full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Angela Koine Flynn: The science of skin color

Unscramble the Blue Letters


When ultraviolet snlhugit hits our skin, it affects each of us a little differently. Depending on skin color, it will take only minutes of exposure to turn one person beetroot-pink, while another requires huros to experience the slightest canhge. So what's to account for that difference and how did our skin come to take on so many different hues to begin with?

Whatever the color, our skin tlels an epic tale of haumn intrepidness and adaptability, raeilenvg its variance to be a fuoticnn of biology. It all centers around melanin, the pigment that gives skin and hair its color. This ingredient comes from skin cells called melanocytes and takes two basic forms. There's eumelanin, which gives rise to a range of bowrn skin tones, as well as black, brown, and blond hair, and pheomelanin, which causes the reddish browns of freckles and red hair. But humans weren't always like this. Our varying skin tones were fermod by an evolutionary process driven by the Sun. In beagn some 50,000 yreas ago when our ancestors migrated north from arcfia and into Europe and Asia.

Open Cloze


When ultraviolet ________ hits our skin, it affects each of us a little differently. Depending on skin color, it will take only minutes of exposure to turn one person beetroot-pink, while another requires _____ to experience the slightest ______. So what's to account for that difference and how did our skin come to take on so many different hues to begin with?

Whatever the color, our skin _____ an epic tale of _____ intrepidness and adaptability, _________ its variance to be a ________ of biology. It all centers around melanin, the pigment that gives skin and hair its color. This ingredient comes from skin cells called melanocytes and takes two basic forms. There's eumelanin, which gives rise to a range of _____ skin tones, as well as black, brown, and blond hair, and pheomelanin, which causes the reddish browns of freckles and red hair. But humans weren't always like this. Our varying skin tones were ______ by an evolutionary process driven by the Sun. In _____ some 50,000 _____ ago when our ancestors migrated north from ______ and into Europe and Asia.

Solution


  1. human
  2. began
  3. change
  4. africa
  5. hours
  6. sunlight
  7. years
  8. formed
  9. tells
  10. brown
  11. revealing
  12. function

Original Text


When ultraviolet sunlight hits our skin, it affects each of us a little differently. Depending on skin color, it will take only minutes of exposure to turn one person beetroot-pink, while another requires hours to experience the slightest change. So what's to account for that difference and how did our skin come to take on so many different hues to begin with?

Whatever the color, our skin tells an epic tale of human intrepidness and adaptability, revealing its variance to be a function of biology. It all centers around melanin, the pigment that gives skin and hair its color. This ingredient comes from skin cells called melanocytes and takes two basic forms. There's eumelanin, which gives rise to a range of brown skin tones, as well as black, brown, and blond hair, and pheomelanin, which causes the reddish browns of freckles and red hair. But humans weren't always like this. Our varying skin tones were formed by an evolutionary process driven by the Sun. In began some 50,000 years ago when our ancestors migrated north from Africa and into Europe and Asia.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
uv light 3
ancestors migrated 2
skin color 2


Important Words


  1. account
  2. adaptability
  3. affects
  4. africa
  5. ancestors
  6. asia
  7. basic
  8. began
  9. biology
  10. black
  11. blond
  12. brown
  13. browns
  14. called
  15. cells
  16. centers
  17. change
  18. color
  19. depending
  20. difference
  21. differently
  22. driven
  23. epic
  24. eumelanin
  25. europe
  26. evolutionary
  27. experience
  28. exposure
  29. formed
  30. forms
  31. freckles
  32. function
  33. hair
  34. hits
  35. hours
  36. hues
  37. human
  38. humans
  39. ingredient
  40. intrepidness
  41. melanin
  42. melanocytes
  43. migrated
  44. minutes
  45. north
  46. person
  47. pheomelanin
  48. pigment
  49. process
  50. range
  51. red
  52. reddish
  53. requires
  54. revealing
  55. rise
  56. skin
  57. slightest
  58. sun
  59. sunlight
  60. takes
  61. tale
  62. tells
  63. tones
  64. turn
  65. ultraviolet
  66. variance
  67. varying
  68. years