Transportation

Rose Madeline Mula writes: I love to travel. Not any more. Not since my trip last winter to Florida where I fled to escape the Northeast blasts. At the beach, I found I could no longer sit in a sand chair. I could sit in it but no way could I get up out of it. I had to depend on strangers to hoist me up before the tide came in. If I pulled out my cell phone invariably it would attract the attention of someone nearby who would gush patronizingly, "Look at you!" as if I had just transformed water into wine. Apparently it's equally miraculous that someone of my advanced years has enough live brain cells to have mastered a basic electronic device. more »

Jane Shortall writes: Pulling on a woolly hat, scarf, gloves, heavy jeans, rubber boots and a waxed jacket, on that wild morning, I went out and walked the legendary Bull Wall in Clontarf, a long, long seafront walk, loved by the citizens of Dublin for hundreds of years. This is the area where the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, was slain in a battle against the Danes in 1014. On that particular morning, I felt I was battling too. more »

Joan L. Cannon writes: I learned to swim at six. I learned to ride horses by the time I was seven, even won a couple of blue ribbons for equitation, passed my lifesaving tests and had some medals for swimming. Handling a canoe, executing a jack-knife from a springboard, target shooting with a longbow or a .22 rifle came fairly easily to me, but I never learned to turn a cartwheel and I never learned to ride a bike.  more »

After watching a steady parade of people emerge from the lavatory on an extended commercial flight, many passengers are reluctant to expose themselves to the germs left behind. But what if the lavatory could clean itself after every use? Boeing engineers and designers have built a prototype lavatory that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to kill 99.99 percent of pathogens, thus sanitizing all the lavatory surfaces. Combined with touchless faucets, soap dispensers and more, the lavatory of the future could make for a more hygienic, less worrisome experience. more »