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The Merriam-Webster dictionary is serving up some new lewks—on its pages, that is.

The dictionary announced recently that it’s adding 370 words—including lewk—to its print and online dictionary. What makes a word worthy of being in the Merriam-Webster dictionary? Basically, a word becomes part of the English language when it’s been in use for a long time and experts realize it will probably stick around for a while.

“The dictionary chronicles how the language grows and changes, which means new words and definitions must continually be added,” Merriam-Webster wrote on its website. “When many people use a word in the same way, over a long enough period of time, that word becomes eligible [for the dictionary].”

Not surprisingly, the new words reflect the world in 2022. For example, laggy is used to describe a slow website or streaming service. Pumpkin spice is a popular flavor for…just about everything in the autumn. And MacGyvering means making something useful out of whatever materials are on hand.

And then there’s lewk, which refers to a person’s signature style.

If some of the words and terms seem old, it’s because they’ve had to prove their staying power. The fact that they’re now in the dictionary means that they’re part of the English language—at least, according to Merriam-Webster.

A man named Yvon Chouinard just made an amazing announcement. He’s giving away his $3 billion company. 

Chouinard founded Patagonia, a company that sells clothing and equipment for camping, climbing, and other outdoor activities, about 50 years ago. Since then, he’s gained a reputation for speaking out—and taking action—in support of the planet. In the 1980s, Patagonia started donating 1 percent of its profits to environmental groups. Over the years, these donations have added up to $140 million.

In the coming years, the company will generate a lot more for the planet than that. That’s because it will be owned by groups that protect the environment—and all Patagonia profits will be contributed to these efforts. While it costs money to run the business, anything left over will be given to the fight for Earth’s future. Patagonia is expected to earn profits of about $100 million per year, although that amount can go up and down, depending on sales. 

Chouinard explained that the company was looking for a way to preserve its values. Giving it away to groups that are dedicated to environmentalism was the best solution.

“Every dollar that is not reinvested back into Patagonia will be distributed as dividends to protect the planet,” the company said in a statement.

When Sonia Sotomayor was a kid in New York City, a TV show about a lawyer inspired her to dream about working in a courtroom. Eventually, that dream turned into a career—and a seat on the bench of the most powerful court in the country.

Sotomayor is one of the nine justices (judges) on the United States Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices are appointed by the U.S. president and approved by the Senate. Their decisions impact every American because they rule on whether laws are fair according to the U.S. Constitution. When Sotomayor joined the Supreme Court in 2009, she became the first Hispanic justice. 

Sotomayor, whose parents were from Puerto Rico, grew up in a part of New York City called the Bronx. In September 2022, Sotomayor returned to her old neighborhood to see the unveiling of a statue that was created in her honor. The statue is now on display in a shopping center that’s not far from her childhood home.

“[The statue is] quite amazing,” Sotomayor told the Associated Press. “Looks a lot like me.” 

Although Sotomayor now works in Washington, D.C., where the Supreme Court is located, she’s proud to be from the Bronx and continues to feel a connection to it. 

“I love the Bronx. I love my community,” she said.

Sotomayor is still a huge fan of the New York Yankees, the baseball team that plays its home games in the Bronx. When she wasn’t watching baseball games, young Sotomayor watched Perry Mason, a TV show about a lawyer. The show influenced her decision to become a lawyer, which put her on a path that eventually led to the Supreme Court.  

“[Being chosen for the Supreme Court] was the most electrifying moment of my life,” she once told TV host Oprah Winfrey. “[It was] a moment in which you sit and realize that you’ve gone further than any dream you ever had, that you’ve reached something that never seemed possible.”

President Joe Biden has announced that millions of people who borrowed money to pay for college will have their debt canceled or reduced. The plan will affect more than 40 million people, and up to 20 million people could see their debt wiped out completely.

The Biden administration will cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loans (student loans offered by the federal government) for individuals who make less than $125,000 a year or families with an income of up to $250,000 a year. People who received a Pell Grant, which is federal money available to students from low-income families, will be eligible to have an additional $10,000 in debt canceled if their current income is under the limit.

About 8 million people will see their debt reduced or canceled automatically because the government has information on their income levels. Others will need to apply for debt forgiveness at a government website.

The cost of college has risen much faster than the average U.S. income in the past few decades, leading many people to borrow money in order to pay for their education. Currently, Americans owe more than $1.6 trillion in federal student loans. The Biden administration says reducing or canceling loans for lower- or middle-income people will make it easier for them to buy homes, start businesses, or save for retirement. 

News of President Biden’s debt-reduction plan led to a variety of reactions. Some pointed out that the plan doesn’t address the root of the problem: the cost of attending college. Others said that people who choose to go to college should pay their own way, without help. According to multiple polls, however, most Americans support the plan. Pamela Bone, who borrowed money to earn a master’s degree in special education, told CNN that debt reduction means a brighter tomorrow for her family.

“The cancellation of this debt means that I can put more aside for my daughter’s future, to ensure a life that is comfortable and meaningful for us both, and [it’s] something that I am truly thankful to receive,” said Bone.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (U.K.) died on September 8, 2022. She was 96 years old. 

Queen Elizabeth was the longest-serving monarch in the history of the U.K. She took the throne in 1952, after the death of her father, King George VI. She was 25 years old. Queen Elizabeth’s reign spanned 70 years.

For many British people, the queen was an important part of their national identity. In the U.K., the monarch (the king or queen) doesn’t rule the people or play an active role in making laws and policies. The true head of the British government is the prime minister. Britain also has a lawmaking body called Parliament. But while monarchs don’t create policy, they do have many official and ceremonial duties. Queen Elizabeth made thousands of public appearances in the U.K. and around the world. She presided over charity events and met heads of state when they visited her country.

The United States wouldn’t be the United States without the Constitution. For 235 years, the U.S. Constitution has been the foundation for the nation’s government and laws. Getting such a significant document written was a tall order—and it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Here are a few little-known facts about the writing of the Constitution.

The delegates didn’t agree on everything.

The Constitution was written at the Constitutional Convention, a meeting that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Twelve states sent delegates, or representatives, to the convention. The delegates argued over issues such as how powerful the national government should be, how many representatives each state should have in Congress, and whether slavery should be legal. 

The Constitution made some people nervous.

Plenty of Americans were worried that the Constitution would create a federal (national) government that was too powerful. (Remember, they had just fought a war to rid themselves of a powerful king.) The government of Rhode Island opposed the idea of the Constitution so strongly that it refused to send a delegate to the convention. Later, the Bill of Rights was written in order to prevent the federal government from violating Americans’ liberties.

It was summer, and it was hot.

The convention took place during a hot and humid Philadelphia summer at a time before air conditioning or even electric fans existed. There was no fresh air wafting through the Pennsylvania State House—the delegates kept the windows closed so passersby wouldn’t hear their debates. In their long-sleeved shirts, suits that were often made of wool, and stockings, the delegates must have been miserable. It’s fair to say that the building probably didn’t smell that great! 

The Constitution cost $30 to write.

The delegates needed someone with great handwriting to put the words of the Constitution on paper. They paid a clerk named Jacob Shallus $30 ($955 in today’s money) to do the job. It took Shallus about 40 hours to complete the document.

Some of the words are spelled wrong.

At the time of the Constitutional Convention, there was no standard way to spell words in English. Because of this, some of the words in the Constitution aren’t spelled the way we’d spell them. For example, choose is spelled chuse, while Pennsylvania is spelled Pensylvania.

Sixteen-year-old Sophie Araque-Liu of Martin County, Florida, is the winner of the 2022 Doodle for Google contest. The theme of this year’s contest was “I care for myself by….” Araque-Liu’s winning artwork is about the importance of accepting help and support from others.

The artwork, called “Not alone,” depicts Araque-Liu sharing a hug with her mother. It’s meant to represent the love and care she has received from her mom throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I care for myself by letting other people care for me…,” Araque-Liu told TC Palm newspaper. “It’s just amazing to know you still have people supporting you, and you don’t need to try to do everything on your own.”

The annual Doodle for Google contest is open to students in kindergarten through 12th grade who live in the United States or one of its territories. According to the contest rules, artists can work with any material, “from crayons to clay to found objects.” Judges select state and territory winners first and then choose one winner from each of five age groups. Finally, the national winner is selected.

As the winner of the top prize, Araque-Liu got to have her work displayed on Google’s homepage for 24 hours and received a $30,000 college scholarship. The prize also included $50,000 to fund a computer lab or technology program at her school.

“I’m not used to all the attention,” Araque-Liu told TC Palm. “But I’m so happy and so excited.”

Smart technology is all over the place. Humans can ask Alexa to play a favorite song, program a robot to vacuum a room, or send a drone to deliver a package. And soon, we may be able to wear robotic clothing—shirts and pants with smart technology.

Scientists, computer programmers, and clothing designers are teaming up to create smart clothing with a variety of capabilities. The idea is that, rather than just keep us warm, clothing could help our bodies work better.

In 2018, for example, a group of scientists invented a pair of pants with electrical pumps rooted in the fabric. The technology monitors the movement of the wearer to determine when to go into action. The pumps send air into small tubes to help the wearer—possibly someone who is elderly or disabled—do things like get up from a chair.

Jonathan Rossiter, a professor of robotics at the University of Bristol in England, helped develop the technology. “We have developed [pants with] lightweight bubble artificial muscles, which could help people to stand up or to lift objects,” Rossiter told The Guardian.

In Australia, researchers recently developed another smart textile (fabric). In this case, robotic threads were knitted into regular cloth. The threads, which contain fluid-filled tubes, can be programmed to move and even lift wearers who are up to 192 times their weight. The technology has a lot of potential uses, but some scientists envision creating “smart suits” that could be worn to help improve a person’s strength and mobility. 

“Like the Iron Man suit or Spiderman suit,” said lead scientist Thanh Nho Do, comparing such a suit to costumes worn by Marvel Comics superheroes. 

These developments are only the beginning, scientists say. They expect to develop a variety of smart clothing to improve mobility, track people’s vital signs, and more.

Will smart clothing ever make superheroes out of ordinary people? Stay tuned.

A team of scientists is working to bring the Tasmanian tiger species back from the dead. The species, which is also known as the thylacine, has been extinct since the 1930s.

The Tasmanian tiger got its name from the stripes that ran across part of its back. The animal’s head looked like a dog or a wolf, and its body was roughly as large as a medium-sized dog. But while it resembled a canine, the Tasmanian tiger was actually a marsupial. The female carried a litter of young in a pouch on her body until they were about halfway to adulthood. 

Originally, the Tasmanian tiger was found in both Australia and on a nearby island called Tasmania. The species disappeared from mainland Australia at least 2,000 years ago. Scientists aren’t sure why, but they believe changes in climate affected Australia’s thylacine population. The Tasmanian tiger continued to thrive on Tasmania for hundreds of years, playing an important role as the island’s apex (top) marsupial predator. But by the 1800s, humans were blaming the Tasmanian tiger for killing their livestock. They hunted the species to extinction.  

Bringing back the Tasmanian tiger won’t be easy. Scientists will need to figure out the animal’s genome—a map of its DNA—and compare it with the genome of its closest living relative, a mouse-sized marsupial called the fat-tailed dunnart. They plan to take cells of the fat-tailed dunnart and change the DNA of these cells so that they more closely resemble thylacine cells. Scientists would then “build” a Tasmanian tiger from these cells. Because the cells would originate from a different species, the newly created Tasmanian tigers wouldn’t be exactly the same as the extinct species. 

You can never be sure exactly what’s going on under the surface. Scientists on the island of Borneo discovered this when they found a previously unknown species of pitcher plant, a type of plant that’s carnivorous (meat-eating). This newly discovered species, which is called Nepenthes pudica, captures its prey underground.

Pitcher plants have “pitchers” that are open at the top and contain sweet fluid. The fluid attracts insects and other small prey—even rodents, in some cases. These animals climb into the pitcher to get a drink but can’t climb back up its smooth, slippery surface. Instead, they fall into the fluid, where they’re digested by the plant. Most such plants grow their pitchers above ground, but Nepenthes pudica is different because its pitchers are underground. 

The scientists discovered Nepenthes pudica by accident. They noticed leaves that they recognized as belonging to a pitcher plant but didn’t see any pitchers—at first. Then they spotted what looked like a damaged pitcher sticking out of the soil. When one of the scientists moved away surrounding moss, he exposed the pitchers and realized they had been growing under the moss.

Nepenthes pudica is the first known underground pitcher plant. There are more than 700 known carnivorous plants. A few of them catch their prey underground. But those other underground meat eaters aren’t pitcher plants. Their traps are small, so their prey is tiny or even microscopic.

Nepenthes pudica’s pitchers, which are up to 4.3 inches (10.9 centimeters) long, trap larger bugs that live underground, including ants, beetles, and mites. Peering into one of the pitchers, scientists found mosquito larvae, nematodes, and a previously unknown worm species.