full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Latif Nasser: You have no idea where camels really come from

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Audio) NR: We make up stories and we stick with it, like the camel in the dreset, right? That's a great story! It's totally adapted for that. Clearly, it always lived there.

LN: But at any moment, you could uncover some tiny bit of eevdince. You could learn some tiny thing that forces you to reframe everything you thought you knew. Like, in this case, this one scientist finds this one srahd of what she thought was wood, and because of that, science has a tolltay new and totally counterintuitive theory about why this absurd Dr. Seuss-looking creature looks the way it does. And for me, it ctpolmleey upended the way I think of the camel. It went from being this ridiculously niche creature suited only to this one specific environment, to being this wlrod tvrleear that just happens to be in the Sahara, and could end up virtually anywhere.

Open Cloze


(Audio) NR: We make up stories and we stick with it, like the camel in the ______, right? That's a great story! It's totally adapted for that. Clearly, it always lived there.

LN: But at any moment, you could uncover some tiny bit of ________. You could learn some tiny thing that forces you to reframe everything you thought you knew. Like, in this case, this one scientist finds this one _____ of what she thought was wood, and because of that, science has a _______ new and totally counterintuitive theory about why this absurd Dr. Seuss-looking creature looks the way it does. And for me, it __________ upended the way I think of the camel. It went from being this ridiculously niche creature suited only to this one specific environment, to being this _____ ________ that just happens to be in the Sahara, and could end up virtually anywhere.

Solution


  1. world
  2. evidence
  3. shard
  4. desert
  5. completely
  6. totally
  7. traveler

Original Text


(Audio) NR: We make up stories and we stick with it, like the camel in the desert, right? That's a great story! It's totally adapted for that. Clearly, it always lived there.

LN: But at any moment, you could uncover some tiny bit of evidence. You could learn some tiny thing that forces you to reframe everything you thought you knew. Like, in this case, this one scientist finds this one shard of what she thought was wood, and because of that, science has a totally new and totally counterintuitive theory about why this absurd Dr. Seuss-looking creature looks the way it does. And for me, it completely upended the way I think of the camel. It went from being this ridiculously niche creature suited only to this one specific environment, to being this world traveler that just happens to be in the Sahara, and could end up virtually anywhere.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
million years 3
fyles leaf 2
high arctic 2
quintessential desert 2
broad feet 2
land bridge 2


Important Words


  1. absurd
  2. adapted
  3. audio
  4. bit
  5. camel
  6. case
  7. completely
  8. counterintuitive
  9. creature
  10. desert
  11. dr
  12. environment
  13. evidence
  14. finds
  15. forces
  16. great
  17. knew
  18. learn
  19. lived
  20. moment
  21. niche
  22. reframe
  23. ridiculously
  24. sahara
  25. science
  26. scientist
  27. shard
  28. specific
  29. stick
  30. stories
  31. suited
  32. theory
  33. thought
  34. tiny
  35. totally
  36. traveler
  37. uncover
  38. upended
  39. virtually
  40. wood
  41. world