Gleanings of the Week Ending August 13, 2016

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.

Desalination could harm Texas bays – It is important to get intake and discharge points for desalination right to avoid adverse environmental impacts.

What’s changed in genetic since your high school biology – My high school biology was at the very end of the 1960s….a lot has happened since. I’ve taken some classes to update myself but it is always interesting to see a summary of the high points in articles like this.

Maintaining healthy forests takes more than planting trees – What about massive wildfires and invasive forest pests. A healthy forest is a diverse mix of young and old trees, dead trees, and openings. Forest scientists are realizing that homogenous and overgrown forests need to change. A follow-on post talked about technology for foresters in the field.

Humans Never Stopped Evolving – A discussion of more recent human traits.

Strange Minerals from Siberian Mine Are Unlike Anything Found in Nature – Naturally occurring metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)?

Toxic blue-green algae adapt to rising CO2 – This does not bode well for fresh water supplies as the CO2 levels rise.

Protein Packed Produce for Meatless Monday – Meat is not the only food with protein…think veggies too: peas, broccoli, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, kale and cauliflower!

The Best Schools in the World Do This. Why don’t we? – An peek into a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Neanderthal in the Mirror – A short history of our understanding Neanderthal skeletons....seeing them as more and more ‘human’ over the past century.

PDF Quads (from National Geographic) – National Geographic as a web interface that allows anyone to find any USGS quad for downloading and printing!

Chaos Garden

The plot of ground in the back of our house that is not covered by the deck that is a story of the ground is my chaos garden. It is a haphazard production. The two hydrangea bushes that we planted almost 20 years ago two blooms on them this year after being almost killed by a late frost and heavy deer grazing last year. In early July they looked wonderful against the white brick of the exterior of the basement. A closer look showed the green tinges on the petals.

By early August – the flowers are fading. Many times they will dry on the bush. I bring then inside in the autumn for dried arrangements.

A close up of the leaves show deer are still around this year too.

The cone flowers come up every year on one side of the plot – and attract butterflies. On the day I was doing the photographs for this post last week there was a persistent spicebush swallowtail. There is some honeysuckle that photobombed a couple of pictures. I periodically pull all the honeysuckle to keep it from taking over.

There is a sycamore that came up in the corner of the plot furthest from the house and I have left it there to shade the big dining room and master bathroom from the sun in the afternoon. It has helped make the house easier to cool – but having a tree as large as the tree will be in another 10-15 years might be problematic. Sycamores have peeling bark…leaves that continue to get larger and larger throughout the growing season.

The garden also has two types of milkweed which I planted to help Monarch butterflies but that are enjoyed by lots of other insects as well. The common milkweed had all its mid-range leaves eaten by something. The lemon balm grows all around both milkweeds.

There are also several clumps of chives. I harvest just enough to use immediately. Somehow herbs that are cut fresh always taste better!

Mating Bugs

Warm mornings are popular times to photograph mating bugs. I happened upon three when I was really looking for other things.

These  Japanese Beetles were on a blazing star next to the milkweed were the tussock moth caterpillars were my primary subjects. The Japanese beetle is an invasive species – and damages a lot of plants. The green and bronze iridescence of the adult forms do a have a beauty all their own….if only we had some predators to keep them in check.

The milkweed bugs seems to be everywhere – even on plants other than milkweeds. These two were mating but there were others just enjoying the flowers. They are seed eaters and the huge numbers of earlier instars will be seen on developing milkweed seed pods soon.

Red milkweed beetles are interesting to watch because their antennae are so long and – when they are not mating – they tend to move around the plant a lot. They vary in color from orange to red.

The most interesting thing about them is that each eye is bisected by an antenna!

Lizard on the Front Porch

I see lizards more frequently when I travel (to Hawaii, to Texas, to Arizona) than I do at home. So I was pleasantly surprised to see one on my front porch a few days ago. It was in the later afternoon on a warm day – not overwhelming hot.

It appears to be an American five-lined skink, one of the most common lizards in Maryland – although its tail does not look particularly blue. It stuck around long enough for me to take a few pictures through the long narrow window beside the front door.

It another good indicator of the overall health of the habitat around the immediate vicinity of my house!

Black Eye Susans in the Morning

Yesterday I realized the days were getting shorter because it was really dark when I got up about 5:30. I was keen to do some morning photography by the time the sun came up and decided to try the patch of Black Eyed Susans in the front of the house. The first one I zoomed in on looked like its petals had been eaten by something. Are deer that adept?

I liked the curves and folding of the petals just beginning to expand from this bud.

The lemon light of morning makes the color of the flowers look like a deeper yellow than the mid-day light will show. The petals also do not all keep to the same plane from the central core of the flower.

The tips of the petals are not all rounded – and that gives the flowers more variety…and a sense of movement.

I couldn’t resist the curlicue of these petals!

Baby Hands

Have you ever noticed - baby hands have dimples rather than knuckles! Their hands have a very different distribution of fat than they will as they get older. This picture was taken in the last ‘80s when my daughter was a few months old. The chubbiness of babies overall feeds their growth spurts so I wonder if the knuckles start to show more than the dimples by the time they are walking around – and usually take on their childhood slimness.

Now that we have digital photography where experimentation is ‘free’ – the idea of taking a series of baby hand pictures weekly or month would be a good project to try….next time I am around a baby on a daily basis.

Chipmunks around our House

There are more chipmunks around our house this year than I can remember. I think their base is under our deck but they make their way all around the house and up onto the deck as well. They used to come up to get seed when we put it in a bowl but now that we have stopped putting out seed for the summer, they still come to sample the plants in the pots. They enjoy themselves, even if there is a cat on the screen deck watching them! They don’t scamper away until we open a door to walk out to the deck ourselves.

They are equally confident in the front garden. I photographed one standing very still under the hose reel. As long as I didn’t move…neither did he.

I don’t mind having the chipmunks around. They are small and I enjoy watching them….and remembering the description I heard in a lecture years ago that they have ‘Oreo markings’ on each side.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 6, 2016

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.

Kathleen Clemons Instagram – Instructor for some of my favorite Creative Live classes….sharing photos taken with her iPhone. Beautiful images…mostly flowers.

Milkweed Meadow posts from What’s That Bug? – A cluster of milkweed plants is a great place to look if you want to find insects. This series of blog posts is focused on typical insects you’ll find.

How to Prevent Mosquito Bites – I am paying more attention to articles like this since Florida is reporting more Zika cases…and I’m planning a trip to Florida this fall.

Did We Used to Have Two Sleeps Rather Than One? Should We Again? – Maybe we were not meant to sleep all the way through the night!

The New Green Grid: Utilities Deploy ‘Virtual Power Plants’ – Sprawling networks of independent batteries, solar panels, and energy efficient buildings tied together and remotely controlled by software and data systems….a trend boosted by California’s natural gas shortfall that will become the norm?

Third Severe Flash Flood Hits Maryland/Delaware – The Ellicott City flash flood on the evening of 7/30 (just a week ago) was close to home…lots of destruction of the history main street.

Mystery Mechanisms – Many drugs appear to work…but we don’t know exactly how they work. This post discusses lithium, acetaminophen, and modafinil.

Why do we get bags under our eyes? – No stunning revelations in this article – but interesting that there are multiple reasons that people get them.

Awesome Video Compares the Size of Different Plants and Stars in the Universe – The video is a sequel to Star Size (and distances) which is also included in the post.

Earth’s ‘Annual Physical’ Lists Symptoms of a Hotter World – State of the Climate in 2015 from NOAA (and internationally peer reviewed). The indicators of a warming planet that are: greenhouse gases highest on record, global surface temperature highest on record, sea surface temperatures highest on record, global upper ocean heat content highest on record, global sea level highest on record, extremes were observed in the water cycle and precipitation. The post includes links to download the report – chapter by chapter.

More than an Oak

I noticed a strange looking structure on the trunk of an oak at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It is easy to imagine that it is the head of monster coming out of the tree with orange eyes!

It is probably a crown gall caused by a bacterium (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) which enters the tree through a wound; in this case it could have been a branch that broke. The bacterium transfers a portion of its genetic material into the oak tree cells causing the unusual growth and some substances that the tree does not normally produce – but that the bacterium utilizes! The gall can impede nutrient flow in the tree -particularly if it girds the tree.

In this case, the gall itself appears to be hosting some shelf fungus – the bright orange structures. The tree looked robust overall and the only place where shelf fungi were growing was on the gall. So maybe the shelf-fungi are doing their normal decomposer role on the gall only! I’ll look for the tree again summer when we go to see the lotuses at Kenilworth.

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.

Photography with Belmont Manor and Historic Park Summer Camp

Last week I volunteered to lead a nature photography activity the Howard Country Conservancy’s Summer Nature Camps at Belmont Manor and Historic Park. The day was hot, humid and there was an air quality alert as well. I got there early and took a walk along the path I planned to take with the first group…and that is when I took most of the pictures for the day. I noticed the Norway maple’s ripening samaras (invasive tree that was planted as part of the landscaping around The Cottage),

The wineberries (good to eat but watch out for the thorns),

Thistle seeds ready to blow away with the next strong breeze,

Caterpillars making their tent in the morning sun,

And chicory (from afar it looks like it is mostly stem but the small blue flowers are lovely at close range).

Later in the morning when I was hiking with the 6 to 8 years old campers, I managed to capture a picture of ripening Jack-in-the-Pulpit seeds and

The forest canopy reflected in a mud puddle. It was getting hotter all the time and our hike lasted less than 45 minutes.

With the older group (9-12 years old) we headed to the formal gardens. It was after lunch and me tried to stick to the shade as much as possible. It worked for a little while. We took a lot of pictures at the water lily pond. Many of the children were as patient as I was to get a picture of a dragonfly on a water lily bud.

I liked the margins of the lily pads – the green, the black water, the glint of the sun…and tiny piece of brown debris.

We misted everyone with water we’d brought to make spider webs more visible and managed to stay out as long as the morning group even though the temperature was hotter than in the morning. Everyone welcomed the cool of the nature center building when we got back!

Zentangle® - July 2016

I continued to enjoy the colored tiles cut from old folders my daughter used in elementary school – and that I am just now cleaning out a decade and more later. I tend to use more solid black rather than shading on these tiles although I do some shading too. I finally wore out the tortillon I go in the Zentangle® class that I took over a year ago and got a new one.

My favorite tile for the month of July was all purple and black. It started out with some Y shapes that were enclosed in 3 Hershey Kiss shape melted together then reconfigured as flowers in a vase…with auras and the fill. Even if I sometimes start out with a pattern I often don’t stick with it entirely and sometimes I don’t have a pattern at all – just inspiration from a botanical print!

Enjoy the 30 more tiles for my one-a-day Zentangle in July 2016!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Microphotography from the 1970s

I found some microphotos from the 1970s when I was scanning some old slides and prints. The first set is algae from my last year of high school. It was a new school and the microscopes were new too. My boyfriend (a year later he became my husband) was the one with the camera and he had an adaptor to attach the camera to the microscope. The color images did not turn out as well as I wanted – the lamp was not bright enough or the film was not fast enough to make the background as white as it looked to the eye and the greens did not stand out. Still you can see the spirals of the spirogyra. I had collected samples from streams near where I lived; in one case the filamentous algae were growing on a rusting sewing machine that someone had dumped in the water (the algae had picked up the rusty color too).

The black and white image was actually better although some of the filaments look battered.

Several years later, I was taking a mycology class and had slides from various kinds of cultures fungus spore structures. We evidently didn’t bother with color slides although I wish now that we had since the dye used was a very nice blue.

Of course, all was film during that time period. There was a time lag between taking pictures and finding out if they were any good and it was relatively expensive. I’m glad we made the effort and managed the expenses. But it also increases my appreciation of digital photography!

Lotus Seed Pods

By mid-July many of the lotuses had dropped their petals and the seed pods were green with mounds where the seeds were developing underneath.

There were some that already had a single seed that was mature. This one also had one co-joined mound; I wonder if the seed was a double seed that was joined underneath.

Gradually more seeds mature and mounds become holes.

And then even more of the seeds are open to the air.

Many of the pods still seem to follow the sun just like the flowers do. Some are relatively smooth from the back

While others are convoluted.

Eventually the pod will be emptied of seeds and dry. The pods are often used in dry flower arrangements in the fall.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 30, 2016

We finally got some rain after a dry spell and I’m enjoying the flowers on my deck this morning.

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.

Human intelligence measured in the brain – A study that used resting-state MRI analysis on 1000s of people around the world…areas of the brain which are associated with learning and development show high levels of variability (i.e. they change their neural connections with other parts of the brain more frequently, over a matter of minutes of seconds). Further studies using the new technology may rapidly improve our understanding and diagnosis of debilitating human mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.

Common Foot Problems (and what to do about them) – Most of my foot problems went away when I stopped wearing high heels!

Postcards provide link to Edwardian social media – A different perspective of the early 20^th century. There is a searchable archive that is available here; I enjoyed doing searches with some family names and locations. The two most common topics that people wrote about were the weather and health!

Amazing spider silk continues to surprise scientists – Phonomic crystals – that’s new vocabulary for me this week. Evidently research on spider silk has shown the potential of new materials (to synthesize) to dampen sound or provide insulation.

Hundreds of years later, teeth tell the story of people who didn't get enough sunshine – Dentin layers formed during a time when a person did not get enough Vitamin D to fully mineralize the structures that form dentin (and bone) provide a window into that aspect of nutritional health long after the person dies…longer lasting that the bones. Dentin layers are also a better indicator because they are not constantly remodeled during life as bones are.

The key to conservation is not what you think – A thoughtful piece about the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the environmental community.

NASA’s Kepler confirms 100+ exoplanets during its K2 mission – Lots of validated exoplanets to pick from for further study by NASA’s upcoming missions: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope!

The mystery of why you can’t remember being a baby – A summary of research on the topic….and we still don’t really know the answer.

How the body disposes of red blood cells, recycles iron – It happens in the liver, not in the spleen as previously thought…and requires bone-marrow-derived immune cells as the recycling cells.

Orangutan Imitates Human Speech – 500 vowel-like sounds…more vocal fold control that we previously thought could be exhibited by a non-human ape.

More Dragonflies (at Kenilworth Gardens)

I posted some dragonfly pictures from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens earlier in the month but then we made more visits to the place and I got some even better pictures by zooming in even more (and using a monopod to stabilize the camera). It is easier to see wing damage (lower left wing) and how the wings attach to the insect.

Their heads and legs have more bristles than I expected…and there is a ‘face.’

The eyes bulge out – dominating the head. The wings have an intricate pattern of supports for the wing membrane and the wings are not exactly flat.

The different kinds of dragonflies have a different pattern of wing structures.

The opening in the mid-back where the wings are attached looks so alien - or not the smoothed structure of other things like fly (butterflies, birds, or airplanes).

Enjoy the slide show below of more dragonflies!

Zooming – July 2016

Instead of making collages from clips of images – I’m doing Zooming past the 30x my camera will do with its lens. It will do up to 120x although it is essentially in-camera cropping because it is utilizing the resolution of the sensor rather than the lens. At 120x the images sometimes begin to look like an impressionist painting with a softer focus – but they can also show a lot more detail than the eye can see. It is easier to get good results with a monopod (I dislike the bulk of a tripod although I might try it more frequently. I picked 8 of my favorite zoomed images from the past few weeks.

I like to be well back from insects so that my camera does not influence their behavior. I once had a praying mantis jump on my camera! So using the zoom to capture the milkweed tussock moth caterpillars was my preference. They are about only about a half inch long.

Reaching back into the overgrowth along a path if often not a good idea: too many plants with thorns (like these wine berries) and poison ivy. Standing back and using the zoom to get the picture is the way to go!

I didn’t want to chance getting the web these caterpillars were creating on the front of my camera by getting close…and zooming worked very well.

I’m sure this bug would have flown away if I’d tries to get close. I also like that the background is still there but out of focus. The flower is chicory; it was about the same diameter as a quarter.

Aphids! The white ones are an earlier stage than the yellow ones. They do move around so zooming rather than getting close is my preference.

This seed stalk of a pokeweed was back in the waste high brush – glad I didn’t have to push my way thought it to get this image. I liked the pink and green. Later the seeds will be a deep purple.

This tiger swallowtail is enjoying a nectar snack! He would have flown away had I been close at all.

This is a max zoom photograph of a swallowtail wings. There is a fine line between nature photography and abstract art!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – July 2016

Our July has been hot….a very summery month. My celebrations included.

Fireworks – but on July 9^th rather than on the 4^th. It was just when our local community held their event. We did buy a watermelon to enjoy on the 4^th of July – a typical food for summer celebrations.

“The Mother Nature” Award – I was so pleased to be recognized by the Howard County Conservancy for my volunteering with them. The contents of the goody bag (artisan bread and strawberry jam) was part of my little celebrations for about a week!

Photography with campers -  I’ve just finished 2 days of nature photography sessions with campers aged 5-12…and I am celebrating their photographs. I’m glad I’ve made it through the 2 very hot days too. Blog posts about the experience to come in the next few weeks.

Green Heron – I always celebrate seeing a bird in the wild that I don’t see very often…the green heron at Kenilworth is a good example. It was certainly the highpoint of that visit to the gardens.

Butterfly outreach – I volunteered to assist with butterfly outreach to 4 Montessori schools this month…one of which my daughter attended 20 years ago! I celebrated that the school is still going strong, much the same as it was when my daughter attended and the wonderful interaction with the children that are there now. They were all very interested in learning about butterflies.

Indoors, staying cool – We’ve had some very hot days recently and I celebrated most of them staying indoors with air conditioning – glad that I didn’t need to do anything outside!

Milkweed tussock caterpillars – Since I have quite a crop of these caterpillars at my house I have been able to photography them a lot this season. I’ll be doing an update soon since they are now even bigger than they were when I posted about them earlier this month.

Kitchen flooring – We have started the process to replace the flooring in our kitchen. It is 25 years old and needs to be done. I celebrated that my husband and I agreed easily on what we wanted and the materials have been ordered.

Carrot cake and Zucchini bread – This is two celebrations. I am using the bounty from my CSA to bake. I love having one of these for breakfast these days so the ‘celebration’ continues for more than just the day that I back. And I have bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer to make more!

Froghopper (spittlebug)

I’ve seen lots of froghoppers/spittlebugs (or the ‘spit’ from then); it turns out that the ‘spit’ if from the nymph stage of the insect so I had no idea what this pink and yellow bug was that I saw on the underside of a milkweed leaf. The skin it had just shed was underneath the bug…and it was about 1/3-inch long. All I thought initially was that it was a 'pretty bug.'

At first I thought it was a nymph of some kind but then I realized it had wings that just hadn’t dried enough to be fully recognizable. My son-in-law helped me identify it from the picture.

A day later I looked again and I think I found the same bug on the milkweed plant. It had moved from the underside of the leaf to the main stem was very still head down on the plant.

The old skin was still on the underside of the leaf (the yellow insect next to it is an aphid).

I wanted the insect spew tiny water droplets onto the adjacent leaf. Mature froghoppers still suck juices from plants but instead of making ‘spit’ it is tiny water droplets!

1980 Flooding in Plano TX

When we bought our first house in the late 1970s, we were told it was in a 100-year-flood-plain and we were required to have flood insurance. The closest we came to needing it during the 5 years we lived in the house was in 1980 – twice!

In the spring time, heavy rains caused the little stream in the park less than a block from our house to swell and overflow its bank. Water rich is sediment roared through the park scouring grassy slopes. Debris caught on trees that has been growing on the stream bank but were in the middle of the fast moving water during the flood.

The water covered the sidewalk and made the signage for the park look short. The area of houses across the park from where we lived was newer. I wonder now if the runoff was made worse by the increase in impervious surfaces with the new housing developments that were springing up all over the area.

In the fall there was another flood. We got out and drove around a little. Some roads were closed – but they were side roads rather than main thoroughfares. The water was not very deep (note the person walking out into the water on the left of the picture below.

The stream in the park near out house flooded again. As soon as it stopped raining – people in the neighborhood came out to take a look.

My husband also took a picture of the failing infrastructure that ran along the side of the stream. The flood water probably had more than just rain runoff in it; the sewer system was overwhelmed at least in some places.

In the time since 1980, that area of North Texas has continued to develop. The land is relatively flat so municipalities have made greenways with space to let water collect or channels to move water more quickly to places where it can collect. I’m glad my current house (in Maryland) is not in a flood plain!