Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Why Do People Scream?
We take so much for granted in the world. Like why we scream. I hadn’t given this a thought until I saw this discussed in a Time magazine news brief. Time reported on new research in the journal Current Biology that suggests hearing a scream may activate the brain’s fear circuitry. Normally, your brain takes
A Poem About Apples
Here is an original poem in preparation for Fall — APPLES Do you like apples? Johnny Appleseed came to me in a dream and told me to plant apple trees. (Not really, but it makes more sense this way.) So I planted three apple trees in my yard. Now they
How Koalas Keep Cool
I just got back from a week in sunny Southern California (although it did rain for a day). I was catching up reading my National Geographic magazines (they’re a good size for airplane trips) and I ran across this in the July 2015 issue — A 2014 study led by University of Melbourne ecologists showed
What If You Need a New Kidney?
Al Roth is a professor of economics at Stanford, and he was co-winner (with Lloyd Shapley) of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. An engineer by training, he became an expert on designing markets because in certain situations, money alone can’t solve some problems. For example, Stanford University doesn’t use supply and demand to
How Much Do You Know About Money?
I was out shopping Saturday night and I heard a cashier marvel about receiving a $100 bill. Is that the largest bill in circulation? That piqued my curiosity, and I got on my smart phone. According to the official website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/denominations.aspx), the denominations of currency now in production are
Terrorism and the Potential of Tomorrow
I wrote this a long time ago. It was published on the Dayton Daily News editorial page in about 1990, although I’d have to dig out the date. I’m reprinting it here because it seems even more relevant today. My brother came home safely. I think about this every time there is another senseless
A Milestone for the Steam Engine
Mention the steam engine, and most people think of James Watt. Actually, the steam engine goes back to the 1st century AD — the earliest known design, the aeolipile, was described by the Greek mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria, as recorded in his manuscript Spiritalia seu Pneumatica. On July 2, 1698, British engineer Thomas Savery was
Handwriting on the Wall
Today I’ve been going through my mother’s papers (you may recall she died in April) and I found an interesting poem, the kind she liked to tape to the refrigerator door: Handwriting on the Wall A weary mother returned from the store, Lugging groceries through the kitchen door. Awaiting her arrival was her 8-year-old
Maybe It’s a Geisha Girl
I have some of my best ideas while running. (Something to do with more oxygen to the brain, I suppose.) This weekend I remembered a story from one of my first marathons, although this time it was in the aftermath of a race. I was in the 1984 Honolulu Marathon. Two nights before, there was
Happy 4th of July
If you really want to learn about the 4th of July, I would recommend “Fun Facts for July 4” at the Washington Post website. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/03/fun-facts-for-july-4/ For example, three of the first five U.S. presidents died on July 4. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, the 50th anniversary of the country’s birth. (Adams’ last words were