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From: TEDtalksDirector
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  • This is such useful information on the development of foetuses and ultimately the next generation. Our birth and the birth of our children influences our lives. Check out Matrix Birth Reimprinting for dealing with issues around birth and pre-conception.

  • Whoa!

  • Please learn how to pronounce Mozart! It's "Moht-zart" not "mows-art"

  • Even babies can learn to skip the intro. 0:15.

  • Comment removed

  • This one just kind of sucked.

  • What this woman hints at falls under the subject of epigenetics. Perhaps she had never heard of it before. I certainly agree with fetal learning, but she's really missing out on a really fascinating bit of genetic science.

  • @FooDanger - as a fourth born your mom probably hit the stage where she realized as long as your siblings were fed and not killing each other, it was a good day. Perhaps you are very comfortable amidst chaos as a result!

  • when you first breath =]

  • Not exactly what I'd call learning. Memorizing sure, but then every time I add something to my computers hard drive, IE memory, it would then qualify as learning it. Hell any way of storing information associated with a series of reactions, simplistic stimulus and response, would then be learning. Not exactly accurate, particularly when it's "what we learn". What "we" exactly?

  • she slipped up and called a 'fetus' a 'baby' one time by accident. so which is it?

  • @micahhewlett Is that important? 

  • Hahaha, babies suck!

  • Excellent lecture. If you think this is interesting. You may also enjoy the documentary "Zeitgeist Moving Forward" on youtube. My favorite documentary.

  • People in India already know about this , Read about Abhimanyu of Mahabharata to know the extent of this type of learning..(although its mythology) but its great fun reading about him and other character's capabilities too..Also, apart from these empirical qualities( west is good at measuring them..:) ) you can develop qualities like intuition etc too.

  • Message to Annie - Tie in this research with "The Biology of Perception" by Dr. Bruce Lipton

  • This isn't exactly groundbreaking.  People knew about congenital alcoholism in the 90s. Why would it be shocking that diet, stress, and other environmental factors influence fetal development?

  • My mother lived in Holland during that siege. She was born in Dukkom in 1939. I often wondered the effect of the limited diet because she mentioned it many times I grew up. Her feet are quite large for her relatively short height. I always wondered if her height was a result of this nutrient deprivation.

  • GENIUS !!

  • Yeah, it's called "Pre-Heaven" in Chinese medicine and philosophy. Nice going with rediscovering this kind of logic after several thousands of years it has been around  :-P

  • @jonathanbluestein You could provide any sources to learn more about this? Im having trouble finding any.

  • @JosephShiovitz The Pre-Heaven stuff in Chinese medicine/philosophy has a lot to do with Bagua theory. Google "Bagua" and you'll find lots of info. The martial of of Bagua Zhang also uses this theory, but you ought to read about "Bagua" as a standalone term...

  • 60 people are fat kids

  • So its my moms fault that i'm fat. Gotcha.

  • My tastes are very different from my mother's! I find most of the food she eats to be too bland or gross in other ways. & I think she was an unreliable narrator in many ways. It's good to think about and figure out how to use this to my advantage now =)

  • Why is this boring speaking womans kitchen do full of people

  • Next TED talk may wake me up.

  • Slow, overly-punctuated presentation using too much flowery language about a ridiculous topic. It was painful to watch frankly. Stick to being a parent "Mom" and let the scientists handle it.

  • @sDrift7 I agree with some of your critiques, but I find the topic very interesting and enjoyed the talk despite the flower language.

  • Hidden anti abortionist propaganda bullshit.

  • @faunos51 Not really. We should be able to discuss the potential learning of a fetus without impacting the abortion debate. Knowing how well a fetus can learn and is impacted by its environment is valuable knowledge for assisting those fetus's that aren't aborted to get the best possible start. I am pro-choice, very much so, and this doesn't change that all. That said I'm 8 minutes in and starting to get a little bored. So it's not the most extraordinary talk.

  • What a waste of time! I love TED, but this was terrible. Some non -scientist talking about the blatantly obvious. C'mon TED.

  • @sonofnietzsche1 I agree. All along I thought she was going to reveal some new discovery.

  • Someone give this woman a teleprompter

  • The sad part is this info most likely will be used for making money; evolution has done it for millions of years and we are beginning to finding out how it does little final tweaks and tunes to your body to best adapt your future habitat taking into account your genetic info, but probably there is some sort of protective mechanism to avoid over reaction to stimuli so probably there is nothing that you can put on your pregnant belly to make your kid smarter or give him any edge in life.

  • @intestinomedicino damn right man, well probably not possible to give him an edge right now but maybe in the future.

  • @carlitosvodka yeah once we figure out exactly how it works, then we can think of something that actually has any effect not like all that expensive and useless trash. Clearly is not the aim of this talk but advertisement people always find a way to twist it all to make money and they always find the fools...btw this would go in tune with Freakonomics claims regarding decisions parents make.

  • @intestinomedicino yeah i guess you would like it if you were on the receiving end of the benefits

  • I can't stand seeing pregnant women smoking. Just pisses me off.

  • very interesting stuff !!

  • this chick has a nice body.

  • Just another example of the mystical nature of human existence!

  • interesting thank you for sharing

  • Prove it, at least show some video of testing

  • damn it i am not a girl so i cant manipulate my child if i ever have one the way i want it to be..... arg

  • This was not revealing, nor interesting, nor well brought, nor is she even a relevant scientist doing research in it... We are very far from our T, E and D

  • First, "science reporter" isn't a credential, imo. 99% of science I read in the papers is blown out of proportion.

    Second, since when can you learn diabetes and heart disease and PTSD...

    Some of this is interesting, like with food tastes and such, but the rest I'm taking with a grain of salt. Seriously, PTSD markers in kids who are now maybe 10-11 years old? Doubtful.

  • if the scarcity of food during development makes you more prone to obesity and other related diseases, would having plenty have the opposite effect? 

  • Lol why does the way she talk make me think of the babies as aliens :)

  • I wonder if this also contributes to some of the 1st born, 2nd born personality stereotypes. During the 1st pregnancy women are usually learning and consuming as much new information about pregnancy and parenting (high learner) as they can. They are also exhausted and seek out more solitary time. With the 2nd born, the learning curve is considered conquered and the mom has the 1st child to take care of so is almost always in a social mode with little solitary time.

  • @PoulFamily interesting hypothesis, never really thought of it that way.

  • @PoulFamily I'm a forth born with three older brothers... am I gonna be THAT stressed when I grow up?!

  • Interesting Ted. The speaker needs to work on her public speaking skills though.

  • very interesting topic, thanks TED

  • I need to call my mother and give her hell! I'm a mess...

  • @chessdude67 Ditto. Hahaha.

  • Interesting information. Not surprising. Its a shame the speaker used a script. Her use of long, perfectly punctuated sentence (our writing voice) was a real distraction in her speaking voice of the address. Does anyone at TED offer these people public speaking coaching?

  • I'm just an ordinary High School / Secondary School student in Singapore and have been following TED for quite awhile now . It would really be so much more interesting not to mention beneficial , to have these speech , or better yet to have them replace the reading periods during the morning hours .

  • @Sixthfred I second that.

  • I hate when the use the word scientist. It's as if she is saying only the experts in the universe are saying. Kinda stupid when all scientists are paid for by monsantos and big corporations! Fucking scientist agree that Chemical weapons from ww1 heal cancer! Scientist agree that boiling water for electricity is safe alternate energy and it's safe to create a black hole in Holland. That's like letting your kids go with CPS to a Zoo for fun.

  • @Mystery207 Those are the *government funded* scientists, working for the corporations. There are plenty of scientists who dissagree with those ideas.

  • @ToxinalX Yes! that is true but they out number them 1 million to one. Some of these fuckers want to just make money and use their innovative power for inventing panty hose that run. Or better yet the Gas engine one of the worst inventions ever made!

  • @Mystery207 How was the Gas engine one of the worst inventions ever made ? I know that some of what it outputs can be bad, but I really don't think there where many other solutions avaible. Please educate me! ;)

    On a side note, you probably guessed it, but I'm sort of a libertarian guy. As such, I don't want the government to become too deeply involved no matter what the scientists intentions are for as long as they don't harm other people or their property. But then of course, engines do that.

  • @ToxinalX Check out Adolf Diesel and his mysterious disappearance. Also make note that his first engine never ran on the petroleum based Diesel. We are lucky they got greedy and let his invention be used in trains.

  • @Mystery207 He sure seems to have dissapeared, because I can't find anything about him really... :/ Any links perhaps?

  • @ToxinalX Had the name wrong It's Rudolf Diesel and you'll get plenty of links with that name. Sorry My bad.

  • @Mystery207 What if you redefine scientist as someone using the scientific method?

  • @595o Why don't we just cut to the chase and replace it with religion. All measurements need a consensus. There is only one way to skin a cat and plenty of ways to win a chess match but if your alone in the woods and you fart only you can smell it. I'm just being facetious now! I know that does not make any sense.

  • @Mystery207 Relativism much?

  • @595o Existential Experience through observance of grammatical data and past linguistics applied through a mathematical formula of non consensuses

  • Surprisingly interesting talk, but, please, no high heels when you constantly have to peer at your notes:) Some visual media would be good too rather than reading face on the screen all the time.

    The part about hungry Dutch foetuses in WW2 resonated with the first part of the film Zeitgeist: Moving Forward about Human Nature. The scientific facts presented there outstanding.

  • Terribly Boring.

  • I think this information was very fascinating, but she sounded so.. dull.

  • Wait... this would mean that Luke would have been more susceptible to the dark side...

  • Mozart effect rebooted? Nice job at sucking. And I'm not referring to your mother's nipples.

  • i wish females knew that they're not supposed to have sex while pregnant. 

  • It's story time!

  • Wow... apparently it's super insulting to read something rather than have it memorized. Who the fuck knew?

  • I'm not a child. I don't need someone to read to me. Please, next time, don't read verbatim from a piece of paper.

  • reading out a presentation !! bad idea.

  • Despite her journalism background, she explained the science in a much more moving and poignant way than most researchers. This talk made me better appreciate my own mother and the wonders of pregnancy.

  • Why is she using stories that have a propagandal background? Talking about the Netherlands in connection with Nazi germany, as well as the emotional flamboyant aftermath of the destruction of the WTC, appears to me like she is using these findings to subconsciously influence us in a negative way. The knowledge contained within is interesting though.

  • it all makes sense now.

    watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

  • She's just reading a mostly memorized speech. Sorry, I hate that.

  • well, maybe when the nervous system is developed enough, but not the whoooole nine months.

  • @jdroker And you are foetal origins expert, huh?

  • @patilsaurabhr Are you?

  • @jdroker Environmental signals are not just neurological. They include chemical, gustatory, olfactory, thermal, radiational and infrasonic waves. The mechanisms for last two are unknown due to failure to locate receptor/associated pathway.

  • @patilsaurabhr Well perhaps you may refere me to some place where I can read more about it.

  • @patilsaurabhr Never mind I found a text about it, you're right.

  • @jdroker Cells themselves have memory, and the cells will be effected by the environment they are in, even before the nervous system. One example, cells will create more or less, of certain types of cell receptors based on feedback from the current receptors.

  • @jdroker well technically, the moment there is an environment, there is an effect that that environment has on even a single cell. Calling that "learning" is debatable.

  • @jdroker I would guess 7-5 months before birth when the fetus has actually developed a nervous system as you said and actually can process the informations its given. But maybe what she's talking about is the "building process" actually examines the mothers habits and surroundings and send hormones to the baby and therefor its "built" into their brains to react and expect different things like hunger, stress etc. So maybe it starts from day 1 :)

  • my existence counters all her points she made

  • Janeane Garofalo

  • some of this was featured on an episode of QI a couple weeks ago. Pretty intriguing stuff, but not as shocking as the start made it seem.

  • Comment removed

  • see epigenetics

  • My pregnant with me mom, must have read a lot of porno

  • Why is she reading the whole thing...? A TED speaker should be more well prepared.

  • What I learned Before I was Born.

    DONT DIS DA TECHNO MUSIC.

  • "Primavera, also known as Allegory of Spring, is a tempera panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. Painted ca. 1482, the painting is described in Culture & Values (2009) as "[o]ne of the most popular paintings in Western art".[1] It is also, according to Botticelli, Primavera (1998), "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world."

  • "While most critics agree that the painting, depicting a group of mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth of Spring, other meanings have also been explored. Among them, the work is sometimes cited as illustrating the ideal of Neoplatonic love."

  • Shiloh, is so great, Love them!

  • This will be mistafieds (Tommy) Last Youtube Epic Ownage!

    Many of you all should have understood what this woman was saying o back in the 90s, before the internet took off.

    I did!

    Music Rules!

  • Chris Anderson: How YouTube is driving innovation

    /watch?v=LnQcCgS7aPQ

  • Never show ones Poker face, and hey, who said it was for me?

  • The world is what you make of it.

  • @nccmrm97

    What if earth is not my world?

  • @LUVYOUSTILL I did not mention the earth.

  • @nccmrm97

    Then were are we?

  • @LUVYOUSTILL Your world is your world.

  • @nccmrm97

    Maybe. Maybe not. I dont believe as many of you do online here.

  • @nccmrm97

    It's ok thou, one day you all will get it.

    Just stop being affraid to communcate and be honest with each other online.

    It is ok people.

  • @nccmrm97

    The Cosmos is much bigger then a world.

  • Wow we can so feel your energy and enthusiasm..

  • Hello

  • My wife went on a House binge during pregnancy, now my baby boy loves teardrop by massive attack.

  • Since when did janeane garofalo know so much about babies?

  • Depends how you define learning... I'd rather suggesting watching Moving Forward by Peter Joseph. The first chapter goes much deeper than this talk and is more enjoyable to watch too.

  • Babys SUCK!

  • Motz-art, Annie, not Moez-art. Interesting with thousands of implications.

  • Took until 2:30 for her to finish prefacing her idea. Took me about half a second to read the title and not need that preface.

  • @LuckyMarketGameplay exactly. And it's not that a whole lot of information followed the introduction

  • I had a very traumatic event after being abandoned by my child's father and my family. I believe this affected my child before he was born. It's so sad. What can be done when catastrophes strike and we are so hurt, ill, frightened or alone?

    As a single mother life was very difficult then. It's important for a child to have two parents, but it's easier now that mothers are not stigmatized if they are unmarried or alone. As adults, how do we pass down a life of peace and harmony to our children?

  • This is really good! I can appreciate my mother for some important contributions, like the way I like healthy foods, and don't like the taste of alcohol... GREAT STUFF, thank you!

  • interesting ideas. (not that "new" though) but she is boring..! I'd rather read about it myself than have some journalist read about it to me. bleh.. disappointed by this TED vid :(

  • @mamemimoma I really agree. She speaks much too slow.

  • Excellent overview of the topic :)

    @conillusionist I assume you mean miserable people such as yourself. I disagree, obviously. Tools like you and everyone else ( i include myself ) make the world pretty interesting.

  • Topic/Theme is damn good !

    But for a better presentation one should be more lively with emotions rather than reading something which have been written on a paper....!

  • This whole "new research" hype is annoying. You don't need to lie by calling something "new" to make it sound more interesting. This info has been in my school's psyc curriculum for a long time.

  • so... Can we have sex during pregnancy? or how it'd effect the baby later? @@

  • @ElmoNotty It's safe, u dont get into the uterus unless ur massively built, but its recommended not to have sex in the last 2 months as it can cause premature birth I think, u can look it up. If your kid is born with a big dimple in his chin while u had sex and ur wife was pregnant, u know where that one came from and u can compliment urself.

  • @BrutusAlbion i ment as will it affect baby's personality later on?XD like the taste or hearing examples mentioned in the video

  • @ElmoNotty Yes you can. The baby is above the cervix, while penile penetration is only in the vagina. This doesn't hurt the baby.

  • Marketing is going ape shit over this. Ads for the unborn will be the next big thing.

  • too long :P

  • What is this marker of PTSD she's talking about?

  • @mylene0wnt Cortisol, from what I could find. See Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Volume 1071, Issue 1, pages 454–458, July 2006.

  • @etacitsongorp thank you for the reference of the article!

  • dem high heels

  • very interesting...

  • interesting ideas. Too bad the baby killers just had to spew in these comments. Talk about "sensitive". God forbid we acknowledge the scientific truth regarding an unborn child and their development while in the womb.

  • Journalist is not equal to scientist, too much bullshit and anecdotes

  • I wonder to what extent one can condition the unborn? This really reminds me of A Brave New World, where the unborn are conditioned to like their predetermined living conditions the government had planned for them.

  • please don't let journalists speak about technology and science. Not on TED. They just don't have anything original to say about science.

    This person can't even talk about this stuff - she needs to read it to us.

  • @ennot

    unfortunately, this does sound more like a book report

  • Oh I knew about this. When my one sister was in the womb, her mother and father always had rock music on (specifically Kiss) and once born, she had an unusual liking to the band right off the bat.

  • as a guy who is anti-feminist, in anticipation of the pro-life arguments. If a pregnant women is goign through immense suffering at her third trimester, it may in fact be better to abort that child if the child will have severe complications in his or her later years.

  • I knew I should have taken French at second trimester...

  • Nazi AND 9/11 anecdotes. A bit much?

  • Interesting, but dragged on for a bit too much

  • Learning starts as soon as there are any brain cells.

    Nothing new here, now move along...

  • @Ilamarea Never mind thought, this is amazing and you should watch it all.

  • 2:53 stumbling around my dear? who told you you have to wear high heels for a ted talk.

  • Good Stuff, Great Talk!

  • Comment removed

  • 0:15

  • third/

  • In before irrelevant abortion argument.

  • 0:15 for those of you too lazy to watch the intro

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