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Fall Sports, Activities Can Mean Injuries

September 16, 2013 - 11:00am

Fall is here and for many, that means taking part in fall sports. Whether it’s soccer, football, field hockey, cross-country or volleyball, young people and adults need to be conscious of the risk of injury.

Lori Thein Brody, a physical therapist and athletic trainer with the University of Wisconsin Sports Medicine and the UW Spine Center, said she sees a lot of injuries. She is also the graduate program director for the Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, Utah.

With people who are runners or participating in cross-country, Brody said she tends to see more over-use injuries...

Author Says Americans Are ‘At War’ With Food Industry

September 16, 2013 - 4:00pm

A popular author and pediatrician said that he believes the American people are now “at war with the food industry" as many struggle with unhealthy food choices that are oftentimes cheap and tasty.

It’s not a war that anyone chose to fight, but Robert Lustig said it's the product of an industry aiming to do what all industries do: make money.

Lustig said the economics goes like this: Companies want to sell food that costs them the least. On the other hand, they want consumers to buy a lot of it. So, they use cheap commodities, like corn and wheat, with the addition...

Remembering Life Of Acclaimed Irish Poet

September 16, 2013 - 2:00pm

Poet, playwright and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney passed away late last month at the age of 74.

Often called the "greatest Irish poet since Yeats," Heaney's passing was deeply felt throughout his homeland and around the world. In a statement, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny wrote, “Seamus Heaney’s death brings great sorrow to Ireland, to language and to literature. He is mourned -- and deeply -- wherever poetry and the world of the spirit are cherished and celebrated.”

Heaney became the fourth Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1995, following William Butler Yeats in 1923, George Bernard Shaw in 1925,...

Falling Star

September 16, 2013 - 11:30am

The thirty-three-year-old pianist was as brilliant as ever. He treated his audience in Besançon to unequaled performances of Bach’s B-flat major Partita, Mozart’s Sonata in A minor, Schubert’s G- flat major and E-flat major Impromptus, and thirteen of Chopin’s fourteen Waltzes. He left out the second Chopin waltz because he...

And There Was Music

September 15, 2013 - 11:30am

After graduating from Oxford, Hubert Parry was bound for a business career in London, although money-making was not as interesting to him as music-making. In September of 1870 he couldn’t resist a final burst of freedom. He wrote about it in his diary: I spent a quiet time studying manuscript...

A Slight Breach of Decorum

September 14, 2013 - 11:30am

By the 1950s Ralph Vaughan Williams was a heavyset, craggy-faced monument to solid British music and decorum, so he must have presented quite a contrast with the guest conductor at a choral competition that took place at the base of the 2nd Battalion Welsh Guards. Vaughan Williams had been invited...

A Good Catch

September 13, 2013 - 11:30am

In 1764 Leopold Mozart was in London with his family, including his eight-year-old son, Wolfgang Amadeus. Money worries were never far from his mind. On September 13 he wrote to his landlord and banker back in Salzburg: You’ve probably deduced that I’ll spend the entire winter here at least, and...

Versatile Enough

September 12, 2013 - 11:30am

The string quartet is a curiosity, a series of short dances for three violins and cello to be played on open strings. It’s attributed to Benjamin Franklin, and since he was so versatile, it’s tempting to assume that Franklin would also turn his attention to composing music. Franklin played the...

Smithsonian Aims To Translate Museums Into Digital Age

September 11, 2013 - 4:45pm

The head of the largest museum in the United States said that online technology is an untapped opportunity for museums, libraries, and other public institutions.

Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., kicked off a project to take advantage of cutting-edge technology to bring exhibits to people in new and engaging ways. He said there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in museums that can be shared online.

“There are hundreds of talented people at work behind the museum walls, and still others in far-flung field research activities out of sight. Their fascinating work is largely invisible...

When It Mattered Most

September 11, 2013 - 11:30am

Rick Rescorla was a soldier, not a musician. But he knew the power of music and he put it to work when it mattered most. He was born in Cornwall in 1939. Some of his earliest memories were of Cornish songs, but American culture was also in the air as...