full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Stephanie Sardelis: Why do whales sing?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So how do they do it? Land mammals like us generate sound by mvonig air over our voacl cords when we exhale, ciausng them to vibrate. Baleen wehlas have a U-shaped fold of tissue between their lungs and their large inflatable organs called laryngeal sacs. We don't know this for sure because it's essentially impossible to observe the internal organs of a living, singing wlhae, but we think that when a whale sings, muscular contractions in the throat and chest move air from the lungs across the U-fold and into the laryngeal sacs, causing the U-fold to vibrate. The resulting sound resonates in the sacs like a choir singing in a cathedral making songs loud enough to ppoargtae up to thousands of kilometers away. Whales don't have to ehaxle to sing. Instead, the air is recycled back into the lgnus, creating sound once more.

Open Cloze

So how do they do it? Land mammals like us generate sound by ______ air over our _____ cords when we exhale, _______ them to vibrate. Baleen ______ have a U-shaped fold of tissue between their lungs and their large inflatable organs called laryngeal sacs. We don't know this for sure because it's essentially impossible to observe the internal organs of a living, singing _____, but we think that when a whale sings, muscular contractions in the throat and chest move air from the lungs across the U-fold and into the laryngeal sacs, causing the U-fold to vibrate. The resulting sound resonates in the sacs like a choir singing in a cathedral making songs loud enough to _________ up to thousands of kilometers away. Whales don't have to ______ to sing. Instead, the air is recycled back into the _____, creating sound once more.

Solution

  1. exhale
  2. propagate
  3. vocal
  4. whales
  5. lungs
  6. moving
  7. causing
  8. whale

Original Text

So how do they do it? Land mammals like us generate sound by moving air over our vocal cords when we exhale, causing them to vibrate. Baleen whales have a U-shaped fold of tissue between their lungs and their large inflatable organs called laryngeal sacs. We don't know this for sure because it's essentially impossible to observe the internal organs of a living, singing whale, but we think that when a whale sings, muscular contractions in the throat and chest move air from the lungs across the U-fold and into the laryngeal sacs, causing the U-fold to vibrate. The resulting sound resonates in the sacs like a choir singing in a cathedral making songs loud enough to propagate up to thousands of kilometers away. Whales don't have to exhale to sing. Instead, the air is recycled back into the lungs, creating sound once more.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
whale songs 3
baleen whales 3
humpback whales 2
breeding grounds 2
human activity 2

Important Words

  1. air
  2. baleen
  3. called
  4. cathedral
  5. causing
  6. chest
  7. choir
  8. contractions
  9. cords
  10. creating
  11. essentially
  12. exhale
  13. fold
  14. generate
  15. impossible
  16. inflatable
  17. internal
  18. kilometers
  19. land
  20. large
  21. laryngeal
  22. living
  23. loud
  24. lungs
  25. making
  26. mammals
  27. move
  28. moving
  29. muscular
  30. observe
  31. organs
  32. propagate
  33. recycled
  34. resonates
  35. resulting
  36. sacs
  37. sing
  38. singing
  39. sings
  40. songs
  41. sound
  42. thousands
  43. throat
  44. tissue
  45. vibrate
  46. vocal
  47. whale
  48. whales