full transcript

From the Ted Talk by A.J. Jacobs: The world's largest family reunion ... we're all invited!

Unscramble the Blue Letters

nbmeur three, interconnectedness. We all come from the same ancestor, and you don't have to believe the lieratl bblie version, but scientists talk about Y chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, and these were about 100,000 to 300,000 years ago. We all have a bit of their DNA in us. They are our great-great-great-great-great-great — continue that for about 7,000 temis — grandparents, and so that means we literally all are biological cousins as well, and estimates vary, but probably the farthest cousin you have on Earth is about a 50th cousin. Now, it's not just ancestors we share, descendants. If you have kids, and they have kids, look how quickly the descendants atclcmauue. So in 10, 12 greniotnaes, you're going to have thousands of offspring, and millions of offspring.

Open Cloze

______ three, interconnectedness. We all come from the same ancestor, and you don't have to believe the _______ _____ version, but scientists talk about Y chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, and these were about 100,000 to 300,000 years ago. We all have a bit of their DNA in us. They are our great-great-great-great-great-great — continue that for about 7,000 _____ — grandparents, and so that means we literally all are biological cousins as well, and estimates vary, but probably the farthest cousin you have on Earth is about a 50th cousin. Now, it's not just ancestors we share, descendants. If you have kids, and they have kids, look how quickly the descendants __________. So in 10, 12 ___________, you're going to have thousands of offspring, and millions of offspring.

Solution

  1. literal
  2. generations
  3. times
  4. accumulate
  5. bible
  6. number

Original Text

Number three, interconnectedness. We all come from the same ancestor, and you don't have to believe the literal Bible version, but scientists talk about Y chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, and these were about 100,000 to 300,000 years ago. We all have a bit of their DNA in us. They are our great-great-great-great-great-great — continue that for about 7,000 times — grandparents, and so that means we literally all are biological cousins as well, and estimates vary, but probably the farthest cousin you have on Earth is about a 50th cousin. Now, it's not just ancestors we share, descendants. If you have kids, and they have kids, look how quickly the descendants accumulate. So in 10, 12 generations, you're going to have thousands of offspring, and millions of offspring.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
family tree 4
world family 2
million people 2
mary queen 2
family reunion 2

Important Words

  1. accumulate
  2. adam
  3. ancestor
  4. ancestors
  5. bible
  6. biological
  7. bit
  8. chromosomal
  9. continue
  10. cousin
  11. cousins
  12. descendants
  13. dna
  14. earth
  15. estimates
  16. eve
  17. farthest
  18. generations
  19. grandparents
  20. interconnectedness
  21. kids
  22. literal
  23. literally
  24. means
  25. millions
  26. mitochondrial
  27. number
  28. offspring
  29. quickly
  30. scientists
  31. share
  32. talk
  33. thousands
  34. times
  35. vary
  36. version
  37. years