full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Gruber: Can we learn to talk to sperm whales?


Unscramble the Blue Letters


I became interested in sperm whleas when I heard their sunods. They sounded like they were coming from another universe; a siren song being bodarcast from the darkest reaches of the sea. These weren't the typical harmonious whlae songs that I had been accustomed to. These sounded more like digital data transfer. We assembled the future Project CETI team and began discussing how to use the most advanced technologies to communicate with whales. One of the piairpcnl conclusions was that machine learning had a really good chance of utndirnedsang the pntaetrs of sperm whale cmuaoinoitcmn. And the time to apply these technologies was now. Cracking the interspecies communication code didn't just seem possible, it almost seemed inevitable. But how can analyzing patterns help us converse with whales and other animals?

Open Cloze


I became interested in sperm ______ when I heard their ______. They sounded like they were coming from another universe; a siren song being _________ from the darkest reaches of the sea. These weren't the typical harmonious _____ songs that I had been accustomed to. These sounded more like digital data transfer. We assembled the future Project CETI team and began discussing how to use the most advanced technologies to communicate with whales. One of the _________ conclusions was that machine learning had a really good chance of _____________ the ________ of sperm whale _____________. And the time to apply these technologies was now. Cracking the interspecies communication code didn't just seem possible, it almost seemed inevitable. But how can analyzing patterns help us converse with whales and other animals?

Solution


  1. sounds
  2. broadcast
  3. patterns
  4. principal
  5. communication
  6. whales
  7. understanding
  8. whale

Original Text


I became interested in sperm whales when I heard their sounds. They sounded like they were coming from another universe; a siren song being broadcast from the darkest reaches of the sea. These weren't the typical harmonious whale songs that I had been accustomed to. These sounded more like digital data transfer. We assembled the future Project CETI team and began discussing how to use the most advanced technologies to communicate with whales. One of the principal conclusions was that machine learning had a really good chance of understanding the patterns of sperm whale communication. And the time to apply these technologies was now. Cracking the interspecies communication code didn't just seem possible, it almost seemed inevitable. But how can analyzing patterns help us converse with whales and other animals?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
machine learning 6
sperm whale 6
project ceti 4
sperm whales 3
whale communication 2
whales sing 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
sperm whale communication 2


Important Words


  1. accustomed
  2. advanced
  3. analyzing
  4. animals
  5. apply
  6. assembled
  7. began
  8. broadcast
  9. ceti
  10. chance
  11. code
  12. coming
  13. communicate
  14. communication
  15. conclusions
  16. converse
  17. cracking
  18. darkest
  19. data
  20. digital
  21. discussing
  22. future
  23. good
  24. harmonious
  25. heard
  26. inevitable
  27. interested
  28. interspecies
  29. learning
  30. machine
  31. patterns
  32. principal
  33. project
  34. reaches
  35. sea
  36. siren
  37. song
  38. songs
  39. sounded
  40. sounds
  41. sperm
  42. team
  43. technologies
  44. time
  45. transfer
  46. typical
  47. understanding
  48. whale
  49. whales