full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Moshe Szyf: How early life experience is written into DNA

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So this is good. Evolution has seecetld this to allow our fexid, old DNA to function in a dynamic way in new environments. But sometimes things can go wrong; for example, if you're born to a poor flamiy and the signals are, "You better binge, you better eat every piece of food you're going to encounter." But now we hmunas and our brain have evolved, have cnheagd evolution even faster. Now you can buy McDonald's for one dollar. And therefore, the preparation that we had by our mothers is turning out to be mvaptaailde. The same preparation that was supposed to protect us from hunger and fmiane is going to cause obesity, cardiovascular problems and metabolic disease. So this concept that geens could be marked by our experience, and especially the early life experience, can provide us a unifying explanation of both health and disease.

Open Cloze

So this is good. Evolution has ________ this to allow our _____, old DNA to function in a dynamic way in new environments. But sometimes things can go wrong; for example, if you're born to a poor ______ and the signals are, "You better binge, you better eat every piece of food you're going to encounter." But now we ______ and our brain have evolved, have _______ evolution even faster. Now you can buy McDonald's for one dollar. And therefore, the preparation that we had by our mothers is turning out to be ___________. The same preparation that was supposed to protect us from hunger and ______ is going to cause obesity, cardiovascular problems and metabolic disease. So this concept that _____ could be marked by our experience, and especially the early life experience, can provide us a unifying explanation of both health and disease.

Solution

  1. selected
  2. genes
  3. maladaptive
  4. fixed
  5. family
  6. changed
  7. humans
  8. famine

Original Text

So this is good. Evolution has selected this to allow our fixed, old DNA to function in a dynamic way in new environments. But sometimes things can go wrong; for example, if you're born to a poor family and the signals are, "You better binge, you better eat every piece of food you're going to encounter." But now we humans and our brain have evolved, have changed evolution even faster. Now you can buy McDonald's for one dollar. And therefore, the preparation that we had by our mothers is turning out to be maladaptive. The same preparation that was supposed to protect us from hunger and famine is going to cause obesity, cardiovascular problems and metabolic disease. So this concept that genes could be marked by our experience, and especially the early life experience, can provide us a unifying explanation of both health and disease.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
monkey number 6
poor people 3
social status 3
cocaine addiction 3
metabolic disease 2
natural disasters 2
ice storm 2

Important Words

  1. binge
  2. born
  3. brain
  4. buy
  5. cardiovascular
  6. changed
  7. concept
  8. disease
  9. dna
  10. dollar
  11. dynamic
  12. early
  13. eat
  14. encounter
  15. environments
  16. evolution
  17. evolved
  18. experience
  19. explanation
  20. family
  21. famine
  22. faster
  23. fixed
  24. food
  25. function
  26. genes
  27. good
  28. health
  29. humans
  30. hunger
  31. life
  32. maladaptive
  33. marked
  34. metabolic
  35. mothers
  36. obesity
  37. piece
  38. poor
  39. preparation
  40. problems
  41. protect
  42. provide
  43. selected
  44. signals
  45. supposed
  46. turning
  47. unifying