Why do politicians cheat?

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has repeatedly been exposed for sending lewd messages and photos to women online. Here's a definitive guide to his sexting scandal. Bill Clinton. John Edwards. The married governor who disappeared with his girlfriend. The kissing congressman.The airport bathroom congressman. The senator who used prostitutes. The governor who used prostitutes. And Anthony Weiner. It isn't as if politicians don't have object lessons to learn from — there are plenty of predecessors whose sexual escapades cost them big, sometimes ending their careers or marriages. So why risk it? Robert Weiss, a sex and tech addiction expert for Elements Behavioral Health addiction treatment centers, says many do because that's the nature of addiction — otherwise rational people making irrational decisions to get a brief moment of fulfillment. Weiss has not treated nor met Weiner and is certainly not diagnosing the former congressman with anything here. Weiner's wife — and top Clinton aide — Huma Abedin announced Monday they were separating after he was caught for the third time sexting other women. Weiss says the sort of behavior Weiner displayed fits a well-established larger pattern: politicians making poor decisions for momentary satisfaction, at the risk of long-term public humiliation for themselves and their loved ones. To get a better sense of sex addiction and how it sometimes manifests itself among political types, we spoke to Weiss. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Is there a common connection we can draw among these men? These are men, people in highly visible roles that may not be only interested in that political role, and they want to be seen, they want to feel important. So there's a narcissistic element to this. And then they get in these stressful roles, and they end up in unhealthy situations. So how do you know if someone is a sex addict? There are three basic criteria for any addiction, whether it's substance or behavior: 1. Loss of control: The person says, "I'm not going to that dealer or that casino or not going to buy another gallon of Häagen Dazs," but they do it anyway. 2. Continuation of behavior despite adverse consequences: This person has a DUI, they lost their job, or their wife left them, and they are continually doing similar poor behavior despite all that. 3. Preoccupation or obsession with the substance or behavior: The addiction comes first. When


Zika fears hit Asia: Singapore instructs workers to apply bug repellent hourly, take vitamin C

Singapore authorities say they have identified 41 locally-transmitted cases of the Zika virus, mostly in foreign construction workers, and that more are expected. Just days after Singapore health officials announced a cluster of Zika cases among a group of foreign workers, its Asian neighbors were aggressively stepping up preventive measures similar to ones they undertook for Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Indonesia rolled out thermal scanners at its main airports and ports such as Batam, an island nearest to Singapore. Malaysia began health checks for buses entering Johor Bahru, a city that an estimated 200,000 people pass through during their commutes for work in Singapore. Airline passengers from Singapore walk through a camera system used to detect body temperature after arriving in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Aug. 30. REUTERS/Beawiharta South Korea, Taiwan and Australia issued travel advisories warning pregnant women and others about the situation in Singapore. Given Singapore’s position as a Southeast Asia travel hub, health officials say it’s likely, perhaps even inevitable, that travelers will inadvertently spread Zika elsewhere. While the subtropical region is used to dealing with mosquito-borne infectious diseases such as dengue and slower-developing illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, many countries’ surveillance systems are not set up to closely monitor pregnant women and their babies, the individuals who are most vulnerable to the pathogen. One of the tricky things about Zika is that most people who get it don’t have any symptoms, and by the time traditional tracking methods such as those in emergency rooms pick up on groups of patients with the virus, it has probably already spread throughout the population. A National Environmental Agency worker scatters mosquito pellets in a drainage system in the Aljunied neighborhood of Singapore on Aug. 30. (ROSLAN RAHMANROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images) At the construction site where the Singapore cases were first seen, health authorities have set up a kind of informal quarantine. Work has been shut down, and those with Zika have been given their own rooms in a dormitory with “Wi-Fi and their three meals delivered to them,” according to a description in the Straits Times. All workers are getting their temperature taken twice a day, the newspaper added, and they have to apply mosquito repellent each hour and wear two types of patches with repellent. They are also given vitamin C each day. It’s unclear how this will help combat Zika, but the belief that the supplements can help


Tasmanian devils are evolving resistance to their devastating contagious cancers

new variants in parts of the Tasmanian devil genome associated with the immune system and cancer response — proof, these scientists believe, that the creatures are evolving resistance to the fast-moving disease. Andrew Storfer Strangely, some of those populations still persisted, despite the epidemiological models that predicted otherwise. "At that point, our hypothesis was maybe there was evolution," Storfer said. "The challenge, of course, was finding evidence in the genome." Devils infected with devil facial tumor disease, or DFTD, suffer from angry red growths on their faces that prevent them from eating or even breathing. (Menna Jones) Luckily, scientists have been taking DNA samples of Tasmanian devils for decades — long before the current DFTD outbreak. Storfer and his colleagues were able to gather up the genomes of more than 250 individuals, quickly sequence relevant sections, and compare their samples to figure out where they differed. Tasmanian devils have very little genetic diversity among them, because their population has been through several bottlenecks — periods when a sharp decline in population left just a small number of Tasmanian devils to spawn the next generation. This lack of diversity may have contributed to the weakness of their immune systems. If Tasmanian devils had evolved resistance to the cancer that ravages them, Storfer and his colleagues might find evidence of gene variants that didn't exist before the outbreak. They found exactly what they were looking for: two regions of the genome, both associated with immune function and cancer response, where devils from affected communities had variants that didn't exist in the pre-outbreak population. Further study of the particular genes involved could help explain why DFTD is so deadly and how we might help animals without these gene variants resist the disease. "We're going to see if the favored alleles are actually conferring longer duration of survival" — i.e., keeping infected devils alive long enough to reproduce — "or more offspring. I don’t know necessarily they would provide complete resistance but they could be more related to resistance once infected," Storfer said. "That's going to help us understand how much damage individuals get, how fast that damage is, and how they survive." People often ask Storfer if he believes the devils will go extinct soon. He said no — "this result leads me to be optimistic." There's something else that makes Storfer hopeful. Since the first contagious cancer was found in Tasmanian devils


7 new bars you probably haven’t tried yet

The minimalist dining room and bar is fine, but it's nicer on the roof, which has a small bar and a number of tables with views of Shaw landmarks. Happy hour specials rotate daily: Tito's cocktails are $5 from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, while Thursday brings $3 rail drinks during the same time. District Distilling (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) District Distilling Co. The first thing you should know about the new distillery at 14th and U streets NW is that it isn't producing its own booze yet. If all goes well, District Distilling's vodka will be released in early October, with more to come after that. Until then, this is a beautiful bar and restaurant with above-average cocktails and food (former Bar Pilar chef Justin Bittner is in the kitchen). The drink menu focuses on small-batch producers: The excellent Gibson ($13) uses Kopper Kettle's barrel-rested gin, Vya vermouth and a brine of a pearl onions aged with Thai chilis; the original Rickhouse ($12) combines High West's Double Rye whiskey with the citrus-and-pine flavors of St. George's Bruto Americano aperitif, Yellow Chartreuse, a touch of lemon juice and a sprig of mint. A trio of simple punches are sold by the shot ($8) or in carafes of 8 ounces ($40) or 17 ounces ($86). The space itself, in rowhouses that formerly held Utopia and Coppi's, is attractive, with long drink rails on exposed brick walls and low semi-circular couches beneath bay windows. Ellipse, the rooftop bar at the Hyatt Place Hotel on K Street NW, offers plenty of sun but no views of the actual Ellipse. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Ellipse There is nothing fancy, novel, or even cool about this rooftop bar, which opened in June at the Hyatt Place hotel on K Street NW. But if you work within the orbit of McPherson and Farragut squares, you might be glad to know it exists -- it's one of the rare rooftop spaces open to the public on this busy corridor. The space itself is plain: a small bar with four seats, a number of all-weather lounge chairs around low coffee tables and tall bar tables in groups of two or four. There are views up and down K Street -- hello, Washington Post -- but despite the name, there are no views of the White House or any famous monuments, other than the


The no-win game of Apple’s taxes

EU antitrust regulators order Apple to pay up to 13 billion euros in taxes plus interest to the Irish government after ruling that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid. There was never much doubt that large multinational companies enjoy a great deal of leverage over governments at all levels — local, state, even national — but on Tuesday, European regulators actually quantified it. European Commission officials allege that Ireland's government secured 5,500 jobs from Apple by striking a tax agreement that allowed the company to underpay its taxes by $14.5 billion between 2003 and 2014. The arrangement made the company's effective Irish tax rate no higher than 1 percent over that time. If it stands, the European ruling would force Apple to pay that $14.5 billion to Ireland. But Irish leaders don't want the money; they say they will appeal the ruling, as will the company. You can read that desire to appeal a lot of ways, but here's the easiest one: A tax-friendly relationship with Apple, and its 5,500 jobs, is worth more to Ireland than $14.5 billion. That's the minimum value of Apple's leverage over the country for the period 2003-2014. As a straight calculation, it works out to $220,000 per job, per year. That seems like a heavy subsidy for any government to pay a corporation, let alone the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, which Apple happens to be. The City of Boston and State of Massachusetts, by contrast, recently made a controversial deal with General Electric to lure its headquarters away from Connecticut. The state grants and local tax breaks of the deal amount to $145 million over 20 years, and the company says it will bring 800 jobs. That's about $9,000 per job, per year. It's hard to imagine Massachusetts taxpayers voting to send every GE headquarters employee a $9,000 annual check, of course, or for Irish voters to agree to send everyone at Apple a cool $220,000. In truth, they aren't: The companies can credibly argue that the tax reductions come out of a pool of money that would not exist if the companies had not moved to those locations. Their presence creates economic activity that would have gone somewhere else — presumably, the place offering the very best tax deal. Apple says it has invested nearly 140 million euros in Cork, Ireland, since


SETI’s alien signal? Don’t get too excited.

(Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), scientists can sometimes run into one particularly sticky problem. They can't describe anything as "interesting" without whipping the Internet into an alien-hunting frenzy. Case in point, the latest SETI news: A radio telescope has picked up a "signal" that Russian astronomers believe might be coming from HD 164595, a sun-size star less than 100 light years away from Earth that hosts a planet about the same mass as Neptune. The SETI Institute says it's "interesting." Cue the alien hopefuls. I want us to find intelligent life just as much as the next guy — probably more than most people, because that would be quite a story — but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. No, this probably isn't a message from aliens. I mean, it could be. But there's no reason to think this signal is particularly promising. In fact, most astronomers seem confused about why the signal is in the news. According to the Observer, researchers circulated information about the signal to a group that included space and technology writer Paul Gilster. A slide presentation on the research was also sent out to members of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)'s SETI Permanent Committee. The chair of that committee, Claudio Maccone, says that the signal warrants constant monitoring. But the signal seems lacking in the qualities that would usually lead to a public announcement. "I was unimpressed," Eric Korpela, who does SETI research at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote in a post on SETI@Home. " … All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint." In an interview with The Washington Post, Korpela allowed that he could be missing some crucial information that the Russians haven't shared with the public yet. But that wouldn't be great news either — if you take your findings to the media before giving your colleagues enough information to evaluate them, you make it impossible for them to discredit (or support) your results with confidence. But based on what he has seen of the lauded signal, Korpela is calling foul. "Of course there is always a possibility that it is an extraterrestrial signal," he said, "but nothing about it thus far makes me really think that there’s more than a one in a million chance that it is." It appears that researchers using a radio telescope to stare at the


(Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), scientists can sometimes run into one particularly sticky problem. They can't describe anything as "interesting" without whipping the Internet into an alien-hunting frenzy. Case in point, the latest SETI news: A radio telescope has picked up a "signal" that Russian astronomers believe might be coming from HD 164595, a sun-sized star less than 100 light years away from Earth that hosts a planet around the same mass as Neptune. The SETI Institute says it's "interesting." Cue the alien hopefuls. I want us to find intelligent life just as much as the next guy — probably more than most people, because that would be quite a story — but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. No, this probably isn't a message from aliens. I mean, it could be. But there's no reason to think this signal is particularly promising. In fact, most astronomers seem confused about why the signal is in the news. According to The Observer, researchers circulated information about the signal to a group that included space and technology writer Paul Gilster. A slide presentation on the research was also sent out to members of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)'s SETI Permanent Committee. The chair of that committee, Claudio Maccone, says that the signal warrants constant monitoring. But the signal seems lacking in the qualities that would usually lead to a public announcement. "I was unimpressed," Eric Korpela, who does SETI research at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in a post on SETI@Home. "All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint." In an interview with The Post, Korpela allowed that he could be missing some crucial information that the Russians haven't shared with the public yet. But that wouldn't be great news either — if you take your findings to the press before giving your colleagues enough information to evaluate them, you make it impossible for them to discredit (or support) your results with confidence. But based on what he's seen of the lauded signal, Korpela is calling foul. "Of course there is always a possibility that it is an extraterrestrial signal," he said, "but nothing about it thus far makes me really think that there’s more than a one in a million chance that it is." It appears that researchers using a radio telescope to stare at the sky saw a "significant" signal


How the E.U.’s ruling on Apple explains why Brexit happened

United Kingdom did with its Brexit vote — needs to leave an interventionist, anti-sovereignty European Union. To put the question a different way: Did Apple, in collusion with the Irish government, rip off the Irish public by arranging a huge tax break? Or did the European Union just undermine Ireland's economic model and strip the country of its competitive advantage, risking Ireland's long-term growth? Much of the debate across the Irish Sea in Britain during the lead-up to the referendum on E.U. membership in June centered on the idea that bureaucrats with no allegiance to Britain were sitting in Brussels and writing their laws. Proponents of a "Brexit" argued that leaving the E.U. would allow the country to "take back control" of its economy and borders. After the E.U.'s ruling on Apple and Ireland on Tuesday, one of the most outspoken Brexit leaders, Nigel Farage, tweeted that the E.U. was "anti-democratic" and "doomed," and included a video of him on a television show saying "Across the whole continent, people are saying, 'Why are our laws being made somewhere else?'" Others began using the hashtag #Irexit, or argued that it was the E.U., and not Ireland, that had broken its treaty obligations to its member-state. This kind of ruling will foment Irish resentment against the EU. #Irexit? cc @Fox_Claire https://t.co/2MW38NXT60 The EU has just put a torpedo into Ireland's economic model & violated a treaty obligation not to interfere in Irish tax affairs. Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's deputy prime minister, even took the opportunity to suggest that Apple shift from Ireland to Turkey, which isn't a E.U. member, where he'd be "happy to provide more generous tax incentives." Apple should move to Turkey. Happy to provide more generous tax incentives. Won't have to deal with EU bureaucracy https://t.co/9ceOnauGi0 And despite the promise of an unprecedentedly large injection of tax revenue, the Irish government plans to appeal the ruling. "This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system, to provide tax certainty to business and to challenge the encroachment of E.U. state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation," Michael Noonan, Ireland's finance minister said in a statement. Apple will also appeal. At the core of their argument is a denial that they got special tax rates unavailable to others. "The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and


SafeTrack forces Metro and Marine Corps Marathon into another transportation plan

Runners leave the starting line for the 2014 Marine Corps Marathon. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) This post has been updated. Organizers of the Marine Corps Marathon on Wednesday announced changes to this year’s event as a result of Metro’s year-long SafeTrack program, which has eliminated extended closings or early openings for special events. The 41st Marine Corps Marathon is scheduled to start at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30. Metro has traditionally opened earlier than normal on race day to accommodate runners and spectators, including last year, when service began at 5 a.m. Due to SafeTrack, Metro will not begin service until 7 a.m. this year. The MCM will maintain its 7:55 a.m. start time, but will keep the start line open until 8:55 a.m., a change from previous years. Changes to the course will reduce the time runners spend on Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. The start time for the Marine Corps 10K has been changed to 9:15 a.m. and the start line for the 10K will be relocated to the Pentagon North parking lot. Additional details about changes to this year’s event are available here.


Runners leave the starting line for the 2014 Marine Corps Marathon. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Organizers of the Marine Corps Marathon will make “a significant announcement” on Wednesday about changes to this year’s event as a result of Metro’s year-long SafeTrack program, which has eliminated extended closings or early openings for special events. The 41st Marine Corps Marathon and simultaneous Marine Corps 10K are scheduled to start at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30. Metro has traditionally opened earlier than normal on race day to accommodate runners and spectators, including last year, when service began at 5 a.m. Due to SafeTrack, NBC 4’s Adam Tuss reports that Metro will open at 7 a.m. on Oct. 30 this year. According to a release, MCM “will reveal its 2016 courses, new event timeline and robust transportation plan for the thousands of runners who will participate in the 41st MCM and MCM10K” during Wednesday’s 1 p.m. press conference. 2015 Course Map and Road Closures Course map and road closures for last year’s Marine Corps Marathon.


In his father’s footsteps, Justin Trudeau is looking to be big in China

to ask about human rights during his recent visit to Ottawa. But for someone set on a "new era" in relations, Trudeau seems to be invoking history at every step. As a boy, Justin Trudeau accompanied his dad to China. And so it is again. Trudeau landed in Beijing on Tuesday, disembarking after a long flight with his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, and his daughter, Ella-Grace. “In my very first trip to China, I was just a young boy and I was travelling with my father when he was prime minister, and that’s why it is so important to me that on this first trip to China as prime minister I bring my daughter Ella-Grace,” he said. “The friendship and the openness towards China that my father taught me, I’m certainly hoping to pass on not only to my children but to generations of Canadians in the future.” In a joint press conference Wednesday with China's premier, Li Keqiang, Trudeau mentioned his father about 20 seconds into his remarks. Li mentioned his dad, too. The effort has not gone unnoticed by the Chinese. Trudeau's China trip has received mostly favorable coverage in the party-controlled press. A front page story in the English-language edition of China Daily noted that the Canadian leader wore a red tie in a subtle nod to Chinese tradition. (Or to red ties.) What will that goodwill get him? At Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, Trudeau and Li answered questions on a Canadian citizen, Kevin Garratt, who has been indicted on charges of stealing state secrets, as well as a query about a trade dispute involving canola. Neither issue was resolved. Canada later announced that it hopes to join dozens of other countries in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, a Beijing-backed answer to the World Bank, which the United States has not joined. From Beijing, Trudeau and his team head to Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, where they are expected to focus on trade and investment. For now, Chinese netizens seem less interested in canola imports than the Canadian prime minister himself, using a popular slang term, "xiao xian rou," or "little fresh meat," to express their admiration. Trudeau's other nickname, an affectionate play on his surname, seems more apt for a second-generation prime minister on a mission to win hearts: "xiao tudou," or "little potato." Jin Xin contributed to this report.


The Internet revolution has not reached all of us

and its successors (including whatever you’re using to read this article) revolutionized information exchange from one computer to another across the fast-growing Internet, displaying whatever data those systems chose to make available through text, links, graphics and, soon enough, audio and video. Watching Andreessen’s demo, the future of computing suddenly shifted course. The Internet — with absolutely no competitive advantage over the private standards or even an intention by its developers to become a commercial network in the first place — was about to swallow everything, simply because there was no reason not to use it. Over the past 25 years, the Internet has steadily absorbed every network and every technology imaginable — or, more to the point, unimaginable. Once-separate radio, TV, voice and data all travel over the same systems, a virtual Postal Service now delivering a sextillion bytes a year. Thanks in part to official U.S. policy to leave the Internet “unfettered by federal or state regulation,” private investors have poured over $1.4 trillion into building and rebuilding the digital infrastructure. They are poised to do even more in the coming years, increasing both wired and wireless speeds from the megabits to the gigabits per second. And as the cost of computing and communicating continues to fall along with the size and power requirements of connectivity, trillions more devices will begin speaking the Internet’s lingua franca in the “Internet of Things.” But the revolution is far from complete. A shrinking but significant subset of Americans still aren’t connected, and even more in the rest of the world. Both public and private efforts to close the gap have made solid progress. The Federal Communications Commission, for example, has revamped its Lifeline program to subsidize broadband access for the poorest Americans. Comcast’s Internet Essentials program has now signed up more than 3 million subscribers, and AT&T recently announced its own $10 per month service. For increasingly popular mobile access, carriers and content providers including Facebook offer “zero rated” service, which provide unlimited access to the Internet’s most popular content. For the remaining digital holdouts, however, availability and cost are no longer the main obstacles. While the rest of us find ourselves unable to look away from our screens even for a few minutes, the unconnected — primarily older, rural, or less educated — consistently tell researchers that their principal reason not to go online is that there’s nothing there for


Ebola stayed in the semen of one man for 565 days, raising new public health concerns

virus in their semen. Of the 38, 63 percent had semen samples that tested positive for Ebola one year later. One man was found to still carry Ebola a shocking 565 days after he recovered from the illness. That’s a full year and 200 days. While the test used can only detect the genetic material of the virus in the semen but not whether there is a live virus that can transmit the disease, the mere presence of the fragments has been enough to raise alarm bells for health officials. Here's how the virus spreads and how contact tracing works to stop outbreaks. Moses J. Soka, coordinator for Ebola virus disease survivor clinical care at the Liberian Ministry of Health, said the work “demonstrates the importance of providing laboratory testing and behavioral counseling to empower survivors to make informed decisions to protect their intimate partners.” An intriguing finding in the study that raises more questions than it answers is that men who were older than 40 were more likely to have a semen sample test positive. The researchers were not able to explain why this was the case. Public health officials in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have put a lot of effort in recent months into providing education and counseling about safe sex to try to prevent any further spread of Ebola. In Liberia, Ebola survivors who are men and age 15 or older can get their semen tested each month. Sexual transmission of another major public health threat — Zika — has also worried the scientific community in recent months. In February, the city of Dallas reported that a local resident was infected after having sex with a person who had traveled to Venezuela. Earlier this month, the CDC said a Maryland woman had contracted Zika virus from a male sex partner who showed no symptoms of infection. The takeaway from these cases, public officials have emphasized, is a message they have been promoting for years: Use condoms whenever possible. This post has been updated. Read more: These futuristic contact lenses dispense drugs while you wear them Zika fears hit Asia: Singapore instructs workers to apply bug repellent hourly, take vitamin C More parents believe vaccines are ‘unnecessary,’ while a mumps outbreak grows Pocket Porn: Why Anthony Weiner can’t seem to stop sexting Like our Health Wellness page on Facebook for more news about the ins and outs


Biofuels may be good for the climate — but they could be bad for bees, research says

fuel, mainly corn-based ethanol, into the gasoline they produce. And Increased subsidies and the growing market for biofuels have likely helped contribute to the rise in corn and soybean cultivation in the Northern Great Plains, the researchers note — an expansion that can come at the cost of grasslands and wetlands. The new study grew out of an interest in investigating the effects his type of agricultural expansion might have on the ecosystem, compared to what is produced by the natural environment in the region. Plant pollination, carried out by bees and other insects, is estimated to have an economic value of $15 billion a year, and While the new study doesn’t actually draw any connections between biofuel cropland and pollinator health, experts believe that corn and soybean cropland is less than ideal for the bees when it comes to foraging. Corn, in particular, is thought to be a poor forage crop for honeybees, who tend to prefer other types of plants — and corn pollen is primarily spread by wind, rather than insects, anyway. Additionally, these crops are often treated with pesticides and herbicides that could be harmful to pollinators, the researchers noted in the study. “Recent field studies conducted in the [Northern Great Plains] have shown that apiaries surrounded by larger scale agricultural land covers, including biofuels, have lower honeybee colony overwintering survival rates and increased physiological stress,” they wrote. Bret Adee, a beekeeper and co-owner of the South Dakota-based To conduct the study, researchers first identified approximately 18,000 sites in North and South Dakota where beekeepers had registered apiaries. They then used maps of the region from 2006 to 2014 to quantify changes over time in the type of land cover around these apiaries. They found significant gains in the biofuel crop area surrounding apiary locations during the study period — an increase of 1.2 million hectares, or more than 4,600 square miles, in all. At the same time, grassland cover around these sites decreased. Next, the researchers gathered data on the types of land cover in which beekeepers in the region had chosen to place their apiaries in the past and fed that information into a model that showed them which types of land beekeepers most preferred and which they avoided. The researchers found that apiary placement was most strongly associated with grasslands, as well as alfalfa fields and open water. On the other hand, apiary


‘They will execute us': Couple held hostage by the Taliban plead for U.S. help

This undated image from video footage shows Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012. (SITE Intelligence Group via AP) In a video made public Tuesday, Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman warned that their captors would kill them and their children unless the United States and Canada stopped the Afghan government from executing Taliban prisoners. The warning was made in a video obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group this week. It is the third clip to have surfaced since the couple were taken hostage in fall 2012, and the first sighting of the two since 2013. The couple — the parents of at least one child born in captivity — went missing in October 2012 during a summer tour of Russia and Central Asia. Afghan officials believe Boyle and Coleman were abducted in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, a mountainous Taliban haven, according to the Associated Press. Boyle is Canadian and Coleman, his wife, is American. They were supposed to return home in time for Coleman's December 2012 due date, but family members lost contact with them shortly after Coleman e-mailed from an Internet cafe in what he called an “unsafe” part of Afghanistan, according to the AP. The AP and U.S. authorities have not confirmed the date of the video. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP that the video was not new and had, in fact, been recorded in 2015. Mujahid said Boyle and Coleman and their two children remain in captivity but in good health. It is unclear how many children the couple have. Both reference "children" in the hostage video. In the video, Coleman clutches at a headscarf that covers all but her face. Boyle, who sports a long, untrimmed beard, speaks first: "Our captors are terrified at the thought of their own mortality approaching and are saying that they will take reprisals on our own family," he says. "They will execute us, women and children included, if the policies of the Afghan government are not overturned either by the Afghan government or by Canada, somehow." Coleman also spoke about the threat to their family. "Because of their fear, they are willing to kill us, willing to kill women, to kill children, to kill whomever to get these policies reversed or to take revenge. Because of this, I ask if my government can do anything to change the policies of the Afghan


September begins with a ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse over Africa

(NASA) Nature provides a cosmic gift to open September: A heavenly ring of fire around the moon. The last time an annular eclipse occurred was on Apr. 29, 2014. An annular eclipse is very similar to a total eclipse. The moon glides between the Earth and the sun, but the moon is slightly farther out now, so it does not fully block the sun. Because of this, a ring of fire is created around the moon as it passes in front of the sun. Observers in the central region of Africa can see it in person, but the rest of us will have to watch online. In the U.S., you can watch two ways – Slooh.com and the Astronomical Society Southern Africa’s YouTube channel. Get a nap and set the alarm – it’s very early. Slooh.com is a webcasting site specializing is astronomical events. Their broadcast starts Wednesday night at 2:45 a.m. Eastern Time. Paul Cox provides the cosmic play-by-play, as astronomers Bob Berman and Eric Edelman add color. Joining the broadcast will be Fr. James Kurzynski of the Vatican Observatory, Shaykh Abdulbary Yahya of the Al Maghrib Institute, and psychologist Kate Russo – as all will share human dimensions to the eclipse experience. Meanwhile, the Astronomical Society Southern Africa’s YouTube stream begins at 3 a.m., where the group will have properly filtered cameras providing visual feeds during the mostly partial phases. Each eclipse belongs to a series – called a saros – and this is number 39 out of 71 eclipses in Saros 135 Each eclipse within a saros is separated by 18 years. The first eclipse in the Saros 135 family happened on July 5, 1331 and the last one will be Aug. 17, 2593. This family’s previous eclipse was an annular event on Aug. 22, 1998 and the next one will be annular on Sept. 12, 2034. On Thursday, the eclipse center line path includes include Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar, while a partial solar eclipse can be seen through most of Africa, including the southern part of Saudi Arabia, according to Espenak. For sky gazers in southern Tanzania, the greatest eclipse starts at 09:07 Universal Time (5:07 a.m. Eastern Time) when it peaks at 3 minutes and 6 seconds, and the shadowy path is 62 miles wide, says Espenak. If you’re reading this from Africa, always protect your eyes during


11 beer parties and festivals you should really go to in September

for a six-ounce pour and seven to nine for a larger one. Standard admission is $35, which includes a mug and 30 food and beer tickets; a VIP ticket, called the Gargoyle, costs $60 for the same amount of tickets, but includes access at 11:30 a.m. instead of 1 p.m., allowing a better chance to try the hyper-rare beers before the general public arrives. Snallygaster's held at the Yards, at First and N streets SE, near Nationals Park. Beyond beer, the day includes live music by Spirit Animal and Speedy Ortiz, food stalls and a family-friendly area with games and face painting. Sept. 17: Oktoberfest begins At noon on October 17, Munich mayor Dieter Reiter will tap a keg of beer and announce "O'zapft is!" ("It is tapped!"), beginning the 17-day celebration of Oktoberfest. Germany has a head start on us, but our celebrations begin the same day. Biergarten Haus Sept. 24: D.C. Beer Week begins This year brings big changes for D.C. Beer Week: Usually celebrated in August, the week-long event is now under the reign of the D.C. Brewers Guild, a nonprofit organization representing local breweries. Beyond the happy hours and tap takeovers, the calendar features Old Ebbitt Grill's BrewHaHa (Sept. 24), which pairs 20 beers with small bites from 20 local restaurants and Capitol City Brewing Company's Mid-Atlantic Oktoberfest (Oct. 1). Among the new events: Port City's Commonwealth Classics at the Heurich House (Sept. 27), which showcases beer, food and music from around Virginia. For more details on all events, check the D.C. Beer Week website. Sept. 24: Hoppy Oktoberfest at Mad Fox Brewing The Oktoberfest party at Mad Fox's Falls Church brewery isn't a traditional German event. The beer list usually includes some German marzen-style brews, but it also offers the chance to try some of the region's top IPAs while snacking on grilled brats and food and listening to live music. Noon to 6 p.m. Free. Sampling beer requires a $25 ticket, which includes a glass and six drink tickets. A VIP ticket ($55 until Sept. 10, $65 after) ups the ante to 10 drink tickets and includes free food from noon to 5 p.m. Read more: - 7 new bars you probably haven’t tried yet - The Watergate Hotel’s new rooftop bar has some of the best views in Washington - Buttercream Bakeshop’s icy mint mocha is the refreshing drink you need right now


‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes

Rico. But the insect neurotoxin cannot discriminate between honey bees and bloodsuckers. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University’s pesticide database warned that “Naled is highly toxic to bees.” Although the insecticide was known to kill bees, to South Carolina beekeepers spraying had not been as significant a concern as parasites, disease and other hive threats. As South Carolina Beekeepers Association President Larry Haigh told the Post and Courier in June 2015, many counties will spray at night, when honey bees do not forage for pollen. Plus, given sufficient warning, beekeepers will shield their hives and protect the bees’ food and water from contamination. Sunday was different. Summerville resident Andrew Macke, who keeps bees as a hobby, wrote on Facebook that the hot weather left bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives. And then came the plane. “They passed right over the trees three times,” Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said. As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm “looks like it’s been nuked.” A Summerville resident started a Change.org petition calling for Dorchester County to halt aerial Naled spraying. It is unclear whether those who lost bees are pursuing other recourse. The mosquito-borne disease suspected of causing serious birth defects is expected to spread to all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile and remains a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization. Update “The beekeepers that were on the county’s contact list that were in the zone to be sprayed were called with one exception. Mr. Scott Gaskins, who runs the Mosquito Control program, failed to call Mitch Yawn, Ms. Juanita Stanley’s business partner,” Ward said in the email. “The second issue regarding beekeepers like Mr. Andrew Macke revolves around the fact that the county did not have these locations on its list. However, we have reached out to the Lowcountry Beekeepers Association and they provided us with the names and locations for other beekeepers in Dorchester County.” Doctors confirmed the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly in April. While the most visible sign of microcephaly is


These charts clearly show how some Olympic swimmers may have gotten an unfair advantage

others. In a recent study, Stager and his colleagues showed that lane bias has shown up before in major international competitions — typically in temporary pools like the one in Barcelona. The researchers believe that the construction process might make temporary pools more prone to currents. It’s also possible that the problem lies elsewhere. Timothy Wei, a professor of engineering at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln who has studied the fluid dynamics of competitive swimming, suggested recently that the problem may have to do with the rigidity of the pool walls. Since temporary pools are typically constructed above ground, their walls might flex more and cause asymmetric waves that impede swimmers in the outside lanes, he explained in a phone call. Right now, it's hard to predict when these irregularities will surface. There was no evidence of lane bias, for instance, in the temporary pool that Myrtha built for the 2015 FINA World Championships, according to Revzin's analysis. But Revzin says the apparent lane bias at the Rio facility could have been caught earlier, because it was already evident in April, at an Olympic test event with Brazilian swimmers. FINA notes that no one has found physical proof that implicates the Rio pool. The patterns documented by Revzin and the Indiana University researchers were “made on the basis of mathematical analysis, without taking into account any scientific evidence in the actual pool constructed for these Games,” a FINA representative said in an e-mail. But it's clear that these patterns in the swim times were not flukes. The data overwhelmingly show that something unusual happened at the Rio Olympics, just as something unusual happened at the 2013 World Championships. Brammer, one of the Indiana University researchers, said that all he wants is for officials to take the problem seriously. “It's affecting these athletes' lives,” he said in a phone interview. “For some of them, this is their livelihood, and the Olympic Games are it. That's their pinnacle. For them to be cheated — that's a huge issue." From body parts washing up near the beach volleyball venue to insensitive commentary about gymnast Simone Biles, here’s a look at moments that have roiled the Games. More from Wonkblog: How to predict Olympic results before the Games even start Why all the practice in the world can't turn you into an Olympian What's straight across the ocean when you're at the beach


A growing number of U.S. adults are using pot. But are their perceptions of risks realistic?

patterns of marijuana use and dependence and how these have changed over time is essential for policymakers who continue to consider whether and how to modify laws related to marijuana and for health-care practitioners who care for patients using marijuana," he explained. That said, the data from the National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health did offer a positive finding: The prevalence of marijuana abuse or dependence remained stable at about 1.5 percent over the period. Marijuana has both short- and long-term effects on the brain and physical health. Scientists are still learning more about the different components of the cannabis plant and how they impact the human body, but there's consensus that smoking marijuana may irritate breathing passages, that it increases the heart rate and that it may negatively impact a fetus if a woman smokes while pregnant. Voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada just approved recreational marijuana use. Here's what they can learn from Washington, Colorado and Oregon, states where marijuana use has already been legalized. On the flip side, many people swear by it for chronic pain. There's also evidence that it may help with nausea, sleep disorders, depressed appetite and a number of other conditions. A lot of the positive publicity around marijuana's medicinal use has recently focused on how one extract made from cannabis may benefit some patients with epilepsy. In March, GW Pharmaceuticals said its studies showed that its cannabis-based drug appeared to dramatically reduce seizures in patients with Dravet syndrome. The Drug Enforcement Administration said in August that while it would still maintain marijuana on the list of the most dangerous drugs, it would loosen research restrictions to make it easier for scientists to look into other possible medical benefits — a move almost universally applauded, even by the strictest opponents of national marijuana legalization. Read more: Ebola stayed in the semen of one man for 565 days These futuristic contact lenses dispense drugs while you wear them Zika fears hit Asia: Singapore instructs workers to apply bug repellent hourly, take vitamin C Loathe your job in your 20s or 30s? That may hurt your health by your 40s. More parents believe vaccines are ‘unnecessary,’ while a mumps outbreak grows Like our Health Wellness page on Facebook for more news about the ins and outs of the human body and mind, essays and advice. You can sign up here for our newsletter.


Some E.U. countries got rid of the draft years ago. Now, they’re thinking about bringing it back.

sense of relief could be felt in high schools across the country. The quest to escape military service had previously been a major concern among students in the country, who searched the Internet for advice on how to fail the mandatory physical examination. The six-month program had long been considered outdated, useless and unjust by critics. Whether young men were drafted often depended more on coincidence than on physical fitness, they said. Instead of starting their careers, millions sat out six months in barracks, according to them. Negative public perception of conscription was partially backed by a recent report of researchers from the Center for Economic Policy Research, who concluded that "military service increases the likelihood of future crimes, mostly among males from disadvantaged backgrounds and with a previous criminal history." In 2011, Germany decided to pause the program. More recently, however, questions are on the rise over whether conscription might have been declared dead too early. Russia's annexation of Crimea and a lack of young Germans willing to serve in the army voluntarily have fueled a new debate in the country over whether conscription should be brought back. Germans drafted into the army also used to have the choice between joining the military or serving alternatively as social workers, for instance in care homes for retirees. Both the military and social projects that rely on young volunteers have faced a lack of young workers since 2011. Although leading politicians, including Germany's current defense minister, have rejected the idea of reviving conscription, calls for its reintroduction have become more vocal. With far smaller defense budgets than the United States, some European nations are increasingly worried whether they would be able to confront an attack at a NATO partner on their continent. Germany's military was so under-equipped in 2015 that it used broomsticks instead of machine guns in a NATO exercise, drawing widespread ridicule. But Germany is far from being the only E.U. country that has been criticized for not spending enough on its military. The lack of funding might raise uncomfortable questions for those seeking a reintroduction of mandatory military service. How would Germany and other countries accommodate hundreds of thousands of new conscripts if they cannot even provide equipment to the increasingly few soldiers they currently have? Read more: NATO: Russia increasingly staging snap military drills Germany’s army is so under-equipped that it used broomsticks instead of machine guns


The Daily 202: Trump triples down on a losing immigration position in Phoenix

Maggie Haberman and Alex Burns write on the front page of today’s New York Times that close associates have been telling Trump he’s in real danger of losing. “Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who lobbied in favor of the trip to Mexico, has told Mr. Trump that he must make immediate changes to regain his footing.… And on Monday, Mr. Trump’s son Eric met with senior officials at the Republican National Committee in Washington and heard a grim prognosis of his father’s campaign.… Without a major shake-up of the electoral map, strategists indicated to the younger Mr. Trump, his father’s already narrow path to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win could vanish. Going through the swing states one by one, party officials showed Eric Trump that his father was drastically underperforming other Republicans in the polls." Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto get in position for a joint news conference in Mexico City. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images) -- There are conflicting accounts of Trump’s private meeting with Mexico’s president: -- And there were several inaccurate claims in Trump’s Phoenix speech, - Trump’s claim that “illegal immigration costs our country more than $113 billion a year” comes from a dubious report by FAIR, an interest group that wants to dramatically curtail legal immigration. - Trump falsely says Clinton’s plan will provide Social Security to illegal immigrants. - He repeated the falsehood that Clinton plans to bring in 620,000 new refugees from Syria. - Trump lauded two Department of Homeland Security programs that have been widely scrutinized, and it’s questionable how effective they are. - The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants do not fit Trump’s description of aggravated felons, whose crimes include murder. U.S. Sentencing Commission data show homicides are a small percentage of the crimes committed by noncitizens, whether they are in the U.S. illegally or not. - Illegal immigration flows across the Southern border in fiscal 2015 were at the lowest levels since 1972, except for in 2011. Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning newsletter. With contributions from Rachel Van Dongen, Breanne Deppisch (@b_deppy) and Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) Sign up to receive the newsletter. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: SCOTUS (AP Photo/Jon Elswick) -- The Supreme Court ruled that North Carolina cannot use a strict voter law in the upcoming election because it was specifically designed to decrease the clout of African Americans. Democrats celebrated the news,


Transformers: Medicine

On Sept. 14, The Washington Post will look at advances in sciences and technology that are transforming medicine and examine innovations in finance and health care that could make treatments more affordable and accessible. Featured Guest: NIH Director Francis Collins Register here:


That SpaceX explosion blew up one of Facebook’s most ambitious projects

A handout image from a NASA live camera shows a fire burning on a launch pad after reports indicated that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which was scheduled to launch on Saturday, exploded during a test firing in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday. The scheduled launch was reportedly to carry an Amos 6 satellite into orbit. (EPA/NASA) SpaceX is reeling after an early-morning explosion took out its rocket on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. The incident is a major setback for chief executive Elon Musk. But odds are the tragic news is disappointing another U.S. tech billionaire, too. You see, the rocket destroyed Thursday was bearing a satellite that Facebook intended to use to beam Internet access to developing nations. When the rocket went up in smoke, so did the cargo inside, according to SpaceX. "SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload,” the company said in a statement. “Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries." Last year, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was eager to use the AMOS-6 satellite to deliver broadband connectivity to hard-to-reach parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Facebook has some 84 million users in the region. "To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies," he wrote in a Facebook post in October. Zuckerberg has spoken proudly of the initiative to connect the world's next billion people to the Web. On Monday, Zuckerberg met with Pope Francis and presented him with a model of the Aquila drone that Facebook expects to help beam Internet down to the earth. The drones are meant to work together with Facebook's satellite plans by essentially creating a single wireless network in the atmosphere. The company has also developed terrestrial equipment that can either act as standalone mobile data hotspots or as a hub for a local data network. It's unclear what Facebook plans to do next to compensate for the loss of the AMOS-6 satellite, whose 18 Gbps connections it planned to lease in partnership with Eutelsat for $95 million across five years. A spokesperson for Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.


CDC: More people are using marijuana, but fewer are abusing it

the two surveys is "not clear." Heavy marijuana use -- daily or near-daily in any given month -- did increase sharply over this period, according to the CDC. About 2 percent of Americans used marijuana daily in the past month in 2002, but 3.5 percent used daily in 2014. Again, though, teens bucked this trend: Daily or near-daily use among 12-to-17 year olds fell from 2.4 percent in 2002 to 1.6 percent in 2014. Normally, researchers expect increases in heavy marijuana use to lead to more marijuana abuse or dependency. But the opposite seems to be happening here -- abuse and dependency are falling as heavy use becomes more common. That represents a bit of a public health puzzle. The CDC authors posit that changes to medical marijuana law might explain some of the discrepancy. "With changes in medical marijuana laws and, in particular, state laws or policies allowing limited access to low percentages of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol (CBD), persons who use marijuana daily for medical reasons might be using strains that pose lower risk for dependence or abuse," they write. It's also likely that changing laws on marijuana use, and changing public attitudes toward the drug, help reduce some of the problem behaviors that lead to abuse or dependence. One of the criteria for abuse, for instance, is "trouble with the law" on account of the drug. It stands to reason that fewer marijuana users have trouble with the law when the law allows marijuana use. The report also traces some of Americans' changing attitudes toward marijuana use. In 2002, 38.3 percent of Americans aged 12 and over said there was "great risk of harm" from using marijuana monthly. By 2014, that number fell to 26.5 percent. Conversely, the share of Americans seeing "no risk" of using marijuana monthly roughly doubled, from 10 percent in 2002 to 19.9 percent in 2014. "This national surveillance report provides an exceptional analysis of how marijuana use and perceptions have changed over the past decade in American society," said SAMHSA’s Principal Deputy Administrator Kana Enomoto in a release. The findings are particularly timely, as voters in five states will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana this November. More from Wonkblog: One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana Legal marijuana is finally doing what the drug war couldn't Teen vaping is not what you think it is, researchers say


What the SpaceX rocket explosion means for NASA and human spaceflight

A fire burns on a launchpad after reports indicated that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a test firing in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Tia Grant/European Pressphoto Agency) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded while being fueled Thursday morning on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. No injuries resulted, but the rocket and its payload, an Israeli satellite named Amos-6, were destroyed. The explosion is a serious setback for SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk in 2002, and by extension for NASA, which has been investing in SpaceX for many years as part of the "commercial crew" program. SpaceX has said it hopes to launch U.S. astronauts into orbit to the International Space Station by the end of next year. Boeing also has a NASA commercial contract to launch astronauts in a capsule on top of an Atlas V rocket. The United States has been unable to launch astronauts on American rockets since the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011. But an audit coincidentally issued Thursday by the NASA Inspector General's office said delays in the commercial crew program could push the first launch to late 2018, and have already forced NASA to buy additional seats on Russian rockets, at a cost to taxpayers of $490 million. On Facebook Live, Washington Post reporters Chris Davenport and Joel Achenbach discussed the SpaceX explosion and its ramifications — including how it might have an effect on Musk's desire to put humans on Mars in the 2020s. Read more: Why NASA still believes we might find life on Mars SpaceX nails booster landing at sea Which way to space? SpaceX says it will fly a spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018 That SpaceX explosion blew up one of Facebook’s most ambitious projects


Watch SpaceX’s rocket explode in a massive fireball

watchdog reported that human flights to the station could be delayed because of technical issues with the companies’ spacecraft designs. Last year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket—which would also be used to fly astronauts—blew up a couple minutes after liftoff during a cargo mission. “This will always raise questions and possible delays, and certainly people redoubling their efforts on safety,” said Lori Garver, the former deputy NASA administrator. The explosion occurred at 9:07 a.m. as SpaceX was preparing to test fire the rocket’s engines ahead of the launch of a commercial satellite, reportedly valued at $195 million, that had been scheduled for early Saturday morning. The Falcon 9, towering some 230 feet high atop Launch Complex 40, was being fueled, when a fireball ignited around the upper stage oxygen tank, Musk said on Twitter. It was unclear what caused the mishap. Video of the incident shows a series of ignitions that engulfed the launch pad in flames. In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, NASA officials said they "remain confident in our commercial partners and firmly stand behind the successful 21st century launch complex that NASA, other federal agencies, and U.S. commercial companies are building on Florida’s Space Coast." Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur who also runs Tesla Motors, has laid out huge aspirations for his space company on an incredibly ambitious timeline. He plans to launch an uncrewed spacecraft in 2018 that would land on the surface of Mars, a planet he intends to colonize. At a space conference next month, he is scheduled to provide further details on how the company plans to get humans there by as early as 2025. The company also hopes to launch by the end of the year the Falcon Heavy, a much more powerful rocket than the one that exploded Thursday. And it plans to fly for the first time one of the rockets it had recovered earlier this year in a landing. But now SpaceX will be temporarily grounded while the investigation begins into what caused the explosion and repairs begin on the launch pad. After the explosion last June, SpaceX recovered quickly, returning to flight six months later. On that launch, it pulled off the first of its rocket landings. In an interview in June, Musk said that as it works to get to Mars, “we’re going to make mistakes along the way.” The company has enjoyed tremendous support from people


The Daily 202: McCain now promising to be ‘a check’ on Clinton, as Republicans run scared

Capital Weather Gang forecasts: -- Weathered bolts caused a chunk of the ceiling to fall to the ground at Rhode Island Avenue Metro station, and the station remains closed. -- An 18-year-old Montgomery County man was ordered held on $5 million bond after he allegedly used a kitchen knife to repeatedly stab a pregnant woman because he didn’t want to be a father. -- A botched $40 marijuana deal in a McDonald’s bathroom led to that shooting outside the Verizon Center. -- A Republican state senator who sued Gov. Terry McAuliffe over the governor’s efforts to restore voting rights to felons filed legislation to automatically grant political rights to certain nonviolent criminals. VIDEOS OF THE DAY: An explosion at a SpaceX launch site in Florida occurred during a static test fire. The explosion destroyed a satellite that Facebook helped to fund, which was designed to provide Internet access to areas in Africa. Read the story. Watch the video: An explosion at a SpaceX launch site in Florida occurred during a static test fire. The explosion destroyed a satellite that Facebook help fund which was designed to provide Internet access to areas in Africa. A new Clinton campaign web video says Trump embarrassed himself in Mexico: Trump's embarrassment in Mexico | The Briefing Obama, visiting Midway, reflected on the courage of American G.I.'s in WWII: President Obama Receives a Briefing on the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Meanwhile, First Lady Michelle Obama and Seth Meyers spoke to freshmen at Howard University. “College was the most important thing I’ve done in my life, other than being first lady, having kids and marrying Barack Obama,” she said to laughter. “It taught me I could leave home and be successful away from home. ... Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?” First lady Michelle Obama visited Howard University Thursday with actor Nick Cannon and Seth Meyers, host of NBC’s “Late Night.” Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D) crosses the border between the U.S. and Mexico: #EPBridges (Short Version) Former Mexican President Vicente Fox responds to Trump's visit to his country: Former Mexican president Vicente Fox strongly rebuked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a video released August 31, saying that Trump is "spreading a message of hate and fear." Jeff Ross talks about Ann Coulter being roasted by comedians earlier this week: Jeff Ross Loved Roasting “Awful” Ann Coulter - CONAN on TBS


An unprecedented number of states will vote on marijuana this fall

in 2014. While 58 percent of voters approved it, the measure failed to meet the 60-percent threshold necessary for a constitutional change. This year's measure is similar to the failed 2014 initiative, but supporters hope that a more Democratic-leaning electorate in a presidential election year will tip the scales in their favor. Florida's bill has garnered a number of high-profile endorsements from state and national political leaders, as well as groups like the NAACP, ACLU and some labor organizations. Most recent polls show support surpassing the 60 percent threshold needed for passage. But the 2014 amendment also had blockbuster polling numbers in the summer leading up to the election, only to collapse going into the fall. This could have been due to a late infusion of Adelson cash for the anti-marijuana campaign and a growing unease among voters with the specifics of the marijuana law. Arkansas -- Medical marijuana Arkansas is also making a play to be the first southern state allowing medical marijuana. The effort recently received a boost when the state Democratic party put a call for medical marijuana into their party platform. Voters there narrowly rejected medical marijuana in 2012, but a June survey put support at 58 percent among likely voters. That support may be stymied by the fact that there are going to be two competing medical pot measures on Arkansas' ballot: One of those is a simple state statute, while the other is a constitutional amendment. The measures are similar, and voters are free to vote for both. If both pass with a simple majority vote, the measure with the most support will be enacted. But there's also a danger of "splitting the ticket," and diluting medical marijuana support between two measures. North Dakota -- Medical marijuana In something of a surprise move, a medical marijuana measure recently qualified for the ballot in North Dakota. How this one will play out is anyone's guess. It appears the last polling on medical pot in the state was done in 2014, when 47 percent of voters approved of medical pot and 41 percent opposed it. North Dakota's always been a bit of an odd man out when it comes to medical marijuana. Its neighbor to the west, Montana, approved medical pot by ballot in 2004. Its neighbor to the east, Minnesota, approved it via legislature in 2014. But North Dakota is a notoriously conservative state. Authorities


Middle-aged parents are now more likely to smoke weed than their teenage kids

marijuana use is up 333 percent since 2002. "During the last 13 years, marijuana use (i.e., past-month marijuana use) has steadily increased in the United States, particularly among people aged 26 years or older," said report author Alejandro Azofeifa in an email. "Older groups had a significant increase of marijuana use in the past month." To put it another way: If trends continue like this, marijuana use among 50- and even 60-somethings could be higher than use among teens in a few years. Much of the debate around marijuana legalization focuses on the drug's potentially negative effects on teens: "what about the children?" as the common refrain goes. This makes a certain amount of sense, since the still-developing minds of adolescents and young adults are most susceptible to the potential long-term harms of heavy marijuana use. But the federal survey numbers on marijuana use suggest that voters considering whether to legalize pot should be asking themselves a different question: "what about grandpa?" There are several factors that could explain rising marijuana use rates among the middle-age-and-up crowd. The first is the growing prevalence of medical marijuana, which is now allowed in 25 states and D.C. Older Americans are increasingly turning to medical pot to treat some of the common ailments of old age, like sleeplessness, aches and arthritis pain (here's looking at you, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Ca.)). Research shows, for instance, that Medicare prescriptions for a number of common drug types -- painkillers chief among them -- are falling in states that allow medical marijuana. This suggests that a significant number of seniors in those states are opting for pot over more traditional medications. Another explanation: Aging Boomers seem to be taking advantage of loosening restrictions on marijuana use -- particularly in states where the drug is fully legalized -- to relive some of the recreational indulgences of their youth. National survey data bears this out Pew Research Center The marijuana industry is taking note of these shifts, and in places like Colorado and Washington companies are actively marketing toward aging Boomers looking to give weed another chance. Roughly one quarter of marijuana purchasers in Washington state, for instance, are over the age of 40. So while supporters and opponents of marijuana legalization in California and elsewhere tussle over the impacts of legalization on children, these numbers suggest that legalization would bring the biggest changes to the lives of kids'


Zika virus is spreading and remains global emergency, according to the WHO

A pest control worker fumigates drains and the gardens at a local housing estate in Singapore where the latest case of Zika infections were reported Sept. 1. (Wong Maye-E/AP) The World Health Organization said Friday that the growing spread of Zika around the world and basic gaps in knowledge about the virus’s devastating complications in babies continue to make Zika a global health emergency. After convening its expert committee this week, the U.N. health experts said that more research needs to be focused on what other factors besides the mosquito-borne virus could be causing severe birth defects, such as microcephaly. One of the most fundamental questions in this current epidemic is why countries such as Brazil, the epicenter of the current epidemic, have reported nearly 2,000 cases of microcephaly and other brain abnormalities, while countries such as Colombia, where more than 18,000 pregnant women have been infected since last fall, have reported fewer than three dozen cases. Scientists need to examine possible factors that could affect Zika's damage, including genetic factors, environmental contaminants, and other co-infections, said David Heymann, the committee’s chair and an infectious disease professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “A whole range of co-factors must be eliminated to say, with certainty,” that the only culprit is the Zika virus, he said. Peter Salama, WHO’s executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, said researchers need to understand whether the time lag between when an outbreak occurs to when birth defects show up nine months later could account for country-by-country differences, or whether it is “truly something to do with co-factors.” David Henrique Ferreira, 9 months, who was born with microcephaly, is held by his mother May 29 in Recife, the area of Brazil hardest hit by Zika. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Meanwhile, the virus continues to infect new countries, including most recently Singapore, which reported 189 confirmed cases Friday. “An extraordinary event is becoming, unfortunately, an ordinary event,” Heymann said. WHO officials also said Brazil reported no confirmed cases of Zika following the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. That data is based on information collected by authorities on people who sought treatment at health facilities who were athletes or spectators. Most people with Zika don’t have symptoms, but Salama said enhanced surveillance by WHO of the Olympic delegations shows no large-scale transmission of Zika, confirming the earlier assessments of WHO and the Centers for Disease Control


Juno probe captures incredible glowing lights on Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view as it closed in on Jupiter's north pole, about two hours before the closest approach on Aug. 27. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS) Nearly two months after entering an orbit around Jupiter, NASA's Juno probe has finally gotten close enough to provide a few spectacular — and unprecedented — images of the massive planet's polar regions. On Aug. 27, the probe completed its first close flyby (about 2,500 miles above Jupiter's cloud tops) with all of its instrumentation turned on. Another 35 will follow. Jupiter is a planet worth studying But there's one particular thing about Jupiter that gets planetary scientists really excited: its magnificently powerful magnetic field. Jupiter's magnetosphere — the area of space affected by its magnetic field — is the second largest object in the solar system (dwarfed only by the heliosphere, the area subjected to particles from the sun's own emissions). This infrared image from Juno provides an unprecedented view of Jupiter's southern aurora. Such views are not possible from Earth. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS) The power of Jupiter's magnetic field Jupiter's Glow in Infrared Light One of the new infrared images captures Jupiter's southern aurorae for the first time, which will allow scientists to study the phenomenon in greater detail. Meanwhile, images of the north pole reveal just how little we know about the king of the planets. "First glimpse of Jupiter's north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before," principal investigator Scott Bolton said in a statement. "It's bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to — this image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter. We're seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features." This montage of 10 JunoCam images shows Jupiter growing and shrinking in apparent size before and after NASA's Juno spacecraft made its close approach. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS) The mission's Radio/Plasma Wave Experiment (Waves) adds an audio element to our exploration of Jupiter, picking up the radio waves naturally emitted by the planet's dazzling aurorae: Juno Listens to Jupiter's Auroras "Jupiter is talking to us in a way only gas giant worlds can," Bill Kurth, co-investigator for the Waves instrument, said in a statement. "Waves detected the signature emissions of the


SpaceX and Boeing delays could mean more money for Russia, NASA watchdog says

the prices growing modestly, the report found. But after the U.S. couldn’t get to space on its own, the prices jumped from an average of $26.4 million a seat in 2010 to $51 million in 2012. In all, the U.S. has paid Russia $3.4 billion for rides on its Soyuz rocket, and the IG said NASA could have saved $1 billion of that if it had met its original goal of flying human missions in 2015. The agency’s watchdog said that Russia will rake in even more taxpayer money if there are additional delays to NASA’s efforts to fly again from U.S. soil. In 2014, NASA awarded contract to Boeing and SpaceX to fly its astronauts to the station. But the so-called “commercial crew” program is facing delays, the IG found, so that “NASA may need to buy additional seats from Russia to ensure a continued U.S. presence" on the space station. The report was written before SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blew up as it sat on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Thursday. It’s unclear whether that failure will contribute to any delays in the commercial crew program. But it was the second time one of SpaceX’s rockets has blown up in the last 15 months, raising concerns about its ability to fly people safely and whether it will be able to meet its timeline. NASA has stood by SpaceX through both failures, saying it recovered quickly after the first. And on Thursday agency officials said they "remain confident in our commercial partners." In its report, the IG noted that SpaceX did not think its first failure, which happened in June 2015 on a mission to resupply with space station with $118 million worth of cargo, would cause a delay in the commercial crew program. The company said “it had built sufficient margin into the schedule,” according to the report. But it also said SpaceX “noted the lack of margin remaining to accommodate any additional unexpected issues that may arise.” The report was released on the same day SpaceX’s rocket exploded. Boeing has already said it would have to push back its first crewed flights to early 2018. SpaceX has maintained that it would fly by the end of 2017. But the IG investigators weren’t buying either of those timetables: “Notwithstanding the contractors’ optimism, based on the information we gathered during our audit, we believe it unlikely


Looking for aliens on ocean worlds: ‘You’d be in denial to believe there isn’t life out there’

to explore the remote and hostile places. Woods Hole computer scientist Yogesh Girdhar demonstrated a program he'd written that allows robots to recognize and track objects of interest without being told to. Bill Stone "We would be at the bottom of any ice sheet on Earth in under six hours," Stone said. At lunch, Geoff Collins, a planetary scientist at Wheaton College who has worked with NASA on Europa research, reached out to shake Stone's hand. "That was really cool," he said. The rest of the table nodded their agreement. A view down the WISSARD borehole, 800 meters into the Antarctic ice. (Alberto Behar/NASA/JPL) The closest analog on Earth to drilling through the ice of Europa or Enceladus is Priscu's subglacial lake project, WISSARD, which involved drilling through a half-mile of ice in temperatures of minus-50 degrees Celsius. On Europa, NASA would have to drill through 60 miles of ice at temperatures lower than minus-180 degrees, all their instruments would have to fit into an average spacecraft's payload, and all the research would have to follow planetary protection procedures to ensure that Europa wasn't contaminated with Earthly life. "This is what we're up against," Priscu said. He is skeptical that subsurface exploration on Europa could happen in his lifetime. There's still too much work to be done developing the technology for such a mission; he doesn't envy the engineers who have to figure it out. Here's what the future does hold: In 2022, NASA will launch a spacecraft dubbed the Europa Clipper into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter, allowing the craft to perform multiple flybys of the planet's icy moon. The clipper will carry magnetic sounding instruments to remotely probe the contents of Europa's ocean and thermal imaging tools to look for signs of recent eruptions of warmer water. An array of other gadgets will snap images of the moon and search for plumes of ice and gas like those seen on Enceladus — if they exist, their contents might hint at the chemistry of the oceans from which they erupt. From orbit, the clipper will assess whether the moon might host life and the where best places to search for it might be. In this video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researchers explain how the liquid water ocean beneath the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa could have the ingredients to support life. On Earth, oceanographers are doing research


roof beams. Much of the talk at the Ocean Worlds meeting was about the robots, real and imagined, that are needed to explore the remote and hostile places. Woods Hole computer scientist Yogesh Girdhar demonstrated a program he'd written that allows robots to recognize and track objects of interest without being told to. Bill Stone "We would be at the bottom of any ice sheet on Earth in under six hours," Stone said. At lunch, Geoff Collins, a planetary scientist at Wheaton College who has worked with NASA on Europa research, reached out to shake Stone's hand. "That was really cool," he said. The rest of the table nodded their agreement. A view down the WISSARD borehole, 800 meters into the Antarctic ice (Alberto Behar/NASA JPL) The closest analog on Earth to drilling through the ice of Europe or Enceladus is Priscu's subglacial lake project, WISSARD, which involved drilling through half a mile of ice in temperatures of minus 50 degrees Celsius. On Europa, NASA would have to drill through 60 miles of ice at temperatures lower than minus 180 degrees, all their instruments would have to fit into an average spacecraft's payload, and all the research would have to follow planetary protection procedures to ensure that Europa wasn't contaminated with Earthly life. "This is what we're up against," Priscu said. He is skeptical that subsurface exploration on Europa could happen in his lifetime. There's still too much work to be done developing the technology for such a mission; he doesn't envy the engineers who have to figure it out. Here's what the future does hold: In 2022, NASA will launch a spacecraft dubbed the Europa Clipper into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter, allowing the craft to perform multiple flybys of the planet's icy moon. The clipper will carry magnetic sounding instruments to remotely probe the contents of Europa's ocean and thermal imaging tools to look for signs of recent eruptions of warmer water. An array of other gadgets will snap images of the moon and search for plumes of ice and gas like those seen on Enceladus — if they exist, their contents might hint at the chemistry of the oceans from which they erupt. From orbit, the clipper will assess whether the moon might host life and the where best places to search for it might be. In this video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researchers explain


No new cases of Zika connected to the Olympics, WHO says

Athletes paddle to shore near the Olympic rings after a men’s kayak double 1000-meter heat on Aug. 17. (Luca Bruno/AP) The Rio Olympics certainly didn’t go off without a hitch (remember the green pool water?). But one of the biggest fears concerning last month’s Games has not come to fruition: There have been no new confirmed cases of the Zika virus connected to the Olympics, according to the World Health Organization. “We don’t have any confirmed cases of Zika amongst travelers or amongst, indeed, athletes,” said Peter Salama, the head of the WHO’s health emergency program, at a news conference in Geneva on Friday. Salama expects similar conditions to remain during the Paralympics, which start on Sept. 7. “We are optimistic that the same risk assessment will hold [for the Paralympics] and there will be little additional risks,” he said. Fears over Zika convinced several athletes not to participate in the Games. Among them were several top golfers, including Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and more. Other athletes, who ultimately decided to attend, also cited Zika as a concern. Among them was Hope Solo, who Brazilians taunted with a “Zika” chant after she made her concerns public. Rio health officials, however, knew the risk was low ahead of the Games While Brazil’s problem with Zika — at least for now — is relatively under control, the risk of catching the virus in other parts of the world is on the rise. Zika is known to be in 70 countries, including the United States, where the first mosquito-transmitted cases of the diseases occurred in Florida in July. (H/t: BBC)


Giant pandas no longer endangered? Not so fast, some experts say.

Giant panda Mei Xiang rests in her enclosure in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 24. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images) If you ask some wildlife conservationists, it’s time to break out the celebratory bamboo and digest the chunks for 14 hours at a go. Giant pandas are no longer endangered, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, the nongovernmental organization that maintains the authoritative list of the world’s rarest species. Officially, the panda is now “vulnerable” — a species still at risk, but a step back from the brink of extinction. But the Chinese government is not yet ready to agree with the new classification. The IUCN announced the panda’s status change in Hawaii on Sunday, in an update to the organization’s Red List. That list contains nearly 83,000 species, of which nearly three in 10 are threatened with extinction. The panda was not the only animal to get a status update. A sharp decrease in an Eastern gorilla subspecies, as The Washington Post reported, led to a classification of “critically endangered.” Species are classified on a spectrum from “least concern” to “extinct,” a system the IUCN uses to inform and influence government wildlife policies. “The improved status confirms that the Chinese government’s efforts to conserve this species are effective,” the IUCN said in a statement. When the IUCN first classified pandas in 1965, the organization listed the species as “very rare.” Pandas would remain rare — or, in newer terminology, endangered — until the animal’s most recent update. Marco Lambertini, the director general of the WWF, said in a statement, “The recovery of the panda shows that when science, political will and engagement of local communities come together, we can save wildlife and also improve biodiversity.” The panda is particularly dear to the WWF, as the wildlife conservation organization has used the large black-and-white mammal as its symbol for more than five decades. In the mountains of southwestern China, the only remaining wild habitat for the panda, the Chinese government recently established dozens of wildlife reserves. The pandas, for their part, seem to appreciate the buffer zones; Sichuan and the other provinces surrounding the mountains are some of China’s most rapidly developing. China has stepped up arrests for poaching pandas to the point that the pelt trade is nigh extinct. By best estimates, the population appears to be slowly increasing, and the animals


How The Washington Post-SurveyMonkey 50-state poll was conducted

on the company’s do-it-yourself survey platform, roughly three million each day. A subsample of respondents to this range of surveys — which includes formal and informal polls of community groups, companies, churches and other organizations — were invited to participate in a second survey with the prompt, “Where do you stand on current events? Share your opinion.” The survey was not advertised on any website, so individuals could not “click-in” in an effort to influence results. A survey invitation could be used only once. From Aug. 9 to Sept. 1, the survey asked the sample of 74,886 registered voters about their presidential support, including between 546 and 5,147 respondents in each state. The final sample was weighted to the latest Census Bureau benchmarks for the population of registered voters in each state. [Full question wording and methodology of Post-SurveyMonkey poll] The Post-SurveyMonkey poll employed a “non-probability” sample of respondents. While standard Washington Post surveys draw random samples of cellular and landline users to ensure every voter has a chance of being selected, the probability of any given voter being invited to a SurveyMonkey is unknown, and those who do not use the platform do not have a chance of being selected. A margin of sampling error is not calculated for SurveyMonkey results, since this is a statistical property only applicable to randomly sampled surveys. The ability of random samples to represent the overall population is grounded in probability theory. With non-probability samples, testing is necessary to ensure a particular sampling strategy, along with adjustments to match population demographics, can consistently produce accurate estimates. Before partnering with SurveyMonkey, The Post sought to assess the accuracy and reliability of the company’s surveys by examining how their previous findings compared with election results, and to high-quality probability sample surveys This review, detailed below, gave us confidence that its samples are of sufficient quality that they can be useful in shedding light on the opinions of the broader population of voters. Representativeness of results The Post has generally avoided citing results from non-probability Internet-based surveys such as SurveyMonkey, as it is impossible to draw a random sample of Internet users, and random selection is a widely accepted standard in drawing representative samples of any population. As Internet-based surveys have proliferated, research has grown on the ability to make accurate population estimates from these non-probability samples. Several benchmarking studies have found that probability sample surveys


Caught on radar: Thousands of birds took flight minutes before Okla. earthquake

(Carolyn Kaster/AP) At 6:47 a.m. on Saturday, thousands of birds took flight across the state of Oklahoma. Weather radars lit up with blue and green, signifying that a large number of birds suddenly became airborne at nearly the same time. Then at 7:02 a.m., a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck the state, originating in Pawnee County. The culprit was hydraulic-fracking, specifically the deep well injection of fracking wastewater. But what makes this story so interesting is how much warning time the avian residents had before their human counterparts. The vibrations — or pre-vibrations? — prompted the birds to take flight 15 minutes before seismometers detected the earthquake. Radar catches birds taking off during earthquake Saturday It’s interesting but not surprising. Animals can feel earthquakes and also tsunamis seconds before they hit. The National Zoo reported animals panicking moments before the earthquake that struck Washington, D.C., in 2011. The animal-kingdom panic before the D.C. earthquake makes complete sense. There are two types of waves that roll through the ground during an earthquake, and the first type is undetectable by humans. “Very few humans notice the smaller P wave that travels the fastest from the earthquake source and arrives before the larger S wave,” says the USGS. “But many animals with more keen senses are able to feel the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives.” “As for sensing an impending earthquake days or weeks before it occurs, that’s a different story,” the USGS adds. So far, researchers haven’t figured out why animals can sense earthquakes minutes, hours and even weeks in advance. But one hypothesis suggests that maybe there’s another type of wave or indicator — like the P-wave — that humans cannot detect but animals can. This question is not just interesting from a zoological standpoint: It could mean there’s something happening minutes, hours or even weeks in advance that humans could use to as warning of an impending earthquake. This is at White’s Foodliner in Pawnee, OK. Thanks Mike Roberts. The store is closed until further notice. @NEWS9 https://t.co/buJ6rxqrcJ The governor declared a State of Emergency in Pawnee County, the epicenter of the quake, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission ordered the shutdown of 37 wells in the vicinity. No major damage or serious injuries were reported. The number of earthquakes in regions where fracking is occurring has been increasing at an alarming rate. For years, there had been uncertainty as


Caught on radar: Thousands of birds took flight minutes before Oklahoma earthquake

(Carolyn Kaster/AP) At 6:47 a.m. on Saturday, thousands of birds took flight across the state of Oklahoma. Weather radars lit up with blue and green, signifying that a large number of birds suddenly became airborne at nearly the same time. Then at 7:02 a.m., a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck the state, originating in Pawnee County. The culprit was hydraulic-fracking, specifically the deep well injection of fracking wastewater. But what makes this story so interesting is how much warning time the avian residents had before their human counterparts. The vibrations — or pre-vibrations? — prompted the birds to take flight 15 minutes before seismometers detected the earthquake. Radar catches birds taking off during earthquake Saturday It’s interesting but not surprising. Animals can feel earthquakes and tsunamis seconds before they hit. The National Zoo reported animals panicking moments before the earthquake that struck D.C. in 2011. The animal-kingdom panic before the D.C. earthquake makes complete sense. There are two types of waves that roll through the ground during an earthquake, and the first type is undetectable by humans. “Very few humans notice the smaller P wave that travels the fastest from the earthquake source and arrives before the larger S wave,” says the United States Geological Survey (USGS). “But many animals with more keen senses are able to feel the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives.” “As for sensing an impending earthquake days or weeks before it occurs, that’s a different story,” the USGS adds. So far, researchers haven’t figured out why animals may be able to sense earthquakes minutes, hours and even weeks in advance. But one hypothesis suggests that there’s another type of wave or indicator — like the P-wave — that humans cannot detect but animals can. (After-publish edit: And they might not be able to sense them that far in advance at all — we don’t know for sure!) This question is not just interesting from a zoological standpoint: It could mean there’s something happening minutes, hours or even weeks in advance that humans could use as a warning of an impending earthquake. This is at White’s Foodliner in Pawnee, OK. Thanks Mike Roberts. The store is closed until further notice. @NEWS9 https://t.co/buJ6rxqrcJ The governor declared a State of Emergency in Pawnee County, the epicenter of the quake, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission ordered the shutdown of 37 wells in the vicinity. No major damage or serious


This new gene technology could wipe out entire species — to save others

A Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito is seen on the skin of a human host in this 2014 picture from the Center for Disease Control. (Reuters/CDC/James Gathany) Scientists from around the world are currently gathered in Hawaii for an international conservation congress, where they’ve spent the past week discussing the most pressing issues facing the environment today. One topic on the table is a form of genetic editing called “gene drive” technology, which can be used to alter — or even wipe out — entire species. And while some experts have argued that the practice could be a useful conservation tool, others have warned that its impact on the environment could be devastating should it get out of control. Members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is holding its The motion is nonbinding and does not dictate the regulations that individual countries may choose to establish for themselves. But it does reflect a growing concern among both scientists and environmentalists about the technology’s potential power to irrevocably alter species and reshape ecosystems. A “gene drive” is a stretch of DNA that gets passed on to offspring more frequently than regular genes. In most sexually reproducing organisms, offspring have a 50 percent chance of inheriting a given trait from either one of their parents. Gene drives increase the odds. To be clear, gene drives are a naturally occurring phenomenon — they’re found in all kinds of species in nature. But it wasn’t until recently, with the advent of new genetic engineering tools, that scientists realized they could be harnessed by humans. Genetic editing tools such as Scientists have already begun to brainstorm ways this technology could be used for conservation purposes. In Hawaii, for instance, some scientists have suggested it could be used to save a group of endangered endemic birds known as honeycreepers. One of the many threats facing these birds is avian malaria. Scientists have suggested that gene drive technology could be used to render mosquitoes on the islands incapable of transmitting the disease, by tricking the mosquitoes’ immune systems into attacking the parasite that causes malaria. It’s a different concept from the genetically modified mosquitoes developed by biotech company Oxitec, currently being used to combat Zika in Brazil. The Oxitec mosquitoes are engineered with a “self-destruct” gene that causes their offspring to die before reaching adulthood. While these mosquitoes have been genetically modified, there is no


Study: Climate change made the deadly Louisiana flood far more likely

Precipitable water — a measure of how much moisture is in the air over a certain location — was off the charts in Louisiana that week. Day after day, data from weather balloons showed precipitable water that came close to or exceeded any other weather event on record in the region. Given the magnitude of the disaster, scientists at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab in Princeton, N.J., immediately teamed up with World Weather Attribution to determine what, if any, role climate change played in the event. They used historical weather observations along with a new, high-resolution climate model to reach a conclusion. A rainfall event like the one that displaced 30,000 people in Louisiana in August “is now expected to occur at least 40 percent more often than it was in our preindustrial past,” the team wrote. It’s more likely a doubling, said Karin Van der Wiel, the lead scientist on the study, in a conversation with The Washington Post. “That’s a very significant change in probability,” she noted. Put another way, scientists expect this kind of event to happen, on average, every 1-in-30 years somewhere along the northern Gulf Coast from Houston to the panhandle of Florida. But in 1900, it used to be 1-in-50 years. In less than a century, climate change has cut our recovery time in half. They also found that 1-in-30-year events have become 10 percent more intense since preindustrial times. NOAA’s team of researchers appreciates that no data set or climate model is perfect, but the tools they took advantage of for this study were the best of what science can offer. In particular, the models the team used were triple the resolution of other models often used for studies like this. “These models are at the forefront of climate change modeling,” said Van der Wiel, “and they really do a great job.” Areas around Baton Rouge continue to clean up and rebuild — an expensive process for the majority of residents who did not have flood insurance. The Red Cross alone suspects it will spend $35 million to $40 million on flood relief in the coming months. After the flood, the federal government declared 12 parishes major disaster areas, and the event will in all likelihood be named one of the country’s billion-dollar weather disasters. In light of this research, Louisiana may not have as much time to prepare for the next one.