Gleanings of the Week Ending January 2, 2016
/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.
12 Machines that show modern farming isn’t the bucolic life you imagine – Wow! The way our food is harvested is mechanically amazing but also seems violent. I wondered if it was dangerous for the workers that tend the machines.
How do you prepare for the isolation of space? – Using Antarctica as a training location for space missions.
What’s the difference between reindeer and caribou – It’s past Christmas – but I didn’t see this article in time. Evidently they are the same species! But reindeer show the impact of domestication.
New kind of thermal vent system found in Caribbean – They are formed of talc rather than sulphide minerals.
How Juneau handles its garbage – They ship their recyclables south via barge and try to minimize the garbage that they landfill nearby (although space is limited). Other municipalities may not face quite the transportation challenge that Juneau faces (no overland transportation from the city) but the long term issues toward sustainability are the same.
Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Mesa Verde National Park – It’s been over 30 years since I was Mesa Verde; these pictures encourage me to plan another visit.
Is This Snowy Wonderland Or The World Inside A Petri Dish? – Cut paper versions of bacteria and other organisms
Our Energy Transformation in 2015 – Even with low oil and gas prices, we are still shifting way from fossil fuels. Oil consumption in the US is on a downward trend and the adoption of clean energy hit record rates in 2015. For the first time in history, carbon emissions fell even as the world economy grew.
US Wild Bee Populations Waning – Not good. Most of our agriculture needs pollinators and yet these are the very areas where the wild bees are being decimated.
New Species Abound – And these are new species that are large enough to be visible. What about all the soil microbes that we know so little about? It’s time we internalize that we really don’t know all the species on our planet.
