Joe Sawchak is a collection assistant for the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pa. We called him to talk about the hell pig, the prehistoric creature that was completely in charge of the planet for more than 10 million years.
You always have to wade through a lot of names when it comes to paleontology but don’t let that stop you from marveling at this specimen. A strange warthog-like creature (only a lot bigger) with four sets of teeth falls into the category of entelodonts. 
It’s referred to as Dinohyus at the Carnegie Museum. That means “terrible pig” (now you can see where the hell-pig label came from). Oh yes, it’s also referred to by another name, Daedon, but don’t let that throw you; that’s just one of those apatosaurus/brontosaurus things where a creature of the past gets tagged with two names. 
Whatever you call it, the hell pig must have done a lot of damage in its day.
We called Joe because his museum is home to what is probably the most complete, best-preserved fossil skeleton of this terrible pig that’s ever been discovered. In 1905, Carnegie Museum field collector T. F. Olcott unearthed this skeleton from the Agate Springs Fossil Quarry in Nebraska. But the museum has something else, something that’s no longer on display but is stored away in the museum’s Big Bone Room.
To snake a peek, check out the Carnegie Museum website with Joe's description athttps://carnegiemnh.org/dinohyus-terrible-pig-in-more-ways-than-one/ 
It’s a replica of the hell pig, made shortly after the museum put their entelodont skeleton display early in the 20th century. “To several members of the (vertebrate paleontology) staff, including myself, the model—lovingly known as the Hyus—is perhaps even more horrifying than the actual creature itself,” noted Sawchak in a blog on the museum site.
It’s the model’s eyes, said Joe. “They seem so ‘emotive’ or ‘human’ that it’s disturbing. It almost seems as though they’re staring right into your soul,” noted Sawchak.
If anyone ever had run into a real-life hell pig,  it's disturbing to think about is what it might have done to a mere human. As big as a buffalo with a three-foot head full of teeth and an appetite for just about anything living or dead, this pig meant business. Thankfully, they exited the planet over 15 million years ago.
It was fun talking with Joe, a dinosaur fanatic who clearly loves his job, and the man who took us inside the Big Bone Room for a glimpse of the past.

Alice Boyes believes you can be more productive. You just need to learn what helps you innovate, produce, and flourish... without the burnout. Her book, “Stress-Free Productivity,” gives you the ability to formulate your own personalized system.

Now with more people than ever working outside the office, there’s a greater need than ever to be personally productive, the former clinical psychologist said. “People do need a strategy to cope with uncertain times,” she told Steve Tarter.

You can boost your own creativity just by trying, she said. “Creativity is easier to ignite than people think,” said Boyes. 

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all productivity plan, she said. The tricks that work for your colleague may not work as well for you. Or perhaps they don't work at all. The fact is that everyone has their own productivity quirks to make them work efficiently and effectively. They just don't know how to crack them, said Boyes..

So the Midwest is fly-over country, is it? Everything that’s worth anything is found on the U.S. coasts, is that what you think? Then you need to hear from Jon Lauck. His book, “The Good Country,” helps offset what some scholars’ have put out there. Lauck, who edits the Middle West Review and teaches history and political science at the University of South Dakota, serves up a more detailed picture of the American Midwest. 
 The American Midwest, by Lauck’s account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world during the 19th century. The region developed a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms, republican virtue, and Christian teachings; and generally put democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation to date.
 The outbreak of the Civil War and the fight against the slaveholding South only deepened the Midwest’s dedication to advancing a democratic culture and solidified its regional identity, the author noted. 
The “good country” was, of course, not the “perfect country,” and Lauck devotes a chapter to the question of race in the Midwest, finding early examples of overt racism but also discovering a steady march toward racial progress. He also finds many instances of modest reforms enacted through the democratic process and designed to address particular social problems, as well as significant advances for women, who were active in civic affairs and took advantage of the Midwest’s openness to women in higher education.
Lauck told Steve Tarter that the decline that's hit the newspaper industry across the country has hit the Midwest hard. "The Chicago Tribune and St. Louis Post-Dispatch used to be major forces in American life but they've been cut back so much that they don't have the presence they used to have. We need to reverse that and give our region a stronger voice," he said.

If you can keep up with all the names, this is a prehistoric creature that may interest you. The entelodont, otherwise known as dinohyus or daedon, was a strange looking animal that spent almost 20 million years on the planet, finally going extinct about 17 million years ago.
There's a catchier name for this beast: hell pig. As paleontologist Scott Foss put it, this was a pig-like animal as big as a bison with huge teeth. "There was no other animal like it," said Foss, who did his dissertation on the hell pig at Northern Illinois University.
You can find an excellent entelodont skull at the Field Museum in Chicago, said Foss, who did most of his museum work there while working on his doctorate at NIU.
Foss compares the hell pig with a bear in that the animal ate a little bit of everything.
"A bear is an opportunist. It can take down a deer but it will also eat salmon, berries or insects," he said.
Likewise, the hell pig, with four different kinds of teeth in its huge mouth, could munch on flesh or vegetation. Foss believes the entelodont was a top predator/scavenger. Just as hyenas will steal a carcass from the lion, the entelodont had the tools to take any carcass it wanted, he said.
The fact that the creature roamed across America for millions of years is proof of its dominance but Foss, the division chief of education, cultural and paleontological resources with the Bureau of Land Management in Santa Fe, N.M.,  thinks the animal has been generally overlooked by the public when it comes to prehistoric predators. 
"I don't understand why entelodonts aren't on the cover of every fossil book. Look at the face of that thing," he said.

After suffering a panic attack in a speaking engagement in front of some 100 people, Chris Bailey decided to investigate the cause of the anxiety he suffered. The result is his book, "How to Calm Your Mind."
For years leading up to the attack, Bailey, who's first book was "The Productivity Project," had been obsessed with the subject of productivity, the topic he was on stage to speak about. 
Yet striving for accomplishment can make us less productive, said Bailey. "Researching and writing "How To Calm Your Mind" showed me that we become more productive when we leave the frenetic pace behind and instead work deliberately and calmly on what's truly important. Studies show that a standard eight hours of work can take around nine and a half hours when we're working anxiously--and that's a conservative estimate," he said.
Spend more time in the analog world versus digital, Bailey told Steve Tarter. 
Be aware that the internet is loaded with distractions and our brains gravitate to what releases the most dopamine--superstimuli included. One of the things he advises is that people take a month-long "stimulation fast" to settle the mind.
"I follow a simple rule: if I want an experience to be meaningful or have depth, I do it in the physical, analog world. If I want something done efficiently, I do it digitally," he said.

"Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants." If that sounds like a science fiction story then you haven't talked to Caleb Scharf, author of "The Ascent of Information: How Data Rules the World."
One of the most unique features of the human race is the vast amount of information we carry around. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data.
Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us.
Come 2040, Scharf notes, unless we find new ways to store all our tweets and videos (or come up with a new energy supply) we're going to be in trouble.
In the meantime, Scharf, whose previous books include The Zoomable Universe, The Copernicus Complex, and Gravity’s Engines, suggests that everyone recognize that we have a problem and that the problem is us.
"Information wants to grow," Scharf told Steve Tarter. "That's kind of terrifying but if we can understand that maybe we can do a better job of maintaining our civilization and not ruining the planet," he said.
People need to think about the world in a different way. For example: Do you really need to post a picture of your sandwich?

Illinois is a state that brings a lot of variety and history to the table. "Illinois Trails & Traces" is proof of that.
Author Gary Marx and Dan Overturf team up to provide unique portraits of people and places across the state.
Marx is a journalist who worked for numerous newspapers including the Southern Illinoisian in Carbondale, Ill. and the Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Mo. Sadly, Marx passed away at the age of 70 in December 2022.
Overturf is the professor emeritus of photography at Southern Illinois University where he taught for 30 years.
The pair combined on a previous book, "A River Through Illinois," published in 2007.
This time around Marx and Overturf are on the trail for interesting characters and they find them, beautifully photographed by Overturf, with fascinating passages from Marx who knows how to get his point across in a succinct manner that allows one to sail through the book.
Overturf told Steve Tarter that he set up photographs of the individuals in the book the old-fashioned way, using lights and staging them in an environment that showcases their interest or work. 
You'll think you know these people after you read about them and view the pictures.
Backroads and byways come back to life in a book that sheds new light on sites from Cahokia Mounds to Galena,

Todd Kashdan isn't preaching insubordination just to be a disruption. His approach is that insubordination, rather than be viewed merely as a negative exercise, is actually something than help societies to progress.

Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University, is talking about principled insubordination, challenging conventional wisdom and improving on it. 

Most would-be rebels lack the skills to overcome hostile audiences who cling desperately to the way things are so Kashdan has supplied a guidebook.
 
His book is filled with history and stories to make his point. One of his examples is about basketball great Wilt Chamberlain foregoing success at the free throw line  when he decided to try an underhanded approach for a season. But Wilt the Stilt thought people were making fun of his "granny style" and went back to the traditional overhand approach and, similarly, went back to missing free throws again.

Kashdan's point? It's not easy to go against the status quo--even if you're an NBA star.

Some of the author's suggestions include: 
--Resist the allure of complacency.
--Produce messages that influence the majority– when in the minority.
--Manage the discomfort when trying to rebel
--Champion ideas that run counter to traditional thinking

Kashdan told Steve Tarter that his favorite band Fugazi was not only musically advanced  but "lived their values." They never charged high prices for a concert or used the traditional record company approach, said Kashdan. 

The authors want to point out how powerfully we are influenced by our perspectives and prejudices—our frames, noted Forbes magazine. 

Humanity faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our very existence but don't give up on the human spirit--and intelligence, said De Vericourt in an interview with Steve Tarter.
 
To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we attain. People have long focused on traits like memory and reasoning, leaving framing all but ignored. But with computers becoming better at some of those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and only humans can do it, said De Vericourt. 
 
In an age where machines continue to advance, de Vericourt points out that "machines as we know them today can only work with data that's provided."
 
Remember that the Wright brothers, the fathers of modern aviation, ran a bike shop in Ohio, he said. They were normal people who used a design frame to come up with the first flight.

Around the world, there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a fraction erupt into violence, a fact too many accounts overlook. When hostilities do break out such as the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, it's that rare case where factors have forced that most costly of actions, war.

"Unchecked leaders ignore the cost of war," said Christopher Blattman, referring to Vladimir Putin.  Blattman's book, "Why We Fight," reminds us that enemies usually are almost always willing to split the pie than spoil it for everyone or struggle over thin slices. 

A professor at the University of Chicago, Blattman doesn't just study warring states but street gangs that operate in places like Chicago and Medellín, Columbia.

"We need to understand why gangs are fighting," he told Steve Tarter. Some of the reasons that Blattman has run across include angry vendettas and the need to maintain a reputation.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Blattman ventures that it might turn into another Kashmir, contested territory between India and Pakistan where the parties remain unable to agree on terms but have at least stopped fighting. "That allows kids to go to school again and farmers to plant crops," he said.