Category: Science
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Clocks That Don’t Always Tell the Right Time
Some of us (but not all) remember a world where clocks didn’t always tell the right time. That world is disappearing into the rear-view mirror. With fewer and fewer exceptions, our timepieces connect to the internet and are set by a distant atomic clock. This goes doubly for our mobile devices: cell phones, smart watches,…
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Stonehaven’s new edition of The Challenge of Baha’u’llah
My book The Challenge of Baha’u’llah, first published 25 years ago, is now available from Stonehaven Press in a stunning commemorative edition! The new version is revised, expanded, updated, and redesigned. It sports an exquisite fresh cover and easy-on-the-eyes typography. A thorough reformatting provides easier readability and even better ease of reference. You’ll find it at…
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My Prayer for 2018
May each one of us be happy, healthy, and fully engaged with others (especially those whose views and experience may differ from our own). May our country stand as a beacon for racial healing and harmony, for interfaith understanding, for economic justice, for gender equality, for commitment to science, and for borders open to all…
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What Our Jonquils Know About Climate Change
Earlier this month (February 2017) the outdoor temperature was 77 degrees F. Even in the previous month, January, the mercury often registered above 60 degrees — and rarely fell below high 40s to mid 50s. This in East Tennessee! When I moved here in 1977, sub-zero temperatures were commonplace for January and even mid-February. (I…
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How to Fact-Check Gary Matthews (or Anyone Else)
One thing I love about today’s Internet is how easily you can fact-check anything I say. Don’t believe me about something? Fine! Fire up Google (or any other search engine). Type in the topic. Seconds later you’re studying it in Wikipedia, watching it on YouTube, reading all about it in respected news outlets and academic…
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Me and Automatic Doors
Someone once predicted that automatic doors would never catch on. Oh, yeah, that someone was me. It just proves how awful is my track record as a predictor of trends and technology. I don’t recall where or when I saw my first automatic sliding door. Hospital? Library? Grocery store? Being a kid, though, I remember…
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Did We Just Trade Away the Internet?
Did we just trade away the Internet? It sure looks that way. Don’t take me too literally. We’ll always have something called “the Internet”. It just won’t necessarily be the real Internet, the one we’ve come to take for granted. By which I mean the open Internet – the one featuring a precious jewel called “net…
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One Word: 101
As a number, 101 is often assigned to the first, most basic course in a college-level subject. Statistics 101. Political Science 101. Composition 101. For this reason, it also has become, in English, a word – not just a number. It’s now a colloquial way of referring to an idea so basic that it should…
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The Healing Power of Anagrams
Cheri and I benefit from the work of two exceptionally gifted healers: Dr. Rocio Huet, our primary-care physician; and Dr. Craig Hennie, our chiropractor. I’m therefore pleased to note that the letters in “Rocio Huet, healer” rearrange to spell “Hoorah! Elite cure”. And that those in “Doctor Craig Hennie” also spell out “condition recharge”. In…
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The First Firefly of Summer
Cheri spotted it (I didn’t): the first firefly of summer. She saw it on the evening of June 1. Yes, we know it technically isn’t summer yet. That doesn’t arrive this year till June 20. But it sure feels like summer, with temperatures suddenly spiking into the 90s. Seasons are all higgledy-piggledy nowadays anyway, what…
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Six Words: Rainbow!
How many colors in a rainbow? Six! What? Doesn’t “everybody know” there are seven? No, but seven is what most of us were taught: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. That’s how I learned them in school. We even were taught to remember them using the name ROY G BIV. Too bad it…