Science
History of the Santa Tracker: How a Typo began Christmas tracking at NORAD
History of the NORAD Santa Tracker: How a typo began Christmas tracking at NORAD
Read MoreScience of the Winter Solstice
Science of the Winter Solstice: what does it mean, how it ushers in Winter
Read MoreHistory of Coronavirus: How Will It End?
HISTORY OF CORONAVIRUS: HOW WILL IT END? On December 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorization to the first COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., making the Pfizer-BioNTech injection the first to be administered. Yesterday, the FDA also approved the second candidate from Moderna-BioNTech. While having a vaccine is a necessary…
Read MoreHistory of How Pandemics End: Implications for Today’s COVID-19
HISTORY OF HOW PANDEMICS END: IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY’S COVID-19 With the COVID-19 pandemic on everyone’s mind, the natural question is: How have pandemics ended in the past… and what can we learn from these historical lessons? As a follow-up to the article I wrote at the beginning of the COVID “lockdown” back in March,…
Read MoreHistory of Mistletoe: Why is it the Kissing plant?
HISTORY OF MISTLETOE We’ve mentioned previously that mistletoe was prominent in the traditions of the Druids and the lore of northern Europe. The Druids used the mistletoe of their sacred oak as part of their ritual five days after the new moon following the Winter Solstice. In the Middle Ages, it was hung from ceilings…
Read MoreHistory of the Christmas Star: Natural or supernatural?
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS STAR The Star of Bethlehem has puzzled scholars for centuries. Some have skeptically dismissed the phenomenon as a myth, a mere literary device to call attention to the importance of the Nativity. Others have argued that the star was miraculously placed there to guide the Magi and is, therefore, beyond all…
Read MoreHistory of Vaccines: What This Means For Coronavirus
HISTORY OF VACCINES: WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CORONAVIRUS Today, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they are submitting their Coronavirus vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Approval. What are vaccines, when were they first developed, and what is the road to an approved vaccine in today’s world? “Vaca” in the word vaccine sounds…
Read MoreInformation Reformation
Historical parallels between the what Martin Luther did with the moveable type printing price that was the spark that ignited the Reformation and the advent of modern technologies that similarly transformed the Internet into the World Wide Web.
Read MoreHistory of Daylight Saving Time – Fall Back
HISTORY OF DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME – ENDING Daylight Saving Time, or DST, is a brilliant campaign to convince us that we’re getting more daylight each day when in reality, we’ve simply changed our clocks and then forgotten about it within two weeks. DST begins each year at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March…
Read MoreHistory of the Internet
HISTORY OF THE INTERNET: OVER 50 YEARS AGO On October 29, 1969, at 10:30 PM, a computer grad student at UCLA named Charley Kline sent a message to SRI (Stanford Research Institute.) It was the first connection between computer networks. The Internet began! We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys…
Read MoreHistory of Mach 1: 73 Years Ago – Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier
THE HISTORY OF MACH 1 On June 10, 1948, The U.S. Air Force confirmed that Capt. Chuck Yeager had repeatedly attained supersonic speeds in the Bell X-1. Background But it was on October 14, 1947, that Chuck Yeager, now 97 and a Brigadier General (retired), actually broke the sound barrier for the first time. I met…
Read MoreHistory of the Aspens
HISTORY OF THE ASPENS Every year about this time, Fall is ushered in by a flush of Aspen trees as their leaves turn to gold. Where I live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the particular aspen is called the “trembling” or quaking aspen. The broadleaf and the flattened stem cause them to flutter in…
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