full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Cheryl Hayashi: The magnificence of spider silk

Unscramble the Blue Letters

The 21 scpeeis are indicated here by this pehnglyoy, this evolutionary tree, that shows their genetic relationships, and I've colored in yellow the orb-web-weaving serdpis. If you look right here at the two red arrows, they point to the toughness values for the draglines of nephila clavipes and araneus diadematus. These are the two species of spiders for which the vast majority of time and money on synthetic spider silk research has been to rpcaetlie their dairngle silk proteins. Yet, their draglines are not the tehosgut. In fact, the toughest dragline in this survey is this one right here in this white reigon, a non orb-web-weaving spider. This is the dragline spun by scytodes, the spitting sedipr. Scytodes doesn't use a web at all to catch prey. Instead, stdcyeos sort of lurks around and waits for prey to get clsoe to it, and then immobilizes prey by spraying a silk-like venom onto that insect. Think of hunting with slliy string. That's how scytodes forages. We don't really know why scytodes needs such a tough dragline, but it's unexpected results like this that make bio-prospecting so exciting and wihohtlrwe. It frees us from the constraints of our imagination.

Open Cloze

The 21 _______ are indicated here by this _________, this evolutionary tree, that shows their genetic relationships, and I've colored in yellow the orb-web-weaving _______. If you look right here at the two red arrows, they point to the toughness values for the draglines of nephila clavipes and araneus diadematus. These are the two species of spiders for which the vast majority of time and money on synthetic spider silk research has been to _________ their ________ silk proteins. Yet, their draglines are not the ________. In fact, the toughest dragline in this survey is this one right here in this white ______, a non orb-web-weaving spider. This is the dragline spun by scytodes, the spitting ______. Scytodes doesn't use a web at all to catch prey. Instead, ________ sort of lurks around and waits for prey to get _____ to it, and then immobilizes prey by spraying a silk-like venom onto that insect. Think of hunting with _____ string. That's how scytodes forages. We don't really know why scytodes needs such a tough dragline, but it's unexpected results like this that make bio-prospecting so exciting and __________. It frees us from the constraints of our imagination.

Solution

  1. scytodes
  2. spider
  3. spiders
  4. replicate
  5. dragline
  6. toughest
  7. region
  8. species
  9. close
  10. silly
  11. phylogeny
  12. worthwhile

Original Text

The 21 species are indicated here by this phylogeny, this evolutionary tree, that shows their genetic relationships, and I've colored in yellow the orb-web-weaving spiders. If you look right here at the two red arrows, they point to the toughness values for the draglines of nephila clavipes and araneus diadematus. These are the two species of spiders for which the vast majority of time and money on synthetic spider silk research has been to replicate their dragline silk proteins. Yet, their draglines are not the toughest. In fact, the toughest dragline in this survey is this one right here in this white region, a non orb-web-weaving spider. This is the dragline spun by scytodes, the spitting spider. Scytodes doesn't use a web at all to catch prey. Instead, scytodes sort of lurks around and waits for prey to get close to it, and then immobilizes prey by spraying a silk-like venom onto that insect. Think of hunting with silly string. That's how scytodes forages. We don't really know why scytodes needs such a tough dragline, but it's unexpected results like this that make bio-prospecting so exciting and worthwhile. It frees us from the constraints of our imagination.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
spider silk 11
spider silks 5
silk fibers 4
capture spiral 4
silk proteins 4
million years 3
silk glands 3
dragline silk 3
repeat unit 3
individual spider 2
spend long 2
long days 2
individual silk 2
silk gland 2
tubuliform silk 2
ampullate silk 2
major ampullate 2
silk gene 2
flying prey 2
toughest dragline 2
toughness values 2
studying spider 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
spend long days 2

Important Words

  1. araneus
  2. arrows
  3. catch
  4. clavipes
  5. close
  6. colored
  7. constraints
  8. diadematus
  9. dragline
  10. draglines
  11. evolutionary
  12. exciting
  13. fact
  14. forages
  15. frees
  16. genetic
  17. hunting
  18. imagination
  19. immobilizes
  20. insect
  21. lurks
  22. majority
  23. money
  24. nephila
  25. phylogeny
  26. point
  27. prey
  28. proteins
  29. red
  30. region
  31. relationships
  32. replicate
  33. research
  34. results
  35. scytodes
  36. shows
  37. silk
  38. silly
  39. sort
  40. species
  41. spider
  42. spiders
  43. spitting
  44. spraying
  45. spun
  46. string
  47. survey
  48. synthetic
  49. time
  50. tough
  51. toughest
  52. toughness
  53. tree
  54. unexpected
  55. values
  56. vast
  57. venom
  58. waits
  59. web
  60. white
  61. worthwhile
  62. yellow