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The universe...

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Vast, dynamic, and explosive.

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But this huge cosmos,
with its billions of galaxies

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and countless stars,

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isn't the only one...
We share our lives with

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another universe.

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The world of the small,

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of the viruses, of the bacteria.

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We call this strange
hidden kingdom the microcosmos.

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The microcosmos
is incredibly important.

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Even though we can't see it,
it's everywhere.

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It's almost like
another universe

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or another world all in its own.

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It guided our evolution...

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We wouldn't be here
without the microcosmos.

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...and it keeps us alive.

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The microcosmos
is responsible for

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the very oxygen that we breathe.

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And it will influence
our future as we venture out

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into space.

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And if we were ever
to find a place where

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there is life, potentially
a new microcosmos,

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we would have no immunity
if they're bad.

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We share our world
with the microcosmos.

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Will we coexist in
an uneasy peace,

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or will it destroy us?

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A strange invisible
assassin stalks its prey.

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It attacks and hijacks the cell,

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forcing it to produce hundreds
of new raiders.

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This is what happens when
the microcosmos turns on us.

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In 2020, we experienced
this invasion

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of the body snatchers
first-hand.

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A tiny virus caused
a global pandemic... COVID-19.

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This pandemic makes
me see the world completely

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differently, because there was
an invisible universe,

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one that covers me and is
within me

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that I pretty much ignored
for the most part.

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Maybe we ignore
this other universe

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because it's invisible
to the naked eye.

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We live in a largely
invisible universe.

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We can't see everything
that's going on.

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Some of the biggest stuff
we can't see very well,

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and, in fact, a lot of the
littlest stuff we can't either.

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Just because something
is too small to see

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doesn't mean it's not important.

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In fact, very, very tiny things

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have a huge impact on our lives.

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Some of these impacts
are beneficial,

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but they're overshadowed by
the devastating effects

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of disease.

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The longest-running conflict
that humanity has been

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engaged in is that against

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the microcosmos, our
long running battle against

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the bacteria and viruses

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that are trying to kill us.

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A century ago,
we faced the Spanish flu.

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This absolutely
annihilated Europe at the time.

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It caused millions upon
millions of death.

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So this is definitely
not the first pandemic,

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quite frankly, probably isn't
the last one.

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In a way, the coronavirus has
forced us to come

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to a greater understanding
of the microscopic world.

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The microcosmos is complex.

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While some parts kill us,
others keep us alive.

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Microcosmos is important for
us to survive,

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in order for us to do
all of the things

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that our body does,
in order for us to live

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and grow and thrive.

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Our lives depend
on the microcosmos.

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The air we breathe and
the surface of the Earth around

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us has been profoundly
affected by the microcosmos.

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Three invisible
microcosmos operates

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in every part of the world.

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This world that you can't see
is everywhere,

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from geothermal hot springs
to glaciers

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to deep sea hydrothermal
vent systems.

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We have discovered
that every cubic foot of

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Earth's atmosphere and its
oceans contain millions

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of viruses.

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There are more viruses here
on Earth

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than there are stars in
the universe.

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That's incredible.

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Even though
they're around 1/400th

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the thickness of human hair,
stuck end to end,

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all the viruses on Earth
would stretch

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100 million light-years.

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That's 40 times the distance
to our neighboring

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galaxy, Andromeda.

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That really makes us ask,

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"Whose planet is this anyway?"

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If you just added this up
by sheer numbers,

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you would say,
"This is the virus planet."

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The microcosmos
has also taken over

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our bodies...
We're only partly human.

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The fact that so little of
my own body, of everyone's body,

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is human cells
kind of leaves you wondering

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what's the rest of it
made of, right?

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It is astonishing that we
share our bodies with over

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380 trillion viruses.

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And over 39
trillion bacterial cells.

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The average human
has more bacterial cells

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inside their body than there are
human cells inside their body.

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So what are we really?

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There are moments in the history
of science that I actually

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remember where I was
when they happened... when,

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for example, we detected
two colliding black holes

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or something like that.

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But another one was when
I realized that

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almost half our body
is actually not human.

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- I mean, that is crazy.
- For people that are

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scared of bacteria,
that's a really interesting

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thing to know, right?

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Bacteria help us digest food,

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produce vitamins,
and even influence our mood.

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But what are they?

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Bacteria are single-celled
organisms with a cell wall

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and a central nucleus
containing genetic material,

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RNA or DNA.

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They can move
around and replicate.

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Viruses are
completely different.

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In the universe,

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there are some mysteries that
have actually personally made

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me kind of pause,

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give me goosebumps,
and strangely enough,

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one of them is viruses.

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The mystery is how viruses can

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have so much impact
on the world,

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despite their tiny size
and apparent simplicity.

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Most are just a strand of
genetic material,

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sometimes encased
in a shell of protein.

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I mean, compared to bacteria,

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which behave kind of like
other normal cells that we're

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used to, to some degree,
viruses are very strange.

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We don't really
understand viruses.

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We... we don't even know
if they're alive or not.

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The question are viruses alive
is actually

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more difficult to answer
than you might think.

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What is the definition of life?

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What does it mean to be alive?

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NASA's definition
of life is a self-sustained

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chemical system
capable of Darwinian evolution.

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Entities that feed
make energy and reproduce.

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Viruses can't do that
on their own.

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They have to have
a host cell to do that.

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They have the genetic material
that they need,

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but none of the machinery.

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So they really have
to infect a host.

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If not, they're useless.

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Inside a host's body,
viruses latch

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onto the surface of cells

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and then take control.

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A virus's life cycle is
effectively to hack

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another cell.

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They have to inject that
genetic material

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into a living cell.

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And then the cell is hijacked
and starts making copies of

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the virus.

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Which then have to burst out
of this cell almost literally

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like that gory,
grotesque scene in "Aliens."

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They burst out from the inside.

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That's like
a cellular level horror movie.

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This method of
replicating is chilling

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and doesn't answer
the question of whether

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they're alive.

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That uncertainty may influence
our search for life in space.

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One of the interesting
things to think about is

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if we found a virus on
another planetary surface,

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would we classify that as life?

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Would we say that
we have found life?

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We don't know,
but space viruses could be

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a sign of other
extraterrestrial life forms.

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Viruses have to have
a host cell to replicate,

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so if you find a virus,
in essence, you've found life.

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Viruses might lead us
to extraterrestrial life.

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Now, new research suggests
that life

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on Earth may have come
from space,

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brought to us
in a cosmic bombardment

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when our planet was young.

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We find the microcosmos
in every feature of Earth.

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But where did this strange
kingdom of the very small

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come from?

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Some of its members are so
weird, they look like aliens.

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Could they have come from space?

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There's this idea that
microbes could have hitched

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a ride on a chunk of an asteroid

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that would fall to Earth.

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They could form
on a different planet.

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Something hits that planet.

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The rock that
they're sitting on gets lifted

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and then hits the Earth
as a meteorite.

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The idea of hitchhiking
bugs sounds a bit wild,

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but we have found chunks
of Mars on Earth.

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Perhaps these space rocks
brought life.

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It's not completely ridiculous.

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We know that rocks, for example,

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could come from Mars
and land on Earth.

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A giant asteroid impact
on Mars could blow

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shrapnel into space
that could land on Earth.

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To learn how we must
return to the early

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solar system,
4.5 billion years ago.

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Many infant planets orbit
a new star,

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our sun... this infant
solar system is chaotic.

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Collisions between planets
are inevitable.

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The early solar system
was like a pinball machine.

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Stuff was hitting,

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knocking stuff off,
that would land somewhere

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and knock stuff off.

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The young Mars is
in the line of fire.

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It already has primitive
oceans and perhaps

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primitive life.

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A huge space rock smashes
into the surface.

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We call the event
the Borealis Impact.

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It blows quadrillion tons
of rock into space.

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It's not crazy to think that
one of these chunks of

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rock traveling through
our solar system has some

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hitchhikers on board.

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If there's some microbe riding
on an asteroid that got blasted

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off of Mars, kind of
feel sorry for it, right?

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It's just living there on Mars,

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doing whatever little
Martian microbes do.

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And then a giant impact
ejects this thing into space.

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In order to get
from one planet to another,

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a cell would have
to run a gauntlet.

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It's almost like winning
a survival game show.

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You've got to survive being
blasted off your home world.

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You've then got to survive
the interplanetary journey

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inside a small lump of rock,

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being exposed to the vacuum of
outer space, to cosmic rays,

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to UV radiation,
being dried out and frozen.

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So the idea of
moving life around

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the solar system or through...
Around the galaxy on asteroids

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poses a lot of
different challenges.

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Events like the Borealis
Impact ejected so much rock

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from Mars, there were lots of
opportunities for hitchhiking

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bugs to run
the gauntlet of space.

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But could they survive
the journey?

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To find out, astronauts on
the International

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00:12:04,890 --> 00:12:09,961
Space Station grew simple
bacteria outside in space.

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After a year of being
in open space, miraculously,

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some of these microbes survived.

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It's incredible.
These microbes just could not

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be killed, even though
they were in the worst possible

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environment for life.

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The mission,
therefore, shows us that

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life can survive
the environment in outer space.

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Life could be transferred
between planets.

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Maybe life did get started
on Mars,

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on our next door
neighbor planet,

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and then was transferred here

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inside a meteorite.

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Maybe we
are immigrants from Mars.

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Hitchhiking bugs
may have arrived on

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00:12:53,005 --> 00:12:56,741
Earth and kick-started
the microcosmos.

254
00:12:56,842 --> 00:13:00,044
But now, recent studies of
meteorites suggest that

255
00:13:00,146 --> 00:13:03,548
even if living microbes
didn't make the journey,

256
00:13:03,649 --> 00:13:06,251
the building blocks
that made them did.

257
00:13:08,521 --> 00:13:11,790
In November 2019,
an international research team

258
00:13:11,891 --> 00:13:13,458
found an organic molecule

259
00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:17,028
called ribose in meteorites
that had crashed on Earth.

260
00:13:18,531 --> 00:13:21,166
Ribose is a sugar.

261
00:13:21,267 --> 00:13:23,067
It's a simple sugar,

262
00:13:23,169 --> 00:13:24,869
but it is a sugar that is

263
00:13:24,970 --> 00:13:30,041
absolutely crucial to all life
on Earth.

264
00:13:30,142 --> 00:13:35,079
Ribose is the sugar that
makes up RNA, and RNA

265
00:13:35,181 --> 00:13:39,317
sits right in the linchpin
of every cell.

266
00:13:40,519 --> 00:13:42,153
RNA is a simple form of

267
00:13:42,254 --> 00:13:45,056
genetic material that controls
cellular function.

268
00:13:45,157 --> 00:13:48,193
It's found in most
primitive creatures.

269
00:13:48,294 --> 00:13:53,965
Finding ribose on a meteorite
is so important for us to

270
00:13:54,066 --> 00:13:56,467
understand the origins of

271
00:13:56,569 --> 00:13:58,136
the microcosmos,
because these are

272
00:13:58,237 --> 00:14:01,139
the building blocks, these are
the things that it needs to

273
00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:02,307
get started,

274
00:14:02,408 --> 00:14:06,411
so understanding where these
building blocks come from

275
00:14:06,512 --> 00:14:11,382
allows us to understand how
the microcosmos might have

276
00:14:11,483 --> 00:14:13,718
evolved and started.

277
00:14:13,819 --> 00:14:16,855
The Rosetta Mission
found another building block

278
00:14:16,956 --> 00:14:18,323
for life out in space...

279
00:14:18,424 --> 00:14:21,192
A form of phosphorus
on the comet,

280
00:14:21,293 --> 00:14:23,528
67P.

281
00:14:23,629 --> 00:14:24,789
This was astounding.

282
00:14:24,864 --> 00:14:28,967
Comet 67P was formed at
the birth of the solar system,

283
00:14:29,068 --> 00:14:31,469
4.67 billion years ago,

284
00:14:31,570 --> 00:14:33,338
and it hasn't changed
since then.

285
00:14:33,439 --> 00:14:35,807
It's a time capsule
from the birth

286
00:14:35,908 --> 00:14:37,542
of the sun and the planets.

287
00:14:37,676 --> 00:14:40,845
And it's been in
the deep freeze ever since.

288
00:14:40,946 --> 00:14:45,416
So these forms of phosphorus
that we found on comet 67P

289
00:14:45,517 --> 00:14:47,418
tell us what was available at

290
00:14:47,519 --> 00:14:49,721
the time the Earth
was forming and then

291
00:14:49,822 --> 00:14:53,591
when life was getting started
on primordial Earth.

292
00:14:53,692 --> 00:14:55,793
The early solar system

293
00:14:55,895 --> 00:14:58,196
contained many chemicals
needed for life.

294
00:14:59,598 --> 00:15:01,042
It's an important discovery,

295
00:15:01,066 --> 00:15:02,767
because it means
that these compounds

296
00:15:02,868 --> 00:15:05,169
were around when
the solar system was forming,

297
00:15:05,271 --> 00:15:07,906
so they would have been
readily available for life to

298
00:15:08,007 --> 00:15:12,710
tap into and use to start
forming cellular structure.

299
00:15:12,811 --> 00:15:16,214
These discoveries not only
show that essential chemicals

300
00:15:16,315 --> 00:15:17,348
came to Earth,

301
00:15:17,449 --> 00:15:21,386
but that they exist
throughout the solar system.

302
00:15:21,487 --> 00:15:23,788
We tend to think of
the microcosmos as only

303
00:15:23,889 --> 00:15:26,591
existing on Earth in the sense
that only Earth

304
00:15:26,692 --> 00:15:27,926
has these building blocks,

305
00:15:28,027 --> 00:15:31,796
but now, these new observations
suggest that a microcosmos,

306
00:15:31,897 --> 00:15:34,599
at least the building blocks
for one, could exist

307
00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:37,101
beyond Earth and throughout
the solar system.

308
00:15:38,671 --> 00:15:40,538
Comets and asteroids
may have brought

309
00:15:40,639 --> 00:15:43,207
chemicals to kick-start
the microcosmos.

310
00:15:45,878 --> 00:15:48,546
Now, explosive new research
suggests that

311
00:15:48,647 --> 00:15:52,283
space rocks hitting Earth
did even more.

312
00:15:52,384 --> 00:15:55,153
Could the violent
impacts themselves

313
00:15:55,254 --> 00:15:57,488
have helped life get started?

314
00:16:12,004 --> 00:16:16,307
How did the microcosmos
and life on Earth start?

315
00:16:16,408 --> 00:16:18,910
Did asteroids and comets
deliver the building

316
00:16:19,011 --> 00:16:21,212
blocks, phosphorus,

317
00:16:21,313 --> 00:16:23,681
ribose, and other
organic compounds?

318
00:16:23,782 --> 00:16:26,484
Or did they start life
in other ways?

319
00:16:26,585 --> 00:16:29,988
New research suggests
the impact of crashing

320
00:16:30,089 --> 00:16:33,324
space rocks could have provided
the spark for life.

321
00:16:34,426 --> 00:16:37,729
The force of the impact
actually triggered the creation

322
00:16:37,830 --> 00:16:40,732
of these molecules that are
the building blocks of life.

323
00:16:45,170 --> 00:16:47,572
The energy
from the impact breaks down

324
00:16:47,673 --> 00:16:51,175
and reforms molecules
into new compounds.

325
00:16:51,276 --> 00:16:53,711
You can actually strip apart
atoms and molecules,

326
00:16:53,812 --> 00:16:56,914
re-combine them in more
complex ways, and make the stuff

327
00:16:57,016 --> 00:16:59,350
of life in an impact.

328
00:16:59,451 --> 00:17:01,419
Over millions of years,

329
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:05,223
complex organic materials
fill Earth's oceans.

330
00:17:05,324 --> 00:17:08,860
Then, around
3.5 billion years ago,

331
00:17:08,961 --> 00:17:12,830
the process that
kick-started life began.

332
00:17:12,931 --> 00:17:15,933
Going back to
the origins of life on Earth,

333
00:17:16,035 --> 00:17:19,037
it was a process... you began
with large molecules

334
00:17:19,138 --> 00:17:22,807
that almost accidentally began
to make copies of themselves.

335
00:17:22,908 --> 00:17:26,144
These became the first genetic
material... some of these larger

336
00:17:26,245 --> 00:17:29,313
molecules bound together
and became the first sort of

337
00:17:29,415 --> 00:17:30,615
protocells.

338
00:17:30,716 --> 00:17:33,785
A protocell could represent

339
00:17:33,886 --> 00:17:39,123
this earliest pre-life
stage of evolution.

340
00:17:41,427 --> 00:17:44,162
Protocells lack the full
chemical machinery of

341
00:17:44,263 --> 00:17:45,997
modern cells.

342
00:17:46,098 --> 00:17:49,233
They're a simple cell membrane
surrounding a glob of

343
00:17:49,334 --> 00:17:53,237
genetic material like RNA,
built from ribose

344
00:17:53,338 --> 00:17:54,672
and phosphorus.

345
00:17:54,773 --> 00:17:57,008
Now you have a barrier.

346
00:17:57,109 --> 00:17:59,710
Now you can actually control
which chemicals come into

347
00:17:59,812 --> 00:18:03,448
the cell and which go out,
and you protect the genetic

348
00:18:03,549 --> 00:18:06,250
code intact, inside the cell.

349
00:18:06,351 --> 00:18:09,821
Once that happened,
evolution began to run with it.

350
00:18:10,856 --> 00:18:14,058
These simple cells
grew more and more complicated

351
00:18:14,159 --> 00:18:16,527
until shazam,

352
00:18:16,628 --> 00:18:19,230
you get all life on Earth...

353
00:18:19,331 --> 00:18:22,600
All cellular life, anyway.

354
00:18:22,701 --> 00:18:26,838
Unlike bacteria,
viruses are not cells.

355
00:18:26,939 --> 00:18:30,374
Scientists debate if
they're even living things.

356
00:18:30,476 --> 00:18:33,811
So how, then, do viruses fit
into the birth of life?

357
00:18:33,912 --> 00:18:37,315
Viruses aren't really thought
of as playing a role

358
00:18:37,416 --> 00:18:38,916
in our evolutionary history,

359
00:18:39,017 --> 00:18:41,119
but we're just beginning to
understand that

360
00:18:41,220 --> 00:18:42,487
that's simply not the case.

361
00:18:42,588 --> 00:18:44,856
What if viruses themselves were

362
00:18:44,957 --> 00:18:48,426
an essential cog in
the machinery of life?

363
00:18:48,527 --> 00:18:50,194
How can we investigate if

364
00:18:50,295 --> 00:18:52,997
viruses helped life
on Earth develop?

365
00:18:53,098 --> 00:18:56,634
They don't leave many clues
about their past.

366
00:18:56,735 --> 00:18:59,403
The hard thing
with understanding

367
00:18:59,505 --> 00:19:00,805
the evolutionary history

368
00:19:00,906 --> 00:19:03,674
of viruses is they don't leave
a fossil record.

369
00:19:03,775 --> 00:19:07,712
There's no geology that we can
go back and dig up and say,

370
00:19:07,813 --> 00:19:10,748
Aha! This is when viruses
first came about.

371
00:19:12,651 --> 00:19:14,952
We don't know
when viruses entered

372
00:19:15,053 --> 00:19:16,921
the evolutionary game of life.

373
00:19:17,022 --> 00:19:21,459
Was it near the beginning,
or a little bit later?

374
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:25,129
There's this crazy idea that
viruses might actually

375
00:19:25,230 --> 00:19:27,064
have come first
in the tree of life.

376
00:19:27,166 --> 00:19:29,767
When you think about
the real origins of life,

377
00:19:29,868 --> 00:19:32,136
it had to start with
something that simple,

378
00:19:32,237 --> 00:19:34,205
something that was just
a molecule that could

379
00:19:34,306 --> 00:19:35,206
start replicating.

380
00:19:35,307 --> 00:19:38,409
A virus may be our best
example of that

381
00:19:38,510 --> 00:19:41,212
transition from just
complex chemistry

382
00:19:41,313 --> 00:19:43,114
to the beginnings of life.

383
00:19:43,215 --> 00:19:46,250
In this scenario,
chemicals floating

384
00:19:46,351 --> 00:19:47,985
in the 3.5-billion-year-old

385
00:19:48,086 --> 00:19:51,189
oceans formed a shell of
protein around some simple

386
00:19:51,290 --> 00:19:53,124
genetic material.

387
00:19:54,226 --> 00:19:58,196
But did viruses evolve
before anything else?

388
00:19:58,297 --> 00:20:03,134
The flaw in the virus
first hypothesis is that

389
00:20:03,235 --> 00:20:07,138
a virus has to have a host
organism to replicate.

390
00:20:07,239 --> 00:20:10,975
So without a host,
how does the virus replicate?

391
00:20:11,076 --> 00:20:13,611
And this is the question
we have to ask ourselves

392
00:20:13,712 --> 00:20:16,314
when we think of viruses
coming first on

393
00:20:16,415 --> 00:20:18,649
the evolutionary tree.

394
00:20:18,750 --> 00:20:22,286
Modern viruses can't
replicate without a host.

395
00:20:22,387 --> 00:20:26,257
It's likely that ancient
viruses couldn't either,

396
00:20:26,358 --> 00:20:29,961
but could early cells
and viruses have joined

397
00:20:30,062 --> 00:20:33,264
forces in a way
that benefited them both?

398
00:20:33,365 --> 00:20:36,434
Some new theories are
suggesting that viruses

399
00:20:36,535 --> 00:20:41,539
and cellular life co-evolved and
actually helped each other out,

400
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:44,909
and potentially even helped
out the evolution of

401
00:20:45,010 --> 00:20:47,044
human life.

402
00:20:47,145 --> 00:20:49,747
How did this co-evolution work?

403
00:20:49,848 --> 00:20:53,484
We know that viruses today
inject their genetic material

404
00:20:53,585 --> 00:20:56,454
into cells to manipulate them.

405
00:20:56,555 --> 00:20:59,257
Perhaps early viruses
manipulated the genes

406
00:20:59,324 --> 00:21:02,426
of the first cells the same way.

407
00:21:02,527 --> 00:21:07,331
Think of this primordial soup
and the genes, the RNA, that's

408
00:21:07,432 --> 00:21:10,768
in this primordial soup being
swapped between organisms,

409
00:21:10,869 --> 00:21:12,136
kind of like a swap meet.

410
00:21:12,237 --> 00:21:14,038
You bring something
you don't need any more,

411
00:21:14,139 --> 00:21:16,073
and you pass it along
to somebody else.

412
00:21:16,174 --> 00:21:19,644
So in this way, organisms
sharing their genetic material

413
00:21:19,778 --> 00:21:22,313
back and forth offers
a competitive advantage

414
00:21:22,414 --> 00:21:23,681
to each one.

415
00:21:23,749 --> 00:21:26,217
The virus might
break off bits of

416
00:21:26,318 --> 00:21:29,887
the host's genetic material
and mix it with their own.

417
00:21:31,189 --> 00:21:33,524
When the virus attacks
another cell,

418
00:21:33,625 --> 00:21:36,794
it could pass on the mixed
genes to its next host.

419
00:21:37,963 --> 00:21:39,764
In this sense, then,

420
00:21:39,865 --> 00:21:43,134
viruses help stir things up.

421
00:21:43,235 --> 00:21:46,337
They shuttle genes
between wildly different

422
00:21:46,438 --> 00:21:51,842
organisms and therefore help
drive evolution itself.

423
00:21:51,943 --> 00:21:54,145
Now, probably almost all
of these injections did

424
00:21:54,246 --> 00:21:56,447
nothing useful or maybe even
killed the cell.

425
00:21:56,515 --> 00:21:58,849
But if one in a million
injection changed

426
00:21:58,950 --> 00:22:00,017
something for the better,

427
00:22:00,118 --> 00:22:03,354
made it more complex,
made it more able to survive,

428
00:22:03,455 --> 00:22:05,723
then that cell reproduced
even more.

429
00:22:05,824 --> 00:22:10,494
If virally enhanced cells
thrived in the primeval oceans,

430
00:22:10,595 --> 00:22:11,662
over time,

431
00:22:11,763 --> 00:22:14,198
they might have evolved into
more complex creatures

432
00:22:14,299 --> 00:22:17,101
and eventually, into us.

433
00:22:17,169 --> 00:22:18,613
What's so crazy
is to think about

434
00:22:18,637 --> 00:22:20,371
the fact that we could
actually be descended

435
00:22:20,472 --> 00:22:21,472
from viruses.

436
00:22:21,573 --> 00:22:23,874
I am sure that a lot of
my genetic

437
00:22:23,975 --> 00:22:27,812
code originally came from
the injection of a virus.

438
00:22:27,913 --> 00:22:31,082
I love the idea that I might
be descendant from a virus,

439
00:22:31,183 --> 00:22:33,684
just coming from something
that simple

440
00:22:33,785 --> 00:22:35,152
and evolving into something

441
00:22:35,253 --> 00:22:38,989
this complex is just
a feat of nature.

442
00:22:39,091 --> 00:22:42,593
Viruses played a major
part in human evolution.

443
00:22:42,694 --> 00:22:47,365
Around 8% of human DNA came
from ancient viral infections.

444
00:22:47,466 --> 00:22:49,734
In fact, without them,

445
00:22:49,835 --> 00:22:50,868
we wouldn't be human.

446
00:22:52,237 --> 00:22:56,207
In our brains, we
actually have relic viral DNA.

447
00:22:56,308 --> 00:22:58,776
So DNA that came from a virus,

448
00:22:58,877 --> 00:23:00,611
but this helps us.

449
00:23:00,712 --> 00:23:04,215
Without this, we don't think
we would have consciousness.

450
00:23:05,717 --> 00:23:08,486
We also think that viral
DNA helped us develop

451
00:23:08,587 --> 00:23:09,620
an immune system

452
00:23:09,721 --> 00:23:13,624
to fight off infection
and gave us the ability to

453
00:23:13,725 --> 00:23:15,326
digest starch.

454
00:23:16,895 --> 00:23:20,030
The microcosmos
has guided our evolution.

455
00:23:20,132 --> 00:23:22,700
It even created
the air we breathe.

456
00:23:22,801 --> 00:23:25,536
But in doing so,
it also triggered

457
00:23:25,637 --> 00:23:29,607
the largest mass extinction
the Earth has ever seen.

458
00:23:40,085 --> 00:23:44,588
Planet Earth,
2.5 billion years ago.

459
00:23:44,689 --> 00:23:49,160
The microcosmos
colonizes Earth's oceans.

460
00:23:49,261 --> 00:23:52,830
This is not a world
we would recognize today.

461
00:23:52,931 --> 00:23:56,967
If you were to travel back in
time, just on Earth, to see what

462
00:23:57,068 --> 00:23:59,503
it was like 2.5 billion
years ago,

463
00:23:59,604 --> 00:24:02,907
it would look really different
in many ways.

464
00:24:03,008 --> 00:24:06,477
There were oceans, and they had
life in those oceans.

465
00:24:06,578 --> 00:24:10,548
But there weren't any land
plants or land animals.

466
00:24:10,649 --> 00:24:12,249
There was just bare rock.

467
00:24:12,350 --> 00:24:14,752
So to think about a human
going back in time to visit

468
00:24:14,853 --> 00:24:16,287
the really early Earth,

469
00:24:16,388 --> 00:24:19,190
they would find an utterly
inhospitable planet.

470
00:24:19,291 --> 00:24:22,059
As a human, you'd be
out of luck because there was

471
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,061
no oxygen in the atmosphere
at that time,

472
00:24:24,162 --> 00:24:25,682
so hopefully,
you brought a space suit.

473
00:24:27,098 --> 00:24:28,599
The atmosphere was fine for

474
00:24:28,700 --> 00:24:31,869
the billions of inhabitants
of the early microcosmos.

475
00:24:33,071 --> 00:24:35,406
They were very slow-paced,
and they did

476
00:24:35,507 --> 00:24:38,409
everything they did without
any oxygen in the air.

477
00:24:38,510 --> 00:24:42,613
But this tranquil
existence was about to change.

478
00:24:42,714 --> 00:24:45,015
For a long time,
conditions on Earth were

479
00:24:45,116 --> 00:24:48,619
fairly static, but then,
about 2.5 billion years ago,

480
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:52,456
an evolutionary glitch
changed everything.

481
00:24:52,557 --> 00:24:54,592
A clue to that glitch

482
00:24:54,693 --> 00:24:58,128
rests in strange rocky mounds,

483
00:24:58,230 --> 00:24:59,430
stromatolites.

484
00:24:59,531 --> 00:25:05,369
Stromatolites are
almost like microbial cities.

485
00:25:05,470 --> 00:25:10,574
If you zoom down onto their
scale, you'll see layer

486
00:25:10,675 --> 00:25:13,010
upon layer of bacteria,

487
00:25:13,111 --> 00:25:16,580
almost like the high-rise
skyscrapers in one of

488
00:25:16,681 --> 00:25:18,649
our cities.

489
00:25:18,750 --> 00:25:23,220
The microcosmic high rises
are full of cyanobacteria.

490
00:25:23,321 --> 00:25:26,891
These bacteria
can photosynthesize.

491
00:25:26,992 --> 00:25:29,593
Photosynthesis is
a chemical reaction that

492
00:25:29,694 --> 00:25:33,998
takes place inside
a plant, producing food.

493
00:25:34,099 --> 00:25:37,868
Today, it's an important part
of our planet's existence.

494
00:25:37,969 --> 00:25:42,039
2.5 billion years ago,
it was revolutionary.

495
00:25:43,475 --> 00:25:47,411
And it happened when ancient
cyanobacteria similar to those

496
00:25:47,512 --> 00:25:49,213
in the stromatolites mutated.

497
00:25:49,314 --> 00:25:53,450
This mutation
allowed cyanobacteria

498
00:25:53,552 --> 00:25:56,487
to take the energy from
sunlight and use it to make

499
00:25:56,588 --> 00:25:59,924
sugars out of water
and carbon dioxide.

500
00:26:00,025 --> 00:26:04,929
This gave cyanobacteria
a huge evolutionary edge.

501
00:26:05,030 --> 00:26:06,497
They could now make more
energy for

502
00:26:06,598 --> 00:26:10,100
themselves so they could grow
and reproduce faster.

503
00:26:11,403 --> 00:26:14,038
For everything else,
it was a catastrophe.

504
00:26:14,139 --> 00:26:18,075
It produced oxygen
as a waste product.

505
00:26:18,176 --> 00:26:21,045
Oxygen was no use to them,
so they released it into

506
00:26:21,146 --> 00:26:23,847
the air,
transforming Earth's atmosphere

507
00:26:23,949 --> 00:26:26,483
over millions of years.

508
00:26:26,585 --> 00:26:29,720
This by-product, oxygen,
is extremely toxic.

509
00:26:30,922 --> 00:26:33,524
The reason oxygen is
so dangerous is that

510
00:26:33,625 --> 00:26:34,692
it's very reactive.

511
00:26:34,793 --> 00:26:37,094
It loves to combine
with everything,

512
00:26:37,228 --> 00:26:40,397
so think about something
rusting... iron rusts because

513
00:26:40,498 --> 00:26:43,033
oxygen is actually combining
with the molecules.

514
00:26:43,134 --> 00:26:45,069
It's called oxidation.

515
00:26:45,170 --> 00:26:47,037
So when oxygen was
first released,

516
00:26:47,138 --> 00:26:49,473
it was tremendously dangerous.

517
00:26:49,574 --> 00:26:52,376
The new oxygen built up
in the atmosphere,

518
00:26:52,477 --> 00:26:56,313
killing off species of microbes
everywhere on the planet.

519
00:26:56,414 --> 00:26:59,516
Right when this happened,
you would have had

520
00:26:59,618 --> 00:27:01,285
a mass extinction.

521
00:27:01,386 --> 00:27:04,955
This would have been a global
mass extinction event.

522
00:27:05,056 --> 00:27:08,592
This was an unprecedented
environmental disaster,

523
00:27:08,693 --> 00:27:11,629
probably in the entire history
of the Earth up to that point.

524
00:27:11,730 --> 00:27:13,307
And I'm not even sure
it's been paralleled,

525
00:27:13,331 --> 00:27:14,732
even up to today.

526
00:27:14,799 --> 00:27:15,699
This may have been the single

527
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,602
biggest catastrophe
in our planet's history.

528
00:27:18,703 --> 00:27:22,006
This was the Great Oxidation
Event, and it changed

529
00:27:22,107 --> 00:27:24,508
our atmosphere,
it changed our planet,

530
00:27:24,609 --> 00:27:26,877
and it didn't just end there.

531
00:27:26,978 --> 00:27:28,579
Something changed again.

532
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:33,450
Another mutation allowed some
of these bacteria to use that

533
00:27:33,551 --> 00:27:36,053
oxygen in their own metabolism,

534
00:27:36,154 --> 00:27:39,223
and that was a huge change.

535
00:27:41,159 --> 00:27:44,328
The ability to use oxygen
was an incredible leap forward.

536
00:27:45,597 --> 00:27:48,532
The beauty of oxygen
is that it allows

537
00:27:48,633 --> 00:27:53,037
the metabolism to process
nutrients much more rapidly.

538
00:27:53,138 --> 00:27:57,307
It basically helps bodies burn
these materials so that

539
00:27:57,409 --> 00:28:00,177
they can generate a lot more
energy a lot more quickly.

540
00:28:00,278 --> 00:28:04,348
Organisms that figured out how
to use oxygen for respiration

541
00:28:04,449 --> 00:28:06,150
ended up getting
a huge kick-start

542
00:28:06,251 --> 00:28:08,052
of energy
and gave them a huge advantage

543
00:28:08,153 --> 00:28:09,453
over other organisms.

544
00:28:09,554 --> 00:28:13,757
It supplied enough energy that
organisms could become

545
00:28:13,858 --> 00:28:14,958
more complex,

546
00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:19,863
larger, multicellular,
really the tapping into

547
00:28:19,964 --> 00:28:25,369
oxygen and being able to use
oxygen in our metabolism meant

548
00:28:25,470 --> 00:28:26,870
that it was a game changer,

549
00:28:26,971 --> 00:28:29,440
that we could evolve
in ways that never would

550
00:28:29,541 --> 00:28:33,444
have been possible
without cyanobacteria.

551
00:28:33,545 --> 00:28:36,613
Simple organisms
became more complex.

552
00:28:36,715 --> 00:28:40,317
Single-celled creatures
became multicellular.

553
00:28:40,418 --> 00:28:43,387
This gradual
accumulation of oxygen

554
00:28:43,488 --> 00:28:44,955
into the atmosphere of the Earth

555
00:28:45,056 --> 00:28:48,859
was huge for the multicellular
animal and life explosion,

556
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,261
um, that occurred
as a result and was

557
00:28:51,362 --> 00:28:54,098
one of the most important
events in Earth's history.

558
00:28:54,199 --> 00:28:56,767
This would have been
a complete transformation

559
00:28:56,868 --> 00:28:59,636
of the Earth's atmosphere
and physical setting.

560
00:28:59,738 --> 00:29:03,574
This is when the green Earth
started to evolve.

561
00:29:03,675 --> 00:29:07,945
The Great Oxidation Event
changed the course of evolution,

562
00:29:08,046 --> 00:29:11,849
leading to our complex world.

563
00:29:11,950 --> 00:29:13,784
It is really hard
to overemphasize

564
00:29:13,885 --> 00:29:15,652
the importance
of the microcosmos.

565
00:29:15,754 --> 00:29:17,454
Just the fact that
I'm speaking to you,

566
00:29:17,555 --> 00:29:18,989
I'm breathing in and out,

567
00:29:19,090 --> 00:29:20,624
I wouldn't be doing that without

568
00:29:20,725 --> 00:29:23,827
the tiniest organisms
on the planet.

569
00:29:23,928 --> 00:29:26,563
The microcosmos gave us life.

570
00:29:26,664 --> 00:29:29,700
Now, it could wipe us out.

571
00:29:29,801 --> 00:29:31,168
Global warming is releasing

572
00:29:31,269 --> 00:29:34,138
potentially lethal bacteria
and viruses.

573
00:29:35,907 --> 00:29:39,710
Are we facing a microcosmic
zombie apocalypse?

574
00:29:47,919 --> 00:29:50,754
Siberia, present day.

575
00:29:50,855 --> 00:29:54,892
Rising temperatures are melting
the Arctic permafrost,

576
00:29:54,993 --> 00:29:58,395
revealing land sealed under
ice for tens

577
00:29:58,496 --> 00:30:00,597
of thousands of years.

578
00:30:00,698 --> 00:30:03,167
As that permafrost
begins thawing out

579
00:30:03,268 --> 00:30:05,202
and melting with climate change,

580
00:30:05,303 --> 00:30:08,739
maybe that will release
pathogens that have

581
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:12,476
been locked up for potentially
thousands of years.

582
00:30:12,577 --> 00:30:14,278
In 2014,

583
00:30:14,379 --> 00:30:19,216
researchers investigated
melting Siberian tundra,

584
00:30:19,317 --> 00:30:22,052
a region larger than the USA.

585
00:30:22,153 --> 00:30:24,922
I've seen a lot of science
fiction movies where scientists

586
00:30:25,023 --> 00:30:27,063
are digging around in the ice
and find something bad

587
00:30:27,091 --> 00:30:28,158
from a long time ago.

588
00:30:28,259 --> 00:30:30,427
Scientists took samples of

589
00:30:30,528 --> 00:30:33,630
tundra soil to the lab
and examined the contents.

590
00:30:33,731 --> 00:30:38,035
They found a frozen
ancient virus.

591
00:30:38,136 --> 00:30:44,708
A virus locked in ice
from over 30,000 years ago.

592
00:30:44,809 --> 00:30:46,710
Isn't this the start of,

593
00:30:46,811 --> 00:30:50,747
like, every horror movie?
A scientist uncovers some deep

594
00:30:50,849 --> 00:30:52,850
secret of nature and then just

595
00:30:52,951 --> 00:30:56,320
open it up and unleash it
on the world?

596
00:30:56,421 --> 00:30:58,388
Just like in a B movie,

597
00:30:58,489 --> 00:31:00,290
The team fed the virus to

598
00:31:00,391 --> 00:31:04,394
living single-celled creatures
called amoebas

599
00:31:04,495 --> 00:31:06,597
to see if the virus
still functioned

600
00:31:06,698 --> 00:31:09,967
after being frozen for
thousands of years.

601
00:31:10,068 --> 00:31:15,272
The virus woke up, attacked
the amoebas, and replicated.

602
00:31:15,373 --> 00:31:18,542
Bringing this ancient
virus back to life

603
00:31:18,643 --> 00:31:21,778
was sort of waking up
the undead.

604
00:31:23,414 --> 00:31:27,551
Scientists had no idea how
this zombie virus would behave.

605
00:31:30,421 --> 00:31:33,857
Something about it was
very, very different.

606
00:31:33,958 --> 00:31:37,394
It was huge compared
to normal viruses.

607
00:31:37,528 --> 00:31:41,465
It was substantially
larger than any

608
00:31:41,566 --> 00:31:43,800
virus that we had seen before.

609
00:31:43,902 --> 00:31:48,572
This is the Goliath of
Goliaths among viruses.

610
00:31:48,673 --> 00:31:52,509
So large it looks more
like bacteria than a virus.

611
00:31:52,610 --> 00:31:58,015
We call these kinds of
giant viruses mimiviruses,

612
00:31:58,116 --> 00:32:02,419
because they mimic
other creatures, like bacteria.

613
00:32:03,688 --> 00:32:06,290
One way the virus
mimics bacteria is

614
00:32:06,391 --> 00:32:08,725
in the amount of
its genetic material.

615
00:32:08,826 --> 00:32:14,064
It has 900 genes, eight times
as many as a regular virus.

616
00:32:14,165 --> 00:32:17,234
Viruses are very simple.

617
00:32:17,335 --> 00:32:19,770
They don't require a lot of
genes to function,

618
00:32:19,871 --> 00:32:25,542
but this virus has more genes
than necessary.

619
00:32:25,643 --> 00:32:30,180
What is it doing with
all these extra genes?

620
00:32:30,281 --> 00:32:33,383
We have now found
other mimiviruses.

621
00:32:33,484 --> 00:32:35,752
20 years ago, we had no idea

622
00:32:35,853 --> 00:32:39,156
that this complex type of
virus even existed.

623
00:32:39,257 --> 00:32:42,192
We still don't know what
all the extra genes do.

624
00:32:43,561 --> 00:32:46,396
This type of virus might even
be able to generate

625
00:32:46,497 --> 00:32:47,798
its own energy,

626
00:32:47,899 --> 00:32:52,135
making it closer to bacteria
than other viruses.

627
00:32:52,236 --> 00:32:55,739
Because it has
so many extra genes,

628
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,143
this is a virus that is not
acting like a virus.

629
00:33:00,244 --> 00:33:01,778
We can't be sure how

630
00:33:01,879 --> 00:33:05,882
the Siberian mimivirus will
behave if released,

631
00:33:05,984 --> 00:33:09,653
and even if it only attacks
amoebas, there could be

632
00:33:09,754 --> 00:33:13,056
other large, complex viruses
buried in the ice.

633
00:33:14,492 --> 00:33:16,526
They may not be so safe.

634
00:33:16,627 --> 00:33:19,963
We know that there are large
regions of

635
00:33:20,064 --> 00:33:22,599
the Earth that are locked
in ice right now.

636
00:33:22,700 --> 00:33:28,205
There could be viruses that
live inside that ice that if

637
00:33:28,306 --> 00:33:32,075
the Earth gets too warm,
could reactivate.

638
00:33:32,176 --> 00:33:35,879
And these viruses could
potentially be a threat to us.

639
00:33:37,382 --> 00:33:40,584
Recently, other
dangerous frozen zombies

640
00:33:40,685 --> 00:33:44,554
have reanimated,
hidden in the dead.

641
00:33:44,655 --> 00:33:46,156
We tend to think of people
who died in

642
00:33:46,257 --> 00:33:49,326
the past as not being able to
affect us all, right?

643
00:33:49,427 --> 00:33:51,194
They're gone,
their germs are gone.

644
00:33:51,295 --> 00:33:53,497
Unfortunately,
this isn't exactly true.

645
00:33:53,598 --> 00:33:57,801
So for people who are buried
in tundra that's been frozen,

646
00:33:57,902 --> 00:33:59,369
they never really disappeared.

647
00:33:59,470 --> 00:34:02,372
And now, unfortunately,
as the climate warms,

648
00:34:02,473 --> 00:34:08,011
these tundra environments are
releasing frozen people

649
00:34:08,112 --> 00:34:12,716
and animals who died thousands
of years ago.

650
00:34:12,817 --> 00:34:14,718
But it's not
the dead people and animals

651
00:34:14,819 --> 00:34:18,021
that threaten us...
It's the microbes inside them.

652
00:34:19,824 --> 00:34:22,826
In 2016, that threat became real

653
00:34:22,927 --> 00:34:25,328
when another area of
Siberia thawed.

654
00:34:26,597 --> 00:34:28,432
A 12-year-old boy died,

655
00:34:28,533 --> 00:34:31,768
and dozens of people
needed medical treatment.

656
00:34:31,869 --> 00:34:35,539
2,000 reindeer also perished.

657
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,276
The culprit?
Reanimated bacteria called

658
00:34:39,377 --> 00:34:42,813
anthrax inside
a melting reindeer.

659
00:34:42,914 --> 00:34:47,417
Anthrax is a common microbe
found in soil.

660
00:34:47,518 --> 00:34:49,753
In medieval times,

661
00:34:49,854 --> 00:34:53,390
sometimes farmers would come
back to find entire fields

662
00:34:53,491 --> 00:34:55,292
of dead animals.

663
00:34:55,393 --> 00:34:57,473
They didn't understand at
the time what was going on.

664
00:34:57,562 --> 00:35:00,864
They attribute it
to cursed fields.

665
00:35:00,965 --> 00:35:05,268
But we now know these
are outbreaks of anthrax.

666
00:35:05,369 --> 00:35:09,306
The defrosted reindeer
died nearly a century ago.

667
00:35:10,508 --> 00:35:13,844
The anthrax that killed it
was safely locked away in

668
00:35:13,945 --> 00:35:15,312
the ice.

669
00:35:15,413 --> 00:35:17,948
The thawing out of regions

670
00:35:18,049 --> 00:35:20,617
like the Siberian permafrost

671
00:35:20,718 --> 00:35:24,321
could be almost like
the inadvertent opening of

672
00:35:24,422 --> 00:35:25,989
Pandora's box.

673
00:35:26,090 --> 00:35:28,792
Once you open it, you don't
know what's gonna come out.

674
00:35:28,893 --> 00:35:33,563
It could be releasing
ancient preserved microbes,

675
00:35:33,664 --> 00:35:36,166
bacteria, or viruses

676
00:35:36,267 --> 00:35:39,302
that have been laying dormant
for hundreds,

677
00:35:39,403 --> 00:35:41,671
if not thousands of years.

678
00:35:41,772 --> 00:35:45,008
If these microbes
are actually very different

679
00:35:45,109 --> 00:35:47,144
from what we have
on Earth today,

680
00:35:47,245 --> 00:35:50,447
if we encountered these
microbes, it's not really clear

681
00:35:50,548 --> 00:35:52,849
what would happen
with our immune systems.

682
00:35:52,950 --> 00:35:55,452
You know, it could be
totally fine,

683
00:35:55,553 --> 00:35:58,588
but it could also wreak
complete havoc on us.

684
00:35:58,689 --> 00:36:02,259
It's also not clear
if modern drugs would

685
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,929
help us beat any ancient
microbes we unleash.

686
00:36:07,632 --> 00:36:11,735
Now, as humanity expands
beyond Earth to new worlds,

687
00:36:11,836 --> 00:36:15,772
will we carry our microcosmos
with us into space?

688
00:36:15,873 --> 00:36:18,775
Or have we already infected

689
00:36:18,876 --> 00:36:20,310
our cosmic neighborhood?

690
00:36:30,588 --> 00:36:35,192
Space is no longer the
final frontier of the future.

691
00:36:35,293 --> 00:36:37,394
We're already exploring
the solar system.

692
00:36:38,896 --> 00:36:40,997
We've sent probes to the planets

693
00:36:41,098 --> 00:36:42,332
and put boots on the moon.

694
00:36:43,868 --> 00:36:47,237
Now, NASA plans to land
astronauts on Mars

695
00:36:47,338 --> 00:36:48,872
by the 2030s.

696
00:36:50,441 --> 00:36:53,944
As a science fiction nerd
myself, without even breaking

697
00:36:54,045 --> 00:36:55,879
a sweat, I could name 10 movies

698
00:36:55,980 --> 00:36:58,949
where people go to another
planet, and some disease,

699
00:36:59,050 --> 00:37:01,251
some alien life form, is
unleashed on humans

700
00:37:01,352 --> 00:37:03,220
and kills us all.

701
00:37:03,321 --> 00:37:05,288
I think that has it
exactly backwards.

702
00:37:05,389 --> 00:37:09,059
If we try to settle on other
planets, we have to be really,

703
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,528
really careful and really,
really think about

704
00:37:11,629 --> 00:37:14,164
how we are affecting them.

705
00:37:14,265 --> 00:37:17,701
As we launch more and more
missions into space, we risk

706
00:37:17,802 --> 00:37:21,538
sending Earth's microcosmos
with them, endangering

707
00:37:21,639 --> 00:37:23,106
the health of the solar system.

708
00:37:24,375 --> 00:37:26,643
And if we find
a planet that actually has

709
00:37:26,744 --> 00:37:29,746
its own biosphere,
that has life of its own,

710
00:37:29,847 --> 00:37:32,148
we need to be very careful
about how we introduce

711
00:37:32,250 --> 00:37:34,217
our microbes to their microbes,

712
00:37:34,318 --> 00:37:36,353
because it could really be
catastrophic for them.

713
00:37:36,454 --> 00:37:38,888
It's serious, because
we're looking at places

714
00:37:38,990 --> 00:37:40,991
like Mars, like Titan,

715
00:37:41,092 --> 00:37:44,794
Saturn's moon, like comets
where life or at least

716
00:37:44,895 --> 00:37:46,563
prebiotic life
could have existed.

717
00:37:46,664 --> 00:37:48,231
Or, in the past, there could

718
00:37:48,332 --> 00:37:51,534
have been a much more
habitable environment.

719
00:37:51,636 --> 00:37:55,138
So it's entirely possible
that we are polluting,

720
00:37:55,239 --> 00:38:00,543
we are infecting these other
objects with our own bacteria.

721
00:38:00,645 --> 00:38:03,413
If we contaminate
a pristine world,

722
00:38:03,514 --> 00:38:06,216
we won't know which microbes
were there first.

723
00:38:07,518 --> 00:38:10,186
Our bugs could even kill off
the native ones.

724
00:38:11,689 --> 00:38:13,023
It may have already happened.

725
00:38:15,726 --> 00:38:17,227
You're looking good.

726
00:38:17,328 --> 00:38:20,397
The Apollo 12 mission
brought back bits of the lunar

727
00:38:20,498 --> 00:38:24,567
robotic probe Surveyor 3
it found on the moon.

728
00:38:24,669 --> 00:38:29,072
Analysis of the probe found
a bacterial contamination.

729
00:38:29,173 --> 00:38:31,374
We don't know
where it came from.

730
00:38:31,475 --> 00:38:33,677
If that thing was
infected before we sent it

731
00:38:33,778 --> 00:38:35,455
to the moon, and it sat
on the moon's surface

732
00:38:35,479 --> 00:38:38,782
for two years in
a vacuum, changing temperatures,

733
00:38:38,883 --> 00:38:42,085
radiation from space,
that really is telling us that

734
00:38:42,186 --> 00:38:44,888
we can infect other planets
and we should

735
00:38:44,989 --> 00:38:47,190
take this very seriously.

736
00:38:47,291 --> 00:38:49,959
We're ramping up
our space missions,

737
00:38:50,061 --> 00:38:52,061
we're sending probe after probe

738
00:38:52,129 --> 00:38:55,365
to planets all
throughout the solar system.

739
00:38:55,466 --> 00:39:00,437
Taking care to not send
our own diseases out onto

740
00:39:00,538 --> 00:39:03,039
other planets is something
we actually have to care about.

741
00:39:03,140 --> 00:39:06,009
NASA does care.

742
00:39:06,110 --> 00:39:09,479
Before launching a new probe,
a planetary protection team

743
00:39:09,580 --> 00:39:11,514
deep cleans every inch.

744
00:39:12,917 --> 00:39:15,385
You try to bake the spacecraft,
you try to disinfect things.

745
00:39:15,486 --> 00:39:19,356
You build everything and keep
everything within a clean room,

746
00:39:19,457 --> 00:39:23,693
which has a pressure
that blows dust out.

747
00:39:23,794 --> 00:39:25,929
Everybody wears what are
called bunny suits,

748
00:39:26,030 --> 00:39:27,897
so nobody touches
anything directly.

749
00:39:27,998 --> 00:39:29,666
But then,
that's still not enough,

750
00:39:29,767 --> 00:39:32,669
because microbes are
incredibly hardy.

751
00:39:32,770 --> 00:39:35,605
It's even more difficult
to kill microcosmic

752
00:39:35,706 --> 00:39:38,675
stowaways if they're traveling
inside an astronaut.

753
00:39:40,144 --> 00:39:42,379
In the not too distant future,

754
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:47,183
we'll start sending not robot
explorers, not probes to Mars,

755
00:39:47,284 --> 00:39:52,222
but people, an inherently
dirty, mucky organism

756
00:39:52,323 --> 00:39:53,923
like myself.

757
00:39:54,024 --> 00:39:55,458
You can't sterilize a human.

758
00:39:55,559 --> 00:39:57,961
You can't remove all bacteria.

759
00:39:58,062 --> 00:40:00,497
We have to realize that we are
bringing the microcosmos

760
00:40:00,598 --> 00:40:03,533
with us, and we may change
worlds entirely

761
00:40:03,634 --> 00:40:05,034
without even noticing it.

762
00:40:05,136 --> 00:40:07,904
Potentially, our impact could
be absolutely devastating on...

763
00:40:08,005 --> 00:40:10,907
On worlds that are either have
life or emerging life,

764
00:40:11,008 --> 00:40:14,077
and so we just need to take
that responsibility seriously

765
00:40:14,178 --> 00:40:16,780
and be careful with the way
in which we explore them.

766
00:40:18,048 --> 00:40:19,783
Humans bear a responsibility

767
00:40:19,884 --> 00:40:21,418
for the safety of the cosmos.

768
00:40:21,519 --> 00:40:24,053
Our track record
on Earth isn't good.

769
00:40:25,623 --> 00:40:28,124
When we look at
the pattern of exploration

770
00:40:28,225 --> 00:40:32,395
or colonization that we use as
humans, we are really invasive.

771
00:40:32,496 --> 00:40:34,631
We see a lot of destruction
in our path,

772
00:40:34,732 --> 00:40:37,400
and we have to wonder if that's
what we're going to do

773
00:40:37,501 --> 00:40:39,502
when we start to really
explore and colonize

774
00:40:39,603 --> 00:40:41,805
outside of Earth.

775
00:40:41,906 --> 00:40:44,207
Like viruses,
we also insist on spreading.

776
00:40:44,308 --> 00:40:45,708
We insist on spreading around

777
00:40:45,810 --> 00:40:47,877
our world,
around our solar system.

778
00:40:47,978 --> 00:40:49,913
There is a great chance

779
00:40:50,014 --> 00:40:52,715
that we will cause utter
destruction wherever we go.

780
00:40:54,018 --> 00:40:58,388
Our relationship with
the microcosmos is complicated.

781
00:40:58,489 --> 00:41:01,124
It's killed millions of people,

782
00:41:01,225 --> 00:41:03,493
but without it,
we wouldn't be here.

783
00:41:04,762 --> 00:41:07,197
This time we're
living in is really causing us

784
00:41:07,264 --> 00:41:09,332
to reflect on
the microcosmos, and the better

785
00:41:09,433 --> 00:41:11,201
we understand
these microorganisms,

786
00:41:11,302 --> 00:41:14,604
the better able we are to deal
with what's happening today.

787
00:41:14,705 --> 00:41:16,840
The coronavirus crisis
reminds us

788
00:41:16,941 --> 00:41:19,609
we need to respect the world
we cannot see

789
00:41:19,710 --> 00:41:22,712
and recognize
that the microcosmos is

790
00:41:22,813 --> 00:41:25,949
every bit as important to us
as the greater universe.

791
00:41:27,251 --> 00:41:29,552
It's so easy, especially
right now in history,

792
00:41:29,653 --> 00:41:31,813
to hear the word virus
and think about how harmful they

793
00:41:31,856 --> 00:41:33,156
are, how dangerous they are.

794
00:41:33,257 --> 00:41:35,692
But remember that you are
actually a creature built

795
00:41:35,793 --> 00:41:37,126
of viruses yourself.

796
00:41:37,228 --> 00:41:40,597
As far as we know, we've never
been without the microcosmos.

797
00:41:40,698 --> 00:41:42,332
Microbes were here before us.

798
00:41:42,433 --> 00:41:46,402
They'll probably be here after
us, and we need them to live.

799
00:41:47,905 --> 00:41:50,807
The microcosmos...
It's absolutely essential.

800
00:41:50,908 --> 00:41:52,909
We couldn't function.
We wouldn't survive.

801
00:41:53,010 --> 00:41:55,512
We wouldn't be here without it.

802
00:41:55,613 --> 00:41:58,181
But it's also our greatest ally,

803
00:41:58,282 --> 00:42:00,783
and it's also
our greatest enemy.

804
00:42:00,807 --> 00:42:02,807
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