full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Edith Widder: The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence

Unscramble the Blue Letters

There are starfish that can make light. And there are btrltie srtas that produce bands of light that dnace along their arms. This looks like a plant, but it's actually an animal. And it anchors itself in the sand by blowing up a balloon on the end of its stock. So it can actually hold itself in very strong currents, as you see here. But if we collect it very gently, and we bring it up into the lab and just seeqzue it at the base of the stock, it produces this light that propagates from stem to the plume, chinnagg color as it goes, from green to blue. Colorization and sound effects added for you viewing pleasure. (ltheaugr) But we have no idea why it does that.

Open Cloze

There are starfish that can make light. And there are _______ _____ that produce bands of light that _____ along their arms. This looks like a plant, but it's actually an animal. And it anchors itself in the sand by blowing up a balloon on the end of its stock. So it can actually hold itself in very strong currents, as you see here. But if we collect it very gently, and we bring it up into the lab and just _______ it at the base of the stock, it produces this light that propagates from stem to the plume, ________ color as it goes, from green to blue. Colorization and sound effects added for you viewing pleasure. (________) But we have no idea why it does that.

Solution

  1. stars
  2. dance
  3. brittle
  4. laughter
  5. changing
  6. squeeze

Original Text

There are starfish that can make light. And there are brittle stars that produce bands of light that dance along their arms. This looks like a plant, but it's actually an animal. And it anchors itself in the sand by blowing up a balloon on the end of its stock. So it can actually hold itself in very strong currents, as you see here. But if we collect it very gently, and we bring it up into the lab and just squeeze it at the base of the stock, it produces this light that propagates from stem to the plume, changing color as it goes, from green to blue. Colorization and sound effects added for you viewing pleasure. (Laughter) But we have no idea why it does that.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
light organs 3
electronic jellyfish 3
transect screen 2
deep sea 2
bioluminescent plankton 2
chin barbel 2
top speed 2
bioluminescent chemicals 2
monterey canyon 2
giant sixgill 2
sixgill shark 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
giant sixgill shark 2

Important Words

  1. added
  2. anchors
  3. animal
  4. arms
  5. balloon
  6. bands
  7. base
  8. blowing
  9. blue
  10. bring
  11. brittle
  12. changing
  13. collect
  14. color
  15. colorization
  16. currents
  17. dance
  18. effects
  19. gently
  20. green
  21. hold
  22. idea
  23. lab
  24. laughter
  25. light
  26. plant
  27. pleasure
  28. plume
  29. produce
  30. produces
  31. propagates
  32. sand
  33. sound
  34. squeeze
  35. starfish
  36. stars
  37. stem
  38. stock
  39. strong
  40. viewing