- New York Times:
WORLD NEWS:
As Pelosi Arrives, Quiet Defiance in Taiwan
(Public nonchalance about the tensions over Nancy Pelosi belies a political reality:
Many are tired of China's threats to shoot plane down and crave American support.)
(By Paul Mozur, Chris Horton & Amy Chang Chien, NY Times, 8-2-2022)
SCIENCE:
Why Woodpeckers Don't Mind Hitting Trees With Their Faces
(The birds hammer away, yet they don't get concussed. Scientists found that
assumptions about the animals' impact-absorbing skulls were wrong.)
(By Sam Jones, NY Times, 7-14-2022)
ART:
Hidden Artwork Revealed by X-Ray Appears to Be Van Gogh Self-Portrait, Experts Say
(A conservator at the National Galleries of Scotland uncovered the painting on the back
of another one by the Dutch artist, adding to the 35 known Van Gogh self portraits.)
(By Nina Siegal, NY Times, 7-14-2022)
How
Dylan Thuras, a Founder of Atlas Obscura, Spends His Sundays
(For someone who catalogs strange and unexplored corners of the globe, Dylan Thuras,
founder of Atlas Obscura and author of
"Atlas Obscura:
An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders"
keeps it pretty local. Mr. Thuras, 34, lives in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn
with his wife, Michelle J. Enemark, 34, an animator, and their 22-month-old son, Phineas. )
(By Annie Correal, NY Times, 10-28-2016)
Key Moments From the 2022 Scripps Spelling Bee
(Harini Logan & Vikram Raju were last spellers left onstage, having bested 227 other
spelling bee contestants. Harini wins spelling correctly charadriiform & tauromachian.)
(By Maria Cramer, NY Times, 6-2-2022)
The Only Living Pay Phones in New York
(As a curious crowd gathered in Times Square on Monday, a power saw cut through the base
of a pay phone on the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 50th Street. According to
the city's news release, this was "the final New York City public pay telephone".
In early 2000s, there were around 30,000 public street pay phones registered with the city.)
(By Ann Chen and Aaron Reiss, NY Times, 5-27-2022)
* Roger Angell, Who Wrote About Baseball With Passion, Dies at 101
(In elegantly winding articles for The New Yorker loaded with inventive imagery,
he wrote more like a fan than a sports journalist. Angell described Willie Mays
chasing down a ball hit to deep center field as "running so hard and so far that
the ball itself seems to stop in the air and wait for him.")
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 5-20-2022)
At House Hearing, Videos of Unexplained Aerial Sightings and a Push for Answers
(Pentagon officials testified at a rare public hearing about unidentified phenomena, and lawmakers
pledged to bring transparency to an investigation of unexplained reports by military pilots and others.)
(By Julian E. Barnes, NY Times, 5-17-2022)
The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin
(Carlin, the cantankerous, longhaired sage who used his withering insight and gleefully profane vocabulary to take aim at American hypocrisy, died in 2008. But in the years since, it can feel like he never really left us.)
(NY Times, 5-11-2022) (dnyuz.com)
* Warhol's
Marilyn at $195 Million, Shatters Auction Record for an American Artist
(By Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, 5-9-2022);
(Mercury News, 5-11-2022, A2)
The 40-inch-by-40-inch painting, a trophy given its vibrant colors
and glamorous subject matter,
eclipsed the previous high price of
$110.5 million for a Basquiat skull painting
at Sotheby's in
2017 as well as Warhol's auction high for
a car crash painting that sold for $105.4 million in 2013.
The Friends We Keep
[My colleague Catherine Pearson spoke to experts to determine how many friends a person
needs in order to stave off loneliness. (A 2010 meta-analysis found that loneliness is
"as harmful to physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day." In "The Writing Life",
Annie Dillard writes: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing." It's good wisdom
to keep in mind when deciding whom we spend our time with as well.]
(By Melissa Kirsch, NY Times, 5-7-2022) (Two articles cited linked below)
Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review
[Across 148 studies (308,849 participants), indicates a 50% increased likelihood of
survival for participants with stronger social relationships. Influence of relationships
on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.]
(By Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, J. Bradley Layton, PLOS Medicine, July 27, 2010)
Relationships:
The Upside of Losing Touch During the Pandemic
(During stressful times when we have less emotional bandwidth, we're more inclined
to put friendship quality over quantity. It's not that
we should close ourselves off
to new people, but rather that we should periodically take stock of which
relationships are most fulfilling and proceed accordingly.)
(By Hannah Hickok, Glamour, October 7, 2021)
SCIENCE:
Hubble Space Telescope Spots Earliest and Farthest Star Known
(Its light twinkled some 900 million years after the Big Bang, astronomers say.
Dot of light that shone 12.9 billion years ago is nicknamed Earendel—
Old English for "morning star". It is some 50 times the mass of our sun.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 3-30-2022)
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: Hollywood Bets Big on the Bad Entrepreneur
(Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was recently convicted of four counts of fraud...
With limited series like "The Dropout", "WeCrashed", and "Super Pumped", the
culture is saturated with ripped-from-the-headlines tales of self-immolating moguls.)
(By Amanda Hess, NY Times, 3-5-2022)
How to Get a Better Night's Sleep
(People who sleep seven hours a night are healthier and live longer. If you often feel tired
at work, your body is telling you that it's not getting enough sleep.)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 2-12-2022)
Sidney Poitier,
Who Paved the Way for Black Actors in Film, Dies at 94
(First Black performer to win Academy Award for best actor, for "Lilies of the Field"; also starred
in "To Sir With Love", "In the Heat of the Night", and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 1-7-2022)
* OP-ED:
What I Learned About Death From 7 Religious Scholars, 1 Atheist and My Father
[Asked my Dad "So, what are your thoughts now about dying?" He said "It's too complex."
Nine interviews in "The Stone" with religious scholars on death (2-3-2020 to 2-14-2021).]
(By George Yancy, NY Times, 1-2-2022)
OP-ED:
10 New Year's Resolutions That Are Good for the Soul
(Asked friends who are pastors, writers, scholars and spiritual leaders to offer suggested
"reSOULutions" for 2022. Take time to reflect; Plant seeds of humility; Care for the earth
in small ways; Think about the third person; Engage with the offscreen world first.)
(By Tish Harrison Warren, NY Times, 1-2-2022)
How
Betty White, a Television Golden Girl From the Start, Is Dead at 99
(Among the many highlights of a career that began in 1949 were star turns on
"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the 1970s and "Saturday Night Live" in 2010.)
(By Richard Severo & Peter Keepnews, NY Times, 12-31-2021)
* Wayne Thiebaud,
Playful Painter of the Everyday, Dies at 101
(Thiebaud's rich and luminous depictions of midcentury Americana separated him
from the classic Pop Art of the time. Famous for icing on his painted layer cakes.)
(By Michael Kimmelman, NY Times, 12-26-2021)
How
Nicole Kidman Learned to Love Playing Lucille Ball
(A career of dramas like "The Hours” and "Big Little Lies" was not enough to help Kidman
portray the "I Love Lucy" star in "Being the Ricardos". As she put it, "Funny's hard".)
(By Dave Itzkoff, NY Times, 12-26-2021)
* Desmond Tutu,
Whose Voice Helped Slay Apartheid, Dies at 90
(The archbishop, a powerful force for nonviolence in South Africa's anti-apartheid movement,
was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1984. Cause of death was cancer. First diagnosed with
prostate cancer in 1997, and was hospitalized several times in the years since.)
(By Marilyn Berger, NY Times, 12-26-2021)
OP-ED:
How Christmas Changed Everything
(Christians make the strange claim that the one true Creator became, not only a human
and not only a baby, but one in poverty, with no great strength or power, a child born
to a lower-class family, an ethnic minority, who lived under an oppressive and violent
imperial power. He was marginalized & despised and died the shameful death of a criminal.)
(By Tish Harrison Warren, NY Times, 12-26-2021)
Sardi's
Is Back After 648 Days, Its Fortunes Tied to Broadway
(Sardi's, which has been operating on West 44th Street since 1927, employed nearly
130 people during peak seasons before the pandemic arrived; it's restarting with 58.
Sardi's has about 1,200 caricatures of famous people who have eaten in the restaurant.)
(By Michael Paulson, NY Times, 12-25-2021)
* AN APPRAISAL: Joan Didion Chronicled American Disorder With Her Own Unmistakable Style
(For half a century, Didion, who died on Thursday at 87, was the grand diagnostician of
American disorder in essays of strong, unmistakable cadence, churning with floods and fire.)
(By Parul Sehgal, NY Times, 12-23-2021)
A Box of Cash, a Secret Donor and a Big Lift for Some N.Y.C. Students
(City College physics professor Vinod Menon found anonymous donor sending a box
for physics department, containing bundles of $50 and $100 bills, adding up to $180,000.)
(By Corey Kilganno, NY Times, 12-21-2021)
A 'Master of What He Does', Steph Curry Now Stands Alone
(The Golden State superstar passed Ray Allen for the top-spot on the career 3-pointer list.
And he did it in 511 fewer games.)
(By Scott Cacciola, NY Times, 12-13-2021)
Anne Rice,
Who Spun Gothic Tales of Vampires, Dies at 80
(She wrote more than 30 novels, including the best seller "Interview With the Vampire", which
became a hit movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Her husband
Stan Rice, was a poet.)
(By Neil Genzlinger, NY Times, 12-12-2021)
Alana Haim Surprised Everyone With Her Movie Debut. Even Herself.
(When Paul Thomas Anderson asked her to star in "Licorice Pizza",
the musician had zero acting experience. Now she's winning rave reviews.)
(By Lindsay Zoladz, NY Times, 12-6-2021)
Bob Dole, Old Soldier and Stalwart of the Senate, Dies at 98
(Mr. Dole, a son of the Kansas prairie who was left for dead on a World War II battlefield,
became one of the longest-serving Republican leaders. Lost Presidency to Bill Clinton in 1996.)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 12-5-2021)
Jay Last, One of the Rebels Who Founded Silicon Valley, Dies at 92
(One of the traitorous eight who left William Shockley's lab to found Fairchild Semiconductor,
that became Intel; Gordon Moore is now the last surviving member of the "traitorous eight".)
(By Cade Metz, NY Times, 11-20-2021)
* ART:
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Sells for $34.9 Million
(Sale at Sotheby's was a benchmark for
Kahlo
and was the most valuable work of Latin American
art ever sold at auction. "Diego and I"
from 1949, painted 5 years before her death in 1954.)
(By Zachary Small, NY Times, 11-16-2021)
Star System With Right-Angled Planets Surprises Astronomers
(Two planets orbit the poles while another revolves around the star's equator,
suggesting a mysterious, undetected force at star HD 3167, 150 light-years from us.)
(By Jonathan O'Callaghan, NY Times, 11-6-2021)
Are You Missing Out on the Metaverse?
[Pitches for future of the internet are banking on an old trick: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out);
Mark Zuckerberg's 81-minute video disquisition, rebranding of
Facebook as Meta. ]
(By John Herrman, NY Times, 11-2-2021)
EXIT INTERVIEW:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Daniel Craig
(The star of James Bond franchise bids farewell to 007 with "No Time to Die"
and learns for the first time about his life as an internet meme.)
(By Dave Itzkoff, NY Times, 9-30-2021)
FILM REVIEW:
'No Time to Die'— His Word Is His Bond
(The 25th episode in the venerable franchise— and Daniel Craig's
last as 007— finds its hero in a somber mood.)
(By A.O. Scott, NY Times, 9-29-2021)
* ART: Jasper Johns: Divide and Conquer
("Mind/Mirror", a monumental retrospective at the Whitney Museum and Philadelphia Museum
of Art, reveals an artist's protean talent, changing perspectives and resiliency over six decades.)
(By Holland Cotter, NY Times, 9-23-2021)
The Battle for Digital Privacy Is Reshaping the Internet
(As Apple and Google enact privacy changes, businesses are grappling with the fallout,
Madison Avenue is fighting back and Facebook has cried foul. Google outlined plans
to disable a tracking technology in its Chrome web browser.)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 9-16-2021)
OP-ED:
The sexism that led to the trial of Elizabeth Holmes trial
(By 2015, Ms. Holmes raised more than $400 million in funding & Theranos was valued at $9 billion.)
(By Ellen Pao, NY Times, 9-15-2021)
It's Never Too Late to Follow Your Spiritual Calling
(At 56, Ms. Vica Steel retired in June from her career as a public-school teacher for nearly 24 years.
She's studying at Wartburg Theological Seminary, in Dubuque, Iowa, on a scholarship with the purpose
of becoming a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (or E.L.C.A.)
(By Mainstream Machine, NY Times, 9-14-2021)
BOOKS:
The Contrarian Goes Searching for Peter Thiel's Elusive Core
(The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power
by Max Chafkin. A co-founder
of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook,
he had used his enormous fortune to bankroll Hulk Hogan's
relentless lawsuit against the website Gawker, driving the site and its owner to bankruptcy in 2016.)
(By Jennifer Szalai, NY Times, 9-13-2021)
* A Vermeer Restoration Reveals a God of Desire
(Restorers uncovered a strip underneath the painted rectangle, about part an inch broad.
Now not best was once the brushwork at the Cupid unmistakably Vermeer's)
(By Catherine Hickley, NY Times, 9-9-2021)
* The Many Faces of Mooncakes
(A celebration of the luminous autumn pastry— the signature dish
of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which commemorates the full moon and the fall.)
(By Taner Halicioglu, NY Times, 9-4-2021)
Willard Scott, TV's Clown Prince of Sun and Showers, Is Dead at 87
(Mr. Scott, who played both Bozo the Clown and the original Ronald McDonald on television,
was a longtime weather forecaster on the "Today" show who emphasized showmanship over science.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 9-4-2021)
OP-ED: What's wrong with sex between professors and students? it's not what you think.
(Teachers and students are not mere abstract intelligences, but incarnate beings.)
(By Amia Srinivasan, NY Times, 9-4-2021)
FILM: "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" Review:
House of Hidden Dragons
(A millennial slacker reckons with his past— and his family of warriors.
Film peppers its hero's tragic back story throughout but doesn't fully
acquaint us with him in the present before it jumps into his past.)
(By Maya Phillips, NY Times, 9-1-2021)
Ed Asner, Emmy-Winning Star of 'Lou Grant' and 'Up' Dies at 91
(Best known as the gruff newsman he first played on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show",
he was also a busy character actor and a political activist; won 7 Emmy Awards.)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 8-28-2021)
Deflecting asteroid before impact may take multiple bumps
[A roughly 525-foot piece of rock known as Dimorphos, is in no danger of hitting Earth.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will meet this astroid.]
(By Katherine Kornei, NY Times, 8-27-2021)
David Roberts, Who Turned Adventure Writing Into Art, Dies at 78
(In a 2006 memoir, "On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined",
tells about his firsthand witness of three fatal accidents, costing four lives at age 22.)
(Native Newspost, NY Times, 8-25-2021)
MUSIC:
Charlie Watts, Bedrock Drummer for the Rolling Stones, Dies at 80
(Reserved, dignified and dapper, Mr. Watts was never as flamboyant, either onstage or off;
Keith Richards said in his 2010 autobiography, Life "Charlie Watts has always been the bed
that I lie on musically." Watts played 50 years with the Stones, but his first love was jazz.)
(By Gavin Edwards, NY Times, 8-24-2021)
* Tom T. Hall, Country Music's 'Storyteller', Is Dead at 85
(Known to his fans and fellow musicians as "the Storyteller", Mr. Hall
mbued country lyrics with newfound depth & insight in the 1960s and '70s.)
(By Bill Friskics-Warren, NY Times, 8-21-2021)
* How to Meditate
(Meditation is a way to train the mind. It brings us back to the present moment,
gives us the tools we need to be less stressed, calmer & kinder to ourselves & others.)
(By David Gelles, NY Times, 8-17-2021)
* A Madonna Who Shows the Beauty in Going Overboard
[Parmigianino's "Madonna of the Long Neck" (1540) pictures mother of Christ stretched
out like bubblegum. Her dainty head seems to be plopped on an oversized curving body.
Jesus is asleep. Yet, Parmigianino has made him look like he's already dead.)
(By Jason Farago, NY Times, 8-13-2021)
A Queen of 19th Century Opera
(Pauline Viardot was one of the premier opera figures of her time, a talented singer,
composer, teacher and entrepreneur. A London journal in 1848 wrote: "Her technical skill
alone is immense; in the completeness of her chromatic scale she is, probably, without a rival.")
(By Claire Moses, NY Times, 7-21-2021)
With Baseball Stamps, It Ain't Over Until the Rights Issues Clear
(Yogi Berra is first player in nine years to appear on a U.S.P.S. stamp. Despite many deserving
candidates— including Henry Aaron— it could be a long wait before we see another.)
(By Rob Neyer, NY Times, 7-2-2021)
What is a flying car?
(Kitty Hawk is run by
Sebastian Thrun, who is a computer science professor at Stanford
and also founded Google's self-driving car project. Thrun says this technology will be
in our lives soon. Marcus Leng's company,
Opener, says its vehicles could be sold this year.)
(By Cade Metz & Erin Griffith, NY Times, 6-28-2021)
Four Decades on, Martin Yan Faces a New Audience and a New World
(Mr. Yan, now 72, introduced legions of people to Chinese flavors,
and eventually to other Asian cuisines. "If Yan can cook, so can you!")
(By Priya Krishna, NY Times, 6-15-2021)
The Hunt for Clarity About van Gogh's Last Days Leads to Maine
(The 19th-century painter
Edmund Walpole Brooke occupies a tiny, but durable place
in art history. Not because of his own work, but because he offers a tantalizing
look into the tragic last days of Vincent van Gogh.)
(By Peter Libbey, NY Times, 6-4-2021)
F. Lee Bailey, Lawyer for Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson, Dies at 87
(He was the stuff of courtroom legend: an audacious defender of O.J. Simpson,
Patty Hearst and others, who produced legal entertainment long before Court TV.)
(NY Times, 6-3-2021)
Lois Ehlert, Creator of Boldly Colored Children's Books, Dies at 86
(Her best-known book was "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom", made distinctive
collage artwork for readers ranging in age from infancy to 10, sold
more than 12 million copies; She won a Caldecott Honor for "Color Zoo".)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 5-30-2021)
A video interview with
Lois Ehlert
(Lois Ehlert's unique children's books, such as
"Color Zoo", reflect her creative and curious mind)
(YouTube, No date)
Anna
Halprin was a choreogrpher commited to experimentation
(Her work, which stressed improvisation, attracted students, disciples & enthusiasts
fascinated by the creative issues she explored and the way she explored them.)
(By Jack Anderson, NY Times, 5-26-2021)
Ruth Freitag, Librarian to the Stars, Dies at 96
(Known for her encyclopedic knowledge of resources in science and technology, Ms. Freitag
was sought out by leading interpreters of the galaxy. She developed a particular expertise
in astronomy early in her career. Her learnedness became so comprehensive that she opened
up new worlds to Asimov, the preeminent popular science writer of his day, and Sagan, the
astronomer who introduced millions of television viewers to the wonders of the universe.)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 5-21-2021)
Life and Death with the Dragon
(The volcano on Stromboli, a island northwest of the toe of Italy's boot
is always active; For those who visit, it is a spectacle like no other.)
(By Robin George Andrews, NY Times, 5-4-2021)
Mozambique Mints a New National Park— and Surveys Its Riches
(Located on the Zimbabwe border about 90 miles southwest of Gorongosa,
Mozambique's most famous national park, Chimanimani National Park
marks the latest triumph in an environmental renaissance.)
(By Jen Guyton, NY Times, 5-3-2021)
Fred Jordan, Publisher of Taboo-Breaking Books, Dies at 95
(Publishing partner of Barney Rosset, whose groundbreaking Grove Press and
Evergreen Review fended off censors of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover,
Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch.)
(By Sam Roberts, NY Times, 5-2-2021)
*
Thunderous Plunges and Mossy Trickles: A Spring Guide to Waterfalls
(Waterfalls can range from thunderous plunges to delicate mossy trickles.
They can be backcountry pop-ups or centerpieces of parks, like Great Falls
Park in McLean, Va., and Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, Oregon)
(By Elaine Glusac, NY Times, 4-30-2021)
Look Fast: It's Spring Wildflower Season
(Read "Florapedia: A Brief Compendium of Floral Lore", the latest by naturalist
Carol Gracie. Under "E" is elaiosome: the lipid-rich structure attached to each
trillium seed that is the prize ants seek, grabbing one to carry back to the nest,
to feed to their developing broods.)
(By Margaret Roach, NY Times, 4-28-2021)
Are There More Tulips Than Usual This Year?
(NYC planted same number of tulip bulbs as it does most years: 110,000 citywide)
(By Ezra Marcus, NY Times, 4-27-2021)
Helen Weaver, Chronicler of an Affair With Kerouac, Dies at 89
(She was a respected translator from French and a writer on astrology,
but her magnum opus was a memoir of her time with Kerouac and the Beats.)
(By Alex Traub, NY Times, 4-26-2021)
SCIENCE: What Do You Call a Bunch of Black Holes: A Crush? A Scream?
(There are gaggles of geese, pods of whales and murders of crows. What term would
do justice to the special nature of black holes? A mass? A colander? A scream?)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 4-22-2021)
Prince Philip's Life in Pictures
(He carried his own suitcases, fried eggs while the queen brewed tea, and sent his
children to school, instead of continuing the royal tradition of educating them at home.)
(NY Times, 4-9-2021)
Prince Philip, Husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Is Dead at 99
[Prince Philip carried British passport No. 1 (the queen did not require one)
and fulfilled as many as 300 engagements a year, including greeting Presidents.]
(NY Times, 4-9-2021)
*
My Ridiculous Dating System Totally Works!
[She explained that my love life wasn't supposed to be good. She said
"I think the reason you're alone is because you have too many high standards.”)
(Daily ZBusiness Press, NY Times, 4-9-2021)
Biden Backs Taiwan but some call for a clearer view to China
(American officials warn that China is growing more capable
of invading the island democracy of nearly 24 million.)
(By Michael Crowley, NY Times, 4-7-2021)
A
Cyclist on the English Landscape
(Grounded by the pandemic, a travel photographer spent the year pedaling
the roads around his home, resulting in a series of poetic self-portraits.)
(Photos & text by Roff Smith, NY Times, 4-5-2021)
The
Perseverance of New York City's Wildflowers
(A park in Williamsburg awaits the miniature beauty of its spring.)
(By Sabrina Imbler & Andrew Garn, NY Times, 3-20-2021)
Here's
How Bored Rich People Are Spending Their Extra Cash
(1952 Mickey Mantle was sold through PWCC Marketplace for $5.2 million;
Clement Kwan, founder of Beboe, bought Michael Jordan's rookie cards @ $30,000,
sold @ $100,000; now selling @ $738,000. autographed 1985 Air Jordans fetched $275,000.)
(By Jacob Bernstein, NY Times, 3-20-2021);
Yahoo News
Why
an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000
(A fast-growing market for digital art, ephemera and media is marrying the world's
taste for collectibles with cutting-edge technology. In the 10 years since Chris Torres
created Nyan Cat, an animated
flying cat with a Pop-Tart body leaving a rainbow trail,
the meme has been viewed and shared across the web hundreds of millions of times.)
(By Erin Griffith, NY Times, 2-22-2021, updated 3-11-2021)
How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million
(A 10-second video artwork, 'CROSSROADS', authenticated by blockchain as one-of-a-kind,
was sold for $6.6 million— it is a new type of digital asset known as NFT that has
exploded in popularity with many willing to spend enormous sums on the items.)
(By Reuters, YouTube, 3-1-2021)
Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces
(Nurse has on her dining room wall for two decades the long-missing Panel 28
from Jacob Lawrence's series "Struggle: From the History of the American People".)
(By Hilarie M. Sheets, NY Times, 3-1-2021)
Reviewing the Book Review
(As the publication celebrates its 125th anniversary, Parul Sehgal, a staff critic and former
editor at the Book Review, delves into the archives to critically examine its legacy in full.)
(By Parul Sehgal, NY Times, 2-26-2021)
Patricia Lynch,
NBC Journalist Who Focused on Cults, Dies at 82
[She reported extensively on the
Rev. Jim Jones, who led more than 900 members of his
People's Temple of Disciples of Christ to mass suicide in Jonestown massacre in Guyana
in 1978. Born on 3-5-1938, in Floral Park, Long Island (where we lived 1956-1978).]
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 2-18-2021)
* What Makes for a Great Literary Romance?
(Passion, sacrifice, a twist: 125 years of book reviews offer the clue to Love Potion No. 9.)
(By Dan Saltzstein, NY Times, 2-11-2021)
Mary Wilson,
an Original Member of the Supremes, Dies at 76
(Ms. Wilson joined with Florence Ballard and Diana Ross— who later emerged
as the lead singer— to form one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s.)
(By Derrick Bryson Taylor, NY Times, 2-9-2021)
The Mushrooms Will Survive Us
(Yellow oyster mushrooms at Smallhold, an indoor farm in Brooklyn sells at-home grow kits.)
(By Zoë Schlanger, NY Times, 2-7-2021)
TRILOBITES: A Natural Work of Art May Be Hiding Among Indian Cave Masterpieces
(Thousands of images in Bhimbetka Rock Shelters: men, women, a couple having sex,
dancers, children, hunts, battles, about 29 different animal species
and mythical beasts like a part-boar part-ox part-elephant.)
(By Joshua Sokol, NY Times, 2-5-2021)
Christopher Plummer, Actor From Shakespeare to The Sound of Music, Dies at 91
(His performance as Captain von Trapp in one of the most popular movies of all
time propelled a steady half-century parade of television and film roles.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 2-5-2021)
OP-ED: Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad for the Economy?
(G.D.P., jobs & other indicators have all risen faster under Democrats for nearly
past century. G.D.P. Ranking: FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Reagan, Carter)
(By David Leonhardt, NY Times, 2-2-2021)
Hal Holbrook, Actor Who Channeled Mark Twain, Is Dead at 95
(He carved out a substantial career in television and film but achieved the widest
acclaim with his one-man stage show, playing Twain for more than six decades.)
(By Robert Berkvist, NY Times, 2-2-2021)
Tony Bennett Reveals He Has Alzheimer’s Disease
("He's not the old Tony anymore," his wife, Susan, said. "But when he sings, he's the old Tony.")
(By Sarah Bahr, NY Times, 2-1-2021)
* Sawing Someone in Half Never Gets Old. Even at 100
(On Jan. 17, 1921, the magician P.T. Selbit walked onstage at the Finsbury Park
Empire in North London, for the first time ever sawed someone in half.)
(By Tala Safie & Rumsey Taylor, NY Times, 1-29-2021)
Juan Carlos Copes,
Who Brought Tango to Broadway, Dies at 89
(Copes turned tango into dance for the stage, with complex, highly polished choreography
dubbed the "estilo Copes-Nieves" that would wow an audience for an entire evening.)
(By Marina Harss, NY Times, 1-26-2021)
*
25 Great Writers and Thinkers Weigh In on Books That Matter
(To celebrate the Book Review's 125th anniversary, we're dipping into the archives
to revisit our most thrilling, memorable and thought-provoking coverage.)
(By Tina Jordan, Noor Qasim and John Williams, NY Times, 1-25-2021)
A Quiet Life of Loud Home Runs: Hank Aaron in Photographs
(The slugging outfielder was a rock of consistency for 23 seasons.
He was a superstar unlike any before him— or any since.)
(By New York Times, 1-23-2021)
*
Hank Aaron, Home Run King Who Defied Racism, Dies at 86
(He held the most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 1-22-2021)
'A Great Friend, a Great American and a Great Player'
(Teammates, Hall of Famers and former presidents mourned the loss of Hank Aaron,
a player so terrific he could be taken for granted.)
(By David Waldstein, NY Times, 1-22-2021)
*
ON BASEBALL: There Are Hall of Famers, and Then There's Hank Aaron
(The Braves slugger occupied the rarefied space of a player who stands out
in every crowd— even one full of Hall of Famers..)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 1-22-2021)
Don Sutton, Hall of Fame Right-Hander, Is Dead at 75
(Don Sutton, a durable right-handed pitcher who won 324 games
over 23 years for five teams, most notably Los Angeles Dodgers,
and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998)
(By Richard Sandomir, NY Times, 1-19-2021)
He Climbed 800 Feet in a Wheelchair. Hong Kong Watched in Awe
(Lai Chi-wai didn't reach his goal of ascending a skyscraper, 1,050-foot
Nina Tower by rope. It hardly made his feat any less impressive.)
(By Tiffany May, NY Times, 1-18-2021)
Tommy Lasorda, a Dodger From His Cleats to His Cap, Dies at 93
("Cut my veins, and I bleed Dodger blue", said Lasorda, who managed the club
to two World Series championships in a decades-long Hall of Fame career.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 1-8-2021)
Infrared Drones, Search Parties and a Lasso: Chasing a Runaway Llama
(Gizmo the llama disappeared for 17 days before it was found.)
(By Sarah Maslin Nir, NY Times, 1-1-2021)
Eight-Armed Underwater Bullies: Watch Octopuses Punch Fish
(A day octopus takes a swat at a blacktip grouper in Portugal waters)
(By Elizabeth Preston, NY Times, 12-24-2020)
*
Pierre Cardin, Designer to the Famous and Merchant to the Masses, Dies at 98
(In a career spanning more than 3/4 of a century, he remained a futurist, reproducing
fashions for ready-to-wear consumption & affixing his brand to an outpouring of products.)
(By Ruth La Ferla, NY Times, 12-29-2020)
Phil Niekro, Hall of Fame Knuckleball Pitcher, Dies at 81
(A five-time all-star, he played in the major leagues for 24 seasons,
but never made it to World Series; 9-0 No-hitter against Padres in 1973.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 12-27-2020)
*
Barry Lopez, Lyrical Writer Who Was Likened to Thoreau, Dies at 75
(Mr. Lopez spent five years in the Arctic, and his books, essays and
short stories explored the kinship of nature and human culture.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 12-26-2020)
The 36 Questions That Lead to Love
(Study by psychologist Arthur Aron that explores whether intimacy between two strangers
can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of personal questions.)
(By Daniel Jones, NY Times, 1-9-2015, NY Times #62 most-read stories in 2020)
E. Margaret Burbidge, Astronomer Who Blazed Trails on Earth, Dies at 100
(She was denied access to a telescope because of her sex, but Dr. Burbidge
forged ahead anyway, going on to make pathbreaking discoveries about the cosmos.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 4-6-2020) (12-25-2020 NY Times top 25 stories of the year)
Russian Hackers Broke Into Federal Agencies, U.S. Officials Suspect
(In one of the most sophisticated & perhaps largest hacks in more than 5 years,
email systems were breached at the Treasury and Commerce Departments.)
(By David E. Sanger, NY Times, 12-13-2020)
John le Carré, Best-Selling Author of Cold War Thrillers, Dies at 89
(Breaking from the James Bond mold, he turned the spy novel into high art as
he explored the moral compromises of agents on both sides of the Iron curtain.)
(By Sarah Lyall, NY Times, 12-13-2020)
Charley Pride, Country Music's First Black Superstar, Dies at 86
(Began his career amid the racial unrest of the 1960s and cemented his
place in the country pantheon with hits like "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'."")
(By Bill Friskics-Warren, NY Times, 12-12-2020)
How "The Queen's Gambit" Is Inspiring Women to Take Up Chess
(Fans of the Netflix series, including teenagers and the actress Beth Behrs,
are flocking to the game because "women can be rock stars" in chess.)
(By Dylan Loeb McClain, NY Times, 12-10-2020)
FireEye, a Top Cybersecurity Firm, Says It Was Hacked by a Nation-State
(Silicon Valley company said hackers— almost certainly Russian—
made off with tools that could be used to mount new attacks around the world.
It was a stunning theft, akin to bank robbers who, having cleaned out local
vaults, then turned around and stole the F.B.I.'s investigative tools.)
(By David E. Sanger & Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 12-9-2020)
California's epic wildfires in 2020 took deadly aim at the state's most beloved trees
(In a relative instant, countless ancient redwoods, hundreds of
giant sequoias and more than one million Joshua trees perished.)
(By John Branch, Photographs by Max Whittaker, NY Times, 12-9-2020)
Helen LaFrance, Folk Artist of Rural Kentucky, Dies at 101
(Her vibrant "memory paintings" which drew comparisons to the work of
Grandma Moses and other regional artists, brought her renown late in life.)
(By Penelope Green, NY Times, 12-8-2020)
Nepal and China Say Mount Everest Is Two Feet Higher
(In a sign of their increasingly close ties, the two countries jointly
announced a new measure for the peak: 8,848.86 meters, or 29,031.7 feet.)
(By Bhadra Sharma & Emily Schmall, NY Times, 12-8-2020)
*
The Social Life of Forests
(Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi.
What are they sharing with one another? Suzanne Simard's TED Talk, June 2016)
(By Ferris Jabr, Photographs by Brendan George Ko, NY Times, 12-6-2020)
Australia Gears Up for the Great Koala Count, Using Drones, Droppings and Dogs
(The marsupials are not easy to find, or count accurately, so officials will deploy
new methods. In 2016, scientists estimated over 300,000 koalas in Australia.)
(By Yan Zhuang, NY Times, 12-6-2020)
Candice Bergen, Woman Who's Had It All
(The wryest of Hollywood royals recalls life with Daddy's dummy,
marriage to Louis Malle and a comedic career for the ages.)
(By Maureen Dowd, NY Times, 12-5-2020)
This Japanese Shop Is 1,020 Years Old. It Knows a Bit About Surviving Crises.
(To survive for a millennium, Ms. Hasegawa said, a business cannot just chase profits.
It has to have a higher purpose. In the case of Ichiwa, that was a religious calling:
serving the shrine's pilgrims. Japan is home to more than 33,000 with at least 100 years
of history, over 40% of world's total. Around 140 have existed for more than 500 years.
19 claim to have been continuously operating since the first millennium.)
(By Ben Dooley & Hisako Ueno, NY Times, 12-2-2020)
*
London A.I. Lab Claims Breakthrough That Could Accelerate Drug Discovery
(Researchers at DeepMind say they have solved "the protein folding problem",
a task that has bedeviled scientists for more than 50 years.)
(By Cade Metz, NY Times, 11-30-2020)
STYLE: The World's Most Glamorous Quarantine Project
(John Hatleberg has been working on replicas of the Hope Diamond and its earlier
incarnations for the Smithsonian. Experts coated and recoated the replica using
a thick level of precious metals to match the lush blue of the Hope.)
(By Geraldine Fabrikant, NY Times, 11-28-2020)
ART: The Myth of North America, in One Painting
("The Death of General Wolfe" painted by Benjamin West in 1770, depicts the Battle
of the Plains of Abraham, outside Quebec City. It was the turning point in a war
that would end with the British takeover of French colonies from Quebec to Florida.)
(By Jason Farago, NY Times, 11-25-2020)
Meet GPT-3. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue)
(The latest natural-language system generates tweets, pens poetry, summarizes emails,
answers trivia questions, translates languages & even writes its own computer programs.)
(By Cade Metz, NY Times, 11-24-2020)
BOOK REVIEW: 100 Notable Books of 2020
(The year's notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction,
selected by the editors of The NY Times Book Review;
Brian Greene's Until the End of Time;
Katie Mack's The End of Everything)
(Book Review Editors, NY Times, 11-20-2020)
About That Maligned Christmas Tree (and That Owl) at Rockefeller Center
(The Norway spruce is 75-foot, 11-ton evergreen, arrived in
Midtown Manhattan after a 200-mile trip from upstate Oneonta.)
(By Ed Shanahan, NY Times, 11-18-2020)
'I Had to See That Owl': Central Park's New Celebrity Bird
(New Yorkers are so obsessed with Barry the barred owl that some are
concerned he could be scared away. So far, he seems to like the attention.)
(By Lisa M. Collins, NY Times, 11-17-2020)
Scary Is How You Act, Not Look, Disability Advocates Tell Filmmakers
[Anne Hathaway and producers of "The Witches" have apologized for
depicting her character with disfigured hands
(ectrodactyly) in the film.]
(By Cara Buckley, NY Times, 11-17-2020)
WORLD THROUGH A LENS: Have a Look at the Fabled Honey Forest
(Small town of Camlihemsin in northeastern Turkey, is home to community
of Hemshin people, an ethnic minority originating from Armenia who
sustain a distinctive tradition: black hive beekeeping.)
(By Daniel Milroy Maher, Photographs by Sarah Pannell , NY Times, 11-16-2020)
Egypt Unearths New Mummies Dating Back 2,500 Years
(Archaeologists unearthed more than 100 painted wooden coffins up to
2,500 years old in the Saqqara burial ground, many containing mummies.)
(By Isabella Kwai, NY Times, 11-15-2020)
Joanna Harcourt-Smith, 74, Dies; Lived a 'Psychedelic Love Story'
(She was a 26-year-old European socialite in Switzerland in 1972 when she met
Timothy Leary, the psychedelic Pied Piper to the flower children of the 1960s.)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 11-14-2020)
Sophia Loren Makes Her Return to Film: 'I'm a Perfectionist'
(The star, now 86, was looking for a personal connection to a script.
Then along came her director son and the Netflix drama "The Life Ahead".)
(By Simon Abrams, NY Times, 11-13-2020)
Could Listening to the Deep Sea Help Save It?
(A hydrothermal vent— or more precisely, one vent from the Suiyo Seamount
southeast of Japan— generates a viscous, muffled burbling that recalls an ominous
pool of magma or a simmering pot of soup;
Tzu-Hao Lin listened since 2008.)
(By Sabrina Imbler, NY Times, 11-10-2020)
Tom Heinsohn, Champion Celtic as Player and Coach, Is Dead at 86
(His blood always ran green: 8 titles with Boston as a Hall of Fame forward and
two as head coach followed by a 4-decade career as a die-hard Celtics broadcaster.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 11-10-2020)
Viola Smith, 'Fastest Girl Drummer in the World' Dies at 107
(She became first female star of jazz drumming, and performed at
President Truman's inauguration gala; Her showcase tune was a jazzy
arabesque "Snake Charmer" exhibiting her virtuosity in a flashy solo.)
(By Alex Vadukul, NY Times, 11-6-2020)
Looking
for Job Advice? Try TikTok
(J.T. O'Donnell's videos cover job-seeker F.A.Q.s, like whether a hiring manager will be
good to work for; how to write an impressive (but not self-aggrandizing) résumé; and what
to do when a potential employer ghosts you; She has more than 900,000 followers on TikTok.)
(By Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu, NY Times, 11-2-2020)
Needle Update: What to Expect on Election Night
(Our three "needle" battleground states will be Florida, Georgia & North Carolina,
If Joe Biden wins even one of these states, he is a solid favorite to win the presidency.)
(By Nate Cohn and Josh Katz, NY Times, 11-2-2020)
A Local's Tour of Asturias, Spain's 'Natural Paradise'
(After a decade spent living abroad, a photographer returns to
her homeland— and revels in the breadth of its beauty.)
(Photographs & Text by Mónica R. Goya, NY Times, 11-2-2020)
Sean Connery, Who Embodied James Bond and More, Dies at 90
(Played the part in the first five Bond films and seven over all.
Connery won a best-actor award from the British Academy of Film
& Television Arts for "The Name of the Rose" (1986), based on the
Umberto Eco novel, in which he played a crime-solving medieval monk.)
(By Aljean Harmetz, NY Times, 10-31-2020)
Herb Adderley, a Packers Hall of Fame Cornerback, Dies at 81
(A defensive star in Green Bay— he ran back 7 interceptions for touchdowns—
he played on five championship teams under Vince Lombardi and one in Dallas.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-30-2020)
Cecilia Chiang, Who Brought Authentic Chinese Food to America, Dies at 100
(With her famed Mandarin restaurant in San Francisco, she enticed diners with dishes
she grew up with, leaving the American chop suey and chow mein era far behind.)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 10-28-2020)
DODGERS 3, RAYS 1 | LOS ANGELES WINS SERIES, 4-2:
Dodgers Win the World Series After Years of Frustration
(Mookie Betts delivered two runs in a Game 6 victory over the
Tampa Bay Rays that sealed the franchise's first title in 32 years.)
(By David Waldstein, NY Times, 10-27-2020)
Edith O'Hara, a Fixture of Off Off Broadway, Dies at 103
(The theater she founded, the 13th Street Repertory Company, has been
an eclectic presence on the New York scene for almost half a century.)
(By Neil Genzlinger, NY Times, 10-24-2020)
TRILOBITES: Footprints Mark a Toddler's Perilous Prehistoric Journey
(Mammoths and giant ground sloths roamed the same terrain that a young adult
swiftly moved through while toting a young child, several thousands years ago.)
(By Katherine Kornei, NY Times, 10-23-2020)
Marge Champion, Dancer, Actor and Choreographer, Dies at 101
(A model for Disney's animated heroine in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"; she & her
husband, Gower, epitomized clean-cut, all-American dance team of Hollywood musicals.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 10-22-2020)
Jacob Lawrence Painting, Missing for Decades, Is Found by Met Visitor
(Panel by renowned Black artist, part of his "Struggle" series, was last seen in 1960.
It had been hanging in her neighbors' Upper West Side apartment for decades.)
(By Hilarie M. Sheets, NY Times, 10-21-2020)
BOOKS: Richard Avedon, a Photographer Who Wanted to Outrun the Glitz Factor
(While reading What Becomes a Legend Most, Philip Gefter takes the reader
inside so many of Avedon's photo shoots, and so deftly explicates his work,
that you're thirsty to sate your eyes with Avedon's actual images.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 10-19-2020)
Rhonda Fleming, 97, Movie Star Made for Technicolor, Is Dead
[Ms. Fleming's roles
ranged from Wyatt Earp's love interest
to a princess in
King Arthur's court. Hitchcock's psychological thriller
"Spellbound" (1945)]
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 10-16-2020)
Joe Morgan, Hall of Fame Second Baseman, Is Dead at 77
(He later became a well-known television commentator, was among the smallest
great players in the history of the game and among the greatest second basemen.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 10-12-2020)
Whitey Ford, Beloved Yankees Pitcher Who Confounded Batters, Dies at 91
(Pitching for 11 pennant-winners and six World Series champions, Ford won
236 games, most of any Yankee, and had a career winning percentage of .690,
the best among pitchers with 200 or more victories in the 20th century.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-9-2020)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to 2 Scientists for Work on Genome Editing
(Emmanuelle Charpentier & Jennifer A. Doudna developed the Crispr tool, which
can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with high precision.)
(By Katherine J. Wu, Carl Zimmer and Elian Peltier, NY Times, 10-7-2020)
Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to 3 Scientists for Work on Black Holes
(Prize was awarded half to Roger Penrose for showing how black holes could form and half to
Reinhard Genzel & Andrea Ghez for discovering supermassive object at Milky Way's center.)
(By Dennis Overbye and Derrick Bryson Taylor, NY Times, 10-6-2020)
Eddie Van Halen, Virtuoso of the Rock Guitar, Dies at 65
(His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, making deeper or
darker emotions feel irrelevant. The band he led was one of the most popular of all time.)
(By Jim Farber, NY Times, 10-6-2020)
Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to Scientists Who Discovered Hepatitis C Virus
(Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded jointly to Dr. Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton
and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, that "made possible
blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.")
(By Katherine J. Wu and Daniel Victor, NY Times, 10-5-2020)
Ron Perranoski, Ace Reliever in Dodgers' Storied '60s, Dies at 84
(He led National League in pitching appearances with 70 in 1962 and 69 in 1963,
when he saved 21 games, posted a 1.67 earned run average, with 16-3 record.
He won 4 World Series with LA Dodgers 1963, 1965 as pitcher, 1981, 1988 as coach)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-5-2020)
Nicole Kidman Leans Into the Pain
(Tom Cruise and I loved working with Stanley Kubrick in
Eyes Wide Shut for two years;
We were happily married; he wanted to explore sexuality, infidelity, and nudity in the film.)
(By David Marchese, NY Times Magazine, 10-5-2020)
Murray Schisgal, Who Brought the Absurd to the Mainstream, Dies at 93
(Wrote Tony Award-winning comedy "Luv" with Eli Wallach, & Hollywood hit farce
"Tootsie" the smash 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman as a struggling actor
who secures a role by auditioning as a woman. YouTube Trailer)
(By Will Dudding, NY Times, 10-2-2020)
Bob Gibson, Feared Flamethrower for the Cardinals, Dies at 84
(Retired after the 1975 season with a career record of 251-174 and ERA of 2.91;
Won both NL's MVP and Cy Young Award, as the league's best pitcher, in 1968,
when he won 22 games, struck out 268 batters, pitched 13 shutouts and posted
an ERA of 1.12; Threw 56 career shutouts; Record for most strikeouts in a
World Series game, 17, against Detroit Tigers in 1968; Hall of Fame 1981.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-2-2020)
Joe Laurinaitis, a Star as Tag Team's 'Animal', Dies at 60
(As one of the Road Warriors, he brought a muscled flamboyance to professional wrestling.
With his partner, Michael Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk), they revived tag team wrestling.)
(By Neil Genzlinger, NY Times, 10-1-2020) (YouTube)
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is 'Very Likely to Work,' Studies Suggest
(Series of research papers renews hope that the long-elusive goal
of mimicking the way the sun produces energy might be achievable.)
(By Henry Fountain, NY Times, 9-29-2020)
Helen Reddy Dies at 78; Sang "I Am Woman"
(Australian-born singer's first No. 1 hit became a feminist
anthem and propelled her to international stardom.)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 9-29-2020)
Lillian Brown, Makeup Artist to Nine Presidents, Dies at 106
(She did more than powder noses; she advised on diction and apparel and
helped commanders in chief put their best selves forward for television.)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 9-29-2020)
Jackie Stallone, Celebrity Astrologer and Sylvester's Mother, Dies at 98
[She was best known as mother of Sylvester Stallone,
who starred in Rocky & Rambo movies;
She was circus aerialist, chorus girl, wrestling promoter, gym owner— before gaining
notice as an astrologer, writing Starpower: An Astrological Guide to Super Success (1989)]
(By Julia Carmel, NY Times, 9-25-2020)
How Lenny Kravitz Keeps His Cool
(When you're 25, and you've released your first album. You write, "I didn't know then
that the life of a rock star is in equal measure a beautiful blessing and perilous burden.")
(By Rob Tannenbaum, NY Times, 9-23-2020)
The Biggest Wave Surfed This Year
(On Feb. 11, 33-year-old Brazilian Maya Gabeira, surfed a 73.5 foot wave
in Nazaré, Portugal. She flew down the face of the wave as it curled
overhead then crashed in a series of what felt like explosions, Gabeira
said, before engulfing her body in white water.)
(By Adam Skolnick, NY Times, 9-22-2020)
*
He Invented the Rubik's Cube. He's Still Learning From It.
(Erno Rubik, who invented the Rubik's Cube in 1974, wrote his book
Cubed,
There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to arrange the squares, but just one
of those combinations is correct. Rubik finally did it, after weeks of frustration.
Yusheng Du of China set the world record of 3.47 seconds in 2018.)
(By Alexandra Alter, NY Times, 9-16-2020)
A Climate Reckoning in Fire-Stricken California
(Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents
smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate
change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face.)
(By Thomas Fuller & Christopher Flavelle, NY Times, 9-10-2020)
Scenes from around San Francisco where dark orange skies blankets city
(This apocalyptic hue is due to a combination of smoke
from various wildfires sitting above the marine fog layer.)
(By Jessica Christian, Twitter, NY Times, 9-10-2020)
BASEBALL: The Braves Scored 29 Runs. Their Player of the Game? Everyone.
(The Braves' run total against the Marlins was a National League record,
and all 10 men they sent to the plate got at least one hit.)
(By Victor Mather, NY Times, 9-10-2020)
IN HER WORDS: Why Are Men Still Explaining Things to Women?
(Mansplaining illuminates a much deeper problem than the bore of patronizing monologues.
"Entitled" author
Kate Manne unpacks the phenomenon. Men thinks they have more knowledge.)
(By Mary Katharine Tramontana, NY Times, 9-9-2020)
OBITUARY: Lou Brock, Baseball Hall of Famer Known for Stealing Bases, Dies at 81
(Brock's 118 stolen bases in 1974 eclipsed Maury Wills's single-season record of 104,
set in 1962, and his 938 career steals broke Ty Cobb's mark of 892. Won 1964 World Seies
for St. Louis Cardinals; Had 3,023 hits & hit .300 eight times; MLB Hall of Fame in 1985.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 9-6-2020)
STYLE: Jane Fonda, Intergalactic Eco-Warrior in a Red Coat
(I wanted to be schooled by Jane Fonda. From Black Panthers to the Green New Deal,
from a legendary sex life to no sex life, from plastic surgery to plastic prison handcuffs,
from "Barbarella" to Quentin Tarantino, from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump,
from Marilyn Monroe to TikTok, from bad vibes over Hanoi Jane to good vibrators.)
(By Maureen Dowd, NY Times, 9-2-2020)
OBITUARY: Tom Seaver, Pitcher Who Led 'Miracle Mets' to Glory, Dies at 75
(He won 311 games with 3,640 strikeouts in his 20 big-league seasons;
New York fans called him 'Tom Terrific' after they won 1969 World Series.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 9-2-2020)
*
MUSIC: 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Violin
(Hilary Hahn: I hold my breath every time I listen to it, or play it. It's an incredibly
special and personal experience. "The Lark Ascending" is all of art in one place: nature,
music, poetry, imagery and imagination. It lifts you immediately out of your seat, out of
the space you're in, and carries you through the ether, through intense emotions, through
joyful, sunny countryside revelry and through sheer orchestral lushness. The final note
returns you to your own soul, yet still you are soaring.)
(By 17 Music Professionals, NY Times, 9-2-2020)
OBITUARY: Gail Sheehy, Journalist, Author and Social Observer, Dies at 83
(She looked at what makes public figures tick and, in her Passages books, how
adults navigate life's inevitable changes; Showed how character was destiny.)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times, 8-25-2020)
SCIENCE: Why Some Tropical Fish Are Gettin' Squiggly With It
[A hybrid Venusta multifasciata, cross between multibarred angelfish and a purple
masked angelfish, produced hybrid offspring even more colorful than the parents.]
(By Sabrina Imbler, NY Times, 8-22-2020)
'It's Hard to See Your Memories Burn': Loss From Wildfires Grows in California
(The 118-year-old state park, California's oldest— has been devastated.
Its giant trees were the backdrop in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo film
as Kim Novak strolled with James Stewart. Its headquarters, a one-story
building built in 1936 from stone and redwood logs is now gone.)
(By Shawn Hubler & Kellen Browning, NY Times, 8-21-2020)
IN THE GARDEN: The Late-Summer Lure of Asters and Goldenrods
[The migratory painted lady butterfly on seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens),
stocking up for its journey. Latin name Solidago translates as "becoming whole".]
(By Margaret Roach, NY Times, 8-19-2020)
Death Valley Just Recorded the Hottest Temperature on Earth
[At 3:41 p.m. on Sunday, 8/16, temperature at Furnace Creek reached 130oF,
equivalent of 54oC.
Previous High
(debated):
56.7 oC (134.1 oF) on 10 July 1913]
(By Concepción de León & John Schwartz, NY Times, 8-17-2020)
*
A Picture of Change for a World in Constant Motion
[Hokusai: "Ejiri in Suruga Province"— 10th image in his renowned cycle
"Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji" (1830) & its influence on Western art.]
(By Jason Farago, NY Times, 8-7-2020)
Olivia de Havilland, a Star of 'Gone With the Wind', Dies at 104
(She built an illustrious Hollywood career punctuated by
a successful fight to loosen the studios' grip on actors.)
(By Robert Berkvist, NY Times, 7-26-2020)
THE LONG VIEW: Jackie Robinson's Inner Struggle
(Robinson recalled in his 1972 memoir I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography;
After the 1947 World Series, Robinson observed "I cannot stand and sing the anthem.
I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a Black man in a white world. In 1972,
in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.")
(By Jon Meacham, NY Times, 7-21-2020)
239 Experts
With One Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne
(Whether carried aloft by large droplets that zoom through the air
after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide
the length of a room, these experts said, the coronavirus is borne
through air and can infect people when inhaled.)
(By Apoorva Mandavilli, NY Times, 7-4-2020)
*
This Black Hole Blew a Hole in the Cosmos
(The galaxy cluster Ophiuchus was doing just fine until WISEA J171227.81-232210.7—
a black hole several billion times as massive as our sun— burped on it.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 3-6-2020)
Jack Welch, G.E. Chief Who Became a Business Superstar, Dies at 84
(Mr. Welch was named "manager of the century" after General Electric's
revenue jumped nearly fivefold during his tenure.)
(By Steve Lohr, NY Times, 3-3-2020)
Kirk Douglas, a Star of Hollywood's Golden Age, Dies at 103
(His rugged good looks and muscular intensity made him a commanding presence
in films like "Lust for Life", "Spartacus" and "Paths of Glory".)
(By Robert Berkvist, NY Times, 2-5-2020)
*
These Images Show the Sun's Surface in Greater Detail Than Ever Before
(Hawaiian Solar Telescope shows greater detail of the Sun; These cell-like structures—
each about the size of Texas— are the signature of violent motions that transport
heat from the inside of the sun to its surface, about 5,000 degrees Celsius.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 1-30-2020)
Kobe Bryant, Transformational Star of the N.B.A., Dies in Helicopter Crash
(Bryant, 41, who won five titles with the Los Angeles Lakers, was traveling with
his 13-year-old daughter when they and seven other people perished in the crash.)
(By Scott Cacciola, NY Times, 1-27-2020)
*
Diego, the Tortoise Whose High Sex Drive Helped Save His Species, Retires
(40% of the 2,000 tortoises repatriated to Española Island are Diego's descendants)
(By Aimee Ortiz, NY Times, 1-12-2020)
Buck Henry, Who Helped Create 'Get Smart' and Adapt 'The Graduate', Dies at 89
(An unassuming screenwriter & actor, Mr. Henry thought up quirky characters with Mel Brooks and
inhabited many more on "Saturday Night Live". Zelig-like figure in American comedy for 50 years.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 1-9-2020)
Just a Fainting Spell? Or Is Betelgeuse About to Blow?
(A familiar star in the constellation Orion, Betelgeuse, 730 light years away from Earth,
20x massive as our Sun, has dimmed noticeably since October. Is its explosion imminent?)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 1-9-2020)
*
Baba Ram Dass, Proponent of LSD Turned New Age Guru, Dies at 88
(Born Richard Alpert,
he first gained notice as a colleague of Timothy Leary
and later became even better known as the author of
Be Here Now)
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 12-23-2019)
MUSIC: Mystery That Remains Stubbornly Unsolved
(In 1975, the psych-folk musician Jim Sullivan
vanished in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
A new reissue of his self-titled album only deepens the puzzle of his life and career.)
(By Rebecca Bengal, NY Times, 11-14-2019)
China's Internet Is Flowering. And It Might Be Our Future
(What most Westerners don't know about China's highly integrated
approach to mobile apps. It's amazing.)
(By Yiren Lu, NY Times, 11-13-2019)
In Yoga, Blurry Lines Easily Crossed
(Practice of hands-on adjustments in contemporary yoga can create confusion between
teachers & students— especially when there hasn't been discussion about consent.)
(By Jamila Wignot, NY Times, 11-8-2019)
He Left His 310-Year-Old Violin on a Train. He Retrieved It in a Parking Lot.
(Stephen Morris left his 1709 violin worth $320,000 on British Southeaster Railway
on 10/22; Returned 10/25 three days later to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra soloist.)
(By Iliana Magra, NY Times, 11-3-2019)
BASEBALL: The Nationals Stayed in the Fight, Then Delivered a Knockout
(Defeated Huston Astros 6-2 in Game 7 of World Series, to win their
first World Series; Howie Kendrick hits two-run homer in 7th inning.)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 10-31-2019)
*
World's Largest Treehouse Burns to the Ground
(Horace Burgess built the 97-foot-tall castle-like structure in 1993
after a vision from God. It took less than 15 minutes to destroy it.)
(By Emily S. Rueb, NY Times, 10-26-2019)
Robert Evans, a Maverick Producer of Hollywood Classics, Dies at 89
(He was a force behind masterworks like The Godfather and Chinatown,
& his own story, of unlikely success and drug-fueled decline— was the stuff of legend.)
By Brooks Barnes, NY Times, 10-28-2019)
John T. Tate, Familiar Name in the World of Numbers, Dies at 94
(His explanations of ideas now bear his name, a much-honored one among mathematicians.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 10-28-2019)
Hildegard Bachert, 98, Dies; Championed Klimt, Schiele and Grandma Moses
(In her 78 years at the Galerie St. Etienne in Manhattan, she promoted German
and Austrian Expressionists as well as the celebrated American folk artist.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 10-23-2019)
*
CULTURE: How Can I Silence My Fear of Failure When Starting to Write?
("You are likely your own cruelest reader" says one of our advice columnists.)
By Ligaya Mishan, NY Times, 10-23-2019)
*
TECHNOLOGY: If a Robotic Hand Solves a Rubik's Cube, Does It Prove Something?
(AI Robotic hand solved Rubik's Cube color alignments in four minutes.)
(By Cade Metz, NY Times, 10-15-2019)
*
Ram Dass is ready to die.
(Studied with Hindu mystic Neem Karoli Baba;
Wrote Be Here Now that sold
2 million copies; Advice: Go to the spiritual heart, and there will be
a doorway to the next plane of consciousness: soul land)
(By David Marchese, NY Times, 9-2-2019)
*
What Makes People Charismatic, and How You Can Be, Too
[Three pillars of charisma: presence (residing in the moment),
power (remove self-doubt), warmth (signal kindness and acceptance)]
(By Bryan Clark, NY Times, 8-15-2019)
*
SELF_CARE: Move Over, Therapy Dogs. Hello, Therapy Cows
(Cow cuddling, invites interaction with farm animals via brushing, petting or heartfelt chats.)
(By Elisa Mala, NY Times, 7-12-2019)
Charles Reich, Who Saw 'The Greening of America,' Dies at 91
(In 1970, as the rebellious fervor of the 1960s appeared to be peaking, The New Yorker
published a 39,000-word excerpt from "The Greening of America," giving flower children
a powerful intellectual rationale and their worried parents a measure of comfort by casting
the younger generation's values, built on personal happiness instead of material success,
as constructive and benign.)
(By Sam Roberts, NY Times, 6-17-2019))
STYLE: Gloria Vanderbilt Dies at 95; Built a Fashion Empire
(She built a $100 million fashion empire selling designer jeans
Her son Anderson Cooper, CNN journalist confirmed her death, in a broadcast.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 6-17-2019)
Personal Health: Getting a Good Night's Sleep Without Drugs
(Alternatives to prescription drugs for insomnia offer better, safer & more long-lasting solutions.)
(By Jane E. Brody, NY Times, 6-17-2019)
Wealth Matters:
Retouching Mona Lisa Is Restoration, but Mickey Mantle? Collectors Cry Fraud
(Cards in pristine condition are highly valued by collectors and can fetch thousands of dollars
more than similar cards with scuffs or worn edges. Professional Sports Authenticator grades cards.)
(By Paul Sullivan, NY Times, 6-14-2019)
Smarter Living: How to, Maybe, Be Less Indecisive (or Not)
(Spend less time agonizing and more time enjoying. As Barry Schwartz, author of
The Paradox of Choice, said, "I'm reasonably confident we're operating with far,
far more options in most parts of our life than we need and that serve us.")
(By Susan Shain, NY Times, 6-13-2019)
In her words: Free Your Mind (From Self-Doubt)
(The workplace still isn't equal. Learn to dodge the land mines, fight bias and avoid burnout.)
(By Maya Salam, NY Times, 6-11-2019)
* NONFICTION:
Remember the '10,000 Hours' Rule for Success? Forget About It
(Review on David Epstein's RANGE: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World—
In the most rewarding domains of life, generalists are better positioned than specialists to excel.)
(By Jim Holt, NY Times, 5-28-2019)
Doris Day, Movie Star Who Charmed America, Dies at 97
(Freckle-faced movie actress whose irrepressible personality and golden voice made her America's
top box-office star in the early 1960s, died on Monday at her home in Carmel Valley, Calif. at 97.)
(By Aljean Harmetz, NY Times, 5-13-2019)
* OP-ED: AI {artificial intelligence) still needs HI (human intelligence)
(Humans help when the chatbot gets stuck & can't answer at
[24]7.ai in Bangalore, India)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 2-26-2019)
*
In Don Newcombe, Baseball Got Its First Black Ace
(Newcombe won 20 games for the Dodgers, died at 92, and mentored Dave Stewart & Mudcat Grant.)
(By Benjamin Hoffman, NY Times, 2-15-2019)
OP-ED: To Deal with Trump, Look to Voltaire
(Voltaire, French philosopher who mobilized power of Enlightenment principles in 18th-century
Europe. In the face of crude bullying and humorless lies, try wit and a passion for justice.)
(By Robert Darnton, NY Times, 12-27-2018)
ESSAY: One Giant Step for a Chess-Playing Machine
(Google's AlphaZero played chess against itself millions of times and learned from its mistakes.
In a matter of hours, the algorithm became the best player, human or computer, the world has
ever seen, AlphaZero won by thinking smarter, not faster; it examined only 60 thousand
positions a second, compared to 60 million for Stockfish.)
(By Steven Strogatz, NY Times, 12-26-2018)
Obituaries:
Penny Marshall, 'Laverne & Shirley' Star and Movie Director, Dies at 75
(She became the first woman to direct a feature film that grossed more than $100 million
when she made Big in 1988. Four years later she repeated her box-office success with
A League of Their Own, a sentimentally spunky comedy about a wartime women's baseball league.)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 12-18-2018)
As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
(Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others
far greater access to people's data than it has disclosed; Allowed Microsoft's Bing search engine
to see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without consent, the records show,
and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages.)
(By Gabriel J.X. Dance, Michael LaForgia & Nicholas Confessore, NY Times, 12-18-2018)
OP-ED:
How You Can Help Fight the Information Wars
(Russian trolls have been really good customers of Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Fake social media accounts were used to slime the special counsel Robert Mueller.)
(By Kara Swisher, NY Times, 12-18-2018)
* SCIENCE: The Yoda of Silicon Valley
(80-year-old Donald Knuth, is author of The Art of Computer Programming,
a continuing four-volume opus that is his life's work.)
(By Siobhan Roberts, NY Times, 12-17-2018)
OP-ED:
Can the U.S. Stop China From Controlling the Next Internet Age?
(As critical 5G— fifth generation— wireless networks roll out over the world,
many are being deployed by Huawei. These are the networks that will usher in the next age
of innovation, & idea of Chinaר which pretty much exemplifies the surveillance economy—
dominating that age is troubling; Arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of tech giant Huawei)
(By Kara Swisher, NY Times, 12-7-2018)
George Bush,
Who Steered Nation in Tumultuous Times, Is Dead at 94
(41st U.S, president & father of the 43rd, died Nov. 30; His wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush
died 8 months earlier; Served as Vice President under Reagan; Ambassador to UN & China;
Director of CIA; two-term Texas Congressman; Chairman of Republican National Committee.)
(By Adam Nagourney, NY Times, 11-30-2018)
This Is the Way the Paper Crumples
(The dynamics of crumpling are in play everywhere: in the initial unfolding of an insect's wing;
in the way DNA packs into a cell nucleus, or how best to cram a giant solar sail into a small satellite.)
(By Natalie Prouix, NY Times, 11-26-2018)
Stan Lee Is Dead at 95:
Superhero of Marvel Comics
(Under Stan Lee, Marvel transformed the comic book world by imbuing its characters
with the self-doubts and neuroses of average people, as well an awareness of trends
and social causes and, often, a sense of humor.)
(By Jonathan Kandell & Andy Webster, NY Times, 11-12-2018)
OP-ED: When Your Boss Is an Algorithm
(For Uber drivers, the workplace can feel like a world of constant surveillance,
automated manipulation and threats of "deactivation".)
(By Alex Rosenblat, NY Times, 10-12-2018)
Leon Lederman, 96, Explorer (and Explainer) of the Subatomic World, Dies
(Received 1988 Physics Nobel Prize
"for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration
of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino.")
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 10-3-2018)
Use of Evolution to Design Molecules Nets Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 3 Scientists
(2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Frances H. Arnold of CalTech, (half of prize) with
George P. Smith & Gregory P. Winter (sharing other half) for their work in evolutionary science.)
(By Kennet Chang, NY Times, 10-3-2018)
Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Scientists Who Put Light to Work
(2018 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Arthur Ashkin of the U.S., Gérard Mourou
of France and Donna Strickland of Canada for harnessing one of the most ineffable aspects
of nature, pure light, into a mighty microscopic force. Dr. Ashkin will receive half of the
prize, worth about $1 million; Dr. Mourou & Dr. Strickland will split the remainder.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 10-2-2018)
2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to 2 Cancer Immunotherapy Researchers
(Nobel Prize for Physiology & Medicine was awarded to James P. Allison & Tasuku Honjo
for their work on unleashing the body's immune system to attack cancer cells.)
(By Denise Grady, NY Times, 10-1-2018)
Peter Frame, Ballet Dancer and Instructor, Dies at 61
(He performed in George Balanchine's "Episodes". The dancer Paul Taylor performed
this choreography in 1959, and Mr. Frame restaged it in 1986; Frame committed suicide.)
(By Julia Jacobs, NY Times, 9-1-2018)
Paul Taylor Dies at 88; Brought Poetry & Lyricism to Modern Dance
(As a strikingly gifted dancer in his 20s, Mr. Taylor created roles for the master choreographers
Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham & George Balanchine.
When he retired from dancing in
1974, both his dancers & his new creations
became even more magnetic draws for audiences.)
(By Alastair Macaulay, NY Times, 8-30-2018)
John McCain, War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender, Dies at 81
(John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war
in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a
two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81.
McCain was embodiment of courage: a war hero who came home on crutches, psychologically
scarred & broken in body, but not in spirit. Lost to Obama in 2008 Presidential Election.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 8-25-2018)
OPINION: John McCain, a Scarred but Happy Warrior
(As a professed maverick, McCain, who died Saturday at the age of 81, was bound to make somebody
unhappy. Though his votes on the Senate floor were mostly along party lines, his periodic challenges
to Republican orthodoxy made him more popular among independents, Democrats and the tattered
remnants of his party's moderate wing than with the absolutists in the party's base.)
(By Editorial Board, NY Times, 8-25-2018)
Being Women: Poetry and Imagery
(This summer, we selected six poems by women and asked photographers to let the poems
inspire them.
Layli Long Soldier, "Edge"; Jennifer Chang, "The Winter's Wife";
Joy Harjo, "Praise the Rain":
Melissa Studdard, "Everyone In Me Is A Bird"; Nickole Brown,
"For My Grandmother's Perfume,
Norell"; Tonya Ingram, "Until the Stars Collapse"
(By Kerri MacDonald & Morrigan McCarthy, NY Times, 8-17-2018)
Aretha Franklin, Indomitable 'Queen of Soul', Dies at 76
(In a musical career of more than five decades, Aretha Franklin had more than 100 singles
on the Billboard charts. including 17 Top 10 pop singles and 20 No. 1 R&B hits. She received
18 competitive Grammy Awards, along with a lifetime achievement award in 1994.)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 8-16-2018)
Aretha Franklin's 20 Essential Songs
(The singer, songwriter & pianist's catalog showcased the range & power of one of the greatest
vocalists of all time. Had ability to strike a powerful note without ever losing her beautiful tone.)
(By Jim Farber, NY Times, 8-16-2018)
AN APPRAISAL:
Aretha Franklin Had Power. Did We Truly Respect It?
(Aretha Franklin turned Otis Redding's plea into the most empowering popular recording ever
made. The opening line is "What you want, baby, I got it." But her "what" is a punch in the face.
So Ms. Franklin's rearrangement was about power.)
(By Wesley Morris, NY Times, 8-16-2018)
When Aretha Franklin Brought Down the House at the Kennedy Center
(Aretha Franklin sang "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" during a tribute to Carole King
in 2015. "Carole was losing her mind, Obama was losing his mind," said Broadway actress Chilina
Kennedy. Cecily Tyson: "She had the most beautiful face. You could see her emotions in her face
as well as hear them
in her voice. It was no surprise when the audience stood up— you can't sit
& listen to her and not be moved."
Rita Moreno: "The moment she 'casually' dropped her massive
mink coat onto the stage was one for the ages.
She brought a prodigious talent, musicality, & down
stompin' woman's sass to all she does."
Chilina Kennedy: "She was up in the stratosphere with those
riffs, but every cell of her being seemed to be in the music.
There was nothing else, just her and the
song. That's what we try
to do as artists— we try to get to where she was that night.")
(By Gavin Edwards, NY Times, 8-16-2018)
Aretha Franklin Reigned as Queen, in Voice and in Image
(Yoking her formidable vocal powers to a brilliant sense of self-presentation, Ms. Franklin made
herself a model of empowerment and pride. She was, after all, the Queen of Soul and. just as another
famous monarch does, Ms. Franklin seldom went anywhere— onstage or off— without her handbag.)
(By Guy Trebay, NY Times, 8-16-2018)
OP-ED: We Are Merging With Robots. That's a Good Thing
[Artificial intelligences already outperform us at many tasks and are now able to train themselves
to reach competencies (in restricted domains such as chess or Go) that we can barely comprehend.
All this blurs the boundaries between body and machine, between mind and world, between
standard, augmented and virtual realities, and between human and post-human.]
(By Andy Clark, NY Times, 8-13-2018)
Google-Facebook Dominance Hurts Ad Tech Firms,
Speeding Consolidation
(Number of independent ad tech companies has fallen 21% since 2013,
to 185 as of the second quarter of 2018,)
(By Claire Ballentine, NY Times, 8-12-2018)
Parker Solar
Probe Launches on NASA Voyage to 'Touch the Sun'
(NASA's Parker Solar Probe will fly through punishing heat of the sun's outer atmosphere.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 8-11-2018)
Inside Twitter's Struggle Over What Gets Banned
(Jack Dorsey and Safety Team debate on what constituted dehumanizing speech; Criticism
against Twitter for its lack of action against the posts from the far-right conspiracy site
Infowars and its creator, Alex Jones, banned by Apple, Facebook & Google's YouTube)
(By Cecilia Kang & Kate Conger, NY Times, 8-10-2018)
CONVERSATION: Maria Konnikova Shows Her Cards
(The well-regarded science writer of New Yorker took up poker while researching a book.
Now she's on the professional circuit. Within a year, she had moved from poker novice
to poker professional, winning more than $200,000 in tournament jackpots.)
(By Claudia Dreifus, NY Times, 8-10-2018)
OBITUARIES:
Burton Richter, a Nobel Winner for Plumbing Matter, Dies at 87
(On Saturday, Nov. 9, 1974, Richter discovered the psi particle, while MIT's Samuel Ting
discovered J-particle at Brookhave National Laboratory. They gave it the combined name J/psi.
That set off what physicists called "November revolution"— a wave of ensuing excitement
in exploring a bounty of new particles that required revising the foundations of physics.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 7-23-2018)
OBITUARIES:
Shinobu Hashimoto, Writer of Towering Kurosawa Films, Is Dead at 100
(Screenwriter for Kurosawa's Rashomon, Ikiru), Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 7-20-2018)
OBITUARIES:
Alfred Alberts, Unsung Father of a Cholesterol Drug, Dies at 87
(In the late 1970s, Mr. Alberts discovered the chemical compound
that led to the drug lovastatin, a leading remedy for high cholesterol.)
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 7-3-2018)
Simply Perfect: Justify Wins the Triple Crown
(Ridden by 52-year-old ironman Mike Smith, Justify captured 150th Belmont Stakes
by a length & three-quarters to become 13th Triple Crown winner. Trainer Baffert,
became only second trainer to secure two Triple Crowns, joining James Fitzsimmons,
who was known as Sunny Jim and trained Gallant Fox and Omaha in the 1930s.)
(By Melissa Hoppert, NY Times, 6-9-2018)
Anthony
Bourdain, Renegade Chef Who Reported From the World's Tables, Is Dead at 61
(His darkly funny memoir about life in NYC restaurant kitchens made him a celebrity chef
and touched off his second career as a journalist, food expert and social activist, was found
dead on Friday of apparent suicide by hanging in his hotel room in France. He was 61.)
(By Kim Severson, Matthew Haag & Julia Moskin, NY Times, 6-8-2018)
The Best of Anthony Bourdain
(What to read, what to watch & what to listen to by and about the chef, TV host and author)
(By Tina Jordan, NY Times, 6-8-2018)
Paul D. Boyer,
99, Dies; Nobel Winner Decoded Enzyme That Powers Life
(1999 Chemistry Nobel Prize for enzyme research on ATP that stores energy)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 6-7-2018)
WHAT TO COOK:
Art and Craft
(Sifton: Argued my thesis that restaurants
are cultural expressions same as dance or music or poetry.
Gabrielle Hamilton said "No way. Cooking is craft."
Tom Colicchio: "I named my restaurant
Craft";
David Chang brought the Japanese concept of
"shokunin",
or mastery of a profession & one's work.)
(By Sam Sifton, NY Times, 5-16-2018)
How the Father of Computer Science Decoded Nature's Mysterious Patterns
(Mathematician & cryptologist Alan Turing was also a naturalist
who used math to explain patterns in nature.)
(By JoAnna Klein NY Times, 5-8-2018)
BASEBALL:
A No-Hitter by Oakland's Sean Manaea Tames the Red Sox
(Oakland A's pitcher Sean Manaea allowed two walks & struck out 10, throwing 108 pitches.
It's Oakland's first no-hitter since Dallas Braden's perfect game against Tampa Bay in 2010.)
(By Associated Press, NY Times, 4-22-2018)
U.S.:
Barbara Bush, Wife of 41st President and Mother of 43rd, Dies at 92
(The Bushes had celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in January, making them the longest-
married couple in presidential history. She was only the second woman in American history to
have a son of hers follow his father to the White House. Abigail Adams,
wife of John Adams &
mother of John Quincy Adams, was the first. Mrs. Bush's distant relative was
Franklin Pierce.)
(By Enid Nemy, NY Times, 4-17-2018)
ARTS:
U.S. Radio Host and Conspiracy Theorist Art Bell Dead at 72
(Bell's popular syndicated show "Coast to Coast AM" was created in 1993 and was touted
as the country's most listened to overnight radio program. It featured Bell expounding
on topics as diverse as UFO sightings, Bigfoot and crop circles.)
(By Reuters, NY Times, 4-14-2018)
PERSONAL TECH:
I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes.
(Facebook had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends
list over the last 14 years, including my exes. 500 advertisers had all my contact information.)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 4-11-2018)
POLITICS:
Investigators Focus on Another Trump Ally: The National Enquirer.
(The National Enquirer has taken a decidedly political, and pro-Trump, turn. Trump's close
friend David J. Pecker, is chairman of American Media Inc., which publishes The Enquirer.)
(By Jim Rutenberg, Emily Steel, & Mike McIntire, NY Times, 4-11-2018)
WEALTH MATTERS—
Trading Cards: A Hobby That Became a Multimillion-Dollar Investment
(Over the past decade, the 1952 Mantle card has appreciated 590%, the 1954 Aaron card 829%,
and the 1933 Babe Ruth card 305%. Top 500 baseball cards beat S&P 500 by more than double.)
(By Paul Sullivan, NY Times, 3-23-2018)
SCIENCE:
Stephen Hawking Dies at 76; His Mind Roamed the Cosmos
(A physicist and best-selling author, Dr. Hawking did not allow his physical limitations
to hinder his quest to answer "the big question: Where did the universe come from?".
Note: Hawkings died on 3-14-2018,
P-Day, 139 years since
Einstein was born 3-14-1879)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 3-14-2018)
ARTS:
6 Memorable Cultural Moments Inspired by Stephen Hawking
(1. "Star Trek 1993: The Next Generation"; 2. Pink Floyd 1994 Album: "Keep Talking";
3. Four episodes "The Simpsons (1999-2010); 4. Philip Glass 1992 Opera "The Voyage";
5. Sitcom 2012: "Hawking Excitation" on 'Big Bang Theory'; 6. Film 2014: "Theory of Everything")
(By Anna Codrea-Rado, NY Times, 3-14-2018)
EUROPE:
Stephen Hawking, in His Own Words
(1. "I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.";
2. "My goal
is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."
3. "There is no god. I am an atheist.";
4. "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.
try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.
Be curious.
And however difficult life may
seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.")
(By Yonette Joseph, NY Times, 3-14-2018)
SCIENCE:
Stephen Hawking's Beautiful Mind
(1970: Hawking & Roger Penrose show
that there had to be a singularity at the beginning of time—
in other words, a big bang. 1988: Hawking publishes
A Brief History of Time. It stays on the
London Times best-seller list for four years. 2015:
The Theory of Everything, a movie based
on a book by his ex-wife, Jane Wilde, wins an Oscar for
Eddie Redmayne.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 3-14-2018)
SCIENCE:
Stephen Hawking Taught Us a Lot About How to Live
[The cosmologist not only overturned our imaginations, he became an icon
of mystery, curiosity
and determination to understand this place we are in.
He was only 22 when he was diagnosed
with Lou Gehrig's disease,
which usually kills in 2-5 years.
By the time he died, he had lived
with it for half a century.
Stephen Hawking
liked to say he was born (1-8-1942) 300 years
to the day after
Galileo died (1-8-1642), and he died on Wednesday,
139 years after
Albert Einstein was born (3-14-1879).]
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 3-14-2018)
Artificial Intelligence: How We Help Machine Learn
(A.I. simplifies banking, enables our email to detect spam, our cars to brake automatically
and our phones to respond to voice commands. Video: Let's explain A.I. with help of this dog.)
(Paid Post by Facebook, Illustrated by Timo Kuilder, NY Times, 2-14-2018)
HEALTH: MIND—
The First Step Toward a Personal Memory Maker?
(Scientists developed a brain implant that boosts memory— an implantable "cognitive prosthetic")
(By Benedict Carey, NY Times, 2-12-2018)
OBITUARIES:
Vic Damone, Who Crooned His Way to Postwar Popularity, Dies at 89
(The velvet baritone of Vic Damone was an unforgettable groove in a soundtrack that also
included Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Tony Bennett, singers who arose in the big band era
and reached peaks of popularity in the 1950s. He died on Sunday in Miami Beach at age 89.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 2-12-2018)
BUSINESS:
Dow Jones and S.&P. Slide Again, Dropping by More Than 4%
(The S&P's 4.1% drop was the worst since August 2011.)
(By Matt Phillips, NY Times, 2-5-2018)
BUSINESS:
How Monday's Stock Plunge Ranks?
(DJIA plunged 1,175.21 points, or 4.6%, to 24,345.75 on 2/4/2018; Other major tumbles:
9-29-2008: -777.78, -6.98%; 10-19-1987: -507.99 -22.61%)
(By Stephen Grocer & Peter Eavis, NY Times, 2-5-2018)
OBITUARIES:
Mort Walker, Creator of 'Beetle Bailey' Comic Strip, Dies at 94
(Mr. Walker had the longest tenure of any cartoonist on an original creation, King Features,
which began its syndication of "Beetle Bailey" in 1950, said in a statement.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 1-27-2018)
BOOK REVIEW:
"Language Rules for the Digital Age"
[Review of
A WORLD WITHOUT 'WHOM':
The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeed Age
by Emmy J. Favilla (BuzzFeed Copy Chief); She tells us "42 ways to type laughter".]
(By John Simpson, NY Times, 12-7-2017)
Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
(In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated a successful harvest with a three-day gathering that was attended
by members of the Wampanoag tribe. It's from this that we derive Thanksgiving as we know it.
The holiday wasn't made official until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared it as a kind
of thank you for the Civil War victories in Vicksburg, Miss., and Gettysburg, Pa.)
(By Maya Salam, NY Times, 11-21-2017)
ART:
That $450 Million Leonardo? It's No Mona Lisa.
(The painting, Salvator Mundi is the only Leonardo in private hands; Russian billionaire
Dmitry E. Rybolovlev sold it
at Christie's for record price of $450.3 million)
(By Jason Farago, NY Times, 11-15-2017)
ART:
Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs
(Sold for less than $10,000 in 2005; Yves Bouvier bought it for $80 million in 2013;
Sold for $127.5 million to billionaire Dmitry E. Rybolovlev soon afterward.)
(By Robin Pogrebin & Scott Reyburn, NY Times, 11-15-2017)
MODERN LOVE: What love looks like
(Real stories that examine the highs, lows and woes of relationships in NYC)
(By Valeriya Safronova & Daniel Arnold, NY Times, 11-7-2017)
OP-ED: Buddhism Is More 'Western' Than You Think
(Practice mindfulness meditation: a calm, contemplative mind helps you see the world as it really is.
Mu Soeng's Heart Sutra: "Things exist but they are not real." The "abiding core" within is real.)
(By Robert Wright, NY Times, 11-6-2017)
MOVIES:
"Thor: Ragnarok" Hits Theaters With a Thunderclap
(A campy new villian like Hela, played by Cate Blanchett, helped "Thor: Ragnarok" beat superhero
sequelitis. Thor became less self-serious & much more comedic; Disney made $427 million so far.)
(By Brooks Barnes, NY Times, 11-5-2017)
MOVIES:
Review: "Thor: Ragnarok", of Gods, Monsters and Silly Jokes
(Chris Hemsworth plays a sunnier, sillier, and funnier Thor in Taika Waititi's new movie.
Director has idiosyncraic human touch & a gift for turning goofiness and gab into personality.)
(By Manohla Dargis, NY Times, 11-1-2017)
EDUCATION LIFE:
What Colleges Want in an Applicant (Everything)
(By Eric Hoover, NY Times, 11-1-2017)
EDUCATION LIFE:
10 Things to Know About Getting Into Your Dream College
(By Eric Hoover, NY Times, 11-1-2017)
OBITUARIES:
Michel Jouvet, Who Unlocked REM Sleep's Secrets, Dies at 91
(Neurophysiologist discovered region of the brain that controls rapid eye movement, and helped
define REM sleep as a unique state of consciousness common to humans and animals alike, )
(By Daniel E. Slotnik, NY Times, 10-11-2017)
OBITUARIES:
Y.A. Tittle, Quarterback Who Led Giants to 3 Title Games, Dies at 90
(Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle after being slammed to the ground by a Pittsburgh Steelers lineman
in Pittsburgh on Sept. 20, 1964. The photograph immortalized Tittle in football lore as an image
of the aging warrior who had finally fallen. He was a balding field general discarded by SF 49ers.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-9-2017) (Morris Berman's photo;
Post-Gazette;
Smithsonian)
* What is your love style
(Quiz by a California State University sociologist, can determine how you define love in a relationship.)
(By Terry Hatkoff, NY Times, 10-8-2017)
OP-ED: If Only Stephen Paddock Were a Muslim
(What happens when the killer was only a disturbed American armed to the teeth with military-style
weapons that he bought legally or acquired easily because of us and our crazy lax gun laws?)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 10-3-2017)
Las Vegas Shooting: Gunman's Rifle Had 'Bump Stock' to Make It Rapid-Fire Weapon
(At least one of the rifles the gunman had in his hotel suite on Sunday was outfitted with
a "bump stock", a device that would enable it to fire hundreds of rounds per minute)
(By NY Times, 10-3-2017)
U.S.:
Stephen Paddock, Las Vegas Suspect, Was a Gambler Who Drew Little Attention
(He was a high-stakes gambler recognized in the casinos of Nevada. He dabbled in real estate
investments. He was twice divorced, had a pilot's license & had owned two single-engine planes.)
(By Jose A. Delreal & Jonah Engel Bromwich, NY Times, 10-2-2017)
POLITICS:
Terrorizing if Not Clearly Terrorist: What to Call the Las Vegas Attack?
(Mass killing of innocents, even on the scale of Las Vegas, does not automatically meet the generally
accepted definition of terrorism, which requires a political, ideological or religious motive.)
(By Scott Shane, NY Times, 10-2-2017)
PAYBACK:
A Game to Help Students Pay the Right Price for College
(Tim Ranzetta has a free, interactive, web-based game called Payback.)
(By Ron Lieber, NY Times, 9-29-2017)
MOVIES:
The Record Bid for "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Script Is From Tiffany's
(Audrey Hepburn's original working script for 1961 movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" sold Wednesday
night at Christie's in London for £632,750, or $847,000, appropriately enough to Tiffany & Co.)
(By Scott Reyburn, NY Times, 9-27-2017)
A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry
(By Kyle Spencer, NY Times, 8-11-2017)
MUSIC:
Glen Campbell, Whose Hit Songs Bridged Country and Pop, Dies at 81
[Died of Alzheimer's disease; His autobiography, Rhinestone Cowboy (1994) was title from one of his
|
biggest hits in 1963; Sold 45 million records; inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.]
(By Michael Pollak, NY Times, 8-8-2017)
BASEBALL:
Don Baylor, Slugging M.V.P. in the American League, Dies at 68
[Won American League's MVP Award in 1979; Was 1987 World Series champion with Minnesota
Twins; When he retired in 1988, he had been hit 267 times, a modern-day record at the time.)
(By Richard Sandomir, NY Times, 8-7-2017)
MOVIES:
Jeanne Moreau, Femme Fatale of French New Wave, Is Dead at 89
[The sensual, gravel-voiced actress who became face of the New Wave, France's iconoclastic
mid-20th-century film movement, most notably in François Truffaut's Jules and Jim died at 89)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 7-31-2017)
SCIENCE:
What We Finally Got Around to Learning at the Procrastination Research Conference
("In the end time is going to kill us. The only thing that limits us is time. You can get another job or
lover. But you can't get more time," said Jean O'Callaghan of University of Roehampton in London.
Dutch philosopher Joel Anderson defined proscrastination as "Culpably unwarranted delay.")
(By Heather Murphy, NY Times, 7-21-2017)
SMARTER LIVING:
This Is How You Get Stuff Done
(Tim Urban: We can break the things we have to do down into tiny, easily tackled mini-tasks; seek
external support for our goals; minimize distractions; and aim for steady, incremental accomplishments
instead of huge, goliath-size ones. "Write the intro" as opposed to "Write your presentation.")
(By Tim Herrera, NY Times, 7-10-2017)
What's
in Your Attic? Baseball Cards May Help a Collection Fetch Nearly $1 Million
(Collection of 1948 baseball cards found in an attic in unopened packs, and in exceptional condition,
are part of a trove of sports trading cards that an auction house said could fetch nearly $1 million.)
(By Christopher Mele, NY Times, 6-5-2017)
BASEBALL:
Jimmy Piersall, Whose Mental Illness Was Portrayed in Fear Strikes Out, Dies at 87
[Outrageous outfielder & broadcaster had emotional breakdown while a Boston Red Sox rookie;
Struggles with manic depression, (bipolar disorder), was treated with lithium & shock therapy.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 6-4-2017)
OP-ED: Why I Taught Myself to Procrastinate
(We think of procrastination as a curse. 80% of college students are plagued by procrastination,
requiring epic all-nighters to finish papers & prepare for tests. 20% of adults report being chronic
procrastinators. While procrastination is a vice for productivity, I've learned that it's a virtue for creativity.)
(By Adam Grant, NY Times, 1-17-2016)
MOVIES:
Roger Moore, Who Played James Bond 007 Times, Dies at 89
(Moore had the longest run playing Bond, beginning in 1973 with Live and Let Die and ending
in 1985 with A View to a Kill; He was Unicef Ambassador since 1991 and knighted in 2003.)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 5-23-2017)
* 50 Years of Marriage and Mindfulness With Nena and Robert Thurman
(As one of the Dalai Lama's most famous, and oldest, Western pals,
Dr. Thurman is still his best and most passionate apologist.)
(By Penelope Green, NY Times, 5-20-2017)
ART & DESIGN:
Basquiat Painting Is Sold for $110.5 Million at Auction
("He's now in the same league as Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso," said dealer Jeffrey Deitch,
an expert on Jean-Michel Basquiat; Only
10 other artworks have broken the $100 million mark.)
(By Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, 5-18-2017)
Can Facebook Fix Its Own Worst Bug?
(Mark Zuckerberg now acknowledges the dangerous side of the social revolution he helped to start.
But is most powerful tool for connection in human history capable of adapting to world it created?)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 4-25-2017)
Europe:
Populism, Far From Turned Back, May Be Just Getting Started
(Since the 1960s, populist parties have doubled their average share in European elections and tripled
their share of seats in European legislatures; As Brexit proves, populist wave can do plenty at 13%)
(By Max Fisher & Amanda Taube, NY Times, 4-25-2017)
OP-ED: What Trump's Budget Means for the Filet-O-Fish
(The pollock is the most voluminously caught fish in the United States, accounting for a quarter
of everything Americans catch; More than half the imported seafood here comes from fish farms,
mostly in Asian countries, where there is little regulation of food safety )
(By Bren Smith, Sean Barrett, & Paul Greenberg, NY Times, 4-25-2017)
Science: People Are Seeing U.F.O.s Everywhere, and This Book Proves It
(Manhattan racked up New York State's second-highest tally of U.F.O. sightings in this century;
Cheryl & Linda Miller Costa's UFO
Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015
reports 100,000+ UFO sightings in the last 15 years )
(By Ralph Blumenthal, NY Times, 4-24-2017)
BOOKS: Robert M. Pirsig, Author of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,' Dies at 88
(His book published in 1974 to critical acclaim and explosive popularity, selling a million copies
in its first year and several million more since; novel contemplates relationship of humans
and machines, madness and the roots of culture.)
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 4-24-2017)
TELEVISION:
Don Rickles, Comedy's Equal Opportunity Offender, Dies at 90
[In 1965, he made the first of
numerous appearances on "The Tonight Show", treating
Johnny Carson with his trademark disdain to the audience's (and Carson's) delight.]
(By Peter Keepnews & Richard Severo, NY Times, 4-6-2017)
BOOKS:
Joanne Kyger, Zen-Infused Beat Generation Poet, Dies at 82
(One of the few women embraced
by the Beat Generation writers' fraternity, died on March 22
at her home in Bolinas, CA; Married to Gary Snyder in 1960, they lived in Japan for four years
and were divorced in 1965, after she had tired of playing wife and hostess to other Beat guests.)
(By Sam Roberts, NY Times, 4-6-2017)
BUSINESS:
David Rockefeller, Philanthropist and Head of Chase Manhattan, Dies at 101
(In silent testimony to his power and reach was his Rolodex, a catalog of some 150,000 names
of people he had met as a banker-statesman. It required a room of its own beside his office.)
(By Jonathan Kandell, NY Times, 3-20-2017)
MEDIA:
Jimmy Breslin, Legendary New York City Newspaper Columnist, Dies at 88
(What motivated Breslin the writer: "Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody
have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers."; 1986 Pulitzer Prize for commentary,)
(By Dan Barry, NY Times, 3-19-2017)
MUSIC:
Chuck Berry, Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer, Dies at 90
(With his indelible guitar licks & brash self-confidence, he was Rock 'n' Roll's master theorist
and conceptual genius, with hit songs like "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven".)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 3-18-2017)
BOOKS:
Derek Walcott, Poet and 1992 Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87
(His intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean;
"I come from a place [Saint Lucia] that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures")
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 3-17-2017)
ART & DESIGN:
Has the Art Market Become an Unwitting Partner in Crime?
("The art market is an ideal playing ground for money laundering," said Thomas Christ.)
(By Graham Bowley & William K. Rashbaum, NY Times, 2-19-2017)
BOOKS:
Barbara Gelb, Author, Playwright and Journalist, Dies at 91
(Author & journalist who, with her husband, Arthur Gelb, produced first full-scale biography of
playwright Eugene O'Neill, then decades later wrote two more volumes reconsidering his life.)
(By Joseph Berger, NY Times, 2-9-2017)
MEDIA:
Super Bowl Delivers Thrills, but No Ratings Record
(Super Bowl LI drew 111.3 million viewers on Fox, a high enough total to tie it for 4th place
among the most-viewed programs in TV history but lower than last year's 111.9 million.)
(By John Koblin, NY Times, 2-6-2017)
PRO FOOTBALL
| PATRIOTS 34, FALCONS 28 | OVERTIME:
Patriots Mount a Comeback for the Ages to Win a Fifth Super Bowl
(The Patriots trailed by 25 points 28-3 with 2 minutes 12 seconds remaining
in the 3rd quarter, and by 19 with 9:48 left in regulation, and they won.)
(By Ben Shpigel, NY Times, 2-5-2017)
FOOTBALL SUPER BOWL LI:
Patriots Julian Edelman's Outstanding Super Bowl Catch
(New England Patriots receiver, Julian Edelman, makes ridiculous
diving catch on the game-tying drive of Super Bowl LI!)
(Jayson's Photography, YouTube, 2-5-2017)
ARTS:
Mike Connors, Long-Running TV Sleuth in "Mannix", Dies at 91
(He found stardom in the late 1960s as a maverick private investigator on the CBS series
"Mannix", which went on to enjoy an eight-season run, earning $40,000 an episode.)
(By Eric Grode, NY Times, 1-27-2017)
TELEVISION:
Barbara Hale, Who Played Perry Mason's Loyal Secretary, Dies at 94
(The Emmy Award-winning actress typified the ideal mid-20th-century secretary as the
beautiful, loyal, confident but soft-spoken Della Street on TV series "Perry Mason".)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 1-27-2017)
TELEVISION:
Mary Tyler Moore, Who Incarnated the Modern Woman on TV, Dies at 80
(Mary Tyler Moore brought a new depiction of the American woman
to both "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show".)
(By Virginia Heffernan, NY Times, 1-25-2017)
ASIA-PACIFIC:
Zhou Youguang, Who Made Writing Chinese as Simple as ABC, Dies at 111
(Zhou Youguang, known as the father of Pinyin for creating the system of Romanized Chinese
writing that has become the international standard since its introduction some 60 years ago)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 1-14-2017)
EUROPE: Anthony Armstrong Jones, Photographer & Earl of Snowdon, Dies at 86
(Married Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1960, and plunged into
a life of privileges, parties, quarrels and infidelities that ended in divorce 18 years later.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 1-13-2017)
BOOKS: William Peter Blatty, Author of The Exorcist, Dies at 89
(Blatty's novel about a girl possessed by the Devil created theological-horror genre,
became a hit movie and destroyed its author's hopes of ever writing comedy again.)
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 1-13-2017)
MUSIC: Buddy Greco, Singer Who Had That Swing, Dies at 90
(Jazz pianist, singer & sometime member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack whose hard-swinging renditions
of "The Lady Is a Tramp", "Mr. Lonely" and "Around the World" were hits in the early 1960s)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 1-13-2017)
DANCE:
Martha Swope, 88, Who Etched Dance and Theater History in Photographs, Dies
(Swope chronicled working lives of George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins & other
key figures in 20th-century dance, producing hundreds of thousands of images of performers in action)
(By Sylviane Gold, NY Times, 1-12-2017)
BOOK REVIEW:
'A Really Good Day', Ayelet Waldman's Better Living Through LSD
(Waldman's 30-day trial with LSD— 10 micrograms every three days. A microdose, as she explains,
is anywhere from one-tenth to one-fifteenth of what one would find on a garden-variety tab of acid.)
(By Jennifer Senior, NY Times, 1-11-2017)
BOOKS:
The Revenge of Analog: See It. Feel It. Touch It. (Don't Click)
(Vinyl records sales rose to $416 million last year, the highest since 1988; Instant Polaroid-like
cameras have caught on among millennials and their younger siblings; A
new Pew survey shows
that print books remain much more popular than books in digital formats; even typewriters are
enjoying a renaissance.)
(By Michiko Kakutani, NY Times, 12-5-2016) Amazon Book Reviews
OP-ED:
My Passion for Literature Succumbed to Reality
(Mentors, peers and even literature professors warned me that an English degree held much less
weight than a pre-professional degree. An accomplished writer once warned me that if I were to
become a writer, I would have to work another job to make a living. I decided to get a political
science degree. May lead to work at the State Department or United Nations, or maybe a spot
at Harvard Law School.)
(By Bianca Vivion Brooks, NY Times, 12-5-2016)
U.S.:
Both Feeling Threatened, American Muslims and Jews Join Hands
(Jolted into action by a wave of hate crimes that followed election victory of Donald J. Trump,
American Muslims & Jews together in surprising new alliance;
Siserhood of Salaam Shalom)
(By Laurie Goodstein, NY Times, 12-5-2016)
WORLD:
Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90
(Castro brought Cold War to the Western Hemisphere, bedeviled 11 American presidents and
briefly pushed the world to brink of nuclear war; stepped aside in 2006 to brother Raul, now 85)
(By Jack Manning, NY Times, 11-26-2016)
FASHION & STYLE:
Bidding to Own a Piece of David Bowie
(London Sotheby auction "Bowie/Collector"
with 350 works from Bowie's art collection)
(By Roslyn Sulcas, NY Times, 11-13-2016)
ART & DESIGN:
David Bowie's Seal of Approval Bolsters Art at Auction
(Sale of 47 lots tripled its low estimates raising 24.3 million pounds, or $30.3 million.)
(By Scott Reyburn, NY Times, 11-11-2016)
SCIENCE:
The Supermoon and Other Moons That Are Super in Their Own Ways
(Supermoon on November 14 will be closest full moon to Earth since 1948. It will be
221,524 miles away instead of its average 238,900 miles away; 14% larger & 30% brighter;
Other special moons: blood moon, black moon, blue moon, strawberry moon and harvest moon.)
(By Nicholas St. Fleur, NY Times, 11-12-2016)
MUSIC:
Leonard Cohen, Epic and Enigmatic Songwriter, Is Dead at 82
(Around 1994, he abandoned his music career and moved to the
Mount Baldy Zen monastery,
where he was ordained a Buddhist monk and became the personal assistant of
Joshu Sasaki,
the Rinzai Zen master who led the center; Cohen recorded 2000 songs in five decades on
themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation, solitude and connection, war and politics.)
(By Larry Rohter, NY Times, 11-11-2016)
POLITICS:
Donald Trump Is Elected President in Stunning Repudiation of the Establishment
(Donald John Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, defying late polls that showed
Hillary Clinton with a modest but persistent edge, threatened convulsions throughout the world.)
(By Matt Flegenheimer & Michael Barbaro, NY Times, 11-9-2016)
POLITICS:
Donald Trump Rode to Power in the Role of the Common Man
(He grasped dynamics that political leadership of both parties missed or ignored— the raw frustration
of blue-collar and middle-class white voters who rallied to his candidacy with decisive force.)
(By Alexander Burns, NY Times, 11-9-2016)
WORLD:
Donald Trump's Victory Promises to Upend the International Order
(For the first time since before World War II, Americans chose a president who promised to reverse
the internationalism practiced by predecessors of both parties. Trump's win foreshadowed an
America more focused on its own affairs while leaving the world to take care of itself.)
(By Peter Baker, NY Times, 11-9-2016)
ELECTION 2016:
How Trump Won the Election According to Exit Polls
(Trump overwhelmingly won votes of whites without college degrees; Clinton's support from
minorities fell short; Trump gained among men and barely lost ground with women; Party support
shifted dramatically at nearly every income level.)
(By K.K. Rebecca Lai, Alicia Parlapiano, Jeremy White, & Karen Yourish, NY Times, 11-8-2016)
OP-ED:
How Hillary Handles Pain
(We do know that voters disproportionately punish women who are seen as dishonest. We do know
it's hard for strong, assertive & ambitious women to be seen as likable & competent at the same time.)
(By Susan Chira, NY Times, 11-9-2016)
OP-ED:
Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded
(Pain and indignation are sweeping through prosperous countries. Problem is not a lack of material
riches. It is the growing number of people who feel they are no longer useful and no longer needed.
Scientific surveys confirm that those who serve others are more happy than those who do not.
Selflessness & joy are intertwined. The more we are one with rest of humanity, the better we feel.)
(By The Dalai Lama & Arthur C. Brooks, NY Times, 11-4-2016)
MOVIES REVIEW:
Doctor Strange and His Most Excellent Adventure
(Doctor Strange is part of Marvel movies's strategy for world domination, yet it's also
so visually transfixing, so beautiful and nimble that you may even briefly forget the brand.)
(By Manohla Dargis, NY Times, 11-4-2016)
BASEBALL: Javier Baez Is Conquered, This Time, in a Game Bursting With Pressure
(Coco Crisp's pinch single in 7th is only run; Cody Allen strikes out Baez with two on.)
(By Michael Powell, NY Times, 10-30-2016)
BASEBALL: INDIANS 1, CUBS 0— Indians' Pitchers Roar to Life, and the Cubs' Bats Fall Silent
(Tomlin pitched 2-hitter in 4-2/3 innings; Relievers Miller, Shaw, Allen shut Cubs out.)
(By Billy Witz, NY Times, 10-29-2016)
PRO BASKETBALL:
Echo of Jeremy Lin's Glory Days as Nets Win Home Opener
(Brooklyn Nets 103-94 victory over Indiana Pacers as Jeremy Lin scored 21 with 9 rebounds
and 9 assists in their home opener; Lin gave game ball to 1st-year coach Kenny Atkinson)
(By Scott Cacciola, NY Times, 10-29-2016)
BASEBALL: DODGERS 1, CUBS 0— Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw Leaves Cubs Flustered in Game 2
(Kershaw spun 7 scoreless innings against the Cubs. He has thrown 19 1/3 innings over past 10 days in
4 appearances in two playoff series. He fired 84 pitches, retiring first 14 batters he faced. He allowed
only three base runners. He dominated. Adrian Gonzalez's homer in 2nd inning was only run of game.)
(By James Wagner, NY Times, 10-17-2016)
MUSIC:
Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize, Redefining Boundaries of Literature
(His hit songs "Like a Rolling Stone", "Blowin' in the Wind", and "The Times They Are a-Changin'"
made him famous; Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie celebrated Nobel's award.)
(By Ben Sisario, Alexandra Alter, & Sewell Chan, NY Times, 10-14-2016)
MUSIC:
Bob Dylan, the Musician: America's Great One-Man Songbook
(He has taught writers of all sorts— not merely poets and novelists— about strategies of both pinpoint
clarity & anyone's-guess free association, of telegraphic brevity and ambiguous, kaleidoscopic moods.)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 10-14-2016)
MUSIC:
Bob Dylan the Writer: An Authentic American Voice
["Dylan's in an art in which sins are laid bare (& resisted), virtues are valued (& manifested), & graces
brought home", Christopher Ricks wrote. "Human dealings of every kind are his for the artistic seizing."]
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 10-14-2016)
CUBS 6, GIANTS 5: Cubs Oust Giants to Reach N.L.C.S., for Once on Good Side of a Big Rally
(Cubs manager Joe Maddon dreaded going back to Chicago for 5th game against Johnny Cueto;
With Matt Moore pitching a 2-hitter through 8 innings, Cubs scored 4 runs to win in the 9th inning.)
(By Billy Witz, NY Times, 10-12-2016)
BASEBALL: Joe Maddon Makes Most of Unconventional Moves
(Maddon's most unconventional move was removing Gold Glove right fielder Jason Heyward,
whom he had just put into the game for defensive purposes; With pitcher's spot due to bat fourth
in the ninth inning, Maddon did not want to be forced to hit for Chapman in case the Giants tied
the score or took the lead. So he replaced Heyward, who had struck out to end the eighth, with
Albert Almora Jr. on a double switch with Chapman, who entered in Heyward's spot.)
(By Billy Witz, NY Times, 10-12-2016)
OP-ED: I Have Diabetes. Am I to Blame?
(I've been diabetic for about 6 years, since age 22. Type 2; Diet and exercise,
that's all it takes, and oral drugs and insulin to prevent amputation & blindness.)
(By Rivers Solomon, NY Times, 10-12-2016)
BASEBALL:
Cubs Lose, but It's Too Early for Ghosts to Rise
(Giants have now won 10 straight potential elimination games in the postseason. Conor Gillaspie:
"There's absolutely no reason to let my happiness depend on whether I get a hit or not.")
(By Michael Powell, NY Times, 10-12-2016)
GIANTS 6, CUBS 5: Giants Prevail in a Marathon Thriller and Prevent a Sweep by the Cubs
(Joe Panik hit a game-winning double in the 13th inning to score Brandon Crawford and end a
13-inning, five-hour thriller, the Giants staved off elimination with 6-5 victory over Chicago Cubs.)
(By Billy Witz, NY Times, 10-11-2016)
INTERNATIONAL ARTS:
Wolfgang Suschitzky, Photographer and Cinematographer, Dies at 104
(His photographs aimed to highlight social distinctions, and depicted his subjects as content;
Cinematography for Joseph Strick's 1967 film Ulysses
and 1971 Michael Caine film Get Carter.)
(By Jennifer Szalai, NY Times, 10-9-2016)
TECHNOLOGY: Defending Against Hackers
Took a Back Seat at Yahoo, Insiders Say
(Hackers backed by an unnamed foreign government stole the credentials of 500 million users
in a breach that went undetected for two years since 2014; New chief information security officer,
Alex Stamos clashed with CEO Mayer on more funding, and left for Facebook in 2015.)
(By Nicole Perlroth & Vindu Goel, NY Times, 9-29-2016)
BASEBALL:
Marlins Pitcher Jose Fernandez Is Killed in a Boating Accident
(Jose Fernandez, though very young, was on a Hall of Fame trajectory, with a 2.58 ERA for his
career and 589 strikeouts in just 471.3 innings; Miami Marlins organization is devastated.)
(By Lizette Alvarez & Niraj Chokshi, NY Times, 9-26-2016)
TECHNOLOGY:
Hackers Trawl User Data in Hopes a Small Target Will Lead to a Big One
(Hackers working on behalf of governments can match stolen Yahoo account data with their own
material or information available on the criminal underground & published on website WikiLeaks.)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 9-24-2016)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Says Hackers Stole Data on 500 Million Users in 2014
(User information— names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, encrypted passwords
and, in some cases, security questions— was compromised in 2014 by some "state-sponsored actor.")
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 9-23-2016)
MOVIES:
Charmian Carr, Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music Film, Dies at 73
[Ms. Carr is perhaps best remembered for singing "I'm Sixteen Going on Seventeen"
with with Daniel Truhitte in The Sound of Music (1965). She was 21 at the time.]
(By The Associated Press, NY Times, 9-19-2016)
THEATER:
Edward Albee, Trenchant Playwright Who Laid Bare Modern Life, Dies at 88
(Albee's career began after death of Eugene O'Neill and after Arthur Miller & Tennessee Williams
had produced most of their best-known plays; His "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" won a Tony in
1963 for best play; 1966 film adaptation, starring Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor won Oscars.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 9-17-2016)
MEDIA:
Yahoo and the Online Universe According to Verizon
(Verizon Communications' $4.83 billion acquisition of Yahoo after its AOL buyout
is preparing for the day when its most important clients are advertisers, not users.)
(By David Gelles, NY Times, 7-30-2016)
MOVIES:
Marni Nixon, the Singing Voice Behind the Screen, Dies at 86
(She did the singing for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story
and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady; Newspapers called her "ghostess with the mostest".)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 7-26-2016)
The Met and a New Logo
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new official design, which generated strong negative reactions
this week, is part of a larger rebranding effort that the museum says is meant to signal a more
welcoming, accessible, current institution. The current logo— which features the letter "M"
& was based on a woodcut by Fra Luca Pacioli, who taught mathematics to Leonardo da Vinci—
has been in use since 1971. Architecture critic Justin Davidson, called it a "graphic misfire".)
(By Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, 2-18-2016)
David Bowie: In Memoriam
("60 Minutes" Running Previously Unaired 2003 David Bowie Interviews)
(NY Times, 1-24-2016)
FASHION & STYLE:
David Bowie: Invisible New Yorker
(David Bowie lived in New York City for more than 20 years, with his spiky orange hair
and snow-white tan— could walk the city streets unrecognized.)
(By Steven Kurutz, NY Times, 1-17-2016)
THE UPSHOT:
The David Bowie Song That Fans Are Listening to Most: 'Heroes'
(Popularity of Bowie songs on Spotify: "Heroes", "Let's Dance", "Life on Mars?", "Space Oddity")
(By Quoctrung Bui, Josh Katz, & Jasmine C. Lee, NY Times, 1-12-2016)
MUSIC:
David Bowie Dies at 69; Star Transcended Music, Art and Fashion
(David Bowie, infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of
musicians about power of drama, images & personas, died Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 1-12-2016)
MOVIES:
Maureen O'Hara, Irish-Born Star Who Played Strong-Willed Beauties, Dies at 95
(When a journalist asked her in 2004 how she remained so beautiful, she explained:
"I was Irish. I remain Irish. And Irish women don't let themselves go.")
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 10-24-2015)
PERSONAL HEALTH:
Is It Ordinary Memory Loss, or Alzheimer's Disease?
[Neurologists say the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), an 8-minute test in use since 1975 is less
discerning than the slightly longer Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) introduced in 1996]
(By Jane E. Brody, NY Times, 5-18-2015)
BOOKS—
Philip Levine, Former U.S. Poet Laureate Who Won Pulitzer, Dies at 87
(His work was vibrantly, angrily and often painfully alive with the sound,
smell and sinew of heavy manual labor;
Levine died on Saturday morning,
Feb. 14, at his home in Fresno, Caifornia)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 2-16-2015)
BOOKS—
An Appraisal: The Poet Philip Levine, an Outsider Archiving the Forgotten
(Poem "The Fox"— "I think I must have lived / Once before, not as a man or woman /
But as a small, quick fox pursued / By ladies and gentlemen on horseback.")
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 2-16-2015)
Sunday Review: OPINION—The Epidemic of Facelessness
(Everyone in the digital space is, at one point or another, exposed to online monstrosity,
one of the consequences of the uniquely contemporary condition of facelessness.)
(By Stephen Marche, NY Times, 2-15-2015)
BOOKS— CRITICS NOTEBOOK— Making Rare Appearace:
People and Their Appetites
(The work of Philip Levine, America's new and 18th poet laureate, is welcome because
it radiates a heat of a sort not often felt in today's poetry, that transmitted by grease, soil,
factory light, cheap and honest food, sweat, low pay, cigarettes and second shifts.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 8-10-2011)
BOOK REVIEW—
In Jorie's Graham's 'From the New World', Flux Is a Whirling Constant
(Wild is the wind that rushes through so many of Jorie Graham's poems. It sends
birds spiraling aloft. It ripples lakes and ponds, making the sun glint.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 2-11-2015)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Executing Them Softly
(Philosopher Ernst Jünger's essay "On Pain"— "Of all animals that serve as nourishment to man,
lobster must suffer the most torturous death, for it is set in cold water on a hot flame.")
(By Zachary Fine, NY Times, 2-9-2015)
Opinionator:
MENAGERIE— Swan Lovers
(Tundra swans fly from the Arctic to Ohio; they make us love the collective nature of life,
the way, together, we are all enthralled. They renew our faith in doing things together.)
(By Sharona Muir, NY Times, 2-9-2015)
BOOK REVIEW:
The Poet's Keeper: Rereading
Eileen Simpson's
Poets in Their Youth
(Poets, John Berryman, Delmore Schwartz, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, all of them dead before
their time from madness, self-neglect or suicide, paid a noble price for their pursuit of truth and beauty.)
(By Lee Siegel, NY Times, 2-8-2015)
Sunday Review:
NEWS ANALYSIS—
The Futility of Vengeance
(Australian entrepreneur created a service that allows you to send your enemies an envelope full
of glitter. When opened, bits of sparkly spite will fall out and stick— as glitter and grudges do.
Response to the site was so overwhelming, that Matthew Carpenter
sold his one-day site for $85,000.)
(By Kate Murphy, NY Times, 2-8-2015)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Philosophy's Lost Body and Soul
(Ultimate aim of philosophy, is not description but prescription: how can we come to understand
ourselves better, to know better, to understand our world better, and to treat each other better.)
(By George Yancy & Linda Martin Alcoff, NY Times, 2-4-2015)
MUSIC:
Aldo Ciccolini Dies at 89; Pianist Interpreted Satie
(Critics praised his playing for its technical virtuosity, airy lyricism and cool, assiduous elegance.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 2-4-2015)
BASEBALL:
Ernie Banks, the Eternally Hopeful Mr. Cub, Dies at 83
(Banks hit 512 homers, NL's MVP 1958 & 1959, Hall of Famer 1977, 19 years with Chicago Cubs.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 1-24-2015) 1954 Topps Rookie BB Card #94
WELL:
Writing Your Way to Happiness
(Students who took part in the writing or video received better grades than those in a control group.)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 1-19-2015)
THE UPSHOT: Digital Dilemmas—
Technology Has Made Life Different, but Not Necessarily
More Stressful
(Pew Research
studies: Frequent Internet & social media users do not have higher stress
levels than those who use technology less often. Women using certain digital tools decreases stress.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 1-15-2015)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Why Life Is Absurd
(Absurdity and meaningfulness don't go together. Removing the obstacle of absurdity does not entail
that meaning rushes in. But if we cannot remove the obstacle of absurdity then it will
be hard to
conclude that life has meaning or determine what that meaning might be.)
(By Rivka Weinberg, NY Times, 1-11-2015)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Know Thy Self— Really
(Self-knowledge which matters to us as human beings is substantial rather than trivial self-knowledge.)
(By Quassim Cassam, NY Times, 12-7-2014)
BOOKS:
Claudia Emerson, Pulitzer-Winning Poet, Dies at 57
[First poem "Natural History: Exhibits" in Late Wife (2005)— I was young, / New in my marriage bed,
but regret was already / Sunk sharp in me. Like any blade, it would grow / Dull slowly.]
2013 Interview
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 12-6-2014)
SMALL BUSINESS:
As Start-Up Strategies Evolve, So Does the Role of a Business Plan
(Business plans are not just for start-ups, they help owners set goals & respond to changing conditions.
Rhonda Abrams' Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies; Brant Cooper's
Lean Entrepreneur)
(By Eilene Zimmerman, NY Times, 12-3-2014)
BOOKS:
Mark Strand, 80, Dies; Pulitzer-Winning Poet Laureate
["Keeping Things Whole" in Sleeping With One Eye Open (1964)—
When I walk / I part the air /
and always / the air moves in / to fill the spaces / where my body's been. / We all have reasons /
for moving. / I move / to keep things whole.] (By William Grimes, NY Times, 11-30-2014);
Mark Srand: U.S. Poet Laureate 1990-1991;
Paris Review Interview #77, Fall 1998
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Evolution and the American Myth of the Individual
(Old Testament is about our relationship with God; New Testament is about our responsibilities to one
another. Philosophers: basic unit of human social life is not and never has been selfish & self-serving.)
(By John Edward Terrell, NY Times, 11-30-2014)
STYLE:
The Slippery Slope of Silicon Valley
(Uber, Facebook, Snapchat, and Others Bedeviled by Moral Issues.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 11-27-2014)
ARTS:
Shakespeare Folio Discovered in France
(The book, the 233rd known surviving first folio, was found in a public library near Calais.)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 11-26-2014)
N.Y. REGION:
A Passion for Writing, About War and Love, Is Celebrated Decades Later
(John J. Donaldson had a dedicated corner at home where he wrote. He died last month at 95,
kept carrying mail and writing. Wrote from the battlefields of Europe during World War II.)
(By Jim Dwyer, NY Times, 11-26-2014)
BASEBALL:
No Disguising It: Red Sox Are Eyeing a Title Run
(Red Sox add Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez to revamped roster.)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 11-25-2014)
PRO FOOTBALL:
Catching the Catch on Camera
(Even Under Microscope, Catch by Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. Earns Applause)
(By Jeffrey Furticella, NY Times, 11-25-2014)
OP-ED:
Our Cats, Ourselves
(Domestic cats' forebears join us in the skeletal record only about 9,500 years ago.
Dogs domesticated 30,000 years ago.
Dogs want to be "man's best friend"; cats, not so much.)
(By Razib Khan, NY Times, 11-25-2014)
OP-ED:
Is Harvard Unfair to Asian-Americans?
(In 2008, over half of all applicants to Harvard with exceptionally high SAT scores were Asian,
yet they made up only 17% of the entering class (now 20%). Asians are the fastest-growing racial
group in America, but their proportion of Harvard undergraduates has been flat for two decades.)
(By Yascha Mounk, NY Times, 11-25-2014)
An Illustrated History of Great Films
(New $100 coffee-table book Criterion Designs from Criterion Collection, is a visual index of every
cover the New York-based art-house and cinema video distribution company has ever produced.)
(By J. C. Gabel, NY Times, 11-24-2014)
BASEBALL:
Ray Sadecki, Who Helped Cardinals Win World Series, Dies at 73
(Won 20 games with St. Louis Cardinals in 1964 & helped in winning World Series;
In May 1966, Cardinals traded Sadecki to San Francisco Giants for Orlando Cepeda.)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 11-24-2014)
THE INNOVATIONS ISSUE:
Virtual Reality Fails Its Way to Success
(Virtual reality has always sounded fantastic in theory but felt in practice like brain poison.)
(By Virginia Heffernan, NY Times, 11-16-2014)
THE INNOVATIONS ISSUE:
Welcome to the Failure Age!
(Down the block from Yahoo is a 27,000-square-foot warehouse of Weird Stuff,
a 21-person company that buys the office detritus that start-ups no longer want.)
(By Adam Davidson, NY Times, 11-16-2014)
THE INNOVATIONS ISSUE:
A Brief History of Failure
(Gallery of technologies we lost or an invitation to consider alternate futures)
(By Ryan Bradley, NY Times, 11-12-2014)
OP-ED: A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.
[Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) is now the most prevalent psychiatric illness
afflicting 11% of young people in America; A.D.H.D. people are hard-wired for novelty-seeking.]
(By Richard A. Friedman, NY Times, 11-2-2014)
EDUCATION LIFE:
This is Your Brain on Drugs
(Was the brain adapting to marijuana exposure, rewiring the reward system to demand the drug?)
(By Abigail Sullivan Moore, NY Times, 11-2-2014)
DISPATCH: Mired in Mediocrity
(Welcome to "new mediocre". It's not quite the New Look, or the New Deal, but it's the new normal.)
(By Vanessa Friedman, NY Times, 11-2-2014)
EUROPE:
A Writer Whose Pen Never Rests, Even Facing Death
("The voices who speak to me now, here at the ending of my life, are mainly poets.")
(By Steven Erlanger, NY Times, 11-1-2014)
EUROPE:
Hungary Drops Internet Tax Plan After Public Outcry
(Viktor Orban: "We govern together with the people. So this tax, cannot be introduced.")
(By Rick Lyman, NY Times, 11-1-2014)
OP-ED: Our Machine Masters
(The age of artificial intelligence is finally at hand. Will we master it, or will it master us?)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 10-31-2014)
BASEBALL | GIANTS 3, ROYALS 2:
Bumgarner, a Three-Ring Master, Leads San Francisco
to Its 3rd Title in Five Seasons
(Likened to Twins' Jack Morris 1991 & Royal's Bret Bret Saberhagen 1985)
(By David Waldstein, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL:
World Series 2014: Madison Bumgarner Rises to the Moment, and Jaws Drop
(After pitching 5-0 shutout in Game 5, he pitched 5 scoreless innings in relief on 2-days rest in
Game 7 for save as Giants beat Royals 3-2; his 0.25 ERA in World Series is better than anyone.)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL'S BEST:
Madison Bumgarner, Earning His Place in History
(Matty Scores ranked Mathewson, Bumgarner, Koufax, Gibson, Plank, best in World Series pitching.)
(By David Leonhardt, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL:
'OMG. You're So Much More Than Awesome.'
(A Visit to Madison Bumgarner Country in North Carolina, and a Proud Father's Home)
(By David Leonhardt, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL:
Win or Save? A Rule With Room for Judgment
(In Reversal, Scorers Give Giants' Madison Bumgarner a Save and Jeremy Affeldt a Win)
(By Benjamin Hoffman, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
Opinionator | DRAFT: Peering Into the Darkness
(Compulsion to peer into darkness, & wonder about what's there, is a distinctly useful & adaptive trait)
(By Joe Hill, NY Times, 10-30-2014)
BOOKS:
Galway Kinnell, Plain-Spoken Poet, Is Dead at 87
(Former Vermont's Poet Laureate won both Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award in 1983.)
(By Daniel Lewis, NY Times, 10-29-2014)
Cave
Paintings in Indonesia May Be Among the Oldest Known
(Paintings of hands and animals in seven limestone caves on Sulawesi had previously been
dismissed as no more than 10,000 years old, are now estimated to be at least 39,900 years old.)
(By John Noble Wilford, NY Times, 10-9-2014)
SCIENCE:
Nobel Laureates Pushed Limits of Microscopes
(Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and Wiliam E. Moerner circumvented a basic law of physics
and enabled microscopes to peer at the tiniest structures within living cells.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 10-7-2014)
SCIENCE:
Nobel Prize in Medicine is Awarded for Discovery of Brain's 'Inner GPS'
(John O'Keefe, Edvard Moser, and May-Britt Moser discovered positioning system
in the brain that makes navigation possible for virtually all creatures.)
(By Lawrence K. Altman, NY Times, 10-7-2014)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Can Wanting to Believe Make Us Believers?
(Princeton's philosopher Daniel Garber: Since 17th century, science & religious faith have
exchanged places, and a general faith in science has replaced earlier general faith in God.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 10-5-2014)
Opinionator:
MENAGERIE— How to Make Music With a Whale
(Whales have three times the number of spindle neuron cells in their brains than we do.
Humpback whale songs have rhythm, form, themes, variations, repetition and innovation.)
(By David Rothenberg, NY Times, 10-5-2014)
OP-ED: Order vs. Disorder, Part 4
(Israel chose to deliberately leave Hamas in power in Gaza because it did not want
to put Israeli boots on the ground and try to destroy it.)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 10-1-2014)
WELL: How Exercise May Protect Against Depression
(Exercise cushions against depression. Working out makes people & animals emotionally resilient.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 10-1-2014)
BASEBALL:
George Shuba, 89, Dies; Handshake Heralded Racial Tolerance in Baseball
(Shuba shook Jackie Robinson's hand when he homered on April 18, 1946 for Montreal Royals.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 10-1-2014)
BASEBALL:
With Outfielder's Help, Jordan Zimmermann Notches Nationals' First No-Hitter
(Steven Souza Jr. made diving catch in left field for final out in a 1-0 victory over Miami Marlins;
Zimmermann allowed only two base runners, finishing with 10 strikeouts and one walk.)
Video
(By Associated Press, NY Times, 9-29-2014)
BASEBALL:
The Rise of the Middle Relievers
(Royals' Wade Davis has earned run average of 1.0; Yankees' Dellin Betances has ERA of 1.40)
(By Benjamin Hoffman, NY Times, 9-29-2014)
BOOK REVIEW:
Acquainted With the Dark— Louise Glück's 'Faithful and Virtuous Night'
(What makes Glück's Faithful & Virtuous Night so powerful is inventiveness with which
she responds not only to her own mortality, but to entirely new vantage on the world
that her predicament affords.)
(By Peter Campion, NY Times, 9-18-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Apple Is Back, Better Than Ever
(Timothy D. Cook, Apple' s CEO, introduced a smartwatch, a wearable device
that combines health and fitness tracking with communications.)
(By Farhad Manjooardt, NY Times, 9-10-2014)
BOOKS:
Mining the Depths of Loss, Faith and Mortality
(Edward Hirsch's Gabriel and Christian Wiman's Once in the West.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 9-10-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS: The Moon Comes Around Again
(At the nearest point along its egg-shaped orbit, its perigee, the moon
may be 26,000 miles closer to us than it is at its far point.)
(By Natalie Angier, NY Times, 9-9-2014)
The UPSHOT:
Top Colleges That Enroll Rich, Middle Class and Poor
(Over the last decade, dozens of colleges have proclaimed that recruiting
a more economically diverse student body was a top priority.)
(By David Leonhardt, NY Times, 9-9-2014)
OP-ED: Becoming a Real Person
(William Deresiewicz offers a vision of what it takes to move from adolescence
to adulthood in his book Excellent Sheep; Pinker suggests the university' s job is cognitive.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 9-9-2014)
EDUCATION:
So Bill Gates Has This Idea for a History Class
(Bill Gates likes Australian Professor David Christian, with a new approach to teaching history.)
(By Andrew Ross Sorkin, NY Times, 9-7-2014)
SCIENCE: Exploring a Tree One Cell at a Time
(plant cell biologist Michael Knoblauch sets himself 40 feet high in a red oak tree in a 20-year
quest to prove a longstanding hypothesis about how nutrients are transported in plants.)
(By Henry Fountain, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
SCIENCE: Tiny, Vast Windows Into Human DNA
(Genes found on chromosomes of the fruit fly are regulated much like
those of humans though they are but distant relatives.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
SCIENCE:
The Oldest Known Muscle Tissues Are Found
(560-million-year-old fossil bears an impression of muscles as fibers arranged in parallel bundles.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
A Call for a Low-Carb Diet that Embraces Fat
(People can sharply reduce their heart disease risk by eating fewer carbohydrates
and more dietary fat, with the exception of trans fats.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
OP-ED: The New History Wars
(Learning history means engaging with aspects of the troubling past, as well as those that are heroic.)
(By James R. Grossman, NY Times, 9-2-2014))
SCIENCE:
An Icy Answer to the Mystery of the Moving Death Valley Stones
(Stones are pushed by wind-driven ice that forms and then breaks up under certain conditions.)
(By Henry Fountain, NY Times, 9-2-2014))
SCIENCE: Exploring a Tree One Cell at a Time
(Plant cell biologist Michael Knoblauch sets himself 40 feet high in a red oak tree in a 20-year
quest to prove a longstanding hypothesis about how nutrients are transported in plants.)
(By Henry Fountain, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
SCIENCE: Tiny, Vast Windows Into Human DNA
(Genes found on chromosomes of the fruit fly are regulated much like those
of humans though they are but distant relatives.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
SCIENCE: The Oldest Known Muscle Tissues Are Found
(560-million-year-old fossil bears an impression of muscles as fibers arranged in parallel bundles.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
A Call for a Low-Carb Diet that Embraces Fat
(People can sharply reduce their heart disease risk by eating fewer carbohydrates
and more dietary fat, with the exception of trans fats.)
(By Anahad O' Connor, NY Times, 9-2-2014)
OP-ED: Is Your Student Prepared for Life?
(83% of college seniors graduated without a job this spring.
Students are missing an education in career training.)
(By Ben Carpenter, NY Times, 9-1-2014))
OP-ED: When Did We Get So Old?
(We can take comfort in knowing there are around 77 million boomers, the largest generation
in the United States population. Someone turns 50 every seven seconds.)
(By Michele Willens, NY Times, 8-31-2014))
RETIRING:
Increasingly, Retirees Dump Their Possessions and Hit the Road
(American retirees have downsized to the extreme, choosing a life of travel
over a life of tending to possessions.
And their numbers are rising.)
(By David Wallis, NY Times, 8-30-2014)
SCIENCE: Brainy, Yes, but Far from Handy
(Building a Robot With Human Touch; the master manipulator of a DaVinci surgical robot.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 8-30-2014)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— Peace Through Friendship
(Interpersonal contact theory: foster understanding, humanize enemy & lessen bigotry.)
(By Juliana Schroeder & Jane L. Risen, NY Times, 8-24-2014)
YOUR MONEY:
Moving to a Smaller Home, and Decluttering a Lifetime of Belongings
(Kimberly McMahon of Let's Move: "Downsizing is the hardest because it is emotionally
difficult for people to release their history. It's the worst anxiety associated with any move.")
(By Elizabeth Olson, NY Times, 8-23-2014)
FINANCIAL
PLANNERS: An Emerging Price War in the World of Investment Advice
(Fidelity and BlackRock's new offering will cost 0.55 to 1.10% annually.)
(By Ron Lieber, NY Times, 8-23-2014)
ART & DESIGN:
Two Silent Men, Deep in Conversation
('Men in Armor': El Greco and Pulzone at the Frick Collection)
(By Roberta Smith, NY Times, 8-22-2014)
HEALTH:
Study Finds That Brains With Autism Fail to Trim Synapses as They Develop
(Columbia neurobiologist David Sulzer: explained symptoms of autism like oversensitivity
to noise, as well as why many people with autism also have epilepsy.)
(By Pam Belluck, NY Times, 8-22-2014)
ART & DESIGN:
In Redesigned Room, Hospital Patients May Feel Better Already
(When moved to new room, patients also asked for 30% less pain medication.)
(By Michael Kimmelman, NY Times, 8-22-2014)
OP-ED: Why Jews Are Worried
(Rising Anti-Semitism in Europe. It's not another Holocaust, but it's bad enough.)
(By Deborah E. Lipstadt, NY Times, 8-21-2014)
MOVIES:
Lauren Bacall Dies at 89; in a Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word
(With an insinuating pose and a seductive, throaty voice— her simplest remark sounded
like a jungle mating call.
Playing opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not,
they married afterwards.)
(By Enid Nemy, NY Times, 8-13-2014)
Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz's Manifesto
(Deresiewicz's Excellent Sheep takes aim at America's elite universities & graduates they produce.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 8-13-2014)
TELEVISION:
An Alien at Home on TV— Robin Williams Was Always Perfect for
the Small Screen
(Williams's inspired nonsense was elastic, stretching a joke way out of shape before snapping
it back neatly into place.)
(By Alessandra Stanley, NY Times, 8-13-2014)
MOVIES:
Robin Williams, Oscar-Winning Comedian, Dies at 63 in Suspected Suicide
(Academy Award-winning actor, imbuing his performances with wild inventiveness
and a kind of manic energy, died at 63 at his home in Tiburon, California)
(By David Itzkoff, NY Times, 8-12-2014)
MOVIES:
An Appraisal: Robin Williams, Improvisational Genius, Forever Present in the Moment
(Robin Williams was one of the most explosively, exhaustingly, prodigiously verbal
comedians who ever lived. And the only thing faster than Williams's mouth was his mind.)
(By A. O. Scott, NY Times, 8-12-2014)
Apple's
Diversity Mirrors Other Tech Companies'
(55% of Apple employees are white, 30% women, 15% Asian, 11% Hispanic & 7% black.)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 8-12-2014)
SCIENCE: Harassment in Science, Replicated
(Almost two-thirds of the respondents said they had been sexually harassed in the field.)
(By Christie Aschwanden, NY Times, 8-12-2014)
OP-ED: Hillary Clinton, Barbed and Bellicose
(The question is whether she can belittle Barack Obama as much as she must
in order to win, but not so much that it plays as an act of sheer betrayal.)
(By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 8-12-2014)
Opinionator:
DRAFT— Writing Is a Risky, Humiliating Endeavor
(To be clear, my work is not in the "based on real life" camp; I write
about vampires, ghosts, gangsters and sexy cloned spies)
(By David Gordon, NY Times, 8-11-2014)
ArtsBeat: Remembering Robin Williams
(Williams first broke out with mainstream audiences with his hit ABC sitcom,
"Mork and Mindy," a "Happy Days" spin-off that starred Mr. Williams as an alien.)
(By Jeremy Egner, NY Times, 8-11-2014)
ROOM for DEBATE:
Will 3-D Printers Change the World?
(But for all the hype, it's still unclear exactly how and when 3-D printing will have
an impact on our daily lives.)
(Six Debaters, NY Times, 8-11-2014)
OP-ED:
Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain
(We consume 174 newspapers' worth of information daily, 5x more than 1986.
We watch an average of five hours of television per day. For every hour of
YouTube video you watch, there are 5,999 hours of new video just posted! )
(By Daniel Levitin, NY Times, 8-10-2014)
BOOKS: A Dylan Insider's Back Pages
(A new memoir, Another Side of Bob Dylan, features stories from a longtime
sidekick of the musician's, offering a glimpse behind the scenes)
(By Sam Tanenhaus, NY Times, 8-10-2014)
SCIENCE: Origami Inspires Rise of Self-Folding Robot
(First robot that can fold itself and start working without any intervention from the operator.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 8-8-2014) Science 345 (August 8, 2014)
SCIENCE: A New Chip Functions Like a Brain, IBM Says
(IBM's TrueNorth chip tries to mimic the way brains recognize patterns, relying on
densely interconnected webs of transistors similar to the brain's neural networks.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 8-8-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Aiming to Be the Netflix of Books
(Netflix supplies endless amount of TV & movies; Spotify does the same for music with subscriptions.
Monthly subscription services from Amazon, Oyster and Scribd offer access to unlimited e-books.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 8-7-2014)
BITS: MACHINE LEARNING— In Fight With Hackers, We Are on Our Own
(Hold Security now offers, for $120 per month, what it calls a Breach Notification Service.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 8-7-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Russian Hackers Amass Over a Billion Internet Passwords
(Hold Security discovered a Russian crime ring stealing 1.2 billion user name and password
combinations and more than 500 million email addresses from 420,000 websites)
(By Nicole Perlroth & David Gelles, NY Times, 8-6-2014)
U.S.—
A Summer of Extra Reading and Hope for Fourth Grade
(About 1,500 students— or one of every eight who completed third grade in Charlotte,
North Carolina in June— ended up enrolling in literacy school for the summer.)
(By Motoko Rich, NY Times, 8-5-2014)
SCIENCE ESSAY: In Darwin's Footsteps
(Weiner's Pulitzer Prize book The Beak of the Finch on
Peter & Rosemary Grant's
20 years research
at Galapagos archipelago's Daphne Major, noting evolution of finches by the hour.)
(By Jonathan Weiner, NY Times, 8-5-2014)
OP-ED: Plato and the Promise of College
(Columbia Professor Roosevelt Montás teaches
summer seminar to 15 minority students hungry
for big ideas, to see their place on a historical continuum participating in political debate.)
(By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 8-5-2014)
OP-TALK:
This Is What an Ivy League Education Will Get You
(William Deresiewicz's
New Republic July story:
"Ivy Leaguer is acutely anxious, depressed, aimless,
isolated & chronically dispassionate. Prospect of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them.")
(By Jake Flanagin, NY Times, 8-5-2014)
OP-TALK: Should Literature Be 'Relatable'?
(Part of literature's power may be in its ability to offer two very different experiences: That of feeling
oneself represented, and that of inhabiting the consciousness of someone totally unlike oneself.)
(By Anna North, NY Times, 8-5-2014)
Opinionator: DRAFT—
The Jargon Trap
(Thickets of jargon & numbers obscured whatever profound points I thought I was making.)
(By David Tuller, NY Times, 8-4-2014)
OP-TALK:
How Wikipedia Could Improve Your Internet Surfing
(Wikipedia sends you down a rabbit hole has been a central part of its success. Its designer: "We want
you to jump around article to find different entry points & support curiosity in a design sort of way.")
(By Anna North, NY Times, 8-4-2014)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— What Would Krishna Do? Or Shiva? Or Vishnu?
(Interviewed Jonardon Ganeri
on Hindu philosophy: There is something strongly anti-individualistic
in this practice of inwardness, since the deep self one discovers is the same self for all.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 8-3-2014)
SCIENCE:
New Find Hints at More Feathered Dinosaurs
(The dinosaur, (Science July 25, 2014),
was about five feet long and belonged to a group
of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs known as Ornithischia.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 7-29-2014)
FASHION & STYLE:
The Emoji Have Won the Battle of Words
(Long stories can be reduced to a small string of symbols. Comprehension may still be a problem.)
(By Jessica Bennett, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
SUNDAY REVIEW: GRAY MATTER—
Are the Rich Coldhearted?
(Can people in high positions of power— presidents, bosses, celebrities, even dominant spouses—
easily empathize with those beneath them?)
(By Michael Inzlicht & Sukhvinder Obhi, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Much Ado About Everything
(Mark 's Miodownik's Stuff Matters is about hidden wonders, the astonishing properties of materials
we think boring, banal and unworthy of attention— paper, concrete, glass, plastic.)
(By Rose George, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Devilish Audacity: Philip Ziegler's Olivier
(Since boyhood he had wanted to be "the greatest actor in the world", and damned
if he did not achieve it, with some help from Shakespeare and the movies.)
(By John Simon, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
BOOK REVIEW:
Marlon's Method— Susan L. Mizruchi's Brandon's Smile
(Brando made the movies he appeared in better, therefore the films belonged to him.)
(By Wesley Morris, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Is Moore's Law Less Important to the Tech Industry?
(If chips doubled in power every two years, people wrote device software anticipating the increase.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 7-25-2014)
OP-ED: Don't Teach Math, Coach It
("When I multiply it by 2 and add 7, I get 29; what's the mystery number?"
And already you're doing not just arithmetic but algebra.)
(By Jordan Ellenberg, NY Times, 7-25-2014)
BITS:
STATE OF THE ART: How to Charge Your Phone in 15 Minutes
(Use Ultrapak battery pack, an external charger made by a firm called Unu Electronics.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 7-25-2014)
MAGAZINE: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
(The new math of the '60s, the new new math of the '80s and today's Common Core math all stem
from the idea that the traditional way of teaching math simply does not work.
Akihiko Takahashi)
(By Elizabeth Green, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
THEATRE: Wicked Tongues Rule the World
(Several productions in London prove there's nothing so enthralling as gossip.)
(By Ben Brantley, NY Times, 7-27-2014)
WELL: The Workout— Practicing His Own Medicine
(Dr. Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician, developed an extreme total-body workout routine
called Ironstrength. He now teaches free exercise classes all around New York City.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 7-24-2014)
POLITICS:
Thesis by Montana Democrat Presented Others' Work as Own
(Senator John Walsh Confronts Questions of Plagiarism: He appropriated at least a quarter of his
master thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors' works, with no attribution.)
(By Jonathan Martin, NY Times, 7-24-2014)
SCIENCE:
Inside Man's Best Friend, Study Says, May Lurk a Green-Eyed Monster
(Any dog owner would testify that dogs are just as prone to jealousy as humans.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 7-24-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Facebook's Profit Soars Past Expectations, Fueled by Mobile Ads
(Mobile devices accounted for 2/3 of Facebook's revenue, rising 61% over same quarter last year.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 7-24-2014)
MOTHERLODE: 5 Ways To Help Your Kid Not Stink At Math
(1. Listen to What's Going Wrong; 2. Do Everyday Math Out Loud; 3. Reclaim the Dreaded Dots;
4. Combine Memorization With Understanding; 5. Introduce Big Ideas Early.
Children's Mathematics)
(By Elizabeth Green, NY Times, 7-23-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS: Brand New Look at the Face of Mars
(New map of Mars showing landforms & different geologic terrains that make up the planet's surface.)
(By Joshua A. Krisch, NY Times, 7-23-2014)
WELL: Acetaminophen No Better Than Placebo for Back Pain
(Pills like Tylenol and Anacin worked no better than a placebo, but could help with other pains.)
(By Nicholas Bakalas, NY Times, 7-23-2014)
BUSINESS:
A Seattle Retailer Builds on the Lessons of a Failed Store in New York
(Glassybaby closed its NY store but took away valuable lessons & now has opened in San Francisco.)
(By Julie Weed, NY Times, 7-23-2014)
SCIENCE: Beyond Energy, Matter, Time and Space
[Thomas Nagel's Mind & Cosmos
proclaims Neo-Darwin's evolution theory is almost certainly false;
Max Tegmark's Our
Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
(Review)]
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 7-22-2014)
SCIENCE: Blind as a Bat: A Case of Mind vs. Body
(40 years before his Mind and Cosmas, Thomas Nagel wrote an
essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?")
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 7-22-2014)
LETTERS:
Markers on the Road to Understanding the Brain
(Responses to Gary Marcus's July 12 Op-Ed "The Trouble With Brain Science")
(By Kelsey Martin, Joel Braslow, & Jeffrey B. Freedman, NY Times, 7-22-2014)
EUROPE: INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION—
Short Courses for the Long Haul
(Adult education eases path to career change)
(By Ginanne Brownell, NY Times, 7-21-2014)
1939: Sign of Life on Mars Reported
(Dr. V. M. Slipher, director of Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona reports color photograhs
of Mars show gradual change in planet's appearance, suggesting growth of vegetable matter.)
[By International Herald Tribune (7-22-1939), NY Times, 7-21-2014]
Opinionator: MENAGERIE— One Degree of Separation
(Hong Kong's Kam Shan Country Park: Rhesus macaques,
giant Mormon butterflies, lots of mosquitoes)
(By Thaddeus Rutkowski, NY Times, 7-20-2014)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— A Fight for the Right to Read Heidegger
(There is a profound disconnect between Heidegger's anti-Semitic prejudice and his philosophy.)
(By Michael Marder, NY Times, 7-20-2014)
BUSINESS:
Who Routinely Trounces the Stock Market? Try 2 Out of 2862
(Recent five-year study of mutual funds, consistently strong performance found to be remarkably rare.)
(By Benjamin Felix, NY Times, 7-20-2014)
Opinionator:
DRAFT— What Writers Can Learn From Goodnight Moon
("Goodnight nobody" is an author's inspired moment that is inexplicable and moving and creates
an unknown that lingers... I'll never crack its meaning, moments like that make rereading a genuine joy.)
(By Aimee Bender, NY Times, 7-19-2014)
THE UPSHOT:
What the Future Holds— Tech World's Challenge: Staying New
(To fight that looming fear, Silicon Valley seeks refuge in its shibboleth, innovation.
Cisco's CEO John Chambers: "To survive, you must disrupt yourself.")
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 7-19-2014)
WOMEN IN TECH:
Some Universities Crack Code in Drawing Women to Computer Science
(Only 18% of computer science graduates in the U.S. are women, down from 37% in 1985.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 7-18-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Maxing Out Gmail Storage
[Google gives each standard Gmail user a free on its servers
(or 30 gigabytes for corporate and educational users)]
(By J.D. Biersdorfer, NY Times, 7-18-2014)
STYLE: His Fair Ladies
(In Andalusia, Ala., Bill Alverson, a lawyer, teaches would-be beauty queens to express themselves.)
(By Samantha Stark, NY Times, 7-18-2014)
E-COMMERCE: Coming Soon to Social Media: Click to Buy Now
(Twitter lets users load various discounts onto their cards through tweets.
Facebook was testing a buy button on its desktop site and its mobile app.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 7-17-2014)
WELL: Let's Cool It in the Bedroom
(After four weeks of sleeping at 66<oF, the men had almost doubled their volumes of brown fat.
Their insulin sensitivity, which is affected by shifts in blood sugar, improved.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-17-2014)
PERSONAL TECH:
Easier Ways to Protect Email From Unwanted Prying Eyes
(One of Virtru's big selling points: working with web-mail services like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 7-17-2014)
OP-TALK:
This Procedure May Improve Your Brain— and Uncover the Real You
(A noninvasive, 20-minute procedure called transcranial direct-current stimulation, or tDCS,
may be able to help us learn a language faster, increase our alertness and curb food cravings.)
(By Anna Altman, NY Times, 7-17-2014)
WELL: PHYS ED— Train Like a German Soccer Star
(Mark Verstegen, the team's trainer, was brought in to improve the players' fitness, agility,
nutrition and resilience. 2014 Book:
"Every Day Is Game Day")
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-16-2014)
SCIENCE: Bigfoot and Yeti, as Elusive as Ever
(Bryan Sykes analyzed 36 Bigfoot hair samples and found all belonging to known species.)
(By Rachel Nuwer, NY Times, 7-15-2014)
PERSONAL HEALTH: We Are Our Bacteria
(We are host to about 100
trillion bacterial cells. They outnumber human cells 10-1
and account for 99.9% of the unique genes in the body.)
(By Jane Brody, NY Times, 7-14-2014)
MAGAZINE: Innovation— Who Made That Ice Pack?
(In 1971, Jacob Spencer filed a patent for the first versatile pack: "A hot and cold
compress comprising a tough flexible sealed envelope, and a neutral gel within.")
(By Melanie Rehak, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: The Fault in Our DNA
(In 2007 book A Farewell to Alms, the economic historian Gregory Clark argued that the English came
to rule the world largely
because their rich outbred their poor, and thus embedded their superior genes
and values throughout the nation. Migration from Africa
to Europe & East Asia improved one's DNA.)
(By David Dobbs, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: School for a Scoundrel
(James Romm's Dying Every Day explores Seneca's consuls to Nero.
"It is the mind that makes us rich," Seneca once wrote to his mother.)
(By David Dobbs, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Unlikely Warriors
Vicki Croke's Elephant Company on Lt. Col. James Howard Williams, known as Elephant Bill.)
(By Sara Gruen, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
GRAY MATTER: Measuring Ramadan
(During Ramadan holy month, Islamic followers abstain from eating & drinking.
Does religion— specifically, practice of religious rituals— affect economic growth?)
(By Filipe Campante & David Yanagizawa, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
OP-ED: Look Homeward, LeBron
(LeBron's migration in reverse, returning to the battered Midwestern city he famously betrayed.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
PRO BASKETBALL:
In Going Home, James May Be Ending an Exile From Himself
(LeBron James joins Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali,
Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson in a class of black athletes who understood
responsibility to their people and communities.)
(By William C. Rhoden, NY Times, 7-13-2014)
PRO BASKETBALL:
Star Reconnects With a Special Place in His Heart
(LeBron James Bares His Soul in Announcing Return to Cleveland)
(By Michael Powell, NY Times, 7-12-2014)
OP-ED: Bury My Heart on West End Avenue
(Yuwipi ceremony conducted by Sioux Leonard Crow Dog in Manhattan apartment.)
(By Dick Cavett, NY Times, 7-12-2014)
OP-ED: The Trouble With Brain Science
(There must be some lawful relation between assemblies of neurons and the elements
of thought, but we are currently at a loss to describe those laws.
Human Brain Project)
(By Gary Marcus, NY Times, 7-12-2014)
OP-ED: Rules to Run By
(Political pointers for candidates of the future: don't change your name)
(By Gail Collins, NY Times, 7-12-2014)
ARTS BEAT:
'The Escape Artist': Thomas Beller Talks About J. D. Salinger
(Roger Angell: “'Always think of the reader' is the best advice for a young writer.”)
(By John Williams, NY Times, 7-11-2014)
BUSINESS DAY:
A Provocateur's Book on Hillary Clinton Overtakes Her Memoir in Sales
(Blood Feud vs. Hard Choices in Hillary Clinton Book Battle)
(By Amy Chozick & Alexandra Alter, NY Times, 7-11-2014)
OP-ED: Baseball or Soccer?
(Baseball is a team sport, but it is basically an accumulation of individual
activities. Soccer is a game about occupying and controlling space.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 7-11-2014)
OP-ED: Crack Down on Scientific Fraudsters
(Dr. Han Dong-Pyou faked tests, spiking rabbit blood with human proteins
to make it appear that the animals were responding to the vaccine to fight H.I.V.)
(By Adam Marcus & Ivan Oransky, NY Times, 7-11-2014)
U.S.—
Detroit's Art May Be Worth Billions, Report Says
(New expert appraisal of Detroit Institute of Arts' collection, worth $2.7 billion to $4.6 billion.)
(By Randy Kennedy, NY Times, 7-10-2014)
U.S.—
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Jewish Pioneer, Dies at 89
(He befriended psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and Thomas Merton. Tried LSD & said:
"I realized that all forms of religion are masks that the divine wears to communicate with us.")
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 7-9-2014)
HEALTH: Probing Brain's Depth, Trying to Aid Memory
(Unlike brain imaging, direct brain recording allows scientists to conduct experiments while listening
to the brain's internal dialogue in real time, using epilepsy patients as active collaborators.)
(By Benedict Carey, NY Times, 7-9-2014)
SCIENCE:
European Effort for Computer-Simulated Brain Draws Fire
(Neuroscientists attacked Human Brain Project, Europe's flagship contribution to neuroscience.)
(By Joshua A. Krisch, NY Times, 7-9-2014)
OP-ED: Should Germans Read Mein Kampf?
(Hitler's Mein Kampf has been officially suppressed in Germanysince end of World War II.)
(By Peter Ross Range, NY Times, 7-8-2014)
PROFILES IN SCIENCE:
Seeker, Doer, Giver, Ponderer
(Billionaire star of mathematics & private investments, James H. Simons's
career is mind-boggling.)
(By William J. Broad, NY Times, 7-8-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE—
Does Evolution Explain Religious Beliefs?
(Knowledge interprets experience through human cultural understanding and experience. Metaphor is
the key. Metaphor helps you move forward. It is heuristic, forcing you to ask new questions.)
(Interview of Michael Ruse by Gary Gutting, NY Times, 7-8-2014)
HEALTH: The Fault in Our Stars
(The star ratings say "Really good!" but the residents say "Not so good.")
(By Paula Span, NY Times, 7-8-2014)
WELL: MIND— What the Therapist Thinks About You
(Within days of a session, patients can read their therapists' notes on their computers or smartphones.
The hope is that this transparency will improve therapeutic trust and communication.)
(By Jan Hoffman, NY Times, 7-7-2014)
OP-ED: The Fallacy of 'Balanced Literacy'
(Lucy Calkins: "Teaching writing must become more like coaching a sport and less
like presenting information", a joyful exploration unhindered by despotic traffic cops.)
(By Alexander Nazaryan, NY Times, 7-7-2014)
GRAY MATTER: The Secret of Effective Motivation
[A conscientious student learns (internal motive) and gets good grades (instrumental).
A skilled doctor cures patients (internal) and makes a good living (instrumental motive).]
(By Amy Wrzesniewski & Barry Schwartz, NY Times, 7-6-2014)
THE UPSHOT: Debate that Divides— When Beliefs and Facts Collide
(Dan Kahan finds divide over belief in evolution between more and less religious people
is wider among people who otherwise show familiarity with math and science.)
(By Brendan Nyhan, NY Times, 7-6-2014)
OP-ED:
Rethinking the Wild: The Wilderness Act Is Facing a Midlife Crisis
(Environmental titans of the 20th century— John Muir, Marshall, Leopold, Zahniser—
handed us an awesome responsibility in America's wilderness legacy.)
(By Christopher Solomon, NY Times, 7-6-2014)
WELL: PHYS ED—
Can Exercise Reduce Alzheimer's Risk?
(Exercise helps to keep brain robust in people with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-2-2014)
HEALTH: Weaning Older Patients Off Sleeping Pills
(Older people should wean themselves from benzodiazepines, widely used for insomnia and anxiety.
Brand names are familiar: Ativan, Ambien, Halcion, Klonopin, Lunesta, Sonata, Valium and Xanax.)
(By Paula Span, NY Times, 7-2-2014)
HEALTH: Older People Often Overtreated for Diabetes
(Most diabetic patients treated with metformin that don't put them at risk of low blood sugar.)
(By Judith Graham, NY Times, 6-30-2014)
ARTS: Allen Grossman, a Poet's Poet and Scholar, Dies at 82
("Poetry is a principle of power invoked by all of us against our vanishing.")
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 6-30-2014)
ART & DESIGN: Boxed In, With Room for Creativity
(The box is a large yellow crate made by Brooklyn packing & art transport company BOXART, built
for a bulbous sculpture by Wendell Castle. The crate is part of "NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial".)
(By Ted Loos, NY Times, 6-30-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Why Not Just Weigh the Fish?
(First Western philosopher Thales fell into a well because he was looking up to the stars.
Scientists think they already have the answers to all these philosophical questions.)
(By Robert Pasnau, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
Opinionator: MENAGERIE— Little Lambs: A Pastoral
("Why do people like feeding lambs, Daddy?" It was hard to know where to start to answer.)
(By Ian Gately, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
BOOKENDS:
When We Read Fiction, How Relevant Is the Author's Biography?
(Mallon: Novelists' lives are considerably less interesting than they used to be. Biographical fact can
deepen our emotional pleasure in a novel. Kirsch: It is impossible to read Pride and Prejudice
without developing a vivid sense of the kind of person Jane Austen must have been.)
(By Thomas Mallon & Adam Kirsch, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
BOOK REVIEW:
Killer Plot— The Silkworm by J. K. Rowling, as Robert Galbraith
(Publishing is currently undergoing a period of rapid changes and fresh challenges,
but one thing remains as true today as it was a century ago: Content is king.)
(By Harlan Coben, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
GRAY MATTER: The Trauma of Parenthood
(42% of mothers and 26% of fathers exhibit signs of clinical depression.)
(By Eli J. Finkel, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
TECHNOPHORIA:
When a Health Plan Knows How You Shop
(There may be a link between your Internet use and how often you end up in the emergency room.)
(By Natasha Singer, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
OP-ED: Why Teenagers Act Crazy
(Adolescents have a brain that is wired with an enhanced capacity for fear and anxiety,
but is relatively underdeveloped when it comes to calm reasoning.)
(By Richard A. Friedman, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
THE UPSHOT:
Behind Ivy Walls— Americans Think We Have the World's Best Colleges. We Don't
(In PISA's math test, the United States battles it out for last place among developed countries,
along with Hungary and Lithuania.
Among people ages 16 to 29 with a B.A. degree or better,
America ranks 16th out of 24 in numeracy.
No reason to believe American colleges are best in the world.)
(By Kevin Carey, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
TRAVEL: San Francisco Noir
(Dashiell Hammett's writing was obsessive, almost comically so, about San Francisco geography.)
(By Dan Saltzstein, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
MAGAZINE:
How to Solve an 88-Year-Old Literary Mystery
(Fatal 1926 train crash of Franklin sedan that killed Edward Cummings, father of e.e. cummings.)
(By Susan Cheever, NY Times, 6-29-2014)
Opinionator: DRAFT— The Right to Write
(Who owns the story, the person who lives it or the person who writes it?)
(By Roxana Robinson, NY Times, 6-28-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: VOWS—
A Catch of the Hand
(Both stars of the New York City Ballet, Tiler Peck and
Robert Fairchild have been
dancing together
since they were young.
Tiler: "I think you could tell by the way we look at each other.")
(By Samantha Stark, NY Times, 6-28-2014)
WORLD CUP:
Don't Call It Luck: The Divine Powers of the Soccer Fan
(Fervent soccer fans in Salvador & beyond believe outcome of matches is somehow in their control.)
(By Fernanda Santos, NY Times, 6-28-2014)
OP-ED: The Spiritual Recession
(Without faith, leaders grow small; they have no sacred purpose to align themselves with.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 6-27-2014)
OP-ED:
They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To
(Inferior Products and Labor Drive Modern Construction.)
(By Henry Petroski, NY Times, 6-27-2014)
ART REVIEW:
Shapes of an Extroverted Life
(Jeff Koons: A Retrospective' Opens at the Whitney.)
(By Roberta Smith, NY Times, 6-27-2014)
THE GREAT WAR:
The War to End All Wars? Hardly. But It Did Change Them Forever.
(World War I destroyed kings, kaisers, czars and sultans; it demolished empires;
it introduced chemical weapons; it brought millions of women into the work force.)
(By Steven Erlanger, NY Times, 6-27-2014)
SCIENCE: That's So Random: Why We Persist in Seeing Streaks
(N.B.A. legend Walt Frazier has been vocal about the powers of hot hand.
Thomas Gilovich:
The hot hand was an illusion caused "by a general misconception of chance.")
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 6-26-2014)
THE UPSHOT:
By the Numbers— Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.?
(A composite ranking of where Americans are healthy and wealthy, or struggling.)
(By Alan Flippen, NY Times, 6-26-2014)
BASEBALL:
Pirates' Gamble Produces a Star
(Gregory Polanco burst into the majors this month by reaching base in his first 14 games.)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 6-26-2014)
OP-ED; Breaking the Law to Go Online in Iran
(In Iran, the government officially blocks access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and almost all other
social media platforms. Meanwhile, top Iranian officials enjoy what they deny to their citizens)
(By Setareh Derakhshesh, NY Times, 6-25-2014)
BOOKS: Daunting Path to Publication
(Kevin Birmingham's new book about the long censorship fight over James Joyce's Ulysses braids
eight or nine good stories into one mighty strand. Book's most important champions were women.)
(By Dwight Garner, NY Times, 6-25-2014)
Pediatrics
Group to Recommend Reading Aloud to Children From Birth
(Highly educated, ambitious parents who are already reading poetry and playing Mozart
to their children in utero may not need this advice to read more to their kids.)
(By Motoko Rich, NY Times, 6-24-2014)
DealB%k:
A Hunt to Find the Next Generation of Financial Planners
(Of the 315,000 financial advisers working in the U.S., only 5% are younger than 30.)
(By Rachel Abrams, NY Times, 6-24-2014)
SCIENCE: A Mystery Character in the Story
('The Remedy': A 19th-Century Bid to Cure TB— Pasteur, Robert Koch, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)
(By Abigail Zuger, NY Times, 6-24-2014)
BOOKS: Leaping From Marvel to DC in a Single Bound
(Superman was #48 on the list of comic book best sellers
with just over 40,000 copies sold of Issue 31.
Batman was #4 with over 107,000 copies. At No. 1 was Original Sin, a mini-series from Marvel
that has revealed dark secrets about its well-known heroes, selling over 147,000 copies.)
(By George Gene Gustines, NY Times, 6-23-2014)
CULTURE: Sketching Superman's Power
(Illustrator John Romita Jr., a decades-long veteran of Marvel Comics, is now
making his DC Comics debut. His first assignment: Drawing Superman. Video)
(By George Gene Gustines, NY Times, 6-23-2014)
EDITORIAL: The Hidden Cost of Trading Stocks
(Stock brokers routinely send orders to venues that paid the highest rebates to them.)
(By The Editorial Board, NY Times, 6-23-2014)
SCIENCE:
The Multimillion-Dollar Minds of 5 Mathematical Masters
($3 million each Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics by Yuri Milner & Mark Zuckerberg
awarded to Maxim Kontsevich, Terence Tao, Jacob Lurie, Simon Donaldson, Richard Taylor.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 6-23-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: Reinventing Emily Gould
(Gone are the days when Ms. Gould, now a novelist, applied her sting to American celebrity culture,
in particular the Manhattan media elite. She's no longer looking for attention and vanity.)
(By Ruth La Ferla, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
Opinionatior: THE STONE— Is Real Inclusiveness Possible?
(Experience of time & conceptualization of the past have been different in India than in Europe.)
(By Justin E.H. Smith, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Wants You to Linger (on the Ads, Too)
(Marissa Mayer, the chief executive, wants to make Yahoo a "daily habit" for its users,
its strategy includes digital magazines like Yahoo Food and Yahoo Beauty.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
BUSINESS DAY: A Job Seeker's Desperate Choice
(Shanesha Taylor, homeless single Mom, arrested after leaving kids in car while on job interview.)
(By Shaila Dewan, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
OP-ED: The Coming Climate Crash
(Carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants should be taxed to spur energy innovation.)
(By Henry M. Paulson Jr., NY Times, 6-22-2014)
U.S.— Rite of the Sitting Dead: Funeral Poses Mimic Life
(Woman wanted to be seen for the last time standing over her cooking pot before burial.)
(By Campbell Robertson & Frances Robles, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
BASEBALL: An Ace Agent Finally Has a Hall of Famer
(Scott Boras's longtime client Greg Maddux will be inducted to Baseball Hall of Fame.)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
OP-ED: But I Want to Do Your Homework
(Kids who are being helped by parents are the ones who are struggling to begin with.)
(By Judith Newman, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
NEWS ANALYSIS— Hacker Tactic: Holding Data Hostage
(Cybercriminals are getting better at circumventing firewalls and antivirus programs.)
(By Ian Urbina, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
MATTER: Our Moral Tongue
(Moral Judgments Depend on What Language We're Speaking.)
(By Boaz Keysar & Albert Costa, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
BOOKENDS: Has the Electronic Image Supplanted the Written Word?
(Discussion whether we are living in a new revolutionary age, or just a continuation of the old one.)
(By Dana Stevens & Rivka Galchen, NY Times, 6-22-2014)
BUSINESS DAY: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90
(DuPont chemist invented technology behind Kevlar, a virtually bulletproof fiber
that has saved the lives of 3,000 police officers from bullet wounds.)
(By Ian Urbina, NY Times, 6-21-2014)
THE UPSHOT: EDUCATION— A College Major Matters Even More in a Recession
(Finance, Computer Programming, & Engineering earn 20% more than average;
Majors in Philosophy & Religion, Music & Drama, Art History earn 30-40% less.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 6-21-2014)
OP-ED: The Solstice Blues
(Junichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows: "Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.")
(By Akiko Busch, NY Times, 6-21-2014)
SPORTS: A Chiseled Bodybuilder, Frail Clients and a Fitness Story for the Ages
(Martin Luther King Addo helps frail seniors restore their balance, mobility and strength.)
(By Louie Lazar, NY Times, 6-21-2014)
Opinionator: MENAGERIE: Streaming Eagles
(Online cameras set up around the world to funnel real-time activities of various wild animals.)
(By Jon Mooallem, NY Times, 6-20-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS: Astronomers Hedge on Big Bang Detection Claim
(Bicep team said in March that its South Pole telescope detected waves from the start
of the Big Bang. On Thursday, it said Milky Way dust may have skewed the findings.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 6-20-2014)
SCIENCE: This Is Your Brain on Writing
(Neuroscientist Martin Lotze used fMRI scanners to track brain activity of experienced
& novice writers.
Better writers' brain waves are similar to those skilled at other complex
actions, like music or sports.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 6-19-2014)
OP"TALK: Our Robot Nightmares
(Vaughan Bell, clinical psychologist & writer, noted rising "killer robot anxiety" on Twitter.)
(By Anna North, NY Times, 6-19-2014)
ART & DESIGN: Sharing Cultural Jewels via Instagram
(26-year old Dave Krugman earned his V.I.P. access to Metropolitan Museum of Art because he is
helping them, free of charge, build their profiles on Instagram, an app for sharing photos & videos.)
(By Leslie Kaufman, NY Times, 6-18-2014)
ECONOMIC SCENE: A Smart Way To Skip College
(Udacity-AT&T 'NanoDegree' offers an entry-level approach to college with online degree)
(By Eduardo Porter, NY Times, 6-18-2014)
THE UPSHOT: As Robotics Advances, Worries of Killer Robots Rise
(From driverless cars to delivery drones, a new generation of robots is about
to revolutionize the way people work, drive and shop.)
(By John Markoff & Clair Cain Miller, NY Times, 6-17-2014)
BASEBALL: Tony Gwynn, Hall of Fame Batting Champion, Dies at 54 of Cancer
(Tony Gwynn won a record 8 National League batting championships, amassed 3141 hits)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 6-17-2014)
On Baseball: In a .338 Lifetime Average, Every Day Counted
(He learned something new at the ballpark every day; Two hitting seccrets: work and more work)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 6-17-2014)
OP-ED: The Structures of Growth (Learning Is No Easy Task)
(Scott H. Young points out, progress in most domains is not linear. In learning
a language or taking up
running, improvement is logarithmic. As you get better, it gets harder and harder to improve.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 6-17-2014)
Opinionatior: DRAFT— Writing in the Here and Now
(Someone writes: "Here and now I am here and now." Period. I invite that person to sit at
the head of the class as a sign that he or she has attained some kind of Zen Writer satori state.)
(By Perry Garfinkel, NY Times, 6-16-2014)
ARTS BEAT— Poetry Profiles: Octopus Press
(We're devoted to poetry either because we're obsessed with being awake or because we're obsessed
with being asleep. On the one hand poetry is the easiest way to induce wakefulness into language.)
(By Dana Jennings, NY Times, 6-16-2014)
FASHION & STYLE— Ayahuasca: A Strong Cup of Tea
(They paid $150, listened to a Colombian shaman, and receive a cup of thick brownish liquid with a
muddy herbal taste. It was ayahuasca (eye-uh-WAH-skuh) tea, hallucinogenic brew from the Amazon
that they hoped would open them to personal insights through optic and auditory hallucinations.)
(By Bob Morris, NY Times, 6-15-2014)
THE UPSHOT: A Balanced Flavor for the Modern Father
(American fathers today do an increasing share of the housework and child care.
They see their primary role as nurturer, not breadwinner.
Men are also more stressed
about work-life balance than their fathers.)
(By Clair Cain Miller, NY Times, 6-14-2014)
POETRY— Analytics: Poem by Committee
(People sent out more than 1,000 tweets using hashtag #NYTpoem during our poetry-writing session
with Patricia Lockwood on May 30; 8% rhymed, 4% formal verse, 46% free verse, 24% news allusions,
18% personification)
(By The Staff, NY Times, 6-14-2014)
NY REGION: Walking in a Graduation Procession, 50 Years Late
(Richard Zirpolo didn't get high school diploma in 1964 because he didn't attend rehearsal at
Xavier High since driver ran stop sign & crashed into his car & he received 30 stitches on his jaw.)
(By Monique O. Madan, NY Times, 6-14-2014)
Opinionatior: THE GREAT DIVIDE— No Money, No Time
(Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan's book Scarcity: "There are three types of poverty—
There's money poverty, there's time poverty, and there's bandwidth poverty.")
(By Maria Konnikova, NY Times, 6-14-2014)
ART & DESIGN: A History of Awesome in One Room
(Papyrus fragments of Sappho poems are part of the "Marks of Genius" show at the
Morgan Library.)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 6-13-2014)
OP-ED: How to Explain Americans
(Americans are great to work with, but obsessed by three C's: control, competition & choreography.)
(By Beppe Severgnini, NY Times, 6-12-2014)
DEBATE THAT DIVIDES: Polarization Is Dividing American Society, Not Just Politics
(Pew Research's study shows a divided society where liberals & conservatives increasingly keep apart.)
(By Nate Cohn, NY Times, 6-12-2014)
BOOKS: Charles Wright Named America's Poet Laureate
(Library of Congress announced next poet laureate is Charles Wright, author of 24 books of verse.)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 6-12-2014)
BOOKS: Selected Poems by Charles Wright
(Lullaby, Chickamauga, Body and Soul, Whatever Happened to Al Lee)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 6-11-2014)
Elodie Lauten, Who Wove Opera From Allen Ginsberg's Poetry, Dies at 63
(Ms. Lauten's best-known composition, "Waking in New York", is a chamber-opera
setting of a cycle of poems by Ginsberg about the life of the city and its people.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 6-11-2014)
YOU'RE THE BOSS: The Father's Day Audit
(Each Father's Day I take a moment to think about how I did over the previous year as a father.)
(By Jay Goltz, NY Times, 6-11-2014)
SPORTS
California Chrome's Co-Owner Apologizes for His Outbursts
(Two days after a nationally televised outburst about how fresh horses had deprived horse racing
of a Triple Crown champion, Steve Coburn, a co-owner of California Chrome, apologized to
those affiliated with the Belmont Stakes winner, Tonalist, and to the horse racing world.)
(By Joe Drape, NY Times, 6-10-2014)
SPORTS
Tonalist's Owner Savors Victory but Offers Some Criticism of His Own
(Robert Evans knew the depth of Coburn's disappointment. He was 37 when his
father's colt Pleasant Colony narrowly missed out on a Triple Crown in 1981)
(By William C. Rhoden, NY Times, 6-9-2014)
OP-ED: The Biology of Risk
(Risk is more than an intellectual puzzle— it is a profoundly physical experience,
and it involves your body. Risk by its very nature threatens to hurt you.)
(By John Coates, NY Times, 6-8-2014)
BUSINESS: Planting for Profit, and Greater Good
(Jason Aramburu examining a sensor he developed that monitors the condition of soil in gardens.)
(By Claire Martin, NY Times, 6-8-2014)
SPORTS: Tonalist Wins Belmont Stakes, Denying Triple Crown for California Chrome
(California Chrome finished 4th as Tonalist wins 146th Belmont Stakes.)
(Triple Crown winners; 12 photos of losers)
(By Melissa Hoppert, NY Times, 6-8-2014)
SPORTS: The Masters of Place and Time for Belmont's Races
(Sentell Taylor Jr., has worked at New York racetracks for 50 years and is now a placing judge
at Belmont Park; He watched as Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed won the Triple Crown.)
(By Melissa Hoppert, NY Times, 6-8-2014)
VIDEO: Remembering Maya Angelou
(Former President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and the first lady, Michelle Obama,
eulogize Maya Angelou at a memorial service in Winston-Salem, N.C.)
(Reuters, NY Times, 6-7-2014)
SPORTS: California Chrome's Crew
(Belmon Stakes contender's biggest fans are probably the people inside his barn.)
(By Melissa Hoppert, NY Times, 6-7-2014)
SPORTS VIDEO: Horse Racing's Dark Side
(Sports columnist W.C. Rhoden questions if horse racing industry deserves a Triple Crown winner.)
(By William C. Rhoden, NY Times, 6-7-2014)
Chester Nez, 93, Dies; Navajo Words Washed From Mouth Helped Win War
(Guadalcanal message: "Enemy machine gun nest on your right. Destroy".)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 6-6-2014)
OP-TALK: Feeling Old on the Internet
(Interesting stuff at website You're Getting Old; Jenny Diski's Problems of Ageing;
39-year old Bronwen Clune's Age Disgracefully;
Molly Crabapple's On Turning 30)
(By Anna North, NY Times, 6-6-2014)
MOTHERLODE: Three Things Students Wish Teachers Knew
(1. Be Fair; 2. Don't give so much homework; 3. Treat us more like people.)
(By Jesica Lahey, NY Times, 6-5-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS: A Star-Gazing Palace's Hazy Future
(A Save Lick Observatory campaign, led by Alexei Filippenko,
tries to raise money and
plead the observatory's case— discovery of dark energy,
resulting in 2011 Nobel Prize.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 6-3-2014)
OP-ED: Tiananmen, Forgotten
(Twenty-five years after the massacre, the topic "liu si— June 4" remains taboo in China)
(By Helen Gao, NY Times, 6-3-2014)
SCIENCE: What's Lost as Handwriting Fades
("When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated," said
Stanislas Dehaene)
(By Maria Konnikova, NY Times, 6-3-2014)
REACTIONS: Complicated Brains, Walking Well Into Old Age, To Teleport Data
(Instantaneous communication irrespective of distance will absolutely transform space travel)
(By Alex of Indiana, NY Times, 6-3-2014)
SPORTS: The Race Not Run
(After a rough start, I'll Have Another shows promise as a stud horse at Japan's Big Red Farm.)
(By Ken Belson, NY Times, 6-1-2014)
SPORTS: Triple Crown Bid Is a Long-Awaited Anniversary Gift
(With six Belmont Stakes winners, Eddie Arcaro, a two-time Triple Crown rider
during a 30-year career, said in 1986 interview, "You'll never see another.")
(By Brad Telias, NY Times, 6-1-2014)
SPORTS: Pushing to Change the Triple Crown's Grueling Schedule
(Growing momentum to radically alter grueling 3-races-in-5-weeks format helps make feat so rare.)
(By Tom Pedulla, NY Times, 5-31-2014)
EDUCATION: America's 'It' School? Look West, Harvard
(Riding a wave of interest in technology, Stanford University has become America's
"it" school, by measures that Harvard once dominated.)
(By Richard Pérez-Peña, NY Times, 5-30-2014)
ART & DESIGN: Friendship Was Their Medium
(Degas and Cassatt, Paired at the National Gallery as a platonic power couple.)
(By Karen Rosenberg, NY Times, 5-30-2014)
Scientists Report Finding Reliable Way to Teleport Data
(Dutch physicists reported in Science
on teleporting information between two quantum bits
separated by three meters, or about 10 feet,
overriding Einstein's "spooky action at a distance".)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 5-29-2014)
ARTS | AN APPRAISAL:
In a Commanding Literary Voice, Maya Angelou Sang Out to the World
(When I was named President Obama's inaugural poet after his 2008 election, Ms. Angelou
called me on the telephone, the second poet to read for a presidential inaugural calling
the fourth, her sense of history and of community fully evident in the gesture.)
(By Elizabeth Alexander, NY Times, 5-29-2014)
ARTS:
Maya Angelou, Lyrical Witness of the Jim Crow South, Dies at 86
(Delivered the inaugural poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" at swearing-in of President Bill Clinton.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 5-29-2014)
PERSONAL TECH:
The Soylent Revolution Will Not Be Pleasurable
(Robert Rhinehart invented Soylent, with over 30 listed ingredients in the shake.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 5-29-2014)
FOOD & DINING: Everything New Is Old Again
(The new golden age of Jewish-American deli food: artisanal gefilte fish, slow-fermented bagels.)
(By Julia Moskin, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
POLITICS: Obama Meets Scientists, One Age 6
(Teenage girl, after dropping her cellphone, created concussion-reducing cushions for football helmets.)
(By Emmarie Huetteman, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
OP-ED: Maya & Me & Maya: What Maya Angelou Meant to Me
(She demonstrated to me, even as a child, the overwhelming power of a great story well told,
the way it could change hearts and change history. I am forever in her debt for that.)
(By Charles M. Blow, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS:
Andromeda and the Milky Way: A Merger of Galactic Proportions
(Hubble Space Telescope measurements have confirmed that the Milky Way will collide
with a sibling galaxy known as the Andromeda nebula in about two billion years.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
Matter: Stronger Brains, Weaker Bodies
(A study of metabolism among different species suggests that humans evolved
to send more energy to our big prefrontal cortex and less to our muscles.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
Opinionator: FIXES: The Push to End Chronic Homelessness Is Working
(It's a significant milestone: It means that many American cities are currently on track
to end chronic and veteran homelessness by the end of the decade or earlier.)
(By David Bornstein, NY Times, 5-28-2014)
WELL: PHYS ED— To Age Well, Walk
(Regular exercise, including walking, reports in JAMA, significantly reduces
the chance that a frail older person will become physically disabled.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 5-27-2014)
FINDINGS: How to Win the Lottery (Happily)
(The key to winning the lottery and remaining happily may simply be to first
win the jackpot. The "curse" part is being debunked.)
(By John Tierney, NY Times, 5-27-2014)
SCIENCE: All Circuits Are Busy
(H. Sebastian Seung's book
"Connectome:
How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are":
85 billion brain cells, 10,000 connections for each one: Mapping them all will take 20-30 years)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 5-27-2014)
TED talk
SCIENCE: Recruiting Help: Gamers
(More than 130,000 players in 145 countries are playing Eyewire, from H. Sebastian Seung's MIT lab;
Cube of retina tissue, like 3-D coloring book, tracing piece of yarn through an extremely tangled ball.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 5-27-2014)
BOOKS: Finding Lightness in the Dark
(The author Rosemary Mahoney went from equating blindness to "being buried alive"
to a realization, over time and around the world, of what blind people experience.)
(By Abigail Zuger, NY Times, 5-27-2014)
WELL: THE CONSUMER— Information Not on the Label
(FDA does not require clear identification and labeling of food products made with GMO.)
(By Roni Caryn Rabin, NY Times, 5-26-2014)
SCIENCE VIDEO: Citizen Neuroscience
(Crowd-sourced science has exploded in recent years. An Internet game called Eyewire, from
Sebastian Seung's lab at M.I.T., asks volunteers to trace the fine details of neurons.)
(By Zach Wise, NY Times, 5-26-2014)
Well: Vision Training to Boost Sports Performance
(Recent studies show that vision training has helped athletes improve performance,
though it has more to do with the brain than with the eyes)
(By Kate Murphy, NY Times, 5-26-2014)
MAGAZINE: Can the Nervous System Be Hacked?
("Mirela Mustacevic, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, had a nerve stimulator
implanted as part of a medical trial. Her symptoms have lessened significantly.)
(By Michael Behar, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
MAGAZINE: My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment
(Horse like to roll in the dirt so they pick up ammonia oxidizer: N. eutropha.
Cambridge, Mass. start-up AOBiome selling AOB, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria.)
(By Julia Scott, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
MAGAZINE: A Revolutionary Approach to Treating PTSD
(After studying with Martha Graham, dancer Albert Pesso developed psychomotor therapy,
and taught it to Bessel van der Kolk, who's teaching "Trauma Memory & Recovery of the Self".)
(By Jeneen Interlandi, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
MAGAZINE: Must the Captain Always Go Down With the Ship?
(If a ship is sinking, maritime tradition dictates that the captain ensures the safe
evacuation of every passenger before he evacuates himself.)
(By Chuck Klosterman, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: Transference? I'll Take It
(She fell in love with her psychotherapist, and wished to be friends, but he said no.)
(By Michelle Huneven, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
PRO BASKETBALL: No time but present for the Heat and LeBron James
(James leads team playing for a "3-Peat" but next season almost all Miami players could be gone.)
(By Andrew Keh, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
BOOKENDS: The Demands of Book Promotion: Frivolous or Necessary?
(Promotion, however tricksy or inglorious, is just a way to find your people, or to let them find you.
For first-time authors & authors from marginalized communities, promotion can make difference.)
(By James Parker & Anna Holmes, NY Times, 5-25-2014)
IHT RETROSPECTIVE 1914: The Most Radiant Stars Shine in the May Skies
(French astronomer Camille Flammarion wrote about highlights of star-studded skies in May, 1914.)
(By International Herald Tribune, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: Apps for the Lovelorn
(Apps to spy on your boyfriend, but you need to install it on his cellphone.)
(By Joyce Wadler, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
MEDIA: Others Fade, but Judge Judy Is Forever: At 71, She Still Presides
(CBS keeps her on that bench because, at 71 years old and finishing her 18th season
in daytime syndication, Judge Judith Sheindlin is a viewer-grabbing machine.)
(By Brooks Barnes, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
NY REGION: Comeback for the Lindy Hop (Give Credit to Sweden)
(Lindy hop, a dance with roots in the Depression-era ballrooms and clubs of Harlem,
but that in recent years has had something of a global resurgence.)
(By James Barron, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
THE UPSHOT: Did Thomas Piketty Get His Math Wrong?
(Financial Times: Is the most influential economics book of the year built on bad math?)
(By Neil Irwin, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
THE UPSHOT: History Source— Baseball's Role in J.F.K.'s Life
(28-year-old JFK poses at Fenway Park in Boston in April 1946 with Ted Williams
and Eddie Pellagrini of the Red Sox and Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers.)
(By Michael Beschloss, NY Times, 5-24-2014)
SCIENCE:
Gerald M. Edelman, Nobel Laureate and 'Neural Darwinist' Dies at 84
(Won 1972 Medicine Nobel for chemical structure of antibodies;
May 2, 1994 New Yorker: "Can you
ask the question in such a way as to facilitate the answer? And I think the great scientists do that.")
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
Raw Data: A Creationist's Influence on Darwin
(Decades before On the Origin of Species, a theologian proposed—
and rejected— a version of natural selection, and Darwin read about it in college)
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
SINOSPHERE A Scholarly Response to 'Tiger Mom': Happiness Matters, Too
(Four child psychologists say that while "Tiger Mom" parenting, popularized by Amy Chua
and associated with China, gets results, it leads to "dampened" self-worth and happiness.)
(By Didi Kirsten Tatlow, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
TENNIS: Chang vs. Lendl: 25 Years LATER
(In 1989, few people thought a 17-year-old American Michael Chang would beat
the No. 1-ranked tennis player, Ivan Lendl, in the fourth round of the French Open.)
(By Vijai Singh & Erik Olsen, NY Times, May 23, 2014)
BITS: As Publishers Fight Amazon, Books Vanish
(Amazon has been discouraging customers from buying titles from Hachette.)
(By David Streitfeld, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
OP-ED: Really Good Books, Part I
(George Orwell's A Collection of Essays; Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina;
Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics; Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men;)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
SCIENCE:
A Theory on How Flightless Birds Spread Across the World: They Flew There
(600 pounds elephant bird in Madagascar now extinct with egg the size of 160 chicken eggs.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
SCIENCE:
Even Fruit Flies Need a Moment to Think It Over
(Researchers found that when faced with hard choices, fruit flies take more time to make a decision.)
(By Douglas Quenqua, NY Times, 5-23-2014)
TIMES INSIDER: The Ethic of The Ethicist
(The Ethicist, proved that he is man worthy of the title, role model, teacher, and an Ethics Hero.)
(By Chuck Klosterman, NY Times, 5-22-2014)
OP-ED: Depressed, but Not Ashamed
(We took a risk sharing our experiences with depression, but we found a support system.)
(By Madeline Halpert & Eva Rosenfeld, NY Times, 5-22-2014)
WELL: MIND— Is Work Your Happy Place?
(Using saliva samples, researchers found levels of cortisol— which is a biological marker for stress—
were on the whole much lower when the person was at work than when he or she went home.)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 5-22-2014)
T MAGAZINE: On View | A Belgian Sculptor Takes Antwerp by Storm
(Belgian sculptor Johan Creten's newest show
"The Storm", an outdoor installation of 25 monumental
works cast in bronze, clay & resin, speaks to the storm within us all, as individuals and as a society.)
(By Gay Gassmann, NY Times, 5-22-2014)
T MAGAZINE: Viewfinder | The Universal Appeal of the Ice Cream Cone
(Perhaps no sound heralds the start of the summer season better than the singsong melody
of the ice cream truck. Click Full Screen: Slide show of 11 ice cream cones, trucks, and locales.)
(By Jamie Sims, NY Times, 5-22-2014)
OP-ED: Four Words Going Bye-Bye
(Four words are becoming obsolete and destined to be dropped from our vocabulary.
And those words are "privacy", "local", "average' and "later".)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 5-21-2014)
SCIENCE:
Mice Run for Fun, Not Just Work, Research Shows
(Wheel-running is not a neurotic behavior found only in caged mice. They like the wheel.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 5-21-2014)
MEDIA:
Arthur Gelb, Critic and Editor Who Shaped The Times, Dies at 90
(By sheer force of personality, he dominated newsroom at The New York Times for decades,
lifting its metropolitan and arts coverage to new heights; he retired at end of 1989.)
(By Sam Roberts, NY Times, 5-21-2014)
EDUCATION— College Is Torn: Can Darwin and Eden Co-Exist?
(Bryan College now says Adam and Eve "are historical persons created by God
in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life-forms.")
(By Alan Blinder, NY Times, 5-21-2014)
SCIENCE: Creation, in the Eye of the Beholder
(When we see intricate symmetry, our brains automatically assume there was an inventor. Jan. 1987
Scientific American's cover had object of unnerving beauty— AIDS virus, now called H.I.V.)
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
OP-ED; The Big Debate
(It's now clear that the end of the Soviet Union heralded an era of democratic complacency.
Without a rival system to test them, democratic governments have decayed across the globe.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
OP-ED: A Cancer Treatment in Your Medicine Cabinet?
(2010 study in Journal of Clinical Oncology: Women with breast cancer who took aspirin
at least once a week for various reasons were 50% less likely to die of breast cancer.)
(By Michelle Holmes & Wendy Chen, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
SCIENCE:
A Math App That Offers an Unusual Human Touch
(Tabtor offers something unique: an instructor who tracks a child's progress and offers feedback.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
SCIENCE:
Prehistoric Skeleton in Mexico Is Said to Link Modern Native Americans to Siberians
(Analysis reveals that the girl, who lived at least 12,000 years ago, belonged
to an Asian-derived genetic lineage seen only in Native Americans.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
SCIENCE: An Ancient Shrimp's Big Sperm, Preserved
(World's oldest sperm has been found in tiny shrimp called ostracods that lived at least
17 million years ago in Australia; Sperm can reach up to ten times body length of its producer.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 5-20-2014)
ARTS BEAT: First Wolverine Comic Art Is Sold for Nearly $660,000
(The Wolverine page was drawn by Herb Trimpe, who gave it to a fan, as a gift, in 1983.)
(By George Gene Gustines, NY Times, 5-19-2014)
WELL: MIND— Remembering, as an Extreme Sport
(Scientists are learning among memory competitors, key to remembering to knowing how to forget.
One-minute matches between 16 "memory athletes" in Extreme Memory Tournament, or XMT.)
(By Benedict Carey, NY Times, 5-19-2014)
Opinionatior: DRAFT— Writing About a Life of Ideas
(Intellectuals stop writing when they die, but they don't stop publishing. Ideas are immortal.
Indeed the true measure of intellectual greatness, according to Goethe, is "posthumous productivity.")
(By Richard V. Reeves, NY Times, 5-19-2014)
OP-ED: Always Hungry? Here's Why
(Factors in the environment have triggered fat cells in our bodies to take in and store
excessive amounts of glucose and other calorie-rich compounds. JAMA article)
(By David S. Ludwig & Mark I. Friedman, NY Times, 5-18-2014)
NEWS ANALYSIS: Medicine's Top Earners Are Not the M.D.s
(Biggest bucks are currently earned not through delivery of care, but from overseeing business
of medicine. $584,000 for an insurance CEO, $386,000 for a hospital C.E.O. and $237,000 for a
hospital administrator, compared with $306,000 for a surgeon and $185,000 for a general doctor.)
(By Elisabeth Rosenthal, NY Times, 5-18-2014)
BOOKENDS:
What Are the Draws and Drawbacks of Success for Writers?
(Writing fiction is, in many ways, like a religion. Jalaluddin Rumi: "If you want money
more than anything, / you'll be bought and sold. / If you have a greed for food, /
you'll be a loaf of bread. / This is a subtle truth: / whatever you love, you are.")
(By Francine Prose & Mohsin Hamid, NY Times, 5-18-2014)
Opinionatior: THE STONE— A Life Beyond 'Do What You Love'
(How today's gospel of self-fulfillment severs the traditional link between work and duty.
Miya Tokumitsu's article in Jacobin magazine argued that the "do what you love" ethos so
ubiquitous in our culture is in fact elitist because it degrades work that is not done from love.)
(By Gordon Marino, NY Times, 5-17-2014)
TELEVISION: A Pioneer Says Goodbye, Unfiltered
(Barbara Walters's Farewell and Legacy: Guests paying respects include Hillary Clinton,
Oprah Winfrey, Diane Sawyer and Jane Pauley, with all 11 Co-Hosts of ABC.)
(By Alessandra Stanley, NY Times, 5-17-2014)
MEDIA:
As Barbara Walters Retires, the Big TV Interview Signs Off, Too
(No traffic on NY's Fifth Avenue in March 1999 as 50 million tuned for Barbara Walter's
two-hour interview with Monica Lewinsky about her relationship with President Bill Clinton.)
(By Jonathan Mahler, NY Times, 5-16-2014)
MEDIA: Barbara Walters's Biggest Moments
(Clips of Barbara Walters interviews with Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro.)
(By Quynhanh Do, NY Times, 5-15-2014)
BUSINESS: Museum Interpreters Breathing Life Into History
(Many older adults have found a home or a second career as historical interpreters
at living history museums or as docents at historic house museums.)
(By John Hanco, NY Times, 5-15-2014)
OP-ED: The Problem With Confidence
(Katty Kay & Claire Shipman, "The Confidence Code":
women have too little self-confidence.
Daniel Kahneman's
Thinking, Fast and Slow:
overconfidence is our main cognitive problem.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
OP-ED: Read, Kids, Read
(Fewer than 20% of 17-year-olds now read for pleasure "almost every day".)
(By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
BASEBALL:
Who's on Third? In Baseball's Shifting Defenses, Maybe Nobody
(In 2013, with the infield shift, Pirates turned 419 double plays instead of 339 in 2012,
fourth most in the league. Their pitchers' earned run average dropped to 3.26 from 3.86.)
(By David Waldstein, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
ENVIRONMENT: Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt
(Rise of less than four feet would inundate land on which some 3.7 million Americans
live today. Miami, New Orleans, New York and Boston are all highly vulnerable.)
(By Justin Gillis & Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
SCIENCE: Profiles in Science | Geoffrey W. Marcy: Finder of New Worlds
(Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, has discovered
scores of alien worlds, so-called exoplanets circling distant stars.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
SCIENCE: The Social Life of Spiders Thriving in a Social Web
(Of the world's 43,000 known varieties of spiders, overwhelming majority are peevish loners.)
(By Natalie Angier, NY Times, 5-13-2014)
BITS: CLOUD COMPUTING—
A Closer Look Inside IBM's Cloud Challenge
(IBM is largest technology supplier to corporate data centers, but growth of cloud technology has been
threatening that business model. Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and EMC face same threat.)
(By Steve Lohr, NY Times, 5-12-2014)
WELL: MIND— Exercising the Mind to Treat Attention Deficits
(Stephen Hinshaw: Time was ripe to explore utility of nondrug interventions like mindfulness.)
(By Daniel Goleman, NY Times, 5-12-2014)
EDITORIAL: A Long Way to Privacy Safeguards
(Most Americans think current laws are insufficient to protect their privacy,
Pew Research survey.)
(By The Editorial Board, NY Times, 5-12-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: THIS LIFE—
For the Love of Being 'Liked'
(For Some Social-Media Users, an Anxiety From Approval Seeking)
(By Bruce Feiler, NY Times, 5-11-2014)
OP-ED: Lost Booksellers of New York
(Gotham Book Mart with sign outside the store: "Wise Men Fish Here".)
(By Larry McMurtry, NY Times, 5-11-2014)
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding
(Since December, 20,000 teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade
have introduced coding lessons, according to What most schools don't teach.)
(By Matt Richtel, NY Times, 5-11-2014)
OP-ED: What's So Scary About Smart Girls?
(The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.)
(By Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, 5-11-2014)
Opinionatior: THE STONE— Young Minds in Critical Condition
(As debunkers, students contribute to a cultural climate that has little tolerance
for finding or making meaning. But this cynicism is no achievement.)
(By Michael S. Roth, NY Times, 5-10-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Alibaba Bets on a Growing Chinese Economy and New Consumers
(New market is China itself, particularly its ascendant middle class and
its growing appetite for spending rather than saving.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 5-8-2014)
PERSONAL TECH:
MACHINE LEARNING— An App That Knows You
(Contextual computing, which uses information collected on a person's habits
and interests, could enrich our lives, but at the cost of privacy.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 5-8-2014)
SCIENCE: Advance Cited in Creating Artificial Genetic Code
(Scientists created for first time organism with artificial building blocks in its genetic code.)
(By Andrew Pollack, NY Times, 5-8-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
The Unlikely Ascent of Jack Ma, Alibaba's Founder
(Jack Ma has long served as a flamboyant motivator to his Alibaba staff
and a relentless opponent to those who have competed against him.)
(By Neil Gough & Alexandra Stevenson, NY Times, 5-8-2014)
BITS: ENTERPRISE COMPUTING—
The Consumer Revolution of Enterprise Computing
(Workday 22 keeps evolving & has 347 new features, some 68 of which came from customers.
A new version of Oracle or SAP, would come out every couple of years & months to install.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 5-7-2014)
BITS: CLOUD COMPUTING—
HP Makes $1 Billion Bet on Open Cloud
(Under the name HP Helion, HP will spend $1 billion over the next two years on products
and services around OpenStack, as the open source cloud software is known.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 5-7-2014)
BITS: MACHINE LEARNING—
With Update, Snapchats Get a Little Less Private
(People who like Snapchat's disappearing messages should know that anyone can simply tap
on a text message to save it in a thread forever; Photo screenshots would be notified.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 5-7-2014)
BITS: INTERNET— Alibaba, by the Numbers
($248 billion in annual sales; 231 million buyers who placed 11.3 billion orders in 2013;
136 million active mobile users; 49 average purchases per buyer each year; $1 billion IPO.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 5-6-2014)
BUSINESS: From Netscape to Alibaba
(In the early years, Internet companies helped people gain access to nascent technology; Then came
e-commerce boom in companies selling wide range of products; Latest stage has been companies
creating virtual communities and entertainment as well as established Internet players in China.)
(NY Times, 5-6-2014)
AN APPRAISAL:
How Gary Becker Transformed the Social Sciences
(Gary Becker was the most important social scientist in past 50 years and possibly longer.)
(By Justin Wolfers, NY Times, 5-6-2014)
ECONOMY:
Gary Becker, 83, Nobel Laureate, Dies; Applied Economics to Everyday Life
(Professor Becker, the 1992 Nobel winner in economics, was original and provocative
in research on marriage, crime, addiction and racial discrimination.)
(By Robert D. Hershey Jr., NY Times, 5-5-2014)
TELEVISION:
Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Star of '77 Sunset Strip' and 'The F.B.I.', Dies at 95
(Zimbalist was an actor whose mellifluous voice and air of European sophistication
left a distinctive stamp on two popular television crime series.)
(By Susan Stewart, NY Times, 5-4-2014)
Gerald Guralnik, a 'God Particle' Pioneer, Dies at 77
(Guralnik is one of six pioneering physicists who in the 1960s came up with
a theory that would lead to the discovery of a subatomic particle.)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 5-4-2014)
POLITICS:
In Surveillance Debate, White House Turns Its Focus to Silicon Valley
(The questions about the N.S.A. are strikingly similar to those about how Google,
Yahoo, Facebook and thousands of application makers crunch their numbers.)
(By David E. Sanger, NY Times, 5-3-2014)
When Hitting 'Find My iPhone' Takes You to a Thief's Doorstep
(With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone can recover their devices.)
(By Ian Lovett, NY Times, 5-3-2014)
OP-ED: China's Censored World
(China is both the world's newest superpower and its largest authoritarian state.)
(By Evan Osnos, NY Times, 5-3-2014)
BUSINESS: Steve Jobs Defied Convention, and Perhaps the Law
(Steve Jobs was driving force in a conspiracy to prevent competitors from poaching employees.)
(By James B. Stewart, NY Times, 5-3-2014)
BITS: The New Firefox Is Fantastic. So Is Every Other Web Browser.
(Using Firefox 29, I've found it to be quite speedy and free of bugs.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 5-2-2014)
OP-ED: Love Story
(Isaiah Berlin & Anna Akhmatova's one night in Leningrad in 1945: communication between people
who think that knowledge most worth attending to is not found in data but in great works of literature.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 5-2-2014)
WELL: DIABETES— Coffee Tied to Lower Diabetes Risk
(Drinking more coffee may decrease your risk of Type 2 diabetes.)
(By Nicholas Bakalar, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Alibaba I.P.O. May Unleash Global Fight Over Users
(China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba, could surpass combined amount raised in the I.P.O. of
Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, AOL & Yahoo; Alibaba has 80% of online purchases in China.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
PERSONAL TECH:
With HD Voice, Better Call Quality Is Coming. Text Your Friends
(HD voice expands the sound of a cellphone call from about four octaves to more like seven.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: T-Mobile's discounted plans boost
(T-Mobile shares jumped 7.3% as the company that has billed itself as the "uncarrier" signed up
2.4 million new customers in the first quarter, topping estimates of 932,000.)
(By Marina Lopes, Reuters, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
BITS: SOCIAL— Snapchat Goes After Mobile Messaging With a New Design
(Snapchat's core service is ability to send photo messages that disappear after a few seconds.
Plan to deepen those interactions with a real-time video conversation & trade text messages.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
BITS: SECURITY—
Attackers Use Microsoft Security Hole Against Energy, Defense, Finance Targets
(Hackers infect a popular website with malware, then wait for victims to click to the site and
infect their computers. Vulnerability affected all of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser.)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Facebook to Let Users Limit Data Revealed by Log-Ins
(Facebook announced that when its 1.3 billion users log in to other websites or mobile apps through
their Facebook identities, they will be able to limit what they reveal to the site or app to just their email
addresses & public profile information, like name & gender. No personal info revealed to outsiders.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 5-1-2014)
WELL: PHYS ED— Want to Be More Creative? Take a Walk
(For millenniums, writers and artists have said that they develop their best ideas during a walk.
Stanford's Marily Oppezzo's paper: Walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 4-30-2014)
SCIENCE: The Continuing Evolution of Genes
(We carry just over 20,000 genes that encode everything from keratin in our hair down to the muscle
fibers in our toes. Studies of fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, have found that some species have
new genes, suggesting recent evolution. New genes come into being at an unexpectedly fast clip.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 4-29-2014)
OP-ED: Saving the System
(As far back as Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, dominant powers tried to establish procedures and
norms to secure national borders. Today that system is under assault in Egypt, Ukraine, Syria, China.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 4-29-2014)
WELL: MIND— Reading Pain in a Human Face
(Real pain & fake facial expressions: Humans are 55% accurate while a computer's success is 85%.)
(By Jan Hoffman, NY Times, 4-28-2014)
SCIENCE: Overriding Their Animal Impulses
(Great apes did very well. Dogs & baboons did pretty well. Squirrel monkeys, marmosets & some
birds were among the worst performers. Absolute brain size is a much better predictor of success.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 4-28-2014)
OP-DOCS: Verbatim— What Is a Photocopier?
(In this dramatization of transcripts from a legal deposition, a lawyer becomes
embroiled in an absurd argument about the definition of a photocopier.)
(By Brett Weiner, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
Opinionatior: THE STONE— What Does Buddhism Require?
(Buddhist encourages seeing ourselves as impermanent, interdependent individuals, linked to
one another and to our world through shared commitments to a reduction of suffering.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
Opinionatior: THE GREAT DIVIDE— No Accounting Skills? No Moral Reckoning
(Good books are "balanced" in a moral sense. They are the very source of accountability,
a word that in fact derives its origin from the word "accounting". Cosimo de' Medici himself
did yearly audits of the books of all his bank branches & kept accounts for his household.)
(By Jacob Soll, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
THE UPSHOT: Getting Into the Ivies
(Top colleges are admitting fewer American students than they did a generation ago.
Spots filled by Americans at Harvard dropped 27% since 1994; Yale & Dartmouth by 24%.)
(By David Leonhardt, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
APPLIED SCIENCE: The Search for Our Inner Lie Detectors
(Leanne ten Brinke's work: "our own bodies know better than our conscious minds who is lying".)
(By Matt Richtel, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
OP-ED: Religion for $1,000, Alex
(Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy: "Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly
ignorant about religion". Can you find the mistakes in Kristof's Bible Quiz?)
(By Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: A Student-Data Collector Drops Out
(inBloom made it possible to categorize students with sensitive labels: Autistic. Tardy. A.D.H.D.)
(By Natasha Singer, NY Times, 4-27-2014)
GRAY MATTER: Friends Can Be Dangerous
(Teenagers did far more reckless things when with their friends than when alone.)
(By Lawrence Steinberg, NY Times Sunday Review, 4-27-2014)
OP-ED: The Bodies That Guard Our Secrets
(Visit to a kosher slaughterhouse: Cattle have the filet mignon, and we have
the psoas major muscle. They have the rib eye, and we have the erector spinae.)
(By Jonathan Reisman, NY Times Sunday Review, 4-27-2014)
It's the Economy:
If a Bubble Bursts in Palo Alto, Does It Make a Sound?
(Facebook bought mobile-messaging application WhatsApp for $19 billion, or about $350 million per
employee and $40 per user.
1,700 big, nonfinancial companies were holding on to $1.53 trillion in cash
and short-term securities at the end of 2013.
That is enough liquidity to purchase Google, Apple,
General Electric, McDonald's, General Motors and Walmart outright, with a few billion to spare.)
(By Annie Lowrey, NY Times Magazine, 4-27-2014)
RETIRING: Welcoming Love at an Older Age, but Not Necessarily Marriage
(Older people lived together unmarried for an average of nine years.)
(By Stanley Luxenberg, NY Times, 4-26-2014)
OP-ED: The Global Diabetes Epidemic
(25 million diabetics in U.S., 65 million in India, 98.4 million in China)
(By Kasia Lipska, NY Times Sunday Review, 4-26-2014)
LETTERS: Skills Sought by Google
(Study of literature is is one of the best ways to develop "formal and logical and structured" thinking.
Laszlo Bock encourages students to work hard, not take an easy path, whatever classes they take.)
(By Wayne J. Guglielmo & Cathy Raines, NY Times, 4-25-2014)
OP-ED: The Piketty Panic
(What's new about Piketty's Capital is
way it demolishes most cherished of conservative myths,
the insistence that we're living in a meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and deserved.)
(By Paul Krugman, NY Times, 4-25-2014)
OP-ED: The Piketty Phenomenon
(Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century argues that the real driver
of inequality is not primarily differences in human capital. It's differences in financial capital.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 4-25-2014)
OP-ED: End College Legacy Preferences
(Public and private colleges routinely give preferential treatment to children of alumni.
Children of alumni had a 45% greater chance of admission. Acceptance rate is 30% at Harvard.)
(By Evan J. Mandery, NY Times, 4-25-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Conjuring Images of a Bionic Future
(Dick Loizeaux, 65, who began suffering hearing loss nearly a decade ago, recently had a
"comfortable conversation" in a noisy New York nightclub using
GN ReSound Linx hearing aid.)
(By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, 4-24-2014)
CreatureCast: Cuttlefish Camouflage (Video)
(Cuttlefish can alter their color, texture, and apparent shape. This extraordinary
camouflage allows them to hide in plain sight against many different backgrounds.)
(By Jacob Gindi & Casey Dunn, NY Times, 4-24-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Making Your Selfies the Talk of Instagram
(Frontback is my favorite selfie app because it's unique. It takes two shots, one from the phone's
main camera and one from the camera that faces the user. Then it combines them into a single image.
The result is a self-portrait in context, with a sense of the scene around you.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 4-24-2014)
With Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When It's Milking Time
(Farms in upstate New York and elsewhere are using automatic milkers
that scan and map the underbellies of cows to extract the milk; Video)
(By Jesse McKinley, NY Times, 4-23-2014)
RIGHT LESSON, WRONG TIME: Why Economics Failed Us, in 297 Words
(2011 Economics Nobel Laureate
Thomas Sargent's 2007 speech to Berkeley graduates is making
the rounds on the Internet. Business Insider called it the "greatest graduation speech ever".)
(By Josh Barro, NY Times, 4-23-2014) Nobel Banquet Speech
The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World's Richest
(Family at 20th percentile of the income distribution in United States makes significantly less money
than a family in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland or Netherlands. 35 years ago, reverse was true.)
(By David Leonhardt & Kevin Quealy, NY Times, 4-23-2014)
BITS: Americans Predict a Future Like Science Fiction
(People want the ability to travel through time in a driverless flying car.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
LETTERS: Mozilla, Brandeis and Free Expression
(As the philosopher David Hume noted, "Truth springs from argument amongst friends."
Agree with Ross Douthat's OP-ED
that universities need most is diversity of ideas.)
(By J. Martin Rochester, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: The Broadband Revolution Is Not Nigh
(A handful of cable companies still dominate this important market— AT&T, Google, Comcast.)
(By Vikas Bajaj, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
SCIENCE: How This Renoir Used to Look
(Conservators and scientists use a high-power microscope and X-rays to examine
the pigment particles and individual brushstrokes of Renoir's Madame Léon Clapisson, 1883.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
SCIENCE: Brain-Mapping Milestones
(Research paper measured activity of 20,000 genes in 300 different human brain structures.
Mouse research paper connections among 295 mouse brain regions to create Atlas.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
SCIENCE: Brain Control in a Flash of Light
(Stanford psychiatrist & neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth
developed optogenetics, technique that allows
researchers to turn brain cells on & off with combination of genetic manipulation & pulses of light.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
SCIENCE: An Apple a Day, and Other Myths
(Green vegetables helped ward off lung & stomach cancer. Colon & thyroid cancer might be avoided
with broccoli, cabbage & brussels sprouts. Onions, tomatoes, garlic, carrots & citrus fruits also good.)
(By George Johnson, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
ARTS: As Varied as an Ark Full of Animals
(The children's exhibition "Noah's Ark" at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles,
helps exemplify that center's mission to record Jewish heritage and serve a diverse audience.)
(By Edward Rothstein, NY Times, 4-22-2014)
AMERICAS: Aracataca Journal— Magic Ebbs From García Márquez's Hometown
(Aracataca served as the model for the fictitious town of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.)
(By William Neuman, NY Times, 4-21-2014)
MAGAZINE: RIFF— How Hollywood Killed Death
(How is an audience supposed to feel that a death matters when the movie doesn't bother to lend it
meaning? Death has become a transition device. Neither Kirk nor Pepper Potts nor Loki actually dies.)
(By Alexander Huls, NY Times Magazine, 4-20-2014)
REAL ESTATE: Elizabeth Gilbert's New Chapter Begins
(Elizabeth Gilbert,
author of Eat, Pray, Love and
Signature of All Things is selling her house,
four-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath, at 3 Reading Avenue in Frenchtown, N.J. for $999,000.)
(By Robin Finn, NY Times, 4-20-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Gone in 0.001 Seconds—
Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
(In Brad Katsuyama, Lewis has found a good guide into the esoteric
and highly technical world of high-frequency trading.)
(By James B. Stewart, NY Times, 4-20-2014)
TELEVISION: Versatility Is a Virtue in Fantasy of Identity
(Tatiana Maslany Plays Many Characters in 'Orphan Black'; She devised musical playlists
and a style of dancing for each clone; Won 2013 Television Critic's Choice Award.)
(By Margy Rochlin, NY Times, 4-20-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: Is God Just Not That Into Me?
(I never thought much about God, certainly never wondered whether God
was thinking about me, until I fell in love with a Zen Buddhist priest.)
(By Stacey D'Erasmo, NY Times, 4-20-2014)
Analytics: Is Unfair Trading Fair Game?
(Nearly 500 readers commented on Michael Lewis's article about high-frequency trading)
(By the Staff, NY Times, 4-19-2014)
BITS: How Urban Anonymity Disappears When All Data Is Tracked
(People in cities have anonymity from their neighbor, but not from an entity collecting
data about them such as Nautical Technologies using license plate recognition.)
(By Quentin Harday, NY Times, 4-19-2014)
OP-ED: How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2
(First thing Google looks for "is general cognitive ability— ability to learn things and solve problems".
Good Résumé: Key is to frame your strengths as: "I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.")
(By Thomas Friedman, NY Times, 4-19-2014)
TELEVISION: Versatility Is a Virtue in Fantasy of Identity
("Orphan Black" on BBC America is a science-fiction adventure series with wild conspiracy plot
whose hook is cloning; Critics praised Tatiana Maslany with Golden Globe acting nomination.)
(By Mike Hale, NY Times, 4-19-2014)
BUSINESS: When Diamonds Are Dirt Cheap, Will They Still Dazzle?
(Technique called chemical vapor deposition heating mixture of hydrogen & methane in a chamber at
very low pressures can produce diamonds, that are virtually indistinguishable from mined diamonds.)
(By Robert H. Frank, NY Times, 4-19-2014)
BOOKS:
Gabriel García Márquez, Conjurer of Literary Magic, Dies at 87
(Colombian novelist whose One Hundred Years of Solitude established him
as a giant of 20th-century literature, won the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature.)
(By Jonathan Kandel, NY Times, 4-18-2014)
SPACE & COSMOS:
'Earth Twin' Is Found, Or Perhaps a Cousin
(500 light-years away, planet Kepler 186f has a diameter of 8,700 miles, 10% wider than Earth,
and its orbit lies within the "Goldilocks zone" of its star, making it potentially hospitable for life.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 4-18-2014)
OP-ED: Capitalism and the Dalai Lama
(We need a "sense of concern of others' well-being" he declared, of shared humanity and brotherhood.
Only activities motivated by a concern for others' well-being, could be truly "constructive".)
(By Arthur C. Brooks, NY Times, 4-18-2014)
FILM REVIEW: I Am My Own Monster (Technology Rules!)
(Johnny Depp stars in Transcendence a science-fiction film about a futurist whose consciousness
is uploaded onto the Internet. He expands like the universe, growing larger and mutating into a
being who is godlike and yet far from divine, sort of like a star at the apex of his popularity.)
(By Manohla Dargis, NY Times, 4-18-2014)
OP-ED: There's a Moon Out Tonight
(We survived an end-of-the-world moment again this week when a lunar eclipse
made the moon look sort of reddish.)
(By Gail Collins, NY Times, 4-17-2014)
BOOKS:
Combative Director, Even in Letters
(Elia Kazan's autobiography A Life
really ought to be read first to provide context
for The
Selected Letters of Elia Kazan on a man that's both loved and hated.)
(By Janet Maslin, NY Times, 4-17-2014)
BOOKS:
After Years of Writing, an Author's Own Epic Fantasy Comes True
(Brandon Sanderson tops Best Sellers with 1,087 pages book
Words of Radiance.)
(By Dana Jennings, NY Times, 4-17-2014)
BOOKS:
Conquering Displacement With Words
(Andrés Neuman latest book is Talking to Ourselves in Granada, Spain. At age 37,
with 20 books to his name, he's a significant fixture in Spanish-language literature.)
(By Valerie Miles, NY Times, 4-17-2014)
MOVIES REVIEW:
His Résumé Before the Age of 4: 'I Saw Jesus on a Horse'
(Greg Kinnear stars in Heaven Is for Real, story of almost-4-year-old Colton Burpo
who returned from a near-death experience claiming to have detoured through heaven.)
(By Jeannette Catsoulis, NY Times, 4-16-2014); (Colton Burpo Video;
Trailer)
HEALTH: PET Scans Offer Clues on Vegetative States
(PET scans study has found that a significant number of people labeled vegetative had received an
incorrect diagnosis and actually had some degree of consciousness and the potential to improve)
(By Denise Grady, NY Times, 4-16-2014)
SPORTS: Zander Hollander, Sports Trivia Shepherd, Dies at 91
(He annually provided statistics-filled tomes of several sports that he titled, "Complete Handbooks".
Sports Illustrated called him "the unofficial king of sports paperbacks"; He edited & wrote 300 books.)
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 4-15-2014)
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION: Out in Front, and Optimistic, About Online Education
(Former Yale President Richard C. Levin is now CEO of Coursera, the largest provider
of massive open online courses, or MOOCs with 7 million users & 25 million enrollments.)
(By D.D. Guttenplan, NY Times, 4-14-2014)
OP-ED: My Ideas, My Boss's Property
(Workers are being forced to sign over their ideas to their employers.)
(By Orly Lobel, NY Times, 4-14-2014)
Opinionator: DRAFT— The Book That Didn't Exist
(Seventeen years ago I wrote a book called Goths, which you can find on Amazon and Google
and elsewhere online. This is unusual only because my book was never published.)
(By Jason K. Friedman, NY Times, 4-14-2014)
MAGAZINE: Can I Spy?
(When is it ethical to pretend to be someone you're not to learn information that could be
beneficial to society? But on rare occasions, that is necessary for the greater good.)
(By Chuck Klosterman, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
MAGAZINE: Inside Baseball
(Mike Escamilla photographed the game from some new angles at Dodgers' training camp.)
(By Julie Bosman, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
EDUCATION LIFE: BLACKBOARD | ADMISSIONS—
Ivy League Ups and (Yes) Downs
[Applications to the University of Pennsylvania rose by more than 14% this year and fell
by as much at Dartmouth. Admission at Penn was tougher (10% this year; 12% last year)]
(By Laura Pappano, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
BITS— Bend It, Charge It, Dunk It: Graphene,
the Material of Tomorrow
(Graphene is the strongest, thinnest material known to exist. A form of carbon, it can conduct
electricity and heat better than anything else; Not only hardest material but also one of most pliable.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Happiness and Its Discontents
(Misleading to equate satisfaction with happiness; Happiness is pleasure, and unhappiness is pain,
or suffering. Philosophers call this view "hedonism" about happiness; this approach is also wrong.)
(By Daniel M. Haybron, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
OP-ED: Diversity and Dishonesty
(Harvard undergraduate Sandra Y. L. Korn's column
on how universities should approach academic
freedom; Academic culture should conform to left-wing ideas of the good, beautiful and true.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Michael Lewis— By the Book
(Best book on Wall Street by Edwin Lefèvre Reminiscences
of a Stock Operator (1923) a thinly veiled
biography of Jesse Livermore, the speculator,
most famous for betting against the U.S. stock market
before the crash of 1929; Overlooked writer is
Jim Holt who wrote
Why Does the World Exist?)
(By Chris Hayes, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: The Cubs of Wall Street
(Kevin Roose's Young Money chronicles first
two years of 8 young Wall St. investment banker's life.)
(By Chris Hayes, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
EDUCATION LIFE: 10 Courses With a Twist
(Professors are capitalizing on what computers can't do— like take walks,
serve pizza, chase tornadoes and teach through experience.)
(By Laura Pappano, NY Times, 4-13-2014)
U.S.: At Phillips Exeter, a World of Religious Diversity
(18-year-old Milton Syed says "Money, prestige, success— they have become slave masters". School
has Muslim prayer room, Hindu puja room, ark holding Torah scrolls, Buddhist meditation spaces.)
(By Mark Oppenheimer, NY Times, 4-12-2014)
OP-ED: The Self-Sort
(We are facing another, worsening kind of segregation, one not codified but cultural.
We are self-sorting, not only along racial lines but also along educational and income ones.)
(By Charles M. Blow, NY Times, 4-12-2014)
OP-ED: Raising a Moral Child
(What does it take to be a good parent? We know tricks for teaching kids to become high achievers.)
(By Amy Grant, NY Times, 4-12-2014)
Opinionator: THE GREAT DIVIDE— Parental Involvement Is Overrated
(Most forms of parental involvement yielded no benefit to children's test scores or grades,
regardless of racial or ethnic background or socioeconomic standing.)
(By Keith Robinson & Angel L. Harris, NY Times, 4-12-2014)
YOUR MONEY: RETIRING—
Childhood Dreams Can Inspire Rewarding Second Careers
(After retiring at 68 from Time Warner Cable in 2012, Sandra Colony started Personalized Odysseys,
which organizes group trips of 10 or fewer women, 50 or older, and has visited 90 countries.)
(By Kerry Hannon, NY Times, 4-12-2014)
OP-ED: The Moral Power of Curiosity
(Michael Lewis's book Flash Boys on how a small number of Wall Street-types
figured out that the stock markets were rigged by high-frequency traders who used complex
technologies to give themselves a head start on everybody else. Book is really a morality tale.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 4-11-2014)
MOTHERLODE: The Sixth Stage of Grief: Buying a Puppy
(Suspected well-known five stages of grief— denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—
are not phases at all. Instead, they are random responses to reduction and despair.)
(By Joel Yanofsky, NY Times, 4-11-2014)
SCIENCE: Watch Proteins Do the Jitterbug
(Video by XVIVO: Proteins jostle past one another like commuters in a busy train station.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 4-10-2014)
SCIENCE: The Moral: Aesop Knew Something About Crows
(Thirsty crow drops pebbles into a pitcher to raise water level of high enough to get a drink.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 4-10-2014)
SCIENCE:
Papyrus Referring to Jesus' Wife Is More Likely Ancient Than Fake, Scientists Say
(Analysis by professors at Columbia University, Harvard University and MIT,
who reported that it resembled other ancient papyri from the 4th to the 8th centuries.)
(By Laurie Goodstein, NY Times, 4-10-2014)
OP-ED: Why Liberalism Needs Pluralism
(Liberals should hesitate a little longer the next time they're inclined to think that
the rights of the individual must trump the liberty of institutions, communities, and groups.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 4-10-2014)
OP-ED: How to Study the Numinous
(Perhaps, instead of a better fMRI machine, we're waiting for
a new William James or James Frazer or Carl Jung.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 4-9-2014)
EDUCATION: Best, Brightest and Rejected: Elite Colleges Turn Away Up to 95%
(Stanford rejected 95% of its 2018 class applicants, admitted 2138 out of 42,167)
(By Richard Pérez-Peña, NY Times, 4-9-2014)
OP-ED: APPRECIATIONS—
Mickey Rooney's Quietest Role
(Forget Andy Hardy and his MGM highlight reel, hoofing & crooning with Judy Garland,
remember his 1981 "Bill" playing an old feeble man struggling to make it on his own.)
(By Lawrence Downes, NY Times, 4-8-2014)
OP-ED: What Suffering Does
(Unspoken assumption was that the main goal of life is to maximize happiness.
People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering, and ennobled by it.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 4-7-2014)
ARTS: Mickey Rooney, Master of Putting On a Show, Dies at 93
(Most famous American teenager from 1937-1944; Number 1 box-office star 1930-1941; Earned $12
million before he was 40; Made over 200 movies; Starred in
Sugar Babies musical 1979-1982.)
(By Aljean Harmetz, NY Times, 4-7-2014)
OP-ED: Eight (No, Nine!) Problems With Big Data
(Biochemists like to infer 3-dimensional structure of proteins from their underlying DNA sequence,
but cannot solve this problem by crunching data alone, no matter how powerful the statistical analysis.)
(By Gary Marcus & Ernest Davis, NY Times, 4-7-2014)
MAGAZINE: The Wolf Hunters of Wall Street
(An Adaptation From Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis)
(By Michael Lewis, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Technology's Man Problem
(Women hold only about one-quarter of all information technology jobs.
Among the women who join the field, 56 percent leave by midcareer.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
MAGAZINE: The Selfish Selfie
(What are the ethics of celebrating a public figure if the true motive is to ridicule him?)
(By Chuck Klosterman, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
OP-ED: A Rationalist's Mystical Moment
(At age 17 in Lone Pine, California, saw the world— the mountains, the sky,
the low scattered buildings— suddenly flame into life; felt ecstatic & shattered.)
(By Barbara Ehrenreich, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
EDUCATION LIFE: Inventive Teaching— My So-Called Opinions
(David J. Mahan said that with his popular CS50 at Harvard, "Introduction to Computer Science",
he was "setting out to create not a course for students, but a college experience.")
(By Joseph Ong, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
ARTS: Peter Matthiessen, Lyrical Writer and Naturalist, Is Dead at 86
(Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould called Mr. Matthiessen "our greatest modern nature writer in the
lyrical tradition"; Became Zen priest; Snow Leopard won 1979 National Book Award for nonfiction.)
(By Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE— My So-Called Opinions
(Pluralism calls for people to embrace differences among individuals. It has been a part
of the millennial generation accused of been apathetic, lazy and narcissistic.)
(By Zachary Fine, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— Is That Jesus in Your Toast?
(In 2004, a Florida woman Diane Duyser sold a decade-old grilled cheese sandwich
that bore a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary. She got $28,000 for it on eBay.)
(By Ana Gantman & Jan Van Bavel, NY Times, 4-6-2014)
OP-ED: Michael Lewis's Crusade
(Book preceding Michael Lewis's Flash Boys
excerpted in NY Times is Scott Patterson's
Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market)
(By Joe Nocera, NY Times, 4-5-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Weights or Measures, Converted on the Fly
(Convertible: The Ultimate Unit Convertor on iOS organizes units into length, weight, speed.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 4-3-2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Creator of a Virtual Reality Sensation
(Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR has brought attention to its co-founder Palmer Luckey
and the Southern California tech scene where his company took root.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 3-27-2014)
ROOM for DEBATE:
How Can Bookstores Stay Alive?
(Stores that sell books are disappearing in the face of new technology
and online venues. What does this mean for readers and the industry?)
(Discussion, NY Times, 3-26-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: App Smart: Messaging
(Several apps, including WhatsApp, Kik and Viber, offer alternatives
to SMS for communicating with others from your phone.)
(By Dallas Jensen, NY Times, 3-25-2014)
Opinionator: DRAFT—
Keep It Short
(In writing, brevity works not only as a function of space on a page,
but the time that an audience is willing to spend with you.)
(By Daniel Heitman, NY Times, 3-24-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE—
When Nature Looks Unnatural
(Why scientists were so excited about last week's cosmological announcement.)
(By Sean Carroll, NY Times, 3-23-2014)
WELL: Running as Therapy
(I started distance running in 2007 because, in the short space of six months,
the person I was dating left me for another woman, I bought a house & my grandfather died.)
(By Jen A. Miller, NY Times, 3-20-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Interview | Philip Roth— My Life as a Writer
(The thought of the novelist that matters most is the thought that makes him a novelist.
The novel, then, is in itself his mental world. A novelist is not a tiny cog in the great wheel
of human thought. He is a tiny cog in the great wheel of imaginative literature.)
(By Daniel Sandstrom, NY Times, 3-16-2014)
MAGAZINE: Silicon Valley's Youth Problem
[In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot
of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much. Cisco bought Meraki for $1.2 billion]
(By Yiren Lu, NY Times, 3-16-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: Quiet Desperation— The Wherewithal by Philip Schultz
(Philip Schultz's novel-shaped poem is about evil & suffering and human capacity for compassion.)
(By Adam Plunkett, NY Times, 3-16-2014)
OP-ED: The Rise of Anti-Capitalism
(Technological revolution making goods and services nearly free— book publishers and
newspapers unprofitable as consumers share info, audio, video and text free on the web.)
(By Jeremy Rifkin, NY Times, 3-16-2014)
OP-ED: The Incessant Selling of the Self
(Young people educated to believe that self-promotion is essential. Quick personal advancement
is mandatory. Writing recommendation letters for former students for fellowships & internships.)
(By Ann Beattie, NY Times, 3-16-2014)
ART & DESIGN: A Medicine of Oneness, Body, Soul and Stars
("Bodies in Balance" at the Rubin Museum of Art's Exhibition on Tibetan Healing. Medicine
is astrology because the forces governing the body are the forces governing the heavens.)
(By Edward Rothstein, NY Times, 3-15-2014)
ASK WELL: Laser Treatments for Nail Fungus
(Lasers selectively heat and destroy harmful fungi while sparing healthy surrounding tissue,
but laser treatments produced no improvements with toenail fungus, even after five sessions.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 3-14-2014)
WELL: Activity Trackers Don't Sense Everything
(Wearable technology— those wristbands, watches and belt gadgets that track your every move
do not detect light-intensity activities very well, only when you're jogging or brisk walking.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 3-10-2014)
BOOKS: Justin Kaplan, Prize-Winning Literary Biographer, Dies at 88
(Kaplan was Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer renowned for his lives of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman
and Lincoln Steffens, and who was later known as the editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 3-4-2014)
BASEBALL: Eddie O'Brien, Who Played for Pirates With His Twin, Dies at 83
(Though only 5'9", O'Brien & brother Johnny were also basketball stars at Seattle University.)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 3-3-2014)
BITS: Now Facebook Has a Drone Plan
(Facebook negotiating to buy a manufacturer of drones, Titan Aerospace, for about $60 million.
It'll give Mark Zuckerberg an intriguing new technology to further the cause of Internet.org.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 3-4-2014)
BITS: Steven Ballmer Reflects on Missteps & Ponders the Future of Microsoft
("If you want to start something, be all in," ex-Microsoft CEO Ballmer bellowed at
Oxford University. "You have to be hard core as anything if you want to be successful.")
(By Mark Scott, NY Times, 3-4-2014)
BITS: A Conversation with Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz on the 'Hard Things'
(Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, on his new book,
The Hard Thing About Hard Things)
(by Nick Bilton, NY Times, 3-4-2014)
MOVIES: Alain Resnais, Acclaimed Filmmaker Who Defied Conventions, Dies at 91
(Introduced literary modernism to films like Hiroshima Mon Amour and
Last Year at Marienbad.)
(By David Kehr, NY Times, 3-3-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: The Monuments of Tech
(Big Internet companies love to talk about how they are "disrupting" one thing or another,
but they still want workplaces that memorialize their products and values.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 3-2-2014)
OP-ED: What You Learn in Your 40s
(There are no soul mates. Not in the traditional sense, at least. In my 20s someone
told me that each person has not one but 30 soul mates walking the earth.)
(By Pamela Druckerman, NY Times, 3-1-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Peering Into Tech's Monuments of Innovation
(Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., is a cluster of 11 buildings enclosing
a Disney-like pedestrian square and a two-way promenade. Short meetings take place on foot.)
(12 slides on Facebook, Google, Twitter By Jim Wilson, NY Times, 2-27-2014)
OP-ED: The Return of the Happy Atheist
(Modernity wasn't just delivering peace and plenty; it was delivering chaos,
tyranny, war, and monstrous evils on a scale pre-modern world had rarely seen.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 2-27-2014)
OP-ED: Religious Experience and the Modern Self
(Advance of secular world-picture changes the nature of numinous experience itself, so we don't
experience enchantment. It doesn't just close intellectual doors, it closes perceptual doors as well.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
SCIENCE: THE MAPMAKERS— The Brain's Inner Language
(Decoding the mind requires learning what the neurons are saying to one another.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
Opionionator: THE STONE—
Arguments Against God
(Is the existence of a supreme deity merely unproven? Or is it false?)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
Opionionator: DRAFT—
Confessions of a Lifelong Eavesdropper
(You could say it's a hobby. These slices of language come through
the air, begging to be heard, mini vacations into other lives.)
(By Margaret Hawkins, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
DealB%k:
Defending Bitcoin, Andreessen Says Mt. Gox Is 'Like MF Global'
(Marc Andreessen said Mt. Gox "has been obviously broken & possibly outright crooked for months.")
(By William Alden & Rachel Abrams, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
DealB%k: Geithner's Book Has a Title: 'Stress Test'
("We saved the economy from a failing financial system, though we lost the country doing it.")
(By William Alden, NY Times, 2-25-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Aims to More Deftly Blend Ads With Content
(To Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer, fashion magazines like Vogue & InStyle have achieved
the holy grail of advertising; ads in them are as interesting as the articles & photo shoots.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 2-24-2014)
EDITORIAL: A Picasso in Trouble
(Largest & most endangered Picasso "Le Tricorne" (1919) many of us have
never seen lives on Park Avenue, in the Seagram Building, East 52nd Street.)
(By The Editorial Board, NY Times, 2-23-2014)
START-UPS: Disruptions: After WhatsApp Deal, Visions of Magic Numbers
(David Karp sold Tumblr for $1.1 billion, Evan Spiegel turned down $3 billion for Snapchat.
Brian Acton & Jan Koum sold WhatsApp with 50 employees to Facebook for $19 billion.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 2-23-2014)
OP-ED: How to Get a Job at Google
(GPA and college degrees not as important as soft skills— leadership,
humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn.)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 2-23-2014)
YOUR MONEY: Working to Block Those Advertising Annoyances
(Free ways to stop unwanted ads, telemarketing phone calls, and glossy catalog mail.)
(By Alina Tugend, NY Times, 2-22-2014)
YOUR MONEY: Dream of Moving Abroad in Later Life, With Good Health Care
(Health insurance costs 78-year old Joseph Coyle & his wife $13,720/year in Paris.)
(By Tim Gray, NY Times, 2-22-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: WhatsApp Deal Bets on a Few Fewer 'Friends'
(Address Book like Snapchat, Secret, Kik & WhatsApp used for more intimate social connections.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 2-22-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Founders of an Anti-Facebook Are Won Over
(Jan Koum fled the former Soviet Union with his Mom when he was 16, worked at Yahoo for 10 years
before start-up WhatsApp with brian Acton; sold his 5-year old company to Facebook for $19 billion.)
(By Brian X. Chen & Vindu Goel, NY Times, 2-21-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: The Founders of WhatsApp
(Jan Koum & Brian Acton: No Ads, No Games, No Gimmicks, $1/year for users)
(By Zena Barakat & Vijai Singh, NY Times, 2-21-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: These Apps Are Made for Walking
(Smartphones that keep us sitting can also encourage us to get up & walk more by tracking our steps.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 2-20-2014)
BITS: GAMING—: Disruptions:Using Addictive Games to Build Better Brains
(First it was Doodle Jump. Then Dots. And now Flappy Bird. UCSF Researchers tries
to figure out what makes games addictive & use video games to improve our minds.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 2-16-2014)
GRAY MATTER: Is the Universe a Simulation?
(In "Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation",
physicists Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi
& Martin J. Savage outline method for detecting
our world is actually a computer simulation.)
(By Edward Frenkel, NY Times, 2-16-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Intel's Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist
(Genevieve Bell, as a cultural anthropologist at Intel Labs, runs a team of about 100 researchers.
They study how consumers interact with electronics & develops new technology experiences for them.)
(By Natasha Singer, NY Times, 2-16-2014)
FASHION & STYLE: Twitter, Can You Hear Me Now?
(Too woo Twitter followers, a trail of self-promotional tweets.
Your content has to be useful to people otherwise it's seen as spam.)
(By Henry Alford, NY Times, 2-16-2014)
INNOVATION: Who Made That Pop-Up Ad?
(In May 1995, Brendan Eich, Netscape programmer & amateur gymnast, worked up
a new way to program on the web using JavaScript to have pop-up windows)
(By Daniel Engber, NY Times, 2-16-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: A List of Favorites From a Man Who Knows His Apps
(Michael Galpert is my go-to person for the most obscure and often most useful apps
that would otherwise be lost to me amid the million-plus options in the App Store.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 2-15-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: The Plus in Google Plus? It's Mostly for Google
(Google Plus may not be much of a competitor to Facebook as a social network, but it is central
to Google's future— a lens that allows the company
to peer more broadly into people's digital life.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 2-15-2014)
ASK WELL:The Problem With Dogs and Chocolate
(The darker the chocolate, the more toxic it is. For a 20-pound dog, 9 ounces of milk
chocolate can cause seizures, but it takes only 1.5 ounces of baker's chocolate.)
(By Catherine Saint Louis, NY Times, 2-14-2014)
ART & DESIGN: Phoenixes Rise in China and Float in New York
(Xu Bing installs his sculptures at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine)
(By Carol Vogel, NY Times, 2-14-2014)
ARTS: Shirley Temple Black, Screen Darling, Dies at 85
(With 56 perfect blonde ringlets, she starred in 23 films; from 1935-1939 she was the most
popular movie star, with Clark Gable a distant second; became US diplomat from 1969-1989)
(By Aljean Harmetz, NY Times, 2-12-2014)
THE NEW OLD AGE: What Makes Older People Happy
(When we're older, ordinary experiences become central to a sense of self & therefore more valued.)
(By Judith Graham, NY Times, 2-11-2014)
WELL: The Real World Is Not an Exam
(Critics pointed out that test-taking savvy may have little to do with job performance.)
(By Abigail Zuger, M.D., NY Times, 2-10-2014)
WELL: Movie Date Night Can Double as Therapy
(Hollywood's sappy relationship movies can actually help strengthen relationships in the real world.)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 2-10-2014)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Is Atheism Irrational?
(PhilPapers survey showed 62% of philosophers are atheists; Alvin Plantinga: "problem of evil" is
strongest evidence against theism; Belief in God is grounded in experience, or in sensus divinitatis.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 2-9-2014)
BUSINESS: The Path to Reading a Newborn's DNA Map
(One of the drawbacks of DNA tests for children, as well as for adults, is that
they reveal many mutations that don't pose problems for the people who carry them.)
(By Anne Eisenberg, NY Times, 2-9-2014)
BITS: Search for a Market Niche, and You Might Find a Crowd
(Tristan Walker wants to revolutionize skin-care & beauty-product industry for African-Americans.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 2-9-2014)
BOOKS: Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer-Winning Poet With a Naturalist's Precision, Dies at 88
(Kumin's finest poems were those that trained their focus close to home.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 2-8-2014)
BASEBALL: Ralph Kiner, Slugger Who Became a Voice of the Mets, Dies at 91
(During his first seven seasons, all with Pittsburgh, Kiner led the National League
in home runs every year, still a record streak for either league.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 2-7-2014)
Taking Down Picasso
(Real estate mogul Aby Rosen is planning to remove a historic Picasso stage curtain
for Le Tricorne, at Four Seasons Restaurant from Seagram Building on February 9.)
(By Martin Filler, NY Review of Books, 2-7-214)
SMALL BUSINESS: A Social Network That's Just for College Students
(Over last 3 years, number of teenagers using Facebook has declined by 25%, while number
of users 55 and older has gone up more than 80%; Blend's mantra is "share, snap, score.")
(By Eilene Zimmerman, NY Times, 2-6-2014)
BITS: How Google Glass and Netflix Will Fill the Air
(Cisco found that a person wearing Google Glass queried the Internet, took pictures
and video and sent enough messages to use about 7 gigabytes of data a month.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 2-5-2014)
Today in Small Business: Spying on Employees
(Here are 10 ways that manipulative marketing tactics are used to sell things.)
(By Gene Marks, NY Times, 2-5-2014)
BUSINESS DAY: At Four Seasons, Picasso Tapestry Hangs on the Edge of Eviction
("Le Tricorne", a canvas 19 feet high that Pablo Picasso painted for Ballets Russes, is in peril.)
(By David Segal, NY Times, 2-3-2014)
BOOMING: Knocking Once Again on the Poet's Door
(Reminisced about interviewing poet W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009) before he died &
obituary)
(By William McDonald, NY Times, 1-31-2014)
Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94
(Seeger, who spearheaded the folk revival that transformed popular music in the 1950s, spent
a long career championing song as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for political action.)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 1-29-2014)
BUSINESS: With Ad Dollars Elusive, Yahoo's Revenue Falls
(The Internet portal and web publisher said its fourth-quarter revenue
was $1.27 billion, down 6% from the same quarter a year ago.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 1-29-2014)
José Emilio Pacheco, Mexican Author, Dies at 74
(Pacheco, who emerged as a poet of note in the 1960s, won many awards.)
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 1-28-2014)
DealB%k: A Swipe at Traditional Banking at a Forum Illuminating Bitcoin
(Bitcoin aficionados argue that digital money could provide a way
to dispense with the transaction fees and penalties charged by banks.)
(By Nathaniel Popper, NY Times, 1-28-2014)
HEALTH:
The Older Mind May Just Be a Fuller Mind
(New research study suggests that it's not so much that the mental faculties
of older people are rapidly declining, it's that their databases are fuller.)
(By Benedict Carey, NY Times, 1-27-2014)
HEALTH: Me Versus the Scale
(Many of us can recite intimate details of our friends' sex lives, their pharmacological
habits, their rents. But question their weights and their mouths clamp shut.)
(By Abby Ellin, NY Times, 1-27-2014)
Martin S. Bergmann,
Psychoanalyst and Woody Allen's On-Screen Philosopher, Dies at 100
(Bergmann became known to a wide general audience for his unplanned, much-praised
role as a philosopher in Woody Allen's 1989 film, Crimes and Misdemeanors.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 1-27-2014)
OP-ED: What Drives Success?
(Associate Justice of Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor is Puerto Rican descent, in the
5th grade
she asked smartest girls in her class on to "how to study" and got good marks,
and went to Princeton.
2% of Americans are Jewish, and comprise 1/3 of U.S. Nobel laureates.)
(By Amy Chua & Jed Robenfeld, NY Times, 1-26-2014)
BITS: Disruptions:
The Holodeck Begins to Take Shape
(AMD's holodeck is shaped like a dome and is covered with wall-to-wall projectors. The room
uses surround sound, augmented reality and other technologies to recreate the real world.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 1-26-2014)
PRO FOOTBALL: Seahawks' Richard Sherman Is Much More Than Just Talk
(Sherman believes that he can create his own reality through visualization.
Whatever he wants, whatever he needs— if he envisions it happening, it will.)
(By Ben Shpigel, NY Times, 1-25-2014)
ART & DESIGN: The Next Big Picture
(With Cameras Optional, New Directions in Photography. There is no easily identifiable
subject,
no clear representational form. The show
"What Is a Photograph?" poses the question.)
(By Philip Gefter, NY Times, 1-25-2014)
OP-ED: How Long Have I Got Left?
(Kaplan-Meier survival curves, are one way to measure progress in cancer treatment.)
(By Paul Kalanithi, NY Times, 1-25-2014)
Google Pushes Back Against Data Localization
(If data localization and other efforts are successful, then what we will face
is the effective Balkanization of the Internet and the creation of a 'splinternet')
ARTS BEAT: Live From Canada, It's Alice Munro
(Ms. Munro appeared by video during an event at Symphony Space on Wednesday night.)
(By John Williams, NY Times, 1-23-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: An Extra 2 Seconds Means the World
(Perfect: A Novel, an eerie look at life via a child's eyes by Rachel Joyce covers a lot
of ground: a beautiful, obeisant mother, two kids, a car accident and maybe a scam.)
(By Janet Maslin, NY Times, 1-23-2014)
BOOKS: Language by the Book, but the Book Is Evolving
(Oxford English Dictionary, now under the leadership of Michael Proffitt,
is looking to serve traditionalists and the users to come.)
(By Tom Rachman, NY Times, 1-22-2014)
BOOMING: I WAS MISINFORMED— Hit 60 and the Must-Have Lists Change
(A plastic pill box with the days of the week becomes one of the hottest,
and strangest, things to own when you reach a certain age.)
(By Joyce Wadler, NY Times, 1-22-2014)
WELL: How Inactivity Changes the Brain
(Being sedentary appears to alter the brain in ways that may affect heart health.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 1-22-2014)
THE NEW OLD AGE: When They Don't Know They Are Ill
(Frequently a result of dementia, anosognosia is the inability to recognize
one's own impairment— a phenomenon caregivers know too well.)
(By Judith Graham, NY Times, 1-22-2014)
WELL: What's in Your Fish Oil Supplements?
(Millions of Americans take fish oil supplements to promote heart and vascular health.
But a new analysis suggests that some consumers may not always get what they are paying for.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 1-22-2014)
SCIENCE: Seeing X Chromosomes in a New Light
(Scientists have enlisted color coding in the effort to better understand X chromosomes,
how they are shut down in certain cells and what it all means for men and women.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 1-21-2014)
BOOKS: Poet's Archive Goes to University of Texas
(Billy Collins, former United States poet laureate, can now claim another feather in his cap:
a sale of his archive to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 1-21-2014)
INTERNATIONAL ARTS: Juan Gelman, Argentine Poet Who Challenged Junta, Dies at 83
(Social commentary, some of it born of personal tragedy, was just one hallmark of Gelman's work.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 1-20-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Swindlers Use Telephones, With Internet's Tactics
(New techonology has led to an onslaught of Internet inspired fraud.)
(By Nick Wingfield, NY Times, 1-20-2014)
N.Y. | REGION:
Remembering Amiri Baraka With Politics and Poetry
(Thousands of people attended funeral services for Mr. Baraka, the poet and playwright
who helped forge the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and who died Jan. 9.)
(By Annie Correal, NY Times, 1-19-2014)
Technology Is Not Driving Us Apart After All
(Keith Hampton used William H. Whyte's methodology, taking time-lapse films of four major
urban nodes to better understand how people used the spaces and how they might be improved.)
(By Mar Oppenheimer, NY Times Sunday Magazine, 1-19-2014)
EUREKA: Breathing In vs. Spacing Out
(Using mindfulness to discover inner truths and letting go to wander the universe)
(By Dan Hurley, NY Times Sunday Magazine, 1-19-2014)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo's Asian Lifeline
(Yahoo's 24% stake in China's Alibaba & stake in Yahoo Japan makes it worth $50 a share)
urban nodes to better understand how people used the spaces and how they might be improved.)
(By Jeff Sommer, NY Times, 1-19-2014)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— Stop Trusting Yourself
(Trust is a double-edge sword. You can put your faith in others, doing so leaves you vulnerable.)
(By David DeSteno, NY Times, 1-19-2014)
BOOK REVIEW: E. L. Doctorow: By the Book
(Author of Andrew's Brain and Ragtime sometimes puts down a book because he can see
where the story's going. "As you practice your craft, you lose your innocence as a reader.")
(By Jeff Sommer, NY Times, 1-19-2014)
Opionionator: DRAFT— How I Stopped Procrastinating
(Best brain for creative writing is your right brain before you're fully awake.)
(By Merrill Markoe, NY Times, 1-18-2014)
BITS: A Conversation With T-Mobile US Executives
(T-Mobile US, the fourth largest carrier in the U.S. offered to pay for customers'
termination fees to break up with a rival carrier and switch to T-Mobile.)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 1-14-2014)
DealB%k: Target's Woes May Be a Boon for Security Firms
(Target hired Experian to provide customers with a free year of credit-monitoring.)
(By Rachel Abrams, NY Times, 1-13-2014)
ASIA PACIFIC: Saving Relics, Afghans Defy The Taliban
(70% of National Museum's collection were destroyed or stolen; now being reassembled.)
(By Rod Nordland, NY Times, 1-13-2014)
Ariel Sharon, fierce defender of a strong Israel, dies at 85
(Sharon was both vilified and admired for his belief that Jews must assert
and defend their collective needs without embarrassment or fear of censure.)
(By Ethan Bronner, NY Times, 1-12-2014)
All the News That's Fit to Forget
(We remember recent news, but forget most details in 4-8 years.)
(By Claudia Hammond, NY Times, 1-12-2014)
Rethinking How Baseball's 'Greats' Are Chosen
(Christina Kahrl: Times have changed; So should the voters.)
(Debate among five journalist, NY Times, 1-10-2014)
SCIENCE: Designing the Next Wave of Computer Chips
(Nanomaterials arranged on a chip before being cut into their final forms
at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 1-10-2014)
ART & DESIGN:
The Fascination of the Unfinished
(Nothing inspires a young artist like a close look at how an earlier one worked.)
(By Roberta Smith, NY Times, 1-10-2014)
PERSONAL TECH: Carriers Step Up Battle for Wireless Customers
(T-Mobile US, the country's No. 4 carrier, will give customers $650 in credit
after trading in their phone; Verizon #1, AT&T #2, Sprint #3)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 1-9-2014)
BITS: Gmail Plans to Allow Google Plus Users to Send Anyone an Email
(Google said the new capability would be useful for people who know
one another but have not yet exchanged email addresses.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 1-9-2014)
SCIENCE: What Your Cat Is Thinking: 'Cat Sense' Unravels Some Mysteries
(Biologist John Bradshaw's
Cat Sense provides best answers after 30 years research)
(By Nicholas Wade, NY Times, 1-7-2014)
BOOMING: Don't Ask. Please Don't Tell.
(You're still young if your hair products outnumber your digestive aids)
(By Joyce Wadler, NY Times, 1-8-2014)
BITS: Stop Asking Me for My Email Address
(Target doesn't need to store your debit card PIN.)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 1-8-2014)
BUSINESS: Target Breach Affected Up to 110 Million Customers
(Scope of the theft is now rivaling the largest theft ever of retail data,
including mailing and email addresses, phone numbers and names.)
(By Elizabeth A. Harris & Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 1-11-2014)
BOOKS:
C. T. Hsia, Scholar of Chinese Literature, Dies at 92
(Taught at Columbia for three decades; introduced modern Chinese literature to the West in 1960s)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 1-9-2014))
DealB%k: Five Lessons From Bitcoin
(Bitcoin is not over yet. Pseudo-currency is close enough to collapse to merit an early retrospective.)
(By Edward Hadas, NY Times, 1-8-2014))
DealB%k: Chinese E-Commerce Giant Alibaba to Ban Bitcoins on Its Sites
(Alibaba Group is considering IPO early this year and is valued at more than $150 billion.)
(By Chad Bray, NY Times, 1-8-2014))
U.S.: A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops
(Greggor Ilagan initially thought a ban on genetically modified organisms was a good idea)
(By Amy Harmon, NY Times, 1-5-2014)
MUSIC: Phil Everly, Half of a Pioneer Rock Duo That Inspired Generations, Dies at 74
(With songs like "Wake Up Little Susie", "Bye Bye Love", "Cathy's Clown",
"All I Have to Do Is Dream"
and "When Will I Be Loved?" Phil Everly & brother Don
were consistent hitmakers in the late 1950s and early 1960s.)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 1-5-2014)
APPLIED SCIENCE: You Can't Take It with You, but You Still Want More
(Deeply rooted instinct to earn more than can possibly be consumed,
even when this imbalance makes us unhappy.)
(By Matt Richtel, NY Times, 1-5-2014)
SCIENCE: Viewing Where the Internet Goes
(While the Internet's global capability to connect anyone with anything has affected
every nook and cranny of modern life, its growth increasingly presents paradoxes.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 12-31-2013)
SCIENCE: I Had My DNA Picture Taken, With Varying Results
(Kira Peikoff, 28, had her DNA tested by three direct-to-consumer companies, the results didn't agree.)
(By Kira Peikoff, NY Times, 12-31-2013)
SCIENCE
OBSERVATORY: Playing With How We Keep Faces Straight
(Computer algorithm can subtly modify image of person's face to make it
easier or harder to remember.)
(By Sindya N. Bhando, NY Times, 12-31-2013)
SCIENCE: Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience
(Google network scanned database of 10 million images, in doing so trained itself to recognize cats.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 12-29-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: For Pros, a Sleek Computer with Power Inside
(Review: Apple's new Mac Pro computer is daring, extravagant and elite.)
(By Molly Wood, NY Times, 12-26-2013)
BITS: A Lot Changes in Tech Over Four Years and 1,000 Blog Posts
(In 2009 there was no Apple iPad. By 2013, Apple has sold more than 170 million of them.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 12-24-2013)
OP-ED: A Christmas Manners Quiz
(You arrive for Christmas dinner. Your mother has left your father for a woman
and you are meeting her for the first time. What do you say, tweet, text?)
(By Delia Ephron, NY Times, 12-24-2013)
EUROPE: Alan Turing, Enigma Code-Breaker and Computer Pioneer, Wins Royal Pardon
(Nearly 60 years after his death, Alan Turing, received a formal pardon from
Queen Elizabeth II for his conviction in 1952 on charges of homosexuality)
(By Emma G. Fitzsimmons, NY Times, 12-24-2013)
BITS: Is the Internet a Mob Without Consequence?
(Today's riots online are different in that the influential douse them with more anger & hate.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 12-24-2013)
BITS: U.S. Mobile Internet Traffic Nearly Doubled This Year
(Two big shifts happened in American cellphone industry over past year:
Cellular networks got faster, and smartphone screens got bigger.)
(By Brian X Chen, NY Times, 12-24-2013)
BITS: The Last Minute Geek's Guide to Gadgets
(The GoPro Hero cameras are incredibly versatile and can go into space or deep underwater.)
((By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 12-23-2013)
BITS: Silicon Valley's New Obsession With Beauty
(Design has become more important in software, because software has become more intimate.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 12-23-2013)
BITS: A Start-Up Moves Teachers Past Data Entry
(Clever improves class management, by enabling teachers to enroll & track students,)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 12-23-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Master of His Virtual Domain
(George Yao spent six months on top of the virtual world of the online game Clash of Clans.)
(By Matt Bai, NY Times, 12-22-2013)
Harold Camping,
Radio Entrepreneur Who Predicted World's End, Dies at 92
(Camping, who founded the Family Radio network, repeatedly prophesied
the date of the apocalypse, and apologized when it turned out to be wrong.)
(By Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 12-18-2013)
MOVIES: Audrey Totter, Actress in Noir Films, Dies at 95
(Femme-fatale star of Hollywood's noir films of the 1940s—
The Postman Always Rings Twice and
Lady in the Lake)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 12-18-2013)
BOOKS: Hugh Nissenson, Novelist, Dies at 80
(For The Tree of Life, a finalist for National Book Award in 1985, Mr. Nissenson
spent years studying the Ohio frontier of the early 19th century to portray his protagonist.)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 12-17-2013)
BOOKS: Buddhists With Issues and Hopes of Nirvana
(Bruce Wagner's 'Empty Chair' Novellas Explore Guru Territory)
(By Michiko Kakutani, NY Times, 12-17-2013)
OP-ED: 'What Is Good Teaching?'
(Kevin Greer engaged students by asking them what their own definition of poetry was—
and they responded eagerly.)
(By Joe Nocera, NY Times, 12-17-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— Secrets and Contradictions
(By giving a character something to hide— a secret— we create the illusion of depth:
interior and exterior, seen and unseen. Few drives are as strong as the one to find out—
ask Pandora, or Psyche or Bluebeard's wife.)
(By David Corbett, NY Times, 12-16-2013)
HEALTH: Should We Toss Our Vitamin Pills?
(Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death,
their use is not justified, and they should be avoided.)
(By Roni Caryn Rabin, NY Times, 12-16-2013)
MOVIES: Peter O'Toole, Star of Lawrence of Arabia, Is Dead at 81
(Lost much of his Lawrence earnings in two nights with Omar Sharif at casinos
in Beirut & Casablanca.)
(By Benedict Nightingale, NY Times, 12-16-2013)
ARTS: Joan Fontaine, Who Won an Oscar for Hitchcock's Suspicion, Dies at 96
(Fontaine was 24 when she won her 1942 Oscar, youngest best-actress winner at the time,
winner over Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Barbara Stanwyck, & her sister Olivia de Havilland.)
(By Anita Gates, NY Times, 12-16-2013)
OP-ED: The Documented Life
(Aziz Ansari offered a conversation, but people wanted documentation.
We interrupt conversations for documentation all the time.)
(By Sherry Turkle, NY Times, 12-16-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— In Praise of Failure
(Failure, it seems, is what philosophy feeds on, what keeps it alive.
As it were, philosophy succeeds only in so far as it fails.)
(By Costica Bradatan, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
OP-ED: Skip the Supplements
(F.D.A. estimates approximately 50,000 adverse reactions to dietary supplements occur every year.)
(By Paul A. Offit, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
OP-ED: A Formula for Happiness
(After 40 years of research, scientists attribute happiness to 3 major sources: genes, events & values.)
(By Arthur C. Brooks, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
OP-ED: LOOSE ENDS— Leaked! Harvard's Grading Rubric
(A longtime government professor at Harvard lashed out Tuesday at what he deemed
a system of rampant grade inflation after learning that students are receiving mainly A's.)
(By Nathaniel Stein, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
Google's Road Map to Global Domination
(In the battle for digital dominance, victory depends on
being the first to map every last place on the globe.)
(By Adam Fisher, NY Times Magazine, 12-15-2013)
FASHION & STYLE: The Agony of Instagram
[Instagram, rather, is about unadulterated voyeurism. It is almost entirely a photo site,
with a built-in ability (through the site's retro-style filters) to idealize every moment.]
(By Alex Williams, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
(Keith Conners: "Concoction to justify giving out of medication at unprecedented & unjustifiable levels")
(By Alan Schwarz, NY Times, 12-15-2013)
Opinionator: THE GREAT DIVIDE— We Are Not All in This Together
(If a few of us are better off, then many are not. If many are better off,
then the few will be constrained.)
(By Shamus Khan, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
OP-ED: What Tech Hasn't Learned From Urban Planning
(Tech tenants now fill 22 percent of all occupied office space in San Francisco—
and represented a whopping 61% of all office leasing in the city last year)
(By Allison Arieff, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
MUSIC: Remembering Days of Miracle and Wonder
(Paul Simon on Mandela's Role in 'Graceland')
(By Paul Simon, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
OP-ED: The Great War's Ominous Echoes
(World War I still haunts us, partly because of the sheer scale of the carnage—
10 million combatants killed & many more wounded; empires destroyed & societies brutalized.)
(By Margaret MacMillan, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
OP-ED: A Poor Apology for a Word
(Average British person says "sorry eight times a day, or "204,536 times in 70 years.")
(By Henry Hitchings, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Google Adds to Its Menagerie of Robots
(Boston Dynamics' four-legged robot named WildCat can gallop at high speeds.
Video)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 12-14-2013)
BOOKS: Colin Wilson, Author Acclaimed at 24 for 'The Outsider', Dies at 82
[Colin Wilson's first book
The Outsider (1956)
championed outsiders as critics,
visionary, and prophetic.]
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 12-13-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: TOOL KIT— An App That Will Never Forget a File
(Evernote provides a comprehensive single archive of your digital life, giving you
one location to store and find practically everything saved on a computer or phone.)
(By Paul Boutin, NY Times, 12-12-2013)
BITS: ONE ON ONE— Interview With Kevin Kelly, Author of 'Cool Tools'
(Each "tool" in the book Cool Tools is associated with a QR code
that allows readers to scan and buy the object from their mobile phone.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 12-10-2013)
BITS: Be Careful With Coin
(Coin, the San Francisco company promoting device of the same name, promises to declutter
your wallet because you'll no longer need to carry all your credit and ATM cards.)
(By Damon Darlin, NY Times, 12-10-2013)
TECNOLOGY: BITS— Samsung: Uneasy in the Lead
(A child played with a tablet at a Samsung showroom in Seoul.
Long a follower of trends, it is now trying to be the trendsetter.)
(By Eric Pfanner & Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 12-10-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— A Feminist Kant
(Our rational nature, Kant argues, is what makes us morally valuable
and what makes us deserve an important sort of respect.)
(By Carol Hay, NY Times, 12-8-2013)
Opinionator: MEASURE FOR MEASURE— On Getting Stuck (and Unstuck)
(Dare to be bad and let perfectionism fly out the window. Less thinking more creating.)
(By Darrell Brown, NY Times, 12-6-2013)
MOVIES: Tom Laughlin, 82, Star of 'Billy Jack' Movie Series, Dies
(1971 film Billy Jack
rereleased in 1973, made $80 million
and caused Hollywood to rethink its approach to releasing films.)
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 12-6-2013)
Nelson Mandela, South Africa's Liberator as Prisoner and President, Dies at 95
(Mandela's Death Leaves South Africa Without Its Moral Center.
Mr. Mandela had long said he wanted a quiet exit)
(By Bill Keller, NY Times, 12-6-2013)
The Life & Legacy of Nelson Mandela: 1918-2013
(Nelson Mandela's quest for freedom in South Africa's system of white rule took him
from court of tribal royalty to liberation underground to prison cell to presidency.)
(NY Times, 12-5-2013)
DealB%k: VENTURE CAPITAL— Glassdoor, a Jobs Website, Raises $50 Million
(Glassdoor, a job listings site that has gained some infamy for letting people rate
their employers and leave anonymous reviews;
lets workers vent about— or praise—
their superiors and colleagues.)
(By Michael J. De la Merced, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
DealB%k: LEGAL— For Bitcoin, a Setback in China and an Endorsement on Wall Street
(The price of Bitcoin reached a high of $1,240, before falling to around $1,085
on Thursday, at one point touching a low of $870 after China restricted its trading.)
(By William Alden, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
DealB%k: BREAKING VIEWS— Shaking the Bitcoin Believers
(Chinese regulators have barred country's banks from trading Bitcoin, while denying
the pseudo-money legal status and cracking down on anonymous users.)
(By Peter Thal Larsen, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: TOOL KIT— The Path to Happy Employment, Contact by Contact on LinkedIn
(LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals, can raise your profile
and help you find a new job, but only if it is used properly.)
(By Erica Taub, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: APP SMART— Quickly and Easily, Scanning and Storing Documents on the Go
(Printers, photocopiers, scanners and even fax machines still play a role
in many of our lives, but that can be cut back with the right mobile apps.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
FASHION & STYLE: A Millennial D.I.Y.-er With the Digitized Touch
(Brittany Morin is not the first millennial to style herself as the
digitized heir to Martha Stewart, but she may be the most successful.)
(By Sheila Marikar, NY Times, 12-5-2013)
Opinionator: DISUNION: The South's Forgotten Painter
(The Southern painter Conrad Wise Chapman
is not nearly so well known as his Northern
colleagues Winslow Homer and Sanford Gifford, but he deserves historical attention.)
(By Eleanor Jones Harvey, NY Times, 12-4-2013)
BITS BLOG: Dear Internet, Thank You for Introducing Us
(An online photography project created by a pair of Brooklyn artists
explores the ways we make romantic connections online.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 12-4-2013)
BITS BLOG: IBM's Big Plans for Cloud Computing
(IBM plans to introduce a slew of new products & services to its cloud computing offerings in 2014.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 12-4-2013)
BITS BLOG: Anne Wojcicki Speaks Out About the F.D.A. Crackdown on 23andMe
(Anne Wojcicki, co-founder & CEO of 23andMe, the genetic testing company backed by Google,
said 23andMe was trying to satisfy Food and Drug Administration's requests for information.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 12-4-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android
(Led by Andy Rubin, who built the Android software, Google has acquired seven companies
with hopes to automate manufacturing and even rival Amazon in retail delivery.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, 12-4-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: NEWS ANALYSIS— Amazon Delivers Some Pie in the Sky
(The plan announced by Jeff Bezos to use drone aircraft to deliver packages
is visionary, far-fetched and loopy, as well as a useful distraction.)
(By David Streitfeld, NY Times, 12-3-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Apple Buys Topsy, a Social Media Analytics Firm
(The hardware maker acquired Topsy Labs, which focuses on analyzing
the half a billion messages sent over Twitter every day.)
(By Brian X. Chen & Vindu Goel, NY Times, 12-3-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Google Joins a Heavyweight Competition in Cloud Computing
(The search giant, which for years has been evasive about its plans for the cloud,
announces rates & features for wide-ranging workloads hosted on Google's infrastructure.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 12-3-2013)
U.S.: Humanities Studies Under Strain Around the Globe
(In the global marketplace of higher education, the humanities are
increasingly threatened by decreased funding and political attacks.)
(By Ella Delany, NY Times, 12-2-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Out of Print, Maybe, but Not Out of Mind
(Some features of physical books may be getting a second life online, but efforts
to completely reimagine the core experience of the book have yet to catch on.)
(By David Streitfeld, NY Times, 12-2-2013)
BITS BLOG: The Allure of the Print Book
(A number of new research reports and surveys are finding that teenagers and adults
are continuing to read print books and often prefer them over digital e-books.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 12-2-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: NOVELTIES— When Algorithms Grow Accustomed to Your Face
(Companies are developing software to analyze our fleeting facial
expressions and to get at the emotions behind them.)
(By Anne Eisenberg, NY Times, 12-1-2013)
OP-ED: The Shocking Sex Secrets of Insects
(Recent discovery of two bugs fossilized as they coupled 165 million years ago)
(By Marlene Zuk, NY Times, 12-1-2013)
NY REGION: The Masculine Mystique
(Custom suits to make transgender and female clients feel handsome)
(By John Leland, NY Times, 12-1-2013)
BOOKS: Through a Novel, a Window to an Author's Beliefs
(Oscar Hijuelos
died October 12, 2013 at age 62 after writing
Mr. Ives' Christmas;
"Nothing will ever quite capture the human inner voice and the spirit, the way that books do.")
(By Samuel G. Freedman, NY Times, 11-30-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: The Real Humanities Crisis
(Business majors start with salaries 26% higher than humanities majors and move to salaries 51% higher.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 11-30-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: In Silicon Valley, Partying Like It's 1999 Once More
(Bill Gurley twitted:
"Man, it feels more and more like 1999 every day. Risk is being discounted.")
(By David Streitfeld, NY Times, 11-27-2013)
ARTS BEAT BLOGS: Noted Philosopher Moves to N.Y.U.— and Beyond
(Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, known for his wide-ranging and accessible writings on
cosmopolitanism, identity & global ethics, will be leaving Princeton for NYU at end of the year.)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 11-26-2013)
U.S. TECHNOLOGY: Backlash by the Bay: Tech Riches Alter a City
(San Francisco's technology industry is booming. As housing costs increase some worry that
the city's colorful neighborhoods, like the Mission, are at risk of losing their character.)
(By Erica Goode & Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 11-25-2013)
OP-ED: The Year the Monarch Didn't Appear
(On Nov. 1, "Day of the Dead", monarch butterflies are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.)
(By Jim Robbins, NY Times, 11-24-2013)
SPORTS: In a Powerful Comeback, Pacquiao Batters Rios Through 12 Rounds
[Pacquiao (55-5-2) won by unanimous decision over Rios (31-2-1).]
(By Greg Bishop, NY Times, 11-24-2013)
OP-ED: Why the Y?
["Since only females can give birth, why should nature bother with males?"
Fertilization (meiosis)
beats cloning (parthenogenesis) because, as genes mutate,
"males provide females with spare parts."]
(By Maureen Dowd, NY Times, 11-24-2013)
FASHION & STYLE: Every Picture Tells Anjelica Houston's Story
(Anjelica's secret word "Witchturla!" got her attention to comment on her photos.)
(By Judith Newman, NY Times, 11-24-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: Looking Into the Black Box
(Why do we want something beyond predictive power? What is understanding?)
(By Michael Strevens, NY Times, 11-24-2013)
OP-ED: Kennedy's Legacy of Inspiration
[Journalist Thomas E. Ricks: "John F. Kennedy probably was the worst American president of the
previous century. He spent his 35 months in the White House stumbling from crisis to fiasco.)
(By Robert Dallek, NY Times, 11-22-2013)
BOOKS: Dad Was a Film Giant, Mum Was Mona Lisa, Perfect, Right?
(Anjelica Huston grew up in such a bedazzingly beautiful place at St. Clerans,
Ireland, that she couldn't see beyond its magic, A Story Lately Told)
(By Janet Maslin, NY Times, 11-21-2013)
Frederick Sanger, 95, Two-Time Winner of Nobel
and Pioneer in Genetics, Dies
(British biochemist's research led to decoding of human genome and development of human
growth hormone, earned him two Nobel Prizes, a distinction held by only 3 other scientists.)
(By Denise Gellene, NY Times, 11-21-2013)
GREAT HOMES: ON LOCATION | ATLANTA— The Peak of Chic: Borrowing From the Best
(Jennifer Boles, creator of Peak of Chic design blog, a love letter to— nay, an epic poem
in celebration of— the sort of effusive, ebullient and, yes, very traditional decorating.)
(By Penelope Green, NY Times, 11-21-2013)
U.S. SLIDESHOW: Technology Boom Breeds Hostility
(Code Jockeys moving from Silicon Valley to San Francisco are crowding out middle-class workers.)
(By Jason Henry, NY Times, 11-20-2013)
LETTERS: The Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy
["Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Putting Camelot Under Siege" (Nov. 11) reminds us that historical
reputations are always in flux. Kennedys lifted us out of gray America into an Oz-colored world.)
(By Bernard von Bothmer, et. al., NY Times, 11-18-2013)
MEDIA & ADVERTISING: LINK BY LINK— History Comes to Life With Tweets From Past
(German historians using "historical tweeting" at @9Nov38 provides hour-by-hour updates of
horrors of Kristallnacht, culminating in a night of anti-Jewish terror 75 years ago in Nazi Germany.)
(By Noam Cohen, NY Times, 11-18-2013)
BOOKS: Doris Lessing, Novelist Who Won 2007 Nobel, Is Dead at 94
(Her breakthrough novel, The Golden Notebook, a structurally inventive
and loosely autobiographical tale, that remained her best-known work.)
(By Helen T. Verongos, NY Times, 11-17-2013)
ARTS VIDEO: Doris Lessing on the Nobel Prize
(When told she had won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature, she said, "I couldn't care less.")
(NY Times, 11-17-2013)
BOOKS: Reaching for Silicon Valley
(In September 2010, Prof. Laskar, at Georgia Tech, was arrested on racketeering charges.
Academics-turned-entrepreneurs have to navigate as they try to turn classroom concepts
into successful companies.)
(By Nick Wingfield, NY Times, 11-17-2013)
BUSINESS: Strategies— Lars Peter Hansen, the Nobel Laureate in the Middle
(Hansen received Nobel for developing a statistical technique, generalized method of moments.)
(By Jeff Sommer, NY Times, 11-17-2013)
ECONOMIX: A Talk With Lars Peter Hansen, Nobel Laureate
(We're very much interested in rational agents who are coping with uncertainty.)
(By Jeff Sommer, NY Times, 11-16-2013)
EUROPE: Young and Educated in Europe, but Desperate for Jobs
(Fiscal crisis forced young people with degrees to make painful adjustments & migrate to find jobs.)
(By Liz Alderman, NY Times, 11-16-2013)
OP-ED: Who's Right on the Stock Market?
(Since 1965, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway increased 19.7% while Dow increased 9.4%.)
(By Steven Rattner, NY Times, 11-15-2013)
ECONOMIX: Women Gain in Some STEM Fields, but Not Computer Science
(Women received 29.6% of computer science B.A.'s in 1991, compared with 18.2% in 2010.)
(By Catherine Rampell, NY Times, 11-15-2013)
Opionionator: THE STONE— The School of Arthur Danto
(Danto's 1983 classic work in aesthetics The
Transfiguration of the Commonplace
was a synthesis of the sensual and the intellectual.
Goodreads;
NY Times Review)
(By Crispin Sartwell, NY Times, 11-14-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Rejecting Billions, Snapchat Expects a Better Offer
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 11-14-2013)
BITS: Twitter Introduces Tool to Make Collecting and Sharing Tweets Easier
(Twitter introduced a tool Tuesday, "custom timelines", allowing its users to drag and
drop tweets to form custom lists of Twitter messages on whatever topic interests them.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 11-12-2013)
SCIENCE: High Above Sea Level, Evolutionary Hot Spots
(Páramos, mountainous grasslands that flourish thousands of feet above sea level in the Andes,
are hot spots of evolutionary change. Noted in 1799 by great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 11-12-2013)
YOUR MONEY: THE SKETCH GUY— Tidying Up Your Financial Life
(Musician Brian Eno's wise words:
"When in doubt, tidy up." 1. Realize that the universe
doesn't like order. 2. Throw away some stuff. 3. Automate as much as possible.)
(By Carl Richards, NY Times, 11-11-2013)
U.S.: Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Putting Camelot Under Siege
(Picture has evolved from a charismatic young president who inspired youths around
the world to a deeply flawed one whose oratory outstripped his accomplishments.)
(By Adam Clymer, NY Times, 11-11-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: To Grow, Twitter Looks Outside Its Own Walls
(For Twitter to justify high valuation of its stock, the micro-messaging company must spread
the gospel of tweeting far beyond its current active user base of 232 million accounts.)
(By Vindu Goel, NY Times, 11-11-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Big Data's Little Cousin
(By analyzing the photos of prices and the placement of everyday items
and matching that to other data, Premise is building a real-time inflation index.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 11-11-2013)
BOOMING: I WAS MISINFORMED— The Sex Toys in the Attic
(Disposing of sex paraphernalia before you die so your children won't be embarrassed.)
(By Joyce Wadler, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
BOOMING: UNHITCHED— When Nest Emptied, Discontent Entered
(When their last child left for college, both 64-year-old couple divorced.)
(By Louise Rafkin, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
ASIA PACIFIC: New China Cities: Shoddy Homes, Broken Hope
(As China pushes ahead with government-led urbanization, Huaming might be
an example of another transformation: the ghettoization of China's new towns.)
(By Ian Johnson, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
BUSINESS: A Founder of Twitter Goes Long
(Evan Williams' net worth has jumped nearly $2.5 billion, owing to his 10.4% stake in Twitter.
He wants Medium, a longer-form writing to thrive, apps like Longform, Longreads & the Verge.)
(By Matt Richtel, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
TECHNOPHORIA: They Loved Your G.P.A. Then They Saw Your Tweets
(Students' social media and digital footprint can sometimes play a role in the admissions process.)
(By Natasha Singer, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
BOOK REVIEW: What Would Aldous Huxley Make of the Way We Consume Media and Popular Culture?
(Kirsch: Huxley's predictions about sexual freedom have largely come true, but Brave New World was wrong
about the essentials;
Szalai: Like so many intellectuals of his time, Huxley feared
the advent of "mass man" of conformity and homogenizing media empires.)
(By Adam Kirsch & Jennifer Szalai, NY Times, 11-10-2013)
OP-ED: Why Do Brits Accept Surveillance?
(Only 19% of Britons believed the security services had too much power)
(By Jonathan Freedland, NY Times, 11-9-2013)
PRO FOOTBALL: Prized for His Aggression, Incognito Struggled to Stay in Bounds
(Incognito's uncompromising aggression & noted mean streak have so often been prized in football.)
(By Bill Pennington, NY Times, 11-9-2013)
OP-ED: The Passion of Parenting
(People sometimes say that parenting is the toughest job you'll ever love.)
(By Charles M. Blow, NY Times, 11-7-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: STATE OF THE ART— Conquering Android's World of Themes
(Android phone is endlessly customizable, down to the last pixel.)
(By David Segal, NY Times, 11-7-2013)
BOOMING: ASK AN EXPERT— Advice on How to Research Family History, Part 1
(Christine Rose & Kay Germain Ingalls, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Genealogy;
George G. Morgan and Drew Smith, Advance Genealogy Research Techniques;
Marsha Hoffman Rising, Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-and-True Tactics
for Tracing Elusive Ancestors)
(By Elizabeth Shown Mills, NY Times, 11-6-2013)
ART & DESIGN: German Officials Provide Details on Looted Art
(Discovery of the works was first reported by Focus magazine on Sunday)
(By Melissa Eddy, NY Times, 11-6-2013)
LETTERS: Role of Humanities, in School and Life
(Students need to develop the capacity for open-ended inquiry cultivated by the liberal arts,
and also the problem-solving skills associated with science and technology.)
(By Alison Byerly, Burton Richter, et. al., NY Times, 11-5-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: When Socrates Met Phaedrus: Eros in Philosophy
(Philosophical eros is the effect of rhetoric, of language used persuasively.
The dialogue brings Phaedrus to love philosophy by loving philosophically.)
(By Simon Critchley, NY Times, 11-3-2013)
EDUCATION LIFE: The Disrupters— Innovation Imperative: Change Everything
(Online Education as Agent of Transformation— theory predicts that, be it steam or online education,
existing consumers will ultimately adopt disruption; universities have jumped on MOOC bandwagon.)
(By Clayton M. Christensen & Michael B. Horn, NY Times, 11-3-2013)
Opinionator: MEASURE FOR MEASURE— Tale of the Seed and the Song
(The epic Douglas firs that rule the Oregon woods grow from something small
and inconceivable. So does a song.)
(By Eric Earley, NY Times, 11-1-2013)
EDUCATION: Welcomed With Kisses, Stanford Freshmen Risk the 'Kissing Disease'
(Full Moon on the Quad— normally celebrated beneath the academic year's first full moon
but this year held on Oct. 22 because of a conflict with Homecoming Week: an orgy of interclass kissing.)
(By Donald G. McNeil Jr., NY Times, 11-1-2013)
EDUCATION: As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry
(Some 45% of faculty members in Stanford's main undergraduate division are clustered in humanities,
but only 15% of the students. Harvard had a 20% decline in humanities majors over last decade.)
(By Tamar Lewin, NY Times, 10-31-2013)
Opinionator: FIXES: Protecting Children From Toxic Stress
(Children can be shielded from the most damaging effects of stress
if their parents are taught how to respond appropriately.)
(By David Bornstein, NY Times, 10-30-2013)
SCIENCE: Jump-Starter Kits for the Mind
(Repetition creates neural pathways in the brain, so the behavior eventually becomes more automatic,
and outside distractions have less impact. It's called being in the zone.)
(By Kate Murphy, NY Times, 10-29-2013)
*
ART: Forging an Art Market in a Newly Rich China
[The demand is so great that last year, in a country that barely had an art market
two decades ago, reported auction revenues were up 900% over 2003— to $8.9 billion.
(The U.S. auction market for 2012 was $8.1 billion.) Three years ago, an oil painting
attributed to the 20th-century artist Xu Beihong, which sold at auction for more than
$10 million, turned out to have been produced 30 years after the artist's death by a student
during a class exercise at one of China's leading arts academies.]
(By David Barboza, Graham Bowley & Amanda Cox, NY Times, 10-28-2013, A1, A11-A13)
HEALTH: Ask Well: Glucosamine and MSM for Joint Pain?
(Glucosamine research,
published in 2006: Glucosamine had been no more effective than a placebo.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 10-28-2013)
HEALTH: Love Well: Now, a Kiss Isn't Just a Kiss
(Researchers concludes kissing helps people
assess potential mates & maintain those relationships.)
(By Jan Hoffman, NY Times, 10-28-2013)
ART & DESIGN: Arthur C. Danto, a Philosopher of Art, Is Dead at 89
(Author of some 30 books, including Beyond the Brillo Box and After the End of Art,
Danto was also art critic for The Nation magazine from 1984 to 2009 and a longtime
Columbia philosophy professor.)
(By Ken Johnson, NY Times, 10-28-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: Is the 'Dumb Jock' Really a Nerd?
(Neuroscience has not vindicated the cultural distinction between practical and theoretical activities.)
(By Jason Stanley & John W. Krakauer, NY Times, 10-27-2013)
OP-ED: 'An Industry of Mediocrity'
(31-year classroom veteran Bill Jackson teaches math ratios to inner-city 7th graders)
(By Bill Keller, NY Times, 10-21-2013)
OP-ED: The Good Men of India
(Indian men can also be among the kindest in the world.)
(By Lavanya Sankaran, NY Times, 10-20-2013)
OP-ED: Why We Make Bad Decisions
(We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.)
(By Noreena Hertz, NY Times, 10-20-2013)
ECONOMIX: The Gap Between Schooling and Education
(Lant Pritchett)
(What can schools and countries do to make sure students are learning while they are in school?)
(By Annie Lowrey, NY Times, 10-18-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Struggles in Display Ad Market
(Yahoo's share of the display advertising market is expected to fall to 7.7% this year,
from 8.6% share last year, while Google's share of the market is expected to grow to
17.4% and Facebook's to 17%.)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 10-16-2013)
FILM REVIEW: The Watchful Years, Before the Howling Began
("Kill Your Darlings" stars Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg in 1944 as Columbia freshman;
Lucien Carr's mantra, "First thought best thought" is opposite film's title.)
(By A. O. Scott, NY Times, 10-16-2013)
OP-ED: A World Without Privacy
(Dave Eggers's new novel, The Circle
has three short, Orwellian slogans
and his book could wind up being every bit as prophetic as 1984.)
(By Joe Nocera, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
OP-ED: Love and Politics
(Martha Nussbaum's book Political Emotions:
Why Love Matters For Justice maps out the routes
by which men and women who begin in self-interest and ingrained prejudice can build a society
in which what she calls "public emotions" operate to enlarge the individual's "circle of concern".)
(By Stanley Fish, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
BOOKS: Roll Over, Stradivarius
(Robert Shaw & Peter Szego's book Inventing the American Guitar
explores 1840s innovations of Christian Friedrich Martin's company.)
(By Larry Rohter, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
BITS: Dear Twitter, Please 'Like' This
(Social media Web sites like to copy one another. Facebook adopted the hashtag and follow
features from Twitter.
Twitter knocked off fancier profile pages from Facebook. Instagram added
Twitter's @-symbol. Twitter introduced filters after Instagram.
Twitter hasn't copied one of the biggest,
most understood and most important features on the social Web today: the "Like" button.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
BITS: A Day to Remember the First Computer Programmer Was a Woman
(October 15 is Ada Lovelace Day: In 1842, "enchantress of numbers" wrote first computer program.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
OP-ED: Conjuring Up Our Own Gods
(Religious scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal
said at Esalen
"Americans are obsessed with the supernatural".)
(By T. M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 10-15-2013)
EUROPE: Tapping the Potential of Graduate Ties
(Alumni visiting Riga Technical University in Latvia in June. The university aims to showcase
some university success stories to encourage a sense of pride in their alma mater.)
(By Jenny Marc, NY Times, 10-14-2013)
BITS: How to Opt Out of Google's Plan to Use Your Name and Comments in Ads
(Users are unsure to tick the opt-out box because it reads like you're actually opting in.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 10-14-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT: When the News and the Novel Collide
(A novel set in Cairo in the year 2000, at the height of Mubarak's power,
can't help but contain the story of the revolution that would follow.)
(By Michael David Lukas, NY Times, 10-14-2013)
BOOKS: Oscar Hijuelos, Who Won Pulitzer for Tale of Cuban-American Life, Dies at 62
(First Latino to win fiction Pulitzer Prize for his 1989 book, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 10-14-2013)
OBITUARY: Chuck Smith, Minister Who Preached to Flower Children, Dies at 86
(Southern California minister shepherded flower children and rock 'n' roll into
the conservative
wing of the evangelical movement. was never a fiery preacher
and rarely appeared on television.)
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 10-14-2013)
All Is Fair in Love and Twitter
(Seven years after Twitter was founded, the company with a catchy name had more than 2,000 employees,
more than 200 million active users and a market value estimated at $16 billion.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times Magazine, 10-13-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: What Do We Owe the Future?
(Contemporary life is overloaded with visions of the future.
We are now suffering from an obsession with what lies ahead.)
(By Patricia I. Vieira & Michael Marder, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
BITS: Disruptions: Bit by Bit, Virtual Reality Heads for the Holodeck
(Virtual-reality device Oculus Rift immersed me in an icy scene straight out of "Game of Thrones.")
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
OP-ED: Is Music the Key to Success?
(Many high achievers told me music opened up pathways to creative thinking.)
(By Joanne Lipman, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
The Soaring Cost of a Simple Breath
(Pulmicort, a steroid inhaler, retails for over $175 in the U.S. and $20 in UK.)
(By Elisabeth Rosenthal, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
The High-End Matchmaking Service for Tycoons
(Singles mixer by Kelleher International in January 2014 on
Necker Island with base fee of $45,000)
(By Dan Crane, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— Evolution and Bad Boyfriends
(Parents have tried to influence the love lives of their children— with mixed success.)
(By Piet van den Berg & Tim W. Pawcett, NY Times, 10-13-2013)
YOUR MONEY: Class on the Web, for Students of All Ages
(Joshua Rauh, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business,
opened a course on the finance of retirement and pensions to the masses.)
(By Tara Siegel Bernard, NY Times, 10-12-2013)
A Bridge Between Western Science and Eastern Faith
(Dalai Lama has started a project Emory-Tibet Science Initiative
to translate science textbooks for use
in monasteries. He hopes to meld the interior world of meditation with the exterior world of matter.)
(By Kim Severson, NY Times, 10-12-2013)
BOOKS: Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature
(Munro, 82, has written 14 story collections, is a "master of the contemporary short story". She was 37,
publishing her first book Dance of the Happy Shades; Quote: "The constant happiness is curiosity".)
(By Julie Bosman, NY Times, 10-11-2013)
BOOKS: AN APPRAISAL— Master of the Intricacies of the Human Heart
(Nobel winner Munro mines inner lives of girls & women; She observed: "The complexity of things—
the things within things— just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.")
(By Michiko Kakutani, NY Times, 10-11-2013)
EDITORIAL: A Nobel Prize for Alice Munro
(Her world lies just outside the small town of Dalgleish, Canada. Life doesn't bring them many blessings
for the nerves, but neither does it seem to crowd them with tragedy. Of all the things worth admiring in
her work, it is perhaps the pace of Ms. Munro's storytelling that seems most admirable.)
(The Editorial Board, NY Times, 10-11-2013)
HEALTH: Ask Well: Leaving Nail Fungus Untreated
(Drug Lamisil, is associated with rare cases of liver damage;
new topical treatments Efinaconazole & avaborole to be released next year.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 10-11-2013)
BASEBALL: N.L.C.S. Preview— For the Dodgers, a Model in the Opposite Dugout
[In 1951, the Dodgers' Carl Furillo #6 caught a fly ball (photo) from the Cardinals' Stan Musial #6,
who hit .359 at Ebbets Field. Branch Rickey who signed Jackie Robinson with Preacher Roe (photo).]
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 10-11-2013)
SCIENCE: Without Test Tubes, 3 Win Nobel in Chemistry
[Martin Karplus (Harvard), Arieh Warshel (USC), Michael Levitt (Stanford) used computer models
to study macromolecules; Note: Professor Karplus taught my physical chemistry class at Columbia.]
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
ARTS BEAT: A Mighty Honor for Munro, a Humble Writer
(Most of us are lucky to get a gold pen when we retire. Alice Munro got
the Nobel Prize.
12 NY Times Munro book reviews; 4 features articles; Links to CBC, Paris Review & New Yorker)
(By John Williams, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
BOOKS: Alice Munro— Excerpts From Her Work
("Royal Beatings" fro Beggar Maid; "Too Much Happiness"; "Amundsen" from Dear Life)
(Reprinted from Alfred A. Knopf, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
THE CREATIVE MID-LIFE: Yo-Yo Ma and the Mind Game of Music
(When he reached middle age, Yo-Yo Ma said, "I realized that of all the things I'm
interested in, the thing I'm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick.")
(By Joan Anderman, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE: The Dangers of Pseudoscience
("Demarcation problem"— the issue of what separates good science
from bad science and pseudoscience (and everything in between.)
(By Massimo Pigliucci & Maarten Boudry, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
MEDIA & ADVERTISING: A Novel Prompts a Conversation About How We Use Technology
(Dave Eggers's new novel The Circle resembles Google & made
Michele Filgate quit Twitter.)
(By Julie Bosman & Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 10-10-2013)
SCIENCE:
Higgs and Englert Are Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics
(Peter Higgs, 84, University of Edinburgh, & François Englert, 80, University Libre de Bruxelles
suggested in 1964 that an invisible ocean of energy suffusing space is responsible for the mass and
diversity of the particles in the universe; Higgs boson, or "God particle" was discovered in July 2012.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 10-9-2013)
Opinionator:
FIXES— Turning Education Upside Down
(Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a
"flipped school"— one
where students watch teachers' lectures at home and do what we'd otherwise call "homework" in class.)
(By Tina Rosenberg, NY Times, 10-9-2013)
SCIENCE:
Focusing on Fruit Flies, Curiosity Takes Flight
(Michael Dickinson has spent his career studying how flies fly and researchers
in his lab have invented new devices to investigate the complex feat of insect flight.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 10-8-2013)
SCIENCE:
Tiny Particle Looms Large on Eve of Top Physics Prize
(Will theoreticians of Higgs boson, or "God particle" discovered in July 2012 win Nobel?)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 10-8-2013)
Opinionator:
DISUNION— David vs. Goliath
(A diminutive Confederate ship helped revolutionize naval warfare.)
(By Rick Beard, NY Times, 10-8-2013)
BOOKS:
Scratching a Muse's Ears— Mary Oliver's Dog Songs Finds Poetry in Friends
(Mary Oliver lived for 50 years in Provincetown, Mass., and just migrated to a town
on the southeastern coast of Florida; She walks the woods with Ricky, a plucky Havanese.)
(By Dana Jennings, NY Times, 10-7-2013)
TRAVEL:
Treasures of the Cinque Terre
(Cinque Terre, Italy on the Mediterranean has sun, sea, and sweeping scenes.)
(By Liesl Schillinger, NY Times, 10-6-2013)
Opinionator:
THE GREAT DIVIDE— Rich People Just Care Less
(People with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power.)
(By Daniel Goleman, NY Times, 10-5-2013)
HEALTH:
For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov
(Psychology research shows that reading Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you
navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel.)
(By Pam Belluck, NY Times, 10-3-2013)
HEALTH:
Can You Read People's Emotions?
(Above 30/36 score: quite good at understanding someone's mental state based on facial cues;)
Below 22/36 score: difficult to understand a person's mental state based on their appearance.)
(By New York Times, 10-3-2013)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Can We See Philosophy? A Dialogue With Ernie Gehr
(Whether or not one accepts the film-is-philosophy assertion, Gehr's work falls firmly into
the realm of direct experience and inquiry;
Manohla Dargis
2011 article on films of Ernie Gehr.)
(By Peter Catapano & Ernie Gehr, NY Times, 10-3-2013)
Opinionator:
FIXES— Who Will Heal the Doctors?
(Rachel Naomi Remen: "The Healer's Art"
doesn't purport to fix the health care system. It's about how
to help people in medicine survive the system. Many physicians experiencing burnout & exhaustion.)
(By David Bornstein, NY Times, 10-2-2013)
SCIENCE:
In Fragmented Forests, Rapid Mammal Extinctions
(Thailand experiment: Fragmenting wilderness can put species at risk of extinction.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 9-27-2013)
BITS: Google Alters Search to Handle More Complex Queries
(Google's Hummingbird is culmination of a shift to understanding the meaning of phrases
in a query and showing people Web pages that more accurately match that meaning.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 9-26-2013)
BITS: EBay Buys Braintree, a Payments Start-Up for $800 million in cash
(Braintree provides technology to companies to help process payments on Web & mobile devices.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 9-26-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: TOOL KIT— A Surge in Growth for a New Kind of Online Course
(Coursera has partnerships with 84 universities and offers more than 400 courses.
29 universities signed up to participatein EdX offered by Harvard and MIT.)
(By Alan Finder, NY Times, 9-26-2013)
BITS: On YouTube, 'Lyrics Videos' Mark a New Genre
(Top 500 lyrics videos pulled in 624 million views this year, compared with 84 million in 2011.)
(By Amy O'Leary, NY Times, 9-25-2013)
Opinionator:
PRIVATE LIVES— The End of Quiet Music
(I was a singer, not a saleswoman. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur.)
(By Alina Simone, NY Times, 9-25-2013)
Opinionator:
FIXES— Escaping the Cycle of Scarcity
(Worrying about money when it's tight captures our brains, reducing cognitive capacity—
especially our abstract intelligence, which we use for problem-solving.)
(By Tina Rosenberg, NY Times, 9-25-2013)
OP-ED: Losing Is Good for You
(When children make mistakes, our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories.)
(By Ashley Merryman, NY Times, 9-25-2013)
ARTS:
24 Recipients of MacArthur 'Genius' Awards Named
(Dancer-choreographer Kyle Abraham, who relied on food stamps just three years ago,
was among winners of $625,000 MacArthur fellows paid over five years.)
(By Felicia R. Lee, NY Times, 9-25-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS:
The Sun That Did Not Roar
(At height of the 11-year solar cycle, "solar maximum", the Sun has been tranquil, almost spotless.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 9-24-2013)
DEALB%K:
A Hedge Fund Manager Who Doesn't Mind a Losing Bet
(Mark Spitznagel, founder of Universa Investments, managing $6 billion in assets,
says the stock market is going to fall by at least 40% in one great market "purge".)
(By Alexandra Stevenson, NY Times, 9-24-2013)
LETTERS:
Investing in Early Childhood Now, for a Payoff Later
(Response to James J. Heckman's 9/15 "Lifelines for Poor Children")
(By Kendra Hurley, NY Times, 9-23-2013)
Eat, Pray, Love, Get Rich, Write a Novel No One Expects
(Viking will publish Gilbert's sixth book, a novel titled The Signature of All Things.)
(By Steve Almond, NY Times Magazine, 9-22-2013)
BOOKENDS: How Well Does Contemporary Fiction Address Radical Politics?
(Fiction by women seems most sensitive to the variety, ambiguities and contradictions of radicalism.)
(By Pankaj Mishra, NY Times Book Review, 9-22-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS:
Life on Mars? Well, Maybe Not
(Mars casts a long shadow in science & pop culture, inspiring
novels & TV shows, including "My Favorite Martian.")
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 9-20-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Science's Humanities Gap
(In his recent sermon to humanists, "Science Is Not Your Enemy", psychologist
Steven Pinker makes an impressive plea for humanists to pay more attention to science.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Winds of Change
(In his reflection on the Harmelin decision, Justice Stevens offered tantalizing
idea that longevity on the bench makes justices "more civilized.")
(By Linda Greenhouse, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
Opinionator: FIXES— Medicine's Search for Meaning
(50% of doctors report symptoms of burnout— emotional
exhaustion, low sense of accomplishment,
detachment. Medicine is facing a crisis,
but it's not just about money; it's about meaning.)
(By David Bornstein, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
U.S: Signs of Mental Illness Seen in Navy Gunman for Decade
(A month before murderous rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis called
Rhode Island police to complain that he had changed hotels three times
because he was being
pursued by people keeping him awake by sending vibrations
through the walls.)
(By Trip Gabriel, Joseph Goldstein, Thom Shanker, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: In Arrival of 2 iPhones, 3 Lessons
(Heavily promoted feature is 5S's fingerprint sensor. You push Home button to wake the phone, leave
your finger there another half second, Boom: you've unlocked
a phone that nobody else can unlock.)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Firm That Sent 42 Million Texts Settles in Spam Case
(Rentbro and its principals, Daniel Pessin & Jacob Engel, agreed to turn
over all remaining assets and to repay up to $377,321.)
(By Edward Wyatt, NY Times, 9-18-2013)
BITS: Content Creators Use Piracy to Gauge Consumer Interest
(Netflix looks at pirate Web sites to determine which genre of shows people are interested in.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 9-17-2013)
SCIENCE: Dancing With Black Widow Spiders
(Black widow spider's venom can lay out a heavyweight boxer for days.)
(By Jackson Landers, NY Times, 9-17-2013)
SCIENCE: The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts
(Carl Hart, associate professor at Columbia University, is author of book
High Price, a mix of memoir & scientific research about drug addiction.)
(By John Tierney, NY Times, 9-17-2013)
BITS: Google Buys Bump for $40 million, Maker of Apps for Sharing Photos and Files
(Bump reinvented itself, as a tool for exchanging business cards, then a social network,
then a file-sharing service. Recently, it added a photo-sharing app called Flock.)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 9-16-2013)
BOOK REVIEW: Still Shining and Spooked, but Hopeful
(Doctor Sleep is Stephen King's sequel to The Shining.)
(By Janet Maslin, NY Times, 9-16-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— Time to Write? Go Outside
(Nothing coaxes thoughts into coherent sentences like sitting under
a shade tree on a pleasant day.)
(By Carol Kaufmann, NY Times, 9-16-2013)
OP-ED: How to Fall in Love With Math
(With math you can reach not just for the sky or the stars or the edges
of the universe, but for timeless constellations of ideas that lie beyond.)
(By Manil Suri, NY Times, 9-16-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: For Retailers, New Gmail Has One Tab Too Many
[For Google, it's another moneymaking avenue (note the ads that look like e-mails that now
appear at the top of the promotions folder). Google says it wants to fix e-mail overload.]
(By Claire Cain Miller & Stephanie Clifford, NY Times, 9-16-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— The Banality of Systemic Evil
(Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes
explored ethics of decision making within corporate bureaucracies.
Just as Hannah Arendt saw that combined action
of loyal managers can give rise to unspeakable systemic evil,
so too generation W has seen complicity within surveillance state can give rise to evil as well.)
(By Peter Ludlow, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
EDUCATION: How to Get a Job With a Philosophy Degree
(To preserve liberal arts, universities need to help humanities majors find jobs.)
(By Susan Dominus, NY Times Magazine, 9-15-2013)
NY REGION: The Two Wills of the Heiress Huguette Clark
(Copper heiress Clark who died in 2011 at 104, left all relatives out of her $300 million will.)
(By Anemona Hartocollis, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
ART & DESIGN: A Hallucinatory Blaze, via Tibetan Ritual
(Zhang Huan's colorful skull paintings at the Pace Gallery)
(By Barbara Pollock, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
OP-ED: Two-State Illusion
(A negotiated two-state "solution" is not probable between Israel & Palestine.)
(By Ian S. Lustick, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
EDUCATION: The Boy Genius of Ulan Bator
(Battushig Myanganbayar, then 15, became one of 340 students out of 150,000 to earn
a perfect score in Circuits and Electronics, a sophomore-level MOOC class at M.I.T.)
(By Laura Pappano, NY Times Magazine, 9-15-2013)
EDUCATION: How to Get a Job With a Philosophy Degree
(If universities want to preserve the liberal arts, they have a responsibility to help
those humanities majors know how to translate their studies into the work world.)
(By Susan Dominus, NY Times Magazine, 9-15-2013)
BUSINESS: Taste-Testing a Second Career, With a Mentor
(Melissa Owen, in her new coffeehouse in Plano, Tex., which opened with help from a career mentor.)
(By Mark Oppenheimer, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— It's Not 'Mess', It's Creativity.
(Anthropologist Mary Douglas noted almost 50 years ago a connection between
clean, open spaces
and moral righteousness. Conversely, people were found to
associate chaotic wilderness with death.
New Study: clean spaces might be too
conventional to let inspiration flow.)
(By Kathleen D. Vohs, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
REAL ESTATE: Living Apart Together.
(Some couples, both those in longtime relationships and officially married,
follow a less-traveled path. They live in separate homes.)
(By Constance Rosenblum, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
BOOK REVIEW: Richard Dawkins— By the Book
Book of greatest impact: Darwin's Origin & Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud.)
(By Richard Dawkins, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
EDUCATION: No Child Left Untableted
(American habits now ascendant: overvaluing of technology & undervaluing of people.)
(By Carlo Rotella, NY Times Magazine, 9-15-2013)
MODERN LOVE: Age Is No Obstacle to Love, or Adventure
(What astonished us was that the electricity we generated was
as strong and compelling as love had been 50 years before.)
(By Nora Johnson, NY Times, 9-15-2013)
EDUCATION: Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?
(Social-Emotional Learning instill psychological intelligence that helps
children regulate their emotions.)
(By Jennifer Kahn, NY Times Magazine, 9-15-2013)
OP-ED: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem
(Humans are niche creators. We transform ecosystems to sustain ourselves.)
(By Erle C. Ellis, NY Times, 9-14-2013)
BUSINESS ECONOMY: New Metric for Colleges: Graduates' Salaries
[PayScale's rankings quantify college education based on economic factors
like income
& employment. Harvey Mudd College (16 on U.S. News ranking, first on PayScale's).]
(By James B. Stewart, NY Times, 9-14-2013)
U.S.: Girl's Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies
(Rebecca Sedwick signed on to new applications— ask.fm, and Kik &Voxer—
which kick-started the messaging and bullying once again.)
(By Lizette Alvarez, NY Times, 9-14-2013)
NY REGION: Jews Make a Pilgrimage to a Grand Rebbe's Grave
(Old Montefiore Cemetery in Cambria Heights, Queens, where Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
seventh grand rebbe of the Lubavitcher group of Hasidic Jews, is buried.)
(By Sarah Maslin Nir, NY Times, 9-14-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: The Payday at Twitter Many Were Waiting For
(CEO Dick Costolo's $25,000 investment is probably worth more than $10 million.)
(By Nick Bilton & Vindu Goel, NY Times, 9-14-2013)
BITS BLOG: Twitter vs. Facebook: A Tale of Two Sites
(Twitter functions as a real-time news, entertainment and information network, tapping
into the ideas and preoccupations of people who live online and the events that affect them.
Facebook, on the other hand, primarily functions as the yellow pages for the Internet.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 9-13-2013)
OP-ED: The Twitter I.P.O: Investor Beware
(Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups, or JOBS Act of 2012 put the interest of the company—
its backers, its executives, its bankers— ahead of the interests of investors.)
(By Teresa Tritch, NY Times, 9-13-2013)
SCIENCE: In a Breathtaking First, NASA Craft Exits the Solar System
(Since the launch of this spacecraft in 1977, Voyager 1 has traveled over
11.7 billion miles. That is like traveling to the moon & back almost 25,000 times.)
(By Brooks Barnes, NY Times, 9-13-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: New Devices Mind Pets While Owners Are Away
(Stainless steel tag Whistle, embedded with an accelerometer registers
your dog's every move and feeds you the data via a smartphone app.)
(By Mike Hendricks & Roxie Hammill, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
OP-ED: Selling the Fantasy of Fertility
(Of the 1.5 million assisted reproductive cycles performed worldwide, only
350,000 resulted in the birth of a child. That is a 77% global failure rate.)
(By Miriam Zoll & Pamela Tsigdinos, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
DEALB%K: An Initial Filing, in Fewer Than 140 Characters
(Twitter can fly under the radar because of the rules in the Jump-Start
Our Business Start-ups or JOBS Act, which became law in 2012.)
(By Steven M. Davidoff, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: An App to Lend an Artsy Blur to Photos
(Tadaa 3-D lets users mimic dimension in images typically reserved for Digital Single-Lens
Reflex cameras by highlighting parts they want to focus and applying blur and effects to the frame.)
(By Roy Furchgott, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: Q&A: Scanning Printed Documents for Editing
(Once the scanner captures an image or PDF file of document and saves the file on your computer,
you can use an optical character recognition (O.C.R.) program to analyze scanned document
and convert it to text that can be edited in Microsoft Word.)
(By J.D. Biersdorfer, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: It's Your Words Against Others' in Games for the Mobile Screen
(In Letterpress, a player can "protect" letters against use by an opponent.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
OP-ED: A Plea for Caution From Russia— What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria
(A strike against Syria would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism.)
(By Vladmir V. Putin, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
SCIENCE: Middle-Aged Men, Too, Can Blame Estrogen for That Waistline
(Estrogen, the female sex hormone, turns out to play a much bigger role in men's bodies.)
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 9-12-2013)
HEALTH: How Exercise Can Help Us Eat Less
(Strenuous exercise dulls the urge to eat afterward better than gentler workouts.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 9-11-2013)
Opinionator: FIXES— The Next Wireless Revolution, in Electricity
(More than 25% of world has no electricity; half have no piped water,
2.5 billion have no piped gas.)
(By Tina Rosenberg, NY Times, 9-11-2013)
MY STORY: Bad Dog
(It's easy to love a well-behaved dog. It's harder to love Chance,
with his bristly personality and tendency toward violence.)
(By Rachel Maizes, NY Times, 9-10-2013)
BOOKS: A Numerical Love Story
(Daniel Tammet's Thinking in Numbers Dwells on a Pure Love)
(By Katie Hafner, NY Times, 9-10-2013)
ECONOMIX: The Rich Get Richer Through the Recovery
(Top 10% of earners took more than half of the country's total income in 2012.)
(By Annie Lowrey, NY Times, 9-10-2013)
ART & DESIGN: A van Gogh's Trip From the Attic to the Museum
(Van Gogh's Sunset at Montmajour
painted in Arles in 1888, declared genuine.)
(By Nina Siegal, NY Times, 9-10-2013)
TECHNOLGY: Judges Hear Arguments on Rules for Internet
(If Internet service providers charges fees to reach customers more quickly,
large, wealthy companies like Google and Facebook would have an edge.)
(By Edward Wyatt, NY Times, 9-10-2013)
OP-ED: The Pop! of the Wild
(Put your head underwater in Sea of Cortez, you'll hear a crackling sound.
Pistol shrimp make their pops by shooting the "thumb" of one claw into
a socket on the larger, opposing part of the same claw.)
(By Aaron Hirsh, NY Times, 9-9-2013)
Opinionator: Digital Natives— A Defense of the Internet Community
(While face-to-face communication has its advantages, so does the online medium.)
(By Daphne Koller, NY Times, 9-9-2013)
BITS: The Cloud Era Begins for Enterprise Tech
(Microsoft bought Nokia as it tries to be relevant in a new world of cloud computing,
smartphones and tablets, with eroding personal computer demand.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 9-9-2013)
U.S.: A Quest to Save AM Before It's Lost in the Static
(Long surpassed by FM and more recently cast aside by satellite radio and Pandora,
AM is now under siege from a new threat: rising interference from smartphones and
consumer electronics that reduce many AM stations to little more than static.)
(By Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 9-9-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Things Fall Apart
(Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos
has paved the way for a religious world-view.)
(By Philip Kitcher, NY Times, 9-8-2013)
OP-ED: GRAY MATTER— The New Science of Mind
(Helen Mayberg can discern complex neural circuit that
becomes disordered in depressive illnesses.)
(By Eric R. Kandel, NY Times, 9-8-2013)
TRAVEL: 3 Quiet Museums in Rome
(Museo di Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Centrale Montemartini and Museo delle Anime dei Defunti.)
(By Francine Prose, NY Times, 9-8-2013)
EDUCATION: Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity
(Attracting and retaining female professors was a losing battle; from 2006 to 2007,
a third of the female junior faculty left.)
(By Jodi Kantor, NY Times, 9-8-2013)
Opinionator: THE GREAT DIVIDE— The Great Stagnation of American Education
(After leading the world in college completion, America has dropped to 16th.)
(By Robert J. Gordon, NY Times, 9-7-2013)
Opinionator: THE DRAFT— The Short Sentence as Gospel Truth
(On July 19, 1975, Tom Wolfe said: "If you ever have a preposterous statement to make...
say it in five words or less, because we're always used to five-word sentences as being the gospel truth.")
(By Roy Peter Clark, NY Times, 9-7-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: An App That Sorts Your E-Mail Shopping Offers
(New, free app for iPad and iPhone, bizarrely called PeeqPeeq, is a good start.)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 9-5-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Academia's Fog of Male Anxiety
("I'm afraid to form relationships with female students— they might take it the wrong way.")
(By Louise Anthony, NY Times, 9-5-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— The Disappearing Women
(Socrates banished the weeping women, as prelude to real business of philosophizing.)
(By Rae Langton, NY Times, 9-4-2013)
HEALTH: Some Fruits Are Better Than Others
(Grapes, apples and grapefruit reduced the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Eating 1-3 servings of blueberries a month decreased risk by 11%.)
(By Nicholas Bakalar, NY Times, 9-4-2013)
SCIENCE: Expecting the Best Yields Results in Massachusetts
(If Massachusetts were a country, its 8th graders would rank
second in the world in science, behind only Singapore.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 9-3-2013)
SCIENCE: Guesses and Hype Give Way to Data in Study of Education
(Choice of instructional materials— textbooks, curriculum guides, homework,
quizzes—
can affect achievement as profoundly as teachers themselves; a poor
choice of materials is at
least as bad as a terrible teacher, and a good choice can help
offset a bad teacher's deficiencies.)
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 9-3-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Online Attack Leads to Peek Into Spam Den
(Igor Artimovich has been linked with a prolific illegal network
of virus-infected computers that send spam worldwide.)
(By Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times, 9-3-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Women in Philosophy? Do the Math
(As recently as 2010, philosophy had a lower percentage
of women doctorates than math, chemistry and economics.)
(By Sally Haslanger, NY Times, 9-2-2013)
BITS: Disruptions: More Connected, Yet More Alone
(We're addicted to that little screen and that maybe life
is just better led when it is lived rather than viewed.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 9-1-2013)
BITS: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You
(The OFF Pocket works as an electromagnetic barrier, preventing
the penetration of signals that transit data and audio.)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 8-31-2013)
ARTS: Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet of Soil and Strife, Dies at 74
(Heaney was enraptured, by "words as bearers of history and mystery." His poetry,
had an epiphanic quality, was suffused with Celtic myth and of ancient Greece.)
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 8-31-2013)
BOOKS: AN Appraisal— Capturing Rhythms of Nature in Poems
(Regardless of a poem's subject, there are continuities in Seamus Heaney's work,
including an awareness of mortality and the precariousness of life.)
(By Michiko Kakutani, NY Times, 8-31-2013)
ARTS: Seamus Heaney's 'Journey Into the Wideness of Language'
(In 1997 interview in Paris Review, Mr. Heaney described winning the Nobel
as "a bit like being caught in a mostly benign avalanche.")
(By John Williams, NY Times, 8-30-2013)
The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In
(Those women who joined Opt-Out Revolution in 2003 now wants to work again.)
(By Judith Warner, NY Times Magazine, 8-11-2013)
SCIENCE:
Internet Study Finds the Persuasive Power of 'Like'
(New research is trying to answer the question: Is something popular because it is actually good
or just because it is popular? A positive nudge, they said, can set off a bandwagon of approval.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 8-9-2013)
LATITUDE: Bringing God Along For the Ride
(16 million of Vietnam's 86 million adhere to a religion; 43% Buddhists, 36% Catholic, with many
believing in ancestor worship, animism, karma, the afterlife; some embraces even Victor Hugo.)
(By Lien Hoang, NY Times, 8-8-2013)
SCIENCE:
A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years Later
(Henrietta Lacks was only 31 when she died of cervical cancer in 1951;
Her HeLa cells have been the subject of more than 74,000 studies.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 8-8-2013)
ARTS: Leonardo da Vinci Notebook Coming to Smithsonian
(Smithsonian will display
Leonardo's "Codex on the Flight of Birds" from Sept. 13 to Oct. 22, 2013)
(By Ashley Southall, NY Times, 8-8-2013)
OP-ED: Crazy Pills
(Mefloquine hydrochloride, brand name Lariam, protects from malaria, but develops
psychiatric symptoms like amnesia, hallucinations, aggression and paranoia.)
(By David Stuart MacLean, NY Times, 8-8-2013)
N.Y. REGION: Tech Magnates Bet on Booker and His Future
(Tech moguls made Cory Booker a partner in start-up
Waywire, supporting him for the Senate.)
(By David M. Halbfinger, Raymond Hernandez, & Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 8-7-2013)
SCIENCE: Smarter Anti-Clotting Tools
(Researchers using nanoparticles of gold have been able to stop blood
in test tubes from clotting, and then make it clot again.)
(By Sindya N. Bhanoo, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS: Stars, Gold, Dung Beetles and Us
(Scarabs were sacred to ancient Egyptians for their ability to create life from waste.
These dung beetles
can use the Milky Way as their guide, rolling a dung ball to their nests.
Current Biology:
"Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation")
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
SCIENCE BOOKS: Travels in the Fourth Dimension
(Claudia Hammond's Time Warped
looks at how we perceive and misperceive time; Excerpt)
(By Jascha Hoffman, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
SCIENCE: Navigational Cells Located in Human Brains
(Scientist found grid cells,
neurons that emit pulses of electricity in a regular pattern that maps the animal's movement.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
BITS: Drawing the Line on Altering Human Minds
(It's one thing to digitally enhance our memories with gadgets like iPhones and Google Glass,
it's something entirely different to delete or change past memories using technology.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
SCIENCE: Seeing Narcissists Everywhere
(Professor Jean M. Twenge)
(Finding fault with culture of self-esteem in the U.S., in which parents praise every child as "special.")
(By Douglas Quenqua, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
HEALTH: How Sleep Loss Adds to Weight Gain
(Sleep deprivation changes brain activity so the sleepless eat more high-calorie junk foods.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 8-6-2013)
OP-ED: Addicted to Prayer
(When people use prayer to enhance their real-word selves, they feel good. When it disconnects
them from the everyday, as it did for the student, they feel bad.
"Solace in Prayer" article)
(By T. M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 8-4-2013)
BITS: Computer-Brain Interfaces Making Big Leaps
(Scientists haven't yet found a way to mend a broken heart, but they're edging closer
to manipulating memory and downloading instructions from a computer right into a brain.)
(By Nick Bilton, NY Times, 8-4-2013)
OP-ED: The Trauma of Being Alive
(88-year-old Mom still upset her husband of almost 60 years died four years ago.)
(By Mark Epstein, NY Times, 8-4-2013)
OP-ED: Return of the Jesus Wars
(Reza Aslan's book offers a more engaging version of the argument Hermann Samuel Reimarus
made 250 years ago. His Jesus is an essentially political figure, a revolutionary killed because he
challenged Roman rule, who was then mysticized by his disciples and divinized by Paul of Tarsus.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 8-4-2013)
EDUCATION: Testing, Testing: More Students Are Taking Both the ACT and SAT
(By Tamar Lewin, NY Times, 8-4-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— Writers as Architects
(In architecture, once you remove the skin— "language" of walls, ceilings and slabs—
all that remains is sheer space. In writing, once you discard language itself, the actual words,
what's left? How does one design and build using emptiness as a construction material?
How do we perceive space?)
(By Matteo Pericoli, NY Times, 8-3-2013)
Opinionator: THE GREAT DIVIDE— Crumbling American Dreams
(Port Clinton, Ohio, population 6,050— was in 1950s a passable embodiment of the American dream.
50 years later, wealthy kids park BMW convertibles in Port Clinton High lot next to decrepit "junkers"
where homeless classmates live. American dream has morphed into a split-screen nightmare.)
(By Robert D. Putnam, NY Times, 8-3-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: Chromecast, Simply and Cheaply, Flings Web Video to TVs
(Google's Chromecast, which can display Netflix and YouTube on your television.)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 8-1-2013)
HEALTH: AGING— The Ticktock of the Death Clock
(Death Clock's algorithm calculated: "Your personal day of death is Wednesday, April 23, 2031.")
(By Steven Petrow, NY Times, 8-1-2013)
Crowds Return to Las Vegas, but Gamble Less
(More than 39.7 million visitors came here in 2012, a record. But they spent notably less money per
trip than during last upturn— $1,021 per visit last year, compared with $1,318 spent by those in 2007.)
(By Adam Nagourney, NY Times, 8-1-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Did Zeus Exist?
(Robert Parker's On Greek Religiion:
"The greatest evidence for the existence of gods is that piety works...
the converse is that impiety leads to disaster".
Zeus's reality remained widely unquestioned
to ancient Greeks. Socrates regularly followed the dictates of his
daimon, a personal divine guide.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 7-31-2013)
EDUCATION: Efforts to Recruit Poor Students Lag at Some Elite Colleges
(Federal Pell Grants go to students whose families earn less than $30,000 a year.)
(By Richard Pérez-Peña, NY Times, 7-31-2013)
HEALTH: How Exercise Changes Fat and Muscle Cells
(Exercise may affect risk for Type 2 diabetes & obesity by changing DNA methylation of those genes.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-31-2013)
HEALTH: Making the Case for Eating Fruit
(Increased fruit consumption is tied to lower body weight & lower risk of obesity-associated diseases.)
(By Sophie Egan, NY Times, 7-31-2013)
HEALTH: Moon Phases Tied to Sleep Cycles
[Melatonin levels, total sleep time and delta sleep time (the deepest sleep, as recorded by EEG)
reached their lowest levels at full moon, and their highest as the moon waxed and waned.]
(By Nicholas Bakalar, NY Times, 7-31-2013)
HEALTH: Tracing Germs Through the Aisles
(Dr. Lance B. Price)
(Spread of antibiotic-resistant germs to people from animals raised on industrial farms.)
(By Sabrina Tavernise, NY Times, 7-30-2013)
OP-ED: Pope Francis in Context
(Pope: "A gay person who is seeking God, who is of good will— well, who am I to judge him?")
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 7-30-2013)
Opinionator: "Tunnel Vision"
(Video: Best seating is standing, at the head or rear of the subway train, eyes glued to the window.)
(By Jeff Scher, NY Times, 7-29-2013)
SCIENCE: A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA
(Emerging scientific consensus held genetic engineering would be required to defeat citrus greening.)
(By Amy Harmon, NY Times, 7-28-2013)
BOOK REVIEW: Francis S. Collins: By the Book
(My life was turned upside down 35 years ago by reading C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity";
Next book to read: "C.S. Lewis: A Life"— a new biography from Alister McGrath.)
(By Francis S. Collins, NY Times, 7-28-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Found in Translation
(Works of philosophy— and their readers— gain in translation not just because their authors begin
to breathe in a new language but because the text signals a world alien to its initial composition.)
(By Hamid Dabashi, NY Times, 7-28-2013)
OP-ED: Can Genetic Engineering Save the Orange, and Vice Versa?
("It's not where a gene comes from that matters," one researcher said. "It's what it does.")
(By Andrew C. Revkin, NY Times, 7-28-2013)
TELEVISION: Don't Mind Us. We'll Just Watch
('Masters of Sex' recalls the work of Masters and Johnson)
(By Dave Itzkoff, NY Times, 7-28-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— A Writer by Any Other Name
(New York Times asked several writers to choose a hypothetical pen name and
describe what kind of book they might write under— or perhaps behind— that name.)
(By Draft Contributors, NY Times, 7-27-2013)
Opinionator: MEASURE FOR MEASURE— Staring at Two Suns
(When I first sent Eleanor what I had of the lyrics of "Stare at the Sun", she sent me
two acoustic versions labeled "fast" & "slow": I gravitated towards slower version,
and that's what we then wrote to.)
(By Wesley Stace, NY Times, 7-26-2013)
OP-ED: Sylvia Plath's Neighborhood
(There is blue-and-white English Heritage plaque: "Sylvia Plath 1932-1963 Poet lived here 1960-61.")
(By Roger Cohen, NY Times, 7-26-2013)
Under Code, Apps Would Disclose Collection of Data
(Mobile apps will display info on collecting certain personal details from users)
(By Natasha Singer, NY Times, 7-26-2013)
Its Reign Was Long, With Nine Lives to Start
("Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt" at Brooklyn Museum has 30 cats)
(By Holland Cotter, NY Times, 7-26-2013)
Come See Detroit, America's Future
(Detroit files for bankruptcy. What does this mean? Pay close attention because
it may be coming to you soon, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia)
(By Charlie LeDuff, NY Times, 7-26-2013)
Opinionator:
THE STONE— Return of the Stingy Oddsmaker: A Response
(Response to readers on his 7/21 post "Nothing to See Here: Demoting the Uncertainty Principle";
Quantum mechanics can be formulated in ways that treat the observer as part of the quantum system.)
(By Craig Callender, NY Times, 7-25-2013)
In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About
(Hewlett-Packard Pro P1606dn is 15" wide, weighs 15 lbs and goes to sleep
when you are not printing; get 2,000 pages from each $78 cartridge)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 7-25-2013)
OP-ED: Look Who's Teaching Smartphone
(77-year-old Teruko Miyata teaches seniors at SoftBank Mobile store counter)
(By Kumiko Makihara, NY Times, 7-25-2013)
Dominant Countries, Lost in Transition
(Debate about China's rise and the decline of the U.S. continues)
(Eight Debaters, NY Times, 7-25-2013)
BOOKS: A Religious Legacy, With Its Leftward Tilt, Is Reconsidered
(Today's "spiritual but not religious" phenomenon, Matthew S. Hedstrom argues in
The Rise of Liberal Religion, owes a strong debt to midcentury liberal Protestantism;
David A. Hollinger's 2011 address on Protestant Dialectic;
Elesha J. Coffman's blog
The Christian Century;
Religion in American History)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 7-24-2013)
OP-ED: Bonjour, America!
(From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, nearly a million French Canadians poured
across our northern border to take jobs in New England textile and shoe mills.)
(By Stephen R. Kelly, NY Times, 7-24-2013)
FOOD: THE FLEXITARIAN— The Whole Story
(The Complex World of Whole Grains, Made Simple)
(By Mark Bittman, NY Times, 7-24-2013)
HEALTH: Can You Get Too Much Exercise?
(Research: More fibrosis— meaning scarring— in heart muscle of competitive endurance
athletes than men of the same age who were active but not competitive athletes.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-24-2013)
HEALTH: Searching for Meaningful Markers of Aging
(Men appear to age on average 4% faster than women, which may largely explain
why women's life expectancy exceeds men's by about 6% worldwide. NIH Research)
(By David Stipp, NY Times, 7-23-2013)
SCIENCE: Faster Than the Speed of Light?
(NASA physicist Harold G. White works on the concept of warp drive, like on "Star Trek".)
(By Danny Hakim, NY Times, 7-23-2013)
Opinionator: The End of Anxiety
(Last week brought the final installment
in Opinionator's Anxiety series. In more than 70 essays,
the series explored everything from OCD to being
overscheduled to getting
groped on the subway.)
(By The Editors, NY Times, 7-22-2013)
HEALTH: The Kitchen as a Pollution Hazard
(Woody Delp's Berkeley research lab: how to remove harmful contaminants caused by cooking.)
(By Peter Andrey Smith, NY Times, 7-22-2013)
HEALTH: Nightmares After the Intensive Care Unit
(Registered nurse in Texas, had traumatic hallucinations while in I.C.U. after abdominal surgery)
(By Jan Hoffman, NY Times, 7-22-2013)
OP-ED: Of Love and Fungus
[LAT ("Living Apart Together")— 6% of American couples married & unmarried don't cohabitate.]
(By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 7-21-2013)
OP-ED: Fast Time and the Aging Mind
(Greater the cognitive demands of a task, the longer its duration is perceived to be. If you want time to
slow down, become a student again. Learn something requiring sustained effort; do something new.)
(By Richard A. Friedman, NY Times, 7-21-2013)
EDITORIAL: You (and Your Cellphone) on Candid Camera
(Retailers track shoppers in stores, using security cameras and devices that can monitor the location
of customer cellphones.
Retailers say they need to monitor customers to help them find what they want.)
(By The Editorial Board, NY Times, 7-19-2013)
OP-ED: The Dating World of Tomorrow
(Debating the wisdom of pairing off in college or looking for love on the internet.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 7-19-2013)
Two Tips for Facebook Users
(Writer's "Other" folder, whose messages, by the time he discovered them, were ancient & outdated.)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
OP-ED: Love in the Time of Hookups
(On sexual culture of strings-free hookups is brilliantly suited to today's socioeconomic landscape.)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
HEALTH: Dementia's Signs May Come Early
(People with memory complaints may in fact be detecting early harbingers of Alzheimer's.)
(By Pam Belluck, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
HEALTH: Alternatives for Back Pain Relief
(Most popular nonsurgical medical treatment for low back pain has been injection therapy, or shots
into the lower back of cortisone, liquid ibuprofen, morphine & vitamin B12. But benefits do not last.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
HEALTH: In a Culture of Disrespect, Patients Lose Out
(Dismissive attitudes of doctors toward nurses, students, administrators, and patients—
are as corrosive as outward manifestations of disrespect. Patients bear brunt of this toxic atmosphere.)
(By Danielle Ofri, M.D., NY Times, 7-18-2013)
SCIENCE: Changing View on Viruses: Not So Small After All
(Influenza virus measures about 100 nanometers across, and has just 13 genes.
Pandoravirus is 1000 times bigger than the flu virus & has nearly 200 times as many genes.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
OP-ED: Yes We Can to Yes We Scan
(Obama's wearing headphones in "Yes We Scan" posters with phrases "Obey Us", "Control"
& "We Are Watching You"—
implies that a tyrannical, Orwellian government— can also change the person.)
(By Juliet Lapidos, NY Times, 7-18-2013)
HEALTH: Exercise in a Pill? The Search Continues
(Scripps reported that a compound they had created & injected into obese mice increased activation of
a protein called REV-ERB, known to partially control animals' circadian rhythms &
internal biological clocks.
Injected animals lost weight, even on a high-fat diet, & improved their cholesterol profiles.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-17-2013)
HEALTH: New Radiation Therapy Prolongs Prostate Cancer Survival
(New radiation therapy, Xofigo, can extend lives of men with most advanced form of prostate cancer.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 7-17-2013)
SCIENCE: Study Finds Spatial Skill Is Early Sign of Creativity
(Vanderbilt's David Lubinski:
Differential Aptitude Test measures spatial relations skills in
manipulating 2-D & 3-D objects and is a greater predictor of future creativity or innovation.)
(By Douglas Quenqua, NY Times, 7-16-2013)
SCIENCE: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
(Small electric fan that swept back and forth, sending a gentle breeze, kept mosquitos away.)
(By William Broad, NY Times, 7-16-2013)
HEALTH: Ask Well— Trying to Avoid Statins
[Statins are widely prescribed for lowering cholesterol, but cardiologists often don't discuss
(or sometimes even dismiss) one of the significant side-effects: muscle pain.]
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 7-16-2013)
BUSINESS: Attention, Shoppers: Store Is Tracking Your Cell
(Brick-and-mortar stores are looking for a chance to catch up with their online competitors by using
software that allows them to watch customers as they shop, and gather data about their behavior.)
(By Stephanie Clifford & Quentin Hardy, NY Times, 7-15-2013)
PERSONAL TECH:
High-Tech Eyeglasses, Not Made by Google
(Not Google Glass that brings Internet to your eyeball, but 3 new eyeglass technologies
that improves
your vision: Adlens Variable Focus,
O2Amp Color-Assisting Glasses,
Glasses.com 3-D)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Upheaval in the E-Book World
(People who bought e-books from Barnes & Noble may wind up with libraries they can't read.)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
PERSONAL TECH:
APP SMART— Apps for Digital Note-Taking
(Stylus-friendly Noteshelf, a $6 iPad app by Ramki, lets you write on plain or ruled pages.)
(By Kit Eaton, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
OP-ED: Broken Promises
(American Indian kids living in poverty are paying a very high price for this misguided abandonment
of Congressional decision-making.
1868 Fort Laramie Treaty broken by U.S. Government with Sioux.)
(By Byron L. Dorgan, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
MOSCOW JOURNAL:
Step Right Up, Kids, the Predator Is Ready
(Russian circus rituals: photographing small children with Siberian tiger during breaks in the show.)
(By Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
LENS: On a Trapeze, Reaching for an Elusive Dream
(Christian Rodriguez has pictures of upside-down people and upside-down elephants in the circus.)
(By Kerri MacDonald, NY Times, 7-11-2013)
ROOM FOR DEBATE: Summertime and the Reading Is Easy
[Some willing novelists have shared what their guilty (literary) pleasures are.]
(New York Times, 7-11-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: Tip of the Week:— Test-Drive Android Apps Online
(Thousands of programs in the Amazon Appstore for Android
include a Test Drive feature
that lets you fire up a version the app in your browser window to try before you buy.)
(By J.D. Biersdorfer, NY Times, 7-10-2013)
HEALTH:
Cornell Scientist's Quest: Perfect Broccoli
(Thomas Bjorkman is developing
a new broccoli that is crisp, subtly sweet and utterly tender.)
(By Michael Moss, NY Times, 7-10-2013)
HEALTH:
How Faith Can Affect Therapy
(Patients who had higher levels of belief in God demonstrated more effects of treatment.)
(By Ashley Taylor, NY Times, 7-10-2013)
HEALTH:
Depression Alters Young Brains
(Using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have found brain changes in preschool-age
children with depression that are not apparent in their nondepressed peers.
(JAACAP, Vol. 52, July 2013)
(By Nicholas Bakalar, NY Times, 7-10-2013)
Opinionator:
THE CONVERSATION— How to Be Old
(People who are most intellectually creative in later life are experimentalists rather than conceptualists.)
(By David Brooks & Gail Collins, NY Times, 7-10-2013)
LETTERS:
Happy 80th: 'Grow Old Along With Me!'
(Loving relationships are critical for health and happiness at all stages of life; Robert Browning:
"Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.")
(By David Kernis, Mary & Michael Brabeck, & Mary Percifield, NY Times, 7-9-2013)
SCIENCE:
What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows
(Dr. Constantine Sedikides:
"Nostalgia made me feel that my life had roots and continuity.
It made me feel good about myself and my relationships.
It provided a texture to my life
and gave me strength to move forward." Nostalgia counteracts loneliness, boredom & anxiety;
Southhampton Nostalgia Scale)
(By John Tierney, NY Times, 7-9-2013)
HEALTH:
Using a Robot to Ease a Child's Pain
(Children who engaged with the robot MEDi who greets a child with a high-five, while receiving
a flu shot had much less pain and distress than children who got a shot the usual way.)
(By Sophie Egan, NY Times, 7-9-2013)
HEALTH:
Culprits in a Child's Headaches
(An eye exam may find that a child's headache is caused by eye strain.)
(By Perri Klass, NY Times, 7-8-2013)
HEALTH:
CARING & COPING— High Disability Rates Persist in Old Age
(Despite massive investment in geriatric medicine, we can sometimes delay or slow down disability,
but we can't prevent it; A vast majority of elderly people live with disability or a mobility problems.)
(By Paula Span, NY Times, 7-8-2013)
OP-ED:
The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)
(A friend who, walking with Samuel Beckett in Paris on a perfect spring morning, said to him,
"Doesn't a day like this make you glad to be alive?" to which Beckett answered, "I wouldn't go
as far as that.")
(By Oliver Sacks, NY Times, 7-7-2013)
STYLE:
PARENTING— Don't Make Your Children the Exception to Every Rule
(Father's blind defense of his daughter's "innocence" in plagiarism was most likely undermining
what he was aiming to protect: his daughter's future well-being. Children who are industrious,
orderly and have good self-control are more likely than their careless or undisciplined peers
to grow into happy adults.)
(By Lisa Damour, NY Times, 7-7-2013)
HEALTH:
How Exercise Can Calm Anxiety
(Exercise creates vibrant new brain cells— then shuts them down when they shouldn't be in action.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 7-3-2013)
BOOKS:
Alice Munro Puts Down Her Pen to Let the World In
(After her 14th story collection Dear Life, Munro said
"I'm probably not going to write anymore.")
(By Charles McGrath, NY Times, 7-2-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS: A Quantum of Solace—
Timeless Questions About the Universe
(Lee Smolin's new book Time Reborn reopens debate settled by Einstein a century ago:
whether time is real or an illusion;
Niels Bohr said that great truth is a statement
whose opposite is also a great truth.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 7-2-2013)
SCIENCE: From the Mouths of Babes and Birds
(Insights into mysteries of human language acquisition are coming from
songbirds. Dina Lipkind:
"babbling is not only to learn sounds, but also to learn transitions between sounds." (Nature)
(By Tim Requarth & Meehan Crist, NY Times, 7-2-2013)
HEALTH:
Feeling Stressed? It's Probably Harming Your Health
(Those who said that stress affected their health "a lot or extremely" were 49% more likely
than other participants to have a heart attack or die of heart disease. Research)
(By Nicholas Bakalar, NY Times, 7-1-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— How to Listen
(The first lesson for writers, or anyone, who conducts interviews: If you want someone to talk,
you've got to know how to listen. And good listening is a surprisingly active process.
The interviewee is your focus of attention; you are there to hear what he says & thinks, exclusively.)
(By Lee Gutkind, NY Times, 7-1-2013)
ROME JOURNAL:
When Italians Chat, Hands and Fingers Do the Talking
(Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico in
The New Science (1725) argued that gesture might have been
the earliest form of language. Gestures that insult, beg and swear offer a window into Roman culture.)
(By Rachel Donadio, NY Times, 7-1-2013)
Opinionator: DISUNION—
What Gettysburg Proved
(If there was a legacy to Gettysburg, it would not belong to Lee or to Meade. It would reach beyond
even the limits of the Civil War. It would be a legacy for democracy itself, a "new birth of freedom.")
(By Allen C. Guelzo, NY Times, 7-1-2013)
RIFF:
The All-Important Present Moment
(Our experience of time & space has radically shifted as technology has collapsed,
compressed, chopped,
flipped and scrambled it, teppanyaki-style. Douglas Rushkoff's book
Present Shock:
When Everything Happens Now about technology and time:
"Our society
has reoriented itself to the present moment.")
(By Carina Chocano, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
BOOKS:
ESSAY— Method to the Madness
(Having drawn us into Montresor's paranoia with his very first sentence in
"The Cask of Amontillado",
Poe will not let us escape.
Like poor Fortunato, we too are walled up in the dank vaults.)
(By Patrick McGrath, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
OBITUARY:
Philip E. Slater, Social Critic Who Renounced Academia, Dies at 86
(His 1970 book The Pursuit of Loneliness sold 500,000 copies; Resigned in 1971
as chairman
of the sociology department at Brandeis to pursue a simple life; Founded Greenhouse, personal
growth center with Jacqueline Doyle & Morrie Schwartz;
He says Wealth Addiction
is not
human nature, but a disease)
(By Paul Vitello, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
BOOKS: Extreme States of Mind—
Metaphysical Dog Poems by Frank Bidart
(How memory works, what poetry does, & what either of them can do for souls, and bodies,
past a life's midpoint.
His poems are doors best opened with cautious attention: behind them
you might see yourself.)
(By Stephen Burt, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
THE ETHICIST:
Is It Wrong to Skip the Commercials?
(No moral obligation to consume advertising. It's the advertiser's burden to attract your attention.)
(By Chuck Klosterman, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
POETIC CONNECTIONS | SUMMER LOVE:
Stanzas for a Romantic Season
(Poems were "found" last week in the Missed Connections section of newyork.craigslist.org.)
(By Alan Feuer, NY Times, 6-30-2013)
WEALTH MATTERS:
Two Paths for Charitable Giving— From the Head or From the Heart
(What motivates people to give? For selfish reasons, a name on a building is at the top of the list.
But some people want to effectuate something that has some personal interest to them.)
(By Paul Sullivan, NY Times, 6-29-2013)
Opinionator: DISUNION—
Buford Hold the High Ground
(On June 30, 1863, John Buford led 3,000 men of his First Cavalry Division into Gettysburg)
(By Ron Soodalter, NY Times, 6-29-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE—
The Gospel According to 'Me'
(Booming self-help industry, and the cash cow of New Age spirituality, has one message: be authentic!
New version of American dream: "Live fully! Realize yourself! Be connected! Achieve well-being!")
(By Simon Critchley & Jamieson Webster, NY Times, 6-29-2013)
SCIENCE: Scientists Unlock Mystery in Evolution of Pitchers
(Adult chimps throw at 20 miles/hour; 12-year old human pitcher throws at 60 miles/hour; Humans
are able to store elastic energy, using a cocking motion, to throw much harder than other primates.)
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 6-27-2013)
SCIENCE: DNA Buried 7,000 Centuries Is Retrieved
(Paleogenomics, study of ancient genomes reconstructed from fossil bones; Horse genome from
700,000 years ago in Yukon, showed genus Equus arose 4 million years ago, twice as far back as before.)
(By Nicholas Wade, NY Times, 6-27-2013)
SCIENCE: Studying Tumors Differently, in Hopes of Outsmarting Them
(Cancer geneticist Bert Vogelstein's
paper:
hit tumors with two or more targeted cancer therapies at once)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 6-27-2013)
FOOD: Meaty and Mighty—
Praising the Versatile Eggplant
(Not a stretch to see the eggplant as useful as any one cut of meat)
(By Mark Bittman, NY Times, 6-26-2013)
OP-ED: C. S. Lewis, Evangelical Rock Star
(In 2005, Time magazine called C.S. Lewis
"hottest theologian" of the year— 42 years after his death;
In Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis created the lion
Aslan, to represent God/Jesus;
Joshua Landy argues in
How to Do Things with Fictions that fiction teaches us how to think about what we take to be true.)
(By T.M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 6-26-2013)
HEALTH: A Popular Myth About Running Injuries
(When your foot flattens & rolls inward as you strike the ground, that is, when it pronates— it absorbs
some of the forces generated by impact of landing. Contrary to received running wisdom, those who
overpronated or underpronated were not more likely to get hurt than runners with neutral foot motion.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 6-26-2013)
BOOKS: Scholar Asserts That Hollywood Avidly Aided Nazis
(Ben Urwand's The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact With Hitler argues that Hollywood studios,
in an effort to protect the German market for their movies, not only acquiesced to Nazi censorship
but also actively and enthusiastically cooperated with that regime's global propaganda effort.)
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 6-26-2013)
SCIENCE BOOKS: Millions of Years On, Still Evolving
(Brian Switek's book My Beloved Brontosaurus
looks at how dinosaurs have changed)
(By John Noble Wilford, NY Times, 6-25-2013)
PERSONAL HEALTH: Steps for More, and Better, Sleep
(Adolescents should get 9 to 10 hours, though most teenagers sleep only about seven hours.)
(By Jane E. Brody, NY Times, 6-24-2013)
REALLY? The Claim: Taking a Walk After a Meal Aids Digestion
(Post-meal stroll helps clear glucose from bloodstream because more of it is taken up by the muscles;
A brief 15-minutes walk, instead of the couch, after a meal improves digestion & blood sugar control.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 6-24-2013)
DealB%k: When Brevity Is the Soul of Wall Street Research
[Oppenheimer's Chief market technician, Carter Braxton Worth, sent clients Monday morning: "Sell";
Shanghai Index dropped 5%; Dow dropped 1% on 6/24/2013 (-139.84);
Worth: "An expression:
exaggeration weakens argument." Banker
Joshua M. Brown: "Greatest. Research Note. Ever."]
(By William Alden, NY Times, 6-24-2013)
EDITORIAL: The Decline and Fall of the English Major
(In 1991, 165 Yale students graduated with a B.A. in English literature. By 2012, that number was 62.
In 1991, top two Yale majors were history & English. 2013: they were economics & political science.)
(By Verlyn Klinkenborg, NY Times, 6-23-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Privacy and the Threat to the Self
(Google creates deeply complex psychological profiles by tracking your Internet searches. To the
extent we risk loss of privacy we risk, the loss of our very status as subjective, autonomous persons.
(By Michael P. Lynch, NY Times, 6-22-2013)
Opinionator: MEASURE FOR MEASURE— Songwriting on Demand
(Poet Paul Muldoon & musician Wesley Stace taught
Princeton class
"How To Write A Song".
Each week had an emotion as its theme— Jealousy, Anger, Joy, Defiance, Revenge. Good songs
can be written on demand.
The course valorized emotion in an unlikely and thoroughly cerebral setting.)
(By Wesley Stace, NY Times, 6-21-2013)
Kenneth Wilson, Nobel Physicist, Dies at 77
(1982 Physics Nobelist
"for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions";
Cause was complications of lymphoma; Cornell professor for 25 years; enjoyed folk-dancing)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 6-21-2013)
HEALTH: How the Hum of a Coffee Shop Can Boost Creativity
(Coffitivity, was inspired by research showing that whoosh of espresso machines
& caffeinated chatter
typical of most coffee shops creates just the right level of background noise to stimulate creativity)
(By New York Times, 6-21-2013)
LENS: Henri Cartier-Bresson— 'There Are No Maybes'
(Sheila Turner-Seed's 1971 interview of Henri Cartier-Bresson in his Paris studio found)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 6-21-2013)
Are Blogs Outdated? The Times Eliminates Several, and Explains Why
[Gone are Green blog, Media Decoder, The Choice (getting into college), and Sports blogs;
Blogs]
(By Margaret Sullivan, NY Times, 6-20-2013)
OP-ED: Why India Trails China
(Among all Indians 7 or older, nearly 20% males and 33% females are illiterate.
India needs a better-educated and healthier labor force at all levels of society.)
(By Amartya Sen, NY Times, 6-20-2013)
OP-ED: How to Tweet in Mandarin
(Fashion editor Hung Huang has 7.5 million followers on microblog
Weibo;
Kai-Fu Lee has 43 million followers on Weibo that may be censored by the government.)
(By Joe Nocera, NY Times, 6-20-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— Andy Warhol and the Persistence of Modernism
(Warhols are, to put it in Walter Benjamin's terms, "works of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction." As the ur-postmodernist, Warhol's entire artistic practice and persona stood,
quite intentionally, in opposition to modernist ideas. Warhol blithely swiped subject matter
from mass media.)
(By Crispin Sartwell, NY Times, 6-19-2013)
ARTS: Humanities Committee Sounds an Alarm
(Only 20% of Harvard undergraduates in 2012 majored in humanities, drop from 36% in 1954;
Nationwide, a mere 7.6% of bachelor's degrees were granted in the humanities in 2010;
People talk about the humanities and social sciences "as if they are a waste of time.")
(By Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 6-19-2013)
OP-ED: Our Genes, Their Secrets
(Myriad Genetics, was awarded two patents in the late 1990s for human genes BRCA1 & BRCA2
& offered exclusive test to detect inherited mutations in them. Since then, nearly one million patients
have taken Myriad test & have had their genetic data compiled in the company's proprietary database.)
(By Eleonore Pauwels, NY Times, 6-19-2013)
ARCHITECTURE REVIEW:
Celebrating a Poet of 3 Dimensions
(Exhibit "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes" June 15-Sept. 23 at Museum of Modern Art;
Completed in 1954, Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp is "an acoustic landscape" seashell.)
(By Michael Kimmelman, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
Firebrand for Science, and Big Man on Campus
(On TV and the Lecture Circuit, Bill Nye aims to change the world; His
video clip from BigThink.com
site on theories of evolution and the origins of the earth has been viewed some five million times.)
(By John Schwartz, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS: Dwarf Galaxy May Be Answer to Predictions
(The dwarf galaxy on the outskirts of our Milky Way, Segue 2,
consists of just 1000 stars held together
by a clump of dark matter.
By comparison, the Milky Way contains at least 100 billion stars.)
(By Douglas Quenqua, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
SPACE & COSMOS: Depicting the Colors of Space
(A dying star in the constellation
Draco, the Cat's Eye Nebula, may appear in images
in psychedelic shades of pink and green or in soothing tones of beige and aquamarine.)
(By Rachel Nuwer, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
SCIENCE:
An Invisibility Cloak, a Melting Continent and Angry Legos
(Real-life cloaks fashioned from "thin panels of glass that make objects invisible by bending light
around them";
Demo Video:
Only parts of the cat and goldfish that are not behind the cloak are visible)
(By Jennifer A. Kingson, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
OP-ED: Beyond the Brain
(When somebody tells you what a brain scan says, be a little skeptical. The brain is not the mind.
Books: Sally Satel & Scott O. Lilienfeld, Brainwashed:
Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience;
Robert G. Shulman,
Brain Imaging:
What it Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Consciousness;
Jerome Kagan,
The Human Spark: The Science of Human Development,
Psychology's Ghosts)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 6-18-2013)
Opinionator: Moving On— Part Two
(Readers: "Sell, give away, or throw away your books. They're parasites draining away a part of your life";
"It's a wonderful world out there, put down the books for a while and hike and bike"; "Time to play like
a child"; "Accepting death, accepting you are not needed, and accepting your failing body")
(By Stanley Fish, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
Opinionator: DRAFT— Writing Fiction and Nonfiction
(In fiction, creativity is the glue that holds the work together, an author sells herself on the idea that
a sense of childish make-believe will pull her through. In nonfiction, curiosity becomes the cement.)
(By Sally Koslow, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
FAMILY: When the Bully Is a Sibling
(Aggression between siblings can inflict psychological wounds as damaging as the anguish caused
by bullies at school. Parents who fail to intervene & play favorites can inadvertently encourage conflict.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
ASIA PACIFIC: Japan's 'Science Women' Seek an Identity
(Studying science could be the kiss of death for a young Japanese woman's romantic life;
Women accounted for 14%
of the science and engineering students at Japanese universities;
Japanese women who studied the humanities were seen as being more polished and attractive.)
(By Miki Tanikawa, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
OP-ED: Our Schools, Cut Off From the Web
(50% of Americans don't own a smartphone, 33% lack a broadband connection; 20% don't use Web;
Schoolchildren in poor neighborhoods can't access free web online courses as connection is too slow.)
(By Luis A. Ubiñas, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
PERSONAL HEALTH: Cheating Ourselves of Sleep
(Millions who sleep 5-6 hours unwittingly shortchange themselves on sleep; research shows
we need 7-8 hours of sleep to function optimally, otherwise we may even shorten our life.)
(By Jane Brody, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
REALLY? The Claim: Biofeedback Devices Can Lower Blood Pressure
(Biofeedback devices that claim to help lower blood pressure probably have little long-term impact.)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
HEALTH: The Consumer— The Heart Perils of Pain Relievers
[Common pain relievers like ibuprofen and naproxen, called Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Nsaids),
in high doses increase their cardiovascular risk by as much as a third compared to placebo.]
(By Roni Caryn Rabin, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
INVESTMENT BANKING: "Wolf of Wall Street": Boiler-Room Antics on the Big Screen
(Before going to prison, Jordan Belfort amassed more than $100 million while still in his mid-20s;
His fast cars & debauched partying lifestyle depicted in
Scorsese's film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.)
(By William Alden, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
VIDEO: A Warrior for Science
(John Schwartz looks at Bill Nye and his quest to change the world through science literacy.)
(By Jeffery DelViscio, NY Times, 6-17-2013)
SPORTS: In Golf, Moments Good and Bad Are Well Remembered
(Ernie Els: "The majors, I really remember my wins, I really remember almost every shot.";
Joel Fish: "Golfers can remember significantly more than athletes in other sports.")
(By Jeré Longman, NY Times, 6-16-2013)
INNOVATION: Who Made That Mouse?
(In 1963, at Stanford Research Institute, Doug Engelbart, now 88, envisioned a computer
fast enough to react instantly to commands. He invented a box on wheels that you rolled
around the desk like a toy car
to move the cursor on the computer screen. It was
affectionately nicknamed the mouse.)
(By Pagan Kennedy, NY Times Magazine, 6-16-2013)
BOOKS— Jeannette Walls: By the Book
(Not a huge fan of experimental fiction, fantasy or so-called escapist literature.
Reality is just so interesting, why would you want to escape it?
Favorite book:
Graham Greene's The End of the Affair; Favorite novelists: Updike, Steinbeck,
Balzac & Mona Simpson;
Book having the greatest impact: Finding a friend
Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Book couldn't finish: Finnegans Wake)
(By Jeannette Walls, NY Times Sunday Book Review, 6-16-2013)
NEWS ANALYSIS: Facebook Made Me Do It
(In social exchange systems like Facebook, when people were told that their networks liked the content
they were sharing, they shared more; so more risqué behavior posted to gain favor of web onlookers)
(By Jenna Wortham, NY Times, 6-16-2013)
GRAY MATTER: Where We Are Shapes Who We Are
(Who we are— litterbug or good citizen, depends on where we happen to be; Blue lights deter crime;
Honesty box with eyes ended up with more money; Lost letters not delivered by crowded dorm students)
(By Adam Alter, NY Times, 6-16-2013)
OBITUARY: Paul Soros, Shipping Innovator, Dies at 87
(Brother of financier George Soros,
build Soros Associates, which has dominated the port-building
industry and shifted international trade and production patterns through its shipping innovations.)
(By Robert D. Hershey Jr., NY Times, 6-16-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— The Faulty Logic of the 'Math Wars'
[Goal of education: to awaken individuals' capacities for independent thought; John Dewey:
"to enable individuals to continue their education"; Reform math taught in high school fails
to prepare students for studies in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.]
(By Alice Crary & W. Stephen Wilson, NY Times, 6-16-2013)
OBITUARY: Jerome Karle, 94, Dies; Nobelist for Crystallography
(Karle & Herbert A. Hauptman
won 1985 Chemistry Nobel Prize for developed X-ray crystallography,
now routinely used by scientists to determine the shapes of complex molecules like proteins.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 6-15-2013)
OP-ED: The Other Side of the Story
(NSA arrested Brandon Mayfield based on erroneous fingerprints, suspecting that he was terroist
bomber of commuter trains in Madrid, Spain in 2004, even though he had never been to Spain.)
(By Gail Collins, NY Times, 6-15-2013)
OP-ED: These Children Are Our Future
(Shameful statistics of high school class of 2013: 71% experienced physical assault; 28% victimized
sexually; 64% had sexual intercourse; 39% bullied physically or emotionally; 34% are overweight)
(By Charles M. Blow, NY Times, 6-15-2013)
Opinionator: ANXIETY— I Know What You Think of Me
(The single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would simply
to simultaneously make every e-mail & text ever sent universally public. Civilization would collapse.)
(By Tim Kreider, NY Times, 6-15-2013)
Opinionator: Hel-LO! You're... Who Again?
(Going to 50th Lincoln High School Reunion— rows of classmates photos who had passed away;
beauty queen divorced & toiling as cafe waitress; Adonises were fat & balding; Time taketh away.)
(By Dick Cavett, NY Times, 6-14-2013)
Opinionator: The Real War on Reality
(Greek word deployed by Plato in "The Cave"— aletheia is translated as truth, but is more
aptly translated as "disclosure" or "uncovering"— literally, "the state of not being hidden."
Essay of Martin Heidegger: process of uncovering was actually a precondition for having truth.)
(By Peter Ludlow, NY Times, 6-14-2013)
EDUCATION: Study Gauges Value of Technology in Schools
(Are investments in computers worth it? Steve Ritter: benefits of technology to use cognitive
science to help students gain a deeper understanding of concepts rather than simply drills.
(By Motoko Rich, NY Times, 6-14-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: Q&A: Protecting a PC From Spam and Spoofs
(Friend's email to you has been spoofed. PC World's on minimizing exposure to e-mail spoofing.
Free Antivirus Programs;
Free downloads: Malwarebytes; Spybot Search & Destroy)
(By J.D. Biersdorfer, NY Times, 6-13-2013)
Opinionator: THE CONVERSATION— Data, Data, What Do You See?
(At their core people want government to provide order. By 62-34, Americans put a higher priority
on government investigating terroist threats and allow NSA to keep invading our privacy.)
(By David Brooks & Gail Collins, NY Times, 6-12-2013)
SCIENCE: Hold Off on the Alpha Centauri Trip
(Alpha Centauri B, part of a triple star that is Sun's nearest neighbor, only 4.4 light years from us.
Earth-size
Planet found there in Oct. 2012 may not exist according to Thuringian State Observatory.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 6-11-2013)
OP-ED: Kennedy's Finest Moment
(JFK's June 11, 1963 speech announcing National Guard had peacefully enrolled two black students
at University of Alabama over Wallace's racist objections and our moral obligations to civil rights.)
(By Peniel E. Joseph, NY Times, 6-11-2013)
SPORTS:
The Healer Behind the Belmont Winner of 1963
(On June 8, 1963 Chateaugay won Belmont Stakes in 2:30.20 establishing a track record for 1.5 miles;
On July 4, 1962, Dr. Brennan did ventriculectomy surgery on Chateaugay to ease his breathing.)
(By Helene Conway & Nancy Brennan, NY Times, 6-11-2013)
EDITORIAL: N.S.A. Monitoring and Partisan Hypocrisy
(PEW's new survey of Americans: 56% think it's "acceptable" while 41% think it's "not acceptable"
for National Security Agency's surveillance program in secret tracking of phone records.)
(By Juliet Lapidos, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
Opinionator: In the Soul's Dark Night, a Digital Solace
(Some take drugs, others a stiff drink; when my neurons get overheated, I chill them in digital seas.)
(By Alexander Nazaryan, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
Opinionator: Writing and Fear
("Write What Scares You"— the fear that spilled out onto the page made scene ring true to readers.)
(By Sarah Jio, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
EDUCATION: Grouping Students by Ability Regains Favor in Classroom
(Gifted and talented programs help smarter kids excel but can stigmatize
lower-tier groups)
(By Vivian Yee, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
MUSIC: Weaned on CDs, They're Reaching for Vinyl
(Record collectors prefer LP's grooves yielding warmth & depth that CD's digital code couldn't match.)
(By Allan Kozinn, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
OP-ED: The Ghosts of Europe Past
(Holy Roman Empire failed to reform & disintegrated after its defeat by Napoleonic France in 1806.)
(By Brendan Simms, NY Times, 6-10-2013)
Opinionator: The Myth of 'Just Do It'
(George Balanchine tells his dancers, "Don't think, dear; just do." Thinking about what you are doing,
as you are doing it, interferes with performance. Experts, performing at their best, act intuitively.)
(By Barbara Gail Montero, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
OP-ED: Only Children: Lonely and Selfish?
(Don't buy the general assumption that children without siblings are loners, misfits and always selfish.)
(By Lauren Sandler, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
OP-ED: Don't Take Your Vitamins
(Beta carotene and vitamin E seem to increase mortality, and so may higher doses of vitamin A)
(By Paul A. Offit, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
GRAY MATTER: Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing
(When pleasurable music is heard, dopamine is released in the striatum of our brain.)
(By Robert J. Zatorre & Valorie N. Salimpoor, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
* OP-ED: How Not to Be Alone
(Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat. Simone Weil wrote,
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
By this definition,
we are becoming increasingly miserly.)
(By Jonathan Safran Foer, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
TRAVEL OVERNIGHTER: Finding Solitude at Monet's Gardens
(Experience silence & solitude at Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny on weekday mornings.)
(By Alexander Lobrano, NY Times, 6-9-2013)
OP-ED COLUMNIST: Intelligence for Dummies
(Telephony metadata: NSA collecting telephone calls and personal emails from Internet companies.)
(By Gail Collins, NY Times, 6-8-2013)
Opinionator: Waving My Tweak Flag High
(A small, even accidental, lyric changes can greatly improve or screw up a song.)
(By Jeffrey Lewis, NY Times, 6-7-2013)
Think Like a Doctor: A Cough Solved
(Dr. Andrea Glassberg, pulmonologist, gave correct cough diagnosis as Lady
Windermere syndrome)
(By Lisa Sanders, M.D., NY Times, 6-7-2013)
RECIPES FOR HEALTH: Soup Up Your Spinach
(Five spinach soup recipes: Spinach
& Tofu Wontons in Broth)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 6-7-2013)
HEALTH: This Is Your Brain on Coffee
(Caffeine may reshape biochemical environment inside our brains that could stave off dementia.)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 6-6-2013)
HEALTH: Empathy Without Boundaries
(Emotional contagion is heightened in people with mild cognitive impairment (M.C.I.) & Alzheimer's]
(By Judith Graham, NY Times, 6-6-2013)
PERSONAL TECH: Remember All Those Passwords? No Need
(Dashlane is free password memorization program so you could make up long unguessable passwords)
(By David Pogue, NY Times, 6-6-2013)
MUSIC: That Instrument Known as the Eiffel Tower
(Using drumsticks and mallets, composer Joseph Bertolozzi
is turning Paris' Eiffel Tower into a giant percussive instrument.)
(By Maia de la Baume, NY Times, 6-5-2013)
OP-ED: Jewish Identity, Spelled in Yiddish
(Spelling Bee winner spelled "knaidel" Yiddish for matzo ball; should be "kneydl")
(By Dara Horn, NY Times, 6-5-2013)
SCIENCE: Growing Left, Growing Right
(1788 report of situs inversus occurring in 1 out of 20,000 people. Our bodies start out symmetrical,
the left side a perfect reflection of the right; asymmetry appears in six weeks.)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 6-4-2013)
BOOKS: In the Pursuit of Longevity
(Lauren Kessler's "CounterClockwise:
My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate,
and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-aging" reveals her trials
of anti-aging methods;
Dr. Hilary A. Tindle's
"Up:
How Positive Outlook Can Transform Our Health & Aging";
Cynical hostility hiked death 16%)
(By Abigail Zuger, M.D., NY Times, 6-4-2013)
Opinionator:
Does Great Literature Make Us Better?
(Can't conclude that literature either does or doesn't have positive moral effects.
Martha Nussbaum's
Love's Knowledge:
literary fiction has power to generate moral insight.
Daniel Kahneman's
Thinking Fast and Slow: failures of expertise to predict the future.)
(By Gregory Currie, NY Times, 6-1-2013)
Colum McCann's Radical Empathy
[Colum McCann's wall: "Keep yourself away from answers,
but alive in the middle of the question."
His book
Let the Great World Spin
won 2009 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Title is from
Tennyson's "Locksley Hall":
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.]
(By Joel Lovell, NY Times Magazine, 6-2-2013)
ANDREW M. GREELEY, 1928-2013:
Priest, Author, Scholar, Scold
(Before religion became creed, it was poetry: images and stories that defy death with glimpses of hope,
and with moments of life-renewing experience that were shared and enacted in communal rituals.)
(By Peter Steinfels, NY Times, 5-31-2013)
A Lone Voice Raises Alarms on Lucrative Diabetes Drugs
(Dr. Peter C. Butler found Merck's diabetic drug Januvia led to pancreatic cancer in rats)
(By Andrew Pollack, NY Times, 5-31-2013)
Queens Boy, 13, Wins Scripps Spelling Bee With 'Knaidel'
(Arvind V. Mahankali spelled correctly cyanophycean, tokonoma, and knaidel, winning $30,000 cash)
(New York Region, NY Times, 5-31-2013)
OP-ED: Belief Is the Least Part of Faith
(Belief is the reach for joy, and the reason many people go to church in the first place.)
(By T.M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 5-30-2013)
OP-ED: How to Get a Job
(Tony Wagner: the world doesn't care anymore what you know;
all it cares
"is what you can do with what you know." Employers don't care how those skills
were acquired: home schooling, an online university, open online course, or Yale.
They just want to know one thing: Can you add value?)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 5-29-2013)
ASK AN EXPERT:
Tips on Archiving Family History, Part 1
(This first set of answers deals with questions of preserving audio, converting analog to digital files)
(By Bertram Lyons, NY Times, 5-29-2013)
Opinionator: Moving On (sold most of his books)
(Books sustaining his life for 50 years are gone— now acres of empty white bookshelves.)
(By Stanley Fish, NY Times, 5-27-2013)
OP-ED: The Gift of Siblings
(Jeffrey Kluger's
Sibling Effect:
"Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people
you'll ever know,
who are with you through the entire arc of your life"; George Howe Colt's
Brothers)
(By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 5-26-2013)
How Jeannette Walls Spins Good Stories Out of Bad Memories
(Walls' 2005 memoir The Glass Castle sold 4.2 million copies and been translated into 31 languages.)
(By Alex Witchel, NY Times Magazine, 5-26-2013)
Unexcited? There May Be a Pill for That
(New drug called Lybrido, created to stoke sexual desire in women)
(By Daniel Bergner, NY Times Magazine, 5-26-2013)
Opinionator— THE STONE: The Essayification of Everything
(Essay is short nonfiction prose with meditative subject at its center & tendency away from certitude.
Phillip Lopate's The Wayward Essay: on the relationship between essay and doubt.
Sarah Bakewell's How to Live: elegant portrait of the 16th-century essayist Montaigne.)
(By Christy, NY Times, 5-26-2013)
HEALTH: What's in Your Green Tea?
[Americans drink 10 billion servings of green tea each year. Antioxidants like epigallocatechin gallate
(EGCG) not found in Diet Snapple Green Tea,
60% less in Honest Tea's Green Tea With Honey,
most in Teavana's Gyokuro;
less in Lipton and Bigelow green tea which has small amount of lead.]
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 5-23-2013)
HEALTH: Can Statins Cut the Benefits of Exercise?
(Statins, the cholesterol-lowering medications, may block some of the fitness benefits of exercise)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 5-22-2013)
Opinionator— THE STONE: Why Do I Teach?
(Judge teaching not by amount of knowledge it passes on, but by enduring excitement it generates.)
(By Gary Gutting, NY Times, 5-22-2013)
OP-ED: What Our Words Tell Us
(Google database of 5.2 million books shows shifts in language reflect tectonic shifts in culture)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
OBITUARY:
Ray Manzarek, 74, Keyboardist and a Founder of the Doors, Is Dead
(Manzarek founded
The Doors in 1965 with the singer
and lyricist Jim Morrison)
(By Jon Pareles, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
Before Tumblr, Founder Made Mom Proud. He Quit School.
(At 19, Karp helped Fred Seibert design
Next New Networks bought by Google for $50 million)
(By Jenna Wortham & Nick Bilton, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
CONVERSATION WITH BRENDA MILNER:
Still Charting Memory's Depths
(Amnesia patient Henry Molaison showed memory rooted in specific brain regions)
(By Claudia Dreifus, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
HEALTH BOOK: 'Semi-Invisible' Sources of Strength
(Lee Gutkind's "True
Stories of Becoming a Nurse" Anthology of Essays by 21 nurses)
(By Jane Gross, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
SCIENCE: Solving a Riddle of Primes
(Twin Prime Conjecture
proof by
Yitang Zhang)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
DealB%k: Buffett, With His Magic Touch, May Be Irreplaceable
($28 billion buyout of Heinz Company by Berkshire Hathaway shows Buffett's deal-making skills)
(By Steven M. Davidoff, NY Times, 5-21-2013)
BITS: Tumblr Founder Says Site Will Stay an 'Independent' Effort
(Tumblr's users worry that Yahoo will introduce clutter & banner ads to their minimalist platform)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 5-20-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: Yahoo Acquiring Tumblr: What It Means
(Jenna Wortham on the reaction to Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr and what it means for users)
(By Ben Werschkul, Pedro Rafael Rosado and Alyssa Kim, NY Times, 5-20-2013)
PARENTING: Punched and Poked by Their Pride and Joy
(UPA, "unintentional parent abuse" where infants' sudden jabs, bites, kicks inflict injuries)
(By David Wallis, NY Times, 5-20-2013)
Some of My Best Friends Are Germs
(Microbiome made of 100 trillion bacteria on our skin and inside our body)
(By Michael Pollan, NY Times Sunday Magazine, 5-19-2013)
YOUR MONEY: Standing Out From the Crowd
(High school students' essays about money, working, and class;
4 college application essays)
(By Ron Lieber, NY Times, 5-18-2013)
Opinionator: What the Woodpecker Told Me
(Woodpeckers can hear larvae slithering inside a tree trunk as they are flying past overhead.)
(By Rennie Sparks, NY Times, 5-17-2013)
Opinionator: The Role of a Dictionary
(As one lexicographer put it, "Nothing worth writing is written from a dictionary.")
(By David Skinner, NY Times, 5-17-2013)
VIDEO: The Sweet Spot: Villains in Black Hats
(A.O. Scott and David Carr talk about villains in the movies. Scary, huh?)
(By Gabe Johnson, NY Times, 5-17-2013)
FILM REVIEW: Kirk and Spock, in Their Roughhousing Days
(Militarization of "Star Trek" has sacrificed the large-spirited humanism that sustained it)
(By A.O. Scott, NY Times, 5-16-2013)
SCIENCE: From Fearsome Predator to Man's Best Friend
(Dogs evolved from wolves, but minds of the two canines are profoundly different)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 5-16-2013)
HEALTH: No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet
(No rationale for us to aim for sodium levels below 2300 milligrams a day)
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 5-15-2013)
Jolie's Disclosure of Preventive Mastectomy Highlights Dilemma
(Breast cancer experts applauded Ms. Jolie's manner in making informed decisions)
(By Denise Grady, Tara Parker-Pope, & Pam Belluck, NY Times, 5-15-2013)
OP-ED: My Medical Choice
(Decision to have double mastectomy after her mother died of cancer at 56)
(By Angelina Jolie, NY Times, 5-14-2013)
BOOKS: On a Scavenger Hunt to Save Most Humans
(Review of Dan Brown's Inferno
as Robert Langdon & Sienna goes on scavenger hunt; Quotes Dante:
"The darkest places in hell are for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.")
(By Janet Maslin, NY Times, 5-13-2013)
Considering the Universe From Deep in West Texas
(34th Texas Star Party at Fort Davis drew more than 500 amateur astronomers)
(By Anne Saker, NY Times, 5-11-2013)
Opinionator— Missing: Jonathan Winters. Badly.
(Jonathan Winter can improvise an entire western movie with wagon train & dozen of characters)
(By Dick Cavett, NY Times, 5-10-2013)
WELL— Owning a Dog Is Linked to Reduced Heart Risk
(Dog owners walk more and have less stress with decrease in heart rate & blood pressure)
(By Anahad O'Connor, NY Times, 5-9-2013)
FITNESS— The Scientific 7-Minute Workout
(12 exercises provides fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training in much less time)
(By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, 5-9-2013)
From Fresno to Key West, a Proliferation of Poets Laureate
(James Tyner
chosen as Fresno's Poet Laureate; 35 larger U.S. cities have poets laureate)
(By Norimitsu Onishi, NY Times, 5-8-2013) ("Fresno, California. 2013")
Psychiatry's Guide Is Out of Touch With Science, Experts Say
(Dr. Thomas R. Insel says
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, D.S.M.,
does not reflect complexity of mental disorders; should focus on causes rather than symptoms)
(By Pam Belluck & Benedict Carey, NY Times, 5-7-2013)
SCIENTIST AT WORK:
In Pursuit of an Underwater Menagerie
(Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
created glass jellyfish based on Cotylorhiza borbonica)
(By C. Drew Harvell, NY Times, 5-7-2013)
BOOKS: A Place to Hang Out (Read, Too)
(53rd Street Donnell Library Center built in 1955 and closed in 2008, replaced with new design
by Enrique Norten with "bleacher steps" staircase, 141-seat auditorium & a technology hub)
(By Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, 5-7-2013)
Opinionator: ANXIETY— I Am Not This Body
(Plato called the body the prison of the soul & "Soul is the master, and matter its natural subject")
(By Brian Jay Stanley, NY Times, 5-6-2013)
How I Became a Hipster
(You know you're in hipster Brooklyn when someone who looks like a 19th-century
farmer tells you that his line of work is "affinity marketing.")
(By Henry Alford, NY Times, 5-2-2013)
OP-ED: Is That God Talking?
(1984 Study of 375 college students
found 71% reported vocal hallucinations)
(By T. M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 5-2-2013)
DealB%k: Buffett Speaks and Tweets
(Warren Buffett, a technophobe, debut on Twitter on May 2 and had 1000s of followers in minutes)
(By William Alden, NY Times, 5-2-2013)
OP-ED: Here Comes the Buzz
(Brood II cicadas
growing 17 years underground will emerge soon on the East Coast)
(By Craig Gibbs, NY Times, 5-2-2013)
BASEBALL: A No-Hitter So Rare It Took 6 Pitchers
(Brad Lidge, Kirk Saarloos, Billy Wagner, Octavio Dotel & Peter Munro combined with Roy Oswalt,
for a no-hitter against Yankees on June 11, 2003, first no-hitter against Yankees in Bronx sincee 1952.)
(By Benjamin Hoffman, NY Times, 5-2-2013)
One Entrepreneur's Favorite Start-Up Tools
(Test an idea; For user feedback; Iteration process; E-mail marketing, Analytics, Project management)
(By Adriana Herrera, NY Times, 5-1-2013)
FILM REVIEW: Revisiting a Rossellini Classic to Find Resonances of Today
(Rossellini's Voyage to Italy with George Sanders & Ingrid Bergman is not driven by plot,
but by a successsion of moods, reflected by volcanic pools at Vesuvius & ruins of Pompeii.)
(By A.O. Scott, NY Times, 5-1-2013)
Deanna Durbin,
Plucky Movie Star of the Depression Era, Is Dead at 91
(Deanna Durbin Society newsletter quoted her son
Peter H. David that Deanna died "a few days ago")
(By Aljean Harmetz, NY Times, 5-1-2013)
WELL: Yoga After 50
(Carrie Owerko: "Yoga can be practiced fully and deeply at any age,
the practice has to change
as the body changes."; Dr. Loren Fishman:
"Yoga was at times an old person's sport, and that
it has prolonged the life and liveliness of people over the millennia")
(By Kelly Couturier, NY Times, 5-1-2013)
SCIENCE: Grid Cells: 'Crystals of the Brain'
(Edvard I. Moser & May-Britt Moser's review article "Crystals of the Brain")
(By James Gorman, NY Times, 4-30-2013)
Janos Starker, Master of the Cello, Dies at 88
[He was part of a vaunted triumvirate that included Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-76) and
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007), collectively the most celebrated cellists of the day.]
(By Margalit Fox, NY Times, 4-30-2013)
Kenneth I. Appel,
Mathematician Who Harnessed Computer Power, Dies at 80
(Proof of 4 colors would suffice for any map required 1200 hours of computer time & 10 bilion
logical decisions all made automatically by an IBM computer at Univeristy of Illinois, Urbana)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 4-29-2013)
Opinionator: On Borges, Particles and the Paradox of the Perceived
(Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (1927)
& Borges' Funes the Memorious (1942):
"we have dreamt the world... mysterious, visible... so that we know it is false.")
(By William Egginton, NY Times, 4-28-2013)
Opinionator— With Winters Gone, Can We Be Far Behind?
(Jonathan Winter was doubtless the greatest of improv comics, standing on no predecessors' shoulders)
(By Dick Cavett, NY Times, 4-26-2013)
François Jacob,
Geneticist Who Pointed to How Traits Are Inherited, Dies at 92
(Discovery of gene regulation with Jacques Monod won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 4-26-2013)
Shakuntala Devi, 'Human Computer' Who Bested the Machines, Dies at 83
(She extracted 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating Univac computer's 62 seconds)
(By Haresh Pandya, NY Times, 4-24-2013)
SCIENCE: A Virtual Pack, to Study Canine Minds
(Dogs can find ball when you point left or right, but chimpanzees cannot do it)
(By Carl Zimmer, NY Times, 4-23-2013)
The 6 People Barbara Streisand Wants at Her Dinner Party
(Barbra Streisand wants: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Edward Hopper,
Gustav Klimt, and Fanny Brice. She didn't scratch "Barbra '59" on Erasmus High School desk)
(Arts Beat Blogs, NY Times, 4-22-2013)
From Phenom to Everyday N.B.A. Player
(Houston Rockets' Jeremy Lin has been the achievement of the unremarkable)
(By Jeré Longman, NY Times, 4-22-2013)
How Therapy Can Help in the Golden Years
(Psychotherapists tell seniors that depression is not a sign of moral weakness)
(By Abby Ellin, NY Times, 4-22-2013)
A Moment From the Boston Marathon
(4:09:43 into the Boston Marathon when the first of two bombs exploded near the finish line)
(Audio & Stories, NY Times, 4-22-2013)
OP-ED: The Benefits of Church
(Recent scientific discoveries: Religious attendance, at least, religiosity, boosts the immune system
and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life.)
(By T.M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 4-21-2013)
Opinionator: Is American Nonviolence Possible?
(America's penchant for violence stems from competitive individualism, insecurity, & neoliberalism)
(By Todd May, NY Times, 4-21-2013)
Dragnet Paralyzes Boston as One Suspect Eludes Capture
(Manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev essentially shut down Boston and its environs)
(By Katharine Q. Seelye, William K. Rashbaum, & Michael Cooper, NY Times, 4-20-2013)
Two Promising Places to Live, 1,200 Light-Years From Earth
(Exo-planet Kepler 62 in constellation Lyra is half size of Earth and may harbor life)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, 4-19-2013)
Fish's DNA May Explain How Fins Turned to Feet
(Coelacanth genome with 2.8 billion units of DNA similar in size of human genome)
(By Nicholas Wade, NY Times, 4-18-2013)
Broadcaster's Trove Is Calling All Ears
(Bob Wolf's 74-year career is the longest in sports broadcasting history)
(By Tyler Kepner, NY Times, 4-17-2013)
Pat Summerall, Star Kicker With Giants and a Calm Voice on TV, Dies at 82
(His 49-yard field goal for Giants beat Cleveland Browns 13-10; soothing broadcasting voice)
(By Richard Goldstein, NY Times, 4-17-2013)
CONVERSATION WITH ERIC D. GREEN: Human Genome, Then and Now
(Human genome with 3 billion bases sequenced for $1 billion ten years ago; now costs only $5000)
(By Gina Kolata, NY Times, 4-16-2013)
AN APPRAISAL: A Madman, but Angelic
(Jonathan Winters: "I'm a great white hunter of squirrels. I aim for their little nuts")
(By Robin Williams, NY Times, 4-16-2013)
Colin Davis, a British Conductor Known for His Exuberant Approach, Dies at 85
(Davis exuded an air of security & generosity giving his performances a dignity
that balanced their bounding exuberance; he won 10 Grammys)
(By Paul Griffiths, NY Times, 4-16-2013)
2013 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music
(2013 Pulitzer Prize:
Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son wins Fiction;
Sharon Olds'
Stag's Leap wins Poetry)
(By NY Times, 4-16-2013)
Opinionator: Stepping on Jesus
(Students asked to write the name "Jesus" on a piece of paper and then step on it)
(By Stanley Fish, NY Times, 4-15-2013)
Price of Gold Takes a Flashy Fall; Other Markets Follow
(Gold prices tumbled 9% to $1343.80, the sharpest drop in 30 years; Silver dropped 12% to $22.09)
(By Nathaniel Popper, NY Times, 4-15-2013)
Why E.T.F.'s Won't Solve Our Behavioral Problems
(ETF's (Exchange-Traded Funds) are essentially index funds that trade on an exchange like stocks)
(By Carl Richards, NY Times, 4-15-2013)
Booksellers Hoping for Pulitzer in Fiction
(In 2012, no Pulitzer for fiction was awarded for the first time in 35 years)
(By Julie Bosman, NY Times, 4-15-2013)
Data Science: The Numbers of Our Lives
(Data about users' browsing history on the web is gold to e-commerce marketers)
(By Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, 4-14-2013)
Robert Byrne, Chess Grandmaster, Dies at 84
(He was chess columnist for New York Times, analyzed top-flight matches from 1972 through 2006)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, 4-14-2013)
OP-ED: When God Is Your Therapist
(Evangelical churches offer a powerful way to deal with anxiety and distress,
not because of what people
believe but because of what they do when they pray.
Books teaching us how to pray read a lot like cognitive
behavior therapy manuals
such as Rev. Rick Warren's
"Purpose Driven Life"
chapter.)
(By T.M. Luhrmann, NY Times, 4-14-2013)
Jonathan Winters, Unpredictable Comic and Master of Improvisation, Dies at 87
(Winters was at his best when winging it, re-enacting Hollywood movies, complete with sound effects)
(By William Grimes, NY Times, 4-13-2013)
Martyl Langsdorf, Doomsday Clock Designer, Dies at 96
(Langsdorf drew Doomsday Clock or the June 1947 cover of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
(By William Yardley, NY Times, 4-11-2013)
Paolo Soleri, Architect of Counterculture, Dies at 93
(Soleri developed a philosophy he called arcology— architecture coupled with ecology;
Arcosanti)
(By Fred A. Bernstein, NY Times, 4-10-2013)
Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer and Beach Movie Actress, Dies at 70
(Frankie Avalon & Annette were the Fred & Ginger of their rock 'n roll generation)
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 4-9-2013)
Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Who Reforged Britain, Dies at 87
(She was first woman prime minister of Britain, had great resolve and known as the "Iron Lady")
(By Joseph R. Gregory, NY Times, 4-9-2013)
Lilly Pulitzer Dies at 81; Heiress Who Gave Elite Clothes a Tropical Splash
(Her tropical print shift dresses like flamingo pink sold more than $100 million annually)
(By Eric Wilson, NY Times, 4-8-2013)
OP-ED: The Slow Death of the American Author
(Numerous pirate sites supported by advertising are offering new and old e-books free)
(By Scott Turow, NY Times, 4-8-2013)
BITS: The Potential and the Risks of Data Science
(Columbia University's April 5 symposium "From Big Data To Big Ideas";
Privacy violation)
(By Steve Lohr, NY Times, 4-7-2013)
Opinionator: For the Anxious, Avoidance Can Have an Upside
(After 9/11, urged people to go back to work instead of staying at home)
(By Joseph Ledoux, NY Times, 4-7-2013)
OP-ED: The Secrets of Princeton
(Princeton alumna Susan Patton's
letter urging Ivy League women to find a mate)
(By Ross Douthat, NY Times, 4-7-2013)
Matthew Warren, Son of Influential Minister, Dies at 27
(Son of Rev. Rick Warren, one of America's most influential religious leaders, committed suicide)
(By Ravi Somaiya, NY Times, 4-7-2013)
Ebert Was a Critic Whose Sting Was Salved by Caring
(Ebert reviewed 5 films a week, but found time and energy to respond to his commenters on Twitter)
(By A.O. Scott, NY Times, 4-6-2013)
Roger Ebert Dies at 70; a Critic for the Common Man
(Ebert had 800,000 followers on Twitter as people believed in his film reviews)
(By Douglas Martin, NY Times, 4-5-2013)
Finding a Coder When You Don't Know How to Code
(If learning to code is too hard, then they are never going to make it as an entrepreneur)
(By Adriana Herrera, NY Times, 4-2-2013)
Monarch Migration Plunges to Lowest Level in Decades
(Monarch butterflies winter migration to Mexican forest sank to lowest level in two decades)
(By Michael Wines, NY Times, 3-14-2013)
The New Pope: Bergoglio of Argentina
(The 266th pontiff, Pope Francis is the first non-European Pope in over 1000 years.)
(By Rachel Donadio, NY Times, 3-14-2013)
Google Concedes That Drive-By Prying Violated Privacy
(Scott Cleland: Google violated people's privacy during a mapping project)
(By David Streitfeld, NY Times, 3-13-2013)
The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble
(World-renowned physicist Paul Frampton duped by model
Denise Milani to smuggle cocaine)
(By Maxine Swann, NY Times Magazine, 3-10-2013)
With Positions to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection
(Employers giving tests in proficiency, personality, psychology, math, and spelling in interviews)
(By Catherine Rampell, NY Times, 3-7-2013)
On Campus, Costly Target of Brazen Thefts: Nutella
(Students eating and hoarding 100 pounds of Nutella a day from Columbia dining halls)
(By James Barron, NY Times, 3-7-2013)
Yahoo Says New Policy Is Meant to Raise Morale
(Marissa Mayer wants Yahoo workers on-site for more innovation & collaboration)
(By Claire Cain Miller & Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 3-6-2013)
OP-ED; Reading God's Mind
(Jeff Chu's Does Jesus Really Love Me?:
A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America
on his struggles with gay marriage); (By Frank Bruni, NY Times, 3-5-2013)
Opinionator: Was Wittgenstein Right?
(Wittgenstein has extreme pessimism on the potential of philosophy in discovering truth)
(By Paul Horwich, NY Times, 3-3-2013)
FILM— A Word With: Ai WeiWei: He May Have Nothing to Hide, but He's Always Under Watch
(Alison Klayman's film "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" focuses on period 2008-2011.)
(By Larry Rohter, NY Times, 2-25-2013)
OP-ED: On Keeping On
(John Borling's poems were tapped out in code, letter by letter, on the walls
of a wretched cell in Hanoi during his six and a half years as a prisoner of war.)
(By Bill Keller, NY Times, 2-25-2013)
ANALYSIS: Lin Does a Lot by Not Doing Too Much
(Lin, 24, has been a solid if unexceptional Rockets' contributor with 12.8 points & 6.2 assists a game)
(By Beckley Mason, NY Times, 2-24-2013)
Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months
(Chinese hackers infiltrated NY Times computer system reporting on Wen Jiabao)
(By Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 1-31-2013)
HEALTH: Ask Well— Help for the Deskbound
(Take 20 seconds to look at something 20 feet away from computer, and repeat every 20 minutes;
Every 20 minutes, walk 20 feet away for 20 seconds or more. Just don't sit at your computer.)
(By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, 1-15-2013)
Opinionator: THE STONE— The Myth of Universal Love
(Cicero: "society and human fellowship will be best served if we confer
the most kindness on those with whom we are most closely associated.")
(By Stephen T. Asma, NY Times, 1-5-2013)
BOOK REVIEW: Fraternity of Men: Brothers by George Howe Colt
(Riveting melodramas enacted by brothers Booths, van Goghs, Marxes and Kelloggs)
(By Phillip Lopate, NY Times, Dec. 23, 2012)
A Basketball Fairy Tale in Middle America
(Kevin Durant: "Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.")
(By Sam Anderson, Sunday New York Times Magazine, Nov. 11, 2012)
GRAY MATTER: I Heart Unpredictable Love
(Unpredictable rewards cause more dopamine release and more pleasure of inconstant love)
(By Richard A. Friedman, NY Times, Nov. 4, 2012)
NY REGION: In Storm Deaths, Mystery, Fate and Bad Timing
(Uprooted trees cracked by furious winds, became weapons flattening cars, houses and pedestrians.)
(By N. R. Kleinfield & Michael Powell, NY Times, Oct. 31, 2012)
You're the Boss: Why I Manage My Own AdWords Campaigns
(No one better than the boss to oversee the entire sales operation.)
(By Paul Downs, NY Times, Oct. 31, 2012)
* PROFILES IN SCIENCE PETER G. NEUMANN: Killing the Computer to Save It
(By John Markoff, NY Times, Oct. 30, 2012)
For Dakota Paleontologist, It All Started With a Turtle
(Fossil record shows that turtles evolved at least 220 million years ago)
(By Sean B. Carroll, NY Times, Oct. 30, 2012)
DRAFT: Mutant Verbs (Any noun can be verbed. So can many adjectives:
we prettify a room, neaten our desk and brown a piece of meat.)
(By Helen Sword, NY Times, Oct. 27, 2012)
SCIENCE: New Planet in Neighborhood, Astronomically Speaking
(Geneva Observatory found planet the same mass as Earth's in Alpha Centauri,
a triple star system that is Sun's closest neighbor, only 4.4 light-years away.)
(By Dennis Overbye, NY Times, Oct. 17, 2012)
Opinionator: Me, Myself and Math: Visualizing Vastness (Part 6)
(Ithaca's Sagan Planet Walk is 3/4 mile long in 15 minutes from Sun to Pluto;
5000 miles to Hawaii's Hilo campus representing Alpha Centauri, Sun's nearest star.)
(By Steven Strogatz, NY Times, Oct. 15, 2012)
Opinionator: "Leaf and Death"
(Placed leaves on a sheet of frosted glass and lit them from underneath and on top at the same time.
It made them glow. They crackle in flickering reds, yellows and electric greens.)
(By Jeff Scher, NY Times, 10-12-2012)
Opinionator: One Among Many
(Miguel Cabrera's winning the Triple Crown— truly a mark of excellence.)
(By Doug Glanville, NY Times, 10-12-2012)
BOOK REVIEW: Under the Influence My Poets by Maureen N. McLane
(Lineated poem-games like centos: poems where every line is taken from someone else)
(By Daisy Fried, NY Times, Aug. 17, 2012)
OPINIONATOR: Sartre and Camus in New York
(In December 1944, Albert Camus, editor of Combat, main newspaper of the French Resistance,
made Jean-Paul Sartre an offer he couldn't refuse: the job of American correspondent. Sartre
arrived in New York in January 1945 with Camus coming in 1946; their experiences diverged.)
(By Andy Martin, NY Times, July 14, 2012)
BOOK REVIEW: A Great Awakening— "When God Talks Back" by T.M. Luhrmann
(New way to deal with disturbing voices offers hope for those with other forms of psychosis)
(By Molly Worthen, NY Times, April 27, 2012)
SCIENCE ESSAY: Death Knell for the Lecture— Technology as a Passport
to Personalized Education
(Placed 3 Stanford computer science courses online. In first four weeks, 300,000 students registered
or these courses, with millions of video views & hundreds of thousands of submitted assignments.)
(By Daphne Koller, NY Times, 12-6-2011)
MOVIES: No Blockbusters Here, Just Mind Expanders
(Ernest Gehr's 1970 short film Serene Velocity in a hallwalk corridor from midnight till sunrise.)
(By Manohla Dargis, NY Times, 11-13-2011)
Opinionator— LINE BY LINE: The Road to 'Ten Unknowns'
(Process of conceptual thinking, sketching, research photos,
painting and lettering that led to a finished theater poster)
(By James McMullan, NY Times, Dec. 2, 2010)
OP-ED: The Perils of Progress
(Repackaging the future as a basketful of promise is a con.)
(By Eduardo Porter, NY Times, March 30, 2009)
BUSINESS DAY: The Feng Shui Kingdom
(When building the new entrance to Hong Kong Disneyland, Walt Disney executives
decided to shift the angle of the front gate by 12 degrees. They did so after consulting
a feng shui specialist, who said the change would ensure prosperity for the park.)
(By Laura M. Holson, NY Times, April 25, 2005)
MAGAZINE: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Deer
(Dr. Mark Mahowald's sleep-lab videos are so spooky— a class of disorders called "parasomnias",
which are defined as unwanted and involuntary behaviors during sleep and are by definition occult,
because they appear when most people are unable to witness them. Mel Abel was struggling with
a deer, trying to snap its neck when asleep, not knowing he was strangling his wife Harriet in bed.)
(By Chip Brown, NY Times, Feb. 2, 2003)
SCIENCE: When the Brain Disrupts the Night
(Awake, Jim Smith was an amiable & popular man. Asleep, he would shout obscenities, kick the walls,
punch the pillows. Sometimes, he hit his wife, Dee, in the back or grabbed her by the hair.)
(By Erica Goode, NY Times, Jan. 7, 2003)
BOOK REVIEW: Non-Art for Non-Art's Sake— "The Madonna of the Future" by Arthur C. Danto
(Danto declares we have reached "the end of art", a time when the line
between art objects
and ordinary objects is invisible. Henry James
story of Theobald painting Madonna)
(By Sarah Boxer, NY Times, Aug. 6, 2000)
*
Frauds! Fakes! Phonies!
(Book Review of "Unweaving the Rainbow" by
Richard Dawkins; He attacks superstitions, fantasies
and every kind of pseudoscience; argues that scientific fact is both intellectually and esthetically more
pleasing than pseudoscientific fantasy; writes "we are walking repositories of wisdom out of the old days.
You could spend a lifetime reading in this ancient library and die unsated by the wonder of it.")
(By Timothy Ferris, NY Times Book Review, January 10, 1999, p. 7)
*
God Help the Spiritual Writer
(What I mean by spiritual writing is poetry or prose that deals with the bedrock
of human existence— why we are here, where we are going and how we can comport
ourselves with dignity along the way. Whitman got it right in
"A Clear Midnight".)
(By Philip Zaleski, NY Times Book Review, January 10, 1999, p. 27)
'The Web Made Me Do It'
(Matt Drudge "disposes of all the journalistic conventions and
simply recycles the most sensational gossip that's going around.")
(By Jack Shafer, NY Times Magazine, February 15, 1998, pp. 24-25)
Our Memories, Our Selves
(Sherashevsky
could recite elaboate lists of nonsense words, complicated math
formulars, even stanzas of Dante in Italian after hearing them only once.")
(By Stephen S. Hall, NY Times Magazine, February 15, 1998, pp. 26-33, 49, 56-57)
SCIENCE WATCH: Singing Sands
(Marco Polo heard mysterious booming noises in 13th century China.)
(By Malcolm W. Browne, NY Times, March 18, 1997)
BOOK REVIEW: Bickering With Mom And Making His Boxes
(Deborah Solomon's Utopia Parkway: Life & Work of Joseph Cornell)
(By placing seemingly disconnected objects within a box, Cornell was not only claiming them as
symbols in his own dream life, but trying to recapture imaginary past, preserving the evanescent:
dime store ephemera, magazine and newspaper clippings— in the unforgiving amber of his art.)
(By Michiko Kakutani, NY Times, March 18, 1997)
ARTS: Victor Vasarely, Op Art Patriarch, Dies at 90
(Although ultimately eclipsed by the more restrained style of Minimalism, Op Art was an immensely
popular form of abstraction, and Mr. Vasarely, who had experimented with optical patterns since the
1930's, was widely accepted as its "grandfather." The movement with the spatial tricks he invented
was celebrated in an exhibition titled "The Responsive Eye" at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965.)
(By Roberta Smith, NY Times, March 18, 1997)
ARTS: Glimpses Into a Private World: 25,000 Phots by One Artist
(Aaron Rose has made more than 25,000 images and printed each one by hand only once, so that each
picture is a unique work of art. Photos of New York City rooftops & the Milky Way. "An artist
doesn't
have to get acclaim from the outside. Maybe it is much better if he can get validation from within.")
(By Paul Goldberger, NY Times, March 17, 1997)
CHENGDU JOURNAL: A Browsers' Bookshop, but There's No Espresso
(Chen Yunzhen runs the One Heart Bookstore, which has become a center of intellectual life—
and less serious pursuits— in Chengdu. Her 6'x6' store is a civilized contrast to junk movie culture.)
(By Seth Faison, NY Times, March 17, 1997)
MOSCOW JOURNAL: Burst of Pride for a Staccato Executioner: AK-47
(One of this city's proudest exhibits is not a religious icon or a portrait. It is the Kalashnikov
assault rifle that a North Vietnamese soldier used to kill 78 Americans in the Vietnam War.
Effective Range: 325 yards; Rate of Fire: 10 rounds/second; Capacity: 30-round magazine.)
(By Michel R. Gordon, NY Times, March 13, 1997)
OBITUARIES: Mother Devi, 88; Led Religious Order
(Rev. Mother Gayatri Devi, spiritual leader of a religious order rooted in Hinduism, died on Sept. 8;
The first Indian woman to teach her Vedanta philosophy to Americans, she inherited leadership
of Cohasset, Mass and Crescenta, CA centers after death of her uncle Swami Paramanananda.)
(NY Times, September 16, 1995)
Confessions of an American Guru
(Maharaj-ji read Richard Alpert's mind that his mother died of spleen cancer,
and named him Ram Dass after he studied with him; Came back as an Amerian Guru
in 1969; He met Joya Santayana in 1975, whom he regarded as enlightened and
studied under her; Students seeing them holding hands said it's physical love;
In Sept. 1975, He left Joya, saying she misled him, and is not "Divine Mother".)
(By Colette Dowling, NY Times Magazine, December 4, 1977)
SCIENCE: 'The Interpretation Of Dreams'
(Freud says the dream represents a "safety valve" where the unconscious wishes wear disguise
in order to slip past dozing censors of the conscious mind, and these wishes are largely sexual.)
(By Edwin Diamond, NY Times, February 12, 1967)
SCIENCE: Sleep From Alpha to Delta
(Alpha: on edge of sleep; REM: Rapid Eye Movement in dream state; Delta: deepest stage of sleep)
(By Gay Gaer Luce & Julius Segal, NY Times, April 17, 1966)
Meditations of a Man of Action
(Hammarskjöld, whom the world had revered as statesman was also, a man of quite extraordinary
inner life. He says "In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.")
(By Henry P. Van Dusen, NY Times, October 18, 1964)
Clues to the Hammarskjold Riddle
[Hammarskjöld's Vagmarken sold 95,000 in Sweden & 2.5 million in the U.S. as Markings;
Nothing on his U.N. tenure (1953-1961); It'file:///Volumes/8-3-2021/InterestingNews.htmls his mystical dialogue with God & love of Nature.]
(By Oliver Clausen, NY Times, June 28, 1964)
- San Jose Mercury News:
THINGS TO DO:
California mountain adventures: Mammoth Lakes summer vacation
(Main Street to Lake Mary Road & glacier-carved Mammoth Lakes basin; Passed pristine Twin Lakes,
Tamarack Lodge & St. Mary's Lake; Devils Postpile National Monument; Bleu Market & Kitchen;
Warming Hut; The Stove; Distant Brewing; Looney Bean: Stellar Brew; Snowcreek Resort)
(By Ben Davidson, Mercury News, August 21, 2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: National Parks: Top 10 extraordinary hotels and lodges
(1. Amangiri, Utah;
2. Amangani, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming;
3. Spirit, Zion National Park, Utah;
4. Ultima Thule Lodge, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska;
5. Blackberry Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee;
6. Jenny Lake Lodge, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming;
7. Inn at Death Valley, Death Valley National Park, California;
8. The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park;
9. El Tovar, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona;
10. Many Glacier Hotel, Glacier National Park, Montana)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, August 21, 2022, F7)
THINGS TO DO:
SONOMA: Side Trippin'
(Guerneville is wonderful. It's also quite small. So after you've splashed,
hiked and noshed at all the tasty restaurants, consider expanding your
Russian River adventures with a side trip to the coast, a foray to a winery,
some music or other creative exploration. Here's a little day trip inspiration;
Jenner Headlands Preserve; Porter-Bass Vineyard and Winery; Korbel Winery;
Stumptown Brewery; Rio Theater; Rio Nido Roadhouse; Fulton Crossing Artisan Center;
Mike's Truck Garden)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, August 14, 2022, F6-F7)
THINGS TO DO: Time Magazine's World's 50 Greatest Places of 2022
(1. Tofino, British Columbia;
2. Toronto, Ontario;
3. Illuissat, Greenland;
4. Salta, Argentina;
5. Portree, Scottish Isle of Skye;
6. Thessaloniki, Greece;
7. Kerala, India;
8. Doha, Qatar;
9. Kigali, Rwanda;
10. Franschhoek, South Africa)
(By Maureen O'Hare, Mercury News, August 14, 2022, F6)
*
WORLD NEWS: Golden Gateway for Supermoon
(Sturgeon supermoon, last supermoon of the year, rises behind the Golden Gate Bridge
and the San Francisco skyline as seen from Sausalito on August 11, 2022; More photos from
Shard, London; Oakland Airport; Anthoupolis, Cyprus; Washington Monument; Istanbul, Turkey;
Windmill in Oostzaan, Netherlands; Lisbon & Tagus River; Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Calif.)
(By Jose Carlos Fajardo & Ray Chavez, Mercury News, 8-13-2022, A1)
TECHNOLOGY:
Tools to help keep kids safe online
(Parent guides & other safety resources for Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Discourse and
other apps at ConnectSafely.org; Instagram's
supervision tool and Snapchat's Family
Center tool help parents guide young teenagers surfing the web.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 8-12-2022, C7-C8)
* MOVIES:
"Grease" star Olivia Newton-John dies at age 73
(Australian singer won four Grammy Awards and sold more than 100 million albums.
Hits include "Physical" and "You're the One That I Want"; She was everyone's favorite
Sandy in blockbuster film "Grease"; Granddaughter of 1954 Physics Nobelist
Max Born.)
(By Hillel Italie, Mercury News, 8-9-2022, A8)
PETS & ANIMALS:
It's a donkey baby boom at Mendocino County sanctuary
(Ron King & his small crew at the rescue & rehome non-profit, Oscar's Place, have
delivered 14 foals with three more coming. In last two years, they welcomed 140 donkeys
and found new homes for 51. Adoption fees are $1,000 for one donkey, $1,800 for a pair.)
(By Joan Morris, Mercury News, 8-8-2022, B1, B3)
* FOCUS HEALTH:
Elusive Slumber
(76% of Americans say their daily life has been interrupted by a lack of sleep; 10 Sleep Tips:
1. Go to sleep at same time each night & get up at the same time each morning; 2. Don't take naps
after 3 p.m. and don't nap longer than 20 minutes;
6. Don't eat a heavy meal late in the day. A light
snack before bedtime is OK;
9. Turn off the TV and other screens at least an hour before bedtime.)
(By Jeff Goertzen, Mercury News, 8-7-2022, B15)
* BASEBALL:
Bay Area's broadcasting greats salute Vin Scully, their idol
(Influence of Vin Scully as a broadcaster & as a man is felt by SF Giants, Oakland A's broadcasters.
"He called the Dwight Clark-Joe Montana touchdown', Giants announcer Duane Kuiper said.)
(By Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, 8-3-2022, C1, C5)
WORLD NEWS:
Pelosi Begins Visit to Taiwan
(Republican Newt Gingrich traveled to Taiwan in 1997 to meet then President
Lee Teng-hui 25 years ago. Pelosi said supporting Taiwan "is more important
than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.")
(By Stephanie Yang & David Pierson, Mercury News, 8-3-2022, A1, A5)
SCIENCE:
Rare corpse flower blooms at UC Santa Cruz Arboretum
(The 5-foot-tall, stinky corpse flower, drew hundreds to the arboretum Tuesday morning 8/2.
Visitors packed tightly around the plant as they snapped photos and tried to catch a whiff
of its acrid smell. Native to Indonesia, Sumatra & Borneo, one of world's largest flowers.)
(By Aric Sleeper, Mercury News, August 3, 2022 & Aug. 9, 2022, B1)
* SPORTS:
The Bay's greatest champion, Bill Russell leaves an indelible legacy
(Bill Russell dies at 88: Oakland is called The City of Champions for a reason.
He was greatest Oaklander champion of them all. Won 11 NBA titles with Boston Celtics.
The Dons won 60 consecutive games over that two-year span, becoming first undefeated
championship team in Division 1 men's basketball history in the process.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 8-1-2022, A1, A6)
*
NBA great Bill Russell, Celtics legend, University of San Francisco star & Oakland's own, dies at 88
(Russell went to high school in Oakland & led University of San Francisco Dons to NCAA championships
in 1955 & 1956. A Hall of Famer, 5-time MVP & 12-time All-Star, Russell in 1980 was voted greatest
player in NBA history by basketball writers. Russell's No. 6 jersey was retired by the Celtics in 1972.)
(By Jimmy Golen, AP, Mercury News, 8-1-2022, C1, C5)
THINGS TO DO:
Best things to do around San Francisco's gorgeous Tunnel Tops park
(Unveiling of city's newest green space, the Presidio Tunnel Tops. Sited atop a
freeway & designed by the firm that did New York's High Line, the 14-acre park
features sprawling lawns— with this stuff drought-struck Californians should
know is "grass"— 100,000 plants and a nature museum where visitors literally
drink the local flora. A Yoda statue guards Lucasfilm in San Francisco's Presidio.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, July 31, 2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: Travel + Leisure's top California resorts include 3 Bay Area gems
(1. San Ysidro Ranch, Santa Barbara;
2. Rosewood Miramar Beach, Montecito;
3. Sparrows Lodge, Palm Springs;
4. MacArthur Place Hotel & Spa, Sonoma;
5. Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa, Rancho Santa Fe;
6. L'Auberge Del Mar;
7. Brewery Gulch Inn, Mendocino;
8. Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort-Club, Dana Point;
9. Auberge du Soleil, Auberge Resorts Collection, Napa;
10. The Ranch at Laguna Beach.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, July 31, 2022, F7)
LOTTERY:
Mega Millions: Why are so many hopefuls headed to this San Jose liquor store?
(Top prize for Friday night's drawing has reached $1.1 billion, fifth largest lottery jackpot ever;
Ernie's Liquors on South White Road, San Jose, which in 2018 sold one of three Mega Millions
winning tickets in the record $1.5 billion jackpot to a pool of Wells Fargo coworkers.)
(By Tammer Bagdasarian, Mercury News, 7-29-2022, A1, A5)
BUSINESS:
Free up storage, save money with Gmail, Google Photos
(Tools can help you clear the clutter and avoid spending on extra space. After the first free three 15 gigabytes,
Google charges $29.99/year for up to 200 GB, $99.99/year for up to 2 TB & $249.99/year for up to 5 TB.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 7-29-2022, C7-C8)
ART:
Diego Rivera's American Vision in big new SFMOMA exhibit
[San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art has been celebrating Diego Rivera, who was considered
the greatest Mexican painter of the 20th century, since the day it opened in 1935.
Now the museum's
collection includes 70 Rivera artworks. Plus, on view currently,
the restored 1,628-square-foot mural
"Pan American Unity" that Rivera and his
assistants created in 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.
Exhibit runs to Jan. 2, covers Rivera's career (1920s to mid-1940s,)]
(By Robert Taylor, Mercury News, July 21, 2022, G1-G2)
SCREENS & STREAMING:
The hunt for D.B. Cooper marches on in new series
(50-year hunt for the man who parachuted out of a plane with $200,000 in cash
'speaks to something in the American soul', author Geoffrey Gray says in new Netflix series,
TV producer Tom Colbert believes it was Robert Rackstraw,
Vietnam vet & former pilot from
Santa Cruz area, who also may have worked for CIA.)
(By Martha Ross, Mercury News, July 21, 2022, G4)
THINGS TO DO:
Explore a dazzling experimental garden hidden in the Berkeley Hills
(1. The 100-year-old Blake Garden has spectacular views and is nestled next to a monastery
of non-speaking nuns. 10,000 types of plants from every continent; 2. Filoli Historic House & Garden:
walled garden, rose garden, reflecting pool, sunken garden; 3. San Francisco Botantical Garden:
55-acre botanical garden in Golden Gate Park, Garden of Fragrances to Mesoamerican Cloud Forest;
4. UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanical Garden:
135 acres of meadow overlooking Pacific Ocean
and displays hundreds of plants thriving in Mediterranean climates.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, July 24, 2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: Tripadvisor's top U.S. attractions for 2022
(1. Empire State Building, New York;
2. Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado;
3. Central Park, New York;
4. Iolani Palace, Honolulu, Hawaii;
5. Biltmore, Asheville, North Carolina;
6. The National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, New York;
7. Arches National Park, Moab, Utah;
8. National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana;
9. Taliesin Preservation, Inc., Spring Green, Wisconsin;
10. Stetson Mansion, DeLand, Florida)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, July 24, 2022, F7)
SCIENCE:
The mystery blooms of smelly 'Corpse Flowers'
(Rare plants are unleashing their blossoms this week in San Jose and Santa Cruz;
Titan arum takes seven to ten years to mature enough to blossom—
and then it only blooms briefly, once every three to five years.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, July 23, 2022, A1, A6)
* OBITUARY:
Judith Schiff, 84, historian organized Yale's vast archive
(Schiff worked at Yale for more than 60 years; worked with Charles Lindbergh on
his archive; explored the papers of Emily Dickinson's editor Millicent Todd Bingham.)
(By Neil Genzlinger, NY Times, Mercury News, July 23, 2022, B5)
THINGS TO DO:
3 lovely Bay Area hikes that end with a splash
(1. Tennessee Valley Trail: in Mill Valley is an easy 3.5 mile in-and-out hike along a wide path popular
with families; 2. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park: San Lorenzo River feeds Garden of Eden swimming
hole here; in a 0.8-mile loop is the "Giant" 1,500 years old & 25 stories tall; 3. Trione-Annadel
State Park:
in Santa Rosa has Lake Ilsanjo, a wonderful swimming lake for cooling down.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, July 17, 2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: Top 10 landmarks & attractions in the world
(1. Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain;
2. Colosseum, Rome, Italy;
3. Empire State Building, New York;
4. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates;
5. Gallerie Degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy;
6. Plaza de Espana, Seville, Spain;
7. Iguazu Falls, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil;
8. The Roman Baths, Bath, United Kingdom;
9. Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado
10. Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, July 17, 2022, F7)
COSMOLOGY:
Pictures Worth A Thousand Worlds
(Scientists and engineers celebrate at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto,
watch as NASA reveals the first images of the James Webb Space Telescope. Edge of a nearby,
young star-forming region, NGC 3324, in the Carina Nebular.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, July 13, 2022, A1, A5)
POLITICS:
The debate over 'All men are created equal'
("Those words say to me, 'Do better, America'.And what I mean by that is we have never
been a country where people were truly equal," Kevin Jennings says. "It's an aspiration
to continue to work towards, and we're not there yet.")
(By Hillel Italia, AP, Mercury News, July 4, 2022, A3)
MASSACHUSETTS:
Long-missing Hamilton letter put on public display
(A letter written by Alexander Hamilton in 1780 to Lafayette and stolen decades ago
from the Massachusetts state archives is going back on display. Letter was stolen
during World War II by a state archive worker, then sold privately.)
(By Associated Press, Mercury News, July 4, 2022, A3)
ECONOMY:
Back with a BANG!
(After weathering pandemic, family-owned Pyro Spectaculars is fired up for 400 fireworks
shows. CEO Jim Souza oversees San Francisco's official Fourth of July fireworks display
over the waterfront. "The sky is our canvas— and fireworks are our paint" he says.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, July 3, 2022, E1, E3)
MOVIES:
Elvis was complicated; so is new biopic
(Baz Luhrmann wants to shock Elvis back to life, to imagine who he was in his own time
& what he might mean in ours. Austin Butler stars as King of Rock & Roll and Tom Hanks
plays his devious manager Colonel Tom Parker. Voice of Elvis can't be imitated, and
the movie wisely doesn't try, remixing actual Elvis recordings rather than trying to
replicate them; Film is unsure if it wants to be a lavish pop fable or a tragic melodrama.)
(By A.O. Scott, NY Times, Mercury News, June 30, 2022, G7)
SPORTS:
Where does Steve Kerr stand among the Bay Area's best coaches ever?
[Readers will help choose the Mount Rushmore of pro coaches in the Bay Area: Al Attles (Warriors);
Dusty Baker (Giants); Bruce Bochy (Giants); Tom Flores (Raiders);
Steve Kerr (Warriors); Tony La Russa (A's); John Madden (Raiders);
Bob Melvin (A's); Don Nelson (Warriors); George Seifert (49ers);
Bill Walsh (49ers); Dick Williams (A's).]
(By Jon Becker, Mercury News, June 28, 2022, C1, C4)
THINGS TO DO: Mendocino shipwrecks, lighthouses and the ultimate fish and chip
(Places to Visit: Point Arena Lighthouse; Point Cabrillo Lighthouse; Noyo Fish Company;
Gallery Bookshop and Bookwinkle's;
Mendocino Jams & Preserves; Out of This World;
The Brickery; Mendocino Headlands State Park; Luna Trattoria.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 6-26-2022, F7-F8)
BUSINESS:
Instagram testing age verification technology
(Meta has started to test new ways to verify age, including Face-Based-Age-Prediction (FBAP)
technology that can anonymously determine a person's approximate age, based on a video selfie,
along with "social vouching". Instagram requires users to be 13 or older and offers some
features and content that are available only for those who are over 18.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 6-24-2022, C7-C8)
MOVIES:
Stanford Theatre roaring back to life after 2 years in July
(Fred Astaire double feature "The Gay Divorcee" & "Top Hat" will open Palo Alto's
classic movie house on July 9; "Casablanca" which is celebrating its 80th anniversary
this year, is slated for July 16-17. A double feature starring the late Sidney Poitier—
"To Sir, With Love" and "In the Heat of the Night"— plays July 23-24.)
(By Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, June 23, 2022, B1, B4)
SPORTS:
Where does Steph Curry rank on the Bay Area 'Mount Clutchmore' for postseason performance?
(1. Madison Bumgarner, Giants, 2014; 2. Rickey Henderson, Athletics, 1989; 3. Stephen Curry, Warriors, 2022;
4. Joe Montana, 49ers, 1989; 5. Steve Young, 49ers, 1994; 6. Gene Tenace, Athletics, 1972.)
(By Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, June 22, 2022, C1, C3)
Dubs
Hit the Streets of San Francisco
(Fans break through barriers as Klay Thompson's bus makes its way down Market Street with
crowd of 800,000; Thompson celebrated with fans assembled in front of the Ferry Building
along the Embarcadero before start of the parade. Draymond Green stopped for ice cream.)
(By John Metcalfe, et. al., Mercury News, June 21, 2022, A1, A8)
BUSINESS:
How to make Google search safer or more precise
(Google offers lots of search options, including "SafeSearch", which filters out links
to explicit content as well as the ability to use "operators" to fine tune your search;
Refine your search to either news, videos, images, books & other options (maps, shopping,
flights and finance) by selecting from the menu that appears above your search results.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 6-17-2022, C7-C8)
Take
a trip to live-jazz paradise at Half Moon Bay's 'Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society'
(The haunt of Art Blakey and Etta James was named when a local yahoo blew up explosives
on the beach. Jane Bunnett & Maqueque, an all-female Afro-Cuban band, played in May 2022.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, June 19, 2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: Top 10 summer travel destinations for 2022
(1. Venice, Italy;
2. Nassau, The Bahamas;
3. Capri, Italy;
4. Puerto Escondido, Mexico;
5. Tamarindo, Costa Rica;
6. Quepos, Costa Rica;
7. Florence, Italy;
8. Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic;
9. La Paz, Mexico;
10. Méida, Mexico.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 6-19-2022, F7)
Kerr's coaching masterpiece
[Steve Kerr now has 9 NBA championship rings— five as a player (2 Chicago Bulls
& 3 San Antonio Spurs) and four as a head coach (Warriors); Kerr's adjustments throughout these NBA Finals were critical
for the Dubs in claiming the series and a fourth title under his reign. Starting in Game 4, with the Warriors down 2-1 in the series,
Kerr comprehensively out-adjusted Boston's first-year head coach Ime Udoka. He worked over the rookie coach, and it resulted in three straight wins and a fourth NBA title in eight years.]
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 6-18-2022, A1, A6)
Steph Curry's
NBA Finals MVP was more than a decade in the making
(There was no other worthy choice for the award after Curry delivered
one of the finest performances in his career to lead Warriors to beat Celtics in 6 games.
Curry was named the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP after leading Warriors to their 4th title in 8 years
Thursday night in Boston. The vote was, again, unanimous.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 6-18-2022, C1, C4)
Warriors are champions again after 21-0 first-half run, NBA Finals MVP Curry's 34
(The Warriors further cemented the team's dynasty and built upon Curry's legacy as one
of the NBA's all-time greatest players as Golden State reclaimed its spot atop of the league,
beating the Boston Celtics 103-90 to win their fourth title in eight years.)
(By Madeline Kenney, Mercury News, 6-17-2022, C1)
Steph Curry's brilliant Game 4 should silence his critics forever
(Golden State Warriors NBA Finals: Steph Curry's 43-point Game 4 performance saved
the Warriors season, put Golden State in a position to win the title and ended any
debate about his greatness. Playing on a sprained left foot, he got 10 rebounds.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 6-12-2022, A1, A8)
Steph Curry's brilliant Game 4 should silence his critics forever
(Golden State Warriors NBA Finals: Steph Curry's 43-point Game 4 performance saved
the Warriors season, put Golden State in a position to win the title and ended any
debate about his greatness. Playing on a sprained left foot, he got 10 rebounds.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 6-12-2022, A1, A8)
THINGS TO DO: Top 10 historical landmarks in the U.S. include two California sites
(1. Yellowstone, Wyoming;
2. Harriet Tubman National Historic Park, NY;
3. Brooklyn Bridge, NY;
4. Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, CA;
5. Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia;
6. Grand Canyon, Arizona;
7. Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California;
8. Jackson Square, New Orleans, Louisiana;
9. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado;
10. Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 6-12-2022, F7)
Joy, sadness in Normandy at the D-Day commemorations
(Several thousand people attended a ceremony at American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach
in the French town of Colleville-sur-Mer. They applauded more than 20 WWII veterans who were
present at the commemoration. On D-Day, Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha,
Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers
lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded.)
(By Sylvia Corbet & Jeff Schaeffer, Mercury News, 6-7-2022, A1, A5)
Steph Curry leads another electric 3rd quarter run, Warriors best Celtics to tie NBA Finals at 1-1
(Curry scored 14 of his 29 points in the third, helping Warriors outscore the Celtics 35-14
to take a 23-point lead heading into the final 12 minutes. Jordan Poole hits two 3-pointers,
including a highlight worthy pull-up shot from 39-feet to beat the buzzer.)
(By Madeline Kenney, Mercury News, 6-6-2022, C1)
Mystery solved: UK Queen shares secret with Paddington
(Crowd watch a film of Queen Elizabeth II having tea with Paddington Bear on a big screen
at the Platinum Jubilee concert taking place in front of Buckingham Palace, to celebrate her
70 years of service. Bear told Elizabeth how he always had a reserve supply of marmalade
sandwiches with him, lifting up his red hat to reveal his favorite treat. "So do I," the queen
responded before opening her bag and declaring: "I keep mine in here.")
(By Danica Kirks & Sylvia Hui, AP, Mercury News, 6-5-2022, A3)
THINGS TO DO: World's top 10 most beautiful national parks includes a California gem
(1. Torres del Paine National Park, Chile;
2. Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia;
3. Glacier
National Park, Montana and Canada;
4. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania;
5. Yosemite, California;
6. Fiordland National Park, New Zealand;
7. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming;
8. Corcovado
National Park, Costa Rica;
9. Kakadu National Park, Australia;
10. Canaima National Park, Venezuela.
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 6-5-2022, F7)
THINGS TO DO—
Liquid Aloha: Hawaii's 14 best lobby lounges and bars
(1. Maui: Birdcage Bar, Hotel Wailea; 2. Lobby Lounge, Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea;
3. Maui: Kai Bar, AC Hotel Wailea; 4. Botero Lounge, Grand Wailea Hotel & Spa;
5. Sandbar, Sheraton Maui; 6. Kauai: Stevenson’s Library & Seaview Terrace, Grand Hyatt Kauai;
7. Island of Hawaii: Luana Lounge, Fairmont Orchid; 8. Copper Bar, Mauna Kea Beach Hotel:
9. Oahu: Kani Ka Pila Grille, Outrigger Reef Waikiki Beach; 10. Lewers Lounge, Halekulani Hotel;
11. Veranda, Kahala Hotel & Resort; 12. O'Bar, 'Alohilani Resort; 13. Oahu: Off The Lip, Turtle Bay Resort)
(By Ben Davidson, Mercury News, 5-29-2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: Tripadvisor's hottest new U.S. hotels include a Bay Area marvel
(Tripadvisor's 2022 Traveler's Choice awards continued their rollout with top 25 hottest new hotels
from coast to coast— a list that includes the Bay Area's own Ameswell Hotel at No. 6.
1. Lyle Washington DC;
2. Pendry Manhattan West in New York City;
3. Belvada Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada;
4. Bottleworks Hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana;
5. Under Canvas Lake Powell-Grand Staircase in Big Water, Utah;
6. Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View;
7. Pendry West Hollywood;
8. Blossom Hotel Houston, Texas;
9. Colton House Hotel in Austin, Texas;
10. Arlo Midtown in New York City)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 5-29-2022, F7)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Stanford students, offers condolences after Texas
mass shooting ("Every day we have to not just put a question to ourselves, but find the answer to it:
who matters most? and why?" Zelensky said. "This is the most important question to me.")
(By Aldo Toledo, Mercury News, 5-28-2022, B1, B4)
BUSINESS:
How to delete what Google knows about you
[Google have a page (myactivity.google.com/myactivity) that will report and let you delete
your Google activity. Google Chrome keeps a history of sites you've visited. Clicking History
from 3-dot menu in upper right & delete; Uncheck Cookies and Other Site Data.]
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 5-26-2022, C7-C8)
Biden vows to defend Taiwan
(U.S. would militarily intervene if China were to invade island. Taipei cheered Biden's remarks,
with Ministry of Foreign Affairs Joanne Ou expressing "sincere welcome & gratitude.")
(By Josh Boak, Aamer Madhaani & Zeke Miller, Mercury News, 5-24-2022, A1, A5)
Andrew Wiggins' insane dunk on Luka Doncic will forever change his reputation
(Andrew Wiggins' highlight dunk over Luka Doncic was just one play, but it shows
how far he has come as a player and how close the Warriors are to another title.
Wiggins' 27 points performance in a 109-100 victory over Dallas Mavericks.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 5-24-2022, C1, C4)
*
Levi's jeans: How they started, how they're made and how they've changed
(On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received their patent for riveted pants.
This month marks the 165th year since the San Francisco clothing company first made them.
Jacob Davis received Patent #139,121; The name 501 is first used in 1890; Denim pants
are called "jeans" because many fabrics were made in Genoa, Italy, and hence the name.)
(By Kurt Snibee, Mercury News, 5-22-2022, B17)
Bay Area Hikes:
Biking to the Rosie the Riveter museum is the perfect Bay Area day trip
(Have a "riveting" time at this WWII fixture in Richmond, then enjoy fresh seafood
and cocktails. The iconic poster of a bandana-clad woman flexing her muscles while
hollering "We Can Do It!" was likely based on a photograph of a real person,
Naomi Parker Fraley, who worked near here at old Naval Air Station in Alameda.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 5-22-2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO: 9 Bay Area military museums, submarines and Liberty ships to explore
(1. USS Hornet, Alameda; 2. Red Oak Victory Ship, Richmond; 3. Rosie the Riveter WWII
Home Front, Richmond; 4. Fort Point, San Francisco; 5. National Cemetery, San Francisco;
6. USS Pampanito, San Francisco; 7. SS Jeremiah O'Brien, San Francisco;
8. Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa; 9. Nike Missile Site, Marin Headlands.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 5-22-2022, F7)
Sprouts Farmers Market closing Fremont, Mountain View stores permanently
(The grocer said it will permanently close both its Fremont store at 3900 Mowry Ave.
in the Fremont Plaza Shopping Center & its Mountain View store at 630 San Antonio Rd.
in the World Savings Plaza. The company did not cite a specific reason for the closures,
though rising rents & competition from other nearby grocery stores triggered the decision.)
(By Joseph Geha, Mercury News, 5-19-2022, B1, B3)
THINGS TO DO: Santa Cruz Boardwalk 2022: Beach movies, concerts; Looff Carousel
(After two seasons off, the free movies and concerts are returning. At 9 p.m. Fridays from June 17
through Aug. 12, movies will be the attraction on the Main Beach in front of the Colonnade.
Free concerts set for 8:30 to 10 pm. Thursdays, June 16-Aug. 11, on Boardwalk's Colonnade Stage.)
(By Linda Zavoral, Mercury News, 5-15-2022, F7-8)
THINGS TO DO: Where to see Santa Cruz's 19 'Sea Walls' murals
(19 colorful, whimsical sea-inspired murals— include "Beyond Boundaries," a mural by Oregon's
David Rice that highlights the decimation of the shark population. "The Last Salmon,"
by North Carolina artist Brian "Jeks" Lewis, warns of overfishing and rising sea levels.
And Jimbo Phillips' eye-popping "Protect Our Oceans" on plastic pollution— and a heroic squid.)
(By Jackie Burell, Mercury News, 5-15-2022, F3)
THINGS TO DO: Top 10 roller coasters in the U.S. offer death-defying thrills
(1. Mako, SeaWorld Orlando in Orlando, FL;
2. Phantom's Revenge, Kennywood in West Mifflin, PA;
3. Phoenix— Knoebels in Elysburg, PA:
4. Fury 325, Carowinds in Charlotte, NC;
5. Lightning Rod, Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN;
6. Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH:
7. Montu, Busch Gardens Tampa in Tampa, FL;
8. The Voyage, Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN;
9. Millennium Force,
Cedar Point, OH;
10. Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, Universal's Islands of
Adventure in Orlando, FL)
(By Jackie Burell, Mercury News, 5-15-2022, F7)
* Warhol's
Marilyn at $195 Million, Shatters Auction Record for an American Artist
(By Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, 5-9-2022);
(Mercury News, 5-11-2022, A2)
The 40-inch-by-40-inch painting, a trophy given its vibrant colors
and glamorous subject matter,
eclipsed the previous high price of
$110.5 million for a Basquiat skull painting
at Sotheby's in
2017 as well as Warhol's auction high for
a car crash painting that sold for $105.4 million in 2013.
Bay Area Hikes:
The history of explosives at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline
(One of the most peaceful parks in the Bay Area turns out to be responsible for
some of humanity's loudest booms. Head to Point Pinole Regional Shoreline
in Richmond for fantastic views of the water, a cliffside walk dotted with
wildflowers and a history lesson in explosives manufacturing and urban ruin.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 5-8-2022, F7-F8)
An awesome afternoon in Palo Alto
(Sculpture "OY" by artist Deborah Kass at Stanford Cantor Art Center; California Avenue
farmers market, Izzy's Bagels; Sushi at the Nobu Hotel and Restaurant, Hamilton Avenue)
(By Amber Turpin, Mercury News, 5-8-2022, F7)
Library of Congress Acquires Neil Simon Papers
(7700 of the playwright's manuscripts and papers, including dozen notebooks of his drawings)
(By Sarah Bahr, NY Times, Mercury News, 4-26-2022, A2) (E-Edition, 4-26-2022, A2)
Patrick
Carlin, brother and collaborator of comedian George Carlin, dead at 90
("He was my dad's hero," said Kelly Carlin, daughter of George Carlin. "A lot of his thinking
in the last 25 years of George's career were fed by and connected to Pat." Patrick Carlin wrote
for "The George Carlin Show," a sitcom that aired for two seasons during the mid-1990s, after
working years earlier for late-night talk program "Thicke of the Night," starring Alan Thicke.)
(By Peter Sblendorio, NY Daily News, Mercury News, 4-19-2022, B6)
THINGS TO DO: 13 awesome things to do along Highway 1 from Santa Cruz to San Francisco
(1. Seymour Marine Discovery Center;
2. Venus Spirits;
3. Beauregard Vineyards;
4. American Abalone
Farms;
5. Año Nuevo State Park;
6. Pie Ranch;
7. Arcangeli Grocery;
8. Downtown Local, Pescadero;
9. Harley Farms Goat Dairy;
10. Dad's Luncheonette, Half Moon Bay;
11. 337 Mirada ART;
12. Wyatt Earp's grave;
13. Sutro Baths, San Francisco)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 4-17-2022, F7-F8)
THINGS TO DO:
Where can you see earthquake faults in the Bay Area?
(Best way to see California's earthquake faults is to go to HBO Max and stream
"San Andreas",
a 2015 action movie starring the Rock and Paul Giamatti that holds up surprisingly well.
UC Berkeley's stadium
runs right over the Hayward Fault.
Hike at Los Trancos Open Space
Preserve and nearby Monte Bello Preserve, you'll encounter another unique water feature—
"sag ponds" depressions caused when two sides of a fault move.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 4-3-2022, F8)
SCIENCE:
Hubble Space Telescope Spots Earliest and Farthest Star Known
(Its light twinkled some 900 million years after the Big Bang, astronomers say.
Dot of light that shone 12.9 billion years ago is nicknamed Earendel—
Old English for "morning star". It is some 50 times the mass of our sun.)
(By Kenneth Chang, NY Times, Mercury News, 3-31-2022, A2)
TRAVEL:
7 Gilded Age mansions worthy of an Astor— or Bertha Russell
(1. The Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina;
2. The Breakers, Newport, Rhode Island;
3. Nemours Estate, Wilmington, Delaware;
4. The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts;
5. Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, Florida;
6. Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, Norwalk, Connecticut;
7. Westbury House, Old Westbury, New York.
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 3-27-2022, F7)
*
THINGS TO DO: The intriguing history behind San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden
[History behind Golden Gate Park's most sublime attraction (and birthplace of the fortune cookie?).
Around every corner something new amazes: historic gates tower over stone walkways, hummingbirds
sip from waterfalls, cherry trees explode in blossoms like frozen fireworks.]
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 3-23-2022)
TRAVEL:
World's top 10 best beaches for 2022, according to Tripadvisor;
(1. Grace Bay Beach:
Providenciales, Turks & Caicos;
2. Varadero Beach: Varadero, Cuba;
3. Turquoise Bay: Exmouth,
Australia;
4. Quarta Praia: Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil;
5. Eagle Beach: Palm – Eagle Beach, Aruba;
6. Radhanagar Beach: Havelock Island, India;
7. Baia do Sancho: Fernando de Noronha, Brazil;
8. Trunk Bay Beach: Virgin Islands National Park, US Virgin Islands;
9. Baía dos Golfinhos:
Praia da Pipa, Brazil;
10. Spiaggia dei Conigli: Lampedusa, Italy)
(By Forrest Brown, CNN, Mercury News, 3-13-2022, F7)
OP-ED:
The week that woke the world
(Things will likely get more brutal for Ukrainians. But the moral flame they fueled may still
burn strong. Ukrainians have shown us how the right kind of patriotism is ennobling, a source
of meaning and a reason to risk life. They've shown us that the love of a particular place, their
own land and people, warts and all, can be part and parcel of a love for universal ideals, like
democracy, liberalism and freedom. But this week we saw that foreign affairs, like life, is a
moral enterprise, and moral rightness is a source of social power and fighting morale.)
(By David Brooks, NY Times, Mercury News, 3-6-2022, A13)
Ukraine
digital army brews cyberattacks, intel and infowar
("We are really a swarm. A self-organizing swarm," said Roman Zakharov, a 37-year-old
IT executive at the center of Ukraine's bootstrap digital army. The movement is global,
drawing on IT professionals in the Ukrainian diaspora whose handiwork includes web defacements
with antiwar messaging and graphic images of death and destruction in the hopes of mobilizing
Russians against the invasion. A tool called "Liberator" lets anyone in the world with a digital
device become part of a DDoS attack network, or botnet. The tool's programmers code in new targets
as priorities change. Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced the
creation of an volunteer cyber army. IT Army of Ukraine now counts 290,000 followers on Telegram.)
(By Frank Bajak, Associated Press, Mercury News, 3-6-2022, A9)
Bay Area hikes:
Exploring the hidden lakes of Mt. Tamalpais
(The serene waters of Lagunitas, Bon Tempe and Alpine lakes frame classic views of Mount Tamalpais
and forested Bolinas Ridge. Shoreline fishing for trout and bass is popular. And Mount Tam is heaven
for birdwatchers. In just under two hours of trail walking along Bon Tempe lake, we saw colorful waterfowl,
mergansers, great egret, great blue heron, red-tailed hawks, acorn and pileated woodpeckers.)
(By Ben Davidson, Mercury News, 3-6-2022, F7-F8)
* Photos:
Immersed in nature at Walnut Creek's Shell Ridge Open Space
(This is nature— the birds in the air, the frogs croaking in the growing darkness,
the tarantulas hustling in a straight line in search of love, even the taciturn California
poppies that brighten the meadows. Shell Ridge belongs to the wild things that live there
and allow humans to share the wonder. 25 wonderful photos on the trails.)
(By Joan Morris, Photos: Jose Carlos Fajardo, Mercury News, 3-6-2022, F8)
BUSINESS:
Russian cyberattacks are possible. Be prepared but not panicked.
(Even though Russia isn't likely to attack your personal devices and accounts, there are plenty
of cybercriminals attacking who are constantly attempting to separate people from their money
through cyberattacks. Don't use passwords in common dictionary; Use an authenticator app such as
Authy, Google Authenticator, or Microsoft Authenticator or LastPass Authenticator to be safer;
Check Quick-Guide on fake news at ConnectSafely.org/MediaLiteracy.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 3-4-2022, C7-C8
TRAVEL:
10 most spectacular hikes in the U.S. from Hawaii to Maine
(1. Lost Coast Trail, California;
2. Tonto Trail, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ;
3. Trans-Catalina Trail, CA;
4. Mount Katahdin, ME;
5. Kalalau Trail, Kauai, HI;
6. The Wave, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, AZ;
7. Cracker Lake, Glacier National Park, MT;
8. Mauna Loa Summit, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, HI;
9. Long’s Peak, CO;
10. The Narrows, Zion National Park, UT)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 2-27-2022, F7)
BUSINESS:
Real-time location sharing can enhance, jeopardize safety
(Snapchat is latest app to add real-time location sharing, which means you can use it
to inform friends & family of your exact location even if the app is closed. Google Maps
for both iOS and Android, Apple's Find My app and Glympse are among many apps that
enable you to share where you are. Location sharing could be dangerous if it reveals
where you are to people whom you might not want to share that with.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 2-25-2022, C7-C8)
TRAVEL:
3 Bay Area day trips: Spend a day exploring Woodside, Fairfield or the Presidio
(Visit historic Woodside Store, head for Huddart Park to hike and picnic among the groves and
glades. Trip to Thomas Fogarty Winery for vineyard tours & wine tasting. Golden Gate Bridge
looms behind several of the Presidio's buildings at the Main Post in San Francisco.)
(By Amber Turpin, Mercury News, 2-20-2022, F7-F8)
TRAVEL:
Top 10 best new attractions across the U.S. include a very Van Gogh entry
(1. SkyFly: Soar America, Pigeon Forge, TN;
2. Van Gogh Exhibition: The Immersive Experience, multiple cities;
3. Allegiant Stadium Tours, Paradise, NV;
4. The Friends Experience, multiple cities;
5. Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, New Orleans, LA;
6. Lauridsen Skatepark, Des Moines, IA;
7. Greenwood Rising, Tulsa, OK;
8. The Cloud Ladder at Kent Mountain Adventure Center, Estes Park, CO;
9. Water Works Park and Pavilion, Minneapolis, MN;
10 Roots 101 African-American Museum, Louisville, KY.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 2-20-2022, F7)
*
'Mega-rare turtle dove in Palo Alto has birders flocking from far and wide
(Native to Siberia and Japan, the bird is so rare a sight in the U.S. that
it's been designated a Code 4 "mega-rarity" by the American Birding Association.
Until now, it's only been spotted in California twice. Dotty Robbins, booked
flight from Gainesville, Florida, to see this rare bird, that flew across the
Pacific and land in biologist Andrew Bradshaw's backyard in Palo Alto.)
(By Zach Savitsky, Mercury News, 2-12-2022, A1, A5)
OP-ED:
Khanna offers vision for making tech work for 'all of us'
(Rep. Ro Khanna's new book, "Dignity
in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us",
offers a path for how the innovation economy can create opportunities and enrich the lives
of workers across the country. Cites Intel's decision to build largest silicon manufacturing
location in New Albany, Ohio, for $20 billion, to spread the wealth across the country.)
(By Ed Clendaniel, Mercury News, 2-9-2022, A6)
* Four
spectacular Bay Area waterfall hike
(These 4 Bay Area hikes visit seasonal cascades & waterfalls in Oakland, Walnut Creek,
Morgan Hill and Los Altos Hills with ideas for warm-your-heart bites nearby—.
1. Leona Heights Park, Oakland (4444 Mountain Blvd);
2. Uvas Canyon County Park, Morgan Hill (8515 Croy Road);
3. Diablo Foothills Regional Park, Walnut Creek (1700 Castle Rock Road);
4. Hidden Villa, Los Altos Hill (26870 Moody Road).
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercury News, 2-6-2022, F7-F8)
Tripadvisor's
10 hottest World destinations in 2022
(1. Majorca, Spain;
2. Cairo, Egypt;
3. Rhodes, Greece;
4. Tulum, Mexico;
5. Dubrovnik, Croatia;
6. Ibiza, Spain;
7. Natal, Brazil;
8. Arusha, Tanzania;
9. Goreme, Turkey;
10. Santorini, Greece)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 2-6-2022, F7)
* OP-ED:
The great truth doctoring has taught me about death
(Doctors face one of their biggest challenges when they must
tell a patient that they are dying.
This is a moment for stillness and silence.
And yet, there is need for shared presence— really
being there with and for each other— at a moment
of loss can sanctify sorrow. Some alchemy
can wring from
the stone of shared suffering something like love.)
(By Tyler Johnson, Mercury News, 2-3-2022, A6)
Celebrate
Lunar New Year with a tour of Chinatown's murals
(San Francisco neighborhood's public art tells stories about identity, history & healing.
1. Grant Avenue & Sacramento: mural of pagodas, firecrackers & lion dancers;
2. Mural of San Francisco native Bruce Lee adorns a wall on Commercial Street;
3. Clay Street: colorful mural of dragon & phoenix attacking Statue of Liberty;
4. Commercial & Grant: tiger-dragon chimera sailing over a bed of lotus flowers;
5. Zodiac mural on Jack Kerouac Alley: made up of hundreds of Chinese red envelopes;
6. Dragons Gate mural looms over a pedestrian walking on Trenton Street;
7. Ping Yuen mural on Stockton Street in San Francisco's Chinatown.)
(By John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 1-30-2022, F7-F8)
NY Times'
52 places to go in 2022 include two in Bay Area
(The two California destinations are: Great Highway in San Francisco &
Santa Cruz County's
Big Basin & Henry Cowell state parks whose redwood
forests survived wildfires of 2020;
The other U.S. destinations are:
1. Hoonah, Alaska;
2. Saguaro National Park, Arizona;
3. Estes Park, Colorado;
4. Sarasota, Florida;
5. Humboldt, Kansas;
6. Little Calumet River,
Chicago, Illinois;
7. Cobscook Shores, Maine;
8. Queens, New York;
9. Cleveland, Ohio;
10. Bronzeville, Milwaukee, WI;
Times' 2021 list had one CA destination, Santa Rosa.)
(By Bay Area News Group, Mercury News, 1-30-2022, F7)
Willow Biden is latest pet at White House
(President Joe Biden added a green-eyed tabby from Pennsylvania to the White House,
first feline tenant since President George W. Bush's controversially named cat India.
William H. Taft had two prize cows: Mooly Wooly and Pauline. They grazed on
the White House lawn and provided the home's milk and butter.)
(By Leanne Italie, AP, Mercury News, 1-29-2022, A2)
Palo Alto's
much-loved Barron Park Donkeys have a new benefactor
(Palo Alto Humane Society has taken over the fiscal responsibility for the donkeys Perry & Buddy;
Donkeys' history goes back to the 1930s— Mickey, Perry, Niner, Jenny, Buddy.
Barron Park Donkeys.)
(By Joan Morris, Mercury News, 1-27-2022, B1-B2)
SCIENCE:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power
[With 192 lasers and temperatures (100 million degrees) more than three times hotter than the
center of the sun, scientists hit— at least for a fraction of a second— a key milestone
on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy. Ultimate goal, still years away,
is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by smooshing hydrogen atoms so close to
each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.]
(By Seth Borenstein, AP, Mercury News, 1-27-2022, C9-C10)
Meat Loaf, '
Bat Out Of Hell' singer, has died at 74
(The singer's real name is Marvin Lee Aday, was born in Dallas. Meat Loaf appeared in several TV shows
and films, including cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "Fight Club" and "Wayne's World.")
(By CNN.com Wire Service, Mercury News, 1-21-2022)
BUSINESS:
What is the Metaverse and how do you get there?
(The company formerly known as Facebook is so committed to the idea, that it's renamed itself
"Meta" to symbolize its deep dive into this new online world. Term dates back to 1992 science
fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which, among other things, featured virtual
real estate. Metaverse stands for virtual and augmented reality. Since 2003, Second Life has allowed
users to create avatars to play games, conduct business, and even buy and sell virtual real estate.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 1-21-2022, C7-C8)
BAY AREA: Like a Big Pizza Pie (Wolf Moon)
(A waxing gibbous moon is high in the sky as a child walks down
a flight of stairs while visiting Fort Baker on Saturday in Sausalito.)
(Photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Mercury News, 1-17-2022, B1)
Don't
miss the wolf moon light up the sky this week
(Full Moon will peak at 6:51 p.m. ET or 11:51 p.m. GMT. To catch a glimpse of the moon,
look above the horizon in the east-northeastern direction. Bright star near the full moon
is Pollux, a star that's part of Gemini constellation. Farmers' Almanac Full Moons)
(By Megan Marples & Ashley Strickland, CNN, Mercury News, 1-17-2022)
* Catch
the annual Monarch butterfly migration in Pacific Grove right now
(This year, Monarch butterfly count found 200,000 butterflies, up from just 30,000
last year, a record low. Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, where some 13,000
butterflies spend the winter, huddling together on pine, cypress and eucalyptus trees.)
(By Karen D'Souza, Mercury News, 1-16-2022, F7-F8)
* 6
top spots to see butterflies in the U.S.
(1. Monarch Sanctuary, Pacific Grove;
2. Butterfly Pavilion, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.;
3. Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center, Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia;
4. Tropical
Butterfly House, Pacific Science Center, Seattle, Washington;
5. National Butterfly Center,
Mission, Texas;
6. Magic Wings Butterfly House, Museum of Life & Science, Durham, NC.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 1-16-2022, F7)
Crows
everywhere, and Sunnyvale's going to do something about it
(Humane Society recommends lasers, pyrotechnics and hanging effigies of dead crows;
Worker will point a $20 handheld laser at the crows, hoping to scare them away.)
(By Grace Hase, Mercury News, 1-12-2022, A1, A5)
Why
Warriors fans love Klay Thompson (and why his return will bring tears)
(Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson will play for the first time since June, 2019
on Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers; On Jan. 23, 2015, en route to a career-best
52 points, Thompson delivered the greatest quarter of basketball in NBA history, scoring
37 points by hitting all 13 of his shots including nine in a row from beyond the 3-point arc.)
(By Kerry Crowley, Mercury News, 1-9-2022, A1, A8)
World's
10 most beautiful places to watch the sunrise or sunset
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 1-9-2022, F7);
Luxury Travel Expert—
1. Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia;
2. Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia;
3. Haleakala National Park, Hawaii;
4. Santorini, Greece;
5. Cape Town, South Africa;
6. Machu Picchu, Peru;
7. Grand Canyon
National Park, Arizona;
8. Angkor Wat;
9. The Maldives;
10. Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia
Christian
world marks Epiphany with series of celebrations
(Pilgrims jump to catch the cross during a water blessing ceremony marking
the Epiphany celebrations at Piraeus port, near Athens, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.)
(By Frances D'Emilio & Mehmet Guzel, AP, Mercury News, 1-7-2022, A2)
Director Peter Bogdanovich dies at 82; made 'Last Picture Show', 'Paper Moon'
[Considered part of a generation of young "New Hollywood" directors, Bogdanovich
was heralded as an auteur from the start, with the chilling lone shooter film "Targets"
and soon after "The Last Picture Show", from 1971, his evocative portrait of a small,
dying town that earned 8 Oscar nominations, won two (for Ben Johnson and
Cloris Leachman) and catapulted him to stardom at the age of 32.]
(By Lindsey Bahr & Jake Coyle, AP, Mercury News, 1-7-2022, A2)
Jan. 6
insurrection a dress rehearsal for something far worse
(Gangsters of democracy love braying of the fascist, reasoning of the mob and the justice
of fists and force; They don't love America. They love an America that does not exist.)
(By Leonard Pitts, Mercury News, 1-6-2022, A7)
7
new California attractions to visit in 2022
(Presidio Tunnel Tops, Golden Gate National Recreation Area; Monterey Bay Aquarium;
Comic-Con Museum, San Diego; Comic-Con Museum, San Diego; Sesame Place, San Diego;
Ferrari Build, LEGOLAND California Resort; Redwood SkyWalk, Eureka)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 1-2-2022, F7-F8)
Insider's
top U.S. destinations for 2022 include four California hot spots
(1. Orlando, Florida;
2. Las Vegas, Nevada;
3. San Diego;
4. Nashville, Tennessee;
5. Houston, Texas;
6. New Orleans, Louisiana;
7. Maui, Hawaii;
8. NYC;
9. Los Angeles;
10. Charleston, South Carolina)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 1-2-2022, F7)
Amy Schneider,
Oakland 'Jeopardy' champion, breaking records and winning hearts
(With her 23rd straight victory on Friday, the Ohio native has earned $855,600,
the fourth-highest total garnered during the show's regular-season play. She ranks
behind only Ken Jennings, Matt Amodio & James Holzhauer for the longest winning
streaks in the show's history. But Schneider, 42, is winning fans for many more
reasons, from her active, engaging Twitter feed to being a transgender woman.)
(By Martha Ross, Mercury News, 1-1-2022, A1, A6)
A
final farewell: Notable Bay Area residents who died in 2021
(Don Sutton 75, George Schulz 100, Lawrence Ferlinghetti 101,
Mort Sahl 94, Joan Didion 85, Wayne Thiebaud 101, John Madden 85.)
(By Bay Area News Group, Mercury News, 1-1-2022, B1-B2)
* OP-ED:
The genesis of New Year's Eve countdowns might surprise you
(It was not until seconds before the arrival of 1979 that a Times Square crowd counted down to
the new year; Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which debuted in 1970s to welcome, featured
confected countdowns staged on its dance party set; In 1957,
Ben Grauer countdown on radio.)
(By Alexis McCrossen, Mercury News, 12-29-2021, A6)
John Madden,
Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster, dies at 85
(Known for his comic-book lexicon— Boom! Whap! Doink!— Madden parlayed his success as
Raiders coach into a distinguished broadcasting career & became face of the biggest-selling sports
video game "Madden NFL Football" of all time; Won 1977 Super Bowl XI & 16 TV Emmy Awards.)
(By Daniel Brown, Mercury News, 12-29-2021, A1, A5)
John Madden
meant so much to football, his family, and me
(John Madden's death Tuesday at age 85 hits so close to home for so many who loved his passion
for football and life. He oozed common sense more than anyone I've ever met. A Pro Football
Hall of Fame inductee. A Super Bowl-winning coach with the Raiders. A family patriarch who
left his award-filled broadcasting career to spend more time with his grandchildren.)
(By Cam Inman, Mercury News, 12-29-2021, C1, C3)
John Madden's
death draws outpouring of love and memories from sports world
("Few approached life with the joy of legendary football coach & broadcaster John Madden.
A colleague at CBS, he was a gentleman with a boisterous sense of humor. On the sidelines
& in the booth, this voluble mountain of energy was a trailblazer. A golden era ends with
his passing." —Dan Rather, former CBS colleague. "A coaching and broadcasting legend and
loved by all. You will be missed. RIP John Madden" —Jerry Rice, Pro Football Hall of Fame
wide receiver and former 49ers' and Raiders' star.)
(By Cam Inman & Jerry McDonald Mercury News, 12-29-2021, C1, C3)
* Desmond Tutu,
South Africa's moral conscience, dies at 90
(South Africa's 1984 Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, an uncompromising foe of apartheid
and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. Enjoyed
Video on Oct. 16 "Mission Joy" of Archbishop Tutu friendship with the Dalai Lama.)
(By Andrew Meldrum, Associated Press, Mercury News, 12-27-2021, A4)
4
Bay Area hikes for the New Year— with pre-hike bagel options
(Berkeley Rose Garden and Staircase Hike, Berkeley Hills;
Flag Hill-Indian Joe Creek Loop, Sunol;
Mayfair Ranch-Longwall Canyon Loop, Morgan Hill;
Los Trancos Loop, Los Altos Hills)
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercury News, 12-26-2021, F7-F8)
World's
50 best winter road trips include two California treasures
(1. Icefields Parkway, Canada;
2. Parke County, Indiana Covered Bridge Tour, USA;
3. Great Smoky National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee;
4. Bow Valley Parkway, Canada;
5. Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia;
6. Yosemite National Park, California;
7. Taos Scenic Byway, New Mexico;
8. The Grand Loop Road, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming;
9. Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada;
10. Highway 240, South Dakota;
11. Route 100, Vermont;
12. Arches National Park, Utah;
All 50 Road Trips)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 12-26-2021, F8)
* Northern
California native Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87
(Along with Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Gay Talese, Didion reigned in the pantheon of
"New Journalists" who emerged in the 1960s and wedded literary style to nonfiction reporting.)
(By Colleen Long, Associated Press, Mercury News, 12-24-2021, A5)
Steph Curry
is the new 3-point king: His trainer explains how he's getting stronger at age 33
(Brandon Payne worked with Curry since 2011, his rookie season, says Warriors star Curry worked
this offseason on precision in shooting and has focused on becoming more physically powerful.)
(By Evan Webeck, Mercury News, 12-17-2021, C1, C3)
Those
Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation.
(A mainstay of the internet is regularly used to build audiences for people and organizations pushing
false and misleading information. Epoch Media, parent company of The Epoch Times. published
videos of cute animals in 12,062 posts on its 103 Facebook pages in the past year,
racked up nearly
four billion views. Facebook took down several hundred Epoch Media-affiliated accounts last year.)
(By Davey Alba, NY Times, Mercury News, 12-13-2021, C10)
Lowe's
CEO addresses race, inflation and vaccine mandates
(At 55, Ellison stands out as one of only three Black Fortune 500 CEOs. He personally knows about
racism. He grew up in segregated rural Tennessee. His father was a sharecropper-turned-insurance
salesman and his mother was one of the first in their family to graduate from high school.)
(By Anne D'innocenzio, Mercury News, 12-13-2021, C10)
The cost of 'Freedom'
(A 1964 ballot proposition backed by realtors made freedom a conservative catch-all.
Gene Slater's 5-stars book "Freedom
to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing
and Divide America"
explains that realtors discriminated agains black, Asian and Hispanic families.)
(By Louis Hansen, Mercury News, 12-12-2021, E1, E3)
Ali grandson to box as fights back at Madison Square Garden
[Ali Walsh (2-0, 2 KOs) fights against Reyes Sanchez (6-0) during the first big boxing card back
at Madison Square Garden. It is headlined by Vasiliy Lomachenko's
lightweight bout against Richard Comm. He won.]
(By Brian Mahoney, Mercury News, 12-11-2021, C5)
New Movies:
Steven Spielberg's new "West Side Story" mostly gets it right
[Spielberg & screenwriter Tony Kushner's grittier take on Sondheim/Bernstein/Laurents/Robbins
original soars to incredible heights. His staging of Justin Peck's dance numbers are breathtaking
and flawless. And a the magical cast delivers the razzle-dazzle— and then some— particularly
the ethereal Rachel Zegler as angelic Maria, the sassy Ariana DeBose as feisty Anita and David
Alvarez as hot-tempered Bernardo, foe of Tony (Ansel Elgort). The sunburst costumes are divine.]
(By Randy Myers, Mercury News, 12-9-2021, G6)
BASEBALL:
O'Neil, Miñoso, Hodges, Kaat, Oliva, Fowler get baseball HOF
(Gil Hodges became latest Brooklyn Dodgers star from pennant-winning "Boys of Summer"
to reach the Hall, joining Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella and Pee Wee Reese.
An eight-time All-Star with 370 home runs and a three-time Gold Glover at first base,
Hodges enhanced his legacy when he managed 1969 "Miracle Mets" to the World Series
championship, a startling five-game win over heavily favored Baltimore Orioles.)
(By Ben Walker, AP, Mercury News, 12-6-2021, C2)
* "14 best & brightest Bay Area displays"
1. Deacon Dave's world-famous display (Livermore);
2. Christmas in Park, San Jose (194 South Market St)
3. Alex Dourov's Knottingham Circle (67 Knottingham Circle, Livermore);
4. Oakland Zoolights "Glowfari" (9777 Golf Links Rd);
5. Historic estate lights in Woodside (86 Cañada Road);
6. Picardy Drive's Storybook Christmas
(off Seminary Ave near Mills College);
7. Crippsmas Place (Nicolet Avenue, Cripps Place, Fremont);
8. Lights in the Cacti in Walnut Creek (1552 Bancroft Rd);
9. History Park's Heritage Holiday Light Show;
(south end of Kelley Park, San Jose);
10. J.R. Mattos's new, amazing home show
(17271 James Lex Lane, Morgan Hill);
11. Widmer World, Pleasanton (3671 Chelsea Court);
12. Los Gatos Fantasy of Lights
(Vasona Lake County Park);
13. Christmas Tree Lane, Alameda (3200 Thomson Ave);
14. Friday "Nights of Lights" Half Moon Bay (Main Street)
(By Martha Ross, Mercury News, 12-5-2021, F7-F8)
"Fodor's GO list for 2022 includes three California destinations"
Here are the West Coast finds— in alphabetical order.
Check out the full GO list at www.fodors.com/go-list/2022
1. Bend, Oregon;
2. Big Sky, Montana;
3. Burning Man,
Black Rock City, Nevada;
4. Craters of the Moon, Idaho;
5. Crested Butte, Colorado;
6. Estes Park, Colorado;
7. Leavenworth, Washington;
8. Long Beach, California;
9. Mono Lake, California;
10. New Cuyama, California;
11. Walla Walla, Washington.
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 12-5-2020, F7)
Sheriff's
Office warns: 'Tis the season... for mail theft
(Crooks want to know your information. Want to open up credit card accounts
in your name. Go on a free shopping spree at your expense.” The trend involves
using a master key to open clusters of boxes at multi-unit complexes.)
(By Megan V. Winslow, Los Altos Town Crier, 11-30-2021)
Bay
Area Outdoors: Four great Bay Trail hikes for birdwatching
(Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline;
Hayward Regional Shoreline;
Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge;
Shoreline at Mountain View)
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercury News, 11-28-2021, F7-F8)
* Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim dies at 91
(Famed composer and lyricist was best known for work on the musicals 'Sweeney Todd',
'West Side Story' and 'Into the Woods'. Six of Sondheim's musicals won Tony Awards for
best score, and he also received a Pulitzer Prize ("Sunday in the Park"), an Academy Award
(for the song "Sooner or Later" from the film "Dick Tracy"), five Olivier Awards and the 2015
Presidential Medal of Honor. In 2008, he received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement.)
(By Bruce Weber, NY Times, Mercury News, 11-27-2021, A1, A6)
Bay
Area Outdoors: A Point Reyes day trip blends beach time, delicious fare
(Point Reyes delivered, as this gorgeous stretch of coastline always does, its roads winding
through the rugged landscape, the sea glinting in the distance. A walk through the Cypress Tunnel
at National Seashore takes you from the main road to a historic maritime radio station built in 1929.)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 11-21-2021, F7-F8)
* Fodor's
USA Bucket List: 12 must-see natural wonders
(Oregon's magnificent 1,943-foot-deep Crater Lake is included on the list of top
natural attractions, along with Tall Trees Grove at Redwood National Park
in Northern California & Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island.)
1. Crater lake, Oregon;
2. Niagara Falls, New York & Canada;
3. Black Hills, South Dakota;
4. Natural Bridge, Virginia;
5. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky;
6. Hells Canyon, Oregon & Idaho;
7. Tall Trees Grove, Redwood National Park, California;
8. Kilauea, Hawaii;
9. Denali, Alaska;
10. Bagley Icefield, Alaska;
11. White Sands, New Mexico;
12. The Everglades, Florida)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 11-21-2021, F7)
Is the remote work revolution here to stay in the Bay Area?.
[Workers say the major benefits of working remotely are less commuting (80%), safety from
the virus (63%), more flexibility in choosing when to work (59%), and the overall comfort
of staying home (55%). Nearly half said they are more productive away from the office.]
(By Louis Hansen, Mercury News, 11-14-2021, A7)
OP-ED:
The awesome importance of imagination in today's world
(Society isn't good at cultivating the faculty that we may need the most. This is van Gogh
painting starry nights and Einstein imagining himself riding alongside a light beam.)
(By David Brooks, Mercury News, 11-14-2021, A19)
BUSINESS:
Computing almost back to amainframe model
(Even though I'm accessing it from my home PC, the actual processing and data storage is taking
place somewhere else. Like that terminal I used back in the late '70s, my PC is functioning as
an input/output device. The processing and data storage is taking place somewhere else.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 11-12-2021, C7-C8)
Dean Stockwell dies; actor in 'Quantum Leap', 'Blue Velvet'
(Recall seeing Stockwell in 1960 film "Sons and Lovers" based on D.H. Lawrence's
novel.)
(By Associated Press, Mercury News, 11-10-2021, A7)
OP-ED: What 'structural racism' really means in America
(Reread Oliver Cromwell Cox's 1948 book "Caste, Class, and Race:
A Study in Social Dynamics";
Racism survives because it is inscribed and reinscribed by the relationships and dynamics that
structure our society, from segregation and exclusion to inequality and degradation of labor.)
(By Jamelle Bouie, NY Times, Mercury News, 11-10-2021, A9)
SPORTS: 28 things about SF Giants' Buster Posey
(Looking at Buster Posey's SF Giants career from the number on his back.
14: Number of shutouts he caught in the playoffs, a MLB record that might
never be broken. No. 2 on the list is the Cardinals' Yadier Molina with 8.)
(By Laurence Miedema, Mercury News, 11-7-2021, C2)
How
one Gilroy artist expanded his business and helped his community during the pandemic
(Nacho Moya's virtual painting classes connected people amid the isolation of COVID-19;
I teach kids with positive words "Relax, don't stress. Do your best." They see me happy.)
(By Emily DeRuy, Mercury News, 11-7-2021, E1, E3)
Experience Serengeti charms at Santa Rosa's Safari West
(400 acres filled with 90 species of wild animals from cheetahs to wildebeest.
Feeding acacia leaves to giraffes is a pure delight)
(By Karen D'Souza, Mercury News, 11-7-2021, F7-F8)
* National Parks: The 10 oldest parks in the U.S. are nearly all in the West
(World Atlas:
Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone's northern entrance, and you'll see
the original proclamation: "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.")
1. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (1872);
2. Sequoia National Park, CA (1890);
3. Yosemite National Park, CA (1890);
4. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington (1899);
5. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (1902);
6. Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota (1903);
7. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado (1906);
8. Glacier National Park, Montana (1910);
9. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (1915);
10. Haleakala National Park, Hawaii (1916)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 11-7-2021, F7)
Buster Posey is a Hall of Famer— there's no question about it
(Buster Posey had 1500 hits. He caught 1093 games with career OPS-plus of 129,
only catchers matching that were Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, & Mike Piazza.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 11-6-2021, C1, C3)
Buster Posey: A True Giant of the Game
(Buster Posey's retirement speech was all class. Welcomed Muslim Farhan Zaidi from Dodgers as his boss.
Posey was the best of the best. Not only was he a great player, he led off the diamond as well.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 11-5-2021, A1, A6)
Buster Posey was magic and the SF Giants and their fans can't thank him enough
(Buster Posey retirement: SF Giants' catcher was a true talisman and turned a nice organization into
a magical juggernaut. He led Giants to 3 world titles; Career .304 batting, 1500 hits, 158 homers, 729 RBI)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 11-4-2021, A1, A5)
* Monarchs flourish in rare Bay Area butterfly breeding boom
(For the first time, breeding monarchs found at Google and Peninsula neighborhoods;
so far about 10,000 hibernating butterflies have been counted on the coast,
a five-fold increase over last year's Thanksgiving count, with more on the way.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, 11-1-2021)
Into
the realm of the super-rich: Oakland author reports from the gilded edge
(Writer Michael Mechanic's book "Jackpot" on wealth inequality, and how to fix it.)
(By Ethan Baron, Mercury News, 10-31-2021, E1, E3)
* Shrine to Cinema
(10 cool things you'll see at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles—
Dorothy's ruby slippers, Rosebud sled, Shark from "Jaws", E.T., C-3PO & R2-D2 from "Star Wars".)
(By Richard Guzman, Mercury News, 10-31-2021, F7-F8)
* CN Traveler's 10 best big cities in the world
(Conde Nast Traveler released its 2021 Readers Choice Awards, bestowing kudos on cities, countries,
islands, resorts and hotels (Carmel Valley's Bernardus Lodge! Menlo Park's Rosewood Sand Hill!).
Awards are based on an annual reader survey, with more than 800,000 readers weighing in.
Top 10)
1. Tokyo, Japan;
2. Osaka, Japan;
3. Kyoto, Japan;
4. Singapore;
5. Istanbul, Turkey;
6. Mérida, Mexico;
7. Marrakech, Morocco;
8. Porto, Portugal;
9. Bangkok, Thailand;
10. Seoul, South Korea
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 10-31-2021, F7)
Don't make plans to visit the Stanford Theatre anytime soon
(The Stanford Theatre, which has been the go-to place for classic films for decades,
has been closed since March 2020 and is not expected to reopen until summer 2022
due to major renovaion to ventilation system & seismic upgrades to the building.)
(By Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 10-29-2021, B1-B2)
SOCIAL MEDIA:
People or profit? Facebook Papers show deep conflict within
(Thousands of pages of internal documents provided to Congress depict an internally conflicted
company where data on the harms it causes is abundant, but the will to act on them, are halting.
Young kids see Facebook as a place for old people, and going to TikTok and Snapchat.)
(By Barbaa Ortutay, Associated Press, Mercury News, 10-26-2021, A3)
SPORTS:
There's nothing in sports like a Steph Curry flurry
(He went 9-of-9 from the floor, 5-of-5 from distance, 25 points, and a plus-17 in the
opening frame. Curry ended the game with 115-113 win over Clippers &
45 points.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 10-23-2021, C1, C3)
BUSINESS:
Avoiding 'Zoom fatigue'
(One of the advantages to working at home is that you can take breaks throughout the day;
Jeremy Bailenson: "Zoom fatigue can result from excessive amounts of close-up eye gaze,
cognitive load, increased self-evaluation from staring at video of oneself, & constraints
on physical mobility." Observe "20-20-20 rule" taking a 20 second break every 20 minutes
by focusing on an object 20 feet away. Use smartphone to have Zoom outdoors in fresh air.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 10-22-2021, C7-C8)
* 5
Ways to Get Back to Nature
(The Bay Area's parks and nature preserves make exploring the outdoors moe tempting
than ever. Here are five possibilities to get you started—
1. Baylands Nature Preserve, Palo Alto;
2. Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, Oakland;
3. Big Break Regional Shoreline, Oakley;
4. Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley;
5. Ulistac Natural Area, Santa Clara.)
(By Joan Morris, Mercuty News, 10-17-2021, F7-F8)
*
Fodor's ranked the nation's top river walks, including this California hot spot
(Fodor's 10 top picks ranged from the sleek skyscraper-lined Chicago Riverwalk to Reno's Riverwalk
District. And Napa's Riverfront (No. 14), where you can sip a Napa cab, watch for egrets and imagine
you've been transported to Italy, Venetian gondolas and all.—
1. Breckenridge's Riverwalk, Colorado;
2. Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon;
3. Chicago Riverwalk, Illinois;
4. San Antonio River Walk, Texas;
5. Riverwalk District, Reno, Nevada;
6. Tennessee Riverwalk, Chattanooga, Tennessee;
7. Tampa Riverwalk, Tampa Bay, Florida;
8. Riverfront Wilmington, Delaware;
9. Greenville's Riverwalk, South Carolina;
10. Detroit Riverwalk, Michigan;
14. Napa's Riverfront, Napa)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 10-17-2021, F7)
NASA's asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky with diamonds
[A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds 10/16 on a 12-year quest to explore
8 asteroids. Lucy is named after the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor found in
Ethiopia in 1974. The 1967 Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (LSD?)
prompted NASA
to send the spacecraft soaring with band members' lyrics and a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for
one of its science instruments. Despite their use of LSD, Paul McCartney says "It's not an acid song."
Lucy's $981 million mission is the first to aim for Jupiter's Trojan entourage: thousands of asteroids.]
(By Marcia Dunn, Associated Press, Mercury News, 10-17-2021, A15)
OP-ED:
Is America becoming Rome versus Byzantium?
(In A.D. 286 Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire under control of two emperors.
A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe & northwest Africa. Eastern half controlled
Eastern Europe, parts of Asia & northeastern Africa. By 330 Emperor Constantine moved empire's capital
from Rome to Constantinople, founded on site of old Greek polis of Byzantium. Western empire collapsed
into chaos by late 5th century A.D. Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly 1,000 years. It was soon
known as the Byzantine Empire. Much talk of a new American red state/blue state split— and even wild
threats of another Civil War. Foreigners see blue coastal Americans as more vibrant culture, with wealth
on technology, finance, media. They see the red interior— with same population as blue America but
with vastly greater area— is the more pragmatic, and home to food, fuels, ores and material production.
But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than
it is that either region would ever start a civil war.)
(By Victor Davis Hanson, Mercury News, 10-15-2021, A7)
Social
media risks and solutions can be nuanced
(We need to put context around these issues and always consider the bigger picture. Trump removed
from Twitter & Facebook for alleged dangerous speech promoting Jan. 6 violence at Capitol Building.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 10-15-2021, C7-C8)
* Lonely Planet's top 20 U.S. sights include 4 California landmarks
(Four of the top 20 destinations are in our own backyard, with Yosemite National Park
clocking in at No. 2 and Joshua Tree National Park at No. 11. The Bay Area is represented
by the iconic Golden Gate Bridge at No. 14 and Muir Woods at No. 16.
1. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona;
2. Yosemite National Park, California;
3. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming;
4. The MET, New York;
5. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah;
6. Ellis Island, New York;
7. Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii;
8. National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington DC;
9. Denali National Park, Alaska;
10. Na Pali Coast State Wilderness Park, Hawaii;
11. Joshua Tree National Park, California;
12. Civil Rights Museum, Tennessee;
13. Central Park, New York;
14. Golden Gate Bridge, California;
15. White Sands National Park, New Mexico;
16. Muir Woods, California;
17. Crater Lake, Oregon;
18. Freedom Trail, Massachusetts;
19. Glacier National Park, Montana;
20. 9/11 Memorial & Museum, New York)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 10-10-2021, F7)
We're
Smarter About Facebook Now
(Frances Haugen's caution about Facebook's harm is like Jeff Wigand's warning about tobacco.)
(By Shira Ovide, NY Times, Mercury News, 10-8-2021, C7-C8)
New
law will make it easier to cancel online subscriptions
(Tricking people into paying for something they don't want shouldn't be a business model.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 10-8-2021, C7-C8)
MOVIES:
Daniel Craig gets worthy send-off in 'No Time to Die'
(Daniel Craig's fifth and final mission as Ian Fleming's super suave/sexy 007 is one of the actor's
best in the series: Pressed back into service, he deals with global & personal threats in this film.)
(By Randy Myers, Mercury News, 10-7-2021, G6)
MOVIES:
'No Time to Die' rewards diehard 007 fans with Easter eggs galore
(Daniel Craig's last James Bond film is packed with Easter eggs for eagle-eyed 007 fans;
Famous gun-barrel sequence that traditionally opens Bond films makes a welcome reappearance.)
(By Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 10-7-2021, G7)
Lee Quarnstrom,
Mercury News columnist, Merry Prankster, dies at 81
(Colorful newspaperman, friend of Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, chronicled 1950s Chicago to
Santa Cruz earthquake; becoming friends with Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and the Grateful Dead
as the Beat Generation gave way to the psychedelic age.)
(By Paul Rogers, Mercury News, 10-4-2021, B1-B2)
Like
fictional killer robots, even well-intentioned algorithms can do harm
(Robots with artificial-intelligence-driven algorithms become monsters that unleash horrors not fully
intended by the humans who programmed them. Algorithms are a big part of the problem, but unlike
fictitious killer robots, they remain under control of humans who must be held accountable for their impact.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 10-1-2021, C7-C8)
How
SF Giants' stars Belt, Crawford and Posey rewrote records, beat odds and led stunning revival
(SF Giants stars Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt are trying to win their third
World Series as teammates. Belt's 29 home runs; Crawford's 24 homers; Posey's 18 homers)
(By Kerry Crowley, Mercury News, 10-1-2021, A1, A5)
* "Descending into the depths and brightness of
van Gogh"
("Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience"
relay anything but darkness. San Jose show
more satisfying than its SF counterpart,
in making a priority to put the artist's work in perspective.)
(By Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 9-29-2021, A1, A5)
* 4 epic
coastal hikes mix sea views, tasty bites
(Old Cove Landing Loop, Wilder Ranch State Park;
Lands End and Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park;
Franklin Point, Año Nuevo State Park;
Pillar Point to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Pillar Point Bluff)
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercuty News, 9-26-2021, F7-8)
* 10
most beautiful and eccentric gardens around the world
(1. Las Pozas, Xilitla, Mexico;
2. Dubai Miracle Garden, Dubai;
3. Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries, Scotland;
4. Torre Guinigi, Lucca, Italy;
5. Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden, Pattaya, Thailand;
6. Salesforce Rooftop Park, San Francisco;
7. Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall, England;
8. Pinocchio Park, Collodi, Italy;
9. Forestiere Underground Gardens, Fresno, CA;
10. Butterfly Garden,
Changi, Singapore)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercuty News, 9-26-2021, F7)
The Battle for Digital Privacy Is Reshaping the Internet
(As Apple and Google enact privacy changes, businesses are grappling with the fallout,
Madison Avenue is fighting back and Facebook has cried foul. Google outlined plans
to disable a tracking technology in its Chrome web browser.)
(By Brian X. Chen, NY Times, Mercury News, 9-17-2021, C7-C8)
Protecting mental health on Instagram
(Wall Street Journal article
revealed internal Facebook documents proclaiming
that "Instagram is toxic for teen girls." Online interactions can take an emotional toll—
especially if you fall into the habit of negatively comparing yourself with others.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 9-17-2021, C7-C8)
4 spectacular Bay Area public gardens to explore close to home
(1. Four-block long Salesforce Rooftop Park in San Francisco;
2. Gamble Garden in Palo Alto;
3. Flower Piano at Golden Gate Park;
4. Botanical garden in the Berkeley hills)
(By Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 9-12-2021, F7-F8)
ENERGY: Startup seeks breakthrough in power from nuclear fusion
(Researchers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and engineers at the company,
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, have begun testing an extremely powerful magnet
that is needed to generate immense heat that can then be converted to electricity.
It would open the gates toward what they believe could eventually be a fusion reactor.)
(By John Markoff, NY Times, Mercury News, 9-6-2021, C7-C8)
Oakland podcast startup aims to stay atop field after pandemic boost
(Rockwell Felder, SquadCast founder saw revenues grow tenfold over pandemic)
(By John Woolfolk, Mercury News, 9-5-2021, E1-E2)
Seniors flocking to TikTok
(ConnectSafely.org/Seniors; Teens make up about a quarter of TikTok's estimated
100 million active users in the U.S., 64% are between 20-55 and 11% are over 50.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 9-2-2021, C7-C8)
Appreciation:
Michael Morgan redefined what a 'classical' concert is all about
(Popular Oakland conductor brought new styles to orchestra concerts; One eclectic Morgan
program featured music by Stravinsky & Ravel, with encores by Stevie Wonder & Prince.)
(By Georgia Rowe, Mercury News, 8-26-2021, G8)
MUSIC:
Don Everly of early rock 'n' roll Everly Brothers dies at 84
(In the late 1950s and 1960s, the duo of Don & Phil drew upon their rural roots
with their strummed guitars and high, yearning harmonies. Their 19 top 40 hits
included "Bye Bye Love", "Let It Be Me", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and
"Wake Up Little Susie", influenced the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.)
(By Kristin M. Hall, Mercury News, 8-22-2021)
* 7 Waterfalls
(Hawaii's Rainbow Falls, Pe'epe'e Falls, Wal'ale Falls,
Onamea & Boulder Creek Falls, 'Akaka Falls, Bridge Falls.)
(By Tom Bentley, Mercury News, 8-22-2021, F7-F8)
Sprouts Farmers Market debuts new look
(When shrinking makes sound sense in 20-store expansion.)
(By Samanta Gowen, Mercury News, 8-22-2021, E1, E3)
A Passion to Win
(White Sox manager Tony La Russa, at age 76, is back with the same old fire.
Career wins: 1. Connie Mack 3731, 2. Tony LaRussa 2796, 3. John McGraw 2763.)
(By Mark Gonzales, Mercury News, 8-16-2021, C1, C5)
How happy is America?
(Social media use is well known to correlate with symptoms of depression. Those paid
to turn off Facebook, they spent more time with humans in real life, became happier.)
(By Noah Smith, Bloomberg Opinion, Mercury News, 8-15-2021, E4)
*
MUSIC: Tony Bennett, 95, a Bay Arrea favorite, retires
(Famed crooner is a New Yorker— born Aug. 3, 1926, in Queens—
but he's also a honorary citizen of Northern California, thanks in large
part to his legendary signature song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco".)
(By Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 8-14-2021, A1, A6)
*
How comic book culture's biggest day was born in the Bay Area
(Joe Field of Flying Colors Comics in Concord, CA, started "Free Comic Book Day"
on May 4, 2002. It draws 1.5 million attendees each year to stores in 60 countries,
has generated millions of dollars in revenue for independent comic book stores.)
(By Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 8-13-2021, A1, A5)
50 years
later, these are the most influential albums of 1971
(1. "What's Going On" Marvin Gaye; 2. "Blue" Joni Mitchell; 3. "Led Zeppelin IV" Led Zeppelin;
4. "Tapestry" Carole King; 5. "Hunky Dory" David Bowie; 6. "Sticky Fingers" Rolling Stones; 7. "Coat
of Many Colors" Dolly Parton; 8. "Imagine" John Lennon; 9. "There's a Riot Goin' On" Sly & the Family
Stone; 10. "Fragile" Yes; 11. "At Fillmore East" Allman Brothers Band; 12. "John Prine" John Prine.)
(By Peter Larsen, Mercury News, 8-19-2021, G1-G2)
Bay Area Outdoors: 4 gorgeous redwoods hikes to soothe the soul
(1. UC Berkeley Botanical Garden; 2. Shoup Park to Redwood Grove Nature Preserve, Los Altos;
3. Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park, Oakland; 4. Mt. Madonna County Park, Watsonville)
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercury News, 8-1-2021, F7-F8)
TECHNOLOGY: Why it is essential to keep your operating systems up to date
("Kernel privileges" means that the hacker has the keys to your entire device,
including the basic hardware. It's like unlocking your iPhone and handing it
to hackers to do whatever they want with it and the information on it.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 7-30-2021, C9-C10)
TV pitchman Popeil dies at 86
(Ron Popeil, the quintessential TV pitchman and inventor known to generations
of viewers for hawking products including the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman,
Mr. Microphone and the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ, has died.)
(By Andrew Dalton & Ted Anthony, AP, Mercury News, 7-30-2021, B6)
BOOKS INTERVIEW: School's In for Joyce Maynard
("Count the Ways" author
Joyce Maynard, now 67, discusses
new novel, her return to Yale and her time with J.D. Salinger.)
(By Allen Pierleoni, Mercury News, 7-29-2021, G4)
BOOKS INTERVIEW: Joyce Carol Oates talks Marilyn Monroe clones
and more in 'Night, Neon' story collection
(Iconic author will be appearing on SCNG's free virtual event Bookish
Friday, July 16 at 5 pm;
I am reading Edith Wharton's Ghosts. I am more
interested in the backgrounds in Wharton
than in the "ghosts" themselves.)
(By Samantha Dunn, Mercury News, 7-22-2021, G4)
COLLECTIBLES: Pokémon card frenzy is making many rich
(Millennials discover old collection and sell cards at online retailers.
Trading card sales rose to a record 142% on eBay in 2020, faster than sports cards.)
(By Lizette Chapman, Mercury News, 7-12-2021, C7-C8)
Alleged mail thieves arrested in Aptos
(Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office recovered stolen mail, more than 70 California
ID cards, a shaved master mailbox key, credit cards, blank credit cards, a credit
card embosser, a card skimmer and an imitation firearm.)
(By Jessica A.York, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 7-9-2021)
Heat wave bakes the Bay Area as triple-digit temperatures spread
(Hottest day of year in region, with more than 6 cities setting new records— Concord 107,
Livermore 107, Gilroy 106, Santa Rosa 104, Redwood City 103, San Jose 95, Oakland 90)
(By Paul Rogers & Rick Hurd, Mercury News, 6-18-2021, A1, A7)
San Jose: $10,000 reward offered in mail theft case
(Footage of the theft, first aired by NBC Bay Area, showed a man and a woman taking
several packages from the mail truck and placing them in a white four-door car.)
(By Jason Green, Mercury News, 6-15-2021)
Video Shows Thieves Ransacking Mail Truck in San Jose
(Surveillance camera captured someone clearing out a postal truck near Evergreen community.)
(By Damian Trujillo, NBC Bay Area, 6-15-2021)
With 'In the Heights', Jon M. Chu is changing Hollywood— again
(Bay Area native Jon M. Chu may do for musicals what 'Crazy Rich Asians' did for rom-coms;
Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Broadway Latinx musical hitting big screen after a year delay.)
(By Randy Myers, Mercury News, Weekender, 6-10-2021, G1-G2)
Bay Area Hikes: 5 epic staircase hikes in San Jose, Berkeley, Mill Valley and more
(San Jose's Communications Hill was named for the 114-foot communication tower at its summit;
SF's Hidden Garden Steps has 148 steps like a waterfall; Mill Valley's 7.5-mile Dipsea
has more
than 650 steps; SF Fort Point to Historic Batteries; Berkeley Rose Garden &
Stairways Hike,
with 100 numbered paths.)
(By Melissa Ozbek, Mercury News, 5-10-2021, F7-F8)
Amy Tan explores her triumphs and trials in new PBS film
(Bay Area author the focus of director James Redford's final documentary.
The son of Robert Redford succumbed to liver cancer last October at age 58.
Amy and her mom routinely clashed, as she was uncooperative and suicidal.)
(By Chuck Barney, Mercury News, 5-2-2021, B1, B3)
OP-ED: Bay Area must stand in solidarity against racism
(In San Jose alone, where our population is nearly 40% Latino, 35% Asian and nearly 5% Black,
we appreciate the rich cultural and ethnic diversity that is the bedrock of our society.
In a "#StopAsianHate" rally in Saratoga on March 27, hundreds attended the gathering in
support of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders communities.)
(By Carl Guardino, Mercury News, 4-30-2021)
Inside the making of 'Steph 2.0': How Warriors star Curry has become better than his MVP self
(Five years after his unanimous NBA MVP season, Steph Curry is putting up best numbers of his career.
His 31.2 points per game average leads NBA and includes a recent streak in which he broke 30 points
in 11 consecutive games. His six games with 10 or more 3-pointers are more than rest of the league's
players combined and more than any player has had in a career. In the first 10 games of April, Curry
averaged 40.8 points per game, the most he's scored over such a span in his career. With 47 points in
Boston and 49 in Philadelphia, Curry became first player his age to post back-to-back 45-point games
since Michael Jordan 20 years ago.)
(By Wes Goldberg, Mercury News, 4-25-2021, A1, A8)
Hip-hop icon Gregory 'Shock G' Jacobs dies at 57
(Bay Area-based legend led Digital Underground band, mentored Tupac Shakur)
(By George Kelly, Mercury News, 4-24-2021, B1, B3)
HOCKEY: Patrick Marleau passes Gordie Howe, becomes NHL's games played leader
(San Jose Sharks forward played his 1,768th career NHL game Monday night vs. Vegas
Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena; his passing Gordie Howe's 1767 career games played)
(By Curtis Pashelka, Mercury News, 4-20-2021, C5)
'Utter amazement': Steph Curry scores 49 in win over 76ers and the Warriors have found their swagger
(Golden State Warriors beat 76ers 107-96. Curry's eighth 40-point game of the season; his 11th straight
game with 30-plus points snaps Kobe Bryant's record for a player 33 years old or older; his 46 3-pointers
over the last five games is a new NBA record; and he became the first player in league history to make
10 or more 3-pointers four times in a five-game span.)
(By Wes Goldberg, Mercury News, 4-19-2021, C1)
OP-ED: Wisdom isn't what most people think it is
(Morrie Schwartz was a Brandeis sociology professor who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
in 1995. While he was dying, he had a couple of conversations with Ted Koppel on "Nightline"
and a bunch with his former student Mitch Albom, who wrote a book, "Tuesdays With Morrie",
which sold more than 15 million copies. Wise people don't tell us what to do,
they start by witnessing our story.)
(By David Brooks, Mercury News, 4-18-2021, A13)
Adobe co-founder Charles Geschke dies at 81
(Founded Adobe in 1982 with a colleague from Xerox, John Warnock, and
served in several high-profile roles until his retirement in 2000. The duo is
credited with developing the Portable Document Format technology, or PDFs.)
(By Fiona Kelliher, Mercury News, 4-18-2021, B1, B4)
TECHNOLOGY: Tips for preventing 'ransomware' attack
(Her husband responded to a "ransomware" demand that he pay $3,000 to unlock data
on his computer that was encrypted by the hacker. Told to pay in gift cards and he
complied. Then told to provide access to his machine to the hacker so that they
could go in and give him back access. Once a hacker gets inside your PC, there is
no telling what malicious software they might have planted that could result in
further ransomware attacks or their getting access to your personal information.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 4-16-2021, C7-C8)
Almost perfect: Rodón settles for no-hitter after HBP in 9th
(Left-hander threw the second no-hitter of the young baseball season Wednesday night,
losing his bid for a perfect game on a hit batter with one out in the ninth inning,
and the Chicago White Sox cruised to an 8-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians.)
(By Jay Cohen, Mercury News, 4-15-2021, C3)
Steph Curry gets the record, passes Wilt Chamberlain, with 53-point performance
(Stephen Curry has surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as Golden State Warriors' all-time leading scorer.
Chamberlain, who last played for Warriors in 1965, finished his six-year stint with 17,783 points
and has been the franchise leader in career points scored for 56 years.)
(By Wes Golberg, Mercury News, 4-13-2021, C1, C4)
Steep decline in giant sea turtles seen off West Coast
(Leatherback sea turtles migrate 7,000 miles across Pacific Ocean to cold waters off
U.S. West Coast, where they gorged on jellyfish before swimming back. Population has
plummeted 80%; weigh half as much as a compact car and have 4-foot-long flippers)
(By Gillian Flaccus & Haven Daley, AP, Mercury News, 4-12-2021, B1-B2)
Catching No-Nos: Padres' Caratini an MLB 1st with 2nd in row
(When Joe Musgrove threw the first no-hitter for San Diego Padres in their franchise history,
Caratini became the first MLB catcher to be behind the plate for consecutive no-hitters in
the league for different teams. Caratini was on the receiving end last Sept. 13 when Alec Mills
threw one for the Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee. He was traded to the Padres in off-season.)
(By Stephen Hawkins, AP, Mercury News, 4-11-2021, C3)
Philip, defined by role of husband to British queen, dies at 99
(Known for his occasionally deeply offensive remarks— and for gamely fulfilling
more than 20,000 royal engagements to boost British interests at home and abroad.)
(By Jill Lawless & Gregory Katz, AP, Mercury News, 4-10-2021, A3)
'Calder-Picasso' exhibit enlivens reopened SF de Young Museum
["Calder-Picasso" on view through May 23, was conceived by grandsons
of the American (Calder) and Spanish (Picasso) artists. Picasso's 1942
"Bull's Head" fron bicycle seat;
Calder's "Josephine Baker" (1930)]
(By Robert Taylor, Mercury News, 4-8-2021, G1-G2)
Here's a look at egg production in the U.S. and other egg facts
(States with most hens: Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Texas; Each
laying hen produced 296 eggs per year; Eggs from Ostrich 48 oz $540/dozen,
Goose 5 oz $12/dozen, Chicken 2 oz $2.18/dozen, Quail 0.5 oz $7/dozen)
(By Kurt Snibbe, Mercury News, 4-4-2021, B15)
How a family-owned bookstore in Palo Alto has stayed open through the pandemic
(Faith Bell, owner of iconic Bell's Books in Palo Alto, 300,000 volumes to the ceiling.)
(By Aldo Toledo, Mercury News, 3-28-2021, E1, E3)
A Trump branded social network is a bad idea
(Site has potential to become a lovefest for the ex-president and not much else.
Moderators will do everything they can to keep conversation as pro-Trump as possible.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 3-26-2021, C1, C8)
Condors to return to Redwood National Park for first time in a century
(They reached a low of just 22 nationwide by the early 1980s; Today there are 504 California
condors, with 329 in the wild; Wingspans stretch 9 feet & carry them 150 miles or more a day.)
(By Paul Rogers, Mercury News, 3-25-2021, A1, A5)
Elgin Baylor, the Lakers' 11-time NBA All-Star, died at 86
(Baylor was the first NBA player to surpass 70 points with a 71-point game Dec. 11, 1960,
against New York. He had uncanny ability to hang in mid-air indefinitely, inventing shots
along the way. Averaged 27.4 points & 13.5 rebounds in 14-year career, scoring 23,149 points.)
(By Associated Press, Mercury News, 3-23-2021, C4)
Lisa Troutner
(Tomato growing taken to an art form at Carmel Bella Farm)
(By Jessica Tadegaran, Bloom Magazine, Mercury News, 3-21-2021, pp. 26-27);
"Spotlight on Organic Gardener" (By Deepak Mehla)
FOCUS MONEY: Crypto Craze
(In just the past year, cryptocurrency's total value has skyrocketed by nearly 500%. And Bitcoin,
which was worth less than a penny when it launched, hit a high of $61,683 per coin last week.)
(By Jeff Goertzen, Mercury News, 3-21-2021, B22)
Aleksander Doba, Who Kayaked Across the Atlantic, Dies at 74
(A Polish adventurer, Doba kayaked alone across Atlantic at age 70, while subsisting on his wife's
fortifying plum jam. Died Feb. 22 on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa.)
(By Alex Vadukul, NY Times, Mercury News, 3-20-2021, B3)
Lou Ottens, Father of Countless Mixtapes, Is Dead at 94
("Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape" is a romanticized view of the cassette tape; playing music in
a portable fashion; Soon record labels began releasing entire albums on cassettes and automakers
were installing cassette players on dashboards; 100 billion cassettes sold worldwide;
Lou Ottens)
(By Neil Genzlinger, NY Times, Mercury News, 3-20-2021, B4)
Popular 'Immersive Van Gogh' exhibit opens in San Francisco
("Immersive van Gogh" is a digitally projected show that animates paintings
by artist Vincent Van Gogh in a surroundscape experience. The show runs from
March 18th through September 6th and will be one of the first in-person art
experiences in San Francisco since lockdown one year ago due to the pandemic.)
(By Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 3-18-2021, D1-D2)
Meet Harry and Meghan's Stanford collaborator on the world-changing power of compassion
(Neurosurgeon and author Dr. James Doty runs Stanford Medicine’s Center for Compassion
and Altruism Research & Education.
Archewell said it was partnering with experts like Doty
because the Sussexes regard compassion as "the defining force of the 21st century.")
(By Martha Ross, Mercury News, 3-15-2021, B1-B2)
Digital art by Beeple sells for $69.4 million amid NFT boom
(Digital collage titled "Everydays:
The First 5,000 Days" by
Beeple,
real name Mike Winkelmann; Beeple's Opus;
Beeple's Website)
(By Kelvin Chan, AP, Mercury News, 3-12-2021, C7-C8)
OP-ED:
Google puts lid on cookie jar and ends an internet era
(Google, the internet search giant, said that it's done tracking us as we skate
around the web. Will eliminate its use of third-party cookies over the next year,
it won't adopt replacements that essentially do the same thing. Google and Facebook
jointly inhaled nearly three-quarters of $300 billion spent on web advertising in 2020.)
(By Timothy L. O'Brien, Mercury News, 3-9-2021, A6)
Carla Wallenda, member of famed high-wire act, dies at 85
(She was last surviving child of the famed troupe's founder,
Karl Wallenda.
Joined high-wire act after doing headstand on top of family's 7-person pyramid.)
(By Terry Spencer, AP, Mercury News, 3-7-2021, B5)
Drones vs hungry moths: Dutch use hi-tech to protect crops
(The drones instantly kill the moths by flying into them, destroying them in midair.
Don't want to kill ladybugs, bumblebees, and good bugs. Technology needs refinements.)
(By Mike Corder, AP, Mercury News, 3-7-2021, C1)
Take steps to protect against identity theft
(Things you can do to reduce the chances of being a victim, and if you are a victim,
there are things you can do to recover. 650,572 identity theft reports in 2019 by FTC.)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 3-5-2021, C1, C8)
20 Brilliant Cooking Hacks from the Pros
(Favorite ways to make cooking simpler, faster or more successful.
Hacks hail from chef & cookbook author interviews over the years.)
(By Jessica Yadegaran & Jackie Burrell, Mercury News, 2-28-2021, F2-F3)
*
Stanford research: Why Zoom meetings can wipe you out
(Jeremy Bailenson describes the psychological impact of spending hours every day on Zoom,
Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime, or other video-calling interfaces. On Zoom calls, everyone
is staring at everyone, all the time. And our faces can appear too large. When so many faces
are so close to ours, we're in a hyper-aroused state, it's taxing on us. It's stressful.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, 2-24-2021, B1-B2)
*
EDUCATION: What's wrong with online learning? We asked Sal Khan, the world's most prolific tutor
(With its free lessons in math, science and humanities in 46 languages, Khan Academy
is used in more
than 190 countries and has more than 118 million registered users, nearly 20 million learners per month.
"My style is very conversational.
I'm not afraid to share my thought processes as I'm thinking it through.")
(By John Woolfolk, Mercury News, 2-7-2021, E1, E3)
Christopher Plummer, actor famed for role in Sound of Music, dies at 91
(The Oscar-winning performer flourished in a succession of meaty roles after age 70.
He claimed a long-awaited Academy Award at age 82 (2012) for his supporting performance in
"Beginners" as an elderly man who comes out of the closet as gay after his wife's death.)
(By Will Dunham, Reuters, Mercury News, 2-5-2021, A6)
OP-ED: How we can tame the Wild West of Big Tech media
(Facebook, Google, Twitter platforms' lack of human editors has resulted in a gushing
firehose of mis- and disinformation where scandals & conspiracies replaced real news.)
(By Steven Hill, Mercury News, 1-27-2021, A6)
MOVIES:
Love burns: the films of Wong Kar-wai get Bay Area showcase
[Hong Kong director known for sensual flourishes:
"Chungking Express" (1994);
"The Hand" (2004);
"In the Mood for Love" (2000);
"Days of Being Wild" (2000);
"Happy Together" (1997);
Wong's Films]
(By Randy Myers, Mercury News, 1-7-2021, E6)
Steph Curry answers critics, pours in career-high 62 points in Warriors' win over Trail Blazers
[Curry's final stat line of 62 points on 18-for-31 shooting (8-for-16 from 3-point range
and 18-of-19 from the free-throw line), five rebounds and four assists in 36 minutes.]
(By Wes Goldberg, Mercury News, 1-5-2021, C1, C4)
Klay marvels at Steph Curry's 62-point night and Damian Lillard shows respect
(Magic Johnson, Dwyane Wade and others pay respect to Steph Curry after his career night
in Warriors' win over Trail Blazers; By scoring 31 points in each half, Curry became the
first player since New Orleans' Pete Maravich in 1977 to score more than 30 in each half,)
(By Jon Becker, Mercury News, 1-5-2021, C1, C4)
*
7 Bay Area hikes to find beauty and renew the soul after a tough 2020
[(1 & 2) Old Tree & Peters Creek Loop, Portola Redwoods State Park; (3) Tomales Point Trail,
Marin County; (4) Eagle Peak, Las Trampas Regional Wilderness; (5) Albany to Richmond Bay Trail;
(6) Bay Ridge Trail, Presidio, San Francisco, (7) Sequoia Audubon Trail, Pescadero Marsh Preserve ]
(By Martha Ross, Mercury News, 11-24-2020, Chill, pp. 54-59)
MOVIES:
Sean Connery, the 'original' James Bond, dies at 90
(In Jan. 23, 1987 photo, actor Sean Connery holds a rose in his hand as he talks about
his new movie "The Name of the Rose" at a news conference in London. Scottish actor
Sean Connery, considered by many to have been the best James Bond, has died aged 90,)
(By Jill Lawless, Associated Press, Mercury News, 11-1-2020, A4)
Nobel Prize:
UC Berkeley, UCLA black hole hunters win physics prize
(Reinhard Genzel, astrophysicist at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics;
Andrea Ghez, professor of physics & astronomy at UCLA, and Roger Penrose, of University
of Oxford, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for advancing our understanding of black holes.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, 10-7-2020, B1-B2)
BUSINESS:
Social media can lead to political extremism
[Algorithms designed to present us with content we find compelling, along with advertising
that's likely to interest us, fill our newsfeed with posts that appeal to our political leanings,
world views, susceptibility to various theories and points of view, including conspiracy theories
Facebook (tinyurl.com/fbinterests) & Twitter (tinyurl.com/twitterinterests) track your interests.]
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 10-2-2020, B17)
National Parks: The Giant Sequoia
(Diameter at base: Coast Redwood 25 ft; Giant Sequoia: 36.5 ft; General Sherman Sequoia:
275 ft high, 2000 years old; List of National Parks, Yellowstone 1872, Pinnacles 2013)
(By Kurt Snibbe, Mercury News, 9-20-2020, B17)
'It's kind of like nuclear winter': Unprecedented smoke
layer darkens Bay Area skies as West Coast burns
(Temperatures fall, but smoke blotting out the sun; With 28 major fires
burning in California alone, forecasters don't know when it will end.)
(By Nico Savidge & Rick Hurd, Mercury News, 9-10-2020, A1, A5)
MUSIC— Wynton Marsalis:
'Continue to fight for the world you envision'
(His latest album "The Ever Fonky Lowdown" uses satire, a Greek-style chorus,
narration from celebrated actor Wendell Pierce, and a mix of jazz, funk
and other styles to address corruption, racism, greed and more.)
(By Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 9-10-2020, Eye, pp. 2-5)
MOVIE REVIEW:
Live-action 'Mulan' is gorgeous but short on magic
(Director Niki Caro's "Mulan" is without a doubt one of the best of the remakes.
The film falters on the story level, however, feeling both rushed, overlong and
oddly light on character development. We barely even get to know Mulan the person.)
(By Lindsay Bahr, AP, Mercury News, 9-10-2020, Eye, p. 10)
Tom Seaver,
Hall of Fame pitcher and New York Mets icon, dies at 75
(Nicknamed Tom Terrific, Seaver was a five-time 20-game winner and 1967 NL Rookie
of the Year. For his career, from 1967-86, he had a 311-205 record with a 2.86 ERA,
3,640 strikeouts and 61 shutouts. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 with 98.84%.)
(By Ronald Blum, AP, Mercury News, 9-2-2020, C3)
John
Thompson, 78, known as a great coach and mentor
(Thompson took over a moribund Georgetown program in the 1970s and
molded it in his unique style into a perennial contender, culminating with
a national championship team anchored by center Patrick Ewing in 1984.)
(By Joseph White, AP, Mercury News, 9-1-2020, B4)
Stanford
closing most of its campus to the public as a coronavirus precaution
(Starting Sept. 1, the university will bar the public from entering the campus;
Public barred from the Oval, Main Quad, Cantor Arts Center, Rodin Sculpture Garden.)
(By Joan Morris, Mercury News, 8-31-2020, B1, B3)
California Fires:
Bolts and Blazes
(Earlier this month an estimated 11,000 lightning strikes in California ignited 370 fires, with
23 becoming major fires; In-cloud lightning, cloud-to-cloud lightning, cloud-to-ground
lightning, spider lightning; 15 California Fires; Odds being hit by lightning: 1 in 1.2 million)
(By Kurt Snibbe, Mercury News, 8-30-2020, B11)
Race
to protect Big Basin's Mother, Father of the Forest, other ancient redwood trees after inferno
(Cherished Mother and "Father of the Forest" survived the blaze, but there are many big
redwoods whose bases were burned to the heart, and which could be toppled by a falling fir,
huge numbers of which were severely damaged because the species fares poorly in flames.)
(By Ethan Baron, Mercury News, 8-30-2020, B1, B4)
Fire
destroys Little Basin Campground, a beloved part of Silicon Valley history
(Retreat in Santa Cruz Mountains was purchased by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1960s;
Bill and Dave served steaks and hamburgers off the grill for all the HP employees.)
(By Paul Rogers & Ethan Baron, Mercury News, 8-28-2020, A1, A6)
Obituary:
Writer Gail Sheehy, Author of Passages Dies at 83
(Sheehy, widow of New York magazine founder Clay Felker, died from pneumonia;
Helped millions navigate their lives from early adulthood to middle age and beyond.)
(By Hillel Italie, AP, Mercury News, 8-26-2020, A8)
California fires:
Burned redwoods at Big Basin, other parks will recover soon, experts say
(Redwoods are resilient. Anything with a diameter more than 3 inches survived. Only 25% of
Douglas fir trees survived. Most of the scorched black trees will begin sprouting green leaves
again by this winter. Redwood's ability to stand tall in face of floods, fires & other calamities
is how they live to be up to 2,000 years old. Sequoia Sempervirens = "ever-living Sequoia".)
(By Paul Rogers, Mercury News, 8-25-2020, A1, A5)
BASEBALL:
At 30 years old, Mike Yastrzemski is the Giants' best player.
These two women made it possible.
(Mike's mom Anne Marie & wife Paige Cahill encouraged him on; Mike's Dad died at 43;
His grandfather Carl Yastrzemski won the 1967 Triple Crown with Boston Red Sox.)
(By Kerry Crowley, Mercury News, 8-23-2020, C1, C4)
OUTDOORS:
7 hidden gems on the Stanford University grounds
(1. Papua New Guinea Garde, 2. California Native Garden, 3. Centennial Garden,
4. Oregon Courtyard, Memorial Church Garden, Memorial Court, rizona Garden., 51 slides.)
(By Joan Morris, Mercury News, 8-23-2020, F7-F8)
Wildfire
destroys historic buildings at Big Basin State Park, some redwoods have fallen
(Big Basin Redwoods State Park Headquarters & Visitor Center is burned to the ground
during a blaze on 8-20-2020, with 300 feet tall & 2000 year-old redwoods toppled.)
(By Paul Rogers & Ethan Baron, Mercury News, 8-21-2020, A1, A6)
Historic
Lick Observatory saved from encroaching wildfire— for now
(On 8/19, Firefighters were able to stop flames from reaching Lick Observatory
on Mt. Hamilton, but Wildfire continues to burn near 132-year-old observatory.)
(By John Woolfolk, Mercury News, 8-21-2020, B1, B4)
The
time Olivia de Havilland returned to Los Gatos High School
(Oscar-winning actress returned to her alma mater in 1988 to celebrate the high school's centennial.
At 72, Olivia was as careful in preparing for a speech to 450 seniors as she had been for any movies
she made in her 20s. Her speech was witnessed by more than 7,000 people.)
(By Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 7-29-2020, B1-B2)
Comet
Neowise Comes By Once in a Blue Moon
(Comet Neowise is photographed grom Geysers Road in Geyserville on Friday, July 17.
The comet is making its way into the inner solar system for the first time in 6,800 years.
It is the brightest objects of its kind seen in the sky since Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.)
(By Jose Carlos Fajardoo, Mercury News, 7-20-2020, B1)
California History:
Relics of El Camino Real
(On July 11, a blaze at San Gabriel Mission destroyed much of the nearly 250-year-old church.
Here are the historic 21 missions & road connecting them known as "Kings Highway".)
(By Kurt Snibbe, Mercury News, 7-19-2020, B15)
On This Date:
Giants' Tim Lincecum pitches no-hitter in 9-0 win at Petco Park
(Two-time Cy Young Award winner strikes out 13 while no-hitting Padres with 148-pitches.)
(By Alex Pavlovic, Mercury News, 7-13-2020, C4)
Independence Test
(75.9% named "Declaration of Independence" the most influential document in American history;
Benjamin Franklin, 70, was oldest Continental Congress member; Edward Rutledge, 26, youngest.)
(By Kurt Snibbe, Mercury News, 7-5-2020, B13)
Why is COVID-19 so deadly to elders?
(Aging immune systems more vulnerable to viruses; Our thymus, which produces infection-fighting
T cells, reaches its peak size at puberty and then steadily shrinks; By the age of 50, our T cell
production is less than 10% of its peak; Harder for older person to clear the virus from the blood.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, 7-5-2020, C3)
On
this date, 1963: Marichal outduels Spahn in 16-inning showdown
(Giants' star Juan Marichal throws 16-inning shutout 1-0 to beat Warren Spahn,
Milwaukee Braves on Willie Mays' homer; Marichal threw 227 pitches; Spahn threw 201.)
(By Daniel Brown, Mercury News, 7-2-2020, C3)
On this date, 2014:
Giants' Tim Lincecum throws another no-hitter
(Giants' freakish star Tim Lincecum gets his 2nd career no-hitter against San Diego;
Lincecum needed only 113 pitches to complete his masterpiece on June 25, 2014.)
(By Mark Purdy, Mercury News, 6-25-2020, C1, C3)
By
the book: Alcatraz captivates audiences decades later
(Since the one-time home of "Machine Gun" Kelly and Al Capone was turned over
to the National Park Service in 1972, Alcatraz has been a hot tourist attraction,
seeing about 1.3 million visitors a year. Movies like "Birdman of Alcatraz" with
Burt Lancaster & Clint Eastwood's "Escape from Alcatraz" made prison more popular.)
(By Angela Hill, Mercury News, 5-21-2020)
Newbery-honored
Gennifer Choldenko talks 'Al Capone' and elephants
(Her new book Orphan Eleven follows the adventures of four orphans
who find work and new friends in a traveling circus with elephants.)
(By Jessica Yadegaran, Mercury News, 5-19-2020)
In the Footsteps of a Literary Giant
(Robert Louis Stevenson's Northern California hangouts; He came here in 1879
to marry Fanny Osbourne; His Treasure Island inspired by Point Lobos.)
(By Peter Magnani, Mercury News, 5-18-2020)
Turning
a page on Big Sur and the rugged journey into writers' imaginations
(Robinson Jeffers built the Tor House at then-isolated Carmel Point;
Helmuth Deetjen's Big Sur Inn has Henry Miller's Library.)
(By Elliot Almond, Mercury News, 5-18-2020)
Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" revisited
(Steinbeck's book on his 38-state odyssey in 1960 inspired Starchman to embark
on a 50-state quest of his own earlier this year. COVID-19 cancelled his trip.)
(By Tom Bentley, Mercury News, 5-17-2020)
Californa's lush and lean landscapes loom large in some classic works of lit
(Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club in SF's Chinatown; John Steinbeck's Cannery Row in Monterey;
Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep in LA; Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose in Santa Cruz;
John Fante's Ask the Dust in LA; Nathnael West's Day of the Locust; Tommy Orange's There, There
in Oakland; Joan Didion's Where I Was From in LA: Susan Orlean's The Library Book in LA.)
(By Tom Bentley, Mercury News, 5-17-2020)
12
Bay Area bookstores pick the best 50+ books for all ages
(Alibi Books, Vallejo; Hicklebee's, San Jose; Mrs. Dalloway's, Berkeley; Kepler's Books, Menlo Park;
Bookshop Santa Cruz; Books Inc, Palo Alto; Flashlight Books, Walnut Creek, Rakestraw, Danville;
East Bay Booksellers, Oakland; Orinda Books, Orinda; Contra Costa County Librarians)
(By Linda Zavoral, Joan Morris, Martha Ross, Mercury News, 5-17-2020)
Adam
Hochschild talks books, Cinderella dreams and the Gilded Age
(Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes;
She became a gifted orator, labor organizer & fearless champion of social justice causes.)
(By Sue Gilmore, Mercury News, 5-17-2020)
If
it was good enough for Charles Schulz, it's good enough for me
(Cartoonist Lisa Brown's Long Story Short: 100 Classic Books in 3 Panels; Visual Cliff Notes
for Don Quixote, Jane Eyre, Bhagavad Gita, Madame Bovary, Beloved, Twilight.)
(By Angela Hill, Mercury News, 5-17-2020)
Dashiell
Hammett: Following the footsteps of SF's king of noir
(Don Herron spent 43 years following Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade
and his haunting grounds in San Francisco.
Herron's Site on Film Noir)
(By Angela Hill, Mercury News, 5-14-2020)
On this date, 1987: Magic, Kareem and Showtime Lakers are no match for Sleepy Floyd
(Golden State Warriors' Eric "Sleepy" Floyd (21) drives to the basket during their playoff
game against Lakers at Oakland Arena in Oakland, CA, on May 10, 1987. Floyd scored
an NBA playoff record-setting 29 points in the fourth quarter, 12 field goals in the same
quarter and 39 points in the half, to lead the Warriors to a 129-121 victory over Lakers.)
(By Mark Purdy, Mercury News, 5-10-2020, C1, C3)
YouTube: 1987 Playoff
Kirk Douglas, 103, was influential movie star
(Nominated for best actor in Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, & Lust for Life, but didn't win;
In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)
(By Hillel Italie, AP, Mercury News, 2-6-2020, A3)
Chiefs 31, 49ers 20:
What the #!*% Happened?— Super Start, Sour Ending
(Blown 10-point lead in 4th quarter leaves 49ers "hurting' as MVP Mahomes lead Chiefs to title)
(By Cam Inman, Mercury News, 2-3-2020, C3)
GUT PUNCH:
Epic collapse: 49ers blow 4th-quarter lead as Chiefs win title
(San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan's conservative approach and
fourth-quarter play calling a massive part of the Niners' Super Bowl LIV loss)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 2-3-2020, A1, A6)
Chef Chu
reflects on his Los Altos restaurant's 50 incredible years
(The secret to his success? 'Give back to your community,' he says.)
(By Linda Zavoralr, Mercury News, 2-2-2020, A1, A8)
Bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark dead at age 92
(The tireless and long-reigning
"Queen of Suspense" whose tales of women beating the odds
made her one of the world's most popular writers; Each of her 51 books was a bestseller.)
(By Hillel Italie, AP, Mercury News, 2-2-2020, A12)
Fred Silverman, TV executive at 3 major networks, dies at 82
(Only TV executive who steered programming for each of the Big Three broadcast networks
and who brought "All in the Family", "Roots", "Hawaii Five-O" and other hit series
and miniseries to television during his more than three-decade career, died at 82)
(By Lynn Elber, AP, Mercury News, 2-2-2020, A13)
The day
Joe met Steve: Montana vs. Young looms large in history of 49ers vs. Chiefs
(Joe Montana, after winning four Super Bowls with the 49ers, lost his starting position and
OK'd a trade to the Chiefs; On 9-11-1994,
Montana's KC Chief beat Young's 49ers 24-17)
(By Gary Peterson, Mercury News, 1-31-2020, A1, A8)
Kobe Bryant, daughter killed in copter crash, 7 others dead
(NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter and seven others were killed in a helicopter
crash on a steep hillside in dense morning fog in Southern California on Sunday, his sudden death
at age 41 touching off an outpouring of grief for a star whose celebrity transcended basketball.)
(By Stefanie Dazio, AP, Mercury News, 1-27-2020, A1, A5)
New insights
into monarch butterflies' mysterious migrations
(Contrary to conventional wisdom, the butterfly's east and west populations are linked.)
(By Lisa Krieger, Mercury News, 1-22-2020, A1, A6)
San Mateo County
cliff crash video mystery: Real or deepfake?
(Investigators, Bay Area experts reassure skeptical public that crash was not a hoax;
Shamir Allibha, CEO of Amber: "Imagine a world where deepfakes are prevalent.
That will allow anyone to deny and dispute anything that they don't like.")
(By Dylan Bouscher, Mercury News, 1-14-2020, A1, A5)
New
light on the sun: NASA finds birthplace of winds
(What we're seeing is the large-magnetic structure of the sun, and on top of that are
impulsive magnetic events that we think are originating far below us in the corona—
probably responsible for heating the solar wind itself.)
(By Lisa Krieger, Mercury News, 12-5-2019, A1, A8)
Why
you won't find Stanford's secret sapling of the famed Newton gravity tree
(A descendant of Newton's famous apple tree lives a private life, its location unknown;
Stanford's "Newton Tree" is young, just 6 inches in diameter & standing barely 7 feet tall.)
(By Lisa Krieger, Mercury News, 12-1-2019, A1, A10)
Innovating a new era of architecture
(Design historian Barry Katz
notes that Silicon Valley's tech giants "have the resources
to make a significant investment in architectural forms that will last for decades.")
(By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, 11-17-2019, E1-E2)
Who owns Silicon Valley?
(Stanford University $19.7 billion; Apple $9.0 billion; Google $7.5 billion; Irvine Co. $5.9 billion;
Jay Paul Co. $3.5 billion; Cisco Systems $3.4 billion; Essex Property Trust $3.1 billion; Intel Corp.
$2.5 billion; Sobrato Organization $2.5 billion; Prometheus Real Estate $2.0 billion; However the
largest landowner in Santa Clara County is San Francisco Public Utility who owns 14,001 acres
or 21.9 square miles and delivers water to 2.7 million residents in the Bay Area.)
(By Leonardo Castanedar, Mercury News, 11-3-2019, A1, A12-A14)
Finding purpose in every cup
(Numi Organic Tea CEO Ahmed Rahim & sister Reem Rahim celebrate 20th anniversary
of their Oakland company, building a business steeped in environmental awareness.)
(By Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 10-27-2019, E1-E2)
How fast? Google touts quantum computing
(Company says processor completed 10,000-year calculation in mere minutes.)
(By Rachel Lerman & Matt O'Brien, Mercury News, 10-24-2019, A1, A8)
Santa
Clara County libraries close as rolling strikes enter 10th day
(Leblanc said in a Saturday interview that library service resumes tomorrow)
(By Leonardo Castaneda, Mercury News, 10-20-2019, B9)
Income
inequality is on the rise in California. In some counties, the disparities are extreme
(Top 5% of households, income grew by 18.6%, from $426,851 in 2006 to $506,421 in 2018, while
those in bottom 20% saw average income fall by 5.3%, from $16,441 in 2006 to $15,562 in 2018.)
(By Erica Hellerstein, Mercury News, 10-7-2019, A1, A6)
Every Day
Feels Like a Home Run Derby
(14 clubs with homer records in 2019; 6778 homers in 2019, 6105 in 2017, 5693 in 2000)
(By Elliot Almond, Mercury News, 10-5-2019, A1, A6)
Apple CEO Tim Cook calls for accountability in Silicon Valley
(Cook addressed 5200 graduates at Stanford 128th commencement
"If you want to take credit, first learn to take responsibility.)
(By Thy Vo, SJ Mercury News, 6-17-2019, B1-B2)
Warriors'
injuries became too much to overcome in Finals loss to Toronto
(Warriors labored in NBA Finals loss 114-110 with injuries to Kevin Durant & Klay Thompson)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-14-2019, C1, C5)
Inside the Warriors' emotional night processing Kevin Durant's injury
(Warriors beat Toronto Raptors 106-105 after Durant injured in first quarter.)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-11-2019, C1, C5)
Success Story— Q&A:
Kerr on his reading habits, social media, Dubs' dynasty
(Kerr: I like reading Malcolm Gladwell's stuff; David Epstein's
Why
Generalists Triumph
in a Specialized World; Invited Money Ball author
Michael Lewis to speak to Warriors)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 5-26-2019, C1, C3)
Curry lifts
Durant-less Warriors over Rockets, 118-113
(After going scoreless in the first half on five missed shots, Curry finished with 33 points.)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 5-11-2019, C1, C5)
Historian's book shines light on Chinese workers in California
(Stanford Professor Gordon H. Chang's Ghosts of Gold Mountain
tells the story of thousands of
Chinese immigrants who built the Western half of the Transcontinental Railroad from 1863-1869.)
(By Erin Baldassari, SJ Mercury News, 5-6-2019, B1-B2)
Transcontinental Railroad sesquicentennial celebrations
(The 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad will be marked with
re-enactment ceremonies and plenty of hoopla at the Golden Spike National Historic Site.)
(By Angela Hill, SJ Mercury News, 4-28-2019, F7-F8)
Railroad: How many ceremonial Golden Spikes were there?
(Placing the famed Golden Spike, last spike completing America's first Transcontinental Railroad
at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, symbolized a new era for the country; Spike made
of solid 17.6-karat gold, gently tapped in place by Leland Stanford,
one of the "Big Four" railroad
tycoons of the West & founder of Stanford University;
Now kept in Cantor Arts Center at Stanford.)
(By Angela Hill, SJ Mercury News, 4-28-2019, F7-F8)
OP-ED: AI (artificial intelligence) still needs HI (human intelligence)
(Humans help when the chatbot gets stuck & can't answer at
[24]7.ai in Bangalore, India)
(By Thomas L. Friedman, Mercury News, 2-28-2019, A7)
San Jose
Light Tower documentary sheds light on landmark's history
(Gustave Eiffel paid a visit to San Jose in the 1880s and was inspired by the city's
downtown 237-feet light tower to create the
famous structure in Paris that bears his name.)
(By Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 2-24-2019, B1, B10)
Newcombe's clout reached many stars
(David Stewart recalls Don Newcombe mentoring him in the mid-1970s)
(By Benjamin Hoffman, Mercury News, 2-24-2019, C6)
Lee Radziwill, society grande dame and sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, dies at 85
(She worked as an assistant to longtime Harper's Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland,
ran the American fashion pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair and inspired designers
such as Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs. Writer Truman Capote said she outshined
her more-famous sister. "She's all the things people give Jackie credit for," he told
People magazine in 1976. "All the looks, style, taste— Jackie never had
them at all, and yet it was Lee who lived in the shadow.")
(By John Otis, Washington Post, Mercury News, 2-18-2019, A6)
AI
as human companion, not overlord
(IBM Research's Project Debater prepared arguments much like a human does)
(By Larry Magid, Mercury News, 2-17-2019, E1-2)
South Bay
residents arrested in slew of Mountain View mail thefts
(Six face felony charges after police say they used counterfeit master keys to open mailboxes)
(By Jason Green, Mercury News, 1-14-2019)
Seven
arrested in Mountain View mail theft operation
(Used counterfeit USPS master keys to steal mail from Mountain View apartment complexes)
(By Allison Levitsky, Daily Post, 1-14-2019)
The Yoga Craze Strikes New Pose
(Yoga participants concentrate on Warrior II pose during a vinyasa yoga class led by Ekat Petrova
during Brain & Body NightLife event at California Academy of Sciences in San Francisc)
(By Angela Hill, SJ Mercury News, 12-26-2018, A1, A5)
Redwood 'Titans" get a rescue plan
(Grove of Titans, in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, gets too much love from
visitors in search of selfies; $3.5 million aid to restore vegetation & protect majestic trees.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, 12-26-2018, A1, A5)
Brian Wilson delivers a rare Christmas gift to Beach Boys fans
(Brian Wilson, performed "The Beach Boys' Christmas Album" in front of a highly appreciative
crowd on Dec. 22 at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa.)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News 12-24-2018, B3)
COMICS:
Before Superman, there was a Major who fueled the DC Comics machine
(Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson tells about her grandfather, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson,
founder of National Allied Publications, which later became National Comics Publication,
which morphed into DC Comics.)
(By Randy Myers, SJ Mervury News, 12-23-2018, B3)
TECHNOLOGY:
Start a post, then delete it? Many websites save it anyway
(LiveAgent, offers a "real-time typing view" of everything a customer writes before hitting
"Send message". Facebook
keeps your photos & texts even you delete them.)
(By Drew Harwell, SJ Mercury News, 12-23-2018, E1, E3)
Sting uses fake
Amazon boxes, GPS to catch would-be thieves
(Explosion in online shopping has led to porch pirates swiping holiday packages from
unsuspecting residents; Police in Jersey City, planted dummy boxes & caught porch thefts.)
(By David Porter, SJ Mercury News, 12-13-2018, C7-C8)
Bain Capital Ventures VC on investing a fresh $1 billion
(Ajay Agarwal: Artificial Intelligence, the Cloud, Machine Learning, are treansforming the economy;
FourKites has GPS to track trucks; Kiva replaces human in monotonous chores)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 12-9-2018, E1-E2)
Esa-Pekka Salonen to be San Francisco Symphony's next music director
(Michael Tilson Thomas, retiring after 25 years with the orchestra;
Salonen,
Finnish composer
& conductor, was former music director of Los Angeles Philharmonic
& current principal conductor
of London's Philharmonia Orchestra)
(By Georgia Rowe, SJ Mercury News, 12-6-2018, A1, A7)
Steer too beefy to become burgers
keeps on growing
(7-year-old Knickers stands a mighty 6'4", two inches taller than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He weighs roughly 2,800 pounds.)
(By Jason Bittel, SJ Mercury News, 11-28-2018, A4)
YouTube
SCIENCE: First gene-edited babies claimed in China
(He Jiankui of Shenzhen, altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments,
with one pregnancy resulting thus far. Tried to bestow a trait that few people naturally have—
ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus.)
(By Marilyn Marchone, SJ Mercury News, 11-26-2018)
OP-ED: Did 1968 Win the Culture War?
(50 years ago this year, the '60s revolution sought to overturn American customs, traditions,
ideology, and politics. But maybe the '60s, not the silent majority, won out after all. The world
a half-century later looks a lot more like 1968 and what followed than what preceded it.)
(By Victor Davis Hanson, SJ Mercury News, 11-25-2018, A15)
Jean Olmsted Dies at 93
(Jean Walls Morosco Olmsted, 93, died at home with her children at her side. Graduated from
Stanford in 1947; Married Franklin Olmsted in 1955; Moved to Palo Alto in 1972; Preserved
a coast redwood designated Palo Alto's
Heritage Tree No. 2.)
(SJ Mercury News Obituaries, 11-24-2018, B6)
Rolling Stones
to rock Levi's Stadium
(Stones to bring the "No Filter" tour to 13 U.S. stadiums in 2019,
with appearance at Levi's Stadium on May 18; Tickets on sale 11-30)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News, 11-20-2018, B7)
Stan Lee, creator of
superheroes, dies at 95
(Lee created Marvel Comics superheroes with feet of clay
and personal problems, unlike the DC Comics Superman)
(By Alexander F. Remington & Michael Cavna, SJ Mercury News, 11-13-2018, A1, A3)
Joan Baez: Poignant farewell for music legend
(Following in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, she is the rare
artist who is known as much for her beliefs and activism as for her music.)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News, 11-13-2018, B7)
Meet Sierra: Livermore's Powerful New Supercomputer
(Sierra can perform 125 quadrillion calculations per second,
that's 125 followed by 15 zeroes, and will guard our nation's nuclear stockpile.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 10-27-2018)
Next genetics frontier: Bay Area startup Color will help decode genomes of 1 million Americans
(Color CEO Othman Laraki, among 3 genome centers, awarded $28.6 million
by NIH to sequence 1 million genomes in its All of Us program.)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 10-21-2018, E1-E2)
Even tech execs fret about their kids' smartphone addictions
(Urban Airship product & engineering executive Mike Herrick makes online tools enticing kids
but is worried seeing his daughter & friends texting each other instead of talking.)
(By Michael Liedtke, SJ Mercury News, 10-21-2018, E1-E2)
From
abandoned farmworker boy to pediatrician: how one Central Valley man beat the odds
(Dr. Ramon Resa, now 65, has worked as a pediatrician for three decades, treating the children
of migrant farm workers in the Central Valley where he grew up as a crop-picker. He is the
keynote speaker at the 10th Annual Parent Conference 2018 in Gilroy to inspire students.)
(By Tatiana Sanchez, SJ Mercury News, 10-14-2018, B1, B16)
Wildlife:
America's fattest bear has been crowned in Alaska
(A female brown bear known as 409 Beadnose swelled over three months of devouring salmon
in Katmai National Park and Preserve. She has won the park's Fat Bear Week contest.)
(By Karin Brulliard, SJ Mercury News, 10-13-2018, A2)
Business:
U.S. markets drop sharply as investors are spooked by rising rates
(Dow dropped more than 800 points in one of the worst sell-offs since February as investors worried
that sharply rising interest rates would constrain the nation's historic economic expansion.)
(By Taylor Telford, SJ Mercury News, 10-11-2018, A1, A6)
Privacy:
Google kept data bug a secret for 6 months
(Discovered a bug in March that put at risk personal data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users;
It was at the same month when Cambridge Analytica collected data on 87 million Facebook users.
Google will discontinue Google+, its failing social media offering, limiting it to only business.)
(By Craig Timberg & Renae Merle, SJ Mercury News, 10-9-2018, C7-C8)
HOME TECH:
Facebook has a new Portal into your home
(Facebook wants to provide a portal for people to easily make video calls with each other. 10-inch
screen costs $199, can zoom in on a person during a call and follow him or her around a room;
can stream music from Pandora & Spotify so callers can listen to same song during a call.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 10-9-2018, C7-C8)
Comic Riffs:
Banksy painting sold at auction for $1.4 million— then automatically shredded itself
(Anonymous British graffiti artist Banksy has pulled off another stunt that seized the attention
of the art world— this time at the expense of his own work. His painting
"Girl with Red Balloon"
sold for $1.4 million; The painting's canvas began scrolling downward, seeming to pass through its
elaborate gilded frame— and reappearing below in neat, vertical strips. Sotheby's would explain
that a shredder was hidden inside the frame. Painting "self-destructed" before crowd's very eyes.)
(By Amy B. Wang, SJ Mercury News, 10-7-2018, A18)
FEMME FATALE:
The most dangerous celebrity online is revealed
(Cybersecurity firm McAfee crowned Ruby Rose the most dangerous celebrity on the internet.
Reality TV star, Kristin Cavallari finished behind Rose at No. 2, followed by actress Marion Cotillard
(No. 3), the original "Wonder Woman" Lynda Carter (No. 4), actress Rose Byrne (No. 5), Debra Messing
(No. 6), reality
TV star Kourtney Kardashian (No. 7), actress Amber Heard (No. 8), morning TV show
host Kelly Ripa (No. 9),
and actor Brad William Henke as No 10.)
(By Mark Kennedy, SJ Mercury News, 10-3-2018, C1, C8)
Google unveils big shifts in way web search works
(1. Pinterest for search, but with an activity card that helps people pick up where they left of;
2. Surfaces articles, videos and other content tailored to users' interests, a la Facebook;
3. Click Google Lens in Google Images
yields a plethora of related images and content.)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 9-25, 2018, C7-C8)
HEALTH:
Joan Baez's secrets to staying fit enough to tour at 77
(At 77, folk music icon is promoting her new album "Whistle Down The Wind" & has extended her
final concert tour, "Fare Thee Well Tour", into 2019.
Practices Gokhale Method that soothes her neck,
shoulders & back. She also does yoga, Pilates & meditation. Good genes: Her mother lived to be 100.)
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 9-23-2018, B3)
HEALTH:
At the cutting edge of sickle cell treatment
(UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, Vallejo family work as team for 11-year-old boy's
treatment; Hospital treats 250 children & 250 adults a year with sickle cell disease;
They used
a new gene-editing technique to fix the mutation that causes sickle cell disease,
considered a
breakthrough for a possible cure for deadly immune system disease. Irregular shape
of sickle cells
cause them to become stuck in blood vessels, blocking flow of blood & oxygen delivery.)
"β aggregation in Hemoglobin"
(By Jon Kawamoto, SJ Mercury News, 9-18-2018, B1, B6)
OP-ED:
How media, its consumers surrendered truth and facts
(They'll blame Fox "News" for feeding the fearful a steady diet of hogwash designed to make them
feel beset, encircled and put upon; They'll blame Alex Jones for spinning webs of bizarre conspiracy;
They'll blame schools for failing to teach students to think critically. They'll blame us for surrendering
to a boneless "both-sideism" that simulates professional impartiality at cost of clarity and fact.)
(By Leonard Pitts, SJ Mercury News, 9-13-2018, A9)
Fortinet
CEO on fending off cyber attacks in the new generation
(Ken Xie, CEO of Fortinet, deals with Network security. Intrusions. Viruses. Malware. Data is stored
in mobile phones & the cloud, and no longer inside a company's firewall, so more risk for protection.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 9-9-2018, E1-E2)
Obituary:
Burt Reynolds, star of film, TV and tabloids, dies after heart attack
(Burt Reynolds, the handsome film and TV star known for his acclaimed performances in Deliverance
and Boogie Nights, commercial hits such as Smokey and the Bandit & for an active off-screen love life
which included relationships with Loni Anderson, Dinah Shore, and Sally Field, has died at age 82.)
(By John Rogers, SJ Mercury News, 9-7-2018, A5)
John McCain Memorial:
Meghan McCain rebukes Trump: 'America was always great'
(John McCain's grieving daughter transformed a tribute to her demanding father into a thunderclap
denunciation of President Trump. Barack Obama & George W. Bush also honored John McCain.)
(By Paul Kane, Gabriel Pogrund & Colby Itkowitz, SJ Mercury News, 9-2-2018, A6)
Q & A: Interview with Looker CEO Frank Bien—
A look at the transformative power of Big Data
(His 400-person company has 1500 customers; They focus on boring stuff that works; Big Data
gave us cheap, analytic databases. We are a SaaS (software as a service) company. Host majority
of our customers in our cloud;
Deal with trillions of rows of data, & it's hard to move all of that around.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 9-2-2018, E1-E2)
OP-ED:
Stanford says it will no longer publicize admission rates
(Stanford University, bucking years of hype, says it no longer will publicize its admissions rate— a
first step at de-emphasizing a demoralizing competition that has overtaken college admissions process.
2017 admission rates: Stanford 4.3%, Harvard 4.6%, Princeton 5.5%, Columbia 5.5%, Yale 6.3%)
(By Julia Prodis Sulek & Anna-Sofis Lesiv, SJ Mercury News, 8-31-2018, A1, A6)
OP-ED:
Not all Asians are "Crazy Rich"
(Earnings of higher-income Asians— those at the 90th percentile— nearly doubled from 1970 to 2016,
rising 96%, while income of Asians at the 10th percentile increased only 11% over the same period.)
(By Esther J. Cepeda, SJ Mercury News, 8-29-2018, A9)
OBITUARIES:
War hero and presidential candidate John McCain has died
(Sen. McCain, 81, died Aug. 25 at his ranch near Sedona, Arizona; The senator was diagnosed
last July with a brain tumor, and his family said that he was discontinuing medical treatment.
He lost Republican nomination for Presidency to George W. Bush in 2000; and the Presidential
election to Barack Obama in 2008; Word "maverick" practically became a part of his name.)
(By Karen Tumulty, SJ Mercury News, 8-26-2018, A1, A13)
Cybersecurity:
Don't be in a rush to click on links to fake sites possibly from Russia
(Microsoft discovered and disabled fake websites apparently designed to trick people into
giving up sensitive information, it pays to carefully scrutinize URLs for warning signs.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, 8-26-2018, E1-E2)
OP-ED:
How journalists can win back the trust of Americans
(62% adults believe news is biased; Donald Trump's presidency is an aberration in many ways.
But journalists cannot let it distract them from the impeccable reporting that ultimately
will prove that mainstream media are serving the country well.)
(By Jerry Ceppod et. al., SJ Mercury News, 8-24-2018, A6)
HEALTH:
Hoping to save limbs and toes, California moves to curtail diabetes
(More than 12,000 Californians lost limbs or toes to diabetes in 2016, state data show.
More than 2.5 million people in the state have been diagnosed with adult diabetes, or Type 2,
and risk a similar fate if it goes unchecked. Rate of diabetes in California grew from 8.7%
of the population in 2010 to 10.2% in 2016, while amputations increased by almost a third.)
(By David Gorn, SJ Mercury News, 8-24-2018, B1-B2)
Christmas
in Park:
Orchard Supply Hardware closing, big problem for beloved San Jose tradition
(Orchard Supply supports the 550-plus trees that fill Plaza de Cesar Chavez every year.
Who will be the $25,000 sponsor? Bank of the West, did not renew its sponsorship this year.)
(By Sal Pizarro, SJ Mercury News, 8-24-2018, B1-B2)
MOVIES:
Searching might be the best thriller of 2018 so far
(The Hitchcockian thriller is framed entirely on electronic screens— laptops, cell phones, even
security cameras. That this ploy works so seamlessly and never grows tiresome is a credit to
the inspired storytelling and tech savviness of the filmmakers and writers. Searching delivers on
all counts, and that, not the gimmick, is what makes it one of the best thrillers of the year so far.)
(By Randy Myers, SJ Mercury News, 8-23-2018, p. 20)
OBITUARY:
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Dies at Age 80
(Kofi Annan, a charismatic global diplomat & first black African to become UN secretary-general
who led the world body through one of its most turbulent periods, died on August 18 at age 80.
His two terms (Jan. 1, 1997, to Dec. 31, 2006) capped nearly midway when he & the U.N. were jointly
awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. Bill Gates called him "one of the great peacemakers of our time.")
(By Francis Kokutse & John Heilprin, SJ Mercury News, 8-19-2018, A6)
EDUCATION:
San Jose State University President Mary Papazian:
SJSU has an edge as Silicon Valley talent pipeline
(Papazian, a scholar in 17th century English Renaissance writers such as
John Milton & John Donne, believes her academic expertise has prepared her to lead San Jose State
in the 21st century. Poetry of Milton & Donne shows shift from medieval period to Renaissance;
Innovation and creativity is happening in our modern times— especially here in Silicon Valley.)
(By Seung Lee, SJ Mercury News, 8-19-2018, E1-E2)
ART:
Bay Area software developer becomes unlikely art dealer
(Software developer Bill Chamberlain is not a trained art expert, found himself on an unexpected
18-year odyssey to verify that an old painting was indeed a lost masterpiece. Authenticated French painter
Émile Bernard's "The Passion of Jesus Christ" done in the 1930s. It resides in a storage unit in Paris.)
(By Alison Berg, SJ Mercury News, 8-19-2018, B3)
MUSIC:
Legendary singer Aretha Franklin, the 'Queen of Soul', dead at 76
(Simply put, Franklin must be ranked among the greatest vocalists of all time; She could
express rage, sass, defiance, love, heartbreak, strength, vulnerability & spiritual awakening
with equal clarity. It was this ability that made landmark recordings such as "Respect"
and "Chain of Fools" timeless anthems of female empowerment or civil rights.)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News, 8-17-2018, A1, A7)
LIFESTYLE: Getting Married on 8-18-18? Lucky You!
(30,000 couples getting married on palindrome 8-18-18 since "18" in Chinese sounds
like "certain prosperity"; Hebrew word for "life" (chai)
has a numerical value of 18.
However the lucky date falls on Shabbat, day of rest, so Jews won't marry that day.)
(By Anna-Sofia Lesiv, SJ Mercury News, 8-16-2018, A1, A6)
TECHNOLOGY:
Google tracks your movements, like it or not
(Many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even
if you've used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.)
(By Ryan Nakashima, SJ Mercury News, 8-14-2018, A2)
SUMMER BURN:
California is home to about one-third of the fires burning in the West
(The Mendocino complex became the largest fire in California history. It is one of nine active fires
of more than 100,000 acres this summer. As of Aug. 5, 4723 fires & 749,770 acres have burned on
Cal Fire & U.S. Forest Service land. Mendcino complex accoounted for nearly half of burned acreage.)
(By Kurt Snibbe, SJ Mercury News, 8-12-2018, B15)
Advocates
condemn psychological techniques used to keep kids online
(Techniques encouraging behavior that isn't in users' best interest)
(By Lindsey Tanner & Matt O'Brien, SJ Mercury News, 8-12-2018, E1, E3)
BUSINESS:
Where is the birthplace of Silicon Valley? Event aims to put the question to rest
(Celebration to mark origin site as 391 San Antonio Road where Shockley Laboratory opened in 1956
takes place Aug. 15; William Shockley left Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1956, the same year he was
a co-recipient of a Nobel Prize in Physics for creating the transistor; Robert Noyce & Gordon Moore,
later co-founders of Intel Corp., and six others left Shockley to form Fairchild Semiconductor,
& manufactured its first transistor on Sept. 19, 1957, at 844 East Charleston Road in Palo Alto.)
(By Kevin Kelly, SJ Mercury News, 8-11-2018, B1, B4)
TECHNOLOGY:
"The Russians are coming" (back) online
[Ability to influence who leads our country may be more powerful than ability to blow things up;
IRA (Russia's Internet Research Agency) had Facebook accounts with fake news just removed.]
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, 8-5-2018, E1, E3)
CALIFORNIA NEWS:
Wells Fargo Bank workers hit $543 million lottery jackpot
(Ernies Liquors in San Jose receives $1 million for selling winning ticket; The 11 workers
will take lump sum $320.5 million, amounting to $29,140,281 for each before federal taxes.)
(By Anna-Sofia Lesiv, SJ Mercury News, 8-4-2018, A1, A6)
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Facebook to be the focus of a 'Frontline' investigation on PBS
("The Facebook Dilemma" is a two-part documentary that, will delve into recent scandals and
privacy issues that have "exposed the darker side" of Facebook, while pondering whether Facebook
"creates more harm than good"; They were blind on Russian meddling with our 2016 elections.]
(By Chuck Barney, SJ Mercury News, 8-2-2018, B1-B2)
CYBERSECURITY:
Facebook uncovers disinformation operation ahead of midterm elections
(They discovered a sophisticated coordinated disinformation operation on its platform involving
32 false pages and profiles engaging in divisive messaging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections;
similar to previous Russian disinformation campaign, led by the Internet Research Agency.)
(Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tony Romm, SJ Mercury News, 8-1-2018, A1, A6)
EDUCATION:
Foothill to start tech training program for women
(Foothill College Makerspace UniDiVersity program costs $75 and is open to female residents of
California, especially women of color & minority identities to learn 3D printing & laser cuttings.)
(By Kristin Lam, SJ Mercury News, 7-27-2018, B1-B2)
Q & A:
Interview with Author Adam Fisher— Sex, Drugs and Moments of Genius
(Writing an oral history was "ten hundred times harder" than writing a regular book. He had to do
the legwork to get the more than 200 interviews. Most interesting was Jim Clark, because he literally
did do everything. He hung out at Xerox PARC at the same time as Jobs. Clark looked at the (Xerox)
Alto & thought he could do better. Created graphics processing unit (GPU), created Silicon Graphics
International, whose technology was then used by Pixar. Then he ended up co-creating Netscape.
Now what's the GPU doing? It's underlying all our artificial intelligence.
Valley of Genius book.)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 7-22-2018, E1-E2)
OBITUARIES:
Nobel Prize-winning Stanford physicist Burton Richter dies at 87
(Winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics with MIT's Samuel Ting for discovery
of the "J/psi subatomic particle" that led to the confirmation of "charm quark".)
(By Angela Ruggiero, SJ Mercury News, 7-21-2018, B1, B4)
Q & A:
Rick Bergman Interview—In Touch with Technology'
("The first interaction you usually have with a smart device is through touch, whether it's on a
notebook PC, on a touchpad, or on a smartphone, you're doing touch" says Bergman; His company
Synaptics' annual sales have gone from $500 million, to $1.7 billion, in its 2017 fiscal year.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 7-8-2018, E1-E2)
Q & A:
Richard Walker Interview— The 'Dark Side of Prosperity'
(Geographer's book Pictures of a Gone City begins
quoting Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 1955 poem
"The world is a beautiful place";
discussing the winners & losers of the latest tech boom along
with themes of racial and economic segregation,
displacement, urban sprawl, the foreclosure crisis
& today's housing crisis. Book is about how important & dynamic and amazing this urban area is.)
(By Kate Murphy, SJ Mercury News, 7-1-2018, E1-E2)
NEWS:
Silicon Valley distrusts social media with personal data, poll finds
(86% of Bay Area voters are concerned about security of their online personal & financial information;
67% have had their data compromised; 51% said government should do more to regulate how companies
use consumers' data.)
(By John Woolfolk, SJ Mercury News, 6-24-2018, A1, A9)
OP-ED:
The Charles Krauthammer (March 13, 1950-June 21, 2018) I knew
(Paralyzed from the neck down in swimming pool accident in 1972 at Harvard, he completed medical
school,
became not a jewel in the crown of the medical profession, which he would have been,
but one of America's
foremost public intellectuals. Nothing against doctors, but the nation
needed Charles more as a diagnostician
of our public discontents. Wrote speeches for Walter Mondale in 1980.)
(By George Will, SJ Mercury News, 6-24-2018, A15)
EDUCATION:
Actor Sterling K. Brown tells Stanford grads to shine a light
(Emmy winner for NBC's "This is Us" enthralls crowds with a heartfelt commencement address;
"Class of 2018— it is your time now. Do me a favor, will ya? Take your light & show us the way.")
(By Joan Morris, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2018, B1-B2)
NBA Finals 4:
Champs again: Warriors rout Cavs to complete sweepe
(Warriors with 108-85 victory over Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of NBA Finals; Curry had
a team-leading 37 points while shooting 7 of 15 from 3-point range; Durant won his second
consecutive Finals MVP, with his 1st playoff triple-double: 20 points, 12 rebounds & 10 assists.)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-9-2018, C2)
NBA Finals 3:
Warriors outlast Cavs in Game 3, one win away from 2nd straight title
(Kevin Durant was the story of Game 3, scoring 43 points on 15-of-23 shooting. Curry & Thompson
had only a combined 21 points on combined 7-of-27 shooting & a 3-of-15 mark from 3-point range)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-7-2018, C2)
DANCE:
A medical career called, but dance came first
(Anuradha Nag arrived in San Jose from Calcutta in 1992 & has made herself a preeminent proponent
of the Northern Indian dance form know as kathak. Her Tarangini School of Kathak Dance celebrates
on June 8 the 80th birthday of her guru, Pandit Birju Maharaj, known as "Parampara".)
(By Andrew Gilbert, SJ Mercury News, 6-7-2018, p. 10)
NBA Finals 2:
Curry breaks record, Warriors blast Cavs
(Warriors beat Cleveland Cavaliers 122-103 in Game 2 of NBA Finals; Curry had 33 points,
with a postseason career-high 9-of-17 from 3-point range along with eight assists. Curry
eclipsed former NBA sharpshooter Ray Allen for most 3-pointers in an NBA Finals game.)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-3-2018, C2)
NBA Finals 1:
Warriors escape with victory in wild Game 1
(Warriors finished with a 124-114 Game 1 overtime victory over the Cavaliers
on Thursday at Oracle Arena after exchanging 17 ties and 15 lead changes.)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 6-1-2018, C2)
NBA:
All LeBron James has to do in these NBA Finals is something no one has ever done before
(James, who scored 51 points, deserved better. He became the sixth player to ever
score 50 points in an NBA Finals game and the only one to lose that contest.)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, SJ Mercury News, 6-1-2018, A1)
NBA playoffs:
Stephen Curry-Kevin Durant dynamic plays out in Warriors' favor in Game 7 win over
Rockets
(Rockets led 48-33 with 4:54 to play in half, missed 27 consecutive shots from 3-point range)
(By Mark Medina, SJ Mercury News, 5-29-2018, C1-C4)
NBA playoffs:
Game 7 was a perfect homage to this bizarre Warriors season
(Curry's 27 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds & Durant's 34 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds— key to victory)
(By Dieter Kurtenbach, SJ Mercury News, 5-29-2018, C1-C4)
BUSINESS:
Palo Alto Networks CEO Mark McLaughlin: Security "is a software fight"
(Yahoo. Target. Equifax. Even Intel's chips. It seems like no company,
and no technology, is immune to security breaches and hacks.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 5-6-2018, E1-E2)
CYBERSECURITY:
They're on the lookout for malware that can kill
(Dragos built a software product to help industrial companies detect cyber threats
to their networks and respond to them. Its clients include energy, manufacturing and
petrochemical factories. Hackers disrupt safety systems that protect human life.)
(By Ellen Nakashima & Aaron Gregg, SJ Mercury News, 5-6-2018, E1-E2)
ONLINE DATING:
People are more honest on Tinder than you may think, study says
(Can you really trust someone you've met through a screen?)
(By Nicoletta Lanese, SJ Mercury News, 5-5-2018, A1-A6)
BUSINESS:
YouTube releases number of, reasons for video removals for first time
(YouTube removed more than 8 million videos in last three months of 2017 & that most of it
was spam (26.4%) or sexual content (30.1%). Nearly 16% of removed videos fell in the hateful
or abusive category (15.6%), 13.5% were considered violent or repulsive, 7.6% involved
harmful or dangerous acts, 5.2% involved child abuse, and 1.6% promoted terrorism.)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 4-25-2018, C11-C12)
SPORTS:
Sean Manaea receives special honor for no-hitter against Red Sox
(No-hitter came against a Red Sox offense that entered game leading MLB in runs, doubles, homers,
and team batting average. He's 12th A's pitcher to throw no-hitter & 7th in Oakland history.)
(By Marin Gallegos, SJ Mercury News, 4-23-2018)
TECHNOLOGY:
Has speed jeopardized data privacy? Cybersecurity researcher Paul Kocher thinks so
(Two hardware bug Spectre & Meltdown, impact virtually all smartphones, computers and cloud
servers built since 1995; Due to an architecture flaw in most existing microprocessors, hackers are
able to gain access to private data; Kocher believes security is more important than computer speed.)
(By Seung Lee, SJ Mercury News, 4-20-2018, E1-E2)
OP-ED: Our
need to share too much created monster called Facebook
(We made Zuckerberg rich and powerful. All because of our insatiable need to share stuff and
show off our "perfect" relationships, vacations, children and cuisine. How much of it is real?
They ought to call it "Falsebook". People like to know they're having an effect on other people.)
(By Ruben Navarrette, SJ Mercury News, 4-13-2018, A8)
Facebook: Most users may have had public data 'scraped'
(Facebook's acknowledgement that most of its 2.2 billion members have had their personal data
scraped by "malicious actors" is latest example of the social network's failure to protect its users' data.)
(By Barbara Ortutay, SJ Mercury News, 4-6-2018, B6)
BUSINESS:
Cinemark bans large bags from its movie theaters
(Starting February 22, 2018, Century Theatres, CineArts, Tinseltown & Rave Cinema will ban
any bags or packages measuring larger than 12 x 12 x 6 inches from their theaters)
(By Annie Sciacca, SJ Mercury News, 2-22-2018, B6)
Dogs owned by U.S. Presidents
(Trump has no pets; Last petless president was James K. Polk, who served 1845-1849.)
(By Kurt Snibbe, SJ Mercury News, 2-18-2018, B17)
BUSINESS:
Dow falls almost 1,200 points as market slump continues
(Stock market drop of 1175 points was largest single-day point loss in 122-year history of the Dow.
The 4.6% loss to 24,345.75 included loss by Apple -2.5%, Alphabet -5.0%, and Wells Fargo -9.0%)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 2-6-2018, A1, A8)
HIPPOCAMPUS:
'Anxiety cells' are identified by scientists
(Neuroscientists found inside brains, they light up like sparklers when meek mice are frightened.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 2-1-2018, A1, A6)
Lunar showstopper: Super blue blood moon awes and wows
(First time in 35 years a blue moon has synced up with a supermoon and a total lunar eclipse,
or blood moon because of its red hue. That combination won't happen again until 2037.)
(By Marcia Dunn, AP, SJ Mercury News, 2-1-2018, A5)
SCIENCE:
Super blue moon eclipse: Will you be able to see it?
(When a full moon occurs twice in a month, it's called a
"Blue Moon"; it has nothing to do with
the moon's color; Lunar Eclipse on January 31, begins 3:48 am, totality 4:52 am, ends 6:08 am.)
(By Jennifer Leman, SJ Mercury News, 1-29-2018, A1, A6)
COMMUNITY NEWS:
Sunnyvale named safest city in the U.S. for the third year
(Sunnyvale has pulled off a three-peat, winning SmartAsset.com's title of safest city in America
for 3rd straight year.
It had 7th lowest violent crime rate of 200 cities and 10th lowest property crime rate.)
(By Victoria Kezra, SJ Mercury News, 1-28-2018, B9)
BUSINESS:
Google proposes big Sunnyvale project where thousands could work
(One of the new Google office complexes would be a five-story building totaling 505,000 sq. ft
with address of 200 W. Caribbean Drive. The other would would total nearly 538,000 sq. ft &
located at 100 W. Caribbean Drive.
They'll be large enough to accommodate 4,500 Google workers.)
(By George Avalos, SJ Mercury News, 12-21-2017, C1, C10)
ANIMALS:
Esther the Wonder Pig, darling of the internet
(650-pound Esther the Wonder Pig received $440,000 in crowdfunding to buy farm for her to roam.)
(By Allison Klein, SJ Mercury News, 12-17-2017, A2)
EDUCATION:
Stanford: Sexual misconduct revelation exposes storied professor's secret
(For Professor Jay Fliegelman, the transgression was but a blip in a storied career
of a tenured professor who died at 58 in 2007. His victim, Seo-Young "Jennie" Chu,
now an English professor at New York's Queens College, detailed her traumatic experience
in a gut-wrenching piece
for the online magazine Entropy in early November.)
(By Emily DeRuy, SJ Mercury News, 12-3-2017, A1, A15)
HEALTH:
Beware! This is your brain on sleep deprivation
(UCLA researchers point out that the changes in cognitive performance that come with sleep
deprivation is quite similar to the decline that comes from drinking alcohol. Yet no legal or medical
standards exist for identifying overtired drivers on the road the same way we target drunk drivers.)
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 11-13-2017, B1, B3)
FILM REVIEW:
Murder on the Orient Express bores the little gray cells to death
[Kenneth Branagh's lavish adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic is dressed to the nines,
from the stunning period costumes to the spectacular scenery of the snow-capped Alps.
But the true failing in this movie is the utter lack of pacing and suspense.]
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 11-10-2017, E1, E6)
Berkeley Students: Browser
launched to check fake news
(Ash Bhat & Rohan Phadte have created a bot-detecting Chrome extension that can detect
if a twitter account is run by a person or an automated bot focused on propaganda.)
(By Emily DeRuy, SJ Mercury News, 11-9-2017, A1, A8)
MOVIES:
Taika Waititi opens up about Thor's evolution in 'Ragnarok'
[Campy villain, Cate Blanchett's Goddess of Death Hela (resentful half-sister to Chris Hemsworth's
Thor and Tom Hiddleston's Loki) was brought in to take over the space gods' home world of Asgard.]
(By Bob Strauss, SJ Mercury News, 11-9-2017, N4, N7)
TECHNOLOGY:
Make way for these 'Ghostbusters' when hackers breach networks
(Jason Tan, CEO of Sift Science, provides fraud detection solutions for online businesses; Company
says more than 6,000 companies use Sift Science to fight fraud and improper hacking on their sites.)
(By Rex Crum, SJ Mercury News, 11-5-2017, E1, E3)
BUSINESS:
Tech companies need to up their game on fake news and bogus ads
(29 million Facebook posts from Russian operatives reaching as many as 146 million Americans.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, 11-5-2017, E1, E3)
FILM REVIEW:
Is Thor the new god of the Marvel Universe?
[From the epic Hulk vs Thor smack down to Cate Blanchett's slithery vamping as the villain Hela,
"Thor" brings equal parts thunder and hilarity. There's more texture in Thor's rivalry with the
mischievous Loki (always deft Tom Hiddleston) and his almost flirtation with the formidable
beer-chugging and butt-kicking Valkyrie (a fierce Tessa Thompson)]
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 11-1-2017)
SPORTS:
Y.A. Tittle, ex-49ers quarterback and NFL Hall of Famer, dies at 90
(Tittle played in San Francisco (1951-60) & for 3 seasons was part of the "Million Dollar Backfield"
that featured fellow Hall of Fame enshrinees Joe Perry, Hugh McElhenny and John Henry Johnson.)
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, 10-9-2017) (29 slides show)
MOVIES:
Mark Hamill talks about Luke Skywalker's return to screen
(In "The Last Jedi" which Disney will release Dec. 15, Hamill plays a much larger role in "Star Wars".
Carrie Fisher was irreplaceable. There can never be a proper reunion anymore. It's tragic.)
(By Jake Coyle, SJ Mercury News, 9-7-2017, N4, N7)
Twitter hashtag turns 10— ut;s sparked
social movements, marked revolutons
(The hashtag is used not only on Twitter (an average of 125 million times a day),
but on Facebook and Instagram— and spoken out loud, in everyday conversations.)
(By Levi Sumagaysay, SJ Mercury News, 8-24-2017)
FILM REVIEW:
A freewheeling childhood, in The Glass Castle, is both dream and nightmare
(Movie begins in 1989, with Jeannette Walls working as a gossip columnist for New York Magazine;
Her taxi passes a woman rummaging through garbage cans & a man yelling; these are her parents.)
(By Stephanie Merry, SJ Mercury News, 8-11-2017, E1, E6)
ANIMALS:
Cockroaches can live how long without their heads? 9 weird animal facts
(Praying Mantis eat little birds; Raccoons smarter than cats; Cat's 24 whiskers as curb feelers.)
(By Joan Morris, SJ Mercury News, 8-6-2017, D1-D2)
PARENTING:
Parents' social media habits are teaching children the wrong lessons
(Parents post embarassing children photos on Facebook, now their kids do likewise to friends.)
(By Stacey Steinberg, SJ Mercury News, 8-6-2017, D1, D3)
TRAVEL:
Top 10 places to travel in August
(1. The Amazon, 2. Hallstatt,
Austria, 3. Botswana, 4. Brazil, 5. British Columbia, 6. Angkor Wat,
7. Riviera Maya, Mexico, 8. Costa Rica,
9. Great Barrier Reef, Australia,
10. Jackson Hole, Wyoming.)
(By Jackie Burrell, SJ Mercury News, 8-6-2017, F8)
TRAVEL:
Feeding giraffes? Close encounters with cheetahs? Yes, right here in the Bay Area!
(Safari West is a 400-acre nature preserve tucked amid the golden hills of Santa Rosa, with
900 species of animals; 3-hours tours $45-$115; Overnights in tents with breakfast $250-$425.)
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 8-6-2017, F8-F9)
SCIENCE:
Weird weather: 'Monsoonal moisture'
(High pressure system has parked itself further west, over Arizona. As it spins, carrying gulf waters,
it travels over a hot landscape & then hits the steep Sierra, Diablo, San Gabriel and other mountain ranges—
which force it
to rise, cool and then suddenly condense, delivering rain; Temperatures spiked
to 95o around midnight in the Vacaville area.
In the Oakland hills, it jumped 12o in just one hour—
from 73o at 4:30 a.m. to 85 degrees at 5:30 a.m., by 6:30 a.m., Oakland was back down to 67o.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 8-5-2017, A1, A6)
SAN FRANCISCO BAY:
Golden Gate humpback whales tagged in research effort
[Water under Golden Gate Bridge is as deep at 360 feet; While they can dive hundreds of feet,
the humpbacks were only going down 100 feet or less as they chased anchovies; Whales weigh
as much 40 tons (80,000 lbs), and newborns weigh about a ton. They measure up to 60 feet long,
live about 50 years; 1,400 humpbacks feed along California coast, eating 3,000 lbs of food per day.]
(By Mark Prado, SJ Mercury News, 8-5-2017, B1, B4)
HEALTH:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is NOT all in your head!
(New Stanford study led by Dr. Jose Montoya, biomarkers for chronic fatigue syndrome, which affects
836,000 to 2.5 million Americans; Varying concentrations of 17 immune-system signaling proteins,
or cytokines, in blood correlate with disease's severity, offering a measurable sign of a medical state.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 8-1-2017, A1, A6)
OP-ED:
Tired of trash along roads? Get Santa Clara County inmate crews to clean it up
(Our streets are filthy. I cannot recall a time when there has been so much trash on our road.
Proposal to use the approximately 3,000 county jail inmates to clean public areas year round.)
(By Pierluigi Oliverio, SJ Mercury News, 8-1-2017, A7)
TRAILBLAZER:
Professor who studied Einstein's brain dies
(Dr. Marian Diamond was first female student to graduate from UC Berkeley's anatomy department;
Died on July 25 at age 90; Found Einstein's brain had more "support cells" than average in 1984)
(By Emily DeRuy, SJ Mercury News, 8-1-2017, B6)
San Jose
needs a landmark: Why not a breathtaking new light tower?
(San Jose had a 237-feet electric light tower between 1881 and 1915.
San Jose's History Park has a 115-foot replica, half the size of the original.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, 7-31-2017)
LIFESTYLE:
Are indoor malls dying, even in the Bay Area? Yes and no
(While Sunvalley and Westfield Valley Fair thrive, Hilltop and Vallco struggle; These days, teens flirt
and socialize online, and Vallco is an empty hulk but for movie theater, ice rink & Chinese restaurant;
Retail analysts expect 1 out of 4 indoor malls in U.S. could close by 2022, dubbed "retail apocalypse".)
(By Angela Hill, SJ Mercury News, 7-30-2017, D1-D2)
FOOD:
California farms produce a lot of food— but what and how much might surprise you
(California's 77,500 farms produce more than 400 commodities, and 2/3 of the nation's fruits & nuts;
1. Milk & cream, 2. Almonds, 3. Grapes, 4. Cattle & Calves, 5. Lettuce, 6. Strawberries, 7. Tomatoes,
8. Flowers & Foliage, 9. Walnuts, 10. Hay, 11. Broilers & Chicken, 12. Broccoli, 13. Rice, 14. Oranges)
(By Kurt Snibbee, SJ Mercury News, 7-30-2017, D8)
OP-ED:
Stop with the selfies and experience wonder— especially at the observatory
(At the Montgomery Hill Observatory of Evergreen Valley College in San Jose,
50 "stargazers" spent more time taking selfies than looking at Saturn;
In the presence
of the sublime and the transcendent,
self-expression through selfies, rather than engaging
through the senses, can be foolish & short-sighted.
It is like ignoring the eternal for the ephemeral.)
(By Hasan Zillur Rahim, SJ Mercury News, 7-25-2017, A7)
TECHNOLOGY: Is the ground beneath the Stanford campus listening?
(What does privacy even mean when every place you go your individual gait is trackable
or the specific weight of your car is trackable?
Fiber optic cables will be able to tell models
of cars & how many people are riding in them;
Even buildings can be used as sensors in
the same way to pick up slight vibrations.)
(By Yasemin Saplakoglu, SJ Mercury News, 7-24-2017, A1, A3)
LIFESTYLE: Esalen's survival story: A tale of transformation
(Past Esalen speakers: Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Fritz Perls, Abraham Maslow, Joan Baez,
Joseph Campbell, Susan Sontag, Buckminster Fuller and Henry Miller; Esalen will still offer
classes in breathing, yoga, chanting, tantric sex and meditation. But it will also hold workshops like
"Greater Good" moving from the "I" to the "We"; $10 million in recent renovations from storm damages.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 7-21-2017, A1, A3)
WEATHER: Records set as heat goes up
(Sunday was the hottest day. 97 degrees in San Jose, making it the hottest July 16 since 1925;
In Oakland, the new 87-degree record broke the previous high of 86 degrees, set in 1949;
102o in Gilroy & Livermore; 108o in Brentwood; 106o in Concord, 105o in Walnut Creek)
(By Rick Hurd, SJ Mercury News, 7-17-2017, B1, B6)
TECHNOLOGY: Solar eclipse apps help people prepare for celestial extravaganza
(At least 15 free apps that focus on the eclipse are available for Android phones, iPhones, or both.
The app EclipseFlite provides the most ideal airport locations to view the event on Aug. 21.)
(By George Avalos, SJ Mercury News, 7-16-2017, E1-E2)
SAFETY: San Jose library remodels to stop suicides
(Library spends $2.6 million for glass suicide barrier around atrium after 36-year-old
San Jose photographer jumped from 7th-floor railing to his death on Feb. 1, 2017.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, 7-16-2017, B1, B14)
LIFESTYLE: Is picking edible weeds
off the streets the next foodie trend?
(Philip Stark's Berkeley Open Source Food recommends wild edible weeds: chickweed, nettle,
thumbelina carrots, nasturtium, chamomile flowers, wild fennel, oregano, dandelion greens.)
(By Devika G. Bansal, SJ Mercury News, 7-16-2017, B1, B4)
SPORTS | Purdy: My five most magical moments
(Witnessing most famous hockey game ever, US defeats Russia 1980 Olympics;
Mike Tyson biting off
Evan Holyfield's ear in 1997 boxing match;
most painful A's loss in history as Kirk Gibson homers in
1988 World Series off
Dennis Eckersley in 9th to win 5-4; Joe Montana to John Taylor wins 20-16
in 1989 Super Bowl XXIII;
1989 earthquake that could have canceled the
World Series but didn't.)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, 7-16-2017, C1, C6)
SPORTS | Purdy: My five most memorable interviews
(Mark Purdy, has been sports columnist for Mercury News since 1984, will retire in August 2017.
His 5 most memorable interviews: Pete Rose, Muhammad Ali, Al Sims, Tiger Woods, Bill Walsh.)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, 7-9-2017, C1, C8)
A fake killing in World War II Palo Alto
(The fake gangland killing outside the Stanford Theater revealed the creativity of a cadre of
Palo Alto High students and the public fascination with organized crime in September 1943.)
(By Emily DeRuy, SJ Mercury News, 7-9-2017, B1, B8)
HISTORY:
Newly discovered photo suggests Amelia Earhart survived crash
(Earhart landed on Marshall Islands; Photo shows woman resembling Earhart and her navigator,
Fred Noonan, on a dock; Photo also shows a Japanese ship, Koshu, towing Earhart's plane.)
(By Martha Ross, SJ Mercury News, 7-6-2017, A1, A5)
WILDLIFE:
Baby falcon flies off Berkeley's Campanile for first time
(The fledgling, Fiat, flew awkwardly off the tower and, losing ground rapidly, landed a short time
later on a nearby tree. The other baby, Lux, has so far seemed less inclined to test her wings.)
(By Emily DeRuy, SJ Mercury News, 7-6-2017, B1-B2)
HEALTH:
For girls in juvenile hall, 'trauma-informed' yoga is a saving grace
(Rocsana Enriquez is using "trauma-informed yoga" as a way to help young girls in the juvenile
justice system rehabilitate and reclaim their lives; Palo Alto's Art of Yoga serves 700 girls each year.)
(By Tatiana Sanchez, SJ Mercury News, 7-5-2017, A1, A8)
TECHNOLOGY:
Latest cyber attack is a reminder to practice 'safer computing'
(A new and highly virulent outbreak of malicious data-scrambling software appears to be causing mass
disruption across Europe,
hitting Ukraine especially hard; Back up all your files; Use cloud-based service
like Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive,
Idrive, Box, Google Drive, SugarSync or, for Mac and iPhone/iPad users,
Apple's iCloud. Another option is to buy
a backup drive such as Seagate's $55 1TB Portable External USB
drive or $79 2 TB drive; For smaller files buy
$18 SanDisk 64GB thumb drive)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, 7-2-2017, E3)
OBITUARY:
Bay Area TV news legend Fred Van Amburg has died at 86
(KGO-TV anchor was considered to be the Bay Area's Walter Cronkite in the 1970s & early 1980s;
Covered Patty Hearst kidnapping, rise of Black Panthers, Jonestown massacre and assassinations of
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone & Supervisor Harvey Milk; He put KGO-TV on the map.)
(By Chuck Barney, SJ Mercury News, 7-1-2017, A1, A10)
Sunnyvale
man sets records, wows locals with his Chinese art
(Yuejin Wang's Guinness World Record for his art. Wang has written over 5,000 Chinese characters
in calligraphy in one unbroken stroke, contained on a roughly 70-foot scroll, completed it in 27 hours;
Also cut over 3,000 paper snowflakes with English & Mandarin characters hidden in their designs.)
(By Victoria Kezra, SJ Mercury News, 7-1-2017, B1, B6)
SPORTS:
Are 2017 Warriors best team in Bay Area history?
(1. 1989 49ers 14-2 , Playoffs: 3-0; 2. 2017 Warriors 67-15, Playoffs 16-1; 3. 1984 49ers 15-1,
Playoffs 3-0; 4. 1989 A's 99-63, Playoffs 8-1; 5. 2014-2015 Warriors 67-15, Playoffs 16-5.)
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, 6-25-2017, C1, C7)
ENTERTAINMENT:
Ahead of Transformers 5, we're wondering why the toys never made it
to the National Toy Hall of Fame
(Rochester's National Toy Hall of Fame has 62 Hall of Famers
including Duncan yoyo,
Lego, Little green army men, The stick; Hasbro began in 1923; Doctor
& Nurse Kits in 1940s;
Mr. Potato Head 1952; G.I. Joe 1964; Buys Milton Bradley, maker of
Monopoly in 1984;
Buys Tonka & Parker Bros 1990s; First Transformer Toys 1984;
Blockbuster Transformer movie 2007)
(By Kurt Snibbe, SJ Mercury News, 6-25-2017, D8)
TRAVEL & PLAY:
Glamping in Guerneville: An Airstream, the Russian River & Wine Country Eats
("Glamping" is glamorous camping— this luxurious trend has spread up and down the coast,
with amenities that range from sleek Airstreams outfitted with Casper beds & luxurious loos.)
(By Jessica Yadegaran, SJ Mercury News, 6-25-2017, F1-F3)
SCIENCE vs. FAITH:
When does Ramadan end? Traditionalists, scientists are split
(Popular computational method for predicting visibility of lunar crescent is based on the
"Yallop algorithm" created by British astronomer Bernard D. Yallop. It predicts when and
where the thin sliver of crescent can first be seen in the sky; Ramadan moon on May 26, 2017,
9:03 pm PT; First signted at 8:28 pm by 7 adult Muslim witnesses in San Rafael.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 6-24-2017, A1, A6)
COMMUNITY:
One of Silicon Valley's last apricot orchards continues family farming tradition
(Charlie Olson has been in the business for over 70 years, bringing Blenheim apricots to Sunnyvale
residents; Olson, now 82, still operates Orchard Heritage Park with 800 trees to prune, pick, and take
care of; Daughter Deborah runs Olson Cherries on El Camino Real & Mathilda Ave in Sunnyvale.)
(By Gillian Brassil, SJ Mercury News, 6-22-2017, B1, B6)
SCIENCE:
All-American eclipse has Californians stirring with excitement
(Total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, viewable from Oregon to South Carolina; First time in 40 years
that the moon will cover the sun entirely when viewed from the continental United States; Bay Area:
Eclipse begins 9:01 am Pacific time, Monday, Aug. 21; 76% sun covered 10:15 am;
Ends: 11:37 am)
(By Yasemin Saplakoglu, SJ Mercury News, 6-21-2017, A1, A6)
Big Sur's lonely redwoods are key to saving the species threatened by climate change
(Wendy Baxter & Anthony Ambrose, tree ecologists from UC Berkeley, climb redwoods
at Landels-Hill
Big Creek Reserve, to understand how thousands-year-old 300-feet forest giants retain water.)
(By Aylin Y. Woodward, SJ Mercury News, 6-20-2017, A1, A6)
BOOKS BY THE BAY:
Robert Sapolsky's Behave offers hope for human nature
(MacArthur Fellow Robert Sapolsky, Stanford professor of biology & neurology explores human
behavior with passion, insight and wide-ranging vision; He examines the connection between emotion,
aggression & empathy, considers power of symbols and explains what childhood adversity does to our
DNA, why nature & nurture are inseparable and how our brains divide the world into Us and Them.)
(By Georgia Rowe, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2017, D5)
EDUCATION:
U.S. poet laureate to Santa Clara grads: "Fight for justice, freedom"
(U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera bid farewell to 1200 students of Santa Clara University's
class of 2017 with "Today is a New Day" poem: "You are that new day. You are that hope,
that wild-born vista of new horizons. Today, este dia, change comes to you, to your doors.")
(By Tatiana Sanchez, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2017, B1, B7)
ENVIRONMENT:
Bald Eagle numbers fully restored in central California
(At least 30 breeding pairs of eagles have been counted this spring in central coastal California,
from Marin to Santa Barbara County; Nest built on tree tops at Curtner Elementary School.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2017, B1, B6)
SPORTS:
How Warriors are like the old 49ers: Let us count the ways
(Warriors 16-1 playoff run en route to the 2007 NBA title is a déjà vu of 49ers 1989 17-2 SuperBowl season;
Great similarity between Joe Montana & Steph Curry as well as Bill Walsh & Steve Kerr.)
(By Carl Steward, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2017, C1, C5)
TECHNOLOGY:
Virtual reality can help alleviate pain
(Researchers are focusing on psychosomatic pain, but virtual reality has already been shown
to distract patients from physical pain, such as when cleaning burn wounds to prevent infection.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, 6-18-2017, E3)
NBA:
Warriors not the greatest of all time, or even No. 2
[1. 1996 Chicago Bulls (54 points, 8 first-place votes; 2. 1985 LA Lakers (33 points, 1 first-place);
3. 2017 Warriors (28 points, 2 first-place; 4. 1963 Boston Celtics (22 points, 1 first-place); 5. 1986
Boston Celtics (14 points) polled from 12 panelists; Purdy: Jordan's Bulls were the most comple team]
(By Carl Steward & Jon Wilner, SJ Mercury News, 6-14-2017, B1, B4)
BUSINESS:
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigns, cites achievements by fallen firm as Verizon deal closes
(Yahoo's stock price had fallen below $20 when Mayer came in and now it's over $50.
Mayer said "we oversaw creation of $43 billion in market capitalization & shareholder value.")
(By Ethan Baron, SJ Mercury News, 6-14-2017, C7-C8)
BUSINESS:
Yahoo— Fall of a giant, end of an era
(Had market capitalization of $209 billion in 2000; Sold to Verizon for $4.5 billion.
Google & Facebook dominated digital advertising market globally as Yahoo lost ground.)
(By Ethan Baron, SJ Mercury News, 6-13-2017, A1, A8)
NBA Finals:
Warriors win NBA title 129-120, Kevin Durant claims Finals MVP
(Durant made 14 of 20 shots, including 5 of 8 from beyond the arc in the clincher. For the series,
he shot 56% from the field. Scored at least 30 in every game. Led the team in rebounds and blocks.)
(By Anthony Slater, SJ Mercury News, 6-13-2017, C2)
NBA Finals:
Warriors deliver the title that was expected, demanded... and promised
(They outlasted LeBron James, the man who beat them last year; they exorcised
the demons after blowing a 3-1 series lead to Cavaliers last year; and they fulfilled
the manifest destiny of what they put together when they landed Durant last July.)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, 6-13-2017, A1, A6)
NBA Finals:
Andre Iguodala's spectacular slam, big night changed Game 5 course for Warriors
(He scored 20 points, hitting 9 of 14 shots. He had three rebounds, three assists.
Cavaliers surged out to a 41-33 lead in the 2nd quarter. Then Iguodala delivered
the clarion call— a dramatic, high-flying, age-defying dunk down the middle of
the key that completely turned the game on its ear. It touched off a 21-2 Warriors run
that flipped the lead, a lead the Warriors would not relinquish the rest of the way,)
(By Carl Steward, SJ Mercury News, 6-13-2017, C3)
NBA Finals:
Stephen Curry, the Warriors' cornerstone, finds the redemption he sought
(In the clincher, Curry had 34 points, 10 assists, 6 rebounds, enough moments to silence
his loudest critics. He led the way to a 129-120 win over the Cavaliers, clinching Warriors'
second title in three years, completing their vengeance from last year's epic collapse.)
(By Marcus Thompson II, SJ Mercury News, 6-13-2017, C3)
MOVIES:
Why Wonder Woman fight scenes are bringing women to tears
(Tears stream down women's faces when Amazonian princess Diana started kicking ass.)
(By Martha Ross, SJ Mercury News, 6-11-2017, D1-D2)
NBA Finals:
Poor defense at the root of Warriors' Game 4 loss 137-116
[Cavaliers put up a playoff-best 136.1 points per 100 possessions. They set a Finals record
for points in a quarter (49) and 3s in a game (24). Kyrie Irving scores 40; LeBron 31-10-10.]
(By Anthony Slater, SJ Mercury News, 6-11-2017, C1, C8)
NBA Finals:
Draymond Green is center of all heat and edginess again in NBA Finals
(Green's 3-pointers in 2017 playoffs: Portlan 55%, Utah 47.6%, San Antonio 33%, Cleveland 25%;
The Warriors have heard a year's worth of taunts for blowing the 3-1 lead last year, and Game 5 is
their best and first opportunity to shut all of that down. Will Green, Durant, Curry come through?)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, 6-11-2017, C1, C8)
SCIENCE:
Oldest Homo sapiens fossils discovered in Morocco
(Bones found in a cave in Morocco add 100,000 years to history of modern human fossils.
Oldest Homo sapiens bones date to 200,000 years ago, these bones are 300,000 years old.)
(By Ben Guarino, Washington Post & SJ Mercury News, 6-8-2017, A3)
NBA Finals:
Warriors stun Cavs in Game 3, put themselves on doorstep of title and perfection
(LeBron James scored 39 points, Kyrie Irving scored 38; Curry had 26 points, 13 rebounds,
Klay Thompson scored 30, Kevin Durant scored 31 including 3-pointer to give Warriors
a 114-113 lead with 45 seconds left. Warriors won 118-113, one win from playoffs perfection.)
(By Anthony Slater, SJ Mercury News, 6-8-2017, C2)
NBA Finals:
The Five who started this Warriors greatness, and finished the Cavs
(Cleveland's J.R. Smith made a wide-open three to make it 113-107 with over two minutes left.
But the Cavaliers never scored another point. And Warriors scored 11. Sweep seems inevitable.)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, 6-8-2017, C3)
NBA Finals:
Improved Cavaliers still no match for Warriors
(Cleveland scored 22 more points than in Game 1. Had success in the paint with 60 points.
Forced Warriors into 20 turnovers— 5x as many as they committed in the series opener.
And still the Warriors breezed to a 132-113 victory Sunday to seize a 2-0 series lead.)
(By Jeff Faraudo, SJ Mercury News, 6-6-2017, C5)
NBA Finals:
Five reasons Warriors won't collapse like they did a year ago
(1. Kevin Durant is a monster; 2. Stephen Curry is healthy; 3. Tristan Thompson is in check;
4. Draymond Green is under control; 5. They can withstand LeBron's greatness.)
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, 6-6-2017, C1, C5)
SCIENCE:
3-D rendering reveals secrets of bird flight
(Marc Deetjen, Stanford doctoral student conducts the first high-speed automated testing
on birds. Airplanes' wings angle up very slightly— only 6-10 degrees as they take off,
But the Pacific parrotlet Gary's angle of attack ranges from 50-60 degrees.)
(By Sukee Bennett, SJ Mercury News, 6-3-2017, B1, B3)
NBA Finals:
Warriors ride their two MVPs to Game 1 rout of the Cavaliers
[In Game 1 of NBA Finals, Warriors blast Cavaliers 113-91; Warriors had more second
chance points (18 to 13) and won the turnover battle by an astounding 20-4 margin.]
(By Anthony Slater, SJ Mercury News, 6-2-2017, C2)
NBA Finals:
Durant has virtuso performance in upstaging LeBron
(Durant, who scored on James and also, maybe most importantly, stood his ground
while defending James and essentially stymied everything Cleveland wanted to do.)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, 6-2-2017, C3)
Movie Review:
A "Wonder Woman" worthy of worship
(The mother/daughter scenes are some of the film's most moving. In a pantheon often dominated
by machismo and swagger, the matriarchal culture of the Amazons shines brightly indeed.)
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 6-2-2017, E1, E3)
LIFESTYLE:
Neuroscience explains our growing attraction to spiritual retreats
(Revenue for spiritual retreats, increased by 14%, from $494.1 billion in 2013 to $563.2 billion
in 2015; March 22, 2017 paper in Religion, Brain & Behavior
showed brain scans of 7-day attendees
had major decreases in dopamine & serotonin transporter binding associated with positive emotions.)
(By Cindy Lamothe, Washington Post & Mercury News, 5-28-2017, D1-D2)
Roger Moore dies at 89 (yes, older than Sean Connery)
(Made 7 James Bond movies after Connery. Moore: "What kind of serious spy is recognized
everywhere he goes? It's outrageous. So you have to treat the humor outrageously as well.")
(By Robert Barr & Jill Lawless, Associated Press & Mercury News, 5-24-2017, A7)
Watch: California's amazing wildflower explosion— from space
(Thanks to our now-record-breaking rainfall season, California is enjoying a wildflower extravaganza
in its southern desertlands, it's so prolific that you can see it from outer space— fields of poppies,
lupine, brittlebush, purple desert lavender, flaming-red ocotillo and much much more.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, 4-15-2017, B1, B4)
Take a Hike:
Traversing Santa Clara County's 'Magnificent 7'
(Tony Loo Trail, Stevens Creek; Lookout Point, Villa Montalvo;
John Nicholas Trail, Sanborn;
Hotel/Snell Trail, Joseph D. Grant; Longwall/Little Llagas Trail, Calero; Merry-Go-Round Trail,
Mt. Madonna; Mummy Mountain Trail, Coyote Lake)
(By Sal Pizarro, SJ Mercury News, 4-5-2017, B1, B4)
Mount Umunhum:
Closed for decades, park south of Los Gatos opening Sept. 16-17
(5 miles of new trails on 3486-foot peak will offer dramatic views to hikers, bikers & equestrians.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 4-4-2017, B1, B5)
Big
wildflower bloom expected in Bay Area parks as spring sunshine arrives
(Wet winter not only ended the drought, it will bring rainbow of wildflowers to Bay Area trails.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, 4-3-2017, A1, A6)
Koko
the gorilla calls man 'stupid'!
(45-year-old Koko learned 2000 words & sign language to communicate.)
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, 3-26-2017, D1-D2)
Hurry
to see these Southern California wildflower blooms before they're gone!
(Visit Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, & Mojave National Parks)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, 4-1-2017)
Insider's Guide
to Crater Lake: The best hikes, sunset spots and more
(Whether you're hiking its trails, gazing from an overlook or viewing from the water, Crater Lake
looks more like a painting or Hollywood set than result of a catastrophic volcanic eruption & collapse.)
(By Mary Orlin, SJ Mercury News, 3-19-2017, F7-F8)
San Jose couple postpone wedding, spend thousands to find lost dog
(Feb. 13 when Theo— a scruffy black and tan, 1-year-old
Brussels griffon owned by Trendee King
& her fiance, James Galley— darted out the front door of his dog-sitter's home near Blossom Hill and
Almaden roads toward Westfield Oakridge Mall; Couple offers $3500 reward for return of their pet.)
(By Julia Baum, SJ Mercury News, 3-13-2017, B3)
* Aptos: Landmark old-growth Advocate Tree felled by storms
(The Advocate Tree, a 1,000-year-old landmark redwood tree in the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park,
was toppled by last week's storms.
It was 263 feet tall with a circumference of 45 feet.)
(By Ryan Masters, SJ Mercury News, 1-21-2017, B1, B4)
Elders who use tech tools feel less lonely, more physically fit, Stanford study finds
(Use of computers and cell phones is linked to higher levels of mental and physical well-being among
those over age 80; Stanford Center on Longevity in Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, 11-29-2016, A1, A10)
At Nom, telling stories through food is on the menu
(Vijay Karunamurthy, CEO & co-founder of Nom, a social network where foodies post live videos &
photos; not interested in ads for revenue now; want to focus on user experience on eating & cooking.)
(By Queenie Wong, SJ Mercury News, 11-28-2016, C11-C12)
Foothill's
physics show puts the sizzle in science
(Foothill College's 75-minute physics show teaches concepts as temperature, atmospheric pressure,
inertia and electricity to school children through entertaining and accessible science experiments.)
(By Khalida Sarwari, SJ Mercury News, 11-27-2016, B5)
Supermoon spectacular coming Monday
(Moon closest to Earth since 1948, and will appear 14% larger than normal full moon & 30% brighter.)
(By Tatiana Sanchez, SJ Mercury News, 11-13-2016, B1, B9)
BASEBALL:
Giants bullpen turns out to be the curse
(Giants blow a 5-2 lead in the blink of an eye and lose game, 6-5. Five relief pitchers failed to get
an out, one after another— Derek Law, Javy Lopez, Sergio Romo, Will Smith, Hunter Strickland.)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, October 12, 2016, A1, A8)
SPORTS:
Giants bullpen proves fatal, Cubs mount four-run comeback in ninth to advance
(The Giants were three outs away from their 11th consecutive elimination victory, and forcing
a decisive Game 5 in their NL Division Series at Wrigley Field. The ninth inning has been their
liquefaction zone for months now. And the ground shuddered again in a 6-5 loss to the Cubs.)
(By Andrew Baggarly, SJ Mercury News, October 12, 2016, A1, A5)
SPORTS:
The Giants' blown season, blown Game 4, blown opportunity...
everything about 2016 just got blown away
[This was 32 blown saves
all rolled into one ninth inning of hell. Actually,
this was: Blown (Giants season).
Romo: "We're just more in shock with how it happened, the way it happened."]
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, October 12, 2016, A1, A5)
SPORTS:
Giants in 13: Epic night for underdogs
(Joe Panik doubled to score Brandon Crawford as Giants win 6-5 in 13th inning of 5-hours game.)
(By Andrew Baggarly, SJ Mercury News, October 11, 2016, A1, A5)
SPORTS:
The Giants fight, survive, blow it, survive, rally back, win a playoff all-timer and live to do it
all again
(Gillaspie tripled in 8th for 4-3 lead; Crawford & Panik doubled to win 6-5 in 13th inning.)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, October 11, 2016, A1, A5)
Breaking up with Yahoo was harder than I thought
(Switched from Yahoo Mail to Gmail as personal information of 500 million Yahoo users had been
compromised by hackers made me uneasy, and that Yahoo had played footsie with government
snoops by scanning all incoming email traffic, that was the last straw.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, October 11, 2016, B1-B2)
Half Moon Bay: 1,910 pound winner in annual pumpkin weigh-off
(Cindy Tobeck, third-grade teacher from Olympia, Washington, won giant pumpkin weigh-off with
1,910-pound gourd; At $6/lb, she won $11,460; Russ Pingrey was second with 1,723-pound squash.)
(By Aaron Kinney, SJ Mercury News, October 11, 2016, B1-B2)
GLOBAL WARMING:
Protecting the Big Sur redwoods: How is climate change a threat
(Climate change threatens extent of coastal fog that quenches Redwoods' summer thirst.)
(By Sukee Bennett, SJ Mercury News, October 10, 2016, B1, B5)
Science
of raising happy kids starts with enchanted garden
(UC Berkeley psychologist recommends parents try to 'grow' not 'build' their kids
in her new parenting model book The
Gardener and the Carpenter)
(By Martha Ross, SJ Mercury News, October 9, 2016, D1, D5)
LIFESTYLE:
Secrets of great parents: 8 best practices
(Oakland psychologist and parent educator Erica Reischer book What
Great Parents Do:
75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive;
Do what they say they are going to do,
don't make rules they can't enforce and keep their commitments.)
(By Martha Ross, SJ Mercury News, October 9, 2016, D1, D5)
BASEBALL:
Giants undone by one swing (and one swing that might not have been a swing)
(Cueto pitches 3-hitter & strikes out 10, but on 108th pitch gives homer to Baez
as Cubs Lester wins 1-0 in first game of NLDS; Hernandez' checked swing ruled strikeout.)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, October 8, 2016, A1, A10)
BASEBALL:
This Giants team must win a different way for another World Series run
(The Giants' rolling-momentum 7-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday finished off
a series sweep that allowed Bochy's team to leave behind a summer of near-collapse and clinch
one of the two wild-card spots available in the National League playoffs; Need runs early to win.)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, October 3, 2016, A1, A6)
BUSINESS:
From Pets.com's sock puppet to lightly worn Prada, CEO makes a comeback
(Julie Wainwright is back with a successful luxury consignment company The RealReal, leveraging
the experience and publicity of her Pets.com failure to bring attention to her latest endeavor.)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, October 3, 2016, A1, A3)
BUSINESS:
What happens when the cash finally runs out?
(Between 70 & 75% of venture-backed startups don't return money to investors— and of those, more
than half return nothing. CB Insights tracked 1,000 startups that raised seed rounds in 2009-2010,
and less than half secured a second round of funding by 2015; Just 22% achieved a sale or IPO,
and only 1% reached a value of $1 billion.)
(By Marisa Kendall, SJ Mercury News, October 2, 2016, A1, A11)
BUSINESS:
On-demand style services for seniors
(Americans 50 & older spent $7.6 trillion last year, and number of people in that age group will double
from 1.6 billion to 3.2 billion by 2050; Seniorly, 2-year-old San Francisco-based startup provides free
online platform to make navigating confusing world of assisted living facilities as easy as booking an
Airbnb. San Bruno-based CareLinx & San Francisco-based Honor, let users summon caregivers
on-demand via online platforms or mobile apps, paying caregivers set rate for hours or months care.)
(By Marisa Kendall, SJ Mercury News, October 2, 2016, E1, E3)
BAY AREA WORKPLACES:
9 qualities recruiters want to see in every single candidate
(Ambition, Curiosity, Grit, Humility, Hustle, Learning Agility, Positivity, Reliability, Transparency.)
(By Dominique Rodgers, Monster.com, SJ Mercury News, October 2, 2016, E12, E7)
BUSINESS:
Zume Pizza— Made by robots, baked in delivery truck
(Pizza-making robots programmed for applying pizza sauce and sliding pies into the oven;
a delivery truck loaded with smart ovens that bake pies while they're en route to customers.)
(By Marisa Kendall, SJ Mercury News, September 29, 2016, C12-C11)
BASEBALL:
Behind the scenes with Vin Scully: Giants broadcasters share favorite memories
(Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Jon Miller and Dave Flemming— eager to savor their private audience
with greatest storyteller baseball has ever known; After Aaron's record 715th home run in 1974, he
followed with several minutes of silence & let the ambiance in the ballpark wash over his audience.)
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, September 29, 2016, C1, C6)
EDUCATION:
New college at Onizuka Station pays homage to the 'Blue Cube'
(On Sept. 26, Foothill Sunnyvale College Center is scheduled to open to more than 1,600 students;
Station was built in 1960 as the Air Force Satellite Test Center; in 1994 was named after astronaut
Ellison Onizuka, who died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Campus building is two stories
tall and houses 23 classrooms, a small library, admissions services, counseling and tutoring.)
(By Victoria Kezra, SJ Mercury News, September 28, 2016, B1-B2)
China
begins operating world's largest radio telescope
(Measuring 500 meters in diameter, the radio telescope is nestled in a natural basin within a stunning
landscape of lush green karst formations in southern Guizhou province. Took 5 years & $180 million
to complete & surpasses that of Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory, research dish on stars.)
(By Gilliam Wong, SJ Mercury News, September 26, 2016, A4)
BUSINESS:
Who are the Silicon Valley CEOs in the $1-a-year salary club?
($1 Club included Facebook's Zuckerberg; Larry Page, Alphabet's CEO, Google's parent company;
Mark Pincus, then Zynga's CEO; Lyndon Rive, SolarCity's CEO; & Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's CEO.)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, September 25, 2016, E1-E2)
TECHNOLOGY:
Sharing Spotify and Apple Music when your teens hate your tunes
(Music streaming services have same pricing $15/month:
Apple Music,
Spotify, Google Play Music.)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, September 25, 2016, E1-E2)
BUSINESS:
Yahoo hit with hack affecting at least 500 million user accounts, FBI investigating
(State-sponsored theft occurred in 2014 when thieves hacked into Sunnyvale tech firm's data centers.)
(By Patrick May & Ethan Baron, SJ Mercury News, September 23, 2016, A1, A8)
SCIENCE:
Pioneering California physicist dies at 102; built important tool
(Edward Joseph Lofgren led the development, construction and operation of the Bevatron,
an early particle accelerator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
(By Kristin J. Bender, SJ Mercury News, September 23, 2016, B6)
Toxic
algae troubles many California lakes and waterways
(Blue-green algae or cyanobaccteria has infected 40+ California lakes and waterways;
it has spread during five years of drought & not abated despite wetter winter.)
(By Denis Cuff, SJ Mercury News, September 21, 2016, A1, A12)
Hillary Clinton's
'evil twin' once roamed the East Bay
(Although side-by-side the resemblance between Teresa Barnwell & Hillary Clinton is uncanny,
Barnwell assured everyone that she had never served as Clinton's body double and was in Los Angeles
all day this Sept. 11, and not in New York; In 1993 she began impersonating Hillary as a profession.)
(By Angela Ruggiero, SJ Mercury News, September 21, 2016, B3)
California
sea otter population reaches record high number
(1977 Endangered Species Act made 1800 sea otters in 1990 expand to 3272 population in 2016.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, September 20, 2016, A1, A6)
Albino redwoods: Mystery of 'ghosts of the forest' may be solved
(There are roughly 400 in California, about 10 feet tall, with high levels of the toxic heavy metals
nickel, copper and cadmium; albinos act like a sponge, getting bad stuff out of the soil and plants.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, September 11, 2016, A1, A12)
BUSINESS: Wells Fargo fined $185 million for opening bogus accounts
(Bank terminated roughly 5,300 workers for illegal sales practice; It has 40 million retail customers.)
(By George Avalos, SJ Mercury News, September 8, 2016, A1)
TechShop San Jose move stalled by $1 million funding gap
(Move from TechShop's current location at 300 S. Second Street to the old Zanotto's grocery store—
a 20,000 square-foot space at 38 S. Second St.— has run into unforeseen construction issues, leaving
TechShop with a $1 million funding gap it can't close on its own, said spokesman Michael Catterli.)
(By Sal Pizarro, SJ Mercury News, September 4, 2016, B3)
Maureen O'Hara,
spirited movie star, dies at 95
(She came to Hollywood to star in the 1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame
and became known as the
Queen of Technicolor;
Also played little Natalie Wood's skeptical mother in 1947 Miracle on 34th Street
where they were charmed by Edmund Gwenn as a man who believed he was Santa Claus.)
(By Robert Jablon, SJ Mercury News, October 25, 2015, A14)
Steve Kerr turns Warriors into NBA's best
(Warriors are one of 10 teams in NBA to win at least 67 games in a season. Their average margin
of victory was 10.1 points per game, 8th-highest point differential ever. Chief reason was coach
Steve Kerr. 5 moves he made: 1) Hired Alvin Gentry as offense guru & Ron Adams as defensive
wizard who made team #1 in offense & defense; 2) Made Draymond Green starter to energize team;
3) Move Andre Iguodala to bench as 6th man; 4) Reduced turnovers; 5) Incorporated 7-ft center
Andrew Bogut in defense & offense.)
(Marcus Thompson II, Mercury News, April 18, 2015, A1, A6)
New Jersey teen takes shot, scores friendship with Warriors star Steph Curry
(Stephen Curry visited young fan Jeff Lorenz of Pennington, N.J. in March 2012 who challenged him
to make a shot from his balcony, which he did after 9 tries; 30 high school students showed up to see
Curry & had pizza with him; On April 14, Curry hit 77 straight 3-pointers
in practice & 94 out of 100.)
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, April 17, 2015, A1, A11)
In Search of Ultimate Energy
(UC Santa Cruz physicists Howard Haber &
Abraham Seiden at CERN's Large Hadron Collider;
Atlas detector to find particles after proton collisions making up dark matter)
(By James Urban, SJ Mercury News, April 13, 2015, B1, B3)
Sand man
leaves giant labyrinth-like circles on Santa Cruz beaches
(Brandon Anderton carves giant mandalas on the sand on Año Nuevo Bay near Santa Cruz;
His geometric designs cover the size of a football field looking like alien crop circles.)
(By Bruce Newman, SJ Mercury News, April 12, 2015, A1, A17)
LIFESTYLE:
Babies' listening to Mozart great but probably won't make them smarter
(Mozart effect first appeared in a 1993 Nature article by physicist Gordon Shaw
& psychologist/musician Frances Rauscher. College students did slightly better in tests
after listening to Mozart sonata than ten minutes
of relaxation exercise music, or silence;
However later researchers
debunked original studies.)
(By Armin Brott, SJ Mercury News, February 22, 2015, D2)
MEDICAL TECH: 3D printers to make human body parts? It's happening
The arm for 6-year-old Alex Pring was created by University of Central Florida engineering
students for a cost of around $350 using off-the-shelf electrical servo motors & custom machined
components created on a 3D printer. A similar conventional prosthetic arm would cost $40,000.)
(By Steve Johnson, SJ Mercury News, January 29, 2015, A1, A8)
NBA: Klay Thompson and his wondrous night
(Klay Thompson scored 37 points in 3rd quarter, an NBA record, en route to 52 points in Warriors)
126-101 victory over Sacramento Kings; He made all 13 field goals, nine 3-pointers, two free throws.)
(By Diamond Leung, SJ Mercury News, January 25, 2015, C1, C3) Video,
Video2
Zuckerberg brings a national book club to the Internet
(Facebook CEO plans to read two books a month and have followers join him. His first pick:
Moises Naim's The End
of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States,
Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used To Be)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, January 8, 2015, B9-B10)
Immigrant brothers go from Watsonville to Ivy League
(Brothers Edgar & Cesar Garcia Lopez are first in their family to attend college; sons of immigrant
Mexican parents, graduated from Watsonville High School; Cesar, 17, is freshman at Yale, majoring
in ecology & evolutionary biology; Edgar, 20, is junior at Brown University studying bioengineering.)
(By Donna Jones, SJ Mercury News, January 7, 2015, B1-B2)
Yahoo prodigy Nick D'Aloisio ponders his future
(Nick was 15 when he created iPhone app Summly; 17 when Yahoo bought the news summarization
technology for $30 million; now 19, he's part-time Yahoo product manager & Oxford student,
studying philosophy & computer science; debating ideas of David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and Kant.)
(By Matt O'Brien, SJ Mercury News, December 29, 2014, A1, A10)
Tackling Problem of Hoarding:
10 steps help declutter, let go and live better
(Learn what's necessary to let go. Things aren't useful if you can't find them. Ask questions. As you
sort, ask yourself: Do I love it? Do I need it? Do I use it? Does it fit with where I want my life to go?)
(By Marni Jameson, SJ Mercury News, December 13, 2014, E1, E4)
"Saratoga: John Pugh creates 'Tree of Life' for Alameda Family Funeral and Cremation"
("Tree of Life" is a large oak tree with leaves that symbolize the different seasons.
The tree is surrounded by a pond with a swan swimming downstream.) Trompe l'Oeil art
(By Khalida Sarwari, SJ Mercury News, December 4, 2014, B4)
Meditation, mindfulness gaining popularity in Silicon Valley
(Jon Kabat-Zinn founded Center for Mindfulness in 1979 at UMass Medical Center with oldest
website in 1998; Renée Burgard;
Dada Nabhaniilananda; Free websites:
Mindfulnesshealth.com
& Mindfulnesshealth-psychotherapy.com;
Headspace Meditation: $12.95/month after 10 free lessons.)
(By Pete Carey, SJ Mercury News, October 6, 2014)
Oakland: Lake Merritt's bonsai curator defied odds
to become a master
(Kathy Shaner is first non-Japanese to be given title of "Bonsai Master".)
(By Nate Gatrell, SJ Mercury News, October 1, 2014, B1, B5)
UC Berkeley celebrates free speech movement's 50th anniversary
(Free speech leader Mario Savio sounds off at UC Berkeley on Nov. 9, 1964.)
(By Katy Murphy, SJ Mercury News, September 30, 2014, A1, A8)
BUSINESS: Excuse me, but is that really you?
(Developers need to give Siri and her ilk more smarts so they can tell if it s really you.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, September 30, 2014)
BUSINESS: Google's diva of digital trend-spotting goes live on-air
(Roya Soleimani, a communication manager for Google, discusses the weekly top search trends
with KLIV 1590 AM news anchor Matt Burrows on the phone, giving listeners that weekly pulse.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, September 28, 2014, A1, A14)
Tech responds
to growing calls for Internet anonymity
(BitTorrent is the leader in anonymous Internet movement; new products such as NSA-proof phone calls,
and they are also working on an email system that will be untraceable to Internet spies.)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, September 28, 2014, A1, A15)
True
inspiration: While going blind and deaf, she helps others cope with life's challenges
(Rebecca Alexander, Berkeley raised psychotherapist was born with a rare genetic mutation called
Usher Syndrome type III that allows her to see only about 10o instead of 180o in front of her;
she also lost most of her hearing; Will read her book Not Fade Away:
A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found.)
(By Martha Ross, SJ Mercury News, September 28, 2014, D1-D2)
Let's try a little education in Ferguson
(Schools should require— age-appropriate cross-cultural studies that would, in effect, introduce us to us—
the forces that have made us— inner-city black, Appalachian white, barrio Mexican, whatever.)
(By Leonard Pitts Jr., SJ Mercury News, August 21, 2014)
Farewell to Candlestick: Paul McCartney delivers touching goodbye concert to famed venue
(50,000 fans listen to 40 songs: "Eight Days a Week", "Maybe I'm Amazed", "Lovely Rita",
"Live & Let Die", "Hey Jude"; Beatles Last Concert at Candlestick on August 29, 1966.)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News, August 16, 2014)
Anger in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere
(Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure.
People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.)
(By Leonard Pitts Jr., SJ Mercury News, August 15, 2014)
Particles might illuminate star dust mystery
(Seven samples of "original stuff" captured near Mars by Stardust Spacecraft
that NASA launched in 1999 to sample the dust in a comet's wake.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, August 15, 2014)
Apple, Google, VCs invest in health technology
(Health technology is hot in Silicon Valley, where some of the biggest tech companies
and a swarm of startups are working on everything from doctor-recommendation apps
and video diagnostic services to data-crunching analytics and cutting-edge DNA sequencing.)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, August 14, 2014)
Robin Williams: Bay Area made him feel normal
(Residents who had encountered Williams recalled a comedian who didn't always
try to be funny but never failed to be gracious.)
(By Ellen Knickmeyer, SJ Mercury News, August 14, 2014)
Robin Williams' daughter deletes Twitter and Instagram accounts over online bullying
(25-year-old Zelda Williams said negative messages about her dad
and judgment about her photos have been "cruel and unnecessary.")
(By Tony Hicks, SJ Mercury News, August 13, 2014)
Robin Williams' death makes public the usually private agony of suicide
(Extraordinary talent & ability to bring us joy proved no match for his depression;
Comic's death casts light on illness too few are willing to discuss.)
(By Mark Emmons, SJ Mercury News, August 13, 2014)
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin on a quest to outdo his own success
(From PayPal to Affirm and Glow, Max Levchin, 39, has set a high bar
by trying to top PayPal which he co-founded.)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, August 12, 2014)
Appreciation: Robin Williams, not a faster brain on the planet
(Riffing on words and ideas, leaping with lightning speed from thought
to idea to rant to epiphany, there wasn't a faster brain on the planet.)
(By Tony Hicks, SJ Mercury News, August 11, 2014)
After 54 Years: The 'Stick Last Hurrah
(Venue that hosted the Beatles' final 1966 concert welcomes Paul McCartney
back for farewell event at Candlestick Park; 50,000 tickets sold out for Aug. 14.)
(By Jim Harrington, SJ Mercury News, August 11, 2014)
Massive data breach shows skills of Russian hackers
(Gang acquired databases of stolen credentials from fellow hackers on the black market,
and then used that data "to attack email providers, social media and other websites
to distribute spam to victims and install malicious redirections on legitimate systems.")
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, August 8, 2014)
A closer look at Intel's high trinity
(Gordon Moore, Bob Noyce, Andy Grove left Fairchild Semiconductors and founded Intel
in Michael S. Malone's The Intel Trinity.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, August 7, 2014)
Recordbreaking data breach highlights widespread security sflaws
(Russian gang reportedly has stolen 1.2 billion user names and passwords
and more than 500 million email addresses from 420,000 websites.)
(By Steve Johnson, SJ Mercury News, August 6, 2014)
Physicists, others using science to help art of film animation
(Ron Henderson uses Newton's equations as building blocks for constructing a 3D bubble-like sphere.)
(By Richard Verrier, SJ Mercury News, August 1, 2014)
Economist
who predicted busted housing bubble says another recession is coming
(Economist David Levy of Levy Forecast,
newsletter since 1949, says the United States is likely to fall
into a recession next year triggered by downturns in other countries, the first time in modern history.)
(By Bernard Condon, SJ Mercury News, 7-23-2014)
Bald eagle pair fledges first Santa Cruz County chick in decades
(A bald eagle pair has successfully raised a chick at the edge of a slough west of Watsonville.)
(By Donna Jones, SJ Mercury News, 7-22-2014) (Photo: Bald Eagles & Chick)
Port Chicago
disaster exposed racism in military; helped launch civil rights movement
(300 die in Bay Area Naval munition base double explosions)
(Disaster,
Port Chicago,
Explosion)
(By Lisa P. White, SJ Mercury News, 7-17-2014)
Drought creates headaches for California recreation
(Memorial County Park campground closed for the first time in 90 years due to low water levels.)
(By Denis Cuff, SJ Mercury News, 7-14-2014)
49ers legends top All-Stars 45-40
(Joe Montana throws 2-yard winning touchdown pass to former 49ers owner Eddie Deartolo.) Photos
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, 7-13-2014)
Tanks for the memories:
Historic collection of military might auctioned for more than $10 million
(Jacques Littlefield's collection of tanks sold for $10.24 million.)
(By Bruce Newman, SJ Mercury News, 7-13-2014)
Portola Valley tank collection rumbles to the auction block
(Collection of some 80 tanks expected to fetch million-dollar bids during auction.)
(By Bruce Newman, SJ Mercury News, 7-9-2014)
BUSINESS—
Q&A: Lenovo CTO Peter Hortensius on innovation, wearables and the PC market
(Unlike other PC makers, Lenovo is a major player in smartphones, and its Yoga tablet.)
(By Troy Wolverton, SJ Mercury News, 7-12-2014)
London firm creates mind-controlled commands for Google Glass
(This Place developed a software MindRDR allowing Google Glass to connect with Neurosky
MindWave Mobile EEG biosensor, a head-mounted device that detects a person's brain waves.)
(By Salvador Rodriguez, SJ Mercury News, 7-12-2014)
Morgan Hill teen wins $36,000 award for combating bullying
(18-year old Joshua Toch, born with cerebral palsy, founded Mind Before Mouth, to stop bullying.)
(By Sharon Noguchi, SJ Mercury News, 7-12-2014)
In reality, Silicon Valley is not spic-and-span
(Google exec Forrest Timothy Hayes died from heroin overdose on his boat
while prostitute finished her wine by his side & other Silicon Valley crimes.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, 7-11-2014)
Effort under way to protect egrets at Google
(Mountain View's Shorebird Way has 24 great egret nests and half a dozen snowy egret nests.)
(By Jason Green, SJ Mercury News, 7-3-2014)
(Patrick Tehan Photo: Great Egret chicks)
ONLINE RESEARCH: 'Lab rats' voice their outrage at Facebook
(Facebook tweaked the contents of nearly 700,000 users' news feeds— without their knowledge—
to test their emotional response to seeing more positive or negative news from friends.)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, July 1, 2014)
TECHNOLOGY: A look at how far Google has come
(Beside searching for information on the Web, Google has reached into every corner of our lives
from our PCs, to our phones, to our living rooms, to our cars and, now— to our bodies.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, June 30, 2014)
Yosemite turns 150 years old, as major park renovation begins
(Inspired by early photographs of Carleton Watkins & paintings by Albert Bierstadt, President Lincoln
signed bill on June 30, 1864 setting aside Yosemite Valley for public use, resort, and recreation.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, June 28, 2014)
SF Giants' Hector Sanchez (29)
sits in dugout before playing Cincinnati Reds at AT&T Park
(Tattoes on Sanchez's hand: HOPE on both fingers, Rose petal, Eye in Triangle)
(By Jose Carlos Fajardo, SJ Mercury News, 6-28-2014)
BASEBALL: Is Tim Lincecum on Hall of Fame path?
(Pitchers with multiple no-hitters/Cy Young awards/World Series wins— Lincecum & Sandy Koufax)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, June 26, 2014)
BASEBALL: Tim Lincecum: master of reinventing himself
(Lincecum is 1st pitcher with multiple hits in no-hitter since Rick Wise homered 2x in 1971 no-hitter.)
(By Alex Pavlovic, SJ Mercury News, June 26, 2014)
BASEBALL: Tim Lincecum throws no-hitter, makes history
[No-hitter was the 16th by a Giants pitcher. Only Lincecum and Hall-of-Famer Christy Mathewson
(1901, 1905) have thrown more than one. Lincecum threw both no-hitters against San Diego Padres.]
(By Alex Pavlovic, SJ Mercury News, June 26, 2014) (Video Discussion: 1,
2)
Back to the future with education
(Aspen Institute Task Force on Learning calls for a radical rethinking of how we approach education.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, June 23, 2014)
Baby finches disappear from nests
(Young birds are in danger of other birds, rats, cats, raccoons, snakes, opossums, skunks and foxes.)
(By Joan Morris, SJ Mercury News, June 23, 2014)
(Bob Canchola: Fox photo)
Poet Maya Angelou remembered at memorial service
(Clinton compared Angelou to a firefly, who would light up at the most unexpected time.)
(By Emery P. Dalesio, SJ Mercury News, June 8, 2014)
California Chrome falls short in bid for Triple Crown
(Lost Belmont Stakes to long shot Tonalist, finishing fourth, and leaving owner Steve Coburn
to complain others took "coward's way out" by skipping first two legs of the Triple Crown.)
(By Beth Harris, SJ Mercury News, June 7, 2014)
California Chrome goes for racing history
(Jockey Victor Espinoza, who saw his bid for a Triple Crown aboard War Emblem end in defeat
at the 2002 Belmont, will ride California Chrome, hoping to end 36 years Triple Crown drought.)
(By Beth Harris, SJ Mercury News, June 6, 2014)
California Chrome trainer Art Sherman's Bay Area roots
(California Chrome's lineage has a distant link to Swaps, & Sherman thinks there's some karma in that.
He even visited Swaps'
grave before the Kentucky Derby win as a subtle way of saying thanks.)
(By Carl Steward, SJ Mercury News, June 5, 2014)
San Jose's 43rd Annual Greek Food and Cultural Festival
(Arhondia dancers perform on June 1, 2014, at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church)
(By Karl Mondon, SJ Mercury News, June 2, 2014)
May 31 Readers' letters: Maya Angelou
(Maya Angelou gave woman a lesson in dignity.)
(By Catherine Townsend Horner, SJ Mercury News, May 31, 2014)
Cyberbaiting is new class problem
(Cyberbating is when students goad, irritate or 'bait' teachers into verbal outbursts
while other students video the results of the harassment and post the footage online.)
(By Margaret Lavin, SJ Mercury News, May 21, 2014)
Earthquake cluster likely to strike Bay Area, scientists say
(Six earthquakes 6.3-7.7 rattled Bay Area 1690-1776; 63% chance of major earthquakes before 2036)
(By Becky Bach, SJ Mercury News, May 20, 2014)
BIG WOW CONVENTION: Digital destiny foreseen at comic book festival
(Comics in same sinkhole with newspapers, magazines & books— printed media fighting for survival
against the Internet; Hundreds came to San Jose festival to meet artists & buy vintage comic books.)
(By Joe Rodriguez, SJ Mercury News, May 19, 2014)
PHOTOS: Big Wow Comic Festival in San Jose
(Hannah Paquiz, 5, in her Princess Leia outfit is not intimidated by He-Man played by Matt Helm
of San Jose at the Big Wow Comic Festival at San Jose Convention Center, Sunday, May 18, 2014)
(By Karl Mondon, SJ Mercury News, May 19, 2014)
Barbara Walters: Why I failed to make her cry
(I had to ask her about her penchant for turning her interviews into sob fests.)
(By Chuck Barney, SJ Mercury News, May 13, 2014)
Barbara Walters recalled as feminist idol, dogged journalist
(Retiring TV journalist described as a 'legend', 'icon', and 'rock star'. She researches
her subjects like crazy and tries to find one thing about that person no one knows.)
(By Chuck Barney, SJ Mercury News, May 12, 2014)
New book attacks historical image of California's missions
(Elias Castillo's A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions
revealed 62,000 Native Americans died within California's 21 missions from 1769-1883; Letter written
by Father Junipero Serra in 1775 at Stanford's Green Library to whip troublemakers and shackle them.)
(By Terri Morgan, SJ Mercury News, May 12, 2014)
China's Alibaba files for IPO that could be tech industry's biggest ever
(With its entry into the U.S. stock market, Alibaba— often described as a combination
of eBay, Amazon and Google— will have a valuation estimated at $150 billion to upward
of $200 billion, giving it an immediate market value greater than Facebook and Amazon.)
(By Heather Somerville & Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, May 7, 2014)
Mountain lion safely captured in Mountain View parking garage
(110-pound mountain lion spotted in an apartment complex at 255 S. Rengstorff Ave)
(By Jason Green, SJ Mercury News, May 7, 2014)
Y Combinator known for picking winners
(Airbnb valued at $10 billion, 11 million people used site to book a room or home rental.
Y Combinator sponsored successful startups Reddit, Dropbox and Instacart to stardom.)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, May 3, 2014)
Q&A: Elastica CTO Zulfikar Ramzan, on Heartbleed and online security
(Companies have employees sharing files through their corporate laptops through Box, Google Drive,
Dropbox or Salesforce that's sensitive, intellectual property. Using computer algorithms, we build
a profile of every single user and monitor what's going on and give the company everyone's activity
in real time. Anomalies can be detected within minutes, if someone is downloading a lot of data.)
(By Dan Nakaso, SJ Mercury News, May 3, 2014)
San Jose officially tops 1 million population— likely for good this time
(Los Angeles 3.9 million; San Diego 1.3 million; San Jose 1,000,536; San Francisco 836,620)
(By Mike Rosenberg, SJ Mercury News, May 1, 2014)
UC admission harder than ever for Californians
(Admission rates at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego & UC Santa Barbara have plummeted to less
than half of what they were in 1995. 11,183 applicants had no offers from their chosen campuses.)
(By Katy Murphy, SJ Mercury News, May 1, 2014)
High-frequency traders draining profits from mutual funds and pension accounts
(Michael Lewis's "Flash Boys" tells how high-frequency traders are milliseconds ahead of major
institutions, such as mutual funds, and make $22 billion per year and never lose money.)
(By Stephen J. Butler, SJ Mercury News, April 27, 2014)
'Tentacles' exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium will suck you in
(World's largest display of Cephalopods— octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus, that love
to camouflage themselves or hide in tiny crevices; Fishermen call them inkfish.)
(By Nicholas St. Fleur, SJ Mercury News, April 21, 2014)
Bay Area apartment rents set record
(Asking rents averaged $2,043 during the first quarter of this year, 9.9% increase over the same
January-March period of 2013; need to make six figures to have a decent apartment in the Bay Area.)
(By George Avalos & Pete Carey, SJ Mercury News, April 16, 2014)
Maybe Silicon Valley should be more like Amazon
(CEO Jeff Bezos offers employees money to leave. "Pay to Quit" program gives employees annual
cash incentive to leave, starting at $2,000, increasing by $1,000 each year until it reaches $5,000.)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, April 16, 2014)
Blood Moon arrives late Monday, could spell early end to mission
(Partial eclipse start 10:58 pm; Total eclipse starts 12:07 am; Total eclipse ends 1:25 am;
Partial eclipse ends 2:33 am; Moon won't disappear completely because Earth's atmosphere
bends light with longer wavelengths, like red and orange, which then reflects off the moon.)
(By Becky Bach, SJ Mercury News, April 13, 2014)
'Heartbleed' bug: Experts say change all your passwords
(Zulfikar Ramzan recommends consumers check web site to make sure their
most sensitive web sites have been updated to prevent a Heartbleed-related attack.)
(By Michael Liedtke and Anick Jesdanun, SJ Mercury News, April 10, 2014)
MAGID ON TECH: What to do now that Microsoft has ended XP support
[Another option is to reformat (erase) the hard drive and replace Windows with a version of Linux.]
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, April 9, 2014)
States probing massive data breach of Social Security numbers
(200 million Social Security numbers, bank account data exposed at Experian.)
(By Steve Johnson, SJ Mercury News, April 5, 2014)
BOOKS:
Minimalists to preach burgeoning movement in San Jose
(Josh Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus latest book Everthing
That Remains: "less money, less stuff,
more meaning." They have 11,000 Twitter followers and two million blog followers.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, April 1, 2014)
SCIENCE:
Big Bang tremors may back physicist's universe-birth theory
(In 1986, Andrei Linde developed the theory of "eternal chaotic inflation,"
which creates a self-reproducing, eternally existing system of many universes.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, March 25, 2014)
TECHNOLOGY:
Don't think an Apple TV service will let you cut ties with Comcast
(68% of nation's broadband customers get their service from just four companies— Comcast,
Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Verizon. With Apple TV, you'll be still paying Comcast.)
(By Troy Wolverton, SJ Mercury News, March 24, 2014)
OP-ED:
Technology is not wisdom
(Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver knowledge, not knowledge itself.
Speeding up ignorance is not the same as imparting wisdom.)
(By Victor Davis Hanson, SJ Mercury News, March 21, 2014)
SPORTS:
Oakland A's incorporate yoga into their daily routine
(Yoga instructor Katherine Roberts is in her third spring training leading the A's in yoga stretches.)
(By John Hickey, SJ Mercury News, March 21, 2014)
OP-ED:
What does it mean to be cool? (Comment on Yiren Lu's NY Times 3-16 article
"Trouble
in Start-Up Land");
(As much as we all want to be around other smart people, coolest thing in life
is to determine our own path. Turn off Facebook and pick something that will last beyond you.)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, March 20, 2014)
Scientists are calling this dinosaur the "chicken from hell"
(Birdlike 7-foot tall dinosaur Anzu wyliei roamed western North America 68 million years ago)
(By Patrick Hogan, Digital First Media, SJ Mercury News, March 20, 2014)
Jikoji,
founded by Steve Jobs' Zen mentor, offers meditation in the midst of nature
(Joe Hall: "Meditation is not about finding the off switch, it is about developing the skills, focus,
attention to the present moment, and curiosity needed to move fluidly with things as they change.")
(By Aaron Kinney, SJ Mercury News, Feb. 18, 2014)
OP-ED:
Ouch! Silicon Valley suffers a tough case of elitism and arrogance
(It is time for tech entrepreneurs to focus on solving big problems and giving back to the world.)
(By Vivek Wadhwa, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 27, 2014)
VC legend Tom Perkins compares anti-Google protesters to Nazis
(In letter published in Wall Street Journal's weekend edition, Tom Perkins suggests that
the "outraged public reaction to the Google (GOOG) buses carrying technology workers
from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them" could be a precursor
to the sort of violent attacks the Nazi's waged against Jews on "Kristallnacht'' in November 1938.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 27, 2014)
Apple's
first Mac was inspirational
(You could copy & paste graphics from MacPaint directly into MacWrite and do desktop publishing.)
(By Larry Magid, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 24, 2014)
Tom Perkins' rant: Is this the best Silicon Valley can do?
(Who are we to judge whether the workers in the big busses are good or bad?
We can't make judgments about how to solve problems if we talk past each other.)
(By Marcela Davison Aviles, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 24, 2014)
Poof! Marissa Mayer's honeymoon period at Yahoo ends
(Yahoo's stock has been on a tear, up more than 150% since Mayer arrived in July 2012.
However, advertising, Yahoo's chief way of making money, is still not growing.)
(By Michelle Quinn, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 23, 2014)
Transformation of North San Jose into urban tech hub under way
(Riverview Apartments on North 1st Street is part of 28,000 new housing units in North
San Jose; 2.7 million square feet of retail and 550 new hotel rooms will be added.)
(By George Avalos, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 23, 2014)
Harbaugh's Hemingway quote, and what it says about defeat
(Oliver asked Harbaugh whether he was "devastated" by the loss. He quoted Hemingway's
The Old Man and the Sea: "A man can be destroyed, but he can't be defeated.")
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 23, 2014)
Khan Academy is revolutionizing education
(Khan Academy is being used in over 200 countries, by 150,000 educators and has 10 million unique
monthly users. Over 1.5 billion problems have been answered— 5 million questions every day.)
(By Margaret Lavin, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 23, 2014)
Rustlers forget about cattle and turn to nuts
(In 2012, California's almond crop was valued at $5 billion, pistachios were over $1 billion and
walnuts were over $1.5 billion; Thieves hauled off $400,000 in walnuts & $100,000 in almonds.)
(By Scott Smith, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 19, 2014)
Biz Break: Merger madness as Yahoo, Google, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks announce acquisitions
(Yahoo is building its audience through mobile, which is expected to produce 2.5 billion computing
devices in 2014;
Pinterest buys image-recognition startup
VisualGraph, and builds technology to
better understand what people are pinning;
Google acquires Swiss appmaker Bitspin.)
(By Jeremy C. Owens, SJ Mercury News, Jan. 7, 2014)
Golden State Warriors find launching pad
(The Warriors came back from a 27-point deficit and went on to beat Toronto Raptors 112-103)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, Dec. 4, 2013)
Warriors' furious rally beats Raptors
(With 9:20 to go in the third quarter against Toronto Raptors, Warriors trailed by 27 points
and were still behind by 18 entering the fourth quarter; In final 12 minutes for Golden State
outscored Toronto 42-15 to win 112-103 for the seventh-largest comeback in NBA history.)
(By Carl Steward, SJ Mercury News, Dec. 4, 2013)
America's Cup and the greatest comeback in sports history
(Oracle Team USA overcame an unprecedented 8-1 deficit to defeat Emirates Team New Zealand)
(By Mark Purdy, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 26, 2013)
Vatican considering Santa Cruz Mountains mystic for sainthood
[Cora Evans (1904-1957) wrote of religious visions experienced in deep states of prayer.]
(By Mark Emmons, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 25, 2013)
John McAfee vows to make Internet 'impossible to hack'
(Anti-virus software pioneer to launch cybersecurity company making Internet safer for everyone.)
(By Dan Nakaso, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 25, 2013)
Apple's Mac team gathers for insanely great Twiggy Mac reunion
(Randy Wigginton led effort on the MacWrite word processor, met with
Steve Wozniak,
Andy Hertzfeld, Daniel Kottke, and others at Computer History Museum.)
(By Mike Cassidy, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 13, 2013)
MUSIC REVIEW: A far out 'One Night With Janis Joplin' at San Jose Rep
[Kacee Clanton channels wild-child fury of Joplin, shaking rafters through a songlist that includes
"Piece of My Heart," "Cry Baby," "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "Mercedes-Benz."]
(By Karen D'Souza, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 13, 2013)
Google rushes to improve encryption to keep out government spies
(Aside from U.S. government, hacking efforts emanate from China, Russia, Britain and Israel.)
(By Craig Timberg, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 7, 2013)
Jive CEO Tony Zingale splits time between his passions
(Jive is one of the leading social enterprise services in Silicon Valley with about
850 customers,
including Goldman Sachs, Kaiser, Intel, and McAfee.)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 7, 2013)
Google puts pressure on eBay, expands same-day delivery
(Google has 50 delivery cars on the streets. Google Shopping Express is search engine's
answer
to same-day delivery for retail brick-and-mortar merchants trying to survive in
an era where
consumers shop on their desktops and smartphones.)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, August 31, 2013)
Bald eagle chick discovered at Crystal Springs Reservoir
(A fledgling bald eagle is first to learn to fly in county in 98 years.)
(By Aaron Kinney, SJ Mercury News, July 12, 2013)
Moore Foundation: $90 million for research should inspire Silicon Valley funders
(Create circumstances to improve life as we know it. Serendipity is not just a lucky
coincidence, but a reward to the observer who is shrewd enough to link together
seemingly unrelated facts to reach a valuable conclusion. In other words,
to borrow from Louis Pasteur, chance favors an observant mind.)
(By Steve McCormick, SJ Mercury News, July 31, 2013, A10)
Obama honors Giants at White House
(As the Giants toured the White House, with many players Tweeting out photos from historic rooms,
the president and Willie Mays spent some time together. "Where's Tim," President Obama said.)
(By Alex Pavlovic, SJ Mercury News, July 30, 2013, A1, A6)
San Francisco Giants rejoin tradition of White House visits
[In 2011, Giants presented Obama with a No. 44 jersey (in honor of 44th president), a bat signed
by entire team & custom-made glove. 1st World Series champs to visit White House was 1924 Senators.]
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, July 28, 2013, A1, A16)
Flamingo (not plastic kind) seen in San Francisco Bay
(Pink flamingo swimming off the Sunnyvale shoreline near Sunnyvale sewage treatment plant.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, July 28, 2013, A1, A16)
OP-ED: Why technology is the worst thing that ever happened to modern education
(PowerPoint presentation has skull-numbing effect that an endless stream of bullet points & images
has on a listener. Keep slides to a minimum, use as little text on each slide as possible and never, ever,
recite your bullet points verbatim.
Best to hand-illustrate most important concepts on whiteboards.)
(By Esther J. Cepeda, SJ Mercury News, July 28, 2013, A19)
Depressing Side of Instagram
(Impact of service accentuated by focus of images)
(By Jessica Winter, SJ Mercury News, July 28, 2013, D3)
TV seems impervious to Silicon Valley's advances
(Google's Chromecast media device can transfer web content from Android device directly to a TV.
The 2-inch gadget costs $35, sends video from YouTube & Netflix to big screen TV sets at home.)
(By Troy Wolverton, SJ Mercury News, July 27, 2013)
Bitcoin gets big bets from Silicon Valley
(Startups using virtual currency Bitcoin— BitInstant, Bitpay, Coinbase, CoinLab, Lamassu,
OpenCoin, Tradehill; Winklevoss twin brothers plan a Bitcoin investment fund.)
(By Peter Delevett, SJ Mercury News, July 25, 2013)
Pope to Brazil: Resist 'idols' of money, power, pleasure
(Pope Francis says ephemeral idols of materialism lead to 'sense of loneliness' in people.)
(By Nicole Winfield & Jenny Barchfield, SJ Mercury News, July 25, 2013, A7)
Film Review: 'Wolverine' almost gets its claws into hero's soul
[Saddled with a reality he hates & living for dreams in which he meets up with dead paramour
Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Wolverine spends his time stuck between bottom of a bottle & despair.]
(By Randy Myers, SJ Mercury News, July 25, 2013, E1-2)
Tiger hedge fund chief says Google built better culture than Apple
(Google's Android software, which it provides for free to handset makers, now commands
more than 70% of the smartphone market while the iPhone has less than 20%.)
(By Christian Baumgaertel, SJ Mercury News, July 24, 2013)
Report: Economic concerns drive college choices
(Students earned about $6,300 in grants and scholarships to pay for college costs in 2012, taking
the top spot from parents. Parents chipped in $5,727 on average, a decrease of 35% since 2010.)
(By Philip Elliot, SJ Mercury News, July 24, 2013)
Smartwatches are coming, but will there be many buyers?
(Apple, Google, and Samsung all have their own smartwatches in the works; Smartwatches are now
accessories to a smartphone, not stand-alone devices,
and don't have their own Internet connection.)
(By Troy Wolverton, SJ Mercury News, July 22, 2013)
Barbie fights for her life
(Since debuting in 1959, Barbie is still #1 in the doll market, and Mattel franchise has
$1.3 billion
in annual sales. But Barbie's sales have slipped for 4 straight quarters,
while Monster High has
become the #2 doll brand. Monster High dolls
are patterned after offspring of Dracula & Frankenstein.)
(By Mae Anderson, SJ Mercury News, July 19, 2013)
Study: Dead stars colliding forged gold on Earth
(Gold, platinum and other heavy metals could be formed when two neutron stars crash and merge.)
(By Alicia Chang, SJ Mercury News, July 18, 2013)
Memory decline may be earliest sign of dementia
(Self-reported memory changes preceded broader mental decline by about six years.)
(By Marilynn Marchione, SJ Mercury News, July 18, 2013)
As cyber attacks detonate, banks gird for battle
(50 banks and organizations will participate in exercise called "Quantum Dawn 2")
(By Christina Rexrode & Marcy Gordon, SJ Mercury News, July 17, 2013)
President and Michelle Obama give Menlo Park girl the red carpet treatment
(12-year-old Rose Scott's recipe Pork-and-tofu wrap wins first lady's healthy-lunchtime challenge)
(By Bonnie Eslinger, SJ Mercury News, July 14, 2013)
Menlo Park girl's recipe scores a White House win
(Rose Scott's Recipe for Pork and Tofu Lettuce Cups Serves 6)
(By Linda Zavoral, SJ Mercury News, July 12, 2013)
Coursera online education startup gets $43 million from investors
(Since its launch in April 2012, Coursera has teamed with dozens of universities to offer about
400 college-level courses for free with enrollment of more than 4 million students, or "Courserians".)
(By Katy Murphy, SJ Mercury News, July 10, 2013) (Coursera: Wikipedia;
Official Web site)
From Taiwan to Alaska, around the world on a bike
(33-year old Ethan Chang of Taiwan cycling around the world clocking almost 20,000 miles so far)
(By Joe Rodriguez, SJ Mercury News, July 9, 2013) (Ethan's Blog)
Three new shows celebrate Cantor's 'French Season'
("Storied Past" offers four centuries of French drawings,
"Drawn to the Body"
showcases
depictions of the human form
and "Inspired by Temptation" centers on
Odilon Redon's
response to Gustave Flaubert's 1874 book
The Temptation of Saint Anthony;
Alan McGee's
Photography: "A Walk in the Woods— Landscape as Metaphor" at the
Portola Art Gallery)
(Cantor Arts Center)
(By Bonny Zanardi, SJ Mercury News, July 6, 2013)
Douglas Engelbart, tech genius and inventor of the mouse, dies at 88
[He demonstrated teleconferencing on a computer screen. He showed off online collaboration
and real-time text
editing and the use of hypertext links— all incorporated into one computer
system; and all 16 years before
Apple's Macintosh was unleashed. At Engelbart's 85th birthday
dinner, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
leaned over to Engelbart and said: "If all the leaders
of the world— the presidents of all the countries,
the CEOs of all the companies— were in
this room, you'd be the one I'd gravitate to."]
(By Mike Cassidy, SJ Mercury News, July 3, 2013)
Sweltering heat hammers Bay Area, stressing power grid
(Temperatures soared to 114 degrees at Pinnacles National Park, southeast of San Jose.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, July 2, 2013)
Top 10 things to do with kids in Santa Cruz
(Tide pools at Natural Bridges State Beach; Stroll through
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park)
(By Chrisine Candelaria, SJ Mercury News, June 30, 2013)
Alviso isn't Silicon Valley's ghost town, but it is something else
(Alviso is a hotbed of high-tech campuses: IBM, Polycom, Flextronics, Boston Scientific & TiVo.)
(By Mike Cassidy, SJ Mercury News, June 25, 2013) (Λ Gateway: Alviso Marina County Park)
Silicon Valley billionaire Carl Berg owns a Van Gogh. Or is that a Van Goo?
(Bought Van Gogh's "Sunflowers and Lilacs" on wooden panel for $250,000 but is it real?)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, June 23, 2013)
Lilacs;
Sunflowers
California's biggest dam removal project in history begins in Carmel Valley
(106-foot San Clemente Dam built in 1921, supplied water for growing Monterey Peninsula towns;
Three-year, $84 million project to tear down the hulking landmark beginning June 21, 2013.)
(By Paul Rogers, SJ Mercury News, June 21, 2013)
John Muir's tree may see new life through cloning
(Statuesque 70-foot Sequoia planted by John Muir in 1884 in Martinez, infected by fungus;
Arborist David Milarch has 700 cuttings from tree treated with hormones for cloning.)
(By Lisa M. Krieger, SJ Mercury News, June 20, 2013)
Journey Around the Bay: Follow the broken trail
(Kurt Schwabe photographs a walkway & gate along the Bay Trail in Alviso, Calif. on June 19, 2013,
to focus attention on the resource & to highlight gaps in the trail that still exist;
Λ Gateway photo)
(By Kurt Schwabe, SJ Mercury News, June 20, 2013)
FILM REVIEW: A fun and funny 'Monsters University'
(Clever and good-hearted, it let us peek into world where monsters of our childhood live.)
(By Charlie McCollum, SJ Mercury News, June 18, 2013)
'Fresh Impressions' grace the Portola Art Gallery
(Painter Alice Weil captures a variety of seasons
"View to the Pacific" at
Portola Art Gallery)
(By Bonny Zanardi, SJ Mercury News, June 15, 2013)
Dotcom-era icon Larry Augustin's latest venture: Cloud software
(Founder of VA Linux, Larry Augustin is now CEO of
SugarCRM, a customer relationship
management system,
functionality includes sales-force automation, marketing campaigns,
customer support, Mobile CRM, Social CRM and reporting.
Major competitor is heavyweight Salesforce.com)
(By Peter Delevett, SJ Mercury News, June 15, 2013)
FILM REVIEW: 'Man of Steel' flies but doesn't soar
(Film's first half consists of flashbacks to dying planet Krypton and to Smallville of Clark's youth.)
(By Charlie McCollum, SJ Mercury News, June 14, 2013)
The Secrets Behind Baseball's Walk-up Music
(Walk-up music, and its pitchin' cousin, entrance music, is unofficial soundtrack of a baseball season;
Brandon Crawford switched his walk-up music to Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" and his batting average
jumped 20 points in second half of 2012; Buster Posey music: Brantley Gilbert's "Hell on Wheels";
Hunter Pence music: Justin Moore's "Beer Time; Pablo Sandoval music:
Bauer's "Harlem Shake";
A's Grant Balfour's music: Metallica's "One"; A's Josh Donaldson's music:
Warrem G's "Regulate")
(By Daniel Brown, SJ Mercury News, June 11, 2013)
NSA Prism surveillance program sullies digital relationships
(When the government vacuums our digital lives from Internet servers, it feels more like a violation)
(By Mike Cassidy, SJ Mercury News, June 11, 2013)
WWDC 2013: Apple unveils iOS 7, iTunes Radio, Mavericks
(New Mac Pro is 1/8 volume of previous Mac desktip model; OS X Mavericks will get new version
of Apple's Maps & iBook apps; iTunes Radio in iOS 7 will stream music for free like Pandora)
(By Troy Wolverton, SJ Mercury News, June 11, 2013)
Google buys Waze for crowdsourced traffic updates
(Waze, Israeli startup with crowdsourced navigation app for smartphones, bought for $1 billion.)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, June 11, 2013)
Biz Break:
Google, Facebook seek to release more NSA Prism data, Waze finally finds an owner
(NSA has collected data on millions of phone users and tapped into servers at nine Internet companies)
(By Jeremy C. Owens, SJ Mercury News, June 11, 2013)
Google's Reader is going away, but here are some options to replace it
(Digg,
Feedly,
Flipboard,
My Yahoo,
Pulse,
The Old Reader,
WordPress to fill
Google Reader void)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, June 10, 2013);
Denver Post
TRAVEL:
Pacific Crest Trail finds itself wildly popular this year
(Cheryl Strayed's book
Wild:
From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail inspired more hikers)
(By Barbara Egbert, SJ Mercury News, June 9, 2013)
TRAVEL:
Hike of a lifetime: With her parents, a 10-year-old conquers Pacific Crest Trail
(Mary Chambers completes Pacific Crest Trail hike, 2,658-mile trek from Mexico to Canada)
(By Barbara Egbert, SJ Mercury News, June 6, 2013)
Cupertino
High sophomore develops app that 'clips' articles
(Tanay Tandon's app Clipped analyzes
text grammatically to extract the most important information
from an article to create bullet-point summaries. Works best on iPhone & for articles 1-2 pages long.)
(By Matt Wilson, SJ Mercury News, May 30, 2013)
INTERNET RADIO:
TuneIn grabs $25M in latest funding round
(TuneIn offers online streaming for more than 70,000 broadcast stations from all over the globe)
(By Peter Delevett, SJ Mercury News, May 29, 2013)
Digital learning
complicates girls' social lives
(69% of students use computers during class time; same tools needed to complete school assignments
also provide them with an outlet for socialization and potential distraction from getting work done.)
(By Ana Homayoun, SJ Mercury News, May 28, 2013)
Lick Observatory celebrates 125 years of innovation
(36-inch Giant Refractor telescope & 57-foot long, built in 1888 on top of Mt. Hamilton in East San Jose
is 2nd largest of its kind in the world; 125th anniversary of Lick Observatory's opening 6-1-1888)
(By Elizabeth Devitt, SJ Mercury News, May 25, 2013)
Yahoo joins growing list of bidders for Hulu
(Hulu generated revenues of around $700 million last year, streams TV shows online in similar fashion
to Netflix Inc;
At least five bidders have emerged for the 5-year-old video service with 4 million user)
(By Ronald Grover & Greg Roumeltiotis, SJ Mercury News, May 25, 2013)
Web security:
Inside the secret Symantec building that keeps websites safe
(Internet has more than 670 million websites with URL beginning with http; 2 million sites
are secure with https addresses; "S" means a certificate authority, like Symantec, has verified
their operators' identity and that the information flowing in and out of the sites is encrypted.)
(By Steve Johnson, SJ Mercury News, May 22, 2013)
Silicon Valley
website Piggybackr helps kids use 'crowd funding'
(Andrea Lo's Piggybackr helped kids raise over $325,000 for their projects)
(By Joe Rodriguez, SJ Mercury News, May 22, 2013)
Yahoo
makes bold but risky move in buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion
(Mayer is betting that Tumblr will give Yahoo! a growing audience of young & creative Internet users;
Tumblr's 300 million active users & Yahoo's 700 million users would give them a reach of 1 billion.)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, May 21, 2013)
SiliconBeat:
Why Marissa Mayer's Tumblr Hip Replacement Won't Work
(You don't get cool by buying cool. Yahoo's hip day was long gone after being an Internet pioneer.)
(By Mike Cassidy, SJ Mercury News, May 21, 2013)
Tumblr CEO
cashes in his Web savvy for $1.1 billion
(David Karp's Tumblr is still that little corner of the Internet where the cool kids hang out.)
(By Meghan Barr, SJ Mercury News, May 21, 2013)
SiliconBeat:
Marissa Mayer Getting In The Tumblr Spirit
(Mayer and Karp debated acronyms that have come to be associated with their respective sites)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, May 20, 2013)
Yahoo
board OKs $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr
(Yahoo! Purchases;
Tumblr;
David Karp)
(Tumblr members create their own blogs, where they can share essays, musings and photos)
(By Brandon Bailey, SJ Mercury News, May 20, 2013)
San Jose
City Hall fledgling falcon dies after hitting wall
(7-week-old fledgling carrying pigeon for lunch slammed into wall and died)
(By Sharon Noguchi, SJ Mercury News, May 20, 2013)
The Cupping Comeback:
Jennifer Aniston does it, but will it work for you?
(Cupping therapy was used in Egypt dating back some 3,500 years & currently in China)
(By Angela Hill, SJ Mercury News, May 19, 2013)
UC
Berkeley commencement: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak gives graduates a happiness equation
[1. Happiness equals S-F (smiles minus frowns). 2. Happiness equals F cubed— food, fun and friends.]
(By Katy Murphy, SJ Mercury News, May 19, 2013)
Mercury News interview: Prasad Kaipa, mentor to CEOs
(Prasad Kaipa quit Apple Computers to mentor young entrepreneurs & Silicon Valley CEOs;
His "From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom" shows
how to be a wise leader)
(By Heather Somerville, SJ Mercury News, May 17, 2013)
Crystal
Springs Reservoir mystery: What happened to the bald eagles?
(Eagles built nest in fir tree, but may not mated this year due to scarcity of food)
(By Aaron Kinney, SJ Mercury News, May 17, 2013)
Laurie
Anderson and Kronos make 'Landfall' at Stanford
(Anderson's dream-poem mesmerizes like sitting inside a 26th century head-womb)
(By Richard Scheinin, SJ Mercury News, April 22, 2013)
Author
& academic Harry Edwards offers his formula for success to African-American students
(The fail-proof shortcut to success that has ever been discovered is hard work) Harry Edwards
(By Joe Rodriguez, SJ Mercury News, April 22, 2013)
Sleepy Floyd
recalls his magical playoff moment with the Warriors
(In 1987 Playoff against the Lakers, Floyd scored 29 of his 51 points in the 4th quarter)
(By Monte Poole, SJ Mercury News, April 12, 2013)
YouTube: 1987 Playoff
Woes of a goose midwife
(Canadian goose gives birth to seven goslings); webcam
(By Joan Morris, SJ Mercury News, April 8, 2013)
San Jose's Trinity Cathedral still standing in downtown after 150 years
(Oldest house of worship at 81 North Second Street in San Jose)
(By Sal Pizarro, SJ Mercury News, April 7, 2013)
San Jose teacher seeks funds to bring Latino astronaut to campus
(First Latino Astronaut José Hernandez inspires first-graders to go for the stars)
(By Sharon Noguchi, SJ Mercury News, March 27, 2013)
Robert Smithwick, one of Foothill-De Anza's founders, dies at 92
(Smithwick was pediatric dentist in Sunnyvale & married for 60 years to his wife Aileen)
(By Bonnie Eslinger, SJ Mercury News, March 27, 2013)
Bay Bridge light sculpture debuts Tuesday night
(Leo Villareal's 25,000 LED lights span Bay Bridge from March 5, 2013 to 2005)
(By Denis Cuff, SJ Mercury News, March 5, 2013)
Silicon Valley ranks second in wealth concentration
(16% of Santa Clara County households make over $191,000 a year)
(By Matt O'Brien, SJ Mercury News, Feb. 12, 2013))
Valentine's Day love: Which TV couple is best all-time?
[Married sweethearts such as Cliff & Clair Huxtable ("Cosby Show"), who were epitome of warmth
& grace. Maddie & David ("Moonlighting"), who burned up small screen with their sexual tension.]
(By Chuck Barney, SJ Mercury News, Feb. 8, 2013)
San Francisco Giants and their fans celebrate second World Series title in three years
(Hundreds of thousands of Giants fans stream into San Francisco to see the players)
(71 Slides Show, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 31, 2012)
The gifts of dyslexia: HBO doc sheds light on learning disability (Famous Dyslexics:
John Lennon, Magic Johnson, John Irving, Charles Schwab, Whoopi Goldberg)
(By Jessica Yadegaran, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 28, 2012)
San Jose ghost hunters converge at supposed paranormal hotspot: Old Spaghetti Factory
(Psychic Irma Slage has been chatting with those who died for over 30 years)
(By Eric Kurl, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 29, 2012)
World Series Game 4: Marco Scutaro caps 'unbelievable' World Series run
(Scutaro drives in Theriot in 10th inning to beat Tiger 4-3 to sweep Series)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 29, 2012, C1, 4)
World Series Game 1: Panda Mauls Tigers!
(Sandoval provides historic moment with 3 home runs as Giants wins Series opener)
(By Mark Purday, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 25, 2012, A1, 13)
World Series Game 1: San Francisco Giants' Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum find redemption
(Zito gave up one run in 5-2/3 innings & Lincecum shutout Detroit for 2-1/3 more.)
(By Tim Kawakami, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 25, 2012, D2)
After six decades, the 'Cats Estate' in Los Gatos is being sold
(Sotheby selling estate for $8.95 million;
Bruce Ogilvie lived here;
Erskine Wood &
Sara Bard Field built Poet's Cottage in their estate)
(By Scott Herhold, SJ Mercury News, Oct. 25, 2012, B1, 5)
Batter up! San Francisco Giants, Detroit Tigers walk-up music
(As players step up to the plate, their music will walk up with them.)
(By Jim Harrington, Oakland Press, 10-25-2012); (SJ Mercury News, Oct. 24, 2012, A15)
Welcome to Silicon Valley 2.Ommmmmm
(Getting your 'om' on in yoga classes— Stress Reliever: Silicon Valley
people moves to yoga to meditate and unplug from the digital grind.)
(By Patrick May, SJ Mercury News, January 15, 2012)
Counting crows: Number of black birds on the rise in Bay Area
[San Jose count (Milpitas, San Jose, Sunnyvale & Santa Clara): 136 crows in 1981 to 1,662 in 2010.]
(By Aaron Kinney, SJ Mercury News, 1-9-2012, A1, A4)
SPORTS: Home Run Derby— Prime target for the game's top sluggers is... a glove
(Giant steel & fiberglass glove at AT&T Park is 501 feet from home plate;
$1 million bounty on hitting the glove shortly after park opened in 2000.)
(By Andrew Baggarly, SJ Mercury News, July 9, 2007)
*
Ancient Stone Circle: Visiting the Avebury henge
(Avebury's stone circle dates to around 2600 B.C. It may not be as convenient, famous
or spectacular as Stonehenge. It lacks the large crowds, high fences, entrance fees
and "don't touch" restrictions of Stonehenge.)
(By Janelle Stecklein, AP, SJ Mercury News, Sept. 4, 2005, 3TR)
- Yahoo! News:
ASTRONOMY:
3 Meteor Showers Will Converge This Weekend, Creating a Firework Display
of Shooting Stars
(Delta Aquarids peaks this weekend & intersect with two other meteor showers—
the famous Perseids & the alpha Capricornids. Spot all three celestial events during rest of July &
throughout August. Delta Aquarids peaks on July 29 with 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour. Perseid
meteor shower peaks on August 12-13. Alpha Capricornids shower peaks this weekend July 30-31.)
(By Madeline Buiano, Yahoo News, 7-28-2022)
ASTRONOMY:
Perseid meteor shower 2022: Here's when to look up
(Perseid meteor shower is active between 17th July and 24th August, with the number
of meteors
increasing every night until it reaches its peak on Thursday 11th & Friday 12th August.)
(By Lisa Joyner & Katie Frost, Yahoo News, 7-27-2022)
BASEBALL:
Astros throw combined no-hitter against Yankees after Cristian Javier's dominant start
(Yankees came into Saturday's game 52-19, the best record in baseball. Cristian Javier threw
7 no-hit innings with 115 pitches & 13 strike outs; Hector Neris blanked Yankees in 8th inning,
Ryan Pressly shuts down Yankees in the ninth. Astros won 3-0. Houston's first combined no-hitter
against New York came in 2003. That game marked last time Yankees were no-hit prior to 6/25 contest.)
(By Chris Cwik, Yahoo News, 6-25-2022)
NBA
Finals: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors blitz Boston Celtics to win dynasty's fourth championship
(A 21-0 onslaught that spanned the end of the first quarter and the start of the second
gave Golden State
a lead that was too much for Boston to overcome in a 103-90 final.
Stephen Curry's 34 points,
won his first career Finals MVP award unanimously.)
(By Ben Rohrbach, Yahoo News, 6-16-2022)
BASEBALL:
Cardinals' Paul Goldschmidt matches an MLB feat last done by Ty Cobb in 1925
(Paul Goldschmidt is the first MLB player to have
9+ hits,
9+ RBI,
6+ runs scored,
5+ extra-base hits,
4+ home runs,
0 strikeouts,
... over a 2-day span since Ty Cobb did so from May 5-6, 1925.)
(By Pete Grathoff, Yahoo News, 6-15-2022)
BASKETBALL:
On this day: Parish, McHale's pick traded for; Bird, Ainge drafted
(Red Auerbach pulled off one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history in 1980.
Got from Golden State Warriors Robert Parish & draft pick for Kevin McHale.
Forward Larry Bird, who had already been drafted, completed the trio that
win titles together in 1981, 1984 and 1986.)
(By Justin Quinn, Yahoo News, 6-9-2022)
Angler catches rare
'fish of a lifetime' on his last cast of the day in Tennessee
(Angler Victor Siwik catch on May 29, 2022 was a 41-pound, ghost-white carp from near Reelfoot Lake.)
(By Alison Cutler, Yahoo News, 6-8-2022)
Our
galaxy's supermassive black hole has sprung a leak
(The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may not be sleeping, after all.
Biggest outburst from the black hole came around two million years ago. However,
new evidence has been found that the outburst could still be active.)
(By Joshua Hawkins, Yahoo News, 12-13-2021)
* Markus Eder completes the 'ultimate' skiing run
(The route took him from deep powder to the Klausberg ski resort snow park,
with tricks and big drops along the way. Eder participated in the freestyle
skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he came 15th.)
(By Reuters, Yahoo News, 11-5-2021)
Atlanta Braves defeat Houston Astros to win 2021 World Series
(The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 of the World Series
on Tuesday to capture their first championship— and the city's— since 1995.)
(By Mike Gavin, Yahoo News, 11-2-2021)
* The Aztec Origins of a Mysterious Elizabethan Mirror
(When Elizabeth I's scientific adviser and "philosopher"
John Dee died in 1609
at the age of 81 he left behind his speculum, a hand mirror made of polished obsidian
(volcanic glass), also known as "Devil's Looking-Glass"; It's now in the British Museum and measures about 7.2 inches in diameter
and half an inch thick. Prof. Stuart Campbell found it resembles Aztecs obsidian mirrors,
used for scrying & seeing into the future.)
(By Candida Moss, Yahoo News, 10-10-2021)
Shohei Ohtani just reached a milestone achieved by only one baseball legend ever
(Hitting his sixth triple of the season, the 27-year-old Japanese player became
the second player
with at least 45 home runs, 20 steals and six triples in one season.
Willie Mays, had 24 steals,
51 home runs, and 13 triples at age 24 playing for New York Giants in 1955.)
(By Ryan General, Yahoo News, 9-27-2021)
Prince Harry
and Meghan Markle feature on Time's cover as they make its 100 most influential people list
(The Duke and Duchess of Sussex posed for a magazine cover photo for Time, which shows
Markle in white and Harry in black while they both stare directly into the camera.
It's the first time they have posed together for a magazine cover.)
(By Kelly McLaughlin & Mikhaila Friel, Yahoo News, 9-15-2021)
I went to a flirting class with a dating expert and she taught me her 4 surefire techniques to attract dates
(I took a one-on-one flirting class with a dating expert who specializes in text-based flirting. Amy Nobile
has 40 clients, said leading with curiosity is more important than finding a match who is similar to you.)
(By Julia Naftulin, Yahoo News, 8-28-2021)
* SPORTS:
Chris Sale tied Sandy Koufax's record for most immaculate innings
(MLB record for most immaculate innings in a career is now shared between two southpaws.
Boston Red Sox's Chris Sale threw the third immaculate inning of his career Thursday,
striking out three Minnesota Twins on nine pitches in the third inning.)
(By Jack Baer, Yahoo News, 8-26-2021)
SPORTS: Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera joins exclusive 500-home run club
(He's 28th player in MLB history to hit 500 home runs. It was his 2,955th career
hit as he chases an elite 32-player group that finished careers with 3,000 hits.
Six players in the 3,000/500 club: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols,
Eddie Murray, Alex Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro.)
(By Cassandra Negley, Yahoo News, 8-22-2021)
Country singer Tom T. Hall dies; wrote "Harper Valley PTA"
(Tom T. Hall, the singer-songwriter who composed “Harper Valley P.T.A." and sang about
life's simple joys as country music's consummate blue collar bard, has died at 85.)
(By Kristin M. Hall, Yahoo News, 8-20-2021)
Honus Wagner
baseball card sells for $6.606 million, shattering record for most expensive sports card ever
[The T206 card sold for $6.606 million on Monday morning, at a 20% buyer's premium.
That number shatters previous record— which was a tie between a LeBron James-Upper Deck
autographed rookie jersey card (set in April) and a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card.]
(By Scott Gleeson, USA Today, Yahoo News, 8-16-2021)
Diamondbacks' Tyler Gilbert
throws no-hitter vs. Padres to break MLB record
(Arizona Diamondbacks rookie Tyler Gilbert threw 8th no-hitter
of the season on 8/14 night in just his first major league start.)
(By Ryan Young, Yahoo News, 8-14-2021)
* The Center of the Milky Way Might Not Be a Black Hole After All
(What if the center of our galaxy isn't a supermassive black hole after all, but instead,
a massive amount of dark matter? That would flip our long-held understanding of the Milky Way,
but in a new study, scientists from Italy, Argentina, and Colombia say the evidence stacks up.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Yahoo News, 6-19-2021)
* Some
Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious
(Johannes Kleiner
& Sean Tull
are following Penrose's example, in both his
1989 book
and a 2014 paper where he detailed
his belief that our brains' microprocesses can be used
to model things about the whole
universe. The resulting theory is called integrated information
theory (IIT),
and it's an abstract, "highly mathematical" form of the philosophy we've been reviewing.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Yahoo News, 6-10-2021)
* ART:
Mona Lisa replica set to fetch up to 300,000 Euros at auction
(Said to have been created by a follower of da Vinci in the early 17th Century,
it is widely known as the Mona Lisa Hekking after ex-owner Raymond Hekking.)
(By BBC News, Yahoo News, 6-8-2021)
SPORTS:
NBA's Treatment of Jeremy Lin Has Not Changed Since 2010
(Jeremy Lin brought his A-game to the G League, scoring among the league's
best performers, but still failed to get a shot at an NBA comeback.)
(By Ryan General, Yahoo News, 6-4-2021)
SCIENCE:
'Extinct' giant tortoise found in Galapagos
(Elderly female tortoise discovered during a 2019 expedition has been identified
as a chelonoidis phantasticus, also known as fernandina giant tortoise.
It was believed extinct more than 100 years ago in 1906.)
(By Olivia Rudgard, The Telegraph, Yahoo News, 5-26-2021)
Inventor of Post-it Notes adhesive dies at age 80
(Spencer Silver of 3M, in 1968 discovered a unique adhesive formula,
The adhesive allowed notes to be easily attached to surfaces, removed
and even re-posted elsewhere without leaving residue like other glues.)
(By Associated Press, Yahoo News, 5-14-2021, B9)
* SCIENCE:
The God Equation by Michio Kaku— unifying the universe
(Michio Kaku's
book,
reviews at WSJ)
(By David Bodanis, Financial Times, Yahoo News, 5-12-2021)
* ART:
The child hidden in plain sight: how one painting has upended the Holbein world
(Unknown Augsburg portrait of Hans Holbein the Younger, painted in 1502 when he was
just 5 years old— between Jesus & St. Peter with 2 fish & 5 loaves of bread.)
(By Franny Moyle, The Telegraph, Yahoo News, 4-26-2021)
SPORTS:
Ohtani wins for Angels in 2-way start like none since Ruth
(A day after hitting his 7th homer to tie for MLB lead, Ohtani (1-0) became
the first home run leader to be the starting pitcher for a game since Babe Ruth
for the New York Yankees against Detroit on June 13, 1921.)
(By Stephen Hawkins, Yahoo News, 4-26-2021)
SPORTS:
Curry sets NBA record for 3-pointers in a month with 85
(His April total surpassed James Harden's NBA record of 82 in November 2019.)
(By Janie McCauley, Yahoo News, 4-25-2021)
* SCIENCE:
Warp drives— Physicists give chances of faster-than-light space travel a boost
(The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is 4.25 light-years away, or about
25 trillion miles (40 trillion km). Fastest ever spacecraft, the now-in-space Parker Solar
Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. Just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles
to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to
reach Earth's nearest neighboring solar system. People will need to go faster than light.)
(By Mario Borunda, Physics Professor, Yahoo News, 4-23-2021)
Queen
Elizabeth Left a Sentimental Handwritten Letter for Prince Philip on His Coffin
(The 94-year-old head of the British Monarchy, as she laid her beloved husband
of 73 years to rest, and said goodbye with a touching letter.)
(By Liz Calvario, ET, Yahoo News, 4-17-2021)
Queen
Elizabeth Sits Alone At Prince Philip's Funeral In Heartbreaking Image
(The Duke chose music for the program, which included an adaptation of Psalm 104, the hymn
"Eternal Father, Strong to Save", and a song Philip commissioned himself: "Jubilate in C".)
(By Carly Ledbetter, Huffpost, Yahoo News, 4-17-2021)
Egyptologists
find vast millenia-old 'lost golden city'
(The city is 3,000 years old, dates to the reign of Amenhotep III,
and continued to be used by Tutankhamun and Ay. Find was the "second
most important archeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun".)
(By Agence France-Presse, Yahoo News, 4-8-2021)
'Tantalizing'
results of 2 experiments defy physics rulebook
(Tiny particles called muons aren't quite doing what is expected of them in
experiments at FermiLab & CERN, upsetting the
Standard Model of 50 years.)
(By Seth Borenstein, AP, Yahoo News, 4-7-2021)
* The Universe Might Be One Big Neural Network, Study Finds
(Vitaly Vanchurin, a physics professor at University of Minnesota Duluth, published
his paper "The World as a Neural Network" on the arXiv pre-print server last year.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, Yahoo News, 3-5-2021)
Missing Matter Found in Our Own Galaxy
(A team of astronomers says it has found evidence for some of this missing regular
(or "baryonic") matter; they say it takes the form of lightless "snow clouds" made
of hydrogen. And the team found the elemental ghosts right here in the Milky Way.)
(By Matthew Hart, Yahoo News, 2-26-2021)
* Baseball cards booming during the pandemic with million-dollar sales
(In 2021, a single pack of 14 Topps baseball cards costs $8, if you can find them.
Most serious collectors buy them by the box, or a case of 12 boxes, about $1,500.)
(By Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, Yahoo News, 2-16-2021)
Science Offers New Origin Story for Comet That Killed the Dinos
(Chicxulub the dinosaur killer was indeed a comet. One that slammed into Earth
at 12 miles per second, allowing it to leave behind a crater 93 miles across.)
(By Matthew Hart, Yahoo News, 2-16-2021)
New postage stamp honors Chien-Shiung Wu, trailblazing nuclear physicist
(In mid-1950s, Wu performed a famous experiment to test law of parity conservation.
As proposed by theoretical physicists Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, Wu designed
an experiment to see if reality matched the theory. This breakthrough achievement
helped Wu's theoretical colleagues win the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, but
unfortunately, the Nobel Committee overlooked Wu's experimental contribution)
(By Xuejian Wu, Yahoo News, 2-10-2021)
The search
for dark matter gets a speed boost from quantum technology
(Dark matter constitutes more than 80% of the matter in the universe. In a new paper
in the journal Nature, my colleagues on the HAYSTAC team and I describe how we used
a bit of quantum trickery to double rate at which our detector can search for dark matter.)
(By Benjamin Brubaker, Yahoo News, 2-10-2021)
A
newly discovered space object called 'Farfarout' is the most distant thing in our solar system
(Farfarout is 132 astronomical units (AU) from the sun, meaning it's 132 times farther
from the sun than Earth is, and about four times as far as Pluto. It takes about 1,000 years
for the planetoid to complete one orbit around the sun. It is about 250 miles across,
which would place it on the low end of being a dwarf planet like Pluto.)
(By Morgan McFall-Johnsen, Yahoo News, 2-10-2021)
*
Scientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension
(Dark matter could be the result of fermions pushed into a warped fifth dimension.
While "warped extra dimension" (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first
introduced in 1999, this research, published in
European Physical Journal C, is first to
cohesively use theory to explain long-lasting dark matter problem in particle physics.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Yahoo News, 2-10-2021)
*
Scientists Are Testing a Mind-Blowing Time Theory in a Nuclear Reactor
(Physicist Joan Vaccaro using neutrinos & antineutrinos to measure the passage of time
within a powerful nuclear reactor; time may not be flowing from lower into higher entropy,
or disorder. Vaccaro believes entropy might result from time, not the other way around.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Yahoo News, 2-5-2021)
Stephen Curry passes Reggie Miller for second on NBA's all-time 3-point list
(Ray Allen 2,973; Stephen Curry 2562; Reggie Miller 2560; Kyle Korver 2450, James Harden 2352)
(By Jack Baer, Yahoo News, 1-23-2021)
This 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card just sold for $5.2 million, an all-time record for trading cards
(Rob Gough bought this 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle for $5.2 million,
smashing the previous high for a sports card sale.)
(By Mike Oz, Yahoo News, 1-14-2021)
*
Maybe 'dark matter' doesn't exist after all, new research suggests
(Dark matter makes up about 85% of the universe's matter; Stacy McGaugh says
signs of a faint gravitational tide, known as the "external field effect" or
EFE,
is observed statistically in orbital speeds of stars in more than 150 galaxies,
this cannot be explained by dark matter theories, but by MOND.)
(Tom Metcalfe, Yahoo News, 1-6-2021)
Steph Curry becomes third player in NBA history to make 2,500 career 3-pointers
(With a triple in first quarter against the Bulls, Golden State's point guard became
the third player in NBA history to reach 2,500 made 3-pointers in his career.)
3-pointers: Ray Allen 2973, Reggie Miller 2560, Steph Curry 2504, Kyle Korver 2450)
(By Tommy Call III, Yahoo News, 12-27-2020)
Shooting star: Curry makes 105 straight 3s post-practice
(Stephen Curry made 105 straight 3-pointers from the same baseline spot to
finish practice Saturday leading into Golden State's game Sunday game at Chicago.)
(By Janie McCauley, Yahoo News, 12-26-2020)
Piece of Great Pyramid Found in Scotland May Unlock Major Mystery
(In 2019, when curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany was reviewing objects in storage at
University of Aberdeen museum's Asia Collection, she came across a small, cigar box,
with Egypt's former flag on the box; Inside was a 5-inch piece of cedar broken into
three pieces; it was one of the three 'Dixon relics' lost for the past 70 years.)
(By Candida Moss, Yahoo News, 12-27-2020)
* SCIENCE:
The Universe May Have Actually Started With the Big Bounce— Not a Bang
(In the Big Bounce theory, the universe is expanding and contracting, seesawing back
and forth in a massively big-picture timeline. Some bouncers believe this happened
just once, while others believe a cyclical bouncing is what makes our universe.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, Yahoo News, 12-14-2020)
* SCIENCE:
New Theory Casually Upends Space and Time
(North Carolina State University's Larry Silverberg & Jeffrey Eischen, suggest that fragments
of energy, rather than waves or particles, may be the fundamental building blocks of the universe.)
(By Tim Childers, Popular Mechanics, Yahoo News, 12-10-2020)
Jerrold Post: The man who analysed the minds of world leaders, died at age 86
(He was a psychological profiler for the CIA, examining the minds of world leaders
such as
Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il. But in his later years he wrote a
book
"Dangerous Charisma:
The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers";
Salon interview on Trump as sociopathic.)
(BBC News, Yahoo News, 12-5-2020)
* WILDLIFE:
Gorilla Tends To Injured Bird In Heart-Melting Display Of Kindness
(A gorilla appears to tend to an injured bird and encourage it to fly
at a zoo in New South Wales, Australia, in video posted by Viral Hog.)
(By Ron Dicker, Huffpost, Yahoo News, 11-19-2020)
* ART:
Italian researchers attribute newly discovered sketch of Christ to Leonardo da Vinci
(Chalk drawing depicting Christ is the work by Leonardo da Vinci,
squirreled away for centuries in a private collection in Lombardy.)
(By Nick Squires, The Telegraph, Yahoo News, 11-17-2020)
SCIENCE:
Crows Are Self-Aware and 'Know What They Know', Just Like Humans
(Crows performed in a way that affirms their sensory consciousness, which scientists
say could mean the "neural correlates of consciousness" date back to at least the
last time birds and mammals shared that brain section: 320 million years ago.)
(By Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, Yahoo News, 9-28-2020)
SPORTS:
23 things to know from Giants' historic 23-5 win over Rockies at Coors
(Alex Dickerson had 3 homers, 2 doubles, 16 total bases, 6 RBI, 5 runs scored.
Giants is first team in MLB history to have 3 players with 6 RBI in same game.)
(By Alex Pavlovic, Yahoo Sports News, 9-2-2020)
First-grade
agarwood can cost $100,000 per kilogram. Why is it so expensive?
(Agarwood known as "The Wood of the Gods"; Aquilaria malaccensis is a tree native to
rainforests of southeast Asia; healthy heartwood is worthless; need to be infected with mold.)
(Business Insider Video, Yahoo News, 8-27-2020)
SPORTS:
Rare Mike Trout rookie card sells for nearly $4 million at auction, an all-time record
(The 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractor rookie card, sold at Goldin Auctions,
broke previous record of $3.12 million for 1909 Honus Wagner T-206 card, which sold in 2016.)
(By Mike DiGiovanna, Yahoo News, 8-23-2020)
The #1 Trick to Not Catching COVID-19— Revealed by This Yale Doctor
(Make Your Own "Safe Zone"— Checklist of 8 items.)
(By Sharon Chekijian, MD, Yahoo News, 8-21-2020)
Colossal
tree discovered in rainforests of Indonesia
[A giant medang tree, with an estimated circumference of 14 meters (45.9 feet) and
height of more than 35 meters (114.8 ft), has been found in the jungles of Indonesia.]
(By Adi Prima, Yahoo News, 8-20-2020)
Sports:
What's in the Uncle Jimmy collection? Some of the greatest finds in baseball card history
(When James Micioni passed away at age 97 on March 8, he left his family
his baseball cards collection that will fetch millions at multiple auctions.)
(By John Tomase, Yahoo News, 7-9-2020)
How Many Circles Do You See Here?
(See 20 rectangles & 4 yellow circles;
However there are 12 more faint circles.)
(By Andrew Daniels, Yahoo News, 7-7-2020)
Kobe Bryant discussed his future plans just days before death
(Mark Medina sat down with Kobe Bryant days prior to his tragic death
to discuss the NBA legends' future plans.)
(By Mark Medina, Yahoo Sports, 1-26-2020)
NBA-James passes Bryant for third on career scoring list
[LeBron James passed Kobe Bryant to become the third-highest career points scorer in the NBA;
He now has 36,655 career points, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387) & Karl Malone (36,928).]
(By Reuters, 1-25-2020)
LeBron James passes Lakers legend Kobe Bryant for third on NBA's all-time scoring list
(Bryant scored 33,643 points in 1,346 games and 48,637 minutes over 20 seasons. It took James
26,200 field-goal attempts; he did it in 105 fewer games, almost 1,000 fewer minutes and three
fewer seasons, requiring nearly 2,000 fewer field-goal attempts to hit his mark.)
(By Ben Rohrbach, Yahoo Sports, 1-25-2020)
Greatest signed baseball ever sells for record amount
(A baseball featuring 11 signatures from honorees at the first Hall of Fame induction ceremony
n 1939 sold at auction for $623,369 at SCP Auctions.
Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and
other legends of early baseball signed the ball. Previous records were Babe Ruth single-signed
for $388K followed by Ruth/Gehrig dual-signed for $343K.)
(By Liz Roscher, Yahoo Sports, 8-13-2018)
Cubs
break Nationals' hearts with walk-off win that hasn't been seen in two decades
(Down 3-0. Two outs. Two strikes. Chicago Cubs rookie David Bote hit an ultimate grand slam to
deliver Cubs an astonishing 4-3 win; On 5/17/1996,
Baltimore Orioles catcher Chris Hoiles did
the same thing,
when the O's were down 13-10 to give them a 14-13 win over the Seattle Mariners;
On 6/21/1988,
Alan Trammell's Tigers were down 6-3, when his grand slam beat Yankees 7-6.)
(By Jack Baer Yahoo News, 8-13-2018)
Tom Brady asked Ichiro for advice on stretching, Ichiro had no idea who Brady was
(Ichiro Suzuki is so singularly focused on baseball, he had no idea who Tom Brady even was.)
(By Frank Schwab, Yahoo News, 5-9-2018)
SCIENCE:
Hubble flies through the Milky Way's 'raucous star nursery'
(New fly-through video
by Hubble Space Telescope of Lagoon Nebula, in center of the Milky Way;
"Herschel 36," a star 200,000 times larger than our sun, is 4,000 light years from Earth.)
(By Steve Dent, Yahoo News, 4-24-2018)
SPORTS:
The Red Sox' start 16-2 is ridiculous
(Red Sox outscored Angels 27-3 in their three-game series, striking out Shohei Ohtani
three times, holding Mike Trout to 3-for-11. It's best start for any team since the
1987 Milwaukee Brewers began 17-1, who lost 18 of 20 in May of that year.)
(By Craig Calcaterra, Yahoo News, 4-20-2018)
Singer and actor Vic Damone dies at 89
(Vic Damone, one of the generation of crooners that included
Frank Sinatra, died Sunday in
Miami Beach, FL.; He had 7 gold singles, including 1949 #1 hit "You're Breaking My Heart"
and his 1956 recording of "My Fair Lady" song "On the Street Where You Live.")
(By Andrea Dresdale, Yahoo News, 2-12-2018)
Ancient Egypt:
Mysterious 4400-Year-Old Tomb Reveals Rare Paintings in New Excavation
(Paintings of Hetpet, who was a priestess to Hathor, the goddess of fertility.)
(By Janissa Delzo, Yahoo News, 2-3-2018)
Scientists
May Have Found Planets In Another Galaxy For The First Time
(Astrophysicists found a number of extragalactic planets using
a technique called microlensing.)
(By Yahoo News, 2-3-2018)
Hunting Ghosts: Neutrinos Stopped in Their Tracks Could Reveal Higher Dimensions of Space
[Every second of every day, trillions of near massless neutrino particles from outer space
pass through our bodies. These mystery "ghost particles" are the most abundant in the universe
and are the only thing
that can move through Earth— including its dense core and come out the other side.]
(By Hannah Osborne, Yahoo News, 11-22-2017)
Dark Matter
and Energy Don't Exist: Astronomer Claims to Solve Universe's Greatest Mysteries
With New Model
[Astronomer André Maeder's paper in Astrophysics Journal (submitted 1-14-2017)
focuses on "scale invariance". This is the concept that says a feature of an object will not change
even if its length or energy scales are multiplied by a common factor.]
(By Hannah Osborne, Yahoo News, 11-22-2017)
There's
so much going on in this breathtaking new Hubble photo you could stare at it for years
(NASA Hubble Space Telescope's photo of "a random patch of sky" shows bright blue spiral galaxies,
bold orange clusters of galaxies, warped distant smudges of deep red, and bright white "worms".)
(By Mike Wehner, Yahoo News, 11-3-2017)
Subatomic Event More Powerful Than A Hydrogen Bomb Discovered—
Scaring Scientists
So Much They Almost Hid The Results
(Collision of two bottom charm quarks releases
138 megaelectronvolts of energy;
"quarksplosion" will have eight times more energy
than reactions of hydrogen bombs;
Nature 11-2-2017)
(By Meghan Bartels, Yahoo News, 11-3-2017)
Prospect Heat Check: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is going to be a star just like his dad
(Junior is hitting .327/.422/.500. He has 25 walks against 23 strikeouts.
Only 11 Hall of Famers' sons played in MLB, & the best of them—
Eduardo Perez, Dick Sisler and Dale Berra— were average.)
(By Jeff Passan, Yahoo News, 6-1-2017)
Crab Nebula: 5 telescopes combine to create mesmerising and detailed image of supernova
(5 years to combine data from Very Large Array, Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope,
XMM-Newton, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory was used to create the image of the Crab Nebula.)
(By Agamoni Ghosh, Yahoo News, 5-11-2017)
Jeremy Lin details the racism he dealt with while playing at Harvard
(Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin told disturbing stories about racism playing at Harvard.)
(By Scott Phillips, Yahoo News, 5-11-2017)
This
NASA photo of Saturn's moon shows clouds you've never seen on Earth
(Clouds in the Titan photos are made of methane, captured by Cassini spacecraft on May 7, 2017)
(By Mike Wehner, Yahoo News, 5-10-2017)
See
the amazing 'super bloom' in central California
("Super bloom" of desert wildflowers gives landscape a blast of color inside Carrizo Plain
National Monument—
endless expanses of yellows & purples from coreopsis, tidy tips and phacelia.)
(By Joi-Marie McKenzie, Yahoo News, 4-7-2017)
Astronomers
discover 7 potentially habitable exoplanets
(7 planets orbit TRAPPIST-1, a dwarf star that is much younger than our sun and that will continue
to burn for another 10 trillion years; TRAPPIST-1 is 39 light-years, or 235 trillion miles, away from
Earth. It is located in the constellation Aquarius. Three of the seven planets may have water.)
(By Avianne Tan, Yahoo News, 2-22-2017)
Physicists may have just manipulated 'pure nothingness'
(The nothingness that exists on the quantum level is not only something,
but its fluctuations can be grasped, manipulated, and perhaps even observed.)
(By Bryan Nelson, Yahoo News, 1-20-2017)
Our
solar system might have a ninth planet, and researchers have an idea of where it came from
(New Mexico State University undergrad James Vesper & Professor Paul Mason, accept theory
that our solar system has a guest we didn't know about; that the unseen planet may actually
be a rogue world that was grabbed by our solar system as it floated aimlessly in space.)
(By Mike Wehner, Yahoo News, 1-12-2017)
Physicists
plan to test a new theory about the speed of light to explain what Einstein's theory can't
(Imperial College London's João Magueijo asked in 1998 that to solve the "horizon problem"
we might have to challenge the idea that the speed of light is constant.)
(By Akshat Rathia, Yahoo News, 11-27-2016)
David Ortiz fools fans as undercover Lyft driver in Boston
(Ortiz was able to fool some fellow Bostonians recently when he donned an afro wig and dubbed himself
"Donny" while serving as undercover Lyft driver; Ortiz's personality that steals the show.)
(By Mark Townsend, Yahoo! News, 9-29-2016)
Brilliant Venus and Moon Shine Together Tonight: How to See It
(Celestial treat on April 21: Turn to face west about 45 minutes after sunset, during mid-twilight, and
you'll see a beautiful crescent moon and well off to its right is the dazzling evening star: planet Venus.
At lower right of the moon, roughly half the distance separating the moon and Venus. Shining with
a distinct orange color, it's the 1st-magnitude star Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus.
Sky Chart
(By Joe Rao, Yahoo! News, 4-21-2015)
How the Hubble Space Telescope Changed Our View of the Cosmos
("The Hubble Space Telescope at 25: A Photo Anniversary" (Documentary); Since Hubble's launch
on April 24, 1990, 4,000 astronomers have used it to produce more than 12,700 scientific papers.)
(By Nola Taylor Redd, Yahoo! News, 4-21-2015)
Turin Shroud goes back on display for faithful and curious
(In 2010, some 2.5 million people came to see the
Shroud of Turin. Over 1 million
made reservations to see 14-foot cloth free on display April 19-June 24, 2015.)
(By Jessica Orwig, Yahoo! News, 4-18-2015)
BASEBALL:
Mike Trout becomes youngest player to hit 100 home runs, steal 100 bases
(Trout is 23 years and 253 days old surpassing Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, who reached
the 100 Home Runs/100 Stolen Bases club at 23 years old and 309 days old.)
(By Mark Townsends, Yahoo! News, 4-18-2015)
The truth about the mysterious center of the universe
(Earth is not center of the universe. Nor is the sun, the solar system, or even the Milky Way galaxy.
If the universe is infinite, then each person is at the center of their own observable universe.)
(By Jessica Orwig, Yahoo! News, 4-17-2015)
Watch this gorilla crack its glass cage after racing toward the little girl who provoked it
(Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska showed incident of a gorilla cracking the glass.)
(By Jessica Orwig, Yahoo! News, 4-17-2015)
Spectacular Milky Way Maps Show Our Galaxy in New Light
(In the new Milky Way maps from Planck's space satellite, red colors indicate dust,
yellow is gas, green is high energy particles, and blue is the magnetic field.)
(By Calla Cofield, Yahoo! News, 2-7-2015)
X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by volcano
(Hundreds of scrolls retrieved from remains of a lavish villa at Herculaneum, which along with
Pompeii was one of several Roman towns that were destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.)
(By Frank Jordans, Yahoo! News, 1-20-2015)
Debbie Reynolds Opens Up About Time Elizabeth Taylor Stole Her Husband
(Eddie Fisher divorced Debbie Reynolds in 1959 and married Elizabeth Taylor later that year.)
(By Michael Rothman, Yahoo! News, 1-20-2015)
This close-up
video of molten lava spilling into the ocean is mesmerizing
(Lava entering the ocean on the rugged volcanic coastline on the island of Hawaii)
(By Jacob Siegal, Yahoo! News, 1-15-2015)
Watch An Elephant Demolish a Car in Thailand
(8-year-old elephant stomps on car in Thailand's Khao Yai National Park)
(By Nicole Wakelin, Yahoo! News, 1-14-2015)
This one uberskill will always keep you employed
(The skill is conceptualization: the ability to see how the elements of an abstract whole
fit together and to identify problems that need to be addressed before others do.)
(By Rick Newman, Yahoo! News, 12-10-2014)
Russian scientist spies mountain-sized asteroid heading our way
(Astrophysicist Vladimir Lipunov says newly discovered asteroid could collide with Earth
during its three-year orbital cycle. A giant meteor exploded over a Russian city in 2013)
(By Fred Weir, Yahoo! News, 12-8-2014)
Woman Bites Down On $3,000 Purple Pearl in Clam Shell
(One in 5,000 clams will grow a pearl; found $3000 purple pearl in $15 bag of clams)
(By Rheana Murray, Yahoo! News, 12-2-2014)
Mysterious Roman God Baffles Experts
(1st century B.C. relief, of an enigmatic bearded god rising up out of a flower or plant, was discovered
at the site of a Roman temple on the wall of a medieval Christian monastery near the Syrian border.)
(By Tia Ghose, Yahoo! News, 11-26-2014)
Without Pablo Sandoval, what do the Giants do now?
(Go after Jon Lester; get Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas; sign Chase Headley; trade Brandon Belt)
(By Mike Oz, Yahoo! News, 11-24-2014)
Odell Beckham Jr. makes the greatest NFL catch ever
(Beckham leaps, catches ball with one hand, twists himself sideways, stays in bounds, lands in end zone.
LeBron James: "Man I just witnessed greatest catch ever by Odell Beckham Jr! WOW!!!!")
(By Jay Busbee, Yahoo! News, 11-23-2014)
Historian to donate notes on famous Lincoln photo
(Ronald Rietveld, now 77, was 14 when he discovered photo of Lincoln in open coffin)
(By Don Babwin, Yahoo! News, 10-4-2014)
Galaxy's Huge Black Hole Puts on Spectacular Fireworks Show
(Messier 106, also called NGC 4258, 23 million light-years away with fireworks display.)
(By Kelly Dickerson, Yahoo! News, 8-5-2014)
A Tree In India Is Bigger Than The Average Wal-Mart
(A Giant Banyan tree looks like a forest from far away, but it's actually comprised of a myriad of aerial
roots. It covers 156,000 square feet, larger than the average Wal-Mart just under 105,000 square feet.)
(By Megan Willett, Yahoo! News, 7-24-2014)
Ancient Coins Found Buried in British Cave
(Archaeologists uncovered 26 ancient gold & silver coins from Corieltauvi tribe valued $3,400.)
(By Kelly Dickerson, Yahoo! News, 7-14-2014)
SLIDESHOW: 10 Things You Didn't Know About When Harry Met Sally
(25 years ago on July 12, 1989, meaning of phrase "I'll have what she's having" changed forever.)
(By Jen Chaney, Yahoo! News, 7-10-2014) (Rob Reiner's film;
Video)
FOOD: The Best Detox-y Broccoli Dishes
(Broccoli sprouts have a greater concentration of the active ingredient— glucoraphanin, which when
chewed or swallowed conjures a compound sulforaphane that actives pollutant-fighting enzymes.)
(By Rachel Tepper, Yahoo! News, 6-19-2014)
BASEBALL: Kershaw throws no-hitter, Dodgers rout Rockies 8-0
(Struck out 15 hitters, a career high, in throwing no-hitter, second in 3.5 weeks for Dodgers.)
(By Brett Zongker, Yahoo! News, 6-19-2014)
Heart of Darkness: Strange Gas Stream Blots Out Galaxy's Bright Core (Video)
Galaxy NGC 5548 is 245 million light-years away from Earth in Boötes constellation, the Herdsman.
Gas streamer eclipsed light from galaxy, blocking 90% of X-rays emitted by supermassive black hole.)
(By Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com, Yahoo! News, 6-19-2014)
Picasso painting reveals hidden man
(Infrared imagery shows hidden portrait of a bow-tied man with his face resting on his hand
underneath Picasso's 1901 masterpiece "The Blue Room"
in Washington's Phillips Collection.)
(By Brett Zongker, Yahoo! News, 6-17-2014)
The FBI Tried To Lure Joe Montana Into A Sting
(FBI agent was under guise of potential investor for Montana's new hotel venture.)
(By Sally Hofmann, Daily Caller, Yahoo! News, 6-16-2014)
Cespedes makes phenomenal throw that would impress Bo Jackson
(Cespedes uncorked astonishing throw, from 310 feet away, reaching the mitt of catcher Derek Norris
on the fly— and just in time for him to put the tag on a stunned Howie Kendrick. Out at the plate!)
(By David Brown, Yahoo! News, 6-11-2014)
Dutch Scientists Just Shattered Our Conception Of How Information Will Travel In The Future
(Dutch physicists teleported information over 10 feet using quantum entanglement.)
(By Dylan Love, Yahoo! News, 5-29-2014)
19 Words That Will Make People Like You More
(Sir, Ma'am, You're welcome, Her'e what's happening, How can I help?, I'll find out, I believe in you.)
(By Bill Murphy, Yahoo! News, 5-19-2014)
BASEBALL: Troy Tulowitzki's amazing 2014 season (Slide Show)
(Troy Tulowitzki's .391 batting average, .497 on-base-%, .750 slugging % leads by wide margins)
(By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! News, 5-15-2014)
Medieval
fortress known as Dracula's castle is for sale (Slide Show)
(You can place a bid on it: Estimates hover in the $80 million to $135 million-plus range.)
(By Miriam Kramer, Yahoo! News, 5-15-2014)
Watch
Two Neutron Stars Merge and Form Black Hole (Video)
(Merger of two neutron stars creates a black hole in a new computer simulation from NASA)
(By Miriam Kramer, Yahoo! News, 5-14-2014)
Watch
as a Mother Elephant Rescues a Calf From the River
(6-month-old calf fell downstream in Kenya's Ewaso Nyiro River & rescued by older elephants)
(By Ralphie Aversa, Yahoo! News, 5-14-2014)
ODD NEWS:
Pet cat saves boy from dog that was attacking him (with video)
(Pet cat Tara chases away dog attacking young boy outside home in Bakersfield, California)
(By Will Lerner, Yahoo! News, 5-14-2014)
Scientists May Have Finally Pinpointed What's Killing All The Honeybees
(Harvard's Chensheng Lu pinpoints collapse of honeybees on pesticides known as neoniotinoids.)
(By Dina Spector, Yahoo! News, 5-13-2014)
Underwater archaeologist thinks he's discovered Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria
(Find of flagship would be 'Mount Everest of shipwrecks for me,' Barry Clifford says.)
(By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News, 5-13-2014)
'Hypervelocity Star' May Reveal Clues About Dark Matter in Milky Way
("Hypervelocity" star is traveling at 1.4 million mph relative to our solar system, about three times
faster than a typical star; it lies 42,400 light-years from Earth, above the disk of the Milky Way,
and is cruising toward the halo of dark matter that surrounds the galaxy.)
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, 5-13-2014)
Tumblr has lost 7 million visitors since December
(Yahoo bought Tumblr around a year ago for $1.1 billion; Tumblr has dropped from a peak
of 49 million visitors in December to only 42 million in March, representing a 15% drop.)
(By Ben Zigterman, Yahoo! News, 5-12-2014)
A Founder Who Is Now A Billionaire Was Once Rejected By Silicon Valley Investors
For Having A Dumb Startup Idea
(Founder of $10 billion Dropbox,
Drew Houston,
was rejected by
Y-Combinator when he applied
in 2005 with an SAT prep startup idea;
they accepted his idea for Dropbox in 2007.)
(By Alyson Shontell, Yahoo! News, 5-5-2014)
Mystery First-Grader's Incredible Poem About Dancing Goes Viral
("We did the soft wind. / We danst slowly. We swrld / Aroned. We danst soft.
We lisin to the mozik. / We danst to the mozik. / We made personal space.")
(By Lilit Marcus, Shine Contributor, Yahoo! News, 5-1-2014)
Could Tiny 'Black Hole Atoms' Be Elusive Dark Matter?
(Russian astrophysicists Vyacheslav Dokuchaev & Yury Eroshenko suggest that dark matter
could be made of microscopic— or quantum—"black hole atoms." Photos)
(By Katia Moskvitch, SPACE.com, Yahoo! News, 5-1-2014)
'Mummy Lake' Used for Ancient Rituals, Not Water Storage
(Colorado's Mesa Verde, a large 1,000-year-old structure used for Puebloan rituals)
(By Joseph Castro, Yahoo! News, 4-29-2014)
Still use Internet Explorer? Don't
(Dept of Homeland Security says a security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer
browser "could lead to the complete compromise of an affected system".)
(By Priya Anand, Yahoo! News, 4-28-2014)
Best National Park Adventures (Slide show of 16 photos)
(Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Mount Rainier, Great Basin, Zion, Big Bend, Acadia)
(Yahoo! News, 4-26-2014)
Milky Way's Structure Mapped in Unprecedented Detail
(Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics presents the most precise
data on the dynamics and structure of the Milky Way galaxy by measured parallax.)
(By Katia Moskvitch, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-23-2014)
Time-lapse video shows powerful asteroids strike Earth with surprising frequency
(Between 2000 and 2013, B612 Foundation detected 26 explosions on the planet ranging in energy
from 1 to 600 kilotons, all caused by asteroid impacts; Hiroshima A-bomb had 15 kilotons.)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-23-2014)
Stunning Hubble Telescope View Reveals Deep View of Universe
(14-hour exposure of Hubble image showing objects 1 billion times fainter than naked eye can see.)
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-22-2014)
The first total lunar eclipse of 2014 (Slide show of 26 photos)
(The 'Blood Moon' rises over the water in Wlliamstown on April 15, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia)
(By Scott Barbour, Yahoo! News, 4-15-2014)
Bad Moon Rising? Preacher Ties Blood Moons to Biblical Prophecies
(Televangelist John Hagee: four lunar eclipses beginning this month "blood moons" are a
sign that biblical prophecies are about to come true; Four Blood Moons;
Failed prophecies)
(By Marc Lallanilla, Yahoo! News, 4-14-2014)
'Double dealing': How Pakistan hid Osama Bin Laden from the U.S. and fueled the war in Afghanistan
(Carlotta Gall, who spent more than a decade covering Afghanistan since 2001, concludes
just that in her new book, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014.)
(By Martha Raddatz, Yahoo! News, 4-14-2014)
Dino-Killing Asteroid Impact Dwarfed by Earlier Space Rock Crash
(Stanford's Norman Sleep & Donald Lowe reconstructed mammoth collision 3.26 billion years ago,
asteroid 23-38 miles across created crater 300 miles wide, six times larger than dino-killing rock.)
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-10-2014)
Does The Pope Know The Truth About Aliens?
(Ufologists Cris Putnam & Thomas Horn believe Vatican has known truth about aliens for decades.)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, 4-10-2014)
Dazzling Milky Way Rises Over Maine Lighthouse in Stunning Panorama
(Astrophotographer A. Garrett Evans took 9-shot panorama of the Milky Way
rising over Cape Neddick Lighthouse in Maine on March 3, covers nearly 180.)
(By Nina Sen, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-10-2014)
SPORTS: Mike Schmidt proposes MLB use a 'force field' to call balls and strikes instead of umps
(Force field over home plate and if the pitcher throws and the ball touches
the force field a little bell goes off and it's a strike.)
(By Mike Oz, Yahoo! News, 4-10-2014)
Earth's Oldest Living Things Immortalized in Stunning Photos
(Photographer Rachel Sussman new book, Oldest
Living Things in the World showing 5,500-year-old
Antarctic moss, 80,000-year-old aspen colonies, 100,000-year-old underwater meadows of sea grass.)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, 4-9-2014)
Celestial Diamond Ring Sparkles in Stunning Telescope Views
(Planetary nebula Abell 33 and the star called HD 83535 sparkles
like a cosmic diamond ring 2,500 light-years from Earth.)
(By Miriam Kramer, Yahoo! News, 4-9-2014)
Galaxy Cluster Doubles as Cosmic Magnifying Glass for Hubble Telescope
(Galaxy cluster MACS J0454.1-0300, is so massive, equivalent of about 180 trillion suns.)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-8-2014)
Pretty Much Everyone Got Rejected from Stanford This Year
(Stanford rejected 95% of applicants, an all-time high among competitive schools.)
(By Arit John, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 4-8-2014)
How Steven Spielberg Made Millions Off 'Star Wars' After A 1977 Bet With George Lucas
(Lucas: 'I'll give you 2.5% of Star Wars if you give me 2.5% of Close Encounters.' So I said,
'Sure, I'll gamble with that. Great.' Spielberg's 2.5% could have made him nearly $40 million.)
(By Frank Pallotta, Yahoo! News, 3-18-2014)
Asteroid Found with Rings! First-of-Its-Kind Discovery Stuns Astronomers
(The asteroid's 155-mile diameter [250 kilometers] is dwarfed by the giant gas planets.)
(By Nola Taylor Redd, Yahoo! News, 3-26-2014)
Astronomers ring in startling asteroid find
(Twin rings around a rock called Chariklo, 4.3 & 1.8 miles wide, separated by a 5.4 miles gap.)
(By Mariette Le Roux, Yahoo! News, 3-26-2014)
Our Universe May Exist in a Multiverse, Cosmic Inflation Discovery Suggests
(Theoretical physicist Andrei Linde: "Every experiment that brings better credence to
inflationary theory brings us much closer to hints that the multiverse is real.")
(By Miriam Kramer, Yahoo! News, 3-19-2014)
See the moment physicist learns his life's work on Big Bang theory is valid, pops open Champagne
(Stanford Professor Andrei Linde's 30-years Big Bang theory is proven correct.)
(By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News, 3-18-2014)
Tiny Planet Mercury Is Shrinking Fast
(NASA's space craft shows Mercury's crust has contracted as it cooled by as much as 4.4 miles)
(By Nola Taylor Redd, Yahoo! News, 3-18-2014)
Paradox Solved? How Information Can Escape from a Black Hole
(Carlo Rovelli & Francesca Vidotto: The black hole has a huge remnant, a
Planck star, releasing
the information into space, in the form of extremely bright events called
gamma-ray bursts.)
(By Katia Moskvitch, Yahoo! News, Space.com, 3-14-2014)
Scientists Scanned A Woman's Brain During An Out-Of-Body Experience—
And What They Found Was Amazing
[Andra M. Smith & Claude Messier, Journal Frontiers
of Human Neuroscience
(2-10-14): 24-year old student can voluntarily enter an out-of-body
experience. Her brain functional changes
associated with extra-corporeal experience were
different than those observed in motor imagery.]
(By Jennifer Welsh, Yahoo! News, 3-7-2014)
Runaway Pulsar Unleashes Longest X-Ray Jet in Milky Way Galaxy
(Runaway pulsar IGR J1104-6103 fires off longest X-ray jet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Jet stretches
37 light-years, nearly 10 times longer than the distance between the sun and its nearest neighbor star,)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, 3-7-2014)
$10M Gold Coin Hoard Found in Yard May Have Been Stolen From Mint
(California couple who found buried gold coins valued at $10 million may not be so lucky.
The coins may have been stolen from the US Mint in 1900 and is property of the government)
(By Dina Abou Salem & Bill McGuire, Yahoo! News, 3-4-2014)
Mysterious Egyptian Spiral Seen on Google Maps
("Desert Breath" was constructed as two interlocking spirals in the Egyptian desert near
the Red Sea in March 1997 by Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou & Stella Constantinides.)
(By Marc Lallanilla, Yahoo! News, 2-25-2014)
How Our Milky Way Galaxy Got Its Spiral Arms
(More finely structured, multi-armed galaxies like Milky Way galaxy & its neighbor
Andromeda appeared much later, when the universe was 8 billion years old.)
(By Katia Moskvitch, Space.com, Yahoo! News, 2-24-2014)
"Hubble Space
Telescope Spies Spin of Nearby Galaxy"
(Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy rotates every 250 million years, the same amount
of time it takes the sun finish a lap around the core of our own Milky Way.)
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, 2-23-2014)
"Source of Stonehenge Bluestone Rocks Identified"
(Stones' rock composition revealed they come from a nearby outcropping, located about
1.8 miles away from the site originally proposed as the source of such rocks.)
(By Tia Ghose, Yahoo! News, 2-23-2014)
Great Pyramid at Giza Vandalized to 'Prove' Conspiracy Theory
(Two Germans believe cartouche of Khufu as creator of Giza Great Pyramid is a fake,
and that pyramids were built thousands of years earlier by people from Atlantis.)
(By Benjamin Radford, Yahoo! News, 2-19-2014)
Jupiter Shines Near the Moon Tonight: How to See It
(Jupiter in Gemini close to waxing gibbous Moon on February 10 at 9:30 pm)
(By Joe Rao, Space.com, Yahoo! News, 2-9-2014)
'Oldest star' found from iron fingerprint
(Australian astronomers found a star 13.6 billion years old, 6,000 light years from Earth.)
(By Richard Ingham, Yahoo! News, 2-9-2014)
Mystery Solved: THIS Is How Salmon Find Their Way Home
(Nathan Putnam: Salmon placed in magnetic fields similar to those found in
the northern end of their habitats tended to swim south, and vice versa.)
(By Rachel Tepper, Yahoo! News, 2-7-2014)
'Pac-Man' Nebula Gobbles Up Space in Stunning Photo
(NGC 281 is an emission nebula in constellation Cassiopeia 9,500 light-years from Earth.)
(By Nina Sen, Yahoo! News, 1-28-2014)
SPACE: Ancient Mars May Have Been Habitable for Hundreds of Millions of Years
(Neutral-pH water flowed on Mars around 4 billion years ago, capable of supporting
microbial life for hundreds of millions of years in the distant past.)
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, 1-23-2014)
Ancient Church Mosaic With Symbol of Jesus Uncovered in Israel
(Archaeologists in Israel uncovered intricate mosaics on floor of a 1,500-year-old
Byzantine church, including one that bears a Christogram surrounded by birds.)
(By Megan Gannon, Yahoo! News, 1-23-2014)
FBI warns retailers to expect more credit card breaches
(FBI has warned U.S. retailers to prepare for more cyber attacks after discovering about
20 hacking cases in past year involving same kind of malicious software used against Target Corp.)
(By Jim Finkle & Mark Hosenball, Yahoo! News, 1-23-2014)
ODD NEWS: Plate valued less than $1K sells for over $1M
[Walker's Fine Arts & Estate Auctions estimated that the glazed pottery featuring three clawed dragon
was between 300-500 years old, and valued the piece at $700-$900 Canadian (over $656-$844 US);
The anonymous winning bidder, purchased the plate for $1.025M Canadian (over $961K US)]
(By Charles Sakoda, Yahoo! News, 12-6-2013)
2 Million More Passwords for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Other Sites Were Stolen & Posted on Net
(25 most popular passwords in hackers' hands reported by BBC News and SpiderLabs: 123456,
123456789, password, admin, 12345678, qwerty, 1234567, 111111, photoshop, 123123,
1234567890, 000000, abc123, 1234, adobe1, macromedia, azerty, iloveyou, aaaaaa, 654321)
(By Julie Bort, Yahoo! News, 12-4-2013)
Clayton Kershaw's Would-Be $300 Million Isn't About Him
(Dodgers do not score when Kershaw pitches, almost always return following day and score a deluge
of runs; Not signing Kershaw to avoid a jinx akin to Babe Ruth with no World Series for 100 years.)
(By Jana Sosnowski, Yahoo! News, 11-4-2013)
Diver's sea creature find is 'discovery of a lifetime'
(Jasmine Santana finds 18-foot oarfish carcass at Catalina Island, Southern California;
bizarre-looking denizens are rarely seen and once spawned tales of sea serpents.)
(By Pete Thomas, Yahoo! News, 10-15-2013)
Jeremy Lin showed out in Rockets preseason win over Pacers in Taiwan (Videos)
(Lin scored 17 points on 6 for 8 shooting, including 3 for 4 from downtown, with four assists, three
steals, two rebounds & that one big block in 35 minutes of play as Houston topped Indiana, 107-98.)
(By Dan Devine, Yahoo! News, 10-14-2013)
Amateur Astronomer Captures Amazing Photo of Iconic 'Pillars Of Creation'
[AstrophotgrapherÊTerry Hancock captured an eye-catching view of "Pillars of Creation
in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16 or NGC 6611) 6500 light-years away from the Earth.]
(By Nina Sen, Yahoo! News, 10-7-2013)
Here Be Dragons: The Evolution of Sea Monsters on Medieval Maps
[Chet Van Duzer's "Sea Monsters on Medieval & Renaissance Maps" (British Library, 2013)
charts evolution of mythical creatures that adorned atlases from 10th-17th century.]
(By Tanya Lewis, Yahoo! News, 9-7-2013)
10 Actual Facts About The Illuminati
(Dig deeper into the conspiracy theories and watch to find out 10 actual facts about the illuminati.
Music = Apollo Rising by Terry Devine-King; Owl not All-Seeing Eye is Illuminati's Logo.)
(All Time 10s, Yahoo! News, 8-7-2013)
Monogamy may sound sweet, but why it evolved isn't
(Less than 9% of mammal species pair up socially. Among primates, 25% are socially monogamous.
Mammals became monogamous because females had spread out geographically, so males had to stick
close by to fend off competition. Also fathers defend their young against being killed by other males.)
(By Seth Borenstein, Yahoo! News, 7-29-2013)
Kate Middleton
& Prince William's Baby's Name: Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge
(In the past three centuries more kings have been named George than any other name)
(By Elise Solé, Yahoo! News, 7-24-2013)
How humans will survive in a million years
(Annalee Newitz's book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember argues that humans will not be doomed.)
(By Rob Walker, Yahoo! News, 7-16-2013)
Impala eludes two hungry cheetahs by jumping into car full of tourists
(Tourist Samantha Pittendrigh captures incredible video on her mobile phone at Kruger National Park)
(By David Strege, Grindtv.om, Yahoo! News, 7-10-2013)
Gold nears three-year low; set for record quarterly loss
(Spot gold slumped to its lowest since Aug. 2010 at $1,223.54 an ounce; Gold prices have fallen more
than 25% this year and by 22.8% this quarter, biggest quarterly loss since Reuters data began in 1968.)
(By Jan Harvey & Veronica Brown, Yahoo! News, 6-26-2013)
Squirrel takes on snake in backyard rumble
(Squirrel more than holds its own against the gopher snake, going in for repeated bites and swipes.)
(By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News, 6-26-2013)
Supermoon Photos: Year's Biggest Full Moon Wows Stargazers Worldwide
(Supermoon occurs because its orbit around Earth is not circular, so it swings closer at perigee.)
(By Clara Moskowitz, Yahoo! News, 6-24-2013)
TWA Flight 800 crash not due to gas tank explosion, former investigators say
(TWA Flight 800 explosion on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people, caused by a missile)
(By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News, 6-19-2013)
Zimmer, You Might Not Like the Way This Looks
(George Zimmer, founder & CEO of Men's Wearhouse for 40 years was fired by Board.)
(By Courtney Reagan, Yahoo! News, 6-19-2013)
Woman virtually nobody has heard of, is on verge of becoming most powerful woman in the world
(Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen, widely tipped as the frontrunner to replace Bernanke
when his term expires in January; She will become the first woman ever to chair the
Federal Reserve.)
(By Matthew Boesler, Yahoo! News, 6-18-2013)
Second grader in wheelchair set apart from classmates in school photo
(Miles Ambridge with spinal muscular atrophy, visibly segregated from classmates in Grade 2 photo)
(By Jordana Divon, Yahoo! News, 6-18-2013)
Baker's Graduation Cake Mix-Up Ends in Purr-fect Mistake
(Laura Gambrel's mom told baker to put a cap on top of her face in the graduation cake;
Baker misheard mom's instruction and drew a cat on the head; Reddit had 29,000 up votes.)
(By Eliza Murphy, Yahoo! News, 6-18-2013)
'100 to 1 Odds': Man Survives 15-Story Fall in New Zealand
(20-year-old Tom Stilwell fell from Auckland apt building with broken wrist, neck & back fractures)
(By Susan Donaldson James, Yahoo! News, 6-18-2013))
6-year-old boy catches 100-pound tarpon like a pro
(Reed did it all himself, hooking and fighting tarpon; fish was bigger than he)
(By David Strege, Yahoo! News, 6-10-2013)
Valedictorian
Rips Up Preapproved Speech, Recites Prayer Instead
(Roy Costner IV ripped up his valedictorian's speech at Liberty High in Liberty, South Carolina.
He recited Lord's Prayer from Christ's Sermon on the Mount. YouTube viewed 245,000 times so far.)
(By Melissa Knowles, Yahoo! News, 6-6-2013)
Woman Who Let Powerball Winner Go Ahead of Her Has No Regrets
(Mindy Crandell, 34, let Gloria C. Mackenzie, 84, cut in line ahead of her to buy Quickpick Powerball
ticket that won $590.5 million jackpot in Publix store of Zephyrhills, Florida on May 18, 2013)
(By Paula Faris, Yahoo! News, 6-6-2013)
Giant, fluorescent pink slugs found on mountain
(8-inch bright pink slug found on Mount Kaputar in New South Wales, Australia)
(By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News, 5-30-2013)
Crippled Lion is Dachshund's Best Friend
(500-pound lion Bonedigger & 11-pound dog Milo have formed an unlikely friendship in Oklahoma)
(By Mother Nature Network, Yahoo! News, 5-29-2013)
Amazing find inside of used bible
(Marion Shurtleff bought a used Bible and found letter in it she wrote 65 years ago!)
(CBS Los Angeles, Yahoo! News, 5-28-2013)
Silver drops despite steady market tone elsewhere
(Silver down 3.8% to $21.66/ounce, lowest since Sept. 2010; Gold lower 1.6% to $1364/ounce)
(By Pan Pylas, Yahoo! News, 5-20-2013)
The ecosystem inside you
(Michael Fischbach)
(Microbiome is ecosytem in us with 100 trillion benign bacteria keeping us healthy)
(By Editorial Staff, Yahoo! News, 5-11-2013)
Only 150 of 3500 U.S. Colleges Are Worth the Investment
(Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, wrote
Is College Worth It? & ranks
top colleges)
(By Nicole Goodkind, Yahoo! News, 5-7-2013)
The One Skill Every American Needs to Learn
(Working as a programmer or software engineer has become the new rock star job.)
(By Nicole Goodkind, Yahoo! News, 5-3-2013)
Many causes for dramatic bee disappearance
(Bee disappearance since 2006 due to parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition,
genetics, habitat loss and pesticides. 1/3 of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants,
and honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination.)
(By Seth Borenstein, Yahoo! News, 5-2-2013)
Why Is Our Solar System Such a Cosmic Weirdo?
(900 exoplanets discovered but are any of them hospitable to life?)
(By Charles Q. Choi, Yahoo! News, 5-2-2013)
Humans Evolved Flexible, Lopsided Brains
(Two halves of the human brain are not symmetrical, more so than chimpanzees)
(By Tanya Lewis, Yahoo! News, 4-23-2013)
The stories of 2 brothers suspected in bombing
(Chechnya brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are suspects in Boston bombing)
(By Jeff Donn & Jocelyn Noveck, Yahoo! News, 4-19-2013)
Hubble Telescope Snaps Stunning Nebula Photo for 23rd Birthday
(Dazzling video of the Horsehead Nebula based on Hubble's photos);
NASA
(By Mike Wall, Yahoo! News, 4-19-2013)
Nutella Is Disappearing From Columbia's Dining Halls At An Alarming Rate
(Chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella costing dining halls $5000 a week to stock)
(By Megan Willett & Megan Durisin, Yahoo! News, 3-7-2013)
Shark-eating seal among rare and stunning scenes documented off South Africa
(Shark eating school of sardines & cape fur seal eating large sharks)
(By Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com, 2-5-2013)
Bone-Chilling Science: The Scariest Experiments Ever
(Earth-swallowing black holes, Zombie dogs, Mind control, Bat bombs)
(By Tia Ghose, LiveScience, Oct. 30, 2012)
Huge Moon-Forming Collision Theory Gets New Spin
(Matija Cuk of SETI: Moon coalesced out of tiny bits of pulverized planet
blasted into space by a catastrophic collision 4.5 billion years ago)
(By Mike Wall, SPACE.com, Oct. 17, 2012)
- Harvard Gazette:
*
Harvard alumna Amanda Gorman delivered a soaring inaugural poem
("When day comes we step out of the shade, /
aflame and unafraid. /
The new dawn blooms as we free it. /
For there is always light, /
if only we're brave enough to see it, /
if only we're brave enough to be it.")
(By Lian Parsons, Harvard Gazette, 1-20-2021)
Steven Pinker Receives Humanist Award
(Humanist Chaplain Greg M. Epstein said, "The goal of maximizing human flourishing—life,
health, happiness, freedom, knowledge, love, richness of experience—may be called humanism."
It's the way Pinker defined the philosophy in his recent book
Enlightenment Now.)
(By Casandra Luca & Ruth Zheng, Harvard Crimson, 3-5-2018)
Turn on, tune in, geek out
(Houghton collection of 120 pieces culled from 50,000 inherited from Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr.:
a billionaire who was obsessed with the search for transcendence— is sorted into seven themes
for the exhibit: opium, psychedelics, cocaine, marijuana, sex, protest, and underground comics.)
(By Rebecca Coleman, Harvard Gazette, 11-20-2017)
ART & CULTURE: How a curator sees $450M Leonardo
(Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, or Savior of the World, a portrait of Christ dating to about 1500,
fetched a record-smashing $450.3 million at Christie's auction Wednesday in NY, despite concerns
regarding its condition and authenticity; Cassandra Albinson answers questions on this historic sale.)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 11-16-2017)
Beautiful Little Worlds: Harvard's Window into the Dutch Golden Age
(The Dutch tradition & the drawings are especially apt to open up immediately & viscerally this
relationship between the observer and the observed, and opens itself to life, the social order,
and the natural order at precisely a time when Holland was at the forefront of the Enlightenment.)
(By Hillary A. McLauchlin, Harvard Gazette, 11-16-2017)
ART $ CULTURE: The incomparable da Vinci
(In a dazzling new biography, Walter Isaacson plumbs da Vinci's relentlessly curious & creative mind,
poring over the to-do lists that da Vinci maintained to hold himself to his intellectual pursuits.)
(By Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette, 11-7-2017)
D'O: Making a Michelin-Starred Restaurant Affordable
(Chef Davide Oldani's Italian restaurant D'O balances Michelin-star-level
quality with affordable prices; there's an 18-month waiting list to dine there.)
(By Carmen Nobel, Harvard Business School News, 12-16-2013)
Evolution's Fast Track: Eyeless cavefish reveal mechanisms of cryptic genetic variation
[Among other changes, the "cavefish" swiftly (in evolutionary terms,
within just a few thousand years) lost their pigmentation— and their eyes.]
(By Stephanie Dutchen & Matt Fearer, Harvard Medical School News, 12-16-2013)
Why Give? Religious Roots of Charity
(Harvard Divinity School professors on the significance of giving)
(By Gordon Hardy, Harvard Divinity School News, 12-12-2013)
Strength in Diversity
Bacteria show surprising number of genetic paths to survival within each patient)
(By Stephanie Dutchen, Harvard Medical School News, 12-12-2013)
Muting the Mozart effect
(Contrary to popular opinion, research finds no cognitive benefits to musical training)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 12-11-2013)
That thing attached to your hand? It might be doomed
(Professor Woodward Yang on prospects for the smartphone amid fierce innovation)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 12-11-2013)
Journeys through song
(Professor Sugata Bose performs and instructs at Silk Road gathering)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 12-11-2013)
Found in Translation
(Woodberry associate curator brings Chinese poet Li Shangyin's work to widening audience)
(By Sarah Sweeney, Harvard Gazette, 12-10-2013)
Creative, useful, and fun
(Innovative CS50 fair projects include those by students from fields beyond computers)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 12-10-2013)
"As complex as a toy"
(Tadashi Tokieda creates & uses simple mechanisms to explain complex science)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 10-25-2013)
So near, so far, at Harvard
(Harvard's Class of 2017: 1,600 members, more men (52.4) than women,
57 countries & every state except Wyoming represented.)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 9-9-2013)
Destination space: Harvard professor begins training as NASA astronaut
(Jessica Meir selected from more than 6100 applicants among 8 astronauts.)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 9-6-2013)
The Little Old Machine That Could
(Microtome: a solid metal, hand-cranked, precision-machine made in 1931)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 9-5-2013)
Researchers to Sequence Genomes of Newborns
(Randomized trial is first to explore benefits & risks of genome sequencing in newborns)
(By Tom Langford, Harvard Medical School News, 9-5-2013)
Zines were the scene
(Caitlin Ballotta & Nora Garry spent 10 weeks in Widener Library
poring over recent acquisition of 20,000 zines and related material)
(By Colin Manning, Harvard Gazette, 9-4-2013)
Lasering in on tumors
(New tool, which 'sees' diseased cells, may greatly boost accurate brain surgery)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 9-4-2013)
'Let us begin again': President Faust opens academic year with remarks at Morning Prayers
(Reflecting on the Aug. 30 death of Seamus Heaney, iconic Irish poet who had often taught
and lived at Harvard over the past 34 years, Faust recalled his words in "Villanelle for an
Anniversary," a poem he composed in 1986 to commemorate Harvard's 350th anniversary.
"Seamus urged us to honor our past by looking to our future— 'Begin again' he wrote."
(By Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette, 9-3-2013)
Biases that can blind us
(Professor Mahzarin Banaji: Unconscious preferences can limit choices, stifle growth)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 9-3-2013)
Heaney's death caught 'the heart off guard'
(Noted Irish poet had long and deep ties to Harvard)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 8-30-2013)
Skip the juice, go for whole fruit
(Eating blueberries, grapes, apples lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.)
(By Amy Roeder, Harvard Gazette, 8-29-2013)
Hack Attacks, Explained
(Berkman Center's Zittrain sees lessons in computer assaults on media)
(By Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette, 8-29-2013)
Transparent artificial muscle plays music
(Electrical charges carried by ions, rather than electrons, can be put to meaningful use
in fast-moving, high-voltage devices, in Aug. 30 Science.)
(By Caroline Perry, Harvard Gazette, 8-29-2013)
Food, gender, culture
(Marilyn Morgan taught SWGS S-1155, "Gender, Food & Culture in American History")
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 8-29-2013)
Fueling the entrepreneuraial spirit (Professors Gary King & Eric Mazur)
(At Harvard, efforts grow to bring creative concepts to market)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 8-28-2013)
Atop the Amazon Rainforest
(Harvard scientist, others study how pristine air becomes polluted,
and how that may change climate)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 8-28-2013)
A year set to music:
Real-world accomplishment, in abundance, for Matt Aucoin '12
(Jorie Graham's approach to creation as an effort to get out of the way of something and let it speak.
It's a total effacement of the self in order to let something that is not you pass through you.)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 7-29-2013)
Bypassing Diabetes:
After weight-loss surgery, small intestine reprograms to regulate glucose
(After gastric bypass, the intestine reprograms itself to contain GLUT-1, taking glucose from
circulation and disposing of it, swiftly stabilizing blood glucose levels in the rest of the body.)
(Harvard Medical School News, 7-25-2013)
Bacterial blockade
(Research explains how gut microbes can inactivate cardiac drugs—
Peter Turnbaugh)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 7-23-2013)
The next gold rush: Outer space?
(Earth's gold from colliding dead stars in gamma-ray burst may be as large as 10 moon masses)
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard Gazette, 7-17-2013)
Revolutionary discovery
(Colonists' 1767 petition uncovered in a Harvard library foreshadows the split with Britain)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 7-16-2013)
Three generations of HSPH researchers explore health benefits of exercise
(I-Min Lee research: link physical activity to a longer, healthier life.)
(By Amy Roeder, Harvard School of Public Health News, 7-11-2013)
Every stitch of Hitch
(Harvard Film Archive presents 10 weeks of British director's films, from the silents to the '70s)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 7-10-2013)
The Complete Alfred Hitchcock
(Harvard's Hitchcock Film Festival including new restorations of 9 of Hitchcock's silent features)
(Harvard Film Series, July 11-September 28, 2013; Admission Tickets at Carpenter Center)
Addicted to... Food?
(High-glycemic foods and substance abuse may engage the same brain mechanism)
(By Andrea Mooney, Harvard Medical School News, 7-3-2013)
Right down the middle, explained
(Neil Roach Research: Fast, accurate throwing played key role in evolution)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 6-26-2013) (Evolution of Throwing)
Sandel in Central Park
(Harvard's
Michael Sandel led public debate on "What are we worth?";
15,000 Harvard students took his "Justice" course
(Videos); Books:
What Money Can't Buy;
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 6-19-2013)
Harvard EdCast: 20 Minutes with Noam Chomsky
(Chomsky discusses Paulo Freire's writings and how they affected his thoughts on education
in America, the future of online learning, and the things in the world he doesn't know.)
(By Matt Weber, Harvard Gazette, 6-19-2013)
Gaiman as a guide
(Author Neil Gaiman, designer share details behind
"Make Good Art"—
His May 2012 Philadelphia's University of the Arts
commencement address
on creativity, bravery, & strength.);
2006 Google talk
(By Jennifer Doody, Harvard Gazette, 6-18-2013)
Oprah Winfrey: Failure is just movement
(Winfrey: "There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.")
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Oprah Winfrey Commencement Speech | Harvard Commencement 2013
(Oprah addresses graduates at Harvard's 362nd Commencement at Tercentenary Theatre.)
(28:58 Video of Oprah Winfrey's address, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Joy by the Yard
(Scenes from a sun-splashed Commencement, filled with rituals, reflections, memories, and laughter)
(By Alvin Powell, Colleen Walsh, & Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Triumph against long odds
(Jirka Jelinek '13 grew up poor in Prague, but departs as a Harvard grad, with dreams ahead.)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Embracing the magic of science
(After car accident left Jennifer Cloutier '13 paralyzed at age 6, her fascination with science bloomed.)
(By Jennifer Doody, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
A fascination with fixing bodies
(Josh Wortzel '13 draws inspiration from stem cell lab work with
Professor Richard T. Lee)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Chasing the caffeine high
(With Cabot Café, budding entrepreneur Jesse Kaplan found startup success the old-fashioned way)
(By Katie Koch, Harvard Gazette, 5-30-2013)
Harvard's lucky '13s
(375 students from 1913 class fought in WWI; War of 1812 left 1813 class near unscathed, but
deliveries of firewood from Maine & books from England were interrupted; Class of 1713
had wolves roaming at night,
with ghost of Harvard's Puritan president Increase Mather
sponsoring Yard's only book burning.)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 5-29-2013)
"Run toward life"
(President Drew Faust to Class of 2013: "The best kind of learning does not train you to win.
It teaches you to ask what winning might mean. It cultivates curiosity and boldness")
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 5-28-2013)
Poetic justice, of a sort
(223rd Phi Beta Kappa Literary Exercises with poet
August Kleinzahler & reporter
Linda Greenhouse)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 5-28-2013)
Creative bursts from all corners
(Radcliffe workshop on creative breakthrough— Maureen N. McLane: "Poet breakthroughs are about
reframing, about reconnecting with vital sources in the language or in new dimensions of experience";
Alex Ross: "Hypnotic effect of opening bars in Wagner's Tristan & Isolde held audiences spellbound";
Maria Spiropulu: "Physics chases the dream of understanding nature to the core,
and require collaborations across disciplines. Science is seldom born with a single parent.")
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 5-24-2013)
Building on Einstein:
Relativity informs planet-finding method
(Exoplanet discovered using new method that relies on Einstein's special theory of relativity)
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard Gazette, 5-14-2013)
Boldly going to Houghton
(Expanding its pop culture holdings, Houghton library acquires detailed 'Star Trek' writers' guide)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 5-10-2013)
Discovery of new hormone opens doors to new type 2 diabetes treatments
(The study appears in the online May 7, 2013 issue of Cell Metabolism)
(Harvard School of Public Health News, 5-7-2013)
Oh, the humanities!
(American B.A. degrees in humanities declined from 14% in 1966 to 7% in 2010)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 5-2-2013)
Subversive education
(Noam Chomsky elaborates on Paulo Freire's 1968 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed)
(By Chuck Leddy, Harvard Gazette, 5-2-2013)
Robotic insects make first controlled flight
(After a decade's work, RoboBees achieve vertical takeoff, hovering, and steering)
(By Caroline Perry, Harvard Gazette, 5-2-2013)
Mind-body Genomics
(Relaxation response immediately alters gene expression tied to inflammation, metabolism & insulin)
(By Sue McGreevey, Harvard Medical School News, 5-1-2013)
Understanding student weaknesses
(Best science teachers can predict their pupils' misconceptions, study says)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 4-30-2013)
Discovering the path to Harvard
(Student finds mentoring the perfect window of opportunity)
(By Sara Providence, Harvard Gazette, 4-30-2013)
Melding the Web and the tactile
(Harvard, other schools create a virtual classroom that uses museum collections)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 4-29-2013)
In plaza, 'remembrance walls' rise
(First use of revamped campus common space is as Boston Marathon memorial)
(By Lauren Marshall, Harvard Gazette, 4-29-2013)
Potential diabetes breakthrough
(Harvard's Doug Melton &
Peng Yi discover hormone
betatrophin that spurs beta cell production)
(By B. D. Colen, Harvard Gazette, 4-25-2013)
Confronting evil, embracing life
(With Harvard temporarily closed after Boston bombings, two conferences compressed into Saturday:
"Confronting Evil:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives" & "Proust and the Arts";
Gazmend Kapllani:
"The emptiness of Brattle Street
will stay with me for a long time. It was a symbol of the fragility
of good." Proust used 1,200,000 words in seven volumes
to convey a message that can be compressed
into just a few: Slow down, observe, engage, and remember. Love life.
Its moments— fleeting & delicate—
soon belong to the past. Only dreams, or the exquisite pain of memory, can bring them back.)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 4-23-2013)
How the attack affects our lives
(Harvard analysts discuss what's ahead in key ways after the Boston Marathon bombings)
(By Colleen Walsh & Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 4-16-2013)
Borders, books, and the Balkans
(Albanian novelist, Gazmend Kapllani, draws inspiration from Communist Albania's ink-dark past)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 4-12-2013)
Office, Ours
(Photos of Harvard Professors' offices reflecting their work space, books, tastes, and mementos)
(By Stephanie Mitchell, Staff Photographer, Harvard Gazette, 4-11-2013)
Not as evolved as we think
(Adaptation neither stops nor makes value judgments, says
Professor Marlene Zuk)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 4-11-2013)
Jobs, Einstein, and Franklin
(Walter Isaacson explored the genius of three transformative men— Benjamin Franklin, Einstein,
Steve Jobs, unraveling their intellectual brilliance & their common desire to help change the world.)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 4-9-2013)
On spirituality at Harvard
(President Drew Faust & Divinity Dean David N. Hempton discuss role of religious studies & values)
(By Lucia Huntington, Harvard Gazette, 4-5-2013)
Something in a name
(Pope's choice of Francis suggests great concern for have-nots, Divinity School speakers say)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 4-3-2013)
Portraits of vanished Indian life
(Whether candid or staged, rare 19th-century images offer insight into a fading America)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 3-26-2013)
The dark side of chocolate
(West Africa produces 3/4 of world's cacao in chocolates, farmed under harsh human conditions)
(By Jennifer Doody, Harvard Gazette, 3-22-2013)
The power of 'thanks'
(Sidetracked
by Harvard Business School's Francesca Gino outlines ripple effects of gratitude)
(By Chuck Leddy, Harvard Gazette, 3-19-2013)
Poetic greetings
(Visitors to Lamont Library's Woodberry Poetry Room can pick up a retro-looking handset and listen
to renowned poets, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Donald Hall, or James Tate recite their works.)
(By Colin Manning, Harvard Gazette, 3-18-2013)
A new face at the Vatican
(Harvard analysts weigh in on Catholic Church's Pope Francis, and its future)
(By Katie Koch & Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 3-13-2013)
Letting religion in
(Speakers at Veritas Forum argue for faiths' role as part of open discussions)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, 3-7-2013)
Dying stars source of life?
(Future evidence for extraterrestrial life might come from dying stars)
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard Gazette, 2-26-2013)
100 years of Harvard University Press
(In 1950, Harvard University acquired extensive collection of Dickinson's manuscripts, which led
to Poems of Emily Dickinson published by HUP,
1st scholarly edition of Dickinson's 1,800 poems.)
(By Colin Manning, Harvard Gazette, 2-26-2013)
Money, marriage, kids
(Stumbling on Happiness)
(To attain happiness, Daniel Gilbert says, consider your mom's recipe)
(By Chuck Leddy, Harvard Gazette, 2-21-2013)
A different take on Tut
(French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde says King Tut's mother was his father's first cousin, Nefertiti.)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 2-11-2013)
Astronomically close
(Center for Astrophysics scientists say Earth-like planets are galactic neighbors)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, 2-6-2013)
A Web browser in the heavens
(Astronomer Alyssa Goodman
used WorldWide Telescope to zoom in on stars at
Harvard Allston Education Portal,
and teach kids a historical overview of 3,500 years of astronomy)
(By Chuck Leddy, Harvard Gazette, 2-4-2013)
26 immortal portals
(Class examines art, history, and significance of Harvard Yard's 26 gates surrounding campus)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 1-31-2013)
Five ideas for better schools:
Askwith panel promotes fresh ways to jump-start effective learning
(Elizabeth City: "We focus too much on schooling and not enough on learning.")
(By Chuck Leddy, Harvard Gazette, 1-30-2013)
When fairness prevails:
Harvard research shows how uncertainty affects behavior
(Better to be fair than selfish; Playing The Ultimatum Game)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 1-30-2013)
An idea that changed the world (100 years ago)
(Jan. 23, 1913: Andrey A. Markov lectured on computational technique now called
Markov chain)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 1-23-2013)
Inside India's pop-up city (30 million visitors bathe in the Ganges)
(Harvard team maps the Kumbh Mela, world's largest gathering)
(By Katie Koch, Harvard Gazette, 1-21-2013)
New avenue in neurobiology (Paola Arlotta)
(Harvard researchers turn one form of neuron into another in the brain)
(By B.D. Cohen, Harvard Gazette, 1-21-2013)
A hidden genetic code
(PNAS)
(Researchers identify key differences in seemingly synonymous parts of the structure)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, 1-18-2013)
Poetry in the making
(David McCann promotes
Korean sijo poetry)
(By Sarah Sweeney, Harvard Gazette, 11-20-2012)
Does Playing Soccer Change the Brain?
(White matter in brain of 12 soccer players different than those of 8 swimmers)
(By Tim Sullivan, Harvard Medical School News, Nov. 26, 2012)
When jazz was king: Panel examines the music's past, present, and future
(Performing jazz exposes people to genres that they might not even have known they would like)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, Nov. 5, 2012)
How Google sees the race: Search data sheds light on likely voters, Ph.D. student finds
(Used Google Insights for Search, online tool for extracting data from millions of Google searches)
(By Peter Reuell, Harvard Gazette, Nov. 5, 2012)
Probing sleep's drowsy mystery: Researchers stay up nights trying to understand rhythms, effects
(Alex Shier uses laboratory zebrafish to probe genetic basis of sleep)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, Nov. 2, 2012)
So doggone complicated: Geneticist probes dog genome to understand human DNA better
(300 breeds of dogs; Elaine Ostrander has 13,000 DNA samples from registered dogs)
(By Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette, Oct. 30, 2012)
Peer pressure in politics: It's a force to be reckoned with in voting or campaign funding
(Betsy Sinclair says pressure to conform with a group is the reason
we vote for a favorite candidate, buy Girl Scout cookies or Tupperware.)
(By Edward Mason, Harvard Gazette, Oct. 26, 2012)
Challenging Parkinson's Dogma: Dopamine not only player in neurodegenerative disease
(Bernardo Sabatini found
GABA
in addition to dopamine neurons release in the brain)
(By Elizaabeth Cooney, Harvard Medical School News, Oct. 24, 2012)
Found in translation: French historian charts creation of literary archives
(Roger Chartier's work examines the history of books, publishing, and reading,
with a recent focus on the intersection of written culture and literature.)
(By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Gazette, Oct. 23, 2012)
In 40 films, story of a screen great: Harvard festival covers rise of Paramount Pictures
(Centennial of Paramount Pictures founded by Adolph Zukor in 1912)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, July 12, 2012)
The History at Houghton
(Built in 1942, Houghton Library housed rare books & manuscripts;
It has Emily Dickinson's teacup, Harry Houdini's handcuffs, and pencil made
at factory owned by family of Henry David Thoreau.)
(By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, Nov. 9, 2011)
Eight weeks to a better brain: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress
(Meditation found by Sara Lazar
to provide cognitive & psychological benefits)
(By Sue McGreevey, Harvard Gazette, January 21, 2011)
Helen Vendler on Dickinson
(In Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries,
Vendler looks closely at 150 of Dickinson's more
than 1,700 poems; Emily Dickinson's greatest descriptive originality lies in her angle of vision.)
(By Sarah Sweeney, Harvard Gazette, Sept. 2, 2010)
Puzzling through Yeats with Helen Vendler
(Vendler's Our
Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form, published in 2007;
Analyzed Yeat's
"Vacillation"—
poem's first section closes with the question "What is joy?"
We see all of false answers:
getting a wife, getting gold, religion, salvation. For the poet, creativity is the way
to face death. Show what you've done, then you can come to your tomb in a way that makes life full of joy.)
(By Emily T. Simon, Harvard Gazette, Nov. 6, 2008); Yale Video
- Time Magazine:
BUSINESS: Inside the Making of CoComelon, the Children's Entertainment Juggernaut
(CoComelon is the most streamed children's entertainment program in the world. The show
was watched for 33 billion minutes last year, more than the Netflix hits Squid Game
and Bridgerton combined, according to Nielsen. CoComelon had 3.6 billion views on
YouTube in January, according to Tubular, as many as three-quarters of whom were from outside
the U.S. CoComelon was a Top 10 show on Netflix for more than 100 straight days in 2021,
And its music is streamed 1.3 million times a day on Spotify.)
(By Alana Semuels, Time, March 28, 2022, pp. 78-81)
Dr. Seuss Made More Money Than Ever Before After Pulling
Racist Books. Here's How CEO Susan Brandt Did It
(The Seuss brand has since expanded from books to include films, television, stage productions,
digital games, theme parks, exhibitions, licensed products and more. Brandt, a Seuss veteran
who has been with the company for 24 years and most recently served as president, is credited
with spearheading recent savvy ventures with Netflix and Warner Brothers.)
(By Megan McCluskey, Time, March 20, 2022)
The Enduring Hope of Jane Goodall
(She says "I've always loved being by myself". Now at 87, with over 60 years research on chimps.
Reads poem "It Couldn't Be Done" by Edgar Albert Guest:
"Just start in to sing as you tackle the
thing that 'cannot be done', and you'll do it."
She looks up, eyes flashing. "Don't you love that?")
(By Ciara Nugent, Time, October 11, 2021, pp. 36-41)
15 Questions: Jasper Johns
(Jasper Johns, possibly America's most famous living artist and still plying his trade at 91,
launches two retrospectives on Sept. 29; one at Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC
and other at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I do still read poetry, old and new. I read
The Poetry Project's newsletter when time allows. I am lucky for being able to devote
myself to work that remains interesting to me.)
(By Belinda Luscombe, Time, October 11, 2021, p. 112)
Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
(They turn compassion into boots on the ground through their Archewell Foundation.
They give voice to the voiceless through media production. They run toward the struggle.)
(By José Andrés, Time, September 27, 2021, pp. 103-104)
Why Is Everything More Expensive Right Now? Let This Stuffed Giraffe Explain
(Jani, a 4-foot plush giraffe, used to cost $87. Now she's $116; Before the pandemic,
Jani could have gotten from factory to my door in about 81 days; now it takes 106 days.)
(By Alana Semuels, Time, September 12, 2021, pp. 46-51)
Prince Philip Was Queen Elizabeth's 'Strength and Stay'. Marriage Was Also Incredibly Complex
(Married to Queen Elizabeth II for more than 70 years, since Nov. 20, 1947.
Rumored affairs of Philip during five-month stag do in 1956.)
(By Olivia B. Waxman, Time, April 9, 2021)
FILM: Antoine Fuqua Remembers the Storytelling Genius of Shinobu Hashimoto
(Saw Seven Samurai as a kid in Pittsburgh that was so beautiful and poetic and powerful
and heartbreaking. It was all about justice, it was all about sacrifice, and it made me want to
be one of those guys. When MGM called me about remaking The
Magnificent Seven based
on Seven Samurai, I couldn't say no, and
remade it in 2016, starring Denzel Washington.)
(By Antoine Fuqua, Time, August 6, 2018, p. 16)
MENTAL HEALTH: Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are Not Alright
(In 2005, 30% of girls & 20% of boys— totaling 6.3 million teens— have had anxiety disorder.)
(By Susanna Schrobsdorff, Time, Nov. 7, 2016, pp. 42-51)
The Lessons from New York's Flooded Subways
(New York City's subways shut down: 660 miles and 468 stations)
(By Jeffrey Kluger, Time, Oct. 30, 2012)
SPACE: Hors d'Oeuvre for the Milky Way
(120,000-light year width and 300 billion stars will not eat more as it used to)
(By Jeffrey Kluger, Time, Oct. 26, 2012)
RELIGION: Beyond the Wardrobe
(95 million Narnia books by
C.S. Lewis have been sold since 1945; His
Mere Christianity
with homey metaphors on his Christian belief is superbly organized and easy to follow)
(By David Van Biema, Time, Oct. 30, 2005)
The 160,000-Year-Old Man
(Tim White of UC Berkeley unearthed the long-sought fossil remains of what
could be the very first true Homo sapiens, dated 160,000 years ago in Ethiopia.)
(By Michael D. Lemonick & Andrea Dorfman, Time, June 16, 2003, 56-58)
- Other News Sources:
* BASEBALL:
'I'm still going to retire': Albert Pujols making charge at 700 home runs in final days of career
[Pujols, with five home runs in his last five games following his two-homer night, has 692 career home runs.
He's more proud of a number no one ever talks about these days: He has 2,187 career RBI.
The only men in history with more are Aaron (2,297) and Babe Ruth (2,214).]
(By Bob Nightengale, USA Today, 8-20-2022)
Fascinating Stories Behind 15 Classic Elvis Songs
(This month marks 45 years since rock 'n' roll lost its king, Elvis Presley; His songs—
("Heartbreak Hotel" 1956; "Don't Be Cruel" 1956; "Hound Dog" 1956; "Love Me Tender" 1956;
"All Shook Up" 1957; "Jailhouse Rock" 1957; "Hard Headed Woman" 1958; "It's Now or Never" 1960;
"Are You Lonesome Tonight" 1960; "Can't Help Falling in Love" 1961; "Return to Sender" 1962;
"If I Can Dream" 1968; "In the Ghetto" 1969; "Suspicious Minds" 1969; "Burning Love" 1972)
(By Jim Farber, Parade Magazine, 8-14-2022, pp. 9-12)
* Katherine Heigl:
Heal Your Body and Mind
(Heigl Gets Candid About the Mental Health Toll of Hollywood and the Healing Power of Nature;
"Firefly Lane" actress tackles mental health, aging in Hollywood and finding peace in Utah;
"My therapist got me on Zoloft that boosted serotonin & dopamine that made me calm.")
(By Nicole Pajer, Spry Living, 8-14-2022, pp. 6-9)
* BASEBALL:
Wood, Giants beat slumping Padres 1-0 after overturned call
(Catcher Joey Bart made one heck of a pick and tag out Brandon Drury at the plate,
to deny the San Diego Padres what would have been the tying run.
(By Bernie Wilson, AP, Fresno Bee, 8-9-2022) (Video Highlights, 6:20/8:01)
* BASEBALL:
Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcaster for 67 years, dies at 94
(As the longest tenured broadcaster with a single team in pro sports history,
Scully saw it all & called it all. Began in 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese & Jackie Robinson,
on to 1960s with Don Drysdale & Sandy Koufax, into 1970s with Steve Garvey & Don Sutton,
and through 1980s with Orel Hershiser & Fernando Valenzuela. In 1990s, it was Mike Piazza
and Hideo Nomo, followed by Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.)
(By Beth Harris, AP, amny, 8-3-2022)
* BASEBALL:
Dodgers icon Vin Scully dies at 94: Reaction from L.A. and the sports world
(Dodger broadcaster Joe Davis & manager Dave Roberts on Vin Scully;
Voice of our city)
(By Eduardo Gonzalez, msn.com, 8-3-2022)
* BASEBALL:
Vin Scully's top calls from a Hall of Fame career
(Sandy Koufax tossed a perfect game at Dodger Stadium on
Sept. 9, 1965. Scully paused
for 38 seconds to allow listeners to soak in the scene.
Kirk Gibson's homer on Oct. 15, 1988
in 1988 World Series, Scully was silent & let the crowd take over.)
(By AP, Wichita Eagle, Kansas, 8-3-2022)
News Analysis:
As Pelosi leaves Taiwan, stability in Asia grows more precarious
(House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met
in Taipei on August 3. China is scheduled to launch an unprecedented four-day
military exercise in waters surrounding Taiwan.)
(By David Pierson & Stephanie Yang, Los Angeles Times, 8-3-2022)
* BASEBALL:
Will Clark meets the moment in jersey retirement speech
(Clark's No. 22 now hangs between Monte Irvin's 20 and Willie Mays' 24. It's the 13th number
immortalized by the franchise. Clark homered off Nolan Ryan for his first career hit. He read
Greg Maddux's lips for a grand slam in the 1989 NLCS. His meticulous preparation and
baseball mind endures today, when he mentors young Giants as a special assistant.)
(By Danny Emerman, KNBR Studios, 7-30-2022) (YouTube Highlights)
* In Memoriam:
Judith Ann Schiff, Yale's long-serving chief research archivist
(Yale's and New Haven's historian, died on July 11 at age 84. She helped with
archives of aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Archived papers of Mabel Loomis Todd, editor of Emily Dickinson's poems.)
(By Mike Cummings, Yale News, 7-12-2022)
MOVIES:
"Elvis" biopic shakes, rattles and rolls
(Baz Luhrmann found a perfect star in Austin Butler, who fearlessly embodies the icon
without ever slipping into impersonation. Luhrmann & Butler have created something
gloriously messy— a maximalist opera of contradictions, styles, truths, myths,
memories and headlines. Running time: 159 minutes. 3 stars out of 4.)
(By Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer, U.S. News, 6-22-2022)
* HEALTH:
10-second balance test may predict how long you'll live
(Researchers found that people who couldn't stand on one foot were nearly twice
as likely to die in the next 10 years. Researchers asked 1,702 Brazilians from ages
51 to 75 to stand barefoot on one leg with arms straight at their side; 20% failed the test.)
(By Linda Carroll, NBC News, 6-21-2022)
* HEALTH:
Test of Sitting and Standing Predicts Mortality
[A person's risk of death can be predicted by a simple test that assesses his or her
ability to sit on the floor & then stand up. Study from Brazil involved more than 2,000
people ages 51 to 80. They were asked to sit down on the floor, and then stand up,
without using their hands and knees to help them, if possible. Over the six-year study
(ended October 2011), 159 people died, mostly those with lower tests scores.]
(By Rachael Rettner, Live Science, 12-13-2012)
MOVIES:
It's showtime: Stanford Theatre to reopen on July 9
[Downtown Palo Alto venue's summer lineup includes Judy Garland musicals,
'Casablanca' and silent comedies. Theater reopens July 9-10 with the swanky
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers "Top Hat" and "The Gay Divorcee", followed by
two comedies starring Deanna Durbin, "It Started With Eve" & "100 Men and a Girl"
(July 14-15); Bogart's "Casablanca" & "In a Lonely Place" play on July 16-17.]
(By Heather Zimmerman, Palo Alto Weekly, 6-21-2022)
154th Belmont Stakes 2022:
Mo Donegal won @ 2:28.28 with Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard
(1. Mo Donegal, 2. Nest, 3. Skippylongstocking, 4. We the People,
5. Creative Minister, 6. Rich Strike, 7. Barber Road, 8. Golden Glider.)
(By Mark Inabinett, al.com, 6-11-2022)
252 feet and 7 inches:
Epic paper airplane throw in Asia shatters Guinness World Record
(Used Conqueror CX22 100GSM, one of stiffest & highest quality papers in the world.
Previous record of 226 feet, 10 inches, by Joe Ayoob on Feb. 26, 2012.)
(By Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today, 5-25-2022)
* BASEBALL:
Pederson hits 3 HRs, drives in 8 as Giants stun Mets 13-12
(Joc Pederson homered three times and drove in a career-high eight runs, including
a tying single with two outs in the ninth inning, and the San Francisco Giants
outslugged the New York Mets 13-12 in one of the wildest games imaginable)
(By Michael Wagaman, AP, Galveston Daily News, 5-25-2022)
21 Things You Might Not Know
About E.T. To Celebrate the Movie's 40th Anniversary
[Elliott (Henry Thomas) befriends a wide-eyed
extraterrestrial accidentally stranded on Earth.
Gertie (6-year-old Drew Barrymore) becomes
a star after playing in her second movie.]
(By Mara Reinstein, Parade Magazine, 5-22-2022, pp. 6-7)
ASK MARILYN: Can You Solve This Math Problem?
Say you have one cubic mile of water, and you release it at the rate of 1,000 gallons a minute.
About how long would it take to drain the entire tank: (a) 2 weeks, (b) 20 weeks, (c) 2 years,
(d) 20 years, (e) 200 years, (f) 2,000 years? Answer: (f) It would take more than 2,000 years!
(By Marilyn van Savant, Parade Magazine, 5-22-2022, p. 5)
George Carlin's
comedic journey takes the stage in HBO doc
("The way George Carlin looked at the world and broke it down taught so many of us
how to be comedians," said Judd Apatow. "He injected the software into our brains
about how to think as a comic." The HBO portrait is wonderfully enhanced by the
Carlin archives, which include Post-It notes of joke ideas, scripts, home footage,
letters and TV clips. It also discussed Carlin's wicked coke habit & personal turmoil.)
(By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press, May 20, 2022)
* The Man Who Found the Flow
("What is happiness?" asked psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He found it in a state
of mind beyond results and rewards and called it "the flow". Its characteristics include
joy, deep concentration, emotional buoyancy, a heightened sense of mastery, a lack of
self-consciousness, and self-transcendence. Aristotle's
eudaimonia, a state of being
"well-favored" within oneself and in one's relation to the divine.
Abraham Maslow
regarded peak experience as a kind of epiphany that happens spontaneously.)
(By Andrew Cooper, Lion's Roar, May 7, 2021)
Neil Simon Papers at the Library of Congress
(Mark Horowitz tells about the Neil Simon collection donated to the Library of Congress;
with 110 titles of his plays in handwring plus over a dozen notebooks of his drawings.)
(By Cait Miller, Library of Congress, April 28, 2022)
* "It's
possible she was assassinated": Joyce Carol Oates on Marilyn Monroe
(Today, anything Monroe touched is coveted with a religiosity comparable to the medieval
mania for relics of saints. In 2016, the dress she wore to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr President"
to JFK in 1962 was bought by Ripley's Believe It or Not Museums for $5 million.)
(By Iona McLaren, The Telegraph, UK, April 22, 2022)
SCIENCE:
Why humans can live to around 80 while giraffes die at 24?
(Scientists compare 16 species and find animals with a slower rate of genetic mutations
have longer lifespans; Giraffes, reaching up to 18 ft tall, were found to have mutation
rates of 99/year, and a lifespan of around 24. Meanwhile, naked mole rats, which are much
smaller at just five inches, were found to have very similar mutation rates of 93/year,
and a similar lifespan of around 25)
(By Shivali Best, Daily Mail, UK, April 14, 2022)
BASEBALL:
Steven Kwan Breaks All-Time Major League Record
(Cleveland's rookie outfielder has been unbelievable from the plate to begin his careeer;
Kwan has broken a Major League record by reaching base 15 times in his first four games.)
(By Brendan Gulick, Sports Illustrated, April 11, 2022)
MOVIES:
Man of Mystery! Nicolas Cage Calls Himself the 'American Loch Ness Monster'
(During quarantine, he binged Ingmar Bergman & Akira Kurosawa films as well as
silent classics. He's expecting a child in September, and Cage is ready to spend
his mornings in a rocking chair with his new child. "I find it like a meditation;
you're rocking and you're singing "Three Blind Mice".)
(By Nicole Pajer, Parade, April 10, 2022, pp. 6-8)
* OSCARS:
Garland! Hitchcock! E.T.! The 23 Biggest Films and Stars Snubbed By the Academy
[Hitchcock & Cary Grant never won; Charlie Chaplin & Steven Spielberg snubbed;
Judy Garland's "A Star Is Born" (1954) lost; Gene Kelly & Donald O'Connors ignored
in "Singing in the Rain" (1952); Glenn Close nominated 8 times never won.]
(By Mara Reinsteien, Parade, March 27, 2022, pp. 6-8)
ART: One of Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portraits could fetch a record $200 million
(The 40-square-inch "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn," one of dozens of images Andy Warhol made of Monroe
in the 1960s, will go on sale in New York this May, auction house Christie's announced Monday. Christie's
Chairman Alex Rotter said "Standing alongside Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa
& Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Warhol's Marilyn is categorically one of the greatest paintings of all time." )
(By Oscar Holland, CNN, March 22, 2022)
COLLECTIBLES:
A Rare Copy of Marvel Comics No. 1 Just Sold for a Record $2.4 Million
(The 82-year-old book planted the first seeds for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 68-page booklet
was released in October 1939 back when the publisher was known by its first name, Timely Comics.
Current Marvel Comics record belongs to a 9.6-grade copy of Amazing Fantasy no. 15— the comic
that introduced Spider-Man and his alter-ego Peter Parker to the world— which sold for
$3.6 million
last September. Action Comics #1 Superman comic sells for record $3.25 million.)
(By Bryan Hood, Robb Report, March 22, 2022)
Douglas Trumbull,
the Oscar-winning special effects wizard who called New Marlborough home, has died
(Trumbull died at 79; Designed Stargate sequence of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"
using "slit scan photography"; Also did special effects in 1983 film "Brainstorm".)
(By Felix Carroll, The Berkshire Eagle, Feb. 8, 2022)
*
IDEAS: How to Want Less
(The secret to satisfaction has nothing to do with achievement, money, or stuff.
Thomas Aquinas, Buddha (and Mick Jagger) were saying the same thing.
"I can't get no satisfaction".
Satisfaction = what you have ÷ what you want.
The secret to satisfaction is not to increase our haves, but reducing our wants.)
(By Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, Feb. 8, 2022)
All
the rage: Minnie Mouse's pantsuit sparks uproar with some fans
(Her polka dot dress worn since 1928 replaced by blue pantsuit designed
by Stella McCartney, daughter of Paul McCartney. It resembles attire
of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)
(By Nancy Clanton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 28, 2022)
*
IDEAS: Can Medieval Sleeping Habits Fix America’s Insomnia?
(If the purpose of sleep is mental and physical well-being, "there is very good reason
to believe that uninterrupted sleep at night best achieves that outcome", Roger Ekirch said.)
(By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, Jan. 27, 2022)
Methuselah:
oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs
(Biologists believe the Australian lungfish, a primitive species with lungs and gills,
is about 90 years old with no known living peers. It is a 4ft-long 40 lb Australian lungfish
that was brought to San Francisco museum in 1938 from Australia. Prefers fresh seasonal figs.)
(The Guardian, UK, Jan. 26, 2022)
* The Impossible Art?: Peculiar Perils of Literary Translation
(In balancing authenticity with readability, translators tackle a seemingly impossible art—
and rarely receive enough credit; Mark Polizzotti: "When you read a translation it doesn't
mean it's a secondary experience. It doesn't mean you're not reading the author. It means
you are reading the product of two authors: the original author and the translator, who
has to read the text, interpret it, and regenerate it in terms that make linguistic sense.")
(By Paul Hond, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, pp. 24-29)
* TRIVIA: Hidden Histories of Columbia
(In 1920, Amelia Earhart perched on the dome's roof of Columbia's Low Library;
In 1921,
Albert Einstein gave his first public lecture in the U.S. on theory of relativity.
The speech,
delivered in German, took place at Horace Mann Auditorium at Columbia Teachers College;
In 1920, Paul Robeson met Eslanda Goode at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, they eloped
& she encouraged him in acting, and in 1936 he starred in the film version of Show Boat,
in which he sang "Ol' Man River", listed by AFI as the 24th Best Song in Film History.
On May 3, 1968, the Grateful Dead played a surprise show outside Ferris Booth Hall.)
(By Gary Shapiro, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, pp. 34-39)
The Amazing Gender-Bending Behavior of Hummingbirds
(Columbia scientists discover why female white-necked jacobins often masquerade as males;
Male birds sport bolder, more eye-catching plumage; Females' feathers, in comparison, look
washed-out and drab; Cornell study found one in every six birds that appear to be adult male
Jacobins is actually a female in disguise; females with male-like plumage enjoy better access
to food, as other birds, knowing that males are more aggressive, will cede more space to them.)
(By David J. Craig, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, p. 44)
What Do Memories Look Like?
(Columbia neuroscientists led by Attila Losonczy, have figured out how to visually map memory
formation, which could have implications for the treatment of schizophrenia and Alzheimer's;
New memories are consolidated in the hippocampus gradually, over a period of 24r hours or
more, and that periods of physical rest are essential for the brain to complete the job.)
(By David J. Craig, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, p. 45)
A Better Way to Fight Workplace Racial Bias
(Diversity training programs may be inadequate, say Columbia sociologists David Stark
& Sheen S. Levine; They found that participants were 25% less likely to imitate the
puzzle-solving methods of their Black-named peers, compared to their white-named
Participants also rated their Black-named peers as less competent afterward,
ones, even though they performed equally well.)
(By David J. Craig, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, p. 47)
Book Review: Colm Tóibín's "The Magician"
(By today's standards, Thomas Mann hardly qualifies as a confessional writer. The great
German novelist, who won Literature Nobel Prize in 1929, never wrote a soul-baring
memoir or made himself the main character in a book the way many writers do today.
In Death in Venice he wrote intimately about the homosexual desires concealed
behind his public image as a married father of six children;)
(By Adam Kirsch, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2021-2022, p. 60)
MOVIES NEWS:
Oscars: 2022 Ceremony Will Have a Host
(The most recent Oscars that had a host took place in 2018. Tom Holland, the star
of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the biggest blockbuster of the pandemic,
expressed interest in hosting the Oscar; the Academy did reach out to him.)
(By Scott Feinberg, Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 11, 2022)
Pope
slips out of Vatican to visit record shop, gets CD
(Pope Francis grew up listening to the opera on the radio,
is a fan of Argentine tango
and thinks Mozart "lifts you to God."
Francis had slipped inside Stereosound shop and
stayed for about 12 minutes, chatting with
the owners, who gave him a CD of classical music)
(By Associated Press, ABC News, Jan. 11, 2022)
Wayne Thiebaud,
painter of cakes and San Francisco cityscapes, dies at 101
("Cakes", a 1963 painting by Wayne Thiebaud, at National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)
(The Guardian, UK, Dec. 26, 2021)
Alan Scott,
researcher who pioneered medical uses of Botox, dies at 89
(Botox was officially approved by Food & Drug Administration for cosmetic purposes in 2002
and— to Dr. Scott's enduring amazement— was used by an estimated 11 million people to
temporarily smooth frown lines, crow’s feet and other facial furrows that are often the sign
of advancing age. Botox works by blocking release of acetylcholine, a compound that makes
muscles contract. Relaxed state lasts weeks or months at which point another injection is needed.)
(By Emily Langer, Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2021)
Wayne Thiebaud:
1962 to 2017; Milton Avery review— Americana with a cherry on top
(Californian master Wayne Thiebaud, poet of the milkshake, ice-cream cone and cherried sundae,
of the still life with pie and damn fine cup of coffee. Thiebaud, born in 1920, has been
making these radiant paintings for almost seven decades.)
(By Milton Avery, The Guardian, UK, June 4, 2017)
*
See the beautiful, ecologically priceless trees Italy is protecting forever
(Dotted across Italy, 22,000 ancient trees have gained federal protection, making them cornerstones
of cultural history. 750-year-old Pontone beech tree with 7 barks fused together. 600-year-old
Loricate Pines of Pollino. 1,000 years old Plane Tree of Curinga has 60 feet trunk circumference.
2,500-year-old Olive Tree of Villastrada. 800-year-old Cypress Tree of St. Francis of Assisi.)
(By Jonathan Moens, National Geographic, Sept. 8, 2021)
A person or a thing? Inside the fight for animal personhood
(Happy, a 50-year-old Asian elephant at the Bronx Zoo, is at the center of a legal battle
over animal rights. Happy drinks up to 60 gallons of water every day, she enjoys digging
in the sand, she gets frequent pedicures from zoo staff. But is Happy happy? Steven Wise
of Nonhuman Rights Project, wants Happy to be moved to an accredited elephant sanctuary
where she'll be with others of her kind in a larger, more natural setting than her present
acre-size enclosure where she lives alone.)
(By Rachel Fobar, National Geographic, August 4, 2021)
Scientists spot a 'space hurricane' for the first time
(Scientists suspected that vortexes could form high in Earth's atmosphere, but this is first time one
has been seen twirling the northern lights like a baton. Lasting for 8 hours, it was more than 620 miles
across & stretched from its base 60 miles above sea level to 500 miles high, reaching into space.)
(By Robin George Andrews, National Geographic, March 23, 2021)
800,000
Americans have died of COVID. Now the U.S. braces for an omicron-fueled spike
(With surges fueled by more transmissible variants of coronavirus, the U.S. hit tragic new record
Tuesday, shortly after surpassing 50 million COVID-19 cases— by far most in the world.)
(By Bill Chappell, NPR, Dec. 14, 2021)
Stephen Curry
Tribute: Ray Allen and Reggie Miller were at MSG to honor the "Chef"
[Ray Allen (2,973 three-pointers), had the mark since 2011, when he took the throne
from Miller (2,560) to form the top three long-distance scorers along with Curry,
who took record away from Allen in the first quarter against the New York Knicks.]
(By Dan Fridman Stalnicovitz, Marca.com, Dec. 15, 2021)
Warriors'
Stephen Curry Passes Ray Allen as NBA's All-Time 3-Point Leader
(Golden State Warriors guard hit his 2,974th career 3-pointer in the first quarter of Tuesday's game
against New York Knicks, passing Ray Allen for the most in league history. Curry entered the game
one three behind Allen, who needed 1,300 regular-season games to get to his mark compared to Curry's 789.)
(By Tyler Conway, Bleacher Report, Dec. 15, 2021)
Rita Moreno Reveals the Biggest Difference in Steven Spielberg's New Version of West Side Story
+ How He Convinced Her to Join the Cast
[Steven Spielberg chose Rita Moreno's character Valentina to sing "Somewhere" in his West Side Story
adaptation: "I can't imagine another person more apt to underscore the need for all of us to keep hoping for,
dreaming of & working toward a better, more just world," he says. Rita won Oscar as Anita in 1961 film.
A day after Spielberg's new film opens on Dec. 10, 2021, Rita Moreno
(born Dec. 11, 1931) turns 90.]
(By Nicole Pajer, Parade, Dec. 5, 2021, pp. 6-10)
12 Christmas
Classics Should Be on Every Holiday Must-Watch Movie List
[Christmas in Connecticut (1945); It's a Wonderful Life (1946); Miracle on 34th Street (1947);
The Bishop's Wife (1947); A Christmas Carol (1951); White Christmas (1954); A Christmas Story (1983);
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989); Home Alone (1990); The Santa Clause (1994);
Elf (2003); Love Actually (2003); Die Hard (1988)]
(By Mara Reinsteien, Parade, Nov. 21, 2021, pp. 6-10)
Paul McCartney:
20 Fun Facts You Might Not Know
(Alluded to in the lyrics to "Let It Be," Mary wasn't as widely thought— ever meant to be
the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene. Rather, it was McCartney's own mother, Mary, who
died of cancer when he was 14. He got the idea for the song after having a dream about her.)
(By Jim Farber, Parade, Oct. 24, 2021, pp. 8-12)
80 Years of Famous Faces
(We selected from more than 4,000 Parade covers to showcase some of the most memorable entertainers
in the magazine's history— Beatles 1964;
Elizabeth Taylor 1956;
Lassie 1954;
ElvisPresley 1956.)
(Parade, Oct. 17, 2021, pp. 8-10)
The
Dick Van Dyke Show Turns 60!
(Now 95, the song-and-dance man— who received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor
in 2021— lives in Los Angeles with his wife of nine years, makeup artist Arlene Silver,
and has four children. Why he still loves dancing: "I do a little dancing every day. Any kind
of movement like that will help keep joints and bones moving. And my wife keeps me young!
She has a lot of energy. She's a singer and a dancer, so we do musicals around here all day.")
(By Mara Reinsteien, Parade, Oct. 3, 2021, pp. 8-10)
How to Free Yourself from the 7 Obsessions
(Watch your thoughts, habits, stories, excuses, relapses, dis-eases, vicious cycles;
We meditate to loosen what Buddha called the seven anusayas, which are obsessions
or underlying habitual tendencies. If we really want to break deep-rooted habits,
every one of us needs to become aware of the obsessions of sensual passion,
resistance, views, uncertainty, conceit, ignorance, and the passion of becoming.)
(By Valerie Mason-John, Lion's Roar, Nov. 9, 2021)
Dr Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive behavioural therapy, dies aged 100
(Beck's work revolutionised the diagnosis and treatment of depression and other
psychological disorders and continues to have a resounding influence.)
(The Guardian, UK, Nov. 2, 2021)
Aaron T. Beck developed Cognitive Behavior Therapy, or CBT, died at 100
(Recognized as the father of cognitive therapy, passed away on November 1, 2021)
(Beck Institute, Nov. 1, 2021)
Foothill College president sacked after battle with faculty
(Thuy Nguyen, president of Foothill College for the past five years, has been fired
by her board after faculty revolted against her. She was paid $242,816 in 2020, and
$354,153 with benefits. List of faculty's grievances against Nguyen is 74 pages long.)
(By Braden Cartwright, Daily Post, Oct. 27, 2021, A1, A22)
Board ousts Foothill College president mid-year amid conflict with faculty
(President Thuy Nguyen placed on paid administrative leave, community college
district board votes unanimously not to renew her contract.)
(By Zoe Morgan, Mountain View Voice, Oct. 26, 2021)
Oh God, Make Me Brave for Life
(Whimsical spirit & positive wisdom
of artist & storyteller Ashley Bryan '50GS.)
(At 98, Bryan still bubbles & brims with enthusiasm and delight and believes unshakably that the most
important moment of his life is the one he's living now.
In his nineties alone, he has published seven books.)
(By Paul Hond, Columbia Magazine, Fall 2021, pp. 16-23)
What This Bird Can Teach Us About Memory
(The tufted titmouse, a songbird native to the eastern US, has long amazed ornithologists
with its ability to remember thousands of locations where it has stashed away seeds for future consumption;
Neuroscientist Dmitriy Aronov has discovered the secret
to the bird's
extraordinary powers of recall, finding
that it has a specialized brain region for making
mental maps of its physical surroundings.)
(Columbia Magazine, Fall 2021, p. 44)
ALUMNI: This
Watch Entrepreneur Turns Time into Money
(Benjamin Clymer is founder & executive chairman of
Hodinkee;
Clymer's favorites: OMEGA Speedmaster MK40;
Rolex Daytona;
A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1;
Patek Philippe Nautilus, Tiffany-signed).
(By Ian Scheffler, Columbia Magazine, Fall 2021, pp. 52-53)
BOOK REVIEW:
Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch: a Novel by Rivka Galchen
(True story of a witch hunt from the 1610s—
Katharina Kepler accused of witchcraft,
defended by her son Johannes Kepler, astronomer & mathematician)
(By Adam Kirsch, Columbia Magazine, Fall 2021, p. 60)
* ART:
First Cupid, now a wine glass? More revelations emerge from restored Vermeer painting in Dresden
(Vermeer's Girl
reading a Letter at an Open Window (1659) showing base
of the wine glass and a Cupid painting hanging on the back wall.)
(By Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper, September 9, 2021)
MUSIC:
Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts dies aged 80
(Dapper and elegant drummer who was the rock-steady heartbeat of the Rolling Stones)
(By Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, UK, August 24, 2021)
Beloved Silicon Valley institution Buck's
of Woodside goes up for auction— as an NFT
(What is the digital replica of the quirky restaurant &
tech meetup mecca worth? The first bidder says $250,000)
(By Sara Hayden, Palo Alto Weekly, August 20, 2021, pp. 26-27)
MUSIC:
Tom T. Hall, 'The Storyteller' of country music, dies at 85
(He joined Kris Kristofferson and Billy Joe Shaver in bringing
a class of storytelling to country music unlike those before them.)
(By Matthew Leimkuehler, Nashville Tennessean, August 20, 2021)
* Milwaukee
Brewers' Corbin Burnes becomes third pitcher in major-league history to strike out 10 in a row
(Burnes became only the third pitcher in major-league history—
yet the second this season— to strike out 10 batters in a row,
keeping the Milwaukee Brewers in command after a seven-run first inning
that propelled them to a 10-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Aaron Nola on 6-25-2021, & Tom Seaver on 4-27-1970 struck out 10 in a row.)
(By Tom Haudricourt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 11, 2021)
OBITUARY:
Stanford psychology professor Albert Bandura has died at 95
(World-renowned social cognitive psychologist whose Bobo Doll experiments
and theory of social learning transformed the field of psychology, died at 95)
(By Holly Alyssa MacCormick, Stanford News, July 30, 2021)
'A lesson
in loss, humility and absurdity': how rhythmic gymnastics took over my childhood
(When I was six, a chance encounter with rhythmic gymnastics— all ribbons,
sequins and smiles— opened up a sublime, sometimes cruel new world.
By 12, I had quit. What had it all meant?)
(By Rebecca Liu, The Guardian, UK, July 27, 2021)
Good Golly Miss Molly: MDMA Goes Mainstream
(MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, was first developed in 1912 by German chemist
Anton Kollisch.
Dr. Stanislav Grof
said, "Psychedelics are to the human consciousness
what the microscope is to biology and the telescope is to astronomy.")
(By Jane Vick, Metro, July 21-27, 2021)
* STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY:
Accurate protein structure prediction AI made openly available
[Minkyung Baek at University of Washington & coworkers report results from their neural network,
dubbed RoseTTAFold; it has been available to researchers for over a month as a tool to predict
the three-dimensional folded structure of proteins from their sequences (Science 2021, DOI: 10.1126/science.abj8754)]
(By Laura Howes, C&EN, July 15, 2021)
Classical music:
Pauline who?
(Berlioz called her one of the greatest artists of her age. So why has pianist,
singer and composer Pauline Viardot become a mere musical footnote, asks Erica Jeal)
(By Erica Jeal, The Guardian, UK, Feb. 23, 2006)
* On
anniversary of father's death, Marlins' Pablo López sets an MLB strikeout record
(López needed just 35 pitches to get 9 strikeouts. Five of strikeouts were on 3 pitches.
Previous consecutive strikeouts to start a game: 8, done 3 times: Jim Deshaies on 9-23-1986;
Jacob deGrom on 9-15-2014; and German Marquez on 9-26-2018. Record for consecutive strikeouts
at any point in a game is 10, done twice: Aaron Nola on 6-25-2021, and Tom Seaver on 4-27-1970)
(By Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, July 11, 2021)
López fans first 9, sets MLB record in win
(Right-hander makes history on anniversary of his father's passing)
(By Christina De Nicola, mlb.com, July 11, 2021)
DeSclafani blanks Nats with Tauchman's help
(For the second time this year, Tauchman made a leaping catch at the left-field wall
to rob a home run, pulling back a game-tying shot from Nationals star Juan Soto
in the 7th inning to help preserve a shutout for right-hander Anthony DeSclafani
in a 1-0 win for the Giants on Friday night at Washington Nationals Park.)
(By Maria Guardado, MLB.com, June 11, 2021)
'This Should Be the Biggest Scandal in Sports'
(The inside story of how rampant pitch-doctoring in MLB is pumping pitchers up and
deflating offenses. League-wide batting average plummet to a historically inept .236.)
(By Stephanie Apstein & Alex Prewitt, Sports Illustrated, June 4, 2021)
*
'The God Equation' Review: One String Theory to Rule Them All
(Book dazzles in its account of the unfinished quest for a grand unified theory.)
(By Priyamvada Natarajan, Wall Street Journal, 4-9-2021)
Sharks' Patrick Marleau Passes Gordie Howe for Most Games Played in NHL History
(Against the Vegas Golden Knights was the 1,768th game of his career,
which passed the legendary Gordie Howe's mark of 1,767.)
(By Scott Polacek, Bleacher Report, 4-19-2021)
G. Gordon Liddy,
unrepentant Watergate burglar who became talk show host, dies at 90
(Liddy wore the Watergate crime like a badge of courage, saying he only regretted
that the mission to break into DNC's headquarters had been a failure. He took
villainous TV roles that seemed to trade on his soiled reputation.)
(By Steve Marble, Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2021)
France on hunt for centuries-old oaks to rebuild spire of Notre Dame
(Restoring 96-metre spire, destroyed by fire in 2019,
will require up to 1,000 trees between 150 and 200 years old)
(By Kim Willsher, The Guardtan, UK, Feb. 16, 2021)
* Pizza Chef Juggling Dough to Customers' Delight
(A pizza chef shows incredible dough tricks to this restaurant customers,
spinning it as well as throwing it over his shoulders and under his legs.)
(By Jessica Rach, The Daily Mail, UK, Feb. 13, 2021)
* Baseball cards are booming during the pandemic,
with long lines, short supplies and million-dollar sales
(New cards are immediately worth 3 to 10 times the retail price in the secondary market,
if they are sold unopened, which preserves the value and holds the promise of a future
Hall of Famer or a limited edition autographed card.)
(By Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 12, 2021)
* Soul Pursuit
(Love coach & author
Lisa Nicks-Balthasar on importance of self-love, & how to find your soul mate)
(By Maria Grusauskas, Metro, Feb. 10, 2021, pp. 14-17)
Hank Aaron,
baseball great who became force for civil rights, dies at 86
(Aaron broke Ruth's record of 714 home runs in 1974 before retiring two years later with 755,
which remained one of the most hallowed numbers in all of sports for more than 30 years.)
(By Dave Sheinin and Matt Schudel, Washington Post, Jan. 22 2021)
Baseball great
Henry "Hank" Aaron, 86, passes into history
(755 career homers; all-time RBI leader (2,297); racked up most extra-base hits (1,477);
finished in top 3 for at-bats (2nd— 12,364), runs (2nd— 2,174 in tie with Babe Ruth),
games (3rd— 3,298) and hits (3rd— 3,771; averaged only 63 strikeouts per season)
(By Terence Moore, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 22 2021)
Want to Keep Your Brain Sharp?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta Has Your Prescription
(8 tips to prevent memory loss: Take a Hike; Think of one thing; Drink before eating;
Try something new; Be a learner; Find purpose; Make a Phone Call; Eat smart.
Book)
(By Megan O'Neill Melle, Parade, Jan. 10, 2021, p. 4)
'I'm Just Happy to Be Around!'
Neil Diamond on His New Album and Living With Parkinson's
(He has racked up no fewer than 13 Top 10 Billboard singles, from rousing "Sweet Caroline"
to the solemn "Holly Holy"
& No. 1 sing-along "Song Sung Blue".
Classic Diamonds album)
(By Jim Farber, Parade, Jan. 10, 2021, pp. 8-12)
Longtime
Celtics player, coach, and broadcaster Tom Heinsohn dies at 86
(Heinsohn was a six-time NBA All-Star as a player with the Boston Celtics (1956-1965),
winning 8 NBA championships during that span. He coached the team from 1969-1978.
He is one of just four people to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame as both
a player and a coach. Since 1981, Heinsohn & Mike Gorman have made up one
of the longest-tenured broadcast duos in sports.)
(By Chad Finn, Boston Globe, Nov. 10, 2020)
The Highest-Paid YouTube Stars of 2019: The Kids Are Killing It
(8-year-old Ryan Kaji, 2019 top YouTube earner with $26 million. Ryan ToysReview debuted in 2015
and now has grown into a children's channel called Ryan's World with 23 million subscribers.)
(By Madeline Berg, Forbes, Dec. 18, 2019)
Six Verbs That Make You Sound Weak (No Matter Your Job Title)
(It's the smallest words & phrases that shape how you're perceived at the office.
Trim these verbs from your vocabulary—
1. "Think", 2. "Need", 3. "Want",
4. "Guess", 5. "Hope", 6. "Suppose".)
(By Judith Humphrey, Fast Company, Oct. 14, 2020)
Archeologists Think They Know What Destroyed The Mayan Empire
(Fall of Mayan Empire may be one of biggest mysteries to emerge from the Yucatan peninsula.
Rampant deforestation and drought brought famine; there were two collapses over time.)
(By Meagan Nantwich, Drivepedia, Sept. 19, 2019)
* Harold
Scheraga, protein chemistry pioneer, dies at 98
(Harold A. Scheraga, the Todd Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, who had a profound impact shaping
the understanding of protein structure, died Aug. 1 in Ithaca. He was 98. Scheraga's career stretched
across seven decades and resulted in more than 1,300 publications.
Scheraga trained & mentored
hundreds of graduate students & postdoctorals, maintaining close ties with many of his former students.)
(By David Nutt, Cornell News, Aug. 6, 2020)
* Harold
Scheraga 1921-2020
(Harold Scheraga, the George W. & Grace L. Todd Professor Emeritus in the chemistry department
at Cornell University passed away August 1, 2020. A biophysicist, he was regarded as a pioneer in
protein biophysics and had been especially influential in the study of protein solvation
and the
hydrophobic effect as it relates to protein folding. He was predeceased in January by his wife
of 76.5 years, Miriam Kurnow.)
(Ithaca Journal, Aug. 3, 2020)
* Lee Teng-hui, Ph.D. '68, former Taiwan president, dies at 97
[Lee Teng-hui, the first popularly elected president of Taiwan, who helped guide the island toward
prosperity &democracy, died July 30 in Taipei.
Earned Cornell doctoral degree in agricultural
economics at age 45 in 1968.
In 1984, was nominated by President Chiang Ching-kuo
(Chiang Kai-shek's eldest son)
as his vice president. When Chiang died in 1988,
Lee succeeded him as president.
In 1995 he was elected outright & served until 2000.
Returned to Cornell &
delivered lecture "Always in my Heart" (6-9-1995). With his wife,
they stopped by their old apartment on State Street for photos and went to Beebe Lake.]
(By Blaine Friedlander, Cornell News, July 31, 2020)
Silicon Alleys: Golden Girl
(Locals remember Olivia de Havilland, Hollywood Golden Age class act. Olivia and Joan Fontaine
lived in the old Saratoga house until the mid-1930s. In 1959, their mother sold it to local architect
Warren Heid. A quaint two-story residence with a large backyard, the house retains most of original
architectural design, workmanship and materials, but is now empty, abandoned and boarded up.)
(By Gary Singh, Metro, Aug. 5, 2020, p. 10)
Ask a Freak
(John Walters tracks down his rise and fall
in Hollywood while offering advice on everthing under
the sun in his new book
Mr. Know-It-All.
His most famous comedy film is Pink Flamingo in 1972.)
(By Steve Palopoli, Metro, Aug. 5, 2020, pp. 11-15)
37
Places You're Most Likely to Catch Coronavirus
(From pumping gas to prayer, experts have ranked every activity
by your risk of coronavirus exposure. Worst: going to a bar.)
(By Leah Groth, EatThis.com, 7-14-2020)
Amorous
giant tortoise from San Diego is saving his species from extinction
(Just call him Casanova: An ex-San Diego Zoo tortoise for 40 years, left in 1977 to a Galapagos
Islands breeding center has does his job well, fathering from 800-1000 tortoises.)
(By Diane Bell, San Diego Union Tribune, 1-13-2020)
This
playboy tortoise had so much sex he saved his entire species. Now he's going home
(A womanizing tortoise whose rampant sex life may have single-handedly saved his entire species
from extinction has retired from his playboy lifestyle; There were just two males and 12 females
of his species alive on Espanola island, and now there are over 2000, he fathering 800 of them.)
(By Rob Picheta, CNN, 1-13-2020)
The Minister's Tree House (Gone)
(Horace Burgess built in Crossville, Tennessee (1993), a tree house soaring 100 feet into the sky,
covering around 10,000 square feet (Guinness World Records). Closed by the state on 8-30-2012
for fire code violations. On the night of 10-22-2019, Minster's Tree House went up in flames.)
(RoadsideAmerica.com, 10-29-2019)
Arnold Schwarzenegger
on His Return as the Terminator, Keeping Fit in His 70s
(James Cameron offered him the chance to star as a cyborg assassin in The Terminator in 1984.
Preparing for Terminator: Dark Fate, the former bodybuilding champ's current regimen involves
bicycling to a Gold's Gym near his L.A. home, where he does 45 minutes of daily strength training.)
(By Nicole Pajer, Parade, 10-27-2019, pp. 8-10, 12)
Google claims breakthrough in blazingly fast computing
(Google said it has achieved a breakthrough in quantum computing, as it has developed
an experimental processor Sycamore that took just minutes to complete a calculation that
would take the world's best supercomputer 10,000 years. IBM said that its IBM-developed
supercomputer, called Summit, could actually do the calculation in 2.5 days.)
(By Rachel Lerman & Matt O'Brien, Washington Post, 10-23-2019)
Louvre
celebrates 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's death with new exhibit
(The exhibit through Feb. 24, 2020, brings together some 160 works. They include
Da Vinci masterpieces, dozens of studies and scientific sketches)
(By Claire Parker, Associated Press, USA Today 10-22-2019)
California tribe regains island it calls center of universe
(Indian Island off the coast of Northern California was the site of a 1860 massacre;
It's also the spiritual and physical center of the universe for the small Wiyot Tribe.)
(By Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press, 10-22-2019)
David Boreanaz Talks SEAL Team, Basketball and How His Dog Jump-Started His Career
(At Ithaca College, he graduated with a cinema & photography degree. "I wrote a thesis comparing
and contrasting Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal against Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves.
In 1997, he landed the role of Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar.)
(By Nicole Pajer, Parade, 10-20-2019, pp. 8-10, 12)
Kurt Russell & Goldie Hawn Make An Unexpected Announcement
(Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have been together for 34 years, but never married;
Kurt said something that Goldie will never forget. "To you, I owe my wonderful life,"
he said. "Simply put Goldie, I cherish you. All of the stars in the sky or the boulevard
don't hold a candle to that. There's no one else I'd rather be next to than Goldie Hawn.")
(By Zara Humphrey, Pens & Patron, 8-2-2019)
Doris Day, actress who honed wholesome image, dies at 97
(With her lilting contralto, fresh-faced beauty and glowing smile, Day was a top box-office draw
and recording artist known for comedies such as Pillow Talk and That Touch of Mink, as well as
songs like "Que Sera, Sera" from the Alfred Hitchcock film
The Man Who Knew Too Much)
(By Julian Rubin, Associated Press, 5-13-2019); Stanford Theatre Festival
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly on Reuniting for Holmes & Watson
("There's something special about alleviating people's suffering with laughter.")
(By Mara Reinstein, Parade, 12-23-2018, pp. 4, 9)
New
report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation's scale & sweep
(Russia used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos
tailored to voters' interests to help elect President Trump; Used email accounts
from Yahoo, Microsoft's Hotmail service and Google's Gmail; Posted more than 1,000
YouTube videos for their disinformation campaign, also Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.)
(By Craig Timberg & Tony Romm, Washington Post, 12-17-2018)
Eight
simple tricks to keep hackers from ruining Christmas shopping
(Make sure your phone, computer, WiFi router & other connected gadgets are running
the latest updates available. 1. Don't click on links in emails; 2. Use PayPal, Apple Pay,
Samsung Pay or Android Pay whenever possible; 3. When a site asks you to set a password,
don't reuse an old one; 4. Only interact with Amazon merchants through the Amazon website;
5. Don't put too much faith in Amazon ratings; 6. Turn on alerts for all credit card
transactions; 7. Don't shop on WiFi at the mall, airport, coffee shop or hotel;
8. Look for the lock logo in your Web browser— but don't rely on it.)
(By Geoffrey A. Fowler, Washington Post, 12-13-2018)
Review: Too much Spider-Man? Not in the Spider-Verse
("Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is a film that's fantastically fresh, both visually
and narratively, trippy and post-modern at the same time and packed with intriguing
storytelling tools, humor, empathy and action, while also true to its roots.)
(By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press, 12-10-2018)
Shameik Moore slings webs as 1st biracial Spider-Man in film
(Moore plays Miles Morales, a biracial Brooklyn teen who gains an array of superpowers
after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Producers of "Spider-Verse" said they went the
animation route because computer graphic illustrators could mimic comic book movements better.)
(By Jonathan Landrum, Jr., Associated Press, 12-10-2018)
NASA
is about to grab a piece of an asteroid. That's even harder than it sounds
(After a two-year chase, NASA probe reached its target, an Empire State Building-sized asteroid
called Bennu. This diamond-shaped rock is 75 million miles from Earth. OSIRIS-REx probe is
12 miles from Bennu's surface. Will scoop up some rock and bring it home)
(By Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 12-3-2018)
Chargers'
Philip Rivers sets NFL record for consecutive completions in a game over Cardinals
(The Chargers quarterback played his way into the record books Sunday, completion
by pinpoint completion. He connected on his first 25 passes in a 45-10 rout of Arizona
at StubHub Center, the most by a quarterback in a single game in NFL history.)
(By Sam Farmer, LA Times, 11-25-2018)
Nike
Flushed $14 Billion Down The Drain From A Costly Mistake They Made With Steph Curry
(Nike didn't match Under Armour's $4 million offer to Curry who wanted his favorite verse into
the shoe's design. Nike refused. Under Armour said yes to Philippians 4:13—
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
The script, "I can do all things"
is found on the inside of the tongue of
Curry's shoes.
Curry doubled their worth from
$14 billion to $28 billion in a few years.)
(Basketball News, Bleacher Breaker, 10-22-2018)
People
buried at Stonehenge 5,000 years ago came from far away, study finds
(The ground beneath the 25-ton rocks at Stonehenge was a burial place 5000 years ago)
(By Ben Guarino, Washington Poat, 8-2-2018)
Nobel
Prize-winning Stanford physicist Burton Richter dies at 87
(SLAC Director Chi-Chang Kao: "Burt was unique being both a particle physicist & an accelerator
physicist. This rare combination gave him the vision & also the daring to build the SPEAR Storage
Ring to look for new elementary particles, which led to him winning the Nobel Prize in physics for
discovery of the J/psi particle. Burt was an inspiration for us all to be bold in what we aim for.")
(By Andrew Myers & Glennda Chui, Stanford News, 7-19-2018)
Henry
Morgenthau III, producer who helped shape public television, dies at 101
[His years as a producer at WGBH in Boston (1955-1977), coincided with birth of public television.
He was a son of President FDR's treasury secretary, grandson of U.S. ambassador Ottoman Empire
under President Wilson, older brother of former Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau,
& cousin of Pulitzer Prize author Barbara W. Tuchman. His shows won Peabody & Emmy awards.]
(By Tara Bahrampour, Washington Poat, 7-14-2018)
Busboy who held dying Robert F. Kennedy shares senator's last words
(Juan Romero, who was 17 at the time of the 1968 Los Angeles slaying, recalled RFK's last words,
"Is everybody OK?" and he replied "Yes" before cushioning the senator's head with his hands.)
(By Elizabeth Zwirz, Fox News, 6-1-2018)
Hot Summer Reads
(Jane Fonda: The book that transported her— "I was 13 and read
Green Mansions [by W.H. Hudson],
which was later made into a movie with Tony Perkins. It was the first time I became the book;
I entered another world and it was beyond reading.")
(By Melinda Sue Gordon, Parade Magazine, 5-20-2018 p. 16)
Obituaries:
Influential Burning Man festival co-founder dead at 70
(Larry Harvey, whose whimsical decision to erect a giant wooden figure and then burn it to the ground
led to the popular, long-running counterculture celebration known as
"Burning Man" has died at 70.)
(By John Rogers & Janie Har, Washington Post, 4-28-2018)
You Are Here:
Scientists Unveil Precise Map Of More Than A Billion Stars
(A European Space Agency mission called Gaia just released a long-awaited treasure trove of data:
precise measurements of 1.7 billion stars, with new view of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.)
(By Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, 4-25-2018)
Influential
Guru Asaram Bapu Given Life Sentence For Raping Teenage Girl
(Indian court has found Asaram Bapu, a spiritual leader who has founded hundreds of ashrams
in India, guilty of raping a 16-year-old teenage girl and sentenced him to life in prison.
His website claims that at the time of his arrest, he had at least 40 million followers.)
(By Bill Chappell, NPR, 4-25-2018)
Renouncing it all: All members of 2 families to take diksha in Gujarat today
(Two Jain families— one from Surat and another from Mumbai— will embrace ascetic life.
"When both our children made up their minds, they inspired us to seek enlightenment.")
(By Bharat Yagnik, Times of India, 4-25-2018)
The World Wants Blueberries All the Time. Chile's Excited
(Chilean grower Hortifrut produced 220 million pounds of blueberies in the current harvest.
1.7 million tons of blueberries were produced last year; U.S. is biggest producer of blueberries,
followed by Canada and Chile. China paid $10.04/kg while price in U.S. was $6.40/kg)
(By Eduardo Thomson, Bloomberg News, 4-18-2018)
Even
if you clear your history, Google has a record of all of your search activity—
here's how to delete it
(DuckDuckGo, which is essentially a Google that doesn't track you online. Open Chrome. Click More.
Click History. Click Clear Browsing Data. Select Beginning of Time to Clear Everything.)
(By Alix Langone, Business Insider, 4-17-2018)
PAKISTAN: Strong parallels exist between eastern Sufi & western Enlightenment thought
(Sufism teaches us to ascend out of our shallow coccons, to overpower our inflated egos.
Sufism promotes love, sacrifice, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence.
(By Sanjay Mthrani, Daily Times, Lahore, 4-15-2018)
BOOK: Enlightenment Now
(Bill Gates has anointed Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now as his favorite book of all time.
Despite daily diet of misery in the news, evidence shows that the world is a massively better place.)
(By Rebecca Tinsley, Independent Catholic News, ICN, 4-15-2018)
R.I.P. Art Bell 1945-2018
(We are profoundly saddened with the news that creator & original host of Coast to Coast AM,
Art Bell, has passed away at age of 72 at his home in Pahrump, Nevada. Current host George Noory:
"Art was a legend— a radio icon who went against the grain and developed an amazing show...
His impact on my life is beyond words. He will be missed, but I know he is now on another journey.")
(Coast to Coast AM.com, 4-14-2018)
Rest in Peace to Art Bell, the Man who made the paranormal normal
(Whitley Strieber, who took over Dreamland from Bell in 1999, posted this message:
At 10:30 on morning of Friday, April 13, Art Bell died. He passed away peacefully in his sleep.)
(By Drew Millard, Outline.com, 4-14-2018)
Art Bell Dead:
Radio Host Dies, Cause of Death Unclear
(Radio show host, Art Bell died on April 13 at 72 years old in his home in Pahrump Nevada.)
(By Jessica McBride, Heavy.com, 4-14-2018)
Art Bell,
whose 'Coast to Coast AM' radio show reveled in the paranormal, dies at 72
(Bell's fans may pause to mull the significance of his having passed on Friday the 13th, of all days.)
(By Elizabeth Zwirz, Fox News, 4-14-2018)
* Steph Curry explains why he writes Philippians 4:13 on his sneakers
(For Curry, Philippians 4:13 is a verse that pushes him to achieve greatness everyday.)
(By Ananth Pandian, USA Today, 3-12-2018)
Why must
'faith' and 'Enlightenment' be seen as contradictions of each other?
(Harvard's steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now:
The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism,
and Progress claims that the enlightenment ideals of reason, science and humanism have led to
considerable human progress and that the future of civilization hinges upon continuing this tradition.)
(By Martin E.Marty, The Gazette, Colorado, 2-13-2018)
Creativity is part of being
[Edward O. Wilson's The Origins of Creativity (2017): "The more closely we examine
the properties of metaphors and archetypes, the more it becomes obvious that science
and the humanities can be blended. In the borderland of new disciplines created, it should
also be possible to reinvigorate philosophy and begin a new, more enduring Enlightenment."]
(By Ed Fisher, The Morning Sun, 2-8-2018)
Make
the best of our habits
(If we can go beyond the attachment to the phenomena and let our heart
take the proactive role and be the master, we will become enlightened.)
(By Fiji Times, 2-4-2018)
INSPIRED LIFE:
These men thought they adopted a mini piglet.
She became Esther the Wonder Pig, a 650-pound darling of the Internet.
(650-pound Esther the Wonder Pig received $440,000 in crowdfunding to buy farm for her to roam.
Jenkins said one reason people are drawn to Esther is simply that she makes them smile.)
(By Allison Klein, Washington Post, 12-17-2017, A2)
Brave New Worlds: The Planet Hunters beyond our solar system
(Columbia astronomers are going beyond our solar system to understand exoplanets, find exomoons,
and explore surreal estate. Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet 4.2 light years away,)
(By Bill Retherford, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2017)
Letter Head: Scrabble prodigy Mack Meller is Columbia freshman
(Meller won Scrabble tournament at age 10, and is ranked 5th on the continent.)
(By Paul Hond, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2017)
SCIENCE: The Most Powerful Magnets in the Universe Are Collapsed Stars
(Magnetars have magnetic fields 1,000 times stronger than neutron stars whose
strong magnetic fields are about 2 trillion times more powerful than Earth's.)
(By Sopjie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 11-4-2017)
How Russian hackers pried into Clinton campaign emails
(Hackers worked their way around the Clinton campaign's top-of-the-line digital security to steal
chairman John Podesta's emails in March 2016; Hackers turned to the personal Gmail addresses.)
(By Raphael Satter, Jeff Donn, & Chad Day, Taiwan News, 11-4-2017)
Scientists discover mysterious 'void' in Great Pyramid of Giza
(Researchers find evidence of 30-meter-long space hidden within pyramid's walls above
the Queen's chamber using muon detectors;
published in Nature, Nov. 2, 2017)
(By Cassandra Santiago & Sarah El Sirgany, CNN, 11-3-2017)
MUSIC:
Fats Domino dies at 89; gave rock music a New Orleans flavor
(He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat
as an album cover. Domino sold more than 110 million records, with hits including "Blueberry Hill"
and "Ain't That a Shame". One of his show-stopping stunts was playing the piano while standing,
throwing his body against it with the beat of the music and bumping the grand piano across the stage.)
(By Stacey Plaisance & Janet McConnaughey, SF Chronicle, 10-25-2017)
What your intentions are all about
("Sankalp" is an orientation of the mind or heart; intention, determination, decision, wish,
resolve, and will power. Sankalp is a promise to oneself, embedded in the subconscious mind,
repeated frequently so that it becomes a reality. Sankalp could be to realise materialistic wishes,
and Mahasankalp is meant for achieving Self-knowledge and enlightenment.)
(By Homayun Taba, Times of India, 10-5-2017)
FILM:
How real-life drug smuggling & CIA spy operations inspired Tom Cruise film American Made
(Barry Seal was a bored airline pilot out of Baton Rouge who was delighted to be recruited by the CIA
in the late 1970s to fly clandestine surveillance missions over Central American hot spots.)
(By Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News, 9-27-2017)
This Reality Is All There Is— Nothing More
(We have been made to believe that techniques like yoga, prayers, meditation or mindfulness will
bring us peace of mind. What a con! There is no peace of mind! No wonder we are all neurotic!)
(By Andrea Quintero, Huffington Post, 9-26-2017)
Blazing
saddles dim memory in new dark age of censorship, witch-hunts
(Mel Brooks: in this censorious age, he never could have made 1974 film Blazing Saddles today.)
(By Matt Ridley, The Australian Times, 9-26-2017)
Attain Golf Enlightenment: Meet the Real Guru of Golf
(Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's YouTube videos, 5-minute answers to deep questions, have eclipsed
100 million views. He plays golf & quotes Swami Vivekananda "Kicking a football will take you
closer to the Divine than any amount of prayer.")
(By Max Adler, Golf Digest, 9-26-2017)
The man whose biblical doomsday claim has some nervously eyeing Sept. 23
(Sept. 23 is 33 days since the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, and David Meade forecasts disaster.)
(By Kristine Phillips, Washington Post, 9-20-2017)
Why It's Unlikely the World Will End on September 23
(No matter how you interpret the latest cosmic signs, history tells us people don't have best track
record at predicting apocalypse. David Meade of Wisconsin, says rogue planet Nibiru will
collide
with Earth on September 23; NASA says Nibiru doesn't exist; Anthony Aveni on Mayan calendar)
(By Michael Greshko, National Geographics, 9-19-2017)
Scientists:
Future of oldest tree species on Earth in peril
(Driven by climate change, a cousin of the tree, limber pine, is leapfrogging up mountainsides, taking
root in warmer, more favorable temperatures & leaving little room for the late-coming bristlecone.)
(By Scott Smith, Chicago Tribune, 9-13-2017)
Who was Eiko Ishioka and what are the designs that made her famous?
(Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka was famous for her outlandish &
surreal designs giving her global
renown. She died in 2012. Google honored her with a commemorative Doodle on its homepage.)
(By George Fuller, The Telegraph, UK, 7-12-2017)
The European musicians at the heart of Enlightenment Edinburgh
(Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci was an 18th century superstar, a rags-to-riches singing sensation,
a seducer, a fugitive, an honorary Scot. Born poor in Siena, he was castrated as a child and went on
to become vocal teacher to Mozart in Vienna. In 1766 he married the 15-year-old Dorothea Maunsell,
one of his students, and because he was a castrato the marriage was technically illegal. Tenducci
escaped imprisonment by fleeing to Edinburgh and making his home in Scotland.)
(By Kate Molleson, The Herald, Scotland, 7-11-2017)
Scientists get religious leaders high on magic mushroom compound
(Researchers at Johns Hopkins University brought together rabbis, Catholic, Orthodox & Presbyterian
priests, and a Zen Buddhist to see if doses of psilocybin might enhance their religious fervor.)
(By Chris Matyszczyk, cnet news, 7-9-2017)
This Is The Key To Mastering Small Talk, According To Harvard Researchers
(People who asked more questions, particularly follow-up questions, were considered more likable.)
(By Brittany Wong, Huffington Post, 6-20-2017)
Vintage Typewriters Gain Fans Amid 'Digital Burnout'
(In the age of smartphones, social media and cyber hacking fears, the vintage typewriter
that once gathered dust in attics and basements is making a comeback; Public "type-ins" popular.)
(By Russell Contreras, Associated Press, US News, 6-14-2017)
OP-ED: "Wonder Woman" is a beautiful reminder of what feminism has to offer women—and men
[The power of Wonder Woman, and one of the things that gives Patty Jenkins's adaptation of the
character such a lift, is Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) doesn't have any idea what women and men are—
or aren't— supposed to do. Allan Heinberg's script has levity, goodness, and sense of discovery.]
(By Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post, 6-5-2017)
Google Doodle celebrates legacy of rainbow flag creator
(Gilbert Baker created the iconic flag representing freedom & pride
for the gay community to help replace a symbol of oppression in 1978.)
(By Steven Musil, CNET, 6-2-2017)
Sunday With: Mark Hamill
(Mark Hamill was 25 when he landed the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars which celebrates
its 40th anniversary May 25. He's married to Marilou almost 39 years. Carrie's death was so hard.
When we were filming The Force Awakens, Prince William & Prince Harry came to the set. I said
to them, "My mother was Queen Amidala. My father is Lord Vader. My sister is Princess Leia.
Don't you think that makes me royalty?" William immediately said, "Absolutely." Harry said,
"I'd have to think about it a little more." Carrie was happy they were split [on the vote].)
(By Kathleen McCleary, Parade, 5-14-2017)
* Science:
(A 600-year-old life comes to an end (For some 600 years, the great white oak looked
over the people of Basking Ridge, N.J.; The tree still stands close to 100 feet tall, and its
branches extend more than 130 feet side to side. One limb tipped the scales at 8,000 pounds.)
(By Amy Ellis Nutt, Washington Post, 4-25-2017)
* ART:
On the edge of madness: the terrors and genius of Alberto Giacometti
(He drank with Sartre, mocked Picasso and took silent walks with Beckett—
but his work was going nowhere until a vision on Boulevard Montparnasse left him
trembling. Ahead of a major Tate show, we explore the obsessions of Giacometti.)
(By Lara Feigel, The Guardian, UK, 4-21-2017)
* Scientists
identify parts of brain involved in dreaming
(Francesca Siclari: "Maybe the dreaming brain and the waking brain are much more similar than
one imagined because they partially recruit the same areas for the same type of experiences.")
(By Nicola Davis, The Guardian, UK, 4-10-2017) Nature Neuroscience
Faberge
egg reunited with its missing 'surprise' in Texas
(A Faberge egg and the jeweled elephant designed to fit inside it are being reunited for the first time
in almost a century thanks to a loan from Queen Elizabeth II to Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The elephant, which walks & moves its head when wound, was purchased in 1935 by King George V,
apparently with no knowledge that it was Faberge.)
(By Jamie Stengle, Associated Press, 4-7-2017)
Sleep: You're Doing It Wrong
(Whatever you do, don't try to sleep. "You don't try to be hungry," W. Chris Winter points out
in The Sleep Solution,
"When you take the expectation of sleep away, it tends to come in a hurry.")
(By Paula Spencer Scott, Parade, 3-19-2017)
Inside the Enchanted World of Beauty and the Beast
(Disney brought the 1700s French fairy tale as a sweeping animated movie musical in 1991.
Now Emma Watson & Dan Stevens star in a brand-new Disney version with live actors, real settings,
& eye-popping computer animation. 10 glass chandeliers modeled on chandeliers from Versailles.)
(By Lambeth Hochwald, Parade, 3-12-2017)
The Truth About Reality
(Our reality is not fixed. And if our reality is changeable, it's also not permanent.
Our deepest desire is to feel loved & to share love. Most powerful manifestation of self-love
is self-acceptance. Make Love your number one habit and watch how your life transforms.)
(By Andrea Quintero, Huffington Post, 3-3-2017)
I Am the God
(God is not found outside of us, instead this god is found within each of us. In this new reality if
we pray— we are simply praying to the god within us. We are, individually, the sole creators of
our reality. In essence we are indeed omnipotent, we are holy, we are mighty, we are our own god.)
(By Andrea Quintero, Huffington Post, 3-3-2017)
Edmonia Lewis: Google Doodle salutes pioneering sculptor to kick off Black History Month
(To kick off its celebration of Black History Month, Google turns today to a
19th century artist who burned so bright that her twin gifts of blazing talent and
steely determination could not be denied even in the face of her era's discrimination.)
(By Michael Cavna, Washington Post, 2-1-2017)
HISTORY:
Edmonia Lewis: Why Google celebrates her today
(She was the first female African American sculptor to achieve
international acclaim at a time when slavery was legal.)
(Aljazeera, 2-1-2017)
Google's
Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster
(The doodle, which features firecrackers, fried dumplings and traditional Chinese decorations,
marks the turning of Chinese zodiac from monkey to rooster. 2017 is the year of the fire rooster,
which according to lore is "trustworthy, with a strong sense of timekeeping and responsibility.")
(By Joseph Hincks, Time, 1-27-2017)
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Google celebrates the rooster for Lunar New Year
("Year of the Rooster" is January 28, 2017, festivities begin the day prior and last until February 2.)
(By Brian Fagioli, BetaNews, 1-25-2017)
Beauty
(If Like attracts Like, if Like acknowledges Like— like for example if you recognize beauty—
aren't you also Beauty? We can't know what something feels like, or looks like, without first
having an idea of the concept we are recognizing— mesmerizing sunset; sound of vast ocean.)
(By Andrea Quintero, Huffington Post, 1-16-2017)
* NEWS: 1,000 year old tree falls in Aptos
(The Advocate Tree at Forest of Nisene Marks State Park held its ground for 1000 years,
but recent storms proved too much as it toppled on Sunday, January 16; Kevin Newhouse with
the Aptos History Museum, took the loss personally, touched its bark and cried his eyes out.)
(By Barry Brown, KION News, 1-16-2017)
* Once
They Were Giants in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, Aptos, California
(The old-growth redwood trees in the park had lived more than 1,000 years, and were
logged between 1883 and 1923; Fewer than 5% of old growth coast redwood trees existing
in 1850 survive today; The Advocate Tree is estimated to be over 1,000 years old and is
one of the few remaining ancient redwood trees in the park. Old Growth Trail is also one
of the shortest hikes with the tree's location about 0.5 miles from the State Park entrance.)
(By Ric Garrido, Loyalty Traveler, 9-15-2013)
The Coast Road
by Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh review: A bilingual feast
(Her translators echo the wit and playfulness of the Irish-language poet's originals)
(By Nuala NÃ Dhomhnaill, Irish Times, 1-14-2017)
See What a NASA Spacecraft Saw When it Landed on Saturn's Moon
[Under the thick orangish clouds that surround Saturn's moon Titan, flowing rivers and
lakes of hydrocarbons (likely liquid methane and ethane) make Titan the only object
in space other than Earth that is known to have stable bodies of surface liquid.]
(By Jay Bennett, Esquire.com, 1-12-2017)
The Queen of Smarts
(Saluting our whip-smart Ask Marilyn columnist, who has been with Parade for 30 years.
She was listed 5 times in Guinness Book of World Records as having highest recordable IQ
for both children and adults. Born in St. Louis, in 1946, she's the wife of Robert Jarvik
(one of the Jarvik artiicial heart developers). Her column exercises the reader's & her brain.
(By Lambeth Hochwald, Parade, 12-25-2016)
SCIENCE: Researchers claim time travel is possible
(Prof. Howard Wiseman of Griffith University's Center for Quantum Dynamics &
Univ. of California's
Dr. Dirk-Andre Deckert claim that
parallel universes would allow for time travellers to visit Earth.)
(By George Harrison, NY Post, 11-27-2016)
Incredible!
Milky Way Shines Through a Midnight-Blue Sky (Photo)
(Astrophotographer Barbara Matthews took this image the first week of August from Donner Summit,
a mountaintop on the northern Sierra Nevada range, now a popular ski and lake resort.)
(By Nina Sen, Space.com, 11-26-2016)
The Unlikely Poet
(2016 Grace Church School graduate, is freshman at Dartmouth; Miss Miller, his technology teacher
saw his coding was shorter and different; Buddy Wakefield's video inspired him to write poetry.)
(By Holden Harris, Huffington Post, 10-28-2016)
The Amazing Stan Lee!
(The real star of the Marvel Comics universe— 93 years young— continues to shine. The brightest star
in the whole Marvel universe— is actually Stan Lee, whose ink and imagination built an empire.
(By Leonard Maltin, Parade, 10-23-2016)
Egypt's
Great Pyramid Might Have a Few More Secrets
(Researchers using non-invasive scanning called muon radiography to map the entire pyramid have
found two previously undiscovered "cavities" inside the ancient 4500-years structure itself.)
(By Darren Orf, Popular Mechanics, 10-18-2016)
MIT
Breaks a World Record For Nuclear Fusion
(Scientists at MIT's Alcator C-Mod experimental fusion reactor have broken world record for fusion
pressure. They generated two atmospheres of plasma pressure, brought the plasma to a temperature of
35 million degrees Celsius, close to the threshold of 50 million needed for commercial fusion power.)
(By Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 10-18-2016)
Space
is full of gigantic holes that are bigger than we expected
(Since 1981, astronomers found a vacant expanse called the Boötes void, holes of cold, dark,
lonely nothing, a rough sphere about 280 million light years in diameter with few dozen galaxies
inside; By contrast, Virgo Supercluster, that includes the Milky Way, contains over 2000 galaxies.)
(By Joshua Sokol, New Scientist, 10-18-2016)
* Feeling Awe May Be the Secret to Health and Happiness
(Dacher Keltner: "Awe is feeling of being in the presence of something vast or beyond human scale,
that transcends our current understanding of things." Gazing at the Milky Way, seeing Niagara Falls,
Sistine Chapel, Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, Utah's Canyonland National Park will bring sense of awe.
(By Paula Spencer Scott, Parade, 10-9-2016)
Reflections on Emerging Poets for Fall
(Analicia Sotelo's "Ariadne's Guide to Finding a Man"— "First, you must feel that no one could love
you ever. / Let the feeling become a veil of black paper. / Let the paper become papier-mâché."
(By Abriana Jetté, Stay Thirsty Magazine, 10-9-2016)
Poetry
and literature festival in Istanbul
(Poets and writers from 20 countries will be hosted in events in various venues during the Istanbul
Poetry and Literature Festival between Sept. 28 and Oct. 2; Eric Sadin & Jason Goodwin will come.)
(Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey, 9-27-2016)
New Metropolitan Museum Logo Draws Harsh Reviews
(In a blistering assessment on Vulture.com, Pulitzer Prize-winning music & architecture critic
Justin Davidson described the logo as "two short words printed in scarlet letters, stacked & squashed
together. The whole ensemble looks like a red double-decker bus that has stopped short, shoving
passengers into each other's backs." Wolff Olins' new logo replaced classic "M" of Luca Pacioli.)
(By Brenda Cronin, Wall Street Journal, 2-18-2016)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's New Logo Is a Typographic Bus Crash
(New logo will replace existing M, a masterwork of resonant graphics that the Met first used in 1971.
From a distance, old logo couldn't be simpler, just a capital letter emblazoned in a solid-colored
circle. Move in closer, though, and the M sits at the center of a delicately drawn circle-in-a-square,
cut by diagonals and fringed with six smaller circles. The original is from a woodcut by Luca Pacioli,
a collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci's. Logo quivers with references to history of art & architecture.)
(By Justin Davidson, Vulture.com, 2-17-2016)
41 of the trickiest questions Google will ask you in a job interview
(Google has a reputation for asking difficult brainteaser questions that challenge
how you act under pressure. They require you to think quantitatively and broadly,
and test the way you tackle problems on the spot.)
(By Maya Kosoff, Business Insider, 1-20-2016)
"When Grace at the Bliss Café Calls"
(a pain that radiates outward / from palm to fingers that cannot find / the shape of your mechanical pencil, /
a Mont Blanc in the burgundy they / don't make anymore, a gift given / long ago, engraved, and obviously /
too good for you since now you've lost / it,.. phone rings, the read-out saying Bliss /
and it's Grace,
your server at the / vegetarian café by the creek 200 miles /
away where you ate three days ago, /
saying she needs your address so she / can mail your pencil back to you.)
(By Jane Vandenburgh, The New Yorker, 1-8-2016, pp. 56-57)
David Bowie Left Us Eerie Clues About His Death
(Bowie's new secretive album Blackstar was released 2 days earlier on his 69th Birthday January 8th.
The video for the single "Lazarus" was released a day before on January 7th. The very first lyrics
heard are on the song are: "Look up here, I'm in heaven, I've got scars that can't be seen".)
(By Raul, feelnumb.com, 1-11-2016)
The Force Is with Them
(Star Wars fans have fueled a franchise that has earned $28 billion over nearly four decades.
"Princess Leia is the driving force and the glue behind the entire revolution that is Star Wars.")
(By Kathleen McCleary, Parade, 12-13-2015)
See
if you can answer this insanely difficult question Goldman Sachs has asked in job interviews
(When interviewing on Wall Street, job seekers often come up against questions
that could send even the calmest candidate into a tailspin. "If you were shrunk
to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?")
(By Rachel Gillett, Business Insider, 7-25-2015)
Loch Ness monster:
Google Doodle plumbs the depths of our fevered fascination
(On this day in 1934, Col. Robert Wilson released his
hoax photo of a would-be
Loch Ness monster.)
(By Michael Cavna, Washington Post, 4-21-2015)
Supermassive Black Hole Merger Could Finally Solve The 'Final Parsec Problem'
(Binary black holes, are a system composed of two black holes locked in close orbit around each other.
Presence of a binary system is evidence of a galactic merger. PSO J334.2028+01.4075
discovery.)
(By Avaneesh Pandey, International Business Times, 4-21-2015)
This gigantic void is biggest structure we've ever discovered in the universe
(3 billion light years away from Earth, there is a "cold spot", a gigantic void that has surprisingly few
galaxies present. At 1.8 billion light years across, it's the largest structure we've ever discovered.)
(By Joseph Stromberg, Vox.com, 4-21-2015)
Rare Oarfish, Stuff Of Sea Monster Legends, Washes Up In New Zealand, Then Vanishes
(Giant oarfish— also known as the "king of herrings"— can grow up to 36 feet long.)
(By Hilary Hanson, Huffington Post, 4-21-2015)
'Scientific wonderland' expected as spacecraft approaches Pluto
(Launched in 1977, NASA's New Horizons half-ton spacecraft in less than 100 days will have
a 6000 miles flyby of Pluto 3 billion miles away with its moons Charon, Kerbos, Hydra, Styx, Nix.)
(By Pete Spotts, Christian Science Monitor, 4-18-2015)
The Most Spectacular Photo (and GIF!) of Saturn Ever Taken
(NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view as it approached Saturn in early 2011.
Cassini's flyby on Aug. 21, 2014 captured Saturn's largest moon Titan & sunglint.)
(By Nicole Ngugen, PopSugar.com, 4-17-2015)
Your
brain's aging and a new report urges ways to stay sharp
(Be physically active. Keep socially and intellectually active. Get enough sleep.)
(By Lauran Neergaard, Washington Post, 4-14-2015)
How Did The Moon Form? Scientists Finally Solve Pesky Problem With Giant Impact Hypothesis
(Moon formed from debris created when a Mars-sized object crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago.)
(By Jacqueline Howard, Huffington Post, 4-9-2015)
Does Dark Matter Cause Chaos on Earth Every 30 Million Years?
(Earth passes through mid-plane of Milky Way disc once every 30 million years and
encounter dense clumps of dark matter that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.)
(By Michael Rampino, Gizmoco.com, 4-9-2015)
Clearest view of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan that we've ever seen
(New image-processing technique is bringing Saturn's largest moon, Titan, into clearer view.)
(By Shannon Hall, Space.com, 4-8-2015)
What happens when 2 proton beams collide at nearly the speed of light
(Large Hadron Collider hurled protons around a 17-mile loop explode into hot clouds of exotic
subatomic particles. When beams collide, their combined energy can melt 1,100 pounds of copper.)
(By Kelly Dickerson, Business Insider, 4-8-2015)
NASA Says We're on Verge of Finding Alien Life
(NASA's chief scientist Ellen Stofan predicts that scientists will find signs of alien life by 2025.)
(By Monika Auger, Wall Street Journal, 4-8-2015)
From a medieval text, a weapon against a modern superbug emerges
(1,000-year-old text titled "Bald's Leechbook" shelved in the library
of University of Nottingham's Institute for Medieval Research.)
(By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, 3-31-2015)
* Here's
why the Apple Watch always shows the time as 10:09 in advertisements
(Rolex loves 10:10:31, TAG Heuer prefers 10:10:37, and Bell & Ross always opts for uniformity
with 10:10:10. Timex, one of the few watchmakers who deviate from the 10:10 norm, displays
the time 10:09:36. Displaying at 10:09:00, allow Apple to consider itself "ahead of the times"
with the Apple Watch. At 10:09, the hands would be much closer to symmetrical perfection.)
(By Steven Tweedle, Business Insider, 3-10-2015)
* Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and This Is Why It Matters
(Interview with Dr. Larry Dossey about his new book One Mind— Our mind is not confined to
our brain or body, as we've been taught, but it extends infinitely outside them. Our minds have
no boundaries or limits, so they merge with all other minds to form what I call the One Mind.)
(By Dr. Frank Lipman, Epoch Times, March 5-11, 2015, B8)
Google Doodle celebrates Lunar New Year 2015
(The animation shows a ram head-butting a tree until a bee flies out—
causing firecrackers to go off and a series of fireworks to spell out "Google")
(By Ashitha Nagesh, The Express, UK, 2-19-2015)
Five things you didn't know about Jesus
(Jesus came from little town, didn't know everything, was tough, needed "me time", didn't want to die.)
(By The Rev. James Martin, CNN News, 2-19-2015)
* Aldo Ciccolini obituary
(Pianist famed for his nimble fingerwork and devotion to less familiar music, particularly from France)
(The Guardian, UK, 2-16-2015)
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Google Doodle of good yarn
(Honored on her 148th birthday with Google Doodle made of wool about Little House on the Prairie.)
(By David Clark Scott, Christian Science Monitor, 2-7-2015)
* Aldo Ciccolini, pianist— dies at 89
(Virtuoso pianist who brought dazzling Mediterranean tints to Satie, Mozart and Mussorgsky)
(Daily Telegraph, UK, 2-3-2015)
* Aldo Ciccolini, An Italian Pianist With A French Soul, Dies At Age 89
(Virtuoso pianist who brought dazzling Mediterranean tints to Satie, Mozart and Mussorgsky)
(By Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR, 2-2-2015)
Sweet revenge: 'Ship Your Enemies Glitter' sells for $85,000
(22-year old Australian Matthew Carpenter's site ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com received 2000 orders
@ $9.99 AUD or @ $8.11 USD in the first few hours, that he couldn't fulfill orders fast enough;
Sold his one-day business for $85,000 after 345 bids on
Flippa. New owner will fill 10,000 orders.)
(By Todd Wasserman, Mashable.com, 1-22-2015)
Rupi Kaur: The Poet Every Woman Needs to Read
(Rupi Kaur's first book, Milk and Honey with her own sketches, read like the everyday, collective
experiences of today's woman; the kindest words my father said to me / women like you drown oceans)
(By Erin Spencer, Huffington Post, 1-22-2015)
David Sorkin designated the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Judaic Studies
(1996 study: Moses Mendelssohn & The Religious Enlightenment;
Book Review)
(Yale News, 1-22-2015)
Faith Matters: Guarding the tongue
(To Enlightenment mind, right of individuals to unfettered speech & thought was unimpeachable.)
(By Kerry Walters, The Daily Item, 1-22-2015)
Movie Review: Teacher's pet
(A chilly and cerebral Kindergarten Teacher directed by Nadav Lapid
on Tel Aviv teacher Nira obsessed with 5-year old Yoav's poetry talents.)
(By Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post, 1-22-2015) (Film Trailer)
Mars
Curiosity Rover's Ancient Cat Statue 'Discovery' Sets Alien Hunters Abuzz
(Ancient cat statue reportedly discovered by Curiosity rover on a particular segment on Mars' surface.)
(Inquisitor.com, 1-20-2015)
Boy who claimed he had been to heaven retracts story, best-selling book is pulled
(6-year-old Alex Malarkey's The Boy
Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels,
and Life Beyond This World, published in 2011 was withdrawn, because his father made him
lie on going to heaven.)
(By Hillel Italie, StarTribune, 1-16-2015) (Amazon Reviews)
Tyndale
House responds to what it deems 'inaccurate statements' concerning Boy-Back-From-Heaven scandal
(Publisher knew Malarkey book was a fraud for two years, but still published to make money.)
(By Phil Johnson, discern.org, 1-16-2015) (June 3, 2014 Letter)
Bigfoot Strolls Through A Russian Forest— At Least That's The Claim [VIDEO]
(Yeti sighting in remote region of southwestern Adygea Republic in foothills of Caucasus Mountains.)
(By Lee Speigel, Huffington Post, 1-15-2015)
One of the Milky Way's arms might encircle the entire galaxy
(Arm known as Scutum-Centaurus emanates from one end of the Milky Way bar,
passes between us and Galactic Center, and extends to the other side of the galaxy.)
(By Matt Williams, Phys.Org News, 1-14-2015)
Green Comet Lovejoy Keeps Wowing Amateur Astronomers (Video, Photos)
(On Jan. 10, 2015, amateur astronomer Steve Siedentop took a series of 100 images
of Comet C/2014 Q2, also known as Comet Lovejoy, as it passed over Grayson, Georgia.)
(By Calla Cofield, Space.com, 1-13-2015)
Why
I still believe (on the 18th birthday of Creative Good)
(I believe in my founding vision of Creative Good. The better that companies treat customers—
as fellow human beings who deserve a good customer experience, as we would want for ourselves—
the better those companies will perform, over the long run.)
(By Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 1-7-2015)
Adam Plunkett on Faithful and Virtuous Night
(Glück is 71, and this is her 12th book of poems. None of
her other books are this ambitious;
It's her most primitive work. The first thing she does as the knight is to
"[enter] the kingdom
of death," the night of annihilation braved by the knight of her dreams.)
(By Adam Plunkett, Los Angeles Review of Books, 1-1-2015)
Researchers
Name a Deep Sea Spiky Shelled Snail A. strummeri after the late, great Joe Strummer
of The Clash (Golf-ball-sized snails rock out near hydrothermal vents 11,500 feet below the ocean.)
(By Lori Dorn, Laughing Squid, 12-15-2014) Santa Cruz Sentinel, 12-23-2014
* Interview with Dr Hew Len
(Dr. Hew Len worked at the Hawaii State hospital in the high security ward for the criminally insane
from 1983 to 1987, where he cured and entire ward of criminally mentally ill patients using the simple
ancient Hawaiian healing method of Ho'oponopono. How can we impact our lives using this method?)
(By Saul Maraney, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2008)
* How Dr. Hew Len healed a ward of mentally ill criminals with Ho'oponopono
(Ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian system that heals oneself— and the world, too.)
(By Rosario Montenegro, HubPages.com, March 27, 2011)
* Christmas Ho'oponopono
(Dr. Hew Len perceived in the inmates was really just an aspect of himself that was coming to his
awareness to be healed. In healing that aspect of himself by prayer, he healed the entire insane ward.)
(By Jillian Jones, WorkMoneyBliss.com Blog, 12-21-2013)
UFO Enthusiast
Says Comet 67P An Alien Spacecraft In Disguise; Claims NASA Received Radio Signals 20 Years Ago
(Email to UFO Sightings Daily that Comet 67P was an alien ship in disguise)
(By Afza Fathima, International Business Times, 12-8-2014)
An Absence Finished: Claudia Emerson's LATE WIFE: POEMS
(Late Wife presents the arc of a failed marriage through letters from the wife to the husband)
(By Gary Anderson, What's Not Wrong? Blog, 12-5-2014)
* SCIENCE: What Happened Before The Big Bang Started The Universe?
(First idea: it all began as a kind of quantum fluctuation that inflated to our present universe.
Second idea: our universe began within a black hole of an older universe 13.8 billion years ago.)
(By Brian Koberlein, BusinessInsider.com, 12-3-2014)
This Is the Largest Stone Block Ever Carved By Human Hands
(Discovered in a stone quarry in Baalbek, Lebanon, by German archaeologists, the perfectly hewn
chunk of stone measures 64 feet by 19.6 feet and is 18 feet tall. It's estimated to weigh 1,650 tons.)
(By Jamie Condliffe, Gizmodo.com, 12-3-2014)
These 3 Images Changed Our Understanding Of The Universe Forever
[1. Hubble Deep Field (1995) collected light from 3,000 objects in this tiny patch of dark sky;
2. Hubble Ultra Deep Field shows objects in universe as they appeared less than one billion years after Big Bang;
3. Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) contains 5,500 more galaxies than the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.];
(By Jessica Orwig, BusinessInsider.com, 12-3-2014)
Famous Hubble star explosion is expanding, new animation reveals
(Homunculus Nebula getting bigger and bigger between 1995 & 2008: Picture of the Day 12-2-2014)
(By Elizabeth Howell, Phys.org, 12-3-2014)
At Va. Shore eatery, woman bites clam, finds $3K pearl
(Virginia Beach woman found a rare 4.5-carat pearl in a clam purchased at Great Machipongo Clam
Shack in Nassawadox. The man who grew the clam has never seen a pearl in an aquaculture clam.)
(By Carol Vaughn, DelmarVaNow.com, 12-2-2014)
Monterey Bay
researchers capture rare deep-sea anglerfish on video for first time
(Black seadevil (Melanocetus), named for its baleful ugliness. With vicious gape,
females eat fish of a
larger size. To lure her prey, she jerks luminescent orb
dangling from "fishing rod" on her forehead.)
(By Samantha Clark, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 11-20-2014)
Dark matter
could be seen in GPS time glitches
(Kinks or cracks in the quantum fields that permeate the universe could be the culprit
dark matter that makes up 80% of the universe's matter according to
Andrei Derevianko.)
(By Hal Hodson, New Scientist, 11-17-2014)
* Baby elephant survives 14 attacking lions
(Young 1-year-old elephant in Zambia strays from its mother and seems in great peril,
but holds its own and reunites with its herd; 'We've named the little fella Hercules'.)
(By Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com, 11-11-2014)
Hubble Images Show Universe's Secrets
(This telescope, which uses a series of high-resolution cameras to observe
the visible universe, has captured the hearts of the public with its stunning images.)
(By Jessica Orwig, BusinessInsider.com, 11-1-2014)
BASEBALL:
Madison Bumgarner effort was one for the ages
(Cardinals Johnny Keane rode 28-year-old Bob Gibson in 1964 just as strenuously as Giants skipper
Bruce Bochy rode 25-year-old Madison Bumgarner through the 2014 postseason. Afterward, Keane
was asked why he stayed with Gibson. Keane said: "I had a commitment to his heart.")
(By Dan McGrath, Chicago Sun Times, 10-31-2014)
MLB:
Where Madison Bumgarner's stellar World Series ranks all-time
(Mathewson 1905, Lew Burdette 1957, Stan Coveleski 1920, Bob Gibson, 1967, Bumgarner 2014)
(By Cliff Corcoran, Sports Illustrated, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL:
Bumgarner a Throwback to Pre-Pitch Count Era
(World Series 0.43 ERA for 2014 & 0.25 ERA lifetime compared to Christy Mathewson 1905,
Lew Burdett 1957, Sandy Koufax 1965, Bob Gibson 1967, Micky Lolich 1968, Jack Morris 1991, Randy Johnson 2001);
(By Ronald Blum, ABC News, 10-30-2014)
MLB: The Greatest World Series Pitching Performance Ever?
(Bumgarner threw 21 innings, 17 strike outs, 1 walk, 0.43 ERA is lowest since Dodger's
Sandy Koufax's 0.38 ERA in 1965 World Series with 24 innings and 29 strike outs.)
(By Daniel Barbarisi, Wall Street Journal, 10-30-2014)
BASEBALL:
Giants beat Royals in Game 7 for third World Series title in five years
(Madison Bumgarner pitched 5 shutout innings in relief, Pablo Sandoval had
3 hits and scored two runs as Giants beat Royals 3-2 to win World Series.)
(By Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 10-30-2014)
Archeologists Make
Incredible Discoveries In Tunnel Sealed 2,000 Years Ago
(340-foot tunnel sealed 2000 years ago at Teotihuacan yielded thousands of relics.)
(By Associated Press, Huffington Post, 10-30-2014)
BOXING: Rumble in the Jungle: the night Ali became King of the World again
(New book on Muhammad Ali's fight in Kinshasa 40 years when George Foreman was defeated.)
(By Kevin Mitchell, The Guardian, UK, 10-29-2014)
BOOKSHELF: Do What I Mean, Not What I Say
(Ancient philosophers deliberately concealed the meaning of their writings to protect society
from dangerous truths. A review of Arthur M. Melzer's
Philosophy Between the Lines.
There is a surface
message intended for the ordinary or inattentive reader and a deeper meaning often diametrically
opposed to the first, that is addressed to the discerning reader.)
(By James Ceaser, Wall Street Journal, 10-24-2014)
Will Smith Reveals The Real Life
'Limitless Pill' That Doubled His IQ In Minutes
(Widespread amongst young professionals, Neuro3x
reacts to a gene called NRXN3 in the male brain.
Users reported having 'lazer beam focus' and were thinking sharper, improving their memory and
turbo charging their energy levels. Pills also helped men effortlessly attract & seduce beautiful women.)
(By James Rickman, Discover Magazine, 10-15-2014)
Cardinals Hero Matt Adams Saves The Day And Gets The Girl
(Fiancee Carina Struble kisses Matt Adams in locker room before he got doused with booze.)
(By Michael Klopman, Huffington Post, 10-8-2014)
Giants' Hunter Pence
makes sensational leaping catch to rob Nats of extra bases
(Hunter Pence made a leaping catch at the right-field wall to rob Jayson Werth of an extra-base hit
during Game 4 of the NLDS as SF Giants beat Washington Nationals 3-2 & win the NLDS 3-1.)
(By Ted Berg, USA Today, 10-7-2014)
Beardless Jesus Discovered On Early Christian Artifact Unearthed In Spain
(4th century green glass paten shows beardless Jesus with apostles Peter and Paul)
(By Carol Kuruvilla, Huffington Post, 10-7-2014)
SPACE: Total lunar eclipse on Wednesday will have an unusal twist
(On October 8th see a "selenelion"—total eclipse of moon & rising sun simultaneously,
Boston: sunrise 6:49 am, moonset 6:54 am; New York: sunrise 6:59 am, moonset 7:04 am)
(By Joe Rao, cbsnews.com, 10-6-2014)
BASEBALL: Steven Souza Jr. makes miraculous catch for final out of Jordan Zimmermann no-hitter
(Washington rookie left fielder Steven Souza Jr. chased Christian Yelich's flyball to left-center field
gap and caught it to preserve Jordan Zimmermann's 1-0 win & first no-hitter in Nationals history.)
Video;
(By Scott Allen, Washington Post, 9-28-2014)
At CounterPunch Studios, actors' digital doubles come to life
(CounterPunch has built a growing business by creating realistic-looking digital faces of actors,
including some who are deceased: for video games, Bollywood movies, theme parks & TV shows.)
(By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times, 9-24-2014)
Poem of the week:
A Work of Fiction by Louise Glück
(Glück's prose-poem combines meditation with anecdote as she remembers the moment of loss after finishing a novel;
"In the dark, the cigarette glowed, like a fire lit by a survivor. But who would
see this light, this small dot among the infinite stars? I stood a while in the
dark, the cigarette glowing and growing small, each breath patiently destroying me. How small it was, how brief. Brief, brief, but inside me now,
which the stars could never be.")
(By Carol Rumens, The Guardian, UK, 8-25-2014)
We'd like to welcome you to 'enlightenment'
(Avatar claims its self-improvement course can fix life's struggles; critics say mumbo jumbo
comes at a cost; nine-day session @$3050, or a two-day ReSurfacing workshop @$402.50.)
(By Russell Blackstock, New Zealand Herald, 8-17-2014)
APPRECIATION: Lauren Bacall's hallmark: a unique mystique
(The voice. If you heard it once, you never forgot. So distinctive was its smoky,
sexual growl, you could pick it out of a lineup. She had an elegant, high-end style
that made her a photographer's favorite. She was just 19 and Humphrey Bogart 44
when they began filming "To Have and Have Not" and married shortly afterwards.)
(By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times, 8-13-2014)
Movie review | 'The Giver'
(In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy
is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.)
(By Roger Moore, Courier-Journal, 8-12-2014)
OP-ED: Americans' optimism is dying
(Gloom goes beyond wealth, gender, race, region, age and ideology
This fractious nation is united by one thing: lost faith in the United States.)
(By Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 8-12-2014)
Robin Williams: Actor, comic unable to cope with real-life demons
(Williams rose to fame as a comedian, but blossomed as a dramatic actor. Obama: "He was one of a
kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien, but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.")
(By Frank C. Girardot, Daily News, 8-11-2014)
SoCal anglers score rare opah trifecta
(Anglers out of San Diego manage to land three of the brightly colored
'moonfish' on one day.)
(By Pete Thomas, GrindTV, 8-4-2014)
Marilyn Monroe— 38 never-before-seen photographs
(Los Angeles-based Limited Runs selling prnts of 38 previously unpublished images of Marilyn)
(By Sarah Eberspacher, The Week, 7-23-2014) (Marilyn & Horse: Cheek to Cheek)
Alien Planet Sets New Record For Having Longest-Known Year On A Transiting World
(Alien planet Kepler-421b takes 704 Earth days to complete one orbit in Lyra constellation.)
(By Mike Wall, Huffington Post, 7-23-2014)
Ukraine
says Malaysian plane shot down; nearly 300 feared dead, among them 80 children
(Malaysian airliner shot down over eastern Ukraine by militants, killing all 300 people aboard.)
(Reuters, The Indian Express, 7-17-2014)
Hubble sees a galaxy with a glowing heart
(NGC 1433 spiral Seyfert galaxy with bright luminous center is 32 million light-years from Earth.)
(By D. Calzetti, Phys.Org News, 7-14-2014)
Hubble telescope spots bizarre 'string of pearls' formation in space
(100,000-light-year-long string of star clusters wrapping around the cores of two merging galaxies.)
(By Mike Wall, Christian Science Monitor, 7-14-2014)
How Meg Ryan
Learned to 'Fake It' for When Harry Met Sally
(Director Rob Reiner shows Meg how to do it at Katz's Deli in New York City.)
(By Lesley Messer, ABC News, 7-13-2014)
Meg Ryan was coached for When Harry Met Sally orgasm scene by a man
(The scene has become one of the most celebrated in Hollywood history.)
(By Daniel Bates, The Telegraph, UK, 7-11-2014)
Warren Buffett Is Betting $1 Billion on This Man
(United States Gypsum Corporation or USG is one of the largest manufacturers of drywall and other various construction materials; Berkshire Hathaway owns 30% of USG versus 6% of IBM.)
(By Patrick Morris, Motley Fool, 7-12-2014)
BASEBALL: Top Plays of the Day
(Barnes;
Craig;
Gomez;
Gose;
Holt;
Revere;
Young;
Zimmerman)
(Must See Catches, MLB, 6-24-2014)
In Nero's Rome, the Disgraced Took to the Bathtub
(Nero was 12 when his mother, Agrippina, hired the Stoic philosopher Seneca to be his tutor.)
(By Manuela Hoelterhoff, Bloomberg News, 6-17-2014)
A DARK ROOM: The Best-Selling Game that No One Can Explain
(Created by Michael Townsend in May 2013, "A Dark Room" was designed to run in Web browsers.
Amir Rajan e-mailed Townsend, for permission to adapt game for iPhones & iPads, now a best-seller.)
(By Michael Thomsen, The New Yorker, 6-12-2014)
Goodbye, Maya Angelou: Teacher, Warrior, Spiritual Leader
(She was one of those wise souls gifted to us to help us all find our way a little bit more easily.
She was a mentor, a surrogate mother, an older sister, and a grandmother to many of us
who battled our way into womanhood with her by our side.)
(By Nur-e Rahman Nichols, Forbes, 6-10-2014)
SCIENCE: Hubble captures the most comprehensive image of the universe yet
(Hubble Space Telescope has taken a long-exposure picture of space in the ultraviolet, revealing newly
formed stars and galaxies; also detected earliest galaxies, formed as early as 13 billion years ago.)
(By Dario Borghino, gizmag.com, 6-9-2014)
Poet Maya Angelou remembered for wisdom, clarity
(Bill Clinton: "She was calling our attention to the things she'd been paying attention to. And she did it
with a clarity and power that will wash over people as long as there is a written and spoken language.")
(By Emery P. Dalesio, WRAL.com, 6-7-2014)
Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou
(She gave the people I knew— and the person I was— value, and she did so
with a phenomenal power of presence, her words lingering and her voice swelling.)
(By teacherken, Daily Kos, 5-28-2014)
How a text-based RPG got to No. 1 on iOS App Store
(Amir Rajan's Web-based game "A Dark Room" amasses a large audience of 325,000)
(By Hanah Cho, Dallas Morning News, 5-24-2014)
Mary Anning: British palaeontologist celebrated in Google doodle
(Google celebrates 215th birthday of British palaeontologist Mary Anning with a special doodle,
which shows Anning uncovering a dinosaur's fossilised remains. She's called greatest fossilist.)
(By Sophie Curtis, The Telegraph, UK, 5-21-2014)
MLB: Why the Giants are (not) the best in the National League
(If you're looking for absolutes, the 2014 Giants are not the team for you.)
(By Grant Brisbee, SB*Nation, 5-21-2014)
Bear pulls cub to safety from busy highway
(Momma bear rescuing its cub from heavy traffic in British Columbia)
(By David Strege, GrindTV, 5-20-2014)
Helpware: This Password Program Rightfully Nags You
(Dashlane, a free program for Windows, Macs, iPads and iPhones and Android devices
is easy to use, and has powerful encryption to flummox hackers. Price is right, too.)
(By Harold Glicken, Vnews.com, 5-18-2014)
* The triumph of melancholy: 500 years of Dürer's most enigmatic print
(As mathematicians meet in New York to celebrate 500th anniversary of Dürer's print
Melencolia,
Karl Galle asks whether it is a depiction of despairing genius or of scholarly optimism.)
(By Karl Galle, The Guardian, UK, 5-16-2014)
World's oldest sperm discovered. And it's gigantic.
(17-million year old muscle shrimp known as an ostracod found in Australian cave; though
1 millimeter long, its sperm when uncoiled can reach up to ten times its body length.)
(By Terence McCoy, Washington Post, 5-14-2014)
Top-shelf bookcases: Get your pretty books all in a row
(Try a modular, expandable system such as Atlas Industries' AS4. A 32-inch-wide single column
of shelving starts at $2,700 for white oak; Sapien vertical bookcase priced at $198-$298.)
(By Lindsey M. Roberts, Washington Post, 5-14-2014)
Kids Don't Read Books Because Parents Don't Read Books
(People read all day long. Google, Twitter, and Facebook deliver words. People can't peel their eyes
from smartphone: essentially a text distribution mechanism; we prefer magazines & blogs to books.)
(By Jordan Shapiro, Forbes, 5-13-2014)
* Dorothy Hodgkin: The only British woman to win a Nobel science prize gets a doodle
(Her pioneering work helped unravel the structures of proteins, including insulin,
which she studied for more than 30 years; 1964 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry)
(By Guardian Staff, The Guardian, UK, 5-12-2014)
Yahoo is going to track your web use whether you like it or not
(Yahoo won't be honoring "Do Not Track" requests from users anymore.)
(By Chris Smith, BGR, 5-2-2014)
Kentucky Derby | Art Sherman visits Swaps' grave
(Derby favorite California Chrome trainer, Sherman visited Swaps' gravesite at Churchill Downs)
(By Jonathan Lintner, The Courier Journal, 5-1-2014)
Researchers think water helped ancient Egyptians build the pyramids
[Daniel Bonn, Physical Review Letters 112, 175502 (2014) showed as water was added, both the force
needed to pull the sled and the friction coefficient were found to decrease below that of the dry sand."]
(By Emily Price, engadget.com, 5-1-2014)
BASEBALL:
Detroit Tigers' Brad Ausmus has never seen a hitter like Victor Martinez
(Victor Martinez struck out twice in his first 85 plate appearances this season. He's hitting
.286 with 3 doubles & 4 homers in 21 games; Torii Hunter & Ian Kinsler both have 8 strikeouts.
Nick Castellanos had 17 hits and 13 RBIs in his first 18 games this season.)
(By George Sipple, FreePress.com, 4-29-2014)
Ask Alma's Owl: The Spy Who Loved Baseball
[Morris "Moe" Berg (LAW '30), who was known as "the brainiest guy in baseball". He had
a career batting average of .243 and spied for Office of Strategic Services (CIA forerunner)
during WW II in Yugoslavia & Switzerland on Germany's efforts to build an atomic bomb.]
(By Georgette Jasen, Columbia News, 4-23-2014)
EDUCATION: The Dark Chain of Events to Your Kid's Ivy League
(Failure to get into college of their dreams may have less to do with a lack of merit than
admissions procedures adopted by anti-Semitic college administrators almost a century ago.)
(By Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg View, 4-21-2014)
The secret to khushi
(Happiness expert Dr. Aymee Coget suggests, "Focus on controlling your emotional state by choosing
happiness and adopting positive psychology principles, build your resilience, follow your heart and
meditate into the greatest states of bliss." Sophie Keller: Happiness needs to be a "being state".)
(By Teja Lele Desai, Mumbai Mirror, Apr 18, 2014)
The Greatest Graduation Speech Ever Given Is This Bullet-Point List Of 12 Economic Concepts
(Thomas Sargent spoke to 2007 Berkely graduates: "Economics is organized common sense.")
(By Rob Wile, Business Insider, 4-17-2014) Speech
'Jaw-Dropping', 'Apocalypse' Blood Moon Still Making Waves
(Lunar eclipse treated as sign from heaven, or butt of jokes; Acts 2:19-20— "And I will show wonders
in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon
into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord." April 15, 2014 is Passover.)
(By Mark Biltz, WND Faith, 4-17-2014)
Pilot Captures Crazy-Surreal Photo Series By Just Sticking His Camera Out The Cockpit
(Alex MacLean sticks his camera out the cockpit of a small Cessna 182, snapping what's below.
More)
(By Suzy Strutner, Huffington Post, 4-11-2014)
Hubble Madness' Picks a Winning Image, and Deep Space Never Looked So Good
(Winning photo is "Mystic Mountain"—
area in Carina Nebula is a pillar of gas, dust, and stars
that measures more than three light-years tall, 7500 light-years from earth.
Other photos)
(By Justin Bachman, Business Week, 4-11-2014)
What Hiring Managers Really Want To Know When They Ask 'What's Your Biggest Weakness?'
(Question is designed to test your mettle and your character. It reveals any weaknesses that may derail
a candidate, it also provides insights into if you are of a mindset of continual improvement.)
(By Jacquelyn Smith, Business Insider, 4-9-2014)
Hank Aaron to enjoy anniversary of No. 715 with friends
(Aaron was more relieved than jubilant after he broke Babe Ruth's home run record April 8, 1974.)
(By Charles Odum, San Francisco Chronicle, 4-7-2014)
3-D printing market projected to grow to $16.2 billion in 2018
(3-D printer sales, materials and associated services, reached $2.5 billion worldwide last year.)
(By Samantha Schaefer, Los Angeles Times, 3-31-2014)
SCIENCE:
NASA's Spitzer telescope completes 360-degree panorama of the Milky Way
(The telescope took over 2 million infrared snapshots of our galaxy over the course of a decade.)
(By Valentina Palladino, The Verge, 3-26-2014)
SCIENCE: Discovery could point to a new planet in our solar system
(Planetoid orbiting the sun that has never been seen before, dubbed VP113, it lies
beyond Neptune and even further past the icy ring known as the Kuiper Belt.)
(By Valentina Palladino, The Verge, 3-26-2014)
How America celebrates Pi Day
(Princeton Public Library awards $314.15 to 7-13-year olds memorizing most digits of π on Pi Day)
(By Elizabeth Landau, CNN Tech, 3-14-2014)
Meet Jonathan, St Helena's 182-year-old giant tortoise
(At 182, Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, may be the oldest living land creature.)
(By Sally Kettle, BBC News, 3-12-2014)
Gold coins not stolen from U.S. Mint
(Buried gold coins worth $10 million were not tied to a 1901 U.S. Mint theft in San Francisco.)
(By Samantha Schaefer, Los Angeles Times, 3-5-2014)
Alternatives to the Big Bang Theory Explained (Infographic)
(Steady-State Universe now debunked, Eternal Inflation Multiverse, Cyclic Oscillating Universe with
alternating Big Bang & Big Crunch, Flat Hologram, Digital Simulation running in a vast computer)
(By Karl Tate, Space.com, 2-21-2014)
Shirley Temple Black: 10 things to know about Curly Top
(From 1969 to 1970, she was a U.S. delegate in the United Nations General Assembly.)
(By Christy Khoshaba, Los Angeles Times, 2-12-2014)
Shirley Temple Black excelled in 2nd career in diplomacy
(She was a symbol of spontaneous goodness, the No. 1 box office star from 1935-1938.)
(By Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle, 2-12-2014)
Shirley Temple dies at 85
(She was a symbol of spontaneous goodness, the No. 1 box office star from 1935-1938.)
(By Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 2-11-2014)
Shirley Temple Black, iconic child star, dies at 85
(Most popular child movie star of all time, lifting filmgoing nation's spirits during Depression.)
(By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times, 2-11-2014)
Shroud Of Turin Formed By An Earthquake? Face Of Jesus Image Caused By Neutron Emissions
(Neutron emissions could have caused chemical reactions in cloth forming the image of a face.)
(Huffington Post, 2-11-2014)
Turin Shroud may have been created by earthquake from time of Jesus
(An earthquake in Jerusalem in AD 33 may have caused an atomic reaction
which created the Turin Shroud and skewed radiocarbon dating results.)
(By Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph, UK, 2-11-2014)
SPACE: Could Black Holes Give Birth to 'Planck Stars'?
(Rovelli & Vidotto looked at Big Crunch and found Planck Stars producing a detectable signal,
of quantum gravitational origin, around the 10-14cm wavelength.)
(By Ian O'Neill, Discovery News, 2-11-2014)
Brain Science: Secrets of the Brain
(New technologies sheds light on biology's greatest unsolved mystery: how brain really works.)
(By Carl Zimmer, National Geographic, February 2014)
Wall Street Journal: Tom Perkins Was Right
(Perkins has been flayed since his letter, now WSJ editorial board said that Perkins was right.)
(By Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider, 1-30-2014)
Eric Lawson, who portrayed Marlboro man, dies at 72
(Portrayed rugged Marlboro man in cigarette ads during late 1970s, died Jan. 10 of respiratory failure.)
(By Associated Press, Washington Post, 1-27-2014)
Former Marlboro Man, 72, becomes 5th actor from iconic cigarette ads to die of lung disease
(Eric Lawson portrayed iconic cigarette-puffing cowboy from 1978 to 1981.)
(By Sophie Jane Evans & Helen Pow, Daily Mail, UK, 1-27-2014)
Tom Perkins:
Billionaire venture capitalist ridiculed after writing letter
comparing the treatment of rich Americans to the Holocaust
(Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass, saw a series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany
in Nov. 1938. 91 Jews were killed & 30,000 were arrested & incarcerated in concentration camps.)
(By Rob Williams, The Independent, UK, 1-26-2014)
LETTERS: Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?
(I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent,"
namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich.")
(By Tom Perkins, Wall Street Journal, 1-24-2014)
UConn prof delves into spirituality in daily life
(Professor Bradley Wright using www.soulPulse.org & smart phones
to measure people's spirituality as it unfolds over time in natural settings.)
(By John Christoffersen, San Francisco Chronicle, 1-20-2014)
California farms lead the way in almond production
(California produces 82% of the globe's almonds; 70% of state's almonds sold overseas;
Nut's exports worth 2.5 times California wine sold abroad.)
(By David Pierson, LA Times, 1-12-2014)
* Can
Bighorn Sheep Help Us Prevent Concussion
Bighorn sheep and woodpeckers have brains that are well-protected against impacts.
They bash their heads all day yet experience little apparent brain damage.)
(By Allison Eck, PBS, Nova, 1-6-2014)
* Ronald Reagan
and the occultist: The amazing story of the thinker behind his sunny optimism
(Gipper's warm "morning in America" worldview was directly shaped by his reading of occult thinker
Manly P. Hall; cited "Secret
Destiny of America" at 1957 Eureka College commencement address.)
(By Mitch Horowitz, Salon, 1-5-2014)
Lincoln waitress receives the tip of a lifetime
(Abigail Sailors served Cracker Barrel customer with smiles
and received $1000 check for her college tuition.)
(By Peter Salter, Lincoln Journal Star, 1-5-2014)
*
Is the Universe a Hologram?
(Japanese researchers have taken another step toward proving theory that our universe is a hologram.)
(By Tara MacIssac, Epoch Times, 12-11-2013)
*
Is The Universe A Hologram? Physicists Say It's Possible
(Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Japan's Ibaraki University has provided some of the clearest evidence
yet that our Universe could be just one big projection, proving Juan Maldacena's proposal.)
(Huffington Post, 12-11-2013)
Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram
(10-dimensional theory of gravity makes same predictions as standard quantum physics in fewer dimensions.)
(By Ron Cowen, Nature, 12-10-2013)
Nelson Mandela in his own words
(60 Minutes revisits a collection of revealing writings by the late
civil rights giant and former South African president Nelson Mandela.)
(By Bob Simon, CBS 60 Minutes, 12-8-2013)
Mystery buyer dishes up $1.2M for rare plate at Ottawa auction
(Chinese glazed plate from Yuan or early Ming Dynasty, about 40 centimetres in diameter
and decorated with a three-clawed dragon estimated at $900 sold for $1.2 million.)
(By Robert Bostelaar, Ottawa Citizen, 12-6-2013)
Malcolm Gladwell: The Power of the Underdog
(David had an advantage over Goliath? Malcolm Gladwell talks with
Anderson Cooper about the link between adversity and innovation)
(Interview with Anderson Cooper, CBS 60 Minutes, 11-24-2013)
Germany: Nazi stolen-art trove may be largest found in private hands
(More than 1,500 pieces of priceless art worth $1.3 billion found in apartment belonging
to Cornelius Gurlitt, the 80-year-old son of a well-known Nazi-era art dealer in early 2011.)
(By Henry Chu, LA Times, 11-4-2013)
Shakuntala Devi: Numerical wizard honored in Google Doodle
[In 1977 Shakuntala Devi (11-4-1929 to 4-21-2013) extracted before an audience the 23rd root
of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating the Univac computer that took 62 seconds.)
(By Erik De Castro, Christian Science Monitor, 11-4-2013)
Philippines earthquake: Did Muslim holiday save lives?
(7.2 earthquake Tuesday struck Cebu and Bohol hardest, killing at least 90 people.)
(By Erik De Castro, Christian Science Monitor, 10-15-2013)
Earthquake in Greece: A 6.4 magnitude quake shakes Crete
(Tremors were felt as far as the Greek capital Athens, some 180 miles away.)
(By Angeliki Koutantou and Karolina Tagaris, Christian Science Monitor, 10-12-2013)
Sandy Koufax
congratulates Kershaw and Dodgers on NLDS win
(From Dodgers' old left-handed ace to its current young southpaw, a smiling Koufax
looked Kershaw in the eyes and bestowed his congratulations with a hug.)
(By Beth Harris, Christian Science Monitor, 10-8-2013)
The Red Hawk Who saved my life flies away
(At Kerhonkson sweat lodge, Charlie's goodness & kindness saved his life 25 years ago.)
(By Mr. Horrible, Daily Kos, 10-8-2014)
It's Complicated: Pioneering network scientist Duncan Watts, PhD '97, tackles the fallacy of common sense
(Everything Is Obvious, Once You Know the Answer. Subtitled How Common Sense Fails Us)
(By Beth Saulnier, Cornell Alumni Magazine, Sept/Oct 2013)
FAQ: All About The New Google "Hummingbird" Algorithm
(PageRank is one of over 200 major "ingredients" that go into the Hummingbird recipe.
Hummingbird looks at PageRank, how important links to a page are deemed to be, along with
other factors like whether Google believes a page is of good quality, & words used on it.)
(By Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, 9-26-2013)
"Mr Poetry'' Graham Nunn is facing fresh allegations of plagiarism
(Brisbane-based Speed Poets founder Graham Nunn linked to
8 more examples of alleged plagiarism)
(By Daryl Passmore, Herald Sun, Australia, 9-17-2013)
KING SOLOMON'S SEAL Recreates Fables and Fairytales From Antiquity
(Jascha Kessler writes of hermetic teacher passing on his wisdom, sharing
his tales and stories in the Carpathian Mountains around 1745-1815)
(Books World, BroadwayWorld.com, 9-16-2013)
SPORTS: No matter how you measure it, Mike Trout's home run went a long way
(8th-inning homer, which bounced off the window of a luxury box high above
the center-field wall in the Oakland Coliseum, was 421 feet. ESPN's Home Run
Tracker pegged Trout's shot at 452 feet)
(By Mike DiGiovanna, LA Times, 9-16-2013)
In Each of Us: Enlightenment
(Despite being a Hindu, I regard Buddhism as the highest pedestal of all
other existing religions and philosophies in the world, because Buddha
was always humble even after his 'Enlightenment'.)
(By Sandhya Regmi, Republica, 9-7-2013)
Poets toil to convey the great truths (Seamus Heaney died this week)
Poets urge us to slow down and see and feel and touch and think, knowing it is nearly impossible to grab strands of truth unless we do. Why do poets keep trying to convey truths? The only thing I can conclude is that they do it because they must really love us.)
(By Michael O'Hare, TribLive, 9-5-2013)
How Old Is That Lion? A Guide to Aging Animals
(Lions can be dated by examining their fur and other attributes such as teeth and hair.)
(By Melody Kramer, National Geographic, 7-30-2013)
Cannes Jewel Theft: $53 Million Of Jewelry Taken In Armed Robbery At Carlton Hotel
(Single gunman makes off with $136 million in jewels around noon on July 28. Carlton hotel is one of the major locations in To Catch A Thief, the classic 1955 Hitchcock film about a retired jewel thief.)
(By Alana Horowitz, Huffington Post, 7-28-2013)
Armed robbers steal 40 million Euros of jewels from Cannes hotel
(Exhibition of diamonds owned by Lev Leviev, a Russian-born Israeli billionaire diamond dealer)
(By Harriet Alexander, The Telegraph, UK, 7-28-2013)
'The Wolverine' Review: Hugh Jackman slashes off more than he can chew
(Wolverine takes his place in Japan as a Ronin, a loner, a samurai without a leader or purpose.)
(By Roger Moore, Zap2it, 7-26-2013)
A Chat With Hugh Jackman, of Musicals and 'Berserker' Rages
(Wolverine made his comic-book debut in a 1974 issue of The Incredible Hulk & star of his
own comic book since 1988. He's not the most powerful of mutants. He can't fly. He can't jump.
He doesn't have things coming out of his eyes. His power and strength is rooted in his angst and dysfunction.)
(By Barry Koltnow, Orange County Register, 7-26-2013)
Selfie-Loathing:
Instagram is even more depressing than Facebook. Here's why.
(Instagram is exclusively image-driven, and images will crack your mirror.)
(By Jessica Winter, Slate, 7-23-2013)
Cyber drills like Quantum Dawn 2 vital to security in financial sector
(Mock exercises can help banks identify weaknesses in their incident response capabilities)
(By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computer World, 7-19-2013)
The Man Who Predicted Google Glass Forecasts The Near Future
(In David Brin's 1990 novel,
Earth, characters wore "True-Vu goggles"; Brin wrote on
wearable technology in his 1998 book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us
to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?; Gutenberg's printing press & Kodak cameras also encountered opposition.)
(By Elise Hu, npr.org, 7-11-2013)
Woolly mammoth goes on view in Japan
(A 39,000-year-old female Woolly mammoth, which was found frozen in Siberia, with remarkably
preserved soft tissue, orange fur, and signs of human butchering is now on view in Yokohama.)
(By Elizabeth Barber, Christian Science Monitor, 7-10-2013)
Yahoo Shuts Down Long Forgotten, Once Popular AltaVista
(Yahoo Inc. sent AltaVista.com to the Internet graveyard to rest alongside order-almost-anything
venture Kozmo.com & butler from
Ask Jeeves. AltaVista's decline began in early 2000s when it tried
to be a portal like Yahoo instead of sticking solely with search that it was eclipsed by Google, Inc.)
(By Barbara Ortutay, Huffington Post, 7-8-2013)
The Amazing Race
(When terrorism struck the Boston Marathon, physician Kathryn Ackerman '94
was among the first responders who leapt into action— and saved lives.)
(By Beth Saulnier, Cornell Alumni Magazine, July/August 2013)
Beyond the Sea
(Cornell's Blaschka Invertebrate collection of glass marine creatures inspires
David Brown '83, a filmmaker's quest to chronicle their real-life habitats.)
(By Beth Saulnier, Cornell Alumni Magazine, July/August 2013)
Forward into the Past
[Cornell joins edX and will begin to produce massive open online courses (MOOCs), that can reach
thousands of students around the world & allow them to view lectures, carry out projects, & interact
with the professor & each other in a social learning environment. They are "open" and they're free.]
(By Jim Roberts, Cornell Alumni Magazine, July/August 2013)
Death Valley temp may tie June record
(California's Death Valley National Park recorded a high temperature of 129 degrees,
which would tie the all-time June record high for the United States)
(Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, 7-2-2013)
For investors, two sides to ailing gold market
(Gold prices have fallen nearly 20% this year, to $1234 on 6/28 from high of $1910 in 2011)
(By Hannah Cushman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 6-30-2013)
Some nonbelievers still find solace in prayer
(Americans who don't believe in God— not all call themselves "atheists"— 12% say they pray.)
(By Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, 6-24-2013)
Britain's defense ministry releases its final UFO files
(209 files & 52,000 pages released included reports on strange lights & alien abductions.)
(By Doug Stanglin, USA Today, 6-21-2013)
UFO Britain: 'X Files' show possible UFO in Britain (Video)
(25 files of 4400 pages detail reports of alien abductions, sightings, offers to develop
weapons to shoot UFOs out of the sky; 600 British sightings had been reported in 2009.)
(By Effie Orfanides, Examiner.com, 6-21-2013)
UFO files: Britain's X Files unit defeated... by Chinese lanterns
(Around 2/3 of 643 UFO reports from 2009 could relatively easily be put down to Chinese lanterns.)
(By Jasper Copping, Telegraph, UK, 6-21-2013)
Cryptography and the Money We Use
[Most common encryption, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), created by
Phil Zimmermann in 1991;
OTR (Off-the-Record Messaging) used in most Web commerce
(SSL);
Cryptocurrency:
Bitcoin,
PPCoin,
Zerocoin;
17 million cases of identity theft each year associated with uses of digital dollar.]
(By Jeffrey Tucker, Laissez Faire Club, 6-18-2013)
* Physics Nobel laureate Kenneth Wilson dies
(Wilson's 1982 Nobel Prize-winning research stemmed from work on phase transitions by
Michael Fisher & Benjamin Widom at Cornell & Leo Kadanoff at University of Illinois.)
(By George Lowery, Cornell Chronicle, 6-18-2013)
Obama
and Xi Jinping pictures censored by Chinese authorities: Take down viral shots comparing ruling pair to Pooh and Tigger;
(Side-by-side comparisons photos popped up on Chinese social media site Weibo. The posts were quickly removed by Chinese Internet censors.)
(By Victoria Taylor, NY Daily News, 6-15-2013)
The Woman Who Changed Millions of Lives
(Nathaniel Branden's book Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand takes you into the living room
where Rand's "Collective" met to discuss philosophy, and into the bedroom where Branden and Rand carried on a torrid affair.
Ayn Rand's powerful effect on innovative entrepreneurs & business leaders: BB&T's
John Allison,
Whole Foods' John Mackey, investor
Doug Casey, Wikipedia's
Jimmy Wales.)
(By Jeffrey Tucker, Laissez Faire Club, 6-15-2013)
But seriously,
Bob Dickerson... English professor retires after 25 years at De Anza
(Essay Writing)
(Professor Michael Mannina on Bob Dickerson: "He could make class more like a community,
having a way of putting students at ease. I have never seen community-building done so fast.")
(By Nadia Banchik, La Voz Weekly, 6-14-2013)
If They Want to Get You, They Will Get You in Time
(NSA has obtained "direct access" to all communications records of every American
by working directly with Verizon, Google, Facebook, and every other major provider.)
(By Jeffrey Tucker, Laissez Faire Club, 6-11-2013)
Why
Duck Duck Go doesn't track its users: Gabriel Weinberg at Gel 2013
(Creator Gabriel Weinberg of
Duck Duck Go, a search engine that doesn't track its users.)
(By Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 6-11-2013)
SCIENCE: Animal invisibility cloak makes cat and fish vanish
(Chinese scientists demonstrate new light-bending technology that could have applications in telecommunications;
"Invisibility cloak" made a pet goldfish & a small cat vanish from plain sight.)
(By Ian Sample, The Guardian, UK, 6-10-2013)
* The Dag Hammarskjöld interview with biographer Roger Lipsey
(Arriving in NY in 1953, he was asked if he liked mountain climbing. Hammarskjöld said:
"This much I know of the sport, that the qualities it requires are just those which I feel we all
need today: perseverance and patience, a firm grip on realities, careful but imaginative planning,
a clear awareness of the dangers but also of the fact that fate is what we make it and that
the safest climber is he who never questions his ability to overcome all difficulties.")
(By David P. Gushee, Read the Spirit, 6-9-2013)
Helicopter Takes to the Skies With the Power of Human Thought
(Minnesota's Professor Bin He had five students controlling four-blade helicopter with their thoughts)
(Video, Science Daily, 6-5-2013)
TECHNOLOGY: The printable life—
3-D production is predicted to mold our tomorrows
(Producible by 3-D printers: sailboats, electric guitars, weapons, prosthetic hands & legs;
Hod Lipson & Melba Kurman's 2013 book Fabricated:
The New World of 3D Printing)
(By Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 6-1-2013)
Some companies looking at retaliating against cyber attackers
(Although hacking back is illegal in the U.S., companies see it as a way to curtail the breaches.)
(By Paresh Dave, Los Angeles Times, 5-31-2013)
Amelia Earhart
Plane Found? Sonar Image Of Possible Wreckage May Suggest Earhart Died On Island (Video);
(Earhart landed on a remote reef, after which her plane washed into the ocean & sank)
(By Meredith Bennett-Smith, Huffington Post, 5-30-2013)
Anatomy of a hack: How crackers ransack passwords like "qeadzcwrsfxv1331"
(For Ars, three crackers have at 16,000+ hashed passcodesÑwith 90 percent success.)
(By Dan Goodin, arstechnica.com, 5-27-2013)
* Cover Story: Literature Humanities Turns 75
(75 years on Columbia's syllabus: Homer, Iliad; Aeschylus, Oresteia; Sophocles, Oedipus the King;
Dante, Inferno were studied by undergraduates every year for three-quarters of a century)
(By Alexis Tonti, Columbia College Today, Spring 2013)
Hang 10 for gnarly waves on Titan's hydrocarbon seas
(As seasons change in Saturn's moon Titan's northern hemisphere, we might see (for the first time)
waves of up to a foot high ripple across the moon's seas of liquid methane and ethane.)
(By Susan Kelley, Cornell Chronicle, 5-22-2013)
POLL: Teens Migrating to Twitter
(Teens complain about too many adults on Facebook and 26% are using Twitter)
(By Jennifer C. Kerr, The Big Story: AP, 5-21-2013)
Florida, nation await $590.5 Million Powerball winner
(Publix supermarket in Tampa suburb sold winning ticket: 10, 13, 14, 22, 52, with Powerball # 11)
(By John Bacon, USA Today, 5-20-2013)
Older
job-seekers fall behind as Peninsula tech market heats up
(Older students have a hard time competing for tech jobs with Stanford grads)
(By Rachel Swan, San Francisco Examiner, 5-20-2013, p. 7)
Why
the stock market rally may continue
(As long as the Fed or any other central bank is printing money, then stocks rally.)
(By Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity Viewpoints, 5-19-2013)
$1 million in jewelry stolen near Cannes film fest
(Thieves ripped a safe from the wall of Novotel hotel near the Cannes Film Festival.)
(By Jamey Keaton, Journal Gazette, 5-17-2013)
Google Minus
(Like Wunsch, I don't think Google is "evil", but their power
is tremendous, and growing, and that makes me nervous.)
(By C. Grayson, blog.storycards.net, 5-17-2013)
The Great Google Goat Rodeo
[Google is becoming malicious as it effectively transforms the World Wide Web itself into one of
its products by controlling (through a natural monopoly) traversal and discovery (Google Search).]
(By Mark Wunsch, blog.markwunsch.com, 5-17-2013)
* Dr. Joyce Brothers '47 dies at age 85
(Joyce Diane Bauer, entered Cornell at 16 and graduated from the College of Home Economics.
Cornell University Library maintains the publicly available Joyce D. Brothers Papers, which includes
463 films, 796 videotapes and 184 audio recordings along with other published materials and papers.)
(By Joe Wilensky, Cornell Chronicle, 5-14-2013)
World War II's Strangest Battle: When Americans and Germans Fought Together
(German Major Josef Gangl joined American Captain Jack Lee to capture Nazi Austrian castle)
(By Andrew Roberts, The Daily Beast, 5-12-2013)
'Sea monster'
mystery spawned after bizarre-looking carcass washes ashore in New Zealand
(After speculation, expert suggests animal corpse is that of a killer whale)
(By Pete Thomas, Grindtv.com, 5-7-2013)
* MIND & MATTER: How the Brain Really Works
(New techniques let researchers look at activity of the whole brain at once)
(By Alison Gopnik, Wall Street Journal, 5-3-2013)
MARKETS: Buffett Investors Arrive in Good Spirits
(37,000 came to Omaha, Nebraska for annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway & CEO Warren Buffett)
(By Anupreeta Das, Wall Street Journal, 5-3-2013)
8 Things Really Successful People Do
(Make materialism irrelevant; Enhance knowledge; Manage relationships; Emotional self-awareness;
Gain clarity about spirituality; Adhere to code of ethics; Time efficiency; Commit to a physical ideal)
(By Kevin Daum, Inc. Magazine, 5-3-2013)
Hummus Is Conquering America
(Tobacco farmers open fields to chickpeas; Bumper crop; Sabra sold $315 million of hummus last year);
(By David Kesmodel & Owen Fletcher, Wall Street Journal, 4-30-2013)
6 Unique Ways to Be Successful and Happy
[Build real relationships. Groom yourself (try different things). Do nothing (be quiet). Work for a
great company (find pros & mentors). Do one thing at a time. Be good to yourself (just being you).]
(By Steve Tobak, Inc. Magazine, 4-30-2013)
4 Surprisingly Effective Things to Say
(Powerful words for boss to build trust & lead: I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don't know.)
(By Maria Tabaka, Inc. Magazine, 4-29-2013)
FAITH: Rick Warren Makes
Ministry Announcement Following Son's Suicide
(Matthew was just one of about 11.4 million American adults that suffered from severe mental illness)
(By Billy Hallowell, The Blaze, 4-18-2013)
13 Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder: Are You Bipolar?
(Most common symptom associated with bipolar disorder is sudden mood swings. People who are
bipolar will experience heightened euphoria & happiness followed by drastic depression & guilt.)
(By Angela Ayles, Activebeat.com, 4-18-2013)
10 Eye-Opening Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read
(Dilbert Principle; Complete yes minister; Poorly made in China; Don't bring it to work; 21 dirty tricks
at work; Crazy bosses; Peter Principle; 4-Hour workweek; No asshole rule; Lie with statistics)
(By Geoffrey James, Inc. Magazine, 4-16-2013)
Logevall wins Pulitzer Prize for 'Embers of War'
(Historian Fredrik Logevall, Cornell Professor's 2012 book
Embers of War: The Fall
of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam begins in 1919 and ends in 1959)
(By George Lowery, Cornell Chronicle, 4-16-2013)
Rick Warren
Responds To 'Haters' After Son Matthew Warren's Suicide
(Warren, whose book The Purpose Driven Life
has sold more than 30 million copies, is one of most
prominent Christian ministers. His 27-year-old son killed himself after years of mental illness.)
(By Jaweed Kaleem, Huffington Post, 4-9-2013)
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's body to be exhumed over murder claims
(Neruda's driver claims poet was murdered by Pinochet regime)
(By Jonathan Franklin, The Guardian, UK, 4-7-2013)
Prominent film critic Roger Ebert dead at 70
(Ebert was the most famous film reviewer of his time & first to win Pulitzer for film criticism)
(By Caryn Rousseau, Florida Times Union, 4-4-2013)
Why Pope Francis is different, and why a Jesuit pope is rare
(Ignatius of Loyola, founder of Jesuits championed "contemplatives in action")
(By William J. Rewak, S.J., Santa Clara Magazine, 4-3-2013)
Nick D'Aloisio: 'It was a massive gamble but a good one'
(Yahoo! paid £20 million to 17-year-old for his Summly smartphone app that summarized news stories);
(By Sarah Rainey, The Telegraph, UK, 3-26-2013)
* How I became a password cracker
(Cracking passwords is officially a "script kiddie" activity now.)
(By Nate Anderson, arstechinca, 3-24-2013)
Student's research could shake up Wall Street
(Aleksandar Zvorinji '13 creates algorithm outperforming financial analysts in predicting stock market.);
(By Kathy Hovis, Cornell Chronicle, 3-11-2013)
"Art souterrain:
An underground path to enlightenment"
(Barcelona artist Pedro Torres's claustrophobic video "Bifurcation" moves through endless corridors
bathed in yellow light) (By John Pohl, Montreal Gazette, 3-8-2013)
Teju Cole on the "Empathy Gap" and Tweeting Drone Strikes
(Seven short stories, each one a famous novel's opening line rudely interrupted by drones.)
(By Sarah Zhang, Mother Jones, 3-6-2013)
"Jhaqueil Reagan,
Indianapolis Teen Who Walked 10 Miles For Interview, Starts Foundation For Unemployed"
(18-year old walking 10 miles for job interview offered job by restaurant owner)
(By Pamela Engel, Huffington Post, 3-4-2013)
'Six Pretty Good Books' will become a Cornell MOOC
(Taught by Michael Macy, to explore the social sciences through books by prominent authors
including Steven Pinker, Nicholas Christakis, Robert Frank, Duncan Watts & Dan Ariely. After reading the book,
students debate among instructors & authors, who come to the classroom through videoconferencing.)
(By Bill Steele, Cornell Chronicle, 2-28-2013)
"Torture and Taboo: On Elaine Scarry"
(How the work of a literary critic became the proxy for our preoccupation with the horrors of torture.)
(By Samuel Moyn, The Nation, Feb. 25, 2013)
"7 gross-sounding foods that might help you live longer"
(Noxious gas that gives rotten eggs their foul odor could help counter cell-damaging free-radicals)
(By Chris Gayomali, The Week, 2-19-2013)
"Silicon alley No.2 for wealth concentration"
(1-Bridgeport, Connecticut, 2-Silicon Valley, 3-Washington D.C., 4-San Francisco, 4-New York City)
(By Lauren Hepler, Silicon Valley Business Journal, 2-12-2013)
"Wise Beyond Their Years: What Babies Really Know"
(Infant brain is just 25% adult's volume, but they have more synapses that are lost if not used)
(By Sumathi Reddy, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2013)
Google Fends Off BrightRoll in $7.6 Billion Video Market
(BrightRoll works with 90% of top 50 U.S. advertisers,
has doubled revenue annually for past five years.)
(By Olga Kharif, Bloomberg News, 1-30-2013)
* Enlightenment, one step at a time
(Walking is not only good exercise, but also illumines your mind.)
(By David Hansen, coastlinepilot.com, 1-30-2013)
The Happiness Machine: How Google became such a great place to work.
(Best to hire after 4 interviews; Best managers had more productive workers)
(By Farhad Manjoo, Slate, 1-21-2013)
Galactic surprise: New find overturns theories how our galaxy evolved
(Susan Kassin found Milky Way evolved from chaotic jumble of stars to an orderly disk galaxy)
(By Thomas Sumner, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1-5-2013)
"Book Review:
The Enlightened Cyclist by Bike Snob NYC"
(Commuter angst, dangerous drivers, and other obstacles on the path to two-wheeled transcendence)
(By Brent Cohrs, chicagonow.com, 12-10-2012)
LIFESTYLE: 12 Days of Christmas Now Cost $107,000
(One of each item costs $24,431; All 364 items costs $107,000, up 6.1% from last year)
(By Jim P. Dunigan, Wall Street Journal, 11-27-2012)
'The 12 Days Of Christmas' Items Will Cost You About $107,000
(2012 Costs: Partridge $15;
Turtledove $63; French Hen $55; Calling Bird $130; Gold Ring $150; Geese $35;
Swan $1000;
Maid Milking $7.25; Lady Dancing $700; Lord Leaping $477; Piper $233; Drummer $231)
(By Alexis Kleinman, Huffington Post, 11-26-2012)
BOOKS: The Hole in America's Soul
("Gangster Rap is racist pornography in blackface.")
(By Benjamin P. Bowser, Cornell Alumni Magazine, November/December 2012)
Elephant mimics Korean with help of his trunk
(Asian elephant Koshik astounds scientists with his Korean language skills)
(By Rebecca Morelle, BBC News, UK, Nov. 1, 2012)
*
From the Bible to the lab: Stanford scholar decodes the near-death experience
(Laura Wittman traces the evolution of near-death experiences in modern culture)
(By Camille Brown, Stanford Report, Oct. 30, 2012)
Can Nanotechnology Create Utopia?
(In 100 years, the replicator from nanotechnology, will create enormous abundance.)
(By Michio Kaku, bigthink.com, Oct. 24, 2012)
We are driven by self-interest, it's necessary to survive
(Need wise self-interest that is generous & co-operative to others.)
(By Dalai Lama, plus.google.com, Oct. 24, 2012)
Explanation: How Brain Training Can Make You Significantly Smarter
(Stanford neuroscientists designed
Lumosity to improve mental sharpness)
(howlifeworks.com, Oct. 23, 2012)
Where Is Amelia Earhart? Three Theories but No Smoking Gun
(Rollin C. Reineck wrote book Amelia Earhart Survived)
(By John Roach & Ker Than, National Geographic News, July 24, 2012)
Living With Voices
(New way to deal with disturbing voices offers hope for those with other forms of psychosis)
(By T.M. Luhrmann, The American Scholar, Summer 2012)
BOOK: Gentle in Manner, Strong in Deed (Jean Edward Smith's Eisenhower in War and Peace)
(Future British prime minister Harold Macmillan called Eisenhower "a jewel of broadmindedness
and wisdom." As Columbia's President, Eisenhower put university back on a solid financial footing.)
(By Christopher Caldwell, Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012)
Go Inside The World's Largest Treehouse, Which Was Inspired By God
(Horace Burgess built the tree house in Crossville, Tennessee, around an 85-foot oak tree.
The 8,000 to 10,000-square-foot treehouse includes 80 rooms & is supported by six trees.)
(By Callie Bost, Business Insider, June 20, 2012)
*
LinkedIn vs. password cracking
(Cracked 50% of passwords using RockYou list, Cain+Able, John-the-Ripper & large dictionaries)
(By Robert Graham, Errata Security, June 6, 2012)
Denzel Washington's 3 Tips For Successg
(1. Preparation Is The Key; 2. The Biggest Fear You Should Have Is The Fear Of Not Trying;
3. Become The Best At What You Do— "If I am a cup maker, I'm interested in making
the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it.")
(By AD, makemesuccesful.com, May 15, 2012)
BOOKS: Seeing and Believing— Experiences with evangelical congregations
(Review of T.M. Luhrmann's "When God Talks Back"
based on her two years
in Chicago's evangelical church & two years in a Palo Alto's congregation)
(By Joan Acocella, New Yorker, April 2, 2012)
Murnau's 1926 Faust: Cinequest Finale
(Faust is sometimes quaint and sometimes haunting, with its royal wedding attended by a brace
of full-size pantomime elephants, with its flight above the Alps, past pagodas & strange waterfalls,
over which storks as big as pterodactyls fly. Murnau's last film before leaving Germany.)
(By Richard von Busack, Metro, March 7, 2012)
James Karman: Robinson Jeffers Gets His Due
("Robinson Jeffers is the most important poet of the 20th century, but nobody's buying that yet.")
(By Cynthia Haven, The Book Haven, Dec. 8, 2011)
David Karp, the Nonconformist Who Built Tumblr
(Leica M9 camera; Pilot Precise V7 pen; app'ts caustic to creativity; 18% blogs are fashion)
(By Liz Welch, Inc. Magazine, June 2011)
* Video: Beauty as a Call to Justice: Elaine Scarry
(John Rawls view of justice— symmetry & fairness; Beauty as state of bliss;
Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just presses us toward a greater concern for justice.)
(By Elaine Scarry, Harvard Thinks Big2 Video, March 4, 2011)
What caused the flash crash?— One big, bad trade
(SEC & CFTC issued a joint report on the "flash crash" of May 6th, where American share and
futures indices went into a seemingly inexplicable tailspin, falling 10% in a matter of minutes.)
(By Economist Online, October 1, 2010)
Robinson Jeffers: Literary Legacy— An Uncommon Voice
(Jeffers' generation lived through an exceptional moment in human history and passed away
like "the leaves that dies away" spoken by Glaukos on meeting Diomedes in Homer's Iliad.)
(By James Karman, California History, Vol. 87, No. 2, April 2010, 6-11)
* Video: Elaine Scarry: Beauty and Social Justice
(Fair playing field, injury with jury linked to justice; Elaine Scarry: Beauty as opiated adjaceny;
Iris Murdoch: beauty as unselfing; Simone Weil: beauty as decentering; Beauty brings art & poetry;
Wildflower is natural, garden is artifactual; Justice is artifactual, needing human intervention.;
Shiro Kuramata's
"Miss Blanche";
"Glass Chair";
"How High the Moon" armchair)
(By Elaine Scarry, Cambridge University Video, May 21, 2010)
How an Eccentric Right-Wing Pizza Billionaire's Attempt to Build Catholic Law School Ended in Disaster
(Tom Monaghan, Domino's Pizza founder, took advice from God and Antonin Scalia
on the creation of of a Catholic Law school in Florida. It hasn't gone very well.)
(By Mariah Blake, Washington Monthly, Sept. 8, 2009)
*
Preacher Roe, Brooklyn Dodger ace, dies at 93
(In 1951, Roe had one of the greatest seasons ever for a pitcher going 22-3 with a 3.03 ERA;
He retired in 1954 with a 127-84 career record and 3.43 ERA; admitted he threw a spitter.)
(By Bill Madden, Daily News, Nov. 10, 2008)
In the Beginning, Such a Happy Couplet
(Eileen Simpson & husband John Berryman's intense friendships with poets Delmore Schwartz,
R.P. Blackmur, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, Allen Tate, and Theodore Roethke.)
(By Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, Oct. 16, 2006)
Is the Capacity for Spirituality Determined by Brain Chemistry?
(Geneticist's book The God Gene disputed by scientists, embraced by religious leaders)
(By Bill Broadway, Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2004, B09)
*
Mark Pesce: Meditation on Words (Words have this quality—
it's almost like magic in that they can help you see things that are otherwise invisible.)
(Mark Pesce sent this email on Oct. 29, 2004 at 5:55 am & only one site reposted his insights)
(By Mark Pesce, The Corroboree, Nov. 4, 2004)
Things grow better with Coke
(Indian farmers spray cotton & chilli fields with Coca-Cola instead of pesticides)
(By John Vidal, The Guardian, UK, Nov. 1, 2004)
Morphine Apparently in Your Head
(Meinhart Zenk found human cells grown in a dish synthesized morphine;
George Stefano showed animal neural tissue can synthesize morphine.)
(By Kristen Philipkoski, Wired, Sept. 23, 2004)
Stem Cells May Open Some Eyes
(Robert Lanza found retinal cells derived from embryonic stem cells
could actually give vision to those who are already blind.)
(By Kristen Philipkoski, Wired, Sept. 24, 2004)
Secrets of a Salty Survivor: A microbe that grows in the Dead Sea
is teaching scientists about the art of DNA repair
(Microbe Halobacterium would protect astronauts to Mars from space radiation)
(By Kristen Philipkoski, NASA Science News, Sept. 10, 2004)
The Earth Shook, The Sky Burned
(Before dawn on April 19, 1906, city of San Francisco woke to a series of explosions
and a tremendous rumbling. In less than a minute, the earthquake set in motion the
worst natural disaster the nation has ever experienced. By noon, all of Newspaper Row
was destroyed, including the city's tallest structure, the 22-story Call Building.)
(By Rachel Galvin, Humanities, November/December 2003, pp. 10-13, 50-54)
Dvořák in America
(Composing Symphony #9: New World Symphony (1893),
Antonín Dvořák
was inspired by Native American chants and Negro spirituals melodies.)
(By Scott Ethier, Humanities, November/December 2003, pp. 26-29)
Hitler's Forgotten Library
(101st Airborne Division shipped 3000 books in Hitler's Library near Berchtesgaden
to Munich in 1945 and transferred in January 1952 to the U.S. Library of Congress)
(By Timothy W. Ryback, The Atlantic, May 1, 2003)
*
Total Recall
[Why I'll never again forget a face, a name, or where I put the car keys; Carl Messina,
an ebullient evangelist for "art and science of mnemonics" taught us the FIG system
(File, Image, Glue)— Body list: toes, knee, thigh, hips, lungs, shoulder, collar, face,
top of head, ceilng. Images: squash eggs between your toes, apply hot bacon to your
knees, slather mustard to your thighs, dip your buttocks in tub of milk, inhale a banana
into your lungs, smear peanut butter on your shoulders, stuff lettuce int your collars,
plop tomato sauce on your face, place Cheerios on your head, paint ceiling with black
shoe polish; You'll never forget this list when you go grocery shopping!]
(By Jim Thorton, Modern Maturity, Sept/Oct. 2001, pp. 56-62, 88)
The Great American Pastime Tree
(What do baseball players and foresters have in common? A deep appreciation of the white ash.
Hillerich & Bradsby burned its famous Louisville Slugger trademark into 7 million wood bats in 1971
and sold 200,000 aluminum ones. The production numbers for 1999 were 1.5 million aluminum bats
and only a million turned from ash. Mark McGwire's bats are 34.5 inches long & a light 33 ounces.)
(By Les Line, National Wildlife, April 1, 2000)
*
Does beauty really equal truth?
(Philosopher Elaine Scarry defends beauty from political correct critics & wins over one cynical writer.);
(By David Bowman, Salon, Nov. 9, 1999)
Men, Women, & Computers
(Men earning computer-science degrees outnumber women 3 to 1 and the gap is growing.
Computer games usually involve lots of shooting and dying. Boy stuff.)
(By Barbara Kantrowitz, Newsweek, May 16, 1994)
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