full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Fatima AlZahra'a Alatraktchi: To detect diseases earlier, let's speak bacteria's secret language

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So bacterial conversation consists of an itvinatiie and a reaction, a production of a molecule and the response to it. In my research, I focused on spying on bacterial communities inside the hmaun body. How does it work? We have a sample from a patient. It could be a blood or spit sapmle. We shoot electrons into the sample, the etnrcoels will irnctaet with any communication molecules peersnt, and this interaction will give us information on the identity of the bacteria, the type of communication and how much the bacteria are tnlaikg.

But what is it like when bacteria communicate? Before I developed the translation tool, my first assumption was that bacteria would have a primitive language, like infants that haven't developed words and sentences yet. When they laugh, they're happy; when they cry, they're sad. Simple as that. But bacteria turned out to be nowhere as primitive as I thought they would be. A mlcuolee is not just a molecule. It can mean different things depending on the context, just like the crying of babies can mean different things: sometimes the baby is hungry, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's hurt or afraid. parnets know how to decode those ciers. And to be a real toalsantirn tool, it had to be able to decode the signaling molecules and translate them depending on the cxoetnt. And who knows? Maybe ggoloe Translate will adopt this soon.

Open Cloze


So bacterial conversation consists of an __________ and a reaction, a production of a molecule and the response to it. In my research, I focused on spying on bacterial communities inside the _____ body. How does it work? We have a sample from a patient. It could be a blood or spit ______. We shoot electrons into the sample, the _________ will ________ with any communication molecules _______, and this interaction will give us information on the identity of the bacteria, the type of communication and how much the bacteria are _______.

But what is it like when bacteria communicate? Before I developed the translation tool, my first assumption was that bacteria would have a primitive language, like infants that haven't developed words and sentences yet. When they laugh, they're happy; when they cry, they're sad. Simple as that. But bacteria turned out to be nowhere as primitive as I thought they would be. A ________ is not just a molecule. It can mean different things depending on the context, just like the crying of babies can mean different things: sometimes the baby is hungry, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's hurt or afraid. _______ know how to decode those _____. And to be a real ___________ tool, it had to be able to decode the signaling molecules and translate them depending on the _______. And who knows? Maybe ______ Translate will adopt this soon.

Solution


  1. parents
  2. google
  3. human
  4. talking
  5. sample
  6. initiative
  7. molecule
  8. translation
  9. present
  10. cries
  11. context
  12. interact
  13. electrons

Original Text


So bacterial conversation consists of an initiative and a reaction, a production of a molecule and the response to it. In my research, I focused on spying on bacterial communities inside the human body. How does it work? We have a sample from a patient. It could be a blood or spit sample. We shoot electrons into the sample, the electrons will interact with any communication molecules present, and this interaction will give us information on the identity of the bacteria, the type of communication and how much the bacteria are talking.

But what is it like when bacteria communicate? Before I developed the translation tool, my first assumption was that bacteria would have a primitive language, like infants that haven't developed words and sentences yet. When they laugh, they're happy; when they cry, they're sad. Simple as that. But bacteria turned out to be nowhere as primitive as I thought they would be. A molecule is not just a molecule. It can mean different things depending on the context, just like the crying of babies can mean different things: sometimes the baby is hungry, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's hurt or afraid. Parents know how to decode those cries. And to be a real translation tool, it had to be able to decode the signaling molecules and translate them depending on the context. And who knows? Maybe Google Translate will adopt this soon.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
bacterial conversations 5
signaling molecules 5
bacterial communities 3
traditional diagnostic 3
bacteria live 2
confidential information 2
translation tool 2
human body 2
bacterial family 2
patient samples 2
diagnostic test 2
young girl 2
traditional diagnostics 2
diagnostics showed 2
traditional methods 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
traditional diagnostic test 2
traditional diagnostics showed 2

Important Words


  1. adopt
  2. afraid
  3. assumption
  4. babies
  5. baby
  6. bacteria
  7. bacterial
  8. blood
  9. body
  10. communicate
  11. communication
  12. communities
  13. consists
  14. context
  15. conversation
  16. cries
  17. cry
  18. crying
  19. decode
  20. depending
  21. developed
  22. electrons
  23. focused
  24. give
  25. google
  26. human
  27. hungry
  28. hurt
  29. identity
  30. infants
  31. information
  32. initiative
  33. interact
  34. interaction
  35. language
  36. laugh
  37. molecule
  38. molecules
  39. parents
  40. patient
  41. present
  42. primitive
  43. production
  44. reaction
  45. real
  46. research
  47. response
  48. sad
  49. sample
  50. sentences
  51. shoot
  52. signaling
  53. simple
  54. spit
  55. spying
  56. talking
  57. thought
  58. tool
  59. translate
  60. translation
  61. turned
  62. type
  63. wet
  64. words
  65. work