The Wordsmith's Forge

Dogs Can Sniff-Out Invasive Plant Species With High Accuracy to Curb Their Destruction

Sniffer dogs are being trained in Germany to detect potentially destructive invasive plants—alien species that are one of the main causes of biodiversity loss worldwide.

Scientists from Leipzig evaluated whether volunteer handlers and their dogs could be trained as effective detectives, and found the teams could locate invasive species in the wild with 75% accuracy.


The program is testing feasibility of citizen scientists with their trained dogs, potentially a very large pool of hunters.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Wildlife
Climate Change
Science
Birdfeeding
Food
Wildlife
Birdfeeding
Space Exploration
Philosophical Questions: Artificial Intelligence
Tomato Powder
Today's Adventures
Beavers
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Follow Friday 11-6-26: Poetry
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Today's Adventures
Safety
Birdfeeding
Fandom
Community Thursdays
Science
Gardening
Food
Safety
Wildlife
Birdfeeding
Family Skills
Cuddle Party

Food has 46 comments. Philosophical Questions: Genetics has 27 comments. Philosophical Questions: Rights has 42 comments.


"Save All the Pieces" belongs to The Big One. It needs $27 to be complete. Stylet talks more about what giant ground sloths eat.


The weather has been cooler here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male and a female cardinal separately, and a fox squirrel. Currently blooming: sweet alyssum, marigolds, million bells, petunias, portulaca, nemesia, fan flowers, pineapple sage, firecracker plant, tomatoes, frost aster, zinnias.

Scientists confirm global warming is accelerating faster than ever recorded

Earth is warming faster than ever recorded, with scientists detecting a major acceleration in global temperatures since around 2015. A new study reveals that the warming rate has surged to approximately 0.35°C per decade, nearly double the average pace observed from 1970 to 2015. After removing natural climate fluctuations, researchers confirmed the acceleration with more than 98% statistical confidence.


Ah, that explains why it took about 30 years to go from Zone 5b to Zone 6a but only about half that to get from 6a to what is now probably 6b. 0_o  I observed the changes about 10 years before the Arbor Day Foundation changed their map, and the government lagged another 5 behind that.  *sigh*

Today is sunny and cool.  I'm still not seeing much evidence of frost.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I also took the dried herbs out of the dehydrator and put them in little tubs.  Not everything was dry, so I turned the dehydrator back on.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I bagged up Opal apple seeds in damp sand to cold-stratify in the fridge.  This is an excellent apple with firm white flesh and golden skin, quite sweet.  I think it would work great for pie or baked apple

I planted a bag of white oak acorns in the forest yard, which is quite overgrown with brush but still has a few patches of grass.

I've seen a male cardinal and a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I planted the last of the Egyptian walking onions under saplings in the savanna.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- My partner Doug raked leaves in the ritual meadow.  I carried some of them to put around seedlings in the savanna.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I planted a Pink apple seedling along the north edge of the forest yard, covered it with a jug, and mulched around it.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I watered the newly planted Pink apple seedling.

EDIT 11/8/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

Venomous Primate Believed Extinct for 100 Years Was Hiding in Plain Sight All Along

This big-eyed furball is the Bangka slow loris, a creature that in 2015 was believed to potentially be extinct.

As the video demonstrates, the Bangka slow loris (N. bancanus) is still very much with us—thanks to a local wildlife organization on the island of Bangka that had been rescuing and returning them to the wild for years.


Do note that if you work with endangered species, it is important to document and publish your work, because that influences not only what kind of funding you may obtain but also unrelated activities where the existence of an endangered species may promote things (like forming parks) or prevent things (like factories or mines) in their ecological range.

We know an Amish lady at The Ultimate Harvest who freeze-dries things to sell at local events, and will do custom batches. Recently we asked if she could find Roma tomatoes this late in the season, and she did. She managed to find a 25-pound box of Romas. Now, that's what I would've done, because most produce shrinks way down when you freeze-dry and powder it. There's a whole bag worth of lemons in our bag of lemon powder. But half the box of tomatoes made four bags of powder! That is far, far more than I expected. I thought a box would give us maybe one or two bags. She plans to run through the rest of the box and bag them up to sell. I'm sure somebody will buy them; tomatoes are popular.

I'm really looking forward to experimenting. My original intent was to use the powder to punch up things like Xawaash chicken, or recipes that only call for a tablespoon or two of tomato paste. But then I got to thinking it'd be a good way to make tomato bread. Or mix a bit of tomato powder with basil, brush something with olive oil, dust that on top, and bake. The versatility makes this a great pantry staple. I decided to look up some recipes...

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Loch Ness Is About to Welcome a New Monster Not Seen There in 500 Years–the Beaver!

Beavers were last sighted in the area around Scotland’s most famous lake between 1526 and 1527. Now, literally 500 years later, these key ecosystem engineers will be reintroduced to the local environment.


Yay, beavers! :D 3q3q3q!!!

Romans Made Color-Changing Glass–and We’ve Just Replicated After 1,600 Years

It’s made of what’s called dichroic glass, and its party trick is changing color depending on which angle light is shone upon it. The goblet in question is known as the Lycurgus Cup, named for the king of the Thracians in Homer’s Iliad who insulted the god Dionysus.


Fascinating.

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400,000-year-old teeth reveal a stunning twist in human evolution

A groundbreaking discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution, revealing that an ancient human species once thought to be an evolutionary dead end may have left genetic traces in people alive today. By extracting proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth discovered in China, scientists uncovered evidence suggesting that these early humans interbred with Denisovans, another mysterious ancient human group. That genetic connection may have eventually reached modern populations in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
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Homo erectus is widely regarded as the first hominin to leave Africa; the evidence suggests this species had moved into Eurasia nearly two million years ago. It remains the most geographically widespread human ancestor that ever lived. The new study indicates that Homo erectus exchanged genes (probably through interbreeding) with Denisovans in East Asia roughly 400,000 years ago.


Multiple studies have found "ghost DNA" in humans, traces of ancestors that we haven't even identified, along with the now-known Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions. ("Wait, what was your name again?") When it comes to claiming that some human lineages "died out without descendants" ... I wouldn't bet on that. Humans like to fuck, and they've been fucking all over the family tree for the last few million years.