Rubber Soul

Michelin, for one, produced a series of cards starring Bibendum (the stacked-tire figure better known as the Michelin man) in a number of countries.

—"Cards To Write Home About," Review, Oct. 19

Bibendum was supposedly inspired by a stack of Michelin tires at an 1894 trade show in Lyon, although he didn't take form until he was featured in an advertising poster in 1898, which bore the Latin motto "Nunc est bibendum" ("It's time to drink"). Michelin tires were supposed to "drink up obstacles." Early versions of the Michelin man wore a pince-nez and smoked a cigar, too.



—"Fresh Lead Emerges in AIDS-Vaccine Hunt," U.S. News, Oct. 22

Glycan comes from a Greek root meaning "sweet." Cellulose, starch and chitin are all glycans, and glycans play important roles in human cell biology. The study of glycans is called glycoscience; and the total array of glycans linked to a cell is called the glycome.

Film Studies

The new materials—dubbed ovonics—were switches like transistors but worked better for many applications.

—"Stanford Ovshinsky: An Inventor of Chips and Batteries," Obituaries, Oct. 19

Ovonics are named for Stanford Ovshinsky, their inventor and the discoverer of the "Ovshinsky effect," where special kinds of thin glassy films become semiconductors when subjected to low voltage.

Rag Trade

Now it serves as a wall hanging in her Manhattan living room. Ms. Holden believes the piece, purchased online for about $450, is a Japanese boro textile, a fabric from the bygone Japanese tradition of roughly patching clothing and bedding to extend its use for generations.

—"An Indigo Fabric Find That Echoes Generations," Personal Journal, Oct. 25

Boro means "rags" or "ragged" in Japanese. "Boro" has also been used to describe the Japanese high fashion of Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, especially their early-1980s collections.

—Lexicographer Ms. McKean founded Wordnik, an online dictionary focusing on how words are used today.