"Vaccine" was the choice because of repeated spikes in traffic: searches of the word this year are up 601% from 2020 and 1,048% over 2019. Also, because of the new mRNA vaccines, the word's definition was expanded. (The runner-up Word of the Year was "insurrection.") - CNN
Returning that much money has been a tricky process, though. Backers have to manually request refunds, so even a week later, tens of millions of dollars are still sitting in ConstitutionDAO’s pockets. - The Verge
It's all about "reward prediction errors" and "the sweet spot between rote and nonsensical." Once you've learned the Swedish for "a clean reindeer" or the Yiddish for "a zebra in a pyramid," you're less likely to forget them. - Slate
NPR's beloved books editor Petra Mayer died a few weeks ago, and so "Books We Love" is named and created "in the spirit of Petra that we don't do best . We do the greatest books for you, whatever you want to read." - NPR
It's not over yet, so perhaps not. "In the hospitals, there has been something like a wartime atmosphere of disaster, but for so many of us, lockdown was a period of waiting. The challenge for writers is to create narrative out of people staying at home." - The Guardian (UK)
They've got a lot in common with Chinese censors, says Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon and Far from the Tree. "I had written my book to help people, and now it was being held up as derelict and unpatriotic." - The New York Times
The author of The Lovely Bones wrote about her rape in her 1999 memoir, Lucky, which was in the process of being made into a movie - but the original producer's own research led to Anthony Broadwater's exoneration. - Los Angeles Times (AP)
A Harry Potter universe free of J.K. Rowling's anti-trans commentary! A universe where the fanfiction pairing "Wolfstar" is real. It's 500,000 words long, even longer than several of the books together. Perfect for the winter months, perhaps? - Slate
“Social media is amplifying local challenges and they’re going viral, but we’ve also been observing a number of organisations activating local members to go to school board meetings and challenge books. We’re seeing what appears to be a campaign to remove books.” - The Guardian
It is becoming clear that the mixed nature of Spanglish represents a general phenomenon. Among people born in and growing up in neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach — where it’s common to hear Russian and Ukrainian spoken — lots of English words are mixed in. - The New York Times
No, not his actual identity, we're afraid. But, if not the definitively correct version of the text of a play or poem, at least the most likely version. This is thanks to software developed by a Canadian startup called Cohere. - The New York Times Book Review
It's hard to believe now, but it was only this March that Beeple sold his original non-fungible token artwork for $69 million, setting off the NFT madness. Collins reported that it's one of the few words that's "broken through the COVID noise," with usage up 11,000%. - The Guardian
A book signed by Queen Victoria and a first edition of the Radio Times from 1923 were lost when the fire broke out at Berwyn Books, Buckley, Flintshire. - BBC
