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 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 July 10, 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.

Fibromyalgia likely the result of autoimmune problems – Maybe this change in thinking (neurologic to immune system) will improve diagnosis and management of the disease.

How freezing changed the green pea – A little food history

Massive Antarctic Lake Vanishes in Just Three Days – A lot can be learned with observations from space…and once we see something interesting like this there is historical imagery that can provide a view from past years too.

Tuberculosis: The Forgotten Pandemic – The search for a better vaccine for TB….some history of the past 100 years of TB around the world.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Interactions! – Birds with others…of their own species and sometimes another bird species.

The Finalists of the Bird Photographer of the Year 2021 Are Announced – Just found this post that came out back in April…enjoy a double dose of bird photos in this gleanings list.

Photos of the Week – June 17, 2021 – Spider photos from The Prairie Ecologist

Fire Destroyed 10 Percent of World’s Giant Sequoias Last Year—Can They Survive Climate Change? – Very sad….and this year there could be more fires.

6 Surprising Tales of Predatory Birds – The 6 birds featured are: pelicans, great blue herons, turkeys, crows, kelp gulls, and vampire finches.

Coelacanths may live nearly a century, five times longer than researchers expected – An ancient form of fish that evidently lives a long time, reaches maturity at about 55 years old and gestates offspring for 5 years. This slow life history has implications for conservation of the fish. I also wondered how many other species we know only from fossils had slow life histories compared to organism we observe today.