Red Velvet Ants. I'd always heard about them, but finally last week I saw a victim: Dad brought in his 4-year-old daughter who was stung at a picnic table. He described a large black spider or ant with red stripes crawling out…
The heavy metal band Queensrÿche's biggest hit wasn't a screaming head-banger, but ironically a lovely ballad about helping a child with nightmares control his dreams. The title “Silent Lucidity”, refers to lucid dreams wherein…
Last October, the first school year of the pandemic was underway. A video began circulating of a teacher's attempt to lead her class on Zoom. On most of the screens, the children were barely awake, one still actually in bed…
In her book "Animal Vegetable Miracle," author Barbara Kingsolver describes a year where she feeds her family only locally grown food. When she vacations at an Amish farm to see how they do it, her hosts are fascinated by her…
Portable and "wearable" computers, according to designers, are supposed to enhance the human experience. Like science fiction cyborgs with a fitting over one eye, the user goes through the world with "augmented reality," being…
Asthma has been with us for millenia. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, inventor of the Hippocratic Oath, first used the term (from the Greek aazein, "to pant"). The Greeks had treatments- adding ephedra (an epinephrine-…
Schoolteacher Jane Anderson Lemoine has lots of back-to-school stories- kids falling asleep in class and drooling all over their desks, a boy accidentally going to two social studies classes per day for a whole week and not…