Helicopter over Hawaii

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We took a helicopter ride to get a better look at volcanoes and waterfall….the overall terrain of the Big Island. It was quite an experience. My seat assignment was in the middle front (seating was three across in the front and 4 across in the back). We made a loop around the island over a two-hour period. A little over half way through we landed at the bottom of a 400-foot-high waterfall. A narrow strip of land divides the waterfall from the ocean. The land is privately owned so not something that can be seen except via a helicopter tour that has obtained permission.

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Afterwards we flew up one of the valleys and saw more waterfalls. Some of them were in areas that could be hiked…but they would definitely take a lot of energy to see and, based on my other experience in the rain forest, might be very difficult to see through all the foliage on the ground.

The deep valleys stand out from the air and how neatly cultivates some areas are. Pineapple and sugar cane are no long the cash crops of the island. There are cattle ranches and eucalyptus forests…Kona is known for coffee…macadamia nuts near Hilo. The eye searches for man-made structures to provide scale to the scenes - bridges across deep valleys or the buildings of Hilo. On the lava fields and the shoreline, the edge of the forest provides a notion of scale but the power of lava to change the terrain is evident everywhere. There were tiny areas where flowing lava was visible before it flowed underneath solidified lava through a lava tube.

At the end of the ride – we headed back to the helicopter base….made on an old lava flow. I missed the green already!

Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, South Point, and Green Sand Beach

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Punalu’u Black Sand Beach does indeed have black sand! I took a jeweler’s loupe with me to the beach and took a picture of some grains of the sand through it with my husband holding the paper with the sand grains! They are bits of basalt – not as find as on most white sand beaches. This beach has even bigger rocks – not sand like at all like these grains.

There are wetlands (fresh water with lily pads and turtles)

And ducks that are very acclimated to people.

I set my camera to shorten the exposure so that the very bright sunny day would not wash out blackness of the day (dark but reflective) at the tidal pools,

Leading up to the palms,

The shore line,

And a ocean crashing on some rock that still jutted out from the shore….wearing it way to form more grains on the black sand beach.

There was a green turtle looking sleepily at the tourists. Just after this picture was taken, the turtle closed its eye completely.

There were mynah birds around too. This one looks particularly alert and very serious.

Our next stop was South Point – the southernmost point in the entire US. It was very windy so we didn’t stay long. Evidently at high tide – people jump from the top of the cliff and climb back up the rickety ladder afterwards. It was low tide when we were there and most people were like us – took a quick look around – and continued to their next destination.

Our destination was Green Sand Beach. We paid to $15 to a local driver to take us over the very bump 2.5 miles to the beach and back. It was even windier than at South Point. We climbed down the cliff via a crevasse (mostly with secure footing); this is the picture from the bottom of the cliff with the crevasse we came down to the left and then angling back to the right going upward. My husband managed to find a small place sheltered from the wind so I could take the picture of the sand through the jeweler’s loupe. This is not a big beach and there are cautions to not take any of the sand away. The grains of greenish olivine are clearly visible….as are some other colors. The olivine is from the cinder cone that is eroding to form the beach.

The green sand is on the cliff face

And down to the sea. Note the hair and clothes in this picture; everyone was being sandblasted! My husband’s glasses blew off as he was climbing back up the cliff; fortunately, my daughter was able to retrieve them. My hat pulled so hard at its tie that it now has new character! As I looked down at myself as we made the bump rid back, I realized that everywhere I had put sunscreen has a thin film of grit!

Previous Hawaii Posts:

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 26, 2015

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Violet Snail spends whole life drifting on self-made bubbles -  A sea snail that floats around underneath bubbles….a pretty denizen of our oceans that preys on Portuguese man o’ war.

There are twelve different kinds of rainbows – I was hoping there would a reference with pictures of the 12 different kinds…but it isn’t in this post.

Ten Cool Thinks the Kitchen of the Future Will Do – Some things on this list don’t seem that great to me. Printing dinner with a countertop 3-D printer does not seem appetizing at all to me.

10 Truly Guilt-Free Wholefood Vegan Cookies - Many of these cookies look more appetizing to me than the bakery offerings I used to be drawn to. I recently had a slice of carrot cake and left half the icing on the plate because it seemed like there was more icing than cake!

Treating colon cancer with vitamin A – As I read this article – I wondered if the vitamin A rich foods I love in my diet (and think of as ‘good’ for my eyes) are good for other reasons too.

See nature in a whole new light –  17 pictures of bugs!

A historical atlas of America, built for the 21st century – From the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab….the site is called American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History. There are 4 maps now (the forced migration of enslaved people 1810-1860), the overland trails 1840-1860, foreign born population 1850-2010, and Canals 1820-1860) with more to come.

This physicist makes dazzling snowflakes in his laboratory – Wonderful images…Ken Libbrecht has a snowflake machine and photographs the unique snowflakes it creates from water vapor condensing on a sapphire substrate.

Cool roofs in China offer enhanced benefits during heat waves – As people put on new roofs….maybe the lighter colored roofs will become the norm on our warming planet.

Festive underwater creatures look like mini Christmas trees – Even though the Christmas holiday is over…I couldn’t resist including these tropical worms that look like colorful Christmas tree bristles on their calcium carbonate bases.

Maunakea

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The Maunakea visit was probably the most planned day of our stay in Hawaii for several reasons. We had to rent a car from a local company that permitted taking the car up the mountain (the nationwide car rental companies don’t allow it) and we had to prepare ourselves for the altitude change. Our rental house was at about 3,000 feet; the Maunakea vistor center is at 9,200 feet and the summit (where the telescopes are) is at 14,000.

We started our preparation for our Maunkea adventure the day before by taking a gingko supplement and planning our water supply. The next morning we got up and took another gingko and my daughter put us on a schedule for drinking water. We stopped at the Kipuka at the intersection of the saddle road and the road leading up the mountain.

We climbed the Kipuka and had a snack. I could already feel that the elevation has changed a little. A thin layer of very dark lava is along both sides of the saddle road at this point.The kipuka provided and opportunity for some close up pictures of common mullein (an invasive at higher elevations in Hawaii) and

Some other plants.

Then we drove up to the Maunakea Visitor Information Station. This part of the road is still paved and easy enough in a regular vehicle. Everyone is required to stay at the information station for at least an hour before proceeding up the mountain. We drank a lot more water and ate some crystalized ginger. Our strategy worked…no headaches, no nausea…our bodies were responding to the altitude change reasonably well although we were intentionally not doing any fast walking or running. We made use of our hour with some shopping in the store, observing the cloud deck that was below us and

The side of the mountain above us.

The road from the visitor information station and the telescopes is not paved and often bumpy. It requires a 4-wheel drive vehicle. At the top it is cold and windy. We were prepared with coats and gloves. Our original plan was to tour the Keck but it was not open when we were there but we drove around on the road connecting the telescopes taking pictures of them from the outside and down the mountain. It was bitterly cold and windy…and the altitude (14,000 feet!) made it hard to do anything quickly.

We got our parking spot for sunset. There were other people with the same idea. Everyone huddled in their cars between forays to take pictures. The two round domes connected to each other are the Keck.  The sunset at the cloud deck….and you see the mountains of Maui peeking through the clouds in the distance behind the telescopes.

As we got ready to head down the mountain, we commented that it must have been too windy for the telescopes to open…..but as we made our way down the road our line of sight changed and we saw that one of the Keck’s had opened.

Everyone is required to come down the mountain within 15 minutes of sunset. The visitor center hosts star viewing…..and then it is time to head for our vacation rental in Volcano HI.

Previous Hawaii Posts:

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 19, 2015

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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 future of medicine is testing our body fluids at home – Will the ‘annual physical’ become a thing of the past as this testing becomes more widely available?

The Coming Winter Part Two: The Elephant in the Room – The second part of Dan Satterfield’s explanation of the long range forecast for the winter.

Living Alone Now the Most Common Type of Household – Analysis of US households from 1930-2010. The over 60 population accounts for the majority of population that lives alone so the expectation is that the number of ‘living alone’ households will continue to increase.

Storing Electricity in Paper – Made from  nanocellulose and a conductive polymer….the basic research is promising…not to develop a production method for the power paper.

Improving Tools for Quantifying the Effectiveness of Conservation – Trying to quantify the effectiveness of conservation efforts is hard. This post is about the work of environmental economists to do it.

Pesticide found in milk decades ago may be associated with signs of Parkinson’s – I was reading this article while I was in Hawaii…and that is where the study was done. The pesticide heptachlor epoxide was used in the pineapple fields in the early 1980s in Hawaii and made its way into milk of that era in Hawaii.

Top 10 Winter Wildlife Experiences to Enjoy near You – Some ideas for getting outdoors in the winter. My husband and I are planning several jaunts to Conawingo Dam to photograph bald eagles this winter. And if we get snow (so far we have had a very warm winter hear in Maryland), we’ll look for tracks and look for wildlife in the morning/evening around our house.

Native Spotlight: American Holly – An item for the season. Holly is a plant often associated with Christmas. My picture is from a holly at Belmont Manor and Historical Park

Explore Machu Picchu in Google Maps Street View  and Artifacts from Machu Picchu from Google’s Cultural Institute – Another place for virtual travel.

One Million Icequakes – Data was collected from a glacier in Greenland for 2 years…one that produced 20 icequakes every 60 seconds. The icequakes offer a window into the glacier bed where the ice meets the sediment.

3 Free eBooks – December 2015

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Like last month – one of the ‘books’ I picked for December was one referenced in the Ancient Egypt course from Coursera that I completed back in November; the follow up reading spilled into December. It was a challenge not to pick a book that included botanical prints…I switched to birds this month but couldn’t resist picking an artist (Charles Demuth) that did a lot of plant paint!

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Haskell, Barbara. Charles Demuth. New York: Whitney Museum of Art. 1987. Available from the Internet Archive here. The title of the painting that I am including in this post (partial) is “From the Kitchen Garden.” The topics of his paintings included other topics too….a snapshot of different perspectives of the US and Europe in the first thirds of the 1900s.

The British Museum. Mummy: The Inside Story. Available from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine here. The mummy in this case is Nesperennub, a priest who lived at Karnak (Egypt) in 800 BC. The site is a series of slides (with pictures and explanatory text) about the modern way that mummies are studied….not by unwrapping. One of the amulets found near the neck of this money was a wedjat eye. One from another mummy was included in the images and clipped a portion for this post. Unfortunately – this site was removed from the The British Museum’s site when it was reorganized so now it is only available via the Wayback Machine. There are two other online tours (Cleopatra and Egypt in the Old Kingdom) that can be found by clicking on the ‘Egypt’ link just above the ‘slide’ portion of the screen.

Keulemans, John Gerrard. Onze volgels in huis en tuin – Volume 1. Leyden: P.W.M. Trap. 1869. Available from Internet Archive here. Keulemans  (1942-1912) is a well-known bird illustrator and this is one of his earlier works – in his native Dutch. I was looking at it for the illustrations rather than the text. There are two other volumes available on the Internet Archive (volume 2 and volume 3) that I have yet to read…and I’m going to look at other books that might be online that he illustrated. According to Wikipedia, his total output includes over 4,000 published images – virtually all before 1915 so not in copyright.

Enjoy good visuals and good reads!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 12, 2015

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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.

Women don beards for documentary about inequality in the geosciences – This documentary is about women in paleontology but the challenges faced by women in any field that is overwhelmingly dominated by men are similar. The ‘beard’ is a fun visualization! It reminded me of the female pharaoh that wore a beard.

Report: China Clean Energy Investments Beat U.S., U.K, and France Combined – Hmm. Maybe the whole world is getting more focused on the challenges we have re climate change. It would be great if the US could be a leader…sad if we abdicate.

How will future archaeologists study us? – CDs last 2-5 years before they risk losing data. This article is about encoding information on DNA and storing it in glass particles…artificial fossils. Of course – they may also find our landfills to be sources of information of how we really lived.

Some Thoughts about the Coming Winter: Part One – The further out a forecast is – the less accurate it is. The post from Dan Satterfield explains why…some graphics about weather model results.

Failing phytoplankton, failing oxygen: Global warming disaster could suffocate life on planet Earth – I’ve often wondered what happens to oxygen levels as the Earth’s temperature climbs. This is on scenario…and a scary one. If we have a 6 degree Celsius increase in the water temperature of the oceans – which some models predict by 2100 – the photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the oceans could be disrupted. Two-thirds of the planet’s total atmospheric ocean is produced by phytoplankton.

Photographer Captures Stunning South Korean Landscapes Reflected in Mirror-Like Lakes – Some beautiful images. I like reflections….and I need to be observant to find them and photograph them. I always try at Centennial Lake (image to the left) but there are other places that I probably overlook completely.

The Unregulation of Biotech Crops – In some ways – this situation is similar to the designer performance enhancement drugs that are hard to test for too. Modern techniques are streaming ahead – creating things we have little ability to understand very well – let along any unintended consequences.

Physicians and burnout: It’s getting worse – This was a frustrating article. It reported the burnout statistics comparing 2011 to 2014 but no deep understanding for why burnout is increasing. I am not particularly happy with the US health system either but any attempts to change it very much seem to be impossible politically.

DIY: Cinn-Apple Ornaments – One of my daughter’s friends made and gave us some of these ornaments for Christmas …probably about 15 years ago. I carefully put them away at the end of each season and they still smell like cinnamon every time I get them out! I’m not going to make any this year but I may do it next year and put them on every knob in the house!

Eat a paleo peach: First fossil peaches discovered in southwest China – Peach pits that are 2.5 million years old! The peaches from this time period would have been about the size of the smallest commercial peaches of today.

Sunrise

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It’s easier and easier to catch the sunrise these days. The trees have lost all their leaves and the time is later with the days still shortening. The two images in this post are from two recent days.

The color changes very rapidly – no time to wait around. I scurry to find my camera and step out the front door. The neighborhood is quiet. I wonder if there is anyone else nearby savoring the moments of color that start the day….and feel privileged that I do have the time. Somehow the rest of the day is always better having started this way.

I’ve read that ancient cultures sometimes had special rituals at sunrise and it is easy to imagine how the coming of the sun would be welcomed after a cold December night. They lived in closer contact with the elements of our planet than we do today. I feel the kinship with those ancestors while I watch the sunrise; knowing more about our planet, the season and the reason the sunrises with such color does not make it less special. Perhaps we should appreciate it even more.

Enjoy a sunrise where you live!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 28, 2015

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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.

Plastic by the Numbers in the Atlantic Ocean – Samples taken during the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers show that microplastics are very common. There were 0 samples without any plastic! On a personal level, I’m reading labels on face washes and toothpastes now and not buying any that have microbeads.

6 Common Activities that Harm Wildlife – One of the six is ‘microbeads’ so another spur to action. The other activities are also thought provoking: sunscreen, feeding bread to birds, bleached products, removing weeds, and plastic bags. Most of them I had heard about before…sunscreen only recently.

Are superbugs deadlier near where you live? – They are everywhere…some places worse than others. Often they are indicators of use (and misuse) of antibiotics.

An easy pill to swallow – Research into a mechanism to deliver mucoadhesive patches via pill through the digestive tract to the small intestine. There is potential that this could change delivery of protein based therapies (insulin, growth hormone, antibodies, and vaccines) from a injections to a pill.

A Flight of Birds – 14 unusual birds…portraits from the Photo Ark project (one of the 14 is a California Condor)

800-Year-Old Ancient Extinct Squash Uncovered during Archeological Dig on Menominee Indian Reservation – I’d like to see this one in my grocery store!

Shenandoah National Park Counting on Beetles to Slow Invasive Insect – The wooly adelgid is killing the hemlocks in Shenandoah (and in our area of Maryland too). Shenandoah is importing a beetle from Japan (where the wooly adelgid came from). Evidently the beetle has already been used successfully in other parks, including Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

1,700-Year-Old Roman Mosaic Discovered During City Sewer Construction Project – Found in Israel by workers upgrading the sewer system.  It was the floor of a large room in a villa during the Roman period.

Pictures: Great Smoky Mountains National Park  and Pictures: Rocky Mountain National Park and Explore the Power of Parks – From National Geographic…lots of great pictures, of course.

Obesity: A Complex Disorder – Graphic from The Scientist with a link at the bottom for the full article. The more we learn about obesity, the more complex it seems to become.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 2015

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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.

Poland's Mysterious "Crooked Forest" Populated with 400 Bent Pine Trees – Trees are remarkably resilient. Whatever caused these trees to be bent near the base…and then continue growing upright…they are survivors!

Why do we still not know what’s inside the pyramids? – I usually notice stories about Ancient Egypt that come in on my newsfeeds but my awareness is even higher right now because of the Ancient Egypt course I am taking on Coursera.

6 Homemade Vegan Sauces and Condiments that are better than Store-bought – I’m trying the recipe for peanut sauce after I finish the store bought bottle I have in my refrigerator!

The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed. – Another dimension of higher education not mentioned in this thoughtful piece is the continuing education that many post-career individuals seek. I recently looked at face to face classes offered in my area of Maryland and decided that the selection available from Coursera and other online providers was much greater (and the price was right too). Another case where the digital revolution in higher education has already happened.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 2  - A continuation of an article I included in my October 31 gleanings….good info for planning a trip there.

Tangy and Tasty Fresh Cranberry Recipes – My ‘new’ recipe to try for Thanksgiving is the Cranberry-Carrot cake. I am not going to put icing on it….eat it more like muffins for Thanksgiving Day brunch. Don't forget Cranberry Orange Relish either! Wegmans recipe is here.

Move Over, Turkey: Meet the World’s Other Bald, Be-wattled Birds – Thinking of turkey this week….here are some other birds that have similar heads. They all look odd to me!

Field Drain Tile and the “Re-Eutrophication” of Lake Erie – Why the algal blooms have worsened in recent years after improving for the prior 15 years.

Elegant Greenhouse Photos Mimic the Ethereality of Oil Paintings – Hmm…the textured glass reminded me of a shower door. This might turn into a winter photography experiment!

Incan Mummy Genome Sequenced – The mitochondrial DNA analysis was the first completed and placed the boy in a very small subgroup – only 4 other known individuals. Other genetic analyses of the 500 year old mummy of a 7-year-old boy are ongoing.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 14, 2015

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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.

Globe Is Set to Cross 1 Degree C Temperature Increase Threshold in 2015 – Not good. The averages for temperature and carbon dioxide concentration is the atmosphere are still climbing…and we have done nothing so far to change the trend.

Weight’s the Matter? – The Scientist has an issue on obesity and I am including the articles I found most interesting in this gleanings list. This post outlines the articles available…from causes to the link to cancer (did you know that obesity has replaced smoking as the top preventable cause of cancer death in the US?) to possible side effect of environmental chemicals to weight loss.

Obesogens – Environmental chemicals change cause metabolic changes in animals causing them to gain weight. It is harder to prove for humans…but there are a lot of obese people these days. Maybe sedentary life style and high calorie diets are not the only reason.

Microbesity – Gut bacteria play a role in obesity too.

How to Design within Novel Ecosystems – Strategies when it isn’t possible to restore an area to its natural state….how to create something that still has high ecological value.

Ancient brains turn paleontology on its head – 520 million year old arthropod brains. When the first one was discovered, it was viewed as a fluke. Now there are more and the assumptions that said that brains are never fossilized are falling away.

6 Asian Noodles – Sometimes an article encourages action. This one caused me to add soba noodles to my grocery list and I’ll be trying them this week! I like that they have more protein than most noodles.

Insect Wings Made to Look like Blooming Flowers Explores Natural Concept of Mimicry – Beautiful work by a Paris-based artist….although I have to make an effort to not think about all the insects that were sacrificed.

Scientists Grow Beautiful Designs for First Ever Microbial Art Competition – A different type of media: bacteria and fungi in petri dishes!

The Chemistry of Silly Putty – A simple ‘toy’

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 7, 2015

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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 Chemistry of Blood – When I do nature hikes for elementary school children about soil or rocks I always ask them what makes soil or rocks look red (some of them know that it is iron) then I comment that there is iron in our blood too….and that locks it for almost all of them. One time a boy answered my original question with one word: ‘blood’ – thinking he would get a disgusted reaction from me and he was really surprised when I told him the red came from iron in both cases!

Vitamin D pill a day may improve exercise performance and lower risk of heart disease – More evidence that more of us probably need Vitamin D supplements. It’s one I have been taking the past few year.

300 million-year-old 'supershark' fossils found in Texas – Lots of things are ‘large’ about Texas.

The Benefits of Getting Older – They define ‘old age’ and any age over 60! Are you surprised by any items on the list?

Greenland is Melting Away – How they take measures of the ice sheet from the ground…supplementing what can be determined from satellites and drones. The graphics of the rivers on the ice sheet are mesmerizing.

Hunting down hidden dangers and health benefits of urban fruit – When I read the headline I was braced for a lot of negative news…but it turns out that urban fruit is good overall.

Butterflies Weaponize Milkweed Toxins and Wing structure helps female monarch butterflies outperform males in flight – There were two stories about Monarch Butterflies in the news this week….and I saw one – probably migrating – as I was hiking with second graders this week!

Be Mesmerized by the Shifting Complexity of our Sun – The full video is a little over 30 minutes…and there is music too!

The Chemistry of Fireworks: Bangs, Crackles & Whistles – Color gets a lot of attention when it comes to fireworks. This post from Compound Interest is about the other things we enjoy about fireworks.

Hungry for Change: Deer Management and Food Security – Our area has a huge deer population and we have the chomped trees and bushes in our yards to prove it! The idea of combining deer management and food security may be something more communities should consider.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 31, 2015

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Happy Halloween!

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.

Hamersley Shows Off the Beauty of Australia's Wilderness – A 4 minute film made using drones around the Hammersley rnage and Karijini National Park.

Blocking enzymes in hair follicles promotes hair growth - Wow! The results in mice a pretty dramatic for ‘normal’ mice. Experiments to address hair follicles affected by hair loss disorders are under way.

Microphotographs Reveal the Wonderfully Odd World of Plants – Images created for a 2016 calendar.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 1 – This is a national park I’ve not explored....maybe it’s time to plan a trip.

A Rough Guide to the IARC’s Carcinogen Classifications – Andy Brunning’s graphic about carcinogens. Processed and red meats have been in the news during the past few weeks.

Using the Light When the Light is Right – A series of photographs from The Prairie Ecologist.

The Ten Creepiest Spiders of North America – Just in time for Halloween.  I remember by mother making sure I knew what a Black Widow spider looked like very early….a good thing since I found one in my sandbox one spring and recognized it!

Black Bears Facing Hard Times at Great Smoky Mountains National Park – Evidently the traditional fall foods for bears (acorns and grapes) did not do so well this year so they are foraging in larger areas and eating foods that are not their favorites (like hickories and walnuts).

Digging Deep Reveals the Intricate World of Roots – I do field trips with second graders where we collect some soil cores and then look at not only the soil the roots we find in it. They are always surprised that there are roots even 12 inches under the meadow where we usually go to collect the sample! This article shows that the roots actually are probably much deeper than 12 inches.

Urban Explorer Gives Viewers an Interior Tour of St. Petersburg's Architectural Gems – Over the top architecture…it is hard to image any of these being places people actually lived.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 24, 2015

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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.

Why being single is much more than handling just loneliness – Even though the number of singles has been increasing in many places (sometimes to over half the adult population), the market has filed to understand the commercial experience of singles by always skewing to the ideal life centered on couples and nuclear families.

The rapid and startling decline of world’s vast boreal forests – Boreal forests are Earth’s single largest biome…up to 30% of the globe’s forest cover. An indicator species of this biome are moose and their numbers in Minnesota have dropped so quickly that some groups want to list them as endangered in the Midwest. The Boreal forest may be shrinking…dying…changing. The boreal forests are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. There could be a near term tipping point. Many trees are dying already.

Sweden is on track to becoming the first cashless nation – I’ve noticed in recent years that I use a lot less cash…but not quite cashless. The US has a ways to go.

The Chemistry of Superglue – A little about the history of superglue…and how it works.

The end is in sight for reading glasses – I hope this works! The idea of replacing natural lenses with liquid crystals is also applicable to helping people that have cataracts.

Chaco Culture National Historic Park – Another Dark Sky Park. Now that I’ve been to one star party….I’m looking for other places in the US that have as good or better dark skies! I’ve been to Chaco once….during the day…and thought the isolation of the place made it easier to imagine the people that lived there long ago.

A nap to recap: how reward, daytime sleep boost learning – As I read about the study – I wondered what the results would be with a meditation break rather than a sleep break.

Winners of Nikon's 2015 Small World Contest Reveal the Microscopic Beauty of Our World – Images of things you can’t see so easily with just your eyes.

Orange lichens are potential source for anticancer drugs – Parietin in a pigment in orange lichens and rhubarb…that has the potential for treating leukemia without toxicity to human blood cells.

Study compares traditional, modern views of aging – There seems to be consensus that older people are more respected and perceived as wiser than younger people. However, traditional societies think older people have better memories and modern societies think older people have poor memories.

Staunton River Star Party

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My husband and I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Staunton River Star Party (held at Staunton River State Park). The park is an International Dark Sky Park….lots more stars visible than in the area where we live. The park prepared well for the event – with star party themed jack-o-lanterns, red cellophane on all windows were white light my leak, and paths marked with red snake lights or small red LEDs on stakes.

The observing field already had a lot of people setting up by the time we got there but we managed to get a spot that was close to one of the electrical hubs – good to be able to run equipment directly and/or easily recharge batteries during the day. We started to unpack and quickly discovered that we had forgotten our tent! Fortunately we did have the tent-like cover for the back of our SUV and some extra tarps. My husband and I managed to sleep inside the car on an air mattress (it helped that he was observing until the wee hours of the morning since the space was a narrow enough that we could only roll over in unison)!

We tied one side of a tarp to the roof rack and used tripods we had brought for our cameras to hold the corners away from the car. The wind came close to knocking the tripods over before we hung heavy equipment bags as weights. Having the tarp helped during the day when it got a bit warm in the bright sunshine.

I took sunrise and sunset pictures too: Sunrise on Tuesday morning. Note the various tents, trailers, awnings and cars…the whole field looked like this with a lattice of drive lanes to provide just enough organization so vehicles could get in and out.

Sunset on Tuesday evening. There were enough clouds at sunset that everyone was looking around for signs of clearing…and it did by the time it was fully dark.

Sunrise Wednesday morning – a few hours before we left. There were quite a few crows greeting the sun and they seemed to like the bare tree – stopping there before moving about and sometimes coming back to perch again for a little while.

The clouds on that last morning looked like they were losing part of themselves as they floated into morning.

The dew was heavy both nights we were at the star party and people generally called it a night before 3 AM. Those that did not have heaters to keep condensation off their mirrors had to stop earlier. I took pictures walking around during the mornings when the telescopes were generally neatly covered.

 

 

I took one short hike and found more fungi than I expected. There were a few colorful trees as well. Otherwise – I was feeling relaxed and lazy with the flurry of star party activity going on all around me.

 

 

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 17, 2015

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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.

One-Third of Cactus Species Threatened – The main dangers to cacti are illegal trade for horticulture and private collections. I was surprised that development in areas where they grow was not high on the list of dangers too.

How to tangle on glass Christmas ornaments – Wow! This is a project I want to try. I’ve already started practicing by tangling on soft drink bottles. It takes some new skills to work on a rounded surface!

Take Free Online Classes, Get Course Credit at MIT – The experiment is a one year program in supply chain management. The first half is online (and free); the second semester is on campus.

What Those Frost Patterns on Your Car Window Have to Do with Ice in Space – The patterns are like abstract art – I prefer to use the defroster rather than the scrapper…watch them melt slowly.

DuPont Predicts CRISPR Plants on Dinner Plates in Five Years –Improving crops by rapidly introducing beneficial gene variants found in other varieties of the same species.

Microsoft’s Very Good Day – Microsoft has a whole new vibe….that became a lot more apparent in early October.

Postcard from Cape Monarch – It would be wonderful to see this many Monarchs on goldenrod here in Maryland. We have seen the butterflies this past summer – but not in the numbers we observed before the mid-1990s.

Dying at home leads to more peace, less grief, but requires wider support -

9 Germ Fighting Facts – Well timed for the beginning of the cold and flu season!

Not your average peacock – Peacock images collect by National Geographic editors

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 10, 2015

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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 People and Pueblos of Wupatki National Monument in the 1930s and 40s – The article includes pictures from just after the area became a National Monument. I enjoyed my visit to the monument last winter (see post with photographs here...and the picture below).

A Chart That Shows Where Every Country in the World Gets Its Food – North America is not very self-sufficient! About 90% of our calories come from somewhere else than North America. (Check here for the ‘Degree of Dependence per Country’ table.)

A neuroscience researcher reveals 4 rituals that will make you a happier person – A summary of research findings that can be applied…from Business Insider.

15 Intimate Portraits of Lions – Lions in the wild….pictures from National Geographic.

Aging Workers, New Technology – I was disappointed in the article. The examples seemed lame. For example – better floor mats for jobs that require a lot of standing are good for younger people too! Making technology more intuitive for everyone is important ---- smaller is not always better, and that is true for more than just gaining workers.

How many trees are there in the world? – From Scientific American – the answer is over 3 trillion but we are losing 10 million trees per year.

Martian Life Could Be a Biotech Bonanza – After the announcement of briny water on the Martian surface….what might that mean for the type of life we might find on Mars.

Easy Pumpkin Muffins – I love pumpkin muffins. The recipe I usually use is one that originally was for sweet potato muffins – so if pumpkin is in short supply this year (which I just heard that it might be by Thanksgiving) – substitute cooked sweet potatoes (not the canned ones….the ones from the produce department…bake them) for the pumpkin. Butternut squash will work too.

How to clean and airliner – Maybe I didn’t really want to know this. I’m carrying hand sanitizer from now on when I fly.

Solar-Plus-Battery Systems Can Insulate Customers from Increasing Prices – Solar panels – battery storage – the grid….some ideas about what the future relationship could be.

Learning Log – October 2015

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The fall is the time of year still feels like the beginning of the schools year – a time to start learning something new – even though I have been out of school for more than 30 years! The fall is no exception.

Coursera is a mainstay for me although I’ve made a rule for myself to never have more than two courses going concurrently. Right now, I’m working on week 5 of 6 in a Meditation course (University of Virginia). The material is so rich that I find myself overwhelmed at times; it takes work to get through all the material for week in 7 days! One way to evaluate a course is to ask myself what I do differently after taking the course. For this one, the change is happening while I am taking the course: a daily meditation practice.

I finished the first week of the Forests course (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on the very last day of September. There are three more weeks to go. It has gotten off to a good start. The instructor has included a lot of context around the topic of forests – like why we have seasons, wind and current patterns, etc. I’m looking forward to the rest of the course.

About the time I finish up the Meditation and Forests courses, a new one on Ancient Egypt will start near the end of October.

Audio Book. I checked out Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Begginners from my local library (online) to listen to in conjuction with the Coursera course on Meditation. About half of it was guided meditation practice which meshed well with the practices from the Coursera course.

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Creative Live was the source for several classes in September. My husband purchased The Art of Flower Photography and we watched the entire thing once; we’ll probably review some modules again after we have done some more experimenting. We ordered a white umbrella to diffuse to bright light on outdoor flowers and I made a baffle out of a white plastic shopping bag to make a white background for a flower.

I also watched some of the Creative Life Photo Week. I learned just enough to be dangerous from a 1.5 hour module on Photoshop Elements!

Learning by doing. September was a month to refresh myself on the general content of hikes with elementary school aged field trips since the fall hikes peak in October. The first one was on Oct. 1 – and it rained for most of the hike with first graders. It was an experience that the students, chaperones, and volunteer naturalists (like me) will remember – mostly positive. I think I learn something new on every hike I do with children.

Both my husband and I are renewing our knowledge of car camping. Years ago we camped to save money as we traveled. Now we are camping as part of his astronomy hobby – so we can stay out all night at astronomy gatherings but still be comfortable for when we are not observing. We had sold or given away all our gear so are busy figuring out what would work best for us now --- and our first nights out will be in October.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 03, 2015

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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.

What you may not know about the world beneath your feet – 10 items from BBC future. A short paragraph is included for each one and then a link to a more detailed larger article is provided.

Salamanders Lost, Found and Saved – From National Geographic about salamanders in Guatemala.

U.N. Dreams Big: 17 Huge New Goals to Build a Better World – As I looked at the list – I asked myself if they are all equally important and how the goals will get translated into action by individuals and organizations and governments. Two keywords that appear again and again (standing out to me): sustainability and inclusive.

Angry Birds: Why Molting Makes Our Feathered Friends Grumpy – Many birds molt between the time nesting ends and migration begins. Since our cardinals are here year-round, I have been watching them closely this year. They did look scruffy for a time…then I didn’t see them as often…and now they are looking much better. The male goldfinches have already made the change to their winter plumage; I wonder where they dropped their yellow feathers?

Photography in The National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Arches National Park – Part 2  - We didn’t get to see Arches a few years ago when we went to Utah in early October 2013; the government (and national parks) were closed. I enjoyed these pictures…and attached a picture of Wilson Arch that is right on Route 191 south of Moab that was the only arch picture I got during the trip!

For U.S. Tribes, a Movement to Revive Native Foods and Lands – Wild rice in wetlands being restored in Minnesota.

Decision aids help patients with depression feel better about medication choices – From the Mayo clinic. It bothered me that before using the tool…’clinicians are often uneasy or unwilling to offer options other than their preferred prescriptions.’ That is probably true of more than depression medications!

Increased internet access led to a rise in racial hate crimes in the early 2000s - So many things are positive about broadband internet access….this is a downside. We often think that more information helps people understand others better --- but this is another study that shows that it can also lead to extreme polarization.

Work in Transition – On sentence from the article: Choreographers, elementary school teachers, and psychiatric social works are probably safe…telemarketers and tax preparers are more likely to be replaced. Work done by humans will increasingly involve innovative thinking, flexibility, creativity, and social skills.

The curious chemistry of custard – I make pumpkin (or other winter squash) custard frequently this time of year. I’ve always wanted how the consistency develops. It turns out it is all about eggs and their protein!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 26, 2015

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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.

An Up-Close View of Bristol Bay’s Astonishing Sockeye Salmon Runs – Learn about sockeye salmon in southwest Alaska from the Yale e360 video contest first runner up video.

Oregon's "Lost Lake" Drains Down a Perplexing Hole – Surreal photographs….the lake accumulates in the winter and drains away each spring!

Great Grasses for Native Gardens – These grasses are for the Baltimore, Maryland area…but there are probably similar lists for other places. Native Gardens are not just for flowers! I think I’ll look further at the Red October big bluestem!

Training more effective teachers through alternative pathways – Wow! What does this mean for education departments in colleges?

Spinning Synthetic Spider Silk – Evidently the first application will be in apparel….in 2016. Potentially this ‘spider silk’ fiber may with proteins produced by yeast and then spun maybe the synthetic fiber of the future – as we shift away from petroleum based synthetics.

The Chemistry of Deodorants vs. Antiperspirants – The ingredients of deodorants and antiperspirants are sometimes in the news linked to health issues. This post is a nice summary of the current research.

Meet the Foxes of Silicon Valley – We have foxes in our suburban area on the east coast (Maryland). Good to know that the area around San Francisco has them too.

Reducing Food Waste and Setting the Table for All – Chart 2 was the part of this post that interested me the most. What do you think about this list of what stores could do to reduce food waste? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I can do to reduce food waste at home. My store already does most of the things on this list.

Camera Drone Captures Gorgeous Aerial Shots of Iceland's Diverse Terrain – Beautiful place.

Hackberry: The Best Tree You’ve Never Heard About – Maybe this will be the next tree I plant at the edge of our forest….although now that I know there is a black walnut tree nearby I need to reconsider how well other trees will grow.