full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Paul Rothemund: Playing with DNA that self-assembles

Unscramble the Blue Letters


They string them up in the right sequence, and then they send them back to you via FedEx. So you get 250 of these in the mail in little tubes. I mix them together, add a little bit of salt water, and then add this long srnatd I was telling you about, that I've seoltn from a virus. And then what happens is, you heat this whole thing up to about boiling. You cool it down to room temperature, and as you do, those short satndrs do the following thing: each one of them binds that long strand in one place, and then has a second half that bdnis that long strand in a distant place, and brings those two patrs of the long strand close together so they stick together.

Open Cloze


They string them up in the right sequence, and then they send them back to you via FedEx. So you get 250 of these in the mail in little tubes. I mix them together, add a little bit of salt water, and then add this long ______ I was telling you about, that I've ______ from a virus. And then what happens is, you heat this whole thing up to about boiling. You cool it down to room temperature, and as you do, those short _______ do the following thing: each one of them binds that long strand in one place, and then has a second half that _____ that long strand in a distant place, and brings those two _____ of the long strand close together so they stick together.

Solution


  1. parts
  2. stolen
  3. binds
  4. strand
  5. strands

Original Text


They string them up in the right sequence, and then they send them back to you via FedEx. So you get 250 of these in the mail in little tubes. I mix them together, add a little bit of salt water, and then add this long strand I was telling you about, that I've stolen from a virus. And then what happens is, you heat this whole thing up to about boiling. You cool it down to room temperature, and as you do, those short strands do the following thing: each one of them binds that long strand in one place, and then has a second half that binds that long strand in a distant place, and brings those two parts of the long strand close together so they stick together.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
long strand 7
molecular spells 2
dna sequences 2


Important Words


  1. add
  2. binds
  3. bit
  4. boiling
  5. brings
  6. close
  7. cool
  8. distant
  9. fedex
  10. heat
  11. long
  12. mail
  13. mix
  14. parts
  15. place
  16. room
  17. salt
  18. send
  19. sequence
  20. short
  21. stick
  22. stolen
  23. strand
  24. strands
  25. string
  26. telling
  27. temperature
  28. tubes
  29. virus
  30. water