10 years ago, as you just heard, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 could take this Volkswagen,[br]fly it to the Moon, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you could see the lights[br]on that Volkswagen light up on the Moon. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's the kind of resolution power[br]that allowed you to see 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little specks of dust[br]floating around distant suns. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Imagine for a second that this[br]was a sun a billion light years away 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you had a little speck of dust[br]that came in front of it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that's what detecting[br]an exoplanet is like. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the cool thing is the telescopes[br]that are now being launched 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 would allow you to see[br]a single candle lit on the Moon, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and if you separated it by one plate, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you could see two candles[br]separately at that distance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's the kind[br]of resolution that you need 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to begin that little speck of dust[br]as it comes around the sun 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and see if it has a blue-green signature. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And if it does have[br]a blue-green signature, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it means that life is common[br]in the Universe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The first time you ever[br]see a blue-green signature 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on a distant planet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it means there's photosynthesis there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there's water there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the chances you saw[br]the only other planet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with photosynthesis are about zero. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's a calendar-changing event. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's a before and after[br]we are alone in the Universe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Forget about the discovery[br]of whatever continent. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So as you're thinking about this,[br]we're now beginning 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be able to image most of the Universe, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that is a time of miracle and wonder. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we kind of take that for granted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Something similar is happening in life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we're hearing about life[br]in these little bits and pieces. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We hear about CRISPR[br]and we hear about this technology 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we hear about this technology,[br]but the bottom line on life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is that life turns out to be a code. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And life as code is[br]a really important concept 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it means, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just in the same way[br]as you can write a sentence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in English or in French or Chinese, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just in the same way[br]as you can copy a sentence, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just in the same way[br]as you can edit a sentence, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just in the same way[br]as you can print a sentence, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you're beginning to be able[br]to do that with life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It means that we're beginning[br]to learn how to read this language. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this, of course, is the language[br]that is used by this orange. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So how does this orange execute code? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It doesn't do it in ones and zeroes[br]like a computer does. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It sits on a tree and one day it does, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 plop, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that means, execute. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 AACTAAG. Make me a little root. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 TCGACC. Make me a little stem. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 GAC. Make me some leaves.[br]AGC. Make me some flowers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then GCAA. Make me some more oranges. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If I edit a sentence in English 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on a word processor, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then what happens is you can go[br]from this word to that word. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If I edit something in this orange 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and put in GCAAC, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 using CRISPR or something else[br]that you've heard of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then this orange becomes a lemon 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or it becomes a grapefruit[br]or it becomes a tangerine. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And if I edit one in a thousand letters, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you become the person[br]sitting next to you today. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Be more careful where you sit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What's happening on this stuff[br]is it was really expensive to begin with. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was like long distance calls. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the cost of this is dropping[br]50 percent faster than Moore's Law. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The first $200 full genome[br]was announced yesterday by Veritas. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so as you're looking at these systems, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter,[br]it doesn't matter, and then it does. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So let me just give you[br]the map view of this stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a big discovery. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's 23 chromosomes. Cool. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Let's now start using a telescope version,[br]but instead of using a telescope, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 let's use a microscope to zoom in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on the interior of those chromosomes, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is the Y chromosome. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a third the size of the X.[br]It's recessive and mutant. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But hey, just a male. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And as you're looking at this stuff, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here's kind of a country view 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at a 400 base pair resolution level, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then you zoom in to 550[br]and then you zoom in to 850 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can begin to identify[br]more and more genes as you zoom in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then you zoom in to the state level 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can begin to tell[br]who's got leukemia, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how did they get leukemia,[br]what kind of leukemia do they have, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what shifted from[br]what place to what place? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then you zoom in[br]to the Google street view level. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is what happens[br]if you have colorectal cancer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for a very specific patient[br]on the letter-by-letter resolution. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what we're doing in this stuff[br]is we're gathering information 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and just generating[br]enormous amounts of information. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is one of the largest[br]databases on the planet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it's growing faster than we[br]can build computers to store it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can create some incredible[br]maps with this stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you want to understand the plague 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and why one plague is bubonic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the other one[br]is a different kind of plague 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the other one[br]is a different kind of plague? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, here's a map of the plague. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some are absolutely deadly to humans. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some are not. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And oh, by the way,[br]as you go to the bottom of this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how does it compare to tuberculosis? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is the difference between[br]tuberculosis and various kinds of plagues, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can play detective[br]with this stuff, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because you can take[br]a very specific kind of cholera 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that affected Haiti 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can look at[br]which country it came from, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which region it came from, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and probably which soldier took that[br]from that African country to Haiti. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Zoom out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's not just zooming in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is one of the coolest maps[br]ever done by human beings. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what they've done is they've taken[br]all the genetic information they have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about all the species, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they've put a tree of life[br]on a single page 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you can zoom in and out of. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is what came first,[br]how did it diversify, how did it branch, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how large is that genome,[br]on a single page. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's kind of the universe[br]of life on Earth, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it's being constantly[br]updated and completed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so as you're looking at this stuff, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the really important changes,[br]the old biology used to be reactive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You used to have a lot of biologists[br]that had microscopes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they had magnifying glasses[br]and they were out observing animals. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The new biology is proactive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You don't just observe stuff,[br]you make stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's a really big change, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it allows us[br]to do things like this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I know you're really[br]excited by this picture. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It only two us four years[br]and 40 million dollars 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be able to take this picture. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And what we did 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is we took the full[br]gene code out of a cell, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not a gene, not two genes,[br]the full gene code out of a cell, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 built a completely new gene code, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 inserted it into the cell, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 figured out how a way[br]to have the cell execute that code, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and built a completely new species. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is the world's[br]first synthetic life form. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so what do you do with this stuff? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, this stuff is going[br]to change the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Let me give you three short-term trends 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in terms of how it's going[br]to change the world.