Imagine sending a DNA sample to a testing site like AncestryDNA or 23andMe, and then being told your brother is only your half brother? What would that do to your world? Unfortunately, this is happening more often than anyone realizes. And the burden is falling on the testing labs’ customer-service representatives to try to help
Recently I’ve run across some interesting facts (at least to me) that put the scale of our world in fresh perspective. Astronomers Have Found The Most Distant Solar Object (Yet) We’ve found a new object in the Solar System. It’s small, lies more than 100 times our distance from the sun, and takes 1000 years
It’s a shame Twitter didn’t exist in the 1950s, because #MeToo would’ve started a lot earlier. As far back as January 1953, an issue of Motion Picture and Television Magazine included an interesting article entitled “Wolves I Have Known.” Not only was the title eye-catching, but it was written by someone who was just getting
If you’re like me and have trouble remembering important things in your life, even when you write yourself notes, there is a scientific way to fix that. Draw a picture. According to a study published in the journal Experimental Aging Research, drawing forces your brain to process visual information. This translates the meaning into an
In case there is any doubt — https://isitchristmas.com/ Merry Christmas!
Have you ever wondered why red and green are considered Christmas colors? I didn’t until I read “How Red and Green Became the Colors of Christmas” by Rachel E. Greenspan ( http://time.com/5467060/red-green-christmas-colors/? ). The article quotes Arielle Eckstut, author of The Secret Language of Color:“There is no definitive history, per se.” Eckstut discovered that holly, with
A crisis like being in an auto accident or the victim of a crime can be traumatic enough, but what if you’re a child? The solution to calming a child under stress can be as simple as giving them a book. That is the idea behind a charity named Books to the Rescue. Based in
For those who need a lighthearted story — Rocco is an African grey parrot who had to be removed from an animal sanctuary because he swore too much. But what really makes him special is his mastery of technology. He has learned to talk to Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa. He interacts with Alexa up to
I’ve always been interested in astronomy, although it’s hard to observe the skies in a suburban environment due to the light pollution. But even though I can’t see that much, I know there’s a lot more out there than literally meets the eye. Our local address is in the Milky Way galaxy, and you’ve probably
I’ve always been amazed about how much history never makes it into the schoolbooks. We all know how Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 triggered Southern states leaving the Union, and the Civil War. But go back four years to the election of 1856. The winner was James Buchanan, who had been born in Pennsylvania but
