Gleanings of the Week Ending November 23, 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.

How a Soviet swamp rat scheme for Azerbaijan went horribly wrong – Nutria introduced in the 1930s…..destroying every wetland in Azerbaijan today.

Light Pollution May Be Keeping Honey Bees Up at Night - On hot nights honey bees will sleep outside and slept less/more fitfully if there is artificial light…which could undermine the health of the colony.

The next massive volcano eruption will cause climate chaos — and we are unprepared – The history of large eruptions and what we can determine about the aftermath…though provoking on what it would be like if a massive eruption happened in the modern world.

Carbon recycling instead of plastic trash – Using iron electrocatalysis and producing green hydrogen as a biproduct…can be powered by solar panels. I hope this can be commercialized near term. We are overwhelming our world with plastic trash!

CT Scans Unlock Secrets of Mummified Individuals at Field Museum – Respect for the ancient dead…but still studying their bodies.

How do countries measure immigration, and how accurate is this data? - Three types of migrants who don’t have a legal immigration status. First, those who cross borders without the right legal permissions. Second, those who enter a country legally but stay after their visa or permission expires. Third, some migrants have legal permission to stay but work in violation of employment restrictions. Most high-income nations have a small minority of irregular immigrants in their immigrant population; the exception is the United States which estimates 22% of their immigrants are irregular.

Riding The Rails on Amtrak's Cardinal Line Through New River Gorge – Maybe a relaxing way to see the National Park and Preserve…thinking about next fall.

Mother Tiger Teaching Cub How to Fight Wins Nature’s Best Photo Awards – Great pictures….but Patricia Homonylo’s video is the most thought provoking….the one that is a call to action.

Geologists rewrite textbooks with new insights from the bottom of the Grand Canyon - From the Tonto Group's 500-meter-thick strata, we're learning about sea-level rise and the effects of catastrophic tropical storms -- probably more powerful than today's devastating hurricanes -- during a period of very hot temperatures when the Earth was ice-free.

Quantifying How Urban Trees Cool Cities - The authors of a new study estimate that the city of Baltimore could reduce land surface temperatures by 0.23°C if they increased tree canopy by 1%. To achieve 1.5°C of cooling, they would need to increase tree canopy cover by 6.39%.

Missouri Master Naturalist Training – Week 9

The last session of the Missouri Master Naturalist Training was one lecture followed by graduation and ice cream cake!

The lecture was on invasives. Most of the invasive plants I was familiar with (from Maryland)…except for Sericea Lespedeza which is a warm-season, perennial legume. It is something that was introduced intentionally then escaped and is now widespread – outcompeting native plants. Frustratingly – its seeds are still being sold and attempts to stop that at the state level have failed.

There were some trunk sections of young ash trees killed by Emerald Ash Borer. The widespread death of ashes in Missouri is happening now…just as it did in Maryland several years ago.

The good (so far) news on the invasive insect front is that Missouri does not have Spotted Lanternfly…although it is probably only a matter of time since the insect is in Illinois and Kentucky.

Graduation included a magnetic name badge and a certificate (and some goodies that included milkweed seeds). I splurged and had 2 pieces of ice cream cake!

I am going to miss the rigor of the class but am relaxing a bit – savoring my Identifying Woody Plants class at the university that continues into December!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 15, 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.

Could the world famous Roman Baths help scientists counter the challenge of antibiotic resistance? – A diverse array of microorganisms were found in the hot waters of the Roman Baths. Tests showed 15 of the isolated bacteria -- including examples of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes -- displayed varying levels of inhibition against human pathogens including E.coli, Staphylococcus Aureus and Shigella flexneri.

The Changing Nature of Wilderness - The U.S. government has begun to acknowledge the Indigenous history of ‘wilderness’ areas and, in some (very few) cases, restored land to native tribes or created co-management agreements.

Nearly 25% of land in Africa has been damaged – What’s to blame, and what can be done - The “big five” drivers of land degradation globally and in Africa are:

• biological invasions, where plant species have spread outside their indigenous area and disrupted the services provided by ecosystems

• climate change driven events, such as intense droughts and severe fires

• extractive activities, such as mining and over-harvesting

• habitat transformation or fragmentation, including deforestation and poor agricultural practices

• pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, and eutrophication – where algae and other plants take over plant life.

The Hunt: Genghis Khan’s Final Resting Place - His last wish was to be buried in secret, something his soldiers accomplished in two ways: by killing everyone they met enroute to the gravesite, and then trampling that site under the hoofs of their horses until no trace was left. Although tomb culture, inherited from the neighboring Chinese, was well-established by the time Genghis Khan was born, many were constructed underground, some at a depth of more than 65 feet. Most Mongolians today would prefer that Genghis Khan’s tomb stayed hidden. Not because discovering it would unleash an ancient curse—a superstition that was actually quite widespread in Soviet times—but simply out of respect for the historical figure’s dying wish.

Airplane noise exposure may increase risk of chronic disease - Research has shown that noise from airplanes and helicopters flying overhead are far more bothersome to people than noise from other modes of transportation, and a growing body of research suggests that aircraft noise is also contributing to negative health outcomes.

New fossils show what Australia’s giant prehistoric ‘thunder birds’ looked like – and offer clues about how they died out - While the birds had broad, short toes and hoof-like claws for moving across open ground between bodies of water, their partial reliance on freshwater and new plant growth would have become more difficult as ponds and lakes shrunk and disappeared.

Phoenix Heat Deaths Rose by 1,000 Percent in 10 Years - Relentless heat led to 645 deaths last year in Maricopa County, the most ever documented in Arizona’s biggest metropolitan area. Almost half of the victims last year were homeless — 290 people. Twenty died at bus stops, others were in tents, and an unrecorded number of people were found on the pavement, prone as if on a baking stone.

Warming Brings Early Bloom to Bulgarian Rose Fields – Bulgaria is a top producer of rose water and rose oil. To produce these goods, pickers must harvest the flowers early in the morning, when their petals are richest in oil. After a mild winter and warm spring, pickers in Bulgaria’s Rose Valley have headed to the fields around three weeks earlier than normal.

15 Awe-Inspiring Images of Our Galaxy from the 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year – From around the world.

See the Rare Neolithic and Viking Treasures Returning to Scotland for Display – Artifacts from the Isle of Lewis. The scoop or ladle made from horn is my favorite.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 10, 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.

Sleep tight: A curious history of beds through the centuries – From 4,500 year old ‘beds’ at Skara Brae (Scottish island of Orkney…rectangular enclosures, around the length of a human…made from slabs of cold, hard stone…with tall headboards and raised sides) to Durrington Walls near Stonehenge (spectral outlines of long-vanished wooden bed boxes, where the builders of that monument may have once slept) to a clay figurine of a woman slumbering peacefully on her side, one hand under her head, on a simple raised platform to the gilded wooden bed in King Tut’s tomb (including a rigid, raised headrest rather than a soft pillow) to mats of dried leaves or animal skins to box beds to the ‘tick mattress’…hints of beds of the past.

Peru’s High-Altitude Hunter-Gatherers Ate Mostly Plants – Wild potatoes and the root vegetables made up 80% of their diet.

Rethinking Monarchs: Does the Beloved Butterfly Need Our Help? - The Xerces Society has published a joint statement signed by 10 top monarch biologists warning against the captive rearing and releasing of monarchs by backyard and commercial breeders. Such activities, they wrote, “promote crowding and disease spread.” The monarch is not in peril since the winter population in Mexico has shown no continued decline for the past 10 years. --- But there are some that still argue for continued ‘help.’

Deceptively Beautiful Invasive Plants – Avoid Lessor Celadine, Mimosa Tree, English Ivy…..Today, we have the opportunity to make gardening choices that benefit both the aesthetics of our gardens and local wildlife by removing invasive species and replacing them with beautiful and wildlife-friendly native alternatives. 

See the World Through the Eyes of Animals with These Stunning New Videos - To “see through” animal eyes, the team uses two cameras—one sensitive to ultraviolet light and one sensitive to visible light. Together, they capture light in four distinct wavelengths: blue, green, red and ultraviolet.

New genetic variants found in large Chinese mother–baby study - Mothers with higher blood pressure give birth to lighter and shorter babies than do mothers with lower blood pressure. This was just one of a multitude of links between maternal health and fetal development observed in a large genetic analysis of Chinese parents and their babies, which included some unexpected results. The researchers sequenced genetic data from blood samples taken from the parents and umbilical-cord blood of the infants and collected physical information about the mothers and their babies, including height and weight. The researchers identified discrepancies in the effect of some genetic variants on the same trait between mothers and their babies. For example, some variants were associated with altered cholesterol levels in infants but not in their mothers, and vice versa.

Preserving History at Bandelier National Monument – Two videos that show recreations of what the structures looked like in use based on archeological findings.

The 4-Second Nap: Unusual Sleep Habits of Animals - The killer whale, which can go a month or more without sleeping. Or the chinstrap penguin, which researchers recently discovered sleeps in four-second microbursts. Compare that to the koala, which conks out for most of the day.  When dolphins are sleeping with one hemisphere, one eye closes and one remains open. They sometimes rest motionless near the surface of the water or swim slowly, still able to breathe when needed. African elephants sleep for the least amount of time recorded of any land mammal.  The domestic horse sleeps just under three hours on average each day, and the domestic pony sleeps about three hours and 20 minutes. 

How a walk in nature restores attention - The study, conducted in 2022 between April and October, analyzed EEG data recorded on each of 92 participants immediately before and after they undertook a 40-minute walk. Half walked through Red Butte, the arboretum in the foothills just east of the University of Utah, and half through the nearby asphalt-laden medical campus. The participants that had walked in nature showed an improvement in their executive attention, whereas the urban walkers did not.

Climate change is causing a pothole plague. Are robots and self-healing pavement the solution? - In the United States, about 44 million drivers reported damage to their vehicles from potholes in 2022, which was a massive 57% increase over 2021, according to AAA. New developments offer hope for addressing potholes more effectively amid climate change, and are attracting investors….but innovations take time to be implemented.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 30, 2023

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

Fevered Planet: How a shifting climate is catalyzing infectious disease – The geography of disease is also changing as novel pathogens affecting plants, animals and humans increase their range. New beetles are heading north and devastating Siberian forests, Alaskan mammals are struggling as new ticks arrive and human habitations in northern Norway are infested by new insects.

‘Green Roads’ Are Plowing Ahead, Buffering Drought and Floods - Designing roads to capture water through strategic channels, culverts, and ponds and divert it for agricultural use. Nearly 20 countries have either implemented Green Roads for Water or plan to begin soon, and thousands of kilometers of roads, worldwide, have already received Green Roads interventions.

Photos of the year (2023) from the Prairie Ecologist (part 1 and part 2) – Lots of great nature photos.

How Fire-Prone Communities Can Reduce Their Risk - Playbook for the Pyrocene, which offers 20 community planning and design strategies that can be applied by landscape architects, planners, homeowners, and developers. “The questions we are trying to answer here are not so much where to build, but rather how to build better within the context of wildfire broadly.”

Giant Goldfish Are Bad News for the Great Lakes - In the Great Lakes, abandoned goldfish and their kin are known to root up plants, contribute to harmful algal blooms and consume native vegetation.

Nine breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2023 you may have missed – Yes – I missed some of these!

Parts of China’s Great Wall Are Protected by a ‘Living Cover’ of Biocrusts – Lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria!

Fresh water from thin air - Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH). The need for more affordable options has spurred interest in ‘passive’ AWH systems that use moisture-hungry sorbent compounds to collect water. The small amounts of power that such systems require could, ideally, be supplied by the Sun. Typically, these sorbents are exposed to the air overnight, when temperatures are cooler and moisture is more abundant. They collect the airborne moisture as liquid in a process known as adsorption. When day breaks, the sorbents are transferred to a device that uses solar energy to drive the release of water. This water is then condensed and collected. And there are abundant opportunities beyond simply producing drinking water. For example, a harvesting system that piggybacks on existing photovoltaic solar panels, using the waste heat and energy from these panels to power water production9; the resulting water helps to cool the panels and therefore improves their efficiency

Archaeologists Discover Brutal ‘Bakery-Prison’ at Pompeii - The cramped space provided minimal light, as windows to the outside were small, high and barred.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 4, 2023

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

Oldest fossil human footprints in North America confirmed – New research that supports the dating of the footprints found in White Sands National Park to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.

Downtown Dallas Gets a New Park – Harwood Park. It reminded me of a field trip with my parents – taking the light rail train from Carrollton to downtown Dallas to visit Klyde Warren Park and have lunch in 2014. I’m glad there is another park added to the downtown area.

BLM Releases New Plan for Moab Area - The plan limits motorized recreation to protect natural and cultural resources. I hope the BLM can succeed in reducing the impact of off road vehicles….requiring ORV users/organizations to take precautions to protect the environment for themselves and everyone else to enjoy in this area.

Active children are more resilient – Interesting….I’ve assumed this but the way the researches went about confirming the idea was worth knowing and reassuring.

A Road Trip Along the Northern Shore of Lake Superior – The Trans-Canada Highway from Thunder Bay to Marathon in June. Maybe a place we’ll go one summer?

What your hands say about your health – I wish the article had better pictures!

Trouble in the Amazon - In the southeastern Amazon, the forest has become a source of CO2….and maybe more will cease to be a carbon sink as well. Large-scale deforestation… plus even intact forest is no longer as healthy as it once was, because of forces such as climate change and the impacts of agriculture that spill beyond farm borders. Data has been collected every two weeks for 10 years! The selective logging permitted by the Forest Code in Brazil is often not sustainable. That’s because the trees that are removed are generally slow-growing species with dense wood, whereas the species that grow back have less-dense wood, so they absorb less carbon in the same space.

A Summer Light Show Dims: Why Are Fireflies Disappearing? – Habitat destruction (clear cutting, fragmentation of forests), water pollution (in Asia many firefly larvae are aquatic), pesticides and yard chemicals, light pollution (it blinds males so that they can’t find females). On a positive note: firefly ecotourism is increasing in Mexico and Malaysia….and around Great Smokey Mountains National Park in the US.

Large herbivores keep invasive plants at bay - Native plants have evolved such that they can withstand brutal treatment from species of herbivores they have co-existed with for millennia, while invasive plants usually cannot.

The Amazon May Be Hiding More Than 10,000 Pre-Columbian Structures - Based on a new aerial survey and modeling study, archaeologists suggest at least 90 percent of sites known as earthworks remain undetected. Also found - high concentrations of 53 domesticated tree species near earthwork sites. These include cacao, Brazil nut, breadnut and Pará rubber trees, plus dozens of others. This demonstrates how the region’s inhabitants altered the natural landscape, likely so they would have a steady supply of food and useful materials.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 17, 2023

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

Humans taking a toll on Yellowstone wildlife - In recent days two black bears have been killed by motorists, an elk and a bison were also hit by vehicles, a newborn elk calf was picked up by motorists concerned for its fate, and a bison calf had to be put down after a visitor tried to help it out of the Lamar River so it could catch up with its mother. I remember that the park had good signage trying to educate people….seems that it isn’t as effective as I assumed it would be.

See the Rare Albino Echidna Spotted in Australia – It’s been named (Raffie) and photographed…evidently still in the wild! A piece of trivia from the article: a baby echidna is a puggle.

Tune in to the Great Salt Lake kestrel cam – Take a look…they hatched on May 17th…and they are growing up fast.

Scientists target human stomach cells for diabetes therapy – Still very much in research phase…but it would certainly improve the lives of a lot of people if it can be developed into a treatment!

This New Device Generates Electricity from Thin Air – Evidently the device can be made from any material that can be punctured with ultra-small holes. Too good to be true….or competitive with established clean energy sources like wind and solar?

Super low-cost smartphone attachment brings blood pressure monitoring to your fingertips – A clip that fits over the phone’s camera and flash…an app. It costs about 80 cents to make but the cost could be as low at 10 cents when manufactured at scale. Evidently it does not need to be calibrated either! I wonder if cuffs will become a thing of the past very quickly!

What we know about the health risks of ultra-processed foods – Research teasing out what exactly about ultra-processed food is bad. I’ve been trying to reduce ultra-processed food…so have been following the advice in this article for at about a year: if you're considering eating a packaged food, read the ingredient list…If you really have no idea what some of those ingredients are, it probably went too far.

You can make carbon dioxide filters with a 3D printer – Printing a hydrogel material that holds carbonic anhydrase (an enzyme that turns carbon dioxide and water into bicarbonate).

Nepal Won’t Move the Mount Everest Base Camp for Now, Despite Risks – Everest’s highest glacier has lost half its mass since the 1990s because of higher temperatures. It may only be a few years before the camp needs to move.

Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippo’ population is even bigger than scientists thought – Wild descendants of the hippos introduced in Columbia by Pablo Escobar….considered the largest invasive animal in the world. There are probably 181-215 of them in Columbia. Several strategies are being tried: contraception administered via dart, castration, exporting the animal to sanctuaries abroad. Culling appears to be the only strategy that can save the biodiversity of Columbia.

Bradford Pear

The Callery (Bradford) Pear trees near the entrance of our neighborhood are blooming. It was cold and windy when I went out to photograph the flowers. Supposedly the trees have value as early season food for pollinators – but I didn’t see any – probably because it was so cold.

Their trunks are heavy with lichen…which I like to photograph….magnified with my phone. On the day I was out, lichen was one of the few macro opportunities since everything else was moving too much with the wind. The textures (crevices of the bark, delicate lobes or nets of lichen, ovoid shapes on the top of the larger lichens) and colors (brown and black of the bark; orange and greenish gray lichen) are nature’s abstracts.

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My house was built near the end of the 90s so the Callery Pear trees in the community space at the entrance might be nearing the end of their lifespan which is typically less than 25 years if they were planted about the same time as my house was built. The trees appear to have been radically trimmed not that many years ago and that might have prolonged their life since the trees tend to be damaged by wind (big branches or trunks breaking). Hopefully another species of tree will replace them since most conservation agencies view the trees as invasive and not as appealing as they were decades ago. I know I have a Callery Pear hybrid that came up very close to a crepe myrtle. I cut it down as soon as I discovered it…and punctured myself as I was hauling it out before I realized that it had thorns! I am still cutting all the leaves that sprout from the stump since I don’t think I can dig deep enough to get it out without also digging up the crepe myrtle.

But – they do have pretty blooms in the spring.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 18, 2023

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

A mixture of trees purifies urban air best – Conifers do a better job at gaseous components of pollution…and they do it all year round; this is particularly important since pollution can be at its highest in winter. Broadleaved trees are more efficient at cleaning the air particles, perhaps because of their larger surface area.

Once the Callery pear tree was landscapers’ favorite – now states are banning this invasive species and urging homeowners to cut it down – Back in the 1980s, the neighborhood I lived in organized to plant Branford pears along our streets. The neighborhood I moved to in the mid-1990s had mature Bradford pears; they were knocked down by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 (the trunk of the one in our neighbor’s yard broke close to the ground with a loud crack) and not re-planted. My neighborhood in Missouri was built in the late 1990s and there are some mature trees near the entrance.

Assessing the risk of excess folic acid intake – Too much or too little of a good thing (folic acid) may not be such a good thing.

School choice proposals rarely go before voters – and typically fail when they do – Public schools have been the backbone of American greatness. How do parents make choices to do otherwise? I suspect that sometimes a Charter School that looks great turns out to be something completely opposite because it is so difficult for individuals to gather enough information to evaluate a school. So - why are legislatures keen to support non-public schools?

The East Coast Whale Die-Offs: Unraveling the Causes – There have been headlines on this as a new challenge; this article includes some data collected so far. There have been periodic whale strandings earlier (back in 2016-2017) too. Almost all the carcasses this winter in New York and New Jersey had clear signs of vessel strike and many were juveniles. It appears that the feeding areas for whales have shifted due to warmer water and that shift has put them in areas with more ships (i.e., ports of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia).

Mary Wollstonecraft: an introduction to the mother of first-wave feminism – A little history…but not just about feminism. “Liberation from oppression means being able to define ourselves and the direction of our lives. And this requires access to the intellectual resources and knowledge needed to develop independence of mind. This is Wollstonecraft’s most important message, and one that should speak to everyone regardless of gender.”

Cornell Study Finds Solar Panels Help Crops Grow & Crops Help Solar Panels Last Longer – Not all crops can grow under solar panels but enough of them do (like tomatoes and soybeans) that there is no reason for solar panels to reduce farmland!

Global warming is changing Canada’s boreal forest and tundra – It’s complex. In general, as temperatures warm, trees will colonize further north…but not at uniform rates in all regions.

Greater gender equity helps both women and men live longer – The study looked at 156 countries between 2010 and 2021 to assess the gender gap in life expectancy around the globe. The three dimensions included in the study were political, economic, and educational. Of the three, education has the strongest association with longer life expectancy. The study authors summarize: “the evidence demonstrates that enhancing women's representation across multiple sectors contributes to wealthier and, hence, healthier societies for all."

Less Than 1 Percent of People Globally Breathing Safe Levels of Pollution, Study Finds – Focusing on particulate pollution: particulate pollution has fallen in Europe and North America over the past two decades, but risen in sub-Sharan Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and the Caribbean. (see Lancet article with maps here).

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 18, 2023

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

Farmers Find Wild African Cat Wandering Around Missouri – A serval found when a farming family set a live trap to capture the culprit leaving bones and feathers between their stacks of hay bales! The Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge came to the rescue. This is all close to where I live and I was saddened that evidently the new Big Cat Public Safety Act does not include the smaller non-native wild cats…and that someone was cruel enough to release this cat of the African savanna into the wild in Missouri.

Caribou have been using the same Arctic calving grounds for 3,000 years – Analysis of antlers found on the tundra….discovering some of them are 3,000 years old! But the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the globe. The elders of the village south of the calving grounds comment that they have noticed a lot more trees, less barren tundra. What will happen to the barren ground caribou as this habitat gets converted to forest?

Why fabric fraud is easy to hide – The fashion supply chain is fragmented and very dense….most apparel companies do not track their own supply chain (or don’t go past their immediate suppliers). Organic cotton is one of the prime examples of how end products labelled as organic cotton…might not be. It is hard to determine where the fraud is inserted in the process; the result is that the consumer is paying a premium price…not getting what they are paying for. And to improve the system will require big changes in the fabric/apparel business.

A Field Guide to Unexpected, Out-of-Place Wildlife – Sometimes animals have ranges that are changing or are a lot larger than we anticipate…sometimes birds are in very different places that their usual range!

Dirty Laundry: How much microfiber do we emit with our laundry – A study done in the UK…but probably relevant to the US as well. Microfibers from laundry in the UK weigh 6,850 to 17,847 tons per year. Yes…that’s a lot and pollutes water…however, it is a dwarfed by the 365,000 tons of clothing going into UK landfills per year.

Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears – The increase in bacterial infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics (because of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics) has been growing in recent years. Overuse of antibiotivs in agriculture is thought to be a major driver of the problem. Governments around the world have attempted to curb the use of antibiotics to promote growth but the use is still expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030. The article includes a chart of agricultural antibiotics by country in 2020…and a projection for 2030.

The Lifelike Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka – Thousands of realistic models of plants and sea creatures made by a father and son from the 1860s until 1938.

8 everyday foods you might not realize are ultra-processed – and how to spot them – I am cutting back on ultra-processed foods this year. Some of the 8 listed in this article are easy: I don’t eat breakfast cereals, I only eat protein bars as ‘emergency rations’ (i.e. not frequently) and avoid yogurt, meal bases and sauces, processed meats, and margarine. I’m still looking for a soy milk that has fewer ingredients; will give up on soy milk soon if I don’t find one. And I try to buy bakery bread.

Did Philip II bring invasive fish to Spain? – Evidently his efforts to acquire fish and crayfish from afar spanned at least 25 years!

Study reveals that much still not known about cognitive decline - Data came from 7,068 participants in the 1996-2016 Health and Retirement Study. Participants were born between 1931 and 1941. Researchers measured their cognitive functioning at age 54 and how it declined until they were 85. At age 54, socioeconomic status, education and race -- explained only 38% of the variation in functioning. Those same factors explained only 5.6% of the variation in how quickly cognitive functioning declined in people between age 54 and 85. So much we don’t know about cognitive decline although it is pervasive in older adults, even those without dementia.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 10, 2022

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

Adults living in areas with high air pollution are more likely to have multiple long-term health conditions – A study of more than 364 thousand people in England. Respiratory and cardiovascular problems dominate but neurological and common mental conditions were also observed.

Best of 2022: Top 50 Photographs from Around the World – The first of the year in summary type articles. I had seen some of these photos before…but not all of them. They are worth a look.

Larger wheat harvest in Ukraine than expected – Based on satellite imagery, 94% of the winter crop was harvested…including 88% in areas not controlled by Ukraine. Some Ukrainian grain made it to global markets…however Russia is reaping the benefit of a significant portion of the harvest.

Medieval woman’s burial in Switzerland yields gold broach – A wealthy burial from a 7th century AD cemetery…excavated prior to construction work. The article didn’t say whether the finds would be going to a museum…or be reburied with the skeleton elsewhere.

More Than 52 Million Birds in the U.S. Are Dead Because of Avian Flu – It began last year in Eastern Canada and has affected flocks in 46 states since then. Wild and domestic birds are impacted…and there is a risk of infections in people too.

Study finds that experiences of daily stress decrease as people age – As we get older, we begin to deal daily stressors better. It’s a positive aspect to aging!

Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Snacks in Sewers Beneath the Colosseum – The debris from 1,900 years ago: olives, nuts, meats, cherries, grapes, figs, blackberries, and peaches!

Biodiversity unbalanced as ice-free Antarctic areas grow – Non-native species invading Antarctica

Idaho’s Potato Belt – 1/3 of the US potatoes are grown in the Snake River Plain….satellite images from NASA’s Aqua and Landsat 8.

Dam safety: New study indicates probable maximum flood events will significantly increase over next 80 years – This is a paper about 546 dams in Australia. We need to extend this type of analysis around the world…to improve the integrity of critical infrastructure into the future.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 30, 2022

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

Furs from Danish Viking Burials Analyzed – Proteins extracted from animal furs found in 6 burials. The accessories/furnishings were domesticated animals. The items of clothing were wild beaver, squirrels, and weasels. The beaver furs were not native to the area so were probably luxury furs obtained by trade.

More Energy on Less Land: The Drive to Shrink Solar’s Footprint – Good ideas…if we must use agriculturally productive land for solar panels. I’d like to see cities with high density solar panels that generate electricity close to where it is needed (i.e., short distance between generation and use). Hopefully that is happening in parallel with the solar development described in this article.

Moths are unsung heroes of pollination – The study was done with red clover…but probably applies to a broader range of plants. Moths are active during the night so have not been as easily observed as pollinators that are active during the day. The work was done with time lapse cameras.

Electric School Buses! – A blog post about the US Department of Energy’s ‘Flipping the Switch on Electric School Buses’ series. There are lots of communities that have been exploring making the transition and I am hopeful that it will be an escalating trend. I always cringed at the fumes that were so obvious when the buses arrived/departed from schools as I was growing up and when my daughter was in school. It would be good for the planet and good for children’s lungs to eliminate the school bus as a source of air pollution!

The habits that help prevent allergies – Studies that are improving our understanding of why allergies are increasing in the children….and strategies for addressing the problem. Evidently the time between 4 and 11 months is very important.

Harm from blue light exposure increases with age, research in flies suggests – Not good news. Maybe the default setting on our ‘screens’ (phones, computers, television) need to reduce blue light rather than it being a setting that everyone must intentionally set. And why don’t LED manufactures offer bulbs that are not so blue shifted?

Giant Snails take over Florida’s Gulf Coast - It is not the first time…probably won’t be the last. These snails are native to Africa and this the third time Florida has battled an invasion.

Water resources to become less predictable with climate change – The study focused primarily on areas that rely on snow for all or part of their water supply. Some of those areas are already relatively dry…and the populations are large enough that the unpredictability of water resources will be very problematic.

The best way to brush your teeth – This is going to take some practice to break old habits. I learned to brush my teeth a long time ago and probably am too sloppy even doing it the way I was taught!

New thought on Cahokia’s ancient wetlands – A large flat rectangular area that was previously thought to have been used as open, communal space might have been under water most of the year!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 9, 2022

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

Winners of Wildlife Photography Competition Show the Power of Water – Starting out the gleanings list with some eye candy this week.

Personality traits are associated with well-being and satisfaction in life after work – My husband and I have transitioned to ‘life after work’ and seem to have easily established ‘new fulfilling life patterns.’ In an odd way, the COVID-19 pandemic has helped us focus on the most important aspects of those patterns.

A New Study of the Permian Basin – a US oil-drippling hotspot is kicking out far more methane that we thought – I keep thinking that the technology to reduce emissions in the fossil fuel extraction process has improved from the early days. Maybe it has…maybe the hasn’t. The industry may not be motivates. Is it all about maximizing profits for them and their stockholders…everyone else doesn’t matter?

Toad Wisdom – A story of webs of life from the Prairie Ecologist.

European earthworms reduce insect populations in North American forest – Even small invasive species can have a significant impact.

Mapping Inequality – Redlining in New Deal America – An introduction….then downloads and data for maps for urban areas across the US from the 1930s.

Top 25 birds of the week: birds on flowers – Enjoy some photographs of birds…flowers…springtime!

Scents help researchers identify contents of Egyptian vessels – The smells of ancient Egypt!

Norway at new record high 92% plugin EV share in March – Hopefully the EV share in the US will start climbing more rapidly.

“Flash droughts” coming on faster, global study shows – Extreme weather….not all on the wet side.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 26, 2022

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

How triple-pane windows stop energy (and money) from flying out the window – How long will it be before all window replacements and windows in new houses will be triple paned? I guess is depends a lot on affordability….and then availability. I like that they reduce noise too.

Yellowstone At 150: Challenges Go More Than Crowd-Deep – A post about Yellowstone’s past, present…projections for the future. My husband and I have only visited the park once…hopefully we’ll be able to see it again.

Beware the joro spider. Scientists say the giant, but harmless, arachnid is spreading – A native of Japan…it has been in the southeastern US for the past decade. It may be poised to continue up the eastern seaboard. Fortunately, they are not lethal to humans and the eat mosquitos/stink bugs.

Top 25 birds of the week: Seedeaters! – We see some of these at our birdfeeders!  

Cognitive Bias Codex, 2016 – A graphic I had not seen before….very thought provoking.

Revealing an Ice Age Route of Indigenous Peoples – Vancouver Island…analyzing lake sediments. One of them, Topknot Lake, was evidently never covered by glaciers so the sediment was very deep.

Hidden dangers lurking in your kitchen - A little history…and one that is relevant to my house hunting: I don’t want to buy a house with gas stove…if I do, it will be replaced with an electric ASAP.

Common house plants can improve air quality indoors – Modern homes are more airtight than ever…and indoor air quality can become a problem. Good to know that plants can help – and they are generally aesthetically pleasing too.

Spring is starting sooner and growing warmer – (A color coded map) Almost the whole US is experiencing earlier Spring. A small area of North and South Dakota is the exception.

Here are the world’s 25 most endangered cultural heritage sites – The post is a summary from Smithsonian Magazine. More details are available from the World Monuments Fund. There are sites in Ukraine that are in danger from the war there – will probably be on the next list (Smithsonian post and article with pictures of the 7 Ukranian UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 7, 2021

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

A roadrunner taking a dust bath wins the 2021 Audubon photography awards – This gleaning list is big on bird photos! This is the first one.

Top 25 birds of the week: Conservation – This is the second. These posts encourage me to get outdoors in areas near my home to photograph birds!

How giraffes deal with sky-high blood pressure – Multiple differences between giraffes and humans when it comes to blood pressure!

Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking ‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases – The article is about what happened in summer 2020…made me wonder about what is happening this summer in Siberia. This along with the fires that seem to be worse each season are signs that climate change is happening faster than anticipated…that the models might be optimistic rather than realistic.

Plastic, the Trojan Horse – A study that found plastic accumulation in foods may be underestimated. Not good.

Smoke Across North America – Lots of fires this summer. My husband told me that the local astronomy club has cancelled several nights they’d planned for observing because no stars were visible through the haze here in Maryland.

How the sun affects our skin – An infographic about vitamin D, sunburn and skin cancer.

This catfish doesn’t just move on land, it reffles – Plecos – from the aquarium trade – are now invasive in warmer waters in the US. They do have an interesting way of moving on land (videos of their reffle)…..this means if found/caught they shouldn’t be left on the bank to die (since they will easily move back to the nearest water). The article didn’t say what to do with them (presumable kill them).

Drought, Heat Taking a Toll on National Parks in Southwest – I’ve enjoyed so many of the parks mentioned in this article – Saguaro, Grand Canyon, White Sands, Petrified Forest. It has always been dry there…but now it is getting drier and hotter.

Take a Virtual Tour of Artworks Inspired by Efforts to Preserve Plant Biodiversity – A virtual site of an exhibit not at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, England. Watch the 5 minute video about the site….then enjoy the exhibit here.