Gleanings of the Week Ending December 12, 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.

Women don beards for documentary about inequality in the geosciences – This documentary is about women in paleontology but the challenges faced by women in any field that is overwhelmingly dominated by men are similar. The ‘beard’ is a fun visualization! It reminded me of the female pharaoh that wore a beard.

Report: China Clean Energy Investments Beat U.S., U.K, and France Combined – Hmm. Maybe the whole world is getting more focused on the challenges we have re climate change. It would be great if the US could be a leader…sad if we abdicate.

How will future archaeologists study us? – CDs last 2-5 years before they risk losing data. This article is about encoding information on DNA and storing it in glass particles…artificial fossils. Of course – they may also find our landfills to be sources of information of how we really lived.

Some Thoughts about the Coming Winter: Part One – The further out a forecast is – the less accurate it is. The post from Dan Satterfield explains why…some graphics about weather model results.

Failing phytoplankton, failing oxygen: Global warming disaster could suffocate life on planet Earth – I’ve often wondered what happens to oxygen levels as the Earth’s temperature climbs. This is on scenario…and a scary one. If we have a 6 degree Celsius increase in the water temperature of the oceans – which some models predict by 2100 – the photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the oceans could be disrupted. Two-thirds of the planet’s total atmospheric ocean is produced by phytoplankton.

Photographer Captures Stunning South Korean Landscapes Reflected in Mirror-Like Lakes – Some beautiful images. I like reflections….and I need to be observant to find them and photograph them. I always try at Centennial Lake (image to the left) but there are other places that I probably overlook completely.

The Unregulation of Biotech Crops – In some ways – this situation is similar to the designer performance enhancement drugs that are hard to test for too. Modern techniques are streaming ahead – creating things we have little ability to understand very well – let along any unintended consequences.

Physicians and burnout: It’s getting worse – This was a frustrating article. It reported the burnout statistics comparing 2011 to 2014 but no deep understanding for why burnout is increasing. I am not particularly happy with the US health system either but any attempts to change it very much seem to be impossible politically.

DIY: Cinn-Apple Ornaments – One of my daughter’s friends made and gave us some of these ornaments for Christmas …probably about 15 years ago. I carefully put them away at the end of each season and they still smell like cinnamon every time I get them out! I’m not going to make any this year but I may do it next year and put them on every knob in the house!

Eat a paleo peach: First fossil peaches discovered in southwest China – Peach pits that are 2.5 million years old! The peaches from this time period would have been about the size of the smallest commercial peaches of today.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 28, 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.

Plastic by the Numbers in the Atlantic Ocean – Samples taken during the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers show that microplastics are very common. There were 0 samples without any plastic! On a personal level, I’m reading labels on face washes and toothpastes now and not buying any that have microbeads.

6 Common Activities that Harm Wildlife – One of the six is ‘microbeads’ so another spur to action. The other activities are also thought provoking: sunscreen, feeding bread to birds, bleached products, removing weeds, and plastic bags. Most of them I had heard about before…sunscreen only recently.

Are superbugs deadlier near where you live? – They are everywhere…some places worse than others. Often they are indicators of use (and misuse) of antibiotics.

An easy pill to swallow – Research into a mechanism to deliver mucoadhesive patches via pill through the digestive tract to the small intestine. There is potential that this could change delivery of protein based therapies (insulin, growth hormone, antibodies, and vaccines) from a injections to a pill.

A Flight of Birds – 14 unusual birds…portraits from the Photo Ark project (one of the 14 is a California Condor)

800-Year-Old Ancient Extinct Squash Uncovered during Archeological Dig on Menominee Indian Reservation – I’d like to see this one in my grocery store!

Shenandoah National Park Counting on Beetles to Slow Invasive Insect – The wooly adelgid is killing the hemlocks in Shenandoah (and in our area of Maryland too). Shenandoah is importing a beetle from Japan (where the wooly adelgid came from). Evidently the beetle has already been used successfully in other parks, including Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

1,700-Year-Old Roman Mosaic Discovered During City Sewer Construction Project – Found in Israel by workers upgrading the sewer system.  It was the floor of a large room in a villa during the Roman period.

Pictures: Great Smoky Mountains National Park  and Pictures: Rocky Mountain National Park and Explore the Power of Parks – From National Geographic…lots of great pictures, of course.

Obesity: A Complex Disorder – Graphic from The Scientist with a link at the bottom for the full article. The more we learn about obesity, the more complex it seems to become.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 03, 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.

What you may not know about the world beneath your feet – 10 items from BBC future. A short paragraph is included for each one and then a link to a more detailed larger article is provided.

Salamanders Lost, Found and Saved – From National Geographic about salamanders in Guatemala.

U.N. Dreams Big: 17 Huge New Goals to Build a Better World – As I looked at the list – I asked myself if they are all equally important and how the goals will get translated into action by individuals and organizations and governments. Two keywords that appear again and again (standing out to me): sustainability and inclusive.

Angry Birds: Why Molting Makes Our Feathered Friends Grumpy – Many birds molt between the time nesting ends and migration begins. Since our cardinals are here year-round, I have been watching them closely this year. They did look scruffy for a time…then I didn’t see them as often…and now they are looking much better. The male goldfinches have already made the change to their winter plumage; I wonder where they dropped their yellow feathers?

Photography in The National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Arches National Park – Part 2  - We didn’t get to see Arches a few years ago when we went to Utah in early October 2013; the government (and national parks) were closed. I enjoyed these pictures…and attached a picture of Wilson Arch that is right on Route 191 south of Moab that was the only arch picture I got during the trip!

For U.S. Tribes, a Movement to Revive Native Foods and Lands – Wild rice in wetlands being restored in Minnesota.

Decision aids help patients with depression feel better about medication choices – From the Mayo clinic. It bothered me that before using the tool…’clinicians are often uneasy or unwilling to offer options other than their preferred prescriptions.’ That is probably true of more than depression medications!

Increased internet access led to a rise in racial hate crimes in the early 2000s - So many things are positive about broadband internet access….this is a downside. We often think that more information helps people understand others better --- but this is another study that shows that it can also lead to extreme polarization.

Work in Transition – On sentence from the article: Choreographers, elementary school teachers, and psychiatric social works are probably safe…telemarketers and tax preparers are more likely to be replaced. Work done by humans will increasingly involve innovative thinking, flexibility, creativity, and social skills.

The curious chemistry of custard – I make pumpkin (or other winter squash) custard frequently this time of year. I’ve always wanted how the consistency develops. It turns out it is all about eggs and their protein!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 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.

tado° Smart Air-Conditioner Control Reaches Major US Retailers – Smart thermostats are getting smarter!

World on Path to Miss 2C Target – Depressing. The emission reduction plans submitted by 29 governments as of September 1^st are not enough to change the temperature rise of our planet…we are looking at warming by more than 2 degrees C. The trend is for the earth to be 2.9-3.1 degrees warmer by 2100.

Cave Towers - Mule Canyon – We vacationed in this area a few years ago….the whole area is full of interesting hikes. This post makes me want to visit there again.

Sierra Nevada snowpack lowest in five centuries – Just another indicator of how bad the drought in California really is.

First Detailed Public Map of U.S. Internet Backbone Could Make It Stronger – The fiber optic cables that carry Internet data across the Continental US...considering them as critical public infrastructure.

Lost Weather Balloon GoPro Found Two Years Later with Astounding Shots of Earth from Space – The 4 minute video near the end of the post is worth watching too.

51 Favorite Photos from Astronaut Scott Kelly's First Six Months in Space - Further from earth than the weather balloon and GoPro....from the International Space Station.

Lessons Learned: Aquaponics in Baltimore – I had learned a little about this project in a Food System course from Johns Hopkins (via Coursera). It would good to get an update.

The Recycling Rates of Smartphone Metals – Recycling tech (smartphones and other tech) has got to improve since the tech refresh cycle is relatively short.

What Restaurants Can Teach Us about Reducing Food Waste – And some of the things these restaurants are doing can be done at home too!

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 8, 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.

Washington, DC sinking fast, adding to threat of sea-level rise - Evidently the sinking is not due to human influence (like groundwater withdrawals)…but the effect of the long ago glacier further north --- a bulge under the Chesapeake Bay from the weight of the ice sheet that covered the area north of Long Island NY. The bulge is now settling back down and will continue to settle for a long time to come.

Money Talks: New Climate Pledge Enlists 13 US Businesses worth $2.5 Trillion - The American Business Act on Climate Pledge. The companies are big ones: Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Cargill, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, UPS, and Walmart.

Why to babies laugh out loud? - Lots of people (Darwin was one) have been interested in the question. This article talks about a recent study. One finding: babies are far more likely to laugh when they fall over, that when someone else does.

NRDC: EPA’s Clean Power Plan Is Economically Beneficial for USA Due To Health Benefits - The Natural Resources Defense Fund report can be found here. Some of the focus areas in the report are: extreme weather, the health imperative, benefits (which far outweigh the costs), business opportunities, and the moral imperative.

The Healthiest Cities in the US - The criteria for choosing these cities is interesting. But does having higher percentages of people with insurance always mean a city is ‘healthier’ than a city that does not? I am not convinced.

Bering Sea hotspot for corals and sponges - Endangered by bottom trawling…maybe before we even fully know they are there. The research points to Pribilof Canyon as an area that could be conserved without disproportionately impacting the commercial fishing industry.

A Simple Guide to Neurotransmitters - You’ve probably heard the names of the neurotransmitters - the graphic provides a nice summary of their role and structure.

The Wild Alaskan Lands at Stake If the Pebble Mine Moves Ahead - A photo gallery from this area of Alaska.

Black Bears of Yosemite National Park - Includes a video…with lots of bear action about what happened when the park closed the trash heaps in the 1970s….and the continued challenge to keep bears from becoming acclimated to getting people food

Growth (2015) - I enjoyed this video. It is just a little over 15 minutes long...photographyed from overhead.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 30, 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.

Quiz: Can you tell these 16 cities by their skylines? -  I got 12 of the 16!

The Great Tuskers of Matusadona - Matusadona National Park in northern Zimbabwe….with lots of elephants and an organized anti-poaching group that (so far) appears to be sustaining the park wildlife.

Supreme Crispy Quinoa Vegetable Burgers - I don’t think I would actually eat this on a bun - since I general decide that I don’t like buns well enough to justify the calories. But I am always on the lookout for other ways to use quinoa since its nutritional profile is so terrific (and it tastes food too)…definitely worth the calories.

An El Nino connection to the floods in Oklahoma and Texas? - Map and narrative about El Nino and its impact on US weather patterns (using recent weather as an example).

These Are the Most Distinctive Popular Foods in Every State - Does it make sense for your state? Crab Cakes is listed for Maryland and that sounds about right.

See This Baby Flamingo Take Its First Few Steps - I knew that baby flamingoes were white (had picked up that bit of trivia somewhere along the line) but I hadn’t ever seen one. I was surprised at how big its legs were. The adult flamingoes seem very attentive to the baby too.

Insane Solar Jobs Boom About To Get $32 Million More Insane - Renewable energy stretching toward the goal of becoming competitive with fossil fuels.

There are No Shortcuts to Birding Nirvana - I was surprised that the Merlin app (from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology) was not mentioned. Maybe because it only includes 400 North American birds. It has the advantage that it is very easy to use even for new birders. I like it.

Designed for the Future: Practical Ideas for a Sustainable World - Take a look at the gallery (link below the picture). These are structures that exist - not drawings or plans.

Hidden Lead in Your Home - It isn’t just old lead pain on walls…there are more sources. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 04, 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.

Disturbingly little known about microbeads, plastics in the Great Lakes - Microbeads and small plastic debris may be a bigger environmental problem than anticipated.

Scientists Urge Museums to Cut Koch Ties - Do sponsors of exhibits at places like American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History influence the content of the exhibits they sponsor? An uncomfortable reality of modern America?

Watch Plants Sprout and Grow In Seconds, In These Astonishing Timelapses - There is a lot of sprouting going on in the springtime. I enjoyed this collection of videos showing acorns, mung beans, and chia seeds sprouting.

15 subway-style maps that explain everything but subways - Some of these maps work well…some are a stretch. Just because the style of map works for subways does not meant it is good for everything. It is fun to see the various subjects depicted this way.

What Creatures Can You Identify In This Fossilized Sea Floor? - How good were powers of observation?  Maybe a larger image would help?

Solar Shingles’ Electricity: Interview with Integrated Solar Technology - I’ve always thought solar shingles would be appealing - if this price was right they should be part of the roof on every house!

Lessons of the world’s most unique supercentenarians - More and more people are living into their 90s…and even past 100. Researchers looking at people over 85 are discovering that chronological age may not be a valid form of measuring health at all.

Good luck and the Chinese reverse global forest loss - Over the past 20 years - China has tree planting projects, there is been more rain in Australia, South America in Africa savanna areas, and Russia/former Soviet republics have regrowing forests on abandoned farmland. That has offset the vegetation loss in the Amazon forests and Indonesia.

With 'Single-Stream' Recycling, Convenience Comes at a Cost - This is frustrating. We have ‘single stream’ recycling in our area. It’s easy but it may mean that more that we ‘recycle’ actually goes to the landfill.

Exercise largely absent from US medical school curriculum, study shows - More confirmation that in the US we train doctors to help sick people….not to help people sustain (or regain) health.

Universities on the Brink of a Nervous Breakdown - Really? Isn’t it healthy for organizations to evolve rather than be static?

Sustainability - Fabrics

When I look through my closet, more than half the items are made of fabrics with synthetic fibers: things like polyester and acrylic. They are incredibly versatile. I can remember when polyester replaced cotton when I was growing up and everyone thought “how wonderful” because it was wrinkle resistant and lasted longer. Now I still enjoy those features but am realizing that that are downsides to synthetic fabrics in terms of sustainability.

• They do not biodegrade easily. The fabric will last long after the garment is unwearable.
• If the fibers do get into water - they can be ingested by fish and other wildlife and cause health problems or death.
• They are derived from fossil fuels.

So - if the goal it to live more sustainably, there are actions to take:

• Look at the fiber content of all new clothes purchases and minimize synthetic fabrics.
• Wear clothes as long as possible. My goal in many cases is to wear the completely out --- and then recycle them.
• Recycle (or donate) clothing rather than putting it in the trash.
• Launder synthetic fabrics only when needed (i.e. hoodies and vests usually don’t need to be laundered every time they are worn) to minimize the fibers into the water supply.

Sustainability - Thrift Stores

Thrift stores are a study in re-use. Items are used (sometimes gently). I donate any items I have that have some usable life rather than recycling or trashing…and they generally end up in thrift stores.

The thrift store offerings are unpredictable but often great bargains. I have several I like that are located in upper middle class areas - people that buy more than they need and often end up donating items that are well worth a second round. One has to shop with an open mind rather than a particular item in mind.

At first, I thought it would be impossible to find specific clothing. Now when I look at my closest I realize that almost all my slacks and jeans are from the thrift store. I look for black pants of any kind every time I go to a thrift store. Sometime I find several pairs in my size - sometimes none at all. Right now I am replacing pants that have gotten too big now that I’ve lost weight!

I also have collected skirts. With the low cost - I pull out anything I like and check size and washability. I have several that I would never have bought if they had been priced higher than $5!

Blouses wear out faster than pants and skirts…so when I find blouses that will supplement what I have, I purchase them even if I don’t need them right away. Only about half my blouses/sweaters/tops are from the thrift store…still a substantial contribution to my closet.

Another thrift store find: Several years ago, I discovered that I like ‘meal in a bowl’ (salads, soups, stir fry) and it needs to be a larger bowl than a cereal bowl…more like a small serving bowl. Small serving bowls are easy to find at thrift stores….I just wish I had purchased the second bowl they had like the one I bought! Never count on being able to find it again later!

Anything I am able to buy from a thrift store rather than new is an act toward sustainability….and good for my budget too.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 14, 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.

Karnak: Excavation yields 38 artifacts - New techniques and new finds at Karnak.

71% of Investors Are Interested In Sustainable Investing - It’s positive news that more people are voting for sustainability via their investments.

New Study Pinpoints Where Ocean Acidification Will Hit Hardest - Not only hardest…but earliest. The ocean does not acidify uniformly. Estuaries with excess nutrients will acidify more rapidly. Not a good new message for the Chesapeake Bay’s shell fish industry.

Boosting older adults' vision through training - The core of the message from the research was positive but it was frustrating that the next steps were all about more research. If the initial research finding holds - then why is there not already a strategy activity to think through how vision training could be delivered to larger numbers of people at low cost.

By separating nature from economics, we have walked blindly into tragedy - We live in complex world…making decisions based on simplifying assumptions that ignore the environment or economic or social aspects are perilous.

New research into materials for tooth fillings - The composite that is most common right now is problematic because it requires adhesive to bond to the tooth, needs to be illuminated with a lamp to harden, and needs to be replaced more frequently. A new material - glass ionomer cement - may be the filling material of the future.

Widely Used Antibiotics Affect Mitochondria - The environmental accumulation of tetraclines might be harming us in ways that are just now being studied. Scary.

Epoch-defining study pinpoints when humans came to dominate planet Earth - Two dates jump out: 1610 with the irreversible exchange of species between new and old worlds and 1964 associated with the fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Either way - humans have driven Earth into a new epoch…the Anthropocene.

Fun Parks to Visit in the Top 10 Cities for Wildlife - Staycation fodder. There are interesting parks in most areas of the country. These 10 are clearly the tip of the iceberg!

Did Neanderthals make jewelry 130,000 years go? Eagle claws provide clues - From a site in present day Croatia dating from 130,000 years ago.

Sustainability - Food

There is a lot about the food system in the US that is not sustainable but what can individuals do to nudge the system toward sustainability through our purchasing power?

For the items I buy from grocery store chains I

• Buy organic. It is becoming more affordable all the time.
• Avoid plastic bags and packaging when I can - and when I can’t I make sure they get into the recycling system rather than the trash. If the packaging is not recyclable - I think very hard about whether I need to buy the product at all.
• Buy local when possible. I want to minimize the transport of my food when I can so the Community Supported Agriculture farm that is less than a mile from my house is a good option for produce during the summer and fall.

Another dimension of the way we eat is when we are away from home.

• When I can - I take my own food from home and I try to package it in reusable containers rather than plastic bags.
• Eating out is not a good option from a sustainability standpoint. Very few restaurants provide meals that are sourced or prepared sustainably. It is not important enough to their customers. I have to admit that culturally, I think of ‘going out to eat’ as something that is special (for a birthday or anniversary) or convenient (but is it really faster than a meal at home if the food is already in the kitchen?) or a treat of a more complex meal that I would normally take the time to prepare. My husband and I eat out much less frequently now that we don’t go to work every day - a positive trend but still not sustainable.

And what about ‘food’ that is nutritionally ‘empty’? There is an environment cost to everything we eat - so eating more sustainability should probably include minimalizing or eliminating foods that are not food like soft drinks and candy.

Last but not least - never waste food. Eat all the food that you buy before it spoils. It is a simple concept but not always easy. It takes some thought. In the US - many households don’t think about it enough since the stats always show we have tremendous food waste in this country. We need to care more about the future of food…and embrace sustainability.

Sustainability - Planting Trees

I am thinking about spring even though it is still a bit too cold to be out planting things just yet. Today I thought about trees rather than the chaos garden or the deck garden. Trees are a lot bigger and long lived too. Trees make a home more sustainable by

• Providing shade in the summer (cooling) and bright sunlight in the winter (warming)
• Soaking up rain - slowing down the runoff into nearby stream or gutters
• Providing nesting places for birds and squirrels…food for pollinators and their larvae…and sometimes food for humans too

The oak tree to the east of our house has grown tremendously in the 20 years we’ve lived here and now shades the front of the house almost completely in the summer. In the winter, the leaves are gone and we get the sun warming the front rooms during winter. We like it - and our cats seem to migrate to the patches of sunlight on winter mornings.

On the southwest side of the house a sycamore has gotten tall enough to shade the dining room and one side of master bedroom in the summer ---- and let the sunlight reach the house through its bare branches in the winter. Ideal placement!

So - in keeping with thinking about gardens and plantings - do I want another tree in the yard? I am concerned that the deer population in our area is so overwhelming that they are eating everything. How would a young tree survive? I’ve convinced myself that we’ll not add any trees in the near term. I’m grateful that the lowest branches of the trees we have are out of deer reach!  I would like to plant some fruit trees....and beging the process of dramatically reducing the grassy part of the lawn...but that is for some future year.

Sustainability - Electronics

Electronics are so integrated with modern life - but are they sustainable? Cell phones, cameras, computers, tablets, eReaders, Game consoles, printers, televisions, DVDs, GPS devices….the list is long.

The life cycle of these devices can be relatively short. For a cell phone it is a few years at best if the latest functionality is desired. Sometimes the products are not very durable either: my sister cracked the display screen on her camera, my laptop has a piece of trim that is loose (I taped it down). We might continue to use the devices for a little longer but not indefinitely. They are inexpensive enough to replace and upgrade to current hardware/software at the same time.

I am more conscious of delaying that new purchase for as long as I can…and know where I will take the old device for recycling. Electronics are made of valuable (and sometimes toxic) components so should always be recycled rather than trashed….after wiping the memory/storage for security reasons.

In Maryland - Best Buy is the most convenient place for recycling electronics for me.

So back to the beginning question: Are electronic sustainable? I’m deciding that I will answer ‘yes’ as long as I can recycle the old products. 

Sustainability - Attention to Packaging

Last month I posted about reusable bags which is certainly a way of reducing ‘packaging’ of plastic bags provided by stores (grocery and otherwise). But what about all the other packaging that usually ends up in the trash or recycling such as envelopes (paper, paper bonded to bubblewrap, filament reinforced paper, heavy plastic), cereal boxes, non-recyclable plastic (in our area: plastic clamshell packaging and stiffer plastic bags), cardboard, plastic/glass bottles/jars or egg cartons.

My first line strategy is to purchase items in packaging that I can reuse. For example - buying spaghetti and salsa in glass jars that I can reuse for left overs (my goal is to gradually reduce my use of plastic to store leftovers). Of course - this only works up to the point that I have enough containers. I also reuse the large padded envelopes although I receive more than I can reuse. I am also saving the padded envelopes for packing away things like Christmas ornaments. I am saving clamshell type bins that I am buying salad in now at the grocery for storing greens I get from the CSA next summer; they’ll keep the refrigerator bins neat and hold the moisture around the greens better than putting them directly into the crisper.

Recycling is the second line strategy. Sometimes this feeds into my decision of which product to buy. For example - the organic eggs in my grocery come in pulp paper cartons that can be recycled while the others come in non-recyclable Styrofoam. I probably would buy the organic eggs anyway but the packaging issue clinches the purchase. I’ve also become very aware of the types of plastic bags and film that can be taken back to the grocery store for recycling; it takes longer to accumulate since I use my own bags when shopping but there other similar plastics like dry cleaner bags and newspaper sleeves to collect and recycle.

There is still packaging that goes directly into the trash: messy plastic (meats, frozen foods, veggies) that cannot be recycled (because they are messy or because of the type of plastic). I don’t know how to avoid that until the stores provide some other kind of packaging. It is clearly not sustainable for us to continue this type of packaging indefinitely.

In the end - the options we have to move toward more sustainability when it comes to packaging are primarily to increase reuse and recycling as much as possible by making choices when we shop…and being very aware of packaging that can be recycled in our community or back to the store (particularly grocery stores). 

What is the next step from the reuse and recycle strategy? I'm beginning to think about it. There is too much packaging that is unavoidable today - from bottles of salad dressing to cardboard centers to toilet paper rolls. We need innovation in packaging as much as we do in actual products!

My other sustainability posts:

Choosing organic food

Focus on Light

Join a CSA

Reusable bags vs single use plastic bags

The Progress Paradox and Sustainability

Water Use

Sustainability - Focus on Light

One of the luxuries we often times take for granted is the availability of light at the flip of a switch. It makes it possible for us to do just about anything we want at any time of the day or night. What are the elements of sustainability related to light?

Lighting requires energy so:

• Use energy efficient fixtures and bulbs. All our lamps that originally had incandescent bulbs now have compact fluorescent bulbs and the overhead lighting fixtures in the kitchen/basement utilize the tube style fluorescent bulbs. There are still a few halogen floor lamps in our house but I try to not turn them on in the summer when the heat they generate is at cross purposes with the air conditioner! The lights around the mirrors in the bathroom and the dining room fixture still use incandescent bulbs and I don’t plant to replace them.
• Turn off lights when they are not needed. ‘Need’ is full of nuance. When I read - I need a light. But how much extra light do I need if I am reading on a tablet…or if it is in the daytime and my chair is by a window? How important are some lights to feeling secure? We do have a timer system in our house that turns a few lights on and off even if we are not home. If we are home - the lights are on in the evenings and early mornings in the rooms where we are….and not in other parts of the house.

Another element of sustainability when it comes to light - is the influence light has on health. It is an area of research and harder to internalize that the energy consumption issue.

• More outdoor light exposure seems to reduce nearsightedness. It’s not clear what it is about outdoor light that is important.
• Seasonal depression is linked to the amount of daylight (i.e. winter blues).
• Light from computer monitors and e-reader before bedtime can impact sleep.
• Melatonin in linked to light exposure and then a lot of other biological functions. One researcher is investigating the use of blue light to slow, prevent preterm labor (because it reduces melatonin which is linked to contractions).

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 07, 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.

Millions of Mutated Mosquitoes Could Be Unleashed In Florida—On Purpose - There is concern that tropical diseases like Dengue and Chikungunya will become more common in the US as the climate becomes warmer. Reducing the number of mosquitoes that spread the disease may become a priority and there biotech firm Oxitec has experimented in the Caymen Islands and Brazil with GMO mosquitoes that suppressed the population there by 96%.

Swarm of microprobes to head for Jupiter - The probes will burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere was send a mass of data for 15 minutes. A lot will be learned about the atmosphere of the planet.

Assateague Island National Seashore Turning 50 This Year - Chincoteague/Assateague is my favorite place on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay….I’ll keep an eye out for extra activities that celebrate its 50 years as a National Seashore.

Mindfulness-based program in schools making a positive impact, study shows - Something to combat the stress of modern childhood?

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #75 - A feast of bird images from around the world. I always enjoy looking through these collections.

This Glorious Gallery Highlights A Myriad Optical Delights - Wow - images from a visual celebration of the International Year of Light. Next time I go to Arizona - I want to see Antelope Canyon

The origin of life: Labyrinths as crucibles of life - This article caught by eye for two reasons: it linked well with the Origins course I finished recently on Coursera and I like the picture of lava.

Two Graphs Highlighting Growth Surge in US Solar Market - With oil prices lower, will the trend continue in 2015?

Food Industry Drags Its Heels on Recyclable and Compostable Packaging - The food industry - particularly the fast food industry - is definitely not trending toward sustainable practices (with the possible exception of McDonald’s and Starbucks….and do we really need K-cups anywhere?

A Stunning 3D Cross-Section of Greenland's Ice Sheet - Made using ice cores and ice penetrating radar technologies. Watch the video to understand how it was done. There are three distinct periods of climate reflected in the Greenland Ice sheet.

Sustainability - Water Use

There are projections that say that water will become a bigger problem in the years to come both because of increased population and climate change. So it is wise to think about how we as individuals can use water more sustainably. Here are some strategies I’ve implemented to reduce the amount of water we use in our home:

• Yet the yellow mellow. We don’t flush our toilets after every urination. This could be a bigger water saving strategy for houses that don’t have low flow toilets (our house is new enough that it was built with low flow toilets originally).
• No drips. We maintain our faucets so that no water is used when they are turned off. This is not a hard maintenace task (although one that usually requires turning off the water under the since before the job!).
• Take short showers. Sometimes I time my showers because it is so easy to enjoy standing under the hot water. I can’t remember the last time I took a bath - which almost always use more water than showers.
• Use the dishwasher - don’t pre-rinse dishes. The dishwasher takes less water than hand washing dishes…but only when we don’t thoroughly rinse off items while loading it up.
• Wear clothes more than one day. It depends on our level of activity. Many days we can wear our clothes for a couple of days unless we do something that is dirty or hot/sweaty. Daily changes of underwear and socks don’t take much room in the laundry!
• Load up the washer. Launder clothes when there is enough to fill the washer rather than doing several smaller loads for the same clothes. We always use cold water so generally can do different colors together (unless they are new and may fade).
• Develop rain-watered yard. We water vegetables and new plantings but not the grass. It rains enough in Maryland that this is an easy strategy. If we lived in a drier area - I would probably not have a grass lawn at all.
• Rinse water for watering indoor or deck plants. During the summer, I keep a container in the sink to capture rinse water when prepping fresh veggies….and use it to water pots on the deck or indoors. The downside is that water is heavy! Maybe I’ll figure out a way to capture and utilize gray or rain water that doesn’t involve carrying it by next summer.

Another aspect of sustainability when it comes to water has to do with runoff. The water that runs off our yard flows into the Patuxent River and then into the Chesapeake Bay. There is a band of forest that starts at our house and extends for 0.25 miles to the river. The forest floor is deep with leaf mulch that acts as a sponge to slow the water down as trickles toward the river. We have minimized our application of yard treatments over the years and have not added any additional impervious sources (other than the house and the driveway).  The trees have gotten bigger and are shading the back of our yard enough that the grass is thinning. I’ve started letting the forest leaf mulch accumulate in those areas rather than leave the ground bare (and eroding). Next fall I’ll plant daffodil bulbs to hold the leaves. At some point perhaps I’ll to get ferns started in that shady area that gets the first runoff from our yard. Plantings will absorb water and/or slow it down enough that more will soak into the sediments rather than taking soil to the river.

I've stopped using the disposal in the kitchen sink and started composting instead. Using the disposal contributes to the nutrient enrichment of waste water that causes algal blooms (and dead zones); compost is a better destination for food parings and cores!

There is quite a lot we as individuals can do to utilize water more sustainably.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 24, 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.

Is it possible to reset our biological clocks? - I have just started a Coursera course on circadian clocks so am paying more attention to articles on the topic. This one is from ScienceDaily.

Wild pollinators at risk from diseased commercial species of bee - Honeybees, bumblebees, and social wasps  are all colony living insects that makes the transmission of disease within the colony very rapid…and now there is evidence of transmission between colonies, even colonies of different species.

Google Talking To Automakers about Building Autonomous Cars - I would like to see autonomous cars…but is it just wishful thinking for the near term (say 2020)?

This Ancient Pigment Could Soon Be Used to See Through Your Skin - Egyptian blue (calcium copper silicate). And now it’s becoming a medical technology too. Other applications of Egyptian Blue in an article from Antiquity Now.

How to Uncover a Skeleton’s Secrets - From National Geographic. The examples in the article is from a project in northern Peru

One Scientist's Race to Help Microbes Help You - There has been a lot discovered about the human microbiome…but translating the new knowledge into treatments has been slower. This is a story about the American Gut Project - a massive citizen science experiment - which is focused on accumulating enough data to enable the move toward treatments sooner.

Humanity Is In the Existential Danger Zone, Study Confirms - Scary stuff. Are we engineering a wave of extinctions on our planet that will eventually include ourselves? We are pushing against and past several planetary boundaries.

A Smart Grid Infrastructure Demands Increased Engineering Smarts - One of the skillsets needed for the future. The article is about the program in Syracuse University’s College of Engineering.

Counties Lag Behind National Recovery, Report Finds - A breakdown of ‘recovery’ at the county level reveals key economic indicators on a more granular level that we usually hear about. The clickable version of the map is available here.  I found that the county where I live has recovered 2 of the 4 indicators (which is considered ‘recovered’) but where my daughter lives in Tucson has not recovered any of the 4; having visited Tucson for the past 3 years, I do notice that things have improved - but they are not back to the levels prior to 2008.

Breathtaking Frozen Bubbles Look like Elegant Glass Ornaments - I hope we have a cold day soon so I can try making frozen bubbles like this! I’m pretty sure it takes lots of practice to make them look as good as these!

Sustainability - Choosing Organic Food

Foods that are labelled ‘organic’ are produced to a USDA standard…and that labelling is the best proxy we have for ‘sustainably produced’ so I choose to buy organic food when I can.

Organic products are often more expensive although there is not as much cost delta as there was a few years ago and there seem to be more organic products available in the stores. More farmers are turning to organic methods if they are in the business for the long term because it is the most sustainable way of farming.

So I buy organic to avoid contributing my purchasing power to non-sustainable farming practices:

• Pesticides and fertilizers may temporarily increase crop yields but they degrade soil (by killing soil organisms and encouraging poor soil maintenance practices, with less organic matter in the soil there is faster runoff of moisture) and pollute water (the runoff carries the pesticides and fertilizers into streams and rivers causing algae blooms, changing reproductive capacity of fish, and dead zones as the mouths of rivers).
• Factory farms (dairy cows, pigs, chickens) cluster animals into tight quarters creating waste disposal issues (terrible smells and high potential for polluting water) and requiring the use of antibiotics (which causes antibiotic resistant bacteria, which can make people sick too).

Buying organic is a good step toward living more sustainably!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 17, 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.

Under-the-Radar Environmental Stories for 2015: The Furtive Five - Five stories and some comments about trends in environmental reporting in mainstream media. Did you know that 33% of the children living the Tehran have asthma or air-pollution related allergies?

Technology to recycle all type of plastics without using water - This sounds like a good technology for the future…and in areas where water is already scarce.  The research/development was done in Mexico.

Chitosan: Sustainable alternative for food packaging - Chitosan is made from shells of crustaceans. The process for manufacturing is not currently economical but could become so….and the material biodegrades much faster than the 100-400 years it takes for most plastic packaging today. I wondered if the packaging would cause people with allergies to shellfish a problem. The research/development was done in Spain (Basque Country). This and the article just above caused me to wonder if countries other than the US are surging ahead when it comes to enablers for a sustainable Earth.

Sweet potato leaves a good source of vitamins - I just discovered that sweet potato leaves are edible from my CSA last fall. It’s thrilling that they are very nutritious as well. I liked them a lot in salads; they are best if eaten within a few days of being picked so I don’t anticipate they will find their way into grocery stores very often.

6 Birds That Are Champion Flyers - Champion flyers from different perspectives: Arctic Tern, Bar-tailed Godwit, Peregrine Falcon, Grey-headed Albatross, Hummingbird, Purple Martins.

The Chemistry of Decongestants - This was a timely post on the Compound Interest site.

Lose Yourself in These Photos Of Europe's Most Magnificent Libraries - Books and buildings….what will they be in 100 years? They already have a museum quality.

The 19th-Century Photography Trick That Changed How We See Snow - How William Bentley made his famous images of snowflakes….spurs me on to try more snowflake photography next time in snows in my area. I may add a feather to my supplies!

The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People, Charted - Is your daily pattern similar to any of these ‘famous creative people’?

‘Kitchen of the future’ here, now - I like the idea of a high definition backsplash! There is a film available from the location of the materials for the Science Daily story here. I already use my ceramic cooktop as working surface when I’m not cooking on it…so I agree that there are certain components of the ‘kitchen of the future’ that are now.

Six ways city landscapes can be more flood resilient - in pictures - With rising sea levels - more cities will be looking at flooding mitigations. These are some beautiful solutions. In our area of Maryland - rain gardens are often included in new housing developments.