Hills of the US midwest

Many people--including myself until relatively recently--have a mental map of the midwestern states that is pretty flat. While there are many flat plains, there are also a lot of low rolling hills. Many are direct or indirect products of the Ice Age. The hills of Wisconsin were under thick ice sheets which smoothed hills and left undulating terrain. The Sandhills and Loess Hills are dunes that were blown in by winds carrying sand from deposits left behind by glaciers to the northwest. Even before the Ice Age, the Midwest was under a large sea.

I definitely need to take Toyota cruise through some of them to discover more of my own country's huge, diverse landscapes.

Some hills of the US midwest:
-The Sandhills of Nebraska
-The Flint Hills of Kansas
-The Black Hills of South Dakota
-The Driftless region of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois
-The Loess Hills of Iowa

Sandhills, Nebraska - home of great Sandhill Crane migration on the Platte River every summer


Flint Hills of Kansas


Black Hills, South Dakota - home of Mount Rushmore


The Driftless region of Wisconsin


Broken Kettle Grasslands in the Loess Hills, Iowa - home of 135 bison


Map of North America during the Last Glacial Maximum i.e. farthest extent of ice during the last Ice Age including many areas of the Midwest under ice. Advancing and retreating ice scoured the region, leaving smoothed hills.


North America during the Late Cretaceous ~75 million years ago. The Western Interior Seaway covered much of the Midwest including lots of prehistoric sea creatures.

English speakers in Europe

Scandinavia and the Netherlands are extensions of the English-speaking world.

One source has Norway, which shows no data above, at 90% English speaking.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/03/norwegian-english-fusion-language/

Neglected infectious diseases - a major topic of study

Neglected infectious diseases
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Neglected-Infectious-Diseases

Stamping out sleeping sickness
http://www.stampoutsleepingsickness.com/about-sos-/sleeping-sickness-and-nagana.aspx

Many diseases that affect millions of people in Africa and other developing countries have not received much research, partly because they do not affect people in developing countries.

On the site above, Bill Gates' Millenium Foundation names several "high opportunity targets" being funded including among others:

-Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
-Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
-Human papillomavirus (HPV)

Interactive map showing renewable energy in Virginia

Interactive map showing renewable energy in Virginia
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/renewables/map_virginia.asp#map

Shows both existing and planned

Sharing economy

The rise of the sharing economy
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy?fsrc=scn/ln_ec/the_rise_of_the_sharing_economy

Seoul, South Korea: aiming to be the "world's first sharing city"
http://www.shareable.net/blog/sharing-city-seoul-a-model-for-the-world

Sharehub is South Korea's official sharing site
see this list of their services http://english.sharehub.kr/services/

-Seoul is sharing via tool libraries, OpenCloset children's clothes, rental spaces from elderly to young people, and many other things through government programs.

Low-tech farming helps make African farmers climate-resilient

How Low-Tech Farming Innovation Can Make African Farmers Climate-Resilient

"Farmers started planting crops that enhance soil fertility such as peanuts, beans and pigeonpea, which provide a food source as well as other benefits such as a source of cash, livestock feed and even fuelwood. Families had improved child nutrition and food security was enhanced as well as land quality. These methods are now expanding to thousands of farmers through the Malawi Farmer to Farmer Agroecology project."

-Problem: Green Revolution too costly for many small farmers in Africa, puts all eggs in one basket with monocultures, not to mention causes pollution - chemical pesticides, pesticides

-Solution: “Agroecological methods – farming practices that mimic nature by adding organic material to soil, planting trees on cropped fields and using natural enemies to attack insect pests."

Encourage crop diversity, crop rotation - opposite of monoculture:
-"Farmers started planting crops that enhance soil fertility such as peanuts, beans and pigeonpea, which provide a food source as well as other benefits such as a source of cash, livestock feed and even fuelwood."

-Farmers experiment with their own lands, teach other famers directly

http://gizmodo.com/how-low-tech-farming-innovation-can-make-african-farmer-1732271015

I'm a big fan of low-tech. I have a flip phone and even that has too many features.

Dinosaurs in snowy Alaska

A ‘lost world’ of dinosaurs thrived in the snowy dark of Alaska, researchers say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/22/a-lost-world-of-dinosaurs-thrived-in-the-snowy-dark-of-alaska-researchers-say/

Usually you don't think of snow and dinosaurs as going together, turns out they did in Alaska.