Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
The Up Side of Depression?
One of the pitfalls of modern life is depression. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States. In 2014, around 15.7 million adults age 18 or older in the U.S. had experienced at least one major depressive episode in the last
The Bad Side of Medicine
This is a poor way to start, but I apologize to all the health-care professionals for this post. I know there are many competent and dedicated people in the field (and I certainly have benefited from them), but the truth is throughout medical history, there have been many erroneous conceptions and outright mistakes. As a
Alcohol May Be More Important Than You Think
A question for today — Is alcohol a happy byproduct of civilization? Or is it one of the reasons for our civilization? The February, 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine explores this in an article entitled “A 9000-Year Love Affair”. It explains how alcohol is one of the most universally produced substances in history. In
How to Have a Hit
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” If you’ve ever heard of this saying, forget it. It just isn’t true. Everything depends on marketing and promotion… and luck. I was reminded of this recently when I heard a radio interview with Derek Thompson, a senior editor at Atlantic
Original Story — The Personality Test
From the Tests-Don’t-Always-Measure-What-They’re-Supposed-To-Measure Department — Those nice people at BewilderingStories.com have published another short story of mine. It’s entitled “The Personality Test” and can be accessed here: http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue701/blurb.html . (That link will take you to the “Issue #701 Readers’ Guide” so you can see what else is in this edition.) This the seventh story of
Meet Siri
My nieces have an iPhone and they delight in asking the digital assistant Siri questions. But maybe the key question is “Who is Siri?” (Have you ever asked her?) The March 2017 issue of Consumer Reports magazine discusses smartphones, and in a sidebar on page 50 they expose “The Real Voice Behind Siri”. In 2005,
Move Over, Atlantis!
From the Now-I’ve-Heard-Everything department — Mythology likes to rhapsodize about the lost continent of Atlantis, but there may be another loss we’ve completely overlooked. It’s in the Indian Ocean beneath the island of Mauritius. Although Mauritius is only 790 square miles, it has long interested scientists because of an unusually strong gravitational pull. You may
What Happens During Near-Death Experiences
We all want to know if there really is life after death, and so-called near-death experiences have been a popular subject in our culture. Does your life really flash before your eyes when you think you are dying? A recent study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition takes a new approach to evaluating these
What Is Really Wrong With Our Education System?
I’m going to make this one simple. If you want to know what is wrong with our education system, I would recommend Podcast #562, “The Problem We All Live With” which originally aired July 31, 2015 on the National Public Radio program This American Life (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with). “Right now, all sorts of people are trying to
Can Spicy Food Cause Weird Dreams?
Somewhere along the line, you’ve probably heard that spicy meals can cause strange or unusual dreams. Is it true? Maybe. This is discussed in detail in an article entitled “Can Spicy Food Really Cause Weird Dreams? The Answer Is Complicated” by chili lover Cari Romm on the Science of Us website (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/can-spicy-food-really-cause-weird-dreams.html?). According to Ms.