Bok Tower Gardens (Florida) - Part 2

I posted about the tower at the Bok Tower Gardensyesterday. Today the focus is on the plants and a few animals. Lizards seemed to be everywhere and it was warm enough for them to be very active.

The squirrels were acclimated to people. This one listened to the carillon concert with us - keeping his back to us as he perched on a neighboring bench.

The slide show below shows a number of other features in garden: a metal Venus flytrap sculpture among tropical vegetation, oranges glowing in the sun, bees on an agave flower, a Monarch butterfly on orange and red flowers, coral stones used for paving with moss growing in larger indentions, a pineapple type plant, a spider web, the center of a cycad.

Longwood Gardens Water Lilies - September 2013

The courtyard of pools that hold the water lilies at Longwood Gardens is one of my favorite places in the gardens. The lilies were full of blooms and bees. I always like to capture the flowers with the most insect activity. The magnification often gives the flowers an unworldly look. Their colors are so vibrant and that is just what our human eyes can see; the insects probably pick up on even more. There are also some lotus pictures mixed in the slide show below. The pink or white flowers with petals that look crumpled are the Victoria Regia water lily; a book from 1854 available on the Internet Archive includes lithographs by William Sharp of this water lily.

I posted several times before about the water lilies at Longwood: November 2011 and August 2012. 

Blazing Stars as Insect Magnets

My bulb project from April 2012 is quite lush this summer. The Blazing Stars are almost always full of bees, butterflies, and hummingbird moths. There are more plants this year and the heights seem more varied. And - best of all - the deer do not seem to find them palatable at all! The slide show below captures my favorite visitors to the Blazing Stars for the past month or so.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 29, 2013

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.

This is what your grocery store looks like without bees - Lots of empty bins in the produce section

Famous Scifi And Fantasy Authors In Their Workspaces - Keep the dates in mind. How many of these authors do you recognize?

Extremely Detailed Large Scale Paintings of Bugs - Wonderful detail is shown in these images.

Raw Strawberry Tart - I want to try the crust even if I don’t make the strawberry filling! It’s made with nuts, oats, raisins, flax seed, and vanilla held together with date paste.

Chemical in Antibacterial Soap Fed to Nursing Rats Harms Offspring, Study Finds - I am throwing away everything in my house that contains triclocarban. This study was just the latest in a steady stream of studies that showed negative effects.

12 New Volcanoes Discovered in Alaska - And still a lot more to learn about them.

Constantly Changing Majestic Beauty of Mount Fuji - Is this the most photographed and painted mountain in the world? It has all the qualities to make it so.

RCP Database 2.0 - The ‘Compare’ tab of this site allows users to select from several variables that impact climate and then view what happens to the ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ with that variable change. This was one of the references in the Climate Literacy course I am taking on Coursera.

Man's Parkinson's disease symptoms vanish with the push of a button - Truly amazing results of deep brain stimulation for the person.

How technology is destroying jobs - From Technology Review. Lots of comments too.

 Genetically Modified Fashion - Fluorescent silk from genetically engineered silkworms. Is this something we need?

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 22, 2013

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.

If bees go extinct, this is what your supermarket will look like - Lots of fruits and veggies would go away too.

Take a Virtual Tour Of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Time lapse sunrise…lava flows…ocean...steam.

Photos Of NYC's Subway Project - Lots of tunneling through rock.

Most Solar-Friendly States — 2013 State Solar Policy Rankings - Maryland is near the top! Arkansas and Oklahoma are at the bottom.

Breastfeeding Boosts Babies’ Brain Growth - Yet another reason babies should be breastfed.

Life in the Potholes of Canyonlands National Park - A short video about the small creatures that live their lives after rain fills the rock basins.

As Data Floods In, Massive Open Online Courses Evolve - I have enjoyed the Coursera offerings. My use of online classes is evolving too! I no longer feel compelled to do every aspect of the course; I am free to do just do the parts that meet the objectives I have for myself.

Beautifully Exotic Looking Species of Moths from Ottawa - There are some surprises in this photographic series. Which one do you like best? The white one (5th one from the top) is my favorite.

Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions - Making cement with less lime and requiring much less heat

Don’t Take Your Vitamins - An thought provoking opinion piece - particularly if you are assuming that more is better when it comes to vitamin supplements. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 8, 2013

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.

Chameleon eye - A colorful and informative ‘image of the day’ from The Scientist

City Lights - An article from The Architects Newspaper about light in urban design. Appealing but counter to the idea that dark skies are nice too.

Do your hair and fingernails grow after death? - The short answer is ‘no’ but there may be a reason they appear to

Slow Motion Hummingbirds - Video of hummingbirds at a feeder

Costa Rica's Self-Sustaining Tree House Community - A community of tree houses complete with indoor plumbing and zip lines

Bees in the bush working hard! - Photos of insects coming to a wildflower south of Nairobi (hint: more than bees) from National Geographic

Mapping the Great Indoors - A microbiologist/ecologist looks at what is growing inside an ordinary house.

Finger Knitting ….and Tents - Reminds me of day camp projects from many years ago.

Real animals that you didn’t know existed - How many of these have you heard about before?

What’s so Great About a World Flight Paths Map? - Comments about a visualization by Michael Markieta (showing the visualization too)

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #43 - My favorite in this batch is the very first one. The bright pink of the flowers and the yellow of the bird really stand out.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 27, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The Cancer Tradeoff - Robert Austin argues that cancer is a natural consequence of our rapid evolution

Dinosaur Embryo Graveyard - From southern China

Like People, Bees Learn From Watching One Another

Breathtaking Photos of Colorful Rock Formations in China - Vibrantly colored exposed rock layers

Plant DNA Largely Unchanged - We have a tulip tree at the edge of the forest in our backyard….and it is pretty much the same as trees that grew in the time of dinosaurs!

Nanoparticle Disguised as a Blood Cell Fights Bacterial Infection - An idea about what comes after antibiotics for bacterial infections….something completely different

Breathtaking Photos of China's "River of Poems and Paintings" - Seems like China is a theme for this week….this is the second gleaning about that country

Research Aims to Settle Debate Over Origin of Yellowstone Volcano - Mantle plumes near subduction zones are more complex that the previous models depicted

Light Paintings Created with LED Wakeboards - Even the photographs show the motion of the athletes…but watch the video too to understand how much work went into the production.

Snowcano - Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula…and I see that ‘volcanoes’ is another theme for this week although Yellowstone and Kamchatka are quite different.