Yeah, I Call Bullshit. 🐂💩 The Lions 🦁 Were Always Gay.

Australia bought some of these.

106 inch telescope on board aircraft

We Found the Universe’s First Type of Molecule

For decades, astronomers searched the cosmos for what is thought to be the first kind of molecule to have formed after the Big Bang. Now, it has finally been found. The molecule is called helium hydride. It’s made of a combination of hydrogen and helium. Astronomers think the molecule appeared more than 13 billion years ago and was the beginning step in the evolution of the universe. Only a few kinds of atoms existed when the universe was very young. Over time, the universe transformed from a primordial soup of simple molecules to the complex place it is today — filled with a seemingly infinite number of planets, stars and galaxies. Using SOFIA, the world’s largest airborne observatory, scientists observed newly formed helium hydride in a planetary nebula 3,000 light-years away. It was the first ever detection of the molecule in the modern universe. Learn more about the discovery:

Helium hydride is created when hydrogen and helium combine. 

Since the 1970s, scientists thought planetary nebula NGC 7027—a giant cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus—had the right environment for helium hydride to exist. 

But space telescopes could not pick out its chemical signal from a medley of molecules. 

Enter SOFIA, the world’s largest flying observatory! 

By pointing the aircraft’s 106-inch telescope at the planetary nebula and using a tool that works like a radio receiver to tune in to the “frequency” of helium hydride, similar to tuning a radio to a favorite station…

…the molecule’s chemical signal came through loud and clear, bringing a decades-long search to a happy end.

The discovery serves as proof that helium hydride can, in fact, exist in space. This confirms a key part of our basic understanding of the chemistry of the early universe, and how it evolved into today’s complexity. SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that allows astronomers to study the solar system and beyond in ways that are not possible with ground-based telescopes. Find out more about the mission at www.nasa.gov/SOFIA

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Question everything

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The way he looks is freaky. 👹

Beautiful view of the night sky. ✨

Smelled nice. ⚘ Yes. ❤

This is why foreigners find English so hard to learn properly.

Adjectives postpositive

If you heard your friend say, “Last night I ate a dinner delicious,” you would probably find that sentence a little odd. That’s because the adjective delicious is placed postpositively, meaning after the noun that it modifies. In English, the general rule is for adjectives to be prepositive, or placed before the nouns they modify. We say, “I had a good time,” and not “I had a time good.” But as is often the case in English grammar, there are plenty of exceptions to the rule.

One notable area of exception is in terms borrowed from Romance languages, where postpositive adjectives are common. We say professor emeritus, musician extraordinaire, steak flambé, chicken cacciatore, and pasta puttanesca.

Certain phrases in English that have become accepted as a unit feature postpositive adjectives, such as solicitor general and notary public. Compound nouns such as these typically pluralize by adding the plural ending to the base noun, not the adjective. That’s how we get solicitors general and notaries public.

English pronouns also tend to take adjectives postpositively. The box contained nothing useful. They wanted to see something beautiful.

Breaking the usual adjective/noun structure is sometimes done in poetry to aid meter or rhyme or for stylistic reasons. Think of the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, in which he writes, “What happens to a dream deferred?” What a difference it would make to say, “What happens to a deferred dream?”

In the American Heritage Dictionary, if an adjective is commonly used postpositively, we typically show that by including illustrations or quotations after the definition.

Thank you for visiting the American Heritage Dictionary at ahdictionary.com!  

Hyperloop revealed: Elon Musk foresees rapid transit in a tube

(Image via Tesla Motors)

Electromagnetic acceleration: That’s the high technology behind the high-speed transit concept that billionaire Elon Musk calls the Hyperloop.

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LA to San Francisco in 35 minutes for less than a plane ticket. Would you use it?