Gleanings of the Week Ending January 18, 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.

A looming 'demographic cliff': Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduates – Universities are already experiencing declining enrollment. In the first half of last year, more than one college a week announced that it would close….and the projection is that the pace of college closings could accelerate. This does not bode well for the US economy.

Charging Ahead: Key Geographical Clusters for Electric Trucks – The realistic sequence looks like: The west coast of the US up to British Columbia and New York to Virginia will be the first wave of green charging corridors for trucks. Virginia to Florida and then Texas to California with be the second wave.  I am bummed that Missouri (where I live) is not positioning itself to be in the second tier which would facilitate a complete cross county route.

Severe Cold Spells May Persist Because of Warming, Not in Spite of It – Evidently, we have a weaker, more meandering jet stream that allows frigid air to reach further south because the Arctic is heating up and there is not as much difference between the Arctic and warmer air to the south.

A Quarry Worker Felt Strange Bumps While Digging. They Turned Out to Be the Largest Dinosaur Trackway in the U.K. – I remember going to see the dinosaur tracks at Glen Rose, Texas. Somehow the huge tracks make it easier to internalize how big these animals were!

U.S. Surgeon General offers 'parting prescription' to heal America's division – Thought provoking.

Seven key climate and nature moments to look out for in 2025 - Big moments in 2025 that could shift the dial on climate and nature….while extreme weather continues.

Who built Europe’s first cities? Clues about the urban revolution emerge - Around 6,000 years ago, a group known as the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture developed egalitarian settlements north of the Black Sea and created the region’s earliest urban centers. Then, after two millennia, they vanished. Cucuteni–Trypillia has always stood out as something of an anomaly, because its settlements seemed to have been egalitarian societies that were devoid of social hierarchies. Their distinctive pottery was discovered almost simultaneously in two locations in the late nineteenth century: Romania (where the culture was named after a site in Cucuteni) and Ukraine (where the same culture was named Trypillia, also after a community where artefacts were found). The group made pots, hunted and gathered, farmed, raised cattle and lived in settlements where all the houses were the same size. People ate legumes and cereals grown on the rich soils of Ukraine, which were well manured by cattle. Livestock animals were also eaten, although isotope analysis of rare human remains shows that meat made up only roughly 10% of people’s diets. Despite the organized urban design of Cucuteni–Trypillia megasites, there were no palaces, no grand temples, no signs of centralized administration and no rich or poor houses.

Looking Back on Geological Activity in Yellowstone During 2024 - Hydrothermal explosion in Norris Geyser Basin in April, July explosion of Black Diamond Pool at Biscuit Basin, Economic Geyser(in Upper Geyser Basin) experienced a series of eruptions for the first time since 1999, Abyss Pool began to heat up and overflow/its color changed from dark and somewhat murky to a deep blue as the summer progressed, Steamboat Geyser continued to be active although with many fewer eruptions than in previous years…but the year was seismically calm!

Citizen science reveals that Jupiter's colorful clouds are not made of ammonia ice - The abundance of ammonia and cloud-top pressure in Jupiter's atmosphere can be mapped using commercially available telescopes and a few specially colored filters and the instrumentation/analysis showed that the clouds reside too deeply within Jupiter's warm atmosphere to be consistent with the clouds being ammonia ice.

Photographer Highlights the Importance of Monarch Butterfly Conservation Through Stunning Images – Photographs from Jaime Rojo. The monarch butterfly isn’t just a pretty sight—it’s an essential pollinator that keeps our planet healthy. But in the last 40 years, their population has dropped by a staggering 90%, leaving them on the brink of extinction.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 11, 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.

Dogs trained to sniff out spotted lanternflies could help reduce spread – Dogs sniff out egg masses that overwinter in vineyards and forests. This is some good news in the fight against this invasive insect.

Farmers are abandoning their land. Is that good for nature? - Small-scale farmers with rocky soil, steep hills, or scarce water "give up because they cannot compete." By one estimate, the area of farm land that's been abandoned around the world since 1950 could be as much as half of Australia. Without people, cattle or sheep around, meadows filled with wildflowers and butterflies give way to shrubs and trees, which ecologists say are often less biologically diverse. There is an effort in some regions where humans are moving out to help wildlife move in (i.e. rewilding).

Seven proven ways to help the planet in 2025 – Some of the ways are easier than others. I have done 3 of the 7 for at least the last 5 years…and maybe now I should think about what more I want to do. The beginning of the year is always a good time to take stock on things like this.

This Mysterious Pyramid Dominated a Prehistoric Mexican City—and Still Guards Its Secrets – The Pyramid of the Niches in El Tajin….built by indigenous groups that predate the Aztec and Toltec. The Wikipedia article about site says it became a World Heritage site in 1992.

Aerial Photos Highlight Surreal Beauty of Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Plateau - Colorful canyons and mountains, dramatic salt flats, and surreal rocky outcrops…photographed by Daniel Kordan.

The Year in Energy in Four Charts - Solar is driving the shift to renewable power, and it continues to outpace the projections of both analysts and industry experts owing largely to China. Global EV sales reached a new high. In China, the sticker price for EVs is now generally lower than for conventional cars. Along with EVs, the growth of electric heating and cooling and the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers globally are driving up demand for power. Wealthy nations have all but stopped building new coal plants, and coal burning is expected to continue its decline in the developed world as countries move to wind and solar. We’re now moving at speed into the Age of Electricity, which will define the global energy system going forward and increasingly be based on clean sources of electricity.

Photos of the Year – December 30, 2024 – From The Prairie Ecologist

A Year of Climate Extremes, In Photos - 2024 … the hottest year ever, with warming reaching new extremes worldwide. These photos from Greenpeace show the profound impact of severe weather, which scientists are increasingly connecting to climate change.

Squirrels Are Displaying ‘Widespread Carnivorous Behavior’ for the First Time in a California Park – In California’s Briones Regional Park (not far from Oakland and Berkeley), California ground squirrels there are now known to hunt, kill, decapitate and consume voles. Squirrels of all ages and sexes took part in the vole hunt, an indication that this dietary flexibility is widespread across the species and may serve as a crucial survival mechanism in response to fluctuating environmental conditions

Vampire hedgehogs, pirate spiders and fishy fungi - the strangest new species of 2024 – New species are discovered every year….so much we don’t know about our world!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 4, 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.

Uplift Underway in Finland’s Kvarken Archipelago - Some 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, the Baltic Sea sat under a sheet of ice as thick as 10,000 feet. Since the glaciers receded and the weight was lifted, the land has been bouncing back. The rates of uplift, known as glacial isostatic adjustment or isostatic rebound, in this region are among the highest on Earth. By one estimate, land about twice the size of Central Park in New York City rises from the sea each year along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea’s northern arm.

Silent Threat: America’s Abandoned Oil Wells and the Danger Beneath - Abandoned oil and gas wells across the U.S. pose significant environmental, health, and safety risks, with many leaking hazardous gases and chemicals, highlighting regulatory failures and the immense financial burden of remediation.

Lymphoedema: The 'hidden' cancer side-effect no one talks about - Lymphoedema is a chronic, incurable condition that causes excessive swelling due to a damaged lymphatic system, a network in the body responsible for maintaining fluid balance in tissues. It occurs when lymph fluid is unable to properly drain from the body, due to a dysfunction or injury to the lymphatic system. The condition is a common consequence of certain cancers and the treatments for them. It can also be a genetic condition, which people are born with, or it can be the result of injury, obesity, or infection. There are some clinicians who regard lymphoedema as an overlooked pandemic due to the significant chronic public health problem it poses globally.

Hazelnut DNA Study Challenges Misconceptions About Indigenous Land Use in British Columbia - Starting some 7,000 years ago, Indigenous people actively cultivated hazelnuts across the continent, disproving the settler-colonial notion that Indigenous peoples were simply hunter-gatherers. People were actively transplanting and cultivating hazelnuts hundreds of kilometers from their place of origin. People were moving hazelnut around and selectively managing it to the point that it increased genetic diversity.

Extreme Heat May Cause People to Age Faster - Researchers looked at such aging markers in 3,800 Americans over the age of 55, comparing the data with local weather records. They found that people living in places with more hot days tended to have more genetic markers of age.

An inexpensive fix for California's struggling wildflowers - California's native wildflowers are being smothered by layers of dead, invasive grasses. Simply raking these layers can boost biodiversity and reduce fire danger.

The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2024 – From Smithsonian Magazine.

Fluorinated “forever chemicals” and where to find them – Infographic and text. Studies have linked PFOA to some health conditions including cancers and hormone disruption. There’s also still plenty we don’t know about their potential effects. PFOAs are human-made compounds which do not occur naturally, so we’re only seeing the effects of their accumulation in the past decades.

Brighten Your Day with These 15 Photos of Beautiful Balloons from Around the World – Mexico, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Turkey, Spain, and the US (Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Wyoming).

How an Extreme Combination of Fog and Air Pollution Brought London to a Standstill and Resulted in Thousands of Fatalities - On December 5, 1952 (a little more than a year before I was born) as cold weather in London prompted residents to burn more cheap coal, a high-pressure wind system known as an anticyclone settled over the city, trapping cold air beneath warm air. Pollution from coal fires, diesel buses and factories could not travel up in the atmosphere, instead hovering in a deadly, stagnant smog. When the Great Smog of 1952 finally lifted on December 9, 4,000 people were dead from the effects of the extreme pollution. Retrospective assessments estimate that the number of fatalities could be almost triple that. While the government’s response was sluggish at first, the Clean Air Act of 1956, passed in response to the Great Smog, heavily regulated the burning of coal and established smoke-free urban areas throughout England. In the years that followed, a host of other industrial nations were inspired to follow suit.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 28, 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.

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Garden – All 5 are good ideas! I am on my second year of ‘turn an area of turf grass into a native garden.’ If the native trees/shrugs I planted last fall survive…it won’t be hard at all to reduce some turf in 2025. I haven’t used pesticides since we moved to Missouri and we already use electric or hand-powered tools. We have a bird bath. I am not at 70% native plants – yet. That one could be hard although I am going making some progress; I will eliminate a Japanese barberry and forsythia in the spring to make way for more native plantings.

Best of 2024 – Square Meter Prairie Photos – Macro photographs from The Prairie Ecologist.

Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Crocodile Skin and Its Irregular, Mystifying Patterns – Research that discovered that the uniqueness of crocodiles’ head scales is driven from mechanical processes, such as growth rate and skin stiffness, rather than gene expression.

The Case of The Missing Cinders from Yellowstone's Cinder Pool - What happened to the cinders that used to float atop Cinder Pool in the One Hundred Spring Plain area of Norris Geyser Basin? Cinder Pool was one of the few known cinder-producing pools in the world. Using historical water chemistry data, the pH (4.1 ± 0.2) of Cinder Pool was fairly constant from 1947 to 2015, and the sulfate concentration was relatively low (80 ± 20 mg/L). Cinders were last observed in 2018. By April 2019, the pool was lacking cinders and had become significantly more acidic, with the pH dropping to 2.6 and the sulfate concentration increasing to 350 mg/L. Cinders were no longer being generated, and the appearance of the pool changed drastically. Dynamic Yellowstone!

Animals That Turn White in Winter Face a Climate Challenge – There are some snowshoe hares that stay brown during winter…and they may be surviving better in areas that are now getting less snow in the winter. Animals that are adapted to winter by turning white…might find the adaptation a hazard if there is no snow!

Natural disasters killed thousands around the world, caused billions in damage in 2024 - In the United States alone, there have been at least 24 weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damages each according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 1980, the annual average number of events is 8.5. When counting the most recent five years alone -- 2019 through 2023 -- that average increases to 20.4 events per year. The cost of climate change is increasing around the world…impacting everyone.

The global divide between longer life and good health - Life expectancy, or lifespan, increased from 79.2 to 80.7 years in women and from 74.1 to 76.3 years in men between 2000 and 2019, according to WHO estimates. However, the number of years those people were living in good health did not correspondingly increase. The average global gap in lifespan versus healthspan was 9.6 years in 2019, the last year of available statistics. That represents a 13% increase since 2000.

Scientists Just Dissected the World’s Rarest Whale in New Zealand - Only seven spade-toothed whales have ever been identified, and the species has never been seen alive. When a 16-foot, 3,000-pound carcass washed ashore on the South Island of New Zealand in July; it was in remarkably good condition and appeared in a region of New Zealand that allowed researchers to perform the first-ever dissection of the species. The research and dissection process was under the guidance of both scientists and members of local Māori tribes on the South Island. Some discoveries: vestigial teeth, 9 stomach chambers, and head trauma was cause of death.

Interior Department Signed 69 Tribal Co-Stewardship Agreements In 2024 - The agreements cover a range of ways designed to bring tribes into management of public lands. That includes efforts by Interior to expand bison habitat and entering into bison co-management agreements with tribal leaders, shifting historic preservation responsibilities from federal agencies to tribal agencies, carefully weighing the impact of federal agency action on sacred sites, and expanding and reforming self-governance as part of the Practical Reforms and Other Goals to Reinforce the Effectiveness of Self-Governance and Self Determination for Indian Tribes (PROGRESS) Act.

Study likely to change standard of care for deadly strokes - Endovascular therapy, or EVT, -- a minimally invasive surgery performed inside the blood vessels -- is 2 ½ times more likely than standard medical management to achieve a positive outcome after vertebrobasilar stroke that affects the back of the brain, including the brain stem.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 21, 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 Things You Should Never Wear on a Flight – Most of the suggestions are good for road trips as well.

What Your Last Name Says About Your History – Interesting…a different perspective on names.

Photos of the Week – December 6, 2024 – Winter sunrise/sunset beauty on the prairie.

German Archaeologists Discovered the Iconic Bust of Nefertiti in an Ancient Egyptian Sculptor’s Studio – One of the most famous of ancient Egyptian artifacts…’ownership’ has been questioned from the beginning.

Lifesaver for wild bees: The importance of quarries – Research done in Germany, but Missouri has considerable limestone…perhaps we should be striving to keep quarries open rather than overgrown with woody plants. Many wild bees in Germany and in Missouri nest in the ground and often need open, sunny areas to do so.

Archaeologists discover key tool that helped early Americans survive the ice age - Tiny artifacts unearthed at a Wyoming site where a mammoth was butchered 13,000 years ago are revealing intriguing details about how the earliest Americans survived the last ice age. Archaeologists found 32 needle fragments made from animal bone buried almost 15 feet (nearly 5 meters). Analyzing the bone collagen of the needles revealed they were created from the bones of red foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, lynx, the now-extinct American cheetah, and hares or rabbits!

Here Are 2024’s Best Northern Lights Photographs - From a purple and green sky in Canada's Banff National Park to an unexpected, fiery orange appearance in Namibia, this year's auroras took us by surprise. While called the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year, there are plenty of Southern Lights represented in this year's collection too.

The Arctic Could Have Its First ‘Ice-Free’ Day by as Early as 2027 - The first summer on record in which practically all the sea ice in the Arctic melts could occur much earlier than previously expected. In a new study, scientists warn that the ever-increasing greenhouse emissions may bring us closer to an ice-free Arctic by the end of the decade.

Water Infrastructure, Disasters, Water Scarcity & Security, Potable Water, & Conflict – A post about what happened to Ashville, NC. Water-related disasters currently make up over 90% of all disasters on Earth, with record-breaking floods and droughts making headlines around the world. Over the past ten years, the number of fatalities from these catastrophes has doubled. Climate change, warming surface water temperatures, and more aggressive hurricanes making their way up to some of the planet’s oldest mountains in North Carolina have all contributed to a growing awareness that rising temperatures have disrupted the entire water infrastructure of the Appalachians.

Meet the Mysterious Woman Who Shaped MoMA – A biographical post about Lillie P. Bliss and the creation of the Museum of Modern Art as an exhibition focused on her opens.

Road trip from Missouri to New Mexico

My husband and I were excited to get to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge last week. This was our third time to attend…the first since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first time we drove rather than fly since we had moved to Missouri – a bit closer that where we lived previously (in Maryland). We made the drive over 2 days.

The first day was a 10-hour drive. We left the house at 6 AM and drove in the dark at first…and then it was foggy for most of the route through Oklahoma although I did spot a harrier (hawk) flying near the road in western Oklahoma). I didn’t take any pictures.

By the time we got to the Texas panhandle, the sun was shining. The rest stop building had a berm on two sides and dramatic white walls with a star cut out. It was very windy and cold – we were walking fast to and from the car!  The mosaic in the bathroom was a lot like the scene outside; the old Texas rest stops all had mosaics and I am glad that they have continued the idea in the new ones.

The panhandle of Texas has a lot of wind turbines. They were almost all in motion!

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As we crossed into New Mexico, there was a welcome center. I took a picture of the front and back of the sign…but it was still very cold.

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We stopped for the night at Santa Rosa NM…about 2.5 hours from our destination.

I observed the changes in vegetation as we drove on toward Albuquerque. The interstate curves around through the mountains just before getting to the city…a very scenic stretch of highway. Since I wasn’t driving, I took some pictures. There is a lot of rock – but vegetation too…and highway art.

We got to Socorro NM, ate lunch, made a reconnoiter drive around the Bosque del Apache wildlife loop, checked into the hotel, and then my husband headed out to a nighttime photoshoot at the Very Large Array; maybe he’ll share his photos with me, and I’ll post the best ones. I appreciated an evening on my own to unpack and get ready for the flurry of Festival of the Cranes events.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 14, 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.

Unusual Foods People Used to Eat All the Time – Poke (as in pokeweed) salad, turtle soup, cream chipped beef on toast, limburger sandwich, and vinegar pie. I remember my mother serving cream chipped beef on toast in the 1960s. She also served canned chicken or hard-boiled eggs in cream sauce over toast! It was a quick meal in the days before microwaves.

Incredible Winners of the 2024 International Landscape Photographer of the Year – Take a look and pick a favorite. I like the ‘sunrise on the Atacama Desert’….its crisp lines. The lightning and double rainbow over the Grand Canyons is awesome too.

The ancient significance of the date palm - Phonecia translates to the “Land of Palms” in ancient lands, where palm growth and harvesting dates to approximately 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, growing along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Date palm trunks and fronds were used as the roof for homes of Akkadians, Sumerians, and Babylonians. Mature palm leaves were made into mats, baskets, screens, and fans.

'One of the greatest conservation success stories': The 1969 mission to save Vermont's wild turkey - Vermont's wild turkeys are a successful restoration story, and one that stood the test of time, unlike elsewhere in the United States where wild turkey numbers are now declining.

Here's how much home prices have risen since 1950 – I bought my first home in 1978…bought subsequent homes in 1983, 1986, 1994, and 2022. I remember the interest rates on mortgages in the 1980s being high (the article says 13.7%) and 1990s (the article says 10.1%). In 2020 the interest rate was low, but we didn’t need a mortgage to purchase our last house! Every house we’ve purchased over the years has been above the median home price (unadjusted).

VA offering 'green burial sections' at national cemeteries – Hopefully ‘green burial’ will become the norm everywhere soon. We don’t need chemicals/embalming fluids leaching into the environment.

When Did People Start Eating Three Meals a Day? - In ancient Roman times, dinner was the one large meal everyone ate, although it was consumed earlier in the day than it is today — sometime around noon. This extended into the Middle Ages in Europe. Laborers often ate a small meal of bread and ale early in the morning before starting a day’s work on the farm. Their main meal of the day, called dinner, was served around noon, and a light snack, known as supper. By the end of the 18th century, many people were eating dinner in the evening after returning home from work. It wasn’t until around 1850 that lunch officially began filling the gap between breakfast and dinner. By the turn of the 20th century, lunch had become a defined meal, typically eaten between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and consisting of standard lunch fare even by today’s standards: sandwiches, soups, and salads.

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change? - The study integrates key concepts of the dynamics of atmospheric CO2, rising temperatures, human population, and crop yield…and highlights the urgent need to address CO2 emissions to maintain agricultural productivity. It also uncovers a promising strategy to mitigate crop loss caused by climate change: developing crop varieties with a higher temperature tolerance. Next steps for the team involve refining their model to include more variables like insect population, water availability, soil quality, and nutrient levels, which also impact crop yield under climate change.

US Grid Operators Kept the Lights on This Summer with More Solar, Storage, & Wind - In summer 2024, grid operators in all regions maintained enough capacity to keep the lights on during periods of peak demand, even as they retired older generators, and an increasing number of regions used more solar and storage to meet peak demand. Because it is one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions and had near-record peak demand in 2024, the new report concentrates on ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) to analyze summer grid operations.

Square Meter Photography Project – Autumn – Macro photography on the prairie.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 7, 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.

No need to overload your cranberry sauce with sugar this holiday season − a food scientist explains how to cook with fewer added sweeteners – Cranberries are one of my favorite seasonal foods. I like them so much that I buy enough to freeze and use well into spring – even summer. During the cold months I use them for relishes, adding to stir fry veggies, and in muffins. I’ll make the relishes more savory than sweet from now on!

Researchers Investigate Sustainable Ancient Construction Techniques – Studying the best-preserved earthen building in the Mediterranean. It was built between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE.

Floating Wetlands Bring Nature Back to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor – Built as part of the National Aquarium. The article interested me since we lived near Baltimore for so many years.

Check Out the Highest-Resolution Images Ever Captured of the Sun’s Entire Surface – Images from European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter.

Climate change and air pollution could risk 30 million lives annually by 2100 - Under the most probable projection, annual mortality rates linked to air pollution and extreme temperatures could reach 30 million/year by the end of the century. In 2000, around 1.6 million people died each year due to extreme temperatures, both cold and heat. By the end of the century, in the most probable scenario, this figure climbs to 10.8 million, roughly a seven-fold increase. For air pollution, annual deaths in 2000 were about 4.1 million. By the century's close, this number rises to 19.5 million, a five-fold increase. And yet – there is not the political will to change the scenario.

Vincent van Gogh’s Brilliant Blue ‘Irises’ Were Originally Purple – The paint faded since the painting was created in 1889. It’s still beautiful – either way.

Bee alert: Pesticides pose a real threat to over 70% of wild bees - Alarming risks that pesticides pose to ground-nesting bees (i.e. bumblebees, squash bees), which are crucial for pollination and food production.

The Chilling Sound of the Aztec Death Whistle - Creating 3D digital reconstructions of original Aztec death whistles…then recording sounds from originals and the reconstructions. Both produced sounds like a human voice or scream. There is a link to recording samples at the bottom of the post.

Overwhelmed by ever more clothing donations, charities are exporting the problem. Local governments must step up - There are more and more clothes in circulation, and they are getting cheaper and lower quality. That means the clothes you give away are worth less and less. Worldwide, we now dump 92 million tons of clothes and textiles a year, double the figure of 20 years earlier. Local governments usually handle other waste streams. But on clothes and textiles, they often leave it to charitable organizations and commercial resellers. This system is inherited from a time when used clothing was a more valuable resource, but the rising quantity of clothing has pushed this system towards collapse.

Oysters as large as cheese plates: How New Yorkers are reclaiming their harbor’s heritage – Perhaps the main accomplishment of the project, even more than increasing oyster population, is reminding New Yorkers that they are islanders. It's hard to care about something that is only abstract, something you don't have experience with. Ultimately, people have a much greater ability to improve water quality than the oysters ever will.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 30, 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.

How the Groundbreaking Suez Canal Forever Transformed the World’s Shipping Routes – The official opening ceremony was on November 17, 1869. It had taken 10 years to build on the path of an ancient canal and was called “the greatest service to the commerce of the world since the discovery of America.” The project was funded mostly by Western Europe.

'Jekyll and Hyde' leaders do lasting damage - When supervisors swing between good and bad behavior, they do even more damage to their employees than ones that are abusive all the time. And there are some indications that this kind of leadership could be contagious, with a leader's volatility fostering volatility in others

Scientists find a 35,000-year-old saber-toothed kitten in the Siberian permafrost - The cat was just three weeks old when it died, but its cause of death is unknown. The kitten still had its whiskers and claws attached when it was pulled out of the permafrost, and was covered in a coat of short, thick, soft, dark brown fur. Its hair was about 20 to 30 millimeters long. When looking at the mummified cub, scientists found some interesting differences between the kitten and a modern lion cub, particularly, in their paws: the saber-toothed kitten had wider paws, but no carpal pads — that's the wrist joint that's help modern day felines absorb shock.

Hatchling Alligators at the Fort Worth Nature Center – The Dallas/Fort Worth area is at the edge of American Alligator range…but the Nature Center has confirmed that it has a breeding population there. The Fort Worth Nature Center is 3,650 acres of mixed habitat, owned and operated by the City of Forth Worth; it is one of the largest city-owned nature centers in the US. There is an alligator research project ongoing there now that the breeding population has been discovered.

Sitting too long can harm heart health, even for active people - 10 hours or more of sedentary behavior per day is associated with heightened risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death. I am so glad that I decided years ago to use a Swopper chair (without a back…bouncing) at my computer desk….so I am moving most of the time that I am there!

Bone marrow in the skull plays a surprisingly important role in ageing - Studies in mice and humans showed that ageing results in skull bone-marrow expanding, and in mice this marrow was more resistant to inflammation and other hallmarks of ageing.

Glaciers Reveal When Volcanoes Are on Brink of Eruption - New research shows that glaciers near active volcanoes flow faster than other glaciers. The findings suggest it would be possible to predict volcanic eruptions by tracking the speed of glaciers.

Can we live on our planet without destroying it? - With eight billion people, we currently use a lot of the Earth's resources in ways that are likely unsustainable. Research shows that humanity can stay within the planetary boundaries. But it seems that there is little political will to do so. A depressing commentary on humanity.

Memories are not only in the brain - In the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain -- for example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.

Astronauts of the underworld: The scientists venturing into the deep, dark Earth - Hundreds of cave entrances are known on Earth, the Moon, even Mars. Many have never been explored.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 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.

How a Soviet swamp rat scheme for Azerbaijan went horribly wrong – Nutria introduced in the 1930s…..destroying every wetland in Azerbaijan today.

Light Pollution May Be Keeping Honey Bees Up at Night - On hot nights honey bees will sleep outside and slept less/more fitfully if there is artificial light…which could undermine the health of the colony.

The next massive volcano eruption will cause climate chaos — and we are unprepared – The history of large eruptions and what we can determine about the aftermath…though provoking on what it would be like if a massive eruption happened in the modern world.

Carbon recycling instead of plastic trash – Using iron electrocatalysis and producing green hydrogen as a biproduct…can be powered by solar panels. I hope this can be commercialized near term. We are overwhelming our world with plastic trash!

CT Scans Unlock Secrets of Mummified Individuals at Field Museum – Respect for the ancient dead…but still studying their bodies.

How do countries measure immigration, and how accurate is this data? - Three types of migrants who don’t have a legal immigration status. First, those who cross borders without the right legal permissions. Second, those who enter a country legally but stay after their visa or permission expires. Third, some migrants have legal permission to stay but work in violation of employment restrictions. Most high-income nations have a small minority of irregular immigrants in their immigrant population; the exception is the United States which estimates 22% of their immigrants are irregular.

Riding The Rails on Amtrak's Cardinal Line Through New River Gorge – Maybe a relaxing way to see the National Park and Preserve…thinking about next fall.

Mother Tiger Teaching Cub How to Fight Wins Nature’s Best Photo Awards – Great pictures….but Patricia Homonylo’s video is the most thought provoking….the one that is a call to action.

Geologists rewrite textbooks with new insights from the bottom of the Grand Canyon - From the Tonto Group's 500-meter-thick strata, we're learning about sea-level rise and the effects of catastrophic tropical storms -- probably more powerful than today's devastating hurricanes -- during a period of very hot temperatures when the Earth was ice-free.

Quantifying How Urban Trees Cool Cities - The authors of a new study estimate that the city of Baltimore could reduce land surface temperatures by 0.23°C if they increased tree canopy by 1%. To achieve 1.5°C of cooling, they would need to increase tree canopy cover by 6.39%.

Sorting Used Books

I sorted used books for Friends of the Library at two of our county libraries this month.

The first library was not one I had been in before and the sorting was done in a small windowless room lined with shelves --- table in the middle with bins underneath --- a narrow walk space around the table. The door is left open; otherwise, it would be very claustrophobic. There was one bag of donated books that was in bad shape (water damage, detached covers, a musty smell); most of those went into the recycling bin. The other volunteer and I quickly sorted everything and boxed up over 10 boxes to go into storage for the next book sale. It was a good experience but not the place I want to do book sorting very often.

The second library was one that is close to where I live and one I had worked in before. The room is without windows but is large…plenty of room to move around and the boxes of books are kept in the middle of the room.

There aren’t as many puzzles being donated these days so I didn’t find any while I was sorting to buy from the library for my dad’s assisted living home.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 16, 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.

Drought Expands Across the U.S. – We are finally getting some rain…but we are in the ‘extreme drought’ area of southwestern Missouri; it is going to take a lot to get back to ‘normal.’ On October 29, abnormal dryness and drought affected over 78 percent of the American population—the highest percentage in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s 25-year-long record.

Cholera, Zika and West Nile: The deadly diseases that sweep in after hurricanes – Damage to infrastructure has been the big focus of reporting in the US, but diseases are ramping up.

• Florida health authorities released a warning in early October of a likely spike in Vibrio vulnificus infections, urging residents to avoid wading in floodwaters.  Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria which can cause the breakdown of skin and soft tissue, sometimes leading to amputations.

• West Nile cases rose in Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.

• Studies found that flooding in Louisiana following hurricanes Rita and Katrina led to an increase in the airborne fungi Penicillium and Aspergillus, which can cause allergies, respiratory infections and pneumonia.

• Research into the aftermath of hurricanes Maria, Irma and Michael, shows that a significant number of people in Florida developed new chronic health conditions such as asthma and allergies in the six months following the disasters.

Satellite Imagery Shows Breadth of Flooding in Spain - Valencia saw a year’s worth of rainfall in just eight hours, with floods destroying buildings, disrupting trains, and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power.

What animal societies can teach us about aging - Humans are not the only animals to change our social behavior as we age. Red deer may become less sociable as they grow old to reduce the risk of picking up diseases, while older house sparrows seem to have fewer social interactions as their peers die off.

The world’s oldest tree? Genetic analysis traces evolution of iconic Pando forest - By sequencing hundreds of samples from the tree, researchers confirmed that Pando, a quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) in Utah, is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old. Pando consists of some 47,000 stems that cover an area of 42.6 hectares in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Because of the way the plant reproduces, this collection of aspens is technically all one tree, supported by a single, vast root system. Pando is triploid, meaning that its cells contain three copies of each chromosome, rather than two. As a result, Pando cannot reproduce sexually and mix its DNA with that of other trees, and instead creates clones of itself.

Have we found all the major Maya cities? Not even close – Using lidar to survey 50 square miles revealed evidence of more than 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures, including a previously unknown large city complete with iconic stone pyramids.

Stunning Shortlisted Photos From the 2024 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Contest – My favorite was “Chicory” for the color…and that I knew what it was!

Low-level lead poisoning is still pervasive in the US and globally - Chronic, low-level lead poisoning is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease in adults and cognitive deficits in children. Factors such as menopause and hyperthyroidism release lead sequestered in the skeleton, which causes a spike in blood lead concentrations. The solution to protecting people from lead poisoning is to identify and eliminate environmental sources of lead: eliminating lead acid batteries, replacing lead service lines, banning leaded aviation fuel, reducing lead in foods, abating lead paint in older housing, and further reducing lead-contaminated soil and other legacy sources.

Ghost Forests Creep Into North Carolina - Large swaths of cypress and pine forests along the southeast Atlantic coast have died, shed their bark, and become pale, leafless snags that line the waterways like gravestones. In the period before winds topple the snags over and shrubs cover them up, researchers call the eerie ecosystems “ghost forests.” One place that is it happening is Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge…and I realized I have been there! We visited in April of 2015. It was the first place I saw river otters and two vultures (different species) sharing a meal. There probably were bald cypress dying in 2015, but it is even more evident now.

Trees cool better than reflective roofs in vulnerable Houston neighborhoods - Heat islands occur in cities where structures such as buildings and roads absorb the sun's heat more than natural landscapes such as trees and grass. The researchers considered three different heat island mitigation strategies: painting roofs white to increase solar reflectance; planting vegetation on roofs to increase evaporation through the plants; and planting more trees, which increases evaporation and provides shade.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 09, 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.

Old Growth – Mitch Epstein photographs of very old trees.

The true story of a famed librarian and the secret she guarded closely – Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of New York's historic Morgan Library and Museum.

Inside Turkey’s Mysterious Ancient City That Once Sheltered Thousands—Underground - The Derinkuyu underground city is a sort of gargantuan anthill, except made by and for humans—up to 20,000 of them at a time, in fact. The city descends 280 feet into the earth, divided into eight levels. Upper levels were primarily used for living and sleeping, while lower levels were used for storage, even housing a dungeon. The far-stretched system of interconnected rooms was carved out of the Cappadocia region’s tuff rock. People didn’t live in these underground quarters year-round, however, as they were mainly used for shelter during times of conflict or extreme weather.

Climate change will affect food production, but here are the things we can do to adapt - Farmers can pick crop varieties best suited to different climate condition...production can shift to places with more optimal temperatures…planting and harvest times can shift as the seasons shift…focusing on the right irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides synchronized to climate change. We have the chance to build a more productive and resilient food system, but it’s not guaranteed that we will. It depends on whether the seeds, irrigation, and adaptation practices will be available. That will require real and sustained investment from governments, donors, and private companies.

Toothbrushes and showerheads covered in viruses ‘unlike anything we’ve seen before’ - We live in a richly microbial world. Interactions with bacteria and other microbes in our homes are an integral part of our human biology.

The monarch butterfly may not be endangered, but its migration is - Migrating monarchs don't fly at night, so they spend their evenings in bunches on trees or shrubs, known as roosts. The study relied on 17 years of data from more than 2,600 citizen scientist observations of monarch roosts along the butterfly's migration route. The researchers found that roost sizes have declined by as much as 80%, with these losses increasing from north to south along the migration route. The evidence shows that when monarchs are reared in a captive environment, either indoors or outdoors, they're not as good at migrating.

World’s Rivers Are Driest They - In 2023, the hottest year on record, the Mississippi River and Amazon River basins were at all-time lows, while the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mekong rivers, which all have their headwaters in the Himalayas, were also unusually dry. Across nearly half the globe, rivers were drier than normal.

The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer - Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25- to 49-year-olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina. Perhaps the most obvious explanation points to the role of obesity and metabolic syndrome, conditions which have been associated with driving cancer risk through increasing inflammation throughout the body and causing the dysregulation of key hormonal pathways. Or maybe changes in sleep patterns is part of the explanation. Combined with shifts in lifestyle, many cancer scientists believe that a key driving force for these illnesses is the consequences of various toxic changes within the gut (from microplastics). Antibiotics might be involved too. The bottom line…it’s a looming public health crisis.

New research reveals how large-scale adoption of electric vehicles can improve air quality and human health - Computer simulations show that aggressive electrification of the U.S. vehicle fleet, coupled with an ambitious rollout of renewable electricity generation, could result in health benefits worth between US$84 billion and 188 billion by 2050. Even scenarios with less aggressive grid decarbonization mostly predicted health benefits running into the tens of billions of dollars.

New study explores how universities can improve student well-being - Six guiding principles for improving student well-being:

• Embedding well-being into curricula for broader, more accessible adoption.

• Having each initiative only focus on one or two aspects of well-being, making it easier to create instruction that can also be more immersive.

• Tailoring initiatives to the student body and university culture.

• Securing buy-in from faculty.

• Ensuring new offerings are accessible and don't create additional financial burden for students.

• Employing an iterative assessment framework at the beginning to make it easier to change or scale up a program.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 02, 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.

Astonishing Photo of Millions of Monarch Butterflies Wins 2024 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest – Starting out the gleanings list this week with beautiful images from nature.

Iceberg A-68: The story of how a mega-berg transformed the ocean - Scientists following A-68's birth and demise were able to track just what such giant icebergs do to the surrounding ocean. For its short, transient life as an iceberg, A-68 became a frozen lifeboat for a wide range of species. Over its three-and-a-half-year journey since it broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf, A-68 lost 802 billion tons of ice as it thinned from an average thickness of 770ft (235m) to 551ft (168m). Over a three-month period at the end of 2020 and start of 2021, it dumped an estimated 152 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean – that is equivalent to almost 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the peak of its breakup, around 1.5 billion tons of fresh water was gushing into the ocean every day. The crushing weight of the freshwater from A-68a as it melted may have helped force carbon-based material down more quickly, to depths where it was less likely to be eaten.

Salmon Make a Long-Awaited Return to the Klamath River for the First Time in 112 Years, After Largest Dam Removal in U.S. – Four dams blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath basin and the Pacific Ocean…but now the dams have been removed, and the fish are returning. The first salmon in the river since 1912 were spotted less than two months after the last dam was removed.

Avian architects: weaver birds in Africa have unique building styles – The African white-browed sparrow weavers build nests that look like pompoms in acacia trees. Some families build roosts that are very long, with long entrance and exit tubes; others will build roosts that are much shorter, with hardly any tubes. Essentially, it looks like different white-browed sparrow weaver families have different architectural styles. Researchers excluded all environmental and genetic explanations for the differences in the structures built by different families. Maybe, like humans, some species of birds have their own architectural traditions passed on across generations through social interactions.

Huge! A Roman Engineering Marvel Reaching Across a Spanish City - In Segovia, the Romans built an aqueduct that stands as arguably their greatest architectural legacy from six centuries in Spain. After drawing water from the Frio River, the aqueduct runs underground for some 10 miles before appearing in Segovia as a grand, elegant beast that strides for nearly 2,400-feet across the town. Comprised of more than 20,000 blocks of granite and erected without a lick of mortar, at its highest point the aqueduct reaches more than 90-feet high with narrow, double arches. It remained in use until the late 1970s.

Life-saving spongelike 'bandage' rapidly stops hemorrhaging and mitigates risk of infection - A liquid gel comprised of siloxanes (silicon and oxygen) that is delivered via a special two-chamber syringe which rapidly expands into a spongy foam upon exposure to each other within the wound in under one minute. The sponge applies pressure to restrict the hemorrhage at the delivery site while also serving as an antibacterial agent because of the silver oxide in it.

Learning in the Environment: The Importance of Expanding Outdoor Education Across the United States - Although environmental discussions are expanding in schools, students often lack the opportunity to interact with the natural world through outdoor education, including place-based learning located in nature. The widespread decline of green spaces, especially in densely populated areas, restricts youth engagement with the environment. Interacting with the outdoors helps students to understand not only the environment itself but the role they can play in protecting it.

Chickpeas: Sustainable and climate-friendly foods of the future - Chickpeas are a drought-resistant legume plant with a high protein content that can complement grain cultivation systems even in urban areas. I have discovered that roasted chickpeas is my favorite ‘crunch’ topping for soups and salads!

Photo Contest Celebrates Excellence in Architectural Photography – I haven’t done much architectural photography…but maybe it is something to consider…when I am not able to do nature photography (which is my favorite).

Grasslands live in the climate change fast lane - The rapid shifts in grassland communities involve not only the gain of some hotter, drier species but also the loss of some cooler, wetter species. These shifts might have negative consequences such as dominance by non-native species and loss of biodiversity.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 26, 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.

A new era of treating neurological diseases at the blood-brain-immune interface – Investigating the connection of neurological diseases and a toxic immune reaction caused by blood that leaks into the brain….in particular, how fibrid (a blood protein) is responsible for setting of this detrimental cascade.

Antifungal resistance is not getting nearly as much attention as antibiotic resistance – yet the risks to global health are just as serious – Just as with antibiotics for farm animals, tons of fungicides are used annually to protect crops, of which some work the same way as antifungals used in humans. And just as bacterial resistance develops…fungi develop resistance too. Combating drug-resistant fungal infections is a complex problem. An important factor is that diagnoses of infections are often delayed – if they are even diagnosed at all. Simple tests for fungal infections are rarely available.

Nikon Small World Contest Celebrates 50 Years of Photographic Excellence Under the Microscope – Great images….the natural world that we can see only with assistance…an art form too.

So Last Season: The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion and Textile Waste Exports - The last ten years have seen a dramatic increase in the production of single-wear garments—which has contributed to an excess of textile waste and consequent health impacts for the individuals who work in the textile manufacturing industry. Every aspect of the creation of fast fashion garments is unsustainable, from the creation of plastic-derived textiles to the construction of pieces by underpaid and overworked exploited laborers. Up to half of American textile waste is shipped to nations overseas. Adopting more sustainable wardrobe practices not only helps us move away from fast fashion, but also significantly lowers our individual carbon footprints and waste production.

Plastic pollution harms - Nano- and microplastic particles (NMP) are increasingly polluting urban and rural landscapes, where bees and other beneficial insects encounter them… it can damage their organs and cause changes in their behavior, preventing them from properly performing ecosystem services such as pollination and pest control.

British Ecological Society Photo Contest Celebrates the Breadth and Beauty of the World’s Biodiversity – I liked the variety of selections in this photo contest.

Introducing Six Steps to Calm: Our science-backed, stress-busting email course – From BBC…I subscribed…plan to take the course!

Your diet can change your immune system — here’s how - There is still much more work to do to unpick the effects of specific diets on the immune systems of those with different health conditions. However, a growing group of immunologists are optimistic that the mechanistic insights they are uncovering are the first steps towards personalized diets for a range of medical conditions.

US air pollution monitoring network has gaps in coverage - Most of the harmful effects from outdoor air pollution in the U.S. are linked to inhalation of fine particulate matter (PM). These suspended particles, like soot or liquid aerosol droplets, are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, garnering the designation PM2.5. In February 2024, to better protect Americans from health burdens caused by inhaling particles, the EPA adopted a more stringent standard for PM2.5. The EPA tracks compliance with air pollution standards through a network of about 1,000 costly and highly accurate monitoring stations placed in cities and towns nationwide. People of color and people with low socioeconomic status living in the U.S have fewer monitoring stations than other areas to measure air pollutants, meaning they may not be fully protected by the tighter air pollution standards.

Researchers Parse the Future of Plankton in an Ever-Warmer World - Climate change is hitting our oceans hard, making them warmer and more acidic, while radically altering currents. The outlook for plankton is mixed. As the planet warms, the diversity of the menagerie in many spots is increasing. But certain species are losing out, including big juicy plankton thought to be important for food webs and carbon sequestration. And, in the long term, plankton numbers may plummet as climate change starves them of nutrients. Meanwhile research continues: which plankton species are where but also exactly when, since shifts in bloom timing can also have big knock-on effects for fisheries. And the viruses that attack plankton seem to be on the rise as waters warm — another factor with as-yet unknown consequences.

Next Spring Dreaming

I have been doing some seed planting this fall…dreaming of what will come up next spring. There are some areas that I might have to thin in a few years if too many of the seeds grow!

On the east side of the house where I have a patch of volunteer lambs ear taking over a bare spot in the yard, I planted a persimmon seed. If it grows, it would help stabilize the slope on that side of the house.

In the same area that I planted a spicebush (right side of image), I planted 3 pawpaw seeds…visions of a spicebush and pawpaw garden in that corner of our yard.

A little further down in the violets that have grown into the grass…directly out from my favorite office window, I planted two red buckeye seeds…hopefully I got them far enough apart that they could both thrive (I will feel lucky that even one comes up). I used the iris and peacock stakes to mark where I planted them.  I have visions of blooming buckeyes enjoyed by frequently visiting hummingbirds! The American spikenard is closer to the window and I am hoping to propagate it to other shady parts of the yard as well.

In the mound left when the pine tree fell (stump ground), I have a beautyberry that I planted (to the left in the image) and the goldenrod and volunteer asters are still blooming on the right. I planted 3 pawpaw there…so maybe some trees that will come up next spring.

The area that was a dead patch in the yard has recovered somewhat since I stopped mowing it completely and the mole tunnels crisscrossed it. I planted common milkweed seeds and 2 persimmon seeds there. If the milkweed and persimmons come up the patch will become another garden surrounded by yard…eventually merging with the mound left when the pine tree fell.

I planted 2 other persimmon seeds at the end of the retaining wall in an area that is difficult to mow not that far from where I already have fragrant sumac spilling out of the flower bed.

On the west side of the house, I planted some Hopi Sunflower seeds in an already existing bed. The vegetation there holds the moisture well from the sprinkler system. And maybe that same vegetation will keep the squirrels from finding the seeds!

I also planted Hopi Sunflowers toward the back of my wildflower garden (I am letting the stalks from this summer stand since they might be harboring native bee/wasp larvae). I covered my seed plantings with clippings from the yew…to deter squirrels. This area was very dry so I will put up a sprinkler to water it next spring; evidently our sprinkler system does not reach it.

I have started keeping better records of where and when I am planting in my yard….and dreaming that most of it will come up next spring! It will be a step forward in increasing the number of native plants and reducing the amount of yard I mow.

Field Trip to Springfield Wastewater Treatment and Landfill

The last field trip on the Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) training schedule was to the Springfield Wastewater Treatment Plant and Landfill.

The wastewater treatment plant that we toured was the smaller of the two that handle Springfield’s sewage. I was surprised that the smell of the place was not as bad as I expected. Maybe it was not as bad because it was a cool morning, but I expect that it primarily was because of the improvements in technology since I last toured a plant over 50 years ago! Now they have a lot more filters and blowers. There are challenges of materials that shouldn’t be in sewage – small items that get flushed (including wipes) that are still solid when then get to the plant and those are taken out early. There are anaerobic and aerobic basins where microbes do the work of cleaning the water. Sometimes there are enough oils that they must be put back through the process. Once the sludge is taken out, the water is clear and the microbes remaining are killed using UV light before the water leaves the plant for the river; the water released from the plant is about the same water quality as the river and there is monitoring to make sure that is true.   

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The landfill is uphill from the wastewater plant; the landfill is a high hill so there are great views of the countryside around it.

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It was a learning experience…I took notes. The landfill is 1200 acres of land with 213 acres active (i.e. there is plenty of buffer between the landfill and neighboring properties). We learned about the landfill’s construction that protects groundwater; the liner under each cell of the landfill is 5 foot thick: compressed aggregates, felt, plastic, leachate pipe (to drain of liquids) surrounded by river gravel, and finally felt. Each cell of the landfill is 5-10 acres. The leachate pipes are connected to a sewage line that takes the fluid down the hill to the wastewater treatment plant. The temperature in the landfill is 100-120 degrees and that is monitored via wells that are extended as pile gets higher. There are 16 ground water wells near the landfill that are checked every 6 months. They have increased the number of gas wells from 97 to 148; at present the methane is flared because it is not clean enough to put into natural gas pipelines (and it evidently is expensive to get it clean enough). The landfill had been projected to last 100 years when was expanded to 213 active acres but then the pandemic happened, and the projection is now 50 years (we are sending a lot more to the landfill since the pandemic). The city is more actively trying to divert yard waste away from the landfill and promote composting of food scrapes/waste.

The landfill layers quickly become anaerobic because of the heaps of trash piled and compacted. There is a lot of plastic that does no decompose easily even in aerobic conditions and even things that would decompose in aerobic conditions don’t in anerobic. These hills of trash are going to be where they are built for a very long time.

I am thinking about what further changes I will make after this experience. My family tends to have more recycle than trash. The change for me might be that I take more of my recycle to the recycling center rather than doing my curbside bin. Evidently there are lots of things that can happen during mixed stream recycle processing that can result in materials to the landfill.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 19, 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.

Antarctic 'greening' at dramatic rate - Vegetation cover across the Antarctic Peninsula has increased more than tenfold over the last four decades… fundamental changes to the biology and landscape of this iconic and vulnerable region.

Is cleaning with baking soda better for the environment? – Maybe not…and it might not be very good at some types of cleaning either.

Meet Milagra, a Rare Condor Rescued as an Egg and Newly Released Back into the Wild – A success at Arizona’s Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.

Landslides, Thousands Of Downed Trees, Undercut Roads Along Blue Ridge Parkway – Lots of repairs for the National Park Service after Hurricane Helene. Some damage is severe enough (i.e. more than just clearing mudslides and debris) that it will take time to repair. The fall foliage will come and go.

In Search of Microbes That Weave Colors into Moroccan Carpets - A scientist’s quest for microbes that produce purple pigments led to the vibrant world of natural dyes for women in the Atlas Mountain region of Morocco creating sought after traditional woven carpets…it’s a great intersection of biology and traditional artistry! The findings are compiled into a 48-page open-source guidebook, also translated into English, which described their project, introduced microbial dyeing, and catalogued recipes for plant dyes.

Dementia diagnostic markers change with time of day - Biomarker levels (p-tau217) were at their lowest in the morning when participants woke and highest in the evening.

Great Lakes Water Quality Project Seeks to Restore Coastal Vegetation - Returning certain croplands to perennial vegetation to reduce runoff and limit erosion.

'A warmer, sicker world': Mosquitoes carrying deadly diseases are on an unstoppable march across the US - West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), malaria and dengue…The mosquitoes that carry these diseases are thriving in a warming world.

Extinct Volcanoes Could Be Source of Key Metals Needed for Clean Tech - Rare-earths lurking under extinct volcanoes may be easier to extract. The iron-rich magma that formed some extinct volcanoes would be up to 100 times more efficient at concentrating rare-earths than the magma found in active volcanoes today. By one estimate, demand for rare-earths is set to grow fivefold by the end of this decade so finding them closer to home could contribute to more rapid conversion to clean technologies.

See Newly Discovered Nazca Drawings That Depict Llamas, Human Sacrifices and More - With the help of artificial intelligence, researchers have found hundreds of ancient artworks carved into the pebbled ground of Peru’s Nazca Desert in 6 months compared to 430 found between 1927 up to before the use of AI.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 5, 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.

Ten Striking Images from the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards – Great images…and the titles/descriptions add to their impact.

From wastelands to wetlands: The fight to save Sri Lanka's natural flood buffers – Transforming garbage patches into biodiverse wetlands in Colombo. About 15 years ago, these ecosystems were degraded and filled with rubbish. Residents organize weekly collection runs, piling up sorted waste at a small collection unit which the municipality sends off for recycling. School kids volunteer, kayaking through the lake to dig up invasive water hyacinth. Ancient kingdoms thrived in a well-managed wetland system where people used them for transport and to grow food. Today, Colombo is home to four wetland parks and several other recreational spaces linked by wetlands.

Eye on the Fertile Crescent: Life Along the Mideast’s Fabled Rivers - The Tigris and Euphrates, the fabled waterways that pour through the heartlands of Eurasian civilization, through the Fertile Crescent, from their chilly headwaters in the mountains of Turkey through vast watersheds in Syria, Kuwait, and Iran, to finally empty into the Persian Gulf at the sweltering marshland shores of Iraq. A series of pictures along the rivers today.

Deaths From Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Could Reach 39 million by 2050 - In 1990, 1.06 million deaths were attributable to antimicrobial resistance. For kids ages 5 and younger, deaths attributable to antibiotic resistance declined by more than 50 percent between 1990 and 2021, mostly due to vaccination, water and sanitation programs, some treatment programs, and the success of those. For patients ages 70 and older, the number of deaths increased by more than 80 percent during the same period. The team estimates that deaths among children will be cut in half by 2050, but deaths among seniors will double. New superbugs can emerge or disappear at a moment’s notice, and scientists still don’t have a good understanding of what causes these unpredictable swings. We urgently need new strategies to decrease the risk of severe infections through vaccines, new drugs, improved health care, better access to existing antibiotics and guidance on how to use them most effectively

Why Are Black Bears Thriving? - Their adaptability has made them one of the world’s most abundant bear species, and also the one faring the best in an increasingly human-dominated landscape.

These Ancient Egyptian Barracks Paint a Vivid Picture of Military Life During the Reign of Ramses II – Mudbrick rooms… evidence of soldiers’ daily provisions, accessories and toiletries, like ivory applicators for kohl eyeliner, necklaces of carnelian and faience beads shaped like pomegranate blossoms, and scarabs engraved with deities’ names. Weaponry demonstrates the place was well armed and may even have been able to produce some weapons on site.

People aren't volunteering as much these days: What gives? - In recent years, giving back to their community hasn't played as big a role in many Americans' lives. The 2008 recession had the biggest dampening effect on volunteering in areas with the most economic growth and above average income equality. When we talk about economic development for communities, we shouldn't divorce that from the civic development of communities. (I was surprised that the study did not find an impact on volunteering from the COVID-19 pandemic…maybe it is too early to see the impact?)

The Largest Prehistoric Structure South of the Sahara - Long after the Kingdom of Zimbabwe’s demise in the 15th century, Great Zimbabwe’s legacy endures. Shona people conducted rites here through the 19th century, and one of the stolen stone eagles that formerly adorned the city graces Zimbabwe’s flag. There are 10 million Shona people around the world today—and there is much to learn about their Bantu-speaking ancestors, who first settled Great Zimbabwe in the 4th century C.E. They farmed, mined iron, and kept cattle, a culinary staple that also denoted social class.

See an Ancient Egyptian Temple’s Brilliant Colors, Newly Revealed Beneath Layers of Dust and Soot - Restoring parts of the 2,000-year-old Temple of Edfu—and shedding new light on what the richly decorated house of worship looked like in its prime: paint and traces of gold leaf.

Brain vasculature changes important for predicting cognitive impairment - A study showing that several measurements of the brain, including blood flow and the brain's ability to compensate for the lack of it, are better predictors of mild cognitive impairment than risk factors like hypertension and high cholesterol. The researcher and its participants are in Oklahoma.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 28, 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.

The ancient practice of 'good fire' is reviving Nebraska's birds, bears and berries - In its original shape, the once wide, but relatively shallow Platte River provided an open space for the (sandhill) cranes to roost, while also keeping an eye on predators. These four-to-five-foot tall birds with wingspans of six-to-seven feet found abundant plants and insects to eat on the Nebraskan prairies. Lightning strikes brought occasional wildfires, which cleared out dead material and refreshed native plant life. Fire suppression is not always a good thing…

Giant Slab of Bog Butter Recovered in Ireland – Nearly 50 pounds! It is being analyzed by the National Museum of Ireland. It would be interesting to know how long it had been in the bog.

How Agroforestry Could Help Revitalize America’s Corn Belt – 8,200 hazelnut saplings growing with flocks of chickens in narrow grass paddocks between the rows of fledgling trees…. By combining food-bearing trees and shrubs with poultry production it is an example of agroforestry — an ancient practice that intertwines annual and perennial agriculture. Other forms include alley cropping, in which annual crops including grains, legumes, and vegetables grow between rows of food-bearing trees, and silvopasture, which features cattle munching grass between the rows. An acre of land under agroforestry can sequester five metric tons of CO2 annually, versus one ton for an acre of corn or soybeans. As the region’s vast corn and soybean operations continue hemorrhaging soil and fouling water and climate change proceeds apace, they may find themselves looking for new directions sooner than later.

Humans Pollute the Environment With 57 Million Tons of Plastic Each Year - Uncollected waste is the biggest source of plastic pollution, with at least 1.2 billion people living without waste collection services forced to ‘self-manage’ waste, often by dumping it on land, in rivers, or burning it in open fires. This “self-managed” plastic waste makes up more than two-thirds of the modeled plastic pollution. The study also calculated the largest contributors to plastic pollution in the world: India is in first place, producing 10.2 million tons a year; Nigeria is in second; Indonesia is in third; and China—which had been ranked in first place according to other models—instead comes in fourth. The U.S. ranks 90th, with more than 52,500 tons of plastic pollution produced annually.

One of world's fastest ocean currents is remarkably stable - There is growing scientific and public interest in the global Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a three-dimensional system of ocean currents that act as a "conveyer belt" to distribute heat, salt, nutrients, and carbon dioxide across the world's oceans. This study found that Florida Current, the beginning of the Gulf Stream system and a key component of the AMOC, has remained stable for the past four decades. Understanding the state of the Florida Current is very important for developing coastal sea level forecast systems, assessing local weather and ecosystem and societal impacts.

Growth of Solar Continues to Defy Predictions - The world is set to install a third more solar capacity this year than it did in 2023, surpassing forecasts by both industry experts and independent analysts. China is driving the bulk of the growth. Through May, India installed more solar capacity than it did in the whole of last year, and in the U.S., new tax breaks are giving the industry a significant boost. Solar manufacturing has jumped fourfold since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Birds Form Surprising Relationships with Other Avian Species During Migration - The researchers found that songbirds tended to show up together rather than avoid each other. American redstarts and magnolia warblers reliably appeared together in the researchers’ nets in spring and fall. The same thing happened with ruby-crowned kinglets and white-throated sparrows. The presence of other birds with similar foraging behavior or similar food preferences may signal to newcomers where the good habitat is, helping them refuel more quickly.

Residents in San Joaquin Valley breathe chemical pesticides - A new study found 22% of adults and 10% of children who participated in an air-quality study in California's San Joaquin Valley were breathing detectable levels of pesticides. Participants in this study served as citizen scientists, going about their normal days while wearing the backpacks to collect the samples.

Creative ways communities are reducing food waste – Returning oyster shells to the water in Alabama, collecting food waste for composting in almond orchards in California, gleaning fruit at the end of the season to supply the needy in New Hampshire-Massachusetts, and using underused land to grow free food in Washington.

Only Two US Metro Areas Are Affordable for Homebuyers - Before the Covid-19 pandemic, 20 U.S. states were considered affordable home-buying markets for most households. Today, just two metro areas remain ‘affordable’ by that definition issued by the National Association of Realtors — and no entire states fit the bill. The two metro areas are Youngstown and Akron, Ohio. Home prices have increased by 47% nationwide just since 2020, according to a June report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. A major factor is that there aren’t many homes for sale.