Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.
1. Five myths about Pearl Harbor
By Craig Shirley | Five Myths :: The Washington Post | Dec. 2
“President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941, ‘a date which will live in infamy.’ And that day, when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, has lived in infamy for 70 years. Yet even as the memory of the attack has lasted, so have the misperceptions surrounding it.”
2. Pearl Harbor survivors share stories of attack
By Audrey McAvoy | Associated Press | Dec. 5
“The College of the Ozarks program aims to preserve the stories of veterans – something that’s becoming increasingly urgent for Pearl Harbor survivors as the youngest are in their late 80s.”
3. Smallest habitable world around sun-like star found
By Melissae Fellet | New Scientist | Dec. 5
“The new planet was found with the KeplerMovie Camera telescope, which searches for signs that a star’s light has dimmed because a planet has passed between it and the telescope — an event called a transit.”
4. Who will be whispering in Hillary Clinton’s ear now?
By Howard LaFranchi | Christian Science Monitor | Dec. 6
“Secretary Hillary Clinton, eager for the State Department to have its own advisory panel of big thinkers, is convening the new, 25-member Foreign Affairs Policy Board this month.”
5. NASA: Massive Asteroid Vesta ‘Unlike Any Other’
By Alicia Chang | Associated Press | Dec. 5
“Since slipping into orbit around Vesta in July, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has beamed back stunning images of the second largest object residing in the asteroid belt.”
6. Q&A: Lending Out an Electronic Book
By J.D. Biersdorfer | Gadgetwise :: The New York Times | Aug. 10
“Q: Can you lend a Kindle e-book out to someone who doesn’t have a Kindle e-reader?”
7. Michele Bachmann Loves Vaccines After All
By Benjy Sarlin | Talking Points Memo | Dec. 7
“Michele Bachman, who was condemned as an anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist after suggesting that Gardasil causes ‘mental retardation,’ said Wednesday that she was in fact a big supporter of vaccines. Not only that, she thinks there are too many regulations on them.”
8. Was Jane Austen Poisoned by Arsenic? Science May Soon Find Out
By Ferris Jabr | Scientific American | Dec. 5
“Modern techniques could reveal whether the celebrated English novelist’s surviving hair contains unusually high levels of arsenic”
9. Five myths about healthy eating
By Katherine Mangu-Ward | Five Myths :: The Washington Post | Oct. 14
Myth 1: “People in poor neighborhoods lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables.”
10. Civil War women: Elizabeth Townsend Meagher
Civil War Women blog | Sept. 19
“Elizabeth Meagher was 36 years of age when she arrived on the Montana frontier. She had married the brilliant, but unpredictable, Irish exile in New York and often served as his secretary and nurse. She first arrived at Fort Benton June 5, 1866, aboard the sternwheeler Ontario in the company of her husband who had gone downriver from Benton to meet her.”