full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Heather Barnett: What humans can learn from semi-intelligent slime

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I first came across the slime mold about five years ago. A microbiologist freind of mine gave me a pteri dish with a little yellow blob in it and told me to go home and play with it. The only instructions I was given, that it likes it dark and damp and its favorite food is pdrrgoie oats. I'm an atirst who's worked for many years with biology, with scientific processes, so living material is not unmoocmn for me. I've worked with plants, bacteria, cuttlefish, fruit flies. So I was keen to get my new collaborator home to see what it could do. So I took it home and I watched. I fed it a vreaid diet. I observed as it nkeoretwd. It formed a connection between food sources. I watched it lveae a trail behind it, indicating where it had been. And I noticed that when it was fed up with one petri dish, it would escape and find a better home.

Open Cloze


I first came across the slime mold about five years ago. A microbiologist ______ of mine gave me a _____ dish with a little yellow blob in it and told me to go home and play with it. The only instructions I was given, that it likes it dark and damp and its favorite food is ________ oats. I'm an ______ who's worked for many years with biology, with scientific processes, so living material is not ________ for me. I've worked with plants, bacteria, cuttlefish, fruit flies. So I was keen to get my new collaborator home to see what it could do. So I took it home and I watched. I fed it a ______ diet. I observed as it _________. It formed a connection between food sources. I watched it _____ a trail behind it, indicating where it had been. And I noticed that when it was fed up with one petri dish, it would escape and find a better home.

Solution


  1. petri
  2. networked
  3. uncommon
  4. friend
  5. leave
  6. varied
  7. artist
  8. porridge

Original Text


I first came across the slime mold about five years ago. A microbiologist friend of mine gave me a petri dish with a little yellow blob in it and told me to go home and play with it. The only instructions I was given, that it likes it dark and damp and its favorite food is porridge oats. I'm an artist who's worked for many years with biology, with scientific processes, so living material is not uncommon for me. I've worked with plants, bacteria, cuttlefish, fruit flies. So I was keen to get my new collaborator home to see what it could do. So I took it home and I watched. I fed it a varied diet. I observed as it networked. It formed a connection between food sources. I watched it leave a trail behind it, indicating where it had been. And I noticed that when it was fed up with one petri dish, it would escape and find a better home.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
slime mold 29
cold air 3
slime mould 3
mould collective 3
physarum polycephalum 2
petri dish 2
mass cell 2
mold slowed 2
people talked 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
slime mould collective 3
slime mold slowed 2

Important Words


  1. artist
  2. bacteria
  3. biology
  4. blob
  5. collaborator
  6. connection
  7. cuttlefish
  8. damp
  9. dark
  10. diet
  11. dish
  12. escape
  13. favorite
  14. fed
  15. find
  16. flies
  17. food
  18. formed
  19. friend
  20. fruit
  21. gave
  22. home
  23. indicating
  24. instructions
  25. keen
  26. leave
  27. likes
  28. living
  29. material
  30. microbiologist
  31. mold
  32. networked
  33. noticed
  34. oats
  35. observed
  36. petri
  37. plants
  38. play
  39. porridge
  40. processes
  41. scientific
  42. slime
  43. sources
  44. told
  45. trail
  46. uncommon
  47. varied
  48. watched
  49. worked
  50. years
  51. yellow