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The Disappearing Prairie

March 11, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The American bison is a well-loved symbol of the prairie, and for good reason. Bison provide important ecosystem services.

I have blogged several times about Frank and Deborah Popper’s insights on the loss of population in the industrial Midwest and the idea of returning former urban areas to prairie, a kind of Buffalo Commons. (See one post, here.) It’s an optimistic concept: Instead of crumbling under the loss of “the way things were,” we can learn not only to accept the change but feature it.

But what if the prairie itself is disappearing? The environmental radio show Living on Earth investigates the role of agribusiness.

“The American prairie is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, with numbers of species rivaling even a tropical rainforest. But today, just one percent of eastern tallgrass prairie remains, and western shortgrass prairie is disappearing at a rate of more than a million acres a year. Author Josephine Marcotty joins host Paloma Beltran to discuss her book Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie.

Paloma Beltran
How did the idea for Sea of Grass first come about?

Josephine Marcotty
Growing up, I really had little or no contact with the prairie because it was gone. … I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, and the prairie was something I read about in books like Laura Ingalls Wilder, but not something that I had experienced. So it was only when I started exploring the prairie that was left and understanding what we had lost that inspired me to write, not only about agriculture, but about what we were losing by expanding agriculture in the Midwest.

Beltran
Can you describe the American prairie for us? You know, what does it feel like to visit such a place and what makes it special?

Marcotty
The tallgrass prairie, which is now almost completely gone, used to be an extraordinary place where grasses would be taller than a standing person, and in order to see over the top of them, you had to stand on top of a horse. It was a place where people could get lost, and often did in those tall grasses, or in the massive wetlands that used to occupy a third or 25% of the mid part of the country. It was an extraordinary place full of animals that we no longer have, wolves and bears and other carnivores, extraordinary birds. So I mean, the thing that I like about a prairie is the immense silence. All you hear is the sound of wind, and that enormous sense of space that you get, which is very similar to [being] out on a great lake or out on an ocean. …

Beltran
Let’s talk about one of the main characters in your book, the buffalo. …

Marcotty
They are what biologists call a keystone species on the prairie. They have been around for millions of years. … They were huge. And they shared the grasslands with giant sloths and other animals that you know have long gone. But over time, they became a key part of the grassland ecosystem. So they come through and they eat the grass short and that creates an environment that’s conducive to birds that like short grass, or insects that need short grass, and then they move on, and then the grass grows taller, and then that becomes an ecosystem for other animals that like taller grass. One of the things that they do is they wallow.

If you’ve ever been to Yellowstone National Park or any other park where you can see bison, you’ll see them roll over and just create these huge clouds of dust, and then when they leave, there’s a little wallow. Those wallows are really important for collecting water when it rains, and scientists have found that there’s unique species of animals and insects that will live in and around those wallows when they collect water. Bison, they carry seed across thousands, hundreds of miles when they eat the grass, and then they move the seed up to other parts of the of the grassland. …

Prairies create a whole universe of organisms around them, and that’s an excellent way of sequestering and processing carbon, of sequestering and processing nitrogen, both of which are very important for world health in terms of air pollution and in terms of climate change. The world’s grasslands contain more carbon than humans have released since the Industrial Revolution, more than the planet’s forests and atmosphere.

[But] we’re plowing up about a million acres a year, and that’s the equivalent of adding 11.2 million cars to the road every year. … For many, many decades, intensive agriculture stopped at around the 98th parallel because it was too dry in the West to really graze crops properly. And instead, that’s why we have cattle there. That’s because it was good country for cattle and bison. But through genetic technology, we now are creating seeds like for corn that is much more capable of withstanding severe weather, that can thrive in dry conditions. … And the profits from that are much greater than from growing cattle. So you can sell a piece of land that has been plowed for much higher price than you can sell it if it hasn’t been plowed. …

What’s driven the loss of grasslands … is just growing corn for our gas tanks.

More at LOE, here.

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The Intimate Feeling of a Tiny Theater

March 10, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Tristam Kenton.
Actor Howard Brenton (seen above in Churchill in Moscow at the Orange Tree Theatre) likes working in small venues where he doesn’t need a mike. He says, “Microphones have no place in the theater.”

Some of the best theater my husband and I have ever seen has been in front of very small audiences. There is something about the intimacy of the setting that can inspire actors to outdo themselves. I recall a thrilling version of Moby Dick years ago when the GeVa theater in Rochester, New York, was just starting out. There were maybe five people in the audience.

At the Times in the UK, Dominic Maxwell wrote recently about London’s tiny Orange Tree Theatre, asking, “What do Patricia Hodge, Jane Asher, Roger Allam, Greta Scacchi, Anna Chancellor, Charles Dance, Geraldine James, Robert Bathurst and Freddie Fox have in common? Actually, that should be where do they all have in common because in the past three years these big names have all acted in plays at the 190-seat Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, southwest London.

“At the weekend Ian McKellen performed three solo benefit shows for it at the larger Richmond Theatre, which raised more than £100,000 [~$135,000]. That, beams Tom Littler, the Orange Tree’s enterprising artistic director, when I meet him at his theatre on a crisp January weekday, is ’15 or 20 per cent of the fundraising we need to do for the year.’ …

“Littler, 41, took over the Orange Tree in 2022. And while he knows that not every show can be an event on the level of next year’s Shakespearean fiesta, he reckons ‘a couple a year’ don’t half help build excitement about a theatre. The present show is Littler’s larky reinvention of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 comedy The Rivals, transplanted to a PG Wodehousey 1920s. …

“Littler is keen to argue that he is operating in the tradition of a venue that has been mixing revivals and new work since 1971, when its first artistic director, Sam Walters, set it up with his wife, Auriol Smith, in a room above the Orange Tree pub opposite. … But the big-name actors, plus the odd big-name director — Trevor Nunn did Uncle Vanya in 2024; Richard Eyre is about to do Strindberg’s The Dance of Death — is very much a Littler thing. …

“Littler knows famous faces are not everything. ‘But they are important for the profile and they help to get a new play seen. But I always say, it’s not a fame barometer thing, it’s the treat of seeing actors that good close up. …

“You have to wonder how Littler gets the talent. … He got the celebrated director Blanche McIntyre to make her Orange Tree debut (on Poor Clare) after writing her a fan letter. [David] Suchet’s involvement came after they had ‘a cup of tea together’ and discovered a shared love of Eliot’s play. [Patricia] Hodge’s involvement came because she shares an agent with Dance, whom Littler had worked with on Strindberg’s Creditors. …

“Read Littler’s program notes for The Rivals and you soon sense what a scholar he is. Sure enough, he has three degrees: one in English from Oxford, an MA in Classics from the Open University and an MPhil in 18th-century English literature he decamped to Cambridge to do, just before he got his previous job, running the even tinier Jermyn Street Theatre off Piccadilly Circus from 2017 to 2022. He talks enthusiastically about writers from Ovid to Ayckbourn, from Coward to Shakespeare. …

“He knows that ‘being a good scholar in theatre won’t get you very far at all on its own.’ He picked this up early: after getting into theatre as a child at Exeter School in Devon, he did lots of directing while at Oxford. Aged 22 he started a stint as an assistant director to Peter Hall while also putting on his own fringe productions, then later assisted other directors, including Nunn.”

More at the Times, here.

Don’t you love that the artistic director’s name is Littler? Seems like he was destined to make theater productions littler.

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How Original Art Benefits Health

March 9, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Exhibit at Concord Art, November 30, 2021. Researchers have found that visiting galleries and museums to look at original art is good for your nervous system.

The other day, I was talking with a staff member here about her plans for the weekend, and she told me she wanted to go into Boston Sunday and visit an art museum or gallery. I am always impressed when anyone drives to Boston: the one-way streets are confusing and the parking is awful. She surprised me by saying, “Parking’s the easy part. There’s a lot of free street parking on Sundays.”

After reviewing today’s articles, I can hardly wait to tell her that what she was doing for fun is also good for her health.

Rhea Nayyar wrote recently at Hyperallergic about new research suggesting that museums and galleries are “non-clinical spaces for preventive health promotion. … Supporting existing research on the benefits of viewing original artwork versus reproductions, a new study found that seeing authentic art can help drop cortisol levels, among other positive effects on the nervous system. …

“ ‘The Physiological Impact of Viewing Original Artworks vs. Reprints: a Comparative Study‘ was conducted by researchers from the Department of Psychological Medicine at King’s College in London working in collaboration with the Courtauld Institute of Art.

“Fifty adults between the ages of 18 and 40 participated in the experimental study — one half was made to view five authentic paintings with their wall labels in a gallery setting for a 20-minute period, while the other half was shown high-quality reproductions of those paintings in a similarly curated setting. All participants had their heart rate and skin temperature monitored, and they provided saliva samples before and after the viewing sessions.

“The selected works (and subsequent reproductions) were all late 19th-century figurative paintings by European artists from the Courtauld’s collection: ‘Jane Avril in the Entrance to the Moulin Rouge‘ (c. 1892) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère‘ (1882) by Éduoard Manet; ‘Banks of the Seine at Argenteuil‘ (1874) by Éduoard Manet; ‘Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear‘ (1889) by Vincent van Gogh; and ‘Te Rerioa (The Dream)‘ (1897) by Paul Gaugin.

“The recorded data showed that those who viewed original artwork had higher heart rate variability patterns compared to the reproductions group, indicating that authentic viewing experiences contribute to a more receptive and adaptable nervous system. The post-viewing saliva samples also yielded a 22% cortisol decrease among the original art group, as well as a measurable drop in two of four recorded inflammatory proteins. …

“[The researchers likened] the stimulated but calming response elicited to that provoked by exercise or meditation.”

That supports University of Pennsylvania research described by Hyperallergic‘s Elaine Velie in 2022.

“ ‘Art museums have great potential to positively impact people, including reducing their stress, enhancing positive emotional experiences, and helping people to feel less lonely and more connected,’ researcher Katherine Cotter told Hyperallergic.

“The study, titled ‘Art Museums As Institutions for Human Flourishing,’ was published in the Journal of Positive Psychology by Cotter and James O. Pawelski of the University of Pennsylvania. Their work is encompassed in the burgeoning field of positive psychology, which studies ‘the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive.’ Drawing on research from different academic disciplines, the study is part of an initiative that examines how the arts and humanities affect ‘human flourishing’ — a comprehensive framework that takes into account both ‘ill-being’ (living with disease, disorders, or in negative states) and ‘well-being’ (practicing positive health habits). …

“Cotter and Pawelski compiled and reviewed over 100 research articles and government and foundation reports. They discovered that visiting a museum reduced stress levels, frequent visits decreased anxiety, and viewing figurative art lowered blood pressure. They also found that museum visits lowered the intensity of chronic pain, increased a person’s life span, and lessened the likelihood of being diagnosed with dementia.”

More at Hyperallergic, here, and here.

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What Makes Animals Feel Joyful?

March 8, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Dan Cook via Unsplash.
Is the horse really laughing or is something else going on?

I was visiting Suzanne’s family recently and at breakfast one morning, my younger granddaughter started reading The Week Junior stories out loud. She got me interested in an article about scientists researching animal joy. The information was originally reported in Science News.

It turns out that although we often ascribe our own emotions to animals, we may not be on the right track.

Amber Dance writes at Science News, “For decades, scientists have struggled to identify or measure true joy — or ‘positive affect,’ in sci-speak — in nonhuman animals, even though they’ve long assumed it exists. In the late 19th century, Charles Darwin wrote, ‘The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.’

“But in the 20th century, psychologists focused on strict behaviorism, which limited scientific study to actions that could be objectively tallied. Think Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov and the dogs he conditioned to expect food when he rang a bell, giving him a measurable drooling response. Or American psychologist B.F. Skinner, who put rats and pigeons in Skinner boxes where they were trained to push levers and peck keys for rewards. That history left scientists wary of anthropomorphism and subjective topics like feelings.

“That’s true for positive feelings, at least — there has been loads of scientific attention on misery. In part, that’s because researchers aimed to understand and relieve suffering, not just in animals but in people experiencing pain, depression or other clinical problems. It’s also straightforward to measure a negative response, such as freezing in fear, compared to subtler signs of contentment.

“All this history made the study of animal feelings largely taboo, a trend bucked on occasion by researchers like the late Jaak Panksepp, an Estonian neuroscientist and early leader in the study of emotions in the brain. In the early 2000s, when Panksepp reported that rats make a laughter-like sound when tickled, scientists were doubtful; the ultrasonic calls are inaudible to human ears.

” ‘He had problems publishing it at all because people thought it was crazy,’ says Michael Brecht, a neurobiologist at Humboldt University of Berlin. Skeptical but curious, Brecht did research that found rats not just laughing, but also jumping for joy and playing hide-and-seek.

“If scientists had better tools to measure positive emotions they’d be equipped to more deeply investigate the causes of happiness and how animals communicate it, with major implications for mental health among captive animals.

“This need has inspired an audacious group effort to try to develop a ‘joy-o-meter’ — or more likely, a set of happiness metrics — that could be used to better understand many critters, whether they are wild or captive, whether they walk, fly or swim. …

” ‘Studying emotions is actually really hard,’ says Colin Allen, a project lead and philosopher at the University of California, Santa Barbara who collaborates with Cartmill.

“To keep it simple, Allen and his colleagues have focused on a strict definition of joy as an intense, brief, positive emotion triggered by some event, such as encountering a favorite food or a reunion with a friend. That kind of ‘woohoo!’ moment seemed easier to assess than, say, ongoing mild contentment. Even with a strict definition, the researchers are contending with variations in joy triggers and responses from one animal to the next, including within the same species or group.

“ ‘You want to make sure that what you’re putting out there is based on reality, as opposed to just guessing what is happening in the animal’s mind,’ says Heidi Lyn, a comparative psychologist at the University of South Alabama in Mobile who is a co-leader of the project and is in charge of the dolphin studies as well as some of the ape work.

“These efforts by Lyn and colleagues are important, says Gordon M. Burghardt, a biopsychologist and emeritus professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is not involved in the joy project, but has studied animal play for more than 40 years. In that work, Burghardt says, coming up with a definition with five criteria in 2004 made it possible to identify play in diverse creatures including mammals, birds, lizards, turtles, fish, octopuses and bumblebees. …

“The team began the work in apes because its funder, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, thought the odds of success were best in humankind’s closest relatives. Bonobos are known for playful behavior, including frequent sex acts they use to create social bonds and resolve conflicts. Chimpanzees are considered more violent, though scientists have observed what are likely happy times in chimp troops. Cartmill’s and Lyn’s groups led the way, starting in 2022 with wild chimps at the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project in Senegal; zoo bonobos at ZOO Planckendael in Mechelen, Belgium; research bonobos at the Ape Initiative in Des Moines; and bonobos at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida.

“Wild chimps don’t have easy lives, says team primatologist Gal Badihi, who spent three months following a troop around Fongoli. They contend with dominance hierarchies, competitions and the ongoing search for food. Nonetheless, Badihi recorded potentially joyful moments. For example, chimps played with infants. A juvenile called Youssa proved to be quite the goofball, hanging upside down all the time. Other young chimps liked to drink from each other’s mouths or roll around giggling. When reuniting with their fellows, chimps would embrace and kiss. ‘The joyous moments kind of stick out because they are quite rare,’ says Badihi.

“She’s currently focusing her analysis on a panting sound like unvoiced laughter that chimps often made during those apparently positive or social behaviors, as well as during situations where they wanted to communicate positive intent or de-escalate conflict. ‘It’s really similar to how we use laughter and smiles across social context as people,’ Badhi says.”

Lots more at Science News, here.

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Hollywood’s Earliest Days

March 7, 2026 by suzannesmom

Publicity photo of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in the film Hold Your Man (1933). Wikimedia explains that the photo is in the public domain because it was published between 1931 and 1977 without a copyright notice.

When I think of the so-called heyday of Hollywood, I think of the power of illusion. That’s because the Hollywood glitterati always looked so happy, and now we know they seldom were. In spite of the deception that continues today, we remain intrigued about the secret inner workings of the place. And at a museum in Los Angeles, we can see how Hollywood fans have preserved it all.

In a January article at the Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara wrote about “a small and simple structure, standing near the corner of Selma and Vine, which Cecil B. DeMille leased after he, Jesse Lasky, Samuel Goldwyn (then Goldfish) and Arthur Friend decided that their first choice of Flagstaff, Ariz., was too cold and dark to shoot an adaptation of the play The Squaw Man.

“In 1913, the barn became home to the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co. The Squaw Man, Hollywood’s first feature film, co-directed by DeMille, was released the following year.

“It is astonishing to think that everything we now know as ‘Hollywood’ … began under a cedar-shingled roof where DeMille set up in a tiny corner office and actors changed costumes in horse stalls.

“ ‘We’ve got the barn, we’ve got the talent — hey, kids, let’s put on a show’ is not just a tagline from all those Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney films; it’s the literal backbone of every cinematic story you’ve ever watched. …

“Even more astonishing, given Los Angeles’ reputation for razing or abandoning its history, is the fact that the Lasky-DeMille Barn remains open for business, home now to the Hollywood Heritage Museum. …

“ ‘Although motion pictures have furnished a means of livelihood to thousands,’ Lasky wrote in a 1926 edition of the Hollywood News that is part of the museum’s archives, ‘probably the greatest advantage they have given Southern California [is advertising.] No words, no amount of expensive magazine advertising could achieve the results that have been obtained through motion pictures. Our marvelous climate, our industries, our state’s unequaled advantages as a place for homes, as the ideal spot in which to raise families, all have been brought daily and nightly before hundreds of millions of persons throughout the world.’

“The Hollywood Heritage Museum, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in December, is, in many ways, the antithesis of the 4-year-old Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. … But while the Academy Museum offers exhibits that honor Old Hollywood, the nonprofit, mostly self-supporting Hollywood Heritage Museum is Old Hollywood, preserved and tended to with great care, an enduring reminder that most of humanity’s greatest endeavors began in small, unlikely, jerry-rigged spaces. …

“DeMille’s office has been re-created with personal items (including the director’s shoes and boots) donated by Paramount Pictures, and various exhibits detail the making of DeMille’s The Squaw Man, The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show on Earth … and other films, and offer glimpses into early Hollywood with a collection of props, costumes, cameras, projectors and memorabilia.

“Screenings of silent films, hosted by the Hollywood Heritage’s Silent Society and often accompanied by live music, play here amid a changing palette of special exhibits, curated from the museum’s collection and the contributions of private collectors. (A recent celebration of pioneering leading ladies included a scarf that belonged to Carole Lombard; it was found in a suitcase that survived the plane crash in which she died. If you think I did not cry when I saw it, you would be wrong.) …

“The museum’s dedicated and all-volunteer staff, including museum director Angie Schneider and board president Margot Gerber, have a voluminous archive at their fingertips and know everything there is to know about early Hollywood, the industry and the neighborhood.

“There are no gleaming marble floors, touch-screen activated holograms or digital-age wizardry. Just old-fashioned storytelling. And that’s the whole point. …

“Remember that once upon a time, not that long ago, a few people took a big chance on the wild and crazy idea that moving pictures were the future.” More at the LA Times, via Yahoo, here.

And for a fascinating book on Hollywood’s earliest days, read Robin Cutler’s history of one of the first female scriptwriters, Such Mad Fun. I loved it.

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Box Office Hit May Revive Kabuki

March 6, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Sayuri Suzuki/GKIDS.
Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama as Kikuo and Shunsuke, rival kabuki actors in Japanese Oscar submission Kokuho.

A popular new movie is reviving interest in an ancient Japanese art form, and those who know how to practice it are wondering how that will affect their future.

Thomas Page reports at CNN, “In the movie Kokuho, a three-hour epic spanning half a century in the life of a fictional kabuki actor, we see the traditional art form slowly retreat from Japanese popular culture. What was once a national interest — albeit, a relatively middle class one — recedes into a niche, performed by an aging cohort artistically frozen in time.

“In art, so in life. Kabuki is struggling in Japan. The 400-year-old UNESCO-inscribed classical theater is battling to attract an audience. Data shared by the Japan Arts Council shows attendance at National Theatre venues has dropped significantly, and has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“Kabuki is also failing to attract apprentices, the de facto route for pursuing a career in the art. Historically, acting dynasties have produced a healthy stable of performers, but in recent decades the state has picked up the slack. Courses at the National Theatre Training School have trained a third of kabuki performers working today, but the school received just two applicants for its latest two-year acting course.

“Enter Kokuho. Based on Shuichi Yoshida’s bestselling novel of the same name, the movie, directed by Lee Sang-il (Pachinko) and starring Ryo Yoshizawa, has captivated audiences after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival in May. …

“The film has been the talk of the town among Tokyo’s kabuki performers, according to local reports. But more than that, it could be drawing people to the performing art. …

“When kabuki performer Nakamura Ganjiro IV (who appears in the film and also instructed other actors on their performance) made an appearance at the National Theatre alongside director Lee in September, 2,200 people applied for 100 seats, said the [Japan] Arts Council.

“Looking to seize the moment, the Arts Council has distributed flyers for its January 2026 program outside cinemas showing the film, launched a tie-in social media campaign, and put on introductory performances of kabuki masterpieces with more affordable seating to encourage newcomers. …

“Kokuho translates as ‘national treasure,’ a reference to ‘ningen kokuhō,’ or ‘living national treasure,’ a title designated to masters of their art.

“The film opens in the 1960s and follows the orphaned son of a yakuza boss, Kikuo, on his journey into the upper echelons of kabuki. At age 15, he’s old for an apprentice … though he has the tutelage of Ken Watanabe’s seasoned pro Hanjiro, and the competition of Hanjiro’s son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama) spurring him on.

“Kikuo performs as an ‘onnagata’— a male actor specializing in female roles — a custom that began in the 17th century. That comes with its own dictates, including posture, walk and dance moves. …

“ ‘The more I did the dancing, the more I saw how difficult it was going to be to reach the level of actual kabuki actors,’ [the actor said]. …

“In the movie, Kikuo’s smooth ascent from outsider to stardom is tempered by his affairs and the jealousy he inspires in others. But these points of friction rarely eclipse the heightened drama on stage.

“The screenplay draws on kabuki’s established repertoire, featuring stories of love rivalries, transfiguration and suicide, often deployed to parallel character narratives and reflect their inner state. Kokuho provides helpful on-screen synopses for the uninitiated. …

“The director and cast had to negotiate the pitfalls of shooting stage acting for screen; crafting performances made to be seen by the cheap seats in a back of a kabuki theater, captured by the close-up camerawork of cinematographer Sofian El Fani. …

“ ‘I was told by Director Lee that this wasn’t about doing a beautiful dance on stage, but really showing who Kikuo is as he’s performing,’ said Yoshizawa. “Focusing on things like a trembling finger in a certain moment to show his mental situation, to really concentrate his whole life and show that on stage.’ …

“The epic concludes in 2014, with Yoshizawa aged up and Kikuo forced to confront the damage and hurt he has caused on his path to greatness.

“For the actor, it was not the usual case of playing old. ‘There’s a difference between a person who plays the onnagata in kabuki growing old, versus a regular man growing old,’ he explained. ‘I noticed in the reference material they would stay young and beautiful … I’d seen they keep their great posture.’ ”

More at CNN, here.

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The Argument for Dancing

March 5, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: USA Dance.
A dance competition for seniors.

One of the exercise classes I like at my retirement community is called Movement for Body and Brain. It is led by a dancer who is trained in a variety of related disciplines, including exercise for Parkinson’s patients. I started attending because she has the best music of any of the classes. I stayed because it’s great exercise.

An article at the Washington Post by columnist Trisha Pasricha, MD, explains why movement like dancing is good for your health.

“This fun hobby,” the Post claims, “may reduce your risk of dementia by 76 percent.”

Dr. Pasricha writes, “Dancing combines some of the best elements known to be associated with longevity: exercise, creativity, balance and social connection. … One study found that people who danced frequently (more than once a week) had a 76 percent lower risk of dementia than those who did so rarely.

“In the early 1980s, a group of researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine set out to better understand the aging brain by recruiting almost 500 men and women ages 75 to 85 living in the Bronx. Each person underwent neuropsychological tests and responded to questionnaires about their health and lifestyle. Then, over the next couple of decades, the researchers tracked the people’s cognition.

“Perhaps not surprisingly, the scientists found that, for every cognitively challenging activity performed one day a week, there was an associated 7 percent reduction in dementia risk. The more often people tested their brains — such as with board games or crossword puzzles — the less likely they were to develop Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia.

“But when it came to physical activity, one hobby stood out above the others after controlling for other lifestyle and health factors: dancing.

“The researchers, who published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003, concluded that physical activities such as swimming and walking also trended in the right direction but that their results were not as profound as those associated with dancing. …

“Physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, in general is wonderful for our brain health. And this isn’t intended to knock walking. … But combining physical activity with creativity and cognitive challenges may help protect the brain further. Dancing asks your brain to do several things at once: match a rhythm, remember steps (or quickly improvise some new ones), navigate space and perhaps even respond to a partner. …

“Dancing is simply music-based movement — ideally of a kind that makes you feel good and involves the company of others. And it can truly be for almost everyone. In my own clinic, we recommend dancing as therapy for patients with movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease. …

“Besides brain health, there are other great reasons to consider shaking a hip. A 2020 meta-analysis of 29 randomized trials among healthy older adults found that social dance-based activities were associated with a 37 percent reduced risk of falling — as well as improvements in balance and lower body strength. …

“While many community centers offer dance classes specifically for older adults (often free), I know that dance classes suited to your interests and needs are not always easily available nearby. … There are also several classes on YouTube tailored to possible physical limitations and needs. …

“Even if you’re not up for dancing, there’s still power in playing your favorite tunes: A large population study published recently found that just listening to music most days was linked to a decrease in dementia risk.

“Music can evoke memory and emotions, but certain kinds of it can also offer a distinctly enjoyable challenge to the brain. As you listen to music, your brain is constantly evaluating its predictions regarding what comes next: Will the next note and beat be the one you’re anticipating?

“A  potent driver of the urge to groove is syncopation. When music is syncopated — meaning, you expect to hear a loud beat in line with the rhythm, but instead it’s weak, or there’s a quick pulse of silence — it challenges our brain’s expectations. Think ‘Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones or ‘Uptown Funk’ by Bruno Mars.

“Syncopation creates an exciting sense of ‘push and pull in the music. Humans perceive songs with a healthy dose of syncopations as more pleasurable. Studies have found that those syncopations strongly compel us to bust a move, completing that gap our brain is craving to fill.

“There’s no magic bullet to prevent dementia. Cognitive changes are the result of several factors converging in our brains — our genetics, lifestyle, stress, diets and environmental exposures. Walking and other forms of physical activity can help boost your brain health, but doing so shouldn’t feel like a chore. Cognitive strength can also grow out of many activities that give us great joy — moving to music you truly love, sharing space with someone else’s company, and trying something new without worrying how you look doing it.”

More at the Post.

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Data Center Aims For Greener Cooling

March 4, 2026 by suzannesmom


Above: At the former Loring Air Force base in Maine, there are hopes that a planned data center will use less water for cooling equipment by using a technique that submerges computer components in a nonconductive, oil-based fluid to draw heat directly from the source.

The rapid increase of energy-guzzling buildings for artificial intelligence has people talking about better ways to cool the systems. One idea is to build them in somewhere off Planet Earth, which sounds like a horrible idea to me. Meanwhile in Maine, developers are investigating a different approach.

Ryan Krugman writes at Inside Climate News, “Once a Cold War outpost near Maine’s northern border, the former Loring Air Force Base could soon be home to a very different kind of facility: the state’s first large-scale data center. The sprawling 450-acre site in Limestone, Maine, would host the giant server farm as part of a plan still in its early stages to reinvent part of the base as a hub for green technology.

“Since its closure in the early 1990s, the Loring Development Authority has redeveloped the base into a business park and a commercial airport. More recently, it has also become a sustainability-focused campus through the company Green 4 Maine.

“Developers say Loring’s fiber network and access to renewable hydropower make it an ideal site for a next-generation data center powered entirely by green energy and using water-free cooling technology. But questions remain over how such an energy-intensive project could impact utility rates, grid reliability and a sensitive surrounding environment.

“Traditionally, data centers, among the most power-hungry and resource-dependent buildings in the world, rely on massive cooling systems to keep thousands of servers from overheating. Some use energy-intensive fans that circulate air through vast server halls, while others depend on large volumes of water to absorb heat. ‘I wake up every morning wondering why we still use air to try and cool electronics,’ said Herb Zien, vice chair of LiquidCool Solutions, one of the developers of LiquidCool Data Center. ‘As a thermodynamics engineer, I used to use air to insulate, not cool.’

LiquidCool Solutions, a privately held company based in Rochester, Minnesota, takes a different approach to cooling electronic technology.

“Its ‘immersion cooling’ technology, Zien said, submerges computer components in a nonconductive, oil-based fluid that draws heat directly from the source — eliminating the need for fans, air conditioning or water. The system produces no toxic byproducts or emissions and, according to the company, nearly eliminates both noise and evaporative loss. Loring, company officials say, will serve as the first large-scale data center built entirely around its technology—its first real-world test. …

“The developers say [the data center] will be entirely powered by renewable energy—mainly hydroelectricity. [But] Versant Power, the region’s transmission and delivery utility, wrote in an email that … it could not verify that the supply would come from hydro or renewable sources. The utility added that grid upgrades would likely be necessary to support the project — costs that would be covered by the developers.

“A Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program study found that, while initial costs are paid for by the developers, data center projects often shift expenses onto ratepayers through discounted or tailored negotiated contracts, wholesale market charges and grid upgrades that may exceed what’s necessary for reliability.

” ‘Adding 50 megawatts to such a small, isolated grid is huge,’ said Hepeng Li, an assistant professor at the University of Maine’s College of Engineering and Computing. Northern Maine’s independent grid has a peak load of roughly 150 megawatts, meaning the data center alone could consume more than a third of the region’s total demand.

“Nearly 50 megawatts of mostly hydroelectric power — currently supplied by New Brunswick Power — is available at a nearby substation, according to Zien. New Brunswick Power told Inside Climate News that no supply agreement or memorandum of understanding is in place with either Green 4 Maine or the Loring Data Center project. …

“Developers also plan to install on-site diesel generators to provide backup power during grid outages. While standard for data centers, a diesel backup system can emit harmful air pollutants — including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides — posing potential risks to the Mi’kmaq Nation and the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, which border the site. …

“Project officials say generators would not be installed immediately and that some future users might choose to operate without them. …

“Those uncertainties would only grow if the project succeeds and the developers expand the data center beyond its initial 2- to 6-megawatt capacity. Even so, supporters and researchers say that if the cooling technology performs as promised and the developers can secure a reliable supply of Canadian hydropower, the project has the potential to chart a new direction for cleaner, water-free data center development.”

More at Inside Climate News, here. I admire inventors who come up with useful ideas. But I don’t know about this one. When there is money to be made, inventors often seem too sanguine about how well things will work. Imagineering combined with practicality is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

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Fun with Ciphers and Codexes

March 3, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Art Collection 2 via Alamy.
The Voynich manuscript has never been deciphered. 

We love the French tv series called Astrid, whose autistic heroine can solve any puzzle and has never yet been stumped by a mysterious code. I wish Astrid could apply her unique way of thinking to the puzzle described in today’s article because skepticism about the solution remains.

Tom Metcalfe writes at Live Science, “A unique cipher that uses playing cards and dice to turn languages into glyphs produces text eerily similar to the glyphs in the Voynich manuscript, a new study shows. The finding suggests that an equivalent cipher could have been used to create the mysterious medieval manuscript.

“The new cipher — called ‘Naibbe,’ from the name of a 14th-century Italian card game — does not decode the medieval Voynich manuscript, but it offers an idea for how the manuscript was made.

“The Voynich manuscript, which has been radiocarbon-dated to the 15th century, contains roughly 38,000 words written in glyphs that have never been translated. Despite more than a century of intense scrutiny, the manuscript has not been explained conclusively. However, it continues to intrigue people, with its bizarre and inexplicable illustrations of plants, astrology and alchemy, including supposedly ‘biological’ depictions of bathing naked women.

“In the new study, published Nov. 26 in the journal Cryptologia, science journalist Michael Greshko investigated one way the manuscript may have come together. He told Live Science that he got the idea for the Naibbe cipher while researching stories about the Voynich manuscript. …

“Naibbe first uses the number from the throw of a die to break a block of Italian or Latin into single and double letters — so “gatto” (Italian for “cat”) could become “g”,”at” and “to.” The cipher then uses the draw of a playing card to determine which of six different tables is used to encrypt the letters into ‘Voynichese’ — the strange and undeciphered glyphs that are apparently grouped into words in the manuscript. The tables are ‘weighted’ by the corresponding number of cards so that the statistical occurrence of the mock-Voynichese glyphs is the same as seen in the manuscript itself.

“Greshko’s effort is among the leading attempts to explain how the manuscript was made. But it still only approximated Voynichese text, rather than fully replicating it, he said. …

“The manuscript now lies at a nexus of attempts to understand lost languages, yet experts are not entirely sure if Voynichese is even real.

“One theory, taken seriously, is that the manuscript is a medieval hoax, illustrated with suitably mysterious and salacious drawings, and that the text of Voynichese glyphs is completely meaningless.

“The hoax theory has grown stronger in recent years as more attempts to decipher Voynichese — some of which have used machine learning and other computerized artificial intelligence methods — have failed to crack the code, if there is a code.

“But theories that Voynichese is based on a real language and can be deciphered are still prominent, and Greshko’s Naibbe cipher is one of the closest attempts yet.

“The mock-Voynichese output of the Naibbe cipher has several important similarities to true Voynichese. … Those commonalities suggested that a similar method was used to create the original Voynich manuscript, Greshko said. …

” ‘Dice and playing cards were chosen as sources of randomness because it was essential for the cipher to be ‘hand-doable’ with the technology of the time. …

” ‘My hope is that this becomes adopted as a computational benchmark,’ Greshko said. ‘The points of difference between the cipher and the manuscript may point the way to how the text was actually created.’

“Former satellite engineer René Zandbergen, a renowned expert on the Voynich manuscript who was not directly involved in Greshko’s study, said he appreciated Greshko’s efforts to create an encoding method to approximate Voynichese.

“But Greshko ‘also makes it clear that he is not suggesting that this is how the manuscript text was generated,’ Zandbergen said in an email. ‘He just demonstrates that such a method can be found, and we may assume that there may be others.’ Zandbergen added that he is ‘essentially undecided’ about whether the Voynichese text is meaningful or a hoax.”

More at Live Science, here.

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Turning a Highway into a Park

March 2, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jack Persons, Friends of Sunset Dunes.
Once a four-lane highway threatened by flooding, Sunset Dunes Park now welcomes visitors who fancy recreation along the Pacific coast.

Many of us have had a chance to enjoy the elevated park in New York City known as the High Line. Once it was a highway. Now I’m learning about a similar conversion in California.

There’s an interesting story about it at the environmental radio show Living on Earth,

Jenni Doering
“The four-lane Great Highway used to run along the Pacific Ocean on the west side of San Francisco. But in April 2025, this pavement became a little slice of paradise. Now visitors to Sunset Dunes Park can bike, walk, skate, and play next to the water. Zach Lipton is a volunteer with the nonprofit Friends of Sunset Dunes and he joins us now to talk about this highway’s transformation. … For someone who’s maybe never been to San Francisco or to Sunset Dunes Park … what is it like?

Zach Lipton
“Sunset Dunes is a 50 acre park at the edge of San Francisco along the Pacific coast. It used to be a four lane highway and has been converted into a recreational space for people to walk and bike and sit by the ocean, have a bite to eat and just enjoy our Pacific coast. So we brought in eleven local artists to paint murals. … The city has installed benches made out of logs that have fallen in recent storms from the park … a bike park and a skate area. … And of course, just the Pacific Ocean View is the star of the show. …

“[There’s a sculpture] called Spinning Rock. It’s a 20,000 pound rock that is on a spinner. And just the look of delight when kids and adults, when everyone realizes you can just push this rock and start spinning it around. It’s a lot of fun. We have a giant octopus the kids love to climb on, some giraffes down by the zoo. [The park] is a perfectly flat space, which is great for people, especially riding bikes. I know folks who have come out, learned to ride a bike there during the pandemic as an adult, using Sunset Dunes. …

Doering
“Going from a four lane roadway to a coastal park, how exactly did we get here?

Lipton
“So let’s go back all the way to just give you the long version of the history. The entire western side of San Francisco originally was just sand dunes, and in the 1800s some folks started creating a coastal path back when a road really was a recreational facility. This was a place to go ride your horse along the ocean. In time, that road was paved, but it always, for over a century, has been part of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, even though gradually, it kept shifting from a recreational use to really just transportation. … Then during the pandemic, there was a huge need in San Francisco for socially distanced outdoor recreation, and the city converted a couple of streets to recreational facilities, including what was the Great Highway. …

“Ultimately, we ran a campaign, a ballot measure last November for the city to vote on its future. 55% of the city voted that they wanted it to be a full time park. And then we worked quickly with the city, with the California Coastal Commission, to make that vision a reality and start its transformation. …

“The park sells itself more than we can ever explain its benefits to people. And this is something where if a few years ago, you said, ‘y”Yeah, let’s turn the Great Highway into a park,’ people would look at you like you were crazy. But having tried it during the pandemic, and having just had the chance for people to experience it, all of a sudden, it makes a lot more sense. And I think there’s a spirit of experimentation there that cities can embrace, whether it’s this or other environmental efforts, that it’s okay to just try things and see how they go.”

Can you think of other pandemic experiments that have lasted? I’m going to be thinking about that.

More at LOE, here. No firewall.

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Nina Simone’s Home Saved

March 1, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Gerrit de Bruin/Re-Emerging Films via Wikimedia.
Pianist, jazz singer, and civil rights icon Nina Simone in 1969.

I have been a fan of Nina Simone since my early teens, so I was delighted to read that some of her fans have taken it on themselves to ensure that her childhood home continues to honor her.

Melissa Hellman reports at the Guardian, “It was a surreal experience for Dr Samuel Waymon, Nina Simone’s youngest sibling, to walk back into the renovated childhood home that he once shared with the singer and civil rights activist.

“On that day in the fall of 2025, Waymon, an 81-year-old award-winning composer, said that memories flooded back of him playing organ in the house and cooking on the potbelly stove with his mother as a child in Tryon, North Carolina. He was overjoyed to see the large tree from his youth still standing in the yard. Simone, born Eunice Waymon, lived in the 650 sq ft, three-room home with her family beginning in 1933.

“After sitting vacant and severely decayed for more than two decades, the recently restored home is now painted white, with elements of its former self sprinkled throughout the interior. On the freshly painted mint-blue wall hangs a shadow box that encases the rust brown varnish of the original home. A small piece of the Great Depression-era linoleum sits on the restored wooden floor like an island of the past in a sea of the present.

“ ‘It does conjure up wonderful tears of joy in my heart and in my eyes when I stand in that house, on the porch, going into the rooms where the stove is, and I’m saying, “Wow, this is actually real. The house is restored,” ‘Waymon said. ‘It’s like time travel.’

“The home was bought for $95,000 in 2017 by four Black artists behind the collective Daydream Therapy LLC – the contemporary artist Adam Pendleton, the painter and sculptor Rashid Johnson, the abstract artist Julie Mehretu, and the collagist and film-maker Ellen Gallagher. For them, the structure is an assertion that Black history is worthy of investing in.

“The restoration comes at a time when historians and researchers say that the federal government is attempting to diminish the contributions of Black Americans. A presidential executive order has directed the vice-president, JD Vance, to discontinue spending on programs or exhibits based on race at the Smithsonian Institution and its museums and research centers. The restoration of Simone’s childhood home could serve as an example of how privately funded projects can preserve Black history during a time when federally funded programs are under threat.

“On 1 September, the total rehabilitation of the home was completed after several years of planning and fundraising of nearly $850,000 in materials, construction and engineering costs for the renovation, which began in June 2024. The project has been overseen by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF), which is now working with a consulting team and the Tryon community to create a long-term management and programming plan for the site. They hope to create a cultural district around the home, which is projected to open to the public for tourism in 2027. …

“Said Tiffany Tolbert, the AACHAF’s senior director for preservation, ‘Being able to preserve the birth or childhood home of these icons, activists and leaders in the African American community is really important so that future generations will understand where we came from. … Having this home still extant, having it where people can visit, where they can learn, is significant because they greatly enhance the understanding of the African American experience in the middle 20th century in itself.’

“When he received a message from a museum curator who alerted him that it was for sale. At first, Pendleton considered other people who might be able to preserve and protect the home, but then he pondered the final line from poet June Jordan’s ‘Poem for South African Women‘: ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’ …

“Walking through the home shortly after its purchase, Pendleton was struck by how much he felt the spirit of the home. ‘This is where it all started for Nina, in this humble home,’ he recalled thinking. …

“Now that the home is restored, the AACHAF and a consulting team are working with St Luke’s CME church, where Simone’s mother, Kate Waymon, preached, to incorporate the surrounding East Side neighborhood into future programming. Pendleton sees the future of the home as being a site for reflection, he said, and to ‘become a place where artists go with intention to write music, for example, or to perform in the town. …

“If Simone were to visit the house today, Waymon said that his sister would be amazed and grateful that it has been restored.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Kids Who Learn Cursive for Fun

February 28, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.
Cursive club at Holmes Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, has been surprisingly popular. Halle O’Brien, 12, has taken cursive back to her regular classroom.

Many adults have forgotten the cursive writing they learned in school. They felt no need to keep it going when it felt easier just to print or type. Nowadays, those of us who help out with PostcardsToVoters are told to print the messages because so many people don’t read cursive.

Today’s story is about kids who think learning cursive is a hoot. It also suggests how writing in script is good for the brain.

Karina Elwood writes at the Washington Post, “The group of preteens uncapped their markers and began practicing how to capitalize two new letters: ‘B’ and ‘Q.’ The lesson felt like a return to the basics. Only this time, the middle-schoolers were learning to write, many for the first time, in cursive.

“Sherisse Kenerson, a multilingual teacher at Holmes Middle Schoolin Alexandria, Virginia, leads a club of sixth- through eighth-graders who want to know the art of looping and curving their letters together.

“The attention her small club has attracted surprised Kenerson. Local news stories, thousands of social media comments. Teachers from as far as Oklahoma asking how they could bring something similar to their classrooms.

“If boomers and Gen X are puzzled that many youngsters are not required to endure the same painstaking labor of mastering cursive that they were, they might be even more surprised — perhaps, even delighted — to hear that some are learning the craft entirely for fun. …

“In the early 2000s, as technology picked up, cursive was declared all but dead. By 2006, only 15 percent of SAT essays were written in cursive. The Common Core standards released in 2010 did not include cursive as a required curriculum, leading to states around the country to drop the requirement.

“But in the years since, there has been a steady effort to preserve the art by historians and educators like Kenerson. Clubs, camps and optional classes like hers have popped up around the country. …

“Research suggests handwriting is a key tool for learning and memory. It activates brain activity like motor, sensory and cognitive processing better than typing does.

“ ‘Even in the age of technology, I think that handwriting is here to stay,’ said Shawn Datchuk, a professor of special education at the University of Iowa who has written about the benefits of handwriting for teaching literacy. …

“Datchuk said he suspects research about the cognitive benefits of handwriting, paired with the affordability of teaching it, are key drivers behind the resurgence. But another factor could be how personal and emotionally resonant cursive is, especially for older generations. …

“[Datchuk said,] ‘It really becomes kind of a thumbprint or fingerprint of our entire development.’

“That’s the appeal to Kenerson, who launched the cursive club four years ago when her students couldn’t read a word she had written in flowing script on the whiteboard. In her after-school program, she reminds students that cursive is personal. It’s their own handwriting and can have its own flair.

“Halle O’Brien, 12, had never learned cursive before the club. Her grandfather, who was set on helping her improve her handwriting, had tried to teach it to her, but she found it too hard, she said.

“But something about cursive club just clicked. She finds herself writing in the script for class assignments. It’s easier for her than printing. It’s quicker than typing.

“ ‘People who know cursive can read and can write it so smoothly without needing to concentrate on the letters,’ Halle said. …

“Halle sees practical value in her new skills beyond bragging rights to her friends. She recalled a history field trip where none of the students could read the Declaration of Independence.

“ ‘I tried to read it, but I had no idea how to do it,’ Halle said. ‘I actually heard some people doing cursive clubs so that they could learn how to read the Declaration.’

“The need for cursive readers led the National Archives to put out a call for volunteers to help transcribe historical documents and artifacts. …

“Datchuk said there are also links between writing in cursive and better spelling skills. You have to know how to spell a word entirely before writing it in cursive, he said. That was evident in Kenerson’s classroom. Before writing the word “spectacular” in cursive, Sarah Stephens, 11, carefully spelled it out in print at the top of her paper. …

“The sixth-grader came into the club ahead of some of her peers. She first learned cursive in second grade while enrolled in private school. There, she said, students were expected to write completely in cursive by fourth grade. The school even held an annual cursive competition. …

“For all of the benefits she sees in cursive, Kenerson guesses that students are drawn to the club for the same reason she was eager to learn cursive as a child: It made her finally feel grown up. …

“ ‘I think it empowers them, because they know that everyone cannot write it.’ ”

More at the Post, here.

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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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