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
Have you ever felt you needed to make a decision, but you really didn’t feel up to it? And whenever you’ve felt that way, your decisions don’t turn out well? You may be onto something. We simply don’t function well under certain conditions, like when we’re tired or hungry. That’s when you’re most likely do
If you are squeamish about spiders, you may not want to know there are approximately 50,000 different species. And you certainly don’t want to know that of these, at least 20 species live in colonies. Are you still with me? One of these species, Anelosimus eximius, lives in very large colonies, as many as 1,000 individuals. In
Now that it’s officially spring, some of my friends are planning their gardens. My own gardening experiences have covered the full spectrum of emotions, from euphoria to utter defeat. So I was intrigued by the article “Is Gardening Really Cheaper Than Buying Fruits and Vegetables?” by Jeff Somers on the Lifehacker website (https://lifehacker.com/is-gardening-really-cheaper-than-buying-fruits-and-vege-1848698827). Given the
When you studied slavery and the slave trade in school, how many rebellions were you taught? On Thursday of this week, I was helping out in middle school social studies, and I learned something that just wasn’t mentioned when I was in school. In 1839, there was a successful rebellion aboard the slave ship Amistad.
March 22nd is the anniversary of an event that helped shaped the United States but has largely been forgotten. On March 22, 1622 Native Americans of the tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy attacked settlements of the Virginia Colony. This was actually the second of three Powhatan Wars, and was triggered by colonists taking more land from the Confederacy,
Since Sunday is the first day of Spring, I’m republishing my poem My Rite of Spring, from my book Some Poems About Life, available through this website and Amazon.com. My Rite of Spring I consider myself a peaceable soul.I value all manner of livable things.Insects and mice, spiders and voles.Just about anything Mom Nature brings. But I do
For those of you celebrating Women’s History Month, the website Book Riot has published “15 Books About Lesser-Known Women Who Made History” by Senjuti Patra. These non-fiction selections cover a broad range of time, from ancient Egypt to the modern era. Some of the titles that jumped out at me — The Woman Who Would
