Gleanings of the Week Ending July 26, 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.

More Phones, Fewer Doctors - An interview with venture capitalist Vinod Khosla about trends in health care. His contention is that 80 percent of what doctors do can be replaced by machines. This article was part of a series done by MIT Technology Review about our health care system. Another one talks about Big Data Mining (about medical analytics).

DIY, Zero-energy Pool Warmers Could Save You Thousands - Made with hula hoops and polyethylene film!

Study reveals 'unhappiest' cities in the U.S. - The authors of the study emphasize that it is obvious that people care about other things that ‘happiness’ when making decisions about where they will live! I’m always a little suspicious of ratings that focus on only one aspect (like happiness/unhappiness) because most of our decision making is much more complex than that. Still - it is worth staring at the map for a few minutes. Does your perception of where you live match with the color coding?

STEM Graduates Branch Out - Many of college graduates with STEM degrees are not working in jobs that are science or technology related fields according to a report from the Census Bureau.

Fluoride & Water Fluoridation – An Undeserved Reputation? - Infographic from Andy Brunning - a chemistry teacher in the UK

Cursed Warship Revealed With Treasure Onboard - A ship sunk off the Swedish coast in 1564…complete with silver and gold coins and canons.

To Measure Summer Smog, Plant an Ozone Garden - The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder CA has designed a garden that is sensitive to ozone that includes plants that grow easily in many parts of the US: milkweed, snap bean, potato, and cutleaf coneflower.

Pangolins Walk Just Like T. Rex - Scaly anteaters wall on 2 legs! Watch the video of this odd animal and think about T. Rex depictions. The head of the T. Rex was much larger but the using tail as a balance to the upper body to allow ‘walking’ on the hind legs like the pangolin is a possibility.

The bend in the Appalachian mountain chain is finally explained - The Appalachians slant along the east coast - make a bend in Pennsylvania and New York.

What vacation? Expect to work while you're away - The down side of mobile work environments.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 11, 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.

Iodine - A new site that formats drug information to be more easily understood by consumers. There is information about how it all got started on the TED site here.

An Animated Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States - Maps are a visual pathway to history. Thanks to the University of Richman for making these available online with a good interface.

CES 2014: Audi Shows Off a Compact Brain for Self-Driving Cars - Good to have a car manufacturer getting serious about self-driving cars.

Remarkable coastal change from the recent UK storms - Sometime erosion is so slow it is almost unnoticeable. These ‘before and after’ pictures show the potential of storms to cause changes very quickly.

The Bright Side of Prions - When prions are in the news, they are often associated with terrible diseases like Mad Cow Disease. This article is about recent discoveries where prions perform positive functions in cells.

10 Easy New Year’s Resolutions to Transform Your Health and Well Being - Some of these are so easy….they are good prompts to do something ‘outside the box’ to improve your 2014!

Timeline of the far future - An infographic from BBC Future. This timeline is for one hundred quintillion years!

The Future: What 32 Ed Leaders Are Excited About - And more about the near term future of education and the potential of technology to improve outcomes.

Gulf Coast Wetlands Rapidly Declining - It includes a map of the gulf coast that shows the huge wetland loss in Louisiana between 2004 and 2009. They are subsiding underwater.

Why we need to sleep in total darkness - I need to get an alarm clock with red rather than blue numbers…or do without a clock in the bedroom at all! And I have installed f.lux on my computer to change the color the screen emits at night (software available free from here).