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For a Greener Town, Remove Pavement

February 27, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Green and Open Somerville.
Green and Open Somerville’s “Depave the Way” initiative helps neighborhoods increase green space. This is a “depaving party” of volunteers.

Sometimes it seems like the challenges that face us are just too immense for any individual to address. Climate change, for example.

But some folks in Somerville, Massachusetts, are adopting an optimistic attitude, believing if “depavers” like them around the world would start removing pavement in their neighborhoods, it could have a real impact.

At the very least, it could make the places they live greener.

Let’s tune in to the environmental radio show Living on Earth.

” In the warm weather months, a 90-degree day every so often can be a nice treat. But by 2070, the Massachusetts Bay Area will likely see almost 40 more of these days a year than it currently does. And too much of a good thing can definitely have its drawbacks. In the Boston area, the city of Somerville is particularly vulnerable. Over three quarters of Somerville is paved, and eighty two percent of the city is defined as a ‘hot spot,’ or an area that has a heat index in the top 5% statewide. Stronger storms intensified by climate change are a threat there, too. Just a few decades from now, extreme storms in parts of Somerville could bring up to 10 feet of flooding. But there may be some relief in sight. Somerville residents are taking matters into their own hands. Living on Earth’s Sophia Pandelidis went to find out more.

Sophia Pandelidis
“It’s Sunday morning, and a rag tag group of neighbors has shown up to party. … But not the way you might think. First off, they’re all wearing hard hats. … This is a ‘depaving party.’ About 20 volunteers are gathered in the fully paved backyard of a Somerville, Massachusetts home. And it’s their job to rip it up. …

“Armed with sledgehammers and wheelbarrows, the group works together to break up the asphalt and carry it to a dumpster in the driveway.

 “The goal is to leave this yard pavement free. These depaving parties have been happening since 2010 and are now run by Green and Open Somerville. Leigh Meunier is one of the leaders of the group’s Depave the Way initiative. Her wide, bright eyes make you want to listen to her. She says there’s more than one reason to ditch asphalt. … First, it helps neighborhoods adapt to climate change. Depaving can prevent flooding by giving stormwater a place to soak into the ground and lower temperatures by reducing the urban heat island effect. That could save lives, especially in environmental justice communities that face higher heat risks. But climate resilience isn’t the only benefit to depaving.

Leigh Meunier
“Ideally, when you can get pavement out, it increases not just more space for water to go, but it increases opportunities for planting gardens, for planting trees, for yards, for kids to run around and play, park space, etc. …

Pandelidis
“Yards filled with native plants instead of asphalt can also be havens for pollinators and local wildlife. … But Leigh’s favorite part of depaving is how it brings the community together in an active way. …

Meunier
“I want my creative energy to go towards something that’s meaningful. …

Pandelidis
“The depaving movement is not new. It got its start in Portland, Oregon back in 2007, and has since spread across the United States and even Europe. Leigh says word is traveling fast here in Somerville.

Meunier
“More people are biking, walking, taking transit, and have less need for cars. So we have all these long driveways that fit like five cars, and everybody’s moving in and saying, ‘I don’t need that anymore.’

Pandelidis
“Everyone who wants to depave should be able to, Leigh says. But keeping up with growing demand is tough for her small team. And while volunteers are free, depaving still has a price too steep for some: up to $700 to rent a dumpster. So Green and Open Somerville is partnering with local NGOs to offset those costs for low-income, environmental justice neighborhoods.” 

We don’t own a home anymore, but we had one for 40+ years with a driveway that was pebbles. We did have to order more pebbles once in a while.

More at Living on Earth, here. No firewall. Nice photo of one depaver’s garden, a happy result of the volunteers’ sledgehammer work.

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One Brilliant Teen Astronomer

February 26, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Matteo Paz with Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum after winning the Regeneron Science Talent Search award. 

Today I’m thinking about competitions, particularly academic competitions and what they can do for young people. Did you ever enter one? Perhaps encouraged by a teacher?

I’ve known people who not only won money but launched a career that way, but if a teacher ever asked me to try, I shied away. Scared? Lazy? It takes a certain kind of optimism, perhaps. Optimism and the stamina to bounce back if hopes repeatedly fall apart. Do share your own experience with competition. How much does the money matter? How much did a mentor matter?

Meanwhile, here’s a great story about a young science and computer whiz from California.

Margherita Bassi writes at the Smithsonian, “In a leap forward for astronomy, a researcher has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm and discovered more than one million objects in space by parsing through understudied data from a NASA telescope.

“The breakthrough is detailed in a study published in November in The Astronomical Journal. What the study doesn’t detail, however, is that the paper’s sole author is 18 years old.

“Matteo Paz from Pasadena, California, recently won the first place prize of $250,000 in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search for combining machine learning with astronomy. Self-described as the nation’s ‘oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors,’ the contest recognized Paz for developing his A.I. algorithm. The young scientist’s tool processed 200 billion data entries from NASA’s now-retired Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) telescope. His model revealed 1.5 million previously unknown potential celestial bodies.

“ ‘I was just happy to have had the privilege. Not only placing in the top ten, but winning first place, came as a visceral surprise,’ the teenager tells Forbes’ Kevin Anderton. ‘It still hasn’t fully sunk in.’

“Paz’s interest in astronomy turned into real research when he participated in the Planet Finder Academy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in summer 2022. There, he studied astronomy and computer science under the guidance of his mentor, Davy Kirkpatrick, an astronomer and senior scientist at the university’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC).

“Kirkpatrick had been working with data from the NEOWISE infrared telescope, which NASA launched in 2009 with the aim of searching for near-Earth asteroids and comets. The telescope’s survey, however, also collected data on the shifting heat of variable objects: rare phenomena that emit flashing, changing or otherwise dynamic light, such as exploding stars. It was Kirkpatrick’s idea to look for these elusive objects in NEOWISE’s understudied data. …

“Paz, however, had no intention of doing it by hand. Instead, he worked on an A.I. model that sorted through the raw data in search of tiny changes in infrared radiation, which could indicate the presence of variable objects. Paz and Kirkpatrick continued working together after the summer to perfect the model, which ultimately flagged 1.5 million potential new objects, including supernovas and black holes.

“ ‘Prior to Matteo’s work, no one had tried to use the entire (200-billion-row) table to identify and classify all of the significant variability that was there,’ Kirkpatrick tells Business Insider’s Morgan McFall-Johnsen in an email. He adds that Caltech researchers are already making use of Paz’s catalog of potential variable objects, called VarWISE, to study binary star systems.

“The variable candidates that he’s uncovered will be widely studied,’ says Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE’s principal investigator for NASA, to Business Insider.

“As for the A.I. model, Paz explains that it might be applicable to ‘anything else that comes in a temporal format,’ such as stock market chart analysis and atmospheric effects like pollution, according to the statement. It’s no surprise the teenager is interested in the climate—as fires burned in L.A. earlier this year, the Eaton Fire forced him and his family to evacuate their home, Forbes reports.

“Other teenage scientists recognized by the contest studied mosquito control, drug-resistant fungus, the human genome and mathematics.”

More at the Smithsonian, here.

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Self-Published Author Becomes a Hit

February 25, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Garret Lee.
Theo of Golden author Allen Levi. He was close to 70 when he self-published his breakout novel.

Knowing how unusual it is to become a hit novelist with no publicity or marketing plan, I’m fascinated to read about breakout Georgia author Allen Levi. Word got out by networking and word of mouth, especially among Southern Christians. It also fascinates me that the author of Theo of Golden, whose book apparently has a streak of sudden violence, was an admirer of edgy Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor.

Sophia Nguyen has the story at the Washington Post.

“This past spring, word started to percolate in the publishing industry about ‘the white book’ — a self-published novel with a stark, bright cover that was fast becoming one of the biggest sellers of the year. No one knew exactly how. Theo of Golden had limited distribution, and virtually no publicity or marketing campaign. Its author, Allen Levi, lived alone on 1,600 acres of family land — mostly pine trees — in Georgia, where he kept honeybees and a blog, and posted homespun music videos. That was about the extent of his social media footprint. …

“The novel tells the story of an elderly stranger, Theo, who shows up one day in the small city of Golden. Struck by the pencil portraits displayed in a local coffee shop, he buys the whole lot, aiming to give all 92 of them to their subjects. In doing so, he quietly changes his newfound community. Though Levi, in conversation, is more likely to bring up Wendell Berry or David Brooks, his narrative … has a soft-lit, allegorical quality, designed to inspire awe at life’s forking paths. And yet, he also put in a late-breaking plot turn so brutal, anguished readers grill him about it at all public appearances.

” ‘I didn’t want someone to misinterpret the story as something that’s naive or purely sentimental,’ Levi said, when we spoke over Zoom this month.

“The author’s own path has taken a few twists. He practiced law in Columbus, Georgia, for 13 years, went abroad to the University of Edinburgh to study Scottish fiction and then became a full-time singer-songwriter, performing at corporate events and for Young Life, a Christian youth organization. … Around 2010, tiring of life on the road, he ramped down his tour schedule to spend more time with his sick brother and aging father, a forester. … Then one morning, he was waiting in line at his usual cafe, taking in the portraits on display, and thought: Wouldn’t it be fun if someone bought all of them?

“He purchased a handful, and ‘over the course of the next few days and weeks, I would look at them and imagine what stories they might be trying to tell me,’ Levi said. These eventually inspired the characters of Kendrick, a custodian at the nearby university; Simone, a cello student; and Ellen, an unhoused woman who often bicycles around the public square. Gradually, Theo’s encounters spark deep friendships and shed light on his tragic past — including his reasons for coming to Golden. …

“Levi had no plan to publish the manuscript; finishing it felt like accomplishment enough. Then his college buddies, a tight-knit group of six who reunited annually to reminisce and pray together, talked him into sharing the draft. …

“Levi enlisted the help of his niece Aron Ritchie. … She took a low-fi approach to publicity. She compiled a spreadsheet of Levi’s sprawling network from the various chapters of his life — childhood, college, music, his volunteer work reading to elementary-schoolers and working at a foster home — asking contacts to spread the word. At night, after putting her kids to bed, she posted to Facebook groups from her phone, trying to reach book clubs across the country. … If they were within driving distance, Levi drove to visit in person, meeting with 10 or 20 people at a time. Every few weeks, she prepped him a call sheet titled ‘Good souls to connect with’: readers who had emailed Levi touching thank-you notes, or who wanted to teach the book in a course, or who shared it with their cancer support group.

“Theo of Golden sold a respectable 3,000 copies by the end of 2023. In 2024: 25,000. Ritchie predicted that sales would drop in early 2025 … but instead, they remained steady. The spring brought a surge whose cause she still can’t pinpoint, and suddenly they were selling a thousand copies a day. ‘We’ll never know, this side of heaven, how all this connected,’ she said. …

“The book’s initial readership has been concentrated in the South and largely came from Facebook, ‘which is an older demographic,’ noted Kate Nintzel, editorial director at Atria Books, the Simon & Schuster imprint that acquired Theo in October. ‘And I think that was important to the discovery and to the way the book reads and the way it connects.’

“Levi’s journey to publication ‘has a purity to it,’ said Atria Books editor Sean deLone, who described the pitching process for Theo as highly competitive. … The book’s message — of outreach to strangers, of small acts of generosity, of chance encounters unaided (and unhindered) by technology — turned audiences into evangelists.”

More at the Post, here.

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Stingless Bees Are Given Rights

February 24, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Miryan Delgado.
Satipo and Nauta municipalities are the first in Peru to grant legal rights to stingless bees. 

Today’s article is about protecting special bees in the Amazon. As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking about a novella called The Bee Wife, by novelist, blogger — and advocate for indigenous Amazonian languages — Francesca Forrest.

The article is about stingless bees in Peru being granted legal rights.

Damien Gayle at the Guardian, “Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights. …

“It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish. Cultivated by Indigenous peoples since pre-Columbian times, stingless bees are thought to be key rainforest pollinators, sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem health.

“But they are faced with a deadly confluence of climate change, deforestation and pesticides, as well as competition from European bees, and scientists and campaigners have been racing against time to get stingless bees on international conservation red lists.

“Constanza Prieto, Latin American director at the Earth Law Center, who was part of the campaign, said: ‘This ordinance marks a turning point in our relationship with nature: it makes stingless bees visible, recognizes them as rights-bearing subjects, and affirms their essential role in preserving ecosystems.’

“The world-first ordinances, passed in two Peruvian regions in the past few months, follow a campaign of research and advocacy spearheaded by Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, founder of Amazon Research Internacional, who has spent the past few years traveling into the Amazon to work with Indigenous people to document the bees.

“Espinoza, a chemical biologist, first started researching the bees in 2020, after a colleague asked her to conduct an analysis of their honey, which was being used during the pandemic in Indigenous communities where treatments for Covid were in short supply. She was stunned by the findings.

” ‘I was seeing hundreds of medicinal molecules, like molecules that are known to have some sort of biological medicinal property,’ Espinoza recalled. ‘And the variety was also really wild – these molecules have been known to have anti-inflammatory effects or antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant, even anti-cancer.’

“Espinoza, who has written a book, The Spirit of the Rainforest, about her work in the Amazon, began leading expeditions to learn more about stingless bees, working with Indigenous people to document the traditional methods of finding and cultivating the insects, and harvesting their honey.

“Found in tropical regions across the world, stingless bees, a class that encompasses a number of varieties, are the oldest bee species on the planet. About half of the world’s 500 known species live in the Amazon, where they are responsible for pollinating more than 80% of the flora, including such crops as cacao, coffee and avocados.

“They also hold deep cultural and spiritual meaning for the forest’s Indigenous Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria peoples. ‘Within the stingless bee lives Indigenous traditional knowledge, passed down since the time of our grandparents,’ said Apu Cesar Ramos, president of EcoAshaninka of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve. ‘The stingless bee has existed since time immemorial and reflects our coexistence with the rainforest.’

“From the outset, Espinoza began hearing reports that the bees were becoming more difficult to find. ‘We were talking actively with the different community members and the first things they were saying, which they still do to this day, is: “I cannot see my bees any more. It used to take me 30 minutes walking into the jungle to find them. And now it takes me hours.’ “

“Her chemical analysis had also turned up some concerning findings. Traces of pesticides were appearing in the stingless bees’ honey – despite their being kept in areas far from industrial agriculture. …

“For years, the only kinds of bees to have official recognition in Peru have been European honeybees, brought to the continent by colonizers in the 1500s.

“ ‘It almost created a vicious cycle. I cannot give you the funding because you’re not on the list, but you cannot even get on the list because you don’t have the data. You don’t have the funding to get it.’ In 2023, they formally began a project to map the extent and ecology of the bees, ‘because by that time we had already spoken with the [International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)] and some government people in Peru and understood that that data was critical.’

“The mapping revealed links between deforestation and the decline of stingless bees – research that helped contribute to the passing of a law in 2024 recognising stingless bees as the native bees of Peru. The law was a critical step, as Peruvian law requires the protection of native species. …

“In experiment in 1950s Brazil to create a strain that would produce more honey in tropical conditions led to the creation of the Africanized honeybee. … Now, Espinoza and her colleagues found, these Africanized bees have begun outcompeting the comparatively gentle stingless bees in their own habitats. …

“Living a semi-nomadic lifestyle in a remote part of the Avireri Vraem Biosphere reserve, Elizabeth [an Asháninka elder] farmed and kept bees at a spot in the forest some distance from her home. But she described how her stingless bees had been displaced by Africanized bees, which attacked her violently whenever she visited.

“ ‘I felt so scared, to be honest,’ said Espinoza. … ‘I want them gone.’ “

Read what happened next at the Guardian, here.

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For the Love of a Phone Booth

February 23, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo:  Joshua Bright/The Guardian.
British phone booth enthusiast Derek Harris, who protected his village’s last remaining telephone box. 

When Suzanne was doing her junior year abroad in Spain, she got me a print of the Richard Estes painting of telephone booths, which is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. She knew I was a fan of old-time phone booths that you hardly see anymore.

Turns out I’m not the only one. There’s an enthusiast in the UK who went the extra mile to preserve an iconic red one. Emine Saner wrote about him at the Guardian.

“The caller display flashes up: ‘Derek in the K6’ it reads. On the line is Derek Harris, ringing from the red phone box he saved for his village. When he saw, on the agenda for the parish council meeting, that BT had earmarked it for closure, Harris knew he had to fight it.

“ ‘It’s fighting for what is valuable, cherished,’ he told me when I went to meet him in February [2025] sitting over coffee in a cafe near Sharrington, the Norfolk village that has been his home for more than 50 years. … It’s a K6, for Kiosk No 6, designed in 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

“For a few weeks, Harris, then 89, became a media star. One of the criteria for keeping a phone box in use is that at least 52 calls have to be made from it in a year (fewer than 10 had been made in 2024). As the campaign picked up speed, one day a queue of people made more than 230 calls from the K6. Harris sparked a national conversation about the continuing need for kiosks in an age of mobiles. Behind the scenes, he was a tenacious activist, sending constant emails to his MP, councillors, and of course, BT [British Telephone]. … In March, BT decided to reverse its decision.

“Harris stresses it was a community effort. … ‘It would have been impossible to have pulled this thing off had not so many people – local MP, district councillors, everyone – taken up the call to action. … Quite a lot of people are getting fed up with being oppressed by big organizations.’

“[When] I met Harris, I was struck by how he seemed to view the phone box as a living being, with such affection for it. If it had been turned into a library, as other red phone boxes have, it would cease to be. As a functional kiosk, he said, ‘it would be alive.’ I was thinking about this, driving home later that day, when I pulled into a car park for a rest and checked my phone. … I read with dismay that he had recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. ‘It struck me that this K6,’ he wrote, ‘designed in the year of my birth, is deserving of being saved from a death sentence.’ …

“The campaign gave Harris a sense of purpose at a time when he was coming to terms with bad news. ‘It’s been a good achievement,’ he says now. ‘There’s life in the old boy yet.’ What does the retained phone box mean to the village? ‘Oh they’re overjoyed,’ he says.

“Since his victory, Harris has called me a few times over the year, stopping at the telephone kiosk while out on his walk, to say hello, complain about a politician, tell a story or two. It doesn’t hurt to keep the call numbers up. …

“Harris turned 90 in July, and was celebrated by his village with a garden party. His card from the parish council featured a picture of his beloved red phone box, and he was given a phone box fridge magnet.” More at the Guardian, here.

I think it’s cool that the journalist forged an ongoing connection to her interviewee. It reminds me of something Sophia Loren once said about an interviewer who missed out because he wasn’t interested in making her a friend.

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Kids in India Who Love Chess

February 22, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Viraj Nayar for NPR.
Ten-year-old Keashaanth, with a notebook and chessboard in front of him, follows along as his coach Selvabharathy leads a class at the Madras School of Chess in Chennai.

Our whole family takes an interest in chess, partly because Suzanne and Erik’s son is so good at it. He has represented his state and age group in two national competitions so far. That’s why I notice chess stories like today’s, which comes from NPR (National Public Radio).

Omkar Khandekar writes, “On a balmy morning [in fall 2024] in the coastal Indian city of Chennai, dozens of fans perched on their seats as they watched an elite-level tournament unfold. … On stage, some of the world’s best players were gathered for the annual  Chennai Grand Masters. After a thrilling tiebreaker, 25-year-old Indian prodigy Aravindh Chithambaram prevailed. The audience broke into applause. …

“This level of attention is wild, says the world’s 11th-ranked chess player, Levon Aronian, who was the runner-up. Even he, an Armenian-American, is stopped on the streets here. ‘I can understand that happening in a country like Armenia with a population of three million. … ‘But for that to happen in India, I think that speaks to the popularity of the game.’

“Chess has seen a worldwide resurgence since the pandemic-induced lockdown. … With more leisure time, people began playing on streaming platforms like chess.com and on YouTube. India has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the boom.

“The country has 85 grandmasters — an elite group of chess players — and some of the youngest top-rankers in the world. Last year, both of its men’s and women’s teams swept the Chess Olympiad — the Olympics of chess — held in Budapest, Hungary. At the World Chess Championship in Singapore, held in December, Indian national Gukesh Dommaraju became the youngest-ever world champion at age 18.

“This is a remarkable shift. After decades of Russian and European chess dominance, the spotlight is on India, the likely birthplace of the ancient game. Many historians believe that modern chess originated from chaturanga, an ancient Indian board game that spread to the world via traders, pilgrims and conquerors. Within India, it’s the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and its coastal capital Chennai, that has emerged as the epicenter of chess. …

“At the Madras Chess Academy, children trickle in after school. They sit in a windowless room, surrounded by portraits of chess legends, including world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, once a student here.

“Many of these dozen or so kids spend their weekends sparring at chess tournaments across Chennai. If they perform well, trainers like Selvabharathy — he only has one name — invites them to stand before the class, and orders the other kids to clap, as he did on a recent day. …

“Chess coach Vishnu Prasanna started this academy two years ago. He says the day before NPR visited, one parent walked in with their 3 ½-year-old child to train. Another parent, Suresh Dasarathan, proudly shared his 6-year-old son’s daily routine: Wake up at 7, an hour of chess practice, school, then an hour of chess coaching at the club, then homework and bedtime at 9 p.m. …

“Parents often play a crucial role in the success of young prodigies. Gukesh’s father Rajinikanth often put his day-job as a surgeon on hold to double up as a de facto manager of his son. … But one 6-year-old girl, Rivina, says some parents at chess tournaments also get overbearing. ‘They will say, “I will give you dinner only if you win this game,” ‘ she says. …

“In 1995, India got its first world champion in Chennai-born Viswanathan Anand. Today, his successors in India are often called ‘Vishy’s kids.’ Now 55, Anand is still among the world’s top 10 players. … Anand thinks the culture surrounding chess has changed because now, it’s something you can make a living from. That’s key in a country where good-paying jobs are scarce.

“The Indian government often gives high-ranking players a job in the public sector — a dream opportunity for many because of the job security and perks: monthly pay, housing allowance, pension, insurance and paid leave they can use to practice. High-ranking players can win prize money in a newly launched global Chess League. Many also work as chess coaches. …

“Some chess watchers say there’s a major obstacle to India becoming the world’s unchallenged chess power: the English language. Most chess books, software and classes are in English. The government’s 2011 population census found that a little more than 10% of Indians fluently speak the language. Most English-speakers in India are from the country’s country’s middle and upper classes.

“One man wants to move beyond that. Two years ago, Venkatesh Enumalai founded the Tamil Chess Channel on YouTube. It teaches the basics of chess in Tamil, a language spoken by some 80 million Indians, concentrated in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The channel has more than 80,000 followers and millions of views, including among Tamil-speakers in Sri Lanka and the United States. One of his students there, he says, became a state champion in Illinois recently.

“Buoyed by such success stories, Enumalai quit his day job with the sales team of a pharma company and started a chess club in Chennai, offering coaching at a little over $10 a month so even poorer children can afford it. He says he intends to travel and conduct chess boot-camps for students in the rural parts.

“As the world’s most populous country, India has the numbers on its side. Enumalai says it just needs a nudge to become a chess powerhouse. ‘If we can nurture so many people at the bottom level, maybe we will be able to become a number one nation.’ “

More at NPR, here.

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Mardi Gras Regrets

February 21, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Grounds Krewe.
In the interest of environmental protection, barriers were set up to block discarded Mardi Gras parade throws and party trash from going down storm drains.

New Orleans likes to have fun, and whether it’s a funeral with a brass band playing “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In,” men high-stepping in feathers to welcome the New Year (Mummers), or the abandon of Mardi Gras before the solemnity of Lent, parades produce litter. A lot of litter.

That’s why environmentally oriented New Orleanians have decided to do something about cleaning up.

As Jackie Delamatre writes at the New York Times, “In recent years, the city’s huge, weekslong party has been producing more waste than ever: an average of 1,123 tons per year for the last decade, according to the city’s Sanitation Department.

“ ‘It’s an environmental catastrophe,’ said Brett Davis, who runs a nonprofit group, Grounds Krewe, that’s trying to make Carnival greener.

“The New Orleans area is especially vulnerable to climate change because of hurricanes and coastal erosion. Yet, for weeks of ebullient parading, which culminate on Tuesday, those problems are forgotten as float riders fling plastic beads, cups, doubloons and foam footballs at teeming crowds. In the moment, these baubles can seem like treasures. Within days, though, what was caught, as well as the excess left on the streets or dangling from oak trees like Spanish moss, ends up in the trash.

“Now, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, city officials and scientists is trying to clean up the party. … It’s not just that all this party detritus is swelling landfills. A 2013 study found that more than 60 percent of Mardi Gras beads contained unsafe levels of lead. And in 2018, the city discovered 46 tons of beads clogging catch basins that are essential for clearing floodwaters. …

” ‘When I was a kid, we caught everything that came off the floats,’ Mr. Davis said. ‘There was a big hoopla about who was going to get it. Now it’s a carpet, a river of waste.’ …

“Mr. Davis came to believe that, by reusing beads, he was just ‘recirculating toxic, plastic junk no one wants,’ he said. Now, he has pivoted to waste prevention, building a catalog of sustainable throws.

“To date, he has sold more than $1 million of these festive but practical items, including jambalaya mix, native flower starter kits and plant-based glitter. He has also recruited a cadre of volunteers, from fifth graders to retirees, to help package the goods.”

Read at the Times, here, about scientists inventing sustainable Mardi Gras beads containing okra seeds. Imagine yourself cooking the okra you grow in your gumbo and reliving happy New Orleans memories.

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America’s First Glass House

February 20, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum.
The House of Tomorrow at the 1933 World’s Fair. A $4 million project is restoring the 12-sided home to how it looked 90 years ago.

I love the big windows where we go in the summer. On an island, the line about glass houses and throwing stones has a completely different meaning. That’s because in hurricane season and midwinter, stones thrown up by high winds are a real danger. For much of the year. it’s necessary to hook ugly plastic shutters over the windows to protect the glass.

In 1933, some architects thought glass houses were the wave of the future. In Chicago at that time, no one was thinking about hurricanes.

As Lee Bey says at WBEZ Chicago, “Few people alive today have seen the exterior of the House of Tomorrow when it was a futuristic attraction at Chicago’s 1933 World’s Fair.

“Designed by architect George Fred Keck, the 12-sided modernist exhibition home was America’s first glass house. … But when the Keck house and four other Chicago World’s Fair homes were relocated to Beverly Shores, Indiana, in 1935, its original floor-to-ceiling exterior glass walls were replaced by a facade with much smaller windows. … Workers last month installed glass exteriors walls on the dodecagon-shaped structure, restoring the home to the way it looked at the start of the fair nine decades ago.

“The work is part of a $4 million exterior restoration of the lakeside home, which, along with the other former World’s Fair homes, is owned by the nonprofit Indiana Landmarks and sits within the federally owned Indiana Dunes National Park. …

“Of Chicago’s two fairs, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is the more famous. … But while the 1893 fair celebrated humankind’s previous 400 years, the 1933 exposition, which opened at the start of the Great Depression, looked to the future and the technology it could bring.

“The two-story House of Tomorrow was a perfect fit. Its glass facade allowed natural light and solar heat into the home decades before they became commonplace. The glass marvel had air conditioning, a GE dishwasher, an attached garage and refrigerator that kept things cold without having to get a giant block of ice delivered and placed inside. The home also had a built-in airplane hangar.

“Keck funded the home’s construction and even designed some of its furniture. He recovered his costs by charging a 10-cent admission.

“ ‘This house is an important step in 20th century American modern architecture,’ said Charles Hasbrouck, director at bKL Architecture, who is overseeing the project.

“The House of Tomorrow was among a series of exhibition homes built for the fair. … After the fair, developer Robert Bartlett had the five houses shipped across Lake Michigan and re-erected Beverly Shores, the new town he was developing.

“The House of Tomorrow now has triple pane glass, which is a far better insulator than the original glazing. [Todd Zeiger, director of the Northern Regional Office of Indiana Landmarks] said the new glass walls are nearly as transparent as the ones Keck designed. …

“Each of the 12 new panes weigh nearly 1,000 pounds and required a team of specialists to set them in place. The home’s structural systems had to be beefed up to accommodate the added weight. …

“The homes had fallen into disrepair in the late 20th century. But that changed in 2000 when Indiana Landmarks entered an agreement with the National Park Service that allowed the homes to be leased for free for 30 years to anyone who could pay to restore the properties.

“The deal saved four of the homes, but the House of Tomorrow, with its complex construction and its one-of-kind structure and foregone condition, turned off potential suitors.

“So the groups turned to the federal government to fund the exterior restoration and were awarded the $4 million fix-up costs from the Great American Outdoors Act, funded through the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“The renovation will also give the house its first elevator, and the garage will be restored to its original self. Part of the airplane hangar space will be converted to bedrooms.”

More at WBEZ, here. Would you like to live in a glass house?

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Adopting an Elementary School

February 19, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nicole Asbury/Washington Post.
Ellie Salb, a first-grader at Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Maryland, works on an activity alongside retiree Bobbi Sandrin.

When I was researching retirement communities, I was impressed the Hebrew Life’s Newbridge on the Charles in Dedham, Massachusetts, had a school on the campus where interested residents could volunteer. The Rashi School’s website says, “Over the course of their Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 8 education, every student experiences multiple touchpoints with NewBridge residents, and many form lasting relationships with their senior neighbors.”

I was reminded of that in reading Nicole Asbury’s article at the Washington Post on a similar arrangement.

“Six-year-old Ellie Salb was about to have one of her favorite days of the week: the day when ‘Granny B and ‘Granny M’ come to her first-grade classroom with stickers and sweets.

“Bobbi Sandrin and Marcia Klein are two former teachers who live in a retirement community about a half-mile away from Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg [Maryland]. They’re part of about a dozen other seniors who volunteer at the school each week, a project that one of the community’s residents pitched earlier this year.

“Stephani Sausser, who teaches Ellie’s first-grade class, said the effort has had a positive impact in her classroom.

“Klein, known as ‘Granny M,’ has a background in reading recovery, Sausser said, and will read with students one-on-one to help them build skills like sounding out words and putting sounds in words together. Sandrin, or ‘Granny B,’ typically focuses on reading comprehension assignments.

“Sausser said their presence has been a big help, since she can spend more time in the classroom digging into students’ skills and tailoring lessons for them. … The partnership between the school and senior living community started in January with a cold email.

“Bob Karp, 86, had recently moved to Gaithersburg to be closer to his daughter and grandson after spending about 30 years in Boston. But after a few months of getting settled, he said — with a slight chuckle in his voice — he was starting to get ‘impatient about doing something.’

“Karp, the son of a former principal in Boston, grew up hearing conversations about public schools at the dinner table. So when he learned there was an elementary school close to his new home, he wrote to principal Joshua Williams with a request: ‘I would very much like to meet with you to discuss volunteering options for our residents including several who taught in the Montgomery County Public Schools.

“Karp was uncertain about how the request would land. But about three days later, Williams replied. He loved the idea.

“Karp, Williams and another resident named Jim Pattison met later that week to discuss how to make it work. … Before the current school year started in August, the principal asked teachers what support they needed, and in return, the volunteers said what they thought they could help with. Karp said they had a “match day,” like residents do in medical school.

“The school hasn’t had a partnership like this before, said Williams, who is in his second year leading the Gaithersburg school. The school serves a diverse population of about 450 students, and about half receive free or reduced-priced meals. Since the initiative started, the senior community has also raised about $4,000 to buyT-shirts for the students to wear on field trips and a school tree and garden beautification project. …

“Pattison usually comes every Friday, but recently missed a shift because he was in the hospital. He sent an email to second-grade teacher Mandy Huang explaining his absence. To his delight, several of the second-graders sent him ‘get well’ cards — some of which made him laugh.

“During his most recent visit, he was chuckling again after some children tried guessing how old he was. Some of the kids guessed he was over 100 years old.

“Pattison, who is 74, said those interactions are meaningful to him. … ‘It’s a way for us to get out of ourselves, not to be so wrapped up with our aches and pains — complaints that come with old age.’

“Most of the volunteers rotate around the building’s three third-grade classrooms, a grade level that experts say is critical for students to master reading skills. Five of the retirees help with small group reading.

“Quinn Liston, 8, said she’s gotten better with some of her words since she has started to read aloud with the volunteers. … ‘It’s really fun to read with them, because you think you’re scared to read and mess up the words,’ she said. ‘But actually, when you mess up the words, the people help you.’

“On a recent visit, Janice Faden was in the middle of reading a graphic novel with third-grader Dereck Romero Núñez. ‘He’s so expressive. We’ve talked a little bit about crash, bang and the words that sound like they mean,’ Baden said. She explained to him that those words were a use of onomatopoeia in stories.

“As if on cue, Dereck’s finger landed on a block of text that depicted a rocket flying off. He sounded it out: ‘Ka-ka-boosk!’ “

More at the Post, here.

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Carbon Capture from Sewage

February 18, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Globe.
A New Haven, Connecticut, carbon-capture start-up is testing its concept at this sewage facility in Fall River, Massachusetts. Limestone gets mixed in with waste water at the bottom of the tank to draw out carbon.  

Nowadays most of us don’t think much about sewage. Out of sight, out of mind. But I regularly read novels that were written before indoor plumbing, and I often think about how awful those chamber pots and outhouses must have been. I feel grateful for the people who do think about sewage today.

Kate Selig reports at the Boston Globe about a New Haven, Connecticut, company turning sewage into a tool for fighting climate change.

“At the edge of a picturesque bay in this historic city,” she writes, “a deep waste water tank harbors an unlikely climate experiment.

“Near the base, a narrow tube spits out a milky stream that’s as thick as roux. The liquid, a mix of treated waste water and a naturally occurring mineral, is swirled in with the sewage. The combination kick-starts chemical reactions that pull carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives climate change, into a harmless bicarbonate ion.

“CREW Carbon, a startup founded in New Haven, is betting that this simple combination could turn dirty water into a powerful climate solution. It has partnered with waste water treatment plants along the East Coast, including the facility in Fall River, to put this approach into action. As a bonus, municipalities often find that limestone is a cheaper and more effective way to treat waste water than conventional methods. …

” ‘We don’t need massive new infrastructure or subsidies,’ said Joachim Katchinoff, the company’s cofounder and CEO. ‘And because our process delivers real operational and cost benefits, it creates a win-win for utilities and for the planet.’ The company grew out of research at Yale and was founded in 2022 by Katchinoff and Noah Planavsky, a geochemist and Yale professor. …

“When the water flows out of the plant, the company says, the dissolved ions eventually make their way to the ocean, where they can be stored for thousands of years. Katchinoff estimated that a single treatment plant can remove thousands to tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide annually. The startup sells carbon removal credits, a way for companies to pay to offset their climate pollution. CREW Carbon is one of the first companies to deliver credits in New England.

“The municipalities benefit as well. Some waste water treatment plants see cost savings and increased safety for workers by using limestone instead of chemicals for controlling pH. The limestone also can yield cleaner water flowing out of the plant. And in some cases, CREW Carbon is sharing revenue with the treatment facility from the carbon credits it sells. …

“The company’s first partnership was with the local utility in New Haven. Since then, it has grown to have six full-scale projects, most located on the East Coast. It delivered its first carbon credits in the spring, making it the first company in the world to have done so using waste water alkalinity enhancement, as the method is known. Alkalinity is a measure of the water’s ability to neutralize acids.

“In the coming years, the startup has committed to delivering about 70,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal, the equivalent of taking over 16,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year, to a coalition of companies that includes Alphabet and McKinsey. …

“On a recent day, Jonathan Mongie, a project manager for Inframark, which operates the Fall River plant, leaned over a tank where waste water treated with limestone was being disinfected.

“ ‘I can see deeper than we’ve ever seen before,’ he said, observing the clarity of the water. The limestone increased the amount of solid particles in the waste water separated out using gravity. The plant was already meeting stringent discharge standards, Mongie said, but the limestone has improved the cleanliness of the water flowing into the bay. …

“Planavsky, the Yale professor, said CREW Carbon’s approach is not a silver bullet for the climate crisis. Instead, he said, it could be part of a future integrated approach where many industries each do their relatively small part. (Though Planavsky is a cofounder, he does not receive any money from the company.)

“Some scientific questions remain about waste water alkalinity enhancement, especially what happens after the water leaves the treatment plant. Tyler Kukla, a research scientist at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that analyzes climate solutions, said the chemical reactions that occur within the waste water plant are well understood and take place within a closed system, making them easier to monitor. However, he said, it is less clear what happens to the carbon as it travels out to the ocean.

” ‘This is a work in progress,’ he said. ‘We can make measurements that we feel very confident about in many cases, but there is still a part of the system that is a little bit fuzzy to us.’ “

More at the Globe, here.

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Teens Fight Food Waste

February 17, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo:  Josh Reynolds for the Boston Globe.
From left, Boston City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Sofia Hennessy, 17, Julianne Jang, 15, and Arrianna Sun, 17 carry donated boxes of food from college dining halls.

Today’s article about civic-minded teens addressing the problem of food waste makes me feel both admiration and guilt. Although I’m proud of composting our uneaten food, I know we waste more more than we should. The portions at my retirement community are large, and I haven’t yet done what some other residents do, which is ask for half portions of certain things.

Katarina Schmeiszer writes at the Boston Globe about teens that pick up good but unused food and donate it to people experiencing food insecurity.

“On a crisp evening in November, Arianna Sun and Sofia Hennessy stepped inside the Dunkin’ [Donuts] on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain. The bell jingled, and they were greeted by two workers who recognized them and immediately grabbed a bag of food. Unlike the other customers, Sun and Hennessy weren’t stopping in for a quick snack; they were collecting food to bring to a local church down the street.

“Growing up, Sun learned never to waste food.

Her grandfather lived in China during the Great Chinese Famine, she said, and he witnessed extreme hunger and starvation.

“ ‘He would always make sure at the dinner table [that] I finished every last grain, and that’s something that I think is really instilled in me,’ Sun said.

“His words inspired her to volunteer at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain in 2022, where she cooked meals twice a week. Along the way, she made a startling discovery: community businesses tossing out unsold goods at the end of the day. … ‘There was just perfectly fine food being thrown away on the same exact street, so I wanted to try to do something about that,’ she said.

“Sun and Hennessy, both 17, are seniors at Boston Latin School. Their campaign against food waste began when they were sophomores. The pair asked local businesses to give them the food instead of throwing it out at the end of the night. They first approached Dunkin’ on Centre Street and then The Real Deal, a family-owned restaurant. And with those willing partners, NoVasta, Latin for ‘no waste, was born.

“It started out as a small school club whose members volunteer to collect food waste from local businesses and bring it to a drop-off center, such as the church. The club also organizes food drives and raises money to buy items in bulk from wholesalers like Costco.

“Over the past two years, NoVasta has become part of the national Zero Waste Coalition. Club chapters have been started at other US schools and abroad. …

” ‘It’s given us a lot of hope to see that even though it’s such a big problem, there are a lot of people — whether it’s students or city councilors or people our age or restaurants — that are willing to work and find ways to contribute to this cause,’ Hennessy said. …

“The growing problem prompted Boston City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata and others to propose an ordinance in 2023 to create a citywide food recovery program. … Zapata has been working with Sun and Hennessy to try to implement a city-wide food recovery program, which would be established with the ordinance that councilors are working to pass. …

“Through online forums and social media, Sun and Hennessy were able to connect with other high schoolers who noticed the same patterns in their communities: food going to waste while people were going hungry. …

” ‘Every single student we talked to noticed the same issue in their own city, and they’ve sort of just been waiting for a catalyst to start it.’ “

More at the Globe, here.

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The Rise of Merlin (the App)

February 16, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nature Picture Library//Alamy.
A mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) in a bush in an industrial estate in North Wales, UK, November 2025.

Today I want to combine two Guardian articles about birding because they are closely related. The first one, by David Batty, highlights a study on how being around birds can improve your mental health. The second is on the Merlin app, which can help connect you.

The mental health study, “led by academics from King’s College London, [found] that everyday encounters with birds boosted the mood of people with depression, as well as the wider population.

“The researchers said the findings suggested that visits to places with a wealth of birdlife, such as parks and canals, could be prescribed by doctors to treat mental health conditions. They added that their findings also highlighted the need to better protect the environment and improve biodiversity in urban, suburban and rural areas in order to preserve bird habitats.

“The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, tracked 1,292 participants’ everyday encounters with birds [in 2024] via a smartphone app called Urban Mind. …

“The artist Michael Smythe, of Nomad Projects, which helped King’s College London develop the smartphone app for the study, said the research also posed questions about the link between health inequalities and access to nature, with other research showing deprived areas often had less green spaces than affluent areas.

“Nomad Projects co-founded Bethnal Green Nature Reserve Trust, which built a pond last summer that Smythe said had attracted an ‘enormous diversity of birds.’

“ ‘It’s a very therapeutic complex, biodiverse, abundant space within a massive housing estate between four artery roads,’ said Smythe. ‘It’s now a place where people go en masse every day just to relax.’ ”

Then there’s Patrick Barkham‘s piece on a phone app that a lot of us have been using for more than a year: Merlin.

“Merlin is having a moment. The app, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York, which listens for birdsong and identifies the species singing, has been downloaded 33m times, in 240 countries and territories around the world. … Every month, there has been a 30% increase in new users of the app, whose sound identification function was launched in 2021.

“Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 species around the world, with more birds added twice a year. Different songs make distinct patterns on spectrograms and Merlin is trained to recognize these different shapes and attribute them to a species. …

“Angela Townsend from Bedfordshire began using Merlin after going on a nightingale walk one spring and being overwhelmed by the range of bird-voices in the evening chorus. She has found it has steadily built up her bird knowledge. …

“Mary Novakovich, author of My Family and Other Enemies, is another recent adopter. She has found it particularly useful when traveling across Croatia, where her parents are from. ‘I love putting a name to a face and a name to the sound,’ she says. “It really brings you closer to the natural world. …

“Merlin is not flawless, however. The first time Kasper Wall, 12, tried it in his Norfolk garden, it detected a northern cardinal and a brown-headed cowbird – North American species not found in Britain.

“ ‘I think it was figuring out where we live,’ says Wall, who enjoys using it even though he is now an extremely knowledgeable birder. ‘A couple of weeks ago we were looking at a large group of goldcrest and it came up with a firecrest. I thought, “Oh, there must be a firecrest in here too” and 30 seconds later we saw one, which was the first I’d ever seen. I like it and it’s very good but I wouldn’t say that it’s better than the best people at identifying bird-calls. …

“Wall enjoys fooling Merlin with his uncanny impressions of a curlew, barn owl and greenshank.

“[Naturalist Nick] Acheson doesn’t use Merlin. He welcomes it, but points out it can replace learning. ‘Anything that gets people out, thinking about and reacting to nature is a great thing,’ he says. ‘But there’s certainly a risk that people don’t learn and just abdicate responsibility for learning to Merlin.’

“He has noticed a glitch where Merlin interprets a certain type of chaffinch call as a redstart, leading to people being absolutely adamant that there is a rare bird in their garden. … John Williamson, who works as a guide for Norfolk Wildlife Trust, has found Merlin repeatedly identifying high-pitched calls as a spotted flycatcher, a bird that is very unlikely to be found in the middle of Hickling Broad nature reserve’s large reedbeds. …

“That said, Williamson finds it a ‘good tool’ and welcomes how it is encouraging new people to enjoy birdsong. … ‘I find it impressive that an app can empower people to go out into nature, he says.”

More on Merlin at the Guardian, here, and on mental health through birding, here.

I love birds myself, although at the moment I am really put out with goldfinches. They strip the feeder of seeds in a day, aggressively pushing out other birds, and they mess up my little balcony with droppings. But I’ll get over it. What is your relationship with birds?

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MIT Aims To Prevent Next Pandemic

February 15, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Craig F. Walker/Globe staff.
Using nasal swabs, scientists are collecting viral samples from the willing on Boston streets.

It’s both surprising and reassuring how groups that in normal times can expect some federal assistance (for instance, food pantries, artists, scientists) often manage to keep going in a time of government hostility. It makes me think of what ants do after you knock over their anthill. Recently, I heard a US scientist say that he always has a plan B and C for funding sources. Even funders from foreign countries.

Today’s story of persistence is about MIT scientists who think it might be a good idea to anticipate and prevent the next pandemic.

Hiawatha Bray writes at the Boston Globe, “On a bright, brisk December day, two people stood in front of Boston’s Old South Church, asking passersby to shove cotton swabs up their noses, for science — and for two bucks.

“And despite the aching cold, quite a few said ‘yes.’ Dozens by early afternoon, hundreds on a typical day. and with each swabbed-out nostril, Simon Grimm gets a little closer to his goal — a reliable method for early detection of the next major pandemic.

“ ‘We want to understand what pathogens are circulating in the population,’ said Grimm. ‘To do that, you need samples from many different people, and one straightforward way to collect them at scale is recruiting volunteers on the street.’

“Grimm, a physician born and educated in Switzerland, is a technical program manager at SecureBio, which was spun out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Now an independent nonprofit, SecureBio has launched the Nucleic Acid Observatory, a team of scientists working on new ways to monitor the spread of diseases.

“They’re best known for searching through sewage. In cooperation with the University of Missouri, the observatory regularly tests for viruses in the sewer water of 20 US cities ranging from Boston, New York, and Chicago, to Milan, Mo. and Ottumwa, Iowa. They’ve also tried sampling toilet waste from international airplane flights landing at Logan Airport to see if anything unpleasant is coming in from abroad.

“But COVID, like many other pathogens, is an airborne virus, so testing sewer water only gets the scientists so far. That’s why the observatory last year launched Zephyr, a program that uses nasal swabs to monitor the viruses people are carrying. Even if a person isn’t infected, the viruses tend to stick around inside their nostrils. Test enough people, Grimm believes, and you’ll get a good idea of the ebb and flow of viruses in the local population. All Grimm had to do was find a few thousand people willing to poke around in their own noses for a few seconds.

“Turns out, this isn’t so hard, if you give people a financial incentive.

“Grimm figured that every nasal passage has its price, but how much? When the program started a year ago, he experimented. A dollar was too little, while five dollars would quickly drain his funds. They hit the sweet spot about six months ago, when they hit upon the idea of a two-dollar payment, in the form of a brand-new $2 bill. Since then, SecureBio has paid out about $20,000 in swab money and collected 10,000 swabs.

“Genevieve Speedy and Liam Nokes oversee the nose swabbing and dole out the cash. Speedy is a student at Boston University, majoring in genetics. She took the swab job hoping it’ll impress future employers. … Nokes signed on after speaking with members of a swab team working the T station in Harvard Square.

“ ‘I’m really interested in microbial ecology,’ said Nokes, who recently graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in mathematics, and who’s planning to pursue either a medical degree or a PhD. …

The swab donors had a variety of motives.

“Brittany Bernie was doing her bit to protect public health. ‘I did this to stop the germs and the whole spread of everything and make sure we’re all safe,’ she said. The money played no part in her decision.

“The same went for another woman, Alex Million. “‘I think it’s important to detect the next pandemic,’ she said. ‘To protect people and get the vaccine.’

“But for Eric Saarinen, the price was right. ‘I was walking by and they asked … you need a $2 bill?’ Saarinen said.

“It’s not much money, but it’s hard to resist a brand-new $2 bill. It’s a denomination you don’t often see in the real world, making the gift something of a collector’s item.

“The experiment poses no threat to privacy, the researchers say. All donations are anonymous. Volunteers swab out their own nostrils, then dunk the swab into a communal test tube partly filled with liquid. … Grimm’s team isn’t interested in individuals. They’re trying to track viruses spreading through the population at large.

“The samples are taken to a laboratory where human DNA is filtered out and discarded. Technicians home in on RNA, the genetic material found in many infectious viruses, including influenza, polio, West Nile fever, and of course COVID. They use gene-sequencing machines to identify these RNA samples, then match them with known viruses.

“Over time, this method can measure how many people have come in contact with these viruses. In addition, the tests can spot viruses that aren’t identical to known pathogens, but are genetically close enough to merit a closer look. If these new viruses begin to show up frequently in the swab tests, it’s a clear signal that they’re spreading through the population.

“For now, the swabs are being collected only in the Boston area. But if the method proves its worth, it could become part of a nationwide early warning system for the pandemics of the future.”

And, perhaps it will be states that fund it. More at the Globe, here.

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Seniors in Sweden Keep Learning

February 14, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: DCPhoto/Alamy.
In Sweden, over-55s can study at Senioruniversitetet for a relatively low fee.

An aunt and uncle on my father’s side were always voracious for education, and when they retired, they took learning vacations with Elderhostel [now called Road Scholar]. More recently, two different friends of mine enjoyed hearing Road Scholar’s academic lecturers on a trip to the Panama Canal, although my sense is that the excursions are heavier on things like indigenous dance performances than they used to be.

Miranda Bryant reports at the Guardian that in Sweden, seniors are teaching one another rather than hiring outside professionals. Reader Stuga4, for example, helped to teach a class on a recent Nobel economics prize winner.

Bryant writes, “record numbers of retirees are enrolling in a university run ‘by pensioners for pensioners’ amid increased loneliness and a growing appetite for learning and in-person interactions.

“Senioruniversitet, a national university that collaborates with Sweden’s adult education institution Folkuniversitetet, has about 30 independent branches around the country which run study circles, lecture series and university courses in subjects including languages, politics, medicine and architecture.

“The Stockholm branch, which is Sweden’s largest, has become so popular since it was founded in 1991 that it is now run across multiple venues across the capital by about 100 volunteers. Its most popular event, the Tuesday lectures, gets about 1,000 people each week.

“Recent Stockholm lectures have included ‘The art of awarding Nobel prizes’ by a former member of a Nobel committee, ‘Disinformation and AI – the threat we invented ourselves’ and ‘From soap to cultural heritage/canon and vice versa.’

“Inga Sanner, chair of Senioruniversitetet in Stockholm, said membership nationally was at an all-time high. … In 2023 there were 2,099 events held across Sweden attended by 161,932 participants, according to Folkuniversitetet. This year, that number is projected to increase to 177,024 participants across 2,391 events.

“Gunnar Danielsson, secretary general of Folkuniversitetet, said: ‘The desire to learn for pleasure’s sake, or for the sake of learning as such, is a joy to experience in a society which is increasingly obsessed with learning and education as [only] preparation for work.’

“Sanner, a retired history professor, said older people were ‘more and more alert’ and that there is a ‘fantastic hunger for education.’ She added: …

“The wider societal role that Senioruniversitetet plays is becoming increasingly important, she said, and the learning and wellbeing of its members has a knock-on effect to their families and beyond. …

“For many of their volunteers, their office in central Stockholm is like a workplace. ‘It is very meaningful work, but also you have such a lovely time and meet others.’ Sanner said the demographic of its membership does, however, tend to be ‘too homogenous,’ adding that they need to do more to extend their reach to a more diverse audience.

“Susanne Abelin, 66, a former journalist from Norrtälje, near Stockholm, volunteers on the university’s newsletter and is learning Italian. Ageism is rife in Sweden, she said, and palpable in day-to-day life. ‘You are seen more or less as an idiot.’ … But Senioruniversitetet, where over-55s can learn for a relatively low fee, is ‘a bit of the Swedish welfare system that is still left.’ …

“Joachim Forsgren, 71, a former physician who now volunteers for the Stockholm branch, has given lectures on ‘man and drugs’ and tuberculosis. …

“By volunteering, he said, ‘we are contributing to some kind of democracy project. This is really trying, especially in this day and age, to get people interested in what is going on.’ Amid the rise of online disinformation and populism, the university helps people to ‘look critically at the amount of information we are almost drowning in every day.’ “

There’s a Harvard-affiliated program like the one in Sweden, with retirees teaching courses in their field. My understanding from friends who have participated is that it’s quite demanding, for both the teacher and the student. More at the Guardian, here.

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When Valentines Became Ubiquitous

February 13, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Creative Commons.
A popular Victorian-era Valentine Day’s card by Jonathan King,1860-1880, London Museum.

Do you make Valentines? It’s always been a favorite activity for me. I like cutting up different kinds of paper and I like having some kind of holiday on my horizon when the hyperactivity of the Christmas season is over. I’m the kind of person who, if her fruit cup arrives with a lacy doily underneath, saves it for valentines.

Today we look into research from Christopher Ferguson, associate professor of history at Auburn University in Alabama, to learn how Valentine cards were first manufactured in quantity.

Prof. Ferguson writes at the Conversation, “When we think of Valentine’s Day, chubby Cupids, hearts and roses generally come to mind, not industrial processes like mass production and the division of labor. Yet the latter were essential to the holiday’s history.

“As a historian researching material culture and emotions, I’m aware of the important role the exchange of manufactured greeting cards played in the 19th-century version of Valentine’s Day.

“At the beginning of that century, Britons produced most of their valentines by hand. By the 1850s, however, manufactured cards had replaced those previously made by individuals at home. By the 1860s, more than 1 million cards were in circulation in London alone.

“The British journalist and playwright Andrew Halliday was fascinated by these cards, especially one popular card that featured a lady and gentleman walking arm-in-arm up a pathway toward a church.

“Halliday recalled watching in fascination as ‘the windows of small booksellers and stationers’ filled with ‘highly colored’ valentines and contemplating ‘how and where’ they ‘originated.’

” ‘Who draws the pictures?’ he wondered. ‘Who writes the poetry?’ In 1864 he decided to find out.

“Today Halliday is most often remembered for his writing on London beggars in a groundbreaking 1864 social survey, ‘London Labour and the London Poor.’ However, throughout the 1860s he was a regular contributor to Charles Dickens’ popular journal All the Year Round, in which he entertained readers with essays addressing various facets of ordinary British daily existence, including family relations, travel, public services and popular entertainments.

“In one essay for that journal, ‘Cupid’s Manufactory‘ … Halliday led his readers on a guided tour of one of London’s foremost card manufacturers. Inside the premises of ‘Cupid and Co.,’ they followed a ‘valentine step by step’ from a ‘plain sheet of paper’ to ‘that neat white box in which it is packed, with others of its kind, to be sent out to the trade.’

“ ‘Cupid and Co.’ was most likely the firm of Joseph Mansell, a lace-paper and stationery company that manufactured large numbers of valentines between the 1840s and 1860s. …The processes Halliday described, however, were common to many British card manufacturers in the 1860s, and exemplified many industrial practices first introduced during the late 18th century, including the subdivision of tasks and the employment of women and child laborers.

“[Halliday] noted how the card with the lady and gentleman on the path to the church began as a simple stamped card, in black and white … priced at one penny.

“A portion of these cards, however, then went on to a room where a group of young women were arranged along a bench, each with a different color. … Using stencils, one painted the ‘pale brown’ pathway, then handed it to the woman next to her, who painted the ‘gentleman’s blue coat,’ who then handed it to the next, who painted the ‘salmon-colored church.’ …

“These colored cards, Halliday noted, would be sold for ‘sixpence to half-a-crown.’ A portion of these, however, were then sent on to another room, where another group of young women glued on feathers, lace-paper, bits of silk or velvet, or even gold leaf, creating even more ornate cards sometimes sold for 5 shillings and above.

“All told, Halliday witnessed ‘about sixty hands’ – mostly young women, but also ‘men and boys,’ who worked 10 hours a day in every season of the year, making cards for Valentine’s Day.”

Lots more at the Conversation, here. Do you usually recognize Valentine’s Day in some way? How?

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