Gleanings of the Week Ending December 9, 2023

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Restored Glass Negatives Capture Daily Life in 19th-Century New England – Photographs taken from the 1860s to 1930s….Massachusetts…different photographers.

As Temperatures Rise, Dengue Fever Spreads and Cases Rise – The mosquitos that carry dengue viruses are extending their range. There were 0.5 million cases in 2000…5.2 million in 2019. In recent years, dengue has popped up in places it had never been seen, including Afghanistan, parts of Southern Europe, and, this year, Chad. An additional 2 billion people would be at risk of dengue exposure by 2080, compared to 2015. Areas unfamiliar with dengue may be hard hit even if case numbers aren’t high as people won’t have immunity from previous exposure to the virus, and public health systems may not be strong enough to cope with dengue outbreaks.

The World’s Largest Iceberg Is Drifting Three Miles Into the Ocean Each Day - The world’s largest iceberg, which had been grounded on the seafloor since the mid-1980s, is moving away from Antarctica and picking up speed. It could disrupt the foraging of seals, penguins and other seabirds. Called A23a, the iceberg measures around 1,500 square miles—more than 20 times the size of Washington, D.C.—and it’s roughly 1,300 feet thick, making it two and one-third times the height of the Washington Monument. It weighs nearly one trillion metric tons.

Landscape Photography Awards Rewards Authenticity in Photography – My favorite was “Little Leaves”….maybe because it didn’t have time to see a lot with fall foliage this year.

Expansive Alexander Calder Exhibition Opens in Seattle – Take a look at the museum’s site for the exhibit at well.

Bird Photography Contest Celebrates the Unique Diversity of Australia’s Wildlife - Nine winners were singled out for their work, rising above more than 6,000 images that were submitted. My favorite of this group is “Jambalaya on the Bayou.”

Volcano Monitoring Can Be A Risky Business: How Scientists Work Safely - Common PPE used in the field by HVO staff include respirators to filter volcanic gases, gas badges to monitor sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations, along with helmets and eye protection.  When molten lava sampling, crews will carry a face shield, fire-resistant clothing, and gloves to protect the wearer from radiating heat.

Best of 2023: Top 42 Photographs From Around the World – I have two favorites in this group of photos: the bald eagles and the dancing mantises!

African Penguins Tell Each Other Apart by Their Polka Dot Patterns – Evidently the chest plumage is unique to each bird….and the birds recognize the dots of their partners!

Photographer Chronicles the Enchanting Life of a Wild Red Fox for 8 Months – A Hungarian photographer’s project at his cottage in the forest after he noticed a fox running under the window one night.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 12, 2022

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.

Why the Dutch embrace floating homes – Maybe other coastal areas around the world should be looking at this kind of development…or mitigation strategy. Otherwise - there is going to be a lot of migration away from coasts that will become more and more prone to flooding in the decades to come.

New Antarctic Penguin Colonies Discovered Further South than Normal – Good news for the Gentoo penguins - there is more space on Antarctica now; previously the areas were too icy for these birds. On the downside – there is less area suitable for penguin species that previously lived there and there might be less food available for them all as warming continues.

Three people with spinal-cord injuries regained control of their leg muscles – There has been a lot of research in this area over the past decade; perhaps we are coming to a point where rapid advances are going to be made.

Why to flickers knock on your house? – Not just why they knock but other interesting behavior…made me consider putting up a flicker box to give them a place to raise young.

Dog feces and urine could be harming nature reserves – A study providing rationale for requiring dogs on leashes and owners removing their dog’s feces in natural areas.

Top 25 birds of the week: February 2022 – My favorite this week is the Great White Pelican. Somehow pictures of birds from the front like this always give them a rather assertive appearance.

US household air conditioning use could exceed electric capacity in next decade due to climate change – Not good. Implementation of mitigation strategies need to ramp up quickly. As an individual homeowner, I am thinking: 1) increase efficiency (heat pump or geothermal, more insulation, solar screens on any window getting full sun sometime during the day, maybe upgrade windows/doors) and 2) solar panels on the roof with storage battery.

Threats from QAnon conspiracists force butterfly sanctuary to close – Sad. My husband and I visited the butterfly sanctuary on a rainy day during the Rio Grande Birding Festival in 2017; it wasn’t a good day for butterflies, but we always thought we’d come back on a warmer/sunnier day during some future visit to the area --- then the border wall and the conspiracists has ended it all.

More spice could help seniors avoid salt – Yes! Lemon pepper (the kind without salt in it) is one of my favorites…and any of the components that come under the heading of ‘Italian seasoning.’ I dry my own orange peel (any time I eat an organic orange…the peel gets processed and dried). It helps to use fresh ingredients too (i.e. avoid no-salt version from cans…they have never tasted good to me no matter how they are prepared).

Star Bright: What are Dark Sky Reserves? – Staunton River  (where we’ve been for ‘star parties’) is a Certified IDA International Dark Sky Park….maybe we’ll visit one of the Reserves post-pandemic. Right now – the closest one to us is the one in Canada (just north of Vermont/Maine).

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 27, 2021

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Interactions! - Wild Bird Revolution and Top 25 birds of the week: Raptors!  and Top 25 birds of the week: Feathers!  – A treat this week – 75 bird photographs – enjoy!

The unseen 'slow violence' that affects millions - BBC Future – The harms that happen so slowly that we don’t notice in the moment. It happens over months and years and decades (maybe even centuries). We notice as we use our ‘big data’ to see hot spots of ill-health, where the environmental degradation is at it’s worst, and populations that can’t seem to escape their dire situation. And the issue very quickly becomes – how does our culture respond to the awareness of that ‘slow violence.’

Carbon: Getting to net zero -- and even net negative -- is surprisingly feasible, and affordable -- ScienceDaily – A detailed model of the entire US energy and industrial system….showing how to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050…with particular emphasis on what needs to happen in the next 10 years.

The country rejecting throwaway culture - BBC Future – France has introduced an index of ‘repairability’ rating for appliances…hoping to increase the electronics repair rate to 60% within 5 years. I’m glad I opted to repair my clothes drier rather than replace it….although the repair (replacing of the failed heating element) produced some trash it was a lot less than the whole appliance! Things like phones and laptops and monitors are harder.

Carolina Wrens Will Nest in Just About Anything and Why Carolina Wrens Have Moved into Your Neighborhood – We had a Carolina Wren make a nest in a gas grill we hadn’t used in along time. It surprised me when I opened the lid and the bird – startled and then panicked – flew out onto the deck railing. There is usually a pair nesting somewhere around our yard; we see them when they come to the feeder and hear them even more frequently. The forest behind our house and the brush pile at the edge of the forest are good places for them.

Federal Funding Obtained to Replace Zion National Park's Shuttle Fleet – And they’ll be electric! What a great way to keep the air smelling like nature rather than combustion fumes!

Rare Yellow Penguin Photographed for the First Time | Smart News Science | Smithsonian Magazine – What an unusual looking bird! It’s a king penguin on South Georgia Island with leucism, a condition where melanin is only partially lost and some parts of the body retain color. In this case…the ability to produce the usual black pigment is missing.

New River Gorge is America's Newest National Park - News | Planetizen – This park is within ‘road trip’ distance from where we live….maybe a destination post-pandemic.

How we turned a golf course into a haven for rare newts, frogs and toads – Hopefully US golf courses are doing things like this too. I usually think of them as using a lot of chemicals and would not want to live near a golf course….but if they consciously made places for amphibians….it would mean that other creatures could survive in the space too. There is an Audubon International Certification program for golf courses but they don’t publish a list of course that are certified.

The Arctic Ocean might have been filled with freshwater during ice ages – Based on a geochemical study of sediments.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/22/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Trying macro photographs of spicebush and red maple. My original plan was to tromp through the backyard and into the woods…do the photography outdoors. But – it was colder and breezier than I anticipated so I cut a small spicebush branch and picked up a twig of red maple samaras that had blown off. The photography part of the project would be done inside.

I worked with the red maple samaras first. I used a jeweler’s loupe and my cell phone with the samara on my kitchen countertop…a small flash light supplementing the natural light coming from one side. I like the graceful ridges in the ‘wings.’

Then I ‘got close’ with my Canon point-and-shoot camera….let its macro setting do it’s best. These are small immature samaras…about 1/4 inch.

The spice bush flowers are small too. I put the branch in a vase (with the sycamore branch). I might get to see its leaves unfurl too…after the flowers are done. I noticed an ant on the branch as I put it in the water. Can ants be pollinators?

I tried several approaches to photographing the small flowers. The ones below were done with the clip-on macro lens on my phone. The challenge is the shallow depth of field. These flowers are small but not flat!

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Then I tried putting my Canon bridge camera on a tripod across the kitchen and using the zoom. It blurs the background and provides more depth…but the color is gone. Maybe I’ll put more light on the flowers and try again. The sycamore buds might benefit from the same photographic strategy. My husband gets into the action too – helping me with the more complicated set ups.

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View fullsize

Catching up on the Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari videos:

• Moe the two-toed sloth

• Lions Imani and John

• Penguins (in a very noisy habitat…I didn’t watch the whole thing)

• Seyial the black rhino

Completing the Jackson Pollock segment of the In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting Coursera course. I’ve been doing one ‘week’ of the course every day and enjoying all of them – particularly the part about learning how they were made.

Re-assessing our investment strategy…making some changes. At first, we thought that maybe the social distancing strategy would work, and the economy would blip but recover soon. Not enough people are following the guidance – it says something very sad about us as a nation – and means that the pandemic with be more overwhelming. From an economic standpoint, it is more than a blip and deteriorating further. So we made some investment changes to stabilize rather than free fall…..continuing our social distancing…and hoping that the tests of potential therapeutic drugs work well enough to save lives and shorten the time people are in the hospital to recover. Both my husband and I fell of the wagon of limiting time spent following the coronavirus stories and statistics yesterday…back to limiting that activity today – no one needs a constant pounding of repeating bad news.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 10, 2018

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.

Look at What the Coastal Storms Have Done to the Chesapeake Bay - AGU Blogosphere – We had high winds in our area a week ago and it was worse (even higher winds and more precipitation) north of us. Trees feel, power outages prevalent, and some rail cars fell from a bridge as they crossed the Susquehanna River. The suspended matter in the rivers around the Chesapeake Bay were dramatically high…and it moved fast (lots of difference between March 4 and March 5). Wow!

New Perspectives on Bogotá’s Architecture Thanks to Drone Photography – I liked the first picture the best: the building footprint and the rooftop gardens…the trees below.

Forecasting diseases one image at a time – National Geographic Blog – Los Alamos working on predictive models of disease outbreaks in populations suplementing traditional data sources (with lag times in data availability) with non-traditional sources that are available more quickly to enable more timely response to disease outbreaks.

Are flamingos returning to Florida? -- ScienceDaily – Florida had flamingos in the 1800s but by 1900 they had been eliminated (killed for their plumage). Since 1950 they have been increasing in numbers and this study indicates that they are not just escapees from captive flocks. Most are birds from the Caribbean or Mexico that have repopulated Florida.

Can You Ever Have Too Many Turkeys? – Cool Green Science – Turkeys in Oregon – not native to the area but thriving – and an experience with the citizen science project to count them.

The Pileated Woodpecker in Winter – Cool Green Science – We have some pileated woodpeckers that make their rounds in the forest behind our house. They are indeed easier to see in the winter time than any other time of the year.

Welcome to the Age of Climate Migration - Rolling Stone – People are already moving from areas that are flooding more frequently. This appears to be an early indicator of economic consequences for climate change denial.

The Strange and Magnificent Nudibranchs of the Cape – National Geographic Blog – Marine slugs look so different from life we are used to seeing…they could be from another planet…but they are here on earth. Enjoy the pictures in this blog post.

Low magnesium levels make vitamin D ineffective: Up to 50 percent of US population is magnesium deficient -- ScienceDaily – Yet another reason to eat those leafy greens…or take a magnesium supplement.

Recovery: Evicting Rabbits – Cool Green Science – Ridding some islands of non-native rabbits so native flora and fauna can recover (penguins, birds, lots of plants)…with the help of a Labrador retriever wearing rubber booties!