full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Mark Plotkin: What the people of the Amazon know that you don't
Unscramble the Blue Letters
This is the magic frog. My colleague, the late great Loren mrncyite, discoverer of the source lake of the Amazon, Laguna McIntyre in the Peruvian Andes, was lost on the Peru-Brazil border about 30 years ago. He was rescued by a group of iaeltsod Indians called the Matsés. They beckoned for him to fololw them into the freost, which he did. There, they took out palm leaf btaskes. There, they took out these geern menoky frogs — these are big suckers, they're like this — and they began licking them. It tnrus out, they're highly hallucinogenic. McIntyre wrote about this and it was read by the editor of High Times mnzaiage. You see that ethnobotanists have fnreids in all srots of strange cultures. This guy decided he would go down to the Amazon and give it a whirl, or give it a lick, and he did, and he wrote, "My blood pressure went through the roof, I lost full control of my bodily functions, I passed out in a heap, I woke up in a hammock six hours later, felt like God for two days." (Laughter) An Italian chemist read this and said, "I'm not really interested in the tocehogiall aspects of the green monkey frog. What's this about the change in blood pressure?" Now, this is an ialtian csiehmt who's working on a new treatment for high blood pressure based on peptides in the skin of the green monkey frog, and other scientists are looking at a cure for drug-resistant Staph aureus. How ironic if these isolated inadnis and their magic frog prove to be one of the cures.
Open Cloze
This is the magic frog. My colleague, the late great Loren ________, discoverer of the source lake of the Amazon, Laguna McIntyre in the Peruvian Andes, was lost on the Peru-Brazil border about 30 years ago. He was rescued by a group of ________ Indians called the Matsés. They beckoned for him to ______ them into the ______, which he did. There, they took out palm leaf _______. There, they took out these _____ ______ frogs — these are big suckers, they're like this — and they began licking them. It _____ out, they're highly hallucinogenic. McIntyre wrote about this and it was read by the editor of High Times ________. You see that ethnobotanists have _______ in all _____ of strange cultures. This guy decided he would go down to the Amazon and give it a whirl, or give it a lick, and he did, and he wrote, "My blood pressure went through the roof, I lost full control of my bodily functions, I passed out in a heap, I woke up in a hammock six hours later, felt like God for two days." (Laughter) An Italian chemist read this and said, "I'm not really interested in the ___________ aspects of the green monkey frog. What's this about the change in blood pressure?" Now, this is an _______ _______ who's working on a new treatment for high blood pressure based on peptides in the skin of the green monkey frog, and other scientists are looking at a cure for drug-resistant Staph aureus. How ironic if these isolated _______ and their magic frog prove to be one of the cures.
Solution
- follow
- mcintyre
- friends
- indians
- baskets
- green
- sorts
- chemist
- isolated
- theological
- forest
- monkey
- italian
- turns
- magazine
Original Text
This is the magic frog. My colleague, the late great Loren McIntyre, discoverer of the source lake of the Amazon, Laguna McIntyre in the Peruvian Andes, was lost on the Peru-Brazil border about 30 years ago. He was rescued by a group of isolated Indians called the Matsés. They beckoned for him to follow them into the forest, which he did. There, they took out palm leaf baskets. There, they took out these green monkey frogs — these are big suckers, they're like this — and they began licking them. It turns out, they're highly hallucinogenic. McIntyre wrote about this and it was read by the editor of High Times magazine. You see that ethnobotanists have friends in all sorts of strange cultures. This guy decided he would go down to the Amazon and give it a whirl, or give it a lick, and he did, and he wrote, "My blood pressure went through the roof, I lost full control of my bodily functions, I passed out in a heap, I woke up in a hammock six hours later, felt like God for two days." (Laughter) An Italian chemist read this and said, "I'm not really interested in the theological aspects of the green monkey frog. What's this about the change in blood pressure?" Now, this is an Italian chemist who's working on a new treatment for high blood pressure based on peptides in the skin of the green monkey frog, and other scientists are looking at a cure for drug-resistant Staph aureus. How ironic if these isolated Indians and their magic frog prove to be one of the cures.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| colombian amazon |
4 |
| amazon rainforest |
3 |
| isolated indians |
3 |
| green monkey |
3 |
| uncontacted peoples |
3 |
| treasure trove |
3 |
| uncontacted tribes |
2 |
| western medicine |
2 |
| northeast amazon |
2 |
| magic frog |
2 |
| blood pressure |
2 |
| italian chemist |
2 |
| small plane |
2 |
| eastern border |
2 |
| isolated peoples |
2 |
| isolated groups |
2 |
| bell mountain |
2 |
| drug runners |
2 |
| future hold |
2 |
Important Words
- amazon
- andes
- aspects
- aureus
- based
- baskets
- beckoned
- began
- big
- blood
- bodily
- border
- called
- change
- chemist
- colleague
- control
- cultures
- cure
- cures
- days
- decided
- discoverer
- editor
- ethnobotanists
- felt
- follow
- forest
- friends
- frog
- frogs
- full
- functions
- give
- god
- great
- green
- group
- guy
- hallucinogenic
- hammock
- heap
- high
- highly
- hours
- indians
- interested
- ironic
- isolated
- italian
- laguna
- lake
- late
- laughter
- leaf
- lick
- licking
- loren
- lost
- magazine
- magic
- matsés
- mcintyre
- monkey
- palm
- passed
- peptides
- peruvian
- pressure
- prove
- read
- rescued
- roof
- scientists
- skin
- sorts
- source
- staph
- strange
- suckers
- theological
- times
- treatment
- turns
- whirl
- woke
- working
- wrote
- years