• a period or program of festive activities, cultural events, or entertainment
• gaiety; revelry; merrymaking
Oh, who doesn’t love a festival, a cultural celebration, a public party? In my little corner of the world, we have an annual Apple Squeeze at harvest time. Other places in the United States show their own civic pride in various activities throughout the year.
Most sound fun and entertaining, some may be a bit quirky, and (at least one) simply defies description. Allow me to be your tour guide.
Fun and Entertaining Food Festivals
Banana split
Banana Split Festival: Wilmington, Ohio
Rumor has it that in the winter of 1907, business was rather slow at Hazard’s Restaurant in Wilmington, Ohio. The owner, Ernest Hazard, proposed a contest to concoct a new dish, something so unique that the local college students would be enticed to visit and become new customers.
WCCB Charlotte s CW
January 29, 2021
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – This morning Wilson is looking to the skies with Kari Wouk from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Through Sunday, January 31st it is Virtual Astronomy Days at the museum. Kari talked with Wilson about the event and how joining the museum will open the door to the universe for members. Astronomy Days offers everything from virtual crafts and activities to moon zooms, lectures to LEGOs, ensuring that space enthusiasts of all ages will find something to do.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is located in Raleigh and has been around since 1879 and has researchers and scientists on staff. More information can be found at their website naturalsciences.org.
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“I am seeing tons of hair loss,” Mona Gohara says.
Patients come to Gohara, a dermatologist and professor at the Yale School of Medicine, for all kinds of reasons from skin cancer screenings to cosmetic procedures. But this year more than ever, they’re worried about their hair.
It’s not a coincidence. Stress like, say, that brought on by living through a deadly pandemic is known to cause hair loss. Ordinarily, “90 percent of the hairs on our head are in the growing cycle; 10 percent are in the shedding cycle,” Gohara explained. “But when we’re subject to some type of physiologic or emotional stress, that cycle shifts to where the shed outweighs the grow.” The result: “people notice a massive, massive shed.”
The 67-million-year-old fossil shows a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops embroiled in battle (Credit: Friends of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences)
Over the years, researchers have found ample evidence proving that the horned Triceratops and the Tyrannosaurus Rex (T. rex), which roamed western North America in the late Cretaceous period some 69 million years ago were mortal enemies. However, finding perfectly-preserved fossils of the prey and predator locked in combat was something they only dreamed of until the 2006 discovery of the Dueling Dinosaurs at a private Montana farm by commercial fossil hunters Clayton Phipps and his team. The Dueling Dinosaurs is one of the most remarkable fossil discoveries ever made, Scott Sampson, a paleontologist and the president of Science World, a nonprofit education and research facility in Vancouver, BC, told
On September 29, 2020, Eric K. Lund, the paleontology conservation lab manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences gave a virtual talk for
American Scientist’s lunchtime seminar series on his research with horned (or ceratopsian) dinosaurs. After, he was interviewed by Brian Malow. A podcast of the interview is below, followed by a summary of the live tweets that highlighted points of the talk.
Could the horns and frills on dinosaurs have be used for thermoregulation? Imaging of fossils shows many pits and lines indicating blood vessels on the frills, as reconstructed at above right. These were big animals, and the thin skin over bony plates (