Meanderings, 9 April 2022
We’re back from our wonderful tour of Israel with Northern Seminary’s DMin cohort in NT Context. And we’re noticing birds in migration.
Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash
Birds laying eggs early in Chicagoland:
CHICAGO (AP) — Many species of birds are nesting and laying eggs nearly a month earlier than they did 100 years ago in the Chicago area and researchers believe climate change is behind it.
Those were among the findings in a new study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Researchers compared recent observations with century-old eggs preserved in museum collections.
“We learned that birds in the Chicago region, at least some species, are nesting as much as 25 days earlier now than they were back in the early 1900s and late 1800s,” said John Bates, curator of birds at Chicago’s Field Museum and the study’s lead author. “This study was designed to basically look at whether or not bird species in the northeastern part of Illinois were changing their egg-laying dates over time.”
The museum has 50,000 to 60,000 eggs in its collection dating from the 1870s to the 1920s. The collection includes information about the eggs. The Field’s collection, like most, drops off after the 1920s, when egg-collecting went out of fashion for hobbyists and scientists.
The findings were consistent with other things going on in the environment because of climate change, Bates said.
“Insect numbers have been shown to be declining, too, although again, it’s hard to have good data on what each species of insect is doing,” he said. “And insects, in turn, are responding to plant leaf out, and so that’s also something that’s moving forward in time.”
In 2018, 27 million tons of plastic were dumped into American landfills. A majority of this waste was containers and packaging: bags, sacks, or bottles. Yet even when sustainable-minded consumers try to avoid plastic packaging while shopping for necessities, it can prove difficult.
Bioplastics have been touted as a potential remedy to the problem of disposable packaging, as they offer a transition away from petroleum-based plastics, faster decomposition, and potential fertilizing material. But are there any downsides to putting them in the environment? In a study published today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, earthworms are seen to have a strong capability for consuming bioplastic derived from polylactic acid (PLA), which is typically made from plant-based sugars. Lei Wang, a professor at Nankai University, compared how earthworms interacted with various forms of plastic, as well as the annelids’ ability to break the substances down. What he found, however, was that the process doesn’t just end at decomposition.
Unlike composting, which turns waste into nutrient-rich dirt, plastics that sit out in landfills in the wind, sun, and water break down into smaller particles called microplastics. These pieces are then easily carried into oceans, food, and soil.
Animals often ingest microplastics through several vectors, but few get as much exposure as soil-loving earthworms. As they tunnel, they eat the dirt to digest the organic matter. If the soil is contaminated with plastic, it can become a piece of the worms’ diets. While this has been documented in many cases, there’s less research available on the impacts of bioplastics.
Wang hopes to spur further research on the breakdown of bioplastics in soil. While it’s clear that earthworms can digest plastics made from PLA, it is unknown if they gain any nutritional value from it. The life cycle of bioplastics is an emerging question; it’s important to understand how the earth’s ecosystems are adapting to them, Wu says.
(NEXSTAR) — Twitter wasn’t joking on April Fools’ Day when they tweeted, “we are working on edit button.”
The San Francisco-based social media company confirmed Tuesday that they have been working on the long-requested feature since last year.
“We’ve been exploring how to build an Edit feature in a safe manner since last year and plan to begin testing it within Twitter Blue Labs in the coming months,” tweeted Jay Sullivan, head of consumer product.
In the previous Consider Wesley, we saw that John Wesley’s answer to why the Methodists, despite the advantages given them by their doctrine and discipline, are in spiritual decline. It was, he said, their failure to practice self-denial. But this does not complete Wesley’s diagnosis of the problem.
In “Causes of the Inefficiency of Christianity” (1789) he asks why “self-denial in general” is “so little practiced at present among the Methodists.” His observations lead him to conclude that the “Methodists become more and more self-indulgent, because they grow rich.” While many are still poor, others have over decades become much “richer than they were when they first entered the society” (§16).
The danger of riches is not a new concern for Wesley. He sees it as central to Jesus’s teaching and to the New Testament church. Over the course of his ministry, he published sermon after sermon on the topic, including “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount VIII” (1748), “Self-denial” (1760), “The Use of Money” (1760), “The Danger of Riches” (1781), and “On Riches” (1790). Perhaps only his death in 1791 prevented him from writing more.
In contemporary American society, to be rich is considered to be in the millionaire or billionaire class. Wesley has a more biblical definition. As he says in “The Danger of Riches,” “Whoever has sufficient food to eat and raiment to put on, with a place where to lay his head, and something over, is rich” (§I.1) By this definition, most Americans today are rich.
But Wesley’s net is larger still. He is concerned not only for those who are rich but also for those who desire to be rich. For the root of the danger of riches lies in the desires of the heart. To desire riches, whether as a yet-to-be-fulfilled aspiration or as an actual possession, is to shape one’s life around possessions and wealth, not around God. “You cannot serve two masters,” Jesus warned, “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt 6:24).
Note that Wesley is not speaking here of the poor, who lack food, clothing, or home. Their desire to have enough for themselves and their families is appropriate. The problem is with those who want more than enough and devote their lives to accumulating it.
What to call it? Skinnyscraper?
The world's skinniest skyscraper has been completed, adding a new landmark to Manhattan's famous skyline.
Steinway Tower, or 111 West 57th Street, has a height-to-width ratio of 24:1, making it "the most slender skyscraper in the world," according to the developers.
At 1,428 feet, it is also one of the tallest buildings in the Western hemisphere, falling short of two others in New York City: One World Trade Center at 1,776 feet and Central Park Tower at 1,550 feet.
The midtown Manhattan development includes 60 apartments spanning the tower's 84 stories and the adjacent Steinway Hall building.
The tower was designed by New York architecture firm SHoP Architects and built by JDS Development, Property Markets Group and Spruce Capital Partners, which began construction in 2013. Gregg Pasquarelli, principal at SHoP Architects, called the building "a project of extraordinary proportions and epic grandeur" in an email to CNN.