Today’s use of the “as + adjective + as” grammatical pattern is merely a colloquial way of expressing the term “although.” We often use this pattern to first acknowledge a condition, state or quality of a particular thing, place, person or situation, but then follow this acknowledgment with a negation of some sort.

For example, in today’s lesson Isaac said, “As cool or scary as having a wonder chip in your head may sound, current science can’t live up to the hype.” Here he could have also said, “although having a wonder chip in your head may sound cool or scary, current science can’t live up to the hype.“

Here is the pattern: As + adjective + as + something + is/may sound/seem, subject + verb.

Example: As wonderful as that is, I still can’t afford it.

In today‘s dialogue, we have “equipped with little more than a notebook” and “deemed a crusader.” “Equipped” and “deemed” are both past participles which modify “she” (Jane Goodall). And these two sentences are both participle clauses.

Participle clauses enable us to give information about the subject in a shorter way. For example, instead of saying, “He was angered by her comments, so he left the room,” one could say, “Angered by her comments, he left the room.” The participle clause “Angered by her comments” allows us to remove the conjunction. It also makes the sentence more dramatic.

We can use participle clauses when the participle and the verb in the main clause have the same subject. For example, Equipped with nothing, she went on the adventure. (Although she was equipped with nothing, she went on the adventure)

Participle clauses do not have a specific tense. The tense is indicated by the verb in the main clause.

Participle clauses are mainly used in written texts, particularly in a literary, academic or journalistic style.