Issues

Joan L. Cannon writes: There seem to be gaps in teaching and learning that are made by those habits of society and custom and plain laziness that we should to try to bridge. Certainly lessons as such are  necessary, but the curriculum needs imagination and revision. While working for certification in  the state where I was teaching as a substitute in a public high school, my class was assigned a  paper on Sex Education. more »

Oregon’s move to pharmacist-prescribed birth control is an attempt to increase access to the drugs and reduce unintended pregnancies, which make up more than half of all pregnancies in the United States. It also is part of a movement toward team-based medical care, in which doctors and other medical professionals together oversee patients’ care. more »

After rising steadily for nearly a century, the share of older Americans who live alone has fallen since 1990, largely because women ages 65 to 84 are increasingly likely to live with their spouse or their children. Older adults not only are less likely to live alone today than in 1990, but they are also less likely to live in nursing homes or other group quarters. In 2014, 3% of older Americans lived in nursing homes or other group quarters, down from 6% in 1990.   more »

The ringing bell that LIGO heard early in the morning of Sept. 14, 2015, was the result of two massive black holes merging together 1.3 billion light-years away. As the two black holes spiraled around each other, they radiated energy in the form of gravitational waves. While they merged into one even more massive black hole, they released three solar masses of energy. Imagine a Hydraulic and electromagnetic system that also compensates for the tidal stretching of Earth's crust! more »