full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Prosanta Chakrabarty: Clues to prehistoric times, found in blind cavefish

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But the genes in these cavefishes can also tell us about deep geological time, maybe no more so than in this species here. This is a new species we described from Madagascar that we named Typhleotris mararybe. That means "big sickness" in Malagasy, for how sick we got trying to collect this species. Now, believe it or not, swimming around sinkholes full of dead things and cave full of bat poop isn't the smartest thing you could be doing with your life, but YOLO.

(lhaugter)

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this species in Madagascar, its closest rilveaets are 6,000 kilometers away, cveefsaihs in Australia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these secpies is that they've been sparaeetd for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the contntenis that mvoed them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these ancenit ggecailool events.

Open Cloze


But the genes in these cavefishes can also tell us about deep geological time, maybe no more so than in this species here. This is a new species we described from Madagascar that we named Typhleotris mararybe. That means "big sickness" in Malagasy, for how sick we got trying to collect this species. Now, believe it or not, swimming around sinkholes full of dead things and cave full of bat poop isn't the smartest thing you could be doing with your life, but YOLO.

(________)

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this species in Madagascar, its closest _________ are 6,000 kilometers away, __________ in Australia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these _______ is that they've been _________ for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the __________ that _____ them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these _______ __________ events.

Solution


  1. ancient
  2. continents
  3. species
  4. geological
  5. laughter
  6. cavefishes
  7. separated
  8. moved
  9. relatives

Original Text


But the genes in these cavefishes can also tell us about deep geological time, maybe no more so than in this species here. This is a new species we described from Madagascar that we named Typhleotris mararybe. That means "big sickness" in Malagasy, for how sick we got trying to collect this species. Now, believe it or not, swimming around sinkholes full of dead things and cave full of bat poop isn't the smartest thing you could be doing with your life, but YOLO.

(Laughter)

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this species in Madagascar, its closest relatives are 6,000 kilometers away, cavefishes in Australia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these species is that they've been separated for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the continents that moved them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these ancient geological events.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cavefish species 2
closest relatives 2
cave system 2


Important Words


  1. ancient
  2. australia
  3. bat
  4. cave
  5. cavefish
  6. cavefishes
  7. closest
  8. collect
  9. compared
  10. continents
  11. date
  12. dead
  13. deep
  14. dna
  15. events
  16. fact
  17. freshwater
  18. full
  19. genes
  20. geological
  21. give
  22. indian
  23. kill
  24. kilometers
  25. laughter
  26. life
  27. love
  28. madagascar
  29. malagasy
  30. mararybe
  31. means
  32. measure
  33. million
  34. model
  35. move
  36. moved
  37. named
  38. ocean
  39. poop
  40. precise
  41. relatives
  42. separated
  43. sick
  44. sinkholes
  45. smartest
  46. southern
  47. species
  48. swim
  49. swimming
  50. time
  51. typhleotris
  52. years
  53. yolo