Persuading Americans to act on climate change

A worker installs solar panels atop a government building in Lakewood, Colo. The industry has added more than 80,000 jobs since 2010, according to the Solar Foundation.<br />(John Moore/Getty Images) For almost two decades, legislation in the United States to address climate change has been stuck and the issue has now been elevated to a source of severe partisan division. Although institutional barriers have made it difficult for the United States to ratify international climate agreements and pass domestic legislation, climate advocates also view weak public support as a problem. To that end, activists have sought to re-frame the issue to be more appealing to the American electorate, which might in turn push lawmakers to take heed. What kinds of appeals does the U.S. public find persuasive on climate change? In surveys of Americans, climate change is an important environmental concern, but environmental concerns rank lower than issues such as national security and the economy. Advocates of climate change policies must confront the challenge that the public historically has viewed climate change as physically and temporally remote. A high-profile political event such as the Copenhagen climate negotiations or a weather-related catastrophe such as Hurricane Sandy catches attention and puts climate change on the political agenda. But attitudes about the causes of climate change and the appropriate level of government response are affected by one’s sense of personal risk (see Leiserowitz here, here and here). Partisanship may override the limits of individual knowledge: Democrats and independents are much more likely than Republicans to believe that there is solid evidence of global warming, by as much as a 30-point gap. Throughout the 2000s, advocates experimented with a variety of frames to garner public support. The original frame of climate change as an environmental crisis focused on the effects on future generations and humankind. Such an appeal for transnational and intertemporal altruism is largely a moral claim. Indeed, some activists made this appeal through efforts such as the “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign, an effort to link Christianity to environmental stewardship. In contrast, the green jobs orientation of the early 2000s, that then went on to infuse the rhetoric of the Obama administration, is a primarily material interest-based logic. In the late 2000s, advocates also sought to tie climate change to national security. Which of these various approaches is most likely to be successful? In an article (open access) recently published in Research


Panel to decide if former Special Forces officer Matt Golsteyn will be thrown out of Army

Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn is congratulated by fellow soldiers after receiving the Silver Star for valor on Jan. 4, 2011. The Fayetteville Observer/James Robinson A former Green Beret officer who was stripped of one of the military’s top awards for heroism by the Army secretary will soon face a panel of officers that can throw him out of the service, according to the officer’s lawyer and Army officials. Army Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn will face an administrative hearing known as a board of inquiry the week of May 18, according to a memorandum sent March 26 by the panel’s top officer, Col. Stuart Goldsmith. It is believed the board will review evidence against Golsteyn in the 2010 death of a Taliban bomb maker that the Army Criminal Investigation Command already has reviewed. That probe closed last year without Golsteyn being charged with any crime, according to officials familiar with the case. [Army revokes Silver Star for former Green Beret officer, citing investigation] Golsteyn’s lawyer, Phil Stackhouse, confirmed the tentative hearing date and said that his client is concerned about being separated from the Army under other-than-honorable circumstances because it would eliminate medical benefits that most veterans receive. An Army medical board is currently evaluating a medical retirement for Goldsteyn based on an operation he had on his heart while serving, spinal damage, a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress, Stackhouse said. A spokesman for U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, said the Army began moving to separate Golsteyn from the service in February. The board of inquiry will be convened by Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., and will allow Golsteyn to make a case for why he should remain on active duty, Lastoria said. Maj. Mathew Golsteyn is shown here in white in Afghanistan, alongside an Afghan soldier. (Photo released by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter’s office) Golsteyn’s case garnered widespread attention after he received several other forms of punishment following the launch of an Army investigation. Among them, the Army threw him out of the Special Forces, reassigned him as a conventional infantry officer and took away his Special Forces tab, a qualification that goes to any soldier who completes Special Forces training. Golsteyn also was denied a major valor award for heroism during the iconic Battle of Marja in Afghanistan on Feb. 20, 2010. He later received the Silver Star for heroism that


Main Street Morning: D.C. in the dark

they’re during the daytime). Technology - Walmart tops a list of the world’s biggest technology spenders. Online - Google will shut down its Moderator service and is working on a tool to compete against Amazon for comparing local home repair services. - One of the world’s largest insurance companies is seeing a marked uptick in the sale of coverage for cyber attacks. Restaurants - Burger King picks up the tab for a Burger King wedding. - More and more restaurants are complying with a host of initiatives designed to bolster their sustainable credibility. Opportunities - The military communications market is forecasted to be worth $40 billion by the end of 2020. Finance - For the second year in a row, U.S. Cellular is hosting casting calls for the hit ABC show “Shark Tank.” - A venture capital competition like “The Voice” will soon debut for women-led businesses. People - Microsoft looking to hire autistic employees as part of a new pilot program. Strategies - Payment service Square jumps into the marketing game. - A comic store launches a subscription service to beat the impact of its city’s new $15 minimum wage. Around the Country - Maryland will soon be home to a new accelerator for health-tech start-ups. - There’s new momentum behind a proposal to regulate payroll cards to prevent employers from imposing unfair fees on their own workers in New York State. - Jersey City’s mayor is seeking to limit the number of chain stores in its downtown. - A Texas business group comes out against anti-LGBT proposals. - Businesses in Monterey City, California want demonstrators to stop protesting over the city’s recent “sit-lie” ban. - Maryland lawmakers have decided not to advance legislation that would have required many businesses to let workers earn as many as seven paid sick days each year. Around the World - A bed found in a parking lot is said to belong to the father of Henry VIII – and could be worth $30 million. - According to analyst predictions, France’s economy will pick up speed in the first half of 2015, but unemployment will remain high. - An entrepreneur launches an “Ideas Farm” in West Wales. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group a Bala Cynwyd Pa. consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


It’s stink bug season again, and the bugs are wanted!

major focus areas for your stink bug research GD: There are several research focuses as follows: 1) The female stink bug during egg laying smears fecal material on the eggs which contain a specific bacteria that the immature nymphs need for normal development and survival; we consider this as a weak link in its life history. Studies are ongoing to investigate ways to disrupt the development of the immature nymphs. 2) Rearing the stink bug is an essential requirement for ongoing research, so studies are focused on preventing colony crashes due to disease and the development of an artificial diet for the stink bug. 3) In its native land (China), the stink bug is maintained under control by natural enemies, mainly tiny wasps that parasitize the eggs. We have similar parasitic wasps that attack our native stink bugs and our studies are focused on whether these natural enemies will shift over to the invasive species of stink bug. In order to rear these natural enemies and conduct research on their potential as natural control agents, our studies need stink bug egg masses from the colony. 4) In addition, several studies are conducted during the growing season to evaluate chemical, biological, and cultural control measures for the stink bug. KA: I know that stink bugs are attracted to home gardens in the summer. What vegetables and plants do the stink bugs prefer? GD: They prefer tomatoes, peppers (all types except the really hot Thai varieties), okra, sweet corn, green beans, and eggplant. Less preferred are the vegetables in the cabbage family and cucurbits (cucumber, melons, pumpkin, and squash). They also feed on large and small fruit crops. A stinkbug on a cherry blossom. This scene will replay within the next week as the cherry blossoms bloom in the Washington area. (Kevin Ambrose) KA: Do you have any tips for making a home stink bug-proof, or at least reducing the number of bugs that enter a house? GD: Caulk all cracks and spaces that can serve as entry portals, make sure there are no holes in windows screens and screen covers of vents in the attic, weather stripping around doors to prevent entry, and seal openings around window AC units. KA: Do you foresee any new plans or methods to combat the stink bug with insecticides, stink bug eating wasps, or traps? GD: The parasitic wasps probably have the greatest potential for


and cultural control measures for the stink bug. KA: I know that stink bugs are attracted to home gardens in the summer. What vegetables and plants do the stink bugs prefer? GD: They prefer tomatoes, peppers (all types except the really hot Thai varieties), okra, sweet corn, green beans, and eggplant. Less preferred are the vegetables in the cabbage family and cucurbits (cucumber, melons, pumpkin, and squash). They also feed on large and small fruit crops. A stinkbug on a cherry blossom. This scene will replay within the next week as the cherry blossoms bloom in the Washington area. (Kevin Ambrose) KA: Do you have any tips for making a home stink bug-proof, or at least reducing the number of bugs that enter a house? GD: Caulk all cracks and spaces that can serve as entry portals, make sure there are no holes in windows screens and screen covers of vents in the attic, weather stripping around doors to prevent entry, and seal openings around window AC units. KA: Do you foresee any new plans or methods to combat the stink bug with insecticides, stink bug eating wasps, or traps? GD: The parasitic wasps probably have the greatest potential for long-term control of this invasive stink bug. USDA has brought back several species from China and are currently studying their potential non-target effects in quarantine populations, before they are released if allowed at all. One exotic species from China has been carefully tested for about three years, and USDA was about ready to petition for its release; but to our surprise, this species was found occurring naturally at Beltsville, Maryland late last summer, apparently introduced accidentally in containers, probably the same way the stink bug came into our country. Now, extensive surveys will be conducted this summer to determine if this parasitic wasp survived the winter and is spreading its distribution range, and will it impact the stink bug population. For gardeners and organic farmers, the insecticides that are available to these users are not effective on the stink bug. We are investigating the use of attractive trap crops such as sunflower, grain sorghum and even okra. The idea is plant these crops close to or around a cash crop to divert stink bugs away from the cash crop. Traps are being used to monitor flight activity but so far have not proved to be effective trap and kill strategies.


The top story in Mexico is about a feisty journalist who exposed the first lady’s secret mansion, and lost her job

way to protest in front of the institutions" and mobilize people, said Lorenzo Meyer, a well-known Mexican historian. "To have an informed citizenry gives power to the people." Since the firing last month of Aristegui and her investigative team by MVS Communications, the issue has become an intense political issue in Mexico, and a blow to the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The proximate cause of Aristegui's firing last month was her participation in MexicoLeaks, a new Web site modeled after Wikileaks intended to solicit secret documents about government corruption. MVS said that her involvement was done without their knowledge and they fired two members of her team. When she demanded their reinstatement, and disagreed with conditions imposed on her reporters, she was fired as well and her team disbanded. But Aristegui and her supporters believed the real reason she was ousted had to do with her aggressive reporting on Peña Nieto's government. Last year, Aristegui's team found that the first lady, Angelica Rivera, had a luxurious white house built for her by a company who had received millions of dollars in government contracts from Peña Nieto when he was governor of Mexico state. The Mexican "White House" scandal later grew when a similar arrangement was discovered between the company and the finance minister. Aristegui last month told Proceso newsmagazine that when it came to her firing, "all roads lead to the White House." A spokesman for MVS was not immediately available for comment. The subtext surrounding much of the anxiety inspired by Aristegui's case is a fear that Mexico is returning to its more authoritarian past. After a 12-year hiatus, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (know as the PRI), returned to power in 2012, and with it memories of its seven-decade stranglehold on Mexican power, and its penchant for media censorship, back-room deals and intimidation of media companies. The loss of Aristegui is important, Meyer said, because "it was one of the few spaces where they discussed what was important and relevant." "In reality, they are cutting the most important space where citizens can have access, Monday through Friday, to the most important news, and to criticism," he said. "This system needs criticism." Read more: Mexico wanted James Bond, but only if the country looked as good as he does Is Luis Estrada the conscience of Mexico? Who’s in charge in Michoacan? Mexican government and militias struggle for control.


Big ideas from Obama’s new climate change initiative: drones to predict pandemics, geomodeling of global fires

In announcing the White House's new climate change and health initiative on Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a series of ground-breaking hackathons, crowdsourcing efforts, and partnerships with private industry that highlight just how much the administration is betting on big data to help us mitigate the impact of the changes in our environment. Among the most significant is a commitment to release more than 150 health datasets on climate.data.gov. That will include critical information from the CDC, NOAA and other agencies that wasn't previously available to the public. The goal, the White House said, is to "empower America’s people, communities, and health sector to more effectively plan, prepare, and strengthen their resilience to the health-impacts of climate change." And they're asking you for your help. Coders, analysts, and researchers will be invited to use the datasets to generate new insights into the health impacts of climate change. [The White House wants to explore how climate change makes you sick] The administration also hopes to engage techies to participate in a national, multi-site hackathon on June 6 that will bring together federal workers and civic-minded hackers to brainstorm new models and solutions for issues related to climate, health, and other civic issues. One key and particularly crucial application of big data given the recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is an effort to create early warning systems for major issues. Mothers wait for their children to receive vaccinations last month at Redemption Hospital, formerly an Ebola holding center in Monrovia, Liberia. Life is slowly returning to normal, as hospitals and clinics have reopened. ( John Moore/Getty Images) One effort in infectious diseases is a pilot project, which involves the CDC and Defense department, to forecast dengue-fever breakouts using data from government and academia on disease patterns as well as weather. Another project, which involves technology from Microsoft Research, envisions "drone-deployed devices" that collect mosquitoes and conduct gene-sequencing and pathogen detection. The White House said "this technique has the potential to serve as an early warning system for vector borne disease outbreaks and may assist health officials in planning for the impacts of climate change on public health." Google will also be involved in an early warning system of a different sort. The White House said Google will dedicate staff time to translate public data onto its Google Earth Engine geospatial analysis platform which may help scientists do things like visualize global


‘Law & Order: SVU’ tears apart anti-vaxxers in episode with Jenny McCarthy lookalike

Missi Pyle as Trudy Malko. Look familiar? (Michael Parmelee/NBC) “Law & Order: SVU” went for the jugular with the anti-vaccine debate on Wednesday night during an episode that guest-starred Missi Pyle bearing a suspicious resemblance to actress/TV host Jenny McCarthy, who is known as the celebrity face of the controversial anti-vaccination movement. While “SVU” is normally about sex crimes, the show pounces on any opportunity to rip from the headlines. And it’s hard to get more topical than vaccines. The episode started in a fairly typical way: Detectives investigate a high school party that led to explicit photos of underage kids going viral. But the investigation stalls when the detectives can’t interview every student because, strangely, many are out sick with the measles. [Jenny McCarthy tries to mend her anti-vaccine reputation with reality TV. It’s too little, too late.] Detectives find out the whole outbreak started with a mom named Trudy Malko (Pyle), the “queen bee” of Tribeca who runs a lifestyle site that promotes holistic treatments and herbal therapies. Trudy believes vaccinations could lead to autism, so she roped her doctor into falsifying her son Gabriel’s immunization papers, which say he was vaccinated. Trudy spread her anti-vaxxer views to the other neighborhood moms, and the doctor faked their forms as well. Then, 15 years later, there’s this measles epidemic — and it’s not a coincidence. The case gets personal when Sgt. Olivia Benson’s (Mariska Hargitay) baby son, Noah, is infected when he picks up the disease from Gabriel’s infant stepbrother while in a doctor’s waiting room. Through various scenes, the show rails against “hippie-dippy” parents who don’t vaccinate their kids. The writers also present the anti-vaccination point of view, though drive home how dangerous it is. Such as this scene between Trudy and Olivia: Trudy: Olivia: Trudy: Olivia: Trudy: ADA Rafael Barba: Trudy: Olivia: Trudy: Olivia: Trudy: Rafael: Later, the detectives take Trudy (or “Typhoid Trudy,” as she’s called) to court for coordinating an effort to hide the unimmunized kids at the school, which had to be shut down and decontaminated. Trudy is charged with reckless endangerment, conspiracy and falsifying business records. [Chart: New measles cases skyrocketed in January] The courtroom case plays out in a similar way to the above scene: The show includes many facts about vaccines while Trudy throws back every one with an idea of her own. “SVU” executive producer Warren Leight told Entertainment Weekly


Behind the scenes of the final mission to service the Hubble Telescope

had exclusive access as the sole photographer to the astronaut crew, labor force and tools of the shuttle mission that saved and extended the life of the Hubble Space Telescope. In exchange for the astronauts’ time, Soluri was asked to hold photo seminars that essentially taught astronauts how to take better photographs in space — how to become better aware of light, of their working environment in and out of their cabins in space, and how to look for space. In Sight recently spoke to Soluri about how “Infinite Worlds” came to be, and the experience of documenting what he calls a journey centered on American innovation. STS 125 Atlantis/Hubble SM4. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) Post training de-brief with EVA task lead Christy Hansen, left, engaging Hubble SM4 crew and astronaut John Grunsfeld. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) In Sight: You shot what would become “Infinite Worlds” over the course of three years. How did the project initially come about? Soluri: In Sight: The foreword to “Infinite Worlds” is written by legendary astronaut John Glenn. How did that collaboration happen? Soluri: Crew EVA practice gloves: Kennedy Space Center Orbiter Processing Facility. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) White Room close out of crew cabin hatch. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) STS125/SM4 astronaut Megan McArthur in the suit-up facility (located in the O&C building) about four hours before launch, May 11, 2009. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) In Sight: Given the astronauts’ training sessions, how often would you meet with them? Soluri: In Sight: Was there ever a moment during this whole process when you stepped back and reflected on the magnitude of what you were documenting? Soluri: USA Technical Training Instructor Robert Parks provides Emergency Egress Training in the launch pad bunker and escape baskets for the STS125 crew in April 2009. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) Space shuttle manuals in the launch control room at the Kennedy Space Center. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) astronaut gloves and helmet used during underwater NBL training for SM4 – Service Mission 4 in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. (© Michael Soluri / Infinite Worlds) Self Portrait of astronaut John Grunsfeld and shuttle Atlantis on the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting Earth. One of the photos produced by Grunsfeld based on photo seminars provided by Soluri to the crew during pre-flight training. (© Michael


From the Fug Girls: ‘The Royal We,’ or how Kate and Wills came to be

Kate the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William leave the Stephen Lawrence Centre following a tour of the facility March 27. It was Kate’s last public appearance before she gives birth. The couple are expecting their second child in April. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland) Now that Catherine, the duchess of Cambridge has gone into hiding until she pops out the Royal Spare, there’s not much to see if you’re a consummate royal-watcher until someone emerges with news of a birth. So much for further glimpses of royal pregnancy waddling. However, the lull provides a perfect time for digesting fictive imaginings about the lives of the duchess, her princely husband, and their less reserved younger siblings. No, no, not schlocky, bawdy world of “The Royals” on E!, which really does require a suspension of disbelief few can muster. Rather, there’s reading material that may suffice. Enter “The Royal We,” a new novel by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, aka the Fug Girls, the witty fashion and celebrity bloggesses behind Go Fug Yourself. “The Royal We,” their first foray into adult fiction, imagines the courtship of a couple suspiciously similar to the current duke and duchess of Cambridge. It hits a comfortable midpoint between the historical fiction of Rosalind Miles and E!’s scripted series that could just as easily be called “What if ‘Gossip Girl’ Was English?” The idea for a tale loosely based on the courtship of William and Kate originated when Morgan and Cocks were talking to a friend at a party about how strange and isolated Kate’s life must be as a member of the royal family. Before college at St. Andrews, where she met Will, Kate was simply the daughter of the creators of a mail-order party supply company. “I remember when Harry was born and then Fergie came along and that was a huge royal wedding,” Cocks said. “It was just a big spectacle. Whether you live here or you live there, it was really easy to get caught up in that. We were just at that age when Fergie and Andrew got married that it was like, ‘oh, a real, live princess,’ even though I know she’s technically a duchess. But you’re like, ‘this is so dreamy and exciting, and the fact that this actually happens in the world is so cool.'” Bex Porter narrates her experience as an American exchange student from Cornell who winds up


Chinese TV host suspended after privately mocking Mao

death, Mao’s legacy remains problematic for the Chinese Communist Party, which reveres him as the founding father of the nation while acknowledging he was wrong “30 percent” of the time. Yet official history is virtually silent on the famine that killed tens of millions of people during a failed industrialization policy known as the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961, and the political persecutions that occurred before and during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Mao’s reputation is also making something of a comeback under current President Xi, who has argued that one of the roots of the Soviet Union’s collapse was its dismissal of the memories Lenin and Stalin. As free speech shrinks under Xi, an honest appraisal of Mao’s legacy looks ever more distant. [Read: Twin historic traumas shape Xi Jinping's China presidency.] Some saw the incident involving Bi as bringing back painful memories of Mao’s era, when neighbors and even family members would inform on each other’s private conversations. “Has the Second Cultural Revolution come?” one Netizen asked on social media. “A government that fears people’s criticism, it only proves that the government is too fragile!” another commented on the Sina Weibo microblogging service. Some defended Bi’s right to free speech, even if the fact that he worked for the state propaganda machine provoked some ironic remarks: "Always thought people at CCTV are eunuchs and clowns; didn't expect to see such free thinkers with independent personality! Support! " But Bi’s remarks have infuriated many, especially loyal followers of Mao, who called Bi, a Communist Party member, ungrateful and shameless, as well as a “clown with no moral bottom line.” Some have asked for Bi to be punished, quoting the example of a 17-year-old in Singapore who was arrested two weeks ago for criticizing the country’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, who died last month. On Wednesday, China Youth Net, which belongs to the Communist Youth League of China, ran a commentary saying Bi “owed Chinese people an apology.” “Mao Zedong is a great person of an era, the founding father of the People’s Republic. Without Mao, there wouldn’t be the Communist Party, and would Bi Fujian be able to enjoy his dinner while cursing ungratefully?” it wrote. “Even at private gatherings, even in private space, it’s not like one can joke about or mock anyone or anything.” The National Red Army Construction Project Council also issued a statement


Sabra pulls 30,000 cases of hummus off store shelves because of Listeria fears

Sabra, the top-selling hummus brand in the United States, has recalled 30,000 cases of hummus after a sample tested positive for Listeria. (istockphoto) Sabra Dipping Co., which makes the top-selling brand of hummus in the United States, has voluntarily pulled 30,000 cases of hummus — about 360,000 containers nationwide — from stores after s sample tested positive for the potentially deadly bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria infection can be particularly dangerous to young children, the elderly and people with weak immune systems. It causes nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, fevers and severe headaches even among the otherwise healthy. In pregnant women, it can cause miscarriages or stillbirths, according to the Food and Drug Administration. A random hummus sample collected by a state agency at a retail location in Michigan on March 30 led to the recall. This is the second recall related to Listeria concerns this week. Blue Bell Creameries expanded a recall of its products as part of a continuing effort to mitigate fears first raised last month about contamination linked to a production facility Oklahoma. Most recently, the company recalled pints of banana pudding ice cream this week, and other products that were produced at a plant in Broken Arrow, Okla. Contaminated Blue Bell products were linked to three deaths at a Kansas hospital in March. A spokesman for Sabra said the company was told on April 7 that a container of hummus tested positive for Listeria. The recall affects five SKUs of hummus out of 80 classic hummus SKUs the brand sells nationwide. Here's the full list: UPC/SKU Item Use by Dates Affected Areas This post has been updated.


‘God’s Not Dead,’ Lady Thor, and when new audiences come to old media

than $91 million and cost just $12 million to make. “Son of God,” a two-hour adaptation of a 10-hour TV series that had aired the year before, grossed almost $60 million. Similarly, sales are through the roof on some of these female-oriented comics. Spider-Gwen #1 sold more than a quarter-million copies. The first issue of the new Thor sold almost 151,000 copies; sales have dropped as the months have gone along, but at more than 69,000 copies in February it is still hovering near the top ten in sales and easily dwarfing Thor’s year-to-year sales (it moved 42,034 units in February 2014). Appealing to new audiences comes with its own risks, of course. A certain amount of pedantry or didacticism has a tendency to creep into the product. “God’s Not Dead” — the story of a plucky, religious philosophy student triumphs over his professor in a debate — is basically wish fulfillment, the sort of thing that will bring hosannas from the faithful but do little to attract mainstream audiences. We can see similar moments in some of the latest run of girl power comics, such as this scene from February’s Thor #5, which comes after the Absorbing Man complains about how “damn feminists are ruining everything”: Marvel Comics The praise chorus loved it, but it’s a bit on the nose, you know? Ditto this scene, from a recent issue of Wonder Woman: DC Comics Take that, mansplainers’ beliefs! Don’t even get me started on “Bitch Planet,” a smaller title from Image that takes pedantic didacticism to a whole new level. It’s a book about a planet in which women are sent to an intergalactic prison for being uppity and their husbands can pay to have them murdered so they can marry much younger gals. I was shocked, shocked to find an essay at the book’s conclusion from a writer who “taught gender studies at a large Midwestern college.” There is one complication, however. Attracting Christians to movie theaters doesn’t lead to the displacement of mainstream fare. “God’s Not Dead” opened the same weekend as “Divergent” and “Heaven Is for Real” didn’t crowd “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” out of theaters. Comics like “Spider-Gwen” or “Bitch Planet” or the delightfully silly all-ages title “Squirrel Girl” aren’t displacing “The Walking Dead” or any of DC and Marvel’s heavy hitters from shelves. I do, though, feel some sympathy for longtime, largely (thought


Spring has sprung, so does science say love is in the air?

When is the best time of year to look for love? The high season for online dating is in the dead of winter. But Mother Nature might point to right about now: when the birds are singing, the bees are pollinating -- and humans are likely to be happier and more receptive to romance. [Why you shouldn’t buy products with ‘pheromones’ in them to get a date] Recently, I spoke to Speaking of Science’s Rachel Feltman and biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about the weather’s role in attraction. (A recording of our conversations is below.) Feltman pointed out a study that found that when it’s sunny out, women are more likely to give men their phone numbers when approached on the street. Another found that Machiavellian personalities got more positive responses from women they approached during cloudy weather -- meaning that manipulative people have more luck, romantically, when it’s dark out. And so, maybe sunnier times can make us more clear-eyed and less likely to fall prey to deceptive personalities. [Sexism often comes with a smile, study finds] But it's really hard to prove just what makes a woman receptive to being approached on the street, and there’s a big leap from that initial approach to actually falling head over heels. It's possible that the sun can help bridge that gap. Fisher, the chief scientific officer for Match.com, says the brain is primed to fall in love in the spring. She explained that the pineal gland -- which makes melatonin -- is very active in the winter, making people sleepy and potentially less awake to romantic potential. “In the spring, as light hits the retina,” she told me, it goes “into the pineal gland and slows the production of melatonin. And that’s what gives you that light spring in your step, the feeling of giddiness and euphoria. … As the melatonin recedes and the light begins to affect the brain, there’s every reason to think that people will simply be more attractive as partners.” [Evidence of polygamy is in our genes] As melatonin declines, hormone levels can rise in the pituitary gland, Fisher says. “It may well be that light affects not only your drowsiness to make you more awake, but it could even stimulate activity in the genitals and just make you feel sexier.” It's not clear how much of an effect this actually has on humans. In seasonal breeders


These beautiful posters show what it’s like to be high on different drugs

of self-portraits done on different drugs, and Patrick Smith's posters about mental illness. Take a gander at a few of Li's works below. Alcohol Excerpted from "This is your brain on drugs.", by Meaghan Li. This is the psychoactive drug that we're all the most familiar with -- nearly 90 percent of American adults have taken at least one sip of booze in their lifetime, 56 percent of us have had a drink in the past month, and nearly a quarter have binge drunk in that same time. "Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways," according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, "and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination." Marijuana From "This is your brain on drugs.", by Meaghan Li. America's quasi-illicit drug of choice, depending on where you live, and a plant that's likely to play a big role in the 2016 presidential contest. 44 percent of Americans have smoked and inhaled it at some point in their lives. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana's effects include altered senses, altered perception of time, changes in mood, impaired movement, and altered thinking. Ketamine From "This is your brain on drugs.", by Meaghan Li. Ketamine is an anesthetic that's been around for decades. Recreationally, it's used as a club drug that "distorts perceptions of sight and sound and makes the user feel disconnected and not in control," according to the DEA. In therapeutic contexts the drug shows great potential for treating people with severe depression. Last fall, the director of the National Institutes on Mental Health said ketamine "might be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades." Shrooms From "This is your brain on drugs.", by Meaghan Li. Magic mushrooms put your brain in a "waking dream" state and may have "permanent, positive effects" on the brain, according to a study released last year. About 9 percent of Americans have used magic mushrooms at least once in their lifetime. Cocaine From "This is your brain on drugs.", by Meaghan Li. Cocaine is a powerful stimulant that produces "short-term euphoria, energy, and talkativeness," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Sixteen percent of Americans have tried it at least once. Head on over to Meaghan Li's website for more beautiful examples »


Edward Snowden’s impact

a lot of engineers and researchers, was a kind of atomic moment for computer science. It’s at the technical level, especially with respect to encryption, that Snowden’s disclosures have had the biggest impact. The Snowden stories raised enough concerns about U.S. government spying — especially concerns outside the U.S., where opposition to U.S. spying is more universal — that it became a smart business decision for companies with a global customer base to increase the use of encryption. And they encouraged the creation and use of surveillance-thwarting technologies by individuals, too. For that, you don’t need to influence the mainstream of U.S. political opinion. Instead, you just need to influence a subset of consumers around the world. Or even just a few individuals who might create new products that limit what governments can do. And that has had a major impact on government surveillance. Second, Snowden’s disclosures may end up having a big impact on the law because Section 215 has a preexisting sunset provision. Pre-Snowden, it seemed kind of odd that Section 215 had a sunset. On its face, the power granted by the statute didn’t seem like it should be particularly controversial. But the FISC ended up secretly approving the bulk telephony metadata program under the Section 215 statute, however implausibly. And as a result, Congress has to affirmatively re-enact Section 215 to keep the program running or else it will expire on June 1st. As you’re probably aware, it’s hard to get anything through Congress these days. Nothing controversial gets through without a really big push. In that environment, the sunset powerfully flips the all-important default. Instead of a program continuing unless the forces align to stop it, the program will stop unless the forces align to continue it. That may end up making the difference with Section 215. As Ben Wittes pointed out recently, it’s not clear if Congress will renew any kind of modified version of Section 215. And if the program lapses because of Congressional inaction, it will likely have been the Snowden disclosures that shed light on the FISC’s implausible interpretation and made the statute controversial. Because of the sunset, swaying public opinion in the usual way won’t be necessary. Making the law a source of major controversy may prove enough. Anyway, those are my tentative thoughts. I’m curious to receive responses, and especially those that may lead me to rethink my approach.


With Reid headed to the exits, Nevada worries Yucca Mountain will get another look

In this April 13, 2006, file photo, Pete Vavricka conducts an underground train from the entrance of Yucca Mountain in Nevada. A congressional delegation is taking a look at the mothballed site of Yucca Mountain amid new talk about finding a solution to a conundrum about where to put spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors around the country. A tour on Thursday, April 9, 2015 of the long-studied Yucca Mountain location, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is being led by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the congressional Environment and the Economy Subcommittee.. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File) A proposal to store the nation’s nuclear waste deep under a mountain outside Las Vegas is breathing new life as one of its chief opponents, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, prepares to leave office. Most Nevada politicians fiercely oppose the nearly three-decade-old push to deposit spent nuclear fuel and military waste at the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Reid extracted a campaign promise to end the project from then-senator Barack Obama in 2008, and Obama’s Energy Department has withheld funding. But Reid’s impending departure, and new cracks in the Nevada delegation’s historic opposition to the project, have supporters of Yucca mountain hoping for new life. On Thursday, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) led a delegation of six members of Congress on a tour of the Yucca facility, five miles under the mountain. Shimkus, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over the country’s nuclear energy policy, said Reid’s departure will change the dynamics. “Being the majority leader of the Senate, now the minority leader, [Reid] has been challenging,” Shimkus said in an interview. There are other signs that opposition to Yucca Mountain in Nevada is softening. In an editorial published last month in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), whose district includes the site, said it’s time for the Silver State to open a dialogue with the federal government over storage. “Nevadans may never want nuclear waste stored inside Yucca Mountain. We certainly won’t let it be forced upon us,” Hardy wrote. “But if the dialogue changes and a discussion is had — and safety standards are overwhelmingly met — we should at least be up for an honest conversation.” Advocates of Yucca saw Hardy’s op-ed as a crack in a previously-closed door. “We were pleased with what I would say was his rational perspective,” said Marvin


Is the New Generation becoming the most powerful cartel in Mexico?

Mexican police deployed on a Jalisco state road, where at least 15 police officers were killed in an ambush carried out by a gang. (Getty Images) MEXICO CITY -- There's a new name to worry about in Mexico's ever-churning drug war. They call themselves the New Generation of Jalisco, and they just pulled off one of the most audacious attacks against Mexican authorities in years. Earlier this week, on a lonely road in western Mexico between the resort beach town of Puerto Vallarta and the state capital of Guadalajara, cartel henchmen with assault rifles and grenade launchers ambushed a convoy of state police, killing 15 of them and wounding five more. That brought the total number of police killed in the state to 21, just over the past three weeks, according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. This is not just an attack on the police, but "an attack on the security of the state, an attack on the people's security, and it's bringing crisis to the state," said Jose Guillermo Garcia Murillo, a professor at the University of Guadalajara. Mexican cartels rise and fall, and analysts say New Generation is now rising faster than any. According to the Treasury Department, which put New Generation's leaders on the drug kingpin list this week, the cartel is operating in several Mexican states and forging underworld ties around the globe. New Generation and an allied group, Los Cuinis, "have rapidly expanded their criminal empire in recent years through the use of violence and extortion," John E. Smith, acting director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. "They now rank among the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.” The group is relatively new, coalescing five years ago from the remnants of another group, the Milenio cartel, after the capture of one of its leaders, according to U.S. officials. Their leader is a man named Nemesio Osegera Cervantes, a.k.a. "El Mencho," reportedly a former police officer himself. Beyond the drug trade, analysts said the cartel makes money by selling guns, stealing gasoline, extortion and kidnapping. During the militia uprising over the past two years against the Knights Templar cartel in the neighboring state of Michoacan, the New Generation cartel was widely accused of infiltrating militia factions, providing money and weapons to fight their Templar rivals. They've also gone after the Zetas, a notorious cartel now in decline, following the


Russian parliament to introduce bill limiting Olympic athletes to just two Games

just two Olympics in their career, the Associated Press reports. The reasoning behind the bill has to do with ensuring injury-prone athletes don’t sneak onto national teams, according to its author. In the bill’s introductory statement obtained by the AP, Anisimov points specifically to two-time gold medal figure skater Evgeny Plushenko, who competed in his fourth Olympic games in Sochi last year, but ended up pulling out of the singles competition because of a back problem. (This, of course, came after his performance helped Russia win a team gold medal.) “There is no doubt that this athlete (Plushenko) knew about his health problems earlier on, but he didn’t remove his candidacy to compete at the Olympic Games, thus depriving other athletes of the chance to take part,” Anisimov said. “This will allow other, younger and no less talented athletes to take part in international competitions at such a high level.” Plushenko was quick to speak out against the bill. “How can you deny the right of an athlete showing good results in national and international competitions to compete at the Olympics? I think this legislative proposal is inexplicable and inappropriate,” Plushenko said (via Russia news agency Itar-Tass). “We have enough qualified sports officials (in Russia); we have a competent sports minister — I think these issues should be solved by experts.” Three-time Olympian swimmer Vladimir Salnikov, who now heads up the Russian Swimming Federation, also spoke out against the bill. “The person who comes up with this idea will be someone who does not have a clue or anything to do with sport,” Salnikov told Reuters on Wednesday. “I don’t even see the point of wasting my time to talk about something that is so obvious.” He added: “Tomorrow someone will say let’s introduce the 100 meters jump without a parachute into the Olympic program.” Because of the high-profile opposition, it seems unlikely the bill will pass, but if it does, several athletes who had planned to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio would be shut out, including two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva, who called the bill “complete idiocy.” “This bill has nothing to do with real life,” Isinbayeva said (via Itar-Tass). “Any athlete is eligible to compete as many times as he or she is good enough to qualify. This is what drives every professional athlete, and this law would deprive people of their dreams.”


Free speech or hate speech? Lisitsa and the TSO

Hate speech, or freedom of speech? An image supporting the pianist Valentina Lisitsa, whose graphic and earthy Twitter feed led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to remove her from this week’s concerts. Some believe that her rights to free speech have been violated — though few said the same when the Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri was released by Opera Australia in 2014 over a homophobic Facebook post. On April 8 and 9, the pianist Valentina Lisitsa was to perform the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. This week, the orchestra paid out her contract, citing “deeply offensive” comments she was alleged to have made on her Twitter feed about the ongoing conflict in her native Ukraine. Lisitsa “This is not about political persuasion,” says Jeff Melanson, the Toronto Symphony’s president and CEO, in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. He adds, “That’s no issue for us. [But] artists using their Twitter or public profile to regularly speak in an intolerant or offensive way about other human beings — that, you have to think about.” The orchestra invoked a clause in her contract that enabled them to dismiss her. There’s food here for legitimate debate. But legitimate debate is not necessarily what’s fostered in the kangaroo court of Twitter and Facebook. The Toronto Symphony has been besieged by an outcry about free speech, and ultimately had to cancel the concerto altogether (Stewart Goodyear, who was to have replaced Lisitsa, says her supporters bullied him out). Some of the orchestra’s critics include people who have their own political axes to grind; some appear to believe that Lisitsa is supporting the Ukrainian rather than the Russian side in the conflict; and some include members of prominent newspapers’ editorial boards: the Toronto Star, for one, has weighed in with a strong indictment. Few, if any, have mentioned an obvious recent parallel, when Opera Australia dismissed the Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri in 2014 after a lengthy Facebook post was found in which she supported attacks on a gay-pride parade in her native Georgia and referred to gay people as “fecal masses.” Free speech? Sure, but Iveri found precious few defenders — and certainly there were no editorials defending her right to speak out. The case against Lisitsa is arguably not quite as clear-cut. The Toronto Symphony has amassed a seven-page collection of some of her ripest Tweets, including one that mocks Ukranians in traditional


Maryland open houses April 11-12

16680 Buck Lantz Rd WALKERSVILLE 21793 10536 Glade Rd HOWARD COUNTY CHELTENHAM 20623 10903 Marlboro Crossing Ct CLARKSVILLE 21029 6573 Ballymore Lane 12994 Linden Church Rd 7134 Moorland Dr 13929 Wayside Dr 7151 Moorland Dr COLUMBIA 21044 6168 Devon Dr 5138 Beaverbrook Rd 5129 Harpers Farm Rd #13 6687 Hawkeye Run 21045 6409 Spicewind Ct 4975 Dalton Dr 6213 Tamar Dr 7198 Lasting Light Way 9017 Watchlight Ct 5536 Bluecoat Lane 5503 Bluecoat Lane 7471 Swan Point Way #4-5 8876 Shining Oceans Way #19 21046 6424 Belleview Dr 6610 Allview Dr DAYTON 21036 5141 Green Bridge Rd ELKRIDGE 21075 5303 Grovemont Dr 6113 Nightrose Ct 6938 Ducketts Lane SW #41-5 4905 Light Cahill Ct 6584 Meadowfield Ct 7124 Millbury Ct ELLICOTT CITY 21042 4215 Buckskin Wood Dr 2019 Old St. Johns 2801 Leaf Shade Dr 2817 Leaf Shade Dr 4611 Oakview Ct 2882 Pebble Beach Dr 12029 Lamplighter Dr 2843 Leaf Shade Dr 3440 Walker Dr 9717 Rugby Ct 11604 Whitetail Lane 21043 8571 Wheatfield Way 4653 Dapple Ct 8212 Weston Dr FULTON 20759 7722 Tilghman St 12422 Kondrup Dr 7839 Maple Lawn Blvd GLENELG 21737 14820 Sapling Way GLENWOOD 21738 3334 Brantly Rd WEST FRIENDSHIP 21794 3100 Fox Valley Dr 3119 Stiles Way WOODBINE 21797 15845 Old Frederick Rd 1802 Woodbine Rd MONTGOMERY COUNTY ASHTON 20861 18403 New Hampshire Ave 17708 New Hampshire Ave 17604 Tree Lawn Dr BETHESDA 20814 10687 Weymouth St #w-3 9855 Bristol Square Lane #250 4513 Traymore St 7500 Woodmont Ave #s1212 4409 Maple Ave 10507 Weymouth St #2 30 Dudley Ct #16 4977 Battery Lane #1-309 5225 Pooks Hill Rd ## 1112-N 8315 Brook Lane #2-403 5225 Pooks Hill Rd #1803n 9611 Bellevue Dr 20816 5218 Nahant St 4956 Sentinel Dr #9-204 5207 Crown St #4 5602 Parkston Rd 5105 Wehawken Rd 6309 Dahlonega Rd 20817 6103 Melvern Dr 8719 Burdette Rd 8600 Melwood Rd 6808 Newbold Dr 7807 Aberdeen Rd 7205 Bradley Blvd 6202 Melvern Dr 9120 Vendome Dr 7612 Winterberry Pl 8402 Old Seven Locks Rd 10 Greentree Ct 8880 Bradley Blvd 8301 Rising Ridge Way 6013 Wilmett Rd 7535 Cayuga Ave 7608 Westfield Dr 7803 Westfield Dr 7904 Carteret Rd 7009 Fawn Trail Ct 6006 Kingsford Rd 8912 Burdette Rd 8320 Woodhaven Blvd 6101 Swansea St BOYDS 20841 14406 Autumn Rust Rd BROOKEVILLE 20833 2330 Rosebranch Ct 2418 Saint George Way 19125 Alpenglow Lane CABIN JOHN 20818 8204 Caraway St 6506


How brunch became the most delicious—and divisive—meal in America

iStock Almost 120 years ago, long before anyone waited in line to feast on eggs benedict and French toast, the word brunch appeared in print for the first time in the United States. "The latest 'fad' is to issue invitations for a meal called 'brunch...a repast at 11 o'clock a.m.," a column in the New Oxford, an old Pennsylvania newspaper, explained in 1896. Originally conceived for the wealthy as a drawn-out, elaborate affair, brunch, like a runny egg, soon dribbled out into the mainstream. By 1939, The New York Times declared Sunday a two-meal day. By the 1960s, brunch's popularity gave rise to specific cookbooks, and by the 1990s, Americans started brunching on Saturdays too. Now, brunch has become more popular than ever. The story of brunch is the story of changing patterns in how Americans eat, live and interact. But brunch hasn't swept the entire country just yet. When you dig into the data, you can see that brunch is far more popular in some regions of this country and among some demographics than others. Who eats brunch Data from Google Trends show that search interest in brunch has been rising steadily since 2004. In the chart below, you'll notice twin spikes in searches in the Spring of each year. Those correspond to Easter and Mother's Day, two Sunday observances that are evidently synonymous with brunch for many Americans—nothing, it seems, says "thanks, Mom" like a bottomless mimosa. "Brunch continues to grow anywhere there is disposable income or time," said Ternikar. "Hipsters might not always have the income, but they may have the time." But interest isn't universal. A review of Google search data, mapped below, shows how heavily talk about brunch is concentrated around the coasts—and how barren the Midwest brunch scene is. Any Midwesterner who tells you otherwise is likely an outlier, an urban transplant. "Cultural trends tend to go from the coasts to the center," said Farha Ternikar, the author of Brunch: A History. "The Midwest is slower on food trends with the exception of Chicago." [Scientists have discovered a simple way to cook rice that dramatically cuts the calories] Interest in brunch, as judged by the number of searches on Google, is high in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Among the top 10 states for brunch interest, only Illinois and Pennsylvania are not on the coasts. These numbers show the relative intensity of


What inspired the Internet this week: Good news at the Boston Marathon, Easter Bunny magic, and the worth of a stay-at-home mom

In any given week, the Web is full of bad news and good, of heartache and controversy, as well as inspiration and uplift. Here at Inspired Life, we want to highlight the best of what people have to offer — the compassionate and kind, the moving and the meaningful, the wise and the wondrous. This past week, we found inspiration in a real life Easter Bunny, a beautiful view in Colorado, and the wise words of a grateful husband. Good news at the Boston Marathon: ‘Team Hoyt’ Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel: Dick and Rick Hoyt (HBO) For years, one of the most iconic images evoked by the words “Boston Marathon” was of Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father-son duo who have come to epitomize the heart and commitment of the running journey. Dick, whose son is a quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, has pushed Rick in his wheelchair across 32 Boston Marathon finish lines–and more than 1,000 races completed together. 2014 was Dick’s last year running Boston, as the training has become too hard on his body, but, the Lowell Sun reported this week, a family friend, runner and fellow disability advocate Bryan Lyons has agreed to take over Boston Marathon duty. Lyons described the emotional decision: “Dick Hoyt called me… He said, ‘as you know, (2014) will be our last Boston Marathon.’ I said, ‘yeah, it’s going to be exciting.’ Then Dick says, ‘but Rick (Dick’s son) would like to continue to run. And we want to know if you’d run with him?’ I was just speechless. Then Dick says, ‘are you there, Bryan?’ It was such an honor.” “I don’t have the desire to be out there running by myself,” Dick has said, speaking to HBO about his son. “I think it’s just something that comes from his body to my body and it makes us go faster. . . He inspires me and he motivates me.” The Easter Bunny is real. Her name is Lee Hardy. Lee Hardy’s favorite holiday is Easter, she tells The Huffington Post. That’s why the Palmetto, Fla. woman has made working on behalf of the Easter Bunny her own personal ministry, handing out 600 baskets to needy children in her community this year. “When I have a little extra money, I take it to the dollar store and buy stuff for the baskets. That’s just what I do.” Reports WTSP, a


Why the federal government still sometimes doesn’t obey its own minimum wage laws

Robert Glover usually picks up trash at the National Zoo, for minimum wage. (Lydia DePillis/The Washington Post) The more crowded it is at the National Zoo, the more cheated Robert Glover feels. And it’s been very crowded lately. “You know they’re making money,” he said last week, watching the Spring Break masses stream up and down the broad walkways, strollers competing for space with wheelchairs and scampering children. That day, he was detailed to track the number of people who came in and out, with a clicker and clipboard. Most days, he empties trash cans -- the zoo is free to enter, but all those pizza boxes and soda cups provide an income stream. In the winter he clears snow, for the D.C. minimum wage of $9.50 an hour. Contractors on federal land are supposed to make a bit more than that — but over the years, the laws that require it have been sparsely enforced and widely violated. And loopholes make sure fewer workers are covered in the first place. Take Glover. Groundskeepers are covered by the Service Contract Act, which dictates that they be paid a “prevailing wage” set by the Department of Labor. In D.C., the wage for groundskeepers is $13.07 — which would make a big difference to Glover, who lives on a cot in his sister’s basement in Maryland because he can’t afford his own place. “I thought my life was going to change,” Glover said, of getting the job at the zoo three years ago. “But I’m still crawling.” The Smithsonian Institution, which runs the zoo, says that Service Contract Act doesn’t cover him. Spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson says the Friends of the National Zoo, a member-supported nonprofit that employs all the maintenance and concessions workers, isn’t primarily concerned with providing services covered by the Act, so the law shouldn’t apply to the whole contract. “We don’t believe the agreement is covered by the Service Contract Act,” she says. “FONZ pays at least the minimum wage as required by the District of Columbia, which increases in July.” Who’s right? The Department of Labor says it doesn’t know — so unless FONZ or the Smithsonian took the initiative to ask, they would have no way of telling for sure what wages it's supposed to pay unless someone lodged an official complaint, which would trigger an investigation. Robert Glover did that on Thursday, with the help of


Taking female armed rebels seriously

and efficacy of these women is contingent upon their access (or lack thereof) to romantic partners. Accounts of female suicide bombers in al-Qaeda, for example, focus on failed relationships and fertility issues. Before they decided to fight the Islamic State, the women of the Kurdish peshmerga were presented as avengers on behalf of dead husbands and lovers. In a similar vein, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, appears to be running an active matchmaking service in Iraq and Syria. Elsewhere, the sexuality of female rebels seeking companionship has been presented as a nuisance that insurgencies need to control: Premarital sex was forbidden in the New People’s Army (NPA) in the Philippines, and intragroup romances were deemed disruptive to the work of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) in India. Furthermore, while women added “alluring spice” to the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, those ladies were off the market — celibacy was strictly enforced. The focus on men as the drivers of women’s behavior is one way to downplay female agency and the choice some women make to engage in political violence. Another way is to infantilize them. Several stories on women in conflict make no distinction between women and girls. Some of the “schoolgirl jihadis” recently profiled by The Guardian are in their late teens and early 20s. Similar language was used by the Christian Science Monitor in the year 2000, when the newspaper discussed a group of “girls” with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who ranged into their mid-20s. Even further back than that, the “girl guerrillas” of Peru’s Tupac Amaru Liberation Movement (MRTA) ranged into their mid-30s. Why do so many stories about female rebels fail to take their motivations seriously? Contextualizing violent women as lovestruck romantics or naïve girls may make it easier for the casual observer to understand their motives. As the stories linked to here indicate, women engaged in political violence are still presented as oddities, and these explanations may help us situate their involvement in more comfortable narratives about gender roles. Yet a 20- or 30-something woman is not a child soldier — she is an adult, capable of deciding whether to join or continue armed struggle. She is also not a rare case. In a new article, published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics (temporarily ungated), I find that, based on a random sample of 72 NSAGs active from


D.C. area forecast: Fantastic start and close to week, a little more gloom in middle

TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 9/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: FORECAST IN DETAIL The upcoming week is book-ended by fairly nice weather, but it’s a little unsettled at times in the middle. A chance of rain showers is in the mix on Tuesday, as well as late Thursday through early Saturday. The entire period from Wednesday to Saturday is cloudier than not. On the plus side, I don’t see any big temperature swings or extreme weather cases locally this week. Today (Monday): Tonight: For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend… Tomorrow (Tuesday): Tomorrow night: April 10, 2015 (Z.Lewkowicz via Flickr) A LOOK AHEAD The Wednesday-Thursday period may start off promising, but clouds likely increase Wednesday. For a second straight week – a wedge of cool, cloudy air is forecast to sneak down the East Coast. Highs Wednesday range from 60-65 but dip down to 55-60 on Thursday. Overnight lows Wednesday night are mostly in the low-to-mid 40s. Confidence: Medium Thursday night (after midnight) through Friday There’s a chance of some lingering rain showers Saturday as a cold front zips through the region. But, depending on the front’s timing, it may start to dry out in the afternoon. Highs are likely in the 60s. Overnight, skies should clear out, with lows in the upper 30s into the 40s. Confidence: Low-Medium Sunday


A mom using her body

(michellegibson/iStock) My son and I walk the quarter mile down the street from our house to a large track. On this spring evening there are lots of people out: a group of girls practicing softball, two brothers with scooters abandoned while they play soccer, couples walking, a few on bikes, some with small dogs on leashes. We head to the middle grassy area with our own undersized blue soccer ball. In the hour before dusk, my boy and I run and kick. He falls dramatically like a pro player, winces when we get in close and shins collide. I race after him, barely breathing, trying not to trip in the divots, cursing myself for not putting on my tennis shoes. I make him practice skills, not just race toward goals. Passing back and forth across the field, slowly moving the ball forward. Teamwork I say—the game’s no fun if only one person has the ball. I’m 37 years old and weigh more than 200 pounds. I’m an inhuman shade of red, sucking air. I break for a minute with my hands on my hips, admitting I need to pause the fun. My boy is unfazed and practices headers while I inhale and exhale dramatically. Not until we’re left in the gloaming and decide to head home do I consider what I look like to the dozens of people around me. I try to put it out of my mind but see myself from the outside and can’t forget the image: plus size hot pink ankle length pants, a navy top with zipper in the back. Clothes I’d felt good about earlier in the day. But now I see how I must jiggle when I run. I worry about awkward angles, clothes riding up, how I look sweating and heaving with my hands on my hips. The joy leaves me all the sudden. The joy of chasing my son and watching him laugh. The joy of moving my body and being halfway decent still at a game I love. The simple joy of being outside in the air and light, the whole neighborhood fragrant with blossoming citrus trees. All I can think is how fat I am. How people must be talking about me. Laughing? Or disgusted? Which is worse? My son walks ahead of me on the way back, still full of energy. I don’t make eye contact with anyone


Gwyneth Paltrow’s food stamp challenge is the most Gwyneth Paltrow thing ever

seems like we could be in for some pretty yummy tacos. We have: A dozen eggs, a head of lettuce, dry black beans, frozen green peas, brown rice, corn tortillas, an ear of corn, some kale, a tomato, garlic, seven (seven!) limes, lots of cilantro, green onions, a hot pepper, a yellow onion, a sweet potato and an avocado. Like we said, delicious tacos at Gwyneth Paltrow’s house tonight! Food for a week? Not so much. Paltrow is either doing this food stamp challenge extremely well or extremely badly. The magazine sited Paltrow’s career, family and dedication to a healthy lifestyle as reason’s for the selection. “I feel most beautiful when I’m truly myself ... when I’m not judging myself in anyway and I have the peace that comes with loving yourself and all your flaws.” Paltrow says. Let’s start by taking a positive spin on the situation, because hating on Gwyneth Paltrow is a little too easy. (**Cough ** conscious uncoupling **cough**.) [What Gwyneth Paltrow’s food stamp challenge gets totally wrong about poverty] If the point of the food stamp challenge is to demonstrate how difficult it is to subsist on food bought at the grocery store for less than $29 a week, then someone please hand her a gold medal, because her selection of food perfectly illustrates how difficult that can be. Of course, SNAP is meant as a supplemental program, not the funding for the entire source of food for program participants. Though about 20 percent of people on SNAP have no other source of income, most others have jobs or access to other sources of government assistance that they also use to purchase food, according to the USDA. [Fact Checker on the ‘SNAP Challenge’ and the claim that food stamp recipients get by on $4.50 a day] SNAP challenges such as the #FoodBankNYCChallenge, which celebrity chef Mario Batali invited Paltrow to join, have been roundly criticized as misrepresenting the very real policy challenges the program presents. As numerous others have demonstrated, the grocery store haul isn’t enough food to really feed a single human for an entire week. But that’s not really the point of SNAP. But we digress. Assuming that there’s a right way to do a SNAP challenge, Paltrow’s critics think she is going about it the wrong way. Her choices are no doubt healthy. It just might leave her consuming fewer than 1,000


Starting a food business is hard, but Mess Hall’s second ‘Launch Pad’ competition can help

A year after Mason Dixie Biscuit Company submitted a business plan to Mess Hall's inaugural Launch Pad competition, the company is riding the wave of one of the year's biggest food trends, with a Relay Foods delivery deal and a Union Market stall that always sells out. The biscuit company's success is thanks, in part, to the influx of cash* and mentoring it won from the Edgewood culinary incubator. Al Goldberg, founder of Mess Hall and the Launch Pad contest. (Photo by Ben Droz) Now, Mess Hall founder Al Goldberg is gearing up to do it all over again. On April 16, he'll begin taking applications for this year's Launch Pad, a competition to find the most viable culinary business proposal in the area. The search will culminate in a live selection event featuring judges Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington, Aaron Silverman of Rose's Luxury, and Ris Lacoste of Ris, among others. The winner will get the chance to take over Ris's stall in Union Market -- a particularly desirable spot in the market for its visibility and top-of-the-line equipment and vented hood -- for at least six months. As a partner in the competition, Lacoste will also mentor the winner. Last time Goldberg ran the competition, he received 50 applications for businesses ranging from ice cream to tonics to spiced nuts. With the average business plan coming in at 20 or more pages, he reviewed more than 1,000 pages. "Last time we were attracting people that were of any food background," Goldberg said. "This time ... we don’t know what we’re going to get, but we think it will attract people that are more restaurant-centric." Applicants can submit their plans via Mess Hall's Web site. The contest closes May 11, and five finalists will be announced June 10. On July 12, the panel of judges will convene at Union Market's Dock 5 to watch the final presentations and pick a winner, who will then have access to a dedicated panel of advisers including restaurateurs Spike Mendelsohn, Eric and Ian Hilton and a variety of experts in the fields of technology, real estate and financial services. As for Goldberg, he has a few words of advice for future applicants: "I would say assemble yourself with a really strong team. That was one differentiator," he said. "It’s very difficult as a business owner to have the marketing savvy,


Pesticides are polluting our waters — and we often don’t know it

Pesticide application to a wheat field close to a small stream, Lower Saxony, Germany. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences/Courtesy Renja Bereswill) Pesticides bring major benefits to modern agriculture, keeping dangerous bugs and fungi and pathogens at bay while boosting yields and making farming more efficient. But what about risks? Like any chemicals — manmade or not — pesticides can be bad for human health and ecosystems if they’re toxic enough and the amount that ends up in the environment is high enough. It’s often tough, however, to get a clear picture of the full array of problems a pesticide may cause. A new “meta-analysis” — a review of existing scientific studies — provides some answers, but raises even more questions in the process. In water bodies near agricultural sites across the world where scientists have detected certain bug-killing pesticides, these substances exceed regulators’ allowed levels more than half the time, the analysis found. But even more concerning, the researchers report Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that most of the time we lack any data at all on insecticide levels in waters near these agricultural fields. Sebastian Stehle and Ralf Schulz of the University Koblenz-Landau in Germany focused their study on 28 common agricultural insecticides. These range from organophosphates, older substances that generally target insects’ nervous systems, to pyrethroids, a relatively new class of pesticides that in many cases have replaced organophosphates and other old pesticides. Many of these pesticides, while toxic to the bugs they’re meant kill, may also be capable of causing harm to “non-target” organisms such as humans. The toxicity is just one part of the equation, though. Just because pesticides are toxic doesn’t mean they’ll actually pose risk — of causing a disease or damage to the environment. Creatures’ exposures to these pesticides need to be high enough as well. Regulators typically set limits on the amount of a substance that can occur in various settings, including in surface waters, to keep the risk to human health and the environment below a certain level. [We don’t know for sure that pesticides are killing the bees. But we know enough to worry.] So the researchers checked the scientific literature for any data they could find on levels of these 28 insecticides in “surface waters” (such as lakes, ponds, streams and creeks) near agricultural fields across the globe. Their analysis uncovered 838


What Eduardo Galeano had to say about the United States

first cited by the left-wing Web site TomDispatch in 2013. On the Bay of Pigs invasion It was among the largest military expeditions ever launched in the history of the Caribbean. And it was the greatest blunder. The dispossessed and evicted owners of Cuba declared from Miami that they were ready to die fighting for devolution, against revolution. The US government believed them, and their intelligence services once again proved themselves unworthy of the name. On April 20, 1961, three days after disembarking at the Bay of Pigs, armed to the teeth and backed by warships and planes, these courageous heroes surrendered. Imagining an Iraqi invasion of the U.S. On March 20 in the year 2003, Iraq’s air force bombed the United States. On the heels of the bombs, Iraqi troops invaded U.S. soil. There was collateral damage. Many civilians, most of them women and children, were killed or maimed. No one knows how many, because tradition dictates tabulating the losses suffered by invading troops and prohibits counting victims among the invaded population. The war was inevitable. The security of Iraq and of all humanity was threatened by the weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in United States arsenals. There was no basis, however, to the insidious rumors suggesting that Iraq intended to keep all the oil in Alaska. On occupation and military suicides: Around this time in 2010 it came out that more and more US soldiers were committing suicide. It was nearly as common as death in combat. The Pentagon promised to hire more mental health specialists, already the fastest-growing job classification in the armed forces. The world is becoming an immense military base, and that base is becoming a mental hospital the size of the world. Inside the nuthouse, which ones are crazy? The soldiers killing themselves or the wars that oblige them to kill? On the U.S. war on drugs: In 1986, President Ronald Reagan took up the spear that Richard Nixon had raised a few years previous, and the war against drugs received a multimillion-dollar boost. From that point on, profits escalated for drug traffickers and the big money-laundering banks; more powerful drugs came to kill twice as many people as before; every week a new jail opens in the United States, since the country with the most drug addicts always has room for a few addicts more; Afghanistan, a country invaded and occupied by the


Why has Boston soured on the Olympics?

of Boston’s bid for the 2024 Summer Games since the Hub won the U.S. Olympic Committee’s support in January. Debate quickly shifted from whether Boston had shed its inferiority complex to “just how much is this going to cost us, and why weren’t we consulted?” Local public opinion on hosting an Olympics has soured considerably since January, forcing the Boston 2024 organizing committee to call for a statewide referendum to reaffirm support. Why the public souring? One explanation has to do with the weather. The record-breaking snowfall this winter affected Bostonians deeply on two levels. First, it forced the mass transit system, called the T, to shut down, wreaking some serious havoc on Hub commuters. This caused many local residents to wonder just how snarled everything would be if the city hosted an Olympics. Second, this past winter just soured the hell out of the region’s inhabitants. I mean, this was the kind of weather that just beat you down until your shoulders were permanently hunched. I mean, the Patriots won the friggin’ Super Bowl and local residents were acting even more snappish than usual. You could have polled how Bostonians felt about Kate Upton and Channing Tatum hosting a burlesque show in Quincy market and the unfavorables would have come in north of 50 percent. [Full disclosure: my wife would like me to state on the record that I managed to escape two weeks of winter with a sojourn to Antarctica and that I therefore deserve absolutely zero sympathy from anyone reading these words.] With the snow melting, the Red Sox winning, and the Boston 2024 committee gearing up to win a referendum, it is possible that the winter’s souring could turn into spring flowering, and support could bounce back. Olympic supporters will be able to make an economic argument, assuming that they actually stick to their budget. And the organizers have acknowledged their past mistakes: “Bostonians expect to be heard from early and often, and we didn’t get the early part right,” said Richard Davey, who was recently made chief executive of Boston 2024. “But we will get the often part right.” Organizers have blamed the United States Olympic Committee’s selection process and the desire to keep their plans secret from other cities before the bid rights were awarded. But they have since been engaged in an aggressive public meeting schedule. But there’s another explanation for Bostonian ambivalence


Scientists are creating the first maps of the universe’s dark matter

dense with dark matter, and the dots represent clusters of galaxies. Dark matter is a tricky thing. It's much more common in the universe than the matter we understand, but cosmologists have a hard time pinning it down. Because it warps the space-time around it, bending light from surrounding galaxies in a way we can observe with telescopes, we're able to get a sense of where it's lurking -- even though we have very little idea of what it's doing there. [Dark matter is apparently ‘darker’ than we thought] The map, which was presented Monday at the meeting of the American Physical Society, seems to confirm prevalent theories of how dark matter helps shape the cosmos. Scientists believe that galaxies should be more likely to form where dark matter is most concentrated, because they create strong gravity. Sure enough, the galaxies seem to form large clusters in the regions of space dense with dark matter, and blue-tinted voids attract fewer stellar neighborhoods. "Our analysis so far is in line with what the current picture of the universe predicts," researcher Chihway Chang of ETH Zurich said in a statement. "Zooming into the maps, we have measured how dark matter envelops galaxies of different types and how together they evolve over cosmic time. We are eager to use the new data coming in to make much stricter tests of theoretical models." [Stephen Hawking singing Monty Python is everything we never knew we needed] The project, part of the Dark Energy Survey, includes more than 300 scientists from around the world. They're using the Dark Energy Camera, a 750 megapixel powerhouse mounted on the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Blanco telescope in Chile. The survey is set to run through 2018, by which time the researchers hope to have created maps at this resolution for 1/8th of the visible night sky -- 30 times what this first map shows. With such a detailed picture of dark matter, the cosmologists hope to learn more about dark energy: the stuff that's keeping the stars apart, making our universe expand faster and faster instead of being slowed down by gravity. Want more science? Give these a click: Nine new dwarf galaxies full of dark matter found just chilling around the Milky Way The Hubble spotted this smiley face in space Here’s what the sky might have looked like when the Milky Way was alive with star birth


Suburban Maryland areas where houses are selling quickly

sales prices reached a high of $520,000. While this is still shy of the pre-recession boom of $613,000 in February 2008, it puts the neighborhood above the median sales price for the D.C. area. However, prices are still within reason for a large number of buyers in the region. Hyattsville We’re hearing more about Hyattsville this year than ever before. We expect it to become a much hotter area soon. This is especially good news given its location in Prince George’s County. After the recession, prices there plummeted from more than $300,000 to below $200,000 and stayed there for more than five years. It wasn’t until spring of last year that they finally crossed back into $200,000 territory. We’re also seeing the corresponding DOM decrease as prices rise. For all of 2014, the median DOM in Hyattsville was under 25 days, a signal of strong demand. Bordering Hyattsville to the east is the smaller neighborhood of Mount Rainier. In August, the median sale price exceeded $300,000 for the first time since February 2009. While it can be hard to make any strong claims for a neighborhood of this size, given its close proximity to the District, we expect it too will follow Hyattsville and become one of the “it” places to buy. Bethesda Bethesda has always been a popular destination for people who want suburban living with close access to the city. For the three Zip codes within Bethesda, the one showing the most heat is the northwest corner that touches Chevy Chase and Kensington (20814). Historically, this has been the lower-priced area, with sales closer to the $600,000s than the high $700,000s that we see in the other two Zip codes. But recently housing prices there have increased at a steeper rate compared to the other two neighborhoods. For a region that saw such varied responses to the recession, the Maryland suburbs’ recovery has actually been smoother than most. Metrics like price and the time it takes to find a buyer are following traditional cyclical patterns throughout the year, which is a welcome sign of stability. We expect Takoma Park, Hyattsville and northwest Bethesda will see more action this year compared to previous years. Previously from David Charron Why home construction data matters Texting fridges and leak-detecting pipes to be in the homes of the future What home buyers can expect this spring in three hot D.C. neighborhoods For


Kerry Washington will actually stump for Hillary Clinton

Actress Kerry Washington spoke during the final day of the 2012 Democratic National Convention on behalf of U.S. President Barack Obama. It’s likely Washington will stump on the campaign trail for 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, too. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Hillary Clinton made her second run for the presidency official Sunday, finally ending nearly two years of speculation. I'm running for president. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion. –H https://t.co/w8Hoe1pbtC Bright lights like Lena Dunham, Carol King and Magic Johnson flocked to social media to applaud Clinton’s decision. But most of their endorsements fell into the “yaaas” category, like this one from pop star Ariana Grande: yaaas @hillaryclinton [RELATED: Celebrities are ready for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign] “Scandal” actress Kerry Washington stood out among them by offering actual feet on the ground for the 2016 presidential hopeful. “Yeah, I’m thrilled,” the actress told Entertainment Tonight on the show’s set Monday. “I’m very thrilled. I’m excited for her, and I’m sure I’ll be hitting the stump trail.” The George Washington University grad previously volunteered for President Obama’s re-election campaign — speaking at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. So it seems likely Washington will bring her Olivia Pope-ness to the campaign trail for Clinton, too. Read more Reliable Source: D.C.’s ‘Top Chef’ alums talk about life in the kitchen after spotlight Long before those Hillary-throwing-things rumors started, there were Mary Lincoln-throwing-things rumors Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on her way back to Washington after ‘magical’ wedding Sign up for The Reliable Source newsletter. And follow us on Facebook and Twitter.


The long-term power of the ‘War on Drugs,’ in two graphs

Last night, I was having a drink with some former colleagues, and the topic turned to marijuana. When I was a kid during the 1980s, drugs were terrifying, depicted everywhere as hopelessly addictive and imminently deadly. One of my colleagues told a story about being terrified by encountering some pot. I countered with my story of making my sister leave a Bryan Adams concert (!) because the people in front of us were smoking a joint. Which, in the present context, is so utterly innocuous that it's laughable. But anti-drug messaging is powerful. And to illustrate the point, we have new data from Pew Research on Americans' attitudes toward legalizing marijuana. There's a big split by party -- Democrats and independents are more receptive to legalization than Republicans -- but that may be linked to the overlap of politics and age. The graph below shows the generational attitudes toward legalization, from Millennials (now 18 to 35) to the pre-Boomer "Silent" generation (70 and up). The older you get, the more you oppose legalization. When I was a kid, drug propaganda -- not differentiating between marijuana and everything else -- looked like this: By the time the Millennials came around, anti-pot propaganda looked like this: Marijuana Anti Drug Dog Commercial (ORIGINAL) Pew asked why people oppose legalization. The answers they got often reflect more of the intensity of the former attitude than the mellowness of the latter. We've highlighted two that were at the center of anti-marijuana rhetoric for years. Is marijuana addictive? Yes, says the government ... adding that it is "linked to a mild withdrawal syndrome." Is marijuana a gateway drug to other substances? Yes, says the government ... technically, sort of, but "most people who use marijuana do not go on to use other, 'harder' substances." The "gateway drug" argument has been debunked in the past at other outlets. But still: 11 percent of those who oppose marijuana legalization focus on it being a gateway. The war on drugs has not been much of a success in keeping people from using drugs. But it seems to have been very good at making people think the war on drugs is necessary.


SpaceX rocket hits barge, Elon Musk says, but ‘too hard for survival’

Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched a spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday, that would resupply the International Space Station, but once again it was unable to land the rocket booster on a massive platform floating in the Atlantic Ocean. In a tweet, Musk said that the rocket landed on the barge but that it was "too hard for survival." In a short video released by Musk on Tuesday night, the booster can be seen approaching the barge as if on target, but then titling just before landing, as if set off course by a gust of wind. Falcon 9 first stage landing burn and touchdown on Just Read the Instructions https://t.co/4Te0BfT2Qn It was SpaceX's second attempt to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on the floating platform, which Musk calls an "autonomous spaceport droneship," essentially a modified barge that’s 300 feet long by 170 feet wide. In January, the rocket crashed and exploded into a spectacular fireball. Another recent attempt was scratched because of high seas. Typically, rocket boosters are used once, burning up or crashing into the ocean after liftoff. But Musk, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Tesla, has been working on creating reusable rockets that act like airplanes—fly, land, then fly again. If SpaceX, his Los Angeles-based company, can repeatedly land rockets and reuse them, it would mark a significant step toward making spaceflight much more affordable. Tuesday's attempt came after years of development and testing. SpaceX had been successful at launching rockets a few hundred feet into the air, and then bringing them back down to the landing pad. In previous launches, it brought rockets down to Earth, where they hovered over the ocean for a few seconds before crashing. The ability to consistently land and reuse rockets, one of space flight’s holy grails, is part of Musk’s plan to further explore the cosmos and eventually colonize Mars. As he said during a forum at MIT last year, there are "no runways on Mars," meaning rockets would have to land using the thrust in their engines. "You really have to get good at propulsive landing if you want to go somewhere other than Earth," he said. A successful landing would be yet another breakthrough for SpaceX. It was the first commercial company hired by NASA to ferry supplies to the International Space Station. And it won another contract, along with Boeing, to


NASA’s New Horizons sends back its first color image of Pluto and Charon

In July, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest pass of Pluto, giving us a look at a whole new class of planet in a little-known region of our solar system. It still has millions and millions of miles left to go, but on Tuesday, NASA released a new image taken by the vessel: For the first time ever, an approaching spacecraft has captured Pluto (and its largest moon) in living color. Pluto and Cheron, from 71 million miles away. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) [Over nine years after its launch, New Horizons’ first images of Pluto have arrived] Yes, the image is blurry. And tiny. And generally unimpressive, if you don't know what you're looking at. But soon we'll see much more. At a news conference Tuesday, NASA scientists explained that at New Horizons' current resolution, the Earth would be so blurry that continents couldn't be distinguished. But by the time the spacecraft is at its closest approach, the pictures taken will have resolution so high that comparable pictures of Earth would reveal a birds-eye view of New York City, with features like Central Park and the Hudson River fully visible. The images we'll see of Pluto and its moons will be truly unprecedented. "This is pure exploration; we're going to turn points of light into a planet and a system of moons before your eyes!" Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, said in a statement. "New Horizons is flying to Pluto — the biggest, brightest and most complex of the dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt. This 21st century encounter is going to be an exploration bonanza unparalleled in anticipation since the storied missions of Voyager in the 1980s." At Tuesday's news conference, Stern pointed out that about half the U.S. population is young enough to have never seen the encounter of an unexplored planet for the first time until now. I sure haven't, so I'm pretty jazzed about that. [Spacecraft Dawn has arrived at Ceres, one of solar system’s last unexplored planets] Starting in July, New Horizons will furiously collect data using its seven on-board instruments. It's going to collect so much that it will take some 16 months for it to all get sent back home, extending long past the spacecraft's actual flyby. This is definitely exciting stuff, and 2015 is shaping up to be a great year for space exploration. Want


Dark matter is really dark, but not totally dark: Scientists are dialing in the darkness

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the rich galaxy cluster Abell 3827. The strange blue structures surrounding the central galaxies are gravitationally lensed views of a much more distant galaxy behind the cluster. Observations of the central four merging galaxies have provided hints that the dark matter around one of the galaxies is not moving with the galaxy itself, possibly implying dark matter-dark matter interactions of an unknown nature are occurring. (Richard Massey) A few weeks ago, we reported that dark matter — the mysterious, quite unknowable stuff that makes up a large portion of the mass of the universe — was even darker than previously thought. Now the same researchers involved in that study report that dark matter may be super-duper dark, but it isn't totally dark. Their new findings were published Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. I'd like to again suggest that we start calling this stuff "idk matter," which at least one scientist involved in the studies supports me on: @RachelFeltman thanks for the article about dark matter in @washingtonpost, I like your idea of call this stuff "idk matter" ! But okay, okay, dark matter: The "darkness," in this case, refers to the matter's ability to not interact with itself, or anything at all but gravity: When clusters of galaxies collide, it seems that the dark matter inside them can butt up against other dark matter (and gas and dust) without slowing down. If you've ever collided with another human (or a wall), you know this isn't how "normal" matter works. [Dark matter is apparently ‘darker’ than we thought] In the new study, the researchers turned their gaze from galaxy clusters to four individual galaxies colliding simultaneously. When they studied collisions on that scale, they saw that clumps of dark matter lagged behind their galaxies in the aftermath — something that they believe to be the result of tiny bits of friction created during the collision. Lead author Richard Massey of Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology explained that the two studies don't contradict each other. "In our previous work we said, wow, dark matter interacts very little with anything," he said. "In this new study we're saying, okay, so it's less than point five, but not zero." In between nothing and very little, he said, is the mystery of dark matter just waiting to be solved. And


What does it take to convince libertarians and conservatives that climate change is a problem?

When it comes to climate change, there is an amazing confluence of policy preferences and scientific assessments. Those who generally favor aggressive regulatory interventions to address environmental concerns are convinced global warming is a serious (if not catastrophic) environmental concern, while those who generally oppose governmental interventions in the marketplace are skeptical of mainstream climate science. Each side of the policy debate has adopted a view of the science that confirms — or at least conforms with — its policy preferences. It would be nice if reality lined up just so, but that’s not the world in which we live. As I wrote in 2008: Given my strong libertarian leanings, it would certainly be ideologically convenient if the evidence for a human contribution to climate change were less strong. Alas, I believe the preponderance of evidence strongly supports the claim that anthropogenic emissions are having an effect on the global climate, and that effect will increase as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. While I reject most apocalyptic scenarios as unfounded or unduly speculative, I am convinced that the human contribution to climate change will cause or exacerbate significant problems in at least some parts of the world. For instance, even a relatively modest warming over the coming decades is very likely to have a meaningful effect on the timing and distribution of precipitation and evaporation rates, which will, in turn, have a substantial impact on freshwater supplies. That we do not know with any precision the when, where, and how much does not change the fact that we are quite certain that such changes will occur. Over at Reason, Ronald Bailey points out that the cumulative evidence in support of the basic proposition that human emissions of greenhouse gases are contributing to a gradual warming of the atmosphere is substantial — even if it is inconvenient for a libertarian to admit. He reaches this conclusion without relying upon the conclusions drawn by computer models or contested studies, such as Michael Mann’s infamous “Hockey Stick.” That is, even ignoring such studies, the evidence is quite strong. Writes Bailey: It might be that it … just so happens that natural climate variability has boosted global temperatures and the trends discussed above are occurring coincidentally at the same time the concentrations of carbon dioxide are 30 percent above their highest levels in the past 800,000 years. Correlation does not imply causation. The


Retracing John Wilkes Booth’s escape route

Surratt House Museum for a total of 200 people sold out in January. The museum, which is part of the Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation, also organizes special tours for groups of 30 or more. A group of 30 lawyers from the Frederick area recently made the trek, said Laurie Verge, director of the museum. Four more tours “Act as soon as you get the letter,” Verge advises. “The tours fill practically overnight, or usually within a week.” A tour with the Smithsonian Associates April 26 is also sold out, but the Web site says people can call to be put on a waiting list, or to be alerted if new tours are added. It’s also fairly easy to make your way on your own. For directions, you can consult the works of those experts on the assassin trail, and see the large on-line literature as well. The last stop is hard to visit. Garrett’s house and tobacco shed are long gone, except for scarce ruins. The house was located on land that is now on the median strip of Route 301 where it cuts through Fort A.P. Hill. The shed was on land off the right shoulder of the southbound lanes. Access to the land has been blocked. A historical sign to mark the site went missing last fall. Virginia authorities could not immediately come up with funds to replace it, so the Surratt Society (based in Maryland!) raised $1,700 to replace the marker, according to Verge. It will be dedicated at a small ceremony at the Port Royal Museum at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 26. After being carried to the Garrett house porch, as he lay paralyzed and dying, Booth reportedly muttered his last words: “Useless, useless.” Here’s the route I took: Tracing Booth’s Route By Horse: By Horse Trailer: By Horse: By Mustang: Continue on Mudd Road, right on Bryantown Road, left on Route 5, right on Burnt Store Road, which becomes Olivers Shop Road, right on Route 6 across Zekiah Swamp. Left on Bel Alton Newtown Road. Left on Wills Road to the Pine Thicket where Booth hid (across railroad tracks on private property). Return on Wills Road. Left on Bel Alton Newtown Road. Left on Route 301. Right on Popes Creek Road to what is now the Loyola Retreat House, private property, where Booth boarded a rowboat. By Rowboat: Back in Mustang.