Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Spiders and Sleeping
Some headlines simply can’t be ignored. Like “Do You Actually Swallow a Bunch of Spiders When You Sleep?” There is an urban legend that the average person will ingest about eight spiders a year while sleeping. Presumably the spiders are active enough and most people sleep with their mouths open enough that, well, accidents will
Some Recent Discoveries About Our Universe
When I was in the Air Force, during training a superior would occasionally ask “tell me a little-known but interesting fact.” To me, some of the most interesting facts are about the world above us. The Earth’s atmosphere actually extends beyond the moon. The outermost part of the atmosphere is the geocorona, and it extends
At The Auto Show
After work Friday, I went downtown to the Dayton Auto Show. Not that I need a new car; mine is only five years old with 33,000 miles. I don’t get a new car that often — I’ve only owned six in 54 years of driving, but I couldn’t resist seeing what was new. Also, I’m
The Murder You Didn’t Commit
I’ve read so much about the unreliability of eyewitnesses. (For example, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/.) But can you trust your own memory? Ada JoAnn Taylor confessed to suffocating a sixty-eight-year-old widow in 1989 and for two decades believed she was guilty. As a result, she served more than nineteen years in prison before being pardoned when DNA evidence
How Your Brain Decides Without You
What animal do you see in this picture? I have a special reason for asking. I’ve seen several examples like this on Facebook (and for me they get old in a hurry), but this particular picture is famous in psychology circles. It’s an original illustration by psychologist Joseph Jastrow (photo by him) that was used
Time To Return To Milkmen?
If you’re like me, you’ve been reading a lot recently about how much plastic is piling up in the environment. About how plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050, and bits of plastic debris smaller than 5mm, called microplastics, are being found in our water, our air, even in our bodies. The
The Best TED Talks
One of my favorite leisure activities is to watch TED talks. For the uninitiated, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The talks are posted online by a media organization, TED Conferences LLC under the slogan “ideas worth spreading.” Which ones are best is purely subjective, but Chris Anderson, the owner of TED Talks (through
The Need For Brains
If you are a zombie, I apologize — this is not what you think. What caught my eye was this headline — Brain donation is critically needed You read that correctly — someone wants you brain, but for legitimate scientific purposes. Here’s the sales pitch — One out of every six people is suffering from a
The Most Generous Country In The World?
Yes, we live in a generous country. We help people in need, especially after major disasters. We will even shed our blood for them (See Wars, World). But it may surprise you to learn we are not the most generous. According to the 2018 World Giving Index (https://www.cafonline.org/about-us/publications/2018-publications/caf-world-giving-index-2018 ), it’s Indonesia. Indonesia’s gross domestic product
My Least-Favorite Sport (And Please Don’t Hit Me)
Tonight I ate out at a sports-oriented casual restaurant with TV screens visible from almost every table. I always enjoy these places. Except tonight the screen directly above me was showing my least-favorite sport. Boxing. I consider this one of the testosterone sports — whenever more than one man gathers, conversation devolves into a question