full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Nancy Rabalais: The "dead zone" of the Gulf of Mexico

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, you can't see it from the surface of the water, you can't see it in satellite images, so how do we know it's there? Well, a tlaerwr can tell you, when she puts her net over the side and drags for 20 minutes and comes up empty, that she knows she's in the dead zone. And she has to go somewhere else. But where else do you go if this area is 8,000 srquae mleis big? About the size of the satte of New Jersey. Well, you either make a decision to go further, without much economic return, or go back to the dock.

As a scientist, I have ascecs to high-tech equipment that we can put over the side of the research vesesl, and it measures oxygen and many more things. We start at the Mississippi River, we crisscross the Gulf of Mexico all the way to taexs, and even I sneak into Texas every now and then and test their waters. And you can tell by the bottom oxygen — you can draw a map of everything that's less than two, which is the magic number for when the fish start to leave the area. I also dive in this dead zone. We have oxygen meters that we have to deploy offshore that tell us continuous measurements of low oygxen or high oxygen. And when you get into the waetr, there's a lot of fish. Tons of fish, all kinds of fish, including my bdduy here, the barracuda that I saw one day. Everybody else swam this way and I went this way with my carema.

Open Cloze


Now, you can't see it from the surface of the water, you can't see it in satellite images, so how do we know it's there? Well, a _______ can tell you, when she puts her net over the side and drags for 20 minutes and comes up empty, that she knows she's in the dead zone. And she has to go somewhere else. But where else do you go if this area is 8,000 ______ _____ big? About the size of the _____ of New Jersey. Well, you either make a decision to go further, without much economic return, or go back to the dock.

As a scientist, I have ______ to high-tech equipment that we can put over the side of the research ______, and it measures oxygen and many more things. We start at the Mississippi River, we crisscross the Gulf of Mexico all the way to _____, and even I sneak into Texas every now and then and test their waters. And you can tell by the bottom oxygen — you can draw a map of everything that's less than two, which is the magic number for when the fish start to leave the area. I also dive in this dead zone. We have oxygen meters that we have to deploy offshore that tell us continuous measurements of low ______ or high oxygen. And when you get into the _____, there's a lot of fish. Tons of fish, all kinds of fish, including my _____ here, the barracuda that I saw one day. Everybody else swam this way and I went this way with my ______.

Solution


  1. access
  2. square
  3. vessel
  4. texas
  5. trawler
  6. oxygen
  7. buddy
  8. camera
  9. miles
  10. water
  11. state

Original Text


Now, you can't see it from the surface of the water, you can't see it in satellite images, so how do we know it's there? Well, a trawler can tell you, when she puts her net over the side and drags for 20 minutes and comes up empty, that she knows she's in the dead zone. And she has to go somewhere else. But where else do you go if this area is 8,000 square miles big? About the size of the state of New Jersey. Well, you either make a decision to go further, without much economic return, or go back to the dock.

As a scientist, I have access to high-tech equipment that we can put over the side of the research vessel, and it measures oxygen and many more things. We start at the Mississippi River, we crisscross the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Texas, and even I sneak into Texas every now and then and test their waters. And you can tell by the bottom oxygen — you can draw a map of everything that's less than two, which is the magic number for when the fish start to leave the area. I also dive in this dead zone. We have oxygen meters that we have to deploy offshore that tell us continuous measurements of low oxygen or high oxygen. And when you get into the water, there's a lot of fish. Tons of fish, all kinds of fish, including my buddy here, the barracuda that I saw one day. Everybody else swam this way and I went this way with my camera.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
dead zone 4
mississippi river 2
dead zones 2
small fish 2
fish eat 2
water quality 2
algal bloom 2
drinking water 2
harmful algal 2


Important Words


  1. access
  2. area
  3. barracuda
  4. big
  5. bottom
  6. buddy
  7. camera
  8. continuous
  9. crisscross
  10. day
  11. dead
  12. decision
  13. deploy
  14. dive
  15. dock
  16. drags
  17. draw
  18. economic
  19. empty
  20. equipment
  21. fish
  22. gulf
  23. high
  24. images
  25. including
  26. jersey
  27. kinds
  28. leave
  29. lot
  30. magic
  31. map
  32. measurements
  33. measures
  34. meters
  35. mexico
  36. miles
  37. minutes
  38. mississippi
  39. net
  40. number
  41. offshore
  42. oxygen
  43. put
  44. puts
  45. research
  46. return
  47. river
  48. satellite
  49. scientist
  50. side
  51. size
  52. sneak
  53. square
  54. start
  55. state
  56. surface
  57. swam
  58. test
  59. texas
  60. tons
  61. trawler
  62. vessel
  63. water
  64. waters
  65. zone