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Daily Archives: November 22, 2020

OED Word of the Year expanded for ‘unprecedented’ 2020

BBC News: “This year has seen so many seismic events that Oxford Dictionaries has expanded its word of the year to encompass several “Words of an Unprecedented Year”. Its words are chosen to reflect 2020’s “ethos, mood, or preoccupations”. They include bushfires, Covid-19, WFH, lockdown, circuit-breaker, support bubbles, keyworkers, furlough, Black Lives Matter and moonshot. Use of the word pandemic has increased by more than 57,000% this year.

Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Dictionaries, said: “I’ve never witnessed a year in language like the one we’ve just had. The Oxford team was identifying hundreds of significant new words and usages as the year unfolded, dozens of which would have been a slam dunk for Word of the Year at any other time. “It’s both unprecedented and a little ironic – in a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other.”

For Billion-Dollar COVID Vaccines, Basic Government-Funded Science Laid the Groundwork

Scientific American – “…The Moderna vaccine, whose remarkable effectiveness in a late-stage trial was announced Monday morning, emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and Dr. Barney Graham’s NIH laboratory. Coronavirus vaccines are likely to be worth billions to the drug industry if they prove safe and effective. As many as 14 billion vaccines… Continue Reading

‘Forever Chemicals’ Found In Chesapeake Seafood And Maryland Drinking Water

Chesapeake Bay Journal – “More testing has found so-called “forever chemicals” in a striped bass, blue crab and oyster from the Chesapeake Bay, as well as in drinking water from household taps in Maryland’s Montgomery County. Laboratory analyses released by the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility detected 16 different per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,… Continue Reading

Plastic Pollution: 2020 Edition

Pace Environmental Law Review: “Throughout its “lifecycle,” plastic poses major risks to environmental and human health,affecting “terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric environments.” Health-harming toxins released from raw materials extraction (i.e., oil and natural gas); refinement- and production-associated air pollution; toxins inhaled or ingested through microplastics; and food chain contamination are some of the many plastic-associated public… Continue Reading

Content strategy in LibGuides: An exploratory study

The Journal of Academic Librarianship [no payall]- “LibGuides is a library-specific content management system (CMS) designed to help library staff members publish information online without in depth knowledge of HTML or CSS. Produced by Springshare since the late 2000’s, the company markets LibGuides and its other products as created by librarians for librarians with an… Continue Reading