Gleanings of the Week Ending December 10, 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.

Adults living in areas with high air pollution are more likely to have multiple long-term health conditions – A study of more than 364 thousand people in England. Respiratory and cardiovascular problems dominate but neurological and common mental conditions were also observed.

Best of 2022: Top 50 Photographs from Around the World – The first of the year in summary type articles. I had seen some of these photos before…but not all of them. They are worth a look.

Larger wheat harvest in Ukraine than expected – Based on satellite imagery, 94% of the winter crop was harvested…including 88% in areas not controlled by Ukraine. Some Ukrainian grain made it to global markets…however Russia is reaping the benefit of a significant portion of the harvest.

Medieval woman’s burial in Switzerland yields gold broach – A wealthy burial from a 7th century AD cemetery…excavated prior to construction work. The article didn’t say whether the finds would be going to a museum…or be reburied with the skeleton elsewhere.

More Than 52 Million Birds in the U.S. Are Dead Because of Avian Flu – It began last year in Eastern Canada and has affected flocks in 46 states since then. Wild and domestic birds are impacted…and there is a risk of infections in people too.

Study finds that experiences of daily stress decrease as people age – As we get older, we begin to deal daily stressors better. It’s a positive aspect to aging!

Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Snacks in Sewers Beneath the Colosseum – The debris from 1,900 years ago: olives, nuts, meats, cherries, grapes, figs, blackberries, and peaches!

Biodiversity unbalanced as ice-free Antarctic areas grow – Non-native species invading Antarctica

Idaho’s Potato Belt – 1/3 of the US potatoes are grown in the Snake River Plain….satellite images from NASA’s Aqua and Landsat 8.

Dam safety: New study indicates probable maximum flood events will significantly increase over next 80 years – This is a paper about 546 dams in Australia. We need to extend this type of analysis around the world…to improve the integrity of critical infrastructure into the future.

Coles Phillips eBooks

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Coles Phillips was an illustrator known for his stylish images of women for books, advertisements, and the covers of popular magazines. I browsed two of his books on Internet Archive recently:

A Gallery of Girls (1911)

A Young Man's Fancy (1912)

More of his magazine covers can also be found on Internet Archive (list here).

He died relatively young in June 1927; Life magazine featured one of his creations on the cover in July 1927 (and a 2-page illustrated obituary). His last Life magazine cover was in September 1927. The illustrations are available from Internet Archive via the link above.

He was one of the artists that depicted the greater freedoms of women in the 1920s. I wondered, as I realized how young he had been when he died, how his art would have evolved had he lived through the great depression and World War II.

Kittens! – Month 4

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Month 4 with our 3 kittens…..they are still kittenish but beginning to make cat noises…and always trying something new. Here’s my notes for what’s happened with the kittens over the past month.

Two of the kittens (Sooty and Puma) like the cat hammock that we kept from our first cat. It’s been in storage for almost 20 years because our next cats didn’t like it!

We tried putting up our Christmas tree…gave them time to adjust to it without ornaments. They climbed it, knocked off branches…then got sick. We opted to forego a tree completely this year even though we think now they were sick from something contagious that they all got and then recovered.

When they were sick, my husband let the kittens have the run of the 1st floor (except for our bedroom) during the night rather than sequestering them in their suite….and we’ve continued now that they’ve recovered – keeping the main bedroom and bathroom a kitten-free zone at night. We hear them at the door occasionally. I am the first one out and about in the mornings. I got my camera and photographed the kittens right after I emerged earlier this week: Pooky as in the hallway near a scratching pad, Sooty was comfortable in a pile of jackets my husband had left in a chair after the kittens knocked over the coat rack (damaging it a bit), and Puma was already waiting for my husband at the bedroom door.

It didn’t take long before all three were at the door…Pooky got nervous and retreated to the scratching pad. As soon as the door opened, they all streamed into the bedroom as if they had never been there before.

Sooty is the only one that likes the bathroom sink…and he doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone needing the sink.

When I was in Texas, I noticed some ‘space cats’ catnip toys. The cats will be getting them as part of their Christmas.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2, month 1, month 2, month 3

Crocheting Again

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I learned to crochet early on, probably when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather taught me! He didn’t crochet himself, but he read the instructions and taught me the basics. I can remember the setting: on the couch in his living room as my grandmother looked on. It was several years after the accident that had caused one of his legs to be amputated; he wore a prosthesis (primitive by today’s standards). My memories of him before the accident are vague, but I remember his interest, attention, patience, and kindness to me and my sisters all the years afterward. As I’ve started up crocheting again…thinking about how I learned…I realize that I was the only grandchild that he saw all the way to adulthood.

I don’t remember anything I made early on…I picked up crocheting again when I travelled with Up with People my junior year of high school. There was a lot of time on the bus between shows. I made slippers to use for rehearsals (wore them out very quickly), a hat and scarf. The hat and scarf were dark blue to match one of the colors from the tweed coat I wore then. I still have them but haven’t worn them in a long time. I tried on the hat and discovered that the yarn had degraded somewhat…making it less stretchy, too tight to be comfortable.

I made crocheted stars for Christmas tree ornaments in white shortly after I married…and then in red more than a decade later.

In my early thirties and before I had my daughter, there was another burst of crochet activity. I made some yellow dollies. I don’t remember why I chose the color! Around the same time, I was still making my own blouses for work and crocheted ecru or white pieces to sew into the neckline. I remember being very pleased with the results and wish I’d saved the crocheted part when the blouse fabric wore out.

I also made three crocheted scarves in red and green (wore them together for Christmas then separately at other times) and variegated pink with black. I’m not sure when I made them…probably about 20 years ago since I remember wearing them during my career and I’ve been post-career for over a decade.

Now – I am crocheting again. My initial project is to make a series of cotton scarves to keep the sun off the scar on my neck so that I don’t need sunscreen all the time while the scar fades. So far, I have made ecru and black scarves…am working on a white one. Light green and turquoise crochet threads have been purchased! It feels good to be crocheting again and making something that fits my need (cotton, colors, length) exactly.

Another aspect that pleases me about this new crochet project is the wooden bowl that was given to me in the 1970s by a friend I’d known all my life. I hadn’t used it for salads since its finish was damaged, but it is the perfect size and shape to hold the thread and my project….and reminds me of the good experiences I had growing up with her.

Through all the years and projects – crocheting has been an activity that I can do some deep thinking while making an item I need. Maybe that’s why I restart crocheting all over again.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 3, 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.

Drought hit large portion of the globe in 2021, state of water report says – Bad news for water: the negative trends are stronger than the positive ones.

Bloating common among Americans – I am so glad I discovered that I was lactose intolerant; it’s been relatively easy to change my diet to avoid bloating completely!

Do students really eat that badly? – Yes and no…and alcohol plays a negative role.

Fungi that cause lung infections may be spreading across the US – Infection causing soil fungi Histoplasma, Coccidioides, and Blastomyces – evidently the diseases are more widespread now than in the 1950s!

White House unveils its holiday décor, including 77 trees and ‘We the People’ theme – Getting in the mood for December celebrations!

From Patches to Pies, Illinois Knows Pumpkins – A little pumpkin history…and a satellite image (NASA’s Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager) from after the pumpkins are harvested.

Cranberry bogs in Plymouth County – A satellite image of production of another seasonal food: cranberries! Massachusetts supplies about 25% of the cranberries grown in the US (outpaced only by Wisconsin). The cranberry bogs look pink/red in the natural-color image at the beginning of the article.

We’re told to ‘eat a rainbow’ of fruit and vegetables. Here’s what each colour does in our body – Love the colorful foods!

Effigy Mounds National Monument Becomes a Tribal Sister Park To Ioway Tribal National Park – A new type of agreement….hoping it is a good one for everyone.

How to be a sustainable parent – It’s hard since the most easily obtained products are obviously not and there are no pre-defined alternatives that are more sustainable…aside from buying second hand (i.e. reuse) whenever possible.

eBotanical Prints – November 2022

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Another 20 botanical books in November. Four works by Ethelbert Blatter (best known as a pioneering botanist in British India) available on Internet Archive were browsed as well as 3 authored by Frederick Orpen Bower. I noticed that I’d missed browsing the 3rd volume of Bower’s The Ferns until I was writing this post – so I’ll include it with the December books.

The whole list of 2,512 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the November 2022 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the November 2022 eBotanical Prints!

Lehrbuch der Botanik fur Hochschullen * Strasburger, Eduard, Noll, Fritz, Schenck, Henrich, et al * sample image * 1923

A history of British ferns * Newman, Edward * sample image * 1874

My Shrubs * Pillipotts, Eden * sample image * 1915

Plant-geography upon a physiological basis * Schimper, Andreas Franz, Wilhelm; Fisher, William Rogers et al * sample image * 1903

Cape Flowers at Home 1929 - Series I * Marloth, Rudolf * sample image * 1929

Das Kapland  * Marloth, Rudolf; Schimper, Andreas Franz Wilhelm * sample image * 1908

The origin of a land flora : a theory based upon the facts of alternation  * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1908

The ferns (filicales) V1 * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1923

The ferns (filicales) V2 * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1923

Manuel complet de l'amateur de roses : leur monographie, leur histoire, et leur culture * Boitard, Pierre * sample image * 1836

Beautiful flowers of Kashmir Beautiful flowers of Kashmir V1 * Blatter, Ethelbert; Withen, G.A.; Walli, Haldar Joo * sample image * 1929

Beautiful flowers of Kashmir Beautiful flowers of Kashmir V2 * Blatter, Ethelbert; Withen, G.A.; Walli, Haldar Joo * sample image * 1929

The Bombay Grasses * Blatter, Ethelbert; McCann, Charles * sample image * 1935

The Ferns of Bombay * Blatter, Ethelbert; Almeida, Joseph Francis * sample image * 1922

Popular studies of California wild flowers * Rice, Bertha Marguete; Rice, Roland  * sample image * 1920

Mistletoe and holly * Prior, Sophia; Frey, Albert * sample image * 1939

Carnivorous plants * Prior, Sophia * sample image * 1939

Coffee * Dahlgren, Bror Eric * sample image * 1938

Tropical and Subtropical Fruits * Dahlgren, Bror Eric * sample image * 1947

Common Mushrooms * Pray, Leon Luther; Dahlgren, Bror Ericc * sample image * 1936

Unique Aspects of Days – November 2022

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I had a hard time picking the top 10 unique aspects of my November days. There seemed to be a lot of firsts happening during the month!

New electric lawn mower. I made a few turns around the yard with my early Christmas present before our yard crew showed up. Next year I will be doing the yard. I will probably do some spot mowing on a warmer afternoon as soon as all the leaves are off the trees – mulch the leaves into the grass for the winter). What a luxury to have clean air (i.e. no gasoline motor fumes) while I mow!

Cooking a big pumpkin. I’ve always bought pumpkins small enough to fit in my oven previously but the one this year was a left over from my son-in-law’s pumpkin carving event and it was large. I had to cut it in half and then cook each piece separately! I baked and made soup with some of the puree but most of it went into the freezer.

A gaggle of Greater White-fronted Geese. The group was migrating through Hagerman on the day that I stopped on my way down to Carrollton. It was my first time seeing this species.

Pumpkin Custard Quiche. I used some of the pumpkin puree from the large pumpkin to experiment with a high protein dessert/breakfast. I used 2 cups of puree, 8 eggs, pumpkin pie spices, sugar, milk, 8 ounces of Swiss cheese and walnuts on top. Each of the 6 servings were about 21 grams of protein….and my parents ate their whole serving! This is an experiment that will likely become a favorite recipe.

1st snow at our Missouri home. It happened while I was in Carrollton, but I enjoyed it vicariously through pictures my husband sent.

2 Bald Eagles soaring above the highway in Oklahoma. What a great sight driving home from Texas. One was an adult and the other a juvenile. No fighting….just graceful flying back and forth above the highway.

Learning to use a blower to create a pile of leaves. I’m very adept making leaf piles with a rake…but was overwhelmed with the leaves in my daughter’s front yard. She had a new battery powered blower. There was a trial-and-error period but then I managed to move leaves around trees and under bushes…and into piles for her to vacuum up with the mulcher. I depleted 2 batteries (good thing she had 3 that worked with the blower).

Rice Pudding Quiche. After the success of the pumpkin custard quiche – my next experiment was with rice pudding. I used the small carton of rice left over after having Chinese takeout to make rice pudding (with milk, eggs, raisins, drizzle of molasses) with Swiss Cheese (making it more quiche like). Next time I will use a bit more milk since it was a little too dense…but it was still tasty (I drizzled some honey over it to make it sweeter). It’s a good way to use up rice!

Cranberry and tomatillo salsa sauce for Impossible Burger meatballs. Our appetizers for Thanksgiving were Impossible Burger meatballs (purchased frozen…heated in oven). I had barbeque sauce and marinara for dipping…then made a third sauce with chopped cranberries (heated in microwave) and tomatillo salsa. All the sauces were warmed just before we tried them. Everyone agreed that the cranberry and tomatillo salsa was a great flavor with the meatballs – and it looked festive too.

Experimenting with Christmas tree decorations. The kittens are changing our thinking about decorating this year. We put our artificial tree up in the center of our living room using an outdoor umbrella stand for the base (to keep them from knocking over the tree). Right now, we are letting them get bored with the tree, but they’ve managed to dislodge lower and middle branches (they climb up around the center of the tree). We don’t want to use hooks to attach ornaments. I experimented putting Beanie babies on the branches and the kittens knocked them all off as they move around the inside of the tree. So – a series of unique experiences that isn’t over yet!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 26, 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.

Battle Over Bears Ears Continues in Utah – I am looking forward to visiting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments and hope that their boundaries stay the way the tribes that have used the area for a very long time want. At some point Utah and the counties that are opposing the size will recognize the values of the tribes and country that want to preserve historical, paleontological, and geologic aspects of these places….and that the state benefits significantly from people visiting. The tourism $ may become more dependable and long term than other uses of the land.

Pyramid and Hundreds of New Kingdom Coffins Found in Egypt - An Old Kingdom pyramid, 300 New Kingdom coffins with well-preserved mummies with names of the deceased, and nearby a pyramid to Queen Neith…a previously unknown Queen.

Long-COVID clinics are wrestling with how to treat their patients – Frustrating situation.

Fenced In: How the Global Rise of Border Walls Is Stifling Wildlife – Border walls have increased since the end of the Cold War! This makes climate change an even bigger challenge to mammals…because they cannot move to better habitat if there is a border wall in the way.

Baby's vaccine responses linked to birth delivery method, study finds – Babies born via Caesarian section have lower antibody levels after vaccinations than babies born naturally.

Scientists Discover More Than 22,000 Endangered Manta Rays off Coast of Ecuador – Larger than any other Manta Ray population.

A Massive Freshwater River Is Flowing Under Antarctica’s Ice – It is flowing at 3 times the rate of the Thames. This finding helps understand some problems with existing models…hopefully it will allow for model updates to predict the impact of warming more accurately on Antarctica’s ice.

A Field Guide to Jackrabbits – Hard to see denizens of the western US (and Mexico).

France Looks to Mandate Solar Panels Over Large Parking Lots – Good idea…maybe it will begin to happen in the US even without a mandate.

Bright LEDs could spell the end of dark skies – Hope cities can learn to use LEDs like Tucson…not overuse bright white LEDs.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 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.

Energy crisis: How living in a cold home affects your health – The coming winter is going to be very difficult for many – particularly in Europe.

Parks of the 21st century: new ways to reinvent abandoned land – Parks always are signs of hope…the greening of places that might have been eyesores in the past. I wondered how much toxic remediation had to occur for some of the sites they described; its encouraging that we can clean up the messes we’ve made in the past!

Alcohol caused one in eight deaths of working-age US adults – The data used from the analysis was pre-COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the CDC has released data for 2019 and 2020 and it shows a larger-than-normal 26% spike in the alcohol-induced deathrate. In 2020, alcoholic liver disease and mental/behavioral disorders were the leading underlying causes of alcohol-induced deaths. Sad numbers….lots of people and their families impacted.

A field guide to the unusual raptors of the Southern US – I was pleased to see the snail kite in this article – a bird I saw on a birding trip to Florida in 2019.

Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice – Very positive results. Hopefully we will eventually have perennial forms of other grains (wheat in particular).

The weirdest places you can find wild turkeys – Wild turkeys have made a comeback since the early 1900s…a restoration success story. Part of the Thanksgiving vibe this week!

Breast cancer survivorship doubles – An analysis of Canadian data from the 2007-2001. The study also highlighted the long-term side effects in these survivors…the need for new therapies to improve the health of women after surviving breast cancer.

Permanent Standard Time Could Save Lives, Explained by A Sleep Expert – I don’t like changing to/from daylight savings time; before reading this article, I didn’t care which one we chose to make permanent. Now I am convinced that we should stick with standard time! There are too many negative health impacts to staying on daylight savings.

How to avoid bad choices – The article is about the research on how to teach children ‘decision-making competence’ – not just a measure of raw brainpower but how well someone is able to appraise situations. There are many approaches but the goal is to get children and adolescents to start thinking about risk and danger in a more analytical way….on the way to adulthood.

Blind spots in the monitoring of plastic waste – The amount of plastic waste in rivers could be up to 90% higher that previously assumed. The current measurements are mainly based on surface observations…but plastic can be suspended or sink! This study tracked 3,000 particles from 30mm to larger objects like plastic cup. Knowing where the plastic is helps guide where clean up would be the most effective.

Donald Maxwell Illustrations

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Donald Maxwell was an English writer and illustrator active in the first third of the 20th century. This week’s free eBook selections are 5 of Maxwell’s self-illustrated books that are available on Internet Archive:

A dweller in Mesopotamia (1920)

Unknown Kent (1921)

The Last Crusade (1920)

Unknown Essex (1925)

Unknown Sussex (1924)

These are easy books to browse for the illustrations which are a mix of line drawings and color plates. Enjoy!

Cooking a Big Pumpkin

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One of the 10 pumpkins my daughter and son-in-law bought for their pumpkin carving event was not used.

My daughter volunteered to bring it over for me to use as decoration for Thanksgiving or to cook; I decided to cook it. I had cooked smaller pumpkins whole…but this one was too big to fit in the oven. I cut it in half.

I scooped out the seeds and put the bottom half in a large pan.

After cooking, it for 1.5 hours at 350 degrees (the top half was covered with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator to cook another day), it was soft enough that the pulp could be easily scrapped off the skin.

I filled two of my larger Pyrex containers with it and planned to use some in recipes the next day.

The next morning - I processed the pulp into puree in the food processor. It was a good color…more a yellow orange than a deep orange.

I made 3 recipes and used about 3 cups of the puree: pumpkin oatmeal muffins, pumpkin quiche, and pumpkin peanut powder soup.

I froze 2 cups of the puree, and another two cups is in the refrigerator. I’ll make a pumpkin custard with the refrigerator portion….and then I will cook the top of the big pumpkin. I am going trying a lot of pumpkin recipes over the next couple of months!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 12, 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.

America’s largest transit bus charging station & microgrid open in Maryland – The headline caught my eye because I lived in Maryland for over 20 years – 8 of those in the county where this is happening! I hope other states have the same sorts of projects in the works.

NASA Finds More Than 50 Super-Emitters of Methane – Finding them is only the first step….how many of them will be situations we can reduce or stop the emission?

Iron induces chronic heart failure in half of heart attack survivors – This study prompted testing of iron chelation therapy to remedy or mitigate the effects associated with iron in hemorrhagic myocardial infarction patients.

Unique Bronze Age belt discovered near Opava – Half my ancestors came from the area that is now the Czech Republic…I am drawn to articles about the history of the region.  The belt is quite beautiful…but was it a practical item of apparel?  

What happens if our circadian rhythms are out of whack? – WHO has proclaimed that disrupted circadian rhythms are a probable carcinogen. The study discussed in this post was about the mechanism that circadian rhythm disruption triggers lung tumors.

View 16 Breathtaking Images from the Nature Conservancy’s Annual Photo Contest – Take a little break….look at awesome images of our world.

Mississippi River Basin adapts as climate change brings extreme rain and flooding – This year the stories about extreme weather seem to be more frequent – and wide ranging in terms of water. The Mississippi was low enough for barge traffic to be impacted because of drought…yet there were floods along part of the river just last summer.

Eye-opening discovery about adult brain's ability to recover vision – An unexpected success…opening new ways to treat a vision impairment (LCA) and maybe prompt a re-look about how the adult brain can re-wire itself relative to vision.

The World’s Whitest Paint May Soon Help Cool Airplanes and Spacecraft – A way of making paint that was previously too thick/heavy for things that move. The thicker version works for homes and buildings. We’ll need this technology to reflect heat without expending energy!

Greater cloud cover may be narrowing the gap between daily high and low temperatures – Simulating clouds explicitly. Trying to understand why nights are heating up faster than days across the globe.

Snow and Ice Photography

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Herbert Walker Wagner’s Snow and Ice Photography was published in 1938 and is available on Internet Archive. My takeaways are from two perspectives: 1) composition ideas for my next encounter with snow and ice and 2) as a historical record of the state of photographic art in the 1930s – just before World War II. The ‘looks like’ (ice herd example) idea emphasized through cropping and the naming of compositions are my top two compositional ideas from the book. Historically – the realization (again and again) about how much easier it is now to take and enhance photographs; digitization and software has changed photography tremendously.

Enjoy the three samples I picked to include in this post…there are many more in the book which is well worth a look!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 5, 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.

How Tucson, Arizona is facing up to a 1,200-year drought – Harvesting rain!

The demented gift American politicians handed to China – About electric buses….and more. The suggested acronym by the author: GAGA (Give American Greatness Away).

New clues into a serious neurodegenerative disease – So many sources of cognitive decline….and we are just beginning to understand some of the mechanisms (and thus effective treatment). The research described in this post is about frontotemporal dementia.

World headed in wrong direction one 5 key mechanisms of climate progress – And the 5 are: share of unabated fossil gas in electricity generation, carbon intensity of global steel production, share of kilometers traveled in passenger cars, mangrove loss, agricultural production of GHG emissions.

Researchers reveal why shingles can lead to stroke - The risk of stroke is elevated for a year after having shingles. This study found that prothrombotic exosomes which can cause blood clots are found in those with shingles…and persist after the outward symptoms of shingles are gone. Using antiviral agents longer with the addition of antiplatelet and anti-inflammatory agents could help reduce the risk of stroke.

Will we ever…. live in city sized buildings? – Maybe. But would it be pleasant? Maybe an apocalyptic event would force us to do it to survive.

Vitamin D deficiency linked to premature death – The study evaluated 307,601 records from the UK Biobank. Take away message from the results: ensure that vulnerable and elderly maintain sufficient vitamin D levels throughout the year.

Omicron keeps finding new evolutionary tricks to outsmart our immunity – Variants within a variant!

Powerful Aerial Photos Show the Consequences of Drought on the Colorado River – The dry situation in the western US.

Cats react to ‘baby talk’ from their owners, but not strangers – And does this mean we are more than just a food provider in their world?

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 29, 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.

How an asteroid impact would transform the food we eat – Thought provoking…and scary. Right now, I am beginning to wonder how the level of drought in the US is going to change the food we eat…or will we eat the same way but pay much higher prices.

A Field Guide to Unexpected, Out-of-Place Wildlife – Why wildlife shows up in the ‘wrong’ place… I had read about the shifting range of armadillos last spring (was reminded of it by the reference to the Virginia opossum in this post).

State Of the Birds Report: More Than Half of U.S. Bird Species Are Declining – Sad….another indicator that the Earth is changing.

Economic losses from hurricanes become too big to be offset by the US if warming continues – I’ve been wondering about this since Hurricane Harvey and finally there is some analysis of the data…but, so far, it does not seem to be changing the way we deal with the aftermath of these catastrophic storms. The dominate idea still seems to be ‘rebuild.’

Life expectancy improves in some countries after big drops in 2020 – but US and others see further falls  - The life expectancy at birth in the US was 79.8 in 2019 and was down to 77.4 in 2021. It might take a few years until the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy is fully understood. It seems to me that there are other cultural changes that happened concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic that could impact life expectancy in the US into the future: reduced vaccination rates, reduced trust in medical professionals, increased belief in whatever is said on social media and conspiracy theories, increased stress/mental health challenges, etc.

The Clean Water Act at 50: Big Successes, More to Be Done – The Act was passed the year I graduated from high school. I had done a project about algae as pollution indicator in the streams around Dallas, Texas in the fall before so I was aware of water pollution issues of the time. It is frustrating that there is still so much to be done….

New model of Alzheimer’s as an autoimmune disease – A new perspective….maybe leading to new therapies in the future.

Ancient Maya Cities Were Polluted with High Levels of Mercury – The Maya coated surfaces (walls and floors and bodies) with cinnabar…and the mercury from that leached into the water supply and soils. Chronic mercury poisoning causes tremors, weakened vision and hearing, and paralysis! The contamination at some sites is high enough that archaeologists need to use mitigation techniques and protective gear.

Young kids avoid one learning trap that often snares adults – Young kids are not as good at focused attention as adults which means they notice new things happening away from a ‘focus area’ more quickly…..but focused attention can also mean learned inattention in adults which might not be the best strategy in all situations.

After Three Summers, Man Finally Gets Photos of Hummingbird with Rainbow Wings – Beautiful pictures. They prompted me to look up why hummingbird feathers can show the colors of the rainbow. I found a Science Daily post from back in 2020 that offers an explanation.

2 more Sir Arthur Evans eBooks on Internet Archive

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 Enjoy!

Unique Aspects of Days – October 2022

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Unique aspects of October….

Border crossing (US to Canada). This was not the only time I crossed the boarder from the US to Canada…but the first time in more than  decade…so rare enough to be unique for me. It was the first day of their new policy to no longer require documentation of COVID-19 vaccination….probabay made it a little faster than it would have been the day before.

Buying a baby present in Canada. Two aspects of uniqueness of this one: deciding that having a baby in my exended family is unique enough to buy an ad hoc present and enjoying shopping during vacation …wanting to buy something (and not always something for me).

Discovering that the fireplace vent was leaking cold air into my office and the hearth room upstairs. There was cold air from the bottom of our gas fireplace doors (the vent area) during our first cold weather of the season. The magnetic strip I ordered from Amazon has fixed the problem…and I am glad I noticed the problem so quickly.

Dry Cleaners. I hadn’t been to a dry cleaners in years. I probably could have taken the jackets I had been wearing for a couple of years several years ago…but then the pandemic stopped our being out and about. I aired the jackets and continued to wear them occasionally. When I went to a dry cleaners near our new house, I was the only customer…and the racks didn’t look very full either.

Exploding broccoli. I was pleased to find a cup of carrots, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli in one of the places we stopped on our way back from Canada. I had not anticated that the lid would be so hard to get off. As my daughter was pulling us out of the parking lot, I was working on the packaging…finding it a bit of a challenge…when the lid suddenly came off and broccoli flew out into my lap and onto the center console! I ate it anyway…and the other veggies too!

Hail. We had quarter sized hail at our house for a brief time. I’m glad our cars were in the garage. In Maryland we never got hail above pea sized (and it was slushy). This hail bouced and stayed around on the ground longer!

Peppermint honey. I bought some peppermine infused honey in Canada…and it is yummy!

Sitting in a sunny window like a cat. A very nice place on a cold morning while I was in Canada.

Tator tots. I hadn’t had tater tots in a lot time….and they were a big disappointment…so the event will probably be unique.

Went to the doctor’s office but the doctor had called in sick. I was signing in for a doctor’s appointment when the nurse came from the back and informed the front desk that the doctor had called in sick! I ended up making an appointment with another doctor since she was so fully booked it would be more than a month before I could be worked into her schedule!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 22, 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.

US National Integrated Drought Information System – 68.4% of the US is abnormally dry…46% is in moderate drought…27% in severe drought. Use the location tab of this page to select state or county level maps color coded for their drought status. Where I live, we are in moderate drought.

Autumn in the Adirondacks – Leaf color has not been impacted by the drought in the Adirondacks. The pictures are from the Landsat 9 satellite. I’m enjoying the color from the ground – even with the drought here in Missouri making it not as colorful as it probably was in prior years.

Why cork is making a comeback – The main product mentioned in the article was cork stoppers….but I thought of the calm I felt when I walked into the University of Michigan’s Law Library with a tour group and realized how much the cork floor muffled our footsteps. It was the highpoint of the trip with my daughter when she was considering the school for her undergraduate studies.

Blue fibers found in dental calculus of Maya sacrifice victims – Analysis of more than 100 sacrifice victims found blue fibers in the mouths of 2 of them. Are the fibers from blue gags left in the mouths of victims over and extended time? Similar pigment called Maya blue has been found in other sites where it may have been used to paint the bodies of sacrificial victims. Another archeological mystery…

See the buzzworthy winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition – Eye candy for the week.

Millions of Americans are losing access to maternal care. Here’s what can be done – 36% of the counties nationwide – largely in the Midwest and South – constitute “maternity care deserts,” meaning they have no obstetric hospitals or birth centers and no obstetric providers. That does not bode well for the health of mothers and the next generation.

These stunning satellite images look like abstract art – and they reveal much about our planet – 8 images selected from US Geological Survey satellite images of the Earth’s surface.

Engineers weave advanced fabric that can cool a wearer down and warm them up – Maybe the ‘cool down’ of this technology (if it can be developed) will help us deal with climate change more effectively. There are already beginning to be more heat related deaths and there will be some occupations that will become impossible without technology to cool the body in outdoor environments.

Rainfall is becoming more intense in most of the US – East of the Rockies…there is increasing precipitation intensity. Water resource management is more challenging. Flooding risk is going up too.

USGS Public Lecture Series – A wide range of topics including volcanoes in Alaska, earthquake early warning for all, migratory big game, droughts and groundwater quality, modernizing the national water information system….and many more. I am beginning to work my way down this YouTube playlist.

The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten

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Oliver Herford’s The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten is available from Internet Archive…it was published in 1904 with his drawings….showing that the antics of kittens were as amusing more than 100 years ago as they are today. The swatting of the ink bottle on the desk might date one of the sample images I selected, but the motion of the kitten is familiar… and equally disastrous for any small breakable/spillable object on a counter or table…as we experience every day with our 3 kittens.

Enjoy browsing this book online: The Rubáiyát of a Persian kitten!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 15, 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.

Previously deployed military personnel show retained dust in lungs – The lingering impact of deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As Rio Grande shrinks, El Paso plans for uncertain water future – Preparing for a year when there is no river water. Elephant Butte Reservoir that stores water for Las Cruces NM and El Paso TX, where I went on a birding field trip in November 2016, is currently at 5.6% of its capacity. So far – nothing has resolved the water insecurity of the region into the future.

Watercolor seas in the wake of Hurricane Ian – The impact of water surging and running off…natural-color imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite. There is also an image from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite detailing the coastline near Fort Myers.

Solar Community Slammed by Hurricane Ian: “Our Lights Stayed On” – And another Hurricane story…this one from the ground – Babcock Ranch, about 2 miles from Fort Myers.

Pre-Hispanic images revealed on early convent walls in Mexico – Hmmm….the building was not always a Christian convent?

Has the pandemic changed your personality? – Declines in extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness among adults were measured…particularly in young adults (ages 18-25). I found myself wondering whether the political upheaval that was happening at the same time contributed to the finding; the collective stress levels were probably heightened by more than the pandemic.

A field guide to Jackrabbits – An animal to look for in the west….next time I travel there.

Multiple health benefits of b-type procyanidin-rich foods like chocolate and apples consumed in right amounts – The study showed that peak benefits are achieved at mid-range doses rather than high or low doses. But it is not clear how to get the mid-range dose through diet…which made this article interesting but not actionable.

How did Vikings make glass beads? – Evidently by salvaging Roman and Byzantine mosaics as their raw material!

Scientists are finding fungi in cancerous tumors – A surprise…and lots of research still to be done to understand if the fungi are a correlation or contributor to the tumor.