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Gen Z is prepared and excited to learn

The 2026 autumn semester has quickly entered full swing, and I am eager to see how my English composition students at Ohio State University’s Lima campus approach their research for their first essay. We have not yet had our library research sessions, but some have expressed strong interest in writing about the importance of literacy for their generation, with artificial intelligence posing new academic challenges for them and their younger peers in high school. I was very pleased to read in their first-day writing assignments how strongly these students feel about doing their own ...

Mercury shrinking faster than expected

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A new study shows that little, wrinkly Mercury may be shrinking faster than expected, the cosmos’ version of a grape shriveling into a raisin under the sun. Scientists from the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Space Research reported Thursday that Mercury’s shrinkage may be 30% greater than previously believed — a loss in diameter of as much as 14 miles. That’s significant for a planet barely 3,000 miles across. Mercury’s rough surface, continually reshaped by debris hurled from impact craters, may have hidden the true extent of the loss, ...

Yesteryear

Leonard Alwine of Altoona submitted this photo of Car No. 50, a 1925 Osgood Bradley street car leading a 1913 St. Louis car at the busy 12th Avenue and 11th Street terminal during the winter months in the late 1940s as the passengers scurry to catch their rides on another route across the ...

Did Pa. learn from the last outbreak?

The Pennsylvania Department of Health wants to stretch its muscles with regard to its ability to investigate public health emergencies and disease. It’s an idea that might be worrisome if you are concerned about government overreach. It’s also an idea that makes sense given large-scale crises like the measles outbreak going on right now. While measles is a disease all but wiped out in the United States years ago, it is experiencing a resurgence. Pennsylvania is seeing the second-largest outbreak in the country with 577 cases, 115 of them just over the last week. A big part of ...

Reflecting on the window of hope

For those who remember the way savagery shattered serenity on Sept. 11, 2001, the last 25 years haven’t dimmed the memory of the evil that occurred that day. One remembers the photos of the missing, murdered plastered on Manhattan’s buildings and street poles and The New York Times obituaries — bunches each day — of those pulverized in the wreckage. One remembers the footage of some in the Middle East honking cars, distributing sweets and firing guns into the air, celebrating the killing of Americans. But you also remember the breathtaking heroism of the first responders, so ...

What does ‘Never Forget’ really mean?

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was a 12-year-old boy living in England. Because of the five-hour time difference, I first learned that something had happened as the school day drew to a close. It wasn’t until I got home later that afternoon that I saw the images of the Twin Towers burning thousands of miles away and watched them collapse in a hellish explosion of steel and concrete and glass and ash. And I just didn’t get it. Yes, I knew it was bad, and I knew it was unprecedented, and I knew it was scary, but as a child, I had absolutely no understanding of the gravity of what had just ...