Pets give us much comfort and companionship. And there is a segment of society to whom pets are doubly important — the homeless. Reportedly, 10 to 25 percent of homeless people have pets. Yet they require care, too. But it’s tough to look after an animal if you might not know where your next meal
This is something you probably haven’t thought of, but I think it’s interesting. Suppose you lived on another planet in the solar system. It starts raining and you’re caught without your umbrella. How big will the raindrops be? Two researchers at Harvard University published a paper on the physics of raindrops on March 15, 2021
When I was about ten years old, my grandfather showed me how to wiggle my ears. It took some time to figure out how to control that muscle (it actually goes from the eyebrows back), and they don’t wiggle very much, but they do move. This always seemed like a good life example — if
From the New York Times’ newsfeed — Have you ever wondered why that iconic New York City landmark is called Times Square? Originally Longacre Square, the name was changed in 1904 to honor The New York Times moving its offices there. The newspaper’s publisher during that era, Adolph Ochs, celebrated the move by staging a
I’m sure you’ve heard of some people being described as “swimming like a fish.” It might surprise you to learn that some fish don’t swim well at all. Why would some fish be poor swimmers? The simple answer is they don’t need to swim well. For example, if the pufferfish (also called blowfish) is chased, it
About 20 years ago, author Dan Buettner, working for National Geographic and with a grant from the National Institute on Aging, started studying the world’s longest-lived people. They’re the ones who reside in the so-called Blue Zones of longevity. Basically, his goal was to reverse-engineer longevity. Since an estimated 20% of a person’s life span is
Many slaveholders, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, knew slavery was wrong, they just didn’t know how to move beyond it. As Jefferson wrote in 1820, “As it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in
In the 2015 Pixar animated feature Inside Out, Riley had five emotions — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Cute, but is that all? How many emotions do we really have? According to “The Benefits of Emodiversity” by David Brooks in The Atlantic (www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/benefits-emotional-diversity/620629/?), there are more. A lot more. For example, the Japanese have age-otori,
Of all the messages about climate change, perhaps the most original is the dinosaur who addresses the United Nations. Yes, in a recent YouTube video, a dinosaur walks into the UN’s General Assembly and delivers an impassioned speech to stunned delegates. The bottom line: Don’t choose extinction. “I know a thing or two about extinction,
This Saturday, December 18, 2021, I will be appearing at Antiques Village, 651 Lyons Rd, Washington Township in Montgomery County, Ohio (Centerville) with all my books (https://www.antiquesvillage.net/). I plan to stay from the 10 am opening until at least 5 pm. This really is a fun place with some unique antiques, plus lots of second-hand