Ripped from the Headlines: December 2019: This Week In Words: December 7-13, 2019

Scientists in China created pigs with a small amount of monkey DNA. The goal is ultimately to grow organs for transplant into people, but for the time being they're using monkey genes because of the ethical problems with crossing humans with pigs. The two piglets contained less than one percent monkey DNA, and died not long after being born, so most observers aren't calling this a success. In Greek mythology, a chimera was a monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail.

The British election is coming up fast, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is campaigning to keep his job and fulfill his promise to pull Britain out of the E.U. Johnson's Tory party is using a new, younger team to run their digital strategy, which they hope will secure a victory against Labour's Jeremy Corbyn. This move has caused controversy, as they have shown a willingness to use disinformation as part of their strategy.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the 20-year war with neighboring Eritrea that killed 80,000 people. He also removed bans on opposition groups, released thousands of prisoners, and published a book about national unity. Epitome comes from Greek, where it means "to cut" or "to abridge." The idea is that the excerpted text can stand in for the larger work, since it's representative of the whole.

In an unprecedented move, both the President and his Attorney General are lashing out at the F.B.I. in the wake of an Inspector General's report that cleared the bureau of any wrongdoing in opening the investigation into Donald Trump before the election. Fulsome derives from "full-some," as in "plentiful" or "abundant." Over time it has taken on a more negative connotation, leaning more towards "too much."

The government urged Facebook not to implement end-to-end encryption in Messenger and other products, saying that it will make it harder to track criminals and terrorists and foil their plans. The company argues that creation of a "back door" for federal agencies to access desired communications would actually be a gift to criminals, who could exploit it to harm other users. Politicians have said that they intend to address the issue through legislation.

According to a federal judge, the President does not have the authority to take money appropriated by Congress for one thing and use it for another. In this case, El Paso County sued the government over its effort to use $3.6 billion in military construction money to build a wall on the Mexican border. The judge's decision cuts about a third of the funds the President was planning on using to make good on his campaign promise to build the wall.

The State of New York lost its lawsuit against Exxon Mobil. The state sought to prove that the company misled its shareholders about the future cost of climate change, making it seem more profitable than it was. The judge ruled in favor of the company, saying that the evidence was not sufficient to prove fraud, a requirement of the relevant law.

The House of Representatives announced two articles of impeachment against the President: one for abuse of power, the other for obstructing the Congressional investigation. Legal experts say these are the most serious charges ever brought against a sitting President. Quixotic comes from Don Quixote, the hero of Miguel de Cervantes's 1615 book — the first novel — about an elderly would-be knight who famously attacked windmills with his lance.

Time named Greta Thunberg their Person of the Year. The sixteen-year-old Swede started a global movement to fight what she sees as complacency and inaction on the part of governments, especially in developed countries. Because young people have the most to lose in the uncertain future, she has inspired millions to mobilize on this and other issues.

The 2019 Arctic Report Card, a study released by the government, says that the Arctic region is changing into a different type of environment: warmer, greener, and emitting greenhouse gases previously frozen in permafrost. Though those emissions are currently only 10 percent of those cause by burning fossil fuels, as that number climbs it will accelerate climate change in a feedback loop where warmer weather melts more ice which releases more carbon which warms the planet even more.