Gleanings of the Week Ending July 6, 2024

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.

Extended maternal care central factor to human other animal, longevity – In species where offspring survival depends on the longer-term presence of the mother, the species tends to evolve longer lives and a slower life pace, which is characterized by how long an animal lives and how often it reproduces.

The 'gene deserts' unravelling the mysteries of disease - Less than 2% percent of the human genome is dedicated to coding for genes which produce proteins, while much of the remaining 98% has no obvious meaning or purpose. But scientists are slowly managing to accrue information about the ‘gene deserts’ apparent purpose and why they exist.

These Stunning Butterflies Flew 2,600 Miles Across the Atlantic Ocean Without Stopping – Painted Lady butterflies spotted in French Guiana where they are not usually found. Sequencing the butterflies’ genome revealed that they were related to African and European painted ladies – not North American. And looking at weather data revealed that wind conditions in the weeks prior to the sighting were favorable for the butterflies moving from Africa to South America.

Simple test for flu could improve diagnosis and surveillance - Fewer than one percent of people who get the flu every year get tested, in part because most tests require trained personnel and expensive equipment. The current version of new test is a low-cost paper strip that distinguishes between influenza A and B and subtypes H1N1 and H3N2. It works at room temperature…takes about 90 minutes. They are working to reduce the time to 15 minutes.

To Save the Red Knots, Look to Blue Carbon – Red Knots migrate over 9,000 miles to the Arctic to breed. Along the way they stop for meals of mussels and clams in coastal areas. This post highlights 6 projects from around the world that are restoring those area…for the red knots and the health of the planet.

Photography In the National Parks: Two Cave Parks Above and Below – Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument. Full of ideas for photographing inside caves and above them! My first thought was to see if there is a trail that goes over the top of Sequiota Cave and Spring near Springfield MO (we did a boat tour of the cave last spring).

Surprising phosphate finding in NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample – Remembering when we went to the launch of the mission in September 2016.

Swift Parrots and the Heartbreak of Rare Species – Endangered Australian parrots…with only an estimated 500 birds left in the wild. “We conservationists bear witness to so much loss: of species, ecosystems, and the places we know and love. Often, it feels like we’re watching extinction in real time, powerless to stop it. But there is value in staring these losses in the face. Value in bearing witness to a rare parrot with an uncertain future, knowing full well I might mourn its extinction in a few years time. If the worst happens, at least I will have cherished it while it was here.”

A Big Picture of the US Housing Market - High interest rates, supply constraints and growth in home insurance premiums (particularly in states like California and Florida) are all driving housing costs. There is some news that’s more positive. Nearly 450,000 new apartments were finished in 2023, the highest rate in about three decades. However, average rents remain above pre-pandemic levels in most markets.

Sheep & Solar: A “Beautiful Symbiotic Relationship” - When solar farms use sheep instead of mowers for vegetation management, they minimize burning fossil fuels, and costs associated with labor are also reduced. Investment costs for a solar farm might include water tanks, troughs, a small water pump to fill the troughs, predator-proof fencing, and dividing into sections for rotational grazing. The sheep eat the tall grass, weeds, and clover, and their chomping inhibits the vegetation from blocking the panels. Their steady consumption of forage on the land prevents grassy plants from growing high enough to block sunlight from reaching the panels, maintaining the productivity of the array. Sheep are the most appropriate ruminant species when it comes to vegetation management on solar farms because they are too small to damage the panels when rubbing against them, and they are not predisposed to chewing on wires or jumping on the panels.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 18, 2024

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 27, 2024

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.

Meet the World’s Largest Freshwater Crayfish – The Tasmanian giant crayfish. Their numbers are declining due to fishing and disturbance.

FDA urges Congress to pass bill mandating food manufacturers test for lead – I am surprised Congress did not pass this already. According to the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 519 confirmed, probable and suspect cases of lead and chromium poisoning traced to imported applesauce pouches produced by brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. Lead exposure in children is associated with learning and behavior problems, as well as hearing and speech issues and slowed growth and development.

Retention ponds can deliver a substantial reduction in tire particle pollution - The presence of wetlands and retention ponds alongside major highways led to an average reduction of almost 75% in the mass of tire wear particles being discharged to aquatic waters. Tire wear particles significantly outweighed other forms of microplastics, such as plastic fibers and fragments.

Climate change is fueling the US insurance problem – I’ve seen more articles about this recently….there is no good news re insurance…nothing that can overcome what climate change is doing. One state-level action that could help mitigate the impacts of climate change is the implementation of flood disclosures. Organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council have urged states to require flood disclosure polices during property sales to help buyers decide whether buying is worth the risk. Research has shown disclosure can devalue flood-prone properties and discourage development in risky areas. Even though the number of states requiring flood disclosure policies is slowly increasing, Florida remains noticeably absent, and one-third of states still have no requirement that sellers must disclose a property's flood risk to potential buyers.

Does the time of day you move your body make a difference to your health? – Maybe – for people living with obesity.

How the iron lung paved the way for the modern-day intensive care unit – The iron lung was first used to save the life of a child in 1928. It swiftly became a fixture in polio wards during the polio outbreaks of the subsequent decades, particularly from 1948 until the vaccine was developed in 1955. And its creation paved the way for many subsequent medical innovations. Some patients spent just a short time in the iron lung, perhaps weeks or months until they were able to regain chest strength and breath independently again. But for patients whose chest muscles were permanently paralyzed, the iron lung remained the key to survival.

Food security in developed countries shows resilience to climate change - Data on American wheat production, inventories, crop area, prices and wider market conditions from 1950 to 2018, together with records of annual fluctuations in the weather for the same period reveals strong evidence of an increase in weather and harvest variability from 1974 onwards. However, Wheat prices remain relatively stable, along with the price of associated goods mainly due to farmers and agricultural industries providing a buffer, smoothing out any bumps in the supply of grain to retailers and consumers.

Where the Xerces Blue Butterfly Was Lost, Its Closest Relative Is Now Filling In - Silvery Blues collected 100 miles south of San Francisco were released at a restored a swath of dunes in the Presidio, a former military base, trying to bring back native wildlife. They will pollinate native flowers and form a critical link in the food chain there.

Colorless, odorless gas likely linked to alarming rise in non-smoking lung cancer - 5-20% of newly diagnosed lung cancers occur in people who have never smoked, many of whom are in their 40s or 50s.  Non-smoking lung cancer cases is likely linked to long-term, high exposures of radon gas. This colorless, odorless gas is emitted from the breakdown of radioactive material naturally occurring underground that then seeps through building foundations. The gas can linger and accumulate in people's homes and lungs silently unless they know to test for it. We had our Missouri house tested and radon remediation installed before we moved it!

Contents of Roman Lead Coffin Examined in England - The examination of the contents of a Roman lead coffin discovered in 2022 in the city of Leeds has identified the partial remains of a child (about 10 years old). The initial evaluation of the coffin’s poorly preserved contents found the remains of a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death some 1,600 years ago, a bracelet, a glass bead necklace, and a finger ring or an earring.