Gleanings of the Week Ending September 03, 2016

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.

Edible food packaging made from milk proteins – I’m not sure how this works to reduce packaging since to be edible it would have to stay clean (i.e. another layer of packaging?). Still – it would be great to reduce the amount of hard-to-recycle plastic packaging.

Zika Infects Adult Neural Progenitors Too  and How Zika infects Mother and Baby – Two articles from The Scientist. Zika is a hot research topic right now…and a public health concern.

Research priorities for the field of atmospheric chemistry – The development of a predictive capability to provide foresight into the consequences of rapid changes in the Earth system is need to help in preparation and decision making. Right now the field is focused on observing, learning and discovering for fundamental understanding…so there is data to support attempt to develop a predictive capability.

New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection – The Guaico Culex virus that infects mosquitoes has 5 genes and each gene is individually packaged. A mosquito cell has to have 4 of the 5 packages to be infected. The 5^th package may cause the infection to be potent. Once again – a case that shows how little we really understand about life on Earth.

How Aluminum Changed the World – A little history for the week.

Wildflower Wednesday: Chicory – Like the author of this post – I like chicory. The blue color redeems it from being considered a weed for me!

Invasive Species Spotlight: Canada Thistle – Evidently it was introduced accidently to North America in the 1600s!

Photos of Frozen Flowers Capture the Paradoxical Beauty of Preservation and Destruction – Eye candy for the week….maybe an idea for some photographic experiments for this winter.

Hope for reversing stroke-induced long-term disability – What a boon it would be for an aging population where having a stroke often reduce the quality of life.

Actin Architecture (image) – Filaments in a cancer cell imaged via confocal microscopy.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 21, 2016

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.

Maryland climate and health report identifies state's vulnerabilities to climate change – Extreme weather, increased risk of foodborne illnesses, health impacts of extreme heat (hear attacks, asthma), increased accident risk from extreme precipitation.

Why vultures matter and what we lose if they’re gone – We have black and turkey vultures in our area of Maryland. I see them frequently and appreciate their place in the ecosystem – cleaning up carrion. Without vultures – other scavenger populations grow, often with negative consequences for human health.

Night Vision Problems and Driving – Something else that happens to most of us as we get older. I was surprised that the article did not mention astigmatism as more problematic at night if it is not corrected. I always notice my glasses not being quite right at night before I do in the daytime and it is usually the astigmatism correction that needs adjustment.

Colorful Watercolor Paintings of Radiant Trees in Nature – I couldn’t resist some eye-candy for this collection of gleanings since so many of the other items seem so serious.

New Zika Diagnostic – I’m glad they are making progress at diagnostics…now we have to make progress on prevention too since having a lot of infected people is going to be a public health crisis.

Test Your Sleep Smarts – How many of these did you know? The explanations of the answers are included…and sometimes contain links to more detailed information.

Team highlights ways to address global food challenges – Agriculture produces enough calories to meet basic human dietary needs worldwide…but one out of eight people in the world do not have access to sufficient food. This study presents a set of strategies to overcoming the challenges of providing food for the global population.

How Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees – Evidently an increase in CO2 often causes a decrease in the nutritional value of plants. A detailed study of golden rod pollen showed that pollen from plants in 2014 contained 30% less protein than pollen from 1842 (with the greatest drop occurring between 1960 and 2014). That’s important to bees that depend on goldenrod pollen for late season food. It’s important to us because nutritional value of crops like wheat and rice are similarly impacted by higher CO2 concentrations.

Too much folate in pregnant women increases risk for autism, study suggests – Another case where too much of a good thing is not good. A lot of the nutritional information is about minimal requirements. Supplements make it possible to get much higher doses than the minimal requirement. There appears to be a correlation with very high level of folate right after giving birth and the risk of autism spectrum disorder.

Meet the Bee Expert who Helped Invent the BioBlitz – I noticed this article just as we were finishing up the Belmont BioBlitz this week….and decided to include it in this week’s gleanings.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 9, 2016

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.

Surgery, Stem Cells Treat Cataracts – Removing a cataract damaged lens but leaving the individuals lens epithelial stem cells (conventional cataract surgery removes them) allows the lens to regenerate. Initial results are good; if sustained this may be the new ‘conventional’ treatment for cataracts.

Man-made Earthquakes are on the rise, but they don’t have to be and As US Oil Production Increases, More Americans at Risk of Man-Made Quakes – Two articles about man-made earthquakes. The second one includes a map. Central Oklahoma has a risk of a damaging quake this year as high as the risk in California! Are the building codes in Oklahoma taking earthquakes into account? If they do, it is probably a recent update since earthquakes were not common in the state until recently.

Beware of Food Fraud – Olive oil is at the top of the ‘food fraud’ list evidently.

Streamer – USGS site that traces steams/rivers upstream and downstream. I you even wondered where the river near you comes from or goes --- this is an easy site to use. It map based so it is a simply as zooming to the river of interest and selecting upstream or downstream highlighting.

A Treasury of Prairie Wildflowers – This is a great time of year to get out and look for wildflowers no matter where you live. Even dandelions have their own charm (particularly if viewed with a magnifier).

6 Primary Transformative Paradigms for the Auto Industry – You’ve probably read about most of these in some form. I like collections like this that help me develop a framework for areas of technology (in this case ‘cars’).

Restoring the American Chestnut – Evidently there are blight resistant cultivars of American Chestnut but it is challenging to grow the 100s of seedlings for field trials and then restoration planting. This article is about experiments to optimize root production in the seedlings.

7 Citizen Science Projects for Bird Lovers – Another motivation to get outdoors this spring!

CDC expands range of Zika mosquito into parts of Northeast and Zika Attacked a Baby’s Brain as Doctors Watched – Scary stuff. I am already gearing up to walk around the yard and make sure we don’t have any standing water (and empty and refresh bird baths every other day). This is going to be a tough battle to keep the virus from spreading (and if it does keeping the mosquitos that carry it from continuing to spread it).

Successful dying: Researchers define the elements of a ‘good death’ – The themes culled from 32 studies were: preferences for a specific dying process, pain-free status, religiosity/spirituality, emotional well-being, life completion, treatment preferences, dignity, family, quality of life, relationship with the health care provider and "other." The bottom line is to ‘ask the patient.’ That seems to be common sense but how often is it actually asked by medical professionals and family member?

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 26, 2016

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.

Forests reveal lingering effects of native cultures – The researchers looked at patterns of honey locus in the Southern Appalachian region. The article drew my attention because the native culture in the area was Cherokee (maybe some of my ancestors) and I had read something similar about the native stands of bananas.

Goodbye, America. I’m becoming a nomad (again)! – Mike Elgan is currently in Cuba and blogging about the experience….a lot more about daily life in Cuba that the Presidential visit.

Pregnant T. rex could aid in dino sex-typing – A T. rex with a medullary bone – the same as modern birds (female) have to shell their eggs. It comes and goes with the bird’s reproductive cycle so not only indicates that the fossil was a female --- but that it was also in the egg laying part of its reproductive cycle.

Climate variations analyzed five million years back in time – We have to go back into the geological history of the Earth a very long way to find a climate as warm as what we are heading towards and we cannot detect the detailed variations….but we already know that there were abrupt climate shifts back then.

Artist Paints Elaborately Colorful Scenes Using Only Her Fingers – This is quite different than a child’s finger painting? My favorites are the lily pads with the fish underneath, the deer looking through yellow leaves, and the curled up fox.

Tunable windows for privacy, camouflage – I would enjoy not having to add blinds and/or drapery to windows….but it would have to require very little electricity to be opaque (since that is the mode that probably would be wanted most at night when solar energy was least available).

Bald Eagle Cam (DC) – Just in case you have not seen the story elsewhere. This article has a link for the live cam and the twitter feed. Yesterday when I looked the day was warm enough that a parent was standing to the side of the nest while the babies slept (they are still young enough that they fall over in a ‘food coma’ after they eat!

Potential Zika virus risk estimated for 50 US cities – A very scary map. It has been long enough ago that German measles caused birth defects when pregnant women contracted the diseases…this time we don’t have a large number of people in the population that have immunities from having the disease previously so if the US does have an outbreak it would have traumatic outcomes.

Chocolate Chemistry – On a happier note – chocolate. Dark chocolate is my favorite ‘splurge’

21 Enormous Man Made Holes – Mines, nuclear explosions, wells…lots of reasons humans have made giant holes on the surface of Earth.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 30, 2016

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.

What will power tomorrow’s spacecraft? – Lots of options – some ready now and others being developed.

Stock Your Pantry with Plant-Based Protein – I’m not as keen on soy products (except for the nuts themselves) but I have most of the rest in my pantry already; they store well and can be easily be used for quick meals.

Tea or coffee: Which drink is better for you? – Does it matter? This analysis says it is a draw. Tea does not interfere as much as coffee with sleep but is does stain tea more.

New Bioplastic Mashup Spells Doom for Petrochemical Industry – DuPont and Archer Daniel Midland join the flurry of activity in the bioplastic arena….and they may be big enough to overcome the entrenched political interests supported by the petroleum industry. It is good to understand that as we move to a more sustainable tech….plastics will still be around.

A natural beauty: American geoheritage – Geoparks (a UNESCO designation) are becoming popular around the world but not in the US because of political differences within our country. There are over 100 areas in 34 countries that are designated as Geoparks at this point. Over the next year, we’ll be hearing more about them culminating in the 2016 Earth Science Week (Oct. 9-15). A list of countries and sites is available here.

So You Want to Eat Snow. Is It Safe? We Asked Scientists – I do enjoy snow ice cream….but I wait until it has snowed for a while before I collect the snow.

20 Indoor Air Pollution Tips – I heard most of these before….but it is good to see them collected into a single list. I’m glad they included scented products and sprays on the list.

Women Asked to Avoid Pregnancy as Zika Epidemic Worsens – A story to follow since the mosquitos that carry the virus are relatively widespread….it is just that they are not infected with the Zika virus yet in the US. Asking a population to avoid pregnancy is not a solution…but 3,500 (and probably growing) cases of microcephaly will impact lives and economies for years to come.

8 Great Benefits of Walking – A good list with links to the research that backs up the claims.

Best Things about Electric Cars – Results of a survey of electric car owners.