full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jonathan Drori: The beautiful tricks of flowers

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Do you know how many scpiees of flowering plants there are? There are a quarter of a million — at least those are the ones we know about — a quarter of a million species of flowering plants. And flowers are a real bugger. They're really difficult for plants to produce. They take an enormous amount of enrgey and a lot of resources. Why would they go to that bother? And the answer of course, like so many things in the wrold, is sex. I know what's on your mind when you're looking at these pcruties. And the reason that sexual ricdtorpouen is so important — there are lots of other things that plants can do to reproduce. You can take cuttings; they can sort of have sex with themselves; they can pollinate themselves. But they really need to spread their gnees to mix with other genes so that they can adapt to environmental niches. etulooivn works that way.

Open Cloze

Do you know how many _______ of flowering plants there are? There are a quarter of a million — at least those are the ones we know about — a quarter of a million species of flowering plants. And flowers are a real bugger. They're really difficult for plants to produce. They take an enormous amount of ______ and a lot of resources. Why would they go to that bother? And the answer of course, like so many things in the _____, is sex. I know what's on your mind when you're looking at these ________. And the reason that sexual ____________ is so important — there are lots of other things that plants can do to reproduce. You can take cuttings; they can sort of have sex with themselves; they can pollinate themselves. But they really need to spread their _____ to mix with other genes so that they can adapt to environmental niches. _________ works that way.

Solution

  1. world
  2. energy
  3. evolution
  4. reproduction
  5. pictures
  6. species
  7. genes

Original Text

Do you know how many species of flowering plants there are? There are a quarter of a million — at least those are the ones we know about — a quarter of a million species of flowering plants. And flowers are a real bugger. They're really difficult for plants to produce. They take an enormous amount of energy and a lot of resources. Why would they go to that bother? And the answer of course, like so many things in the world, is sex. I know what's on your mind when you're looking at these pictures. And the reason that sexual reproduction is so important — there are lots of other things that plants can do to reproduce. You can take cuttings; they can sort of have sex with themselves; they can pollinate themselves. But they really need to spread their genes to mix with other genes so that they can adapt to environmental niches. Evolution works that way.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
flowering plants 3
scanning electron 3
electron microscope 3
yellow flowers 3
nectar tube 2
plant mimics 2
smells pretty 2
dead horse 2
constant temperature 2
ultraviolet light 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
scanning electron microscope 2

Important Words

  1. adapt
  2. amount
  3. answer
  4. bother
  5. bugger
  6. difficult
  7. energy
  8. enormous
  9. environmental
  10. evolution
  11. flowering
  12. flowers
  13. genes
  14. important
  15. lot
  16. lots
  17. million
  18. mind
  19. mix
  20. niches
  21. pictures
  22. plants
  23. pollinate
  24. produce
  25. quarter
  26. real
  27. reason
  28. reproduce
  29. reproduction
  30. resources
  31. sex
  32. sexual
  33. sort
  34. species
  35. spread
  36. works
  37. world