Gleanings of the Week Ending July 1, 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.

Carbon in Atmosphere is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize – Are the carbon sinks less able to function as CO2 levels have risen? Still TBD. There is still a lot to understand about our planet and the impact of higher and higher greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows – Cat came into settlements on their own…enjoying the bounty of rodents human settlements contained. They didn’t give up their wild natures to the extent that dogs and other domesticated animals did. There is genetic evidence that they’ve remained largely unchanged for 1000s of years.

Not so pearly whites – Evidence of a filled dental cavity in a 13,000 year old hunter-gather tooth!

43 Incredible Photos of US UNESCO Sites: Present and Proposed – I was surprised that I had visited so many of these places (the ones in the continental US).

Plastic Pollutants Pervade Water and Land  and Microplastics sloughed from synthetic fabrics in the washing machine - Plastics are everywhere in our environment and their  negative impact is probably greater than we realize…but it is surprising how much we don’t know.

In the AI Age, being ‘Smart’ Will Mean Something Completely Different – The author proposes that the new definition of ‘smart’ will be about the quality of thinking, listening, relating, collaboration, and learning…not about the quantity of factoids we remember. It won’t be easy to be the new kind of smart and I often wonder if the way we use current technology has moved us in the opposite direction.

American Icon in the Alaskan Horizon – Birds at the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Alaska…in snow and ice.

11 Very Different Types of Photography that Each Illuminate Our World – A little eye candy for the week…and a survey of types of photography.

Mars rover Opportunity on walkabout near rim – One of my daughter’s first jobs as an undergraduate student was calibrating images coming from Opportunity…so I always take note when articles come out of it.

Mapping the potential climate effects of climate change – I look at these types of articles and try to understand the assumptions that are being made. It always seems that there are still a lot of unknowns….and it could be different and worse than they projections. Basically north and west seem to fare better than the south where it is already hot and often dry.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 20, 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.

Million-Dollar Prize Hints at How Machine Learning May Someday Spot Cancer – Hopefully this type of technology will reduce the number of false positives that have been so common as we’ve used advanced imaging to find cancer (too many times when biopsies have been done and it has not been cancer). Note that the winning team was from a Chinese university. No country – even the US – can rest on past innovation for their future.

How farmers put apples into suspended animation – 9 in 10 apples bought in the US are grown in the US. This article talks about how apples are stored so that we have them throughout the year rather than just in the fall.

Frosty Monarchs – This was a post from earlier in May…but it has great picture of the milkweed egg. We had some cooler temperatures here in Maryland after the milkweed came up; there was frost on the rooftops but the it must not have gotten to freezing at ground level since the milkweed was unscathed.

Antarctica’s Blood Falls Helps Unravel the Inner Workings of Glaciers – Briny water flows (i.e. in liquid form) flows under the ice of the glacier!

Golden years are longer and healthier for those in good health in middle age – When I read the headline, my first question was - what did they define as “middle age”? The answer was ages 40-59. It was a 40 year study with 18,714 participants. It makes the point that living healthy in mid-life is important to health later in life.

It’s Raining Blood and Feathers: Catching the Spring Raptor Show – There is so much going on in the spring…and it not just flowers and song birds.

Dragons on the Hunt – Komodo dragons bring down a water buffalo. (5-minute video)

Cost of Zika outbreak in the United States could be high – There is a lot of complexity….but even assuming a lower incidence rate that has been observed in other parts of the world and that only the southern tier of the US would be impacted…still results in high costs. Prevention costs money and treatment even more. The range from the models is $183 million to $1.2 billion. Another article on the broader topic of mosquito-borne illnesses: Researchers analyze what a warming planet means for mosquito-borne illnesses.

The Art of Botanical Illustration, Scientific Botany – Some of these botanists/artists I have found before…I’m going to check what Internet Archive and Hathi Trust have in their scanned collections for each of them.

Serene Photos Highlight the Tranquil Beauty of 100 Japanese Gardens – Eye candy…even better if you have a garden near you to visit.