Gleanings of the Week Ending August 31, 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.

Another 'Grand Canyon' Discovered Beneath Greenland's Ice - Right now it is covered by lots of ice….but the data from the increasingly sophisticated instruments monitoring the ice sheet has revealed lots of detail about the topography of what is under the ice. How many of us will live to see this canyon without ice?

Peter Huttenlocher has left the building - An article summarizing the contribution of the child neurologist: synaptic pruning. A simple graph shows it all.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes on Rights of US Women - A summary of the legislation relative to protection of women’s rights over the past 50 or so years. I knew at least vaguely about all of them because I lived through those years - but it was good to see it all in one place and to think about the problems working women still face. The comments are worth looking at too.

Giant solar plane could stay airborne for 5 years, replace some satellites - It would fly above the clouds and weather but still within the atmosphere….And reduce the expense for such things a crop or fire monitoring, providing internet access to remote regions and disaster rapid response.

Changing River Chemistry Affects Eastern US Water Supplies - Rivers are becoming more alkaline….because acid rain causes more rapid leaching of limestone, other carbonate rocks and even sidewalks….and so life in the river is changing. Natural systems have ways to reach a new balance eventual but the path to balance is often very complex.

apple-picking time: our top-pick apple treats - From King Arthur flour. Lots of goodies - at least half look way too high-calorie for my current weight loss diet! But maybe I’ll make one to celebrate when I finally reach my goal (less than 2 pounds to go!)

Thyroid Cancer Biopsy Guidelines Should Be Simplified, Researchers Say - My favorite quote from the article: “…start doing diagnostic tests and procedures more selectively and prudently, as there rare harms to doing unnecessary tests and procedures.” But do we trust doctors to make the best recommendations to us when it is in their financial best interest to do a many diagnostic tests and procedures as possible?

Fantastic Shots of Japan's Summertime Fireworks Festivals - Lots of events in July and August….and these images capture some of the excitement

Brown-bag lunch strategies - Eating well away from home. The strategies in this article are skewed toward the gourmet variety of brown bag lunch - but good to review when get bored with whatever you have been packing. The key is planning (as with most things).

Visualizing the Psychology of Attraction - Infographic

The Psychology of Weight Loss

I am now within 2 pounds of the weight I was in my early-30s and I am confident of reaching the goal. It has taken me several years to get here. When I first started, the way I approached weight loss was quiet different that it is now. This blog post documents the transitions in my thinking over the past few years.

The goals I started with were:  

• Take at least 7,000 steps per day. I had a simple pedometer to count my steps. It had some oddities (sometimes didn’t count when I was walking) so I replaced it with a Fitbit. I quickly discovered that the bounces on my Swopper chair counted as a step and, very briefly, decided that maybe I should take the Fitbit off so that they would not be counted. Then I decided that it was OK if they were counted…that the relative activity between days and the spread of activity throughout the day were a good measure. I still have a form of this goal although it is 12,000 or more steps and the calories burned measure is more important at this point.
• Eat only when and while you are hungry. This will always be a challenge - particularly when I am not at home and sometimes there too. I enjoy good food tremendously and it is intertwined with family gatherings and celebrations. The psychological challenge is to not think like a Stone Age hunter gatherer that needed to gorge any time food became available because there would be lean times just ahead. The probability of not having food readily available any time I am hungry is practically 0 - but it is hard to remember that when something delicious is in front of me. I’ve learned to savor a taste - but not overindulge.
• Reduce weight to what it was when I was 45. I thought it was a realistic goal - about 20 pounds. I’d held steady at that weight for about 5 years so I knew it should be a comfortable weight for me. I started weighing myself first thing every morning and devising little rewards for when I was at a ‘new low.’

Those three goals did work for the first 20 pounds and the weight came off easily enough that I established a new goal: 

• Reduce weight to what it was with I was 35. It was another 10 pounds to come off.

And the pounds didn’t come off. I maintained my weight easily but could not seem to take off any more pounds. A year or so went by and I was prompted by a nutrition course to update my goals: 

• Burn 2000 calories per day. The Fitbit estimates the number of calories burned so I used that as my key indicator.
• Stay below the calorie level recommended to lose 1 pound per week. The cronometer.com tool calculates the calorie level allowed based on my height and weight. I logged my food into the tool to determine how many calories I was consuming. The tool also helped me internalize the portion size for a ‘serving.’
• Get at least 90% of my nutritional needs from food. The cronometer.com tool helped with this goal too. It totals up the nutrients from the food log. Initially, I was in the 80 percent range but learned very quickly how to improve my diet. I stopped taking supplements for vitamins and minerals that I readily get from the foods I eat.

Those goals got me to where I am now and are still working very well. But I’ve added a new goal now that I am nearing the weight goal: 

• Achieve body proportions close to what they were when I was 35. I found a table of measurements I had made of myself at 35 - stored away in an old journal - and decided to see how close I was getting to that size again. There are some differences - enough that I’ve started exercises to hone some muscles (particularly tummy and upper arms). Otherwise - the measurements are very similar.

I’m close enough to my goal that I am already thinking about what is next. Sustaining a new weight will probably take some effort but probably won’t be as hard as getting there in the first place. Maybe my next goal - with the added calories allowed in sustain mode - will be to: 

• Get 100% of my nutritional needs from food.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 24, 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.

Restricting Food and Fluids during Labor Is Unwarranted, Study Suggests - I can remember being very thirsty with only rationed ice chips when I had my daughter years ago. And I was ravenous by the time she was born (and only offered a rather stale boxed lunch since it was out of the normal food service hours in the hospital). Hopefully this study will be a starting point to change the food and liquid restriction rules.

These alien-looking ice sculptures formed all on their own - A collection of images from some very cold places. What a cooling post for August!

Astronomers Take Sharpest Photos Ever of the Night Sky - Using adaptive optics that have been developed over the past 20 years at University of Arizona.

Creative Fashion Illustrations Made with Leaves - Sparse lines - and then leaves. They work together to create appealing images. My favorite is the first one.

Fascinating Friday: 80 Maps That Explain Everything - Pointers to collections of maps from Buzzfeed and The Washington Post. It turns out that maps are good ways to display lots of data in an intuitive way.

State of Flux Images of Change - Pictures of the changes in the earth over day, months or years from NASA.

Iron Is at Core of Alzheimer's Disease, Study Suggests - Yet another reason why we shouldn’t get higher doses of iron. The foods I normally consume easily get me to 100% of the iron requirements - so fortified cereals and iron-contain multi-vitamins are of my grocery list completely.

Fall in the National Parks: Some Great Activities to Put On Your Calendar - Includes the following national parks: Voyagers, San Francisco Maritime, Acadia, Capitol Reef and Grant-Kohrs Ranch.

Amaranth: Another Ancient Wonder Food, But Who Will Eat It? - Chia - quinoa - amaranth - nutritious options abound.

The Common Cook's How-Many Guide to Kitchen Conversions - Very handy for the kitchen!

by ShannonLattin.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 17, 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.

Distracted Driving Video - 35 minutes…three vignettes…the message: don’t text and drive

Fall in The National Parks: Some Other Park Fall Drives Not To Overlook - Some ideas for a fall foliage road trip

Why do we laugh? - James May with a very straight-faced explanation

Park Score Index - Compare ranking of cities based on parks

Photos from Restored Wetlands - From the Prairie Ecologist. My favorite is the paper wasp on the swamp milkweed.

Why aren’t more girls attracted to physics? - It’s all about seeing possibilities.

A History of the World: The 100 British Museum Objects - There are several images for each object and a narrative. Note the little symbols beside each thumbnail and click on the thumbnail to take a closer look; the images with a magnifying glass have annotations (I prefer to click on the thumbnail, go to full screen, then look at the annotations), listen to the short videos for the ones with the ‘play arrows.’ A bit longer audio (originally for a BBC radio program) is available as well.

How a 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut - The good and bad of the state of the art in mining information from huge amounts of data.

Great Blue Heron Highlights 2013 - From Sapsucker Pond in Ithaca NY. I didn’t watch much of the season ‘live’ this year but enjoyed these highlights.

Three Ways Cooking has Changed Over the Last 300 Years - It’s more than cooking….it’s the history of what people ate. Some ingredients are not common now…others are common but prepared quite differently.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 10, 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.

Giant Maya Carvings Found in Guatemala - There are traces of red, blue, green and yellow paint; at some point they should be able to create an image of what it looked like before it became part of the buried foundations of a rectangular pyramid.

Women in Space: A Gallery of Firsts - Historical perspective. The first was way back in 1963….and from the Soviet Union.

Length of Human Pregnancies Can Vary Naturally by as Much as Five Weeks - Previously everyone assumed the variability was from not knowing exactly when ovulation and then implantation of the fertilized embryo occurred …. But this study revealed that even using technology to determine precisely when these events occur, there is still significant variability.

Hot Lava Hits Seawater and Forms Black Sand Beach - Images from Hawaii

Healthy Cooking Oils: 8 New Picks To Try - I’m going to try avocado oil at some point….once I come to terms with how much it costs!

Top 10 College Towns 2013 - These places have appeal to more than just students! Also take a look at the Cost of Living calculator provided by nerdwallet.

Cactus-inspired material cleans oily water - Deep understanding of how nature works can be quite useful - in this case, a potentially new type of filter. It turns out that it may work for aerosolized oil as well.

Baby Owls Sleep like Baby Humans: Owlets Spend More Time in REM Sleep Than Adult Owls - This study confirmed that the generally held notion that birds, like mammal, spend a lot of their sleep time in REM sleep when they are first born and that it declines over time. The correlation of sleep pattern with other aspects of the owls ‘growing up’ was also studied. I particularly liked that the observations in this study were made with sensors on wild owlets that were not harmed at all by the study and the potential the findings have for understanding the impact of sleep patterns in our own species.

Top US States For Solar Energy - The top 5 are: California, Hawaii, Arizona, Maryland, and Delaware. The article provides the criteria used to assess the states.

The Science of Mummies - Technologies applied to studying mummies….many of them non-invasive and non-destructive.

In the Mood for Classes Again

This time of year I always am looking forward to classes starting again. It’s been a lot of years since I finished my formal schooling but I’m still in the annual rhythm that was established when I was in school then reinforced by my daughter’s school years (and she is still in graduate school).

Coursera lets me indulge….and it’s even better for my needs that a tradition class because it is

• Free
• The material can be viewed any time and any place that is convenient - as long as reasonably good internet connectivity is available.

The only challenge for me is - I am interested in so many of the offerings that it is hard to choose. I’ve decided I can handle 4 but will have to be very organized to keep up during any travel weeks during the courses. The courses that I have selected that start over the course of the next month are:

• A Brief History of Humankind from Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Animal Behavior from University of Melbourne
• New Models of Business in Society from University of Virginia
• A History of the World since 1300 from Princeton University 

I’m always impressed with the number of partner organizations (mostly universities but some museums are showing up now as well). The quality of the courses is generally quite good. There may come a time when I want to experience an old fashioned class with the teacher and students all in the same place at the same time- but, until then, I am thoroughly enjoying Coursera!

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 3, 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.

The electric car is here to stay - Infographic showing the history of electric cars.

New Rockies GigaPannery - 8 geology related panoramas from the Rockies allowing zoom in to the various parts of the image. One is a road cut (a typical stop on a geology field trip!).

Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own play silks - My daughter and made tie-dyed silk scarves many years ago with Kool-Aid. We didn’t achieve the really bright colors but I still have some of the pastel creations. One is tied to the handle of my purse this summer!

Dew on Dandelions - Turning weeds into things of beauty. I’ve always liked the puffs of dandelions but I haven’t caught them with dew (see my ‘best’ photo to date to the left).

What do supernovae and salad dressing have in common? - Watch the video!

What can we do to make cities less lonely for the elderly? - Use the arrows to bring up annotations on the city scenes. Many things that make is less lonely for the elderly also make it better for everyone else too!

Inca Children Got High before Death - Mummies of three children sacrificed about 500 years ago and discovered in a high altitude cave in 1999. The hair analysis showed consumption of alcohol and coca in the year before their deaths. That consumption spiked dramatically in the weeks before their deaths.

Boys with Autism or ADHD More Prone To Overuse Video Games - Technology is a mixed blessing. There is a challenge that all people have to use it effectively - rather than becoming addicted or overwhelmed. Evidently autism and ADHD make the challenge even higher.

Living Longer, Living Healthier: People Are Remaining Healthier Later in Life - This is certainly what we hope is happening and will continue.

8 tips to make your life more surprising, from Tania Luna, Surprisologist - Cultivating the ‘surprise’ in life is well worth the effort. I wrote down my answer to ‘What surprised you today?’ for several years and then transitioned to recording the ‘little celebrations.’ There is definitely an overlap between the two!

Old Stuff

I am cleaning out a closet that contained boxes of stuff I have not used for years. Most of it is old - too dear previously to consider throwing away. Now I am applying 2 new criteria: 

• Is it something I would move to my next house?
• Can it be repurposed into something I would use now? 

If the answer is ‘no’ to both questions, it needs to be trashed or donated. It is still hard to make the decision and let the ‘stuff’ leave the house. Here are some examples of the decisions I’ve been making:

Doll. The doll that was my big Christmas present over 50 years ago has been in a box for years and years - from when my mother was cleaning out her attic and gave it to me. I moved it from Texas to Virginia and then to Maryland. I don’t think I want it enough to move it again. One of my sisters wants it - so it already has a path to leave the house gracefully.

Diapers. These are some that I bought as extras from when by daughter was a baby over 30 years ago. They are the pre-folded and stitched kind. I’m going to use them as the innards of quilted hot pads I am making (see fabric below).

Yarn. I don’t know when I bought some of the yarn; I don’t even like most of the colors any more. It all goes into the give away pile!

Owl macramé. I can’t bring myself to give away the owl even though it too has been in a box for years. It was made by one of my sisters. One of her other pieces is hanging in my office but I’d forgotten the owl completely. Is it a box that I just didn’t unpack when I moved to this house almost 20 years ago? I’ve hung it from a stair railing now.

Satin pillowcase. I had completely forgotten I had this. I remember that I didn’t like it because it was too slippery and am surprised I bothered to keep it. It does have a zipper closing which should work quite nicely repurposed as the top of a homemade laundry bag to protect delicate clothes in the washing machine.

Sewing machine and ‘stuff.’ 30 years ago I was still making most of my own clothes (including suits) and 40 years ago I was making my husband’s shirts. But the last item I made is 20 years in the past. So - most of this ‘stuff’ is leaving the house: a can of buttons, finishing tape and lace, pressing hams. But I decided to keep the machine. It was a wedding present 40 years ago and needed a good oiling before it would work properly. I still have the manual that showed where it needed oil! I made a few adjustments to the tension and the stitches look as good as when the machine was new. It’s never even had the belt replaced. My plan is to use up the fabric and thread I have (see next item) making hot pads, quilts and fabric/thread doodles with the machine.  

Fabric and thread. Somehow I have a lot of white fabric; there was a time that white blouses were what I wore almost every day with my suit! Then that ended when ‘business casual’ became the career attire and I still had a lot of white material left. I am going to use some of it for crazy quilt backing, save one piece as a Christmas tree skirt, and the rest will be cut into swatches for placemat sized machine doodles. There is also some Star Wars fabric that I used about 30 years ago to make a robe for my husband; it is heavy enough to make hot pads with it; he’ll be tickled with the reminder of that robe - probably the only one of his life that he completely wore out. Most of the other fabric is leaving the house. I am looking forward to using up a lot of thread; there were too many sales of 10 spools for a reduced price that were just too tempting during my sewing heyday. I can make some very dense fabric/thread doodles!

And that has been my adventure with old stuff over the past few days. It is wonderful to have the  the floor of the closet cleared!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 27, 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.

A New Check-Up on the Health of U.S. Rivers - An article from National Geographic prompted by the recent release of a report from the USGS available electronically here. A lot of progress has been made in recent years to clean up our rivers….but there is still a lot to do.

Researcher Digs Into the Contested Peanut-Allergy Epidemic - We know surprisingly little about how widespread peanut-allergy is … but there are extreme measures to limit exposure.

16-foot dinosaur tail unearthed in Mexico is in perfect condition - Does every child think they want to grow up to discover something like this?  

See The 10 States With The Fastest Internet Connections - They are all in the northeast….with the exception of Utah.

Collaborative Origami Installations by Mademoiselle Maurice - A different kind of community project - temporary but beautifying collaboration.

New Key to ‘Switching Off’ Hypertension - Looking at the way that the body controls blood pressure…and ways that drugs could use the same pathway could lead to treatment without the serious side effects of current antihypertensive medications

The great global food gap - I saw some of these pictures in the nutrition course I took via Coursera - but this is a more extensive set of images of families’ weekly groceries. There is quite a range of cost and of foods.

In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters - A map of the US that shows the change a child raised in the bottom fifth rose to the top fifth.

Exploring National Parks through The Lens of Steven Bumgardner - The article includes an interview and several videos. My favorite video is the one about Frazil Ice.

Breathtaking Monochromatic Photos of Iceland - Sometimes the addition of color would not add anything at all.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - July 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are the top 10.

Starting the day outdoors. For years and years I was always heading off to work or errands as soon as I was able in the morning. It is such a luxury to be able to enjoy the outdoors on July mornings when the heat of the day is yet to become overwhelming and the birds are at their most energetic. What a great way to start my days.

Watermelon. I still think the large watermelons with seeds from many years ago had a better flavor than the smaller, seedless varieties in the stores today - but, even these watermelons are a hallmark of summer for me.

Cheesecake sampler. Don’t they always look tempting in the store? Always being on a diet means that I had not succumbed to the purchase until I had a dinner party with enough people to eat most of the pieces in a single sitting. So - I celebrated when I finally found a cheesecake sampler (at the third store I checked) and thoroughly enjoyed the one piece that I permitted myself.

Butterflies on the blazing stars. Flowers and butterflies - easy images to celebrate. See my earlier post here.

Credit for the electric bill. One of the days the exterior of our house was being painted was also an electricity conservation day (our electric utility gives us a credit based on the amount we reduce from a baseline day of similar temperature). The windows were open anyway for the painters - so we turned off the air conditioner and ate picnics (i.e. no cooking). We got at $46 credit! Hurray!

Cardinal flower. Plants are one of my favorite gifts (to give or receive). I celebrated receiving a cardinal flower and enjoy its blooming stalks (increasing rapidly in its big pot) every day. See my earlier post here.

Exterior house painting complete. The house looks wonderfully refreshed….I celebrated that the crew finished in spite of a significant rain delay! See my earlier posts here and here.

Into ‘normal’ weight range. Shouldn’t this be a goal for everyone? I am celebrating getting into the range…and closer to the ultimate goal (another 10 pounds to go).

A quiet day without internet or cable. A storm came through and the service people don’t work on the weekend…so we were without connectivity for almost 48 hours. I found that there was a new quietness about the house to savor…although I also celebrated when the connection was restored too.

Pecans in buttermilk pancakes. I celebrate the goodness the dusting of pecans adds plus the memory of learning to sprinkle the nuts onto the batter as it cooks from my mother.

What have you celebrated today?

Free eBooks - July 2013

It’s time again for the monthly post of eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for July 2013.

Toronto Art League. Calendar for the year 1901. Toronto: Musson Book Co. 1901. Available here. 1901 was the year one of my grandfathers was born. I collect books that give me a perception of what the world was like then. How different the world was!

Verner, Dorte (editor). Reducing Poverty, Protecting Livelihoods, and Building Assets in a Changing Climate : Social Implications of Climate Change for Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank. 2010. Available here. I was taking two different Coursera courses - one on Latin American Culture and the other on Climate Literacy; I’m not sure which one listed this as a reference. It makes the point that the progress made in developing countries can be undermined by climate change. 

Musson, Spencer C. and Lewis, John Hardwick. La Cote d'Emeraude. London: A and C Black. 1912. Available here. History of a place before World War I and art work rolled into one. I like the picture below of a bridge. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 20, 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.

The world likes the US slightly more than China - Infographic displaying data from recent Pew Research Group poll. Is it any surprise that the Middle East views China more positively than the US?

Intricate Hand-Cut Leaf Designs Reflect Wonders of Nature - I’ve always liked the delicate cut-paper art. Using leaves rather than paper is an interesting idea…and the leaves themselves add another shape to the work. My favorite is the owl in the tree.

12 Tips for Staying Optimistic in Tough Times - From Marlo Thomas

HD Video of Niagara Falls - Awesome! Shot via a remote control device hovering over it all.

Ice Chalk - Doesn’t this sound like a fun project for summer?

Family Resemblances - A series of images created with half the face from one person and half from a near relative (brothers, mothers/daughter, fathers/sons). The images show the similarities and also highlight what happens as faces age.

Sea Level Rise in Maryland - Sea level is rising 2-3 times faster in the Chesapeake Bay than the global sea level rise. Includes interactive maps.

Road of the Future - Infographic. There are some that are already being used in a few places (dynamic paint, glow in the dark road markings, and anti-icing).

Solar Prominences put on a strange and beautiful show in the Sun’s sky - From the Royal Astronomy Society

The Abominable Frogman - From the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 13, 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.

Authentic Happiness - Start with the home page of the Director of the Positive Psychology Center at University of Pennsylvania and then look through the site for information and do some or all of the well-being questionnaires.

Urban Observatory - Compare various aspects (like population density, senior population, traffic, etc.) of three large cities (16 of the largest cities in the world to select from) by looking at them side by side.

Powerful African Wildlife Bursts out of lively Landscapes - Enjoy the art of Karen Laurence-Rowe from Kenya.

The Joy of Old Age (No Kidding) - Read Dr. Oliver Sacks thoughts on becoming 80 years old - his mercury (element 80) year.

Technology Foresight - Think about the ‘Futuresaurus’ timelines coming out of Imperial College technology foresight event and posted by Richard Watson on his blog. I was intrigues by the items projected to disappear.

Watch North American City Skylines Sprout In 3-D Video, From 1850 To Today - Cube Cities combined commercial real estate data with Google Earth to provide these videos of midtown Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco, Calgary, Downtown Los Angeles, and Toronto,

A View from The Overlook: A Virginia Farmer - I could not resist adding this post about Mount Vernon from National Parks Traveler to this week’s gleanings. I enjoyed my visit to the place a few weeks ago.

Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities - I like the projections of driverless cars being available by the end of the decade!

Stanford students capture the flight of birds on very high-speed video - Watch the video - the birds are amazing. The high speed video provides a window into flight that we cannot get with our unaided eyes!

10 mindblowingly futuristic technologies that will appear by the 2030s - How many of these seem plausible to you? Back in the 1960s - many thought we’d have a colony on the moon by 2013. With technology, know-how is not the only requirement.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 6, 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.

18 Jaw-Dropping Ocean Photos - Aptly named BuzzFeed posting

Can city farms feed a hungry world? - Experiments in urban farming around the world….the future of food in the cities may depend on their success.

Stunning Shots of Reine, the Most Beautiful Village in Norway - Snowy pictures for a hot summer day!

Modern Technology Aids Repairs to 14th-Century Kiva at Bandelier National Monument - Bandelier is probably my favorite place in New Mexico. I’m glad it’s getting needed repairs.

Oral History….DNA from Ancient Tooth Tartar - Bacteria in the mouth have changed over time (large changes with transition from hunter/gatherer to farmer (more soft foods) and then with the advent of refined carbohydrates and concentrated sugars).

Amount of Dust Blown across the Western U.S. is Increasing - The technique that they use to determine how much dust is blowing is the most interesting part of this gleaning.

Magical Long Exposures Photos of Fireflies in Japan - It is easy to image fireflies as fairies in these forest images.

X-ray images of women in corsets show skeletons in a bind - I am very glad corsets are in our past rather than our present or future!

Opinion: On Living Longer - A thoughtful piece about memory loss and aging.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #44 - As usual, I can’t resist the bird photographs. My favorite in this group is last one - of the southern carmine bee-eaters aerial ballet.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 29, 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.

This is what your grocery store looks like without bees - Lots of empty bins in the produce section

Famous Scifi And Fantasy Authors In Their Workspaces - Keep the dates in mind. How many of these authors do you recognize?

Extremely Detailed Large Scale Paintings of Bugs - Wonderful detail is shown in these images.

Raw Strawberry Tart - I want to try the crust even if I don’t make the strawberry filling! It’s made with nuts, oats, raisins, flax seed, and vanilla held together with date paste.

Chemical in Antibacterial Soap Fed to Nursing Rats Harms Offspring, Study Finds - I am throwing away everything in my house that contains triclocarban. This study was just the latest in a steady stream of studies that showed negative effects.

12 New Volcanoes Discovered in Alaska - And still a lot more to learn about them.

Constantly Changing Majestic Beauty of Mount Fuji - Is this the most photographed and painted mountain in the world? It has all the qualities to make it so.

RCP Database 2.0 - The ‘Compare’ tab of this site allows users to select from several variables that impact climate and then view what happens to the ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ with that variable change. This was one of the references in the Climate Literacy course I am taking on Coursera.

Man's Parkinson's disease symptoms vanish with the push of a button - Truly amazing results of deep brain stimulation for the person.

How technology is destroying jobs - From Technology Review. Lots of comments too.

 Genetically Modified Fashion - Fluorescent silk from genetically engineered silkworms. Is this something we need?

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 22, 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.

If bees go extinct, this is what your supermarket will look like - Lots of fruits and veggies would go away too.

Take a Virtual Tour Of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Time lapse sunrise…lava flows…ocean...steam.

Photos Of NYC's Subway Project - Lots of tunneling through rock.

Most Solar-Friendly States — 2013 State Solar Policy Rankings - Maryland is near the top! Arkansas and Oklahoma are at the bottom.

Breastfeeding Boosts Babies’ Brain Growth - Yet another reason babies should be breastfed.

Life in the Potholes of Canyonlands National Park - A short video about the small creatures that live their lives after rain fills the rock basins.

As Data Floods In, Massive Open Online Courses Evolve - I have enjoyed the Coursera offerings. My use of online classes is evolving too! I no longer feel compelled to do every aspect of the course; I am free to do just do the parts that meet the objectives I have for myself.

Beautifully Exotic Looking Species of Moths from Ottawa - There are some surprises in this photographic series. Which one do you like best? The white one (5th one from the top) is my favorite.

Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions - Making cement with less lime and requiring much less heat

Don’t Take Your Vitamins - An thought provoking opinion piece - particularly if you are assuming that more is better when it comes to vitamin supplements. 

Minutiae of Diet

My dietary goals are pretty simple: get as much nutrition from food as possible (i.e. don’t rely on supplements to make up for a very poor diet) and lose weight. I’ve had some success over the years but had stalled about a year ago.

About a month ago, I decided that, for me, sound bites don’t help enough when it comes to diet. I needed data other than weight and activity measurements (I already had from a scale and a Fitbit) that would directly guide my food choices.

The cronometer tool was the one I chose. I set up my profile to lose a pound per week and then started logging in my food each day.

I did not choose a special diet. My day to day goal is to stay below the Calorie maximum for the day and meet more than 93% of the nutritional targets….and to do it as much as possible without heavily fortified or processed foods. I found foods that I normally eat had already been defined in the tool (or something that was close enough to what I was eating to use as a substitute in the log). The result has been quite a learning experience….on a very detailed level. Here are some of the minutiae I’ve learned about my diet: 

• Starting the day with chia seeds in almond milk as I have been for quite some time is a reasonably good way to start the day….and the 20 grams of dark chocolate with it is an acceptable treat….but going to 40 grams of dark chocolate is not a good idea.
• Portion size is hugely important! I’ve started looking at labels and measuring. I focus on those things that are high calorie and low nutrient…those are the ones I watch the most carefully for portion size and sometimes question whether I want to eat them at all. Often the nutrient rich foods are not that high in calories so the serving size is relatively large.
• A non-fat plain yogurt smoothie with fruit (blueberries or banana or orange) is tasty, very filling, high in nutrition in relation to calories and, along with the things I normally eat, gets me to the calcium requirement every day. It doesn’t take a huge change to make a big nutritional difference.
• I easily meet the protein requirements with only one meat serving per day and it does not have to be a large one (since I get protein from other sources than meat too).
• Black tea made with tap water has nutrients!
• I like the orange veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes but I need to eat them consistently to get enough vitamin A
• I will probably always need to take Vitamin D. I am not in the sun enough and the fortification in the foods I eat is not enough to consistently get the minimum dose. No wonder my doctor has found my Vitamin D level a little low!
• I almost never get 100% of the potassium target. That is something to work on. Eating one banana or orange is not nearly enough.
• I always exceed the B12 requirement because the almond milk is fortified but I don’t quite get all of them to 100% every day.
• I am general below 0.5 gram of trans-fat - which is pretty good. The tool has helped me be more conscious of foods I eat occasionally that contain trans-fat.
• I am thinking about how long I will need to log my food at the detail I am not. At 4 weeks, I am still in the process of establishing the habit of healthy food choices. Staying below the 1280 Calories per day (totaled up in cronometer) and burning over 2000 calories (estimated by the Fitbit) has indeed resulted in weight loss of a little over a pound a week and I am feeling good - lots of energy. It does seem to be true for me that nutrients from food, rather than supplements, are used more effectively by the body. 

I recommend checking into doing at least a few days logging food into a tool like chronometer for anyone wanting to make tweaks to their diet!

Houses of the Future - A Wish List - Part III

The population of the world is growing. In the future, more of us will live in cities than in rural or suburban settings. This post focuses on what happens to the types of houses I would prefer for my home in that scenario.

Perhaps one way that ‘single family’ houses survive is to become embedded in food growing enterprises. Small parcels of land around a house, or groups of houses, could be tended by robots to become very productive either as general gardens or focused on specialized crops. Would this be the way the wealthiest live in the future? Or maybe this is what happens to old houses that are not engulfed by a city and have been retrofitted with new technology.

Even if we end up living in cities in high density buildings - not ‘single family’ houses - there are things that we can change about that environment to improve the approximation to the place I would want to live. My wish list for this future is: 

• Soundproofing between housing units is effective and universal.
• The advent of self-driving vehicles means that emergency vehicles no longer use sirens or horns (since they can cause the vehicles in their path to move out of the way via silent connectivity).
• Buildings are covered with plants tended by small robots. Green is the dominant color seen in views from windows.
• Elevated walkways separate foot traffic from vehicular traffic. Both sides of the walkway include plantings. The walkway itself is power generating.
• Outside lighting is directed downward and dim (or turns off completely) when the light is not needed by people in the area. The stars are visible in the sky overhead most of the time - or from upper floors of buildings.
• Sensors detect malfunctions or hazardous situations in the building (fire/smoke, plumbing, heating/cooling, ventilation, etc.) immediately and react appropriately….much faster than happens is buildings today. 

Previous posts in this series are here - Part I and Part II.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 15, 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.

Exploding Glass (Prince Rupert’s Drop) - Video

Feds issue guidelines for self-driving cars like Google's - Speeding up the advent of self-driving cars?

The City and the Sea - A survey of the landscape and politics of New York, post-Sandy - Analysis of what was discovered about New York due to Hurricane Sandy

Essential Friends + Gateways: Take A Long, Slow, Ride Along The Natchez Trace - This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for the past few years. This post has some good references when I get serious about actually taking the drive!

Here's what Pangea looks like mapped with modern political borders - A visualization to understand the first continent…and where the pieces are today.

WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth - It was used to keep pilots and soldiers alert

Butterflies tell UT climatologist about climate - An interview with Camille Parmesan

Nutritional Weaklings in the Supermarket - More color often means higher nutritional content

The Physics of Ferocious Funnels - Several visualizations to explain how tornados form and the historical tracks of tornados in the US.

Best Diets Overall - From US News and World Report

World Life Expectancy - Data presented mostly on maps. There is a portion of the site for USA Health Rankings.

Fish Oil - Info page from NIH

Blue Zones - Lessons learned from people who’ve lived the longest

Houses of the Future - A Wish List - Part II

Today's post is from the perspective of configuration. There are certain type so floor plans that appeal to me for the future. The technology that makes a house generative and sustainable must be packaged in a way that faciliates the lives of the people that make it their home.

• The concept of ‘single family’ should change to be three generations in the house: children, their parents, and grandparents. Today almost all houses are originally built for two generations and then retrofitted to three as needed. With the demographics of the population shifting older and young people continuing to live with their parents longer, the trend in new housing should be to accommodate at least two adult couples…with three being even better. There are many ways this could be accomplished:
  • Using the same basic colonial house floor plan with walk out basement: increase the sound proofing between floors making the second floor for a couple with children, the walkout basement for a second couple; instead of a living room/dining room make a bedroom/sitting room for a single adult or a guest room. This arrangement could be a retrofit for an existing home.
  • Imagine a hexagon shape that contains a kitchen, eating area and den; this is the core of the house. There are wings from 3 of the six sides (evenly spaced around the hexagon); each wing includes a bathroom and bedrooms, home offices, etc. I’ve drawn a rough diagram below. The plumbing for the house would all be in the hexagon or the walls the wings share with the hexagon. There could be many variations of this basic design:
    • Basement under the hexagon only
    • Basement throughout
    • Some wings with two stories with outdoor bridges between the upper floors of the wings
    • A garden on top of a single story wing reached by the bridges from other wings and/or external stairs
    • One wing could have a laundry room and garage on the first floor and then have the rooms for living above
    • Various lot shapes and sizes could be accommodated by different lengths of the wings.
  • Keeping an overall rectangular shape, it is easy enough to achieve separate space for two adult couples. The shared areas - den, kitchen and eating area are in the center of the house and the separate space is on the sides. An outdoor area - side yards - can also be non-shared space. Again - there are variations of this design:
    • Configure this arrangement as a U instead of a rectangle. The inside of the U often becomes the shared garden area because it is primarily accessed from the core of the house.
    • The living space one side can be smaller to make room for a garage.
    • Basement - or not.
    • One side two stories - particularly the one that includes a garage. 

I’m sure over time I will think up more to add to this wish list....and I'll post them as a part III!

Part I of the series is here.