full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rob Knight: How our microbes make us who we are


Unscramble the Blue Letters


And this is not to say that two people look bslcalaiy the same in the same body habitat, either. So you probably haerd that we're pretty much all the same in terms of our human DNA. You're 99.99 percent identical in terms of your human DNA to the person sitting next to you. But that's not true of your gut microbes: you might only shrae 10 percent similarity with the person sitting next to you in tmers of your gut microbes. So that's as different as the bacteria on this prairie and the bacteria in this forest.

So these different microbes have all these different kinds of functions that I told you about, everything from digesting food to involvement in different kdnis of diseases, metabolizing drugs, and so forth. So how do they do all this stuff? Well, in part it's because although there's just three pounds of those mrciebos in our gut, they really outnumber us. And so how much do they outnumber us? Well, it dndeeps on what you think of as our bodies. Is it our cells? Well, each of us consists of about 10 trillion human cells, but we harbor as many as 100 trillion mabiircol cells. So they outnumber us 10 to one. Now, you might think, well, we're human because of our DNA, but it trnus out that each of us has about 20,000 human genes, depndeing on what you count exactly, but as many as two million to 20 million microbial genes. So whichever way we look at it, we're vastly outnumbered by our microbial symbionts. And it turns out that in aitodidn to traces of our huamn DNA, we also lavee tceras of our microbial DNA on everything we touch. We sheowd in a study a few years ago that you can actually match the palm of someone's hand up to the computer mouse that they use routinely with up to 95 percent accuracy. So this came out in a scientific journal a few yeras ago, but more importantly, it was featured on "CSI: Miami," so you really know it's true. (Laughter)

Open Cloze


And this is not to say that two people look _________ the same in the same body habitat, either. So you probably _____ that we're pretty much all the same in terms of our human DNA. You're 99.99 percent identical in terms of your human DNA to the person sitting next to you. But that's not true of your gut microbes: you might only _____ 10 percent similarity with the person sitting next to you in _____ of your gut microbes. So that's as different as the bacteria on this prairie and the bacteria in this forest.

So these different microbes have all these different kinds of functions that I told you about, everything from digesting food to involvement in different _____ of diseases, metabolizing drugs, and so forth. So how do they do all this stuff? Well, in part it's because although there's just three pounds of those ________ in our gut, they really outnumber us. And so how much do they outnumber us? Well, it _______ on what you think of as our bodies. Is it our cells? Well, each of us consists of about 10 trillion human cells, but we harbor as many as 100 trillion _________ cells. So they outnumber us 10 to one. Now, you might think, well, we're human because of our DNA, but it _____ out that each of us has about 20,000 human genes, _________ on what you count exactly, but as many as two million to 20 million microbial genes. So whichever way we look at it, we're vastly outnumbered by our microbial symbionts. And it turns out that in ________ to traces of our _____ DNA, we also _____ ______ of our microbial DNA on everything we touch. We ______ in a study a few years ago that you can actually match the palm of someone's hand up to the computer mouse that they use routinely with up to 95 percent accuracy. So this came out in a scientific journal a few _____ ago, but more importantly, it was featured on "CSI: Miami," so you really know it's true. (Laughter)

Solution


  1. traces
  2. human
  3. showed
  4. basically
  5. terms
  6. kinds
  7. microbes
  8. microbial
  9. years
  10. addition
  11. depending
  12. leave
  13. turns
  14. share
  15. heard
  16. depends

Original Text


And this is not to say that two people look basically the same in the same body habitat, either. So you probably heard that we're pretty much all the same in terms of our human DNA. You're 99.99 percent identical in terms of your human DNA to the person sitting next to you. But that's not true of your gut microbes: you might only share 10 percent similarity with the person sitting next to you in terms of your gut microbes. So that's as different as the bacteria on this prairie and the bacteria in this forest.

So these different microbes have all these different kinds of functions that I told you about, everything from digesting food to involvement in different kinds of diseases, metabolizing drugs, and so forth. So how do they do all this stuff? Well, in part it's because although there's just three pounds of those microbes in our gut, they really outnumber us. And so how much do they outnumber us? Well, it depends on what you think of as our bodies. Is it our cells? Well, each of us consists of about 10 trillion human cells, but we harbor as many as 100 trillion microbial cells. So they outnumber us 10 to one. Now, you might think, well, we're human because of our DNA, but it turns out that each of us has about 20,000 human genes, depending on what you count exactly, but as many as two million to 20 million microbial genes. So whichever way we look at it, we're vastly outnumbered by our microbial symbionts. And it turns out that in addition to traces of our human DNA, we also leave traces of our microbial DNA on everything we touch. We showed in a study a few years ago that you can actually match the palm of someone's hand up to the computer mouse that they use routinely with up to 95 percent accuracy. So this came out in a scientific journal a few years ago, but more importantly, it was featured on "CSI: Miami," so you really know it's true. (Laughter)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human microbiome 5
microbial community 5
microbial communities 4
fecal community 3
percent accuracy 3
project called 2
human body 2
point represents 2
body site 2
human dna 2
person sitting 2
sample size 2
ear infection 2
microbiome project 2
healthy adults 2
children develop 2
adult fecal 2
gut microbial 2
inflammatory bowel 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
human microbiome project 2
adult fecal community 2


Important Words


  1. accuracy
  2. addition
  3. bacteria
  4. basically
  5. bodies
  6. body
  7. cells
  8. computer
  9. consists
  10. count
  11. depending
  12. depends
  13. digesting
  14. diseases
  15. dna
  16. drugs
  17. featured
  18. food
  19. forest
  20. functions
  21. genes
  22. gut
  23. habitat
  24. hand
  25. harbor
  26. heard
  27. human
  28. identical
  29. importantly
  30. involvement
  31. journal
  32. kinds
  33. laughter
  34. leave
  35. match
  36. metabolizing
  37. miami
  38. microbes
  39. microbial
  40. million
  41. mouse
  42. outnumber
  43. outnumbered
  44. palm
  45. part
  46. people
  47. percent
  48. person
  49. pounds
  50. prairie
  51. pretty
  52. routinely
  53. scientific
  54. share
  55. showed
  56. similarity
  57. sitting
  58. study
  59. stuff
  60. symbionts
  61. terms
  62. told
  63. touch
  64. traces
  65. trillion
  66. true
  67. turns
  68. vastly
  69. years