full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Rose Eveleth: Cicadas The dormant army beneath your feet
Unscramble the Blue Letters
If you live on the east coast of the United satets, you've spent the last 17 yaers of your life walking, eating and sleeping above a dormant army of insects. These are the cicadas. Every 17 years, billions of them eergme from the ground to do three things: molt, mate and die. There are 15 different broods of cicadas out there, grouped by when they'll emerge from the ground. Some of these broods are on a 13-year cycle, others are on a 17-year coclk. Either way, the cicadas live underground for most of their lives, feeding on the juices of pnlat rtoos. When it's time to emerge, the adults begin to burrow their way out of the gurnod and up to the surface, where they'll live for just a few weeks. During these weeks, though, everybody will know the cicadas have arirevd. There will be billions of them. And they're loud. Male cicadas band together to call for female mates, and their collective cohrus can reach up to 100 decibels — as loud as a chain saw. In fact, if you heappn to be using a chain saw or a lawn mower, male cicadas will flock to you, thinking that you're one of them. Now, like most things in nature, the cicadas don't arrive without a posse. There are all sort of awesome and gsors predators and parasites that come along with the buzzing bugs. Take the fungus moarspssoa for example. This little white fungus buries itself in the cicada's abdomen and eats the bug alive, leaving behind its spores. When those spores rupture, they bsurt out of the still-alive cicada, turning the bug into a flying saltshaker of death, raining spores down upon its unsuspecting cicada neighbors. But while we know pretty precisely when the cicadas will arrive and fade away, we're still not totally certain of why. There are certain advantages to having your entire species emerge at once, of course. The sheer number of cacaids cimong out of the ground is so overwhelming to pdotarres, it is essentially gaeenurtad that a few bugs will survive and reproduce. And since cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years, longer than the lipasefn of many of their predators, the animals that eat them don't learn to deepnd on their availability. But why 13 and 17 years, instead of 16 or 18 or 12? Well, that part no one really knows. It's possible the number just happened by chance, or, perhaps, cicadas really love prime numbers. Eventually, the cicadas will mate and slowly die off, their call fading into the distance. The eggs they lay will begin the cycle again, their cadica babies bnrwrouig into the earth, feeding on plant jicue, and winaitg for their turn to darekn the skies and fill the air with their songs. In 17 years, they'll be ready. Will you?
Open Cloze
If you live on the east coast of the United ______, you've spent the last 17 _____ of your life walking, eating and sleeping above a dormant army of insects. These are the cicadas. Every 17 years, billions of them ______ from the ground to do three things: molt, mate and die. There are 15 different broods of cicadas out there, grouped by when they'll emerge from the ground. Some of these broods are on a 13-year cycle, others are on a 17-year _____. Either way, the cicadas live underground for most of their lives, feeding on the juices of _____ _____. When it's time to emerge, the adults begin to burrow their way out of the ______ and up to the surface, where they'll live for just a few weeks. During these weeks, though, everybody will know the cicadas have _______. There will be billions of them. And they're loud. Male cicadas band together to call for female mates, and their collective ______ can reach up to 100 decibels — as loud as a chain saw. In fact, if you ______ to be using a chain saw or a lawn mower, male cicadas will flock to you, thinking that you're one of them. Now, like most things in nature, the cicadas don't arrive without a posse. There are all sort of awesome and _____ predators and parasites that come along with the buzzing bugs. Take the fungus __________ for example. This little white fungus buries itself in the cicada's abdomen and eats the bug alive, leaving behind its spores. When those spores rupture, they _____ out of the still-alive cicada, turning the bug into a flying saltshaker of death, raining spores down upon its unsuspecting cicada neighbors. But while we know pretty precisely when the cicadas will arrive and fade away, we're still not totally certain of why. There are certain advantages to having your entire species emerge at once, of course. The sheer number of _______ ______ out of the ground is so overwhelming to _________, it is essentially __________ that a few bugs will survive and reproduce. And since cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years, longer than the ________ of many of their predators, the animals that eat them don't learn to ______ on their availability. But why 13 and 17 years, instead of 16 or 18 or 12? Well, that part no one really knows. It's possible the number just happened by chance, or, perhaps, cicadas really love prime numbers. Eventually, the cicadas will mate and slowly die off, their call fading into the distance. The eggs they lay will begin the cycle again, their ______ babies _________ into the earth, feeding on plant _____, and _______ for their turn to ______ the skies and fill the air with their songs. In 17 years, they'll be ready. Will you?
Solution
- years
- burst
- lifespan
- burrowing
- emerge
- predators
- states
- chorus
- roots
- juice
- waiting
- happen
- arrived
- gross
- coming
- darken
- plant
- ground
- cicadas
- depend
- cicada
- clock
- massospora
- guaranteed
Original Text
If you live on the east coast of the United States, you've spent the last 17 years of your life walking, eating and sleeping above a dormant army of insects. These are the cicadas. Every 17 years, billions of them emerge from the ground to do three things: molt, mate and die. There are 15 different broods of cicadas out there, grouped by when they'll emerge from the ground. Some of these broods are on a 13-year cycle, others are on a 17-year clock. Either way, the cicadas live underground for most of their lives, feeding on the juices of plant roots. When it's time to emerge, the adults begin to burrow their way out of the ground and up to the surface, where they'll live for just a few weeks. During these weeks, though, everybody will know the cicadas have arrived. There will be billions of them. And they're loud. Male cicadas band together to call for female mates, and their collective chorus can reach up to 100 decibels — as loud as a chain saw. In fact, if you happen to be using a chain saw or a lawn mower, male cicadas will flock to you, thinking that you're one of them. Now, like most things in nature, the cicadas don't arrive without a posse. There are all sort of awesome and gross predators and parasites that come along with the buzzing bugs. Take the fungus Massospora for example. This little white fungus buries itself in the cicada's abdomen and eats the bug alive, leaving behind its spores. When those spores rupture, they burst out of the still-alive cicada, turning the bug into a flying saltshaker of death, raining spores down upon its unsuspecting cicada neighbors. But while we know pretty precisely when the cicadas will arrive and fade away, we're still not totally certain of why. There are certain advantages to having your entire species emerge at once, of course. The sheer number of cicadas coming out of the ground is so overwhelming to predators, it is essentially guaranteed that a few bugs will survive and reproduce. And since cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years, longer than the lifespan of many of their predators, the animals that eat them don't learn to depend on their availability. But why 13 and 17 years, instead of 16 or 18 or 12? Well, that part no one really knows. It's possible the number just happened by chance, or, perhaps, cicadas really love prime numbers. Eventually, the cicadas will mate and slowly die off, their call fading into the distance. The eggs they lay will begin the cycle again, their cicada babies burrowing into the earth, feeding on plant juice, and waiting for their turn to darken the skies and fill the air with their songs. In 17 years, they'll be ready. Will you?
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| male cicadas |
2 |
Important Words
- abdomen
- adults
- advantages
- air
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- animals
- army
- arrive
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- availability
- awesome
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- billions
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- clock
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- darken
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- decibels
- depend
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- eat
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- eggs
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- entire
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- fact
- fade
- fading
- feeding
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- fill
- flock
- flying
- fungus
- gross
- ground
- grouped
- guaranteed
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- happened
- insects
- juice
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- lawn
- lay
- learn
- leaving
- life
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- part
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- predators
- pretty
- prime
- raining
- reach
- ready
- reproduce
- roots
- rupture
- saltshaker
- sheer
- skies
- sleeping
- slowly
- songs
- sort
- species
- spent
- spores
- states
- surface
- survive
- thinking
- time
- totally
- turn
- turning
- underground
- united
- unsuspecting
- waiting
- walking
- weeks
- white
- years