full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Cameron Webb: How to design mosquitoes out of cities

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The yellow fever msqiotuo, Aedes aegypti, was actually once cmmoon in Sydney, but during the '50s, it disappeared. One of the reasons for its disappearance could well have been the fact that we moved away from rainwater tanks. And now, rainwater tnkas are coming back. They're going to become more common. And could that see the return of these mosquitoes? I certainly hope not.

So what can authorities do about reducing the mosquitoes associated with these greening cities that we're dealing with? There's a role for our local authorities to consider mosquitoes when they're building wetlands, creating wesaettwar ryineclcg sehmecs, regulating the installation of rainwater tanks. Because these are dynamic systems. It's not just about how you design them and build them, but it's how you maintain them. You can't just build them and walk away, because as we've learned, if these habitats degrade, they become more suitable for mosquitoes. These types of strecuutrs, these wetlands in our cetiis, they're great. They help reduce puliotlon, they help srote water, but we don't want them to become an opportunity for mosquitoes.

Open Cloze


The yellow fever ________, Aedes aegypti, was actually once ______ in Sydney, but during the '50s, it disappeared. One of the reasons for its disappearance could well have been the fact that we moved away from rainwater tanks. And now, rainwater _____ are coming back. They're going to become more common. And could that see the return of these mosquitoes? I certainly hope not.

So what can authorities do about reducing the mosquitoes associated with these greening cities that we're dealing with? There's a role for our local authorities to consider mosquitoes when they're building wetlands, creating __________ _________ _______, regulating the installation of rainwater tanks. Because these are dynamic systems. It's not just about how you design them and build them, but it's how you maintain them. You can't just build them and walk away, because as we've learned, if these habitats degrade, they become more suitable for mosquitoes. These types of __________, these wetlands in our ______, they're great. They help reduce _________, they help _____ water, but we don't want them to become an opportunity for mosquitoes.

Solution


  1. common
  2. wastewater
  3. tanks
  4. recycling
  5. store
  6. cities
  7. structures
  8. schemes
  9. mosquito
  10. pollution

Original Text


The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, was actually once common in Sydney, but during the '50s, it disappeared. One of the reasons for its disappearance could well have been the fact that we moved away from rainwater tanks. And now, rainwater tanks are coming back. They're going to become more common. And could that see the return of these mosquitoes? I certainly hope not.

So what can authorities do about reducing the mosquitoes associated with these greening cities that we're dealing with? There's a role for our local authorities to consider mosquitoes when they're building wetlands, creating wastewater recycling schemes, regulating the installation of rainwater tanks. Because these are dynamic systems. It's not just about how you design them and build them, but it's how you maintain them. You can't just build them and walk away, because as we've learned, if these habitats degrade, they become more suitable for mosquitoes. These types of structures, these wetlands in our cities, they're great. They help reduce pollution, they help store water, but we don't want them to become an opportunity for mosquitoes.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
rainwater tanks 6
create opportunities 3
mosquito bites 3
ross river 2
creating opportunities 2
pot plant 2
green city 2
mosquitoes love 2
mosquito populations 2
yellow fever 2


Important Words


  1. aedes
  2. aegypti
  3. authorities
  4. build
  5. building
  6. cities
  7. coming
  8. common
  9. creating
  10. dealing
  11. degrade
  12. design
  13. disappearance
  14. disappeared
  15. dynamic
  16. fact
  17. fever
  18. great
  19. greening
  20. habitats
  21. hope
  22. installation
  23. learned
  24. local
  25. maintain
  26. mosquito
  27. mosquitoes
  28. moved
  29. opportunity
  30. pollution
  31. rainwater
  32. reasons
  33. recycling
  34. reduce
  35. reducing
  36. regulating
  37. return
  38. role
  39. schemes
  40. store
  41. structures
  42. suitable
  43. sydney
  44. systems
  45. tanks
  46. types
  47. walk
  48. wastewater
  49. water
  50. wetlands
  51. yellow