25 Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century: Frozen foods Posted December 29, 2021 Clarence Birdseye loved fish, and that’s why we can buy frozen foods. At first glance, the two parts of that sentence may not seem connected, but they are. In the early 20th ce…
25 Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century: The hand-held hair dryer Posted December 8, 2021 In past columns, we’ve looked at inventions that help around the house, like the vacuum cleaner and the electric washing machine. Following that trend, this month we look at the h…
Views and Visions: The age of digital photos Part 2 Posted November 21, 2021 Continued from Part 1… We take so many photos in our day-to-day lives that it’s easy to forget how valuable each picture used to be. A century ago, getting a single p…
Views and Visions: The age of digital photos Part 1 Posted November 20, 2021 Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the value I place on certain items. For example, if my house were to go up in flames, which items would I try to save? Let’s pretend th…
Focus apps Posted November 10, 2021 Many people worry that smartphones are taking over our lives. They stop us from focusing on more important things. One answer is to use a simple phone; we looked at that in the…
25 Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century: The assembly line Posted November 4, 2021 At the turn of the 20th century, cars were made almost completely by hand and were very expensive. But two Americans — Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford — brought the…
Want to pretend to live on Mars? Apply now Posted October 18, 2021 Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you. To prepare for eventually sending astronauts t…
25 Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century: The electric washing machine Posted October 13, 2021 In the bad old days, washing clothes was a chore that took up the whole day, involving buckets and buckets of water and back-breaking scrubbing on hard washboards. The strong soap…
Journalist dad discovers that social media isn’t all that bad Posted October 11, 2021 These days it’s hard to feel optimistic about social media, especially if you’re working in the news industry. But journalist McKay Coppins discovered it’s not all that bad — in f…
News Mash-up: Space Travel Posted September 29, 2021 Billionaire Branson soars to space in own rocket British billionaire Richard Branson on July 11 soared m…