Put government labs to work on climate change

problem. While strides have been made — by both industry and government — in developing alternative energy sources, renewables still provide only a sliver of the U.S. energy profile. The scale of renewable energy research and development needs to be radically increased. ●Carbon capture and storage. Shale gas development in the United States and Canada is generating jobs and revenue and could substantially decrease our reliance on petroleum. But shale gas is still gas — methane: a fossil fuel that when burned produces carbon dioxide. Large-scale development may exacerbate the climate problem if inexpensive gas undercuts the market for renewables. If, however, shale gas development could be coupled with carbon capture and storage, trapping the carbon dioxide produced, then this resource might be usable without worsening climate change. ●Energy storage. Wind and solar are real sources of energy, but only when the wind blows or the sun shines. Yet many wind and solar projects produce excess capacity that could be used later or elsewhere if it could be stored. Ideas for renewable-energy storage need to be developed and expanded. ●Social obstacles to energy efficiency. Numerous studies show that Americans could cut energy use by 30 percent or more through efficiency measures and save money at the same time. Yet most of us don’t. This is a bit of a mystery for economists; social science research in the laboratory system should be mobilized to figure out why we don’t save energy and money even when we could. ●Climate engineering. Deliberate alteration of the climate to compensate for inadvertent modification is a technically and ethically troubling concept, but it may be one of the only available means to slow climate warming and buy time while other solutions are implemented. Physical scientists should expand their work in this area, and social scientists and humanists should be enlisted to address the ethical dimensions and governance issues. Curiosity-driven science has not yet provided the solutions to global warming, and universities are not well situated to address a single, overarching problem. Moreover, the president does not have authority over our nation’s universities. But he does have authority over our national laboratory system. The labs have been mobilized before; the time has come to mobilize them again. Read more at PostOpinions: The Post’s View: Paying Sandy’s big bill Editorial Board: A sweltering planet’s agenda Eugene Robinson: Hot enough for you? Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Avoiding a climate-change apocalypse


Model plane hobbyists know the risks of lithium-ion batteries

Two major airlines in Japan grounded all Boeing 787 jets Jan. 16 after one had to make an emergency landing, the Associated Press reports. This comes about a week after the FAA launched a review of the Dreamliner after a spate of technical glitches earlier in January. It’s been less than a year since the new jet stopped at Reagan National Airport as part of a world tour. A scale model of a Reaper drone rumbled down the runway and lifted into the gray Canadian sky, powered by a plastic propeller and a lithium-ion battery. When the tiny plane crashed back to earth a few seconds later, white smoke began rising from the wreckage. “Why is it on fire?” one of the hobbyists asked the other, moments before bright orange flames began shooting from the crash site. The weary reply, captured on video, was: “Battery.” Small, potent lithium-ion power packs have transformed the world of radio-controlled model aircraft, much as they have allowed smartphones to get thinner, power tools to work longer and electric cars to go farther. But a pair of serious incidents this month involving rechargeable batteries in Boeing 787 Dreamliners have highlighted what model-airplane hobbyists long have known — lithium-ion technology comes with inherent dangers. Considering the sheer numbers of lithium-ion batteries — more than 4 billion rechargeable cells were made last year, according to industry figures — fires are not common. After a battery-powered Chevy Volt ignited after a test crash in 2011, federal investigators said electric cars were no more vulnerable than gas-powered vehicles, more than 20 of which catch fire each hour in the United States. Yet some risk persists, and the results can be startling. When a cellphone battery overheats — a rare event — it can eject itself with a loud “pop,” leaving singe marks behind. Lithium-ion battery packs can have prolonged fires as each cell, typically the size of a man’s finger, gradually ignites. “It could be a smoke bomb. It could be a flamethrower,” said Gerard Back, a senior engineer with Hughes Associates, a fire-protection company in Baltimore that investigated the Volt incident. “I’ve seen them look like every type of firework you can imagine.” Boeing and other manufacturers are keenly aware of this peril and have built in safety features designed to keep voltages within safe limits, prevent short circuits and confine damage when problems do occur. Lithium-ion batteries


aviation as well, allowing for planes that are lighter and use less fuel. The cause of the incidents with the Dreamliner battery packs remains under investigation by safety officials. The jets were ordered grounded in the United States and several other nations this week. The batteries carried in the holds of cargo planes are suspected as possible factors in two fatal crashes in recent years, according to the Air Line Pilots Association International, which is lobbying to have cells classified as dangerous goods requiring special handling, adequate fire suppression and notification to pilots who carry them. Cargo planes sometimes carry tens of thousands of cells stacked together on pallets, increasing the danger, said Mark Rogers, director of the dangerous goods program for the pilots association. “There’s no way to engineer your way out of the problem,” he said. “No matter what you do, you’re going to have incidents.” Lithium-ion battery packs typically are made of a collection of individual cells. Coiled within each are three layers — one positively charged, one negatively charged and the third a “separator” film that keeps the charged layers apart. There also is an organic fluid that, at high temperatures, is flammable. Fires start when electricity moves in an uncontrolled way between the positively and negatively charged layers. The cause can be manufacturing defects or damage — anything that allows the positive and negative layers to touch, causing a short-circuit and what experts call “thermal runaway.” Manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries say their technology is safe when international standards are followed. Problems occur mainly with lower-quality, counterfeit batteries, or when cells are shipped improperly or mishandled by consumers, said George Kerchner, executive director of the Rechargeable Battery Association. “When you damage these cells and you abuse them, you certainly are inviting problems,” he said. For those who fly radio-controlled model airplanes, fires typically happen when batteries are overcharged, or when wiring mistakes cause short-circuits. And, then, of course, there are the crashes: The resulting damage can causes wires to touch, separator film to tear, or the positive and negative layers to come into direct contact with each other. Damage can be subtle enough that an apparently undamaged battery can burst into flames long after an accident. Hobbyists say they sense danger when their battery packs get “puffy,” typically the result of gases that can be the first sign of thermal runaway. The Rechargeable Battery Association’s Kerchner


Lance Armstrong confession gets specific in Oprah Winfrey interview

in which Armstrong discloses everything he knows about doping in professional cycling, would warrant revisiting his lifetime ban from competition, Howman said. Armstrong referred to himself as “flawed” more than once. Other times, he referred to his actions in the third person, almost clinically, as if studying a pathology. Diagnosed with testicular cancer in October 1996, Armstrong launched his Livestrong Foundation in 1997. Through its yellow plastic bracelets proclaiming the organization’s name, he was largely responsible for a paradigm shift among millions diagnosed with cancer. Rather than cancer victims, they identified themselves as cancer survivors. But the fight he summoned to defeat cancer, Armstrong suggested, bled over into his competitive life with regrettable effect. “Before my diagnosis, I would say I was a competitor, but I wasn’t a fierce competitor,” Armstrong told Winfrey. “In an odd way, that process turned me into a person that was truly win-at-all-costs. I will do anything I have to to survive. And that’s good! And I took that attitude — that ruthless, relentless attitude — right into cycling. And that’s bad.” Presented with video clips of him lying under oath and mocking skeptics who doubted the “miracle” of his achievements, Armstrong responded with nervous laughter and conceded that he was “a jerk.” Armstrong didn’t simply deny his doping: He attacked his accusers, calling one former teammate’s wife “crazy,” implied that a masseuse was “a whore,” sued London’s Sunday Times for libel in 2004 , collecting a $1.5 million settlement. And after former teammate Tyler Hamilton disclosed on “60 Minutes” in 2011 that he had seen Armstrong use performance-enhancing drugs, Armstrong confronted him in an Aspen restaurant and vowed to “make your life a living hell.” While conceding the veracity of many such witnesses against him, Armstrong took issue with several of the charges and characterizations in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s nearly 1,000-page report that led to his downfall in October. Armstrong flatly denied that he ever ordered a teammate to dope in order to remain on the U.S. Postal Service team. And he insisted that a six-figure donation to cycling’s international governing body was not a payment to make a positive drug test disappear. More on Lance Armstrong: Live blog transcript Inside whistleblower lawsuit The complete Floys Landis whistleblower lawsuit Armstrong to do more than confess Hamilton: Apology feels calculated IOC takes back bronze medal Cycling forum Video: Armstrong might return millions Gallery: Armstrong


Web activists celebrate ‘Internet Freedom Day’

Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act, they’ve also got their eyes on a larger fight. Friday, Jan. 18, is now known as “Internet Freedom Day,” organized by the groups that rallied an unexpected force of Internet users to support the concept of the open Web. As part of Internet Freedom Day, Web advocacy groups are asking for people to take that momentum to a variety of causes, including demanding updates to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, sending letters to the House and Senate Judiciary committees to ask them to support an open Web and participating in a University of California study about Internet activism. In the year since the fight over SOPA and PIPA, there have been a few additional victories for open Internet advocates, notably decisions from Republicans and Democrats to put a commitment to an open Internet in their political platforms. The day’s activities and actions are also tinged with sadness, as many groups are dedicating their efforts to the memory of one of their own, Aaron Swartz, and advocate for changes to federal computer fraud law. He was best known as the co-author of the technology behind RSS and an early force in the creation of Reddit. Swartz, who was found dead in his apartment last week of an apparent suicide, was facing charges for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Those violations carried the possibility of 35 years in prison and a million-dollar fine, though the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case, Carmen Ortiz, said in a statement this week that her office never intended to pursue the maximum penalty. In response to his death, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has circulated a draft bill that she is calling “Aaron’s Law,” which proposes that cases in which users have violated online terms of service fall under the jurisdiction of civil courts. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a lawmaker who was very prominent in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, has also said that he will lead an investigation into how the Justice Department handled Swartz’s case. Issa is the chairman of the House Oversight committee. Related stories: With SOPA gone, setting Internet advocacy’s next stop Web sites go dark in SOPA protest against plans to ban online piracy Sign up today to receive #thecircuit, a daily roundup of the latest tech policy news from Washington and how it is shaping business, entertainment and science.


Why Lance Armstrong’s doping confession may not be enough

USADA’s report There isn’t a friends-and-family plan large enough to cover the people Armstrong needed to call, and his plan had better have unlimited minutes, because now he has to apologize for cheating and lying. They are separate bad acts, but while cheating may outweigh lying in the sports world, and is no doubt a character flaw, it can (and has been) punished by that same sports world. (And no, I don’t buy the “everyone was doing it” argument that some of his loyal supporters still use. That’s the argument of a teenager pushing the parental boundaries, not a debate point for a grown man who is supposed to know right from wrong.) FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, file photo provided by Harpo Studios Inc., Lance Armstrong listens as he is interviewed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey during taping for the show "Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive" in Austin, Texas. Armstrong confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France cycling during the interview that aired Thursday, Jan. 17, reversing more than a decade of denial. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc., George Burns, File) (George Burns/AP) The Post’s Cindy Boren agrees, saying the first part of the confession hasn’t won anyone over: The myth of Lance Armstrong ended a long time before the first part of his interview with Oprah Winfrey ran Thursday night and it isn’t likely that he changed any minds with his admission of doping and bullying. Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said in a statement that Armstrong’s mea culpas were “a small step in the right direction,” but the night’s winner was Winfrey, not Armstrong. He may have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs (specifically, he said his “cocktail” of choice was EPO, testosterone and blood transfusions), but the first step of his apology tour fell flat. Gaining the world’s affection and admiration won’t be as easy for Armstrong this time around. Armstrong’s comments were “new and noteworthy,” Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News writes, “only because one of the great phonies and great frauds in the history of sports was finally saying this himself, not saying he was clean when he wasn’t, not attacking the real truth tellers, not suing anybody who tried to cross him, not calling his accusers crazy and calling them whores.” Armstrong spoke of his bullying and his


Flu season taking high toll on elderly

two FDA-approved influenza antiviral treatments are Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) and Relenza (zanamivir). As many as a third to one-half of those hospitalized for flu are not getting antiviral treatment this season, he said. Treatment within the first 48 hours is most effective and can reduce severe illness, hospitalization and death. “We’re not doing as well as we should be doing,” Frieden said. The numbers and rates of hospitalizations and deaths are expected to rise further in the next week or so as the season continues, he said. Twenty-nine children or teens have died this season, compared with 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season. Maryland reported on Friday its first flu-related pediatric death since the 2009-2010 season, when there were two such deaths. No details were given. Those at high risk include people with asthma, diabetes, heart disease, pregnant women and children with neurological disorders. If they have flu symptoms, they should get treated early, even if a rapid flu test comes back negative, he said. In the Washington area, hospitals and physicians said the crush in the emergency rooms and their offices had eased somewhat, but overall visits remain much higher than last year, which was an unusually mild and short flu season. “I would hope that we’ve seen the peak and may have now plateaued,” said William Frohna, chief of the emergency department at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “Last week we were a notch busier than we are this week.” Influenza season typically progresses in phases. After cases begin to increase, complications develop and are reflected later in reports of hospitalizations and deaths. This year’s flu season arrived about a month before authorities normally see it, and the earliest since the 2003-04 flu season. CDC officials had warned that the early arrival and the predominant strain circulating this year could make for a bad flu season. The primary strain is the H3N2, an influenza A virus that has been associated in the past with more severe flu seasons. Even though this season’s vaccine is well-matched to the primary strain, bad flu seasons take the greatest toll on the elderly, who account for about 90 percent of all flu-related deaths. Each year, thousands of people die from the flu. “In a bad flu year, tens of thousands die,” Frieden said. In the 2003-2004 flu season, the CDC has estimated there were more than 48,000 influenza-associated


Flu season taking high toll on elderly

was an unusually mild and short flu season. “I would hope that we’ve seen the peak and may have now plateaued,” said William Frohna, chief of the emergency department at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “Last week we were a notch busier than we are this week.” Influenza season typically progresses in phases. After cases begin to increase, complications develop and are reflected later in reports of hospitalizations and deaths. This year’s flu season arrived about a month before authorities normally see it, and the earliest since the 2003-04 flu season. CDC officials had warned that the early arrival and the predominant strain circulating this year could make for a bad flu season. The primary strain is the H3N2, an influenza A virus that has been associated in the past with more severe flu seasons. Even though this season’s vaccine is well-matched to the primary strain, bad flu seasons take the greatest toll on the elderly, who account for about 90 percent of all flu-related deaths. Each year, thousands of people die from the flu. “In a bad flu year, tens of thousands die,” Frieden said. In the 2003-2004 flu season, the CDC has estimated there were more than 48,000 influenza-associated respiratory and circulatory deaths. For the two weeks ended Jan. 12, lab-confirmed influenza hospitalizations for those 65 and older climbed sharply. The hospitalization rate for that age group is 82 per 100,000 people, compared with 18 per 100,000 people for all age groups this season. The high rate for the elderly is comparable to that of 2003-04, another bad season when H3N2 was the predominant strain. But officials pointed out that this season is not over. Thirty states — including Maryland and Virginia — are experiencing high levels of influenza-like illness, up from 24 states the previous week. But the proportion of outpatient visits for flulike illness, while still high, fell slightly for the week ended Jan. 12. To address spot shortages of some versions of Tamiflu for children, the Food and Drug Administration has given the maker of Tamiflu approval to release about 2 million doses of a reserve stock of capsules. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the medicine is the same as Tamiflu in circulation, but package inserts lack some information pharmacists need for mixing a pediatric version. The agency has alerted pharmacists and other providers to provide them with current information before dispensing. Officials on Friday also


Lance Armstrong interview analysis: He confessed, but . . .

“whore” after she disclosed he had gotten a cortisone prescription backdated to explain away his improper use of the performance enhancer, Armstrong said, “She is one of the people that got run over and got bullied,” neglecting to point out that he was the one driving the steamroller. Asked if he had made amends with Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy, whom he attacked and called “crazy” for disclosing that she’d heard Armstrong confess to using banned substances in a hospital room in 1996, Armstrong said: “No, because they’ve been hurt too badly.” And so it went, with nearly every confession followed by a rationalization or arm’s-length, dis-embodied reflection. “I am flawed. Deeply flawed,” Armstrong said. “We all have our flaws.” To Armstrong biographer Daniel Coyle, the overall effect was regrettable. “It felt like a painful and mostly unnecessary therapy session that took place on stage in front of tens of millions of people,” Coyle said. “There were many moments, maybe 75 or 80 percent of it, when it was the old Lance: defiant, pushing back, not displaying any emotional connection. And there were flashes of insight. But by and large, this is a guy who doesn’t yet get the big picture.” Richard Pound, former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said he sensed Armstrong was more chagrined by his fall from grace than contrite over the doping that led to it. That said, Pound likened his confession to the necessary first step of a recovering alcoholic. “Unless you get them to acknowledge there is a problem, there’s no possibility of a cure,” Pound said. “He has now come forward and acknowledged what everybody knew.” But that won’t be enough to persuade WADA to revisit its lifetime ban. If Armstrong wants to compete again, he’ll have to testify under oath — a point Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, made clear Thursday night. Pound elaborated. “We want to know how you did it? Who was involved? How was it protected? How was it that you had so many drug tests — he says 600; it was half that, at most — throughout a period you were using, and none of the tests were positive? Who helped? Who was involved? How did the money flow?” Pound said. “For him to say, ‘I’m taking personal responsibility,’ be our guest. But, by the way, don’t show up anywhere in the future.”


Kathleen Parker: Lance Armstrong’s confession without contrition

To the world-weary, Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah Winfrey was just one more in a series. The process of public contrition is by now yawningly familiar: Comfortably seated in front of cameras, the high priestess of the mea culpa faces the penitent. The accused agrees to terms of engagement, his reflexive grin/grimace a foreshadowing of the little deaths to come. Remotes to the ready, America prepares to watch and judge. This is familiar turf for Oprah, America’s First Interrogator — often having previously been First Endorser. She once sang the praises of James Frey, who fabricated most of his drug-abuse autobiography, “A Million Little Pieces,” and then had to call him back to the couch to hash out his deception. Now, with Oprah having once been a champion of Armstrong, urging Americans to wear his yellow gel “Livestrong” bracelet in solidarity with the cancer survivor/champion, it is Armstrong’s turn to explain himself. Did he dope? Yes. Did he boost his blood with EPO? Yes. Did he lie, betray and bully? Yes, all that. Did he feel guilty? Not really. Guilt without shame. Did it feel wrong at the time? No. “Scary,” he says. “Did you feel bad about it?” No. “Even scarier.” This is not sounding much like contrition because, well, it isn’t. Matter-of-factly, Armstrong tells Oprah that he was just leveling the playing field, doing what was necessary to compete in a sport where doping apparently was widespread. Indeed, some familiar with the field argue that, if all had cycled clean, Armstrong still would have won. This is of no consolation to those who feel betrayed or who have been bullied by Armstrong through the years. Of all his sins, Armstrong’s persistent bullying toward any who questioned his drug use — often suing them, successfully — seems to be the most unforgivable. The doping might shatter dreams and myths, but the lying breaks hearts. In thinking through the events of the past several years, one would like to imagine that Armstrong accidentally fell into a hole from which he could not emerge. Protecting the myth to advance the greater good was perhaps the more compelling imperative. Toward this end, one could perhaps self-justify. Finally caught, he had no recourse. Admission is not so noble or virtuous when the facts are unavoidable. There’s nothing left to do but say, yes, I did it. Confession — authentic confession — is something


Germany initiates gun registry, to barely a peep

Members of a Bavarian riflemen's association fire a shoot during the traditional 'Boellerschiessen' (firing of a salute with a special gun) on the last day of the Oktoberfest beer festival on Oct. 7, 2012 in Munich, Germany. (Johannes Simon/GETTY IMAGES) Imagine a vast registry that details every legal gun owner in the country, along with information about all of their firearms. Now imagine the gun lobby not making a fuss about it. That’s what has happened in Germany, where a new gun database went into service at the beginning of the year. Until recently, some records were kept on index cards across what used to be 551 separate local registries. Now, law enforcement officials can sit down at their computers and scroll through lists of owners and their guns in seconds. Hunting is popular in Germany, and gun manufacturers are plentiful and powerful. But the push toward increased regulation and oversight, spurred by a string of school shootings in recent years, has come with little opposition from gun groups. Many gun advocates say that if cars can be registered and regulated, so can weapons. Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. The tone is far different from that in Washington, where the Newtown, Conn., shootings have prompted President Obama to unveil proposals to ban assault weapons and tighten background checks. There, opponents in Congress — including some Democrats — have expressed skepticism about sweeping new regulations. The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has proposed increasing the number of weapons at schools, a measure that would be unlikely to draw much support in Germany. “The German minister of interior promised to guarantee a very high level of security of the data, so for us it’s not a problem,” said Frank Goepper, the general manager of Forum Waffenrecht, one of Germany’s main gun rights groups. “We are used to it,” Goepper said of German regulations, which are significantly stricter than in the United States. “We are able to go hunting with it. We are able to do our sports with it. So it works.” Now, German law enforcement agencies know that there are 5.5 million legally registered guns in their country of 80 million people. Law enforcement officials say the gun database will help them quickly trace ownership if they find a legally registered gun connected to a crime. If they are preparing a raid on


The costs of an underfunded military

On Jan. 15, Walter Pincus’s Fine Print column, “The unaffordability of the all-volunteer military,” railed about the high cost of defense personnel programs, while Mr. Pincus’s Post colleague Ernesto Londoño cited the record suicide rate among military personnel in 2012 [“More U.S. troops lost to suicide than combat in 2012”]. The significant rise in suicide rates “underscores the toll a decade of wars has taken on the all-volunteer force,” Mr. Londoño reported. Neither piece fully explored the increasing demands and associated stress on personnel defending our nation, and neither noted the declining defense budget as a percentage of gross domestic product, particularly in comparison to past wartime periods. Drawing conclusions about military compensation and retirement by comparing military service to civilian employment neglects the level of risk and responsibility shouldered by the 1 percent of our population who serve in the armed forces. Just as highly vaunted and growing entitlement and social programs are important to our country, military compensation, health care, retirement and benefit programs are essential to sustaining the all-volunteer force and vital to maintaining readiness and ensuring our national security. Readiness and national security come with a price, both monetary and incalculable in lives lost or altered by military service. It isn’t a question of the unaffordability of an all-volunteer force. It’s a matter of priorities and whether lawmakers find it unaffordable to defend our nation. Joe Barnes, Alexandria The writer is national executive director of the Fleet Reserve Association.


Lance Armstrong, Manti Te’o and modern mythmaking

Cycling legend admits he doped to win all seven Tour de France races but said at the time he “viewed it as a level playing field.” “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” — Mark Twain Many of our greatest athletic champions come from dark, needy places. It’s a Faustian bargain inconvenient to acknowledge: The qualities that empower the truly elite athletes — ruthless drive, narcissistic focus, competitive obsession — are characteristics we’d find repulsive outside athletics. Incandescent in their sports, some of the greatest athletes I’ve ever met and covered are simply pedestrian as human beings. That’s why the alternative narratives begin to distract from — if not completely paper over — the less savory realities. It usually starts small, ranging from better versions of the truth to outright lies, but legends grow quickly when the tribe of followers counts in the millions. When Lance Armstrong attempted to explain to Oprah Winfrey why he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs for 13 years, his answer was revealing: “This story was so perfect for so long,” Armstrong said. “I mean that, as I try to take myself out of the situation, and I look at it: You overcome the disease. You win the Tour de France seven times. You have a happy marriage. You have children. . . . It’s just this mythic, perfect story. And it wasn’t true. “I was a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative.” The past week was a dumpster fire for modern sports myths, and whatever homespun ideals remained of hard work, integrity, sportsmanship and, hell, Internet dating were also engulfed in gigantic flames. And as we wring our hands over the inadequacies of Armstrong’s confession and the inconsistencies of Manti Te’o’s story — or, years ago, Tiger Woods’s infidelities — we have to acknowledge our role in the mythology. The stories that are too good to be true are the same ones we embrace, and retell, the most. In the 1950s, Hall of Fame basketball coach Clair Bee wrote a series of novels about a high school student named Chip Hilton whose athletic prowess was outshone only by his moral compass. Millions of copies were sold More than a half-century later, we’re desperate for another Chip Hilton, and we’re angry when we discover our latest candidate just dropped out of Valley Falls High, bummed


Fuel energy innovation with a carbon price tag

as recently as 2007. In short, 2012 was the year that climate change made its impact, more than any other year in modern history. Worse, it’s just the beginning — a small taste of what’s to come. It’s time to admit what climate change is. It’s a national security threat — a threat that has already destroyed the nation’s property, wrecked its crops and taken the lives of its citizens. Against that threat, our most powerful weapon is innovation: innovation in solar and wind power, in energy efficiency, in batteries and other energy storage techniques, in advance biofuels that suck carbon out of the air as they’re made. Innovation in all of those fields is happening. Indeed, it’s happening at an astounding pace. Yet even so, it’s not progressing quickly enough to put us on track to avoid the worst of climate change. We need to move faster. Under normal conditions, the market would recognize this threat and shift even more resources towards innovation in green energy and related fields. But today’s market — where anyone can pump an unlimited amount of carbon into the atmosphere at no cost — is deeply flawed. It’s crippled by an underlying assumption that the consumption or pollution of our common resources, such as our climate, comes at no cost. As anyone who lived through superstorm Sandy will tell you, the cost is very real, and far from zero. If Congress and the President want to unleash the power of innovation against the national security threat that is climate change, they must first empower the market that drives the bulk of R&D investments in this country. And to do so, they must put a price on carbon. Ramez Naam is a former Microsoft manager and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is the former CEO of Apex Nanotechnologies and author of the forthcoming book, “The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet”. Ramez Naam is the former CEO of Apex Nanotechnologies and author of "The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet." (Photo by Jessica Glein) (Jessica Glein) The Roundtable: Shirley Ann Jackson | Invest in what is next Christoper Altchek and Jake Horowitz | Meet millennials in new places Peter Diamandis | Keep your eye on the prize Read more news and ideas on Innovations and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.


Invest in what is next

The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen on Capitol Hill August 28, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/GETTY IMAGES) This piece is part of a roundtable centered around innovation prescriptions for the new Congress and President Barack Obama’s second term. Read more about the roundtable here. Pause for a moment, and think back on what you did in the last hour. What device did you use to communicate with other people? How did you get from place to place? What medication did you take? What is in your immediate environment? How is the room heated or cooled. How is the air circulated, the area illuminated, or the food made? How did you check the time, the news, the weather, or your child’s homework assignments? Now, reflect on the last ten years. It is difficult not to be in awe about how much our daily lives have changed because of advances in science and technology. Imagine the change the next 10 years may bring. The daily routines of our lives are dependent on scientific discovery and technological innovation in pervasive and essential ways that most people rarely stop to think about. Yet, we find ourselves at an interesting inflection point. On the one hand, new tools and new thinking — particularly in the areas of “big data,” high performance computing, and Web science -- offer the potential for extraordinary scientific discoveries and technological innovations that could change the way we communicate, work, travel, and live. These pervasive changes could drive our economy for generations. “Big data”-driven innovation will be a force for change in science and society during the next 50 years, in much the same way quantum science was for technological and economic development in the 20th century. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is the President of Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. (Lonny Kalfus/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) But looming, deep federal cuts in scientific research and development funding could do significant damage. These cuts stand to dramatically slow the pace of economic growth in the U.S., undermine our national security, hinder our competitiveness, and reverse any recent gains we have made in developing the human capital -- the young scientists and engineers – so essential for innovation. Ironically, other nations are not standing still, and, indeed, are emulating the model for growth and development that has made the U.S. the most powerful country in the world. It is a time


Nando’s Peri Peri to expand beyond Washington area

Nando’s Peri-Peri, the South Africa-based chain of fast-casual restaurants that specializes in chicken, is opening its 11th Washington area eatery in the Boilermaker building at the Yards in Southeast D.C. The company said it is in the process of signing a lease for a 2,866-square-foot space. HapstakDemetriou, the Washington-based architecture firm behind eateries like Zaytinya and Poste, has been tapped to design the new restaurant. Nando’s, which arrived in Washington’s Chinatown in 2008, also has plans to open its first Baltimore location in March. So far, all of the company’s U.S. restaurants are in the Washington area. “We’re not about leap-frogging or having one location each in New York, Miami and L.A.,” said Burton Heiss, chief executive for the company’s U.S. operations. “Rather we’re looking to build a strong foundation in one city at a time and grow organically.” Revenue at area restaurants has grown 70 percent during each of the past three years, Heiss said, adding that he expects similar sales growth in 2013. He declined to disclose figures. Nando’s has long been interested in expanding to the Yards, an up-and-coming neighborhood nestled between Navy Yard and Nationals Park, Heiss said. But during the recession, several new developments in the area stalled. Now that work on a number of buildings has resumed, Heiss said it seemed like a good time to open a location in the Boilermaker Shops, a former naval industrial building that Forest City is renovating into retail spaces and offices. “It seems like the dominos have fallen now and it’s going to be a great entertainment destination,” Heiss said. “It’s hard not to think it’s going to be like the area around the Verizon Center someday.” Nando’s has 1,020 restaurants throughout Africa, Europe and Asia. Later this year, the company plans to set its sights on another American city such as New York or Philadelphia. In all, it plans to open between 12 and 14 new locations in 2013. “We’re continuing to expand at a very good pace,” Heiss said.


Searching for an Alzheimer’s cure

More than five million people across the United States and some 30 million worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s, a devastating disease that attacks the brain and leads to memory loss, the inability to perform daily tasks and functions, and eventually death. Neil Buckholtz, the director of the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, has been the driving force behind an ambitious public-private partnership focused on finding the biological markers that show how Alzheimer’s progresses in the brain so that researchers can more quickly target the testing of new drugs to slow or stop the disease. “Alzheimer’s disease is a major public health problem which will only get much worse if new ways to treat and prevent it are not found,” said Buckholtz. “It is critical for the federal government to facilitate the discovery, development and testing of new therapeutics to help people and their families who are desperately in need.” This multi-million dollar project, started in 2004 and now in its second phase, has led to clinical trials at 57 sites in the United States and Canada, and involved participation of the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, universities, nonprofits and numerous pharmaceutical, diagnostic and biotechnology companies. The initiative is unique not just because of its ambitious goals and the broad coalition of participants, but because of the requirement conceived by Buckholtz and colleagues that all of the data and findings be made available on a public database for use by scientists around the world. The database contains thousands of brain scan images, clinical and neuropsychological data, genetic information, and blood and cerebrospinal fluid analyses. Unlike most clinical trials, no one owns this data or can submit patent applications, but companies could eventually benefit from any drugs or imaging tests that are developed from use of the information. There are only a handful of medications approved for treatment of Alzheimer’s in the United States, but they do not stop the disease and have only marginal effects on the symptoms. The project, formally known as the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, has led to more than 170 scientific papers, helped lead to new insights into people at high risk of Alzheimer’s progression, and accelerated the testing of new medications. This collaboration also has been a model for biomarker studies in other diseases such as Parkinson’s and Down syndrome. “This collaborative effort has deepened our understanding of this


Stink bugs could mount a comeback this spring in the Washington area

Doug Inkley holds a stink bug on his finger in Knoxville, Md. He vacuumed 26,000 stink bugs in his home from January through June in 2011 and another 30,000 in pheromone traps outside from July through September of 2011. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) After a relative reprieve from the scourge of the brown marmorated stink bug — the infamous pest known for devastating crops and emitting a pungent odor when crushed or irritated — experts caution that it will likely make a reappearance in the Washington area this year. The comeback would come two years after many farmers throughout the Mid-Atlantic states saw their crops extensively damaged by swarms of the brown, shield-shaped insects. The stink bugs, known to feed on more than 300 varieties of host plants, resulted in about $37 million in losses from damage to apple crops alone in 2010; crops of raspberries and blackberries were also ravaged, and many organic farmers saw significant damage to crops of tomatoes, peppers and beans, experts reported. Lawmakers, entomologists and the agricultural community scrambled for a solution to a problem that was only expected to worsen. The Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 approved an exemption for a highly toxic insecticide to help growers fight the insects. Homeowners braced themselves for the unwelcome presence of the bugs, which seek sheltered places — such as houses, garages and barns — to hibernate for the winter. Farmers prepared for another year of battle in their fields, orchards and vineyards. But then scientists and farmers alike noticed a sudden and dramatic decrease in the number of stink bugs during the fall of 2011. Entomologists are still unsure how to explain the change. It’s possible, they said, that a succession of strong storms late that summer culled the population. “Just when it was getting really bad, it started getting better,” said Doug Fabbioli, a fruit grower and winemaker who owns Fabbioli Cellars in Leesburg. But now, scientists caution, the insects appear to be resurgent. Christopher Bergh, a Virginia Tech associate professor of entomology, said the overwintering population of bugs this past fall was “substantially larger” than that observed in 2011. “I don’t want to raise any red flags unnecessarily,” he said. “But growers are going to definitely need to remain vigilant starting in the 2013 season.” Bergh said the early arrival of spring last year also helped farmers and growers avoid the worst of the


Crowded grocery field squeezes out smaller chains

Denis Trana, a meat cutter for 14 years at Magruder’s, is unsure of his future Tuesday, January 15, 2013 in Gaithersburg, MD. The 35-year-old says he has three children and a mortgage and is afraid he will be told not to come into work any more because in one day, the store sold nearly all the meat and there is nothing to do. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) An increasingly crowded field of big-box supermarkets is squeezing out many of the smaller do-it-all grocers that tried to compete directly with the national chains. The latest small player to be elbowed out is Magruder’s, a Rockville-based, family-owned chain that has roots dating back to 1875. On Wednesday, its owners announced that they had sold one location and are in the process of selling their remaining four. “Now is the right time for our family to move on,” Gary Bortnick, the company’s vice president, said in a statement. He did not specify the reasons for the sale. Some suspect that it’s simply becoming too difficult for small, sell-everything stores to stay afloat when surrounded by enormous chains that can purchase much larger inventories at much lower rates. “There is just too much competition to try to take on the big-box stores, because they can kill you on prices and variety,” said Geoff Brown, principal at Bond Beebe, an accounting firm in Bethesda specializing in small, medium and family-run businesses. “Unless you happen to be in a very unique location, in order to survive I think these small stores are going to have to be specialized.” That’s a change from the past couple of decades, when locally owned, full-service grocery stores managed to compete with large chains including Safeway and Giant. But the competition has progressively gotten tougher as Harris Teeter, Wegmans, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods entered the market and the likes of Target and Wal-Mart began to stock groceries. In its prime, Magruder’s had 10 stores selling everything from produce to poultry, offering the same one-stop service as its big-name counterparts. But trying to compete simply as a smaller version of those stores has proven “really, really hard,” Brown said, as it has in most retail sectors over the past few decades. “This goes well beyond the grocery and supermarket industries — everywhere you go, you see the same stores, the same restaurants, and places like Magruder’s are just having a difficult


to try to take on the big-box stores, because they can kill you on prices and variety,” said Geoff Brown, principal at Bond Beebe, an accounting firm in Bethesda specializing in small, medium and family-run businesses. “Unless you happen to be in a very unique location, in order to survive I think these small stores are going to have to be specialized.” That’s a change from the past couple of decades, when locally owned, full-service grocery stores managed to compete with large chains including Safeway and Giant. But the competition has progressively gotten tougher as Harris Teeter, Wegmans, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods entered the market and the likes of Target and Wal-Mart began to stock groceries. In its prime, Magruder’s had 10 stores selling everything from produce to poultry, offering the same one-stop service as its big-name counterparts. But trying to compete simply as a smaller version of those stores has proven “really, really hard,” Brown said, as it has in most retail sectors over the past few decades. “This goes well beyond the grocery and supermarket industries — everywhere you go, you see the same stores, the same restaurants, and places like Magruder’s are just having a difficult time surviving,” Brown said. “On the other hand, the organic stores certainly have their niche, and the Hispanic and Italian markets — I think those will continue to exist.” Scott Nash, founder of Mom’s Organic Market, a chain of 10 organic food stores in the area, said his company has continued to grow in recent years thanks in part to its niche business model, as well as evolving consumer behaviors. “People seem to be making many more shopping visits, going one place for their favorite butcher, picking up bread at their favorite bake shop, then going somewhere else because they have the best produce,” Nash said, adding that he is surprised that the Wegmans model of offering “everything you could ever need” is still working. “People want to think they are getting the absolutely best in every purchase.” Mom’s is planning to keep adding new stores in the region, and Nash said he believes that the specialty products will continue to draw customers as long as they don’t try to compete head-to-head with their larger rivals. “We have our stores in [a region] with probably more Whole Foods than any other area in the country, and we’re able to compete


Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey: Forked tongue, meet silver tongue

and never failed a test. Hmm. Maybe they just kept testing him for being a jerk. (By the way, in the latest issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, there is an article that is headlined: “The Question: What Is The One ‘Flaw’ You Wouldn’t Change About Yourself?” Lance’s answer: “That I’m the devil.”) (Note: That article did appear in the February issue, but I made up Lance’s answer.) As it turns out, just about everyone in cycling was cheating. So it was like Congress, with spokes. Armstrong, of course, vehemently denied he was cheating for years — and attacked anyone who said otherwise — but, now, he says, he was cheating though he didn’t consider it cheating. In an exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, Lance Armstrong explained why he decided to admit to doping after 13 years of vehemently denying he ever used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong also said, “We weren’t worse than the East German doping program of the ’70s and ’80s,” which is a heck of a slogan to hang your hat on. Here are some of my favorite sound bites from his Oprah chat: “I know the truth.” “I cannot lie to you.” “I’m going to tell you what’s true and what’s not true.” To trust Lance Armstrong to tell you the truth is to trust Bernie Madoff with your rent money. Even today, when Armstrong says emphatically, “Absolutely not,” you know there’s an 85 percent chance that it’s actually “Absolutely.” I would’ve respected Lance more if he wore a T-shirt with the old Bob Arum line, “Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth.” (In poker, players look for “tells” — actions opponents may take or facial movements they make that indicate the strength of their cards. Lance has an unmistakable “tell” when he’s lying — any time he’s moving his lips.) It was hard to listen to and watch Armstrong. He defines disingenuousness, and he seemed more regretful that he was caught than remorseful that he had cheated. How can someone schedule a nationally televised confessional and somehow emerge looking as even a worse person than before? Armstrong did it almost effortlessly. He unwittingly got help from the most trusted person in America, Oprah Winfrey. I hardly ever watched “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” so I had forgotten a very simple truth: She’s darn good at her craft. She does her homework,


Steven Muller, former president of Johns Hopkins University, dies at 85

Steven Muller, president of John Hopkins University poses for a portrait in this file photo on the Baltimore, Md. campus on December 23, 1988. (Carol Guzy/The Washington Post) Steven Muller, a former president of Johns Hopkins University who led the institution through a period of unprecedented growth in the 1970s and ’80s, died Jan. 19 at his home in Washington. He was 85. His death, from respiratory failure, was confirmed by his wife, Jill E. McGovern. Known during his long tenure at Hopkins as one of the most powerful academic administrators in the United States, Dr. Muller brought a background of accomplishment and a wealth of experiences to the post. He was a refugee from Nazi Germany, a child actor in Hollywood and a Rhodes scholar. During the 1960s, before coming to Baltimore, he helped defuse one of the most prominent of campus protests. A scholar in the field of comparative government, he joined Johns Hopkins in 1971 as provost and became president the following year. His tenure of 18 years was more than three times as long as that of the average university president of his era. He headed Johns Hopkins longer than anyone since Daniel Coit Gilman became its first president in 1875. During the first 10 years of his tenure, Dr. Muller assumed an unusual double role and served as president of Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital is one of the most prestigious medical facilities in the United States, and Johns Hopkins University is widely known as one of the top research institutions. When Dr. Muller assumed the presidency in 1972, Johns Hopkins was recovering from budget shortfalls that had stricken many U.S. universities at the time. Known for boardroom charisma and fundraising skill, he oversaw two major development drives. The first, in the 1970s, raised more than $109 million for the university and hospital; the second brought in $600 million, exceeding the stated goal by a third. Meanwhile, the budget swelled six-fold, The Washington Post reported at the time. The expansion overseen by Dr. Muller transcended academic disciplines. In 1981, Johns Hopkins was chosen over other prestigious institutions as the site of the Space Telescope Science Institute — the entity that runs the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope. The building that houses the institute is named for Dr. Muller. Dr. Muller also was credited with expanding the physics, astronomy, engineering and nursing programs, as


Erratic bat behavior at Great Smoky park may be linked to lethal syndrome

White-nose fungus disease, a growing and lethal threat to several species, is suspected as the cause for erratic bat behavior at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Greg Thompson/VIA BLOOMBERG) In the dead of winter, bats should be in a deep sleep. But at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they’re out and about, flying erratically in many cases, acting crazy. Out of nowhere, they’ve launched their mouse-sized bodies at unsuspecting visitors, forcing people to shoo them off with fishing poles, walking sticks and their bare hands. At least one bat flew smack into a trail walker’s forehead. Officials say they probably haven’t gone mad from rabies, something humans should fear. More than likely, it’s another troubling sign: Large groups of bats in the nation’s most popular national park appear to be stricken with white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that’s wiping out a variety of bat species up and down the East Coast, a possible extinction event, some biologists say. “We can’t say 100 percent that it’s white-nose, but it most likely is,” said Bill Stiver, the supervisor of wildlife biologists at the park, which straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border. He said biologists are likely to confirm it when they venture into the caves in mid-February for a yearly census. “Our gut feeling is the disease is starting to manifest itself in the caves.” At last count, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a year ago, between 5 million and 7 million bats were estimated to have died from white-nose since it was first discovered in 2006 in a cave outside Albany, N.Y. That’s enough bats to have eaten 8,000 tons of insects per year, many of which devour food crops. Like bees, bats pollinate plants, and in caves, their guano provides nutrients that sustain life. At Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky last week, there was more bad news. Officials confirmed that a northern long-eared bat from one of the park’s caves was infected, another sign that the disease is spreading to the Southeast. Last March, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources announced its presence in a cave complex in Jackson County, a cradle for millions of endangered gray bats. The fungus has been confirmed through testing in 19 states, and detected without confirmation in two other states, officials said. Little brown bats have been especially hard hit. A survey of 42 sites in 2010 found that the


Obama brings more optimism, partisanship and populism to second inaugural speech

of his push for economic and social equality. Obama also pledged to protect entitlements from budget cuts and defend the vulnerable from a warming climate and gun violence in what amounted to a thematic preview of next month’s State of the Union address, which he will use to more fully detail his plans and approach. Health-care programs for the elderly and the poor “do not make us a nation of takers,” Obama said, borrowing the pointed language used by GOP opponents in the last campaign. “They free us to take risks that make this country great,” he said to applause. Obama’s first address is a way to measure what he has managed to achieve and where he has fallen short. “Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed,” Obama said in 2009. In the epilogue delivered Monday, Obama effectively accepted Washington’s enduring partisanship, something he once pledged to end. But he also warned that he would demand action on an agenda that few Republicans have been prepared to support. He used the phrase “We, the people” — the opening words of the Constitution’s preamble — at least five times to make the case that the country agrees with his views of where the country should be heading. “What the speech said to me was that a new kind of liberal government is back,” said Sean Wilentz, an American history professor at Princeton University, describing it as an extension of the limited activism that Bill Clinton began. “It’s not that you are going to evade politics or change politics or fix politics,” Wilentz said. “You are going to change the country by being political.” Obama was less specific about how he intends to reengage the world after more than a year preoccupied with his own reelection. He told the audience that “a decade of war is now ending,” as he maps out a schedule to bring the last U.S. troops home from Afghanistan by the end of next year. He also made clear that he would not be rushed into another war, tacitly referring to a confrontation with Iran over its uranium-enrichment program. Beyond the specifics of his agenda, there is a message that Obama, the former Harvard law student and community organizer, wants to leave with an increasingly skeptical American electorate before he leaves office. He began that


Some tough questions for Hagel

Europe; we need to have a presence in Latin America; we need to have a presence in Africa.” But he also spoke of doing it through partnerships, alliances and rotational deployments where military units “will go into an area, exercise, train, assist countries to develop their capabilities so that they can help provide for their own security.” As I wrote last week, the United States for the past 10 years tried to do just that in West African countries, including Mali, where it apparently had little effect in halting jihadist and gangster and insurgent elements. What is Hagel’s view on solving that problem? Does he believe U.S. support for a government stops when its leaders turn corrupt or become dictators? There also are the issues related to U.S. combat troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a process already underway. Obama will soon announce the pace under which they will depart. The United States will face more than the issue of the size of any U.S. military units that remain in Afghanistan after 2014. There also will be the issue of those units’ status vis-a-vis the Afghan government and its laws. The Obama administration was sharply criticized, primarily by Republicans, for not successfully negotiating a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq that would have provided immunity for U.S. service personnel from criminal prosecution by Iraq. Similar negotiations are underway with the Afghans and Hagel should be asked his views about the necessity for such immunity. At stake is not just a continuing U.S. military presence to prevent the return of al-Qaeda training camps. There’s also the issue of bases in that country to deal with the threat from al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in nearby Northwest Pakistan. The United States has spent at least $300 million building facilities at Bagram air base and at Kandahar to carry out operations. What does Hagel see as an alternative if no agreement is reached with Kabul? Panetta told the troops in Italy, “The greatest threat I face right now, and the military officers that I serve with agree . . . is continuing uncertainty in Washington” about the budget. He said he saw March as a “perfect storm” when fiscal 2013 funds run out and deep cuts could occur. He then compared the risks the military takes with what faces “elected officials.” He meant members of Congress who “we’re asking . . . to take


‘Minimalist’ running style may be undermined by new findings from Kenya

Abigail Daley participated in the Naked Foot 5K in Chevy Chase last June. Dozens of styles of “minimalist” shoes attempt to approximate barefoot running in various ways. (Matt McClain/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Americans spent $59 million on “minimalist” running shoes last year, on the premise that the most healthful way to run is the way people have done it for thousands of years: barefoot. Running barefoot, according to the hugely popular 2009 book “Born to Run” and a landmark 2010 study of Kenya’s famous Kalenjin distance runners, forces most people onto their forefeet, which nature designed to absorb the considerable impact that running places on feet and lower legs. Traditional running shoes of the past 40 years, in contrast, encourage runners to land on that cushy, raised heel, possibly contributing to lower leg problems. But now a group of George Washington University researchers, who tested a different population of barefoot African runners, has determined that most of them naturally strike the ground with their heels. Kevin Hatala, a doctoral student in anthropology at GWU, expected his group’s study of the Daasanach people of northern Kenya to jibe with Harvard researcher’s Daniel Lieberman’s conclusions about the Kalenjin. Instead, “we found the opposite to be true,” Hatala said in an interview. “In the group we were looking at, the majority of them were rear-foot striking at their preferred endurance running speed.” For his study, published in the Jan. 9 issue of the online journal PLOS One, Hatala asked 19 men and 19 women to run at a variety of speeds over pressure plates that measured the impact forces they generated. At higher speeds, some of the Daasanach switched from a heel strike to a forefoot strike, but even then, heel-striking was more typical. Hatala was reluctant to speculate why his findings differed from the prevailing wisdom. In addition to the effect of speed, running style could be the result of information that is culturally transmitted from generation to generation. Or it might have something to do with the predominant surface where each group lives. Hatala and Lieberman are at the early stages of comparing their data. “I guess what we found really interesting about this is it directly shows that there is not one way to run barefoot,” Hatala said. “We have a lot more to learn about how people who are barefoot run and what might be the best way to


Lance Armstrong case prompts question: Why is there so much doping in cycling?

steady decrease in levels of testosterone and cortisol as the body struggles to rebuild itself after each day. This decline seems to be unique to cycling, as professional marathon runners have to train hard for six months before experiencing the kind of hormonal deficit that cyclists suffer in three weeks. Against this backdrop, it’s perhaps not surprising that cyclists have managed to get steadily faster not only through superior training techniques but also through improved pharmaceuticals. For example, erythropoietin, or EPO, one of the substances Armstrong said he used during his run of Tour wins, increases the concentration of red blood cells. That enables cyclists to transport more oxygen to their muscles during training, which improves their VO2 max prior to race day. During the race, it makes them more efficient at using oxygen and speeds recovery. Doping is so effective in cycling because the sport is almost entirely a test of endurance. A basketball player can increase his endurance and strength through cheating, but it’s difficult to improve shooting technique with drugs. The same goes for such other high-technique sports as tennis and soccer. Drugs have been part of cycling since the beginning. Long before EPO came on the scene, riders used alcohol, cocaine, strychnine and amphetamines. Cycling legend Jacques Anquetil has been widely quoted as saying, “I dope myself. Everyone dopes himself. Those who claim they don’t are liars. For 50 years bike racers have been taking stimulants.” Given the extensive coverage of Armstrong and his disgraced colleagues, you might think that doping is far worse in cycling than in other sports. In fact, many sports have as bad a doping problem as cycling. Cyclists failed 1.19 percent of the doping tests administered by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2010, which places cycling near the middle of the fail rate. Athletes involved in weightlifting (2.42 percent), boxing (1.94 percent) and archery (1.47 percent) failed at significantly higher rates than cyclists. (They use different drugs. Archers, for example, use drugs to calm their nerves and steady their hands.) Many inside the testing community believe other professional sports would have higher failure rates if their athletes were subjected to the rigorous testing regimes that have been imposed on cyclists. None of this excuses Armstrong, of course. But his story is just one example of how humans respond to the incredible physical demands of sport, combined with money and public scrutiny.


Cuttlefish skin that reacts to light may hold key to making better camouflage

Research are trying to make a similar camouflage material out of silicon and circuits. This artificial skin might help the Pentagon make its tanks and submarines disappear or turn a wall into a 3-D television camera, according to Richard Baraniuk, a professor of electrical engineering at Rice University and a collaborator on the project. “What we are designing is a passive system that interacts with the ambient light, channels the right amount to the right direction so you can camouflage yourself,” Baraniuk said. “It’s not like any kind of imaging device that has ever been designed.” By harnessing the light-collecting and color-shifting abilities of the undersea animals, Baraniuk and other bioengineers dream of building a thin electronic “skin” that could turn an entire room into a camera, transmitting images of what’s happening there without people knowing it. That might seem a bit creepy, but this technology could also be used to design new kinds of three-dimensional televisions, holographic games and medical imaging devices. John Rogers The initial prototype would be a black-and-white version that can match its surroundings, Rogers said. Flexible camouflage panels would contain sacs of colored dyes that contract or expand, just like the skin of the squid and cuttlefish. Clothes that change color Experts say lots of engineering problems must be solved before we will be able to buy clothing that changes color to match its background. That’s because there are still a lot of things scientists don’t understand about how cuttlefish skin changes color. That change is the result of a cascade of events influenced by chemical and physical signals from its surroundings, the animal’s own chemical hormones and electrical impulses from the brain, according to Andrea Toa, an assistant professor of nano-engineering at the University of California at San Diego. She says that fabricating a similar cascade won’t be easy. “Squid have very complex systems,” said Toa, who is not involved in the Office of Naval Research project. “In a camouflage device, you have man-made elements which boil down to an electrical circuit.” However, researchers including Baraniuk and Rogers point to other advanced devices as evidence that nature and engineering can work together. Scientists in Japan are building “krill-eye,” a wide-angle lens that collects light the way the compound eye of a shrimp does. An Oregon lab is designing “neuromorphic” computer chips that mimic the way the brain’s neurons work — sending messages in spikes


At MLK memorial, the fusion of two different legacies on Inauguration

point-and-shoot camera. He had vowed to come to this memorial with his niece, a New Yorker, who was too busy with medical school to attend Obama’s first inauguration. She wanted to come to see the first black president to so her young son, Elijah, would remember. At age 7, he was old enough to appreciate the magnitude of the moment — provided she could pry him from playing Spider-Man on his handheld Nintendo console. Together, Horton and Elijah could be seen as a sort of intergenerational bridge to the moment. There the aging black man from North Carolina who once had been jailed during a sit-in and still considered the notion of a black president practically mythical. Then Elijah, who took it all for granted; he just knew Obama would win. That man in the statute behind him? He was much more myth than man. “Martin Luther King, I think he was the first black presid-,” Elijah said, interrupting himself. “I mean, he won the peace prize. We learn about him in school.” Then he tugged his mother. He wanted to go back to the Mall to see Obama. The family walked away minutes before the president was about to be sworn in. Foot-traffic slowed and only cheering could be heard in the background. The Mall was crowded, too boisterous for Claudia Marroquin. The 28-year-old from Maine could find solace here, at the King memorial. “I’m reading these words and I realize there’s so much we have yet to accomplish,’’ she said. She pointed to a quote from King’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in which King expressed his belief that every person could have three meals a day, a decent education and a sense of freedom. She hoped Obama would help fulfill those promises. “I feel the best might be yet to come,” she said. Beyoncé’s singing of the national anthem could be heard in the distance. Above, the sky had grown overcast. A little later, more people began to the visit the memorial, moving from the man who had coined the phrase “Yes, we can” to the man who led the dismantling of the days of “No, you couldn’t.” They came, visitors from Georgia and Kentucky, New York and California, men and women of all races, to laugh and pose for photographs in front of the giant statue. And right then, everything about the day looked like progress.


With 2 percent inflation target, Japan signals new strategy to boost economy

government would take in more tax revenue to cover its debts. Here’s a look at some of the week’s best photographs. But some economic analysts, noting decades of mismanaged Japanese public spending, fear Abe’s stimulus will help little more than the enormous construction and business firms that support his conservative party. “Spending money is not a bad thing, but [the government] needs a much clearer method of making sure that the money they spend is on high-return projects,” said Robert Feldman, Morgan Stanley’s chief economist for Japan. “No more bridges to nowhere.” Skeptics also note that Japan’s government has no clear plans for deregulation or restructuring — long-term moves that could help the economy after stimulus spending runs out. At a news conference last week in Washington, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Japan’s fiscal and monetary package is not “particularly appropriate,” unless the country also shows a “determination to change the debt trajectory and reduce the deficit.” Japan’s strategy has “caused a stir in international policy circles,” according to a note from Barclays Bank researchers, but the strategy is unlikely to spur copycats — even if it works. In Europe, central bankers are likely to stay conservative as a way to reestablish credibility in the euro. And in the United States, though aggressive monetary easing is already in place, there is little political appetite for a major government stimulus package. The Bank of Japan decision Tuesday was controversial in its own right, because it was made under intense pressure from the central government. Since his election campaign, Abe has called on the central bank — equivalent to the Federal Reserve in the United States — to loosen monetary conditions and set a far more audacious inflation target. By law, the central bank is independent from the Japanese government, but some economists say that Abe is trying to circumvent that. He has considerable leverage, too: In April, he’ll appoint the bank’s next governor, presumably one with policy preferences to match his own. After its two-day meeting ended Tuesday, the central bank and the government released a joint statement in which both sides pledged to “strengthen their policy coordination.” The bank’s new inflation target was widely anticipated. The bank said it would expand its asset purchasing program beginning in January 2014, when it will begin buying up government bonds and other forms of debt worth 13 trillion yen ($145


Beer meets rock, right in the bottle

beers this year. “The more we can bring other artistic elements into the world of beer, the more it is validated as being a possible art form and not just a manufacturing industry.” Strumke is hardly the first musically inclined brewer to unite his two passions. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s Sam Calagione — “I played sax a little bit in grade school and then fell in love,” he says, especially with punk rock and jazz — is well known for the beers in his Music Series, which he launched in 2010. Those include Hellhound on my Ale, a double India pale ale that tastes like caramel and citrus peel and is a tribute to Robert Johnson, the blues guitarist who has been called “the grandfather of rock and roll.” Last summer, Calagione released Firefly Ale, the official beer of Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival, which was headlined by rock acts including the Killers and the Black Keys. Locally, music influences Brandon Skall and Jeff Hancock, the co-founders of DC Brau, who regularly spin records at U Street Music Hall and elsewhere as the Brothers Brau. Two weeks ago, they collaborated on a beer with Colorado’s Ska Brewing and the D.C.-based ska band the Pietasters. Eventually, they hope to brew beers with the punk band Regents and the heavy-metal group Darkest Hour. The Pietasters collaboration, a German-style doppelbock laced with cold-brewed coffee, will debut in March, and DC Brau will donate the profits to a scholarship fund honoring Todd Eckhardt, the late Pietasters bassist, says Skall, DC Brau’s chief executive. The beer is called Taster’s Choice, a nod to the instant-coffee brand and a Pietasters song of the same name. In fact, DC Brau often sneaks songs and lyrics into the names of its beers, Skall points out, such as the brewery’s Your Favorite Foreign Movie (a Steely Dan lyric), Ghoul’s Night Out (a punk song by the Misfits) and Thyme After Thyme (a Cyndi Lauper reference). Music has also shaped DC Brau’s branding in other ways. The winged skull on the label of its double IPA, On the Wings of Armageddon, for example, was inspired by the aesthetics of heavy metal. Setting aside the brewery’s homage to the iconic performer of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” those decisions reflect a pattern that might, by now, be obvious. The music in question is almost always some sort of rock, also a


‘Disorderly’ activist arrested at Baltimore City Hall

A frequent critic of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration was arrested Wednesday when she tried to enter Baltimore’s City Hall. Kim A. Trueheart, 55, of Baltimore, was arrested Wednesday morning as she tried to attend the city’s 9 a.m. Board of Estimates meeting. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said he had few details about the arrest, but said Trueheart was being “disorderly.” “City Hall is a public building, but we have an obligation to make sure that citizens that come to conduct business don’t pose any type of threat and they’re also respectful,” Guglielmi said. “There’s a certain decorum that’s expected at City Hall.” It was not immediately clear what charges Trueheart was facing or where she was taken after the arrest. Fellow citizen activist Mike McGuire, 40, of Baltimore, said he witnessed the arrest. He said the officers told Trueheart she was banned from City Hall for 30 days because of an incident that occurred last week. He said officers told Trueheart, “You know you can’t be here,” and Trueheart responded, “Why can’t I be here? What law have I broken?” McGuire said officers were forcing Trueheart from the building when they arrested her. Last week, Rawlings-Blake abruptly ended a news conference when Trueheart began to interrupt the mayor’s responses to reporters’ questions. As a police officer stood between Trueheart and the mayor, Trueheart began to question the officer in a loud voice. “Why are you pushing me?” she asked. “Why are you pushing me? I think police harassment is going on right here. I’m not sure why you’re pushing me. You need to move away from me. You need to stop pushing me.” Trueheart then began to question Rawlings-Blake about Comptroller Joan Pratt’s allegations that the city is wasting millions of dollars on a problematic upgrade of its aging, expensive phone system. “Why are you wasting $400,000 a month?” Trueheart asked. “$400,000 a month is being wasted. Are you going to do something about it?” Rawlings-Blake then ended the press conference and later answered reporters’ questions upstairs behind a locked door. Guglielmi said security asked Trueheart to leave City Hall after that incident. “Officers last week had asked her to leave the building,” he said. “Today, she came back to City Hall and became disorderly again. She was asked to leave numerous times. Officers placed her under arrest for her disorderly behavior.” After last week’s encounter, Trueheart wrote a message


Pentagon to move ‘expeditiously’ to lift ban on women in combat roles

the service of women. The Army and Marine Corps have been asked to present plans by May 15 outlining steps to open combat positions to women. The Marines will roll out a training exercise for 400 male and 400 female Marines next summer that will seek to start integrating women into combat units. The Army is evaluating the way it screens soldiers for physically demanding jobs, drawing lessons from a pilot program last year in which 286 women were admitted into positions previously reserved for men. Opposition to the plan surfaced quickly. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that he would insist on a review and would consider introducing legislation “to stop any changes we believe to be detrimental to our fighting forces and their capabilities.” Army officials said no one wants the inclusion of women in combat units to result in lowered standards. “Women do not want standards changed for them,” said Gen. Robert W. Cone, who leads the Army’s training and doctrine command. “If a standard is valid, they want to be able to meet that standard.” Women make up about 15 percent of the active-duty military. According to the Defense Department, 152 female troops have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Pentagon officials consulted with allied nations that have integrated women into most combat jobs, including Israel, where roughly 90 percent of military jobs are open to women. “There is nothing that women cannot achieve, and they must not be underestimated,” said retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Gershon, national director of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. “Being a small country under constant threats, we cannot afford to discriminate,” Gershon said. Joy Naughton was disappointed when she learned that her gender made her ineligible to join a Navy support unit that delivers and picks up Navy SEALs from dangerous missions. The 24-year-old opted instead to join the Navy’s aviation rescue swimmer program, which trains sailors to jump out of a helicopter to save a downed pilot. Speaking over the phone while riding a van with 16 loud prospective Navy SEALs, Naughton said she was thrilled by the new policy. “I think it’s awesome,” she said, “but I still think there needs to be a hard selective process. They can’t let just any woman into combat. It takes a special kind of individual.”


Walter L. Anderson, company founder, GAO official

Walter L. Anderson, 90, an electrical engineer who started a metal-fabrication company and became a senior adviser at what is now the Government Accountability Office, died of cardiac arrest Jan. 10 at the Greenspring retirement community in Springfield. A son, Donald Anderson, confirmed the death. Mr. Anderson spent his early professional career at Engineering Research Associates, an early computing firm, until he and other engineers left to form General Kinetics Inc. (GKI) in the mid-1950s. He became board chairman and president of GKI, a metal-fabrication company that became a major supplier to the Navy and private industry and also was involved in magnetic tape testing and cleaning. Under Mr. Anderson’s guidance, GKI shared an Academy Award in 1960 for scientific and engineering film technology for the design of an ultrasonic film cleaner. After leaving GKI, Mr. Anderson joined the General Accounting Office and became a top liaison between the government and private industry. Before retiring in 1992, he became senior adviser to the GAO, reviewing the use of computers in government organizations. Walter Leonard Anderson was a native of St. Paul, Minn. At the University of Minnesota, he received a bachelor’s degree (1944) and a master’s degree (1948) in electrical engineering. During World War II, he served in the Navy and became a radar officer in the Pacific. He was a past president of the old American Federation of Information Processing Societies and helped plan its first USA-Japan Computer Conference, in 1972. He was a co-founder of the Washington chapter of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) and later became a leader with an IRE successor group, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He was first national chairman of the IEEE Computer Group. He was a recipient of the IEEE Centennial Medal for extraordinary achievement. Mr. Anderson was an elder of two churches in Falls Church, Knox Presbyterian Church and Idylwood Presbyterian Church. In 2002, he moved from Falls Church to Greenspring. His wife of 62 years, Catherine Watton “Kitty” Anderson, died in 2009. Survivors include four children, David Anderson of Falls Church, Douglas Anderson of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Dale Lombardi of Wellesley, Mass., and Donald Anderson of Northampton, Mass.; a brother; and five grandchildren. — Adam Bernstein


Unspun: Jolene Ivey — Pr. George’s ‘cool mom’

Name: Age:51 Occupation: Hometown: Unlike other Unspun interviews, this one begins with a question from Ivey. Have you had your flu shot yet? No. Go next door and do that, and I’ll be ready for you when you come back. [10 minutes later] I would be a maple because it’s beautiful and it changes in ways that are beautiful and you can climb it. I like to think that I am helpful and useful like that. What do you do to relax? Relax? What’s that? I like to knit. I like to quilt. I was learning to knit this fall but I’ve gotten so busy my knitting just shames me every time I walk past. It says, “Jolene, you haven’t finished me yet.” I hate not finishing things!  If you were a grocery store, which kind of grocery store would you be? Maybe I’d be Glut. It’s the oldest food co-op in the Washington area. Glut is very quirky, granola, but people come from everywhere — schoolteachers, flower children, my parents used to go. They were the most straight-laced people ever. So it’s a great gathering place, too. One of my kids, when he was little he had a teddy bear, and he took it everywhere, and one day we left the teddy bear there and we didn’t know where he went, and the next day, there he was, sitting in a prominent place with a sign on him: “Someone left this Teddy Bear.” So I’d like to be Glut. Who is your favorite president? Are you kidding? Barack Obama. Second favorite, Bill Clinton. Third favorite, Hillary Clinton. What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? My mother told me, “Never do acid.” Let’s see, I got really good advice from Sheila Curry, when my husband Glen first became state’s attorney. She said to gather my friends closely around me and to realize those might be the only friends you ever make, because you never know why people want to be your friends anymore. What’s on your iPod? What’s really sad is I don’t know how to put music on my iPod so the only music that I have is the music my kids have put on here. And it’s all Kanye West. So I go for walks and I put on my iPod and I listen to Kanye West even though I am not the biggest fan. Which


New strain of norovirus is circulating

A new strain of norovirus, the cause of a dreaded wintertime intestinal illness, is circulating in the United States, federal health officials said Thursday. The strain, designated “GII.4 Sydney,” appeared in Australia last March. It is also spreading in Britain, where it caused an early start of the norovirus season. In the United States, it has caused half of the 266 norovirus outbreaks reported since September to a surveillance network run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We don’t yet know whether there is an increased number of cases this year,” said Jan Vinje, the CDC epidemiologist who runs the network. “Normally the season peaks in January, so it’s a little bit too early to tell.” Norovirus causes vomiting and diarrhea. It is responsible for 21 million cases of illness a year in the United States, and about 800 deaths, mostly among the elderly. There’s no specific treatment for it and no vaccine (although one is under development). Hand-washing, wiping down contaminated surfaces and isolating people who are ill are the typical strategies for combating norovirus. Outbreaks are notoriously associated with nursing homes and cruise ships, but norovirus also spreads easily through the general population. In the outbreaks since September, 51 percent involved person-to-person transmission; 20 percent were foodborne; and 1 percent were caused by contaminated water. The mode of transmission was unknown in the rest. About two-thirds of this season’s outbreaks occurred in long-term care institutions and 13 percent involved restaurants, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published Thursday. As a norovirus strain spreads, people become at least partly immune to it. The “herd immunity” that develops favors the emergence of new, slightly different strains against which people have less protection. “It’s a little like flu,” Vinje said. “The virus is mutating to a ‘fitter’ strain and is attacking a non-immune population.” There are five main types of norovirus (denoted GI through GV), with most outbreak viruses falling into one subgroup, GII.4. Historically, GII.4 strains are more severe than others. Whether that will be true this year is not yet known. Virginia has identified six outbreaks caused by GII.4 Sydney this season — four in 2012 and two this month, said Michelle Stoll, a spokeswoman for the state health department. The number of cases is similar to that of outbreaks caused by other strains. Information about outbreaks in Maryland and the District caused by


New strain of norovirus is circulating

circulating in the United States, federal health officials said Thursday. The strain, designated “GII.4 Sydney,” appeared in Australia last March. It is also spreading in Britain, where it caused an early start of the norovirus season. In the United States, it has caused half of the 266 norovirus outbreaks reported since September to a surveillance network run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We don’t yet know whether there is an increased number of cases this year,” said Jan Vinje, the CDC epidemiologist who runs the network. “Normally the season peaks in January, so it’s a little bit too early to tell.” Norovirus causes vomiting and diarrhea. It is responsible for 21 million cases of illness a year in the United States, and about 800 deaths, mostly among the elderly. There’s no specific treatment for it and no vaccine (although one is under development). Hand-washing, wiping down contaminated surfaces and isolating people who are ill are the typical strategies for combating norovirus. Outbreaks are notoriously associated with nursing homes and cruise ships, but norovirus also spreads easily through the general population. In the outbreaks since September, 51 percent involved person-to-person transmission; 20 percent were foodborne; and 1 percent were caused by contaminated water. The mode of transmission was unknown in the rest. About two-thirds of this season’s outbreaks occurred in long-term care institutions and 13 percent involved restaurants, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published Thursday. As a norovirus strain spreads, people become at least partly immune to it. The “herd immunity” that develops favors the emergence of new, slightly different strains against which people have less protection. “It’s a little like flu,” Vinje said. “The virus is mutating to a ‘fitter’ strain and is attacking a non-immune population.” There are five main types of norovirus (denoted GI through GV), with most outbreak viruses falling into one subgroup, GII.4. Historically, GII.4 strains are more severe than others. Whether that will be true this year is not yet known. Virginia has identified six outbreaks caused by GII.4 Sydney this season — four in 2012 and two this month, said Michelle Stoll, a spokeswoman for the state health department. The number of cases is similar to that of outbreaks caused by other strains. Information about outbreaks in Maryland and the District caused by the new strain was not immediately available. Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.


Cafritz Enterprises to move ahead with Connecticut Ave. project in Chevy Chase

Site of proposed development at intersection of Conn. Ave and Military Rd NW in Washington, DC. (Jeffrey MacMillan/JEFFREY MACMILLAN FOR CAPITAL BUSINESS) After trying in vain to meet with developers of a planned Connecticut Avenue high-rise in Northwest Washington, residents of Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights finally got their chance. About 300 people came to a meeting Wednesday night to vent their frustration over the residential project, which is to be built by Calvin Cafritz Enterprises on the southeast corner of Connecticut Avenue and Military Road. Many neighbors say the building, with its glass facade, is inconsistent with the surrounding community. They conveyed their critique to the developers, Jane L. Cafritz and Calvin Cafritz, during the meeting at the Chevy Chase Community Center. With the line of residents waiting to ask questions snaking around the back of the room, D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) did her best to moderate the meeting, which was full of biting comments and provocative questions. “I take offense when you don’t represent the facts properly,” William Walde, owner of Chevy Chase Towers, a nearby apartment complex, said to the Cafritzes. “You’re not telling us the truth.” The Cafritzes, for the most part, declined to speak, deferring to their attorney or the architect. The proposed building is a 263-unit, nine-story, glass- and-steel structure with a two-level underground parking garage. Opponents of the building have organized into the 5333 Connecticut Neighborhood Coalition. Their options are limited. The building plans are consistent with the lot’s high-density residential zoning allowance, and the lot is considered a “matter-of-right” property, meaning Cafritz Enterprises can move forward with building plans without the approval of the community, as long as the plans are consistent with the lot’s zoning, according to Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs spokesman Helder Gil. Staff from the DCRA and other D.C. agencies attended the meeting but largely stayed out of the debate. Neighbors expressed concerns about the height of the building, increased traffic and parking and the environmental impact and the overall aesthetic of the project. In addition to quality-of-life issues, neighbors say they are concerned the building will cause property values to plummet. “The design of the building is going to be very damaging to the community,” Friendship Heights resident Peter Gosselin said. “An all-glass tower is terrible. It doesn’t build into urban landscape, and it doesn’t fit into suburban landscape, either.” At one


José Vivanco: Mexico’s human rights failures

José Miguel Vivanco is director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch. On first read, it might have been a hoax. On International Human Rights Day last month, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, “celebrated” Mexico’s human rights achievements. “The United States recognizes the Mexican government, including officials and institutions,” he wrote in the newspaper El Universal, “for its efforts to promote the defense of human rights in Mexico.” It is hard to imagine a less appropriate time for such undeserved praise. Wayne’s compliments came less than two weeks after the revelation that a staggering number of Mexicans, about 25,000, had disappeared in drug-related violence in the preceding six years. The number, from a list compiled by the Mexican attorney general’s office, was leaked to The Washington Post by a government analyst who feared that neither the outgoing administration of President Felipe Calderón nor the incoming administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office Dec. 1, would want to admit that so many people could simply vanish, let alone investigate what happened to them. Disappearances are part of the horrid legacy of Mexico’s “war on drugs,” initiated under Calderón. During his tenure, soldiers and police officers systematically tortured civilians to extract confessions in the fight against cartels, and they committed widespread executions. Almost none of these abusive soldiers and police has been punished. Of the roughly 5,000 investigations that military prosecutors opened into alleged abuses from the start of the Calderón presidency, in December 2006, through April 2012, only 38 soldiers have been sentenced. For most of his term, Calderón claimed that he was not aware of a single human rights violation by security forces. When I met with him at the end of 2011, he conceded that many abuses had occurred. Unfortunately, the few steps he subsequently took were too little, too late. While Peña Nieto has at least acknowledged that the Calderón administration’s policy failed, word doesn’t seem to have reached Washington. In fact, the ambassador’s recent praise is in step with the Obama administration’s repeated celebration of Calderón’s efforts to confront cartels, such as when President Obama lauded Calderón’s “great courage” in news conferences in March 2011 and April 2012. Obama has not publicly expressed concern about the grisly abuses committed by Mexican security forces. And the Obama administration has put its money where its mouth is. Since 2007, the United States has given about


Make climate change a priority

price on carbon that accurately reflects real environmental costs is key to delivering emission reductions at scale. Correct energy pricing can also provide incentives for investments in energy efficiency and cleaner energy technologies. A second immediate step is to end harmful fuel subsidies globally, which could lead to a 5 percent fall in emissions by 2020. Countries spend more than $500 billion annually in fossil-fuel subsidies and an additional $500 billion in other subsidies, often related to agriculture and water, that are, ultimately, environmentally harmful. That trillion dollars could be put to better use for the jobs of the future, social safety nets or vaccines. A third focus is on cities. The largest 100 cities that contribute 67 percent of energy-related emissions are both the center of innovation for green growth and the most vulnerable to climate change. We have seen great leadership, for example, in New York and Rio de Janeiro on low-carbon growth and tackling practices that fuel climate change. Rich nations bear historic responsibility for putting carbon dioxide into the air, but are they doing enough to help poor countries steel themselves against emissions’ effects? At the World Bank Group, through the $7 billion-plus Climate Investment Funds, we are managing forests, spreading solar energy and promoting green expansion for cities, all with a goal of stopping global warming. We also are in the midst of a major reexamination of our own practices and policies. Just as the Bretton Woods institutions were created to prevent a third world war, the world needs a bold global approach to help avoid the climate catastrophe it faces today. The World Bank Group is ready to work with others to meet this challenge. With every investment we make and every action we take, we should have in mind the threat of an even warmer world and the opportunity of inclusive green growth. After the hottest year on record in the United States, a year in which Hurricane Sandy caused billions of dollars in damage, record droughts scorched farmland in the Midwest and our organization reported that the planet could become more than 7 degrees warmer, what are we waiting for? We need to get serious fast. The planet, our home, can’t wait. Read more at PostOpinions: Eugene Robinson: Climate-change denialists fall silent Stephen Stromberg: The Keystone pipeline distraction Naomi Oreskes: Mobilizing scientists on climate change The Post’s View: A sweltering planet’s agenda