Good Eatin': The History and Anthropology of Food

From the Agropolis Museum, Montpelier, Fr.:
"Discover the astounding itinerary of the world's foods from the field to the dish. Compare their nutritional functions, histories, production, transformation, consumption, and the cultural traditions they are attached to." -- from the website. <http://museum.agropolis.fr/>

The Arts:The Fitzwilliam Museum

The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge contains close to half a million objects ranging from medieval manuscripts to coins from the Roman occupation. Online exhibits span the breadth of the collection, from "Medieval Manuscripts: Illuminating the Law" to the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. The museum is in the process of creating an online catalogue of its entire collection. Currently, over 120,000 items, a quarter of the museum's total holdings, are available online, including exhibits of drawings by Federico Barocci and "Art for Mailing: Wildlife Stamp Designs by Ian Loe." Information on the museum's educational programs, hours of operation, and upcoming events are also on the site. <http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/>

Nature: Venom

"Some of the world's loveliest creatures are also the most lethal creatures. Why? Because they produce and use venom - an injected toxin - to capture prey and deter predators. Many people think that only snakes and spiders are venomous, but a variety of animals, both from land and sea, use venom." -- from the website. <http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/venoms/>

Art: Eye Contact - Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian's easy-to-navigate portrait gallery uses drawings dating from the 1880s to the 1980s to show the ways in which the art of portraiture has been changed by technology and aesthetic trends in 20th century art. Sections include New Themes for a New Century, about such pre-millennial topics as Celebrity Culture; Gender, Race, and the Body; and the Uses of Photography. Included are "Robert Kennedy" by Roy Lichtenstein from the May 24th, 1968 cover of Time magazine and Andy Warhol's romantic drawing of realist artist Jamie Wyeth that Andy began by tracing Polaroids of Wyeth the Younger projected onto canvas. The exhibit includes audio comments by Wendy Wick Reaves, curator of the exhibition. <http://www.npg.si.edu/>

Nature: Mold

"Molds are fungi that can be found both indoors and outdoors. No one knows how many species of fungi exist but estimates range from tens of thousands to perhaps three hundred thousand or more. Molds grow best in warm, damp, and humid conditions, and spread and reproduce by making spores. Mold spores can survive harsh environmental conditions, such as dry conditions, that do not support normal mold growth." -- from the website. <http://www.cdc.gov/mold/>

Search/Research: Watson

Intellext's Watson is an intelligent search tool that understands the context of what you're working on and automatically finds relevant results from anywhere: search engines, desktop search applications, news and shopping sites, blogs, subscription services, and enterprise information systems. Results arrive to your desktop in a sidebar. <http://www.intellext.com/>

Museums: Art and War - Australia, Britain and Canada in the Second World War

"Nations go to war, but it is their citizens who experience it. This experience, social and individual, needs to be both recorded and interpreted. Journalists, photographers, and filmmakers record, and to an extent interpret, historical events. But artists provide a powerful insight into these events through their particular way of seeing the world....Photographs and film, stories and documents, can all tell us about the reality of war; great war art not only shows it to us, it does so with unmediated appeal and in ways that can move us profoundly." -- from the website. <http://www.civilisations.ca/>

Community: The Children's Burn Foundation

<http://www.childburn.org/>

Marketplace: Prosper - The eBay of Loans?

This article from Business Week describes an online financial service that "matches people who need small loans, but can't get them from traditional banks, with willing lenders." These person-to-person loans do not just "provide a new way for individuals to get small loans. It could also turn anyone with a little money into a banker." Business Week, February 2006.