Gleanings of the Week Ending December 3, 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.

Mysterious Winds Cause Rapid Melting of Antarctic Ice – Fohn winds….a warm wind that may be responsible for calving ice shelves. And some of their most impressive heat waves come in the dead of winter, eroding glaciers at a time of year that no one thought possible.

Electron Micrographs Get a Dash of Color – And they used red and green…so the images looks very Christmassy!

Ancient Royal Boat Tomb Uncovered in Egypt – Found while investigating the tomb complex of 12^th dynasty King Senwosret III, located in southern Egypt. The walls of the tomb covered with sketches of boats.

How the Enormous Field of Physics All Fits Together – A short video (less than 10 minutes) that provides a big picture Physics.

NASA’s Bold Plan to Hunt for Fossils on Mars – Fossils of single celled algae and bateria…maybe taking a look at the cauliflower-shaped silica formations inside Mars’s Gusev Crater that look like objects sculpted by bacteria living inside hot springs on earth.

What it’s like to sail a giant ship on Earth’s busiest seas – Part of the BBC’s Future Now series.

Cuba’s Underwater Jewels are in Tourism’s Path – Gardens of the Queen National Park: keys, mangrove islets, and reefs about 50 miles off Cuba. Cuba limits the number of divers and fishermen allowed to visit but could face pressure to increase access.

Birds have skills previously described as ‘uniquely human’ – Caledonian crows use tools, scrub jays remember past events and act accordingly, pigeons can be trained to recognize patterns of letters (words). But they may be processing stimuli differently than humans. Maybe no two species are the same but the brain is often adaptable enough to find a means to meet the needs of the animal.

The most Visual Science Textbook You’ve Ever Seen – History of Evolution….and images of example along the way.

The Chemistry of Turmeric – Fluorescence, Indicator, and Health Effects – The post includes an infographic but the short video is worth watching (rather gathering materials to do the experiments yourself).

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 13, 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.

Desalination could harm Texas bays – It is important to get intake and discharge points for desalination right to avoid adverse environmental impacts.

What’s changed in genetic since your high school biology – My high school biology was at the very end of the 1960s….a lot has happened since. I’ve taken some classes to update myself but it is always interesting to see a summary of the high points in articles like this.

Maintaining healthy forests takes more than planting trees – What about massive wildfires and invasive forest pests. A healthy forest is a diverse mix of young and old trees, dead trees, and openings. Forest scientists are realizing that homogenous and overgrown forests need to change. A follow-on post talked about technology for foresters in the field.

Humans Never Stopped Evolving – A discussion of more recent human traits.

Strange Minerals from Siberian Mine Are Unlike Anything Found in Nature – Naturally occurring metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)?

Toxic blue-green algae adapt to rising CO2 – This does not bode well for fresh water supplies as the CO2 levels rise.

Protein Packed Produce for Meatless Monday – Meat is not the only food with protein…think veggies too: peas, broccoli, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, kale and cauliflower!

The Best Schools in the World Do This. Why don’t we? – An peek into a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Neanderthal in the Mirror – A short history of our understanding Neanderthal skeletons....seeing them as more and more ‘human’ over the past century.

PDF Quads (from National Geographic) – National Geographic as a web interface that allows anyone to find any USGS quad for downloading and printing!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 9, 2016

The machines that run the internet – A short film.

A Murder of Crows: When Roosting Crows Come to Town – We don’t have large number of crows in our area – but we are seeing more than we were a few years ago when West Nile Virus killed so many of them.

Picky Eaters: Bumble Bees prefer plans with nutrient-rich pollen – The protein to lipid ratio makes a difference to bumble bees!

Ocean Acidification and Chemical Signaling – How ocean acidification impacts chemical signally of shell fish…an infographic about research on peptides that are involved in detecting predators, homing, and reproduction.

How one of history’s bloodiest wars eventually saved lives – By the end of World War I, combatant deaths has reached 10 million. Twice as many were injured. Post-traumatic stress disorder was recognized for the first time – called ‘shell shock.’ Blood transfusion, oxygen and treatment on the front lines became the norm. See some of the devices developed and used during that time period in this post or at the Wooded exhibition at London’s Science Museum.

Floating Solar: A Win-Win for Drought Stricken Lakes in the US – Will this idea become reality? It seems that in places where water is scarce that reducing evaporation and producing power at the same time would be a positive thing.

Humans artificially drive evolution of new species – Human drive extinction but also speed up evolution of new species as well. For example – a common house mosquito has evolved into a new species that thrives in subterranean environments – like subway stations; it can no longer interbreed with its above ground ancestor species.

Beyond Sightseeing: You’ll Love the Sound of America’s Best Parks – A project to record the (non-human) sounds of national parks.

Boosting potency of broccoli-related compound for age-related macular degeneration – Macular degeneration impacted the last few years of my grandmother’s life and I still notice articles about current research on prevention and/or remediation…. macular degeneration might happen to many of us as we get older.

Vanishing Act: Why Insects are declining and why it matters – Another example of the importance of biodiversity to our future…and the future of the planet.