full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Greg Gage: How a dragonfly's brain is designed to kill

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the fovea and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its crosshairs. Remember when I told you the dragonfly had individual picrsee ctornol of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the patrs of the wings that are ndeeed to keep that dragonfly on target. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the wings to the left are fired. And if the prey meovs to the right of the dragonfly, those same nnuoers are not needed, so they're going to remain quiet. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a fxeid angle that's cnutciomemad by this crosshairs to the wnigs, and then boom, dinner.

Open Cloze


Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the fovea and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its crosshairs. Remember when I told you the dragonfly had individual _______ _______ of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the _____ of the wings that are ______ to keep that dragonfly on target. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the wings to the left are fired. And if the prey _____ to the right of the dragonfly, those same _______ are not needed, so they're going to remain quiet. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a _____ angle that's ____________ by this crosshairs to the _____, and then boom, dinner.

Solution


  1. fixed
  2. parts
  3. communicated
  4. control
  5. neurons
  6. wings
  7. needed
  8. moves
  9. precise

Original Text


Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the fovea and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its crosshairs. Remember when I told you the dragonfly had individual precise control of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the parts of the wings that are needed to keep that dragonfly on target. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the wings to the left are fired. And if the prey moves to the right of the dragonfly, those same neurons are not needed, so they're going to remain quiet. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a fixed angle that's communicated by this crosshairs to the wings, and then boom, dinner.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations




Important Words


  1. acuity
  2. angle
  3. axons
  4. boom
  5. called
  6. communicated
  7. control
  8. crosshairs
  9. dinner
  10. dragonfly
  11. eye
  12. fired
  13. fixed
  14. fovea
  15. individual
  16. left
  17. messages
  18. moves
  19. needed
  20. neurons
  21. part
  22. parts
  23. precise
  24. prey
  25. quiet
  26. remain
  27. remember
  28. section
  29. sees
  30. sends
  31. sharpest
  32. speeds
  33. target
  34. told
  35. trains
  36. tugging
  37. vision
  38. visual
  39. wings