Mother’s Day can elicit complicated emotions in the human animal. Not so Mother Hamster. While you were out to brunch, she was matter-of-factly devouring the runtiest of her litter. And not because he failed to present her with a bouquet and flowery card.

If you have kids, you’re going to get the inevitable question: Where did the universe come from? And you’re likely going to take a long pause before trying to present the science of the big bang.

My 12-year-old, home-schooled son recently expressed an interest in studying World War I. This was encouraging, but also nerve-wracking, given the disdain that led me to spend most of World History passing notes and doodling (not in the Lynda Barry college course / this will help you absorb the information better way).

In 1960, NASA put its first “Earth-observing environmental satellite” into orbit, and, ever since, these satellites have let us observe the dynamics of our planet in a new way.  They can tell us all about changing weather patterns, the impact of climate change, what’s happening in the oceans, the coastlines, rivers and more.

Salman Khan’s model for free online education hinges on the micro lecture—brief tutorials on nearly every subject under the sun—delivered through YouTube. Launched in 2006, the Khan Academy now has a library of 3000 videos.

Internet trolls are very touchy people. Sometimes their rage is targeted at public figures, institutions, or groups who do and say horrible things (the Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind). More often, the phenomenon of “trolling” is a free-for-all of absurdist online pranks or verbal abuse directed at anyone and everyone.

There’s no doubt that a single inspiring teacher can have a profound impact on a student’s life, but what about the duds? The apoplectic nun, the tapped out fossil, the bitter young man? If there’s deadwood in your educational history, you owe it to yourself to spend some time with John Green.

Sometimes a tune lives in your head and you hum it now and again without any recollection of where it originally came from. Chances are, if you grew up in the United States watching Saturday morning cartoons, that tune came from Schoolhouse Rock.
Like so many of its biggest fans, Schoolhouse Rock is now officially in its 40s.

Now for a story which “raises questions about the theory and nature of knowledge.” An elephant “hears a faint noise coming from a small speck of dust; it seems to him like a tiny person is calling out for help.

We’ve written before about the public service Leonard Bernstein rendered the American public as an ambassador of classical music. Bernstein made some appearances on an arts and culture program called Omnibus in the 50s, and in 1972, as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard, he delivered a masterful series of public lectures.