A New Phone

My new car prompted me to get a new phone; the old flip phone I had been using could not interface with the car so I finally upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S7 this past weekend. The only thing to be moved from the old phone was the contacts list! There were some apps that I wanted from my tablet: OurGroceries, Kindle, iNaturalist, and eBird. The email and calendar came as well. I discovered that my Fitbit can interface with the phone as well (no more dongle taking up a USB space on my laptop!). I’ve managed to connect the phone to my Prius Prime as well. I’m sure there will be more to learn in the coming weeks.

I got a screen protector and the Geek Squad 2 year protection when I bought the phone from Best Buy. We were in the store just after noon on Saturday so it was busy but the staff was efficient; we only waited a few minutes before the flurry of action to make the purchase started. I was glad my husband had done it before and knew exactly what I wanted.

I ordered the case from Amazon before I even got the phone; I chose one with lotuses and gold fish. As I thought about how I would use the phone as I was grocery shopping I also ordered a holder with a lanyard so that I could have it readily available but have both hands free to gather my groceries; hopefully it will come before my next grocery shopping day.

I’m trying out an old purse that has a pocket that always seemed too flat ---the phone fits in it very easily; the phone is easy to access but still protected by the structure of the purse.

I took a picture with the phone just as I was thinking about this post. The old tablet (in the red case) may be retired by the phone. I won’t be using it for groceries and maybe not for reading material when I travel; the phone is a smaller package but probably more powerful than the tablet! The phone will not replace my camera but I will take pictures with my phone when I don’t have my camera with me…and for when I need a picture inside an app (like iNaturalist or eBird). It will be easier to send a travel picture to family when I am traveling as well

I’m already enjoying having my new phone!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 18, 2017

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.

Top 10 Winter Warriors – Wild life in winter. The ones I see most frequently are chickadees although most of the ones at my bird bath and feeder are Carolina rather than Black-capped.

When is a black bear actually a blue bear? – Black bears are not always black!

Dynamic Wildlife Duos -  Originally posted just before valentine’s day…liked the pictures.

Experts reveal hidden dangers behind supplements – Over the counter supplements advertised to treat obesity and erectile dysfunction problems were labelled as fully herbal but often included dangerous pharmaceutical ingredients that were not listed on the label…..which are often dangerous and can cause serious side effects. One example: Sibutramine (licensed as Reductil until 2010 when it was withdrawn across Europe and the US due to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes) was found in slimming supplements. These supplements are the 21^st century equivalent of snake oil (or maybe they are worse than snake oil).

National Park Service History eLibary Additions for February – Another online source for documents about National Parks!

A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 miles in the last two months – Stories keep coming about the giant crack in the Larsen C ice shelf. This one is from 2/7 and has a lot of good graphics and explanation.

20+ National Park Portraits Celebrating the Rainbow – Colored Lands in the US -  Beautiful images from the National Parks

New, long-lasting flow battery could run for more than a decade with minimum upkeep – If only half the new battery technology stories turn out to be true….the energy storage needed daily life could change dramatically over the next decade.

How to avoid falling for lieds and fake news and How to spot misleading health news – Two stories from BBC Future. With the easy flow of ‘stuff’ around the internet, the skills for determining validity of stories are more important than ever before.

Don’t call it wheat: an environmentally friendly grain takes root – Perennial grains…still needing further development but the potential to create a more sustainable way to produce our bread!

3 Free eBooks – February 2017

Peter Rabbit --- Big Cats --- National Botanic Garden: quite diverse eBook picks for this month.

Potter, Beatrix. Peter Rabbit. Frederick Warne & Co. 1902. Available from Internet Archive here (click on the author link to get all the other Beatrix Potter books available from the Internet Archive). I am reading and enjoying the illustrations of all Potter’s books that have been digitized this month. Peter Rabbit is probably the most memorable story from my childhood. I can remember giggling at one phrase in particular: “…and jumped into a can. It would have been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had not had so much water in it.”

Fallen, Anne-Catherine; Shimizu, Holly H.; Solit, Karen; Allen, William C. A Botanic Garden for the Nation: The United States Botanic Garden. Washington, DC: US Botanic Garden. 2007. Available from Hathi Trust here. I was please to find this book online (published only 10 year ago) about one of my favorite places in Washington DC. I’ve posted about it many times (here). We didn’t make the trek in December this year…but maybe we should in the next few weeks. The conservatories are a warm place to tour in the winter!

Turner, Alan; Anton, Mauricio (illustrator). The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives. New York: Columbia University Press. 1997. Available from Internet Archive here. Another more recent book – published only 20 years ago. There are more different kinds of cats with long canines in Earth’s past than I realized.

Another New Car

We bought a new car from me last month (a Prius Prime – that I have posted about here and here). This month it was my husband’s turn. He had been looking at the Honda CR-Vs for the past few weeks – reading everything about it on the web, driving one at the closest dealership, and trying to decide which color he wanted. Earlier this week he made a final decision and bought a Molten Lava Pearl (red) CR-V Touring. It’s close to the same size at the car he drove previously – an Acura RD-X – but has a little more inside room and all the new driver’s aides (which were his main reason for wanting a new car). I like it because the was the glove compartment is configured give me more leg room on the front passenger side. I also like the vents and USB plugs for the backseat passengers (not that we have passengers very often).

I was surprised that he decided on the red but the garage looks good with two new red cars!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 11, 2017

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.

High-Resolution Satellite Imagery at the World’s Fingertips – Interested in archaeology?…here’s an opportunity to contribute as a citizen scientist via the GlobalXplorer community.

The Secret to Living a Meaningful Life – A little self-analysis…can go a long way.

Five Endangered Species Recoveries You’ve Never Heard Of – I’d heard of the brown pelican (and seen some too).…but not the others.

How heat from the Sun can keep us all cool – Another technology that might help us in a warming world.

Pitcher Plant Enzymes Digest Gluten in Mouse Model – Pitcher plant secretion are approximately as acidic as human gastric juices and can snip bonds linking the amino acid proline to other amino acids…and prolines make up 15% of gluten!

19^th Century Experiments Explained How Trees Lift Water – fluids are not supposed to have tensile properties….but that is what the cohesion-tension theory – explaining how water moves up into the tree again gravity.

Inside the Far-Out Glass Lab – The article starts out with a gif of flexible glass bending like a piece of plastic and ends with a picture of an ultra thin glass spiral (looks a little like Slinky). Corning’s research center is full of innovations with glass.

What I learned after banning screens from my home for a month – Maybe this is something we all need to do periodical…get back into the mode of using technology rather than being so addicted to it that it takes control of every moment of our lives.

#ColorOurCollections - Free Coloring Pages from Museums and Libraries – Not just for children. Take a look at the #ColorOurCollections page to see the whole collection.

Hundreds of ancient earthworks built in Amazon – Evidence of ancient agroforestry in the Amazon…and geoglyphs.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 4, 2017

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.

Face of 9,5000-year-old Man Revealed for First Time – A mummy from Jericho. The skull was covered in plaster…with eye sockets containing sea shells. Now just the skull inside, a probably face has been revealed via digital imagining, 3D printing and forensic reconstruction.

Site Diary: What we found inside the Morecambe Urn – A cremation urn…with fragments of bone…painstakingly sorted. At first they thought there was too much bone to be just one individual, but the analysis of the fragments they were all from the same person: young adult, relatively healthy.

Magical Photos of the World’s Oldest Lake Frozen Over – Eye candy….but educational too.

New Publication Reveals Birthplaces of Eastern Monarchs – The whole region east of the Rockies contributes to the Monarchs that make their way to Mexico. I’m glad that so many people are planting milkweed appropriate for their area of the country!

How solar may save Ukraine’s nuclear wasteland – What to do with the area around Chernobyl. There is a project to start installing solar panels. The electric power lines are already there so getting the electricity generated to the power grid.

Eye-opening Photos Capture the Terrifying Beauty of Melting Polar Ice Caps – It’s winter even though we haven’t had any substantial snows in Maryland yet…I’m enjoying photos of ice instead for their beauty but realize that this is an indicator of a warming planet. Some of these lakes are formed from very old ice.

TED Dialogues: An urgent response to a dangerously divisive time – I’ve signed up to be notified of the events. The first one will be on 2/15 at 1PM EST. The speaker for the first one will be Yuval Noah Harari. I enjoyed his class on Coursera – A Brief History of Humankind.

Seven heart-health habits could save billions in Medicare Costs – $14 billion per year in Medicare costs could be saved if all beneficiaries achieved ideal levels in 5-7 heart-healthy habits (the 7 are: cigarette smoking, physical activity, diet, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels). Of course – it all starts before you get to Medicare age. How many of the 7 habits are you achieving?

What Peter Pan Teaches us about Memory and Consciousness – Barrie was an astute observer of how we learn to think.

Peacock colors inspire ‘greener’ way to dye clothes – 3-D colloidal crystals (polystyrene nanoparticles and polyacrylate for mechanical stability. It does not produce contaminants…but are the particles themselves problematic? The article didn’t say but microbeads and plastics have been in the news as problems in the oceans – already.

Prius Prime – Week 1

I’ve had my Prius Prim for a little over a week and am still learning its nuances. I’m not driving any more than I need to (i.e. no special trips to just drive the car) so it’s a slower pace for me than any other new car.

I did drive the car to Belmont for a winter hike with other volunteers. I was a little worried about the potholes on the one lane entrance road and the possibility that I might have to back up if I met another car on that same road. I was pleased that the worst of the potholes had been patched and when another car approached as I was leaving, I was near an easy place to pull off the road. I am learning to drive in a way that helps the car get better mileage, but the car switched from EV to hybrid mode on the way home…very smoothly. It was a good experience.

I also took the car back to the dealership to have the feature for garage door opener buttons to be part of the car (I don’t like to have a separate clicker). It took about 30 minutes at the dealership and a few seconds to program it once I got home. Now I’m familiar more with the dealership facilities for service although – hopefully – I won’t need them very often.

On the weekly grocery shopping day, I discovered that the hatchback easily holds at least 8 bags of groceries (maybe more if I fit them in more tightly). Another positive – the route to the grocery store and my driving pattern yielded the projected mileage in the all-electric mode for the car!

Brookside Gardens is a little further afield than the grocery store and part of the route was at highway speeds. I used the cruise control for the first time. It has some features that are new-to-me: Full-Speed Range Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. I seems to work very well and should make it easier to drive for long distances without having to turn the cruise control off. This time when the car switched from EV mode to hybrid on the way home, the car was at highway speed, on cruise control, and a long uphill climb. It was smooth enough but I heard the gasoline engine more.

I’ll post about my continuing adventure with the Prius Prime in about a month. Maybe I’ll take a short winter road trip….

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 28, 2017

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.

Danish Study Raises More Questions about Mammograms’ Message – Evidently doctors can’t yet tell which tumors really need to be treated and which might be able to just monitor. There is a tendency to think that breast cancer screen is better than actually is….and that leads to a lot of potential unneeded (and traumatic) treatment.

Watch Geologic Machinations in Motion at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park – About a year ago, I visited the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park so I am always looking at items with news from the place. I don’t know that I would be up for an 8-mile hike to see the new viewing area.

An Iceberg Larger than Rhode Island is Poised to Break from Antarctica – When it goes – the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area….and the maps of Antarctica will need revision.

Stunning photos of trains roaring through picturesque landscapes – Eye candy for the week.

Recovery: Saving the Lake Erie Watersnake, a lesson in outreach – Not poisonous but ill-tempered and smelly. Only found in the lake’s western basin on islands…French explorers found them sunning themselves in heaps, knots and snarls. It turns out that people killing the snakes was a bigger factor the reduction of numbers than habitat loss….and thus an education campaign is helping increase their numbers!

The Chemistry of Popcorn -  Probably my favorite snack. We have a special bowl that allows us to pop it in the microwave (no weird chemicals like in the bags of microwave popcorn).

Why America is Growing the Most Sweet Potatoes since WWII – I’ve always liked sweet potatoes….and it seems that more people do these days since it has become a popular crop for former tobacco farmers and over 11% of the crop is exported!

Arctic melt ponds form when meltwater clogs ice pores – In the field (of ice) and an experiment to discover how melt ponds forms on porous ice.

Ten more field guides and references for the serious naturalist – I think I might buy the one about bees.

Obesity is barely covered in medical students’ licensing exam – Not good since nearly 40% of adults and 20% of children and adolescents are obese in the US.

3 free eBooks – January 2017

Furnishings – butterflies – tiles….3 interesting topics that seem to be my themes for eBooks this month.

Tracy, Berry B. (curator). 19^th Century America Furniture and Other Decorative Arts. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Available from Internet Archive here. The objects were included in an exhibit in 1970 – with this book recording it all. I found the ‘other decorative arts’ even better than the furniture.

Weed, Clarence Moores. Butterflies. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company for Nelson Doubleday, Inc. 1927. Available from Hathi Trust here. I liked the vivid colors of the illustrations. Butterflies are generally colorful but the backgrounds were just a vivid in this book. Do you recognize the Tiger Swallowtail?

Campbell Brick and Tile Co. Designs for encaustic and geometrical tile pavements, also of encaustic, glazed, majolic̀a, and other tiles for hearths, fireplaces. Leicester: J. Fleming & Co. 1877. Available from Hathi Trust here. I like decorative tile…great ideas of Zentangles and (maybe) a renovation project for my house!

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2017

January started out with a burst of travel – driving cross country between Maryland and Arizona with a stop for a week in the Dallas area. There were associated ‘little celebrations.’

Leaf earrings from a local artist in McKinney TX – I celebrated finding earrings I like a lot…and if they are created by a local artist that makes it even better. I find it very easy to remember where I purchase earrings so they are great mementos for my travels.

A day on my own – Usually when I travel, my time is full of interacting with other people and I end up exhausted after it continues for too many days. On this 9-day trip, I had one day that was almost all ‘me time’ and I celebrated the lull!

Getting to the hotel in the snow – One day I was out and about in Dallas when it started snowing. I thought it wouldn’t stick but it started before I could head back to the hotel. Dallas does not use salt and there had not been any time for sand to be out either. I was driving an unfamiliar car too. I white knuckled the drive (overpasses particularly) but made it back to the hotel without incident…and celebrated.

Then there were ‘home’ related celebrations:

Home again – I enjoy traveling but coming home again is always a little celebration.

A good night of sleep – I came home from my travels with a cold so the first night that I sleep well was cause for celebration.

A sunny day – January in Maryland has been full of gray skies and drizzle (no snow) so I celebrated one on of the few sunny days.

A new car – Maybe this is a big celebration rather than a little one. I only buy a new car about every 10 years or so…and I’m still savoring the lingering celebration of acquiring the Prius Prime.

There are instances of little celebrations in my favorite activities as well:

Anatomy of the Abdomen and Pelvis Course – This might be the most challenging courses I’ve taken on Coursera – but tremendously interesting. I am celebrating every module. Kudos to the Leiden University Medical School for producing it.

A hike and finding skunk cabbages – I enjoyed a winter hike and was celebrating being outdoors when I found skunk cabbages already up in the winter muck…and that made for a bigger celebration.

Red-tailed hawks – It seems like I am seeing red tailed hawks a lot more frequently this winter….or maybe I am just becoming a better observer. My daughter and I saw them on our cross-country road trip, there is at least one that is frequently the woods behind out house and I saw one at Centennial Park when I was there last week. I celebrate that the birds are thriving and that I am seeing them!

My New Car – a Prius Prime

Late last year, I had decided to give my 10-year-old car to my daughter/son-in-law and buy a new car for me. This weekend was the scheduled hand off and I decided to start looking at new cars last week. My husband was very leery of going down to one car for very long. At first I wanted to look at a plug-in vehicle and then decided a plug-in hybrid would be better. Most of my driving is close to home and I wanted something that would be electric most of the time but I quickly decided that I would need a hybrid if I wanted the option of taking the car on a road trip. So – when I started looking at cars, the Prius Prime was at the top of my list and the Chevy Volt was a second choice. The Prius Prime has a 25 miles estimated EV range and a 640 miles estimated total range. I was a little concerned that the dealerships in Maryland would not have the Prius Prime since so many of the cars were going to California…but there were several available at the first Toyota dealership we visited (the one closest to where we live). We took one out for a test drive. Wow! I liked the feel of the car. I had to watch that I didn’t go way over the speed limit! The car is very quiet and handles very well.

When we got back from the test drive some additional Prius Primes had been delivered to the dealership – including a red one with a white interior which is what I thought I wanted based on my web-based research. So – to shorten the story – I bought it! It was home in our garage about 4 hours later and charging at the regular outlet in our garage (it takes about 5.5. hours to charge on this type outlet).

There are three versions of the car and I got the middle one (Premium); the ones the dealer had were all this version and it is probably the most popular one they sell. The car has all the must-haves (navigation system is the highest on my list) except for the Homelink mirror (that includes a garage door opener) which I ordered; it will be installed next Wednesday.

I’ve driven it for a few short errands and put my key addresses into the navigation system. It is easy to drive and I’m thinking about what road trip I can take. My husband installed a hook to coil the charging cable when it is not in use.

This is an easy step toward a greener lifestyle!

(I’ll be posting about the next phase of my experience with this new car in about a week. This is the most different car I have ever bought…quite an adventure. Hopefully there will be some sunny days so I can get some better pictures too!)

Mt. Pleasant Construction Zones

There are two construction zones at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant location right now: the expansion of the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center and the restoration (by Howard County) of the Davis Branch. There are some vantage points that look the same as always – looking over the rock wall to the meadow,

The view toward the west from beside the community garden

And toward the Gudelsky Center.

Even though a lot of the construction on the Center is going on inside on the lower level, there is still evidence of activity – fencing and mud! It’s fairly contained compared to the stream restoration.

Earlier this week, I was with a group that hiked down to see the progress. There are big pieces of equipment to move dirt (and mud) – creating a new channel for the stream that will reconnect with its flood plain more easily and create some wetlands too. The bridge warped my last summer’s storm surge is being straightened so that it can be used to cross the new channel. Gray chunks of rock are being placed to create riffles and drop the run of the stream by about a foot. And everywhere there are hoses to pump the water around the work site; this has been a bigger job that originally planned since the rehabilitation of a pond upstream (and not part of this project) is happening simultaneously and releasing more water than expected to the stream. All the hoses and pumps, big machinery, rocks and temporary erosion control measures made me think of this as a ‘stream on life support’ during this reconstruction; hopefully the stream will come out in better condition than when everything started!

Wind Turbines in West Texas

Last Sunday, we left Abilene while it was still dark to drive to Tucson. I ask my daughter to take the first driving stretch because I wanted to photograph wind turbines at sunrise as we drove. The timing was good since we started seeing the big turbines almost immediately along Interstate 20 – and they continued for miles and miles. Most of them were set away from the highway but there were a few close enough to see the colorful sunrise light on the blades. The area must be one of the largest (if not the largest) in the US for wind power generation.

There were a lot of RV parks that looked full in the area and I wondered if RVs have become the housing of choice for temporary workers. There were people out and about – buddle up for the cold and working. Ranching, oil, wind….all industries big in the area that require outdoor work even when it is cold and a Sunday morning.

Surprisingly the wind did not bother the car as much in that stretch of highway as it did in the up and down area as we got further along – past Pecos. The terrain channels the wind into swirling gusts that we could feel in the car steering. We watched the big trucks more closely and minimized our time passing them….kept moving along at the speed limit – which is 80 mph for a lot of the drive through West Texas.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 14, 2017

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.

Why some companies are trying to hire more people on the Autism Spectrum – The pilot programs in companies like SAP and Microsoft are net positive – for the companies and the high functioning autistic people they employ.

Ancient Chaco Canyon population likely relied on imported food – There is physical evidence that timbers, pottery and chert in Chaco came from the Chuska Mountains which are some 50 miles west of Chaco Canyon; corn probably did too. The soils in the canyon and the its tributaries are too salty to grow enough to feed any sizable population.

Researchers record trillions of migrating insects swarming through the skies – A study monitored insects flying over southern England above 500 feet. There were a lot more than expected – insects that move north in the spring and south in the fall. 70% of the migration takes place in daylight hours. A similar study of insect migration has been started in Texas…and had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of invertebrate they are finding!

The Next Big Thing: Healthy Homes – Important to think about for long term health….and maybe not as expensive as it once was.

What have the world’s oldest mummies kept under wraps? – Digital reconstructions of 7,000 year old bodies from South America is in its initial stages. The mummies are deteriorating because of microbes that are more active as the climate of the Atacama becomes more humid.

2016: Compound Interest’s Year in Review –  I like this site…and have included some of these postings when they originally came out…but there were more that were interesting.

United Stated of Cookies – A cookie for each state….and the recipe for it. Maryland is the Berger Cookie.

Scientists can now make lithium-ion batteries last a lifetime – Sometimes small changes make a big difference!

How the world’s biggest cities are fighting smog – There are techniques to take smog out of city air…technologies to apply in parallel with reducing pollution at its source. In many cities – both strategies are urgently needed.

Twelve new tombs discovered in Gebel el Silsila, Egypt – Even with so much focus on archeology in Egypt…there are still new finds.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 7, 2017

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.

Shortest-possible tour of 49,603 sites from the National Register of Historic Places – Who knew there were that many? There is a 38 second movie to show the route for the whole US and then individual state maps. Take a look at your state!

The Scientist’s Year in Review – Links to the cover story and one news highlight for each of the 12 issues.

The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future is Here – Oh no! I enjoy grocery shopping….not sure I want this future. I particularly like picking my own fresh fruit and veggies from the bin.

2016 Year in Science – From Visionlearning. There could be others added…but here are 6 with a succinct description of each.

Vibrant Paintings of Colorful Fish Merged with Their Coral Environments – Eye candy!

Mining 24 hours a Day with Robots – Another example of automation that reduces the need for manpower. The mine where these huge self-driving trucks are used is in Australia….but it could soon be anywhere in the world.

The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: Birds and Birding Edition  and The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: From the Field Edition and The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: Celebrating Nature Near You – Three year end posts from The Nature Conservancy….with great pictures!

3-D Models Capture Endangered Species Before They Go Extinct – A few years ago I too an archaeology course (via Coursera) and they talked about capturing objects with 3-D techniques (notably merging multiple pictures of an object into a rotatable image). This project is doing it with living animals….with a “Beastcam.” There is a link to the slide show about 1/3 of the way through the article.