Episode 92 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS wishes everyone a Gong Hei Fat Choy, as we help usher in The Year of The Water Rabbit. Not only will we talk about the Chinese calendar, zodiac, customs and celebrations, we will help you choose the right food on your Chinese take out menu to help bring good luck into your new year. We will also talk about what the Water Rabbit means in relation to good luck, fortune, health and wealth.

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF concludes with two very short ancient Chinese poems.

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Episode 91 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS talks about the revolutionary app called, ChatGPT. ChatGPT is AI (Artificial Intelligence), specifically the type that is known as a chatbot. It is an operational Large Language Model that chats with the user on a human conversational level. It is most often compared/contrasted with a Google Search Engine. With the search engine, you input data, and more data is returned as an answer - a result of shuffling through files on the internet. ChatGPT DOES NOT work this way. Instead, it LEARNS HOW TO INTERPRET THE INTENT BEHIND HUMAN QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO GIVE CONVERSATIONAL AND PLEASING ANSWERS.

In addition to so many other tasks, ChatGPT can write letters, emails, poems, song lyrics, business plans, essays, and novels. It does so instantaneously and convincingly. Researchers are currently working on ways to combat plagiarism and to ensure that the tech won't answer dangerous questions.

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF features a poem that I asked ChatGPT to write.

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Episode 90 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS updates its audience on this week's events concerning the Moscow, ID murder case of 4 University of Idaho students. Because the news surrounding the Probable Cause Affidavit (PCA) is so ubiquitous in the news right now, I will not rehash the details, as you are probably aware of them. Instead, I am presenting a timeline built from the PCA, other court documents, and other witnesses that make a rather damning case in front of a jury. Unless something out of the ordinary is conjured up, Bryan Kohberger does appear to be the murderer. His DNA, the tracking of his vehicle, the tracking of his phone and other behavior points to his guilt. 

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Episode 89 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS highlights two diets - Veganism and Weganism, which is a Wild Game diet. Both diets consist of whole, organic foods. Both diets eschew processed food items. Both diets are ethical lifestyles. One diet is completely absent of animal meat and products, while the other's main feature is animal meat and products. We will talk about the health benefits of each, the potential risks of each, and how each argue that its diet and lifestyle are the healthiest, most ethical and most sustainable diets on the planet.

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF features the poem, "The World Is Too Much With Us", by William Wordsworth

To send correspondence, email [email protected]

To donate to this podcast, Venmo @mdm773. Thank you. 

MARS MESSINA PRESENTS wishes one and all a very Happy New Year with Episode 88. First up, we have bittersweet news - there has been an arrest made in the murders of 4 University of Idaho students in Moscow, ID. We will then proceed with a short and sweet New Year's Eve ritual - a short yoga session, a tea ceremony, and a burning ceremony. I invite you to gather the items you will need for the rituals in this recording, so that you can put it on pause and come right back with your items at the ready. Or, if you choose not to actually participate but want to listen and meditate on the rituals, that will be useful, as well.

We will end this last episode of 2022 with a reading of, "Ring Out, Wild Bells", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Have a most abundant and graceful 2023.

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Episode 87 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS explains why the date of April 8 makes for a good Christmas story subject. We, here, at MARS MESSINA PRESENTS wish you and yours, one and all a very Merry Christmas!

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In Episode 86 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS, we learn that researchers have set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight in 2022 - the closest we have ever been to nuclear war. This is saying a lot, because October 27, 1962, is considered the most dangerous day humanity, as a whole, has ever experienced. We are going to talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis, a moment in time when the entire planet faced nuclear annihilation. Apparently, researchers and historians believe that today, with another showdown with Russia in the proxy war in Ukraine, we are just as close to all out nuclear war as we were in 1962. We will revisit the lessons learned in 1962, when rational heads on opposing sides chose life over death, but how one mistake could have made it all go another way. Shirking denial, we find ourselves right back at that point. How do we continue to choose life, when we consistently support death?

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF closes with the poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", by W.B. Yeats.

To send correspondence, email [email protected]

To donate to this podcast, Venmo @mdm773. Thank you.

Episode 85 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS asks, "What was in the water in Florence during the Renaissance?" At a time when humanity in all of Europe seemed to hit on all cylinders, Florence was the crowning jewel of this enlightened time, and engendered unparalleled genius. We will talk about the meaning of genius in terms of the Renaissance, and focus on - perhaps - the premiere genius of that place and time, Leonardo da Vinci. We will also discover that it is possible for each and every one of us to learn to think the way da Vinci thought, and create - together - a modern Renaissance.

Again, no BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF this week, because I ran short on time.

To send correspondence, email [email protected]

To donate to this podcast, Venmo @mdm773. Thank you. 

Episode 84 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS first opens with the latest on the Delphi Murder Case. We move on to the main subject of Super Agers - people aged 80+ who have superior cognition and better memories than the average person in their 50s or 60s. If we are not yet 80+, we can train our brains, now, so that we may be Super Agers when we grow up.

There is no BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF this week, because Mars has a bit of laryngitis.

To send correspondence, email [email protected]

To donate to this podcast, Venmo @mdm773. Thank you.

Episode 83 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS speaks about the recent  11/13/22 murders of 4 University of Idaho students while they slept in their residence near campus in Moscow, Idaho. There has been a lot of speculation connected to this horrific crime, and very few facts released by law enforcement, which includes Moscow Police, Idaho State Police, and the FBI. We'll try to parse the case and set up a factual timeline. To date, the crime remains unsolved.

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF features the poem, "A Prayer In Spring", by Robert Frost.

To send correspondence, email [email protected]

To donate to this podcast, Venmo @mdm773. Thank you.