Keep the home fires burning
Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful! That crackling, cheerful dancing fire in the fireplace is sure to kindle deep…
Category: General Interest
Friendships need face-to-face time
In the United States and across the world, actual friends are being replaced by acquaintances. Digital contacts are replacing human contact. YouTube,…
Here’s the tick-tock on time
It was 1907 when Englishman William Willett proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes each Sunday in April and reversing them in September. He said daylight…
Solved: The case of the missing silver fork
Around 1861, a homemaker in Williamsburg, Virginia, lost a valuable silver dinner fork. She probably blamed the neighbors, but a new investigation reveals…
Detergent isn’t soap and other clean facts
It’s true — soap and detergent aren’t the same. They’re made with different processes and do different things. Soap is created with a process called…
One of Hubble’s most famous images: Pillars of Creation.
More than just a picture: How images of space are created In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration published an image that should have been…
The world’s oldest restaurants (and their online reviews)
The restaurant business is notoriously tough. According to MenuTiger, 80 percent of restaurants fail within five years, and most of those failures occur…
Why does that candidate want your puny dollar?
At every dramatic turn during this presidential election cycle, you may have received floods of text and email messages asking you to chip in $3 here or…
In Japan, a backpack is not just a backpack
Japanese elementary school students aren’t required to carry the randoseru — a boxy flap-closure backpack that can nearly swallow the slight frames of…
New database boosts African-American genealogy research
Researching genealogy of African-American families can be tricky once you trace the line to enslaved ancestors, but a new database of records may help the…