full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Nick Caruso and Dani Rabaiotti: The world's most dangerous fart

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Seals and sea lonis can’t help their funky flatulence, But some animals deploy their farts strategically. Both the Eastern hognose snake and the sanoron croal snake use a tactic called cloacal popping. This involves sucking air into their cloaca— a hole used for urinating, defecating and reproduction— and then soihtnog it back out with a loud pop. These pops are no more dangerous than a sea lion’s stench, but they are effective at scaring off would-be praeodtrs.

Meanwhile, the flatulence of beaded lacwieng lvraae are silent and deadly. Their frtas contain a casls of chemical known as allomone that has evolved specifically to paralyze termites. In fact, this allomone is so powerful, a single fart can immobilize multiple termites for up to three hours, or even kill them otruight. Either way, these toxic farts give beaded lacewing larvae plenty of time to devour prey up to three times their size.

Open Cloze


Seals and sea _____ can’t help their funky flatulence, But some animals deploy their farts strategically. Both the Eastern hognose snake and the _______ _____ snake use a tactic called cloacal popping. This involves sucking air into their cloaca— a hole used for urinating, defecating and reproduction— and then ________ it back out with a loud pop. These pops are no more dangerous than a sea lion’s stench, but they are effective at scaring off would-be _________.

Meanwhile, the flatulence of beaded ________ ______ are silent and deadly. Their _____ contain a _____ of chemical known as allomone that has evolved specifically to paralyze termites. In fact, this allomone is so powerful, a single fart can immobilize multiple termites for up to three hours, or even kill them ________. Either way, these toxic farts give beaded lacewing larvae plenty of time to devour prey up to three times their size.

Solution


  1. larvae
  2. sonoran
  3. farts
  4. shooting
  5. class
  6. coral
  7. lions
  8. lacewing
  9. predators
  10. outright

Original Text


Seals and sea lions can’t help their funky flatulence, But some animals deploy their farts strategically. Both the Eastern hognose snake and the Sonoran coral snake use a tactic called cloacal popping. This involves sucking air into their cloaca— a hole used for urinating, defecating and reproduction— and then shooting it back out with a loud pop. These pops are no more dangerous than a sea lion’s stench, but they are effective at scaring off would-be predators.

Meanwhile, the flatulence of beaded lacewing larvae are silent and deadly. Their farts contain a class of chemical known as allomone that has evolved specifically to paralyze termites. In fact, this allomone is so powerful, a single fart can immobilize multiple termites for up to three hours, or even kill them outright. Either way, these toxic farts give beaded lacewing larvae plenty of time to devour prey up to three times their size.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sea lions 2
beaded lacewing 2
lacewing larvae 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
beaded lacewing larvae 2

Important Words


  1. air
  2. allomone
  3. animals
  4. beaded
  5. called
  6. chemical
  7. class
  8. cloacal
  9. coral
  10. dangerous
  11. deadly
  12. defecating
  13. deploy
  14. devour
  15. eastern
  16. effective
  17. evolved
  18. fact
  19. fart
  20. farts
  21. flatulence
  22. funky
  23. give
  24. hognose
  25. hole
  26. hours
  27. immobilize
  28. involves
  29. kill
  30. lacewing
  31. larvae
  32. lions
  33. loud
  34. multiple
  35. outright
  36. paralyze
  37. plenty
  38. pop
  39. popping
  40. pops
  41. powerful
  42. predators
  43. prey
  44. scaring
  45. sea
  46. seals
  47. shooting
  48. silent
  49. single
  50. size
  51. snake
  52. sonoran
  53. specifically
  54. stench
  55. strategically
  56. sucking
  57. tactic
  58. termites
  59. time
  60. times
  61. toxic
  62. urinating