Ten Days of Little Celebrations – March 2016

Many years – March is a mix of winter and spring, skewed toward spring. This year it has been heavily skewed toward spring.

I celebrated:

A sunny day for a hike (it was often muddy but the temperature was pleasant enough)

Blooming skunk cabbages (this year leaves are unfurling very quickly)

Birthdays of 3 family members. It happens every year, but somehow have 3 in cluster increases the attention to celebrating.

A road trip to 4 Eastern Shore wildlife refuges

The rapid leafing of a sprouted sweet potato once I put it into dirt

The rediscovery of a small purse that is perfect fit for my camera, id, and chapstick. I getting more comfortable with minimalist fieldtips!

The opportunity to dissect an owl pellet and finding 2 rodent jaws.

Feeling prepared for spring field trips at Mt. Pleasant Farm and Belmont (after training that happened this month)

The weather warmed enough to keep the window in my office open --- hearing the birds at our feeder and at the edge of the forest.

Staying focused on what I want to get done – there is no ‘spring fever’ happening to me this spring at all!

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 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.

Eyeglasses that can focus themselves are on the way – I’m not sure whether this is the technology that will actually do it….but I sure would like glasses that adjusted to my needs rather than the static versions we have now.

Thickly Layered Paintings Literally Pop Off Artist’s Canvas – Bright and colorful….good paintings to pair with a spring day!

Down the Drain: Here’s why we should use rainwater to flush toilets – Good rationale but it seems like the retrofit for an existing house would be expensive. Our house had 3.5 bathrooms and they are not close together. The logistics of getting the collected rainwater to the toilets would take some design work.

Time to rethink your vegetable oil? – Research about what is good about linoleic acid. The study was funded by NIH (better than if it had been funded by lobbyists pushing grapeseed oil).

World Average Temperature Could Rise by 1.5 Degrees as Early as 2020 – This is close enough to be in the lifetime of the majority of us.

On-the-spot diagnosis of certain cancers and other diseases is closer to becoming a reality thanks to sensitive biosensor – If this technology is effective and done for a lot less cost than current methods (mammograms, colonoscopies, ultrasound, x-rays, biopsies, etc) – it will be quite a boon for patients. But will the vested interests of our medical system allow it to replace all that infrastructure in place for diagnosis?

An Interactive Timeline of the History of the Earth – A resource listed for the Big History Course I am taking. After landing on the page – click on the red triangle on the left of the screen and the timeline beginning with the Big Bang appears. Click and drag the triangle to the right and see more details on the progression along the timeline. When the triangle gets to 1 billion years ago, another bar will appear below with a new triangle on the left. Continue in this mode to the present. The page gets very busy!

Potential new therapeutic target for hypertension may offer less side effects – This therapy seems to be focusing on something closer to the ‘cause’ for age related hypertension which is very appealing. The more we understand about the body as a biological system, the more therapies will be of this type.

These 27 Solutions Could Help the U.S. Slash Food Waste – When I saw the picture of the food scraps at the top of the article – I realized how far I’ve come in the way I prepare food. Some of those green ‘scraps’ (stems and green leaves) looked good enough to go into a stir fry or soup! If everyone learned to use the produce they buy more completely – there would not be as much waste to deal with.

Facebooks is a growing and unstoppable digital graveyard – In 2012, 30 million users with Facebook accounts had died…some estimates claim that 8,000 users die each day. Just as Facebook has changed the meaning of ‘friend’ and ‘like’….it leaves digital legacy of its users.

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!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 12, 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.

Dragonfly is world-record flier – Confirmed by genetic analysis…this insect makes transoceanic flights.

Identity unearthed: How excavations in Sudan reveal the transformation Egyptian, Nubian culture – Cultural blending in the ancient world…with a lot of individual choice involved: Nubian bed or Egyptian coffin, wrapped like a mummy or not, Egyptian-type amulet or Nubian jewelry (or both).

Fitting into what I’m learning in my Big History class: Mysterious cosmic radio bursts found to repeat, Hubble breaks cosmic distant record: sees universe soon after big bang, and Einstein’s gravitational waves ‘seen’ from black holes – Every time I take a course, it seems like there are a lot of relevant articles coming out in the news feeds!

Astrobiology: Understanding Life in the Universe – Student companion site for the Charles S. Cockell text. Includes chart sets for each chapter – if all you want is an overview of the topic. The book is developed to support the Coursera Astrobiology course taught by the author (which I took last year).

Migrating Monarch Number Rebound – Hurray! The good news is from analysis of the numbers of butterflies at hibernation sites in Central Mexico. There were 3x more butterflies than the year before. Still – the area is still a lot lower than the 45 acres in 1996. The area was 10 acres in 2015, 2.79 in 2014, 1.66 in 2013. Outside of the hibernation sites – more people are planting or conserving milkweed which is needed for monarch survival and keeping that focus on increasing milkweed availability in the environment is what we in the US can do to help.

Toward diagnosing diseases such as cancer in their earliest stages – But can it be done very inexpensively? So far a lot of these diagnostic tests have added cost to the medical system and there a lot of people that are not going to have the disease (i.e. there is a lot of cost of lots of testing to find the few people that need treatment).

Can some birds be just as smart as apes? – Research with corvids (crows, jays and their kind) and parrots reveals that they are capable of thinking logically, of recognizing themselves in the mirror and of empathy. Even though the brain structures and size appear quite different…both birds and apes have a prefrontal brain structure that controls similar executive structures.

Irish Eyes Soda Bread – Something to bake for St. Patrick’s day – coming up on the 17^th.

Uncovering the Roman Roads Cutting Across England - An amateur archeologist using LIDAR…reveals roads the Roman’s build for trade and rapid deployment of troops (follow the ‘full story’ link at the bottom of the article to see a map).

Who Sleeps? – Sleep conserves energy and may be why so many species sleep…but there may be other benefits at all. This an article that summarizes our current understanding of sleep in some major types of organisms (marine mammals, birds, insects, and mentions ongoing research.

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 5, 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.

How Forest Loss is Leading to a Rise in Human Disease – Zika has been in the news lately – but there are other diseases associated with forest loss as well: malaria, dengue fever, Chikungunya, yellow fever, and Ebola. There is building evidence of how and why it happens.

New interactive guide tells the story of forest products in the South – Many years ago, I worked for St. Regis Paper in Texas before they were bought by International Paper – so I read this article with interest to see what has happened to the industry in the past 30 or so year. The guide is located here.

Invasive Plant to Avoid: English Ivy, Barberry, Butterfly Bush, Winter Creeper, Daylilies  - I liked these articles because they provided alternative to these invasive species to use in landscaping. I still have daylilies that I’ve had for years but I’m not going to be containing them rather than propagating them!

Spruce Tree House to Remain Closed at Mesa Verde National Park – Sad that this is closed. We probably have some very old slides from our vacation to Mesa Verde in the late 1970s that I should retrieve from storage!

Consumers have huge environmental impact – Thought provoking. The site for the EUs Glamurs project is here.

7 Resources for Natural History Nerds – Don’t let the initial picture stop you from looking at the rest of the article – it is only a lizard. These are impressive resources. I knew about only 2 of them before seeing the article. I’m bookmarking this article.

Getting the Word Out – More scientists are realizing that it is part of their job to get the interesting aspects of their work out to the public as part of modern instantaneous news. The public is demanding timely information on cutting-edge science!

Five Close Encounters of the Crocodilian Kind – The pictures are good….and the crocodilians are from around the world.

Lead, Plumbosolvency, and Phosphates in the Environment – A well written explanation of how water-works can go very wrong.

The Scale of the Universe – I’ve started taking a Big History course on Coursera and this one of the resources in the first week’s module. Scale is always a challenge and this site does a reasonable job in visualize the very small and the very large.

Learning Log – February 2016

There are so many ways that we learn new things. Since I started logging something new I learn every day – I am more conscious of how varied what I’m learning and the way I am learning it really is.

Observation is a way to learn new things. Birds were very active in February in our area and two ‘new to me’ observations were mourning doves making and geese climbing from open water up onto ice!

Experience. Several items on my learning log fit this category: 1) I started experimenting with not wearing my glasses and discovered that I rarely need them when I am working at my computer…and the neck/shoulder discomfort I had started to feel sometimes later in the day has completely disappeared. 2) Another learning experience this month was having a thyroid nodule biopsy; it was not bad but I really am not keen to have another one. 3) I learned to use a laminator (to make a tree identification guide more durable). It isn’t a big thing but was ‘new to me.’

Books. I started looked at the Hathi Trust collection of online books; there are so many items there is it overwhelming; botanical prints are my first ‘theme’ for browsing. On the physical book side, I read several books about Wild Life Refuges and have already started applying what I read to vacation planning; we’re going to visit the 4 National Wildlife Refuges on the Eastern Shore (of Maryland and Virginia) in March: Eastern Neck, Blackwater, Prime Hook and Chincoteague. In the Internet Archive arena my theme for browsing in February was ‘wallpaper’ with particular focus on wallpaper catalogs from the year I was born!

Udemy’s Photography Masterclass: Your Complete Guide to Photography). I finished as much of the class as I was interested in. I learned a few things but realized that I am spoiled by the quality of the courses I’ve taken on Coursera and Creative Live. The 4 Udemy courses I have taken are just not up to the same standard in terms of production or content.

Coursera’s Soul Beliefs (Unit 1). I finished the 11 ‘weeks’ of lectures for this portion of the course and will start on the Unit 2 lectures in March.

Coming up in March – there are already some other types of learning coming up: travel and ‘live’ classes.

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 February 27, 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.

Keep off the grass – Some areas are better as being grasslands than forests…and our planet needs those grasslands!

Dodos might have been quite intelligent – It turns out that Dodos has brains that were the same size as pigeons relative to their body size…and they had relatively larger olfactory bulbs so they probably had a better since of smell.

This bus-size whale is even more unusual than we thought – Omura’s whale devours tiny shrimp-like creatures plus large mouthfuls of ‘dirty water’ (that includes fish eggs and plankton almost invisible to the human eye. They sing a low repetitive melody for an hour or more. What will happen to these whales when the oil and gas exploration gets underway in the area where they live. Is the technology good enough to keep the petrochemicals from leaking into the water?

Reflection – Another photographic project idea!

Collect psychology classes lack curriculum about disabilities – A study pointing out that classes intended to focus on interactions with people of all types have a hole when it comes to people with disabilities – particularly physical disabilities.

Total Solar Eclipse – August 2017 – Planning ahead. It doesn’t happen very often and the path for this one is a diagonal across the continental US.

FDA to test for glyphosate in food – Finally! When Roundup first came out we used it to kill weeds growing in the cracks of our sidewalk. It was never sprayed close to anything we were going to eat. But now, because food crops are engineered to not be killed by it, it is sprayed on food crops like soybeans and corn…so it goes into our food system. It’s a little scary that the study was not done before now.

Antarctica could be headed for a major meltdown – The last time Earth’s atmosphere had about the same amount of carbon dioxide as it does now was about 16 million years ago…the temperatures were 10 degrees warmer and the ocean levels were 50 feet higher. And we have some observations that indicate that the ice shelves of Antarctica are melting rapidly: 7 of 12 ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula had collapsed over past few decades.

Elementary School Lessons about Fossils and Rocks – I’m always on the lookout for one page references and this resource includes a good one for rocks (here).

Share your Field Notes: Nature’s Notebook – A citizen science project about phenology (the timing of natural events like blooming flowers and migrating animals…a great way to spend time outdoors and contribute valuable observations to science.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 20, 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.

Snow Rollers – Snow balls formed via weather conditions rather than human hands!

Humorous Charts and Graphs Show What Being an Introvert is All About – Lots of fun….and oh so true! The graphics start with one about the ‘perks of being an introvert.’

Recovery: Saving Lake Sturgeon, an Ancient Fish with a Bright Future – A little bit of history… and the potential of surviving… for this fish species that has been around for a very long time.

Mammography: Is Every 2 Years Enough? – Netting out what the most recent studies have found. But will doctors and mammography centers go with the recommendations? It seems that some mammography centers might be financially motivated to continue to push annual mammograms for everyone – even those over 55.

New study finds clear differences between organic and non-organic milk and meat – This is a study from the UK but the results would probably be the same in the US. I already buy organic dairy and meat… and appreciate that research about the nutritional value fortifies that decision!

The Fungi Within – This article includes a nice table of fungi frequently found in the body. It’s interesting that there are so many and that most of the time they don’t cause us problems. But do we always recognize when they are problematic?

‘Ecologically diverse’ breast cancers more likely to be deadly – Most of the time diversity is a good thing…but not when it comes to cancer. It appears that the general rule that ‘diversity is good for survival’ is true for cancer ‘systems’ too.

Mind and Matter – From the author of a book on the topic. Many patients supplement what their doctors are telling them with other resources…and maybe this is an area (the role the mind plays in our health) we should include when we visualize the educated patient of the 21^st century.

NASA Releases Retro Travel Posters Playfully Encouraging Space Tourism – Fun!

Images of Sound Waves in Water – A little like kaleidoscope images…except with sound waves.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 13, 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.

Lava flow crisis averted (for now) – We saw the cooling flow described in this article from Science Daily when we were in Hawaii last December!

We must better communicate the health benefits of nature – Not everyone is outdoors as much as I am --- or has a great view of the outdoors from their office window. I remember an instance when I was outdoors with students on a middle school field trip and realized that many of them thought about the outdoors in terms of streets and parking lots rather than hiking paths, trees, and birds. The hike and what they were seeing was a new experience for them.

Sally Ride reminds us that one thing has not changed for female astronauts – An interview from 1983… the types of questions she got from the press.

Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite creation – From National Geographic.

In New Anti-Aging Strategy, Clearing Out Old Cells Increases Life Span of Mice by 25 Percent – A good thing or the modern equivalent of ‘snake oil’? If it does increase life span – how healthy is that extra time?

Sign of early settlement in the Nordic region date back to the cradle of civilization – We think of the transition from nomadic to settlement living happened first in the Middle East but this find in Sweden indicates that it may have happened about the same time in Nordic prehistory.

This uncrushable robot cockroach just wants to rescue you – Building a robot that can compress itself in much the same way a cockroach can…. Another instance of observing nature and implementing the same solution via technology rather than biology.

The Truth about Processed Foods – Every wonder what the difference is between highly, moderate, and minimally processed foods in articles about healthy diet? This article provides some definitions. I changed my food log for a few days to put categorize foods and discovered that most of the foods I consume at home are unprocessed or minimally processed because I make most of what I eat from scratch. There are a few moderately processed foods. The highly processed are things like salad dressing or stir fry sauces; I also drink almond milk which is ‘highly processed.’

Organic Farming could help feed the planet and protect it – A good graphic comparing conventional to organic farming based on some research from Washington State University. One of the authors is quoted as saying: “The challenge facing policymakers is to create an enabling environment for scaling up organic and other innovative farming systems to move towards truly sustainable production systems.” As a consumer – I have already made the decision to buy organic as often as I can.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 06, 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.

Tranquil Oil Paintings Reflect Peacefully Ripping Water Scenes – Gives me an idea for a photo project. And this one does too: Seeing the Trees through the Forest: Vestiges of Ancient Woods

7 Easy and Delectable Vegan Quick Breads – Goodies in winter!

Joyful Portraits of Centenarians that are Happy at One Hundred – Hurray! To be happy and 100!

This Is What 17 Different Foods Look like Growing in Their Natural Habitats – All these images are ‘beautiful food’!  The majority of these do no grow in Maryland (except in conservatories)…and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cashew tree even in a conservatory.

America’s Broadband Improves, Cementing a “Persistent Digital Divide” – Rural areas are still problematic….maybe stratospheric drones and balloons will be deployed.

Why the calorie is broken – It turns out that the concept of ‘a calorie’ is not a clear cut as we expect….that there are lots of ways the amount of energy we get from food can be changed. In general – the processes or cooked a food is, the more energy we get from it!

The Scientific Outreach Gap – This was a study done in the UK but the same is true in the US and it isn’t that the public is not interested. My daughter has volunteers for outreach events for astronomy and astrophysics for the past few years and the events have been well attended – almost overwhelmingly so.

Beyond Half Dome: Five Yosemite Sites – Adding to the places I’d like to go (eventually)

The Mycobiome – There has been a lot of research on the human microbiome but most of it, so far, has been about surveys and studies of bacterial species. There are fungi that are there too…and research about them has just started to appear in papers in the past 5 years.

Evidence-based health care: The care you want, but might not be getting – Yes! This is what I want but it seems very hard to get. The study was specifically about hospital settings but it matches my experience everywhere in the US health system. The survey revealed that things like ‘quality’ and ‘safety’ was at the top of the priority list…but how is that achieved without being ‘evidence based.’  I think what is being measured is not skewed toward the patient but to what is easiest to measure (and that could actually be detrimental to the patient).

Learning Log – January 2016

January was a month of varied learning opportunities.

Udemy. I finished one course: Unearthing the Trojan War: The Life of Heinrich Schliemann

And started another (Photography Masterclass: Your Complete Guide to Photography).

I prefer the Coursera type courses over Udemy. The Udemy courses have less depth and the range of materials is limited to videos (often voice over charts)…without a robust list to references outside the course.

Lecture. I went to a one-hour lecture about Black Bears in Maryland and enjoyed it thoroughly. The presenter had a trunk of materials to pass around. One was a pelt of a largish black bear (obtained from a road kill); it took two people to hold and examine. I realized that I fall back into my long standing habits as a student in the classroom very easily: taking notes to pay attention – it works for me and always has. Now I’m prepared to trivia questions about black bears. Did you know that in the fall bears need to eat at least 20,000 calories per day to prepare for hibernations?

Coursera. I’ve finished 2 weeks of the Soul Beliefs course. This is the first in a series of courses which I will make my way through over the next few months. This is a good time of year to take courses since the weather encourages indoors activities.

Raptor Free Flight. My favorite experiential learning in January was the Raptor Free Flight at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We saw Harris’s Hawks, a Barn Owl, Chihuahuan Ravens, a Great Horned Owl, and a Prairie Falcon. The Harris’s Hawks live and hunt in small groups; their coordinated efforts while hunting are quite different than the solitary owls and falcon.

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 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.

Breakthrough discovery reveals how thirsty trees pull water to their canopies – It is cohesion and gravity rather than atmospheric pressure that is the driving principle. I always thought it was due to ‘capillary action’ but that term is not mentioned in the article at all.

Giant Clams Light Up Like Plasma Screens, Only Better – Potential for organic displays…..using the giant clam mechanism for power and color.

Photography in The Parks: Accessible Zion Through the Seasons – Nice to know that Zion has something for everybody. I missed it a few years ago when the government was shut down while I was in the area….want to try again.

How do birds stay warm on a cold winter’s night? – Huddling together seems to be popular. The article suggests providing nesting boxes to help the birds find a good place just after sunset. And another post about birds - Snow birds: 10 birds to look for in winter. The feeders at Sapsucker Woods (Ithaca, NY) have a camera on them; the video feed is here. The birds in this post are not what is visiting my feeder and bird bath right now; I’m seeing cardinals, juncos, blue jays, and doves almost every day.

Scientific Illustrator Hand-Paints Giant Mural Featuring 243 Modern Bird Families – Next time I am in Ithaca NY (Cornell University) – I’ll want to see the mural.

Infographic Offers a Valuable Guide to Feeling Happier in Your Life – Lots of variables…and this is all a matter of statistics. There are happy people that don’t meet all these….and the genetics part is something we can’t change anyway! Another perspective on the same topic from BBC Futures: A 7-day guide to the pursuit of happiness.

Arthropods Abundant in American Homes – The average US household contains 62 distinct families of arthropod species. They range from cockroaches and fleas to carpet beetles and book lice…ants. They are our (mostly) quiet and benign roommates.

Why do we get ‘eye floaters’? – Many people notice them…but they impact vision in very few cases. They are causes when small debris gets into the vitreous humor – the jelly like mass between the retina and the lens in our eyes….that is not replenished or replaced.

The Chemistry of Bread Making – A graphic from Compound Interest.

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).

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 9, 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.

Here’s how climate will affect what we eat – Several alarming items from this post: “High quality chocolate will be less available in the future, and if you want it, you’ll have to pay a lot more for it” and crops that grow in small geographic areas (most things besides stables) will be most severely impacted. It appears that diets will become more standardized (maybe boring too).

A Breathtaking view of the World’s Oldest River System – The New River Gorge in West Virginia…maybe a vacation destination?

Mapping the National Parks – Topographic maps, national scenic trails, geologic maps, and remote sensing…there is a lot of information best displayed on a map!

Ancient city of Pompeii unveils restored homes – The results of 12 projects done by a 2012 partnership been the EUs European Commission and Italian authorities. I was glad to see that some restoration work is being done; the many tourists take a toll on the site.

The Best of Cool Green Science: Birds & Birding Edition – Pointers to 10 birding posts from 2015 on The Nature Conservancy web site.

The Year in Food: Artificial Out, Innovation in (And 2 More Trends) – How many of the trends have you noticed? Some of the labeling (‘all natural’ and ‘clean’) is not well defined but it is pretty clear that consumers are voting with the dollars – which forces the food system to respond. I know that we don’t go out to eat as often as we used to, do most of our grocery purchases around the periphery of the store, and compost the small amount of food parings we don’t eat.

Mapping 260 years of Global Carbon Emissions – A short video map of the world that shows the global emissions from fossil fuel burning from 1750-2010.

Chocolate + Fresh Fruit = Easy, Impressive Vegan Desserts – All of these desserts look good to me….and they are on the healthier end of the spectrum for desserts!

These Are Our Favorite Earth Images of 2015 – The image of earth from space – awesome!

Appliance upgrades that save the most water, energy and cost – Thought provoking article. Sometimes deciding the ‘best bargain’ is more complex that we realize. One surprising result: one of the best appliances to update for water efficiency was the gas furnace, not the more intuitive shower head or dishwasher, because of the water associated with producing energy.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 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.

12 Machines that show modern farming isn’t the bucolic life you imagine – Wow! The way our food is harvested is mechanically amazing but also seems violent. I wondered if it was dangerous for the workers that tend the machines.

How do you prepare for the isolation of space? – Using Antarctica as a training location for space missions.

What’s the difference between reindeer and caribou – It’s past Christmas – but I didn’t see this article in time. Evidently they are the same species! But reindeer show the impact of domestication.

New kind of thermal vent system found in Caribbean – They are formed of talc rather than sulphide minerals.

How Juneau handles its garbage – They ship their recyclables south via barge and try to minimize the garbage that they landfill nearby (although space is limited). Other municipalities may not face quite the transportation challenge that Juneau faces (no overland transportation from the city) but the long term issues toward sustainability are the same.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Mesa Verde National Park – It’s been over 30 years since I was Mesa Verde; these pictures encourage me to plan another visit.

Is This Snowy Wonderland Or The World Inside A Petri Dish? – Cut paper versions of bacteria and other organisms

Our Energy Transformation in 2015 – Even with low oil and gas prices, we are still shifting way from fossil fuels. Oil consumption in the US is on a downward trend and the adoption of clean energy hit record rates in 2015. For the first time in history, carbon emissions fell even as the world economy grew.

US Wild Bee Populations Waning – Not good. Most of our agriculture needs pollinators and yet these are the very areas where the wild bees are being decimated.

New Species Abound – And these are new species that are large enough to be visible. What about all the soil microbes that we know so little about? It’s time we internalize that we really don’t know all the species on our planet.