Gleanings of the Week Ending November 02, 2024

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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.

Astonishing Photo of Millions of Monarch Butterflies Wins 2024 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest – Starting out the gleanings list this week with beautiful images from nature.

Iceberg A-68: The story of how a mega-berg transformed the ocean - Scientists following A-68's birth and demise were able to track just what such giant icebergs do to the surrounding ocean. For its short, transient life as an iceberg, A-68 became a frozen lifeboat for a wide range of species. Over its three-and-a-half-year journey since it broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf, A-68 lost 802 billion tons of ice as it thinned from an average thickness of 770ft (235m) to 551ft (168m). Over a three-month period at the end of 2020 and start of 2021, it dumped an estimated 152 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean – that is equivalent to almost 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the peak of its breakup, around 1.5 billion tons of fresh water was gushing into the ocean every day. The crushing weight of the freshwater from A-68a as it melted may have helped force carbon-based material down more quickly, to depths where it was less likely to be eaten.

Salmon Make a Long-Awaited Return to the Klamath River for the First Time in 112 Years, After Largest Dam Removal in U.S. – Four dams blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath basin and the Pacific Ocean…but now the dams have been removed, and the fish are returning. The first salmon in the river since 1912 were spotted less than two months after the last dam was removed.

Avian architects: weaver birds in Africa have unique building styles – The African white-browed sparrow weavers build nests that look like pompoms in acacia trees. Some families build roosts that are very long, with long entrance and exit tubes; others will build roosts that are much shorter, with hardly any tubes. Essentially, it looks like different white-browed sparrow weaver families have different architectural styles. Researchers excluded all environmental and genetic explanations for the differences in the structures built by different families. Maybe, like humans, some species of birds have their own architectural traditions passed on across generations through social interactions.

Huge! A Roman Engineering Marvel Reaching Across a Spanish City - In Segovia, the Romans built an aqueduct that stands as arguably their greatest architectural legacy from six centuries in Spain. After drawing water from the Frio River, the aqueduct runs underground for some 10 miles before appearing in Segovia as a grand, elegant beast that strides for nearly 2,400-feet across the town. Comprised of more than 20,000 blocks of granite and erected without a lick of mortar, at its highest point the aqueduct reaches more than 90-feet high with narrow, double arches. It remained in use until the late 1970s.

Life-saving spongelike 'bandage' rapidly stops hemorrhaging and mitigates risk of infection - A liquid gel comprised of siloxanes (silicon and oxygen) that is delivered via a special two-chamber syringe which rapidly expands into a spongy foam upon exposure to each other within the wound in under one minute. The sponge applies pressure to restrict the hemorrhage at the delivery site while also serving as an antibacterial agent because of the silver oxide in it.

Learning in the Environment: The Importance of Expanding Outdoor Education Across the United States - Although environmental discussions are expanding in schools, students often lack the opportunity to interact with the natural world through outdoor education, including place-based learning located in nature. The widespread decline of green spaces, especially in densely populated areas, restricts youth engagement with the environment. Interacting with the outdoors helps students to understand not only the environment itself but the role they can play in protecting it.

Chickpeas: Sustainable and climate-friendly foods of the future - Chickpeas are a drought-resistant legume plant with a high protein content that can complement grain cultivation systems even in urban areas. I have discovered that roasted chickpeas is my favorite ‘crunch’ topping for soups and salads!

Photo Contest Celebrates Excellence in Architectural Photography – I haven’t done much architectural photography…but maybe it is something to consider…when I am not able to do nature photography (which is my favorite).

Grasslands live in the climate change fast lane - The rapid shifts in grassland communities involve not only the gain of some hotter, drier species but also the loss of some cooler, wetter species. These shifts might have negative consequences such as dominance by non-native species and loss of biodiversity.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 7, 2024

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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.

Rare ‘Doomsday’ Oarfish Surfaces in California, Just the 20th Discovered in the State Since 1901 - Usually lives as far as 3,280 feet below the surface. Scientists conducted a necropsy, but they couldn’t discern a reason for the elusive fish’s death. Scientists aren’t totally sure why oarfish and other deep sea-dwelling creatures sometimes surface, but they suspect the animals may be disoriented, sick or injured.

Owl-Inspired “Bionic” Fan for EVs Reduces Fan Noise 50% While Improving Efficiency 10% - Making EVs even quieter!

Do you have knee pain from osteoarthritis? You might not need surgery. – Article written by researchers in Australia about the updated treatment guidelines for knee osteoarthritis that stress exercise, increasing physical activity, weight management, and pain medication (in moderation and not opioids). The links at the end of the article include an online exercise program specifically for knee osteoarthritis.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper Set to Close Amid Controversy – Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Built in 1956. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007.

Rebuilding the Genome of Woolly Mammoths - Typically, ancient DNA fragments yield short snippets of DNA and provide an incomplete picture of the genomic puzzle. However, the woolly mammoth skin sample showed promise. The team assembled the first 3D reconstruction of the woolly mammoth’s genome, which had 28 chromosomes; the order of genes was very similar to that of the Asian elephant. They discovered: the specimen was female; differences from modern elephants in the genes related to hair follicle development and, more broadly, hair maintenance; cooling and dehydration can preserve the molecules in their original locations.

Homelessness – From Our World in Data. Interesting…but frustrating too. I was glad that they emphasized when the data is not consistently collected…and the analysis gets very tricky.

Only One Country Is Making Progress on Electrifying Everything – Unfortunately it is not the US…it’s China. The country that electrifies most rapidly and builds the most renewables to power its electrified economy will be the most competitive economy globally.

As Arctic Thaws, New Evidence of Looming ‘Mercury Bomb’ - Scientists estimate that the amount of mercury in the atmosphere has grown sevenfold over the last 500 years, primarily from burning coal. Air currents are carrying airborne mercury toward the Arctic, where it is absorbed by plants, which then deposit the toxin in the soil. Over centuries, mercury has built up in the frozen ground, such that today, Arctic permafrost may hold more mercury than the atmosphere, the oceans, and every living organisms combined. As the region warms, melting permafrost could liberate this buried mercury.

Rare Fossils Give Clues to How Tardigrades Survived Mass Extinctions by Hitting the Snooze Button - Tardigrades are known for being some of the most resilient animals to exist, capable of surviving extreme temperatures, pressure, radiation and starvation—they can even withstand exposure to outer space. Only four known fossils of tardigrades have been found to date, and all of them are preserved in amber, or ancient tree resin; recently they were reanalyzed using confocal fluorescence microscopy. Cryptobiosis is the secret to tardigrades’ incredible resilience, and it appears to have evolved in two tardigrade linages (at least). In survival situations, these hardy creatures will expel the water from their bodies and suspend their metabolism almost completely allowing them to outlast unfavorable conditions of their environment.

Five ways the brain can age: 50,000 scans reveal possible patterns of damage - Results could lead to methods that detect the earliest stages of neurodegenerative disease. Dementia and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment, had links to three of the five patterns. Intriguingly, the researchers also found evidence that the patterns they identified could potentially be used to reveal the likelihood of more brain degeneration in the future. Other patterns were linked to conditions including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and one combination of three patterns was highly predictive of mortality.

Indian Architecture in 1896

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Syad Muhammad Latif’s book with descriptions and drawings of historical buildings of Agra (including the Taj Mahal) as they were in the 1890s is the ‘book of the week.’  The drawings were the high point for me; I’ve included four samples in this post with many more to be viewed by following the link to the book on Internet Archive. Most of the drawings are the exterior of structures but there are also a few interiors.

Agra historical & descriptive with an account of Akbar and his court and of the modern city of Agra

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 18, 2024

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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.

25 Years, 25 Images – Celebrating twenty-five years since the launch of NASA Earth Observatory (EO) on April 29, 1999 and the EO website with a slideshow!

Insurance Companies: Consider Climate Risk Events As “Constant Threats” - Up until recently, most people weren’t concerned with how their ability to be insured would change — until catastrophic climate disasters began to wreak havoc on communities around the country. I am very glad I don’t own property in Florida or south Texas or California!

New Constitution Gardens (in Washington DC) Will Be a Biodiversity Mecca – Glad there are plans to improve the area. I always enjoyed it even though it was beginning to show its age in the 1990s and early 2000s when we lived in Maryland and visited with our young daughter.

Stunningly Preserved Ancient Roman Glassware Turns Up in a French Burial Site – Found during construction of a new housing development. I am always amazed at how durable a material we normally thing of as ‘breakable’ can be!

Cicada dual emergence brings chaos to the food chain - Cicada emergences can completely rewire a food web. For predators, these emergences are a huge boom in resources. It's basically like an all-you-can-eat buffet for the hungry predator. A study, published in 2023, found the emergence of periodical cicadas changes the diets of entire bird communities. Scientists have found that wild turkeys, for example, will capitalize on the bounty, leading to a wild turkey boom. However, caterpillars, usually preyed on by birds, were left off the dinner menu and their numbers more than doubled. This in turn led to damage to trees caused by out-of-check caterpillar populations. Rising temperatures will lead to periodical cicada emergences starting earlier in the year, experts believe, as well as an increase in unexpected, "oddly-timed" emergences.

Earlier Springs Cause Problems for Birds - As climate change warms our planet, causing spring to arrive weeks earlier than it has historically, birds are struggling to keep up. It’s not just the green vegetation they miss, but the pulse of protein-rich insects many bird species consume on both their breeding grounds and their migratory stop-over points. Birds will still breed but not quite as successfully because food will be more limited. Instead of chicks hatching as insect populations boom, those chicks may catch the end of the insect pulse.

Why you should let insects eat your plants – I skew the additions to my yard toward native plants….and let whatever insects show up enjoy. My community sprays for mosquitos so there probably is some reduction of other insects because of that. But there are enough left to support a barn swallow (and other insect eating birds) flock in our community.

Quantifying U.S. health impacts from gas stoves - Even in bedrooms far from kitchens, concentrations of nitrogen oxide frequently exceed health limits while stoves are on and for hours after burners and ovens are turned off. All the houses I’ve purchased as an adult, have had electric stoves/ovens except one and I only lived there for 3 years. But – in the 1950s and 1960s, my parents had gas stoves/ovens. Back then the houses were not as airtight as they are now so that might have reduced our exposure; my sisters and I never had asthma or other breathing problems, fortunately.

Inside the exquisite Tibetan monasteries salvaged from climate change – Built in the 1300s, the monasteries are impacted by a significant increase in the intensity of storms and rainfall across the region. Increased rainfall saturates the rammed-earth buildings, as moisture in the soil is drawn upward into the walls, leading to issues such as leaking roofs and rising damp. Local people have gained diverse skills, from reinforcing walls to crafting metal statues and restoring paintings. Over the past 20 years, a team of local Lobas trained by Western art conservationists have replaced the old, leaky roofs of the temples with round timbers, river stones, and local clay for waterproofing, and have restored the wall paintings, statues, sculpted pillars and the ceiling decorations, giving these centuries-old monuments a new life.

Possible Conch Shell Communication in Chaco Canyon Explored - The settlements of Chaco Canyon that spread around each sandstone great house fit into the sphere of sound produced by conch shell trumpet blasts; perhaps the settlements were designed to ensure that every resident could hear the notifications.

The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt

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W. Stevenson Smith’s The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt was published in 1958 and is available on Internet Archive. It has 192 black and white plates which are well worth browsing. There are familiar images of Egyptian artifacts/ruins, but the ones I enjoyed the most were either new-to-me or a different view of something familiar.

For example, the different perspective of the Ramses II statue and Tutankhamon’s chair and chariot drew my attention (click on the sample images to see a larger version).

Many statues and smaller items like axe heads were shown large enough to make out details. It is also evident that the author included images of artifacts from many museums.

The architecture of ancient Egyptian sites is shown at locations and via reconstructed versions (models and drawings).

Enjoying browsing the images that are grouped after the text of the book! Research and excavation continue in Egypt so keep in mind the vintage of this book.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 9, 2024

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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.

The benefits of trees – From an architect’s perspective…working with trees rather than just around them.

How the color orange got its name – Orange was my mother’s favorite color for many years. She had the door of the house they built painted orange! So - this post caught my attention. In English, before the turn of the 16th century, orange objects would be simply known as “yellow-red” or “geoluhread” in Middle English. There are also records of the word “saffron” being used to as a replacement for “orange” as a descriptor. Oranges, the fruit, take their name from the Sanskrit nāraṅga meaning orange tree. Nāraṅga morphed via the Persian word nâranj and the French pomme d’orenge, meaning “apple of the orange tree.”

Quality time with Pocket Gophers - Pocket gophers spend most of their lives underground. There are some 38 species found across a wide swath of central and North America. In many areas, they’re abundant. And yet, many people have never seen one.

Scientists shocked to discover new species of green anaconda, the world’s biggest snake - Green anacondas are the world’s heaviest snakes, and among the longest. Predominantly found in rivers and wetlands in South America, they are renowned for their lightning speed and ability to asphyxiate huge prey then swallow them whole. New research upends scientific understanding of this magnificent creature, revealing it is actually two genetically different species. The snakes are well-adapted to a life lived mostly in water. Their nostrils and eyes are on top of their head, so they can see and breathe while the rest of their body is submerged. Anacondas are olive-colored with large black spots, enabling them to blend in with their surroundings. The two species of green anaconda look almost identical, and no obvious geographical barrier exists to separate them. But their level of genetic divergence – 5.5% – is staggering. By comparison, the genetic difference between humans and apes is about 2%.

Helping caregivers help people with dementia eat at home - Over 80% of people with dementia in the United States live at home. An estimated 60% of home-based patients aren't able to routinely eat or prepare food on their own. Professionals recommended:

  • Lowering auditory and visual distractions.

  • Eliminating household clutter, clearing pathways and improving lighting.

  • Providing written instructions to guide patients' mealtime activities.

Untraceable ingredients and unrecycled packaging: Why sustainable skincare is so hard to find - Short of a chemistry degree, understanding how to make sustainable skincare choices is no easy task for consumers.

Escaping Home – One of the last birding field trips we did before moving from Maryland was along the Harriet Tubman Byway. The post includes an image of the area from NASA’s Landsat 9 and historical background.

Peek Inside the Ancient Egyptian Tomb of Neferhotep, Now Open to the Public - Revitalizing ancient artifacts is no easy lift. All the wall paintings, reliefs, and sculptures required stabilizing loose stone fragments, cracks, detached plaster, and paint layers, not to mention cleaning and preserving surfaces damaged by fire and time. The restoration project started in 2000.

Discovering Mammoth Cave’s Oceanic Past - Creatures that lived in an ancient seaway that covered the landscape known today as Kentucky some 325 million years ago: crinoids, horn coral, brachiopods…small dark slashes that indicate shark teeth…a dorsal fin spine…a large piece of shoulder skeletal cartilage.

Saguaro Arms and Other Cactus Musings in Tucson – Remembering Saguaro National Park from my daughter’s graduate school years in Tucson. The research about the arms is interesting: The working theory is that saguaros start their branching at a certain size, not a certain age. Initial data indicates that saguaros tend to grow their first arm facing the south or southeast, often when they’re around 11-feet tall. Second arms often grow facing north. Arms seem to grow in a way that maintains symmetry and allows the saguaro to keep its balance.

Hospital Thoughts

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Supporting someone in the hospital is high stress…but there is a lot of waiting that allows for contemplation as well. The blog post is gleaned from those quiet times between flurries of activity/trauma when my parent was in the hospital.

Observing medical professions – techs of various kinds, nurses, doctors – is always a learning experience. Going into learning mode is a better way to engage than adversarial….and expressing appreciation helps everyone through a difficult time.

There is art in the most public areas of the hospital…and I always notice it…realize that I appreciate the snippets of beauty/uniqueness along the way in and out of the hospital that can, momentarily, distract me from the stress of the place.

The view from the hospital room is also a distraction. This time it included a helipad! My sister saw one land during the night (mostly heard it rather than saw it) but then I got to see one land the next afternoon. It was the big excitement of the afternoon…and that was a good thing.

Another view from the window included curves of the drive into the hospital and a major intersection near the hospital. The open area is  appreciated since the hospital itself is a cluster of buildings and parking garages. It’s a big place. I figured out my route to my parent’s room and didn’t deviate!

Along the walk to and from the closest parking garage, there is a wall that reminded me of a Zentangle mosaic….and I made quite a few tiles during the waiting time at the hospital.

The up and down of the day at the hospital always seems more extreme that a normal day. I found that I never quite relaxed as much as I do during a normal day…but didn’t get any physically intense time….it was all mentally intense.

Decorative Arts Before WWI eBooks

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James Ward was an Irish artist known for his murals in Dublin City Hall. It turns out that he was also a writer of textbooks including two books about decorative art and ornament…including the use of color published in 1909 and 1914 respectively.

Historic ornament: treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament

Colour decoration of architecture, treating on colour and decoration of the interiors and exteriors of buildings

The books present the history of decorative arts and are also a snapshot of how that history was viewed/applied at the time the books were written. I wondered how the field was impacted by the war, the roaring 20s, financial depression and WWII. These books were written in a ‘calm before the storm’ – before the faster and faster pace of the modern world was acknowledged.  

Both books are available on Internet Archive.

International Studio eBooks

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I first browsed a series of International Studio digitized magazines in 2013…enjoying all of them available at the time. They were from the early 1900s. Recently, I found more of them that had been digitized in 2022 from the 1920s and those are the ones I am featuring today.

International Studio - vol 67 (1919)

International Studio - vol 76 (1923)

International Studio - vol 77 (1923)

International Studio - vol 78, no. 317 (1923)

 I like looking at magazines to understand what was ‘new’ or ‘important’ at the time; it’s a perspective of the period from people living then rather than historical analysis from authors that did not experience it directly. Even the ads are interesting; the way products are described…the brands that still exist (maybe were ‘new’ at the time) and brands long gone. Ads were often the main color images inside the magazines!

According to a Wikipedia entry, the magazine was the American edition of The Studio published in London. The American publication continued until 1931.  As I was writing this post, I realized there were some additional ones that I haven’t browsed yet…some additional browsing to enjoy!

Town Planning in 1909

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Raymond Unwin’s 1909 Town planning in practice: an introduction to the art of designing cities and suburbs is available in Internet Archive…a snapshot of the ideas of period with illustrations of examples. The illustrations I found most interesting were town/city plans. The ones from Moscow and the excavated part of Pompeii are the two samples I picked from the book.

Of course – a lot has changed in all the places shown in the book in the years since it was published but there are anchors in the built environment that are still around….sometimes perturbing modernization efforts and making infrastructure improvement more challenging. And there are some concepts that are still very much in evidence in modern cities – like ring roads (interstates) that surround all our major cities!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 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.

Pregnant women are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in dishware, hair coloring, plastics, and pesticides, study reveals – Something else for pregnant people to be anxious about. I wish these studies had a stronger component about how to reduce exposure, but it seems that the problematic chemicals are very pervasive.

The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier – These ideas a geared to making it easier for individuals to make healthier choices. Right now…it seems that the push is toward unhealthy food choices.

Cool planning for a hotter future – Actions we need to take to achieve the ‘late century rapid action’ maps.

Low physical function after age 65 associated with future cardiovascular disease – Individuals were assessed for walking speed, leg strength, and balance….and the scores were more predictive of cardiovascular disease risk than the traditional risk factors that work for middle-aged people (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking or diabetes).

On “Trash” Birds: Rethinking How We Label Common Species – There is no such thing as a ‘trash’ bird or any species. They are all just part of our world!

Can These Lights Make Crosswalks Safer for Pedestrians Distracted by Their Phones? – People shouldn’t be walking while looking at their cell phones more than where they are headed….but they do and maybe Hong Kong is ahead of us in developing a solution to reduce tragedies.

Is Breadfruit the Climate Change-Proof Food of the Future? – Not a food I know anything about…it’s not in our grocery stores yet. I looked at some recipes and it seems like it would be a versatile addition to our diet.

Archaeologists Call on UNESCO to Protect the Hagia Sophia – It’s sad when pieces of architectural history are not maintained. Hopefully this call will help organize what is needed to preserve Hagia Sophia.

Heat waves + air pollution can be a deadly combination: The health risk together is worse than either alone – There are ways to stay safe…but it is not possible for everyone all the time. We need to address the underlying issues for the health of everyone. Often – addressing air pollution also is step in a good direction of climate change as well.

See the Incredible Sunflower Superbloom in North Dakota – Wow! Maybe a trip to North Dakota some July/August should be added to our list of road trips we want to make.

Gothic Ornament eBooks by John Henry Parker

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John Henry Parker published archeology/architecture books in the mid-1800s and I am featuring his books on Gothic ornament as the ‘books of the week.’ There are three of them available on Internet Archive.

A manual of gothic mouldings, and continuous ornament (1847)

A manual of gothic stone carving (1855)

A manual of surface ornament (1855)

The images are great prompts for Zentangle tiles!

I also think about the ornaments in terms of history – the people that labored to create them, the places where their work survived, and how the spaces were used…are still used today – or maybe how the wars between the 1850s and today might have destroyed some of them. The ornaments on outer surfaces of buildings could been damaged by the elements or air pollution too. So – these books also represent a snapshot of what was observable at the time Parker wrote.

He also published a series of books about Rome: The Archeology of Rome which are available on Internet Archive…worth browsing.

Better Homes and Gardens Browsed in June 2021

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Internet Archive has quite a collection of Better Homes and Gardens magazines that I started browsing through in June…37 volumes in all during the month. It will take at least another month to finish the rest that the archive has available. I selected a sample image from each volume (links at the bottom of this post) and grouped them by decade. Click to see an enlarged version of any image below.

The 1940s were before I was born so purely historical from my perspective. Some of the pictures look almost modern – the child in the snow suit with the shovel, for example. Gardens can look the same from just about any time period, however the people in them don’t; I was surprised at how dressed up women are depicted sometimes even ‘working’ in the garden. The little girl helping with the dishes looks dressed up too.  Technology often dates pictures although the camera shown on the August 1940 cover was about the size of a point and shoot today. The food almost always looks way more complex (more time consuming to prepare) that what we typically prepare today.

The 1950s were too early in my life to remember clearly. The flowers could be modern pictures. The eat-in kitchen is dated but functional (no dishwasher or microwave though); the green glasses look like the ruby red glasses I have today. A story about Cape Hatteras was in a 1957 issue.

I remember the 1960s since I started school in 1960. The flowers and gardens relatively timeless…and garden sheds were catching on. The office could function today….with the addition of a laptop; I liked the location of the window. Kitchens were changing and some designs did not ‘stick’ (like the kitchen in the round). Dishwashers were appearing. Double sinks with counters were becoming common in bathrooms…but ruffles over the mirror must have been a passing fad. Shag carpeting! Picnic baskets were more common than ice chests/coolers for meals away from home – very different than our picnics today.

In the 1970s I finished high school and college. The page describing salad greens from 1970 does not include kale, arugula, or cilantro! It was a decade of more house plants, cheesecake, vegetable gardening, and decorating with crafts as many people were challenged to live well with less spending power because of inflation.

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The 1980 volume included a page describing different kinds of pasta. I didn’t notice at the time how many more kinds they were…we usually just bought thin spaghetti and elbow macaroni during the 80s.

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1940

Better Homes and Gardens - July-December 1940

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1941

Better Homes and Gardens - July-December 1941

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1942

Better Homes and Gardens - July-December 1942

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1943

Better Homes and Gardens - July-December 1943

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1949

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1950

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1951

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1957

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1958

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1959

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1960

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1961

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1962

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1963

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1964

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1965

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1966

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1967

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1968

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1969

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1970

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1971

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1973

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1974

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1975

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1976

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1977

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1978

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1979

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1980

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1981

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1982

Better Homes and Gardens - January-June 1983

I’m continuing to brown through more magazines in July…..so expect another post in a month or so to continue on from 1980.

House & Garden Magazines

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Internet Archive has quite few volumes of the House & Garden magazines digitized; they are in volumes with 6 issues each (like were in physical library reference sections). A search for the title “House & garden” provides a long list with all the volumes having a publication date of 1901 in the metadata (which is when the magazine was first published)!  It’s not possible to find the volumes for a particular year of interest on the list.   I am still working my way through the volumes…slowly but surely…but I am featuring 9 of the volumes in this post that I’ve already enjoyed.

The earliest volume is from July-December 1901. I always pay attention to books from 1901 because that is the year my paternal grandfather was born (earlier in the year). His parents had immigrated to the US from Eastern Europe and were tenant farms in Texas. Their lives were a far cry from the houses and gardens depicted in the magazine. I did find something familiar in this volume: pictures of Biltmore near Ashville, NC. George Vanderbilt would have been still alive when the article was written, and his daughter (born in 1900) would have been a toddler. What different environment it would have been to grow up in such a place!

I enjoy thinking about how people lived the magazine depict…the types of materials used for flooring and roofs...plumbing and lighting…elaborate gardens with water features…cottage gardens…architectural features like built-ins, garden rooms, and porches. The covers are often the only color pages in the early volumes…easy to spot when browsing through. Here are some samples:

July – December 1908

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There are pictures of the White House Rose Garden as it was during the Reagan administration in the September – December 1984 volume.

I’ve been browsing the volumes in no particular order so far, keeping track of the ones I’ve browsed…eventually I’ll have to go back and try to find the volumes I somehow missed.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Groceries. Snow is in our forecast and we had no half-and-half to make snow ice cream! I opted to make a quick trip to the grocery store for it and other items to avoid going again for 3 weeks. I went at the usual early time and it seemed like there were a few more people (maybe others that wanted to get ‘snow day’ foods) but still easy to stay distanced and find everything on the list quickly. I wore two masks; my daughter had talked about double masking now that our masks have been though the laundry enough times that the fibers might not be as tight. My glasses anti-fog wipe treatment worked just as well as it did with one mask.  I bought a slice of red velvet cake and ate it for my morning snack…felt like I had too much caffeine in me shortly afterward….but still enjoyed the treat. Overall – a good morning errand and reward!

Browsing Old Architectural Record Volumes

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Browsing through The Architectural Record volumes from the late 1800s and early 1900s available on Internet Archive, there are some articles that capture my attention – for example, two articles about Frank Lloyd Wright. The first one is in the volume for 1908 which features the Dana House (along with other houses and a building). The architecture still looks ‘modern.’ For some info about the Dana House today: Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and Dana Thomas House Foundation.

The second article was in the January-July 1913 volume – about Wright’s studio-home in Wisconsin. Enjoy the slideshow of the exterior of the place. For info about the place today see the Taliesin page on the Wright in Wisconsin page.

Another series of pictures I noticed were exterior pictures of the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (starting at page 154) in the 1895-1896 volume as introductory picture series to the article “The works of the late Richard M. Hunt” – the architect of the house. The landscape was ‘new’ around the house when the pictures were taken. For information about Biltmore today, see Biltmore Estate website and the Wikipedia page.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Going for groceries in the foggy dark. It’s that time of year – at 6:15 AM it is dark. Add the fog and the short drive would have been disorienting if the route were unfamiliar. I was worried about not seeing a deer at the edge or in the road before it was too late – fortunately, I made it to the grocery store without incident. I have skewed my grocery shopping time an hour earlier during the pandemic…so I am going to be ‘in the dark’ starting out for groceries for months. It was lighter on the way home, but the fog was still around.

Ballot ‘accepted.’ I checked the website for the status of the ballot I put in the drop box on Oct. 5th and it shows that it is ‘accepted’ – which means that it’s been counted! It’s great to get confirmation that I voted successfully.

Haircut. My last haircut was in January, so it was long overdue. There were a few people allowed into the shop (no waiting area and appointments only), the doors were open (outdoor temperature was pleasant), and everyone wore masks. I chose not to get a shampoo, so my hair was just sprayed to wet it…and then it was cut. My husband got his haircut at the same time. We were done in about 20 minutes. My husband gave a tip that doubled the cost of our haircuts…reasoning that the workers are still trying to bounce back from the shop being closed for 3 months.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 10, 2019

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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.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Green – National Geographic Society Newsroom – Starting off the gleanings list with birds this week – green ones.

Indigenous Maize: Who Owns the Rights to Mexico’s ‘Wonder’ Plant? - Yale E360 – The nitrogen fixing maize --- farmed in Mexico – but who will profit if the trait is replicated in corn to feed the rest of the world.

Vast majority of dietary supplements don't improve heart health or put off death, study finds -- ScienceDaily – Massive analysis…277 clinical trials. The supplement industry is large and advertises; how do studies like this counteract that even if the supplement in many cases is having only a placebo effect.

Brothers Use Drone to Reveal Beauty of Ordinary Objects – Art of objects seen from above.

Making HVAC heat exchangers five times better -- ScienceDaily – We’re going to need all the innovation we can muster to get air conditioning more efficient…and power it with renewable energy.

BBC - Future - Do we need to walk 10,000 steps a day? – Hint – 10,000 is not a magic number at all. I’ve had my goal set at 12,000 steps for quite some time. I make it when I am home but am usually challenged when traveling.

Toyota plans to launch its first full EVs, in a deal with China’s BYD - MIT Technology Review – I hope by the time I get ready to replace my Prius Prime there are a lot of EVs to choose from!

What it Means to Design with Nature in 2019 - News | Planetizen – Is this the thinking of all design going forward?

A Fungus Is Now Infecting Humans & Global Warming May Be to Blame | CleanTechnica – Candida auris started showing up in humans in 2009 and it is multiple drug resistant already. New research is indicating that the fungus might have adapted to warmer temperatures until it can now multiply in the human body…which it couldn’t before.

Water Cycle is Speeding Up Over Much of the U.S. – Lots of changes in the time period between 1945 and 2014.The article includes a color-coded map. It will be interesting to see if the trends continue over the next decade

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 29, 2019

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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.

Porcupines | National Geographic – I was disappointed that they didn’t include more pictures of the North American Porcupine. I’ve never seen one in the wild.

BBC - Future - How to build something that lasts 10,000 years – Specifically – this post is about building a clock that will last for 10,000 years…in West Texas!

Researchers uncover indoor pollution hazards -- ScienceDaily – Some surprises: pollutants change with temperature inside the house….and time of day makes a difference. Formaldehyde seems to be particularly prevalent. These studies are scary for existing homes. We need work on mitigations that homeowners can implement…and new construction that reduces the source of pollutants.

Infographic: Immunity Isn't the Body's Only Defense System | The Scientist Magazine® - Symbiotic bacteria, metabolism and pathogen mutation examples overlay the immunity strategy. As we learn more, we realize that the human body is more complex that we realized.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Blue – National Geographic Society Newsroom – So many blue birds!

Tortoises rule on Aldabra Atoll – Tortoises making their way through the huts where people bunked! The tortoises sleep with head and legs stretched out…no predators to fear on the inhospitable atoll.

Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics -- ScienceDaily – Thought provoking. I wondered if some of the birds that now migrate from North America to Central or South America for the winter….will not go as far or will shift their range northward.  I suppose it would work if their food sources shifted and the birds followed the food. The synchrony of plants blooming and seeds ripening….of horseshoe crabs laying eggs…all while birds are migrating or getting ready to produce young; it’s not a simple system.

Making STEM Education More Welcoming to Underrepresented Minorities | The Scientist Magazine® - Education doesn’t happen in a vacuum that has well defined boundaries. We must do more than just academic support…I’m glad there is more research and conversation on how to move forward in tangible ways to make STEM education and careers more open to everyone.

An Ancient Asteroid Crater May Be Hiding Off Scotland’s Coast | Smart News | Smithsonian – Some recent work that points to a crater of a asteroid from 1.2 billion years ago.

Three Studies Track People's Microbiomes Through Health and Disease | The Scientist Magazine® - Interesting…but they could just be expensive association studies (a quote from the end of the paper). At some point, maybe the findings will lead to something that benefits the patient.

Zooming – April 2019

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The accelerating change of the seasons in Maryland and Texas…so much to see and do. I’ve picked a few of my favorite images captured with the zoom on my camera. There are insects in at least two of the flower images (maybe a third)….the little critters enjoying the spring bounty. Enjoy the April slideshow!

3 Free eBooks – March 2019

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In some months it’s hard to pick just three books to feature for the monthly eBooks post. March 2019 was one of those. I cheated a little and picked a periodical…with lots of issues available online…for the first one.

Baer, Casimir Hermann. Moderne Bauformen. Stuttgart: J. Hoffman. 1902-1923. Hathi Trust has volumes for each year here. A German periodical about architecture and interior design with many illustrations – some in color. It’s a slice of history of the period. Many of the interiors look modern…others dated. I realized again how appealing I find glass bricks, window seats, alcoves with benches and sometimes a table or a wall of windows and comfy chairs for reading, and curtains to divide a large room into segments. There were quite a few ideas I’ll use in Zentangle tiles as well.

Trouvelot, Etienne Leopold. The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings. 1882. A slide show of 15 drawings is available from Internet Archive here. Trouvelot was well-known for his astronomical drawings made from observations at the Harvard College Observatory and the US Naval Observatory. Unfortunately, he also is the person that introduced the European Gypsy Moth into North America.

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Day, Lewis Foreman. Nature in Ornament. New York: Charles Scribner’s sons. 1892. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of ideas for Zentangle patterns in this book. I particularly liked the different stylized peacock feathers.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 1, 2018

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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 to feed a cat: Consensus statement to the veterinary community: Reducing stress-related eating problems -- ScienceDaily – Puzzle feeders and putting food in different places….make meal time more interesting!

Examining Grad Student Mental Health | The Scientist Magazine® - There are a lot of stressors during graduate school….and many students become depressed or develop other mental health issues. Students, faculty and university administrators are noticing that more needs to be done to help grad students through the challenges of this phase of their education.

Why Fall Color Has Been So Meh in Parts of the U.S. This Year | Smart News | Smithsonian – This article came out a few weeks ago….just getting around to putting in the gleanings. The explanation of why our area had such a lack luster fall is interesting and it might become the norm as the area gets wetter and warmer.

BBC - Earth News - Legless frogs mystery solved – Predatory dragonfly nymphs eat legs of tadpoles! This is an article from 2009…but it was news to me. We find dragonfly nymphs in almost all the streams and rivers around where I live…but I haven’t seen any legless frogs.

2 Solar Ovens Reviewed | CleanTechnica – I wonder how many people living in their RV or travel trailer make use of this type of oven to minimize propane and/or electricity usage.

Large-Scale Tar Production May Have Fueled Viking Expansion - Archaeology Magazine – Tar to waterproof ships. I was reminded of the ‘Connections’ series that often showed how a key technologic advance enabled something historically significant.

Yellowstone streams recovering thanks to wolf reintroduction -- ScienceDaily – The willows are growing taller along the banks of streams, making the banks more stable…since the wolfs are back and impacting elk browsing.

Gaudí's El Capricho, an Early Gem Located in North Spain – It’s hard to see it as a place that people would really live!

How invasive earthworm feces is altering US soils -- ScienceDaily – Asian jumping worms are changing the soils of the Midwest and East Coast of the US….and not for the better.

Why did Tutankhamun have a dagger made from a meteorite? – When Tutankhamun died, iron was rarer than gold. The Egyptians did not know how to process iron from ores…but they did know that iron meteorites came from the sky which might have made the material symbolic for them. Objects made from it would have been reserved for high-status people.