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
- selected
- genes
- maladaptive
- fixed
- family
- changed
- humans
- 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
- binge
- born
- brain
- buy
- cardiovascular
- changed
- concept
- disease
- dna
- dollar
- dynamic
- early
- eat
- encounter
- environments
- evolution
- evolved
- experience
- explanation
- family
- famine
- faster
- fixed
- food
- function
- genes
- good
- health
- humans
- hunger
- life
- maladaptive
- marked
- metabolic
- mothers
- obesity
- piece
- poor
- preparation
- problems
- protect
- provide
- selected
- signals
- supposed
- turning
- unifying