Gleanings of the Week Ending November 14, 2026

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.

10/14/2026 Plastic Pollution Coalition Unwrapped: How to Get Plastic off Our Food – A webinar exploring the risks of plastic food packaging and how to unwrap our food systems. Getting plastic off our tables shouldn’t be a personal choice problem: it’s a policy problem. And it’s one we can solve.

10/27/2026 Plastic Pollution Coalition Microplastics in Me: Finding Plastics in Human Blood - Eight common types of plastic were found across the samples from 28 people, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, nylon 6, nylon 6,6, polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and styrene-butadiene rubber. The results of this analysis adds to a growing body of evidence that plastic contamination of human bloodstreams is widespread. This underscores the urgent need for increased research and regulatory focus on plastics as a human health concern. A video of the launch event for the document can be found here.

11/3/2026 Clean Technica As Diesel Costs Surge for Farmers & Rural Businesses, Solar Offers a Lifeline - Moving from energy crisis to energy security is ultimately about knowing where clean energy truly changes livelihoods. For many of the world’s rural farmers, processors, and small businesses, that starts with swapping diesel for solar.

11/2/2026 Yale Environment 360 Snowstorms Are Dropping Microplastics on Remote Parts of the Sierra Nevadas - Researchers have found that snowstorms are delivering vast numbers of tiny plastic particles to remote reaches of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Snowmelt is a major source of fresh water for the state. The found that snowfall delivered as many as 3,200 plastic particles per square meter per day. Still, the total amount of plastic is tiny — less than a tenth of an ounce per acre per day. The most common types of plastic found in the snow were polyethylene and polypropylene, which are used in packaging, and polyester, which is used in clothing.

10/31/2026 NPR Drone photo award winners: Far-out landscapes. Ship recycling. Rugs, rugs, rugs! - Each year, the Siena Drone Photo Awards highlight bird's-eye views of our planet, revealing landscapes, livelihoods and human stories often invisible from the ground. This post is some of this year's winning and highly commended photographs, focusing on the countries of the Global South.

11/04/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Faded Over Millennia, the Intricately Carved Sandstone Walls of This Ancient Egyptian Shrine Will See Color Once Again - Digital projections at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum will restore the sight of Egyptian blue, the world’s oldest synthetic pigment, and other colors that once adorned the 2,700-year-old Shrine of Taharqa.

11/02/2026 Science Daily Scientists reverse liver cell aging and cut Alzheimer’s-linked protein in half - Researchers found that an experimental drug restored aging liver cells in rats, cutting levels of an Alzheimer’s-linked protein in half and bringing bad cholesterol down to youthful levels. The treatment also revived a previously unknown communication system that helps liver cells remove harmful substances from the bloodstream.

11/03/2026 The Conversation US wildfire damage is on pace to triple by mid‑century, but there are affordable ways to lower the risk - Homes can be made less likely to ignite with Class A fire-resistant roofs and ember-resistant vents that reduce the potential for burning particles to enter homes. Removing flammable debris, mulch, firewood and vegetation from around buildings also reduces the risk of fire spreading to the home.

10/31/2026 Clean Technica It’s Not Enough to Electrify More. We Must Electrify Better.  - Electrification is not simply about replacing one fuel with another, or adding ever-more demand to the grid. It is about moving from an energy system built around inefficient, polluting combustion to one built around clean electricity, efficient technologies and demand that can respond intelligently to the system around it.

11/04/2026 Archaeology Magazine Rare Strain of Leprosy Identified in Boat Burial – In a burial near Germany’s North Sea Coast…the boat included a chair carved from the trunk of an alder tree and a late Roman military belt, suggesting that the man had come from a far-flung location. DNA confirmed the man buried their originated in the Danube region with ties to southeastern Europe in the Mediterranean. He was also infected with a very rare leprosy pathogen. He is the first individual from the group to have been identified in Europe. This form of leprosy is known to have been present in Egypt between the fourth and second centuries B.C., but it had not yet been detected in Central or Northern Europe.