US Botanic Garden - Insectivorous Plants

The insectivorous plants exhibit at the US Botanic Garden runs through October 8th. We went to see it this past weekend. The exhibit is a clever mix of sculpture and real plants. I can remember being fascinated with Venus Flytrap plants as a child. The pitcher plants (at right and included in the slide show) were the highlights of this exhibit for me - particularly the outdoor sculpture grouping of them. The sculpture of the Venus Flytrap was mechanized; push a button and it snapped shut!

There are several more posts from the Botanic Garden visit…they’ll come out over the next week or so. I posted about the landmark building models in the conservatory at the US Botanic Garden last November.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 28, 2012

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

• Psychology of Color infographic - Hmm…never paint a baby’s room yellow because it will cause them to cry more…other factoids. A snapshot (unreadable) version of the infographic is at right...follow the link to get more explanation and larger size (if it still isn't large enough on your monitor - click on the graphic to enlarge further)
• Food Combining - for optimal health and weight - Goodbye meat and potatoes in the same meal (not a good combination). This article is an easy read with good embedded graphics. Maybe what we eat is not as bad as how we combine it?
• 2011 was 9th warmest year on record - A video that shows global temps from 1884 to 2011 from NASA
• Paper Models of Polyhedra - Wow…lots of shapes you can make with paper with templates to help you do it.
• Smithsonian fire in January 1865 - report and pictures of the event…lessons from that fire applied to the restoration of the building and other museums.
• Nutrient Lists - From the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory. Lists of foods either alphabetically or sorted by content for common nutrients.
• American Verse Project - An electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920. If you are in the mood for poetry and don’t have a book already bought, this a great place to go.
• The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway - Lots of photographs from during the Blue Ridge Parkway construction. This site is also an example of richness of presenting information digitally where it can be accessed from many perspectives rather than in book form.
• Great Meals with Great Grains - a blog about using whole grains to ‘provide culinary excitement without hours of labor.’ I’ve tried amaranth, quinoa and rolled oats; maybe it’s time to try some others too.
• How to store fruits and vegetables without plastic - A fact sheet from the Berkeley Farmers’ Market
• Lisa Harouni: A primer on 3D printing (TED talk) - Is this the future for manufacturing in America?