Covid vaccine scientists win Nobel: BBC News Review

A Nobel prize for the Covid vaccine scientists.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Beth. And I'm Phil.

Make sure you watch to the end

to learn the vocabulary that you need to talk about this story.

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and try the quiz on our website.

Now, the story.

The scientists whose research made some of the Covid vaccines

possible have won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman's research means

that something called mRNA

can be used to make vaccines. Kariko had previously been criticised by

fellow academics who felt that her approach would not work.

You've been looking at the headlines,

what's the vocabulary?

We have: 'laid foundation', 'maverick' and 'spurred'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look now at our first headline.

This is from the Washington Post.

Nobel Prize in medicine

awarded to scientists who laid foundation for messenger RNA vaccines.

As this headline

says, the Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to the scientists

whose research led to the development of certain Covid vaccines.

Let's look at 'laid foundations',

though, isn't foundations something to do with building?

Yes, a foundation is the bit at the bottom of the building, often

under the ground and it's the bit that you build, or lay, first

and then everything else is built on top of it.

OK, but this headline, isn't about buildings.

So, are there other things that we can use the word 'foundation' for?

Well, we use this idea that a foundation supports other things.

So, for example, when you're learning a language,

if you know grammar very well, then

that's a good foundation to learn the rest of the language.

It supports learning the rest of the language.

OK, so the research that these scientists carried out,

supported the development of the mRNA vaccines -

it laid the foundation for them.

Now Beth, could you say that visiting the BBC

Learning English website every day.

lays a great foundation for learning English.

Do you know what? I think you could. And you should!

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from RFI

Katalin Kariko, scientific maverick who paved way for mRNA vaccines.

This headline is about one of the scientists, Katalin Kariko

who paved the way - that means she made this vaccine possible.

We are going to look at 'maverick' -

that's how she is described in the headline.

Can you tell us about it, Phil?

Yes, we use the word 'maverick'

to describe people who think and do things that

no one else would even think of doing.

Beth, are you a bit of a maverick?

Well, Phil. You write these scripts.

It takes you a long time. You come in, you learn your lines,

so does Neil. I just come in and say what I want.

I don't need your scripts!

You are a maverick, Beth.

Now, Katalin Kariko is being described as a maverick here

because originally, lots of other scientists didn't believe

that her approach would work.

That's right. OK, let's look at that again.

Next headline please.

This is from CBC:

Scientists who spurred development of mRNA Covid-19

vaccines win Nobel medicine prize.

Now we're going to learn the word 'spurred' isn't this something to do with horses?

Yes, it is.

We've all seen cowboy films, right?

Think about what the cowboys wear,

particularly think about their boots. On the back of their boots

they have these spiky things called 'spurs' and cowboys used to use these

to make the horses go faster - by hurting them.

That doesn't sound very nice.

I don't think it is.

But nowadays we use this word 'spur' to mean,

encourage or make something happen.

We can also say that something spurs

something on and that's a phrasal verb. That reminds me,

I've just been to India and I had the most incredible food

and it's really spurred me to try some new recipes or spurred me on to try

some new recipes.

Beth, you're gonna have to bring some of that in for us to try,

I think. In the original story,

the research that these scientists did

spurred on the development of new vaccines.

They made it or encouraged it to happen

right. OK, let's look at that again.

We've had 'laid foundations' - made something possible

'maverick' -

not like anyone else 'spurred' - encouraged to happen.

Now, if you're interested in vaccines,

you'll love our episode of News Review

about a potential cancer vaccine.

Click here to watch it.

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Thanks for joining us. Bye!