Gleanings of the Week Ending October 11, 2025

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.

What Makes Bruises Change Color Over Time? - What appears as a red or purplish skin contusion in the beginning, slowly transitions to green, yellow, and finally brown, before disappearing entirely. What are the mechanisms that produce this bouquet of bruise colors?

Scientists finally explain the real reason pregnant women get morning sickness - According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 80% of early-stage pregnant mothers experience some nausea, vomiting and aversions to certain foods and smells. A unique mix of inflammatory responses function to prevent the mother's body from rejecting the fetus, alongside adaptive behavioral mechanisms, like nausea, that encourage the mother to avoid foods that are potentially harmful, especially in the first and second trimesters when the fetus is most vulnerable.

This company is turning empty offices across America into farms - Area 2 Farms is a three-year-old company based in Arlington, Virginia, that’s taking the concept of indoor farming to unusual spaces. Its first farm, in Arlington, grows dozens of varieties of crops (including lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and mushrooms, as well as more niche items like amaranth microgreens and purple shamrock) in a low-slung brick building tucked between a dog day care and a car repair shop. The goal is to eventually build indoor farms within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population.

Bird Soaring Below a Total Solar Eclipse Wins 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year – Some beautiful…some thought provoking.

In Her Final Interview, Jane Goodall Issued Urgent Call to Protect the Planet - “We need to protect this planet and think about the future,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “Because if we don’t, that’s the end of our species. Humans are not exempt from extinction.”

Leaf Layer Safari: How to Spot Hidden Moth Cocoons in Your Backyard - This autumn, instead of raking, try exploring. Step carefully, look closely, and you may discover a miniature safari happening right under your feet.

Scientists Studied the Genes of a Woman Who Lived 117 Years - The findings point to a combination of genetic luck and lifestyle choices.

The Secret Apartment Atop the Eiffel Tower - Around 1,000 feet above Paris’ streets perches Gustave Eiffel’s apartment, complete with a bathroom, a kitchen, and wax sculptures of Eiffel, his daughter, and Thomas Edison. At the very top of the tower, Eiffel allotted himself a 1,075 square foot private office, and with it the best view in Paris. After all, he had footed three-quarters of the bill.

Winter Transforms the Mississippi River Delta - The Mississippi River’s watershed drains 41 percent of the United States (spanning all or part of 31 states) and reaches into two Canadian provinces. Its nutrient-rich waters support fertile agricultural lands along its shores and throughout the deltaic basin. The river also plays a role in the U.S. economy by providing transportation shipping routes. To maintain these functions, engineers have implemented channelization to help maintain navigable shipping lanes and, in recent decades, launched sediment diversion projects aimed at returning vital sediments to the wetlands.

How to future-proof your knees - After back pain, throbbing aches in the knees are the most cited musculoskeletal ailment in older adults. The post shows five quick, home-based exercises which will all help.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 14, 2023

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.

Abandoned Lands: A Hidden Resource for Restoring Biodiversity – Nature colonizing abandoned land…maybe we need to learn to help it along. The amount of land under agriculture globally has been in decline since 2001. Sometimes the abandonment is not driven by economic, demographic, or social factors, but by pollution or industrial disasters. Hundreds of square miles of radioactive former farmland around the stricken nuclear reactors at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan are now within exclusion zones and could be without human occupation for centuries to come.

How to build for aging in place - Aging-ready homes address two core needs—single-floor living and bathroom accessibility—by providing a zero-step entry, a first-floor bedroom, and a full first-floor bathroom with at least one accessibility feature. Today only 10% of American homes are ‘age ready.’ When my husband and I bought our current home, we were conscious of buying something that would help us age-in-place. Everything is on one floor except for the laundry room….so we might have to eventually add an elevator to the house.

The Mississippi is Mighty Parched – The river south of Memphis has narrowed considerably in the past 2 years. Barge companies reduced the weight carried in many shipments in September because the river was not deep enough to accommodate their normal weight. Much of U.S. grain exports are transported down the Mississippi; the cost of these shipments from St. Louis southward has risen 77% above the three-year average. The lack of freshwater flowing into the Gulf of Mexico has also allowed saltwater to make its way up the river and into some water treatment plants in southern Louisiana.

Electric Cars Are Transforming America’s Truck Stops – I’ve been noticing the changes described in this article as I travel. More of truck stops have banks of chargers…and the Pilot just north of Denison has better food and a larger shopping/eating area… Adding charging equipment for electric cars is a major transformation for truck stops and travel centers but represents a new business opportunity.

The seed guardians in the Andes trying to save the potato – Climate change/disease are risks that all species are facing. There are 1,300 varieties of potato growing in the Andes. Potato Park, located near the Peruvian town of Pisac, was founded by six indigenous communities in 2002 to preserve the genetic diversity of potatoes grown in the region, as well as the cultural heritage of the people that grow them.

Chemical Analysis of Viking Combs Hints at Long-Distance Trade – 85-90% of the combs found in a Viking settlement in Germany, came from northern Scandinavia – made of the antlers of reindeer. So large scale trading between the two sites was happening as early as AD 800.

See Ten Stunning Images from the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards – Birds and photography…images to enjoy.

Japanese Scientists Find Microplastics in the Clouds Above Mount Fuji – Maybe we should be more surprised if we looked and didn’t find microplastics!

Why Flamingos are Showing Up in the U.S. this Fall – The short answer is hurricanes…specifically Hurricane Idalia. Flamingos are strong fliers and will simply return south eventually.

A Sample of Ancient Asteroid Dust Has Landed Safely on Earth – We were at the launch of OSIRIS Rex in September 2016…so I continue to follow news about the mission.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 12, 2022

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.

America’s largest transit bus charging station & microgrid open in Maryland – The headline caught my eye because I lived in Maryland for over 20 years – 8 of those in the county where this is happening! I hope other states have the same sorts of projects in the works.

NASA Finds More Than 50 Super-Emitters of Methane – Finding them is only the first step….how many of them will be situations we can reduce or stop the emission?

Iron induces chronic heart failure in half of heart attack survivors – This study prompted testing of iron chelation therapy to remedy or mitigate the effects associated with iron in hemorrhagic myocardial infarction patients.

Unique Bronze Age belt discovered near Opava – Half my ancestors came from the area that is now the Czech Republic…I am drawn to articles about the history of the region.  The belt is quite beautiful…but was it a practical item of apparel?  

What happens if our circadian rhythms are out of whack? – WHO has proclaimed that disrupted circadian rhythms are a probable carcinogen. The study discussed in this post was about the mechanism that circadian rhythm disruption triggers lung tumors.

View 16 Breathtaking Images from the Nature Conservancy’s Annual Photo Contest – Take a little break….look at awesome images of our world.

Mississippi River Basin adapts as climate change brings extreme rain and flooding – This year the stories about extreme weather seem to be more frequent – and wide ranging in terms of water. The Mississippi was low enough for barge traffic to be impacted because of drought…yet there were floods along part of the river just last summer.

Eye-opening discovery about adult brain's ability to recover vision – An unexpected success…opening new ways to treat a vision impairment (LCA) and maybe prompt a re-look about how the adult brain can re-wire itself relative to vision.

The World’s Whitest Paint May Soon Help Cool Airplanes and Spacecraft – A way of making paint that was previously too thick/heavy for things that move. The thicker version works for homes and buildings. We’ll need this technology to reflect heat without expending energy!

Greater cloud cover may be narrowing the gap between daily high and low temperatures – Simulating clouds explicitly. Trying to understand why nights are heating up faster than days across the globe.