The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our world upside down, especially with regard to sports. The NBA is scrambling to finish its season with a 22-team playoff scenario at Walt Disney World’s Wide World of Sports complex, major league baseball is trying to salvage something with a 60-game schedule, and there is no telling what the
Many of our everyday practices have surprising origins. For example, the idea of serving a three-course meal — soup, main dish, and dessert — is actually credited to a Persian (some say Arab or Kurd) known to history as Ziryab. His full name is Abu l-Hasan Ali Ibn Nafi, and he was an educated North
The nice folks at BewilderingStories.com have published another of my stories! As they describe it — The latest tracking device tells a soldier which desserts will shorten his life, and by how much. But what if the device knows more than that? And what to do when the readout goes to zero? Bob Welbaum, When Your Number
If you are running a business, you would want to closely track your assets. How can you improve productivity? How can you increase an asset’s value? At what point does the cost of maintenance exceed the return? These are all important questions. Now, what if these assets you are tracking are people? Or, more accurately,
In my lifetime I can never remember having three crises at once — Covid-19, a stumbling economy, and nationwide protests against police brutality. Put those before an electorate that’s already deeply divided and you have a perfect situation for spawning all types of conspiracy theories. It reminds me of that old saying “You’d be paranoid
From The-Best-Man-For-The-Job-Might-Be-A-Woman Department : Archaeologists had always thought they had found the ideal Viking male warrior’s grave in southeastern Sweden. There were swords, arrowheads, and two sacrificed horses, so the interred must be a man, right? Then Stockholm University bioarchaeologist Anna Kjellström closely examined the warrior’s pelvic bones and mandible. To her, they seemed feminine. When none
We hear a lot about languages that are disappearing. For example, some Native American languages are down to a handful of speakers. So it may surprise you to learn that languages are still being created. Where? Australia. At one time, as many as 300 languages were spoken on the continent. Then Europeans arrived and the
I know Mother’s Day is over for this year, but… I’ve been catching up on some favorite podcasts recently, and happened to hear about a tremendous feat of mothering. We all know that octopuses are remarkable animals. But in 2007, a robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs at the
Just before school ended, one of the permanent teachers asked if I’d ever seen anything like this pandemic before in my lifetime. At first I was a bit taken aback, but when I realized I was (by far) the oldest person in the room, I said no, I hadn’t. This crisis is going to upend
Here’s something to think about during this Memorial Day weekend. In 1877, the first black man graduated the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1940, the Army promoted a black to the rank of general. But the U.S. Navy was more bound to tradition. At the beginning of World War II, African Americans