Words to watch for

The words (or rather terms) to watch for in the next coming years are:

• Gravitational Lensing: I’ve mentioned this topic before, and trust me, it’s the most discussed topic in my neighbourhood. Better yet, every morning, I wake up to the tune of the Gravitational Lensing-nettes. On the serious side, gravity appears to be one of the most successful methods to detect exoplanets: Just recently, astronomers found the first ever mirror solar system using this technique.
• Synchrotron: The first time I read about this machine was on April the first and that, sir, is no joke (Slashdot thread). Actually, I’ve been planning to build one of those things in my backyard (what backyard, muhahaha), but like all things “cirque scientifique”¹, these things just take time to build. That being said: A synchrotron is literally a particle accelerator that (in the end) produces high-intensity X-rays. I mention this word here, because, just today, thanks to the synchrotron, we’ve finally found the very first snake with legs.

In any case, if you were thinking about starting a barbershop quartet or something, I hear that the name “The Synchrotronnettes” is still available. That is, if you can actually pronounce it flawlessly.