full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Cameron Webb: How to design mosquitoes out of cities
Unscramble the Blue Letters
So how do you create a wetland that's not home to mosquitoes? One of the really interesting pieces of research we've found in recent yreas is that problematic mosquito pioontluaps often seem to be associated with wetlands of poor health: wdtlaens that have more sgantant water, wetlands that don't have enough predators to eat the mosquitoes. So it’s a tnintlaziag idea that if you can create a wetland that's healthier, it has more water flow, it has a greater level of biodiversity, you can actually keep mosquito populations down. If you provide habitats for the animals that eat mosquitoes -- the brids, the bats, the fish, the frogs, the spiders, any nubmer of aquatic insects that love munching on mosquitoes -- rather than being a problem, mouesqoits are not going to disappear, we're not going to get rid of mosquitoes completely, but if they're at a more blacnaed place in the ecosystem, maybe we'll have fewer pest impacts, and more importantly, maybe we will see less mosquito-borne disease.
Open Cloze
So how do you create a wetland that's not home to mosquitoes? One of the really interesting pieces of research we've found in recent _____ is that problematic mosquito ___________ often seem to be associated with wetlands of poor health: ________ that have more ________ water, wetlands that don't have enough predators to eat the mosquitoes. So it’s a ___________ idea that if you can create a wetland that's healthier, it has more water flow, it has a greater level of biodiversity, you can actually keep mosquito populations down. If you provide habitats for the animals that eat mosquitoes -- the _____, the bats, the fish, the frogs, the spiders, any ______ of aquatic insects that love munching on mosquitoes -- rather than being a problem, __________ are not going to disappear, we're not going to get rid of mosquitoes completely, but if they're at a more ________ place in the ecosystem, maybe we'll have fewer pest impacts, and more importantly, maybe we will see less mosquito-borne disease.
Solution
- populations
- birds
- years
- wetlands
- mosquitoes
- tantalizing
- stagnant
- balanced
- number
Original Text
So how do you create a wetland that's not home to mosquitoes? One of the really interesting pieces of research we've found in recent years is that problematic mosquito populations often seem to be associated with wetlands of poor health: wetlands that have more stagnant water, wetlands that don't have enough predators to eat the mosquitoes. So it’s a tantalizing idea that if you can create a wetland that's healthier, it has more water flow, it has a greater level of biodiversity, you can actually keep mosquito populations down. If you provide habitats for the animals that eat mosquitoes -- the birds, the bats, the fish, the frogs, the spiders, any number of aquatic insects that love munching on mosquitoes -- rather than being a problem, mosquitoes are not going to disappear, we're not going to get rid of mosquitoes completely, but if they're at a more balanced place in the ecosystem, maybe we'll have fewer pest impacts, and more importantly, maybe we will see less mosquito-borne disease.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
rainwater tanks |
6 |
create opportunities |
3 |
mosquito bites |
3 |
ross river |
2 |
creating opportunities |
2 |
pot plant |
2 |
green city |
2 |
mosquitoes love |
2 |
mosquito populations |
2 |
yellow fever |
2 |
Important Words
- animals
- aquatic
- balanced
- bats
- biodiversity
- birds
- completely
- create
- disappear
- disease
- eat
- ecosystem
- fish
- flow
- frogs
- greater
- habitats
- healthier
- home
- idea
- impacts
- importantly
- insects
- interesting
- level
- love
- mosquito
- mosquitoes
- munching
- number
- pest
- pieces
- place
- poor
- populations
- predators
- problem
- problematic
- provide
- research
- rid
- spiders
- stagnant
- tantalizing
- water
- wetland
- wetlands
- years