full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Prosanta Chakrabarty: Clues to prehistoric times, found in blind cavefish

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this spicees in Madagascar, its closest relatives are 6,000 kilometers away, cavefishes in altaursia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these species is that they've been satareped for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the continents that moved them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these aeinnct geological events.

Open Cloze

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this _______ in Madagascar, its closest relatives are 6,000 kilometers away, cavefishes in _________. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these species is that they've been _________ for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the continents that moved them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these _______ geological events.

Solution

  1. separated
  2. species
  3. ancient
  4. australia

Original Text

Now, I love this species despite the fact that it tried to kill us, and that's because this species in Madagascar, its closest relatives are 6,000 kilometers away, cavefishes in Australia. Now, there's no way a three-inch-long freshwater cavefish can swim across the Indian Ocean, so what we found when we compared the DNA of these species is that they've been separated for more than 100 million years, or about the time that the southern continents were last together. So in fact, these species didn't move at all. It's the continents that moved them. And so they give us, through their DNA, this precise model and measure of how to date and time these ancient geological events.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cavefish species 2
closest relatives 2
cave system 2

Important Words

  1. ancient
  2. australia
  3. cavefish
  4. cavefishes
  5. closest
  6. compared
  7. continents
  8. date
  9. dna
  10. events
  11. fact
  12. freshwater
  13. geological
  14. give
  15. indian
  16. kill
  17. kilometers
  18. love
  19. madagascar
  20. measure
  21. million
  22. model
  23. move
  24. moved
  25. ocean
  26. precise
  27. relatives
  28. separated
  29. southern
  30. species
  31. swim
  32. time
  33. years