A leap second will be added on June 30, 2015 23:59:60 UTC. A leap
second is a second which is added to Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC) in
order to synchronize atomic clocks with astronomical time to within 0.9
seconds. The reason we have to add a
second every now and then, is that Earth's rotation around its own axis, is
gradually slowing down, although very slowly.
Atomic clocks however, are programmed to tick away
at pretty much the same speed over millions of years. The last leap second was added at 23:59:60 UTC on June 30, 2012. Since 1972, a total of 25 seconds have been
added. This means that the Earth has
slowed down 25 seconds compared to atomic time since then. http://www.timeanddate.com/time/leapseconds.html See also http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
P is not always pronounced P Ph=F (phone) Ps=S (psalm)
Pt=T (pterosaur)
Pterosaurs
first appeared in the late Triassic period and roamed the skies until the end
of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago), according to an article
published in 2008 in the German scientific journal Zitteliana. Pterosaurs lived among the dinosaurs and
became extinct around the same time, but they were not dinosaurs. Rather, pterosaurs were flying
reptiles. Modern birds didn't descend from pterosaurs; their ancestors
were small, feathered, terrestrial dinosaurs.
The first pterosaur discovered was Pterodactylus,
identified in 1784 by Italian scientist Cosimo Collini, who thought he had
discovered a marine creature that used its wings as paddles. A French
naturalist, Georges Cuvier, proposed that the creatures could fly in 1801, and
then later coined the term "Ptero-dactyle" in 1809 after the
discovery of a fossil skeleton in Bavaria, Germany. This was the term used until scientists
realized they were finding different genera of flying reptiles. However, "pterodactyl" stuck as the
popular term. Pterodactylus comes
from the Greek word pterodaktulos, meaning "winged
finger," which is an apt description of its flying apparatus. The primary component of the wings of Pterodactylus and other pterosaurs were made up of a
skin and muscle membrane that stretched from the animals' highly elongated
fourth fingers of the hands to the hind limbs.
A child’s listening level is usually 2-3 grade levels above their reading
level. Reading together is a great time
for parents to bond with their children and will provide opportunities for
meaningful discussion. It will become a
time you and your child look forward to each night. Don’t restrict your child’s reading material
to only books. Provide the chance to
read other types of materials (magazines, comics, newspapers, atlases, recipes,
game instructions, etc.). This will
allow them to discover several reading materials of interest. For more leveled books, see http://orgs.bloomu.edu/americareads/leveledbooks/leveledbooks.html
and www.reallygoodstuffreading.com. Find a guided reading level list at http://hanover.k12.va.us/rpes/reading/Leveled%20Book%20List%20_summer_.pdf
Author James Patterson is primarily known for his lengthy
list of bestselling thrillers, but he has recently been making a name for
himself as a philanthropist. In March
2015, Patterson announced he would give $1.5 million to school libraries around
the nation through small $1,000–$10,000 grants that can be used for any kind of
repair or improvement. Read interview
with James Patterson by Megan Cottrell at http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/06/04/newsmaker-james-patterson/
June 6, 2015 Dan Roberts – The Guardian UK – “In the hours before US senators voted to take on
the might of the National Security Agency this week, their inboxes were deluged
with more than 2,200 supportive emails from a most unlikely group of
revolutionaries: America’s librarians. The first
politician to discover the danger of underestimating what happens when you have
thousands of librarians on your case was attorney general John Ashcroft who, in
2003, accused the American Library Association of “baseless hysteria” and ridiculed their protests
against the Patriot Act. US libraries
were once protected from blanket requests for records of what their patrons
were reading or viewing online, but the legislation rushed through after after
9/11 threatened to wreck this tradition of confidentiality in ways that
presaged later discoveries of bulk telephone and internet record
collection. In 2005, four librarians
from Connecticut also successfully fought a FBI request to use national
security letters to seize reading records and hard-drives, forcing the
government to drop the case and back off.
http://www.bespacific.com/nsa-surveillance-how-librarians-have-been-on-the-front-line-to-protect-privacy/
Librarian of Congress
James H. Billington announced June 10, 2015 the appointment of Juan Felipe Herrera as the Library’s 21st
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, for 2015-2016. Herrera will take up his duties in the fall,
participating in the Library of Congress National Book Festival on Saturday, September 5 and
opening the Library’s annual literary season with a reading of his work at the
Coolidge Auditorium on Tuesday, September 15. "I see in Herrera’s poems the work
of an American original—work that takes the sublimity and largesse of
"Leaves of Grass" and expands upon it," Billington said. "His poems engage in a serious sense of
play—in language and in image—that I feel gives them enduring power. I see how they champion voices, traditions and
histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our
larger American identity." Herrera,
who succeeds Charles Wright as Poet Laureate, is the first Hispanic poet to
serve in the position. He said, "This
is a mega-honor for me, for my family and my parents who came up north before
and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910—the honor is bigger than me. I want to take everything I have in me, weave
it, merge it with the beauty that is in the Library of Congress, all the
resources, the guidance of the staff and departments, and launch it with the
heart-shaped dreams of the people. It is
a miracle of many of us coming together."
Herrera joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the
position, including Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, W. S. Merwin, Kay Ryan,
Charles Simic, Donald Hall, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley
Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove. The new Poet Laureate is the author of 28
books of poetry, novels for young adults and collections for children, most
recently "Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes" (2014), a picture
book showcasing inspirational Hispanic and Latino Americans. His most recent book of poems is "Senegal
Taxi" (2013).
June 11, 2015 About 15 years ago, the late crime novelist Elmore Leonard drew up a list of 10
rules for writing. They were
characteristically succinct, and included such maxims as “Never open a book
with weather” and “Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue.” They were slyly funny as well: “Never use an adverb to modify the verb
‘said’…he admonished gravely,” read one.
Half a century earlier, however, as a young writer and father of four in
a suburb of Detroit, the author was breaking his own rules left and right. A new collection, “Charlie Martz and Other
Stories: The Unpublished Stories,” out from William Morrow next week, brings
together 15 short stories, 11 previously unpublished, from Mr. Leonard’s early
career. Written in the mid-1950s through
the early 1960s, when the author was in his early 30s, the short works show a
writer struggling to refine his voice—what he called his “sound.” This is “Elmore unfiltered, warts and all,”
said the author’s son Peter Leonard, who helped put the collection together. Anna Russell http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-elmore-leonard-broke-his-own-rules-1434042233
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1309
June 12, 2015 On this date in 1550,
the city of Helsinki, Finland (belonging
to Sweden at the
time) was founded by King Gustav I of Sweden. On this date in 1665, England
installed a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement
of New Amsterdam).
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