Gleanings of the Week Ending February 14, 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.

12/18/2025 Ozark Public Television Wild Ozarks: A Legacy of Conservation – Very well done. I am recommending it to be part of the core training for the next group of Springfield Plateau Missouri Master Naturalists!

2026 Million Marker Test Kit – I’m going to do as much as I can to reduce microplastics…then do this test….probably next summer. It is advertised as the only mail-in test for BPA, BPS, BPF, phthalates, parabens, and oxybenzone.

2/3/2026 Yale 360 China to See Solar Capacity Outstrip Coal Capacity This Year - By the end of 2026, wind and solar will account for nearly half of China’s power capacity. Including hydro and nuclear power, clean energy will amount to nearly two-thirds of total power capacity, while coal will amount to a third. Competing with cheap solar and wind, a large share of coal plants are now operating at a loss.

2/1/2026 Cool Green Science Catching Sharks for Science - On Long Beach Island, volunteer anglers help researchers uncover the hidden journeys of sharks in threatened salt marsh ecosystems.

2/3/2026 Science Daily Even remote Pacific fish are full of microplastics - Even in some of the most isolated corners of the Pacific, plastic pollution has quietly worked its way into the food web. A large analysis of fish caught around Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu found that roughly one in three contained microplastics, with Fiji standing out for especially high contamination. Reef and bottom-dwelling fish were most affected, linking exposure to where fish live and how they feed.

2/1/2026 National Parks Traveler New York Art Teacher Earns 30 National Park Resident Artist Spots In 10 Years – Artist-in-residence at National Park Service sites. Many of the programs are funded by nonprofits, grants, or donations made directly to the Park Service. Categories are broad and include writers, painters, photographers, musicians, dancers, sculptors, and animators. 

1/30/2026 My Modern Met Society of Photographers 2025 Contest Announces Its Astounding Winners – Chosen from over 6,000 photographs submitted!

1/29/2026 BBC From bad omen to national treasure: The rare bone-swallower stork saved by a female army - Known locally as the hargila (or "bone-swallower") for its scavenging ways, greater adjutant storks are unique birds. Roughly 5ft (1.5m) tall, they aren't only imposing but also play a vital role in maintaining the health of a wetland ecosystem. As scavengers that consume and clean up carcasses, they prevent the spread of disease and break down decaying organic matter, recycling essential nutrients back into the soil. They were feared, reviled and in some communities, hunted for their meat which was once widely used in folk medicine as a cure for leprosy or antidote to poison.

1/28/2026 Archaeology Magazine Study tracks wild potato across the Southwest - People carried a small, wild potato known as the Four Corners potato (Solanum jamesii), across the southwestern United States some 10,000 years ago.

1/27/2026 Super Age Wellness Is Finally Admitting It Got the Last Decade Wrong – The article lists 10 trends from the 2026 Global Wellness Report. One of the 10 is “Microplastics are at threat to healthspan.”