full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ameenah Gurib-Fakim: Humble plants that hide surprising secrets

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This brings me to another example. This bush here is known as baume de l'ile palte in the local vernacular. The botanical name is Psiadia arguta. It's a palnt which is rare, which is endemic to Mauritius. It used to grow on the mainland, but through the sheer peersurss of urbanization has been pushed out of the mainland, and we've meagand to bring it back from the binrk of extinction by doelvinpeg in vitro plants which are now growing in the wild. Now, one thing I must point out straightaway is that not all plants can be developed in vitro. While we humans, we are happy in our comfort zone, these plants also need their ecosystem to be preserved, and they don't react — endemic plants don't react to very harsh changes in their ecosystem, and yet we know what are the challenges that climate change, for example, is pnosig to these plants. Now, the local people again use the lveeas in traditional mnciedie against respiratory problems. Now, our piemrlrinay labwork on the leaf extract has shown that pcelsiery these leaves contain ingredients that are very close, in terms of setrrtucus, chemical structures, to those medicines which are sold in the chemist's shop against asthma. So who knows what humanity will benefit from should this plant decide to reveal all its secrets.

Open Cloze

This brings me to another example. This bush here is known as baume de l'ile _____ in the local vernacular. The botanical name is Psiadia arguta. It's a _____ which is rare, which is endemic to Mauritius. It used to grow on the mainland, but through the sheer _________ of urbanization has been pushed out of the mainland, and we've _______ to bring it back from the _____ of extinction by __________ in vitro plants which are now growing in the wild. Now, one thing I must point out straightaway is that not all plants can be developed in vitro. While we humans, we are happy in our comfort zone, these plants also need their ecosystem to be preserved, and they don't react — endemic plants don't react to very harsh changes in their ecosystem, and yet we know what are the challenges that climate change, for example, is ______ to these plants. Now, the local people again use the ______ in traditional ________ against respiratory problems. Now, our ___________ labwork on the leaf extract has shown that _________ these leaves contain ingredients that are very close, in terms of __________, chemical structures, to those medicines which are sold in the chemist's shop against asthma. So who knows what humanity will benefit from should this plant decide to reveal all its secrets.

Solution

  1. pressures
  2. posing
  3. developing
  4. leaves
  5. precisely
  6. managed
  7. structures
  8. medicine
  9. plant
  10. brink
  11. preliminary
  12. plate

Original Text

This brings me to another example. This bush here is known as baume de l'ile plate in the local vernacular. The botanical name is Psiadia arguta. It's a plant which is rare, which is endemic to Mauritius. It used to grow on the mainland, but through the sheer pressures of urbanization has been pushed out of the mainland, and we've managed to bring it back from the brink of extinction by developing in vitro plants which are now growing in the wild. Now, one thing I must point out straightaway is that not all plants can be developed in vitro. While we humans, we are happy in our comfort zone, these plants also need their ecosystem to be preserved, and they don't react — endemic plants don't react to very harsh changes in their ecosystem, and yet we know what are the challenges that climate change, for example, is posing to these plants. Now, the local people again use the leaves in traditional medicine against respiratory problems. Now, our preliminary labwork on the leaf extract has shown that precisely these leaves contain ingredients that are very close, in terms of structures, chemical structures, to those medicines which are sold in the chemist's shop against asthma. So who knows what humanity will benefit from should this plant decide to reveal all its secrets.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
biodiversity hotspots 2
unique plants 2
entire land 2
land surface 2
leaf extract 2
traditional medicine 2
adansonia digitata 2
human milk 2
cosmetic industry 2
aging process 2
centella asiatica 2
cosmetic companies 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
entire land surface 2

Important Words

  1. arguta
  2. asthma
  3. baume
  4. benefit
  5. botanical
  6. bring
  7. brings
  8. brink
  9. bush
  10. challenges
  11. change
  12. chemical
  13. climate
  14. close
  15. comfort
  16. de
  17. decide
  18. developed
  19. developing
  20. ecosystem
  21. endemic
  22. extinction
  23. extract
  24. grow
  25. growing
  26. happy
  27. harsh
  28. humanity
  29. humans
  30. ingredients
  31. labwork
  32. leaf
  33. leaves
  34. local
  35. mainland
  36. managed
  37. mauritius
  38. medicine
  39. medicines
  40. people
  41. plant
  42. plants
  43. plate
  44. point
  45. posing
  46. precisely
  47. preliminary
  48. preserved
  49. pressures
  50. problems
  51. psiadia
  52. pushed
  53. rare
  54. react
  55. respiratory
  56. reveal
  57. secrets
  58. sheer
  59. shop
  60. shown
  61. sold
  62. straightaway
  63. structures
  64. terms
  65. traditional
  66. urbanization
  67. vernacular
  68. vitro
  69. wild
  70. zone