Gleanings of the Week Ending August 9, 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.

5 Important Tips for Keeping Your Eyes Healthy - The tips come from the National Institute for Senior Health but are good for all ages. Start early to keep your eyes health for life!

Behold These Incredible Works Of Architecture Made Out Of Living Trees - I am not patient enough for a project like this but I’m glad that some people are!

How to Freeze Garden Vegetables and Fruits - Timely article. I am sure there will be CSA or deck garden bounty that I’ll not be able to eat immediately.

Want To Improve Your National Park Photography? Catch This Webcast from the Parks - I plan to watch these live classes in late August. I haven’t been to either Olympic or Mount Rainier National Parks so I’ll enjoy the scenery along with some new photography techniques.

Turnips, Kohlrabi, Radishes, and Other Odd Vegetables: Are They Our Key to Survival? - Getting produce from the CSA this summer has sharpened by awareness of these vegetables. Surprisingly the one I knew the least about before the CSA (kohlrabi) is now my favorite - and it even comes in several colors!

More crop per drop: Reducing water footprint of cultivated herbs - Hopefully this type of research is going on in the US too since water is becoming an increasing issue in many parts of the country.

Society bloomed with gentler personalities, more feminine faces: Technology boom 50,000 years ago correlated with less testosterone - Was the change relatively sudden or did it happen over many 1000s of years….and is the trend continuing?

Massive volcanic outbursts on Jupiter's moon Io: More common than thought? - Even as we learn more about exoplanets…there is still a lot to learn about our own solar system.

Get Ready For Monarch Migration - We don’t see many monarchs in the area near our house although they were quite plentiful 15 years ago. I miss them. The milkweed around the field near us is gone too - a victim of the ‘Round Up Ready’ farming done there. I hope there are places in Maryland where the butterflies find a safe haven.

Atlantic warming turbocharges Pacific trade winds - Another example of how the earth’s climate is a system that involves the whole world rather than something that occurs locally.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 26, 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.

20 Cities Leading Rooftop Solar Revolution - It’s good to see the technology gaining momentum across the US. The report this article references is here.

Five Volcanoes Erupting at Once - On Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.  And some other views from above gleaned by Dan Satterfield from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites: sand and soot in NW China, Sahara sand blowing north into Greece and the Balkans, the green view of the Nile delta and the Suez Canal, and a sea breeze front along the Florida coast.

For The Children's Sake, Put Down That Smartphone - I’m glad this topic is being brought up more now. Children need the attention of the adults in their lives.

Finding turns neuroanatomy on its head: Researchers present new view of myelin - The higher in the cerebral cortex one looks -- the closer to the top of the brain, which is its most evolved region -- the less myelin one finds. Not only that, but "neurons in this part of the brain display a brand new way of positioning myelin along their axons that has not been previously seen. They have 'intermittent myelin' with long axon tracts that lack myelin interspersed among myelin-rich segments.”

Cheap, high-quality lenses made from droplets of transparent silicone - Wow - this will make the type of photography I am currently doing with a loupe even easier! I’m going to watch for these new lenses to become commercially available.

Spectacular Macro Details Reveal the Intimate Life of Snails - Beautiful images from a Ukrainian photographer.

Top 10 functional food trends for 2014 - Meeting nutritional needs with food….what a concept! It appears that a lot more people are becoming savvy about food and the food industry is trying to keep up.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Teff Cookies - I have some teff flour in my refrigerator…..this might be a good recipe to try although I prefer peanut butter alone rather than with chocolate chips.

An Interactive Atlas of the Valley of the Kings - This is the intro article from the ‘Free Technology for Teachers’ site. The Atlas itself is available from the Theban Mapping Project.

Dozens of Virtual Tours and Webcams on One Google Map - This is another pointer from the ‘Free Technology for Teachers’ site for a great resource.  The Google Map is here.  Some of the links are broken. The Lascaux Caves one was fabulous!

Progression of Spring Semester Classes - March 2014

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My enthusiasm for the Coursera courses I am taking continues.

Two are completing: How to Change the World (from Wesleyan University) and Moralities of Everyday Life (from Yale University). There is one more week of An Introduction to the US Food System (from Johns Hopkins University). I learn something from every course I take….but these three are ones that prompted thinking about how I live, picking causes worthy of support either through action or donation, and changing my behavior for the good of society and the planet.

A new class started this week: Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets (from Brown University). I’ve already enjoyed the first set of videos and the suggested readings.

There is a new module in the Nutrition course (from Vanderbilt University) I took last spring on Food allergies and intolerances. I signed up for the course again just for that new material.  

And then there is the Volcanic Eruptions (from Ludwig Maximilians Universitat Munich) that was offered last fall. I somehow overlooked it then (or maybe I was too busy with other courses). The content was still available on the Coursera site - so I am making my way through the 10 weeks of materials.

The Roman Architecture course (from Yale University) is continuing - it’s a 15 week course that started in January. I find myself reading architecture books with pictures and diagrams of Greek and Roman buildings on the Internet Archive. The course has given me a sharper eye for architectural detail already!

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