Robert Louis Stephenson’s classic – A Child’s Garden of Verses – has been illustration many times. I recently browsed 6 that were published between 1895 and 1919 that are easily available on Project Gutenberg. Enjoy art associated with familiar poems! The links below show the artist and date and publication.
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.
07/01/2026 Clean Technica Southeast Missouri Smelter Announces Intent to Restart This Year - Not mentioned in the release today is how the smelter will be powered, and whether the smelter will be in compliance with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources plan to reduce sulfur dioxide pollution to levels that are safe to breathe. New Madrid County recorded the worst air quality in the United States before idling.
07/01/2026 Yale Environment 360 A Home Battery Revolution Is Reshaping the Power Grid - As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the grid.
07/01/2026 Planetizen Replacing lead pipes in Chicago costs more than 6 times the national average - Chicago has the nation's largest inventory of lead water pipes. Officials say replacing each one costs about $31,000 on average — more than six times the Environmental Protection Agency’s national estimate of $4,700 a line. The most significant factors driving up costs include inefficient early contracts, cumbersome permitting requirements, and the city’s reliance on one-off replacements rather than undertaking whole blocks at once.
07/01/2026 NPR Lone star ticks are covering much of the U.S. Here's what you need to know - The lone star is spreading across vast regions of the U.S., and the illness it carries, the alpha-gal syndrome, is spreading in more than 30 countries on six continents, often spread by various other ticks. The alpha-gal syndrome is more difficult to diagnose and treat than lime disease, and the symptoms are more severe. In many cases, the victim develops an allergy to all red meat, including nearly microscopic particles of it. The allergy can become so extreme it can kill you.
06/28/2026 BBC What watching the sunset really does for your health - There's growing evidence that sunsets – and sunrises, for that matter – can have a meaningful impact on our brain and mental health: diminishing anxiety and depression while boosting memory, creativity, sleep and even altruism.
6/25/2026 The Conversation Most bees are solitary and don’t live in hives. Climate change risks them starving - Currently, most of what we know about bee nutrition comes from highly social species such as honeybees or bumblebees. Yet most bees are solitary or communal (group living but with no queens and workers). They might experience the nutritional landscape and nutritional stress in very different ways.
06/22/2026 NASA A Turquoise Tint for the Black Sea - The Black Sea sits at the boundary between Europe and Asia and connects to the Mediterranean Sea via a chain of waterways. Its surface often appears dark, but each spring and summer it transforms into a striking expanse of swirling turquoise. The turquoise color is likely caused by coccolithophores, a type of phytoplankton covered with calcium carbonate plates that can give surface waters a milky-blue appearance. These types of phytoplankton tend to dominate in late spring and early summer. Other times of the year, diatoms—a type of microscopic algae with silica shells—can become more prevalent, and they tend to darken the water rather than brighten it.
6/24/2026 NWF Blog 7 Moths that Make Butterflies Look Boring – The only one I haven’t seen is the Texas Wasp Moth!
06/30/2026 Artnet These 10 U.S. Landmarks Are At-Risk - As America gears up to mark the 250th year of its independence, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) is throwing a spotlight on 10 historic places that it says are most urgently in need of preservation.
6/27/2026 Science Daily Yellowstone’s supervolcano may be fueled by something unexpected - Instead of a deep plume rising from near Earth’s core, a broad “mantle wind” may push hot rock beneath Yellowstone, generating magma closer to the surface. This process helps create a massive underground magma network and may explain how supervolcanoes remain active for long periods.
The week’s eBook was published in 1922…and has great illustrations of birds in flight created by Roland Green. The books is available on Internet Archive. Enjoy browsing!
Birds in flight by William Payne Pycraft and illustrated by Roland Green
During my career – there were development plans that addressed ‘what do I want to be doing 5 years from now…and what can I do to prepare myself?” I am trying to apply the idea to my post-career life – which does not have salary as a motivating factor. My overarching goal is to become wiser every year…to care for my family…to contribute to the well-being of my community….to blend the things I do rather than trying to separate them.
In 5 years, I want to be much as I am now…but better prepared for whatever health/infirmity develops as I get older and take more action to leave the world a better place.
Here is my high level “what I can do to prepare myself:”
Continue doing what I am doing now with some changes
Consciously increase activities that sustain or improve my physical resilience (i.e. targeted exercise primarily)
Decrease my carbon footprint. Here are some things I have in mind:
Replace my plug-in hybrid car with an electric. This will probably happen in 2027.
Put solar panels with battery on my home. This will probably happen in the next 2 years.
Eat more from my own yard (I already eat seasonal greens from the yard….and am looking forward to elderberries and pawpaws in the coming years).
Gradually replace my wardrobe with clothes made from natural fibers.
Reduce the turf in my yard to 30% or less.
Allow an oak to grow in both the back and front yard (they as seedlings now).
(Maybe) Begin to skew from outreach/education type volunteering toward advocacy. This could mean that I would decide not to continue as a Missouri Master Naturalist.
Now that I have written this down, I realize that my trend is good….that the plan is simply tweaks that will take some disciple/energy to implement.
I’ve been volunteering for the weekly maintenance sessions at the Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden this year. It’s been a learning experience. Recently the ‘taskmaster’ sent some pictures from 3 years ago – around the time I first visited the place.
The next time I volunteered, I took some similar pictures to document the way it looks in 2026. The plants are much more established now.
Of course I couldn’t resist taking some closer photos – cone flowers, button bush, cup plant, and some mushrooms that reminded me of roasted marshmallows.
Project Gutenberg has the two Rootabaga books published by Carl Sandburg in the 1920s. Both books were illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham. I remember hearing about these books when I visited Carl Sandburg’s last home in North Carolina with my daughter in 2003…but didn’t encounter them again until this year. Enjoy the text and the illustrations!
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.
06/06/2026 New York Times Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too. - The birds will choose artificial (plastic) accouterments over natural ones when given the choice.
06/05/2026 CNN Health Ultraprocessed food scientists say Americans are ‘fed up’ with industry and government inaction - Up to 70% of Americans want companies banned from advertising ultraprocessed foods on children’s television, while up to 87% want government safety testing for all laboratory-made chemicals long before they can be used in any food product, according to the survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. According to the US Centers for Disease and Prevention, 53% of American adults get most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. For children ages 1 to 18, the percentage rises to 62%.
06/04/2026 The Conversation Poison or poverty: the impossible economic choices facing Ghana’s e‑waste workers - Agbogbloshie, in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, is a sprawling, open-air scrapyard located next to a lagoon and a growing informal settlement. Roughly 6,000 people dismantle, recycle and burn old and broken electronics there. Informal recycling provides an income for workers which is often relatively better than other available work. But the side effects of burning plastic and metal or using acid to extract minerals from the e-waste are devastating to human health and the natural environment.
06/05/2026 The Conversation A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems - A large amount of plastic waste gets shipped overseas. A new study analyzed what happens when plastic waste is shipped to lower- and middle-income countries, where open burning is a common way of dealing with excess waste. The study found pronounced increases in toxic air pollution. When plastic burns, it releases particularly toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can penetrate deep into people’s bodies, along with gases that include carbon monoxide, styrene gas and hydrogen cyanide. It also releases persistent organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins. These particles and gases have been linked to health risks ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular disease to cancer and reproductive and neurological disorders. Since 2021, seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws focused on packaging: Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland. However, it will take time to see the effects.
06/02/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Tire Pollution May Threaten Human Health, Study Finds - Tiny particles of rubber cast off by car tires, which have long been known to harm wildlife, may also pose a risk to humans.
05/06/2026 Toxic-Free Future Endocrine-Disrupting Plastic Chemicals in Breast Milk - Testing found bisphenols, melamine and related chemicals, and triclosan in breast milk samples, pointing to widespread exposure from everyday products and materials, including plastics, food-contact materials, receipts, antimicrobial treatments, and many other products. To understand the potential health risks from tire pollution, researchers exposed human immune cells to a mixture of tire-derived pollutants as well as 6PPD-quinone (one of the known pollutants from tire rubber) on its own. The mixture caused rapid cell death, among other harms.
05/18/2026 NPR Thousands of U.S. countertop workers could have damaged lungs - Occupational health experts who have petitioned California to ban quartz say this material "is too toxic to fabricate and install safely, and education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by this product. A few weeks ago, in the first quartz and silicosis lawsuit to come to trial outside of California, a jury in Colorado awarded damages to an injured worker - finding that actions by several companies led to his illnesses.
05/19/2026 Planetizen Public works officials indicate alarming decline in condition of water and sewer systems - According to a survey in the National League of Cities’ 2026 Municipal Infrastructure Conditions Report, the confidence of public works and city officials in their water systems has dropped significantly, with just 39% of officials surveyed saying their own water and sewer infrastructure is 'satisfactory,' down from 82% in 2022.
06/03/2026 Artnet Crystal Bridges’s New Expansion Makes Room for More of Its Story - Crystal Bridges is now set to unveil its new 114,000-square-foot expansion on June 6–7, complemented by five acres of specially landscaped trails, gardens, a stream, and a 15,000-square-foot pond, all situated within the greater 134-acre forested park that the museum calls home. (Maybe time to make another visit the museum/Bentonville, AR).
05/28/2026 NASA A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes - For most of the past four decades, observations from the Landsat satellite record show that humans have dominated changes to the U.S. landscape. Recent research revealed a shift in that trend, suggesting that disasters might be catching up.
Earlier this year I enjoyed browsing Art Nouveau books (mostly illustrations) on Internet Archive. Today I am sharing 18 of them. I picked a sample image from each one to encourage you to follow the link and browse the whole volume. Enjoy!
Authentic Art Nouveau Stained Glass Designs
Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color
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.
06/1/2026 Science Daily Your kitchen sponge is releasing microplastics every time you wash dishes – Use sponges with lower plastic (or no plastic) content! Using less water for dishes has and even greater environmental impact.
05/30/2026 Clean Technica Illinois First Great Lakes State to Enact Plastic Pellet Pollution Law - Just days before the end of the 2026 legislative session, the Illinois state legislature passed HB4418, which defines pre-production plastic pellets as a pollutant and gives the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency the authority to establish policies to prevent them from being released into the environment. eople complain about government overreach and faceless bureaucrats, but the truth is that without legislation such as this and governmental organizations like the Illinois EPA to enforce it, the world would be a much more toxic and dangerous place. It is long past time to stop giving polluters a free pass so they can maximize their profits.
05/11/2026 RNZ Is it really possible to live a plastic-free life? - Our lives are riddled with plastic, and growing evidence suggests it is affecting our health in myriad ways. (New Zealand)
04/27/2026 Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in breast milk and early life exposure for infants in the United States – Melamine, cyanuric acid, BPA, BPS, and triclosan were detected with high frequency in breast milk samples in the study, and our study suggests that breast milk is an important exposure pathway for these chemicals among nursing infants. Given the importance of breastfeeding for infant health, our study highlights the need to investigate potential health effects of these chronic exposures.
04/26/2026 Earth.com Plastics are entering food crops and stunting their growth - Farmers, waste managers, and regulators now face a harder truth: plastic in soil can slow crops, gather around roots, and enter plants. The next step is tracing whether weathered nanoplastics reach edible tissues at harvest and deciding which plastic inputs should be cut first.
04/02/2026 Medical Xpress Seven days without plastic contact slashes phthalates and bisphenols in body – A clinical trial investigating levels of plastic chemicals in the human body has found that a low-plastic diet could be a fast and effective way to reduce exposure. (Australia)
05/31/2026 The Conversation Trees and greenery can cool cities by as much as 18°C – but only if it’s the right type - Field measurements from Melbourne, Munich and Hong Kong were compared to test how different kinds of urban planting changed the heat people experience outdoors. Layered vegetation – where trees are combined with shrubs and ground cover – often cooled cities more effectively than trees alone. We also found local climate and street design strongly shaped whether greening worked well. Cities need planting strategies tailored to local conditions rather than universal greening formulas. In parks and open green spaces, layered vegetation can provide strong cooling while also supporting biodiversity. In dense streets, planners may need to balance shade with ventilation.
05/28/2026 My Modern Met Hand-Colored Photos From 19th-Century Japan Offer a Glimpse of Traditional Life - Photography arrived in Japan very early—a little less than a decade after it was invented in Europe. Throughout the 1850s, as Japan opened up to foreigners, the images from this time capture not only a nearly forgotten moment in history but also a rare transitional time in which traditional Japanese life was being affected by rapid modernization.
05/20/2026 BBC Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the darkest places on Earth. But now the light is intruding - The battle against encroaching artificial light in the Atacama is a microcosm of a global problem. As electric bulbs have proliferated, around 80% of Earth's population now lives under light-polluted skies. A recent study of star visibility found that, on average globally, the sky brightened due to light pollution by almost 10% a year between 2011-2022. If a person could see 250 stars at the start of the period, the researchers found, they would only spot 100 by the end.
5/28/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Giant, Destructive Hail Is Becoming More Common with Climate Change - A new study finds that these giant hailstones will become more common as the climate warms from human-caused carbon emissions. In models of predicted future warming, the researchers found that the frequency of hail larger than a marble will increase 47 percent by 2100 in a worst-case scenario. Even in a more optimistic model of future climate change, the potential for storms producing giant hail will rise 38 percent.
This week’s featured eBook is by Moses Harris and depicts English moths and butterflies – along with the plants on which they feed, their lifecycle changes, where to find their adult forms, and the common names in the mid-1700s. The author was an entomologist and engraver…and secretary to the Aurelian Society. The book was printed by the author!
The Aurelian: a natural history of English moths and butterflies
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.
05/18/2026 The Scientist How Extreme Heat May Be Raising the Risk of Gestational Diabetes - A growing body of research shows that climate change-driven extreme heat may be increasing the risk of GDM. Studies from around the world are also pointing to critical windows of vulnerability, suggesting that rising temperatures may be shaping maternal health in overlooked ways.
05/19/2026 BBC Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame - Large-scale afforestation after World War II was carried out by public works, funded by tax revenues, to prevent soil erosion. Aiming for rapid reforestation, the government chose to plant reams of only two different native, fast-growing evergreen species that could quickly reforest landscapes and provide wood for future use in construction: the Japanese cedar, sugi, and the Japanese cypress, hinoki.
05/26/2026 Planetizen Two years after California reintroduced beavers, they are transforming the landscape into a 'climate-resilient powerhouse' – Collaboration between California Native American tribes and California Department of Fish and Wildlife….a beaver created wetland complex created since 2023.
5/26/2026 Yale Environment 360 Warming Is Raising the Risk of Encounters with Venomous Snakes – When I went through Master Naturalist training in Maryland more than a decade ago – we were told that cottonmouth moccasins were not found in Maryland….that they were found as far north as Viriginia. I wondered at the time how long it would take for temperatures to warm enough for them to move northward. The post says that “Cottonmouth moccasins in the US are forecast to head as far north as New York” although it does not say how soon.
05/14/2026 The Scientist Bioelectric Contact Lenses Alleviate Depression in Mice - This wearable, drug-free approach holds promise for transforming how depression and other brain conditions are treated, including anxiety, drug addiction, and cognitive decline. The problem is, sugi and hinoki trees also produce large amounts of lightweight pollen which can easily drift into cities. It's this pollen, often released all at once from the monoculture plantations, that is responsible for most seasonal allergies in Japan.
05/26/2026 Science Daily Scientists say they’ve reversed brain aging with a simple nasal spray - The therapy relies on microscopic biological particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs). These tiny structures naturally transport genetic material between cells. In this case, they were loaded with microRNAs, molecules that help regulate important biological processes in the brain. Once inside the brain, the treatment targeted immune cells involved in chronic inflammation. Scientists also found that it restored activity in mitochondria, the tiny structures inside cells responsible for producing energy. Aging and inflammation can damage mitochondria, leaving brain cells less efficient and more vulnerable to decline. (More work required before the treatment can be testing in humans).
5/26/2026 BBC The hidden dead zones spreading across the Baltic Sea floor - Cod fishing has collapsed. It may take more than 400 years for the maritime environment to recover from factors such as overfishing, oxygen depletion and rising sea temperatures. Some believe it may not happen at all.Areas of the sea floor with little or no oxygen, known as "dead zones", appear to be creeping closer to Bornholm's beaches. This is due to human pollution from fertilizers and sewage creating huge algal blooms, which, when they die, sink to the sea floor and cover it. Their decomposition uses up the available oxygen, kills the living organisms that depend on it, and – as a result – creates dead zones.
5/25/2026 Our World in Data Five million children die every year — what do they die from? – Worldwide 44% die from infectious diseases and 42% die from birth disorders….but there is a huge difference between low and high income countries.
5/21/2026 My Modern Met Amazing Winners of This Scientific Microscopic Imaging Contest Capture the Unseen Beauty of Life – I always enjoy magnified photography of life…the world we cannot see without our technology that often is quite beautiful.
5/22/2026 Artnet A 4,500-Year-Old Building Near Stonehenge Has Been Brought Back to Life - More than 100 volunteers have built a 20-foot high structure using the tools and techniques of Neolithic England - ecreating stone tools, using a woodland management technique known as coppicing, and creating a cement-like mixture of chalk, water, and straw called chalk daub.
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in May – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive. 19 of the books are a continuation of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters; there are 4 volumes per year so this month includes 2008 to 2012; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in June.
My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,363 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.
Click on any sample image from May’s 20 books 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 May 2026 eBotanical Prints!
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.2 (2008) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.3 (2008) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.4 (2008) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.1 (2009) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.2 (2009) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.3 (2009) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.4 (2009) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.1 (2010) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.2 (2010) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.3 (2010) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.4 (2010) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010
COLLECTIO PLANTARUM QUAE IN DIVERSIS EUROPAE, ASIAE, AFRICAE, ET AMERICAE * Morandi, Giambattistia * sample image * 1737
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.1 (2011) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.2 (2011) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.3 (2011) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.4 (2011) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.1 (2012) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.2 (2012) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.3 (2012) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.4 (2012) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012
Ronald Carson’s Forever Plastics poem is worth a look…I keep coming back to read it again to help shift my perspective…to enable better communication about the looming ramifications of our current (and projected) plastics usage.
He says: “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”
The last stanza sums is up:
We are the heirloom you did not ask for,
the inheritance that cannot be refused,
the future fossil of your present,
already here.
See the whole poem here.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art hosted an exhibit of photography from the local camera club in April 1901…and the exhibition book is my pick for Book of the Week. The book is available on Internet Archive.
The year caught my attention since one of my grandfathers was born in 1901; he would have been 3 months old when this exhibition happened!
My favorite of the sample images is the icy fountain…with the US Capitol in the background.
Tenth annual exhibition of the Capital Camera Club: April 22d to 30th, 1901
In 2016, “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World” was an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The art book from the exhibition is available on Internet Archive. Browsing the pictures is a good way to get the gist of exhibition!
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.
5/1/2026 Science Daily A hidden brain “cleaning” effect triggered by movement - Every time you tighten your abdominal muscles—even slightly—your brain may gently sway inside your skull. This subtle motion, triggered by pressure changes in connected blood vessels, appears to help circulate cerebrospinal fluid around the brain, potentially flushing out harmful waste.
4/30/2026 NWF Blog Fighting Toxic “Forever Chemicals” on Our Farms - The Department of Defense has identified over 4,000 high-risk or already-contaminated agricultural sites across the U.S. The PFAS contamination often came from ‘biosludge’ from local wastewater treatment plants that was spread of field as cheap fertilizer before the PFAS danger was understood. But we know how to fix this: ban PFAS at the source, regulate what’s left, and clean up what’s left without leaving the people who have already suffered to pay.
4/30/2026 Clean Technica The Petroleum System Is Entering Its Volatile Decline Phase - he UAE’s decision to leave OPEC+ is not just another Gulf oil story. It is an early signal of what happens when a producer with low-cost barrels, spare capacity ambitions, and a long view of electrification decides that flexibility may be worth more than cartel discipline. Oil demand is beginning to bend under the weight of EVs, electric trucks, efficiency, remote work, substitution, and changing logistics. The petroleum system is more likely to become less stable as it declines, because the institutions, companies, states, supply chains, and fiscal bargains built around oil were built for growth. A declining oil market does not just reduce demand. It changes incentives.
4/29/2026 NPR Baby teeth hold clues to the harms of toxic metals for infants — and older kids – A study of the baby teeth shed by 500 children in Mexico City…. s the children reached adolescence, the researchers also took detailed behavior assessments for some of the kids and MRI scans of their brains. The researchers looked at exposures to nine metals common in the environment. It's not just how much of these metals babies are exposed to that matters, but when that exposure happens. Exposure to this metal mixture during this critical period of around 6 to 9 months of development was strongly associated with negative changes in behavior in these adolescents including inattention and hyperactivity. They also found a strong link to changes in the brain, including a decrease in overall brain volume and changes in the way different areas of the brain connect with each other. They also found abnormalities in the brain's white matter, which is important to the speed and efficiency of thought.
4/30/2026 Archaeology Magazine Skeleton Study Reveals Life on the Frontier After the Fall of Rome – 250 sets of human remains in Southern Germany from between AD 400-700. After the Roman Empire fell in A.D. 476, the study suggests that life expectancy rose to 43.3 years for men and 39.8 years for women. Women are thought to have had a lower life expectancy due to the risks of childbirth, but the overall rise in life expectancy may have been due to fewer violent conflicts in the region. The study also determined that in the late fifth century, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, northern Europeans mixed with diverse Roman provincial groups as people migrated north into southern Germany and away from Roman territory. By the seventh century A.D., the population living in the area had become genetically similar to today’s Central Europeans.
5/1/2026 National Parks Traveler Climate Change Is Altering When Water Is Available - In the Upper Midwest and New England, streamflow has already become more evenly spread throughout the year due to climate change. In contrast, patterns in the western United States are more complex. I n snow-dominated regions of the U.S. West, warmer years tend to produce a wider distribution of streamflow across the year—conditions that may benefit senior water users while disadvantaging junior users. In non-snowy parts of the region, the opposite pattern emerges: warmer years are associated with more concentrated flows, potentially offering a relative advantage to junior water users.
4/29/2026 Yale Environment 360 How the Next El Niño Could Lock in a Hotter Climate - In a world already superheated by greenhouse gases, a strong El Niño during the next 12 to 18 months could permanently push the planet’s average annual temperature past the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold. The potential for more destructive physical impacts raises deeper concerns about how societies that developed under relatively stable climate conditions will function in a world with shifting baselines and sharper swings between droughts and floods, more intense tropical storms, expanded fire seasons, and long-lasting unseasonal extreme heat.
4/29/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Video of a Sumatran Orangutan Crossing a Human-Made Wildlife Bridge in the Treetops - The human-made treetop overpass stretches across the Pakpak Bharat district’s Lagan-Pagindar road, which runs through the habitat of about 350 wild orangutans and separates the Siranggas Wildlife Reserve from the Sikulaping Protection Forest.
4/28/2026 The Conversation A probe into ‘forever chemicals’ in activewear lays bare fashion’s greenwashing problem - While most major brands promised to phase out PFAS by 2020, follow-up testing shows they still appear in leggings and sports bras across the sector. The transition has been slow because finding safer alternatives that perform just as well is both expensive and technically complex. Until we move from a system of voluntary promises to one of legal requirements, “sustainable” will remain a marketing choice rather than a guarantee.
4/29/2026 Science Daily Earth is splitting open beneath the Pacific Northwest - Scientists have, for the first time, clearly captured a subduction zone in the act of breaking apart. These zones form where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another, and they are responsible for some of the most powerful geological events on Earth.
The book of the week is an exhibit catalog available on Internet Archive. It was published in 1930, and the Foreword says that all the artists except for one were alive at the time of the exhibit. The works were lent for six months and were shown in 5-6 cities – organized by the American Federation of Arts. This is Canadian art from before World War II and reflects the development of Canadian expression that began in 1910…in many cases going back to nature for inspiration.
This week’s eBook was published in 1921: Wonderwings and other Fairy Stories. The author was Edith Howes of New Zealand. The illustrations were created by Alicea Polson. It is available on Project Gutenberg. There are other books by Howes on Internet Archive; as I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for the author I decided to browse The Cradle Ship which was published in 1916 and became a minor landmark in sex education for children!
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.
4/22/2026 The Conversation Microplastics have been found to interact with the gut microbiome – here’s what health effects they might have - A recently published study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, showed that giving mice a group of polystyrene microplastics of various sizes makes the gut vulnerable to IBD.
4/22/2026 The Washington Post More Americans are exposed to polluted air in the United States. See where. - More than 150 million people across the United States, including nearly half the nation’s children, live in areas affected by harmful levels of air pollution.
4/20/2026 Our World in Data Most people care about farm animals — our food system doesn't reflect that - In a recent US survey about common farming practices, at most one in five respondents rated each practice as “acceptable”. The researchers noted that this view was broadly shared across age, gender, income, political affiliation, ethnicity, and region. The practices in question included pigs kept in cages unable to turn around for week, newborn male chicks are killed in meat grinders, newborn calves castrated without pain relief, and chickens bred to grow fast and struggle to walk/stand. In another US survey, around two in five of respondents agreed on banning slaughterhouses and factory farming, and close to a third supported banning animal farming altogether.
4/14/2026 Yale 360 In a First for the U.S., Renewables Generate More Power Than Natural Gas - In a first last month, renewables supplied more power to the U.S. than natural gas, a milestone in the shift to clean energy. However, rising power demand is complicating the transition away from fossil fuels by extending the lives of many aging coal power plants. Together, renewables — including solar, wind, hydropower, and bioenergy — were the biggest source of U.S. electricity in March. Along with nuclear power, they supplied more than half of U.S. power.
4/14/2026 BBC Why wildflowers are moving from meadows to the city - Cities might seem like an unlikely candidate for flowers to thrive – but wildflowers love them. Cities are often associated with stress – and only the toughest plants can cope in them. Thankfully, wildflowers thrive on stress. This is because stress keeps the competition down and wildflowers can't cope with lots of competition. we need to accept a bit of wildness and untidiness. We can't exist as humans alone; we're part of nature and we need to let nature in.
4/22/2026 NWF Blog What in the Hellbender? -Hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) are fully aquatic amphibians, meaning they spend all their lives in water. They primarily feed on crayfish, snails, small fish, tadpoles, insects, and worms, and have long life spans, sometimes up to 30 years. Hellbenders breathe through their skin even though they have gills, but like most amphibians, they lose their frilly external gills once they reach adulthood. heir wrinkly skin allows them lots of surface area to breathe while underwater. There are two subspecies, and unfortunately, both are facing serious conservation challenges. They are the Eastern Hellbender and the Ozark Hellbender.
4/19/2026 Clean Technica We Can Create Food Systems That Enhance Human & Planetary Health -Globally, the food system accounts for roughly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. Big Ag incorporates large volumes of manure, chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones to increase agricultural yields. These can contaminate nearby water sources and threaten aquatic ecosystems, biodiversity, nitrogen cycles and soil health. The world’s growing population will need food systems that can sustainably convert crop production into calories for human consumption. Many agricultural experts concur that support for agriculture needs to focus on soil health, water quality, and climate resilience. By focusing on low carbon methods, enhancing circular nutrient management, and reinforcing soil regeneration, food systems can reduce risk, stabilize yield, and drive long term productivity.
4/18/2026 Science Daily Common cleaning sponge found to release trillions of microplastic fibers - That “magic” sponge under your sink may be hiding an environmental downside. While melamine sponges are famous for effortlessly scrubbing away stubborn stains, they slowly break down as you use them—shedding tiny plastic fibers that wash into water systems. Researchers estimate that globally, these sponges could release over a trillion microplastic fibers every month, potentially entering the food chain and affecting wildlife.
4/14/2026 The Conversation How microplastics hurt the hidden helpers that keep our coasts healthy - Despite bamboo worm’s (Macroclymenella stewartensis) hidden lives and small size – most measure just a few centimeters long – these New Zealand worms have an outsized influence on the health of the marine environment. But now there are troubling signs that microplastics – tiny but pervasive fragments of broken-down plastic – are disrupting the vital role the worms play, with potentially wider effects we are only just beginning to understand.
4/20/2026 Compound Interest Magnolia molecules: fragrance, pigments and medicines – Last year I learned that the petals of the Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) were edible. The infographic includes more magnolia trivia!
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in April – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive. 16 of the books are a continuation of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters; there are 4 volumes per year so this month includes 2004 to 2008; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in May.
My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,343 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.
Click on any sample image from April’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 April 2026 eBotanical Prints!
Alpen-Flora für Touristen und Pflanzenfreunde * Hoffman, Julius; Friese, Hermann * sample image * 1904
Ocean flowers and their teachings * Howard, Mary Matilda * sample image * 1846
Algae and corallines of the bay & harbor of New York * Durant Charles Ferson * sample image * 1850
A popular history of British seaweeds : comprising their structure, fructification, specific characters, arrangement, and general distribution, with notices of some of the fresh-water algæ * Landsborough, David * sample image * 1857
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.33:no.2 (2004) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2004
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.33:no.3 (2004) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2004
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.33:no.4 (2004) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2004
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.34:no.1 (2005) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2005
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.34:no.2 (2005) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2005
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.34:no.3 (2005) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2005
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.34:no.4 (2005) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2005
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.35:no.1 (2006) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2006
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.35:no.2 (2006) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2006
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.35:no.3 (2006) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2006
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.35:no.4 (2006) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2006
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.36:no.1 (2007) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2007
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.36:no.2 (2007) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2007
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.36:no.3 (2007) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2007
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.36:no.4 (2007) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2007
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.1 (2008) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008
Copyright © 2026, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
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Copyright © 2026 Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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