Japanese cities turn to matchmaking
With catastrophically low birth rates, Japanese cities are getting into the matchmaking business. Unlike dating apps, these city initiatives have one…
Author: The Smart Reader Staff
Briefs and quick reads selected and edited by The Smart Reader's editorial team.
Redefining brat
In the world of upside-down pop culture lingo where hot means cool and bad means good, there is a new entry: brat. Brat doesn’t mean a spoiled,…
Suburb in a pickle
We pause during this era of dramatic political pronouncements to bring you some real news: There is a jar of pickles on the median of a busy highway exit…
Data breaches affect more than a billion people this year — so far
The RockYou2024 data breach appears to be the largest-ever compilation of stolen passwords — about ten billion of them, according to Cybernews. But don’t…
Don’t you forget about me: AI can now
Don’t you forget about me: AI can now “remember” conversations If you’re sick of repeating yourself all the time when you use ChatGPT, then you might want…
Startup eyes space-age cancer treatment
In the future, cancer treatment might come from outer space. Seriously. Immunotherapy drugs, which throw the body’s immune system into overdrive so it can…
Thank a sailor for these phrases
We may be future colonists of Mars but with the way we talk, you would think it’s still the 18th century. Sailing ships were the cutting edge technology…
‘Otis’ is still the sign of safety
One invention alone is responsible for the modern city full of skyscrapers that twinkle in the night sky: the elevator. Before the elevator, buildings…
The new 73-cent stamp
The US Postal Service has introduced its new forever stamp, and it costs 73 cents — a five cent increase over January 2024’s stamp. Part of the increase…
The Alex Trebek Jeopardy stamp
If you choose the Jeopardy category “Forever Stamps for $100,” you could find yourself asking a Jeopardy question about the number of people honored by a…