Gleanings of the Week Ending April 12, 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.

Blood test could detect solid cancers - Another discovery that started with bioinformatics. It seems like the biological research arena is exploding with findings that are teased out of ‘big data.’ Biological research has met the computer age!

Viewing Nature’s Beauty through a New Lens - Watch the 4 minute video from Louie Schwarzberg imbedded in this post. I liked the bats and cactus sequence the best!

Yes! Yellowstone is a Volcano - A set of 3 videos. They were filmed in 2009 but I just found them. I remember a decade ago when we visited Yellowstone and my daughter being intrigued that is was a ‘super volcano.’

The Gamification of Education - Infographic that includes a timeline of gamification technology applied to education

Find the Closest National Park with This Handy Map - A handy map for planning a US National Park vacation. And just to add some incentive - a post about macro photography in the National Parks.

Global Air Quality Crisis - It is estimated that 7 million people died in 2012 due to air pollution. That makes air pollution the highest environmental risk on the planet.

Senior Discounts (list 1 and list 2) - Two lists posted by Feisty Side of Fifty/Baby Boomer Women. Some of them start at 55…many more at 60….and more at 65.

Jane Goodall: How she redefined mankind - An interview of Jane Goodall at 80.

New York Public Library Releases Thousands of Historic Maps to the Public - Yet another example of the revolution in libraries. They are making the content of their fragile historical collections that used to be accessible to very few people available to anyone with access to the Internet because high quality digitization has come to the fore.

You'll Never Look at Pond Water the Same Way after Watching This Video - There are so many good videos in my list this week. This one encourages me to collect water from the nearby river….and take a look through the microscope!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 29, 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.

The Garbage Man - Thinking beyond the recycle bin…closed loop recycling.

25+ Digital Wildlife and Nature Maps - Lots of perspectives. I particularly like the Journey North (under Migration and Tracker Maps) because of the time of year….check out robins and monarchs migration.

The 7 Rules of the New Food Revolution - Common sense from Prevention magazine….with links to more information about each one.

Things you should be able to do in your local library - Many communities have library infrastructure originally developed for print media. As more moves toward digital formats - there is opportunity for the library to evolve into something quite different to make the most of the location, building, and engagement capacity. Some of the things on Richard Watson’s list are already part of my library....and others may become the next wave of enhancements.

Google cameras take rafting trip at Grand Canyon - If you can’t make the raft trip through the Grand Canyon physically, take a virtual trip! The Google Colorado River Site is here (there is an ‘Explore the Colorado River’ video toward the bottom of the page that is a short intro to what is available on the site).

What are anonymous companies? An infographic - From TED. “My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies, so that they can no longer be used anonymously against the public good.” - Charmian Gooch, 2014 TED Prize Winner

Married and working together to solve inequality - Except from an interview with Bill and Melinda Gates

How the Container Store Uses Wearable Tech to Think Outside the Box - Replacing walkie-talkie technology with smaller wearable devices with more functionality.

The $1 Origami Microscope - What a great idea! One of the STEM Fair participants from a few weeks ago lamented that she did not have a microscope easily available for her project. I hope this kind of minimalist design (and low cost) can make microscopes very common around the world - for students (and that virtually everyone is a ‘student’ in some aspect of their life).

Gorgeous Papercut Light Boxes - From two Denver based artists. 

Microscope Memories

Over 35 years ago when I was in college working on an undergraduate degree in biology, my husband and I bought a microscope. The one we chose was as good as or better than the ones I used in the labs at school:  objectives, spider silk guide lines, wooden carrying case.  It was ordered from a local company and took several weeks to arrive. The microscope was a major purchase for us (I remember thinking that it cost almost as much as a used VW Beetle!). There was reciprocity involved in the decision since he owned a telescope and we were spending money to tweak it (cold cameras, mount modifications, new guide scope, and electric socks come to mind) and it was loosely tied to his physics major. The plan we both had was to forge ahead to grad school in our chosen fields and our hobbies would align with our academic work. Our ideas about what would come after graduate school were still vague and seemed very far in the future.

A few years later as I began graduate school, I decided that computer science was so much fun (I had supported us through our undergraduate years with programming jobs) that I decided to do graduate work in that field instead. There was not enough time for a microscope hobby so the microscope was carefully stored away with the idea that when I did have time, it would be a hobby I would start again.

The microscope was only unpacked a few times in the intervening years. We bought a student microscope that attached to our computer for my daughter when she was in elementary school. The quality of the image was not very good and the software didn’t work with current versions of windows by the time I wanted to use it a couple of years ago when I started this blog. That device was jettisoned but I still wanted to restart the microscope hobby. Recently I decided to buy microscope imager for my original microscope. It replaces the eyepiece and attaches to my laptop via USB. I dug out my wooden box of slides and cover slips. The prepared slides dried out years ago and were thrown away; there are only three slides and covers left!

It is a rude awakening to realize that I have forgotten a lot in 30 years! I will need to read up on microscope maintenance (it’s been in its wooden box for a long time) and decide on what other supplies I need aside from a few more glass slides and covers - immersion oil and stains come to mind. Once I decide what I need - I’ll have to order it; online ordering and shipping has certainly improved since I originally worked with this microscope but it is not instantaneous. I’m excited to be fiddling with the microscope again!

There will be a series of mini-projects - things I want to view and then write a blog post about. Feathers and plant material and molds are high on my list. My goal is to have at least one microscope based post a month. Stay tuned for my experiences restarting an activity from my early 20s!