Gleanings of the Week Ending September 26, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

09/22/2026 The Conversation Bangladesh has lost 900 children to measles – a warning to other countries where vaccine rates have slipped - Almost 900 people in Bangladesh are suspected to have died in a measles outbreak that began in March. Most of those affected are children. Vaccines only work if people actually receive them. The science has already done its job: measles vaccines are safe, effective, and have protected children for decades. What’s missing is trust, access, and the urgency needed to close the gap – until that changes, outbreaks like this one won’t be the last.

09/18/2026 Yale Environment 360 Microplastics in Soil a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Toxins - To protect long-term food production and soil health, policy must catch up. We urgently need standardized plastic monitoring, full manufacturer transparency, and risk assessments that evaluate through different species how microplastics interact with co-pollutants.

09/17/2026 Science Daily This popular fermented food may help flush nanoplastics from the body - A kimchi-derived bacterium can bind to nanoplastics under gut-like conditions and may help carry them out of the body. In mice, the probiotic more than doubled the amount of nanoplastics detected in feces, pointing to a surprising potential use for microbes from fermented foods.

09/16/2026 BBC Future To save scarlet macaws, scientists are rescuing chicks from their lethal parents - Scarlet macaws are an iconic but declining tropical bird…and they intentionally starve their youngest chicks. Wild fostering techniques for those rejected chicks might contribute to the faster recovery of some populations.  

09/19/2026 The Prairie Ecologist A Simple Guide to Identifying Red-Tailed Hawks – A one page identification guide.

09/22/2026 NPR Abortion is on the ballot again as post-Roe policies continue to evolve – Again in Missouri - the state's Republican-dominated legislature is asking Missouri voters to overturn the abortion protections they recently supported. The conflicting measures even have the same title: Amendment 3. But while a "yes" vote in 2024 supported adding protections to the state constitution, a "no" vote in 2026 would keep them. (A citizen with a 2024 sign) covered the "YES" on her yard sign with a "NO" made from black duct tape before placing the sign back in her yard.

09/21/2026 Smithsonian Magazine An Armadillo Found in Ohio Is the Latest Surprise in the Armored Animals’ Expansion North. Where Are They Now, and What’s Driving Their Movement? - Over the past decades, scientists have tracked the armadillo’s steady northward crawl, from Texas to wider expanses of the South, Southeast and Midwest. Now, the recent discovery indicates that the mammals might soon gain a foothold in the Buckeye State. The animals moved across the Rio Grande in the mid-1800s, passing from Mexico into Texas. From there, they generally expanded north and east, reaching Louisiana by the 1920s and Kansas by the 1940s. With their strong leg muscles and long front claws, the mammals will root through soil in search of insects and create extensive burrows that can reach several feet underground. This behavior can damage gardens, agriculture, building infrastructure or golf courses. The burrows have positive effects, too. In a 2022 study in Arkansas, researchers used motion-triggered cameras to find 64 other species interacting with armadillo burrows—19 mammals, 4 reptiles, 1 amphibian and 40 birds.

09/15/2026 My Modern Met Amazing Winners of the 2026 BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology Image Competition - The photo contest is an opportunity for people in biology to showcase their research to a broad audience. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and zoologists worldwide submitted work for the 2026 competition.

09/17/2026 Yale Environment 360 Why Germany Is Building an Ark for U.S. Climate Data - As researchers around the world begin work on the next U.N. climate assessment, fears are growing that the Trump administration could meddle with critical U.S. climate data. In response, scientists are preparing to transfer vast troves of that data to repositories in Germany. In a world where political upheaval is growing, storing data in one place is increasingly thought to be precarious. Assumptions that U.S. government agencies will store data long-term “are proving tenuous at best.”

09/15/2026 Archaeology Magazine Landslide Exposes Pre-Roman Burial in Eastern Italy - A landslide in central Italy has exposed a Picene burial estimated to date to the sixth century B.C. The Picenes are known to have lived near the Adriatic Sea and imported pottery, bronzes, and other goods from Greece.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 31, 2025

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

10 Ways Vincent Van Gogh Continues to Make News, Even Today – An artist that has been ‘newsworthy’ for a very long time. This post about recent instances of ‘Van Gogh mania.’

Measles vaccines save millions of lives each year – Statistics about measles and the impact of the vaccine…history and how the choices we make will have impacts on the future trajectory of the disease.

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve – It became a national park in 2020. I’ve driven through it…stopped at a visitor center…but haven’t experienced it the way I have other national parks.

Forty Years of Change in Louisiana’s Wetlands – Images from Landsat 9 from 1985 and 2024 show that much of the wetland has transitioned to open water….reshaped by storms and sea level rise.

In healthy aging, carb quality counts - The researchers analyzed data from Nurses' Health Study questionnaires collected every four years between 1984 and 2016 to examine the midlife diets and eventual health outcomes of more than 47,000 women who were between the ages of 70 and 93 in 2016. The analysis showed intakes of total carbohydrates, high-quality carbohydrates from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, and total dietary fiber in midlife were linked to 6 to 37% greater likelihood of healthy aging and several areas of positive mental and physical health.

Wildlife Photographer Captures Mid-Air Battle of Two Birds Fighting for Dinner – The battle over a vole between a Northern Harrier and Short-eared Owl in British Columbia, Canada. Dramatic photos. Both birds are over Missouri Prairies in the winter too!

How the humble chestnut traced the rise and fall of the Roman Empire - According to researchers in Switzerland, the Romans had something of a penchant for sweet chestnut trees, spreading them across Europe. But it wasn't so much the delicate, earthy chestnuts they craved – instead, it was the fast-regrowing timber they prized most, as raw material for their empire's expansion. And this led to them exporting tree cultivation techniques such as coppicing too, which have helped the chestnut flourish across the continent.

China’s Mega Dam Project Poses Big Risks for Asia’s Grand Canyon - China’s plans to build a massive hydro project in Tibet have sparked fears about the environmental impacts on the world’s longest and deepest canyon. It has also alarmed neighboring India, which fears that China could hold back or even weaponize river water it depends on.

Step Into a Painstakingly Recreated 3D Model of the Parthenon, Now Restored to Its Ancient Glory - By combining archaeology and technology, a researcher has shed light on a longstanding architectural mystery: how the ancient Greeks experienced the inside of the Parthenon, the Athenian Acropolis’ largest temple, built and dedicated to the goddess Athena in the fifth century B.C.E.

How Tikal Became One of the Greatest Mayan Cities—and Then Vanished - Nowadays, the ruins of Tikal, an ancient Maya city in northern Guatemala, have been largely reclaimed by the jungle. Howler monkeys jump from pyramid to pyramid. Bats hide in the crevices of abandoned homes. Bullet ants and tarantulas crawl along the forest floor while coatis—racoon-like animals with long, upright tails—search for fallen fruit. Many of the city’s structures remain unexcavated to ensure their preservation. Tikal began life as a series of small, unassuming hamlets. Across centuries, it grew into one of the largest and mightiest cities in the loosely affiliated network of municipalities that made up the Maya civilization. At its peak, which approximately lasted from 600 to 900 C.E., Tikal comprised an area of roughly 50 square miles, 3,000 stone structures, and a population that may at one point have exceeded 60,000 people. While other Maya settlements like Chichen Itza remained inhabited well into the 12th century C.E., Tikal is thought to have collapsed around the year 900.

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 September 1, 2018

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.

Poor sleep triggers viral loneliness and social rejection: Lack of sleep generates social anxiety that infects those around us -- ScienceDaily – Yet another reason that getting enough sleep is important to us as individuals and society at large.

The Armchair Photography Guide to Canyonlands National Park – Island in The Sky | National Parks Traveler – So many of the pictures had snow! It would be good to go when it was not terrifically hot….so any time but summer and even better close to the beginning or end of winter (a little now…not enough to be hazardous).

Stunning Underwater Photos of Microscopic Plankton by Ryo Minemizu – Beautiful, small life.

In Eastern US, adult trees adapt and acclimate to local climate: Tree cores reveal flexibility, more work needed to understand mechanisms -- ScienceDaily – 14 species of trees were analyzed using tree cores from 1940-1980….shouldn’t we look at more recent tree cores too?

Bed Bugs: When Biodiversity Bites – Cool Green Science – Informative….maybe I should check for bedbugs more consistently when I travel. I shouldn’t keep relying on ‘luck’ to avoid a very bad experience.

A Record Year for Measles Cases in Europe | The Scientist Magazine® - When I was a child, the measles vaccines didn’t exist yet. It was awful. Everyone got sick with them and, for some, there were lasting consequences. I was fortunate and survived without lasting damage except for missing enough school that I never quite understood certain volumetric measurements because I completely missed when it was taught.

Which country has the most expensive education? - Are the comparisons really apples and apples…or are there some pears and oranges thrown in? It is about educations but there are a lot of variables beside cost. All countries and parents and teachers struggle with how to make education relevant to students for now and into the future.

Air Pollution Linked to Decline in Cognitive Performance – The study was done in China but I wondered if it was true in other areas of the world with high levels of air pollution (like India). The US could be vulnerable if we relax our clean air standards.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx begins asteroid operations campaign – We were in Florida in September 2016 for the launch…so I always notice the updates about its progress.

50% of Industrial Climate Change Emissions Tied to Fossil Fuel Companies – An interview with the two authors of a recently released report: Decarbonization Pathways for Mines.