full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Laura Boykin: How we're using DNA tech to help farmers fight crop diseases

Unscramble the Blue Letters


We furiged if we could get the data closer to the problem, and closer to the farmer, the quicker we could tell her what was wnorg with her plant. And not only tell her what was wrong — give her the sotuioln. And the solution is, burn the field and plant viaetreis that are resistant to the pests and pathogens she has in her field. So the first thing that we did was we had to do a DNA extraction. And we used this maihnce here. It's called a PDQeX, which stands for "Pretty Damn qciuk Extraction."

(Laughter)

I know. My friend Joe is really cool. One of the biggest challenges in doing a DNA exaittocrn is it usually requires very epxnvseie equipment, and takes hours. But with this machine, we've been able to do it in 20 minutes, at a fraction of the cost. And this runs off of a motorcycle battery.

Open Cloze


We _______ if we could get the data closer to the problem, and closer to the farmer, the quicker we could tell her what was _____ with her plant. And not only tell her what was wrong — give her the ________. And the solution is, burn the field and plant _________ that are resistant to the pests and pathogens she has in her field. So the first thing that we did was we had to do a DNA extraction. And we used this _______ here. It's called a PDQeX, which stands for "Pretty Damn _____ Extraction."

(Laughter)

I know. My friend Joe is really cool. One of the biggest challenges in doing a DNA __________ is it usually requires very _________ equipment, and takes hours. But with this machine, we've been able to do it in 20 minutes, at a fraction of the cost. And this runs off of a motorcycle battery.

Solution


  1. varieties
  2. quick
  3. figured
  4. extraction
  5. expensive
  6. wrong
  7. solution
  8. machine

Original Text


We figured if we could get the data closer to the problem, and closer to the farmer, the quicker we could tell her what was wrong with her plant. And not only tell her what was wrong — give her the solution. And the solution is, burn the field and plant varieties that are resistant to the pests and pathogens she has in her field. So the first thing that we did was we had to do a DNA extraction. And we used this machine here. It's called a PDQeX, which stands for "Pretty Damn Quick Extraction."

(Laughter)

I know. My friend Joe is really cool. One of the biggest challenges in doing a DNA extraction is it usually requires very expensive equipment, and takes hours. But with this machine, we've been able to do it in 20 minutes, at a fraction of the cost. And this runs off of a motorcycle battery.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
computational biologist 3
tree lab 3
dna extraction 3
east africa 2


Important Words


  1. battery
  2. biggest
  3. burn
  4. called
  5. challenges
  6. closer
  7. cool
  8. cost
  9. damn
  10. data
  11. dna
  12. equipment
  13. expensive
  14. extraction
  15. farmer
  16. field
  17. figured
  18. fraction
  19. friend
  20. give
  21. hours
  22. joe
  23. laughter
  24. machine
  25. minutes
  26. motorcycle
  27. pathogens
  28. pdqex
  29. pests
  30. plant
  31. problem
  32. quick
  33. quicker
  34. requires
  35. resistant
  36. runs
  37. solution
  38. stands
  39. takes
  40. varieties
  41. wrong