full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Gibson: How to build synthetic DNA and send it across the internet

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This is the prototype. Although it wasn't pretty, it was effective. It made therapeutic drugs and vaccines. And laboratory wolofkwrs that once took weeks or months could now be carried out in just one to two days. And that's all without any huamn intervention and simply activated by the receipt of an eiaml which could be sent from anywhere in the world. We like to compare the DBC to fax mcheians. But whereas fax machines received images and documents, the DBC receives biological materials. Now, consider how fax machines have evolved. The prototype of the 1840s is unrecognizable, compared with the fax machines of today. In the 1980s, most people still didn't know what a fax macihne was, and if they did, it was difficult for them to grasp the concept of instantly reproducing an image on the other side of the world. But nowadays, everything that a fax machine does is integrated on our smart phones, and of course, we take this raipd exchange of digtail iofmoratnin for granted.

Open Cloze

This is the prototype. Although it wasn't pretty, it was effective. It made therapeutic drugs and vaccines. And laboratory _________ that once took weeks or months could now be carried out in just one to two days. And that's all without any _____ intervention and simply activated by the receipt of an _____ which could be sent from anywhere in the world. We like to compare the DBC to fax ________. But whereas fax machines received images and documents, the DBC receives biological materials. Now, consider how fax machines have evolved. The prototype of the 1840s is unrecognizable, compared with the fax machines of today. In the 1980s, most people still didn't know what a fax _______ was, and if they did, it was difficult for them to grasp the concept of instantly reproducing an image on the other side of the world. But nowadays, everything that a fax machine does is integrated on our smart phones, and of course, we take this _____ exchange of _______ ___________ for granted.

Solution

  1. rapid
  2. machine
  3. email
  4. information
  5. machines
  6. human
  7. digital
  8. workflows

Original Text

This is the prototype. Although it wasn't pretty, it was effective. It made therapeutic drugs and vaccines. And laboratory workflows that once took weeks or months could now be carried out in just one to two days. And that's all without any human intervention and simply activated by the receipt of an email which could be sent from anywhere in the world. We like to compare the DBC to fax machines. But whereas fax machines received images and documents, the DBC receives biological materials. Now, consider how fax machines have evolved. The prototype of the 1840s is unrecognizable, compared with the fax machines of today. In the 1980s, most people still didn't know what a fax machine was, and if they did, it was difficult for them to grasp the concept of instantly reproducing an image on the other side of the world. But nowadays, everything that a fax machine does is integrated on our smart phones, and of course, we take this rapid exchange of digital information for granted.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
flu vaccine 9
writing dna 6
dna code 5
short pieces 5
fax machines 5
biological teleportation 4
living cells 3
complete bacterial 3
gibson assembly 3
synthetic cell 3
synthetic cells 2
bird flu 2
vaccine manufacturing 2
manufacturing process 2
vaccine instructions 2
write dna 2
synthetic dna 2
bacterial genomes 2
bacterial genome 2
laboratory workflows 2
dna sequence 2
fax machine 2
digital information 2
printing personalized 2
digital instructions 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
flu vaccine manufacturing 2
vaccine manufacturing process 2
flu vaccine instructions 2

ngrams of length 4

collocation frequency
flu vaccine manufacturing process 2

Important Words

  1. activated
  2. biological
  3. carried
  4. compare
  5. compared
  6. concept
  7. days
  8. dbc
  9. difficult
  10. digital
  11. documents
  12. drugs
  13. effective
  14. email
  15. evolved
  16. exchange
  17. fax
  18. granted
  19. grasp
  20. human
  21. image
  22. images
  23. information
  24. instantly
  25. integrated
  26. intervention
  27. laboratory
  28. machine
  29. machines
  30. materials
  31. months
  32. nowadays
  33. people
  34. phones
  35. pretty
  36. prototype
  37. rapid
  38. receipt
  39. received
  40. receives
  41. reproducing
  42. side
  43. simply
  44. smart
  45. therapeutic
  46. today
  47. unrecognizable
  48. vaccines
  49. weeks
  50. workflows
  51. world