Words of Williams

 he Cuban missile crisis of 1962 is one of most harrowing—and well-studied—moments in modern world history. But exhaustive reporting by Sean D. Naylor, national security correspondent for Yahoo News, reveals that the prologue to the familiar timeline of events has been left out, along with several key players in the saga. www.google.com www.wikipedia.org www.youtube.com www.yahoo.com The boilerplate narrative of the Cuban missile crisis goes something like this. During a routine flyover of western Cuba in October of 1962, a U-2 spy plane captured grainy images of what appeared to be a Soviet missile base under construction. Before blowing the whistle on the Soviet Union for setting up nuclear missiles just 90 miles off the coast of the U.S. in violation of international agreements, President John F. Kennedy wanted definitive proof that medium and intermediate-range nuclear missiles, capable of hitting U.S. cities, were indeed present. So on October 23, 1962, a Navy RF-8 Crusader eq...

 axing out at 10 feet long and tipping scales at 200 pounds, Komodo dragons are the largest lizards on Earth—and they’re certainly formidable. With a top speed of 12 miles per hour and a venomous bite, they can take down a deer or water buffalo—and may occasionally attack humans. But that reputation hasn’t been enough to keep poachers away, and in the aftermath of a major smuggling case, the government of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province may close Komodo Island to tourists beginning January 2020, reports Laila Afifa at Tempo.co. www.google.com www.wikipedia.org www.youtube.com The possible closure comes after authorities thwarted a smuggling ring last week that was selling the lizards and other rare animals overseas as part of the exotic pet trade. Police seized five Komodo dragons the smugglers were attempting to sell on Facebook. According to the Andre Barahamin at the South China Morning Post, the poachers admitted that they had already sold 41 animals abroad for between ...

 ure, buying one of Jimi Hendrix’s guitars or collecting a lock of Charlotte Bronte’s hair might seem like the ultimate act of fandom. But would you sink your teeth into a piece of cheese made from their armpit bacteria? A new exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum asks just that, taking celebrity culture to the next level—literally. As part of an exhibit called Food: Bigger Than the Plate, the museum is showing off five types of cheese made from microbes collected from British celebrities. www.google.com www.wikipedia.org www.yahoo.com So how does one turn the human microbiome into a chunk of cheddar? As a museum blog post explains, milk is transformed into curds by a unique starter culture or bacteria, which determines whether the cheese will ripen into a nice cheddar or a bit of gouda. It turns out that many of the bacteria used to make cheese are similar to bacteria encountered on human skin. That’s why sometimes the scent of stinky feet and stinky cheese overlap. Some of ...