Alvaro Saumet and Lya Battle are a married couple who operate a large no-kill shelter for hundreds of stray dogs in Costa Rica. It’s called Territorio de Zaguates (roughly “Land of Mongrels”) where the dogs are spayed or neutered, given … Continue reading
A very popular YouTube video (included in this previous post) matched 66 clips of dance scenes from classic films to the song “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. Someone in France has created a similar mashup, this time … Continue reading
Garry Shandling died Thursday at the age of 66, and that night Conan O’Brien talked about how Shandling helped him get past a personal crisis, partly as a consequence of a strange coincidence. There have been a lot of tributes … Continue reading
Interesting brief video (under four minutes) about some things in our bodies that aren’t very useful but are left over in our DNA from our remote ancestors: Link: https://youtu.be/rFxu7NEoKC8 by … Continue reading
Pediatrician Aaron Carroll summarizes findings of a study on the behavior and other attributes of kids today versus 1972. The news is surprisingly good — not perfect, but better than many people might expect: Less use of tobacco and alcohol, … Continue reading
Music associated with positive emotions — love, happiness, and so on — tends to be written in a major key, and minor keys are used for music meant to sound sad, eerie, or menacing. This is of course very rough … Continue reading
In this brief clip novelist John Green points out yet another way in which the world is better and offers some thoughts (prompted by Bill Gates) on the importance of free time and (preferably less polluting) sources of energy. It’s … Continue reading
Research published in the 29 January issue of the journal Science shows that more than 2000 years ago, Babylonian astronomers in what is today Iraq were using unexpectedly advanced mathematics to predict the position of Jupiter. This is based on … Continue reading
I’m late getting this posted, but for the record, today, February 22, is Washington’s actual birthday. The Washington’s Birthday holiday in the United States is observed on the third Monday in February, which never actually falls on Washington’s birthday. But … Continue reading
Novelist and incredibly prolific YouTuber John Green puts a number of supposed “life hacks” to the test, with results that are often amusing and sometimes useful: Link: https://youtu.be/AeqXaWMFUm8 Highlights include Freezing onions stops them from causing tears Freezing clothing with … Continue reading