By age 45, most of us will need glasses at least for reading.  That’s because our eyes’ ability to accommodate—to change focus to see objects at different distances—degrades with age.  In young eyes, the eyeball’s crystalline lens changes shape easily, allowing this accommodation.  But as we get older, this lens stiffens.  Objects in close range suddenly look blurry.  Researchers at the University of Utah have developed “smart glasses” with liquid lenses that can automatically adjust their focus.  “The major advantage of these smart eyeglasses is that once a person puts them on, the objects in front of the person always show clear, no matter at what distance the object is,” says Carlos Mastrangelo, the electrical and computer engineering professor who led the research along with doctoral student Nazmul Hasan.  Regular prescription glasses, Mastrangelo explains, don’t fix the eyes’ accommodation problems.  They simply shift the range of what’s in focus rather than expanding it.  So if you put on a pair of reading glasses, the once-blurry page a foot from your eyes will be clear, but objects on the other side of the room will suddenly be blurry.  The reverse is true of people who need glasses only for seeing far distances.  The new smart glasses consist of lenses made of glycerin, a thick clear liquid, enclosed in flexible membranes.  The membranes can be mechanically moved back and forth, changing the curvature of the glycerin lens.  The lenses are set in frames containing a distance meter on the bridge, which measures the distance from the wearer’s face to nearby objects using infrared light.  The meter then sends a signal to adjust the curve of the lens.  This adjustment can happen quickly, letting the user focus from one object to another in 14 milliseconds.  Emily Matchar  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/these-smart-glasses-adjust-your-vision-automatically-180962078/  Thank you, Muse reader!  

The phrase “two heads are better than one” was first sighted in the Bible in a chapter, Ecclesiastes, 4:9, published in 1535, where it is stated as; “Therefore, two are better than one” with the addition of the possibility that they may yield good profit.  Later, the same notion John Heywood’s popular book, “A Dialogue” about English proverbs, put into words in almost the same way.  The book was published in 1546, where it is stated as; “Some heades haue taken two headis better then one. But ten heads without wit, I wene as good none.”  Find examples of use at https://literarydevices.net/two-heads-are-better-than-one/ 

formid-  (Latin:  formido, "terror"; causing fear, terrible; to dread, to fear)  See uses as adjective, adverb and noun at https://wordinfo.info/unit/3971 

Introduced into England by Dutch Huguenot immigrants in the third quarter of the sixteenth-century, baize is a loosely woven woollen cloth, not to be confused with felt--a randomly matted fabric made from wool or, for hats etc., from the fur of rabbits and beavers.  A baize-covered door denoted the boundary beyond which the house’s family and guests were expected not to stray.  During the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries baize was commonly used for dust covers to protect furniture.  The Board of Green Cloth was a committee of the Royal Household which derived its name from the green baize tablecloth that covered the table at which the committee members sat.  Baize was also extensively employed for lining carom (billiards) tables, card tables and instrument and gun cases etc.  Flour paste (wheat or rye flour gently cooked in water, cooled and diluted to a creamy consistency) was--and still is--the preferred adhesive for laying baize onto card tables and for lining boxes etc.  Jack Plane   See graphics at https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/baize-and-bayes/  Hops, heresies, bays, and beer Came into England all in one year.  17th century English ditty Heresies refers to the Protestant Reformation, while bays is the Elizabethan spelling for baize. 

To put in one’s two cents (worth) means to give one’s opinion even when it is not asked for.  Two cents, when used alone, means simply opinion, especially an unwanted one.  To put in one’s two cents has a connotation of humbleness, as one is putting in their opinion ‘for whatever it is worth.’  Two cents, here, implies that one’s opinion may not be worth very much, but one is offering it anyway.  This idiom has been used since the late 1800s.  It comes from the much 15th-century British use of twopence or tuppence to mean ‘of little or no value; unimportant’ which gave rise to the idioms for two cents and like two cents.  Two bits, which meant 25 cents, was also used in a similar way.  A similar idiom in English is for what it’s worth or for whatever it’s worth.  https://www.idioms.online/put-in-ones-two-cents-worth/ 

The summer of 1816 was not like any summer people could remember.  Snow fell in New England.  Gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe.  It was cold and stormy and dark--not at all like typical summer weather.  Consequently, 1816 became known in Europe and North America as “The Year Without a Summer.”  Why was the summer of 1816 so different?  Why was there so little warmth and sunshine in Europe and North America?  The answer could be found on the other side of the planet--at Indonesia’s Mount Tambora.  On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano, started to rumble with activity.  Over the following four months the volcano exploded--the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history.  Many people close to the volcano lost their lives in the event.  Mount Tambora ejected so much ash and aerosols into the atmosphere that the sky darkened and the Sun was blocked from view.   The large particles spewed by the volcano fell to the ground nearby, covering towns with enough ash to collapse homes.  There are reports that several feet of ash was floating on the ocean surface in the region. Ships had to plow through it to get from place to place.  https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/mount-tambora-and-year-without-summer  University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research on behalf of the National Science Foundation.  https://www.ucar.edu/ 

The discovery of the remains of a Roman road and dock submerged in the Venice lagoon could prove there were permanent human settlements in the area centuries before Venice was founded, researchers say.  The structures, which were up to 2.7 metres tall and 52.7 metres long, were aligned in a north-easterly direction for about 1,140 metres. They are believed to have formed part of a system of roads in the Veneto region that may have been used by people to travel between the present-day city of Chioggia and the ancient city of Altinum. Previously gathered data shows that the road is located on a sandy ridge that was above sea level during the Roman era.  Venice is believed to have been formally founded on 25 March AD421, and marked its 1,600th anniversary in 2021.  Angela Giuffrida  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/23/ancient-roman-road-and-dock-discovered-in-venice-lagoon 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2394  July 23, 2021