Even with the right ingredients, you still need the right kitchen. For early Earth, that could mean a hot, seething deep-sea vent… a quiet, shallow pool warmed by the sun… or a frozen landscape where reactions happened in slow motion. Here are the top contenders: Deep-Sea Vents Found along mid-ocean ridges, these underwater chimneys spew mineral-rich water heated by Earth’s interior. They offer stable energy, abundant chemistry, and protection from surface impacts and radiation. And we know vents can support life — since the late 1970s, scientists have found entire ecosystems down there: giant tube worms, shrimp, and bacteria living without sunlight, powered entirely by chemical energy from the vents. Proof that even in total darkness, the right “kitchen” can cook up a thriving community….

Where did life come from? It’s the biggest question in science — and one we still can’t answer with certainty. In this three-part series, we’ll explore the leading ideas about how life began: from its possible birthplace, to the essential “ingredients” it needed, to the environments that may have been the first kitchens for biology. Each post poses a question, shares the best scientific guesses, and leaves room for you to weigh in with your own take. Did Life Start Here… or Somewhere Else? Life Showed Up Picture Earth about 4 billion years ago. No trees. No oceans as we know them. No hummingbirds, no humans. Just a rocky, volatile planet with volcanoes belching gas, meteors slamming into the surface, and chemical soup simmering in…

This post may give you the suggestion that I am running out of things to write about. Not the case! I am in Alaska this week so I decided to do some easier things. Living in Reno, you get used to certain sights — snow on the mountains, casino lights downtown, and, every summer, a team of hard-working goats chewing through our hillsides like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. We have heard stories about them for a few years now. These aren’t random goats out for a stroll. They’re city-hired specialists, brought in with their wranglers, portable fencing, guard dogs and a work ethic that would put some contractors to shame. Their mission? Munch down the weeds and brush that fuel wildfires. And they do it…

How the Rise of Sports Wagers Is Supercharging NFL Superstitions I’ve long accepted that NFL fans (really all sports fans) are a superstitious bunch. There are the lucky hats, the pregame snacks, and the “don’t you dare change the channel” or other behavior rules. My wife, for example, has a “lucky T-shirt” for her team. The track record? Let’s just say it’s more “statistically insignificant” than “proven winner.” But if it’s game day, she’s wearing it. Superstitions in football are nothing new — they’ve been around since before the forward pass. But lately, I’ve noticed something different. The rise of sports betting, especially all the in-game, micro-betting opportunities, seems to be turning up the volume on these rituals. Now, it’s not just about helping your…

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the movies being delivered by the traditional Hollywood studios are mostly a rehash of well-worn themes — superhero reboots, mega-franchise sequels, and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas. Whatever happened to originality and innovation in movies? It’s hard to get excited about Fast & Furious 65 or Superman 34 or any other film that needs a number after its title. And yet, you can almost see them on the release calendar already. For decades, Hollywood has been in a creative rut, stuck on sequels, remakes, and the safest of safe bets. But it wasn’t always this way. In the early decades of film, something new hit the screens every week — low-budget crime stories, heartfelt dramas, oddball…

Modern Writers Who Prove They Don’t Need a Dead Man’s Name I am off on a week’s vacation next week and then again in September. So, I am searching for books to load up my Kindle for those two weeks (should take about six new books for my collection). But there’s a special kind of frustration that comes from picking up a new book with a beloved author’s name splashed across the cover—only to remember halfway through that the original author has been dead for years. It’s happened to me more times than I care to admit. The packaging is convincing, the title sounds right, the cover art has the same feel. But the voice—the thing that makes an author them—isn’t quite there. And that’s…

—and Remembering When We Saw It Before A fan’s reflection on Scottie Scheffler, the legends before him, and what greatness really means There’s a moment in every sports fan’s life when you realize: you’re watching greatness happen in real time. You’ve seen it before—maybe in flashes, maybe stretched over seasons—and now, here it is again. Not a replay, not a documentary, but right now, week after week, tournament after tournament. That’s what watching Scottie Scheffler has started to feel like. He’s calm. Grounded. Ruthlessly consistent. He doesn’t scream for attention, and he doesn’t play for the crowd. But make no mistake: he’s dominating the game in a way we’ve only seen a handful of times before. So what does this kind of greatness look like—and…

How Older Adults Are Rewriting the Script on Aging Forget the stereotypes. The golden years aren’t all early bird dinners and endless television reruns. Across the world, older adults are pushing back against isolation not by retreating into passive routines, but by creating, connecting, and contributing. When I was born, the average life expectancy in the U.S. was about 67. Today, it’s closer to 77—and for those who make it to 70, many will live well into their 90s or beyond. That shift isn’t just demographic; it’s existential. It means we need new models for aging—ones that recognize not just how long we live, but how much life we want to pack into those extra years. In Buenos Aires, a group of retirees has turned…

Adventures in Peeing After 70 I never thought I’d write publicly about peeing. But here we are. And if you’re over a certain age—and honest with yourself—you’ve probably thought about it a lot more than you used to. Getting up two or more times each night is something that you have to get used to and hopefully, that does not increase over time. Having to hit the pause button while watching your favorite program or sports broadcast are events both you and the family start to expect. In my case, it’s not just the meds. I had radiation therapy for prostate cancer—first at72, then again in 76. The treatment was effective, but the side effect was what doctors call “mild incontinence” and what I call…

How Jazz (and a Few Others) Shaped My Ears Two things happened in high school that shaped my music taste forever. The first was getting tickets to Jazz at the Philharmonic, where I was introduced to the explosive brilliance of Dizzy Gillespie and the pure vocal magic of Ella Fitzgerald. The second was listening to the Benny Goodman 1938–39 Carnegie Hall Concert album (a gift)—a gateway to big band swing and greats like Lionel Hampton, Ray Anthony, and of course, Goodman himself. That was the beginning of a lifelong habit: collecting jazz albums and immersing myself in a musical tradition that thrived on spontaneity and skill. In college, the world of jazz got bigger and more intimate. A friend invited me to The Black Hawk,…

(And Why It Wouldn’t Drive Me Crazy) I bought my laptop a little over 15 years ago when I was still doing some consulting and business development. It has many features I’ve never figured out how to use effectively—and some are still total mysteries. So much for being a technology geek. Over time, I’ve tried to get better at typing on this keyboard. I can type reasonably well, but not too fast—those claims of 80 or 90 words per minute? Mythical. I’m more of a 20-to-30 wpm guy. Part of this is due to the number of times I have to locate the right key or find the backspace. But this keyboard has been a source of aggravation from day one. It has red letters…

What I’ve Learned from Writing On June 23, 2024, I published my first post on Yogiwan.us—a simple “Hello World” that marked the beginning of a small project I started mostly for myself. I had no real audience in mind, no monetization plan, no urge to build followers or chase likes. I just wanted a space to think aloud. A few weeks later, I followed it up with some actual content—starting with WordPress tools and a short piece on the Supreme Court. And then I kept going. One post at a time. Now here we are, one year and over 130 posts later. It seems like a good moment to pause, look back, and ask: What did I actually learn from doing this? Why I Started…

(Or: Why We No Longer Know What’s True) There was a time—not so long ago—when “being informed” meant something. You read the newspaper. You watched the evening news. You listened to voices that, for all their flaws, were anchored in reporting, fact-checking, and editorial standards. You may not have agreed with everything they said—but you knew the difference between fact and opinion, between a journalist and a talking head. Now? It’s harder to tell. Harder to know where the information comes from. Harder still to know whether it’s grounded in knowledge or just dressed up in charisma. We’re drowning in content and starving for clarity. That’s not just a personal feeling—it’s a cultural shift. We didn’t stop trusting the news overnight. We watched it dissolve….

And Other Mysteries of Modern Tech Where did the everyday user go? And does Microsoft even care anymore? I recently attempted something wildly ambitious. Not building a rocket. Not editing a podcast. I tried to read a book. On my Surface Pro 7. Specifically, a Kindle book. You know, the kind I can read on my phone, my Kindle e-reader, my wife’s iPad, or—if I wanted to get wild—have Alexa read to me in jazz-flavored Swahili while I grill salmon. But on a Surface Pro? That’s asking too much. The Disappearing App Trick Turns out the Kindle app is no longer available in the Microsoft Store. Not even an ancient, cobweb-covered version from 2017. Amazon quietly removed it, and Microsoft didn’t seem to notice—or care….

(Because I’m Not Repeating That Again) The jazz is playing, the lights are mostly on, and the future still looks bright There was a time—maybe not so long ago—when enjoying music meant a little work. I had hundreds of vinyl albums and CDs, sorted (mostly) by genre: jazz, pop, Broadway musicals, blues, even a little bluegrass. I could always find something interesting, though occasionally it meant rifling through stacks and muttering, “I know it’s here somewhere…” Fast forward to today, and I can say this without irony: Alexa (or Siri, or whoever’s listening) changed the game. I don’t have to dig through crates or remember where I last saw that Duke Ellington CD. I just ask. “Alexa, play Oscar Peterson.” Boom—jazz in seconds. “Alexa, play…

My Tablet Setup Saga In the early 1980s, we were introduced to a brand-new concept: the personal computer. IBM’s PC arrived in 1981, and the Apple Macintosh followed in 1984. By today’s standards, those machines were laughably clunky—limited in speed, memory, graphics, and the ability to do more than one thing at a time. But at the time? Absolute magic. We could compute, create, and communicate without waiting in line at a university lab or asking the guy down the hall who “knows mainframes.” Fast forward more than four decades and the world has changed. Personal computers are in our pockets. Storage is measured in terabytes, not floppy disks. And setup? Well, surely that’s been streamlined into a plug-and-play breeze, right? Apparently not. A few…

We are almost into Summer (June 20) and should well be into grilling time. So I thought I would go back and pull some of my material from the Your Smart Kitchen newsletters and republish them here. These tips and recipes were good then and should still be useful. Tips for beef: When picking steaks, choose cuts that are close in size and thickness–preferably over one inch thick–and marbled throughout. Not all meat has a grade or quality designation, but the higher grades (i.e., prime and choice) mean more marbling. Steaks should be bright red, with no gray or brown patches. If vacuum-packed, they may be darker, but once exposed to oxygen should become bright red again. Fresh beef should be refrigerated and used within…

From LPs to playlists—when the jazz never stopped Jazz doesn’t just age well—it matures, like a fine wine or a favorite old coat. It gets more comfortable, more familiar, and yet somehow more meaningful. And if you’ve been listening to it for a few decades, it becomes the soundtrack not just to your evenings, but to your life. Some of my friends like the old pop classics because they have the lyrics memorized and can sing along. I like the old jazz classics because I can anticipate the changes in key as well as the changes in mood. These never get old or tiring. Back in the day, hearing jazz wasn’t just about taste—it was about commitment. You had to have a good quality turntable…

When DJs picked the playlist, jazz clubs whispered magic, and discovery took time When I was in high school, most of the kids were glued to the pop charts. And to be fair, that era—late ’50s through the ’70s—produced some of the best music ever recorded, much of which is still being played today. But thanks to a lucky break during my sophomore year in high school, I was given a free ticket to Jazz at the Philharmonic, a touring group of jazz performers. There I was introduced to something entirely different: Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and a world of sound that wasn’t topping the charts but was quickly grabbing my attention. That one night launched a lifelong love of jazz, even as everyone else…