full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Suzana Herculano-Houzel: What is so special about the human brain?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So because of cooking, what once was a major liability, this large, dangerously epsiexnve brain with a lot of neurons, could now become a major aesst, now that we could both afford the energy for a lot of neurons and the time to do interesting things with them. So I think this explains why the human brain grew to become so large so fast in evolution, all of the while remaining just a primate biran. With this large brain now affordable by cooking, we went rapidly from raw foods to culture, agriculture, civilization, grocery soetrs, electricity, refrigerators, all of those things that nowadays allow us to get all the energy we need for the whole day in a single sitting at your favorite fast food joint. So what once was a stoiuoln now became the ploerbm, and irlcloaniy, we look for the solution in raw food.

Open Cloze

So because of cooking, what once was a major liability, this large, dangerously _________ brain with a lot of neurons, could now become a major _____, now that we could both afford the energy for a lot of neurons and the time to do interesting things with them. So I think this explains why the human brain grew to become so large so fast in evolution, all of the while remaining just a primate _____. With this large brain now affordable by cooking, we went rapidly from raw foods to culture, agriculture, civilization, grocery ______, electricity, refrigerators, all of those things that nowadays allow us to get all the energy we need for the whole day in a single sitting at your favorite fast food joint. So what once was a ________ now became the _______, and __________, we look for the solution in raw food.

Solution

  1. brain
  2. solution
  3. stores
  4. expensive
  5. ironically
  6. problem
  7. asset

Original Text

So because of cooking, what once was a major liability, this large, dangerously expensive brain with a lot of neurons, could now become a major asset, now that we could both afford the energy for a lot of neurons and the time to do interesting things with them. So I think this explains why the human brain grew to become so large so fast in evolution, all of the while remaining just a primate brain. With this large brain now affordable by cooking, we went rapidly from raw foods to culture, agriculture, civilization, grocery stores, electricity, refrigerators, all of those things that nowadays allow us to get all the energy we need for the whole day in a single sitting at your favorite fast food joint. So what once was a solution now became the problem, and ironically, we look for the solution in raw food.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human brain 13
billion neurons 6
cognitive abilities 4
cerebral cortex 3
primate brain 3
rodent brain 3
brain costs 3
body size 3
scientists thought 2
great apes 2
times larger 2
large brain 2
primate brains 2
simplest explanation 2
remarkable cognitive 2
large body 2
large number 2
largest number 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
remarkable cognitive abilities 2
human brain costs 2

Important Words

  1. afford
  2. affordable
  3. agriculture
  4. asset
  5. brain
  6. civilization
  7. cooking
  8. culture
  9. dangerously
  10. day
  11. electricity
  12. energy
  13. evolution
  14. expensive
  15. explains
  16. fast
  17. favorite
  18. food
  19. foods
  20. grew
  21. grocery
  22. human
  23. interesting
  24. ironically
  25. joint
  26. large
  27. liability
  28. lot
  29. major
  30. neurons
  31. nowadays
  32. primate
  33. problem
  34. rapidly
  35. raw
  36. refrigerators
  37. remaining
  38. single
  39. sitting
  40. solution
  41. stores
  42. time