Year: 2019

For October 9, 2019          Please spread the word to your friends & neighbors.     Hi WN@TL Fans,   During the Drought of 1988, here in the Midwest our fields of shriveled corn looked akin to pineapple, great rivers shrank, livestock and wildlife suffered, thousands of humans died.   And Yellowstone burned.      …

For October 2, 2019      Please spread the word to your friends & neighbors.     Hi WN@TL Fans,    As a fan of the written word, I like that DNA is a lot like an alphabet.  The English alphabet has 26 letters that we string into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, …

For September 25, 2019      Please spread the word to your friends & neighbors.     Hi WN@TL Fans,   In February 1972 Al Tieken, my ag teacher at Dixon High School, asked me to run a germination test on a half-pound bag of years-old tomato seeds.  He showed me how to array a …

For September 18, 2019                 Please send on to your friends and neighbors.     Hi WN@TL Fans,   We spend one-third of our life asleep, if we’re lucky—and if we don’t have a newborn at home.     For new parents and older adults, when it comes to being …

For Sept 11, 2019                 Please share a copy to your friends and neighbors.     Hi WN@TL Fans,   Solar photovoltaic panels have been in the national eye at least since 1958 when the US launched the Vanguard I satellite.  In 1973 the solar arrays of Skylab were prominent parts of the …

For Sept 4, 2019               Please send a copy to your friends and neighbors. Hi WN@TL Fans, Yesterday, September 1, 2019, was the 80th anniversary of the opening battle of World War 2 in Europe.   Today, September 2, is the 74th anniversary of the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo …

For August 28, 2019                Please stream to your friends and neighbors. Hi WN@TL Fans, We slide towards the end of August, we glide towards the ending of summer.  It’s been a wet year, and in Wisconsin the creeks and rivers still flow strong through green coulees and greener …

For August 21, 2019                Please share with your friends and neighbors.   Hi WN@TL Fans, It is mid-August.  All is languid. The lakes and beaches beckon, but school looms.  Along the town alleys and across the country roads, the crickets and grasshoppers rule by day, and the locusts …

For August 14, 2019                Please share with your friends and neighbors. Hi WN@TL Fans, Microbes—bacteria, fungi, viruses, protists and other tiny critters—are everywhere.  They are in the soil, in the water, on the plants, in the rocks and even in the air.  They live urbi et orbi. They are …

For August 7, 2019                      Please share with your friends and neighbors.   Hi WN@TL Fans, Among my favorite Greek myths are three leading examples of perpetual torture:  thirsty Tantalus in his cool pool of water, futile Sisyphus with his rolling stone, and ingenious Prometheus and …