Gleanings of the Week Ending May 27, 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.

See the Breathtaking Ocean Life Found at Deep-Sea Vents – A short video is included…worth watching.

Exploring the underground connection between trees – Trees, fungi, and other organisms…all interdependent but not guided by a common purpose.

Vibrant Fungi Photos Capture the Beauty of Nature and Nostalgic Memories of Foraging for Mushrooms – Images to savor.

Traces of a Neolithic Road Discovered in the Adriatic Sea – Stacked stone slabs that connected a settlement to a man-made island…now under water.

Shifting sand spits – Gauging climate change in a high-altitude watershed.

Air pollution from oil and gas production responsible for $77 billion in annual US health damages, contributes to thousands of early deaths, childhood asthma cases nationwide – Another reason to dramatically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. It’s not just about climate change.

An ‘Epidemic’ of Loneliness Threatens Health of Americans – A mounting problem. Social disconnection has multiple types of cost: economic, health, poorer academic achievement/work performance.

The ocean is hotter than ever: what happens next? – Probably more extreme weather and marine heatwaves…problems for marine life from corals to whales.

Cleanup of inactive Gulf of Mexico wells estimated at $30 billion – The life cycle costs of the fossil fuel industry are much greater than we’ve ever paid (i.e. we haven’t generally paid for clean up costs as part of the cost of fossil fuel based products)…the bill will eventually have to be paid.

Photography In the National Parks: The Invitation of An Intimate Composition – Good tips for more than National Parks! It’s a special kind of landscape photography!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 17, 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 2022 Environmental Photographer of the Year Use Art to Tell Important Stories of Our Planet – Photography with a message

Rare good news from the Amazon: gigantic fish are thriving again – Pirarucu, an air-breathing fish that must rise to the surface every 15 minutes or so…can grow to be 10 feet long, weigh up to 450 pounds…are valued for their meat. The fish are making a comeback thanks to sustainable fishing programs in northern Brazil.

Stunning Winners of the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Capturing a place…and a tiny amount of time.

Top 10 Discoveries of 2022 – from Archaeology Magazine

Remains of last surviving Tasmanian Tiger discovered in museum cabinet – Finding and following the trail of an older female thylacine that was trapped and sold to the Beaumaris Zoo in mid-May 1936. She died in September 1936. The zoo transferred her body to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery where taxidermist preserved the hide, and the skeleton was broken apart and positioned on 5 cards. Both hide and skeleton were used by the museum for educational purposes…and then forgotten. They were found recently in a cabinet in the museum’s education department.

Best of 2022: Top Astrophotography That Captured the Beauty of the Cosmos – Quite a few from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Volcanic activity increases worldwide – There are 47 volcanoes around the world that are in ‘continuing eruption status’…more than double the normal. The article includes short videos of several of them.

The rich marine life under frozen ice – Phytoplankton and organisms that eat it….discovered by geologists trying to get a mud core, hitting rock, then seeing organisms when they reviewed what the camera on their equipment recorded!

Top Websites for Urban Planning – 2022 – From Planetizen. This year they highlight an increased attention to the social and environmental outcomes of planning…enabling identification/resolution in the intersections between the built/natural environment and the lives of people.

Exploring a forgotten Jewish Land – The Beta Israel in northern Ethiopia. The 100,000 strong population fled to Israel in the 1980s to escape war and famine.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 22, 2022

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

US National Integrated Drought Information System – 68.4% of the US is abnormally dry…46% is in moderate drought…27% in severe drought. Use the location tab of this page to select state or county level maps color coded for their drought status. Where I live, we are in moderate drought.

Autumn in the Adirondacks – Leaf color has not been impacted by the drought in the Adirondacks. The pictures are from the Landsat 9 satellite. I’m enjoying the color from the ground – even with the drought here in Missouri making it not as colorful as it probably was in prior years.

Why cork is making a comeback – The main product mentioned in the article was cork stoppers….but I thought of the calm I felt when I walked into the University of Michigan’s Law Library with a tour group and realized how much the cork floor muffled our footsteps. It was the highpoint of the trip with my daughter when she was considering the school for her undergraduate studies.

Blue fibers found in dental calculus of Maya sacrifice victims – Analysis of more than 100 sacrifice victims found blue fibers in the mouths of 2 of them. Are the fibers from blue gags left in the mouths of victims over and extended time? Similar pigment called Maya blue has been found in other sites where it may have been used to paint the bodies of sacrificial victims. Another archeological mystery…

See the buzzworthy winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition – Eye candy for the week.

Millions of Americans are losing access to maternal care. Here’s what can be done – 36% of the counties nationwide – largely in the Midwest and South – constitute “maternity care deserts,” meaning they have no obstetric hospitals or birth centers and no obstetric providers. That does not bode well for the health of mothers and the next generation.

These stunning satellite images look like abstract art – and they reveal much about our planet – 8 images selected from US Geological Survey satellite images of the Earth’s surface.

Engineers weave advanced fabric that can cool a wearer down and warm them up – Maybe the ‘cool down’ of this technology (if it can be developed) will help us deal with climate change more effectively. There are already beginning to be more heat related deaths and there will be some occupations that will become impossible without technology to cool the body in outdoor environments.

Rainfall is becoming more intense in most of the US – East of the Rockies…there is increasing precipitation intensity. Water resource management is more challenging. Flooding risk is going up too.

USGS Public Lecture Series – A wide range of topics including volcanoes in Alaska, earthquake early warning for all, migratory big game, droughts and groundwater quality, modernizing the national water information system….and many more. I am beginning to work my way down this YouTube playlist.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 22, 2022

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

The Roots of Violence – Reexamining bones excavated in the 1960s with new 3D imaging techniques….defining the violence of their lives and deaths shown in the bones. There is a history of archeological thinking here too. For a long time, evidently there was a presumption that prehistory was a less violent time…but the evidence is mounting that it was not.

Reducing air pollution: policies that pay off – An analysis done in Europe of the economic benefit of measures to reduce fine particle air pollution from wood heating and transport. It seems that similar type analysis could happen in other places in the world with some variation to tailor the reductions to have the biggest impact.

30 Incredible Winning Photos From the 2021 Nature Photographer of the Year Contest – Some eye-candy. My favorite is the caterpillar ‘walking among fennels’ – a similar scene happened at our CSA the first summer of the pandemic.

Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2021 – There were 20 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters that impacted the US in 2021.

Savanna Fire Management Can Fund Africa’s Protected Areas – Another article about the new economics we will need to understand to address climate change.

The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps' – Maybe one long period of sleep is ‘modern’….that humans slept in two phases prior to the industrial revolution. One of my grandmothers developed a ‘two sleeps’ pattern late in her life when she was living alone….and I am beginning to wonder if I will.

The Horned Helmets Falsely Attributed to Vikings Are Actually Nearly 3,000 Years Old – Another look at artifacts…and better dating…and the history derived/assumed previously is changed.

Top 25 birds of the week: bird coloration! – This time of year…a little color from birds is a welcome sight. I’m noticing the ones in my neighborhood: Northern Cardinal, House finches, and red-bellied woodpeckers.

Across the Boreal Forest, Scientists Are Tracking Warming’s Toll – The northern forests becoming carbon emitters….. peatlands are drying out, and hotter, drier conditions are leading to a steady increase in wildfires — all of it accelerating permafrost thaw.

The Legacy Of "Pele's Grandson," Alex Lancaster – Some history of volcano observation on the big island.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 17, 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.

The 'Zoom Boom' Can't Save the Midwest – People are leaving dense, high-cost urban metro areas…but very few of them are going to the heartland.  Maybe some of the areas will benefit from migration because of climate change. Or maybe the Midwest should simply focus on investments to help their economies and create places people want to live….do the groundwork to encourage people to move to the region.

Poison Mushrooms: How to Tell – From the Natural History Society of Maryland…good pictures.

The Avenues of America – An overview picture of Washington DC taken from the International Space Station.

The Invasion Of The National Park System – Quagga mussels, Burmese pythons, feral swine, household pets gone wild, tamarisk trees….and those are just the ones pictured!

Incredible Footage of Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall Volcano – And there are people in many of the pictures to provide scale!

Major advance in fabrication of low-cost solar cells also locks up greenhouse gases – There are so many articles about technologies that sound promising toward creating faster pathways away from fossil fuels….hope a lot of them move forward.

Elephant Trunks Can Suck Water at 330 Miles Per Hour – Wow

Pyramid made of dirt is world’s oldest known war memorial – Located in Syria…and at least 30 people – male and presumed to be warriors – buried in horizontal steps.

COVID-19 pandemic has been linked with six unhealthy eating behaviors -- ScienceDaily – Eating disorders are one of the deadliest psychiatric health concerns and 6 of them have a correlation to the pandemic: mindless eating and snacking, increased food consumption, generalized decrease in appetite or dietary intake, eating to cope, pandemic related reductions in dietary intake, and re-emergence or marked increase in eating disorders.

How flooded coal mines could heat homes – Evidently the water in the mines could be tapped as a source of geothermal heating/cooling!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 7, 2019

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.

Red Tides Under the Microscope | The Scientist Magazine® - It’s surprising what we don’t yet know about the organism responsible for red tides – Karenia Brevis. Spanish explorers of Florida in the 15th and 16th centuries described fish kills in Gulf waters. The first official documentation was in 1882 – published in the Proceedings of the US National Museum. This article is about what we know….and where more research is needed.

The woman who reshaped maths - BBC Future – Hilda Geiringer…a refugee from the Nazis. A BBC Future column celebrating a ‘missed genius’ whose contributions are still notable in the world today.

NOAA weather balloons find no zero-ozone regions above South Pole during 2019 ozone hole season | NOAA Climate.gov – A little science…a little history…a projection. The positive message – if the trend continues, it’s estimated that the ozone layer will recover around 2070.

Abrupt shifts in Arctic climate projected: Likelihood of an abrupt increase in wildfires also noted -- ScienceDaily – With specific modeling of permafrost as it continues to degrade….it appears that the changes won’t be as gradual as  previously assumed.

Lake On Bottom Of Halema‘uma‘u Crater At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park Now Bigger Than Football Field – The lake was noticed back in July….and is being studied with instruments on drones. More information is at the National Park Service site for the park.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Wild Birds – National Geographic Society Newsroom – I always enjoy the bird photography compiled by National Geographic every week.

Offshore Wind Has the Potential to Fulfill Global Electricity Demand 18 Times Over - Yale E360 – Hurray for this potential….the transition is the challenge.

AP: At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk – There is a link to an interactive map that shows where the 1,680 dams are located. The last paragraphs of the article are the most troubling. There are a lot of dams with unknown status. Roughly 45% of Texas dams are exempt from regulation…in Missouri safety inspections are only done on 650 of its more than 5,000 dams. And states that know about problematic private dams often can’t identify the owners to address the dam’s issues.

Aging in good health: The inequalities are widening -- ScienceDaily – A study with over 11 million people tracked for 25 years!

Susquehanna Sediment in the Chesapeake Bay – Imagery of big rivers and the Chesapeake Bay after a storm at the end of October…. close to where I live. On a positive note - the sediment (even after the record rains earlier this year) has not damaged the underwater grasses on the Susquehanna Flats as much as was initially feared.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 4, 2018

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

Babcock Ranch in Florida Is to Sustainable Living What Tesla Is to Sustainable Transportation | CleanTechnica – This is how new development meshes with sustainability. We need to figure out how to retrofit existing communities toward sustainability too.

Interview: Adventurous Photographer Shares His Experiences Shooting Lava – I don’t have a desire to photograph active volcanoes with flowing lava….but I enjoy photographs taken by others.

US opioid prescribing rates by congressional district -- ScienceDaily – Opioid addiction is such a sad outcome in the US medical system…and it doesn’t seem like we are making progress even with the recognition that we have a problem.

Think everyone died young in ancient societies? Think again | Aeon Ideas – Even before the advent of modern medicine – there were people that lived to be very old. One of my great grandmothers lived into her 90s and all my grandparents survived their childhoods before vaccines. But many people didn’t. Epidemics like flu, typhoid, yellow fever and bubonic plague killed many people in the areas where they struck….but some people survived.

New battery could store wind and solar electricity affordably and at room temperature -- ScienceDaily – Lots of research on batteries and other forms of energy storage now….required if wind and solar power can supply 100% of our energy needs. I almost brought of ‘the grid’ but I’m not sure that a grid is going to dominate the future of our energy needs…it might…or might not.

Truth, Disrupted – An article from Harvard Business Review about false (not fake) news.

Researchers are one step closer to developing eye drops to treat common sight loss condition -- ScienceDaily – Good news…if this development lives up to the early results.

Top 25 birds with a sugar rush – Have to include some eye candy….and birds…in every gleanings post!

Unique Assemblage of Stone Tools Unearthed in Texas - Archaeology Magazine – The age of the assemblage is older that Clovis-style tools. The variety of colors and shapes of the stone (picture) is appealing too.

Researchers explore popular food trends in nutritional review: Evidence suggests beneficial outcomes from legumes, mushrooms, coffee and tea -- ScienceDaily – The most surprising result from this research: “The verdict on dairy as part of a heart-healthy diet is still out, and if consumed, full-fat dairy should be avoided.”

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 18, 2017

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

The Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theaters Aren’t What They Used to Be | Smart News | Smithsonian – Legendary acoustics? Maybe not. But they are still very good even with the changes in the structures over time (pitting of smooth surfaces, no backdrops, etc.)

BBC - Future - The useless design features in modern products – copper rivets and watch pockets in jeans, cockpits with analog dials/leavers/knobs, and keyboard layout. The look of modern products has a lot to do with history!

Five Things to Know About the Yellowstone Supervolcano | Smart News | Smithsonian – I can remember my daughter being fascinated that Yellowstone is a Supervolcano when we visited. She was enthusiastic about finding a book about it and was puzzled when the person manning the bookstore seemed surprised that she wanted a book about super volcanoes!

Keeping Your Balance as You Age | Berkeley Wellness – Some reasons to do some balance exercises…and some easy ones that don’t need any equipment.

Some items about a favorite food around Thanksgiving: Pumpkin genomes sequenced, revealing uncommon evolutionary history -- ScienceDaily and 7 Pumpkin Recipe Ideas | Berkeley Wellness

Oldest recorded solar eclipse helps date the Egyptian pharaohs -- ScienceDaily – October 30, 1207 BC! A new calculation that, if accepted, could lead to an adjustment in the dates of the reigns of several pharaohs…enabling to date them precisely

Caribbean’s largest concentration of indigenous pre-Columbian rock art -- ScienceDaily - Artists before Columbus: New research on the Caribbean’s largest concentration of indigenous pre-Columbian rock art (how it was made, paint recipes). The pictographs are in very narrow spaces deep in caves. Follow the materials link at the bottom of the article to see some images. As I read the article, I realized that the research had probably been completed before the recent hurricanes.

Older Neandertal survived with a little help from his friends – Loss of a forearm, deaf…and he survived into his 40s…about 50,000 years ago.

The Weird Growth Strategy of Earth’s First Trees | The Scientist Magazine® - The first tree grew large very differently than modern trees!

4 Myths About Meditation and How to Overcome Them | Berkeley Wellness – For me – the ‘myths’ are no so important…the mediation is.