full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Lara Durgavich: An evolutionary perspective on human health and disease

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now what does it mean that there are limitations to the changes natural scieloetn can make? Again, my explaems of heterozygote advantage offer a useful illustration. In terms of resisting TB and malaria, the piigoaslcyhol effects of the Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anemia mutations are good. Taken to their extremes, though, they cause significant problems. This delicate blacnae highlights the constraints inherent in the human body, and the fact that the evolutionary process must work with the materials already available. In many inectsnas, a change that improves survival or riuoprdtceon in one sense may have cascading effects that carry their own risk. Evolution isn't an eegnnier that srttas from scratch to create optimal solutions to individual problems. Evolution is all about compromise.

Open Cloze


Now what does it mean that there are limitations to the changes natural _________ can make? Again, my ________ of heterozygote advantage offer a useful illustration. In terms of resisting TB and malaria, the _____________ effects of the Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anemia mutations are good. Taken to their extremes, though, they cause significant problems. This delicate _______ highlights the constraints inherent in the human body, and the fact that the evolutionary process must work with the materials already available. In many _________, a change that improves survival or ____________ in one sense may have cascading effects that carry their own risk. Evolution isn't an ________ that ______ from scratch to create optimal solutions to individual problems. Evolution is all about compromise.

Solution


  1. engineer
  2. reproduction
  3. balance
  4. examples
  5. physiological
  6. starts
  7. selection
  8. instances

Original Text


Now what does it mean that there are limitations to the changes natural selection can make? Again, my examples of heterozygote advantage offer a useful illustration. In terms of resisting TB and malaria, the physiological effects of the Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anemia mutations are good. Taken to their extremes, though, they cause significant problems. This delicate balance highlights the constraints inherent in the human body, and the fact that the evolutionary process must work with the materials already available. In many instances, a change that improves survival or reproduction in one sense may have cascading effects that carry their own risk. Evolution isn't an engineer that starts from scratch to create optimal solutions to individual problems. Evolution is all about compromise.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
natural selection 6
evolutionary medicine 5
sickle cell 5
heterozygote advantage 4
cell anemia 4
red blood 4
eastern european 3
normal copy 2
unusually high 2
high rate 2
ashkenazi population 2
defective gene 2
problems today 2
ashkenazi jews 2
blood cells 2
human health 2
proximate explanations 2
ultimate perspective 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
sickle cell anemia 4
unusually high rate 2
red blood cells 2

Important Words


  1. advantage
  2. anemia
  3. balance
  4. body
  5. carry
  6. cascading
  7. cell
  8. change
  9. compromise
  10. constraints
  11. create
  12. delicate
  13. effects
  14. engineer
  15. evolution
  16. evolutionary
  17. examples
  18. extremes
  19. fact
  20. good
  21. heterozygote
  22. highlights
  23. human
  24. illustration
  25. improves
  26. individual
  27. inherent
  28. instances
  29. limitations
  30. malaria
  31. materials
  32. mutations
  33. natural
  34. offer
  35. optimal
  36. physiological
  37. problems
  38. process
  39. reproduction
  40. resisting
  41. risk
  42. scratch
  43. selection
  44. sense
  45. sickle
  46. significant
  47. solutions
  48. starts
  49. survival
  50. tb
  51. terms
  52. work