full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Can you guess what this is? What if I told you there's a place where the creatures are made of glass? Or that there are life-forms that are invisible to us, but atuotnsras see them all the time?

These invisible glass careuetrs aren't aliens on a faraway exoplanet. They're diatoms: potyishthtonec, single-celled algae resibopsnle for producing oxygen and helping seed clouds on a pnaaertly scale and with intricately sculpted, geometric eookletnsexs made of — yeah, glsas. You can see them in swirls of ocean-surface colors from space. And when they die, their glass houses sink to the depths of the oceans, taking carbon out of the air and with them to the grave, accounting for a significant amount of carbon sequestration in the oceans.

Open Cloze


Can you guess what this is? What if I told you there's a place where the creatures are made of glass? Or that there are life-forms that are invisible to us, but __________ see them all the time?

These invisible glass _________ aren't aliens on a faraway exoplanet. They're diatoms: ______________, single-celled algae ___________ for producing oxygen and helping seed clouds on a _________ scale and with intricately sculpted, geometric ____________ made of — yeah, _____. You can see them in swirls of ocean-surface colors from space. And when they die, their glass houses sink to the depths of the oceans, taking carbon out of the air and with them to the grave, accounting for a significant amount of carbon sequestration in the oceans.

Solution


  1. planetary
  2. exoskeletons
  3. responsible
  4. glass
  5. astronauts
  6. photosynthetic
  7. creatures

Original Text


Can you guess what this is? What if I told you there's a place where the creatures are made of glass? Or that there are life-forms that are invisible to us, but astronauts see them all the time?

These invisible glass creatures aren't aliens on a faraway exoplanet. They're diatoms: photosynthetic, single-celled algae responsible for producing oxygen and helping seed clouds on a planetary scale and with intricately sculpted, geometric exoskeletons made of — yeah, glass. You can see them in swirls of ocean-surface colors from space. And when they die, their glass houses sink to the depths of the oceans, taking carbon out of the air and with them to the grave, accounting for a significant amount of carbon sequestration in the oceans.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sea ice 3
dry valleys 2


Important Words


  1. accounting
  2. air
  3. algae
  4. aliens
  5. amount
  6. astronauts
  7. carbon
  8. clouds
  9. colors
  10. creatures
  11. depths
  12. die
  13. exoplanet
  14. exoskeletons
  15. faraway
  16. geometric
  17. glass
  18. grave
  19. guess
  20. helping
  21. houses
  22. intricately
  23. invisible
  24. oceans
  25. oxygen
  26. photosynthetic
  27. place
  28. planetary
  29. producing
  30. responsible
  31. scale
  32. sculpted
  33. seed
  34. sequestration
  35. significant
  36. sink
  37. space
  38. swirls
  39. time
  40. told
  41. yeah