“Don’t trust the maps” was good advice for much of human history. The book The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes by Malachy Tallack, illustrated by Katie Scott, makes this point vividly by revealing the stories behind lands that weren’t really there. For example, the 1783 Treaty of Paris that
Zombies aren’t the only ones looking for brains. Used brains of all kinds are needed for medical research to advance the discovery of better treatments and cures for brain diseases, disorders, and injuries. If this interests you, check out the Brain Donor Project at https://braindonorproject.org/. This topic is especially timely because there is a campaign
The African country of Niger had a serious environmental problem. Decades of drought, clearing of land, and the need for firewood had decimated the native trees. The farming needed to feed the world’s fastest-growing population in one of the world’s poorest countries was preventing new trees from growing. The government had recognized the problem, but
Today, May 3rd, is Teacher Appreciation Day in the U.S. This comes as I’m nearing the end of my 17th year as a substitute teacher after failing to get a permanent position in Social Studies. Well, I was 57 years old at the time and had a master’s degree, so I was too well qualified
For people with too much time on their hands — you may recall the 2019 movie Godzilla vs. Kong. Enjoying such tales requires a certain suspension of disbelief from the get-go. But the skeptical part of us may stop to wonder, just how realistic is a scaled-up gorilla? Rhett Allain, an associate professor of physics
High blood pressure is a real health concern, and one of the most effective countermeasures is lowering salt intake. Sometimes that’s not as easy as it sounds, so you have to get creative. Especially if you’re in Japan. Japanese researchers have announced the development of computerized chopsticks that increase the salty taste of foods by
I grew up on a farm with sheep and chickens, adjacent to an uncle’s farm that had dairy cattle. So the headline “Is Cow Hugging the World’s New Wellness Trend?” on BBC Travel certainly caught my attention (https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20201008-is-cow-hugging-the-worlds-new-wellness-trend?). Most would agree that animals, usually in the form of personal pets, can provide calming benefits and
Clouds can form some imaginative formations, but a new one on me is a cloud street. A cloud street, or more technically a horizontal convective roll, is actually a long row of cumulus clouds that is aligned parallel to the direction of the wind. They usually form straight rows, but when the wind hits an obstacle,
In the European Union, organic foods have to be specially marked so that customers can tell them from conventional products. Yet ironically, the best marking is wrapping them in environmentally unfriendly single-use plastic. But now the Dutch company Eosta has found a way to “engrave” its organic fruit and vegetable labels directly on the product. When Eosta
I just found a meme on Facebook that says “1st April: The only day of the year that people critically evaluate things they find on the internet before accepting them as true.” So what better day to follow April Fool’s than International Fact-Checking Day? I typed that phrase into Google and got 20,100 hits. It