֎ If the reader hasn’t checked in on science since their days in high school and college, they may need this update:

“B mesons come in many varieties, but all have a constituent called a bottom antiquark. One way in which these mesons decay is by the transformation of the bottom antiquark into a so-called “strange” antiquark and a pair of leptons.”[1]

֎ The answer to Y men die younger than women:

“As men get older, they don’t just lose their hair, muscle tone, and knee cartilage. They also start to lose Y chromosomes from their cells. Scientists have linked this vanishing to a long list of diseases and a higher risk of death, but the evidence has been circumstantial. Now, researchers report that when they removed the Y chromosome from male mice, the animals died earlier than their Y-carrying counterparts, likely because their hearts became stiffer.”[2]

֎ The Villages in Florida or homesteading in Alaska aren’t the only escapist real estate options:

“The virtual real estate market has really taken off in the last year, especially after Facebook’s decision to focus on the metaverse. Real estate sales on four platforms alone — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium – topped $500 million in 2021, according to MetaMetric Solutions.”

֎ If you didn’t learn cursive the first time, you can’t learn it now:

Cursive handwriting is no longer necessary. With computer-based writing exams as part of the Common Core curriculum, typing quickly and accurately is becoming more important than writing in neat script.

For the really old folk like mariner, typing is no longer a productive skill. What’s next? Can the reader imagine a class of students all talking at once as they use their voice-to-print app?

֎ Schools don’t teach cooking and home economics anymore. Will they teach students how to order tonight’s dinner through a voice-command box? [Mom already knows. Here comes Grubhub.]

So much to catch up on.

Ancient Mariner

[1] Economist magazine 7/22.

[2] Science Magazine/Weekly News.