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

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 8, 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.

Chameleon eye - A colorful and informative ‘image of the day’ from The Scientist

City Lights - An article from The Architects Newspaper about light in urban design. Appealing but counter to the idea that dark skies are nice too.

Do your hair and fingernails grow after death? - The short answer is ‘no’ but there may be a reason they appear to

Slow Motion Hummingbirds - Video of hummingbirds at a feeder

Costa Rica's Self-Sustaining Tree House Community - A community of tree houses complete with indoor plumbing and zip lines

Bees in the bush working hard! - Photos of insects coming to a wildflower south of Nairobi (hint: more than bees) from National Geographic

Mapping the Great Indoors - A microbiologist/ecologist looks at what is growing inside an ordinary house.

Finger Knitting ….and Tents - Reminds me of day camp projects from many years ago.

Real animals that you didn’t know existed - How many of these have you heard about before?

What’s so Great About a World Flight Paths Map? - Comments about a visualization by Michael Markieta (showing the visualization too)

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #43 - My favorite in this batch is the very first one. The bright pink of the flowers and the yellow of the bird really stand out.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 1, 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.

Have You Ever Heard Virginia Woolf Speak? - A few minutes from a radio broadcast made in 1937.

Two Volcanoes Erupting in Alaska: Scientists Are Monitoring and Providing Alerts On Pavlof and Cleveland Volcanoes - Broader than just about the two eruptions….explains the way the USGS monitors volcanoes overall

Technique to Detect Breast Cancer in Urine Developed - Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this really works and can replace routine mammograms?

Image gallery: frost - From the Weather and Climate page of the Royal Meteorological Society. Use the frame on the left to look at other image galleries. There is also an interesting animation of Hurricane Katrina under ‘Resources’

Cicada Swarmageddon! - Our area of Maryland is on the edge of Brood II of the 17-year cicada which is due to make an appearance this year. We haven’t seen or heard any yet but I enjoyed learning about the less visible parts of the insect’s lifecycle in this video.

Picnicking Through the Ages - We are more likely to use an ice chest and canvas tote rather than a basket….find a picnic table in a park rather than spread a blanket. We still enjoy eating outdoors as we travel. Recently it appears that parks are encouraging people to take home their own trash rather than providing trash cans...a return to pre-park etiquette of picnicking.

First Drug to Significantly Improve Heart Failure Mortality in Over a Decade - Coenzyme Q10….a supplement that is a drug. And other drugs for heart failure depleting the Coenzyme Q10 that the body makes on its own….maybe a feedback loop that, over time, actually made those drugs less helpful to the individual with heart failure.

Resources for Scenario Planning and Futures Thinking - From Richard Watson…pointers to two recent papers. The summary graphics are thought provoking. I spent more time on the second paper - the Cyber Game Board.

Skin Health for all - Confronting the Silent tragedy of Skin Disease - Video of a lecture given at Royal Society of Chemistry earlier this year.

Little White and the Three Toxins - A new species of mushroom…a new toxin?

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 25, 2013

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

The Art of Data Visualization - Video about using geographic data.

Visual Rendering of Animal Sounds - Mandalas from colorized sound waves

Breakup of Physician, Drug Company Relationship Could Improve Health Care, Cut Cost - Published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine….and seems logical…but there is a lot of money that locks in the status quo

Onomap - Put in a name…and the tool will feedback cultural, ethnic, linguist roots based on patterns from a database that includes 28 countries.

Annotated Map of Moore, OK Tornado Damage

Scientific Tooth Fairies Investigate Neanderthal Breast-Feeding - Evidently during breast-feeding, barium levels in teeth are higher….making it possible to tell from teeth how long a child was breast-fed

The Nutrition class I am taking via Coursera was about dietary supplements this week and the list of sites below was provided. Since there is little regulation of supplements, it is much more up to the consumer to determine if a particular supplement is worthwhile for them. The last one provides abstracts of research papers; I did a quick search for Vitamin D….lots of interesting findings.

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Medline Plus

Natural Products Foundation

Mayo Clinic - Drugs and Supplements

WebMD - Vitamins and Supplements Center

Natural Medicines Database

Consumer Lab

PubMed

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 11, 2013

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

Printable Functional 'Bionic' Ear Melds Electronics and Biology  - What if this development really does live up to its potential?

Addiction Fact and Fiction - Infographic

Robot discovers secret chambers in Mexico - Underneath the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan

APPLE-ALMOND BUTTER PANCAKES - Sounds yummy!

How Petals Get Their Shape: Hidden Map Located Within Plant's Growing Buds - Research about how different parts of plants take on different shapes

Geography in the news: hot chocolate - A healthy indulgence

Saturn Hurricane (at its north pole) - Video and pictures on NASA site

The Fine Art of Photographing Living Portuguese Man O' War

Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors - Lower Manhattan’s 60 Hudson Street….a concentrated hub of Internet connectivity

Nature’s Most Transparent Animals - from National Geographic

Diet Linked to Daytime Sleepiness and Alertness in Healthy Adults - High fat consumption associated with daytime sleepiness

Art Installations Inspired by Solar Panels - My favorite is the second one (Solar Intersections by Robert Behrens)

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 04, 2013

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

Lionfish Attack The Gulf Of Mexico Like A Living Oil Spill - Yikes! In 2 years, the reefs in the Bahamas lost on average 65% of their small prey fish…and 40% of the larger fish.

Comet Will Come Close but Most Likely Miss Mars Next Year - This could get pretty exciting.

Peel-and-Stick Solar Cells - Maybe solar cells will get tremendously easier to install

Science as Art: Nanoscale Materials Imitate Everything From Flowers to Frost - The beauty in the very small from the Materials Research Society

Digital Public Library of America - Opened on 4/18/2013.

Pearls and The Puzzle of How They Form Perfect Spheres

A visual look at 7 things that make us feel good about work - Infographic from TED

Video of the Week: Visualizing 150 Years of Health Data - and links to other visualizations and learning modules about visualizing data

Superstorm Sandy Shook the U. S., Literally - The storm had the impact of magnitude 2-3 earthquakes that went on for hours and hours

MandalaZone - Mandala’s by Peter Patrick Barreda

Amazingly Detailed Macro Portraits of Bugs - Flies and spiders and dragonflies and mantises.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 20, 2013

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

Bald Eagle Nest in Washington DC webcam - The chicks hatched in March. The nest is on the grounds of the Metropolitan Police Academy. The nesting pair has used the site for several years and successfully fledged young birds.

Clever Designs Built With Repurposed Egg Shells - I love the idea of starting seedlings in egg shells!

Mining Books to Map Emotions through a Century - Emotional archaeology through the written word

Former NBA player recalls the time he saved a dolphin by reaching his arm down its throat - Sometimes the serendipity events of life have tremendous meaning

Computer Scientists Develop Video Game That Teaches How to Program in Java - A trend for teaching in the future?

Radical Roads Drive Robot Cars - Autonomous cars….changing highways

Geography in the News - Maple Syrup Time - A rite of spring!

NASA May Be Towing an Asteroid to a Planet near You - Wow! Really?

Gaining and Losing Shares - Population distribution by region, 1790 to 2010 from the US Census

Rare Disease (infographic) - from TED

Crystal Clear Snowflake Photos by Don Komarechka - In celebration of the end of winter weather!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 13, 2013

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

Be Out There - The Forecast Calls for Play - A guide from the National Wildlife Federation about being outdoors on the not-sunny days. The guide was produced in response to the statistic that 61% of parents said the weather was the biggest barrier to playing outdoors.

Sundew - external digestions - Image of a sundew plant curled around an insect

Take a Virtual Hike Along String Lake In Grand Teton National Park - An eHike…17 pictures

Best science and technology pictures of the week - From BBC Future dated 3/29

Versailles Gets Spiffed-Up On Its Day Off - What happens on Monday when Versailles is closed? It is a lot of work.

Psychedelic Bacteria - Sometimes photomicrography looks like art

New Mathematical Model Shows How Society Becomes Polarized - Applying ‘biased assimilation’ model

Spectacular Aerial Shots of International Airports - Newark Liberty and JFK Airports from above

Women computer science grads: The bump before the decline - Observations but not explanations

Utah’s Breathtaking Blue Hills and Painterly Desert - Hmmm --- this could be a great ‘next vacation’

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 30, 2013

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

Ten Trends to Watch - A list from Richard Watson

Pittsburgh's Leaky Faucet: How Aging Sewers Are Impacting Urban Watersheds - Sewers are aging....and a study in Pittsburgh showed that up to 12% of all sewage produced by residence living in the Nine Mile Run watershed area leaks from the sewers and is transferred to the stream

Biodegradable Diapers from Recycled Cardboard - Research from Finland. Hope it works as well as the research suggests….and that we use the technology effectively if it does.

U.S. Lifespans Lags Other High-Income Countries, Tied to Mortality Rates Under Age 50 - Evidently drug overdose deaths are one of the big contributors to mortality under 50…and the majority are from prescription drugs.

Heart-Healthy Lifestyle Also Reduces Cancer Risk - Life’s simple 7: not smoking, regulating blood sugar levels, keeping blood pressure down, maintaining healthy cholesterol levels, eating a healthy diet, keeping a healthy weight, and being physically active.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #39 - I can’t resist the bird photographs. My favorite in this set is the greater double-collared sunbird.

Integrating Aboriginal Teaching Values into the Classroom - Material from Canada but broadly applicable to diverse, inclusive classrooms. Published in March 2008. Other education/teaching ‘research into practice’ monographs available on the same site (follow the link at the bottom of this PDF).

Bedeviled by Dengue - The tropic diseases spread by mosquitos are on the rise with the tropical belt spreading into new areas. There have been cases of dengue fever in Texas and Florida already. The article reviews the current research.

On holey jeans, holey socks, and dyeing clothes - What to do with those old clothes.

DC Government’s Agencies Switching to 100% Wind Energy - Wow! 

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 16, 2013

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

Are Surgical Robots Worth It? - Evaluating technology is difficult. We want to believe that medical devices are better than what they replace...but they may not always be.

50 Disruptive Companies 2013 - The list from MIT Technology Review

Shell’s New Lens Scenarios - projections for 50 years from now…or even in 2100

30 Literary Cakes

Rebuilding after Sandy: How Assateague Island National Seashore Officials Are Dealing With Climate Change - barrier islands….and infrastructure on them...the islands will change and so will what man puts there

Frank Jay Haynes, A Photography Pioneer in Yellowstone National Park - also take a look at a book published by Haynes available on the Internet Archive

Science of Sinkholes: 20 Percent of U.S. Lies in Susceptible Areas - includes pointers to USGS resources about sinkholes toward the bottom.

Mothers of Invention -- Women who made it happen - I’d known about most of them…but there were a few that were new to me. It’s always interesting to get a quick slice of historical perspective this way.

Uplifting Posters Show One Positive Thing We Can Do Every Day - art of the positive

Get your Shit Together - life and death planning: low effort, high reward

Daylight Saving Time is Rife with Human Suffering - why do we put ourselves through the twice yearly time change?

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 02, 2013

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

Point me to a brain area - neuro-anatomy (head - neck- brain - spine) tutorials

Shimmering Mosaic of Earth Made of Stained Glass and Jewels

The World's 20 Most Amazing Tunnels - lots of photos

Windows On Nature: The Ten Best National Park Webcam Sites In America - A list from National Parks Traveler. The collage of pictures at the right shows the snow and fog from earlier this week….a virtual tour of the parks!

4 surprising lessons about education learned from data collected around the world - TED talk

Want To Be In The Dark? Death Valley Is Among 20 Recommended Places

More Antioxidants In Your Diet May Not Mean Better Health - not all antioxidants are equal

Choosing Wisely Lists - information on when medical tests and procedures are appropriate…good information to have before you see your doctor

Jagged Worldviews Colliding by Leroy Little Bear- an introduction to the differences between Indigenous and Eurocentric worldviews

Technology Upends another Industry: Homebuilding - doing the same amount of work with half the staff

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 16, 2013

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

Bird-of-Paradise Project - from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - lots of videos of the birds and how the images were captured too

Image of the Day: ‘Goose Bump’ Muscles - mouse hair follicles

Hans Rosling shatters the myth of “developed” versus “developing” nations - TED talk

Videos From Northeast Blizzard - National Geographic’s pick of 6 videos

Amazing Animal Hearts - heart trivia from the National Wildlife Federations. Did you know that a blue whale’s hear beats only 7 times per minute?

Geocaching - technology supported treasure hunting

Thousands of Merged Photos Display Sun's Surface

Desalination Seen Booming at 15% a Year as World Water Dries Up

A US high speed rail network shouldn't just be a dream - Wouldn’t it be nice to have the option to go high speed rail rather than airplane?

Table of Trends and Technologies for the World in 2020 - A thought provoking list of ideas from Richard Watson. His blog posts about the table is here and here (the second one provides a list of references).

Self-Assembling, Origami-Inspired Particles - lots of nanotechnology potential….how long until truly useful reality?

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 09, 2013

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

Google Street View Now Covers Grand Canyon Hiking Trails - take a virtual hike in the Grand Canyon

Voyager into Stardust - short video

How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables? - from National Geographic

HMS Beagle Voyage - visualization for the UK’s Natural History Museum

Frogcicle - a video of a frozen frog thawing…and hopping away!

Color from Structure - structural colors of peacock feathers, butterfly wings, fish and squid outer cells, hibiscus flowers…color producing nanostructures

Little House Books' Mary Ingalls Probably Did Not Go Blind from Scarlet Fever, Study Says - not that scarlet fever was not prevalent during the time…but it does not cause the symptoms (and blindness) described

Tulip fields - patchwork of color from the Netherlands

Coal Cooling Towers Come Crashing Down - 2 videos: one slow motion, the other with cartoonish faces on the towers

BugGuide - a site about insects of the US and Canada hosted by Iowa State University Entomology

Organized Paper Butterfly Installations Evoke Energy - beauty created with small papers

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 2, 2013

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

Masterful Textured Oil Paintings of Ships at Sea - from Polish Artist Justyna Kopania

Health and Environment: A Closer Look at Plastics - trying to balance risks and rewards

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Morning Glory Muffins - nutrition rich - to start the day

Population Density in the US from 1790-2000 - from Stanford University’s Spatial History Project.

Simon Beck Snow Art - this post is almost a year old…but I only found it recently

Test for Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals Gets Global Seal of Approval - both the international Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the US Government ….good that they are agreed on how to test for the chemicals

Silhouettes and Moonrise in Real Time - video of a moon rise from a New Zealand mountain top

Archaic Native Americans Built Massive Louisiana Mound in Less Than 90 Days - At Poverty Point…the largest mound was built between rains; the hunter gatherers must have been a lot more organized - and in larger numbers - that previously thought

Romantic Textured Paintings of Couples Walking Together - just in time for Valentine’s Day

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 26, 2013

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

How Much Unsubsidized Solar Power is Possible? - interactive map showing increase incost competitiveness of solar power in the US

World's Largest Natural Sound Library Now Available On-line ... And It's Free - the Macaulay Library archive…a 12 year project to digitize the entire collection has been completeed!

Woodpecker inspires cardboard bike helmet - it absorbs 3 times as much force as polystyrene helmets and is 15% lighter

Hello Robots, Goodbye Fry Cooks - what about the impact of the robotics revolution on human employment/

Vouching again Creationism - a rant about the relationship between school vouchers and the teaching of creationism...how religious teaching is becoming publically funded

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #34 - The last one surprised me….the Indian Robin does not have a red breast like our North American robins

Exploring The Parks: Grand Canyon National Park, A Winter Wonderland - Some year I’ll get to the Grand Canyon in the winter

To Surf a Hundred Million Stars - intro to a zoomable photo of the Milky Way center….spend some time zooming the image (and the others available from the GigaGalaxy Zoom project also linked from this article).

Interior Department Nominates Poverty Point National Monument For World Heritage Site Designation - specifics about Poverty Point but also general information about the World Heritage Site designation

Museum Collections (National Park Service) - the site has been revamped. Take a browse through the collection highlights (click on one that looks interesting and a whole series of items from that same location will appear0. Or use the pull down to select your favorite park!

The rise and fall of artificial gravity - Why has no one built a space station with artificial gravity?

Opinion: The Successes of Women in STEM - there are still roadblocks. Karen Purcell articulates some of them.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 19, 2013

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

Where US R&D dollars go

Geometric Sculpture by George W. Hart - the ‘skinks’ is my favorite

Tap into the 2013 Natchez Trace Parkway Visitors Guide - available in PDF

What You Don’t Know About Home Burglaries - infographic. 65% of burglaries happen during the day and other factoids

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #33 - my favorite is the Indian peafowl

Australian Heat Wave Is Literally Off the Color Scale

Marc Goodman: A vision of crimes in the future - TED talk

These Days, Darwin Would Need To Know More About Jupiter - What Can Astronomers Teach Biologists? - 4 perspectives

Americans Have Worse Health Than People in Other High-Income Countries; Health Disadvantage Is Pervasive Across Age and Socio-Economic Groups - from the National research Council and Institute for Medicine. Full report can be found here.

 Human Numbers Through Time - the graphics show population growth over the past 2 millennia. It was created in 2004 but I just found it this past week

Spectacular Macro shots of Underwater Corals

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 12, 2013

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

Mexican Hot Chocolate - yum. My variation of this uses hot tea to replace half the milk and stevia instead of the agave. I make it by the (large) cup…and haven’t quite got up the courage to add the cayenne.

Beautiful and Dramatic Thunderhead Clouds - my favorite is the Jason Clark one with the orange of sunset…lightning…and barbed wire in the foreground

12 tips to clean up, de-clutter and revamp your home - from Marlo Thomas. I’m going to try the grapefruit and salt idea for cleaning my bathtub and shower

Interlocking Origami Stars and Prisms by Byriah Loper

Moving through waters of human attention - Apollo Robbins…pickpocket and illusionist

Modern Parenting May Hinder Brain Development - new is not always better

Top Four Reasons Why Diets Fail - Inadequate sleep is one of the 4!

A Very, Very, Very Delicate Balance - rocks balanced by Michael Grab (watch the video)

Slices of Life, circa 1872 - some of the work referred to in the article that was published by Christian Wilhelm Braune in the 1870s is available on the Internet Archive here

Medallion Snowflakes - you don’t have to be a child to enjoy this little project