You have heard of the Smithsonian Institution? The man who provided the money for this famous organization was one James Smithson. He is described on page 4 of the June 2014 issue of Smithsonian magazine — He studied coffeemaking, human tears and snake venom, and published 27 scientific papers. His brain, a friend said, was “fruitful
I ran across an interesting article in the May 2015 issue of Smithsonian magazine. Entitled “Welcome to Farmtopia”, it describes an agricultural movement that calls itself agritopia. Several of these developments have popped up across the country. The website agritopia.com describes one such community in the Phoenix area as “…something of a modern day village
I found out about this by accident. Another teacher happened to mention today that there is a YouTube video with some important information about eye cancer. A mother took a flash picture of her toddler. One eye had the familiar red reflection in the pupil (“redeye”), but the other eye reflected white. Shortly thereafter, she
From the May 1st edition of The Writer’s Almanac — “On this date [May 1st] in 1840, the first official adhesive postage stamp was issued in Great Britain. Up until the late 1830s, the recipient of the letter was supposed to pay upon delivery. Rates were inconsistent: postage was calculated based on number of sheets of paper, and the distance
I’ve always liked animals, so I was intrigued by an article about horse trainer Monty Roberts. Monty has discovered a way to communicate with horses, and uses it to train them gently and without violence. When watching wild horses as a boy, he realized they were communicating silently with each other. He was able to learn this language
This is actually a story about expectations — how our expectations can affect people around us. For example, if someone is blind and they are allowed to grow up without preconceived notions or artificial limitations, how much will they be able to do? Can they get to the point where they can, for all intents
Congratulations to my niece for doing very well at her school’s track meet in the triple jump! Triple what? My best high school event was the hurtles. The triple jump is a lot like the long jump (which used to be the broad jump), except you touch the ground twice in mid-jump. It has been
With Easter being a religious holiday, how did we end up with a rabbit delivering colored eggs as one of our most cherished customs? One explanation has been provided by Time magazine. From Time’s website — The exact origins of the Easter bunny are clouded in mystery. One theory is that the symbol of the
What would we ever do without erasers, especially when they’re on the ends of pencils? I recently ran across this little tidbit, courtesy of our friends at The Writer’s Almanac — “On this day [March 30] in 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia patented the first pencil to have an attached eraser. The eraser-tipped pencil is still
Happy April 1st! How did we get such a date on our calendar? According to the book An Uncommon History of Common Things by Bethanne Patrick and John Thompson (National Geographic, 2009, pp 52-53) — “Theories on the origin of April Fools’ Day abound, but the mostly likely takes it back to 16th century France.