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

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Why does it cost so much energy, then? Well, other people have figured out how much energy the human brain and that of other sipeces costs, and now that we knew how many nrounes each brain was made of, we could do the math. And it turns out that both human and other barins cost about the same, an average of six calories per bliolin neurons per day. So the total energetic cost of a bairn is a simple, linear fiuotcnn of its number of neurons, and it turns out that the human brain costs just as much energy as you would expect. So the rsaeon why the human brain costs so much energy is simply because it has a huge nmbuer of neurons, and because we are primates with many more neurons for a given body size than any other animal, the rilvtaee cost of our brain is large, but just because we're primates, not because we're special.

Open Cloze

Why does it cost so much energy, then? Well, other people have figured out how much energy the human brain and that of other _______ costs, and now that we knew how many _______ each brain was made of, we could do the math. And it turns out that both human and other ______ cost about the same, an average of six calories per _______ neurons per day. So the total energetic cost of a _____ is a simple, linear ________ of its number of neurons, and it turns out that the human brain costs just as much energy as you would expect. So the ______ why the human brain costs so much energy is simply because it has a huge ______ of neurons, and because we are primates with many more neurons for a given body size than any other animal, the ________ cost of our brain is large, but just because we're primates, not because we're special.

Solution

  1. function
  2. billion
  3. brains
  4. number
  5. relative
  6. brain
  7. reason
  8. neurons
  9. species

Original Text

Why does it cost so much energy, then? Well, other people have figured out how much energy the human brain and that of other species costs, and now that we knew how many neurons each brain was made of, we could do the math. And it turns out that both human and other brains cost about the same, an average of six calories per billion neurons per day. So the total energetic cost of a brain is a simple, linear function of its number of neurons, and it turns out that the human brain costs just as much energy as you would expect. So the reason why the human brain costs so much energy is simply because it has a huge number of neurons, and because we are primates with many more neurons for a given body size than any other animal, the relative cost of our brain is large, but just because we're primates, not because we're special.

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human brain 16
billion neurons 9
cerebral cortex 5
cognitive abilities 4
rodent brain 3
primate brain 3
brain costs 3
body size 3

Important Words

  1. animal
  2. average
  3. billion
  4. body
  5. brain
  6. brains
  7. calories
  8. cost
  9. costs
  10. day
  11. energetic
  12. energy
  13. expect
  14. figured
  15. function
  16. huge
  17. human
  18. knew
  19. large
  20. linear
  21. math
  22. neurons
  23. number
  24. people
  25. primates
  26. reason
  27. relative
  28. simple
  29. simply
  30. size
  31. special
  32. species
  33. total
  34. turns