Waking Up to Bird Song

I like waking up with the birds rather than an alarm clock. Of course - that means that I am waking up a bit earlier as the days gets longer since the birdsong occurs before dawn!

Somehow even with the house closed and air conditioned…and a ceiling fan turning lazily…I still hear the birds. There is forest behind our house and three trees in the front which provide ample places for birds to proclaim their presence in the world!

Surely in the days before air conditioning, most people woke up with the birds. It was impossible not to. Who could sleep through all that joy! Now we think of children sleeping later in the summer but that was not the case 50 years ago. When I think back to my childhood, it seems like most everyone I knew was a ‘morning’ person. The early morning was the best time of day to get physical work done too - before it got too hot.

I’ve stayed a morning person and I naturally wake up early…the timing this time of year is linked to the birds!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 2, 2015

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 Best Vegan Milk (Non-Dairy) Alternatives - A good reference about how the non-dairy ‘milks’ are made. My current favorite in unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

Babies as young as 6 months using mobile media - Wow! This is scary. A lot has changed in 25 years. Then again - a lot changed in the 25 years before that. How many 3 year olds watched television on a daily basis in the 1950s…almost none. There were cartoons on Saturday morning by the 1960s. Quite a few children were watching shows like Sesame Street (and other shows too) almost daily 25 years later. Has mobile media replaced television or is it in addition to television?

A New 'Livability Index' to Help Americans Age in Place - AARP has a new tool that takes a number of factors into account to assess ‘livability’ (tool is here….enter your zip code in the box in the right side frame of the page.

Every Breath You Take: State of the Air 2015 - Read the post and then go to the State of the Air site and put in your state. Most cities get an ‘F’ which does not bode well for the health of a majority of the US population.

7 things we've learned about Earth since the last Earth Day - This was posted for Earth Day but I saw it a little late. I’m sure it was hard to choose 7 things…the ones picked were pretty significant.

 Gut Microbes Influence Circadian Clock  and Circadian Clock Controls Sugar Metabolism - Two articles about circadian clock importance to the way our bodies handle food. I’ve noted these articles more since I took a Coursera course on the circadian clock.

The Octopus’ Birthday: Understanding an Intelligent & Elusive Marine Creature - These creatures are so different that they evoke almost the same fascination as dinosaurs with children…and maybe adults too. Did you know that the age of an octopus can be determined by counting the rings in its stylet (rudimentary shell); the number of rings = the number of days the octopus lived.

Why the Tiniest of Fossils Mean Big Things to Scientists - A 6 minute video from the American Museum of Natural History about foraminifera….how beautiful they are and what they tell us about Earth’s past (and maybe the future too).

Living to 100: Lifestyle advice for would-be centenarians - The results from a study of 855 men born in 1913…10 of them lived to 100.

Seven of the Most Beautiful Botanical Mazes on Earth - A collection of videos of mazes.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 28, 2015

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.

Pollinator Partnership Planting Guides - Planning a garden? How about giving the pollinators in your area a boost too? This site has a planting guide for ‘ecoregions’ in the US - accessed by entering your zipcode!

A Wet and Wild look Inside the 'Mushroom Houses' Of a Fungi Farm - Ever wonder how mushrooms you buy in the grocery store are grown? This post includes a short video. If we had household gardener robots - would you grow mushrooms as well as vegetables?

The Surprising, Depressing Reason Why City-Dwelling Robins Sing at Night - When I saw the picture at the front of this post, my first thought was “that’s not a robin.” But it is - a European robin. I was thinking of the North American variety. It is disturbing that our lights are messing up circadian rhythms - our own and other organisms.

What is the oldest city in the world? - It is surprisingly controversial. How many of the possibilities in the article have your heard about before?

Deconstructing mental illness through ultradian rhythms - A study that suggests that regular meals and early bedtimes may lead to a better life and prevent the onset of mental illness. The study discovered a new dopamine-based rhythm generator. The full paper is available here.

Retracing the roots of fungal symbioses - Mycorrhizal fungi live on the roots of host plants where they exchange sugars that plants produce for mineral nutrients that fungi absorb from the soil. It is hard to visualize - and often not well understood. Now genomics is being applied. Climate change will put whole new stresses on symbiotic relationships. I hope the knowledge gained from this type of research will help us maintain or increase food production as the environment changes.

Liquid Biopsy - Fast DNA-sequencing machines are leading to simple blood tests for cancer - There are some technologies that are so appealing…that you wish they were already available. But it is not easy. So far - the work is for specific types of cancers. The ability to do faster DNA sequencing is improving the prospects.

Ocean circulation change: Sea level spiked for two years along Northeastern North America - Climate change and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)…most of the models predict a weakening of the AMOC over the 21st century and it appears that there was changed in the 2009-2010 time frame.

Computational Anthropology Reveals How the Most Important People in History Vary by Culture - This study looked at articles about significant people in the English, German, Chinese and Japanese language versions of Wikipedia as a data source.

These Brilliantly Colored Bolivian Buildings Look Like Alien Spaceships - Wow! Almost too much color…but certainly different than the majority of buidlings.

Sustainability - Focus on Light

One of the luxuries we often times take for granted is the availability of light at the flip of a switch. It makes it possible for us to do just about anything we want at any time of the day or night. What are the elements of sustainability related to light?

Lighting requires energy so:

• Use energy efficient fixtures and bulbs. All our lamps that originally had incandescent bulbs now have compact fluorescent bulbs and the overhead lighting fixtures in the kitchen/basement utilize the tube style fluorescent bulbs. There are still a few halogen floor lamps in our house but I try to not turn them on in the summer when the heat they generate is at cross purposes with the air conditioner! The lights around the mirrors in the bathroom and the dining room fixture still use incandescent bulbs and I don’t plant to replace them.
• Turn off lights when they are not needed. ‘Need’ is full of nuance. When I read - I need a light. But how much extra light do I need if I am reading on a tablet…or if it is in the daytime and my chair is by a window? How important are some lights to feeling secure? We do have a timer system in our house that turns a few lights on and off even if we are not home. If we are home - the lights are on in the evenings and early mornings in the rooms where we are….and not in other parts of the house.

Another element of sustainability when it comes to light - is the influence light has on health. It is an area of research and harder to internalize that the energy consumption issue.

• More outdoor light exposure seems to reduce nearsightedness. It’s not clear what it is about outdoor light that is important.
• Seasonal depression is linked to the amount of daylight (i.e. winter blues).
• Light from computer monitors and e-reader before bedtime can impact sleep.
• Melatonin in linked to light exposure and then a lot of other biological functions. One researcher is investigating the use of blue light to slow, prevent preterm labor (because it reduces melatonin which is linked to contractions).

Coursera - February 2015

Only two courses in progress for me right now! It takes a lot of will power to not sign up for more; there are competing activities this month: travel and classroom-based courses. Here are the two that will keep me busy in February.

Circadian clocks: how rhythms structure life (from Ludwig-Maximilians - Universitat Munchen (LMU) is off to a good start with a mix of history of the research and vocabulary. It’s a topic that is interesting and has lots of implications for health and well-being.

The Land Ethic Reclaimed: Perceptive Hunting, Aldo Leopold, and Conservation (from University of Wisconsin-Madison) started off by having student pick an avatar that reflected their perspective of the course topic. I chose ‘naturalist;’ it will be interesting to see the demographics of the other students in the course. I like the way the instructors are using surveys and probing questions along with the typical MOOC videos, reading list, and discussion forums.

Two courses finished in January:

Recovering the Humankind’s Past and Saving the Universal Heritage (from Sapienza University of Rome) was a more philosophical course than I expected. It included discussion of the science/technology of archaeology and how it developed over time which is what I expected. But the more thought provoking parts of the class were about the concept of ‘universal heritage’ and why it is important; the relationship of wars and destruction of material culture of the past is striking. It happens alongside the human lives lost and plight of refugees in Syria and Iraq.

Origins - Formation of the Universe, Solar System, and Life (from University of Copenhagen) was a very broad course taught by a team of people from the Natural History of Denmark. It was a good update on what has been discovered since I was in college in the 1970s. Scanning Science Daily over the years helps - but it was refreshing to get a fresh update that tied it all together in an organized way.

As usual - I thrive on having some new topics to learn about and Coursera is a prime avenue for that. Hurray for Coursera!