■ A World War II veteran was able to hear a symphony he wrote 67 years ago for the first time, when the U.S. Army Orchestra premiered it in Washington, D.C. Retired Col. Harold Van Heuvelen, 93, was inspired by his experiences as a soldier to write a symphony in 1945, but it languished on the shelf for decades and […]
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What’s most important—and troubling— is the decades-long, systemic expansion of the economic distance between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, and the long, backward slide for the majority of those in-between.
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Climate change may have helped to alter the course of history. A period of extreme and unprecedented cooling in the northern hemisphere 1,500 years ago may have reduced the eastern Roman empire, set the stage for a famine and a devastating pandemic that killed millions, and favored the rise of the Islamic forces that created the Arab empire. The so-called Little […]
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IF YOU THOUGHT THIS YEAR WAS BAD … (Based on “December 21, 2012: The Real Doomsday?” from http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html) Doomsday forecasts I believe Offer humans no reprieve. But, unlike the common thread, Won’t be we who strike us dead. No atomic holocaust, Nor the melt of permafrost, Nor deforestation’s squeeze, Nor extinction of species. Happened to us […]
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Twin sisters Erica and Tashina Ackley, 22, who found out they were pregnant on the same day, gave birth just hours apart in the same Maine hospital. “We thought it would be cool if we had our babies on the same day,” said Tashina, “but we didn’t expect that it would happen.”
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A Connecticut high school class who had their prom cancelled by World War II in 1943, are finally dusting off their dancing shoes and holding the event – 70 years on. James Hillhouse High School’s class of 1943 never got to vote in their king and queen; slow dance with their sweethearts; buy corsages or try out their moves in […]
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The newest professor in the University of Rhode Island’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, Hollie Putnam, thinks some corals and shellfish might have good enough “memories” to buffer the changes in ocean chemistry that are resulting from the effects of climate change on coral reefs. A native of Minnesota who earned a doctorate at the University of Hawaii, […]
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Tired of exercising to shed excess pounds? Scientists at Harvard University may have discovered a way to help you lose weight—just by taking a pill. The human body has two kinds of fat cells: white cells, which store excess calories in the form of flab, and brown cells, which burn energy to produce heat. “What we wanted to do is […]
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