Flora & Fauna: The Consortium of California Herbaria

"The Consortium of California Herbaria was developed to serve as a gateway to information from California vascular plant specimens that are housed in herbaria throughout the state. The database now includes information from nearly 800,000 specimens, all searchable through a single interface. Originally developed around botanical collections from University of California herbaria, the consortium continues to grow as more collections are added. Currently, eleven collections are accessible through this interface....The data included in this database are a snapshot of the California vascular plant collections at partner institutions. More recent data may be available through the individual herbaria. Some participating herbaria have collections of fungi, lichens, and bryophytes; those specimens are not included here." -- from the website. <http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/consortium/>

Health: Best and Worst Beverages (Consumer Reports)

Consumer Reports has a brief report on the calorie content of such beverages as smoothies and Frappuccinos, including a list of common ingredients in energy drinks, a recipe for a low-calorie smoothie, ideas for healthy beverage choices, and suggested daily drink servings for water, tea and coffee, diet drinks, and other potables.

The Arts: Virtual Instrument Museum (Wesleyan)

"Among universities, Wesleyan University has one of the largest and most diverse collections of world musical instruments...
daily-use instructional instruments and sets of instruments (e.g. gamelan, Ghanian drums, steelband)....
Early in Wesleyan's history, Methodist missionaries and alumni brought back exotic curios from around the world. Among objects from Africa, Oceania, and Asia were musical instruments, including a splendid African elephant-tusk trumpet....The launching of the Wesleyan Virtual Instrument Museum begins a new era for the instrument collection. Current plans for a bricks- and-mortar University Teaching Museum, scheduled to open about 2008 or later, would anchor and safeguard the collection permanently...." -- from the website. <http://learningobjects.wesleyan.edu/vim/>

Good Eatin': Cookie Recipes

"Browse our index of hundreds of tasty cookie recipes. Not just cookies, but brownies and bar cookies are included in our index. While you're here, stop by the recipe exchange in our forum, where you can post your own recipes or request a certain recipe that you have been searching for. Check out our cookie blog, with new recipes added often. Diabetic? Stop by our section of diabetic cookie recipes....Check out our articles section that features cookie baking tips, a cool feature on how to make your own cookie bouquets and what we consider to be the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever!" -- from the website. <http://cookie-recipes.net/>

Design: Xpand System expandable tables

The designers at Xpand System in Austria have created an ingenious line of all-wood expandable tables that lets you extend or close a table without needing to clear the dishes off the surface, and with no clumsy leaves to clutter up the linen closet. The furniture is beautiful, with the Xpand System architecture creating a decorative lattice element in the table top. Currently, this new collection, which became available in the US last month, includes a dining table, kitchen table and coffee table that are available in maple, bamboo, beech, beech heartwood, oak, walnut and wenge finishes. <http://www.xpand-furniture.com/>

Webmastery: 25 Best Free Quality Fonts

From the excellent blog of Vitaly Friedman, a freelance web designer from Saarbruecken, Germany comes not only The 25 Best Free Quality Fonts, but other useful posts on such topics as 25 Sites You Shouldn't Have Missed; Javascript Libraries Roundup; a list of nifty tools for drawing diagrams, charts and flow-charts; Icons Round-Up: Free Mini Pixel Icons; and 20 Rules Of Smart And Successful Web-development. Vitaly Fiedman: <http://www.alvit.de/vf/>

Tools: Check your website on multiple browsers

"Browsershots
is a free online platform where you can
test your web design in different
browsers[, including several versions of
IE and Firefox]. When you submit your
web address, it will be added to the job
queue. A number of distributed
computers will automatically open your
website in their browser. Then they will
make screenshots and upload them to
the central server here." -- from the
website. <http://browsershots.org/>

Streaming: MSN Radio

MSN Radio, MSN's online radio service, is a music recommendation engine powered by Pandora that lets listeners create custom radio stations and discover new music similar to their favorite artists or songs. <http://radio.msn.com/>

Labor: A Brief History of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)

Here's a recounting of the story of the coal miners' union beginning with its founding in 1890, that includes discussions of significant events in UMWA history (such as the Ludlow and Lattimer massacres), profiles of the organizations' presidents, and a gallery of portraits of John L. Lewis (left), the union's leader for 40 years beginning in 1920. <http://www.umwa.org/>

Good Eatin': Eat a Fish, Save an Ocean (NRDC)

Scientists say it's not too late to save ocean fisheries from global collapse, but fast action is needed to preserve marine biodiversity. You can help revive the world's oceans: buy fish that are in healthy supply, avoid those caught with destructive fishing practices, and enjoy healthy, feel-good seafood meals! 15 great Sustainable-Seafood Recipes PDF.

Transportation: Getting a bicycle that fits right

"When it comes to bicycling, you and your bike should fit well together. A proper bike fit minimizes discomfort, increases prevent pain or injury. In addition, proper stretching, balance, and flexibility exercises help with coordination of cycling-related skills such as breaking and cornering." -- from the website. <http://www.apta.org/>

Antiquity: Intro to Classical Roman Culture

Roman...domestic architecture and decor; family life, especially marriage customs, children and education; slavery; clothing; cuisine; entertainment; religion; games; exercise; funeral rites; and an absorbing exploration of Rome's sophisticated plumbing and bathing. "Welcome to Rome Exposed, the site geared toward the spreading of information on Roman Life throughout the Internet....Please feel free to take a look around to learn about how the Romans lived....This web site is based upon student summaries of various chapters of Mary Johnston's Roman Life....To increase interaction between our site and the user, we have also created a game....If you have time, we urge you to try your luck. Who knows, maybe you know more about Roman Life than you think!" -- from the website. <http://www.classicsunveiled.com/>

The Museums: Feeding Desire - Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005 (Cooper-Hewitt, NYC)

"During the past 500 years of dining history...the basic forms of the table setting have changed to reflect shifting modes of behavior and cultural preferences. From the traveling flatware of the Renaissance to the extravagant silver tableware of America's Gilded Age to the pared-down elegance of modernism, each of the utensils on view provides a fascinating glimpse into the culinary culture of its period." -- from the website. <http://www.cooperhewitt.org/>

The Museums: Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art

"One of the nation's largest facilities devoted to the art of our time, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) offers exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art created since 1945. The MCA documents contemporary visual culture through painting, sculpture, photography, video and film, and performance. Located in the heart of downtown Chicago, the MCA boasts a gift store, bookstore, restaurant, 300-seat theater, and a terraced sculpture garden with a great view of Lake Michigan," according to the website. The site has information on current and upcoming exhibitions, which have featured artists from the sculptor Alexander Calder to British video artist Gillian Wearing; "Website Insights," an online archive of the MCA's holdings of approximately 6,000 objects that enables searching by artist name, nationality, title of work, medium, and the decade in which the work was produced. <http://www.mcachicago.org/>

Bloviating: Presidential speech tag cloud

It's interesting to see how some words common in early presidential addresses -- "Constitution," say -- have largely disappeared from more recent oratory, to be replaced by, I don't know, "terrorism." <http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags/>

Privacy: Do you leave "fingerprints" when you surf the web?

"We address the question of whether humans have unique signatures - or clickprints - when they browse the Web...our results suggest that the answer to the main question is ‘most likely’, given that we observe reasonably accurate user predictions using limited data." -- from the website of The Wharton School of Business/University of Pennsylvania and the Graduate School of Management, University of California-Davis. <http://tinyurl.com/yfym4l>

Maps: Ask.com

The new map function at Ask.com kicks GoogleMaps down the road, not least because it adds a "walking" route function: <http://maps.ask.com/maps>

Resource: Spider Bites

Everything you wanted to know about spider bites but didn't know whom to ask: this fact sheet from the California Poison Control System about symptoms and treatment for spider bites features illustrated descriptions of selected arachnid superstars such as the black widow, the brown recluse, the wolf spider, and lovable tarantulas. <http://www.calpoison.org/public/spiders.html>

--

Good Eatin': The American Cranberry

Here's a site from Steenbock Memorial Library at Madison on how to plant, harvest, cook, and market this round red cousin of the blueberry. <http://www.library.wisc.edu/>

Resource: FedSpending.org

This "free, searchable database of federal government spending" from OMB Watch, "a nonprofit research and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting government accountability," is drawn "largely from two sources: the Federal Procurement Data System, which contains information about federal contracts; and the Federal Assistance Award Data System, which contains information about federal financial assistance such as grants, loans, insurance, and direct subsidies like Social Security." Includes a useful glossary. <http://www.fedspending.org>