full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Greg Gage: How a dragonfly's brain is designed to kill
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the foeva and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its cshosriars. Remember when I told you the dlogarfny had idvndaiiul precise control of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the parts of the wings that are needed to keep that dragonfly on tgeart. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the wngis to the left are fried. And if the prey moves to the right of the dragonfly, those same neurons are not needed, so they're going to remain queit. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a fixed angle that's cciuemaonmtd by this crosshairs to the wings, and then boom, dinner.
Open Cloze
Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the _____ and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its __________. Remember when I told you the _________ had __________ precise control of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the parts of the wings that are needed to keep that dragonfly on ______. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the _____ to the left are _____. And if the prey moves to the right of the dragonfly, those same neurons are not needed, so they're going to remain _____. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a fixed angle that's ____________ by this crosshairs to the wings, and then boom, dinner.
Solution
- target
- quiet
- dragonfly
- crosshairs
- communicated
- fired
- wings
- individual
- fovea
Original Text
Now, why is that? Remember when I said that the dragonfly had near 360-degree vision. Well, there's a section of the eye called the fovea and this is the part that has the sharpest visual acuity, and you can think of it as its crosshairs. Remember when I told you the dragonfly had individual precise control of its wings? When a dragonfly sees its prey, it trains its crosshairs on it and along its axons it sends messages only to the neurons that control the parts of the wings that are needed to keep that dragonfly on target. So if the prey is on the left of the dragonfly, only the neurons that are tugging the wings to the left are fired. And if the prey moves to the right of the dragonfly, those same neurons are not needed, so they're going to remain quiet. And the dragonfly speeds toward the prey at a fixed angle that's communicated by this crosshairs to the wings, and then boom, dinner.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
Important Words
- acuity
- angle
- axons
- boom
- called
- communicated
- control
- crosshairs
- dinner
- dragonfly
- eye
- fired
- fixed
- fovea
- individual
- left
- messages
- moves
- needed
- neurons
- part
- parts
- precise
- prey
- quiet
- remain
- remember
- section
- sees
- sends
- sharpest
- speeds
- target
- told
- trains
- tugging
- vision
- visual
- wings