Curio Cabinet
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February 1, 2023
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1 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree1 CQ
Word of the Day : February 1, 2023
eleemosynary \el-ih-MAH-suh-nair-ee\ adjective
What It Means
Eleemosynary means "of, relating to, or supported by chari...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : February 1, 2023
eleemosynary \el-ih-MAH-suh-nair-ee\ adjective
What It Means
Eleemosynary means "of, relating to, or supported by chari...
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FREEEntrepreneurship Nerdy CurioFree1 CQ
It seems you can rent out anything these days! We’ve written before about people renting out their swimming pools to make extra cash, and it turns out you can do something similar with boats. Boatsetter is a company that allows users to rent out their personal boats for whatever hourly fee they choose. The company collects a 20 to 35 percent fee on each rental, and users must provide proof of boat insurance, or sign up for the insurance that Boatsetter offers through Geico Marine. Users don’t actually need to have any boating experience to register their boat for rent…though if they also want to serve as the boat’s captain, they have to show proof of a boating license (and those renting must do the same if they plan to captain the boat). For those who live near the water, renting out boats can be a surprisingly lucrative business or side hustle. 32-year old JP Mancini II, of Key West, Florida, had little experience with boats (his career was in car sales) before he bought his first one in 2020 and began renting it out with Boatsetter. Rather than using the money he made to pay off the boat’s loan, Mancini used it to fund other boat purchases, focusing on luxury motorboats that weren’t easy to find for rent on other platforms. That decision has paid off big, as today he makes around $39,000 a month. Though a large percentage of that money goes toward paying off the loans for his boats, Mancini was still able to leave his past career in car sales to focus on his new boating business full time. Of course, Key West is an ideal market for boat renting due to the area’s constant supply of luxury-seeking tourists, but not everyone who finds success with Boatsetter lives near the ocean. Those who live near large rivers and lakes have also found success on the platform, many by renting their boats to fishermen. It may not be as fancy, but it can still pay the bills.
[Image description: A motorboat with bicycles aboard makes its way across water with sailboats in the background.] Credit & copyright: pasja1000, PixabayIt seems you can rent out anything these days! We’ve written before about people renting out their swimming pools to make extra cash, and it turns out you can do something similar with boats. Boatsetter is a company that allows users to rent out their personal boats for whatever hourly fee they choose. The company collects a 20 to 35 percent fee on each rental, and users must provide proof of boat insurance, or sign up for the insurance that Boatsetter offers through Geico Marine. Users don’t actually need to have any boating experience to register their boat for rent…though if they also want to serve as the boat’s captain, they have to show proof of a boating license (and those renting must do the same if they plan to captain the boat). For those who live near the water, renting out boats can be a surprisingly lucrative business or side hustle. 32-year old JP Mancini II, of Key West, Florida, had little experience with boats (his career was in car sales) before he bought his first one in 2020 and began renting it out with Boatsetter. Rather than using the money he made to pay off the boat’s loan, Mancini used it to fund other boat purchases, focusing on luxury motorboats that weren’t easy to find for rent on other platforms. That decision has paid off big, as today he makes around $39,000 a month. Though a large percentage of that money goes toward paying off the loans for his boats, Mancini was still able to leave his past career in car sales to focus on his new boating business full time. Of course, Key West is an ideal market for boat renting due to the area’s constant supply of luxury-seeking tourists, but not everyone who finds success with Boatsetter lives near the ocean. Those who live near large rivers and lakes have also found success on the platform, many by renting their boats to fishermen. It may not be as fancy, but it can still pay the bills.
[Image description: A motorboat with bicycles aboard makes its way across water with sailboats in the background.] Credit & copyright: pasja1000, Pixabay -
FREEDogs Daily Curio #2593Free1 CQ
Dogs may not understand why we dress them in tiny sweaters, but they do understand our intentions in other situations. Dogs already have a reputation for being smart animals, but new research shows that they are also able to differentiate between malice and mistakes. Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna conducted a series of experiments to see just how much dogs understood about human behavior. One of the tests involved a researcher holding a treat above a container that was inaccessible to the dogs. When she offered the treat and had the dogs come over, she pretended to accidentally drop it into the container when the dogs reached for the treat. In another experiment, she held the treat out to the dogs, but when they came over to her, she jerked the treat away suddenly. Finally, in another experiment, she pretended to try to squeeze the treat through a narrow hole to give it to the dogs, while appearing to struggle. During these experiments, the researchers analyzed the body language of the dogs with AI-powered 3D tracking software to interpret what the dogs might have been thinking based on our current understanding of the way dogs communicate. When the researcher was pretending to be clumsy, the dogs hung around 89 percent of the time, seemingly under the assumption that the treat was on the way, but that the human was too clumsy to feed them right away. When the researcher pretended to be deceitful by yanking the treat away, on the other hand, the dogs only hung around 78 percent of the time, presumably unwilling to wait around for a treat they believed they would not receive. In the final experiment where the researcher pretended to struggle, only 64 percent of the dogs bothered to stay for the treat, believing that the effort was fruitless and that they would not get the treat. Overall, the researchers say the results show that dogs are capable of distinguishing between inability and unwillingness in similar situations, meaning that dogs may be more complex than humans give them credit for. Now go pet your dog and tell them they’re good…they’ll know if you mean it or not!
[Image description: A small dog wearing a blue sweater vest reaches for a treat in a human’s hand.] Credit & copyright: StockSnap, PixabayDogs may not understand why we dress them in tiny sweaters, but they do understand our intentions in other situations. Dogs already have a reputation for being smart animals, but new research shows that they are also able to differentiate between malice and mistakes. Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna conducted a series of experiments to see just how much dogs understood about human behavior. One of the tests involved a researcher holding a treat above a container that was inaccessible to the dogs. When she offered the treat and had the dogs come over, she pretended to accidentally drop it into the container when the dogs reached for the treat. In another experiment, she held the treat out to the dogs, but when they came over to her, she jerked the treat away suddenly. Finally, in another experiment, she pretended to try to squeeze the treat through a narrow hole to give it to the dogs, while appearing to struggle. During these experiments, the researchers analyzed the body language of the dogs with AI-powered 3D tracking software to interpret what the dogs might have been thinking based on our current understanding of the way dogs communicate. When the researcher was pretending to be clumsy, the dogs hung around 89 percent of the time, seemingly under the assumption that the treat was on the way, but that the human was too clumsy to feed them right away. When the researcher pretended to be deceitful by yanking the treat away, on the other hand, the dogs only hung around 78 percent of the time, presumably unwilling to wait around for a treat they believed they would not receive. In the final experiment where the researcher pretended to struggle, only 64 percent of the dogs bothered to stay for the treat, believing that the effort was fruitless and that they would not get the treat. Overall, the researchers say the results show that dogs are capable of distinguishing between inability and unwillingness in similar situations, meaning that dogs may be more complex than humans give them credit for. Now go pet your dog and tell them they’re good…they’ll know if you mean it or not!
[Image description: A small dog wearing a blue sweater vest reaches for a treat in a human’s hand.] Credit & copyright: StockSnap, Pixabay
January 31, 2023
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11 minFREEWork Business CurioFree6 CQ
From the BBC World Service: Three years on what has Brexit meant for businesses in the U.K. and the European Union? Britain’s official exit from the E.U. and...
From the BBC World Service: Three years on what has Brexit meant for businesses in the U.K. and the European Union? Britain’s official exit from the E.U. and...
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2 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree2 CQ
Word of the Day : January 31, 2023
savant \sa-VAHNT\ noun
What It Means
Savant is a formal word that refers to a learned person, especially someone with d...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 31, 2023
savant \sa-VAHNT\ noun
What It Means
Savant is a formal word that refers to a learned person, especially someone with d...
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FREEMusic Appreciation Song CurioFree2 CQ
Talk about a supergroup! In late 2022, four of Japan’s biggest rockstars, Yoshiki, Hyde, Sugizo, and Miyavi, announced that they’d be forming a band together. For those unfamiliar with Japanese rock, imagine Mick Jagger, Bono, Steven Tyler and Jon Bon Jovi teaming up, and you might have a sense of how exciting this is for fans of the genre. The aptly-named THE LAST ROCKSTARS released first, titular single, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) on December 23. Written by Yoshiki, who made a name for himself in the 1990s with a distorted, heavy metal style that was a rarity in Japan at the time, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) has a very different sound. Though it is undoubtedly a rock song, with its ultra-fast, bombastic beat and distorted electric guitars, its verses evoke modern, mainstream Japanese pop with clear vocals and lyrics about love and reaching for one’s dreams. Clearly, these rockers are out to show that their style isn’t stuck in the pre-Y2K era. As Sugizo said in a recent public statement, “We want to put what's left of our lives on the line to make the world rock with our music.” Rock on!
[Image description: Yoshiki plays piano as he performs onstage in front of an illuminated starry backdrop.] Credit & copyright: Justin Higuchi, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
Talk about a supergroup! In late 2022, four of Japan’s biggest rockstars, Yoshiki, Hyde, Sugizo, and Miyavi, announced that they’d be forming a band together. For those unfamiliar with Japanese rock, imagine Mick Jagger, Bono, Steven Tyler and Jon Bon Jovi teaming up, and you might have a sense of how exciting this is for fans of the genre. The aptly-named THE LAST ROCKSTARS released first, titular single, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) on December 23. Written by Yoshiki, who made a name for himself in the 1990s with a distorted, heavy metal style that was a rarity in Japan at the time, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) has a very different sound. Though it is undoubtedly a rock song, with its ultra-fast, bombastic beat and distorted electric guitars, its verses evoke modern, mainstream Japanese pop with clear vocals and lyrics about love and reaching for one’s dreams. Clearly, these rockers are out to show that their style isn’t stuck in the pre-Y2K era. As Sugizo said in a recent public statement, “We want to put what's left of our lives on the line to make the world rock with our music.” Rock on!
[Image description: Yoshiki plays piano as he performs onstage in front of an illuminated starry backdrop.] Credit & copyright: Justin Higuchi, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
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FREERelationships Daily Curio #2592Free1 CQ
Nothing like pancakes and coffee to start off the day. Even though it’s past the holiday season and winter is still here for a while longer, there’s reason to celebrate in Iceland, because the sun is finally shining down between the fjords once again, if only briefly. Despite its reputation for brutal winters, Iceland doesn’t see nights as long as those in places like Alaska. However, there are fjords carved into the landscape by ancient glaciers where the sun doesn’t shine directly for a few months starting in November. As the rest of Iceland gets to enjoy the winter sunlight (barring the nation’s famously cloudy weather, of course), the villages in the fjords only get indirect light from the sky, and the sun is hidden behind mountains. Starting in late January, though, the sun begins to rise high enough over the mountains that it can be seen by the residents of these villages. At first, it’s only for a few minutes at a time, but it’s worth celebrating nonetheless. The first day that the sun is visible is called Sólardagur, or “Sun Day.”
So how does one party it up on Sólardagur? With lots of pancakes and coffee! There’s even a special name for the coffee drunk on that day: Sólarkaffi, or “Sun coffee.” The solar merrymakers wish friends and family “gleðilega sólrisu,” or “Merry sunrise!” Those who are willing and able trek up the mountains to greet the sun, which can remain in the sky for as few as 10 minutes, sometimes do so on Sólardagur. Not everyone celebrates Sólardagur on the same day, though, since different areas get their first view of the sun at different times. Some families even celebrate the day independently based on when the light of the sun hits their home specifically. Forget white Christmas—let’s hear it for a bright sun day!
[Image description: The sun shines through a waterfall in a cave in Iceland.] Credit & copyright: 12019, PixabayNothing like pancakes and coffee to start off the day. Even though it’s past the holiday season and winter is still here for a while longer, there’s reason to celebrate in Iceland, because the sun is finally shining down between the fjords once again, if only briefly. Despite its reputation for brutal winters, Iceland doesn’t see nights as long as those in places like Alaska. However, there are fjords carved into the landscape by ancient glaciers where the sun doesn’t shine directly for a few months starting in November. As the rest of Iceland gets to enjoy the winter sunlight (barring the nation’s famously cloudy weather, of course), the villages in the fjords only get indirect light from the sky, and the sun is hidden behind mountains. Starting in late January, though, the sun begins to rise high enough over the mountains that it can be seen by the residents of these villages. At first, it’s only for a few minutes at a time, but it’s worth celebrating nonetheless. The first day that the sun is visible is called Sólardagur, or “Sun Day.”
So how does one party it up on Sólardagur? With lots of pancakes and coffee! There’s even a special name for the coffee drunk on that day: Sólarkaffi, or “Sun coffee.” The solar merrymakers wish friends and family “gleðilega sólrisu,” or “Merry sunrise!” Those who are willing and able trek up the mountains to greet the sun, which can remain in the sky for as few as 10 minutes, sometimes do so on Sólardagur. Not everyone celebrates Sólardagur on the same day, though, since different areas get their first view of the sun at different times. Some families even celebrate the day independently based on when the light of the sun hits their home specifically. Forget white Christmas—let’s hear it for a bright sun day!
[Image description: The sun shines through a waterfall in a cave in Iceland.] Credit & copyright: 12019, Pixabay
January 30, 2023
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1 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree1 CQ
Word of the Day : January 30, 2023
adapt \uh-DAPT\ verb
What It Means
To adapt is to make or become fit (as for a new use) often by modification.
// When...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 30, 2023
adapt \uh-DAPT\ verb
What It Means
To adapt is to make or become fit (as for a new use) often by modification.
// When...
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8 minFREEWork Business CurioFree5 CQ
Today’s GDP numbers likely lifted many an economist’s spirits — the economy grew at 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter last year, a solid showing despite infl...
Today’s GDP numbers likely lifted many an economist’s spirits — the economy grew at 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter last year, a solid showing despite infl...
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FREEArt Appreciation Art CurioFree1 CQ
It’s not quite time for spring cleaning, but you might want to check your shed anyway. That’s where one lucky art collector found a rare painting by 17th-century Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck a few decades ago. It was recently sold at an auction in New York City. The piece, A Study for Saint Jerome with an Angel, depicts a nude man sitting with a downcast gaze and his hands hanging in front of him. He has gray hair and a beard. After its discovery, the painting was originally purchased by an art collector for $600 in 2002. Now, it has sold for over $3 million. The three-foot-long painting is one of only two surviving examples of a live study, or art piece created from observing a live model, done by van Dyck in this scale. The model is the same figure that appears in Saint Jerome with an Angel. Van Dyck is considered one of the greatest Flemish artists of the 17th-century and was known for his portraits of royal figures like King Charles I. The man in this painting might not be a king, but his portrait is worth a king’s ransom!
Study for Saint Jerome with an Angel, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), 1615–18, oil on canvas, Sotheby's, New York City, New York
Below: Another of Van Dyck’s paintings, Self Portrait with a Sunflower.
It’s not quite time for spring cleaning, but you might want to check your shed anyway. That’s where one lucky art collector found a rare painting by 17th-century Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck a few decades ago. It was recently sold at an auction in New York City. The piece, A Study for Saint Jerome with an Angel, depicts a nude man sitting with a downcast gaze and his hands hanging in front of him. He has gray hair and a beard. After its discovery, the painting was originally purchased by an art collector for $600 in 2002. Now, it has sold for over $3 million. The three-foot-long painting is one of only two surviving examples of a live study, or art piece created from observing a live model, done by van Dyck in this scale. The model is the same figure that appears in Saint Jerome with an Angel. Van Dyck is considered one of the greatest Flemish artists of the 17th-century and was known for his portraits of royal figures like King Charles I. The man in this painting might not be a king, but his portrait is worth a king’s ransom!
Study for Saint Jerome with an Angel, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), 1615–18, oil on canvas, Sotheby's, New York City, New York
Below: Another of Van Dyck’s paintings, Self Portrait with a Sunflower.
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FREEBiology Daily Curio #2591Free1 CQ
The root of human language might not be all that far down in the tree of life. Researchers at the University of St. Andrews have found that humans share some striking similarities with our great ape cousins when it comes to the way we communicate using body and hand gestures. This hints at the possibility of a common origin of language between apes and humans. To test this theory, the researchers first created a catalog of gestures used by chimpanzees and bonobos that conveyed meanings like, “groom me,” “let’s mate” and “come here.” Interestingly, the two species used the same gestures for many of these messages, even though the two populations don’t interact in the wild. Lead researcher Kristy Graham and her team then recorded chimps and bonobos making the gestures from the catalog. They showed these recordings to human volunteers and asked them to choose what each gesture meant from a selection of multiple choice answers. According to the results, human beings can understand great apes’ body language over 50 percent of the time, a rate that is higher than if the volunteers had simply guessed. In other words, human beings can understand chimps and bonobos using just hand signals and body language intrinsically, even though we are different species with no shared spoken language. That may not seem like a big deal, but it means that there is something innately similar in the way human beings and other great apes understand and process language. Graham told the BBC, "Human infants use some of these same gestures, too. So we already had a suspicion that this was a shared gesturing ability that might have been present in our last shared ancestor…We're quite confident now that our ancestors would have started off gesturing, and that this was co-opted into [our] language." That’s a big thumbs up for evolutionary science!
[Image description: A chimpanzee lies on its back and chews on a blade of grass.] Credit & copyright: Gotti1979, PixabayThe root of human language might not be all that far down in the tree of life. Researchers at the University of St. Andrews have found that humans share some striking similarities with our great ape cousins when it comes to the way we communicate using body and hand gestures. This hints at the possibility of a common origin of language between apes and humans. To test this theory, the researchers first created a catalog of gestures used by chimpanzees and bonobos that conveyed meanings like, “groom me,” “let’s mate” and “come here.” Interestingly, the two species used the same gestures for many of these messages, even though the two populations don’t interact in the wild. Lead researcher Kristy Graham and her team then recorded chimps and bonobos making the gestures from the catalog. They showed these recordings to human volunteers and asked them to choose what each gesture meant from a selection of multiple choice answers. According to the results, human beings can understand great apes’ body language over 50 percent of the time, a rate that is higher than if the volunteers had simply guessed. In other words, human beings can understand chimps and bonobos using just hand signals and body language intrinsically, even though we are different species with no shared spoken language. That may not seem like a big deal, but it means that there is something innately similar in the way human beings and other great apes understand and process language. Graham told the BBC, "Human infants use some of these same gestures, too. So we already had a suspicion that this was a shared gesturing ability that might have been present in our last shared ancestor…We're quite confident now that our ancestors would have started off gesturing, and that this was co-opted into [our] language." That’s a big thumbs up for evolutionary science!
[Image description: A chimpanzee lies on its back and chews on a blade of grass.] Credit & copyright: Gotti1979, Pixabay
January 29, 2023
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2 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree2 CQ
Word of the Day : January 29, 2023
rubric \ROO-brik\ noun
What It Means
Rubric is a somewhat formal word that is most often used to mean “an established r...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 29, 2023
rubric \ROO-brik\ noun
What It Means
Rubric is a somewhat formal word that is most often used to mean “an established r...
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FREEEngineering PP&T CurioFree1 CQ
On this day in 1986, the U.S. was in mourning. One day earlier, on January 28, the space shuttle Challenger had exploded after takeoff, killing all seven crew members aboard. Most Americans were in shock…but not engineer Allan J. McDonald. He had known that there were potentially deadly problems with the Challenger, and had tried to delay its launch. After the tragedy, McDonald and other like-minded engineers worked to expose those at NASA who had insisted on pressing forward with the launch in spite of safety concerns.
Born on July 9, 1937, in Coding, Wyoming, McDonald began working for Morton-Thiokol, Inc., a company specializing in rockets and propulsion systems, in 1959. He served as leader for all of Morton-Thiokol’s flight tests launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he would check the condition of missiles before they were launched for testing. In 1973, Morton-Thiokol was contracted by NASA to create solid rocket boosters for their space shuttles. McDonald led a team which assessed shuttles before their launches from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. It was up to McDonald to sign paperwork approving or disapproving each launch. He didn’t have the final say in whether launches moved forward, however. His opinion was considered alongside that of other engineers.
The space shuttle Challenger was built in 1983. Over its three years of service, it completed nine successful missions. Its tenth mission, designated STS-51-L, was originally scheduled for July, 1985. Assigning the crew took longer than anticipated, though, so the launch was rescheduled for November of that year. However, changes to the shuttle’s weight necessitated another delay, leading to the launch being set for January 28, 1986. Throughout the ongoing delays, McDonald and other engineers were tasked with inspecting Challenger, and they weren’t comfortable with what they found. The cold January weather made McDonald concerned about the O-ring seals in the shuttle's solid rocket booster joints. These O-rings were made from rubber, and were supposed to seal together joints in the boosters. Cold weather caused the rubber to stiffen. McDonald knew that this could lead to unsealed joints, and leaks of pressurized gas. Bob Ebeling, Arnold Thompson, and Roger Boisjoly, fellow engineers from Morton-Thiokol, agreed that the O-rings posed a serious problem. They, along with McDonald, told Morton-Thiokol officials of their concerns.
Unfortunately, pressure surrounded the mission. After all, Challenger’s launch had already been delayed, and the mission was highly-publicized due to the inclusion of school teacher Christa McAuliffe, the crew member meant to be America’s first civilian astronaut. When Morton-Thiokol brought their engineers’ concerns to NASA, they were dismissed. Days before launch, Morton-Thiokol asked McDonald to sign and submit an official form stating that the Challenger was safe to launch. He refused, but the launch moved forward anyway.
73 seconds after Challenger’s launch, the O-ring seals on the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster failed, having stiffened from the cold weather. Hot, pressurized gas from the boosters leaked through joints and into an external propellant tank. This caused an explosion and threw the shuttle into a rotation at nearly 1,500 miles per hour. It was ripped apart by aerodynamic forces, killing all seven crew members aboard. McDonald watched the tragedy unfold from Cape Canaveral.
Days later, he traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the Rogers Commission, a Presidential Commission meant to uncover the reasons behind the launch’s failure. McDonald listened as NASA officials failed to acknowledge his concerns leading up to the launch. Finally, he interrupted an official’s testimony by raising his hand to speak. He informed the commission that he and other engineers had recommended against the launch, refused to sign off on it, and had even sent NASA a letter of concern regarding the O-rings. The focus of the commission immediately shifted to focus on procedural failures at NASA. Afterward, Morton-Thiokol retaliated against McDonald by demoting him and several other engineers, including Roger Boisjoly. Boisjoly reported this to the commission, and Congress threatened to bar Morton-Thiokol from future federal contracts unless they reversed the demotions. In 1988, McDonald was placed in charge of creating new, safer rocket boosters for future shuttle launches.
Even after his retirement in 2001, McDonald remained committed to safety. He became a speaker on ethics and decision making, addressing engineers on the importance of both. Prior to his death in 2021, he donated his personal papers regarding the Challenger launch to Chapman University in the hope that they could prove useful to future researchers. No doubt they contain just as many lessons about leadership and heroism as they do about engineering.
[Image description: Allan J. McDonald gestures as he speaks at a conference in 2012.] Credit & copyright: NASA, Sean Smith, Wikimedia Commons, Public DomainOn this day in 1986, the U.S. was in mourning. One day earlier, on January 28, the space shuttle Challenger had exploded after takeoff, killing all seven crew members aboard. Most Americans were in shock…but not engineer Allan J. McDonald. He had known that there were potentially deadly problems with the Challenger, and had tried to delay its launch. After the tragedy, McDonald and other like-minded engineers worked to expose those at NASA who had insisted on pressing forward with the launch in spite of safety concerns.
Born on July 9, 1937, in Coding, Wyoming, McDonald began working for Morton-Thiokol, Inc., a company specializing in rockets and propulsion systems, in 1959. He served as leader for all of Morton-Thiokol’s flight tests launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he would check the condition of missiles before they were launched for testing. In 1973, Morton-Thiokol was contracted by NASA to create solid rocket boosters for their space shuttles. McDonald led a team which assessed shuttles before their launches from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. It was up to McDonald to sign paperwork approving or disapproving each launch. He didn’t have the final say in whether launches moved forward, however. His opinion was considered alongside that of other engineers.
The space shuttle Challenger was built in 1983. Over its three years of service, it completed nine successful missions. Its tenth mission, designated STS-51-L, was originally scheduled for July, 1985. Assigning the crew took longer than anticipated, though, so the launch was rescheduled for November of that year. However, changes to the shuttle’s weight necessitated another delay, leading to the launch being set for January 28, 1986. Throughout the ongoing delays, McDonald and other engineers were tasked with inspecting Challenger, and they weren’t comfortable with what they found. The cold January weather made McDonald concerned about the O-ring seals in the shuttle's solid rocket booster joints. These O-rings were made from rubber, and were supposed to seal together joints in the boosters. Cold weather caused the rubber to stiffen. McDonald knew that this could lead to unsealed joints, and leaks of pressurized gas. Bob Ebeling, Arnold Thompson, and Roger Boisjoly, fellow engineers from Morton-Thiokol, agreed that the O-rings posed a serious problem. They, along with McDonald, told Morton-Thiokol officials of their concerns.
Unfortunately, pressure surrounded the mission. After all, Challenger’s launch had already been delayed, and the mission was highly-publicized due to the inclusion of school teacher Christa McAuliffe, the crew member meant to be America’s first civilian astronaut. When Morton-Thiokol brought their engineers’ concerns to NASA, they were dismissed. Days before launch, Morton-Thiokol asked McDonald to sign and submit an official form stating that the Challenger was safe to launch. He refused, but the launch moved forward anyway.
73 seconds after Challenger’s launch, the O-ring seals on the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster failed, having stiffened from the cold weather. Hot, pressurized gas from the boosters leaked through joints and into an external propellant tank. This caused an explosion and threw the shuttle into a rotation at nearly 1,500 miles per hour. It was ripped apart by aerodynamic forces, killing all seven crew members aboard. McDonald watched the tragedy unfold from Cape Canaveral.
Days later, he traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the Rogers Commission, a Presidential Commission meant to uncover the reasons behind the launch’s failure. McDonald listened as NASA officials failed to acknowledge his concerns leading up to the launch. Finally, he interrupted an official’s testimony by raising his hand to speak. He informed the commission that he and other engineers had recommended against the launch, refused to sign off on it, and had even sent NASA a letter of concern regarding the O-rings. The focus of the commission immediately shifted to focus on procedural failures at NASA. Afterward, Morton-Thiokol retaliated against McDonald by demoting him and several other engineers, including Roger Boisjoly. Boisjoly reported this to the commission, and Congress threatened to bar Morton-Thiokol from future federal contracts unless they reversed the demotions. In 1988, McDonald was placed in charge of creating new, safer rocket boosters for future shuttle launches.
Even after his retirement in 2001, McDonald remained committed to safety. He became a speaker on ethics and decision making, addressing engineers on the importance of both. Prior to his death in 2021, he donated his personal papers regarding the Challenger launch to Chapman University in the hope that they could prove useful to future researchers. No doubt they contain just as many lessons about leadership and heroism as they do about engineering.
[Image description: Allan J. McDonald gestures as he speaks at a conference in 2012.] Credit & copyright: NASA, Sean Smith, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain -
8 minFREEWork Business CurioFree5 CQ
A new paper in the journal “Nature” finds that the rate of scientific innovation has been on a steady decline, despite living in the most technologically adv...
A new paper in the journal “Nature” finds that the rate of scientific innovation has been on a steady decline, despite living in the most technologically adv...
January 28, 2023
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2 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree2 CQ
Word of the Day : January 28, 2023
doctrinaire \dahk-truh-NAIR\ adjective
What It Means
Doctrinaire is a formal word that means “stubbornly or excessively...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 28, 2023
doctrinaire \dahk-truh-NAIR\ adjective
What It Means
Doctrinaire is a formal word that means “stubbornly or excessively...
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8 minFREEWork Business CurioFree5 CQ
The Federal Reserve’s latest measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, this morning indicates that inflation tempered last mon...
The Federal Reserve’s latest measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, this morning indicates that inflation tempered last mon...
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FREERunning Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It’s a homecoming for this queen of track and field. The University of Southern California (USC) has named its track after Allyson Felix, an alumni and Olympic gold medalist. Part of USC’s athletics complex, Allyson Felix Field will be formally dedicated in the spring. It’s an unusual move for a college, since facilities are most commonly named after major donors, but it makes sense considering Felix’s ties to the school and her incredible accomplishments. Felix grew up in Los Angeles near the USC campus, which her brother attended before her. As a child, she used to take walks around the campus with her grandmother and her brother, eventually enrolling at the school herself. She went on to graduate in 2008 with a degree in education, all while competing in track and field, winning 20 medals at the World Athletics Championships and 11 gold medals in the Olympics. The last gold was for the 4x400 meter event in Tokyo, where she also set a new track and field record by medaling in five consecutive Olympics. While competing, Felix has also been an advocate for women and people of color in sports as well as maternal health. Funnily enough, Felix never ran for USC because she was already a professional by the time she enrolled. But no one seems to be holding that against her. Paula Cannon, a faculty member who spearheaded the effort to name the field after Felix, said in a statement, “Allyson is the ultimate Trojan.” Felix herself stated, “It’s such a huge honor to be a part of history in the campus, and it’s such a special place for me.” This sports star is clearly cool enough for school.
[Image description: Allyson Felix holds up an American flag in celebration after a race.] Credit & copyright: Eckhard Pecher, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
It’s a homecoming for this queen of track and field. The University of Southern California (USC) has named its track after Allyson Felix, an alumni and Olympic gold medalist. Part of USC’s athletics complex, Allyson Felix Field will be formally dedicated in the spring. It’s an unusual move for a college, since facilities are most commonly named after major donors, but it makes sense considering Felix’s ties to the school and her incredible accomplishments. Felix grew up in Los Angeles near the USC campus, which her brother attended before her. As a child, she used to take walks around the campus with her grandmother and her brother, eventually enrolling at the school herself. She went on to graduate in 2008 with a degree in education, all while competing in track and field, winning 20 medals at the World Athletics Championships and 11 gold medals in the Olympics. The last gold was for the 4x400 meter event in Tokyo, where she also set a new track and field record by medaling in five consecutive Olympics. While competing, Felix has also been an advocate for women and people of color in sports as well as maternal health. Funnily enough, Felix never ran for USC because she was already a professional by the time she enrolled. But no one seems to be holding that against her. Paula Cannon, a faculty member who spearheaded the effort to name the field after Felix, said in a statement, “Allyson is the ultimate Trojan.” Felix herself stated, “It’s such a huge honor to be a part of history in the campus, and it’s such a special place for me.” This sports star is clearly cool enough for school.
[Image description: Allyson Felix holds up an American flag in celebration after a race.] Credit & copyright: Eckhard Pecher, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
January 27, 2023
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7 minFREEWork Business CurioFree4 CQ
From the BBC World Service: In a special programme from Dresden in east Germany, we hear from one European green tech company – Solarwatt – who are calling f...
From the BBC World Service: In a special programme from Dresden in east Germany, we hear from one European green tech company – Solarwatt – who are calling f...
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1 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree1 CQ
Word of the Day : January 27, 2023
wangle \WANG-gul\ verb
What It Means
Wangle means “to get (something) by trickery or persuasion.” It can also mean “to ...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 27, 2023
wangle \WANG-gul\ verb
What It Means
Wangle means “to get (something) by trickery or persuasion.” It can also mean “to ...
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FREEWorld History PP&T CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Born in 1928, Nobel-prize-winning author, professor, and social activist Elie Wiesel experienced firsthand the darkest horrors of the Holocaust as a mere juvenile. His memories of the ash and fire plagued him his entire life, causing him to recount his experiences in the autobiographical novel Night. Fueled by his past, Wiesel endeavored on a tireless, lifelong struggle to foster a harmonious global community.
Wiesel's life began in Sighet, Romania, and at a young age he leaned towards a pursuit in religious studies. But in 1940, Axis-aligned Hungary annexed Sighet, rounding up the Jewish population into a ghetto, including Wiesel and his family. There they remained until May 1944, when Nazis deported them to Auschwitz death camp in Poland, where 15-year-old Wiesel was separated from everyone but his father. From there, father and son labored at the brutal Buna Werke work camp until they were death-marched through snow to Buchenwald. There, Wiesel's father was beaten to death by a Nazi officer, just three months before the camp's liberation. Wiesel walked free in 1945, but out of his entire family, only two of his older sisters survived.
Picking up the pieces of his life, Wiesel moved to Paris to study journalism at Sorbonne in 1948. There, he befriended acclaimed French writer Francois Mauriac, who convinced him to write about his experiences. In 1958, Wiesel published a memoir called Night, or La Nuit in French: a solemn masterpiece considered a seminal Holocaust work.
By the time of Night's publishing, Wiesel had moved to New York City, where he would write a multitude of novels including two sequels for Night: Dawn (1961) and Day (1962). As Wiesel built a platform to speak from, he also began defending refugees of other war crimes, like those fleeing South Africa's apartheid, Bosnia's armed conflict, and the Rwandan genocide. To finance himself, he took jobs teaching in the philosophy and religion departments at Boston University and other prominent colleges.
In 1986, Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace, the cherry atop a list of other prestigious forms of recognition, including the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor. He and his wife Marion went on to create The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity with the prize's funds, an organization centered around fighting intolerance. On July 2, 2016, Wiesel passed away peacefully in his Manhattan home at 87—a fitting end for a soul that had endured so much.
Image credit & copyright: Michael Geissinger, Wikimedia Commons, Library of Congress, Public Domain
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Born in 1928, Nobel-prize-winning author, professor, and social activist Elie Wiesel experienced firsthand the darkest horrors of the Holocaust as a mere juvenile. His memories of the ash and fire plagued him his entire life, causing him to recount his experiences in the autobiographical novel Night. Fueled by his past, Wiesel endeavored on a tireless, lifelong struggle to foster a harmonious global community.
Wiesel's life began in Sighet, Romania, and at a young age he leaned towards a pursuit in religious studies. But in 1940, Axis-aligned Hungary annexed Sighet, rounding up the Jewish population into a ghetto, including Wiesel and his family. There they remained until May 1944, when Nazis deported them to Auschwitz death camp in Poland, where 15-year-old Wiesel was separated from everyone but his father. From there, father and son labored at the brutal Buna Werke work camp until they were death-marched through snow to Buchenwald. There, Wiesel's father was beaten to death by a Nazi officer, just three months before the camp's liberation. Wiesel walked free in 1945, but out of his entire family, only two of his older sisters survived.
Picking up the pieces of his life, Wiesel moved to Paris to study journalism at Sorbonne in 1948. There, he befriended acclaimed French writer Francois Mauriac, who convinced him to write about his experiences. In 1958, Wiesel published a memoir called Night, or La Nuit in French: a solemn masterpiece considered a seminal Holocaust work.
By the time of Night's publishing, Wiesel had moved to New York City, where he would write a multitude of novels including two sequels for Night: Dawn (1961) and Day (1962). As Wiesel built a platform to speak from, he also began defending refugees of other war crimes, like those fleeing South Africa's apartheid, Bosnia's armed conflict, and the Rwandan genocide. To finance himself, he took jobs teaching in the philosophy and religion departments at Boston University and other prominent colleges.
In 1986, Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace, the cherry atop a list of other prestigious forms of recognition, including the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor. He and his wife Marion went on to create The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity with the prize's funds, an organization centered around fighting intolerance. On July 2, 2016, Wiesel passed away peacefully in his Manhattan home at 87—a fitting end for a soul that had endured so much.
Image credit & copyright: Michael Geissinger, Wikimedia Commons, Library of Congress, Public Domain
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FREEMusic Appreciation Song CurioFree2 CQ
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
In these uncertain times, Kishi Bashi remains one of the most hopeful voices in indie music. The singer-songwriter-violinist recently released For Every Voice That Never Sang as part of NPR's Morning Edition Song Project. The series features songs for the COVID era: in Bashi's case, his song became a reflection on the rise of anti-Asian hate in the U.S. In For Every Voice, Bashi layers his trademark violin parts and sings delicately in the chorus of his solidarity with those who have been isolated and victimized by hate speech. Having previously explored themes related to the World War II Japanese internment camps, Bashi is no stranger to processing grief in his music, though he does try to balance things out: "I think the sense of optimism is something that I've always tried to inject into my music. Because when you think about minority identity, you could go to town on how painful it is ... but a lot of people want to get out of that pain. They want things to heal them." Here's hoping For Every Voice That Never Sang makes listeners feel the sense of optimism that only a Kishi Bashi song can convey.[Image credit & copyright: William Neuheisel, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
In these uncertain times, Kishi Bashi remains one of the most hopeful voices in indie music. The singer-songwriter-violinist recently released For Every Voice That Never Sang as part of NPR's Morning Edition Song Project. The series features songs for the COVID era: in Bashi's case, his song became a reflection on the rise of anti-Asian hate in the U.S. In For Every Voice, Bashi layers his trademark violin parts and sings delicately in the chorus of his solidarity with those who have been isolated and victimized by hate speech. Having previously explored themes related to the World War II Japanese internment camps, Bashi is no stranger to processing grief in his music, though he does try to balance things out: "I think the sense of optimism is something that I've always tried to inject into my music. Because when you think about minority identity, you could go to town on how painful it is ... but a lot of people want to get out of that pain. They want things to heal them." Here's hoping For Every Voice That Never Sang makes listeners feel the sense of optimism that only a Kishi Bashi song can convey.[Image credit & copyright: William Neuheisel, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
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FREEArt Appreciation Art CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Title: Der Brückechor (The Brücke Chorus)
Artist: Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)
Created: 1983
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 110 x 177.1 in (279.5 x 450 cm)
Current location: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
This is one chorus we certainly won't be joining. For the generation of Germans born during and immediately after World War II, adolescence was an uneasy period marked by traumas and guilt—fevers that made it hard to appreciate heartwarming moments. Artist Georg Baselitz, born in 1938, witnessed the war as a small child, an experience that would deeply inform his art. Its influence shows in Der Brückechor, or "The Brücke Chorus." It's clearly a troubled piece; within it, Baselitz is attempting to celebrate the innocuous choir, but somehow we're left uneasy, as if we've received a terrible omen. The minimally rendered singers, suspended upside down, appear to be submerged under the black ripples of a waterline. Baselitz, like other Germans, found it difficult to champion maudlin scenes, and the merits of humanity, in general, with the Holocaust and other war atrocities just over his shoulder. Accordingly, he dedicated the last six decades of his life to unpackaging Germany's cultural baggage, leaving behind haunting reminders that even (seemingly) merry choir-goers may possess a wellspring of grief within their hearts.
Below: another of Baselitz's unnerving works, The Great Friends (1965);
Image credit & copyright: The Smithsonian / Frank Oleski, Köln / Saatchi Gallery / Art Institute of Chicago
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Title: Der Brückechor (The Brücke Chorus)
Artist: Georg Baselitz (b. 1938)
Created: 1983
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 110 x 177.1 in (279.5 x 450 cm)
Current location: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
This is one chorus we certainly won't be joining. For the generation of Germans born during and immediately after World War II, adolescence was an uneasy period marked by traumas and guilt—fevers that made it hard to appreciate heartwarming moments. Artist Georg Baselitz, born in 1938, witnessed the war as a small child, an experience that would deeply inform his art. Its influence shows in Der Brückechor, or "The Brücke Chorus." It's clearly a troubled piece; within it, Baselitz is attempting to celebrate the innocuous choir, but somehow we're left uneasy, as if we've received a terrible omen. The minimally rendered singers, suspended upside down, appear to be submerged under the black ripples of a waterline. Baselitz, like other Germans, found it difficult to champion maudlin scenes, and the merits of humanity, in general, with the Holocaust and other war atrocities just over his shoulder. Accordingly, he dedicated the last six decades of his life to unpackaging Germany's cultural baggage, leaving behind haunting reminders that even (seemingly) merry choir-goers may possess a wellspring of grief within their hearts.
Below: another of Baselitz's unnerving works, The Great Friends (1965);
Image credit & copyright: The Smithsonian / Frank Oleski, Köln / Saatchi Gallery / Art Institute of Chicago
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FREEWorld History Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Talk about a special K. During World War II, Italian doctors came up with an idea that saved dozens of Italian Jews from Nazi death camps. On October 16, 1943, Nazis raided a Jewish neighborhood in Rome near the Tiber River. As the German SS officers began rounding up the terrified residents, they sought refuge inside the walls of the nearby Fatebenefratelli hospital. Several doctors—including Dr. Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti, and a surgeon named Giovanni Borromeo—came up with the idea of admitting them as patients, to hide them. Needing a way to indicate the Jews in hiding from actual sick patients, Ossicini began marking their charts with "Syndrome K," after Hitler's Italian-occupation commander: Albert Kesselring. The doctors put all the Syndrome K patients in a single room and, when the Nazi troops arrived to search the premises, warned them the disease was deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagiosissima. The troops wouldn't even enter the Syndrome K room after that. Doctors also coached young Jews hiding in the children's ward to cough violently.
Years later, Dr. Sacerdoti remembered that the Nazi soldiers "fled like rabbits" as if they could "immediately catch cancer or tuberculosis." While it's impossible to know how many Jews were ultimately saved by Fatebenefratelli's ingenious and brave doctors and nurses, estimates range from 50 to several hundred. The hospital was recognized as a "House of Life" by the Holocaust survivor advocacy group Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Dr. Sacerdoti, who was just 28 years old at the time, later said, "A person who lives only in the present and has not a full consciousness of what lies behind his back, is not fully human." Amen.It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II.
Talk about a special K. During World War II, Italian doctors came up with an idea that saved dozens of Italian Jews from Nazi death camps. On October 16, 1943, Nazis raided a Jewish neighborhood in Rome near the Tiber River. As the German SS officers began rounding up the terrified residents, they sought refuge inside the walls of the nearby Fatebenefratelli hospital. Several doctors—including Dr. Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti, and a surgeon named Giovanni Borromeo—came up with the idea of admitting them as patients, to hide them. Needing a way to indicate the Jews in hiding from actual sick patients, Ossicini began marking their charts with "Syndrome K," after Hitler's Italian-occupation commander: Albert Kesselring. The doctors put all the Syndrome K patients in a single room and, when the Nazi troops arrived to search the premises, warned them the disease was deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagiosissima. The troops wouldn't even enter the Syndrome K room after that. Doctors also coached young Jews hiding in the children's ward to cough violently.
Years later, Dr. Sacerdoti remembered that the Nazi soldiers "fled like rabbits" as if they could "immediately catch cancer or tuberculosis." While it's impossible to know how many Jews were ultimately saved by Fatebenefratelli's ingenious and brave doctors and nurses, estimates range from 50 to several hundred. The hospital was recognized as a "House of Life" by the Holocaust survivor advocacy group Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Dr. Sacerdoti, who was just 28 years old at the time, later said, "A person who lives only in the present and has not a full consciousness of what lies behind his back, is not fully human." Amen.
January 26, 2023
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8 minFREEWork Business CurioFree5 CQ
From the BBC World Service: A deal has finally been done to send American and German tanks to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky says they need to be deli...
From the BBC World Service: A deal has finally been done to send American and German tanks to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky says they need to be deli...
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1 minFREEHumanities Word CurioFree1 CQ
Word of the Day : January 26, 2023
knackered \NAK-erd\ adjective
What It Means
Knackered is an adjective mostly used informally in British English to mean...
with Merriam-WebsterWord of the Day : January 26, 2023
knackered \NAK-erd\ adjective
What It Means
Knackered is an adjective mostly used informally in British English to mean...
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FREEScience Nerdy CurioFree1 CQ
Get Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart on the phone—the Earth’s core is acting up! In an event that mirrors the 2003 sci-fi B-movie The Core (rated 5.5 out of 10 on IMDb), the Earth’s molten iron core has stopped rotating before shifting gears, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience by geophysicists from Peking University. Fortunately, this isn’t a portend of the end of the world like in the movie (39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). In fact, the core is already rotating, just in the other direction. The spinning core of the Earth acts as a dynamo that creates a magnetic field, protecting its surface from dangerous radiation from outer space, but it’s not as consistent or unchanging as it would seem. Furthermore, the core has never completely stopped—it just slowed down in relation to the mantle. One of the authors of the paper, Xiaodong Song, stated, “We see strong evidence that the inner core has been rotating faster than the surface, [but] by around 2009 it nearly stopped. Now it is gradually mov[ing] in the opposite direction.” Song and his colleague went back to records of seismic waves dating back to the 1990s to determine the rate of the core’s rotation. By tracking the rate at which repeating earthquakes travel through the inner core, they found that the core was rotating slightly faster than the mantle and the surface. But that difference began disappearing around 2009 before reappearing—except this time, the core seems to be rotating in the opposite direction. The researchers inferred from their data that this may be part of a 70-year cycle, with the direction changing every 35 years or so. It’s enough to make your head spin.
[Image description: An illustration showing the layers of the earth, with the core represented as a yellow ball.] Credit & copyright: ArtsyBeeKids, Pixabay
Get Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart on the phone—the Earth’s core is acting up! In an event that mirrors the 2003 sci-fi B-movie The Core (rated 5.5 out of 10 on IMDb), the Earth’s molten iron core has stopped rotating before shifting gears, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience by geophysicists from Peking University. Fortunately, this isn’t a portend of the end of the world like in the movie (39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). In fact, the core is already rotating, just in the other direction. The spinning core of the Earth acts as a dynamo that creates a magnetic field, protecting its surface from dangerous radiation from outer space, but it’s not as consistent or unchanging as it would seem. Furthermore, the core has never completely stopped—it just slowed down in relation to the mantle. One of the authors of the paper, Xiaodong Song, stated, “We see strong evidence that the inner core has been rotating faster than the surface, [but] by around 2009 it nearly stopped. Now it is gradually mov[ing] in the opposite direction.” Song and his colleague went back to records of seismic waves dating back to the 1990s to determine the rate of the core’s rotation. By tracking the rate at which repeating earthquakes travel through the inner core, they found that the core was rotating slightly faster than the mantle and the surface. But that difference began disappearing around 2009 before reappearing—except this time, the core seems to be rotating in the opposite direction. The researchers inferred from their data that this may be part of a 70-year cycle, with the direction changing every 35 years or so. It’s enough to make your head spin.
[Image description: An illustration showing the layers of the earth, with the core represented as a yellow ball.] Credit & copyright: ArtsyBeeKids, Pixabay
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FREEMind + Body Daily Curio #2590Free1 CQ
There’s no use walking on eggshells in this economy. With egg prices hitting record highs, many shoppers are complaining about the cash they’re shelling out for their beloved staple item. Many are blaming inflation, but while inflation has indeed affected egg prices, the real culprit behind the dramatic price surge is an avian pandemic. The U.S. poultry population has been hit by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The disease began spreading across the country in 2022. Since the disease is frequently fatal, egg farmers around the country have been on the lookout for symptoms in their flocks. HPAI is a tricky pathogen to keep out of one’s flock because it’s spread by wild birds that can travel from town to town and farm to farm. Unfortunately, once symptoms are spotted at a poultry farm, the entire flock has to be culled to prevent its spread. Between February of 2022, when the USDA began tracking the spread of HPAI, and the final week of December, 43 million egg-laying hens were either killed by the disease or culled by farmers. But that’s not all there is to the story. The disease spread in two waves last year, first from spring to early summer and then again in late summer and winter. When the second wave hit, eggs were already in short supply, but the increase in seasonal demand during the holidays further drove up prices. It’s normal for egg prices to go up during this time every year, but holiday grocery shoppers in 2022 saw price tags around 210 percent higher than in 2021. There is light at the end of the eggshell-lined tunnel, though. Average egg prices hit $5.46 a dozen back in December, but they’ve been going down steadily since then to $3.67 in mid January. As long as HPAI doesn’t make a resurgence this year, prices should continue to go down. We’ll cross our fingers…but don’t count your chickens before they hatch!
[Image description: A close-up photo of brown eggs in a carton.] Credit & copyright: akirEVarga, PixabayThere’s no use walking on eggshells in this economy. With egg prices hitting record highs, many shoppers are complaining about the cash they’re shelling out for their beloved staple item. Many are blaming inflation, but while inflation has indeed affected egg prices, the real culprit behind the dramatic price surge is an avian pandemic. The U.S. poultry population has been hit by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The disease began spreading across the country in 2022. Since the disease is frequently fatal, egg farmers around the country have been on the lookout for symptoms in their flocks. HPAI is a tricky pathogen to keep out of one’s flock because it’s spread by wild birds that can travel from town to town and farm to farm. Unfortunately, once symptoms are spotted at a poultry farm, the entire flock has to be culled to prevent its spread. Between February of 2022, when the USDA began tracking the spread of HPAI, and the final week of December, 43 million egg-laying hens were either killed by the disease or culled by farmers. But that’s not all there is to the story. The disease spread in two waves last year, first from spring to early summer and then again in late summer and winter. When the second wave hit, eggs were already in short supply, but the increase in seasonal demand during the holidays further drove up prices. It’s normal for egg prices to go up during this time every year, but holiday grocery shoppers in 2022 saw price tags around 210 percent higher than in 2021. There is light at the end of the eggshell-lined tunnel, though. Average egg prices hit $5.46 a dozen back in December, but they’ve been going down steadily since then to $3.67 in mid January. As long as HPAI doesn’t make a resurgence this year, prices should continue to go down. We’ll cross our fingers…but don’t count your chickens before they hatch!
[Image description: A close-up photo of brown eggs in a carton.] Credit & copyright: akirEVarga, Pixabay