Category Archives: Fun Facts

Too Good To Go — The End of Food Waste?

Tired to hearing about how much food is wasted? There is an imaginative way to start taking advantage of leftover food at commercial establishments — restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores — especially if you like surprises. The idea is called Too Good To Go (https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us). According to its website, “Too Good To Go is a social

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What is Your Superpower?

Do you have a superpower? Mine is turning a two-sided piece of paper into a one-sided piece of paper. Okay, it’s actually a mathematical trick (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-timeless-journey-of-the-moebius-strip), but middle-school students don’t know that, so I usually get away with it. Yes, humans can have superpowers, although maybe not the kind found in comic books. For example,

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You Have to Know the Code

When I worked as “Christmas help” at the local Disney Store one holiday season, I learned that calling someone a “customer” wasn’t a compliment. Our patrons were our “guests” and “customer” was a code word for a suspected shoplifter. I was reminded of this after reading”14 Secret Code Words You Might Want to Know” by

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Words of Wisdom From “The Morning”

If you’re not tired of articles giving advice on how to approach the new year, I’ve found something that has caught my eye. I receive an email from The New York Times entitled “The Morning”. On Saturday, December 30, it published “the best advice that readers of “The Morning” received this year,” with the logic

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Are We Making Progress?

How often do you travel? This is a marvelous age; we can be almost anywhere in the world (outside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles) in under 24 hours. And yet… I travel internationally about once a year, and in three of my last six overseas trips I’ve been delayed by the airlines; twice I’ve lost

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The 30×30 Way To Cut Crime

What would you think of police officers who use less force, are named in fewer complaints and lawsuits, are thought of as being more honest and compassionate, and can reach better outcomes for crime victims, especially in sexual assault cases? All good qualities? Yes, there are many such officers now, but one category excels in

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Navigating Barbie’s Monochromatic World

The dictionary definition of color is “the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light.” Color is important in our lives because it helps our brains digest information and it also facilitates memory. But it isn’t easy; comprehending an entire scene requires seeing an object’s

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What is the World’s Oldest Color?

It’s probably pink. The success of the new movie Barbie has created a wave interest in the color most associated with girls (and yes, Barbie Pink is a Pantone color), but like so much in life, its complicated. According to a 2018 research article, bright-pink pigments have been found in 1.1 billion-year-old rocks, the result of

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Why Can’t We Find Atlantis?

It’s been in mythology for millennia — There was once an advanced ancient civilization that catastrophically vanished thousands of years ago. The “Lost Continent of Atlantis” has been the subject of countless books, articles, movies and general speculation throughout much of recorded history. But if this civilization was that advanced and powerful, why haven’t we

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