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We also then went to look at what are these molecules -- these were the red triangles on my slides before.
我们同时也研究了这些小分子，这些就是我刚才幻灯上的小红三角形。
This is the Vibrio fischeri molecule. This is the word that it talks with.
这个是费氏弧菌的小分子。也就是它们用以交谈的文字。
So then we started to look at other bacteria, and these are just a smattering of the molecules that we've discovered.
我们开始研究其他细菌，这些是部分我们已发现的小分子。
What I hope you can see is that the molecules are related.
我希望你们看得出来，这些分子之间是有关联性的。
The left-hand part of the molecule is identical in every single species of bacteria.
每种细菌，它们的小分子的左半部都是完全相同的。
But the right-hand part of the molecule is a little bit different in every single species.
只是在右半部则因菌种的不同而有少许的不同。
What that does is to confer exquisite species specificities to these languages.
这个发现证实细菌的语言有高度的专一性。
Each molecule fits into its partner receptor and no other.
每一种分子只能与其相对受器结合，非常专一。
So these are private, secret conversations. These conversations are for intraspecies communication.
所以这些交谈是私下的、秘密的。这种交流是只限于同种族内部的沟通。
Each bacteria uses a particular molecule that's its language that allows it to count its own siblings.
每一种细菌使用其特殊分子代表它的语言，让它能够计算同类的数量。
Once we got that far we thought we were starting to understand that bacteria have these social behaviors.
一旦我们了解这些，我们也开始了解细菌有所谓的社交行为。
But what we were really thinking about is that most of the time bacteria don't live by themselves,
但我们真正思考的问题是，在多数情况下，细菌并不是单独生活的，
they live in incredible mixtures, with hundreds or thousands of other species of bacteria.
它们居住的地方是鱼龙混杂的，它们跟其它成百上千种的细菌同居一处。
And that's depicted on this slide. This is your skin. So this is just a picture -- a micrograph of your skin.
这张幻灯可以说明这个情形：这是你的皮肤。这是一张照片，是你皮肤的显微照片。
Anywhere on your body, it looks pretty much like this, and what I hope you can see is that there's all kinds of bacteria there.
在你身体的任何地方，看上去都会和这差不多。我希望你能看出，这里有各种不同的细菌。
And so we started to think if this really is about communication in bacteria,
因此我们开始思考，如果这真的是细菌间的交流，
and it's about counting your neighbors, it's not enough to be able to only talk within your species.
计算与之相邻的同种细菌的数量，只跟同种细菌沟通是不够的，
There has to be a way to take a census of the rest of the bacteria in the population.
它们一定有某种跟周围其他种细菌和平共处的方法。
