Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Who Really Was Herbert Hoover?
Few would consider Herbert Hoover a successful president; his name has become synonymous with the Great Depression. But knowing full well that much of history never makes it into your average history book, I decided to get a good biography and see for myself, especially since I’d recently finished reading about Woodrow Wilson and the
What Nature Can Teach Us
If we are concerned about sustainability in our lives, all we have to do is look around. Many of our problems have already been solved, naturally. Or, as Steve Jobs once said, “I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology.” Of course, we already have
What Are Your Germs Saying?
We carry trillions of microbes in our bodies, which as a whole are called the microbiome. But did you ever think the germs in your gut could influence your brain? That’s what researchers are beginning to find. For example, Sangram Sisodia, a neurobiologist at the University of Chicago, and some colleagues administered antibiotics to mice
A Brief History of Migrations
With all the current debate about migrants, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by a recent article entitled “The Accidents of History That Shaped Global Migration” by James Watkins (https://www.ozy.com/acumen/the-accidents-of-history-that-shaped-global-migration/76888?). I already knew that many Irish settled in Boston, especially during the Great Famine of 1845-49 when the potato crop failed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)), because that was
Are You A Plogger?
Whenever I go running outdoors, I make it a point to pick up at least one item of litter, easy to do since there are plenty of trash cans in the park where I do most of my mileage. Now I’ve learned I’m not the only one. There’s even a name for it: plogging. The
How To Resist Junk Food
If you’re trying to lose some weight, or simply think you eat too much junk food, new research in the Journal of Marketing Research claims a new way to resist — smell the offender for two minutes. During their experiments, researchers found a surprisingly strong relationship between scents and food. People who sniffed indulgent foods,
How To Photograph A Snowflake
According to my phone, it’s -6 outside and it feels like -27. (Or I suppose it would if I went out, but I’m not going out.) So I thought it would be a perfect time to talk about photographing snowflakes. In addition to being a professor of biomedical photographic communications at the Rochester Institute of
Thinking Like A Honeybee
Consider the lowly honeybee. The typical worker bee lives about six weeks in summer and twenty weeks in winter. Most of this time is spent gathering nectar to make honey. But with a small body size and a short lifespan, each individual bee’s contribution is minuscule. According to beekeeper Marianne Gee in Ottawa, Canada, “a
The Self-Driving Cruise?
You’ve heard of self-driving cars. What could come next? How about self-driving ships? In December, 2018, two vessels in the North Sea were sailing without crews. Don’t worry, they were under complete control, although from thousands of miles away. This is going to be a sea change in shipping (pardon the pun) in terms of
Being Chased By The Police For Fun
If anyone is looking for an offbeat vacation idea, I’ve just read that the Police Chase Experience ( https://policechaselv.com/ ) has opened in Las Vegas. Billed as the only provider of police pursuit and intervention driving tactics for public in the United States, Police Chase Experience Las Vegas’s program is based on the Las Vegas