full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Deborah Gordon: What ants teach us about the brain, cancer and the Internet
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Now, the ieetnrnt uses an agrthloim to regulate the flow of data that's very similar to the one that the harvester ants are using to regulate the flow of foragers. And guess what we call this aalngoy? The anternet is coming. (Applause) So data doesn't leave the source computer unless it gets a sangil that there's enough bdntiwdah for it to travel on. In the early days of the Internet, when oriaepntg costs were really high and it was really iomtrpant not to lose any data, then the system was set up for interactions to activate the flow of data. It's interesting that the ants are using an algorithm that's so siailmr to the one that we recently ineevntd, but this is only one of a handful of ant algorithms that we know about, and ants have had 130 million years to evolve a lot of good ones, and I think it's very likely that some of the other 12,000 species are going to have interesting algorithms for data networks that we haven't even thought of yet.
Open Cloze
Now, the ________ uses an _________ to regulate the flow of data that's very similar to the one that the harvester ants are using to regulate the flow of foragers. And guess what we call this _______? The anternet is coming. (Applause) So data doesn't leave the source computer unless it gets a ______ that there's enough _________ for it to travel on. In the early days of the Internet, when _________ costs were really high and it was really _________ not to lose any data, then the system was set up for interactions to activate the flow of data. It's interesting that the ants are using an algorithm that's so _______ to the one that we recently ________, but this is only one of a handful of ant algorithms that we know about, and ants have had 130 million years to evolve a lot of good ones, and I think it's very likely that some of the other 12,000 species are going to have interesting algorithms for data networks that we haven't even thought of yet.
Solution
- similar
- operating
- algorithm
- invented
- signal
- important
- analogy
- bandwidth
- internet
Original Text
Now, the Internet uses an algorithm to regulate the flow of data that's very similar to the one that the harvester ants are using to regulate the flow of foragers. And guess what we call this analogy? The anternet is coming. (Applause) So data doesn't leave the source computer unless it gets a signal that there's enough bandwidth for it to travel on. In the early days of the Internet, when operating costs were really high and it was really important not to lose any data, then the system was set up for interactions to activate the flow of data. It's interesting that the ants are using an algorithm that's so similar to the one that we recently invented, but this is only one of a handful of ant algorithms that we know about, and ants have had 130 million years to evolve a lot of good ones, and I think it's very likely that some of the other 12,000 species are going to have interesting algorithms for data networks that we haven't even thought of yet.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
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| collocation |
frequency |
| operating costs |
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| central control |
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| environmental challenge |
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| interactions differently |
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| data networks |
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| ant meets |
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| colonies forage |
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| ant colonies |
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| genetic variation |
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| parent colony |
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| offspring colonies |
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| parent colonies |
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| million years |
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| collective search |
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| cancer cells |
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Important Words
- activate
- algorithm
- algorithms
- analogy
- ant
- anternet
- ants
- applause
- bandwidth
- call
- coming
- computer
- costs
- data
- days
- early
- evolve
- flow
- foragers
- good
- guess
- handful
- harvester
- high
- important
- interactions
- interesting
- internet
- invented
- leave
- lose
- lot
- million
- networks
- operating
- regulate
- set
- signal
- similar
- source
- species
- system
- thought
- travel
- years