full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alisa Kazarina: Humanity at the intersection of science and archaeology


Unscramble the Blue Letters


Imagine a parallel universe that coexists in the same pacle as our usvnerie, in the same space, at the same time. This universe is odvrrcewoed with life fmros. It is invisible and intangible like the finest layer of reality, which we cannot notice. But it is there, and it mtaiinnas the functionality of our everyday world. Without it, we just wouldn't exist. Now, would you be surprised if I told you that actually everything I said before is true? Because I'm about to tell you this. I'm talking about the world of microbes - a separate world, yet so deeply connected to us. And the story of this cnetooincn expands far away into the past. But thanks to modern scencie, we are now able to read this story like a history book. Ladies and gentlemen, I pdourly preesnt biomolecular archeology, the science behind this history book. And I am here to srahe with you what fascinating things we can try to manage with this powerful modern science. But let's start with the term itself: biomolecular archeology. It's not even easy to pronounce, not to mention to try to understand the essence of this phrase. There might not be a problem with the archeology part, right? We've all seen it in movies, we know what it is about, but what is "biomolecular" anyway? The first thing that comes to mind: it is something about biology and molecules. And this is actually correct. A biological molecule, or a biomolecule, is any molecule that is present in a living organism. Now, there are all sorts of molecules in your body, but undoubtedly, the most informative one is DNA. So, let's bring it back together. Biomolecular archeology enables us to study the DNA reerovced from archeological spaemls. And not only ntviae human DNA, which, of course, all by itself gives lots of study perspectives, but also the DNA of microbes that lived side by side with that human. This science is relatively young. About ten years ago, a massive breakthrough happened in genomic rraecseh technology. A method aaereppd which is called NGS, next generation snuecnqieg, and this method significantly cuts time and costs of any ginmeoc research. For example, have you ever heard about the Human Genome Project? It was quite a popular tpoic for science fiction some time ago. This project launched in 1990 with the goal to decrypt all genomic information in a human organism. At that time, with the tgoeclnohy of the time, it took ten years and three billion dollars to reach the goals of this pejocrt. With NGS, all of that can be done in just one day at the cost of 15,000 dollars. On the fertile soil of next generation sequencing arose bumooilelacr archeology because there is a great lot of genomic information to be aalnyzed and it just wouldn't be possible to manage such research with olden day technology. Now we are able to manage such research OK, "But why?" you could ask me. "What benefits can we get out of this information? What can we use it for?" The answer appears to be quite wide. Consider human health as a complex and dynamic system. Apart from genetically determined factors that are stored in our DNA, our health is severely influenced by many other fraocts, like our lifestyle, our diet, and our fellow microbes. One hundred trillion cells, one and 14 zeros, that's the approximate number of msgonoriircams in your body, ten times greater than the number of your own cells. Your microbial bgaggae occupies almost 2% of your body weight, that's about one and a half klogrmias, atxmieoarpply the weight of your liver. Or your brain. And all these are microbes. Just think about it for a second! Human micboormie, that's the modern term for all microbial communities inhabiting your body, has earned a close aneoitttn over the last decade. It seems that we are only beginning to discover the mysterious role that is given to microbes in the performance of our health. In 2007, the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. launched the Human Microbiome Project to fllnaiy study its relation to our health coinnditos. And since then, it has only become clearer that our notion about our fellow microbes is inexcusably poor. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, even compared the rreaeeshrcs inlvoved in the project with the 15th century explorers discovering the outline of a new continent. It is now being suggested that a rnage of mdroen, widespread diseases, starting from obesity, Crohn's disease, other gastrointestinal problems to all sorts of allergies, autoimmune diseases, or maybe even cancer, may appear to be consequences of microbiome changes. But where do these changes come from? When did they first appear? What was the trniigegrg foactr? These are the qoitesnus we are trying to find answers to at the moment. This topic always tiregrgs a momrey of my first conscious enrxpcieee with the microbial world around. My mother, like any atteitnve parent, tried her best to warn me against the iilbsvnie dangers of the world, and she told me a story that every time I do not wash hdans before eating something, I become a reason of global microbial migration. (Laughter) An uncountable number of microbial families come together, pack their suitcases, their TVs, their favorite toys, and leave their houses forever to move to a new area which is thought to be my body. Now, I was a child with a very vivid imagination, and this story influenced me so much that I was obsessed with handwashing for a really long time. It actually took me years to ovoermce the thought that I'm doing something wrnog when I initiate this microbial migration, and to understand finally that they are actually willing to come, they've got freidns there waiting for them. I'm not trying to convince you not to ever wash your hands again, of course not. But let's try to be moderate with it. We lack this microbial diversity nowadays. And as we know from egclooy, the most direvse systems are the most slabte ones. This might be one of the rsaenos for our so-called diseases of civilization. And this is exactly the type of hypothesis for biomolecular archeology to deal with. It turns out that there is a unique archaeological mretaial that so pocsirleuy stores the enormous amnout of information related to ancient human microbiome, and this material is ancient dental plaque, thanks to the fact that oral cavtiy hngeiye was not on the list of top priorities for humans of the past. Their oral microbiome has already been partly fossilized during their lifetime in the form of dental calculus, which, in turn, stays in soil as well preserved as the skeletons themselves. Sadly, we can't help these fellas armnoye. But they can help us by providing uuinqe and purieocs information about their microbes and their health, and maybe we will have a cahnce to help others in the future thanks to them. There is one more vast huamn health-related aepcst where biomolecular aogrcealhoy takes its rightful place, and this field of research expands into the valley of ancient deadly pathogens. It is true that the vast majority of mcerbois either provide us some kind of benefit or do not really care whether there is a human around. But there are some ancient deadly microbes that still remain an urgent problem nowadays all around the world. For example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One and a half million deaths in 2014. And OK, OK, I know, the first rtaoecin I always get is like, "Wait, aren't there antibiotics?" or "I hread there is even a vaccine; is this disease still doguarens to us after all?" The answer is yes; tuberculosis is closer than you think. Because of some mysterious genetic phenomenon, there are people that can carry around this microbe their entire lives without developing any symptoms, and there are people that develop symptoms straight ahead after infection. Let me give you a real example of a tuberculosis mcmpeiirioedc. Let's say a person somehow got infected. He works as a teacher in a junior school. Half a year later, one of his ppiuls develops symptoms. A few mhtnos later, the older siestr of the pupil. A few more months later, two friends of the sister. This is how it spreads. When I was just srtantig my research on this topic, I myself was very surprised to know that tuberculosis worldwide remains one of the mojar health concerns, that on the list of icoinetfus diseases, it is the second most cmoomn death cause after HIV. Yes, the fhgit continues. Did you know we have a tslicuruoebs clinic right here in Latvia, just outside Riga, where many doctors and other specialists fight tuberculosis on a daily basis? To finally beat this harmful bacteria, it is crucial to understand how it evolved, how it developed resistance to antibiotics, how it spread. And these are the questions where biomolecular archaeology can help us a lot. At the moment, working in the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study certne, we have managed to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis in one aaigecralhcool sample from the 17th century. We are now in the process of defining its whole genome, so we can uradtsnned what type of tuberculosis reigned at that time over the Latvian territories and where it came from. Obviously, biomolecular archaeology impacts humanities as well, such as history and anthropology. These, for example, are the excavations on the Saint ģdrrūeets Cemetery a few yares ago. They started very spontaneously. There was an idea to build a shopping center in that area, and there was also information that there might be some medieval burial sties. So the Latvian Institute of History received a request to check it out. And they did actually find a medieval burial site, quite a massive one. Our archaeologists dug out over 500 skeletons, and found 2,000 more skeletons buried separately in a giant wooden box. But what was it? This couldn't be war because the skeletons lacked war lesions on their bones. Was it hunger? emdiepic? Archaeology itself cannot take this research any further, we have to inretevne with biomolecular methods. Only then can we trace the true reason. The research process that implements the goals of the science is fascinating, even by itself. It all srtats with ancient bones and tteeh from cemeteries all around Latvia. We then cut out small pieces of these bneos and shred them in special scientific mills to get bone pdeowr. We then extract all the DNA that is captured in a specific bone powder sample, and then we sequence it. Sequencing is the pcorses where the miacnhe reads the DNA code and tarasnetls it into a four-letter code. By the way, it is absolutely fascinating how all genetic information of human beings and all other living creatures on the planet Earth can be written down using the aheplabt containing four letters only. It's absolutely not surprising that the result of the sequencing is absolutely unreadable - gigabytes of text consisting of these four letters. It then takes time and effort to analyze these data with a variety of computational methods and programming approaches. And at the very end, we get a pretty readable list of all the microorganisms from a specific sample. The field of my research contains three sciceens at once: archaeology, biology and computer science, all mixed, merged and ctncoeend. It's like the science itself merging and connecting hntimuay throughout centuries. Science is like a pyramid: you cannot lay the upper block without a foutdonain of the blocks bnaeteh. And building this prmyiad of healthcare throughout the entire human civilization, I believe biomolecular archaeology just opened up a new frontier for us. Where do we go from here? It's a qoitesun of cihoce, but I believe that any dtinaiotesn holds fascinating discoveries. But just for now, please remember that you are never alone. (Laughter) You've got a hundred trillion friends that are always there for you. Think about it next time you want to wash your hands. Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze


Imagine a parallel universe that coexists in the same _____ as our ________, in the same space, at the same time. This universe is ___________ with life _____. It is invisible and intangible like the finest layer of reality, which we cannot notice. But it is there, and it _________ the functionality of our everyday world. Without it, we just wouldn't exist. Now, would you be surprised if I told you that actually everything I said before is true? Because I'm about to tell you this. I'm talking about the world of microbes - a separate world, yet so deeply connected to us. And the story of this __________ expands far away into the past. But thanks to modern _______, we are now able to read this story like a history book. Ladies and gentlemen, I _______ _______ biomolecular archeology, the science behind this history book. And I am here to _____ with you what fascinating things we can try to manage with this powerful modern science. But let's start with the term itself: biomolecular archeology. It's not even easy to pronounce, not to mention to try to understand the essence of this phrase. There might not be a problem with the archeology part, right? We've all seen it in movies, we know what it is about, but what is "biomolecular" anyway? The first thing that comes to mind: it is something about biology and molecules. And this is actually correct. A biological molecule, or a biomolecule, is any molecule that is present in a living organism. Now, there are all sorts of molecules in your body, but undoubtedly, the most informative one is DNA. So, let's bring it back together. Biomolecular archeology enables us to study the DNA _________ from archeological _______. And not only ______ human DNA, which, of course, all by itself gives lots of study perspectives, but also the DNA of microbes that lived side by side with that human. This science is relatively young. About ten years ago, a massive breakthrough happened in genomic ________ technology. A method ________ which is called NGS, next generation __________, and this method significantly cuts time and costs of any _______ research. For example, have you ever heard about the Human Genome Project? It was quite a popular _____ for science fiction some time ago. This project launched in 1990 with the goal to decrypt all genomic information in a human organism. At that time, with the __________ of the time, it took ten years and three billion dollars to reach the goals of this _______. With NGS, all of that can be done in just one day at the cost of 15,000 dollars. On the fertile soil of next generation sequencing arose ____________ archeology because there is a great lot of genomic information to be ________ and it just wouldn't be possible to manage such research with olden day technology. Now we are able to manage such research OK, "But why?" you could ask me. "What benefits can we get out of this information? What can we use it for?" The answer appears to be quite wide. Consider human health as a complex and dynamic system. Apart from genetically determined factors that are stored in our DNA, our health is severely influenced by many other _______, like our lifestyle, our diet, and our fellow microbes. One hundred trillion cells, one and 14 zeros, that's the approximate number of ______________ in your body, ten times greater than the number of your own cells. Your microbial _______ occupies almost 2% of your body weight, that's about one and a half _________, _____________ the weight of your liver. Or your brain. And all these are microbes. Just think about it for a second! Human __________, that's the modern term for all microbial communities inhabiting your body, has earned a close _________ over the last decade. It seems that we are only beginning to discover the mysterious role that is given to microbes in the performance of our health. In 2007, the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. launched the Human Microbiome Project to _______ study its relation to our health __________. And since then, it has only become clearer that our notion about our fellow microbes is inexcusably poor. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, even compared the ___________ ________ in the project with the 15th century explorers discovering the outline of a new continent. It is now being suggested that a _____ of ______, widespread diseases, starting from obesity, Crohn's disease, other gastrointestinal problems to all sorts of allergies, autoimmune diseases, or maybe even cancer, may appear to be consequences of microbiome changes. But where do these changes come from? When did they first appear? What was the __________ ______? These are the _________ we are trying to find answers to at the moment. This topic always ________ a ______ of my first conscious __________ with the microbial world around. My mother, like any _________ parent, tried her best to warn me against the _________ dangers of the world, and she told me a story that every time I do not wash _____ before eating something, I become a reason of global microbial migration. (Laughter) An uncountable number of microbial families come together, pack their suitcases, their TVs, their favorite toys, and leave their houses forever to move to a new area which is thought to be my body. Now, I was a child with a very vivid imagination, and this story influenced me so much that I was obsessed with handwashing for a really long time. It actually took me years to ________ the thought that I'm doing something _____ when I initiate this microbial migration, and to understand finally that they are actually willing to come, they've got _______ there waiting for them. I'm not trying to convince you not to ever wash your hands again, of course not. But let's try to be moderate with it. We lack this microbial diversity nowadays. And as we know from _______, the most _______ systems are the most ______ ones. This might be one of the _______ for our so-called diseases of civilization. And this is exactly the type of hypothesis for biomolecular archeology to deal with. It turns out that there is a unique archaeological ________ that so __________ stores the enormous ______ of information related to ancient human microbiome, and this material is ancient dental plaque, thanks to the fact that oral ______ _______ was not on the list of top priorities for humans of the past. Their oral microbiome has already been partly fossilized during their lifetime in the form of dental calculus, which, in turn, stays in soil as well preserved as the skeletons themselves. Sadly, we can't help these fellas _______. But they can help us by providing ______ and ________ information about their microbes and their health, and maybe we will have a ______ to help others in the future thanks to them. There is one more vast _____ health-related ______ where biomolecular ___________ takes its rightful place, and this field of research expands into the valley of ancient deadly pathogens. It is true that the vast majority of ________ either provide us some kind of benefit or do not really care whether there is a human around. But there are some ancient deadly microbes that still remain an urgent problem nowadays all around the world. For example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One and a half million deaths in 2014. And OK, OK, I know, the first ________ I always get is like, "Wait, aren't there antibiotics?" or "I _____ there is even a vaccine; is this disease still _________ to us after all?" The answer is yes; tuberculosis is closer than you think. Because of some mysterious genetic phenomenon, there are people that can carry around this microbe their entire lives without developing any symptoms, and there are people that develop symptoms straight ahead after infection. Let me give you a real example of a tuberculosis _____________. Let's say a person somehow got infected. He works as a teacher in a junior school. Half a year later, one of his ______ develops symptoms. A few ______ later, the older ______ of the pupil. A few more months later, two friends of the sister. This is how it spreads. When I was just ________ my research on this topic, I myself was very surprised to know that tuberculosis worldwide remains one of the _____ health concerns, that on the list of __________ diseases, it is the second most ______ death cause after HIV. Yes, the _____ continues. Did you know we have a ____________ clinic right here in Latvia, just outside Riga, where many doctors and other specialists fight tuberculosis on a daily basis? To finally beat this harmful bacteria, it is crucial to understand how it evolved, how it developed resistance to antibiotics, how it spread. And these are the questions where biomolecular archaeology can help us a lot. At the moment, working in the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study ______, we have managed to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis in one ______________ sample from the 17th century. We are now in the process of defining its whole genome, so we can __________ what type of tuberculosis reigned at that time over the Latvian territories and where it came from. Obviously, biomolecular archaeology impacts humanities as well, such as history and anthropology. These, for example, are the excavations on the Saint _________ Cemetery a few _____ ago. They started very spontaneously. There was an idea to build a shopping center in that area, and there was also information that there might be some medieval burial _____. So the Latvian Institute of History received a request to check it out. And they did actually find a medieval burial site, quite a massive one. Our archaeologists dug out over 500 skeletons, and found 2,000 more skeletons buried separately in a giant wooden box. But what was it? This couldn't be war because the skeletons lacked war lesions on their bones. Was it hunger? ________? Archaeology itself cannot take this research any further, we have to _________ with biomolecular methods. Only then can we trace the true reason. The research process that implements the goals of the science is fascinating, even by itself. It all ______ with ancient bones and _____ from cemeteries all around Latvia. We then cut out small pieces of these _____ and shred them in special scientific mills to get bone ______. We then extract all the DNA that is captured in a specific bone powder sample, and then we sequence it. Sequencing is the _______ where the _______ reads the DNA code and __________ it into a four-letter code. By the way, it is absolutely fascinating how all genetic information of human beings and all other living creatures on the planet Earth can be written down using the ________ containing four letters only. It's absolutely not surprising that the result of the sequencing is absolutely unreadable - gigabytes of text consisting of these four letters. It then takes time and effort to analyze these data with a variety of computational methods and programming approaches. And at the very end, we get a pretty readable list of all the microorganisms from a specific sample. The field of my research contains three ________ at once: archaeology, biology and computer science, all mixed, merged and _________. It's like the science itself merging and connecting ________ throughout centuries. Science is like a pyramid: you cannot lay the upper block without a __________ of the blocks _______. And building this _______ of healthcare throughout the entire human civilization, I believe biomolecular archaeology just opened up a new frontier for us. Where do we go from here? It's a ________ of ______, but I believe that any ___________ holds fascinating discoveries. But just for now, please remember that you are never alone. (Laughter) You've got a hundred trillion friends that are always there for you. Think about it next time you want to wash your hands. Thank you. (Applause)

Solution


  1. involved
  2. years
  3. fight
  4. modern
  5. finally
  6. triggers
  7. ģertrūdes
  8. pyramid
  9. understand
  10. range
  11. epidemic
  12. memory
  13. sites
  14. appeared
  15. alphabet
  16. baggage
  17. microorganisms
  18. sister
  19. months
  20. foundation
  21. approximately
  22. humanity
  23. attention
  24. kilograms
  25. hygiene
  26. destination
  27. microepidemic
  28. experience
  29. universe
  30. research
  31. reasons
  32. samples
  33. science
  34. overcrowded
  35. starts
  36. biomolecular
  37. human
  38. topic
  39. triggering
  40. stable
  41. amount
  42. unique
  43. tuberculosis
  44. questions
  45. factor
  46. archaeology
  47. present
  48. microbes
  49. forms
  50. hands
  51. cavity
  52. project
  53. proudly
  54. sciences
  55. anymore
  56. preciously
  57. share
  58. connection
  59. researchers
  60. overcome
  61. choice
  62. wrong
  63. diverse
  64. attentive
  65. native
  66. maintains
  67. teeth
  68. aspect
  69. common
  70. beneath
  71. connected
  72. major
  73. invisible
  74. precious
  75. sequencing
  76. material
  77. recovered
  78. powder
  79. pupils
  80. analyzed
  81. machine
  82. centre
  83. ecology
  84. archaeological
  85. friends
  86. intervene
  87. process
  88. bones
  89. technology
  90. reaction
  91. translates
  92. starting
  93. chance
  94. factors
  95. microbiome
  96. dangerous
  97. heard
  98. infectious
  99. place
  100. conditions
  101. question
  102. genomic

Original Text


Imagine a parallel universe that coexists in the same place as our universe, in the same space, at the same time. This universe is overcrowded with life forms. It is invisible and intangible like the finest layer of reality, which we cannot notice. But it is there, and it maintains the functionality of our everyday world. Without it, we just wouldn't exist. Now, would you be surprised if I told you that actually everything I said before is true? Because I'm about to tell you this. I'm talking about the world of microbes - a separate world, yet so deeply connected to us. And the story of this connection expands far away into the past. But thanks to modern science, we are now able to read this story like a history book. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present biomolecular archeology, the science behind this history book. And I am here to share with you what fascinating things we can try to manage with this powerful modern science. But let's start with the term itself: biomolecular archeology. It's not even easy to pronounce, not to mention to try to understand the essence of this phrase. There might not be a problem with the archeology part, right? We've all seen it in movies, we know what it is about, but what is "biomolecular" anyway? The first thing that comes to mind: it is something about biology and molecules. And this is actually correct. A biological molecule, or a biomolecule, is any molecule that is present in a living organism. Now, there are all sorts of molecules in your body, but undoubtedly, the most informative one is DNA. So, let's bring it back together. Biomolecular archeology enables us to study the DNA recovered from archeological samples. And not only native human DNA, which, of course, all by itself gives lots of study perspectives, but also the DNA of microbes that lived side by side with that human. This science is relatively young. About ten years ago, a massive breakthrough happened in genomic research technology. A method appeared which is called NGS, next generation sequencing, and this method significantly cuts time and costs of any genomic research. For example, have you ever heard about the Human Genome Project? It was quite a popular topic for science fiction some time ago. This project launched in 1990 with the goal to decrypt all genomic information in a human organism. At that time, with the technology of the time, it took ten years and three billion dollars to reach the goals of this project. With NGS, all of that can be done in just one day at the cost of 15,000 dollars. On the fertile soil of next generation sequencing arose biomolecular archeology because there is a great lot of genomic information to be analyzed and it just wouldn't be possible to manage such research with olden day technology. Now we are able to manage such research OK, "But why?" you could ask me. "What benefits can we get out of this information? What can we use it for?" The answer appears to be quite wide. Consider human health as a complex and dynamic system. Apart from genetically determined factors that are stored in our DNA, our health is severely influenced by many other factors, like our lifestyle, our diet, and our fellow microbes. One hundred trillion cells, one and 14 zeros, that's the approximate number of microorganisms in your body, ten times greater than the number of your own cells. Your microbial baggage occupies almost 2% of your body weight, that's about one and a half kilograms, approximately the weight of your liver. Or your brain. And all these are microbes. Just think about it for a second! Human microbiome, that's the modern term for all microbial communities inhabiting your body, has earned a close attention over the last decade. It seems that we are only beginning to discover the mysterious role that is given to microbes in the performance of our health. In 2007, the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. launched the Human Microbiome Project to finally study its relation to our health conditions. And since then, it has only become clearer that our notion about our fellow microbes is inexcusably poor. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, even compared the researchers involved in the project with the 15th century explorers discovering the outline of a new continent. It is now being suggested that a range of modern, widespread diseases, starting from obesity, Crohn's disease, other gastrointestinal problems to all sorts of allergies, autoimmune diseases, or maybe even cancer, may appear to be consequences of microbiome changes. But where do these changes come from? When did they first appear? What was the triggering factor? These are the questions we are trying to find answers to at the moment. This topic always triggers a memory of my first conscious experience with the microbial world around. My mother, like any attentive parent, tried her best to warn me against the invisible dangers of the world, and she told me a story that every time I do not wash hands before eating something, I become a reason of global microbial migration. (Laughter) An uncountable number of microbial families come together, pack their suitcases, their TVs, their favorite toys, and leave their houses forever to move to a new area which is thought to be my body. Now, I was a child with a very vivid imagination, and this story influenced me so much that I was obsessed with handwashing for a really long time. It actually took me years to overcome the thought that I'm doing something wrong when I initiate this microbial migration, and to understand finally that they are actually willing to come, they've got friends there waiting for them. I'm not trying to convince you not to ever wash your hands again, of course not. But let's try to be moderate with it. We lack this microbial diversity nowadays. And as we know from ecology, the most diverse systems are the most stable ones. This might be one of the reasons for our so-called diseases of civilization. And this is exactly the type of hypothesis for biomolecular archeology to deal with. It turns out that there is a unique archaeological material that so preciously stores the enormous amount of information related to ancient human microbiome, and this material is ancient dental plaque, thanks to the fact that oral cavity hygiene was not on the list of top priorities for humans of the past. Their oral microbiome has already been partly fossilized during their lifetime in the form of dental calculus, which, in turn, stays in soil as well preserved as the skeletons themselves. Sadly, we can't help these fellas anymore. But they can help us by providing unique and precious information about their microbes and their health, and maybe we will have a chance to help others in the future thanks to them. There is one more vast human health-related aspect where biomolecular archaeology takes its rightful place, and this field of research expands into the valley of ancient deadly pathogens. It is true that the vast majority of microbes either provide us some kind of benefit or do not really care whether there is a human around. But there are some ancient deadly microbes that still remain an urgent problem nowadays all around the world. For example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One and a half million deaths in 2014. And OK, OK, I know, the first reaction I always get is like, "Wait, aren't there antibiotics?" or "I heard there is even a vaccine; is this disease still dangerous to us after all?" The answer is yes; tuberculosis is closer than you think. Because of some mysterious genetic phenomenon, there are people that can carry around this microbe their entire lives without developing any symptoms, and there are people that develop symptoms straight ahead after infection. Let me give you a real example of a tuberculosis microepidemic. Let's say a person somehow got infected. He works as a teacher in a junior school. Half a year later, one of his pupils develops symptoms. A few months later, the older sister of the pupil. A few more months later, two friends of the sister. This is how it spreads. When I was just starting my research on this topic, I myself was very surprised to know that tuberculosis worldwide remains one of the major health concerns, that on the list of infectious diseases, it is the second most common death cause after HIV. Yes, the fight continues. Did you know we have a tuberculosis clinic right here in Latvia, just outside Riga, where many doctors and other specialists fight tuberculosis on a daily basis? To finally beat this harmful bacteria, it is crucial to understand how it evolved, how it developed resistance to antibiotics, how it spread. And these are the questions where biomolecular archaeology can help us a lot. At the moment, working in the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, we have managed to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis in one archaeological sample from the 17th century. We are now in the process of defining its whole genome, so we can understand what type of tuberculosis reigned at that time over the Latvian territories and where it came from. Obviously, biomolecular archaeology impacts humanities as well, such as history and anthropology. These, for example, are the excavations on the Saint Ģertrūdes Cemetery a few years ago. They started very spontaneously. There was an idea to build a shopping center in that area, and there was also information that there might be some medieval burial sites. So the Latvian Institute of History received a request to check it out. And they did actually find a medieval burial site, quite a massive one. Our archaeologists dug out over 500 skeletons, and found 2,000 more skeletons buried separately in a giant wooden box. But what was it? This couldn't be war because the skeletons lacked war lesions on their bones. Was it hunger? Epidemic? Archaeology itself cannot take this research any further, we have to intervene with biomolecular methods. Only then can we trace the true reason. The research process that implements the goals of the science is fascinating, even by itself. It all starts with ancient bones and teeth from cemeteries all around Latvia. We then cut out small pieces of these bones and shred them in special scientific mills to get bone powder. We then extract all the DNA that is captured in a specific bone powder sample, and then we sequence it. Sequencing is the process where the machine reads the DNA code and translates it into a four-letter code. By the way, it is absolutely fascinating how all genetic information of human beings and all other living creatures on the planet Earth can be written down using the alphabet containing four letters only. It's absolutely not surprising that the result of the sequencing is absolutely unreadable - gigabytes of text consisting of these four letters. It then takes time and effort to analyze these data with a variety of computational methods and programming approaches. And at the very end, we get a pretty readable list of all the microorganisms from a specific sample. The field of my research contains three sciences at once: archaeology, biology and computer science, all mixed, merged and connected. It's like the science itself merging and connecting humanity throughout centuries. Science is like a pyramid: you cannot lay the upper block without a foundation of the blocks beneath. And building this pyramid of healthcare throughout the entire human civilization, I believe biomolecular archaeology just opened up a new frontier for us. Where do we go from here? It's a question of choice, but I believe that any destination holds fascinating discoveries. But just for now, please remember that you are never alone. (Laughter) You've got a hundred trillion friends that are always there for you. Think about it next time you want to wash your hands. Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
biomolecular archeology 4
biomolecular archaeology 4
history book 2
ten years 2
genomic research 2
genomic information 2
fellow microbes 2
national institutes 2
ancient deadly 2
mycobacterium tuberculosis 2
medieval burial 2
bone powder 2



Important Words


  1. absolutely
  2. allergies
  3. alphabet
  4. amount
  5. analyze
  6. analyzed
  7. ancient
  8. answer
  9. answers
  10. anthropology
  11. antibiotics
  12. anymore
  13. appeared
  14. appears
  15. applause
  16. approaches
  17. approximate
  18. approximately
  19. archaeological
  20. archaeologists
  21. archaeology
  22. archeological
  23. archeology
  24. area
  25. arose
  26. aspect
  27. attention
  28. attentive
  29. autoimmune
  30. bacteria
  31. baggage
  32. basis
  33. beat
  34. beginning
  35. beings
  36. beneath
  37. benefit
  38. benefits
  39. billion
  40. biological
  41. biology
  42. biomedical
  43. biomolecular
  44. biomolecule
  45. block
  46. blocks
  47. body
  48. bone
  49. bones
  50. book
  51. box
  52. brain
  53. breakthrough
  54. bring
  55. build
  56. building
  57. burial
  58. buried
  59. calculus
  60. called
  61. cancer
  62. captured
  63. care
  64. carry
  65. cavity
  66. cells
  67. cemeteries
  68. cemetery
  69. center
  70. centre
  71. centuries
  72. century
  73. chance
  74. check
  75. child
  76. choice
  77. civilization
  78. clearer
  79. clinic
  80. close
  81. closer
  82. code
  83. coexists
  84. collins
  85. common
  86. communities
  87. compared
  88. complex
  89. computational
  90. computer
  91. concerns
  92. conditions
  93. connected
  94. connecting
  95. connection
  96. conscious
  97. consequences
  98. consisting
  99. continent
  100. continues
  101. convince
  102. correct
  103. cost
  104. costs
  105. creatures
  106. crucial
  107. cut
  108. cuts
  109. daily
  110. dangerous
  111. dangers
  112. data
  113. day
  114. deadly
  115. deal
  116. death
  117. deaths
  118. decade
  119. decrypt
  120. deeply
  121. defining
  122. dental
  123. destination
  124. determined
  125. develop
  126. developed
  127. developing
  128. develops
  129. diet
  130. director
  131. discover
  132. discoveries
  133. discovering
  134. disease
  135. diseases
  136. diverse
  137. diversity
  138. dna
  139. doctors
  140. dollars
  141. dug
  142. dynamic
  143. earned
  144. earth
  145. easy
  146. eating
  147. ecology
  148. effort
  149. enables
  150. enormous
  151. entire
  152. epidemic
  153. essence
  154. everyday
  155. evolved
  156. excavations
  157. exist
  158. expands
  159. experience
  160. explorers
  161. extract
  162. fact
  163. factor
  164. factors
  165. families
  166. fascinating
  167. favorite
  168. fellas
  169. fellow
  170. fertile
  171. fiction
  172. field
  173. fight
  174. finally
  175. find
  176. finest
  177. form
  178. forms
  179. fossilized
  180. foundation
  181. francis
  182. friends
  183. frontier
  184. functionality
  185. future
  186. gastrointestinal
  187. generation
  188. genetic
  189. genetically
  190. genome
  191. genomic
  192. gentlemen
  193. giant
  194. gigabytes
  195. give
  196. global
  197. goal
  198. goals
  199. great
  200. greater
  201. hands
  202. handwashing
  203. happened
  204. harmful
  205. health
  206. healthcare
  207. heard
  208. history
  209. hiv
  210. holds
  211. houses
  212. human
  213. humanities
  214. humanity
  215. humans
  216. hunger
  217. hygiene
  218. hypothesis
  219. idea
  220. identify
  221. imagination
  222. imagine
  223. impacts
  224. implements
  225. inexcusably
  226. infected
  227. infection
  228. infectious
  229. influenced
  230. information
  231. informative
  232. inhabiting
  233. initiate
  234. institute
  235. institutes
  236. intangible
  237. intervene
  238. invisible
  239. involved
  240. junior
  241. kilograms
  242. kind
  243. lack
  244. lacked
  245. ladies
  246. latvia
  247. latvian
  248. laughter
  249. launched
  250. lay
  251. layer
  252. leave
  253. lesions
  254. letters
  255. life
  256. lifestyle
  257. lifetime
  258. list
  259. lived
  260. liver
  261. lives
  262. living
  263. long
  264. lot
  265. lots
  266. machine
  267. maintains
  268. major
  269. majority
  270. manage
  271. managed
  272. massive
  273. material
  274. medieval
  275. memory
  276. mention
  277. merged
  278. merging
  279. method
  280. methods
  281. microbe
  282. microbes
  283. microbial
  284. microbiome
  285. microepidemic
  286. microorganisms
  287. migration
  288. million
  289. mills
  290. mixed
  291. moderate
  292. modern
  293. molecule
  294. molecules
  295. moment
  296. months
  297. mother
  298. move
  299. movies
  300. mycobacterium
  301. mysterious
  302. national
  303. native
  304. ngs
  305. notice
  306. notion
  307. nowadays
  308. number
  309. obesity
  310. obsessed
  311. occupies
  312. olden
  313. older
  314. opened
  315. oral
  316. organism
  317. outline
  318. overcome
  319. overcrowded
  320. pack
  321. parallel
  322. parent
  323. part
  324. partly
  325. pathogens
  326. people
  327. performance
  328. person
  329. perspectives
  330. phenomenon
  331. phrase
  332. pieces
  333. place
  334. planet
  335. plaque
  336. poor
  337. popular
  338. powder
  339. powerful
  340. precious
  341. preciously
  342. present
  343. preserved
  344. pretty
  345. priorities
  346. problem
  347. problems
  348. process
  349. programming
  350. project
  351. pronounce
  352. proudly
  353. provide
  354. providing
  355. pupil
  356. pupils
  357. pyramid
  358. question
  359. questions
  360. range
  361. reach
  362. reaction
  363. read
  364. readable
  365. reads
  366. real
  367. reality
  368. reason
  369. reasons
  370. received
  371. recovered
  372. reigned
  373. related
  374. relation
  375. remain
  376. remains
  377. remember
  378. request
  379. research
  380. researchers
  381. resistance
  382. result
  383. riga
  384. rightful
  385. role
  386. sadly
  387. saint
  388. sample
  389. samples
  390. school
  391. science
  392. sciences
  393. scientific
  394. separate
  395. separately
  396. sequence
  397. sequencing
  398. severely
  399. share
  400. shopping
  401. shred
  402. side
  403. significantly
  404. sister
  405. site
  406. sites
  407. skeletons
  408. small
  409. soil
  410. sorts
  411. space
  412. special
  413. specialists
  414. specific
  415. spontaneously
  416. spread
  417. spreads
  418. stable
  419. start
  420. started
  421. starting
  422. starts
  423. stays
  424. stored
  425. stores
  426. story
  427. straight
  428. study
  429. suggested
  430. suitcases
  431. surprised
  432. surprising
  433. symptoms
  434. system
  435. systems
  436. takes
  437. talking
  438. teacher
  439. technology
  440. teeth
  441. ten
  442. term
  443. territories
  444. text
  445. thought
  446. time
  447. times
  448. told
  449. top
  450. topic
  451. toys
  452. trace
  453. translates
  454. triggering
  455. triggers
  456. trillion
  457. true
  458. tuberculosis
  459. turn
  460. turns
  461. tvs
  462. type
  463. uncountable
  464. understand
  465. undoubtedly
  466. unique
  467. universe
  468. unreadable
  469. upper
  470. urgent
  471. valley
  472. variety
  473. vast
  474. vivid
  475. waiting
  476. war
  477. warn
  478. wash
  479. weight
  480. wide
  481. widespread
  482. wooden
  483. working
  484. works
  485. world
  486. worldwide
  487. written
  488. wrong
  489. year
  490. years
  491. young
  492. zeros
  493. ģertrūdes