Hello and welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Anna Mateo.

And I'm Brian Lynn.

This program is aimed at English learners, so we speak slowly, and we use words and phrases,

especially written for people learning English.

Today on the show, Anna Mateo brings us words and their stories.

Katie Weaver has a story on proposals in California to protect the state's famous Joshua trees.

And we end with a new lesson of the day. This time, Andrew Smith and

Joe Robbins talk about a grammatical structure in English known as reported speech.

But first, a new study suggests that Venus likely never had water flowing on its surface.

The research was based on data related to the chemical makeup of the planet's atmosphere.

Scientists have long considered whether Venus once held liquid water,

even possibly large oceans.

Such research was based on the fact that Venus is like our own planet in many ways.

It is a rocky planet similar in structure and size to Earth, and is also our closest planetary neighbor.

But the latest study provides evidence that Venus has likely always

been the hot, extremely dry planet it remains today. Researchers from Britain's University of

Cambridge led the study.

It recently appeared in the publication Nature Astronomy.

The researchers' data examinations led them to conclude that both the surface and interior of Venus remain dry.

The team said the strongest evidence that Venus once had large amounts of water

would be the discovery of some water inside the planet today.

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