A Doll Comes To Visit

You are a fifth-grade girl who comes home from school to find a doll on your front porch. The doll looks like you, is dressed like you, and there is something about the eyes. Who left it? Why is it here? And what makes this doll so special?

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With a Little Help From My Friend

Jim Jenkins is an ace detective who solves the most difficult crimes. Yet he always works alone. Or does he?

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The Boy Who Could Wiggle His Ears

Learning how to wiggle your ears is really hard. But you can do it if you keep trying. And if you learn to keep trying, no problem is too big. So if you can wiggle your ears, you can do anything!

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Why Do We Kiss?

I imagine we all take kissing for granted in our romantic lives, but according to a recent report in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine, kissing is a fairly recent development in human history.  This conclusion is based on a study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and the University of Nevada,

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Happy Birthday to the Detective Story

One of my favorite authors in Edgar Allan Poe, not because I like horror, but because he wrote my favorite poem, “The Raven”.  So it caught my eye when I read that April 20, 1841, was considered the first appearance of the modern detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by…   Edgar Allan Poe.

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A Simple Way to Feed the World

If current trends continue, we will have at least two billion more mouths to feed by 2050.  That’s in addition to the almost 800 million people who are currently underfed worldwide.  How are we going to manage this without a global catastrophe? Actually, there is a simple way — eliminate food waste.  I’ve been seeing

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The Science of…Crying?

I remember teaching a high school English class on Friday afternoon.  Since it was Friday, they were allowed to pick and analyze songs on the Internet.  One girl selected a tearjerker entitled “Why Tears Fall.”   At the end of this discussion, one of the boys piped up, “I know why tears fall —  gravity!” Although

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The Flip Side — Hiding From Aliens

Recently I wrote about how the best place for finding alien life might be an exoplanet’s moon. But there is a flip side — what if we decide we don’t want alien life to find us?  Contacting us first means they assuredly have the more-advanced technology.  Maybe much more advanced.  Would they be friendly?  And

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How Do Fish Schools Synchronize Their Swimming?

Have you ever wondered how fish in a school synchronize their movements perfectly while swimming? According to the April-May 2016 issue of the Nature Conservancy Magazine (page 12), a 2013 study from biologist Iain Couzin’s labs at Princeton University and the Max Planck Institutes in Germany shows that schooling fish respond quickly to movements of

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A Poem About Challenge

Today I’m reprinting a poem from my book Some Poems About Life (available on this website). On Challenge What do you think is a challenge? Is it running as fast as you can? Coming in first in the big race and showing you’re that much a man? Or is it much more academic? Being the

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