full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Louise Leakey: A dig for humanity's origins

Unscramble the Blue Letters


And what is it that really makes us us? I think it's our collective intelligence. It's our alitiby to write things down, our language and our cscsieonousns. From very primitive beginnings, with a very crude tool kit of stones, we now have a very advanced tool kit, and our tool use has really reached unprecedented levels: we've got buggies to Mars; we've mapped the human genome; and recently even created synthetic life, thanks to carig Venter.

And we've also managed to cnticomuame with people all over the world, from extraordinary places. Even from within an eoaxvicatn in northern Kenya, we can talk to people about what we're doing. As Al Gore so clearly has reminded us, we have rechead extraordinary numbers of people on this planet. Human ancestors really only survive on planet Earth, if you look at the fossil rrceod, for about, on average, a million years at a time. We've only been around for the past 200,000 years as a species, yet we've reached a population of more than six and a half billion ppoele.

Open Cloze


And what is it that really makes us us? I think it's our collective intelligence. It's our _______ to write things down, our language and our _____________. From very primitive beginnings, with a very crude tool kit of stones, we now have a very advanced tool kit, and our tool use has really reached unprecedented levels: we've got buggies to Mars; we've mapped the human genome; and recently even created synthetic life, thanks to _____ Venter.

And we've also managed to ___________ with people all over the world, from extraordinary places. Even from within an __________ in northern Kenya, we can talk to people about what we're doing. As Al Gore so clearly has reminded us, we have _______ extraordinary numbers of people on this planet. Human ancestors really only survive on planet Earth, if you look at the fossil ______, for about, on average, a million years at a time. We've only been around for the past 200,000 years as a species, yet we've reached a population of more than six and a half billion ______.

Solution


  1. people
  2. craig
  3. consciousness
  4. record
  5. reached
  6. communicate
  7. excavation
  8. ability

Original Text


And what is it that really makes us us? I think it's our collective intelligence. It's our ability to write things down, our language and our consciousness. From very primitive beginnings, with a very crude tool kit of stones, we now have a very advanced tool kit, and our tool use has really reached unprecedented levels: we've got buggies to Mars; we've mapped the human genome; and recently even created synthetic life, thanks to Craig Venter.

And we've also managed to communicate with people all over the world, from extraordinary places. Even from within an excavation in northern Kenya, we can talk to people about what we're doing. As Al Gore so clearly has reminded us, we have reached extraordinary numbers of people on this planet. Human ancestors really only survive on planet Earth, if you look at the fossil record, for about, on average, a million years at a time. We've only been around for the past 200,000 years as a species, yet we've reached a population of more than six and a half billion people.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
million years 6
homo erectus 6
planet earth 5
human ancestors 4
lake turkana 3
world today 2
great apes 2
common future 2
rift valley 2
rapidly buried 2
fossil sites 2
human ancestor 2
left africa 2
extraordinary numbers 2


Important Words


  1. ability
  2. advanced
  3. al
  4. ancestors
  5. average
  6. beginnings
  7. billion
  8. buggies
  9. collective
  10. communicate
  11. consciousness
  12. craig
  13. created
  14. crude
  15. earth
  16. excavation
  17. extraordinary
  18. fossil
  19. gore
  20. human
  21. intelligence
  22. kenya
  23. kit
  24. language
  25. life
  26. managed
  27. mapped
  28. million
  29. northern
  30. numbers
  31. people
  32. places
  33. planet
  34. population
  35. primitive
  36. reached
  37. record
  38. reminded
  39. species
  40. stones
  41. survive
  42. synthetic
  43. talk
  44. time
  45. tool
  46. unprecedented
  47. venter
  48. world
  49. write
  50. years