Gleanings of the Week Ending September 5, 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.

08/24/2026 The Washington Post Leaked memo shows how U.S. aims to weaken global limits on plastic pollution – Depressing and sad for so many reasons.

08/25/2026 Inside Climate News The Biggest Carbon Polluters Are to Blame for Half of U.S. Western Water Lost to Climate Change - Dozens of states and cities across the U.S. have sued large oil and gas companies for environmental damages associated with emissions from their products. This study supports plaintiffs’ position in those cases as they seek to put a price tag on climate change for fossil fuel companies.

08/26/2028 Yale Environment 360 Access to Urban Woodlands Linked with Lower Use of Antidepressants - A study from Scotland found that living near an accessible urban woodland significantly lowered the likelihood of being prescribed antidepressants. A host of prior studies have found that living near green spaces can reduce stress, improve moods, and lower the risk of developing anxiety or depression. Some research has even found that exposure to nature can help reduce violent crime. Considering the well-documented benefits of living near green spaces, the World Health Organization recommends urban planners establish at least 1 acre of green space within 1,000 feet of every home.

08/26/2026 Smithsonian Magazine See 16 Stunning Animal Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards - The 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London.

08/26/2026 NWF Blog U.S. Workers Deserve Protection from Extreme Heat - Comprehensive heat rules that protect all workers require shade, paid rest, and cold water along with a written heat stress prevention plan that includes science-based temperature triggers, annual training, acclimatization, retaliation protection and emergency response procedures. America’s workforce keeps our country moving—delivering mail, teaching our children, constructing new buildings, maintaining infrastructure, and more.

08/26/2026 The Conversation Tiny house villages are increasingly responding to the homeless crisis in America’s fast‑growing cities - The proliferation of tiny house villages across the U.S. is occurring at a time when many cities are attracting new residents and investment, while struggling to provide housing that remains accessible to all.

08/23/2026 Science Daily Scientists left this farm field alone. Thousands of orchids appeared - An abandoned farm field became a flourishing wildflower meadow within little more than a decade, with plant diversity doubling and thousands of orchids appearing naturally. Aside from a traditional annual hay cut, the field was largely allowed to recover without intervention. The discovery suggests that simply giving nature time to recover could be a powerful and inexpensive tool for restoring biodiversity.

08/24/2026 Smithsonian Magazine ‘Only One of Its Kind’ Jellyfish Museum Astounds Visitors with Awe-Inspiring Displays of Sea Nettles Safely Behind Glass - The Florida-based museum opened in the spring and was founded by two aquarium experts who fled the Russia-Ukraine war.

08/26/2026 Clean Technica Photovoltaic Windows Have Been Heating Water in a Bucharest Apartment for Two Years - Solar electricity produced over several hours during the day is converted directly into heat and stored as hot water for use later. There is no photovoltaic battery and no solar inverter between the photovoltaic glazing and the heating element. The PV side operates off-grid and does not inject electricity into the public grid. When solar energy is insufficient, the controller switches the same water heater to the normal AC grid after sunset so that it can reach the thermostat setpoint.

8/27/2026 Yale Environment 360 A Hard-Won Rule to Cut Chemical Plant Pollution Is Being Unraveled - For decades, regulations on emissions of hazardous chemicals such as benzene, ethylene oxide, and vinyl chloride have been weaker than restrictions on more common pollutants, such as those emitted by vehicles. Toughening requirements on six different pollutants at more than 200 petrochemical plants, it was one of a slate of regulations enacted beginning in 2024 on air toxics, each covering a specific industry, from steelmaking to tire manufacturing. Recently, the EPA has invited companies to request exemptions from hazardous pollutant regulations. Also - an online data tool created to give communities located near petrochemical plants information about their operations, including their accident history, emergency response plans, and the chemicals they handle has been removed.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 15, 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.

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Footprints of People Fleeing Vesuvius Eruption – From 2,000 years before the eruption of the same mountain destroyed Pompeii.

Oldest Known Evidence of Lead Pollution Found in Ancient Greece - Scientists identified traces of lead contamination that date back more than 5,000 years by analyzing sediment cores from Greece’s mainland and the Aegean Sea. The lead emissions followed the development of smelting technologies, which produced metals like silver. A sharp increase occurred about 2,150 years ago, which coincides with the Roman conquest of the Greek peninsula in around 146 B.C.E. and drove demand for silver higher for currency and lead for construction/tableware.

Half a degree further rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans - The amount of landmass on our planet that would be too hot for even healthy young humans (18-60-year-olds) to keep a safe core body temperature will approximately triple (to six percent) -- an area almost the size of the US -- if global warming reaches 2°C above the preindustrial average. Last year was the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, and at current rates of warming, 2°C could be reached by mid to late century.

How Tearing Down Small Dams Is Helping Restore Northeast Rivers - Restoring natural flows, improving habitat for aquatic life, and reopening thousands of river miles to migratory fish, from shad to American eels. I was aware of several dams being removed on the Patapsco River in Maryland before we moved to Missouri.

Yellowstone National Park: Where Geology Is on Display Nearly Everywhere – Maybe we should plan a trip Yellowstone; it’s been 20 years since we were there before. It would be a great capstone to the geology course I am taking this semester.

Restoring Appalachian Forests After a Legacy of Mining – It isn’t about returning land to some “pristine” past. It’s about creating a resilient future, a forest where native plants and wildlife can thrive. When mining companies left, following state and federal guidelines, they often replanted their sites with plants that would mainly reduce erosion. That sounds good in theory, but many of those plants were invasives like autumn olive and sericea lespedeza. Trees that thrived on such sites tended to be adaptable species. These former mine lands offered little habitat to wildlife and little value to carbon storage. The first step is to control the invasives, through mechanical clearing. And then bulldozers rip up the soil. Next came the planting, accomplished by crews hand planting trees on the site, a diverse mix of trees, grasses and wildflowers. Some native plants, their dormant seeds “freed” from compacted soil, return on their own. Wildlife begins using restored areas almost as soon as they’re established. It benefits popular game species like white-tailed deer, turkey and elk.

Vertical Farms Grow in Office Buildings - Vertical farming can make use of vacant office space and grow food where agricultural land might be scarce. One drawback: energy use. Vertical farms need a lot of electricity to run lighting and ventilation systems, smart sensors and automated harvesting technologies….so maybe clad the office buildings in solar panels and put batteries in the basement?

Not so snowy Alaska - A spell of unseasonably warm weather in winter 2024–2025 has meant less snow for parts of the normally frozen state of Alaska.  Images from the Moderate Resolution Image Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.

Colossal squid: The eerie ambassador from the abyss – The biggest invertebrate on Earth. One of the creatures was captured alive (briefly) off New Zealand 100 years ago. The first clues of their existence in the deep ocean was from occasional remains found in the bellies of whales that hunt them. It has swiveling hooks on its arms and a beak made out of protein similar to human hair and fingernails. The eyes are the largest eyes found in any animal yet discovered.

The Breathtaking Hermitage Museum, Filled with Treasures Like the Kolyvan Vase and the Peacock Clock, First Opened to the Public on This Day in 1852 – There are 6 main buildings and it has about 50 cats that keep it free of mice! It is the second largest museum in the world (the Louvre is the largest).

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 27, 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.

Meet the World’s Largest Freshwater Crayfish – The Tasmanian giant crayfish. Their numbers are declining due to fishing and disturbance.

FDA urges Congress to pass bill mandating food manufacturers test for lead – I am surprised Congress did not pass this already. According to the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 519 confirmed, probable and suspect cases of lead and chromium poisoning traced to imported applesauce pouches produced by brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. Lead exposure in children is associated with learning and behavior problems, as well as hearing and speech issues and slowed growth and development.

Retention ponds can deliver a substantial reduction in tire particle pollution - The presence of wetlands and retention ponds alongside major highways led to an average reduction of almost 75% in the mass of tire wear particles being discharged to aquatic waters. Tire wear particles significantly outweighed other forms of microplastics, such as plastic fibers and fragments.

Climate change is fueling the US insurance problem – I’ve seen more articles about this recently….there is no good news re insurance…nothing that can overcome what climate change is doing. One state-level action that could help mitigate the impacts of climate change is the implementation of flood disclosures. Organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council have urged states to require flood disclosure polices during property sales to help buyers decide whether buying is worth the risk. Research has shown disclosure can devalue flood-prone properties and discourage development in risky areas. Even though the number of states requiring flood disclosure policies is slowly increasing, Florida remains noticeably absent, and one-third of states still have no requirement that sellers must disclose a property's flood risk to potential buyers.

Does the time of day you move your body make a difference to your health? – Maybe – for people living with obesity.

How the iron lung paved the way for the modern-day intensive care unit – The iron lung was first used to save the life of a child in 1928. It swiftly became a fixture in polio wards during the polio outbreaks of the subsequent decades, particularly from 1948 until the vaccine was developed in 1955. And its creation paved the way for many subsequent medical innovations. Some patients spent just a short time in the iron lung, perhaps weeks or months until they were able to regain chest strength and breath independently again. But for patients whose chest muscles were permanently paralyzed, the iron lung remained the key to survival.

Food security in developed countries shows resilience to climate change - Data on American wheat production, inventories, crop area, prices and wider market conditions from 1950 to 2018, together with records of annual fluctuations in the weather for the same period reveals strong evidence of an increase in weather and harvest variability from 1974 onwards. However, Wheat prices remain relatively stable, along with the price of associated goods mainly due to farmers and agricultural industries providing a buffer, smoothing out any bumps in the supply of grain to retailers and consumers.

Where the Xerces Blue Butterfly Was Lost, Its Closest Relative Is Now Filling In - Silvery Blues collected 100 miles south of San Francisco were released at a restored a swath of dunes in the Presidio, a former military base, trying to bring back native wildlife. They will pollinate native flowers and form a critical link in the food chain there.

Colorless, odorless gas likely linked to alarming rise in non-smoking lung cancer - 5-20% of newly diagnosed lung cancers occur in people who have never smoked, many of whom are in their 40s or 50s.  Non-smoking lung cancer cases is likely linked to long-term, high exposures of radon gas. This colorless, odorless gas is emitted from the breakdown of radioactive material naturally occurring underground that then seeps through building foundations. The gas can linger and accumulate in people's homes and lungs silently unless they know to test for it. We had our Missouri house tested and radon remediation installed before we moved it!

Contents of Roman Lead Coffin Examined in England - The examination of the contents of a Roman lead coffin discovered in 2022 in the city of Leeds has identified the partial remains of a child (about 10 years old). The initial evaluation of the coffin’s poorly preserved contents found the remains of a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death some 1,600 years ago, a bracelet, a glass bead necklace, and a finger ring or an earring.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2021

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.

Top 25 birds of the week: Terrestrial Birds – Several ancestors of chickens in this group!

3D-printed material to replace ivory -- ScienceDaily – ‘Digory’ made of resin and calcium phosphate particles….can be used to restore old ivory artifacts.

Managing Colorado River risk | Science – The reduction of water in the Colorado River basin over time…the challenge of managing that reduction for 40 million people that depend on the water source.

Death metal: Evidence for the impact of lead poisoning on childhood health within the Roman Empire – A study of 173 skeletons from 5 sites dated AD 1st-4th centuries.

First State National Historical Park Gains 254 Acres – This could be a good day trip for my husband and I…getting there early enough in the morning for it to not be cool enough for a good hike.

Incredible Close-Up Portraits of Solitary Bees Highlight Their Character – Wow! A great project done during COVID-19 quarantine!

Human Teeth Hold the Secrets of Ancient Plagues - The Atlantic – Finding ancient pathogens in old bone….an interview with Johannes Krause, director of the archaeogenetics department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Teeth are like a time capsule: bits of blood protected by the enamel.

Cool and COVID-safe: How radiant cooling could keep our cities comfortable and healthy -- ScienceDaily – Looking for ways to stay cool at lower energy costs than traditional HVAC systems.

Tiffany Stained Glass at Art Institute of Chicago | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A church window transitioned to a museum and restored…now on display.

Mysterious Ailment Blinding and Killing Birds in Washington, D.C. Area – Glad we’ve had our feeder and bird baths put away for the past 6 weeks or so since we are in the process of getting our deck worked on. Fledglings of blue jays and grackles seem to be the birds impacted the most.