The historical information in this essay is mostly culled from Bill Bryson’s book on human anatomy and physiology, The Body. For most of human history, scratching your arm on a rusty nail could be a death sentence. The scratch wasn’t…
For most people, the rule of thumb is to stick to what you’re good at. But there are those rare individuals who can’t seem to stick to anything and are good at everything. Joseph Paxton was one of those people,…
When Bobby Shafran showed up for his first day of college, he seemed quite popular upon arrival! People were coming over to him and giving him hugs and high fives, but bizarrely they kept calling him Eddy. Within a few…
You are not one, you are many. You are trillions. There are somewhere between ten and forty trillion little copies of you in this universe, each one as unique as you are. The trillions of you are found in your…
Most of the information in this article was found in an article by Travis McDade in the September 2020 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine. Deep in the “if you know, you know” section, is the word INCUNABLE. To 99.9%…
This is a rerun from a previous Shabbos email, that came out exactly eight years ago. I hope you enjoy! I introduced my wife to the pleasures of good sushi on our seventh date. In just a few hours, my…
Mirror mirror on the wall, which national park is the most majestic of them all? Its mountains are as green as the verdant forest, Its peaks rise up to graze on the heavens Its waterfalls tumble down from peak to…
For a friendly boy from Fort Wayne, IN, Lou Curdes sure had plenty of fight in him. He fought with the Italians, the Germans and the Japanese. As a fighter pilot in WWII, Captain Lou moved from battlefront to battle…
ma·chine: noun, often attributive \mə-ˈshēn\ A: a constructed thing whether material or immaterial B : an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion, and energy one to another in a predetermined manner (2) : an instrument designed to transmit or…
Some states, like California or Texas, seem to have it all; glamour, big business, large populations, beautiful nature, national and international recognition, and lots of things to do. Other states, like Iowa or Idaho, seem to have none of it,…