My first Ben Bova read was a non-fiction article title "How to Build a Dinosaur" in Boy's Life magazine (a scouting monthly) back around 1970. At least that's my memory ... I couldn't find any reference to it in a quick search. In the article, he delves into some (light) math to show how an insect 100 times larger than real life would not work, despite what sci-fi movies showed, at least not in Earth's gravity. He points out that when something becomes twice the size, the surface area is squared but the volume is cubed, leading to all sorts of structural and thermodynamic problems. Pretty interesting stuff for a 10-year old!

Later I read some of his stories and novels, but always thought of him as the "Boy's Life writer".

Speaking of writing, is there some reason to avoid saying "Ben Bova dies"? When did "pass" become the preferred verb?

"I cannot recommend him too highly"

Yes, that is impressive ... and did you notice that the delivery is being done by pilots?

That may be true, but deep sleep, which the article discusses, is not the same as REM sleep

Sleeping a lot is more a sign of lack of REM sleep, which means people aren't getting deep sleep.

That may be true, but deep sleep is not the same as REM sleep

Isn't he that short guy from Africa who used to be in the Beatles?

Yeah, ideally that would be true, but there are too many programs (in Windows anyway) that get all wacked out with ugly UI at high resolution. Hopefully the situation will get better now that 4k monitors are everywhere.

Remember that "ultra wide" means "ultra short"!

The 27" Dell 2709W was the last of the great 16:10 monitors. Resolution is 1920 x 1200 so, unlike a 4k monitor, things don't get so tiny you have to struggle to see them. I buy one every once in a while on Craiglist for about $100 ... have two in storage as spares. And, it goes without saying, you need two!

Sure they rate them highly ... until the battery starts dying. That's the whole point of the article.

I used to do pushups every day, but stopped after I started developing wrist pain.

You might try using pushup bars - they make it much easier on your wrists.

For the Millennials among you, no that's not what websites looked like in the 1990s.

There were plenty that looked just like this. As soon as the page came up I laughed in recognition.

Try Philip Greenspun's website [greenspun.com] for an inkling of what a functional site looked like in the 1990s.

Yes, there were plenty of single-guy-hobbyist sites that looked like that. But websites promoting a movie or music or was trying to be hip ... any site that was pulling out all the stops ... would not have looked anything like Philip Greenspun's website.

It actually propels [itself] using bubbles in a reaction of magnesium with biological fluids

If instead of magnesium it used a sodium reaction it would propel itself much faster, and at the same time would provide a dramatic cure for constipation.

True! Only Americans are like that.

I don't think Alexa is intelligent, but that doesn't stop both my wife and me from telling her (oops ....) "Thank you" after she's told us today's weather.