This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for October 11–October 17, 2025

The Miami Seaquarium has closed its doors. The 70-year-old aquatic park, once a popular South Florida attraction, had been in decline for years. Its orca and dolphin shows became controversial after the USDA found the animals were underfed so that they would perform for food rewards. A new developer hopes to build restaurants, a marina, and an aquarium on the site. All the sea mammals will be moved to new permanent homes. The Latin root of aquatic is aqua, "water."

It took nearly 50 years, but scientists finally solved a conundrum that had stumped them since 1976, when construction workers unearthed a massive, 11,000-year-old caribou-like fossil in Toronto's subway system. Experts tried to puzzle out the identity of the creature, with its large, strangely horizontal antlers, but it remained an enigma. However, recent DNA analysis has determined that it's an extinct species closely linked to today's much smaller mule deer and white-tailed deer.

Farmers are using a wide array of methods to deal with a staggering number of feral hogs. One of the most destructive invasive species in the U.S., the huge swine run free in a dozen states, but they cause the most trouble in Texas. Wild pigs weigh hundreds of pounds, and they destroy thousands of acres of food crops annually. In Texas, farmers combat the hogs using traps, dogs, nighttime hunting, contraception, and more. The Latin root of feral is ferus, "wild."

Contestants in Northern England's World Gurning Championships are judged on "the grotesqueness of the grimace" and "the extent to which their facial features change." The contest celebrates a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, the creative art of arranging one's face into the most grotesque possible contortion. One of the top competitors, Adrian Zivelonghi, twists his visage into a bizarre shape, with his lower lip covering his nose, and his false teeth wiggling against his cheek.

An American teenager is the youngest known solo traveler to visit 100 countries. Arjun Malaviya was 17 when he reached Nadi, Fiji, achieving that milestone. The intrepid Californian, who is now 19 and has five full passports, started his travels during a gap year after high school, fearlessly visiting dense cities, rural villages, and remote islands on his own. The Latin root of intrepid is intrepidus, "unshaken."

The Mines Advisory Group, or MAG, received the prestigious Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and a record $3 million award. MAG sends expert teams around the world to remove unexploded land mines. The underground explosives were placed during active wars, but millions remain after conflicts end, threatening to kill or injure civilians as they plant crops, dig foundations for buildings, or simply walk across empty fields. MAG has worked to eliminate land mines for 35 years.

More than 100 people who work at the top national mental health agency were laid off. The employees at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration held a variety of jobs supporting Americans' psychological wellness. The agency's work includes running a suicide prevention hotline, training behavioral health workers, and writing grants to fund services that treat addiction and mental health disorders.

The economists Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt shared the Nobel Prize in Economics. The researchers' work includes a theory of why a technological innovation can be a breakthrough in one generation but obsolete by the next. Their idea centers around "creative destruction," a cycle in which new things replace old ones. Aghion and Howitt developed a mathematical model to explain why businesses continue to grow and thrive in spite of their own products becoming outdated.

A South Carolina measles outbreak led to 153 unvaccinated kids from two schools being quarantined. According to the state's public health department, seven linked measles cases in Spartanburg County had exposed the school-aged children to the virus and triggered the order to keep them home and isolated from the community. Quarantine is from the Italian quaranta giorni, "space of forty days," which goes back to a 40-day plague quarantine in the 14th century.

In what's being called a watershed event, a Gaza ceasefire agreement led to the release of 20 remaining Israeli hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The shaky truce held as Hamas and the Israeli government also released some of the bodies of captives who had died. While the peace agreement's future is uncertain, the exchange is an important milestone after 24 months of conflict. The original geographical meaning of watershed was "ridge dividing two rivers."