A Doll Comes To Visit

You are a fifth-grade girl who comes home from school to find a doll on your front porch. The doll looks like you, is dressed like you, and there is something about the eyes. Who left it? Why is it here? And what makes this doll so special?

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With a Little Help From My Friend

Jim Jenkins is an ace detective who solves the most difficult crimes. Yet he always works alone. Or does he?

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The Boy Who Could Wiggle His Ears

Learning how to wiggle your ears is really hard. But you can do it if you keep trying. And if you learn to keep trying, no problem is too big. So if you can wiggle your ears, you can do anything!

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Presidents Who Change Their Minds

I am a history nerd, and politics is a fascinating subject, so an article entitled “The Presidents Who Changed Course in Office” really piqued my curiosity. Certainly a lot can happen over the course of four to eight years — nationally, internationally, and in a president’s personal life.  As the article’s author Sean Braswell states,

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A Way to End Genetic Diseases?

Science gives us wonderful tools — everything from penicillin to a GPS system to life itself.  How we use these tools, however, is up to us. What has caught my eye recently was a report, originally in the Chicago Tribune, that Great Britain’s Newcastle University has been given permission to create babies using the DNA

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Impact of Daylight Savings Time

I hope everyone has adjusted to  our switch to Daylight Savings Time by now.  Do you notice any impact on your daily routine?  Apparently there are some negatives, because on March 8, 2017, the Time magazine Newsbrief listed seven negative impacts on health. According to Dr. Sandhya Kumar, assistant professor of neurology and medical director

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Why Are Pandas Distinctively Black and White?

Giant pandas have always captured our imagination.  Their distinctive coloration certainly gives a new meaning to the word cute.   But why are they colored that way? A new study, published February 28, 2017 in Behavioral Ecology, suggests two reasons — camouflage and communication. Tim Caro, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology

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This Is For Anyone Who Loses Stuff

I am constantly misplacing things around my house.  I attribute this to owning a lot of black objects, which I tend to lay on black furniture.  It also doesn’t help that the spot I remember placing them is about three iterations old. Fortunately, I’m not the only one.  I’ve just heard about a clever writer

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Babies Who Can’t Touch The Ground

From the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department — Talk about they way children are treated in different cultures, babies on the Indonesian island of Bali are subjected to an unusual custom — their feet should not touch the ground for their first 105 days of life.  This is because belief in reincarnation is widespread and a birth is

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Who Was The Richest Man of All Time?

We are obsessed with wealth.  Virtually everyone in this country is familiar with the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.   Forbes magazine always garners attention with its list of the richest people in the world (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerenblankfeld/2016/03/01/forbes-billionaires-full-list-of-the-500-richest-people-in-the-world-2016/#3de9d98d1897).  But who has been the wealthiest of all time? As you might imagine, compiling such a list

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Original Story — The Personality Test

In February, I mentioned the nice folks at Bewildering Stories published another short story of mine in issue #701 (http://bewilderingstories.com/issue701/personality_test.html).   If somehow you couldn’t access it then, I’m repeating it here today.     The Personality Test “Ah!  Mr. Young.  I’ve been looking forward to this.”  The diminutive man sporting a tasteful suit and huge

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A Day Without Women — So What?

In celebration of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, the organizers of the January 21st Women’s March organized a “Day Without Women” protest that encouraged women to stay home from their jobs. So what? Time magazine, in its March 8 Daily News Brief, included a feature entitled  “Here’s What a Day Without Women

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