The tiny creature that secretly powers the planet | Penny Chisholm

Oceanographer Penny Chisholm tells the story of a tiny ocean creature you've probably never heard of: Prochlorococcus, the most abundant photosynthetic species on the planet. A marine microbe that has existed for millions of years, Prochlorococcus wasn't discovered until the mid-1980s -- but its ancient genetic code may hold clues to how we can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
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[@christophfischer2773]

This is what I subscribed to TED for!

[@myemailaccount3046]

ditto

[@britishentertainment7610]

Same. This is what i wa t

[@julieenslow5915]

Christoph Fischer I agree!

[@rebeccaspookyduran7864]

Me too. This what I do like about TED. It has wide range of topics to suit everyone's interest. Some of these talks I don't agree with but I watch them anyways because I want everyone's opinion or view of things. But I really do enjoy these science talks.

[@christophfischer2773]

Rebecca 'Spooky' Duran The problem with TED these days is, that they *don't* represent all opinions. Only a very specific set of opinions. That's not what a company called "Technology, Entertainment, Design" should stand for. The only thing this company should stand for is cold, objective, unbiased facts.

[@lauriebolles3149]

When I was a younger me I loved driving on the road that took you around a local Reservoir. Each season introduced you to new and wonderous discoveries. One late Winter early Spring while sitting on the shore I heard what sounded like Wind Chimes a gentle tinkling sound. Then I discovered the sound was coming from the shore line. When the Ice Sheet begins to thaw, the ice breaks up into long cycles and the current carries them away. In doing so they knock against each other causing the tinkling sound, it was quite magical. But then one mid-spring I noticed a swarm of Mayflies. After living as a community of larvi in the water they then shed their larval skin and emerge as flies. They mate, the females lay their eggs and then they die. So as long as the water exists so do they. But I thought then that the swarm was more like one organism. This survival strategy obviously has been going on for billions of years as with the Prochlorococus, though with insects hundreds of million. So will we discover simple lifeforms living at the polar Caps of Mars or deep underground. It's amazing how adaptive living entities are. Penny an amazing lecture thank you. Have a nice day and follow your bliss.

[@joannot6706]

So few comments, If only science videos sparked as much discussion as political ones.

[@joannot6706]

Mike C *political science noun* The branch of knowledge that deals with the state and systems of government

[@ElectricChaplain]

Mike C The natural world is deadly and full of suffering. The most numerous animals are literally parasites, and wild animals are beset with disease, predation, parasitism, and intraspecies conflict. The nice smell from grass is a pain response from being cut by people and eaten by bugs. The coral reefs are layers of dead organisms. Infant and maternal mortality rates are high in places without modern medicine. Nature is a infinite parade of suffering, but looking from the outside with stage crews filming TV specials, or on a camping trip where you prepare everything you need beforehand and go on predetermined trails that have been purged of dangerous animals by indigenous peoples over thousands of years, it looks beautiful and amazing. Nature isn't even good at regulating itself, because sometimes species get too successful and cause massive ecological cataclysms, for example the Oxygen Catastrophe or the Late Devonian Extinction. The current extinction being driven by humanity is another manifestation of the chaos that is nature. So don't get high and mighty about how "out of touch" humans are with nature. All you're seeing is nature with the ability to reflect on itself.

[@ElectricChaplain]

Will Pack And yet, we are the best chance the earth may ever have to spread life to other worlds and continue its existence beyond the lifetime of the earth 😐

[@D0li0]

ElectricChaplain Yes and a star for the earlier post, and an Amen about our need to become interplanetary. But in doing the latter we may realize the difficulty and be better equiped and determined to make smarter decisions here on Earth...

[@paravatchantarakajon719]

ElectricChaplain Then, isn't his high and mightiness, his out of -of-touchness, assumption, and prescription of his limited views the very manifestation of nature's chaotic nature, and thus by not being aware and just flowing with his desires is more in tune than to realize the chaos, stand still, and stare at it in fear? Pain and suffering is there so we keep running from them, while I dash from them the rush prevents me from feeling them, but I stop and focus on them, and accept them...

[@l0g1cseer47]

This microorganism, Prochlorococcus is a natural asset in terroforming other planets. Nice one!

[@aidanwalker5019]

0megalvyz1 All we need to do is wait a few billion years.

[@l0g1cseer47]

Aidan Walker Well maybe, though it took a billion years for them to naturally evolve and build this wonderful earth as we know it. We could study and enhance genetically further to reap better benefits. That's why she is bringing this talk forward in all honesty. Cool one!

[@paravatchantarakajon719]

TO MARS Brah! Why not the moon first, oh geopolitical tension due to proximity.

[@l0g1cseer47]

Paravat Chantarakajon You could say that. You probably know that but it more because of the Moon's fundamental effect to create our sure system. Sure Mars does look a promising experiment. Nice one!

[@l0g1cseer47]

Mike C Yeah indeed. I think there is frozen ice caps on Mars and if we will need more I think there is an asteroid belt next to it. Space mining seems to be the next big thing to help with this process. Nice one!

[@seattlegrrlie]

It is wonderful hear the voice of all the papers I've read. She's a good speaker

[@ulalaFrugilega]

What a fascinating speech! What a perfect scientist! Not to mention those bosonian-ish prochlorococci! I'll be daydreaming about them, too. Thank you, Penny.

[@genevievecourtemanche2230]

This is probably one of my favourite Ted talks! So inspiring for those going into marine microbiology

[@minnievenkat]

She is everything. An accomplished, self assured woman, don’t no important work and a sense of humour. Love her!

[@minnievenkat]

I would like to thank prochlorococcus for bringing her out. God, this is an ancient green berry that could!

[@JohnnyElihue]

Awesome! Love to hear about this! Great talk. Very educational.

[@sumitarora5861]

This was very interesting. This is why we need TED

[@nestormatos8477]

Great lecture, the ocean is responsible for all living things, thank you for the insight.

[@AlexBeldi]

Many thanks for sharing the story of these microorganisms 🌎🌿

[@MikeJamesMedia]

Amazing story, Penny. Thank you!

[@johnbouttell5827]

As hot air goes, this is good hot air

[@adamlee2550]

Love the metaphors she uses, makes this much easier to grasp.

[@gudrungoda]

what a great teacher she is

[@shivamsharma1392]

Wow! That was amazing, Penny.

This was way more interesting then I thought it would be.

[@papabeanguy]

midichlorians?

[@minnievenkat]

Mini- chloroians too

[@KaoXoni]

Sort of. But that applies better to the mitochondria within our cells who (which?!) have their own genome (RNA) and are basically working like protobacteria.

[@Ambar42]

You having Worf as your profile picture makes this commentary even more perfect. :'D

[@dannyvalastro2638]

that dont explain anything at all who created this there had too be a beginning

[@TheSkullConfernece]

Sonja Waringer: Well the prevailing hypothesis is that they were prokaryotes that were absorbed by a eukaryote that, instead of digesting it, started a symbiotic relationship. The event was so rare, that scientists have evidence that it only happened once in all of life's 3.9 billion year history. This means that even if life was common throughout the universe, that multi-cellular life is probably extremely rare in comparison to life in general.

[@ksbalaji1287]

What an inspiration! People like you, Dr. Chisholm, that give us hope.

[@lindaadams9760]

Wonderful presentation :)

[@FIONA21ful]

I love learning about our Oceans , Phytoplankton are miraculous .

[@mpking-ey7ys]

Best Ted talk in a long time.

[@davidvolk54]

Tardigrades are the most fascinating critter of all!

[@chadphriday197]

Praise be the prochlorococcus!

[@whitenight941]

There will be no Oceans, without the Federation of scientists ,

[@aarekivi]

She's great :)

[@ryansoulliere3559]

Yes, this will be on your exam!

[@aptcmpasion]

some researchers are looking at the pollution-acidification of the oceans, as being currently close to the extinction-point for the bottom of the oceanic food chain

[@valkia-innos4972]

That looks a nice discovery and although i know pretty much nothing about alternative energies, my fantasy (after a bottle of vodka) says: - Oh we may use those to generate fuel! But there's always a but... and making fuel from microorganisms is already in use. In some kind of forms it has been used since ages, even before people knew about microorganisms too, although that's another story. So, meanwhile generating forms of fuel from microorganisms that live on sweet waters doesn't require an extremely high investment, that isn't equal said for structures in oceans... which means we will remain only hopping those creatures will just keep working for generating oxygen as much as those can and will be worthless for almost any other form of use. Maybe other writers similar to Jules Verne may push human's imagination to new adventures and new form of investments to make the use of Prochlorococcus in a good way possible. Let's hope.

[@Hippienolic2]

What you talking about? Everyone has heard of pro-mo-wut-yo-ma-call-it

[@Thubelihle0815]

lmao

[@giuliazixi]

the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

[@guillaumelafleche9477]

Yeah I wonder if they're related.

[@aditya9711]

Cynobacterium ansestors?

[@actsrv9]

Question: How do you use this in space travel, like say a generation ship or a Mars colony?

[@bobbyald]

Thanks Penny. Are these the Earth's thermostat and the solution to global warming?

[@danielright1515]

What a story Mark

[@Reazidikrol]

Where is the arabic caption ☹?

[@michaellawson6533]

Coal is carbonated forests and thus not from micro organisms.

[@animalcookiemonsterTV]

If theres an advertisement for something then you dont need it

[@vorlonagent]

The name is not "Little Green". It's "Dende"...

[@rickdaniels69]

What would happen if you drink a tube of these babies @ 9:19 ?

[@ideoformsun5806]

I wonder if they exist inside plants somehow. Like chloroplasts.

[@hilofiguy]

Their name is dende

[@TMB247]

Dang it! Photosynthesis? You mean life can't exist without it? Someone page algore on the White Phone and tell him we NEED Carbon Dioxide Stat!

[@NickBotha]

Can we keep them as pets?

[@CalliKira]

I think all we really need to do is make it so fossil fuels are not profitable. They'll work on renewable energy real quick.

[@guillaumelafleche9477]

Renewables are gain ground rapidly, but these systems are huge and take decades to change. I agree if you say you'll look around you for ways to burn less fossil fuels.

[@IXIIxIIXIIxIIXl]

she looks like jim carey

[@HaqNawaz-bl5sf]

Cool

[@iacopogalindo4020]

Can we eat pure Prochlorococcus?

[@naomi_moon]

they really crank........................

[@stephss]

Harvest plants, not animals. Great video, sans the omni agenda.

[@michaellawson6533]

Sorry , but you are wrong about oil being a fossil fuel , it is instead a by-product of geological activity deep within the earth. It doesnt run out . Even the wells which have run out , start running again after a number of years.

[@Fork_me]

Mitochondria?!

[@jeffreykuster8735]

If these process 50 billion tons, and the land plants process 50 billion tons, and the total emissions was 40 billion tons(2014) then the global carbon taxation is a for profit scam.

[@2_protects_the_1]

14:47 tell that to the Oil Company, and watch as they "make u an offer You cant Refuse" have you not being paying any attention of late, unless they make money too, you end up in a ditch with an un-marked grave. many things have been invented with out the need for fossil fuels. and most of the Creators were offered a check, or a 1 way ticket to god. and right then after u saw a public announcement u never heard from them again. you may be an old granny, but if u figure it out, they don't care. could be tagged as a heart attack.

[@julieenslow5915]

Well, if humans kill off all the fish and animals, I suspect the Proclorococcus might eventually take over.

[@johnguanciale258]

Go back to bed

[@mkteku]

The _other_ "Top 1%" =D

[@xtensionxward3659]

damn it does the name have to be so difficult to memorize XD

[@markanixon77]

I love this woman. 😂😂😂😂 great educator. 👍🙊🙈🙉

[@figuhrfabien3060]

Amino acids etc are designed. Design is a product of intelligence. How do we explain the primitive forms giving rise to more complex organisms except by intelligent design. It's like the I-phone X evolving from previous versions - ON IT'S OWN.

[@DomMage64]

I think her DNA was altered

[@Weigazod]

Now we only need to wonder if pollution will kill them or not because if it does. Life is doom anyway.

[@celinak5062]

One-Soul-a-Time nope ca. 15:05

[@ishasingh1039]

i m the 969 th viewer of this video that is under top 1000

[@hamadagalal9795]

يب

[@davidwilkie9551]

Double like

[@MrGunboy2]

i only eat mushrooms so you are lying to me

[@ellesunshine5597]

👍💓💓💓

[@rueagonvyceratops2879]

dont know why you say evolve. we are still dying way to young of ages , we still need heart to keep us living , so we have not evolved at all. we still have ugly human legs . and no feral legs yet

[@dozog]

TED-x really erodes the value of TED. I am so glad for TED, so dissatisfied with TED-x.

[@tshawtshi3040]

She didn't go into more details about whether we can imitate them. That would be awesome

[@wisdon]

The first part was interesting, the last was merely propaganda

[@BurstoMusic]

cool

[@DietterichLabs]

view #2924

[@PhilJLF]

:/

[@JamesSpeiser]

this did not all happen by accident!

[@allisonwilson3856]

depict such forty bible hard dramatic venture host limitation content jewish moment.

[@Valient6]

First off. Just because you don't have fossil records does not mean that evolution happened. There is no record of evolution. Secondly because of the lack of fossils. Doesn't mean that the world was devoid of life or oxygen. These are theories. Send you should speak more clearly about them. Seeing as you are a scientist you should have the knowledge to explain the fact that your facts are not facts at all. But just theories of thoughts on what may be. Pretentious scientists.

[@jodis3783]

At about the 14:00 mark: "...what a masterpiece they are, finely tuned by millions of years of evolution. With two thousand genes, they can do what all of our human ingenuity has not figured out how to do.... if we understand how they do this, it could inspire designs that could reduce our dependency on fossil fuels." A finely tuned masterpiece? How does an unintelligent force (evolution) "fine tune" anything?!! Don't you see how evolution is given an intelligence it doesn't possess? We KNOW that something intelligent is behind the complexity of nature, but it's wrongly assumed that evolution is that force. These tiny cells can do what we can't? How? Where did this complex mechanism come from? How could it "evolve"? The creation of such a mechanism requires intelligence, just as harnessing this mechanism takes human intelligence. These cells can "inspire designs", but we fail to see the design of these cells, and that there must have been a designer. Evolutionists can't even discuss evolution without invoking intelligence, design and complexity. You can't get these things from a random, unguided process. They are giving credit to an inanimate, nonexistent entity. Evolution could not produce what we see in nature. It's mathematically impossible and would require fathomless coincidences.

[@xFelix1307x]

Well, given no proofs, you seem quite confident that you are right. I can even show you proof that evolution is the part that is making it smart and is creating such complex systems. It is just a random, but mathematic and algorithmic process, simply resulting from death and organic decomposition. We have evolutionary inspired algorithms, which simulates such behaviour: create a random population, rate individuals by some criteria (which represents the ability to survive in real world), let strong individuals breed new ones and let individuals mutate. That is all it takes to get amazingly intelligent systems and complex structures. The earth had a really long time to process these microcultures, so it is indeed very likely to be just a result of the process of evolution. Surely, one can not know who created our universe with such concepts of evolution, so we will probably never know if there is a god.

[@jodis3783]

CreativeName "Evolution follows mathematical algorithms." Ok, mathematics and algorithms require intelligence, so who created these mathematical algorithms that evolution abides by? Even you can't speak of evolution without invoking intelligence. I challenge you to explain evolution without giving it intelligence. Death and decomposition do not account for added information. It doesn't explain one specie developing into an entirely different specie. It doesn't tell us how life began, or what the first cause was. It doesn't give us insight into how the first cell was formed. I could go so much deeper with this. There are so many intricacies that evolution could not possibly be responsible for. Your population example explains nothing. It still doesn't account for added information. All it does is explain how populations flow genetically, there's no evolution even involved in your example. You can't get a group of fish to mate it's way into being birds. There's a limit as to how much genetic information can be changed or added. We know this, but still many cling to macroevolution as a certainty. Furthermore, if breeding is all it takes to create intelligent systems and complex structures, why is it that we see order and complexity in inanimate nature, as well? Scientific principles that can be explained with algorithms and a natural order that follows scientific laws? Did inanimate nature organize itself into intelligent and complex systems too? What force created these? "The earth had a really long time to process these microcultures...". Yes, throw in enough time and the impossible becomes possible. Good one. 🙄 God is in the details, in all of nature. We have just been blindfolded by our own ignorance.

[@xFelix1307x]

Jodi S Fishs never developed into birds, as far as I know, so why should it say evolution can not be the cause that both are here today? They can both come from different starting points. But of course you are right, we dont know how the start even happened. So why do you say it was god if you dont know how it happened?

[@jodis3783]

CreativeName I never said that I know how it happened. My point, in case you missed it, was that it could not have been evolution.

[@guillaumelafleche9477]

Jodi S Please try not to be offended when I inform you that are arrogant and ignorant. I would not even know where one would begin to educate you concerning the principles of nature. CreativeName gave you a fun suggestion through computer simulations, which are nothing more than constraints to evaluate traits that are randomly passed on to the next generation. In real life, I can't even begin to imagine how many generations there have been in 4 billion years, when you include things like bacteria that tend to have short reproductive lives. The time you wasted in writing nonsense critique could have allowed you to figure out quite a bit if you looked at the right place.

[@216trixie]

Feminist claptrap.

[@jaydoublegee2831]

I prefer when science is explained by men.

[@krista604]

Jay Double Gee Please get over yourself, thanks.

[@ellesunshine5597]

Jay Double Gee yes please !!

[@powervaporsupply3817]

Pro floral caucus envy?

[@echo9351]

But why?

[@peggyharris3815]

Jay Double Gee ...lol lol lol

[@Tanya-lk9eq]

Love this lecture. Great to see more and more women in the forefront of science. Brilliant skills in research and excellent skills in communicating science to the lay-person. Love the apps analogy to aid in understanding genes. Nice!

[@joannot6706]

I knew she was going to talk about phytoplancton as soon as I saw the title!

[@TheCJUN]

Fact, the smallest of things are sometimes the most important of things.

[@rvp1686]

Thank you Penny... Very informative and well put.

[@camilofuentespena7348]

She is the 2019 Crafoord Prize recipient (the Nobel equivalent for astronomy, geosciences, biosciences with emphasis on ecology, and polyarthritis).

[@e4r281]

I wish I was a Prochlorococcus !

[@Bodragon]

Maybe these thing have a scent. Maybe salmon use these somehow in order to navigate back to their spawning grounds. Anyone?

[@Gary-uy2mr]

Amazing TED Talk, Penny really is a great public speaker and should do more talks

[@Schradermusic]

What do you want her to talk about? She only studied this one micro organism for the last 35 years.

[@Gary-uy2mr]

Anything she'd be happy to talk about, maybe there's more to add to the conversation, or will be in a few years

[@janelleluckey4942]

@@Gary-uy2mr big jake

[@UBICARITASESTVERA]

Long live microorganisms!

[@MrBorceivanovski]

I enjoyed this video #

[@heidetermeg427]

This woman is so awesome!

[@jhunt5578]

At our current rate of fishing, all fish stocks will be gone by the year 2048. So worrying about what the non-existent fish will eat in the future is putting the cart before the horse.

[@jhunt5578]

Mike C There needs to be a major shift in the way we use plastics and the way we consume food. Animal Agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones, water pollution, species extinction and causes half of all ocean acidification. And "Bycatch" kills 300,000 Dolphins, Whales and Porpoises & 50 million Sharks annually. 2.7 Trillion sea animals are killed via fishing each year, that's 11 x the number of stars in our galaxy. Seafood is off my menu.

[@Hnw761]

jhunt5578 capitalism will come up with the solution - if there is a market , entrepreneurs will supply the demand. There were always hysterical people claiming Malthus was right. Hunger is a result of poor distribution, not production.

[@Hnw761]

Mike C unfortunately we disagree in a forum not conducive to such a disagreement. I understand your points but disagree both about the nature of the problem and the nature of capitalism. My only point was that more capitalist countries are better fed- yes often with crap food- but hunger is most often , even in the case of natural disaster, a product of gov’t intervention. Capitalism’s ability to feed populations should be dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standards of utopian non-capitalist scenarios- and has the negative of often causing mass starvation whether in Ukraine, Ethiopia, China or Venezuela.

[@craigwarner6156]

jhunt5578 exactly what I was thinking

[@D0li0]

Maybe I can tie this together back to the original topic. If capitalism had a way to account for the work this life form does for us, and all natural processes from this and other foundations, then capitalism would make different decisions? No idea how to make economies do this? Maybe blockchains for these and other fundamental natural resources? ...and there I go on yet another tangent. ;p

[@ferkinskin]

Brilliant. Thanks

[@OnMySky]

Thank you I finally fell asleep !!

[@joalexsg9741]

Amazing lecture, the importance of these tiny creatures is astounding and its capacity to adapt even in their genetic level is also fantastic. This is food for philosophical and spiritual reflections as well. Thank you so much for such precious and enriching upload!

[@GreenWeaselTea]

Great talk -- thanks!

[@Hishamomar1960]

Amazing facts and excellent presentation

[@ganeshs2470]

les buzz it all out loud....lets raise a toast for our beloved PROCHOLOROCOCCUS....nd thank god for this amazing diversity, of whose co-operation and co-ordination among themselves unknowingly...makes what we call as EARTH.....lets all thank all those tiny little engines (also including the macro ones)...that help maintaining, managing, rejuvenating, refreshing, recycling, recreating and nourishing our MOTHER EARTH....peace....

[@acctsys]

This may be why some natural fertilizers require sea water.

[@tl8601]

These are the Ted talks we want. No more bullshit race bait or gender crap.

[@Tadjuel11-11]

This info is not correct. there's no such thing as fossil fuel oil. Do your research