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.
