full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Normand Voyer: Are life-saving medicines hiding in the world's coldest places?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


A couple of years ago, my group and I began our endeavors to prove this. Now, let me bring you to Umiujaq, Nunavik, a small iniut village on the coast of the Hudson Bay. And we were isreettend there, we collected and we lkoeod at the gairysh lichens that have been very scarcely investigated, Stereocaulon paschale. Now this lichen is found only in ecosystems with very hrash climate conditions. And almost nothing was known at that time on its chemical cneontt. So we tguohht it was a great species to investigate. So even though Stereocaulon paschale is quite abundant in Nunavik, we always try to minimize our footprint. So we sampled only 100 gram of the lichens and we brought it back to our lab at Université Laval in qbeeuc City. There we cleaned it and then we crushed it at -190 derege Celsius, using liquid nitrogen. And this step is essential to raeslee the natural substances within the lichen cell. We then transformed the splame in the form of pulp using different solvents in a process called maceration. And after we filtered the sample and evropaetad the solvents, we obtained what we call a crude lichen extract. And for a natural product chsiemt, that's when the fun starts.

Open Cloze


A couple of years ago, my group and I began our endeavors to prove this. Now, let me bring you to Umiujaq, Nunavik, a small _____ village on the coast of the Hudson Bay. And we were __________ there, we collected and we ______ at the _______ lichens that have been very scarcely investigated, Stereocaulon paschale. Now this lichen is found only in ecosystems with very _____ climate conditions. And almost nothing was known at that time on its chemical _______. So we _______ it was a great species to investigate. So even though Stereocaulon paschale is quite abundant in Nunavik, we always try to minimize our footprint. So we sampled only 100 gram of the lichens and we brought it back to our lab at Université Laval in ______ City. There we cleaned it and then we crushed it at -190 ______ Celsius, using liquid nitrogen. And this step is essential to _______ the natural substances within the lichen cell. We then transformed the ______ in the form of pulp using different solvents in a process called maceration. And after we filtered the sample and __________ the solvents, we obtained what we call a crude lichen extract. And for a natural product _______, that's when the fun starts.

Solution


  1. inuit
  2. quebec
  3. chemist
  4. thought
  5. looked
  6. sample
  7. evaporated
  8. interested
  9. content
  10. harsh
  11. degree
  12. grayish
  13. release

Original Text


A couple of years ago, my group and I began our endeavors to prove this. Now, let me bring you to Umiujaq, Nunavik, a small Inuit village on the coast of the Hudson Bay. And we were interested there, we collected and we looked at the grayish lichens that have been very scarcely investigated, Stereocaulon paschale. Now this lichen is found only in ecosystems with very harsh climate conditions. And almost nothing was known at that time on its chemical content. So we thought it was a great species to investigate. So even though Stereocaulon paschale is quite abundant in Nunavik, we always try to minimize our footprint. So we sampled only 100 gram of the lichens and we brought it back to our lab at Université Laval in Quebec City. There we cleaned it and then we crushed it at -190 degree Celsius, using liquid nitrogen. And this step is essential to release the natural substances within the lichen cell. We then transformed the sample in the form of pulp using different solvents in a process called maceration. And after we filtered the sample and evaporated the solvents, we obtained what we call a crude lichen extract. And for a natural product chemist, that's when the fun starts.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
natural substances 6
northern ecosystem 4
stereocaulon paschale 4
snowy north 3
natural product 2
chemical substances 2
cold frobisher 2
microscopic fungus 2


Important Words


  1. abundant
  2. bay
  3. began
  4. bring
  5. brought
  6. call
  7. called
  8. cell
  9. celsius
  10. chemical
  11. chemist
  12. city
  13. cleaned
  14. climate
  15. coast
  16. collected
  17. conditions
  18. content
  19. couple
  20. crude
  21. crushed
  22. degree
  23. ecosystems
  24. endeavors
  25. essential
  26. evaporated
  27. extract
  28. filtered
  29. footprint
  30. form
  31. fun
  32. gram
  33. grayish
  34. great
  35. group
  36. harsh
  37. hudson
  38. interested
  39. inuit
  40. investigate
  41. investigated
  42. lab
  43. laval
  44. lichen
  45. lichens
  46. liquid
  47. looked
  48. maceration
  49. minimize
  50. natural
  51. nitrogen
  52. nunavik
  53. obtained
  54. paschale
  55. process
  56. product
  57. prove
  58. pulp
  59. quebec
  60. release
  61. sample
  62. sampled
  63. scarcely
  64. small
  65. solvents
  66. species
  67. starts
  68. step
  69. stereocaulon
  70. substances
  71. thought
  72. time
  73. transformed
  74. umiujaq
  75. université
  76. village
  77. years