Dan Stevens, Medicare Insurance Specialist

09/08/2026

Beavers do not need an actual stream to start damming something. In Lars Wilsson’s 1960s experiments, the sound of running water alone could set captive beavers building.

That made noise itself an unexpectedly powerful cue.

Wilsson raised young Eurasian beavers without adults, and animals that had never watched a dam being built could still construct one.

He then played recordings of flowing water through a loudspeaker in still water and even on dry concrete. The beavers piled sticks, mud, and other material toward the sound, sometimes covering the speaker.

Wilsson described the behavior in his 1968 book My Beaver Colony and a 1971 Stockholm University dissertation.

Later research showed sound is not the only cue, but it can strongly guide dam building and repair.

Today, beaver-management devices use that insight by moving water more quietly through dams.

For a beaver, a trickle can sound like unfinished construction.

09/08/2026

🤩 Researchers have documented for the first time that manatees are living and mating in Mississippi waters ⬇️

09/07/2026

Guarding the mouth of Mobile Bay, where the waters of the Gulf pour into one of Alabama's great harbors, stands the old brick stronghold of Fort Morgan, a place steeped in history and washed by the sea winds. Completed in 1834 after years of labor, the fort was built in the shape of a great five-pointed star, its thick masonry walls raised by skilled workers to defend the vital port of Mobile. For more than a century it stood watch over the bay, and it played its most famous role during the Civil War, in the great Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. It was there, as Union ships pressed past the fort's guns and through the mined channel, that Admiral Farragut is said to have given his legendary command to press on full speed ahead despite the danger. The fort endured a long and terrible bombardment before it finally fell, and its scarred walls still tell the story of those desperate days. In the years that followed, Fort Morgan remained in service through later wars, its old brick joined by newer batteries, until at last it was retired and preserved as a historic site. Today visitors can walk its ramparts, explore its shadowy tunnels and arched brick corridors, and stand where soldiers once kept their lonely watch over the water. The view from the walls, out across the sparkling bay to the Gulf beyond, is as beautiful as the history is sobering. Fort Morgan stands as a powerful link to Alabama's past, a place where you can feel the weight of history in every weathered brick. Standing on those old ramparts with the sea wind in your face, you feel the deep pull of the past all around you. It remains one of the most storied landmarks on the Alabama coast.

09/04/2026

On a quiet street in Montgomery stands a charming old house with a most remarkable literary history. It was here, in this modest home, that the famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald lived for a time with his wife Zelda, the brilliant Montgomery native who inspired so much of his work.

The couple, icons of the glittering Jazz Age, rented the house in the early 1930s, and it is now the only surviving residence of the Fitzgeralds anywhere in the world. Today it serves as a beloved museum, preserving their memory and their connection to Alabama.

Zelda Fitzgerald was a daughter of Montgomery, a spirited and gifted writer and artist in her own right, and this city shaped the woman who dazzled a generation. The little museum tells the story of the couple's turbulent, brilliant lives.

The Fitzgerald Museum is a treasured link between Alabama and the golden literature of the Jazz Age. It stands as a reminder of the remarkable talents whose story is woven into the streets of Montgomery.

09/04/2026

08/18/2026

One of the greatest Olympic athletes in the history of track and field was born right here in Birmingham, Alabama, a champion whose speed and grace made him a legend around the world. The story of this Alabama-born track star is one to make our whole state proud. 🏅

Born in Birmingham in 1961, he would grow up to become one of the finest sprinters and long jumpers the world has ever seen. Over an extraordinary career, he won an astonishing nine Olympic gold medals, dominating his events across multiple Olympic Games and earning a place among the immortals of sport.

His combination of blazing speed and soaring long jumps thrilled audiences everywhere, and his fierce dedication and sportsmanship made him a role model for young athletes for decades to come. Few athletes in any sport have ever achieved such sustained greatness on the world stage.

To think that such a champion first drew breath in Birmingham fills the heart with pride. Alabama has given the world so many remarkable athletes, and this Olympic legend stands among the very greatest of them all, proof of the extraordinary talent that has always called our state home. 💛

07/18/2026

Brother Joseph Zoettl came to Cullman from Bavaria as a young monk and spent most of his life shoveling coal at the abbey power plant. He was small, hunchbacked, and quiet, and he had almost nothing of his own.

So he started building. In his spare hours he made tiny replicas of the great buildings of the world out of whatever people gave him. Broken marbles. Seashells. Cold cream jars. Bathroom tile. Scrap concrete. He had never seen most of these places. He worked from postcards.

By the time he was done there were 125 of them set into a hillside, Jerusalem and Rome and the missions of California, all rendered in trash and devotion. They call it the Jerusalem in Miniature.

A man with nothing built the world out of what other people threw away.

07/13/2026

07/09/2026

Got second But no third 😂😁