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What was actually interesting to us was not that the bacteria made light, but when the bacteria made light.
事实上，我们感兴趣的部分并不是细菌会不会发光，而是细菌何时发光。
What we noticed is when the bacteria were alone, so when they were in dilute suspension, they made no light.
我们发现，当细菌独立存在，经稀释后进行悬浮培养时，它们不发光。
But when they grew to a certain cell number all the bacteria turned on light simultaneously.
但一旦它们增长到一个特定数量之后，所有的细菌同时发光。
The question that we had is how can bacteria, these primitive organisms, tell the difference from times when they're alone,
于是我们想，这些原始生物，到底如何得知自己是处于孤立的状态
and times when they're in a community, and then all do something together.
还是处在一个群体里，并且同时一起做同一件事情。
What we've figured out is that the way that they do that is that they talk to each other, and they talk with a chemical language.
然后我们发现了这是因为细菌能够彼此交谈，它们用的是化学语言。
This is now supposed to be my bacterial cell. When it's alone it doesn't make any light.
假设这是我的细菌。当它独处时，根本不会发光。
But what it does do is to make and secrete small molecules that you can think of like hormones,
但是它们会制造、分泌小的分子，你可以把他想象成荷尔蒙，
and these are the red triangles, and when the bacteria is alone the molecules just float away and so no light.
这里的红色三角形代表这些小分子，当细菌独处时，分泌的小分子游离开来，所以不发光。
But when the bacteria grow and double and they're all participating in making these molecules,
但是随着这些细菌成倍增长，并且全部一起制造这些分子，
the molecule -- the extracellular amount of that molecule increases in proportion to cell number.
这些细胞外分子的含量随着细胞数量的增加而增加。
And when the molecule hits a certain amount that tells the bacteria how many neighbors there are,
当这些个分子累积到一定的量之后，它们会告诉细菌它们周围有多少邻居，
they recognize that molecule and all of the bacteria turn on light in synchrony.
细菌接受到这些信息后，所有的细菌同时开始发光。
That's how bioluminescence works -- they're talking with these chemical words.
生物发光就是这样运作的--它们通过上述的化学语言进行交流。
