E. O. Wilson at TED2007

Here's the unedited version of my notes from EO Wilson's talk at TED2007:

E.O. Wilson

"Wondered what mind-boggling meant." After two days here, he's boggled.

Come on a special mission on behalf of his constituents, 10^18 insects and other small creatures.

Please keep in mind that if we were to wipe out insects alone which we are trying hard to do, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear within a few months.

As a little boy, fascinated by the diversity of life. Butterfly period, snake period, bird period, ..., ant period. By college became a devoted formicalogist.

Concern and an ambition in his wish. Choice is culmination of life-time commitment. As far back as he can remember, enchanted by natural beauty and almost tropical exuberance of plants and animals that grow in the gulf.

Pin-fish blinded him in one eye when he was 7. Hard of hearing. Lousy at bird watching, couldn't track frogs. "The little things" -- insects compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things who run the world.

Fronteir of biology so rich that it seems as if it were on another planet.

Last 30 years biologists have added 1/3 of the known frog and amphibian species to 5400. Two new kinds of whales along with 2 new antelops, dozens of monkeys and a new kind of antelope and gorilla.

Newly descrived marine bacteria - Prochlorocoxi - likely the most abundant organism on earth. Repsonsible for most of the photosynthesis on earth. So small that they cannot be seen with conventional optical microscopes.

Fungi - mushrooms, rust, molds, etc... 60,000 species known, but 1.5M speculated to exist.

Nematodes - 4 out 5 animals earth are nematodes. 16,000 species discovered, could be 100's of thousands or millions.

"Dark matter of biological world of bacteria" -- 6,000 species of bacteria known worldwide, but that number can be found in 1 gram of soil in the 10,000,000,000 bacteria in that simple. One ton contains approximately 4M species of bacteria. "What are they all doing?" - fact is we don't know.

We are living on a planet with a lot of activities done by faith and guess alone. Our lives depend on these creatures. There are over 500 species of bacteria known to live in your mouth and throat. Probably necessary for holding off pathogenic bacteria.

[Film - music by Billy Holiday]

Viruses, pro-phages, gene-weavers, are virtually unknown. A world unto themselves. What constitutes a viral species is still unresolved. The variety of genes on the planet in viruses is likely to exceed that in all of terestrial life combined.

Scientists are like explorers tossed into the pacific with a rowboat.

Genomics tools. Sequence a bacteria in under 4 hours. In the future we will be able to sequence bacteria genomes as we watch birds today.

As we move past mammals, birds, frogs, plants, etc... to countless millions of organisms in the invisible world, what we thought were bacteria were in fact two kingdowms, eubacteria, archea.

Might find aliens, stocks that arrived from outer space. We know that some bacterial species of earthly origin are capable of surviving in unimaginably difficult conditions.

May be a tempation to treat the biosphere holistically. And to treat all species together, But each species is a masterpiece of evolution that has persisted for millions of years and is exquisitely adapted to the ecosystem in which it lives.

We will destroy these ecosystems at the peril of our own existance and unfortunately we are destroying them with ingenuity and ceaseless energy.

1956 in Cuba, search for metallic green, metallic blue, and metallic gold ants.

The human juggernent is prevalently eroding nature's ancient biosphere.

HIPPO

Habitat Destruction - climate change by greenhouse gasses
Invasive Species - Fire ants, grasses, pathogenic bacteria viruses
Pollution
Population Expansion
Overharvesting - driving species into extinction by hunting and finishing

HIPPO will reduce half of earths species to extincition by the end of species. Climate change alone can eliminate 1/4 of these species over the next 50 years.

Will lose environmental stability, new pharmaceuticals and other products. Health, security and spirituality will suffer. Previous catastrophes took 5-10 million years to recover.

200,000 known species in USA, only partial in coverage. Most of these species are basically unknown. Only 15% have been studied will enough to know ???. 20% of these 15% are endangered.

Flying blind. Urgently need to change this.

Need to settle down before we wreck the planet.

Big science project - equivalent to the human genome project

Biological Moonshot

E. O. Wilson's wish:

I wish we will work together to help to create the key tool we need to inspire preservation of earth's biodiversity: The Encyclopaedia of Life.

Transform the science of biology in ways of obvious benefit to humanity. Inspire next generation of scientists to search for life, to understand it and to above all preserve it.