The Weather

39 degrees this morning and sunny. What’s it like where you are?

For gardeners and weather-followers, the USDA has updated its Plant Hardiness Zone Map

http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/  Based on the average minimum winter temp, you can simply type in your zip code and find your hardiness zone. Also available as an interactive GIS-based map, the 2012 update was prompted by the nipping, nippy slavering Hounds of Climate Change…



http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/home.action



Others are hunkering down to look more closely at nanomaterials -- forms of carbon, silver, aluminum, etc., often less than 1/10,000^th the width of a human hair -- used in cosmetics, clothing, paint – and medicine. The National Academy of Sciences is concerned that their potential health and environmental risks are not being studied sufficiently  

http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Research-Strategy-Evironmental-Health/13347.

This interfaces with debates about the role of self-teaching, adaptive nanotechnology purposefully introduced into the human body to fight cancer, affect gene expression, build scaffolding. We haven't yet figured out how to insist that nanoparticles obey the Three Laws of Robotics.