Columns

By John Mark Young We’ve reached the moon again! Last week on February 24, 2024, one of our spacecraft, Intuitive Machine’s ‘Odysseus,’ successfully landed on the moon. It had launched the preceding week on February 15th on a combined mission of NASA, Space X, and Intuitive Machines, making it America’s first soft unmanned moon landing […]

BY CHARLES BETZLER, HERALD WRITER The immune system protects the body against bacteria, microbes, viruses, toxins, and parasites. Each day, you inhale thousands of pathogens (bacteria and viruses) that are floating in the air. Your immune system neutralizes the threat.  Occasionally, a pathogen gets past the immune system and you catch a cold, get the flu,

BY CHARLES BETZLER, HERALD WRITER Before Louis Pasteur formulated germ theory and became known as the father of microbiology in the mid-1800s, people died unnecessarily from infection, particularly during surgery.  Fracastoro of Verona postulated in 1546 that small germs could cause contagious disease, but there was no correlation with wound infections. Pus was considered a normal

BY CHARLES BETZLER, HERALD WRITER SAPULPA –– During the epic storm system in 2021 that resulted in massive failures in the power grid, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, by far the largest component of the grid to fail was natural gas. Utility officials blamed the failures on wellhead “freeze offs.”  Since the freezing point of natural

By John Mark Young So, where did it come from? Nobody important was born or did anything special on that day…. No nation gained its independence on that day…. There’s nothing to be especially thankful for on that day…. So, what if anything, makes February 14th to be different from any other day? And what

BY CHARLES BETZLER, HERALD WRITER Many of us first experienced Valentine’s Day while in grade school. The celebration varied from school to school. However, the overarching theme was giving a Valentine’s card and or candy to your classmates. In some schools, you drew names and only gave a card, or perhaps candy or a homemade craft for