full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Clara Sousa-Silva: The fingerprints of life beyond Earth

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But this will not be the last time that we have the discovery of a biosignature on a potentially habitable planet, and next time we won't be able to just go there and check. So my biggest concern is not that we will fail to find a habitable planet in our lifetimes. My bsgegit concern is that we'll point our very epnvxesie telescopes directly at an inhabited palent and just not know we did it. But I am dinreeemtd to not miss life. So, yes, I will look for the unambiguous but quite unlikely signs of technology like complex pollutants. And I'll look for the pleasant and familiar but potentially misleading signs of life, like oxygen. And of course, I'll keep looking for the strange and scary biosignatures like phosphine. But clacruily, I will look for all the molecules that can together paint a holistic picture of a biosphere. All of this so that one day we'll know life when we see it.

Open Cloze


But this will not be the last time that we have the discovery of a biosignature on a potentially habitable planet, and next time we won't be able to just go there and check. So my biggest concern is not that we will fail to find a habitable planet in our lifetimes. My _______ concern is that we'll point our very _________ telescopes directly at an inhabited ______ and just not know we did it. But I am __________ to not miss life. So, yes, I will look for the unambiguous but quite unlikely signs of technology like complex pollutants. And I'll look for the pleasant and familiar but potentially misleading signs of life, like oxygen. And of course, I'll keep looking for the strange and scary biosignatures like phosphine. But _________, I will look for all the molecules that can together paint a holistic picture of a biosphere. All of this so that one day we'll know life when we see it.

Solution


  1. determined
  2. planet
  3. crucially
  4. expensive
  5. biggest

Original Text


But this will not be the last time that we have the discovery of a biosignature on a potentially habitable planet, and next time we won't be able to just go there and check. So my biggest concern is not that we will fail to find a habitable planet in our lifetimes. My biggest concern is that we'll point our very expensive telescopes directly at an inhabited planet and just not know we did it. But I am determined to not miss life. So, yes, I will look for the unambiguous but quite unlikely signs of technology like complex pollutants. And I'll look for the pleasant and familiar but potentially misleading signs of life, like oxygen. And of course, I'll keep looking for the strange and scary biosignatures like phosphine. But crucially, I will look for all the molecules that can together paint a holistic picture of a biosphere. All of this so that one day we'll know life when we see it.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
alien astronomers 3
time thinking 2
large amounts 2
complex pollutants 2
unusual molecules 2
false positives 2
rocky planets 2
find life 2
biggest concern 2


Important Words


  1. biggest
  2. biosignature
  3. biosignatures
  4. biosphere
  5. check
  6. complex
  7. concern
  8. crucially
  9. day
  10. determined
  11. discovery
  12. expensive
  13. fail
  14. familiar
  15. find
  16. habitable
  17. holistic
  18. inhabited
  19. life
  20. lifetimes
  21. misleading
  22. molecules
  23. oxygen
  24. paint
  25. phosphine
  26. picture
  27. planet
  28. pleasant
  29. point
  30. pollutants
  31. potentially
  32. scary
  33. signs
  34. strange
  35. technology
  36. telescopes
  37. time
  38. unambiguous