On Trends in the US

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There are quite a few news items about trends in the US. There are some that are appealing to me - and that I feel part of my life:

  • Buying locally grown food
  • Taking advantage of free online courses (Coursera is the one I’ve enjoyed)
  • Reading online books (most of my reading these days is electronic rather than printed on paper)

There are other trends that don’t jive with my life right now:

  • Watching television. I was an hour of less of television per day (there was an article about hours per day trending upward with the average being 4 hours per day)
  • Interacting via social media. I do occasionally look at Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest….but not daily. The content can too easily be overwhelming rather than helpful.
  • Moving to ‘senior’ housing. I have no desire at all to live in an area that is not age diverse. I like have children in the area where I live.
  • Exercising as part of a class or club. I’d rather formulate my days to exercise as part of the way I live my life.

Now that I’ve started thinking about trends….I’ll do the ‘next step’ thinking when I read or hear a news item about a trend in the US.  I’m feeling a little rebellious these days so I anticipate that I’ll be bucking more trends than following.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 12, 2014

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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.

Blood test could detect solid cancers - Another discovery that started with bioinformatics. It seems like the biological research arena is exploding with findings that are teased out of ‘big data.’ Biological research has met the computer age!

Viewing Nature’s Beauty through a New Lens - Watch the 4 minute video from Louie Schwarzberg imbedded in this post. I liked the bats and cactus sequence the best!

Yes! Yellowstone is a Volcano - A set of 3 videos. They were filmed in 2009 but I just found them. I remember a decade ago when we visited Yellowstone and my daughter being intrigued that is was a ‘super volcano.’

The Gamification of Education - Infographic that includes a timeline of gamification technology applied to education

Find the Closest National Park with This Handy Map - A handy map for planning a US National Park vacation. And just to add some incentive - a post about macro photography in the National Parks.

Global Air Quality Crisis - It is estimated that 7 million people died in 2012 due to air pollution. That makes air pollution the highest environmental risk on the planet.

Senior Discounts (list 1 and list 2) - Two lists posted by Feisty Side of Fifty/Baby Boomer Women. Some of them start at 55…many more at 60….and more at 65.

Jane Goodall: How she redefined mankind - An interview of Jane Goodall at 80.

New York Public Library Releases Thousands of Historic Maps to the Public - Yet another example of the revolution in libraries. They are making the content of their fragile historical collections that used to be accessible to very few people available to anyone with access to the Internet because high quality digitization has come to the fore.

You'll Never Look at Pond Water the Same Way after Watching This Video - There are so many good videos in my list this week. This one encourages me to collect water from the nearby river….and take a look through the microscope!