Think California’s current drought is bad? Past incarnations have lasted hundreds of years

time has been punctuated by occasional dry periods, often lasting for hundreds of years at a time. One of these dry periods corresponds with a global climatic shift known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, a relatively warm period that was also accompanied by shifts in Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures back towards something resembling a long-term La Niña. The point is that changes in the Pacific Ocean appear to be closely linked to past shifts between drier and wetter conditions in California. This is possible because events in the ocean and the atmosphere tend to be so closely linked. For example, a standard La Niña event can cause changes in precipitation and weather patterns around the world, forcing a northward shift in the jetstream and leading to colder, rainier conditions in the Pacific northwest and an increased likelihood of drought further south. La Niña events are just temporary oscillations though, typically only lasting about a year. In contrast, the past Pacific Ocean shifts noted by the researchers in this study were likely linked to natural changes in sunlight falling on the Earth caused by subtle long-term shifts in the planet’s orbit, as well as volcanic activity affecting how much heat the earth receives. These events led to temporary climate warming that induced La Niña-like conditions in the Pacific. Increased amounts of solar energy reaching the Earth “appears to have had catastrophic effects in extending droughts,” said The big question on researchers’ minds now is whether human influences — namely, our greenhouse gas emissions rising in the atmosphere could elicit the same kinds of responses from the Pacific Ocean that these past changes in the planet’s orbit caused. While greenhouse gas emissions are causing the planet to warm, the way they’re physically doing so is unlike any of the natural variations the planet has seen in the past. So scientists can’t say for sure that the ocean will respond the same way it has in the past. Indeed, some researchers think global warming will shift us into more of an El Niño-like world, rather than a La Nina-infused one. A 2015 study in Nature Climate Change, for instance, suggests that greenhouse warming could contribute to an rise in extreme El Niño events, although the paper also notes that the frequency of extreme La Nina events could also increase in response. But if the patterns of the past do repeat — and


The blood-red ‘harvest moon’ rose over D.C. on Saturday. It was amazing.

The red Harvest Moon rises over the Capitol on Sept. 17. f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds (Kevin Ambrose) The harvest moon rose blood red behind the D.C. skyline Saturday evening. For a brief moment, from my vantage point at the Netherlands Carillon, the moon appeared to sit on top of the Capitol dome. The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. It rose above the horizon due east, which lines up well with the orientation of the National Mall. It makes for a wonderful opportunity to shoot the moon with the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Capitol. The Harvest Moon -- September 17, 2016 A 20-second time-lapse video showing the rise of the Harvest Moon over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17. This video was constructed with a sequence of still images shot at f/7.1, ISO 400, 3.2 seconds. (Kevin Ambrose) I made the poor choice of taking Metro’s Orange Line from Vienna to Rosslyn for my photo shoot at the Netherlands Carillon. Delays from single-tracking between Vienna and West Falls Church almost caused me to miss moonrise, which was at 8 p.m. But I arrived at the Carillon just in time and I found more than 50 photographers already set up with cameras and tripods waiting to shoot the rise of the harvest moon. The photographers were arranged in three rows facing east. I quickly chose the left end of the middle row and set up two cameras with tripods. I had just enough time to take a few test shots to verify focus and exposure. My primary camera is a Sony a7rII which I set at f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds. My back-up camera is a Sony a99 which I set at f/7.1, ISO 400, 3.2 seconds. I used my Sony a99 to construct a video by locking down the cable release button for continuous shooting and then arranging and compressing the still images into a 1080p time-lapse clip. It’s easier to shoot video in the camera’s movie mode, of course, but I like to have the sequence of high-definition images to go with the video. The moon begins to emerge from between the Washington Monument and Capitol. This photo was taken at 8:03 p.m. f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds (Kevin Ambrose) At 8:02 p.m., the moon became visible on the horizon between the Washington Monument and Capitol. “That’s beautiful,” a nearby photographer exclaimed. It


The renegade whose dream started the latest space race

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., last December. (Reuters) Elon Musk’s rocket-building company SpaceX and Jeffrey P. Bezos’s similar Blue Origin have grabbed the headlines in the space race. But there is a fascinating backstory about how the private space industry came into being. It is the tale of a renegade entrepreneur, Peter Diamandis, who founded the XPrize Foundation to encourage rocket-building in order to find a way into space himself. Journalist Julian Guthrie tells the story in a new book, “How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight” (Penguin, Sept. 20, 2016). It reads like a thriller — and reveals many secrets. (Full disclosure, Diamandis recruited me in 2011 to be head of academics at a futuristic think tank.) I have no doubt that the lessons in the book will resonate with today’s entrepreneurs, engineers and innovators because they illustrate how the impossible can be made possible. And, in a few years’ time, shopping for spaceflight tickets without understanding the background of the private space race is like carrying an iPhone without knowing it started with a desktop computer or flying in a plane with no idea that it started with the Wright Flyer in 1903. As Guthrie narrates the story, and as I have heard from Diamandis on several occasions, it all started with the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. After watching the historical landing, Diamandis became determined to fly into space himself and organized his life around that dream. He completed two degrees from MIT and a medical degree from Harvard — not to practice medicine but to enhance his chances of getting into the Astronaut Corps. Then he founded a national student space club, which Bezos was chapter head of at Princeton; an international space university; and a rocket company. When NASA began to wind down manned space flight, Diamandis realized the government wouldn’t get him where he wanted to go and that he would have to do it on his own. He found his inspiration for a modern-day space race in the golden age of aviation, when French hotelier Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 prize to the first person to fly nonstop between New York and Paris. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made before an American airmail pilot named Charles Lindbergh


What we know about the suspect in the New York, N.J. bombings: Ahmad Khan Rahami

him at a court a few blocks from the family’s restaurant. “I was shocked to see his picture. I said, ‘No, not Mohammed’s son.’ They were really nice,” said Flee Jones, 27. Jones said the family’s restaurant often gave him water and free food. He and Ahmad used to do rap battles at the restaurant and hang out there late. He said the family nicknamed Ahmad “Med.” Court records show that several members of the Rahami family have owned and operated the American Fried Chicken at the address searched by the FBI on Monday since 2002. It is unclear when Ahmad Rahami lived there or what role — if any — he had in the business. In 2011, the Rahami family sued the city of Elizabeth and several police officers, alleging they had been inappropriately cited for keeping their business open past 10 p.m. and harassed by police. They claimed a man in the neighborhood told them, “You are Muslims” and “Muslims make too much trouble in this country” and complained unfairly to law enforcement, who singled them out “solely on animus against [their] religion, creed, race and national origin,” according to court records. In one instance, they alleged, two Rahami family members were actually arrested for attempting to record a conversation with officers. A business owner across the street from the fried chicken place called the family “outcasts.” “They were angry,” said Marcella Perrotti, who owns a hair salon. Perrotti described Elizabeth as a small town with a tightknit community but said the Rahami family stayed well outside of it. “Never would I think in a million years that something like this would happen here,” she said. In a 2005 bankruptcy filing, the patriarch of the family, Mohammed Rahami described himself as the father of eight children and separated from his wife. He listed himself as a cook at a fried chicken restaurant with an income of $1,447 a month. Law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether Ahmad Rahami could have been influenced by international militant groups or the ongoing conflict in his homeland. Zapotosky and Wan reported from Washington. Julie Tate contributed to this report. Read more: Here’s how the New York and New Jersey bombings unfolded Explosives in New York and New Jersey were pressure cookers and pipe bombs linked to cellphones Obama urges calm in the face of attacks in New York and New Jersey


When it comes to climate change, let’s get our priorities straight

30 percent in 2025. Her plan is to continue implementing the Clean Power Plan and to invest in clean energy infrastructure. Given the legal challenges to Obama’s executive actions on the issue, how should the next president’s address climate change? How much should we be willing to spend on clean energy, and what approach might work best to get legislation through Congress? Bjorn Lomborg is president and founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. Find him on Twitter: The next administration must recognize not only that climate change is a real problem but also that we are not on course to solve it. The next president needs the courage to discard our current feel-good but ineffective solutions. Ending our reliance on the fossil fuels that have powered two centuries of economic growth will require an energy revolution. Many policies focus on solving global warming by investing in solar and wind, but over the coming quarter-century, these technologies will contribute only marginally to the solution. Moreover, they are not competitive now and will be mostly inefficient for at least 25 years. The International Energy Agency estimates that just 0.5 percent of the world’s energy comes from solar and wind, and even with the Paris agreement, this will increase to only 2.4 percent by 2040. It also Fixing climate change will require what philanthropist Bill Gates calls an “ Green energy innovation initiatives But this is only a start. A panel of Nobel laureates for the We must also bear in mind that global warming is not the planet’s only challenge. We often Speaking of climate change in catastrophic terms easily makes us ignore bigger problems, including malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria and corruption. The World Health Organization estimates that climate change since the 1970s causes about Every dollar spent on climate change could instead help save many more people from these more tractable problems. The current approach to subsidize solar and wind arguably saves one life across the century The next president must focus on the smartest solutions for all the world’s many ills, not just those that get the most attention. In facing climate change, he or she needs the courage to forgo subsidizing politically popular solar and wind, and to focus on green research that will help much more to solve the problem. The counterargument: Heather Zichal: The bipartisan path to tackling climate change


‘Fire on the wing’ reports pyrotechnic skydiving plane pilot before crashing into Ariz. home

Firefighters extinguish flames caused by a plane crashing into a home in Gilbert, Ariz., on Sept. 17. (Gary Hildebrandt/Gilbert Fire Department via Associated Press) An annual pyrotechnic skydiving show at the Constitution Week fair in Gilbert, Ariz., was disrupted Saturday night when the entertainment flames went horribly awry. The plane, carrying four skydivers and one pilot, caught fire mid-air and crashed into the clay-roofed house of a couple at home with their dogs, the Associated Press reported. Somehow, everyone survived. The skydivers escaped from the plane, landing on their marks as planned, according to the AP, but it was unclear whether they jumped before or after the plane caught fire. The pilot — identified by his brother as Ryan Kilgore — radioed an air-traffic control tower to say, “Fire on the wing, fire in the airplane,” ABC 15 reported. He was unable to land at nearby airports in Chandler or Mesa, according to the TV station, and abandoned the plane midair, jumping out with a parachute. He landed safely, according to an account written by a man who identified himself as Kilgore’s brother on a GoFundMe page, but he suffered burns and was hospitalized. “We are very thankful,” the pilot’s brother, Colton Kilgore, told ABC 15. “It’s a miracle no one on the ground was injured.” Emergency personnel pull airplane wreckage from a house at the 400 block of East Baylor Lane in Gilbert, Ariz., on Sept. 18. (Ben Moffat/Arizona Republic via Associated Press) Jesse Cagle-Villegas was in a swimming pool in the yard of a home nearby when he heard an explosion and saw someone parachuting into an empty field, the AP reported. The plane was headed right for him, he thought, but at the last minute veered left and into the home of Sharon and Peter LeBeau. Cagle-Villegas ran toward the field where he saw the parachute go down, searching for the pilot, he told the AP. He found the man standing and helped him walk to a nearby home, where Cagle-Villegas said he and the homeowner called 911. Authorities have not officially identified the pilot. The plane was a single-engine Cessna, Gilbert Fire and Rescue Capt. Josh Ehrman told ABC 15. It was removed from the burned-out LeBeau home over the weekend, and neighbors gathered to watch. Some saw the plane go down, others heard an explosion and then a crash. Bill Boykin told the Arizona Republic


Scientists know climate change is a threat. Politicians need to realize it, too.

Scientists agree human activity like burning coal for power has changed the climate. (REUTERS/Jim Urquhart/File) The climate is changing in dangerous ways, and we are responsible for most of these changes. This is not a matter of conjecture or political opinion — it is the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, based on solid evidence that mounts each year. Rising sea levels, extreme heat, increased incidence of floods and drought, ocean acidification and expansion of tropical diseases pose an unacceptable level of risk to our descendants. So do many other climate-related threats. Business, scientific and technical leaders are responding to these threats by finding ways to adapt to climate change, increase our energy efficiency, and develop carbon-free energy sources. Political leaders here and abroad are creating policies that promote these advances. At the Paris climate conference in December, 195 countries adopted an historic climate agreement, whose main goal is to prevent the world’s mean temperature from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade above its pre-industrial level. This agreement was the culmination of many years of efforts by governments and citizens. The negotiators of the agreement came together despite differences in forms of government, in responsibility for past emissions of greenhouse gases and in susceptibility to future climate change. But these efforts to reduce the risk to future generations are now being imperiled by a small yet vocal group that denies the validity of the evidence and of scientific expertise in general. Of special and immediate concern is the stated intent of the current Republican Party platform and presidential nominee Donald Trump to promote the extraction and use of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels, to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement and to rescind President Obama’s executive actions designed to reduce climate risk. We are deeply concerned about the serious long-term damage to our world that would result if the climate and energy policy goals of Trump and the Republican Party were to become our national policies, reversing decades of progress on energy, climate, clean air and clean water. These consequences would be borne by billions of current and future citizens of this planet. To address this concern, we — together with 373 other members of the National Academy of Sciences — have published an open letter today drawing attention to the serious risks of climate change. We state that “the problem of human-caused climate change is


Most Colorado voters say legal weed has been good for the economy

those nightmare scenarios have come to pass so far. Teen use is down, crime is flat and many other social and economic indicators are unchanged. "The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents," the Cato authors conclude. The Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, suggests that that's how many Colorado residents see it, too. About 61 percent of voters there say legalization has had a positive impact on the economy, and 58 percent say the tax revenue generated by legal marijuana sales has been good for the state. Most interesting, from a public health standpoint, is the finding that nearly one in four Colorado voters say they know someone who is drinking less alcohol now that marijuana is legal. Research has generally shown that marijuana consumption is associated with fewer health risks — both to consumers and society as a whole — than alcohol consumption. If Coloradans are substituting marijuana for alcohol, the state could see some subtle gains in public health as a result of that shift. There are, of course, negative outcomes associated with legalization, too. The Colorado Department of Health says marijuana-related emergency room visits are up. The state has also had some difficulty regulating edible marijuana products, such as candy and cookies, which have sent a number of kids to the hospital. The survey found that men (55 percent) hold significantly more positive views on legalization than women (40 percent) do, and that Democrats (58 percent) and Independents (52 percent) are considerably more likely than Republicans (32 percent) to say that legalization has been good for Colorado. But the biggest marijuana divide is seen in age: Three-quarters of 18- to 29-year-olds say that legalization has been good for the state, compared with 27 percent of voters over 65 who say the same. Despite these divisions, however, a majority of Colorado voters (51 percent) would oppose any plan to repeal marijuana legalization. Only 36 percent would support such a measure. 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. More from Wonkblog: One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana Why medical marijuana patients can’t buy guns An unprecedented number of states will vote on marijuana this fall


The little misfit buildings that make cities wonderful — and hold them back

off." A lone remaining rowhouse at 13th and M streets in Northwest. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) There is something romantic about the idea of a holdout, a David to the big developer's Goliath, a protagonist for whom home matters more than money, a solitary survivor. In the Pixar movie "Up," the holdout is the hero. In the real-life Seattle version of the story that reportedly inspired the film's premise, an elderly woman who refused to sell her home became — along with her home itself — a city icon. "I don't want to move," Edith Macefield told the Seattle P-I in 2007 before her bungalow was enveloped by new development. "I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything." In practice, though, modern cities grow out of older ones in large part through the unglamorous process of parcel assembly — of fitting together the once-smaller pieces of the city, "Tetris"-like. And while the result often produces fantastically bizarre neighbors, cities can't evolve if every property owner is such a hero. "When you walk around downtown D.C., downtown D.C. used to be entirely rowhouses," Brooks says. "So somebody had to assemble them." The area just east of Mount Vernon Square — where the Spriggs home and AV repair shop are located — looked like this in the 1892 plat book of the city: From the 1892 Real Estate Plat-Book of Washington, District of Columbia. Yellow buildings were wooden-frame construction, pink ones built in brick. (Courtesy of D.C. Public Library Special Collections, Washingtoniana Map Collection) If many of those properties weren't combined, it would be hard for Washington — or any other city of its vintage — to accommodate over time its growing population, or its changing economy, or the ways we live now (with underground parking garages and apartments made possible thanks to elevators). Just off that map, on the north side of K Street at Sixth Street NW, sits the modern Association of American Medical Colleges building, a block-size office cobbled together from many smaller lots — and a few restored historic properties. Here, the project's architect, Shalom Baranes, describes how the site came together and why it looks today as if it emerged from two different eras a century apart: Shalome Baranes Associates designed the Association of American Medical Colleges building in Northwest DC which incorporates several historic buildings into the structure. "I feel like they add a


Scientists may have solved a key riddle about Antarctica — and you’re not going to like the answer

loss of Greenland’s and West Antarctica’s ice, but also major losses from the biggest ice sheet of them all, East Antarctica. Scherer, DeConto, and Pollard also have a fourth author on the study, the noted Penn State glaciologist Richard Alley, who has become more and more outspoken of late about his concerns that the world’s great ice sheets could be unstable. In a media statement accompanying the study’s release, Alley had this to say: This is another piece of a jigsaw puzzle that the community is rapidly putting together, and which appears to show that the ice sheets are more sensitive to warming than we had hoped. If humans continue to warm the climate, we are likely to commit to large and perhaps rapid sea-level rise that could be very costly. No one piece of the puzzle shows this, but as they fit together, the picture is becoming clearer. In other words, solving this key scientific problem from Antarctica’s past turns out to immediately raise major concerns about its future. “We have now reached a point where atmospheric CO2 levels are as high as that during the Pliocene, 400 ppm, when geological evidence and new model results suggest substantial retreat of the EAIS [East Antarctic Ice Sheet] margin into interior basins. These perspectives bear fundamentally on predictions of future EAIS behavior,” said Harwood by email. Granted, on a scientific and individual level, there’s also the satisfaction of finally being able to unify quite a lot of information into an explanation that fits the data and also matches our growing present day understanding of Antarctic vulnerability. “Personally, I find the story rather cathartic, because it does explain the observations, I think, in a much better way than had been done before,” says Scherer. According to a new study, high levels of greenhouse gas emissions could cause oceans to rise by close to two meters in total (over six feet) by the end of the century, and more than 13 meters (42 feet) from Antarctica alone by 2500. Read more at Energy Environment: Think California’s current drought is bad? Past incarnations have lasted hundreds of years Obama to designate the first-ever marine monument off the East Coast, in New England We’ve been protecting Earth’s land for 100 years. We’re finally starting to protect its oceans For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


Father of suspected bomber Ahmad Rahami says he had called the FBI about him

At least 29 people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City Sept. 17. Here’s what we know so far. Federal prosecutors weighed additional charges Tuesday linked to the bombings in New York and New Jersey, even as investigators sifted through surveillance video and other clues seeking to determine whether the lone suspect — now in a New Jersey hospital bed — had wider links in plotting the attacks. As details continued to emerge about Ahmad Khan Rahami, the 28-year-old named as the only suspect in the bombings, his father said Tuesday that he had previously called the FBI about his son. Rahami’s father spoke briefly to a scrum of reporters, offering relatively few details before climbing into an SUV and leaving. He also told reporters that his son was violent toward other family members “for no reason.” A federal law enforcement official confirmed that they did look into the father’s comments and opened what is known as an assessment. The father went on to recant his comments, but agents conducted interviews and checked databases as part of this effort, said the official, who asked not to be identified. It did not immediately appear that the investigation was as intensive as the FBI’s investigation of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gunman who opened fire inside a nightclub there earlier this year. A day after Rahami was captured following a bloody shootout with police, there were no signs that the probe into the bombings had expanded to other possible suspects or groups. However, there were indications that Rahami was interested in extremist ideologies. After Rahami was captured, investigators found blood-spattered papers on him that included a reference to Anwar al-Awlaki, according to a federal law enforcement official. Awlaki, an American-born cleric who was a top leader for al-Qaeda in Yemen, was killed in a 2011 drone strike, but his rhetoric continues to resonate online. His teachings have been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks, including the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and authorities say the gunman in Orlando earlier this year and one of the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., last year had viewed Awlaki’s lectures. The bombings and explosive devices in New York and New Jersey are “being investigated as an act of terror,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said Wednesday during a speech in Lexington, Ky. She also said that a stabbing attack over the weekend at


Americans love animals more than they used to — even ‘scary’ ones

had icky or scary reputations? The authors aren’t sure, but they cite research that suggests American views of wildlife are shifting away from an emphasis on “domination” toward “harmony, care-taking and empathy.” And, they write, “the increases in positive attitudes toward wildlife demonstrated by this study could lead to increased support for species conservation activities.” But it’s complicated, for a few reasons. The world’s human population is on a course to hit 9.7 billion by 2050, and all those people are going to need more to eat. If we keep using today’s food production methods, that will require more land for crops and cows, chickens and other meat sources, which will mean less habitat for wild animals (and could catalyze a sixth “mass extinction“). What’s more, city folks’ growing love for wolves and coyotes might stir social and political tension over how to deal with those predators in rural areas where they’re more abundant; some people in the Great Lakes region, for example, would like to be able to shoot wolves. And if public concern about farm animals gets more out of barns and into pastures, they’ll probably become more vulnerable to canine predators, which also might trigger fights among people. Then again, the authors write, the growing concern could inspire innovative solutions to wildlife conservation and conflicts. Co-author Jeremy Bruskotter, an associate professor of environment and natural resources at Ohio State University, told Conservation Magazine that the key is to leverage Americans’ expanding care for animals and turn it into wildlife-supporting dollars. These days, the magazine noted, most state-level conservation funds come from licensing activities that lead to dead animals: hunting, trapping and fishing. “I think that public support for conservation efforts, as well as efforts to increase the well-being of animals is very high — perhaps as high as it has ever been,” Bruskotter said. “But this won’t translate into more conservation until we have a funding model that isn’t so tied to consumptive forms of outdoor recreation.” By the way, only two of 33 animals fared worse in the recent survey than they did in 1978: Raccoons and swans. The authors weren’t sure why. Here, in order of most liked to least liked, are the animals that came out on top and on bottom. Top Six: Dog, butterfly, eagle, horse, robin, elephant, cat Bottom Six: Skunk, rattlesnake, wasp, rat, cockroach, mosquito Read more: With 800 offspring, ‘very


Prescription painkillers are more widely used than tobacco, new federal study finds

Hydrocodone bitartrate and acetaminophen pills, also known as Vicodin, are arranged at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. (Toby Talbot/AP) More than 1 in 3 American adults -- 35 percent -- were given painkiller prescriptions by medical providers last year. The total rate of painkiller use is even higher -- 38 percent -- when you factor in the number of adults who obtained painkillers for misuse via other means, from friends or relatives, or via drug dealers. These numbers come from a recent Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report that highlights the stunning ubiquity of prescription painkillers in modern American life. The report indicates that in 2015, more American adults used prescription painkillers than used cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or cigars -- combined. Most painkiller use isn't misuse, which SAMHSA defines as any use of painkillers in a manner not directed by a doctor. This can include taking painkillers without a prescription for the purpose of getting high, or taking the drugs for a longer period of time or at a higher quantity than recommended by a doctor. Indeed, part of painkillers' prevalence owes to how effective they are, and to the difference they can make in the lives of pain sufferers. It's hard to imagine recovering from an invasive surgery without having something to treat the residual pain, for instance. And for many people afflicted with chronic pain, proper management with prescription painkillers can mean the difference between debilitating illness and daily functioning. But many prescription painkillers are highly habit-forming, and they can be deadly if taken at high doses, or in conjunction with other drugs such as alcohol. In 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid painkillers killed nearly 19,000 Americans. That's greater than the total number of Americans (15,809) who were murdered that year. Those numbers are so high partly because Americans have developed a voracious appetite for painkillers in recent years. A 2008 study estimated that Americans consume about 80 percent of the global opioid supply and 99 percent of the supply of hydrocodone, one of the most popular prescription painkillers. A recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and the Associated Press detailed the intense lobbying efforts pharmaceutical companies have made to keep these drugs lightly regulated and readily available. The investigation found that when it comes to lobbying, pro-painkiller groups outspend groups arguing for tighter restrictions by more than


After Wells Fargo, can you trust your bank?

In a tense exchange, Senator Elizabeth Warren badgered Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf on why he had not offered to give up any of his compensation or to resign in the wake of the fake accounts controversy. At a time when branch employees at many large banks are feeling more pressure to sell their customers products, the Wells Fargo scandal shows that the front-line workers who handle customer accounts present a threat that is often overlooked, some security and privacy experts say. The scheme at the nation’s largest retail bank hits closer to home for some consumers in part because it wasn’t executed by sophisticated cybercriminals, but by everyday branch-level workers. Employees opened sham credit card and deposit accounts to meet sales quotas. In some cases they moved customers’ money without permission, leading those customers to face fees and other charges. “The banks are working very hard to try and protect their accounts from outside,” says Steve Weisman, a professor at Bentley University who studies white-collar crime. He also is the author of the Scamicide blog. But internal problems are “happening more and more often,” he said, adding that employees have access to sensitive customer data. Federal rules guide what bank workers are supposed to do. Bank employees need to make sure that customers’ information is stored safely, and they are required to sign confidentiality agreements, says Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Workers must also have a legitimate business reason for accessing a customer’s personal information and should not open accounts without permission, he said. But as the Wells Fargo scenario and other fraudulent schemes show, some banks and regulators may not be doing enough to keep track of what employees actually do with customers’ personal information. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman drew attention to the issue last year when he wrote a letter to the country’s big banks, including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, highlighting “security weaknesses” at the banks that he said allowed schemes to go “largely undetected.” Schneiderman included a list of changes that banks could make to better track how employees access and use customer information, such as adding daily reports on the accounts accessed by tellers and other employees. JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America declined to comment on their procedures for identifying unethical behavior. At a Senate panel on Tuesday, lawmakers grilled Wells


The FBI looked into suspected bomber Ahmad Rahami in 2014 and found no ‘ties to terrorism’

opened what is known as an assessment, a relatively low-scale probe. But officials also said that Rahami’s father did not directly contact the FBI on his own, as he said; rather, agents learned he was making statements about his son. When the FBI was alerted that Rahami was making comments that raised concerns about terrorism, they looked for any hints of terrorism “and we found nothing,” said an official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. It did not immediately appear that the effort was as intensive as the FBI’s investigation of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gunman who opened fire inside a nightclub there earlier this year. A day after Rahami was captured in New Jersey following a bloody shootout with police, there were no signs that the probe into the bombings had expanded to other possible suspects or groups. Mohammad Rahami (center left), the father of the New York-New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmed Khan Rahami, speaks to reporters. (Tariq Zehawi/Northjersey.com via AP) However, there were indications that Rahami was interested in extremist ideologies. After Rahami was captured, investigators found blood-spattered papers on him that included a reference to Anwar al-Awlaki, according to two federal law enforcement officials. One of the officials said the papers — several pages in Rahami’s pocket — also included references to the Boston Marathon bombings, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and Osama bin Laden. The papers did not apparently include any reference to the Islamic State, the group that claimed responsibility for mall stabbings over the weekend. Awlaki, an American-born cleric who was a top leader for al-Qaeda in Yemen, was killed in a 2011 drone strike, but his rhetoric continues to resonate online. His teachings have been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks, including the Fort Hood shooting in 2009, and authorities say the gunman in Orlando earlier this year and one of the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., last year had viewed Awlaki’s lectures. The bombings and explosive devices in New York and New Jersey are “being investigated as an act of terror,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said Wednesday during a speech in Lexington, Ky. She also said that a stabbing attack over the weekend at a Minnesota mall is being investigated as an act of terrorism. On Tuesday, a federal law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said that the gun Rahami used during the shootout with


Photos: A second straight stellar sunset in D.C. area

Sunset, Sept. 20, 2016 (Chris Duncan via Twitter) Along the edge of a coastal storm is the place to be for spectacular sunsets. In Tuesday’s case, the D.C. area was on the fringe of the cloud deck from the remnants of one-time Tropical Storm Julia. Areas along and west of Interstate 95 were perfectly positioned to capture the beautiful scene as the sun sank and illuminated the layers of clouds to the east. You may recall the region was treated to stunning sunsets when it was along the periphery of Tropical Storm Hermine as well. Tuesday evening’s magnificent sunset scene followed terrific views Monday evening when a front was pushing out of the region. Below find some of the best submissions from Tuesday’s sunset sent to us via social media … Sunset, Sept. 20, 2016. (AlltheGoodIDsAreTaken via Flickr) Sunset, Arlington, Va., Sept. 20, 2016. (Erinn Shirley via Flickr) amazing sunset tonight! @capitalweather https://t.co/1UoAsoCNcP Sunset on Cap Hill @capitalweather @nbcwashington @TomKierein https://t.co/j4L614VCp2 @capitalweather @TheSouthwester #gangplankmarina #swdc #thewharfdc #districtwharf #houseboat #boat #sunset… https://t.co/okTEREaszF There's never one sunset the same or one sunrise the same. #quote @yourtake https://t.co/nN1iX4GgrC Stayed later at work than I planned, got this gorgeous Georgetown Waterfront sunset as a reward. #nofilter… https://t.co/5StKI1pO5m Nice sunset! @capitalweather https://t.co/QHV2won9um


A mysterious polio-like illness that paralyzes people may be surging this year

McKenzie Anderson, before and after she came down with a mysterious disease called acute flaccid myelitis, which is a lot like polio. (Family photos) Before dinner on July 29, 3-year-old Carter Roberts of Chesterfield, Va., seemed perfectly healthy. That evening, he vomited. When he woke up the next morning with a slight fever of 99 degrees, his mother, Robin Roberts, figured that he was coming down with a cold. The next morning, she found him collapsed on his bedroom floor. “Mommy,” she recalls him saying. “Help me, help me.” Carter could barely stand when she picked him up, and his neck was arched backward. “What was most alarming,” she said, “is he had no control over his right arm whatsoever.” In the hospital, Carter lost control of his right arm, then over his legs and other muscles within a few days. He now can only wiggle a toe and move the left side of his face. He has been diagnosed with a mysterious, polio-like illness called acute flaccid myelitis, a condition that seems to be surging this year. Through July, 32 new cases of AFM have been confirmed across the United States this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sharp rise compared with last year, when just seven cases had been confirmed by that month. The numbers have risen steadily since April. In past years, most cases have occurred between August and December, with a peak in October. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Among the many unanswered questions about the condition are what causes it, how best to treat it and how long the paralysis lasts. Although most cases occur in children, AFM occasionally affects adults. The CDC official who leads the surveillance efforts said that confirmed numbers for August will not be available until the end of this month, but the number of reports she is receiving from doctors around the country continues to rise. “CDC is looking at these trends very carefully,” Manisha Patel said. “We have sent out several health alerts to states to let them know we are seeing an increase in reporting and to encourage them to communicate with doctors to report these cases in a timely fashion.” The CDC began tracking AFM in 2014, when 121 cases were confirmed. That year, the CDC counted only children affected by the disease. Their average age was 7. Most had a


perplexing is what causes the disease. The 2014 outbreak of AFM occurred at the same time as a far larger outbreak of enterovirus D68 across the United States. The vast majority of patients infected with the virus developed only a respiratory illness. Some physicians were convinced that EV-D68 was the cause, not only because both outbreaks occurred at the same time but also because of a study that identified a particular strain of EV-D68 in the airways of children with AFM. But officials at the CDC and some doctors, including Wiznitzer, insist that the cause remains unproved. So far this year, no similarly widespread outbreak of EV-D68 respiratory infections has been reported, although cases of it and other enteroviruses have been seen in some areas. On Friday, Le Pichon, in Kansas City, said, “I just got confirmation that we have an epidemic of enterovirus breaking out here and at least a few cases [of enterovirus] have typed positive for EV-D68.” Carol Glaser, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., said: “If the theory is right that it’s caused by EV-D68, which some of us believe more than others, this would be the time of year we start seeing it. It’s an enterovirus, and they tend to peak in late summer and early fall.” Because the CDC’s surveillance of AFM is less than two years old, it remains unclear if some of this year’s apparent rise in confirmed cases is due simply to more doctors sending in case reports, Patel said. And Wiznitzer emphasized that with just 32 confirmed cases across the United States so far, AFM remains extremely rare Glaser, however, said she is convinced that the condition is new. She worked at the California Department of Public Health when, in 2012, some of the first reports of AFM anywhere in the country came in from physicians there. “I was there for 15 years and talked to neurologists every single day,” she said. “It wasn’t until the fall of 2012 when the first physician called in and wanted a test for polio on one of his patients. One of my colleagues in the office chuckled and said to me, ‘We don't have polio in the United States.’ But in the next two weeks, I got two very similar phone calls. We had never had a report like that. I do think there was something new going on.


Watch scientists levitate objects and draw on water with ‘acoustic holograms’

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany are moving paper boats, levitating bubbles and making dove-shaped water rings using sound. The experiment looks like science fiction — or maybe even magic. In response to a single tone from a lone speaker, tiny silicone particles floating on the surface of a glass of water arrange themselves into the shape of a dove. The image holds for as long as the tone plays, then collapses. But this is science, not fiction. The experiment is one of several performed by physicists at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, that demonstrate that they can use a 3-D-printed plate to manipulate sound waves into a complex "field" capable of creating images in water or levitating objects in midair. "It's just like" the holograms you've seen in "Star Trek," said physicist Peer Fischer, co-author of a new study in the journal Nature. "Only we don't generate an image using light — we do it with sound." According to Fischer, this is the first time scientists have produced this phenomenon using a single sound source. Last year, scientists at the University of Bristol in Britain published a study in the journal Nature Communications about an acoustic system that could levitate objects. Their system works in much the same way as Fischer's: Both produce sound waves that approach the object from multiple directions and at various amplitudes and frequencies. When the sound waves interact with one another, they create a pressure gradient in air (or any other fluid) that can hold a bead aloft or cause objects to move around on the surface of water. But the Bristol team's experiment required a whole bunch of transducers (speakerlike devices that convert electrical signals into sound), each carefully tuned to produce exactly the right kind of wave. "If you want to generate a complicated sound field, you need a large number of sound sources," Fischer said. "And you can imagine if you get to a few hundred, that gets very difficult and costly and complicated." The underwater acoustic hologram projects sound waves toward the surface of the water to generate complex sound fields, such as the two rings that can be seen on the water surface. The hologram was invented by a team at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, and is made using 3-D printing. (Kai Melde) So Fischer and his colleagues came up with an


Craft breweries need help, not handouts

Port City Brewing in Alexandria. (Jeffrey MacMillan ) In a development that has become as commonplace as the hoppy IPAs that symbolize the United States’ craft beer renaissance, state and local governments are rushing to “help” breweries. Port City Brewing in Alexandria is just the latest example of what’s happening across the country. Thanks in part to $500,000 in public grants from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and the city government, Port City announced that it will expand its operations and nearly triple its brewing capacity. The knee-jerk reaction for beer lovers would be to rejoice. After all, this means more beer. People looking for a way to boost the local economy might find cause for celebration. This means more jobs. And local politicians certainly love this, too. Piggybacking off of craft beer’s popularity might increase their popularity (read: re-electability) as well. While these sentiments are certainly understandable, they neglect to consider how policymakers can actually lend a hand to the industry. Craft breweries do not need subsidies, but they do need help. In fact, giving money to brewers simply masks the biggest problem facing the industry’s continued growth: Craft brewers face an outdated, counterproductive and oftentimes redundant regulatory mess. In Virginia, for example, starting a craft brewery requires 20 regulatory steps at the local, state and federal levels. This is as many bureaucratic steps as starting a small business in China or Venezuela. This is not to say that there is no role for regulation, especially when a real public-safety concern is in play. But most of these regulations date to the end of Prohibition, fail to account for changes in the market over the last eight decades and have become poorly disguised gifts to established breweries and wholesalers. At the federal level, aspiring craft brewers currently must wait more than 160 days to get approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. This includes background checks, field investigations, equipment and premises examination and a legal analysis of proposed operations. Then it’s another 24 days for the TTB to approve the label you put on the bottle. The TTB may also need to approve your formula (depending on your ingredients and brewing methods), which requires more waiting. In all, just at the federal level, a brewer must wait nearly six months for the necessary approval. An aspiring brewer’s work is not done, however, as he or she


A brewers dozen: The 12 events to hit during D.C. Beer Week

The Make It Funky Festival at Denizens Brewing attracts fans of funky and sour beers. (Photo courtesy of Denizens Brewing Co.) The annual D.C. Beer Week has moved one month later on the calendar, but it's still one of the busiest eight-day stretches of the year for anyone who loves good ales and lagers. Each night brings a new slate of tastings, tap takeovers and happy hours, but here are the key events you'll want to buy tickets and arrive early for. Saturday, Sept. 24 Old Ebbitt BrewHaHa DC Beer's Blind and Bitter at ChurchKey Sunday, Sept. 25 Hopfunk Fest at 3 Stars Monday, Sept. 26 Ryes of D.C. at Jack Rose [Prost! 12 ways to celebrate Oktoberfest in the Washington area] Tuesday, Sept. 27 Battle of the Barrel Aged Beers III at Boundary Stone D.C. Women in Beer Sensory Overload Food Pairing Event at the Black Squirrel Smoke and Barrel Five Year Anniversary Celebration Thursday, Sept. 29 The Washington D.C. Total Tap Takeover at ChurchKey [Beer of the Week: A blind tasting of pumpkin ales] Friday, Sept. 30 Cask Night at District Chophouse Saturday, Oct. 1 Denizens Make It Funky Fest Bikes and Brews Brewery Tour Capitol City Brewing Company's Mid-Atlantic Oktoberfest


How scientists read an ancient and fragile biblical scroll without unrolling it

can't imagine the joy in the lab," she said. Ancient text unfurled. (Science Advances, B. Seales et al 2016) Not all of the lines of text were recovered. The fire that destroyed En-Gedi engulfed the outer edges of the scroll and burned some outer layers all the way through, so that certain spots are missing on every page. But there was enough text for Hebrew University's Michael Segal to identify multiple verses from the book of Leviticus. Aside from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain hundreds of religious texts and date to around 400 B.C., the En-Gedi text is the oldest Hebrew biblical tome ever found. "I think we can safely say that since the completion of the publication of the corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the En-Gedi Leviticus scroll is the most extensive and significant biblical text from antiquity that has come to light," Segal said. Shor added that she found the text itself to be rather symbolic: The opening chapters of Leviticus speak of burned religious offerings, and she and her colleagues were puzzling out the meaning of scrolls left behind when a community burned to the ground. "The burned offering shall be flayed and cut up into its parts," one preserved passage reads. "The sons of the priest Aaron shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the parts, with the head and the suet, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar." "I think it symbolizes it all very nicely," Shor said. Crumbling pages may soon be no match for modern technology: Earlier this month, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a new imaging method that allows them to virtually pierce the first few pages of delicate books and analyze their text. And Seales is eager to apply his software to other ancient scrolls. "Damage and decay is the natural order of things, but you can see that sometimes you can absolutely pull a text back from the brink of loss," Seales said. Read More: MIT researchers can listen to your conversation by watching your potato chip bag NASA spots an ‘impossible’ cloud on Titan — for the second time Watch scientists levitate objects and draw on water with ‘acoustic holograms’ The world’s oldest computer is still revealing its secrets Water bears’ latest superpower: Proteins that protect them from radiation


For the first time, Obama requires U.S. government to factor climate into national security policy

that work on climate science, intelligence and national security must “collaborate to ensure the best information on climate impacts is available to strengthen our national security” through the new Federal Climate and National Security Working Group. That group must release a climate change and national security action plan in 90 days. All the relevant agencies must then identify steps to implement it. Speaking to reporters on a conference call, White House officials said this would spur a more specific and focused strategy when it comes to both identifying how different regions of the world would be affected by climate change and how to respond. “Simply put, our agencies want to protect our nation against this threat,” said Alice Hill, special assistant to the president and senior director for resilience policy at the National Security Council. She added that the memorandum establishes “a unified approach to identify the priorities for the federal government.” John Holdren, the president’s top science and technology adviser, said changing weather patterns and other climate impacts — including drought, more-intense storms and rising sea levels — are already exacerbating regional conflicts and “straining the capacity of the United States and allied armed forces to deliver humanitarian and disaster relief.” White House aides described the directive as the culmination of a year-long effort to more fully integrate climate considerations into intelligence analysis and military planning. While the next president could easily overturn it, Holdren said the changes underway in the atmosphere, on land and at sea will ensure that agencies continue on their current course. “There’s every reason for the next administration to follow this blueprint,” he said. “In fact, the impacts on national security are only going to grow.” But Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who in the past has supported federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change, said in an interview that Obama’s new memorandum was “elevating it beyond where it needs to be right now.” “Climate change is real. I think it’s a problem that needs to be solved … but I think the president is making a huge mistake to interject climate-change solutions into national security,” he said, adding that it could hamper some of the military’s efforts. “If I’ve got to choose between climate-change solutions and solutions that will put Iran in a box, and they may be carbon intensive, I’m going to go with putting Iran in a box.”


Ahmad Rahami, suspected New York bomber, cited al-Qaeda and ISIS, officials say

Elizabeth, N.J., train station. Just two days before the explosions took place in Chelsea and along a charity race path in New Jersey, the complaint says, a cellphone video was recorded of Rahami burning “a small, black cylindrical object” in a back yard — in an apparent practice run. A day after Rahami was captured by police, investigators continued to delve into his life and examined his friends, family, records, social-media accounts and phones. According to friends and court records, many aspects of Rahami’s life appeared to begin unraveling after he graduated from high school. As a high school senior in 2007, he got his girlfriend Maria pregnant, and she “was very pregnant” by the senior prom, said Chris Konya, a high school classmate from New Jersey. Rahami’s father was angry about him dating her because she was Dominican and from a different race, said three people who knew him at the time. After graduation, Rahami’s father forced him to make a trip back to Afghanistan, even though he didn’t want to go, said Imani Podhradsky, a classmate. After their daughter was born, Rahami and his girlfriend’s relationship appeared to be turbulent. Court documents show that she took him to court for not paying child support. On Tuesday, about 24 hours after Rahami was apprehended, she filed an application for full custody, pointing to his involvement in “possible terrorist related activity” and the fact that he was charged with attempting to kill police officers. The father of Ahmed Rahami, Mohammad Rahami. (Tariq Zehawi/Northjersey.com via AP) In 2014, Rahami was accused of stabbing a family member in the leg, court records show. When Rahami’s father spoke briefly to a scrum of reporters Tuesday, he said that the younger man was violent toward other family members “for no reason.” At some point, he married a Pakistani woman. Two years ago, Rahami was in Islamabad, Pakistan, when he contacted the office of Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.). Rahami said he was concerned about getting his wife an immigrant visa while her Pakistani passport has expired. Sires’s office found out that at some point after this, Rahami’s wife got her visa, but the congressman doesn’t know what happened after. A Pakistani intelligence officer in Quetta said Tuesday that an initial investigation showed he had visited Quetta, a hub for militant groups, in 2011 and 2013. The intelligence officer said there is evidence Rahami was married


PM Update: Clouds may linger tonight, and perhaps Thursday as well

D.C. streetcar at sunset. (Aaron Hedquist via Flickr) As is often the case when there is an easterly, onshore wind, clouds remained stubborn today. And has been the case in recent days, sunshine was more prevalent northwest of town than to the southeast. Overall, the cloud cover was rather thin, and temperatures ended up warmer than in the past few days. Tomorrow should feature more of the same. Through tonight: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post. Tomorrow (Thursday): See Dan Stillman’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Pollen update: Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. Fun with radar: What is that ? @TerpWeather https://t.co/vBNWAXKco9 The likely answer: birds. After looking over the data, CWG meteorologists came to that conclusion in an e-mail conversation this morning, as did the NWS office for that region. “Roost rings” are a pretty common sight across the country, and just one non-weather use for radars! A nice "Roost Ring" detected at 6:25AM this morning on RADAR. Read about roost rings here http://t.co/M1GPHRkUkQ http://t.co/i4H1Vick84 The KMVX radar was detecting birds taking flight this morning (shown by the circular echoes). https://t.co/TiPeaJlIib ...Bats and summer heavy shower collide! #Bats #BrackenCave #Radar #EWX https://t.co/LW62CukRWL


Pumping breast milk during a half marathon turned one runner into an inspiration

(Courtesy REVEL Big Cottonwood Marathon and Half) Anna Young was thrilled to be running in her first race since giving birth to her first child, a daughter, five months ago. A former high school and college runner, the 27-year-old was determined to complete the Revel Big Cottonwood half marathon in Salt Lake City on Sept. 9. But in the middle of the race nature intervened, and Young chose to do something that is almost never seen during road races: She slowed to a walk and pumped breast milk, eventually completing the race. Her act went viral, turning her into an inspiration to nursing mothers everywhere. Her Facebook post on the Occupy Breastfeeding page two days after the race has been liked more than 11,000 times and shared by over 2,000 people at press time. It wasn’t exactly how Young had planned the 13.1-mile race, but she was not about to be sidetracked. Young, who competed at Arizona State but had only been running sporadically due to injuries since graduating in 2011, had done her homework ahead of the Cottonwood race. Well, it may have been last-minute homework, but she did her homework all the same. “It wasn’t until about two weeks before the race I had the realization that I hadn’t quite thought things through,” she wrote in an email to The Post. “I asked my La Leche League Facebook group [a nonprofit that promotes breastfeeding] about managing the race with my concerns for needing to nurse or pump. I got a few recommendations for manual pumps to look into and took those suggestions into consideration.” After being unable to compete the previous year due to the pregnancy, she was all in on the 2016 event, and quickly formulated a race-day plan. “The logistics of this race were a bit unique so it was really out of necessity that my husband and I had the idea to bring the pump along with me,” she wrote. “I knew I could meet him with my daughter at the finish but I was concerned about how long the race was actually going to take me in addition to the travel time before the start.” With baby in tow, she and her husband left at 4:30 a.m., with Young nursing just before departure. She pumped at the race’s eight-mile mark and nursed again after she finished. A photo taken along the route showed that


Scientists finally figured out the source of this bizarre, glowing space ‘blob’

of astronomers went to the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) — a collection of 66 radio telescopes in the desert of northern Chile — to try and peer inside Lyman-alpha blob 1. According to a recent report in the Astrophysical Journal, the blob contains two young galaxies generating new stars at a feverish pace. Their activity lights the cloud of gas surrounding them, creating the blob's characteristic diffuse glow. "Think of a streetlight on a foggy night," lead author Jim Geach, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire, said in a statement. "You see the diffuse glow because light is scattering off the tiny water droplets. A similar thing is happening here, except the streetlight is an intensely star-forming galaxy and the fog is a huge cloud of intergalactic gas. The galaxies are illuminating their surroundings.” A rendering from a cosmological simulation of a Lyman-alpha Blob similar to LAB-1. (J.Geach/D.Narayanan/R.Crain) The findings can help astronomers understand how galaxies form and evolve. Researchers believe the two galaxies at the center of the Lyman-alpha blob are in their earlier stages of development, spitting out at least 100 sun-size stars per year. Eventually, they'll probably merge into a single, elliptical galaxy. Note that because this blob is 11.5 billion light years away, all this stuff already happened; we just haven't seen it yet because the light has to travel such a long distance to get to us. "We are seeing a snapshot of the assembly of that galaxy 11.5 billion years ago," co-author Dave Clements said in a statement. If the same kind of activity is powering other Lyman-alpha emitters that scientists have seen, then these blobs could be the birthplaces of the most massive galaxies in the universe. “Unveiling the galaxies shrouded in LAB-1 did more than just put to bed the long-standing issue of the gas cloud’s glow,” said Desika Narayanan, a researcher at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and also a co-author of the paper. “It provided a rare opportunity to see how young, growing galaxies behaved when the universe was quite young.” Read more: How scientists read an ancient and fragile biblical scroll without unrolling it Watch scientists levitate objects and draw on water with 'acoustic holograms' Water bears' latest superpower: Proteins that protect them from radiation Scientists uncovered a skeleton from the ancient world's most famous — and mysterious — shipwreck How black widow mothers control their children’s cannibalism


How honeybee research improved your Internet experience

Cornell researchers Michael Smith, left, and Thomas D. Seeley working with bees. (Courtesy Golden Goose Award) Question: What’s the most efficient way for a colony of honeybees to harvest nectar from your garden? The answer, it turns out, is helping make your work on the Internet quicker and more efficient. The story begins with three Georgia Tech systems engineers — Craig A. Tovey, John J. Bartholdi III and John Hagood Vande Vate — who in 1988 were inspired by a National Public Radio feature on the foraging practices of honeybees. The story focused on Cornell University biologist Thomas D. Seeley, who described how bees, with no central authority, efficiently gather nectar for honey. “Would the bees be any more efficient if they hired us as consultants?” they wondered. Systems engineers make systems — in manufacturing, transportation and other sectors — operate more efficiently. These engineers were intensely curious about the system operating inside a honeybee colony. Seeley and others had studied how an individual forager bee operates, but no one had addressed the system as a whole. The engineers contacted Seeley, and with financial support from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, the four researchers developed a model that theorized how the bees would be allocated among flower patches of varying “profitability.” They predicted that the honeybees had developed a flexible system that brought large returns and allowed the colony to adapt to an ever-changing work environment — different flower patches going in and out of bloom in changing weather and seasons. Cornell researcher Thomas D. Seeley labeling a bee. (Courtesy Golden Goose Award) Tovey joined Seeley at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station in upstate New York to test their engineering model in the field. To track the bees’ behavior, Seeley labeled 4,000 honeybees in his research colony for identification. (How do you apply a label to a bee? Very carefully. Actually, you immobilize the bee by lowering its body temperature.) The bees did in fact follow their engineering model, operating at near-maximum efficiency. Now the engineers had a “honeybee algorithm” – a self-organizing, highly efficient and highly adaptable system for gathering nectar. But they couldn’t figure out how to make use of it. More than a decade later, knowing nothing about Tovey’s foray into honeybee behavior, an Oxford graduate student studying at Georgia Tech, Sunil Nakrani, approached Tovey about working with him on his dissertation.


The Earth is soaking up less carbon than we thought — which could make it warm up even faster

the soil by accounting for biological and chemical processes going on in the ground. This means that the models might not be accurately reporting the cycling time. This is important, because carbon sequestration — basically, the uptake of carbon by the soil — doesn’t just happen instantaneously. First, carbon dioxide is taken up by trees and other vegetation, who need it to survive. When they die, they eventually break down and the carbon they contain goes into the soil. Older carbon in the soil implies that this process takes a longer time. The authors of the new study wanted to figure out if the current models were on track without incorporating this information. So they collected radiocarbon data from soil samples from 157 sites around the globe, and they incorporated the data into a series of models. Then, they compared their results to the findings produced by the models that have previously been used. They found that, in the real world, soil carbon was generally a lot older than the models had been reporting. In fact, the researchers found that the old models had been underestimating the age of soil carbon, on average, by a factor of more than six. The discrepancy could be the result of a number of factors, the researchers suggested. For instance, the models may have relied on data from experimental studies performed in laboratories, which may not always be wholly representative of what happens in the field, he said. Or the models may have failed to completely account for some of the biochemical processes that influence turnover times in the real world. In any case, the results suggest the process can take a lot longer than scientists previously assume — up to thousands of years, instead of just tens or hundreds. This means that previous research may have significantly overestimated how much carbon the world’s soil can store away throughout the rest of the century. In fact, the new study suggests that, worldwide, soil’s carbon sequestration potential this century may only be half what we thought it was. He pointed out that over a much longer time scale, the carbon is still going into the soil. The point is that it may not be happening fast enough to keep up with global climate change, she said. When humans emit greenhouse gases, they go into the atmosphere and settle there immediately. So even though some of


3 Stars and Neal Place Tap & Garden team up for a hyperlocal beer

vines have shot up, and the hop cones have gotten larger and begun giving off fresh, oily aromas. Soon, they're going to be picked and sent to 3 Stars Brewing Company, where they'll be used to create that brewery's first-ever Made in D.C. beer. [A brewers dozen: The 12 events to hit during D.C. Beer Week] "We've done some hop samplings, with hops that homebrewers grew in their backyards, but we've never used D.C. hops in a beer before," says 3 Stars co-founder Dave Coleman. "There's not a lot of hop farms in the city." Coleman and the brewing team haven't determined how much they'll get of each hop variety, which include Cascade, Nugget, Willamette and Sorachi Ace, and the yield will help determine what kind of beer to create. Some at the brewery want to take advantage of the freshness of the hops to make a strong, pungent double IPA, Coleman says, while others have argued for a lighter style of beer, such as a saison, that would better show off the flavors of the hops. ("We're a brewery divided," he jokes.) Either way, it will probably be a cask-conditioned ale, and will include some other ingredients sourced locally. "We'll probably forage for some herbs," Coleman says. "Something that rounds out the aromatics, and will balance or even counterbalance the flavors." Expect the beer to be ready for a mid-October release, with a party to be held at Neal Place Tap & Garden. "This is just the first installment," says Coleman, who found out about the hops when Neal Place co-founder Gina Chersevani posted a photo of the crop on Instagram last week. "We'll see where we go from here. It's the whole 'Made in D.C.' thing. We're trying to showcase something made in D.C. that showcases ingredients from D.C. We're proud to be a D.C. business, and I know Gina is too." Both 3 Stars and Neal Place will be open for D.C. Beer Week events this weekend: 3 Stars hosts the Hopfunk Fest at its Takoma brewery from 1 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, and Neal Place is turning its taps over to RAR Brewing from 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Hops grow on wires at Neal Place Tap & Garden near Union Market. The hops will be used in beer by the 3 Stars Brewing Company in Northeast D.C. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post)


Congress is about to give Olympians a tax break

runs out of time. But the most common reason bills fail to advance is that there's just not a whole lot of interest in it among lawmakers and constituents. If you're a congressional leader why spend your limited time debating and voting on a bill if lawmakers don't care enough care to pass it? Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) speculated to the Washington Examiner in July that Congress may have been holding out for a broader tax reform bill that never came. For whatever reason, all the buzz about giving Olympians a tax break during the London Olympics quickly died down after the games ended. But 2016 seems to be different This year, the tax-break proposal has gotten further than it ever has before. Like, way further. The Senate passed a bill in July. It was sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and cosponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). (Side note: Thune's tweet about the bill after U.S. gymnast Simone Biles won gold didn't go over that well.) .@Simone_Biles Congrats! My bill would eliminate the taxes you’ll owe on your winnings when you get home. #taxrelief https://t.co/wc7FJgzN8A The U.S. Olympic Committee even issued a statement saying they'd appreciate the help. "This bill could assist many athletes as they train to compete for the United States," the committee said, according to the Washington Examiner. Taking this up was one of the first things Congress did in September. A key tax committee in the House of Representatives made this bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Dold (R-Illinois), a priority. It would likely apply to this year's Olympians and Paralympians even though the games ended in August. "It seems like a small thing, but when America’s Olympians and Paralympians bring home the gold, our nation should congratulate them - not send the IRS to claim a share of their medal," said Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady (R-Texas) in a statement Monday. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) supported the bill and allowed it to come up for a speedy vote in the House. It's not hard to see how the argument for a tax break for Olympians fits neatly with conservatives' broader philosophy that government should get out of Americans lives and stop taxing their hard-earned work. And President Obama has given no indication he opposes the bill. Giving Olympians a tax break is one thing it seems most of Washington can agree on.


Man who lived as a goat and Swedish fly collector among those honored at Ig Nobel science awards

(Brian Snyder/Reuters) On Thursday, scientists, writers and other thinkers gathered to celebrate the act of discovery. Awards were handed out. There was a podium. Nobel Prize winners were in attendance. And that was about as closely as the Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded annually in a ceremony at Harvard University, approximated their far less-silly inspiration, the Nobel Prizes. Each autumn since 1991, the Ig Nobel ceremony has dished out accolades for studies and findings that “make people laugh, and then think.” And the 2016 crop of odd-yet-provoking discoveries did not deviate from the norm (except, perhaps, to mock Volkswagen’s “diesel-gate” scandal as “solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions”). Among the winners was Thomas Thwaites, who recently published a book, “GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human,“ about living as a goat for three days in Switzerland. The point of the Ig Nobels is a total lack of gravitas. But the science, for the most part, is legitimate. The awards have been given in the past for discovering the way a vortex of body hair causes bellybutton lint to accumulate in the navel, or how mosquitoes are attracted to the scent of Limburger cheese. (The cheese study led to a prototype trap for malaria mosquitoes, baited with cheese.) No one can say Thwaites did not embrace the goat premise as fully as possible. Thwaites told The Washington Post in May that during his three-day stint as a goat, he wore a custom prosthetic. Akin to a goat exoskeleton, the device let him walk on all fours, like a goat. He slept in a barn with the other goats in the herd. He even grazed on the Alps hillside in the manner of a goat. In this video, Thomas Thwaites describes why he decided to "become" a goat. His new book is called "GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human." Although, like every other human, Thwaites lacked the organ, called a rumen, that goats use to digest grass. “I had to use a pressure cooker at night to cook the grass I’d chewed up during the day, and spat into my not-quite artificial rumen,” he said. To inhibit his ability to speak — goats can’t talk, after all — he sought out a neuroscientist willing to zap a specific area of his brain with a magnet. At least temporarily, Thwaites was at a magnetically induced loss for


The most important conservation event you’ve never heard of is about to start

The red panda is one of thousands of animals protected from international trade by CITES. (Courtesy of Smithsonian National Zoo) The eyes of the environmental world are turning to South Africa, where more than 2,000 government representatives from all over the world will be meeting later this week. The fates of elephants, pangolins, sharks and rays and hundreds of less charismatic (but no less threatened) species hang in the balance. This gathering is called CITES COP17, and it may be the most important conservation event that you’ve never heard of. Here's everything you need to know: What the heck is CITES? CITES What exactly is an “Endangered Species?” There are several groups with their own definitions for threatened or endangered, and the terms are not interchangeable. The IUCN is an international organization of experts that evaluates the conservation status of species using technical criteria from the IUCN Red List. One IUCN Red List category is “Endangered.” Threatened, in IUCN Red List parlance, is a catch-all for species with Red List classifications of Vulnerable, Endangered, and/or Critically Endangered. IUCN Red List classifications do not carry the force of law or automatically require new regulations — they are purely evaluations of population status aimed at highlighting species of concern. This is very different from a U.S. Endangered Species Act evaluation of threatened or endangered status. Under the ESA, an endangered species is one likely to become extinct soon, and a threatened species is one likely to become endangered soon. What is CoP17? About once every three years, the members of CITES meet to debate and vote on various proposals in what is called a “Conference of the Parties.” The 17th such meeting (CoP17) starts Sept. 24 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It runs through Oct. 5. #CoP17 is the official twitter hashtag for online discussions surrounding the meeting. Do only governments participate in CITES conferences of the parties? That depends on what you mean by “participate.” Many stakeholder groups, including environmental and animal welfare non-profits, join in discussions at these meetings and can offer recommendations. However, they do not vote. How does CITES protect wildlife? A threatened species can be “listed” on one of three CITES appendices. An Appendix I listing essentially means that commercial trade in that species between nations is banned. An Appendix II listing does not ban international trade, but requires participating nations to certify that trade is not harming


to comply. Wait, really? Countries can just decide not to follow a CITES listing? Yes. For example, Japan, Iceland and Norway have taken reservations on listings of dolphins and whales. More recently, Guyana opted out of the 2013 CITES listings for sharks and rays. You can read a full list of countries that have taken reservations on CITES listings here. Is it illegal to kill a CITES listed species? No. CITES listings only affect international trade in listed species. Killing a listed species and selling it domestically is not covered by a CITES listing. Killing a listed species without the intention to sell it is also not covered by a CITES listing. Domestic laws may restrict these activities, but may not. What species are proposed for CITES listings this year? There are many proposals slated for discussion at CoP17, including proposals to list mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, fish, cephalopods and plants. These proposals affect more than 500 species. You can read the full list of proposals, including the recommendation of the CITES Secretariat concerning each proposal, here. Does a CITES listing mean that a species is fully protected and no further conservation is required? No. Lots more needs to be done after a CITES listing. However, a CITES listing can certainly help with the conservation of some threatened species by regulating or restricting their trade, and new listings are often worth celebrating. How can I follow along? Many of the participating governments and environmental non-profits will be tweeting from the meeting using hashtag #CoP17. Here is a Storify transcript featuring many of the twitter accounts that will be sharing information from CITES COP17. You can follow those accounts directly from the Storify transcript. David Shiffman is a PhD candidate at the University of Miami, where he studies the ecology and conservation of sharks. He writes about marine science and conservation for the blog Southern Fried Science as well as for Scientific American, Slate, and Gizmodo. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Read More: Scientists finally figured out the source of this bizarre, glowing space ‘blob’ Humans are driving the evolution of new species — and that could be just as bad as causing extinctions How scientists read an ancient and fragile biblical scroll without unrolling it NASA spots an ‘impossible’ cloud on Titan — for the second time Watch scientists levitate objects and draw on water with ‘acoustic holograms’


Elephants are in danger. Our research could help save them.

in Africa. One reason the “elephants suffer” condition might be especially effective is that more than one-third of Chinese don’t realize that obtaining ivory kills elephants. In our mass survey, we found that 36 percent of survey respondents didn’t know that obtaining ivory requires killing the elephant. A 2013 study by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) showed similar results. IFAW argued that the Chinese word for ivory, xiang ya (“elephant tooth”), gave people the impression that ivory hunters could extract tusks without killing the elephant. While our survey suggests that public education efforts could reduce demand for ivory, as was the case for shark fin, it is not clear public opinion on its own will change fast enough to prevent a further crash in elephant populations. Though a message threatening potential punishment for ivory purchasers did not seem especially effective in our surveys, actual implementation of a domestic ban on sale of ivory might. Can China close off the ivory market? What barriers would the government face if it decided to close the domestic market? Our research suggests that the government would need to address what to do with the licenses of merchants who sell ivory legally — and the existing stockpile of ivory those vendors already have. They would also face challenges of people hoarding ivory as an investment opportunity. A growing online gray market poses additional obstacles to enforcement. To deal with the first problem, Zhou Fei of the environmental NGO TRAFFIC suggested that the government allow ivory licenses for legal merchants to expire at the end of 2016, and not renew them. To address the stockpile issue, the government, as one Chinese researcher recommended, could initiate a buyback program for raw and finished ivory from those licensed carving factories. As for the problems of hoarding, speculation and laundering, the government could make the temporary bans on imported carvings and ivory trophies permanent. Destroying the remaining stockpiles and removing this ivory from circulation would also send a strong message. Together, these moves might convince speculators they cannot launder illegal sales through a legal market and that they will not be able to profit from hoarding. Whether China will announce a more specific plan and time frame for closing domestic ivory markets remains to be seen. What is clear is that the future of elephants depends on what China decides to do next. Joshua Busby Leo Carter


Planet with two suns found, thanks to a trick of light

a dozen these days — and even ones with two (or even three) suns in their sky have lost a bit of their wow factor. But the latest discovery of a "Tatooine" manages to stand apart. For the first time, scientists have spotted one of these circumbinary systems with help from a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing: The planet is so massive that it warps space-time around it, bending light in a way that magnifies the planet into our line of sight. The OGLE-2007-BLG-349 star system (named for the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, or OGLE) is 8,000 light-years away. But in 2007, the stars aligned: A planet now dubbed OGLE-2007-BLG-349Lc (let's call it 349Lc for short) passed in front of its host stars from the perspective of our telescopes. When this happens in certain systems, we can catch what we call "transiting" events — the dim of a star as the planet passes in front of it — or slight wobbles in the star's light as it plays tug-of-war with its planet's gravity. But in this case, scientists saw a "microlensing" event. When 349Lc moved in front of its stars, its massive gravity warped their light like a giant magnifying glass suspended in space. By analyzing the resulting data (including follow-up observations with the Hubble telescope) researchers determined that the objects being warped by 349Lc were indeed stars, plural, in the right place to be a pair of suns. These results, soon to be published in Astronomical Journal, represent the first time a multistar system has been confirmed using this cosmic optical illusion. That has some exciting implications for future exoplanet discovery, because 349Lc — which orbits 300 million miles away from its tightknit pair of red dwarf suns — is too far from its stars for scientists to have detected any of the dims or wobbles used in most exoplanet discovery. “This discovery suggests we need to rethink our observing strategy when it comes to stellar binary lensing events,” Yiannis Tsapras, a co-author of the study from the Astronomisches Rechen Institut in Heidelberg, Germany, said in a statement. “This is an exciting new discovery for microlensing.” Read More: Aboriginal DNA points to an earlier human exodus from Africa How scientists read an ancient and fragile biblical scroll without unrolling it Watch scientists levitate objects and draw on water with ‘acoustic holograms’ NASA estimates 1 billion ‘Earths’ in our galaxy alone


This symphony had both human and computer composers

A symphony orchestra performs under the glass of the Louvre museum in Paris on Sept. 20. Accenture Strategy has created a symphonic experience enabled by human insight and artificial intelligence technology. (Michel Euler/AP) Creative acts are one of the human race’s defining characteristics. The ability to turn thoughts into music or art or literature for the purposes of self expression has always helped to separate us from less-sophisticated species. But computers are catching up. The consulting firm Accenture recently commissioned an original symphony composed with creative input from both human musicians and artificial intelligence software. “Symphonologie, the Music of Business” was performed live Tuesday by a 50-piece orchestra in the famous Louvre museum in Paris. Symphonologie’s blend of human creativity and technical ingenuity is not a first, but it speaks to a future in art and music in which technology is not merely a creative tool, but an active participant in the creative process. Accenture tapped New York City-based programmer Hannah Davis to parse through 220,000 words from business publications about how technology is disrupting the modern workplace. Software she developed as a graduate student, called TransProse, assessed the sentiment behind those words using a database called the Word-Emotion Association Lexicon. Trust, anticipation and fear were the most common emotions, she found. The software then proposed melodic patterns to match the sentiments of the text, and Davis was able to manipulate features of the music, such as the octaves or tempo. A French composer named Mathieu Lamboley then wove those musical threads into a cohesive, eight-minute symphony. “This project was more of a collaboration between humans and computers,” Davis said. “People are a little bit nervous to do that kind of thing, especially when it comes to art creation. To me, it’s not something to be scared of.” Hannah Davis - Creative Technologist + Musician A data visual display featuring words, such as “robotics,” “cloud” and “mobile,” swirled across a large screen above the musicians’ heads as they played. It was developed by a graphic artist with the assistance of technology. If Symphonologie seems like a publicity ploy, well, that’s because it is. Accenture is not ordinarily in the business of composing classical music and performing it in French museums. The consulting firm hopes clients see the symphony and its combination of technology and artistry as a metaphor for the services it offers. “There is a lot of art in


Dr. Gridlock’s weekend travel tips

Friday and Sunday, the musical, dance and cultural programs will begin at noon and end at 5 p.m. On Saturday, the program is on from 1 to 5 p.m. On Saturday and Sunday, the festival has scheduled evening concerts for 6 to 9 p.m. The festival entrances will be at 17th Street and Constitution Avenue NW and at 17th Street SW near Independence Avenue. Festivalgoers will pass through a security screening at those sites. There won’t be car or bus parking near the museum. Several online services show off-street parking availability and offer reservation services: Parking Panda, SpotHero and ParkWhiz. The nearest Metro stations are Smithsonian and Federal Triangle on the Orange, Blue and Silver lines. The nearest Red Line station is Metro Center, and most riders would want to walk to the museum from there rather than transfer trains. The grand opening will affect service on the D.C. Circulator’s Mall Route. The stop closest to the museum and the festival will be at 12th Street SW and Independence Avenue SW, across from the Smithsonian Metro exit. Normal service is scheduled to resume Monday. See more about the weekend Circulator service, with maps. Capital Bikeshare: Cyclists can use a corral service from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the 10th Street and Constitution Avenue. The service guarantees Bikeshare docks for people going to those attending the festivities between those hours. Meanwhile, the docking stations at Jefferson Drive and 14th Street SW, and at Jefferson Drive and 12th Street SW, will both be closed all day Saturday. Book festival If you go for street parking, be sure to read the street signs carefully. Parking rules and restrictions in the convention center area can be complicated. See more about parking in the Mount Vernon Square area. Opera in the Outfield Barracks Row Fall Festival Turkish Festival Metro Orange Line. Silver Line. Blue Line. Yellow Line. Green Line. Maryland weekend road projects - Interstate 95 between the Capital Beltway and Old Gunpowder Road: Ramp closing for resurfacing from 9 p.m. Friday to 8 a.m. Saturday. Also, watch for double right lane closings on southbound I-95 between Old Gunpowder Road and the Beltway Sundays through Thursdays from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. - Capital Beltway inner loop between the western I-270 spur and Seminary Avenue: Double lane closings Sundays through Thursdays from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. for resurfacing. - Beltway outer loop


Elon Musk’s SpaceX narrows in on cause of rocket explosion

A Falcon 9 rocket set to take a satellite into space on Labor Day weekend exploded during testing days before. Courtesy of http://www.uslaunchreport.com/. Three weeks after one of its rockets exploded while on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX said Friday that it is narrowing in on the possible cause, pinpointing a "large breach" in a helium system in the rocket's second-stage fuel tank. In a statement, the company said the investigation is still "preliminary" and that "all plausible causes are being tracked in an extensive fault tree and carefully investigated." The investigative team--led by SpaceX and comprised of the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and the Air Force-- has looked through reams of data and evidence in trying to understand how the rocket suddenly ignited into a massive fireball while being fueled in preparation for an engine test, the company said. On Twitter, Elon Musk, the company's founder, has said the failure was the most difficult and complicated the company has ever faced. And he asked the public to turn over any video or recordings of the event that might help investigators. In the statement Friday, the company said, "the majority of debris from the incident has been recovered, photographed, labeled and cataloged, and is now in a hangar for inspection and use during the investigation...At this stage of the investigation, preliminary review of the data and debris suggests that a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen tank took place." It was not clear what caused the breach. Last year, the company lost another Falcon 9 rocket when it blew up a couple minutes into flight. SpaceX said that explosion was also due to a problem with the upper stage. But on Friday it said it has ruled out any connection with that failure.


Student mumps case confirmed at U-Md.

The statue of Testudo is a symbol of the University of Maryland. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) University of Maryland health officials said Friday that a student was diagnosed with mumps this month and that they are tracking two other suspected cases of the illness at College Park. A contagious disease caused by a virus, mumps can spread through saliva or mucus from the mouth, nose or throat, the university said. Symptoms include fever, headache and swollen glands in front of the ear and above the jawline. Students are required to be immunized against the mumps, but vaccines do not always prevent the illness. Officials advised frequent hand-washing and avoiding sharing glasses and utensils. “This is not cause for alarm, but if additional people have symptoms, they should let us know at health center immediately,” University Health Center Director David McBride told the Diamondback student news outlet. “We want to monitor any spread of mumps on campus.” Mumps is no longer common in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of cases annually reported to the government plummeted after a vaccination campaign began in 1967. As of Aug. 13, the CDC had received reports of 1,786 mumps infections in 40 states. Four states have reported more than 100 cases this year, the CDC said: Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and Massachusetts. Most people who get the disease recover within a few weeks. Among the most serious potential complications are hearing loss and inflammation of the brain, which can lead to death or disability.


PM Update: Cloud cover expands overnight. Showers expected for Monday.

Enjoy the sunset tonight. Clouds are the name of the game tomorrow. Eric Cox via Flickr It has been somewhat of a helter-skelter day across the region. A clear and comfortable fall day in D.C. and Maryland contrasted with an overcast and somewhat dreary day for much of Virginia. We will all be under the influence of clouds and showers by tomorrow as a cold front passes through the region in the afternoon. Through Tonight: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post. Tomorrow (Monday): See Brain Jackson’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. We Did It! Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here.


71 percent of Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement

Saving early and often is the key to not running out of money in retirement. (istock) The trend is the same, but it seems the numbers are getting worse. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they do not have enough retirement savings, according to a new national survey commissioned by Experian in collaboration with Get Rich Slowly (getrichslowly.org). Especially worrisome: More than half of those surveyed, 54 percent, believe they will never pay off their debt fully. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, more people are entering retirement with more debt than ever, especially mortgage debt. The CFPB says the percentage of homeowners 65 and older with mortgage debt increased from 22 percent in 2001 to 30 percent in 2011. Among homeowners 75 and older, the rate more than doubled, to 21.2 percent from 8.4 percent. More from the survey: - 58 percent feel the same or less secure in their finances than last year - Lack of income is considered the main reason for financial woes, not fiscal behavior - 49 percent have credit card debt - 46 percent have less savings today than they expected they would five years ago. Katie Ryan O’Connor, an editor at Get Rich Slowly, says several things surprised her. One was that 71 percent of people in the survey said they were not invested in the stock market, and 41 percent said they had no plans to invest in the future because of a lack of funds. “This is huge opportunity to understand that there still remains a lot of fear and uncertainty when it comes to the stock market,” she says. “Some is well-earned. We went through recession. People lost pensions. They were subjected to predatory lending.” For people with real fear of getting by day-to-day, there are simple steps they can take,” she says. “Putting aside $5 a week into an emergency fund will help you not turn to debt as a solution. People are going into retiement with a large amount of debt. That really hobbles you. Also, she says: “Get into the stock market in a safe and smart way.” She says everyone should immediately log into their company’s 401(k) website and up their contributions by 1 percent “The key is not to panic,” O’Connor says. “Pretty much, we are all behind on retirement financial planning and investment. But that can’t be a paralyzing realization. I think taking a