It’s about time personal voice assistants developed some attitude — “Alexa, turn off the bedroom light.” The light goes off. “Okay,” my tame little personal voice-assistant speaker replies with a quick flash of her blue tail-lights. The fact that the television is still on, I have a steaming cup of hot tea perched on the night table, and the dog still needs to go outside to…

There are two phases for each of the pathogens that have threatened humans in the past — the time before and the time after a vaccine was developed to stop it from killing us. — “Stalking the human race…” In the current Covid-19 pandemic, a vaccine against the disease is seen as the key medical breakthrough required before we can return to the world we knew just a few short months ago. Last week Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that “normality as it was before, will not come…

The same strategy employed in 1374 remains a vital tool in fighting the infectious diseases of the 21st century. — First widely used against the bubonic plague, quarantines are also intertwined with the founding of Australia. And for better or worse, they remain a practice still needed in the 21st century battle against Covid-19. …

Though one of Russia’s most beloved composers was gay, it was the women in his life who helped nurture Tchaikovsky’s genius. — Votkinsk, Russia — 1847 Pyotr rubbed his hands together as hard as he could, hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would calm him a little. He did not want to tremble like a silly girl when it was his turn to perform. The cuts on his hands had almost healed, but one deep scar…

Not the jolly old elf from 1930’s Coca-Cola magazine ads, but the real St. Nick himself. — The bones and sarcophagus of the historical figure much of the western world calls ‘Santa Claus’ are buried in the lower level of a church in Southern Italy and attract hundreds of pilgrims and curious visitors every day. During a recent trip to Puglia, the stunning olive and wine-producing region…

No outline and only one draft was needed before ‘A Christmas Carol’ was published and soon became etched deep inside of us — London, 14 December 1843 THE MORNING DAWNED full of promise for Charles John Dickens. At the ripe old age of 31, he was making his first foray into the frightening but potentially lucrative world of self-publishing. …

First required in 1677 in place of marking an ‘X’ on legal documents, handwritten signatures are becoming obsolete — During the 2018 mid-term elections in the USA, tens of thousands of absentee mail-in ballots were rejected. The reason according to the United States Election Assistance Commission: a “non-matching signature” on the ballot versus the one on file. It’s not hard to see why this would be the case. Other…

From Joan of Arc to Albert Einstein, 16-year-olds have had a profound impact on humanity. But Greta’s impact may be greater then any of them. — Albert Einstein had long mastered integral and differential calculus on his 16th birthday and already published his findings into the state of ether in a magnetic field. Paul McCartney was playing guitar with fellow teenager John Lennon when he invited an even younger George Harrison to join their band.

And found salvation in the blessings of liquid bread. — In the history of beer brewing, monks have a special place in heaven. They found the perfect triangulation of spirituality, nutrition and self-sufficiency to create a product that many still think of as ‘divine.’ During a recent trip to Bavaria, my wife and I visited the Weltenburg Abbey, (Weltenburger Klosterbrauerei)…