Main Street Morning: Immigrants started half of U.S. $1 billion companies, study says

percent of their income. - If you’re just not a morning person, science says you may never be. - Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is sponsoring and funding a bracket contest for its employees this year, with Warren Buffett offering a prize of $1 million per year for life to any Berkshire employee or an employee of its subsidiaries who gets every pick in the first two rounds of March Madness correct. Finance - How to get prepared for the new JOBS Act crowdfunding rules taking effect soon. Retail - A Chick-Fil-A employee connects with a customer through sign language in this viral video. Entrepreneurs - How an injured Iraq War veteran became a successful electric bike entrepreneur. - Meet three real-life unknown entrepreneurs of a different kind. - A group of business and engineering students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is using spring break to help Ugandan women half a world away. Retail and Restaurants - This anarchist knows the day to day business struggles of small shopkeepers all too well. - Chipotle says it will spend $70 million on free burritos. - A jeans shop owner offers tips for fit – and business. - Target is investing billions of dollars in a losing game – but a mysterious start-up could turn that around. Finance - Why Goldman Sachs is betting millions on female business owners. Management - Sherwin-Williams Paint Company says it will acquire Valspar for $11.3 billion. - Marriott wins over Starwood with $13.6 billion bid. Social Media - Here’s a look at the best first tweets, in honor of Twitter’s 10th - Pope Francis joins instagram. Around the Country - The first month of recreational weed sales in Oregon generates $3.5 million in tax revenues for the state. - An Ohio community college is selling itself as a business tool. - Business leaders oppose a Missouri religious objections - Women business owners are on the rise in South Jersey. - A father and son are named Indiana’s Small Business People of the Year. - Entrepreneurship is thriving in the Hurricane Valley, Utah. - Minnesota lawmakers and small business owners introduce a bill to prevent ADA lawsuits. Around the World - Drinks makers consider legal action against a proposed sugar tax in the U.K. - A U.S. hotel company signs an historic deal with Cuba. - A Canadian youth entrepreneurship summit inspires students to develop business ideas at home.


What we’re doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66 million years, scientists say

Rolling waves driven by cyclone Christian appear in the Elbe estuary near the North Sea close to Brunsbuettel, northern Germany. (EPA/Christian Charisius) This story has been updated. If you dig deep enough into the Earth’s climate change archives, you hear about the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. And then you get scared. This is a time period, about 56 million years ago, when something mysterious happened — there are many ideas as to what — that suddenly caused concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to spike, far higher than they are right now. The planet proceeded to warm rapidly, at least in geologic terms, and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong acidification of the oceans. The cause of the PETM has been widely debated. Some think it was an explosion of carbon from thawing Arctic permafrost. Some think there was a huge release of subsea methane that somehow made its way to the atmosphere — and that the series of events might have been kickstarted by major volcanic eruptions. In any case, the result was a hothouse world from pole to pole, some 5 degrees Celsius warmer overall. But now, new research suggests, even the drama of the PETM falls short of our current period, in at least one key respect: We’re putting carbon into the atmosphere at an even faster rate than happened back then. This high-resolution animation shows carbon dioxide emitted from fires and megacities over a five day period in June 2006. The model is based on real emission data so that scientists can observe how the greenhouse gas behaves once it has been emitted. Such is the result of a new study in Nature Geoscience, led by Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and colleagues from the University of Bristol in the UK and the University of California-Riverside. “If you look over the entire Cenozoic, the last 66 million years, the only event that we know of at the moment, that has a massive carbon release, and happens over a relatively short period of time, is the PETM,” says Zeebe. “We actually have to go back to relatively old periods, because in the more recent past, we don’t see anything comparable to what humans are currently doing.” That’s why this time period is so crucial to study — as a possible window on our own. There’s no doubt


This week’s penumbral lunar eclipse pairs with a very bright Jupiter

to see it include Australia, Asia and the Pacific, said noted eclipse expert Fred Espenak. Knowing about the eclipse on Wednesday morning may be more useful than seeing it — for practical purposes, the shading is so minuscule that it will be nearly indistinct from a regular full moon. In lieu of the eclipse for those on the East Coast, steep some herbal tea and venture out on Tuesday night to behold the pleasantly plump waxing moon and its planetary companion Jupiter above it in the eastern sky. Jupiter will be very bright at -2.5 magnitude, and the moon will be extremely bright at -12.4 magnitude. Jupiter reached opposition on March 8 — which means that the planet puts on a vibrant show all night long. Those lunar-planetary travel buddies cross the sky together, like a Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road picture, into the morning’s western heavens. Jupiter’s Red Spot up close as imaged by NASA’s Cassini mission. (NASA) Officially speaking, the penumbral lunar eclipse reaches it greatest point on Wednesday at 7:48 a.m. Eastern Time (4:48 a.m. Pacific Time), which is about a half-hour after sunrise in Washington. Earth produces two kinds of shadows: umbral and penumbral. As the moon slides through the dark part of Earth’s shadow (umbral), the moon turns a copper-like red and that event can be quite pronounced. When the moon moves through the outer shadow — the penumbral shadow — the eclipse features are less pronounced. In this case, it’s the outer, outer shadow. Eclipses have families, and this one is called lunar eclipse Saros 142, which has been around since 1709. In cosmic terms, this specific eclipse family is quite young, so it is still in ascending node, which means that it will be a few hundred years before this family creates total lunar eclipses. There won’t be a total lunar eclipse in this family for another 200 years, as this is only the 18th out of 73, according to Espenak and NASA. For those keeping score, the last total lunar eclipse in this series will be April 21, 2665 — that’s 800 years after the American Civil War. The entire series ends in 3007. The next total lunar eclipse of any family will occur on Jan. 31, 2018, in Saros 124. In September, there will be another penumbral lunar eclipse, but North America — sadly — will be shut out from seeing it.


The profound planetary consequences of eating less meat

(iStock) This story has been updated. A striking new study — but one that is bound to prove controversial — has provided a calculation of both the health benefits and the reductions in planetary greenhouse gases that might be achieved if the world shifted away from meat-based diets. The results, while theoretical in nature, certainly make a strong case for treating the food system, and animal agriculture in particular, as a key part of the climate change issue. Namely, the researchers find that shifting diets toward eating more plant-based foods on a global scale could reduce between 6 and 10 percent of mortality — saving millions of lives and billions of dollars — even as it also cuts out 29 to 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions linked to food by the year 2050. “Dietary change could have large health and environmental benefits,” says Marco Springmann, the lead author of the new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and a sustainability researcher at Oxford University (all four researchers involved in the work were from Oxford). But the study itself acknowledges that the research in some ways represents an idealized experiment, and changing food systems as dramatically as envisioned in the study would be a momentous task. The researchers say it is “the first time, to our knowledge,” that health models and emissions models have been joined together in this way. Much recent research has highlighted how agriculture, and especially eating meat, contributes to climate change. Ruminant animals, like cattle, belch methane into the air as part of their process of digestion. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, especially over short time frames of several decades — which is when the key decisions about mankind’s steps to address climate change will be made. In addition, if tropical zones are deforested to make way for ranching, then animal agriculture can drive climate change in another way, since the planet’s forests are major storage areas for carbon that might otherwise end up in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has recently charged that eating processed meats can be a risk factor for cancer, and a large body of health research points to the importance of consuming adequate fruits and vegetables in your diet to stave off a number of deleterious health outcomes. Taking all of this as a premise, the new study uses a computerized model to examine


This comet will make a record-breaking pass by Earth (and still be super far away)

many more asteroids in near-Earth space than comets, which are significantly more rare," Michael Kelley, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, told the Los Angeles. "When a comet does come this close to Earth it is something to get excited about, and take advantage of to learn whatever we can." Scientists initially thought that P/2016 BA14 was an asteroid — a space body made up of metals and rocky material. But then they spotted its tail: Because comets are mostly made up of ice with a little dust and rock mixed in, they spew gas into space as the sun warms their frozen surface. They soon realized that the comet shared an unusually similar orbit with 252P/LINEAR, which is about 750 feet across and made its closest pass of the Earth early on Monday. The researchers believe that Tuesday's comet, which is about half the size of its twin, may have broken off of it at some point. "We know comets are relatively fragile things. . . Perhaps during a previous pass through the inner-solar system, or during a distant flyby of Jupiter, a chunk that we now know of as BA14 might have broken off of 252P," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center of NEO Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. 252P/LINEAR has been unexpectedly bright, and may even wind up being visible with the naked eye at some point during the week — so keep your eyes peeled. Even though the smaller twin is much closer, it probably won't be quite as visible — though backyard telescopes should still be able to catch a glimpse. The Virtual Telescope Project will host a live broadcast "Comet P/2016 BA14 is not a threat," Chodas said. "Instead, it is an excellent opportunity for scientific advancement on the study of comets." Correction: A previous version of this post stated that the larger comet was 750 miles across, instead of 750 feet. That would be one big comet! The text has been corrected. Read More: Comet Lovejoy pretty much spews sugar and booze, study finds Sorry, there probably isn’t life on Rosetta’s comet — even if ‘scientists’ said so This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart Ceres’s mysterious spots brighten and dim unexpectedly Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade


The U.S. military has a lot more people in Iraq than it has been saying

specify how Marines are serving at the outpost in northern Iraq, which they described as a satellite base positioned to protect American trainers at a nearby, larger base. Their presence in Iraq highlights the use of forces from Navy ships already in the Middle East. The Defense Department has also reversed an earlier position and are now declining to confirm how many forces are presently in Iraq, saying only that the number of officially assigned forces is below the current cap of 3,870. “People come through on a temporary basis and go above and below the force cap all the time, but we remain under our force cap,” Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters on Monday. But officials privately acknowledge that the total troop number, while it varies from day to day, now stands around 5,000. The more than 1,000 personnel above the official cap include the Marines in northern Iraq along with military officials handling foreign military sales and other defense cooperation matters. Having the ability to add additional personnel, whose deployments are seen as more temporary than the force of 3,870, “gives the theater commander the ability to move forces around,” a U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues. The 3,870 troops include American trainers and advisers arrayed around the country. If the Obama administration were to classify the Marines and other additional personnel as permanent, it would be required to increase that official force level reported in its monthly “boots on the ground” notification to Congress. The White House, mindful of Obama’s pledge to end the ground wars initiated by his predecessor, has sought to minimize the combat role of American forces in Iraq. But officials have recognized the need for enhanced support to Iraqi forces, which are only slowly making progress is dislodging militants from major urban areas. The United States has already taken steps in recent months to augment its campaign, including establishing a new Special Operations task force. Senior officials are expected to consider additional steps when the Iraqi government launches an offensive to reclaim the city of Mosul. The number of U.S. troops is a sensitive topic for Iraqis following the 2003-2011 war that saw over 150,000 U.S. troops on Iraqi soil at its peak. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, already grappling with a fiscal crisis, is facing intensifying pressure over widespread corruption.


Finally free from guilt over Challenger disaster, an engineer dies in peace

and engineering at the Marshall Space Flight Center, allegedly told the engineers he was “appalled” by their recommendation. “My God, Thiokol,” shuttle program manager Lawrence Mulloy was said to have asked, “when do you want me to launch, next April?” Late that night, the executives and officials cast their final votes: Go. Ebeling drove home uncharacteristically furious. “It’s going to blow up,” he told his wife, grimly. The next day, Ebeling invited Boisjoly, his fellow engineer, into his office to watch the shuttle take off. When the clock reached T-minus-5 seconds, Boisjoly would later tell the Guardian, the two men reached out to hold each other’s hands. Three. Two. One. At “lift off,” the shuttle rocketed into the sky, clearing the launch pad without issue. “I turned to Bob and said, ‘We’ve dodged a bullet,” Boisjoly recalled. Ebeling, meanwhile, was in the midst of a prayer: “Thank you for making me wrong,” he whispered. And then: “Kaboom. It went,” Ebeling told CBS. “I — I walked right out of there and went in my office and cried.” All seven astronauts onboard died: Cmdr. Francis Scobee; pilot Michael Smith; mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis; and “teacher in space” Christa McAuliffe. The space shuttle Challenger lifts off at Kennedy Space Center on this Jan. 28, 1986. (NASA/AP) Three weeks later, Ebeling and Boisjoly agreed to anonymous interviews with NPR in which they detailed their failed fight to stop the launch. It was the first report that NASA knew what could happen. “I should have done more,” Ebeling told reporter Howard Berkes at the time. “I could have done more.” He, Boisjoly, McDonald, Thompson and a fifth engineer, Brian Russell, would later give testimony before the presidential commission investigating the explosion. All of them said the same thing: NASA and Thiokol were warned that it was unsafe to launch in the cold, but they went ahead anyway. Brigham City, where many Thiokol workers lived, was hit hard by the disaster. People were simultaneously horrified by it and worried about what it might mean for their own futures. Meanwhile, Thiokol became the target of a nation outraged over the deaths of seven astronauts. According to NPR, vandals scrawled “Morton Thiokol Murderers” on a railroad overpass on the road to the Thiokol plant. Within the company, the men who testified about Thiokol and NASA’s failures became known as


We had all better hope these scientists are wrong about the planet’s future

approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations,” Hansen said in an interview. The research, appearing Tuesday in the open-access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, has had a long and controversial path to life, having first appeared as a “discussion paper” in the same journal, subject to live, online peer review — a novel but increasingly influential form of scientific publishing. Hansen first told the news media about the research last summer, before this process was completed, leading to criticism from some journalists and fellow scientists that he might be jumping the gun. Images of consumption are the theme of the book, “Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot.” It addresses environmental deterioration through subjects including materialism, consumption, pollution, fossil fuels and carbon footprints. What ensued was a high-profile debate, both because of the dramatic claims and Hansen’s formidable reputation. And his numerous co-authors, including Greenland and Antarctic ice experts and a leader of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, were nothing to be sniffed at. After record downloads for the study and an intense public review process, a revised version of the paper has now been accepted, according to both Hansen and Barbara Ferreira, media and communications manager for the European Geosciences Union, which publishes Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Indeed, the article is now freely readable on the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics website. The paper, according to Ferreira, was subject to “major revisions in terms of organisation, title and conclusions.” Those came in response to criticisms that can all be read publicly at the journal’s website. The paper also now has two additional authors. Most notably, perhaps, the editorial process led to the removal of the use of the phrase “highly dangerous,” in the paper’s title, to describe warming the planet by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The original paper’s title was “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous.” The final title is “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous.” But nonetheless, James Hansen’s climate catastrophe scenario now takes its place in the official scientific literature relatively intact. So let’s rehearse that scenario, again, for the record. Hansen and his colleagues


Cherry Blossom season has arrived in D.C. Here’s how to plan accordingly.

want to avoid some of the crowds, try getting off at the Foggy Bottom station on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines and walk south to the Tidal Basin. What about biking? Biking to the cherry blossoms is a great way to zoom past the inevitable traffic gridlock around the tidal basin. Bike parking will be in demand and, in anticipation of this, supplemental bike parking will be available at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. If you don’t have a bike of your own in town, rent a Capital Bikeshare bike in D.C., Maryland or Virginia and drop off the bike at the Mall. During the three weekends of the Cherry Blossom Festival, Capital Bikeshare will provide corralling stations, where you can drop off your bike at a designated place just in case all of the traditional Bikeshare stations are full. A list of the corral stations can be found here. Biking is an efficient way to get to the Mall, but it will be way too crowded along the narrow paths to actually ride along the Tidal Basin. So park it or dock it, and then walk around. What’s all the fanfare about? Is this all for the cherry blossoms? It’s far more than just the cherry blossoms! The National Cherry Blossom Festival and other organizations have events planned for more than three weeks between March 20 and April 17. The event’s flagship parade is scheduled for April 16, and there’s a kite festival, a fireworks festival, Japanese culture festival and more. Click here for the schedule of events. Can I use a drone to take aerial photos of the cherry blossom No, nope, no drones. Drones are banned in all national parks which includes, yes, the Mall. If I don’t want to venture to the National Mall to see the cherry blossoms, is there any where else I can see them? Cherry Blossoms are sprinkled in neighborhoods throughout the District. A new app, D.C. Cherry Picker, can help you locate cherry blossoms outside the Mall. What times are the cherry blossoms open to the public? You can go and see the cherry blossoms whenever you’d like. A nighttime bike ride or car ride around the Tidal Basin are great ways to see the cherry blossoms and avoid the crowds. So how does a regular commuter navigate around this? Our Dr. Gridlock had this to say: “Commuters on the 14th


Urban birds may be smarter than their country cousins, new study suggests

where they came out ahead: They had stronger immune systems. Audet and his colleagues thought it might make sense for better cognitive abilities to be associated with weaker immune systems, because the birds don't have infinite resources to fuel their brains and bodies. But it seems that city birds really can have it all. Taken all together, these traits seem to serve a pretty obvious purpose. When humans are around, it means that birds have more reason to learn to access food in new and challenging places. A bird in the country is pretty much always going to find seeds in the same sorts of places, but a city bird can, for example, learn to snatch sandwiches off restaurant plates. That's where the boldness comes in, too. And perhaps a fear of novel objects is just part of the same routine: A city bird encounters new and strange dangers more often than one in a rural environment, so it needs to be smart about sussing out situations before blundering in. Fifty-three birds from one country is a pretty small sample size, so we can't assume that these findings are true for birds all over the world — or even for birds all over Barbados. But the results suggest that humankind's influence might have a profound effect on the behavior (and health) of urban birds. It's especially interesting in Barbados, where birds likely aren't isolated enough from one another to become different species, or even to change much from generation to generation. "Barbados is a very small island, and it would be surprising if urban and rural bullfinches were geographically isolated, even if the island has a high population density and the original vegetation of the island has been destroyed and replaced by sugar cane and other anthropogenic plants for over 350 years," the authors write in the study. "Enhanced boldness, problem solving, and immunocompetence in urbanized bullfinches might all be experience-driven responses to environmental variation in food, human disturbance, and pathogens." In other words, these changes probably aren't due to long-term natural selection: They're made on the fly. Read More: The gruesome price birds in the Everglades pay for using alligators as bodyguards Ravens know when they’re being watched How green cities make for more bats — and why that’s actually a good thing City ants are garbage eating, rat-fighting machines Norway is creating a ‘bee highway’ to protect pollinators


This little flea — and its huge appetite — could ruin the Great Lakes

at the University of Wisconsin, said it’s hard to explain just how destructive the flea has been over the past 30 years unless you describe it in a way the average person would understand. His team used models to estimate the cost of limiting the algae that Daphnia would eat. Algae relies on phosphorous to grow, and much of that runs off cities and farms in sewer waste water and animal excrement, to name just a few things. Reversing algae overgrowth in Lake Mendota would require a 71 percent reduction in its phosphorous pollution. “A phosphorous reduction of this magnitude is estimated to cost between $86.5 million and $163 million,” the study says. Those estimates “may increase considerably if cases of secondary invasions into inland lakes, such as Lake Mendota, are included. That’s not even the half of it. At least 180 species of invasive animals have been introduced into the Great Lakes by ships that travel across the world. At the root of the problem are humans, who, some argue, are the most destructive invasive species of all in the Americas. Like numerous other researchers, Walsh’s team blamed phosphorus pollution degrading the quality of lakes and reservoirs, cheapening their aesthetic value, not to mention property values. Algae blooms lead to fish kills that stymie sportsmen and beach closures that hurt swimmers. Blooms can release toxins harmful to humans and fish, and they can suck so much oxygen from water that fish and other animals can’t survive. Daphnia pulicaria, a native algae-grazing organism. (Jake Walsh) Dumping an animal that preys on algae grazers made a bad situation much worse, they said. Using the spiny flea as an example, the authors emphasized that all invasive species wreak havoc in a way that few have considered. Walsh mentioned the emerald ash borer off the top of his head. Its march across the Midwest since 2002 has left billions of nickel-sized holes in the ash trees they bore into, killing trees that provide durable wood for home flooring, bowling alleys, church pews, baseball bats and electric guitars. Moreover, they ruin trees adorning sidewalks and front yards, hurting the appeal of cities, not to mention the carbon the trees capture to help improve air quality. The list goes on. Pythons are marauding across the Everglades. Nutria — a swamp rat — are proliferating in Louisiana and the on Delmarva Peninsula. The Northern snakehead fish


Main Street Morning: New rule could expand medical coverage for gender transition

Jared Bernstein shares these five simple formulas that captures today’s economic challenges and solutions. - This is how robots will reshape the U.S. economy. People - These are the nine best places (on or offline) to find temp staff for your business. - Why Millennials are the “anxious generation.” - Workplace injuries caused nearly 3,000 amputations in 2015. - The biggest threat to American workers is slowly starting to go away. - 20 percent of employees would sell their passwords, according to new research. Management - Microsoft apologizes for scantily-clad dancers at a party. - These are a few key business tax issues executives need to be watching in 2016. Entrepreneurs - This is the high school sophomore who designed Monday’s Google doodle. - A student redefines “perfect” with a daily planner business. - How this mom turned her religious-oriented company into a multi-million dollar business. Online - These are three essential stories you need on your website to attract customers. - GoDaddy launches a new service to help individual developers, tech entrepreneurs and IT professionals quickly build, test and scale cloud solutions. - The Paris attackers left no digital footprint, say police. - An analytics firm raises $50 million to take on Google by creating a new currency for buying and selling online ads, similar to Nielsen for TV ratings. Retail and Restaurants - Amazon opens a cable store to sell Comcast. - A man is banned from Amazon for returning 37 items. - Starbucks is sued for under filling drinks. - American Apparel partners with Postmates for an on-demand delivery service. - A bro applying for a job at a Popeye’s foils a robbery during his interview – and gets hired on the spot. Finance - An analysis of 170,000 Kickstarter campaigns reveals the three fundamentals of a crowdfunding success. - PayPal reports a usage surge after an app redesign and says it will expand its money-transfer service to Cuba by end of 2016. Sales and Marketing - 62 percent of consumers waste money on unwanted subscriptions because they don’t cancel automatic renewals, according to a survey. - These 10 small businesses prove it’s possible to create great content on a budget. Technology - These are 11 tips for successful self-service business intelligence and analytics. - Apple unveils a smaller and cheaper iPhone, slashes its watch price, introduces a project to deconstruct iPhones in order to reuse the


Rare lunar halo and moondogs captured on a cold Alaska night (Photo)

A 22-degree halo with sundogs on the left and right surround the moon on a cold night in Alaska. (Sebastian Saarloos) Halos are a beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. Formed from ice and light, they glow in rainbow colors around the sun. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you’ll see two bright orbs on each side of the ring — sundogs, as they are called. But this is not the sun, it’s the moon. Moondogs. This incredible lunar scene was captured by Sebastian Saarloos on a cold Alaska night in Lower Middle Creek. Saarloos said he’s only seen this happen one other time, both times lasting only a few minutes. The 2013 photo was featured in NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day series on Monday. Halos around the sun are common and can be seen around the world at any time of year. They tend to form around the sun or moon when wispy high clouds made of ice crystals are overhead. Halos are very large and always the same diameter, even though sometimes only part of the halo is visible. Halos around the moon are much less common. The moon needs to be very bright and at least nearly full. “Sundogs” can also be seen on a moon halo, in which case they are called parselenae — “mock moons,” as opposed to parhelia, or “mock suns.” Parselenae form when thin clouds are composed of plate-like ice crystals. They are typically seen when the moon is low in the sky. Moon halos and moondogs tend to be dimmer than their sunny counterparts, so rarely do we see their rainbow-like spectrum as we do in this photo.


Seriously, America? Study finds mere 2.7 percent of U.S. adults meet criteria for ‘healthy lifestyle’

Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, they found that 97.3 percent of the 4,745 people they looked at did not meet the criteria. Writing in Mayo Clinical Proceedings, the researchers described the standards as very reasonable. That is, they weren't looking for people to be marathon runners but just have a moderate amount of 150 minutes of activity a week. "This is pretty low, to have so few people maintaining what we would consider a healthy lifestyle," Ellen Smit, a researcher at Oregon State and a co-author, said in a statement. "This is sort of mind boggling. There's clearly a lot of room for improvement." The study's results are considered to be more reliable than previous ones because researchers used technology to track participants instead of self-reported surveys. For exercise, for instance, the researchers used an accelerometer, such as the ones in a phone or fitness band, to track movement. And blood samples were taken to confirm whether people were smokers. There were, of course, many people who met one or more of the criteria. Only 11 percent were in the supremely unhealthy range meeting zero of the goals, 34 percent met one, 37 percent met two, 16 percent met three and 2.7 percent met all four. There were big differences among some of the subgroups studied. Women were more likely to have a healthy diet and not smoke — but they were less likely to exercise enough. Mexican American adults, it turned out, were more likely to have a healthy diet than their non-Hispanic white or black counterparts. Older Americans — 60 years and over — were overall less healthy than those ages 20-39 but were more likely to have healthy diets and not smoke. The researchers emphasized that meeting all four goals is important because these factors have been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and other medical conditions. Read more: Paul Allen announces $100m gift to fund 'frontiers' of bioscience MIT scientists find evidence that Alzheimer’s ‘lost memories’ may one day be recoverable ‘Siri, I want to commit suicide’ and other statements likely to yield unhelpful responses from your phone Roots of Napoleon complex may be justified: Study finds short men get short end of stick in life. Kids with August birthdays are more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis. Here’s why. For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here .


Trump: ‘I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.’

Presidential candidate Donald Trump departs after a meeting with the editorial board of The Washington Post on Monday. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) Give Donald Trump credit for consistency. The Republican presidential front-runner repeatedly has said he isn’t “a believer” that humans have played a significant role in the Earth’s changing climate. He said as much in an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt last year. He told “Fox & Friends” earlier this year that climate change “is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money.” In his own tweets, Trump has called the concept of global warming everything from a “hoax” to “bulls—” to a scheme “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (He later said he was joking about the China tweet). The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don't believe it $$$$! Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax! Trump’s stance on climate change, of course, puts him at odds with the vast majority of the world’s scientists, who agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are likely a result of human activity and are playing out in the form of rising seas, growing carbon dioxide emissions and melting glaciers. In a wide-ranging meeting Monday with The Washington Post editorial board, Trump again dismissed man-made climate change. Instead, he said the type of climate change we should worry most about is nuclear weapons — an apparent reference to Cold War-era fears over a “nuclear winter.” The idea was that a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union could have devastating consequences for the environment. Scientists say the potential threat still exists, particularly with more countries now possessing nuclear weapons, though it remains a less immediate threat than the constant pollution humans send into the environment. Below is a transcript of the climate change exchange, which came toward the end of Trump’s visit Monday to The Post: FRED HIATT, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR: Last one: You think climate change is a real thing? Is there human-caused climate change?


Open thread

The Washington Monument is seen through cherry blossoms across the Tidal Basin last year. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press) Right Turn will be on vacation, returning Tuesday, March 29. While we are gone, we’ll have a number of posts, so check back often.


How do these beetle moms make time for their kids? Very unsexy perfume.

they line their love nest) and then slather the meat in anti-microbial bodily secretions. You know, just your typical first date. But as alluring as all of that sounds, the beetles – which mate non-stop during egg-laying, rotting meat and all –somehow manage to keep themselves from mating while they feed vomited carcass to their larvae. How I met your mother. (Heiko Bellmann) "Parents of many species cooperate to rear offspring, but nevertheless there can be intense conflicts between males and females over mating rate or how much each sex should invest in raising the young," the authors, led by Sandra Steiger of the University of Ulm, wrote in the study. For males, it might make sense – in terms of energy expenditure – to move on and find a new mate to have even more offspring with, or at least to keep trying to produce a constant stream of new young with their current mate. But having as many kids as possible isn't always the best strategy. Sometimes it's best to focus on making sure that a few of them get the attention they need to survive to sexual maturity, ensuring that parental genes will live to see another generation. That's the strategy burying beetles have evolved for, but that doesn't mean each individual male is going to instinctively cherish its offspring. And even selective female infertility isn't enough to really solve that problem: If males keep trying to mate with an infertile partner while she tries to raise the kids, he's wasting valuable time and energy that could have gone right to those offspring. That's where the anti-aphrodisiacs come in. Most female animals that use pheromones to coordinate mating efforts use the chemical signals to broadcast their fertility – but the female burying beetle seems to do the exact opposite. Don't feel too bad for those male burying beetles, by the way: This critical phase of parenting lasts just three days. Then it's back to business. More Beetles, More Sex: This beetle’s butt is basically a machine gun How many types of bugs live in your house right this minute? Science weighs in. These caffeine-addicted beetles are using bacteria to ruin all of our coffee Newly discovered neurons help these males remember to seek out sex — all the time New study asks why birds fall in love These newly discovered marsupials basically sex each other to death


Pentagon watchdog opens investigation into national security launch contracts

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Morelos-3 mission lifts off from Cape Canaveral last Oct. 2. The Pentagon’s inspector general has opened an investigation into the high-stakes competition to win lucrative contracts for national security rocket launches after an executive at the United Launch Alliance made controversial comments about the procurements earlier this month. The investigation would seek to determine whether the contracts for the launches were “awarded in accordance with” federal regulations, Randolph R. Stone, the deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, wrote in a letter to top Pentagon officials Tuesday. Last week, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called on the IG to investigate after a ULA official told an audience that the Defense Department had “bent over backwards to lean the field to our advantage” in the launch competitions. Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive, said the comments “were not aligned with the direction of the company, my views, nor the views I expect from ULA leaders.” And Brett Tobey, ULA’s vice president of engineering, resigned the day his comments were reported. [ULA executive resigns after committing the gravest sin: speaking his mind.] ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been a repeated target of John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ULA’s Atlas V rocket uses an engine made in Russia, and McCain has said the United States should not have to rely on the Russians to get national security payloads — such as communications and intelligence satellites — to space at a time of heightened tension between the two nations. For years, ULA was awarded the contracts on a sole-source basis. But recently Elon Musk’s SpaceX was certified to compete for the missions, creating a new competitive environment.


Why the most maligned rocket in the world is also one of the most reliable

The 45th Space Wing successfully launched a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the second Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-2) satellite for the U.S. Navy lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 July 9, 2013, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. It is a much-maligned rocket, derided for its high cost and criticized for its foreign-made engine. It is caught up in a congressional fight that gets uglier by the week and has now touched off a high-profile Pentagon investigation. And yet when the Atlas V is fully fueled and on the launch pad, it is all business and routinely reliable, delivering its fiery thrust liftoff after liftoff. Late Tuesday night, it continued to bolster its impressive box score, launching the 62nd consecutive time without a failure, the 106th straight successful launch for the United Launch Alliance. Aside from the statistics, Tuesday’s launch, under contract from NASA, was an important one. It put an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft into orbit, en route to the International Space Station, where it will deliver food, supplies and science experiments, including “gecko grippers,” which would study how gecko-like adhesives could work in space. It was the second time the Atlas V came to the rescue for Orbital ATK, which saw its Antares rocket blow up in late 2014. While a new Antares is being developed, Orbital ATK has relied on ULA to launch its spacecraft to orbit. And those successful flights have helped restore confidence in NASA’s decision to contract out the cargo resupply missions to the station. But Tuesday’s launch came on the same day the Pentagon inspector general announced it would investigate the national security contracts that have been ULA’s lifeblood. Meanwhile, ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is staring down the great disruptive force known as Elon Musk, who threatens to eat into its business. Musk’s SpaceX won the right to compete against the ULA for the lucrative national security launch business, ending ULA’s years-long monopoly on the missions. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has also taken aim at the company, attempting to limit the use of the Russian-made engine that powers the Atlas V. He believes that the United States should not have to rely on the Russians to launch national security payloads, such as communications and intelligence satellites, at a time when there is heightened tension between the two countries. Not everyone at ULA appreciated the senator’s


A photo of this Brussels bombing victim was on your front page. Here’s her story.

dash to safety, Time reported. Kardava told the magazine that she wanted to run, too. "But I also wanted to take pictures," she said. "As a journalist, it was my duty to take these photos and show the world what was going on. I knew I was the only one at this spot." You've probably seen at least one of Kardava's photographs from Tuesday's attacks, which left more than 30 people dead and more than 200 injured. One ran on the front page of The Washington Post. It was also on the front page of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Guardian, Der Standard, Folha de S. Paulo, Le Journal de Québec and scores of other newspapers. The picture shows two women, one of them in ripped clothes, missing a shoe, covered in dust, with blood running down her face. "She was in shock, speechless," Kardava told Time. Kardava didn't get her name but told Time that she hoped the woman would be able to "overcome all these difficulties." The woman has now been identified by several media outlets as Nidhi Chaphekar, a Jet Airways employee. The Times of India reported that Chaphekar's family learned she was hurt in the blast, then "stayed glued to the television after that, breaking into tears often." They later learned that she had been hospitalized and was undergoing surgery, according to the newspaper. The newspaper reported that Chaphekar's daughter would ask: "Mamma ka kuch pata chala kya?" — a question that translates to "Did you find any news about mom?" "For the whole day we did not have any information. All they told us was she is safe," Rupesh Chaphekar, Nidhi's husband, told the Times of India. "But how do I know if they are not just giving us false hopes? I just want to hear her voice once. Only the airline's base manager is contacting us with information. We are not able to get through any of the helpline numbers." Jet Airways did not immediately respond to an email from The Post on Wednesday. Today's Washington Post front page. Brussels is dealing with the aftermath of a series of deadly explosions. Here's what you need to know about the terror attacks. Read More: Belgian authorities: Brothers carried out Islamic State suicide attacks The type of bombs used in Brussels by the Islamic State have likely been seen before


Even before Brussels, U.S. troops kept finding themselves in violence in Europe

A Belgian soldier and a police officer stand guard outside Brussels Central Station as small groups of people are allowed in to take the commuter train following attacks. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images) Five years ago this month, a group of U.S. airmen boarded a bus at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. They were waiting for a ride to Ramstein Air Base about 65 miles away when a 21-year-old man outside the vehicle asked one of them for a cigarette and if they were U.S. troops on their way to Afghanistan. When the American said they were, the stranger waited until he turned around and shot him in the head. “Allahu Akbar!” the man shouted — before entering the bus and shooting at the other Americans. Those details emerged in the 2012 murder trial of Arid Uka, a Muslim ethnic Albanian who grew up in Germany and was born in Kosovo. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Uka said during his trial that he had been radicalized by Islamist propaganda videos he had watched online, according to media coverage of his case. The attack killed two service members — Senior Airman Nicholas Alden, 25, and Airman 1st Class Zachary Cuddeback, 21 — and wounded two others. The ambush would have been even more severe, but the shooter’s gun jammed while he was on the bus. The case stands as one example of how U.S. troops have faced deadly situations far from the battlefield in recent history. It also prompted U.S. European Command, the military’s four-star headquarters for the continent, to issue new rules after the attack that prohibited U.S. troops from wearing their uniforms while not on bases “to the maximum extent possible,” including when traveling to and from their jobs. Doing so, the thinking went, made them obvious targets. But from U.S. sailors being attacked by a mob in Turkey in 2014 to off-duty service members facing a gunman on a train from Amsterdam to Paris last year, U.S. service members continue to find themselves caught in the middle of violence in Europe. The latest example occurred Tuesday, when a member of the Air Force and his family were wounded in bombings that shook the airport in Brussels. The airman, who has not been identified by the Pentagon, is a member of Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, a NATO command focused on providing command and control to


Main Street Morning: Former Starbucks executive joins Alabama-based grocery app

of them said no. Technology - GE is building America’s first offshore wind farm. - Uber says it will pay $10,000 “bug bounties” to friendly hackers. Online - This is Google’s real answer to Amazon Web Services. - Business intelligence service Domo launclaunches anhes an app store with more than 1,000 apps. - Shopify doubles down on “buy” buttons despite a sluggish start. Social Media - Facebook kills off BlackBerry support. - Facebook activates its Safety Check tool after the Belgian bombings. Ideas and Opportunities - Baby Boomers love their pets to the tune of $60 billion annually. - Americans are getting more adventurous with one food group, and it’s creating a booming industry. Around the Country - It’s not every day that small business owners ask for their taxes to be raised, but that’s what’s happening in Kansas. - Farmers and small business owners in New York State say the impact of a $15 minimum wage would be devastating. - But Maine’s businesses come together to raise the state minimum wage. - Some businesses in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley have been around for centuries. - The Charlotte, North Carolina community is looking forward to the impact of PayPal’s move to their region. - Some small businesses owners want a music festival to move out of their California town. - Virginia is accusing a financial radio show host of defrauding investors out of at least $21 million in four years after being barred from selling securities. - Oil companies in Denver are filing for bankruptcy left and right. - Virginia’s manufacturing sector expanded in March. - A starbucks shareholders meeting almost gets derailed by a fake cancellation announcement. - New York is poised to end a longtime ban on professional mixed martial arts. Around the World - A remote Irish island seeks Americans fleeing a Donald Trump presidency. - CBS warns that U.S.. business could “endanger” Cuba’s “unique charm.” - This was entrepreneurship’s big role in President Obama’s Cuba visit. - Western Union faces legal scrutiny over its European Union business practices. - Global average connection speed is up 23 percent according to a “State of the Internet” report. Small Business, Big Impact - Former Intel CEO Andy Grove dies at 79. - Rob Ford, troubled and tempestuous Toronto mayor, dies at 46. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship


‘Jihad has become a family business’: Why brothers are teaming up to launch terror attacks

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, left, and Khalid el-Bakraoui have been identified by Belgian police as two of the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks. (Interpol via EPA) Officials in Brussels on Wednesday named a pair of brothers as two of the suicide bombers in Tuesday’s bloody attacks in the Belgian capital. It was the third terrorist attack in Europe in a little over a year involving two male siblings, adding to questions about how individuals become radicalized and what authorities can do to stop it. In January 2015, in an assault linked to al-Qaeda, brothers Said and Chérif Kouachi stormed a satirical publication in Paris, killing a dozen people. In November, attacks plotted by a cell of militants aligned with the Islamic State, including brothers Brahim and Salah Abdeslam, rocked Paris. The former blew himself up at a Paris cafe; the latter was arrested last week in Brussels after months on the run. The sibling phenomenon is not limited to Europe. In 2013, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. “Jihad has become a family business,” said Christina Schori Liang, a senior fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. “If one family member becomes radicalized, it is predictable that others will become militant as well.” According to Liang, more than a quarter of Westerners who have gone to fight in Syria have had a family connection to others involved in the armed Islamist cause, often a relative who also had gone to fight there. It’s not known whether any of the recent attackers were radicalized by their siblings or whether they happened to find similar appeal in the same ideology. Like some of the others involved in recent attacks in Europe, the Abdeslam and the Bakraoui brothers (identified in the Brussels attacks) shared criminal records. All four had been convicted of robbery or other financially motivated crimes before they turned to militancy. Faysal Itani, a scholar at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said siblings may be radicalized by proximity or may choose to pursue militant action with siblings because of the high level of trust required for such activity. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the Paris attacks, is thought to have taken his teenage brother to Syria to fight alongside the Islamic State. Abaaoud was killed during a standoff with police a few days after the Nov. 13 string of shootings and explosions in


Military members have twice the bill collector complaints

U.S. soldiers serving in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo hold flags during a command handover ceremony in the U.S. military camp of Bondsteel near the village of Sojeve on March 10. (ARMEND NIMANI/AFP/Getty Images) Members of the military submit debt collector complaints at twice the rate of civilians, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The agency is charged with monitoring complaints from those in the military. Debt collection, mortgages and credit reporting were subject of most complaints, according to a CFPB report released Tuesday. “Those who serve, or have served, our country should not have to worry about falling victim to unfair, deceptive, or abusive financial practices,” Holly Petraeus, assistant director for the Office of Servicemember Affairs, wrote in a message at the front of the report. Some of the complaints stem from a lifestyle peculiar to the military, stemming, for example, from time away for deployments or frequent moves from one base to another. While the higher rate of complaints “could be due to a variety of factors,” Petraeus said one issue “is the concern that unpaid debts can threaten a military career. Because of this, we encourage all service members to diligently check their credit reports and proactively protect their credit files while they are away from home.” The complaints concern disputes over money owed, debt collector calls to commanding officers and threats against security clearances held by service members. Veterans also complain of bill collectors trying to collect on medical bills that should have been covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The complaints highlighted in the CFPB report “show that members of the military continue to have serious problems when it comes to debt collection,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The Bureau will continue to closely monitor complaints from service members to ensure our brave men and women are getting the protection they deserve.” Read more: [Meet the debt collector working for the little guy] [The FTC cracks down on abusive debt collectors]


PM Update: Pleasantly cool tonight and terrific on Thursday; Spring fire season ramps up

Spring keeps springing in D.C. (Joe Flood via Flickr) 11:20 p.m. update: From 4:05 p.m… There’s not much to say about today other than “gorgeous!” It was just about perfect out there with highs rising to a range of 70-75 across the area. Of course, this warm weather is getting that pollen percolating once again. The trade offs we deal with! Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Thursday): See Dan Stillman’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. Pollen update: Multiple fires seen burning across the South on Tuesday, March 22. (NASA) ‘Tis the season: Holy crap. Satellite detected hotspots show a 27 mile run overnight with the #camphoustonfire #okfire #ksfire https://t.co/WjS84mFx0T GOES-13 shortwave IR images: incredible northward run of Camp Houston fire from OK into KS https://t.co/Hr8BFyoYve https://t.co/hij9hDGLie The most intense ongoing fire concerns across the Southern Plains are being influenced by the same storm system that is hammering Denver and the Central Plains with a blizzard. Strong winds and dry air are meeting dry fuel in explosive ways. UPDATE: Voluntary evacuations are underway in Sun City as a massive grassfire moves. https://t.co/ncsrBNr3IE https://t.co/Sbdu9tEP7U Satellite view of a a major fire burning in Kansas today. (SSEC/MODIS Today)


The Daily 202: Why the campaign to pressure Republicans to confirm Merrick Garland is failing

asked U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin to delay Hastert’s sentencing so the man could attend. Over the objection of defense attorneys, Durkin agreed to move the hearing from April 8 to April 27 and asserted that the man, identified in the transcript only as 'Individual D,' would be able to detail what he claims happened to him." -- Two pieces of debris recently discovered along the coast of Mozambique are “highly likely” to have come from Broken windows at the Brussels airport. (Reuters/Yorick Jansens/Pool) THE LATEST FROM BRUSSELS -- A fourth suspect, whose airport bomb failed to detonate, is still at large. -- There are connections between the attackers in Brussels and Paris -- Religion isn’t always the prime motivating factor among the new generation of Islamic State recruits. -- The terrorists likely used an explosive nicknamed “‘the mother of Satan,’ GET SMART FAST: - A task force appointed by Rick Snyder to investigate Flint’s water crisis has laid blame squarely on state officials, issuing a blistering report that faults both Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality and Snyder’s own administration for “failing in fundamental responsibilities” and potentially exposing more than 95,000 residents to lead-tainted water. The 116-page report also faults the federal EPA for inaction that “prolonged the calamity.” (Brady Dennis) - An Israeli company that provides mobile forensic software is helping the FBI try to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. If the third-party company is successful, the FBI will no longer need Apple’s help. (Reuters) - A Chinese businessman pleaded guilty to helping two Chinese military hackers carry out thefts of sensitive military secrets from U.S. contractors, including plans for transport and fighter jets. (Ellen Nakashima) - North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill that blocks cities from allowing transgender individuals to use the public bathrooms of their identified sex. The law was passed in a special session and has drawn widespread condemnation from the LBGT community, which called the measure “blatantly discriminatory.” (Sandhya Somashekhar) - Synagogues in Belgium have canceled annual Purim celebrations after the attacks in Brussels, saying that asking hundreds of Jews to leave their homes for the Wednesday night holiday would be “too much of a risk.” (Julie Zauzmer) - U.S. marshals nabbed more than 8,000 fugitives in a six-week blitz to take the most dangerous criminals off the streets. Dubbed “Operation Violence Reduction 12,” the effort targeted the most serious criminals – with


Photos: The glorious “Worm Moon” rises over D.C.’s famed cherry blossoms

Worm moon rising over the Cherry Blossoms, March 23, 2016. (Chris Fukuda via Twitter) Photographers packing the Tidal Basin Wednesday evening were treated to a double feature: the cherry blossoms nearing peak bloom and a spectacular full moon. This month’s full moon, known as the Worm Moon because the ground is soft enough for worms to unearth themselves, rose at 7:44 p.m. Wednesday evening. The plump orange moon and the bursting cherry blossom buds made for a spectacular combination. Since the moon is only full about once a month, it took a bit of luck for it to coincide with the blossoms bloom period. Here’s an assortment of tremendous views shared by our readers…. Moon rising over the Cherry Blossoms, March 23, 2016. (George Jiang via Flickr) Full worm moon rises over the Capitol, March 23, 2016. (Joseph Gruber via Flickr) Full worm moon shines through the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. March 23, 2016. ( George Jiang via Flickr) The full moon rises over the Tidal Basin over peaking cherry blossoms, March 23, 2016. (Navin Sarma via Flickr) Moonset in DC, please share #cherryblossoms @capitalweather @weatherchannel @accuweather @fox5dc @suepalkafox5dc https://t.co/PIIm0ew6xu Photographers also captured some amazing shots away from the blossoms, as shown below… Worm moon rising over the Capitol, March 23, 2016. (Victoria Pickering via Flickr) Full worm moon rises over D.C., March 23, 2016 (dcsplicer via Flickr) Full moon as seen from Constitution Gardens, March 23, 2016. (Victoria Pickering via Flickr) Worm moon rising over Washington, D.C. (Chris Fukuda via Twitter) March’s “Worm Moon” rising over an old farm in Montgomery County’s Ag Reserve, March 23, 2016. (Martin Radigan via Flickr) Paddleboarders headlight on fullmoon lit Potomac #mydccool @capitalweather @yourtake @NatlParkService @dougkammerer https://t.co/e7PmU9ESqx https://twitter.com/number7cloud/status/712992302499803138 National Mall tonight @weatherchannel @washingtonian @ggwash @washingtondc @uscapitol @capitalweather @stormhour https://t.co/aM4jdgIZVB @capitalweather, beautiful sunrise and moonset this morning! https://t.co/1hqSXgN5Kq https://twitter.com/GlenEchoMCM/status/712926227691085828 Moon shots. @capitalweather https://t.co/CCT42gnQKi


Watch: Giant panda takes a bath at National Zoo

The Smithsonian Zoo's giant panda, Tian Tian, strikes again. Just as the Twitter message says, “Rub-a-dub-dub #TianTian in a tub!” Yes, a video online put out by the National Zoo shows one of the giant pandas there — Tian Tian — taking a bath in a big, black plastic tub. And, yes, it is cute. Tian Tian, zookeepers said, got a nontoxic bubble bath. The video shows the giant panda washing his head and shaking off the water. And shaking his backside. And in case you missed Tian Tian playing in the snow, check this out. Tian Tian is one of the zoo’s male pandas and the father of the baby panda Bei Bei.


11 things to do in the D.C. area on the weekend of March 25-27

It's Easter weekend, and it's the official start of cherry blossom season, as the warm weather should bring in crowds of visitors to check out the cherry trees in full bloom around the Tidal Basin. With that in mind, here are this weekend's best bets in nightlife, festivals, music, comedy and much more around the Washington area. - Capital Weather Gang forecast: Showers Friday heading into a sunny weekend - Easter Sunday Brunch: These restaurants still have reservations - Seasonal fare: Cherry Blossom-themed food and drink specials around D.C. Brooklyn Mack soars in the title role of the Washington Ballet's “Hamlet” at the Kennedy Center. (Dean Alexander) Through April 3: [“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” movie review] Through Sunday: Colin Jost: A Pot Cookie Ruined My Date - Late Night with Seth Meyers Friday-Saturday: [More music on Friday: Rokia Traoré at Lisner Auditorium] Friday-Sunday: Saturday: With perfect weather and the trees at peak bloom, expect plenty of crowds around the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossom trees this weekend. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Saturday: [Where to see the cherry blossoms without huge crowds] Saturday: [Five offbeat brunches to try this weekend] Sunday: Sunday: [Poste is closing in May to make way for a new restaurant in the Hotel Monaco] Sunday: Monday:


Main Street Morning: New regulations expand overtime coverage to higher earners

opportunity to strengthen your small business. - A gamification pioneer tackles business goals management. - These are the secrets to a happy life, from a Harvard study. Entrepreneurs - How a daughter took her family business to greater heights. Retail - Millennials are driving a revolution in in-store shopping experiences, according to a new study. - A fake Target employee stole 41 cellphones and a Toys “R” Us employee is accused of a $2 million card theft. Restaurants - Employees can’t stop suing Chipotle. Travel - A blizzard closes Denver’s airport for the first time in a decade. Finance - Even more data shows negotiating a better credit card interest rate works. Technology - Three new iOS 9.3 features business users will love. Online - Google kills the Chrome app launcher on Windows, Mac, and Linux. - Google’s cloud business nabs Home Depot. - Eight reasons online dating sites are a business dead end. - This bag of tricks may help stop a ransomware infection. - Why switching mobile carriers will become much easier this year. Ideas - Why your future customers will be making room in their medicine cabinets for automated toiletries. On This Day in 1868 - Met Life was formed. Around the Country - Local business leaders are promoting Lubbock, Texas as the “friendliest city in America.” - Corpus Christi, Texas celebrates its small business success. - A “man in the tree” mesmerizes Seattle. - Chattanooga Tennessee’s Mayor has a first meeting with his minority business owner’s task force. - New York State’s Senate links a minimum wage hike to small business breaks. - Another Denver oil company filed for bankruptcy. - In California, a proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021 has qualified for the ballot - Disney threatens to stop filming in Georgia over a bill that the company considers anti-LGBT. Around the World - Brazil is the world’s second-worst economy. - Cities around the world light their landmarks in Belgian national colors. - Starbucks and Dominoes temporarily close all their units in Brussels and the city’s airport will remain closed today. - A clumsy burglar unsuccessfully attempts to rob an Australian business. 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.


Maryland’s honeybees are being massacred, and the weapon might be in your house

Bees tend to honeycomb cells in a colony in Frederick, Md. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post) In the end, Maryland lawmakers couldn’t ignore the same haunting story from beekeepers. “I go into winter with a really strong population, managed them to be fat and healthy, treated for mites, with plenty of food,” said Bonnie Raindrop, a keeper in Baltimore County. “But at the end of winter, you open your hives and they’re all dead.” The keepers joined academics and conservationists in convincing the state General Assembly that the mass deaths over the past four years are likely tied to widespread use of household pesticides linked to honeybee mortality. Both chambers recently passed bills that would ban stores from selling products laced with neonicotinoids to homeowners who tend to lather too much on trees and gardens. The similar bills are expected to be forged into a single piece of legislation for Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to sign within two weeks. Hogan’s signature would make Maryland the first state to take the harmful pesticides away from amateurs. Farmers and professionals who better understand how to apply them in a way that poses a lesser threat to bees would be exempted by the law when it takes effect in 2018. Maryland lost more than 60 percent of its hives last year, each with up to 20,000 honeybees. About a dozen other states are considering taking similar steps as bees die and honey production declines. Last year, honey production fell 12 percent among producers with five or more colonies, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey. Neonicotinoids were introduced to agriculture in the 1990s and made available to the general public more recently because it was thought to be safer for bees than other pesticides. They seep into plants rather than simply coating the surface. Although some researchers insist the chemical doesn’t cause bee mortality, other scientists are gathering evidence that it does. The Environmental Protection Agency launched a review to determine if several varieties of the insecticide have contributed to the collapse of bee colonies. Its findings are due in 2018. The Obama administration announced the first national strategy to promote the health of bees and other pollinators, following the sharp decline in colony numbers in recent years. USDA bee scientist Jay Evans explains why honeybees are so important and how bees affect food prices. Two years ago, an team of


the law when it takes effect in 2018. Maryland lost more than 60 percent of its hives last year, each with up to 20,000 honeybees. About a dozen other states are considering taking similar steps as bees die and honey production declines. Last year, honey production fell 12 percent among producers with five or more colonies, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey. Neonicotinoids were introduced to agriculture in the 1990s and made available to the general public more recently because it was thought to be safer for bees than other pesticides. They seep into plants rather than simply coating the surface. Although some researchers insist the chemical doesn’t cause bee mortality, other scientists are gathering evidence that it does. The Environmental Protection Agency launched a review to determine if several varieties of the insecticide have contributed to the collapse of bee colonies. Its findings are due in 2018. The Obama administration announced the first national strategy to promote the health of bees and other pollinators, following the sharp decline in colony numbers in recent years. USDA bee scientist Jay Evans explains why honeybees are so important and how bees affect food prices. Two years ago, an team of global, independent scientists that formed the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides concluded that neonics are a key factor in bee declines after reviewing a thousand studies. The report said they should be restricted. Hogan has given no indication about his intention to sign or reject the bill, but Del. Anne Healey (D-Prince George’s), who authored the House version, said it had strong bipartisan support, and there appeared to be enough votes to override a veto. “I’m a little nervous talking about things that haven’t happened yet,” Healey said. “There were very strong votes in both houses. The public is very much in favor … of doing something to protect our pollinators in the state.” Healey said a new law would “be a landmark, and it would set a standard that maybe other states would follow.” She called it a “step in the right direction.” Maryland’s Department of Agriculture disagreed, saying that they too care about the decline of bees but that there is little scientific evidence linking it to neonicotinoids. A spokesman at the department declined to comment on the legislation but provided its testimony from a committee hearing opposing it. A beekeeper uses a lift to stack beehives onto


Meteorologists overwhelmingly conclude climate change is real and human-caused

Winter 2015-2016 temperature differences from average over globe. (NOAA) Earth has witnessed its warmest two years on record, 2015 and 2014, over the last two years. At the same time, peer-reviewed studies have piled up demonstrating man’s influence on our climate. Meteorologists, who keep their hands on the pulse of what’s happening to the atmosphere, are taking notice. While some, by their nature, are cautious about emerging scientific ideas and theories, new survey data reveal almost unanimous agreement that the climate is changing and a huge majority support the view that human activities are largely behind it. According to a January survey from George Mason University released today, more than 95 percent of meteorologists think climate change is happening and more than 80 percent of them estimate human activities are at least half-responsible (more than two-thirds “mostly” responsible). (George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2016) Seventeen percent of respondents to the survey said their views about climate change had changed over the past five years and, of those, most (87 percent) said they are more convinced than ever that human-caused changes are happening. They were most persuaded by new peer-reviewed studies, the growing scientific consensus on climate change, and evidence of climate change where they live. “[I]t does appear that more meteorologists are now more convinced that human-caused climate change is happening,” said Ed Maibach, lead author of the survey findings and director of George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication. “That is exactly what one would expect, of course, given the trajectory of our changing climate and the ever increasing of the science.” (George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2016) Meteorologists who participated in the survey held diverse views about how effective mitigation efforts, such as efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, would be in reducing future climate change. “Only 18 percent of survey respondents feel that additional climate change is largely preventable over the next 50 years,” Maibach said. “To me, this finding reinforces the importance of taking adaption actions, so that people and communities aren’t needlessly harmed.”


TB cases increase in U.S. for first time in 23 years

This video from Aeras TB shows tuberculosis survivors speaking on their experience after surviving the deadly disease. "I was scared," one woman said. "I was horrified." The number of tuberculosis cases in the United States rose last year for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia each had more cases in 2015 than 2014, raising questions -- but no definitive answers -- about a possible resurgence of one of the world's deadliest diseases. The overall increase was relatively small: 157 more cases, bringing the 2015 total to 9,563. Two-thirds of the total were among people born abroad, with Asians accounting for the most cases (3,007) and the highest rate (28.2 cases per 100,000 persons). By comparison, there were only .5 cases per 100,000 whites last year. // // "After two decades of declining incidence, progress toward TB elimination in the United States appears to have stalled," the CDC report said. The causes are unclear, it said, and the data need further evaluation if the reasons behind the trend are to be identified. One contributing factor is likely to be reduced or stagnant funding for prevention efforts nationwide. The disease can be difficult to manage and treat, even more so if substance abuse, incarceration or homelessness are involved. Advocates say that people with TB often have other diseases, such as diabetes, that also complicate treatment. The authors noted that reports of TB cases among native-born children are further corroboration of the disease's continued spread in the United States; diagnosis in a young child represents "a sentinel event" signaling recent infection. Tuberculosis is a serious airborne bacterial disease that primarily attacks the lungs. The active form is contagious, while people latently infected don't show symptoms and are not contagious. About 11 million Americas are believed to be in that latter category, according to the CDC's last estimate in 2000. // // The disease is treatable with antibiotics, but the course can be long and complicated. Certain forms of the bacterium that causes TB are becoming impervious to the drugs designed to kill them, leading to the development of multidrug-resistant strains of infection. More than half of cases reported in 2015 were clustered in four states — California, Florida, New York and Texas — which have one-third of the U.S. population. "There have been devastating [budget] cuts


Nobel organization decides to condemn the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, 27 years later

of British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie. The death warrant for the author was originally issued 27 years ago by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Authorities in the Islamic Republic were enraged by Rushdie's then-new novel, "Satanic Verses," which reinterpreted the founding stories of Islam; it was deemed "blasphemous" by Khomeini and other Muslim leaders. The book was banned even in supposedly secular India, the land of Rushdie's birth. The fatwa caused an international outcry and led Britain to sever ties with Iran for almost a decade. While numerous high-profile writers and politicians were rallying around Rushdie, the Swedish Academy demurred from issuing a statement condemning the fatwa out of a desire to avoid political involvement. Two members of the academy quit in protest. Thursday's move followed reports last month in Iran of 40 state-run media outlets raising an additional $600,000 in funds to add onto the existing bounty on Rushdie's head, placed by the original fatwa. This appears to have finally moved the academy, as it suggested in its statement Thursday: Recently, only weeks after the beginning of a normalisation process between Iran and the Western world, the tone again escalated. Forty state-run media outlets grouped together to increase the bounty by an additional USD 600,000. The death sentence and the reward money are flagrant breaches of international law and rules of civilised interaction within the world community and therefore can in no way be compatible with normalisation. The fact that the death sentence has been passed as punishment for a work of literature also implies a serious violation of free speech. The principle of the independence of literature from political control is of fundamental importance for civilisation and must be defended against attacks by avengers and the adherents of censorship. The Swedish Academy decries the retention of the death sentence for Salman Rushdie and that state-controlled media are permitted to encourage violence directed at a writer. Rushdie had to spend over a decade in hiding out of fear of assassination by Muslim extremists. "To hide in this way was to be stripped of all self-respect. To be told to hide was a humiliation," Rushdie wrote in his 2012 memoir, "Joseph Anton," which was voiced in the third person. "Maybe, he thought, to live like this would be worse than death." More on WorldViews The real reason the Palestinian mufti allied with Hitler An exhibition in Iran will mock the Holocaust


Traffic, transit tips for a cherry blossom weekend

The annual Cherry Blossom Festival brings millions of people to D.C. On the second day of peak bloom, The Post headed to the Tidal Basin. We ran into a couple from Baltimore. Here's what happened. This is likely to be a peak weekend for visits to the Tidal Basin’s cherry blossoms, though it’s just the start of the big events that draw crowds throughout the District. The delightful forecast from the Capital Weather Gang bolsters the notion that we’ll have a packed house in the Mall area this weekend. It’s also Easter weekend, so watch for extra traffic around churches throughout the D.C. region, particularly on Sunday morning. An Easter sunrise service is scheduled at the Lincoln Memorial, starting at 6:30 a.m. See below for some Easter street closings in Old Town Alexandria. Because it’s Easter weekend, watch out also for some extra long-distance traffic heading away from the D.C. area. This is likely to be especially noticeable on Friday afternoon for drivers on I-95 south of the Capital Beltway. See a note about that below. Big sporting events: The Wizards play at 7 p.m. Friday at the Verizon Center. D.C. United plays at RFK Stadium at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, and the Capitals have a 7 p.m. game Saturday at Verizon Center. Starting the weekend early, crowds visit the Tidal Basin to smell the cherry blossoms. The warm temperatures accelerated this season’s bloom cycle. Festival events Family Day, another popular event at festival time, is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW. Free for all ages, the events include activities and games focused on parks, planning, landscape design and architecture. Nearest Metro stations: Judiciary Square, Gallery Place. This coming week, look for more tourist crowds on the roads and sidewalks, and in the Metro system. Metro has suspended its regular weekend track work disruptions for the duration of the festival. If you have guests coming in for the festival, make sure they know Metro no longer accepts paper fare cards. They can buy the plastic SmarTrip fare cards at the big blue fare vending machines in the stations. Smithsonian is the Metro station closest to the Tidal Basin, but it’s jammed at blossom time. If you’re up for a little more walking, get off at L’Enfant Plaza, Federal Triangle or Foggy Bottom. For a great walk in good weather, get


People ‘taken away’ as investigation into letter calling for Xi resignation widens

China's President Xi Jinping. (Jason Lee/Reuters) In early March, Wen Yunchao, a New York-based blogger, spotted something unusual in his email: a letter urging China's president to resign. The letter, signed "loyal Communist Party members," blasts President Xi Jinping for "abandoning the principle of collective leadership," concentrating power in his own hands and "indulging" flatterers. It claims to be written out of consideration for Xi and his family's "personal safety." Wen, who also uses the name Bei Feng, soon heard the letter was live on the Web. He did a quick search and found the text on Wujie, a government-linked website, he said. He tweeted the link. That, it seems, was a dangerous move. On Friday, Wen went public with the news that his brother and parents, who live in Guangdong province, in southern China, were this week "taken away" by Chinese authorities. He heard the news from his sister-in-law, he said, who would not disclose what the security personnel told her, or where they were being held. Their detention appears to be linked to the letter: Earlier this month, his father and brother told him they were visited by local officials. They wanted to know about Wen's alleged involvement in "spreading" the document. Wen maintains he merely tweeted the news. He has not been directly contacted by Chinese police, he said. Wen's relatives are not the only people caught in a widening crackdown on people believed, rightly or wrongly, to be linked to the case. On March 15, a Chinese journalist named Jia Jia went missing on his way to a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. Jia's lawyer has said his client did not write the letter. Sources identified as friends of the writer told various media that Jia may have been nabbed for telling Ouyang Hongliang, a Wujie editor, that the letter was online. (With Jia being held incommunicado, that detail is impossible to confirm.) The BBC on Friday reported that as many as 16 Wujie employees have been "taken away" by Chinese authorities. Their report cites an unnamed source within the organization who said that six of the 16 worked in the editorial department, and 10 were on the tech side. The fact that 10 tech staff members were reportedly targeted could lend credence to the theory -- and it's just a theory at this point -- that the letter was published on the site by


5 offbeat brunches to try this weekend

A latte from Maketto, the H Street marketplace from chef Erik Bruner-Yang. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) Somewhere along the way, brunch went from being a leisurely experience to a full-on stress bomb, a mimosa-soaked ritual of crowded restaurants and overpriced eggs. But it doesn't have to be that way. All you have to do is think beyond the pancakes and French toast, and the D.C. area's weekly brunch rush can turn into an exciting -- and, at once, relaxing -- meal. Here are five spots to find great offbeat brunches. The Taiwanese Fried Chicken served at Maketto. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Maketto: The pizza margherita at 2Amys. (Michael Williamson/The Washington Post) 2Amys: Pansaari's owner, Rano Singh, offers a cooking class once weekly at the Dupont Circle restaurant and spice shop. (April Greer for The Washington Post) Pansaari: The mushroom, winter squash and garlicky greens taco from Chaia. (Kate Headley/Chaia.) Chaia: The smoked egg salad sandwich on sunflower-flaxseed bread at Neopol Savory Smokery. (Kate Patterson for the Washington Post.) Union Market:


A possible strategy for reducing voter ignorance about downballot races

problem is exacerbated by the enormous size, scope, and complexity of modern government, which makes it likely that even relatively well-informed voters will know very little about more than a small faction of its activities, and the officials responsible for them. Most voters have little incentive or motivation to try to cut through this confusion. Although it may be difficult for those of us who find politics interesting and exciting to understand, most people prefer to spend their time on other things. As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it, “The single hardest thing for a practising politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics a first thought all day long. Or if they do, it is with a sigh…., before going back to worrying about the kids, the parents, the mortgage, the boss, their friends, their weight, their health, sex and rock ‘n’ roll…. For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.” BallotReady has the virtue of compiling information about candidates for many different offices in one place. But finding the site and going through them all still takes what, for many voters, will seem like considerable time and effort. I suspect that most of the people who take advantage of it are likely to be those who are already relatively well-informed and have an unusually high interest in politics. That would fit the pattern of most previous innovations that increased the availability of political information over the last few decades (summarized in my book on political ignorance). A number of other websites already make it possible to compare various candidates and parties on the issues, without – so far – noticeably increasing voter knowledge. Finally, as I note in my critique of a different recent proposal to increase political knowledge, augmenting voters’ knowledge of candidates’ positions on issues without simultaneously improving public knowledge of the issues themselves may sometimes actually have negative effects, by making it harder for candidates to avoid adopting popular, but harmful policies. Ultimately, I think the best strategy for reducing the problem of voter ignorance is reducing the knowledge burden of voters by cutting back on the size and complexity of government, and making more of our decisions in settings where we have better incentives to be informed. In the meantime, people who are unable or unwilling to to become even minimally informed about


Zika’s terrifying path

Kim Conley’s running career stems from a variety of formative experiences in Northern California’s Sonoma County, home to a long and distinguished distance running tradition. (Carlos Javier Ortiz for The Washington Post) It’s Wednesday, so Kim Conley will run 11 miles, pretty much like any other day, except that on Wednesdays, she runs depleted — meaning she’s eaten exactly nothing. The idea is to be tough, reach down, push herself even harder than every other day. She chews up the miles along the American River in Sacramento to keep shaving off seconds to keep getting closer to Rio. Conley, 30, has been running toward this summer’s Olympic Games for nearly a decade. But she’d also like to have a baby someday. Two things stand between Conley and what could well be her last chance to win an Olympic medal. One is the clock, and she knows she can beat it. She’s lopped seconds off her time every year since she started running seriously. The other is a blood-sucking critter named Aedes, a globe-trotting mosquito with a world-class bite. By the millions, Aedes skeeters are feeding on people who carry an unpredictable virus named Zika, then flitting over to their next victim, chomping down and spreading the disease. The bug’s bites have transmitted the virus to people in more than 20 countries: to pregnant mothers, with devastating consequences for their unborn children; to thousands of other people, who end up with fairly minor aches; and quite possibly this summer, to the best athletes in the world, gathered in one vulnerable place, wearing very little clothing. The scramble to solve the Zika puzzle requires scientists to figure out exactly what threat a hardy breed of mosquitoes poses to people along the virus’s jagged journey. Crossing four continents since the first major outbreak nine years ago, Zika’s painful path now touches an Olympic runner in California, and before her a nurse from Indiana, pregnant women in Colombia, a misshapen infant in Brazil, immunologists in Bethesda, Md., all the way back to the owner of a souvenir shop on a tiny island in the South Pacific, 1,100 miles southeast of the Philippines. The hunt to understand Zika is a race to the very edge of science’s frontier, a race against the ticking clock of myriad pregnancies. See the full graphic here. (Washington Post) Conley’s passion and training push her to keep running toward


Zika’s terrifying path

creation of the perfect protein. Around the country, scientists are studying cells isolated from people recovering from Zika. They need to learn how the virus works on people, why symptoms show up as they have, and how to make the human body defend itself. The goal is a vaccine, produced in the millions of doses, to be given to young children, ideally a one-time, lifelong immunization. On the fourth floor of the Vaccine Research Center, created 16 years ago to develop protection against HIV, the best candidates for a vaccine will be injected into lab mice to see if they become immunized. “The first round of mouse immunizations have not been the best,” says Barney Graham, the virologist who runs the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory. “So we continue. Every week, there’s another mouse experiment.” At the moment, the freezer contains 29 bacterial recipes. The goal is to begin testing vaccines this fall. In lab after lab in their modern glass-and-concrete building, people who’d been working on HIV, Middle East respiratory syndrome or flu vaccines have shifted gears and launched a full-on drive against Zika. They still think mostly in timelines composed of years and decades, but that’s changing. In the past eight years, thanks mainly to research conducted toward an HIV vaccine, the process has sped up as researchers map the atomic structures of a virus and identify antibodies that lead toward a vaccine. Starting in 2003, it took 20 months to develop a vaccine to be tested against SARS. When avian flu hit a couple of years later, the process was slimmed down to 11 months. And in 2009’s H5N1 virus outbreak, the lab got its development work done in four months. If all goes well in Bethesda, a vaccine could be ready for distribution in 2018. “We’re always in a hurry here,” Graham says. “We’re still in a hurry on HIV even though it’s been 15 years. But we’re seeing more and more of these emerging, disruptive viruses now — it’s a sign of changes in ecology, as the ecosystems change from climate shifts or increased mobility.” Last July, two years after a big outbreak of chikungunya virus in South America, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases held a conference in Rockville on “Gaps and Opportunities in Chikungunya Research.” In a hallway during a break, a physician from Brazil, Roberto Jose da Silva Badaro, made it his


A Japanese fleet killed 333 whales for ‘research’

In this September 2013 photo, a minke whale is unloaded at a port after whaling for scientific purposes in Kushiro, Japan, in the northernmost main island of Hokkaido. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) A fleet of four ships returned to Japan on Thursday after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic as part of the country's controversial hunt. The quota of 333 is a third of what Japan used to haul in on average every year. Now, it's the maximum number of kills allowed under the program, which Japanese officials say is all done in the name of science. But not everyone agrees, including the United Nations International Court of Justice. In 2014, the court ordered Japan to halt the program after concluding that research claims couldn't justify the number of kills. Japan temporarily stopped the hunt and proposed a new plan: 4,000 whales killed over 12 years. The International Whaling Commission asked Japan to revise the plan again, but the Asian nation went ahead and resumed the controversial hunt in late 2015. Workers disembark from a whaling ship at the port of Shimonoseki in western Japan on Thursday. (JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images) The fleet spent four months in the Antarctic, killing 333 minke whales, 207 of which were pregnant. "The number of pregnant females is consistent with previous hunts, indicating that the breeding situation of minke whales in the Antarctic is healthy," the Japanese Fisheries Agency said in a statement, Reuters reported. The Fisheries Agency said it also conducted non-lethal research. "Attaching GPS devices helps us study minke whales' migration routes by tracking them for several days," agency official Hiroyuki Morita told AFP. Chef of the Japanese restaurant slices whale meat for a dish in Tokyo on Sept. 11, 2014. (Eugene Hoshiko/AP) Conservationists say labeling the hunt as scientific is a way to skirt international rules; the International Whale Commission allows for scientific exemptions from its 1986 commercial whaling ban. Australia strongly condemned the hunt on Friday. Among the most vocal critics of the practice, Australia brought the International Court of Justice case against Japan. "The Australian government opposes so-called 'scientific' whaling clearly, absolutely and categorically," Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt told AFP on Friday. "It is in my view abhorrent and a throwback to an earlier age... There is no scientific justification for lethal research." Hunt has previously said that "nonlethal research techniques are the most effective and efficient method of studying


Congresswoman calls for cuts to military music.

“Put down that violin and pick up a wrench.” Emily Leader, a member of the U.S. Army Band, in a 2014 photo. This week, Martha McSally, a Republican congresswoman, became the latest in a long string of detractors claiming that the bands are a waste of taxpayer money. (Photo: SFC Chris Branagan, U.S. Army.) Martha McSally, a Republican Congresswoman from Arizona, made waves this week by attacking the Air Force’s bands. “We have hundreds of people playing the tuba and clarinet,” she said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. “If we really had a manning crisis, from my perspective, we would really tell people to put down the tuba and pick up a wrench or gun.” An attack on the arts? From the point of view of military band leaders, it’s more of the same. “I’ve been doing this for 24 years,” said Colonel Larry H. Lang, the commander and conductor of the United States Air Force Band. “I can’t remember a time when we weren’t defending ourselves. It’s nothing new. It’s like in the civilian sector, arts and music in schools are always under attack by people who think they’re extracurricular when you and I would think they’re primary. It’s the same in the military. We believe we bring an important role, and keep defending ourselves. The detractors will never go away.” Colonel Lang made these comments to me, by telephone, in 2014, when I was writing an article on military bands. McSally’s sally only demonstrates his point. [Military bands offer musicians great jobs, similar challenges to orchestras.] The military bands are one of the largest employers of musicians in the country. On the elite level, particularly, they do employ musicians. That tuba player that McSally has in her sights has trained as a tuba player for most of his or her life, and probably went to conservatory — and might be a lot more dangerous, and a lot less useful to our country, wielding a wrench or gun that he or she doesn’t know how to use properly. Most of the service bands, to be sure, do require musicians to go through basic training, but the musicians don’t necessarily stay in fighting trim or expand their military skill sets. They’re too busy playing. As for those performances – which in 2014, for the Air Force bands, amounted to some 1600 a year: some of them


Cygnus spacecraft reaches space station in ‘textbook rendezvous’

A Cygnus spacecraft on its way to deliver supplies to the International Space Station in December. (Courtesy of Orbital ATK) An unmanned spacecraft carrying 6,300 pounds of supplies and science experiments caught up Saturday morning with the International Space Station as it flew 252 miles above the Indian Ocean. The Cygnus spacecraft, made by Dulles-based Orbital ATK, had launched late Tuesday from Cape Canaveral on its journey to the orbiting laboratory. Flying at more than 15,000 mph, the spacecraft was captured by the station’s robotic arm at 6:51 a.m. Eastern time in what a NASA official called a “textbook rendezvous.” The spacecraft was launched atop an Atlas V rocket that Oribtal ATK hired from the United Launch Alliance (ULA), the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The first stage of the Atlas V’s engines cut off slightly early, forcing the second stage to compensate to get the spacecraft into the correct orbit. As a result, ULA said it would delay the rocket’s next scheduled launch by a week so it could “further review the data anomaly” experienced during the launch. But as the robotic arm grappled the spacecraft Saturday morning, NASA said the spacecraft “executed to perfection.” It is the first of three resupply missions to the station in coming weeks. Next week, a Russian Progress is expected to arrive at the station, followed by SpaceX’s Dragon capsule in April. That launch would be SpaceX’s first to the station NASA since its Falcon 9 rocket blew up last year on a similar mission to deliver supplies to astronauts.