Gleanings of the Week Ending November 16, 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.

Drought Expands Across the U.S. – We are finally getting some rain…but we are in the ‘extreme drought’ area of southwestern Missouri; it is going to take a lot to get back to ‘normal.’ On October 29, abnormal dryness and drought affected over 78 percent of the American population—the highest percentage in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s 25-year-long record.

Cholera, Zika and West Nile: The deadly diseases that sweep in after hurricanes – Damage to infrastructure has been the big focus of reporting in the US, but diseases are ramping up.

  • Florida health authorities released a warning in early October of a likely spike in Vibrio vulnificus infections, urging residents to avoid wading in floodwaters.  Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria which can cause the breakdown of skin and soft tissue, sometimes leading to amputations.

  • West Nile cases rose in Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.

  • Studies found that flooding in Louisiana following hurricanes Rita and Katrina led to an increase in the airborne fungi Penicillium and Aspergillus, which can cause allergies, respiratory infections and pneumonia.

  • Research into the aftermath of hurricanes Maria, Irma and Michael, shows that a significant number of people in Florida developed new chronic health conditions such as asthma and allergies in the six months following the disasters.

Satellite Imagery Shows Breadth of Flooding in Spain - Valencia saw a year’s worth of rainfall in just eight hours, with floods destroying buildings, disrupting trains, and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power.

What animal societies can teach us about aging - Humans are not the only animals to change our social behavior as we age. Red deer may become less sociable as they grow old to reduce the risk of picking up diseases, while older house sparrows seem to have fewer social interactions as their peers die off.

The world’s oldest tree? Genetic analysis traces evolution of iconic Pando forest - By sequencing hundreds of samples from the tree, researchers confirmed that Pando, a quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) in Utah, is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old. Pando consists of some 47,000 stems that cover an area of 42.6 hectares in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Because of the way the plant reproduces, this collection of aspens is technically all one tree, supported by a single, vast root system. Pando is triploid, meaning that its cells contain three copies of each chromosome, rather than two. As a result, Pando cannot reproduce sexually and mix its DNA with that of other trees, and instead creates clones of itself.

Have we found all the major Maya cities? Not even close – Using lidar to survey 50 square miles revealed evidence of more than 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures, including a previously unknown large city complete with iconic stone pyramids.

Stunning Shortlisted Photos From the 2024 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Contest – My favorite was “Chicory” for the color…and that I knew what it was!

Low-level lead poisoning is still pervasive in the US and globally - Chronic, low-level lead poisoning is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease in adults and cognitive deficits in children. Factors such as menopause and hyperthyroidism release lead sequestered in the skeleton, which causes a spike in blood lead concentrations. The solution to protecting people from lead poisoning is to identify and eliminate environmental sources of lead: eliminating lead acid batteries, replacing lead service lines, banning leaded aviation fuel, reducing lead in foods, abating lead paint in older housing, and further reducing lead-contaminated soil and other legacy sources.

Ghost Forests Creep Into North Carolina - Large swaths of cypress and pine forests along the southeast Atlantic coast have died, shed their bark, and become pale, leafless snags that line the waterways like gravestones. In the period before winds topple the snags over and shrubs cover them up, researchers call the eerie ecosystems “ghost forests.” One place that is it happening is Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge…and I realized I have been there! We visited in April of 2015. It was the first place I saw river otters and two vultures (different species) sharing a meal. There probably were bald cypress dying in 2015, but it is even more evident now.

Trees cool better than reflective roofs in vulnerable Houston neighborhoods - Heat islands occur in cities where structures such as buildings and roads absorb the sun's heat more than natural landscapes such as trees and grass. The researchers considered three different heat island mitigation strategies: painting roofs white to increase solar reflectance; planting vegetation on roofs to increase evaporation through the plants; and planting more trees, which increases evaporation and provides shade.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 09, 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.

Old Growth – Mitch Epstein photographs of very old trees.

The true story of a famed librarian and the secret she guarded closely – Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of New York's historic Morgan Library and Museum.

Inside Turkey’s Mysterious Ancient City That Once Sheltered Thousands—Underground - The Derinkuyu underground city is a sort of gargantuan anthill, except made by and for humans—up to 20,000 of them at a time, in fact. The city descends 280 feet into the earth, divided into eight levels. Upper levels were primarily used for living and sleeping, while lower levels were used for storage, even housing a dungeon. The far-stretched system of interconnected rooms was carved out of the Cappadocia region’s tuff rock. People didn’t live in these underground quarters year-round, however, as they were mainly used for shelter during times of conflict or extreme weather.

Climate change will affect food production, but here are the things we can do to adapt - Farmers can pick crop varieties best suited to different climate condition...production can shift to places with more optimal temperatures…planting and harvest times can shift as the seasons shift…focusing on the right irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides synchronized to climate change. We have the chance to build a more productive and resilient food system, but it’s not guaranteed that we will. It depends on whether the seeds, irrigation, and adaptation practices will be available. That will require real and sustained investment from governments, donors, and private companies.

Toothbrushes and showerheads covered in viruses ‘unlike anything we’ve seen before’ - We live in a richly microbial world. Interactions with bacteria and other microbes in our homes are an integral part of our human biology.

The monarch butterfly may not be endangered, but its migration is - Migrating monarchs don't fly at night, so they spend their evenings in bunches on trees or shrubs, known as roosts. The study relied on 17 years of data from more than 2,600 citizen scientist observations of monarch roosts along the butterfly's migration route. The researchers found that roost sizes have declined by as much as 80%, with these losses increasing from north to south along the migration route. The evidence shows that when monarchs are reared in a captive environment, either indoors or outdoors, they're not as good at migrating.

World’s Rivers Are Driest They - In 2023, the hottest year on record, the Mississippi River and Amazon River basins were at all-time lows, while the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mekong rivers, which all have their headwaters in the Himalayas, were also unusually dry. Across nearly half the globe, rivers were drier than normal.

The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer - Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25- to 49-year-olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina. Perhaps the most obvious explanation points to the role of obesity and metabolic syndrome, conditions which have been associated with driving cancer risk through increasing inflammation throughout the body and causing the dysregulation of key hormonal pathways. Or maybe changes in sleep patterns is part of the explanation. Combined with shifts in lifestyle, many cancer scientists believe that a key driving force for these illnesses is the consequences of various toxic changes within the gut (from microplastics). Antibiotics might be involved too. The bottom line…it’s a looming public health crisis.

New research reveals how large-scale adoption of electric vehicles can improve air quality and human health - Computer simulations show that aggressive electrification of the U.S. vehicle fleet, coupled with an ambitious rollout of renewable electricity generation, could result in health benefits worth between US$84 billion and 188 billion by 2050. Even scenarios with less aggressive grid decarbonization mostly predicted health benefits running into the tens of billions of dollars.

New study explores how universities can improve student well-being - Six guiding principles for improving student well-being:

  • Embedding well-being into curricula for broader, more accessible adoption.

  • Having each initiative only focus on one or two aspects of well-being, making it easier to create instruction that can also be more immersive.

  • Tailoring initiatives to the student body and university culture.

  • Securing buy-in from faculty.

  • Ensuring new offerings are accessible and don't create additional financial burden for students.

  • Employing an iterative assessment framework at the beginning to make it easier to change or scale up a program.

Garrison Springs Community Forest

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There were still some leaves on the trees when we visited Garrison Springs Community Forest in Ozark, Missouri last month. It is a newly opened natural area snuggled into the developed area of Ozark. The vegetation makes it feel much further out; the ‘noise’ of the place is only the gurgle of water from 3 springs and the sounds of birds singing and leaves moving in the breeze.

Our area had gotten very little rain the past few months, but the springs still were flowing, and robins were bathing along with the newly fallen leaves.

A daddy long legs (harvestman) crossed our path as we headed back to the car. We stopped to get a picture.

This place is small but not that far from where we live…a place to visit again for a quick nature fix…and to see the improvements as they happen in the next few years.

Terra Studios

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We spent a couple of hours at Terra Studios (southeast of Fayetteville, AR and a part of the our road trip that included Crystal Bridges last week). The art displays are outdoors. There were not many people there on the afternoon we visited – surprising since it was a holiday weekend and there is a lot to enjoy here in the woodlands and more open area around the pond. It’s free; donations encouraged. There were a lot of mosaics of tiles and glass – on walls and picnic tables. Some of the ones on picnic tables (i.e. horizonal surfaces) were damaged but the vertical ones were in good shape.

One of the picnic areas had a collection of playhouses!

There were lots of clay figures – in the forest…on the lawn. Some of them were old enough that they had lichen growing on them or were sinking into their environment! I particularly liked the figures riding turtles on a rail in the pond!

There were murals along the path into the forest. The materials must be durable enough to last outdoors for years.

The simple fountain, that incorporated stained class into part of its cover, was in a very shady area – maybe the coolest place during our walk!

We entered the maze – my daughter and I following my husband who opted to ‘take the left-hand turn’ strategy….and it worked!

Back in the gift shop/snack bar – I bought 2 pair of earrings made my artists associated with Terra Studios and my daughter bought a glass Bluebird of Happiness – first created by Leo Ward at Terra Studios in 1982.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 10, 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.

Versailles’s Hidden Scientific Legacy to Surface in a Major U.K. Exhibition - The five-mile-squared grounds were mapped out by geometricians and astronomers; keeping the 14,000 fountains bubbling further required developing an unprecedented hydraulic engineering system. AND… Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who headed the Paris Observatory, turned skyward, mapping the moon with a precision that wouldn’t be matched until the late 19th century. AND… Hundreds gathered in the courtyard of Versailles to watch the flight of a hot-air balloon, agronomists developed a hardier potato capable of feeding the masses, and an inoculation against smallpox was discovered.

Air conditioning causes around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. How will this change in the future? – The article concludes: “Rather than lamenting air conditioning's impact on energy use, we need to accept that demand for cooling will increase, work on making it affordable for those who need it most, and build efficient solutions that ensure electricity grids worldwide can cope.”

Ancient Rome’s Appian Way Is Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site - Rome’s Appian Way, an ancient highway dating to the fourth century B.C.E., has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Could the shingles vaccine lower your risk of dementia? - The idea that vaccination against viral infection can lower the risk of dementia has been around for more than two decades. Associations have been observed between vaccines, such as those for diphtheria, tetanus, polio and influenza, and subsequent dementia risk. It may be the resulting lack of viral infection creating this effect. We need more research exploring in greater detail how infections are linked with dementia. This will help us understand the root causes of dementia and design potential therapies.

Chickasaw National Recreation Area's Monkey Tree Needs Some TLC - An Osage orange tree estimated to be about 130 years old with three thick spreading trunks that generations of children have played on.

Divers Discover Mesmerizing Roman Mosaic Beneath the Sea – Near Naples…a villa in a city known as the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire…now under water.

Healthy diet with less sugar is linked to younger biological age – The correlations between a diet that is rich in vitamins and minerals, especially one without much added sugar, and having a younger biological age at the cellular level.

Agriculture: Less productive yet more stable pastures - Grassland optimized for high yield responds much more sensitively to periods of drought than less intensively used meadows and pastures.

Anne Boleyn’s Childhood Home Is Restored to Its Tudor Glory – The interiors of rooms restored to the style they had during Anne Boleyn’s time.

Forest carbon storage has declined across much of the Western U.S., likely due to drought and fire – Forests in some parts of the world, like the American West, probably do not have the potential to help curb climate change.

Garvan Woodland Gardens (1)

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I’d heard about Garvan Woodland Gardens from one of my neighbors – decided that it was a place to see along with Hot Springs National Park. Out membership in Friends of the Springfield Botanical Gardens provided us with free admission so we visited on both days we were in Hot Springs.

On the first day, we arrived after lunch and noticed the carillon as we walked from the parking lot to the welcome center.

It had rained earlier in the day and the humidity was very high. We opted to take the Golf Cart Tour (which cost us $20 each) – which turned out to be a great way to orient ourselves to the place. Our driver/guide was very informative about the history, maintenance, and highlights of the gardens. Our visit between spring and summer flowers so there were not a lot of blooms…but the trees and the ambiance of the place made the visit worthwhile. I took a few pictures along the tour: pools of water on rocks, a stone bridge, a few flowers, the slope down to the lake, butterfly weed, ferns with horsetails, fairy houses, and the shape of an eye in stone.

Tomorrow’s post will be about our second visit to Garvan Gardens when we revisited our favorite places.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 20, 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.

Tax Burden by State – A comparison done by WalletHub that compared the 50 states on 3 types of taxes - property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes - as a share of total personal income in the state.

See a Restored Ancient Roman Helmet—and Two Shiny New Replicas – 2,000-year-old helmet made of silver-gilded iron.

Solar Savings in the US – Looking at the numbers….

Feral Hogs to Be Removed from Congaree National Park – My husband and I visited Congaree in 2008 and I vividly remember the feral hogs. Evidently action is being taken to remove them. They have become a pervasive problem to both the park and surrounding landowners, routinely causing widespread damage to land and water resources both within and outside of the park. Recent observations have shown that they have begun to cause more extensive damage to areas near the Harry Hampton Visitor Center, including areas where synchronous fireflies are active and where restoration of longleaf pine is ongoing.

What four decades of canned salmon reveal about marine food webs - The cans contained fillets from four salmon species, all caught over a 42-year period in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay. Researchers dissected the preserved fillets from 178 cans and counted the number of anisakid roundworms -- a common, tiny marine parasite -- within the flesh. The parasites were killed by the canning process but still visible… counting them is one way to gauge how well a marine ecosystem is doing.

Texas Solar Power Growth Changing the Shape of Daily Electricity Supply in ERCOT – Looking at the changes between 2022 and 2023…easy to see graphically.

Functional capacity in old age is like an ecosystem that may collapse when disrupted - In old age, a tighter interlinkage between different domains of functional capacity may indicate a loss of system resilience. When functional capacity domains are tightly interconnected, a disruption in one domain can affect others and lead to a collapse in functioning.

Ming Dynasty Tomb Found in China's Xinfu District – Part of excavations before nearby highway construction begins.

I spy with my speedy eye: Scientists discover speed of visual perception ranges widely in humans - The rate with which we perceive the world is known as our "temporal resolution." Though our visual temporal resolution is quite stable from day to day in general, a post-hoc analysis did suggest that there may be slightly more variation over time within females than within males.

Study Reveals Vast Networks of ‘Ghost Roads’ in Asian Rainforests - An extensive analysis of satellite imagery has uncovered thousands of miles of unmapped roads slicing through Asia’s tropical rainforests - “ghost roads” may be laid down by miners, loggers, poachers, drug traffickers, and land grabbers, often illegally.

Sequoyah State Park (1)

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Sequoya State Park (near Wagoner, Oklahoma) is about 3 hours from where we live. We opted for an overnight trip last week – staying at one of the duplex cabins in the park. It was a reconnoiter type of trip: how many birds would we see (and the vantage points to see them) and were the onsite cabins/amenities OK (and should we look at other state park destinations in the future). Our arrival was well before check-in time, so we walked down to Inspiration Point. I spotted a damselfly on the walkway almost immediately.

The big event of that walk was a kettle of American White pelicans over the lake. They were far enough away that the images were not very good – but it was fun to watch them swirl – noting how the light made them almost impossible to see for a few seconds; then they would turn and were easily seen.

The fall foliage was just beginning.

There was a rock ‘table’ with stones situated for seats under two trees!

We visited the nature center then drove to a parking area to hike the Fossil Trail that hugged the eastern side of the peninsula. We were rewarded by views of pelicans and cormorants (probably double crested) – still too distant for good images but I liked the color the light gave the water.

There was the usual shelf fungus, insects (katydid…and something that bit me), lichen, plants going to seed…all under a forest canopy with a little fall color.

We were out again at sunset near our cabin – overlooking the western side of the peninsula and the lake beyond. The sky was perfectly clear so there were no interesting reflections off clouds; I included silhouettes of trees instead! There were gulls coming to roost on the water as the sun went down.

Tomorrow the post will include sunrise at Sequoyah!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 15, 2023

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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.

Cyprus’s copper deposits created one of the most important trade hubs in the Bronze Age – Cyprus was part of the first period of international trade in the Mediterranean. It was the largest copper producer around the area. Imports found via excavation included item from close countries like Greece and Egypt; items from distant places like Sardinia, the Baltic Sea region, Afghanistan, and India have also been found. Aside from copper, pottery produced in Cyprus at that time was exported and had been found in excavations around the Mediterranean and beyond.

Green Winter: Europe Learns to Live Without Russian Energy – “In a year when planetary emissions edged upward, Europe is now on track to comfortably outpace its pledge to generate 40 percent of its total energy from renewable sources by 2030.” Impressive.

Australia’s extinct giant eagle was big enough to snack koalas from trees – Likely one of Australia’s top predators during the Pleistocene.

Why East Antarctica is a 'sleeping giant' of sea level rise – The eastern part of Antarctica was thought to be resistant to global warming. In 2012, the East Antarctic ice sheet gained mass overall. But recently, it appears that some ice shelves are melting and might be at risk to collapse. The ice shelves in front of glaciers act as a safety band that keep the glaciers for speeding up and reaching the ocean. Scary comment from the article – “Most of the uncertainty about how much and how fast future sea levels will rise comes from how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is going to behave.”

Arctic climate modelling too conservative – And about the other pole…researchers at the University of Gothenburg argue that the rate of warming will be faster than projected….and climate models need to reflect the processes occurring there.

In Eastern U.S., Climate Change Has Extended Forest Growing Season by a Month - Scientists tracked American elm, black walnut, white oak, and four other species in northwest Ohio, comparing their data to records collected by an Ohio farmer (Thomas Mikesell) from 1883-1912.

In these cheatgrass-infested hills – Often the natural places closest to where we live…are degraded in some way. That doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the natural world that we find there.

Federal Agencies Directed to Develop Policies for Migratory Corridors – Birds and butterflies and fish and big game.

Ski Resorts in the Western U.S. Will Stay Open Into the Spring and Summer – Something positive about record-breaking snowfall.

As Enforcement Lags, Toxic Coal Ash Keeps Polluting U.S. Water – Coal ash in the environment and polluting ground water. Even as we migrate toward renewables…the toxic legacy of burning coal is going to last a very long time.

I will miss…

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Nearing the end of our time in Maryland…I am acknowledging what I will be miss from this area of the county. It’s been our home turf for almost 40 years. From the very beginning, I’ve enjoyed:

Big trees. When we first moved from Texas, the big trees were one of the first things we noticed. We had several very large oaks in our Virginia house and maples that got much larger in the time we lived in our second. At the house we are moving from (our third in the area), there is a large oak, sycamore and maple in the yard…and a forest of trees dominated by tulip poplars behind the house. Our house in Missouri has younger trees…and varieties that won’t be as tall. It has the advantage of making the roof ideal for solar panels. I am glad that the area does have big trees though; I don’t think I would want to live in a part of the country that didn’t!

Historical sites/monuments. The Washington DC is full of historical sites and monuments. Our long-time favorites are Mount Vernon, the Washington Monument, The Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, and the Dupont museums around Wilmington (Hagley, Winterthur, Nemours). Will we miss them in our new home? Probably not…but we have always included historical sites and monuments in our travels; that will continue.

Gardens. Brookside Gardens, the National Arboretum, Kenilworth Aquatic Garden, US Botanical Garden, tidal basin/cherry blossoms and Longwood Gardens have all been some of our favorite places in the area. We already know that the Springfield Botanical Gardens are something we’ll enjoy close to our new home…and I’m already anticipating a long weekend to explore the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

Seasons. We thoroughly enjoyed the seasons in Virginia/Maryland: the colors of fall, the snow in winter, the trees and bulbs that bloom profusely in spring, and the summers that don’t get as hot as in Texas! In Missouri we are expecting somewhat similar although a little drier and, perhaps, more extreme.

I will miss aspects of the area that I’ve enjoyed post-career too:

Education and volunteering opportunities. I thoroughly enjoyed the volunteer opportunities in Maryland – particularly Howard Country Conservancy and the butterfly exhibit at Brookside Gardens. The educational opportunities associated with my volunteering (Maryland Master Naturalist and Howard County Legacy Leadership for the Environment, for example) were appreciated too. I’ll look for similar opportunities near my new home. I already know there is a Missouri Master Naturalist program and some potential volunteer opportunities that I can pursue in Springfield…..or maybe I’ll find some tangential interests that will lead to very different education/volunteering opportunities.

Forest behind my house and lots of birds. This spring the area around our house in Maryland seems to be particularly lush and our two bird feeders have been very busy. I will miss that in our new house because the vegetation is not as large. On the plus side, the new yard will work reasonably well for astronomy and there is room to add some plants that I’ve never had before (like an oak leave hydrangea…and a pollinator garden that needs full sun).

Birding tours. We’ve enjoyed the tours with Delmarva Birding and the festivals at Cape May. We’ll be exploring new ones closer to our home in Missouri. I anticipate seeing the migrating sandhill cranes along the Platte River some time!

Phillips Landing Park

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My husband signed up us for 4 Delmarva Birding field trips as a last excursion to the eastern shore before we move to Missouri. The first field trip was at Phillips Landing Park near Laurel DE. It was a weekday so most of the other participants were retirees like us; we had two guides that were very familiar with the area…so we saw more than we would if we’d gone on our own.

Shortly after we started, my camera had a problem and I was challenged to work around it by using the eye piece rather than the screen for the rest of the morning….not what I usually do so my focusing/composition was not as good as usual even though the skew of pictures toward botanical rather than birds was probably about the same as it would have been with the camera working perfectly.

The plants are at the height of their variety in the spring with blossoms and unfurling leaves – the bright greens of mosses growing rapidly in the new warmth – unfurling ferns….good for photography although my eyes were itchy from the pollen laden air.

The high point of the botanical sightings: One of our guides pointed out a native orchid in bloom beside the path. They aren’t the large showy orchids of warmer climates; it takes a sharp eye to notice them!

There was an area near the path that looked like an egg laying site for a reptile….but something had found the eggs before they could hatch. There were eggshells among the acorns.

I did managed to photograph a few birds: courting cowbirds in the parking lot, a yellowlegs among the reeds, and a prothonotary warbler high in a tree.

The park was a good mix of habitat – watery area near the parking area (Broad Creek that flows into the Nanticoke River nearby) and a path through forest.

As we returned to our car, I saw a tiger swallowtail flit across the grassy area nearby. A good finale to a morning field trip!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 19, 2022

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Can cloud seeding help quench thirst of the US West? – New research on an old idea…many states increase their use of the technology.

Fresh water from thin air – Another technology that might help dry regions….using hydrogels (like the ones currently used in diapers!).

What’s The Construction Industry Blueprint to Cut Carbon? – I wanted more specific examples…was a little disappointed that this article did not provide them, but maybe that would have made it a long article! I hope to see more on this topic.

Higher education must reinvent itself to meet the needs of the world today. Enter the distributed university – The pandemic has highlighted the challenges the current higher education model is facing. The ideas in this post are a start but don’t seem to be fully developed to push into full implementation. More work needs to be done to enable transition from the existing model to a new one that is more responsive to the needs not only of undergraduate students but for graduate students and continuing education. The sources of money in the current model don’t match up well. For example – in the US the sports programs (football) is a big money maker for many universities; how does that map into the new model (or do we want it to).

Upcycling plastic waste into more valuable materials could make recycling pay for itself – Hope this research can be transitioned into commercial use….we have to improve the recycling processes that are being used today. Too much is still ending up in landfills.

Fossil pollen reveals the African origins of Asia’s tropical forest – Research on Borneo’s Dipterocarps (very large trees with buttress roots, smooth/straight trunks, high crown) using fossil pollen reveals their origins in Africa…spread through India before it crashed into Asia…and then to Southeast Asia. The forests in India shrank as the climate became drier. These trees need a wet, seasonal climate to survive.

Mummification in Europe may be older than previously known – Analysis of bodies found in Mesolithic shell middens in Portugal reveal that they were probably mummified before being placed there 8,000 years ago. The description of the way the researchers came to that conclusion was interesting…a lot has been learned about forensics since the 1960s when the bodies were originally found. The oldest intentional mummification known before this finding was from the Chinchorro hunter-gatherers living in the coastal region of the Atacama Desert in shell middens (around 7,000 years old).

Lake Powell Reaches Lowest Level Since 1980s – The drought continuing in the west….

The myths and realities of modern friendship – Thought provoking. The ways we communicate with each have changed a lot over my lifetime!

The climate math of home heating electrification – The rationale for moving to heat pump heating/cooling as quickly as possible.

A Winter Hike at Mt. Pleasant (1)

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Last week I hiked at Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant on a sunny, cold morning with snow still on the ground in many places. The group I was with started out beside the Community Garden then then took the path toward Hodge Podge Lodge. Since I was with a group….I only had time for short stops for photography.

I stopped on the bridge just after Hodge Podge Lodge to take some pictures of ice crystals at the edge of the frozen stream.

A little further along – it seemed like there was more snow on the ground and I turned back to photograph Hodge Podge Lodge on the other side of the stream and through the trees.

One of the plants I always look for this time of year is skunk cabbage. They were not as visible as in most recent mid-Februarys because we’ve been having some colder days recently. There were a visible and I’m sure there were more if I’d had time to look more thoroughly. I’ll go again to spend more time…try to photograph one that is blooming.  

It’s easy to see irregularities in bark and hollows in the winter. I wondered if this tree was still alive…will remember look in the spring to see if it turns green with the rest of the forest.

There were several logs with turkey tail (shelf fungus) on them…and there was snow caught in the turkey tails.

Someone had left a handprint (no thumb) in the snow on one of the trailside benches.

We hiked to the champion Tulip Poplar at the edge of the Mt. Pleasant property. There is a housing development happening on the other side of the property line that may be problematic for the tree.

I took pictures of the bark – lots of holes and old wounds – and a large hollow (evidently black vultures have been seen entering/leaving the hole!).

I’ll post more tomorrow with  macro photography I did after the hike – back at the nature center.

Foggy Forest

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One morning it was warm enough to be foggy and wet in the forest rather than frosty and snowy. The fog softened the view from my office window. It’s a view of winter that could also be early spring. But I know it’s not early spring in February; this day is a brief respite from mornings below freezing. The taller trees in the background are tulip poplars. The tree to the right in front of them with the darker trunk is a red maple. The branches even more in the foreground on the left is a sycamore.

Zooming in on the sycamore….the droplets of water condensed from the fog are evident on the small branches. The wet branches are more colorful when they are wet; when they are dry the cracking, curling bark is brown or grey and the smooth parts are white. In the wet, it is easier to see that there are chloroplasts in the smooth parts….the tree can make sugars even in winter!

Morning Forest

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Our forest is on the west side of our house; the treetops often catch morning light over the house. There are a few minutes of orange color. I noticed it on three mornings in January…. photographing the forest illuminated in morning light. The first morning was after a snowy night. The seed pods on the tulip poplars provide enough texture to hold snow. In the second picture notice the pine in the lower left, the tulip poplars tall in the background, and the maple in the right foreground; the orange light had already begun to fade although there are parts of the forest interior that seems to pop through the maple branches.

There are times when the color looks surreal. In the winter I usually think of the forest being mostly brown…but it isn’t for these few minutes in the morning.

And the layering of the forest becomes more obvious. Somehow the clouds or the angle of the sun precluded the light from reaching the trees in the foreground on one morning…but the background trees were bathed in morning light.

eBotanical Prints – January 2022

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20 botanical print books browsed in January and added to the list. The month started with two flower books and one about forests in Japan. Then I found Peter Henderson’s handbook and years of catalogs from his seed business. The catalogs intrigued me. How many of the varieties of celery and melons and peppers and tomatoes…berries and flowers are still available? Some of these varieties would be considered heirloom now and prized because the seeds are suitable to save and grow in next year’s garden. I still have more of the old catalogs to browse in February; it’s a good time to be thinking about a garden.

The whole list of 2,309 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the January 2022 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

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

The Flower-Finder * Walton, George Lincoln * sample image * 1914

Flowers Shown to Children * Kelman, Janet Harvey; Smith, C.E. * sample image * 1910

Forest Flora of Japan * Sargent, Charles Sprague * sample image * 1894

Henderson's Handbook of plants and general horticulture * Henderson, Peter * sample image * 1890

Everything for the garden, 1925 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1925

Everything for the garden, 1899 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1899

Everything for the garden, 1937 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1937

Everything for the garden, 1933 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1933

Everything for the garden, 1946 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1946

Everything for the garden, 1901 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1901

Everything for the garden, 1902 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1902

Everything for the garden, 1904 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1904

Everything for the garden, 1905 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1905

Everything for the garden, 1906 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1906

Everything for the garden, 1908 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1908

Everything for the garden, 1910 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1910

Everything for the garden, 1913 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1913

Everything for the garden, 1916 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1916

Everything for the garden, 1919 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1919

Everything for the garden, 1922 * Peter Henderson & Co * sample image * 1922

My Office

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My office is my favorite room in the house. The view from the large window is the forest from 3 stories off the ground – a wall of green in the summer, a tangle of bare branches in the winter. From my Swopper chair, no other houses are visible; if I get up and move closer to the window  there is a house to the back left visible and if I turn more to the left there are more houses in the distance. This time of year, the beginning and end of the day are in darkness and the view from the window is inky dark unless the moon is shining; it’s a special morning when I see moon-made shadows on the floor before I turn on the light.

At the being and end of the day, I like to create an island of light rather than having a bright light (picture below). The vaporizer (far left) has a color feature that has it glowing sequence of muted light: red – yellow - green – blue – purple. There is a light bar across the top of the right monitor. If I need more light, I turn on the lamp behind the laptop with a button on the Power Controller that is under the laptop.

I have honed my set up over the past year. The right monitor is always used for my browser and for picture editing. The laptop (in the middle) is used for Word…usually one document although sometimes I am working on more than one. The left monitor is mostly for spreadsheets although it has File Explorer, email, and the Your Phone windows running as well. The keyboard and mouse are wireless…intentionally not the largest of their kind.

There is a stand that charges my phone and three pairs of glasses around the bases of my monitors along with an adapter to read my camera’s SD card from my laptop. All the other connections (external drives and scanner) are partially hidden by the monitors….a chaotic mess of cables!

I’m feeling good about my home office at the beginning of 2022!

1st Morning of 2022

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Every year – I am looking out at sunrise on New Year’s Day…capturing the view. This year the scene was foggy with heavy clouds. It was so dim I used my camera ‘night view’ setting to take my pictures. The oak in front of our house (normally part of my sunrise pictures), was my main subject – standing in my open garage door because it had started to rain.

The sensor in the light near our front walkway still sensed that it was dark!

The forest behind our house (to the west) was even darker….no reflected dawn light. The fog was more visible in the forest.

So – not a beautiful start to 2022 but I am rationalizing that we need the rain; it has been relatively dry recently and every growing thing needs water. The weather will turn much colder tomorrow…more what we expect this time of year. We are still waiting for our first snow and the colder weather in the forecast is dry for the next week or so at least. Hopefully, the change tomorrow will improve our air quality….clear out the small particulates.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 1, 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.

Spruce Tree House – extreme rockfall management – It’s been decades since I visited Mesa Verde, but I’m still drawn to any articles about it. This one was a reminder of the fragility of the place from a geologic perspective.

4 of the biggest archeological advancements of 2021 – including one ‘game changer’ – I always browse these end-of-year summaries…catch up on any big things that I somehow missed when they were originally in my news feeds.

No more annual flu shot? New target for universal influenza vaccine – Wouldn’t it be nice if this could happen? Even if they did develop a vaccine effective against all strains of influenza…would we still have to get boosters (i.e. would our immunity fade over time)?

With omicron, you need a mask that means business – I’ve been wearing KF-94 masks since February. My Christmas present from daughter was some patterned ones…although I still have a good supply of the black (the Ninja look) ones. I wear one anytime I am indoors (and not at home) and if I am outdoors with a lot of people around. Now that it’s cold, I wear them for warmth too; it’s surprising how much the mask keeps the nose and face comfortably warm….and the mask seals well enough that my glasses don’t fog!

Climate Clues from the Past Prompt a New Look at History – Some examples of the outsized role of climate in human affairs….and the interdisciplinary contributions to papers on the topic.

As Wetland Habitats Disappear, Dragonflies and Damselflies Are Threatened with Extinction – Maybe we need to start thinking about having wetland/ponds in our gardens as well as pollinator gardens…reduce the ‘lawn’ part of the area around our houses.

Forest Keepers: The National Park System is an essential laboratory—and also a battleground—in the management of invasive pests – The invasive pest pictured at the top of this article is woolly adelgid…something a learned to recognize in our area of Maryland…that has killed most of the hemlocks. Some of the trees growing in parks were saved with aggressive treatment, but the ones in the forest behind our house are gone.

New smart-roof coating enables year-round energy savings – A technology that changed the reflection/absorption properties of the roof based on temperature would be another step toward increasing the energy efficiency of buildings….reducing the heat island that plagues cities.

Study shows critical need to reduce use of road salt in winter – This has been a topic in several water quality sessions I’ve attended overthe past few years in Maryland. I have noticed the spraying of brine prior to storm events in our area so maybe some jurisdictions are already following the suggestions in this article.

Inside Idaho’s Campaign to Include Indigenous History in Its Highway Markers – Good idea; history of the US is more than European colonization. This article also prompted me to wonder if there are web sites that document the location and text of highway markers. I did some web searches and found several at the state level…and a general one: https://www.hmdb.org/

Patuxent Research Refuge – Squirrels

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The little surprise during our walk in the woods at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge was the interaction of a pair of squirrels in a beech tree….probably about 10 feet above the ground and not too upset by my being within my camera’s zoom range. I was glad I had it set on continuous shooting although I could have also taken a video (somehow I don’t remember my camera will do that!). The squirrels seemed small and I wondered if they were litter mates…perhaps not that long out of the nest. They would probably be the last litter for the season since we are already have nights in the 40s and 50s.They stayed near the knot in the tree…and then, when one disappeared suddenly, I realized that there was a cavity there…large enough for both!

They could peek out one at a time.

I wondered if a woodpecker had enlarged the cavity…whether the squirrels will nest there during the winter rather than building a sloppy leave and twigs nest higher in the tree…if there was a woodpecker that would come to roust them from their hole. It’s fun to think about particular places in the forest…and a hole in a tree is certainly a place to build a story around.