Gleanings of the Week Ending August 30, 2014

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.

Higher Ed’s New Normal - An infographic comparing higher education in the 1980s and today. More students have a part-time academic schedule…but getting the degree means even more when it comes to earnings (in the 1980s, students with a BA earned 40% more than HS grads…now it is 75% more).

Are you as old as what you eat? Researchers learn how to rejuvenate aging immune cells - It was a little frustrating to read a lot about drug development to enhance immunity during aging….but the article was redeemed by the last sentence: “Another possibility is that dietary instead of drug intervention could be used to enhance immunity since metabolism and senescence are two sides of the same coin.” Hopefully there will be research along the dietary line. It seems reasonable that our nutritional needs may shift as we get older….and that adjusting our eating habits would help prolong our health.

Photography in the National Parks: Same Park, Same Scene, Different Seasons, Different Times - I paused when I saw the first pictures in this article of the La Sal Mountains - remembering my vacation to the area last fall (and my favorite picture from the drive through the mountains). Then I started thinking about what area I wanted to photograph at different seasons and decided on a project to photograph the forest behind my house once a week throughout the rest of the year.  If it goes well, I’ll continue into the spring.

An inconvenient truth: Does responsible consumption benefit corporations more than society? - I’m paying more attention to this type of research after the Globalization course I’ve just finished on Coursera. It is very difficult to be a responsible consumer when products are not available to be a responsible consumer (for example - is anyone in the developed world able to recycle 100% of their food packaging? I would like to and I doubt I am the only consumer with that desire…but it isn’t possible in my area of the US.). There are probably a lot of examples where markets are not self-correcting based on consumer desires.

The Chemical Compositions of Insect Venoms - Bees, wasps, hornets and ants….an infographic and some text that explains.

Image of the Day: Colossal Cacti - Prickly pear cacti grow very differently in the Galapagos….to get their pads out of the reach of giant tortoises.

Anesthesia professionals not sufficiently aware of risks of postoperative cognitive side effects - The postoperative cognitive side effects more frequently happen in elderly and fragile patients. Since there are more and more elderly patients, hopefully the issue will become better understood and avoided.

Unequal demands on women for university service harm careers - There are still so few women in tenured positions that the ones that are asked to serve on 50% more committees than men faculty…and all those committees take time.

A Virtual Tour of Lassen Volcanic National Park - A 3.5 minute video to get a feel for the place.

Hidden Obstacles for Google’s Self-Driving Cars - I still hope the self-driving cars become available by 2020 or shortly thereafter so I can turn the driving over the car by the time I am 70!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 15, 2014

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.

10,000 years on the Bering Land Bridge: Ancestors of Native Americans paused en route from Asia - I’d always assumed that the ‘land bridge’ was narrower - just across the narrowest part of the Bering Strait.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #63 - I haven’t included one of these in my gleanings recently….doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to enjoy them. My favorite in this batch is the kingfisher with the little crab in its bill.

Is Daylight Savings Energy Efficient? No, Says Expert - Every spring and fall I hate the time change. Does anyone like it? Sometimes I think governments like the idea simply because it confirms that they have the influence to cause the population to do something in synchrony!

Nutrition Facts Label: Proposed Changes Aim to Better Inform Food Choices - The new labels are in a 90 day comment period from the FDA. What do you think? I like them. The revised labels include new info (added sugars, Vitamin D, and potassium) that I have missed in the past. I like the larger calorie count and the attempt to make the serving size the size of a real serving.

The Weight of Mountains - A short film (11.5 minutes) about how mountains are made….live…and die.

Mothers leave work because they don't want to behave like working men, study suggests - ‘Presenteeism’ (the notion that being at your desk until late is required, even if there is nothing to do) should not be a requirement for men or women….but it has the effect of driving women out of the workforce more often than men. What a waste of skills and education! Will the workplace change over time?

Deer proliferation disrupts a forest's natural growth - This study was done in Ithaca NY but Maryland has very similar problems. The deer are so prolific that they are eating all their preferred foods down to the ground.

NASA's Breathtaking Images of Space - The view from space….always awesome.

Women's jobs are poorer paid, less flexible, more stressful - My career was in a male-dominated field and was well paid. About 20 years in, I realized that while I did work longer hours overall than women in many other fields, the stress was generally positive and not brutal in duration….and the flexibility increased over the course of my career too! So - this research result meshes quite well with my experience from the mid-70s onward.

Honeybees reveal that evolution is stranger than you ever realized - Just how do sterile bees contribute to the fitness of their species? Kin selection. That’s why honey bees in Yemen have adapted to be excellent at air conditioning their hives in the hot desert air and Japanese have adapted to combat deadly wasps in a unique way.