Vocabulary

“I made a deal with myself that I was going to either learn how to do hair really well so I could make it a final touch to all my outfits or buzz my head,” she said. In late January, when Ms. Perlmutter, 23, was on set at a photo shoot, she watched as a…

Here — in a side office, up the stairs of an unmarked building hidden away on a block of the city center jammed with flashy music stores that used thumping loudspeakers to attract customers — was the workshop of one of this city’s oldest and most accordion repairmen. “Everything I do is to improve the…

Over the decades, these research trips have shed light on the basic biology and ecology of the bears and, in recent years, helped scientists keep tabs on how the animals are coping with climate change. The rapid habitat changes are already their behavior; with the sea ice retreating quickly, some of the bears now have…

Monks once hoped to turn lead into gold through alchemy. But consider the cauliflower instead. It takes just two genes to the ordinary stems, stalks and flowers of the weedy, tasteless species Brassica oleracea into a formation as marvelous as this fractal, cloudlike vegetable. This is the true alchemy, says Christophe Godin, a senior researcher…

Scores of its roughly 300 contestants have leveraged the show to open restaurants and grow empires in cities like Chicago, New York, Honolulu, Houston and Miami, and to draw attention and tourists to smaller markets like Boulder, Colo., Athens, Ga., and Paducah, Ky. Through its 17 years on television, “Top Chef” has reflected the evolution…

One of the top ten winners of our high school contest: vex by Steven Xie, Elliot Azzi, Arek Zenel Walasek and Korinne Hennel. The world is a scary place right now. Let us offer you a break from it with these delightful 15-second videos created by teenagers.In January, we challenged students to define one of…

Today, Ms. Sialuk Jacobsen uses historical documents, artifacts and the Qilakitsoq mummies — several of which are now on display at the Greenland National Museum — to research traditional Inuit tattoo designs. Then she hand pokes or stitches the patterns onto the faces and bodies of Inuit women, and occasionally men, helping them connect with…

Welcome to our new weekly interactive Vocabulary in Context Quiz, created with help from Vocabulary.com. We will be publishing a new one every Thursday this school year, and you can find them all here. This week's quiz comes from a "burst" published on Jan. 24, 2022. Choose the word or phrase that BEST completes each…

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Sport of Kings. Ha! Thoroughbred races have increasingly surrendered to the sheikhs and princes, the hedge fund wizards and industrialists, the fat cats who could plunder their vaults and pay whatever it took to secure a regally bred horse who, they hoped, could run a hole in the wind. But that…

Along the river, people biked, walked, roller-skated, bird-watched, caught up with friends. But I found myself most intrigued by the people who were fishing. In this unexpected environment of concrete, buzzing traffic and litter, the act of fishing seemed almost defiant: a/an outdoors activity against a backdrop of highway overpasses.