Gleanings of the Week Ending October 17, 2015

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.

One-Third of Cactus Species Threatened – The main dangers to cacti are illegal trade for horticulture and private collections. I was surprised that development in areas where they grow was not high on the list of dangers too.

How to tangle on glass Christmas ornaments – Wow! This is a project I want to try. I’ve already started practicing by tangling on soft drink bottles. It takes some new skills to work on a rounded surface!

Take Free Online Classes, Get Course Credit at MIT – The experiment is a one year program in supply chain management. The first half is online (and free); the second semester is on campus.

What Those Frost Patterns on Your Car Window Have to Do with Ice in Space – The patterns are like abstract art – I prefer to use the defroster rather than the scrapper…watch them melt slowly.

DuPont Predicts CRISPR Plants on Dinner Plates in Five Years –Improving crops by rapidly introducing beneficial gene variants found in other varieties of the same species.

Microsoft’s Very Good Day – Microsoft has a whole new vibe….that became a lot more apparent in early October.

Postcard from Cape Monarch – It would be wonderful to see this many Monarchs on goldenrod here in Maryland. We have seen the butterflies this past summer – but not in the numbers we observed before the mid-1990s.

Dying at home leads to more peace, less grief, but requires wider support -

9 Germ Fighting Facts – Well timed for the beginning of the cold and flu season!

Not your average peacock – Peacock images collect by National Geographic editors