The late spring is always a trying time to be a substitute teacher, with students quickly losing interest as the summer approaches. This pandemic year has been hard on everyone, from wearing masks and hybrid schedules featuring double periods to in-person learning only four days a week. Nice weather means students can take mask breaks
As a casual observer of astronomy, I’ve learned two things — There’s more to the universe than what you can see, and you have to think big. For example, radio astronomy studies the sky at radio frequencies. This subfield of astronomy dates back to 1932, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories detected radiation coming from within our home
What is the most feared insect? Mosquitoes deserve a vote, spiders are scary (although technically they aren’t insects), and I’m not a fan of horseflies. And then there’s the wasp. I have learned to stay well away from all the varieties of these narrow-waisted insects (suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera), which include yellowjackets and hornets. They don’t
It’s an accepted fact that there is a tendency for certain natural disasters to occur at specific times of the year. We have a definite hurricane season, parts of the country have fire seasons, and tornados tend to pop up during predictable times. But could this be true for earthquakes? Possibly. A study conducted in
For over a year now, violence against Asian Americans has been all over the news. I have a particular interest in this topic because members of my family are of Asian descent. Which is why an article entitled “11 Moments From Asian American History That You Should Know” caught my eye. This is another example
This pandemic has been difficult for everyone. We’ve all had to adapt in one way or another. This is especially true in education. Safety protocols have turned everything upside down. For example, students in middle school were forbidden to carry backpacks during the day, because a backpack’s weight could hurt their posture. Now they have
Why is it the positive news never seems to get mentioned? For example, everyone learns about the Holocaust, and I know there were extraordinarily brave people who risked their lives and saved many from the Holocaust, but I can never remember being told about organized Jewish resistance. And yet there was. One such example is
What is your favorite food? (I have a pretty long list.) Now what would you think if it was no longer available? This has actually happened before. A piece on The Atlantic magazine’s website claims we have eaten thousands of species into extinction; passenger pigeon pie used to be a common comfort food (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/11/foods-humans-ate-extinction/601573/). And
What is the best way to keep the climate from changing? Transition from fossil fuels as quickly as possible? Go to more plant-based foods and eliminate cattle? Plant more trees? Limit population growth? Any action we take can have serious repercussions and must be carefully considered. And one of the best ways to evaluate an
In a word, yes. Of course, science tends to complicate things. “Subjective well-being,” which measures how people evaluate their lives, has been examined in a comprehensive review for its impact on various aspects of physical health. The results were first published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being on July 14, 2017. Let me save you the