A photographer spent a month taking 2,000 images of yellow ants in Vietnam. The strikingly back-lit photos show the insects appearing to engage in human-like activities— a large ant lifts a smaller one overhead, a group climbs on each others’ backs, two ants rear up on their back legs to touch feelers as if shaking [...]
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Yesterday Amazon made its Kindle reader compatible with e-book collections held by many of the nation’s libraries, including PVLD. The device could previously be used only to download e-books purchased through Amazon, or those out-of-copyright works available for free via the company’s web site. Some book publishers are worried that e-reader owners who used to [...]
Monday, September 12, 2011
Michael Hart, the man credited with inventing the eBook, died last week in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. In 1971, Hart, an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, was given time on a mainframe computer. He used part of it to type in the Declaration of Independence, and posted a notice letting users [...]
Monday, August 29, 2011
Research presented at a European medical meeting today suggested chocolate consumption might be associated with a one third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease. The research adds to a string of studies in recent years showing a potential health benefit of chocolate. Scientists cautioned that further research was needed to test whether chocolate [...]
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Dayton Literary Peace Prize committee has announced its 2011 nominees. 67 fiction and nonfiction works have been nominated for helping lead readers to a better understanding of other cultures, peoples, religions, and political points of view. The honors will be awarded in November. Barbara Kingsolver will be the recipient of the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished [...]
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Librarian of Congress yesterday announced Philip Levine as U.S. Poet Laureate for 2011-2012. Levine is the author of 20 poetry collections (as well as nonfiction), and among other honors, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Librarian of Congress James Billington describes Levine is [...]
Saturday, August 6, 2011
A series of studies shows that how we define happiness determines what we seek at various times in our lives. For young people, happiness is most often found in anticipating and participating in activities; older persons find contentment in the peaceful enjoyment of the present moment. The study results won’t surprise the parent whose child [...]
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
In spite of current high unemployment, even for the university educated, economists say that the costs of a college degree are worth it. However, they say it’s a long term investment and that students must seek training for high-paying, secure professions. Researchers with the Brookings Institution and Georgetown University say “higher education is a much [...]
Friday, July 15, 2011
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have succeeded in recovering the sound of the earliest talking doll recording. In 1888, phonograph inventor Thomas Edison utilized the vocal talents of two young women. Their efforts were recorded on solid tin cylinders. The damaged surviving record, unplayable by conventional methods, had been at Thomas Edison National Historical Park [...]
Saturday, July 9, 2011
A national “melting pot museum” telling the story of the immigration and migration that formed the United States has been proposed by several members of Congress. Legislation was introduced to study the creation of a National Museum of the American People. A least one congressman has been a critic of building individual ethnic museums on [...]
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
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