Gleanings of the Week Ending December 3, 2011

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week:

 

 

US Botanic Garden - Landmark Building Models

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There is a wonderful display of models of the landmark buildings of Washington DC on display at the US Botantic Garden surrrounded by the lush plantings of the conservatory. Their architectural details are created with dried plant materials like bark, pine cone scales, willow twigs, grapevine tendrils and acorn caps. If you are in the Washington DC area between 11/24 and 1/2, it is well work seeing. 

Here is my picture of the model of the Washington Monument. It even has the windows and red lights on top!

A slide show of the Supreme Court building, the Jefferson Memorial ,  the Smithsonian castle, the Museum of the American Indian, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House is below.

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Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 2011

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The items below were the cream of the articles I read this past week:

  1. National Park Service Documents Ancient Towers in Afghanistan - this is the second week in a row there has been an archaeology story from somewhere dangerous on my gleanings list (last week is was Lybia)
  2. Baby Elephant pictures (Borneo) - note how large the eyes of the baby are in relation to the rest of him
  3. New Mouthwash Targeting Harmful Bacteria May Render Tooth Decay a Thing of the Past - Wow! If this works as the early tests revealed (and without bad side effects), this is a disruptive technology....maybe to more than denistry if the same idea could be applied to other bacterial problems
  4. Lots of Bundt Cake Recipes - some of the recipes reference books, others online - there are a lot of great ideas (and pictures) on this site to motivate me to dig out the Bundt pan!
  5. Cynthia Kenyon: Experiments that hint of longer lives (TED talk) - genes have been identified that cause organisms to not age as fast (and thus live longer); studying what those genes do in the body is a very active area of research
  6. Cranberries (info and recipes) – Cranberry upside-down cake…sounds good…think I’ll try this next week!
  7. Fossil poop - coprolites - some discoveries from these bloob-like fossils...one included a human hair
  8. Gaston Lacombe’s Fundy National Park Picture sequence - the photo of water smoothed rocks pulled me in (it is a great first picture for the series)

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 12, 2011

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The items below were the cream of the articles from this past week!

  1. 25 Inspiring Pictures of Snow - beautiful!
  2. Castles in the Desert: Satellites Reveal Lost Cities of Libya - now if the country could become safe enough to find out more about them from the ground.
  3. 5 Foods Threatened by Climate Change - Arrgh! Chocolate is one of them!
  4. Cave Paintings Showed True Colors of Stone Age Horses - yes - there were spotted horses around at that time so the paintings are realistic rather than symbolic
  5. Nature Notes: The Black Oaks Of Yosemite National Park, The Video - great visual about how the Indians processed the acorns for food
  6. Impact of Space Weather - now that we are more dependent on satellites (for things like GPS), maybe we should be paying more attention 
  7. New System of Intelligent Management of Street Lighting Enables 80% Savings in Energy - makes sense to only power lights when you need them, just like at home
  8. Condors in Grand Canyon – 3 chicks - one has already died but the other two seem to be thriving; bit about trash being a potential threat quite depressing
  9. Why we need public libraries is the future - for a subset of the reasons we need them today but very real and long term (it's not about books)