Microbiologist and explorer Nathan Wolfe endured one of the scariest adventures of his life – speaking before and sustaining the attention of 1,000 12-year-olds on the subject of biology.
The event was to celebrate Roy Chapman Andrews, a great 20th century explorer who was believed to have inspired the Indiana Jones character.
It was a question posed by one of the children at that celebration that led to this thought-provoking talk on the new generation’s biggest wonder and, in fact, concern: “Where should we explore?”
To the audience at TED, Nathan posed the question – “Is the great age of exploration over?”
We’ve been to the Moon and back. We’ve shot into space and brought back revolutionary theories on time and the universe. We’ve dug out dinosaur fossils and discovered every mammal on this planet (haven’t we?). Is there really nothing left for the next generation to explore on earth?
In his talk, Nathan erases the notion that the next generation are expected to travel to outer space or dive to the deepest ends of the ocean in order to uncover a new significant discovery. Instead, he suggests scaling our perspective on exploration by downsizing and thinking small, much smaller – to the world of microorganisms.
This seemingly tiny kingdom of an uncountable number of life forms still has a lot of room for surprise in the subject of exploration and we are now equipped with technology to explore them. After all, “virus” was a discovery made only 100 years ago, when we had already advanced to trains and automobiles.
“There are unknowns all around us, and they’re just waiting to be discovered,” stated Nathan towards the end of his talk.
As such, the youth of today can be reassured that there is a whole world of discoveries waiting for them to uncover!
What would you want to discover if you could?
If you want to see the Scale of the Universe from the very very big to the very very small why not check out The Scale Of The Universe and have fun exploring today.
