full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Greg Gage: How you can make a fruit fly eat veggies

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Enter optogenetics. This is the rltuoaeovriny new tool that's taking nenuiorcsece by storm, and in this case, "opto" means light and "genetic" rrfees to the fact that these fruit flies have been modified to contain a special gene that makes only certain neurons respond to light. In our case, we've adedd the special gene to the sweet taste receptors.

Now here's the fun part. Optogenetics means that we can control these special nenruos whenever they're exposed to a bright-colored light, causing them to send messages to the brain. In this emxrienept, we're going to have these modified fiurt flies choose between banana and broccoli again, only this time, every time the fruit fly eats the brclooci, we're going to trigger a big bright red lhgit. And when the channels see that red light, they're going to open up, and they're going to cause that neuron to fire, and the sweet taste message will be sent to the brain.

Open Cloze


Enter optogenetics. This is the _____________ new tool that's taking ____________ by storm, and in this case, "opto" means light and "genetic" ______ to the fact that these fruit flies have been modified to contain a special gene that makes only certain neurons respond to light. In our case, we've _____ the special gene to the sweet taste receptors.

Now here's the fun part. Optogenetics means that we can control these special _______ whenever they're exposed to a bright-colored light, causing them to send messages to the brain. In this __________, we're going to have these modified _____ flies choose between banana and broccoli again, only this time, every time the fruit fly eats the ________, we're going to trigger a big bright red _____. And when the channels see that red light, they're going to open up, and they're going to cause that neuron to fire, and the sweet taste message will be sent to the brain.

Solution


  1. broccoli
  2. fruit
  3. light
  4. neurons
  5. added
  6. neuroscience
  7. revolutionary
  8. refers
  9. experiment

Original Text


Enter optogenetics. This is the revolutionary new tool that's taking neuroscience by storm, and in this case, "opto" means light and "genetic" refers to the fact that these fruit flies have been modified to contain a special gene that makes only certain neurons respond to light. In our case, we've added the special gene to the sweet taste receptors.

Now here's the fun part. Optogenetics means that we can control these special neurons whenever they're exposed to a bright-colored light, causing them to send messages to the brain. In this experiment, we're going to have these modified fruit flies choose between banana and broccoli again, only this time, every time the fruit fly eats the broccoli, we're going to trigger a big bright red light. And when the channels see that red light, they're going to open up, and they're going to cause that neuron to fire, and the sweet taste message will be sent to the brain.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
fruit flies 6
fruit fly 5
fly eats 4
sweet taste 3
taste buds 2
taste receptors 2
taste neurons 2
special gene 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
fruit fly eats 4

Important Words


  1. added
  2. banana
  3. big
  4. brain
  5. bright
  6. broccoli
  7. case
  8. causing
  9. channels
  10. choose
  11. control
  12. eats
  13. enter
  14. experiment
  15. exposed
  16. fact
  17. fire
  18. flies
  19. fly
  20. fruit
  21. fun
  22. gene
  23. light
  24. means
  25. message
  26. messages
  27. modified
  28. neuron
  29. neurons
  30. neuroscience
  31. open
  32. optogenetics
  33. part
  34. receptors
  35. red
  36. refers
  37. respond
  38. revolutionary
  39. send
  40. special
  41. storm
  42. sweet
  43. taste
  44. time
  45. tool
  46. trigger