What do ordinary citizens in the Arab world really think about the Islamic State?

Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. News reports place the number at 3,000 to 8,000, far more than any other Arab country with the exception of Saudi Arabia. And since most who have responded to the Islamic State’s call are poorly educated younger men, the comparatively high percentage that considers the Islamic State’s tactics to be compatible with Islam may provide a part of the explanation. There are only 87 respondents in this key demographic category in the Tunisian survey, and so the findings should be accepted with a measure of caution, even though a non-parametric statistical test does show a very low probability of obtaining by chance alone the difference reported in Figure 2. Only 3.4 percent of poorly educated younger Tunisian men express support for the Islamic State’s goals, and only 2.3 percent agree with its violent tactics. Nevertheless, it is notable that Tunisians in the demographic category that is the primary target of the Islamic State messaging are significantly more likely than other Tunisians, and their counterparts in other Arab countries, to consider the Islamic State’s tactics compatible with Islam. An embedded experiment We wanted to dig even deeper into factors shaping the views of younger and less-well-educated men, the key demographic targeted by Islamic State messaging. We, therefore, introduced a survey experiment into the 2016 Arab Barometer instrument. Respondents were randomly assigned to either a control group or one of four treatment groups before being asked the questions about the Islamic State. The various treatment scripts provided information about the Islamic State and its stated objectives. The control version included no additional text. The script of the first treatment, Treatment A, told respondents that the Islamic State has emerged as a potent force in the Middle East, that its goal is to extend its self-proclaimed caliphate across the Muslim world, and that it has killed many Muslims and non-Muslims in pursuit of this aim. The three remaining treatments, B, C, and D, included the Treatment A script and then provided an additional piece of information. Treatment B added that another of the Islamic State’s stated objectives is to limit Shiite influence across the Muslim world and to confront Iranian-led Shiite forces in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere; Treatment C added that another of the Islamic State’s declared goals is to defend Islam from attacks by secular leaders and other elites whose goal is to limit the


Could this computer game delay Alzheimer’s symptoms? New study suggests it could.

is one of the first to say hey, there is something else going on here,” Ross said. “But we need more understanding. I don’t think anyone would make the argument that this is a cure.” Researchers have been trying to find ways to prevent the cognitive decline and dementia that accompany diseases like Alzheimer’s. About 5.2 million people over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s in the United States, and there’s no cure for the disease or its cognitive side effects. In the past 10 years, there has been a boom in apps and online games that claimed to help, despite tenuous scientific backing. Lumosity, an app that claimed to improve cognition, memory and brain function, launched in 2007 and had 70 million users as of 2015. They charge $299.95 for lifetime access and state on their website that they work with “100+ independent researchers to investigate new areas in cognition and cognitive training.” But in 2014, the Federal Trade Commission fined Lumosity $2 million because they “preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a news release. At a meeting held by the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development in 2014, a group of over 70 scientists signed a statement to inform the public that there was no proof these kinds of games could benefit them in such a profound way. “Many scientists cringe at exuberant advertisements claiming improvements in the speed and efficiency of cognitive processing and dramatic gains in ‘intelligence,’ in particular when these appear in otherwise trusted news sources,” the statement reads. “In the judgment of the signatories below, exaggerated and misleading claims exploit the anxiety of adults facing old age for commercial purposes. Perhaps the most pernicious claim, devoid of any scientifically credible evidence, is that brain games prevent or reverse Alzheimer’s disease.” After it was released, another group of scientists published a rebuttal, saying that while they agreed with many points of the first statement, they didn’t believe that there had never been any sign that brain training could improve cognitive function. Both stances have remained controversial since, Dacks said. What isn’t controversial, Dacks added, is the knowledge that people who have receive more education or who have intellectually engaging careers seem


A stunning prediction of climate science — and basic physics — may now be coming true

changing salinity affecting the local sea level, etc.” “The ocean can adjust to these changes in gravity in the timespan of days to a couple weeks, making the impact happen quickly,” noted Christopher Harig, a geoscientist at Princeton who also conducts research using the GRACE satellites, and who said the findings fit his expectations. “The effect is also much greater than the average sea level rise you would see far away. While sea level might rise a meter far away from the ice sheets, we would see a drop several times this in the sea level on the coast of Greenland for instance.” But Harig, too, noted an important role for direct sea-level measurements to confirm the findings. If those verify what the animation shows, incidentally, it would amount to a stunningly good example of scientific predictions about climate change being borne out. Researchers have long predicted that we would see precisely this effect — although their calculations have more often tended to show seas falling around West Antarctica and rising around the United States, which is what you’d expect for major ice loss from the South Pole while Greenland stays relatively intact. Yet Greenland, at least so far, has been outstripping Antarctica for ice loss because it is exposed to very warm Arctic air temperatures. Antarctica has vastly more ice to lose, but it has been more insulated from strong surface temperature change (although the oceans are melting parts of it from below). So the gravity calculations are currently weighting Greenland’s loss, and its sea level consequences, more heavily than Antarctica’s. Accordingly, the animation suggests, sea level fall has been around Greenland, and the sea rise, in the “farfield,” has been much farther away including East Antarctica and southern Africa. “The fall we predict follows from extraordinarily straightforward physics — the physics [of] Newton and those who brought the rigor of 19th-century mathematical physics to bear on elastic response and gravitation,” said NASA’s Ivins by email. Read more at Energy Environment: This is Obama’s plan to line the country’s roads with electric vehicle chargers The world is poised to take the strongest action of this year against climate change The surprisingly bright future of American’s forgotten renewable energy source: water From crippling droughts to rising seas, scientists warn of global warming impacts. For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


This trend may mean the end of small plates

Chef Cedric Maupillier explains his menu to diners at Convivial. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) Is this the moment so many eye-rolling diners have been waiting for? Have we passed peak small plate? No, D.C. restaurants aren't ricocheting back to the meat-and-two-sides entree. Instead, the medium-sized plate -- a dish between appetizer and entree in size -- is rapidly becoming the new size du jour for chefs. "Small plates were tired," chef Cedric Maupillier of Convivial said. "The term 'small plate' was tired." That's rather different than the wisdom imparted on Maupillier when he helped Michel Richard open Central in downtown in 2007. He was told Americans like their plates big -- with lots of meat and plenty of sides like mashed potatoes. When the chef opened Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan in 2012, he shrank the size of his portions, which he cut back even more in designing the menu at Convivial. When the Shaw restaurant opened in November, he was up-front about the fact that its stock-in-trade would be medium-sized plates. He thinks there's an appeal, especially among D.C.'s young, budget-minded diners, in looking at a menu and finding dishes for under $20. Rob Rubba of the recently opened Hazel in Shaw, which also serves medium plates, said he was similarly motivated by price. Hazel's dishes, ranging from $11 to $17, convey that the restaurant is more of a neighborhood spot conducive to repeat visits, Rubba said, rather than for special occasions alone. Although the per-person cost can end up being around the same as an entree at some metropolitan-area restaurants, medium-sized plates give diners the added benefit of sampling a variety of dishes, which is precisely the way Rubba likes to eat. "I wanted people to be able to try a lot of things," he said. Like all the dishes at Hazel, the seafood pancake is meant for sharing. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) Medium plates can offer the best of both worlds: the variety of small plates and the satisfaction of a traditional dinner entree. At Espita Mezcaleria, chef Alexis Samayoa offers a range of dish sizes, small salsas and large moles among them, but a good portion is devoted to medium plates of tacos, salads and queso fundido. The result is a filling meal that doesn't feel as excessive as an appetizer-and-entree dinner. After a meal of medium plates, "you're full and


Another ‘most expensive’ home hits the private market in D.C.

This 1953 photo shows how the home looked when Sen. Robert Taft lived there. (AP) The Washington real estate echo chamber loves its superlatives: The home most likely to be the Obamas’ next address, D.C.’s oldest home (sorta) and, of course, the area’s most expensive home. Several properties have held that last title, from the old Textile Museum site to the manse that Giant Food built. With those temporary titleholders sold, a new “most expensive” listing has landed on the market. The Taft Mansion, so named because it was once the home of Sen. Robert Taft, the elder son of the country’s 27th president, William Howard Taft, was sold just earlier this year for $6 million. Now developers plan to renovate the six-bedroom house, pending approval by the Old Georgetown Board, and flip it for just under $14 million. The property has been listed privately even though the renovations haven’t begun. Washington Fine Properties is handling the sale, and according to its website and this Washington Post article, “Since 1870, the Taft Mansion has been the scene of countless elegant parties, sophisticated dinners and stylish fundraisers where Presidents, Political Leaders, Cabinet Members, Supreme Court Justices and Ambassadors rubbed elbows with business tycoons, socialites and celebrities.” Owned by Taft, then prominent attorney David Ginsburg, whose wife, Ina, was one of high society’s great doyennes, and later by Pat Dixson, epic party thrower and real estate agent, the house on 31st Street has seen some well-heeled foot traffic.


Watch social media react to prosecutors dropping all charges in the Freddie Gray case

The Safe Streets team walks past the Freddie Gray Wall at Mount and Presbury Streets in Sandtown, Baltimore. (Photo by Andre Chung for The Washington Post) People reacted on social media Wednesday as prosecutors in Baltimore dropped all charges against the three officers who were awaiting trial in the Freddie Gray case — a move that essentially closes the matter. Freddie Gray, 25, was fatally injured in police custody after being arrested last year. His death set off riots and protests in Baltimore. Of six police officers charged, three were acquitted on all charges after bench trials, and another trial ended in a hung jury. Here’s a look at some of the reactions: Sadly, it appears that no one will be held accountable for the death of #FreddieGray #BlackLivesMatter Say his name. https://t.co/wlfOfoZctN Suprised but not suprised at the same time. They already paid the family. This is even more heartbreaking smh #FreddieGray Justice served!! Trials brought on by a rogue & incompetent Marilyn Mosby. God bless those officers & investigate Mosby. #FreddieGray America is now #doomed! #HellBreaksLoose! #WhatsGoingOn? #Judicial System betrayed us! #BlackLivesMatter #JohnHinckley #FreddieGray #LawFAIL The latest move in court means the state has no convictions in Gray’s case. Gray’s death came amid continuing debate across the country about police treatment of black men and boys. In the Freddie Gray case, the US Constitution was completely and repeatedly violated. And Marilyn Mosby had her career sabotaged by racists So again I ask who killed #FreddieGray he didn't kill himself there is no justice when it is just us suicide by transport van #FreddieGray Residents in Baltimore respond to news that all charges have been dropped against the three remaining police officers in connection with the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. Three others were already acquitted. Save Save


These families who share a rare disease just gathered for an international reunion. It may speed along a cure.

world’s leading researchers of the disease. By the end of the weekend he will have pulled 1,000 tubes representing samples — blood, DNA, cell cultures — from not just those afflicted with the disease, but also their families. They will enter a wider global registry that will help the clinical trials. He says the access to so many patients in one sitting is “unheard of.” Children in the early stages of Friedreich’s ataxia gather around a tortoise at FA Woodstock, a three-day event in rural Indiana for people from around the world stricken with FA. (Photo credit: Mark Guarino) “The main reason why clinical trials fail in rare diseases is because you don’t find enough subjects,” he said. “The reason things have moved so fast with the trials is because of the community led by the people at FARA and those at Woodstock.” The trial that is nearest to completion involves Actimmune, a manufactured protein by Horizon Pharma approved to treat malignant osteoporosis, among other conditions. Lynch said that a three-phase study will conclude late this year with results expected the first quarter of 2017. Julie Ball, the director of clinical development for the company, mingled with families on the first day. She said in the past companies like her own “didn’t engage them in the process. We would talk with opinion leaders and patient organizations, but never really spoke to a patient. That’s changing now.” Listening to individual stories she says helps the company understand how to coordinate the trials among patients. But for older adults who have lived with the disease for decades, news of pending breakthroughs for treatment, or even a cure, is bittersweet. Many say they are now accustomed to their lives and are less interested in a cure for themselves. They want a remedy so others will get to enjoy the pleasures of a young life that they were denied. Through sunglasses, Saez watched from his wheelchair as children splashed in the pool. He is a retired financial controller who says the disease has taken away many things he once enjoyed, like playing the piano and writing. But this day was not about him. “I like to see the young people smiling,” he said. “People are dying all over the world so when I see young people smiling I think, ‘okay, we have potential.’” Read more from Inspired Life: Theirs was a 25-year romance. Then


Jupiter’s Great Red Spot might be making the planet red hot

equilibrium between them, like when the wind meets the ocean and creates a wave or tsunami) that carry energy up into the atmosphere. You can picture the GRS as swirling tea being stirred in a cup: If you start stirring in the opposite direction, you'll see and hear splashes as a result of the interference. GRS flows against the grain of the atmosphere's movement and creates "splashes" like these. They collide with the upper atmosphere, losing their energy by moving the molecules they encounter. Temperature is actually just the movement of molecules and atoms against one another, so by making more movement these waves turn up the heat. "It's not that the GRS makes the entire planet hot," O'Donoghue said. "But we wanted to find some connection between the upper and lower atmosphere." If the atmosphere hundreds of miles above the GRS is heated by its roiling clouds, the same effect could be happening to a lesser extent everywhere on the planet. It could even be happening on other worlds. All of the gas giants have this same "energy crisis," and the same quick rotations and fast wind speeds that could create this effect. Jupiter – being the closest and the largest of the crew – is the easiest to study. "This question really highlights our failure to understand the basic physics of these atmospheres," O'Donoghue said. "It's just really shocking that we don't understand something so basic." Now that NASA's Juno probe is in orbit, the king of the planets could get a lot less mysterious. O'Donoghue's work will continue to mostly rely on ground-based telescopes, but he hopes that some of the probe's data will help inform this energy mystery. An infrared instrument on board could help confirm the GRS temperature readings, and might be able to detect hotspots over other, smaller storms. Juno, which will use its instruments to probe below Jupiter's cloud cover for the first time ever, could also help answer basic questions about those swirling gasses: We don't know how deep the GRS or the rotating bands go, or whether there's a rocky core hiding beneath them. Read More: The Rosetta probe has officially stopped listening for Philae, its little lost comet lander The dwarf planet Ceres is mysteriously missing a bunch of craters Astronauts are diving deep under the ocean to prepare for life in space Dear Science answers your questions about evolution


Mitch McConnell thinks you don’t need experience to be president. Here’s why he’s wrong.

want to walk over to the White House one day, months down the road, to say, ‘Here’s the plan, bang, go.’ The President had to comprehend the stakes, the costs and the risks, step by step.” In a September 1990 speech, Cheney described Bush 41 as subscribing to the “‘don’t screw around’ school of military strategy.” Additionally, Colin Powell, who was marginalized in the planning for the 2003 Iraq War, had more room to voice his doubts about the first Gulf War and advocated for an early end to the war under Bush 41. How do U.S. presidents work with different kinds of advisers? Historically, there have been four broad combinations of presidents and advisers. Here’s how these combinations of experience worked in practice: 1 2. Inexperienced president + experienced team of advisers More recently, Barack Obama lacked foreign-policy experience when he took office and faced the challenge of managing experienced advisers such as Robert Gates and David Petraeus, both of whom had more hawkish preferences. In the 2009 debate over whether and how to send more troops to Afghanistan, Obama initially favored a more restrained approach, siding with Vice President Biden and advisers who wanted a limited strategy focused on counterterrorism. Petraeus, backed by Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, favored a more troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy, which they had employed in the Iraq surge. Obama compromised, but leaned in the direction of counterinsurgency and nation-building. While Obama’s handling of the debate was arguably more balanced than George W. Bush’s approach to the 2003 Iraq War, the Afghanistan war continues with little prospect of victory. Obama’s appointment of Clinton and retention of Gates and Petraeus were somewhat unusual. Appointing advisers with views that diverge from those of the president can be politically risky, and an inexperienced president may be especially concerned about criticism from those advisers (and therefore more beholden to those views). Perhaps for this reason, it is rare in the modern presidency to find a true “team of rivals.” 3. Experienced president + inexperienced team of 4. Inexperienced president + inexperienced team of advisers This scenario raises the possibility of inexperienced advisers gathering information and formulating policy options without the substantive background to know where to look, what might be missing, and what has worked in the past — all while working for a boss who is not likely to spot the problems or fill in the


NBC tried to change the order of the Parade of Nations for better ratings. The IOC said no.

Why is it the Opening Ceremonies and not the Opening Ceremony? (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post) In 2011, NBC won the right to broadcast all of the Olympic Games from 2014 through 2020 at a cost of $4.38 billion. This year’s Rio Olympics alone will cost the network $1.23 billion. Three years later, the network re-upped with the International Olympic Committee through 2032 for the eye-popping amount of $7.65 billion. The IOC, of course, was thrilled with all this money. “The agreement is a major contribution to the long-term financial stability of the entire Olympic Movement,” it said in a statement announcing the latest extension. But reciprocity only goes so far. Sure, the IOC agreed to move the ratings-magnet swimming finals at this year’s Olympics to the nighttime in order to placate its sugar daddy, and now some of those finals won’t begin until after midnight Rio time (much, much to the chagrin of some). But when NBC went to Olympic officials and asked that it change the order of the Parade of Nations at the Aug. 5 Opening Ceremonies so that the U.S. athletes would come out at a more ratings-friendly time, it said no. Bloomberg’s Tariq Panja explains why In the traditional Parade of Nations, teams enter the arena in alphabetical order. Switching the languages would have put the United States’s 555 athletes near the back, giving American audiences a reason watch the full broadcast. As it is, the team will enter somewhere in the middle, because in Portuguese, the delegation is known as Estados Unidos. Communications director Mario Andrada told the Americans yesterday that International Olympic Committee rules require that the official language of the opening ceremony has to be that of the host country. However, NBC Sports released a statement saying that it never requested that the language of the Parade of Nations be changed to English. “We did not ask the IOC, Rio 2016 or anyone else to use the English spelling,” said an NBC Sports spokesperson. The U.S. athletes will come out 64th in the 207-nation parade, sandwiched between the Federated States of Micronesia and Estonia (who will be getting a ton of free advertising). NBC, which took a bunch of heat for its heavily tape-delayed broadcast of the 2012 Olympics in London (five hours ahead of Eastern Time), has a much better time-slot situation this year because Rio is only one hour ahead


Photos: Hot summer days fuel dramatic nighttime lightning shows

Lightning seen from Capitol Hill, July 25. (NM Belntema via Flickr) Afternoon temperatures in Washington, D.C., have soared to at least 95 degrees in each of the past six days. After several of these scorching hot days, intense nighttime thunderstorms have erupted with dazzling displays of lightning. With a view of the skyline, storms need not be nearby for you to enjoy the show. You can often watch these lightning extravaganzas from tens of miles away. People sometimes mistake such far-off displays as “heat lightning,” but what they’re seeing is just thunderstorms off in the distance. Capital Weather Gang reader Mark Laufman was awestruck by the lightning he viewed from afar Sunday night. “My wife and I were watching an amazing display at about 1 a.m.,” Laufman said. “It was completely silent and appeared as bursts of light in the clouds in the eastern sky. But the bursts were much more frequent than any thunderstorm I had ever seen. They were pretty much constant and continued for a very long time.” Laufman was watching a storm that blew up over Southern Maryland. A Capital Weather Gang Twitter follower with the apt name @eternallystoked shared this time-lapse: 2hours of #Lighting 🎥1am @capitalweather @MelissaNordWx @ChuckBell4 @suepalkafox5dc @amelia_draper #canon80d https://t.co/6OFS9kVc9i And the time-lapse below was captured by reader Tyler Reber from Arlington, who said the lightning was “almost constant”: Storms over Southern Maryland - 7/25/16 Capital Weather Gang severe weather expert Jeff Halverson said the intensity of nighttime lightning shows is related to the amount of daytime heating. “When the atmosphere heats up so much during day, instability persists through the late night hours,” Halverson said. “The atmosphere is like a capacitor. When you charge it up with buoyant energy to such a great degree, that energy is still available after sunset to power these thunderstorms. It fuels strong updrafts that can create very concentrated and intense bursts of lightning in these storms.” Here are some more lightning photos shared with us via Twitter this week: It's a great night for star-gazing and lightning-gazing in Alexandria, VA @capitalweather @JimCantore @spann https://t.co/576iGaTQpS @capitalweather pretty nice show tonight. close but not too close. shot in Ballston looking south and east https://t.co/8SERU5yBdN Watching a thunderstorm from my 26th-floor Alexandria hotel room (taken w/@NightCapApp on iPhone). @capitalweather https://t.co/oM4qemofdJ @capitalweather @islivingston @SteveRudinABC7 @hbwx @TonyPannWBAL @suepalkafox5dc @ABC7EileenW evening salvagedish. https://t.co/DvXGv4a5Ml We had another #lightshow last night. @capitalweather. #canon80d


A poacher who stole 970 venus flytraps in N.C. is sentenced to prison

grinning.” Simmons and the other poachers pulled their heist in January 2015, just one month after the crime became a felony. N.C. Wildlife Officer Fred Gorchess got a call reporting a man with a large bag darting across the road near a stretch of North Carolina game land, WWAY News reported. “Our two options of what we thought — maybe is what it was marijuana or Venus flytraps — so we thought if it was Venus flytraps, it’s a lot of traps,” Gorchess told WWAY News. Gorchess pulled over a car that matched the witness’s description. The men told him they were birdwatching. That’s when he saw the bags of flytraps and arrested them. Later, in November 2015, two other men were arrested for stealing more than 1,000 Venus flytraps and two pitcher plants from Orton Plantation, according to WWAY News coverage. The Charlotte Observer reported So why steal a whole bunch of Venus flytraps? As with most crimes, for the money. But it’s not the most lucrative profession. “What makes poaching so sad and stupid is that the people who are doing it are local folks,” Crane told Scientific American. “They’re not making much money off of it. They’re selling the bulbs for maybe 25 cents. It’s an incredibly stupid thing that they’re going to wipe out this wonderful thing in nature.” Venus flytraps have long been a fascination for children, botanists and “Little Shop of Horrors” fans. In 1892, Charles Darwin called them “one of the most wonderful plants in the world,” and dedicated a whole book to the study of carnivorous plants. He was fascinated by their ability to snap their “mouths” shut on their prey. When an insect or spider tickles the hairs that line a flytrap’s jaw, the plant can close fast enough that its victim can’t escape. The bug is trapped in its grasp, being slowly decomposed through digestive enzymes. A Venus flytrap can even digest human flesh (only if fed it, of course). With the new law in effect, lawmakers hope that poachers will think twice before removing the flytraps from their natural habitat. “Venus flytraps are a unique and important part of Southeastern North Carolina’s ecosystem,” District Attorney Ben David said to The Guardian. “I am proud that the Fifth District will be the first to prosecute the new felony charge and commend N.C. Wildlife Resources for their enforcement of the law.”


Whole Foods just got called out for a pretty big exaggeration

A pedestrian walks past a Whole Foods Market in Cambridge, Mass., in 2007. (Bloomberg/JB REED) Whole Foods Market says it's "America's Healthiest Grocery Store." Now, the grocery chain is looking to update its slogan to reflect a loftier moniker: "World's Healthiest Grocery Store." Unfortunately for the grocer's efforts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently rejected an application to register that slogan. Whole Foods will have six months to update and refile the case; it may choose not to do so, although that seems unlikely. On top of that, Whole Foods' attempts to break into the global market has been slow. It launched its first international outlet 14 years ago and now has opened just 20 in two countries outside the United States. The agency said it rejected the trademark because it makes a "laudatory" claim, or is based on exaggerated praise that can't be proven or has not been proved true. For instance, Papa John's slogan "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" was initially struck down by a court in 2000 because it could not substantiate that it indeed had better ingredients than all of its competitors. Companies still try to trademark these sorts of affirmations anyway, said Jonathan Hyman, a partner at California-based intellectual property law firm Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear. "Companies attempt to register these kinds of marks all the time, though it's sometimes not successful." That's because they can manage to argue that the superlative is a distinguishing mark of the company, rather than a factual statement, Hyman said. Papa John's continued to advertise their pizza pies with "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" on the basis that their consumers already associated that with their company. Whole Foods used a similar argument when it managed to claim "America's Healthiest Grocery Store" in 2010, Mike Ortega, trademark consultant for brand agency Interbrand, wrote in an Interbrand publication. They could also use facts to back up their slogan. "Leading Brand" or "Trusted by Moms" are approved tag lines when a brand can quantitatively prove that those are indeed true. But Whole Foods isn't really recognized as the world's healthiest grocery store. It functions only in the United States, Britain and Canada, which is hardly the entire globe. On top of that, few probably associate the phrase "World's Healthiest Grocery Store" with Whole Foods; it has never used the slogan. "The trademark application could be a sign that Whole Foods could be


also use facts to back up their slogan. "Leading Brand" or "Trusted by Moms" are approved tag lines when a brand can quantitatively prove that those are indeed true. But Whole Foods isn't really recognized as the world's healthiest grocery store. It functions only in the United States, Britain and Canada, which is hardly the entire globe. On top of that, few probably associate the phrase "World's Healthiest Grocery Store" with Whole Foods; it has never used the slogan. "The trademark application could be a sign that Whole Foods could be planning to expand its locations beyond just three countries," Ortega wrote. It does indicate that Whole Foods is still looking to continue to grow globally. Based in Austin, Whole Foods opened its first international outlet in Toronto in 2002 and expanded to Britain shortly thereafter. The international push has not been as lucrative as executives hoped. That's in part because of efforts by cheaper options, such as Walmart, to expand their organic sections as well as the hold preexisting upscale grocers, such as Britain's Waitrose, have on Whole Foods' potential clientele. Whole Foods co-chief executive Walter Robb told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 that his company would open more than 80 new storefronts in Canada in 2015 and 2016. But the current tally is three: 2015 saw the opening of one new location in British Columbia; another is slated to open there this fall as well as one in Alberta. That would bring its total store count in Canada to 13. Other U.S. retailers have struggled to the north. Last year, Target closed all of its stores in Canada after two years of disappointing results. Walmart, although otherwise enjoying growth, is in a credit card feud in some Canadian locations. In Britain, where Whole Foods operates nine storefronts, the grocer has seen improving sales, the Guardian reported. It has not expanded there since 2013. Whole Foods applied for this trademark on June 27 and received an office action on July 16 informing it that its slogan was insufficient for copyright registration. The rejection is not final, and Whole Foods must reply to the agency's reasons for rejection by Jan. 16 to still be considered. Whole Foods did not respond to requests for an interview. Read more: Why rich neighbors are bad for you Men drinking craft beer, women eating quinoa, and other millennial foodie trends, ranked Save Save


National Zoo review: (sleeping) tigers, (lazy) lions and amorous bears

Good luck trudging back up the hill to return your $9 rented stroller. (Illustration by Ben Claassen III for Express) In the summer of 1989, during a family vacation, I visited the National Zoo (3001 Connecticut Ave. NW). I don’t recall seeing any animals, but I vividly remember my younger brother sleeping peacefully in an otter-shaped stroller while I trudged up an endless hill, sweat streaming down my face, struggling to breathe the soggy blanket that passes for air during the summer in D.C. Not that I am bitter. That memory might be why, when I went to the zoo recently with my friend Dave, his sister Meryl and his nieces Gylie, 5, and Nomi, 10, I argued against getting a stroller for little Gylie. “You can see the animals better on foot,” I said. Pointing out that toddlers are much easier to push than carry, Meryl ignored my advice and rented the stroller for $9. Nomi wanted to see the tigers first, but they were at the other end of the zoo. So we headed down a long, sloping path in their general direction, with Gylie in the stroller and Dave pushing. “I want it to go faster,” Gylie said. Dave didn’t respond, so Gylie clarified her position. “I’d rather it go faster,” she said. Dave refused to pick up the pace, so Gylie hopped out and ran toward the first animals she saw. “It’s a baby cow,” Gylie said. It was actually a red river pig, much bigger than any pig I’d ever seen, and it had strange tasseled ears. In fact, all of the animals in that enclosure looked like ostentatious versions of familiar creatures. Grazing near the pig was an oryx, an antelope with long, curving horns, and on a stump sat a vulture that, were it pressed into service, would offer more legroom than your average commuter airline. A boy with a puff of black hair stood on tiptoe and leaned against a low wall to get a better view of the oryx. Grabbing him by his shirt collar, the boy’s mom told him the cautionary tale of Harambe, the gorilla who was shot after a kid fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. “But Mom, this is a deer,” the boy said. We walked around a bend and saw a group of tourists pointing at what appeared to be a patch of shade.


Squinting, we spotted a cheetah, fast asleep. “OK, I saw it. Let’s keep going,” Nomi said. “We have to get through all the animals to get to the tigers.” Our next stop was the panda house, where we were met with the adorable visage of Bao Bao. The nearly 3-year-old panda was asleep on a ledge, a Mona Lisa smile across her face. Nomi was unimpressed. “He’s still in the exact same spot I saw him in last year,” she said. At the other end of the enclosure, Bao Bao’s dad, Tian Tian, was putting on a much better show. Perched on a rock, he ate a pile of bamboo with gusto. Tourists cooed at his every move, while one woman provided a play-by-play. “He’s picking up the bamboo,” she announced. “He’s eating the leaves.” When Tian Tian rolled onto his back and slid down the rock, we all cheered as if he’d scored a winning touchdown. Then, Tian Tian’s solo act took an X-rated turn. “He’s itching his belly,” the woman said. “It must be really itchy,” she added uncertainly. We hustled the girls out of the panda house of ill repute and continued downhill. We visited elephants and gorillas, then stopped for Italian ice. Next, we speed-walked to the tiger exhibit. But when we got to the island where the jungle cats were supposed to be, all we saw were a few small birds taking dust baths. Then, Nomi noticed a striped tail peeking out from behind some concrete stairs. The tail didn’t so much as flick — that tiger was out cold. “It’s all curled up,” Nomi said. “It’s cool to see, though.” Seeing tigers and cheetahs up close is always a thrill, even if they’re fast asleep. We’d been at the zoo for three hours, walking downhill the entire time. That meant we had a long, hot uphill hike ahead of us to get back to the main entrance, where we could return the stroller. Suddenly, I was faced with the prospect of the same gulag I remembered from my family’s trip to the zoo. But this time, I had an out. “I’m going to catch an Uber from here,” I said, pointing to zoo’s eastern exit. I left poor Meryl, Dave and Nomi to trudge back up that hill. As for Gylie, well, she was already back in the stroller and starting to drift to


Your kid is way more likely to be poisoned by crayons than by marijuana

Marijuana plants grow in a greenhouse in Avondale, Colo. (Matthew Staver/Bloomberg) A new study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics is making waves this week with the news that there's been a sharp uptick in emergency-room visits and poison-control calls for marijuana poisoning among children in Colorado. The study found that the number of marijuana-related hospital visits for children under the age of 10 more than doubled since the opening of Colorado's recreational marijuana market, from seven in 2013 to 16 visits in 2015. Marijuana-related poison control calls for young kids also rose sharply over that period, from 25 to 47. Opponents of marijuana legalization More kids in hospitals in CO after legalization - says JAMA. The science is undeniable here. Legalization hurts. https://t.co/IFi5Wap6Wt On the other hand, it's not entirely surprising that a new market offering a product for the first time will lead to an uptick in cases of accidental ingestion and misuse. Marijuana edibles — pre-packaged candies, brownies and the like — are naturally appealing to small kids and accounted for nearly half of the hospital visits in the JAMA study. Beyond that, the raw numbers on marijuana exposure are extremely low. Marijuana accounts for only 2.3 of every 1,000 poison control cases for kids 10 and younger in Colorado, according to the JAMA study. At the national level, kids are much more likely to be poisoned by any number of common household products, like diaper cream, toothpaste, or energy drinks, than they are to be poisoned by marijuana. Part of this, of course, is a function of how common these products are. You are much more likely to find toothpaste and diaper cream in a house with a toddler than you are to find marijuana — hence, little kids are more likely to swallow toothpaste or diaper cream, and worried parents more likely to call poison control over it. It's also worth noting that a call to a poison control center doesn't necessarily mean that a poison has taken place — a child may slurp down the toothpaste on her toothbrush prompting a panicked call to poison control, only to have the operator tell the parent that everything will be just fine. You can correct for this somewhat by looking at rates of poisoning, however — for a given substance, how many poison control center calls for every 1 million adult users of the drug. We have


Scientists have found a perfect illustration of how the climate is spiraling ‘out of control’

Several months ago, climate scientist Now, scientists have developed two new visualizations, released Wednesday, intended to complement Hawkins’s original graphic. The result is an even clearer picture of not only the change in global climate but the undeniable human influence on its progression. Hawkins’s original graphic took monthly temperature data going back to the year 1850 and plotted it over a series of concentric circles representing incremental increases in global temperature. The result is a kind of spiral effect, with the warming temperatures expanding into the outer circles over time. The additional graphics, which were created by scientists Global-mean temperatures since 1850. Redrawing the original spirals by Ed Hawkins. (Gieseke and Meinshausen (2016) Climate Spirals from emissions to temperatures, available at: www.pik-potsdam.de/primap-live/ or climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/climate-spirals) Global mean carbon dioxide concentrations since 1850. (Gieseke and Meinshausen (2016) Climate Spirals from emissions to temperatures, available at: www.pik-potsdam.de/primap-live/ or climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/climate-spirals) The use of the global carbon budget. (Gieseke and Meinshausen (2016) Climate Spirals from emissions to temperatures, available at: www.pik-potsdam.de/primap-live/ or climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/climate-spirals) When viewed at the same time as Hawkins’s temperature visualization, the three graphics provide a clear look at the relationship between atmospheric carbon concentrations and rising temperatures, as well as how close we’re getting to blowing through our 2-degree climate goal. Meinshausen and Gieseke said they came up with the idea to build on Hawkins’s work at the U.N. climate change conference in Bonn this past May. “One motivation to represent the carbon budget and concentration data in the same visual language was to show people the connection,” Meinshausen told The Post by email. “Global temperatures do not simply ‘spiral’ out of control by themselves. There is a cause for that. And that cause is predominantly our continuous use of fossil fuels. Thus, visualising the cause effect chain from emissions to concentrations to temperatures was an important motivation.” But just as the spirals illustrate the profound influence that human activity has had on global warming, they also drive home the idea that we still have the power to combat future climate change, Gieseke pointed out. The spirals clearly suggest that if greenhouse gas emissions are halted and global carbon concentrations are allowed to stabilize, then global warming will ultimately plateau. Of course, this is a fact that humans have been aware of for quite some time — and the spirals may actually have the greatest impact when they’re considered within the historical


Studying heart disease in astronauts yields clues but not conclusive evidence

was skeptical of the claims in Delp's study. "With the current limited astronaut data referenced in the study, it is not possible to determine whether cosmic ray radiation affected the Apollo astronauts," the statement said. "... NASA recommends against drawing definitive conclusions when dealing with a small number of people that excludes other significant factors." Shelhamer said he was glad to see scientists studying the interaction of simultaneous weightlessness and radiation, which are extraordinarily difficult to study in tandem (you can blitz a mouse with a beam of ions, or put it in a microgravity chamber, but you can't do both at the same time). But he found the data on the astronauts themselves much less convincing. "I don’t want to completely discount the study because it makes us realize that there may be something here," he said. "But it Delp acknowledged that no definitive conclusions can be drawn from this research, which was funded by NASA. It's more of a clue, a suggestion that this subject warrants further research, particularly if NASA hopes to send humans on a 3-year journey to Mars. "What we found in the study was so unexpected ... and t The Apollo 11 lunar module returning to the command module from the moon, with the Earth just visible in the background. (NASA) If anything, this study illustrates how hard it is to understand the effects of space on the human body. When you're studying astronauts, there just aren't that many research subjects to work with. Fewer than 550 people have ever reached low Earth orbit, and only two dozen of that elite group ever flew beyond it. "If you do the math on that, you’re talking about five or six people maybe per year flying into space to potentially do life sciences experiments," Shelhamer said. "Compared to a study of real clinical trials on Earth where they’re doing hundreds or thousands of people, that’s a big difference." Space is also a poorly controlled environment. Astronauts at the International Space Station have a wide array of duties and must be prepared to handle any number of unforeseen circumstances. With so few subjects and such sparse data, it's difficult to know whether something is a consequence of specific circumstances — lack of sleep because of a schedule change, a fight with a family member at home, medications, stress — or a sign of a bigger trend. On


Protesters in Brazil halt Olympic torch relay and extinguish its flame

The Rio 2016 Olympic torch on display. (Buda Mendes/Getty Images) Protests have continued to roil the lead-up to the 2016 Summer Olympics, with the opening ceremony just over a week away. On Wednesday night, government employees angry over delayed salary payments took to the streets in Angra dos Reis, a city near Rio de Janeiro, and confronted the procession carrying one of the Olympic torches. Chaotic scenes caught on amateur video show a crowd of young people appearing to steal the torch from the procession and then extinguish it. Local news reports said that the Brazilian military eventually disbanded the protests using tear gas and rubber bullets, and in return were showered with rocks and bricks by the crowd. One child was reportedly injured. The torch relay was temporarily halted. Outpourings of anger have plagued Brazil, which is about to welcome an estimated half a million tourists and athletes for the quadrennial Games. The state of Rio de Janeiro, where the Games are being hosted, is in the midst of a crippling cash crunch, and hasn't paid some government employees in more than two months. Crime is also on the rise, and Brazilian police and paramilitary forces have struggled to cope as the financial crisis has led the government to reduce their numbers. Of late, that anger has taken the form of a series of attempts to either steal or extinguish the Olympic torch, with fire extinguishers and buckets of water. Other times, the torch bearers have simply foiled themselves by slipping or tripping. Many in Brazil and around the world have raised questions about the hosting of expensive sports tournaments in countries with depressed economies and widespread poverty. Stadiums and accommodation for athletes and visitors are built at great cost, and often are left unused after the Games. Proponents argue that the influx of money before and during the Games spurs the development of public infrastructure, and that hosting the Games themselves should be seen as a matter of pride. A poll conducted earlier this month found that nearly two-thirds of Brazilians think the Olympics will do their country more harm than good. Read more: Olympic teams are complaining about the pathetic state of Rio’s athletes village Brazilian extremist group uses Telegram to pledge allegiance to ISIS ahead of Olympics Victim of Rio gang rape speaks out as police bungle her case


The forgotten D.C. area restaurants that all diners should try

Crispy soft shell crab with wilted greens and verjus at Corduroy. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Between Washington’s golden era of restaurant excellence and human nature’s impulse to seek novelty, the emphasis in dining often ends up on the “latest” rather than the “greatest” thing. The restaurants in this guide may have been around for a while — perhaps you visited some of them when they first opened. They may have slipped under the radar because they don’t have a big social media presence, or they’re hidden in plain sight, overshadowed by flashier restaurants nearby. All the more reason to go: Chances are, you can get a table without a wait. Corduroy If Rose’s Luxury and Bad Saint are the Blake Livelys of D.C. dining, Corduroy is its Meryl Streep: understated, sophisticated and consistently impressive. In the Shaw restaurant’s plush interior — complete with black-suited wait staff, white tablecloths and a phone book-sized wine list — chef Tom Power has stacked his slight, predominantly American menu with simple dishes. You’ll find no clever gimmicks or flashy mash-ups here: Power is a master at making luxurious compositions from well-executed basics. Take the soft shell crab entree. The two lightly fried crustaceans on a bed of buttery greens are plenty rich, but the secret is the sauce: a bright, vinegary verjus dressing that lends just the right amount of sharpness. This is a fancy place, so be discreet when you lick your plate clean. 1122 Ninth St. NW. 202-589-0699. Appetizers $9-$16; entrees $27-$39. — Lori McCue Great Wall Szechuan House At first glance, Great Wall’s menu is packed with dishes familiar to unadventurous palates: Kung Pao chicken, beef with broccoli, moo goo gai pan. But the real reason to visit the unassuming dining room is the page titled “Ma La Specials.” This menu, once written only in Chinese, takes its name from ma la sauce, a slick oil packed with lip-numbing Szechuan peppercorns and chili peppers that makes your tongue tingle and puts a thin film of sweat on your forehead. Start with the ma la cold noodle — long, chewy noodles swimming in a fiery soup of peppers and garlic. Move on to the stellar ma po tofu (available with or without meat); the beautiful eggplant in a pungent Szechuan garlic sauce; and the fatty, savory pork belly in the twice-cooked pork. There are times when the 10-table dining


Yes, I have daddy issues. But they’ve helped me navigate single life.

word of friends’ dads who told them they did a great job on the soccer field or after acing a test. Weddings have always made me sad, because I know that if I were ever to tie the knot, I would not have a father who would walk me down the aisle. When my father got remarried, he and his wife cut off contact with me and my brother. We were no longer relevant. But in my adult life, I’ve had Gary and other father figures who would accompany me down the running trails of life, single as I was. They had my back. These men have treated me like a daughter, doling out wisdom, guidance and support that I lacked. It was Gary who encouraged me to make a big move to California, where I soon met Mike, another ultra-runner in his 50s. His belief in me helped me persevere even when I bit off more than I could chew: long races, challenging work projects, breaking up with the wrong men. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said one night in the Oakland Hills as we put on our headlamps and ran through the dark fog and light rain. The trail was muddy and steep. I was scared of falling into the ravines at both sides. “See, not so bad, right? he said, once we made it to flatter ground. “I think you earned that vanilla latte.” Ten years later, I’m back in Colorado, running without Gary. He has Parkinson’s disease now and can’t run. But I think of him every time I train for my yearly race up Pikes Peak. On a warm July morning, I run into Jay, who at a wiry and super-fit 70, is hard to keep up with. Like Gary and Mike, he offers both comforting silence as well as good advice as we head out on the trail. But I’m exhausted from the hot flashes that have come out of nowhere to invade my days and nights. So much for thinking I could somehow escape aging and the menopause that has finally hit me at 50! “I’m just tired,” I say, as we take a quick break. “I don’t want to complain, and I know you can handle it, but … I think I’m in menopause and it just sucks.” He looks at me and smiles. “I know it’s rough,” he says. “My


‘Please fix my toilet’: Olympic teams suffer through problems at Rio’s Athletes’ Village

2016, said the complex had been turned over to organizers at the end of May but water and electricity were connected in June. “The main cause for the delay was that water and electricity were connected too late" and there was no time to check the units before they were handed to the national Olympic committees, he said. Andrada said it was not clear whose fault that was. “Ilha Pura could maybe have delivered some of the apartments in better condition,” he said. “We should have done better testing. But we are not discussing this now.” “Now the focus is on the resolution of the problem, not the cause of the problem,” he said. On Wednesday evening, some athletes described the problems they found. Shimaa Hashad, a member of the Egyptian shooting team, had no hot water when she arrived at her apartment earlier that day, and her toilet did not flush. "We told them and they fixed it," she said. "My friends from other countries told me about the same problems." The Dutch team brought two technicians of its own after facing similar issues at Olympic Villages in London and in the Russian city of Sochi. But Rio was worse, said spokesman John van Vliet. Dutch field hockey player Mink Van Der Weerden said those efforts meant his apartment was in good condition when he arrived. "They did a bit of work," he said. "And now it's all good." Kiton Muca, an administration assistant for the Albanian team, said its members had faced some small issues on arriving, such as toilets that didn't flush, but these had been resolved. "For each Olympic Games, this is the situation," he said. Rio is his third. Others faced more serious issues. The Argentine Olympic committee rented apartments in a nearby condominium for some of its technical staff because two of the five floors were "uninhabitable", its president, Gerardo Werthein, told reporters in Buenos Aires on Monday. "It was very bad but it is being repaired," Eduardo Moyano, the team's communications director, told the Post, adding that the problems would probably be resolved in two or three days. Read more: Journalists at Sochi are live-tweeting their hilarious and gross hotel experiences This badminton academy in a favela will give you hope for the Rio Olympics Brazil's national guard threatened to drop out of Olympic security over a lack of beds, pay Save Save


The future of vegetables is ugly

The future of produce is ugly. Twisted, blemished, mutated and deformed, to be specific. That’s because an increasing number of grocery chains and crop-sharing services have begun stocking and distributing fruits and vegetables that were once deemed unfit for sale based solely on appearance. To be clear, these goods aren’t damaged or rotten or distasteful. If a chef chopped them up and served them in a souffle, most would never know the difference. Their banishment from shelves was purely produce prejudice. In recent years, a small number of eco-conscious consumers have begun buying imperfect produce, often at discounted prices, in an effort to chip away at the planet’s staggering level of food waste. Now, the buy-ugly movement has been thrust into the mainstream. Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer with more than 4,000 produce-selling stores, announced last week it would sell less-than-pretty apples in 300 stores across Florida. This builds on an ugly potato program the retail behemoth launched in Britain earlier this year. By virtue of its size, when Walmart makes a change, the broader retail sector notices. The company commands a massive and global supply chain and possesses tremendous purchasing power, a combination that allows it to disrupt traditional distribution channels and create demand for products where there once was none. And food is big business for Walmart. Groceries accounted for 56 percent of all sales in the company’s U.S. stores each of the past three years, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Walmart’s program “is a result of working with our suppliers to build the infrastructure and processes that create a new home for perfectly imperfect produce,” Shawn Baldwin, Walmart’s senior vice president for global food sourcing, produce and floral, wrote on the company’s blog. “Because ugly produce can occur unexpectedly in any growing season or crop, we want to have the systems in place to offer this type of produce whenever it may occur.” Walmart is hardly alone in its embrace of ugly fruits and vegetables. Whole Foods has sold similar goods in the past, but it does not have the mass market reach of Walmart. And getting U.S. consumers to buy flawed produce has not been easy. Shoppers, particularly Americans, have long fixated on food with visual appeal in addition to (or instead of) nutritional value. There’s a reason the food that appears in television and magazine advertisements look like modern still-life paintings, meticulously crafted


The future of vegetables is ugly

point of defying reality. European shoppers, by contrast, have been pioneers in food conservation and buying ugly. Britain has conducted a “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign since at least 2007, and the European Union has pledged to cut its food waste in half over the next decade. Winning acceptance for ugly produce is just one tactic being pursued in Europe to meet that goal. Others see a moneymaking opportunity; a grocery store in Denmark called WeFood sells only discounted food that is either misshapen or past its stated expiration date. Our vanity contributes to America’s waste epidemic. No matter how you slice it, the United States throws away tons of edible food every year. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that 40 percent of food grown and produced in the United States each year goes uneaten. More fruit and vegetables are wasted than any other food category, with 52 percent being lost rather than consumed. There are many factors that lead to this waste. Some food may simply spoil before it’s sold or fail to meet standards set by the Agriculture Department for consumable goods sold in the United States. Retailers also have guidelines for produce they are willing to shelve, and those guidelines are often more stringent than the government regulations. For its part, the food industry has made efforts to eliminate some of this waste by selling misshapen produce as ingredients in other foods, said Kathy Means, vice president of industry relations at the Produce Marketing Association. Strawberries may be mashed into jam, for example. Baby-cut carrots were invented in 1986 as a way to repurpose full-size carrots that weren’t considered grocery-store caliber. “It still is a huge challenge to get people to understand that ugly fruits and vegetables are perfectly fine to eat, and that it’s good for our planet,” said Evan Lutz, the chief executive of Hungry Harvest. Founded in 2014, the company makes weekly shipments of store-rejected produce to homes around the Mid-Atlantic. And when the package arrives, the contents don’t always look like a middle school science project. Sometimes perfectly normal produce can be rejected by stores for logistical reasons, and could wind up in a landfill if not for alternative sellers such as Hungry Harvest. “People are really surprised often times when they get their box [of ugly produce]. It’s really the same stuff you would find in the grocery store,” Lutz said.


Doping has always been part of the Olympics. Of course Russia got off the hook.

and mind.” The brainchild of Olympics founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the original spirit of sport was a defense against class revolutions taking place after the Industrial Revolution. The first Olympic Games, in 1896, were conceived as a sanctuary for gentleman amateurs, a “religion with its church, dogmas, service,” Coubertin enthused. Until 1988, pro athletes — inherently inferior in aristocratic eyes — were barred from the Olympics. It turns out, though, that if there is an essence of elite and professional sports, it is enlisting technology to expand the limits of the human body . (That, and entertaining fans in the interest of making money.) Professional sports are a child of the Industrial Revolution. When immigrant textile laborers in England formed Manchester United in 1878 and munitions workers joined as the Arsenal Football Club in 1886, promoters cashed in selling tickets to their matches, and to other spectacles such as six-day bicycle races at Madison Square Garden. Labor-intensive sports including cycling, long-distance walking and running were spiritual brethren to milling steel or extracting coal. The public had no more reason to judge a cyclist who used stimulants than a mineworker who made nicotine an essential part of his workday. After British-American runner Charles Hicks won the 1904 Olympic marathon with the help of brandy and strychnine, physician and Olympic chronicler Charles Lucas wrote that Hicks was “kept in mechanical action by the use of drugs, that he might bring to America the Marathon honors.” Lucas added that Hicks’s success showed that “drugs are of much benefit to athletes along the road.” That nonjudgmental attitude carried on for decades. In 1941, influential American exercise physiologist Peter Karpovich observed in a medical journal that “the use of a substance or device which improves the physical performance of a man without being injurious to his health, can hardly be called unethical.” Drugs began their transition from athlete trade tool to instrument of moral decay in 1960, when Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died at the Rome Olympics. Competing in a 62-mile race without water on a scorching day, Jensen collapsed, hit his bare head and broiled in an uncooled tent for two hours before dying. Though his autopsy reported only heat stroke, news stories based on unfounded rumors made amphetamines into the killer. Like the millions in 1960 who swallowed stimulants to brighten their mood, lose weight or get a job done, cyclists


British-American runner Charles Hicks won the 1904 Olympic marathon with the help of brandy and strychnine, physician and Olympic chronicler Charles Lucas wrote that Hicks was “kept in mechanical action by the use of drugs, that he might bring to America the Marathon honors.” Lucas added that Hicks’s success showed that “drugs are of much benefit to athletes along the road.” That nonjudgmental attitude carried on for decades. In 1941, influential American exercise physiologist Peter Karpovich observed in a medical journal that “the use of a substance or device which improves the physical performance of a man without being injurious to his health, can hardly be called unethical.” Drugs began their transition from athlete trade tool to instrument of moral decay in 1960, when Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died at the Rome Olympics. Competing in a 62-mile race without water on a scorching day, Jensen collapsed, hit his bare head and broiled in an uncooled tent for two hours before dying. Though his autopsy reported only heat stroke, news stories based on unfounded rumors made amphetamines into the killer. Like the millions in 1960 who swallowed stimulants to brighten their mood, lose weight or get a job done, cyclists had been happily using speed since it became commercially available as Benzedrine in 1937. But Jensen’s death helped precipitate the first European medical conferences on drugs in sports in the early 1960s. Reacting to better understanding of amphetamine addiction, media hysteria and countercultural social anxieties, the IOC introduced drug tests at the 1968 Winter Games. Even before that, crude nationalism had also hijacked what Coubertin called his pure and “glittering dream of ancient Olympism.” Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Games as a propaganda spectacle to prove that Germany was great again. Later, the Cold War brought sporting nationalism to a new level. In 1945, Pravda announced 80 state-sponsored sport schools where Soviet athletes would assert the superiority of the communist system. Commenting on his native country’s preparations for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Russian sportswriter Yevgeny Rubin noted in the New York Times that Olympic victories were “one of the largest-caliber guns of the propaganda arsenal.” Alarmed, in 1955, future IOC president Avery Brundage warned Saturday Evening Post readers that Americans had become “a race of grandstand and bleacher sitters.” Unless it got its Olympic act together, the United States was “doomed to a secondary position in the world of sports.”


This is the best time to get into D.C.’s dining hot spots

Priyal Patel and Vishnu Panigrahi toast while dining at Rose's Luxury. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) If the weather has you wary of standing in line at some of D.C.'s, ahem, hottest restaurants, there's good news and bad news. The good news: The hopping dining scene has gotten noticeably quieter during the summer. The bad news: That doesn't mean you can stroll right into Bad Saint at 8 p.m. on a Friday night. With the following tips, though, you can take advantage of the slight summer lull and keep waits to a minimum. Rose's Luxury: Little Serow: Bad Saint: Daikaya: Georgetown Cupcake: Vin Vic's: Fritz Hahn contributed to this report. Related items: - 11 ways to stay cool during this week's heat wave in the D.C. area - The forgotten D.C. area restaurants that all diners should try - A guide to the D.C. area's lakes, swimmin' holes and waterfalls


It turns out the United States has just one true species of wolf

The gray wolf is the only true wolf species in the United States. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gary Kramer) According to research published Thursday in Science Advances, red wolves and eastern wolves aren't truly wolves at all – they're coyote-wolf hybrids. That confirms something scientists had long debated: Canis lupus, the gray wolf, is actually the only wolf species in the United States. Neither the red nor the eastern wolf has any DNA that can't be tied to gray wolf or coyote origins. All three "species" are actually just gray wolf descendants with varying levels of coyote DNA. The red wolf is actually mostly coyote, according to the study, with just around a quarter of its genes coming from the gray wolf. The eastern wolf is 25 to 50 percent coyote, and even gray wolves carry some small traces of coyote interbreeding in their DNA (in much the same way that many humans carry small percentages of Neanderthal DNA today). Two captive red wolves. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot,Hyunsoo Leo Kim) The study also found that gray wolves and coyotes are much more closely related than previously assumed. While previous research had suggested that the two species had diverged around 1 million years ago, the new genetic analysis hints at a common ancestor 50,000 years ago. Sequencing Reveals Mixed Ancestry for Wolves Based on the traces of coyote DNA found even in "pure" wolves, the researchers suspect that these two closely-related species have frequently intermingled throughout the past few centuries. Gray wolves have become scarce in the United States – many populations have disappeared entirely – which made the remaining wolves more and more likely to pair up with coyotes as time went on. And as these hybrid creatures interbred with one another instead of with pure wolves, their coyote-like genes and characteristics became more prominent, giving them the appearance of an entirely new species. The findings could have disastrous implications for the canines. The red wolf is currently protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but the ESA doesn't protect hybrids. “People think that species should be genetically pure, that there should be tidy categories for ‘wolf’ and ‘coyote.’ That’s not what we found,” lead author Bridgett vonHoldt, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, told Science Magazine. Instead of leaving the red wolf to its own devices, she and her colleagues say, conservationists should rethink their treatment of hybrids.


Naji Marshall’s rapid recruiting rise leads to Xavier basketball commitment

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Naji Marshall committed to Xavier Friday morning after his recruiting situation headed up in recent months. (Doug Kapustin / For The Washington Post) Naji Marshall’s rapid rise on the national college basketball recruiting scene, which culminated Friday morning with his commitment to Xavier, did not occur until after the Eleanor Roosevelt All-Met led the Raiders to a Maryland 4A state championship this past March. He only got his first significant scholarship offer in July 2015 and another in the fall before this last high school boys’ basketball season. It was in April and May, once his high school career was over, that five more high major schools entered the fray as he shined on the Under Armour Association circuit with DC Premier. By June, Marshall had been branded one of the top 60 prospects in the country by national recruiting services. Over the past three weeks, a gaggle of college coaches moved around their schedules in order to attend his games and simply be seen in the gym by him. Suddenly, he was coveted, and the chase ended just as quickly. Marshall revealed his seven finalists — Xavier, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Rhode Island, TCU and Maryland (the Terrapins reportedly did not offer Marshall a scholarship) — on social media Monday afternoon, hours after the conclusion of the NCAA’s July live recruiting period. He again used his Twitter account four days later to officially choose Xavier. https://twitter.com/ijan3_/status/759041157968064512 “It was a perfect fit for me and I loved the coaching staff,” Marshall said of Xavier in a Friday afternoon telephone interview. “It’s a small school. I was comfortable with the area and I just liked the plans they had for me in the future.” Marshall, a 6-foot-5 wing, emerged as one of the most versatile prospects in the Washington area as a senior this past year. He averaged 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists per game while leading the Raiders to their second state title in four years. He’s a physical slasher with point guard instincts, defends multiple positions and scores in crunch time. Due to previous academic issues, Marshall must attend and play prep basketball at Hargrave Military Academy next season before moving on to Xavier in 2017. He arrived at Eleanor Roosevelt from Takoma Academy ineligible to play basketball as a sophomore. But the initial setbacks matured him, and his stock began to improve from


Storing carbon underground may be safer than we thought

Construction continues on Southern Co.’s Kemper County power plant near Meridian, Mississippi, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014. (Photographer: Gary Tramontina/Bloomberg) Few carbon-cutting practices have raised as much controversy, even among clean energy advocates, as the practice of carbon capture and storage. The basic concept is simple enough: catch carbon dioxide from factories and other industrial facilities before it goes into the atmosphere and then either store it indefinitely underground or inject it into oil reservoirs to help pump out more oil. But while many experts have touted the process as an essential factor in the mitigation of climate change, others have argued that it’s too risky, too costly and distracts policymakers from the expansion of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar. While the debate isn’t likely to be resolved any time soon, a But the new study suggests that such concerns may be overblown. The researchers examined a natural carbon dioxide reservoir near Green River, Utah, and found that the carbon dioxide has been trapped underground there for about 100,000 years without dangerously corroding the rocks that are trapping it in place. (For perspective, climate experts have suggested that carbon dioxide must be kept stored underground for at least 10,000 years to keep it from adding to the current global warming. These observations suggest that storing carbon underground may (at least at some sites) be much safer than previous model and laboratory experiments have suggested. To effectively store carbon underground, it’s necessary to pump it down at least a kilometer (that’s about six-tenths of a mile) into the earth, said “You need a porous rock that’s got enough space to pump the carbon dioxide in,” he added. These types of porous rock are typically already filled with briny water, which the pumped carbon dioxide will dissolve into. Because the carbon dioxide is still less dense than the briny water it replaces, though, it has a tendency to push its way upward. So the key to keeping it trapped underground is to make sure there’s an impermeable layer of rock above it as a “cap rock.” This is the rock layer that critics worry might wear down over time. The researchers acknowledge that conditions in the Utah reservoir are not identical to those that would be ideal for a man-made carbon storage situation — the natural reservoir is shallower and pressure is therefore lower than the sites that would


How foreclosed homes and used tires can threaten public health in the age of Zika

An Aedes aegypti mosquito draws blood from a human host. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP) With the Zika virus looming just a couple of years after Ebola spread across West Africa, what’s long been obvious to experts should now be clear to the rest of us: We live in an era of emerging pathogens. Between 1940 and 2004, more than 300 infectious diseases either emerged or spread into new places and populations. On Friday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott called a news conference to alert the public to four cases of Zika in South Florida transmitted locally by mosquitoes. Though we imagine infectious microbes propagating according to their own logic, many are resurging thanks to the unintended consequences of human activity that would seem to have little to do with the biology of microbes, from economics and housing policy to architecture. As these rejuvenated pathogens adapt to the man-made environments that sprawl across the planet, anything from highways to swimming pools can wind up triggering an outbreak. In a globalized economy, the public health implications of sick people getting on airplanes and spreading germs around the world are obvious. But we’re less used to thinking of things like foreclosed homes, imported tires and decorative bamboo as health risk factors. If we’re going to deal with Zika and the pathogens that will inevitably come after it, we have to start. Commerce has long provided unexpected opportunities for infectious pathogens to exploit, from the Erie Canal, which slashed the cost of shipping while unwittingly carrying cholera across the country, to the hydropower dams that electrified the South while simultaneously providing succor for scores of malarial mosquitoes. Today, abandoned properties and deteriorating infrastructure, brought on by housing crises and climate change, similarly threaten us with epidemics of mosquito-borne pathogens such as Zika. Just such an epidemic occurred in 2009, when dengue broke out in Florida. That mosquito-borne disease, which causes joint and bone pain so excruciating that it’s called “breakbone fever” in Latin America and Asia, hadn’t been seen in Florida since 1934. That’s surprising, because the state is surrounded by countries where the disease is endemic, and the mosquitoes that carry the virus, Aedes aegypti, have been established across the Gulf Coast since the 16th century. A few years ago, when I asked Florida Keys mosquito-control expert Lawrence Hribar to explain what had happened, he didn’t point to an


What has to happen before Metro could end late-night rail service

A musician performs outside the Vienna Metro station. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) If you were waiting for a big debate over eliminating late-night Metro service at Thursday’s Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board meeting, you were disappointed. General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld presented the same information he’d announced publicly, the board asked no questions, and that was it. Officials definitely heard from riders loud and clear, however. Riders have sent more than 2,400 emails through the Greater Greater Washington petition to Wiedefeld, Chairman Jack Evans and the board. You can still contact them using this form or just sign up for updates as this issue progresses here. This wasn’t the meeting to debate the (very bad) proposal. That comes later. Before any proposal would take effect, as I understand it, several things would have to happen: - Wiedefeld would more formally propose the change as a board agenda item. - A board committee (presumably the Customer Service and Operations Committee) would discuss the issue further. This is where board members would ask the tough questions. - The committee would send it to the full board, which also would discuss it. - The board would have to vote to start the formal public hearing process. - Metro would organize public hearings around the region. - Separately, Metro would have to do a Title VI analysis to be sure the change doesn’t unduly burden lower-income riders. That’s far from a foregone conclusion—Boston’s MBTA is facing federal scrutiny for not doing this analysis before cutting its late-night service. - The board then could vote to cut the late-night service, if it chose. One major hurdle: The District could veto this (as early as the first board vote). Under Metro’s compact, at least one vote must come from D.C., Maryland and Virginia for any proposal to pass. Both of D.C.’s voting members, Evans and Corbett Price, have publicly stated their opposition. Unless one changes his mind, the cuts can’t happen. (Meanwhile, Maryland rep Michael Goldman has said he’s for it. Goldman is also the same guy who refused to put money in a fund for retirement benefits, refused to pay Maryland’s share of the 5A bus to Dulles International Airport and opposed using new 7000 series cars to make more eight-car trains.) The public needs and deserves much more information so we can weigh in before board members start debating this. It’s too


Just when the Rio toilets start working, a fire breaks out in Olympic Village

A view of the Olympic village that will house the Australian, German, Polish and Italian federations in Rio de Janeiro. (Michael Kappeler/EPA) Life has not been easy for the Australian federation at the Olympic Village. First there was a snafu (or maybe sniffu?) with the toilets in their Olympic dig, and then on Friday a small fire broke out in the building, sending dozens of athletes to the street. There has been a small fire in the basement of the team building in the Olympic Village. All athletes and staff were evacuated and are fine No one was hurt in the incident, the team reports, and it appears that within minutes, firefighters extinguished the blaze. Athletes were able to re-enter the building shortly thereafter, the delegation tweeted. The fire brigade were quickly on the scene and the AOC's emergency management plan was put in place https://t.co/NY0a0swduc All athletes were safely evacuated and are now back in the building https://t.co/d5P8APqgZK The cause of the fire remains unknown, although Rio Olympic organizers think they may know why other issues have surfaced in Olympic Village. “We are considering isolated cases (of sabotage by unhappy workers), but we haven’t seen enough to say it was an organized sabotage thing,” Rio spokesman Mario Andrada said on Thursday (via the Associated Press). Many people in Rio haven’t quite welcomed the Olympics with open arms. Detractors oppose the government’s spending on the Games, which has come amid a collapsing economy, rampant crime and other issues, such as the spread of the Zika virus. The Australian team’s building hasn’t been the only one affected. Per the Post’s Dom Phillips, reporting from Rio this week: The Argentine committee said that two of the five floors of its building were uninhabitable, and it had to rent apartments nearby for some of its technical staff. The Belarus Olympic committee published photos of dirty windows and blocked drains on its official page. Egyptian athletes had no hot water and their toilets did not flush, while a Kenyan wrote “Please fix my toilet” on a notice board in the Olympic Village. Olympic organizers have been fixing the issues as quickly as they can. Andrada called it a “wild scramble” to get everything done. “We called literally all the constructions companies,” Andrada said. “We literally called every plumber in town.” Let’s just hope they don’t have to call the fire department anymore.


Defending gold medalists Bryan brothers withdraw from Olympics citing health concerns

an interview with The Post. “But ultimately we feel better about it.” The loss of the Bryans, both 38, is just the latest setback for Team USA’s tennis prospects after men’s singles players John Isner and Sam Querrey withdrew earlier this year to focus on the summer hard court season, which culminates with the U.S. Open later next month. Querrey, an Olympian in 2008 now ranked 29th in the world, suggested that the Olympics should cut tennis, which returned as a full medal sport in 1988 after a 64-year hiatus. “For tennis and golf, the Olympics isn’t a top priority,” he said at last week’s Citi Open tournament in Washington. “We have four other Grand Slams. Those kind of take the precedent. Those are the main focus for us.” “Tennis in the Olympics is cool,” he added. “I don’t necessarily think it maybe should be an Olympic sport. Some sports in the Olympics — that and golf — you know, I feel like maybe shouldn’t be in there. It just wasn’t a priority of mine at all.” Isner, the top-ranked American at No. 16 in the world, has shared the same sentiments. He played at the Olympics in 2012, but decided early this year that his priority is preparing himself for the U.S. Open, the last Grand Slam of the year. “Tennis is not really a traditional Olympic sport,” Isner told The Post in February. “If you ask Roger [Federer], I don’t think he dreamed of winning Olympic gold. He probably dreamed of winning Wimbledon seven times, like he has. …Our biggest events are the Grand Slams and are always going to be the Grand Slams.” The Rio Olympics have been mired in controversy, with concerns over the Zika virus and various health issues as reasons why some athletes are choosing not to attend. Other high-ranked players, including Canada’s Milos Raonic, Czech Tomas Berdych and Belinda Bencic of Switzerland are also skipping the Games. Raonic, a Wimbledon finalist and world No. 7, and Berdych, the world No. 8, cited their concerns over the Zika virus, while Bencic said she wanted to focus on the U.S. Open. Doctors from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said recently that the risk of contracting the Zika virus is low for those traveling to Rio, but officials still advised pregnant women or women who could get pregnant to avoid attending the Games.


No survivors after Texas hot air balloon crashes with 16 on board

said that the FBI’s office in San Antonio will assist in investigators collecting evidence. “It’s much like a crime scene,” Grosof told the paper. “You only get one chance at it so you have got to do it right.” According to the NTSB “The purpose of the Safety Board Go Team is simple and effective: Begin the investigation of a major accident at the accident scene, as quickly as possible, assembling the broad spectrum of technical expertise that is needed to solve complex transportation safety problems.” “The team can number from three or four to more than a dozen specialists from the Board’s headquarters staff in Washington, D.C., who are assigned on a rotational basis to respond as quickly as possible to the scene of the accident. Go Teams travel by commercial airliner or government aircraft depending on circumstances and availability. Such teams have been winging to catastrophic airline crash sites for more than 35 years. They also routinely handle investigations of certain rail, highway, marine and pipeline accidents.” “Most Go Team members do not have a suitcase pre-packed because there’s no way of knowing whether the accident scene will be in Florida or Alaska, but they do have tools of their trade handy — carefully selected wrenches, screwdrivers and devices peculiar to their specialty. All carry flashlights, tape recorders, cameras, and lots of extra tape and film.” Before Saturday, the highest number of deaths in a single hot air balloon crash was six and occurred in 1993 in Colorado, according to NTSB statistics cited by CNN. Placing the gravity of the accident into context, CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh said Saturday’s death toll equaled the total number of deaths in hot air balloon accidents over the previous decade. She said she expects that authorities will begin to piece the incident together by looking at the debris field, reviewing the balloon’s maintenance records and investigating the pilot. “Was this a mechanical issue with a hot air balloon or was this pilot error?” she said. “If there’s any video out there, they’ll want to get their hands on that, they’ll want to talk to witnesses.” MORE READING Coach accused of drilling holes in locker rooms to record ‘numerous underage’ girls Not even a dead body could make these Cronut customers leave their spots in line He was her middle-school speech teacher. Now, he’s the father of her unborn child, police say.


Olympic athletes often get a raw economic deal. Let us count the ways.

CEO Rob Urbach makes $362,000 while Team USA triathletes compete for stipends that range from about $20,000 to $40,000 a year. The coach of the USA Rowing’s women’s team makes $237,000 while his rowers vie for stipends that max out at about $20,000 per year. Here are a few Post stories that further exemplify how the Olympics are great for a small group of people and less-great for just about everyone else involved. Why an Olympian sold $22k of ad space on his body as a ‘campaign to be annoying’ In his story, Hobson notes that a sizable number of U.S. Olympic athletes earn less than $15,000 annually from their sports. In May, two-time Olympian Nick Symmonds auctioned off nine square inches of his right shoulder as ad space on eBay, with the winning bid coming in at $21,800. The auction was an attempt to publicize Symmonds’s dispute with Olympic governing bodies over the rights of athletes to advertise on their personal space. Symmonds injured his ankle before the Olympic trials and will miss this year’s Games, however. USATF drops Nick Symmonds over sponsorship, salary spat Going back to 2014, a look at how Symmonds butted heads with U.S. track and field’s governing body after dropping Nike as his sponsor. Olympic sponsors are protected right down to the hashtag In somewhat the same vein, did you know that commercial entities that are not official Olympic sponsors are more or less prohibited from mentioning the Games on their social media accounts? That means non-approved businesses that sponsor individual athletes will be restricted in how they promote the athletes. Team USA photo finds a way to hide players’ non-Nike shoes — again Hobson spends some of his story talking about Nike’s sway over certain teams. That certainly applies to the U.S. men’s basketball team. ‘Please fix my toilet’: Olympic teams suffer through problems at Rio’s Athletic Village Many of the athletes mentioned in Hobson’s story will probably be staying here. Rio isn’t ready for the Olympics, and the IOC is to blame Even though the International Olympic Committee brings in billions of dollars, it did little to help Rio get ready for the Games, Sally Jenkins writes. The Olympics may turn Rio into traffic hell See? Cash-strapped Rio state says Olympics will be fine. But what about afterward? And Rio probably won’t be all that better off after the Games are done.


Eight years after they helped wreck the economy, Ireland sends 3 bankers to prison

was a way to defraud investors and creditors. In doing so, they essentially inflated Anglo Irish Bank’s deposit levels by about $8 billion. That inflation was meant to obfuscate the funding crisis at Anglo Irish Bank, which had invested heavily in a property bubble in Ireland that popped almost as soon as the financial crisis began in the United States. As the crisis spread from the United States to the European Union, of which Ireland is a part, Irish banks were frantically asked to pay back loans and debts to U.S. banks, but they couldn’t. That, in turn, led to Ireland asking the European Union for the most expensive bailout in its history. “By means that could be termed dishonest, deceitful and corrupt they manufactured 7.2 billion euros in deposits by obvious sham transactions,” Judge Martin Nolan said in his ruling. “The public is entitled to rely on the probity of blue chip firms. If we can’t rely on the probity of these banks we lose all hope or trust in institutions.” Former Irish Life and Permanent chief executive Denis Casey was sentenced to 33 months. Willie McAteer, former finance director at the now-defunct Anglo Irish Bank, got 42 months. And John Bowe, Anglo Irish’s former head of capital markets, got two years. The 74-day trial was Ireland’s longest to date. The convicted have 28 days to appeal. Nolan was unsparing in his critique of the men’s business practices and called Anglo Irish “probably the most reviled institution in the state.” After he read their sentences, the former bankers were led away from the court to be transported to Mountjoy Prison, Ireland's largest. Anglo Irish’s two most senior executives, former chairman Sean FitzPatrick and chief executive David Drumm, are free on bail pending trials, which might not take place until 2017. They face dozens of charges of fraud and concealment. Drumm fled to the United States in 2009, where he failed to win bankruptcy protection. A U.S. judge ruled that Drumm used his wife to shelter assets, and he subsequently spent five months in a U.S. prison before being extradited to Ireland in March. Ireland’s Finance Ministry forecast last month that banks there may need 15 more years to fully recover from the hit they took after 2008. No senior banking executives in Britain or the United States have been sent to prison over their roles in the financial crisis.


Jonathan Aberman: The Pentagon is evolving. Will the D.C. region follow?

funding models such as crowd funding, Internet investing and the growth of venture capital. These changes are often described collectively as the “democratization of innovation.” Innovation approaches that focus on the customer, such as design thinking, or rapid customer acquisition, such as lean start-up methodologies, are only possible because technology has become ever cheaper to develop and deploy. This change has largely occurred outside of the DoD’s influence and engagement, creating an innovation blindspot. Now the Pentagon is trying to make up for lost time by embracing new methods to be able to work with these agile innovators. According to Secretary Carter, this will occur “by developing new partnerships with the private sector across America’s many great hubs of unrivaled innovation. Places like Austin, Seattle, Silicon Valley and, of course, right here in Boston.” As someone who works with the national security establishment to help it identify and work with agile innovators, I can say from first-hand knowledge that the programmatic approaches adopted by Secretary Carter will be successful if executed properly. Many of us in the venture capital and business community agree with his analysis of the democratization of innovation. Big science cannot address all commercial or societal challenges, nor is it suitable for many of our national security threats, because nimble changes in cyber threats are too fast to be solved with long-term projects. (After all, our adversaries who threaten us also take advantage of the democratization of innovation!) The greater Washington region has benefited greatly from big science. It has more than 100 federal labs, prominent federally funded research labs and a large government contracting industry. But the question now is whether our region is configured to participate and continue to partner with DoD as it modifies its approaches to innovation. It is significant that Secretary Carter neglected to mention the greater Washington region as an innovation hub in his speech last week. For our nation, the DoD’s willingness to better engage with agile innovators is a giant leap forward. For the greater Washington region’s innovation community, the eclipse of big science may become its biggest challenge. Jonathan Aberman is a business owner, entrepreneur and founder of Tandem NSI, an Arlington-based organization that seeks to connect innovators to government agencies. He is host of “Forward Thinking Radio” on SiriusXM, a business and policy program, and lectures at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.


Jailed Chinese lawyer reappears to deliver a ‘confession,’ but the script seems familiar

state television and a highly suspect interview-confession given by a legal assistant, Zhao Wei, who was reported "free on bail" but may still be in custody. The news that Wang has been released on bail was reported Monday by Hong Kong's Oriental Daily. In an "exclusive" interview, Wang, a skilled lawyer, delivers what is essentially the government's case against her using the government's favorite turns of phrase. Wang told Oriental Daily she and her colleagues were trained by unspecified foreign forces to "attack" and "smear" the Chinese government. The training sought to instill "Western universal values and notions of democracy and human rights." Wang, who has been held without trial for a year, then goes on to accuse these forces, not Chinese authorities, of holding her hostage. “They used my family and I, taking us hostage to smear the party and attack the Chinese government,” she says. One of the strangest sections of the interview is when Wang, who has devoted much of her career to human rights, denounces a European human rights award she won. Wang told Oriental Daily she "won't acknowledge, won't recognize and won't accept" the award, a word-for-word echo of China's terse and much-repeated promise that it "won't acknowledge, won't recognize and won't accept" the recent ruling on the South China Sea. "I am Chinese. I only accept the leadership of the Chinese government. I don’t accept the award now and won’t accept it in the future," the lawyer said. William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong, said news that Wang is free should be viewed with suspicion until the circumstances surrounding the interview, and the terms of her release, are clear. "It makes you wonder: What happened to her in detention and what kind of pressure did they put on her and her family to get to the point where she's willing to say these phrases, these talking points, that almost everyone agrees she would never say?" Nee asked. "This fits a pattern of abusive tactics that the government is using to silence critics: forced confessions with compliant media after long detentions, as well as pressure on family and friends." Gu Jinglu contributed to this report. Read more: She was a quiet commercial lawyer. Then China turned against her. How a 16-year-old found himself caught up in China's crackdown on lawyers. Hong Kong bookseller's confession was absurd--and that was the point.


Dear Science: Why can’t we just get rid of all the mosquitoes?

Vielemeyer added. "The ones that carry disease have caused human suffering for millennia. So it's kind of a mixed bag." Many mosquitoes – harmless and otherwise – serve an important biological purpose. They can help pollinate plants as they feed on nectar (their usual food source, outside of that crucial blood meal period) and provide a vital source of food for larger animals. They're vital components of a complex ecosystem, just like every other living thing. Researchers in the Arctic worried that climate change would lead more animals to feast upon local mosquitoes, throwing the food web out of whack and leaving plants unpollinated. As it turns out, warmer water has actually produced an Arctic mosquito boom – but that's not great news for the baby caribou they feed upon. The point is that just because humans hate mosquitoes doesn't mean that they can be wiped out without consequences. "We see the mosquito as sort of this evil thing," Vielemeyer said. "But there are lots of positive things that they do in the ecosystem." That doesn't mean that scientists have a live-and-let-live philosophy about these insects: Researchers are trying to eradicate mosquitoes. But they're focusing on the ones that cause the most harm. The aegypti mosquitoes that cause Zika and the like – mosquitoes that have evolved to live in urban areas – are a particularly attractive target. “There is no visible end to this except a war against aegypti,” Jo Lines of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine recently told the Guardian. “Otherwise this is going to go on for a thousand years.” Many scientists are working on creating genetically modified males mosquitoes that can only father sterile offspring. If released into the population, these males could trick deadly mosquitoes into wasting their blood meals on useless eggs. Over the course of a few generations, the targeted species would dwindle. Trials in the Cayman Islands where several million of these modified mosquitoes were released resulted in a 96 percent population reduction. Some have suggested simultaneously releasing bacteria that target males of the species (yes, that's a thing that exists), which would help cut down on the number of fertile mates available. Other studies are working on using bacteria to help mosquitoes digest these deadly viruses and parasites instead of giving them a place to grow. Some argue that there's more work to be done before genetically modified