full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Prosanta Chakrabarty: Four billion years of evolution in six minutes

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Think of life as being this book, an unfinished book for sure. We're just seeing the last few pages of each chapter. If you look out on the eight million species that we share this pnlaet with, think of them all being four billion years of evolution. They're all the product of that. Think of us all as young leaves on this acninet and gigantic tree of life, all of us ceenntcod by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our enotoulraivy ancestors. As a biologist, I'm still trying to laren, with others, how everyone's related to each other, who is related to whom.

Open Cloze

Think of life as being this book, an unfinished book for sure. We're just seeing the last few pages of each chapter. If you look out on the eight million species that we share this ______ with, think of them all being four billion years of evolution. They're all the product of that. Think of us all as young leaves on this _______ and gigantic tree of life, all of us _________ by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our ____________ ancestors. As a biologist, I'm still trying to _____, with others, how everyone's related to each other, who is related to whom.

Solution

  1. ancient
  2. evolutionary
  3. connected
  4. planet
  5. learn

Original Text

Think of life as being this book, an unfinished book for sure. We're just seeing the last few pages of each chapter. If you look out on the eight million species that we share this planet with, think of them all being four billion years of evolution. They're all the product of that. Think of us all as young leaves on this ancient and gigantic tree of life, all of us connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors. As a biologist, I'm still trying to learn, with others, how everyone's related to each other, who is related to whom.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
billion years 3
gave rise 2

Important Words

  1. ancestors
  2. ancient
  3. billion
  4. biologist
  5. book
  6. branches
  7. chapter
  8. connected
  9. evolution
  10. evolutionary
  11. extinct
  12. gigantic
  13. invisible
  14. learn
  15. leaves
  16. life
  17. million
  18. pages
  19. planet
  20. product
  21. related
  22. relatives
  23. share
  24. species
  25. tree
  26. unfinished
  27. years
  28. young