VOCABULARY

* Below are 82 words and phrases to help expand your vocabulary. You can also find this list at the end of the PDF text.

• abduction (noun): the action of taking someone away by force or deception.
• AI (noun): Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
• analogy (noun): a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
• backward (adjective): looking toward the past, rather than being progressive; retrograde.
• beyond (noun): unknown, further than our current understanding.
• bioweapon (noun): Biological and toxin weapons are either microorganisms like virus, bacteria or fungi, or toxic substances produced by living organisms that are produced and released deliberately to cause disease and death in humans, animals or plants.
• blame (verb): assign responsibility for a fault or wrong.
• bother (verb): take the trouble to do something.
• broadcast (verb): transmit (a program or some information) by radio or television.
• bunch (noun): a number of things, typically of the same kind, together.
• Carl Sagan (person): was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science populariser, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences.
• colonisation (noun): the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.
• comprehensible input (noun): language input (such as listening or reading) that can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures in it.
• conspiracy theory (noun): a belief that some secret but influential organization is responsible for an event or phenomenon.
• countryside (noun): the land and scenery of a rural area.
• crafty (adjective): clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods.
• creature (noun): an animal or person.
• culinary (adjective): of or for cooking.
• deep (adjective): profound or penetrating in awareness or understanding.
• déjà vu (noun): a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.
• dense (adjective): hard to understand because of its complexity of ideas.
• desolate (adjective): (of a place) deserted of people and in a state of bleak and dismal emptiness.
• frat boy (informal noun): a young man who behaves in a boisterous or foolish manner considered typical of members of some college fraternities.
• gamma-ray burst (noun): (GRB) is a flash of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the brightest electromagnetic events known to occur in the Universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several hours.
• geek (noun): a person who is knowledgeable about and obsessively interested in a particular subject, especially one that is technical or of specialist or niche interest.
• hard to beat (phrase): to take some considerable effort to match or surpass. 
• harness (verb): control and make use of (natural resources), especially to produce energy.
• hence (adverb): as a consequence; for this reason.
• hiking (noun): the activity of going for long walks, especially in the country or woods.
• hilariously (adverb): in an extremely amusing way.
• hoax (noun): a humorous or malicious deception.
• hypothesis (noun): a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
• I didn't catch that (idiom): I didn't hear that. 
• incompetent (adjective): not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.
• Inverse-square law (noun): a law stating that the intensity of an effect such as illumination or gravitational force changes in inverse proportion to the square of the distance from the source.
• it's on the horizon (idiom): coming in the near future
• light-year (noun): a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 10 12 km (nearly 6 trillion miles.
• lonely (adjective): sad because one has no friends or company.
• manoeuvre (noun): a movement or series of moves requiring skill and care.
• Metaverse (noun): a spatial computing platform that provides digital experiences as an alternative to or a replica of the real world, along with key civilizational aspects like social interactions, currency, trade, economy, and property ownership – founded on a bedrock of blockchain technology.
• mother tongue (noun): the language which a person has grown up speaking from early childhood.
• necessity (noun): the fact of being required or indispensable.
• never mind (phrase of mind): used in refusing to answer a question. Also used to urge someone not to feel anxiety or distress.
• orifice (noun): an opening, as of a pipe or tube, or one in the body, such as a nostril or the anus.
• paradox (noun): seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
• plausible (adjective): (of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable. 
• playground (noun): an outdoor area provided for children to play in, especially at a school or public park.
• prank (noun): a practical joke or mischievous act.
• predator (noun): an animal that lives by killing and eating other animals
• Prime Directive (noun): In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive is a guiding principle of Starfleet that prohibits its members from interfering with the natural development of alien civilizations.
• primitive (adjective): relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
• probe (verb): physically explore or examine (something) with the hands or an instrument.
• propaganda (noun): information, especially of a biassed or misleading nature, used to promote or publicise a particular political cause or point of view.
• rank (verb): give (someone or something) a rank or place within a grading system.
• reckon (informal verb): be of the opinion.
• ripe (adjective): arrived at the fitting stage or time for (a particular action or purpose).
• roughly (adverb): approximately
• rural (adjective): in, relating to, or characteristic of the countryside rather than the town.
• safari (noun): an expedition to observe or hunt animals in their natural habitat, especially in East Africa.
• scary (adjective): frightening; causing fear.
• scenario (noun): a postulated sequence or development of events.
• sentient (adjective): able to perceive or feel things.
• silly (adjective): having or showing a lack of common sense or judgement; absurd and foolish.
• simulation (noun): the production of a computer model of something, especially for the purpose of study.
• slap (noun): a blow with the palm of the hand or a flat object.
• spiral (noun): a spiral curve, shape, or pattern.
• spread out (phrasal verb): to open, arrange, or place (something) over a large area. 
• stint (noun): a period of time spent doing a particular activity. 
• strange (adjective): unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand.
• suburb (noun): an outlying district of a city, especially a residential one.
• superhighway (noun): an expressway. A very big road system.  
• The Fermi Paradox (noun) (term): is the contradiction between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life compared to the apparently high probability of its existence. 
• The Great Filter (noun) (term): is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox. It suggests that in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there exists some particular barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy (noun) (book): is a book series of a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams.
• The Kardashev Scale (noun) (term): is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use.
• The Milky Way (noun): a faint band of light crossing the sky, made up of vast numbers of faint stars. It corresponds to the plane of our Galaxy, in which most of its stars are located.
• thoroughly (adverb): in a thorough manner. rigorously, in depth, exhaustively
• tight (adjective): (of a formation or a group of people or things) closely or densely packed together.
• UFO (noun): a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.
• uneventful (adjective): not marked by interesting or exciting events.
• vast (adjective): of very great extent or quantity; immense.
• weird (adjective): suggesting something supernatural; uncanny. Or very strange; bizarre.