The wonderful world of life in a drop of water | Simone Bianco and Tom Zimmerman

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2018

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Hold your breath," says inventor Tom Zimmerman. "This is the world without plankton." These tiny organisms produce two-thirds of our planet's oxygen -- without them, life as we know it wouldn't exist. In this talk and tech demo, Zimmerman and cell engineer Simone Bianco hook up a 3D microscope to a drop of water and take you scuba diving with plankton. Learn more about these mesmerizing creatures and get inspired to protect them against ongoing threats from climate change.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features inventor Tom Zimmerman and engineer Simone Bianco, recorded live at TED at IBM 2017.
0:10.0	We'd like to take you on a fantastic journey to visit the creatures we call the elders.
0:18.0	We call them the elders because a half a billion years ago, they tripled the amount of
0:23.5	oxygen in the air, which led to an explosion of life, which led to all of us. We call them the
0:31.3	elders, but you probably know them as plankton. Now, Simone is a physicist, and I'm an inventor. A couple years ago, I was giving a
0:42.3	talk about an invention I made. It was a 3D microscope, and Simone was in the audience.
0:47.3	He realized that my microscope could solve a big problem he was having, which was how to measure
0:53.3	the movement of plankton in 3D fast enough
0:57.0	so he could mathematically model their sensing and behavior.
1:01.0	And I, frankly, needed an application for my microscope,
1:05.0	so it was like peanut butter meets chocolate.
1:10.0	So we started working together studying these amazing creatures. It was like peanut butter meets chocolate.
1:14.5	So we started working together studying these amazing creatures,
1:17.7	and then we were alarmed to discover something.
1:20.0	And that's why we're here today.
1:22.8	And I just want to do something with you.
1:25.6	Now, please just hold your breath for a second.
1:28.3	Yes, literally hold your breath. This is the world without plankton.
1:31.3	You see, plankton generate two-thirds of our oxygen using the sun.
1:36.3	Okay, now you can breathe because they're still here.
1:39.3	For now.
1:41.3	As many of you know since 1950, the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by
	...

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