There were so many pictures taken in the last month to look at….to crop for this month’s ‘zooming’ post. I finally chose some favorites: a degraded shell spiral, water droplets on leaves, uncurling leaves, crocus, hyacinths, violets, tulips, daffodils, hibiscus, deciduous magnolia, the profile of a sculpture. Enjoy the views!
The Jefferson Memorial has always been one of my favorites in Washington DC and I took quite a few pictures of it as we made our way around the tidal basin last week. The Roman Architecture course I am taking (Coursera) caused me to look at the structure more thoroughly.
Ionic columns
Marble steps at the front
Triangular pediment
Barrel vault with coffered ceiling at the entrance
Dome with coffered ceiling (no oculus)
It is one of the many buildings patterned on the Pantheon in Rome.
I enjoyed taking pictures of the building from different vantage points around the tidal basin….enjoy the views in the slideshow below!
The cherry blossoms were at their peak around the tidal basin in Washington DC late last week.
It was probably the best walk around the tidal basin in my 30+ years in the area:
the blossoms were near perfect, the temperature was pleasant,
there were lots of people but few crowds, and
the monuments (Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson) were nestled in the blooming trees.
One recent change: the scaffolding that had been around the Washington Monument since it was damaged by an earthquake is gone (i.e. repairs are complete). The flight path for Reagan National Airport is along the Potomac so I managed to catch a picture of a plane descending with the cherry trees and paddle boaters on the tidal basin. Enjoy the slide show from our walk around the tidal basin!
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!
My maternal grandfather was born in the very early years of the 1900s. He died many years ago but I am thinking of him today because his birthday is tomorrow.
He was the most daunting of my grandparents because he was quite tall and could look rather fierce. I think when I was very young I steered clear of him….until I got to know him a little better the first time I stayed with that set of grandparents without the rest of my family. From then on I realized that he was a big instigator of ‘fun’ for the grandchildren, in particular during the summer.
He built things too - a fountain and wishing well, a picnic table around a tree, a huge grilling pit, bricked benches and planters, a merry go round (wielded together) and a very tall swing with fat rope/large seat. For years there were new things that had been built every time we visited. 
The hyacinths are blooming in Maryland this week - like the hyacinths were blooming at the end of March in Dallas. They are one of my favorite flowers of spring because they are early bloomers, they smell wonderful, and they last longer than the crocus.
My mother has planted a large bucket with hyacinth bulbs and then had to push the soil out of the way to help the flower spikes emerge. I took the opportunity to take some close ups of the flowers. Enjoy the macro images below!
I always look for ferns sending up their fiddleheads through the leaf mulch in the spring. They have not appeared outside in my part of Maryland…but there were some fiddleheads among the ferns in the Brookside Gardens conservatory.
The plant in the conservatory was a tree fern I have been checking every time I got to the conservatory. There were coils with coils….tight spirals that would uncurl into the fronds.
When I was in Dallas at the end of March, the fruitless mulberry trees in my parents’ yard were in bloom. A few of the caterpillar-like flowers fell with the stiff breeze and rain. I picked one up to photograph and then did some research when I got home. It turns out that each flower stalk has male and female flowers!
The long male flowers are toward the end of the stalk
And the round female flowers are on the end closest to the tree.
The trees are quite old. They have been trimmed and braced. The shade they provide in Texas during the summer is too important to let them split or otherwise damage themselves! And know I know - they have interesting flowers too.
The Star Magnolia at Brookside Gardens was just in bloom this past weekend on the southeast side of the Fragrance Garden (map of Brookside Gardens). It is one of the earliest blooming deciduous magnolias. The slide show below shows the whole buds and flowers.
Using the 8x loupe, I took some more detailed images of the blooms at various stages: the flowers just beginning to emerge from the bud,
The petals opening a little but still curved inward,
The expanding petals opening outward,
Opening more,
And, finally, the center of the flower.
Narcissus and spring ---- they go together. The flowers in this post were in my parents’ garden in Dallas but the flowers are frequent sights in Maryland this time of year as well. As I write this (back home in Maryland) I see a patch of daffodils that a neighbor planted at the edge of the forest; they started out in a smaller area 20 years ago and have multiplied - and seem to be in sync with the red blooms of the maples.
I used my 8x loupe to capture images of the central flowers from different perspectives.
And there was a tiny spider that was very still on his flower while I captured his portrait.
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?
Last month I happened to walk by a pond where the Wood Frogs were having their annual orgy. It was one of the first sunny days of spring…still chilly but the sun was warming the water. The hoarse clacking sound drew my attention first; it reverberated through the vegetation around the shallow pool. As I got closer I saw that there were a lot of frogs - in the water, on the rocks.
Then I noticed the masses of frogs surrounding a female. The frogs were celebrating the warmth of the day with in a frenzy to start the next generation.
There was a couple near the orgy that seemed oblivious to the ruckus!
When I moved from Dallas over 30 years ago, the sales tax had been increased to fund DART. It seemed to take a very long time for the system to become fully operational but now - what a pleasant surprise the system is! I rode the trains twice on my recent trip to Dallas: once from Love Field to close to my family’s home and once to go into Downtown Dallas. The trip to Downtown Dallas is the topic of this post.
The parking at the train station was free so the cost of the train was $5 for an all-day pass (good for train and buses around Dallas). The train is mostly raised above the roofs of warehouses with occasional street-level crossings. All the flat rooftops made me wonder why the space is not used for solar panels! The closer the train comes to downtown the taller the buildings get.
Once downtown, there is a free bus that cycles through the area called D-Link. The drivers are very knowledgeable. We stopped at the West End for lunch and then got back on the bus until it got to Klyde Warren Park. The park is built over the Woodall Rogers Freeway in the middle of the city. It has activities for just about all ages: playground, food trucks, small tables and chairs, water fountains intended for playing, a putting green, badminton, checker and chess tables, borrowing stalls (books, board games), a dog park…..with plantings just recovering from winter to add some greenery to it all. There are pigeons to watch too. Even without a child - this park may become one of my favorite places in Dallas!
Last week I was in Dallas and rejoiced in the unfurling leaves; they are a few weeks ahead of the trees in Maryland. It seemed like everywhere I looked there were tinges of red that were standing out before the green chlorophyll becomes the overwhelming color in the leaves.
Pecan buds opening into pleated leaves that will unfurl quickly now that it is getting warmer.
Peonies coming up from the roots with shiny new leaves edged with red.
Photinia bushes that were burnt by too many freeze thaw this past winter but are still managing to put on some fresh new leaves.
And rose bushes with tiny red leave that got greener as they grew larger.
April is going to be Abusy month for classes with 4 concurrent Coursera courses for most of the month:
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!
On a recent trip, I thought more than usual about how I would manage my luggage because I was taking public transportation (bus and train) from the airport rather than traveling by car. I decided to take a duffel that sits securely atop the roll aboard suitcase, a backpack and a laptop bag. The backpack and laptop bag would be the carry one. The other two would be checked (I have started flying Southwest whenever I can to avoid extra charges for check baggage).
The key items of the packing plan were:
So - how did it work?
I'm glad I packed the way I did!
The rhododendron buds were huge when we walked around Brookside Gardens recently. These were taken without benefit of any extra magnification (i.e. the loupe was not needed for these buds). I am already looking forward to seeing them open into their cluster of blooms as spring progresses. I already have a ‘note to self’ to photography them every time I visit the gardens over the next few months.
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.
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!
I enjoyed seeing the colorful witch hazels in bloom at Brookside Gardens recently. I knew that witch hazel was native to North America and was used to make the witch hazel liquid that is so soothing to skin. Since reading Douglas Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, I have decided to landscape with native plants from now on.
So - it was frustrating to discover that the spring blooming trees are hybrids from Japan and China. The native to North America (Hamamelis virginiana) has wonderful foliage in the fall and then blooms in late fall/early winter! The flowers look the same….it’s just the timing of the flowers that is different.
It still might be the smallish tree that I’ll plant next in my backyard, knowing that it will support other natives to make a comeback in my yard.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from 2023:
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