The winter solstice is special from various perspectives. Even if you don't get into the spiritual magic of the day, you can still be impressed at what our planet's tilt makes happen as we go around the sun. And you can watch the livestream of this special day from Stonehenge (link below). Happy solstice! (And happy summer solstice to my southern-hemisphere friends!)

Some links:

Winter solstice at Mission San Juan Bautista (source of the audio clip)

A trip to San Juan Bautista on the winter solstice (video)

California Frontier Project (to learn more about the Spanish missions and other parts of California history)

Winter solstice and Stonehenge (English Heritage)

'A time to reflect': crowds celebrate winter solstice at Stonehenge (The Guardian)

Live from Stonehenge winter solstice (livestream)

Burning the clocks 2024

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

It's National Poinsettia Day in the US! Make it a good one by learning more about these ubiquitous "flowers." Or listen after the fact to prepare for next year.

A few resources:

Poinsettias at Christmas

8 fun facts to know about poinsettias

How to keep a poinsettia alive

Cuetlaxochitl: a cultural history of the poinsettia

The checkered history of the poinsettia’s namesake and the flower’s origins get new attention

The complicated history of the poinsettia

Joel Roberts Poinsett: Namesake of the poinsettia, enslaver, secret agent and perpetrator of the 'Trail of Tears'

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

Why am I doing this podcast anyway? Peek behind the curtain of my motivations in this short episode. Hint: because it's fun, and because awe and wonder are good for us and for society.

Dacher Keltner's website, with info about his book Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

I can hardly begin to describe how cool this place was, in an industrial sort of way. I'll tell you about it here, but please visit the link to see what the place looks like. This is a fantastic engineering marvel, although in a way it's so simple — harnessing the sun to heat things up. By the way, I mention 3000 degrees, and that's Celsius. In degrees Fahrenheit it would be 5432 degrees. Burnt by the sun: Uzbekistan's spectacular solar furnace

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

Samarkand is a city of gorgeous tiled architecture, but in a way the most interesting site is the observatory of Ulugh Beg. You can only see the remaining sextant now, although a small bit of the observatory building has been reconstructed to help visitors imagine its earlier splendor. The astronomical discoveries made here are awe-inspiring enough, but the architecture must have been dazzling even to people who had no idea what the building was for.

Have a look at the photos on these sites to bring the place to life:

Observatory of Ulugh Beg, Samarkand (the first picture shows what the huge sextant looks like today; scroll down to see a very partial reconstruction and the model of how it may have looked when it was in use)

The clever prince Ulugh Beg built — and used — an ingenious observatory in the 15th century (Astronomy Magazine online)

Registan Square (see some photos of Samarkand's old buildings and read about the old city's central square)

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

Visiting new places inspires wonder by giving us fresh perspectives on daily life (among other reasons). Join me for a few minutes in Tashkent and learn some things that may surprise you about this city that you probably don’t know much about.

Uzbekistan’s secret underground - in pictures

Uzbekistan Travel

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0

I wrote my fourth-grade animal report about sea otters — so you know I love them! I hope you'll love them too after learning about their magnificent fur (which almost led to their extinction) and their inspiring comeback, as well as some other reasons they're important and interesting. After listening, search "sea otter photos and videos," or use some of the links below, to see how cute they are.

Oregon Encyclopedia: Sea Otter

12 facts about sea otters for Sea Otter Awareness Week (US Dept. of the Interior)

Sea otters crack open oysters and clams (YouTube video, Oregon Zoo)

The "extinct" sea otter swims back to life (Life Magazine, 20 June 1938 — click on page 30)

Lost and Found Nature: Searching for the southern sea otter

History of sea otters (Sea Otter Foundation & Trust)

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0 Baby sea otter clip from https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/search?q=sea%20otter, recordist(s): Mimi DeGruy

Even mundane things in your kitchen can inspire wonder — or at least be interesting — if you pay attention. If you've never wondered about the history of ketchup, or why it's called ketchup, or what ketchup was like in the olden days, now's your chance to wonder. Edit: I made a mistake when I talked about the "mystery" EZ Squirt ketchup. It apparently didn't have all those colors together. Rather, the mystery was which color you would get. That does make more sense!

A few resources:

11 ketchup facts that go well with everything (Mental Floss)

The fascinating medicinal origins of ketchup (Tasting Table)

A bottle to beckon with (Heinz ad)

Woman is shocked when she compares ingredients in American ketchup vs. Canadian ketchup (Yahoo! Life)

Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0