Trego's Mountain Ear

As snow blankets my part of the world in the beginning of Winter, I begin the wait for the solstice – the shortest day. Technically, this year the solstice occurs on Thursday, December 21, at 8:27 pm (in Eureka). On the 21st, the sun will rise at 8:30, and at 8:31 on Friday the 22nd Read more

When authoritative sources hold onto bad data: A legal scholar explains the need for government databases to retract information Janet Freilich, Fordham University In 2004, Hwang Woo-suk was celebrated for his breakthrough discovery creating cloned human embryos, and his work was published in the prestigious journal Science. But the discovery was too good to be true; Read more

There’s an article on RealClearPolitics titled Why Social Security Must Be Reformed | RealClearPolitics  It’s not necessarily news – but it is worth a read.  The author describes Social Security: “This type of retirement system is frequently referred to as a “generational transfer.” That is, we are transferring income from younger generations to the retired Read more

Earth may have had all the elements needed for life within it all along − contrary to theories that these elements came from meteorites Shichun Huang, University of Tennessee and Wenzhong Wang, University of Science and Technology of China For many years, scientists have predicted that many of the elements that are crucial ingredients for life, Read more

I ran across an article that was comparing Connecticut and Oklahoma and concluded that longer life spans were associated with progressive or liberal political systems. Naturally, I thought of other things that might explain the difference – Oklahoma’s population has more Native Americans, and that also correlates with more diabetes. The lowest life expectancy is Read more

I’m reading Donald Hamilton’s novels about Matt Helm – again. Frankly, I found Matt a more real character than James Bond – but my taste isn’t always mainstream. Ian Fleming wrote James Bond, and when they turned the paperbacks into movies, got Sean Connery. Hamilton wrote Matt Helm, and got Dean Martin to play the Read more