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 December 2, 2023

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

Scientists found hundreds of toxic chemicals in recycled plastics - More than 13,000 chemicals used in plastics with 25% classified as hazardous. Numerous studies show that hazardous chemicals can accumulate even in relatively close-loop plastic recycling systems. We need to rapidly phase-out plastic chemicals that can cause harm to human health and the environment.

Giant Sequoias Are in Big Trouble. How Best to Save Them? - Giant sequoias are, by volume, the largest trees in the world, indigenous only to California. Reaching heights of 300 feet, they occur in 80 groves or grove complexes along the western flank of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Central California. Many of these trees live for thousands of years: The oldest sequoia is more than 3,200 years old. In North America, only bristlecone pines grow longer. The 2020 and 2021 fire seasons were a wake-up call: flames had killed between 13 and 19 percent of all giant sequoias more than 4 feet in diameter, and many trees were far larger.

Batteries of the future? How cotton and seawater might power our devices - In markets where consumers appear to really care about the sustainability of the products they buy, appropriately sourced alternative battery materials might have more of a chance – whether batteries are made with biowaste-derived carbon or any other potentially more sustainable substance. The public could play a big role in really pushing that effort forward.

Designing cities for 21st-century weather – A data-driven model to predict how urban areas across the country will grow by 2100 found that how a city is laid out or organized spatially has the potential to reduce population exposures to future weather extremes. Carefully designed urban land patterns cannot completely erase increased population exposures to weather extremes resulting from climate change, but it can generate a meaningful reduction of the increase in risks.

Stunning 2,700-Year-Old Sculpture Unearthed in Iraq – 18 tons of alabaster. 2,700 years old. 12.5x12.8 feet. Largely intact except for its head which is missing.

Larger Beaks, Smaller Bodies: Could Climate Change Literally Change Birds? – A study analyzed 129 species of North American migratory birds collected over the prior 40 years and found bodies are shrinking and wings growing longer. Smaller species of birds, like tiny warblers or kinglets, shrink faster than bigger birds like robins and grackles, so their rate of change over the 40 years, is much, much faster. They’re able to maybe adapt to warming temperatures faster than these bigger birds.

A step closer to injection-free diabetes care: Innovation in insulin-producing cell – Potential this safer and more reliable way to grow insulin-producing cells from a patient's own blood could eventually allow transplants without the need for anti-rejection drugs.  

The Life and Death of American Dams - Many dams are now poorly maintained, clogged with silt, and pose an increasingly high risk of catastrophic failure. The recent recognition of the damage dams cause and the movement to remove them is part of the rewilding of America, long overdue.

An exotic tick that can kill cattle is spreading across Ohio – Asian longhorned ticks. The size of a sesame seed in some life stages and pea-sized when engorged. Surveillance showed they returned the following summer to the farm despite the application of pesticides in 2021. Asian longhorned ticks' secret colonization weapon is the ability to reproduce asexually, with each female laying up to 2,000 eggs at a time -- and all 2,000 of those female offspring able to do the same.

How Urban Design Impacts Public Health – Urban planning and design affects everything from air quality to temperature to risk of injury on roadways. Often with developers of public spaces it’s a sin of omission rather than of commission. In many cases, what is rarely apparent is what the health cost is, because that cost is born in a different sector and often at a different time.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 30, 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.

Water-quality risks linked more to social factors than money - Low population density, high housing vacancy, disability, and race -- can have a stronger influence than median household income on whether a community's municipal water supply is more likely to have health-based water-quality violations. Many of the water-quality challenges are downstream of demographics, with many community water systems lacking the financial, managerial, and technical abilities to address the water-quality issues.

Step Inside Artist Dale Chihuly’s Stunning Seattle Studio, Filled with an Epic Antiques Collection and His Otherworldly Glass Forms – Interesting pictures.

Archaeological Tropes That Perpetuate Colonialism - We need to start with presence rather than absence. How did Indigenous communities survive, persist, and come to live at the places where they are today? How do Indigenous people conceptualize and engage with the places of their Ancestors? What stories do they share with their grandchildren?

The US is spending billions to reduce forest fire risks – we mapped the hot spots where treatment offers the biggest payoff for people and climate – Where forest-thinning and controlled burns could have the most impact in the western US….for reducing wild-fire caused carbon loss, protecting human communities, and both.

The gold jewelry made from old phones - "We're trying to encourage the idea that one person's waste is someone else's raw material." An article about what is happening at the UK Royal Mint re circuit boards from electronic waste.

Iron Age Child’s Shoe Found in Austria – Found in a salt mine in north-west Austria…a 2,000 year old shoe that once belonged to a child that lived or worked underground.

New Satellite Tracking Air Pollution Releases Its First Images – The TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) instrument makes hourly measurements of pollutants over North America. NASA will share observations with agencies that provide weather forecasts in hopes of reducing exposure to pollutants such as ozone.

Fine Particulates Are Slowly Killing Us All - People who live in Delhi, the most polluted big city on the planet, are living 11.9 fewer years because of air pollution. People in Bangladesh, the world’s most polluted country, stand to lose 6.8 years of life compared to 3.6 months in the United States. Acknowledging the benefits to society from burning fossil fuels in the past is no reason to continue embracing them in the future. We have created a system that kills people. We have access to clean energy technologies that do not make negative health outcomes one of their embedded features.

New cause of Alzheimer's, vascular dementia - A form of cell death known as ferroptosis -- caused by a buildup of iron in cells -- destroys microglia cells, a type of cell involved in the brain's immune response, in cases of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.

 Windows to the Past at Great Smoky Mountains National Park – History told through structures left behind (and maintained). Forever Places. A former resident said, ““…it was more like livin’ in the Garden of Eden than anything else I can think of.”

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 29, 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.

An elegant enigma – A shipwreck discovered 30 feet below the surface 15 years ago…what we know (and don’t know) about it after study of the 1,500 objects recovered including textiles in 4 chests. The name of the ship is still unknown but the construction indicates it was a Dutch trader constructed around 1645 and sank around 1660.

At Peru temple site, archaeologists explore 3,000-year-old 'condor's passageway' – A 3,000 year old sealed corridor in a massive temple complex built by the ancient Chavin culture.

Does Nature Need a Trigger Warning? – A thought provoking post. Predators must be part of our conservation actions…and need to be valued as they are rather than simplistically.

Two-Hundred Years of Written Observations of Kīlauea's Summit Activity – On August 1, 1823, an English missionary visited the summit and published his observations (I found the book online -available on Internet Archive…Chapter 6 begins on page 121…image below). Mark Twain visited in 1866 and trekked across the caldera floor to Halema’uma’u, watching “a heaving sea of molten fire of seemingly limitless extent.” There are several links in the article that are worth following. My favorite is the USGS Views of a Century of Activity at Kilauea Caldera – A Visual Essay.

How Texas is racing to thwart the heat  - Unfortunately, planning for heat is not as well-developed in the US as planning for other hazards like flooding so many cities are scrambling to take proactive measures to cool their streets down and protect people from the dangerous impacts of overheating. In urban heat islands, temperatures can be up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than less populated areas. Austin, TX has a climate resilience plan that includes strengthening emergency response and future-proofing new facilities and infrastructure. It also developed an urban forest canopy for the city to ensure cool outdoor spaces. The city has now applied for a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to plant more trees after finding the tree canopy coverage was helping Austin to adapt to hotter temperatures. In 2021, San Antonio became the first city in Texas to participate in a pilot project to lower pavement temperatures by applying a coat of paint that reflects the sun's rays. I was disappointed that other large cities in Texas (like Dallas and Houston) were not mentioned in the article. My impression of Dallas is that there is a lot of concrete.

Detecting spoiled foods with LEDs – A potential improvement in non-invasive monitoring of fruit and vegetable freshness.

Joshua trees are dying. This new legislation hopes to tackle that – A compromise law…sets up a conservation fund and requires the state to develop a conservation plan and companies to obtain a permit from the state to cut down or relocate existing trees.

The looming 840,000 ton waste problem that isn't single-use plastics – Carbon and glass fiber composites used in wind turbine blades, hydrogen tanks, airplanes, yachts, construction, and car manufacturing. "This is a huge opportunity," said Dr Wei. "And not only because various modes of recycling are cost-effective and minimally impactful on the environment. In an era of mounting supply chain disruptions, local recycled products can provide a more immediate product when compared to imports and create a burgeoning advanced manufacturing industry."

National Park Visitors Warned to Be "Prepared to Survive" Heat – My husband and I have avoided trips to the western national parks in summer since the 1980s…primarily to avoid crowds but now ‘excessive heat’ is part of our rationale too.

The ocean's color is changing as a consequence of climate change – The color shifts have occurred in 56% of the world’s ocean based on analysis of data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite, which has been monitoring ocean color for 21 years. Tropical oceans have become steadily greener. Changes in color reflect changes in plankton communities, that will impact everything that feeds on plankton. It will also change how much the ocean will take up carbon, because different types of plankton have different abilities to do that. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 22, 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.

The ground is deforming, and buildings aren’t ready – Underground climate change in urban areas where heat islands underground cause enough expansions and contractions to damage building foundations…particularly in older buildings.

How noise pollution impacts nature – A study out of Vail, Colorado, showed that increased trail use by hikers and mountain bikers disturbed elk so much the cows birthed fewer calves. Another out of Grand Teton National Park showed that backcountry skiers scared bighorn sheep during winter when food was scarce, with potentially lethal consequences.

Hospital understaffing and poor work conditions associated with physician and nurse burnout and intent to leave - The study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing found that physicians and nurses, even at hospitals known to be good places to work, experienced adverse outcomes during the pandemic and want hospital management to make significant improvements in their work environments and in patient safety. The solutions to high hospital clinician burnout and turnover, they say, are organizational improvements that provide safe workloads and better work-life balance NOT resilience training for clinicians to better cope with adverse working conditions.

The simple ways cities can adapt to heatwaves – Heat monitoring and planning is become more important for cities…the climate emergency in cities is a health emergency.

New biodegradable plastics are compostable in your backyard – New plastic made from blue-green cyanobacteria that isstronger and stiffer than previous plastics from the same raw ingredient. They can be recycled…but also degrade rapidly in the environment.

Giant Hand Axes Discovered in England Point to Prehistoric Humans’ ‘Strength and Skill’ – More than 300,000 years old perhaps from an interglacial period. Early Neanderthal people inhabited Britain then…and maybe other archaic human species too.

Germs, genes and soil: tales of pathogens past – DNA sequencers and powerful computational tools…applied to ancient microbes…probing their role in human history. This article describes how the work is done, ethical considerations…using examples of what has been accomplished so far. The field of archaeogenetics is just beginning.

Back from the Dead: New Hope for Resurrecting Extinct Plants – There is a global effort to digitize herbaria specimens which had helped identify holdings of extinct plants…sometimes finding seeds. And then the challenge is how to best attempt to grow old seeds.

Pain risk varies significantly across states – Pain due to arthritis varies geographically in the US – with the moderate to severe pain being 23% in West Virginia vs 7% in Minnesota.  There is also a difference between people that did not complete high school…and those who obtained at least a bachelor’s degree – with the delta being greatest in West Virginia, Arkansas, and Alabama. There is a need to focus on the macro-level policies (i.e. generally at the state level) while continuing current individual interventions.

The Acropolis Adopts Crowd Control Measures for the First Time – The post-pandemic travel surge is overwhelming at some places – including the Acropolis!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 8, 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.

Air Pollution Causes 1 In 6 Human Deaths – Deaths from modern pollution risk factors, which are the unintended consequence of industrialization and urbanization, have risen by 7% since 2015 and by over 66% since 2000. Unfortunately, little real progress against pollution can be identified overall, particularly in the low-income and middle-income countries, where pollution is most severe. It is increasingly clear that pollution is a planetary threat, and that its drivers, its dispersion, and its effects on health transcend local boundaries and demand a global response.

Opioids no more effective than placebo for acute back and neck pain – The study was done in Australia but, hopefully, will lead to stepping away from opioids for back/neck pain. How many became addicted to opioids via doctors writing prescriptions trying to relieve their patient’s back pain?

Antimicrobial Resistance: The Silent Pandemic – The first accounts of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurred 2 years after Alexander Fleming warned about it in his 1945 Nobel speech. AMR is now responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, and it is projected to kill 10 million per year by 2050.

Early Women Were Hunters, Not Just Gatherers – My favorite statement from the article: “Grandmas were the best hunters in the village.”

Overdose deaths involving street xylazine surged years earlier than reported – Drug death data is gathered and analyzed slowly…not so long ago, it appeared that illicit xylazine use was still largely concentrated in the mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast….but it is not showing up in street samples all across the US and surging in the South and West. US drug deaths hit a new record last year with roughly 110,000 fatal overdoses nationwide from fentanyl and increasingly complex street drug cocktails.

U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal for the First Time - In the first five months of 2023, wind and solar produced 252 terawatt-hours, while coal produced 249 terawatt-hours, according to preliminary government figures. The decline in coal is happening faster than anyone anticipated.

Largest-ever atlas of normal breast cells brings unprecedented insights into mammary biology – 12 major cell types, 58 biological states…differences based on ethnicity, age, and the menopause status of healthy women.

Why our voices change with age – Lots of reasons the sounds we make can change. One habit suggested from the article that I am considering: “Singing or reading out loud daily can give the vocal cords sufficient exercise to slow their decline.”

Cedar Breaks Wildflower Festival Starts Friday – Hmmm…maybe I should look for wildflower festivals (along with birding) when I plan our vacations.

Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure - Earth’s remaining ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are far more vulnerable to climate warming than models predict, and that the ice sheets may be destabilizing from inside. Recent studies have shown that:

• Warming ocean currents are intruding into the Antarctic and Greenland coastlines, flowing under the ice shelves to undercut outlet glaciers and destabilize their calving fronts.

• Increasing rainfall across the Greenland ice sheet not only depletes snow accumulation, it also accelerates surface melting and ice flow.

• Algae and microbes, along with surface snowpack melt, darken the ice sheet surface, absorbing more solar radiation, which also accelerates ice melt.

• Superimposed ice slabs within the snowpack are forming across the accumulation zone, forming an impermeable barrier that depletes meltwater retention and drives extraordinary runoff.

• Water at the base of the ice sheet thaws and softens the frozen bed, thereby triggering basal sliding and accelerating interior ice sheet flow to the margins.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 20, 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.

These four challenges will shape the next farm bill – and how the US eats – Thought provoking. Will the author’s dream priorities for investment (organic agriculture as a climate solution, infrastructure to support vibrant local and regional markets and shift away from an agricultural economy dependent on exporting low-vale crops; and agricultural science and technology research aimed at reducing labor and chemical inputs and providing new solutions for sustainable livestock production) be funded….or will Congress stay entrenched in continuing agriculture as it is today.

The Energy Revolution in 5 Charts – 1. The energy transition is a technology revolution (it’s not a brown to green caterpillar…it is a caterpillar to a butterfly; we are moving from a commodity (fossil fuel) to technology-based system). 2) The renewable revolution is exponential, not linear (and we are at or past the knee in the curve). 3) The renewable revolution is led by China (with the US and Europe recently enacting policies to compete). 4) This is the decade of change (exciting times for heat pumps, electric vehicles, solar, and wind). 5) By 2030, the debate will be very different with the renewable revolution obvious to all.

National Park waterfalls being honored on US Postage Stamps – Beautiful places. Would like to see (and photograph) more of them!

The Camouflaged Looper: This Inchworm Makes Its Own Flower “Costume” – Another reason to take a closer look at flowers….the small creatures that might we living (and munching) there!

Our tropical fruits are vulnerable to climate change. Can we make them resilient in time? – The work to help our food plants tolerate and thrive with climate change. The post is specific to Australia but has applicability elsewhere. Techniques have already been successfully applied to chickpeas to make them more drought resistant, survive higher temperatures, and produce better yields!

Commercial Rooftop Solar on Warehouses Could Power All of Them – Commercial rooftop solar on America’s warehouses could provide 185 TWh of clean renewable energy every year. Hurray! Power produced near population centers where it is used….and avoiding taking farmland for solar panels (unless the plan is to grow crops under the panels).

Water arsenic including in public water is linked to higher urinary arsenic totals among the U.S. population – Not good…and water pitcher type filters do not remove it…..it takes reverse osmosis, activated alumina, or ion exchange (anion) resins to do that.

Fashion World Remembers Mary Quant, the Miniskirt Pioneer – I was old enough in the ‘60s to remember wearing Mary Quant type dresses!

How do you stay optimistic in spite of it all? 6 hopeful souls share their secrets – Thought provoking…maybe we all need to think about the ways keep ourselves positive….not let the pessimism around us overcome us.

The clean energy milestone the world is set to pass in 2023 - Greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, the largest source of the world's emissions, are expected to fall for the first time!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 6, 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.

Digesta: An overlooked source of Ice Age carbs – Partially digested vegetable matter from large herbivores (such as bison) might have provided carbohydrates and other macro nutrients reducing the burden of ‘gathering’ for a time after an animal was slaughtered. Perhaps during migration, it was the dominant source of carbohydrates in a situation with reduced accessibility of plants. And maybe women participated in hunting to a larger extent than previously thought; ‘grave goods’ in burials found that perhaps 30-50% of all large-game hunters in the Americans during the late glacial era may have been female!

Anemia found to be common in ancient mummified Egyptian children – CT scans were done on 21 child mummies (between ages 1-14 at death) to study the skeleton inside the wrapped remains. 7 of the children had pathological enlargement of the cranial vault, typically associated with anemia. The study also found a child that died less than a year after birth of thalassemia (the body could not produce hemoglobin).

Bathing through the ages: 1300 – 1848 – 14th and 15th century bathhouses provided services beyond bathing (lancing abscesses, pulling teeth, steam rooms, mineral baths, cupping, herbal concoctions); they helped shape the public health services of larger cities as they grew, and health conditions deteriorated. By the 16th century, bathhouses started to disappear as Europe was ravished by plague, smallpox, and syphilis. But – by the 1800s, sanitation reformers were arguing that making bathing facilities available to the poorest classes of society offered an ‘affordable and immediate way’ of improving public cleanliness and health. Bathhouses, along with waterworks and sewage systems, laid the foundation for the UK Health Act of 1848.

Glass or Plastic: which is better for the environment? – There is not a clear-cut answer. I will lean toward glass because of its non-toxicity….but I also realize we need to improve the ways we use it (less single use) and recycle it (better sorting and improved processing that avoids melting it twice),

Greener batteries – Batteries with Organic Electrode Materials (OEMs) are one alternative that is being researched…in this case using azobenzene by a research team at a Chinese University. Hopefully there are researchers around the world also focused on producing greener batteries.

Protein powders: When should you use them? – I think of protein powder as an ultra-processed food….a food I only want to use if I can’t manage to get enough protein from unprocessed or lightly processed foods in my diet. It is not something I want to use every day!

Long Reviled as ‘Ugly,’ Sea Lampreys Finally Get Some Respect – Not so long ago…lampreys were an organism that seemed destined for extinction because we only saw it as a predator that wiped out the Great Lakes lake-trout fishery. Now, the consensus is that, in their natural habitat, marine lampreys are “keystone species” supporting vast aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They provide food for insects, crayfish, fish, turtles, minks, otters, vultures, herons, loons, ospreys, eagles, and hundreds of other predators and scavengers. Lamprey larvae, embedded in the stream bed, maintain water quality by filter feeding; and they attract spawning adults from the sea by releasing pheromones. Because adults die after spawning, they infuse sterile headwaters with nutrients from the sea. When marine lampreys build their communal nests, they clear silt from the river bottom, providing spawning habitat for countless native fish, especially trout and salmon. Wow!

The Pacific Garbage Patch Is Home to Coastal Species—in the Middle of the Ocean – A surprise for researchers…they found shrimp-like arthropods, sea anemones and mollusks, Pacific oysters, orange-striped anemones and ragworms. Crustaceans were taking care of eggs and anemones were cloning themselves. This does not make the Garbage Patch acceptable!

Photography In the National Parks: Same Spot, Different Time / Season / Weather – Spots in Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, and Olympic National Parks.

Greater fat stores and cholesterol increase with brain volume, but beyond a certain point they are associated with faster brain aging – People in wealthy countries have largely grown accustomed to eating more and exercising less -- habits that are associated with decreased brain volumes and faster cognitive decline. This study looks at indigenous people (two tribes in Bolivia that live along tributaries of the Amazon). The tribe that was closer to our subsistence ancestors had the lowest rates of hear disease and minimal dementia; in this group - BMI, adiposity and higher levels of "bad" cholesterol were associated with bigger brain volumes in older adults!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 1, 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.

Climate change threatens spring wildflowers by speeding up the time when trees leaf out above them – Evidently the trees and wildflowers in eastern North America are the ones getting the most out of sync.

The mystery of Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) – AIWS (or Todd’s syndrome) affects the way people perceive the world around them and can distort the way they experience their own bodies and the space it occupies. There are 40 types of visual distortions that characteristic of the syndrome. It was formally described as a distinct syndrome in 1955. Up to 30% of adolescents reported mild or transient experiences. Cough medicines and illicit hallucinogenic substances are also known to trigger it.  Sometimes medical conditions like strokes or brain tumors can cause the syndrome as can infections.

Chinook salmon fishing season canceled off coasts of Oregon, California – Dwindling numbers of Chinook salmon in the states’ largest rivers following years of drought.

In Florida, an invasive snail is helping save an endangered bird – We heard about this during a birding trip to central Florida pre-pandemic. It probably is one of the few examples when an invasive species has produced a positive outcome.

Garbage to Guts: The Slow-Churn of Plastic Waste – Lots of microplastics in the world…and they are in our food chain. Ongoing exposure decreases beneficial gut bacteria and increases pathogenic species. A lot more research needs to be done since, right now, we don’t know very much about impacts of microplastics – not just to the overall environment but to our own bodies.

 With Heat from Heat Pumps, US Energy Requirements Could Plummet By 60% - Thinking about heat….and the ‘rejected energy’ (mostly heat) in our current energy consumption. The idea is to use heat pumps to dramatically reduce ‘rejected energy’ in future energy consumption.

Entire populations of Antarctic seabirds fail to breed due to extreme, climate-change-related snowstorms – Evidently the December 2021 - January 2022 breeding season for south polar skua, Antarctic petrel, and snow petrel was so disrupted that there were almost no young produced.

Why don’t humans have fur – Interesting…but we really don’t know. The genetic research associated with the question could have practical application for people that need to stimulate hair growth (like after chemotherapy or balding).

2021 Was A Very Good Year for Nesting Wading Birds In The Everglades – Hurray! Some good happening in the Everglades. There are so many stories about the impact of invasive species (like Burmese pythons) that this is welcome news.

Meet the sargassum belt, a 5,000-mile-long snake of seaweed circling Florida - In the open sea, sargassum can soak up carbon dioxide and serve as a critical habitat for fish, crabs, shrimp, turtles, and birds…all positive. But when sargassum gets close to shore it can smother coral reefs, alter the water’s pH…and then onshore it begins to rot within 24 hours releasing irritants like hydrogen sulfide which smells like rotten eggs or manure and can cause respiratory problems. And it often contains significant amounts of arsenic so not a great addition to a compost pile. The mass of sargassum has been increasing since 2011 --- probably in response to elevated nutrients (runoff from fertilizer, burning biomass, increasing wastewater from cities, etc.) we have released into the ocean. Sargassum has come ashore in Yucatan and Key West recently.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 18, 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.

A mixture of trees purifies urban air best – Conifers do a better job at gaseous components of pollution…and they do it all year round; this is particularly important since pollution can be at its highest in winter. Broadleaved trees are more efficient at cleaning the air particles, perhaps because of their larger surface area.

Once the Callery pear tree was landscapers’ favorite – now states are banning this invasive species and urging homeowners to cut it down – Back in the 1980s, the neighborhood I lived in organized to plant Branford pears along our streets. The neighborhood I moved to in the mid-1990s had mature Bradford pears; they were knocked down by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 (the trunk of the one in our neighbor’s yard broke close to the ground with a loud crack) and not re-planted. My neighborhood in Missouri was built in the late 1990s and there are some mature trees near the entrance.

Assessing the risk of excess folic acid intake – Too much or too little of a good thing (folic acid) may not be such a good thing.

School choice proposals rarely go before voters – and typically fail when they do – Public schools have been the backbone of American greatness. How do parents make choices to do otherwise? I suspect that sometimes a Charter School that looks great turns out to be something completely opposite because it is so difficult for individuals to gather enough information to evaluate a school. So - why are legislatures keen to support non-public schools?

The East Coast Whale Die-Offs: Unraveling the Causes – There have been headlines on this as a new challenge; this article includes some data collected so far. There have been periodic whale strandings earlier (back in 2016-2017) too. Almost all the carcasses this winter in New York and New Jersey had clear signs of vessel strike and many were juveniles. It appears that the feeding areas for whales have shifted due to warmer water and that shift has put them in areas with more ships (i.e., ports of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia).

Mary Wollstonecraft: an introduction to the mother of first-wave feminism – A little history…but not just about feminism. “Liberation from oppression means being able to define ourselves and the direction of our lives. And this requires access to the intellectual resources and knowledge needed to develop independence of mind. This is Wollstonecraft’s most important message, and one that should speak to everyone regardless of gender.”

Cornell Study Finds Solar Panels Help Crops Grow & Crops Help Solar Panels Last Longer – Not all crops can grow under solar panels but enough of them do (like tomatoes and soybeans) that there is no reason for solar panels to reduce farmland!

Global warming is changing Canada’s boreal forest and tundra – It’s complex. In general, as temperatures warm, trees will colonize further north…but not at uniform rates in all regions.

Greater gender equity helps both women and men live longer – The study looked at 156 countries between 2010 and 2021 to assess the gender gap in life expectancy around the globe. The three dimensions included in the study were political, economic, and educational. Of the three, education has the strongest association with longer life expectancy. The study authors summarize: “the evidence demonstrates that enhancing women's representation across multiple sectors contributes to wealthier and, hence, healthier societies for all."

Less Than 1 Percent of People Globally Breathing Safe Levels of Pollution, Study Finds – Focusing on particulate pollution: particulate pollution has fallen in Europe and North America over the past two decades, but risen in sub-Sharan Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and the Caribbean. (see Lancet article with maps here).

A Patient Perspective of Medical Care in the US

Part of the aftermath of making a long distance move is establishing new doctors. I’ve completed the process at this point – 8 months after the move. It’s been a learning experience. I started out with the intention to find a primary care physician and specialists in the same system so that I would only have one portal for all my medical information – unlike my legacy situation that involved at least 4 different portals. The portal for my new doctors is well organized and has become the primary way I get results and send questions/messages to my doctors. In general, the lab work is done very quickly and posted on the portal; I see it about the same time that the doctor sees it. The system of doctors – specialists – labs – hospital also includes several urgent care facilities that I appreciate; their availability can help avoid a busy ER; I’ve already used an Urgent Care facility prior to my first appointment with my new primary care doctor when I got a very painful bite that looked infected. On the downside -

• Vision and dental care are not general part of ‘medical care’ from an insurance perspective or systems with MDs; vision and dental are still separate. The initial dental practice I selected wanted to do very different (and expensive) kinds of cleaning for my teeth and I’ve opted to go to a new one that is more like the dental practices I’ve used in the past. It’s hard to know how to evaluate dental recommendations since they are outside of the primary medical system. I like the vision care practice I chose but may have similar misgivings as I get closer to needing cataract surgery.

• The various specialist doctors and non-blood labs/radiology are in separate buildings; they are relatively close together, but I am careful to record the building address  in my appointment calendar; it’s a high traffic area and it could be challenging to get to the appointment on time if I went to the wrong building first.

Thinking about the big picture of medical care in the US - It is not achieving ‘best in world’ results based on healthy lifespan stats. Why is that?

• Insurance is expensive and confusing. I’ve had health insurance since the late 1970s and the trend has been increasing cost and complexity over the duration. Checking that doctors are in-network and drugs are ones that are on the formulary is a required skill to get insurance to cover costs….and even then, sometimes surprise charges occur. What happens when your doctor prescribes a drug that is not on the insurance company’s formulary? I am very aware that I have been fortunate to always be insured….understand that the cost of good medical insurance is prohibitive to many and that often means not getting medical care until there is a health crisis…and going to an emergency room.

• Cultural reluctance/aversion to embrace public health measures. Over the past decade, there has been increased resistance to public health measures (for example, not getting vaccinations for children, older adults declining vaccines, flying when sick (coughing, sneezing),  and aggressively against mask wearing at any time) and demands on health professionals for treatment that is not appropriate for their condition (for example, demanding an antibiotic for a viral infection or are an ineffective drug for COVID or a drug advertised on television that is for a condition the patient does not have). I am mentioning the demands for inappropriate treatment under public health because it impacts the costs for medical care overall, increases resistance of microbes to antibiotics making them less effective when they are needed, and makes the workplace for doctors/nurses more stressful (and some decide to leave the profession resulting in shortages of skilled personnel).

• Dominate lifestyle. We live in a world of fast food and ultra-processed foods…people are more sedentary because of their jobs or the type of entertainment they choose. It is harder to “eat healthy” now that when I was growing up and as a young adult. Many people in the country are obese and/or in poor physical condition. However – there are a lot healthier foods available now if we educate ourselves. For example – kale was not something I ate as child, now it is my ‘super green’; other foods that I’ve only know in the past 20 or so years include: pomegranates, edamame, beet greens, red cabbage, butternut squash, ground turkey. There are also a lot of ways to measure physical activity…and some have leveraged those metrics to become more physically fit. Still – healthy lifestyles are not as prevalent now. The bump in life expectancy that was achieved after many people managed to stop (or not start) smoking is being eroded.

• Aggressive intervention with drugs. The medical system tends to treat with drugs rather than recommending lifestyle changes. Part of this skew is the way doctors are trained (often nutrition is not included in their education) and part is probably based on their experience that most patients will not follow through and make a change. If a drug can change the measure the doctor is seeing (like blood pressure or cholesterol levels), then the doctor tends to immediately medicate. Any unwanted side effects from the drugs are resolved through changing to a different drug or adding a drug to reduce the side effect or telling the patient that the benefit of the drug is greater than the impact of the side effect. But – if people can change their lifestyle, they are probably addressing the root cause of the problem rather than artificially doing something that changes the measure but leaves what is causing the problem the same. Long term maybe we’ll know if the drugs really do very much for increasing healthy lifespan.

• Specialists with blinders to anything outside their specialty. The notion that a primary care physician can integrate care is overly optimistic.

  • Many times, the specialists are proceeding with their focus; if treatment is meeting the measures they want, side effects or over medication are not a priority for them.  For example – an endocrinologist adjusting medication to get the levels of hormones to a precise level is often unconcerned or dismissive of a patient reporting heart palpitations, hot flashes, and eyebrows falling out.

  • Emergency room doctors are focused on resolving the primary cause of the emergency visit and sending the patient home as soon as possible; this leads to quick fixes that often do not prevent the same issue occurring repeatedly. A good example is cellulitis in older patients; the ER gives them antibiotics and they go home…often returning with cellulitis again in a month or so. If the ER is not overwhelmed and there is an alert attending in the ER or in the hospital, more proactive measures can be taken…perhaps re-evaluating the dosage levels and complexity of existing medications, adding a prophylactic antibiotic, etc. that can prevent rapidly recurring ER visits for cellulitis.

• Lack of trust. Patients believe doctors may have alternative incentives than patient health when recommending treatment/drugs and doctors believing patients may not be doing as they say and/or taking meds as prescribed. Not sure how this can be bridged other than encouraging more transparency on both sides.

The bottom line – I want to believe that I am proactively maintaining my health and being a knowledgeable patient that asks relevant questions to understand my doctors’ logic….thus making the best of the medical care available…but there are certainly times that I have some doubts. So far, I have been able to resolve those doubts and am satisfied that I am on a healthy path. However - I am increasingly concerned about individuals with fewer financial resources, less healthy or not as knowledgeable. The trend is toward more challenges within the US healthcare system!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 14, 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.

Study investigates source of Amazon’s “Dark Earth” – Created intentionally? It is less acidic than surrounding soils…probably from the addition of ash.

New York City Greenery Absorbing All Traffic Emissions on Many Summer Days – There is a lot more greenery that previously thought…looking beyond parks to modest backyards, shrubbery growing in vacant lots, and trees dotting city sidewalks. That’s good for the summer when everything is green and growing….but it also implies that winter air quality is problematic.

‘Stomp’ Performers Hang Up their Garbage Lids – After 3 decades off-Broadway. Watch the video!

Riddle solved: why is Roman concrete so durable? – It wasn’t just volcanic ash that made Roman concrete better…lime clasts play a self-healing role!

Why is every parking lot covered with solar panels? – Evidently Michigan State has done it…hopefully other universities and big box stores do similar projects. 

How the war in Ukraine is killing marine mammals – The dolphins that were washing up on the shore of the Black Sea prior to the war were few and usually had markings suggesting entanglement in fishing gear.  The theory about the increased number appearing now, without marks, is that the dolphins are experiencing acoustic trauma from the increased use of sonar by Russian submarines.

Climate impact labels on sample food menu had strong effect on food selection – A study done by Johns Hopkins. The result indicate that this kind of labelling could promote more sustainable choices….and have positive health benefits as well!

Aerial Photos Capture the Abstract Beauty of Salt Ponds – From a new book….with images and background about these man-made landscapes.

Great Salt Lake will disappear in 5 years without a massive ‘emergency rescue’ – My husband and I visited the lake back in 2008. The pictures in the article are so different that I needed the captions to recognize the place. The lake was already shrinking in 2008 but the shrinking has increased with long term drought and increased population diverting more water that would otherwise flow into the lake. Aside from the ecological collapse if the lake goes dry, the dust from the dry lakebed is kicked up by winds and can damage lungs/exacerbate other respiratory illness. This does not bode well for public health in Salt Lake City.

Painted skulls from Peru’s Chincha Valley analyzed – The red paint on the skulls was not all the same on all the skulls: some have iron-based ochres and others have mercury-based cinnabar….the red paint on one of the skulls was a combination of the two!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 26, 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.

Battle Over Bears Ears Continues in Utah – I am looking forward to visiting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments and hope that their boundaries stay the way the tribes that have used the area for a very long time want. At some point Utah and the counties that are opposing the size will recognize the values of the tribes and country that want to preserve historical, paleontological, and geologic aspects of these places….and that the state benefits significantly from people visiting. The tourism $ may become more dependable and long term than other uses of the land.

Pyramid and Hundreds of New Kingdom Coffins Found in Egypt - An Old Kingdom pyramid, 300 New Kingdom coffins with well-preserved mummies with names of the deceased, and nearby a pyramid to Queen Neith…a previously unknown Queen.

Long-COVID clinics are wrestling with how to treat their patients – Frustrating situation.

Fenced In: How the Global Rise of Border Walls Is Stifling Wildlife – Border walls have increased since the end of the Cold War! This makes climate change an even bigger challenge to mammals…because they cannot move to better habitat if there is a border wall in the way.

Baby's vaccine responses linked to birth delivery method, study finds – Babies born via Caesarian section have lower antibody levels after vaccinations than babies born naturally.

Scientists Discover More Than 22,000 Endangered Manta Rays off Coast of Ecuador – Larger than any other Manta Ray population.

A Massive Freshwater River Is Flowing Under Antarctica’s Ice – It is flowing at 3 times the rate of the Thames. This finding helps understand some problems with existing models…hopefully it will allow for model updates to predict the impact of warming more accurately on Antarctica’s ice.

A Field Guide to Jackrabbits – Hard to see denizens of the western US (and Mexico).

France Looks to Mandate Solar Panels Over Large Parking Lots – Good idea…maybe it will begin to happen in the US even without a mandate.

Bright LEDs could spell the end of dark skies – Hope cities can learn to use LEDs like Tucson…not overuse bright white LEDs.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 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.

Energy crisis: How living in a cold home affects your health – The coming winter is going to be very difficult for many – particularly in Europe.

Parks of the 21st century: new ways to reinvent abandoned land – Parks always are signs of hope…the greening of places that might have been eyesores in the past. I wondered how much toxic remediation had to occur for some of the sites they described; its encouraging that we can clean up the messes we’ve made in the past!

Alcohol caused one in eight deaths of working-age US adults – The data used from the analysis was pre-COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the CDC has released data for 2019 and 2020 and it shows a larger-than-normal 26% spike in the alcohol-induced deathrate. In 2020, alcoholic liver disease and mental/behavioral disorders were the leading underlying causes of alcohol-induced deaths. Sad numbers….lots of people and their families impacted.

A field guide to the unusual raptors of the Southern US – I was pleased to see the snail kite in this article – a bird I saw on a birding trip to Florida in 2019.

Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice – Very positive results. Hopefully we will eventually have perennial forms of other grains (wheat in particular).

The weirdest places you can find wild turkeys – Wild turkeys have made a comeback since the early 1900s…a restoration success story. Part of the Thanksgiving vibe this week!

Breast cancer survivorship doubles – An analysis of Canadian data from the 2007-2001. The study also highlighted the long-term side effects in these survivors…the need for new therapies to improve the health of women after surviving breast cancer.

Permanent Standard Time Could Save Lives, Explained by A Sleep Expert – I don’t like changing to/from daylight savings time; before reading this article, I didn’t care which one we chose to make permanent. Now I am convinced that we should stick with standard time! There are too many negative health impacts to staying on daylight savings.

How to avoid bad choices – The article is about the research on how to teach children ‘decision-making competence’ – not just a measure of raw brainpower but how well someone is able to appraise situations. There are many approaches but the goal is to get children and adolescents to start thinking about risk and danger in a more analytical way….on the way to adulthood.

Blind spots in the monitoring of plastic waste – The amount of plastic waste in rivers could be up to 90% higher that previously assumed. The current measurements are mainly based on surface observations…but plastic can be suspended or sink! This study tracked 3,000 particles from 30mm to larger objects like plastic cup. Knowing where the plastic is helps guide where clean up would be the most effective.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 29, 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.

How an asteroid impact would transform the food we eat – Thought provoking…and scary. Right now, I am beginning to wonder how the level of drought in the US is going to change the food we eat…or will we eat the same way but pay much higher prices.

A Field Guide to Unexpected, Out-of-Place Wildlife – Why wildlife shows up in the ‘wrong’ place… I had read about the shifting range of armadillos last spring (was reminded of it by the reference to the Virginia opossum in this post).

State Of the Birds Report: More Than Half of U.S. Bird Species Are Declining – Sad….another indicator that the Earth is changing.

Economic losses from hurricanes become too big to be offset by the US if warming continues – I’ve been wondering about this since Hurricane Harvey and finally there is some analysis of the data…but, so far, it does not seem to be changing the way we deal with the aftermath of these catastrophic storms. The dominate idea still seems to be ‘rebuild.’

Life expectancy improves in some countries after big drops in 2020 – but US and others see further falls  - The life expectancy at birth in the US was 79.8 in 2019 and was down to 77.4 in 2021. It might take a few years until the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy is fully understood. It seems to me that there are other cultural changes that happened concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic that could impact life expectancy in the US into the future: reduced vaccination rates, reduced trust in medical professionals, increased belief in whatever is said on social media and conspiracy theories, increased stress/mental health challenges, etc.

The Clean Water Act at 50: Big Successes, More to Be Done – The Act was passed the year I graduated from high school. I had done a project about algae as pollution indicator in the streams around Dallas, Texas in the fall before so I was aware of water pollution issues of the time. It is frustrating that there is still so much to be done….

New model of Alzheimer’s as an autoimmune disease – A new perspective….maybe leading to new therapies in the future.

Ancient Maya Cities Were Polluted with High Levels of Mercury – The Maya coated surfaces (walls and floors and bodies) with cinnabar…and the mercury from that leached into the water supply and soils. Chronic mercury poisoning causes tremors, weakened vision and hearing, and paralysis! The contamination at some sites is high enough that archaeologists need to use mitigation techniques and protective gear.

Young kids avoid one learning trap that often snares adults – Young kids are not as good at focused attention as adults which means they notice new things happening away from a ‘focus area’ more quickly…..but focused attention can also mean learned inattention in adults which might not be the best strategy in all situations.

After Three Summers, Man Finally Gets Photos of Hummingbird with Rainbow Wings – Beautiful pictures. They prompted me to look up why hummingbird feathers can show the colors of the rainbow. I found a Science Daily post from back in 2020 that offers an explanation.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 23, 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.

Watch a Deep-Sea Squid Carry Hundreds of Pearl-Like Eggs – A video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

It’s a trap: managing cowbirds to save songbirds – The strategy of trapping cowbirds (a brood parasite) to help endangered songbirds along the Santa Clara River in Southern California has evolved to reduce harming other species and cost less.

Electric vehicle buyers want rebates, not tax credits – Of course….immediate rebates rather than waiting for months to get a tax credit are much more appealing.

Urban waterways: discovering the hidden beauty of a Jersey River – River restoration across the country…with the Cooper River story in more detail.

Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad, sustained protection – A new kind of vaccine….using nanoparticles. Perhaps this new technology will lead to an effective universal flu vaccine.

The sustainable cities made of mud – A little construction/architectural history….that could be applied more often.

10 Weird Australian Marsupials You’ve Never Heard Of – So many unusual animals…Australia has more than just kangaroos and koalas!

Cancer probably killed world’s first known pregnant Egyptian mummy – 2,000 years ago a young woman died…and was mummified. The Warsaw Mummy Project has determined that she was pregnant – the fetus was ‘pickled’ in the highly acidic and low oxygen environment of the mummified womb – and the woman probably died of nasopharyngeal cancer.

More Electricity from Wind and Solar than Nuclear for 1st time in USA – Hurray! Wind and solar accounted for over 25% of the nation’s electricity in the first 4 months of 2022!

Loss of male sex chromosome leads to earlier death for men – What? Y chromosome loss happens in 40% (estimated) of 70-year-old men. The loss occurs primarily in cells with rapid turnover, such as blood cells. And it might lead to heart muscle scaring…and then heart failure.

26 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 cases in Maryland are increasing but all the counties in the state are still green in the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map. Most of Missouri is too. Still - the positivity is 5-8% in Maryland and 8-10% in Missouri…not low enough for me to be comfortable in crowds or in indoor spaces without a mask. How does that translate into our increased level of activity?

Buying a house. Both my husband and I wore masks when we walked through the house we had bid on and then the next day when we talked to the inspector. There was a meeting in the realtor’s office where we wore a mask as well. During our travel, we masked at rest stops and in registration/hallways of our hotel. We brought an air purifier into our hotel room and got takeout for meals.

Birding. We masked at the Harriet Tubman Byway visitor center and the registration/hallways of our hotel. Otherwise - the activity was outdoors, and we didn’t mask. All our meals were picked up from drive through windows.

House maintenance. We’ve had more people in our house for maintenance purposes in Maryland…preparing the house to be sold. We mask while they are here, and they do too.

Broken tooth. I have an appointment with the dentist because a molar cracked…needs repair. Hopefully the precautions the dental office has in place are effective. This seems like the highest risk situation of all the things I’ve done recently.

And we are moving over the next month! I am realizing that the precautions I have in place (following guidance re boosters, masking when I am indoors other than at home, avoiding crowds, keeping hand sanitizer in the car, taking an air purifier with me on road trips) are probably going to be my strategy for the foreseeable future unless the infection rate drops dramatically. So – this is the last of the monthly posts even though the pandemic is continuing. I’m not getting complacent…I’ve simply accepted that this is the prudent way to be…nothing new to post about every month.

25 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

The positivity rates and hospitalizations continued downward but in Maryland they are not down to the lows we go in the summer of 2021 before the Delta variant came along…and then the Omicron spike. Still – most of the mask mandates have been allowed to expire. My daughter reported that at her university there seemed to be a lot of strep and flu infections after the mask mandate was lifted; masks were protective for more than COVID-19! I have continued to wear my mask when I am indoors (at the grocery store and when I waited to get my car serviced, for example). All the doctor’s offices where we’ve had appointments are still requiring masks.

When I made my road trip from Maryland to Texas (via Missouri), I put on my mask at rest stops and when I registered at the hotel…when I went grocery shopping while I was in Texas. I took my air purifier with me too. I was traveling through areas that had higher positivity/hospitalization rates than Maryland and noticed that there were very few people wearing masks. There are some analyses of sewage around the country that have indicated the presence of the omicron sub-variant that is problematic in Europe in the US but, so far, there does not appear to be an uptick in COIVD-19 cases here.

I am masking when I look at houses – both to protect myself and to be considerate of owners of the houses I am viewing. I do as much as I can online before I see the house in person.

The one place I did not wear I mask indoors this past month was at a baby shower while I was in Texas; I’m far enough past the event to know that no one there was infectious!

I still feel vulnerable because of my surgery earlier this year and my recent illness while I was traveling; I am not as confident that my immune system is as robust as it was a year ago; I am continuing my strategy of masking. My husband and I got our second COVID-19 booster soon after the recommendation came out. As we both continue our search for a new house, the vaccine and indoor masking are our risk reduction strategy…at least for now.

Another observation - my husband had an outpatient procedure this past month, and the COVID-19 process was still in effect: they required that I wait in the car for 1.5 hours rather than a waiting room. I was fortunate that I could park in a sunny place since the temperature was in the 30s!

Overall – the pandemic appears to be waning. People are making individual decisions about masking and the amount of masking varies a lot from place to place. This is the new normal?

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 2, 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.

Where Have All the (Big) Cypress Trees Gone ... And Are They Coming Back? – The cypress stands survived logging but they may never again be as dominant as they were before. The largest trees now are about 3.5 feet diameter; the largest stumps from logging are about 5 feet diameter.

8 bird migrations, from past to present – The annual movement of birds is a part of spring….part of the yearly progression.

Cherry Blossom Time In Washington, D.C. – I was glad to get home in time to see the cherry tree in our yard bloom; it’s a little behind the trees in DC (we are a little north and not on the water).

Nature Conservancy to build solar farms at abandoned coal mines in Virginia – And thus an energy producing community, continues…leaning into the future!

The sound of Merlin: like Shazam, but for birds – An app that IDs birds by their songs…a learning experience to take on a walk.

Higher risk of temperature-related death if global warming exceeds 2°C – We’ll have to be more aware of heatwaves. Perhaps we would modify our behavior during those times…and medical interventions might help. There is a heat threshold above which our bodies are not adapted very well…that will cause increasing problems.

Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape – Another perspective of Tolkien…through his art rather than writing.

No breathing easy for city dwellers: particulates – Southeast Asia has seen the largest annual average increases in concentration and mortality rates between 2000 and 2019 from this type of air pollution.

How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones – The records for the largest hailstones have been broken in the last 3 years in Texas, Colorado and Alabama….reaching sizes of up to 6.2 inches in diameter. Large hail causes a lot of damage…if the incidence of large hail increases the damage/costs will trend higher too; the post includes a picture of a car damaged by large hail…daunting to anyone that doesn’t have their car parked in a garage.

Missouri Man Indicted For Fire That Destroyed Ozark National Scenic Riverways Visitor Station – I am paying more attention to news about natural areas in Missouri…now that I am preparing to move to the state. It’s sad when this type of destruction occurs – hard to fathom why someone would burn a visitor station.

24 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

24 months in COVID-19 pandemic and cases/hospitalizations are continuing to decline rapidly in most parts of the US. Most states, local governments, school districts, and businesses no longer have mask mandates. My personal choice is to still wear a mask when I am indoors in public places. A lot of other people are making the same choice where I do my grocery shopping. In the medical building where I went for an appointment recently, the ‘mask required’ signs were still up….and everyone was complying (it’s become the norm for medical settings).

I am traveling today – another road trip to Missouri and then Texas. Hand sanitizer and masks are in the car for rest stops. I am taking the food I will need for the 2-day drive to Missouri with me. An air purifier is going into the hotel room in Lexington, KY (turned on ‘high’ to filter the air for the duration of my night there)…and I have a supply of rapid test kits. I am using the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map to assess the higher risk areas along my route. There is a lot of yellow and orange in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Springfield, MO is green. The route between Springfield and Carrollton, TX is green with some yellow (and Carrollton is green). I’ll be gone for a little over two weeks and the trip back to Maryland will be less risky if the trend continues.

My rationale for continuing to wear a mask indoors is all about protecting the high-risk family members (older and immunosuppressed) I will be with in Missouri/Texas and when I return home. At the same time – my husband and I are in the process of house hunting…getting ready to move from Maryland to Missouri…not something we could have done last year at this time. Progress has been made and I hope the COVID-19 cases will continue to decline…in the US and around the world…that the pandemic will end.