Free riders Bill Cosby was feeling frustrated four years ago at the NAACP gala commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. He believes black men have become free riders. “Everybody knows how important it is to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with ‘Why you ain’t…’” Since 2004…

The 90% solution. Millvina Dean might suggest we pay closer attention to what’s below the surface. She was two months old and a passenger on the Titanic when it struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912. Today she’s the last living survivor. Everyone knows that 90% of an iceberg is below the surface. But what…

Human equation. A young man once tracked down Albert Einstein and insisted on showing him a manuscript. On the basis of the E=mc2 equation, the man said it would be possible “to use the energy contained within the atom for the production of frightening explosives.” Einstein brushed him off, calling the concept foolish.1 Later in…

Schooling and stories When you think of the American Civil War, what tipped the scales toward the North? Did they have better generals? Not if the names McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker mean anything to you. Did the North display better tactics? Not if you’re familiar with Bull Run, the Seven Days battle, and Fredericksburg….

Press down. Springboard diving supports Sir Isaac Newton’s theorem that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The harder you press down on the flexible board, the higher you spring back. So here’s a simple question: what did you do last Friday? Enjoy a movie or dinner with friends? Good. Did you…

Healthy people I have a friend whose right knee is stronger than his left. He has the scar to prove it – on his right knee. Dave’s scar began as a scab after reconstructive surgery for a tennis injury. Now that he’s healed, only the scar remains. Permanent scars and temporary scabs used to be…

Say Hey Long before Joe Montana connected with Dwight Clark in the 1982 NFL Championship game, there was The Catch. On September 29, 1954, Willie Mays made an improbable over-the shoulder snag of a 450-foot shot off the bat of Vic Wertz. It probably saved the game for the New York Giants. If you’re too…

Myopia Larry Bird was slow of foot and suffered from White Man’s Disease. Wayne Gretzky was only 6 feet tall and weighed 160 pounds when pundits opined that he was “too small, too wiry, and too slow to be a force in the NHL.”1 Yet Bird and Gretzky are enshrined in their respective Halls of…

Mantras Since 1986, Dr. David Snowdon, an epidemiologist, has directed a research project dubbed the Nun Study. He’s tracking the lives of 678 elderly nuns to assess the effects of aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. Snowdon’s research confirms a clear link between the consumption of certain antioxidants (e.g., lycopene, found in pink grapefruit, tomatoes and watermelon),…

In 1979, Steve Jobs was invited to tour the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. This was the “dream lab” in the foothills behind Stanford, one of Xerox’s famous skunk works. Douglas Smith and Robert Alexander recount the story in Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer. The authors describe how…