The Very Large Array (VLA)

On our second afternoon in New Mexico we drove out to the Very Large Array (radio astronomy observatory). It is located about 50 miles west of Socorro, NM where our hotel was located. It took us a little over a hour to drive there from the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge where we had been in the morning (see yesterday’s post about the morning’s activities). It was a scenic drive through the Magdalena Mountains. We had opted to make the trek when we did because the forecast for the next day was for high winds.

As we drove into the parking lot – there was a sign telling us to turn off any cell phones or electronic devices. The first picture I took was of a tile in the bathroom --- a stylized image of a radio telescope disk.

The VLA is made of 27 25-meter radio telescopes in a Y-shaped array. They radio telescopes can be moved along a Y shaped track. They were not in the tightest configuration while we were there so it was hard to get more than one at a time in a picture. During our tour, the telescopes were running a maintenance protocol and the dishes moved.

I was surprised how some of the equipment was in boxes on landing under the dish!

A few days later, my husband went back to the VLA at night and got some excellent pictures of the stars with a radio telescope in the foreground. I’ll post about that some other time.

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?

Back to Standard Time

Maple“Spring forward…Fall Back” – the “Fall Back” happened yesterday. It’s the twice-a-year mass coordination drill to switch to and from daylight savings time. It’s been happening for as long as I can remember (although according to Wikipedia, the Federal standard in the US didn’t happen until 1966…so when I was young and living in Oklahoma and then Texas, we didn’t switch). I can remember a conversation at a great aunt’s house about an old wall clock that she left on standard time because it was too fragile or difficult to re-set so frequently.

 The ‘fall back’ is easier than the ‘spring forward.’ Sleeping an hour later than usual is not as hard as waking up an hour earlier! Yesterday I didn’t quite sleep a whole hour later but I did manage 30 minutes and today my internal clock is re-set for the mornings. I am still not as sleepy at the new bedtime though!

I am a morning person so the earlier sunlight right now is appealing. Soon the days will be short enough that it will dark (again) when I get up. For now – we are enjoying the fall color and the new skew of the day to give us earlier sunlight!Oak

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 22, 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.

Invisible Details of Tiny Creatures Uncovered with Laser-Microscope Photos – Details of small creatures…how much of the world we miss entirely if we look only with our un-aided eyes.

What do Americans fear? – Evidently this is the third annual Survey of American Fears from Chapman University.

Obituary for the 25-million-year-old Great Barrier Reef – Another way to think about our impact on Earth.

Sweet Science of Honey – Did you know that honey is anti-microbial and it fights bacteria on multiple levels? So far, honey has not been shown to contribute to resistance either.

Hypothyroidism symptoms linger despite medication use, normal blood tests – A study that shows that not everyone gets symptom relief from the current standard treatment with levothyroxine…and that the medical community is finally beginning to notice.

10 Great Butternut Squash Recipes for Fall and Winter – I like butternut squash so I am always on the lookout for good recipes. Most of the time butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes can be substituted for each other in recipes too!

Cicada wings inspire antireflective surfaces – Another example of getting materials engineering ideas from nature.

Skip the Math: Researchers Paint Pictures of Health Benefits and Risks – It’s hard to understand the trade-offs involved in many tests and medicines. I was glad to see this attempt --- and hope that doctors become more savvy too.

Calcium supplements may damage the heart – There are growing concerns about potential harms of supplements…and this study about calcium is one example of studies behind that growing concern. The analysis of 10 years of medical tests on more than 2,700 people revealed that while a diet rich in calcium is protective…taking calcium supplements may increase the risk of plaque buildup in arteries and hear damage!

Why sentient tools will be catastrophic to the job market – Sentient tools (example: autonomous cars, warehouse workers, delivery people) are not as ‘sci-fi’ as they used to be. We see early examples of many of them. They will become increasingly able to outperform humans in a variety of jobs. Think of the ripple effect of autonomous cars – on insurance company revenues, on emergency services, on taxi drivers!

New Camera

I got a very early birthday present this past week – a new camera. We are doing several photo-op travels this fall and I wanted it early enough to learn how to use it effectively before the actually need. Most of the settings are the same as my previous cameras since it is the newest version of Canon Powershots I’ve had for the past 4 cameras. This one is a Canon Powershot SX720 HS.  The main upgrade from my previous camera is a 40X optical zoom rather than 30x. Images of birds and insects should get even easier!

My husband ordered a few extra items with the camera: an extra SD card and two extra batteries. The three batteries should easily last for a day out in the field!

He also found a compact sling strap to easily carry the camera. Previously I’d put it in the pocket of my photo-vest but it sometimes took longer to get out than I wanted and when it was hot I didn’t want to wear the photo-vest at all. I’ve already worn it out and about once; it is easy to use. In cold weather, I could wear it on the inside of my coat to keep the battery warmer while I was walking around but reach inside and position it to take pictures much faster that getting it out of a pocket.

Another new convenience – a padded short strap that uses the same size clip as the sling strap. So – if I want a strap to just put around my wrist to carry the camera, I have that too. The down side is that it monopolizes one hand. Right now I think I will use the sling strap more often.

Tomorrow’s post will include some of my ‘first pictures’ with the new camera.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 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.

Sensory Biology Around the Animal Kingdom – Beyond sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.

A Variety of Ways for Students to Explore National Parks Online – Not just for students….these resources could be worth a look before traveling to a national park or helping to savor the visit after you return.

Proprioception: The Sense Within – The sense of position and movement of our limbs, the senses of muscle force and effect, and the sense of balance --- easy to take for granted, more important that you might think at first.

Six Snapshots of Geoscience Research from National Parks – Our National Parks highlight the value of these special places for more than recreation…they are often places uniquely suited to increasing our understanding of Earth.

Thanks to this man, airplanes don’t crash into mountains any more – Don Bateman’s terrain mapping device....a long development cycle.

Bumblebees Pick Infected Tomato Plants – And does this compensate to offset the costs of viral infection when it comes to seed production from the tomato plants?

The Flower Sense of Hawkmoths – Olfactory receptors in the proboscis….but what attracted mw to the article was the picture of the hawkmoth (made me think of my recent hummingbird moth observations).

Late boneset: A fragrant late-summer pollinator favorite – Thinking about late blooming plants that sustain pollinators into the fall. Late Boneset is one….goldenrod is another!

“Skeleton Flowers” Turn Beautifully Transparent in the Rain – Botanical eye candy from colder regions of Japan and China

The Value of Water in the Nebraska Sandhills – Water is valuable to every environmental niche on Earth…this blog post focuses on detailing water in one type of place. Water percolates down and into aquifers below the root zone of plants!

OSIRIS-REx Launch

We were on bleachers at the Kennedy Space Center’s Saturn V facility to watch the OSIRIS-REx launch on September 8th.  OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Idenentification, Security – Regolith Explorer) is a mission to fly to, study, and retrieve a sample from the asteroid Bennu and return the sample to earth. The launch happened shortly after 7 PM at the beginning of the launch window on the 8th and the first day in its launch schedule. The clouds built up in the afternoon but were benign by launch time. The evening was still hot and humid – typical for Florida in early September. We arrived about an hour before the launch and watched the outgassing from the fueling process (the white plume to the right of the rocket).

The slide show below shows my pictures of the first minute of the launch. Even in that short period of time – I had to adjust the zoom to keep the rocket in the frame!

By 3 minutes after launch – only the drifting plume remained.

My husband took my favorite picture of the launch with distinct Atlas and solid rocket plums. Awesome!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 10, 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.

Sunflowers Track the Sun, Like Solar Panels – The behavior was reported in scientific literature in 1898. Now there are studies to understand how the plants do it biochemically and physically. I also liked the picture at the beginning of the article.

Ancient air pockets changing the history of Earth’s oxygen – Ancient air trapped in rock salt shows that earth’s atmosphere contained 10.9% oxygen 813 million years ago….about 300 million years earlier than previously thought. It’s not as much oxygen as in our current atmosphere but a lot of organisms did develop during this time period when there was less oxygen.

Healthy Eating, A to Z – How many of these 26 do you already know?

30 Reason Your Next Car Should Be Electric – I’ve been thinking recently that my next car will probably be electric. It’s good to see that there are a lot of reasons this it is a good idea! Item 29 on this list (kids and grandkids and great-grandkids) is high in my rationale.

How comedy makes us better people – Analyzing humor’s role in our culture – in much the same way as we analyze intelligence.

Exploring How and Why Trees ‘Talk’ to Each Other – An interview with Suzanne Simard.

Closest Living Relative to the Dodo Dazzles with Vibrant Iridescent Plumage – A little eye candy and interesting biology in one article.

As lab-grown meat and milk inch closer to U.S. market, industry wonders who will regulate? – A complex issue and it’s not clear if the USDA or FDA will be responsible. The technology is moving forward quickly in the agricultural biotechnology arena. It is challenging to understand it well enough to propose appropriate regulations for public health and safety.

Newly discovered fossils break record, dating back 3.7 billion years ago – Evidence of microbial life found in Greenland (where there are some of the world’s oldest sedimentary rocks). Another article on the same topic from Science Daily can be found here.

Study assesses climate change vulnerability in urban America – Our area got a wakeup call in this arena with the damage to Ellicott City from recent flooding. It happened very quickly, with very little warning. The planning for infrastructure, human populations and local concerns when it comes to climate vulnerability is in its infancy in many parts of the country.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 23, 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.

Microplastics – a cause for concern – Lots of questions…only a few answers. It seems like there have been a lot of articles on the topic recently.

Biodiversity has fallen below ‘safe’ levels – We don’t actually know what the ‘safe’ limit is…but do we want to actually find out when there is no recovery? This report is pointing out that 58% of the world’s land has lost more than 10% of its biodiversity. 10% biodiversity loss is the value that was deemed ‘safe’ limit within which ecological function is relatively unaffected.

Early preschool bedtimes cut risk of obesity later on – Another good reason for preschoolers to be regularly tucked into bed by 8 PM!

Electricity generated with water, salt and a 3-atoms-thick membrane –

Splattered Watercolor Paintings Capture the Beautiful Vibrancy of Delicate Flowers – I like just about everything botanical…eye candy too.

Jupiter and Juno – What do we already know about Jupiter’s chemistry? – An infographic from Compound Interest – background for understanding what we already know about Jupiter’s chemistry and what we hope to learn about it from Juno.

From the Earth’s Oceans (images) – From The Scientist. These images reminded me of how different live in the oceans really is than what we experience on land.

Photo of the Week (from The Prairie Ecologist) – Actually – several photos…of little things that thrive in the prairie.

How Type 2 Diabetes Affects the Brain – Two recent studies that have increased our understanding of the cognitive effects of diabetes – refining not only the description of effects but also how the structures of the brain are changed by diabetes.

Yeast emerges as hidden third partner in lichen symbiosis – Wow! This is something I’ll include in my talk with hikers about lichen. They are always fascinated that lichen grows on rocks and tree trunks….that it’s a combination of fungus and algae…and now we can add that there is usually a yeast there too that is often the part producing chemicals to defend the other two organisms in the symbiotic relationship (and sometimes it changes the appears of the lichen too)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 11, 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 Climate Spiral – A visualizing of average global temperatures. Do this little exercise with the graphic – if you live to be 100, how much hotter will the planet be than when you were born? For me – it is about 2 degrees…almost 3 degrees hotter than in 1850.

Climate change poses threat to World Heritage sites - Melting glaciers, rising seas, increasing wildfires and harsher droughts….these could diminish the value of protected sites and even make them unsuitable for World Heritage designation. That would have a domino effect into local economic development, in particular the tourism sector.

Bionic leaf turns sunlight into liquid fuel – And at a higher efficiency than the fastest-growing plants!

Washington grapples with a thorny question: What is a GMO anyway?  and Report: Still lots to learn about GE Crops – The terms GMO and GE are inadequate to describe the complexity of what is happening now. Both of the articles are about a recently released report on the situation.

What’s up with microbeads – Plastic microbeads cause long term health effects in our waterways (streams, rivers, lakes, oceans). There are US regulations that are being phased in over the next few years to require that manufactures no longer make products with microbeads but prior to that individual can stop purchasing the products. I’m going to check packaging to avoid products with microbeads; the key ‘ingredients’ to avoid are polyethylene, acrylate copolymer, and polypropylene.

Top 25 informative maps that teach us something uniquely different about the world – Displaying data by location makes for easy comparison. If you did not already know about the US and paid maternity leave – the map makes if very clear – not something to be proud of.

Teenage brain on social media – It’s always been true that teenagers are better at doing than not doing (i.e. inhibition develops more slowly than other forms of cognition). This study was about how that translates into the social media realm.

Antibiotics from scratch – Drug resistant bacteria are becoming more and more problematic. This research is a ‘bright spot’ in developing antibiotics to stay ahead. No one wants to go back to the time before antibiotics.

Arctic Foxes ‘grow’ their own gardens – From Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Image of the day: don’t eat me – Usually moths are rather drab – not this tiger moth!

Arecibo in 1978

I saw a story about a large radio telescope being built in China recently and it reminded me of the one in Puerto Rico – Arecibo. My husband was there in September 1978 – just a few months after he went to Wallops and Chincoteague. It was all part of his first years as a graduate student. The trip he made to Arecibo was the longest travel-for-work either of us ever did and we were a little discombobulated by it; looking back I wonder why I didn’t take the opportunity to take some vacation and see Puerto Rico; I suppose that we were so unsure of our financial situation that we didn’t even think about it. He brought back a lot of photographs of the place. Look closely at this first picture and note the people on the structure (upper left) and in a small enclosure evidently hoisted to allow work on the structure (center).

There are some pictures of 1978 vintage computers.

Then the view looking down to the dish at an angle

And to the very center.

Underneath the vegetation is kept at bay.

At that time – I had never seen variegated croton. My husband brought back pictures and some dried leaves as a souvenir.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 14, 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.

Nanoscale solutions for hospital acquired infections – Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are problematic…and racing to find new antibiotics is getting harder all the time. Seeing different solutions – like these (click in the red circles to see the description) is reassuring.

Umami Flavor on the Rise – The ‘pleasant savory taste’ of soy sauce, hard cheeses, and mushrooms or nutritional yeast….but how to get the flavor without high sodium.

Changing the world, one fridge at a time – What can we do about food waste? The problem is in the production side in the developing world and the consumer side in the developed world…so in the US, it is in each of our refrigerators and pantries. I’ve gotten better over the past few years and rarely have anything spoil. I also dry orange peels instead of putting them into my compost!

Green light for plant-based food packaging – Part of the solution to food waste? Based on this story from Science Daily – I’m not sure this one is ready for prime time.

How Safe is Your Drinking Water? – A well-organized article with some tips on how to find out more from Berkley Wellness.

Enthusiast Builds Website to Collect, Share Free National Park Maps – Find it here. This is a site to bookmark and check when you are planning a trip to any National Park.

A Surprising Look at Crow Family Life – We are seeing more crows this year – recovering to the numbers from before West Nile Virus killed so many of them. I welcomed hearing about cooperative breeding among crows in this article (and maybe it includes the blue jays too).

9 Dangerous Beauty Trends – How many of these did you already know about?

How a Cancer Drug has saved people from going blind – My grandmother was blinded by macular degeneration so I’m always interested in the ongoing research to prevent or treat it.

Kids win another climate change lawsuit – A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of 7 young plaintiffs ordering the Washington (state) Department of Ecology to promulgate an emissions reduction rule by the end of 2016 and make recommendations to the state legislature about how to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in the 2017 legislative session. Similar legal action is pending in North Carolina, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 23, 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.

Cancer’s Vanguard (exosomes) and Immune Influence and Under Pressure – From The Scientist, graphics explains some recent research findings about cancer.

Texas and California have too much Renewable Energy – There have already been instances where spot prices for power have turned negative. Large-scale storage is needed for renewable energy…and does not exist.

Fertilizer’s Legacy: Taking a Toll on Land and Water – Massive amounts of legacy phosphorous has accumulated and will continue to impact aquatic ecosystems for a very long time. The study used data for the past 70 years for 3 rivers.

The Impact of Climate Change on Public Health – Four Infographics…. there is no good news.

Buzz Aldrin’s Plan for a Permanent Presence on Mars – Part biography…part of what ‘going to Mars’ should mean.

Breakthrough Toothpaste Ingredient Hardens your Teeth While You Sleep – Not only new technology to ‘significantly reduce tooth decay’…but new ways of marketing to both professionals and consumers. I thought at first that it was all about new ways of getting the positive action of fluoride in a more effective way but toward the end of the article it says they are working on a fluoride free version.

Behind-the-Scenes…Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum – Warehouses of collections.

8 Great Food Documentaries – Short descriptions and links to trailers for some food related documentaries.

Photographer Michael Nichols on Yellowstone – A place I’d like to visit again…once is not enough.

Effects of BPA Substitutes – Not good at all. Why wasn’t research done on the replacements for BPA before they became replacements?

STEM Fair as Prompt

I was a judge for out county’s STEM (Science – Technology – Engineering – Math) Fair last Saturday. It was a well-organized event and I enjoyed it just as I have in years past. Every year the students seem to be better prepared and their projects even more interesting. This year I was judging 8^th grade projects and afterwards I thought a lot about how much things have changed since I was in 8^th grade. It’s been close to 50 years!

I did not participate in a Science Fair when I was in 8^th grade although I was in a general science class. It was not a required class and I was 1 of 2 girls in the class. These days the need for STEM literacy is even greater than it was 50 years ago and the schools are striving to upgrade curriculum to keep pace with the needs of the modern world. The students participating in the STEM Fair were the best from their school – and there were more girls than boys. I’m glad that more girls are participating these days but it’s very important for all students to be savvy about these topics.

8^th grade for me was ‘junior high’ but the more popular term these days is ‘middle school.’ My junior high was fed by neighborhood elementary schools and reflected the racial and ethnic diversity of those neighborhoods which were very homogenous (later racial integration would be achieved via busing); 99% of the student body were Caucasian. In my area now, the neighborhood elementary schools still feed the middle schools. The big difference is that the neighborhoods are racially and ethnically diverse so the student body is too. The students at the science fair were representative.

When I was in 8^th grade there were only a few instances when I was asked to present anything; it was not a focus in junior high at all. In high school – debate teams provided that experience to a few students. Now, the ability to present your ideas or work is part of the educational experience. It was clear that the 8^th graders had practiced their presentations and had anticipated the types of questions the judges were asking. Some of the projects were done by 2 person teams and their presentation was orchestrated so that both students talked and interacted with the judges.

Many of the students acquired things for their experiments that would have been very difficult to obtain (if they existed) 50 years ago: mealworms, empty gel caps, open top field chambers for saplings, iPads/smart phones to display pictures, and an online memory game. It is easy to acquire things like this now. I suppose that the student could have grown mealworms…but it would have made the experiment much more time consuming and maybe even distracted from the experiment.

The families of these students are most likely different than those from 50 years ago too. Fifty years ago fast food was an infrequent thing, most mothers worked part time or were at home when students got out of school, the school was not air conditioned and that was true for a lot of homes too, there were no computers, most students had one or more siblings, and jeans were not acceptable attire in many schools.

The big scary thing in the 1960s was nuclear war. As an 8^th grader it was something I was well aware of. It was related to science/technology just as the new big scary thing is for these students: climate change. Several of the students related their project to climate change --- one quite passionately.

There have been a lot of changes and as I think about them now – it is important that we integrate everything into the way we really want to be for right now and into the future. The students I met at the STEM Fair seem to be achieving that. I applaud them and the people (parents, teachers, friends, etc.) that support them.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 2, 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.

19 Different Foods that Surprisingly Bloom Beautiful Flowers – Great visuals and informative too. Think of all the different kinds of pollinators needed for these flowers too.

Fulfilling Water Needs as Big as Texas – The Nature Conservancy has created the Texas Water Explorer – wish Maryland had a similar app although I did find Water Quality Assessment Maps for Maryland which have much of the same information. I liked the picture of the Pedernales – brought back memories of a vacation in the state park along the river almost 40 years ago.

New knowledge for managing tree-killing bark beetles – After learning more about the southern pine bark beetle when I visited Chincoteague, I’ve been more aware of the damage it is causing…noticing articles like this one. There is really no good news.

Monet-esque Micrograph and Bug Brothers and Subterranean settlers and Zika viron and Cretaceous Chameleon – The Scientist almost always includes an image in its newsletters. Here’s a collection from March.

Blood test can predict risk of developing tuberculosis – It would be good if a blood test could do this. I remember having to get chest x-rays for my job since I responded to the TB skin test (i.e. was a latently infected person) …and repeated chest x-rays are not a good thing.

It has fast become antiquated to say that you ‘go online’ – Living constantly online…it’s becoming the norm for more and more people. And even when we turn off our devices, our online world continues while we are away. It is the new normal.

Developing better drugs for asthma, high blood pressure – The point of the project is to avoid complications from drugs that require treatment – separate from the original reason the person was taking the drug in the first place. It’s a good goal but I prefer the research toward interventions that address the root cause of a problem rather than starting with a drug that works most of the time and trying to avoid complications from it – which seems to be the goal of this research.

Sleep: The A B Zzzzs and  Learning with the Lights Out and Desperately Seeking Shut Eye and Under the Cover of Darkness (infographic) and Who Sleeps? And Characterizing Sleep (infographic) – The Scientist has had a number of interesting articles about sleep. I wonder how often a person’s sleep (or lack of sleep) is the primary cause of a health issue….and how often doctors decide to treat a sleep problem unless is overwhelming obvious that sleep is the problem. Some sleep problems may be very difficult to treat and may require a significant change in lifestyle which is often very difficult.

These Ancient Trees Have Stories to Tell – I like trees…and these are artfully photographed. They were printed in black and white; I think I like trees in color more.

The Artificially Intelligent Doctor Will Hear You Now – I like the idea here – particularly that it takes into account the patient’s history and circumstances…not just symptoms. One of the things I have observed is that doctors typically key off one or two recent test results rather than taking the patient’s full history into account. They have the problem – like all of us – of being overwhelmed by data. Having an AI that would take all of that into account would benefit the doctor by saving a lot of patient history review time and the patient would get a more informed diagnosis and treatment.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 26, 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.

Forests reveal lingering effects of native cultures – The researchers looked at patterns of honey locus in the Southern Appalachian region. The article drew my attention because the native culture in the area was Cherokee (maybe some of my ancestors) and I had read something similar about the native stands of bananas.

Goodbye, America. I’m becoming a nomad (again)! – Mike Elgan is currently in Cuba and blogging about the experience….a lot more about daily life in Cuba that the Presidential visit.

Pregnant T. rex could aid in dino sex-typing – A T. rex with a medullary bone – the same as modern birds (female) have to shell their eggs. It comes and goes with the bird’s reproductive cycle so not only indicates that the fossil was a female --- but that it was also in the egg laying part of its reproductive cycle.

Climate variations analyzed five million years back in time – We have to go back into the geological history of the Earth a very long way to find a climate as warm as what we are heading towards and we cannot detect the detailed variations….but we already know that there were abrupt climate shifts back then.

Artist Paints Elaborately Colorful Scenes Using Only Her Fingers – This is quite different than a child’s finger painting? My favorites are the lily pads with the fish underneath, the deer looking through yellow leaves, and the curled up fox.

Tunable windows for privacy, camouflage – I would enjoy not having to add blinds and/or drapery to windows….but it would have to require very little electricity to be opaque (since that is the mode that probably would be wanted most at night when solar energy was least available).

Bald Eagle Cam (DC) – Just in case you have not seen the story elsewhere. This article has a link for the live cam and the twitter feed. Yesterday when I looked the day was warm enough that a parent was standing to the side of the nest while the babies slept (they are still young enough that they fall over in a ‘food coma’ after they eat!

Potential Zika virus risk estimated for 50 US cities – A very scary map. It has been long enough ago that German measles caused birth defects when pregnant women contracted the diseases…this time we don’t have a large number of people in the population that have immunities from having the disease previously so if the US does have an outbreak it would have traumatic outcomes.

Chocolate Chemistry – On a happier note – chocolate. Dark chocolate is my favorite ‘splurge’

21 Enormous Man Made Holes – Mines, nuclear explosions, wells…lots of reasons humans have made giant holes on the surface of Earth.

Daylight Savings Time

Aargh! Changing our clocks by an hour – forward in the spring, back in the fall – is a massive synchronized exercise. Almost every state in the US does it even though more and more studies have shown that its supposed ‘benefits’ are outweighed by the negative impacts that arise from simultaneously messing with the whole population’s circadian rhythm.

This year I tried to go to be a little early on Saturday night and I did wake up about the normal time (according to the clock…so really an hour early) on Sunday morning. It was very dark. I was rested but it was a downer in winter darkness during my breakfast. Every time we change is annoys me a little more.

I can remember a great aunt that didn’t change the main clock in her house because it was too hard to set – or that was her excuse. Now I realize that there are too many ‘clocks’ in our house and cars that change automatically on their own so I can’t make a similar decision.

Hopefully more states will decide to stay on either standard or daylight savings all year long…and then the whole country will make the decision. The status quo is not healthy!

Old Slides

I was motivated by the story about Spruce Tree House closing at Mesa Verde to dig through boxes to find slides from when we visited many years ago. I found them! We were there in August 1980. During that time my husband was doing all the photography and I did the filing. The Mesa Verde slides were in a notebook with each page (with pockets for each slide) neatly labeled. We don’t have a working slide viewer any more so I put together an ad hoc light table with a lamp on the floor and a piece of white acrylic resting on the top of the lamp shade.

Using the loupe to gain the magnification was not satisfying (field of view too small…and blurry around the edges) so I decided to try using just my camera.

The slides appeared to be in reasonable shape – not deteriorating over the 30+ years.

But – converting them to digital via a camera is really not the way to go. This one was done hand-held and is not as sharp as I want – and the set up to mount the camera and then feed in slides were be cumbersome.

My husband and I are talking about buying a slide to digital converter….and I’ll be adding another ‘project’ to my list.

The Participatory Patient

I am past the stage in my life that I accept everything a doctor tells me without question. I’ve come to realize that they are specialized and trying to meet patient expectations that can vary considerably. There may be some patients that always want a medical procedure or drug to solve a perceived problem since that is what my doctor seems to expect of patients. My expectation is just opposite; I want to avoid drugs and medical procedures unless absolutely necessary - where it is very clear that the benefit to me is greater than the risk (both short and long term).

I like the standards of care but expect that they are tweaked with data from my particular test results. And I expect the doctor to be current on the recommendations from analysis of similar situations (i.e. the big data of medicine) and be able to clearly explain their rationale for me.

But it is hard to be a participatory patient…and hard on doctors to with new studies coming out all the time and not necessarily in their area of specialty.

The situation that started my thinking about this was a recommendation that I get an ultrasound guided needle biopsy on a thyroid nodule. I did a search and discovered that my nodule was the minimal size for this recommendation. When I met with the surgeon, I brought this up and he admitted that it was ‘low risk, low value’ but recommended that I go ahead and have the biopsy before the nodule got bigger. I acquiesced – but it was marginal.

The procedure was done and then the results came back via the surgeon’s office a few days later: the nodule is benign and I was told to have another thyroid ultrasound in 6 months. In checking the literature, I discovered that new guidelines re thyroid nodules came out from the American Thyroid Association in January of this year…and their recommendation after a ‘benign’ cytology from a biopsy is 12 months for a thyroid ultrasound.

The net of all this is - if I don’t challenge the doctor’s recommendation the ultrasounds will be done more frequently than the guideline and that increases the cost to me (both in $ and time) and to my insurance company.

Now I’m beginning to wonder about the timing of a lot of diagnostics and checks. It is hard being a participatory patient!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 30, 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 will power tomorrow’s spacecraft? – Lots of options – some ready now and others being developed.

Stock Your Pantry with Plant-Based Protein – I’m not as keen on soy products (except for the nuts themselves) but I have most of the rest in my pantry already; they store well and can be easily be used for quick meals.

Tea or coffee: Which drink is better for you? – Does it matter? This analysis says it is a draw. Tea does not interfere as much as coffee with sleep but is does stain tea more.

New Bioplastic Mashup Spells Doom for Petrochemical Industry – DuPont and Archer Daniel Midland join the flurry of activity in the bioplastic arena….and they may be big enough to overcome the entrenched political interests supported by the petroleum industry. It is good to understand that as we move to a more sustainable tech….plastics will still be around.

A natural beauty: American geoheritage – Geoparks (a UNESCO designation) are becoming popular around the world but not in the US because of political differences within our country. There are over 100 areas in 34 countries that are designated as Geoparks at this point. Over the next year, we’ll be hearing more about them culminating in the 2016 Earth Science Week (Oct. 9-15). A list of countries and sites is available here.

So You Want to Eat Snow. Is It Safe? We Asked Scientists – I do enjoy snow ice cream….but I wait until it has snowed for a while before I collect the snow.

20 Indoor Air Pollution Tips – I heard most of these before….but it is good to see them collected into a single list. I’m glad they included scented products and sprays on the list.

Women Asked to Avoid Pregnancy as Zika Epidemic Worsens – A story to follow since the mosquitos that carry the virus are relatively widespread….it is just that they are not infected with the Zika virus yet in the US. Asking a population to avoid pregnancy is not a solution…but 3,500 (and probably growing) cases of microcephaly will impact lives and economies for years to come.

8 Great Benefits of Walking – A good list with links to the research that backs up the claims.

Best Things about Electric Cars – Results of a survey of electric car owners.