A Patchwork of Stuff -- Current Events to the Left & Research to the Right

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Personalized Learning Starts in Libraries

from eSchool News--Daily Tech News & Innovation

Friday, March 10, 2017

A Surfer Finds Gold

To mix metaphors: I love surfing the Internet, and mining for treasures. Some are short, some are long; some are serious, some are playful; some are educational, some are "junk food" for the brain! Mostly, I hope they are of interest!

It's no fun finding fun things you can't share, so HERE YOU ARE with my latest:

Libraries:

The Life and Death of the Library of Alexandria
(One of the most horrible losses to the wisdom of the world!!)

Music:
The Kid Should See This
(Well, THAT was fun!)

News, Libraries, and Antiquity:

The Monk Who Saved Manuscripts From ISIS

(That was Good News stacked upon Bad!)

Inventions:

How the Invention of Paper Changed the World

Controversy: Who owns what YOU buy?
(Do you have the right to know how to repair devices you paid for?)
Industry, and Apple, Oppose "Right to Repair"
Laws (also see ifixit,org )

When you want to entertain yourself and learn at the same time...

Made From

(An eclectic bunch of history and science facts!)

Fewer Landfills? Imagine the uses!

Seaweed-based Water Pouch
Aims to End the Need
for Plastic Bottles"

by Ryan Whitwam

Location-based literature!

As you read, stand where the story takes place.

That is really getting INTO your book!

Fiction's Newest Frontier: Literacy Geocaching

Pneumatic System

of the New York Library

Leftovers from New York's Pneumatic System,

begun in 1897!

Language Lit Timeline

Listen to samples of Beowulf, Old English, Middle English, etc.!

--from The British Library

Bonus: Stories Everywhere

Please share your own treasured finds with us!

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Dead Sea Scrolls!

New Dead Sea Scrolls Cave Discovered!

Archaeologists have found a cave that once housed Dead Sea scrolls in a cliff in the Judean desert - the first such discovery in over 60 years.
Israel's Hebrew University said the ancient parchments were missing from the cave, and were probably looted by Bedouin people in the 1950s.
Storage jars, fragments of a scroll wrapping, and a leather tying string were found at the site.
The Dead Sea scrolls date from as early as the 4th Century BC.
The priceless records include more than 800 documents written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on animal skin and papyrus.
As well as containing the oldest copies of many biblical texts, they also include many secular writings about life in the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD.
The first Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 1947, reportedly by a young Bedouin shepherd hunting for a lost sheep in Qumran, on the modern-day West Bank.

It is not known who wrote the scrolls, although some scholars have credited a Jewish sect called the Essenes.
The team excavating the latest cave was led by Dr Oren Gutfeld and Ahiad Ovadia from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with Dr Randall Price and students from Liberty University in Virginia.
The pottery jars and wrappings were found concealed in niches along the cave's walls, and inside a 4-6m (16-20ft) tunnel at its rear.

The team found fragments of pottery jars that contained the stolen scrolls

"Until now, it was accepted that Dead Sea Scrolls were found only in 11 caves at Qumran, but now there is no doubt that this is the 12th cave," said Dr Gutfeld.
"Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we "only" found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen," he said.
"The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more."
The team also found a seal made from carnelian, a semi-precious stone - evidence that prehistoric people once lived in the desert cave.

Cloth that was used for wrapping the scrolls

The Bedouin looting theory arose with the discovery of two iron pickaxe heads from the mid-20th Century that had been left inside the cave tunnel.
"I imagine they came into the tunnel. They found the scroll jars. They took the scrolls," Dr Gutfeld said. "They even opened the scrolls and left everything around, the textiles, the pottery."
He said this could be just the first in a series of discoveries, with hundreds of caves yet to be explored.

This tiny carnelian seal is evidence that the cave was once inhabited

Pictures: Casey L. Olson and Oren Gutfeld

CLICK →Digital Dead Sea Scrolls !

Saturday, January 14, 2017

The Stuff MEMEs are Made of!

THE STUFF MEMES ARE MADE OF!

I found a new "favorite picture,"

and I didn't even know that I was looking for one.

I found it through the Library of Congress,
and it speaks more than a thousand words to me!

The entire family dynamic is interesting, but

the little guy to the right is my absolute favorite part of the picture!

This is for anyone who ever felt "different"!

(You don't always have to "fit in"!)

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Make Memories Permanent

"How Memories Become Permanent:

Scientists Identify Process that Controls 'Rhythmic' Brain Waves for the First Time"

(Or in German)

Sharp wave ripples play a key role in strengthening memories, but the mechanism that forms their shape and rhythm had not been identified. Now, a team of researchers have found that they are formed by synaptic inhibitions. They also believe that "it could be main factor in memory consolidation."