At A Glance

3/26/25) How old is your body? Science says to stand on one leg.

(3/19/25) The worst US cities for allergy sufferers.

(3/18/25) America's religious landscape in one chart.

(3/13/25) How to see the March lunar eclipse.

(3/5/25) Ranking US states with the lowest and highest tax rates.

(3/25/25) How often you should wash your feet.

(3/20/25) What happens if you shoot a gun in space?

(3/20/25) Does wearing a hat cause baldness?

(3/12/25) Why honey never expires—really.

(3/21/25) A bizarre minivan concept from 1992.

(3/6/25) A map that shows how big countries really are.

Clickbait: The (900-pound) dolphin that caught the fishermen.

Good Morning

 

Ultra Easy Healthy Meals | But Cheaper

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> NCAA men's basketball tournament Sweet 16 round kicks off today; see full schedule and preview (More) | Previously announced National Women's Soccer League franchise renamed Boston Legacy FC (More)

> YouTube tops Disney for first time on Nielsen's TV distributor rankings, which aggregates total TV viewership by media company (More)

> Lady Gaga announces her first arena concert tour since 2018 with dates revealed for North America and Europe (More) | Yolanda Saldívar, woman convicted of 1995 murder of music legend Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, up for parole for first time after serving 30 years in prison (More)


Science & Technology
> Mathematician Masaki Kashiwara awarded the 2025 Abel Prize—the field's equivalent to the Nobel Prize—for his work in bringing together multiple types of math to investigate the concept of symmetry (More)

> New study reveals how individual cells respond to stress, and the mechanisms that lead to either cell death or resumption of normal activity; findings may lead to new treatments for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases (More)

> Research finds obesity reduces the amount of neurotensin, a brain chemical involved in pleasure response, suggesting the body has a built-in mechanism to counter overeating (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -1.1%, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq -2.1%) (More) | President Donald Trump announces 25% tariffs on imported cars, up from current tariffs of 2.5%; nearly half of cars sold in the US are imported (More) | Wall Street posts record $47.5B in bonuses for 2024 (More)

> GameStop shares close up 12% after retailer says it will invest corporate cash into bitcoin; follows move by software company MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin (More) | Everything you want to know about bitcoin (1440 Topics)

> Dollar Tree selling Family Dollar brand for roughly $1B to private equity firms Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Federal appeals court holds temporary block on use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations (More) | Senate confirms Marty Makary as head of the Food and Drug Administration by vote of 56-44 (More) | Vice President JD Vance, second lady Usha Vance to visit US Space Force outpost in Greenland tomorrow (More)

> Death toll rises to 24 from deadliest wildfires in southeastern South Korea; over 27,000 people evacuated and an ancient Buddhist temple among 200 buildings damaged or destroyed (More) | South Korea's government found responsible for decades of fraud and abuse in foreign adoption program, per report (More)

> Brazil Supreme Court panel orders former President Jair Bolsonaro to stand trial following an alleged attempt to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Becoming Older

I remember when my father was my age, I knew he was old, but I never saw him as really old until a couple of years later when he was diagnosed with a rare type of Leukemia.

While it did not bother him at first, he was eating oysters on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and had an adverse reaction and contracted an infection that caused him to lose his left leg just below the knee.

It was this second issue that caused him to age quicker than he normally would have aged.  He refused to use a wheelchair unless that was the only way to get somewhere like out to a football game.  Instead, he used a can, or a walker while wearing a prosthetic, but it was the prosthetic that forced him to become less and less mobile.

His first prosthetic worked perfectly but because he moved around so much, he wore that one out prematurely.  All future prosthetics never fit his leg as well, for some reason, and he became less and less active.

He died at 89 years of age but not because his Leukemia killed him but because all of his organs simply wore out at the same time.

Did the Leukemia or leg cause the wearing out to happen or was it going to happen that way, regardless?

No one knows for sure.

So, if I follow the pattern of my father, then I have 12 years left.  However, my mother lived to 96 and while I do not think I will live that long, there is a good possibility I will live somewhere in between the two.

Right now, I try not to think about that.  I try and think about what I am going to do today.  I don't really care about tomorrow unless I have to plan for a doctor's visit or a haircut or grocery shopping.  I have vacations already scheduled on my calendar, but I won't start thinking about them until a few days before.

I just see life as special and precious.

Somewhat Political

 

Physicists Bend Time Inside a Diamond, Creating a Brand-New Phase of Matter

Physicists at Washington University have forged ahead in the field of quantum mechanics by creating a new phase of matter known as “time crystals” and the even more advanced “time quasicrystals.”


These groundbreaking materials defy traditional physics by maintaining perpetual motion and could revolutionize quantum computing and precision timekeeping by providing a stable, energy-conserving method of measuring time and storing quantum information.

Time Crystals
Physicists at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) have created a new kind of time crystal, a unique phase of matter that challenges conventional understanding of motion and time.

The research team includes Kater Murch, the Charles M. Hohenberg Professor of Physics, and Chong Zu, an assistant professor of physics, along with graduate students Guanghui He, Ruotian “Reginald” Gong, Changyu Yao, and Zhongyuan Liu. Additional collaborators include Bingtian Ye from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Norman Yao from Harvard University. Their findings were published on March 12 in Physical Review X, a leading journal in the field.

READ MORE...

Grand Funk Railroad - I'm Your Captain - Shea Stadium 1971

Good Night

 

Muscle Car

 

Crime

 

Propaganda

 

VINCE

 

Diamond & Silk

 

Brookings Brief

America’s housing affordability crisis and the decline of housing supply America’s housing affordability crisis and the decline of housing supply

Robert Reich

Where the HELL are the Democrats?






Friends,

I’ve asked this question before. Now I’m SHOUTING it.

Where the HELL are the Democrats?

It should be the Democrats’ moment — the time when Democrats are everywhere, on everyone’s lips, in everyone’s eyes.

But Democrats are nowhere. AWOL. Almost invisible.

They’re squandering this opportunity.

Can you imagine a more important moment for Democrats to sound the alarm? At the request of a Republican president, the richest person in the world is taking a sledgehammer to Social Security, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, the entire Department of Education, and much else that Americans need and want.

He’s doing all this so the president can give a huge tax cut to the wealthiest members of our society and the biggest corporations in America.

Worse, the president chose this man for this job because he sank a quarter of a billion dollars into getting the president elected. And this man, already one of the government’s biggest contractors, is salivating over the prospect of turning even more of government into his or other corporate hands.

READ MORE...

At A Glance

Listen to first-known recordings of how sharks sound.

New two-clawed dinosaur species unearthed.

Two-in-five Americans have relatives who immigrated through Ellis Island. (via YouTube)

Photo captures both the lunar eclipse and Northern Lights.

A Ford exec kept score of his colleagues' verbal flubs.

Turn map locations into watercolor slide puzzles.

"The Office"-style Chili's to open near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Irish pub on remote island seeks new owner.

Clickbait: James Webb reveals cosmic tornado. (w/photo)

Good Morning

 

I eat TOP 5 Food and Don't Get OLD! Japan's OLDEST Fitness Instructor 92...

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Track and field to become first Olympic sport to require genetic testing on female athletes (More) | USC star JuJu Watkins tears ACL, will miss the remainder of March Madness (More)

> "Good Night, and Good Luck," starring George Clooney, hauls in $3.3M to break weekly box office record for a Broadway play (More) | "Adolescence" pulls in 66.3 million views in its first two weeks, a Netflix record for a limited series (More)

> Two-time UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez sentenced to five years in prison on attempted murder charges (More) | Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French soccer star Michel Platini acquitted by Swiss court of corruption charges (More)


Science & Technology
> OpenAI announces image generation capabilities wrapped into its ChatGPT chatbot; integration effectively merges DALL-E image generator into the company's flagship product (More)

> Climate researchers recreate shifts in the Atlantic jet stream over the past 600 years, linking shifts in the global winds to historic weather events (More) | What is the jet stream? (More)

> Study reveals the neurotransmitter dopamine helps baby birds learn how to sing; the reward molecule helps reinforce learning circuitry in the brain (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +0.2%, Dow +0.0%, Nasdaq +0.5%) (More) | Consumer confidence index over future of US economy falls to 12-year low (More)

> Pioneer music streaming service Napster acquired by 3D technology firm Infinite Reality for $207M (More) | Vertical farming company Plenty files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after raising nearly $1B (More) | Online trading platform eToro Files for US initial public offering (More)

> Chinese EV giant BYD reports record annual revenue of roughly $107B for 2024, outpacing Tesla ($98B) (More) | Samsung co-CEO Han Jong-Hee, credited with helping to boost Samsung's television business, dies of heart attack at 63 (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> PBS, NPR heads testify today on federal support for public broadcasting in House subcommittee hearing (More) | Senate committee advances nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (More) | Social Security chief nominee Frank Bisignano testifies at confirmation hearing (More)

> Japanese court orders Unification Church to dissolve after 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led to probe into group’s political ties (More) | World's longest-serving death row inmate, Iwao Hakamata, receives record $1.4M payout after being acquitted of 1966 murders (More)

> Pope Francis' doctor says medical team considered ending treatment when he came close to death over a breathing issue during his hospitalization (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Retirement

When you think of retirement, of what do you think?

Are you not old enough to start thinking about your retirement?

When do you think that process should start?

Believe it or not, you should start thinking about your retirement, the day you graduate from high school even though you might not start working until you graduate from college.

Why?

Cumulative Interest Earning...

It may not seem like a big deal to you at 18 years of age, but it you start saving $2.50/day at that age and do so every day for the next 40 years...  at the end of those 40 years, you will have $500,000 and you will then be age 58 and still too young to draw Social Security.

You will have this amount of money because of Cumulative Interest Earning...

If you and your wife did this together, you would have ONE MILLION DOLLARS and if you and your wife saved $5/day, the two of you would have TWO MILLION DOLLARS...

Your money would be invested into a Mutual Fund which are nice and safe investments but which over a TWENTY-YEAR PERIOD OF TIME tend to generate, on average, 8-10% each year.

We are not really talking about the stock market or buying individual stocks as mutual fund invests in hundreds of stocks at one time so, if one loses, one gains...  the gains always outweigh the loses.  But, the ROI (interest earned) is typically LOWER than in the stock market.

How much money do you throw away each day?

Somewhat Political

 

Never-Before-Seen: UCLA Physicists Discover Mysterious Spiral Patterns on Solid Surfaces

Hundreds of regular patterns spontaneously emerge on a small germanium chip.

A curiosity about tiny dots on a germanium wafer with metal films led to the discovery of intricate spiral patterns etched by a chemical reaction. Further experiments revealed that these patterns emerge from chemical reactions interacting with mechanical forces through a deforming catalyst. This breakthrough marks the most significant advance in studying chemical pattern formation since the 1950s. Understanding these complex systems could shed light on natural processes like crack formation in materials and the effects of stress on biological growth.

University of California, Los Angeles doctoral student Yilin Wong noticed tiny dots appearing on one of her samples, which had been accidentally left out overnight. The layered sample consisted of a germanium wafer topped with evaporated metal films in contact with a drop of water. On a whim, she examined the dots under a microscope and couldn’t believe her eyes. Beautiful spiral patterns had been etched into the germanium surface by a chemical reaction.

READ MORE...

Ten Years Later - I'm Going Home - 5/19/1978 - Winterland (Official)

Good Night

 

Siblings and Families

 

How close are you to your brother (s) and sister (s)?

It is not that easy an answer for several reasons.

• do you have one brother and one sister?
• do you have just one brother or one sister?
• do you have two sisters?
• do you have two brothers?
• what is the age difference between your siblings?
• did you parents have a favorite (s)?
• was there any bullying going on?
• the various career paths that were taken.

Influences

The closer the years in between, typically the closer the siblings.

The influence of the parents influences the closeness as well.

The financial wealth of each sibling (s).

The career path of each sibling (s).

The mobility of each sibling (s).

Probably the most important issue that I have been able to discover that separates or brings siblings together is:

WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON

That may not seem like much of a big deal but it is because if two siblings have very little if anything in common, then there is absolutely no reason for them to get together outside of the parents.  Once the parents are deceased, there is NO REASON for them to get together.

This HAVING SOMETHING IN COMMON holds true for parents and children as well.

If the parents are uneducated and the child or children are, then there is very little in common and no reason to get together, outside of respect for holidays.  Grandchildren present a reason to get together but after they reach a certain age, the reasons start to diminish.

Most of American families for these reasons are no longer close.  The family unit is breaking down.

Bacon

Blueberries