TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Deborah Gordon: Inside the ant colony

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Think about all the things that need to hpapen for a human settlement to thrive: oainibntg food, building shelter, raising crhiedln and more. There needs to be a way to divide resources, ozirange major efforts and distribute labor efficiently. Now imagine having to do this without any sort of planning or hihger level communication. Welcome to the ant colony. Ants have some of the most complex social oazriitngoan in the animal kingdom, living in structured colonies containing different tyeps of members who perform specific roles. But although this may sound similar to some human societies, this organization doesn't arise from any higher level dnceisios, but is part of a bgliooalcily programmed cycle. In many species, all the winged mleas and winged vigirn queens from all the nearby colonies in the population each leave from their different nests and meet at a central place to mate, using pheromones to guide each other to a breeding ground. After mating, the males die off, while females try to establish a new colony. The few that are successful settle down in a suitable spot, lose their wgnis, and begin laying eggs, selectively fertilizing some using stored sperm they've saved up from mating. Fertilized eggs grow into female workers who care for the queen and her eggs. They will then dnfeed the colony and forage for food, while unfertilized eggs grow into males whose only job is to wait until they are ready to leave the nest and reproduce, beginning the cycle again. So how do weokrr ants decide what to do and when? Well, they don't really. Although they have no methods of iinntonteal communication, idundiavil ants do interact with one another through touch, sound and chemical signals. These stimuli accomplish many things from serving as an alarm to other ants if one is kliled, to signaling when a queen is nearing the end of her reproductive life. But one of the most impressive collective capabilities of an ant clonoy is to thoroughly and efficiently explore large aaers without any predetermined plan. Most species of ants have little or no sense of sight and can only selml things in their vicinity. cboimend with their lack of high level coordination, this would seem to make them terrible explorers, but there is an agzimalny simple way that ants maximize their searching efficiency; by changing their movement prnttaes based on individual interactions. When two ants meet, they sense each other by tiucohng aeatnnne. If there are many ants in a small area this will happen more often causing them to respond by moving in more convoluted, random paths in order to search more thoroughly. But in a larger area, with less ants, where such meetings happen less often, they can walk in straight lneis to cover more guornd. While exploring their environment in this way, an ant may come across any number of things, from taehrts or eneeims, to altrtaene nesting sites. And some species have another capability known as recruitment. When one of these ants happens to find food, it will rrtuen with it, marking its path with a chemical scent. Other ants will then follow this pheromone trail, renewing it each time they maange to find food and return. Once the food in that spot is depleted, the ants stop marking their return. The scent dissipates and ants are no longer attracted to that path. These sgiemnely crude mtoehds of serach and rvreetial are, in fact, so useful that they are applied in computer models to obtain optimal solutions from decentralized elements, working rloamdny and excginhang simple information. This has many theoretical and practical applications, from snlovig the famous traveling salesman problem, to scheduling computing tasks and optimizing Internet scearehs, to enabling groups of rtboos to search a minefield or a birunng building collectively, without any central control. But you can observe these fascinatingly simple, yet effective, processes directly through some simple experiments, by allowing ants to enter epmty spaces of various sizes and paying aenttoitn to their behavior. Ants may not be able to vote, hold meetings or even make any pnlas, but we humans may still be able to learn something from the way that such simple ceurtaers are able to function so effectively in such complex ways.

Open Cloze

Think about all the things that need to ______ for a human settlement to thrive: _________ food, building shelter, raising ________ and more. There needs to be a way to divide resources, ________ major efforts and distribute labor efficiently. Now imagine having to do this without any sort of planning or ______ level communication. Welcome to the ant colony. Ants have some of the most complex social ____________ in the animal kingdom, living in structured colonies containing different _____ of members who perform specific roles. But although this may sound similar to some human societies, this organization doesn't arise from any higher level _________, but is part of a ____________ programmed cycle. In many species, all the winged _____ and winged ______ queens from all the nearby colonies in the population each leave from their different nests and meet at a central place to mate, using pheromones to guide each other to a breeding ground. After mating, the males die off, while females try to establish a new colony. The few that are successful settle down in a suitable spot, lose their _____, and begin laying eggs, selectively fertilizing some using stored sperm they've saved up from mating. Fertilized eggs grow into female workers who care for the queen and her eggs. They will then ______ the colony and forage for food, while unfertilized eggs grow into males whose only job is to wait until they are ready to leave the nest and reproduce, beginning the cycle again. So how do ______ ants decide what to do and when? Well, they don't really. Although they have no methods of ___________ communication, __________ ants do interact with one another through touch, sound and chemical signals. These stimuli accomplish many things from serving as an alarm to other ants if one is ______, to signaling when a queen is nearing the end of her reproductive life. But one of the most impressive collective capabilities of an ant ______ is to thoroughly and efficiently explore large _____ without any predetermined plan. Most species of ants have little or no sense of sight and can only _____ things in their vicinity. ________ with their lack of high level coordination, this would seem to make them terrible explorers, but there is an _________ simple way that ants maximize their searching efficiency; by changing their movement ________ based on individual interactions. When two ants meet, they sense each other by ________ ________. If there are many ants in a small area this will happen more often causing them to respond by moving in more convoluted, random paths in order to search more thoroughly. But in a larger area, with less ants, where such meetings happen less often, they can walk in straight _____ to cover more ______. While exploring their environment in this way, an ant may come across any number of things, from _______ or _______, to _________ nesting sites. And some species have another capability known as recruitment. When one of these ants happens to find food, it will ______ with it, marking its path with a chemical scent. Other ants will then follow this pheromone trail, renewing it each time they ______ to find food and return. Once the food in that spot is depleted, the ants stop marking their return. The scent dissipates and ants are no longer attracted to that path. These _________ crude _______ of ______ and _________ are, in fact, so useful that they are applied in computer models to obtain optimal solutions from decentralized elements, working ________ and __________ simple information. This has many theoretical and practical applications, from _______ the famous traveling salesman problem, to scheduling computing tasks and optimizing Internet ________, to enabling groups of ______ to search a minefield or a _______ building collectively, without any central control. But you can observe these fascinatingly simple, yet effective, processes directly through some simple experiments, by allowing ants to enter _____ spaces of various sizes and paying _________ to their behavior. Ants may not be able to vote, hold meetings or even make any _____, but we humans may still be able to learn something from the way that such simple _________ are able to function so effectively in such complex ways.

Solution

robots
colony
types
intentional
combined
enemies
children
virgin
alternate
touching
exchanging
organization
higher
lines
search
organize
plans
wings
manage
creatures
decisions
happen
antennae
empty
methods
patterns
randomly
defend
biologically
areas
males
threats
searches
burning
amazingly
killed
worker
solving
ground
obtaining
retrieval
smell
attention
return
individual
seemingly

Original Text

Think about all the things that need to happen for a human settlement to thrive: obtaining food, building shelter, raising children and more. There needs to be a way to divide resources, organize major efforts and distribute labor efficiently. Now imagine having to do this without any sort of planning or higher level communication. Welcome to the ant colony. Ants have some of the most complex social organization in the animal kingdom, living in structured colonies containing different types of members who perform specific roles. But although this may sound similar to some human societies, this organization doesn't arise from any higher level decisions, but is part of a biologically programmed cycle. In many species, all the winged males and winged virgin queens from all the nearby colonies in the population each leave from their different nests and meet at a central place to mate, using pheromones to guide each other to a breeding ground. After mating, the males die off, while females try to establish a new colony. The few that are successful settle down in a suitable spot, lose their wings, and begin laying eggs, selectively fertilizing some using stored sperm they've saved up from mating. Fertilized eggs grow into female workers who care for the queen and her eggs. They will then defend the colony and forage for food, while unfertilized eggs grow into males whose only job is to wait until they are ready to leave the nest and reproduce, beginning the cycle again. So how do worker ants decide what to do and when? Well, they don't really. Although they have no methods of intentional communication, individual ants do interact with one another through touch, sound and chemical signals. These stimuli accomplish many things from serving as an alarm to other ants if one is killed, to signaling when a queen is nearing the end of her reproductive life. But one of the most impressive collective capabilities of an ant colony is to thoroughly and efficiently explore large areas without any predetermined plan. Most species of ants have little or no sense of sight and can only smell things in their vicinity. Combined with their lack of high level coordination, this would seem to make them terrible explorers, but there is an amazingly simple way that ants maximize their searching efficiency; by changing their movement patterns based on individual interactions. When two ants meet, they sense each other by touching antennae. If there are many ants in a small area this will happen more often causing them to respond by moving in more convoluted, random paths in order to search more thoroughly. But in a larger area, with less ants, where such meetings happen less often, they can walk in straight lines to cover more ground. While exploring their environment in this way, an ant may come across any number of things, from threats or enemies, to alternate nesting sites. And some species have another capability known as recruitment. When one of these ants happens to find food, it will return with it, marking its path with a chemical scent. Other ants will then follow this pheromone trail, renewing it each time they manage to find food and return. Once the food in that spot is depleted, the ants stop marking their return. The scent dissipates and ants are no longer attracted to that path. These seemingly crude methods of search and retrieval are, in fact, so useful that they are applied in computer models to obtain optimal solutions from decentralized elements, working randomly and exchanging simple information. This has many theoretical and practical applications, from solving the famous traveling salesman problem, to scheduling computing tasks and optimizing Internet searches, to enabling groups of robots to search a minefield or a burning building collectively, without any central control. But you can observe these fascinatingly simple, yet effective, processes directly through some simple experiments, by allowing ants to enter empty spaces of various sizes and paying attention to their behavior. Ants may not be able to vote, hold meetings or even make any plans, but we humans may still be able to learn something from the way that such simple creatures are able to function so effectively in such complex ways.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation	frequency
higher level	2
ant colony	2
eggs grow	2

Important Words

accomplish
alarm
allowing
alternate
amazingly
animal
ant
antennae
ants
applications
applied
area
areas
arise
attention
attracted
based
beginning
behavior
biologically
breeding
building
burning
capabilities
capability
care
causing
central
changing
chemical
children
collective
collectively
colonies
colony
combined
communication
complex
computer
computing
control
convoluted
coordination
cover
creatures
crude
cycle
decentralized
decide
decisions
defend
depleted
die
dissipates
distribute
divide
effective
effectively
efficiently
efforts
eggs
elements
empty
enabling
enemies
enter
environment
establish
exchanging
experiments
explore
explorers
exploring
fact
famous
fascinatingly
female
females
fertilized
fertilizing
find
follow
food
forage
function
ground
groups
grow
guide
happen
high
higher
hold
human
humans
imagine
impressive
individual
information
intentional
interact
interactions
internet
job
killed
kingdom
labor
lack
large
larger
laying
learn
leave
level
life
lines
living
longer
lose
major
males
manage
marking
mate
mating
maximize
meet
meetings
members
methods
minefield
models
movement
moving
nearby
nearing
nest
nesting
nests
number
observe
obtain
obtaining
optimal
optimizing
order
organization
organize
part
path
paths
patterns
paying
perform
pheromone
pheromones
place
plan
planning
plans
population
practical
predetermined
problem
processes
programmed
queen
queens
raising
random
randomly
ready
recruitment
renewing
reproduce
reproductive
resources
respond
retrieval
return
robots
roles
salesman
saved
scent
scheduling
search
searches
searching
seemingly
selectively
sense
serving
settle
settlement
shelter
sight
signaling
signals
similar
simple
sites
sizes
small
smell
social
societies
solutions
solving
sort
sound
spaces
species
specific
sperm
spot
stimuli
stop
stored
straight
structured
successful
suitable
tasks
terrible
theoretical
threats
time
touch
touching
trail
traveling
types
unfertilized
vicinity
virgin
vote
wait
walk
ways
winged
wings
worker
workers
working