Gleanings of the Week Ending September 13, 2014

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 Chemicals behind the Colors of Autumn Leaves - I couldn’t resist including the link to this post about the colors of fall - from a chemistry perspective.

Smithsonian’s Wilderness Forever Photo Contest - A collection of photographs celebrating 50 years of the Wilderness Act.

Doctors Discover a Woman with No Cerebellum - Wow! Evidently there are some other documented cases of this…but not well studied in a living person.

Scientists discover how to 'switch off' autoimmune diseases - Another step forward in systems biology to understand and then treat the root cause of a disease rather than treatment based on symptom relief.. Until recently it was not even possible to gain the understanding. Is this type of treatment going to become the future of medicine?

New Database of Food Policy Resources - From the Johns Hopkins Center for Livable Future.

New digital map reveals stunning hidden archaeology of Stonehenge - And we thought we knew everything that was there….what a difference applying new technology makes!

This Animated Field Guide to North American Butterflies Is Mesmerizing - Expand the graphic and just look at it! How many do your recognize?

It's the pits: Ancient peach stones offer clues to fruit's origins - Using pits to track the domestication of peaches in China….7,500 years ago.

Who Really Declared War on Coal - It turns out that China’s GDP decoupled from coal consumption in the 2008-2010 time frame. It’s a very good thing for China that it can continue to grow even while improving their air quality by moving to other kinds of energy production.

Bacteria from bees possible alternative to antibiotics - 13 lactic acid bacteria are found in fresh honey and they produce many antimicrobial compounds.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 7, 2014

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.

Now that I am taking an Exoplanets on Coursera, I am noticing a lot of articles in my news feeds about them: 'Neapolitan' exoplanets come in three flavors, Astronomers discover two new worlds orbiting ancient star next door: One may be warm enough to have liquid water, First light for SPHERE exoplanet imager: Revolutionary new VLT instrument installed, Astronomers find a new type of planet: The 'mega-Earth', Diamond planets may be more common than astronomers thought, Super Earths Found Circling Ancient Star, Harsh space weather may doom potential life on red-dwarf planets, and The Closest Known Potentially Habitable Planet Is 13 Light-Years Away

Exploring the Parks: Musings from El Morro National Monument - Always a nice reminder to see a story about a place I’ve been and enjoyed!

Hundreds of "Hidden" Paintings Discovered at Angkor Wat - Using de-correlation stretch analysis on walls with traces of pigments.

Is the food industry really concerned with obesity? If people eat less, profits will decline - Consumers have to be savvy enough to see the healthy food that gets shifted to the background by marketing of (mostly unhealthy) processed foods.

Are your pets disturbing your sleep? You’re not alone - We have two cats. I ignore them during the night and early morning but my husband responds to their nudges to be scratched…..and so they now ask for more scratches during the night (my husband reports this while I sleep through it all)!

New Desalination Technologies Spur Growth in Recycling Water - Desalination is not just for seawater. The technology is also important for reusing agricultural water and industrial effluent.

Views of Venice - Art Added to Street View Imagery of Venice - This article is on a ‘tools for teachers’ site but the visuals over the google street view are fun for everyone. Visit the site and click on the ‘menu’ button in the upper right to see the art work that can be overlaid of the street view.

Wind Turbines and Birds: What’s the Real Story? - Bats are impacted too. The key question still seems to be - how can we develop wind turbines that avoid the negative impacts to biodiversity (and avian/bat mortality).

A Complete Primer for All the Species of Cats - A collection of a series of posts about species of wild cats.

New health services needed for rise in 100-year-olds - With more people living to 100 years and beyond - the need to hone health services(particularly palliative care) for them is becoming more important.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 26, 2014

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.

20 Cities Leading Rooftop Solar Revolution - It’s good to see the technology gaining momentum across the US. The report this article references is here.

Five Volcanoes Erupting at Once - On Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.  And some other views from above gleaned by Dan Satterfield from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites: sand and soot in NW China, Sahara sand blowing north into Greece and the Balkans, the green view of the Nile delta and the Suez Canal, and a sea breeze front along the Florida coast.

For The Children's Sake, Put Down That Smartphone - I’m glad this topic is being brought up more now. Children need the attention of the adults in their lives.

Finding turns neuroanatomy on its head: Researchers present new view of myelin - The higher in the cerebral cortex one looks -- the closer to the top of the brain, which is its most evolved region -- the less myelin one finds. Not only that, but "neurons in this part of the brain display a brand new way of positioning myelin along their axons that has not been previously seen. They have 'intermittent myelin' with long axon tracts that lack myelin interspersed among myelin-rich segments.”

Cheap, high-quality lenses made from droplets of transparent silicone - Wow - this will make the type of photography I am currently doing with a loupe even easier! I’m going to watch for these new lenses to become commercially available.

Spectacular Macro Details Reveal the Intimate Life of Snails - Beautiful images from a Ukrainian photographer.

Top 10 functional food trends for 2014 - Meeting nutritional needs with food….what a concept! It appears that a lot more people are becoming savvy about food and the food industry is trying to keep up.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Teff Cookies - I have some teff flour in my refrigerator…..this might be a good recipe to try although I prefer peanut butter alone rather than with chocolate chips.

An Interactive Atlas of the Valley of the Kings - This is the intro article from the ‘Free Technology for Teachers’ site. The Atlas itself is available from the Theban Mapping Project.

Dozens of Virtual Tours and Webcams on One Google Map - This is another pointer from the ‘Free Technology for Teachers’ site for a great resource.  The Google Map is here.  Some of the links are broken. The Lascaux Caves one was fabulous!

Community Supported Agriculture

I’ve joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for this summer. I purchased a half share. I had thought about it last year but didn’t get around to doing it. This year taking courses on the US Food System and How to Change the World provided a little extra push.

The CSA idea appeals to my sense of taking individual action to make the world a better place. The local farm avoids the transportation costs for its crops, the community gets locally grown produce, the family farm remains a viable business…..the whole is a more sustainable model.

Being a member of a CSA will encourage me to eat a larger variety of veggies - an even healthier diet than I have already. Somehow my vegetable purchases at the grocery store settle into a pattern: carrots, tomatoes, romaine, peppers, celery, andcucumbers. It’s not that I don’t like almost all vegetables --- the familiar is just too luring. So - having the CSA provide veggies that are at their best that particular week will coax me to try some new foods.

I supposed I could do almost the equivalent by going to the local Farmers Market but I am sure I’d have the same problem I have the past few summers: the one afternoon a week that the one nearest to me is open goes by….and then I remember! The requirement of prepaying for the CSA share is a good way to motivate myself to pick up the veggies every week at my allotted time.

Here are some links for more information about CSAs:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Progression of Spring Semester Classes - March 2014

My enthusiasm for the Coursera courses I am taking continues.

Two are completing: How to Change the World (from Wesleyan University) and Moralities of Everyday Life (from Yale University). There is one more week of An Introduction to the US Food System (from Johns Hopkins University). I learn something from every course I take….but these three are ones that prompted thinking about how I live, picking causes worthy of support either through action or donation, and changing my behavior for the good of society and the planet.

A new class started this week: Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets (from Brown University). I’ve already enjoyed the first set of videos and the suggested readings.

There is a new module in the Nutrition course (from Vanderbilt University) I took last spring on Food allergies and intolerances. I signed up for the course again just for that new material.  

And then there is the Volcanic Eruptions (from Ludwig Maximilians Universitat Munich) that was offered last fall. I somehow overlooked it then (or maybe I was too busy with other courses). The content was still available on the Coursera site - so I am making my way through the 10 weeks of materials.

The Roman Architecture course (from Yale University) is continuing - it’s a 15 week course that started in January. I find myself reading architecture books with pictures and diagrams of Greek and Roman buildings on the Internet Archive. The course has given me a sharper eye for architectural detail already!

Previous posts: 

• February 2014
• January 2014

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 22, 2014

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.

Aging men: More uplifts, fewer hassles until the age of 65-70 - Interesting that the research is being done but disappointing that it is not terribly insightful yet. It caused me to think about the demographics….men that are in their 80s now don’t have very many 75-years-and-beyond role models in their growing up  because not very men lived that long in prior generations.

10 Things We Learned From Dr. Temple Grandin - Temple Grandin is one of the best sources for insight into autism. I haven’t listened to the webinar recording pointed to in the post yet….it’s on my ‘to do’ list.

Forced Molt: Starving Hens for Profit - Controlling egg production….so that there will be plenty of eggs for consumers all year round. Is starving the hens for 2 weeks the only way?

Colorful Watercolor Paintings of Radiant Trees in Nature - In keeping with Trees being a theme for upcoming photographic projects…..they’re showing up more in my reading and in images I enjoy from others!

6 Offbeat Veggies worth a Try - Maybe some new foods to try….with recipes to get you started.

Sound-sensing cells regenerated in ears of mice with hearing damage - Maybe there is hope to repair time damaged hearing! Since there are a growing number of older people, there are potentially a lot of people that would benefit if this can work in people. Loss of hearing and/or sight are significant hits to quality of life for otherwise healthy seniors.

Time to Sign Up For Summer Field Courses in the National Parks - National Parks are among my favorite vacation destinations. It’s an appealing idea to sign up for a field course!

Involved parents raise slimmer adults - I like the infographic. Glad that the study showed what seems intuitively obvious to me!

Navigate the Global Meat System with New Meat Atlas - The link is to a summary but the 68 page report itself is available by following the link at the beginning of the summary. The report has a lot of graphical representation of data which makes it worth the look.

A lost city reveals the grandeur of medieval African civilization - Still so much history of the world to discover…..

The First Weeks of Class - February 2014

I’m through the first weeks of Coursera classes that started in January (posted about last month before they started).  I thought that 4 courses might be a little overwhelming…..and that has turned out to be true. All of them are well done and the topics are well-honed to my interests; dropping one is not an option. So - I have a flurry of activity to keep up. I’ve dedicated one day a week to each course and then use the other three days to read extra resources and follow threads outside the course entirely.

The Roman Architecture course is furthest along. I find myself looking at buildings differently; there are still a lot of elements of Roman Architecture is buildings constructed long after the end of the Roman Empire. The Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC is one example (the picture below is one I took of the monument a few years ago during the spring cherry blossoming). One of the threads I followed outside the immediate course material this past week was finding out how the impluviums actual worked; it wasn’t just catching/holding water….it was often an pervious basin that allowed water to filter down into a cistern which was then used by the residence as a source of cool water!

The three other courses (How to Change the World, Moralities of Everyday Life, and An Introduction to the US Food System) are all thought provoking. There are times they seem to converge rom their varying perspectives on the same topic: how can individuals live in a way that is good for them and good for the rest of planet (people and everything else on Earth). They are all very focused on the present and the possible futures we are creating - sometimes with intention and sometimes not.

The whole motivation for taking classes is very different for me now than it was back in my 20s. Then I was focused on getting a degree that would lead into a career. Now I am takings classes primarily because I enjoy being a student! I am taking courses about things I was always interested in but didn’t need for my degrees. Since I am not interested in a grade or certificate, generally avoid tests and time consuming projects....focus instead on going off on tangents that spin out from the course materials. What a difference the Internet has made in how students can find answers to questions!