Future potential of brain chip is limitless after man controls robot arm with his thoughts

all worked, a man who was paralyzed from the chest down would think about wiggling his finger, and in less than one-tenth of a second, his finger would move. They would bypass his broken spinal cord and put a computer in its place. The man, Ian Burkhart, was able to move his hand and fingers. Much of the hope and promise of chips to aid those with spinal cord injuries comes from the 2011 case of Rob Summers, a college baseball star who was injured in a hit-and-run accident and paralyzed below the neck. According to Reuters: The 2.5-ounce (72-gram) device began emitting electrical current at varying frequencies and intensities, stimulating dense bundles of neurons in the spinal cord. Three days later he stood on his own. In 2010 he took his first tentative steps. The team wasn’t as optimistic about their next patients – unlike Summers, they didn’t have any sensation in their legs – and they were surprised when four men who were paralyzed from the chest down were able to voluntarily move their legs and feet after being implanted with the device. While the men were not able to walk, the experiment was hailed as a major success and offered new hope for the more than 6 million paralyzed Americans. What's next? Writing in the Wall Street Journal, two scholars contend "brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades ago." Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University and Christof Koch, chief science of the Allen Brain Institute for Brain Science in Seattle wonder: What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant, no matter how loud? Or for a memory chip, wired directly into your brain's hippocampus, that gave you perfect recall of everything you read? Or for an implanted interface with the Internet that automatically translated a clearly articulated silent thought ("the French sun king") into an online search that digested the relevant Wikipedia page and projected a summary directly into your brain? READ MORE: The revolution will be digitized -- wearables portend vast health, research, privacy consequences Special Report: Tech titans' latest project: Defy death Ohio surgeons hope chip in man's brain lets him control paralyzed hand with thoughts Science fiction come true: moving a paralyzed hand


Next Day’s News: Suspect in quadruple homicide arrested, Clinton’s Benghazi emails released and more

Here’s a look at tomorrow’s top talkers from Washington Post reporters and columnists who know the topics best. SUSPECT IN QUADRUPLE HOMICIDE ARRESTED: - The suspect in the killings of the Savopoulos family and their housekeeper was arrested along with associates late Thursday in Northeast Washington, when federal agents in two dozen vehicles pinned a car he was riding in and detained the group. Daron Dylon Wint, 34, and four others were taken into custody without a struggle, according to authorities. (Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams) CLINTON’S BENGHAZI EMAILS RELEASED: - The State Department on Friday released nearly 900 pages of e-mails on Libya and the Benghazi attacks from the private account Hillary Rodham Clinton used while she was secretary of state. (Karen DeYoung) ISIS CLAIMS CREDIT FOR SUICIDE BOMB IN SAUDI ARABIA: - A suicide bomber in Saudi Arabia set off a blast at a Shiite mosque on Friday in the kingdom’s oil-rich eastern province, killing or injuring dozens in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities on the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility, carried in a statement distributed by Twitter. But the blast marks the first major bloodshed in Saudi Arabia to be claimed directly by the Islamic State, and the attacked appeared likely to prompt further security crackdowns by Saudi forces. (Brian Murphy) JOSH DUGGAR MOLESTATION ALLEGATIONS: - In the wake of a tabloid report alleging that he molested several underage girls while he was a teenager, reality-television star Josh Duggar said Thursday that he “acted inexcusably” and was “deeply sorry” for what he called “my wrongdoing.” (Abby Ohlheiser, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Elahe Izadi)


Temple professor charged with selling trade secrets to China

The Baptist Temple on Temple University’s campus in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) The head of Temple University’s physics department has been charged with giving sensitive information about U.S. technology to China. Xioaxing Xi, a U.S. citizen who is a native of China, was charged with four counts of wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors. He allegedly sought “lucrative and prestigious appointments” in China in exchange for the information. He did not immediately return a message Friday. [Past coverage: U.S. indicts 6 Chinese citizens on charges of stealing trade secrets] Xi is an internationally known leader in the field of magnesium diboride thin film superconducting technology, according to a release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and “the fraud, it is alleged, was an effort to assist Chinese entities in becoming world leaders of the superconductivity field.” Xi earned his doctorate in China and was a faculty member at Pennsylvania State University before joining Temple in 2009. Xi remains on the faculty, a spokesman for Temple wrote in an e-mail, but “In light of Dr. Xi’s needs to focus on the matter at hand, an acting chair has been appointed to the Physics Department.” In 2002, the indictment alleges, Xi participated in a Chinese government program intended to boost high-tech development and innovation. That year, he took a sabbatical and went to work for an unnamed U.S. company in thin-film superconductivity research. “During his tenure at the company, individuals there invented a piece of technology which revolutionized the field of superconducting magnesium diboride thin film growth,” and beginning in 2004 Xi began trying to get that technology, federal prosecutors allege. With a U.S. Department of Defense grant, he allegedly got the device for a year with an agreement that he not reproduce or sell it. But prosecutors say that’s just what he did, repeatedly, benefiting the Chinese government and other groups. In 2010 he sent an e-mail promising to build a world-class thin film laboratory, according to the indictments. Xi, who appeared in federal court Thursday in Philadelphia and was released on $100,000 bond, faces if convicted up to 80 years in prison and a $1 million fine.


Scientists are figuring out some weird things about a star they’ve nicknamed ‘Nasty’

in the galaxy of this process in action," Mauerhan explained, partially because the phase doesn't last for a very long time. The process itself might last about 100,000 years, producing a visible disk for under 10,000 years, he said. The researchers believe the nebula around Nasty 1 is a few thousand years old. The star system might be as close as 3,000 light years away from us. As scientists continue to study Wolf-Rayet stars, they're learning that more and more of them are likely part of a binary system like Nasty 1 appears to be. At least 70 percent of the massive stars in the galaxy are part of two-star systems, the researchers explain. A large star at least 20 times the mass of the sun, towards the end of its life, could become a Wolf-Rayet as it expands and loosens its grip on its own outer hydrogen envelope. That hydrogen could be pulled away from the star by the gravitational pull of a companion star. The companion star then begins to gain mass. By observing Nasty, the researchers hope they'll learn even more about how this process works. The heavy gas encircling Nasty, however, makes it difficult for astronomers to get a clear view of the two stars themselves through Hubble. Here's what Hubble sees when it looks at the system: A visible-light image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showing the pancake-shaped disc around Nasty 1. The image is tinted blue to bring out details in the disk.<br />Credit: NASA/ESA/ J. Mauerhan "We think there is a Wolf-Rayet star buried inside the nebula, and we think the nebula is being created by this mass-transfer process. So this type of sloppy stellar cannibalism actually makes Nasty 1 a rather fitting nickname," Maurhan said. Scientists don't know what will happen to Nasty 1 as this stellar snack time continues and the cannibalizing companion star runs out of matter to eat. "But it will definitely not be boring," Mauerhan said. "Nasty 1 could evolve into another Eta Carinae-type system," Mauerhan said, referring to a nearby system that contains one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. "To make that transformation, the mass-gaining companion star could experience a giant eruption because of some instability related to the acquiring of matter from the newly-formed Wolf-Rayet," he said. The star system might also result in a stellar merger. "Or, the Wolf-Rayet could explode as a


The fried-chicken wars: Inside KFC’s weird new fight to dethrone Chick-fil-A

nostalgia they're hoping will win Americans back. Over the next few years, KFC will redo its packaging, uniforms and dining decor in red-and-white stripes, which executives call a throw-back to the classic look of carnival tents. The chain will also expand its menu, offering Southern-ish fare like barbecue baked beans with slow-pulled chicken alongside a river of ranch-like Finger Lickin’ Good™ Sauce. A KFC in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Can a big rebranding end the chicken chain's darkest days? (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg) In a world of health-food hype, the chain is doubling down on its fried-chicken bucket, which Hochman called a "shareable innovative package" that still gets about three-quarters of its sales from parents with kids at the table. "Many families see our bucket meals as home-meal replacements," Hochman said. "They may want to cut corners, but they want to know the people who are making their meals aren't cutting corners." Unlike its fast-food competitors — Wendy's with its veggie burgers, McDonald's with its kale — none of KFC's rebranding promises touch on a shift toward healthier cuisine. Instead, the chain will continue to trumpet its heaping helpings of extra-crispy yardbird, buttery biscuits and gravy-flooded mashed-potato bowls. (One new package design includes the quote, "There are few problems a bucket of fried chicken can't solve.") The chain also will try and get people to think less about trouble spots in its history of poultry farming — including a "The new healthy is really about real food: I know where the chickens are from, how they're prepared, that it's done the proper way," Hochman said. "We're very on trend with that." Amid all these changes, KFC has yet to announce any shift on one of the biggest issues in modern farming: The use of chicken raised by antibiotics. McDonald's said in March it would phase out the chicken due to worries over deadly, treatment-resistant "superbugs." Last week, Wal-Mart became the first major retailer to ask its farmers and meat producers to limit their antibiotic use. Old photos of Kentucky colonel Harland Sanders. (Courtesy of KFC) To market these changes, KFC tapped Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond to resurrect a live-action version of Colonel Sanders, who has not been seen on TV in 20 years, in ads that launched Monday. Last week, @KFC tweeted a "State of Kentucky Fried Chicken Address," in which Hammond's Colonel wheezes and drawls his way through all the changes


Who benefits from a British referendum on European Union membership?

The business lobby group British Influence has offered very little beyond a Facebook page that preaches to the converted. Now that there will be a referendum in 2016 or 2017, the pro-European lobby may finally get into gear. Pro-EU forces face three major challenges. First, the referendum will be based on the deal Cameron strikes during the renegotiations. Cameron will need to play hardball to win concessions that diminish the role of the EU in certain policy areas and restrict the rights of citizens from other EU states in order to placate Euroskeptic Conservatives. That may result in a package that some pro-EU forces will not like, but one they will need to support during the referendum. Second, pro-EU forces will have to convey the intangible and indirect benefits of British membership to ordinary voters. That will be difficult, considering how adept anti-EU forces have been at pointing to tangible disadvantages. Most EU advocates frequently point to the benefits of being inside the EU’s single market, but to a lot of voters, this feels quite abstract and distant. The pro-EU lobby may wish to learn the lesson of the Scottish independence referendum last year: A “positive change” message can galvanize voters; hence the pro-EU message cannot simply be about the continuation of the status quo laced with fears of a step into the unknown. The added problem for the pro-EU lobby, however, is that sticking with a Union that is four decades old—the European Union—has less resonance than sticking with a union—the United Kingdom—that is three centuries old. Third, referendums are unpredictable and hazardous things. While there may be a particular question about the EU on the ballot paper, many voters will cast their ballots answering several different questions, usually linked to their judgment on the government in power. Current polls suggest 55 percent would vote to remain in the EU (65 percent if asked about remaining “after a successful renegotiation”). But Britons’ attitudes to European integration have fluctuated significantly over the past 40 years and have rarely been top of British voters’ concerns at election time. Fickle public opinion, the wider lack of relevance to Britons, and the intangibility of what advocates see as the benefits of EU membership offer a three-pronged challenge to the pro-EU lobby in the UK. The fate of the UK’s future in the EU may well depend on its ability to meet that challenge.


Lassa fever death in New Jersey recalls Ebola death in Texas

The Lassa virus. (C. S. Goldsmith/CDC) A man in New Jersey has died of a deadly infectious disease from the same part of the world the Ebola virus originated. Lassa fever was named after a town in Nigeria where Western doctors first identified the illness in 1969. The disease, spread by rodent excrement and contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids — but not casual contact — can merely cause fever, but serious cases bring “hemorrhaging (in gums, eyes, or nose, as examples), respiratory distress, repeated vomiting, facial swelling, pain in the chest, back, and abdomen, and shock,” as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained. Death from multi-organ failure can come two weeks after symptoms appear. “In rare cases it can be transmitted from person to person through direct contact with a sick person’s blood or bodily fluids, through mucous membrane, or through sexual contact,” the CDC said in an announcement Monday. “The virus is not transmitted through casual contact, and patients are not believed to be infectious before the onset of symptoms.” The New Jersey man, who was not identified by health officials, returned from Liberia — epicenter of the recent Ebola epidemic — to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on May 17, as the Associated Press reported. He did not have a fever when he left Africa; he “did not report symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, or bleeding during the flight,” the CDC said. On May 18, the patient was admitted to a New Jersey hospital that has not been identified “with symptoms of a sore throat, fever and tiredness,” the CDC said. Asked about his travel history, he did not say he had traveled to West Africa. After being discharged, he returned to the hospital on May 21 and “was transferred to a treatment center prepared to treat viral hemorrhagic fevers.” He tested positive for Lassa and died in “appropriate isolation,” according to the agency. The CDC said Lassa is “less likely to be fatal than Ebola (approximately 1% case fatality rate for Lassa vs. approximately 70% case fatality rate for Ebola without treatment) and less likely to be spread from person to person.” The situation recalled the Ebola case of Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man, who died of the disease after being discharged from and readmitted to a Dallas hospital, where he infected two nurses. [Past coverage: Ebola patient being


Digestive Disease Week served up news about IBS, celiac disease and colonoscopy prep

(Thinkstock) More than 14,000 experts on all things alimentary flocked to D.C.’s Convention Center last week for Digestive Disease Week, a conference featuring 5,343 abstracts on topics such as liver disease, colorectal cancer and the health clues in gut bacteria. For the millions suffering digestive woes, discoveries like those below suggest a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, a test for IBS Some 40 million Americans struggle with irritable bowel syndrome, a diagnosis essentially given for lack of a better one. When all else is ruled out, IBS becomes the answer to the question of chronic cramping, bloating, constipation and/or diarrhea. But that may change. Mark Pimentel, director of the GI Motility Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, discovered biomarkers for IBS that he links to food poisoning. In a trial of 2,681 people, his blood test distinguished people with diarrhea-predominant IBS from healthy subjects and those with other digestive diseases. This not only validates IBS as a disease, he says, but offers a shorter path to treatment for patients who often endure unnecessary procedures. Current therapy involves antibiotics and a restricted diet, but identifying IBS’ cause may beget new treatments. The blood test is available through ibschek.com. Docs delay celiac diagnosis in women That men with celiac disease get diagnosed sooner than women has been established, says Luc Biedermann, a gastroenterologist with University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland. That doctors are to blame marks a new finding, he says of his study. Among 1,689 patients, 76 percent of whom were female, women and men took about the same amount of time (more than three years) to see a doctor for their symptoms. But the gap widens from there. In 75 percent of patients, male celiacs were diagnosed within a year, while female celiacs waited 31 months for their diagnosis. Biedermann ruled out that a diagnosis of IBS, which is more common in women, caused the delay, concluding that doctors seem inclined to “downplay, ignore or postpone these symptoms” in women. A delayed diagnosis can cause nutritional deficits and more difficulty managing the disease, he says. A more pleasant colonoscopy prep? “A day doesn’t go by in the endoscopy suite when you don’t have patients very reasonably and understandably gripe,” says L. Campbell Levy, a gastroenterologist and assistant professor at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Chiefly, they complain about the prep — 15 to 24 hours


Carluccio’s Italian market and restaurant makes U.S. debut in Alexandria on June 3

It has been a few weeks of good news for fans of Italian food: The second location of Arlington's Italian Store opened in Westover last week; the market portion of chef Amy Brandwein's Centrolina opens today in CityCenter; and Carluccio's Italian market, cafe and restaurant will open June 3 in Old Town Alexandria. The brainchild of chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Antonio Carluccio, the chain currently operates more than 100 locations in Europe and the Middle East. This will be Carluccio's first American outpost. The market portion of a Carluccio's located in London, where the chain started. (Carluccio's) Carluccio, who sold the London-based company but has remained involved in a consulting role, said the cuisine hews closely to the motto he calls "mof mof," or "minimum of fuss, maximum of flavor." He spent time in London training executive chef Alfio Celia on his recipes. [Centrolina market and osteria opening in late May and early June] The penne giardiniera is a signature Carluccio's dish. (Carluccio's) The Carluccio's menu includes Italian standards such as caponata, arancini, minestrone, lasagna, gnocchi and osso buco. One of its signature dishes, the founder said, is the penne giardiniera, which features zucchini, fried spinach balls and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. He created the dish years ago when a vegetarian asked for a meatless dish. "We Italians, we are natural vegetarians," Carluccio said. Carluccio's happened to stumble on a perfectly suited 1871 building in Alexandria, said Cory Waldron, chief executive of Carluccio's USA. "The architect took the influence from a piazza that he visited in Italy," Waldron said. The building had been vacant for a number of years and had to be gutted and renovated. The 6,500-square-foot space covers three floors. The first floor includes a market selling wines, foods to go and more than 80 imported Italian products. A bar area has seating for about 30 people. The second-floor main dining room, reached via a glass-enclosed central staircase, includes counter seating with a view of the open kitchen. There will be outdoor dining as well. "It's an environment that really does all-day dining," Waldron said, adding the goal is to make Carluccio's feel like a "home away from home." The restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Waldron said the European Carluccio's concept has remained largely intact for its trip across the pond. Differences include a more robust brunch and an enhanced array of protein and pasta dishes. Carluccio's


Just looking at nature can help your brain work better, study finds

of one’s ability to keep focus and attention over a period of time. In the current study, students had to complete the SART task not once, but twice. However, they received a 40-second “microbreak” in between the two trials. During that break, their computer screens flashed either to a digital image of a city building roof covered in concrete, or one covered with grass and flowers. Then, they completed the remainder of the SART trial. The green roof view that half of research subjects observed during their “micro-break.” (University of Melbourne) Afterward, the students exposed to the green roof scene not only reported that it felt more “restorative,” they performed better on the task. In particular, they showed less fluctuation in response time, and made fewer errors of “omission” — failing to tap the keyboard key when they saw a number other than 3. “Nature can provide cognitive benefits in much shorter timeframes, and in smaller amounts than previously demonstrated,” the authors concluded. For anybody who toils all day at task after task in an office building, it’s hard to miss the implications. “Modern work drains attention throughout the day, so providing boosted ‘green micro-breaks’ may provide mental top-ups to offset declining attention,” said lead study author Kate Lee of the University of Melbourne by e-mail. Alas, for many of us in the United States, going to an office window and looking out at a green roof next door remains impossible — for now, anyway. But that’s not the only option — Lee thinks the findings are generalizable beyond green roofs. “Viewing different types of nature (parks and forests) can also boost attention, research shows,” she commented. “Based on this we would hypothesize that other types of urban greening that show similar vegetation characteristics to those studied previously may also boost attention.” So if you don’t work next to a building sporting a green roof, there’s always a brief walk outside — if not to a park, then at least to somewhere you can see a tree. Also in Energy Environment: Global warming could shrink Mount Everest’s glaciers by 70 percent, study finds Why you shouldn’t freak out about swarming honeybees — and how to protect bees from those who do The surprising links between faith and evolution and climate denial — charted For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


Why you shouldn’t freak out about swarming honeybees — and how to save bees from those who do

suddenly abandon their hives. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that honeybee populations are less than half what they were in the 1940s. Most scientists believe the honeybee’s plight has been caused by a complex set of factors, including negative effects from pesticides, various diseases and parasites, and habitat degradation. One of the most recent honeybee studies found that beekeepers lost about 40 percent of their commercial colonies in the past year — a worrisome statistic because honeybees play a crucial role in pollinating crops. In fact, many experts are afraid that their continued decline could have a major impact on human food supplies. Policy-makers are taking the problem seriously. Last week, the Obama administration released its National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, which aims to put honeybees on the upturn by reviewing and placing restrictions on certain pesticides and restoring land for use by pollinators. Still, honeybees are not protected under the Endangered Species Act, and there are no federal laws to prohibit people from killing them, although state-level regulations may vary. This can be unfortunate for honeybee swarms, which tend to appear more menacing than they actually are. Swarming is a particular behavior that honeybees exhibit in the late spring or early summer as a way of propagating the species, says Andrew Coté, a New York-based beekeeper and founder of the New York City Beekeepers Association. When a colony gets big enough, it splits in two and the queen bee flies off, usually taking a third to a half of the colony with her, in search of a new home. (Back at the home base, a new queen will take her place and continue on with the old colony.) While they’re looking for a suitable new home, these swarms sometimes make brief stopovers on tree branches, walls, road signs or other objects. Their appearance — a dripping ball of stinging insects — can be menacing, but neurobiologist and bee expert Thomas Seeley says honeybees are at their safest when exhibiting swarming behavior. “The reality is that a swarm of bees is not defensive,” says Seeley, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, where he specializes in the behavior and social life of honeybees. Swarming bees are still en route to a new home, meaning they have no nest and no stores of honey to defend, and they tend to be


Violent, deadly tornado strikes Texas-Mexico border city of Ciudad Acuna

A violent tornado destroyed homes and tossed cars like toys on Monday in the Texas-Mexico border town of Ciudad Acuna. (REUTERS/Ramiro Gomez) The deadliest single twister North America has seen so far this year ripped through the Mexican town of Ciudad Acuña with great violence. The tornado flipped over buses, tossed cars, and damaged nearly 400 homes. “There’s nothing standing, not walls, not roofs” in a square-mile area, city spokesman Edgar Gonzalez told the Associated Press. At 7 a.m. on Monday, a tornado emerged from an isolated supercell just south of the Texas-Mexico border in a city with a population of about 150,000 residents. Most of the border region was hit with rain and hail, but Ciudad Acuña bore the brunt of this severe weather outbreak. The National Water Commission (Conagua) in Coahuila estimates that the tornado’s wind speed reached up to 137 mph. The tornado spawned from the same set of storms that drenched the Houston area over the weekend. [ Over 100 tornadoes were reported by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center over the holiday weekend, but this one, with wind speeds similar to those in an EF-3, was by far the deadliest, killing at least 13 people according to the Associated Press. Five people remain missing. Weather Underground’s Bob Henson describes how unusual the very strong tornado is for a location this far south. “No F5/EF5 events have ever been confirmed this far south in the U.S. or Mexico, and TornadoHistoryProject.com shows that only 10 of 555 U.S. tornadoes rated F4 or EF4 between 1950 and 2014 occurred near or south of 30°N,” Henson writes. “The strong subtropical jet streams associated with El Niño typically bring very cold upper-level air, which enhances instability, and the powerful jet-level winds help ventilate the rising air within thunderstorms.” The twister hit a seven-block area, which Victor Zamora, interior secretary of the northern state of Coahuila, described as “devastated.” (AP Photo)


Why there’s no need to panic over Lassa fever. It’s Ebola-like, but it’s not Ebola.

A man, right, working for a humanitarian group, throws water in a small bag to West Point residents behind the fence of a holding area, as they wait for a second consignment of food from the Liberian Government to be handed out, at the West Point area, near the central city area of Monrovia, Liberia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2014 during the height of the Ebola epidemic there. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh) When a man returning to the United States from Liberia showed up at a New Jersey hospital earlier this week with symptoms of a viral hemorrhagic fever, public health officials feared the worst. The traveler was put in isolation and blood samples were rushed to a lab where they were tested for Ebola. The Centers for Disease Control on Monday said the patient had died. He was not suffering from Ebola but another viral disease common to West Africa known as Lassa fever. While the disease can produce serious symptoms similar to Ebola in some patients, it's markedly different in a lot of important ways. [In Liberia, Ebola outbreak is declared officially over] Discovered in 1969 when two missionary nurses traveling in the region died, Lassa fever is endemic in parts of West Africa, where 100,000 to 300,000 people are estimated to be infected each year. Symptoms begin one to three weeks after the person becomes infected: fever, sore throat, vomiting, facial swelling, mucosal bleeding, possible neurological problems. For many people, the disease is mild and there are even some people who are infected have no symptoms at all. But in about 20 percent of those infected, it can be severe and affect multiple systems in the body. The most common complication is deafness. It is fatal in 1 percent of cases. In contrast, Ebola is fatal in 70 percent of cases without treatment. Lassa fever is also much less contagious than Ebola. It's carried by rodents, and humans typically become infected from coming into contact with urine or droppings. The Centers for Disease Control says that the virus isn't transmitted through casual contact, although "in rare cases" it can be transmitted through direct contact with a sick person's bodily fluids or through sexual contact. The CDC says there have been no cases of transmission in the United States and that the New Jersey incident is only the sixth case of Lassa fever in the United States. The latest one


This Special Forces war hero turned whistleblower — and now he’s under investigation by the Army

his case. CNN reported in April that he was under investigation “over a purported unauthorized disclosure” to Hunter, but the officer had not addressed it himself. The FBI did not respond to several requests for comment for this story. A spokesman for Criminal Investigation Command disputed that it was investigating Amerine as an act of reprisal. “We reject any notion that Army CID initiates felony criminal investigations for any other purpose than to fairly and impartially investigate credible criminal allegations that have been discovered or brought forward,” said Chris Grey, the spokesman. “As a matter of policy, we do not confirm the names of individuals who may or may not be under investigation to protect the integrity of a possible ongoing investigation, as well as the privacy rights of all involved.” The case pits one of the first heroes of the Afghanistan War against the Army. Amerine led a Special Forces team there in 2001, working alongside former Afghan President Hamid Karzai just before he became the interim leader of Kabul’s fledgling government followed the fall of the Taliban. Amerine, then a captain, was wounded by an errant American bomb on Dec. 5, 2001, that killed three other Special Forces soldiers. Amerine received the Bronze Star with “V” and the Purple Heart for his role in the mission. The Army later labeled him a “Real Hero” in the 2006 version of its popular video game, “America’s Army.” He also has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” and other television shows to discuss the 2001 mission 10 years later. It was detailed in the 2011 book “The Only Thing Worth Dying For,” by author Eric Blehm: The Colbert Report Colbert Report Episode Guide, More Colbert Report Videos, Comedy Central Full Episodes The controversy provides new kindling in the debate about how the United States should handle hostage recovery. When U.S. officials announced in April that Weinstein had been killed in U.S. airstrike, Hunter’s office lamented it and said Amerine’s team at the Pentagon was working on a plan that would have exchanged seven Western hostages for one detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Amerine’s team wanted to recover Weinstein along with Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier who went missing in 2009 and was recovered last May, and a family of three: Coleman, her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their child, born in captivity. Two other Westerners also would have


Blimps, mariachi and 72,000 ladybugs: Student pranks are going strong

Massachusetts Institute of Technology students watch as workmen remove a prank atop MIT’s “Great Dome,” a giant beanie cap with propellor, discovered early Friday morning, Sept. 27, 1996 in Cambridge, Mass. A spokesperson for the pranksters said the group took advantage of everyone’s attention directed toward a lunar eclipse to pull off the prank. (AP Photo/Peter Lennihan) It’s that time of year: School cafeterias get filled with thousands of balloons, sleeping students in jammies cover the hallway floors, entire offices full of furniture wind up on the roof, mariachi bands perform in classrooms, and, in Maryland, 72,000 ladybugs are set loose in a high school for a senior prank. Some student-led pranks end quite badly — like the one that prompted a school evacuation in North Carolina on Tuesday. As one mother told an Atlanta TV station this week, in a story about pranks gone awry, “It’s one thing to toilet paper someone’s yard, but to leave trash, mutilate an animal and [Oh, let’s not even go there!] on your porch, that’s extreme to me.” Indeed. So let’s not dwell on all those that ended with criminal charges, expulsions, a big and dreary mess that someone had to spend hours cleaning up. Or those that are just dull. Every year, some long-running traditions and campus rivalries — or one particularly imaginative, determined, perhaps a little crazy, student — spark true genius. Five masked people broke into Chopticon High School in Morganza, Md., and let 72,000 ladybugs loose, allegedly as part of a senior prank. Suspects now face criminal charges and one student has been prohibited from participating in the graduation ceremony. [High school baseball players in Ohio show up for double-header to find 25-foot tree planted in middle of the ballfield.] Skeptical? At MIT, pranks are such an intrinsic part of campus culture that they started not long after the first dormitories opened, said Danny Ben-David, a physics major in the class of ’15, as soon as all those brilliant engineering minds got mixed up together. “Hacks have provided a creative outlet for the MIT community, as well as a way of getting the Institute to take itself a little less seriously,” he wrote in an email. “Last month, Lobby 7 was filled with velociraptors and a 15-foot flying pterodactyl, much to the delight of several school groups visiting. “In 1995, larger-than-life Scrubbing Bubbles appeared on the side of the


Air Force certifies Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch national security missions

latest in a series of victories for SpaceX, which became the first commercial space company to resupply the International Space Station for NASA, and last year won a contract to fly astronauts there by 2017. Now, with the Pentagon as a potential customer, the company could continue to see steady growth while also compiling important experience, as it attempts to develop space craft that would eventually take humans to Mars. In a statement, Musk called it an "important step," thanked the Air Force and said the company looked "forward to serving it well." "SpaceX's emergence as a viable commercial launch provider provides the opportunity to compete launch services for the first time in almost a decade," said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. "Ultimately, leveraging of the commercial space market drives down cost to the American taxpayer and improves our military's resiliency." SpaceX's first opportunity to compete against ULA could come as early as June, when the Air Force is expected to released a request for proposals to launch a GPS satellite. ULA, though, has been preparing for this moment, knowing that the hard-charging SpaceX would eventually get certified. It hired a new CEO, Tory Bruno, who has said he is working “to literally transform the company,” in order to compete against SpaceX. Last month, ULA unveiled a "next generation launch system," a new rocket called Vulcan that it said would make space travel more affordable. “We welcome today’s announcement and look forward to competing with SpaceX and other new entrants," ULA said in a statement. "The fact is, we could not be more passionate and proud of our work, our people and our record of success." In order to certify SpaceX, the Air Force said it invested more than $60 million, which included three flight demonstrations and reams of technical data to ensure that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket could be trusted with such crucial--and expensive--payloads. And it seems an end to the rancor between SpaceX and the Pentagon. In an audio interview with Bloomberg Business Week earlier this year, Musk accused military procurement officials of holding up the certification to curry favor with the ULA. “Essentially we’re asking them to award a contract to a company where they are probably not going to get a job, against a company where their friends are,” he said. “So they’ve got to go against their friends, and their future retirement program. This


Breweries and babies: a match made in heaven?

years, making breweries appealing to young parents who want to socialize beyond the playground. “We enjoy good beers; we did before having kids and we do after having kids,” says Capitol Hill resident Lyndsey Medsker, 39. The senior vice president at a public affairs firm visits breweries about once a month and often takes her sons, ages 4 and 6. “A typical Saturday morning for us is T-ball or soccer, and one of the kids usually has a birthday party, so it’s all centered around kids. It’s nice during the middle of the day to have a more grown-up activity with friends.” Conveniently for parents, city regulations limit the hours when craft breweries without restaurants are permitted to serve beer (1 to 9 p.m.), so the establishments are open only during most kids’ waking hours. And their casual atmospheres put families at ease. “Since we’re not a traditional bar or restaurant, kids aren’t stuck in their seats,” says Patrick Mullane, 39, co-founder of Hellbender Brewing Company in Northeast D.C. “Kids running around here is perfectly fine.” Mullane says he had kids and expectant mothers in mind when he added house-made sodas to Hellbender’s menu. Wunder Garten, the just-opened beer garden in NoMa, is considering launching a “family-friendly” period. Still, some of the parents at 3 Stars this particular Saturday say breweries could be more accommodating to families. Dave Bates, a 30-year-old State Department employee who has a 10-month-old daughter, says he’d appreciate an outdoor space where she could crawl freely. Jennifer Chriss, a 36-year-old patent examiner with 7-month-old and 4-year-old children, would like morning hours, before naptime. Sitting at a 3 Stars picnic table, Meg Rego, a 30-year-old American University program coordinator, says she initially was surprised to see children at breweries, which she likens to bars. “It’s nice to be able to see myself in some of the people here and say, ‘Oh good, just because you have a kid doesn’t mean all fun is gone,’ ” she says. But she draws the line at breweries catering to children. “If this became kid playtime …” she trails off. “I would not come to this establishment at this time. It’s not story time at the library.” And as a parent, Nelson says he doesn’t expect an alcohol-focused business to prioritize children’s needs. “Twenty-somethings need their own chapel,” he says, gesturing around 3 Stars. “This is it.” Rebecca Koenig (For Express)


Here’s how to talk people into eating more bugs

necessity. This obvious fact is missed by most of the current research and policies.” Placing a greater emphasis on recipes and presentation, Deroy argues, may just be the key to swaying more people into giving them a shot. It’s a tactic already being employed by some entrepreneurs. Greg Sewitz, co-CEO of a cricket-flour protein bar company called Exo (“Crickets are the new kale,” is its slogan), says his team’s primary focus from the get-go was on making sure their products tasted good. “We focus on how delicious the bugs taste and getting people to take that first bite,” Sewitz says. He adds that grinding crickets into flour and making protein bars out of them — products that in no way resemble the six-legged crawlers used to make them — is probably a big part of their success. “I definitely think we’ve seen so much success because it’s not obvious to people that they’re eating insects, and that’s a very intentional choice,” Sewitz says. “From the get-go, everything was designed to not trigger anything on the psychological aversion people have toward insects in general.” [This scientist rates and describes insect stings as if they were fine wines] But Deroy thinks disgust isn’t the only issue standing between Western consumers and a plate of many-legged munchies. A bigger reason may be that people just like what they know. “We know the role of familiarity is very strong,” she says. “People are just usually reluctant to eat new foods.” This may be one reason cricket-fueled protein bars are a hit: At their core, they’re a food that consumers are already familiar with and like. Deroy says adding insects into familiar dishes may be one way to help them catch on. “We need to learn to integrate insects to our daily recipes — not see them as exotic snacks,” she writes in a follow-up email. As far as the rhetoric usually employed by policymakers goes, Deroy believes it’s just not that effective to tell people what kinds of choices are best for them. “Generally speaking, people eat the foods they like, not the foods that they should. So, it is fundamental to turn insects into a food they like, instead of telling them they should,” she writes in the e-mail. “Research shows that being normative and telling children what they should eat is not a solution. Why should it work any better with adults?”


Why the FIFA arrests made Russia so angry with the U.S.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of meddling outside its jurisdiction in the arrests of top FIFA officials. News of the arrest of prominent officials in FIFA, world soccer's governing body, on U.S. federal corruption charges triggered a fair amount of jubilation among soccer fans, keen to see the murky administration of the world's most beloved sport cleaned up. [What is FIFA and why is it so hated?] But not all were happy. Not long after U.S. authorities announced their role in pursuing the arrest of seven FIFA officials in the Swiss city of Zurich, Russia's foreign ministry issued an angry statement. "Without going into the details of the proposed charges, we would turn attention to the fact that this is another case of illegal extraterritorial application of US laws. We hope that this will in no way be used to tarnish the international football organization in general and its decisions, including personnel," read the statement, posted on the Russian foreign ministry's Web site. "Once again, we urge Washington to stop trying to administer justice far beyond its borders under its legal regulations and to follow the generally accepted international legal procedures," it added. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin echoed these comments, deeming the timing of the move "odd" and another sign of American methods to "illegally persecute people." [Was Putin right about Syria?] Moscow, of course, has a long history of decrying American interventionism. But in this instance, the expanding U.S. and Swiss investigations into FIFA hit rather close to home. Russia is set to host the 2018 World Cup, which it was awarded in controversial circumstances alongside Qatar's 2022 bid. The bidding for these tournaments are now apparently the subject of federal scrutiny, and there are even suggestions (perhaps more wishful than real) that subsequent revelations could lead to the tournaments' relocation. This dovetails with an ongoing diplomatic feud between Russia and the West over the 2018 World Cup. Since Russia's annexation of Crimea last year, and continued meddling in eastern Ukraine, there's been a growing chorus of European officials calling for either a boycott of the tournament or for FIFA to reconsider its choice of Russia altogether. That's been echoed across the Atlantic as well. Last month, 13 U.S. senators wrote a letter to FIFA, asking it to strip Russia off the World Cup because it "inappropriately bolsters the prestige" of Russian President Vladimir


These 26 states won’t let you sue McDonald’s for making you fat. The surprising consequence of banning obesity lawsuits.

Manufacturers Association, the food industry trade group that represents snack food giants like Kraft, Kellogg, Nestle, and Coca-Cola. Fighting childhood obesity was a shared responsibility, she told them. “We need you not just to tweak around the edges, but to entirely rethink the products that you’re offering, the information that you provide about these products, and how you market those products to our children.” In those early days of the Let’s Move campaign, the first lady focused on nutrition reform. She’s had some success partnering with companies behind the scenes to make packaged foods healthier through voluntary pledges, and for getting junk food out of schools. But she has also drawn criticism for not pressuring companies harder on their marketing practices, and for not pursuing stricter laws about food labeling. By 2011, the campaign shifted gears to emphasize personal responsibility and exercise. “The problem isn’t just what’s happening at meal time or at snack time,” she said in a November speech that year. “It’s also about how our kids are spending the rest of their time each and every day.” Public health advocates accused her of capitulating to corporate interests. It’s politically difficult to challenging how companies sell junk food to kids. It’s uncontroversial to encourage children to exercise and eat right. The next generation of lawsuits against junk food have set their sights on smaller goals. Daynard, who is also the president of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University, says his staff is working to bring cases against companies that advertise their foods in misleading ways. Consumers these days do want to eat better, but companies often make oversized claims about the healthfulness or naturalness of the foods they sell. (Or, they trumpet their fresh and non-GMO ingredients to distract from the calorie count or fat levels.) Food companies like to say they are only giving people what they want. The proliferation of healthier choices at fast-food restaurants, and the success of health-conscious eateries like Panera Bread reflect public demand for less fattening food. These are signs of progress. Still, people — especially children — only have so much will power. Our better selves can be sanded down by the constant temptation of juicy burger ads and sugary cereal commercials. If Americans are making an effort to cut back on the junk food, do companies have a responsibility to stop rubbing our faces in it so much?


How much the world loves the National Zoo’s pandas, in one chart

Bao Bao is seen in her habitat at the National Zoo on Aug. 23, 2014. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) The National Zoo is turning off some of its animal cameras — no more viewing the naked mole-rat — because the technology on those systems is obsolete. The zoo said the cameras on the naked mole-rat, along with the clouded leopard, a family of 11 Asian small-clawed otters, fishing cats and the orangutan will go dark. [These five zoo cameras are going away. Which will you miss the most?] Here’s a look at how many page views each animal camera generated from the public watching its creatures, according to numbers provided by the National Zoo. The pandas are the clear winner. It’s not even close. // // NOTE: The zoo upgraded its camera-viewing system in the summer for elephants and lions. The stats for those animals’ camera page views reflect from the time the upgrades were done — from May 2014 for the elephants and from July 2014 for the lions through the end of the year. It's almost officially summer and that means zoo animals are out and about for all of us to see. If you're stuck at work and can't make it out to see them, here are eight of the best animal cameras for you to enjoy.


Magnificent double rainbow photos after Wednesday storms

(Angela Pan via Flickr) Although the Wednesday afternoon storms slowed traffic, drenched joggers, and drowned some plants, the aftermath was beautiful across the D.C. skyline. In the calm after the storm, Capital Weather Gang readers took to the streets with phones and cameras in hand to capture photos of single and double rainbows where sun met rain. @capitalweather I turned in my work late, but can I still get half-credit? http://t.co/Rv5xZ9URcR Wow. Just wow. #rainbow @capitalweather http://t.co/BVgstQK2kZ Dissipating rainbow over the U.S. Capitol earlier this evening. #DC @capitalweather @JimCantore http://t.co/o9iV9T45cg Everyone was so distracted around #UnionStationDC to notice this #rainbow up above @nbcwashington @capitalweather http://t.co/VU08XbJ7HN @capitalweather A beautiful #rainbow appeared over Ashby Ponds in Ashburn, Virginia last night! Credit @hamrickce http://t.co/Ps6ar8sHnf Double rainbow over the @uscapitol. Hoping @capitalweather can find the pot of gold! #DC #CapitolHill http://t.co/ajiM2iJwfB Lucky charms! A rainbow spotted over NEDC. @capitalweather @SteveRudinABC7 http://t.co/gpuwMmeZN4 Rainbow near Dupont Circle @capitalweather http://t.co/gQZpbVTX8w Amazing rainbow seen from Air Force Memorial. Storm clouds + sunset! @suepalkafox5dc @capitalweather @dougkammerer http://t.co/q7tVPn9QC1 .@capitalweather #oxford http://t.co/H2esDKoF1S In addition to clouding twitter with beautiful rainbow photos, readers took to Instagram and Flickr to share their colorful shots. (Jim Havard via Flickr) (John Sonderman via Flickr) As day turned to night readers tried to catch that one last photo of the passing storm clouds. Storms were meh, but the nice sunset made up for it @capitalweather http://t.co/q5ejZJFa8F


Scientists are closing in on the ultimate secrets of plant photosynthesis

of genetic engineering in plants themselves. Remarkable though it may be, photosynthesis -- which first appeared on Earth as early as 3.5 billion years ago -- is inefficient at exploiting the energy from the sun. Thus scientists would like to figure out how to make staple crops, such as corn, more efficient in their photosynthetic processes. In the new paper, "Structural basis for energy transfer pathways in the plant PSI-LHCI supercomplex," Xiaochun Qin and colleagues report that they have succeeded in developing a better technique for sampling and crystallizing the proteins involved in one of the two main "photosystems" in a pea plant. They studied those proteins using X-ray crystallography. Earlier efforts in studying this photosystem had already identified a network of molecules, including chlorophylls, carotenoids and phylloquinones, but the resolution of the imagery was insufficient to detect the precise structure of this molecular complex. The new technique essentially has brought the picture into sharper focus. What the scientists see is a system in which "antenna" proteins capture light and feed them into a kind of molecular reactor. [This sea slug steals plant genes to live like a leaf] “The efficiency of the process is determined by the three-dimensional structures of the proteins and the cofactors (pigments, lipids etc.) that perform the process. A slight change in the three-dimensional structure of the proteins will significantly affect the efficiency,” said the study’s co-author, Jian-Ren Shen, Director of the Photosynthesis Research Center at Japan’s Okayama University, in an e-mail to The Post. "The principles utilized in the natural photosynthesis will help design artificial solar energy utilization systems with a higher efficiency," Shen wrote. The secrets of nature might also be used by humans to boost agricultural yields, said Robert Blankenship, a professor of biology and chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, and author of the textbook "Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis." "If you could improve the efficiency of agriculture by a factor of two or three, that would be another green revolution," Blankenship said. Blankenship, who was not involved in the newly published research, said that artificial photosynthesis "will take some of the principles that are found in the natural system and implement them in an artificial device. I like to use the analogy of birds and airplanes.... The airplane doesn’t work the same way the bird does. But if there hadn’t been birds and insects and creatures that could fly, people


Photosynthesis Research Center at Japan’s Okayama University, in an e-mail to The Post. "The principles utilized in the natural photosynthesis will help design artificial solar energy utilization systems with a higher efficiency," Shen wrote. The secrets of nature might also be used by humans to boost agricultural yields, said Robert Blankenship, a professor of biology and chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, and author of the textbook "Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis." "If you could improve the efficiency of agriculture by a factor of two or three, that would be another green revolution," Blankenship said. Blankenship, who was not involved in the newly published research, said that artificial photosynthesis "will take some of the principles that are found in the natural system and implement them in an artificial device. I like to use the analogy of birds and airplanes.... The airplane doesn’t work the same way the bird does. But if there hadn’t been birds and insects and creatures that could fly, people would never have imagined that it was possible to build something that could fly.” Harry Atwater, director of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech, said scientists still have a ways to go before they understand exactly what plants are doing: "Even though nature has had millions of years to develop and optimize photosynthesis, there are still outstanding and unknown questions about how photosynthesis operates. It's truly a scientific challenge." [Human activity may be pushing us beyond the "zone of uncertainty"] One difficulty with fully understanding the process is that, unlike the parts of a solar panel, which are rigid and designed to last, the crucial proteins in the photosystem of a plant are dynamic, and don't last very long before they fall apart. The plant then regenerates these structures. Everything's changing constantly -- because the plant, unlike the solar panel, is alive. “These are molecular machines, essentially," said Michele Vittadello, assistant professor of chemistry at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. "These are molecules that get irradiated by light, and light interacts with them, and while it is interacting with them, there are modifications in the structure that occur, there are chemical bonds that are broken and are being formed. It’s a dynamic thing. Even if you do X-ray crystallography and you get a snapshot of a structure, this is just a photograph in a movie, it's not the whole picture.”


Arlington’s second Italian Store has a few new tricks up its sleeve

To say the opening of the second Italian Store in Arlington was highly anticipated would be something of an understatement. Interest in the Westover location was so intense, manager Mike Tramonte had to hire someone to wipe down the front window every day because of all the people pressed up against the glass looking for signs of progress, he said. The Italian Store's new location in Arlington's Westover neighborhood includes outdoor seating. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) The Tramonte family opened the first Italian Store on Lee Highway in 1980. A little more than a week after opening, the second is already exceeding expectations, owner Robert Tramonte, Mike's dad, said. Here's what's new at Westover: Like the original on Lee Highway, the Westover Italian Store features a pizza and sandwich menu in addition to a wide selection of groceries. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) It's bigger [Carluccio’s Italian market and restaurant makes U.S. debut in Alexandria on June 3] There's a gelato bar. You can eat outside. Wine on tap. Private dining may be available in the future. The Italian Store, 5837 Washington Blvd., Arlington. Open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. www.italianstore.com. Related items: Carluccio’s Italian market and restaurant makes U.S. debut in Alexandria on June 3 Centrolina market and osteria opening in late May and early June Which of the D.C. area’s fast-casual pizza places is doing it best? With second location, Dolci Gelati switches from wholesale to retail


FAO Schwarz: Too priceless for words, and for customers

browse through the FAO Schwarz toy store in New York in November 2004. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) FAO Schwarz’s struggles started as discount sellers such as Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart entered the toy scene, offering alternatives at a cheaper price. The company was eventually bought by Toys “R” Us, which announced this month that the store will close July 15. Although the company says it’s looking for another location, some speculate it may fade away, at least as a physical presence. According to Toys “R” Us’s statement: For the past several years, Toys“R”Us has been reviewing its lease renewal options for the FAO Schwarz Fifth Avenue location and one of these options was to not renew the lease agreement, which the company has decided to do. In working with the property owner, the company was able to agree on an early exit in advance of the 2017 lease expiration, providing the opportunity to realize meaningful rent savings. As a result, we plan to formally close the Fifth Avenue location on Wednesday, July 15. The decision to vacate this space is due to the continuing rising costs of operating a retail location on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The company is committed to the FAO Schwarz brand and growing its legacy. In fact, it is actively searching for another location in midtown Manhattan where FAO Schwarz can welcome shoppers from around the world. The company is working diligently to place as many full- and part-time team members as possible at Toys“R”Us and Babies“R”Us locations in the greater New York/New Jersey area. FAO Schwarz originated in Baltimore. In the Civil War era, German immigrant Frederick August Otto Schwarz came to America and started working for a stationery importer, Time magazine once reported. It wasn’t uncommon, at the time, for shops to pack other items — like toys — with the stationery to expand their businesses. Schwarz started putting toys in the store window and, when they started selling faster than the stationery, he and his brothers opened a toy shop called Toy Bazaar. By 1870, he had moved the store to Manhattan, naming it Schwarz Brothers-Importers. Eventually, it settled in Union Square and was renamed FAO Schwarz. The cover of the FAO Schwarz spring/summer catalog from 1911. (F.A.O. Schwarz via Smithsonian Libraries) Two inside pages of the catalog show various store floors. See the full catalog here. (F.A.O. Schwarz via Smithsonian Libraries)


Career Coach: Atten-hut! Here’s how to make the transition to civilian life

to civilian jobs. In addition, there are several agencies that rank U.S. firms in terms of how well they help the military find jobs. U.S. Veterans Magazine routinely polls hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies for its annual Best of the Best evaluations. The annual review is an evaluation of the nation’s employers, initiatives, government agencies and educational institutions. The magazine’s research contains helpful resources for jobseekers, business owners, students, consumers, senior management, employment agencies, among others. Similarly, the CivilianJobs.Com group does a comparable thing. Some of the top rated companies in our geographic area and nearby include: 3M, Aerotek, Amazon, BAE, Booz Allen, Capital One, CSC, CSX, Deloitte Federal, Exelon, General Electric, General Motors, Intel, KPMG, Lockheed Martin, ManTech International, Northrop Grumman, PepsiCo, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, USAA, Walmart, among others. Joyce E. A Russell Seeing the progress that has been made to help the military is fantastic, yet, despite the improvements that have been made, some employers still lack a good understanding of how the leadership and management skills of the military apply to the commercial world. I certainly hear that from many military folks who are job hunting. Many employers just don’t “understand the transferable skills we can bring to the organization,” one told me. Some employers struggle to figure out exactly what the military person did while serving and how that translates to business today. They may even have distorted or inaccurate perceptions about the military So, what can individuals do? Here are some tips for transitioning out of the military: • First, start your move well before you’re leaving the service. Don’t wait until you have gotten out of the service to be thinking about these issues. The services themselves provide a good first step, through the Transition Assistance Program, or TAP. TAP, a joint program of the Department of Defense, Department of Labor and Department of Veterans Affairs, offers classes and career counseling for service members who are preparing to leave the military. • Involve your family. Make sure they are part of the discussions and decision-making. • Use this time to fill any gaps in your military record while it’s still free to get training. Look for training opportunities, certifications or educational degrees. At the Smith School, we are pleased to have Yellow Ribbon status, meaning the Veterans Administration may help fund or partially fund tuition costs. • Research to see what jobs


Main Street Morning: Whole Foods helps out flooded Texas businesses

entire countries. - Pending home sales are at a nine year high, jobless claims are up, consumer comfort plunges and oil inventories fall again (but still remain at an 80 year high). - Small business growth is on the rebound (but you’re not out of the woods yet). - The dollar could be getting ready to roar. Management - Managers and employees disagree on the most common breach of workplace etiquette. - Is coffee roasting your productivity? - Why old white people dominate small businesses. - How immigrants and Latinos are helping to drive business innovation Sales and Marketing - Why Twitter wants its CFO to oversee marketing. Entrepreneurs - A cancer survivor creates empathy cards she wishes she had received. - How these entrepreneurs groom their own kids to follow in their footsteps. - An entrepreneur hopes to boost the popularity of chariot racing. - Why immigrant entrepreneurs are critical to the recovery. Retail - How to deliver a standout shopping experience - Six low-tech ways to reduce shoplifting in your store. - Tracy Morgan settles with Walmart. - Indie bookstores are on the rise. - A fashion boutique owner regrets naming her business “Tinder.” People - Jawbone accuses Fitbit of stealing information by hiring workers away. Restaurants - A DC restaurant chain is seeking $11 million to fund a national expansion. - These are the risks and rewards of selling dinner reservations. Finance - A company seeking to be the world’s dominant source of user-generated reviews of businesses online raises $73.5 million. Start-ups - The nation’s start-up activity reverses five-year downward trend, according to the Kauffman Foundation’s new index report. - Start-up founders get their rightful place: on a deck of cards. - He’s ready to take his graffiti-inspired hat company to the streets. But how? - A training program for would-be entrepreneurs has arrived from California’s Silicon Valley, adding another layer to Greenville, North Carolina’s “ecosystem” for birthing high-impact startup companies. Technology - Robots are starting to grasp food processing. - Three things investors should know about business infrastructure solutions. Online - How to start a web TV show for your small business. - Amazon is now waving fees for Prime members using its same-day delivery and expanding the markets where the service is available. - Netflix now accounts for nearly 37 percent of peak web traffic in North America. - Here’s what will finally make you


Map: How coffee splits the United States in half

Coffee, the straightforward combination of ground coffee beans and piping hot water, increasingly can be a complicated thing. Niche coffee shops today — the sort that have spread through extra cool parts of San Francisco and Brooklyn — have popularized unusual approaches to the craft, from the selecting of the beans to the roasting, packaging, seeping, brewing and serving of a cup. Coffee, in other words, can be fancy. But while all the attention may be on the frontiers of coffee -- like Blue Bottle Coffee Co., which raised $26 million in funding to expand its single-drip brews last year -- we need a reality check. Fancy, artisan coffee is the sort of "national trend" that's actually only happening in the likes of Brooklyn. What America really drinks, when it drinks coffee, is basic. And it's made by two mammoth coffee chains. On the whole, our coffee preferences split the U.S. in half: Starbucks Country and Dunkin' Donuts Land. Using public store location datasets, we've mapped that divide below. Notice that Dunkin' Donuts shops vastly outnumber Starbucks in the Northeast. This is of little surprise, since the chain was founded there. They also, however, have a significant footprint in the Carolinas, Florida and Chicago. This doesn't, to be clear, mean that there aren't any Starbucks in these areas, just that they're outnumbered by Dunkin.' But Starbucks is the dominant coffee retailer literally everywhere else, from Hawaii all the way east to D.C. Overall, there are about 12,000 Starbucks locations and 7,500 Dunkin' Donuts locations in the U.S. In fact, 80 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of a Starbucks. What's surprising here isn't necessarily Starbucks' ubiquity — that's been a subject of discussion for years now — but rather Dunkin's total dominance in certain markets. The map also shows that Dunkin', though it dominates the Northeast, is quickly expanding out of its roots. The chain is increasing its presence down the Eastern seaboard to Florida. Given the chain's aggressive expansion, we might expect to see them start to move westward. Starbucks is spreading too. Everywhere, yes, but also westward from its most densely populated areas. The result is that the two will likely spread in opposite directions, each toward the other's homeland, in effect furthering their combined domination of the American coffee landscape. What this means is the future likely only holds an even more top-heavy coffee world. If


Anheuser-Busch brewery shifts from beer production to can water for flood victims

Haas, the Cartersville brewery manager, told NBC News. The effort comes after Texas and Oklahoma were slammed by a deadly series of storms. At least 24 people have died in the two states, according to the Associated Press, and several people remain missing in Texas. Another 13 were killed in Ciudad Acuna when a tornado struck the Mexican border city. [After 20 inches of rain, Texas and Oklahoma deserve a break. It’s coming.] Reports NBC The Cartersville brewery produces cans of emergency relief water a few times a year, Haas said, partnering with the American Red Cross to provide to places in need within the United States. “It’s something we’re uniquely positioned to do in a very timely period,” he said. In a news release, Anheuser-Busch said it planned to provide “2,156 cases of emergency drinking water — or 51,744 cans.” “Relief workers and people in the region are in need of safe, clean drinking water, and Anheuser-Busch is in a unique position to produce and ship large quantities of emergency drinking water,” Peter Kraemer, vice president of Supply for Anheuser-Busch, said in a statement. “Our local distributors help identify those communities most in need, and work with relief organizations such as the American Red Cross to make sure the water gets where it’s needed.” The company said it had donated “more than 73 million cans of emergency drinking water following natural and other disasters” since 1988. The Cartersville brewery packages and ships all of the company’s emergency water donations, Anheuser-Busch noted in March. The 900,000-square-foot facility typically ships about 250 truckloads of beer each day, the company said. [Two days of torrential rain creates flooding nightmare in the Houston area] Below you can find more pictures from Texas and Oklahoma from earlier this week. Linda Balas looks at the remains of a vacation home in Wimberley, Tex., on Thursday. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) Residents wade through knee-deep water as they leave their homes in Hardin, Tex., on Thursday. (Jason Fochtman/Conroe Courier via AP) Floodwater from the San Jacinto River covers a road beside the highway Thursday in the Houston suburb of Kingwood. (Pat Sullivan/AP) A house built on pillars is surrounded by flood water from the San Jacinto River on Thursday in Texas. (Pat Sullivan/AP) This post has been updated. Read More: May rainfall busted the Texas drought. Big time. Houston drone video reveals extent of major flooding


Net of insecurity Part 1

daunting. Encrypting and decrypting messages consumed large amounts of computing power, likely requiring expensive new pieces of hardware to work properly. It also was not clear how to safely distribute the necessary keys â an issue that complicates encryption systems even today. âBasically owned the technology in cryptography' Play Video Steve Crocker, worked on early networking technology for DARPA. Yet lurking in the background were political issues as well: The National Security Agency, which Cerf said was an enthusiastic supporter of secure packet-switching technology for military uses, had serious reservations about making encryption available on public or commercial networks. Encryption algorithms themselves were considered a potential threat to national security, covered by government export restrictions on military technologies. Steve Crocker, the brother of David Crocker and a lifelong friend of Cerf who also worked on early networking technology for DARPA, said, âBack in those days, the NSA still had the ability to visit a professor and say, âDo not publish that paper on cryptography.âââ As the â70s wound down, Cerf and Kahn abandoned their efforts to bake cryptography into TCP/IP, bowing to what they considered insurmountable barriers. It was still possible to encrypt traffic using hardware or software designed for that purpose, but the Internet developed into a communication system that operated mostly in the clear â meaning anyone with access to the network could monitor transmissions. With encryption rare, it also was difficult for anyone online to be sure who he or she was communicating with. Kleinrock, the UCLA scientist, said the result was a network that combined unprecedented reach, speed and efficiency with the ability to act anonymously. âThatâs a perfect formula,â he said, âfor the dark side.â Vinton G. Cerf, now a Google executive, says he wishes that he and fellow computer scientist Robert E. Kahn had been able to build encryption into TCP/IP from the beginning. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) ‘Operation Looking Glass’ TCP/IP proved a historic engineering triumph, allowing a remarkably disparate group of networks to work together to an unprecedented degree. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, DARPA sponsored a series of tests to gauge the ability of the protocols to efficiently and reliably transmit data over challenging terrain, from portable antennas set up at an outdoor bar to vans rolling along coastal highways to small aircraft flying above. TCP/IP A set of protocols that are the fundamental technology of the Internet.


state-by-state effects of a ruling in favor of King


This 92-year-old just became the oldest woman to run a marathon

competition. A resident of a Charlotte, N.C., retirement community, she has always liked to stay fit. Then, when she was 76, she decided to participate in a marathon even if she had to walk 26.2 miles. “Everybody was running [when her first race started], so I decided well, I guess I’ll run, too,” she told Duncan McFadyen of WFAE radio (via NPR). “And it didn’t seem — at that time, it wasn’t so bad.” Her time of 7:07:42 from 2014 is a world record in the marathon for a woman in her age group. Along the way, she has raised over $100,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and missed the race only once, when she was undergoing cancer treatment. (She did not run it the first year she took up running.) She has lost friends and family, including her husband of 67 years, to cancer. “That makes it personal, something that I really feel is important,” Thompson told Runners’ World. Caring for her husband, who died in January at the age of 90, forced her to miss some training late last year and early this year. And Thompson herself is recovering radiation treatments for squamous cell carcinoma on her legs. “I’m sure all that weakened me to some extent, so I’m not as strong as I’d like to be but I’m still going to try,” she said. “I’m just going to walk real fast and then run some, and just try not to wear myself down too fast. It’ll be sort of interesting. I’ll be the most surprised person if I finish it. I hope I will!” UPDATE: 92-year-old Harriette Thompson just crossed halfway of the marathon, 13.1 to go http://t.co/cROan1Wq60 #RNRSD http://t.co/N8iQQTNkrt She needn’t have worried. Her lipstick in place and her son beside her, she kept up a nice pace throughout the race, which attracted 19,000 runners. 92-year-old Harriette Thompson's #RnRSD Splits 10K - 1:38:30 Half - 3:37:45 20 Miles - 5:35:55 Finish - 7:24:36 So impressive. Thompson broke the record set by Gladys Burrill, who was was 92 years, 19 days old when she ran the Honolulu Marathon in 2010. Thompson is 92 years, 93 days old. Keep running, Harriette. Marathoner Faura Singh hung up his shoes at the age of 101. Singh’s record wasn’t recognized by as a Guiness world record because he doesn’t have a birth certificate to prove his age, only a passport.


It’s not just Hillary. Sen. Bernie Sanders is outdrawing Martin O’Malley.

governor's last public events before he launched his candidacy on Saturday. Most of the 50 people there came away thinking O'Malley could be a good president, Cohen said, and that they would be comfortable with him as the Democratic nominee. "But the enthusiasm, you can't compare," he said. After his campaign announcement in Baltimore, O’Malley hit the campaign trail this weekend in both Iowa and New Hampshire, where he was greeted warmly but also faced questions about his place in a Democratic field. O’Malley drew bursts of applause during an appearance at a union hall in Davenport, Iowa, as he pledged to strengthen bargaining rights, break up big banks, expand Social Security benefits and fight a trade deal pending in Congress. Reporters seemed most interested, though, in how a candidate riding low in the polls would try to compete not only against Clinton but also Sanders and his uncompromisingly liberal message. The field is likely to expand further this week with the entry of Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode island senator and governor, who has criticized Clinton more directly than either O'Malley or Sanders have. Former Virginia senator James Webb is also eyeing the race. Speaking to reporters in Davenport on Saturday, O’Malley said he brings to the race not only “a fearlessness about my progressive goals” but something else: the accomplishments of running a state and a city. “I believe I offer this alone among the candidates for the Democratic nomination: I have 15 years of executive experience, of actually getting things done,” he said. “Many of us talk about the things we should do, whether it’s increasing the minimum wage, whether it’s investing more in infrastructure and new industries to create more jobs. I’ve actually done those things.” About 100 people came to see O'Malley in Davenport, some pledging to support him and others there to compare him with the competition. A crowd of more than 200 joined O’Malley later Saturday for the opening of his state headquarters on the outskirts of downtown Des Moines. In rainy New Hampshire on Sunday, about 30 patrons -- and a pack of reporters -- were at the Goldenrod Drive-in Restaurant in Manchester when O'Malley arrived. About half the customers were O'Malley supporters, the rest Granite Staters out to get some food or ice cream. He drew larger crowds at a house party in Gilford and an event for Dartmouth College students


I’m a plus-sized woman. I never want to hear ‘I’m proud of you’ for exercising.

On a bright spring day last month, I completed the 5K Color Run in Baltimore. In just over an hour, I walked the entire course while my friend, a longtime pal from college, joined the runners. She waited for me at the finish line with a smile. We took pictures of ourselves covered in glitter and a veritable rainbow of chalk dust. “I’m proud of you!” she said. And I grinned. But then she kept saying it. Over and over and over: “I’m so proud of you for doing this.” I flinched with each of her cheery repetitions because I knew what she was getting at, even if she didn’t say it explicitly: “I’m proud of you for exercising while fat.” My sense of unease only worsened as the afternoon wore on. We spent almost a half-hour wandering through the city, looking for her car. I grew frustrated, but she waved aside my annoyance by claiming that our search for the parking garage counted as “extra exercise.” I don’t think my friend set out to hurt my feelings with her comments. But her words hit at my most fundamental insecurities — my fear that when people look at me, they see a problem body in need of solutions, someone who requires all of the extra exercise she can get. After we parted ways, I drove home alone, feeling self-conscious and hypervisible in my own skin. This reaction is a common experience for plus-size women who go to the gym, swim in a pool or even take a walk around the neighborhood — other, thinner people feel the need to assert their “pride” in us for exercising in public. But is it really pride or yet another condescending reminder from the world that one can only be a virtuous fat person when visibly athletic? Most of us know that fat women are hardly a minority in the global population. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last year that approximately 40 percent of adult women across the globe are overweight — defined as maintaining a body mass index of 25 to 29. And the reality is that a lot of overweight women may have a daily exercise routine while never losing all of their excess body fat. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research claimed that “aerobic exercise training in women typically results in minimal fat loss,


MERS fears in South Korea: Nearly 700 isolated as health officials seek to block spread

South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare is scrambling to contain the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed two people. South Korean health officials isolated nearly 700 people on Monday in an effort to stop the spread of the potentially deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome within its borders after 18 people became infected over the past 10 days -- a rate of transmission that appears more aggressive than in other countries. South Korea has been on high alert since May 20 when a 68-year-old man who had been traveling in Bahrain tested positive for the virus. Since then, the virus has been detected in a number of patients and visitors to the hospital where he was treated -- triggering global concern about whether the virus had mutated or genetic or environmental factors may have been at play. MERS, a coronavirus, is related to the one that infected thousands during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and has no cure or vaccine. "We must find the reason for the high rate of transmission unlike in the cases of other countries," President Park Geun-hye told a meeting on Monday, according to Reuters. The Associated Press reported Since being first reported in 2012, MERS has been mostly contained to Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates and Jordan. The World Health Organization says that 1,150 case have been reported and 427 of the patients have died. The WHO detailed the status of the two most recent cases: The case is a 35-year-old male who developed symptoms of cough, sputum and fever on 6 May and was admitted to hospital on 13 May. The patient has been on tuberculosis medication since his son was diagnosed with the bacterial disease in April. Between 15 and 17, he shared the same ward with the first case during his hospitalization from 15 to 17 May. On 20 May, after his discharge, the patient visited two different hospitals due to fever and was put on antibiotics. As symptoms persisted despite antibiotic therapy, he was admitted to a hospital again on 27 May and confirmed positive for MERS-CoV on 29 May. The case is a 35 year-old male whose mother shared the same ward with the first case. From 15 to 21 May, the patient visited his mother every day at the hospital. He developed symptoms and visited an emergency room on 24 May. The


alert since May 20 when a 68-year-old man who had been traveling in Bahrain tested positive for the virus. Since then, the virus has been detected in a number of patients and visitors to the hospital where he was treated -- triggering global concern about whether the virus had mutated or genetic or environmental factors may have been at play. MERS, a coronavirus, is related to the one that infected thousands during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and has no cure or vaccine. "We must find the reason for the high rate of transmission unlike in the cases of other countries," President Park Geun-hye told a meeting on Monday, according to Reuters. The Associated Press reported Since being first reported in 2012, MERS has been mostly contained to Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates and Jordan. The World Health Organization says that 1,150 case have been reported and 427 of the patients have died. The WHO detailed the status of the two most recent cases: The case is a 35-year-old male who developed symptoms of cough, sputum and fever on 6 May and was admitted to hospital on 13 May. The patient has been on tuberculosis medication since his son was diagnosed with the bacterial disease in April. Between 15 and 17, he shared the same ward with the first case during his hospitalization from 15 to 17 May. On 20 May, after his discharge, the patient visited two different hospitals due to fever and was put on antibiotics. As symptoms persisted despite antibiotic therapy, he was admitted to a hospital again on 27 May and confirmed positive for MERS-CoV on 29 May. The case is a 35 year-old male whose mother shared the same ward with the first case. From 15 to 21 May, the patient visited his mother every day at the hospital. He developed symptoms and visited an emergency room on 24 May. The patient was admitted to hospital between 25 and 27 May and confirmed positive for MERS-CoV on 30 May. In this Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, file photo, Egyptian Muslim pilgrims, some wearing masks as a precaution against the Middle East respiratory syndrome, pray after they cast stones at a pillar, symbolizing the stoning of Satan, in a ritual called "Jamarat," the last rite of the annual hajj, in Mina near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)


Why conservatives are able to pass such harsh restrictions on the poor

Americans generally agree. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) Welfare restrictions have lately become fashionable in certain states, especially red ones. Missouri Republicans are trying to keep food stamp recipients from buying steak and seafood. Kansas wants to keep the poor from going to movies or the swimming pools. It also recently enacted cash withdrawal limits on welfare recipients that could drastically increase the amount of ATM fees the poor will have to pay. A new survey from YouGov helps explain why legislators may be able to enact such harsh restrictions. As you can see in the results below, Americans generally are uncomfortable with limits like the ban on steak and seafood or the ATM withdrawal caps. But they do support, by and large, limits on spending on adult businesses, movie theaters and alcoholic beverages. More than 40 percent of Americans even oppose low-income Americans using their welfare benefits to bring their kids to a swimming pool during the summer. And in all cases, Republicans support the limits more than Democrats or the general population. So when legislators in red states advance these types of policies, if they frame it as working to stop wasteful spending (and don't mention the most restrictive policies), they may actually get quite a bit of support. After all, when YouGov asked people if the poor should be ashamed for applying for or using welfare benefits, 1 in 5 Republicans said "yes," while another third of them said they weren't sure. Among Democrats those numbers were 9 and 12 percent, respectively. Take a more detailed look at the survey results below: Among the eight types of welfare restrictions YouGov polled on last month, limits on food purchases were by far the least popular. Only 28 percent of Americans overall thought these were a good idea. That figure fell to 18 percent for Democrats, and rose to 43 percent among Republicans. ATM withdrawal limits were similarly unpopular among all three groups. Interestingly, Americans said that welfare recipients shouldn't be able to use their funds at movie theaters and adult businesses (eg, strip clubs and the like) by nearly identical amounts -- 59 and 57 percent, respectively. There was widespread agreement that the poor shouldn't use welfare money to buy booze or cigarettes. And the most popular restriction was a ban on spending welfare checks at casinos. The gap between Republicans and Democrats was widest on the question


What other elected officials can learn from Dennis Hastert’s indictment

Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), shown in 2006, was indicted on May 28 on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said. (John Gress/Reuters) In journalism, there's a time-worn saying: It's not the crime but the coverup that gets them every time. A look at the federal indictment outlining the alleged crimes of House speaker-turned-lobbyist Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach indicates that in his case it was actually a combination of the two. [Former House speaker Dennis Hastert indicted by federal grand jury] As has been widely reported, federal prosecutors charged Hastert with two federal crimes last week. Technically, he was charged with lying to federal investigators and making cash withdrawals from his accounts in increments designed not to draw the attention of federal authorities. As many more Americans probably now know this week than did last week, banks are required to report cash transactions of $10,000 or more to federal authorities. Federal officials then scrutinize these transactions on the grounds that they may be linked to criminal or even terrorist activity. In the days since the indictment went public, so, too, have reports about the underlying "wrongdoing" that Hastert wanted so desperately to conceal. Both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times have reported that Hastert allegedly paid a person described in his indictment as "Individual A" nearly $2 million to keep private Hastert's alleged sexual abuse of a former male student. Several other reports have speculated -- and there is still a fair bit of speculation in much of what has been published about the matter -- that the statute of limitations for these alleged crimes has expired, meaning it's too late to prosecute Hastert in criminal court. [People from Hastert's years as a teacher mystified by molestation allegations] And that's where the lesson of the Hastert debacle -- if we want to call it that -- begins. Hastert’s indictment makes no mention of any pending federal blackmail or extortion charges against Individual A, or charges against Hastert for any type of sex crime. So, had Hastert removed money from the bank to pay Individual A, then told federal investigators the true reason for those withdrawals, he probably wouldn't face any criminal charges. It's also possible that the American public wouldn't know a thing about the alleged turmoil


NASA tests plane coating designed to cut through bug guts

NASA materials scientist Mia Siochi and systems engineer Mike Alexander, from the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Boeing technician Felix Boyett count insect residue on the right wing of Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757 aircraft following a flight test in Shreveport, La. (Paul Bagby/NASA) You might not think tiny insects pose a problem for massive jets. But when a plane plows through a bug (which usually happens during takeoffs and landings), that bug leaves its guts behind. And over time, those guts accumulate and make the surface of the craft's wings less smooth, which creates drag. More drag means more fuel use and a less efficient plane. So NASA and Boeing engineers are working on coatings that let planes cut right through bugs without getting sticky. In a test of five potential coatings run by the Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project, one reduced bug residue by 40%. That's a pretty preliminary test -- just a bunch of takeoffs and landings out of a single airport. But developing the coatings -- 200 of them in total, which were narrowed down to five in wind tunnel experiments -- involved some pretty cool bug science. "We learned when a bug hits and its body ruptures the blood starts undergoing some chemical changes to make it stickier," Mia Siochi, senior materials scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, said in a statement. "That's basically the survival mechanism for the bug." And to avoid that stickiness, they looked to something else in the natural world: Lotus leaves. "When you look at a lotus leaf under the microscope the reason water doesn't stick to it is because it has these rough features that are pointy," added Siochi. "When liquid sits on the microscopically-rough leaf surface, the surface tension keeps it from spreading out, so it rolls off. We're trying to use that principle in combination with chemistry to prevent bugs from sticking." There's more work to be done before Boeing can figure out a coating that can make a real difference on their jets. But one day the planes we fly -- and hey, maybe even the cars we drive -- could have way fewer bugs stuck to the windshield.


The Hotlist: 13 things to see, eat, drink and do in June 2015

Welcome to the Hotlist, a monthly preview of the happenings you shouldn't miss in the weeks ahead. Here's what's coming up in June. Now: Centrolina It’s not that we don’t love the prospect of fancy out-of-town restaurants filling up CityCenter, but give a hometown girl a chance, you know? Now that Centrolina is open for lunch (dinner service begins Friday), the gleaming new retail and restaurant corridor has its first sit-down restaurant from a local chef, Amy Brandwein, who got her start under the famous Italian chef Roberto Donna. Brandwein’s Palmer Alley spot is half market (think imported cheeses, grab-and-go salads and piping-hot bombolone) and half Italian restaurant highlighting wood-fired meat and fish, and the pastas that Brandwein has perfected over her 15 years of being a D.C. chef. Centrolina, 974 Palmer Alley (11th and H streets) NW. 202-898-2426. www.centrolinadc.com. -- Maura Judkis June 1-7: Savor Week HANDOUT IMAGE, APRIL 9, 2015: Patrons attend the Savor Craft Beer Festival at the National Building Museum. If you didn't get tickets to the annual SAVOR Craft Beer Festival at the National Building Museum, you're not alone: The two-night event sold out back in March. But most D.C. beer lovers will tell you that the best part of SAVOR isn't the official tasting and seminars, but the week leading up to SAVOR, when dozens of the country's best breweries gather in Washington for a flood of beer dinners, tap takeovers, tastings and parties. We'll be publishing daily guides as the week goes on, but events we're looking forward to include Saturday brunch with brewers and at least 40 beers on tap at ChurchKey; a blind tasting of two dozen sour beers at Scion and Crios on Wednesday night organized by the DCBeer.com team; and Wednesday's California Dreamin' Tap Takeover at Fire Works Pizza in Arlington featuring drafts and casks from the Bruery, Green Flash, Ballast Point and Firestone Walker. A longer (and growing) list of events is on the official Savor site. -- Fritz Hahn June 4-5: Outdoor movie season begins Looking for a cheap date night or a free way to get together with friends after work? Pack a picnic and head for one of the outdoor movie series that fill the area's parks and parking lots in the summer. June brings the launch of some of the most popular: - The Union Market Drive-In, held every Friday in June, features '80s


China is what Americans make of it… sort of

A clerk counts Chinese banknotes at a bank in Huaibei, in central China’s Anhui province, Friday June 8, 2012. (AP Photo) The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has devoted considerable efforts to telling Americans to calm down when it comes to China — which has shifted public debate approximately “not at all.” With China-watchers asserting that China will be a big issue for the 2016 campaign, this Sinophobia is not going to go away anytime soon. Which was why I looked forward to reading James Palmer’s Outlook essay on what U.S. pundits are talking about when they talk about China. Hint: they’re not actually talking about China: The people telling these tales aren’t interested in complexities or, really, in China. They’re making domestic arguments and expressing parochial fears. Their China isn’t a real place but a rhetorical trope, less a genuine rival than a fairy-tale bogeyman…. And when we treat China as a fantasyland of instruction for ourselves, we end up ignoring the Chinese. Like Voltaire’s mandarins or the happy peasants of Maoist propaganda, they cease to be real people and become perfect puppets deployed for rhetorical ends. The Chinese can be just as dumb, lazy and pig-headed as anyone else. They can also be just as smart, determined and empathic. They deserve better than to be reduced to examples. As someone who knows much less about China but listens a lot to smart China people reads a similar slice of stuff to Palmer, this rings very true — particularly on the Chinese economy. But I wonder if it’s true about all facets of China. On the economy, for example, the internationalization of the remninbi has been a trend noted by those who see a threat to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. One element of that internationalization has been the proliferation of central bank swap lines. In the past six years, “China has signed bilateral currency swap agreements with thirty-one counterparties,” according to a recent Council on Foreign Relations study. That same study, however, found something else about those swap lines: What is most interesting about this effort so far is that whereas everyone seems interested in having a swap line with China, almost no one has thus far had any interest in using it. And when they have used it the amounts accessed have been tiny…. The take-away is that whereas the RMB is slowly