Correspondent’s Diary 特派员日记

 Bay Area science 湾区科技

Techs and the city 充满科技魅力的城市

Jul 31st 2009

 From Economist.com

Lab by lab in and around San Francisco 旧金山的地图上布满了实验室

Monday 礼拜一

SAN FRANCISCO conjures up images of hippies and of free love, the psychedelic 60s and leftist politics. A member of Jefferson Airplane, a rock band, described it as “49 square miles surrounded by reality”. It has always had that air. In a letter written in 1889, Rudyard Kipling wrote of “a mad city, inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people.” 旧金山往往使人想起这样一种景象,嬉皮士,自由性爱,迷幻的60一代以及左翼政治成为这座城市的标志.摇滚乐队”杰弗逊星船”的一名成员曾经形容这座城市为”被现实所包围的49平方英里”.这里向来有这种气氛.而吉普林在1889年的一封信中写下了这样的文字来描述旧金山”一座疯狂的城市,大部分居民都是彻头彻尾的疯子”.

But as someone who writes about science (and in the interests of full disclosure, practices it for a living), I see a different side of San Francisco and the broader Bay Area around it. I don’t see a region full of people looking to escape reality; I see scientists and engineers at universities, companies, and national labs probing and investigating that reality on a daily basis. Instead of mind-altering drugs, I see the world-altering technology that flows out of Silicon Valley. 但是就像有人写关于它的科学(为了全盘披露所能获得的利益,并以此为生),我看到了旧金山以及更加广阔的湾区正环绕着它所展现出来的与众不同的一面.我看到的不是一整片地区的人在逃避现实,而是大学教授,公司的工程师,国家实验室每天都在探索着这个这个世界的真理.我看到的不是心理麻醉的毒品,而是源源不断从硅谷涌出的那些改变世界的技术.

AFP/hemis.fr A city built on science 科技之城

Plutonium was first discovered in a Berkeley lab (as were the aptly-named berkelium and californium). The Bay Area is the birthplace of “big science” and of the atom smashers that have told us so much about the fundamental building blocks of matter. Quarks were first discovered just down the peninsula at the Stanford linear accelerator. 加州大学伯克利分校的实验室第一次发现了钚元素(就像锫和锎被命名的那样).湾区也是那些耗资巨大的科学研究计划的发源地,也是让我们对物质的基本结构有了更多了解的核粒子加速器的诞生之地.而就在南端的斯坦福大学的直线加速器中,我们第一次发现了夸克.

In the 1970s, two professors from Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) figured out how to use bacteria to clone segments of DNA. In the process, they gave birth to genetic engineering and the modern biotechnology industry. South of the city, Silicon Valley gave us the personal computer, the mouse, and the verbs “to google” and “to tweet”. Sit down in any local coffeeshop and you’re just as likely to end up next to someone nursing a startup as you are someone nursing a cappuccino. Now, the Valley’s venture capitalists are hoping that their magic will work just as well on the clean-technology industry. 20世纪70年代,两位分别来自斯坦福大学和加州大学旧金山分校的教授探索出了利用细菌来克隆DNA片段的方法.在这个过程中诞生了基因工程和现代生物技术产业.而在城市的南端,硅谷带给我们个人电脑,鼠标,发明了动词”谷歌一下”和”推特一下”.坐在当地任何一家咖啡店,你会发现你挨着一个抱着笔记本准备开机的人,就像你抱着一杯热咖啡牛奶一样平常.如今,硅谷的风险资本家正希望他们的资本在清洁能源技术上也能发挥出魔幻般的效果.

 The Bay Area hosts the world’s biggest laser (at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore), the world’s most intense X-ray source (at the LCLS at Stanford’s national lab) and an institute devoted exclusively to the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence (the SETI Institute in Mountain View). NASA’s outpost here just launched a probe that will slam into the lunar surface in search of water. 湾区拥有世界上最大的激光器(坐落在立佛摩尔的国家点火设施),能量最大的X射线源(在斯坦福大学国家实验室的直线加速器相干光源),以及一家致力于研究外太空智能的机构(在山景城的SETI机构).NASA在这里的分支机构刚刚启动了一项撞击月球表面来寻找水的科研计划.

Between them, Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF employ some 50 Nobel laureates spanning the full range of scientific disciplines. True, a handful of these are for economics, but we’ll cut the dismal science some slack. 在它们之中,斯坦福,加州伯克利和旧金山分校聘请了分布在自然科学各个领域的近50位诺贝尔奖获得者.实际上,有一小部分是经济学家,但是我们会剥离那些没有活力的科学部分.

Science and technology are to the Bay Area what finance is to New York and what cars are (or were) to Detroit. They underpin the region’s economy, influence its culture and shape the very character of this region as much as its notoriously active seismic geography does. 科学技术对于湾区的重要性不言而喻,就像金融业之于纽约,汽车业(或者曾经)之于底特律一样.他们构建了当地经济的基石,影响着这座城市的文化,并塑造着这座城市的独特个性,其程度不亚于著名的活跃地震带对这座城市的影响.

 Over the next four days, I intend to explore a few of the different faces that science and technology present to residents here. From the stem cell research that promises to revolutionise medicine, to the science of growing and making the best wine, to the science-fiction sounding search for extraterrestrials, we’ll be taking a scientific road trip around the San Francisco Bay Area. Think Thelma and Louise meets Watson and Crick. 在接下来的四天,我会探访一些不同的人,作为当地居民的他们深受科技的影响并将其外在表现出来.从有希望使药物产生革命性变革的干细胞研究,到生产制作最地道的葡萄酒科学,以及听起来像搜寻外星人的科幻小说一般,我们将沿着旧金山湾区的科学之路展开我们的旅行.想想看如果西尔玛和路易斯(电影”末路狂花”中的两位女主人公,译者注)遇见沃特森和克里克(DNA螺旋结构的发现者,译者注)会是什么样的景象吧.

 Tuesday 礼拜二

I WAKE up slightly disoriented at 5:45am. Waking in darkness makes me feel more like a farmer than a scientist, but perhaps that’s appropriate for the task at hand today. I’m on my way to the University of California, Davis for their annual RAVE conference, a gathering of scientists, winegrowers and winemakers meant to share the most recent advances in the disciplines of viticulture and oenology. 我在早上5点45迷迷糊糊得醒了过来.醒来时窗外的黑夜景象让我觉得自己更像个农民,而不是科学家,但这个角色可能更对于今天的任务来说更加合适.我正在去加州大学戴维斯分校的路上,最近正在举行一年一度的RAVE会议,那是聚集了一群科学家,葡萄种植业和酿酒业者的盛会,分享葡萄种植和酿酒学科方面的最新进展.

Gulping down a large coffee, I head east on I-80 across the Bay Bridge and through the sprawl of the East Bay. I pass the exit for Highway 37, which winds its way north and west to Napa and Sonoma, the heart of California’s wine country. In Napa alone, over 40,000 acres of vines produce an annual crop of grapes worth $400m. I manage to resist the pull of the wineries and instead follow I-80 east into the brightening dawn. 在一家咖啡店狼吞虎咽之后,我向东沿着I-80行驶,穿过了湾桥和东部湾的延伸地带.我从37号高速公路的出口驶出,那里蜿蜒得向北延伸到Napa,向西则是Sonoma,是加利福尼亚葡萄庄园的核心地带.单单在Napa就有超过40000英亩的葡萄藤,每年生产的葡萄价值4亿美元.我努力抵御着来自酿酒厂的诱惑,转而向东沿着I-80驶向刚破晓的黎明.

Karin Higgins/UC Davis The wine before the bottle 装瓶前的葡萄酒生产

You may not realise it when you pop the cork on a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon, but many scientists spend their lives studying every facet of wine, from the best pruning and watering techniques for growing the tastiest grapes to the genetics of the bacteria used in their fermentation. And UC-Davis is one of the world’s great centres for wine science. 伴随着清脆的软木塞弹开的声音,你可能不会在意你开的是一瓶赤霞珠(红葡萄酒中的皇帝,译者注),但是有很多科学家花费他们毕生的精力来研究葡萄酒的方方面面,从种植最美味葡萄过程中的剪枝和灌溉,到发酵中所使用的细菌基因片段.而加州大学戴维斯分校就是世界上研究葡萄酒艺术最好的中心之一.

Its Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, founded with a donation of $25m from the father of California’s wine industry, boasts 75,000 square feet of state-of-the art labs, kitchens, and sensory-testing equipment. Inside, the halls literally smell of wine and the researchers seem to be having a lot more fun than the typical science PhDs. 它的罗伯特蒙纳维酒类&食品研究所由加州葡萄酒产业之父捐助的2500万美元捐兴建而成,面积75000平方英尺的园区内建有美国最先进的实验室,厨房和鉴赏葡萄酒的仪器.在园区内的宿舍就能闻到酒香,这些研究者们看起来享受着比传统的博士课程有趣的多的探索.

Studying wine seems like a far cry from curing cancer or weaning the world off of fossil fuels, but the scientists who do so are no slouches. They make use of the latest techniques in biochemistry and biotechnology. Their analyses are sprinkled with complex mathematics and multivariate statistics. 研究葡萄酒看起来和治疗癌症或者使全球摆脱石化资源的束缚这些事风马牛不相及,可是科学家们却是在兴致勃勃的进行这些研究.他们会应用最新的生物化学和生物科技成果,而他们的分析也充满了复杂的数学和多元统计分析.

As I learn later in the morning, “whole genome shotgun sequencing”, originally developed for the Human Genome Project, was put to work on pinot noir in 2007. Besides shedding light on fundamental issues of plant evolution, wine scientists hope the grapevine genome will reveal some of the pathways that control wine flavour and resistance to various pests. 就像今天早上后来了解到的,最早作为人类基因组计划一部分的”人类基因组测序计划”工程的技术在2007年已经被应用于测定加州葡萄的基因组.除了惠及植物进化的基础性课题研究,葡萄酒科学家还希望测定葡萄藤的基因组能够帮助揭开基因控制葡萄酒品色的演化路径之谜,并能够使其抵御各种害虫.

The packed program includes lectures on viticultural practices, techniques for drying grapes into raisins, the perils of something called “berry shrivel” and how microbes contribute to flavour during fermentation. We hear about genomics, proteomics, and the “wired vine”, where all aspects of growing are monitored and controlled by sensors. Terpenes, norisoprenoids, oak lactones—the biochemical jargon comes thick and fast and eventually overwhelms me. 这一揽子项目有涉及很多方面的讲座,包括葡萄种植实践,烘干葡萄的技术,名为”浆果枯萎”的高风险实验,还有微生物如何在发酵过程中改变葡萄酒的品性.我们听说过基因层面的,蛋白质层面的以及有线栽培技术,这些方面都是由传感器来监控葡萄藤的生长.然而,”萜烯,norisoprenoids(一种十三碳丁烯,译者注),橡木内酯”这些生物化学的术语越来越多,迅速淹没了我.

But what comes through is a sense, as one speaker puts it, that wine is truly “chemistry in a glass”. Wine contains hundreds of complex chemical compounds, some of which are active in startlingly small amounts. Methoxypyrazine, which gives sauvignon blanc a slight bell-pepper odour, can be detected by the nose at less than two billionths of a gram in an entire bottle. 但是深入我脑海的是一种感觉,就像一位演讲者说的那样,葡萄酒真的是”小小的一杯子中充满了大大的化学”.葡萄酒包括了数百种复杂的化学混合物,其中有一些只有微微那么一丁点.赋予”长相思索味浓”白葡萄酒那种淡淡辛辣味道的化合物”甲氧基吡嗪” ,在一整瓶酒中只有不到二十亿分之一克,却能被鼻子品尝出来.

To the purist, all of this measuring and quantifying might destroy the beauty of a perfectly balanced bottle paired with a delicious meal. But I think of the child who looks up at the night sky and grows up to become an astronomer. Science begins with and returns to beauty and wonder. 对于那些追求完美的人来说,这些测量和定量工作可能会把配有一瓶佳酿的美妙晚餐气氛破坏殆尽.但是我想到了那些仰望着夜空,最终成长为宇航员的孩子.科学起源于人们对于美好和好奇的追求,也终将回到这一点.

 As I hit the road back to the city, I think about the theory that it’s better to give grapes slightly less water than they want in order to stress them and to concentrate their intense flavours. Out of great struggle comes great wine—and great science. 我一边把车开上回城的路,一边回想着葡萄酒理论,这种理论认为使葡萄的供水量低于原本所需水量是一种控制品性的更好办法,这样可以浓缩葡萄汁,并着重调配出最好的口味.巨大的努力换来的是美味的葡萄酒,还有伟大的科学.

 Wednesday 礼拜三

 TONIGHT I’ve got two of the hottest tickets in town. As the bouncer checks my ID, I can hear the low bass emanating from the DJ’s turntables inside the glass doors. The crowd is dressed in slinky skirts, tight jeans, and sport coats. This is not the hippest new club in the city, but the normally staid halls of the California Academy of Sciences. My girlfriend and I head off for a stiff gin and tonic at one of the many bars (though not the one sitting beneath the watchful eye ofTyrannosaurus rex). 今天晚上我拿到了城里最热的两张音乐会门票.当保镖检查我的身份证时,我能听到玻璃门后面DJ的转盘上传来的厚重低沉的贝司声.人们穿着紧身的裙子或牛仔裤,披着运动外套.这里可不是城里最嬉皮士的俱乐部,而是传统庄严的加州科学院大厅.我和女朋友在众多吧台中的一家(虽然不是那种坐在暴龙雷克斯猫机警注视下面的吧台)要了很烈的杜松子酒和滋补酒.

To most people, the words “science” and “nightlife” don’t usually go together. This spring, however, the Academy opened its doors for a series of boozy evenings intended to give the residents of this young, tech-savvy city another view of the science museum. “NightLife”, as the event is called, has been selling out, with more than 3,000 people attending each week. 对大多数人来说,科学和夜生活这两个词不常走到一起.但是今年春季,科学院引入了一系列的疯狂酒会,试图给这座年轻,拥有科技头脑的城市居民带来另外一种截然不同的科学博物馆面貌.就像这些酒会的名字”夜生活”,它已经吸引了每周超过3000人的加入,门票早就销售一空.

Anthony Gordon It was only last September that the Academy returned to its home in Golden Gate Park. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the aquarium here, the Academy undertook a complete rebuilding project that took $488m and the better part of a decade. Designed by Renzo Piano, the museum is now the largest public building in the world to have a LEED Platinum rating. Its design, which melds modern glass and steel with the classical architecture of the original building, reminds me of science itself—a combination of the new and modern with the solid, tested principles of the past. 去年9月,加州科学院才回到了它原先所在的金门大桥公园旧址.在1989年的洛马·普列塔地震毁掉了这里的水族馆之后,科学院着手开始一项耗资4.88亿美元,用时10年的重建计划.由Renzo Piano设计的新博物馆是目前全球最大的公共建筑,并获得了LEED标准体系(美国绿色建筑委员会主持的领先能源与环境设计建筑评级体系,译者注)的白金评级.它的设计融合了最初大楼的古典建筑艺术和现代的玻璃钢铁材料,使我想起了科学的真谛-经过历史考验的坚实古老法则和新奇现代的完美结合.

Inside, an exhibit demonstrates some of the building’s environmentally friendly features. Recycled blue jeans are stuffed into the walls to serve as insulation (which seems fitting, as San Francisco is home to both Levi’s and The Gap). Half of the building’s cement was made with recycled waste products from coal combustion and steel production, and the glass canopy outside houses 60,000 photovoltaic cells. Instead of using treated freshwater for the aquariums, water is pumped in directly from the Pacific at the other end of the park. 建筑内部展示了一些与自然环境融洽相处的独特设计.把回收来的蓝色牛仔裤塞满墙体作为隔热隔音材料(这看起来很合适,因为旧金山就是李维斯和盖普公司的所在地).这座建筑所使用的水泥,有一半取自煤渣和钢厂的回收废品.而房子外层覆盖的玻璃天蓬是60000枚光伏电池.水族馆并没有使用经过处理的淡水,而是直接从公园另一端的太平洋中抽水来供给.

We continue our stroll past the 90-foot diameter glass dome that houses a living rainforest. Next to the DJ, people are gaping through a glass window at scientists in white coats working on specimens—perhaps a nod to the traditional view of scientists in a museum. 我们继续漫步穿越那直径90米的玻璃穹顶,在它下面是一片活生生的热带雨林.而在DJ的隔壁,人们正透过玻璃窗看着那些忙碌在标本上的穿白外套的科学家们,似乎是一种对于博物馆里传统科学家形象的首肯.

Downstairs, the Steinhart Aquarium is packed and people are noticeably tipsier. An alligator drifts towards the thick glass, having recently sent its albino tankmate Claude to the hospital with a nasty bite on the toe. A scantily clad girl sticks her tongue out at a lizard in its tank. It responds in kind and then lazily drops off its branch. 楼下是挤满了人的斯坦哈特水族馆,人们看起来喝得更醉了.一条短吻鳄悠哉的浮游在厚厚的玻璃旁,却没人知道它最近凶恶得咬伤了一条白化大型柠檬鲨鱼,从而把这条名为克劳德的鲨鱼送进了医院.一个衣着暴露性感的女孩子正向躺在笼子里的蜥蜴吐出她的舌头.它友好得回应了一下,然后懒懒得收回了它的爪子.

We head back upstairs and onto the museum’s “living roof”, which is planted with native Californian grasses and flowers. They help reduce runoff and, from a distance, cause the building to mirror the hilly landscape of the city around it. A line is patiently snaking its way to a docent with a telescope trained on Saturn’s rings and the moon Titan. 我们转身上楼,然后上到了博物馆的”生命房顶”,因为它被种满了加州本地的花花草草.这些花草不仅防止水土流失,而且从远处看,使得这座建筑成了环绕着这座城市的山地景观缩影.一位讲师用观测土星和土卫六的望远镜,能看到一条亮线拖曳着划过天际.

 After we’ve had our fill of stargazing, we spill out into the beautiful evening and stroll out of the park. I’m left with the inescapable feeling that this taste of the nightlife has been high on style but a little light on the scientific substance. But that’s no terrible thing. Science will survive and grow, as this museum has. 在大饱星空的眼福之后,我们把自己放纵在公园里这优美的夜晚中.我不可避免的感觉到这样的夜生活更注重的是生活方式,而在科学主旨上着墨太少.但这也不是什么糟糕的事情,科学还会生存发展的,就像这座博物馆经历的那样.

Thursday 礼拜四

IT IS a classic San Francisco morning. The downtown skyline is shrouded in a blanket of fog. By noon the sun has finally burned its way through, but the fog will likely roll back in with the cool evening breeze. It’s a bit like scientific progress, actually—an endless ebb and flow from haziness to clarity and back again. 这是一个很经典的旧金山清晨.市中心的天际线被厚厚的雾毯罩着.直到中午,太阳才懒洋洋得穿过云层,把阳光洒向大地,但雾气似乎要等到晚上才被凉爽的阵阵微风吹散.这有点像科学发展的历程-一次次从朦胧到清晰的潮起潮落,如此反复.

Today I’m downtown to cover a town hall meeting hosted by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). From the subway I head to one of the Palace Hotel’s elegant chandeliered ballrooms. It holds around 300, and eventually fills to standing capacity. 今天我要去参加一个由加州再生医学研究机构举办的会议.出了地铁,我步行前往皇宫大酒店枝形吊灯装饰的舞厅.它可以容纳大约300人,最后整个屋子都被人填满了.

Though it seems like a euphemism, “regenerative medicine” does not refer to plastic surgery (that is, dare I say, an Angeleno rather than a San Franciscan pastime). From its office in San Francisco’s Mission Bay, CIRM oversees California’s $3 billion investment in stem cell research. 虽然看起来是一个委婉的说法,”再生医学”和整形外科(我敢说那肯定是一个洛杉矶人的说法,而不是旧金山的消遣玩笑)没有什么联系.在旧金山使命湾的办公室,CIRM掌管着加州30亿美元在干细胞研究领域的投资. Julie Baker Stanford University School of Medicine 斯坦福医学院/Julie Baker摄 Soldiers awaiting orders 战士们整装待发(图为干细胞,意即治疗疾病的”战士”,译者注)

 In November 2004, California voters passed Proposition 71, a ballot measure allowing the state to fund research into human embryonic stem cells. Overnight, California became one of the largest backers of stem-cell research in the world. At a time when the federal government was unwilling to invest in regenerative medicine, the message from the state’s voters was clear: the incredible therapeutic promise of stem cells outweighs the moral objections to using them. 2004年11月,加州投票通过了71号法案,允许该州进行人类胚胎干细胞实验.很快,加州就成了世界上最大的干细胞研究赞助商聚集地之一.曾经有段时间,联邦政府不希望向再生医学领域投资,加州的投票者传达出很清晰的信息:利用干细胞治愈疾病的希望远比道德束缚有价值的多.

That therapeutic promise, the meeting’s three panellists explain to us, comes from stem cells’ chameleon-like ability to turn into any of the cells that make up the body’s tissues and organs. Most cells are tailored to perform a particular function. Heart cells are good at beating, neurons transmit electrical signals and pancreatic islet cells produce insulin. While they all contain the full set of instructions of the human genome, each uses only the small subset that directs its particular task. 会议的三位小组发言人向我们解释了干细胞技术治愈疾病的希望,那就是利用干细胞能够分化成任何一种用于构建身体组织器官细胞的能力.大部分细胞只能表现出单一特定的功能.心脏细胞的跳动能力很强,神经元细胞则擅长传导电信号,而胰岛细胞能产生胰岛素.虽然这些细胞都完整得携带了人类所有的基因,但是他们都只使用其中的一小部分来完成他们各自特定的功能.

A stem cell, on the other hand, is a cellular jack-of-all-trades. Given the right signals, it can become a brand new heart cell or neuron or insulin-producing cell. Bruce Conklin, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and the second speaker of the evening, plays us a dramatic video of 2,000 human heart cells that had been derived from embryonic stem cells. Sitting in their Petri dish, they wriggle and beat, just like a human heart. 干细胞,换一句话说,就是一个细胞全能多面手.只要给定正确的信号,它就能分化成一个正宗的心肌细胞或者神经元或者胰岛腺素细胞.今晚的第二位发言人,来自加州大学旧金山分校的布鲁斯库克林教授,向我们演示了一段神奇的视频,展现如何从胚胎干细胞中获得的2000个人类心肌细胞.在培养皿中,他们扭动着跳动着,就像一颗人类的心脏那样.

 Embryonic stem cells were first isolated in 1998, and since then the pace of progress has been furious. Much work has gone into figuring out how to reliably and efficiently generate the different cell types that doctors would like to use in patients. In addition, as the speakers emphasise, understanding exactly when and how implanted stem cells can go awry and cause tumours remains an essential research task that confronts all potential therapies. 1998年人类第一次分离出胚胎干细胞,从此开始研究的步伐疯狂的迈进.许多研究工作已经进行,并已经弄清楚了如何可靠有效得产生不同种类的细胞,而那些细胞就是医生打算用来治疗病人的.而且,就像演讲者强调的,准确弄清那些被植入体内的细胞是在什么时候怎么出错演变成肿瘤的,这仍然是在应用干细胞进行潜在的治疗实验之前所需要重点研究的任务.

Such therapies are slowly, but surely, making their way towards the clinic. In January, Geron, a biotechnology giant, got FDA approval to conduct the first clinical trial testing the safety of an embryonic stem cell therapy. It will work with patients with severe spinal cord injuries. For its part, CIRM is hoping to get ten to 12 human stem cell trials going in the next four years. In December, it will award $20m to researchers and their corporate partners with that goal in mind. 这样的治疗离临床应用还需要很长一段时间,但是可以肯定的是,这是未来的趋势.一月份,生物科技巨头杰龙公司已经获得了美国食品及药物管理局的批准来开展一项测试干细胞治疗安全性的临床实验.它会应用于治疗一名脊髓严重受损的病人.作为长期计划的一部分,CIRM打算在未来4年内进行10到12项人类干细胞试验.12月时,它将会用2000万美元作为奖金,来鼓励那些有主意达到上述目标的科研工作人员及合作者.

 After the speakers finish their presentations, the moderator opens the floor to questions from the audience. From the front row, a young girl raises her hand. In a high-pitched, slightly faltering voice, she asks a deeply personal question: “I was burned very badly in August 2008. How might this help me, and how can I help in your research?” 在发言人结束演讲之后,主持人开始了现场听众提问环节.前排一个年轻的女孩子举起了她的手.她尖尖的声音有点紧张的问了很有深度的一个私人问题:”2008年8月我被严重烧伤了.干细胞技术能怎么帮助我治疗吗?我能怎么在您的研究计划中帮一些忙吗?”

 After the dry PowerPoints and data-filled charts, the scientists seem slightly taken aback by the raw emotion. They stammer through some answers, but none seems satisfying. Despite stem cells’ promise, the science just isn’t quite there yet. This moment brings home both the deep hopes and the urgent desperation that surround what are undoubtedly the early days of regenerative medicine. 在看完无聊的PPT演示和充满数据的表格之后,科学家们被这样真挚的感情弄得有点吃惊.他们结结巴巴得回答了一些,但是没有一句看起来是令人满意的.除了干细胞技术所带来的希望,我们还不能指望这项科学能带来什么.这一时刻击中了再生医学的要害,那就是一方面我们对干细胞技术怀有深深的希望,但另一方面,在再生医学发展的初期阶段,我们无疑还不能用它来做什么,这是一种急迫的绝望. Friday 礼拜五

ONCE again I’m braving the early morning traffic on I-80, heading out of the city past Oakland and Berkeley. But just before I reach Davis, I veer north onto Interstate 5. It’s not the earthly delights of carefully cultivated varietals and nuanced terroir that concern me today. I’m heading into the mountains to get a tour of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a collection of 42 large telescopes that have just begun scanning the heavens for radio transmissions from intelligent extraterrestrials. Yes, you read that right—aliens. 我又一次呼吸着I-80上清晨的空气,穿越奥克兰和伯克利,驶出了这座城市.就在我到达戴维斯之前,我向北转上了洲际5号线.今天跟我有关的并不是细细品味精心栽种的名贵品种的微妙之处的世俗快乐.我要进行的是山区里的艾伦望远镜列阵之旅,那里有42架巨型望远镜,最近刚刚开始探测来自外星智能生命的宇宙射线传输微波.是的,你没有听错-外星人.

Three hours later, my small Toyota begins the climb into the mountains of Lassen National Park. Eureka, Whiskeytown, Old Oregon Trail—the road signs here recall the miners and pioneers who trudged through during California’s mid-19th century gold rush. The two-lane road I’m driving on used to be a trail for rattling stagecoaches. 三个小时后,我的小丰田车开始进入拉森国家公园的山区.尤里卡,威士忌城,老俄勒冈小道,这些路牌使人想起了19世纪中期加州金矿短缺时期那些矿工和先驱长途跋涉的故事.而我正在行驶的这条双行道当年正是给飞奔的驿站马车用的.

 The San Francisco radio stations faded hours ago, and now only a few talk stations break through the static. Maybe I’ve lived in Haight-Ashbury for too long, but as I make a right turn into the observatory, Timothy Leary is in my head: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Here in Hat Creek, which is nearly devoid of manmade sounds, the ATA just turned on for science operations in May. For many years to come, it will tune into the radio sky to study the evolution of galaxies, the properties of black holes, and one of the most profound questions of all—whether we’re alone in the universe. 旧金山广播台的信号几个小时前就听不到了,现在只听到一些谈话类节目的声音划过这静静的山谷.也许是我在海特-阿什伯里住的太久的缘故,当我在一个弯角拐到通往天文馆的路上时,提摩西力瑞的著名句子跳进我的脑海:”开大声,放歌,退出”(寓意为高调退出,译者注).而在红帽溪,这里几乎没有任何人造的声音,艾伦望远镜列阵5月份在这里为了科学运作开张了.许多年以来,它监听来自太空的无线电以研究银河系的进化,黑洞的特性以及一个最为深奥的问题-在宇宙中,人类是不是唯一的生命.

 My tour guide this afternoon is Garrett Keating, a former cop turned astronomer. We walk out towards one of the 42 telescopes, a gleaming aluminium dish six metres in diameter. Mr Keating opens a trap door and we poke our heads inside. The main dish reflects incoming radio waves onto a smaller dish off to our left. That in turn bounces them onto the telescope’s main receiver, a long pyramid with different sized antennas poking off of it. 今天下午我的导游是Garrett Keating,一个从警察行业跳槽的天文学家.我们走近42座望远镜中的一座,直径6米,像闪耀的铝盘一样.Keating打开一扇活门,我们把头伸了进去.主盘将射进来的无线电波反射到我们左边的一块小盘上,电波又被反弹到望远镜的主接收器上,是一条缠满了不同尺寸天线的长长的棱锥.

The antennas pick up an extremely wide range of frequencies, from those used for broadcast television on the low end up through the ones that transmit satellite television. In between is the emission frequency of hydrogen gas—the most common element in the universe and the raw material for the formation of stars and galaxies. 这种天线能接收相当广频率的信号,从那些低频的宽带直播电视信号到高频的卫星传输信号.处在中间的是氢气所发出的频率-氢是与众中最常见的元素,也是组成恒星和星系的最原始材料.

 Off in the distance, we hear the rumbles of an approaching storm, and several lightning bolts streak across the sky. Mr Keating insists we return to the lab. The antennae, he reassures me, are well grounded. I don’t tell him that it wasn’t the antennae I was worried about. 从远处,我们听到了暴风雨来临的隆隆声,以及数声闪电的巨响划过天空.Keating坚持让我们回到实验室去.他打消了我的疑虑说,这些天线是良好接地的.我并没有告诉他我担心的不是天线.

Inside, fibre-optic cables carry the signals from the dishes to enormous racks of computers. By using the computers to combine data from each individual dish, the ATA is able to mimic a much larger telescope for a fraction of the cost. An initial donation of $25m from Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and $25m from other sources financed these first 42 dishes. Eventually, the team hopes to collect enough funding to get up to 350. 在实验室里面,光缆纤维将盘子上的信号传向无数台电脑.通过将分别来自每个盘子的信号进行合成,望远镜矩阵能够模拟出一个规模大得多的望远镜的效果,而成本只是同等规模单个望远镜的几分之一.第一笔来自微软联合创始人保罗艾伦的2500万美元捐款,以及其他来源的2500万美元建成了首批42座望远镜.最终,这个科研团队希望能筹集到足够的资金,把阵列的数量提升到350台望远镜.

Operating together, the telescopes are quite sensitive. And they need to be, since a single mobile phone located on the moon would give off a much stronger signal than almost every astronomical object in the radio sky. In addition to its sensitivity, the ATA also views a large patch of the sky all at once. Most other radio telescopes are like telephoto lenses, zooming into a tiny region of space. The ATA, however, is the first that can take snapshots with a wide-angle lens. 当着350台望远镜一起工作时,可以捕捉相当微弱的信号,而且他们必须有这种能力.因为在月球上用手机打电话发出的信号都比几乎所有的宇宙射线信号要强.而且为了保证灵敏度,望远镜阵列每次只会观测整个天空的一块大的区域.大部分其他的射电望远镜就像远望镜头一样,只能将太空中的极小一部分放大.而ATA却是第一台能给整个天空进行广角拍摄的望远镜.

 Just outside the sliding glass door to the control room, I notice a doormat with a bug-eyed alien and the caption “welcome all species”, a reminder of the ATA’s second mission. This telescope array represents a great leap forward for the enterprise known as SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. 正当我走下滑动玻璃门到控制室的时候,我注意到门前的垫子上印了一个大眼睛的外星人,标语写到”欢迎所有物种”,这才提醒我ATA的第二个任务.这个望远镜阵列代表了大家所熟知的SETI公司的一大跨越式进步.他们在探寻外星智能生命的存在.

In the past, SETI has had to squeeze precious observation time out of existing telescopes around the world. With the ATA, the search for signals from intelligent life elsewhere in the universe will be carried out constantly, right alongside the astrophysics. 过去SETI的观测活动一直是从世界上其他已有的望远镜上间断进行着.自从有了ATA,探寻宇宙深处外星生命发出的信号的活动就可以伴随着天体物理学的发展持续下去.

So what exactly is SETI looking for? Essentially, something that seems not to belong—an odd man out in the cosmic radio haze. One possibility is a very powerful signal confined to a tiny frequency band, like the manmade transmissions that are continually leaking off of earth. As Mr Keating explains, “nature doesn’t produce pure tones”. In addition, if the signal really is extraterrestrial, its broadcast frequency should drift, as the alien planet orbits its own star. 那么SETI到底在找什么?本质上说,是一种似乎不会存在的东西-在浩瀚的宇宙无线电阴霾中的一个奇怪人类.一种可能性就是,被束缚在非常窄频段内的强烈信号,就像从地球不断释放出去的人造传输信号一样.就像Keating解释的那样”自然不会产生纯净的声调”而且,如果这种信号真的来自于外星生命,那么随着外星人行星绕着它的恒星运转,无线电信号会产生偏移(即波长因为运动状态而发生改变的多普勒效应,译者注).

Over its lifetime, the ATA hopes to survey 1m promising candidate stars within a thousand light years of earth, and ten billion more in the central region of our own Milky Way galaxy. And as computers and algorithms improve, so will SETI’s ability to look for more complex alien transmissions in this mountain of data. 在它的工作年限内,ATA希望能探索距离地球1千光年内大约100万颗有可能存在生命的恒星,并且在我们银河系的中心地带探索100亿颗恒星.随着电脑计算能力的提升和天体物理学的发展,SETI最终能发现海量数据中更多复杂外星人的信号.

Black holes, exploding stars, clouds of swirling hydrogen gas light-years across the galaxy—this is hallucinatory stuff. Yet if the little green men finally arrive, San Francisco—built as it is on science, tolerance and the counterculture—would seem like a natural first port-of-call. 黑洞,恒星大爆炸和旋转的氢气星云在整个星系中都相隔数光年.这是一些幻觉的玩意儿:如果真的有一天,外星小绿人来到地球了,那么这座充满了科技,宽容和反传统文化的城市旧金山,也许正是最自然的停靠港口了.