Thursday, 3 April 2025

Helicopter-mounted sensor reveals volcanic CO₂ emissions could be three times higher than anticipated

by U. of Manchester, APRIL 2, 2025

Helicopter at Soufrière Hills Volcano.
Credit: Alexander Riddell

Estimates of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from volcanoes may have been significantly underestimated, according to new research by The University of Manchester.

Published in the journal Science Advances, scientists have developed an advanced sensor that can detect volcanic gases with rapid speed and precision.

Using the sensor mounted on a helicopter, the research team measured emissions at Soufrière Hills Volcano on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat, revealing that the volcano emitted three times more CO2 than earlier studies had estimated.

Scientists typically monitor volcanic emissions by focusing on hot vents, known as fumaroles, which release high concentrations of easily detectable acid gases like sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and hydrogen chloride (HCl). However, many volcanoes also have cooler fumaroles, where water-rich hydrothermal systems on the volcano absorb the acidic gases, making them harder to detect. As a result, CO2 emissions from these cooler sources are often overlooked, leading to significant underestimations in volcanic gas output.

The new technology exposes those hidden emissions, offering a more accurate quantification of the volcano's gas output.

The findings also have significant implications for volcano monitoring and eruption forecasting.

Alexander Riddell, lead researcher from The University of Manchester, said, "Volcanoes play a crucial role in Earth's carbon cycle, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, so understanding the emissions is crucial for understanding its impact on our climate. Our findings demonstrate the importance of fast sampling rates and high precision sensors, capable of detecting large contributions of cooler CO2-rich gas.

"However, it's also important to realize that despite our findings that CO2 emissions could be around three times higher than we expected for volcanoes capped by hydrothermal systems, volcanoes still contribute less than 5% of global CO2 emissions, far less than human activities such as fossil fuel combustion and deforestation."

Mike Burton, Professor of Volcanology at the University of Manchester and co-author, added, "Development of high-sensitivity high-frequency magmatic gas instruments opens up a new frontier in volcanological science and volcano monitoring. This work demonstrates the new discoveries which await us.

"By capturing a more complete picture of volcanic gas emissions, we can gain deeper insights into magma movement, observe potential signs of impending eruptions and signs that an ongoing eruption might be ending. For the people living near active volcanoes, such advancements could enhance early warning systems and improve safety measures."


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

'Quiet eye': Psychologist identifies links between a steady gaze and elite performance

APRIL 2, 2025, by B. Beasley, U. of Notre Dame

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

In his book on basketball great Bill Bradley, writer John McPhee proposed that Bradley's greatest asset had little to do with speed, strength or agility. It had to do, McPhee proposed, with his eyes.

"His most remarkable natural gift ... is his vision," McPhee observed. "During a game, Bradley's eyes are always a glaze of panoptic attention."

The work of University of Notre Dame researcher Matthew Robison suggests that McPhee may have been on to something. In a recent study, Robison documented a phenomenon in eye movement—or "oculomotor dynamics"—that links a steady, focused gaze with superior levels of performance. The study is published as a pre-print on PsyArXiv.

Robison, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, made the discovery thanks to the unique capabilities of his lab, which includes more than a dozen precision instruments for tracking eye movement and pupil dilation. These devices capture images of the eyes every four milliseconds, providing 250 frames per second.

This ultra-detailed look at the eyes allows Robison to "read" the complex language of minute eye movement. A slight wiggle in the eye, for example, can reveal that a study participant was distracted by a stimulus entering their field of vision—even though their facial expression never altered. Or a dilation of the pupil might indicate a participant is struggling to solve a complex math problem.

Recently, though, Robison has been most interested not in why our eyes move, but in why we might—or might want to—keep them still. He was inspired to investigate the meaning of a steady gaze by the work of applied sports psychologists helping athletes achieve high levels of performance.

"Sports psychologists regularly advise that if you're about to putt, pick a spot on the back of the golf ball and keep your eyes still there for a second or two. Then hit the ball," Robison said.

"Or, if you're shooting a free throw in basketball, pick a spot on the rim and focus on it for a few seconds. Then shoot the free throw. The advice seems sound in many cases. But the causal pathway behind this phenomenon has not been thoroughly demonstrated or explained."

Robison hypothesized that a steady gaze had to do with attention control and thus would lead to better performance not only in sports but also in almost any mentally demanding activity, whether it was comprehending a difficult passage of text, solving a complex problem, remembering new information or multitasking.

To test his hypothesis, he recruited nearly 400 participants to perform a series of tasks in his lab over a two-hour period while their gaze was being recorded by eye trackers and pupilometers.

Robison found that, across the board, those participants who kept their gaze steady in the moments just before being called upon to complete a task performed with greater speed and with greater accuracy. Borrowing a term from sports psychologist Joan Vickers, Robison called this specific quality of gaze "quiet eye." He said it is more than a lack of motion.

Like Bradley's gaze that so impressed McPhee, "quiet" eyes are not just still. They are focused—able to resist distractions and remain vigilant, ready and "awake."

His work documenting quiet eye suggested another question for Robison to explore: Would it be possible to train individuals to perform better by training them not in the task itself but in developing a steadier gaze?

Robison has launched a new three-year project focused on answering that question. "Our aim is to make the benefits of 'quiet eye' available to anyone who wants to learn them," he said.

And while it will not immediately lead to Bill Bradley levels of basketball virtuosity, the benefits could be widespread. Robison hopes that "those who learn this skill are able, in turn, to sustain and control their attention, which will yield benefits for their performance in almost any complex or demanding task."

Natalie Steinhauser, a program officer at the Office of Naval Research, said she looks forward to starting this new research that bridges two aspects of her Prepared Warfighter Portfolio. Her portfolio focuses on "understanding attention control and how it impacts warfighter performance" and "accelerating and innovating training approaches to maximize warfighter readiness."

This research, she said, "brings those worlds together in hopes of training our naval warfighters to optimize their attention and, thus, performance."




The birth of modern Man
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Jupiter’s Defenses Collapse Under Massive Solar Storm, Scientists Shocked by 500°C Heat Surge

BY U. OF READING, APRIL 3, 2025

For the first time, scientists observed a solar storm punching into Jupiter’s magnetic shield, creating a vast, scorching hotspot.
 Turns out, giant planets aren’t as invincible as we believed, and what happens to them could help us brace for solar threats here on Earth. (Artist’s concept.) 
Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Jupiter got body-slammed by the solar wind, and scientists have finally caught it in action.

A massive solar event compressed Jupiter’s protective magnetic field, causing a dramatic temperature spike across half the planet. Using data from telescopes and spacecraft, researchers saw how solar wind ripples through the giant’s atmosphere, suggesting Jupiter and other gas giants aren’t as shielded from the Sun’s wrath as once thought.

Jupiter’s Bubble Gets Smashed by Solar Wind

A powerful wave of solar wind that compressed Jupiter’s magnetic shield has been detected for the first time.

Researchers at the University of Reading identified a solar wind event from 2017 that struck Jupiter and temporarily compressed its magnetosphere, the giant magnetic bubble that surrounds and protects the planet. This impact created an unusually hot region in the upper atmosphere, stretching across half of Jupiter’s circumference and reaching temperatures above 500°C (932°F). That’s significantly hotter than the planet’s typical atmospheric temperature of around 350°C (662°F).

According to a new study published today (April 3) in Geophysical Research Letters, this type of solar burst appears to hit Jupiter regularly, around two to three times per month.

“We have never captured Jupiter’s response to solar wind before, and the way it changed the planet’s atmosphere was very unexpected,” said Dr. James O’Donoghue, lead author of the study. “This is the first time we’ve ever seen a thing like this on any outer world.”

Giant Planets Are Not So Tough After All

“The solar wind squished Jupiter’s magnetic shield like a giant squash ball. This created a super-hot region that spans half the planet. Jupiter’s diameter is 11 times larger than Earth’s, meaning this heated region is enormous,” said O’Donoghue.

“We’ve studied Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus in increasing detail over the past decade. These giant planets are not as resistant to the Sun’s influence as we thought – they’re vulnerable, like Earth. Jupiter acts like a laboratory, allowing us to study how the Sun affects planets in general. By watching what happens there, we can better predict and understand the effects of solar storms which might disrupt GPS, communications, and power grids on Earth.”

Solar Storms Could Disrupt Even the Mightiest Planets

By combining ground-based observations from the Keck telescope with data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft and solar wind modeling, the researchers determined that a dense region of solar wind had compressed Jupiter’s enormous magnetosphere shortly before the observations began. This compression appears to have intensified auroral heating at Jupiter’s poles, causing the upper atmosphere to expand and spill hot gas toward the equator.

Scientists had previously thought Jupiter’s rapid rotation would confine auroral heating to its polar regions through strong winds. This discovery shows otherwise, suggesting planetary atmospheres throughout our solar system may be more vulnerable to solar influences than previously understood. Solar bursts could significantly alter big planets’ upper atmospheric dynamics, generating global winds that drive energy distribution across the planet.

Forecasting Space Weather from Jupiter to Earth

Professor Mathew Owens, a co-author from the University of Reading, said: “Our solar wind model correctly predicted when Jupiter’s atmosphere would be disturbed. This helps us further understand the accuracy of our forecasting systems, which is essential for protecting Earth from dangerous space weather.”


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

Grow Your Own Ozempic? Students Engineer Plants to Produce Life-Saving Drugs

BY U. OF OTTAWA, APRIL 2, 2025


University of Ottawa students developed Phytogene, a plant-based system that could let people grow vital medications at home. Inspired by Ozempic shortages, this eco-friendly innovation won global recognition and promises to shake up how we access medicine.

A group of Canadian undergrads is using plants to revolutionize medicine. Faced with soaring drug prices and global shortages, they created Phytogene, a sustainable biomanufacturing platform that uses tobacco plants to produce essential medications like Ozempic alternatives.

Their innovation could slash pharmaceutical pollution and cost, letting people grow life-saving drugs in their own backyards. After earning a gold medal at the iGEM Grand Jamboree in Paris, the team is now refining their work and aiming for real-world application, with hopes to reshape the future of medicine.

Tackling Medication Inequity with Plants

To address global disparities in access to essential medications, an issue particularly acute in developing countries, a team of undergraduate researchers at the University of Ottawa has created a new biomanufacturing platform called Phytogene. This innovative system uses a plant-based production method known as biopharming to offer a more sustainable and affordable way to produce peptide-based pharmaceuticals.

The project, led by fourth-year biotechnology and biomedical science students Victor Boddy and Teagan Thomas, is designed to help alleviate medication shortages and reduce the high cost of treatment, ultimately making vital drugs more accessible around the world.


iGEM uOttawa seeks sustainable semaglutide production amid Ozempic shortage. 
Credit: Amelia Adams



Green Tech Meets Drug Production

Phytogene uses Nicotiana benthamiana, a relative of the tobacco plant, to produce medications like GLP-1 receptor agonists, a class of drugs that includes the widely used type 2 diabetes treatment and weight-loss drug Ozempic. Compared to conventional pharmaceutical manufacturing, this plant-based approach has the potential to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and chemical waste.

“Inspired by the recent Ozempic shortage,” explains team leader Victor Boddy, “we built a proof-of-concept model system that expresses functional GLP-1 agonists in plants. We aim to create a future where people can reliably grow their own treatments at home, free from concerns about insurance, cost, or availability.”

Winning on the Global Stage

The team recently showcased their work at the iGEM Grand Jamboree in Paris, where they competed against over 430 international teams. Their exceptional performance earned them a gold medal and placed them among the top 5 teams within the biomanufacturing stream.

Teagan Thomas, co-leader of the project, highlights the potential impact: “Phytogene offers a unique, sustainable approach to biotechnology by providing an environmentally friendly solution to the critical crisis of medication access. We’re excited to further develop this concept into a commercially viable project with support from venture capitalists and scientific advisors.”

Tools for Global Collaboration

The research team has also published an open-source biopharming toolkit on the iGEM Parts Registry, enabling other researchers to build upon their work. This toolkit includes genetic tools for rapid screening of subcellular localizations in plants and various constructs for expression in multiple cell types.

The project, which began in late 2023, involved a collaborative effort from 23 uOttawa undergraduate students across various faculties, with guidance from Adam Damry, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, and Allyson Maclean, Associate Professor, Department of Biology. The team conducted their research in the bioGARAGE laboratory space and in collaboration with other university labs.

While the project shows great promise, it’s important to note that it is still in the testing phase. “The extract has not been tested on humans,” adds Boddy. The team is now working on optimizing protocols to be able to test the activity of these compounds. “We are currently analyzing blood glucose and insulin levels to assess response. We also plan to conduct bioactivity assays to test the drug’s effectiveness on human cells,” adds Thomas.

A Glimpse into a Greener, Healthier Future

As the world grapples with medication shortages and the environmental impact of pharmaceutical production, the Phytogene platform offers a promising solution. By harnessing the power of transgenic plants, this innovative approach could revolutionize the biopharmaceutical industry, making medications more accessible and sustainable for people around the globe.

For more information about Phytogene, please visit iGEM uOttawa.


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Plastic Supercapacitors Could Help Solve the Energy Crisis

BY U. OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES, APRIL 1, 2025
https://scitechdaily.com/plastic-supercapacitors-could-help-solve-the-energy-crisis/

Illustration of a PEDOT film on a graphene sheet that can be used in supercapacitors to store large amounts of energy.
 Credit: Maher El-Kady

A new method produces PEDOT nanofibers with enhanced electrical conductivity and increased surface area for improved charge storage.

UCLA chemists have developed a new textured, fur-like version of PEDOT, a conductive plastic commonly used to protect electronics from static and in devices like solar cells and electrochromic displays. This innovative form significantly increases the material’s surface area, allowing it to store nearly ten times more electric charge than standard PEDOT. When used in a supercapacitor, it also withstood almost 100,000 charge cycles. This breakthrough could help supercapacitors play a greater role in energy storage as the world moves toward renewable and sustainable energy sources.

Plastics have shaped our modern world and transformed the way we live. For decades, they were primarily used in electronics for their excellent insulating properties. However, in the 1970s, scientists accidentally discovered that some plastics can also conduct electricity. This breakthrough revolutionized the field and paved the way for new applications in electronics and energy storage.

One of the most widely used electrically conductive plastics today is poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), commonly known as PEDOT. This material forms a flexible, transparent film that is often applied to surfaces such as photographic films and electronic components to prevent static buildup. PEDOT is also used in touchscreens, organic solar cells, and electrochromic devices, like smart windows that change transparency with the push of a button.

Despite its many applications, PEDOT’s use in energy storage has been limited. Commercial forms of PEDOT typically have low electrical conductivity and limited surface area, which restrict their ability to store significant amounts of energy.

UCLA chemists are addressing these challenges with an innovative method to control the morphology of PEDOT to grow nanofibers precisely. These nanofibers exhibit exceptional conductivity and expanded surface area, both of which are crucial for enhancing the energy storage capabilities of PEDOT. This approach, described in a paper published in Advanced Functional Materials, demonstrates the potential of PEDOT nanofibers for supercapacitor applications.

Supercapacitors vs. Batteries

Unlike batteries, which store energy through slow chemical reactions, supercapacitors store and release energy by accumulating electrical charge on their surface. This allows them to charge and discharge extremely quickly, making them ideal for applications requiring rapid bursts of power, such as regenerative braking systems in hybrid and electric vehicles and camera flashes. Better supercapacitors are, therefore, one route to reduced dependence on fossil fuels.

The challenge with supercapacitors, however, is creating materials with enough surface area to hold large amounts of energy. Traditional PEDOT materials fall short in this regard, which limits their performance.

The UCLA chemists produced the new material through a unique vapor-phase growth process to create vertical PEDOT nanofibers. These nanofibers, resembling dense grass growing upward, dramatically increase the material’s surface area, allowing it to store more energy. By adding a drop of liquid containing graphene oxide nanoflakes and ferric chloride on a graphite sheet, the researchers exposed this sample to a vapor of the precursor molecules that eventually formed the PEDOT polymer. Instead of developing into a very thin, flat film, the polymer grew into a thick, fur-like structure, significantly increasing the surface area compared to conventional PEDOT materials.

Exceptional Energy Storage Capabilities

“The material’s unique vertical growth allows us to create PEDOT electrodes that store far more energy than traditional PEDOT,” said corresponding author and UCLA materials scientist Maher El-Kady. “Electric charge is stored on the surface of the material, and traditional PEDOT films don’t have enough surface area to hold very much charge. We increased the surface area of PEDOT and thereby increased its capacity enough to build a supercapacitor.”

The authors used these PEDOT structures to fabricate supercapacitors with excellent charge storage capacity and extraordinary cycling stability, reaching nearly 100,000 cycles. The advance could pave the way for more efficient energy storage systems, directly addressing global challenges in renewable energy and sustainability.

“A polymer is essentially a long chain of molecules built out of shorter blocks called monomers,” said El-Kady. “Think of it like a necklace made from individual beads strung together. We heat the liquid form of the monomers inside a chamber. As the vapors rise, they react chemically when they come in contact with the surface of the graphene nanoflakes. This reaction causes the monomers to bond and form vertical nanofibers. These nanofibers have (a) much higher surface area, which means they can store much more energy.”

Record-Breaking Results and Durability

The new PEDOT material has shown impressive results, exceeding expectations in several critical areas. Its conductivity is 100 times higher than that of commercial PEDOT products, making it far more efficient for charge storage. What’s even more remarkable is that the electrochemically active surface area of these PEDOT nanofibers is four times greater than that of traditional PEDOT. This increased surface area is crucial because it allows for much more energy to be stored in the same volume of material, significantly boosting the performance of supercapacitors.

Thanks to the new process, which grows a thick layer of nanofibers on the graphene sheet, this material now has one of the highest charge storage capacities for PEDOT reported to date — more than 4600 milliFarads per square centimeter, which is nearly one order of magnitude higher than conventional PEDOT. On top of that, the material is incredibly durable, lasting through more than 70,000 charging cycles, far outlasting traditional materials. These advances open the door for supercapacitors that are not only faster and more efficient but also longer-lasting, which are essential qualities for the renewable energy industry.

“The exceptional performance and durability of our electrodes shows great potential for graphene PEDOT’s use in supercapacitors that can help our society meet our energy needs,” said corresponding author Richard Kaner, a UCLA distinguished professor of chemistry and of materials science and engineering, whose research team has been at the forefront of conducting polymer research for over 37 years. As a doctoral student, Kaner contributed to the discovery of electrically conductive plastic by his advisors Alan MacDiarmid and Alan Heeger, who later received a Nobel Prize for their work.


The birth of modern Man
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

World's largest wildlife crossing reaches critical milestone

APRIL 2, 2025, by J. Marantos

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Monday was momentous for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing although it still looked like a bridge to nowhere from the 101 Freeway, where more than 300,000 vehicles stream endlessly every day.

Nearly three years after the project began, the critical milestone was visible only to the government officials, scientists and longtime supporters who climbed to the top: soil.

And not just any soil. Over the next few days they'll be adding 6,000 cubic yards of specially manufactured soil to cover the crossing, a mix of sand, silt and clay inoculated with a bit of compost and hyperlocal mycorrhizal fungi, carefully designed and tested to mimic the biological makeup of native soils around the site.

Adding soil is a big deal because it means we're nearing the end of Stage 1, when the top is seeded and then planted with native shrubs and perennials, work that should be completed this summer, said Robert Rock, chief executive of Chicago-based Rock Design Associates and the landscape architect overseeing the project.

But we're still a ways from completion, now scheduled for the end of 2026, about a year later than initially planned, due to delays from the heavy rains in 2022 and 2023.

Stage 2, the final phase, will connect the structure to the hills at the north and south so that wildlife, like L.A.'s famous, ill-fated cougar, P-22, can use it. That stage will start with burying utility lines along a section of Agoura Road, south of the crossing, and moving water lines for recycled water used for irrigation.

Late in 2025 or early 2026, Agoura Road will be closed for a few months so the roadway can be covered with a tunnel and lots of soil collected from the Malibu Lake area. The goal is to create natural slopes off the crossing—an additional 12 acres of space that will be planted with native shrubs, perennials, grasses and trees to make the crossing blend as much as possible with the surrounding hills.

"Basically they're restoring the mountain to what it once was, so wildlife won't even know they're crossing the freeway," said Jeremy Wolf, mayor pro tem of Agoura Hills, who was among several government officials, scientists and longtime advocates who came to celebrate the soil's arrival on Monday.

"Humans created this problem," Wolf said in an interview. "We've created islands of habitat fragmentation with our roadways and housing encroaching deeper and deeper into the wild urban interface, and now we're fixing this problem by using human ingenuity for good purposes."

There has been plenty of ingenuity and innovation along the way and lots of attention to detail. For instance, even before construction began in 2022, the project built a nursery and sent horticulturists combing the hills around the site to collect about 1 million seeds from around 30 native plant species. Those seeds were planted and have been nurtured into 1-gallon pots.

Mycologists (biologists who study fungi) collected beneficial mycorrhizal fungi and other microbes from the area to inoculate the soil used to grow the plants, and cover the top of the structure.

They also tested what native seeds best interacted with that fungi, and chose four to sow as a cover crop before adding the plants to help "jump-start" beneficial fungi growth in the soil, which helps plants access the nutrients and water they need to thrive.

Those seeds will be sown later this month, Rock said, golden yarrow (Eriophyllum confertiflorum), California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), giant wildrye (Elymus condensatus) and Santa Barbara milk vetch (Astragalus trichopodus), which supports more than 20 butterflies, including the endangered Palos Verdes blue butterfly.

It took nearly a year's worth of prep to get the top ready for soil by building thick walls 12 feet tall to minimize traffic noise and visibility and adding a special drainage system to ensure water doesn't accumulate on the structure, a rubber waterproof lining and then 9 to 30 inches of a lightweight aggregate known as expanded clay shale to enhance drainage, because most native plants don't like wet feet.

Meanwhile, the soil was mixed and "matured" at a site in Lopez Canyon north of Pacoima, where it has been analyzed and adjusted to make sure the pH levels and chemical compounds are balanced. Rock said their final mix had slightly elevated chlorine levels, so they had to water it deeply to help dilute and flush out that excess chemical compound.

On Monday, a small army of supporters and media climbed to the top of the structure to witness the spreading of the soil.

Visitors included former state Sen. and Assemblymember Fran Pavley, Agoura Hills' first mayor after the city incorporated in 1982, who fought to keep wild areas open on both sides of the 101 Freeway for some kind of wildlife crossing; wildlife biologists Miguel Ordeñana (who discovered P-22), Jeff Sikich and Seth Riley, who have long tracked and researched mountain lions and other wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains, and Beth Pratt, the California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, which helped raise the $92 million in state and private funds to build the corridor.

Shortly before 8 a.m. a long, narrow conveyor device started pulling the soil from trucks at the north side of the freeway up 60 feet to the top, where it was spread around the structure with compact track loaders, essentially small earth movers that use tracks instead of wheels to minimize soil compaction.

The top of the structure is 174 feet wide—wider than a football field. If the soil were spread uniformly, it would be about 18 inches deep, Rock said, but the goal is to mimic the adjacent hills, so the soil is being contoured 1 to 4 feet deep, with a few pockets of small sandstone boulders.

In the next month or so, a few large volcanic rocks will also be craned up to the top, to match the geology of the region, which includes a small streak of volcanic rock.

After the seeds have a chance to grow and energize the soil, the mature native shrubs and perennials will be planted, probably in mid-May, Rock said. Those plants, grown from locally collected seed, include black sage, white sage and purple sage, California buckwheat, long-stem buckwheat and ashy leaf buckwheat, wild grape; narrow-leaf milkweed, California bush sunflower; deerweed; showy penstemon, toyon, laurel sumac and ceanothus.

They'll also be keeping a sharp eye open for invasives that could crowd out the newly planted native plants, aggressive plants such as black mustard, which is already sprouting lushly along the southern border of the corridor. Black mustard grows quickly and will soon be sending out seeds that could easily invade the pristine soil on the structure.

But in this matter, the builders of the world's largest wildlife corridor are in the same boat as gardeners everywhere. "We'll just have to weed it until the [native] plants get established," he said. "The sad reality is there is very little else we can do."


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, 1 April 2025

New study challenges the story of humanity's shift from prehistoric hunting to farming

MARCH 31, 2025, by U. of Bath

Credit: Barnabas Davoti from Pexels

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has turned traditional thinking on its head by highlighting the role of human interactions during the shift from hunting and gathering to farming—one of the biggest changes in human history—rather than earlier ideas that focused on environmental factors.

The transition from a hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, which humanity had followed for hundreds of thousands of years, to a settled farming one about 12,000 years ago has been widely discussed in popular books like "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari.

Researchers from the University of Bath, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, the University of Cambridge, UCL, and others have developed a new mathematical model that challenges the traditional view that this major transition was driven by external factors, such as climate warming, increased rainfall, or the development of fertile river valleys.

This research shows that humans were not just passive participants in this process; they played an active and crucial role in the transition. Factors such as varying population growth rates and mortality rates—driven by competition between hunter-gatherers and farmers—shaped the agricultural development of these regions.

Using a model originally designed to study predator-prey interactions, the researchers examined how early farmers and hunter-gatherers may have influenced each other. The results suggest that early farming societies spread through migration, competition, and cultural exchange, reshaping how hunter-gatherers lived and interacted with their environment.

Dr. Javier Rivas, from the Department of Economics at the University of Bath, said, "Our study provides a new perspective on prehistoric societies.

"By statistically fitting our theoretical predator-prey model to observed population dynamics inferred from radiocarbon dates, we explored how population growth shaped history and uncovered interesting patterns—such as how the spread of farming, whether by land or sea, influenced interactions between different groups. More importantly, our model also highlights the role of migration and cultural mixing in the rise of farming."

The team plans to build on this model by adding more details and testing it in larger regions.

Dr. Rivas added, "We hope the methods we've developed will eventually become a standard tool for understanding how populations interacted in the past, offering fresh insight into other key moments in history, not just the shift to farming."


The birth of modern Man
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Your Name Might Be Changing Your Face, Study Finds

BY THE HEBREW U. OF JERUSALEM, MARCH 30, 2025


A new study led by researchers at the Hebrew University and Reichman University suggests that people’s names may influence their facial appearance as they age. Adults’ faces were matched to their names more accurately than chance, an effect not seen in children.

Names may shape our faces over time, reflecting how social expectations influence identity.

A new study suggests that a person’s name may subtly influence their facial appearance over time. Through a combination of human perception tests and machine learning, researchers found that adults’ faces could be matched to their names with greater accuracy than random chance would allow.

Interestingly, this effect was not observed in children, indicating that the alignment between a person’s name and their facial features likely develops over time, rather than being innate. This phenomenon, often described as a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” points to the power of social expectations in shaping not just behavior, but physical appearance as well.

The findings have broader implications across psychology, sociology, and artificial intelligence, shedding light on how identity is influenced by social context.

The debate over the origins of stereotypes has persisted for years. Are they rooted in biological, hereditary differences, such as innate distinctions between boys and girls, or are they shaped primarily by social expectations? While genetic influences are relatively easier to identify and measure, isolating and accurately assessing the effects of environmental and social factors is far more complex.

A new study led by Prof. Ruth Mayo at the Hebrew University, together with Dr. Yonat Zwebner, Dr. Moses Miller, Prof. Jacob Goldenberg of Reichman University’s Arison School of Business, and Noa Grobgeld from the Hebrew University, has made a groundbreaking achievement by demonstrating the significant impact of social structuring. It was found that this influence is so powerful that it can even change a person’s facial appearance.

The study has uncovered intriguing evidence that a person’s name may influence their facial appearance as they age. This research, which combines human perception tests and advanced machine learning techniques, offers new insights into the complex interplay between social expectations and self-identity development.\

Linking Names to Faces

Building on previous findings that adults’ faces can be matched to their names at above-chance levels, Prof. Mayo’s team sought to determine whether this face-name congruence is present from birth or develops over time.

Key findings include:

Both adults and children could accurately match adult faces to their names above chance levels.

Neither adults nor children could match children’s faces to their names above chance levels.

Machine learning algorithms found greater similarity between facial representations of adults sharing the same name compared to those with different names.

This name-based facial similarity was not observed among children.

Artificially aged images of children’s faces did not exhibit the face-name matching effect seen in actual adult faces.

“These results suggest that the congruence between facial appearance and names is not innate, but rather develops as individuals mature,” explains Prof. Mayo. “It appears that people may alter their appearance over time to conform to cultural expectations associated with their name.”

This “self-fulfilling prophecy” highlights the profound impact that social factors have. The study suggests that even seemingly arbitrary social tags like names can shape our appearance in subtle yet measurable ways.

The research raises fascinating questions about identity formation and the long-term effects of social expectations on individual development.

Prof. Mayo emphasizes that further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms behind this face-name matching effect and its broader implications. However, this study represents a significant step forward in understanding how social factors shape who we become.


The birth of modern Man
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Paleo-flood records reveal ancient deluges that dwarf modern 'unprecedented' events

MARCH 31, 2025, by A. Morrison, U. of Exeter

Conceptual diagram showing the level of fundamental understanding of extreme events related to weather conditions versus the inferred level of knowledge on how Greenhouse Gases related warming will impact their occurrence and magnitudes– (redrawn after National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016.
Attribution of extreme weather events in the context of climate change. National Academies Press). The blue circles highlight those types of weather extremes that are relevant for the extreme flooding in the NW-European hydroclimatic setting. To the right various often overlooked factors in flood event attribution are summarized. 
Credit: Climatic Change (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03904-9Recent "unprecedented" floods are not exceptional if we look further into the past, new research shows.

A team of scientists—led by the University of Exeter—used geological paleo-flood records to examine extreme floods in western Europe over several thousand years.

Published in Climatic Change, the study finds many previous floods exceeded recent extremes, highlighting the need to use these paleo records—not just river gauge data that typically exists for the last century or less.

The researchers challenge the idea that recent floods can be attributed solely to greenhouse gas emissions, but they warn that the combination of natural extremes and global warming could lead to truly extraordinary floods.

"In recent years, floods around the world—including in Pakistan, Spain and Germany—have killed thousands of people and caused enormous damage," said Professor Stephan Harrison, from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"Such floods are seen as 'unprecedented'—but if you look back over the last few thousand years, that's not the case. In fact, floods we call unprecedented may be nowhere near the most extreme that have happened in the past."

Compilation of extreme flood data from NW-Europe, based on gauged, documentary and palaeoflood data.
 Frame (A): Measured and reconstructed peak discharges of the Lower Rhine (the Netherlands). 
Frame (B): Measured and reconstructed peak discharges for the Upper Severn River (United Kingdom). 
Frame (C): Proxy flood magnitudes based on boulder berm deposits in upland catchments in the United Kingdom.
 Frame (D): Flood data from Spanish catchments.
 Frame (E): Locations of research sites—for the Severn and the Rhine the catchment areas are shown in gray 
Credit: Climatic Change (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03904-9

Paleo-flood records use a range of evidence including floodplain sediments, dating sand grains and past movement of boulders to identify past extremes.

Professor Harrison added, "You need that knowledge of the past if you're going to understand the present and make predictions about the future.

"Coupling evidence of past extremes with the extra pressure now being added by human-caused global warming—which causes more extreme weather—you see a risk of genuinely unprecedented floods emerging."

Projects such as housing and infrastructure are built to be resilient to extreme floods—based on assumptions such as a "one-in-200 year" or "one-in-400 year" flood event.

"If we rely on relatively short-term records, we can't say what a 'one-in-200 year' flood is—and therefore our resilient infrastructure may not be so resilient after all," said Professor Mark Macklin. "This has profound implications for flood planning and climate adaptation policy."

The study examined paleo-flood records for the Lower Rhine (Germany and Netherlands), the Upper Severn (UK) and rivers around Valencia (Spain). In the Rhine, records for about 8,000 years show at least 12 floods that are likely to have exceeded modern peaks.

The Severn analysis shows that floods in the last 72 years of monitoring are not exceptional in the context of paleo-flood records of the last 4,000 years. The largest flood in the Upper Severn occurred in about 250 BCE and is estimated to have had a peak discharge 50% larger than the damaging floods in the year 2000.


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Monday, 31 March 2025

Deep sea mining impacts visible for 'many decades'

MARCH 26, 2025


Scientists in Britain assessed the lasting impact of one of the oldest known mining tracks in the vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), stretching between Hawaii and Mexico.

Scientists said they have seen the first signs of life returning to deep sea mining tracks carved into the abyssal seabed more than four decades ago, but warned on Wednesday that full recovery may be "impossible."

The new research, published in the journal Nature, comes as countries argue over the creation of the world's first mining code on deep sea extraction at a meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica.

Scientists and campaigners have long insisted that future industrial-level mining will threaten marine ecosystems.

Risks range from species extinctions and damage to the ocean food web, to the potential for exacerbating climate change by churning up sediment that stores planet-heating carbon.

In the latest research, scientists in Britain assessed the lasting impact of one of the oldest known mining tracks in the vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), stretching between Hawaii and Mexico in international waters.

At depths of more than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), the seabed here is scattered with metal rich rocks known as "nodules" and is home to a huge number of strange and rare animals almost entirely unknown to science.

A 1979 test in the CCZ left a wide strip of seabed cleared of nodules and framed by deep tracks eight meters (26 foot) apart made by the mining machine.

In 2023, scientists surveyed the site and found these marks in the seafloor remained clearly visible.

"The numbers of many animals were reduced within the tracks but we did see some of the first signs of biological recovery," said lead author Daniel Jones of the National Oceanography Center.

While small and more mobile creatures were seen within the mining area, larger-sized animals that are fixed to the seafloor were still "very rare," he said.

The sediment plumes kicked up by the machines were not found to have had a lasting impact, according to the research.

The authors said that while more modern equipment could be designed to limit the impact on ocean wildlife, the likely scale of any mining operations if they went ahead meant "visible physical impacts of the collection can be assumed to last for at least many decades."

They added that a full return of life in affected regions "may be impossible" with the removal of the nodules, which are themselves a habitat for marine animals.

Spies to smartphones

The research marks "the longest term assessment of a deep sea mining track," Jones told reporters earlier this month.

Jones trawled the archives to pinpoint the location of the 1979 test, which was carried out following a CIA plot to recover a Russian nuclear submarine—using deep-sea mining as a cover story.

The CIA then leased their ship for real deep-sea mining, according to Jones.

He said the 1979 test, carried out by private firms, was to see if harvesting the nodules was technically feasible and was "much smaller than a true mining event would look like."

After that, interest and funding fizzled out.

But recent years have seen renewed interest in exploiting the potato-sized nodules, which are thought to have formed over millions of years and contain metals like cobalt and nickel, which are used in technologies such as smartphones and rechargeable batteries.

There are estimated to be around 21 billion tonnes of nodules on the seabed of the CCZ.

"Our results don't provide an answer to whether deep-sea mining is societally acceptable, but they do provide the data needed to make better informed policy decisions," said co-author Adrian Glover from Britain's Natural History Museum.

He added that it could help in creating protected areas and inform monitoring efforts.




The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Papaya and Passion Fruit Show Unexpected Cancer-Fighting Potential

BY SÃO PAULO RESEARCH FOUNDATION, MARCH 31, 2025


Plant and fruit compounds show promise in fighting infections and improving gut health, with new extraction techniques enhancing their effects.

Researchers from Brazil and Germany have investigated how phytochemicals from papaya, passion fruit, and various medicinal plant extracts work at the molecular level. Their findings were presented during FAPESP Week in Germany, highlighting potential health benefits and therapeutic applications.

Fruits and plant extracts are rich in bioactive compounds that may help prevent or treat various diseases. To better understand how these compounds work, researchers from universities and institutions in Brazil and Germany have conducted separate but complementary studies.

Some of their findings were presented on March 25 during a lecture session on the future of food and nutrition research, held at the Free University of Berlin as part of FAPESP Week Germany.

Ulrich Dobrindt, a professor at the University of Munich, explained that medicinal plants contain diverse phytochemicals, naturally occurring chemical compounds, that can combat bacterial infections through different mechanisms. These compounds help strengthen the body’s immune response. As a result, there is growing interest in using plant extracts to prevent and treat urinary tract infections (UTIs), one of the most common infections globally, which are typically treated with antibiotics.

“Although their anti-inflammatory, antipyretic and analgesic effects are well known, the active compounds of these plants – such as flavonoids, alkaloids and terpenoids – and their mechanisms of action on pathogen cells have yet to be characterized. Some are antibacterial, but many don’t have this effect,” said the researcher.


The table was attended by Bernadette de Melo Franco, Hans-Ulrich Humpf, Ulrich Dobrint, João Paulo Fabi and Peter Eisner.
 Credit: Elton Alisson/Agência FAPESP



In order to further their understanding, German scientists have developed infection models to study the effects of plant extracts on the innate immune response and on the epigenetic regulation of gene expression (biochemical processes that activate and deactivate genes). In bladder cells, for example, they are studying the effect of traditional plants with urological activity, according to the German pharmacopoeia.

In collaboration with researchers at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil, it was found that some aqueous plant extracts (from species such as Solidago gigantea and Equiseti herba) significantly reduced the adhesion and survival of Escherichia coli in human bladder epithelial cells.

“We observed a drastic reduction in the adhesion and proliferation of this bacterium in bladder cells,” said Ulrich.

Fruit fibers

In Brazil, a group associated with the Food Research Center (FoRC) – one of FAPESP’s Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) – has focused on the technological prospection and evaluation of the biological effects on humans of non-digestible water-soluble polysaccharides (bioactive polysaccharides), such as pectins.

Found in papaya, passion fruit, and citrus fruits, pectins make up a large portion of the fiber in these fruits and have been linked to a reduction in chronic non-communicable diseases.

However, some of the challenges in extracting these compounds from fruits such as papaya are that they ripen very quickly, resulting in softening of the pulp and chemical modification of the structures of its pectins, which are linked to biological effects such as modulation of the gut microbiota.

“During fruit ripening, enzymes are expressed that modify the structure of the pectins, reducing their beneficial biological effects. Passion fruit and citrus pectins, on the other hand, must be chemically modified in order to present beneficial activities in the intestine,” João Paulo Fabi, professor at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FCF-USP) and coordinator of the project, told Agência FAPESP.

To do this, the Brazilian researchers developed techniques to extract pectin from the albedo of oranges and passion fruit – the white part between the peel and the pulp that is normally discarded when the fruit is processed to make juice – and to modify it in the laboratory to reduce its molecular complexity in order to increase its biological activity.

The development resulted in a patent for the process of extracting pectin from fleshy fruits such as papaya and chayote. A second patent covering the modification of pectin from passion fruit by-products is in the process of being filed.

“We already have a prototype for extracting and modifying these pectins on a laboratory scale. The idea is to obtain a product, such as a flour rich in modified pectin, that could be consumed as a supplement or food ingredient,” said Fabi.

In partnership with other groups, the researchers conducted animal studies to demonstrate the correlation between modified pectins and increased biological activity.

“These preclinical studies can serve as a basis for the development of clinical trials [with modified pectins] as adjuvants to chemotherapy treatment of colon cancer or even as beneficial modulators of the intestinal microbiota,” the researcher said.


The birth of modern Man
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Just Discovered Quantum Signals Inside Life Itself

BY HOWARD U, MARCH 30, 2025


A stunning discovery shows that quantum computation might be embedded in the very structure of life, enabling organisms to process information at mind-boggling speeds – even in warm, wet environments. 
Credit: SciTechDaily.com



Biological systems, once thought too chaotic for quantum effects, may be quietly leveraging quantum mechanics to process information faster than anything man-made.

New research suggests this isn’t just happening in brains, but across all life, including bacteria and plants.

Schrödinger’s Legacy Inspires a Quantum Leap

Over 80 years ago, theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger delivered a series of influential public lectures at Trinity College Dublin. Drawing from both modern physics and philosophical traditions like Schopenhauer and the Upanishads, these talks were later published in 1944 under the title “What is Life?”

Now, during the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, Philip Kurian – a theoretical physicist and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (QBL) at Howard University in Washington, D.C. – has built on Schrödinger’s foundational ideas.

Using principles of quantum mechanics and recent QBL findings showing quantum optical properties in cytoskeletal filaments, Kurian has proposed a radically updated upper limit on the total information-processing capacity of carbon-based life throughout Earth’s history. His findings, published in Science Advances, also suggest a possible link between this biological limit and the computational bounds of all matter in the observable universe.

“This work connects the dots among the great pillars of twentieth-century physics – thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics—for a major paradigm shift across the biological sciences, investigating the feasibility and implications of quantum information processing in wetware at ambient temperatures,” said Kurian. “Physicists and cosmologists should wrestle with these findings, especially as they consider the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere in the habitable universe, evolving in concert with the electromagnetic field.”

The computational capacities of aneural organisms and neurons have been drastically underestimated by considering only classical information channels such as ionic flows and action potentials, which achieve maximum computing speeds of ∼103 ops/s.
However, it has been recently confirmed by fluorescence quantum yield experiments that large networks of quantum emitters in cytoskeletal polymers support superradiant states at room temperature, with maximum speeds of ∼1012 to 1013 ops/s, more than a billion times faster and within two orders of magnitude of the Margolus-Levitin limit for ultraviolet-photoexcited states.
 These protein networks of quantum emitters are found in both aneural eukaryotic organisms as well as in stable, organized bundles in neuronal axons. In this single-author research article in Science Advances, quantitative comparisons are made between the computations that can have been performed by all superradiant life in the history of our planet, and the computations that can have been performed by the entire matter-dominated universe with which such life is causally connected. 
Estimates made for human-made classical computers and future quantum computers with effective error correction motivate a reevaluation of the role of life, computing with quantum degrees of freedom, and artificial intelligences in the cosmos.
Credit: Quantum Biology Laboratory, Philip Kurian

The Quantum Challenge of Living Systems

The effects of quantum mechanics – the laws of physics that many scientists think apply at only small scales – are sensitive to disturbances. This is why quantum computers must be held at temperatures colder than outer space, and only small objects, such as atoms and molecules, typically display quantum properties. By quantum standards, biological systems are quite hostile environments: they’re warm and chaotic, and even their fundamental components – such as cells – are considered large.

But Kurian’s group last year discovered a distinctly quantum effect in protein polymers in aqueous solution, which survives these challenging conditions at the micron scale, and may also present a way for the brain to protect itself from degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Their results have suggested new applications and platforms for quantum computing researchers, and they represent a new way of thinking about the relationship between life and quantum mechanics.

In his single-author Science Advances paper, Kurian considered a mere trifecta of overarching assumptions: standard quantum mechanics, the relativistic speed limit set by light, and a matter-dominated universe at critical mass-energy density. “Combined with these rather innocuous premises, the remarkable experimental confirmation of single-photon superradiance in a ubiquitous biological architecture at thermal equilibrium opens up many new lines of inquiry across quantum optics, quantum information theory, condensed matter physics, cosmology, and biophysics,” said Professor Marco Pettini of Aix-Marseille University and the CNRS Center for Theoretical Physics (France), who was not associated with the work.

Quantum Signals at the Speed of Light

The key molecule enabling these remarkable properties is tryptophan, an amino acid found in many proteins that absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits it at a longer wavelength. Large networks of tryptophan form in microtubules, amyloid fibrils, transmembrane receptors, viral capsids, cilia, centrioles, neurons, and other cellular complexes. The QBL’s confirmation of quantum superradiance in cytoskeletal filaments has the profound consequence that all eukaryotic organisms can use these quantum signals to process information.

To break down food, cells undergoing aerobic respiration use oxygen and generate free radicals, which can emit damaging, high-energy UV light particles. Tryptophan can absorb this ultraviolet light and re-emit it at a lower energy. And, as the QBL study found, very large tryptophan networks can do this even more efficiently and robustly because of their powerful quantum effects.

The standard model for biochemical signaling involves ions moving across cells or membranes, generating spikes in an electrochemical process that takes a few milliseconds for each signal. But neuroscience and other biological researchers have only recently become aware that this isn’t the whole story. Superradiance in these cytoskeletal filaments happens in about a picosecond – a millionth of a microsecond. Their tryptophan networks could be functioning as quantum fiber optics that allow eukaryotic cells to process information billions of times faster than chemical processes alone would allow.

“The implications of Kurian’s insights are staggering,” said Professor Majed Chergui of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) and Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy), who supported the 2024 experimental study. “Quantum biology – in particular our observations of superradiant signatures from standard protein spectroscopy methods, guided by his theory—has the potential to open new vistas for understanding the evolution of living systems, in light of photophysics.”

The Power of Aneural Life

By thinking of biological information processing primarily at the level of the neuron, many scientists overlook the fact that aneural organisms – including bacteria, fungi, and plants, which form the bulk of Earth’s biomass – perform sophisticated computations. And as these organisms have been on our planet for much longer than animals, they constitute the vast majority of Earth’s carbon-based computation.

“There are signatures in the interstellar media and on interplanetary asteroids of similar quantum emitters, which may be precursors to eukaryotic life’s computational advantage,” said Dante Lauretta, professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona and director of the Arizona Astrobiology Center, who was not associated with the work. “Kurian’s predictions provide quantitative bounds, beyond the colloquial Drake equation, on how superradiant living systems enhance planetary computing capacity. The remarkable properties of this signaling and information-processing modality could be a game-changer in the study of habitable exoplanets.”

Biology Meets Quantum Tech

This latest analysis has likewise drawn the attention of researchers in quantum computing, because the survival of fragile quantum effects in a “noisy” environment is of great interest to those who want to make quantum information technology more resilient. Kurian has had conversations with several quantum computing researchers who were surprised to find such connections in the biological sciences.

“These new performance comparisons will be of interest to the large community of researchers in open quantum systems and quantum technology,” said Professor Nicolò Defenu of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in Switzerland, a quantum researcher who was not associated with the work. “It’s really intriguing to see a vital and growing connection between quantum technology and living systems.”

In the Science Advances article, Kurian explains and revisits foundational quantum properties and thermodynamic considerations, from a long line of physicists who made clear the essential link between physics and information. With his group’s discovery of UV-excited qubits in biological fibers, almost all life on Earth has the physical capacity to compute with controllable quantum degrees of freedom, allowing storage and manipulation of quantum information with error correction cycles far outpacing the latest lattice-based surface codes. “And all this in a warm soup! The quantum computing world should take serious notice,” Kurian said.

The work also piqued the attention of quantum physicist Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a pioneer in the study of quantum computing and the computational capacity of the universe. “I applaud Dr. Kurian’s bold and imaginative efforts to apply the fundamental physics of computation to the total amount of information processing performed by living systems over the course of life on Earth. It’s good to be reminded that the computation performed by living systems is vastly more powerful than that performed by artificial ones,” Lloyd said.

Life’s Place in the Universe’s Grand Design

“In the era of artificial intelligences and quantum computers, it is important to remember that physical laws restrict all their behaviors,” Kurian said. “And yet, though these stringent physical limits also apply to life’s ability to track, observe, know, and simulate parts of the universe, we can still explore and make sense of the brilliant order within it, as the cosmic story unfolds. It’s awe-inspiring that we get to play such a role.”


The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Sunday, 30 March 2025

Chuck's picture corner to March 30, 2025

It's been a wild week going from warm and sunny to cold wet and snowy. Not much to picture this week as I chafe at the bit to work in the gardens once again.

I can't seem to find a way to post the oldest pictures at the top so time wise the newest photos are at the top and the oldest at the bottom

If it wasn't for this latest snow ice storm I would stop putting bird feed out now that the grackles dominate the station

it's raining at 0.5c out and the icicles are growing

I awoke to a glassy landscape this morning.

my bought tomatoes (planted Mar 13) I pricked out of their seed flats yesterday into their cell flats

Friday's new snow

another sunset before the new snow

I got lots of poles from this cedar I planted yrs ago. Having topped it a decade ago.

Spring weather

the two starter flats in the middle of this pic are the tomatoes now planted up

Sunsets are quickly moving northward


Enjoy your day
and 
Find some cheer