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SAGAN: All my life I've wondered
about life beyond the Earth.

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On those countless other planets
that we think circle other suns...

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...is there also life?

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Might the beings of other
worlds resemble us...

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...or would they be
astonishingly different?

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What would they be made of?

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In the vast Milky Way galaxy...

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...how common is what we call life?

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The nature of life on Earth...

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...and the quest for life elsewhere...

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...are the two sides
of the same question.

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The search for who we are.

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All living things on Earth
are made of organic molecules...

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...a complex microscopic
architecture...

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...built around atoms of carbon.

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In the great dark between the stars...

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...there also are organic molecules...

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...in immense clouds of gas and dust.

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Inside such clouds...

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...there are batches
of new worlds just forming.

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Their surfaces are very likely
covered with organic molecules.

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These molecules almost certainly
are not made by life...

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...although they
are the stuff of life.

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On suitable worlds,
they may lead to life.

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Organic matter is abundant
throughout the cosmos...

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...produced by the same chemistry
everywhere.
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Perhaps, given enough time...

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...the origin and evolution of life
is inevitable on every clement world.

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There will surely be some planets
too hostile for life.

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On others,
it may arise and die out...

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...or never evolve
beyond its simplest forms.

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And on some small
fraction of worlds...

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...there may develop intelligences
and civilizations...

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...more advanced than ours.

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All life on our planet
is closely related.

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We have a common organic chemistry
and a common evolutionary heritage.

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And so our biologists
are profoundly limited.

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They study a single biology...

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...one lonely theme
in the music of life.

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Is it the only voice
for thousands of light years...

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...or is there a cosmic fugue,
a billion different voices...

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...playing the life music
of the galaxy?

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This blue world is where we grew up.

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There was once a time before life.

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Our planet is now
burgeoning with life.

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How did it come about?

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How were organic molecules
originally made?

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How did life evolve
to produce beings...

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...as elaborate and complex as we...

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...able to explore the mystery
of our own origins?

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Let me tell you a story
about one little phrase...
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...in the music of life on Earth.

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(WIND BLOWS)

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In the history of humans...

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...in the 12th century...

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...Japan was ruled by a clan
of warriors called the Heike.

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The nominal leader of the Heike,
the emperor of Japan...

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...was a 7-year-old boy
named Antoku.

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His guardian was his grandmother,
the Lady Nii.

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(DRUM BEATS)

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The Heike were engaged
in a long and bloody war...

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...with another Samurai clan,
the Genji.

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Each asserted
a superior ancestral claim...

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...to the imperial throne.
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(BATTLE CRIES)

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Their decisive encounter
occurred at Dannoura...

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...in the Japanese Inland Sea
on April 24...

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...in the year 1 185.

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The Heike were badly outnumbered
and outmaneuvered.

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With their cause clearly lost...

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...the surviving Heike warriors threw
themselves into the sea and drowned.

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The emperor's grandmother,
the Lady Nii...

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...resolved that they would not
be captured by the enemy.

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What happened next is related
in "The Tale of the Heike":

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"The young emperor asked the Lady Nii,
'Where are you to take me?'

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She turned to the youthful sovereign
with tears streaming down her cheeks...

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...and comforted him.

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(WATER LAPS)

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Blinded with tears...

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...the child sovereign put his
beautiful small hands together.

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He turned first to the east...

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...to say farewell
to the god of Ise...

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...and then to the west...

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...to recite a prayer
to the Amida Buddha.

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The Lady Nii...

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...took him in her arms,
and with the words:

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'In the depths of the ocean
is our capital'...

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...sank with him at last
beneath the waves."

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The destruction of the Heike
battle fleet at Dannoura...

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...marked the end of the clan's
30-year rule.

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The Heike all but vanished
from history.

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Only 43 Heike survived, all women.

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These former ladies-in-waiting
of the Imperial Court...

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...were reduced to selling flowers
and other favors...

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...to the fishermen near
the scene of the battle.

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These women and their offspring
by the fishermen...

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...established a festival
to commemorate the battle.

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To this day, every year,
on the 24th of April...

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...their descendants proceed
to the Akama shrine...

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...which contains the mausoleum...

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...of the drowned
7-year-old emperor, Antoku.

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There, they conduct a ceremony
of remembrance...

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...for the life and death
of the Heike warriors.

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But there is a strange
postscript to this story:

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The fishermen say...

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...that the Heike samurai
wander the bottom of the Inland Sea...

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...in the form of crabs.

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There are crabs here which have
curious markings on their backs.

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Patterns which resemble
a human face...

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...with the aggressive scowl
of a samurai warrior...

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...from medieval Japan.

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(DRUM BEATS)

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These Heike crabs, when caught,
are not eaten.

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They are thrown back into the sea...

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...in commemoration
of the doleful events...

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...of the battle of Dannoura.

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This legend raises a lovely problem:

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How does it come about that the face
of a warrior...

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...is cut on the carapace of
a Japanese crab? How could it be?

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The answer seems to be
that humans made this face.

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But how?

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Like many other features,
the patterns on the back...

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...or carapace of this crab
are inherited.

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But among crabs, as among humans,
there are different hereditary lines.

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Now, suppose purely by chance...

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...among the distant ancestors
of this crab...

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...there came to be one which looked
just a little bit like a human face.
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Long before the battle, fishermen
may have been reluctant...

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...to eat a crab with a human face.

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In throwing it back into the sea...

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...they were setting into motion
a process of selection.

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If you're a crab and your carapace
is just ordinary...

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...the humans are gonna eat you.

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But if it looks a little bit
like a face...

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...they'll throw you back and you
can have lots of baby crabs...

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...that all look just like you.

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As many generations passed...

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...of crabs and fisher-folk alike...

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...the crabs with patterns that
looked most like a samurai face...

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...preferentially survived.

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Until eventually, there was produced
not just a human face...

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...not just a Japanese face...

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...but the face of a samurai warrior.

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All this has nothing to do
with what the crabs might want.

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Selection is imposed from the outside.

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The more you look like a samurai,
the better your chances of survival.

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Eventually, there are a lot of crabs
that look like samurai warriors.

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(DRUM BEATS)

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This process is called
artificial selection.

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In the case of the Heike crab,
it was effected...

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...more or less unconsciously
by the fishermen...

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...and certainly without any serious
contemplation by the crabs.

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Humans, for thousands of years...
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...have deliberately selected...

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...which plants
and animals shall live.

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We're surrounded
by farm and domestic animals...

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...fruits, vegetables.

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Where do they come from? Were they
once free-living in the wild...

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...and then induced to adopt some
less strenuous life on the farm?

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No.

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They are, almost all of them,
made by us.

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The essence of artificial selection
for a horse or a cow...

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...a grain of rice
or a Heike crab, is this:

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Many characteristics are inherited.
They breed true.

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Humans encourage the reproduction
of some varieties...

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...and discourage
the reproduction of others.

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The variety selected for,
eventually becomes abundant.

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The variety selected against,
becomes rare, maybe extinct.

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But if artificial selection
makes such changes...

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...in only a few thousand years...

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...what must natural selection...

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...working for billions of years,
be capable of?

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The answer...

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...is all the beauty and diversity
in the biological world.

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That life evolved over
the ages is clear...

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...from the changes we've made
in the beasts and vegetables...

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...but also from
the record in the rocks.

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The fossil evidence speaks
to us unambiguously...
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...of creatures that were once
present in enormous numbers...

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...and that have now vanished utterly.

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There are more species that have
become extinct than exist today.

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They are the terminated
experiments in evolution.

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These guys, the trilobites,
appeared 600 million years ago.

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They were around
for 300 million years.

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They're all gone. There's none left.

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But in those old rocks, there are
no fossils of people or cattle.

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We've evolved only recently.

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Evolution is a fact, not a theory.

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It really happened.

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(BEE BUZZES)

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That the mechanism of evolution is
natural selection was the discovery...
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...of Charles Darwin
and Alfred Russel Wallace.

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Here's how it works:

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Nature is prolific.

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There are many more creatures that
are born than can possibly survive.

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So those varieties which are,
by accident, less well adapted...

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...don't survive, or at least
they leave fewer offspring.

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Now, mutations, sudden
changes in heredity...

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...are passed on. They breed true.

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The environment selects the occasional
mutations which enhance survival.

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The resulting series of slow changes
in the nature of living beings...

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...is the origin of new species.

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Many people were scandalized...

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...by the ideas of evolution
and natural selection.

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Our ancestors looked at...

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...the intricacy
and the beauty of life...

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...and saw evidence
for a great designer.

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The simplest organism
is a far more complex machine...

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...than the finest pocket watch.

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And yet, pocket watches don't
spontaneously self-assemble...

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...or evolve in slow
stages on their own...

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...from say, grandfather clocks.

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A watch implies a watchmaker.

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There seemed to be no way atoms
could spontaneously fall together...

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...and create, say...

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...a dandelion.

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00:16:23,487 --> 00:16:25,785
The idea of a designer...
218
00:16:25,989 --> 00:16:30,653
...is an appealing and altogether human
explanation of the biological world.

219
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But as Darwin and Wallace showed...

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...there's another way...

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...equally human
and far more compelling.

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Natural selection, which makes
the music of life more beautiful...

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...as the eons pass.

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(LOUD RUMBLE)

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To understand the passage
of the eons...

226
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...we have compressed all of time
into a single cosmic year...

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...with the big bang on January first.

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Every month here represents
a little over a billion years.

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The Earth didn't form until
the cosmic year was two-thirds over.

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Our understanding of the history
of life is very recent...

231
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...occupying only the last few
seconds of December 31...

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00:17:19,076 --> 00:17:23,206
...that small white spot at bottom
right in the cosmic calendar.

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00:17:23,413 --> 00:17:25,813
What happened on Earth may be
more or less typical...

234
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...of the evolution of life
on many worlds.

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But in its details...

236
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...the story of life on Earth...

237
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...is probably unique
in all the Milky Way galaxy.

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The secrets of evolution
are time and death.

239
00:17:41,398 --> 00:17:45,232
Time for the slow accumulation
of favorable mutations...

240
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...and death to make room
for new species.

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00:17:49,740 --> 00:17:53,005
Life on Earth arose in September
of the cosmic calendar...

242
00:17:53,210 --> 00:17:57,874
...when our world, still battered and
cratered from its violent origin...
243
00:17:58,081 --> 00:18:00,242
...may have looked
a little like the moon.

244
00:18:02,419 --> 00:18:05,946
The Earth is about four and a half
billion years old.

245
00:18:06,156 --> 00:18:07,487
In the cosmic calendar...

246
00:18:07,691 --> 00:18:11,684
...it condensed out of interstellar
gas and dust...

247
00:18:11,895 --> 00:18:14,523
...around September 1 4.

248
00:18:14,731 --> 00:18:18,394
We know from the fossil record
that life originated soon after...

249
00:18:18,602 --> 00:18:21,867
...maybe around September 25,
something like that...

250
00:18:22,072 --> 00:18:25,940
...probably in the ponds and oceans
of the primitive Earth.

251
00:18:26,176 --> 00:18:30,772
The first living things were not
as complex as a one-celled organism...

252
00:18:30,981 --> 00:18:34,610
...which is already a highly
sophisticated form of life.

253
00:18:34,818 --> 00:18:38,845
No, the first stirrings
of life were much more humble...

254
00:18:39,056 --> 00:18:41,889
...and happened on the molecular level.

255
00:18:42,092 --> 00:18:46,290
In those early days, lightning
and ultraviolet light from the sun...

256
00:18:46,496 --> 00:18:50,694
...were breaking apart hydrogen-rich
molecules in the atmosphere.

257
00:18:50,901 --> 00:18:55,395
The fragments of the molecules
were spontaneously recombining...

258
00:18:55,606 --> 00:18:59,406
...into more and more
complex molecules.

259
00:19:01,545 --> 00:19:05,504
The products of this early
chemistry dissolved in the oceans...

260
00:19:05,716 --> 00:19:09,015
...forming a kind of organic soup...

261
00:19:09,219 --> 00:19:11,346
...of gradually increasing complexity.

262
00:19:11,555 --> 00:19:15,355
Until one day, quite by accident...

263
00:19:15,559 --> 00:19:19,655
...a molecule arose that was able
to make crude copies of itself...

264
00:19:19,863 --> 00:19:23,299
...using as building blocks
the other molecules in the soup.

265
00:19:23,500 --> 00:19:26,958
This was the ancestor of DNA...

266
00:19:27,170 --> 00:19:30,537
...the master molecule
of life on Earth.

267
00:19:30,741 --> 00:19:34,404
It's made of four different
parts, called nucleotides...
268
00:19:34,611 --> 00:19:38,308
...which constitute the four letters
of the genetic code...

269
00:19:38,515 --> 00:19:40,073
...the language of heredity.

270
00:19:40,283 --> 00:19:45,152
Each of the nucleotides,
the rungs on the DNA ladder...

271
00:19:45,355 --> 00:19:47,653
...are a different color
in this model.

272
00:19:47,858 --> 00:19:51,123
The instructions are different
for different organisms.

273
00:19:51,328 --> 00:19:53,694
That's why organisms
are different.

274
00:19:53,897 --> 00:19:57,731
Now, a mutation is a change
of a nucleotide...

275
00:19:57,934 --> 00:20:00,960
...a misspelling
of the genetic instructions.

276
00:20:01,171 --> 00:20:06,040
Most mutations spell genetic
nonsense since they're random.

277
00:20:06,243 --> 00:20:08,438
They harm the next generation.

278
00:20:08,645 --> 00:20:10,943
But a very few, by accident...

279
00:20:11,148 --> 00:20:15,642
...make better sense than the
original codes, and aid evolution.

280
00:20:16,353 --> 00:20:19,652
DNA is about a billion
times smaller...

281
00:20:19,856 --> 00:20:21,585
...than we see it here.

282
00:20:21,792 --> 00:20:26,729
Each of those things that looks
like a piece of fruit is an atom.

283
00:20:26,930 --> 00:20:28,522
Without the tools of science...

284
00:20:28,732 --> 00:20:32,031
...the machinery of life
would be invisible.

285
00:20:36,273 --> 00:20:37,900
Four billion years ago...

286
00:20:38,108 --> 00:20:42,135
...the ancestors of DNA competed
for molecular building blocks...

287
00:20:42,345 --> 00:20:45,314
...and left crude copies
of themselves.

288
00:20:45,515 --> 00:20:48,780
There were no predators;
the stuff of life was everywhere.

289
00:20:48,985 --> 00:20:52,352
The oceans and murky pools
that filled the craters...

290
00:20:52,556 --> 00:20:55,855
...were, for these molecules,
a Garden of Eden.

291
00:20:56,193 --> 00:20:59,185
With reproduction, mutation
and natural selection...

292
00:20:59,396 --> 00:21:03,423
...the evolution of living
molecules was well underway.

293
00:21:03,967 --> 00:21:07,869
Varieties with specialized
functions joined together...

294
00:21:08,071 --> 00:21:11,097
...making a collective.
The first cell.

295
00:21:11,308 --> 00:21:14,368
The organic soup eventually
ate itself up.

296
00:21:14,578 --> 00:21:17,945
But by this time, plants had evolved,
able to use sunlight...

297
00:21:18,148 --> 00:21:22,881
...to make their own building blocks.
They turned the waters green.

298
00:21:23,086 --> 00:21:25,281
One-celled plants
joined together:

299
00:21:25,489 --> 00:21:28,515
The first multi-cellular organisms.

300
00:21:30,026 --> 00:21:34,463
Equally important was the invention,
not made until early November...

301
00:21:34,664 --> 00:21:39,158
...of sex. It was stumbled upon
by the microbes.

302
00:21:41,838 --> 00:21:45,501
By December 1, green plants
had released copious amounts...

303
00:21:45,709 --> 00:21:48,940
...of oxygen and nitrogen
into the atmosphere.

304
00:21:49,146 --> 00:21:52,445
The sky is made by life.
305
00:21:53,750 --> 00:21:56,480
Then, suddenly, on December 1 5...

306
00:21:56,686 --> 00:21:59,678
...there was an enormous proliferation
of new life forms...

307
00:21:59,890 --> 00:22:03,326
...an event called
the "Cambrian Explosion."

308
00:22:08,265 --> 00:22:12,759
We know from fossils that life arose
shortly after the Earth formed...

309
00:22:12,969 --> 00:22:16,700
...suggesting that the origin
of life might be...

310
00:22:16,907 --> 00:22:21,105
...an inevitable chemical process
on countless Earth-like planets...

311
00:22:21,311 --> 00:22:22,903
...throughout the cosmos.

312
00:22:23,113 --> 00:22:27,914
But on the Earth, in nearly 4 billion
years, life advanced no further...

313
00:22:28,118 --> 00:22:29,085
...than algae.

314
00:22:29,286 --> 00:22:34,087
So maybe more complex forms of life
are harder to evolve...

315
00:22:34,291 --> 00:22:36,851
...harder even than the origin
of life itself.

316
00:22:37,060 --> 00:22:39,722
If this is right, the planets
of the galaxy...

317
00:22:39,930 --> 00:22:42,592
...might be filled
with microorganisms...

318
00:22:42,799 --> 00:22:46,667
...but big beasts and vegetables
and thinking beings...

319
00:22:46,870 --> 00:22:49,668
...might be comparatively rare.

320
00:22:53,143 --> 00:22:57,204
By December 18, there were vast
herds of trilobites...

321
00:22:57,414 --> 00:22:59,541
...foraging on the ocean bottom...

322
00:22:59,749 --> 00:23:03,185
...and squid-like creatures with
multicolored shells...

323
00:23:03,386 --> 00:23:04,853
...were everywhere.

324
00:23:07,791 --> 00:23:11,386
We know enough to sketch in a few
of the subsequent details.

325
00:23:11,595 --> 00:23:15,292
The first fish and the first
vertebrates appeared on December 19.

326
00:23:15,498 --> 00:23:19,059
Plants began to colonize the land
on December 20.

327
00:23:19,269 --> 00:23:23,365
The first winged insects fluttered by
on December 22.

328
00:23:23,573 --> 00:23:26,701
On this date also, there were
the first amphibians...

329
00:23:26,910 --> 00:23:29,344
...creatures something
like the lungfish...

330
00:23:29,546 --> 00:23:32,811
...able to survive both on land
and in water.

331
00:23:33,016 --> 00:23:37,248
Our direct ancestors were now
leaving the oceans behind.

332
00:23:40,123 --> 00:23:45,060
The first trees and the first reptiles
evolved on December 23:

333
00:23:45,295 --> 00:23:48,560
Two amazing evolutionary developments.

334
00:23:50,901 --> 00:23:54,337
We are descended
from some of those reptiles.

335
00:23:58,742 --> 00:24:02,075
The dinosaurs appeared
on Christmas Eve.

336
00:24:02,279 --> 00:24:04,338
There were many different
kinds of dinosaurs.

337
00:24:04,547 --> 00:24:07,516
The Earth was once their planet.

338
00:24:10,654 --> 00:24:14,090
Many stood upright and had
some fair intelligence.

339
00:24:14,291 --> 00:24:19,126
Great lizards crashed and thundered
through the steaming jungles.

340
00:24:24,234 --> 00:24:26,862
Unnoticed by the dinosaurs,
a new creature...

341
00:24:27,070 --> 00:24:29,231
...whose young were born live
and helpless...
342
00:24:29,439 --> 00:24:31,771
...was making its timid debut.

343
00:24:31,975 --> 00:24:35,103
The first mammals emerged
on December 26...

344
00:24:35,312 --> 00:24:38,577
...the first birds
on the following day.

345
00:24:41,885 --> 00:24:45,286
But the dinosaurs still
dominated the planet.

346
00:24:45,488 --> 00:24:49,424
Then suddenly, without warning,
all over the planet at once...

347
00:24:49,626 --> 00:24:51,389
...the dinosaurs died.

348
00:24:51,594 --> 00:24:54,961
The cause is unknown,
but the lesson is clear:

349
00:24:55,165 --> 00:24:59,864
Even 160 million years on a planet
is no guarantee of survival.

350
00:25:00,070 --> 00:25:04,564
The dinosaurs perished
around the time of the first flower.

351
00:25:06,409 --> 00:25:08,536
On December 30, the first creatures...

352
00:25:08,745 --> 00:25:11,578
...who looked even a little bit human,
evolved...

353
00:25:11,781 --> 00:25:15,945
...accompanied by a spectacular increase
in the size of their brains.

354
00:25:16,152 --> 00:25:20,020
And then, on the evening
of the last day of the last month...

355
00:25:20,223 --> 00:25:21,850
...only a few million years ago...

356
00:25:22,058 --> 00:25:26,893
...the first true humans took
their place on the cosmic calendar.

357
00:25:28,198 --> 00:25:29,995
The written record of history...

358
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,863
...occupies only the last 10 seconds
of the cosmic year.

359
00:25:36,373 --> 00:25:40,275
Now, let's take a closer look
at who our ancestors were.

360
00:25:40,477 --> 00:25:43,537
A simple chemical circumstance
led to a great moment...

361
00:25:43,747 --> 00:25:45,772
...in the history of our planet.

362
00:25:45,982 --> 00:25:48,917
There were many molecules
in the primordial soup.

363
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:53,954
Some were attracted to water on one
side and repelled by it on the other.

364
00:25:54,157 --> 00:25:56,751
This drove them together...

365
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,758
...into a tiny enclosed
spherical shell...

366
00:25:59,963 --> 00:26:02,761
...like a soap bubble,
which protected the interior.
367
00:26:02,966 --> 00:26:06,527
Within the bubble,
the ancestors of DNA found a home...

368
00:26:06,736 --> 00:26:08,431
...and the first cell arose.

369
00:26:08,638 --> 00:26:12,631
It took hundreds of millions of years
for tiny plants to evolve...

370
00:26:12,842 --> 00:26:14,309
...giving off oxygen.

371
00:26:14,511 --> 00:26:17,742
But that branch didn't lead to us.

372
00:26:18,248 --> 00:26:23,083
Bacteria that could breathe oxygen
took over a billion years to evolve.

373
00:26:24,454 --> 00:26:28,788
From a naked nucleus, a cell
developed with a nucleus inside.

374
00:26:30,193 --> 00:26:34,493
Some of these amoeba-like forms
led eventually to plants.

375
00:26:38,568 --> 00:26:40,502
Others produced colonies...

376
00:26:40,703 --> 00:26:44,969
...with inside and outside cells
performing different functions.

377
00:26:46,810 --> 00:26:48,141
Becoming...

378
00:26:48,344 --> 00:26:52,007
...a polyp attached
to the ocean floor...

379
00:26:52,215 --> 00:26:54,581
...filtering food from the water...
380
00:26:55,018 --> 00:26:57,543
...and evolving little tentacles...

381
00:26:57,754 --> 00:27:01,087
...to direct food
into a primitive mouth.

382
00:27:02,325 --> 00:27:04,020
This humble ancestor of ours
also led...

383
00:27:04,227 --> 00:27:08,391
...to spiny-skinned armored animals
with internal organs...

384
00:27:08,598 --> 00:27:12,466
...including our cousin, the starfish.

385
00:27:12,669 --> 00:27:15,103
But we don't come from starfish.

386
00:27:16,039 --> 00:27:18,303
About 550 million years ago...

387
00:27:18,508 --> 00:27:21,500
...filter feeders
evolved gill slits...

388
00:27:21,711 --> 00:27:25,010
...which were more efficient
at straining food particles.

389
00:27:25,215 --> 00:27:28,946
One evolutionary branch
led to acorn worms.

390
00:27:29,219 --> 00:27:33,747
Another led to a creature which
swam freely in the larval stage...

391
00:27:33,957 --> 00:27:37,290
...but, as an adult, was still
firmly anchored to the ocean floor.

392
00:27:37,494 --> 00:27:40,156
Some became living hollow tubes.

393
00:27:40,697 --> 00:27:45,031
But others retained the larval forms
throughout the life cycle...

394
00:27:45,235 --> 00:27:49,262
...and became free-swimming adults
with something like a backbone.

395
00:27:54,244 --> 00:27:55,802
Our ancestors now...

396
00:27:56,012 --> 00:28:00,346
...500 million years ago,
were jawless filter-feeding fish...

397
00:28:00,550 --> 00:28:02,984
...a little like lampreys.

398
00:28:04,787 --> 00:28:07,017
Gradually, those tiny fish...

399
00:28:07,223 --> 00:28:09,885
...evolved eyes and jaws.

400
00:28:10,393 --> 00:28:12,554
Fish then began to eat one another...

401
00:28:12,762 --> 00:28:15,822
...if you could swim fast,
you survived.

402
00:28:17,567 --> 00:28:22,436
If you had jaws to eat with, you could
use your gills to breathe in the water.

403
00:28:22,739 --> 00:28:25,640
This is the way modern fish arose.

404
00:28:29,913 --> 00:28:32,473
During the summer,
swamps and lakes dried up.

405
00:28:32,682 --> 00:28:37,483
Some fish evolved a primitive lung
to breathe air until the rains came.

406
00:28:37,687 --> 00:28:39,985
Their brains were getting bigger.

407
00:28:40,190 --> 00:28:43,717
If the rains didn't come, it was handy
to be able to pull yourself...

408
00:28:43,927 --> 00:28:45,189
...to the next swamp.

409
00:28:45,395 --> 00:28:48,296
That was a very important adaptation.

410
00:28:51,834 --> 00:28:55,270
The first amphibians evolved,
still with a fish-like tail.

411
00:28:55,471 --> 00:28:59,840
Amphibians, like fish, laid their eggs
in water where they were easily eaten.

412
00:29:00,043 --> 00:29:02,671
But then a splendid
new invention came along:

413
00:29:02,879 --> 00:29:07,475
The hard-shelled egg, laid on land
where there were as yet no predators.

414
00:29:07,684 --> 00:29:12,246
Reptiles and turtles
go back to those days.

415
00:29:14,224 --> 00:29:17,557
Many of the reptiles hatched on land
never returned to the waters.

416
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,285
Some became the dinosaurs.

417
00:29:20,663 --> 00:29:24,895
One line of dinosaurs developed
feathers, useful for short flights.

418
00:29:25,101 --> 00:29:29,970
Today, the only living descendants
of the dinosaurs are the birds.

419
00:29:31,674 --> 00:29:34,108
The great dinosaurs evolved
along another branch.

420
00:29:34,310 --> 00:29:37,336
Some were the largest flesh-eaters
ever to walk the land.

421
00:29:37,547 --> 00:29:42,314
But 65 million years ago they all
mysteriously perished.

422
00:29:43,553 --> 00:29:45,953
Meanwhile, the forerunners
of the dinosaurs...

423
00:29:46,155 --> 00:29:48,783
...were also evolving
in a different direction.

424
00:29:48,992 --> 00:29:51,722
Small, scurrying creatures...

425
00:29:51,928 --> 00:29:54,829
...with the young growing
inside the mother's body.

426
00:29:55,031 --> 00:29:59,434
After the extinction of the dinosaurs,
many different forms developed.

427
00:30:03,740 --> 00:30:06,436
The young were very immature at birth.

428
00:30:06,643 --> 00:30:09,703
In the marsupials,
the wombat, for example...

429
00:30:09,912 --> 00:30:13,507
...and in the mammals, the young had
to be taught how to survive.

430
00:30:13,716 --> 00:30:15,911
The brain grew larger still.

431
00:30:16,119 --> 00:30:20,453
Something like a shrew was
the ancestor of all the mammals.

432
00:30:25,161 --> 00:30:28,995
One line took to the trees,
developing dexterity...

433
00:30:29,198 --> 00:30:31,166
...stereo vision, larger brains...

434
00:30:31,367 --> 00:30:33,858
...and a curiosity
about their environment.

435
00:30:34,070 --> 00:30:38,905
Some became baboons,
but that's not the line to us.

436
00:30:40,276 --> 00:30:43,268
Apes and humans have
a recent common ancestor.

437
00:30:43,479 --> 00:30:47,438
Bone for bone, muscle for muscle,
molecule for molecule.

438
00:30:47,650 --> 00:30:52,587
There are almost no important
differences between apes and humans.

439
00:30:55,558 --> 00:30:59,858
Unlike the chimpanzee,
our ancestors walked upright...

440
00:31:00,063 --> 00:31:04,090
...freeing their hands
to poke and fix and experiment.

441
00:31:04,300 --> 00:31:07,758
We got smarter. We began to talk.

442
00:31:14,277 --> 00:31:16,939
Many collateral branches
of the human family...
443
00:31:17,146 --> 00:31:20,604
...became extinct in
the last few million years.

444
00:31:20,817 --> 00:31:25,220
We, with our brains and our hands,
are the survivors.

445
00:31:25,421 --> 00:31:30,358
There's an unbroken thread that
stretches from those first cells to us.

446
00:31:30,693 --> 00:31:31,990
Let's look at it again...

447
00:31:32,195 --> 00:31:36,996
...compressing 4 billion years
of human evolution into 40 seconds.

448
00:32:23,079 --> 00:32:26,242
Those are some of the things
that molecules do...

449
00:32:26,449 --> 00:32:29,509
...given 4 billion years of evolution.

450
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:35,020
We sometimes represent evolution as
the ever-branching ramifications...

451
00:32:35,224 --> 00:32:36,589
...of some original trunk...

452
00:32:36,793 --> 00:32:41,059
...each branch pruned and clipped
by natural selection.

453
00:32:41,898 --> 00:32:43,866
Every plant and animal
alive today...

454
00:32:44,066 --> 00:32:48,469
...has a history as ancient
and illustrious as ours.

455
00:32:48,671 --> 00:32:52,038
Humans stand on one branch.

456
00:32:52,475 --> 00:32:55,376
But now we affect
the future of every branch...

457
00:32:55,578 --> 00:32:58,638
...of this 4-billion-year-old tree.

458
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,310
How lovely trees are.

459
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,751
The human species grew up
in and around them.

460
00:33:07,957 --> 00:33:10,892
We have a natural affinity for trees.

461
00:33:11,093 --> 00:33:13,152
Trees photosynthesize...

462
00:33:13,362 --> 00:33:16,092
...they harvest sunlight...

463
00:33:16,299 --> 00:33:20,201
...they compete for the sun's favors.

464
00:33:21,070 --> 00:33:22,799
Look at those two trees there...

465
00:33:23,005 --> 00:33:26,202
...pushing and shoving for sunlight...

466
00:33:26,409 --> 00:33:31,005
...but with grace
and astonishing slowness.

467
00:33:38,688 --> 00:33:40,918
There are so many plants
on the Earth...

468
00:33:41,123 --> 00:33:43,683
...that there's a danger
of thinking them trivial...
469
00:33:43,893 --> 00:33:48,023
...of losing sight of the subtlety
and efficiency of their design.

470
00:33:48,231 --> 00:33:52,793
They are great and beautiful
machines, powered by sunlight...

471
00:33:53,002 --> 00:33:56,836
...taking in water from the ground
and carbon dioxide from the air...

472
00:33:57,039 --> 00:34:01,635
...and converting them into food
for their use and ours.

473
00:34:09,986 --> 00:34:13,547
This is a museum of living plants.

474
00:34:13,756 --> 00:34:18,625
The Royal Botanic Gardens
at Kew in London.

475
00:34:24,333 --> 00:34:27,302
Every plant uses
the carbohydrates it makes...

476
00:34:27,503 --> 00:34:31,200
...as an energy source
to go about its planty business.

477
00:34:31,407 --> 00:34:35,241
And we animals, who are ultimately
parasites on the plants...

478
00:34:35,444 --> 00:34:39,278
...we steal the carbohydrates
so we can go about our business.

479
00:34:44,620 --> 00:34:47,282
In eating the plants
and their fruits...

480
00:34:47,490 --> 00:34:50,459
...we combine the carbohydrates
with oxygen...
481
00:34:50,660 --> 00:34:53,891
...which as a result of breathing,
we've dissolved in our blood.

482
00:34:54,096 --> 00:34:59,033
From this chemical reaction, we
extract the energy which makes us go.

483
00:34:59,468 --> 00:35:02,335
In the process,
we exhale carbon dioxide...

484
00:35:02,538 --> 00:35:05,939
...which the plants then use
to make more carbohydrates.

485
00:35:08,044 --> 00:35:10,740
What a marvelous
cooperative arrangement.

486
00:35:10,947 --> 00:35:14,075
Plants and animals each using
the other's waste gases...

487
00:35:14,283 --> 00:35:18,879
...the whole cycle powered
by abundant sunlight.

488
00:35:19,288 --> 00:35:23,054
But there would be carbon dioxide in
the air even if there were no animals.

489
00:35:23,259 --> 00:35:26,854
We need the plants
much more than they need us.

490
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,959
There are family resemblances
among the organisms of the Earth.

491
00:35:35,171 --> 00:35:39,574
Some are very apparent,
such as the use of the number five.

492
00:35:39,775 --> 00:35:42,642
Humans have five major
bodily projections:

493
00:35:42,845 --> 00:35:46,144
One head, two arms, two legs.

494
00:35:46,349 --> 00:35:47,816
So do ducks...

495
00:35:48,017 --> 00:35:52,420
...although the functions of their
projections are not quite the same.

496
00:35:52,622 --> 00:35:56,114
An octopus or a centipede
has a different plan.

497
00:35:56,325 --> 00:36:01,024
And a being from another planet
might be much stranger still.

498
00:36:01,230 --> 00:36:06,099
These family resemblances continue
and on a much deeper level...

499
00:36:06,302 --> 00:36:09,237
...when we go to the
molecular basis of life.

500
00:36:09,438 --> 00:36:12,134
There are tens of billions...

501
00:36:12,341 --> 00:36:15,242
...of different kinds
of organic molecules.

502
00:36:15,444 --> 00:36:17,639
Yet only about 50 of them...

503
00:36:17,847 --> 00:36:20,941
...are used in the essential
machinery of life.

504
00:36:21,150 --> 00:36:23,584
The same 50 employed
over and over again...

505
00:36:23,786 --> 00:36:28,382
...ingenious, for different functions
in every living thing.

506
00:36:28,591 --> 00:36:31,355
And when we go to the very kernel
of life on Earth...

507
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:35,018
...to the proteins that
control cell chemistry...

508
00:36:35,231 --> 00:36:39,133
...to the spiral or helix
of nucleic acids...

509
00:36:39,335 --> 00:36:41,929
...which carry
the hereditary information...

510
00:36:42,138 --> 00:36:46,165
...we find these molecules
to be identical...

511
00:36:46,375 --> 00:36:49,970
...in all plants and animals
of our planet.

512
00:37:14,770 --> 00:37:19,366
This oak tree and me,
we're made of the same stuff.

513
00:37:19,575 --> 00:37:22,476
If you go back, you'll find
that we have a common ancestor.

514
00:37:22,678 --> 00:37:25,909
That's why our chemistry is so alike.

515
00:37:28,951 --> 00:37:32,944
Let's take a trip to examine
this common basis of life.

516
00:37:33,155 --> 00:37:36,556
A voyage to investigate
the molecular machinery...

517
00:37:36,759 --> 00:37:38,886
...at the heart of life on Earth.

518
00:37:39,095 --> 00:37:42,656
A journey to the nucleus of the cell.

519
00:37:42,898 --> 00:37:44,422
First we need a cell.

520
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:49,266
I have trillions.
I can afford to donate a few.

521
00:37:55,311 --> 00:37:58,041
The casual act of pricking a finger...

522
00:37:58,247 --> 00:38:01,876
...is an event of some magnitude
on the scale of the very small.

523
00:38:02,084 --> 00:38:06,783
Millions of red blood cells are
detoured from their usual routes.

524
00:38:08,758 --> 00:38:11,591
But most continue
to cruise about the body...

525
00:38:11,794 --> 00:38:15,753
...carrying their cargoes of oxygen
to the remotest freckle.

526
00:38:16,866 --> 00:38:19,061
We're about to enter
the living cell...

527
00:38:19,268 --> 00:38:22,795
...a realm, in its own way,
as complex and beautiful...

528
00:38:23,005 --> 00:38:25,974
...as the realm of galaxies and stars.

529
00:38:26,375 --> 00:38:29,367
Among the red blood cells,
we encounter a white blood cell...
530
00:38:29,578 --> 00:38:31,170
...a lymphocyte...

531
00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:34,349
...whose job it is to protect me
against invading microbes.

532
00:38:34,550 --> 00:38:37,485
It makes antibodies
on its furrowed surface...

533
00:38:37,686 --> 00:38:41,213
...but its interior is
like that of many cells.

534
00:38:43,159 --> 00:38:47,152
Plunging through the membrane,
we find ourselves inside the cell.

535
00:38:47,363 --> 00:38:51,026
Here, every structure
has its function.

536
00:38:53,869 --> 00:38:56,770
These dark green blobs
are factories...

537
00:38:56,972 --> 00:38:59,941
...where messenger molecules
are busy building the enzymes...

538
00:39:00,142 --> 00:39:02,440
...which control
the chemistry of the cell.

539
00:39:02,645 --> 00:39:05,739
The messengers were
instructed and dispatched...

540
00:39:05,948 --> 00:39:10,044
...from within the nucleus,
the heart and brain of the cell.

541
00:39:10,386 --> 00:39:12,911
All the instructions on
how to get a cell to work...
542
00:39:13,122 --> 00:39:16,023
...and how to make another
are hidden away in there.

543
00:39:16,225 --> 00:39:18,693
We find a tunnel, a nuclear pore...

544
00:39:18,894 --> 00:39:22,625
...an approach to
the biological holy of holies.

545
00:39:24,834 --> 00:39:29,771
These necklaces, these intricately
looped and coiled strands...

546
00:39:29,972 --> 00:39:32,532
...are nucleic acids, DNA.

547
00:39:34,076 --> 00:39:36,636
Everything you need to know on
how to make a human being...

548
00:39:36,846 --> 00:39:41,783
...is encoded in the language
of life in the DNA molecule.

549
00:39:49,325 --> 00:39:52,522
This is the DNA double helix...

550
00:39:52,728 --> 00:39:57,665
...a machine with about 100 billion
moving parts, called atoms.

551
00:39:58,601 --> 00:40:01,695
There are as many atoms
in one molecule of DNA...

552
00:40:01,904 --> 00:40:05,601
...as there are stars
in a typical galaxy.

553
00:40:09,945 --> 00:40:13,278
The sequence of nucleotides,
here brightly colored...

554
00:40:13,482 --> 00:40:16,474
...is all that's passed on
from generation to generation.

555
00:40:16,685 --> 00:40:18,915
Change the order of the nucleotides...

556
00:40:19,121 --> 00:40:22,181
...and you change
the genetic instructions.

557
00:40:29,665 --> 00:40:33,692
DNA must replicate itself
with extreme fidelity.

558
00:40:33,903 --> 00:40:38,499
The reproduction of a DNA molecule
begins by separating the two helices.

559
00:40:38,707 --> 00:40:42,666
This is accomplished
by an unwinding enzyme.

560
00:40:42,878 --> 00:40:46,871
Like some precision tool,
this enzyme, shown in blue...

561
00:40:47,082 --> 00:40:52,019
...breaks the chemical bonds
that bind the two helices of DNA.

562
00:40:52,655 --> 00:40:55,249
The enzyme works its way
down the molecule...

563
00:40:55,457 --> 00:40:58,722
...unzipping DNA as it goes.

564
00:41:01,330 --> 00:41:03,423
Each helix copies the other...

565
00:41:03,632 --> 00:41:06,829
...supervised by special enzymes.

566
00:41:07,036 --> 00:41:10,870
The organic soup inside the nucleus
contains many free nucleotides.
567
00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:16,077
The enzyme recognizes an approaching
nucleotide and clicks it into place...

568
00:41:16,378 --> 00:41:19,643
...reproducing another rung
in the double helix.

569
00:41:23,919 --> 00:41:26,547
When the DNA is replicating
in one of your cells...

570
00:41:26,755 --> 00:41:29,622
...a few dozen nucleotides
are added every second.

571
00:41:29,959 --> 00:41:34,362
Thousands of these enzymes may be
working on a given DNA molecule.

572
00:41:44,206 --> 00:41:46,970
When an arriving nucleotide
doesn't fit...

573
00:41:47,176 --> 00:41:49,235
...the enzyme throws it away.

574
00:41:49,445 --> 00:41:51,072
We call this proofreading.

575
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,771
On the rare occasions
of a proofreading error...

576
00:41:53,983 --> 00:41:55,917
...the wrong nucleotide is attached...

577
00:41:56,118 --> 00:41:59,747
...and a small random change has
been made in the genetic instructions.

578
00:41:59,955 --> 00:42:02,321
A mutation has occurred.

579
00:42:03,859 --> 00:42:06,623
This enzyme is a
pretty small molecule...

580
00:42:06,829 --> 00:42:09,821
...but it catches nucleotides,
assembles them in the right order...

581
00:42:10,032 --> 00:42:11,465
...it knows how to proofread...

582
00:42:11,667 --> 00:42:14,534
...it's responsible
in the most fundamental way...

583
00:42:14,737 --> 00:42:19,231
...for the reproduction of every cell
and every being on Earth.

584
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,171
That enzyme and DNA itself...

585
00:42:27,383 --> 00:42:31,319
...are molecular machines
with awesome powers.

586
00:42:34,023 --> 00:42:37,584
Within every living thing,
the molecular machines are busy...

587
00:42:37,793 --> 00:42:42,389
...making sure that nucleic acids
will continue to reproduce.

588
00:43:03,318 --> 00:43:06,776
A minor cut in my skin
sounds a local alarm...

589
00:43:06,989 --> 00:43:10,857
...and the blood spins
a complex net of strong fibers...

590
00:43:11,060 --> 00:43:14,223
...to form a clot
and staunch the flow of blood.

591
00:43:14,430 --> 00:43:16,125
There's a very delicate balance here:
592
00:43:16,331 --> 00:43:19,459
Too much clotting
and your blood stream will solidify.

593
00:43:19,668 --> 00:43:23,798
Too little clotting and you'll bleed
to death from the merest scratch.

594
00:43:24,106 --> 00:43:29,043
The balance is controlled
by enzymes instructed by DNA.

595
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,843
Down here, there's also
a kind of sanitation squad...

596
00:43:35,050 --> 00:43:38,315
...comprised of white blood cells,
that swings into action...

597
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:43,150
...surrounds invading bacteria
and ravenously consumes them.

598
00:43:43,358 --> 00:43:46,521
This mopping-up operation is
a part of the healing process...

599
00:43:46,728 --> 00:43:49,720
...again controlled by DNA.

600
00:43:51,300 --> 00:43:55,430
These cells are parts of us,
but how alien they seem.

601
00:43:55,637 --> 00:43:58,265
Within each of them,
within every cell...

602
00:43:58,474 --> 00:44:01,500
...there are exquisitely
evolved molecular machines.

603
00:44:01,710 --> 00:44:05,271
Nucleic acids, enzymes,
the cell architecture...
604
00:44:05,481 --> 00:44:09,349
...every cell is a triumph
of natural selection.

605
00:44:09,551 --> 00:44:12,748
And we're made of trillions of cells.

606
00:44:12,955 --> 00:44:15,947
We are, each of us, a multitude.

607
00:44:17,559 --> 00:44:20,619
Within us is a little universe.

608
00:44:36,879 --> 00:44:41,816
Human DNA is a coiled ladder...

609
00:44:42,050 --> 00:44:44,314
...a billion nucleotides long.

610
00:44:44,853 --> 00:44:49,187
Many possible combinations of
nucleotides are nonsense. That is...

611
00:44:49,391 --> 00:44:53,760
...they translate into proteins which
serve no useful function whatever.

612
00:44:53,962 --> 00:44:57,193
Only a comparatively few
nucleic acid molecules...

613
00:44:57,399 --> 00:45:02,063
...are any good for life forms
as complicated as we are.

614
00:45:02,838 --> 00:45:07,036
But even so, the number of useful ways
of assembling nucleic acids...

615
00:45:07,242 --> 00:45:09,403
...is stupefyingly large.

616
00:45:09,611 --> 00:45:14,480
It's probably larger than the total
number of atoms in the universe.
617
00:45:14,683 --> 00:45:19,620
This means that the number of
possible kinds of human beings...

618
00:45:19,922 --> 00:45:24,552
...is vastly greater than the number
of human beings that has ever lived.

619
00:45:24,793 --> 00:45:29,025
This untapped potential of
the human species is immense.

620
00:45:29,231 --> 00:45:31,893
There are ways of
putting nucleic acids together...

621
00:45:32,100 --> 00:45:36,366
...which will function far better
by any criterion you wish to choose...

622
00:45:36,572 --> 00:45:41,509
...than the hereditary instructions of
any human being who has ever lived.

623
00:45:41,944 --> 00:45:46,404
Fortunately, we do not know,
or at least do not yet know...

624
00:45:46,615 --> 00:45:51,143
...how to assemble alternative
sequences of nucleotides...

625
00:45:51,353 --> 00:45:54,720
...to make alternative kinds
of human beings.

626
00:45:54,923 --> 00:45:58,450
In the future, we might be able
to put nucleotides together...

627
00:45:58,660 --> 00:46:00,389
...in any desired sequence...

628
00:46:00,596 --> 00:46:03,997
...to produce human characteristics
we think desirable.
629
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,959
A disquieting and awesome prospect.

630
00:46:19,748 --> 00:46:23,912
We human beings don't look
very much like a tree.

631
00:46:24,119 --> 00:46:28,146
We certainly view the world
differently than a tree does.

632
00:46:28,357 --> 00:46:31,815
But down deep,
at the molecular heart of life...

633
00:46:32,027 --> 00:46:35,190
...we're essentially
identical to trees.

634
00:46:35,764 --> 00:46:40,633
We both use nucleic acids
as the hereditary material.

635
00:46:40,836 --> 00:46:45,739
We both use proteins as enzymes
to control the chemistry of the cell.

636
00:46:47,109 --> 00:46:51,637
And most significantly,
we both use the identical code book...

637
00:46:51,847 --> 00:46:56,750
...to translate nucleic acid information
into protein information.

638
00:46:56,952 --> 00:47:01,321
Any tree could read my genetic code.

639
00:47:02,257 --> 00:47:04,782
How did such astonishing similarities
come about?

640
00:47:04,993 --> 00:47:09,123
Why are we cousins to the trees?

641
00:47:09,331 --> 00:47:12,459
Would life on some other planet
use proteins?

642
00:47:12,668 --> 00:47:17,605
The same proteins? The same nucleic
acids? The same genetic code?

643
00:47:18,307 --> 00:47:21,140
The usual explanation
is that we are...

644
00:47:21,343 --> 00:47:24,904
...all of us, trees and people...

645
00:47:25,113 --> 00:47:29,948
...anglerfish, slime molds,
bacteria...

646
00:47:30,152 --> 00:47:33,781
...all descended from a single
and common instance...

647
00:47:33,989 --> 00:47:36,856
...of the origin of life
4 billion years ago...

648
00:47:37,059 --> 00:47:39,220
...in the early days of our planet.

649
00:47:40,062 --> 00:47:41,859
Now, how...

650
00:47:42,064 --> 00:47:45,465
...did the molecules
of life arise?

651
00:47:47,035 --> 00:47:48,400
(THUNDER)

652
00:47:51,473 --> 00:47:53,236
(LIGHTNING BUZZES)

653
00:48:03,819 --> 00:48:06,117
In a laboratory
at Cornell University...

654
00:48:06,555 --> 00:48:10,184
...we mix together the gases
and waters of the primitive Earth...

655
00:48:10,392 --> 00:48:11,825
...supply some energy...

656
00:48:12,027 --> 00:48:15,622
...and see if we can make
the stuff of life.

657
00:48:28,243 --> 00:48:32,475
But what was the early atmosphere
made of, ordinary air?

658
00:48:32,681 --> 00:48:34,706
If we start with
our present atmosphere...

659
00:48:34,916 --> 00:48:37,316
...the experiment is a dismal failure.

660
00:48:37,519 --> 00:48:40,317
Instead of making proteins
and nucleic acids...

661
00:48:40,522 --> 00:48:43,923
...all we make is smog,
a backwards step.

662
00:48:44,126 --> 00:48:46,185
Why doesn't such an experiment work?

663
00:48:46,395 --> 00:48:49,956
Because the air of today
contains molecular oxygen.

664
00:48:50,165 --> 00:48:52,463
But oxygen is made by plants.

665
00:48:52,667 --> 00:48:56,296
It's obvious that there were
no plants before the origin of life.

666
00:48:56,505 --> 00:48:58,735
We mustn't use oxygen
in our experiments...
667
00:48:58,940 --> 00:49:01,807
...because there wasn't any
in the early atmosphere.

668
00:49:07,115 --> 00:49:11,347
This is reasonable because the cosmos
is made mostly of hydrogen...

669
00:49:11,553 --> 00:49:13,020
...which gobbles oxygen up.

670
00:49:13,221 --> 00:49:17,317
The Earth's low gravity has
allowed most of our hydrogen gas...

671
00:49:17,526 --> 00:49:21,223
...to trickle away to space.
There's almost none left.

672
00:49:22,197 --> 00:49:23,630
But 4 billion years ago...

673
00:49:23,832 --> 00:49:26,892
...our atmosphere was full
of hydrogen-rich gases:

674
00:49:27,102 --> 00:49:29,593
Methane, ammonia, water vapor.

675
00:49:29,805 --> 00:49:32,273
These are the gases we should use.

676
00:49:37,245 --> 00:49:40,214
Taking great care to ensure
the purity of these gases...

677
00:49:40,415 --> 00:49:44,545
...my colleague, Bishun Khare,
pumps them from their holding flasks.

678
00:49:58,433 --> 00:50:01,129
An experiment like this
was first performed...

679
00:50:01,336 --> 00:50:05,363
...by Stanley Miller
and Harold Urey in the 1950s.

680
00:50:06,575 --> 00:50:08,668
(GASES FIZZLE)

681
00:50:21,389 --> 00:50:25,985
The starting gases are now introduced
into a large reaction vessel.

682
00:50:26,194 --> 00:50:30,392
We could shine ultraviolet light,
simulating the early sun.

683
00:50:30,599 --> 00:50:31,964
But in this experiment...

684
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,464
...the gases will be sparked...

685
00:50:34,669 --> 00:50:38,605
...as the primitive atmosphere was
by early lightning.

686
00:50:52,187 --> 00:50:53,984
(LIGHTNING BUZZES)

687
00:50:59,294 --> 00:51:03,754
After only a few hours,
the interior of the reaction vessel...

688
00:51:03,965 --> 00:51:07,093
...becomes streaked with
a strange brown pigment...

689
00:51:07,302 --> 00:51:10,829
...a rich collection
of complex organic molecules...

690
00:51:11,039 --> 00:51:15,601
...including the building blocks of
the proteins and the nucleic acids.

691
00:51:17,812 --> 00:51:21,441
Under the right conditions, these
building blocks assemble themselves...
692
00:51:21,650 --> 00:51:26,110
...into molecules resembling little
proteins and little nucleic acids.

693
00:51:26,321 --> 00:51:30,849
These nucleic acids can even make
identical copies of themselves.

694
00:51:36,298 --> 00:51:40,701
In this vessel are the notes
of the music of life...

695
00:51:40,902 --> 00:51:43,769
...although not yet the music itself.

696
00:51:46,308 --> 00:51:48,742
Now, no one, so far...

697
00:51:48,944 --> 00:51:53,313
...has mixed together the gases
and waters of the primitive Earth...

698
00:51:53,515 --> 00:51:58,452
...and at the end of the experiment
had something crawl out of the flask.

699
00:51:58,687 --> 00:52:02,316
There's still much to be understood
about the origin of life...

700
00:52:02,524 --> 00:52:04,856
...including the origin
of the genetic code.

701
00:52:05,060 --> 00:52:08,518
But we've only been at
such experiments for 30 years.

702
00:52:08,730 --> 00:52:12,029
Nature's had
a 4-billion-year head start.

703
00:52:12,233 --> 00:52:16,829
Incidentally, there's nothing in such
experiments that's unique to the Earth.

704
00:52:17,038 --> 00:52:20,633
The gases we start with,
the energy sources we use...

705
00:52:20,842 --> 00:52:23,572
...are entirely common
through the cosmos.

706
00:52:23,778 --> 00:52:28,306
So chemical reactions something like
these must be responsible for...

707
00:52:28,516 --> 00:52:30,677
...the organic matter
in interstellar space...

708
00:52:30,885 --> 00:52:33,251
...and the amino acids
in the meteorites.

709
00:52:33,455 --> 00:52:36,288
Similar chemical reactions
must have occurred...

710
00:52:36,491 --> 00:52:39,927
...on a billion other worlds
in the Milky Way galaxy.

711
00:52:40,128 --> 00:52:44,087
Look how easy it is to make
great globs of this stuff.

712
00:52:44,299 --> 00:52:48,565
The molecules of life fill the cosmos.

713
00:52:49,170 --> 00:52:50,228
Now...

714
00:52:50,772 --> 00:52:53,605
What would life elsewhere look like?

715
00:52:53,808 --> 00:52:57,801
Even if it had an identical molecular
chemistry to life on Earth...

716
00:52:58,013 --> 00:52:59,844
...which I very much doubt...
717
00:53:00,048 --> 00:53:03,609
...it could not be
very similar in form...

718
00:53:03,818 --> 00:53:06,082
...to familiar organisms on the Earth.

719
00:53:06,287 --> 00:53:09,450
The random character of
the evolutionary process...

720
00:53:09,658 --> 00:53:14,493
...must create elsewhere creatures
very different from any that we know.

721
00:53:16,264 --> 00:53:18,892
Think of a world
something like Jupiter...

722
00:53:19,100 --> 00:53:23,662
...with an atmosphere rich in hydrogen,
helium, methane, water and ammonia...

723
00:53:23,872 --> 00:53:25,533
...in which organic molecules
might be...

724
00:53:25,740 --> 00:53:28,470
...falling from the skies
like manna from heaven...

725
00:53:28,677 --> 00:53:31,237
...like the products of
the Miller-Urey experiment.

726
00:53:31,446 --> 00:53:33,937
Could there be life on such a world?

727
00:53:34,883 --> 00:53:38,444
There's a special problem.
The atmosphere is turbulent...

728
00:53:38,653 --> 00:53:42,282
...and down deep, before we ever
come to a surface, it's very hot.
729
00:53:42,490 --> 00:53:46,153
If you're not careful,
you'll be carried down and fried.

730
00:53:46,361 --> 00:53:49,194
If you reproduce
before you're fried...

731
00:53:49,397 --> 00:53:54,096
...turbulence will carry your offspring
into the higher and cooler layers.

732
00:53:54,302 --> 00:53:59,001
Such organisms could be very little.
We call them sinkers.

733
00:54:00,442 --> 00:54:03,570
The physicist E.E. Salpeter and I
at Cornell...

734
00:54:03,778 --> 00:54:06,372
...have calculated
something about the life...

735
00:54:06,581 --> 00:54:09,072
...that might exist on such a world.

736
00:54:11,119 --> 00:54:14,384
Vast living balloons could
stay buoyant...

737
00:54:14,589 --> 00:54:17,752
...by pumping heavy gases
from their interiors...

738
00:54:17,959 --> 00:54:19,950
...or by keeping their insides warm.

739
00:54:20,161 --> 00:54:22,891
They might eat the organic molecules
in the air...

740
00:54:23,098 --> 00:54:24,963
...or make their own with sunlight.

741
00:54:25,166 --> 00:54:28,499
We call these creatures floaters.

742
00:54:30,171 --> 00:54:32,537
We imagine floaters
kilometers across...

743
00:54:32,741 --> 00:54:36,177
...enormously larger than
the greatest whale that ever was...

744
00:54:36,377 --> 00:54:39,778
...beings the size of cities.

745
00:54:39,981 --> 00:54:43,883
We conceive of them arrayed
in great, lazy herds...

746
00:54:44,085 --> 00:54:45,916
...as far as the eye can see...

747
00:54:46,121 --> 00:54:50,820
...concentrated in the updrafts
in the enormous sea of clouds.

748
00:54:51,025 --> 00:54:55,291
But there can be other creatures
in this alien environment: hunters.

749
00:54:57,165 --> 00:54:59,326
Hunters are fast and maneuverable.

750
00:54:59,534 --> 00:55:02,833
They eat the floaters,
both for their organic molecules...

751
00:55:03,037 --> 00:55:05,130
...and for their store
of pure hydrogen.

752
00:55:05,340 --> 00:55:07,035
But there can't be many hunters...

753
00:55:07,242 --> 00:55:11,906
...because if they destroy all the
floaters, they themselves will perish.

754
00:55:15,450 --> 00:55:18,578
Physics and chemistry permit
such life forms.

755
00:55:18,787 --> 00:55:21,255
Art presents them with
a certain reality...

756
00:55:21,456 --> 00:55:25,119
...but nature is not obliged
to follow our speculations.

757
00:55:25,326 --> 00:55:29,922
If there are billions of inhabited
worlds in the Milky Way galaxy...

758
00:55:30,365 --> 00:55:34,859
...then I think it's likely there are
a few places which might have...

759
00:55:35,069 --> 00:55:36,468
...hunters...

760
00:55:36,671 --> 00:55:39,469
...and floaters and sinkers.

761
00:55:40,708 --> 00:55:44,940
Biology is more like history
than it is like physics.

762
00:55:45,146 --> 00:55:48,206
You have to know the past
to understand the present.

763
00:55:48,416 --> 00:55:52,580
There is no predictive theory of
biology, nor is there for history.

764
00:55:52,787 --> 00:55:54,152
The reason is the same:

765
00:55:54,355 --> 00:55:57,688
Both subjects are still
too complicated for us.

766
00:55:57,892 --> 00:56:00,520
But we can understand ourselves
much better...

767
00:56:00,728 --> 00:56:02,958
...by understanding other cases.

768
00:56:04,632 --> 00:56:08,090
The study of a single instance
of extraterrestrial life...

769
00:56:08,303 --> 00:56:11,795
No matter how humble,
a microbe would be just fine.

770
00:56:12,006 --> 00:56:14,941
...will de-provincialize biology.

771
00:56:15,143 --> 00:56:18,738
It will show us what else is possible.

772
00:56:20,215 --> 00:56:25,152
We've heard so far the voice
of life on only a single world...

773
00:56:25,386 --> 00:56:27,752
...but for the first time,
as we shall see...

774
00:56:27,956 --> 00:56:31,414
...we've begun
a serious scientific search...

775
00:56:31,626 --> 00:56:33,856
...for the cosmic fugue.

776
00:56:44,072 --> 00:56:47,337
Recently, we've learned more
about the origin of life.

777
00:56:47,542 --> 00:56:49,669
Do you remember RNA...

778
00:56:49,878 --> 00:56:53,245
...that nucleic acid
that our cells use as messengers...

779
00:56:53,448 --> 00:56:56,576
...carrying the genetic information
out of the cell nucleus?

780
00:56:57,252 --> 00:57:01,484
Well, it's been found that RNA,
like protein...

781
00:57:01,689 --> 00:57:03,953
...can control chemical reactions...

782
00:57:04,158 --> 00:57:07,821
...as well as reproduce itself,
which proteins can't do.

783
00:57:08,029 --> 00:57:11,260
Many scientists now wonder
if the first life on Earth...

784
00:57:11,466 --> 00:57:13,627
...was an RNA molecule.

785
00:57:13,835 --> 00:57:17,293
It now seems feasible that
key molecular building blocks...

786
00:57:17,505 --> 00:57:21,441
...for the origin of life, fell out
of the skies 4 billion years ago.

787
00:57:22,210 --> 00:57:26,613
Comets have been found to have a lot
of organic molecules in them...

788
00:57:26,814 --> 00:57:31,148
...and they fell in huge numbers
on the primitive Earth.

789
00:57:32,253 --> 00:57:35,086
We also mention the extinction
of the dinosaurs...

790
00:57:35,290 --> 00:57:39,226
...and most of the other species on
Earth about 65 million years ago.

791
00:57:39,427 --> 00:57:43,591
We now know that a large comet
hit the Earth at just that time.

792
00:57:43,798 --> 00:57:48,735
The dust pall from that collision
must've cooled and darkened the Earth...

793
00:57:49,070 --> 00:57:52,005
...perhaps killing all
the dinosaurs, but sparing...

794
00:57:52,206 --> 00:57:56,666
...the small, furry mammals
who were our ancestors.

795
00:57:56,878 --> 00:58:00,746
Other cometary mass extinctions
in other epochs seem likely.

796
00:58:00,949 --> 00:58:05,283
If true, this would mean that
comets have been the bringers...

797
00:58:05,486 --> 00:58:07,954
...both of life and death.