Podcast 192 The Breath of the Mosquito (Part 2) B1 story

Practising English

Send us a Text Message.

Introduction to part 2 of The Breath of the Mosquito
Emil Zimmermann, professor of astrophysics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University sat back in his leather chair and studied the colourful feather, he was holding in his hand, through his thick glasses.

‘Incredible!’ he said. ‘You say it comes from an extinct* type of bird, don’t you?’

Mathew was sitting the other side of Emil’s huge wooden desk, covered in piles of papers.

‘That’s what we believe, yes, Emil. It came from a bird called Geranopterus alatus, we have found them as fossils from the Eocene period. It stood about thirty centimetres high, so it was quite a large bird. If it was still flying about the county of Oxfordshire, somebody would have seen it.’
Here are some of the "space" words that you will hear in the story:
‘Yes, of course. That’s true, but it’s not exactly what I meant,’ Emil continued. ‘Our Earth, the sun, and all the planets in our solar system are moving through space, as we go round or orbit the centre of our galaxy. In fact, the Earth and sun are moving at 720 thousand kilometres per hour in their galaxy orbit. But, we then also have to consider the speed of the complete galaxy. All the galaxies are moving through the universe at enormous speeds. In 4 billion years from now, we will crash into Andromeda, our nearest neighbour galaxy.’

‘That’s amazing,’ said Mathew. ‘But, what are you trying to say?’

‘This means that if you travelled back in time on Earth 33 million years and lived to tell the story afterwards, you must also travel back to where the Earth was situated 33 million years ago.’

Emil looked hard at Mathew. ‘Earth, Mathew, was many, many light years away from where it is now 33 million years ago!’ said Emil loudly. ‘A time traveller must also be a space traveller, an astronaut!'
I'll also talk about the use of Question Tags.
You can listen to how they are used, and why we use them.
There are also some exercises on Question Tags at my website: https://www.practisingenglish.com/english-grammar-exercises/question-tags_2.htm
Answer to the question - What does the professor of astrophysics say about the breath of the mosquito?
Here is the extract from the story which explains this theory:
'If… if something went back in time and existed in the past, something or somebody who was not there before, he/she/it would change time in the present. Things would not be the same when he or she returned. It would take just a moment, the tiniest movement in the past would have the effect like a stone thrown into a pond. The circles of effect would move out, growing and growing for ever and changing the world as they go.’
‘But, Emil,’ interrupted his friend. ‘I was only there for a minute or so.’
‘Mathew, a minute is a long, long time. Listen to me, even the breath of a mosquito 33 million years ago would change the world and events in history as we know them today. Just one breath of a mosquito.

At https://www.practisingenglish.com/ I offer learners of intermediate-level English, grammar help and exercises and other English learning pages.
https://www.practisingenglish.com/
My latest novel for learners of B2 English is called The Tudor Conspiracy. You can see it on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/33Axu2N
https://amzn.to/33Axu2N
Be back soon with another podcast!
Mike Bilbrough (Secondary school English teacher and Doctor in English philology)

Chapters

1. Story starts here... (00:08:38)