Gleanings of the Week Ending December 31, 2016

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.

Best of Mulitmedia 2016 – From The Scientist so most from the Life Sciences perspective. There is a display of infographics then links to the full stories. After that there are some videos. Quite a lot happened in 2016!

How to draw PACH – I am so pleased with this pattern. Remember the paper chains that children enjoy making with strips of construction paper? I remember making them…my daughter made them too. This is a Zentangle® pattern to draw them! It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Happy Anniversary to Photo Ark! 10 Years, 6,300 Animals Photographed – The post is about Joel Sartore’s project to photograph the animals of Earth. Take a lot at the Photo Ark site as well!

Pregnancy leads to changes in the mother’s brain – I think most women acknowledge that there is a change…initially thinking it is just the effect of sleep-deprivation….and later realizing that part of the change is still there after the baby is sleeping through the night. For me – it not only helped me into motherhood, it also enhanced my ability to empathize with others. That made me a better manager and leader at work.

10,000-Year-Old Turf War – Even hunter-gatherers fought other groups of hunter-gatherers. I’m still following up on articles the students in the Osteoarcheology course on Coursera are finding.

Treasure Trove of Newly Discovered Species Includes a Newt that Looks Like a Klingon – My favorite is the first image (the Phuket horned tree agamid). Which one is yours?

“Celldance” Selections – 3 short cell biology videos: cell division, dendritic cell motion, and microscopy of living cells (within the body)

The strange effects of thinking healthy food is costlier – Evidently the health=expensive equation has a bigger impact on our perception (and purchasing) than objective evidence!

Phenology of Bee Genera: MidAtlantic States: USA – A slide show of graphs showing weekly counts for bees (by genus) in the area where I live from Sam Droege at the USGS Bee Lab….and links to other slideshows by the same author

Buying Experiences vs Buying Things – An infographic comparing spending choices (there is a link to expand the infographic…makes it readable). There are a lot of reasons that spending on experience adds to our happiness more than spending on things.

Highlights of 2016

What are the experiences of 2016 I’ll remember the most?

The trip to New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes tops the list for memorable travel. My husband and I enjoyed it so much we’re already looking for similar events at National Wildlife Refuges elsewhere in the country.

My son-in-law defending his research and getting his PhD…finding a postdoc for 2017…tops the list for memorable family event. It’s quite a milestone. My daughter will have a similar one in 2017. This kind of milestone is a huge change for them --- no longer a student, physically moving somewhere very different, etc. --- and has the potential to be a pivot point in their lives. It’s on my list for memorable experiences because of the flurry of activity we’re involved in these last weeks of the year…and knowing that there is more to come in early 2017.

Of course – there are many other things I could put on the list – courses, volunteering, travels to familiar places. I chose these two because they were so different...they are not part of the ‘norm’ that we enjoy all the time!

3 Free eBooks – December 2016

Scrapbook of Victorian Greeting Cards. Handwritten date of 1874. Available from Internet Archive here. I focused on the Christmas cards because – after all – it is December. Styles have changed considerably! This one of a child blowing soap bubbles – with a pipe held upside down…and, evidently, indoors – was one of my favorites.

Scrapbook of Victorian Greeting Cards. Handwritten date of 1874. Available from Internet Archive here. I focused on the Christmas cards because – after all – it is December. Styles have changed considerably! This one of a child blowing soap bubbles – with a pipe held upside down…and, evidently, indoors – was one of my favorites.

Gordan, Elizabeth; Ray, John. Buddy Jim. New York: P.F. Volland Company. 1922. Available from Hathi Trust here. I looked at everything the Internet Archive and Hathi Trust had with John Rae illustrations. I liked this one because of its depiction of outdoor experiences of a child in the 1920s. How many children today spend this much time outdoors?

Wolle, Francis. Diatomacae of North America. Bethlehem, PA: The Comenius Press. 1894. Available from Hathi Trust here. The drawings in this volume – over 2300 of them – from over 100 years ago prompted me to think about a photography project this spring (diatoms) and some Zentangle patterns. It was quite a visual feast!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 17, 2016

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.

Ceiling panel cools regardless of climate – I like to read stories about ‘out of the box’ solutions…although I wonder how many of them will prove feasible in the end.

Big Pharma and Distracted Driving are Killing Americans Early – Life expectancy in the US declined in 2015. It’s the first time in 23 years. It’s not a big drop but there is worry that it begins a downward trend. Deaths due to motor vehicle accidents have gone up by 6%. Accidental poisonings increased by 13% with 95% of that from drug overdoses and alcohol. There is related story – from another source: American Death Rate from Drugs, Alcohol, and Mental Disorders Nearly Triples since 1980.

Toward Treating Alzheimer’s Disease with Brain Waves – Another ‘out of the box’ solution…inducing gamma (brain) waves using optogenetics…exposure to flickering light.

“Neural Tourniquet” Zaps a Nerve to Stop Bleeding Anywhere in the Body – An example of bioelectronic medicine…that’s been researched for 15 years.

World Map Reveals What Each Country Does Better than Any Other – I’m not sure how useful this work is…how the ‘best’ about a country was determined. But it is interested to look at ti for a few minutes. The US is best at ‘spam emails’ --- not a positive thing.

Museum in Japan has a collection of 1,700 rocks that look like human faces – I remember ‘seeing’ faces in the patterns of wood veneer…why not rocks too. Some of them look more face-like than others to me.

The appalling reality of Bosnia’s missing dead – Mass graves from 25 years ago – a sad reminder of tragedy that is hard to unravel from what remains.

Reach Out Reporter – Science News for Children – Free Technology for Teachers post and actual site – There is ‘Fact Pack’ about the December Solstice that links to this time of year…I like the video about starling murmurations! The site is designed for teachers…but is useful for anyone interacting with children on science related topics.

A few new maps in National Park Maps – A great site to check before you head out to any of the national parks!

10 Intentional Deformed Skulls from Around the World – I’m taking a Osteoarcheology course on Coursera right now and am reading the articles other students are referencing. Expect more items on the gleanings for next week too.

Rawlings Conservatory – Part I

Earlier this week, my husband and I made the trek from our house up to the Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore. We had seen it in passing 15-20 years ago when we were making trips to the Baltimore Zoo when our daughter was young – but we had never stopped and gone inside. It’s not as big as the Longwood Conservatives and is probably about a 100 years older than the Brookside Gardens Conservatories. It was a morning well spent. This post is about the desert room of the Conservatory and will be followed (eventually) by two more posts about the tropical room and the poinsettias.

There was an aloe in bloom. The color attracted my attention at first.

When I zoomed in for a closer look – the coloring became even more distinctive.

Periodically some rocks with rusty swirls were positioned among the cactus…adding other colors to the room. It reminded me of looking down on the terrain of some of the western US from an airplane window.

There was a tiny clump of cactus with seed pods about 1/4 inch across nestled in the spines. There were two elderly women that spotted them and made sure I saw them.

And then I continued my project photographing cactus spines. There were some different types than I had photographed before.

• Where the spines are along the edge of the pad like stem
• Where there are ‘leaves’ growing between the spines
• Pink pines on one, yellow spines on another, and white spines
• Different colors of spines (does it have something to do with the age of the spine?)

They all look so different from other plants...fodder for science fiction writers imaging aliens.

New Mexico Finale

On our last full day in New Mexico, we got to the Crane Ponds at Bosque del Apache for our last fly out. The sunrise was brilliantly red and pink looking toward the east

And the colors were only a little muted reflected of the clouds in the west.

It seemed like there were not as many birds on the ponds – although the ducks seemed to be very active with their morning feeding.

The sun came up and I got a last picture of some Sandhill Cranes in the golden sunshine.

We went back to the hotel for breakfast and packing the car to head back to Albuquerque. After lunch, we walked around Petroglyph Nation Monument. We did the three short trails at Boca Negra Canyon. There were petroglyphs of spirals,

And birds (one looks like a duck to me…the other a macaw).

The signage and a book on petroglyphs said that the human figure with the lines flowing downward between the legs is a ‘transition to death’ symbol. I wondered how the ancient peoples depicted birth.

At the highest point on the Boca Negra Canyon trails – there is a view of a Albuquerque housing development! The architecture is quite different from what we see in Maryland.

There were some ruins (low walls) on the highest point as well. Someone had made a cairn in one of the 'rooms'. The stones are volcanic.

The saltbush along the trail was full of seeds.

We drove to the Volcanoes area on the other side of the monument and hiked to an overlook of the Rio Grande Rift Valley – that included a view of downtown Albuquerque.

It was a good way to finish our New Mexico vacation. We headed to our hotel and woke up early the next morning for our flight. The weather surprised us: a gentle rain on the way to the airport.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 3, 2016

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.

Mysterious Winds Cause Rapid Melting of Antarctic Ice – Fohn winds….a warm wind that may be responsible for calving ice shelves. And some of their most impressive heat waves come in the dead of winter, eroding glaciers at a time of year that no one thought possible.

Electron Micrographs Get a Dash of Color – And they used red and green…so the images looks very Christmassy!

Ancient Royal Boat Tomb Uncovered in Egypt – Found while investigating the tomb complex of 12^th dynasty King Senwosret III, located in southern Egypt. The walls of the tomb covered with sketches of boats.

How the Enormous Field of Physics All Fits Together – A short video (less than 10 minutes) that provides a big picture Physics.

NASA’s Bold Plan to Hunt for Fossils on Mars – Fossils of single celled algae and bateria…maybe taking a look at the cauliflower-shaped silica formations inside Mars’s Gusev Crater that look like objects sculpted by bacteria living inside hot springs on earth.

What it’s like to sail a giant ship on Earth’s busiest seas – Part of the BBC’s Future Now series.

Cuba’s Underwater Jewels are in Tourism’s Path – Gardens of the Queen National Park: keys, mangrove islets, and reefs about 50 miles off Cuba. Cuba limits the number of divers and fishermen allowed to visit but could face pressure to increase access.

Birds have skills previously described as ‘uniquely human’ – Caledonian crows use tools, scrub jays remember past events and act accordingly, pigeons can be trained to recognize patterns of letters (words). But they may be processing stimuli differently than humans. Maybe no two species are the same but the brain is often adaptable enough to find a means to meet the needs of the animal.

The most Visual Science Textbook You’ve Ever Seen – History of Evolution….and images of example along the way.

The Chemistry of Turmeric – Fluorescence, Indicator, and Health Effects – The post includes an infographic but the short video is worth watching (rather gathering materials to do the experiments yourself).

Ten days of Little Celebrations – November 2016

So many little celebrations – it was hard to choose just 10!

There is always a lot of good food in November:

Thanksgiving was celebrated with our tradition of brisket cooked in the crock pot…but I enjoyed two new sides even more: a slaw made with Napa Cabbage, beet noodles and crystalized ginger (homemade cranberry relish and olive oil dressing) and butternut squash mousse (following the recipe for pumpkin mousse found here – sort of…I substituted unsweetened coconut for the banana).

Graham crackers have become my ‘comfort food’ for my afternoon snack or in the evening. I like the ‘originals’ the best and celebrate that they are still available!

Pomegranates are in season. They are so beautiful and their season meshes very well with Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have become part of my tradition in those big celebrations.

Being home again after travelling was worth celebrating too:

A red-tailed hawk visited our backyard after we returned from New Mexico and I managed to get a picture when the bird sat for a bit in our tulip poplar tree. I celebrated my new camera’s ability to get the picture…and that the bird was around. But I don’t want it to stay around all the time because I like the little birds that come to the bird bath and the feeder!

The Modern World, Part Two is the Coursera course I am viewing this month. I’d taken Part I way back in 2013! I celebrated when I found this one in the Coursera catalog because I’ve always thought my basic knowledge of history since 1900s was patchy.

The trip to New Mexico had so many celebrations…but I managed to pick just 5:

Birds that I had not seen (or maybe had not noticed) before worth celebration: Grebes and Brewers Blackbirds and Pyrrhuloxia to name a few. I should count each new (to me) bird is a little celebration all by itself!

Sandhill Cranes silhouetted by the sunrise…the image, the luck to catch it, just being at Bosque del Apache.

Wild Turkeys in action. Turkey being stately is one think…turkey running down the road to catch up with their cohort…I celebrated their quick analysis of their situation and seeing them move in hurry!

Macro Photography of Cactus. I haven’t gotten around to posting the pictures yet…but I celebrated how well my camera worked in the small botanical garden at Bosque del Apache.

Petroglyph National Monument. I had read a book before I left for New Mexico about petroglyphs in the southwest and celebrated being the place (near Albuquerque) to see some. They’ll be a topic of an upcoming post as well.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 2016

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 past, present and future of the food we eat – Short…interesting…dystopian future from my perspective and one that a good number of people are trending counter to.

Open Parks Network – A collaboration between Clemson University and the National Park Service to digitize materials from our national parks, historic areas and other protected areas.

Learning in the Age of Digital Distraction – Thought provoking. Has our ancient food-foraging survival instinct evolved into an info-foraging obsession? An interview with neurologist  and professor at the University of California, San Francisco that is one of the authors of a new book: The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World.

High hospital profits hurt medicine, expert argues – Yet another reason our medical costs are spiraling upward…and our healthcare not improving.

10 Weird Way You Could Be Spreading Invasive Species – The bolded text says ‘running shoes’ but the picture shows hiking boots…any outdoor gear needs to be cleaned after each outing…no weed seed hitch hiking allowed.

Interactive Periodic Table Reveals Exactly How We Use All Those Elements – A little chemistry lesson…at the elemental level!

Vibrant Maps Beautifully Visualize the Feather-like Flow of Rivers Across the World – Educational…and eye candy. Look how big the Mississippi river basin is!

How land use change affects water quality, aquatic life – Evidently static water levels in small lakes and impoundments…a goal of current approaches to dealing with excess water…fish production declines over time.

The Human Virome – Infographic. There are viruses almost everywhere in our body! Most of the time they help – just like the bacteria that we carry with us – but the can turn pathogenic.

One in six women diagnosed with breast cancer has a symptom other than a lump – That 17% - and some of these ‘symptoms’ were new to me. Why aren’t they publicized more?

3 Free eBooks – November 2016

There are so many free eBooks to choose from. All three of my picks for this month are from HathiTrust.

Swainson, William. Zoological Illustrations. London: Baldwin and Cradock. 1832. Available from HathiTrust here and three additional volumes on Internet Archive here. The illustrations are a subset of zoology: ‘ornithology, entomology, conchology’ as advertised in the subtitle. I like the red and white shells…color and shape.

Jardine, William. The natural history of gallinaceous birds. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars. 1834. Available from HathiTrust here. The first illustration in the book was of a wild turkey! I decided to choose another bird just to be different before Thanksgiving. There are some beautiful birds in this groups (much more colorful that our domestic chickens and turkeys).

The Architect: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Art, Civil Engineering, and Building (renamed to The Architect and Contract Reporter. London. Issues from 1869-1885 scanned from University of Michigan available here and from 1869-1922 (with some missing years) scanned from University of California available here. I’ve been making my way slowly through the volumes and up to 1909. As I browse through the volumes and look at the illustrations – I note the ones that are timeless. Can you guess that the illustration was from 1881? Other times I do a search to see if the building was built and/or if is still exists. These volumes are a mix of art and history…depending our perspective.

3 Free eBooks – October 2016

There were some beautiful books I looked through online in October. Here are my picks for the top 3.

Brooke, E. Adveno. The Gardens of England. London: T. McLean. 1858. Available from the Internet Archive here. The illustrations are a step back into the mid-1800s both in terms of the grand gardens that surrounded large estates and how people interacted with them.

Harrap, Anne and Simon. Orchids of Britain and Ireland: A field and site guide. London: A&C Black. 2010. Available from the Internet Archive here. Skipped ahead by almost 150 years…and color photography! I am always partial the slipper orchids.

Duncan, James; Cuvier, Georges. The Natural History of British Butterflies. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars. 1840. Available from HathiTrush here. As I looked through the images in this book, I wondered how many of these butterflies still exist. A lot has happened to the environment since 1840.

Enjoy!

Moving Day - Fall 1994

I found a set of pictures my daughter took the day we moved into our house in the fall of 1994 – and promptly scanned them. She was 5 years old and in kindergarten. She documented ordinary things – like the view of the partially unloaded moving van.

She also took pictures from the front porch of the house. The small tree with red leaves by the mailbox is an oak that is now almost too big for me to reach around (and it a major contributor to the leaves on our front lawn that I need to rake every fall).

Taking a slightly different view – the small tree near the front of the van was a maple that was never healthy. It eventually died and we replaced it with a red leafed plum. Across the street the ever greens are now very tall. Twenty-two years does make a difference in the tree size all through the neighborhood.

But my favorite picture is one that shows the perspective of a 5-year-old --- the washing machine coming into the house!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 15, 2016

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.

Pumpkin steel-cut oats – I am collecting pumpkin (and other winter squash) recipes. They are probably my favorite seasonal foods. I am going to use some leftover butternut squash (already cooked) for one of them today!

Salt’s Secret Success in Ancient Chaco Canyon – Evidently the salts in the soil around Chaco Canyon are not chlorides …but sulfate salts which are not toxic to maize. And the sulfate salts are useful for making pigments too which were used to color walls and pottery. The research contends that the water management systems in Chaco Canyon did not cause catastrophic salt pollution and abandonment of the area as had been previously conjectured.

A Win for the Whooping Crane’s Texas Home – I have been thinking about making a winter trip to the wildlife refuges along the Gulf Coast of Texas – seeing whooping cranes being high on the priorities for the trip – so I notice articles like this!

Thirty Years of Progress – My undergraduate degree in biology was about 35 years ago so this series of articles is a good update for me.

The London Landmark with 20,000 Skeletons in its Vault – The Museum of London – and a project to examine 1,500 skeletons from the collection and compare them with skeletons outside of London. It will be a slice through history using a lot of the same technologies used in modern medicine.

Hummingbird Whisperer Captures Close-Up Photos of Birds Visiting her Backyard – Hurray for backyard photographer Tracy Johnson – patience and persistence!

Culling of White-Tailed Deer Coming to National Parks in Western Maryland – We don’t have any natural predators for deer….so culling has become necessary. In our neighborhood, all certainly just won’t last through the spring and early summer because the deer eat them, low branches of trees are nibbled (or eaten) – even the evergreens which must be very tough eating. There are way too many deer and in a suburban area like ours culling is not an option.

Antarctic Invertebrates – Many times we only think of the larger, more visible plants and animals of an area….but biodiversity goes way beyond that view. This article makes the case about why we should care about invertebrates in the Antarctic…not just the penguins.

A Bird’s Eye View of Simmering Kilauea Volcano at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park – Last year at this time, we were planning a trip to Hawai’i in December and we enjoyed Volcanoes National Park when we went. Now I always take a look at any article about the place. This one includes a video of the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater now – even more active than when we were there.

A Sherlock-Worthy Look at an Ancient Horse Mummy – From the steppes of Mongolia and dating from the 6^th to 8^th century CE.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 08, 2016

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.

What would happen if the world suddenly went vegetarian? – Of course, it’s not likely that the world will suddenly become vegetarian but this article talks about the ‘what if’ and encourages thinking about taking steps to reduce portion side of meats we eat and/or substitute a plant protein for meat in some of our meals.

Hubble spots possible water plumes erupting on Jupiter’s moon Europa – Another discovery --- and something to look at with the James Webb Space Telescope (to launch in 2018). If confirmed, Europa will be the 2^nd moon in the solar system known to have water vapor plumes (Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has jets of water vapor and dust that were discovered by NASA’s Cassini orbiter in 2005).

Our IQs have never been higher – but it hasn’t made us smart – It turns out that IQ is malleable over a lifetime. People that are physically and intellectually active…and are overall healthy…have higher IQs, in general, than people who are not. It does not mean that we are wiser…just that IQ is higher.

Acidity in atmosphere minimized to preindustrial levels – Result from studies of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The human-made acid pollution peaked in the 1960s and 70s and we are not back to the levels in the 1930s.

Tips for creating an introvert-friendly workplace – An article from CIO magazine. Read it as a case study on some things that need to be considered: communication, comfort zones, company culture, and the workplace structure.

New evidence shifts the timeline back for human arrival in the Americas – An archeological site in Argentina…humans were there 13,068-14,064 years ago….that’s earlier than Clovis people in North America (around 13,000 years ago).

The astronomical cost of going to Mars – and staying there – Sustaining people on Mars quickly exceeds getting them there. There is a lot of talk of getting to Mars (i.e. the transportation) and not as much about what would happen once people got there.

How the Electricity Grid Works – An Infographic. In the US there are three grids: The Eastern Grid, the Western Grid, and the Texas Grid – with the Eastern being the largest.

Washing Clothes Releases Thousands of Microplastic Particles into the Environment – Three types of textiles were examined: cotton/polyester, polyester, and acrylic. They all release a lot of very small plastic particles (acrylic releasing the most…cotton/polyester the least). Reduction of emissions will take changes in textile design and/or improved filtration of effluent for these very small particles.

Pumpkin Pie Mousse – I like pumpkin custard – one of the favorite fall desserts around my house – but this is something I am going to try. No cooking!

Baltimore Inner Harbor in September 1984

I found some pictures of my very first trip to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was in 1984 – a little over a year since we’d moved to the east coast. We were still living in Virginia so it was a day trip for us to see Baltimore. It’s hard to internalize that it was over 30 years ago!

It must have been a great day for being out on the water based on the number of boats. The rental paddle boats were simpler then that the ones that are there now.

The National Aquarium had been open for a few years (according to Wikipedia it opened in August 1981) and was expanded in the early 2000s – so this show what it was like before the expansion.

We were making a lot of day trips and exploring the Mid-Atlantic area back in the mid-80s. My husband was working on a post doc and we weren’t sure how low we would live in the Washington DC area --- but we ended up staying. Now we favor the natural areas over the urban attractions of museums and tours.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 01, 2016

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.

Images of the world’s greatest cities before they were cities – Visual history.

Internet addiction may indicate other mental health problems in college-aged students – An Internet Addiction Test was developed in 1998; this study indicates that the test may need to be updates…that there are significantly more students having trouble dealing with their day to day activities because of their internet usage. Also – are mental heal issues a cause or consequence of excessive reliance on the internet?

UK’s Oxford tops world ranking of best universities; US had 3 of top 5 – This UPI article also provides a link to the annual list (here if you want to jump there directly). There is a short blurb for each school as well.

The Good Guide to Milk: Cow: Soy, Nuts & More – I’ve switched from almond to soy milk based on this article. I’d switched to almond milk several years ago when I finally realized that almost all my stomach issues were caused by lactose intolerance.

50-country comparison of child and youth fitness levels: US near the bottom – Not good. The US is 47 out of 50. I wonder how long it has been this bad. So much has changed over the past 50 or so years. Many neighborhoods are not walkable…streets are too busy/dangerous for bicycling…parents are worried about children being outside without direct supervision.

View 3500+ Art Exhibits Online – A blurb from Free Technology for Teachers. Another source for free ebooks, specifically about exhibits at MoMA.

Greenland ice is melting 7% faster than previously thought – The hot spot that feeds Iceland’s active volcanoes is responsible. Uplift is happening a differing rate as well.

Sesame: Little Seeds, Big Benefits – Another seed to keep on hand. I use chia seeds the most but sesame seeds (and tahini) are a close second.

Ancient Skeleton discovered on Antikythera Shipwreck – From 65 BC...and now they can use DNA to learn more about a person that lived 2100 years ago.

Grading the Presidential Candidates on Science – From Scientific America. A compilation of answers on a number of science related issues from all 4 candidates.

3 Free eBooks – September 2016

So many good books….so little time. Here are my picks from my September online reading.

Reeves, William Pember; Wright F. and W. (painters). New Zealand. London: A. and C. Black. 1908. Available from Internet Archive here. The illustrations are wonderful….a rendering of what the country was like before the first world war.  The pictures of landscapes and natural areas encourage thinking about exploring there (hoping that those places still exist).

Johns, Thomas Rymer. Cassell’s Book of Birds. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. 1869. Available on Internet Archive here. This books includes illustrations of Birds of Paradise. We still see them as amazing birds with improbable feathers. Think what a sensation they must have been when this book was published in the mid-1800s.

Rackman, Bernard, Read, Herbert Edward; Glaisher, James Whitbread Lee; English Pottery – its development from early times to the end of the eighteenth century. London: Ernest Benn, Limited. 1924.  Available on the Internet Archive here. Lots of good ideas for Zentangle patterns in this book! I am noticing that copyrights are expiring on books all the time and topics I have explored before on the Internet Archive have new books available. This was one example.

1994 Nature Study

In the summer of 1994, my daughter was almost 5 years old. She was not big enough for most of our yard work chores but she enjoyed being outdoors. I was reminded of her at that age by a picture I came across in my scanning project. My husband had finished mowing and she and I had gone around picking dandelion flowers that had missed being cut. She had a small basket that she put the flowers in. I started trimming some bushes while she arranged grass clippings and dandelion flowers (and a few other things she found) into an arrangement on the garage floor. After she finished – I went inside to get the Polaroid camera and her father took a picture with his camera too. She was thrilled with the near immediate result of the Polaroid; I’m not sure she ever saw this one that came back weeks later.

What a difference digital photography has made!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 24, 2016

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.

World Heritage in the High Seas: The Time Has Come – From National Geographic – pictures and a map of some potential places on the high seas that merit World Heritage status.

Historical analysis examines sugar industry role in heart disease research – A bit of disturbing history….is dietary fat the main culprit when it comes to heart disease? What about sugar and heart disease?

Gentians: part 1, part 2, part 3 – Elizabeth’s series on a particular flower….and not just in Maryland.

Brain’s stunning genomic diversity revealed – Huge insertions and deletions in DNA…surprise.

Scientists Baffled as Hundreds of Dead Horseshoe Crabs Wash Ashore in Japan – Sad…and no definitive reason yet. Theories being investigated include: parasitic infection or disease or oxygen shortage due to higher sea water temperature.

Between a rock and a hard place: biologists unearth sandstone-excavating bees – Bees are amazingly diverse. These are from the west and southwest in the US: Utah, Colorado, California.

Eggs make a comeback – A general overview of eggs in our diet. There is also a link to an article about ‘how to buy eggs.’

How our brain slows down the effects of aging – Elderly people develop a particular selective attentiveness. I wondered if, as we get older, we realize that we are paying more attention to details?

A Newly Explored Undersea Volcano is Teeming with Alien Life Forms – On Earth but very different than what we normally see.

How much do perfumes pollute? – A study of the canals of Venice….looking at the perfumes that are part of products we use daily like soaps, detergents, shampoos and other personal hygiene products. It turns out that the perfumes are in every sample…persistent for the 9 months of sampling. But what impact do they have on the environment – that’s still to be determined.

Sinkhole Ponds in Virginia – September 1984

As I continue my scanning project of old slides and pictures, I am recalling again a field trip we took with the Nature Conservancy to sink hole ponds in Virginia. They were located about 20 miles west of Charlottesville. I don’t remember the exact location. All the details I am savoring today are from the pictures themselves and a letter I sent to my sister in mid-September 1984. Here’s a clip of the text from that letter illustrated with the slides I recently scanned.

… sink holes that had been artificially dammed so they contained water, but were still fairly shallow.  They had golden rod and button bushes.  Evidently they had cranberries on one side, but we couldn't get over there without waders. 

The next pond was totally dry, on]y containing water for a short time after a major rain.  It had one lone tree growing right in its center. 

The next one was more of a rounded funnel than a bowl shape.  The very deepest part contains water year round.  A form of grass sprouts, blooms and produces seed right at the water’s edge.  You can tell how fast the water is evaporating by noting how far up the slope the grass is still growing.  Evidently it doesn't last long once away from the water's edge. 

Of course, there is a carpet of peat moss all around the pond and it's very interesting to note the different appearance of the peat as it dries out.  It's very squishy when it’s full of water.  The last pond was my favorite.  It stays full all year since it is fed by springs that bubble up through the peat.  It's quite shallow but has been a pond for over 2,000 years (a core sample has been taken).