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A briefcase full of poop changed my life.
一个装满便便的公文包改变了我的人生。
Ten years ago, I was a graduate student and I was helping judge a genetic engineering competition for undergrads.
10年前，我还是个研究生，当时我正帮忙给本科生的基因工程竞赛评分。
There, I met a British artist and designer named Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.
在比赛中，我遇到了一位英国艺术家兼设计师，名叫亚历山大·黛西·金斯伯格。
She was wearing the white embroidered polo shirt of the University of Cambridge team and holding a silver briefcase,
她穿着剑桥大学队的白色绣花polo衫，手里拿着一个银色手提箱，
like the kind that you would imagine is handcuffed to your wrist.
感觉就跟手腕绑在了一起似的。
She gestured over from a quiet corner and asked me if I wanted to see something.
她在一个僻静的角落向我示意，问我想不想看样东西。
With a sneaky look, she opened up the suitcase, and inside were six glorious, multicolored turds.
她悄悄的打开公文包，里面是六条漂亮、多彩的便便。
The Cambridge team, she explained, had spent their summer engineering the bacteria E. coli
她解释道，剑桥大学队员们在利用暑假尝试改变大肠杆菌的基因结构，
to be able to sense different things in the environment and produce a rainbow of different colors in response.
以感知周围的环境变化，并生成出各种颜色的菌株。
Arsenic in your drinking water?
饮用水里含有砷？
This strain would turn green.
这个菌株会变绿。
She and her collaborator, the designer James King,
她和她的合作伙伴，设计师詹姆斯·金，
worked with the students and imagined the different possible scenarios of how you might use these bacteria.
与学生们一道工作，设想人们会如何使用这些细菌，以及各种可能的应用场景。
What if, they asked, you could use them as a living probiotic drink and health monitor, all in one?
他们想知道，是否可以将这些细菌同时用作活体益生菌饮品和健康监测器？
You could drink the bacteria and it would live in your gut, sensing what's going on,
你喝掉的细菌会在你的肚子里存活，时时监测你的健康状况，
and then in response to something, it would be able to produce a colored output. Holy shit!
当出现异常时，就能产生出有颜色的大便。我的天啊！
The Cambridge team went on to win the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, or iGEM for short.
剑桥大学的这支队伍后来又赢得了国际基因工程器械比赛，简称iGEM。
And as for me, those turds were a turning point.
于我而言，这些便便是一个转折点。
I am a synthetic biologist, which is probably a weird term that most people aren't familiar with.
我是一位合成生物学家。这个词可能有点儿奇怪，大部分人都不太熟悉。
It definitely sounds like an oxymoron.
它听起来像极了矛盾修辞手法。
How can biology, something natural, be synthetic? How can something artificial be alive?
生物是个自然的东西，它怎么会是合成的呢？人造的东西怎么会具有生命呢？
Synthetic biologists sort of poke holes in that boundary that we draw between what is natural and what's technological.
合成生物学家就好像是在我们划定的自然产物和技术加工产物的分界面上戳了个洞。
And every year, iGEM students from all over the world spend their summer trying to engineer biology to be technology.
在每一年的iGEM大赛中，来自全球的学生们都会利用暑假尝试将生物知识转化为技术。
They teach bacteria how to play sudoku, they make multicolored spider silk,
他们教会了细菌如何玩数独游戏，他们让蜘蛛吐出了五颜六色的丝，
they make self-healing concrete and tissue printers and plastic-eating bacteria.
还发明了有自愈能力的混凝土、肌体组织打印机，以及吃塑料的细菌等等。
Up until that moment, though, I was a little bit more concerned with a different kind of oxymoron.
从那一刻开始，我开始对一个不同的矛盾情形多了一丝担忧。
Just plain old genetic engineering.
即朴素传统的基因工程。
The comedian Simon Munnery once wrote that genetic engineering is actually insulting to proper engineering.
喜剧演员西蒙·穆娜瑞曾经写道，基因工程其实是对合理工程的侮辱。
Genetic engineering is more like throwing a bunch of concrete and steel in a river and if somebody can walk across, you call it a bridge.
基因工程就像是，把一堆钢筋混凝土倒在河里，只要有人能走过去，它就被称之为桥了。
And so synthetic biologists were pretty worried about this, and worried that genetic engineering was a little bit more art that science.
因此合成生物学家对此颇为担心，他们担心基因工程更像是艺术，而非科学。
They wanted to turn genetic engineering into a real engineering discipline,
他们想把基因工程变为一门真正的工程学科，
where we could program cells and write DNA the way that engineers write software for computers.
我们可以对细胞编程、构建DNA，正如工程师编写电脑程序一样。
That day 10 years ago started me on a path that gets me to where I am now.
10年前的一天，我开始踏上这段旅程，并且一直走到了今天。
Today, I'm the creative director at a synthetic biology company called Ginkgo Bioworks.
现在，我是一家合成生物公司，银杏生物公司的创意总监。
"Creative director" is a weird title for a biotech company were people try to program life the way that we program computers.
“创意总监”对于一家生物技术公司来说是个奇怪的头衔，在这里，人们尝试对生命编程，就如同我们编写计算机程序一样。
But that day when I met Daisy, I learned something about engineering.
但当我遇到黛西的那天，我对工程有了新的理解。
I learned that engineering isn't really just about equations and steel and circuits, it's actually about people.
我意识到工程并不仅仅与方程式、钢铁制品、电路相关，实际上是与人相关的。
It's something that people do, and it impacts us.
它是人们所做的，会对我们产生影响的事。
So in my work, I try to open up new spaces for different kinds of engineering.
因此，在工作中，我尝试开启各种新的工程领域。
How can we ask better questions, and can we have better conversations about what we want from the future of technology?
我们该如何提出更好的问题，能否更好的探讨我们希望从未来科技中得到什么？
How can we understand the technological but also social and political and economic reasons that GMOs are so polarizing in our society?
我们如何理解社会中对于转基因两极化的看法，其技术层面、社会层面、政治层面的原因是什么？
Can we make GMOs that people love? Can we use biology to make technology that's more expansive and regenerative?
我们能创造出人们更愿意接受的转基因技术吗？我们能通过生物手段获得适用范围更广、可再生性能更好的技术吗？
I think it starts by recognizing that we, as synthetic biologists,
我觉得如果能意识到，我们作为合成生物学家，
are also shaped by a culture that values "real engineering" more than any of the squishy stuff.
也同样受到了文化的影响，我们对“真正的工程”的重视程度远高于对那些湿哒哒的东西。
We get so caught up in circuits and what happens inside of computers,
我们在电路和电脑技术方面投入得太多了，
that we sometimes lose sight of the magic that's happening inside of us.
以至于我们时常会忽视人体内部的神奇之处。
There is plenty of shitty technology out there, but this was the first time that I imagined poop as technology.
虽然已经有很多差劲的技术了，但我还是头一次把大便想象成技术。
I began to see that synthetic biology was awesome,
我开始认为合成生物学很厉害了，
not because we could turn cells into computers, but because we could bring technology to life.
这倒不是因为我们可以把细胞变为电脑，而是因为我们可以将技术“唤醒”。
This was technology that was visceral, an unforgettable vision of what the future might hold.
这个是技术，那个是内脏，这可能是未来依然无法摆脱的观念。
But importantly, it was also framed as the question "Is this the kind of future that we actually want?"
但重要的是，这也提出了一个问题，“这就是我们真正想要的未来吗？”
We've been promised a future of chrome, but what if the future is fleshy?
我们总被灌输说，未来是互联网的时代，但万一未来有肉身呢？
Science and science fiction help us remember that we're made of star stuff.
科学和科幻小说让我们记住了，人类是由星球上的物质组成的。
But can it also help us remember the wonder and weirdness of being made of flesh?
但这些能让我们知道“由肉体组成”这件事的美妙和奇异之处吗？
Biology is us, it's our bodies, it's what we eat.
生物学就是我们自己，是我们的身体，是我们的食物。
What happens when biology becomes technology?
如果生物成为了技术，会怎么样呢？
These images are questions, and they challenge what we think of as normal and desirable.
这些图片提出了问题，对我们习以为常的事情提出了挑战。
And they also show us that the future is full of choices and that we could choose differently.
也向我们展示了未来是充满不同选项的，而我们可以做出不同的选择。
What's the future of the body, of beauty? If we change the body, will we have new kinds of awareness?
人体的未来、审美的未来会是怎样的？如果我们改变了身体，我们能否获得某种新的感知？
And will new kinds of awareness of the microbial world change the way that we eat?
而如果我能感知到微生物的世界，我们的饮食会有所改变吗？
The last chapter of my dissertation was all about cheese that I made using bacteria that I swabbed from in between my toes.
我论文的最后一章就是关于利用从我脚趾中提取的细菌培养制作的奶酪。
I told you that the poop changed my life.
我跟你们说过，便便事件改变了我的一生。
I worked with the smell artist and researcher Sissel Tolaas
我和味觉专家西丝儿·托拉斯一起，
to explore all of the ways that our bodies and cheese are connected through smell and therefore microbes.
通过味道和微生物来研究我们的身体和奶酪之间是通过什么方式产生关联的。
And we created this cheese to challenge how we think about the bacteria that's part of our lives and the bacteria that we work with in the lab.
于是我们创造出了这种奶酪，从而刷新了我们对来自人体的细菌和来自实验室的细菌的认知。
We are, indeed, what we eat.
实际上，我们吃的就是我们自己。
The intersection of biology and technology is more often told as a story of transcending our fleshy realities.
生物和科技的交融，经常被描述成一个超越肉身的故事。
If you can upload your brain to a computer, you don't need to poop anymore after all.
如果你能把大脑上传到计算机中，你也就不再需要上厕所了。
And that's usually a story that's told as a good thing, right?
那种故事通常被认为是好事儿，对吧？
Because computers are clean, and biology is messy.
因为计算机是“洁净的”，而生物则是“脏乱的”。
Computers make sense and are rational, and biology is an unpredictable tangle.
计算机是“理性、合理的”，而生物则是不可预测的“一团乱麻”。
It kind of follows from there that science and technology are supposed to be rational, objective and pure,
由此得出科学也应该是理性的、客观的、纯粹的，
and it's humans that are a total mess.
而人类则是混乱不堪。
But like synthetic biologists poke holes in that line between nature and technology, artists, designers and social scientists showed me
但正如合成生物学家在自然与科技的分界面上戳了个洞，艺术家、设计师和社会科学家让我看到，
that the lines that we draw between nature, technology and society are a little bit softer than we might think.
我们在自然、科学和社会之间划出的那条分割线比我们想象的更加脆弱。
They challenge us to reconsider our visions for the future and our fantasies about controlling nature.
它迫使我们重新审视对未来的看法，重新思考掌控自然的幻想。
They show us how our prejudices, our hopes and our values
它们向我们展示了，我们的偏见、希望、价值观
are embedded in science and technology through the questions that we ask and the choices that we make.
是如何通过我们所提的问题和做出的选择而体现在科学技术中的。
They make visible the ways that science and technology are human and therefore political.
它们使科学技术人性的一面、即政治性的一面，变得更显而易见。
What does it mean for us to be able to control life for our own purposes?
如果能够出于我们自身目的而对生命进行控制，意味着什么呢？
The artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr made a project called "Victimless Leather,"
艺术家奥龙·凯茨和埃尔纳·祖尔创建了一个叫做“无需牺牲生命的皮革”，
where they engineered a tiny leather jacket out of mouse cells.
他们用老鼠细胞研制出了一种微小的皮夹克。
Is this jacket alive? What does it take to grow it and keep it this way?
这件皮夹克有生命力吗？通过这种方式培养、保存这些皮夹克需要付出什么代价？
Is it really victimless? And what does it mean for something to be victimless?
这真的无需牺牲生命吗？无需牺牲生命的物品意味着什么？
The choices that we make in what we show and what we hide in our stories of progress, are often political choices that have real consequences.
我们所做出的选择，关于在研发进程中对外展示什么、隐藏什么，往往是带有真实影响的政治选择。
How will genetic technologies shape the way that we understand ourselves and define our bodies?
基因技术会如何改变我们对自身的理解、改变我们对身体的界定？
The artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg made these faces based on DNA sequences she extracted from sidewalk litter,
艺术家海瑟·戴维·海格伯格利用她从路边垃圾堆提取出的DNA序列，制作了这些面孔，
forcing us to ask questions about genetic privacy, but also how and whether DNA can really define us.
这迫使我们提出基因隐私的问题，并提出了DNA如何改变我们，以及能否改变我们的问题。
How will we fight against and cope with climate change?
我们该如何阻止并应对气候变化问题？
Will we change the way that we make everything, using biological materials that can grow and decay alongside us?
我们会改变我们的制造方式，使用能跟我们一起生长和降解的生物材料吗？
Will we change our own bodies? Or nature itself?
我们会改变自己的身体，或者改变自然界吗？
Or can we change the system that keeps reinforcing those boundaries between science, society, nature and technology?
又或者，我们能改变那些不断强化科学、社会、自然和科技之间边界的系统，
Relationships that today keep us locked in these unsustainable patterns.
以及让我们困在不可持续的发展模式中的关系吗？
How we understand and respond to crises that are natural, technical and social all at once, from coronavirus to climate change,
当自然、科技和社会灾难一起爆发时，从冠状病毒到气候变化，我们该如何理解和应对？
is deeply political, and science never happens in a vacuum.
这些都是深受政治影响的，科学从来都不是在真空中发生的。
Let's go back in time to when the first European settlers arrived in Hawaii.
让我们回过头看看当第一批欧洲移民者抵达夏威夷时发生了什么。
They eventually brought their cattle and their scientists with them.
他们带去了牲畜，科学家也一同前往。
The cattle roamed the hillsides, trampling and changing the ecosystems as they went.
牲畜在山上游走，所到之处，生态系统都遭到了践踏和改变。
The scientists catalogued the species that they found there, often taking the last specimen before they went extinct.
科学家们则把他们发现的物种编入目录，并在物种灭绝之前，提取最后的样本。
This is the Maui hau kuahiwi, or the Hibiscadelphus wilderianus, so named by Gerrit Wilder in 1910.
这个是“Maui hau kuahiwi”，或者称为“Hibiscadelphus wilderianus”，由格利特·韦德于1910年命名。
By 1912, it was extinct. I found this specimen in the Harvard University Herbarium,
在1912年，它灭绝了。我是在哈佛大学植物标本中发现这个物种的，
where it's housed with five million other specimens from all over the world.
那里收藏着来自世界各地的500多万种标本。
I wanted to take a piece of science's past, tied up as it was with colonialism,
我希望通过科学过去的一个片段，把它和殖民主义联结起来，
and all of the embedded ideas of the way that nature and science and society should work together, and ask questions about science's future.
并且把关于生物、科学、社会中根植的观念结合起来，对科学的未来提出疑问。
Working with an awesome team at Ginkgo, and others at UC Santa Cruz,
通过银杏公司以及加州大学圣克鲁兹分校的团队合作，
we were able to extract a little bit of the DNA from a tiny sliver of this plant specimen and to sequence the DNA inside.
我们从这个植物标本叶片中成功提取出了一小部分DNA，并对DNA进行了排序。
And then resynthesize a possible version of the genes that made the smell of the plant.
之后对植物气味基因进行了人工合成。
By inserting those genes into yeast,
通过把这种基因注入酵母菌，
we could produce little bits of that smell and be able to, maybe, smell a little bit of something that's lost forever.
我们可以制造出一丝味道，或许可以闻到这种已经永远消失的物种的味道。
Working again with Daisy and Sissel Tolaas, my collaborator on the cheese project,
通过再次与黛西和西丝儿·托拉斯合作，他们也是我在奶酪项目中的合作者，
we reconstructed and composed a new smell of that flower, and created an installation where people could experience it,
我们改组生成了那种花的新味道，并建造了一个设施，人们可以在那里闻到这种味道，
to be part of this natural history and synthetic future.
作为自然历史和人造未来的一部分。
Ten years ago, I was a synthetic biologist worried that genetic engineering was more art than science
10年前，我是一位合成生物学家，担心基因工程更像是艺术而非科学，
and that people were too messy and biology was too complicated.
担心人类太难以捉摸、生物学太复杂。
Now I use genetic engineering as art to explore all the different ways that we are entangled together and imagine different possible futures.
如今，我把基因工程技术当作艺术来运用，探索人与人之间建立关系的不同方式，设想未来的不同可能性。
A fleshy future is one that does recognize all those interconnections and the human realities of technology.
一个有肉身的未来会认同所有那些连接以及人类现实技术。
But it also recognizes the incredible power of biology, its resilience and sustainability, its ability to heal and grow and adapt.
但它也同样认同生物学的无穷力量，它的恢复性及持续性，它修复、生长和适应的能力。
Values that are so necessary for the visions of the futures that we can have today.
这些价值观对于今天的我们对未来的愿景是非常必要的。
Technology will shape that future, but humans make technology.
科技会改变未来，但创造科技的是人类。
How we decide what that future will be is up to all of us. Thank you.
如何决定未来的样子，取决于我们每一个人。谢谢。
