Gleanings of the Week Ending January 16, 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.

New National Parks for the next Century – An Op-ed --- thought provoking.

We're Thinking About ADHD All Wrong, Says A Top Pediatrician – Thinking about attentional capacity and skills as a continuum or spectrum….and supporting attentional functions in everyone….and not always using medication.

Posture Affects Standing, and not just the Physical Kind – One of the things I’ve noticed recently that causes me to have poor posture in front of my computer is tilting my head slightly back so that the top of the screen is in focus through the bottom part of my glasses. I’m going to get glasses that have a full lenses that is just for computer-distance!

14 keys to a healthy diet – Most of these seem common sense to me now….but I’ve been paying more attention to my diet for the past few years. The cholesterol recommendation (number 9 on this list) is relatively new.

First ever digital geologic map of Alaska – The story in Science Daily. If you want to dice into the details – the USGS page for the publication is here.

The man who studies the spread of ignorance – This post starts with a quote from the late 1960s by a large tobacco company to counter ‘anti-cigarette forces:’ “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” And the word for the study of deliberate propagation of ignorance: agnotology.

Kepler has uncovered a trove of new planets in our cosmic backyard – Hurray for the ingenuity of the Kepler team for proposing the K2 mission after the first Kepler mission was no longer possible due to the loss of 2 of its stabilizing reaction wheels. Kepler found 234 new exoplanet candidates in 2014!

The truth about asteroid mining – Iron, nickel, cobalt --- 3D print what is needed in space rather than launching everything from Earth. Then there is the idea of mining water…maybe in the 2020s (that is not that far away!).

Preschool without walls – Children now don’t spend lots of time outdoors like they did when I was growing up…so now there are schools springing up to make it a 21^st century thing. And the preschools are relatively expensive. If I had a grandchild…I’d spend hours outdoors with them!

What earth would be like if humans never existed – A short video (less than 3 minutes).