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
- pressures
- posing
- developing
- leaves
- precisely
- managed
- structures
- medicine
- plant
- brink
- preliminary
- 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
- arguta
- asthma
- baume
- benefit
- botanical
- bring
- brings
- brink
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- challenges
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- ecosystem
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- humanity
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- ingredients
- labwork
- leaf
- leaves
- local
- mainland
- managed
- mauritius
- medicine
- medicines
- people
- plant
- plants
- plate
- point
- posing
- precisely
- preliminary
- preserved
- pressures
- problems
- psiadia
- pushed
- rare
- react
- respiratory
- reveal
- secrets
- sheer
- shop
- shown
- sold
- straightaway
- structures
- terms
- traditional
- urbanization
- vernacular
- vitro
- wild
- zone