Gleanings of the Week Ending December 19, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The future of medicine is testing our body fluids at home – Will the ‘annual physical’ become a thing of the past as this testing becomes more widely available?

The Coming Winter Part Two: The Elephant in the Room – The second part of Dan Satterfield’s explanation of the long range forecast for the winter.

Living Alone Now the Most Common Type of Household – Analysis of US households from 1930-2010. The over 60 population accounts for the majority of population that lives alone so the expectation is that the number of ‘living alone’ households will continue to increase.

Storing Electricity in Paper – Made from  nanocellulose and a conductive polymer….the basic research is promising…not to develop a production method for the power paper.

Improving Tools for Quantifying the Effectiveness of Conservation – Trying to quantify the effectiveness of conservation efforts is hard. This post is about the work of environmental economists to do it.

Pesticide found in milk decades ago may be associated with signs of Parkinson’s – I was reading this article while I was in Hawaii…and that is where the study was done. The pesticide heptachlor epoxide was used in the pineapple fields in the early 1980s in Hawaii and made its way into milk of that era in Hawaii.

Top 10 Winter Wildlife Experiences to Enjoy near You – Some ideas for getting outdoors in the winter. My husband and I are planning several jaunts to Conawingo Dam to photograph bald eagles this winter. And if we get snow (so far we have had a very warm winter hear in Maryland), we’ll look for tracks and look for wildlife in the morning/evening around our house.

Native Spotlight: American Holly – An item for the season. Holly is a plant often associated with Christmas. My picture is from a holly at Belmont Manor and Historical Park

Explore Machu Picchu in Google Maps Street View  and Artifacts from Machu Picchu from Google’s Cultural Institute – Another place for virtual travel.

One Million Icequakes – Data was collected from a glacier in Greenland for 2 years…one that produced 20 icequakes every 60 seconds. The icequakes offer a window into the glacier bed where the ice meets the sediment.

Some Winter Trees

Sometimes trees get a lot harder to identify in the winter but there are some easy ones to notice on winter hikes or drives. Here are my favorites from the area of Maryland where I live.

Holly. There is a holly growing as an understory tree in the forest behind our house. Whether they are in a forest or used as landscaping around houses – their red berries and bright green leaves are a spot of color in the winter landscape. The branches are used in greenery arrangements and garland at Christmas….but watch out for the prickles on the leaf edges.

Sycamore. After the leaves fall, the white inner bark of the sycamores is very striking. They grow quite large along the rivers and streams in our area.

River Birch. Most of the ones I’ve seen have been used as part of a landscape. Their peely bark is full of color in the winter landscape.

White or Paper Birch. The high contrast (black and white) of the bark makes these trees easy to spot.

Bald Cypress. This one not common in our area. We are little too far north. But is survives as a landscape tree. The knees give it away!

Southern Magnolia. The leaves on these trees say green all during the winter: waxy green on top and velvety brown underneath. You made find seed pods on the ground.

Sweet Gum. Sometimes it is easy to identify a tree by what is on the ground. Most Sweet Gum trees are so prolific that there are lots of gum balls around the tree all winter long.

Backyard View - March 2015

Our backyard was snowy for more than half the month of March this year. At times the maple branches would begin to look red - but this it would get very cold again and the tree would turn back to the very wintery looking gray/brown.

This first picture is from March 4th. The forest floor was full of fog that morning because the air was warming and the snow was melting during the days but freezing again each night.

On the 20th we got more snow and it coated everything. The snow was surprisingly light but there was no breeze to knock it off the branches. It was a good day to be indoors.

The last picture is from March 30th. The maple does have red flowers on its branches. I’ll have to go out on the next sunny day to see if any of the flowers are low enough to photograph. The deer browse the tree heavily (so the low branches are devoid of flowers). The holly back in the forest and the long needled pines are about the only things that do not have a ‘deer pruned’ look this time of year.