Gleanings of the Week Ending July 23, 2022

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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.

Watch a Deep-Sea Squid Carry Hundreds of Pearl-Like Eggs – A video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

It’s a trap: managing cowbirds to save songbirds – The strategy of trapping cowbirds (a brood parasite) to help endangered songbirds along the Santa Clara River in Southern California has evolved to reduce harming other species and cost less.

Electric vehicle buyers want rebates, not tax credits – Of course….immediate rebates rather than waiting for months to get a tax credit are much more appealing.

Urban waterways: discovering the hidden beauty of a Jersey River – River restoration across the country…with the Cooper River story in more detail.

Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad, sustained protection – A new kind of vaccine….using nanoparticles. Perhaps this new technology will lead to an effective universal flu vaccine.

The sustainable cities made of mud – A little construction/architectural history….that could be applied more often.

10 Weird Australian Marsupials You’ve Never Heard Of – So many unusual animals…Australia has more than just kangaroos and koalas!

Cancer probably killed world’s first known pregnant Egyptian mummy – 2,000 years ago a young woman died…and was mummified. The Warsaw Mummy Project has determined that she was pregnant – the fetus was ‘pickled’ in the highly acidic and low oxygen environment of the mummified womb – and the woman probably died of nasopharyngeal cancer.

More Electricity from Wind and Solar than Nuclear for 1st time in USA – Hurray! Wind and solar accounted for over 25% of the nation’s electricity in the first 4 months of 2022!

Loss of male sex chromosome leads to earlier death for men – What? Y chromosome loss happens in 40% (estimated) of 70-year-old men. The loss occurs primarily in cells with rapid turnover, such as blood cells. And it might lead to heart muscle scaring…and then heart failure.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 16, 2022

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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.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve: A windo into the past – A prompt for an early fall road trip? It is about 4 hours from where we live now.

Psoriasis: Study lays foundation for new treatment strategy – Hope more targeted treatment can be developed….avoiding the drugs used currently that suppress the immune system overall.

Winners of the 2022 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Our Feathered Friends – Images of birds in action.

The silent danger of gum disease – More reasons to sustain regular dental checkups….and for dentists to be vigilant.

The Milkweed Gang – Milkweed attracts quite a few insects…even if it is an island surrounded by invasive plants!

New species of giant waterlily is the largest in the world – It has been growing in Kew Gardens in 177 years and in a herbarium in Bolivia for 34 years….always assumed to be the well-known species of giant waterlily named after Queen Victoria. The leaves can grow up to 10 feet wide…and support at least 176 pounds!

Toads surprise scientists by climbing trees in UK woodlands – Even when we think we know a species well…there are still surprises!

This New Species of Carnivorous Pitcher Plant Traps Its Prey Underground – In the rainforest of Borneo at elevations of 3,600 – 4,265 feet.

Ozone Hole — New, Large, Constant Ozone Hole — Appears Over Tropics – 7x larger than then Antarctic ozone hole!

Unlocking the secrets of the ancient coastal Maya – More than a decade of interdisciplinary work increasing the understanding of how these people lived and responded to rising sea levels and changing political/economic systems. And still more to be learned.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 9, 2022

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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.

Bonsai trees tell of winters past – An elfin forest of hemlocks on the outer coast of Glacier Bay National Park…and they hold the history of 4 centuries of winters in their growth rings.

See the vibrant, long overlooked colors of classical sculptures – Greco-Roman marble sculptures were covered in bright hues (polychromy) originally!

Pioneering recycling turns mixed waste into premium plastics with no climate impact – Wouldn’t it be great if suddenly mixed waste could replace fossil raw materials for ALL plastic production?

Understanding horseshoe crabs at Cape Cod National Seashore – A short video about a research project just starting.

Get a Sneak Preview of the 2022 Bird Photographer of the Year Finalists – Capturing birds in action…rather than portraits.

Invasive species taking over some American forests - Amur honeysuckle (a shrub from Asia) is a big culprit. Callery Pear (the ‘wild’ version of the Bradford pear) is a close second.  I just cut down a Callery Pear that was growing in the front bed of my new house in Missouri…almost obliterating a crepe myrtle! Other foreign species that have become problematic: porcelain berry, tree of heaven, winged euonymus, European buckthorn, Oriental bittersweet, common privet and lesser periwinkle...Norway maple, Amur cork tree and white poplar along with herbaceous species such as lesser celandine, garlic mustard, Japanese knotweed and Japanese stilt grass.

A Surprisingly High Number of Wildfires Are Caused by Electrocuted Birds – Awful….good that there is a way to reduce the carnage…at less cost than the consequences of the fires.

Rural areas near coast will bear the brunt of US sea-level rise – Analysis focused on the Chesapeake Bay…marshes forming where forest and farmland is today.

Once-Common California Bumble Bees Have Gone Missing – The survey did not find the formerly abundant Western bumble bee. The last statewide survey was conducted 40 years go…and a lot has happened in that time: habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change. None of the species were doing well. Big problem – since bumble bees help pollinate $3 billion worth of crops in the US each year (including tomatoes, peppers, and cranberries).

Scientist war of links between soil pollution and heart disease – The author of the study commented: “Until we know more, it seems sensible to wear a face mask to limit exposure to windblown dust, filter water to remove contaminants, and buy food grown in healthy soil."

Settling in, developing new routines – 1st month

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A new house – neighborhood – city – state (Missouri)…a lot has changed for us this past month. We are still unpacking but have done enough to live comfortably…do the rest of the opening of boxes and distribution of ‘stuff’ at a slower pace. I am starting a monthly post to document the new routines we are establishing.

Trash/recycling. I like that we have a bin for the weekly trash collection rather than just putting big plastic bags at the curb like we did in Maryland. The downside is that recycling comes every other week rather than weekly like it did in Maryland…and the first cycle was cancelled because they were short a crew! Another difference: neither trash or recycle curbside collection take yard waste. So – I’ve been to the recycle center 3 times already (twice for boxes there were not reusable and once for yard waste after I cut down a Callery pear that was taking over a crepe myrtle in my front flowerbed); fortunately, the recycle center is not that far away from our neighborhood.

The mini-kitchen in the basement near my office is perfect for making my favorite snack: popcorn! What a luxury to have it close rather than a flight of stairs away.

It is also a luxury to do my back exercises on the twin bed near my office rather than getting down (and then up) from the floor.

Groceries are different too; the closest store is a Walmart which does not have as much selection as Wegmans in Maryland. I may look further afield for groceries eventually even though the close location of the Walmart is a big plus. I get to the store about 6:30 AM just as I did in Maryland; shopping in a store with more stockers than customers is something I’ve grown accustomed too…prefer!

Laundry has been an adventure. There is still a flight of stairs between the laundry room and the bedroom, but our Missouri house has a laundry chute! We’ve added handles to the doors of the chute (not sure why they didn’t have handles before) and bought large baskets to catch all the laundry at the bottom. And what a luxury it is to have so much room to hang up clothes that we don’t want to put in the drier!

Barn swallows. When we moved into the house, we noticed almost immediately that we had bard swallows nesting under the deck….easily viewed from our patio or through the windows around it. The babies hav since fledged and I’ve tried to clean up the bird poop that fell from the nest onto the patio…the price for having an easily observable nest. We didn’t have barn swallows at our Maryland house, so this is a new bird for our yard. We put out two bird baths but they haven’t been used very much….the neighborhood ponds are too close probably. We haven’t put up bird feeders yet.

More new routines next month….

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 2, 2022

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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 if all roads went underground? – Thought provoking…wish there were ways to make it a more practical solution since the aesthetics of a world that has more natural surfaces (rather than roads) is very appealing.

Endangered Whopping Crane Hatches at Smithsonian National Zoo Site – The egg was found on an abandoned wild nest in Wisconsin and given to a pair of whooping cranes in the zoo that had produced 2 infertile eggs. The live egg was put into their nest on 5/18 and the baby crane hatched on 5/26!

BLM, Forest Service, Five Tribes of The Bears Ears Commission Commit to Historic Co-Management Of Bears Ears National Monument – Wishing the best for this endeavor.

Fifth of global food-related emissions due to transport – The takeaway message for us in the US: eat locally! This summer I am visiting the local Farmer’s Market weekly…maybe next year I’ll join a CSA.

Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ melting at fastest rate in 5,500 years – Thwaites Glacier (nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier…Florida-sized) and Pine Island Glacier were studied. The ice shelf holding the Thwaites Glacier could collapse withing 3-5 years.

Finding mini frogs: these aren’t babies, they’re just little – And they hatch as frogs…no tadpole stage. They live in leaf litter…humid and moist but not near water.

New safe-sleep guidelines aim to reduce infant deaths – New guidelines have been coming out from time to time at least since my daughter was born over 30 years ago. When she was a baby, the recommendation was for babies to sleep on their tummy…very different from these current guidelines.

2021 Share the Experience Photo Contest (National Park Foundation) Winners – Special places…full of great experiences.

Los Angeles becomes the latest city to hire ‘chief heat officer’ – Miami and Phoenix as well as cities in other countries (Athens, Greece; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Monterrey, Mexico; Santiago, Chile) have similar positions.

One in 500 men carry extra sex chromosome, putting them at higher risk of several common diseases – A surprising result…most of the men were unaware they carried an extra X or Y chromosome. Those that are XXY had higher chances of reproductive problems. Both XXY and XYY individuals has higher risks of type 2 diabetes, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Unpacking

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The morning after the movers got everything into the house, I was up with the dawn (before 6 AM) and ready to start with the unpacking. My sister helped and we made good progress for the next 4 days of her visit (with a few breaks for exploring the area around Springfield).

I kept my laptop set up on the kitchen counter to mark off the boxes on my inventory as we unpacked them.

The living room was one of the prime areas that boxes were piled. I had thought ahead to have the book boxes in the area near the window and the other (lighter boxes) destined primarily for the kitchen/China cabinet) in the center of the room. The kitchen counters became cluttered with items to put away – slowing down to allow time to refresh shelf paper…and occasionally rearranging once we better understood the way we would use the kitchen.

The basement also had a big pile of boxes…mostly in the John Deere room. My husband helped me put my office furniture together and I started carrying a few items down to the kitchenette that I would use there.

We had piles of bubble wrap which we stuffed in plastic bags to return to a store for recycling, Styrofoam went in the trash. There were piles of boxes and packing paper. I posted to the community Facebook page and the boxes that were still in good shape were given to people in the neighborhood that were preparing to moving. My sister and I took the damaged boxes/paper to the recycle center since the first curbside recycling day in our new house was cancelled (they didn’t have a crew!)…and the size/amount of cardboard would have overwhelmed our bin anyway.

Every day the house became more ‘normal’ but it will probably be weeks before I unpack everything…and there are items (pictures/breakables) to get from my daughter’s basement (and a lot of beanie baby bins that she is going to take back).

As I write this – I am one week into the unpacking process and the house is livable…but still looking messy with boxes in odd places!

Utilities

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My husband made the arrangement to transition of utilities from the previous owner to us in our Missouri house. The water, sewer, electric, gas and trash/recycle were all with the city…easier than in locales where each one is separate.  

We thought that maybe the internet/cable connection would take longer, but we got an appointment for the day after closing! What a relief to have that taken care of before I made the whirlwind trip back to Maryland!

It seems like the process was easier than when we moved to our Maryland house 25+ years ago…a positive experience.

Now to wait a month and see how we do on electric usage with the air conditioner keeping the house comfortable during the summer heat. The gas usage during the summer is only for hot water so should be at the lowest for the year.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2022

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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.

Archaeologists Uncover Hundreds of Colorful Sarcophagi at Saqqara—and They’re Not Done Yet – The seeming endless interest in Egypt…sustained by continuing new finds.

8 cool wild cats you probably don’t know – So many wild cat variations!

Fjords emit as much methane as all the deep oceans globally – When storms churn up water in fjords….oxygenating the fjord floor…methane emissions spike. If the water mixed more frequently the methane emissions would drop because anoxic environments at the bottom of fjords would disappear.

Tree rings are evidence of megadrought – and our doom – Tree ring data indicates that the 22-year period from 2000 through 2021 was the driest and hottest in the last 1,2000 years for the North American Southwest. There was another 22-year drought from 1571-1592 that was nearly as dry but not as hot as the current drought. And the water distribution allocations were made based on a 22-year period between 1900 and 1921 that we now know was an anomalously wet period for area! Not good signs for the future.

A 3400-year-old city emerges from the Tigris River – Drought lowered the Mosul reservoir. There was a quick survey…discovery ceramic vessels with 100 cuneiform tablets…and the conservation measures to project the site as the water rose again. The site is now completely submerged.

Fifty years later, Kim Phuc Phan Thi is more than ‘Napalm Girl’ – One of the most iconic photos of the Vietnam war…still makes be as emotional now as the first time I saw it. She says – To confront violence head-on…’the first step is to look at it.’

Two articles about the flooding in Yellowstone: Repairing and reopening Yellowstone National Park won’t be easy and Extreme flooding devastates Yellowstone, forcing the closure of all park entrances – Very sad….also scary.

Wildlife bedtime: weird nesting habits of North American wildlife – Black bears, black-footed ferrets, jumping spiders, bald-faced hornets, and red-sided garter snakes.

How Vivian Maier, the Enigmatic Nanny Who Took 150,000 Photographs, Found Her Place in History – Street photographer…that only became known after a storage locker of her photographs/negatives was auctioned off when she couldn’t make the payments on it.

Zapping orange peel oil into new, pleasant aroma compounds – I’ve always liked the smell and taste of orange peel (I buy organic oranges and use the whole orange!) but evidently the compound that is in orange peel, limonene, can be the starting platform for other scents as well.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 11, 2022

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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.

Dramatic Short Film Explores the Secret World of Microscopic Plankton – Video and photographs…the beauty of the very small.

“Legacy Pollution” to be cleaned up in seven national parks – I am pleased that it is being cleaned up…chagrined that taxpayers are paying for it rather than the oil companies.

Dandelion chemistry: diuretics and the tires of the future – Redeeming qualities of what we normally consider weeds that are menace! I’ve come to appreciate them more over the years because they are edible (my grocery story has the leaves in their organic section occasionally) and their roots are deep enough to hold soil better than turf on a slope.

Infant formula: the superfood you never think about – One of my grandmothers discovered she was unable to breastfeed her babies….and that was well before commercial formula was available. Whatever recipe she used to create ‘formula’ worked. I suspect that one of the ingredients was evaporated milk. Her 9 children thrived…some into their 90s. What happened in the US recently with infant formula reminds us how dependent we are on modern technology that has become increasingly complex…and sometimes without enough redundancy/alternatives when failures occur.

Ancient tree in Chile could be the world’s oldest – A cypress that could be more than 5,000 years old.

Hot-blooded T. rex and cold-blooded Stegosaurus: Chemical clues reveal dinosaur metabolisms – Honing the analysis of how quickly they could turn oxygen to energy.  

Ancient ochre mine uncovered in Wyoming – Around 13,000 years ago, Paleoindians mined hematite at the site…and used it to produce red ochre.

Photos of the week – May 27, 2002 – Spring prairie flowers/seeds from the Prairie Ecologist.

What can and can’t be recycled – Thinking about recycling….now that I am moving to Missouri, I need to figure out the rules for curbside recycling. I already know there are some differences from Maryland.

Type 2 diabetes accelerates brain aging and cognitive decline – A scary result since there are so many people with type 2 diabetes….and currently doctors don’t have brain based biomarkers for type 2 diabetes or treatment strategies that target neurocognitive declines.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 4, 2022

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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 Water and Under Pressure – 100 national parks are coastal…and are already taking action to mitigate sea level rise.

Where do ‘Hawaiian box jellies’ come from? – Evidently the box jellies appear close to shore like clockwork 8-10 days after full moon. This research reveal that the jellies are spawning during that time…and where they are when they not close to shore. This is important for providing better information to ocean swimmers and beach goers…trying to avoid stings. Another benefit…learning to keep the food web balanced to control box jelly numbers in Hawaii and other tropical localities.

Stirring up a mid-Atlantic bloom – Lots of nutrients flowing into the water from the coastal watersheds during spring rainstorms.

Vancouver requires gas stations & parking lots without EV chargers to pay $10,000 per year – Interesting idea…hope it increases the number of chargers and the trend to EVs!

Photography In The National Parks: More Favorite Places For Photography - We’re not going to be traveling to any of the western parks near term….so I enjoyed them through these photographs: Crater Lake, Redwood, Yosemite, Great Basin, and Lewis and Clark (Washington state portion).

Maya tooth treatments may have prevented infection – In the Mayan world - holes were drilled to attach stones to teeth; an analysis of the sealant used for 8 teeth from across the Maya empire (AD 200-900) revealed that most sealants included ingredients from pine trees that have been shown to fight the bacteria that cause tooth decay.

Top 25 birds of the week: Forest Birds – I always like bird pictures….

Scientists recreate Cleopatra’s favorite perfume – Recreating Mendesian perfume…the result so far has been a strong, spicy, faintly musty scent that tended to linger longer than modern fragrances…with ingredients like desert date oil, myrrh, cinnamon, and pine resin.

Grand Canyon of Texas – I remember (tent) camping in Palo Duro Canyon in the 1970s on the way to Colorado…being very hot and worried that our tent was too close to a red ant bed! At the time, I didn’t realize that it is the second largest canyon in the US (behind Arizona’s Grand Canyon).

Why humans get less sleep than other primates – A different type of sleep research…teasing out the differences in sleep of humans and other primates….and between non-industrial human populations and industrial human populations. It turns out that in the human populations…the hours of sleep are about the same but the perception of getting enough sleep is higher in the non-industrial populations than the industrial ones!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 28, 2022

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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.

Major infrared breakthrough could lead to solar power at night – A very small amount of energy was produced in the test…more research required for practical application.

Restoration Reveals Engravings in Egypt’s Temple of Esna – Follow the link at the top of the post to see a few more pictures of the restored engravings.

What we are still learning about how trees grow – A new study finds that tree growth is limited by cell growth rather than photosynthesis which has been assumed to be the limiting factor previously. The models that predict how much carbon forests can absorb need to be updated.

Spring Flowers are Blooming Earlier in Greater Yellowstone – The recovery of detailed records made in the 1970s by Frank Craighead of when flowers bloomed is helping document changes…help restoration planners determine the best seed mixes for native plants…try to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Cutting air pollution emissions would save 50,000 US lives, $600 billion each year – Yet another reason to take actions to dramatically reduce air pollution.

Traces of an ancient watery world in Capital Reef – Satellite views of Capitol Reef National Park…and the story in the rocks.

Prehistoric feces reveal parasites from feasting at Stonehenge – A piece of trivia: beef and pork were spit-roasted or boiled in clay pots but the evidence of particular parasites in coprolites reveals that liver and lungs from an infected animal were consumed raw or undercooked.

Vangelis, famed film composer and synth pioneer, dead at 79 – I remember going to see Chariots of Fire when it first came out in the early ‘80s….and the unforgettable music. This obituary post includes a link to a YouTube video with the music.

How cranberries could improve memory and ward off dementia – I like cranberries…but eating a cup (equivalent) per day is a lot. In the study they used cranberry powder.

More heat, more drought: New analyses offer grim outlook for the US west – The latest seasonal outlook projects the drought to continue across virtually the entire American west through the summer. New research suggests that Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming will increasingly look like the Southwest as temperatures continue to rise.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 21, 2022

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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.

Amazing Photo of Wisteria Trees Looks Like a Fireworks Display – Pictures from Japan’s Ashikaga Flower Park.

New Mexico Wildfire Spawns Fire Cloud – A pyrocumulonimbus cloud formed; the vertical plume reached the tropopause….an altitude of about 12 kilometers.

Heatwaves are altering our everyday lives – The new normal but we aren’t very well prepared for it; there are some obvious adaptations that are needed – particularly to electrical networks. No one wants infrastructure to fail at a critical time.

Well-preserved iron age arrow discovered in Norway – The arrow was recovered from a glacier…iron arrowhead, sinew, tar, thread, shaft, and feather fletching was preserved. It is about 30 inches long.

Rigid waterproof coating for paper aims to reduce our dependence on plastic – Interesting…would be great if it could speed the transition away from plastic for food packaging particularly. The article said the chemicals break down over time into harmless components…but didn’t say how long that took.

Chemicals that linger for decades in your blood – So many chemicals introduced in my lifetime are probably still in my blood. I can remember the spraying of DDT for mosquitoes in the ‘60s….one instance particularly of the straying truck going down the farm road near my grandparents house as we played in the back yard. How much of my exposure do I still have…did I pass along to my daughter?

Ultraviolet light reveals radiant hidden beauty of flowers – A project during the COVID-19 pandemic…beautiful results.

Archaeologists Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Giant Statues in Sardinian Necropolis – Over 7 foot tall…with almost emotionless expression, blocky nose and deep-set eyes. The two found most recently were boxers but about two dozen others have been found since the mid-1970s: 16 boxers, 4 archers, and 5 warriors.

Top 25 birds of the week: May 2022! – Bird appreciation….a source of beauty in the world.

Disparities in natural gas leak prevalence in US urban areas – Why can’t pipeline companies do better…not wait around until regulation requires them to do it? We should be more critical of the companies that they are not actively reducing leaks in their pipelines.

Preparing to move (2) – May 2022

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A lot has happened since my last post about preparing to move back on 5/5.

We have packed a lot more boxes, of course. Our goal is to minimize items to go in the cars (precious/high value things, liquids, key documents, and whatever we need while the truck in enroute).

There is still some ‘messiness’ around the stacks of boxes but it is gradually being cleared away…with the rooms beginning to look ‘all packed.’ The very last will probably be the kitchen since we continue enjoying cooking/eating at home; about half the kitchen is already packed.

The boxes have been cleared from around the grand piano to make it easier for the crew that will prepare it to go on the truck. The box move was hard work since they were filled with books…the heaviest of our boxes. We managed to remove the humidifier box (which stuck out from the bottom of the piano).

I have developed a lot of skill in reusing packaging material like Styrofoam, foam squiggles, bubble/pillow wrap and paper. For example, I cut up a foam board yard sign to pad the top of a box, disconnected strips of Styrofoam from a larger piece/bent them to fill an odd space in a larger box and used squiggles to fill small spaces around paper wrapped breakable items to keep them from moving too much. I’m also realizing that plastic hangers work well to fill the top of a box without adding more weight.

The last ‘rooms’ to get packed (and the ones we are still working on are my husband’s office and the garage. We’ve made a good start and they will be packed more fully before this weekend. The before and after picture of my first round of garage packing is shown below.

We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken multiple loads of recycle and trash to our local facility.

Almost all the hazardous waste has been taken for disposal.

My husband called the county for curbside pickup of a ping pong table, glide, lawn mower, and karate punching bag for later this week – stay tune for pictures of the pile!

And I’ve scheduled another donation a few days before the movers come

Maintenance

The radon remediation has been completed.

The screens that were damaged/worn in the screened deck were replaced.

A light new bulb was put in the light fixture over the basement stairs (with some trickly ladder work).

Carpet replacement has been scheduled for after the movers are done (i.e the house is almost empty).

Overall – the progress we are making appears to be on track to be ready for the movers…and to be almost totally focused on our house in Missouri rather than the one in Maryland by mid-June!

Donate/Recycle/Trash

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We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move via donation, recycling and (last resort) trash:

Donation

We’ve done monthly donations that filled our porch – needing to be out by 8AM and picked up sometime during the day. This month the pile was front of the garage because we had maintenance people coming: boom box, yoga mat, mini-trampoline, office supplies, clothes, window/deck pressure cleaner, deck stain sprayer, clothes, coffee maker carafe, reusable water bottles, small outdoor rug.

Recycle

We have curbside pickup for some types of recycling for things like plastics, paper and cardboard, but we overwhelmed the bin with the amount we needed to recycle so we included it in our trips to the ‘landfill’ where they have recycling bins plus an area for electronics recycling: cables (computer and phone), computers, files from the 1970s and 1980s , and old cardboard.

Special recycle

Our credit union had a shredding event; we took 3 boxes of old receipts! It would have been too time consuming to do with our small home shredder.

Trash

Fortunately the most bulky items were not heavy….but it was depressing that they could only go into the trash: furnace filters that were for a furnace that has been replaced, old plastic bins, and Styrofoam from inside boxes that we used for packing not needing the Styrofoam

Hazardous waste (special trash)

More of this type of trash had accumulated in our basement and garage over the years than I realized. Most of it was very dusty. Our county has a hazardous waste area of the landfill that is staffed on Saturdays so we accumulated what we had and took it all at once – a SUV full!

  • Paint (and paint cleanup fluids)…this was the bulk of what had accumulated.

  • Gardening chemicals…some was very old and might not even be sold any more!

  • Cleaning products

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 14, 2022

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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.

Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago – Some possible explanation: human populations reached a large enough size to share/divide labor and knowledge with others, writing….however, brain size/IQ relationship is not deterministic.

Operating rooms are the climate change contributor no one’s talking about – The health care industry accounts for 8.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Operating rooms represent 70% of waste in hospitals and 3 to 6 times as much carbon as the rest of health systems.

Where tornadoes strike most frequently is changing – More erratic tornado activity and the broad impacts of climate change.

Do you have a lost twin? - The rate of twins among live births is only about 1.3%. But as many as 12% of all naturally conceived pregnancies may begin as twin pregnancies.

Wild fox kills 25 flamingos and a duck at National Zoo – We see foxes in our neighborhood. They seem to have adapted to the suburban environment. This one was very efficient to kill 25 birds, though.

A 10,000-year history of geo-ecological change in Yellowstone’s lower geyser basin – A study using a 26.5-foot core from Goose Lake.

US could cut transport emissions by 34% b 2030 – The current trend will reduce emissions by 19% but a bit more focus would provide a bigger reduction.

Garbology: How to spot patterns in people's waste – We’ve been getting rid of a lot as we prepare to move. I try to do as much as possible via donations and recycling…but there is still a lot going in the trash. Some of it came from Texas with us back in 1983…and was still in the same box!

6,000-Year-Old Slate Rings May Have Symbolized Relationships – Friendship rings? Careful analysis revealed the rings had been intentionally broken…and shared (i.e. pieces of a ring were found in two separate burial sites).

How Taipei discovered an active volcano on its doorstep – Disconcerting. Even of there is some ability to provide early warning of an eruption…could the city be abandoned quickly enough?

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 7, 2022

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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.

A Watershed Moment: Key Findings About Potential Drinking Water Contamination – The sources of contamination are varied….but the list of primary sources is relatively short.

Better residents’ health after switch to electric buses – A study from Sweden. Improved health is a benefit of electrification of transportation!

Should people get rid of their yards? – Somewhat depressing conclusion: “Most people would rather make an aesthetic choice with their lawns than an environmental one.” My plan is not to eliminate the yard in my new house but to minimize it over time with the addition of bushes along the fence and extending beds around trees and around the house.

We talk the fastest growing green jobs with LinkedIn Sr. Editor – The “job vs the environment” is changing. The “green economy’s ability to expand job opportunities is too significant to ignore.” This growth in green jobs is like the 1970s for computer related jobs – a lot of new types of jobs and many of them will extend for the duration of a career starting now.

Discover the Microscopic Wonders of Olympus’ 2021 Image of the Year Awards – Taken with light microscopes…lots of finesse preparing the specimens.

Known to be toxic for a century, lead still poisons thousands of Midwestern kids – Two things I learned from this article about the state I am moving to: Missouri is one of the four states in the Midwest that is struggling to alleviate lead poisoning in children…and it is the number one producer of lead in the US. Hope they are making progress.

Top 25 birds of the week: terrestrial birds – Always enjoy the bird photographs! This group includes a roadrunner….a bird I always associate with Texas but the photograph was taken in California!

Tests indicate bronze age daggers had a practical purpose – Evidently the daggers were thought to be ceremonial objects prior to this analysis.

Should we be eating three meals a day? – The number of meals may not be as important as consistency….and giving the body a long enough ‘fast’ time to rest.

The Great Barrier Reef through Time – Landsat Images used to illustrate recent research on the growth of the reefs as the ocean changes. Evidently the reef has been more resilient to past sea-level and temperature fluctuations than previously thought….but increased sediment input has been a bigger problem.

Preparing to move (1) – May 2022

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The pace of our preparation to move to Springfield, MO has increased since my last post about our move a little over a week ago.

The most physical activity has been toward packing since the date for the movers to arrive at our house in Maryland has been set for early June:

I started out with a goal of packing 20 boxes a day for 5 days…only succeeded because many of them were already packed and all I had to do was add them to the inventory and tape them up. Then the goal became 10 boxes for 5 days…not as easy because I was packing more boxes. Now my goal is 5 plus until they are all packed. I had to buy more boxes.

There are some items we have packed in the original boxes they came in….much easier for them to be safe going on the truck.

I watched a video on packing glass/ceramic items and have now packed most of those items that will go on the truck. I used a lot of packing paper, bubble wrap and squiggles – extra carboard inside the boxes if they were not double thickness boxes. The cardboard, bubble wrap and squiggles were reuse items from packages we’ve received over the years and stored in the basement.

We’ve identified an issue with the piano moving…determining how to remove the humidifier box that makes a bump on the underside of the piano.

We cleared a corner of the basement to put items that will remain with the house after the movers leave since we will be here off and on until the house is sold. I am also clearing all the closets and those too will contain items that will stay with the house.

My daughter is coming for a few days before the movers to help with last minute packing and will take a carload of items back to Springfield.

About my inventory list….I have it as an Excel spreadsheet with the box number (I bought a roll of number labels from Amazon), contents, location in current house, destination in new house, date packed/taped, transport (which car/trip, movers, movers take apart before move). Then I do a Pivot Table to summarize my packing (date x transport). Obviously almost everything goes with the movers but I can easily click on the pivot table cell to produce a list of items I’ve slated to go in a particular car and trip. For example…I will probably make 3 trips to and from before Missouri between now and when we close the sale of our current house….and I have a list accumulating for each of those trips!

We are also making progress with items we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken a load to the landfill/recycling center and already accumulated another load which we will take today.

I took wire hangers back to the dry cleaners and old glasses to a optometrist office that is a collection point for them.

I’ve discovered that I don’t use plastic bags for packing and there were a lot of them in the packing materials we accumulated so I am taking a bag stuffed with them to the grocery store every time I got.

My husband is marking off maintenance items at our current house:

A plumber replaced the sump pump.

A new refrigerator was purchased, delivered and installed since replacing the ice maker in our old one was so expensive

The creak in floor outside my office is gone after much effort to find the joists

And finally, there is activity in Springfield on our behalf as well:

The appraisal came back higher than our offer…good news.

An agreement to the list from the house inspection was reached and radon remediation will be done before we close.

Overall – I think I see the light at the end of the packing tunnel…

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 23, 2022

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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.

Virologists Identify More Than 5,000 New Viruses in the Ocean – Another indication that we still have a lot to learn about life on our planet.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Habitats! – Beautiful birds! I always enjoy seeing photographs…seeing birds I know and some I don’t!

The Jumping Slugs of the Pacific Northwest – A little different than the slugs I’ve seen. These have a vestigial shell on the top of their ‘hump.’ There was a new-to-me skeletal name in the article: slugs have a hydrostatic skeleton!

Aging clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live – Really? The value of the various aging clocks is still TBD.

Wildflower Fungi – This post was from the Master Naturalist group in Springfield MO. I am paying more attention now that I am moving to the area.

Deforestation drives climate change that harms remaining forest – Deforestation causes changes in a regions air temperature and precipitation…instigating changes in the whole region rather than just the part where the forest was removed.

Scientists Identify 50,000th Spider Species on Earth—but Thousands More Are Waiting to Be Discovered – It’s humbling to realize that there is so much about our world that we don’t know….have not discovered.

Amid Hopes and Fears, a plastic boom in Appalachia is on hold – Another sad trend in Appalachia…still hitching their future to fossil fuels. The jobs look good but the long-term jobs are few and the market for their products is not a positive one. Everyone wants to reduce single use plastics as much as possible.

Study suggests tree-filled spaces are more favorable to child development than paved or grassy surfaces – Playgrounds need more trees!

Germany’s Nature Society Crowns the 2022 Nature Photographer of the Year – The first picture is of a male kestrel. That caught my attention…and then I browsed the rest of the photos.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 16, 2022

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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.

Purple gallinule with chicks – I remember seeing an adult purple gallinule on a birding field trip in Florida. Aren’t the chicks cute? Little black fluffs.

Reproductive factors and dementia risk – Hurray! My life events skew toward reduced dementia risk…according to this study.

Macro photos reveal the often unseen beauty and diversity of slime molds – Hmmm…maybe I should hone my observational skills to find these on my next hike…attempt some macro photography of them.

As EV Sales Soar, Automakers Back Higher Fuel Standards – So glad that industry is finally onboard…projecting a ‘we can do it’ attitude. I’d rather society take action…build some optimism into our view about the future rather than being depressed by trends that seem dystopian.

Beginner’s Tips for Identifying Backyard Bird Nests – It’s the nesting time of year! Look…id…don’t disturb!

Ozone may be heating the plant more than we realize – We’ve been concerned about ozone in the upper atmosphere for years (hence the Montreal Protocol) but this study also points to ozone in the lower atmosphere (caused by chemical reactions between pollutants like vehicle exhaust fumes and other emissions) as contributing to climate change as well. Until now, we thought of lower atmosphere ozone as a health problem (I get headaches if I am outdoors on a high ozone day, for example). This research says that it also is contributing to climate change by affectioning ocean heat uptake.

American Lung Association Says EVs Save Lives – Good for our health….and also for the planet. I also noted that where I live now is in the American Lung Associations Tops 10 US urban areas at risk from airborne pollution…another reason to move away from this area!

New Technology Employed to Protect Pompeii – A four-legged robot used to gather data on structural and safety issues.

Flamingo that escaped from a zoo in Kansas is spotted once again in Texas 17 years later – The flamingo is a species from Tanzania….and must be a very lonely bird.

Brain charts for the human lifespan – Normative trajectories derived from over 100,000 MRI scans that allow quantification of individual variation. Figure 1 in the post can be enlarged by simply clicking on the image.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 9, 2022

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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.

Winners of Wildlife Photography Competition Show the Power of Water – Starting out the gleanings list with some eye candy this week.

Personality traits are associated with well-being and satisfaction in life after work – My husband and I have transitioned to ‘life after work’ and seem to have easily established ‘new fulfilling life patterns.’ In an odd way, the COVID-19 pandemic has helped us focus on the most important aspects of those patterns.

A New Study of the Permian Basin – a US oil-drippling hotspot is kicking out far more methane that we thought – I keep thinking that the technology to reduce emissions in the fossil fuel extraction process has improved from the early days. Maybe it has…maybe the hasn’t. The industry may not be motivates. Is it all about maximizing profits for them and their stockholders…everyone else doesn’t matter?

Toad Wisdom – A story of webs of life from the Prairie Ecologist.

European earthworms reduce insect populations in North American forest – Even small invasive species can have a significant impact.

Mapping Inequality – Redlining in New Deal America – An introduction….then downloads and data for maps for urban areas across the US from the 1930s.

Top 25 birds of the week: birds on flowers – Enjoy some photographs of birds…flowers…springtime!

Scents help researchers identify contents of Egyptian vessels – The smells of ancient Egypt!

Norway at new record high 92% plugin EV share in March – Hopefully the EV share in the US will start climbing more rapidly.

“Flash droughts” coming on faster, global study shows – Extreme weather….not all on the wet side.