1 00:00:05,266 --> 00:00:08,312 TYSON: We search the heavens for signs of intelligent life. 2 00:00:08,617 --> 00:00:10,923 But what would we do if we found it? 3 00:00:11,359 --> 00:00:13,796 Are we ready for first contact? 4 00:00:13,970 --> 00:00:17,365 Would we be smart enough to even know if someone was sending us a message? 5 00:00:19,367 --> 00:00:22,283 We've only been able to detect radio signals for a little over a century. 6 00:00:23,327 --> 00:00:25,764 Extraterrestrial civilizations could have been bombarding 7 00:00:25,938 --> 00:00:29,507 Earth with radio signals for millions and billions of years before then, 8 00:00:30,987 --> 00:00:33,903 and nobody here would have had any inkling that it had ever happened. 9 00:00:35,296 --> 00:00:37,385 And what if we seem just like ants to them. 10 00:00:39,082 --> 00:00:41,519 We all know how we treat ants. 11 00:00:42,999 --> 00:00:45,262 What if the extraterrestrials are smarter than we are, 12 00:00:45,436 --> 00:00:49,136 have technology, weapons that render us helpless? 13 00:00:49,310 --> 00:00:52,530 The history of first contact among terrestrial civilizations, 14 00:00:52,704 --> 00:00:54,489 the humans of east and west, 15 00:00:54,663 --> 00:00:58,536 north and south, has been scarred by genocide. 16 00:00:59,624 --> 00:01:01,496 In all of the cosmos, 17 00:01:01,670 --> 00:01:04,934 is there such a thing as a first contact story with a happy ending? 18 00:01:06,501 --> 00:01:08,633 I know of one first contact story, 19 00:01:08,807 --> 00:01:11,288 but it's too soon to know how it will turn out... 20 00:01:19,253 --> 00:01:22,212 ♪ ♪ 21 00:01:30,133 --> 00:01:34,268 [theme music playing] 22 00:01:53,678 --> 00:01:59,075 ♪ ♪ 23 00:02:19,269 --> 00:02:25,449 ♪ ♪ 24 00:02:42,249 --> 00:02:44,164 This scientific and architectural wonder of the 25 00:02:44,338 --> 00:02:46,862 world is in Southern China, 26 00:02:53,521 --> 00:02:56,611 it's the largest radio telescope on Earth, 27 00:02:56,785 --> 00:03:00,136 in fact it's the largest telescope of any kind. 28 00:03:00,963 --> 00:03:04,271 The Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, 29 00:03:04,445 --> 00:03:06,447 or FAST, as it's known. 30 00:03:06,621 --> 00:03:10,581 This dish is a giant listening device for detecting radio waves 31 00:03:10,755 --> 00:03:13,802 that propagate throughout the cosmos. 32 00:03:13,976 --> 00:03:16,631 The mission of this telescope is to solve unanswered questions 33 00:03:16,805 --> 00:03:18,241 about the origin of the universe, 34 00:03:18,415 --> 00:03:20,678 and its early history. 35 00:03:22,811 --> 00:03:24,900 It will also search for pulsars, 36 00:03:25,074 --> 00:03:27,555 those rapidly rotating neutron stars, 37 00:03:27,729 --> 00:03:30,558 and for telltale signs of gravitational waves, 38 00:03:30,732 --> 00:03:32,864 ripples in the fabric of space-time... 39 00:03:34,126 --> 00:03:37,478 And it will search for signs of alien civilizations. 40 00:03:37,652 --> 00:03:40,263 Especially those very far away... 41 00:03:41,308 --> 00:03:43,571 I want to take you to a place where we've begun to 42 00:03:43,745 --> 00:03:46,617 eavesdrop on an intricate global communications network. 43 00:03:47,575 --> 00:03:49,925 We didn't even know it existed until recently. 44 00:03:50,099 --> 00:03:53,320 Complex beyond our wildest imagining, 45 00:03:53,494 --> 00:03:54,973 it was built by a community whose population 46 00:03:55,147 --> 00:03:57,802 is inconceivably vast. 47 00:04:05,332 --> 00:04:09,249 Our distant ancestors, tiny shrew-like animals, 48 00:04:09,423 --> 00:04:12,904 came of age in places not too different from this one. 49 00:04:13,688 --> 00:04:15,298 Forests. 50 00:04:15,472 --> 00:04:18,475 Maybe they knew what we've only recently discovered. 51 00:04:19,084 --> 00:04:21,870 The secret life of this place is filled with drama, 52 00:04:22,044 --> 00:04:24,394 abuzz with conversation. 53 00:04:24,568 --> 00:04:27,658 Much of it is spoken in an electrochemical language, 54 00:04:27,832 --> 00:04:29,834 and it takes place on a scale too small, 55 00:04:30,008 --> 00:04:31,836 and in motion too slow, 56 00:04:32,010 --> 00:04:34,796 for creatures like us to even notice. 57 00:04:35,231 --> 00:04:36,885 But there's something even more amazing that was going 58 00:04:37,059 --> 00:04:40,192 on right beneath our feet, for the longest time, 59 00:04:40,367 --> 00:04:42,369 and on a global scale, 60 00:04:42,543 --> 00:04:45,067 and we had no inkling that it was there. 61 00:04:46,198 --> 00:04:49,376 An ancient, subterranean worldwide web, 62 00:04:49,550 --> 00:04:52,422 a vast neural network is what binds the forest together, 63 00:04:53,728 --> 00:04:55,164 making it an intercommunicating, 64 00:04:55,338 --> 00:04:57,993 and interacting dynamic organism. 65 00:04:58,167 --> 00:05:02,127 One with agency, and the power to influence events above ground. 66 00:05:04,086 --> 00:05:06,915 It's called the mycelium. 67 00:05:22,757 --> 00:05:25,977 It's a hidden matrix, the creation of an enduring 68 00:05:26,151 --> 00:05:29,764 collaboration among fungi, plants, bacteria, and animals. 69 00:05:31,331 --> 00:05:34,464 90% of all the trees and plants on Earth are involved 70 00:05:34,638 --> 00:05:37,249 in the mutually beneficial relationship made 71 00:05:37,424 --> 00:05:39,948 possible by the mycelium. 72 00:05:40,122 --> 00:05:42,211 They exchange nourishment, messages, 73 00:05:42,385 --> 00:05:44,909 and empathy with one another, across species, 74 00:05:45,083 --> 00:05:47,259 and even across the kingdoms of life. 75 00:05:48,696 --> 00:05:51,481 Mushrooms are the reproductive organs, 76 00:05:51,655 --> 00:05:54,136 the fruiting bodies of the mycelium. 77 00:05:55,311 --> 00:05:57,966 To see a mushroom growing wild in the forest is to know 78 00:05:58,140 --> 00:06:03,363 that the great natural Internet is online beneath your feet. 79 00:06:09,281 --> 00:06:12,676 Some mushrooms spread trillions of spores on the breeze, 80 00:06:13,503 --> 00:06:16,811 each spore a paratrooper carrying life's message. 81 00:06:17,420 --> 00:06:20,380 This is mushroom sex. 82 00:06:23,295 --> 00:06:25,341 After a while, in their search for moisture, 83 00:06:25,515 --> 00:06:28,605 this new segment of the mycelium will return down 84 00:06:28,779 --> 00:06:31,913 to the underworld, and link up to the greater network. 85 00:06:35,307 --> 00:06:38,572 The secret lives of trees have been long-hidden from us. 86 00:06:40,225 --> 00:06:44,012 For them, the mycelium is their lifeline to one another. 87 00:06:44,186 --> 00:06:46,971 It makes the forest a community. 88 00:06:47,145 --> 00:06:48,495 They use it to parent, 89 00:06:48,669 --> 00:06:50,845 to nurture each other 90 00:07:00,942 --> 00:07:03,988 and even to devise a stay of execution, 91 00:07:04,162 --> 00:07:06,469 a reprieve from the axe. 92 00:07:06,643 --> 00:07:08,558 When a tree is cut down in the forest, 93 00:07:08,732 --> 00:07:11,474 other trees reach out to the victim with their root tips, 94 00:07:11,648 --> 00:07:15,173 and send lifesaving sustenance, water, sugar, 95 00:07:15,347 --> 00:07:18,481 and other nutrients via the mycelium. 96 00:07:18,655 --> 00:07:21,919 This continuous IV drip from neighboring trees can 97 00:07:22,093 --> 00:07:25,836 keep this stump alive for decades, and even centuries. 98 00:07:27,534 --> 00:07:30,232 And they don't only do it for their own kind. 99 00:07:30,406 --> 00:07:33,322 They do it for the trees of other species. 100 00:07:33,496 --> 00:07:35,063 Why? 101 00:07:35,237 --> 00:07:37,065 Is it because they know that their lives depend on 102 00:07:37,239 --> 00:07:39,241 the health of the whole forest, 103 00:07:39,415 --> 00:07:42,549 and even on beings very different from themselves? 104 00:07:43,071 --> 00:07:46,901 Is it possible that the trees can think in longer terms than we do? 105 00:07:48,685 --> 00:07:52,515 We know they have excellent parenting skills. 106 00:07:52,689 --> 00:07:54,735 Take this fir tree. 107 00:07:55,953 --> 00:07:58,260 This younger tree here is its offspring, 108 00:07:58,434 --> 00:08:00,958 and it requires constant attention. 109 00:08:01,132 --> 00:08:04,527 It's hardly young by our standards, 60 years old. 110 00:08:05,136 --> 00:08:07,617 But young trees don't know that if they grow up too quickly, 111 00:08:07,791 --> 00:08:10,751 there will be too much air in the cells of their trunks. 112 00:08:10,925 --> 00:08:13,884 Later, when the stormy winds and predators come, 113 00:08:14,058 --> 00:08:16,104 they'll be weak and vulnerable. 114 00:08:16,278 --> 00:08:18,019 Like the young of other kingdoms, 115 00:08:18,193 --> 00:08:21,979 the fir wants to grow into the light as soon as possible. 116 00:08:22,153 --> 00:08:24,504 But the mother fir shades it with her branches so that 117 00:08:24,678 --> 00:08:27,028 it cannot binge on sunlight, 118 00:08:27,202 --> 00:08:29,813 and grow up too fast for its own good. 119 00:08:36,820 --> 00:08:40,041 How many forests have I been in without any awareness 120 00:08:40,215 --> 00:08:43,348 of what was really happening all around me? 121 00:08:45,612 --> 00:08:50,399 Who are we to search for alien intelligence when we can't even recognize, 122 00:08:50,573 --> 00:08:54,011 or respect, the consciousness all around us, 123 00:08:54,185 --> 00:08:57,101 and even beneath our feet? 124 00:09:04,848 --> 00:09:08,504 This stately maple senses that the tiny caterpillar 125 00:09:08,678 --> 00:09:10,680 is nipping at its leaf. 126 00:09:10,854 --> 00:09:12,813 A signal is sent through the tree, 127 00:09:12,987 --> 00:09:15,163 just as it would go through our own nervous system. 128 00:09:15,337 --> 00:09:17,861 But not nearly so fast. 129 00:09:18,035 --> 00:09:22,039 Again, the trees live on a much slower time scale. 130 00:09:22,213 --> 00:09:27,001 The speed of "“ouch"” for a tree is only an inch, 131 00:09:27,175 --> 00:09:31,745 every three minutes. 132 00:09:34,182 --> 00:09:37,185 So, it will take at least an hour for the tree to react 133 00:09:37,359 --> 00:09:41,363 by generating the chemical that will chase this pest away. 134 00:09:41,537 --> 00:09:44,322 When a predator strikes, the first thing a tree does 135 00:09:44,496 --> 00:09:48,283 is to take a saliva sample in order to sequence the DNA of the invading species. 136 00:09:49,501 --> 00:09:51,808 It then tailors its chemical response to the special 137 00:09:51,982 --> 00:09:54,506 vulnerability of its enemy. 138 00:09:54,681 --> 00:09:58,249 In certain cases, it releases the precise pheromone that 139 00:09:58,423 --> 00:10:02,036 will attract its enemy's enemy to do the tree's fighting for it. 140 00:10:03,559 --> 00:10:06,518 Is it fair to say that the trees have a deep knowledge 141 00:10:06,693 --> 00:10:09,696 of chemistry, entomology, and other earth sciences? 142 00:10:11,262 --> 00:10:15,049 How exactly is their knowing different from ours? 143 00:10:24,928 --> 00:10:29,237 Is it any different when we humans do these things? 144 00:10:48,299 --> 00:10:50,911 Throughout nature, we find these electrochemical 145 00:10:51,085 --> 00:10:53,391 conversations between the life-forms of different 146 00:10:53,565 --> 00:10:55,655 species and kingdoms. 147 00:10:55,829 --> 00:10:59,615 But what of a conversation between different worlds? 148 00:10:59,789 --> 00:11:03,880 What might we share with the intelligent civilization of another world? 149 00:11:04,054 --> 00:11:06,840 Science and mathematics. 150 00:11:07,014 --> 00:11:09,190 The symbolic languages of the scientist, mathematician, 151 00:11:09,364 --> 00:11:11,888 and the engineer avoid those things that are lost 152 00:11:12,062 --> 00:11:14,978 in translation from one culture to another. 153 00:11:15,152 --> 00:11:18,286 Symbolic languages, including those used in programming, 154 00:11:18,460 --> 00:11:21,811 have a much higher degree of precision than words do. 155 00:11:21,985 --> 00:11:25,075 They are not as open to misinterpretation. 156 00:11:33,736 --> 00:11:37,174 I know of only one nonhuman symbolic language, 157 00:11:37,348 --> 00:11:40,700 and only one instance when we humans made contact with 158 00:11:40,874 --> 00:11:43,267 the life-form that uses it. 159 00:11:43,441 --> 00:11:47,619 Their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics would astonish most of us. 160 00:11:47,794 --> 00:11:51,014 Their commitment to resolving their differences democratically, 161 00:11:51,188 --> 00:11:54,235 and reaching the broadest possible consensus through debate, 162 00:11:54,409 --> 00:11:58,805 is unparalleled by any human society that I know. 163 00:11:58,979 --> 00:12:00,807 Tens of millions of years ago, 164 00:12:00,981 --> 00:12:03,070 they had been carnivores, 165 00:12:03,244 --> 00:12:06,943 but they gave that up to become vegans. 166 00:12:07,335 --> 00:12:09,032 It changed their world, 167 00:12:09,206 --> 00:12:12,688 and resulted in surpassing beauty wherever they wandered. 168 00:12:13,297 --> 00:12:16,561 They are explorers who use their symbolic language 169 00:12:16,736 --> 00:12:20,304 to tell each other about the things they have discovered on their travels. 170 00:12:24,526 --> 00:12:27,877 This is their night sky. 171 00:12:31,707 --> 00:12:35,972 I want to tell you their story. 172 00:12:46,591 --> 00:12:50,378 TYSON: This is the shore of the Panthalassic Ocean, 173 00:12:50,552 --> 00:12:53,729 a sea that covered Earth's entire Northern Hemisphere 174 00:12:53,903 --> 00:12:56,819 in a period named the Ordovician. 175 00:12:57,602 --> 00:13:00,910 We've compressed all of the time from this very second, 176 00:13:01,084 --> 00:13:03,086 back to the beginning of the universe, 177 00:13:03,260 --> 00:13:07,221 into a single calendar Earth year, a Cosmic Calendar. 178 00:13:08,788 --> 00:13:11,965 Every month represents a little more than a billion years. 179 00:13:12,226 --> 00:13:15,185 Every week, nearly 300 million years. 180 00:13:15,359 --> 00:13:18,580 Every day, about 40 million years. 181 00:13:18,754 --> 00:13:22,671 The Big Bang is the first moment of New Year's Day. 182 00:13:22,845 --> 00:13:26,066 Our present, right now, is at the stroke of midnight on 183 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:28,938 New Year's Eve. 184 00:13:29,591 --> 00:13:32,681 I'm standing on the morning of December 20th on the Cosmic Calendar, 185 00:13:33,725 --> 00:13:36,946 480 million years ago in Earth's history. 186 00:13:37,729 --> 00:13:41,733 This was the time when life began to diversify. 187 00:13:42,822 --> 00:13:45,650 It's remembered as the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event. 188 00:13:47,087 --> 00:13:50,090 It came 40 million years after life's first big leap 189 00:13:50,264 --> 00:13:53,397 into diversification known as the Cambrian explosion. 190 00:13:54,703 --> 00:13:58,054 This was the dawn of the arthropods, 191 00:13:58,228 --> 00:14:01,536 the invertebrates who wear their skeletons on the outside, 192 00:14:01,710 --> 00:14:03,668 instead of on the inside, 193 00:14:03,843 --> 00:14:06,628 as we would one day do hundreds of millions of years later. 194 00:14:07,759 --> 00:14:10,762 The arthropods of the Ordovician pioneered the most 195 00:14:10,937 --> 00:14:14,244 successful body plan ever evolved by life. 196 00:14:15,724 --> 00:14:19,989 Even today, more than 80% of all living animals are arthropods. 197 00:14:22,949 --> 00:14:25,299 But around the time the plants began to venture out 198 00:14:25,473 --> 00:14:29,346 of the waters, a crustacean staggered ashore, 199 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:32,262 and made a home in the new world of the land. 200 00:14:35,091 --> 00:14:38,051 Insects evolved from the crustaceans. 201 00:14:38,921 --> 00:14:41,793 A thought I do my best to hold at bay whenever I'm dining 202 00:14:41,968 --> 00:14:44,144 in a seafood restaurant. 203 00:14:46,842 --> 00:14:49,366 We think that the insects and the plants colonized 204 00:14:49,540 --> 00:14:54,023 the land at about the same time, 400 million years ago, 205 00:14:55,198 --> 00:14:58,854 or December 21 on the Cosmic Calendar. 206 00:14:59,507 --> 00:15:02,989 This was a time when giant mushrooms towered over the world's trees, 207 00:15:04,164 --> 00:15:06,862 which were then no more than a few feet high. 208 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:14,565 Mushrooms this gigantic make you wonder just how big 209 00:15:14,739 --> 00:15:17,655 the underground network that supported them must have been. 210 00:15:23,487 --> 00:15:26,926 And this was the time on Earth when life learned how to fly. 211 00:15:41,549 --> 00:15:45,509 The insects would have it all to themselves for another 90 million years. 212 00:15:47,207 --> 00:15:50,253 No flying reptiles, no birds, no bats to gobble them up, 213 00:15:51,559 --> 00:15:54,040 just other bugs. 214 00:15:56,651 --> 00:16:00,524 Powered flight was a huge evolutionary leap for insects, 215 00:16:00,698 --> 00:16:03,701 allowing them to spread all over the planet. 216 00:16:04,267 --> 00:16:07,009 The insects put human pretensions to shame. 217 00:16:08,054 --> 00:16:10,839 Their tenure on Earth is hundreds of times greater than ours. 218 00:16:12,406 --> 00:16:14,930 They look much the same to us today, 219 00:16:15,104 --> 00:16:17,977 as they did to the dinosaurs in the late Cretaceous. 220 00:16:19,630 --> 00:16:22,416 Even back then, you didn't want to mess with a wasp. 221 00:16:23,243 --> 00:16:26,028 They've always been voracious hunters. 222 00:16:30,511 --> 00:16:34,994 Yes, there were giant redwoods on the Earth 240 million years ago. 223 00:16:47,049 --> 00:16:51,010 That wasp is out hunting for food for her young. 224 00:17:08,723 --> 00:17:12,422 Wasps did their thing for another 100 million years. 225 00:17:12,596 --> 00:17:16,252 And then, something happened on an almost microscopic scale 226 00:17:16,426 --> 00:17:19,908 that would paint the Earth in a whole new spectrum of colors. 227 00:17:21,605 --> 00:17:24,956 Back then, there was no such thing as an animal partner to 228 00:17:25,131 --> 00:17:27,524 aid the plants in their fertilization, 229 00:17:27,698 --> 00:17:30,353 to efficiently transport their seed to the reproductive 230 00:17:30,527 --> 00:17:33,487 organs of distant plants, in other words, 231 00:17:33,661 --> 00:17:36,098 to play cupid for them. 232 00:17:39,493 --> 00:17:42,148 The drama unfolding here is not the struggle between 233 00:17:42,322 --> 00:17:44,324 the spider and the wasp, 234 00:17:44,498 --> 00:17:47,892 it's those tiny particles sticking to the wasp's legs. 235 00:17:48,067 --> 00:17:51,418 Nothing much to look at, just a few grains, 236 00:17:51,592 --> 00:17:55,161 but this magic dust, called pollen, 237 00:17:55,335 --> 00:17:58,033 contained the power to transform the world, 238 00:17:58,207 --> 00:18:00,253 and to make possible some of the most beautiful 239 00:18:00,427 --> 00:18:03,778 sights ever seen on this planet. 240 00:18:03,952 --> 00:18:07,086 Even today, more than 100 million years later, 241 00:18:07,260 --> 00:18:10,219 this is still true. 242 00:18:10,393 --> 00:18:14,267 Each grain of pollen sculpted differently by evolution, 243 00:18:14,441 --> 00:18:17,357 each a novel strategy for survival, 244 00:18:17,531 --> 00:18:20,969 sharpened by vast expanses of time. 245 00:18:21,665 --> 00:18:23,537 Pollen is tough. 246 00:18:23,711 --> 00:18:25,321 It has to be. 247 00:18:25,495 --> 00:18:28,890 It's so well-built that you can fire it from a gun, 248 00:18:29,064 --> 00:18:32,589 and it will emerge unscathed with its identity fully intact. 249 00:18:34,243 --> 00:18:36,724 The wasps had nurtured their young during their helpless, 250 00:18:36,898 --> 00:18:40,771 larval stage by bringing home game for them to feast on. 251 00:18:41,032 --> 00:18:43,992 The pollen was rich in protein, 252 00:18:44,166 --> 00:18:48,431 a meal for the grubs when Mom came home without any kills. 253 00:18:49,171 --> 00:18:52,392 Over the eons, a new kind of life-form evolved, 254 00:18:52,566 --> 00:18:55,395 one that stopped bringing meat home for dinner. 255 00:18:55,569 --> 00:18:59,355 This new creature brought only the magic dust that the flowers made. 256 00:19:02,619 --> 00:19:04,360 Bees. 257 00:19:04,534 --> 00:19:07,494 They had no appetite for the mangled parts of dead insects. 258 00:19:08,103 --> 00:19:11,976 They went on the all-pollen diet, and it was no fad. 259 00:19:12,151 --> 00:19:16,067 The bees became fully committed pollinators. 260 00:19:16,242 --> 00:19:18,940 The plants rewarded them handsomely by evolving 261 00:19:19,114 --> 00:19:22,683 evermore alluring female sexual organs, 262 00:19:22,857 --> 00:19:25,729 in outrageous colors and seductive forms. 263 00:19:27,253 --> 00:19:30,734 They concocted delicious secretions, sweet nectars, 264 00:19:30,908 --> 00:19:34,216 that would keep the bees coming back for more, 265 00:19:34,825 --> 00:19:37,959 again and again. 266 00:19:39,439 --> 00:19:43,399 The Age of the Flowers had begun. 267 00:19:52,191 --> 00:19:54,845 Bees are masters of time, 268 00:19:55,019 --> 00:19:57,761 traveling across 100 million years, 269 00:19:57,935 --> 00:20:00,199 and they are none the worse for wear. 270 00:20:00,373 --> 00:20:03,593 These beings did more than anyone else to fill the 271 00:20:03,767 --> 00:20:06,988 Palace of Life with sustenance and beauty. 272 00:20:09,164 --> 00:20:14,474 We will explore its treasures and mysteries later on our voyage. 273 00:20:20,306 --> 00:20:21,698 TYSON: For thousands of years, 274 00:20:21,872 --> 00:20:25,049 bees have been symbols of mindless industry. 275 00:20:25,224 --> 00:20:26,877 We always think of them as being something like 276 00:20:27,051 --> 00:20:31,447 biological robots, doomed to live out their lives in lockstep, 277 00:20:31,621 --> 00:20:34,842 shackled to the dreary roles assigned to them by nature. 278 00:20:36,147 --> 00:20:39,325 This is our first contact story. 279 00:20:39,499 --> 00:20:43,067 It happened in a place called Brunnwinkl in rural Austria, 280 00:20:43,242 --> 00:20:46,114 in the early 1900s. 281 00:20:49,813 --> 00:20:52,903 From the time Karl von Frisch was a child, 282 00:20:53,077 --> 00:20:55,993 he longed to understand what the other animals knew, 283 00:20:56,167 --> 00:20:58,605 how they perceived the world. 284 00:20:58,779 --> 00:21:01,347 He wanted to know if tiny fish saw color, 285 00:21:01,521 --> 00:21:03,610 or had a sense of smell. 286 00:21:03,784 --> 00:21:06,700 He invented experiments to explore animal experience, 287 00:21:06,874 --> 00:21:08,963 and he filmed them. 288 00:21:09,137 --> 00:21:11,313 Starting in the early 20th century, 289 00:21:11,487 --> 00:21:14,273 he was the first to use the new medium of motion pictures 290 00:21:14,447 --> 00:21:17,754 to create popular science entertainment and communication. 291 00:21:19,539 --> 00:21:21,149 For thousands of years, 292 00:21:21,323 --> 00:21:24,761 humans have noted the eccentric dances of the bees. 293 00:21:25,588 --> 00:21:27,851 But no one had ever looked at them with the kind of respect 294 00:21:28,025 --> 00:21:30,811 that assumed there was a reason to their dancing. 295 00:21:31,681 --> 00:21:33,509 Before Karl von Frisch, 296 00:21:33,683 --> 00:21:36,425 no one ever thought to ask why they moved this way and 297 00:21:36,599 --> 00:21:39,385 that way in a succession of elaborate figure eights... 298 00:21:40,864 --> 00:21:43,998 Von Frisch studied every tiny bee gesture, 299 00:21:44,172 --> 00:21:46,957 and became fascinated by a mystery he couldn't explain. 300 00:21:48,742 --> 00:21:50,918 He would set out a dish of sugar water for a bee from 301 00:21:51,092 --> 00:21:54,008 his experimental hive. 302 00:21:54,530 --> 00:21:57,098 The bee would feast upon it before flying back home. 303 00:22:00,406 --> 00:22:02,756 The marked bee would later return to dine on 304 00:22:02,930 --> 00:22:05,193 the delicious sugar water. 305 00:22:05,367 --> 00:22:08,065 Von Frisch noted that in just a few hours, 306 00:22:08,239 --> 00:22:10,590 a multitude of other bees would join her there. 307 00:22:13,114 --> 00:22:16,596 They were always her fellow hive mates. 308 00:22:17,858 --> 00:22:19,947 But here was the really amazing thing, 309 00:22:20,121 --> 00:22:22,297 von Frisch knew that the other bees had not 310 00:22:22,471 --> 00:22:24,995 followed the marked bee to the feeding place. 311 00:22:25,169 --> 00:22:26,867 How? 312 00:22:27,041 --> 00:22:29,870 Because he had the hive closely watched at all times. 313 00:22:30,044 --> 00:22:32,786 He had been careful to use sugar water, and not honey, 314 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,311 so that the bees' sense of smell could not guide them to the reward. 315 00:22:37,573 --> 00:22:40,620 He continued to move the dish of sugar water farther away, 316 00:22:40,794 --> 00:22:43,579 until it was several kilometers from the hive. 317 00:22:43,753 --> 00:22:47,670 Still, the hive mates would find their way to it. 318 00:22:47,844 --> 00:22:50,586 So, how did the painted bee reveal the exact location 319 00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,502 of the sugar water with such precision that her hive mates 320 00:22:53,676 --> 00:22:56,287 could unerringly find their way there? 321 00:22:59,203 --> 00:23:02,598 There was a secret message in her choreography. 322 00:23:03,556 --> 00:23:06,341 What had seemed to countless generations of observers 323 00:23:06,515 --> 00:23:08,561 to be nothing more than the meaningless, 324 00:23:08,735 --> 00:23:13,087 spasmodic motions of a dumb animal was actually a complex message, 325 00:23:14,523 --> 00:23:18,222 an equation informed by mathematics, astronomy, 326 00:23:18,397 --> 00:23:21,182 and an acute knowledge of time, 327 00:23:21,356 --> 00:23:24,359 all synthesized to convey the location of the riches 328 00:23:25,142 --> 00:23:27,667 she hoped to share with her sisters. 329 00:23:30,931 --> 00:23:34,456 The dancer used the angle of our star, the sun, 330 00:23:34,630 --> 00:23:37,372 to indicate the general direction of the food's location. 331 00:23:41,463 --> 00:23:44,597 Von Frisch noted that when a bee danced straight upward, 332 00:23:44,771 --> 00:23:47,295 she meant, "“fly toward the sun."” 333 00:23:47,469 --> 00:23:50,254 And when she moved downward, she meant, "“fly away from it."” 334 00:23:52,082 --> 00:23:55,651 Her swivels left and right conveyed the food's exact coordinates in space, 335 00:23:56,304 --> 00:23:58,524 sometimes kilometers away. 336 00:24:05,922 --> 00:24:08,621 The duration of her dance, down to a fraction of a second, 337 00:24:10,057 --> 00:24:13,277 indicated the length of time it would take her fellow bees to get there. 338 00:24:17,151 --> 00:24:20,807 She even factored in wind speed to more finely calibrate the message she danced. 339 00:24:24,724 --> 00:24:27,335 And this was true at any time of the year, 340 00:24:27,509 --> 00:24:31,208 and from hive to hive, from continent to continent. 341 00:24:34,037 --> 00:24:37,432 Bees can do the math. 342 00:24:43,003 --> 00:24:46,267 Why do I call this a first contact story? 343 00:24:46,441 --> 00:24:49,879 Two species as different as any you can imagine, 344 00:24:50,053 --> 00:24:53,753 humans and bees, evolved on evolutionary pathways that 345 00:24:53,927 --> 00:24:56,538 diverged 600 million years ago. 346 00:24:58,018 --> 00:25:01,761 And yet, these two species and as far as we know, 347 00:25:01,935 --> 00:25:04,415 only they and we on this planet, 348 00:25:04,590 --> 00:25:06,853 managed to create a symbolic language written 349 00:25:07,027 --> 00:25:10,030 in mathematics and science. 350 00:25:10,204 --> 00:25:13,207 We lived side-by-side with the bees for millennia, 351 00:25:13,381 --> 00:25:16,819 never dreaming of the complexity of their communications. 352 00:25:16,993 --> 00:25:19,474 What we've learned about bee society in the decades since 353 00:25:19,648 --> 00:25:23,347 von Frisch puts some of our loftiest human aspirations to shame, 354 00:25:24,958 --> 00:25:30,267 and changes forever our idea of intelligent life on Earth. 355 00:25:42,671 --> 00:25:45,413 TYSON: We live in a time when the world's democracies are 356 00:25:45,587 --> 00:25:48,024 even more fragile than ever. 357 00:25:48,198 --> 00:25:50,766 But there are places on Earth where that's not true. 358 00:25:50,940 --> 00:25:52,942 Where every individual has a voice. 359 00:25:53,116 --> 00:25:55,249 Where corruption is unknown. 360 00:25:55,423 --> 00:25:57,904 Where the community acts only when it has arrived 361 00:25:58,078 --> 00:26:00,733 at consensus through reason and debate. 362 00:26:02,648 --> 00:26:06,216 This is one of those places. 363 00:26:14,485 --> 00:26:19,055 Contrary to popular belief, the hive is no monarchy. 364 00:26:19,229 --> 00:26:23,669 The queen is no absolute ruler controlling the other bees. 365 00:26:23,843 --> 00:26:27,542 The queen's role is almost entirely reproductive. 366 00:26:27,716 --> 00:26:31,807 Any female bee, and that's what the vast majority of bees are, 367 00:26:31,981 --> 00:26:35,724 can ascend to the throne given the right food and the space to grow. 368 00:26:37,030 --> 00:26:40,120 When the weather warms, and the trees bloom, 369 00:26:40,294 --> 00:26:43,166 she graciously passes her scepter to a new generation of queens. 370 00:26:45,473 --> 00:26:47,693 That's the time in the life of a hive, 371 00:26:47,867 --> 00:26:49,912 in late spring or early summer, 372 00:26:50,086 --> 00:26:53,350 when about half the hive's bees, around 10,000 of them, 373 00:26:53,524 --> 00:26:55,744 grow restless. 374 00:26:55,918 --> 00:26:59,182 They decide it's time to leave the mother hive, 375 00:26:59,356 --> 00:27:02,098 to found a new colony, they know not where. 376 00:27:03,665 --> 00:27:06,450 Once they depart, there's no turning back. 377 00:27:07,538 --> 00:27:10,193 It takes courage to leave home with no way back, 378 00:27:10,367 --> 00:27:13,544 to risk everything, and choose the unknown. 379 00:27:15,982 --> 00:27:18,985 That pushing and shoving is not meant to be hostile. 380 00:27:19,159 --> 00:27:21,291 The workers are putting the queen on a rigorous 381 00:27:21,465 --> 00:27:24,512 exercise program so that she can lose weight, 382 00:27:24,686 --> 00:27:27,384 and get back into flying shape. 383 00:27:27,558 --> 00:27:28,908 When everything's ready, 384 00:27:29,082 --> 00:27:32,302 it's time for the first leg of their odyssey. 385 00:27:32,476 --> 00:27:35,305 It's time to swarm. 386 00:27:48,057 --> 00:27:51,713 With a new queen now installed on her throne in the original hive, 387 00:27:51,887 --> 00:27:54,673 the old Queen Mother has pride of place at the very 388 00:27:54,847 --> 00:27:58,154 center of the swarm of adventurers. 389 00:28:00,896 --> 00:28:03,725 Hundreds of their most senior members, scouts, 390 00:28:03,899 --> 00:28:07,424 are dispatched on missions of reconnaissance over a five kilometer radius. 391 00:28:09,818 --> 00:28:13,430 The scouts reconnoiter the local trees for the best possible new home. 392 00:28:14,475 --> 00:28:16,738 And they're extremely picky. 393 00:28:16,912 --> 00:28:19,001 Not just any place will do. 394 00:28:19,175 --> 00:28:21,395 The front door, a hollow in a tree, 395 00:28:21,569 --> 00:28:24,485 must be too high for bears and other marauders to 396 00:28:24,659 --> 00:28:27,401 easily reach in and plunder their precious honey. 397 00:28:28,489 --> 00:28:31,144 Total square footage is of critical concern. 398 00:28:31,318 --> 00:28:33,320 Honeybees don't hibernate. 399 00:28:33,494 --> 00:28:35,888 They'll have to heat the place for the long winter, 400 00:28:36,062 --> 00:28:38,586 and be sure to produce enough food, honey, 401 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:40,980 to see them through. 402 00:28:41,154 --> 00:28:43,852 Each scout must measure the exact dimensions, 403 00:28:44,026 --> 00:28:46,681 height, width, and depth. 404 00:28:46,855 --> 00:28:49,989 If it's even slightly too small, or too large, 405 00:28:50,163 --> 00:28:53,079 the entire swarm will be wiped out before the next spring. 406 00:28:56,212 --> 00:28:59,041 When all the scouts return, the bees are ready to hold 407 00:28:59,215 --> 00:29:02,088 their annual convention. 408 00:29:02,262 --> 00:29:05,961 Each scout finds a place to stand on the swarm. 409 00:29:06,135 --> 00:29:08,790 There, she presents her argument for the best site 410 00:29:08,964 --> 00:29:10,487 she has discovered. 411 00:29:10,661 --> 00:29:13,099 This house-hunting discourse is conducted in 412 00:29:13,273 --> 00:29:17,190 their scientific and mathematical language. 413 00:29:17,364 --> 00:29:20,759 Hundreds of scouts now use the waggle dance to advertise 414 00:29:20,933 --> 00:29:23,587 the home that they've found. 415 00:29:23,892 --> 00:29:27,156 At first, opinions vary widely, 416 00:29:27,330 --> 00:29:30,769 as each advocate attracts her share of followers. 417 00:29:32,814 --> 00:29:36,513 At our political conventions, people routinely lie. 418 00:29:36,687 --> 00:29:39,473 They press our buttons, demonizing, scapegoating, 419 00:29:39,647 --> 00:29:41,649 appealing to our fears. 420 00:29:41,823 --> 00:29:44,565 But the bees can't risk that. 421 00:29:44,739 --> 00:29:47,307 In both cases, ours and theirs, 422 00:29:47,481 --> 00:29:50,832 the future depends on seeing reality clearly. 423 00:29:51,006 --> 00:29:52,486 But for some reason, 424 00:29:52,660 --> 00:29:55,532 we are easily manipulated and deceived. 425 00:29:55,706 --> 00:29:59,058 The bees somehow know that they have to stick to the facts. 426 00:29:59,406 --> 00:30:01,060 They have to be accurate. 427 00:30:01,234 --> 00:30:03,105 They can't oversell. 428 00:30:03,279 --> 00:30:06,717 They act as if they understand that it matters what's true. 429 00:30:06,892 --> 00:30:09,590 That nature won't be fooled. 430 00:30:10,547 --> 00:30:12,506 The scouts who have found the optimum sites for the 431 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,379 swarm's new home are the most passionate waggle dancers. 432 00:30:18,077 --> 00:30:21,080 Close scientific observation over many decades affirms 433 00:30:21,254 --> 00:30:23,343 this astonishing fact, 434 00:30:23,517 --> 00:30:27,390 each bee has a platonic ideal of home in mind. 435 00:30:28,391 --> 00:30:30,741 Moreover, the members of the swarm don't take the 436 00:30:30,916 --> 00:30:34,354 testimony of the most popular dancers on faith. 437 00:30:34,528 --> 00:30:37,400 Many of them go to see for themselves. 438 00:30:37,574 --> 00:30:41,361 Skepticism is a survival mechanism. 439 00:30:42,362 --> 00:30:44,668 The fact-checkers fly off to the site to make 440 00:30:44,843 --> 00:30:47,367 an independent evaluation. 441 00:30:47,541 --> 00:30:50,196 Just think for a minute how articulate the waggle 442 00:30:50,370 --> 00:30:52,894 dance messaging has to be. 443 00:30:53,242 --> 00:30:55,723 It's the coordinates for one particular tree in 444 00:30:55,897 --> 00:30:58,291 a whole forest of them. 445 00:30:58,465 --> 00:31:02,077 The scouts make a beeline for it every time. 446 00:31:03,165 --> 00:31:05,646 If the hollow turns out to be as good as advertised, 447 00:31:05,820 --> 00:31:07,866 they will return to the swarm, where they, 448 00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:12,131 too, will dance its praises. 449 00:31:12,653 --> 00:31:16,570 Without deceit, or violence, or back-hive deals, 450 00:31:16,744 --> 00:31:20,487 the scouts are the first to arrive at consensus. 451 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,231 But the larger population remains to be persuaded. 452 00:31:25,405 --> 00:31:28,277 Once they all align behind one dance, 453 00:31:28,451 --> 00:31:32,542 once they've achieved unanimity on the best new place to call home, 454 00:31:32,716 --> 00:31:35,632 the great migration can begin. 455 00:31:35,806 --> 00:31:38,853 Within 60 seconds of the first takeoff, 456 00:31:39,027 --> 00:31:42,639 10,000 bees depart in formation for their new home. 457 00:31:44,511 --> 00:31:46,556 With the sun as their compass, 458 00:31:46,730 --> 00:31:50,082 the airborne colony turns to its queen for leadership. 459 00:31:50,734 --> 00:31:54,782 The swarm is a kind of mind, a collective consciousness to 460 00:31:54,956 --> 00:31:58,133 which every individual bee makes a contribution. 461 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,491 Now that the move is complete, it's time to unpack, 462 00:32:08,665 --> 00:32:12,147 decorate the nursery, stock the pantry, 463 00:32:12,321 --> 00:32:15,368 and make the place their own, until the weather warms, 464 00:32:15,542 --> 00:32:18,023 and the trees bloom again. 465 00:32:18,197 --> 00:32:22,549 And so it has been for tens of millions of years. 466 00:32:24,594 --> 00:32:27,554 This intimate knowledge of the lives of the bees is the 467 00:32:27,728 --> 00:32:31,906 legacy of Karl von Frisch, who was the first to decrypt 468 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:36,215 their symbolic language, to make contact with a completely 469 00:32:36,389 --> 00:32:40,132 different kind of mind. 470 00:32:40,306 --> 00:32:43,613 Today, we study bee brains. 471 00:32:43,787 --> 00:32:46,486 We are building a bridge over the chasm that has separated 472 00:32:46,660 --> 00:32:50,316 two species for half a billion years. 473 00:32:50,490 --> 00:32:52,753 And yet, after all that time, 474 00:32:52,927 --> 00:32:56,583 there are places where our species and theirs converged, 475 00:32:56,757 --> 00:33:01,022 agriculture, architecture, language, and politics. 476 00:33:02,589 --> 00:33:05,722 We now know that bees sleep, 477 00:33:05,896 --> 00:33:10,118 and some scientists suspect that they dream. 478 00:33:14,905 --> 00:33:16,951 What knocked us out of our trance, 479 00:33:17,125 --> 00:33:19,954 so that we could finally recognize another intelligence 480 00:33:20,128 --> 00:33:21,738 that had always been there? 481 00:33:21,912 --> 00:33:24,263 A few generations before von Frisch, 482 00:33:24,437 --> 00:33:28,006 one man did more than any other to open the way. 483 00:33:28,180 --> 00:33:31,922 For me, he was the greatest spiritual teacher of the last thousand years. 484 00:33:33,402 --> 00:33:37,450 The flowers he planted here long ago still bloom. 485 00:33:41,628 --> 00:33:44,065 The hive he founded, and studied with open eyes, 486 00:33:44,239 --> 00:33:46,328 continues to flourish. 487 00:33:46,502 --> 00:33:49,636 It was he who figured out how the Palace of Life could 488 00:33:49,810 --> 00:33:54,249 evolve from a modest one-room structure to an edifice of soaring towers, 489 00:33:54,423 --> 00:33:57,513 reaching to the stars and it was he who 490 00:33:57,687 --> 00:34:02,910 first glimpsed the secret lives of our fellow earthlings. 491 00:34:16,315 --> 00:34:19,927 TYSON: Somewhere, there's a place called the Halls of Extinction, 492 00:34:20,101 --> 00:34:23,800 a shrine to all the broken branches on the tree of life. 493 00:34:23,974 --> 00:34:26,325 But that tree still lives, 494 00:34:26,499 --> 00:34:30,372 it's seen 4 billion springtimes since it first took root. 495 00:34:30,546 --> 00:34:34,028 Its flowers burst forth with unforeseeable possibilities. 496 00:34:37,814 --> 00:34:40,469 A tiny, one-celled organism evolves into you 497 00:34:40,643 --> 00:34:43,385 and everything else that is Earthlife. 498 00:34:43,559 --> 00:34:46,084 There's just no way of predicting, for now, anyway, 499 00:34:46,258 --> 00:34:47,955 where life can lead. 500 00:34:48,129 --> 00:34:50,697 No way of foretelling the forms and capabilities that 501 00:34:50,871 --> 00:34:54,266 can issue from simpler organisms over vast expanses of time. 502 00:34:55,876 --> 00:34:59,967 Life itself can be seen as an emergent property of chemistry, 503 00:35:00,141 --> 00:35:03,536 science as an emergent property of life, 504 00:35:03,710 --> 00:35:07,540 a way that life has found to begin to know itself. 505 00:35:14,242 --> 00:35:17,941 Four billion years. 506 00:35:19,856 --> 00:35:23,382 These are the most ancient towers that life built. 507 00:35:43,924 --> 00:35:47,014 ♪ ♪ 508 00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,690 Nobody knew this palace existed. 509 00:36:10,864 --> 00:36:15,695 It was hidden by the mists of time, and enshrouded in myth. 510 00:36:16,696 --> 00:36:20,090 But one man dared to part that curtain. 511 00:36:20,265 --> 00:36:23,311 He studied as many kinds of life as he could. 512 00:36:33,321 --> 00:36:35,715 He sailed to a group of islands on the far side of 513 00:36:35,889 --> 00:36:39,153 the planet in search of exotic species. 514 00:36:39,327 --> 00:36:42,635 He studied the bees, the flowers, the finches, 515 00:36:42,809 --> 00:36:46,900 mollusks, and earthworms, for 30 years. 516 00:36:47,074 --> 00:36:50,686 A radical pattern emerged, one that would shake the world. 517 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:56,039 It still does, he debunked the story of Adam and Eve. 518 00:36:57,389 --> 00:37:00,000 Humans are not the kings of life, created separately, 519 00:37:00,174 --> 00:37:03,046 and charged with its management but instead, 520 00:37:03,221 --> 00:37:06,441 an upstart offspring of its stately, ancient family. 521 00:37:07,877 --> 00:37:10,010 He waited to tell the world what he had discovered until 522 00:37:10,184 --> 00:37:13,753 he could demonstrate its truth beyond a shadow of a doubt. 523 00:37:13,927 --> 00:37:17,235 But then he made another great leap, 524 00:37:19,106 --> 00:37:22,414 Charles Darwin was also one of the first to recognize that 525 00:37:22,588 --> 00:37:24,807 if all life is related, 526 00:37:24,981 --> 00:37:28,333 there were certain philosophical implications. 527 00:37:33,729 --> 00:37:36,166 If we were not created separately from the other animals, 528 00:37:36,341 --> 00:37:39,953 must we not share more of who we are with them? 529 00:37:40,127 --> 00:37:43,261 Our awareness, our relationships with others, 530 00:37:43,435 --> 00:37:45,524 even our feelings? 531 00:37:45,698 --> 00:37:49,179 Instead of a single island of human perception in the universe, 532 00:37:49,354 --> 00:37:52,357 Darwin realized that we are surrounded by other 533 00:37:52,531 --> 00:37:55,751 ways of being alive and conscious. 534 00:37:55,925 --> 00:37:59,015 For Darwin, science was a pathway to a deeper level 535 00:37:59,189 --> 00:38:02,541 of empathy and humility. 536 00:38:04,020 --> 00:38:06,980 When word reached him that a local farmer was mistreating his sheep, 537 00:38:07,154 --> 00:38:10,766 Darwin dropped his research to make an arrest of the man. 538 00:38:10,940 --> 00:38:13,508 He exposed the horrendous suffering of wild animals 539 00:38:13,682 --> 00:38:16,119 caught in the jaws of steel traps, 540 00:38:16,294 --> 00:38:19,645 and experimented on surgically without benefit of anesthesia. 541 00:38:20,820 --> 00:38:23,997 Throughout his entire life, he was haunted by an image of 542 00:38:24,171 --> 00:38:27,174 the helpless dog who licked his tormentor's hand while 543 00:38:27,348 --> 00:38:30,525 being dissected by a scientist. 544 00:38:30,699 --> 00:38:34,964 And this compassion extended even to our own species. 545 00:38:35,138 --> 00:38:38,794 He recognized the blindness of his 19th century contemporaries. 546 00:38:38,968 --> 00:38:41,449 In his autobiography, he recounted the story of 547 00:38:41,623 --> 00:38:45,366 an African woman who jumped off a cliff to her certain death, 548 00:38:45,540 --> 00:38:49,283 rather than submit to being enslaved by the Portuguese. 549 00:38:50,110 --> 00:38:54,375 Darwin observed that if she had been a Roman matron from classical antiquity, 550 00:38:54,549 --> 00:38:57,552 she would be viewed very differently. 551 00:38:57,726 --> 00:39:00,990 We would be naming our daughters after her. 552 00:39:06,996 --> 00:39:10,391 It was he who began the scientific study of the hidden 553 00:39:10,565 --> 00:39:14,047 world beneath the forest floor. 554 00:39:14,221 --> 00:39:17,093 Darwin worshipped nature. 555 00:39:17,267 --> 00:39:21,359 His knowledge of science informed and drove his compassion to new heights. 556 00:39:36,243 --> 00:39:41,074 Behold, Saccorhytus coronarius. 557 00:39:41,596 --> 00:39:44,817 When it lived, 550 million years ago, it was microscopic. 558 00:39:46,340 --> 00:39:50,300 But for us now, it looms large because this creature is 559 00:39:50,475 --> 00:39:53,826 the earliest common ancestor we've yet found, 560 00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,569 a physical connection we share with almost every animal on Earth. 561 00:40:11,191 --> 00:40:14,368 If we could only take that connection to heart. 562 00:40:14,542 --> 00:40:17,850 If some day, we could synthesize all our knowledge 563 00:40:18,024 --> 00:40:22,115 of life, and use it to build an Arch of Experience, 564 00:40:22,289 --> 00:40:26,772 a way for us to really feel what it's like to be the other. 565 00:40:30,906 --> 00:40:34,432 What if we could truly know the joy of a giant condor 566 00:40:34,736 --> 00:40:38,044 riding the thermals high in the Andes, 567 00:40:38,218 --> 00:40:41,656 or the anguish of a humpback whale singing to its lover 568 00:40:41,830 --> 00:40:46,095 across the vast Pacific, or the fear in the heart of 569 00:40:46,269 --> 00:40:50,665 our most hated enemy, how would that change this world? 570 00:40:53,102 --> 00:40:55,888 And all of them, and each of us, 571 00:40:56,062 --> 00:40:59,282 made from the same toolbox, with the same genetic 572 00:40:59,457 --> 00:41:03,156 material, but on different evolutionary voyages. 573 00:41:19,389 --> 00:41:21,740 Are there other possible worlds in the cosmos where 574 00:41:21,914 --> 00:41:25,570 life's pathways converge and intersect? 575 00:41:25,744 --> 00:41:28,311 Remember our friends, the tardigrades, 576 00:41:28,486 --> 00:41:30,836 who can rise from the dead to thrive on Earth in those 577 00:41:31,010 --> 00:41:34,056 hellish places where no one else can live? 578 00:41:34,230 --> 00:41:37,973 They have survived all five mass extinctions, 579 00:41:38,147 --> 00:41:42,891 and they can even live in the vacuum of space without protection. 580 00:41:43,065 --> 00:41:45,938 These creatures, too small to see with the naked eye, 581 00:41:46,112 --> 00:41:47,766 have been observed by scientists, 582 00:41:47,940 --> 00:41:49,985 using a scanning electron microscope, 583 00:41:50,159 --> 00:41:53,249 doing something that we like to think only humans do. 584 00:41:55,251 --> 00:41:57,340 They're not performing any of the known biological functions 585 00:41:57,515 --> 00:42:00,126 that organisms need to survive. 586 00:42:00,300 --> 00:42:03,782 They're gently giving each other pleasure, 587 00:42:03,956 --> 00:42:08,047 affection, tenderness for its own sake. 588 00:42:10,789 --> 00:42:14,009 If bees dream, and tardigrades snuggle, 589 00:42:15,402 --> 00:42:17,491 are there countless roads in the universe that life can 590 00:42:17,665 --> 00:42:20,102 take to wonder and to love? 591 00:42:23,236 --> 00:42:26,587 If we could stand beneath the Arch of Experience, 592 00:42:26,761 --> 00:42:29,982 or build one inside ourselves, 593 00:42:30,156 --> 00:42:34,813 maybe we'd be able to give our first contact story a better outcome. 594 00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:50,002 [computer signals] 595 00:43:04,494 --> 00:43:08,411 [computer signals] 596 00:43:53,108 --> 00:43:55,633 Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.