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Playtime
Now that school is about to begin, it's time to tell our kids to pay no attention and go outside and play. Not what you expected from an academic, but there it is.These days kids in Western culture are...
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A New Member of the Family
Paleontologists announced a new member of our family tree this week, Australopithecus sediba. They were found in a cave in South Africa, nicely preserved although 1.9 million years old.Australopithecus...
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Feeling Old
I haven't posted in many weeks because I've been feeling old, slow, and worn out. But it's not my fault, it's the fault of my genes, or the ones I am apparently missing.Dutch scientists have recently...
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The Shirt Off or On Your Back
Several years ago I was walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City and this creepy guy was walking along next to me jabbering on and on to no one in particular. He was clearly schizophrenic. A block...
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The Birth of Spirtituality
My sister and I were just discussing the joys of senior memory loss. She described losing her name tag at work and searching everywhere for it, only to have it suddenly appear at her feet.Where she...
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Body Shop
There is enough eye make-up in my house to last the cast of a major Broadway show at least a year.Ever since I was 15, I have worn eye make-up everyday day, and that morning ritual has been passed on...
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The Painted Sacred Horses
In the late summer of 1987, I dipped my feet, shoes and all, into a bucket of disinfectant, shook off the solution, and then passed through a small metal door set in a hillock in the French countryside...
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A House is Not Just a Home
My dream house is 800-900 square feet with no room for storage, someplace set on a small plot of land near some beach. I don't want to spend much time cleaning it, or heating it, or doing much of...
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The Ancients Known as The Sex Pistols
Not said graffito, but a drawing by Jonny Rotten.Archaeologists have just announced the discovery one of the greatest finds of human history—perfectly preserved graffiti by The Sex Pistols scribbled...
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Paper Pushers
Long ago, there was no paper to write on, and then no one to explain the writing on the first paper.But now we have The American Society of Papyrologists, a group dedicated to decoding whatever is...
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Rite of Passage
Last week my 14-year-old needed to work on an essay for an astronomy camp and they wanted three references "not from the internet" (bless them).The only library open in town was Mann Science Library...
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The Broken Heart
I could have saved this for Valentine's Day, but that would be too sad.Researchers have just reported that a person is of great risk of a heart attack right after their loved one dies. The day after a...
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The Small Girls Guide
I am related to a bunch of "girls" and we've been thinking for a long time that the world would be a better place if we could tell everyone what to do, several times a week.And so we are.....Announcing...
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Not So Wild Teens
Whew! Researchers claim that teenagers are having less sex....or fewer are having sex....or something.The CDC reports that 43 percent of unmarried teen girls are having sex, which is down 2.8 percent...
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Buttered or Not?
Archaeologists have just found the world's oldest popcorn along the coast of Peru (and you thought it was that stuff flattened under your feet at the movies ).This is not so much popcorn as cobs...
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
A comic once said "The true definition of a woman is someone who's hair is never quite right."Thank God there are a bunch of physicists out there who are just as concerned with hair as women (and some...
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The Loneliest Culture
I haven't posted for a few weeks because I was in Italy. Now I am back, and not happy about it.It's not just that the scenery is gorgeous there,or that the architecture is amazing,or that the food is...
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Team Work
And in a related story.....to my previous post about how unsocial and therefore unnatural American culture is....Scientists recently compared how little kids, chimps, and capuchin monkeys share...
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Like, Whhhaaat?
Airhead. Bubblehead. Valley Girl.These labels are reserved for women and girls who talk as if they didn't have a cell in their brains. But linguists are now saying that these very women and girls are...
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MIssion Controlled Archaeology
Many years ago I was traveling in Tunisia with a boyfriend who was (and still is) a paleoanthropologist. That's a fancy word for people who are interested in very ancient people, like...
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