Gleanings of the Week Ending April 20, 2024

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.

Tax Burden by State – A comparison done by WalletHub that compared the 50 states on 3 types of taxes - property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes - as a share of total personal income in the state.

See a Restored Ancient Roman Helmet—and Two Shiny New Replicas – 2,000-year-old helmet made of silver-gilded iron.

Solar Savings in the US – Looking at the numbers….

Feral Hogs to Be Removed from Congaree National Park – My husband and I visited Congaree in 2008 and I vividly remember the feral hogs. Evidently action is being taken to remove them. They have become a pervasive problem to both the park and surrounding landowners, routinely causing widespread damage to land and water resources both within and outside of the park. Recent observations have shown that they have begun to cause more extensive damage to areas near the Harry Hampton Visitor Center, including areas where synchronous fireflies are active and where restoration of longleaf pine is ongoing.

What four decades of canned salmon reveal about marine food webs - The cans contained fillets from four salmon species, all caught over a 42-year period in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay. Researchers dissected the preserved fillets from 178 cans and counted the number of anisakid roundworms -- a common, tiny marine parasite -- within the flesh. The parasites were killed by the canning process but still visible… counting them is one way to gauge how well a marine ecosystem is doing.

Texas Solar Power Growth Changing the Shape of Daily Electricity Supply in ERCOT – Looking at the changes between 2022 and 2023…easy to see graphically.

Functional capacity in old age is like an ecosystem that may collapse when disrupted - In old age, a tighter interlinkage between different domains of functional capacity may indicate a loss of system resilience. When functional capacity domains are tightly interconnected, a disruption in one domain can affect others and lead to a collapse in functioning.

Ming Dynasty Tomb Found in China's Xinfu District – Part of excavations before nearby highway construction begins.

I spy with my speedy eye: Scientists discover speed of visual perception ranges widely in humans - The rate with which we perceive the world is known as our "temporal resolution." Though our visual temporal resolution is quite stable from day to day in general, a post-hoc analysis did suggest that there may be slightly more variation over time within females than within males.

Study Reveals Vast Networks of ‘Ghost Roads’ in Asian Rainforests - An extensive analysis of satellite imagery has uncovered thousands of miles of unmapped roads slicing through Asia’s tropical rainforests - “ghost roads” may be laid down by miners, loggers, poachers, drug traffickers, and land grabbers, often illegally.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 6, 2024

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 do terracotta warriors tell us about life in ancient China? – Discovered 50 years ago…they are a snapshot of the soldiers of Qin – the feudal state that unified China, for the first time in 221BC under the country's first emperor Qin Shi Huang – from the soles of their shoes to their candy-colored clothes to the bronze weapons buried with them to their distinct facial features. 2,000 terracotta warriors have been excavated but more are uncovered every year.

This Map Shows Where Planting Trees Would Make Climate Change Worse - Trees draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to keep warming in check. But their dark, green leaves also absorb heat from sunlight. Snow and sand, by virtue of their light color, reflect more sunlight back into space. As such, trees planted in snowy areas or in the desert will absorb more sunlight than their surroundings, which may negate the climate benefits of soaking up carbon dioxide.

These 3,000-Year-Old Treasures Were Forged from Meteoritic Iron - In the 1960s, researchers discovered a trove of Bronze Age treasure in Villena, Spain. New research has revealed that some of them made between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E. were forged from iron from a meteor that struck Earth a million years ago. Who manufactured them and where this material was obtained are still questions that remain to be answered.

Vernal Pools Make Your Garden Sing - It’s not just frogs that are making homes in these little pools of water. Less vocal species like salamanders, dragonflies, fairy shrimp, and even dozens of native plants are there too. Even more species than that can be found simply visiting the pool for a drink or snack, including great blue herons, wood ducks, and box turtles.

Return of Trees to Eastern U.S. Kept Region Cool as Planet Warmed - Over the 20th century, the U.S. warmed by 1.2 degrees F (0.7 degrees C), but across much the East, temperatures dropped by 0.5 degrees F (0.3 degrees C). A new study posits that the restoration of lost forest countered warming, keeping the region cool. Still, the return of trees can only partially account for the drop in temperature. Other possible explanations include the growth of irrigation, a source of water vapor, and the uptick in particulate pollution, which reflects sunlight, thereby cooling the air.

Sweetened drinks linked to atrial fibrillation risk - 20% higher risk of irregular heart rhythm, known as atrial fibrillation, among people who said they drank two liters or more per week (about 67 ounces) of artificially sweetened drinks. The risk was 10% higher among people who said they drank similar amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Measles outbreaks and what parents need to know - Measles can lead to complications such as ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia, and encephalitis (brain swelling). One to three of every 1,000 children infected with measles dies. More than 97 percent of the people who have had their two shots of the vaccine never get measles.

A new world of 2D material is opening up - 2D materials have shown great potential for an enormous number of applications. You can imagine capturing carbon dioxide or purifying water, for example. Now it's about scaling up the synthesis and doing it in a sustainable way.

In Cleveland, mushrooms digest entire houses: How fungi can be used to clean up pollution - Fungi can eat the noxious waste from abandoned homes. Heavy metals and other toxins are extracted and captured in the mushrooms that grow, while the substrate leftovers, including the mycelium, are compacted and heated to create clean bricks for new construction. The resulting "mycoblocks" have a consistency akin to hardwood and, depending on the specifics of the manufacturing process, have been shown to be significantly stronger than concrete.

Arctic nightlife: Seabird colony bursts with sound at night - Acoustic recordings of a colony of little auks reveal their nocturnal activities and offer valuable monitoring means for avian biology in the Arctic.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 23, 2024

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.

6 chemical stories of colors through time – A little history of these colors….some very toxic!

Possible Neolithic Body Piercings Unearthed in Anatolia – Over 11,000 years old…found near ears and chins of human remains.

Under Threat in Their Native California, Giant Sequoias Are Thriving in Britain - First introduced to country estates in the 19th century, half a million sequoias now grow in Britain, compared to just 80,000 along the western flank of the Sierra Nevada in California, where they are increasingly imperiled by warming. Up to a fifth of all large giant sequoias in California died in wildfires in 2020 and 2021. The trees in Britain are still relatively young — sequoias can live for more than 3,000 years — and squat. In Britain’s cool, mild climate, sequoias are growing nearly as fast as in California.

Whales That Go Through Menopause Live Longer and May Help Care for Grandchildren - Female tooth whales that go through menopause (narwhals, killer whales, false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales and beluga whales) have longer lifespans than those that don’t, surviving decades past their reproductive prime!

A healthier diet is linked with a slower pace of aging, reduced dementia risk - We have some strong evidence that a healthy diet can protect against dementia…but the mechanism of this protection is not well understood. This study suggests that slower pace of aging mediates part of the relationship of healthy diet with reduced dementia risk, and therefore, monitoring pace of aging may inform dementia prevention. Additional observational studies need to be conducted to investigate direct associations of nutrients with brain aging.

The next pandemic? It’s already here for Earth’s wildlife – The pathogenic strain of avian influenza has killed millions of birds and unknown numbers of mammals. Between January 1, 2003 and December 21, 2023, 882 cases of human infection were reported from 23 countries, of which 461 (52%) were fatal. To prevent the worst outcomes for this virus, we must revisit its primary source: the incubator of intensive poultry farms.

Ultra-fast fashion is a disturbing trend undermining efforts to make the whole industry more sustainable - Ultra-fast fashion is marked by even faster production cycles, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trends, and poor labor practices. Without change, the industry will account for 26% of the world’s carbon budget for limiting global warming to 2°C by 2050. Established brands such as Gap introduce 12,000 new items a year and H&M 25,000. But Shein leaves them in the dust, listing 1.3 million items in the same amount of time.

Seven ways to improve your sleep according to science – Science and historical perspective.

Warming Waters Bringing More Sharks to the Alabama Coast - Globally, warming waters are driving sharks to new areas where they were previously scarce. Great white sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks have all edged northward. From 2003 to 2020, the number of juvenile bull sharks swimming through Mobile Bay rose fivefold.

Incredible Winners of the 2024 British Wildlife Photography Awards – So many great images!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 9, 2024

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.

The benefits of trees – From an architect’s perspective…working with trees rather than just around them.

How the color orange got its name – Orange was my mother’s favorite color for many years. She had the door of the house they built painted orange! So - this post caught my attention. In English, before the turn of the 16th century, orange objects would be simply known as “yellow-red” or “geoluhread” in Middle English. There are also records of the word “saffron” being used to as a replacement for “orange” as a descriptor. Oranges, the fruit, take their name from the Sanskrit nāraṅga meaning orange tree. Nāraṅga morphed via the Persian word nâranj and the French pomme d’orenge, meaning “apple of the orange tree.”

Quality time with Pocket Gophers - Pocket gophers spend most of their lives underground. There are some 38 species found across a wide swath of central and North America. In many areas, they’re abundant. And yet, many people have never seen one.

Scientists shocked to discover new species of green anaconda, the world’s biggest snake - Green anacondas are the world’s heaviest snakes, and among the longest. Predominantly found in rivers and wetlands in South America, they are renowned for their lightning speed and ability to asphyxiate huge prey then swallow them whole. New research upends scientific understanding of this magnificent creature, revealing it is actually two genetically different species. The snakes are well-adapted to a life lived mostly in water. Their nostrils and eyes are on top of their head, so they can see and breathe while the rest of their body is submerged. Anacondas are olive-colored with large black spots, enabling them to blend in with their surroundings. The two species of green anaconda look almost identical, and no obvious geographical barrier exists to separate them. But their level of genetic divergence – 5.5% – is staggering. By comparison, the genetic difference between humans and apes is about 2%.

Helping caregivers help people with dementia eat at home - Over 80% of people with dementia in the United States live at home. An estimated 60% of home-based patients aren't able to routinely eat or prepare food on their own. Professionals recommended:

• Lowering auditory and visual distractions.

• Eliminating household clutter, clearing pathways and improving lighting.

• Providing written instructions to guide patients' mealtime activities.

Untraceable ingredients and unrecycled packaging: Why sustainable skincare is so hard to find - Short of a chemistry degree, understanding how to make sustainable skincare choices is no easy task for consumers.

Escaping Home – One of the last birding field trips we did before moving from Maryland was along the Harriet Tubman Byway. The post includes an image of the area from NASA’s Landsat 9 and historical background.

Peek Inside the Ancient Egyptian Tomb of Neferhotep, Now Open to the Public - Revitalizing ancient artifacts is no easy lift. All the wall paintings, reliefs, and sculptures required stabilizing loose stone fragments, cracks, detached plaster, and paint layers, not to mention cleaning and preserving surfaces damaged by fire and time. The restoration project started in 2000.

Discovering Mammoth Cave’s Oceanic Past - Creatures that lived in an ancient seaway that covered the landscape known today as Kentucky some 325 million years ago: crinoids, horn coral, brachiopods…small dark slashes that indicate shark teeth…a dorsal fin spine…a large piece of shoulder skeletal cartilage.

Saguaro Arms and Other Cactus Musings in Tucson – Remembering Saguaro National Park from my daughter’s graduate school years in Tucson. The research about the arms is interesting: The working theory is that saguaros start their branching at a certain size, not a certain age. Initial data indicates that saguaros tend to grow their first arm facing the south or southeast, often when they’re around 11-feet tall. Second arms often grow facing north. Arms seem to grow in a way that maintains symmetry and allows the saguaro to keep its balance.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 2, 2024

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.

Apples, Walnuts… and Toast? A New Study Reveals the Flavors of Ancient Roman Wine - Georgian vintners still employ a rustic approach. Grapes are crushed by hand or foot, placed in egg-shaped vessels known as qvevri, and buried for up to six months. It’s a UNESCO-recognized tradition dating back 8,000 years and researchers believe can help reveal the sight and scent of ancient Roman wine.

Mexico is suing US gun-makers for arming its gangs − and a US court could award billions in damages - In January, a federal appeals court in Boston decided that the industry’s immunity shield, which so far has protected gun-makers from civil liability, does not apply to Mexico’s lawsuit. Mexico’s lawsuit alleges that U.S. gun-makers aided and abetted illegal weapons sales to gun traffickers in violation of federal law. According to the lawsuit, feeding demand for illegal weapons is central to the industry’s business model.

Climate change reversing gains in air quality across the U.S.: study - The study finds that climate change is increasing the prevalence of two of the air pollutants most harmful to human health: particulate matter, commonly referred to as PM2.5, and tropospheric ozone. Whereas pollutants from cars and factories could be targeted by regulations over the past few decades, climate-related deterioration in air quality is a much tougher problem to solve.

Avar Grave Offers Clues to 7th-Century Heavy Cavalry - Thought to be a complete set of lamellar armor, which was made from hundreds of small iron plates, was spread out over the warrior.

What Does a Solar Eclipse on Mars Look Like? New, Breathtaking Images, Caught by NASA’s Perseverance Rover, Give Us an Idea – Images of Phobos passing across the sun’s surface…back on February 8.

Benefits of heat pumps - Nationally, heat pumps would cut residential sector greenhouse gas emissions by 36%-64%!

How millennials could give the suburbs a much-needed makeover – The trend is to move to the suburbs and not feel like you need to go to the city to have a great dinner or to see a show or live music or the arts.

The far-reaching impacts of wildfire smoke – and how to protect yourself - One study found that a quarter of the US's PM2.5 pollution was caused by wildfire smoke. In western regions, as much as half was caused by smoke. If there is a wildfire nearby, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise taking steps to limit your exposure where possible:

Choose a room to close off from outside air

Wear a tightly fitting respirator, if it is safe for you to do so

Keep track of fires nearby using services such as AirNow's fire and smoke map

Pay attention to health symptoms and seek medical care if needed

Ancient Lipstick Dating Back More Than Three Millennia Is Found in Iran – Analysis of the loose, dark purple fine powder revealed minerals (hematite, quartz, braunite, anglesite, and rare tiny crystals of galena) and vegetal fibers.

In Scotland, Renewable Power Has Outstripped Demand – A milestone for Scotland. The volume of electricity produced by renewables in Scotland was equal to 113 percent of demand in 2022. Fossil fuels still supply some electricity, helping to smooth over gaps in renewable power. Across the U.K., fossil fuel power is at its lowest level in nearly seven decades. Impressive.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 24, 2024

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.

Surprisingly vibrant color of 12-million-year-old snail shells – Polyenes (includes carotenoids) preserved almost unchanged…and found in fossils.

Asbestos: The strange past of the 'magic mineral' – Asbestos was woven into textiles fit for kings and used for party tricks. One 18th-Century philosopher even slept in a night-cap made from it. It was also used to make the funerary shrouds for monarchs; because it didn't burn, it helped to keep their ashes separated from the rest of the pyre. An account from Ancient Greece describes a golden lamp made for the goddess Athena, which could reportedly burn for a whole year without going out and had a wick made from "Carpathian flax" – thought to be another name for asbestos. In 1899, an English doctor recorded the first confirmed case of a death linked directly to the material – a 33-year-old textile worker who had developed fibrosis of the lungs. In the UK, all asbestos was banned in 1999, but much of the asbestos added before this date remains in place – as buildings degrade, it is posing a significant health risk.

Rise of Peru’s Divine Lords – Hilltop sites in the Andes…early examples of divine lordship - a form of leadership that would endure in Peru for more than 1,000 years.

Amid Record Drop in Fossil Power, Europe Sees Wind Overtake Natural Gas - The E.U. power sector is undergoing a monumental shift - fossil fuels are playing a smaller role than ever as a system with wind and solar as its backbone comes into view. Coal generation fell by 26 percent, while gas generation fell by 15 percent.

Student Design Competition: Integrating Solar and Agriculture - Some 2.8 gigawatts of agrivoltaics exist across the U.S. Many combine solar energy with pollinator habitat and sheep grazing. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is looking for new design proposals from graduate and undergraduate landscape architecture students to push the agrivoltaics envelope!

The Moon Is Shrinking, Causing Moonquakes at a Potential NASA Landing Site - Researchers examined data on moonquakes detected by lunar seismometers, which have been on the moon since Apollo program astronauts left them there more than 50 years ago. They also used mapping data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify the telltale creases on the moon. Through modeling, they linked these faults to seismic activity.

Texas Reservoirs Reach Dangerous Lows - In Corpus Christi, on the south Texas coast, authorities last month stopped releasing water aimed at maintaining minimum viable ecology in the coastal wetlands, even as oil refineries and chemical plants remain exempt from water use restrictions during drought. On the lower Texas coast, the Rio Grande has not been flowing consistently, and Colorado River water releases have been minimal as that river faces shortages farther upstream.

Extreme Birding: Gull Watching at the Landfill - You can find gulls around North America (and many parts of the world), including in interior states. At least 28 gulls can be seen in North America, with additional vagrant species showing up from time to time. Individual species look different depending on age and other factors. A gull goes through three feather molts in its first year.

Poisonous Seed Stash Discovered in the Netherlands – Black henbane contained in a hollow goat (or sheep) thigh bone sealed with a plug of black birch bark…from AD 70-200.

Ocean Sponge Skeletons Suggest a More Significant History of Global Warming Than Originally Thought - An analysis of six sea sponges—centuries-old creatures with an internal chemistry that holds secrets about climate history—points to global temperatures already having increased by 1.7 degrees Celsius due to human activity --- that’s more than scientists currently agree upon….so there is a flurry of activity to corroborate the finding.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 17, 2024

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.

The lost art of the death mask – In the late Middle Ages (after 50% of the population was wiped out in 4 years by plague), death masks were created by molding wax or plaster over the face, and were a useful way of copying the features of deceased relatives, so that sculptors could use them as a reference for the lifelike portraits displayed at funerals. Then in the 18th Century, something unexpected happened: people began to value death masks for their own sake. Many death masks were turned into spooky heirlooms, while some became souvenirs that command six-figure sums to this day.

Rapa Nui’s Rongorongo Tablets in Rome Radiocarbon Dated - In the nineteenth century, Roman Catholic missionaries took four wooden tablets bearing rongorongo glyphs from Easter Island. They have recently been radiocarbon dated; three of the tablets were made from trees cut down in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries; the fourth tablet came from a tree felled sometime between 1493 and 1509, some 200 years before the arrival of Europeans in the 1720s.

Tribe Making Play to End Oil Development at Big Cypress National Preserve - The National Park Service took charge of the land 50 years ago, which is a haven for some of Florida’s most endangered wildlife species, such as the Florida panther — but not the mineral rights under the land. Those are owned by the Collier Resources Company, which has from time to time dispatched oil companies to the preserve to look for black gold.

Bird Alert: The Search for Local Rarities – The joy of birding close to home!

Archaeologists discover oldest known bead in the Americas - At the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming. Made of bone from a hare. Almost 13,000 years old.

Stunning Macro Photos Pay Homage to the Frozen Beauty of Winter – A good reminder to check ice as a subject for winter photography!

Ancient pollen trapped in Greenland ice uncovers changes in Canadian forests over 800 years - The onset of the Little Ice Age around 1400 and the arrival of European settlers and subsequent intensive logging practices around 1650. The pollen in ice can be dated almost to the year it was deposited!

Back Pain Explained - Many people with degenerated discs feel no pain at all….but others have severe pain. It appears that when aging or under degenerative stress, a subset of cells in the center of the disc can release a cry for help, a particular signal that causes outside neurons to extend their axons within, allowing the brain to feel the pain inside. This work could inform future treatments for discogenic lower back pain!

PACE Makes it to Space – NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) was launched February 8…preparing to move into operational phase soon.

How our drinking water could come from thin air - The solar-powered hydropanels work by using sunlight to power fans that pull air into the device, which contains a desiccant material which absorbs and traps moisture. The water molecules accumulate and are emitted as water vapor as the solar energy raises the temperature of the panel to create a high-humidity gas. This then condenses into a liquid before minerals are added to make it drinkable. There are several startups with other approaches to produce water from air too. And they all work even with dry air.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 3, 2024

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.

5 Ways Power Sectors Worldwide Can Drive Down Emissions - The coal-to-clean transition is complex — how effective it ends up being hinges on ensuring ambitious climate action integrates priorities around energy security, affordability, reliability, and meeting growth in electricity demand.

The 'dark earth' revealing the Amazon's secrets - Amazonian dark earth(ADE), sometimes known as "black gold" or terra preta, is a layer of charcoal-black soil, which can be up to 3.8m (12.5ft) thick, and is found in patches across the Amazon basin. It is intensely fertile – rich in decaying organic matter and nutrients essential for growing crops, such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. But unlike the thin, sandy soils typical of the rainforest, this layer was not deposited naturally – it was the work of ancient humans. Now businesses are attempting to capitalize on this ancient method, in a quest to help farmers to improve their soil and combat climate change at the same time.

Rusting Rivers - Researchers suspect that thawing permafrost is the cause of dozens of Alaskan streams turning orange. Along with the strange appearance of the water, they have found it tends to be higher in iron, lower in dissolved oxygen, and more acidic than nearby rivers that run clear. The dramatic shift in water quality may be felt most acutely in the villages that rely upon rivers originating in permafrost regions for fish and drinking water.

World’s Largest Green Hydrogen Plant Will Take a Poke at Russian Gas - Mitsubishi is putting up $690 million to help build the world’s biggest green hydrogen plant, to be located in the Netherlands. It will help patch up some holes in the energy independence plan of Europe, where Russian gas has been clinging to a foothold despite sanctions.

Greece Reopens the Palace Where Alexander the Great Was Crowned - The 2,300-year-old Palace of Aigai—the largest building in classical Greece—had been under renovation for 16 years. At 160,000 square feet, the Palace of Aigai was classical Greece’s largest structure. Built primarily by Alexander’s father, Phillip II, in the fourth century B.C.E., it was the home of the Argead dynasty, ancient Macedonia’s ruling family. It was destroyed by the Romans in 148 B.C.E. and endured a subsequent series of lootings.

Predictions For Heat Pump Adoption Trends In 2024 - With $8,000 rebates for space heating heat pumps, and $1750 for water heating heat pumps, the IRA is helping accelerate adoption of this technology.

Miners Discover Seven-Foot Mammoth Tusk in North Dakota - Coal miners in North Dakota have uncovered a seven-foot-long, 50-pound mammoth tusk that’s been buried for thousands of years. Paleontologists have found more than 20 additional mammoth bones so far, including parts of hips, ribs, a tooth. and a shoulder blade.

The new drugs that may bring an end to constant itching - One in five of us will experience chronic itch lasting weeks or months. Fortunately, there might be treatments that address the problem.

Global groundwater depletion is accelerating but is not inevitable - This study shows that humans can turn things around with deliberate, concentrated efforts. Fine resolution, global studies will enable scientists and officials to understand the dynamics of this hidden resource.

Syphilis microbe’s family has plagued humans for millennia - Remains of people who lived on the eastern coast of South America nearly 2,000 years ago have yielded the oldest known evidence for the family of microorganisms that cause syphilis.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 6, 2024

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.

How Britain's taste for tea may have been a life saver - The explosion of tea as an everyman's drink in late 1700s England saved many lives - the simple practice of boiling water for tea, in an era before people understood that illness could be caused by water-borne pathogens, may have been enough to keep many from an early grave. Sometimes people's existing behaviors can make more of a difference to their health than an explicit intervention might.

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France - The carbon-based drawings were detected with visible light and infrared photography, X-ray fluorescence, and spectroscopy underneath previously known images. The discovery could allow for precise radiocarbon dating of the artwork. Most of the Paleolithic paintings in the more than 200 caves in the region were made with iron and manganese oxides, which cannot be directly dated with radiocarbon dating technologies.

Winners of the 2023 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Wonderful views. I wish more of them were annotated (where they were taken…comments from the photographer, etc.). One of my favorites was the Winner for Snow and Ice by Thomas Vijayan of Canada.

Which zoo animals are most active in winter and what times are best to see them? – Author commenting about zoos in the UK…but most of the comments are relevant to zoos in the US too. I particularly enjoyed the last recommendation – going to the Reptile House to warm up! My daughter gave us a membership to the local zoo for Christmas…and we’ll probably bundle up and go soon (but not while the weather is in the 20s)!

Photos of the Week – December 24, 2023 from the Prairie Ecologist – Great reminders that there are interesting subjects for nature photography in winter.

103-Year-Old Artificial Christmas Tree Sells for Over $4,000 – A sliver of history: The tree originally belonged to Dorothy Grant, whose family purchased it for their Leicestershire, England, home in 1920. When she first saw it, the 8-year-old girl was “wildly excited.” She decorated its branches with cotton wool that resembled snow, as baubles were an “extravagance” at the time. Grant cherished the tree for the rest of her life. When she died at the age of 101 in 2014, her 84-year-old daughter, Shirley Hall, inherited it. She decided to part with it to honor her mother’s memory and to ensure it survives as a humble reminder of 1920s life—a boom-to-bust decade.

Photography In the National Parks: 2023 In Review – Rebecca Lawson’s favorite shots from 2023 from Yellowstone, Glacier, Mount Rainer, Lake Chelan, Yosemite, Death Valley, and Banff National Parks.

Honeycrisp, Cosmic Crisp usher in banner year for U.S. apples - Growers report that apple production in the United States hit levels in 2023 that had not been seen since the 2014-15 season. Washington State was the largest grower, producing some 90% of the nation's crop. Of all the varieties, Honeycrisp, Gala, Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Fuji make up 76% of the total apple holdings. The big winner this year was the Cosmic Crisp apple, which experienced a 41% year-over-year growth, with 9.5 million bushels harvested.

Millions of mysterious pits in the ocean decoded - Most of the depressions in the seafloor in the German Bight are created by porpoises and other animals in search of food, and then scoured out by bottom currents. The researchers showed that the marine mammals leave pits in the seafloor when they hunt for buried sand eels.

2023 was a year of big anniversaries – 20 years ago the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas…the Concorde made its final flight, 30 years ago the World Wide Web launched into the public domain, 50 years ago hip-hop began, 60 years ago March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (“I have a dream” speech)…JFK assassinated, 75 years ago Israel declared independence, 80 years ago Casablanca opened, 150 years ago blue jeans patented.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 30, 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.

Fevered Planet: How a shifting climate is catalyzing infectious disease – The geography of disease is also changing as novel pathogens affecting plants, animals and humans increase their range. New beetles are heading north and devastating Siberian forests, Alaskan mammals are struggling as new ticks arrive and human habitations in northern Norway are infested by new insects.

‘Green Roads’ Are Plowing Ahead, Buffering Drought and Floods - Designing roads to capture water through strategic channels, culverts, and ponds and divert it for agricultural use. Nearly 20 countries have either implemented Green Roads for Water or plan to begin soon, and thousands of kilometers of roads, worldwide, have already received Green Roads interventions.

Photos of the year (2023) from the Prairie Ecologist (part 1 and part 2) – Lots of great nature photos.

How Fire-Prone Communities Can Reduce Their Risk - Playbook for the Pyrocene, which offers 20 community planning and design strategies that can be applied by landscape architects, planners, homeowners, and developers. “The questions we are trying to answer here are not so much where to build, but rather how to build better within the context of wildfire broadly.”

Giant Goldfish Are Bad News for the Great Lakes - In the Great Lakes, abandoned goldfish and their kin are known to root up plants, contribute to harmful algal blooms and consume native vegetation.

Nine breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2023 you may have missed – Yes – I missed some of these!

Parts of China’s Great Wall Are Protected by a ‘Living Cover’ of Biocrusts – Lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria!

Fresh water from thin air - Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH). The need for more affordable options has spurred interest in ‘passive’ AWH systems that use moisture-hungry sorbent compounds to collect water. The small amounts of power that such systems require could, ideally, be supplied by the Sun. Typically, these sorbents are exposed to the air overnight, when temperatures are cooler and moisture is more abundant. They collect the airborne moisture as liquid in a process known as adsorption. When day breaks, the sorbents are transferred to a device that uses solar energy to drive the release of water. This water is then condensed and collected. And there are abundant opportunities beyond simply producing drinking water. For example, a harvesting system that piggybacks on existing photovoltaic solar panels, using the waste heat and energy from these panels to power water production9; the resulting water helps to cool the panels and therefore improves their efficiency

Archaeologists Discover Brutal ‘Bakery-Prison’ at Pompeii - The cramped space provided minimal light, as windows to the outside were small, high and barred.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 2, 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.

Scientists found hundreds of toxic chemicals in recycled plastics - More than 13,000 chemicals used in plastics with 25% classified as hazardous. Numerous studies show that hazardous chemicals can accumulate even in relatively close-loop plastic recycling systems. We need to rapidly phase-out plastic chemicals that can cause harm to human health and the environment.

Giant Sequoias Are in Big Trouble. How Best to Save Them? - Giant sequoias are, by volume, the largest trees in the world, indigenous only to California. Reaching heights of 300 feet, they occur in 80 groves or grove complexes along the western flank of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Central California. Many of these trees live for thousands of years: The oldest sequoia is more than 3,200 years old. In North America, only bristlecone pines grow longer. The 2020 and 2021 fire seasons were a wake-up call: flames had killed between 13 and 19 percent of all giant sequoias more than 4 feet in diameter, and many trees were far larger.

Batteries of the future? How cotton and seawater might power our devices - In markets where consumers appear to really care about the sustainability of the products they buy, appropriately sourced alternative battery materials might have more of a chance – whether batteries are made with biowaste-derived carbon or any other potentially more sustainable substance. The public could play a big role in really pushing that effort forward.

Designing cities for 21st-century weather – A data-driven model to predict how urban areas across the country will grow by 2100 found that how a city is laid out or organized spatially has the potential to reduce population exposures to future weather extremes. Carefully designed urban land patterns cannot completely erase increased population exposures to weather extremes resulting from climate change, but it can generate a meaningful reduction of the increase in risks.

Stunning 2,700-Year-Old Sculpture Unearthed in Iraq – 18 tons of alabaster. 2,700 years old. 12.5x12.8 feet. Largely intact except for its head which is missing.

Larger Beaks, Smaller Bodies: Could Climate Change Literally Change Birds? – A study analyzed 129 species of North American migratory birds collected over the prior 40 years and found bodies are shrinking and wings growing longer. Smaller species of birds, like tiny warblers or kinglets, shrink faster than bigger birds like robins and grackles, so their rate of change over the 40 years, is much, much faster. They’re able to maybe adapt to warming temperatures faster than these bigger birds.

A step closer to injection-free diabetes care: Innovation in insulin-producing cell – Potential this safer and more reliable way to grow insulin-producing cells from a patient's own blood could eventually allow transplants without the need for anti-rejection drugs.  

The Life and Death of American Dams - Many dams are now poorly maintained, clogged with silt, and pose an increasingly high risk of catastrophic failure. The recent recognition of the damage dams cause and the movement to remove them is part of the rewilding of America, long overdue.

An exotic tick that can kill cattle is spreading across Ohio – Asian longhorned ticks. The size of a sesame seed in some life stages and pea-sized when engorged. Surveillance showed they returned the following summer to the farm despite the application of pesticides in 2021. Asian longhorned ticks' secret colonization weapon is the ability to reproduce asexually, with each female laying up to 2,000 eggs at a time -- and all 2,000 of those female offspring able to do the same.

How Urban Design Impacts Public Health – Urban planning and design affects everything from air quality to temperature to risk of injury on roadways. Often with developers of public spaces it’s a sin of omission rather than of commission. In many cases, what is rarely apparent is what the health cost is, because that cost is born in a different sector and often at a different time.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 25, 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.

20 Incredible Winners From the 2023 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest – Lots of natural beauty…captured in photographs.

A known environmental hazard can change the epigenetics of cells – Formaldehyde. It is a widespread pollutant - formaldehyde enters our body mainly during our breathing and, because it dissolves well in an aqueous medium, it ends up reaching all the cells of our body. It is associated with an increased risk of developing cancer (nasopharyngeal tumors and leukemia), hepatic degeneration due to fatty liver (steatosis) and asthma.

How forest schools boost children's immune systems – It seems the benefits go well beyond immune systems.  Hopefully this type of school for 3 to 5 year old will increase in availability/popularity.

Circular Maya Structure Uncovered in Southern Mexico - Similar round structures have been found at the Maya sites of Edzná, Becán, Uxmal, and Chichen Itzá.

Health Care Workers Are Burning Out, CDC Says - The CDC researchers analyzed self-reported symptoms of more than 1,400 adults in 2018 and 2022 who were working in three areas: health care, other essential services and all other professions. Workers’ self-reported poor mental health days in the past 30 days was similar across all three groups in 2022, but health professionals saw the most significant jump, from 3.3 in 2018 to 4.5 in 2022. Reports of harassment at work also spiked among health care workers over the five-year period, going from 6.4 percent to 13.4 percent.

How To Bring Back the Prairie, a Tiny Bit at a Time – The use of “prairie strips” on farms in an effort to restore a portion of the Minnesota’s remnant prairie and to soak up polluted water.

These Ten Stunning Images Prove That Small Is Beautiful – From Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Contest. My favorite was the cuckoo wasp.

Deforestation in Colombia Down 70 Percent So Far This Year - Since taking power last year, leftist President Gustavo Petro has enacted a slate of new policies aimed at protecting Colombian forests, including paying locals to conserve woodland. The recent gains in Colombia mirror similar advances in the Brazilian Amazon, where leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cracked down on forest clearing; deforestation is down 50 percent through the first nine months of this year. In 2021, more than 100 countries, from Brazil to Russia to Indonesia, set a goal to end deforestation by the end of this decade, but so far forest loss has declined too slowly to stay on pace for this target.

European wildcats avoided introduced domestic cats for 2,000 years – About 50 years ago in Scotland, however, that all changed. Perhaps as a result of dwindling wildcat populations and a lack of opportunity to mate with other wildcats, rates of interbreeding between wild and domestic cats rose rapidly.

Why grazing bison could be good for the planet - The shortgrass prairie makes up 27,413 sqare miles of remote land straddling the US/Canadian border to the east of the Rocky Mountains. This rare habitat is in ecological decline. Plains bison co-evolved with the short-grass prairie. In the 12,000 years since the end of the Pleistocene, they have proven themselves to be potent ecosystem engineers. An adult bison eats about 25lb (11kg) of grass a day. The grasses adapted to their foraging. Vegetation across the plains uses the nutrients in their dung. Birds pluck their fur from bushes to insulate their nests. Bison also shape the land literally. They roll in the dust and create indentations known as "wallows" that hold water after rainstorms. After the bison move on, insects flourish in these pools and become a feast for birds and small mammals. Pronghorn antelope survive by following their tracks through deep winter snows. Replacing cattle with bison greens floodplains…setting the stage for beavers.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 11, 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.

In search of the Old Ones: Where to find the world's longest-lived trees – 25-30 woody plants can, without human assistance, produce specimens that reach the age of 1,000 years or older. Of those, only about 10 can reach 2,000 years and those are all conifers. 3 can produce trimillenials and 1 can produce quadrilmillenials. The longest-lived trees of eastern North America, bald cypress, grow in swamps and blackwater rivers. The eldest occur in backwater sections of North Carolina's Black River, just miles from industrial hog farms and fields cleared long ago for tobacco….these bald cypresses reach ages of 2,600+ years. Conifers achieve maximum longevity when conditions are cold and dry, or hot and dry, or steep and exposed, or high altitude, or nutrient poor. In the case of Great Basin bristlecone pine, the longest-living plant on the planet, it is all of the above, with some of these plants reaching up to 4,900 years old.

Conservation of Monumental Mexica Snake Sculpture Continues - Discovered last year in the heart of Mexico City at the site of the Templo Mayor, the main temple in the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan. The 500-year-old sculpture, which measures about six feet long and three feet tall, was painted with yellow, blue, red, black, and white colors made from minerals and plants employed by the Mexica on cult images and temples.

Fungal infection in the brain produces changes like those seen in Alzheimer's disease - When the fungus Candida albicans enters the brain, the body’s response generates amyloid beta (Ab)-like peptides, toxic protein fragments from the amyloid precursor protein that is considered to be at the center of the development of Alzheimer's disease.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners show the beauty — and precarity — of nature – My favorite is the Plants and Fungus winner (Last Breathe of Autumn) taken on Mount Olympus.

Scientists says identifying some foods as addictive could shift attitudes, stimulate research - Most foods that we think of as natural, or minimally processed, provide energy in the form of carbohydrate or fat -- but not both. Many ultra-processed foods have higher levels of both. That combination has a different effect on the brain. In a review of 281 studies from 36 different countries, researchers found ultra-processed food addiction is estimated to occur in 14 percent of adults and 12 percent of children. Viewing some foods as addictive could lead to novel approaches in the realm of social justice, clinical care, and public policy.

Flood Resilience Through Green Infrastructure - Green spaces don’t just mitigate flooding. They beautify the urban landscape and improve residents’ mental health. They filter out microplastics and other pollutants, keeping them from reaching sensitive water bodies like rivers. And when the weather is hot, they cool neighborhoods, because plants ‘sweat.’

15th-Century Theater Floorboards Uncovered in Norfolk - A combination of tree-ring dating and study of the building's construction dated the floorboards to between 1417 and 1430. This suggests that William Shakespeare may have performed on the boards!

Second report on the status of global water resources published - Large parts of the world experienced drier conditions in 2022 than those recorded on average for the equivalent periods over the last 30 years. The report results from the expertise provided by 11 international modeling groups to extrapolate from the data/statistics available. There is a particular lack of data on the situation regarding groundwater.  

More Mammals Can Glow in the Dark Than Previously Thought - By examining museum specimens, researchers documented the glowing property across 125 mammal species. Humans, for example, have fluorescent teeth, like all mammals do. In 1911, researchers reported fluorescence in European rabbits, marking the first documented case of the glowing ability in a non-human mammal.

21 species have been declared extinct, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says – 10 birds, a bat, 2 fish and 8 freshwater mussels. There are now 650 species that have gone extinct in the U.S., according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which says factors such as climate change, pollution and invasive species contribute to species loss.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 4, 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.

Oldest fossil human footprints in North America confirmed – New research that supports the dating of the footprints found in White Sands National Park to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.

Downtown Dallas Gets a New Park – Harwood Park. It reminded me of a field trip with my parents – taking the light rail train from Carrollton to downtown Dallas to visit Klyde Warren Park and have lunch in 2014. I’m glad there is another park added to the downtown area.

BLM Releases New Plan for Moab Area - The plan limits motorized recreation to protect natural and cultural resources. I hope the BLM can succeed in reducing the impact of off road vehicles….requiring ORV users/organizations to take precautions to protect the environment for themselves and everyone else to enjoy in this area.

Active children are more resilient – Interesting….I’ve assumed this but the way the researches went about confirming the idea was worth knowing and reassuring.

A Road Trip Along the Northern Shore of Lake Superior – The Trans-Canada Highway from Thunder Bay to Marathon in June. Maybe a place we’ll go one summer?

What your hands say about your health – I wish the article had better pictures!

Trouble in the Amazon - In the southeastern Amazon, the forest has become a source of CO2….and maybe more will cease to be a carbon sink as well. Large-scale deforestation… plus even intact forest is no longer as healthy as it once was, because of forces such as climate change and the impacts of agriculture that spill beyond farm borders. Data has been collected every two weeks for 10 years! The selective logging permitted by the Forest Code in Brazil is often not sustainable. That’s because the trees that are removed are generally slow-growing species with dense wood, whereas the species that grow back have less-dense wood, so they absorb less carbon in the same space.

A Summer Light Show Dims: Why Are Fireflies Disappearing? – Habitat destruction (clear cutting, fragmentation of forests), water pollution (in Asia many firefly larvae are aquatic), pesticides and yard chemicals, light pollution (it blinds males so that they can’t find females). On a positive note: firefly ecotourism is increasing in Mexico and Malaysia….and around Great Smokey Mountains National Park in the US.

Large herbivores keep invasive plants at bay - Native plants have evolved such that they can withstand brutal treatment from species of herbivores they have co-existed with for millennia, while invasive plants usually cannot.

The Amazon May Be Hiding More Than 10,000 Pre-Columbian Structures - Based on a new aerial survey and modeling study, archaeologists suggest at least 90 percent of sites known as earthworks remain undetected. Also found - high concentrations of 53 domesticated tree species near earthwork sites. These include cacao, Brazil nut, breadnut and Pará rubber trees, plus dozens of others. This demonstrates how the region’s inhabitants altered the natural landscape, likely so they would have a steady supply of food and useful materials.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 28, 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.

Water Worker Stumbles Upon 2,500-Year-Old Gold Necklaces in Spain – Celtic gold….from before the Roman Empire ruled the Iberian Peninsula.

Canopy gaps help eastern hemlock outlast invasive insect – Hemlock wooly adelgid killed most of the hemlocks in the part of Maryland where I lived previously. Perhaps part of the reason so many died was that they were in forests where there were too few gaps in the canopy around them.

Germany to Surpass 50 Percent Renewable Power This Year – Good milestone but evidently Germany is still not on pace to reach its goal of 80 percent renewable power by 2030.

The surprising origin of a deadly hospital infection - The burden of C. diff infection may be less a matter of hospital transmission and more a result of characteristics associated with the patients themselves (i.e. patients that are already colonized with C. diff were at greater risk to transition to infection). However, it is still unknown what triggers the transition from C. diff hanging out in the gut to the organism causing diarrhea and the other complications resulting from infection.

Meet the Bison: North America’s Most Famous Mammal – Lots of info on bison…their history of almost being hunted to extinction.

The secret world of rhododendrons: a plant more ancient than the Himalayas that inspired fables and stories around the world - There are around 1000 species in total, and modern DNA-based work confirms that all “azaleas” are in fact species of rhododendron.

A Sign of Things to Come? After Last Ice Age, Europe Cooled as the Planet Warmed - More than 8,000 years ago, as the planet thawed following the end of the last ice age, Northern Europe abruptly cooled. New research reveals that Arctic ice melt weakened a critical ocean current, leaving Europe in the cold, a finding with important implications for future climate change.

Fiber from crustaceans, insects, mushrooms promotes digestion – Chitin (from insect exoskeletons and mushrooms) activates the immune system and benefits metabolism. Insects are not on my menu….but I could eat mushrooms more frequently. The researchers plan to follow up to determine whether chitin could be added to human diets to help control obesity.

Review of over 70 years of menopause science highlights research gaps and calls for individualized treatment - Less than 15% of women receive effective treatment for their symptoms. Socio-economic factors such as lower quality of life and the potential negative impact of menopausal symptoms on a woman's work performance aren't often acknowledged. Therapy should be individualized depending on age and health risks, recognizing that health risks may increase with age.

California and Florida grew quickly on the promise of perfect climates in the 1900s – today, they lead the country in climate change risks - In California, home owners now face dangerous heat waves, extended droughts that threaten the water supply, and uncontrollable wildfires. In Florida, sea level rise is worsening the risks of high-tide flooding and storm surge from hurricanes, in addition to turning up the thermostat on already humid heat. Global warming has put both Florida and California at the top of the list of states most at risk from climate change. These futures bring into question how historic visions of economic growth and the sun-kissed good life that California and Florida have promised can be reconciled with climates that are no longer always genial or sustainable.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 21, 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.

Intact Roman-Era Sarcophagus Discovered in France – From the 2nd century AD, sealed with iron clasps, weighs about 1,700 pounds. It hasn’t been opened yet, but x-rays and an endoscope camera have revealed the contents.

Selective removal of aging cells opens new possibilities for treating age-related diseases - Aging cells, known as senescent cells, contribute to various inflammatory conditions and age-related ailments as humans age. The researchers created technology that specifically targets organelles within aging cells to initiate the cell’s self-destruction. There is still a lot of work to be done (and preclinical and clinical trials).

Cloud Rings Around a Volcano Takes Top Prize in ‘Weather Photographer of the Year’ Contest – Capturing dramatic weather moments…

Brainless Jellyfish Are Capable of Learning - Experiments that provide evidence that box jellyfish are capable of associative learning, or the process of linking two unrelated stimuli together.

How maps can protect children from extreme heat - Heat is becoming increasingly dangerous and it's a threat that is not going away. Community heat maps may not solve the long-term problem, but they are a step in the right direction, by providing awareness and empowering vulnerable children and their families.

Stunning 16th-Century Turkish Bath Reopens in Istanbul - Called the Çinili Hamam, the revitalized site won’t offer traditional bathing until 2024. In the meantime, however, it will feature private gardens and contemporary art in the newly discovered Byzantine cisterns that originally fed the baths. Nearby, a new accompanying museum will display objects associated with traditional bathing rituals—including towels, bowls and ornately decorated wooden shoes—and explain the baths’ original water and heating systems. It will also showcase artifacts from the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman periods uncovered during the restoration.

The Resiliency of Urban Wildlife - Four distinct sets of traits that help urban wildlife adapt and survive in environments that seem hostile to animals: diet, body size, mobility, and reproductive strategy. Important to know since if you look at the traits animals are adopting to survive in urban environments, you can see how cities could be modified to become more habitable to a wider variety of species.

See the Trove of Ancient Treasures, including a Shrine to Aphrodite, Just Discovered in an Underwater City Off the Coast of Egypt - Thonis-Heracleion was Egypt’s biggest port for centuries, before being surpassed by Alexandria. The city was eventually lost thanks to a combination of rising sea levels, earthquakes, and tsunamis, disappearing beneath the waves along with a large section of the Nile delta. It was largely forgotten for centuries, until 21st-century archaeologists began investigating.

New Patch Inspired by Octopus Suckers Could Deliver Drugs Without Needles - A tiny, drug-filled cup that sticks to the inside of the cheek like an octopus sucker. The device is easily accessible, can be removed at any time and prevents saliva from dissolving the drug, which gets absorbed through the lining of the inner cheek.

Buried ancient Roman glass formed substance with modern applications - Photonic crystals were created by corrosion and crystallization over centuries. If we could significantly accelerate the process in the laboratory, we might find a way to grow optical materials (i.e. materials for communications, lasers, solar cells) rather than manufacture them.

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 September 30, 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.

Water-quality risks linked more to social factors than money - Low population density, high housing vacancy, disability, and race -- can have a stronger influence than median household income on whether a community's municipal water supply is more likely to have health-based water-quality violations. Many of the water-quality challenges are downstream of demographics, with many community water systems lacking the financial, managerial, and technical abilities to address the water-quality issues.

Step Inside Artist Dale Chihuly’s Stunning Seattle Studio, Filled with an Epic Antiques Collection and His Otherworldly Glass Forms – Interesting pictures.

Archaeological Tropes That Perpetuate Colonialism - We need to start with presence rather than absence. How did Indigenous communities survive, persist, and come to live at the places where they are today? How do Indigenous people conceptualize and engage with the places of their Ancestors? What stories do they share with their grandchildren?

The US is spending billions to reduce forest fire risks – we mapped the hot spots where treatment offers the biggest payoff for people and climate – Where forest-thinning and controlled burns could have the most impact in the western US….for reducing wild-fire caused carbon loss, protecting human communities, and both.

The gold jewelry made from old phones - "We're trying to encourage the idea that one person's waste is someone else's raw material." An article about what is happening at the UK Royal Mint re circuit boards from electronic waste.

Iron Age Child’s Shoe Found in Austria – Found in a salt mine in north-west Austria…a 2,000 year old shoe that once belonged to a child that lived or worked underground.

New Satellite Tracking Air Pollution Releases Its First Images – The TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) instrument makes hourly measurements of pollutants over North America. NASA will share observations with agencies that provide weather forecasts in hopes of reducing exposure to pollutants such as ozone.

Fine Particulates Are Slowly Killing Us All - People who live in Delhi, the most polluted big city on the planet, are living 11.9 fewer years because of air pollution. People in Bangladesh, the world’s most polluted country, stand to lose 6.8 years of life compared to 3.6 months in the United States. Acknowledging the benefits to society from burning fossil fuels in the past is no reason to continue embracing them in the future. We have created a system that kills people. We have access to clean energy technologies that do not make negative health outcomes one of their embedded features.

New cause of Alzheimer's, vascular dementia - A form of cell death known as ferroptosis -- caused by a buildup of iron in cells -- destroys microglia cells, a type of cell involved in the brain's immune response, in cases of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.

 Windows to the Past at Great Smoky Mountains National Park – History told through structures left behind (and maintained). Forever Places. A former resident said, ““…it was more like livin’ in the Garden of Eden than anything else I can think of.”

Teotihuacan in 1906

Leopoldo Batres, a pioneer of the archaeology of Mexico, published a picture book of the Teotihuacan site as it was in 1906…during early excavations. His reconstruction of the Pyramid of the Sun was evidently flawed but the book is still worth browsing to understand why the place was never ‘lost’ once it was created; the structures are large and dominate the scene even before excavation.

Teotihuacan : memoria que presenta Leopoldo Batres ... año de 1906

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Looking at the book reminded me of a trip to Mexico City with my parents in 1966; one of the places we visited was Teotihuacan and I remember it vividly; it was interesting to think about all the changes that had happened at the site in the 60 years between when this book was published and when I visited. This book prompted me to search/read more about recent work at the site; a lot has been discovered there between 1966 and now!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 16, 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.

Kitchen chemistry hacks explained – How many of these did you know before this article? I knew about lemon juice slowing browning of fruit…I’m going to try the ‘brown onions more quickly’ and ‘chop onions more comfortably.’

Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Distributed Wind Power – Interesting update….and map of annual average wind speed at 30 m. There is so much potential in the center of the country. It would be interesting to see the map extended offshore…but maybe that kind of wind power is only used for wholesale generation rather than distributed wind power.

Dust: how the pursuit of power and profit has turned the world to powder – A review of the book about ‘tiny particles doing terrible things’ created by detonation of nuclear weapons, burning coal, and drying of lakes via irrigation. These tiny particles influence our environment, our health, and our relationship with the world around us. They move around the planet through the air…no one is ‘safe’ from them.

More small airports are being cut off from the air travel network. This is why - A shortage of pilots is partially to blame for major airlines' departure from smaller airports. But changing airline economics means the challenge facing regional airports could become insurmountable. Williamsport PA is the example used in the article.

Health evidence against gas and oil is piling up, as governments turn a blind eye – An Australian perspective…but seems to be applicable to many developed countries, including the US. The methane leaks, water contamination, air pollution…why do we continue to push for gas and oil development rather that pivoting to cleaner (and renewable) sources?

Wyoming and Utah Borderlands – A picture from the International Space Station. I remembered a trip to Utah in 2008 where we drove in the area with a Roadside Geology of Utah book explaining the surface geologic features!

New research explains 'Atlantification' of the Arctic Ocean – Changes coming in the Arctic as a 15-year cycle is ending….and the next phase could result in a faster pace of sea-ice loss.

Stone Case Holding Precious Items Found at Templo Mayor – 15 stone figures found at the temple complex of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. The figures may have already been 1,000 years old when the Aztecs conquered the Mezcala people that carved them. Also in the case: two rattlesnake-shaped earrings, more than 180 green stone beads, snails, shells, and marine corals.

Workers like it when their employers talk about diversity and inclusion - Research has shown that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives improve creativity, innovation, productivity and organizational performance. One of the reasons DEI initiatives have a positive impact is because workers appreciate them. It’s about making sure everyone feels valued and included.

What Does It Take to Photograph a Bat Cave? – Photographer Stephen Alvarez….lots of specialized photographs.