Category Archives: Fun Facts

What Are The Best Jobs?

If you’re fortunate enough to be young and just starting out, or are looking for a new career, you may want to read “The 50 Best Jobs in America — And How Much They Pay” by Paul Schrodt.  Schrodt’s source is the job site Glassdoor’s fourth annual report on this country’s best jobs.  Glassdoor used

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The End of Chocolate?

Catches up on the news, I found something very disturbing January 2, 2018 on the Food and Wine website. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are predicting the source of chocolate, the cacao plant, is likely to go extinct, perhaps as early as 2050. The culprit is global warming.  Most of the

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Ringing in the New Year With New Life

New years are always a time for renewal, so I thought it appropriate to pass along some scientific news — “In 2017, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences, along with several dozen international collaborators, added 85 new plant and animal species to Earth’s tree of life, including 16 flowering plants, three scorpions, 10 sharks,

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Are Dogs Smarter Than Cats?

Here is a good way to start an argument (not that we need any more reasons) — which is smarter, dogs or cats? I don’t own any pets; I take responsibility to animals pretty seriously, so I don’t have any strong opinions.  But there is a new study claiming that dogs have the edge in

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Just For Fun — Santa the Criminal

A headline in the December 25, 2017 “The Daily Dose” from Ozy.com brought me up short — “How Many Crimes Would Santa Be Guilty Of If He Were Real?”  (This piece reminded me of the Pixar animated feature The Incredibles, where superheroes had to go undercover due to the collateral damage their good deeds were

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How To Live To Be 100?

Everyone wants a nice long life — I’m planning on 80 myself — but the way technology is advancing, perhaps I’m setting my sights too low.  Is living to be 100 a realistic goal? A recent study published in International Psychogeriatrics has explored what it takes to make it to the century mark.  Researchers visited

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Some Things to Look Forward to in 2018

In addition to recapping the passing year, a favorite media pastime is looking ahead to what the new year might bring.  Although some changes we already know, like we’re getting a new head of the Federal Reserve in February, much is pure speculation, especially when it comes to technology.  Here are some technological items I’ve

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Would Your Dog Eat You If You Died?

This sounds more like a Halloween story, but I couldn’t resist. A recent email from National Geographic about the “Best in 2017” contained this little gem — “Would Your Dog Eat You If You Died?” by Erika Engelhaupt (publication date June 23, 2017).  At the risk of killing the suspense (pardon the pun), the answer

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