Air quality

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I’ve been noticing that the air quality where I live (as reported in The Weather Channel app) has not been good during the recent cold weather. The primary pollutant is always Micro Dust/PM2.5. Since transportation sources of pollution (cars, trucks) are, if anything, a little lower during cold and snowy weather – I am assuming that the uptick is from the electricity generating coal plant or wood burning stoves/fireplaces.

I notice that my eyes are the first to register air quality issues. They start to itch or feel gritty – not as bad as a floating eyelash but not comfortable. Saline drops help but time consuming to do frequently. I find myself just forging ahead with my eyes itching and trying not to rub them. Recently I have been wondering if some of my ‘allergies’ (runny nose and sneezing that comes and goes over the course of the day) are PM2.5 related rather than pollen since there isn’t pollen in the air in winter.

If the day is orange – like shown in the screen shot – I try to stay indoors with the filters of my HVAC and some room air purifiers between me and the ‘bad air.’ That is possible for me most of the time since I am a post-career person. I do sometimes have things I do away from home, but they are mostly indoors this time of year and presumably well filtered/ventilated. I am a little anxious about some ‘winter wellness’ hikes I have planned…hoping that the air quality will be ‘green’ when those occur.

I enjoy being outdoors and realize that air quality will impact when I will be comfortable as time goes on (i.e. air quality will deteriorate since there is less being done right not to reverse the trend). Working in my yard won’t be impacted too much since I can simply check the air quality and only go out when it is ‘green.’ I hope I can get through a few more years of volunteering in the Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden during the summer months; signing up for shifts is done well in advance and the air quality could be problematic when the day arrives…I want to be a dependable volunteer but do I go even if the air quality is poor?

The air quality in Lewisville TX (where I go monthly to visit my dad) is considerably worse than in Springfield MO. This winter it has been orange or red most of the times I’ve been in the area. It’s been too cold to take Dad for a walk outside – and I will always check the air quality before taking him for an outdoor walk even when the weather is pleasant again. There are times that Oklahoma smells smokey (grass fires or power plants?) as I drive through. I am adding a small air purifier to the inside of the car and not doing a lot outdoors when I am there unless I check and the air quality happens to be ‘green.’

I find myself wondering what contributes to the air quality being ‘not green,’ but it is hard to tease out that information. The measurement just reports how much PM2.5 there is. I hope that some organization begins to make the contributors more visible to the public (and it would be great if The Weather Channel added that info in their app). Would it spur more people to push for changes to utilities….to retire coal burning plants a quickly as possible?

Note: To find the hourly air quality forecast on The Weather Channel App, scroll down on the Home screen to find the Allergies – Breathing – Cold & Flu block and select ‘Breathing.’ Scroll down to see the Air Quality Forecast.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 7, 2026

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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.

1/22/2026 I’m Plastic Free How Geography Impacts Plastic-Free Living - Many people want to reduce plastic, but simply don’t have the tools nearby. In larger cities, it’s often easier to find refill stores, farmers’ markets, and shops that sell loose produce, but the access varies widely between wealthier and lower-income city areas. Living in a city doesn’t guarantee sustainable options. here are a variety of factors that determine the amount of plastic used by consumers. These usually include their location, the system of commerce, and the accessibility of plastic products. Understanding how an area shapes shopping decisions will lead to people advocating for a change where it matters the most.

1/22/2026 Yale Environment 360 In Europe, Wind and Solar Power Overtakes Fossil Fuels - Last year, for the first time, wind and solar supplied more power than fossil fuels to the E.U. In parts of Europe, there are signs that increasingly cheap batteries are beginning to displace natural gas in the early evening, when power demand is high, but solar output is waning.

1/23/2025 Smithsonian Magazine United Nations Declares That the World Has Entered an Era of ‘Global Water Bankruptcy’ - Life around the world has been feeling the effects of climate change, land degradation, deforestation, pollution and the overuse of water. Ultimately, most regions are using too much of their renewable “income” of water from rivers and snowmelt and have emptied their “savings” in groundwater and other reservoirs, ushering in an era of “global water bankruptcy.” We cannot rebuild vanished glaciers or reinflate acutely compacted aquifers. But we can prevent further losses and redesign institutions to live within new hydrological limits.

1/21/2026 BBC Future How the nutritional benefits of foods change as you age - The two main nutrients we should focus on in old age are calcium and vitamin D. Eating enough quality protein is also really important as we age.

1/20/2026 ScienceDaily Stanford scientists found a way to regrow cartilage and stop arthritis - Scientists at Stanford Medicine have discovered a treatment that can reverse cartilage loss in aging joints and even prevent arthritis after knee injuries. By blocking a protein linked to aging, the therapy restored healthy, shock-absorbing cartilage in old mice and injured joints, dramatically improving movement and joint function. Human cartilage samples from knee replacement surgeries also began regenerating when exposed to the treatment. Human trials will be launched soon.

1/12/2026 The Daily Show Vitamin Plastic Water: Don’t Just Consume Microplastics, Enjoy Them! – Humor in a plastic world.

1/20/2026 NASA Explore North America’s Greenhouse Hub - In the Leamington (Ontario) area, growers cultivate vegetables and other crops within millions of square feet of greenhouse space. Commercial greenhouse operations began to gain a foothold in this area in the 1960s and 1970s as technology advanced and regional demand for fresh vegetables increased. Since then, the industry has continued to grow, securing Leamington’s reputation as the “greenhouse capital of North America.”

1/20/2026 NPR Polyester clothing has been causing a stir online. But how valid are the concerns? - Though polyester has been around for a while, in many cases, manufacturers have begun using polyester for items that natural fibers would be better suited for. For example, polyester is often found in summer clothes, even though the material traps heat. And people eventually dump clothes that are uncomfortable. Mounds of abandoned clothing are showing up on coastlines in countries like Ghana, India and Chile, Palladino said. Ghana, for example, has a large market for upcycling clothes. But many of the clothes it receives from the U.S. are of increasingly lower quality, so some purchasers dump them in lagoons and landfills, which end up in the oceans. Natural fibers clothing have cost you a little more, but you're going to have it longer.

1/19/2026 ArtNet The Forgotten Designer Who Created America’s First National Parks Posters - Dorothy Waugh was a pioneering Modernist designer who created the U.S. government’s first in-house National Parks poster campaign during the Great Depression, is the subject of her first-ever solo exhibition. After leaving the NPS, Waugh got a job at Knopf, founding and leading the publishing house’s Books for Young Adults Division. She also worked for 25 years as the head of public relations at the Montclair Public Library in New Jersey. In addition, Waugh was an educator, offering the first-ever course in typography at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, now the Parsons School of Design. On top of all that, she moonlighted as journalist and poet, and even as a radio personality, with her own regional radio program. She also wrote and illustrated many books for children, as well as two scholarly tomes on the poet Emily Dickinson. The last of those was published when Waugh, who lived to be 99, was 94.

1/18/2026 Our World in Data How have crime rates in the United States changed over the last 50 years? - Several crimes fall within the category of violent crimes. In US statistics, this includes homicide (murder and non-negligent manslaughter), rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crime rates increased during the 1980s, reaching a peak in the early 1990s at around 750 offenses per 100,000. Since then, rates have more than halved. Over the past three decades, rates have fluctuated slightly from year to year, but the overall trend has been downward.

eBotanical Prints – January 2026

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in January – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive.   I started working my way through the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters in December; there are 4 volumes per year so I only browsed late 1980s and into the 1990s in January; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in February.

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,283 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from January’s 20 books below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the January 2026 eBotanical Prints!

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.14:no.4 (1985) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1985

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.15:no.1 (1986) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1986

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.15:no.2 (1986) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1986

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.1 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.2 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.3 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.4 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.1 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.2 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.3 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.4 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.1 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.2 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.3 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.4 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.20:no.3 (1991) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1991

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.20:no.4 (1991) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1991

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.21:no.3 (1992) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1992

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.22:no.3 (1993) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1993

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.23:no.2 (1994) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1994

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 31, 2026

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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.

12/5/2025 The Scientist The Ice is Alive: Uncovering the Vanishing World of Glacial Microbes - The ice teems with an invisible and thriving biosphere, lush with bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Scientists have estimated that the glaciers and ice sheets around the globe could contain as many as 1029 cells. The most dynamic … is the surface, where windblown dust mixes with microorganisms to form a dark, granular sediment known as cryoconite. Because this aggregate is darker than the surrounding white ice, it absorbs more solar radiation, melting the ice beneath it. This melting creates water-filled depressions called cryoconite holes that pockmark vast areas of the ice sheet. Cryoconite holes are far from simple puddles; they are oases of life in a polar desert.

2023 NASA History Office NACA to NASA to Now – A book about the history of NASA available free online from the NASA website.

1/14/2026 The Conversation Native pollinators need more support than honeybees in Australia – here’s why - Since the 1990s, the global decline of pollinators due to human activities, climate change and diseases has been a serious concern, especially in Europe and North America. The honeybee is so good at invading and proliferating in Australian landscapes, we now have some of the highest reported densities of feral honeybees in the world. Despite the global pollinator decline, honeybees haven’t disappeared anywhere in the world, even in countries with far fewer resources than Australia. Nor has any plant species gone extinct from a lack of honeybees. In contrast, there is overseas evidence of plant population declines due to the presence of honeybees and lack of native pollinators.

1/13/2026 Yale Environment 360 Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout - Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second.

1/12/2026 Compound Interest What are rubber ducks made from? - Scientists discovered polyvinyl chloride, or PVC for short, accidentally in the 1800s on more than one occasion. A hard and brittle plastic, PVC had little commercial use until it was mixed with softening plasticizers to make a much more moldable material. The modern rubber duck is not made from rubber, but from plasticized PVC colored with a bright yellow pigment.

1/13/2026 Clean Technica EPA Cooks the Books on Industrial Pollution Costs – They (EPA) will henceforth consider only the economic cost of the regulations to corporations, and if they are deemed to be too burdensome, those regulations will be softened in order to avoid undue economic harm to the polluters. This includes fine particulates (2.5 microns or less) that include microplastics and fossil fuel combustion products….contributing to many negative health outcomes.

1/13/2026 UPI U.S. greenhouse gas emissions growing faster than economy - For the first time in three years annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased, climbing by 2.4% in 2025 as federal policy shifted back to fossil fuels. For the first time in three years annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased, climbing by 2.4% in 2025 as federal policy shifted back to fossil fuels.

1/11/2026 Science Daily A room full of flu patients and no one got sick - n a striking real-world experiment, flu patients spent days indoors with healthy volunteers, but the virus never spread. Researchers found that limited coughing and well-mixed indoor air kept virus levels low, even with close contact. Age may have helped too, since middle-aged adults are less likely to catch the flu than younger people. The results highlight ventilation, air movement, and masks as key defenses against infection.

1/15/2026 BBC Rare images of Europe's 'ghost cat' - After several decades, this mysterious little beast is returning to our forests.

1/14/2026 NASA Earth Observatory Fires on the Rise in the Far North - In the far north, wildfires are breaking old patterns. Satellite data show that wildland fires once scattered across the Arctic are now surging in numbers—particularly in northern Eurasia—and many are burning more intensely than before. n the 2000s, fires north of 60 degrees latitude appeared across both North America and Eurasia, but starting in the early 2010s, their numbers skyrocketed, most dramatically in Eurasia. Even the icy island of Greenland entered a new fire regime during this period, experiencing more large fires, though still too few to be visible on these maps. Researchers attribute these trends to rising temperatures, which have made northern landscapes more flammable, along with a poleward expansion of lightning—the primary ignition source for these fires.

Jardine’s Hummingbirds

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Sir William Jardine was a Scottish naturalist in the 1800s. He edited a series of natural history books; two of them (about hummingbirds) are the pick for this week’s eBooks. They were published in 1833 and 1836 respectively and are available from Internet Archive. I picked two images from each volume…many more are available in these volumes.

 The natural history of humming birds V1

The natural history of humming birds V2

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2026

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Parts of January were not very wintery but later in the month, we got a significant winter storm that included snow! I celebrated winter activities, food, and scenes –sprinkled with some warmer days.

53rd wedding anniversary. So much of my day-to-day well-being is linked to my marriage that I sometimes just accept it as normal….but my wedding anniversary in January always prompts me to celebrate….be grateful that we’ve sustained our relationship by changing together!

American Beautyberry in winter. I celebrated the wrinkles and color of the berries – often in an otherwise brown bed at the Texas Welcome Center. I’m glad I have some small beautyberry plants in the yard that will be beautiful in a few years.

Big snow. It was a good time to be at home – celebrate the season (and my snow blower).

Dark chocolate for breakfast. I savored dark chocolate first thing in the morning – reverting to my favorite breakfast in the last years of my career. I celebrated that it was tasty and fair trade certified.

Meal in a skillet. Lightly sautéing veggies then adding a couple of eggs to make a ‘sauce’ and provide the protein – I’m getting used to the idea of eating it straight from the skillet. Celebrating food that is quick…nutritious…easy to clean up.

Potato skin. My husband likes the inside of russet potatoes and I like the skin. I always celebrate when there is a potato skin to top a soup or include in a stir fry.

Salmon salad with ginger, lemon, and honey dressing. Small cans of salmon have become a pantry staple for me. This month I celebrated a homemade dressing (fresh ginger, lemon, and honey) that made salmon salad my favorite.

Exercise snacks and treadmill walks. I’ve noticed that my mood and my back are better when I do short spurts of exercise throughout the day – celebrating that something that is good for me overall has some specific benefits that motivate me!

Pruning chainsaw. I celebrated a new tool – realize I should have bought one sooner.

Plastics podcast. The recording of a short message about plastics had been in the works for months – and I celebrated that I finally got it done!

Favorite Chairs

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My choice of office chair has changed over the years. By mid-career, I knew that I liked ones that didn’t have arms because the arms were never at the right height and seemed to cause poor posture. In my company provided office – I always had an office chair with a back but in my home office I had a Swopper chair with no back at all by about 2010 - a few years before I left my career behind; I can easily move from side to side and bounce. It is much easier to not sit still for too long in a chair like that! My first chair broke after about a decade of heavy use (the spring detached from the other main part of the chair) and I now have two replacements – one for the first floor of the house and the other for the basement garden room where my primary home office is located.

Recently I have discovered that a piano bench is my second favorite chair. I use a bench at a table when I make Zentangle tiles as part of my wind down at the end of the day. I do some back exercises before I start and can sit on the piano bench for more than an hour before I feel like I need to get up and move. Somehow it is easier for me to sit with good posture on the bench than a dining room chair with a back!

It’s a little surprising to me that relatively hard seats without a back are more comfortable for me – maybe it is easier for me to sit straight when I am not relying on a part of the chair to keep me upright!

Plastics Crisis – Travel and Plastics

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I thought about plastics as I made my monthly drive from Missouri down to Lewisville TX and back. It might have been the noticeable plastic trash along the road – perhaps there was more of it because of recent winds.

The other reason I was thinking about it more was the breakfast set up. The same hotel chain we had stayed in when we went to St. Joseph MO late last month had used ceramic plates and stainless utensils – so it felt like a step backwards to have foam plates and plasticware. Both places had Keurig coffee makers in the room and plastic single used glasses. When I got the request for feedback to the hotel – I filled in several responses about the plastic in their hotel and pointed out that the bottle of water ‘gift’ is not as appreciated any more.

I have started carrying a ceramic mug in my suitcase…to make tea – avoid the Keurig completely and the cups they provide. I also carry a small water filtration pitcher to replenish my reusable water bottle and to make tea.

My eyes were itchy the whole time I was in Lewisville; when I checked, the air quality was yellow…and the hotel HVAC filter did not seem to help. The dominate pollutant type causing the ‘yellow’ level was PM2.5 which includes microplastics and products of fossil fuel combustion. I am considering whether I should travel with an air purifier like I did on road trips after COVID – when vaccines were still quite new.

The drive home was very windy with a front coming through (bringing ice and snow for the weekend) and there were several places where plastics were blowing in the wind. Not long after I got to I44 and was less than 2 hours from home, there was grass fire along the shoulder that seemed to go for at least ¼ mile…and the smoke was blowing across the road.  Another hit to air quality!

There was a bit of nature at the Texas Welcome Center where I stopped on the way down that I’ll use as a positive ending for this post even though it has nothing to do with plastics or air quality: the bluebonnet plants are above ground and the beautyberry still has a bit of color!

Sustaining Elder Care – January 2026

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We moved my father to a new memory care place in early November, and we are just now getting his medical care transitioned to a new provider (since the new place is out of range from the previous one). It has been harder than we expected and there could be other challenges we just haven’t uncovered yet.

He is still having some difficulty finding his way around in the new place without assistance. The size of the place, his worsening eyesight, and cognitive ups/downs are all contributing to our observations and reports from staff of almost daily incidents – him thinking someone else’s apartment is his, him losing the key fob to get into his room, and him saying that he can’t find his room.

One of my sisters noticed that he couldn’t get his belt buckle open…and closed again. Maybe it was threaded around his jeans the wrong way? I hope that was the explanation since, if it is not – we may be approaching a time when he will need assistance in the bathroom. A year or so ago one of my sisters bought him some pull-on pants that did not require a belt – but he didn’t like them at all. He likes his jeans with a belt and a button front shirt (short sleeves for summer and long sleeves for winter)!

His decline – mental and physical – is obvious…but not predictable. There are times that he seems to remember more but those times are happening less often. The decline of his eyesight is related. If he could see better, perhaps he would not get lost so easily even though his short-term memory has not been reliable for quite some time so the move to a new environment has been hard for him.

It is taking more effort for me to stick with my strategy of accepting him as he is in the moments when I am with him….try to encourage him to move about and talk. In the back of my mind when I plan my monthly road trips to visit him, I always think about making the best of the visit because it might be the last one.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 24, 2026

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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.

1/3/2026 The Scientist Polio Vaccine History: The Shot That Saved Millions - On April 12, 1955, when the Salk polio vaccine was declared “safe and effective,” church bells rang out, kids were let out of school, and headlines around the world celebrated the victory over polio. When asked whether he was going to patent the vaccine, Salk told journalist Edward R. Murrow it belonged to the people and would be like “patenting the sun.”

1/8/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Hundreds of Flowering Species Bloomed Across Britain and Ireland Last Winter - Citizen scientists in the British Isles documented more than 300 native plant species blooming in early 2025, a phenomenon likely caused by climate change. While it’s lovely to see so many wildflowers in bloom … it’s also a sad reflection of the way our climate is changing and the knock-on effects this might have for all the wildlife—bees and other pollinators, butterflies and all the larger creatures further up the food chain—that depend on plants. If flowering times are increasingly out of sync with insect hatching times, the consequences could be very serious.

1/8/206 People in Brazil are living past 110 and scientists want to know why – Brazil’s highly diverse population harbors millions of genetic variants missing from standard datasets, including rare changes linked to immune strength and cellular maintenance. Brazilian supercentenarians often remain mentally sharp, survive serious infections, and come from families where multiple members live past 100. Together, they reveal aging not as inevitable decline, but as a form of biological resilience.

1/7/2026 The Conversation Surprising number of foods contain microplastics. Here’s how to reduce the amount you consume - While eliminating plastics entirely from our diets may be impossible, making these swaps should help to reduce your exposure.

1/6/2026 Nature Defossilize our chemical world - Achieving net zero means eliminating fossil fuels, not carbon — the chemical element has a crucial part to play in powering the modern world. Defossilization means finding sustainable ways to make carbon-based chemicals. Alternative sources of carbon include the atmosphere and plants, as well as carbon in existing biological or industrial waste, such as used plastics or agricultural residue. In some cases, these chemicals will eventually return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through burning or biodegradation. In principle, this will occur as part of a circular process, rather than one that has added greenhouse gases.

1/5/2026 Planetizen The Child Population in These Cities is Dropping Fast - The proportion of young children in western U.S. metros is falling faster than in other parts of the country. Lower birth rates can sometimes ease immediate pressure on housing and schools but also lead to challenges in supporting economic growth and elder care, as the ratio of working adults to retirees declines.

1/4/2026 Washington Post What we learned about microplastics in 2025 - For many scientists, 2025 was the year of microplastics. It’s only in the past year or so that we have begun to understand that the tiny plastics — including some that are impossible to see with the naked eye — are in our bodies and food as well.

1/9/2026 Science Alert Study Finds Microplastics Are Widespread in Popular Seafoods - In the Pacific Northwest – a region of North America renowned for its seafood – researchers have found particles from our waste and pollution swimming in the edible tissue of just about every fish and shellfish they collected.

12/18/2025 Yale Environment 360 After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up - Iran is looking to relocate the nation’s capital because of severe water shortages that make Tehran unsustainable. Experts say the crisis was caused by years of ill-conceived dam projects and overpumping that destroyed a centuries-old system for tapping underground reserves. 

1/8/2026 BBC The animals saved in Greece's ancient accidental 'arks' - Shielded from development and agriculture, many archaeological sites have now become inadvertent safe harbors for plants and animals. In Italy, rare orchids flower around an Etruscan necropolis. In the ancient Greek religious centre of Delphi, researchers found what they believe is a new species of snail – just 2mm (0.08in) long – suspected to live only in that area. In recent years, two new species of lizard were identified in Machu Picchu that may have once had a wider range and today enjoy the relatively undisturbed conditions of the ancient sanctuary. To better understand the connection between historical sites and nature, in 2022 the Greek government launched the Biodiversity in Archaeological Sites research project. Over two years, 49 specialists in all kinds of plants and animals surveyed 20 archaeological sites that spanned Greek history. 

Life Magazine in 1945

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Internet Archive has digitized versions of many Life Magazines. I have been browsing through them – slowly since there was an issue for each week. As I looked at the issues from 1945, it seemed that the was pivotal: the atrocities in Europe were in the news more and trials were starting for German leader that had not killed themselves….the US succeeded in ending the war with Japan by using atomic bombs.  The industry that supplied the war was being scrapped or turned to civilian uses. (Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version and the links to see the whole magazine online.)

Life Magazine 1945-01-01 - 5,000 tires wear out on the western front every 24 hours

Life Magazine 1945-01-08 - Evening of July 25 in Normandy (painting)

Life Magazine 1945-01-15 - Granite stones for Hitler’s victory monument

Life Magazine 1945-01-22 - Western Electric ad

Life Magazine 1945-01-29 - Vegetable of War in the Southwest

Life Magazine 1945-02-05 - Murder in the Snow (where Germans shot US prisoners

Life Magazine 1945-02-12 - Trench foot

Life Magazine 1945-02-19 - Dalai Lama

Life Magazine 1945-02-26 - Soldiers in Germany (winter)

 Life Magazine 1945-03-05 - Iwo Jima

Life Magazine 1945-03-12 - Glass manufacturing

Life Magazine 1945-03-19 - Germans crumble in the west

Life Magazine 1945-03-26 - German girl in ruins of Cologne

Life Magazine 1945-04-02 - Coca Cola ad

Life Magazine 1945-04-09 - American paratrooper….east of the Rhine

Life Magazine 1945-04-16 - Ford ad

Life Magazine 1945-04-23 - Roosevelt's death

Life Magazine 1945-04-30 - Hitler's hideout

 Life Magazine 1945-05-07 - Belsen

Life Magazine 1945-05-14 - Nazi suicides

Life Magazine 1945-05-21 - London goes wild on VE day

Life Magazine 1945-05-28 - Okinawa

Life Magazine 1945-06-04 - Battered face of Germany

Life Magazine 1945-06-11 - Middle East oil

Life Magazine 1945-06-18 - Americans battle for Okinawa

Life Magazine 1945-06-25 - Harry Truman's Missouri

 Life Magazine 1945-07-02 - Hitler's eyrie

Life Magazine 1945-07-09 - Japanese surrenders are increasing

Life Magazine 1945-07-16 - Caricatures of correspondents

Life Magazine 1945-07-23 - Berlin

Life Magazine 1945-07-30 - Postwar Jeep

Life Magazine 1945-08-06 - Empire State Building fire

Life Magazine 1945-08-13 - General Motors: refrigerators and airplane propeller blades

Life Magazine 1945-08-20 - Atomic bomb

Life Magazine 1945-08-27 - Victorious China

 Life Magazine 1945-09-03 - Planes scrapped

Life Magazine 1945-09-10 - Battered Tokyo

Life Magazine 1945-09-17 - Hiroshima

Life Magazine 1945-09-24 - Coca Cola ad

Life Magazine 1945-10-01 - International Harvester ad

Life Magazine 1945-10-08 - Masks worn in Hiroshima

Life Magazine 1945-10-15 - Nagasaki

Life Magazine 1945-10-22 - USS Battan in Panama Canal

Life Magazine 1945-10-29 - USS Enterprise I New York Harbor

 Life Magazine 1945-11-05 - Solar eclipse

Life Magazine 1945-11-12 - Waterfront fire - Chicago

Life Magazine 1945-11-19 - British brides

Life Magazine 1945-11-26 - Graveyard of US Liberty ships

Life Magazine 1945-12-03 - Berlin children

Life Magazine 1945-12-10 - International Harvester ad

Life Magazine 1945-12-17 - Housing shortage

Life Magazine 1945-12-24 - Tom Wolf and Asheville NC

Life Magazine 1945-12-31 - Big snow in Buffalo

Snack in Blue Tulip Glassware

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I’ve had my set of Blue Tulip depression glassware for over a decade now. It is special because of how I got it – from some friends of my parents (from college onward) that collected it when they retired and sold it to me when they downsized from their last house. Although I don’t use the dinner plates very often – I do enjoy the small pieces frequently because they encourage smaller portions. One piece that I have only started using recently is in the shape of a shell with a center area for dip/sauce; I like pumpkin seeds in the center and fruit/veggies around the edge. It is just the right size of a hefty snack (when I am not hungry enough for a full evening meal).

The memories are a bonus – summertime visits with their family which included a daughter my age…observing a career dietician for small hospitals in action and the field work of a soil conservation professional in the 1960s. I remember outings with them to amusement parks and overnight visits to state parks in Oklahoma….digging up salt crystals at the lake near Cherokee, Oklahoma. The friends of my parents and their daughter are gone now – the last one going before my mother; my dad doesn’t remember them. I remember…and the Blue Tulip glassware is a wonderful reminder.

Fifty-third Wedding Anniversary

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Still together after 53 years….

Our anniversary is not a big celebration in January; we don’t buy gifts; usually we just go out for a nice meal. This year my only requirement was that it be a place with interesting desserts. We chose The Village Inn in Springfield. He got pancakes and I got key lime pie.

I’m thinking about how we are accommodating each other more as we age.

  • Right now, he has a wrist bothering him, so I am doing more household chores that require two hands.

  • He keeps a pillow in his car for me because I haven’t been able to adjust the front passenger seat to avoid my back hurting on road trips.

  • Over the past year we have both sat in medical waiting rooms – doing the driving to and from an outpatient procedure.

  • When we travel, we both like to stop about once an hour; neither one of us likes to sit for a long time.

  • I do the grocery shopping, and he does the shopping at Home Depot/Loews and Wild Birds Unlimited (although I am loading the bird feeders with seed and putting the groceries away right now because those are two-hand jobs). In years past we shopped together but now we both enjoy the independence.

  • He has allergies to a lot of household products which we have been working with for a few years. That is dovetailing with my efforts to reduce plastics/microplastics in our household.

  • When one of us is on a solo road trip, the other is tracking progress with the Find My app. This is the one item on the list that we might have done earlier if the technology had been available.

  • When we travel, I always make the hotel reservations and pack the ice chest (mostly things for him these days). He always makes sure the car is ready to go and does all the driving; I keep volunteering to trade off driving, but road trips are generally more restful for me since he still wants to do it all.

As we get older, there will be plenty more accommodations we’ll develop for ourselves and each other. We’re already a lengthy marriage…have no plans of cutting it short!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 17, 2026

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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.

12/28/2025 SciTechDaily Microplastics Burrow into Blood Vessels and Fuel Heart Disease - New research led by biomedical scientists at the University of California, Riverside suggests that routine contact with microplastics — tiny particles released from packaging, clothing, and many plastic products — may speed up atherosclerosis, a condition in which arteries become clogged and can lead to heart attacks and strokes. The team studied LDLR-deficient mice, which are genetically prone to developing atherosclerosis. Both male and female mice were fed a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet comparable to what a lean and healthy person might consume. Over a nine-week period, the mice received daily doses of microplastics (10 milligrams per kilogram of body weight). These exposure levels were chosen to reflect amounts considered environmentally relevant and similar to what humans could encounter through contaminated food and water.

1/1/2026 ScienceDaily This 100-year-old teaching method is beating modern preschools - Public Montessori preschool students enter kindergarten with stronger reading, memory, and executive function skills than their peers. These gains don’t fade — they grow over time, bucking a long-standing trend in early education research. Even better, Montessori programs cost about $13,000 less per child than traditional preschool. (My daughter went to a private Montessori school for preschool-kindergarten…she enjoyed it and did very well in her subsequent education/career so I am not surprised by the results of this national trial.)

12/31/2025 Archaeology Magazine Bones of Chaco Canyon’s Imported Parrots Reexamined – A reexamination of more than 2,400 parrot bones unearthed at Chaco Canyon suggests that most of the macaws and parrots that were kept by ancient Puebloans were likely restricted to the large, multistory buildings known as great houses, where they lived in heated rooms with plastered walls.

12/31/2025 ScienceDaily Microplastics are leaking invisible chemical clouds into water - Microplastics in rivers, lakes, and oceans aren’t just drifting debris—they’re constantly leaking invisible clouds of chemicals into the water. New research shows that sunlight drives this process, causing different plastics to release distinct and evolving mixtures of dissolved organic compounds as they weather. These chemical plumes are surprisingly complex, often richer and more biologically active than natural organic matter, and include additives, broken polymer fragments, and oxidized molecules. Understanding how these chemicals evolve across different stages of plastic breakdown will be essential for assessing their long-term environmental impact.

1/2/2026 National Parks Traveler A Day in the Park: Assateague Island National Seashore – This was a great get away from where we lived in Maryland until recently. We’d cross the Bay Bridge, visit Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and then be at Chincoteague and Assateague Island National Seashore after that.

1/2/2026 The New York Times A Study Is Retracted, Renewing Concerns About the Weedkiller Roundup - In 2000, a landmark study claimed to set the record straight on glyphosate, a contentious weedkiller used on hundreds of millions of acres of farmland. The paper found that the chemical, the active ingredient in Roundup, wasn’t a human health risk despite evidence of a cancer link. Last month, the study was retracted by the scientific journal that published it a quarter century ago, setting off a crisis of confidence in the science behind a weedkiller that has become the backbone of American food production.

1/2/2026 Smithsonian Magazine When the Bayeaux Tapestry Makes its Historic Return to England - Created in the 11th century, the delicate, 230-foot-long embroidered textile has been in France since 1077.

12/30/2025 YaleEnvironment360 2025 Was Another Exceptionally Hot Year - 2025 was the second hottest on record, surpassed only by 2024. It continues a recent trend of exceptional, unexplained warming. The last three years have been, by a wide margin, the hottest ever recorded. The recent jump in warming, which exceeded the predictions of climate models.

12/21/2025 My Modern Met Photographer Explores the Rich Complexity of Africa’s Great Rift – Photography of a place --- and an interview with the photographer.

12/17/2025 Washington Post These kitchen items may be contaminating your food with chemicals - Plastic ushered in a new era of convenience and filled homes with cheap, disposable goods. But it also has exposed ordinary people to tens of thousands of chemicals that slip out of those items into household dust, food, water — and from there, into bodies. Some of these chemicals are known to disrupt pregnancies, triggering birth defects and fertility problems later in life; others have been linked to cancer and developmental problems. “The problem is, none of the plastics that we have right now are safe,” said Wagner, of Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “That’s not a very nice thing to hear, but that’s what the data tell us.”

12/15/2025 Nature The best science images of 2025 — Nature’s picks – Educational and beautiful at the same time.

Mother West Wind eBooks

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Four books by Thorton W. Burgess are this week’s book of the week. They were published between 1911 and 1920 – available on Project Gutenberg for online viewing. He was a prolific writer of children’s books and a conservationist. These are some of his earlies books and are well-illustrated.

Mother West Wind's Children

Mother West Wind's Animal Friends

Mother West Wind “When” Stories

Mother West Wind "Why" Stories

Phoenix Vicariously

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My daughter was at a conference in Phoenix last week and I enjoyed seeing her pictures of the area near the convention center. She went early for a workshop and managed to see a basketball game in the arena that evening!

She sent pictures of desert creature sculptures

And the sign for a pollinator garden – that obviously still has some plants blooming (daisies and lantana) – an urban garden.

My favorites were the images of architecture and murals. The one showing the white roof (along with a mural) was taken from her hotel window. I wondered how often the white needed to be refreshed to maintain its ability to reflect heat.

It’s been over a decade since I was in Phoenix and then I did more in the outskirts rather than the downtown area. Winter would be the time I’d pick to visit again!

Plastics Crisis – Healthy Food in Unhealthy Packaging

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Plastic dominates packing in the grocery stores – even in the produce section.

 In the store where I shop, more than half the produce items are in plastic – either clamshell (more rigid plastic) or flexible bags. Neither type of plastic is recycled effectively. It’s impossible to buy leafy greens or grapes or carrots or mushrooms, or celery or blueberries…the list goes on and on…in the store where I usually shop without the plastic! Usually there are potatoes, squash, broccoli, cabbage, kale, bell peppers, cucumbers, apples, pears, lemons, and oranges from bins where I can use my own bags or keep them unbagged…but none of them are the organic versions. I am beginning to wonder whether organic is worth it with all the plastic around those foods (and maybe used during production to control weeds). Right now, I am skewing toward the food with the least packaging (or no packaging). If I do buy something in plastic packaging, I take it out of that packaging as soon as I get it home!

I’ve started buying eggs in a pulp paper carton (even though they are more expensive) rather than the Styrofoam cartons; not sure why the producers are using Styrofoam since it isn’t a healthy material and does not protect the eggs from breakage very well either.

The picture below is from Life Magazine from November 10, 1947. The groceries in the picture fed a family of 4 (parents and 4-year-old twins) plus their cat. There might not be any plastic in the picture! The meat and bread appear to the wrapped in paper. The eggs are in boxes and there are canned goods. There isn’t much produce (celery, lettuce, radishes, onions, potatoes); the potatoes and onions are in paper bags and the rest is unwrapped.

I’m not advocating reverting to the 1940s – but we should revie the history of food packaging now that we are understanding the downsides of its single-use design that results in environmental contamination. No one wants to be full of plastic and the associated health challenges.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 10, 2026

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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. (Note: I have changed the format to include the date and source of the article.)

11/9/2025 BBC Seated salsa - the miracle movement to help ease back pain – Wow – easy to do and very effective. I might even be able to do it on road trips….increase the likelihood of no back pain when getting out of the car!

12/30/2025 Clean Technica Maryland’s Largest Solar Project Launches, On Old Coal Mine – In Garret County MD – “helping to preserve our region’s natural beauty while creating new economic value for our residents. It’s a win-win for us and the environment.” Goo for them!

12/29/2025 Yale Environment 360 Sea Ice Hits New Low in Hottest Year on Record for the Arctic - The Arctic endured a year of record heat and shrunken sea ice as the world’s northern latitudes continue a rapid shift to becoming rainier and less ice-bound due to the climate crisis. The Arctic is heating up as much as four times as quickly as the global average, due to the burning of fossil fuels, and this extra heat is warping the world’s refrigerator. We can point to the Arctic as a faraway place but the changes there affect the rest of the world.

12/30/2025 Science Daily Why your vitamin D supplements might not be working - Magnesium may be the missing key to keeping vitamin D levels in balance. The study found that magnesium raised vitamin D in people who were deficient while dialing it down in those with overly high levels—suggesting a powerful regulating effect. This could help explain why vitamin D supplements don’t work the same way for everyone and why past studies linking vitamin D to cancer and heart disease have produced mixed results. (I also learned that dark chocolate is a good source of magnesium from this post!)

12/26/2025 National Parks Traveler Visual Guide Reveals Stunning Fossil Discovery at Lake Powell – A visual guide published this year and compiled by paleontology experts within the National Park System offers a fresh look at paleontological resources across the 13 park units in the State of Utah. It is available online here.

12/19/2025 Smithsonian Magazine Flesh-Eating Screwworms Are Creeping Closer to a Comeback in the United States - Roughly 60 years ago, the United States eradicated the New World screwworm, an insect that feeds on living tissue. A concerted effort led by USDA wiped them out by 1966 by releasing sterile male flies and, since female flies only mate once, this strategy helped diminish their numbers until the population collapsed. The agency estimates the eradication of screwworms saves ranchers $900 million per year in lost livestock. But now, the flesh-eating creature appears to be creeping closer to a comeback. Efforts are ramping up to monitor for screwworms and prepare to fight it back again.

12/17/2025 Archaeology Magazine How did the Roman invasion of Britain impact health? - The health of the women and children declined overall during the Roman period, but mainly among those who lived in urban areas. The decline in health in urban areas can be attributed to overcrowding, pollution, limited access to resources, and devastating exposure to lead in Roman infrastructure.

12/17/2926 The Conversation The US already faces a health care workforce shortage – immigration policy could make it worse - America’s health care system is entering an unprecedented period of strain. An aging population, coupled with rising rates of chronic conditions, is driving demand for care to new heights. The workforce isn’t growing fast enough to meet those needs. For decades, immigrant health care workers have filled gaps where U.S.-born workers are limited. Nationally, immigrants make up about 18% of the health care workforce, and they’re even more concentrated in critical roles. Roughly 1 in 4 physicians, 1 in 5 registered nurses and 1 in 3 home health aides are foreign-born.

12/15/2025 Nature Tracing pollution in the lives of Arctic seabirds – Scientists on Svalbard — the largest island of the Norwegian polar archipelago: there used to be sea ice in the fjord in May when we arrived for the start of the season, but we haven’t seen any sea ice since 2009. They are monitoring the presence of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in the birds. The years long research has shown that some contaminants transfer to the yolks of the birds’ eggs. High levels of PFASs have been found to lower hatching rates and reduce overall survival rates. In particular, PFASs disrupt hormones and lower fertility rates in male birds.

12/14/2025 The Marginalian A Decalogue for the Dignity of Growing Old: Eva Perón’s Revolutionary Rights of the Elderly – Eva Peron identified 10 rights of elderly people in 1948 to be included in Argentina’s Constitutional Reform the following year; the right to assistance, housing, nourishment, clothing, physical health care, moral health care, recreation, tranquility, and respect.

America 1976

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The ‘book of the week’ is a catalog from an exhibition of art that started at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in second quarter of 1976 and then to other museums around the country until May 1978. It is available from Internet Archive.

This year will be the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence being adopted…and there will probably be similar exhibits celebrating the nation through art this year. I remember 1976 from the perspective of living in the Dallas area, working full time and taking classed toward my biology degree at night; I was so busy during the week most of the time at home was spent asleep; my husband and I had a weekly out-to-eat between my work and evening classes as a time to talk/catch up with each other. I was a little aware of special construction projects and celebrations that happened with the bicentennial and probably went to see some fireworks….but don’t remember seeing any associated art exhibits! Maybe this year will be different. I’d rather see a drone show than fireworks (better air quality) and being in an air-conditioned museum in July sounds good to me!

America 1976: a Bicentennial Exhibition Sponsored by the United States Department of the Interior

Loess Bluff National Wildlife Refuge

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We got to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in the early afternoon on the day after Christmas. It was sunny and relatively warm – no coat required. We made a slow drive around the loop and side road. The next morning, we drove the wildlife loop again in the fog before heading home.

There were lots of birds to see and hear!

Trumpeter Swans

Snow Geese

White fronted Geese

And Bald Eagles

There were more eagles than when we had visited Loess Bluffs last March…but similar numbers of snow geese and trumpeter swans. The muskrats were not active outside their mounds, so we didn’t see any this time.

Unfortunately, another difference we noted were dead birds in the water; I recognized snow geese and trumpeter swans. Some looked like they had been dead for some time. Pre-Covid, the carcasses of dead birds were collected as one refuge we visited (to determine why the birds were dying and to minimize the contagion in the water); perhaps they no long do that because it isn’t effective, they know it is bird flu, or there are not staff to do the work. The area where most of the dead birds were located was not near where the bulk of living birds were; maybe water movement acted to collect the birds in the shallows along the shore (mostly) away from flocks.

I’ll end this post on a positive note with the botanical pictures! Seeds and pods and brown foliage dominate…but there was one green plant that had a lot of water droplets.

The wildlife refuge is a great place to see bald eagles in the winter….and other things too!