full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Susan Shaw: The oil spill's toxic trade-off

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So my project is along the Northwest Atlantic. It's called slaes as Sentinels. We're tracking pollution at the top of the food web, in marine mammals and fish. It's a region-wide, eco-toxicological inaeoitsvtgin. We're looking at a lot of compounds, but recently been quite itesnteerd in the flame retardants, the brominated flame retardants that are in many, many things that we use in our ereydvay life, from the chsoinus in the chairs we're all sitting on to the plastic casings of our computers, our television sets and so on. So we are tracking how do these things get from the products into the ocean, which is the final sink for them. And there's quite a complicated pathway for that because, as these products age, they get concentrated in dust, and then they also get thrown out, so they go to the lldnlfias. They wind up in waste water treatment plants. As you all know, we trhow out bnilolis of computers and TVs every year. And those go to e-waste dumps. And all that gets into saufrce waters, eventually reaching the ocean, the final sink. So, in our sduty, we did find quite high levels, as we expected, of these flame retardants in the habror seals' bodies. And we rperoetd this. It led to a ban of this neuro-toxic flame rradnetat called Deca in Maine, where I am besad, and also then a phase-out, U.S.-wide, at the end of last year. But we said, well, on the bright side, our harbor seals at least will not be bursting into flame anytime soon.

Open Cloze


So my project is along the Northwest Atlantic. It's called _____ as Sentinels. We're tracking pollution at the top of the food web, in marine mammals and fish. It's a region-wide, eco-toxicological _____________. We're looking at a lot of compounds, but recently been quite __________ in the flame retardants, the brominated flame retardants that are in many, many things that we use in our ________ life, from the ________ in the chairs we're all sitting on to the plastic casings of our computers, our television sets and so on. So we are tracking how do these things get from the products into the ocean, which is the final sink for them. And there's quite a complicated pathway for that because, as these products age, they get concentrated in dust, and then they also get thrown out, so they go to the _________. They wind up in waste water treatment plants. As you all know, we _____ out ________ of computers and TVs every year. And those go to e-waste dumps. And all that gets into _______ waters, eventually reaching the ocean, the final sink. So, in our _____, we did find quite high levels, as we expected, of these flame retardants in the ______ seals' bodies. And we ________ this. It led to a ban of this neuro-toxic flame _________ called Deca in Maine, where I am _____, and also then a phase-out, U.S.-wide, at the end of last year. But we said, well, on the bright side, our harbor seals at least will not be bursting into flame anytime soon.

Solution


  1. cushions
  2. retardant
  3. surface
  4. billions
  5. based
  6. study
  7. landfills
  8. harbor
  9. reported
  10. interested
  11. seals
  12. throw
  13. everyday
  14. investigation

Original Text


So my project is along the Northwest Atlantic. It's called Seals as Sentinels. We're tracking pollution at the top of the food web, in marine mammals and fish. It's a region-wide, eco-toxicological investigation. We're looking at a lot of compounds, but recently been quite interested in the flame retardants, the brominated flame retardants that are in many, many things that we use in our everyday life, from the cushions in the chairs we're all sitting on to the plastic casings of our computers, our television sets and so on. So we are tracking how do these things get from the products into the ocean, which is the final sink for them. And there's quite a complicated pathway for that because, as these products age, they get concentrated in dust, and then they also get thrown out, so they go to the landfills. They wind up in waste water treatment plants. As you all know, we throw out billions of computers and TVs every year. And those go to e-waste dumps. And all that gets into surface waters, eventually reaching the ocean, the final sink. So, in our study, we did find quite high levels, as we expected, of these flame retardants in the harbor seals' bodies. And we reported this. It led to a ban of this neuro-toxic flame retardant called Deca in Maine, where I am based, and also then a phase-out, U.S.-wide, at the end of last year. But we said, well, on the bright side, our harbor seals at least will not be bursting into flame anytime soon.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
water column 4
marine mammals 3
exxon valdez 3
toxic chemicals 2
flame retardants 2
final sink 2
flame retardant 2
heat stress 2
internal bleeding 2
petroleum solvents 2
bad dreams 2
percent fertilization 2
sea ducks 2


Important Words


  1. age
  2. anytime
  3. atlantic
  4. ban
  5. based
  6. billions
  7. bodies
  8. bright
  9. brominated
  10. bursting
  11. called
  12. casings
  13. chairs
  14. complicated
  15. compounds
  16. computers
  17. concentrated
  18. cushions
  19. deca
  20. dumps
  21. dust
  22. eventually
  23. everyday
  24. expected
  25. final
  26. find
  27. fish
  28. flame
  29. food
  30. harbor
  31. high
  32. interested
  33. investigation
  34. landfills
  35. led
  36. levels
  37. life
  38. lot
  39. maine
  40. mammals
  41. marine
  42. northwest
  43. ocean
  44. pathway
  45. plants
  46. plastic
  47. pollution
  48. products
  49. project
  50. reaching
  51. reported
  52. retardant
  53. retardants
  54. seals
  55. sentinels
  56. sets
  57. side
  58. sink
  59. sitting
  60. study
  61. surface
  62. television
  63. throw
  64. thrown
  65. top
  66. tracking
  67. treatment
  68. tvs
  69. waste
  70. water
  71. waters
  72. web
  73. wind
  74. year