Gleanings of the Week Ending November 25, 2023

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.

20 Incredible Winners From the 2023 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest – Lots of natural beauty…captured in photographs.

A known environmental hazard can change the epigenetics of cells – Formaldehyde. It is a widespread pollutant - formaldehyde enters our body mainly during our breathing and, because it dissolves well in an aqueous medium, it ends up reaching all the cells of our body. It is associated with an increased risk of developing cancer (nasopharyngeal tumors and leukemia), hepatic degeneration due to fatty liver (steatosis) and asthma.

How forest schools boost children's immune systems – It seems the benefits go well beyond immune systems.  Hopefully this type of school for 3 to 5 year old will increase in availability/popularity.

Circular Maya Structure Uncovered in Southern Mexico - Similar round structures have been found at the Maya sites of Edzná, Becán, Uxmal, and Chichen Itzá.

Health Care Workers Are Burning Out, CDC Says - The CDC researchers analyzed self-reported symptoms of more than 1,400 adults in 2018 and 2022 who were working in three areas: health care, other essential services and all other professions. Workers’ self-reported poor mental health days in the past 30 days was similar across all three groups in 2022, but health professionals saw the most significant jump, from 3.3 in 2018 to 4.5 in 2022. Reports of harassment at work also spiked among health care workers over the five-year period, going from 6.4 percent to 13.4 percent.

How To Bring Back the Prairie, a Tiny Bit at a Time – The use of “prairie strips” on farms in an effort to restore a portion of the Minnesota’s remnant prairie and to soak up polluted water.

These Ten Stunning Images Prove That Small Is Beautiful – From Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Contest. My favorite was the cuckoo wasp.

Deforestation in Colombia Down 70 Percent So Far This Year - Since taking power last year, leftist President Gustavo Petro has enacted a slate of new policies aimed at protecting Colombian forests, including paying locals to conserve woodland. The recent gains in Colombia mirror similar advances in the Brazilian Amazon, where leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cracked down on forest clearing; deforestation is down 50 percent through the first nine months of this year. In 2021, more than 100 countries, from Brazil to Russia to Indonesia, set a goal to end deforestation by the end of this decade, but so far forest loss has declined too slowly to stay on pace for this target.

European wildcats avoided introduced domestic cats for 2,000 years – About 50 years ago in Scotland, however, that all changed. Perhaps as a result of dwindling wildcat populations and a lack of opportunity to mate with other wildcats, rates of interbreeding between wild and domestic cats rose rapidly.

Why grazing bison could be good for the planet - The shortgrass prairie makes up 27,413 sqare miles of remote land straddling the US/Canadian border to the east of the Rocky Mountains. This rare habitat is in ecological decline. Plains bison co-evolved with the short-grass prairie. In the 12,000 years since the end of the Pleistocene, they have proven themselves to be potent ecosystem engineers. An adult bison eats about 25lb (11kg) of grass a day. The grasses adapted to their foraging. Vegetation across the plains uses the nutrients in their dung. Birds pluck their fur from bushes to insulate their nests. Bison also shape the land literally. They roll in the dust and create indentations known as "wallows" that hold water after rainstorms. After the bison move on, insects flourish in these pools and become a feast for birds and small mammals. Pronghorn antelope survive by following their tracks through deep winter snows. Replacing cattle with bison greens floodplains…setting the stage for beavers.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 1, 2023

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 technology helped archaeologists dig deeper – Tools that tell us a lot more than excavation can: chemical and genetic analysis, lidar. This article uses new archaeological data from several cities (New York, Cahokia, Rome, Pompei, Angkor Wat)…pointing out that new analyses reveal that they were often full of immigrants that built the city and there were places those people lived nearby that often were not noticed by excavators! Archaeology is now able to tell us more about how ordinary people lived – not just the elite.

The white roofs cooling women's homes in Indian slums – Maybe white roofs will become a trend in lots of places…reduce the heat island effect that cities must struggle to overcome as the planet gets warmer.

Vienna is the most livable city in the world – It has stability, robust health care and education systems and strong infrastructure, among other factors. There are no cities in the US in the top 10; Honolulu, Hawaii is 25th on the list and the top city located in the US. There are 3 in the top 10 located in Canada: Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. 

That's no pizza: A wall painting found in Pompeii doesn't depict Italy's iconic dish – Tomatoes and mozzarella were not available 2,000 years ago when the fresco was created! Tomatoes came from the Americas a few centuries ago and mozzarella was invented in Naples in the 1700s.

This Ancient Maya City Was Hidden in the Jungle for More Than 1,000 Years – Found during a survey with light detection and ranging (lidar) scans in the Balamku ecological reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula. The site is on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands. The ruins have been named Ocotun (‘stone column’ in Yucatec Mayan) in honor of the many columns found at the site.

Is fast fashion making us sick? – Fashion can be rife with toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and chromium…and the US has done little to protect consumers from these toxins in clothes. Researchers are correlating declining fertility rate and the rise in autoimmune diagnoses in the US with chemicals found in our clothes.

Winners of the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Birds – Eye candy images of the natural world.

Surgeons must tackle three global health challenges to save lives – Assuming that a new device or approach is always better - not a good assumption but a common one that surgeon make!

The perilous life of the solitary pangolin – Learn about this African animal…their situation in the wild…and how things have changed over the past decade.

Winners of the 2023 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition embrace our world’s biodiversity – Images telling stories.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 11, 2023

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.

800-year-old hoard unearthed in northern Germany – The picture of the earrings made me wonder how they were worn…and what stones once were held in the empty enclosures.

Firewood theft: The forests where trees are going missing – Evidently it is happening around the world…maybe caused by increasing heating costs and/or other fuels not available after a disaster or during a war.

Bald Eagles aren’t fledging as many chicks due to avian influenza – Oh no! I had gotten used to seeing bald eagles frequently near where I lived in Maryland. I had assumed that I didn’t see as many in Missouri because I didn’t know where to look – but it could have been that there are fewer birds to see anywhere.

New thought on Chaco Canyon Construction – A demonstration of how the timbers for building the complex structures at Chaco Canyon could have been carried the 60 miles from where the trees grew.

Sustainable process to produce vanillin from lignin makes further progress – Making the popular flavoring agent from lignin (a waste product from the wood pulping industry) rather a chemical process using petroleum.

Quilts from the Second World War tell the stories of the Canadian women who sewed them – A little Canadian history…the spirit of giving during a stressful time…sending artful warmth. Quilts have always appealed to me because they are functional art. My great-grandmother (in the US) made wedding quilts with/for her 5 daughters in the 1930s and 1940s…and now one of my sisters is talking about quilting being something she plans to do when she retires.

More Than Half Of New US Electricity Generating Capacity In 2023 Will Be Solar – Good! Evidently California and Texas are the states adding the most solar capacity.

Archaeologists Find Elite Residences at Mexico’s Chichén Itzá – Prior to this discovery, experts didn’t know any residential structures! What they found was a complex…two houses and a palace.

Air pollution speeds bone loss from osteoporosis – A study of a diverse cohort of over 160,000 postmenopausal women. The study found that nitrogen oxides are a major contributor to bone damage and that the lumbar spine is one of the most susceptible sites to this damage. This is another reason to improve air quality!

Photography In the National Parks: Capturing Atmospheric Phenomena – Being in the right place…noticing atmospheric phenomenon…and capturing the image. It reminded me of a trip we made back in 2007 to Cumberland State Park in Kentucky where we saw a moonbow; maybe we should go again!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 28, 2023

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 links litmus paper and lichens? – How did I not know that litmus dye was made from lichens? I remember using red cabbage to tint paper for an elementary school science project with my daughter. We tested everything in the house…discovered that even the fumes from toilet bowl cleaner turned the strips we made bright pink!

How donkeys changed the course of human history – The beast of burden. During Roman times the subspecies used was larger than modern donkeys…specifically bred for the expanding empire.

Jungle realm of the Snake Queens – A 5-part article about 2 Mayan queens: Lady K’abel and Lady Six Sky.

Marriage in Minoan Crete – A surprise – it was very common to marry one’s first cousin!

Kenya’s Rift Valley lakes are rising, putting thousands at risk – A study reveals that there have been increases in rainfall since 2010…an increase of only 0.4-2% of mean annual rainfall leads to the observed rising lakes/flooding.

EPA requirement keeps electric buses out of low-income schools – Low-income school districts often don’t own their school buses; they rely on contractors or subsidized lease deals. So --- they can’t meet the requirement to scrap the old diesel buses.

Ten-minute scan enables detection and cure of the commonest cause of high blood pressure – The hormone aldosterone causes 1 in 15 cases of high blood pressure. This new technology/treatment is a big improvement for the way those cases can be treated.

Dead Humpback Whale Washes Ashore at Assateague Island – This is the second one recently. I am familiar with the place this time…Assateague Island was a place my husband and enjoyed for birding when we lived in Maryland.

China’s population declines for the first time in six decades – Changing demographics in China.

Bees exposed to common weedkiller via wildflower nectar – Evidently the flowers can be contaminated even if they are not sprayed directly!

Maya and US Southwest Archeology eBooks by Earl H. Morris

A little archaeology from the early 1900s…books available from Internet Archive with great illustrations made immediately after excavations:

Preliminary account of the antiquities of the region between the Mancos and La Plata rivers in southwestern Colorado  (1919)

The Temple of the warriors at Chichen Itzá, Yucatan (plates) (1930)

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Earl H. Morris did archaeological field work from 1912 to 1940….contributing artifacts to institutions that supported his work and a myriad of publications until his death in 1956. Both books are well worth the time to browse.

The first book’s pictures of pottery from the southwest reminded me of a visit to the Arizona State Museum’s The Pottery Project room….it was a place to savor shapes and patterns…I spent more time in that room than any other at the museum.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 29, 2022

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 22, 2022

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 8, 2022

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.

Photography Collective Highlights Washington State’s Beautiful Vistas in New Book – My husband and I were talking about a trip to the northwestern US before the pandemic…maybe it’s time to think about it again. It’s one of the few areas of the country we have not visited.

The people resurrecting India’s ancient fruit trees – Saving varieties of trees through grafting…mangos being the dominant example in this article.

Longhorned tick discovered in northern Missouri – I perked up when I saw ‘Missouri’ in the title…since I now live in the state. It turns out that this tick is originally from eastern Russia and Australasia…and was first found in the US in New Jersey in 2017. It has been spreading rapidly with Missouri being the first state in the Midwest. It has a negative impact on cattle.

Cactus holes and cobwebs: the weird nesting habits of birds – Some unusual bird nests.

James Earl Jones Retires from Voicing Darth Vader – End of an era….but not the sound because that will continue on recreated by a proprietary AI.

As carbon dioxide grows more abundant, trees are growing bigger – Increased CO2 accelerates photosynthesis and plants grow faster. The phenomenon is called ‘carbon fertilization.’ That can help reduce climate change if we can keep our forests intact (and increase forests). Drought, insect infestations, and wildfires are a big challenge toward that goal.

NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into its asteroid target – A baby step toward defending Earth from space rocks.

Cacao consumption no limited to Maya elites – Cacao residues were found on jars, mixing bowls, serving plates, and drinking vessels used all over the El Pilar site.

Neonatal sepsis: the new threat posed by superbugs – Antibiotics were introduced in the 1940s, saving many lives…but they have been over-used – unintentionally breeding resistant microbes that no antibiotic can treat. In India, 20% of neonatal deaths are caused by sepsis.

US Plan to Add 500,000 EV Chargers in All 50 States Gets Final Approval – Hurray! I am enjoying my plug-in hybrid (Prius Prime) right now but want my next car to be an EV….and I still want to be able to take road trips! This project getting underway is a start toward making that easier.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 16, 2022

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 June 4, 2022

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!

Frederick Catherwood’s Lithographs of Maya Art

I enjoyed browsing 2 publications available via Internet Archive by John L. Stephens with Frederick Catherwood engravings earlier this year. When they were published in the mid1800s, these publications were best sellers and introduced the ancient Maya to the rest of the world. The Wikipedia entry for Catherwood  indicates that he died in 1854 when the ship he was on from Liverpool to New York sank after colliding with another ship. He was 55 years old.

Incidents Of Travel In Central America, Chiapas, And Yucatan V1 and Incidents Of Travel In Central America, Chiapas, And Yucatan V2 from 1841

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Incidents of travel in Yucatan V1 and Incidents of travel in Yucatan V2 from 1856 (first published in 1843)

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Another resource for Catherwood lithographs is an online exhibit created in the fall of 2005 with interpretive text by students of a Smith College seminar (“Making Sense of the Pre-Columbian”) for 25 lithographs.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 5, 2022

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.

Oyster Hatcheries Help the Industry Adapt to Climate Change – There are lots of aspects of climate change that impact oysters – making mitigation more complex. The industry is trying to be proactive as problems are recognized.

Could COVID-19 still be affecting us in decades to come? – A summary of some research particularly about brain function/Parkinsons and diabetes relationship with COVID-19 just beginning…there is so much we don’t know yet.

The porcupine’s winter in slow-motion – How do porcupines in Alaska survive being out and about in the winter?

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Interactions – Mostly adults of the same species…but there are a few with different species and the first image is a pair of young owls (siblings).

2,000-Year-Old Roman Bowl Discovered Intact in the Netherlands – Blue glass that look like it could have been made very recently.

Locations of ancient Maya sacred groves of cacao trees discovered – History of cacao (chocolate) trees…grown around sinkholes…so special that the beans were used a currency.

Monarch butterfly numbers soar in California after dramatic losses – It’s great to have some good news about Monarchs….but they’re still a species that needs our help.

AccuWeather shares how an electric school bus fares in Alaska – Evidently the bus has done well even at -48 degrees Fahrenheit!

Musings from the parks: Navigating National, Wild, Recreational, and Scenic Rivers – Prompted by a proposal to refine limits on the horsepower boaters can use in Ozark Scenic Riverways in Missouri…a look at regulations at other rivers in the National Park System. I’d prefer that we begin the transition to electric motors (if motors are allowed at all) rather than only focusing on horsepower.

Epidemiologists develop advanced state-of-the-art tool for measuring the pace of aging – A blood test to measure the pace of biological aging…with the possibility of identifying interventions that would slow aging… and attempt to build aging health equity.

Art and Archaeology – An Illustrated Magazine

There are 11 volumes of the Art and Archaeology magazine from 1914-1923 available on Internet Archive; it was published in Baltimore. Most of the illustrations are black and white photographs but there are occasional color ones. I enjoyed finding pictures that looked familiar…and realizing how long some of the places and artifacts have been featured in magazines: the Aztec and Maya from Central America; buildings in Greece and Italy and Spain and France from Europe; Egypt, Babylon, and Petra from the Middle East; the desert Southwest and Lincoln of the US….and these are just what is represented in the 2 sample images I picked from each volume. Some of the places are probably a bit more worn from tourists and damaged by air pollution 100 years later…some have been restored. Maybe I will do a side by side look at some historical pictures of a place I visit (when I start doing that kind of traveling again).

I hope that more of volumes of this magazine become available as the copyright expires; it was published into the 1930s. For now – enjoy the sample images below by clicking through the 22 images…or go to the volumes directly by following the 11 links.

V1 (1914-1915), V2 (1915), V3 (1916-1), V4 (1916-2), V5 (1917), V7 (1918), V9-10 (1920), V11-12 (1921), V13-14 (1922), V15 (1923 - 1), V16 (1923 -2)

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 15, 2021

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.

Top 25 birds of the week: Camouflage – Birds that blend in….a photography challenge sometimes – finding the bird then zoom in enough to make the bird easy to spot.

You Can Now Explore the Louvre's Entire Collection Online | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Next best thing to being there.

The radical coral rescue plan that paid off – Restoration after Hurricane Iris hit Belize in 2001.

Experimenting with Tucson Night Lights – Streetlights accounted for only 13% of the light visible after midnight….so we need to address other types of lighting to reduce the impact of outdoor lighting. Streetlights have been the easiest to address because they are a single source, and the local government has direct control over them.

1,200-year-old children’s hand prints found in Mexican cave – Made by Mayan children…perhaps made during coming of age ritual…in black handprints at first…then red.

Pileated Visitation – The joy of having a pileated woodpecker around long enough to photograph.

Forget Stonehenge: the first know massive monuments are much older – 6th millennium BC (7,000 years ago) structures on the Arabia Peninsula. Mustatils built as monuments by cattle herders.

Bald Eagle Cams Are Active. Here are the best 4. – It’s the time of year to watch nest cams!

Prairie Ecologist – Photographs of the week – April 23 2021 – Prairie dandelions on different than the dandelions that come up in my yard in Maryland!

Photography in the National Parks: the yin and yang of a composition – A Rebecca Lawson post…beautiful and instructive.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 16, 2021

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.

Wingspan and Other Tabletop Games for Naturalists – A new indoor activity for during the winter?

Square Structure Detected Under Monte Albán’s Main Plaza - Archaeology Magazine – The plaza was in use for 1,000 years….and evidently the structure detected with ground penetrating radar, electrical resistance and gradiometery is 60x60 feet…and about 3 feet thick. More study of the data might reveal if the building had stairs, tunnels, and columns.

Leaf microbiomes are a neighborhood affair in northern forests -- ScienceDaily – The microbes associated with trees have been an active research area in recent years. This study looked at Sugar Maples and discovered that their microbiome was similar to the trees around them…whether it was other sugar maples or conifers….other species entirely.

A warm pool in the Indo-Pacific Ocean has almost doubled in size, changing global rainfall patterns | NOAA Climate.gov – The impacts on large-scale atmospheric circulation and rainfall are expected to intensify in the future.

Top 25 birds of the week: January 2021 – This collection includes a photo of a red-breasted nuthatch…a bird we’ve seen at our feeder this year!

Photographer Nathan Myhrvold Captures Snowflakes in High Resolution – I enjoy trying to photograph snowflakes…but I do it close to home where the challenge is higher temperatures. That tends to cause them to clump rather than be easily separated into single flakes. It’s still a fun activity for snow days.

New mammogram measures of breast cancer risk could revolutionize screening -- ScienceDaily – Improving the way mammograms are analyzed…giving results at the time of screening instead of later then moving toward personalized screening thereafter rather than ‘one size fits all.’ I wonder how long it will take for this to trickle through the industry.

Flapper style | Europeana – Our family has a picture of one of my grandmothers in a flapper dress. She probably made it herself – as the article indicated…they were easy to make and patterns were available. The dresses have a timelessness to them even though they are associated with the 1920s. They look great as party dresses even 100 years later!

'Sparkling' clean water from nanodiamond-embedded membrane filters -- ScienceDaily – The problem the researchers are addressing is filtering of the hot water from oil recovery and other industrial processes. We’ll need more technologies like this to clean up water we can’t afford to leave polluted forever….but we should concurrently move toward technologies that don’t leave toxins in water. Technologies should be designed with the goal in mind of 0 waste.

Researchers Catch Oldest Tropical Reef Fish Known to Science | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – An 81-year-old midnight snapper! They also caught a 79-year-old red snapper in the same area. Climate change is already warmed the reef enough that the life-span of the fishes there is expected to be shorter in the future. The record for oldest known vertebrate in the world is also a sea creature – a 400 year old Greenland shark.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 18, 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.

Listening to Silence: Why We Must Protect the World’s Quiet Places - Yale E360 – I realized after 9/11 that most of the modern world sounds at my house are from transportation: planes/helicopters and cars/trucks with occasional yard equipment. While we had a stay-at-home order with this pandemic, it became noticeable as well. There are still times when those noises are subdued or gone. I notice the bird songs in the early morning…when the other sounds don’t intrude. As we skew more toward electric ground transportation….the noise level will notch downward. I enjoy the natural sounds a lot more than our man-made ones.

Declining eyesight improved by looking at deep red light -- ScienceDaily – I wonder if this is something doctors will start prescribing!

Why your organs might reach 100 even if you don't - BBC Future – A summary of some current research areas re aging. There are a lot of different approaches with the primary goal of most being to extend healthy lifespan.  Even if different organs age at different rates…they are interrelated to the body they comprise.

Maryland offshore wind farm could become stop-over for migrating sturgeon, striped bass -- ScienceDaily – I live in Maryland….so this story grabbed my attention. Will the offshore windfarm become a rest stop for fish? And they will offer a convenient infrastructure for researchers to collect data.

Where Will Climate Migrants Go? – THE DIRT – It’s something to think about now. Some coastal cities are already experiencing more flooding even without unusual storm events…and people that can move will probably do so. Will climate trends weigh in decisions about where they move? The article talks about cities and towns in the Midwest that have experienced declining population becoming ‘receiver’ locations. I wondered if people that have discovered that they can work from home during the pandemic – and can continue to do so – will be freer to move to these new locations and still have the same employer! Otherwise there is the challenge of how to sync moving to a new place with a new job.

The chemistry of cats: Allergies, catnip and urine – Compound Interest – Evidently male cats produce higher levels of allergen and have smellier urine…unless they have been neutered.

Ways to keep buildings cool with improved super white paints -- ScienceDaily – White roofs should probably become the norm….it will be hot enough without the added heat island effect caused by a lot of man-made structures with dark roofs.

How humans are altering the tides of the oceans - BBC Future – It’s happening around the world. Dredging river channels and filling in coastal wetlands cause shifts in how tides interact with the land. And then there is sea level rise too. Some places cited in the article that have experienced dramatic change: Cape Fear River in North Carolina (tidal range at Wilmington has doubled since 1880) and the same is true for St. Johns River/Jacksonville Florida. Sacramento’s tides disappeared in the late 1800s because of silt but dredging brought them back and the Thames tidal range was 2 meters during Roman times and 8 meters by the Victorian age.

Meet the Mountain Chickadee – We have mostly Carolina Chickadees where I live in Maryland…this is their relative in the western US (mountains).

Ancient Maya reservoirs contained toxic pollution: Mercury, algae made water undrinkable in heart of city -- ScienceDaily – Mercury from pigments used on Mayan building. Cyanobacteria blooms that made the water smelly and toxic. Not pleasant for a city center!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Regenerative Landscaping lecture (via zoom). The lecture was about an hour and my big take away was about the huge environment cost of lawns…and the many dimensions of that cost. The one I hadn’t thought much about before was from the California Air Resources Board fact sheet on Small engines in California (small engines being spark-ignition engines in things like lawn mowers). Their fact sheet says: “In the early 2020s, however, total smog-forming emissions from small engines are projected to exceed those from passenger cars in the South Coast Air Basin because passenger car emissions will continue to decrease. By 2031, small engine emissions will be more than twice those from passenger cars.” For comparison – they show 1 hour of lawn mowing emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a Toyota Camry 300 miles! This must be an issue in all areas where there is a lot of mowed turf grass – kike most suburbs. There are multiple ways to address the problem and the one discussed in the meeting was transitioning to less lawn or lawn that does not need to be mowed as frequently (or at all). Another way would be to transition to electric mowers and other yard equipment. Right now – the only gasoline powered equipment I have is the mower. I’d been thinking about an electric mower because I don’t like the noise and smell of our current machine. So - this overall air quality issue is just one more reason to do it.

Enjoyed a slideshow of Armand Guillaumin (1841 – 1927) paintings available on Internet Archive here. He was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 4, 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.

Utah’s arches continue to whisper their secrets - GeoSpace - AGU Blogosphere – A study to measure arches to hone 3-D models from the Geohazards Research Group at Universe of Utah. The 30 second video of the model showing how Moonshine Arch moves is worth viewing.

Will the world be quieter after the pandemic? - BBC Future – I know I appreciate having a quieter environment; it’s an aspect of the pandemic that has been positive. The quiet is one of the things I like about my Prius Prime when it is in EV mode. Maybe some of the new norm will involve choices to maintain, as much as we can, the quiet.

Exposure to air pollution impairs cellular energy metabolism -- ScienceDaily – A study from Finland – exploring how particulates impact the olfactory mucosa (a neural tissue located at the upper part of the nasal cavity…the first line of defense against inhaled agents). As I read the article, I wondered if this is the tissue impacted my COVID-19 in people that lose their sense of smell when infected….and also, does wearing a mask filter enough particles to give the tissue a break from other air pollutants.

Renovations Reveal Rare Maya Murals Hidden in Guatemalan Home | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – From a colonial home in a mountain village.

Bird feeding helps females more than males -- ScienceDaily – The female cardinals are at my bird feeder much more frequently that the males in both winter and summer. This study doesn’t really point to a reason for that. I’ve always thought that other than the males dominance getting food first….the females might need more food at certain times….when they are laying eggs, for example.

London Foxes Show Early Signs of Self-Domestication | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – “Domestication syndrome” – shorter snout and smaller brain.

Painted Vault Revealed at Villa Near Pompeii - Archaeology Magazine – There are new discoveries because they are excavating a part that has not been studied before.

Marine Biologist Braves Cold Water to Photograph Little Known Sea Creatures – Creatures of the ocean….many so delicate they can’t be studied in a lab. Alexander Semenov is a marine biologist and photographer working like a 19th century naturalist, but with 21st century technologies.

Plot Brewing To Blanket US In Solar Panels + Pollinator-Friendly Plants – A beginning…. building hope via steps in the right direction. This article coincided with the MACCEC conference earlier this week. I ended the week more optimistic that the ball is in motion for many ‘drawdown’ actions.

Fish Eggs Can Survive a Journey Through Both Ends of a Duck – The study in this article was done with common carp and Prussian carp…. but what about other invasive species. If most types of fish eggs can survive the duck’s gut - it is bad news for efforts to stop the spread of invasive fish species.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Thinking about the first women in my family that could have voted. Women have had the right to vote in the US since 1920 – we’re celebrating 100 years this year. My sister and I have been talking about our great-grandmothers (and maybe the great-great grandmothers too). It’s interesting to think about what it was like in 1920 in our family; they were all citizens by then…although one side of the family were immigrants or children of immigrants.

We wondered if their relationship to immigration and obtaining citizenship would have made it more likely that they would have voted. One of them was divorced with her children teenagers or older; she was educated in Europe before she immigrated. Did her oldest son go with her to vote? The other great-grandmother might have voted as well; she had 3 daughters in 1920 with the youngest being 8 years old (there would be one more after 1920) and they lived on a farm…but went into town often enough. My grandparents from that side of the family always voted, so there’s a reasonable chance that their mothers did to.

One of the things I learned during the recent conversations, is that the grandparents on the other side of the family hosted the local polling place in their garage in the 1940s! That’s an indication that voting was important to them and that could have been passed down from their parents.  One of those great-grandmothers ran a boarding house (around 1920) so she was aware of things going on in town and would have had easier access to the polling place. She insisted that her daughter finish high school a few years later which might indicate that she was attune to the changing role of women more broadly.

I like to think that maybe all 4 of my great-grandmothers voted in 1920…their first opportunity to do so.

6 Free eBooks – March 2020

With so much time at home this month – I have browsed through many more online books and ramped up my monthly post about eBooks from 3 to 6. I’ve chosen 2 novels for their illustrations, 2 Ernst Haeckel collections, and 2 volumes from the 1840s with drawings of Yucatan ruins. Enjoy!

Poe, Edgar Allan; Clarke, Harry (illustrator). Tales of Mystery and Imagination. London: George G. Harrap & Company Limited. 1923. Available from Internet Archive here. The illustrator, Harry Clarke, was also a stained-glass artist.

Basswitz, Gerdt von. Peterchens Mondfahrt : ein Marchen. Berlin-Grunewald: Verlagsanstadlt Hermann Klemm AG. 1920. Available from Internet Archive here. The story started out as a stage play in 1912 in Leipzig; it became one of the best-loved German children’s books.

I found two collections of Ernst Haeckel’s works that I hadn’t found previously:

Radularia. Berlin: G. Reimer. 1862. Available from Internet Archive here.

Art Forms of Nature. Leipzig and Wien: Bibliographisches Institut. 1904. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Stephens, John Lloyd. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1843. Available from Internet Archive: here. Frederick Catherwood made the drawings for both volumes. Stephens and Catherwood were important figures in the rediscovery of Mayan civilization.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 17, 2018

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.

Who’s still smoking: Report highlights populations still at risk -- ScienceDaily – I rarely see people smoking these days. The overall smoking rates in the US has dropped from 42% in 1965 to 15% in 2015. The analysis of the types of individuals in that 15% reveals that there are populations vulnerable…and that novel interventions will be needed to further reduce smoking in the US.

Top 25 Wild Birds Against Spectacular Landscapes – National Geographic Blog – I’m thinking about birds even more than usual this weekend – participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count!

Being A Homebody Has A Surprising Environmental Upside | CleanTechnica – I know that I used less gasoline and don’t spend as much on clothes as I used to when I went into the office every day….evidently there are enough people that are working at home or retired that the energy savings is significant. Now to just make the energy we use at home skew further toward the renewable variety!

Magnesium makes chromosomes: A new chemical tool, MARIO, shows how free Mg2+ ions regulate chromosome shape -- ScienceDaily – Some work by Japanese researchers. They note at the end of this blurb that this new understanding about magnesium may be a piece to the puzzle of how cancer happens…and maybe treatment.

LASER SCANS REVEAL MAYA “MEGALOPOLIS” BELOW GUATEMALAN JUNGLE | National Geographic - National Geographic – more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features….under the jungles of northern Guatemala. The civilization peaked some 1,200 years ago and was comparable to ancient Greece or China. There were probably 10-15 million people in the area too – far more than previously estimated. The LiDAR also revealed pits from looters.

Woodpeckers show signs of possible brain damage, but that might not be a bad thing -- ScienceDaily – Analysis of woodpecker brains from collections of the Field Museum and Harvard Museum of Natural History. The picture with the article is of a downy woodpecker…one kind of woodpecker we see in our area.

Mushrooms Are Good for You, But Are They Medicine? – The question is still open…but they taste good so why not enjoy them even if they aren’t medicine!

Another Kind of Migration: A Visit to Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve – National Geographic Blog – I just found out recently that they’ve planted milkweed at all the schools in our county…and will be monitoring to make sure it thrives…a little action to help the Monarch butterflies as they come through our part of Maryland on their way to Canada.

Surreal Images of Frozen Niagara Falls at Night by Adam Klekotka – Winter eye candy.

Black Lung Study Finds Biggest Cluster Ever of Fatal Coal Miners’ Disease: NPR – So sad. It’s happening to younger miners than it used to; ‘improvements’ in mining equipment? This is probably another reason we should move to renewable energy as quickly as we can.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 30, 2017

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.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #118 – National Geographic Society – As usual – I can’t resist bird pictures. So many birds….all around the world.

Learning Center Classes and Field Excursions — North Cascades Institute – I’m adding this to my list of places to check out when I get round to planning a vacation in the US Pacific Northwest.

Ancient Maya Heritage Comes Alive...With Some Help from Google and the British Museum | Smart News | Smithsonian and the Preserving Maya Heritage Site – Be prepared to spend some time with the second link if you are interested in Mayan culture at all.

The Woman Who Shaped National Geographic – A short biography of Eliza Scidmore….writer and photographer.

Shutdown of coal-fired power plant results in significant fetal health improvement in downwind areas -- ScienceDaily – A study close to home…a power plan in Pennsylvania…the health impact happened down wind of the plant in New Jersey. An example of the need for multi-state studies (and Federal involvement) …and another reason to reduce generation of electricity using coal-fired plants.

NASA Unveils Finalists for Its Next New Frontiers Mission | Smart News | Smithsonian - A mission to Saturn’s moon Titan (from Applied Physics Lab) and a sample-return mission to a comet (from Cornell). Both projects will be funding through the end of 2018…then one will be chosen.

Bees use invisible heat patterns to choose flowers -- ScienceDaily – Heat pattern on such flowers as poppies and daisies can be 4-5 degrees warmer than the rest of the flower!

BBC - Future - Educationism: The hidden bias we often ignore – Some idea on how to improve: acknowledge that bias exists and use assessment as a tool for education (how to improve) rather than for selection. It turns out that many factors beyond an individual’s control can hinder potential.

Tiny red animals dart in the dark under the ice of a frozen Quebec lake -- ScienceDaily – A surprise for winter researchers – previously the assumption was that everything was on hold during the winter.

Five Surprising Ways Your Christmas Tree Can Give Back Long After the Holidays – Cool Green Science – Maybe there are other things to do with a ‘real’ Christmas tree after the holiday.