Sen. Mikulski talks up Pluto mission, pushes for more space funding

It's going to help us understand a world at the edge of the solar system." Back in fiscal year 2000, NASA didn't have enough funding to keep Pluto on the budget for future exploration, Mikulski said. But with pressure from the National Academy of Sciences to continue exploration of the Kuiper Belt, the region of space that's home to Pluto and a bunch of smaller bodies, she led the effort in Congress to keep the project going each year until New Horizons was slotted by NASA in 2004. [Why did NASA spend 9 years getting to Pluto only to fly right past it?] "Policy should not be guided by politicians, but by scientists," Mikulski said. "I was willing to gamble and knew that I was standing on very solid ground." The mission was contracted out to Johns Hopkins University, where scientists advocated that the flight could be done through the APL on a lighter spacecraft and for cheaper than anywhere else. The spacecraft launched in 2006 and has since traveled close to 4 billion miles to reach the dwarf planet on the edge of our system. A portrait from the final approach. Pluto and Charon display striking color and brightness contrast.<br />(NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI) "The mission to Pluto may not have happened without her vision and voice," said Ralph Semmel, director of APL, at the event. Mikulski, who said she was inspired to advocate for science funding by Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for her research on radioactivity, is set to retire from her Senate seat in 2016. That means NASA will lose a major ally in the Senate as as it enters a period in which it will try to resume a more robust human spaceflight program while maintaining a science budget that hovers just above $5 billion a year. [Pluto is a little bigger than we'd thought] The New Horizon spacecraft also has enough fuel to collect data beyond Pluto, with power enough to last until around 2030, but that would require further funding. Mikulski said a successful flyby on Tuesday would be a good boost for support from Congress, but she will be pushing to get a budget agreement that would end NASA's sequester and get new money to the space program. "I'm counting on the flyby more than Congress at this point," Mikulski said. "If we don't innovate, we're going to stagnate. We


News about an imminent ‘mini ice age’ is trending — but it’s not true

mathematics professor Valentina Zharkova, who led the sunspot research, did find that the magnetic waves that produce sunspots (which are associated with high levels of solar activity) are expected to counteract one another in an unusual way in the coming years, the press release about her research mentions nothing about how that will affect the Earth’s climate. Zharkova never even used the phrase “mini ice age.” Meanwhile, several other recent studies of a possible solar minimum have concluded that whatever climate effects the phenomenon may have will be dwarfed by the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, that “Little Ice Age” that occurred during the Maunder minimum, it wasn’t so much a global ice age as a cold spell in Europe, and it may have been caused more by clouds of ash from volcanic eruptions than by fluctuations in solar activity. (It’s also worth mentioning that Zharkova’s findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, so her conclusions haven’t been vetted and refined.) But those nuances were totally lost as stories about Zharkova’s research made the rounds on social media and in the press. Instead, we got 300-year-old engravings of Londoners cavorting on the frozen River Thames accompanied by predictions of food shortages and brutal cold — plus snarky tweets about not worrying about global warming anymore. Coming mini ice age? Don't tell global warming fanatics. http://t.co/9LM430LToQ This isn’t the first time that a story about sunspots has turned into a story about climate change skepticism. John Casey, president of the Orlando-based Space and Science Research Corporation, which denies that global temperatures are rising, has written two books on the threat of impending “solar hibernation.” In 2011, when a series of studies concluded that the sun was heading into a cycle of unusually low activity, one headline cheered “Global Warming Be Damned, We Might Be Headed for a Mini Ice Age.” For decades, scientists have known that solar activity fluctuates according to a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots — (relatively) cool, dark blotches on the sun’s surface — indicate areas of intense magnetic activity. But recently sunspots have been weakening, as has the sun’s magnetic field, leading scientists to conclude that the sun is heading into an especially quiet cycle termed the “grand solar minimum” The new research from Zharkova argues that the solar cycles are regulated by not one but two magnetic waves fluctuating at slightly different


Why this congressman has almost $20,000 in landscaping gifts on his finance reports

estate in a New York exurb. Maloney and now-husband Randy Florke, a real estate agent and home designer, married at their home in Cold Spring along the Hudson River. The reception was “a black-tie picnic” with local Hudson Valley fare. Nancy Pelosi gave a toast. Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, was there with her husband Anthony Weiner. On the couple’s Knot.com wedding registry, they wrote they wanted “to plant rose bushes, flower gardens, and fruit trees … so the beauty of this day and your participation in it will be remembered every spring, summer, autumn, and winter in the landscape that surrounds Randy and Sean, their families, and the many friends who often visit.” By friends, they must also mean the VRBO strangers who can rent their 4,700-square-foot mansion for a mere $30,000 a month. (Xbox included!) “After 21 years together, Sean and Randy were excited to celebrate a day that was once impossible with family and friends,” Maloney spokeswoman Alex Miller told us in an e-mail. “Many of the gifts they received serve as living reminders of that day and of the love and support of their loved ones.” Many of their guests obliged. The happy couple received 15 fruit trees worth in all $2,400. A large privet hedge for $500. Several guests gave stone steps totaling $2,700. There were stone walls for $500 per gift, shade gardens for $600 each, and perennial beds for $600 a pop, according to Maloney’s 2014 financial disclosure report. It was about $20,000 in those registry gifts. Sounds like a lot, but these guys have seven acres to landscape. Other guests went rogue. There were gifts of pottery worth $2,000. A $550 engraved silver tray. A local DC-area caterer Aziz Benassou comped their rehearsal dinner food and prep worth $5,200. Benassou, who ran Couscous Catering, told the Loop the couple are personal friends. Another guest gave them each $700 cuff links. Ken Mehlman, former RNC chairman, gave them a $1,000 gift certificate to the Manhattan Michelin-rated restaurant Le Bernardin. (The chef’s tasting menu is a mere $345 per person including wine pairings. With tax and tip, they’ll even have enough left over for an end-of-meal espresso.) Pelosi and Abedin/Weiner weren’t listed among the gift givers. But the rule is you have a year after the wedding to send a gift, so maybe they’ll turn up in next year’s 2015 disclosures?


How medical marijuana could literally save lives

researchers conclude. This paper builds on previous work showing that "states with medical marijuana laws on the books saw 24.8 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses compared to states that didn't have such laws." But the new paper's findings are more robust -- it uses more data, and the authors drew on a broader range of statistical methods to test the validity of their data. Their most intriguing finding is that medical marijuana laws alone aren't enough to cause a significant shift in prescription painkiller use. Rather, the availability of medical marijuana through licensed dispensaries is the key: "We find no impact of medical marijuana laws more broadly; the mitigating effect of medical marijuana laws is specific to states that permit dispensaries," they write. As with any study of this nature, this one has limitations. The numbers speak only to state-level trends, not to individual behavior. Some researchers, like Stanford University's Keith Humphreys, are skeptical of findings showing a negative link between medical pot and prescription painkiller abuse. "The only way to determine if individuals in pain who use marijuana consume fewer opioid painkillers is by studying individuals directly," Humphreys said in an e-mail. "The only study so far that did that found that opioid overdose risk factors are higher rather than lower in pain patients who access medical marijuana." But the study Humphreys points to only examined people who had been prescribed opioids, says Mireille Jacobson, an associate professor of economics and health policy at UC Irvine and one of the co-authors of the NBER paper. "If you're only looking at people who use opioids you're missing a completely other dimension -- people who are at risk of using opioids," she said in an interview. "Some people who would have dealt with their pain through the use of opioids may now be opting to use medical marijuana" in states allowing it. Policymakers tend to be focused on the potential negatives of marijuana liberalization -- teen use, addiction, etc. etc. But the potential benefits -- like reduced reliance on dangerous painkillers -- are overlooked. Jacobson says that given the magnitude of the prescription painkiller problem -- 16,000 deaths a year -- it's worth taking a serious look at the use of medical marijuana for chronic pain patients: "If this is for real, it means that there are other ways that are less dangerous for people to deal with chronic pain."


What it’s like when your job is to predict the end of humanity

go largely unnoticed — or fiercely dismissed — by the general public. According to Esquire, there is even a term to describe the existential angst brought on by immersing oneself in the science of melting glaciers and rising tides: “climate trauma.” “So many of us are exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic disorder — the anger, the panic, the obsessive intrusive thoughts,” Lise Van Susteren, a practicing psychiatrist and climate activist, told Esquire. Among them is Gillian Caldwell, a human rights activist and former director of WITNESS, who has investigated human trafficking in Russia and rape as a tool of war in Sierra Leone. And yet, Caldwell writes, her efforts to get her country to tackle global warming remain the most emotionally demanding task she’s ever performed. [Climate scientists find surprising reason for faster Arctic meltdown] Sometimes the struggle is as simple as going outside and looking up at the sky. In a tear-filled interview about “climate advocacy trauma,” Caldwell says that one of the sacrifices climate activists make is never being able to experience weather the same way again. “Whether it’s an unpredictable snowstorm followed by a 70 degree day or an early spring or a late summer — whatever it is, you know — it’s hard not to attribute it to and not to connect it to erratic weather conditions, which are going to become increasingly frequent,” she says in a two-part interview posted online several years ago. “I spoke to another longtime climate advocate who said that on some level he’s been robbed by the possibility of happiness by virtue of doing the work,” she adds. Gillian Caldwell on Climate Advocacy Trauma - Part 2 Caldwell devised a list called “16 Tips for Avoiding Climate Burnout,” in which she advocates exercise, laughter and mediation. But she acknowledges that the challenge is at times overwhelming. “It is very hard to switch from the riveting force of apocalyptic predictions at work to home where the problems are petty by comparison,” she writes. Adding to the mounting stress faced by climate change scientists is the inevitable backlash they can expect to encounter from unqualified critics of their research, according to Jeffrey Kiehl, a senior scientist for climate change research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “How would that make you feel?” Kiehl told Grist. “You take this information to someone and they say they


This may be the second-best photo we’ll ever see of Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons has sent back the first in a series of the sharpest views of Pluto it obtained during its July flyby – and the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades. On Tuesday, NASA’s New Horizons was set to make its closest flyby with Pluto, marking our first encounter with the dwarf planet. We won’t have confirmation of the flyby until 9 p.m. Eastern, some 13 hours after its scheduled occurrence. And we won’t have pictures from the closest approach — just 7,800 miles away from Pluto — until Wednesday afternoon. [Humankind just visited Pluto for the first time — at least we hope so] But to mark the occasion, NASA has released one more pre-flyby photo of the no-longer-mysterious dwarf planet. In a surprising turn of events, the photo was actually released exclusively on Instagram about an hour early. We live in the future, folks. The color image was taken on July 13 and downloaded Tuesday morning. It has a resolution of 4 kilometers per pixel, which is 1,000 times better than we could do with the Hubble Space Telescope. It's been a long journey, but we're finally at Pluto's doorstep. [New Horizons finally makes it to Pluto. Sees craters and “great mounds”] North is at the top in the latest photo, so the dark bands we see are at Pluto's equator — which is no surprise, since the dark “whale” has been visible for awhile. And we've seen that bright “heart” before, too. NASA scientists are excited by Pluto's contrasting levels of brightness, because that speaks to interesting geological and atmospheric processes taking place on the planet. [Why did NASA spend 9 years getting to Pluto only to fly right past it?] Proper analysis of these photos will take some time, and we've got even better pictures coming in the next couple of days. And then there's a lot of data to look at: NASA estimates that the data gathered during the flyby will take 16 months to download in its entirety. So this may be one of our best looks at Pluto — even after Wednesday's image release — but we have a long way to go in terms of interpreting just what we're seeing. Watch the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory mission control at the moment New Horizons finally reached Pluto after a mission a 9½-year mission. Read more: Everything


Human impact on the oceans is growing — and climate change is the biggest culprit

the world’s oceans are heavily harmed by human activity and likely require immediate attention. Five percent may not sound like much, but Halpern says these areas are among the parts of the oceans most important to humans. “Many of them are in coastal areas where a lot of people live, and so they’re places that we care about a lot and places that we don’t want to see disappear because they’re providing us so many goods and benefits from the oceans,” he says. Some of the most highly impacted coastal regions the study identified included the Faroe Islands, the eastern Caribbean, Cape Verde and the Azore Islands. Mapping out the parts of the oceans experiencing heavy or increasing stress can help policymakers better allocate resources for conservation, targeting the areas that are in the most need. And these maps can also help world leaders figure out the scale of the effort required to combat a problem. For example, local efforts may be enough to target specific regions that are heavily affected by overfishing. But combating the effects of climate change, which are widespread throughout the Earth’s oceans now, will likely require an international effort, Halpern says. The study also identifies regions experiencing a decrease in stress from human activity. Admittedly, these regions comprise a much smaller percentage of the world’s oceans — just 13 percent. But pinpointing these areas can provide equally valuable information, according to Halpern. “In some cases they do likely indicate success stories where management action has helped improve the condition of the ocean,” he says, meaning policymakers can look to these areas for information on management techniques that have proved effective. In fact, figuring out the kinds of conservation efforts that are most effective is the most important next step for research in the field, Halpern says. Tuesday’s study may be able to pinpoint areas that are doing well and areas that are not, but it’s not able to provide any information about the management techniques that are affecting these areas. The study does present a fairly dire view of the health of the world’s oceans — but Halpern stresses that there are some positive takeaways, too. “Although things are generally getting worse across the planet, there are places that are getting better,” he says. “And hopefully we can learn from those, see what we’re doing well, and apply those lessons to other parts of the


Tracking sunspots: An astronomer’s favorite pastime, even in the Middle Ages

Sunspot region 2192 was one of the largest sunspots in solar cycle 24. (NOAA) The “dog days” of summer are upon us — those hot, sultry times that make for slow moving and a longing for the hammock. The Greeks and Romans associated Sirius, the “dog star” because of its position in the constellation Canis Major, with the hottest days of summer. Sirius was a daily forerunner for the days when the Sun seemed to feel the hottest, so the term stuck. Interestingly enough, the seasonality of sky watching also applies to our nearest star, the Sun. Sunspots are dark patches on the surface of the Sun. They are the visible evidence of strong magnetic fields that inhibit the motion of the solar plasma, and are relatively cool compared to their surroundings. Astronomers back to the Middle Ages, and likely even pre-dating that in Asia, watched the Sun for the blemishes that would appear on its surface. Even now on a clear day that’s good for observing the stars, a low-tech observer can project an image of the solar disk over-the-shoulder through a pinhole in order to see sunspots. Archives are replete with sunspot drawings like the one below from a Jesuit priest, Christoph Scheiner, from 1611. These astronomers were quick to note that the appearance of spots was changeable from day to day, and year to year. Hence the “seasons” of the sunspot cycle. (Rice University) Space weather forecasters today analyze spots for their potential to erupt, noting the field strength, the growth and decay, and the magnetic topology. Sunspots can exist as stable pools of energy with very little potential to shoot off a solar flare, or they can be turbulent and roiling, and ready to blast at any moment. The current sunspot cycle 24 is already in its decline. Cycle 24 exhibited the weakest peak of the four cycles since the late 1970s. The cycle numbering began in 1755 by Swiss Astronomer Johann Wolfe. The current sunspot cycle is already in decline, and it was also much weaker than the three previous cycles since the late 1970s. (Royal Observatory of Belgium) So how does this bode for the future? Will the trend of weak cycles, and fewer eruptive events continue, or will an old dog have a few new tricks? These are questions that remain to be answered as we look toward the next solar cycle.


PM Update: Storms possible tonight, scattered showers on Wednesday

Two hour radar loop of rain and storm movement through the area. Refresh page to update. * Flash flood watch * Severe thunderstorm watch until 1 a.m. * [Updates: Severe thunderstorm watch in effect, localized flash flooding possible] A line of thunderstorms treks across the D.C. region this evening, with the potential to bring isolated areas of heavy rainfall and flash flooding. Wednesday looks showery in the morning, but should clear out by the evening after winds shift from the northwest and things dry out. Maybe some low humidity and patchy sunshine by the PM commute? Fingers crossed. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Wednesday): See Matt Rogers’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (Nathan Jones via Flickr)


For children of Pluto’s discoverer, New Horizons is a personal triumph

would say, 'Oh yeah...'" Annette and Alden Tombaugh, the children of Clyde Tombaugh, remember their father and his discovery of Pluto. The two came to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Tuesday along with other relatives to celebrate as their father's ashes flew beyond Pluto into the Kuiper Belt, making him the farthest traveling person in history. His wife, Patricia, missed the event by only three years, having died at the age of 100 in 2012. [The heart-palpitating scene at the Pluto command center] Annette attributes her existence to her father's discovery of Pluto. It was his breakthrough that got him a scholarship to attend the University of Kansas, which led him to meet her mother. "We are really children of Pluto," she said. Clyde Tombaugh discovered the icy world of Pluto as an amateur astronomer working as a researcher for the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., after its existence had been predicted as "Planet X" by Percival Lowell and William Pickering. He took photos of the missing planet with a photographic telescope, but that's a far-flung difference from the high-definition photographs that are just now emerging from the New Horizons mission. By Wednesday, New Horizon's cameras will have taken photos with enough resolution to identify the ponds in Central Park had it been flying past Earth, scientists at the APL said. One day after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft confirmed that it made it to Pluto, mission specialists unveiled stunning, close-up images of the dwarf planet. "He would have said it looks like Mars," Annette said. "I love the heart on it — it's a nice touch." However, Clyde probably would have felt uncomfortable around the massive international media frenzy surrounding the event. He was described as a shy man who shunned the limelight as much as possible. Annette said he had declined to appear with Johnny Carson — a sort of amateur astronomer — on The Tonight Show multiple times. [Bill Nye on the historic mission to Pluto: NASA is the best brand the country has] "Teaching was dad's thing," Alden said. "Being in front of a classroom is where he liked to be ... He inspired a lot of people." Of course, Clyde's children are fierce advocates that Pluto's classification as a dwarf planet is wrong. "If it were up to me, we would have a model with ten planets, including Ceres," she said. Read more: New data


Why are pandas so chill?

Bao Bao and other pandas may seem lazy, but you try subsisting on nothing but bamboo. (Reuters/Gary Cameron) It has long been a mystery how giant pandas, which have a gut ideal for digesting meat, can survive eating almost exclusively bamboo. Now our research has found that they can cope with this low-quality diet because they have an extremely slow metabolic rate. This may also explain why they are so inactive and have comparatively small organs for their body size. There are few animals on the planet as iconic as the giant panda. Its role as the logo for the World Wide Fund for nature, the perilous nature of its existence in the wild and the fact that it has been exported worldwide as a symbol of Chinese political friendship for decades, continue to sustain its status. Despite this phenomenal popularity, its political importance and threatened conservation status make it extremely difficult to do research on pandas. There are many, and justified, hurdles to jump to do scientific work on animals in general, but they are even higher when it comes to pandas. For this reason, there are many fundamental measurements that have been made on other species but that are lacking for pandas. However, we are slowly starting to fill in these gaps. One bit of biology that many of us are familiar with is that the panda is a carnivore that became a vegetarian. The mammalian order Carnivora includes several families of animals including the canids (wolves, dogs and foxes), felids (cats), mustelids (weasels and so on), pinnipeds (seals, walruses and sea-lions) and ursids (bears). All these groups apart from the bears subsist by killing and eating other animals. Because meat is easily digested these animals have short digestive tracts. Apart from the polar bear, many bears include various amounts of vegetable material into their diets. The panda has taken this to the extreme: eating almost exclusively bamboo. Although pandas have many adaptations for eating bamboo (like an extra “thumb” to help hold the shoots) these do not include a long digestive tract. The panda also has the guts of a lion: ideal for digesting meat, but very inefficient for digesting bamboo. So they have to eat lots of it, perhaps as much as 10-20kgs per day. Scientists have long speculated that to survive on such a low-quality food pandas must have a low rate of metabolism. However,


Study: Mixing antidepressants and painkillers may be tied to elevated risk of bleeding

(Matt Rourke/AP) If the Food and Drug Administration warning last week wasn’t enough to make you think twice before popping that ibuprofen so liberally for every ache and pain, a paper published Tuesday should give you pause. The population-based study, published in the BMJ, found that mixing antidepressants with common painkillers appears to be linked to a higher risk of intracranial bleeding — which occurs in the skull — shortly after starting the treatment. The researchers emphasized that their finding doesn't necessarily mean that this drug combination causes the bleeding, but that it's a possibility that needs to be explored further. "Our findings should be interpreted with caution," Ju-Young Shin, a researcher with the Korea Institute of Drug Safety and Risk Management, and his co-authors wrote. They acknowledged the possibility that their results may have been affected by a number of unknown factors, including coding errors or incomplete records, but said the analysis is strong enough that "special attention is needed when patients use both these drugs together." [Should you take painkillers? FDA bolsters safety labels for NSAIDs, warns of heart attack and stroke risk] The research was based on information in South Korea's national health database — a vast resource of information about 50 million people who have received treatment through the country's universal medical system. The researchers focused on the more than 4.1 million patients who began receiving antidepressants for the first time from 2010 to 2013. Of those patients, more than 2 million were also taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, during the first 30 days in which they took antidepressants. NSAIDs are among the most popular over-the-counter and prescription painkillers in the world and include such well-known names such as Advil, Motrin and Aleve. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration strengthened its safety labels for the drugs, warning that even short-term use appeared to be linked with increased heart attack and stroke risk. Stewart Mercer, a professor of primary care research at the University of Glasgow who was not involved in the research, said the paper "offers important new evidence" about the relationship between the two classes of drugs. In an editorial accompanying the release of the BMJ study, he said the results "give some cause of concern." "Most worryingly, conditions requiring NSAIDs and antidepressants commonly coexist; 65 percent of adults with major depression also have chronic pain," he wrote. Shin and his team of


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Full text: Obama’s news conference on the Iran nuclear deal

a strong partner, not just for Kenya, but for sub-Saharan Africa, generally: build on the progress that's been made around issues of health and education, focus on counter-terrorism issues that are important in East Africa because of Al-Shabaab and some of the tragedies that have happened inside of Kenya, and continue to encourage democracy and the reduction of corruption inside that country that sometimes has held back this incredibly -- this incredibly gifted and blessed country. And with respect to the Medal of Freedom, there is no precedent for revoking a medal. We don't have that mechanism. And as you know, I tend to make it a policy not to comment on the specifics of -- of cases where there might still be, if not criminal, then civil issues involved. I'll say this. If you give a woman, or a man, for that matter, without his or her knowledge, a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape, and I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape. Alright. Have we exhausted Iran questions here? I -- I think there's a helicopter that's coming. But -- but I really am enjoying this Iran debate. Topics that may not have been touched upon, criticisms that you've heard that I did not answer, the -- I just -- go ahead. Go ahead. I know Josh is getting a little stressed here, but... (LAUGHTER) .. I just -- I just want to make sure that we're not leaving any stones unturned here. Go ahead. QUESTION: Thanks, Mr. President. I'll be brief. The argument has been made that Iran now has a cash windfall, billions to spend. Your people seem confident they're going to spend it at home. Why are you confident they're not going to spend it on arming Hezbollah, arming Bashr al-Assad, et cetera? OBAMA: I -- I think that's a great question, and I'm -- I'm glad you brought it up. I think it is a mistake to -- to characterize our belief that they will just spend it on daycare centers and -- and -- and roads and -- and paying down debt. We think that they have to do some of that, because Rouhani was elected specifically on the premise of improving the economic situation inside of Iran. That economy has tanked since we imposed sanctions. So the notion that they're


Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of male-only draft registration [updated with corrected link to my 2013 predictions on this issue]

mother call it undisputed that the Military Selective Service Act creates a sex-based difference. Banning women from the pool of potential recruits is not rational given the role females currently play within the military, according to the complaint. “If the two sexes can fight and die together, they can register together; if not, then no one should have to register,” the complaint states. More information about the lawsuit is available in this article. I predicted that such a case would arise back in early 2013, when the Pentagon made women eligible to serve in nearly all combat roles (though I expected it to be brought by men forced to register for selective service, rather than by women excluded from doing so). The Supreme Court previously upheld the constitutionality of male-only draft registration in the 1981 case of Rostker v. Goldberg. However, as I also pointed out in that post, that ruling was partly based on the theory that women would not be as valuable draftees as men in an era when the armed forces excluded women from most combat positions. Obviously, that logic is no longer valid. I also noted other reasons why the Court might overrule or at least severely limit Rostker if the issue came before it today: Lower courts applying Rostker could therefore still conclude that male-only draft registration is constitutional, though Rostker is ambiguous enough on the amount of deference due [to federal government] that the issue is not a slam dunk. If the issue gets to the Supreme Court however, I’m far from certain that Rostker wouldn’t be overruled or severely limited. As compared with 1981, the idea of women serving in combat is far more widely accepted by both elite and public opinion. And sex discrimination in draft registration is likely to seem like an outdated relic of the days when women were barred from numerous positions in the military. If the Pentagon sticks to its new policy on women in combat, I think it’s likely that some male plaintiff will bring a new challenge to the selective service registration system, and that plaintiff will have a good chance of succeeding. Like most other constitutional law scholars, I think that Rostker was a dubious decision, and would not shed many tears if it were overruled. For reasons outlined by Steven Calabresi and Julia Rickert, there is also a good originalist case for courts taking


The Shaw Bijou, from rising New York chef Kwame Onwuachi, is coming to a Ninth Street rowhouse

to get out of New York and do something different. He considered other locales such as Nashville and San Francisco but settled on Washington. "D.C. has always held a special place in my heart," he said. His family would come to Washington over the summer to spend time with his grandfather, who would fly in from Nigeria. As to the restaurant's specific location, "Shaw has a lot of history, besides being an up-and-coming part of D.C. right now,” he said. “It’s just a perfect place to open a restaurant.” The future home of the Shaw Bijou. (Kwame Onwuachi) Moreover, Onwuachi and co-owner Greg Vakiner, his former Eleven Madison Park colleague and Culinary Institute of America roommate, found the perfect space thanks to salon owner Kelly Gorsuch: Gorsuch's Italianate-style house. Gorsuch is a partner in the venture, as is local business consultant Glenn Paik. The team came together after Onwuachi traveled to Washington to cook two meals for roving supper club series Dinner Lab. [Dinner Lab launches in D.C.] On Tuesdays through Saturdays, the Shaw Bijou's 32-seat dining room will serve a tasting menu, probably 15 to 18 courses, Onwuachi said. The second-floor members-only bar will seat about 50 guests and specialize in rare and vintage liquors. Onwuachi describes his food as "modern American with global inspiration." He credits the "melting pot" of the Bronx and his mother, who also cooked professionally, with exposing him to a variety of cuisines. Onwuachi has been traveling around the country and the world for the past year, with stops in such locales as Mumbai and Hong Kong. Prices and specific dishes are still being worked out, but diners can expect a dry-aged Wagyu beef program, herb garden, house-made charcuterie and beverage pairings. There will also be an interactive element to dining at the Shaw Bijou, Onwuachi said, including tableside cooking and kitchen tour that will feature something to eat, too. The idea is to present an evening that is about more than the food, though servers will be tasked with helping it "tell a story" to the diners. "You have to appreciate the experience as a whole," Onwuachi said. The Shaw Bijou, 1544 Ninth St. NW. www.theshawbijou.com. Opening late 2015. Related items: Dinner Lab launches in D.C. Shaw is about to see a flurry of new restaurants and retail These are the world’s 50 best restaurants. You’ll need a passport for 44 of them


Why America’s biggest chip maker probably won’t be sold to the Chinese government

a bargain basement. I doubt that the board of directors, let alone shareholders, would even consider that as a reasonable offer." Micron didn't respond to multiple requests for comment, but in an interview with Bloomberg, Tsinghua's chairman, Zhao Weiguo, said, “We are very interested in cooperation with Micron.” Micron is a giant in an industry dominated by just a handful of players. Memory chips have become something approaching a commodity, embedded in smartphones, laptops and myriad other devices. But even as they have proliferated, they remain difficult to make and expensive to develop. And China, which doesn’t have a major producer, wants to make its own. Analysts say that Tsinghua's chances of buying Micron for $21 a share is a long shot. The company’s stock was trading above that level until last month, when a weak quarterly earnings report sent its shares tumbling. It closed at $17.61 a share Monday before the news broke, half of its value at the start of the year. Micron shares jumped on the news, rising above $19.50, but slumped Wednesday below $19. Even before the prospect of a merger came to light, investors were eyeing a higher valuation for Micron. Legendary hedge fund manager David Einhorn wrote to his investors that “sometime in the next few years,” he expects Micron to grow larger than Netflix, which is currently valued at $40 billion. “It’s a contrarian view,” Einhorn wrote, “but we don’t think the movie is over.” If a deal with Tsinghua did emerge, it would be scrutinized heavily by federal regulators. The acquisition would have to be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which reviews transactions involving foreign buyers and weighs what impact they might have on national security. CFIUS has dealt more and more with acquisitions that involve China or have cybersecurity implications. The panel was created decades ago with military concerns in mind, but the definition of national security has swelled, growing to include industries like tech and telecom that are key to the American economy. In 2013, 21 of the 97 deals it considered involved Chinese buyers, the most of any country, and 12 involved computer or electronics makers, more than other kinds of manufacturers, according to its latest annual report. “It appears to have all the hallmarks of a deal that CFIUS, if it went forward, would like to see, which is it


Millions more people will likely suffer a nutrient deficiency by 2050 — and you can blame our carbon emissions

inversion where the wealthiest people are putting the most carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the poorest people are experiencing the most vulnerability to this effect,” says Myers, the lead author. This inequality is compounded by the ways different populations get their nutrients. Eating meat from animals can be used to compensate for nutrients that are lost in plants. But people that can afford to eat meat often are usually “wealthier segments of populations and wealthier populations in general,” Myers says. To top it all off, Myers and his colleagues have reason to believe their results actually underestimate the number of people who will suffer in the future. For one thing, the researchers didn’t factor population growth into their calculations. “We all know that there are going to be something like another two to three billion people sharing the planet with us by 2050,” Myers says. “And so if you just scale the effect, it would be much higher numbers [of affected people].” Another issue that didn’t factor into the study was whether human diets will change in the next 50 years, and by how much. Any changes in diet could affect the way humans get their zinc and other nutrients. From an optimistic standpoint, economic growth and development could allow for more dietary variety and higher calorie consumption around the world, which would be a nutritional bonus. But Myers believes it’s much more likely that a growing population, coupled with environmental issues like climate change and global water shortages, will continue to strain the world’s agricultural production instead, causing more hunger. Ehrlich agrees that feeding and nourishing the world’s populations will only grow more challenging in the future for a variety of reasons. “A: We have too many people,” he says. “B: The rich are consuming too much. And C: We’re not distributing the food we produce the way it should be distributed.” These issues only exacerbate the problems that carbon emissions, climate change and other environmental issues are causing for global agriculture production. And it’s not just zinc intake that’s likely to be affected, either. Research has shown that high carbon dioxide levels can affect iron and protein content in some plants as well, Myers says. And another study Myers was involved with, also published today in The Lancet, suggests that declines in pollinators — such as bees and butterflies — could cause major drops in the world’s


Street Smart: What to do at Union Market

in the United States, this micro-cinema has three screens. But don't get too attached. It's temporary. There are plans to eventually build a larger version on top of Union Market. Salt & Sundry. Photo by Holley Simmons Salt Sundry Amanda McClements, a former D.C. food writer, was looking for a local source for home goods that appealed to her style. She came up with zip. So she opened a shop. Products are geared for the home-entertaining set: melamine serving ware that resembles paper plates, Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. mixers and farm tables built by McClements's father from salvaged materials. The shop, housed in the market, also stocks locally made jewelry and small-batch bath goods. A second, smaller store has opened in Logan Circle. Dolcezza. Photo by Holley Simmons Dolcezza "Gelato" and "factory" sound especially titillating together. The 4,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2014, scoops out just-churned gelato and sorbet in flavors such as salted caramel and lemon opal. Owned by married Robb Duncan and Violeta Edelman, Dolcezza launched in 2004 out of a tiny corner shop in Georgetown. Today there are eight retail spaces, and the gelato is distributed to more than 40 Whole Foods stores and more than 100 restaurants. Rappahanock Oyster Co. Photo by Holley Simmons Rappahannock Oyster Co. With just 17 seats, it's a tight squeeze at this oyster counter within the market. "When we launched in 2012, we were only open on the weekends. Chaotic is an understatement," says general manager J.P. Sabatier. It's now open six days a week, and slurpers still clamor for the local shellfish and all-meat crab cakes. Rappahannock Oyster Co. has been operating since 1899 and farms more than 1 million oysters a year in the Chesapeake Bay. The oysters are served around the country, and are also available for shipping. A. Litteri. Photo by Holley Simmons A. Litteri Kenneth Nankervis can tell when it's someone's first visit to the Italian specialty store. "I call it the open-mouth gaze," says the store's manager and wine specialist. "They stare in awe at the pasta that goes to the ceiling and all of our olive oils." Housed in one of the windowless warehouses on the market's periphery, A. Litteri has been operating for nearly 90 years. For stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit WP Magazine. Follow the Magazine on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. E-mail us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.


Denizens marks one year in Silver Spring with parties and a new beer

its Mixed Breeds are the Prettiest American-Belgo Blonde Ale with coffee beans in the kegs. Expect some of these beers to return in the future, though possibly with slight tweaks. "It's nice to have beer that people know and look forward to, and get excited about," co-founder Emily Bruno says. Barnes adds: "I'm looking forward to saying, 'Roar, Sex Panther is back!" More recently, brewer Jeff Ramirez has been experimenting with barrel-aged beers. The first up is Backyard Boogie, a funky and fruity farmhouse ale aged for six months in chardonnay barrels with brettanomyces and lactobacillus bacteria. Speaking of which, there's a new beer for this weekend. "The anniversary beer is inspired by the first five beers we produced," Ramirez explains. He describes the new offering, called First Time, as a Belgian dark rye ale. It's something of a Frankenstein beer, using the rye from Southside Rye IPA, yeast from the Third Party Belgian-style tripel, and malts from the Lowest Lord ESB, Big Red Norm Red Ale and Born Bohemian Czech-style pilsner. Ramirez says some of the beer will be barrel-aged and released later, possibly under the name "Do You Remember Your First Time?" The basement tap room at Denizens Brewing Co. (Photo by Taylor Barnes/Courtesy of Denizens Brewing Co.) Denizens beers can be found in more bars in Washington than in Montgomery County. In addition to the 10 taps in Denizens' basement taproom, Denizens beers can be found throughout the area. Denizens' founders went to Annapolis to help reform Montgomery County's liquor laws, and they've been a major beneficiary of the new rules, which allow small breweries to sell their beers directly to bars instead of going through the county-run Department of Liquor Control. And while Denizens beers are offered in a few dozen county bars, including Republic in Takoma Park, Brasserie Beck in Kentlands and the 4 Corners Pub in Silver Spring, they're on tap in even more places in Washington. "One of the things we've found since last year, when the law changed to allow for self-distribution, is that it's been kind of a learning curve in terms of changing the culture," says co-founder Julie Verratti. "It's breaking the pattern and explaining to people, 'Hey, you can buy from us directly.' In D.C., it's the Wild West – they're used to breweries self-distributing." Denizens' beers are sold at 35 accounts in Washington, including Meridian Pint, the Argonaut,


Brewing Co. (Photo by Taylor Barnes/Courtesy of Denizens Brewing Co.) Denizens beers can be found in more bars in Washington than in Montgomery County. In addition to the 10 taps in Denizens' basement taproom, Denizens beers can be found throughout the area. Denizens' founders went to Annapolis to help reform Montgomery County's liquor laws, and they've been a major beneficiary of the new rules, which allow small breweries to sell their beers directly to bars instead of going through the county-run Department of Liquor Control. And while Denizens beers are offered in a few dozen county bars, including Republic in Takoma Park, Brasserie Beck in Kentlands and the 4 Corners Pub in Silver Spring, they're on tap in even more places in Washington. "One of the things we've found since last year, when the law changed to allow for self-distribution, is that it's been kind of a learning curve in terms of changing the culture," says co-founder Julie Verratti. "It's breaking the pattern and explaining to people, 'Hey, you can buy from us directly.' In D.C., it's the Wild West – they're used to breweries self-distributing." Denizens' beers are sold at 35 accounts in Washington, including Meridian Pint, the Argonaut, Jack Rose and Bar Pilar. The founders have big plans for the year ahead. "We're committed to making this a third place for people in Silver Spring," Barnes says, with more events and changes in the offing. The biggest is not in the brewery but in the kitchen: The BBQ Bus food truck, which has provided the food since the opening, is being replaced by a new concept that will feature a "fresh, seasonal and rotating menu that will pair better with our beer," Barnes says. This will also allow for monthly ticketed beer dinners, as well as rotating dinner specials paired with new beers. Other plans calls for distribution going "deeper into D.C. and Montgomery County, but also the surrounding areas – P.G. Country, Annapolis and Baltimore," Verratti says. There are plans afoot for tap takeovers during August's D.C. Beer Week, and Denizens will host its first beer festival, the Make it Funky Fest, in October, with 20 breweries from Colorado and the D.C. area. (Ramirez brewed at the Mountain Sun brewery in Boulder before coming to Silver Spring.) Participants so far include Avery, Crooked Stave, Hellbender and Right Proper. Denizens Brewing Co., 1115 East-West Hwy., Silver Spring. 301-557-9818.


D.C.’s State Fair will have a marijuana growing competition this year

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) It’s been five months since marijuana was legalized in D.C., and now there’s a public opportunity to show off if you’ve been letting that liberty take root. The D.C. State Fair — a seemingly Pinterest-inspired event showcasing the culinary, artistic and agricultural talents of the District — is adding a marijuana-growing competition to its lineup of events this year. The “Best Bud” category now joins the fair’s growing list of competitions, which already includes the honey contest, the homebrew contest, the knit and crotchet contest, the funkiest-looking vegetable contest, the pickled food contest and more. The fair also added a pet parade for the first time this year. “Now that it’s legal for residents of the District to grow their own plants, we wanted a way to highlight this new freedom while also showing off the agricultural talents of the District’s people,” Anna Tauzin, a board member and outreach director for the fair, wrote in an e-mail. The event is held each year in September. D.C. State Fair is a nonprofit run by residents. Each submitted marijuana plant will be judged based on four categories, according to the competition forms: Appearance: Is it well-manicured? Does it have Trichomes (sparkling crystals)? Odor: What does it smell like? Does it have a sweet, spicy, or murky smell? Touch: Is it sticky? Does the stem snap or bend? Your Story: Did you grow your plant organically? Did you use artificial light, natural light, or a combination? Was the plant grown hydroponically or in soil? All of this information and anything else you would like the judges to know should be included in the Your Story category below in the registration from. Participants must submit one small bud, about 1 to 2 grams, from their plant in a small Mason jar. The buds, however, will not be judged on how effectively they can get someone high and what type of high they trigger. Judges will not be sampling them because, Tauzin said, the fair will be adhering to the law. and it’s still illegal to smoke marijuana in a public space. The D.C. State Fair will be held Sept. 12 at Shaw’s Old City Farm and Guild, a public space on the 900 block of Rhode Island Avenue NW. [Read more: How to stay out of jail now that pot is legal in D.C.] The judges have not yet been selected,


Main Street Morning: Senate Democrats seek bill to aid Puerto Rico

among Republicans than Hillary Clinton is among Democrats. However, 81% of Hispanics don’t like him, according to a new poll. - Uber has now become a campaign issue. Education - UCLA is offering internships to illegal immigrants. People - Fifteen companies where employees can work in their pajamas. - Retirement plans could be next on the list of required employee benefits. Management - How to expand internationally amid concerns about foreign exchange risk. - Five signs you’re going to be extraordinarily successful. - How to create a thriving virtual company and here are some lessons from companies thriving with 100 percent remote teams. - Ten power words you should start using today. - Eleven ways to earn respect at work. Entrepreneurs - Rihanna is in the sock business. Seriously. Retail - Best Buy has been accidentally selling $200 gift cards for $15. - FAO Schwarz officially closes its doors. - If you need to move some stock this summer, you might want to emulate Amazon’s Prime Day model. - Harper Lee’s new novel makes U.S. bookstore history. Restaurants - The restaurant industry finishes out the first half of the year on a high note. Finance - Toshiba says it will book up to a $3 billion loss over its internal accounting scandal. - A fifth of Bank of America branches are gone and more closures are coming. Sales Marketing - Why it’s important to conduct regular marketing check-ups. - The UPS Store is tapping small business owners for insights. - Why super-fans can be super-scary for companies. - How to speak to a multicultural audience. Opportunities - A cigar store owner is hopeful about future trade with Cuba. Start-ups - Another meal delivery start-up raises capital. Technology - This new Wi-Fi tech may help your customers stop waiting in long lines. - Why haven’t digital business cards caught fire yet? - Six things Evernote does that Microsoft OneNote can’t (and seven things Microsoft OneNote does that Evernote can’t). - Apple rolls out revamped iPods (yes, iPods). - This awesome GoPro video shows the first person view of a Jedi. Online - “Online safe zones” are popping up at police stations nationwide as authorities try to clamp down on crime associated with online trade between strangers. - Researchers are uncovering the hidden laws that reveal how the Internet grows, how viruses spread and how financial bubbles burst. - Flash is now


This is our first-ever photo of Pluto’s moon Hydra

Our first real picture of Hydra, one of Pluto's smaller moons, as captured during the July 14 flyby. (NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI) Now that we've become intimately acquainted with Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, it's time to take a peek at one of Pluto's smaller buddies: Hydra. On Wednesday, along with the release of our highest-ever resolution photos of Pluto and Charon, NASA revealed that the New Horizons spacecraft had captured a shot of Hydra, a moon just 27 miles across at its widest. [NASA’s spacecraft made it to Pluto. So what happens now?] Oh, and it's lumpy as heck. Obviously. You don't need high-res shots to know that. Hydra is basically a tiny space potato. Discovered in 2005, Hydra has only ever showed up as a fuzzy little blob of light in previous images. NASA scientists expect to see it a bit more clearly in some images that they've yet to download -- it's going to take 16 months to bring all the data acquired during Tuesday's flyby down to Earth -- but they say that this pixelated shot taken from 400,000 miles away has allowed them to nail down Hydra's shape, size, and basic properties. The smaller moons as seen by New Horizons earlier this year. (NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI) We know now that Hydra is potato-shaped and irregular, with variations in brightness across its surface -- including a dark spot about six miles across. It's 27 miles across and 20 miles wide, and it's probably covered in water ice. In terms of brightness, it's right between Pluto -- which is highly reflective -- and Charon, which is slightly less so. [New images of Pluto’s moons hint at unusual behavior] In addition to little Hydra and big Charon, which acts more like a twin planet than a moon, Pluto has three other known moons. Nix, Styx and Kerberos have yet to be captured with the same clarity as Hydra. NASA scientists had expected to find other, even smaller moons during the approach to Pluto, but have not seen signs of any as of yet. Read More: Pluto’s surface? Surprisingly full of mountains and lacking craters Scientists are speculating that Charon’s dark spot is ice from Pluto Graphic: See the Pluto portrait 85 years in the making New data reveals that Pluto’s heart is broken Finally, here are the stunning pictures of Pluto NASA has waited a decade to capture


This dense white star is ‘cannibalizing’ its companion

An artist's impression of the newly discovered star system, Gaia14aae, in which a small white dwarf is stealing the gas of a larger giant. (Marisa Grove/Institute of Astronomy) Astronomers stumbled upon an extremely rare star system about 730 light years away in the Draco constellation, but the scene's a bit unnerving. It's a binary star system in a bit of a David and Goliath situation. One star, a tiny white dwarf the size of Earth, is "cannibalizing" its massive companion, about 125 times the volume of our sun. The scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, have compared the system to a marble devouring a hot air balloon. It's a strange system for a couple reasons. First and foremost, it's the only known case of a binary system in which one star completely eclipses the other. Because the two stars are orbiting around each other so tightly, the larger star blocks the other from view every 50 minutes — faster than the minute hand of a clock. [Finally, here are the stunning pictures of Pluto NASA has waited a decade to capture] It's also made up of large amounts of helium, but not hydrogen, according to a spectroscopy analysis from the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands. That's highly unusual, because hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. The system, named Gaia14aae, was discovered by the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite back in August 2014 when an amateur astronomer alerted the agency that it suddenly became five times brighter during a single day. "This really highlights the vital contribution that amateur astronomers make to cutting-edge scientific research," said Heather Campbell of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, in a statement. [New close-up of Pluto’s moon Charon reveals a mountain in a moat] The white dwarf has such powerful gravitational effects on the bigger star because it's so dense — scientists say one teaspoon of material from it would weigh as much as an elephant. That's caused the companion star, which has only 1 percent of the white dwarf's mass, to swell up like a balloon and move closer. Astronomers hope Gaia14aae could be the key to the mystery of supernova explosions. This is important because the extreme brightness of the explosions are a tool to measure the expansion of the universe. "It's a fascinating system — there's a lot to be learned from it," Campbell said. [This is our


What we know so far about the Chattanooga killings

Investigators probe for a motive behind Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez’s shooting spree that left four Marines and a Navy sailor dead in Tennessee. In a late-night press conference on Thursday, authorities offered few details about how Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, attacked a recruiting center and a Navy and Marine reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn. “We are at the beginning of this investigation,” FBI agent Ed Reinhold said. “We still have three active crime scenes. … If you have info please contact us: (865) 602-7582.” Pieced together from eyewitness accounts and news reports, here is what we know so far. Abdulazeez has not been shown to be following promptings of the Islamic State to attack Americans. He was born in Kuwait and became a U.S. citizen; he was Muslim from a conservative, middle-class family; he was an electrical engineer and an amateur MMA fighter; he made pointed jokes about his name causing national security alerts; he was recently arrested for driving under the influence; in the past few days, he blogged about jihad. [What Chattanooga shooter wrote about jihad] “We’re all just shocked. I really still don’t think he did it,” Levon Miller, a former high school wrestling teammate of the suspect, told the Boston Herald. “He was an easygoing kid, he was a good guy.” But though he may once have been a good guy, authorities said Abdulazeez drove up to a military recruiting center on Old Lee Highway Road in a rented silver convertible Mustang at around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. Armed with more than one weapon — the FBI hasn’t said what kind — he started firing. “He never got out of the car,” Gina Mule told CNN. “He had a big, huge, high-powered rifle, and he was unloading shots right into the recruiters.” The barrage was terrifying, but unfocused. “It was obvious that they were intentionally shooting at all five branches of the military,” Keith Wheatley, the property manager of the recruiting center building, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The aftermath “looked like a TV set” of a bullet-riddled crime scene, he said. Dropped off by his dad at 10:30 to sign up for the Air Force, Nicholas Gray huddled in a storage room during the attack, emerging to call his father afterward. “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve heard, I’m fine,” he told his father — with a bullet reportedly lodged in his backpack Abdulazeez got


From Tenn. to Times Square, military recruiting centers prove easy targets

the most attention-grabbing attack, a homemade bomb exploded on March 6, 2008, outside a U.S. military recruiting office in Times Square. Security cameras showed someone on a bicycle plant the bomb and then speed off before the blast, yet no one was ever caught. In June 2013, the FBI and NYPD offered a $65,000 reward for information on the attack. And on April 15 of this year, the reward was increased to $115,000. The FBI says it has persons of interest but has not made any arrests. No one was injured in the Times Square bombing. But a year later, another attack on a recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark., ended in bloodshed. In an attack presaging Thursday’s, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad opened fire as he drove by a recruiting office, killing one soldier and wounding another. Muhammad, born Carlos Leon Bledsoe, was an American who converted to Islam as an adult. He is now serving a sentence of life in prison. In 2010, Muhammad Hussain, another convert to Islam originally named Antonio Martinez, was arrested while allegedly plotting to bomb a military recruiting center in Maryland. That same year, a former Marine named Yonathan Melaku was arrested for shooting at a Marine Corps recruiting station and a Coast Guard recruiting station in separate incidents in Virginia. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. And in 2011, Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh were arrested for allegedly planning attacks on a recruiting station in Seattle. Recruiters have also faced other difficulties stemming from the country’s 14 straight years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. As during the Vietnam War, activists have picketed recruiting centers, particularly during the invasion of Iraq. “Parents will tell us all the time that ‘Johnny’s not joining!’ and just hang up on us,” Sgt. 1st Class John J. Stover, a Topeka recruiter, told the New York Times in 2004. “The difference is that no one has ever recruited during a sustained war.” But in Tennessee, a state that prides itself on its military history, there was nothing but praise and prayers for recruiters and their fellow service members on Thursday. “We live in the Volunteer State, a state that’s rich with tradition and affiliation with our armed forces,” said Berke, the Chattanooga mayor, during a Thursday night news conference. “We cannot countenance what happened to those four families today,” he said. “Our hearts ache for them.”


Pabst Blue Ribbon is finally earning its hipster cred

The move also restores some of PBR’s original cred, since Milwaukee is to binge drinking what Washington is to power and ambition. C.J. Hribal, a Milwaukee poet and novelist, once called Wisconsin a place “where the legislature can’t decide whether milk or beer is the state beverage.” As you learn on the Miller Brewing Company tour (which ends with free mugs of Miller, Miller Lite, Leinenkugel’s and not enough pretzels to make the drive home safe), Milwaukee became the nation’s brewing capital because it combined a large supply of Germans with a large supply of fresh water. In 2006, Forbes named Milwaukee “America’s Drunkest City,” citing the fact that 70 percent of adults had enjoyed at least one controlled beverage in the past month. Down at the beach, you can buy a cold one from the beer garden. Wisconsin was one of the last states to raise its drinking age to 21, doing so in 1986 only after Washington threatened to cut off its highway money. When the Onion was published in Madison, its Page 3 pinup was a “Drunk of the Week.” The World’s Largest Six Pack is a sextet of beer tanks covered with LaCrosse Beer labels. Wisconsin has over 3,000 taverns — third per capita, after colder, more sparsely populated Montana and North Dakota, and also third overall (barely), behind California and New York. Hurley, a snowmobilers’ Tijuana on the Michigan border, has 1,500 residents and over a dozen bars. This Budweiser ad, which swapped out “Ya Hey Dere!” for “Wassup?”, captures the fact that in Wisconsin, beer goes along with any and all North Country amusements. The celebration of the news this week on social media actually overlooked one minor detail: At least some barrels of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer, is still brewed in Milwaukee, since Miller took over the job from Stroh’s in 1999. The lager itself didn’t leave home for long. Only the brand did. In its time away, PBR had the unexpected good fortune to fill a drinking niche — the vintage beer — that could just as easily belong to Hamm’s, Milwaukee’s Best or Stroh’s. If it weren’t for the hipsters, Pabst would be just another forgotten local lager, certainly not making national news for its triumphant return to Milwaukee. Which means a brewpub in a converted church, next door to lofts targeting the “creative class,” is right where it belongs.


These caffeine-addicted beetles are using bacteria to ruin all of our coffee

fact, that it's the equivalent of a 150-pound person drinking 500 shots of espresso. Scientists have finally figured out how the coffee berry borer can thrive off what's toxic to most other living things. The key is gut bacteria, according to research published this week in the journal Nature Communications by Berkeley Lab and U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists. (Via Berkeley Lab) The coffee berry borers in this study came from Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, India, Indonesia and Kenya. Researchers removed the digestive tracts of dead beetles and submerged them in a caffeine solution. They found that 14 species of bacteria -- shared by most of the beetles they studied -- not only survive all that caffeine, but seem to use it as their only source of carbon and nitrogen. [This beetle’s butt is basically a machine gun] A coffee berry borer (lower left) sits atop a coffee bean and the microbes in its gut are shown in the green microscopy image. (Berkeley Lab) A bacterial strand called Pseudomonas fulva, which has a caffeine-converting gene, was the most prevalent in the beetles' guts. To test its importance, researchers fed a group of living insects a minimal diet along with antibiotics that depleted their gut bacteria. Compared with normally fed insects, the beetles on the antibiotics lost the ability to break down the caffeine, as evidenced by poop full of the stuff. But when researchers added some Pseudomonas fulva back to their guts, the beetle poop had no caffeine. Knowing how these beetles can withstand the potency of caffeine could lead to new ways to protect our precious, precious coffee crops. “Instead of using pesticides, perhaps we could target the coffee berry borer's gut microbiota," the study's lead author and Berkeley Lab scientist Javier Ceja-Navarro said in a statement. "We could develop a way to disrupt the bacteria and make caffeine as toxic to this pest as it is to other insects." The dominant bacterial groups that live inside the guts of coffee berry borers from seven major coffee producing countries. The bar graph on the left shows the proportion of the most prevalent bacteria, Pseudomonas, in the gut microbiome of the collected beetles. (Berkeley Lab) READ MORE: You can earn $13,000 a year selling your poop Scientists use microbes to pre-digest fancy coffee Even the bacteria in your gut get jet lag Does treating koala chlamydia hurt their gut microbes?


The Daily 202: Liberals lash out at Democratic consultant class

GOP,” by Ben Terris: “Before the ambush at the Warwick Hotel, [Colorado GOP Chair] Steve House had every reason to feel like one lucky Republican…So when Cynthia Coffman, the new rising-star state attorney general, asked him to meet at the Warwick for drinks, he expected a casual catch-up, perhaps a bit of 2016 strategy talk…But House arrived the night of June 15 to find himself outnumbered — and on the defensive. Coffman was joined by Tom Tancredo, a firebrand former congressman, and Becky Mizel, a Pueblo County chairwoman. Three months earlier, these three had been his biggest supporters when he challenged and beat the incumbent party chairman — but now, suddenly, they wanted him out.” SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: — SNAPCHAT spotlighting 2016: Walker and Kasich are first to run ads on service. –WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT: Picture of the day: NASA posted a photo of the far side of the sun taken by Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft. The image shows the sun in wavelengths that are colorized blue: (nasa) Tweets of the day: Jenna Bush Hager tweeted to followers about former President George H.W. Bush’s fall: Always touched by kindness: thanks for all of your thoughts+prayers for our dear Gamps. We are optimistic that he will heal well. Scott Walker held a baby on the campaign trail: (@ScottWalker) The Army announced that soldiers will be asked to weigh in on uniform changes: (@USArmy) The White House made a Lord of the Rings joke. “One does not simply fly 3 billion miles to take a photo of Mordor, the dark spot on top of Pluto’s moon Charon,” said a tweet on the official account: (@WhiteHouse) Instagrams of the day: As promised, Jeb Bush took an Uber ride in San Francisco. “5 stars for Munir,” he wrote on Instagram: (jebbush) Jill Biden joined Instagram and posted a photo of herself and pup, Champ. “Running through my briefing papers before traveling to Asia,” she wrote: GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE: — Los Angeles Times, “Iran Unlikely to Spend Most of its Post-Sanctions Funds on Militants, CIA says,” by Brian Bennett: “A secret U.S. intelligence assessment predicts that Iran’s government will pump most of an expected $100-billion windfall from the lifting of international sanctions into the country’s flagging economy and won’t significantly boost funding for militant groups it supports in


Do-gooders, do no harm: What are the best–and worst–ways to help those mired in international conflicts?

get away with abuses, including corruption and killing, that would have led to cries of “mass atrocity” had they been perpetrated by Khartoum. The South Sudanese elite’s resultant sense of privilege meant that on achieving independence in 2011, they felt they had joined the club of nations but did not need to stick to its rules. The current war in South Sudan, displaying depths of moral depravity by those until recently treated as America’s best friends, is testament to this error. Another case we profile is the democracy campaign in Burma/Myanmar in which international advocates made the error of elevating Aung San Suu Kyi from being the symbol of democratic resistance, to becoming its unchallengeable leader. Maung Zarni recounts this story, focusing on how Suu Kyi achieved her iconic status more by serendipity than political organization, making it quite foreseeable that she would disappoint as she came closer to power. LS de Waal: The book shows how activism on cross-cutting issues, such as disability rights, the arms business and land rights, more often meets these criteria. These campaigns demand that diverse international actors develop mutual understanding of their different priorities and approaches, resulting in resilient coalitions. LS de Waal: There are also some fundamental principles that are useful. Holding all actors to the same standards of human rights is one. Refusing to make humanitarian assistance conditional on political alignment is another. LS: de Waal And perhaps most importantly, only trust those who distrust force. It is pretty well-proven that nonviolent civil action is more effective in challenging dictatorship and ending violations than any use of force. Even in a hard case such as Sudan, nonviolence has been the only measure that has ever removed a military dictator. South Africa’s democratic movement used force, but it was always subordinate to a political strategy, in which nonviolent action played a larger role. Nonviolence is possible even in very unpropitious circumstances. **** See our earlier posts in this year’s - ‘Protest is always hopeful’: Examining the third wave of popular protest in Africa (Adam Branch, Kim Yi Dionne, and Zachariah Mampilly) - Governance, gender and no guarantees in Africa’s oil-rich states(Celeste Hicks and Laura Seay) - What are the drivers of Nigeria’s ‘ups and downs’? (Kim Yi Dionne and Carl Levan) - Is ‘China in Africa’ something to fear? (Howard French and Laura Seay) - Should we call Africa homophobic? (Kim Yi Dionne)


On its way to Pluto, New Horizons became a tool for education like no other probe

at Boulder physics graduate student poses with part of the student dust counter in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. (Glenn J. Asakawa/University of Colorado) As a student, he got used to always being the youngest person in the room. And when he graduated in 2011, he handed off his duties to the current instrument operator, Jamey Szalay. "I'm thrilled to be a part of it," said Szalay, who had the chance to go to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to witness the mission's flyby. "It's a lot of responsibility, but it's great to be in the drivers seat." Operating the student dust counter means keeping track of any grain of space dust that comes in contact with the instrument during the four billion-mile journey to the unexplored dwarf planet and beyond. Among its projects, the facility is responsible for the New Horizons space probe and its mission to gather data on Pluto. The information gives us a map of dust distribution throughout our planetary neighborhood, but it's more than just a picture of how dirty the space around the solar system is. Dust can offer a gravitational footprint of what's moving around — like the cosmic version of the dust kicked up on the highway by trucks. While dust at first acted like a curtain that made the stars we wanted to observe more faint, astronomers have discovered important clues to where things are located and how they move. "It's another way to learn what's out there," said Mihaly Horanyi, principal investigator for the instrument and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. [After a wait, spacecraft confirms that it survived close encounter] The university proposed adding on the instrument at the very last minute, and Horanyi said there was skepticism at the time that they were trying to sneak an extra instrument onto the craft. With space flight going to the edge of the solar system, every ounce added to the craft counts. Still headquarters decided to take the instrument on, funded by money designated for NASA's educational outreach. It's since been praised by mission leaders as an important way of generating interest of the mission among students, as well as offering some practical experience for those involved to go on and contribute back to the field of astronomy. A glimpse inside the New Horizons spacecraft. All these wires connect to different instruments aboard the


The millennial boom is over in D.C. Is that terrible news for the economy?

some restaurant owners are now more focused on making sure their companies are sustainable. “In the last two years we’ve probably seen 300-some new restaurants in D.C. alone. Which is a lot,” Hollinger said. “You’re also looking at 14th Street and other places being fully developed. Still, I do not think we have reached our saturation point and I think ‘15 is going to be just shy of what opened in ‘14. So I think maybe in ‘16 things will flatten out a little bit.” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser at the opening of the new Ben’s Chili Bowl on H Street NE on July 8. (Tim Carman/The Washington Post) There are differing views on why the boom in young arrivals has waned. One is the cuts to federal jobs and spending. D.C. lost 11,800 public-sector jobs in the past four years, according to the District’s chief financial officer. In just a three-year period, from 2010-2012, Virginia experienced $9.8 billion in defense cuts. When the District added jobs, it was often positions suited for fresh-out-of-college arrivals: in hotels, retail, restaurants or apartment buildings. “We were adding jobs in hospitality,” DesJardin said. “We weren’t adding the management, consulting, the engineers, IT — what we pride ourselves on having.” But the newest data show that despite the slowdown in millenial arrivals, older workers — those between ages 35 and 44 — are finding more opportunities in the bread-and-butter industries that have made up the area’s economy historically. That age group has grown at least 3 percent each of the past four years in D.C., a much more steady trajectory than millennial growth. “The kind of jobs that we are growing are not necessarily filled by millennials — they are professional, business services,” Leisch said. Slightly older workers are also now renting the new apartments. At MRP’s Elevation building, there are 135 renters ages 30 to 39, 120 who are 25 to 29 and 55 who are 21 to 24, according to a survey the company issued. Looking at the census numbers, D.C. Planning Director Eric Shaw said he was “excited by the fact that people are remaining here.” “We need to have a wide range of housing choices. So it’s not just the micro-units,” he said. “People are deciding to remain here for longer as they find a partner, add a dog, start a family. They are finding the neighborhood where they


Marijuana in Alaska has long been legal. Now the state is struggling to regulate it.

of the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board last September, it’s been a constant flow of questions, comments and interview requests flooding her inbox. The new law made the ABC Board responsible for adopting and implementing regulations relating to the cultivation, manufacture, and sale of cannabis until the MCB is created. When House Bill 123 passed in April, Franklin was appointed director of the MCB. Her new office in downtown Anchorage has a 180-degree view of the city, with the mountains in the backdrop. “There’s a lot of people waiting for me to fail,” she said. “It makes the process more stressful, but also more fun.” On the wall of her office, a large blackboard is covered in color-coded mappings of the rule-making process. At the top of her concerns, Franklin listed the emergence of a gray market. With no legal dispensaries in the state, in spite of its medical marijuana law, Alaska has a long history of an underground cannabis industry. When the Alaska Medical Marijuana Initiative passed in 1998, the measure did not create provisions for medical dispensaries. Patients could either grow their own cannabis or appoint a caregiver. Caregivers, in turn, were only allowed to grow for one person other than relatives. The strict regulations and pre-existing Ravin ruling, were the perfect mix for a thriving black market. For example, Angel McCabe has grown cannabis organically for over a decade. She used to sell it illegally to medical marijuana users who could not grow on their own or find a willing caregiver. As a former black market grower she had a lot of things to be scared of — getting robbed, raided or having her children taken away. “A lot of us lived in fear for a long time that something would happen to us just for growing cannabis,” she adds. With the new law McCabe is hoping to “make the switch into the light” and transition into the legal market. “We are getting there, slowly but surely.” Angel McCabe sits in a closet in her home that she uses as a marijuana grow room. McCabe, who has two children and is a former black market grower, has been growing organic marijuana for more than a decade and hopes to start a business with her partner, Kim Kole. (Sean Logan/News21) But according to Franklin, Alaska’s lack of medical market, once a problem, could now play to the state’s


Tiffany Harness returns to Foreign desk as Middle East editor

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl, Deputy Foreign Editor Mary Beth Sheridan and Executive Producer Senior Editor of Digital News Cory Haik: We’re thrilled to announce that Tiffany Harness, fresh from a year helping to launch Rainbow, will return to the foreign desk as Middle East editor. Along with her deep knowledge of foreign news, Tiffany will bring Rainbow’s startup sensibility and a digital savvy that can help fuel innovation on foreign and beyond. As Middle East editor, Tiffany will oversee our coverage of the world’s most turbulent and consequential region, torn apart by war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and by the rise of the Islamic State. She will bring her impeccable judgment, leadership and storytelling skills to a first-class team of correspondents based in Beirut, Jerusalem, Cairo and Baghdad. In addition, Tiffany will work to create Rainbow-first features in foreign as a model for the newsroom. She’ll be working most closely with the foreign staff, including Swati Sharma, but also with Cory Haik, Kerry Lauerman and the Rainbow team to identify features that will work particularly well for our new, rapidly growing mobile audience and developing platforms. Before joining the Rainbow team last July, Tiffany had spent 13 years on foreign, most recently as Europe and Americas editor. On Rainbow, Tiffany helped to conceive and inaugurate the rich, visual platform for Washington Post storytelling that, in the remarkable span of a single year, has now debuted on Kindle, the Web, Android and most recently on iOS devices. We look forward to welcoming Tiffany back to foreign. She will start work in late August.


The South’s beloved Blue Bell ice cream is finally getting good news

he shared with three brothers. The company's troubles come as ice cream sales across the U.S. have flattened out in recent years, appearing to plateau in 2012, according to Euromonitor. Sales are expected to stay mostly flat through at least 2019 as consumers continue to eye healthier treats, analysts say. Blue Bell had bucked that trend, growing into one of America's largest ice cream brands. Founded in 1907, Blue Bell is sold in just 23 states, mostly in the Southeast, but managed to double its market share over the past decade, according to the market research firm Euromonitor. It moved into new markets, rolled out new flavors in recent years, helping it keep its loyal fan base, said Beth Bloom, a food and drink analyst at Mintel, a market research firm. "They were definitely on a tear — a positive tear," she said. Its revenue reached $680 million last year, according to PrivCo, which estimates the financials of privately owned companies. This year with the recall weighing it down, Blue Bell's revenue is expected to fall to $550 million, PrivCo said. // // It was the first time in its 108 years that Blue Bell had issued a recall, and it was expansive: 8 million gallons in all were thrown out. (Listeria causes nausea, fever and diarrhea and can be more serious, even fatal, for people with weak immune systems.) Blue Bell is in the midst of a months-long process to find the source of the Listeria and stop its spread. The company has said it is taking apart its machines to clean them, sanitizing air conditioning systems and re-training employees, among other changes. On Twitter last week, the company said it planned to begin test production at one of its smaller factories in "several weeks." Van Dorf said a date isn't set for testing to start. Yes it’s true…our Alabama facility will begin test production in the next several weeks! Thanks again for your support. Stay tuned... It was welcome news for the company's loyal following, who have asked for weeks when they might see tubs of Blue Bell ice cream in grocery stores again in streams of tweets dotted with crying emojis and the company's telling Twitter handle, @ILoveBlueBell. Rep. Joe Barton, who represents a slice of Texas more than a hundred miles from Brenham, last week excitedly tweeted a news story about the coming tests, saying, "There


Capital Fringe 2015: From dating at Dance Place to Jacobean revenge in Anacostia

tongue out as he sits among the curbside trash. Then “ROGER (Not His Real Name)” shares with the crowd that has gathered in his alley the myriad conspiracy theories that have been bedeviling him so long and have likely caused his homelessness. Matthew Vaky, writer-performer of "ROGER (Not His Real Name)" at the 2015 Capital Fringe Festival (Capital Fringe) Matthew Vaky wrote and stars in the one-man one-act that interacts with the audience such that he pokes one woman to see whether the audience is indeed real, asks questions expecting answers and literally passes out paper and pen so people can take careful notes on what he shares. “Crazy” is the clean part of what one guy wrote. But there are some funny things in the conspiracies that spread from Lincoln’s assassination and Washington’s supposed betrayals right up to JFK, Marilyn Monroe, AIDS, 9/11 and President Obama’s supposed plans for a takeover of Texas. As in most fanatical conspiracies, the pieces all fall together, but not everything. “What does Sirhan Sirhan have to do with Duran Duran?” he asks at one point. With his black curly mop and wide-eyed outrage, Vaky is a bit like a latter-day version of topical comic Mort Sahl with a bottle of MD 20/20 instead of a newspaper in his hand. But as amusing as it often is, you begin to wonder where it will all end up (this is typically the part in real life where your instinct is to back away from the wild-eyed man). And while the literal diagrams he passes out circle back to the Hubble telescope (which has been spying on all of us all along), there’s no such sense of completion in the narrative. We’re led to believe that Roger’s life began to unravel when a girlfriend died in the second grade, but Vaky misses the opportunity to tie in real issues of mental health and homelessness that might have given what is otherwise an entertainingly paranoid rant a little more weight. -- Roger Catlin “ROGER (Not His Real Name)” July 18, 19, 25 and 26 at the Tree House Lounge, 1006 Florida Ave. NE IF YOU GO: Fringe tickets $17, plus one-time purchase of $7 Fringe button. Available online at www.capitalfringe.org, by phone at 866-811-4111, and at the Fringe Festival box office, 1300 H St. NE (Tuesdays-Fridays 5 pm. to 10 p.m., Saturdays-Sundays 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.)


One of women’s track and field’s most suspect marks goes down

meet in Monaco.(Olivier Anrigo/European PhotoPress Agency) In 1993, the Chinese women won the 1,500 meters, 3,000 and 10,000 at the world championships and later that summer broke the world records — in stunning fashion — in all three events at a national meet in Beijing. None of the three had been touched since — until Friday. Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba won the 1,500 at the Diamond League meet in Monaco in 3 minutes 50.07 seconds, topping the world mark set nearly 22 years ago by Qu Yunxia by .39. “I’m the first from Ethiopia to get the 1,500-meter world record. That is amazing,” Dibaba told reporters after the race. “I knew from the beginning that I could break the record and am still able to improve, maybe under 3:50.” How fast was the race? Shannon Rowbury broke Mary Decker Slaney’s 32-year-old American record (and set a North American record as well) and finished third, more than six seconds back in 3:56.29. In all, six women, including 2011 world champion Jenny Simpson of the United States, were under four minutes. This was long thought one of the toughest — and most dubious — records in track and field. Qu broke the mark by more than two seconds in 1993, and no non-Chinese woman had ever gone under 3:52 before Friday. In fact, no woman had run under 3:55 since 1997 before Dibaba ran 3:54.11 earlier this year. Qu and her teammates, all “peasant” women coached by Ma Junren, passed drug tests that year despite doping rumors. But six of Junren’s “army” were among those dropped from China’s Olympic team for testing positive for EPO, a substance not tested for previously. Those positive tests have long shaded the records set in 1993, when 42 seconds were shaved off the 10,000 mark and 16.5 seconds off the 3,000 mark. Dibaba was helped Friday by a world class pace-setter: former indoor 800 world champion Chanelle Price. The American led the pack through 400 meters in 1:00.31 and 800 in 2:04.52 before giving way. A final lap under 60 seconds gave Dibaba the mark. The men’s race Friday was quick as well. Asbel Kiprop of Kenya ran 3:26.69, .69 off Hicham El Guerrouj’s 1998 world record, leaving him the third-fastest man of all time. Matthew Centrowitz, the former All-Met from Broadneck High, ran 3:30.40 to make him the third-fastest American ever, and he finished 10th overall.


These are the states that could legalize pot next

Marijuana legalization now enjoys majority support in the U.S. -- 52 percent of Americans support legalization, 42 percent oppose it, and 7 percent remain undecided, according to the latest General Social Survey. But most changes to marijuana law aren't happening at the federal level, they're happening in the states. In some, possession and use remains a crime. Other states have decriminalized possession of small amounts, 24 have legalized marijuana for medical use, and 4 states plus Washington, D.C., have gone fully legal. There are as many shades of grey (or green) between these policies as there are states. So it's useful to have some sense of public attitudes toward marijuana at the state level, especially considering marijuana will be on the ballot in many states in 2016. No polling outlet that I'm aware of has released comprehensive state-level results for attitudes toward marijuana legalization. But the question has been asked in most states by a variety of polling firms in recent years, and I thought it might be useful to compile all those results in once place. So here they are. Since late 2012, marijuana legalization questions have been asked in at least 38 states. In 25 of those states, majorities supported legalization. In another 5 states, there wasn't majority support for or opposition against legalization -- results were very close, in other words. And in 8 states, majorities opposed legalization. Methodology is important here. Most of these state results shouldn't be directly compared to each other, which is why I'm simply sorting states into qualitative categories rather than doing a numeric comparison of support. The reason is that question wording across these surveys varies considerably, and we know that question wording has a strong effect on marijuana survey results. But each of the surveys I included were scientifically conducted by credible polling firms. They offer representative samples of the populations of their respective states. They all ask about support for the full legalization of marijuana -- not just support for medical marijuana, or for decriminalization, but for legalizing recreational use. I've included all the detailed information, including question wording, survey firm, sample size, survey date, and a link to the raw results in a table below, so you can check it out for yourself. For Alaska, D.C. and Oregon, I used the actual results of last fall's ballot initiatives, since those represent the most recent (and most accurate!) barometer


Lack of digital talent adds to cybersecurity problems

recruit and retain that workforce. . . . Our nation is at risk as the number and sophistication of cyber-attacks continue to grow, but the government has failed to act with urgency.” Among the report’s findings: - Government compensation for cyber talent is not competitive, especially for experienced workers. “As the compensation gap continues to widen, especially for the most talented professionals, the federal government will continue to fall further behind.” Ironically, Sam’s reliance on contractors can work against his ability to keep the best employees. Private cyber companies, not limited by federal pay scales, “can simply hire away the best cybersecurity talent and rent it back to the government at a higher hourly rate.” - The government needs a master cyber workforce strategy to attract and retain top talent. “Without this master strategy in place, agencies are operating largely on their own under a haphazard system.” - A slow and ineffective government hiring process drives away top candidates. The drawn-out security clearance process is an impediment and, “in some cases, recruits opt to seek employment opportunities with private industry rather than wait for the long process to be completed.” - Training and development of cyber staffers is uneven across government. Creating “a cybersecurity training academy focused on both technical and leadership skills” is among the report’s recommendations. Similar issues were outlined in the GAO’s 2011 report and a related 2009 study by the partnership. But years later, many of those same questions remain. The Office of Management and Budget provided no answers to a series of questions the Federal Diary submitted to Scott, including: How great is the need for federal cyber experts? What is being done to attract them? Can the government effectively compete with the private sector when recruiting cyber talent? How have government operations been affected by the need for digital specialists? Federal cyber talent problems reflect issues endemic to the federal workforce generally. Stier thinks changing the way the government recruits and retains that talent could be on the vanguard of broad-based civil service reform. The partnership urges a government-wide overhaul of the civil service system, but recognizes that would take time. When it comes to protecting the personal information of federal employees, contractors, job applicants and their families, the OPM data breach demonstrates the time to hire the right people and provide modern technology has already past. “Cybersecurity,” the partnership’s report said, “is one


Another medical use for pot: Healing broken bones

A marijuana plant flourishes under grow lights at a warehouse in Denver in 2010. (Ed Andrieski/AP) There’s yet another use for marijuana: It may help to heal broken bones, according to a new study. Researchers found that cannabidiol – an element of marijuana that does not get people high – improved the healing process in rats with broken leg bones after eight weeks, according to a study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research by Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. Yankel Gabet of Tel Aviv’s Bone Research Laboratory who led the study, said it found that the element “makes bones stronger during healing,” which could prevent future fractures. This process occurs as cannabidiol, or CBD, enhances the maturation of collagen, the protein in connective tissue that “holds the body together.” “After being treated with CBD, the healed bone will be harder to break in the future,” Gabet said in a news release. The results of the study provide another glimpse into the potential health benefits of marijuana. Medicinal marijuana is already used to reduce some of the effects associated with chemotherapy in cancer patients. It is also used as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. In earlier research, Gabet’s team learned that the body’s cannabinoid receptors “stimulated bone formation and inhibited bone loss.” Those findings open doors to how marijuana could treat osteoporosis and other bone-related diseases, the researchers say. Marijuana is still largely illegal across the world and in the United States. But marijuana prescribed for medical uses is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” alongside heroin and LSD. Although that classification is unlikely to change this year, attempts and events that challenge marijuana’s status in the nation have not gone unnoticed. According to Gabet, “there is still a lot of work to be done to develop appropriate therapies” in using marijuana medically, but “it is possible to detach a clinical therapy objective” from the mood-changing aspects of the stoner’s plant. “The clinical potential of cannabinoid-related compounds is simply undeniable at this point.” RELATED:


I’m disabled. Can NIH spare a few dimes?

chronic fatigue syndrome. That's a terribly vague and dismissive moniker for so serious an illness, and one that needs to be retired. Fatigue is not the primary or most troubling symptom for most people with ME. In the past, you've shown a soft spot for certain orphan diseases. Well, the history of ME is akin to having locked an entire orphanage in a cellar and bulldozing the house. On the list of illnesses the NIH studies, ME (listed as “ME/CFS”) is near the bottom in funding, ranked 231 out of 244. It received $5 million in 2014, less than hay fever, which cripples no one. That’s not enough money to equip a laboratory and run it for a year. This abject neglect -- or sustained prejudice, or maybe both -- stretches back a full three decades at the NIH (For a detailed history of how this sad state came to be, read Hillary Johnson’s deeply-reported book "Osler’s Web.") No one has a good count of ME patients in the United States -- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention misspent funds earmarked for this purpose -- but there’s plausible evidence that several hundred thousand people are disabled by it. That’s comparable to the burden of multiple sclerosis -- the illness ME most closely resembles. The NIH funds $110 million in MS research each year, and a sustained government investment has been crucial in the development of a dozen Food and Drug Administration-approved MS drugs. ME patients have no approved treatments. Diagnosis can be delayed for years, and misdiagnosis is common. (I was initially diagnosed with West Nile virus infection, a mistake due to a faulty blood test.) But ME is finally emerging from the basement. Brand-name institutions and big-time researchers now recognize the huge burden ME places on society: tens of billions in medical expenses, lost productivity and missing tax revenue each year. Columbia University’s Ian Lipkin is searching for infectious triggers, and has reported severe immune problems in patients. Columbia received $150 million in NIH grants in 2015; Lipkin’s operation gets a big chunk of that not for ME/CFS research but for finding viruses such as those that cause SARS and MERS. But when the famous virus hunter applied for a trifling $1 million for ME research, the NIH turned him down, twice. So spurned, Lipkin and colleague Mady Hornig recently resorted to eating habanero peppers to raise money