Birds of prey, Einstein ring, Yellowstone, Superlatives

Hello, and welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Anna Mateo. And I'm Brian Lynn. This program is aimed at English learners, so we speak slowly, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Today on the show, Anna Mateo brings us words and their stories. She discusses what it means to have a bird's-eye view of something, and explains how to use the term eagle eyes. Next up is the Weekly Science Report. This time, we examine a recent discovery made by the European Space Agency's Euclid Space Telescope. Researchers say the instrument identified a rare Einstein ring in a nearby galaxy for the very first time. Then, Andrew Smith has a new report from our series All About America. He examines Yellowstone National Park in the American West. Andrew reports that when it was first established in 1872, Yellowstone became the world's first national park. And finally, Jill Robbins and Andrew Smith present the lesson of the day. As always, they look back at an episode of Let's Learn English with Anna Mateo. This week, they discuss superlatives. A superlative describes something with the highest degree of a particular quality. Okay, let's get started with Words and Their Stories. And now, Words and Their Stories from VOA Learning English. From above, birds must have a wonderful view of the world below. Flying over everything at such a height gives them a rare ability to see many things. In English, we use the term bird's eye view to describe a view from above, as if seen by a bird in flight. It is also described as an overall view or big picture view. For example, when I start a project, I first like to get a bird's eye view. I ask myself several important questions. What is the overall goal? Who is the main focus? What resources do I have available to me? Answers to these big picture questions can help me understand the scope of the project. Now, let's talk about noticing the smaller details. Some birds, called raptors, are known for their extremely sharp vision. Eagles, hawks, and owls can see their prey from very far away. The Raptor Center is part of the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine. Its website explains why eagles, hawks, and owls see so well. Raptors have powerful binocular vision, where both their left and right eyes can see and focus. Eagles and hawks also have a special bone structure around their eyes that protects them from bright sunlight. Their ability to focus on far away details, in addition to other factors, make them extremely effective hunters. In English, the keen vision of eagles and hawks describes a certain type of person. If you have an eagle eye, you have the ability to see or notice distant objects. Also, you observe everything, even very small details, which others might miss. On the same note, someone who is hawk-eyed watches and notices everything that happens. These types of people may even perceive things that are not clear to others. Both eagle-eyed and hawk-eyed people are observant or perceptive. A person does not have to have this ability all the time. They might use their keen vision and powers of observation only at certain times, especially times when they need to keep a close watch. For example, during Christmas time, hawk-eyed children might search the sky looking for Santa Claus. These children may not be very observant during the rest of the year, but during Christmas time, they are looking for gifts. Let's hear these terms used between two friends. This is a great party. Thanks for inviting me. The more the merrier. This yearly neighborhood party always draws a huge number of people. I'd say so. There must be over a hundred people here. Hey, wait a minute. I think I see our old co-worker. Isn't that Samantha way over there by the food and drinks? I don't know. I can't see that far. It's her. My eagle eyes don't miss a thing. I'm going to go say hi and grab the last hamburger while I'm there. Oh, and you should let the host know that they're low on drinks. Wow, you're right. I didn't realize you were so hawk-eyed. Only at parties. I start off with a bird's eye view and then focus in on the food, drinks, and people I want to see more closely. See you in a few. The term eagle eye has been used for hundreds of years. Word experts say it was first used in writing in the mid-1500s. The Oxford English Dictionary website says the earliest evidence for eagle eye is from 1567 in the writing of Thomas Stapleton, a Roman Catholic theologian. A theologian is an expert in religious thought. And that's all the time we have for this Words and Their Stories. Until next time, I'm Anna Mateo. Scientists say Europe's Euclid Space Telescope has discovered a bright ring of light circling a nearby galaxy. The observed light is known as an Einstein ring. Researchers have estimated the ring encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 9.5 trillion kilometers. Astronomers have long known about the galaxy where the ring was discovered. So they were surprised that the bright ring had not been identified before. It was discovered in a well-studied galaxy called NGC 6505. It is in the constellation, a group of stars, named Draco. Einstein rings are rare. They form when light from a more distant galaxy bends around a closer galaxy. The nearer galaxy appears to have a circle of light, or a halo, around it. The Einstein ring gets its name from physicist Albert Einstein. Einstein predicted that light would bend around extremely massive objects in space. This is called gravitational lensing. The American space agency, NASA, explains that as light passes through a gravitational lens, it may take different paths, producing multiple images of the same object. In this way, gravity itself acts as a lens, magnifying and distorting space and time in a way that is similar to an optical lens, like those in eyeglasses or contact lenses. Gravitational lenses permit telescopes like Euclid to observe more distant and less bright objects. In the latest project, researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics used data from Euclid to create a computer model to discover the Einstein ring. The Euclid Space Telescope is operated by the European Space Agency, ESA. In 2023, it launched on a six-year mission that ESA officials have said aims to study the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy across the universe. Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute are leading the research. In a statement, the organization said the first sign that the Einstein ring existed came during testing, right after Euclid was deployed. A team member, Bruno Altieri, was looking over early data collected by Euclid. Even from that first observation, I could see it, Altieri said in a statement. But after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring. For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing. The scientists said the more distant galaxy involved in the method is about 4.4 billion light-years away from Earth. They noted that the more distant galaxy had never been observed before and does not have a name. Altieri's team recently reported the findings in a study in the publication Astronomy and Astrophysics. Conor O'Riordan is another team member from the Max Planck Institute and was the lead writer of the study. He said, all strong lenses are special because they're so rare, and they're incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special because it's so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful. O'Riordan added that the researchers used the latest gravitational lensing methods developed at the institute. This permitted them to model the light of the ring. We even had to look at some of the raw data to better understand how the detector works. O'Riordan said the team's modeling operations were just the first step in studying the newly discovered Einstein ring. He said the group plans to use the ring to also study dark matter substructures within the lensing galaxy. O'Riordan predicted Euclid is going to revolutionize the field with all this data we've never had before. Yellowstone National Park in the western United States was the world's first national park. Established in 1872, it is famous for its geothermal activity and wild animals. It includes beautiful mountains, deep canyons, lakes, and rivers. Yellowstone is still one of the largest national parks in the U.S. It takes up almost 9,000 square kilometers. Most of the park lies within the western state of Wyoming. The park is unusual because of what lies underneath it. It sits on top of an ancient supervolcano known as the Yellowstone Caldera. The caldera remains an active volcano. A lake of hot liquid rock is about six kilometers under the park. Experts say this lake is under huge amounts of pressure. The pressure and heat cause geysers to shoot hot water out of the ground and mud to boil at Yellowstone. The park is home to more than 300 geysers. There are more geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone than any other place on Earth. Old Faithful is the name of the park's most famous geyser because it erupts about every 90 minutes. Yellowstone is on a high plateau with an average height of 2,400 meters above sea level. This makes the weather very cold in winter, with January temperatures averaging between minus 18 degrees and minus 7 degrees Celsius. However, some areas of the park remain open to visitors throughout the year. Yellowstone Canyon is about 365 meters deep. The Yellowstone River runs through it and drops 93 meters in the lower falls. Visitors can walk on a path that brings them very close to the top of the falls. There, they can see and hear the powerful falls. In summer of 1988, forest fires burned large areas of the park. Most of those areas are now covered with plants and young trees. Yellowstone is home to the largest group of wild animals in the lower 48 United States. These include bison, grizzly bear, elk, deer, moose, fox, beaver, coyote, and wolves. In 2024, park officials estimated the bison population to be about 4,500 animals. That makes it the largest group of wild bison in the world. There is still a Wild West in America, and its name is Yellowstone. I'm Andrew Smith. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. The series shows Anna Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. All of these expressions you've just heard have that small word that is so important in English. In fact, it's the most common word in all of English. And there it was again. Jill just said, the most common. On today's podcast lesson, we're looking at the word the when we use the superlative. The superlative describes something with the highest degree of equality. There it is again. You just said the highest degree. You see, we can't even talk about the superlative without using the word the. Well, it's pretty hard to avoid using the word the. And I think our listeners probably already know about comparing things in English. For example, the Empire State Building in New York City is taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. And the Burj Al Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. We use the suffix er for comparisons like x is taller than y. But what has this got to do with Anna? It seems like we're digressing or getting away from the main topic. We're almost digressing. But Anna mentions some superlatives when she visits a seafood market in lesson 30 of the Let's Learn English series. Listen for the superlative in this example. You will hear the superlative used twice. Hello, Washington DC sits on the Potomac River. This river is important to the history and culture of the city. Today, I am at an outdoor seafood market near the Potomac River. Some say it is the oldest outdoor seafood market in the United States. I am here to buy seafood. Let's see what they have. Excuse me, can you help me? Sure, what do you need? Pete! Anna! What are you doing here? I work here. You know, it's not easy to be a writer. Yeah, I heard that. Sorry. But this job is great. I work outside by the river and I can eat all the free seafood I want. That is great, Pete. In fact, I am here to buy some seafood for my dinner party. You came to the right place. They have the freshest seafood in town. Did you hear the superlative in that last sentence? They have the freshest seafood in town. And a bit earlier, Anna said... Some say it is the oldest outdoor seafood market in the United States. The superlative adds the suffix est to one-syllable adjectives or to two-syllable adjectives that end in the letter y like the word happy. But what about an adjective with many syllables like the word delicious? We can't say deliciousest. That's hard to pronounce. Yeah, when the adjective is longer, usually two or more syllables, we just put the two words the most or the least before it. For example, we could say the most delicious or the least expensive. And here's another example with the adjective wonderful. There's a popular song in the U.S. for the Christmas holiday. It's called, it's the most wonderful time of the year. bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Coming back to Anna's visit to the seafood market. A bit later in lesson 30, we hear this. The crabs here are delicious. They are the best because they come from the nearby Chesapeake Bay. Walk this way. How many crabs do you want? I want a dozen crabs. You should get the larger crabs. They have the most meat. You could hear the superlatives the best and the most. And if you were listening carefully, you might have noticed something that seems to break the rule of comparisons. Pete uses the word the before the comparative form with the er suffix. You should get the larger crabs. They have the most meat. Normally, we don't use the word the before the adjective in comparisons. Right. We just say bigger, larger, taller, and so on. So, for example, a simple comparison would be these crabs are larger than those crabs. But if we already can see the two choices and we already know which one is larger, then we identify one group by saying the larger ones. That's right. The word the is used to identify things, among many other uses. It turns out the word the is quite useful in English. That's true. There's another word Anna uses that our listeners should notice. It begins with the letter D. Listen. How many crabs do you want? I want a dozen crabs. Pete asks how many? So we know that the word dozen, that's spelled D-O-Z-E-N, is a quantity. A quantity means an amount or a certain number of items. Listeners, do you know how many things are in a dozen? Here's a hint. In the U.S. and other countries, in the grocery store, eggs are often sold by the dozen. And the answer is... 12! Well, that was quite exciting. But knowing the expression a dozen or dozens can be useful. And not only when shopping for eggs. Many news reports, including those on the Learning English website, use the word dozen or dozens to describe how many things there are. There's also a well-known movie called Cheaper by the Dozen based on a book about an American family with 12 children. And remember that there are dozens of episodes of the Let's Learn English series you can watch to help you learn English. And don't forget, on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com, each episode of Let's Learn English comes with a lesson plan you can download to help you learn more or even teach English to others. And so you can get practice with superlatives, write to us at learningenglishatvoanews.com and tell us about something in your town that is the biggest, tallest, oldest, or most interesting thing. And thank you for listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. And that's all the time we have for today's show. But join us again tomorrow for another VOA Learning English program. I'm Brian Lynn.