Gleanings of the Week Ending December 21, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Radiation Physicist Beautifully Colorizes X-Ray Images of Nature - The color adds to the images - making them much more art-like.

Important Bird Areas - An interactive US map that shows areas marked as of global, continental, or state importance. Zoom in or enter an address to see detail in a particular location.

Behind the Headline: Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up - A summary article prompted by a recent story in New York Times about gifted students. Follow the links to dig deeper into the story.

An Optical Illusion You'll Swear Is Moving. It Isn't. - Watch the video….and read the explanation.

23 Women CEOs Running Fortune 500 Firms - A list published by the Associated Press. I would be interesting to know how the number of women CEOs running Fortune 500 firms has changed over the past decades. In 2009, it was 15. The first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company was Catharine Graham of the Washington Post in 1972.

Fake it ’til you become it: Amy Cuddy’s power poses, visualized - My daughter was the first to tell me about ‘power poses.’ If you haven’t heard about them before - take a look at the Infographic in the article and/or follow the links for details.

Architectural Breakthroughs that Changed the World - It’s always interesting to see what gets selected for posts like this….and the suggestions for additions in the comments section are worth a look too.

Worth a Watch: Climate Change - the state of the science - A 4 minute film produced with UN funding and based on the IPCC 5th Assessment Report.

Redefining What It Means to be a Successful School - Measuring schools through the lens of student outcomes rather than compliance models

Mapping 400,000 Hours of U.S. TV News - Which areas of the world do we hear and see on the news frequently….which areas are almost never ‘in the news.’ From an analysis of the Internet Archive’s television news research service collection.

10 Elements of Next-Generation Higher Education - It seems like the changes are coming quickly to higher education. Some are technology enabled….others are forced by the change in perspective to view outcomes rather than just the traditional examination/compliance model to determine the quality of education.

Census Bureau Introduces New Interactive Mapping Tool along with Latest American Community Survey Statistics - Take a look at the Census Explorer. It is easier to look at a county or state level rather than an address. The measures that can be selected are: total population, 65 and over, foreign born, high school graduate or more, bachelor’s degree or more, in labor force, owner occupied, and median household income.

Cardinals in the Desert

A male cardinal survey the yard from a particular bush every morning we were in Tucson in June. He stayed around long enough to be photographed. The favored bush had seeds that the cardinal particularly enjoyed. One morning he was content to simply gorge.

The next morning he brought a female friend and proceeded to offer her part of the bounty.

The last morning he ate quickly then posed - back and then with upraised tail - before he flew off for the rest of his day in the desert.

Hummingbird at the Cardinal Flower

A few days ago - l looked out onto the deck from my kitchen window and saw a hummingbird enjoying our cardinal flowers. The bird stayed there long enough for me to sit in the breakfast area and take pictures through the window.

Ruby throated hummingbirds spend the warm months in Maryland and I was pleased that the bright cardinal flower had attracted the attention of this female. She was a blur of activity - holding still at each flower for a very short time before moving to the next one. After making the complete round of the flower spike, she flew up to rest for a few a seconds on an empty plant hanger then flew off into the cloudy day.

There are more spikes of the cardinal flower forming so I am looking forward to her return.

Great Blue Heron

There was a Great Blue Heron that seemed to be posing on a platform in the small lake at Clark Gardens. At first it was a still as a statue. 

I sat down on a bench to watch. The heron moved its neck slightly then turned toward me as if acknowledging my presence - a silent communication that seemed to say ‘be still.’ 

About a minute later, the heron went to alert. He’d seen a fish in the water. About 30 seconds later, he jumped into the water - went completely under. He got his fish and was back on the platform very quickly. The slide show below shows the heron recovering his good grooming while swallowing the fish. This is a time when I wished - after the fact - that I’d been using the video feature on the camera rather than just taking pictures!

Arizona Sunrise - June 2013

Getting up for an Arizona sunrise in June is for early risers. We did it twice the week we were in Tucson. The first morning was the best because there were a few clouds to provide the canvas for the colors of the sunrise. The saguaro cactus that looks that a Gumby with a wild headdress and round nose provides a sync point for the sequence of photographs below. There is a cactus wren - in silhouette - on top of the tallest branch in the last picture.

I’ll post some morning light photos in a few days. The first hour after sunrise is the best for outdoor photography. 

South Carolina Sunrise

Last week I was in South Carolina and managed to get up early one morning to catch the rise as the nearby beach - Surfside Beach, between Charleston and Myrtle Beach. We checked weather.com for the sunrise time the night before and got to the beach about 6:20 AM which was just before the sunrise. The moon was still out.

The sky was full of oranges and reds when we arrive but the sun  had not broken the line of the sea at the horizon. It was clear so the light simply filled the sky above the waves. The sun peeked over the rim of the ocean and the reds faded away to oranges and pinks.

We walked along the beach, picking up shells. The morning chill and damp kept us away from the water but the damp sand made walking easier.

There were other things to notice: the people surf fishing (they did have their feet in the water), walkers that briskly made their way along the beach, birds feeding at the boundary between sea and beach, pelican skimming the waves flight in formation toward the north, seagulls chattering, and at least one other with a camera there to capture the sunrise like me.

It was an excellent way to start the day.