full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Michael Levin: The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life
Unscramble the Blue Letters
CA: And so I geuss the traditional model is that somehow cells are sending boceiahmicl signals to each other that allow that development to happen the smart way. But you think there is something else at work. What is that?
ML: Well, cells certainly do communicate biochemically and via physical forces, but there's something else going on that's extremely interesting, and it's baascilly called bioelectricity, non-neural bioelectricity. So it truns out that all cells — not just nerves, but all cells in your body — communicate with each other using electrical snlgais. And what you're seeing here is a time-lapse video. For the first time, we are now able to edavrseop on all of the electrical conversations that the cells are having with each other. So think about this. We're now waihntcg — This is an early frog embryo. This is about eight hours to 10 hours of dvpmleoenet. And the colors are showing you actual electrical states that allow you to see all of the electrical software that's running on the genome-defined cellular hardware. And so these cells are basically communicating with each other who is going to be head, who is going to be tail, who is going to be left and right and make eyes and brain and so on. And so it is this software that allows these living systems to achieve specific goals, goals such as building an embryo or regenerating a limb for animals that do this, and the ability to see these eclitrcael conversations gives us some really raraemlbke opportunities to target or to rewrite the goals towards which these lvniig systems are oniratepg.
Open Cloze
CA: And so I _____ the traditional model is that somehow cells are sending ___________ signals to each other that allow that development to happen the smart way. But you think there is something else at work. What is that?
ML: Well, cells certainly do communicate biochemically and via physical forces, but there's something else going on that's extremely interesting, and it's _________ called bioelectricity, non-neural bioelectricity. So it _____ out that all cells — not just nerves, but all cells in your body — communicate with each other using electrical _______. And what you're seeing here is a time-lapse video. For the first time, we are now able to _________ on all of the electrical conversations that the cells are having with each other. So think about this. We're now ________ — This is an early frog embryo. This is about eight hours to 10 hours of ___________. And the colors are showing you actual electrical states that allow you to see all of the electrical software that's running on the genome-defined cellular hardware. And so these cells are basically communicating with each other who is going to be head, who is going to be tail, who is going to be left and right and make eyes and brain and so on. And so it is this software that allows these living systems to achieve specific goals, goals such as building an embryo or regenerating a limb for animals that do this, and the ability to see these __________ conversations gives us some really __________ opportunities to target or to rewrite the goals towards which these ______ systems are _________.
Solution
- operating
- biochemical
- basically
- eavesdrop
- remarkable
- living
- development
- watching
- turns
- electrical
- signals
- guess
Original Text
CA: And so I guess the traditional model is that somehow cells are sending biochemical signals to each other that allow that development to happen the smart way. But you think there is something else at work. What is that?
ML: Well, cells certainly do communicate biochemically and via physical forces, but there's something else going on that's extremely interesting, and it's basically called bioelectricity, non-neural bioelectricity. So it turns out that all cells — not just nerves, but all cells in your body — communicate with each other using electrical signals. And what you're seeing here is a time-lapse video. For the first time, we are now able to eavesdrop on all of the electrical conversations that the cells are having with each other. So think about this. We're now watching — This is an early frog embryo. This is about eight hours to 10 hours of development. And the colors are showing you actual electrical states that allow you to see all of the electrical software that's running on the genome-defined cellular hardware. And so these cells are basically communicating with each other who is going to be head, who is going to be tail, who is going to be left and right and make eyes and brain and so on. And so it is this software that allows these living systems to achieve specific goals, goals such as building an embryo or regenerating a limb for animals that do this, and the ability to see these electrical conversations gives us some really remarkable opportunities to target or to rewrite the goals towards which these living systems are operating.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| hardwired set |
2 |
| frog face |
2 |
| biochemical signals |
2 |
| electrical signals |
2 |
| electrical conversations |
2 |
| living systems |
2 |
| pattern memories |
2 |
| ion channel |
2 |
| wild type |
2 |
| bioelectric layer |
2 |
| amazing plasticity |
2 |
| cell collectives |
2 |
Important Words
- ability
- achieve
- actual
- animals
- basically
- biochemical
- biochemically
- bioelectricity
- body
- brain
- building
- called
- cells
- cellular
- colors
- communicate
- communicating
- conversations
- development
- early
- eavesdrop
- electrical
- embryo
- extremely
- eyes
- forces
- frog
- goals
- guess
- happen
- hardware
- head
- hours
- interesting
- left
- limb
- living
- model
- nerves
- operating
- opportunities
- physical
- regenerating
- remarkable
- rewrite
- running
- sending
- showing
- signals
- smart
- software
- specific
- states
- systems
- tail
- target
- time
- traditional
- turns
- video
- watching
- work