[SHIT] This is arguably the back end of the design of animals.
(Laughter) But the reason I put this up here is because when I was in Africa last year, my wife and I were driving around, we had this wonderful guide, who showed us something that surprised both of us, and it was very revealing in terms of the fascination that comes with the design of animals.
It turns out that in about the 1880s, the missionaries came to Africa to spread the word of Christianity, to teach English to the natives.
And they brought blackboards and chalk.
And I'd like you to imagine that that's a blackboard, and I just used some chalk on there.
And they brought quite a bit of this stuff.
But over the years, the blackboards were fine, but they ran out of chalk.
And this is a real crisis for them.
And that's where the hyena comes in.
The hyena is probably the most perfectly designed scavenging animal in the world.
It strip-mines carcasses, and it has amazing teeth, because it enables the hyena to essentially eat bones.
Now, the end product of that action is up on the board here.
What the missionaries would do is, they'd walk around and they'd pick up hyena shit.
And the incredible thing about hyena shit is, it makes great chalk.
(Laughter) That's not what I'm here to talk about, but it is a fascinating aspect of animal design.
What I'm here to talk about is the camel.
When I started talking to Richard about what I was going to speak about, I had recently come back from Jordan, where I had an amazing experience with a camel.
(Laughter) And we were in the desert.
Richard Wurman: That's the end!
Keith Bellows: Yeah, yeah.
We were in the desert, in Wadi Rum, in a small Jeep.
There were four of us, two Bedouin drivers.
You can just imagine, this expanse is an ocean of sand, 105 degrees, one water bottle.
And we were driving in what they told us was their very, very best Jeep.
Didn't look like it to me.
And as we started to go through the desert, the Jeep broke down.
The guys got out, they put the hood up, they started working under the hood, got it going again.
About a hundred yards, it broke down.
This went on about 6-7 times, we were getting more and more alarmed, we were also getting deeper and deeper into the desert.
And eventually, our worst nightmare happened: they flooded the engine.
And they said, "Ah, no problem!
We just get out and walk."
And we said, "We get out and walk?"
One water bottle, remember, guys, four people.
And they said, "Yeah, yeah, we'll walk.
We'll find some camels."
We got out and walked, and sure enough, about half a mile, we came over the crest of this hill, and there was a huge gathering of Bedouin with their camels.
The guy went up and started dickering, and 10 dollars later, we had four camels.
They went down like elevators; we got on them.
They went back up, and the Bedouin, each Bedouin, four of them, got behind each of the camels with a little whip.
And they started slashing away at the back of the camels, and they started galloping.
And if you've ever been on a camel, it is a very, very uncomfortable ride.
There's also one other aspect about these camels.
About every 10 steps, they lean back and try to take a chunk out of your leg.
(Laughter) So we kept on going, and this camel kept on trying to take a chunk out of my leg.
And eventually, three miles later, we arrived at our destination, where a Jeep was supposed to meet us.
And the camels come down again like elevators, we sort of clumsily get off, and they, obviously, try to take another chunk out of my leg.
And I've developed a very wonderful relationship with this creature by this point, and I've realized that this is a mean son of a bitch.
And much meaner, by the way, than the Bedouin who greeted me and tried to sell me one of his 26 daughters to take back to the States.
So as we talked, Richard and I, I said, "You know, maybe I should bring a camel.
It's the best designed animal in the world."
He went, "Nah.
I don't think we want to be bringing a camel."
And you should be really glad we decided not to bring the camel.
So I did the next best thing.
I went to the Washington Zoo.
Richard said, "I want you to get up close and personal with this camel.
I want you to inspect its mouth, look at its teeth.
Go underneath it.
Go above it.
Go around it.
Pull its tail up; take a look in there.
I want you to get as close to that camel as you possibly can."
So, I got a National Geographic film crew.
We went down there, and I took one look at this camel.
It is a 2,000 pound creature who is in rut.
(Laughter) Now, if you've ever seen a 2,000 pound camel in rut, it is a scary, scary thing to behold.
And if Richard thought I was getting in the ring with that camel, someone was smoking Bedouin high grade.
(Laughter) So we got as close to it as possible, and I'm going to share this.
Chris, if you want to roll this film.
Then I'm going to show you a little bit more about the design of camels.
Do you want to roll the film?
(Adventure music) (Video) Hello.
This is Keith Bellows with the TED National Geographic Camel Investigation Unit.
I'm here to look at the ultimate desert machine.
(Music continues) Keith Bellows: And you'll note I started chewing gum because I was around this camel all day.
(Video) That's it, OK.
No!
See, now he's getting a little overexcited.
So we'll need to be very careful around him.
Don't let him get you.
Now, you can see copious amounts of saliva in there.
I always called myself the unstable stable boy.
Their nose, you can see his nose is flared right now.
When they're in rut, they're similar to seals in the way, like, a seal has to open its nose to breathe.
And they're similar.
They have to consciously open their nose.
KB: Ears?
SK: They are small.
But they have excellent hearing.
But not big; for instance, in zebras, they have a huge ear that's very mobile, so they can actually turn them both around.
And they use them in the same way we use our binocular vision.
They use that to pinpoint sound.
The desert's extremely windy as well as being very cold.
So not only do they have the very long eyelashes, but there's the secondary -- I guess you'd call it the [unclear] or whatever.
It's this hair that's above the eyes, and below it, it's longer.
Most people think that the humps store water.
They don't.
They store fat.
Now, I'm not a chemist, but basically what happens is the fat is oxidized by their breathing.
And that will turn it into actually usable water.
Like a lot of predators, they walk on their toes.
But there's a big fat pad in there that squishes out.
They're like sun shoes, but, you know, with sand.
Hooves?
They don't have traditional hooves, but they do have one, like, big nail.
(Audience laughter) You can't really see too clear.
The fur's kind of grown over.
But they use their tails a lot, especially in rut.
He will urinate and spin his tail to spread the urine around and make him more attractive.
I don't know why that would be, but it works for them.
So, what the hell.
(Audience laughter) Now, they will also defecate in certain areas.
Generally, they poop wherever they want to, but during their rut, they will defecate in perimeter areas.
I don't know if you've read or heard about the sub-sonic sounds from elephants, you know what I mean, like, "Br-r-r!"
These big, big rumbling sounds.
He will do the same thing.
You can actually see, right here, it will vibrate.
We weigh our animals.
Unfortunately, he's a very aggressive animal, so he's actually destroyed some of the scales.
We had these big things that I weigh the bison on, for instance.
I'm guessing that he's at least 1,600 pounds.
But I would put him closer to 2,000.
He's basically a walking mulch pile.
We're kind of like buds, but I'm also a male as well.
KB: He sees you as competition?
Senior Keeper: Yeah, exactly.
And it makes him very dangerous at this time of year.
Don't even think about it.
Don't think about it!
But now, we're going to meet.
Out!
Out!
Out!
No.
Out!
(Music) (Applause) KB: What I didn't show you was, you got that swinging thing going?
Well, and you're glad I didn't show you this.
One of the other things about the camel's beautiful design is that its penis points backwards.
That way the camel can dip its tail in the stream, and just whacker the entire area around him.
And that's how he really marks his territory.
Now, what you also didn't see was that -- and you may have noticed in the pen beside him and, by the way, the camel's name is Suki.
In the pen beside him is Jasmine.
Jasmine has been his mate for some time.
But on this particular occasion, it was very, very clear that as horny as Suki was, Jasmine was having none of it.
And so we started thinking.
Well, if poor old Suki is in search of a mate, what would Suki do to find the perfect mate?
I'm going to show you another film.
But before I do, I just want to mention that this animal truly is a sort of the SUV of the sand, the ship of the desert.
It's so vital to the inhabitants of the areas in which the camel is found, largely Mongolia and Sahara, that there are 160 words in Arabic to describe the camel.
And if this is a creature that was designed by committee, it's certainly been like no committee I've ever been on.
So here's what Suki would do in search of a mate.
Can you roll it, please?
Camel seeking camel Lusty beast desires attractive and sincere mate.
I'm seven feet, 2,000 lbs., with brown hair and eyes, long legs -- and I'm very well ... hung.
I'm TED Camel.
The perfect desert machine.
I'm smartly designed.
Eyelashes that keep out sand and a third eyelash that works like a windshield wiper.
A distinguished nose -- with nostrils lined to filter out sand and dust and a groove that catches moisture.
Amazingly full lips -- that allow me to eat practically anything that grows.
Callouses on my knees that let me kneel comfortably.
Leathery chest pads that beat the heat.
Short fur that keeps my skin cool.
Long legs that allow heat to escape.
And my hump?
Ogden Nash once wrote: "The camel has a single hump; the dromedary two, or else the other way around.
I'm never sure.
Are you?"
Here's a hint: Bactarian.
Dromedary.
My hump contains up to 80 lbs. of fat, but doesn't store H2O.
I'm built to last.
I'm the go-to animal when the oasis is dry.
I usually won't sweat until my body reaches 105 ºF, enough to fry an egg.
I'm able to lose 40% of my weight without dying.
(Most animals would if they lost half that much.)
I'll drink 5 to 7 gallons of water a day.
But go without for more than a month.
I'm powerful.
Able to pack up to 400 lbs. of cargo.
Outrun a horse -- And cover 26 miles on a good day.
Camelot.
Jackie O. once said that traveling by camel made riding an elephant seem like taking a jet plane.
Yet my large, soft feet allow me to navigate sand.
(Is that why the Bedouin claim I can dance?)
I'm a good provider, too.
Bedouins call the camel the Gift of God.
No surprise.
Tents and rugs are made of my hair.
My dried bones are prized as a sort of ivory.
My dung is burned as fuel.
My milk is used for cheese.
"Camels are like angels," a Bedouin once said.
(Applause) Thank you.
I just want to leave you with one last thought, which is probably the most important thing to take away.
Humans, the animal, are pretty lucky creatures because, by and large, we really don't have to adapt to our environment; we adapt our environment to us.
And we've seen that repeatedly through this conference, not just this year, but in past years.
But this creature that you've just seen ultimately adapts, and keeps adapting and adapting.
I think when you look at the animal kingdom, that is one of the most remarkable things.
It doesn't have an environment that adapts to it; it has to adapt to the environment.
Ricky, thank you very much for having me.
RW: That's terrific.
Thank you.
You're telling a friend an amazing story, and you just get to the best part when suddenly he interrupts, "The alien and I," not "Me and the alien."
Most of us would probably be annoyed, but aside from the rude interruption, does your friend have a point?
Was your sentence actually grammatically incorrect?
And if he still understood it, why does it even matter?
From the point of view of linguistics, grammar is a set of patterns for how words are put together to form phrases or clauses, whether spoken or in writing.
Different languages have different patterns.
In English, the subject normally comes first, followed by the verb, and then the object, while in Japanese and many other languages, the order is subject, object, verb.
Some scholars have tried to identify patterns common to all languages, but apart from some basic features, like having nouns or verbs, few of these so-called linguistic universals have been found.
And while any language needs consistent patterns to function, the study of these patterns opens up an ongoing debate between two positions known as prescriptivism and descriptivism.
Grossly simplified, prescriptivists think a given language should follow consistent rules, while descriptivists see variation and adaptation as a natural and necessary part of language.
For much of history, the vast majority of language was spoken.
But as people became more interconnected and writing gained importance, written language was standardized to allow broader communication and ensure that people in different parts of a realm could understand each other.
In many languages, this standard form came to be considered the only proper one, despite being derived from just one of many spoken varieties, usually that of the people in power.
Language purists worked to establish and propagate this standard by detailing a set of rules that reflected the established grammar of their times.
And rules for written grammar were applied to spoken language, as well.
Speech patterns that deviated from the written rules were considered corruptions, or signs of low social status, and many people who had grown up speaking in these ways were forced to adopt the standardized form.
More recently, however, linguists have understood that speech is a separate phenomenon from writing with its own regularities and patterns.
Most of us learn to speak at such an early age that we don't even remember it.
We form our spoken repertoire through unconscious habits, not memorized rules.
And because speech also uses mood and intonation for meaning, its structure is often more flexible, adapting to the needs of speakers and listeners.
This could mean avoiding complex clauses that are hard to parse in real time, making changes to avoid awkward pronounciation, or removing sounds to make speech faster.
The linguistic approach that tries to understand and map such differences without dictating correct ones is known as descriptivism.
Rather than deciding how language should be used, it describes how people actually use it, and tracks the innovations they come up with in the process.
But while the debate between prescriptivism and descriptivism continues, the two are not mutually exclusive.
At its best, prescriptivism is useful for informing people about the most common established patterns at a given point in time.
This is important, not only for formal contexts, but it also makes communication easier between non-native speakers from different backgrounds.
Descriptivism, on the other hand, gives us insight into how our minds work and the instinctive ways in which we structure our view of the world.
Ultimately, grammar is best thought of as a set of linguistic habits that are constantly being negotiated and reinvented by the entire group of language users.
Like language itself, it's a wonderful and complex fabric woven through the contributions of speakers and listeners, writers and readers, prescriptivists and descriptivists, from both near and far.
The phenomenon you saw here for a brief moment is called quantum levitation and quantum locking.
And the object that was levitating here is called a superconductor.
Superconductivity is a quantum state of matter, and it occurs only below a certain critical temperature.
Now, it's quite an old phenomenon; it was discovered 100 years ago.
However, only recently, due to several technological advancements, we are now able to demonstrate to you quantum levitation and quantum locking.
So, a superconductor is defined by two properties.
The first is zero electrical resistance, and the second is the expulsion of a magnetic field from the interior of the superconductor.
That sounds complicated, right?
But what is electrical resistance?
So, electricity is the flow of electrons inside a material.
And these electrons, while flowing, they collide with the atoms, and in these collisions they lose a certain amount of energy.
And they dissipate this energy in the form of heat, and you know that effect.
However, inside a superconductor there are no collisions, so there is no energy dissipation.
It's quite remarkable.
Think about it.
In classical physics, there is always some friction, some energy loss.
But not here, because it is a quantum effect.
But that's not all, because superconductors don't like magnetic fields.
So a superconductor will try to expel magnetic field from the inside, and it has the means to do that by circulating currents.
Now, the combination of both effects -- the expulsion of magnetic fields and zero electrical resistance -- is exactly a superconductor.
But the picture isn't always perfect, as we all know, and sometimes strands of magnetic field remain inside the superconductor.
Now, under proper conditions, which we have here, these strands of magnetic field can be trapped inside the superconductor.
And these strands of magnetic field inside the superconductor, they come in discrete quantities.
Why?
Because it is a quantum phenomenon.
It's quantum physics.
And it turns out that they behave like quantum particles.
In this movie here, you can see how they flow one by one discretely.
This is strands of magnetic field.
These are not particles, but they behave like particles.
So, this is why we call this effect quantum levitation and quantum locking.
But what happens to the superconductor when we put it inside a magnetic field?
Well, first there are strands of magnetic field left inside, but now the superconductor doesn't like them moving around, because their movements dissipate energy, which breaks the superconductivity state.
So what it actually does, it locks these strands, which are called fluxons, and it locks these fluxons in place.
And by doing that, what it actually does is locking itself in place.
Why?
Because any movement of the superconductor will change their place, will change their configuration.
So we get quantum locking.
And let me show you how this works.
I have here a superconductor, which I wrapped up so it'd stay cold long enough.
And when I place it on top of a regular magnet, it just stays locked in midair.
(Applause) Now, this is not just levitation.
It's not just repulsion.
I can rearrange the fluxons, and it will be locked in this new configuration.
Like this, or move it slightly to the right or to the left.
So, this is quantum locking -- actually locking -- three-dimensional locking of the superconductor.
Of course, I can turn it upside down, and it will remain locked.
Now, now that we understand that this so-called levitation is actually locking, Yeah, we understand that.
You won't be surprised to hear that if I take this circular magnet, in which the magnetic field is the same all around, the superconductor will be able to freely rotate around the axis of the magnet.
Why?
Because as long as it rotates, the locking is maintained.
You see?
I can adjust and I can rotate the superconductor.
We have frictionless motion.
It is still levitating, but can move freely all around.
So, we have quantum locking and we can levitate it on top of this magnet.
But how many fluxons, how many magnetic strands are there in a single disk like this?
Well, we can calculate it, and it turns out, quite a lot.
One hundred billion strands of magnetic field inside this three-inch disk.
But that's not the amazing part yet, because there is something I haven't told you yet.
And, yeah, the amazing part is that this superconductor that you see here is only half a micron thick.
It's extremely thin.
And this extremely thin layer is able to levitate more than 70,000 times its own weight.
It's a remarkable effect.
It's very strong.
Now, I can extend this circular magnet, and make whatever track I want.
For example, I can make a large circular rail here.
And when I place the superconducting disk on top of this rail, it moves freely.
(Applause) And again, that's not all.
I can adjust its position like this, and rotate, and it freely moves in this new position.
And I can even try a new thing; let's try it for the first time.
I can take this disk and put it here, and while it stays here -- don't move -- I will try to rotate the track, and hopefully, if I did it correctly, it stays suspended.
(Applause) You see, it's quantum locking, not levitation.
Now, while I'll let it circulate for a little more, let me tell you a little bit about superconductors.
Now -- (Laughter) -- So we now know that we are able to transfer enormous amount of currents inside superconductors, so we can use them to produce strong magnetic fields, such as needed in MRI machines, particle accelerators and so on.
But we can also store energy using superconductors, because we have no dissipation.
And we could also produce power cables, to transfer enormous amounts of current between power stations.
Imagine you could back up a single power station with a single superconducting cable.
But what is the future of quantum levitation and quantum locking?
Well, let me answer this simple question by giving you an example.
Imagine you would have a disk similar to the one I have here in my hand, three-inch diameter, with a single difference.
The superconducting layer, instead of being half a micron thin, being two millimeters thin, quite thin.
This two-millimeter-thin superconducting layer could hold 1,000 kilograms, a small car, in my hand.
Amazing.
Thank you.
(Applause)