Behold, the Hubble Telescope’s latest close-up photo of Jupiter

left side of the image is Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot, an ongoing larger-than-Earth storm on the gas giant planet's surface. A smaller storm, dubbed “Red Spot Junior,” is visible farther south. Winds on the planet can reach up to 400 mph. “However, as with the last images of Jupiter taken by Hubble and telescopes on the ground, this new image confirms that the huge storm that has raged on Jupiter’s surface for at least 150 years continues to shrink,” the agencies said. “The reason for this is still unknown. So Hubble will continue to observe Jupiter in the hope that scientists will solve this stormy riddle.” The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit in 1990, and ever since its first photo — an underwhelming grainy, black-and-white image of some stars, thanks to a flaw in a primary mirror — it has gone on to deliver some truly dazzling images from space. Time magazine has a roundup of the 50 “best” photos taken by Hubble, though all are quite extraordinary in their own way, depending on one's interest in any particular corner of the universe. Photos of Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft; Perseid meteor shower; Kepler space telescope’s detection of possible new exoplanets; and more images from space. NASA has been developing a new telescope, the $8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, that will be able to see back in time, almost to the beginning of the universe. The Webb will be able to collect seven times the starlight as the Hubble and observe the universe in infrared wavelengths of light, which the Hubble can't, The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach reported in February. Eventually, the Webb telescope is expected to replace the Hubble, which “is still working fabulously but getting long in the tooth,” Achenbach wrote. Until then, the Hubble will continue capturing away. The photo released Thursday was part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program, according to NASA and the ESA. The program, which allows the telescope to study the outer planets each year, started in 2014 with Uranus and has been observing Jupiter and Neptune since 2015. In 2018, the Hubble will turn its focus to Saturn. Read more: Closing in on launch: NASA’s gold-mirrored, $8 billion Webb Space Telescope You can now spell ‘Earthling’ with a capital ‘E,’ and here’s why See the best images of Jupiter yet, just in time for NASA’s Juno probe


The weekend ahead in traffic and transit

The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade is one of several Washington events that will affect traffic this weekend. (File photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) A sunny spring weekend, two big parades, and several street festivals and sporting events will bring plenty of traffic this weekend. Here are the best options for getting around. The Capital Weather Gang predicts sunny skies and warming temperatures as the weekend progresses, with highs reaching into the upper 50s or lower 60s on Saturday and into the low 70s on Sunday. Sporting events: D.C. United plays Saturday at 4 p.m. at RFK Stadium. The Washington Wizards play at the Verizon Center at 7 p.m. Saturday, and the Washington Capitals play at Verizon at 7 p.m. Sunday. Metro On weekends, Metro is open 7 a.m. to midnight, and parking is free inMetro lots and garages. Red Line. Orange Line. Silver Line. Blue Line. Yellow Line. Green Line. National Cherry Blossom Festival parade If you’re not heading to the parade, you’ll want to stay away. This is one of Washington’s biggest events. It will draw big crowds, and streets will be closed in the area. Metro is your best bet. If you have parade tickets, the event website has helpful walking maps to guide you to your seats from the closest Metro station. Don’t have tickets? You can watch for free between 9th and 15th streets NW. To stand on the north side of Constitution Avenue, use the following Metro stations: Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter, Federal Triangle or Metro Center. To stand on the south side, use L’Enfant Plaza or Smithsonian. The DC Circulator’s National Mall route is another option, with the closest stop being along Madison Drive NW. The fare is $1, and buses run every 10 minutes. However, event organizers advise passengers to check the website (look under “Rider Tools”) for real-time updates, since buses will be affected by road closures and detours. The closest Capital Bikeshare stations for reaching the north side of Constitution are at 10th Street and Constitution Avenue NW or 14th and D streets NW. Those heading to the south side can use the station at 14th and Jefferson streets SW or at 12th and Jefferson streets SW. Emancipation Day parade The parade celebrating Emancipation Day also will be Saturday, starting one hour after the Cherry Blossom Festival parade ends. It will run along Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 9th and


Long before Brexit, geologic catastrophes split Britain from Europe

An illustration of what the land bridge connecting Britain to Europe may have looked like before the formation of the Dover Strait. (Chase Stone/Imperial College London via Reuters) Last week, Prime Minister Theresa May signed the letter that formalized Britain's separation from the European Union. But this will not be the first time that Britain dramatically parted ways with the European mainland. A study published this week in the journal Nature Communications described an even more cataclysmic exit: geologic destruction, in two acts, that severed the British island from Europe. During an ice age some 450,000 years ago, a land bridge linked Britain to the mainland. Frigid temperatures had trapped large amounts of water in polar ice, and ocean levels fell to levels hundreds of feet lower than they are currently. At the time, a giant ridge of chalk — made of layers of pulverized shells of long-dead algae — connected the southern corner of Britain to northwestern France. “We had the rock ridge standing proud,” study author Jenny Collier, a marine geophysicist at Imperial College London, told The Washington Post. It towered hundreds of feet above the low ocean that curled around Britain. The bridge also acted as a dam, holding back a lake of melted glacial water. But the dam didn't last. Today, only the very edges of the ridge are visible as majestic bluffs, including the White Cliffs of Dover. Geologists didn't know whether the dam dissolved slowly, as a result of gradual erosion, or all at once. According to the new findings, two swift cataclysms did the dam in. First, several huge waterfalls cascaded over the bridge, weakening the rock structure. Then, about 200,000 years later, a megaflood blasted through the breach, completely severing Britain from the continent. Scientists had hypothesized about the existence of ancient and destructive waterfalls, but evidence was limited. “It had been proposed in the mid-'80s,” Collier said. “But it dropped out of view and no one took it very seriously.” About 450,000 years before Brexit, Britain physically split from Europe when two-stage megaflooding collapsed the famous White Cliffs of Dover to create the Dover Strait. Now, scientists have visualized the collapse, what they've dubbed "Brexit 1.0." The authors of the new study pointed to a key piece of evidence favoring the waterfalls: a row of massive holes in the bedrock below the English Channel, just to the side of where the


First Marines punished for online conduct following nude-photo scandal

that has flourished on numerous social media pages in recent years. News reports in 2013 and 2014 brought the issues to light, but it wasn’t until last month that the branch’s leadership decided to take action — after a Marine-turned-journalist exposed a Facebook page where Marines were sharing illicit photos of women without their permission. In the weeks since, the top-ranking officer in the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert B. Neller, has testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers tore into Neller for what they considered a long-standing record of inaction on the issue. “Have you actually investigated and found guilty anybody?” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked. “If we can’t crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyberhacking throughout our military?” On Wednesday, two female Marines spoke about the photo scandal to lawmakers in the Democratic Women’s Working Group. Erika Butner, a Marine who left active duty recently, told the group that female recruits are taught from the beginning to accept an overtly sexist culture and that those involved in the photo-sharing scandal need to be publicly punished. “I’m not blaming the drill instructors,” she said. “They were preparing us to have thick skin because it is so ingrained in this culture that they don’t know how to change it, so they go with the grain.” No Marine officials attended Wednesday’s meeting, drawing ire from some of the lawmakers present, including Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif). Last month Speier, as well as others in the House, introduced a bill that would amend the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice to allow for harsher punishments for service members caught distributing private sexual images. Since news of the scandal broke, Marine officials have created a task force to understand and combat the service’s cultural issues. They also have implemented a new social media policy that Marines have to read and sign. In recent weeks, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has identified hundreds of names potentially associated with sharing the illicit photos and has set up a tip line for those affected to come forward. In March, Neller said that more than 20 people had reported some sort of online harassment associated with photo sharing. Read more: After historic graduation, Army removes all restrictions on women attending Ranger School Ranger School officer combats rumors about how women passed in pointed Facebook post


Bipartisan anti-corruption bill is Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik via European Pressphoto Agency) On Thursday, Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced the Combating Global Corruption Act of 2017, which, according to their press release, “would make fighting international corruption an American national security priority, encourage greater transparency in U.S. foreign and security assistance, and publicize anti-corruption efforts and results worldwide.” The CGC Act would require the State Department to disseminate a report that “summarizes the extent of corruption in countries worldwide and assigns tiered classifications based on certain minimum standards of governmental efforts to combat corruption.” If a country falls into the bottom tier (“making de minimis or no efforts to comply with the minimum standards” to prevent corruption), a number of measures would be at the U.S. government’s disposal, including “conducting corruption risk assessments, creating corruption mitigation strategies, use of anti-corruption clauses in assistance contracts, inclusion of claw-back provisions in assistance contracts, establishing investigative mechanisms for allegations of misappropriated assistance, and implementation of democracy and governance programs that include anti-corruption components.” The bill is very much in keeping with our support for, in essence, an “economic Magnitsky Act” modeled on the original Magnitsky Act, which seeks to identify and sanction individuals who commit human rights atrocities. Our preference would be to freeze assets and prevent government kleptocrats from accessing U.S. financial systems. “First, it publicizes the information and will be used by domestic critics of these regimes,” explains former ambassador Eric Edelman. “Second, in some cases governments will actually try to clean up their act in order to raise their standing among the tiers for both domestic and international relations reasons.” If not specifically aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s corrupt regime, the CGC Act nevertheless would provide a valuable tool for exposing, shaming and thereby undermining Putin. He would be exposed, along with his plutocratic pals, as a thief robbing his country blind and directly responsible for the misery of the Russian people. In remarks on Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cardin noted the unusual problem the Trump administration faces in standing up to corrupt regimes, given that “the president of the United States can profit from being president of the United States, his business interests.” He explained, “That makes it very difficult to be


Jupiter will be closest to Earth and brightest in the sky Friday and Saturday

The Hubble Space Telescope observed Jupiter on April 3, 2017. Arguably, Jupiter is always brilliant in the sky. It’s the biggest, brightest spot we can see on a clear night. Friday and Saturday, Jupiter will be the closest it gets to Earth. If you’re out at night, there’s no way you could miss it. To find it, look to the southeast after sunset. Friday evening, the king of the planets (at least in this particular solar system) officially reaches opposition — from our blue planet perspective, Jupiter is directly opposite the sun and we’re in the middle. Think full moon, but Jupiter. The bright, gaseous planet (-2.5 magnitude) rises at sunset and sets with the following morning’s sunrise, explained Geoff Chester, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory. “Jupiter is at his best and brightest, as well as at his closest distance to us,” Chester wrote. “As bright as he is, he’s still an awfully long way from us, over distant, at his closest approach.” The luminous giant saunters into the night heavens amid the Virgo constellation, ascending in the east around 7:30 p.m., and becoming visible over the trees around 8 p.m. The planet sinks below the horizon Saturday in the west at 6:59 a.m. Don’t fear looking for it, since Jupiter is easy to spot with your naked eye. The planet is joined by cosmic comrade Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo and the 16th-brightest star in the sky. In the evenings, Spica is below Jupiter. But the pair travel south then west daily, and Spica will be to Jupiter’s left before dawn. The nearly full moon is close to Jupiter on Monday. The next day, the official full moon remains relatively close to Jupiter. By next Friday, the planet rises at 6:56 p.m. and sets the following day around 6:30 a.m., according to the Naval Observatory. On April 21, the planet rises at 6:24 p.m. and sets around 6 a.m. the next day. It takes this big planetary lug — the fifth planet from the sun, filled with hydrogen and helium — about 12 Earth years to orbit the sun, according to NASA. In fact, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope will use this favorable viewing opportunity to mint new planetary portraits and add fresh detail. Jupiter’s portraits can be enlightening: Hubble’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer captured a rare triple eclipse, featuring three of Jupiter’s


There’s an ‘Earth-like’ planet with an atmosphere just 39 light-years away

of the planet constantly facing the star, while the other is cast in permanent shadow. GJ 1132b would not make a cozy home for life — at least, not life as we know it. But the presence of an atmosphere around the exoplanet could have consequences in the search for life on worlds beyond our own, according to lead author John Southworth, an astrophysicist at Keele University in the United Kingdom. Red dwarfs like the one GJ 1132b orbits are the most abundant type of star in the universe, and exoplanet surveys suggest that terrestrial planets around them are also common. If one of them has an atmosphere, then why not more? “It shows that the huge number of planets in the universe which are like this could have atmospheres themselves and maybe life,” Astronomers found a new solar system just 39 light years from ours, full of Earthlike planets. Here’s what you should know about the TRAPPIST-1 system. GJ 1132b was detected in 2015 using the transiting method for exoplanet discovery. Astronomers at a telescope in Chile monitored the light emanating from the planet's host star, GJ 1132, for tiny dips caused by the planet passing in front of it. Their observations revealed that GJ 1132 dims by 3 percent once every 1.6 days — showing how frequently the planet orbits the star. When GJ 1132b's discovery was announced, Southworth had developed a technique for modifying the transiting method to determine whether a thin envelope of gas might surround a passing planet by separating the star's light into its component parts. He and his colleagues angled their telescope, an instrument with a 2.2-meter-wide mirror located in the high desert of Chile. They found that light in what's known as the “z-band” — a range of wavelengths in the near-infrared end of the spectrum — dimmed just slightly more than other wavelengths. This is the type of light that was being absorbed by the planet's atmosphere, while all the others passed through. More detailed observations will be required to determine what the atmosphere is made of. Southworth suggested that the absorption of near-infrared light suggests it could be rich in water vapor or methane. Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told the BBC that Southworth's paper “is a nice proof of concept.” “If the technology can detect an atmosphere today, then it bodes well for being


Ruby Tuesday seeks salvation at the salad bar

The revamped salad bar, or “Garden Bar,” at Ruby Tuesday. (Courtesy of Ruby Tuesday) Ruby Tuesday is hungry to get diners to come back to its restaurants. The casual dining behemoth has been grappling with sagging sales and waning foot traffic for more than two years, and an earnings report on Thursday only continued that bleak pattern: The company said sales sank 4 percent at its restaurants open more than a year. And so the chain is seeking salvation — at the salad bar. While restaurants such as Wendy’s ditched their salad bar years ago, Ruby Tuesday has stuck with the concept. And it is now betting that it can be an anchor of a turnaround for a restaurant that’s been battered by new competition and outmaneuvered by one of its oldest rivals. As of January, all 607 of Ruby Tuesday’s locations were outfitted with a revamped “Garden Bar,” the hipper-sounding name the chain has long used for its make-your-own salad station. The restaurant has spent months working on an overhaul of the offering, taking it from 36 items to 58 and adding trendier ingredients such as kale and edamame. This may not sound like a radical shift, but it’s clear that Ruby Tuesday is thinking of it that way. On a Thursday call with investors, director F. Lane Cardwell Jr. called the salad bar revamp the “biggest change we’ve made to our brand in the last decade.” At a conference in January, David Skena, the company’s chief marketing officer, said, “we’re essentially a hot new salad concept with a full menu on the side.” The chain is pulling out all the stops to try make this work, launching a marketing blitz that includes national TV advertising. In particular, it is hoping to attract women and families — groups it says it needs to do better with if it is to stage a comeback. On paper, staking its bets on the Garden Bar is an entirely logical strategy. For starters, people increasingly associate freshness as being synonymous with healthfulness. The salad dressings are house-made, another characteristic that many consumers now take as a cue that what they’re eating is good for them. Plus, a salad bar meal is customizable, and you don’t have to look far across the restaurant industry to see how attractive that idea is these days: Sweetgreen, Roti, Cava Grill, Blaze Pizza — all of these buzzy


American runners reportedly denied visas ahead of Iran’s first marathon

runners did, about 300 from 42 different countries, including some with dual [Iranian and] U.S. and U.K. nationality.” Iranian government officials did not immediately return The Post’s request to comment. The AP identified at least one Iranian-American who ran the race on Friday, which was won by Iranian Olympian Mohammad Jafar Moradi. Amir Arasta, a chiropractor based just outside of Washington, D.C., told the AP he was “disappointed” U.S. runners without dual citizenship couldn’t participate, but called the race “a dream” for himself. “I always thought this would be the best route, from Azadi Sports Complex to Azadi Square,” he said, describing the 26-mile course that wove its way through the center of the city. “When I heard it would be happening I was very happy.” It was the route that had Barkowski excited to participate, as well, although he expressed reservations about earlier assertions from Iranian government officials that the marathon’s female entrants would be segregated and have to run indoors due to restrictive laws in the country that pertain to women, including that they compete not just separately from men, but in a space where men can’t even see them. “I thought what a shame that they were not going to be able to participate on the same streets [as the men],” he said. On Friday, however, race organizers received permission to allow women participating in the event to run outside, although they were instructed to still cover their bodies head-to-toe, save for their faces as Iranian law requires. China’s Wu Juan completed the marathon alongside men despite an earlier order this week that she and other women run the race apart from men indoors. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP) Despite the race’s faults, Barkowski on Friday remained adamant that he wanted to run in Iran if ever allowed back in. He recalled his past trip to the country fondly, noting that most of the people he met there were friendly toward him. “Many of the people I met there love Americans,” he said of his 2013 trip. “Every time someone heard my American accent, they wanted a picture.” He said the only time he felt any hostility was at the airport when he was going through customs. “The passport people and police were the only ones that gave me some weird looks,” Barkowski said, chalking it up to “a government thing.” “Who knows what a year will bring,” he added.


A handful of women ignored Iranian orders by running Tehran marathon outdoors alongside men

to uphold strict wardrobe rules during the run. This required them to cover their bodies save for their faces, hands and feet. Men, meanwhile, wore standard running gear, including shorts and tank tops. The order that women run the marathon apart from men came down this week from the head of Iran’s track and field federation, Majid Keyhani, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. “Personally I do not agree with that,” Straten told the AP at the time, noting “We are trying to find other ways to make step[s] for female running in Iran.” While Iranian women continue to fight for more equal rights to participate and watch sporting events in the country, Iran largely still sticks closely to its post-revolution traditions, especially regarding its wardrobe rules. In February, the country’s chess federation kicked teenage chess prodigy Dorsa Derakhshani off the national team for competing without a hijab at the Gibraltar Chess Festival. “Unfortunately, what shouldn’t have happened has happened,” Pahlevanzadeh told Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency at the time (via Radio Free Europe). “Our national interests have priority over everything.” That reputation may be why the marathon failed to attract as many women as men. According to the AP, of the 600 Iranian runners who registered for the race, only 156 were women. Meanwhile, the AP reports “at least 160 foreign runners” had also agreed to participate, including 50 women. However, because of problems regarding the procurement of visas for Americans, as well as some other nationalities, several of those runners could not gain access to the country to participate in the race. This is the second race Straten has organized, but the first one in which women could officially participate. He organized a race in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz last April that he considered a success. While that race banned women altogether, two female runners decided to run anyway in protest. Masoumeh Torabi and Elham Manoocheri both appear to have avoided arrest for their participation. They also earned accolades from Straten at the time. Two women run unofficially on the sideline of the marathon "I run Iran" https://t.co/MoDcXDCQdG “Both have shown and proven that Iranian women can run in Iran,” he told Runners World last year. “We hope many Iranian women will follow in their footsteps in next editions!” The rise of the female Muslim athlete: Part 1: Sarah Attar: Part 2: Part 3 Part 4:


A new beer from Atlas Brew Works, DC Brau and REI supports local bike trails

(Courtesy of REI) The Capital Trail Coalition, an ambitious plan to connect more than 360 miles of local hiking and biking trails across the region, has a $500,000 funding grant from outdoor retailer REI. And now it's going to get support from a more unlikely source: Its own beer. Rally Cry Session IPA, brewed and canned at Atlas Brew Works, will be released Sunday at REI's Uline flagship store, as well as stores and bars across the area. All proceeds will be donated to the Capital Trails Coalition through the Washington Area Bike Association, Atlas founder and CEO Justin Cox said in an email. “Since the Capital Trails Coalition is all about outdoor activity, we decided to brew a style that would be a great, refreshing finish to a nice long bike ride, and thus the Session IPA was formed,” Cox said. To keep costs down and raise more money for the project, the beer uses Falconers Flight and Cascade hops donated by DC Brau, Synergy Pilsen malt donated by Breiss, and cans donated by Can Source. The Rally Cry launch party, which runs from 3 to 6 p.m., features indoor bike races, bike clinics and demonstrations, live music and, more importantly, two free Rally Crys per person. There's a second party Tuesday at the nearby Wunder Garten, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Six Atlas beers, including Rally Cry, will be on tap, and there will be music and food trucks. “We thought it'd be an awesome opportunity to bring some attention to that project and mission while at the same time providing attendees with a special beer,” Cox said. Rally Cry, which should sell for around $10 to $11, will be sold at selected Yes! Organic Markets, Glen's Garden Markets, and Union Kitchen Grocery stores, and at bars including DC Reynolds and Wonderland Ballroom. A full list of retailers is available on the Atlas Brew Works site. READ MORE - The secret to building the perfect draft beer list These exemplary craft beer bars keep their menus short and sweet How is D.C.'s swankiest beer festival combating declining attendance? With more beer.


The Seder’s Just the Start

cutting edge in terms of food – – just convenience,” according to Menachem Lubinsky, a kosher-food expert who is editor of Kosher Today, a weekly online journal. Examples of this year’s selections are lines of low-carb cheeses and grape juice, and gluten-free pastas. From an industry point of view, “Passover is almost a seven-week holiday,” he says, counting the time from when Passover products are shipped through their turn on store shelves. Thirty years ago, kosher-for-Passover provisions were rare in Dallas, where I live. Back then, I visited my best friend, Jill, in Washington just before the holiday. She took me to Katz’s (now called Koshermart) in Rockville. I flew home with a kosher turkey, two soup chickens and some chocolate-covered matzohs in a borrowed suitcase. It’s a good thing security was different in those days; I’d never get out of Reagan National Airport today with a 17-pound frozen mass in my luggage. And it’s a far cry from the late 1940s, when the only products Manischewitz was offering were matzohs and their byproducts, meal and cake meal. It was not until 1954, when that company opened a factory in New Jersey to produce soups and other goods for Passover, that American cooks had any options. Now the company that produces Manischewitz, Horowitz-Margareten and Goodman’s sells nine varieties of flavored matzohs. Today, Manischewitz has about 60 percent of the U.S. matzoh market, while Streit’s accounts for 25 percent. The rest “is everybody else,” according to Lubinsky. That group includes a growing share of Israeli-made matzohs, often priced quite competitively. Passover is supposed to remind Jews of the sacrifices their ancestors had to make, wandering for 40 years in search of the promised land. Ironically, many cooks who don’t spend more than five hours a year making chocolate chip cookies will spend hours wandering the supermarket aisles, trying to decide how many Passover coffeecake or blueberry muffin mixes they will need to buy for their families. To me, Jewish cooks have become preoccupied with creating non- leavened cakes that mimic the leavened kinds rather than thinking about why we are forbidden the leavened ones. There is even kosher-for-Passover baking powder, present in most Passover baking mixes. I have asked rabbis in New York, Philadelphia and Dallas why this is allowed, and they say it is because it is a chemical, it doesn’t ferment, and potato starch – not cornstarch – is


The greatest hits of your dinosaur dating profiles

are some of your best submissions, lightly edited for spelling and space. We'd swipe right on all of them. Pachycephalosaurus #Vegan chick looking for a guy who knows how to use his head. #WestCoastGirl — Isabelle Fest Ankylosaurus Rugged herbivore seeks same for long walks and clubbing things. Looks unimportant — hope they are to you, too. — Susan Petrone Apatosaurus Big girl with a big heart seeks another gentle giant. I went through a pretty bad identity crisis, always trying to conform to what other people thought I should be, but I’m done with all that. I’ve changed my name and I’m ready to start fresh. I’m a professional landscaper and I love slow plodding walks on the beach. Please, vegetarians only. — Stella Garp (Note: Years after scientists concluded that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were the same animal and that only the former name was accurate, it appears that Brontosaurus may be its own distinct group after all. Hope this doesn't spark another identity crisis.) Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Looking for a swim buddy? I may have fairly short legs but that does not stop me from taking long walks on the beach. I'm not cold-blooded, only misunderstood. Looking for someone who has a nice sail and also short legs, around 50 feet long if that matters to you. — Roy Yoos Pachycephalosaurus Starting linebacker, Hell Creek Ornithopods. Highly competitive. Prefer charging to cash. My friends tell me I'm hard-headed, but they don't know what they're talking about. — Not Jack Horner Brachiosaurus Sauropod. Coloradan. Vegetarian, but you wouldn't know it by looking at my guns — they'll call me “arm lizard” in a few million years. Swipe left if under 30' tall. I do move in herds, if you're into that. — Pat Curran Triceratops horridus Looking for an impressive frill display? I'm your guy! You can find me eating or fighting Tyrannosaurs. Likes: Food, my herd, food, more food. Dislikes: T. rex, stuff that isn't food, the size of my brain, apocalypses. — Anonymous Do you know an extinct species in need of someone special? Send us your best dinosaur dating profiles. Read more: Behold, the Hubble Telescope's latest close-up photo of Jupiter Long before Brexit, geologic catastrophes split Britain from Europe Are the world's most stunning shells too beautiful for their own good? What does a black hole look like? Astronomers are on a quest to find out.


Softball Top 10: Two years later, Northern Virginia still plays for 24

The hashtag first appeared in the spring of 2015. First at Broad Run, then across the rest of Loudoun County, and soon all over Northern Virginia, softball players declared #WePlayFor24. It’s been two years since Spartans second baseman Madison Small passed away, but her memory hasn’t faded from the minds of those in the sport’s tightknit local community. Over the weekend, from Ashburn to the college ranks, players celebrated her life with their own personal tributes. Thanks for being the best team captain out there! Not one day goes by where you don't cross my mind 🎀🎀#WePlayFor24 https://t.co/m8PB8PYkdi On the anniversary of her death this past Friday, Small’s former team gathered at second base. One by one, players shared stories and memories before releasing a balloon into the sky. As freshmen or sophomores, nine players on Broad Run’s current roster played with Small before she died of an infection related to meningitis bacteria on April 7, 2015. “She’s somebody you looked up to, and she was nice to everybody. That’s why everybody is still together talking about her,” said senior catcher Grace Mattimore, an Army commit who draws the number 24 in the dirt before each at bat. “She had a unique relationship with everyone, and that’s why each of us honor her in our own special way.” At the University of Minnesota over the weekend, former McLean All-Met and current Indiana freshman Bella Norton continued her pregame tradition of writing “24” on the tape around her wrists. Indiana freshman catcher Bella Norton writes the number 24 on the tape on her wrist before each game (Photo courtesy of Indiana University athletics). In the face of a hectic schedule, Norton uses the number as an important reminder. “In college softball, there’s so much adversity and failure. It’s nonstop and just a really stressful situation, so sometimes it makes you dislike the game,” Norton said. “When I’m starting to feel like that or have a slump, I look at my wrist. I remember that I’m playing the sport I love. I think, ‘This girl always smiled.’ It’s a reminder to smile and have fun.” University of Connecticut freshman and former Stone Bridge All-Met Olivia Sappington never takes off her #WePlayFor24 bracelet. At the University of Houston over the weekend, she continued to play for Small. 2 years too long...love & miss you always Madz 💗 #Weplayfor24 “Wearing that bracelet is a


The quest to capture and store carbon – and slow climate change — just reached a new milestone

Rows of corn wait to be harvested in a field in Minooka, Illinois, September 24, 2014. (REUTERS/Jim Young) A new large-scale technology has launched in Decatur, Illinois that, by combining together corn-based fuels with the burial of carbon dioxide deep underground, could potentially result in the active removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It’s an objective described as crucial by scientists hoping to control the planet’s warming. The facility operated by ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland, dubbed the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture Project, arrives at a time of uncertainty for the U.S. and global biofuels industry. It faces growing competition from electric vehicles, and continuing struggles to move beyond so-called “first generation” feedstocks like corn, which can create conflicts with food supplies. Some critics have also questioned the technology — dubbed “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage,” or BECCS — that marries together plants that pull carbon from the air as they grow, and industrial applications that process or consume those plants to generate energy, but also capture some of the resulting carbon and stow it within the Earth. The ADM plant could still be quite significant from a global climate perspective. Computer models that seek to chart our planet’s energy and climate future have leaned heavily on BECCS as a way to power future transportation and electricity systems while nonetheless keeping the planet’s warming below the dangerous level of 2 degrees Celsius. “This is the first large scale project in the world on biofuels, and it takes us down the road towards negative emissions, which is the exciting part,” said Jeff Erikson, director of the Global CCS Institute. (The other key BECCS idea — power plants that burn wood for electricity and then capture the emissions — does not exist at a large scale, Erikson said.) Yet the climate benefits of driving cars with corn-based ethanol instead of fossil fuels remain contested — even in combination with the CCS technology. “Because CCS benefits are independent, it should not be selectively used to dress up the benefits of one carbon emitting fuel versus another,” said Timothy Searchinger, a critic of biofuels with the World Resources Institute, in a statement. “Coal, gasoline, natural gas and bioenergy are precisely as good or as bad relative to each other as they are regardless of CCS.” The march towards launch of the Illinois project has been a remarkably quiet one thus far. The


This is why you’re seeing so much beef jerky lately

fewer sit down meals, which has led them to look for “snacks that pack a nutritional punch” said David Walsh, vice president of communications and membership for SNAC, an international trade association for the snack industry. There has also been a dietary trend away from carbohydrates and toward protein, which may lead some consumers to eat fewer chips and more meats, particularly meat snacks. “Meat snacks have benefited from the increasing prevalence of Americans trying to eat more protein as part of a healthful diet,” said Jordan Rost, vice president of consumer insights at Nielsen, in an email. The market for them is growing even as meat departments in grocery stores are lagging, according to Food Navigator, which reported that sales in grocery meat departments declined 2.5 percent last year. That decline was due to deflationary pressures that have brought down the cost of meat, said Rost. Many newer, upscale brands have eschewed the hypermasculine marketing that brands like Slim Jim once favored. They’re more likely to highlight the fact that their meat is grass-fed, and their products are gluten-free and Paleo diet friendly. Consumer research firm Mintel found that nearly three-fourths of consumers crave healthier salty snack options, and that 79 percent want to be able to recognize a snack’s ingredient list, according to trade publication Convenience Store Decisions. That’s why you may be seeing more and more of brands like Naked Cow, whose motto is “Just Beef Jerky — No ‘Udder’ Stuff”; Chomps, which touts its Whole 30 approval; and Epic Provisions, which puts the number of grams of protein in each of its bars in huge font, along with “100 percent grass-fed.” Many products are geared toward Millennials, especially those doing CrossFit, a demographic to whom some brands, like Wild Zora, market directly. That move is in line with overall snacking trends. “Things like organic, natural snacks, clean label, are growing as a whole,” Walsh said. Big brands are catching on, too. ConAgra, which owns Slim Jim, recently purchased Duke’s, a maker of snack sausages with folksy branding that emphasizes whole ingredients. In 2015, Hershey purchased Krave, a brand making meat sticks with ingredients that sound like a gourmet meal: spicy red pepper pork with black beans, or sesame garlic beef with sweet potato. But could meat snacks beat the chip industry? It’s not likely to happen soon. While the market for meat snacks is growing at


Evening links: Federal judge approves consent decree for Baltimore

- Federal judge approves consent decree for Baltimore Police Department, over the strong objections of Attorney General Jeff Session and the Justice Department. - Arkansas plans to execute seven men in 11 days, beginning next week. Here’s a look at the state’s ugly history of executions. - Texas college student commits suicide after inherently unfair Title IX hearings. - Passenger forcibly removed from United flight by Chicago police in order to make room for United staff flying standby. The Chicago PD report of the incident also doesn’t quite fit the video. - The Treasury Department has a “financial no-fly” list that essential bars people from banking, and it’s just as opaque as the actual no-fly list. - Three Sacramento-area men recently died at the hands of the police. But it’s hard to say exactly how they died, because the county’s coroner won’t release reports on their deaths. - New Mexico has outlawed “school lunch” shaming, in which school officials humiliate kids whose parents owe the school lunch money. Apparently this needed to be outlawed, and still exists in many states. - Lawyers for a Virginia man set to be executed in two weeks have filed an clemency petition on his behalf that claims there is evidence of his innocence. - Body camera captures violent encounter between cop and teenager, but state law says the video must remain secret. - In Wisconsin, selling homemade baked goods could land you in jail.


Doctors once treated alcoholism with heroin. Now, they want to treat heroin addiction with marijuana.

well-meaning philanthropic organization known as the Saint James Society actually “started a campaign to provide free samples of heroin to any morphine addict who wanted to take the cure.” Meanwhile, other physicians — most famously Sigmund Freud — touted yet another new wonder drug that would supposedly cure addiction to morphine, alcohol, heroin and tobacco, too. It was cocaine, which claimed new victims of addiction, including William Halsted, a medical doctor, the founder of modern surgical practice. In each case, initial enthusiasm for the “miracle treatment” waned when the new drug more often compounded than relieved the problems of addicted patients. Like an invasive species introduced intentionally into an environment to combat other invasive species, each new cure eventually became a problem in itself. What accounts for these cycles of enthusiasm and disappointment? Historian David Courtwright of the University of North Florida emphasizes that medicine is surprisingly prone to fads. “Physicians like new drugs. When one becomes available it often gets overused. In the 1970s, for example, physicians prescribed Valium for a wide range of conditions, from anxiety to insomnia to muscle spasms. Quite a few patients became dependent.” Not incidentally, Valium was a benzodiazepine, a class of drugs that had been marketed as safer alternatives to barbiturates, a previous wonder drug that also proved to be addictive and dangerous. The experience of patients also plays a role in persuading people that a drug is a miracle cure. Because using addictive drugs feels good in the short term (that’s why they are addictive), it can seem to patients with an enormous range of illnesses that addictive drugs are making their illness better. In some cases this is true: A certain extract of marijuana appears to reduce epileptic seizures, for example (prior Wonkblog coverage here). But in other cases the underlying condition is as bad as ever and the positive feelings that the patient is interpreting as successful treatment are really just the psychoactive reinforcement of the addictive drug. Fortunately for people facing the potentially deadly disorder of heroin addiction, there is no need to rely on marijuana or any other unproven treatment. Multiple, well-researched FDA-approved medications are available, as are psychological therapies and mutual support groups that can produce additional benefits for heroin-addicted patients. The federal government operates a 24-hour-a-day helpline that can help addicted individuals access these lifesaving services. Keith Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University


14 dishes you need to try before you can call yourself a D.C. foodie

cooked sous vide and fried to order with a crust made from bread crumbs, the result is perfection. (Pro tip: Get it by the bucket with sides on Caviar.) 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The Margherita pizza at 2 Amys. (Michael Williamson/The Washington Post) Margherita pizza at 2 Amys This Northwest spot prides itself on the fact that it was the first D.O.C.-certified pizzeria in the area. D.O.C. (denominazione di origine controllata) means this pie meets standards developed by the Italian government for authentic Neapolitan pizza. In other words, this pie is at the heart of the 2 Amys ethos. What does that translate to on the plate? Buffalo mozzarella cheese, Italian plum tomatoes, basil and a characteristically blistered crust thanks to the wood-burning oven. 3715 Macomb St. NW. Astro's creme brulee doughnut. (Nathaniel Grann/The Washington Post) Creme brulee doughnut at Astro Doughnuts Fried Chicken The doughnut inspired by the timeless French dessert has become synonymous with this local shop. It was declared the best doughnut in Washington as winner of The Post's Doughnut Wars, so no wonder the treat is one of four permanent flavors on the menu. Sink your teeth into its layers of flavors and textures, from a crackling torched sugar top to the fluffy dough and silken vanilla custard filling. 1308 G St. NW; 7511 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church. Pupusas at La Casita filled with cheese, spinach and cheese, squash and cheese and diced beef and cheese. (Julie Wan for The Washington Post) Pupusas at La Casita The influx of Salvadoran immigrants has helped make the pupusa one of the Washington area's most iconic dishes. With a crisp masa (corn) shell and oozing cheese-filled center, these pockets are impossible to resist, especially at La Casita. Tim Carman, pupusa aficionado and The Post's $20 Diner, says that “if any place comes close to the archetypal pupusa, it's this ambitious operation in Silver Spring.” The restaurant's pupusa menu has a variety of fillings, including shredded squash, pulled chicken and diced beef. 8214 Piney Branch, Silver Spring; 18058 Mateny Rd., Germantown. A vanilla vanilla cupcake from Baked & Wired. (James M. Thresher for The Washington Post) Cupcakes from Baked Wired Sure, its rival Georgetown Cupcakes gets a lot of attention, but this more chill (read: shorter lines) bakery is a cupcake powerhouse, too. Wrapped in parchment paper, Baked & Wired's “cakecups” have a rustic, homemade look. But make no mistake,


Watch a baby orangutan cross a rope line at the National Zoo

A 6-month-old orangutan named Redd clings to his mom as she crosses a cable line at the National Zoo in D.C. (Courtesy of Roshan Patel/Smithsonian’s National Zoo) A video shows a 6-month-old orangutan looking a bit apprehensive as he clutches the neck and shoulders of his mother while she crosses a 50-foot-high suspension cable at the National Zoo. The short video clip from the zoo shows Redd, the baby orangutan, being carried across a cable known as the O-line. The April 4 climbing outing marked the first such trip for the baby, zoo officials said. The Smithsonian National Zoo’s youngest Bornean orangutan took his first trip across a 50-foot-high suspended cable as he clung to his mother on April 4. The video shows his mother crossing gingerly, reaching with her long arms and legs as she balances the little one on her neck and shoulders. The suspended cable line, zoo officials said, allows the orangutans “the choice and freedom to move between their yards” at the Great Ape House and an area known as the Think Tank. The mother, Batang, is a regular on traveling the O-line, and zoo officials said she used it often before giving birth. In a statement, zoo officials said “Batang’s comfort with carrying Redd increased” over the last few months. She regularly climbs to the top rungs of her indoor area at the Great Ape House. The National Zoo’s baby orangutan Redd. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo) “Based on Batang’s maternal behaviors and Redd’s developing motor skills, primate animal care staff were confident Batang was prepared to have access to the O-line,” zoo officials said. The pair has now made several “successful trips” between the two areas at the zoo. For those who want to see a crossing, officials said the orangutans usually are able to do so from late morning to early afternoon, depending on the weather. Orangutans live in small, flexible groups at the zoo, similarly to how they would live in the wild, zoo officials said. Zoo keepers said Redd is meeting all his big milestones, including gaining weight, developing some new teeth and getting to know the other orangutans at the zoo. Redd, the National Zoo’s baby orangutan, clings to his mom. (Courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Zoo) Redd was born in September. His birth marked the first time in 25 years that a male Bornean orangutan was born at the


Mixed relays? Swimming’s governing body suggests adding events for 2020 Olympics.

If the IOC adds a new women’s distance event, Katie Ledecky will likely win it. (Al Bello/Getty Images) Swimming’s international governing body wants to add 10 events to the schedule for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The proposal includes 50-meter races in the butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke; a men’s 800 freestyle; a women’s 1,500 freestyle; and perhaps most intriguing, two mixed-gender relays, a 4×100 freestyle and a 4×100 medley. FINA proposed the new events last week at the SportAccord Convention in Lausanne, Switzerland, and according to Inside the Games, the organization based its proposal on the schedule that’s been in place since the 2015 world championships, when mixed-gender relays were introduced. If added to the Olympic program, the new events would likely lead to more medals for the U.S. team. The women’s 1,500, for example, would almost surely give Katie Ledecky another gold medal. Her world record in the event broke the previous one by 13.4 seconds, and she won gold at worlds at that distance in 2013 and 2015. Having already won a record 28 medals at four Olympics, Michael Phelps likely could have added two more had been able to compete in both the mixed-gender relays. Phelps, now retired, played a major role in the men’s 4×100 freestyle and medley relays in the past four Olympics. Of course, that’s assuming Phelps would have had time. According to his former coach, Bob Bowman, who also coached the U.S. men’s team at the Rio Games, the International Olympic Committee would have to allow expanded rosters to accommodate an expanded schedule. Without that, he told Swimming World on Monday, “it is highly unlikely” the events will be added. “I have concerns about adding relay events and also adding individual events while keeping the roster sizes the same,” he said. “The IOC has been insistent on keeping participant numbers at the same level. It doesn’t make sense to add relay events in this dynamic.” He added that if the IOC is considering extra events for the 2020 program, it would be smart to add only individual events, prioritizing “the men’s 800 and women’s 1,500, then the 50s of strokes, and finally the mixed relays.” USA Swimming national team Director Frank Busch seconded Bowman’s opinion regarding the two distance races. “I am sure that the 50s would add a level of excitement to the swimming competition, but swimming is already the most successful


Feds halt cyanide traps in Idaho after one harms a child and kills a dog

Canyon Mansfield, 14, holds the collar of his dog, Casey. The dog was killed March 16 by a cyanide-ejecting device that federal workers placed on public land near Mansfield’s Pocatello, Idaho, home. The USDA’s wildlife services uses the devices to kill coyotes. (Jordon Beesley/Idaho State Journal via AP) A 14-year-old boy and his dog were walking last month on a hill near their home in Pocatello, Idaho, when they came across something in the ground that looked like a sprinkler head. But when the boy touched it, it exploded and spewed powder that sickened him and poisoned his dog to death. The object was one of the M-44 cyanide traps that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has long used to kill predators that threaten livestock — and the damage it had done to Canyon Mansfield and his Labrador retriever, Casey, quickly fueled outrage over the devices’ use on public lands. On Monday, the controversy led the USDA agency that places the traps, Wildlife Services, to announce a moratorium on their use in Idaho. In a letter to conservation groups, Jason Suckow, Wildlife Services’ Western regional director, said the agency had “ceased all use of” and removed the devices from all private, state and federal land in Idaho. He added that Wildlife Services would provide organizations 30 days’ notice before resuming use of the devices in the state. The announcement came two weeks after 19 conservation groups filed a petition seeking the cyanide traps’ ban in Idaho. The petition said that the device that Mansfield found was planted on federal land within one-quarter mile of three homes, and it noted that Casey wasn’t the first dog killed by an M-44 — and not even the first this year. Two dogs were killed by a cyanide trap in Wyoming earlier in March, according to news reports and the petition. USDA records also show that the bombs have unintentionally killed more than 200 feral dogs since 2008, as well as 22 pets and livestock animals since 2013. Opponents say those deaths and Mansfield’s close call provide a graphic illustration of the indiscriminate nature of M-44 traps. The bombs have killed more than 100,000 coyotes — their primary target — since 2009. But they have also killed Mexican gray wolves, grizzly bears, California condors and other protected species. “We’re glad to see these indiscriminate killing devices being pulled from Idaho — that’s an important


With only one finisher, Barkley Marathons lives up to its ‘toughest’ reputation

John Kelly running through the fog at Barkley Marathons. (Courtesy of Ed Aramayo) The 12-hour cutoff for finishing the 20-plus mile loop of the notoriously difficult Barkley Marathons trail race was quickly approaching, and still there were no signs of professional ultrarunner Michael Wardian. A veteran of extreme races around the world, the 42-year-old Arlington resident has completed the Marathon des Sables — 156 miles over six days under the searing Sahara Desert sun, among other footraces dubbed the toughest in the world. Earlier this year, Wardian averaged 2:45:56 per marathon to win the World Marathon Challenge, a race featuring seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. But even Wardian was unable to finish one of the five Barkley Marathons loops earlier this month in the allotted time after getting lost. 15+ hours in and a top ultrarunner still hasn't even finished Loop 1 yet, and will be a DNF. That's how hard #BM100 is. #FindMikeWardian “It’s probably one of the most difficult races I’ve ever done,” Wardian said in a phone interview. “So many factors are out of your control.” In the end, only one of the 40 participants this year — 32-year-old John Kelly of Rockville, Md. — finished the course at Frozen Head State Park in eastern Tennessee under the 60-hour time limit, running an impressive 59:30:53. Canadian endurance runner Gary Robbins was six seconds above the cutoff time but would’ve been disqualified anyway because he finished from the wrong direction. Over the years, the punishing race has become well-known in the ultrarunning community as one of the toughest in the world and the 2012 edition was the subject of the 2014 documentary film, “The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young.” The unusual event has been clouded in mystique, much of it due to its chain-smoking, eccentric co-founder, Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell. No official website for the race exists and entry applications are not public. Instead, Cantrell — known simply as “Laz” to most — sends out forms to those who are selected. The application fee is $1.60 and sometimes an item of clothing for Cantrell. (This year it was a pack of white socks.) laz models this year's BFC50K shirt. http://t.co/XOMISFKVAn “He’s definitely a character,” Kelly said. “He has this persona that he comes off as a sadist that’s out to torture people and watch them fail, but he loves nothing more than


The new White House drug czar has quite an idea for where to put nonviolent drug users

Marino voted multiple times against a bipartisan measure to prevent the Justice Department from going after state-legal medical marijuana businesses. (The measure ultimately passed.) Similarly, he voted against a measure to allow Veterans Affairs doctors to recommend medical marijuana to their patients, as well as against a separate measure to loosen federal restrictions on hemp, a non-psychoactive variant of the cannabis plant with potential industrial applications. Those votes place Marino well to the right of dozens of his Republican House colleagues who supported the measures. He also voted against a measure that would loosen some restrictions on CBD oil, a non-psychoactive derivative of the cannabis plant that holds promise for treating severe forms of childhood epilepsy. Asked about marijuana legalization Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised a group of law enforcement officials that the Justice Department will bring "new intensity" to its drug enforcement policies, particularly those relating to heroin trafficking, on March 31 in St. Louis. As a congressman, Marino called for a national program of mandatory inpatient substance abuse treatment for nonviolent drug offenders. “One treatment option I have advocated for years would be placing non-dealer, nonviolent drug abusers in a secured hospital-type setting under the constant care of health professionals,” he said at a hearing last year. “Once the person agrees to plead guilty to possession, he or she will be placed in an intensive treatment program until experts determine that they should be released under intense supervision,” Marino explained. “If this is accomplished, then the charges are dropped against that person. The charges are only filed to have an incentive for that person to enter the hospital-slash-prison, if you want to call it.” Forced inpatient treatment in a hospital-slash-prison would presumably include drug users who are not necessarily drug abusers. Only about 21 percent of current marijuana users meet diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence, for instance. The other 79 percent do not need treatment for their drug use. Marino acknowledged that implementing such a policy nationwide would “take a lot of money.” Whether he'll push for such a strategy as drug czar remains an open question. Beyond that, the office's track record on meeting its drug policy goals is not the greatest. In 2010, the office set a series of ambitious goals to reduce overall drug use, overdoses and drugged-driving incidents. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report concluded that it failed to meet any of them.


Whole Foods has a big, basic problem it desperately needs to solve

breakneck march to open more stores, its fleet now numbering more than 430 locations. So what is its market penetration now, with all those added stores? Just 8 percent, according to Kantar. It’s practically unchanged. That means its major capital investments in building those stores — and the ongoing expense of staffing and maintaining them — have not done much to grow its share of devoted shoppers. Diane Sheehan, a grocery industry analyst with Kantar, said this might in part reflect the fact that Whole Foods stores are sometimes clustered close together. For example, she pointed to the suburbs of Chicago, where the chain has three stores in a four-mile range. That means those stores probably are not expanding the base of Whole Foods shoppers; they’re just fighting among themselves for the same crowd. Across the wider retail business, talk abounds of being “overstored,” the industry’s term for having too many stores. Whole Foods doesn’t have that problem, exactly, but it has its own version of it. It is overstored in certain neighborhoods. Meanwhile, as Whole Foods aggressively courts millennials with in-store wine bars and date-night cooking classes, Kantar’s research finds that it has lost some Generation X and baby-boomer shoppers over the past five years. “They are leaking tons of shoppers in those non-core demographic groups,” Sheehan said. Leaning so hard on millennials may have long-term benefits, but for now, Whole Foods is missing out on sales due to its weakened resonance with older consumers. Whole Foods is hoping millennials can revive the company’s lagging sales by opening a new store, 365 by Whole Foods, which has lower prices, a vegan restaurant and robots. Where are those shoppers going? Likely to one of the competitors that has elbowed into the organics business. Simple Truth, the private-label organics line from Kroger, delivered an eye-popping $1.7 billion in sales last year, surely snatching some spending away from Whole Foods. Target, Walmart and others are also ramping up their offerings in the category. And many shoppers prefer that these outlets allow them to get organic and conventional groceries in one place. They can get their grass-fed beef and Coca-Cola in one trip, for example, or they can get their cage-free eggs without having to shell out for natural, unbleached paper towels. All of these problems suggest it’s going to be tough for Whole Foods to find avenues for growth in the immediate


just fighting among themselves for the same crowd. Across the wider retail business, talk abounds of being “overstored,” the industry’s term for having too many stores. Whole Foods doesn’t have that problem, exactly, but it has its own version of it. It is overstored in certain neighborhoods. Meanwhile, as Whole Foods aggressively courts millennials with in-store wine bars and date-night cooking classes, Kantar’s research finds that it has lost some Generation X and baby-boomer shoppers over the past five years. “They are leaking tons of shoppers in those non-core demographic groups,” Sheehan said. Leaning so hard on millennials may have long-term benefits, but for now, Whole Foods is missing out on sales due to its weakened resonance with older consumers. Whole Foods is hoping millennials can revive the company’s lagging sales by opening a new store, 365 by Whole Foods, which has lower prices, a vegan restaurant and robots. Where are those shoppers going? Likely to one of the competitors that has elbowed into the organics business. Simple Truth, the private-label organics line from Kroger, delivered an eye-popping $1.7 billion in sales last year, surely snatching some spending away from Whole Foods. Target, Walmart and others are also ramping up their offerings in the category. And many shoppers prefer that these outlets allow them to get organic and conventional groceries in one place. They can get their grass-fed beef and Coca-Cola in one trip, for example, or they can get their cage-free eggs without having to shell out for natural, unbleached paper towels. All of these problems suggest it’s going to be tough for Whole Foods to find avenues for growth in the immediate future. Indeed, check out Kantar’s forecast for its growth rate in edible grocery sales over the next five years, compared with the prospects of its competitors: Whole Foods’ stock was up 1 percent in Wednesday morning trading, after a report that e-commerce behemoth Amazon.com had earlier considered bidding for the organic grocer. Jana Partners has had a couple of recent successes urging change at major companies: In February, it pushed drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and luxury retailer Tiffany & Co. to shake up their boards of directors. However Jana’s pressure on the grocer plays out, this much is clear: The cultural phenomenon that Whole Foods was essential in creating is poised to leave the chain behind. It’s up to its leaders to make sure that doesn’t happen.


Trudeau’s plan to legalize pot is an insult to Canadians

not enforce the politically unpopular pot laws presently on the books, and the beginning of a new era of arrests, trials, and even incarcerations to demonstrate how much better Trudeau’s promised “new, stronger laws” work. What about tax revenue? A 2016 report from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce economist Avery Shenfeld estimated that legal pot could generate $5 billion a year in revenues– that is, if government can kill off the black market for the drug — an enormous stipulation. As The Beaverton recently observed in a satirical article (“Liberals plan legislation to make marijuana s****er, harder to get”), nothing is more efficiently distributed than an illegal good whose illegality is not enforced. High taxes and bureaucratic micromanagement actually encourage the persistence of illegal sales, which is why many of the American states where pot is legal have been forced to cut pot taxes to price out criminals, and why a quarter of all Ontarian smokers buy tobacco on Indian reserves. In any case,against the fashionable fantasy of a pot-fueled revenue boom, Prime Minister Trudeau has vowed any drug-generated cash will be funneled into addiction and education programs. A net profit would only be possible if legalization occurred in a context of lowered government spending on policing — which is to say, cop layoffs, since police don’t charge by the crime — and no government has given any indication that’s in the cards. Just the opposite in fact. Premier Brad Wall’s government in Saskatchewan, for instance, has gone on the record stating it anticipates “ increased enforcement costs” relating to pot-impaired driving, “whether technology or additional police officers — or both.” Legalizing marijuana will be a bizarre undertaking, one unprecedented in modern government. Ottawa is giving its explicit seal of approval — there may indeed be literal seals of approval — to a commercial product it has explicitly stated it believes the public should not consume. The state will exert enormous effort protecting people from the risk it has willingly exposed them to, efforts that will become only more bossy and frantic as proof of pot’s dangerousness accumulates. Anti-pot laws and medical marijuana regulations which are barely being enforced at present will be swapped for an incoherent, unprofitable web of regulations that will please neither drug users nor those anticipating some great libertarian transformation of their society. Voters will be asked to thank the prime minister for keeping his promise.


Did National Zoo wean panda cub Bei Bei too soon? A petition with 2,500 signatures says yes.

Bei Bei used to be playful with a strong motherly bond, but now mopes around, she said. “The two were forcibly separated one week ago and have been vocalizing, pacing, not eating and visibly stressed,” Medusa wrote in the petition. “They have been calling to each other and literally climbing walls (and trees) to try get to one another.” Brandie Smith, associate director of animal care services at the National Zoo, said the facility starts weaning panda cubs once they are no longer dependent on their mother for nutritional needs. Bei Bei, she said, was ready for the process and has acted as expected. If they wait too long, she said, an antagonistic relationship between mother and cub could develop. “We are very pleased with how everything went. Mei Xiang and Bei Bei are behaving as we expected, just as giant pandas are expected,” Smith said. “It’s a lot of energy to raise a cub, so while we are taking care of Bei Bei, we are also taking care of Mei Xiang.” Medusa visited the pandas in person last month, saying the joyful panda cub she had gotten to know on the panda cam acted different and was making “horrible noises” as the cub stood by a wall that separated him and his mother. “I went to the zoo, and it was probably [one of] the most horrible things I ever experienced,” she said. “The rest of the day on Saturday and Sunday I was so affected by it, and I thought maybe there is something I can do about it.” Smith said the zoo received the petition but has no plans to reunite the pandas. She said the two adult pandas at the zoo, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, may be acting restless and making noises because it is mating season. Bei Bei has also been monitored for nausea since being weaned on at least one occasion after he overate, Smith said. She said some vocalization from Bei Bei is to be expected because of the weaning process. “Since we have weaned we have zero concerns about his health, and we have noted no behavioral anomalies,” Smith said. “It’s something that we expected, and there was a plan in place to add them with extra enrichment.” Read more: The history of pandas at the zoo Bye-bye, Bao Bao: National Zoo says panda cub will soon be shipped to China


Risk of a rare but deadly mouse-borne virus increases in the spring

Deer mice, found almost everywhere in North America, are carriers of hantavirus, which causes a rare but potentially fatal syndrome. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) As the weather warms and people turn to spring cleaning and outdoor activities such as camping and hiking, they need to beware of a rare but deadly virus that is spread through mouse droppings and kills up to 40 percent of people who become infected, public health officials said. The severe respiratory illness is known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, or HPS. In the United States, most of these cases are spread by deer mice, which live in woodland areas and deserts and are found throughout North America. People get the disease by breathing in hantavirus when dust from rodents’ dried urine, saliva and droppings is stirred up in the air, which can happen in houses, garages and cabins, especially while cleaning. People can also get it by touching mouse urine, droppings or nesting materials that contain the virus, and then touching their eyes, nose or mouth. HPS is not spread from human to human. There is no specific treatment, cure or vaccine for the infection. But if infected individuals are recognized early and receive medical attention in an intensive care unit, where they can be given oxygen therapy, they may have a better chance of recovery. “Often in the spring, people are cleaning up their house or around their properties, and those are the times when they’re likely to be exposed more to rodent droppings,” said Annabelle de St. Maurice, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and author of a study published Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the CDC. She urged people to take precautions and avoid sweeping or vacuuming mouse droppings, because doing so makes it more likely that someone will inhale or ingest the dust that brings virus particles into the air. Instead, the CDC recommends spraying the area with a solution of one part bleach to nine parts water and letting it soak for five minutes before cleaning with gloves and paper towels. The report analyzed 662 laboratory-confirmed cases of HPS in the United States between 1993 to 2015. Although the number of cases reported each year in the United States is relatively low — typically between 20 and 40 — these illnesses have occurred in every state except Alaska and Hawaii. And


buildings that had been previously closed, such as summer cabins. Researchers conducting field work have also been killed by the virus. The disease was recognized in 1993 after unexplained respiratory deaths occurred in otherwise healthy adults in the Four Corners area of the United States (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado). Since 1993, state and local health departments have provided data to the CDC for all laboratory-confirmed HPS cases. A cupboard drawer with evidence of mouse droppings inside the home of a hantavirus patient. The mice shed the virus in their urine, droppings and saliva. (CDC) Most patients are white, but Native Americans are disproportionately affected by the rare illness. They make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population but 18 percent of HPS cases, the study found. Because 89 percent of Native American HPS patients live in the Four Corners region, where most HPS cases occur, the report said there may be environmental factors that increase the risk of inhaling infected dust particles in that region. The disease hits Native American women, ages 40 to 64, particularly hard, killing up to 46 percent of those who get the disease. By comparison, the fatality rate for white women of the same age group is 33 percent. “It’s hard to know why rates are higher among American Indians,” said de St. Maurice. “We’re still trying to find out why that is.” Federal funding for American Indians and Alaska Natives is part of the Affordable Care Act, and health officials, tribal leaders and others have said they are worried that repeal of the law could put Native American health care at risk. According to the CDC, based on the limited number of cases, symptoms may develop between one and eight weeks after exposure to the urine, droppings or saliva of infected rodents. Diagnosing the illness in someone who has been infected for only a few days is challenging because early symptoms, such as fever, muscle aches and fatigue, are easily confused with influenza. There may also be headaches, dizziness, chills and abdominal problems such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Four to 10 days later, more-serious symptoms develop, such as cough, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing. Read more: The Trump administration is ill-prepared for a global pandemic Disease 'superspreaders' accounted for nearly two-thirds of Ebola cases Scientists don't have a decade to find a Zika vaccine. They need volunteers now.


Transcript: CEO Series with Brian Moynihan

that cut probably—in the end, the pendul swing here, and you could bring it back some. And by fundamental changes, and that would be helpful for home formation. And that still has room to run in the economy. And you’d see it even in, you know, tedious things, which I won’t bore people with, in the compliance of flood insurance and things like— Poletta: Right. Moynihan: —it just slows down the process, and makes everything go slower. So not only would you have better—you prob—potentially have better demand, but you’d also have faster process. Loans to startup companies, , are defined to be high-leverage transactions. Different words now, but that—make it simple. So that when you go into make them, you can’t make them. Poletta: Right. Moynihan: So you could have a company you’ve been working with, that had equity for five, seven years, and now has started to have produced a tiny bit of revenue, now wants to borrow because it has a decent equity base to help leverage. And we can’t lend to them because it would be a high-leverage transition by definition. They don’t have earnings, or else they’d be in a different condition. The rules probably weren’t meant to get to that, but they do. And—and those are the things we got to get balance back in. So I think in the small business, medi-size business area, mortgage over the two areas, you’d see them fastest. Poletta: So my first bank account as a kid, when I was cutting grass, was at Boatmen’s Bank in Webster Grove, Missouri. Go to college, come back. New sign on the bank. It’s NationsBank. You know, then Bank of America, Nations merge. Obviously, , Bank of America acquired Fleet. Bank of America cannot acquire another bank because of—it has around 10% of the nation’s deposits, by law. But would you be in favor of seeing that law done away with to make it easier for you guys to— Moynihan: We— Poletta: —make decisions like that? Moynihan: I don’t—our strategy would not be to do acquisitions because, end of day, what do we need? We have the best retail franchise. The best middle-market franchise. A great—second best, maybe, investment bank in terms of fee size. Third and second, in a given quarter. We have a good trading platform that meets our client needs. We have the best wealth management business. So


for a private company to be—have the sophistication to defend themselves from a foreign country. How do you look at that and do you—, can you give us any sense about whether nation-states have had their eyes on, you know, your—your data? Moynihan: But we wouldn’t—you know, those types of things, I think, you know, I’d leave—the last part of it I’d leave to the world at large to discuss. But the reality is you have to be secure, you have to be safe, the trust that we have in our—our capabilities, the—the—the devices and, whether it’s mobile phones or tablets or other types of device—devices used to access are so different, even a phone system is—they’d allow us to operate in a way that the customer gets tremendous service and capabilities. But they have to feel its secure and that’s what we drive on [ph]. So we spend, you know, a fair amount of money on this and it grows. It’s probably tripled over the last eight, 10 years. , I don’t ask those people to—you know, if they need to spend the money, they just keep spending it. They’ve done a great job but one of the things that has happened is the cooperation among the industry is tremendous. So we have a couple of different initiatives. One called FSARC. F-S-I-A-C. F-S-S-I-A-C, whatever it’s called. You know, these are industry groups where we share information along with the government and the key of this is actually have instantaneous information transferred to cure the problem and just keep—and have that happen in real-time. And I would say with the Obama Administration, with the Trump Administration, and with the Bush Administration before, you know, there is—there is a common goal to do this. The question of coordinating it all gets tricky but we, as the large institutions, have been driving to get better and better coordination among us and with the defense base and inside the government, the NSA and stuff, to allow us to be able to operate better and give that to the rest of the industry, honestly. And because at the end of the day, if you total what we spend as the eight large institutions through the—that are on the Financial Services For, it is a lot of money on this and we’re going to try to get more efficient on how we do it but


The oldest known relative of dinosaurs was a total freak, experts say

dominated the planet for 150 million years (humans, by contrast, have been around for just a measly 200,000 years). Not even a cataclysmic asteroid impact could totally end the party — dinosaurs' descendants, birds, still live among us. Sterling Nesbitt examines a teleocrater fossil (Virginia Tech) The teleocrater discovery comes in the wake of a recent phylogenetic study that challenged scientists' understanding of the order in which dinosaurs diversified. That research, published in Nature last month, suggested that dinosaur family groupings needed to be reorganized and renamed and that dinosaurs arose in a completely different part of the world than originally thought. “It’s almost a one-two punch,” Nesbitt said of the two new studies. “It’s complicated the once-simple picture of how dinosaurs got their features.” Nesbitt, Angielczyk and their colleagues weren't looking to upend our understanding of dinosaur evolution when they traveled to southern Tanzania in 2015. They were searching the 245-year-old bone beds for clues about the end-Permian mass extinction, which wiped out more species than any other event in Earth's history. The event was so catastrophic that paleontologists refer to it simply as “the Great Dying,” and scientists are interested in how life recovered in its wake. An artist's reconstruction of Teleocrater rhadinus feasting on a distant relative of mammals, Cynognathus. Large dicynodonts are seen in the background. (Mark Witton/Natural History Museum, London) The teleocrater fossils, which date back to about 5 million years after the mass extinction, suggest that the archosaurs evolved to take advantage of the newly vacated ecological niches. Teleocrater would have fit somewhere in the middle of the early Triassic food chain. It was about 6 to 8 feet long and had the sharp, serrated teeth of a fierce predator. Its legs were shorter than a dinosaur's, but not as sprawling as those of a crocodile. It shared its habitat — a river system lush with ferns — with an array of other reptiles large and small. Large, hippo-sized relatives of mammals called dicynodonts were lumbering around as well. The first dinosaurs wouldn't appear on the scene until about 15 million years later. But according to Nesbitt, the teleocrater discovery suggests it's worth looking at this period before they evolved. “We should look at their close relatives too,” he said “because there’s a lot more going on than anyone would have predicted.” Read more: Behold, the Hubble Telescope's latest close-up photo of Jupiter Long


Roy Williams suggests Maryland president is a ‘double idiot’ for ‘death penalty’ comments

Coach Roy Williams addresses the crowd as North Carolina basketball players and coaches greet fans in Chapel Hill, N.C., on April 4 following their win over Gonzaga in the NCAA college basketball championship. (Gerry Broome/AP) North Carolina men’s basketball Coach Roy Williams reacted Wednesday to recent comments by Maryland President Wallace D. Loh concerning UNC’s academic scandal, which has been the subject of an NCAA investigation since June 2014. During an appearance on SiriusXM’s “College Sports Nation,” Williams was asked whether the NCAA men’s basketball championship the Tar Heels won earlier this month carried any “special significance because of all the junk the university has had to deal with” with regards to the fallout of the scandal. “It’s one of the reasons, there’s no question about that, because there has been a lot of junk and people have questioned my integrity,” said Williams, who fielded questions about the scandal throughout North Carolina’s NCAA tournament run. “Even since we won, people have come out and said some things without information. They’ve just gone by what somebody else has said, and I know what has been done, I know what the facts are. That’s been really hurtful. Some people in the media that I never thought would go out and say some things without having all the information. And then we have a president that says we should get the death penalty — a president of another university. I mean, to me, that’s just so silly. A guy told me one time, ‘If you get a little knowledge and it turns you into an idiot, but no knowledge, you’re a double idiot,’ and that’s about the way I look at that thing. But no, it was especially satisfying in a lot of different ways, and that was one of them.” On Monday, the Raleigh News & Observer reported that a Maryland faculty member asked Loh during a university senate meeting last Thursday how he could ensure that Maryland was “protected from the corrupting influence of athletics.” “As president, I sit over a number of dormant volcanoes,” Loh replied. “One of them is an athletic scandal. It blows up, it blows up the university, its reputation. It blows up the president. For the things that happened at North Carolina, it’s abysmal. I would think that this would lead to the implementation of the death penalty by the NCAA. But I’m not in charge


D.C.-area forecast: Pleasant spring conditions through the weekend

Blue skies in Washington on April 11. (John Sonderman via Flickr) TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 9/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post headquarters. FORECAST IN DETAIL Now this is spring at its finest! We enjoy mild temperatures through Saturday and, unusual for this time of year, mostly gentle breezes. For those of us battling the deluge of pollen, the lack of wind is a blessing. The heat is on Easter Sunday with 80s back and a decent chance for some showers and storms at night. With a little luck, the showers clear out in time for Monday’s White House Easter Egg Roll. Today (Thursday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend… Tomorrow (Friday): Tomorrow night: A LOOK AHEAD Saturday Sunrise should be fine for those welcoming in Easter on Sunday. Temps rise steadily and strongly with highs in the low-to-mid 80s so get those chocolate bunnies eaten fast! An approaching cold front could set off showers and storms but most of them are likely to wait until the nighttime hours. Lows only dip to the mid-to-upper 50s. Confidence: Medium-High Monday


The Veil, Triple Crossing and The Answer are putting Richmond on the craft beer map

Group, which owns D.C.’s ChurchKey. “The three brewers from Richmond that I think are unbelievable and really just extraordinarily exceptional [are] The Veil, The Answer and Triple Crossing.” If you’re a craft beer fan in D.C., you’ve had the opportunity to try all three — Engert often pours their brews from his taps — but since beer tastes better from the source, here’s a guide to three of Richmond’s best breweries. Triple Crossing Brewing opened a second location in Richmond’s Fulton neighborhood in December. (Quentin Penn-Hollar) Triple Crossing Brewing Triple Crossing Shortly after, Scott Jones, who grew up in Richmond with Worcester, called to tell him about his new kegerator. Jones had dreamed of opening a bar, so Worcester invited Jones to get drinks with him and Wirtes. All three were into the Northeast style of super-hoppy, juicy, hazy beers. “At the time, that scene wasn’t here in Richmond so we felt we’d be doing something new,” Worcester says. Triple Crossing Brewing’s flagship IPA Falcon Smash was inspired by “Super Smash Bros.” and Nintendo 64. (Ellen Collier/Express) In April 2014, the trio opened Triple Crossing Brewing in a small space in downtown Richmond. Last December, Triple Crossing expanded to add a much larger brewhouse in the city’s Fulton neighborhood, about a mile from Stone Brewing’s new space. (The two breweries recently teamed up on a double IPA called Fulton Rising — a nod to the developing area they share.) “[The downtown location] allowed us to start off real small, test out these recipes, see how we felt they did and how people responded to them,” Worcester says. Triple Crossing began canning beers using a mobile canner last fall, starting with flagship IPA Falcon Smash (the name is a “Super Smash Bros.” reference, and the label notes that the beer pairs well with Nintendo 64) and the Radiohead-inspired pale ale Paranoid Aledroid. (A rotating roster of cans is available in Fulton every other Friday.) Though Wirtes brews a variety of styles, hoppy beers — especially low-alcohol session ales — remain Triple Crossing’s specialty. “We like to do the beers people want to sit down and drink more than one of,” Worcester says, citing their hoppy golden ale, pilsner and English bitter. “We do have the hop bombs — those are our favorites — but we also want to have stuff for people who are not into that style.” The next frontier


NASA finds ingredients for life spewing out of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus

leave it hanging out in space after it runs out of fuel. Scientists found that Enceladus, a 300 mile-wide moon of Saturn, has hot water under its icy crust, raising the possibility that it may host life. Yet the space probe has already dramatically exceeded scientists' expectations. When Cassini launched toward Saturn in 1997, NASA didn't even know that Enceladus had geysers, let alone an ocean that could harbor life, and the spacecraft wasn't equipped with instruments that could test for biomarkers (the instrument used in this study was initially designed to study a different moon entirely). If scientists want to search for life on Enceladus in earnest, they will need to send another probe to the moon. Glein is working on a proposal for exactly such a mission. But right now, NASA has no project in the works to revisit the Saturnian system. It could be more than a decade before we go back. “It's frustrating and thrilling at the same time,” Glein said. Fortunately, Enceladus no longer appears to be the only ocean world spitting its contents into space. The news that Europa also has geysers comes just as NASA begins the preliminary design phase of the Europa Clipper mission, which is slated to orbit Jupiter and perform 45 flybys of the planet's icy moon. This is not the first time scientists have detected evidence of geysers on Europa; Hubble has spotted similar plumes several times before. But this detection provides further evidence for the activity and will help scientists figure out the timing of Europa's geysers in advance of the Clipper mission. LEFT: Europa’s icy surface is fractured and crisscrossed with broken ice — one hint that there is a liquid water ocean hiding underneath. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute) RIGHT: This illustration of Europa’s interior cuts into its rock and ice crust to reveal a liquid water interior and a rocky core. (NASA/JPL) The plumes were detected by the Hubble Space Telescope as Europa passed in front of Jupiter. Silhouetted against the hot, glowing form of its host planet, scientists could see gusts of material shooting upward. The jets were so powerful that they extended 50 kilometers above the moon's surface — Old Faithful, the famous geyser at Yellowstone, only reaches 184 feet. When the Clipper arrives in the mid-2020s, it will carry instruments specifically designed to sample Europa's plumes and test for organic molecules. Unlike Cassini, which had


A new CRISPR breakthrough could lead to simpler, cheaper disease diagnosis

Scientists say SHERLOCK, a new CRISPR breakthrough, is a diagnosis tool that could be a game changer for the ability to identify infectious diseases like Zika. The controversial laboratory tool known as CRISPR may have found a whole new world to conquer. Already the favored method of editing genes, CRISPR could soon become a low-cost diagnostic tool that could be used practically anywhere to determine if someone has an infectious disease such as Zika or dengue. CRISPR — which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats — is basically a bacterial immune system that uses “molecular scissors” to snip away genetic material from invasive viruses. Early in this decade, researchers figured out how to exploit the natural system to craft a relatively cheap, remarkably easy-to-use technology for editing genetic codes almost as readily as using a word processor to revise a paragraph. On Thursday, Feng Zhang, one of the pioneers of CRISPR, and 18 colleagues published a paper in the journal Science showing how they had turned this system into an inexpensive, reliable diagnostic tool for detecting nucleic acids — molecules present in an organism's genetic code — from disease-causing pathogens. The new tool could be widely applied to detect not only viral and bacterial diseases but also potentially for finding cancer-causing mutations. CRISPR has been a sensation in the world of molecular biology, but the powerful tool has incited fears that it could be misused. Ethicists earlier this year released a report saying it should be limited in humans to treating diseases or disabilities, and with special caution when genetic changes would involve eggs, sperm or embryos and potentially be inherited by future generations. But CRISPR is already widely used in laboratory studies and has shown great promise in revealing the genetic origins of diseases, including cancer. This new application would propel CRISPR into the much less controversial realm of point-of-care disease diagnosis. The new study has a whiff of marketing about it: Zhang and his colleagues have named their new tool SHERLOCK — for Specific High Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing. “Nature is really amazing. Over the course of billions of years, it's come up with all these very powerful enzyme systems, and by studying the basic biology of these systems, some of them will give rise to important applications — like genome editing, like diagnostics,” Zhang, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, told The Washington


This device pulls drinking water straight out of the air — and it runs entirely on the sun’s energy

A solar-powered water harvesting device, constructed with a metal organic framework. Unlike other types of water capture devices, this design is able to work under low-humidity conditions. (Hyunho Kim, Evelyn Wang) A new kind of water-capturing device could be a game-changer for some of the world’s driest places. It can pull water vapor out of the air at humidity as low as 20 percent — conditions that may be seen in the Sahara desert during its hottest months — and it can operate entirely off-grid, just using the ambient power of the sun. This means it could provide water for parts of the world likely to be most vulnerable to water shortages under future climate change, including areas afflicted by recurring drought. According to a description of the new design, published Thursday in the journal Science, a single tissue box-sized device can harvest up to 2.8 liters, or about three quarts, of water in one day at low humidity — that’s a bit more than the half gallon of water experts recommend a person drink over the course of a day. The design provides a “better way” to capture water under low relative humidity than previous techniques have offered, according to Kyoo-Chul Park, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University, who was not involved with the new project but has worked on other water capture designs in the past. “Typically, there have been two technologies developed for extracting water out of air,” said Evelyn Wang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and co-author on the new paper. The first is fog harvesting, which is just what it sounds like — collecting liquid water straight from clouds of fog. In this case, the fog raises the air’s relative humidity to just about 100 percent. The second method is called “dewing,” and it involves using water condensers to pull water vapor out of the air and turn it into liquid form. However, this method has typically needed a lot of energy to keep the condenser at the right temperature and still required a fairly high humidity level, Wang noted. The new design is essentially a form of dewing, Park pointed out — it just works at much lower humidity levels than previous devices have been able to achieve. The key is a special type of compound known as a metal organic framework, or MOF, a crystalline material involving metal ions


Mexican narcos drop bodies, and warnings, from the skies

A soldier climbs down a ladder at a crime scene where the body of a man, who witnesses said was tossed from a plane, landed on a hospital roof in Culiacan, in Mexico's northern Sinaloa state, April 12, 2017. (Jesus Bustamante/Reuters) MEXICO CITY — The drug war has taken flight. Even by the macabre standards of Mexican narcotics traffickers, this week's bizarre aerial events seem to be elevating the conflict to new frontiers. Around dawn, a low-flying airplane buzzing over the Eldorado area in the coastal state of Sinaloa — the old stomping grounds of drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán — started tossing out bodies. An estimated three corpses came crashing down in the area, according to Mexican news reports, including one that landed on the roof of a local public clinic. That semi-clothed person, with signs of torture, had a bag over its head, Milenio news agency reported. "It is a man, but we don't know more," said Antonio Garcia, a spokesman for the Mexican Institute of Social Security, which administers the clinic. "The impact of the fall makes it more difficult to be able to identify him or the wounds he suffered." "I can't recall anything like this happening before," he said. There were conflicting reports about where the other bodies might have landed. Eldorado is located south of Culiacan, the state capital, where drug-war violence has increased following Guzmán's arrest last year and his extradition in January to New York to face drug-trafficking charges. Rival cartels have been vying for control in Sinaloa and several other Mexican states. Some 900 Mexican soldiers recently deployed to the area to try to establish security. Two days before the bodies fell, a helicopter dumped hundreds of what were described as "narco-fliers" onto a suburb east of Mexico City. That strange display of propaganda was caught on video by cellphone cameras, showing plumes of fliers fluttering down into the streets of Texcoco as the helicopter circled overhead. The fliers, dropped during a popular festival in Texcoco and addressed to "Oso, Tito, Beny and all of your gang," demanded an end to extortion, kidnapping and nepotism in government. They were signed "La Familia Unida," which local reports identified as a criminal organization. The addressees were members of another criminal group, according to Mexican news reports. An official of the state of Mexico said authorities were looking into the matter. Across Mexico,


It’s a bad day to crave a Guinness in Ireland

on Christmas. By 1960, the ban of sales on St. Patrick’s Day was lifted because of “waning church influence and growing commercial pressure,” according to an editorial in the Irish Times. “It’s about time this country finally severed the vestiges of church and state,” Sheridan wrote. “The ban of alcohol sales on Good Friday, that blighted day in the calendar (for poor Jesus, who was crucified, and poor old sodden drinkers who can’t go to the pub that day) is well past its sell-by date.” Catholics still make up 78 percent of the Republic of Ireland’s population, down from 84 percent five years ago. The number of Catholics dropped by 132,000, from almost 3.86 million to 3.73 million during that period, according to newly released census figures. Some attribute the decrease, in part, to growing disinterest in and even hostility to organized religion, in part because of scandals involving clergy sexual abuse. Most recently, outrage greeted the uncovering of hidden graves of children found in Tuam, where the nuns from the Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours had operated a Mother and Baby Home from the 1920s to the 1960s. “The census confirms that Ireland is less Catholic than it was five years ago, but it is not a tsunami,” Tom Inglis, who teaches sociology at University College Dublin, told the Independent. The Good Friday ban has been bent on occasion. In 2010, dozens of pubs in Limerick were allowed to sell pints for a rugby match between Munster and Leinster. In celebration, vendors sold T-shirts bearing messages such as “Officially bigger than the Catholic Church: Munster Rugby.” Even now, some limited exceptions remain in place for alcohol to be served. “The law allows tourist-friendly exemptions such as alcohol with your hotel dinner, or in the railway station, or at the dogs, or the airport or on the ferry,” the Irish Times reported. Of course, not everyone is calling for change. Some say it’s important to continue traditions. Others fear that lifting the ban will encourage alcohol abuse. “If we are serious, as a country, about tackling the many problems associated with alcohol misuse, then let us start by protecting the ban on Good Friday and putting our words into action,” Raymond O’Connor of Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, told the Irish Times. If the measure is adopted, that means alcohol sales will be banned on only one holiday. Expect