Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 2011

The items below were the cream of the articles I read this past week:

1. National Park Service Documents Ancient Towers in Afghanistan - this is the second week in a row there has been an archaeology story from somewhere dangerous on my gleanings list (last week is was Lybia)
2. Baby Elephant pictures (Borneo) - note how large the eyes of the baby are in relation to the rest of him
3. New Mouthwash Targeting Harmful Bacteria May Render Tooth Decay a Thing of the Past - Wow! If this works as the early tests revealed (and without bad side effects), this is a disruptive technology....maybe to more than denistry if the same idea could be applied to other bacterial problems
4. Lots of Bundt Cake Recipes - some of the recipes reference books, others online - there are a lot of great ideas (and pictures) on this site to motivate me to dig out the Bundt pan!
5. Cynthia Kenyon: Experiments that hint of longer lives (TED talk) - genes have been identified that cause organisms to not age as fast (and thus live longer); studying what those genes do in the body is a very active area of research
6. Cranberries (info and recipes) – Cranberry upside-down cake…sounds good…think I’ll try this next week!
7. Fossil poop - coprolites - some discoveries from these bloob-like fossils...one included a human hair
8. Gaston Lacombe’s Fundy National Park Picture sequence - the photo of water smoothed rocks pulled me in (it is a great first picture for the series)