full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? One explanation is that fetuses are miknag the best of a bad situation. When food is scarce, they divert nutrients towards the really ccratiil organ, the brain, and away from other onagrs like the heart and leivr. This keeps the feuts alive in the short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs, dpevierd early on, become more susceptible to disease.

But that may not be all that's going on. It seems that fetuses are taking cues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. They're preparing themselves for the kind of world they will encounter on the other side of the womb. The fetus asudjts its molbsetiam and other physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that ataiws it. And the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. The meals a pregnant woman consumes custttinoe a kind of sroty, a firay tale of abundance or a grim chronicle of deprivation. This story imparts information that the fetus uses to organize its body and its systems — an adaptation to pneirlavig circumstances that facilitates its future survival. Faced with severely limited resources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy rtuirqeemens will, in fact, have a better chance of living to adulthood.

Open Cloze


Why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? One explanation is that fetuses are ______ the best of a bad situation. When food is scarce, they divert nutrients towards the really ________ organ, the brain, and away from other ______ like the heart and _____. This keeps the _____ alive in the short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs, ________ early on, become more susceptible to disease.

But that may not be all that's going on. It seems that fetuses are taking cues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. They're preparing themselves for the kind of world they will encounter on the other side of the womb. The fetus _______ its __________ and other physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that ______ it. And the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. The meals a pregnant woman consumes __________ a kind of _____, a _____ tale of abundance or a grim chronicle of deprivation. This story imparts information that the fetus uses to organize its body and its systems — an adaptation to __________ circumstances that facilitates its future survival. Faced with severely limited resources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy ____________ will, in fact, have a better chance of living to adulthood.

Solution


  1. constitute
  2. liver
  3. prevailing
  4. critical
  5. adjusts
  6. deprived
  7. awaits
  8. metabolism
  9. fairy
  10. requirements
  11. organs
  12. making
  13. fetus
  14. story

Original Text


Why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? One explanation is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation. When food is scarce, they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain, and away from other organs like the heart and liver. This keeps the fetus alive in the short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs, deprived early on, become more susceptible to disease.

But that may not be all that's going on. It seems that fetuses are taking cues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. They're preparing themselves for the kind of world they will encounter on the other side of the womb. The fetus adjusts its metabolism and other physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits it. And the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. The meals a pregnant woman consumes constitute a kind of story, a fairy tale of abundance or a grim chronicle of deprivation. This story imparts information that the fetus uses to organize its body and its systems — an adaptation to prevailing circumstances that facilitates its future survival. Faced with severely limited resources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact, have a better chance of living to adulthood.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
pregnant women 4
fetal origins 3
pregnant woman 3
fetuses learn 2
newborn babies 2
researchers discovered 2
babies cry 2
native language 2
fetal learning 2
carrot juice 2
pregnancy showed 2
higher rates 2
heart disease 2
world trade 2
trade center 2
stress syndrome 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
world trade center 2

Important Words


  1. abundance
  2. adaptation
  3. adjusts
  4. adulthood
  5. alive
  6. anticipation
  7. awaits
  8. bad
  9. basis
  10. bill
  11. body
  12. brain
  13. chance
  14. child
  15. chronicle
  16. circumstances
  17. constitute
  18. consumes
  19. critical
  20. cues
  21. deprivation
  22. deprived
  23. disease
  24. divert
  25. due
  26. early
  27. eats
  28. encounter
  29. energy
  30. environment
  31. explanation
  32. faced
  33. facilitates
  34. fact
  35. fairy
  36. fetus
  37. fetuses
  38. food
  39. future
  40. grim
  41. heart
  42. imparts
  43. information
  44. intrauterine
  45. kind
  46. life
  47. limited
  48. liver
  49. living
  50. making
  51. meals
  52. metabolism
  53. mother
  54. nutrients
  55. organ
  56. organize
  57. organs
  58. physiological
  59. physiology
  60. prediction
  61. pregnant
  62. preparing
  63. prevailing
  64. processes
  65. reduced
  66. requirements
  67. resources
  68. result
  69. scarce
  70. severely
  71. side
  72. situation
  73. story
  74. survival
  75. susceptible
  76. systems
  77. tailoring
  78. tale
  79. undernutrition
  80. woman
  81. womb
  82. world