Wednesday, September 5, 2018


Oats are the most nutritious of all the cereal plants.  They contain more protein than wheat, and more fat than any other cereal.  They are also full of indigestible beta-D-glucans, which absorb water and are often credited with lowering bad blood cholesterol as they absorb the bad fats out of the bloodstream.  Oats also contain phenolic compounds, which are most prized as antioxidants in the human bloodstream.  Oat porridge is considered one of the cheapest, yet most nutritious meals you can have.  In fact, some say the continued success of Scottish people throughout history is all down to the porridge they eat for breakfast.  The water-absorbing carbohydrate molecule, beta-D- glucans, is what gives porridge its thick and creamy consistency.  Learn about overnight oats and oatcakes at https://www.mindfood.com/recipe/vote-for-oats/

Travel the world from the comfort of your couch.  See list of books for the armchair traveler suggested by the Santa Clara County Library District staff at https://sccl.bibliocommons.com/list/share/639057897/823795067  See also how songs trigger memories that transport us back in time and space by Christopher Bergland "The Athlete's Way" at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/why-do-the-songs-your-past-evoke-such-vivid-memories

MORE on the September 1, 2018 closing of the Toledo-Lucas County Public library main branch  When it opens again, Main Library will have undergone its first major renovation in 18 years.  Officials said the closure significantly reduces work time and cost for a project estimated to $12.2 million.  Improvements include four new collaboration spaces.  These large areas will serve uses such as organizational meetings, public services, and creative design.  The building will have a “Main Street” pathway from the front door.  All Main Library programs and services will continue during the closure.  A book return bin will remain outside the building.  Business services will move to the Heatherdowns branch, and next summer's brown bag concerts shift to Maumee branch.  Patrons may access local history department reference materials by appointment.  Some branch hours are expanding as well.  Cherry Street Mission President and CEO Dan Rogers said its Life Revitalization Center will become like a subsidiary of the library throughout the next several months.  The library contributed a collection of books—with particular focus on the trade careers—and computers to the center.  Library staff will also help train Cherry Street representatives in how to run a library at the center, Mr. Rogers said.  The Life Revitalization Center will keep this equipment.  It plans to continue the program after Main Library reopens, Mr. Rogers said.  http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2018/09/01/Closing-time-Main-Library-shuts-down-for-renovations/stories/20180901154
                                                                                                
Tips from Martha Stewart Living magazine  September 2018  (1)  Swap oats for breadcrumbs.  (2)  Serve tinned fish on toast.  (3)  Create 4-2-1 salad dressings--four parts fat like olive oil, two parts acid like lemon juice or vinegar, one part flavor booster like honey or herbs.  (4)  Cook grains ahead and freeze.  Break off pieces for soup or side dishes.

September 2, 2018  There's a new effort underway make hundreds of thousands of dried and preserved plants collected along the East Coast available through a digital database.  For centuries, explorers, scientists, and amateur botanists scoured the country to document and preserve plant species.  Once prized like fine art, the collections were often bequeathed to institutions that housed herbaria, or libraries for plants.  Over time these collections became obscure, and fell out of use.  Aside from the occasional researcher who had to schedule an appointment to view the records, and often travel long distances, these plant collections were difficult to access for most people.  Rick McCourt, botany curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia, helps manage the oldest herbarium in North America.  The herbarium has an estimated one and a half million plant species in its collection.  About 35,000 plant species were collected along the East Coast.  The new database will allow researchers to answer questions about climate change, conservation and urbanization.  Questions like:   "How has the environment changed?" said McCourt.  "What plants occur where?  Do they occur someplace differently now than they used to?  Are they vanished or gone from an area?"  He says the data contained in that herbarium might even raise the possibility of using plant DNA to bring back extinct species.  "It's more like a Jurassic Park dream," McCourt says.  "But DNA is DNA, who knows? Before 1952 we wouldn't have known what DNA was, much less that you could get it out of museum specimens."  At the Academy, the 1.5 million plant species in the collection are housed in large metal cabinets, which are compressed together in a windowless, 3rd floor room that smells pungently of herbs.  The plants were dried, then sewn, glued or taped to paper, and placed in manila folders that are stacked up inside the cabinets.  Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project will put about 800,000 records from about a dozen herbaria online via high-resolution photos of plant specimens that span the urbanized corridor from New York City to Washington, D.C.  At Muhlenberg College in Allentown, plant ecologist Rich Niesenbaum has begun using the data from the herbarium to help find out what made some of the plants in its collection go extinct.  Muhlenberg already digitized about 50,000 specimens and added it to the Megalopolis database.  Susan Phillips 

Wheat germ is a good source of iron, potassium, folic acid, magnesium, thiamin, phosphorus, and zinc as well as plant sterols.  Ten ways to use wheat germ:  in place of bread crumbs in recipes, topping for yogurt, oatmeal, or sliced fruit, in your baking by replacing some of the flour with it, filler in meatballs or meatloaf, crumb topping on desserts or casseroles, bread stuffing, ready to serve cereal, eaten both cold or hot, in smoothies, along with seasonings making a nice coating for baked fish or chicken, or add it to your favorite soup recipe.  https://www.freedieting.com/ways-to-use-wheat-germ  Wheat germ will last two weeks in your refrigerator or two months in your freezer.  You may melt butter and add wheat germ to make a pie crust.

Plant sterols (phytosterols, phytostanols and their fatty acid esters) are cholesterol-like substances that occur naturally at low levels in fruits, vegetables, nuts and cereals.  Most Australians consume between 150 and 360 milligrams of plant sterols naturally every day, depending on their diet.  When eaten in higher amounts, between 2-3 grams per day, plant sterols can naturally reduce LDL cholesterol. https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/food-and-nutrition/fats-and-cholesterol/plant

September 4, 2018  Thirteen years ago, a pair of ruby slippers from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz were stolen from a Minnesota museum.  Now, the FBI says the search is over.  It was a classic smash-and-grab in August 2005:  Some unknown thief or thieves broke in through the back door of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn., and swiped the slippers, reportedly leaving nothing but broken glass and a single red sequin in their wake.  The missing slippers are two different sizes and may be the mates of a mismatched pair at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, The New York Times reports.  In 2016, the Smithsonian launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund preservation work on the pair there.  The museum notes that five pairs of ruby slippers made for the movie are known to have survived.  Neither the Garland museum's alarm system or video surveillance system were working at the time of the 2005 theft, which Newsweek reported led some people to suspect it was an inside job.  A memorabilia collector named Michael Shaw had loaned the slippers to the museum, which is located in a house where Garland grew up--and he said he was among those questioned by authorities.  "Other people speculated that Shaw had paid someone to steal the shoes—perhaps replicas—so that he could collect insurance," according to the magazine.  Minnesota Public Radio says the shoes were insured for $1 million.  The insurance company sued Shaw, the museum and its director to avoid making that payout; Newsweek reports the parties settled in 2007, with Shaw receiving $800,000.   Laurel Wamsley  https://www.npr.org/2018/09/04/644548567/fbi-says-it-has-recovered-stolen-ruby-slippers-missing-for-13-years

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1947  September 5, 2018 

No comments: