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 May 31, 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.

Two items from National Parks Traveler of places I enjoy: Protecting the Saguaro Wilderness and Essential Summer Guide '14: Looking for Ponies at Assateague Island National Seashore.

How Much Your Salary Is Worth In Different Cities - It’s always hard to understand the cost of living in different places. Here is an attempt from Planet Money.

Quinoa Cakes - The recipe has so many good things in it. I think I’ll try it!

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Releases 400,000 Hi-Res Images Online to the Public - Wow! Read this article then take a look at the site here….prepare to spend to some browsing.

Melatonin makes old bones stronger - This was a study using rats…so it may not be true for humans…but wouldn’t it be great if it was. Better sleep and better bones via melatonin!

An Interactive Chart of Which Jobs your College Degree Actually Gets - This is a complex graphic. If you really want to look at particular items - go to the interactive version on the creator’s website here.

From chaos to order: How ants optimize food search - Translating observations into a mathematical model that seems to apply to other animals too.

Saturn’s Icy Moon Harbors Ocean - Liquid water exists beneath the icy surface of Enceladus at its south pole…..and that implies the potential for extraterrestrial life there too.

New data show how U.S. states are doing in science - 59 indicators (like state performance in education, the scientific workforce and high-tech business). The article is about the site that provides access to all the data and several ways to visualize it (here).

How Wind and Water Create The World's Most Beautiful Rock Landscapes - The images in the article and the comments are worth taking a look at this link even if you are not interested in how they get created!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 24, 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.

Ten Fabulous Facts about Butterflies: A Wildlife Garden’s Best Friend - Now that the weather in our area is getting warmer…..we’ll be seeing more butterflies. They’re one of my signposts of summer!

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014 - The list is from the editors of MIT’s Technology Review (and they include a pointer to past lists too).

Diatoms on Display - Fan shaped - they reminded me of stylized papyrus images.

Why Do Americans Hate Lives of Leisure? - The article went a different direction than I anticipated. It really was not about ‘lives of leisure’ but about why we tend to feel we have too little or none at all.

Blocking pain receptors extends lifespan, boosts metabolism in mice - It is appealing to find that something done to improve the quality of life (like blocking pain) might also extend lifespan. Of course - it may not work the same in humans as it does in mice.

Super-power Chia Bread - My routine breakfast is a tablespoon of chia seeds in almond milk - but I have been noticing more recipes that include chia recently and this is one I plan to try. It would be a lot easier to eat ‘on the go.’

London’s Greatest Scientific Experiments - An interactive tour.

On the shoulder of a giant: Precursor volcano to the island of O'ahu discovered - My daughter is in Hawaii on a geology field trip right now so this article captured my attention.

A Map of National Landmarks That Are Most Vulnerable to Climate Change - Time to plan a vacation to see some of these? We were at the NASA Kennedy Space Center and Canaveral National Seashore last fall.

Visualizing the Ocular Microbiome - The surface of our eyes is yet another complex ecosystem and it has some unique properties. Modern molecular diagnostic tools are increasing our understanding of what it takes to sustain ‘health.’

Filigree Floral Sculpture Produced with Innovative 3D Printing - This one is added to my list for the week because of beauty and the use of technology.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 17, 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.

Two museums doing 3D scanning of artifacts (one of the technologies introduced in the archaeology course I took on Coursera recently:

Paleontologists unveil online showcase of 3-D fossil remains - An introduction to the University of Michigan’s Online Repository of Fossils.

Look at These Ancient Egyptian Artifacts from Every Amazing Angle This article points to a project at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology to make objects available on the web in a format that allows complete rotation of the object. The project’s beta site also allows zooming in to get a closer look at the objects.

Categorizing Invasive Plants - I’ve recently done some volunteering to help control invasive plants in my community. This was a nice summary of approaches used by land managers.

Newsmap - A visual display of news (based on the Google news aggregator). There is color coding for broad categories of news and it is possible to select a ‘country’ from a list at the top of the display; looking at the news perspective for a country different than your own is always a broadening experience. The visualization has been around for a few years; I only found it recently and am trying it for a few weeks to decide if it is better than looking at the same info in a Newsfeed format.

Bee biodiversity boosts crop yields - Good to know. Hopefully we have not already reduced the diversity of bees on the planet.

8 CIO moms share tales and tips from the IT trenches - These tips make sense for more than just CIO/IT moms!

40 maps that explain the Middle East - I just finished a Coursera course about the modern Middle East….so this series of maps was particularly well timed!

The Most Common Language in Each US State—Besides English and Spanish - Language as a window into differences across the US.

Cold War Spy-Satellite Images Unveil Lost Cities - Tripling the number of known archaeology sites via technology…another story that linked well with the archeology course from Coursera. 

Never Say Die - Recent research results re longevity.

Magnificent 19th-Century Library Shelves 350,000 Books - Architecture of the late 1800s and books….in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It looks like a magical place.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 10, 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.

Dynamic Paintings of Birds Capture the Essence of Flight - Appealing work.  I usually like photographs of birds in flight better than paintings….but these are an exception.

The Coming Antibiotic Crisis, Revealed in Maps - Will we eventually revert to infections that kill like in pre-antibiotic days?

Inside Turkey’s Top Archaeological Sites - From the Dialogue of Civilizations: Gobekli Tepe (oldest human-constructed ceremonial site in the world) and Zeugma (mosaics). Links are included to photos, galleries and virtual tours of the sites. There is also a link at the bottom of the article to other posts about the Dialogue of Civilizations.

10 Spring Cleaning to Dos for Your Digital Abode: Part II - I posted the Part I of this list a few weeks ago I my cleanings list.

Basic science finds corporate refuge - With funding from the US government declining, corporations are picking up some of the funding shortfall.

A History of Garbage in Space - In just over half a century, we’ve created 17000 objects in earth orbit. The majority of them are ‘fragmentation debris.’

What's Your Major? 4 Decades of College Degrees, In 1 Graph - This is a graphic to looks at - move the cursor over it to get numbers that correspond to the colors. Click on the one and a graph with just that major will appear. Physics is almost non-existent in the graph (higher in 1970 than now).

Watch Stunning First Simulation of Universe’s 13-Billion-Year Evolution - In a little over 4 minutes, a simulation of the universe from the beginning to now.

Ocean acidity is dissolving shells of tiny snails off U.S. West Coast - Scientists has previously thought it would be decades before this result of ocean acidification would be observed. It appears that this is one consequence of climate change that is happening faster than anticipated.

Neuroaesthetics - A relatively new field that studies the way humans process beauty and art.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 03, 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.

A Ranking of the Deadliest Animals in the World - The mosquito is the only one more deadly than humans!

Rainbow Slime Recipe for Play - I couldn’t resist…it’s pretty and fun looking…a great activity for the child in us all!

Two items about bees: 5 Facts about Bumblebees—and how to help them (the bumblebees were very active on a redbud blooming in our area) and The Waggle Dance of the Honeybee (this is not a new video…but timely as the bees become more active this year).

10 Spring Cleaning To Dos for Your Digital Abode: Part I - This is a list written for teachers but it makes sense for others as well! Part I is the first 5 of the 10.

Some of the Strangest and Most Artistic Rooftops in the World - The ones that are green with vegetation are my favorites.

Exquisite Macro Photos Reveal the Miniature World of Insects - My favorite is the dragonfly catching a ride on the seed puff.

Mount Baldy at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Remain Off-Limits Indefinitely - Sand behaving in unexplained way….the world is not always easily understood.

Ethereal Silk Scarves Feature NASA's Photographs of Space - I want one of these for Christmas!

Elegant Animal Illustrations Created Using a Morié Pattern - The owl captured my attention…..and then the bats.

Optimizing sweet potato production - Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite foods. I’m glad they are becoming more appreciated. I’ve always had good luck growing them too.

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!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 19, 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.

New city wall discovered at ancient Roman port - The Roman Architecture course I took via Coursera has increased my interest in anything new related to the topic. Evidently Ostia was on both sides of the Tiber rather than just the south side!

On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow: A Guide to Speedy Vegetables - I timely article. I am still in the mode of starting plants indoors to plant in the garden after the last danger of frost! The idea of micro greens appeals to me.

Spectacular Spring Photos of Cherry Blossoms in Japan - Cherry blossoms - a great bounty in the spring.

Scientists re-define what's healthy in newest analysis for human microbiome project - Evidently we still have a lot to learn about the microbiome. This study’s primary finding was how diverse the microbiome is....each person harbors a unique and varied collection of bacteria.

Watch 220 Years Of U.S. Population Expansion - There is an animated version….and then a map for each decade from 1790-2010

8 Photos worth the Wait - My favorite is the first one: the monarch butterfly chrysalis covered with water droplets

Researchers Say Mesa Verde National Park's Far View Reservoir wasn’t for Water - A ceremonial structure rather than a reservoir?

Food, Dieting, and the Power of Good Nutrition: The Meatless Monday Interview with Dr. Joel Fuhrman - An advocate for everyone to become savvier about nutrition

Future Technologies - An infographic from Richard Watson: Top 10 Innovations by 2050. What do you think?  One example: 40% likelihood of 150 year human lifespans.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 12, 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.

Blood test could detect solid cancers - Another discovery that started with bioinformatics. It seems like the biological research arena is exploding with findings that are teased out of ‘big data.’ Biological research has met the computer age!

Viewing Nature’s Beauty through a New Lens - Watch the 4 minute video from Louie Schwarzberg imbedded in this post. I liked the bats and cactus sequence the best!

Yes! Yellowstone is a Volcano - A set of 3 videos. They were filmed in 2009 but I just found them. I remember a decade ago when we visited Yellowstone and my daughter being intrigued that is was a ‘super volcano.’

The Gamification of Education - Infographic that includes a timeline of gamification technology applied to education

Find the Closest National Park with This Handy Map - A handy map for planning a US National Park vacation. And just to add some incentive - a post about macro photography in the National Parks.

Global Air Quality Crisis - It is estimated that 7 million people died in 2012 due to air pollution. That makes air pollution the highest environmental risk on the planet.

Senior Discounts (list 1 and list 2) - Two lists posted by Feisty Side of Fifty/Baby Boomer Women. Some of them start at 55…many more at 60….and more at 65.

Jane Goodall: How she redefined mankind - An interview of Jane Goodall at 80.

New York Public Library Releases Thousands of Historic Maps to the Public - Yet another example of the revolution in libraries. They are making the content of their fragile historical collections that used to be accessible to very few people available to anyone with access to the Internet because high quality digitization has come to the fore.

You'll Never Look at Pond Water the Same Way after Watching This Video - There are so many good videos in my list this week. This one encourages me to collect water from the nearby river….and take a look through the microscope!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 5, 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.

Bridging Two Worlds - Lynne Quarmby is a cell biologist….that paints. See some of her art work here.

Several interesting paper sculpture posts: From Zim and Zou (my favorite is the bird in the first image), Massive Paper Installation Feels like You’re Walking Inside a 3D Painting and Bird Sculptures

Wish you could fertilize crops with pee? Urine luck - Article from Grist. It caused me to wonder about 1) how sustainable thinking looks for solutions that are better for the planet….but may be less expensive too, 2) how often sustainable also means ‘closed loop’ (i.e. there are no bad bi-products that build up as ‘waste’) and 3) infrastructure changes that will enable sustainability (in this case -bathrooms and sewer systems could be enablers, but different than they are today).

Noninvasive colorectal cancer screening tool shows unprecedented detection rates - Hooray! It would be great if this or some other non-invasive test became the diagnostic of choice rather than colonoscopy! No one likes the colonoscopy or the prep it requires. Surely the non-invasive test will be less expensive too.

Loblolly pine genome is largest ever sequenced: Seven times bigger than the human genome - This article includes a good explanation of the computational challenges of genomics.

Enormous Climbable Structure - Intriguing design. The sight for the developer is here. There are quite a few of them installed in children’s museums in the US and they all look like lots of fun.

Helpful Infographic Illustrates Polite Dining Around the World - Learn about the cultural nuances of dining in other countries.

Americans using more energy - Not a good trend….Are we using more as the economy improves?

Fair bosses pay the price of burnout - Procedural fairness (structured and rule bound) is beneficial to the organization and employees….but it is hard to sustain without feeling the strain. Should leadership/management training be updated to at least acknowledge that strain and suggest ways to cope with it? Maybe sabbaticals (The Working Vacation) should become more common in non-university organizations.

Daylight saving impacts timing of heart attacks - Should people with heart conditions ‘spring forward’ more gradually?

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 29, 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 Garbage Man - Thinking beyond the recycle bin…closed loop recycling.

25+ Digital Wildlife and Nature Maps - Lots of perspectives. I particularly like the Journey North (under Migration and Tracker Maps) because of the time of year….check out robins and monarchs migration.

The 7 Rules of the New Food Revolution - Common sense from Prevention magazine….with links to more information about each one.

Things you should be able to do in your local library - Many communities have library infrastructure originally developed for print media. As more moves toward digital formats - there is opportunity for the library to evolve into something quite different to make the most of the location, building, and engagement capacity. Some of the things on Richard Watson’s list are already part of my library....and others may become the next wave of enhancements.

Google cameras take rafting trip at Grand Canyon - If you can’t make the raft trip through the Grand Canyon physically, take a virtual trip! The Google Colorado River Site is here (there is an ‘Explore the Colorado River’ video toward the bottom of the page that is a short intro to what is available on the site).

What are anonymous companies? An infographic - From TED. “My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies, so that they can no longer be used anonymously against the public good.” - Charmian Gooch, 2014 TED Prize Winner

Married and working together to solve inequality - Except from an interview with Bill and Melinda Gates

How the Container Store Uses Wearable Tech to Think Outside the Box - Replacing walkie-talkie technology with smaller wearable devices with more functionality.

The $1 Origami Microscope - What a great idea! One of the STEM Fair participants from a few weeks ago lamented that she did not have a microscope easily available for her project. I hope this kind of minimalist design (and low cost) can make microscopes very common around the world - for students (and that virtually everyone is a ‘student’ in some aspect of their life).

Gorgeous Papercut Light Boxes - From two Denver based artists. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 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.

Education boosts brain function long after school, study shows - The benefits of education extend way beyond career preparation/enablement. This study did not look at the impact of continuing education. Will a study 20 years from now document the cognitive impact of the increased availability of low cost (or free) online courses such as Coursera?

Mongol Empire rode wave of mild climate, but warming now may be tipping region into unparalleled drought - Tree ring research from the steppes has been used to characterize climate of the region back to 650 BC!

Land cover change over five years across North America revealed - Changes from 2005 to 2010 are depicted with satellite images. The article describes the North American Environmental Atlas which is online here.

“Passive House Revolution” Shows the Rise of Extremely Efficient Houses - Hopefully more new houses and renovations will use these ideas!

To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Let Them Sleep In - In many school districts the high schools start the earliest and then the buses are reused for middle school and elementary. Is it better for elementary school students to start earlier and let the high school students sleep in?

Distorted Landscapes Create Surreal Perspectives of the World - Randy Scott Slavin’s spherical panoramas

Water-rich gem points to vast 'oceans' beneath Earth's surface, study suggests - Ringwoodite sample found in Brazil…inside brown diamond. It’s quite a story of almost accidental discovery and international collaboration.

Three Adorable, Endangered Tiger Cubs Born at the London Zoo - 2.5 minutes of clips from the Cubcam

The Many Origins of the English Language - A graphic that updates for period selected (showing either the period or cumulative from Pre-1150 to present. Even from 1950-present, Latin was the biggest contributor with French coming next.

Why Do Flamingos Eat Upside Down? Your Weird Animal Questions Answered - From National Geographic’s Weird & Wild

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 15, 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.

10,000 years on the Bering Land Bridge: Ancestors of Native Americans paused en route from Asia - I’d always assumed that the ‘land bridge’ was narrower - just across the narrowest part of the Bering Strait.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #63 - I haven’t included one of these in my gleanings recently….doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to enjoy them. My favorite in this batch is the kingfisher with the little crab in its bill.

Is Daylight Savings Energy Efficient? No, Says Expert - Every spring and fall I hate the time change. Does anyone like it? Sometimes I think governments like the idea simply because it confirms that they have the influence to cause the population to do something in synchrony!

Nutrition Facts Label: Proposed Changes Aim to Better Inform Food Choices - The new labels are in a 90 day comment period from the FDA. What do you think? I like them. The revised labels include new info (added sugars, Vitamin D, and potassium) that I have missed in the past. I like the larger calorie count and the attempt to make the serving size the size of a real serving.

The Weight of Mountains - A short film (11.5 minutes) about how mountains are made….live…and die.

Mothers leave work because they don't want to behave like working men, study suggests - ‘Presenteeism’ (the notion that being at your desk until late is required, even if there is nothing to do) should not be a requirement for men or women….but it has the effect of driving women out of the workforce more often than men. What a waste of skills and education! Will the workplace change over time?

Deer proliferation disrupts a forest's natural growth - This study was done in Ithaca NY but Maryland has very similar problems. The deer are so prolific that they are eating all their preferred foods down to the ground.

NASA's Breathtaking Images of Space - The view from space….always awesome.

Women's jobs are poorer paid, less flexible, more stressful - My career was in a male-dominated field and was well paid. About 20 years in, I realized that while I did work longer hours overall than women in many other fields, the stress was generally positive and not brutal in duration….and the flexibility increased over the course of my career too! So - this research result meshes quite well with my experience from the mid-70s onward.

Honeybees reveal that evolution is stranger than you ever realized - Just how do sterile bees contribute to the fitness of their species? Kin selection. That’s why honey bees in Yemen have adapted to be excellent at air conditioning their hives in the hot desert air and Japanese have adapted to combat deadly wasps in a unique way.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 8, 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.

Over 80s often over-treated for stroke prevention - Sometimes the risks of medications overcome their value as people get older. Are we savvy enough to comprehend the complexity and then make the best decision?

Beautiful Bird Drawings by Brazilian Street Artist L7m - My favorite is the heron (5th one from the top).

Five Native Plants to Add to Your Garden - Spring is close enough to be thinking about gardening so the timing of this article is good if you are still contemplating new plants for this year. I had cardinal flowers last year that bloomed profusely and attracted hummingbirds/butterflies. Hope they come up again this year.

Why dark chocolate is good for your heart - Hurray! I celebrate that the research on dark chocolate is confirming its benefits. It’s one of my favorite little splurges.

Which National Park Drives Are On Your 2014 Calendar? - So many great choices…..

This is what the Internet actually looks like: The undersea cables wiring the Earth - An aspect of infrastructure that we often take for granted because they are so reliable. The vast majority of international traffic is carried by the undersea cables (only a few percent go via satellite).

Incredible Up-Close Textured Details of Frozen Flowers - What a beautiful idea of a macro photography project….but I’m going to wait until summer when I have some flowers from my garden as subjects!

Canary in the Cornfield: Why the Fuss about Monarchs? - I know there are a lot fewer monarch butterflies in my community in recent summers….and less milkweed too. This article explains some background on why that happened.

Sea-level rise threatens UNESCO World Heritage sites - The Statue of Liberty is one. The detailed paper is available here.

Eat Plants and Prosper: For Longevity, Go Easy On the Meat, Study Says - I skewed toward more fruits and veggies - ate less processed grains and meat….and got down to a healthy weight!  

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 1, 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.

Abdominal fat accumulation prevented by unsaturated fat - Just another indicator that thinking about all kinds of fats as ‘all the same’ is probably not a good idea. The unsaturated fats generally come from plant based foods and fatty fish.

Are bookshelves becoming obsolete? - What do you think? I have started reading a lot more books in electronic form than I do in physically printed form….and I’ve given away all the books I don’t need for reference; the old video tapes are gone too. So I have some empty book cases at this point but I find myself using some of the shelves for other things: the bag of shopping bags and a support for a large garden flag hung from an upper shelf by weighting the flag’s upper edge with unused candle holders. I’m not getting rid of them any time soon because I anticipate moving at some point and needing the storage options they would offer. They are not obsolete….they are just shelves that no longer hold books!

How wolves can alter the course of rivers - TED video about the wolves in Yellowstone National Park. It is an ecosystem story.

The symmetry of citrus is a beautiful thing - I like the colors of the fruit….and then the later collections of eggs, beans, and leaves too.

Where Do People Spend the Most of Their Paycheck on Housing? - (for the US) Find out how your state compares.

Americans Want Antibiotic-Free Chicken, and the Industry Is Listening - Good! But in the meantime - I have switched to organic chicken products because that is the closest to sustainable farming practices (i.e. I want them to go beyond anti-biotic free….I want chicken raised in a way that is not damaging the environment.

Daily Overview - A new picture from above every day! 

Infographic about Personalized Learning - I still not sure I understand how Personalized Learning will work for all students because it seems to depend on all students having the desire for self-directed learning….and I’m not sure that is something that can be assumed. Still - I’m going to follow this series of infographics to learn more about the approach. It is appealing to move away from the factory as the model for schools…but is this best alternative model?

New Water Heater Flies Past Crowdfunding Goal - Something to look into when my old hot water heater needs to be replaced.

'Microbial Pompeii:' 1,000-year-old plaque preserves bacteria, microscopic particles of food on skeleton teeth - I am taking a class on Roman Architecture so this blurb caught my attention - but it wasn’t about Pompeii….it was about a study that looked at dental calculus (plaque) that was dated from about the same time as Pompeii was destroyed by Vesuvius. The plaque provided a window into the diet and microbes of the people living at that time.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 16, 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.

Green Schoolyard Movement: Gaining Momentum around the World - Hooray for outdoor spaces that are complex systems….good for the children and the environment!

Aerial 3D Panoramas from around the World - Wow! There is a lot of interesting places to explore on this site. I started with Petra, Jordan.

Fracking in Water-Stressed Zones Increases Risks to Communities – and Energy Producers - Nearly half of the wells hydraulically fractured (indicated by black dots) in the United States are located in areas of high or extremely high water stress…not a good thing. The potential for supply shortfalls poses operational risks to the energy producers as well as risks of rationing and other emergency measures to the wider community.

Special Albinos and Unusually White Animals - Their lack of coloring caused them to stand out.

A Crash Course in Psychology - On YouTube. It will continue on in 10 minutes segments over the next few months. The second installment is here.

Global Health Observatory Map Gallery - There is a pull down list for geographic coverage and topics….and then an area for keywords.   There are lots of maps to explore with this tool. Here is one example: I selected ‘world’ then ‘maternal and reproductive health’ - and there was a list of 3 maps to look at.  One of them was “Maternal mortality ration (per 100,000 live births), 2010.” The US is now as good as most of the developed world in this metric.

The Nine Planets Imagined as One - I like this both as art and science (even if it does include Pluto which is no longer considered a planet)!

The Future of Agriculture (part 1 and part 2) - Fred Kirshenmann talking about going beyond ‘green’ to resilient agriculture. The videos are few years old but I just discovered them (they were suggested as references in the Coursera course I am taking on the US Food System).

Jumping Liquids Mimic Japanese Flower Arrangements - Whether or not they look like Japanese Flower Arrangements….they are worth a look. My favorite is the red, white and purple one need the middle of the series.

The end of the GMO era? -  Some recent stories about GMOs.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 8, 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.

Syphilis: Then and Now - The recent research on the origin and manifestation of treponemal diseases (syphilis, yaws and bejel) is reported along with the history of research about them.

Splendid Botanical Gardens Full of Stained Glass Murals - Cosmovitral in Toluca, Mexico. A botanical garden in the old city market.

A map showing gender inequality around the world - Using the Gender Inequality Index (GII) from the UN Human Development Programme. There are many parameters for the index and the US does not The full 2013 Human Development report is available here (The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World).

Printed Eye Cells Could Help Treat Blindness - The ability to print retinal cells could lead to new therapies for retinal disorders such as macular degeneration....just one of the technologies with potential to improve the quality of life for older people. Not being able to see well produces a cascading effect on mobility and self-confidence that often leads to rapid physical decline.

40 more maps that explain the world - From Max Fisher at the Washington Post. Take your time, enlarge the maps that interest you the most…there is a lot to learn from these 40 maps!

Why 259,969 people taking the same class at the same time might just be the future of education - Co-founder of Coursera, Daphne Koller reminiscing. “We need a way to integrate education much more deeply into the fabric of our lives in a lifelong way,” she says. “And that’s what we’re doing.” And several other recent articles about MOOCs and online education: MOOCs by the numbers: Where are we now? (with infographic); Two giants of online learning discuss the future of education (Salman Khan and Sebastian Thrun); and Next Gen School Board: Governance Challenges & Opportunities in the Digital Age

Fiery-red coral species discovered in the Peruvian Pacific - Coral reefs and communities in Peru are just beginning to be studied….more discoveries likely.

C40 Cities Releases Landmark Research Revealing Expansion & Acceleration of Climate Actions in Megacities - 98% say climate change presents significant risks to their populations and infrastructure; more than 8,000 climate actions are underway and 41% of those actions are at a transformative, citywide scale. C40 cities in the US are: Austin, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC (details of all cities in the C40 is here) Infographic with a link to the full report included in the article.

A Beautiful Map of Global Ocean Currents - Wow! It’s worth going to the site to look at the visualization in more detail too (click on the globe to enlarge, drag to rotate OR click on the word ‘earth’ in the lower left corner of the image and then experiment with the different projections of the ocean currents at the surface).

Organic Shmorganic - An attempt to sort out the value of organic fruits and veggies for children.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 1, 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.

Bomb-Sniffing Rats - An organization in Tanzania trains African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis.  I was more interested in the TB aspect to this story rather than the bomb portion. Once trained, a rat can screen 100 samples of sputum for TB in 20 minutes!

The World as an Apple - A video using an apple to demonstrate how much arable land there is on earth from the American Farmland Trust

Interesting and Overlooked National Parks in America - Some of these have gone on my ‘future vacation’ list.

Fantastic Kaleidosopic Light Paintings Created in Camera - Long exposures and moving lights to create images.

How Parents and The Internet Transformed Clubfoot Treatment - Hurray for the non-surgical solution!

Global Footprint Calculator - If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American, we would need 5 planets. I did the calculator for the way I live and the answer was 3.9 planets (so I am better than the average American but still pretty far from sustainable).

Setting the Context: A Brief History of EdTech - Infographic (click on the graphic to enlarge or get the graphic in PDF form here and enlarge within the reader) about how technology has evolved in society, business and education from the 1980s to today.

Intimate Portraits of Bees - From National Geographic.

Nature Soundmap - Recordings of natural sounds from around the globe. I listened to several and will come back to listen to more. They have that quality of being gently invigorating and relaxing at the same time.

Two recent posts from Richard Watson: Could the BRIC (N11 and MINT) wall fall? and Issue 34: Society and Culture (and other topics…listed on the right) 

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 25, 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.

All of these outbreaks could have been prevented with vaccines - The US has taken a backward step when it comes to outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough. It’s very sad that the downturn has been so abrupt in the past 4-5 years….and that we know why; when will the toll of these diseases reach a tipping point toward increasing mandates for vaccination. All my vaccinations are up to date (and I may ask for a whooping cough booster at my next annual physical since some if my volunteer work is with children).

Wellcome Images - Digital images from the many historical sources made available under Creative Commons licensing by the Wellcome Library, London. All low resolution images are freely available for download for personal, academic teaching or study use. The image at the right is a Mark Catesby illustration of a magnolia blossom and pod.

Top 20 Metropolitan Areas in the U.S.A., 1790-2010 - A very busy chart…but worth look at for a bit. Expand it and take a look. Some cities peaked early (like Baltimore); some didn’t get started until much later (like Dallas and Houston). New York has stayed at the top since it surpassed Philadelphia in the early 1800s.

An earthquake threat is building up in the central U.S. - Lots more people living in the area than there were in the early 1800s (when the last big earthquake occurred there.

Designing Your School of Choice: mySchool - An essay by Adam Renfro about his vision for ‘school.’ There are so many options for future schools….the big challenge will be to choose those options wisely. The balance between needs of the student and society will become more nuanced. It is interesting to observe the uniformity implied by core curriculum, testing, and building structures with the explosion of easily available learning environments that are anything but uniform.

How a Versatile Gut Bacterium Helps Us Get Our Daily Dietary Fiber - Another bit of evidence that our bodies are complex ecosystems with many organisms interacting…..organisms that we need to be healthy!

What's the best place to see or visit in your area? - This is a post where the comments are the main content.  I know in my area I have favorites - and the ones I recommend depend on the interests of the person asking!

To MOOC or Not To MOOC - Infographic. I learned a new acronym: SPOCs is (Small Private Online Courses)

NASA Finds 2013 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend - The Earth’s temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F since 1880. The average temperature in 2013 was 1.1 degrees F since the mid-20th century. There is a video showing the temperature changes over the past 6 decades.

Roasted Chickpeas - A recipe I’m going to try this week.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 18, 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.

Over 4,000 Reasons to Love (and Protect) North America’s Native Bees - many agricultural plants are primarily pollinated by native bees (rather than the honey bees that were brought from Europe that are uniquely equipped with the tools and techniques required to do the job. )…and they are declining.

Web Soil Survey - The WSS interface allows you to find out about the soil for a specific area in the US (i.e. an address). It’s provided by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. Reports can be generated about the suitability of the soil for specify uses. For example, I requested a map about the suitability for houses with basements for my neighborhood. Where my houses sits was coded ‘green’….but at one edge of the neighborhood it was ‘yellow’ because the soil changes and there was another small area that was ‘red.’ This would certainly be a resource to check if you were building a house or buying one in an unfamiliar area! The builder can take steps to overcome the soil suitability issues….and avoid wet basements! There is also a site that provides the detailed descriptions of soils here. Did you know that there are 26,000 soil types in the US?

Ray Archuleta Soil Health Lessons in a Minute - Short videos about aspects of soil health from the USDA NRCS. Watch the one about the benefits of no-till farming!

Spectacular Photos of a Powerful Volcano Erupting in Chile - Awesome power of the earth to reshape itself.

Long-Forgotten Photographs Reveal Challenger Disaster As It Happened - Most people old enough to remember January 1986….know where they were and how they found out about the Challenger. It’s one of those sad, defining moments for the psyche of the US.

The truth about technology’s greatest myth - The impact of technology in our lives is not straightforward at all…there are positives and negatives...complexities…unintended consequences. Technology cannot be evaluated without the context of the people and societies using it - which means that it isn’t ever simple or entirely rational.

Which scientific ideas do we need to get rid of? - Some answers from some prominent thinkers

Salman Khan’s TED Talk ignited the conversation about online education. Why he’s doubling down on the school of the future - How can education keep up with the pace of the rest of society and the cultural nuances around the globe? One pathfinder is the Khan Academy.

European word translator - Enter one or two lower-case English words and see translations overlaid on a map of Europe!

5,900 Natural Gas Leaks Discovered Under Washington, D.C.: A Dozen Locations Had Concentrations High Enough to Trigger Explosion - Aging infrastructure can be dangerous…and very wasteful.