A passenger was listening to music on her own battery-operated headphones as she dozed about two hours into the trip from Beijing to Melbourne on February 19, 2017 when there was a loud explosion.  The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which did not identify the airline or brand of headphones involved in the incident, said the lithium-ion batteries in the device likely caught fire.  "As the range of products using batteries grows, the potential for in-flight issues increases," it said, adding that such devices needed to be stored safely if they were not being used.  Spare batteries should be kept in carry-on luggage, and not checked in, the bureau said.  Last year, a flight due to leave Sydney had to be evacuated when smoke was seen coming from a passenger's hand luggage.  It was later found that lithium batteries had caught fire.  Also last year, an electronic device began belching smoke then caught fire on a Qantas flight from Los Angeles to New York, with a crew member needing to use a fire extinguisher to put it out, the ATSB reported.  In another Qantas incident in 2016, attendants were alerted to smoke on a flight from Sydney to Dallas.  They found a crushed and burnt out device wedged tightly in the seat.  "We've also had a case of a person using personal air purifier and the batteries in that have caught on fire on a flight," ATSB's Stuart Godley told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  Many airlines last year barred all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones over fire risk concerns, following reports of exploding lithium-ion batteries.  The South Korean electronics giant, which prides itself on innovation and quality, was forced to recall all its Note 7s, costing it billions of dollars.   Lithium-ion batteries are prized for handheld electronics because they can pack a considerable amount of energy for their weight.  https://phys.org/news/2017-03-headphone-batteries-flight-australia.html

March 9, 2017  San Francisco  Uber admitted it used a tool to thwart city regulators in a statement that announced a review of its controversial Greyball technology.  Greyballing, a play on blackballing, was a way for Uber officials to remotely provide ghost driver information to a targeted individual.  

A March 3 report https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html on the program in The New York Times cited a 2014 example where a regulator in Portland, Ore., a city in which Uber was operating without approval at the time, was unable to hail a car because of his Greyball-powered app.  "We have started a review of the different ways this technology has been used to date," Joe Sullivan, Uber's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post.  https://newsroom.uber.com/an-update-on-greyballing/  "In addition, we are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward."  Marco della Cava  http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/03/08/uber-stop-using-greyball-target-regulators/98930282/

The word grocerant is a handy portmanteau of 'grocery' and 'restaurant.'  It's been used to describe what has long been a thoroughfare of grocery stores in the States, wherein grocery stores offer prepared foods and, ideally, an environment on the premises where you can eat them.  These two divergent experiences, shopping and eating, cohabitate the same space.  Mayukh Sen  Read more at https://food52.com/blog/19202-what-is-a-grocerant

Love is blind to minor faults.  More often than not, an adventure begins with a perfectly ordinary act.  Snake Dreams, Charlie Moon Mystery #13 by James D. Doss

James D. Doss (1939-2012) was a noted American mystery novel author.  He was the creator of the popular fictional Ute detective/rancher Charlie Moon, of whom he wrote 17 mystery novels.  James "Danny" Doss was born and raised in Kentucky and died in Los Alamos, New Mexico.  He was also an electrical engineer who worked on particle accelerators and biomedical technology for the University of California's Los Alamos National Laboratory, while writing his novels.  After retirement from Los Alamos National Laboratory, he continued to write his popular novels while living in Taos, New Mexico and Los Alamos, New Mexico.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Doss See also https://amberfoxxmysteries.com/2013/12/11/tribute-to-james-d-doss/

Caltha palustris, commonly called marsh marigold, is a rhizomatous perennial that in North America is native to marshes, swamps, wet meadows and stream margins from Newfoundland to Alaska south to Nebraska, Tennessee and North Carolina.  It neither looks like nor is related to marigolds (Aster family).  It belongs to the buttercup family, and its shiny yellow flowers indeed look very much like buttercups.  It typically grows 12-18” tall on hollow, branching stems.  Bright yellow flowers (1-2” diameter) with 5-9 waxy deep yellow petal-like sepals bloom in spring (April to June).  Flowers give way to seed pods which split open when ripe to disperse the seeds within.  Long-stalked, rounded to cordate, glossy green basal leaves (to 7” across) attain mature size in summer well after flowering.  Upper stem leaves are smaller and stalkless.  Flower buds may be cooked and pickled in vinegar for use as a substitute for capers.  Young leaves are also edible as cooked greens when boiled.  No part of this plant should ever be eaten raw however.  See picture at http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a635

MORE ON PI  The first Pi Day celebration was held at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988.  The founder of Pi Day was Larry Shaw a now-retired physicist at the Exploratorium who still helps out with the celebrations.  Some people have proposed to celebrate the Pi Day on July 22 because written in the European date format as 22/7, it is an approximate value of pi closer than 3/14.  See a resolution passed by Congress on March 12th, 2009 recognizing March 14th as the national day of Pi at  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/H._RES._224_Supporting_the_designation_of_Pi_Day,_and_for_other_purposes   See graphics and link to Pi songs at http://www.pi314.net/eng/piday.php

MORE ON CORNED BEEF  Cattle in Ireland were not consumed for meat until the beef-eating British came to rule.  The British married their love of beef to Ireland’s quality salt (of corn kernel-size, hence the name “corned”) to produce “corned beef.”  “Irish” corned beef (much saltier than the version we know today) was prized in Europe and the Americas, but the Irish themselves simply couldn’t afford it under the oppressive British trade laws.  Find corned beef brisket recipe at https://wellnessmama.com/4420/corned-beef-brisket/

The tallest building in the world is a library . . . because it has the most stories.  Doodle Zoo comic strip  March 19, 2017

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1680  March 20, 2017  On this date in 1915, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity.  On this date in 1923, the Arts Club of Chicago hosted the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.