full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Moshe Szyf: How early life experience is written into DNA

Unscramble the Blue Letters


We ihenrit our DNA from our aotersncs. The DNA is old. It evolved during evolution. But it doesn't tell us if you are going to be born in Stockholm, where the days are long in the smeumr and short in the winter, or in Ecuador, where there's an equal number of hours for day and night all year round. And that has such an enormous [effect] on our physiology. So what we suggest is, perhaps what happens early in life, those signals that come through the mohter, tell the child what kind of saciol world you're going to be livnig in. It will be harsh, and you'd better be anxious and be stressful, or it's going to be an easy world, and you have to be different. Is it going to be a world with a lot of light or little lhgit? Is it going to be a world with a lot of food or little food? If there's no food around, you'd better develop your brain to bgnie whenever you see a meal, or store every piece of food that you have as fat.

Open Cloze


We _______ our DNA from our _________. The DNA is old. It evolved during evolution. But it doesn't tell us if you are going to be born in Stockholm, where the days are long in the ______ and short in the winter, or in Ecuador, where there's an equal number of hours for day and night all year round. And that has such an enormous [effect] on our physiology. So what we suggest is, perhaps what happens early in life, those signals that come through the ______, tell the child what kind of ______ world you're going to be ______ in. It will be harsh, and you'd better be anxious and be stressful, or it's going to be an easy world, and you have to be different. Is it going to be a world with a lot of light or little _____? Is it going to be a world with a lot of food or little food? If there's no food around, you'd better develop your brain to _____ whenever you see a meal, or store every piece of food that you have as fat.

Solution


  1. binge
  2. mother
  3. inherit
  4. light
  5. living
  6. summer
  7. ancestors
  8. social

Original Text


We inherit our DNA from our ancestors. The DNA is old. It evolved during evolution. But it doesn't tell us if you are going to be born in Stockholm, where the days are long in the summer and short in the winter, or in Ecuador, where there's an equal number of hours for day and night all year round. And that has such an enormous [effect] on our physiology. So what we suggest is, perhaps what happens early in life, those signals that come through the mother, tell the child what kind of social world you're going to be living in. It will be harsh, and you'd better be anxious and be stressful, or it's going to be an easy world, and you have to be different. Is it going to be a world with a lot of light or little light? Is it going to be a world with a lot of food or little food? If there's no food around, you'd better develop your brain to binge whenever you see a meal, or store every piece of food that you have as fat.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
monkey number 6
poor people 3
social status 3
cocaine addiction 3
metabolic disease 2
natural disasters 2
ice storm 2


Important Words


  1. ancestors
  2. anxious
  3. binge
  4. born
  5. brain
  6. child
  7. day
  8. days
  9. develop
  10. dna
  11. early
  12. easy
  13. ecuador
  14. effect
  15. enormous
  16. equal
  17. evolution
  18. evolved
  19. fat
  20. food
  21. harsh
  22. hours
  23. inherit
  24. kind
  25. life
  26. light
  27. living
  28. long
  29. lot
  30. meal
  31. mother
  32. night
  33. number
  34. physiology
  35. piece
  36. short
  37. signals
  38. social
  39. stockholm
  40. store
  41. stressful
  42. suggest
  43. summer
  44. winter
  45. world
  46. year