In October we caught a fly with flypaper and it died a terrible, slow, noisy death. Now it has returned to haunt our radiators. 

Definitely A Ghost In There

Literally The Same Radiator But, Like, 30 Seconds Later

Fly Ghost Haunting Us From Inside Our Radiator

Fly Death

Unemployment numbers in the Midwest are bad. Not as bad as when the recession was at its worst, but there are still a lot of people looking for jobs. Even so, we keep hearing that some employers can’t find enough skilled workers. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder says that in his state alone, there are over 77,000 job openings that can’t be filled. There’s really only one way to bridge that gap. People need training, and the way they’re getting it is changing.

To prepare workers, retraining programs try to predict the future

There’s so much to know about what’s happening in the world around us, and that information gives us insights into patterns and changes that could have a big impact on our lives.

But finding these trends requires a lot of data – and somebody has to go out and get it.

Tracking invasive species in Detroit, one tree at a time

In its early days, railway travel out west was an unpleasant business. Trips could take anywhere from one day to one week, and people were treated a lot like cargo. Railroad companies just kind of put them on the train and sent them off.

But of all the indignities of rail travel – smoke and dust in the cars, cramped quarters, dizzying climbs through the mountains – the most miserable part of the trip was the food.


Meals on wheels

Smartphones have become incredibly powerful tools for blind people. A phone’s camera can identify money and read text, and GPS navigation tells blind users where they are and what’s nearby.

Most mobile accessibility tools can be found through a handful of useful apps on standard smartphones, but there’s a team of developers in Israel working on a new Android phone called Ray. It's a standard Android phone with an interface designed for blind users.

Building a better smartphone for blind users

In 1880, T.P. Keator and Thad Butler took a trip to Cleveland. They were the editors of the Wabash Plain Dealer, the local paper in Wabash, Indiana.

They had heard about a man in Cleveland experimenting with electric lighting.

And Keator and Butler had an idea: If they could bring just a few of these electric lights to Wabash, they could light up the whole town. And if they could pull it off, Wabash would be the first town in the world that could say it was entirely illuminated by electricity.


The last dark night in Wabash

The bird outside my window does a pretty good "car alarm"

Meg_Cramer