TED演讲:动画如何帮助科学家检验假说(3)（在线收听）

Over the years, I found that animations aren't just useful for communicating an idea,

多年以来，我发现动画不仅仅便于交流思想，

but they're also really useful for exploring a hypothesis.

它们同样在探索假说上发挥作用。

Biologists for the most part are still using a paper and pencil to visualize the processes they study,

许多生物学家仍使用笔和纸来将他们研究的过程可视化，

and with the data we have now, that's just not good enough anymore.

使用的也是我们目前已有的数据，但这远远不够。

The process of creating an animation can act as a catalyst that allows researchers to crystalize and refine their own ideas.

创作动画的过程可以像催化剂一样，让研究人员把想法清晰化，使之完善。

One researcher I worked with who works on the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases

我与一位研究员合作过，她的研究方向是神经变性疾病的分子机理，

came up with experiments that were related directly to the animation that she and I worked on together,

她提出一些与动画有直接相关的实验，于是我和她齐心协力，

and in this way, animation can feed back into the research process.

这样，动画就能反馈到研究过程中。

I believe that animation can change biology.

我相信动画能够改变生物学。

It can change the way that we communicate with one another, how we explore our data and how we teach our students.

它可以改变我们与他人的交流方式，我们如何分析数据以及我们如何教育学生。

But for that change to happen, we need more researchers creating animations, and toward that end,

但要想这些改变发生，我们需要更多的研究人员创作动画，为实现这一目标，

I brought together a team of biologists, animators and programmers to create a new, free, open-source software

我召集了一支由生物学家、动画师和程序员组成的团队，开发了一款全新的、免费的、开源的软件，

we call it Molecular Flipbook -- that's created just for biologists just to create molecular animations.

我们称它为“分子原始动画”，它为生物学家而生，专门用来创作分子动画。

From our testing, we've found that it only takes 15 minutes for a biologist who has never touched animation software

测试显示，仅需要15分钟，一个从未接触动画软件的生物学家，

before to create her first molecular animation of her own hypothesis.

就可以将她的假说猜想创作成她的第一个分子动画。

We're also building an online database where anyone can view, download and contribute their own animations.

我们同时也建立了一个在线数据库，任何人都可以查看、下载以及上传他们自己的动画。

We're really excited to announce that the beta version of the molecular animation software toolkit will be available for download today.

我们非常激动地宣布这款分子动画制作软件的测试版今天就可以下载了。

We are really excited to see what biologists will create with it

看到生物学家用它来创作东西

and what new insights they're able to gain from finally being able to animate their own model figures. Thank you.

以及他们从自己创作的动画中得到的启示，我们为此感到激动不已。谢谢。