Now this may seem extraordinary, but it really isn't.
现在这看起来可能非同寻常，但事实并非如此。
Let's say that you wake up one morning and are trying to decide whether to go to an amusement park.
假设您有一天早上醒来，正在决定是否去游乐园。
One of the very first things you might do is to step outside and check the weather.
您可能做的第一件事就是走出去检查天气。
When you do, you see that the sky is blue, that the sun is out.
当你这样做时，你会看到天空是蓝色的，太阳出来了。
You hear that the birds are chirping.
你听到鸟儿在鸣叫。
You feel how warm it is on your skin.
你感觉到它在你的皮肤上有多温暖。
Based on all of this information, you decide it is a perfect day for going to the park.
根据所有这些信息，您认为这是去公园的完美一天。
You have used your senses to impact your decision.
你已经用你的感官来影响你的决定。
Now gathering this information does more than simply impact your behavior.
现在，收集这些信息不仅仅影响您的行为。
It also can affect your emotions as well as how your body physically responds.
它还会影响你的情绪以及你的身体反应。
To demonstrate, let's say you've arrived at that amusement park, and one of the very first things that you see is a roller coaster.
为了演示，假设您到达了那个游乐园，您首先看到的东西之一就是过山车。
You see the speed with which it moves. You see the twists and turns it takes. You see the terrified look on the riders' faces. You hear their screams.
你可以看到它运动的速度。你看到了其中的曲折。你可以看到骑手们脸上惊恐的表情。你听到他们的尖叫声。
Even right here, right now, this sensory event may be causing you to feel anxious or even excited,
即使就在此时此刻，这种感官事件也可能会让你感到焦虑甚至兴奋，
feelings that are associated with butterflies in your stomach, a racing heartbeat, even sweating palms.
与胃部紧张、心跳加速、甚至手掌出汗有关的感觉。
Your senses have caused your body to change.
你的感官导致你的身体发生了变化。
This is an example of how a very short sensory perceptive event can impact you.
这是一个非常短的感官感知事件如何影响您的例子。
What do you imagine a much longer sensory event might do to you?
你想象一个更长的感官事件会对你产生什么影响?
This is the question that I am interested in addressing.
这是我有兴趣解决的问题。
And what scientists like me have discovered is that prolonged sensory events can impact the lifespan of an animal.
像我这样的科学家发现的是，延长的感觉事件会影响动物的寿命。
This has been shown with worms, flies, mice.
蠕虫、苍蝇、老鼠都证明了这一点。
When you expose them to pheromones, it impacts how long they live.
当你将它们暴露于信息素时，会影响它们的寿命。
Now at this point, you might be asking yourself, what does a worm, a fly or a mouse have to do with me?
现在，你可能会问自己，蠕虫、苍蝇或老鼠与我有什么关系？
I would argue more than you realize.
我的争论比你意识到的还要多。
The genes or genetic material that you find within a worm or within a fly, that is approximately 60 to 75 percent similar to our own.
你在蠕虫或苍蝇体内发现的基因或遗传物质与我们自己的基因或遗传物质大约有60%至75%相似。
This increases to 85 percent if we compare ourselves to a mouse.
如果我们将自己比作老鼠，这一比例会增加到85%。
Furthermore, the fact that three very different animals all respond in terms of changing their lifespan when exposed to a specific environmental cue,
此外，事实上，三种截然不同的动物在暴露于特定的环境线索时都会做出改变寿命的反应，
this suggests that those underlying biological processes that drive those changes are similar.
这表明驱动这些变化的那些潜在生物过程是相似的。
Therefore, there is every reason to believe that environmental cues impact our own very human aging process.
因此，有充分的理由相信环境因素会影响我们自己的人类衰老过程。
In order to study environmental cues and how they impact lifespan, our lab has decided to focus on the nervous system.
为了研究环境线索及其如何影响寿命，我们的实验室决定将重点放在神经系统上。
Now why the nervous system?
现在为什么是神经系统？
Well, we can think of the nervous system as a communication hub.
嗯，我们可以将神经系统视为一个通讯枢纽。
It's responsible for gathering that sensory information, for processing it and then for causing those bodily changes that occur.
它负责收集感官信息，处理它，然后引起所发生的身体变化。
Furthermore, to do this research, we need to control the environment that an animal is in for its entire life.
此外，为了进行这项研究，我们需要控制动物一生所处的环境。
This is something that would be pretty difficult at best, and unethical at worst to do using humans.
使用人类做这件事充其量是相当困难的，最坏的情况下是不道德的。
I therefore use this little guy, Drosophila melanogaster,
因此我使用这个小家伙，黑腹果蝇，
also known as the fruit fly or the pest that came home on your bananas from the grocery store,
也被称为果蝇或从杂货店吃香蕉回家的害虫，
in order to understand the things that we share in common that impact lifespan.
为了了解我们影响寿命的共同点。
Now fruit flies are amazing for this type of research.
现在，果蝇在这类研究中表现出色。
They live a short amount of time.
他们的寿命很短。
They only live two or three months.
他们只能活两三个月。
They have a brain and a central nervous system.
它们有大脑和中枢神经系统。
And we can easily activate or inhibit specific neuron cells or even the activities of specific molecules in order to see how these changes impact how long the animal lives.
我们可以轻松地激活或抑制特定神经元细胞，甚至特定分子的活动，以了解这些变化如何影响动物的寿命。
Now I am the first to admit that my belief of how great it is to work with fruit flies is biased.
现在我是第一个承认我对与果蝇合作有多么棒的信念是有偏见的人。
But that's because I'm a fly girl.
但那是因为我是喜欢苍蝇。
So our lab has studied how very many different environmental cues have impacted the lifespan of this animal.
因此，我们的实验室研究了许多不同的环境线索如何影响这种动物的寿命。
I'm going to highlight one in particular, and that is death perception.
我要特别强调一个，那就是死亡感知。
Yes, I said death.
是的，我说的是死亡。
So why are we interested in whether a fly can recognize other dead flies?
那么为什么我们对苍蝇是否能识别其他死苍蝇感兴趣呢？
We're interested in this so that we can develop therapies for people who find themselves developing negative health consequences as a result of stressful situations surrounding death.
我们对此感兴趣，以便我们可以为那些因死亡的压力情况而产生负面健康后果的人开发治疗方法。
If you think about this, this could impact soldiers and first responders.
如果你想一想，这可能会影响士兵和急救人员。
You're thinking, "What? A fly can actually recognize another dead fly?" The answer is yes.
你在想，“什么?一只苍蝇真的能认出另一只死苍蝇?”答案是肯定的。
If I take a vial of flies and I put dead in there, they send out a signal to other flies to stay away.
如果我拿一瓶苍蝇，并将死苍蝇放入其中，它们会向其他苍蝇发出信号，要求他们远离。
We can measure this.
我们可以测这一点。
You know those flies in the vial with the dead?
你知道瓶子里的那些苍蝇和死的在一起吗？
They lose weight and they die sooner.
他们体重减轻，而且死得更快。
Now that we know that there's all these effects, we wanted to make sure this was real.
现在我们知道存在所有这些影响，我们想确保这是真实的。
So, you know, the first thing that you might imagine is that, well, those flies with the dead, they're getting an infection.
所以，你知道，你可能会想象的第一件事是，嗯，那些带着死者的苍蝇，它们正在受到感染。
They're getting sick, and that's what's causing them to die.
他们生病了，这就是导致他们死亡的原因。
But we know this isn't the case, because if I do the experiment under sterile or infection-free conditions, the live flies,
但我们知道事实并非如此，因为如果我在无菌或无感染的条件下进行实验，活苍蝇，
they still die when they're with the dead.
当他们和死者在一起时，他们仍然会死。
But if you take that vial of flies and you put them in complete darkness for 24 hours, all the time, they never see the light,
但如果你把那瓶苍蝇放在完全黑暗的环境中24小时，它们永远看不到光明，
those flies live just as long as flies that never had dead in their vial to begin with.
这些苍蝇的寿命与原本在小瓶中从未死亡的苍蝇一样长。
This indicates that it is the sight of the dead that is causing all those biological changes, which impacts their lifespan.
这表明，正是死者的景象引起了所有这些生物学变化，从而影响了他们的寿命。
So now that we know that flies can sense other dead,
所以现在我们知道苍蝇可以感知其他死者，
we turned our attention toward trying to understand a little bit more about those biological processes that are happening.
我们将注意力转向尝试更多地了解正在发生的生物过程。
What are the changes?
有哪些变化？
And what we discovered was that molecules found in our own bodies, including serotonin and insulin, had a role.
我们发现，在我们自己体内发现的分子，包括血清素和胰岛素，也发挥了作用。
Furthermore, we discovered parts of the fly brain that played a role in how long they live when exposed to dead that have similarities with regions of our own brains.
This is what we know about just one type of environmental cue.
这就是我们对一种环境线索的了解。
There are many different environmental cues that impact the lifespan of animals.
有许多不同的环境线索会影响动物的寿命。
These include the temperature that the animal is kept in.
这些包括动物所处的温度。
These include the smell of food, the wavelength of light they are exposed to, even the perception of pain.
这些包括食物的气味、他们所暴露的光的长度，甚至是对疼痛的感知。
In order for us to develop therapies that promote healthy aging, we must understand the basic biology of all of these cues, because after all,
为了让我们开发出促进健康衰老的疗法，我们必须了解所有这些线索的基本生物学，因为毕竟，
we don't live in a world where we receive one cue at a time.
我们生活的世界不是一次只收到一个提示。
So what does this all mean?
那么这一切意味着什么呢？
I would love nothing more than to be able to tell you that you should expose yourself to this environmental cue,
我最想告诉你，你应该让自己接触到这种环境暗示，
you should avoid that one in order to live your longest, healthiest life.
为了过上最长、最健康的一生，你应该避免这种情况。
But I simply can't do that yet.
但我根本还不能做到这一点。
We're just not there.
我们只是不在那里。
But we're pushing hard towards this type of understanding, and we're going to do it with these little guys.
但我们正在努力推动这种理解，我们将与这些小家伙一起做到这一点。
After all, six Nobel Prizes have been won based on work with Drosophila that impacts the biology and helps us all, including worms, flies, mice, and yes, humans.
