A Hodge Podge

Rather than a bunch of short blogs, here’s one long one with a bunch of short parts.

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Something to Sit on
Why are so many chairs uncomfortable, bad for your back, encourage slouching and bad posture? Why can’t we just make all chairs so they are good to sit on?

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Education
I listened to this NPR story on the private lives of teachers a while back. It had me laughing. There were one or two nights every year where I was there so late it might not have been a bad idea to just sleep on the couch in the teacher’s lounge that night. And it always made me laugh when I saw my students somewhere in town and saw their faces as they figured out I did not in fact live at the school.

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Running, it does a body good
A friend of mine was told by her doctor recently that the AMA has decided that running is not natural or good for your body. Maybe this doctor is confused about what the year is, because there have been studies recently showing that this just isn’t true. Our bodies were built for running. Running strengthens the bones, high impact activities increase bone density and decrease the odds of breakage or osteoperosis. Running strengthens joints because as you use something it improvves its function. Running improves cardiovascular performance and lung function.How current is that doctor if he is unaware of these studies? (NPR, Runners World, Time)

And then there are studies now showing that our bodies are built to run, not to sit, stand, or walk, but run!

I love running.

Of course I do realize you need to listen to your body and not run yourself into the ground. “For it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength” (Mosiah 4:27).

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Royal Technology
The Queen visited Google headquarters in England this week. They even did a special doodle for her. I don’t know why, but that seemed like a fun story. (The visit, The Queen giggles at Google)

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Telescope Turns 400
Now that’s a birthday to celebrate. Can you imagine what life would be like without one? We have learned so much, not just about the stars, but in turn about ourselves, because of the telescope. Some day I’d like a real nice one, especially that I could connect to a camera so I could take pictures with it. Combining my fascination with the heavens with a love of photography – that’s just a bowl of ice cream with cherries on top. (A Stellar History, 400 Years and Counting)

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Prime!
They found a new prime number! I know most people won’t find that exciting news, but I think it’s cool. It took 75 computers linked together to find it. And it’s more than 13 million digits long. If you wrote it out in 12 point font (smaller than this font), it would be 30 miles long. That’s so cool!!

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BCS
The U of A is not even getting any votes, on any poll, anywhere, and the BCS is visiting them to look for possibilities for the bowls. A “BCS” team can have a real bad game and still be just fine. Any other team can have the season of their life, but with one slightly bad game and it’s all over for them. Can someone please explain to me how this system is supposed to determine which football team is not only the best in the nation, but also gets all the money that goes with that?