Gleanings of the Week Ending June 10, 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.

Is air pollution getting worse or better? – Overall, air quality has improved…but we’ve also learned more about the harm air pollution causes…and there is still a lot more that needs to be done both is improving air quality and understanding aspects that are the most problematic.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #89 and #90 – Two groups of bird pictures. Which ones are your favorites? The first group includes the mating display of the great egret. My favorites in the second group are two of birds in flight: a wood duck and a peacock.

Artist uses fire and smoke to create incredible paintings of birds – More birds....images made with fire, soot and acrylics.

Lavau Celtic Prince: 2,500-year-old royal tomb starts to reveal its secrets – A tomb in eastern France…I liked the pictures of the artifacts as they emerged during excavation.

Insects color our world – Beautiful images….and some tips on actions that can help insects in our environment.

The Kid’s Guide to How the Internet Works – When my daughter was in elementary school 20 years ago, they were beginning to teach children about how the internet works and internet safety. Now it seems like this instruction is even more needed – critical to our children’s wellbeing.

Did children build the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna? – An article about the excavation of a cemetery of children, teenagers, and young adults. Based on the analysis of the skeletons, many have traumatic injuries and degenerative conditions caused by frequent heavy labor.

The US Lags Behind in Meteorology – Europe has forged ahead at a time when the US has cut computing power, research budgets and the National Weather Service. The American weather models are increasingly being discounted for forecasts more than 3 days out.

Antarctica is turning green – Antarctica is warming at a faster rate than the global average…about 0.5 degrees Celsius each decade for the past 60 years. Instead of white, there is more and more green!

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens – A photo guide to common damselflies and dragonflies – A two page quick reference. My husband and I will use it later this month and in July when we visit Kenilworth – attempting to photograph dragonflies.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 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.

WHO’s First-Ever List of the Dirty Dozen Superbugs – Bacteria resistant to our antibiotics are appearing more and more often…and the development of new antibiotics to treat them is not keeping pace.

Hotter days will drive global inequality – We’ll probably be seeing more of these types of projections as we see hotter weather. The temperature has an impact on so many things….some can be positive up to a point (like corn yields which increase up to a point…then decline sharply).

Ah-Choo! 11 Fun Facts about Sneezing – How many of these ‘fun facts’ did you already know?

Why China’s internet use had overtaken the West – The number of internet users in China exceeded the US in 2008…and they are leaping ahead using technology in a way that supports their culture rather than merely copying from elsewhere.

US Wind Energy Provided 5.5% of Nation’s Electricity in 2016, over 20% in 5 heartland states – Oklahoma, where I visited last weekend, generates 25.1% of their electricity from the wind. Hurray for them!

A tiny bug is upsetting Shenandoah National Park’s ecosystem – Aargh! The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (invasive insect) is killing hemlocks. The trees at Belmont Manor and Historic Park where I volunteer with the Howard Country Conservancy are infected….and dying too.

Why we can’t look away from our screens – I seem to be noticing more articles recently about addiction to modern digital products.

The Chemistry of Daffodils – In honor of spring. We got to enjoy our daffodils for a little while. Now most of them have been pushed into the mulch by the ice and snow that came along over the past week.

The last things that will make us uniquely human – In recent decades, we discovered that humans are not the only organisms to use tools…some we thought was once uniquely human. Now the ability of Artificial Intelligence maybe encroaching on what we think makes us unique. What will our value – our niche – be in the ecosystem of the future?

Diet and global climate change – Making dietary changes could dramatically reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, colorectal cancer and Type 2 diabetes (and associated health care costs) and greenhouse gases!