[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, why don't we hear a few more examples of how we can use sliver.


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[Assistant] Okay, so before we get to the customer complaining language, I want to look at a phrase that the waiter used to apologize. He said, I do apologize.


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[Assistant] Well, I mean, it's pretty easy to understand the meaning, but I want to look at why he added this, uh, verb do.


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[Assistant] Why don't we give an example? Uhm, so I might say this. Marco, I didn't know we had a party tonight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so you're just giving a little bit more power to the statement that you told me.


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[Assistant] Okay, let's do, let's break this one down into two sections. We'll start with shelling out.


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[Assistant] Why don't we listen to some examples to show us how we can use this phrase to shell out?


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[Assistant] Yeah, not, not pounds, not euros, uhm, but his hard earned bucks is money he had to work really hard for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so it's sort of like, like you tell the waiter, oh, you know, the steak was so good, I couldn't finish it, can I take some home to my dog?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, but it's sort of like code for, I'm gonna eat this tomorrow for lunch.


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[Assistant] You know, that steak wrapped up in a fancy sort of foil swan is gonna be pretty delicious the next day.


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[Assistant] That's right, why don't you visit our website, EnglishPod.com and tell us about it.


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[Assistant] Fall. Written by Katherine Follett. Illustrated by Signe Norden.


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[Assistant] In fall, things turn orange. In fall, pumpkins turn orange.


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[Assistant] In fall, the moon turns orange.


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[Assistant] In fall, things turn red.


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[Assistant] In fall, apples turn red.


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[Assistant] In fall, leaves turn red.


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[Assistant] In fall things turn brown. In fall grass turns brown.


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[Assistant] In fall, things turn yellow.


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[Assistant] In fall, corn turns yellow.


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[Assistant] In fall things turn white. In fall frost turns things white.


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[Assistant] In fall, things turn many colors.


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[Assistant] Written by Sarah Goosson Illustrated by Keith Frawley Focus Question


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[Assistant] Why is the box special?


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[Assistant] I go across the ocean.


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[Assistant] My box is special.


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[Assistant] Make a list of all the places the character goes in the story.


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[Assistant] If you had a box, where would you go? Draw and color a picture.


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[Assistant] Good morning, golf aficionados. My name is Rick Fields, and you guessed it, I'm here with my main man, Bob Copeland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's go to the course and see how Tiger Woods is doing.


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[Assistant] It seems that his ball has flown somewhere deep in the trees. He is having a hard time finding it and even his caddy has climbed a tree to try and spot it.


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[Assistant] I'm a neuroscientist and I'm the co-founder of Backyard Brains and our mission is to train the next generation of neuroscientists by taking graduate level neuroscience research equipment and making it available for kids in middle schools and high schools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so when we go into the classroom, uh, one way to get them thinking about the brain, which is very complex, uh, is to ask them a very simple question about neuroscience. And that is, what has a brain?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we ask that, uh, students will instantly tell you that their cat or dog has a brain, uh, and most will say that a mouse or even a small insect has a brain, but almost nobody says that a plant or a tree or a shrub has a brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and so, uh, when you push in, in, because this could actually help describe a little bit how the brain actually functions, uh, so you push and say, well, what is it that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes living things have brains versus not. And often they'll come back with the classification that things that move tend to have brains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's absolutely correct. I mean, our nervous system evolved because it is electrical. It's fast. So we can quickly respond to stimuli in the world and move if we need to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but you can go back and push back on the students, you say, well, you know, you say that, uh, plants don't have brains, but plants do move. Anyone who's grown a plant has noticed that the plant will move and face the sun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they'll say, but that's a slow movement, you know, that doesn't count, that could be a chemical process, but what about fast moving plants?


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[Assistant] And within a decade it made its way over to Europe, uh, where eventually the great Charles Darwin got to study this plant, and this plant absolutely blew him away. He called it the most wonderful plant in the world. Uh, this is a plant that was an evolutionary wonder. This is a plant that, uh, moves quickly, which is rare.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a plant that's carnivorous, which is also rare, and it's in the same plant. But I'm here today to tell you that's not even the coolest thing about this plant. The coolest thing is that the plant can count.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do what we do in the classroom with students. We're gonna, uh, do, uh, an experiment on electrophysiology, which is the recording of the body's electrical signals, either coming from neurons or from muscles. And I'm putting some electrodes here on my wrists as I hook them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're going to be able to see a signal on the screen here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that are firing what's called action potentials, potential meaning voltage and action meaning it moves quickly up and down, which causes my heart to fire, which then causes, uh, the signal that you see here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I want you to remember the shape of what we're going to be looking at right here, because this is going to be important. This is a way that the brain encodes information in the form of an action potential. So now, let's turn to some plants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm going to first introduce you to the mimosa, not the drink, but the mimosa pudica. And this is a plant that's found in Central America and South America and it has behaviors. And the first behavior I'm going to show you is if I touch the leaves here, you get to see that the leaves tend to curl up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The entire branch seems to fall down. So why does it do that? It's not really known to science. One of the reasons why could be that it scares away insects or it looks less appealing to herbivores. But how does it do that? Now that's interesting. We can do an experiment to find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what we're going to do now, just like I recorded the electrical potential from my body, we're going to record the electrical potential from this plant right here, this mimosa. And so what we're going to do is I've got a wire wrapped around the stem, and I've got the ground electrode wire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so I'm gonna go ahead and tap the leaf here, and I want you to look at the electrical recording that we're gonna see inside the plant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I hit the touch receptors, it sent a voltage all the way down to the end of the stem, which caused it to move. And now in our marms, we would move our muscles, but in the plant doesn't have muscles, what it has are water inside the cells. And when the voltage hits it, it opens up, releases the water, changes the shape of the cells and the leaf falls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can it do more? So let's go find out. We're gonna go to our good friend, the Venus Flytrap here. And we're gonna take a look at what happens inside the leaf when we touch, when a fly lands on here. So I'm gonna pretend to be a fly right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here's my Venus fly trap and inside the leaf you're going to notice that there are three little hairs here and those are trigger hairs. And so when a fly lands, I'm going to touch one of the hairs right now. Ready? One, two, three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do we get? We get a beautiful action potential. However, the flytrap doesn't close.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that it takes a long time to open the traps back up, you know, about, you know, 24 to 48 hours if there's no fly inside of it. And so it takes a lot of energy. And number two, it doesn't need to eat that many flies throughout the year. It only needs to eat a handful. It gets most of its energy from the sun. It's just trying to replace some nutrients in the ground with the flies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the third thing is, it only opens, uh, then closes the traps a handful of times until that trap dies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, if it gets to 20 and it doesn't fire again, then it's not gonna close. Uh, but if it does it within there, then the fly trap will close. And we're gonna go back now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna touch the Venus flat trap again. I've been talking for more than 20 seconds. So we can see what happens when I touch the hair a second time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The leaf doesn't close. So now if I go back in there, and then if I'm a fly moving around, I'm going to be touching the leaf a few times. I'm going to go and brush it a few times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no brains in here. There's not a, uh, you know, no axons, no neurons. Uh, it doesn't get depressed. It doesn't want to know what the tiger score is. It doesn't have self-actualization problems. But, uh, what it does have is something that's very similar to us, which is the ability to communicate using electricity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, just to show you the ubiquitous nature of these action potentials, uh, we saw it in the Venus Flytrap, we've seen an action potential in the Mimosa, we've even seen an action potential in a human.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now this is the, uh, the euro of the brain. It's the way that all information is passed and so what we can do is we can use those action potentials to pass information


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has touch receptors that are sending that information back down in the form of an action potential. And so what would happen if we took the action potential from the Venus flytrap and sent it into the, all the stems of the mimosa?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We should be able to create the behavior of the mimosas without actually touching it ourselves. And so, if you allow me, I'm gonna go ahead and trigger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the Venus Flytrap. So we're going to send information about touch from one plant to another.


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[Assistant] So I hope you learned a little bit something about plants today. Not only that, you learned that plants can be used to help teach neuroscience and bring along the NeuroRevolution. Thank you.


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[Assistant] Sorry I'm late everyone. There was a huge traffic jam on the highway this morning.


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[Assistant] I water the carrot plants. Grow carrots, grow!


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[Assistant] I water the pepper plants. Grow peppers, grow.


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[Assistant] I water the tomato plants. Grow tomatoes, grow.


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[Assistant] I water the green bean plants. Grow green beans, grow!


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[Assistant] I water the onion plants. Grow onions, grow!


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[Assistant] I water the cucumber plants. Grow cucumbers, grow!


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[Assistant] Grow vegetables, grow! I want to make a salad!


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[Assistant] Look, there are other ways to quit. You can try the nicotine patch or nicotine chewing gum.


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[Assistant] You can try the nicotine patch or nicotine chewing gum. We spend a fortune on cigarettes every month.


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[Assistant] And now laws are cracking down and not allowing smoking in any public place. It's not like you can just light up like before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, there are other ways to quit. You can try the nicotine patch or nicotine chewing gum.


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[Assistant] We spend a fortune on cigarettes every month, and now laws are cracking down and not allowing smoking in any public place. It's not like you can just light up like before.


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[Assistant] Veronica, wait. Come on, honey. Get back in the car. Let's hug it over, okay?


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[Assistant] Veronica, it's me, the man that has and always will love you. I'm sorry that I've lied to you, believe me.


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[Assistant] It's been hard for me as well, and time and again I've thought of coming clean.


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[Assistant] But I couldn't put you or my mission at risk. It's all over now. My assignment is complete. And now I have to go back to India.


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[Assistant] I know that this isn't the best time and you probably hate me right now, but I want to be completely forthright with you.


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[Assistant] I know deep in my heart that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.


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[Assistant] I can't make it for everything that's happened, but I can promise you my undying love. I will be the most devoted husband and I will cherish you always.


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[Assistant] Veronica, wait. Come on, honey. Get back in the car. Let's hug it over, okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Veronica, it's me, the man that has and always will love you. I'm sorry that I've lied to you, believe me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been hard for me as well, and time and again I've thought of coming clean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I couldn't put you or my mission at risk. It's all over now. My assignment is complete. And now I have to go back to India.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that this isn't the best time and you probably hate me right now, but I want to be completely forthright with you.


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[Assistant] I know deep in my heart that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Veronica, would you marry me? Come with me to India baby!


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[Assistant] I can't make it for everything that's happened, but I can promise you my undying love. I will be the most devoted husband and I will cherish you always.


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[Assistant] Build a World. Written by Harriet Rosenblum. Illustrated by Amilacart. Focus Question.


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[Assistant] My world is empty when I start. I will build.


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[Assistant] Create your own world and draw a picture of it. Write about your world. Math.


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[Assistant] That's right. So I think this lesson is going to be a little bit different than most of our lessons, right?


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[Assistant] Two of these words you'll hear in the dialogue, but one you won't, but you still need to know this word so you can understand the jokes.


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[Assistant] Yep. Alright, so we all know now that that's what cows say.


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[Assistant] Okay, now another word that you need to understand is a damn.


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[Assistant] Well, it's a wall in water that stops the river from flowing.


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[Assistant] That's right, and, and we might hear someone say, oh damn!


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[Assistant] But you know what? They did use quite a lot of really interesting language, so why don't we look at that now in Language Takeaway.


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[Assistant] Now an open mic night is a chance where anyone can come up and talk into the microphone.


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[Assistant] A comic doesn't wear a red nose and a crazy- A costume. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Okay, so stand-up comedy is really exactly what its name suggests, right?


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[Assistant] That's right, uhm, and I think we'll talk a little bit more about that at the end of the lesson, but why don't we move on to our next word, which is routine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I guess a routine is like a series or a collection of jokes or maybe movements that you use in a performance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, well we're not really focusing on new phrases for you here, but we thought it would be helpful to talk a little bit about the jokes to help you understand them, right? Because they are, well, I think pretty funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the answer was, they rent mooovies.


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[Assistant] Right, and actually uhm, there are a million jokes in English following the same pattern, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, my personal favorite joke is the guy says, what does a fish say when it runs into a wall?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, cause, I mean, if you, if you, if you're a person and you run into a wall, damn, like, you know, just like, oh no, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a fish is swimming under the water and like we saw, a dam is actually like a wall in the water.


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[Assistant] Okay, well I think we need to hear them one more time in context so uhm, you can all know how funny or maybe not so funny they are.


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[Assistant] How can you say the earth is actually getting cooler? That is a pretty tenuous argument. Example two.


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[Assistant] You're making yourself seem more important than you are. The connection between our company's success and your performance is tenuous at best.


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[Assistant] We as a company now face our most difficult months to date, the outcome of which will determine our company's future.


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[Assistant] Well, he started off as a general, uh, he was an accomplished officer all through the early 20th century and then he was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II. And so now he's most famous for D-Day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I don't know if you even want to leave this in, but there's a really cool document that he wrote.


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[Assistant] Right before the invasion and it said, he basically knew that this was gonna go one of two ways and he wrote down a script to read in case it failed and he basically said, you know, I'm sorry to inform you that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, at the beginning, probably the biggest thing he did was to wrap up the Korean War, uh, which was a vow he made during his campaign. And then he visited Korea. Uh, obviously the war is still technically on, but they did arrange a ceasefire. Uh, Eisenhower built up the interstate highway system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he's rated, I wouldn't say among the top five or so, but, uh, quite accomplished.


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[Assistant] And my name is Catherine and today Marco and I get to share with you the thrilling conclusion to the, well, very popular I must say series. I'm sorry, I love you.


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[Assistant] If I guess, you're just gonna get angry at me because I actually know how it ends. But let's just say I hope that it ends well for our protagonists.


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[Assistant] Absolutely, so we're gonna, well, keep our fingers crossed for Steven and Veronica, and check out this dialogue one time.


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[Assistant] I also have some little secrets that I haven't told you about, but we can discuss that later.


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[Assistant] I realized that I was just scared. Scared of how much I love you and...


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[Assistant] Of the commitment that marriage requires. I'm here now. Now, there's something I want to ask you. Steven, will you marry me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely, I was glad to see that it was a happy ending. I have to say, if it had been a sad ending, I would have been a little bit disappointed because, well, Veronica and I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first couple of phrases I want to talk about here have to do with maybe catching up and talking about family or gossip because we're talking to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Steven's Indian family we haven't seen for a long long time. And the first thing he's talking to his brother about his brother and his wife. So, Gulam and Nisha are expecting we find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aha, yeaah, so here we go. I'm expecting, it's a very common English way of saying, I'm going to have a baby, I'm pregnant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, when it's only expecting, when it's not a thing afterwards, I'm expecting means I'm pregnant, or she's expecting, she's gonna have a baby.


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[Assistant] So the Shalini, some girl that Stephen used to know when he was living in India, she's pining after you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, pine has many different meanings in English. But in this sense, we're talking about having a crush on or being in love with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so she, she stands by the door every day waiting the letter that doesn't come. She's pining away for her dear love, Thomas, or whatever.


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[Assistant] There is a way to describe this. It's called Petrarchan love. Well, it's this kind of traditional idea in poetry where you have a love that's never consummated, that's never filled. You never get to be with the person that you love, that you desire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it's a way, yeaah, it's a way of, uh, distinguishing the two different kinds of love. One where you're with the person and the other where you always want them but you can never have them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, but if you do pine away or you pine after someone, uhm, you have to hope that one day you'll get over that person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this is a good question because, you know, we're talking here not about...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually getting up on top of a fence or a wall. We're talking about emotions. So getting over someone, so I have to get over him means that I have to stop feeling so sad about what happened, right? Because usually you say this when someone's sad or angry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're gonna move on here to the last word in today's language takeaway, which is incorrigible.


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[Assistant] Alright, incorrigible. What could this mean? Well, let's look at a sentence where we find it. You are incorrigible.


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[Assistant] Where there's an argument between Stephen and Ghulam. So they're brothers, and Stephen says, I don't want to get married, I don't want to marry her, uuuh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we hear this phrase a lot, uhm, together. So, you're incorrigible, right? So this is often just kind of a, it's a, it's not an insult, but it's a way for us to kind of be sarcastic or to make fun of someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, this first phrase is something that parents often use, and grandparents as well, because obviously parents and grandparents, they're very proud of their children and their grandchildren. So they describe something as being their pride and joy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His Porsche Boxster is his pride and joy. He goes out every morning and he washes it, he changes the oil, he checks the gas, checks the tires, so it's his pride and joy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. I haven't seen you in a long time. You look, you look happy and healthy. So what's new with you? Oh, I got married, I got a new car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So, you know, I got a new house, got a new job. What's new with you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What about you? So, it's a nice, very relaxed, informal way of asking someone for news in their life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he was supposed to get married, he didn't get married, what's going on? His brother, his mother, they all want to know what's going on. And we find out that wedding, that girl, he just couldn't go through with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this is past tense, so he's saying, before I came to India with this girl, I couldn't go through with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And going through with what here? We've got it, so this kind of magical, strange word, it. What could this be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great, so really good phrase. I can't go through with it. He couldn't go through with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we find out that, well, not such a bad thing. Steven, he's very popular in India. The girls love him. We've got a great phrase for describing having lots of girls who love you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so many, many girls, they will, they will follow you, they'll want to be in a relationship with you, they like you, so he's saying, listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so this is, uh, this is something we say about both genders, boys and girls. You could say, oh god, all the boys were throwing themselves at her. I'm so jealous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not like a, it's not a bad thing, but sometimes it's too much attention so it can be kind of negative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also have some little secrets that I haven't told you about, but we can discuss that later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I realized that I was just scared. Scared of how much I love you and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the commitment that marriage requires. I'm here now. Now, there's something I want to ask you. Steven, will you marry me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was being strained with all of these secret trips to save people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was pregnant, she wasn't really pregnant. The doctor was stalking her. He's in the secret service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And please get in touch with us, leave comments and questions at our website, EnglishPod.com. We like to check those and answer you. So, uh, yeah, get in touch with us and have a great day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, Bob. We're about to witness the legendary Italian Stallion himself, Rocky Balboa, square off against his lifetime rival, Apollo Creed. This will be a gruesome match for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, Bob. We're about to witness the legendary Italian Stallion himself, Rocky Balboa, square off against his lifetime rival, Apollo Creed. This will be a gruesome match for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now please welcome Dr. Frank Hicks, the world's most preeminent expert on nuclear biology.


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[Assistant] Carol Dixon is one of the most preeminent experts in green technology.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Malaria is a disease that continues to be a scourge to the developing world.


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[Assistant] We now stand before you to declare our love and be united in marriage.


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[Assistant] Together we now stand before this great challenge and we will fight arm in arm to defeat poverty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nanhuang Monkey Island is the only tropical island nature reserve for macaque in China and the world. So people call it Monkey Island.


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[Assistant] Nanyuan Monkey Island is beautiful and charming.


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[Assistant] There are clean and entrancing beaches so typical of Hainan, with colourful coral reefs.


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[Assistant] The rocks on the island are craggy, like an anchor thrown into the vast South China Sea.


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[Assistant] It has a mild climate and abundant rainfall and coconut, lychee, pineapple, carambola and other fruit trees are everywhere.


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[Assistant] The plants here are evergreen, and flowers and fruits can be found here all year round, providing a typical tropical scenery.


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[Assistant] It is not only suitable for the growth and reproduction of macaque, but also can provide a plentiful supply of food for the monkeys.


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[Assistant] The monkeys on the island have been domesticated and visitors can take pictures of them or have their pictures taken with them.


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[Assistant] At the sound of a whistle, trees and grass all over the mountain begin to shake. You can see macaques skipping and swinging between trees.


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[Assistant] In a blink of an eye, they gather together to fight for food and make a lot of noise.


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[Assistant] That's right. Now remember, we've been over the plans, but we really need to make sure that everything is up to code.


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[Assistant] The home inspectors here are pretty thorough, so please make sure you follow the plans exactly. And remember, the carpenter's rule of thumb, measure twice, cut once.


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[Assistant] I think you should sand the edges. Look at all these splinters. Someone could get hurt. Geez, you gotta take pride in your work.


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[Assistant] The rule of thumb in making a sale is confidence. Without confidence, you don't make a sale.


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[Assistant] The tailors rule of thumb is twice the circumference of the wrist is the circumference of the neck.


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[Assistant] You don't have to take everything I say about marketing as a rule of thumb.


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[Assistant] That's right. Now remember, we've been over the plans. Uh, we really need to make sure that everything is up to code.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The home inspectors here are pretty thorough, so please make sure you follow the plans exactly. And remember, the carpenter's rule of thumb, measure twice, cut once.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you should sand the edges. Look at all these splinters. Someone could get hurt. Geez, you gotta take pride in your work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a, it's a cloudy day, maybe that's why. The blues. The blues. So, uh, yeaah, that's what we're talking about today. We're gonna have a lot of different descriptive words to express, uh, maybe feeling sad, or maybe you're angry, or you're nervous, or something like that.


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[Assistant] Alright, so today on vocabulary preview we're gonna look at two words. And, uh, the first one is a way of saying that you feel sad. So basically, I'm feeling down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so you, you look sad, are you, is everything okay? So, down. So now another feeling or a way that a person is feeling, maybe that person is grouchy.


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[Assistant] Right, so it's not like really angry, you're not angry, but uh, you're not very happy either.


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[Assistant] Alright, so after taking a look at these two words, we're ready now to listen to our dialogue for the first time. Let's see what this dialogue is about, if maybe they're grouchy or maybe just sad.


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[Assistant] Alright, so two girls talking about guys. I guess guys have a bad temper sometimes, right?


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[Assistant] And that's why she's feeling a bit down. So let's take a look at those words now in Language Takeaway.


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[Assistant] So maybe you can be stressed out because of school, like in your case, or maybe at work you have a lot of things to do or a project to finish, right?


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[Assistant] Alright. So we're stressed out. Or another word that kind of means the same is, uh, this is nerve-wracking.


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[Assistant] Right. So let's listen to a couple of more examples of in different situations where we can use this phrase nerve wracking.


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[Assistant] On edge. So this person was feeling on edge, uh, but what does that mean exactly? You're like at the edge.


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[Assistant] Wow. So yeaah, you are on edge, right?


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[Assistant] Okay, very good. Wow, these three words that we've just looked at are really interesting and very, very useful. I guess you can describe many different situations or a person that's going through these feelings, right?


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[Assistant] Alright, great. So now that we're back, we can start with a couple of different phrases now on Fluency Builder.


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[Assistant] Hmm, I think what makes me lose my temper very, very easily is, uh, like a dirty house or like a dirty room.


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[Assistant] Not really neat freak, but like, if it's not at least semi-clean, you know, it really, it really bothers me.


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[Assistant] Uh, drilling, construction, hammering.


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[Assistant] Alright, so that's what makes you lose your temper. I'll be sure to keep my eye out for that and not tap my pen. Please don't. Alright, so you lose your temper and now there are situations sometimes where you need to brush someone off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so you ignore them or you basically tell them to go away very subtly sometimes or very directly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, no, I can't. I, uh, have to do something tonight.


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[Assistant] Alright, and well, all of these, all of these bad feelings, brushing somebody off, maybe you feel stressed out, in the end, you always need a good friend to cheer you up, right? And that's what this dialogue is all about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, so you wanna cheer up your friends, or maybe if you're feeling a bit down, a family member will try and cheer you up.


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[Assistant] That's what cheers me up. Or chocolate always cheers me up.


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[Assistant] Alright, so we've taken a look at a lot of great phrases, but the last sentence of the dialogue is maybe a little bit strange, right? When she says, you are something else, you know that?


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[Assistant] So it could be, is it on a positive note or can it be both positive and negative?


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[Assistant] Right, very interesting. It's very spoken English, as you say, because all the words that we see there, they're pretty simple, but the context, or the connotation, the meaning is very, very different from the actual words. Exactly. Alright, so let's listen to this dialogue for the last time, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more.


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[Assistant] So Catherine, are you a grouchy person? Are you happy? Do you have a bad temper?


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[Assistant] Uhm, I would say the worst is when somebody lies to me. Like straight in my face. Like I know they're lying, I know you're lying and you still just lie straight at me.


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[Assistant] See, everyone has different remedies, so come to our website, EnglishPod.com. Tell us what makes you angry, what makes you lose your temper, or what really cheers you up, what makes you happy.


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[Assistant] It's okay, I know how it is. This machine here will work out your upper body, mainly your triceps and biceps.


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[Assistant] In that case, you wanna work with less weight. You can start off by working 10 to 15 reps in 4 sets. 5 kilo weight should be enough.


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[Assistant] Hey there. You look a little lost. Are you new here?


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[Assistant] You can always spot the newbies. I can give you a few pointers if you want. Were you trying to use this machine here?


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[Assistant] This machine here will work out your upper body, mainly your triceps and biceps.


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[Assistant] Are you looking to develop strength or muscle tone and definition?


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[Assistant] You can start off by working 10 to 15 reps in 4 sets. 5 kilo weights should be enough.


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[Assistant] Now it's very important that you stretch before pumping iron, or you might pull a muscle.


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[Assistant] If you do not warm up before a physical activity, you can easily pull a muscle.


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[Assistant] You can always spot the newbies. I can give you a few pointers if you want. Were you trying to use this machine here?


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[Assistant] It's okay, I know how it is. This machine here will work out your upper body, mainly your triceps and biceps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told you already shabby. The owner of the house says there's a ghost haunting his house. So we have to go in and investigate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That guy is making me nervous. He's really creepy looking.


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[Assistant] Exactly, yeah, that's the problem. It's very easy to like, just ruin your favorite t-shirt if you don't do laundry correctly.


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[Assistant] Right. So we're going to be looking at a lot of vocabulary and phrases related to this topic. And before we get started with the dialogue, why don't we take a look at vocabulary preview.


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[Assistant] And, uh, well, funny you mentioned that word stain because it's our second word that we're gonna preview, a stain.


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[Assistant] Right. So it's very common, you're having a nice dinner and all of a sudden you spill wine on your shirt. So you have a wine stain.


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[Assistant] Right? Or, you know, even some people have stained the teeth, right?


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[Assistant] Exactly. So those are the two words that we're going to be looking at today in vocabulary preview. So let's listen to our dialogue. Let's see what's happening with these people that are doing laundry.


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[Assistant] Well, that's the thing, I tell you, it's a little bit difficult and, well, it's very tedious at times to try and do laundry like this.


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[Assistant] Right, so let's take a look at those words that were related to doing laundry now in Language Takeaway.


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[Assistant] Okay, die. So it's pronounced exactly the same way as, you know, to die, to not live anymore. Die. But it's spelled differently.


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[Assistant] So that's maybe what happens when you wash a red t-shirt with all your white t-shirts.


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[Assistant] And also women, when they go to the beauty salon, they dye their hair.


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[Assistant] So that's the correct word, to die. Very different, maybe some people say to paint, which you know, you, we understand, but the correct form would be to die.


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[Assistant] Delicate. So now this adjective delicate, which means it's very...


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[Assistant] Very good. So you have to be careful when you're washing your delicates because it's happened to me before you like put them in with all the clothes and then you have stretched out boxers or something like that.


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[Assistant] Very good. And now if you're washing delicates or you're washing towels or t-shirts, it's always a good idea to use fabric softener.


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[Assistant] Alright, and well also to wash your clothes, to actually make them clean, you use detergent.


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[Assistant] And now in order to remove those nasty stains that maybe are very hard, uh, you would use a chemical called bleach.


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[Assistant] I actually had a friend who changed the color of his hair to white using bleach. He put bleach on his head and on his hair and it just turned white.


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[Assistant] And in that case you wouldn't say, you could say that he dyed his hair white, but usually you would say he bleached his hair.


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[Assistant] Exactly. So those five words we just looked at in language takeaway, they're important, they're related to doing laundry. So, uh, before we move on, let's listen to our dialogue again, but a little bit slower.


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[Assistant] Alright, so on Fluency Builder, we're gonna be looking at four words or four phrases. So uhm, the first one was really easy. When she was telling the guy or instructing him how to do the laundry, she said, let's go through this one more time.


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[Assistant] No, so it's not actually to go through an object, like to pass. So it's let's repeat or let's uh, rehearse again.


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[Assistant] So called. Right, so she said this so called contraption.


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[Assistant] And now, well, she was explaining the whole process of how to do it, and when she recommended using bleach, she said that should do the trick.


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[Assistant] Right, but to do the trick, right? What did she say?


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[Assistant] We're all set to go on vacation, so my bags are packed, I have my passports, we are all set.


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[Assistant] Very good. So we are almost all set. Let's listen to this dialogue one last time.


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[Assistant] Have you ever had any laundry mishaps? Have you ever lost a sock? Died something?


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[Assistant] The problem that I have when doing laundry is that


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[Assistant] I forget that I started doing laundry, so all of a sudden, you know, I'm doing laundry in the morning and then...


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[Assistant] So come to our website, EnglishPod.com, uh, give us all your feedback, questions, comments, or suggestions, and we're always there.


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[Assistant] There are many different landscapes and remarkable views.


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[Assistant] Many tourists come all the way to the Canis lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious marine creature.


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[Assistant] Most scientists believe the so-called water monster is a hucho bleaker living deep below the surface.


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[Assistant] And bring more than 600 millimeters of precipitation every year.


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[Assistant] The Hubble Space Telescope has detected what astronomers think may be the oldest galaxy ever observed.


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[Assistant] One researcher said the image was from a time when new star systems had been formed at an astonishing rate. News item 72.


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[Assistant] The Human Rights Watchdog, the Council of Europe, has called for a fresh investigation into allegations that Kosovo Liberation Army rebels were involved in organized crime and the trafficking of human organs.


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[Assistant] The council adopted a report carried out by its investigator, which says organs were taken from prisoners of war killed by the KLA after the Kosovo conflict with Serbian forces in 1999.


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[Assistant] Her wounds are severe and will take weeks to heal properly.


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[Assistant] To hunt here, she'll need to leave her cubs behind in the safety of their home territory.


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[Assistant] Life for a hunter in this land is as hard as it gets.


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[Assistant] And is then spewed out as ash and lava from great volcanoes.


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[Assistant] Stretching over 6,000 kilometres from Patagonia in the south to Venezuela in the north.


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[Assistant] This is the world's longest mountain range.


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[Assistant] They are so tall, they catch clouds, and so create an environment unlike any other on the continent.


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[Assistant] Often clambering up to the very top of the canopy to do so.


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[Assistant] The only fruit remaining here is out on the thinnest branches. Too thin to support the weight of a bear.


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[Assistant] In Venezuela, there are similar small worlds created not by rain, but by rock.


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[Assistant] A great layer of sandstone once covered this entire area, but rivers cut through it.


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[Assistant] The vertical cliffs surrounding many of these mountains have kept them largely free from human exploitation.


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[Assistant] No such barriers have protected the lowlands.


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[Assistant] Over 95% of Columbia's lowland forest has now been cleared.


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[Assistant] Today, more than 2,000 species of animal in South America are under threat.


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[Assistant] All across the continent, forest is being steadily cut down and replaced by farms.


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[Assistant] A father will place each one of his tadpoles in its own tiny pool of water. This is one. Nice and safe.


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[Assistant] It's tiny puddle that's all but dried out. The tetra will die.


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[Assistant] If dabs are good for one thing, it's piggyback rides.


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[Assistant] McCaw couples bond for life and may stick together for over 40 years.


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[Assistant] Over 1,500 kilometers to the south of the Amazon,


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[Assistant] That the way these dams are managed can cause problems farther down river.


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[Assistant] If the dams upriver suddenly release their excess, iguasú can double in size.


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[Assistant] As the torrent grows, parents give up on the last purchase.


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[Assistant] Every year the sudden surges of water sweep some to their death.


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[Assistant] Unless they can find a way through, they will not survive.


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[Assistant] Their aim was to capture footage of wild pumas hunting. But what the team encountered?


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[Assistant] Cameraman John Shire has been coming here for eight years, but even he has never witnessed a successful puma hunt.


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[Assistant] But expert tracker Roberto Donoso has 15 years experience here and he relies on help from a surprising local.


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[Assistant] No one can spot a puma as well as a juanaco.


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[Assistant] Over the coming days, John sees more puma than ever before.


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[Assistant] Three weeks in, John has spotted something promising. He alerts the crew.


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[Assistant] Her struggle to feed her family is now the crew's main focus.


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[Assistant] For the crew this means dragging heavy equipment over difficult terrain.


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[Assistant] And John finally thinks Armiento might have some luck.


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[Assistant] Trying to take down an animal as large as a Wanako has left Samiento badly injured.


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[Assistant] Witnessing this life and death battle is difficult.


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[Assistant] Until the remarkable story of a fearless mother at the far edge of South America.


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[Assistant] News item 75. The head of the Catholic Church in Italy has criticized political leaders who behave immorally.


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[Assistant] The comments by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco come as the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi struggles with a scandal over his relationship with a teenage nightclub dancer.


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[Assistant] Cardinal Bagnasco said the young were being sold the idea that success came through moral compromise and selling yourself rather than hard work.


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[Assistant] A month since the central bank governor was told to give Alassane Ouattara unique access to the Ivorian bank accounts, Laurent Bagbo has been able to withdraw around $160 million, money that will help him pay army salaries this month and stay on in power.


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[Assistant] That left heads of state from the West African Monetary Zone meeting in Mali this weekend little choice but to ask the bank governor to resign, which he did.


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[Assistant] For Mr. Bagbo's administration, the loss of access to the state accounts will increase the financial pressure. They are already facing travel bans, asset freezes, and the threat of a regional military intervention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My goal in this video, in the next few, is to start giving a sense of the scale of really just the Earth and the solar system. And as we see, as we start getting into like the galaxy and the universe, it just becomes almost impossible to imagine. But we'll at least give our best shot. So I think most of us watching this video know that this right here is Earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This right here is Earth. And just to get a sense of scale here, I think probably, probably the largest distance that we can somehow relate to is about a hundred miles. You can get into a car for an hour, hour and a half and go about a hundred miles. And on the Earth, that would be about this far. It would be a speck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would look something like that. That is a hundred miles. And also to get us a bit of scale, let's think about a speed that at least we can kind of comprehend. And that would be maybe the speed of a, let's think of the speed, speed of a bullet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Speed of a bullet. Maybe we can't comprehend it, but I'll say this is the fastest thing that we can maybe kind of comprehend. It goes about, and there are different types of bullets depending on the type of gun and all of that, about 280 meters per second, which is about 1,000, 1,000 kilometers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 1000 kilometers per hour. And this is also roughly, this is also roughly the speed, the speed of a jet. Of a jet.


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[Assistant] So just to give a sense of scale here, the Earth's circumference, the Earth's circumference, so if you were to go around the planet,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Earth's circumference, just like that, is about 40,000 kilometers.


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[Assistant] So if you were to travel at the speed of a bullet, speed of a bullet or the speed of a jetliner,


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[Assistant] At a thousand kilometers an hour, it would take you 40 hours to circumnavigate the earth. 40 hours to go around the earth. So it would take you 40 hours. 40 hours.


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[Assistant] Because the sun starts to approach something far huger. So this obviously here is the sun.


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[Assistant] And I think most people appreciate that the sun is larger, that it's much larger than the earth, and that it's pretty far away from the earth, but I don't think most people, including myself, fully appreciate how large the sun is, or how far it is away from the earth. So just to give you a sense,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Earth, the Sun has, the Sun has is 109 times the circumference, times the circumference of the Earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Times the circumference of the earth. So if we do that same thought exercise there.


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[Assistant] If we said, okay, if I'm traveling at the speed of a bullet or the speed of a jetliner, it would take me 40 hours to go around the earth. Well, how long would it take to go around the sun? So if you were to get on a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you were to get on a jet plane and try to go around the sun, or if you were to somehow ride a bullet and try to go around the sun, do a complete circumnavigation of the sun, it's going to take you 109 times as long as it would have taken you to do the earth. So it would be 100.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Times, I could do 109, but just for approximate. It's roughly 100 times the circumference of the earth. So 109 times 40 is equal to 4,000.


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[Assistant] 4,000 hours, and just to get a sense of what 4,000 is, actually since I have the calculator out, let's do the exact calculation. It's 109 times the circumference of the earth times 40 hours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what it would take to do the circumference of the Earth. So it's 4,360 hours to circumnavigate the Sun going at the speed of a bullet or a jetliner. And so that is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To go around the sun at the speed of a jetliner. Let me write this down. Half a year. Half a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, that by itself may or may not be, and actually let me give you a sense of scale here, because I have this other diagram of a sun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This other diagram of a sun, and we'll talk more about the rest of the solar system in the next video. But over here, at this scale, at the, a sun, this sun, at least on my screen, if I were to complete it, it would probably be about 20 inches in diameter. The Earth is just this little thing over here, smaller than a raindrop. It's just a small, little,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I were to draw it on this scale, where the sun is even smaller, the earth would be about that big.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, what isn't obvious, because we've all done our science projects in third and fourth grade, or we always see these diagrams of the solar system that look something like this, is that these planets are way further away, even though these are, this is, these are, uh, depicted to scale, they're way further away from the sun than this makes it look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the Sun, sorry, sorry, the Earth is 150 million kilometers from the Sun.


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[Assistant] Earth is, so this distance, if this is, if this is the sun right here, if this was the sun right here, you wouldn't even, at this scale, you wouldn't even be able to see the Earth. You wouldn't be able to see the Earth. It wouldn't even be a pixel. But it would be 150, it would be 150 million, 150 million, 150 million kilometers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the Earth. And this distance right here is called an astronomical unit. We'll be using that term in the next few videos, just because it's an easier way to think about distance. Sometimes abbreviated AU, astronomical unit. Astro-nomical. Astronomical unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just to give a sense of how far this is, light, which is something that we think is almost infinitely fast, you know, something that looks instantaneous, that takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth. If the sun were to disappear, it would take 8 minutes for that light, for us to know that it disappeared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or another way, just to put it in, in the sense of, of this jet airplane. Let's get the calculator back out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we have 100, we're talking about 150.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a thousand million. That's a hundred and fifty million kilometers. So if we're going at a thousand kilometers an hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if we go to 1,000 kilometers an hour, it would take us 150,000 hours at the speed of a bullet or at the speed of a jet plane to get to the sun. And just to put that in perspective, that if we wanted in days, there's 24, 24 hours per day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this would be 6,250 days, or if we divide by 365, roughly 17 years. If you were to shoot a bullet straight at the sun, it would take 17 years to get there, if it could maintain its velocity somehow. So this would take a bullet or a jet plane 17 years to get to the sun. Seventeen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 17 years. Or another way to visualize it. This sun right over here, it looks on my screen, it has about a 5 or 6 inch diameter. If I were to actually do it as scale, this little dot right here, this little dot which is the earth, this speck,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I actually wanted to draw this distance at scale, I would have to put this speck about 50 feet away from the sun. 50 or 60 feet away from the sun. If you were to look at the solar system,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we obviously, there's other things in the solar system. We'll talk more about them in the next video. You wouldn't even notice a speck. This is a little dust thing flying around this sun. And as we go further and further out of this solar system, you're going to see even this distance.


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[Assistant] Starts to become ridiculously small. Or another way to think about it.


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[Assistant] If the sun was about this size, if the sun was about this size, then this spec


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[Assistant] Then the Earth at this scale would be about 200 feet away from it. So you can imagine it if you had a football field. If you had a football field. Let me draw a football field.


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[Assistant] These are the end zones. One end zone, another end zone. And if you were to stick something maybe the size of a medicine ball, a little bit bigger than a basketball, one end zone. This little speck would be, uh,


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[Assistant] Anyway, I'm gonna leave you there. Hopefully that gives you just, uh, starts to blow your mind when you think about just, just the scale of the sun, the earth, and how far the earth is away from the sun. And then we're gonna see even those distances, even those scales are super small when you start thinking about


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[Assistant] The rest of the solar system, and especially when we start going beyond the solar system.


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[Assistant] Poly gets out. Written by Pam Bull.


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[Assistant] Polly flew over the playground. She saw some flowers.


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[Assistant] Polly flew over the flowers.


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[Assistant] Polly flew over the children. She saw a cat.


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[Assistant] Polly flew into her cage. Phew! Polly was safe.


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[Assistant] Even though I apologized for calling her fat, Genie was trippin' all night.


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[Assistant] This guy caused a car accident and I was like, you idiot! You can kill people by driving like that!


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[Assistant] I told the teacher that I didn't finish my homework and he was like, I'll see you after school.


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[Assistant] Oh crap, my dad is gonna go postal when he finds out about this.


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[Assistant] Before we start going off into things outside of our solar system, I want to take a few steps back because I found this neat picture of the sun over here. And the reason why, at least in my mind, it's kind of mind-blowing is because


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[Assistant] At this scale, the sun is obviously still a huge object at this scale, the earth would be roughly, and this is an approximation, roughly that big.


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[Assistant] And so for me, at least, this is mind-blowing because it's this idea that our whole planet, everything could fit into one of these kind of plasma flares coming off of the sun. And you can only imagine, I mean, we can't realistically be there, but if you were in some type of protected capsule, what it would be like to be in


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[Assistant] So I just thought this was kind of a fascinating concept. But anyway, with that out of the way, let's just think about what it means to be at the boundary of the solar system. In the last video, we explored the Oort belt, which was about, it started a little under one light year away from the sun.


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[Assistant] But depending on what you view as the boundary of the socialism, it could be something way farther in, or it could be something as far out as something like the, like the Oort cloud.


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[Assistant] So if you, if the sun, right, you know, we see these things being ejected, but even in unseen ways, or unseen particles, super high energy electrons,


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[Assistant] kilometers per second and on earth we're protected from these


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[Assistant] Uh, highly energetic particles because of our magnetic b- because of Earth's magnetic field. But if you're on the surface of the moon when the sun is on top with- when you're not on the dark side of the moon,


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[Assistant] And you'll have direct contact with these, and as you can imagine, not the best thing to hang around in too long. But the whole reason why I'm even talking about these, these charged particles that are coming out at huge velocities from the surface of the sun, these are considered the solar wind. These are the solar, solar wind, and I'll put wind


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[Assistant] It's really very different than our traditional association of a nice breeze.


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[Assistant] So to some degree, they can help us, they can help us with one definition of maybe the limits of the solar system. And that's the limits of how far the solar wind is getting before it kind of comes in confrontation with the, the interstellar medium. And this right here.


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[Assistant] This right here shows a depiction of that. So the Oort cloud, it was way, at least the edges of the dense part of it is way outside of this. This is, as we saw, this is just where Voyager 1, Voyager 2. If we wanted the orbit of Sedna, it would be something, it would be something like...


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[Assistant] Heliopause right here, and I got this from Wikipedia. This is essentially where the, the, the, the velocity and the forces of the solar wind are counteracted.


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[Assistant] The pressure is so diluted at this point that it's counteracted by mainly the hydrogen and the helium that's in the interstellar, interstellar kind of medium that's just kind of out there.


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[Assistant] You know, after this point, it's not really being injected out anymore. It's kind of being, it's, there's this kind of pause, I guess you could say. And Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have essentially gotten pretty close to, people believe, that, that pause over there. So that's one view of Voyager 1.


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[Assistant] The edges of the solar system. There's never going to be any hard edge to it. Another view would be something like the Oort cloud, you know, the area where you have the, uhm, still objects out there. And this is all, actually, we haven't directly observed objects in the Oort cloud. We think that they're out there.


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[Assistant] And then maybe the most abstract definition would be a significant influence from the sun's gravitational pull. So all of those ways are to imagine the extent of the solar system, but they all kind of leave a gray area for what is and what is not in the solar system.


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[Assistant] But my whole point here, what I want to do is start exploring a little bit outside of the solar system and just give you a sense of the scale as we just go to the closest star. So if we go...


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[Assistant] If we go right over here, this shows our, our local neighborhood from a stellar point of view. And even though these stars look pretty big, if you actually were to draw this,


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[Assistant] This is our, this is our solar system right here. But clearly, and you know, you might be saying, oh maybe that's the sun. No, the sun, if you were to draw it here, it wouldn't even make up one pixel. In fact, the entire orbit


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[Assistant] Pluto, everything inside of it still would not make up one pixel on the screen right here. This, what we see right here, what we see right here, which is a radius, it's roughly


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[Assistant] It's roughly a radius of about, of about give or take a light year. This is roughly maybe the radius of the Oort cloud.


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[Assistant] The ORT cloud. And we saw in the last video how huge that was, especially relative, especially relative to


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[Assistant] Especially relative to the radius of, say, Pluto's orbit, which is roughly like that. And that itself is a huge, huge diameter or a huge distance away from the sun. And that wouldn't even make a pixel. That wouldn't even make a pixel on this diagram right over here.


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[Assistant] But just to give you an idea, just to give you an idea of how far we are. So, you know, we're a speck of a speck of a speck inside here of a pixel of a pixel in the center of here to make it.


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[Assistant] From our solar system, or in particular from Earth maybe, to the nearest star.


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[Assistant] To the nearest, or maybe the nearest cluster of stars, the Alpha Centauri, they're the, they're the, uh, the nearest cluster of stars. There's three stars, Alpha Centauri A, which is the largest, Alpha Centauri B, and then there's one that you can't observe with the naked eye, Alpha Proximus, or I think it's Proximus


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[Assistant] Centauri, I think is what it's called, not Alpha Proximus. Proximus Centauri. But that's a much smaller star.


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[Assistant] But that's the closest star, and it's about, and this whole, what you can do is this whole, this whole cluster of stars right here, and they're the closest, is about 4.2 light years.


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[Assistant] Light years away. Or another way to think about it, if someone were to shine a light on one of these planets and assuming that light could get to us, it would take 4.2 years to get to us. Or if these guys just disappeared or blew up, we wouldn't know it for


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[Assistant] 4.2 years. You might say, hey, that's not too bad. We should take a trip over there and check them out, see if there are any other people there that we can meet and exchange technologies with or whatnot.


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[Assistant] But this is a huge distance. Just this 4.2 light-years is an unbelievably ridiculous distance. And just to give you a sense, the Voyager 1 and 2 we talked about in the last video, and we can even see how far they've gotten. They've gotten pretty much to the heliopause.


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[Assistant] These guys are traveling at 60,000 kilometers, 60,000 kilometers an hour.


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[Assistant] 60,000 kilometers an hour, which is the same thing as 17 kilometers per second. 17 kilometers per second.


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[Assistant] If we were able to get up to those types of velocities, and these guys got up to those types of velocities by leveraging the gravitational pull of some of the larger planets to accelerate and keep accelerating. So this is a pretty hard velocity to actually reach. But if you were able to reach that velocity and go straight in the direction,


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[Assistant] Years traveling at the same velocity as Voyager 1, which is the fastest of the Voyagers. So it's a ridiculously long time. So it's going to be, we're going to have to figure out some better way to do that.


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[Assistant] It's a bridge that brings a good balance between being a steady bridge and being a bouncing bridge.


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[Assistant] The decision by a young king who arrives at a new country and who decides to get involved with this country, it's issues, it's history, it's cultural DNA.


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 14, A Promise to Protect.


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[Assistant] And saw a moss-covered monkey peering out at him.


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[Assistant] Wukong gasped. You're the Tang Monk! He cried.


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[Assistant] The Tang monk took a step back. Was this strange monkey telling the truth?


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[Assistant] The Tang monk relaxed. He looked at the rocks.


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[Assistant] He pushed aside shrubs and brambles and pulled himself over large boulders.


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[Assistant] The paper floated up and then disappeared among the clouds. The monk hurried back down the mountain.


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[Assistant] Said Wukong. The monk took another step back.


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[Assistant] Wukong grabbed the Tang Monk's hands.


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[Assistant] The Tang monk rode the horse as Wukong walked. The monkey told the monk about himself.


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[Assistant] He quickly changed into a tiger. The Tang Monk Goat.


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[Assistant] Wukong changed into a snake, a vulture, and then back into himself.


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[Assistant] The monkey's body grew so big that his head reached the clouds.


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[Assistant] He changed back to his normal size His iron bar appeared from his ear


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 15, Tea with a Dragon.


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[Assistant] Said one of them. Wukong laughed too.


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[Assistant] But you should be scared of me anyway.


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[Assistant] His iron bar grew, and his eyes flashed red with anger.


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[Assistant] The monkey is a spirit, cried one man. Run, cried another. The robbers tripped over one another, trying to get away.


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[Assistant] Wukong raised the iron bar, ready to strike.


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[Assistant] The Tang monk sighed and then continued his journey.


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[Assistant] Cried the Tang Monk. He got down from his horse and vowed.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Wukong sat in the palace of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. He and the Dragon King were drinking tea.


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[Assistant] Wukong folded his arms and looked at the ground. The Dragon King continued.


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[Assistant] Chapter 16, Wukong gets tricked.


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[Assistant] Wukan looked at the Dragon King and sighed.


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[Assistant] Asked Wukong. The monk nodded. Wukong put the headband on.


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[Assistant] Wukong pulled at the headband, but it wouldn't come off. It stuck! cried the monkey. He stamped his foot.


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[Assistant] Wukong pulled out his iron bar and lunged at the Tang monk.


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[Assistant] The monkey waited until the Tang monk had turned his back. Again, he raised the iron bar. But the Tang monk saw Wukong's shadow.


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[Assistant] Cried Wukong once again falling to the ground.


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[Assistant] The Tang monk looked furious as he recited the spell. Wukong's head pounded.


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[Assistant] The two traveled for a few more weeks. They arrived at a wide river.


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 17, The Dragon in the River.


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[Assistant] The dragon spun around, blocking the bar with his tail. Then with a splash, he dived back underwater. Wukong stomped his foot and yelled at the river.


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[Assistant] Ask the Tang monk. Wukong thought for a moment.


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[Assistant] Soon he came to Mount Podolaka in the South Sea. Guan Yin was in a garden next to her pagoda.


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 7, The Land of Darkness.


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[Assistant] Commanded Wukong. The pillar shrank. Soon it was just a little taller than Wukong.


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[Assistant] I can't believe he can lift it, said the dragon queen. Wukong made the bar even smaller. Soon it was no bigger than a pin. He placed it inside his ear.


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[Assistant] He was very rude, said the dragon queen. The dragon king clenched his fists.


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[Assistant] They held a big feast that lasted until late at night.


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[Assistant] But as he fell asleep, two spirits grabbed him.


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[Assistant] He kicked and struggled as the spirits dragged him out of his cave. They walked toward a dark and creepy city.


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[Assistant] A sign on the entrance gate said, Land of Darkness.


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[Assistant] As he went, he swung his iron bar back and forth. Demons and ghosts fled.


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[Assistant] A tall spirit stepped out of the palace.


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[Assistant] The spirit asked. Who are you? Asked Wukong.


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[Assistant] Nonsense, yelled Wukong. I'm going to live forever. The judge looked nervous.


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[Assistant] Inside the palace, the judge opened a large book.


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[Assistant] He asked. Wukong told him. The judge flipped through the pages.


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[Assistant] Wukong raised his iron bar and glared at the judge.


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[Assistant] Said Wukong. Shaking, the judge handed the book to Wukong.


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[Assistant] Wukong plucked two of his hairs and blew on them. They turned into a brush and a jar of ink. He drew a line through his name.


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[Assistant] Said the judge. Yes, I can. Said Wukong.


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[Assistant] Next, Wukong found the names of all the other monkeys and apes.


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 8, A Job in Heaven.


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[Assistant] The jade emperor was sitting on his throne in the cloud palace. A messenger ran into the court.


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[Assistant] Said the emperor. The dragon king entered and bowed.


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[Assistant] Wukong was telling his subjects about his adventure in the land of darkness.


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[Assistant] Wukong noticed a spirit standing nearby. He pulled out his iron bar.


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[Assistant] When Wukong entered the royal court in the Cloud Palace, he didn't bow.


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[Assistant] Not everyone but the Jade Emperor gasped. Wukong looked at the Emperor.


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[Assistant] Show some respect, said Venus. The Jade Emperor looked at Venus and smiled.


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[Assistant] The next morning, a gardener showed Wukong the peach garden.


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[Assistant] Bright glowing peaches hung from every branch.


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[Assistant] Each morning, Wukong inspected the trees in the garden. He took his job very seriously.


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[Assistant] Wukong thought one day. He looked around. None of the gardeners were in sight.


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 9, The Peach Garden.


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[Assistant] Wukong plucked a peach from a branch and bit into it.


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[Assistant] Each morning after that, Wukong secretly ate more and more peaches.


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[Assistant] After eating, he climbed into a tree and took a nap.


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[Assistant] Time went by, and Wukong enjoyed his life in heaven. Meanwhile, the queen of heaven was busy.


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[Assistant] It was almost time for the annual Peach Festival.


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[Assistant] She called for her maidens. Red gown and blue gown.


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[Assistant] Where are all the peaches? Cried Red Gown. They're gone! Cried Blue Gown. This is terrible! Said Red Gown. The Queen will be angry! Wukong had been sleeping up on a branch. When he heard the maidens, he woke up.


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[Assistant] Oh, it's a wonderful festival, said Bluegown.


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[Assistant] Said Wukong. He quickly set a spell. Instantly red gown and blue gown fell asleep.


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[Assistant] Wukong looked at all the empty peach trees. He shook his head.


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[Assistant] When Red Gown and Blue Gown woke up, they ran back to the Cloud Palace.


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[Assistant] Cried the emperor. He turned to his captain.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the Bodhisattva Guanyin left her home on Mount Podolatka in the South Sea. She soon arrived at the Cloud Palace.


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[Assistant] Just then, a messenger ran into the court.


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[Assistant] said the messenger the jade emperor put his head in his hands


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[Assistant] Now I really will live forever, said Wukong. And so will all of my subjects!


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[Assistant] I crossed out all of your names too! We will all live forever!


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[Assistant] I'm just as powerful as he is. Maybe he should bow before me.


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[Assistant] I guess you finally realized I should be living up here with all of you.


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[Assistant] That sounds like fun, said Wukong. I'm sure I'm invited, right?


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[Assistant] Wukong was furious. The queen did not invite me. I'm just as important as any other spirit or god.


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[Assistant] I ate every single one, and they were delicious.


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[Assistant] Cranberries. Written by Anthony Curran. Focus question. What makes cranberries an interesting fruit?


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[Assistant] Cranberries are fruits. They grow slowly.


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[Assistant] How are cranberries and that fruit alike?


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[Assistant] Share your ideas with a partner.


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[Assistant] Can you buy some milk on your way home? We ran out last night.


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[Assistant] You better go to the doctor before that cold gets any worse.


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[Assistant] It's when the fruit is ripe and we harvest it, and of course we have to ferment it very quickly, so it's a time when all hands are on deck.


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[Assistant] Nonsense, said Wukong. You never have to fear any wild animals. You have three powerful companions.


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[Assistant] I've never heard of him. I doubt he's very powerful.


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[Assistant] I used to live in heaven. The place isn't that great.


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[Assistant] A woman in Mauritania has been convicted of keeping two girls in slave-like conditions in a rare successful prosecution against the practice. The woman, a bank employee, was sentenced to six months in prison.


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[Assistant] The mothers of the two girls aged 10 and 14 were given six months suspended sentences. The court said the mothers had exploited their children by handing them over to the woman.


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[Assistant] The United Nations is appealing for millions of dollars in emergency aid for Sri Lanka to compensate those who've been affected by the floods and to help them replant their crops.


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[Assistant] More than 300,000 people in eastern and central Sri Lanka have been displaced. A UN official said clean drinking water was a major problem as tens of thousands of wells have been contaminated. News item 83.


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[Assistant] A woman in Mauritania has been convicted of keeping two girls in slave-like conditions in a rare, successful prosecution against the practice.


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[Assistant] The woman, a bank employee, was sentenced to six months in prison. The mothers of the two girls, aged 10 and 14, were given six months suspended sentences. The court said the mothers had exploited their children by handing them over to the woman.


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[Assistant] The United Nations is appealing for millions of dollars in emergency aid for Sri Lanka to compensate those who've been affected by the floods and to help them replant their crops.


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[Assistant] More than 300,000 people in Eastern and Central Sri Lanka have been displaced. A UN official said clean drinking water was a major problem as tens of thousands of wells have been contaminated.


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[Assistant] And unique traditions collide with modern engineering and nature's extremes to create a landscape like nowhere else in Europe.


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[Assistant] In this series, we'll take an aerial tour across Europe, seeing its sights from a brand new perspective. Filmed from above over the course of a single year, as the landscape transforms through the changing seasons, we will uncover the culture, history, and engineering that built the great European nations we see today.


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[Assistant] Iceland sits in the cold North Atlantic Ocean, with Norway to the east and above it the Arctic Circle. This remote island is the second largest in Europe, famed for its volcanoes and glaciers.


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[Assistant] Iceland's landscape is unlike anything else in Europe.


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[Assistant] The cold north is shaped by deep fjords just kilometers from the Arctic Circle.


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[Assistant] And the southwest is home to the nation's capital and largest city Reykjavik.


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[Assistant] A white blanket gradually covers the peaks and valleys.


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[Assistant] In winter, Iceland descends into a big freeze.


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[Assistant] Small towns like Siklafjordur in the north can be cut off by deep snow.


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[Assistant] And the remote Westman Isles experience some of the strongest winds in the country.


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[Assistant] But in winter, the volcanic cliffs are deserted as they take to the seas.


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[Assistant] But not all wildlife disappears during these dark months.


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[Assistant] Iceland's northwest is home to a rugged peninsula called the Westfjords.


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[Assistant] It's shaped by countless fjords, and the biggest of these is the Isafière d'Adupe. This 75 kilometer long fjord is surrounded by low mountains, which create the perfect sheltered habitat for an animal that's most easily spotted from the air.


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[Assistant] This fjord is one of the best locations in Europe to study humpback whales.


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[Assistant] Edda Magnusdottir is trying to get to the bottom of a surprising mystery. In the past,


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[Assistant] More and more of them are staying right through the winter and forgoing their normal migration towards tropical waters.


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[Assistant] Finally, Edda spots some telltale bubbles.


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[Assistant] From above, the animals dwarf Edda's boat.


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[Assistant] The Humpbacks can weigh up to 36,000 kilograms and grow to lengths of 16 meters, longer than a fighter jet.


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[Assistant] The humpbacks are hunting. They're using a technique called bubble net fishing.


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[Assistant] From high above the whales, it's possible to see how they collectively blow streams of bubbles to create a net of air that corrals small fish together. Then they surge up with their mouths gaping, swallowing hundreds in a single gulp.


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[Assistant] And then takes her chance to fit a sophisticated tagging device to one of the humpbacks.


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[Assistant] This will track and record the whale's behavior under the waves.


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[Assistant] It's a tricky maneuver, which often ends in failure.


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[Assistant] Today, they're lucky, and they quickly plant the tracker.


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[Assistant] It's early days, but Edda's research is already bearing fruit.


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[Assistant] Could be one reason why the whales no longer need to travel south. To sustain themselves over the cold winter.


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[Assistant] It hits cold Arctic air from the North Atlantic Ocean, creating a thick cloud above the country.


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[Assistant] And with only four hours of light during the shortest days, winters here are dark.


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[Assistant] Whilst most Icelanders stay to brave the cold, some now spend winter abroad.


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[Assistant] Iceland has multiple air links to North America and Europe. Its mid-Atlantic position


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[Assistant] Also makes it the perfect spot for transatlantic flights to divert to if they get into trouble.


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[Assistant] For both emergency landings and scheduled flights.


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[Assistant] Around 64,000 aircraft land here each year.


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[Assistant] In winter, this requires an army of giant snowplows.


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[Assistant] Our flying cameras will witness this remarkable operation as it's never been seen before.


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[Assistant] Snow King, Sigi Magnusson, is responsible for making sure planes can land at a moment's notice.


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[Assistant] Three centimeters of snow have fallen overnight, turning the runways into a giant ice rink. And the first scheduled flight of the day is just 30 minutes away.


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[Assistant] It's Iceland's largest and most important transport hub.


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[Assistant] Over 50,000 tonnes of international cargo.


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[Assistant] And almost 10 million passengers pass through here every year.


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[Assistant] The snow-covered runway Sigi has to clear is three kilometres long. With the clock ticking,


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[Assistant] He chooses not one, but nine state-of-the-art snowplows.


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[Assistant] He must now carefully coordinate these mega machines to clear a 45 meter wide section of the runway in one perfectly choreographed sweep.


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[Assistant] These 20 meter long machines are fitted with wide plows that clear the bulk of the snow.


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[Assistant] Scrapers behind the wheels remove ice from the runway.


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[Assistant] And brushes spinning at 750 revolutions per minute sweep away whatever's left.


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[Assistant] A powerful blower finally leaves the tarmac pristine.


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[Assistant] Sigi conducts the army of machines in a graceful glide across the runway.


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[Assistant] From above, it's an incredible sight as the team drives in perfect alignment.


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[Assistant] Making sure they get back into formation after every turn to clear the runway as efficiently as possible.


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[Assistant] With the runway clear, Sigi must now inspect the entire length of the tarmac to make sure it's safe for the incoming flight.


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[Assistant] He gathers vital braking information for the pilots.


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[Assistant] Using a special machine, he pulls behind his truck at high speed. And relays the data back to air traffic control.


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[Assistant] With Sigi happy the runway is safe, his team finishes clearing the terminal gates.


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[Assistant] As daylight hours slowly lengthen Iceland emerges from its frozen slumber and undergoes a transformation. Snow melts.


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[Assistant] And lupins burst open, covering the lowlands with purple flowers, marking the arrival of spring.


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[Assistant] Spring reveals a landscape heavily scarred by powerful geological forces. There's more volcanic activity in Iceland than any other country in Europe.


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[Assistant] With a major volcanic event on average every five years.


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[Assistant] In 2010, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull threw tons of fine ash into the air, disrupting international flights for weeks.


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[Assistant] And today, there are warning signs that another eruption is imminent.


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[Assistant] The Reykjanes Peninsula on Iceland's southern tip has experienced 50,000 earthquakes in the last three weeks.


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[Assistant] It's a sign that a new volcano may be about to appear.


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[Assistant] The epicenter doesn't appear to threaten the towns which dot this coastline. But there's something else important here that could be destroyed.


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[Assistant] Across the Reikines Peninsula, archaeologists have discovered the faint remains of dwellings.


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[Assistant] Some even date back to the first Viking settlers to come to Iceland in the 9th century.


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[Assistant] Many of these ruins can only be detected from above by hunting for telltale patches in the landscape.


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[Assistant] If the volcano erupts here, these vital historical sites will be lost forever.


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[Assistant] Archaeologist, Sol Run Inga, Troistagotir.


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[Assistant] ...is racing to record the settlements using drones before the next eruption strikes.


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[Assistant] Geologists don't know exactly where the next eruption could occur.


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[Assistant] But they believe fishers could be just days away from opening, spewing lava from the ground


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[Assistant] This could be Sol Rune's last chance to survey these sites before they disappear forever.


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[Assistant] This site, at Flekuvik, has an early 18th century shepherd's hut, or shilling.


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[Assistant] Today it's no more than scattered stone foundations. But in its heyday, these small structures were topped with turf.


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[Assistant] Over the course of five days, Sol Rune and her team managed to map 233 archaeological features under threat from the eruption.


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[Assistant] But then reports of new activity reaches them, forcing them to evacuate the area.


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[Assistant] The following evening, only 10 kilometers from Solrun's work site.


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[Assistant] The Fissure measures more than 200 meters long and covers a square kilometer.