Yes, we see you.

Reader's Digest 12/1月合併号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' から引用します。
An Englishman, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a German are watching a street performer.
The performer suddenly realizes that these maen have a poor view, so he gets on a small platform. "Can you all see me now?" he asks them.
They respond: "Yes." "Qui." "Si." "Ja."

spectroscope

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkinsを読んでいます。
When and how did every thing begin?の章は世界の始まりについての説明でした。ビッグバンが世界の始まりだという事は聞いたことがありますが、これまで、何故そんな事が分かったのか、どれ程その説に信憑性があるのか全く知りませんでしたが、 Richard Dawkinsの説明は非常に分かり易く、納得しました。
Dawkinsは前章の虹の話に関連する "spectroscope" から始め、そして "Doppler effect" を説明し、それで "big bang" の発生に至ることを丁寧に説明します。抜粋して引用します。
I was once asked to contribute a chapter to a book in which scientists were invited to nominate the most important invention ever.
...
I chose the spectroscope.
...
A spectroscope is a rainbow machine. If it is attached to a telescope, it takes the light from one particular star or galaxy and spreads it out as a spectrum, just an Newton did with his prism. But it is more sophisticatated than Newton's prism, because it allows you to make exact measurements along the spread-out spectrum of starlight.
そして "Doppler effect" により次のことが分かります。
All the galaxies in the universe are rushing away from each other, which means that they are rushing away from us too. It doesn't matter which direction you point your telescope in, the more distant galaxies are moving away from us (and from one another) at ever-increasing speed. The entire universe -- space itself -- is expanding at a colossal rate.

宇宙は広がっている事が観測されたのですが、これをさかのぼると、ビッグバンにたどり着くことになるのです。
Backwards to the big bang
...
That's how they know it was somewhere between 13 and 14 billion years ago. That was the moment when the universe itself began -- the moment called the 'big bang'.
抜粋なのでこれでは良く分からないという方は、是非オリジナルのThe Magic of Realityを読むことをお薦めします。

ant lion / booby trap

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkinsを読んでいます。
Why do bad things happen?の章からの引用です。
A fearsome little insect called ant lion digs booby traps for its prey to fall into. The ant lion itself sits under the sand at the bottom of the conical pit that it digs, and seizes any ant that falls into the pit.
"ant lion" は初めて見る英語の昆虫名ですがどんな虫かは文を読めば分かります。子供の頃アリジゴクのすり鉢状の巣を神社の軒下で探すのが遊びの一つでした。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An insect that resembles a dragonfly, with predatory larvae that construct conical pits into which insect prey, especially ants, fall.: I was up to my waist, and as each wave receded I was being pushed forward, and the sand was being dragged from beneath me, in much the same way as an ant lion catches its prey.

アリジゴクの巣を "booby trap" と説明していますが、この表現も気になるので辞書を見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: A booby-trap is something such as a bomb which is hidden or disguised and which causes death or injury when it is touched.: Police were checking the area for booby traps.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: something dangerous, especially a bomb, that is hidden inside somewhere that looks safe: They put a bucket of water on top of his door as a booby trap.

Strip down facing me

Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'All in a Day's WORK' から引用します。
Hard to believe, but many of our customers at the bank still don't know how to swipe their card through the ATM card reader.
One teller complained that she kept getting odd looks every time she explained how it's done. I found out why when I overheard her tell one man, "Strip down facing me.
"
最近は磁気カードより電子カードの方が多くなったので　"swipe" の必要もなくなりましたね。

peopled by animals

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkinsを読んでいます。
Why do we have night and day, winter and summer?の章からの引用です。
The aboriginal people of Australia were isolate on their island continent for at least 40,000 years, and they have some of the oldest myths in the world. These are mostly set in a mysterious age called the Dreamtime, when the world began and was peopled by animals and a race of giant ancestors.
動詞の "people" を見るのは初めて、しかも "was peopled by animals" となっています。

早速辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (of a particular group of people) inhabit (an area or place): an arid mountain region peopled by warring clans

・Collins Dictionary: to provide with or as if with people or inhabitants:

・Cambridge English Dictionary: If a place is peopled by a particular type of people, they have moved there or live there: Honolulu is peopled by native Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, white Americans, and others.
なる程、しかも住んでいるのは人に限らない様です。人以外の例文を掲載している辞書もありました。
・Dictionary.com: to supply or stock as if with people: a meadow peopled with flowers

feldspar

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkinsを図書館から借りて読み始めました。
What are things made of?の章からの引用です。
The sand in sandstone is mostly made of quartz and feldspar, two common crystals in the Earth's crust.
"quartz" は石英または水晶だと分かりますが、"feldspar" は馴染みのない英単語なので辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: An abundant rock-forming mineral typically occurring as colorless or pale-colored crystals and consisting of aluminosilicates of potassium, sodium, and calcium.: Its most abundant mineral is feldspar, which accounts for two-thirds of the Earth's crust.
この手のものは写真がないと分かりずらいので、写真のあるWikipediaを見ます。

Compositional phase diagram of the different minerals that constitute the feldspar solid solution.
Feldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals that make up about 41% of the Earth's continental crust by weight.

Feldspars crystallize from magma as veins in both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks and are also present in many types of metamorphic rock. Rock formed almost entirely of calcic plagioclase feldspar is known as anorthosite. Feldspars are also found in many types of sedimentary rocks.
...
Feldspar is a common raw material used in glassmaking, ceramics, and to some extent as a filler and extender in paint, plastics, and rubber. In glassmaking, alumina from feldspar improves product hardness, durability, and resistance to chemical corrosion.

写真を見たい方はWikipediaの次のサイトを見て下さい。
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldspar

bill itself as

Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'The Nicest Places in America' からの抜粋です。
Trees connect many folks in this town of 1,700--Ellijay bills itself as the apple capital of Georgia. For the most part, the folks who pick the Granny Smiths, Fujis, and Honeycrisps are workers from Mexico and Central America.
"bills itself as the apple capital of Georgia" は文脈からすると、ジョージア州のリンゴの首都と称している、自賛しているの意味かなと思いますが辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: bill someone/something as) Describe someone or something in a particular, usually promotional, way, especially as a means of advertisement.: he was billed as “the new Sean Connery.”

・Collins Dictionary: If you bill a person or event as a particular thing, you advertise them in a way that makes people think they have particular qualities or abilities.: They bill it as Britain's most exciting museum.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to advertise something with a particular description; to describe someone in a particular way in order to advertise them or make them known: The movie was billed as a romantic comedy.
なるほど、宣伝臭が入るのですね。

Toilet button is on your back side

Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'The Funniest Jokes Since the Internet' から引用します。
SIGN LANGUAGE
Lost and Found in Translation
Thanks to the Internet, we know that Americans aren't the only ones mangling the English language. These translations, seen on flicker.com and new.3yen.com, need their own interpretations.
・本日二の丸庭園の滝が、工事に伴い水を流しておりません。
　何卒ご了承ください。
・TODAY IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING
・ボタンは裏側にあります。
・Toilet button is on your back side.
日本人なら分かる英語ですが、ネイティブには笑えるのでしょうね。

partial to

Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'The Nicest Places in America' から引用します。
You were also partial to a very different kind of place: North Evergreen, which is a street in the middle of Burbank, California. Why?
"partial" だと「一部/部分の」の意味しか連想できませんが、上記はその意味では通じません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Having a liking for.: you know I'm partial to bacon and eggs

・Collins Dictionary: If you are partial to something, you like it.: He's partial to sporty women with blue eyes.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: having a liking for something: I'm not partial to fish.
なるほど "partial" の一部の意味しか知りませんでしたね。

got carded/ring up

Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'Life in the United States' からの引用です。
The other day I got carded at the liquor store. While I was taking out my ID, my old Blockbuster card fell out. The clerk shook her head, said, "Never mind," and rang me up.
"got carded" の表現は知りませんでしたが文脈からして年齢を証明するＩＤの提示を求められていることは容易に分かります。Blockbuster cardはビデオ、DVD/CDなどのレンタルショップのカードですね。
分からないのが "rang me up" です。 "ring someone up/ring up someone" で誰かの電話を掛ける意味のはずですが、上記の場面では本人は目の前にいるので酒屋の店員が本人に電話するはずはありません。
辞書をみると次の用法・意味があるのが分かりました。

・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To allow a retail customer to check out (complete their purchase) by recording the item or items they are purchasing and tally the amount of money they owe. A noun or pronoun can be used between "ring" and "up." I'm sorry, I'm closing this register. My colleague can ring you up at the next one.

・Collins Dictionary: If a shop assistant rings up a sale on a cash register, he or she presses the keys in order to record the amount that is being spent.: She was ringing up her sale on an ancient cash register.