full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tal Danino: Programming bacteria to detect cancer (and maybe treat it)

Unscramble the Blue Letters


You may not razeile this, but there are more bacteria in your body than stars in our entire galaxy. This fnascitaing universe of bacteria inside of us is an integral part of our health, and our tlgnoochey is evolving so rapidly that today we can program these bacteria like we program computers.

Now, the diagram that you see here, I know it looks like some kind of sports play, but it is actually a blueprint of the first bacterial porgram I developed. And like writing software, we can print and wtire DNA into different algorithms and programs inside of bacteria. What this program does is produces fluorescent peritons in a ryhmthic fashion and generates a small molecule that allows bacteria to cucnmoamtie and synchronize, as you're seeing in this mivoe. The growing colony of bacteria that you see here is about the width of a human hair. Now, what you can't see is that our genetic program instructs these btcaeria to each produce small molecules, and these molecules travel between the thousands of individual bacteria telling them when to turn on and off. And the bacteria synchronize quite well at this scale, but because the molecule that synchronizes them together can only travel so fast, in larger colonies of bacteria, this rstules in tvraielng waves between bacteria that are far away from each other, and you can see these waves going from right to left across the sreecn.

Open Cloze


You may not _______ this, but there are more bacteria in your body than stars in our entire galaxy. This ___________ universe of bacteria inside of us is an integral part of our health, and our __________ is evolving so rapidly that today we can program these bacteria like we program computers.

Now, the diagram that you see here, I know it looks like some kind of sports play, but it is actually a blueprint of the first bacterial _______ I developed. And like writing software, we can print and _____ DNA into different algorithms and programs inside of bacteria. What this program does is produces fluorescent ________ in a ________ fashion and generates a small molecule that allows bacteria to ___________ and synchronize, as you're seeing in this _____. The growing colony of bacteria that you see here is about the width of a human hair. Now, what you can't see is that our genetic program instructs these ________ to each produce small molecules, and these molecules travel between the thousands of individual bacteria telling them when to turn on and off. And the bacteria synchronize quite well at this scale, but because the molecule that synchronizes them together can only travel so fast, in larger colonies of bacteria, this _______ in _________ waves between bacteria that are far away from each other, and you can see these waves going from right to left across the ______.

Solution


  1. realize
  2. program
  3. write
  4. movie
  5. results
  6. traveling
  7. screen
  8. fascinating
  9. rhythmic
  10. communicate
  11. bacteria
  12. technology
  13. proteins

Original Text


You may not realize this, but there are more bacteria in your body than stars in our entire galaxy. This fascinating universe of bacteria inside of us is an integral part of our health, and our technology is evolving so rapidly that today we can program these bacteria like we program computers.

Now, the diagram that you see here, I know it looks like some kind of sports play, but it is actually a blueprint of the first bacterial program I developed. And like writing software, we can print and write DNA into different algorithms and programs inside of bacteria. What this program does is produces fluorescent proteins in a rhythmic fashion and generates a small molecule that allows bacteria to communicate and synchronize, as you're seeing in this movie. The growing colony of bacteria that you see here is about the width of a human hair. Now, what you can't see is that our genetic program instructs these bacteria to each produce small molecules, and these molecules travel between the thousands of individual bacteria telling them when to turn on and off. And the bacteria synchronize quite well at this scale, but because the molecule that synchronizes them together can only travel so fast, in larger colonies of bacteria, this results in traveling waves between bacteria that are far away from each other, and you can see these waves going from right to left across the screen.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
genetic program 3
fluorescent proteins 2
growing colony 2
critical density 2
quorum sensing 2
program bacteria 2


Important Words


  1. algorithms
  2. bacteria
  3. bacterial
  4. blueprint
  5. body
  6. colonies
  7. colony
  8. communicate
  9. computers
  10. developed
  11. diagram
  12. dna
  13. entire
  14. evolving
  15. fascinating
  16. fashion
  17. fast
  18. fluorescent
  19. galaxy
  20. generates
  21. genetic
  22. growing
  23. hair
  24. health
  25. human
  26. individual
  27. instructs
  28. integral
  29. kind
  30. larger
  31. left
  32. molecule
  33. molecules
  34. movie
  35. part
  36. play
  37. print
  38. produce
  39. produces
  40. program
  41. programs
  42. proteins
  43. rapidly
  44. realize
  45. results
  46. rhythmic
  47. scale
  48. screen
  49. small
  50. software
  51. sports
  52. stars
  53. synchronize
  54. synchronizes
  55. technology
  56. telling
  57. thousands
  58. today
  59. travel
  60. traveling
  61. turn
  62. universe
  63. waves
  64. width
  65. write
  66. writing