Vocabulary

Note: The winners of the September Vocabulary Challenge have been announced.Fervid, hasten, enclave, meander: What stories could these words tell? Our story-writing challenge is back for a second school year. Middle and high school students are invited to choose four or more of the Words of the Day we published in October, then use them…

“It wasn’t a helicopter. And it wasn’t an airplane. It was a _____ between the two, with a curved hull, two small wings, and eight spinning rotors lined up across its nose and tail.”Which one of these words — breakdown, chaos, cross or mix-up — best completes this sentence from a New York Times article…

Armed with those statistics, I found myself again looking skyward last October, this time lying face up on a long stone slab at Arches National Park in Utah. Surrounded by strangers, I was trying to locate the Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, and our nearest spiral galaxy, Andromeda. My first trip…

One of my former students, Michelle Kirchner, is a Ph.D. student in entomology and biology at North Carolina State University. Her specialty is ants.Whether 70 feet up in a tree or digging a hole to find them, Michelle learns about ants by taking careful notes in her field notebook, building a record of her discoveries…

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…

Winners From Our April Vocabulary ChallengeCongratulations to Sophia, Samuel and Adam, who imbued their entries with personality and style while adhering to our stringent guidelines. Many of the pieces we read were jam-packed with vocabulary words, but these stood out for their fluid incorporation of words from our word list into three coherent stories.In our…

Each window was inspired by children’s drawings of holiday dreams — of homes, beaches and games. “The style is sort of candy-coated imagination,” said Andrew Winton, the senior vice president of creative at Saks, who oversees the holiday displays. Mrs. Obama was there to promote a partnership between Saks and the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity…

In that way, the interactions between the animals in a given ecosystem are like a theatrical production, he said, adding, “For the production to be a success, each actor has to be , in the right place, and they must act and deliver their lines at the right time.” Now, a new study reveals how…

Runners upbane by Nishitha Pinninty, age 17, Crystal Springs Uplands School, Hillsborough, Calif.epiphany by Haruna Floate, age 17, Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaiiexhilarating by Haley Kehr, age 18, North Collins Junior Senior High School, North Collins, N.Y.gamut by Sofia Gobin, age 17, Eric Hamber Secondary School, Vancouver, Canadaidiosyncrasy by Ananya Mandrekar, age 12, Millburn Middle School,…

“Getting here and being in our first drivers’ meeting gave me ,” said Atefa Saleh, 41, a Siemens engineer from the United Arab Emirates. “I’m excited to be the driver. But we’re switching if something goes really wrong,” she quipped. Ms. Saleh’s co-driver, Eleanor Coker, 48, is an American living in Saudi Arabia. She had…