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20 New Species in the Deep Sea

February 3, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: California Academy of Sciences.
A potentially new species discovered.

Looking ahead at some of the activities scheduled in my retirement community, I see that in February we can attend a lecture by Prof. Peter Girguis, co-director of the Harvard Microbial Sciences Initiative.

The announcement in our app says, “In this presentation, I will take you on a trip through the deep sea, learning about the extraordinary animals and microbes that thrive therein and about their adaptations to this environment. We will also touch on humankind’s relationship with the ocean, the birth of deep-sea biology, and the technological innovations that first took humans into the deep and how we still have time to turn the tide.”

Sounds pretty good, huh? And I think today’s article will have been the perfect preparation for the talk.

Chandelis Duster reported recently at National Public Radio [NPR] that “scientists believe they have discovered at least 20 new species in a deep part of the Pacific Ocean.

“The discoveries were found after researchers from the California Academy of Sciences retrieved 13 reef monitoring devices that had been placed in deep coral reefs in Guam, which had been collecting data since 2018. The devices, known as autonomous reef monitoring structures or ARMS, were placed up to 330 feet below the surface, an area of the ocean that receives little light.

“Over two weeks in November, scientists retrieved 2,000 specimens, finding 100 species in the region for the first time. Luiz Rocha, California Academy of Sciences Ichthyology curator, told NPR after more analysis is completed, scientists expect to discover more than 20 new species. Rocha was also part of the diving exhibition that placed and retrieved the devices.

” ‘It’s probably going to be higher than that because one of the things we do is we confirm everything with genetics. So we sequence the DNA of the species before we even really make absolutely sure that they’re new,’ Rocha said. ‘And during that process sometimes what happens is what we thought was not a new species ends up being a new species because the genetics is different.’

“He estimates that some of the potential new species could include crabs, sponges, ascidians or sea squirts, as well as new gorgonians, a type of coral.

Deep coral reefs live in an area of an ocean, nicknamed the ‘twilight zone,’ which receives little sunlight.

“Known as the mesopelagic zone, it is a difficult area for some scientists to reach because of pressure and requires specialized diving equipment. Rocha’s team studied the ‘upper twilight zone,’ which sits at 180-330 feet below the surface.

“Finding new species in that part of the ocean was not a surprise for Rocha, who said he and his team were expecting to make new discoveries. But Rocha said he was surprised to see a hermit crab, which usually make their homes in abandoned snail shells, attached to a clam.

“ ‘When they first showed me the picture of it, I’m like, “What, wait, what is that?” I couldn’t even tell what animal it was. And then I realized, oh, it’s a hermit crab, but it’s using a clamshell,’ he said. ‘The species has a lot of adaptations that allows it to do that, and it was really cool and interesting.’

“Rocha and his team have also started a two-year expedition to retrieve 76 more deep reef monitoring devices across the Pacific Ocean, including in Palau and French Polynesia.

“Although studying deep coral reefs may be difficult and challenging, Rocha said it’s crucial to learn more about the reefs and their habitat.”

More at NPR, here.

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Revival of Handpainted Signs

February 2, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Gerry Hadden/The World.
The art of hand-painted gold leaf signs, like this one by artist Victor Bert, is enjoying a renaissance in France.

I love listening to radio show The World because they find international stories I don’t usually hear on US radio. Recently there was one I liked about the resurgence of handpainted signs in France. Gerry Hadden had the story.

“Victor Bert rummaged through an old wooden tackle box filled with brushes, paints, and emulsions. His assignment,” Hadden reports, “was simple. He needed to paint three words onto a wall: ‘Men,’ ‘Women,’ and ‘Shoes.’

“They’d be on display at the hip Parisian clothing store Asphalte. The project would likely take all day. As an artisanal letter painter, Bert was tasked with handpainting each letter in gold leaf. But that didn’t seem to bother him.

“ ‘This is my passion,’ Bert said. ‘I could spend my life doing this.’

France is known for its quaint and classy handpainted signage on storefronts and hotels. The art form dates back to the early 19th century and was almost wiped out by cheaper high-tech alternatives that emerged in the 1980s. But today it’s enjoying a renaissance and artisans are busier than ever.

“The technique requires a lot of dedication and patience. Instead of painting in cut-out letters, like in traditional stenciling, Bert explained that he makes hundreds of pinholes following the contours of each paper letter.

“After tapping and rubbing the paper against the wall with a special talcum powder dispenser that passes the powder through the tiny holes, the outline of the words appear as little dots that can then be painted over by hand. Like calligraphy, it’s one-stroke work.

“Bert, 32, has been practicing this craft for 11 years, and there are a dozen or so other artisans like himself in Paris.

“When machines started taking over in the ‘80s, the appeal was that it was cheaper and faster to print stickers, decals, and plastic printouts that could be stuck directly onto windows or walls. … But those products turned out to not be very durable. Stickers became unstuck. Vinyl decals cracked, and the ones exposed to the sun aged badly.

“Just when people started souring on decals, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. And when Parisians emerged from lockdown seven long weeks later, artisans like Bert became stars of sorts.

“ ‘Everyone was just dying to get back outside and do stuff,’ he said. …

“ ‘What Bert does, it’s part of the history of stores in Paris,’ said Jonathan Gauthier, the store manager who hired him. ‘It was important for us to embrace this. Plus, we wanted to give the shop a little caché. Gold leaf lettering enriches our image.’

“There’s not much room for error in this process. Bert once had to make tiny inscriptions on $5,000 bottles of wine.

Any mistake, and the artisan has to start from scratch.

“ ‘I’ve only messed up once,’ Bert said. ‘I ruined a $200 bottle of men’s perfume,’ which he then had to pay for. …

But, he’s done other jobs where you simply cannot err. He was tasked with etching the engraving on the tombstone of late French Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

“The inscription read: ‘Happiness to the artisans of peace.’ ”

More at The World, here. And you may recall a previous post, here, about Trader Joe’s hiring artists for handmade signs.

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Artist Models Struggle to Make a Living

February 1, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic.
A series of sketches created by Melody Lu during a life drawing session.

I’ve always been fascinated by how many different kinds of jobs there are in the world, but I’ve seldom delved into what it feels like to be in an unusual job. I know how it feels to be a waitress, a school teacher, and an editor, and that gives me sympathy for workers in those fields. Other people feel the same. It seems that generous tippers in restaurants have often known firsthand what it means to be on the other end.

Now Isa Farfan at Hyperallergic has given us a glimpse into the life of art models. It was a revelation to me.

“Aaron Bogan, a professional art model and illustrator originally from New Jersey, moved to New York City last year from the Bay Area, attracted in part by what he described as an ‘abundant’ modeling scene. For the past 20 years, Bogan has been a life drawing model, a physically demanding contract-based profession.

“ ‘Figure models are the blue-collar workers of the arts,’ Bogan said. ‘I don’t think anybody knows the amount of physicality and mental fortitude it takes to do what we do on stage.’

“In California, Bogan was part of the Bay Area Models Guild, which claims to represent some of the highest-paid figure models in the country, negotiating a minimum $50 hourly wage for their models. Though Bogan said he finds himself working more hours in New York City than ever before, he is earning just $22 an hour, above the minimum wage but below the living wage at standard full-time hours. On the night he spoke to Hyperallergic, Bogan had worked intermittently from 9 am until around 10 pm. He said he models six or seven days a week.

“A typical three-hour open drawing session begins with artists filing into a studio arranged expectantly toward an area where a model will disrobe. Nude, the model contorts into poses, ranging from sitting cross-legged on the stage to elaborate stances involving chairs, poles, and, for Bogan, katana swords. The relationship between the model and the student is demarcated by a stage, and for the artist, tucked behind a sketchbook or easel, the hours go by quickly, almost prayerfully. For the model, the work can be a gratifying form of artistic expression or meditation, but the postures are physically exerting. Standing poses, Bogan said, led him to develop a painful ulcer on his leg, which required a $430 emergency room visit earlier last October. He went back to work the next day.

“ ‘We’ve all been through pain on the inside and outside, and we bring it all on the stage,’ Bogan said. ‘We’re all smiling, and we’re all doing everything on stage, but nobody knows that when you’re on stage, it looks like you’re stoic, but on the inside, you’re breaking.’

“Despite playing a consequential role in visual arts institutions across the country, art models, also known as figure models or life drawing models, are struggling to cobble together a living between unreliable hours and varying wages, according to nine models interviewed by Hyperallergic. Many of the models, most of whom are artists themselves, reported feeling overlooked in the art world despite their prevalence in educational institutions.

“On Wednesday, December 17, members of the Art Students League, which currently contracts 80–90 models depending on class needs, will vote on a new board. As the institution marks its 150th year, the newly formed Art Students League Model Collective is asking incoming leadership to hear their concerns for improved labor conditions, including raising their $22/hour rate, offering more stable working hours, and providing up-to-date heaters and amenities. 

“The models interviewed by Hyperallergic, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing work, also hope that sharing their stories will lead to increased respect for the profession. 

“Anna Veedra, an art model who does not work for the Art Students League, is leading the push for change at the institution through her advocacy organization, The Model Tea Project. Veedra is sending a survey to art models across the country, an initiative she told Hyperallergic would ‘provide the model community with data to match their lived experience.’

“Veedra said she prefers flying to California to take jobs, including at animation studios, rather than working in New York, where institutions like Parsons and the New School pay around $20–25 an hour, according to models who work there. …

“In preliminary data shared with Hyperallergic from 41 models heavily concentrated in New York City and at the Art Students League, over half of the respondents reported being unable to save any money for retirement or emergencies.

About half of the models said they relied on public assistance programs, including food stamps and Medicaid.

“Most models surveyed by Veedra earned below $35,000 per year, including supplemental income. Some models Hyperallergic interviewed had other jobs. A few relied on bookings entirely. 

“In a statement, a spokesperson for the Art Students League said the atelier-style institution was ‘committed to providing a safe and inclusive working environment for the models who devote their time and expertise to aiding the practice of life drawing in our studios.’

“ ‘Models are vital members of our community and the League’s administration regularly holds meetings where models can share feedback and voice concerns,’ the spokesperson said. The institution did not answer questions about whether it had plans to raise pay for models or confirm its hourly rate for models. 

“The Art Students League was established in the 1870s in part to increase opportunities for artists to draw life models. A century and a half later, models are hoping it could set a high standard for the industry.

“One model who works at the Art Students League and spoke to Hyperallergic called the pay ‘insulting for the type of work that it is.’ Another model said he felt the institution ‘completely take[s] us for granted.’ 

“Robin Hoskins, an art model from Cincinnati who works at art schools across New York City as an independent contractor, said she became so ‘desperate’ that she was searching for retail jobs earlier this year. … She wishes people would appreciate the elegance and stamina required to pose for artists.

“ ‘We’re human beings, you know, and we want to be understood and appreciated for the work we’re putting in,’ Hoskins said. ‘But, most importantly, we need to be able to have a dignified wage and be able to earn a decent living, just like anyone else in any other successful profession.’ ” 

More at Hyperallergic, here. No paywall. Subscriptions encouraged.

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Can I Get a Witness?

January 31, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Erin Trieb for NPR.
Alsa Bruno (center) sings with Brass Solidarity, a band founded in 2021 in response to the killing of George Floyd. Above, you see them practicing at a community center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jan. 19, 2026.

You have probably noticed how much music is in the air around Minneapolis these days: songs of love, agape, hope, unity, and resistance. Suzanne sent me the one that Bruce Springsteen wrote, which is brand new, but some of the songs go back to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to slave songs, folk music, and gospel.

Recently on Instagram I heard Brass Solidarity play “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ‘Round,” and I thought, “Oh, I know that one! We used to sing it in the ’60s!”

Brass Solidarity has been introducing both hope and a joyful sense of connection into government-instigated chaos in Minneapolis. So I went online to learn more about them. In a 2023 report from Minnesota Public Radio, here, Minneapolis teacher and band member Natalie Peterson observed, “there’s a lot of work that can be done through energizing people and just bringing a joyful energy to something that can be incredibly hard.”

Last week, Kat Lonsdorf and Megan Lim added more at NPR: “Raycurt Johnson strolls into a local theater in south Minneapolis, shaking off the cold. He’s carrying a tambourine in one hand and a bullhorn in the other.

” ‘I was born in the civil rights era, and I’m still doing that,’ the 65-year-old says with a laugh.

“Around him, other musicians unpack their instruments, mostly brass: tubas, trombones, trumpets. Together they make up a community band called Brass Solidarity, formed in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin. … The band plays once a week in George Floyd Square, where the killing occurred. When Renee Macklin Good was killed by a federal immigration agent earlier this month just blocks from there, the band started playing music in her memory as well. …

“The following week, Brass Solidarity was at Good’s memorial site, playing for people gathered there. ‘It was really interesting because there was a lot of mournfulness coming in, but people were rocking with us, and jamming with us,’ says Daniel Goldschmidt, another member of the band, who plays the melodica. …

“Since then, Brass Solidarity has turned out for several anti-ICE protests, and updated their repertoire a bit to include critical lyrics about ICE and other federal agencies. Goldschmidt, a practicing music therapist, says the music isn’t just about bringing the mood up in an otherwise depressing environment – it also helps calm people down, at a time when many are angry. Which is especially helpful [amid threats] to deploy the military to Minneapolis.

” ‘Street band music has the ability to bring down the temperature in spicy situations on the street during protests,’ Goldschmidt says.

“The band has been playing even as the temperatures have hovered well-below freezing. … ‘[But] the horns lock up. Someone’s here with a wooden clarinet right now. That’s not gonna work when it’s cold,’ says Alsa Bruno, a singer with the band. ‘And yet, we show up.’

“In recent days, the band has been meeting and playing indoors, as the weather has dropped into the negative single digits. But members are still showing up at outdoor events, banging drums or singing into bullhorns.

” ‘This is not a moment for us to give in to insecurity. It’s actually the moment that we get to stand together in the cold, knowing we’re all cold, being arm in arm, knowing that this weather is just weather,’ says Bruno. ‘It’s temporary. We’re forever.’ “

Finally, in case you missed it: the spirit of folk singer Woody Guthrie has returned, with Resistance Revival Chorus belting out his song “All You Fascists Bound To Lose.” In fact, you may be hearing other Guthrie anthems again, not just “This Land Is My Land.” There’s another one mourning Mexican migrants who died being deported. We are relearning from the singer who was ahead of his time that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

See the 2025 PBS report on the Guthrie revival, here.

Please add music that speaks to you just now.

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Rebuilding Mosul, Iraq

January 30, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Valéry Freland/International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage (ALIPH).
The Al-Raabiya Mosque — severely damaged during the battle to liberate Mosul from Isis in 2017 — was one of several restored buildings revealed in October 2025.

Let’s think about how humans rebuild places after the unspeakable. Mosul, in Iraq, is one such place. A goal to nurture a diversity of faith traditions there has been dubbed the Mosul Mosaic.

Hadani Ditmars writes at the Art Newspaper that 2025 was “a banner year for the restoration of heritage in Mosul, a city rising from the ashes of war and still recovering from three years of occupation by Islamic State (Isis). When it was liberated in 2017, the northern Iraqi city lay in ruins at a level of destruction Unesco described as unequalled since the Second World War.

“A multitude of reconstruction projects began in 2018 after landmines and debris were cleared. Dozens of these were completed in the past year, among them, Unesco’s program to restore Ottoman houses in the old city. The Isis-ravaged Mosul Central Library opened on 1 January. The Al-Nouri Mosque, Al-Tahera Church, and Al-Saa’a Convent are among the sites to have been restored under Unesco’s $115m Revive the Spirit of Mosul program. In October, two more churches and a mosque restored by the Geneva-based NGO Aliph (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage) were inaugurated.

“It remains to be seen whether rebuilding churches and mosques will encourage social cohesion and religious peace in a still-fractured society. There are fewer than 70 Christian families living in Mosul, down from a pre-2014 population of 50,000. …

“David Sassine, the project manager of Mosul Mosaic, an initiative launched by Aliph in 2018, tells the Art Newspaper that the NGO’s primary reason for restoring churches and mosques is their heritage value. But it is also, he says, ‘a message that the international community is supporting the presence of all communities in Mosul.’ Displaced communities can be encouraged to return by building schools and restoring monuments, he says. …

“In addition to preserving the cultural heritage of Mosul in its religious diversity (including documentation of the historic Jewish community), Mosul Mosaic also provides on-the-job training in heritage restoration and employment to locals. …

“[In 2024] Aliph reopened the historic Tutunji House—an Ottoman home used by Isis as an explosives factory that is now a cultural centre. This year, it completed the rebuilding of the House of Prayer at the Al-Saa’a Church and the Al-Masfi Mosque, one of Mosul’s oldest, likewise damaged during occupation by Isis, was also inaugurated. …

“At the first public mass at the exquisitely restored Al Tahera Church in May, most of the Christians in attendance no longer lived in Mosul. After the service, attended by perhaps three dozen worshippers, everyone left quickly. Few were inclined to speak to the Art Newspaper, including the priest. ‘I don’t feel comfortable,’ he said.

“One young man said he had moved back to Mosul to take a job as the church verger, and because his old family home was still standing in the old city. The rent in Erbil … where he and his family had fled in 2014, was unaffordable, he said.

“A Muslim construction worker outside the church, said he … fondly remembered his old Christian classmates at the Catholic school he attended in his youth. ‘I haven’t seen them in many years,’ he said.

“But Shams Majid, who returned to Mosul a few years ago to rebuild his family home, was optimistic. He recently transformed his traditional [house] with several stories that overlook the al-Nuri Mosque in the old city into the Mosul Heritage Art House, open to visitors.

“ ‘Everything in Mosul is great now,’ he said. ‘They are rebuilding all the monuments, the tourists are coming back, and the economy is improving.’ …

“Aliph’s next big restoration project—the Mosul Museum—combines ancient and modern heritage preservation. Looted after the 2003 Iraq War and ravaged by Isis in 2015, it is scheduled to open in autumn 2026. The $15.8m project was initiated in 2018 in partnership with the Musée du Louvre, the Smithsonian Institution and the World Monuments Fund.”

Learn about other restored buildings at the Art Newspaper, here.

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A Group Cleaning Up Ocean Plastic

January 29, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Ocean Cleanup.
Ocean Plastic doing its 100th cleanup in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where an estimated 100,000 tons of plastic have accumulated.

Today I’m sharing an organization’s website describing its work to clean up plastic in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean Cleanup uses the natural circulation of currents to sequester the garbage in several hotspots so they can remove it.

Excerpts from the website: “Plastic [in the Pacific] accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. To solve it, we not only need to prevent plastic from accumulating into the ocean, but also clean up what is already out there. Floating plastics trapped in the patches will keep circulating until they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, becoming harder to clean up and increasingly easier to mistake for food by sealife. …

“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch [GPGP] poses a severe threat to marine life, ecosystems, and human health. Animals often mistake plastic for food, while ghost nets — making up 46% of the patch — cause deadly entanglements. As plastic floats at sea, [it] can enter the food chain through bioaccumulation, potentially contaminating seafood. Beyond ecological and health impacts, microplastics also disrupt oceanic carbon sequestration, with estimated annual losses ranging from 15 to 30 million metric tons of carbon. …

“After the Transpacific Yacht Race [in 2025], sailors helped our research team in two key scientific areas: sailors tagged GPS buoys to megaplastics found at sea, allowing us to track their movement, and mounted ADIS [our Automated Debris Imaging System] on their boats to help identify plastic hotspots.

“After years of engineering development and strategic partnership agreements, the Ocean Cleanup became the first ever organization to remove plastic pollution from the GPGP – and it remains the only one to this day.

“We captured our first plastic from the GPGP in 2019, and by 2021, our technology was proven. Since then, we’ve removed hundreds of tons of trash from the GPGP — mostly plastic coming from fishing gear.

“In 2022, we began … upgrading components while continuing cleanup. …

“Since 2024, [we’ve] begun working on optimizing our efficiency even more. Through hotspot hunting, we can address our cleanup efforts in areas with higher quantity of plastic, while decreasing our environmental impact.

“The circulating currents in the garbage patch move the plastic around, creating natural ever-shifting hotspots of higher concentration. With the help of computational modeling, we predict where these hotspots are and place the cleanup systems in these areas.

“Our floating systems are designed to capture plastics ranging from small pieces, just millimeters in size, up to large debris, including massive, discarded fishing nets (ghost nets). After fleets of systems are deployed into every ocean gyre, combined with inflow source prevention, the Ocean Cleanup aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

“It is estimated that 100,000 tons of plastic float in the GPGP. We work with renowned partners to repurpose our catch into meaningful products – to prevent plastic ending up in the natural environment.

“We aim to rid the oceans of plastic in the most responsible way possible. Our mission is intended to benefit the ocean and its inhabitants, so we place protection of the marine environment and mitigation of any negative impact of our operations at the forefront of our ocean cleaning operations.

“[Our] ocean cleaning technology has deterrents, cameras, escape aids, and other features to minimize risk to marine wildlife. We also have trained independent observers on board the vessels each trip to monitor any interactions with protected species (such as turtles or whales) in the area. Monitoring data has confirmed that our operations are having only minimal effects on the environment.”

Learn more about their plastic-capture techniques at the Ocean Cleanup, here.

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Teach Your Octopus to Play Music

January 28, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Mattias Krantz / Youtube.
Mattias Krantz taught an octopus to make music on an underwater piano.

We have all heard stories about how intelligent octopuses are. I have posted several such stories myself: for example, this one about naturalist Sy Montgomery. Today’s octopus story, however, takes the cake.

Mihai Andrei writes at ZME Science, “Mattias Krantz is a YouTuber with a penchant for bonkers engineering and musical projects. … This is the story of Tako, a common octopus rescued from the frying pan, and how it came to play musical notes on an underwater piano. …

“Krantz approached the project with the naive optimism of a doer. His hypothesis was simple: if playing the piano requires finger independence and multitasking, an octopus should technically be the most dexterous player on Earth.

“We humans are centralized creatures. Our brain sits in our skull like a CEO in a penthouse, barking orders down the spinal cord to the rest of the body. The octopus is different. They are the result of convergent evolution — intelligence evolving on a completely different branch of the tree of life. Sometimes, an octopus’ arm will make its own decisions, without consulting the brain. And we’re not talking about reflex.

Octopus arms can fully make some decisions all by themselves.

“Krantz … hooked up a system of lights. He tried to teach Tako that hitting a lighted key meant food, a method that previously worked on chicken.

“It was a disaster.

“Tako simply ignored the keys and the lights. He dismantled the equipment. He did what octopuses do best: he investigated the environment on his own terms.

“This failure illustrates a critical concept in animal behavior science: the Umwelt. It’s the self-world of the animal. We humans are visual creatures; we love lights and screens. Octopuses are tactile and chemical creatures. Trying to teach an octopus using visual cues designed for a human is like trying to teach a human to read using only smells. It doesn’t matter how smart the student is if the teacher is speaking the wrong language.

“Or, as Krantz put it, he was ‘trying to apply chicken logic to an octopus.’ …

“Octopuses explore the world by grabbing and retracting. They are ambush predators and foragers; they reach into crevices and pull out crabs. So instead of piano keys, he built a custom piano with levers instead of keys.

“But that was only half the battle. The other half was the ‘crab’ elevator.

“Tako loves eating crabs. This was his favorite reward. So, Krantz built a contraption where Tako had to pull a piano lever to lower a tube containing a crab. … It turned the piano from an instrument into a puzzle. And if there is one thing cephalopods love, it is a puzzle. But he added a twist: the crab would only lower slightly. To get the crab all the way down, Tako had to hit the right notes in sequence.

“Suddenly, the ‘eight pianists in one body’ began to coordinate. With the right motivation and mechanism, Tako organized and started to create sounds. Not just noise, but deliberate activation of sound to achieve a result. …

“Octopuses lack ears and are deaf to the soaring melodic frequencies (treble and mid-range) that make up the ‘music’ we hear. However, they possess balance organs called statocysts that allow them to detect low-frequency vibrations (roughly 400Hz–1000Hz) and particle motion in the water.

“Tako wasn’t ‘jamming’ or appreciating the blues. To Tako, the piano wasn’t an instrument of expression but rather a [vending machine] that ‘thudded’ when he hit the right combination. … He may have enjoyed the activity to some extent, and definitely seemed to enjoy the puzzle-solving part, but we can’t say he was creating music.

“Still, the most poignant part of this story isn’t the music. It’s the relationship. We have a dark history of underestimating animals until we give them a name. In the lab, they are subjects. In the market, they are food. But in the home, they become individuals.

“As the experiment progressed, Krantz realized he wanted what was best for Tako. But he probably wouldn’t have survived if he was sent back into the ocean. The experiment created a bond. The ‘subject’ became a ‘who.’ Tako may not be Rachmaninoff, but he was Tako; not food.

“So, the musician decided Tako will live with him from now on.” More about what that entailed at ZME Science, here.

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Salamanders That Survive Icy Weather

January 27, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Peter Paplanus/Flickr CC BY 2.0.
Blue-spotted salamanders are just fine with being supercooled. Lucky guys, they have a “natural anti-freeze.”

Got icy weather? Stay indoors if you can and read about salamanders that survive icy weather, and even benefit from it.

Nell Greenfieldboyce reports at National Public Radio (NPR), “In ancient times, people thought moist-skinned salamanders could survive in fire. That’s not true, of course, but some salamanders have a surprising ability to deal with another temperature extreme: freezing cold.

“In fact, blue-spotted salamanders can remain active even when chilled below the normal freezing point of body fluids — a state that scientists call ‘supercooled.’ That surprised researchers who recently saw these amphibians out and about at Bat Lake in Canada’s Algonquin Provincial Park in late winter.

” ‘We noticed that okay, there’s still ice on the ground, the lake’s still frozen, but for some weird reason, there were blue-spotted salamanders on land,’ recalls Danilo Giacometti, a researcher who is now at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

“These salamanders live up to their name, with black bodies sporting shimmery blue spots. Besides Canada, they’re found in the northern part of the United States, across the Great Lakes region and New England. … They spend cold winters underground, but emerge from their burrows in the forests in early spring to migrate to nearby pools of water so that they can start breeding.

“It’s been known for a while that blue-spotted salamanders can occasionally be seen walking on snow, but it was thought that this happened when temperatures had actually warmed up a bit, says biologist Glenn Tattersall of Brock University in Ontario, a member of the research team. ‘The presumption that we had was that maybe they were moving over snow while the temperatures are just close to freezing,’ he says.

“When they saw these salamanders out in the frigid cold, though, the researchers had a thermal camera with them. Together with another scientist named Patrick Moldowan, they took thermal images that let them measure the body temperature of the animals. What they found is that some blue-spotted salamanders actually had body temperatures below freezing, as low as 25 degrees Fahrenheit. …

“These salamanders apparently have some kind of ability to use a natural anti-freeze that allows them to become supercooled, according to the researchers’ report in the Canadian Journal of Zoology. …

” ‘They showed that there’s activity in this supercooled state,’ says Don Larson with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who wasn’t part of this research team. … ‘They’re still able to do things.’ He says this probably helps these salamanders by letting them start their breeding as early as possible, while maybe avoiding predators that are still hunkered down.

“Amphibians can be surprisingly adept at dealing with frigid temperatures, he says. He’s been studying the Alaskan wood frog, which can freeze solid for months; its heart stops completely.

“And in Russia, there are Siberian salamanders ‘that we know can survive down to negative 40 or colder,’ he says. …

” ‘We know that there are some very extreme limits,’ says Larson, but compared to all the research that’s been done on what birds and mammals do in the winter, scientists know remarkably little about how cold-blooded amphibians get by.” More at NPR, here.

We could all use some of that “natural anti-freeze.” Maybe some government someday will fund more research.

Have you seen any blue-spotted guys where you live?

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Standing up

January 26, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Religion News Service/Jack Jenkins.
Hundreds of clergy convened at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Thursday, January 22, 2026, in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Today’s post is about faith leaders in Minnesota and beyond bearing witness to wickedness and standing up for the values they share.

On Sunday, my husband and I heard a report from our own minister, who had just returned from protesting with those leaders in Minneapolis.

Although the largest interfaith demonstration so far was last Friday, mutual support among religious leaders has been going on a long time.

In December 2025, Louis Krauss of the Minnesota Star Tribune, wrote about faith leaders seeing signs that the government was going to start its attacks with the Somali community.

“A broad swath of religious leaders packed into a south Minneapolis mosque on Thursday to show solidarity and condemn ongoing attacks … against Minnesota’s Somali community. The crowd of more than 50 inside of Umatul Islam Center consisted of imams, pastors, rabbis and leaders from other religions who took turns cheering in support of Somali neighbors [amid] reports of the increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in the Twin Cities targeting the Somali population.”

As we know, ICE did arrive, reportedly three thousand strong. Even before the atrocities of January 24, a gathering of religious leaders was preparing to bear witness. Here are some results.

Interfaith Alliance posted this message on Sunday, January 25: “Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, just returned Friday evening from several days spent in Minneapolis marching, protesting, and rallying together with national and local faith leaders – who answered the call to do everything in their power to challenge ICE and call for them to leave Minnesota and cease terrorizing immigrants and their communities.”

Rev. Raushenbush said, “We echo the urgent demands of activists in Minnesota, including local faith leaders. ICE must leave Minnesota. … Across faith traditions, we are called to protect human dignity, care for the vulnerable, and resist systems that thrive on fear. That is why so many faith leaders and communities, in Minnesota and across the country, are showing moral leadership and courage to reject ICE.” More here.

Jack Jenkins wrote at Religion News Service, “As she stood at the pulpit at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Thursday (January 22), the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a United Church of Christ minister, looked out at the packed sanctuary with tears in her eyes.

“Far from the typical flock of Presbyterian worshippers who frequent the church on Sundays, the more than 600 people who filled the pews represented a wide range of faiths — Christians of all kinds as well as Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Indigenous practitioners, among others. All were religious leaders who had traveled to Minnesota on short notice, spurred by their faith to oppose … mass deportation. …

“The moment marked the beginning of a remarkable two-day religious gathering in Minneapolis. … Constructed as a mix of activist trainings, spiritual revival and direct-action protests, Minnesota faith leaders who have been actively resisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used the assembly as an opportunity to pass along lessons to clergy from other parts of the country. Amid prayers, songs and protest chants, the gathering heralded the emergence of a vast, faith-based network set on resisting the administration’s mass deportation effort.

“Religion News Service was one of only three outlets given access to the conference, which was largely organized by the local religious advocacy group Multifaith Antiracism, Change and Healing, known as MARCH. The size of the event was striking, given how quickly it came together: The public invitation was published on MARCH’s website only a week before the event began, and organizers said so many clergy wanted to take part that they eventually had to halt applications due to logistical concerns.” More at at Religion News Service.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel noted from afar that a rabbi was among those arrested at a demonstration: “At least one local rabbi was arrested Friday in Minneapolis as hundreds of faith leaders from around the country gathered to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the Twin Cities.

“Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, the Jewish and interfaith chaplain at Macalester College in St. Paul, was briefly detained by police alongside leaders of other faiths while staging a protest at the airport. In photos and video from the protest just before the arrest, Kipley-Ogman can be seen delivering brief remarks while wearing a rainbow tallit and standing in a line at the airport’s arrivals gate with several other faith leaders who hold hands and pray.” More.

Jack Jenkins filed a separate report with the National Catholic Reporter, “Around 200 faith leaders fanned out across the city on Thursday (January 22) to observe and document the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with some clergy confronting Department of Homeland Security agents, adding a visible religious presence to widespread efforts to counter the president’s mass deportation campaign in the region.

“The faith leaders, who are in Minneapolis as part of a larger convening focused on religious pushback to ICE, deployed to neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations, where DHS agents have been most active during an ongoing campaign known as Operation Metro Surge. The clergy, who hail from a range of traditions and worship communities across the country, sang on the buses as they ventured out into the street. They belted out hymns and songs popular during the Civil Rights Movement, such as ‘Woke Up This Morning.’ ” More.

A Hindu writer posted this: “I arrived in Minneapolis on Wednesday (January 21). I had come because local organizers said people were being disappeared: kidnapped off the street, detained, shot in plain daylight. I went because there was a cry for help from a devastated community.

“Nothing prepared me for what I saw. The city was a battleground where ICE feels like an occupying force.

“A Hindu organizer and activist, I went as an ally of a 50-strong Rabbis for Ceasefire delegation, some of whom I knew from our trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories in August, to see the effects of the Gaza war. I saw there firsthand what occupation looks like. Minneapolis felt occupied, too.

“On Friday we participated in Minneapolis’ citywide day of action, a general strike, for which hundreds of local businesses chose to close. Some gave free food and drink to people participating. More than 50,000 people — faith leaders among them — marched to abolish ICE in spite of frigid temperatures. The march culminated in a huge rally in an indoor stadium, where local faith leaders, union leaders, and elected officials offered speeches and prayers of defiance and resilience.

“Within that larger strike, our faith convergence took part in actions of defiance organized by MARCH. At Minneapolis Airport, 106 local clergy were arrested, while some 600 local community members and out-of-town clergy stood witness. Later, I joined a group of multifaith clergy in song, prayer, and presence at the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, where Minnesota’s ICE offices are headquartered.” More.

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America

January 25, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: David Guttenfelder/New York Times.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, January 24, 2026.

Guys, I am just too sad to post anything upbeat today. Maybe tomorrow.

To readers in other countries: Forgive me for not knowing how to change what we have become. Just so you know, we are not all like this.

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College Lectures in Bars Are More Fun

January 24, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Lectures on Tap.
A new approach to education: academic lectures in bars. For $35, you can hear, for example, an analysis of the horror-film genre by Drew McClellan, an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Here’s a new way to get some learning if traditional postsecondary education feels out of reach or unappealing. Although $35 per lecture might also be out of reach, I imagine that a really great talk could inspire someone to educate themselves.

Yahoo has kindly shared what Kailyn Brown wrote about this at the Los Angeles Times.

“A man wearing a Jason Voorhees T-shirt steps onto a purple-lighted stage and stands next to a drum set. Audience members, seated in neat rows and cradling cocktails, enthusiastically applaud. Then they look toward a glowing projector screen. Some clutch their pens, ready to take notes.

” ‘In cinema, three elements can move: objects, the camera itself and the audience’s point of attention,’ Drew McClellan says to the crowd before showing an example on the projector screen. The clip is a memorable scene from Jordan’s Peele’s 2017 film, Get Out, when the protagonist (Daniel Kaluuya) goes out for a late-night smoke and sees the groundskeeper sprinting toward him — in the direction of the camera and the viewer — before abruptly changing direction at the last second.

” ‘Someone running at you full speed with perfect track form, you can’t tell me that’s not terrifying,’ McClellan says laughing with the audience.

“McClellan is an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the cinematic arts department chair at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). He’s presenting on two of the seven core visual components of cinema — tone and movement — as part of Lectures on Tap, an event series that turns neighborhood bars and venues into makeshift classrooms.

“Attendees hear thought-provoking talks from experts on wide-ranging topics such as Taylor Swift’s use of storytelling in her music, how AI technology is being used to detect cardiovascular diseases, the psychology of deception and the quest for alien megastructures — all in a fun, low-stakes environment. And rest assured: No grades are given. It’s a formula that’s been working.

” ‘I hunted for these tickets,’ says Noa Kretchmer, 30, who’s attended multiple Lectures on Tap events since it debuted in Los Angeles in August. ‘They sell out within less than an hour.’

“Wife-and-husband duo Felecia and Ty Freely dreamed up Lectures on Tap last summer after moving to New York City where Ty was studying psychology at Columbia University. Hungry to find a community of people who were just as ‘nerdy’ as they are, they decided to create a laidback space where people could enjoy engaging lectures typically reserved for college lecture halls and conferences. …

“Lectures on Tap, which also hosts events in San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago, is the latest iteration of gatherings that pair alcoholic beverages with academic talks. Other similar events include Profs and Pints, which launched in 2017 in Washington, D.C., and Nerd Nite, which came to L.A. in 2011 and takes place at a brewery in Glendale. At a time when the federal government is moving closer to dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, AI is impacting people’s ability to think critically, attention spans are shrinking and literacy rates are down, events like Lectures on Tap are becoming more than just a place to learn about an interesting new topic. …

“During his presentation, McClellan broke down key film concepts in layman’s terms for the diverse audience. … To illustrate his points, he played several movie clips including the 1931 version of Frankenstein and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later, both of which made several people in the audience, including myself, jump in fear. …

“Though some patrons like to go to Lectures on Tap events for specific topics they find interesting, others say they would attend regardless of the subject matter.

” ‘I felt really comfortable and I loved the social aspect of it,’ says Andrew Guerrero, 26, in between sips of wine. ‘It felt more like a communal vibe, but at the same time, I miss learning.’

“He adds, ‘I can absorb [the information] more because I’m not pressured to really retain it and because of that, I actually do retain it.’

“The relaxed environment allows the speakers to let their guard down as well.

” ‘I can play with certain elements that I maybe haven’t used in the classroom,’ says McClellan, who made jokes throughout his presentation. ‘It’s definitely looser and getting around people who’ve been drinking, they’ll ask more questions and different types of questions.’ “

More at the Los Angeles Times, thanks to Yahoo, here.

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Enormous Egyptian Museum

January 23, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum via Galerie magazine.
Grand Staircase at the Grand Egyptian Museum, opened in 2025 after decades of work.

One thing that struck me when I read this article on the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum was that even though it took many years to build and the original architects left the project in 2014, “the building’s overall structure and dynamic has prevailed.” How many people who departed from such a massive project could say that?

Caroline Roux has a review at Galerie magazine.

“It takes a while to drive past the Great Egyptian Museum (GEM), which officially opened at the beginning of November, and runs alongside the busy main road from Giza to Cairo. As its soaring slanting facade — an elegant tessellation of triangles in stone and glass — comes into view, there’s plenty of time to snap a few pictures. The structure is a staggering 2,600 feet long.  

“Like the Great Pyramids, which stand majestically behind it on the Giza Plateau, the museum has also been constructed as a mighty treasure house for Egyptian artifacts. Designed to house 100,000 objects with 17 specialized laboratories dedicated to their conservation, GEM is the world’s largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilization.

“For the first time since their excavation in 1923, all 5,000 objects taken from Tutankhamun’s tomb are reunited here. Among them is the king’s iconic gold mask, with its decoration in blue and black, that has endured as the de facto symbol of ancient Egyptian civilization. In the grand entrance hall presides the 3,200-year-old statue of Rameses II, which stands 36 feet high and is carved from 83 tons of ancient red granite. The entire site covers five million square feet — roughly equivalent to nine soccer fields. It’s all about scale. 

“The museum has also, rather famously, taken years to complete. The Irish-American architecture practice Heneghan Peng, based between Dublin and Berlin, won the international competition for the building in 2003, against over 1,500 applications from 82 countries. Now, over 20 years and $870 million later, it is open to the public, showing off the vast trove of breathtaking objects dating from 3100 BCE to 410 CE.   

“Two tumultuous decades go a long way to account for the delay. Disruptions included the Arab Spring of 2011; the coup d’etat of 2013; the pandemic; economic collapse and raging inflation; and at least five changes at the top. …

“The space, though cavernous, is not wasted. Crowds course up the stupendous six-story staircase, flanked by escalators that create an upward-sloping landscape dotted with heroic statuary and architecture installed on the steps in a genius act of display. There are ten statues of King Senusret 1, a beautiful black granite sculpture of the Sphinx of King Amenemhat III, and the perfectly preserved doorway to his grandfather’s tomb. All are striped with dazzling slashes of sunlight that glimmers across the exhibits from skylights many feet above. 

“At the top, an enormous window frames breathtaking views of the Great Pyramids of Giza, and to the right is the entrance to the twelve galleries housing the thousands of objects that reveal the complexities of the ancient Egyptian world.

Among the regulations posted on the door are ‘In an earthquake, stay away from large objects.’ …

“It is the minutiae of daily life that enchants the most. There are sets of bronze tools to thrill even today’s DIY enthusiast, models of hairstyles from bobs to up-dos designed to show elaborate earrings, travertine vessels that most likely contained make-up, and hundreds of beetle-shaped seals. Intricate plaster models reveal the tiniest details of boats and their oarsmen. A dollhouse-sized grain store comes complete with workers. On the grander side are the breathtaking spoils of burial: luxurious jewelry in glass beads and gold, leather garments, elaborately painted sarcophagi, porcelain shabtis (figurines), and gold-and-jade amulets. 

“Tutankhamun commands his own gallery, starting with a fleet of bronze-and-gold chariots so sophisticated that one can only wonder why it took modern civilization another 2,000 years to invent the motorcar. State-of-the-art screens detail the tomb’s discovery, but the objects prove to be the biggest draw: the golden throne, the king’s own armor of overlapping leather scales. …

“The architects, Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng, … perhaps would notice myriad changes. Was the monotony of material on the interior — acres of the same Egyptian marble — in their original plan? Or the ground floor’s airport-like procession of Starbucks and [pastry shops]? Still, the clever skylights, slanting walls, and direct axial relationship to the pyramids beyond feel firmly in place. …

“According to Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, the museum is still incomplete. ‘I need three objects to come back,’ he told the BBC. ‘The Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre, and the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin.’ Even without them, the value of Egypt’s extraordinary ancient history remains as appealing as ever.”  

Great photos at Galerie. More pictures at ArchDaily, here.

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Mysterious Holes in Peru Explained

January 22, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: C. Stanish/University of Sydney.
Band of Holes, known as Monte Sierpe in Peru, may have been an accounting and storage system.

Sometimes the mysteries on Planet Earth can be solved just by looking at the facts in a new way. Today’s article is on probing a geographical problem, but I can’t help wondering, What if we tried tackling other intransigent problems by just looking at the challenges differently?

Richard Luscombe reports at the Guardian, “A Florida archaeologist’s decades-long persistence has helped solve one of Peru’s most puzzling geographical conundrums: the origin and purpose of the so-called Band of Holes in the country’s mountainous Pisco Valley.

“Charles Stanish, professor of archaeology at the University of South Florida, and an expert on Andean culture, spent years studying the more than 5,200 curious hillside shallow pits known to local residents as Monte Sierpe — serpent mountain.

“He surmised during numerous field trips since the 1980s that the holes were man-made indentations created during the pre-Inca period for a rudimentary market place, then adapted by Incan civilization into a sophisticated kind of accounting and storage system, likely for agriculture.

“Rival theories abounded — from the sensible to the bizarre. [One] aired on the Ancient Aliens television program and exploited by an enterprising travel company was that they were crafted by extraterrestrial beings, perhaps to cover up the crash of their spacecraft.

“Now Stanish, in partnership with Dr Jacob Bongers of the University of Sydney, his former graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes he has found the smoking gun. On their most recent expedition they used advanced drone technology to conduct the first comprehensive aerial mapping of the site, producing high-resolution images revealing ‘striking patterns’ in how the holes were organized.

“The rows of holes, each between 3ft and 6.5ft wide, appeared segmented and mathematically structured, they said, a layout mirroring khipus, knotted-string devices the Inca used for counting and record keeping.

“ ‘Monte Sierpe is extremely difficult to map from the surface,’ Stanish said. ‘Even from the mountain above you can’t see its full pattern because of the permanent haze in the area. And because there were few artifacts, archaeologists couldn’t date or interpret it accurately.’

“Even more conclusive, Stanish said, were the results of microbotanical analysis of sediment samples taken from inside the holes. Fossilized seeds revealed traces of crops such as maize and wild plants traditionally used for weaving and packaging goods.

“ ‘We proved that the seeds didn’t fly in, they weren’t airborne, they had to be put there by humans,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get any, with one exception way down below, colonial-era seeds, and we got one carbon-dated to slightly pre-Inca. … And the coolest stuff was we found the reeds, the traditional reeds and the willows that the Inca and the Quechua peoples use to carry commodities, even up to the present day.’ …

“Stanish said future work will focus on further analysis of the recovered seed samples, while Bongers plans to lead an upcoming expedition for more excavation. …

“He said he hoped that authorities in Peru would recognize the historical significance of the holes, and move to protect them.

“ ‘I’m not worried about tourists, about foreigners coming,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about landowners getting the land and then irrigating it. People have to make a living. [But] this is a precious site, for the Indigenous peoples and for their pride, and it’s important to recognize that.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Art Photos

January 21, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photos:John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Joy Muller-McCoola’s fiber art piece “Rising,” at Lexington Art.

Textile artist Ann often digs me out of my rut to go see some fiber art and afterward have a nice lunch somewhere close by. Most recently, we went to a beautiful show at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society in Lexington, Massachusetts.

I was drawn to the piece above because I love islands. This one is emerging from the sea in an unspoiled form. It felt hopeful. Below is one called “Sky with 7 Sheep.” It practically leapt from the wall.

After that, you can see the lovely “Light Breaking on Water,” by Ann Scott. And Sandra Mayo’s “The Way We Touch the World,” with the gloved hands, was intriguing.

What do these pieces mean to the artists? one wonders. What do they mean to me at a moment in time? And do meanings change?

That got me thinking that I never posted pictures of some works that I liked last fall at Concord Art. So I’ll add them now and wind up with my own attempt at an artsy photo. We can call it “Dawn at the Gym.”

Here is Nancy Mimno’s “Dragon.”

Sarah Bossert created “Four and Twenty Blackbirds.”

Below, Carol Rabe’s “Late Night Snack.”

“Dawn at the Gym.”


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Ultimate Recycling: Romania

January 20, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: RetuRO SGR.
A notice for the RetuRO scheme, above. In the two years since launch, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has frequently hit 94% in Romania.

Romania was for the longest time behind the rest of Europe in initiatives like recycling. But once the stakeholders there saw how a modern system could benefit everyone, it made surprisingly fast strides.

Andrei Popoviciu writes at the Guardian, “In the Transylvanian village of Pianu de Jos, 51-year-old Dana Chitucescu gathers a sack of empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, aluminum cans and glass every week and takes it to her local shop.

“Like millions of Romanians across cities and rural areas, Chitucescu has woven the country’s two-year-old deposit return system (DRS) into her routine.

“It is a simple scheme: when buying soft drinks or alcoholic beverages, the customer pays an extra 0.50 Romanian leu [$0.11] per bottle and gets the money back when returning the packaging, cleaned and in its original shape, to a collection point (usually the same shops where the goods were bought).

“Chitucescu makes about 40 leu a week from recycling her and another family’s bottles. ‘That covers the food for my seven cats,’ she said.

‘It’s a great system, everyone in our village uses it, there’s always a queue at the shop.’

“Her weekly walk is one tiny part of a national shift that, until recently, seemed impossible. Romania’s recycling rates were among the lowest in the EU, but in the two years since the scheme launched, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has skyrocketed to as high as 94% in some months.

“ ‘It is a zero to hero story,’ said Gemma Webb, the chief executive of RetuRO, the company running the system in a public-private partnership with beverage packaging manufacturers and the state. ‘The products are clean, there is little contamination, they can be recycled easily and we have full traceability as well, so we know every bottle that goes on the market.’

“[Between] the system’s launch in November 2023 and the end of September 2025, according to the company … more than 500,000 tons of high-quality recyclable materials have been collected. ‘We are the largest fully integrated deposit return system globally.’

“The scale of Romania’s turnaround is even more striking given where the country started. For more than a decade, the country has sat at the bottom of Europe’s recycling statistics. …

“But in 2018 the government began discussions about the scheme; in 2022 RetuRO began work, and on an extremely tight timeline including the construction of nine counting and sorting centers nationwide, the scheme launched in late 2023. …

“Starting later than other countries may have been an advantage, says Raul Pop, the secretary of state in the environment ministry and a waste policy expert because Romania could use modern software and traceability tools.

“It is on a return-to-retail model: shops that sell the containers must either install reverse vending machines or process the packaging manually. There is also a financial incentive for them, which helps them cover processing costs, and RetuRO reinvests all profits back into operations. … A recent study found that 90% of Romanians say they have used the system at least once and 60% return packaging regularly.

“Other countries, Pop explained, ‘suffer from their own inertia’ because they introduced their systems decades ago and are now stuck with outdated models. For them, shifting to new systems risks confusing consumers, even if it could improve collection rates. …

“Romania has also introduced a supportive legal framework, which means retailers can be penalized if they refuse returns – even the smallest village shops must accept containers if they sell the products or they risk fines, while big chains have automated return points.

“After the success with beverage containers, there are plans to expand the system to cover other types of packaging. ‘If you can put a bottle of water, you can also put a bottle of vinegar, a jar or a milk carton,’ said Alexandra Țuțuianu of Ecoteca, Romania’s first waste management NGO. …

“Environmental groups have praised Romania’s system, but warn that it covers only a small slice of the country’s overall waste stream. ‘It’s the largest environmental program, an example of good practice, we praise it, we like the system a lot, but it is not enough, it does not solve the waste problem in Romania,’ said Țuțuianu. …

“Even with a hypothetical 100% return rate for beverage containers, the overall waste recycling rate would only rise marginally. Re-use, Elena Rastei of the NGO Zero Waste Romania argued, needed to be looked at more closely.

“ ‘Collection solves the problem of visible waste, but re-use changes its nature. When packaging circulates – returned, washed, refilled – it becomes a resource, not waste. A single, reusable bottle can replace 20 to 50 single-use bottles, cut carbon emissions, and support a truly circular economy.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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