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Earlier this year, I was driving

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through the countryside
with a little girl of 6

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and she pointed out some flowers
by the wayside.

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I asked her what she thought
flowers were for.

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She gave a very thoughtful answer.

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Two things, she said.

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To make the world pretty

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and to help the bees
make honey for us.

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I thought that was a
very nice answer

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and I was sorry

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that I had to tell her
that it wasn't true.

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Her answer is not too different
from the answer

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that most people throughout history
would have given.

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The very first chapter
of the Bible sets it out:

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"Man has dominion
over all living things."

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The animals and plants
are there for our benefit.

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This attitude was unquestioned
throughout the Middle Ages

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and it really persists to this day.

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One pious man
in the Middle Ages thought

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that weeds were there
to benefit us,

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because it's so good for our spirit
to have to go and pull them up.

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And another reverend gentleman thought

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that the louse was indispensable,

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because it provided a powerful

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incentive to cleanliness.

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There's also been the suggestion
that animals

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positively want to do their bit
for the good of mankind

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and even want to be eaten by us.

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Well this idea reminds me
of a brilliant passage

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from one of my favorite works
of fiction,

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"The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.

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In fact, I'm so fond of this passage

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that I was wanting somebody
to read it out.

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Would anybody like to volunteer to?

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Right, you, please.

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Your name is?

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Douglas

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Douglas what?

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Adams.

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Douglas Adams!
What an amazing coincidence.

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"A large dairy animal approached

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Zaphod Beeblebrox's table,

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a meaty, bovine quadruped
with watery eyes,

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small horns and an ingratiating
smile on its lips.

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'Good evening', it lowed and sat back
heavily on its haunches.

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'I am the main dish of the day.

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May I interest you
in parts of my body?'

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Its gaze was met by looks

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of startled bewilderment
by Arthur

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and naked hunger
from Zaphod Beeblebrox.

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'Something off the shoulder,
perhaps?', suggested the animal.

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'braised, in a white wine sauce?'

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'Uh, your shoulder,' said Arthur
in a horrified whisper.

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'But naturally my shoulder, sir',

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mooed the animal contentedly.

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'Nobody else's is mine to offer.'

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Zaphod leaped to his feet
and started

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prodding and feeling
the animal's shoulder appreciatively.

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'Or the rump is very good',

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murmured the animal.

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'I've being exercising it
and eating plenty of grain,

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so there's a lot of good meat there.'

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'You mean, this animal

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actually wants us to eat it?',

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exclaimed Arthur.

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'That's absolutely horrible.

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It's the most revolting thing
I've ever heard.'

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'What's the problem,
earth man?', said Zaphod.

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'I just don't want to
eat an animal

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that's standing there,
inviting me to', said Arthur.

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'It's heartless.'

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'Better than eating an animal

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that doesn't want
to be eaten', said Zaphod.

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'But that's not the point!',

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protested Arthur.

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Then he thought about it
for a moment.

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'All right', he said,
'maybe it is the point.

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I don't care.

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I don't want to think about it now.

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I'll just have a green salad.'

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'May I urge you to consider my liver?'

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asked the animal.

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'It must be very rich
and tender by now.

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I've been force-feeding myself
for months.'

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'A green salad', said Arthur firmly.

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The animal looked at him
disapprovingly.

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'Are you going to tell me',
snapped Arthur,

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'that I shouldn't have
a green salad?'

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'Well', said the animal,

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'I know many vegetables

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that are very clear on that point.

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Which is why it was eventually
decided to

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cut through the whole tangled problem
and breed an animal

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that actually wanted to be eaten

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and was capable of saying so

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clearly and unambiguously.

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And here I am.'

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'Glass of water, please',
said Arthur.

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'Look, are we hungry or not?',
snapped Zaphod.

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'We'll just have four steaks, please,

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very, very rare, and quickly.'

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The animal staggered to its feet.

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'A very wise choice, sir,
if I may say so.

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Very good',
it said with a mellow gurgle.

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'I'll just nip off
and shoot myself.'

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He turned and gave a friendly
wink to Arthur.

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'Don't worry, sir', he said.

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'I'll be very humane.'"

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Thank you very much.

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Well however outlandish
that may sound,

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this sort of idea still
dominates our culture,

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that animals are there
for our benefit.

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We need to find an entirely
new view of the world.

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We need to try to see things

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through the eyes of other creatures,

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instead of all the time through
our own self-interested eyes.

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Flowers, the bees might say,

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are there to provide us

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with pollen and nectar.

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But even the bees
haven't quite got it right.

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They're a lot more right
than we would be,

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if we think that flowers
are there for our benefit.

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The fact is that flowers,

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or at least the bright
and showy ones,

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are there because, in a sense,

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bees have cultivated them,
domesticated them.

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When I say bees,
I include butterflies and other

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sorts of pollinators.

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This is why I used the word "garden"

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in the title of this lecture.

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But why the ultraviolet garden?

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Well that's a parable,

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like the parable of the Good
Samaritan, or the sower.

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Ultraviolet light is a kind of light

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that we can't see.

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It's just like ordinary light

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except that it's a different wavelength

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and we can't see it.

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Bees can see it,

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they see it as a distinct color

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and bees cannot see red.

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So, flowers are bound to look

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very different through
the eyes of bees.

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And in just the same way,
the question

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'what are flowers good for?'
is a question

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that we have to look at
through the eyes of bees.

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Well as I say,
we can't see ultraviolet

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and it's no use
trying to capture

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what it would be that a bee would
see if it looked at flowers.

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All we can do is to play
with a few tricks

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to get some flavor of
what it might be like.

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Now, here is a row
of tubes containing

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white substances,
all different white substances

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They all look alike,
they all look white.

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But if we now expose them

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to ultraviolet light for a while,

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they glow different colors.

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Now, this is a bit of a cheat.

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We're not actually seeing ultraviolet

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and none of those colors
is actually ultraviolet:

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those are all visible colors

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that we can see.

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What we are doing though
is using this as a kind of metaphor

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to show how what we see is changed

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in ultraviolet light.

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That isn't what bees would see

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but it gives us an idea

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of how different things might
look through the eyes of bees.

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Actually, flowers probably

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look even more different

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because when bees see shape

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they see shape in a very
different way from us.

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When a bee sees a complicated shape

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like this set of leaves here,
or any of these flowers,

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it probably doesn't see it
as a shape like that.

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It probably sees this as something
that we should call "flicker."

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You see little light bulbs
flickering in the flowers now

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and once again, that almost
certainly isn't quite

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what the bees see.

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But it's likely to be a bit more like

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what the bees see than what we see

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when we see complicated shapes
like that.

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And now we have a film here

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which again is trying
to give an impression

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of what the ultraviolet garden
might look like.

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We're seeing whole set of flowers

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both as we see them,
and then as the bee

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might see them, in ultraviolet.

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So there's a flower

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as we might see it,
white and yellow,

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there it is as a bee might see it

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with the center picked out
in ultraviolet.

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Once again, we see a yellow flower

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and to the bee
it would appear to glow

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with a strange,
unearthly ultraviolet light.

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Again a bit of a cheat,

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because we don't actually know
what ultraviolet would look like.

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But it's just to try to
give you some idea

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of how different
it would be for a bee.

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And in any case, we're only
using this strangeness

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as a parable for changing
our point of view

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about who or what it is
that flowers

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and all other living creatures
are for the good of.

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So let's now ask

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what bees are good for
from the point of view of flowers?

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Well, flowers are sex organs,

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designed by natural selection

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to make male and female cells

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and bring them together.

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There are good genetic reasons

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that apply in most flowers,
though not all,

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for making sure that
they don't mate with themselves.

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It would be all too easy
for a flower to mate with itself:

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it's got pollen and a stigma
in the same physical flower,

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and they use bees,

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00:10:05,580 --> 00:10:07,580
butterflies, hummingbirds
and other pollinators

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00:10:07,710 --> 00:10:11,780
to transport the pollen
from one flower to another.

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The usual way to do this

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is to bribe them with nectar.

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Here you see a hummingbird

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feeding from a flower with nectar.

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The bright colors
are like Piccadilly Circus,

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it's an advertisement
telling the hummingbirds

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or bees to come and feed from here.

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Nectar is made specially
for the purpose

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and it's costly.

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And there are some flowers that
get away without producing nectar,

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like this orchid,
this is a hammerhead orchid.

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It mimics a wasp, and a wasp comes

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and thinks that it's a female wasp

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and tries to mate with it.

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There's a very spectacular hinge there

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that you'll see the use of -
there are the pollen sacs,
they're the pollinia,

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and there's the hinge,

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and there's the fake female.

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Now look what's happened,

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a male bee's come and been dashed
onto the pollen there.

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It's going back and forth
on that hinge,

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banging away.

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And sooner or later

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the pollen sacs
will come off onto his back.

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There he is now,
with his back there,

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and there are the pollen sacs
on his back.

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And he flies off and then
he will mate with another flower

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and the same thing will happen.

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This is the bucket orchid.

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An even more ingenious trick it uses:

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it's dropping fluid
into the bucket there.

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This is an attractive fluid.

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There's a special kind of green bee

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which is attracted by that fluid.

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It comes to the flower
and it falls into the bucket.

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There.

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It's trapped there.
The only way it can get out

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is through a special hole
that's provided for it by the orchid.

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There's the hole,

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00:11:45,510 --> 00:11:47,510
it's the only way out
and the bee has found it.

258
00:11:48,250 --> 00:11:49,780
It's forced out through that hole

259
00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:53,620
and on its way out there
is the pollen sac waiting.

260
00:11:54,250 --> 00:11:56,020
So the only way is
through this little passage.

261
00:11:56,260 --> 00:11:57,390
There are the pollen sacs

262
00:11:57,620 --> 00:12:01,460
and it's going to get straight off
onto the bee's back on the way out.

263
00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:04,560
Now, that same bee,
when it finally escapes

264
00:12:04,730 --> 00:12:07,200
with the pollen sacs on its back,
is going to fly off

265
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:10,000
and it will eventually
come to another bucket orchid

266
00:12:10,140 --> 00:12:12,200
and exactly the same procedure
will be repeated.

267
00:12:12,370 --> 00:12:14,370
It will nearly drown,
it will find the hole,

268
00:12:14,710 --> 00:12:16,510
and on its way out the pollen sacs

269
00:12:16,640 --> 00:12:18,340
will in this case be scraped off,

270
00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:22,110
and they will fertilize the next orchid.

271
00:12:22,476 --> 00:12:24,311
So this is deceiving bees

272
00:12:24,544 --> 00:12:27,881
and using their wings
to carry pollen about.

273
00:12:34,500 --> 00:12:39,760
The pollination services offered
by bees are truly massive.

274
00:12:39,860 --> 00:12:43,500
Somebody in Germany calculated
that in Germany alone

275
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,500
honeybees pollinated about
10 trillion flowers

276
00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:48,830
in the course of a single summer day.

277
00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:52,800
It's also been calculated
that about 30%

278
00:12:52,900 --> 00:12:55,700
of all human foods
depend on bee pollination.

279
00:12:55,900 --> 00:12:57,800
If bees were wiped out,

280
00:12:57,900 --> 00:13:01,330
30% of our food plants
would be wiped out as well.

281
00:13:01,700 --> 00:13:05,360
The world of bees is totally
dominated by flowers.

282
00:13:05,460 --> 00:13:08,730
I don't just mean honeybees.
There are lots and lots of species of bees,

283
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,130
many of them are solitary,
not living in hives.

284
00:13:11,500 --> 00:13:16,060
The larvae of bees are almost
all fed on pollen.

285
00:13:16,500 --> 00:13:20,060
We've got lots of flowers.
Would anybody like to come
and investigate the pollen here?

286
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:22,000
Yes, please.

287
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:27,900
Now, if you'd like to
just come and sniff -

288
00:13:28,030 --> 00:13:30,800
try sniffing that one.
Get your nose well into it.

289
00:13:31,090 --> 00:13:32,800
That's right. Get well in.
That's right.

290
00:13:33,390 --> 00:13:34,960
What's your name? Richard.

291
00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:38,600
Let's have a look at Richard's nose.
You can see the pollen all over it there.

292
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:41,330
If he would go and do it
to another flower,

293
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:45,290
you see another one, let's not bother.
Thank you very much, Richard.

294
00:13:52,290 --> 00:13:55,800
So that's what bees are doing,
millions of times over, every day.

295
00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,700
They feed their larvae on it,
their aviation fuel is nectar,

296
00:13:59,890 --> 00:14:02,900
and that's entirely provided
for them by flowers.

297
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,800
They work hard for their nectar award.

298
00:14:05,900 --> 00:14:08,290
To make a 1 pound jar of honey,

299
00:14:08,390 --> 00:14:13,130
it's been worked out
the bees would have to visit
about 10 million clover blossoms.

300
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,500
So, flowers use bees
and bees use flowers.

301
00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:22,390
Both sides in the partnership
have been shaped by the other.

302
00:14:22,530 --> 00:14:26,230
Both sides, in a way,
have been domesticated,
cultivated, by the other.

303
00:14:26,700 --> 00:14:29,730
The ultraviolet garden
is a two way garden.

304
00:14:30,900 --> 00:14:32,890
But just because flowers and bees

305
00:14:32,900 --> 00:14:34,900
have evolved towards partnership

306
00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:40,000
we mustn't assume that creatures
in general work in a friendly way
for one another's good.

307
00:14:40,300 --> 00:14:43,600
There are people who think
that antelopes are there
for the benefit of lions

308
00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:46,730
and lions are there
for the benefit of antelopes,

309
00:14:46,930 --> 00:14:48,560
to keep their population down.

310
00:14:48,700 --> 00:14:51,030
And that's just as much nonsense
as the idea that oxen

311
00:14:51,130 --> 00:14:54,900
come willingly to the slaughter
for the benefit of us.

312
00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:58,430
In some ways it might have been
better if I talked about bats

313
00:14:58,930 --> 00:15:01,300
instead of about bees and flowers.

314
00:15:01,900 --> 00:15:05,800
Because bats have no interest
in the welfare of the insects

315
00:15:05,830 --> 00:15:08,000
that they eat.
They just want to eat them.

316
00:15:08,100 --> 00:15:10,630
And the flies have no interest
in the welfare of bats.

317
00:15:10,730 --> 00:15:13,900
They'd be happy if there
weren't any more bats.

318
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:17,730
So although partnerships like bees
and flowers are quite common,

319
00:15:17,830 --> 00:15:20,160
un-partnerships like bats and flies

320
00:15:20,260 --> 00:15:22,060
are far more common.

321
00:15:22,500 --> 00:15:26,800
As a matter of fact, bats provide us
with another fine lesson,
similar to the ultraviolet garden,

322
00:15:26,900 --> 00:15:32,460
because they have an even more different
perspective on the world than bees do.

323
00:15:33,390 --> 00:15:36,100
If this bat were flying about

324
00:15:36,290 --> 00:15:41,030
it would be making little cries,
which we couldn't hear.

325
00:15:41,130 --> 00:15:44,560
There we are. Now we can't hear those
but this is a bat detector.

326
00:15:44,660 --> 00:15:48,500
It is an instrument that brings
the bat cries down into our world.

327
00:15:50,700 --> 00:15:52,100
Those are echolocation cries.

328
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:54,500
That bat is now getting
a picture of the world,

329
00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:56,390
a picture of Bryson's face.

330
00:15:57,390 --> 00:15:59,800
It's aiming at Brysons's neck,

331
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,000
towards his ear,

332
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:05,390
to provide an extra earring.

333
00:16:08,290 --> 00:16:09,800
Thank you very much, Bryson

334
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:12,130
and the bat.

335
00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:24,600
So, if the world looks different
to a bee,

336
00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:26,600
because of its ultraviolet vision,

337
00:16:26,700 --> 00:16:29,630
how much more different
must the world look to a bat

338
00:16:29,730 --> 00:16:32,330
since it sees through its ears.

339
00:16:34,390 --> 00:16:38,700
Now, when we say something like,
"Flowers use bees for their purposes"

340
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:41,660
or "Bats use flies for their purposes",

341
00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:43,360
what are we really saying?

342
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:46,000
What are flowers and bees,

343
00:16:46,100 --> 00:16:48,730
hummingbirds
and bats really for?

344
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:55,860
Well, this is a profound question
and it's one that I want to turn to now.

345
00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,300
I want to begin with
a computer demonstration,

346
00:17:00,700 --> 00:17:04,630
so I have first of all
to insert this disc into here.

347
00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:10,100
Virus Alert!!! Virus Alert!!!

348
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:12,330
This disc is infected.

349
00:17:16,500 --> 00:17:19,030
Virus Alert!!! Virus Alert!!!

350
00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:21,330
This disc is infected.

351
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:25,800
How do I get it out?

352
00:17:28,700 --> 00:17:31,860
Right. Well, that,
as you may have guessed,
was in fact a fake,

353
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:34,100
but it might not have been.

354
00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:36,900
Computer viruses
are a real menace.

355
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:39,460
But what is a computer virus?

356
00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:42,230
Well, it's just a program
like any other.

357
00:17:42,330 --> 00:17:45,060
It's written by somebody,
it's a very simple program.

358
00:17:45,090 --> 00:17:48,900
Unlike, say, a word processor that
does something clever and sophisticated,

359
00:17:48,930 --> 00:17:51,030
a virus program just does one thing.

360
00:17:51,130 --> 00:17:55,200
It just says one thing, it says,
"copy me and spread me around."

361
00:17:56,930 --> 00:18:02,230
Now, because computer users are
always spreading their discs around,

362
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,300
a program that says, "copy me" -
"begin > copy me > end" -

363
00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:09,730
when it passes through one computer
and makes lots of copies,

364
00:18:09,890 --> 00:18:13,260
the disc gets spread to other people
and then it gets spread to other people.

365
00:18:13,360 --> 00:18:16,230
And so, sooner or later,
the whole country becomes filled

366
00:18:16,330 --> 00:18:20,260
with discs with programs
that all say "copy me".

367
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:22,800
It just works automatically

368
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,830
and without realizing what it's doing.

369
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:32,090
A pointless sort of program.
Of course, it's pointless.

370
00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:34,700
But it's irrelevant
that it's pointless.

371
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:38,790
It spreads because it spreads
because it spreads because it spreads.

372
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,000
Why shouldn't it spread,

373
00:18:41,090 --> 00:18:43,600
since computers do exactly
what they're told,

374
00:18:43,700 --> 00:18:46,530
and a virus tells it
to spread itself around.

375
00:18:46,860 --> 00:18:50,630
The fact that it does nothing useful
on the way, may even do harm,

376
00:18:50,730 --> 00:18:52,830
is neither here nor there.

377
00:18:53,930 --> 00:18:57,430
Real viruses that
cause diseases like flu,

378
00:18:57,530 --> 00:19:00,160
are very much the same kind of thing.

379
00:19:00,500 --> 00:19:04,390
They're not written in computer language,
they're written in DNA language,

380
00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:07,330
but apart from that
they're really very similar.

381
00:19:07,430 --> 00:19:09,530
They also say "copy me",

382
00:19:09,630 --> 00:19:13,500
they're also the bare minimum sort
of program to get themselves copied.

383
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:14,900
There is one further difference,

384
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,500
which is that computer viruses
are written by people

385
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,300
whereas DNA viruses arise
by natural selection.

386
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:27,160
Those strings of DNA
that just happen to mean
the instruction "copy me",

387
00:19:27,360 --> 00:19:33,700
those strings of DNA
are the ones that will happen,
that will tend to spread around.

388
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,400
Once again,
they appear pointless to us

389
00:19:36,500 --> 00:19:39,000
but, once again,
what seems pointless to us

390
00:19:39,090 --> 00:19:41,000
is not the point.

391
00:19:41,090 --> 00:19:44,990
They're there because they're there
because they're there because they're there.

392
00:19:46,930 --> 00:19:50,760
Now, viruses, whether
they're made of DNA
or computer instructions,

393
00:19:50,860 --> 00:19:53,700
have things made very cushy for them.

394
00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,290
There is readymade copying machinery
already in the world.

395
00:19:57,500 --> 00:20:02,290
In the case of DNA viruses
that readymade copying machinery
is our cells.

396
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:04,130
In the case of computer viruses

397
00:20:04,230 --> 00:20:08,290
it's computers aided by people
carting discs around,

398
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:14,200
constituting a kind of paradise
for a self-copying computer program.

399
00:20:14,990 --> 00:20:18,530
But where does all this lovely
copying machinery come from?

400
00:20:18,630 --> 00:20:21,600
It doesn't just happen.
It has to be made.

401
00:20:21,700 --> 00:20:24,290
In the case of computer viruses
it's made by humans.

402
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:27,700
In the case of DNA viruses
it's the cells of other creatures.

403
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:29,800
And who makes those other creatures?

404
00:20:29,900 --> 00:20:31,900
Those humans and elephants and hippos

405
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:34,600
whose cells make life
so easy for viruses?

406
00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:40,500
Well, the answer is that other
self-copying DNA makes those creatures.

407
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:44,330
The DNA that belongs to us,
us humans, us hippos, us elephants.

408
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,290
So what are big creatures
like us and trees?

409
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:53,000
What are big creatures for?
For whose benefit are they?

410
00:20:53,900 --> 00:20:55,660
Well, from the viruses' point of view,

411
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:59,000
they think we're put in the world
for viruses' benefit.

412
00:20:59,090 --> 00:21:00,090
But that's not a very
satisfactory answer

413
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:03,930
because it doesn't explain
why we should bother to be there
in the first place.

414
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,930
So, once again we have to
shift our perspective,
shift our point of view.

415
00:21:08,860 --> 00:21:13,030
Let's go back to the computer
viruses to look for an answer.

416
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,900
Writing a computer virus program
is child's play.

417
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,360
Any fool can do it, which is
why the silly little twerps
who do have nothing to be proud of.

418
00:21:25,900 --> 00:21:28,560
But imagine something
like a computer virus,

419
00:21:28,660 --> 00:21:33,000
which instead for having a
readymade computer, already
set up to obey its instructions,

420
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,060
had to start from scratch.

421
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,000
Now, that's more of a challenge.

422
00:21:37,090 --> 00:21:41,090
It couldn't just say, "copy me"
because there's nothing there
to do the copying.

423
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,230
To be truly self-copying

424
00:21:43,330 --> 00:21:48,290
in a world without readymade
computing and duplicating machines
handed to it on a plate,

425
00:21:48,660 --> 00:21:52,430
our computer program would have
to be a lot more complicated.

426
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:53,730
It would have to say:

427
00:21:53,830 --> 00:21:57,400
"Make the machinery
needed to copy me."

428
00:21:57,600 --> 00:21:59,360
And before that
it would have to say:

429
00:21:59,460 --> 00:22:02,460
"Make the parts with which
to make the machinery

430
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:04,800
that you need to copy me".

431
00:22:04,900 --> 00:22:06,500
And before that,
it would have to say:

432
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:11,130
"Gather raw material you need
to make the parts, etc."

433
00:22:11,500 --> 00:22:14,460
Now, this more elaborate program
needs a name

434
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:18,060
and I'm going to call it
"The Total Self-Copying Program."

435
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:21,000
The Total Self-Copying Program

436
00:22:21,090 --> 00:22:25,130
has to have control over more than
just an ordinary computer.

437
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,000
It's got to have a hand,

438
00:22:28,060 --> 00:22:33,400
it's got to have something like an
industrial robot to pick things up
and manipulate them.

439
00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:35,660
Because it's got to
assemble something like itself.

440
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,200
Here's an industrial robot
picking things up and
dropping them into a box.

441
00:22:39,430 --> 00:22:43,500
It's very similar to the kind
of industrial robot that's used
in the factories for making cars.

442
00:22:43,630 --> 00:22:46,160
And if you can have a factory
to make cars like this,

443
00:22:46,260 --> 00:22:49,560
you could have a factory to make
robots exactly like itself.

444
00:22:50,700 --> 00:22:52,000
But that's not enough,

445
00:22:52,030 --> 00:22:55,830
because this robot can only pick up
the things that are within reach.

446
00:22:55,900 --> 00:22:58,900
In order to run our Total
Self-Copying Program, it's got to

447
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,290
be able to move around the world
to pick up its raw materials.

448
00:23:02,330 --> 00:23:04,660
It's got to have something like legs.

449
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,930
In fact it would have to
have something like this.

450
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,760
This is Robug 2
from the Portsmouth Polytechnic.

451
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:14,360
It has four legs, it looks
a bit like an insect.

452
00:23:14,460 --> 00:23:18,160
It can climb up a vertical wall,
as you see, because it's got sucker legs

453
00:23:18,260 --> 00:23:21,030
and it's fairly clever about
what it does if it finds an obstacle.

454
00:23:21,290 --> 00:23:22,960
I'm going to try
and tease it in a minute.

455
00:23:28,530 --> 00:23:31,960
I'm going to try to put my hand
under its back leg to see what it does.

456
00:23:37,230 --> 00:23:38,090
Now, watch it.

457
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,290
It tries to find another place
to put its leg there.

458
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,630
I think it's trying to kick me out
of the way. Right. There we are.

459
00:23:50,660 --> 00:23:56,000
Robots like this, in fact,
direct descendants of this robot
are actually very useful.

460
00:23:56,090 --> 00:23:58,390
Because there are some places
where humans dare not go,

461
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,200
like radioactive places,
nuclear power stations,

462
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:06,290
and robots like this
are actually in use to go
into nuclear power stations,

463
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:08,100
for they don't mind the radioactivity,

464
00:24:08,130 --> 00:24:11,360
and do repairs that humans
would never dare to do.

465
00:24:12,660 --> 00:24:15,360
This robot has four brains,

466
00:24:15,460 --> 00:24:16,960
there, there, there and there.

467
00:24:17,630 --> 00:24:21,230
And each one of those brains
is controlling just the one leg.

468
00:24:21,330 --> 00:24:23,400
So it's doing a fairly
low level operation,

469
00:24:23,500 --> 00:24:27,660
like working out what to do
if I put my hand under the foot.

470
00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:32,090
That controls the tactics
of the individual legs

471
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,360
but the strategy of the whole robot

472
00:24:35,460 --> 00:24:40,100
is at present being controlled
by a human outside, through this cable.

473
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,230
This is the real robot.

474
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,030
The imaginary robot that
we have been trying to talk about

475
00:24:47,130 --> 00:24:49,200
would do something other than that.

476
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,290
I'm going to talk about it
when it's stopped

477
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:53,760
and it now just reached the top

478
00:24:53,860 --> 00:24:56,760
and I hate to think what would happen
if it went on any higher.

479
00:24:57,060 --> 00:25:00,430
So, thank you very much, Robug 2
and the Portsmouth Polytechnic.

480
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:15,900
Robug is a real robot

481
00:25:16,030 --> 00:25:19,460
and it has been controlled by a human
with the computer outside.

482
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,000
But we were using it to stand in
for our imaginary robot.

483
00:25:24,130 --> 00:25:28,200
And our imaginary robot would
have its own onboard computer,

484
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:32,700
running a master program.
And that master program would be

485
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,630
the self-copying program,
it would say:

486
00:25:34,730 --> 00:25:38,290
"Make a duplicate copy
not only of the program,

487
00:25:38,900 --> 00:25:42,800
but also of the apparatus necessary
to duplicate the program."

488
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,290
And it would do that
by walking around the world,

489
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,700
and it would have on its back
the equivalent of

490
00:25:48,730 --> 00:25:53,000
the industrial
robot with the hand and the eye,
that we saw in the film.

491
00:25:53,090 --> 00:25:55,930
So it would march around the world,
picking up the bits that it needs

492
00:25:56,030 --> 00:25:58,530
to make a copy of itself.

493
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:00,430
The master program would say:

494
00:26:00,530 --> 00:26:03,260
"Make a copy of the robot itself,

495
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:06,700
and feed the same
Total Self-Copying Program

496
00:26:06,930 --> 00:26:10,030
into the onboard computer."

497
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,900
A self-duplicating robot,
like we've been imagining,

498
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,090
has never yet been built.

499
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,660
It was discussed, as an important
theoretical possibility

500
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,400
by John von Neumann,

501
00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:25,160
who could be called the father
of the modern computer,

502
00:26:25,830 --> 00:26:28,530
but it has never been built.

503
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,000
But wait a minute,
what am I talking about?

504
00:26:32,530 --> 00:26:35,130
What on Earth do I think this is?

505
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,030
Or this?

506
00:26:40,700 --> 00:26:44,260
Or, indeed, me, or any of us?

507
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:48,960
These creatures,
walking around the world...

508
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,960
Let's see whether we can make
this one walk. There we are.

509
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:58,130
Now, think of that stick insect
as just the same as the robot
we've just been imagining.

510
00:26:58,230 --> 00:27:00,630
Not the one we've just been seeing
but the one we've just been imagining.

511
00:27:01,130 --> 00:27:03,360
With its own onboard computer,

512
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,760
carrying around the instruction,

513
00:27:05,860 --> 00:27:07,700
"walk around the world,

514
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,830
pick up raw materials,
eat plant material,

515
00:27:10,860 --> 00:27:16,260
use that plant material
to make new robots
just like this one."

516
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:21,000
And then those ones
will go out into the world
and they will wander around,

517
00:27:21,090 --> 00:27:25,360
picking up food and
they will be making new stick
insects just like this one.

518
00:27:25,700 --> 00:27:28,630
And in every case
the object of the exercise

519
00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:33,860
is to pass on the program
that does the instructing.

520
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,000
Chameleon is the same,
we are the same, and elephant

521
00:27:40,090 --> 00:27:41,390
is the same.

522
00:27:41,500 --> 00:27:44,630
This is fundamentally what
a human or an elephant is.

523
00:27:44,730 --> 00:27:48,000
An elephant is a huge digression

524
00:27:48,490 --> 00:27:52,700
in a computer program
written in DNA language.

525
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,360
Our DNA builds its own
self-copying machinery.

526
00:27:57,460 --> 00:28:00,700
This is what we are,
we are machines, built by DNA,

527
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:05,900
whose purpose is to make
more copies of the same DNA.

528
00:28:06,590 --> 00:28:09,630
Well, that process is all
very well once it starts,

529
00:28:09,730 --> 00:28:11,960
but how did it start originally?

530
00:28:12,290 --> 00:28:15,000
To answer that, we have to
go back a very long way.

531
00:28:15,090 --> 00:28:18,530
Very long time, more than
3 thousand million years,

532
00:28:18,660 --> 00:28:21,430
perhaps as much as
four thousand million years.

533
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:23,560
In those days the world
was very different.

534
00:28:23,660 --> 00:28:27,760
There was no life, no biology,
only physics and chemistry.

535
00:28:27,900 --> 00:28:29,930
Some people think that life begun

536
00:28:30,030 --> 00:28:32,900
in what's been called
the primeval soup.

537
00:28:33,090 --> 00:28:37,530
A weak broth of simple,
organic chemicals in the sea.

538
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,090
Nobody knows how it happened

539
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:41,630
but somehow,

540
00:28:41,730 --> 00:28:44,900
without violating the laws
of physics and chemistry,

541
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:46,830
a molecule arose that just happened

542
00:28:46,860 --> 00:28:50,330
to have the property of self-copying.

543
00:28:50,430 --> 00:28:54,700
And after that Darwinian evolution
and life took off.

544
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,800
That may seem a bit of a stroke of luck

545
00:28:57,900 --> 00:29:00,500
but it only had to happen once.

546
00:29:00,530 --> 00:29:03,500
What's more, it may have happened
on only one planet

547
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,900
out of a billion billion planets
in the Universe.

548
00:29:07,260 --> 00:29:10,500
So the sort of lucky event
we're talking about as happening
on this Earth

549
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,200
could be so rare

550
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,000
that the chances of its happening
in any one year

551
00:29:16,290 --> 00:29:20,090
somewhere in the Universe were
only 1 in a billion billion billion.

552
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:21,930
That was enough luck for it
to have happened.

553
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,300
Of course, if it did happen only
on one planet anywhere in the Universe,

554
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:31,000
that planet has to be our planet,
because here we are, talking about it.

555
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:36,260
But I think, probably the origin
of life was a much more probable
event than that

556
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:40,330
and therefore there probably
is life on lots of planets
around the Universe.

557
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:44,230
It's even been suggested
that the origin of life
may have been a rare event,

558
00:29:44,330 --> 00:29:47,730
but having started on one planet,
it then spread to other planets

559
00:29:47,830 --> 00:29:50,260
in a process called "panspermia"

560
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:52,800
by the Swedish chemist Arrhenius.

561
00:29:52,900 --> 00:29:57,900
And this is a fanciful reconstruction
of panspermia by Karl Sims,

562
00:29:58,090 --> 00:30:01,330
using the supercomputer,
"The Connection Machine".

563
00:30:01,860 --> 00:30:05,830
He doesn't really believe in panspermia
but it's a nice animation anyway.

564
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,290
Here is a spore arriving from another
planet on some distant world.

565
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,700
The spore swells and bursts,

566
00:30:14,530 --> 00:30:17,800
and its genetic material,
its equivalent to DNA,

567
00:30:17,900 --> 00:30:19,900
is raining down on the planet.

568
00:30:20,090 --> 00:30:22,960
And now each one of these units
is going to start sprouting

569
00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:26,290
what we shall call a plant,
for want of a better word.

570
00:30:26,900 --> 00:30:29,530
These plants, by the way,
Karl Sims didn't invent:

571
00:30:29,630 --> 00:30:34,200
he evolved them in his computer
by a process very similar,
though more elaborate,

572
00:30:34,290 --> 00:30:39,000
to the biomorph program that
some of you may have seen
in an earlier lecture.

573
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:44,400
So, on this planet different
kinds of plants are growing up.
They're going through
their growth cycle.

574
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:46,860
And at the end of the growth cycle

575
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,200
they're going to reproduce again

576
00:30:49,460 --> 00:30:54,900
and the whole cycle
of growth and reproduction
is going to be renewed.

577
00:30:55,260 --> 00:30:57,400
Here's a forest of plants,

578
00:30:57,500 --> 00:30:59,860
all waiting to reproduce,

579
00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:05,160
and here's the reproduction.

580
00:31:05,260 --> 00:31:07,700
They're going to be shot out
into space. Spores going off,

581
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:09,290
there they go.

582
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,330
And the cycle is renewed,

583
00:31:15,830 --> 00:31:19,030
and the genetic information
is sent off into distant space

584
00:31:19,090 --> 00:31:21,900
to re-colonize other worlds.

585
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,500
Well, that was, of course, pure fantasy

586
00:31:26,930 --> 00:31:31,930
but it does make some serious points
about life anywhere in the Universe.

587
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:36,000
There will always be, I think,
some kind of recurring life cycle

588
00:31:36,090 --> 00:31:40,500
which begins from information
capsules of some sort,

589
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,130
going through phases
of growth and elaboration

590
00:31:44,230 --> 00:31:50,190
and then, finally, returning again
to the original information capsule phase.

591
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:56,000
On our planet the original,
self-replicating machines

592
00:31:56,090 --> 00:31:58,390
must have been a lot simpler
than bacteria,

593
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:01,900
but bacteria are the nearest
idea we can get to what
they might have been like.

594
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,600
Here is a little view
of bacteria reproducing.

595
00:32:07,130 --> 00:32:11,290
and each individual one
of those bacteria is
actually fairly complicated.

596
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:14,500
There's the cell wall around it.

597
00:32:14,830 --> 00:32:17,000
It's got chromosomes
of genetic material.

598
00:32:17,490 --> 00:32:20,830
It's not just a bag of fluid,
it's got some complicated
structure to it.

599
00:32:21,030 --> 00:32:23,330
And that is, on Earth today,

600
00:32:23,430 --> 00:32:27,930
the sort of minimal self-replicating
machine as we now know them.

601
00:32:29,090 --> 00:32:31,800
At some stage in the early
history of life,

602
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,530
things like bacteria, we should
probably call them bacteria,

603
00:32:35,630 --> 00:32:41,900
ganged up together,
came together and formed
what we now call the eukaryotic cell.

604
00:32:42,460 --> 00:32:45,800
That is just a long word.
It means the kind of cell
that we are made of.

605
00:32:45,900 --> 00:32:47,900
Our cells are eukaryotic cells.

606
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:52,530
So are plant cells, so are
the cells of fungi and protozoa.

607
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,960
It's now known, almost for certain,
that the eukaryotic cell

608
00:32:57,060 --> 00:33:00,160
was formed
by the ganging up of bacteria,

609
00:33:00,260 --> 00:33:03,230
perhaps two thousand million
years ago.

610
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,400
This model of a eukaryotic cell

611
00:33:09,500 --> 00:33:12,800
shows various bits,
like these mitochondria in orange,

612
00:33:12,900 --> 00:33:14,900
which are bacteria,

613
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,700
or are at least linearly descended
from ancient bacteria.

614
00:33:18,900 --> 00:33:21,160
And they go on reproducing
all by themselves

615
00:33:21,260 --> 00:33:24,800
as though they were
separate bacteria.

616
00:33:26,500 --> 00:33:29,260
Now, just as bacteria
ganged up together

617
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:31,760
to form a cell like that,

618
00:33:31,860 --> 00:33:35,190
so, cells like that
ganged up together

619
00:33:35,300 --> 00:33:37,630
to form larger units.

620
00:33:38,090 --> 00:33:40,390
And under this microscope here

621
00:33:40,700 --> 00:33:42,830
we have Volvox,

622
00:33:42,930 --> 00:33:45,260
which is a fairly
simple kind of organism

623
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:49,530
composed of gangs of cells,
eukaryotic cells,

624
00:33:49,630 --> 00:33:51,900
formed into a hollow sphere.

625
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,560
Would anybody like to come down
and operate this microscope?

626
00:33:55,700 --> 00:33:57,000
Yes, in the front row there.

627
00:34:01,260 --> 00:34:02,630
What's your name? Katy

628
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,400
Have you ever used a microscope
before, Katy? No. No, okay.

629
00:34:06,690 --> 00:34:10,160
In there are some Volvox
and they are great, big,
green globular things.

630
00:34:10,660 --> 00:34:14,060
And this is how you move
the stage about.

631
00:34:14,500 --> 00:34:16,030
Come here, then you can see.

632
00:34:16,430 --> 00:34:21,060
If you move that one there,
it moves that way.
If you move this one here,
it moves that way.

633
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,030
And I think I've found one for you.
Try focusing there.

634
00:34:25,700 --> 00:34:27,400
There we are.
The other way, I think.

635
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,500
There we are, that's got it.
Now are we seeing that right?

636
00:34:31,900 --> 00:34:34,330
Good. Well done, Katy,
thank you very much indeed.

637
00:34:42,830 --> 00:34:45,260
What Katy has found is one Volvox.

638
00:34:45,460 --> 00:34:49,700
It's a globe of a few thousand,
perhaps one thousand cells,

639
00:34:50,500 --> 00:34:53,900
and each one of those cells
is a little, separate entity

640
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,330
with little hairs that beat,
called cilia, round the edge

641
00:34:57,430 --> 00:35:01,500
and the whole globe moves
as if it was one organism.

642
00:35:01,700 --> 00:35:05,600
Now, Volvox is not our ancestor.
Volvox is a modern animal,

643
00:35:05,730 --> 00:35:08,360
but it's possible
that something like that

644
00:35:08,460 --> 00:35:11,660
originally gave rise to our ancestors.

645
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,900
We are, after all, colonies of cells.

646
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,900
And this ganging up together
of cells to form larger organisms

647
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,900
has proceeded to
truly colossal lengths.

648
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:27,090
I said that an elephant
was a huge digression
on a "copy me" program,

649
00:35:27,190 --> 00:35:29,000
and I really did mean huge.

650
00:35:29,090 --> 00:35:32,530
Because whereas a Volvox has
a few hundred or thousand cells,

651
00:35:32,630 --> 00:35:36,330
an elephant is made of
about a thousand trillion cells.

652
00:35:37,900 --> 00:35:40,900
So if an elephant is a robot
carrying its own blueprint about,

653
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,000
it's almost an unimaginably
colossal robot.

654
00:35:44,190 --> 00:35:46,760
Of course, it's not particularly
colossal in absolute terms,

655
00:35:46,860 --> 00:35:49,090
it's not big compared with a star,

656
00:35:49,130 --> 00:35:53,460
but it's colossal compared with
the DNA molecules that built it.

657
00:35:55,700 --> 00:35:56,800
To understand this

658
00:35:56,900 --> 00:36:00,590
imagine that we humans set ourselves
the task of building a great

659
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:04,130
Trojan horse
to carry ourselves about in.

660
00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:06,930
Well, since we built it,
the horse would look like a robot.

661
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:12,760
It would have steel plates
riveted together and it would have
television cameras for eyes.

662
00:36:12,830 --> 00:36:14,900
But how big would it be?

663
00:36:15,500 --> 00:36:16,700
Well, the answer is

664
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,000
that if this horse
was built by us

665
00:36:20,090 --> 00:36:23,400
to the same scale
as we are built by our DNA,

666
00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:26,360
or a real horse
is built by its DNA,

667
00:36:26,460 --> 00:36:29,760
then this horse
would dwarf Mount Everest.

668
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,630
So this is building
on a truly colossal scale.

669
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,300
The real living body,
like a horse or like us,

670
00:36:41,460 --> 00:36:45,330
manages to be so big compared
with the genes that built it,

671
00:36:45,430 --> 00:36:47,700
because it grows
by a very different process

672
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:51,090
from the way a man-made machine
would grow.

673
00:36:51,100 --> 00:36:57,300
A man-made machine is put together
by people swarming all over it
and riveting on plates of steel.

674
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,190
But the special way of growing,
that living things have,
is very different.

675
00:37:01,300 --> 00:37:03,000
It's called exponential growth

676
00:37:03,100 --> 00:37:06,900
or you could call it
growing by local doubling.

677
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:08,600
And here's how it works.

678
00:37:08,830 --> 00:37:11,500
You start with a single cell,
and I'm going to represent that

679
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,830
by a

680
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:21,230
coin on the right hand side
of the chessboard.

681
00:37:22,230 --> 00:37:28,000
That's one cell.
Now, that one cell divides and
produces two, just like itself.

682
00:37:28,690 --> 00:37:30,700
And because those two just like itself,

683
00:37:30,900 --> 00:37:37,800
they also have the property of being
able to divide and producing four cells.

684
00:37:37,900 --> 00:37:42,030
And each of those cells
can divide and produce eight.

685
00:37:42,130 --> 00:37:43,130
And you can see what we are doing.
We are going on, doubling up

686
00:37:43,260 --> 00:37:48,530
and what we're going to try to do
is estimate how high the pile
of coins would be,

687
00:37:48,730 --> 00:37:51,000
if we went on, doubling up.

688
00:37:51,090 --> 00:37:54,800
This animal is growing
and growing and growing.

689
00:37:56,460 --> 00:37:59,060
We've managed to fill one row
of the chessboard

690
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:04,260
and now we will have to go on
and the next one will be that high,
and the next one would be that high,

691
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,130
and so on. We're growing
this animal doubling up,
doubling up, doubling up.

692
00:38:09,230 --> 00:38:11,730
Now, how big would the pile
of coins be

693
00:38:11,830 --> 00:38:17,530
if we got to the other end of
the chessboard, to the 64th square?
How tall would it be?

694
00:38:18,460 --> 00:38:19,900
I don't suppose
you worked it out in your head

695
00:38:20,190 --> 00:38:23,290
I worked it out beforehand,
and it's fairly impressive.

696
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,090
The pile of coins on that square
of the chessboard

697
00:38:26,190 --> 00:38:29,030
would stretch
to the star Alpha Centauri.

698
00:38:29,190 --> 00:38:33,130
It would be about
four light years away.

699
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,360
Well, that's exponential growth.

700
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:43,730
Could you bring in the blue whale,
please Bryson?

701
00:38:45,460 --> 00:38:46,560
Thank you very much.

702
00:38:48,130 --> 00:38:50,900
Well, this wants to be a blue whale
when it grows up.

703
00:38:52,260 --> 00:38:53,760
And if it succeeded

704
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:58,390
it would be somewhere out there
on the 57th square.

705
00:38:59,190 --> 00:39:03,700
Because it only takes about
57 cell generations

706
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:05,960
in order to build a blue whale

707
00:39:06,090 --> 00:39:10,600
which is made of about
100 thousand trillion cells.

708
00:39:13,900 --> 00:39:17,530
Would anybody like to know how many
cells they consist of?

709
00:39:20,100 --> 00:39:21,800
Right. Yes.

710
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:29,800
We've got a computer program which
just converts weight into cells
by a rough calculation.

711
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,290
What's your name? Sam

712
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,860
Would you like to stand
on the scales, please, Sam.

713
00:39:36,090 --> 00:39:38,260
Gosh, those boots are going to weigh
a lot on their own, aren't they?

714
00:39:40,630 --> 00:39:43,460
Fifty three kilograms.

715
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,190
That is, Sam has approximately

716
00:39:48,700 --> 00:39:53,800
74.2 trillion.
Yes, 74.2 trillion cells,

717
00:39:53,900 --> 00:39:57,500
but it would only take about
46 cell generations to make Sam.

718
00:39:57,600 --> 00:39:58,860
Thank you very much.

719
00:40:05,930 --> 00:40:09,060
Let's now try doing that
with somebody a bit bigger.

720
00:40:09,260 --> 00:40:11,030
Douglas, would you like
to come out and have a -

721
00:40:17,300 --> 00:40:19,460
Right.
Let's have a look now.

722
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:24,930
110 kilograms, how does that look?

723
00:40:28,660 --> 00:40:33,090
154 trillion, only 47 cell
generations though.

724
00:40:33,190 --> 00:40:34,390
Thank you very much, Douglas.

725
00:40:41,130 --> 00:40:44,600
So only one more cell
generation is needed

726
00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:47,660
to make Douglas compared
with making Sam.

727
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,960
And only another 10 cell generations
are needed to make a blue whale.

728
00:40:57,230 --> 00:41:00,800
Well, 46 or 47, or whatever it is,
is, by the way, a minimum figure.

729
00:41:00,900 --> 00:41:02,760
In fact, it would take
a bit more than that,

730
00:41:02,860 --> 00:41:06,830
because different bits
of people are going on dividing
for different lengths of time.

731
00:41:06,930 --> 00:41:10,830
The liver cell is going on a bit longer,
kidneys a bit shorter and so on.

732
00:41:10,930 --> 00:41:13,360
So it isn't quite as simple as that.

733
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:19,960
But it does suggest to you
how the body manages to control
the shape that it is.

734
00:41:20,500 --> 00:41:24,100
Because all it has to do is to change
the number of cell divisions,

735
00:41:29,730 --> 00:41:34,190
in order to change the shape
of that bit of body, relative
to other bits of body.

736
00:41:34,630 --> 00:41:36,090
For instance,

737
00:41:36,190 --> 00:41:40,290
in human evolution compared
with our ancestor, Homo habilis,

738
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:45,260
the modern human chin
is a fairly pointed object.

739
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,230
Homo habilis has a rather blunt chin.

740
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:54,090
So, in evolution of,
humans the chin elongated.
I'll just show you that.

741
00:41:55,090 --> 00:41:57,700
There's my ancestor, Homo habilis,

742
00:41:58,330 --> 00:42:02,900
and there's my chin for comparison.

743
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,330
So, in human evolution
we had an elongation of the chin

744
00:42:06,500 --> 00:42:08,030
compared with the rest of the head.

745
00:42:08,060 --> 00:42:11,860
We had other changes,
but compared to rest of
the head the chin elongated.

746
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,490
Now, that would be a very
easy trick to do with the local
doubling form of growth,

747
00:42:16,500 --> 00:42:20,500
because all you do is you slightly
change the number of cell generations

748
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:25,660
that went into building
the jawbone there,
and you have that effect.

749
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:29,400
The remarkable thing is

750
00:42:29,500 --> 00:42:31,660
that cell lineagesstop dividing

751
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,360
just when they're supposed to.

752
00:42:34,460 --> 00:42:38,800
In such a way that all our bits
are about the right size relative
to our other bits.

753
00:42:39,460 --> 00:42:44,230
Of course, in some cases,
cell lineages don't stop growing
when they should.

754
00:42:44,330 --> 00:42:47,130
And when that happens,
we call it cancer.

755
00:42:49,300 --> 00:42:51,260
Well, building colossal bodies,

756
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:53,230
like us or like horses,

757
00:42:53,330 --> 00:42:55,900
colossal by the standard
of their DNA,

758
00:42:56,030 --> 00:42:58,800
can be called gigatechnology.

759
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,800
Gigatechnology means the art
of building things that are

760
00:43:02,900 --> 00:43:06,290
at leasta billion times
bigger than you are.

761
00:43:06,500 --> 00:43:10,030
It's not a thing that human engineers
have any experience of.

762
00:43:10,090 --> 00:43:13,500
But humans are already talking
about the opposite of gigatechnology,

763
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:15,960
which they call nanotechnology.

764
00:43:16,060 --> 00:43:17,730
Just as giga means a billion,

765
00:43:17,930 --> 00:43:19,960
nano means a billionth.

766
00:43:20,060 --> 00:43:23,030
Nanotechnology therefore
means engineering things

767
00:43:23,130 --> 00:43:25,730
that are a billionth of your own size.

768
00:43:27,300 --> 00:43:31,930
Nanotechnology is taken seriously
by some serious scientists,
not just madmen.

769
00:43:32,300 --> 00:43:35,660
And this is what they visualize
may happen in a not too distant future.

770
00:43:36,130 --> 00:43:38,590
These are red blood corpuscles,
this is purely imaginary,

771
00:43:38,690 --> 00:43:41,230
these are the red blood
corpuscles, there is a virus,

772
00:43:41,260 --> 00:43:43,360
and here's a nanotechnology robot

773
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,530
that's been sent in order
to skewer that virus.

774
00:43:48,500 --> 00:43:51,000
If nanotechnology ever works

775
00:43:51,190 --> 00:43:56,560
then it will have very revolutionary
effects upon our lives.

776
00:43:56,700 --> 00:43:59,190
Take surgery, for example.

777
00:43:59,500 --> 00:44:02,100
Modern surgeons are highly
skilled and they have,

778
00:44:02,190 --> 00:44:05,830
what we think of as, a very
delicate instruments like these

779
00:44:06,260 --> 00:44:08,460
But listen to Eric Drexler

780
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,960
the American scientist who is the
leading apostle of nanotechnology.

781
00:44:13,100 --> 00:44:16,430
He says: "Modern scalpels
and sutures are simply too coarse

782
00:44:16,530 --> 00:44:19,300
for repairing capillaries,
cells and molecules.

783
00:44:19,500 --> 00:44:22,400
Consider delicate surgery
from a cell's perspective.

784
00:44:22,590 --> 00:44:26,700
A huge blade sweeps down,
chopping blindly, past and through

785
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:30,500
the molecular machinery of a crowd
of cells, slaughtering thousands."

786
00:44:30,700 --> 00:44:33,190
Now he turns to the suture,

787
00:44:33,300 --> 00:44:37,000
the needle which is used to sew up,
the needle and thread which
is used to sew up the wound:

788
00:44:37,500 --> 00:44:41,900
"Later a great obelisk plunges
through the divided crowd,
dragging a cable

789
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:43,800
as wide as a freight train" -

790
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:45,930
that's American for a goods train -

791
00:44:47,300 --> 00:44:50,130
"behind it, to rope the crowd
together again.

792
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,000
From a cell's perspective even
the most delicate surgery,

793
00:44:53,100 --> 00:44:56,930
performed with exquisite knives
and great skill, is still a butcher job.

794
00:44:57,030 --> 00:45:00,800
Only the ability of cells
to abandon their dead,
regroup and multiply

795
00:45:00,900 --> 00:45:02,700
makes healing possible.

796
00:45:02,830 --> 00:45:06,000
Yet, as many paralyzed accident
victims know too well,

797
00:45:06,090 --> 00:45:08,230
not all tissues heal."

798
00:45:09,460 --> 00:45:13,200
Nanotechnology holds out the prospect
of building surgical instruments

799
00:45:13,300 --> 00:45:16,700
small enough to be
on the same scale as the cells.

800
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:22,000
And these instruments would be
far too tiny to be controlled
by a human surgeon's fingers.

801
00:45:22,090 --> 00:45:23,800
If that's the width of a goods train,

802
00:45:23,900 --> 00:45:27,800
then imagine how wide a surgeon
fingers would be on the scale of cells.

803
00:45:29,330 --> 00:45:32,700
A robot as small as that,
capable of doing that,

804
00:45:32,860 --> 00:45:36,400
would be a very wonderful thing
to have,

805
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:38,500
but it's only one and
there are millions

806
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,560
and millions of,say,
red blood corpuscles to repair.

807
00:45:41,660 --> 00:45:45,500
It would only work
if the nanotechnology machines

808
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,160
themselves were cloned up,

809
00:45:47,430 --> 00:45:51,960
were reproduced in exactly
the same way as the red blood
corpuscles are themselves.

810
00:45:52,500 --> 00:45:55,100
Like this immunoglobulin molecule,

811
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,500
which is what a doctor
might inject into you

812
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,500
in the thousands to protect you
from hepatitis.

813
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:07,560
It only works because it's
in your blood stream in thousands
and thousands and thousands of copies.

814
00:46:07,660 --> 00:46:09,930
And that's what nanotechnology
depends upon.

815
00:46:10,030 --> 00:46:12,900
This is not really nanotechnology
because it's a biological object.

816
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,630
But that's the kind of thing
that nanotechnology would look like.

817
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,530
Nanotechnology seems to us very
strange, scarcely believable.

818
00:46:21,630 --> 00:46:26,660
The idea of machines down there,
at the level of atoms,
seems a very alien world.

819
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,430
More strange than the life that
is imagined on other planets

820
00:46:29,530 --> 00:46:32,030
by science-fiction writers.

821
00:46:32,900 --> 00:46:36,660
Nanotechnology seems to us something
new, something in the future.

822
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,760
But actually, far from nanotechnology
being new and alien, it's old.

823
00:46:40,900 --> 00:46:43,030
Vastly older than we,

824
00:46:43,130 --> 00:46:46,390
whose bodies belong
in the world of big things.

825
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:51,260
It's we, big things, that are new,
alien, strange and futuristic.

826
00:46:51,500 --> 00:46:55,000
We are products of a
flashy new gigatechnology.

827
00:46:55,100 --> 00:46:59,260
Fundamentally life is based
in the world of nanotechnology.

828
00:47:00,700 --> 00:47:04,090
Now, you remember I said that
cells are made of bacteria

829
00:47:04,790 --> 00:47:07,800
and we are made of cells
ganging up.

830
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,630
Well, there are also colonies
of individual bodies,

831
00:47:12,490 --> 00:47:13,830
social insects,

832
00:47:13,930 --> 00:47:17,000
in which the entire colony
can be thought of as one,

833
00:47:17,090 --> 00:47:20,090
big, "copy me" digression.

834
00:47:22,490 --> 00:47:25,600
This is a bivouac of army ants
from South America.

835
00:47:25,700 --> 00:47:29,160
This is a great sheet
of millions of ants.

836
00:47:29,300 --> 00:47:30,300
And the next one.

837
00:47:30,900 --> 00:47:33,730
Here are just two ants,
not army ants, a different species.

838
00:47:33,830 --> 00:47:36,430
That one is the sister of that one.

839
00:47:37,090 --> 00:47:40,390
They're both members of the same
colony, they're both workers,

840
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,760
both are needed by the colony
and so both are there,

841
00:47:44,090 --> 00:47:47,090
even though they are such
colossally different sizes.

842
00:47:47,300 --> 00:47:48,500
This is what it's all about.

843
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,230
This worker here is feeding
a young queen with wings.

844
00:47:52,260 --> 00:47:56,500
Those wings are for carrying the DNA
of the colony into the next generation.

845
00:47:56,860 --> 00:47:59,230
The entire colony is one machine,

846
00:47:59,630 --> 00:48:02,390
geared to passing its DNA
on into the future.

847
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,290
This is the queen of a termite colony.

848
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,400
You see, she's huge,
she's a gigantic egg-laying machine,

849
00:48:08,500 --> 00:48:11,000
a walking egg-laying machine,
except that she can't walk.

850
00:48:11,100 --> 00:48:15,700
She is too big to walk.
There's a king termite
to show the same scale.

851
00:48:15,900 --> 00:48:18,190
She's producing eggs
to go on into the future.

852
00:48:18,300 --> 00:48:19,530
These are honey-pot ants.

853
00:48:19,630 --> 00:48:22,500
Their workers specialize
to act as honey stores.

854
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,000
These are the armor plates of the body
and they've been stretched apart

855
00:48:26,090 --> 00:48:29,600
by this gigantic honey-pot here,
filled with honey.

856
00:48:29,700 --> 00:48:34,300
All that this does is to hang
in the roof of the nest,
like a light bulb

857
00:48:34,700 --> 00:48:37,700
and when times are good
it gets filled up with food.

858
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,430
When times are poor,
the food is drawn out again.

859
00:48:40,530 --> 00:48:44,360
This is a part of the machinery
of the entire colony.

860
00:48:44,630 --> 00:48:46,500
These colonies are very impressive
in what they can achieve.

861
00:48:46,630 --> 00:48:49,500
This is the nest
of a South American fungus ant.

862
00:48:49,900 --> 00:48:53,700
A great underground structure,
a huge underground cavity.

863
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:55,600
There's a man to the same scale.

864
00:48:55,700 --> 00:48:57,560
This is the sort of things
that can be achieved

865
00:48:57,660 --> 00:49:01,800
when you have colonies of individual
bodies ganging up together.

866
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,700
And this is another example.
These are weaver ants,

867
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:06,900
stitching up together leaves
to make their nest.

868
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:11,400
There's one worker holding on
to the junction there.

869
00:49:11,500 --> 00:49:14,700
Here is a different view.
Now we are going to see
another worker with a larva

870
00:49:14,900 --> 00:49:18,700
which is used as a tube
of glue or silk,

871
00:49:19,260 --> 00:49:22,790
and it stitches across, like, see how
it's moving across with the larva.

872
00:49:22,860 --> 00:49:25,060
There's another one there,
moving across with the larva,

873
00:49:25,190 --> 00:49:28,530
stitching up the junction
between these two leaves.

874
00:49:28,700 --> 00:49:30,800
They're making the nest
for the entire colony.

875
00:49:30,900 --> 00:49:33,700
This you could think of
as the body of the colony,

876
00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:38,230
which is there for the purpose
of carrying on the genes
that made them do it.

877
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:49,000
We began by asking,
what flowers were for?

878
00:49:49,490 --> 00:49:52,600
We considered various answers
and eventually concluded that flowers

879
00:49:52,700 --> 00:49:56,900
are for the same thing as everything
else in the living kingdoms:

880
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,460
for spreading "copy me" programs about,

881
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:01,300
written in DNA language.

882
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:05,460
Flowers are for spreading around
instructions for making flowers.

883
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:09,090
Bees are for spreading around
instructions for making bees.

884
00:50:09,190 --> 00:50:12,630
Elephants for spreading instructions
for making elephants.

885
00:50:12,730 --> 00:50:15,760
And birds for making more birds.

886
00:50:16,430 --> 00:50:19,000
And macaw's colored feathers

887
00:50:19,090 --> 00:50:22,590
are for spreading copies
of instructions

888
00:50:22,790 --> 00:50:25,330
for making more colored feathers.

889
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:29,060
And that works,
because the colored feathers
are an advertisement

890
00:50:29,190 --> 00:50:32,530
that attracts macaws
of the opposite sex.

891
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,130
So genes that make colored feathers

892
00:50:35,230 --> 00:50:37,600
tend to get passed on
to future generations

893
00:50:37,700 --> 00:50:40,000
because they are an effective
advertisement

894
00:50:40,030 --> 00:50:42,430
to get mates

895
00:50:42,460 --> 00:50:44,760
who like those colored feathers.

896
00:50:45,460 --> 00:50:48,400
And you could say the same
about wings. Wings, too, are tools

897
00:50:48,500 --> 00:50:51,100
for spreading genetic instructions
for making wings

898
00:50:51,190 --> 00:50:53,900
into future generations of birds.

899
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:58,000
They work by saving the lives
of birds that have good wings

900
00:50:58,090 --> 00:51:00,360
and so they are good at flying,

901
00:51:00,460 --> 00:51:02,560
good at catching food,
good at avoiding being eaten.

902
00:51:02,830 --> 00:51:05,390
So genes that make good wings
get passed on

903
00:51:05,500 --> 00:51:09,800
and that's why most birds
have wings that work.

904
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:12,160
So, thank you very much, macaw.

905
00:51:28,830 --> 00:51:30,800
Plants don't have wings.

906
00:51:30,900 --> 00:51:32,530
Plants can't fly.

907
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,400
But from the plant's point
of view, it doesn't need wings

908
00:51:37,500 --> 00:51:41,500
since it can borrow the bees and
butterflies and hummingbirds' wings.

909
00:51:43,300 --> 00:51:45,500
But now let's shift our perspective

910
00:51:45,700 --> 00:51:49,360
and look at it from the point
of view of the plant DNA.

911
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,000
From the point of view
of the plant DNA

912
00:51:52,890 --> 00:51:55,700
the bees' wings might as well
be plant wings.

913
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:58,400
The bees' wings are organs of flight

914
00:51:58,900 --> 00:52:01,230
that carry the plant's genes about.

915
00:52:01,330 --> 00:52:04,000
Just as a macaw's wings
are organs of flight

916
00:52:04,090 --> 00:52:07,030
that carry macaw's genes about.

917
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:10,730
And we can say the same
about the colors.

918
00:52:10,830 --> 00:52:14,030
Flowers use bright colors
in very much the same way

919
00:52:14,130 --> 00:52:16,230
as macaws use their bright colors.

920
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:18,900
Both kinds of color
are advertisements,

921
00:52:18,930 --> 00:52:23,230
both are used to attract
winged-gene vehicles.

922
00:52:23,700 --> 00:52:27,590
In one case those winged-gene
vehicles are female macaws,

923
00:52:27,890 --> 00:52:29,560
in the other case they are bees.

924
00:52:29,660 --> 00:52:32,330
But in both cases the result
of the attraction

925
00:52:32,430 --> 00:52:35,060
is that genes are carried about.

926
00:52:35,490 --> 00:52:37,230
The macaws mate,

927
00:52:37,630 --> 00:52:41,190
so the genes that made that
the male have attractive feathers

928
00:52:41,300 --> 00:52:44,500
are carried off in the female's body.

929
00:52:44,830 --> 00:52:48,660
The bee gets dusted with pollen
from a flower.

930
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,900
So the genes that made the flower
attractive to the bee are carried off

931
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:57,760
on the body of the bee into the
future, into future generations.

932
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:00,700
So if you look at them
in the right way,

933
00:53:00,900 --> 00:53:03,260
bees' wings can really be called

934
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:05,030
plant wings.

935
00:53:05,700 --> 00:53:08,660
Now, that really is a different way
of looking at things, isn't it?

936
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:10,760
A strange, and unfamiliar way.

937
00:53:10,900 --> 00:53:14,090
Yet it is a way that makes perfect
sense when you think about it.

938
00:53:14,190 --> 00:53:16,900
A way of looking,
which matches the strange

939
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,360
otherworldliness
of the ultraviolet garden.

940
00:53:22,790 --> 00:53:26,700
In the last of these five lectures,
we shall be coming on to the human brain

941
00:53:26,890 --> 00:53:29,190
and how it managed to get so big.

942
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:30,730
Thank you very much.

943
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:35,300
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