full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This is pertty easy blhgoitncooey, and you could basically do this a billion times. So you can have a billion different viruses that are all genetically identical, but they differ from each other bsead on their tips, on one sequence, that codes for one protein. Now if you take all billion viruses, and put them in one drop of liquid, you can force them to interact with anything you want on the periodic table. And through a process of soiletecn evolution, you can pull one of a bilolin that does something you'd like it to do, like grow a battery or a solar cell.

Basically, viruses can't replicate themselves; they need a host. Once you find that one out of a billion, you infect it into a bacteria, and make miliolns and billions of cpeios of that particular sequence. The other thing that's beautiful about biology is that biology gives you really exquisite structures with nice link scales. These viruses are long and skinny, and we can get them to express the ability to grow something like semiconductors or materials for breteiats.

Open Cloze


This is ______ easy _____________, and you could basically do this a billion times. So you can have a billion different viruses that are all genetically identical, but they differ from each other _____ on their tips, on one sequence, that codes for one protein. Now if you take all billion viruses, and put them in one drop of liquid, you can force them to interact with anything you want on the periodic table. And through a process of _________ evolution, you can pull one of a _______ that does something you'd like it to do, like grow a battery or a solar cell.

Basically, viruses can't replicate themselves; they need a host. Once you find that one out of a billion, you infect it into a bacteria, and make ________ and billions of ______ of that particular sequence. The other thing that's beautiful about biology is that biology gives you really exquisite structures with nice link scales. These viruses are long and skinny, and we can get them to express the ability to grow something like semiconductors or materials for _________.

Solution


  1. billion
  2. based
  3. pretty
  4. copies
  5. millions
  6. batteries
  7. selection
  8. biotechnology

Original Text


This is pretty easy biotechnology, and you could basically do this a billion times. So you can have a billion different viruses that are all genetically identical, but they differ from each other based on their tips, on one sequence, that codes for one protein. Now if you take all billion viruses, and put them in one drop of liquid, you can force them to interact with anything you want on the periodic table. And through a process of selection evolution, you can pull one of a billion that does something you'd like it to do, like grow a battery or a solar cell.

Basically, viruses can't replicate themselves; they need a host. Once you find that one out of a billion, you infect it into a bacteria, and make millions and billions of copies of that particular sequence. The other thing that's beautiful about biology is that biology gives you really exquisite structures with nice link scales. These viruses are long and skinny, and we can get them to express the ability to grow something like semiconductors or materials for batteries.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
abalone shell 6
solar cell 6
periodic table 6
million years 5
exquisite structures 4
genetic information 3
protein sequence 3
solar cells 3
nano scale 2
room temperature 2
started making 2
hard materials 2
amino acids 2
president obama 2
carbon nanotubes 2
percent efficiency 2
efficiency solar 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
percent efficiency solar 2
efficiency solar cell 2

Important Words


  1. ability
  2. bacteria
  3. based
  4. basically
  5. batteries
  6. battery
  7. beautiful
  8. billion
  9. billions
  10. biology
  11. biotechnology
  12. cell
  13. codes
  14. copies
  15. differ
  16. drop
  17. easy
  18. evolution
  19. express
  20. exquisite
  21. find
  22. force
  23. genetically
  24. grow
  25. host
  26. identical
  27. infect
  28. interact
  29. link
  30. liquid
  31. long
  32. materials
  33. millions
  34. nice
  35. periodic
  36. pretty
  37. process
  38. protein
  39. pull
  40. put
  41. replicate
  42. scales
  43. selection
  44. semiconductors
  45. sequence
  46. skinny
  47. solar
  48. structures
  49. table
  50. times
  51. tips
  52. viruses