TED演讲:动画如何帮助科学家检验假说(2)（在线收听）

These processes are too small to be seen directly, even with the best microscopes,

这些过程太小了以至于无法看到，即使是用最好的显微镜，

so animations like this provide a really powerful way of visualizing a hypothesis.

因此，像这样的动画就提供了一个强大的工具把一个假说可视化。

Here's another illustration, and this is a drawing of how a researcher might think that the HIV virus gets into and out of cells.

这是另一个例子，这幅图展示了研究人员是如何猜想艾滋病毒进入与离开细胞的。

And again, this is a vast oversimplification and doesn't begin to show what we actually know about these processes.

同样，这是一个极大的简化，而且还没开始显示，我们对这些过程实际的了解。

You might be surprised to know that these simple drawings are the only way that most biologists visualize their molecular hypotheses.

你可能会惊奇的发现，这些简单的图画就是绝大多数生物学家可视化他们分子假说的唯一途径。

Why? Because creating movies of processes as we think they actually occur is really hard.

为什么？因为将我们认为实际上发生的过程用电影的形式创作出来是非常困难的。

I spent months in Hollywood learning 3D animation software, and I spend months on each animation,

我在好莱坞花了数个月学习三维动画软件，每一个动画我都花了数月来制作。

and that's just time that most researchers can't afford.

这些时间对大多数研究员来说太长了。

The payoffs can be huge, though.

但是，回报也是巨大的。

Molecular animations are unparalleled in their ability to convey a great deal of information to broad audiences with extreme accuracy.

分子动画是前所未有的，它们能向广大的观众传达大量精准的信息。

And I'm working on a new project now called "The Science of HIV"

我现在正从事一个新的项目，它的名字叫“艾滋病病毒的科学”，

where I'll be animating the entire life cycle of the HIV virus as accurately as possible and all in molecular detail.

在这个项目中，我会尽可能准确地将HIV病毒的整个生命周期用动画描绘出来，所有的这些都会细致到分子级别。

The animation will feature data from thousands of researchers collected over decades,

动画会取材于数千名科学家在近几十年来收集的数据，

data on what this virus looks like, how it's able to infect cells in our body,

这些数据告诉我们这种病毒的形态，它如何感染我们身体中的细胞，

and how therapeutics are helping to combat infection.

以及如何对感染进行治疗。