Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Can Creatures Have Culture?
Biology has posed an interesting question: Why are there two pods of orcas, or killer whales, that live off the coast of the American Northwest — one off British Columbia’s Vancouver Island and one further south off Washington State — that are of the same species but show different behaviors? The Vancouver orcas like to
Our Greatest Long-Term Survival Threat Might Be The Great Filter
It’s one of those unanswerable questions of the modern age. With so many stars in the Milky Way (not to mention all the stars in nearby galaxies) with the potential for tens of billions of planets, the odds of intelligent life existing somewhere are pretty high. Yet in all recorded history, no confirmed contact with
Original Poem — Perspective on Winter
Since we’re in the middle of a major snowfall, I thought it was appropriate to repost my poem about winter. It’s from my book Some Poems About Life, available here and on Amazon.com. Perspective The son stood in the doorway,Behold a beautiful sight!As far as he could see,nothing but fluffy white! Today would be a timeof laughter
Fighting Food Waste With Technology
Up to forty percent of the food we produce is never consumed, according to multiple sources I’ve been finding recently. By any measure, this is a tremendous waste in a world with a growing population, but even more so considering the famines caused by armed conflict and political instability. Fortunately, wherever there is a need,
Giving Parasites Their Due
In the spirit of Halloween, have you ever heard of the Meguro Parasitological Museum? If you haven’t, that’s understandable. First, it’s a private research facility specializing in parasites. Second, it’s in the Meguro Ward in central Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1953 by Dr. Satoru Kamegai, the collection boasts over 45,000 immersed and prepared parasite specimens, including
Animal Hybrids Are More Common Than You Think
As children, it was fun to imagine how animals could be combined. And we knew it was possible — a mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. But animal “hybrids” are actually more common than you might think. In nature, animals can breed with difference species populations and different subspecies,
Women Who Intruded into History
Her hat gives her away. At first glance, this seems like a typical group photo of a University of Missouri School of Medicine class in 1897. Then you realize there is a woman in the picture. Although the caption identified her as the “class secretary,” she is actually Anna Searcy, an orphan who was sent
The Speeches You Never Heard
It’s easy to be familiar with history’s great speeches, like President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But have you ever thought about speeches that were written and, for whatever reason, never delivered? Jeff Nussbaum has. As a speechwriter himself, he has researched and authored Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History. His underlying principle
Which Animal Has The Biggest Brain?
Thanks to our intelligence, we humans have positioned ourselves at the top of the food chain. But which animal actually has the biggest brain? In another example of how size matters, the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) has the largest brain, which weighs in at 18 pounds (8 kilograms), on average. Compared to our three-pound brains, that’s huge. We
How a Haircut Could Save Your Life
It’s one thing to achieve medical breakthroughs, but something else entirely to get people to adopt them. Sometimes people will only listen to someone they trust. Like their barber. That was Michael DeVore’s thinking when he founded Live Chair Health. He knew there was a high trust factor between barbers and their customers. He also