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.

Coursera Experience - June 2014

May was a relatively easy month from a course load perspective. I finished two courses:

• The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Tel Aviv University) - I was surprised at how little I understood of even the events that have occurred in my lifetime. I generally keep up with news but I clearly needed more context than the news stories provided…..or maybe the passage of time has brought enlarged perspective of historians.
• Introduction to Systems Biology (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) - Probably the hardest course I’ve taken on Coursera so far.

And only had one that continued on for the full month.

• The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Nubia (Emory University) - This one has short videos and then pointers to reading. I am supplementing the recommended reading with items from the Internet Archive and some books I got via paperbackswap. This one will be over by the end of June - which is a good think because I have so many more that are starting!

There were two that started right at the end of May.

• The Diversity of Exoplants (University of Geneva) - I am taking this course to understand more about what my daughter’s research is all about in graduate school.
• Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach (University of Minnesota) - I am fortunate to not currently have chronic pain….but prevention is always easier than recovery. And there are others in my family that do have challenges caused by pain.

The challenge increases in June as three more courses start up. There are just so many good courses being offered that I can’t seem to resist.

• Paradoxes of War (Princeton University) - Every course I have taken from Princeton has been excellent….and I’m looking forward to this one.
• An Introduction to Global Health (University of Copenhagen) - This course and the next one on the list are part of my trend to think more globally about issues. There seem to be so many areas that transcend the boundaries of nations and governments.
• Globalization and You (University of Washington) - It will be interesting to find out how this course meshes with the one on Global Health.

It’s going to be quite a course load by the end of June!

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.

Coursera Experience - May 2014

I finished up two courses in April:

• Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets (Brown University)
• Roman Architecture (Yale University)

They were both thoroughly enjoyable and the Discussion Forums held a rich assortment of pictures that is used as a ‘last hurrah’ for the course material. There are two courses that continue into May and one that starts just at the end of the month:

• The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Tel Aviv University). I have read one of the reference books I found on Paperbackswap and still have another one to go. I also browsed The Architecture of Cairo course material from MIT which seemed to integrate some of what I was learning at the end of the Roman Architecture course and this one.
• Introduction to Systems Biology (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai). At first, I thought this course was going to take me way back to the biology courses I took as an undergraduate….but then I realized that it was going to do much more than that. This one is integrated biology with all the modeling and statistical analysis I did in my computer science based career!
• The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Nubia (Emory University).  I could resist starting another archaeology related course!

And there are 2 more that start up at the end of May

• The Diversity of Exoplants (University of Geneva). I want to take this one since it is such a hot topic in my daughter’s field.
• Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach (University of Minnesota). There are several people in family that deal with chronic pain; I’m always interested in learning about the current state-of-the-art on topics like this.

Sunspots

Earlier this week (Monday, April 27) my husband set up his telescope to try out a recently purchased solar filter. As we looked through the eyepiece, two areas of sunspots were readily apparent (areas A and D in the diagram above.

We managed to line up my camera with the telescopes eyepiece to capture the picture and I was able to see two more sunspot areas (B and C) when I looked as the image on my computer. Pretty good for a first look with the solar filter!

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!

3 Free eBooks - April 2014

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for April 2014.

Boston Architectural College. The year book of the Boston Architectural Club: containing examples of modern architecture. Boston Architectural Club. 1929. Available from the Internet Archive here.  There are quite a few year books available but I picked this one to highlight because it has pictures of the Bok Tower. I created the collage below with pictures from this 1929 book (black and white) and some that I took last November. The antennae (lightning rods?) have been added.

French Silk Sample Book. 1895. Available from the Internet Archive here.  This is a book of actual silk swatches that has been scanned! The surprise to me was how ‘modern’ some of the fabric patters were.  I included some of them in the collage below.   

Stuart, James. Revett, Nicholas.The antiqvities of Athens. London: J. Haberkorn. 1762. Two volumes available on the Internet Archive: Volume 1 and Volume 2.  This was a reference in one of the Roman Architecture lectures on Coursera and I was thrilled to find the books available on the archive. I appreciated the attention to detail in the drawings. They must have taken pains to get exact measurements of many of the buildings….and some of them were in much better shape in 1762 than they are today.

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?

Second Group of Spring Coursera Courses - April 2014

April is going to be Abusy month for classes with 4 concurrent Coursera courses for most of the month:

• Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets (Brown University)
• Roman Architecture (Yale University)
• The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Tel Aviv University)
• Introduction to Systems Biology (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Then by the third week of the month, Archeology course ends….followed by the Architecture course. I was thrilled to find one of the reference books for the Modern Middle East course available via paperbackswap. Readng all the references recoomended by the courses will probably extend into May!

One of the recent serendipity discoveries was in the Archeaology course -- a segment onf creating 3D images of artifacts with opensource software. I did some initial experimenting with Autodesk 123D Catch and that experimentationwill continue in April with different kinds of objects. I'll do a blog post with 3D images as the project evolves.

Being a student is probably one of my favorite activities. Hooray for Coursera!

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. 

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - March 2014

Over a year ago 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 my top 10 for March 2014.

STEM Fair - These spring events used to be called ‘Science Fair’ but the fair has enlarged to include Science - Technology - Engineering - and Math so they have changed the name. I have volunteered as a judge for our county fair for the past 10 years or so. It seems like every year is an improvement over previous years and this year there was a bigger improvement than usual! This year the middle school students were much more articulate about the statistics they were using (standard deviation in particular).

Great snowflake pictures - Some years we get snow in March and sometimes we don’t. This year not only did we get a good snow, the situation was ideal of snowflake photography. Of course, I celebrated with snow ice cream!

Raisins soaked in apricot brandy - I plumped some dried out raisins with apricot brandy for an apple - raisin - celery salad. Yummy! I may do this every time I make the salad from now on. Little culinary successes are always worth celebrating.

Volunteer naturalist classes - Last fall had did most of my prep for becoming a volunteer naturalist by shadowing people that had done it before; this spring I am taking the classes and enjoying them tremendously. I even won the drawing for the book give away - Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy. Wahoo!

Philadelphia buildings - I had a hard time choosing between the Philadelphia Flower Show itself and discovering the interesting buildings of downtown Philadelphia which will probably be the focus for my next foray into the city. Either way - the March day trip to Philadelphia was a daylong celebration.

The last two volcano lectures - I worked my way through a series of online lectures on material science related to volcanoes that stretched my memory of chemistry (from classes about 40 years ago) and was thrilled to get to the last two lectures that focused on how lab work is done with silicate glass and how all the research and field work gets translated onto geologic maps.

A clean car - With all the snow, my car became thoroughly encrusted with salt. Its shiny clean look coming out of the car wash was worth celebrating.

Lots of feathers - It was a little disconcerting to find a pile of feathers beside our house but then I realized that the presence of a predator was an indicator of a working ecosystem in our neighborhood….and  I enjoyed having the feathers for a photography project.

Pot luck lunch - I have always liked pot luck events. Sometimes there is a skew to desserts but this one had great variety. If anything, it was skewed toward fancy salads.

Work experiences to pass along - One day I was able to pass along two potential solutions to my daughter from my career: 1) Hotel too expensive for a conference? Room with someone. 2) Logo shirt required for an outreach event way too big to tuck into slacks? Wear it tucked into a skirt or belted like a short dress over leggings or skinny slacks. It’s worth celebrating any time lessons learned long ago are still relevant!

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!