full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Anne Madden: Meet the microscopic life in your home -- and on your face

Unscramble the Blue Letters


footnote

I'm a stecsiint, and I work with researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado to uncover the mcpsicirooc life that is nearest us, and that's often in our most intimate and boring environments, be it under our couches, in our backyards, or in our belly buttons. I do this work because it truns out that we know very little about the microscopic life that's nseerat us. As of a few years ago, no scientist could tell you what bugs or microorganisms live in your home -- your home, the place you know better than anywhere else.

fotonote

And so I and tmeas of others are amerd with Q-tips and tweezers and advanced DNA tcnqehuies to uncover the microscopic life nearest us. In doing so, we found over 600 species of bugs that live in USA homes, everything from spiders and cockroaches to tiny mites that cinlg to feathers. And we found over 100,000 species of bacteria and fungi that live in our dust bunnies, thousands more that live on our clothes or in our srehows. We've gone further still, and we looked at the microorganisms that live inside the bodies of each of those bugs in our home. In each bug, for example, a wasp, we see a microscopic jungle uofnld in a preti plate, a world of hundreds of vibrant species. Behold the boigcoalil cosmos! So many of the siepecs you're looking at right now don't yet have names. Most of the life around us remains unknown.

Open Cloze


footnote

I'm a _________, and I work with researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado to uncover the ___________ life that is nearest us, and that's often in our most intimate and boring environments, be it under our couches, in our backyards, or in our belly buttons. I do this work because it _____ out that we know very little about the microscopic life that's _______ us. As of a few years ago, no scientist could tell you what bugs or microorganisms live in your home -- your home, the place you know better than anywhere else.

________

And so I and _____ of others are _____ with Q-tips and tweezers and advanced DNA __________ to uncover the microscopic life nearest us. In doing so, we found over 600 species of bugs that live in USA homes, everything from spiders and cockroaches to tiny mites that _____ to feathers. And we found over 100,000 species of bacteria and fungi that live in our dust bunnies, thousands more that live on our clothes or in our _______. We've gone further still, and we looked at the microorganisms that live inside the bodies of each of those bugs in our home. In each bug, for example, a wasp, we see a microscopic jungle ______ in a _____ plate, a world of hundreds of vibrant species. Behold the __________ cosmos! So many of the _______ you're looking at right now don't yet have names. Most of the life around us remains unknown.

Solution


  1. unfold
  2. petri
  3. biological
  4. species
  5. nearest
  6. armed
  7. scientist
  8. teams
  9. techniques
  10. cling
  11. turns
  12. footnote
  13. showers
  14. microscopic

Original Text


footnote

I'm a scientist, and I work with researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado to uncover the microscopic life that is nearest us, and that's often in our most intimate and boring environments, be it under our couches, in our backyards, or in our belly buttons. I do this work because it turns out that we know very little about the microscopic life that's nearest us. As of a few years ago, no scientist could tell you what bugs or microorganisms live in your home -- your home, the place you know better than anywhere else.

footnote

And so I and teams of others are armed with Q-tips and tweezers and advanced DNA techniques to uncover the microscopic life nearest us. In doing so, we found over 600 species of bugs that live in USA homes, everything from spiders and cockroaches to tiny mites that cling to feathers. And we found over 100,000 species of bacteria and fungi that live in our dust bunnies, thousands more that live on our clothes or in our showers. We've gone further still, and we looked at the microorganisms that live inside the bodies of each of those bugs in our home. In each bug, for example, a wasp, we see a microscopic jungle unfold in a petri plate, a world of hundreds of vibrant species. Behold the biological cosmos! So many of the species you're looking at right now don't yet have names. Most of the life around us remains unknown.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
microscopic life 8
microscopic creatures 3
microorganism species 3
life nearest 2
human problems 2
similar soil 2
soil bacteria 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
microscopic life nearest 2
similar soil bacteria 2

Important Words


  1. advanced
  2. armed
  3. backyards
  4. bacteria
  5. behold
  6. belly
  7. biological
  8. bodies
  9. boring
  10. bug
  11. bugs
  12. bunnies
  13. buttons
  14. carolina
  15. cling
  16. clothes
  17. cockroaches
  18. colorado
  19. couches
  20. dna
  21. dust
  22. environments
  23. feathers
  24. footnote
  25. fungi
  26. home
  27. homes
  28. hundreds
  29. intimate
  30. jungle
  31. life
  32. live
  33. looked
  34. microorganisms
  35. microscopic
  36. mites
  37. names
  38. nearest
  39. north
  40. petri
  41. place
  42. plate
  43. remains
  44. researchers
  45. scientist
  46. showers
  47. species
  48. spiders
  49. state
  50. teams
  51. techniques
  52. thousands
  53. tiny
  54. turns
  55. tweezers
  56. uncover
  57. unfold
  58. university
  59. unknown
  60. usa
  61. vibrant
  62. wasp
  63. work
  64. world
  65. years