Gleanings of the Week Ending February 29, 2020
/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.
Hummingbirds' rainbow colors come from pancake-shaped structures in their feathers -- ScienceDaily – Hopefully they’ll produce some illustrations for these findings; this article and the materials it came from are just text.
New Discoveries in Human Anatomy | The Scientist Magazine® - It’s surprising the things we are just now discovering about our anatomy. Back in the 1970s when I was getting an undergraduate degree in biology, I remember being disappointed that there was so much obviously missing….and then realizing there were also unknown unknowns (thing we didn’t even know we didn’t know)! In the intervening years more has been researched, but we still have lots to explore.
Processed foods highly correlated with obesity epidemic in the US -- ScienceDaily - I have kept a food log for the past few years and now am paying more attention to reducing the processed and ultra-processed foods that I buy and eat. Most of us probably intuitively know that the store-bought cookies, chips, snacks, etc. are not what we should be eating. And they aren’t even more convenient than foods like carrots or apple or grapes. I’m skewing my purchases at the grocery store to the produce aisle!
Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Doves and Pigeons - Wild Bird Revolution and Nectarivorous Birds - Wild Bird Revolution – Two groups of bird photos this week…catching up on the backlog.
Image of the Day: Flock in the Night | The Scientist Magazine® - A huge flock of birds picked up by radar going from Cuba…over the Florida straits…on to mainland Florida.
The chemistry of snow and ice – We haven’t seen much snow and ice in Maryland this winter...but it’s a good time to bring up this topic.
Children to bear the burden of negative health effects from climate change -- ScienceDaily – We need to use these types of articles to motivate us to action rather than indifference/depression.
FS1205: Tree-Dwelling Lichens (Rutgers NJAES) – A short description of lichen. Did you know there are at least 13,000 species of lichen?
The 2020 Community Power Scorecard | CleanTechnica – A map of the US and the scorecard with some details – state by state. There is progress being made in the transition to renewable energy!
New, more appealing varieties of kale in the works - UPI.com – I like kale. I buy it in a bunch to avoid plastic bags or containers…use it in smoothies or stir fries or soups (the whole leaf and stem) and as chips. I rarely use it in salads (particularly during the winter when I tend to want something hot rather cold for meals). Chopping it up in the food processor (like in smoothies or before adding it to soups) makes the toughness of the stem and leaves a non-issue. Still – I would try the new varieties. I wonder how long it will be before some of them show up in my CSA share.
