Pluto shows off its faces in new images from NASA, the best-ever shots of the dwarf

Pluto and Charon seen from 30 million miles away. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) Are you tired of humankind's slow-but-steady march towards finally staring Pluto in the face? No? Good. Here's the latest superlative animation from NASA's New Horizons, the spacecraft traveling over 36,000 mph in the direction of our solar system's most famous dwarf planet. The new images, taken from 30 million miles away, are the highest resolution shots ever seen. We can see lots of variation in Pluto's surface markings. In fact, there's a blotch of darkness around the equator that, when seen in an animation of the dwarf planet's rotation, makes the body appear bumpy and irregular. That's just an optical illusion, because we know from previously collected data that Pluto is almost perfectly spherical (unlike its smaller moons). [New images of Pluto’s moons hint at unusual behavior] The pictures also show off the incredible difference in reflectivity between Pluto and its largest moon Charon. The two may be locked together -- almost like binary planets -- but they're not the same. Charon is a bright object, but Pluto is around as bright and reflective as ice is. Here's an unprocessed shot, without zoom, where the difference is just as pronounced: A raw, unprocessed image of the dwarf planet and its largest moon. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)( New Horizons will give us our first ever encounter with Pluto And it's not as much as a bummer as you might think: Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet didn't make New Horizons a less exciting mission. In fact, now we can think of Pluto as more than just an uncharted planet waiting for exploration. It's an uncharted kind of planet with new quirks for us to discover. NASA's New Horizons mission plans to collect more information on the planetary identity of Pluto. Read More: Latest images of Pluto may show a polar ice cap New images of Ceres put those creepy white spots in a better light Three cheers for Samantha Cristoforetti, smasher of space records This dying star looks like a beautiful cosmic butterfly


Can Boston Market’s comfort food mount a comeback in the era of Chipotle?

big show of their commitment to healthy ingredients, Boston Market has also entered the fray with new TV commercials that tout their “all-natural chicken” that is “free of added hormones and steroids, never fried or frozen.” It’s a move that’s in step with many other fast-casual and quick-service spots: McDonald’s recently said it was moving to serve only chicken that had not been treated with antibiotics. Subway and other chains have announced they are doing away with artificial ingredients. Boston Market won’t necessarily have an easy path to growth. For starters, its thriving fast-casual rivals are just one prong of its competition. Rotisserie chickens have also become a grocery store staple, and many customers find it’s just as convenient to snap them up at a place where they can also, say, grab some paper towels or a package of baby food. “Between 4:30 and 6:30, we compete with the supermarkets,” Michel said. And it seems the restaurant’s low profile in recent years has caused it to fall off many diners’ radar. “Some of the [challenges] they could really focus on is building awareness,” said Dennis Lombardi, a food industry strategist with WD Partners. “I don’t think Boston Market is as strong in people’s mental phonebook about options as it could be.” WD Partners recently teamed with trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News to survey thousands of customers about their perception of dozens of chain restaurants. They found that Boston Market gets higher scores on menu variety than other chicken joints such as El Pollo Loco, Chick-fil-A and Wingstop. But it scores low relative to those peers on food quality and craveability, suggesting it could stand to polish its image. Also, if brand awareness of Boston Market isn’t especially high, that could speak to another potential challenge: Even if the brand is adding trendy new flavors like sweet Thai chili garlic sauce, that hardly matters if millennials still think of it as a place that serves the kind of meal they get at grandma’s house. Boston Market’s road to expansion began back in 2011, when the company started making major changes under Michel — an executive who refers to himself as “The Big Chicken” and has the title printed on his business cards. At that time, Boston Market began trying to pivot more upscale by adding real plates and cutlery to its restaurants and having a worker deliver orders to the tables.


‘Protest is always hopeful’: Examining the third wave of popular protest in Africa

go to crush any mass protest movement. In 2011, it showed that the state will use unbridled and brutal military force not only against the protesters but against all those in the streets or markets where protest is taking place. It’s really a kind of collective punishment. The government has declared that the price to be paid for protest is a military assault on urban areas, generalized destruction, and permanent paramilitary occupation. The urban population, as sympathetic as they might be to the protests and their demands, cannot afford to support them: The price to be paid is too high and the protests’ possibility of success just too low. So our expectation is for political resignation and abstention in 2016 rather than more protests, which is not to say that protest will not come to the fore again in Uganda in the future. A vendor sells a map of Africa along the streets of Bujumbura, Burundi April 24, 2015. While recent unrest has plunged the small, landlocked nation of Burundi into its worst crisis since the end of a conflict a decade ago, Reuters photographer Thomas Mukoya shows the realities of daily life. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters) KYD: AB ZM: With the influx of foreign investment flowing to Africa’s rural areas, we are seeing a new grab for rural lands both by African governments and foreign investors. This is leading to a convergence in conditions between rural and urban and upending the political dynamics in rural areas. In fact, the category of political society – which we framed as a primarily urban phenomenon – may be increasingly useful to understand politics in rural areas as well. Thus, we should not be surprised by the eruption of political society protest even in areas far removed from national capitals – though not so far from international capital. These developments require renewed engagement with the changing nature of popular politics and the transforming relations between rural and urban, what has been a defining cleavage of African politics since the colonial era. A youth carries a lit flare as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood gather in the El-Mataria neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt on Friday, April 24, 2015 to protest the 20-year sentence for ousted president Mohammed Morsi and verdicts against other prominent figures of the Brotherhood. (Belal Darder/AP Photo) KYD: AB ZM: But the term “youth” is notoriously imprecise. Even in the United States, we can’t


5 places to stock up on summer beers

Be the hero at your next cookout when you bring a six-pack from one of these craft beer-focused stores. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) The growth of craft beer bars has been followed by a rise in liquor stores offering higher-end IPAs and stouts instead of endless variations on domestic light lagers. (Even convenience stores on H Street NE now boast about their craft beer offerings.) If you're thirsty after reading our summer beer recommendations, head for one of these craft beer stores that will fill your growler with a draft-only brew or let you assemble a six-pack of bottles and cans from around the globe. [Sun's Out, Suds Out: Stay Cool and Look Cool With These Refreshing Summer Brews] Chevy Chase Wine and Spirits Gilly's Craft Beer and Fine Wine Old Line Fine Wines, Spirits and Bistro Grape + Bean Total Wine Okay, I bought beer. Now where can I get one of those six-pack holders or growler caddies that attaches to my bike? A bicycle growler holder allows for easy transportation of draft beer. (Photo by Matt McClain/ The Washington Post) One of our designers purchased the growler and six-pack caddies online. They're made by a company called Fyxation out of Milwaukee. (You can also buy wine bottle carriers, if you're so inclined.)


PM Update: Staying sultry with a few storms this evening, more likely Saturday

2-hour radar loop. Refresh page to update. 6:20 p.m. update: Even if you miss the heavier rain, lightning can be a threat. If thunder roars, head indoors. Storms moving into the Beltway area at 6:20 p.m. From 4:03 p.m.: [Heat advisory: D.C. flirts with high temperature record] Through Tonight: Saturday and Saturday night: After sunset Saturday evening, the chance of storms diminish, with partly cloudy skies overnight. Lows range from the mid-60s in our cooler suburbs to the low 70s downtown. Sunday: See Camden Walker’s forecast into early next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Sunrise from the Jefferson Memorial, June 12, 2015 (Eric Cox Photography via Flickr) This evening’s thunderstorm chances: “I do think the threat of stronger storms would be in the western and northern burbs, including up through the Mason Dixon line,” said Jeff Halverson, Capital Weather Gang’s severe weather expert. Through 4 p.m. storms had fired up along the I-81 corridor and certainly have a reasonable chance to make it into western Loudoun and Frederick counties. They may start to fade, however, as they head further east and northeast. Short-range models suggest most of these storms collapse before making it near the Beltway.


The world is off course to prevent two degrees C of warming, says energy agency

stronger steps to cut emissions — including a global peak in energy emissions by 2020, and a process to check where nations are on their goals every five years. The peak, in particular, is crucial. “This is the only way that we still have chances to reach our climate goals,” said the IEA’s Birol. The emphasis on a peak is a refreshing way of looking at what the world needs to achieve, says the Environmental Defense Fund’s Keohane, who is familiar with the IEA report. “For us to get to any long term stabilization target, the first thing we have to do is turn the corner on emissions,” he said. “The peak, that’s something that can happen in the near term and get us on the right trajectory.” The IEA says the world can peak emissions by 2020 by pursuing five policies simultaneously: ramping up renewables, ramping down coal use, investing heavily in energy efficiency, cutting fossil fuel subsidies, and quickly capping emissions of the hard-hitting but short-lived climate pollutant methane. Given how difficult two degrees C will be to meet, it is rather striking to contemplate that many nations — especially many developing countries with lower levels of emissions — prefer a 1.5-degree target, calling it considerably safer. [Scientists: This is what it would take to keep the world super safe from global warming] But of course, that would be still harder to achieve. A recent study in Nature Climate Change found that to hit that target, it would actually be necessary to first overshoot it, and then move backwards through “negative emissions” technologies — hopefully to be widely available later this century — that pull carbon dioxide back out of the air again. “It would be ideal if Paris could come up with an agreement that [gets to two degrees C],” Birol said. “However, if it doesn’t get there, it shouldn’t be considered as a failure if the important cornerstones are put in place, especially around the energy sector, to give the right signal to the investors.” Also in Energy Environment: This conservative businessman thinks he can change the GOP’s mind on climate change Climate engineering would cool down the planet — but it may not save West Antarctica Just looking at nature can help your brain work better, study finds For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


How does the weather work in ‘Game of Thrones’?

the Earth‘s surface. So more snow leads to a cooler planet, which means more snow cover on previously snow-free regions, and so on. This process is known as the snow albedo feedback. The collapse of large ice sheets north of the Wall could also rapidly destabilize ocean circulation, reducing northward heat transport and leading to the encroachment of snow and ice southward toward King’s Landing. To descend into glacial conditions would require a large decrease in solar radiation received at certain locations on the Earth’s surface and likewise an increase would be needed to return to warmer conditions. This is roughly what happened during the switches between “glacial” and “interglacial” (milder) conditions throughout the past million years on Earth. This is controlled primarily by different orbital configurations known as “Milankovitch cycles,” which affect the seasonality and location of sunlight received on Earth. However, these cycles are on the order of 23,000 to 100,000 years, whereas “Game of Thrones” seemingly has much shorter cycles of a decade or less. When winter came back About 12,900 years ago, there was a much more abrupt climate shift, known as the Younger Dryas, when a spell of near-glacial conditions interrupted a period of gradual rewarming after the last ice age peaked 21,000 years ago. The sudden thawing at the end of this cold spell happened in a matter of decades — a blink of an eye in geological terms — and led to the warm, interglacial conditions we still have today. A particularly long and brutal winter? Younger Dryas cooling is visible in Greenland ice core records. (NOAA) Various theories have tried to explain why this spike occurred, including the sudden injection of freshwater into the North Atlantic from the outburst of North American glacial lakes, in response to the deglaciation, which destabilized ocean circulation by freshening the water and reducing ocean heat transport to the North Atlantic Ocean, cooling the regional climate. Less likely explanations include shifts in the jet stream, volcanic eruptions blocking out the sun, or even an asteroid impact. The shift from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age that began around AD 1300 represents a more recent, and more subtle, example of a “quick” climate change. Although the overall temperature change wasn’t too severe — a Northern Hemisphere decrease of around one degree Celcius compared with today — it was enough to cause much harsher winters in


CVS to acquire Target’s pharmacy business for $1.9 billion

A CVS store in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) CVS Health announced Monday that it has signed an agreement to buy Target’s pharmacy business for $1.9 billion, a move that allows the drugstore chain to expand into new geographic markets and gives Target more room to focus on turning around its core business. Under the terms of the deal, CVS Health would operate the 1,660 pharmacies that are housed in Target’s big-box stores and re-brand them as CVS/pharmacy. CVS would also take over Target’s 80 in-store health clinics. CVS executives said the deal would allow them to reach a broader base of customers. They will enter metropolitan areas where they don’t currently have a strong presence, such as Seattle, Portland and Denver, and perhaps capture a different kind of shopper: While CVS’s 7,800 drugstores are often a destination for a “fill-in trip,” in which you grab two or three items, Target’s massive merchandise assortment makes it a logical destination for a bigger shopping trip. “This partnership allows us to help those customers who may define convenience as a one-stop shop, or who may define convenience in a more episodic fashion,” said Larry Merlo, CVS’s chief executive, on a conference call with investors. Target executives said Monday that while their pharmacy business drives traffic to their stores, its profitability last year was “modestly negative.” Chief executive Brian Cornell said that Target’s pharmacy business hasn’t boomed because of the retailer’s lack of scale and expertise in that area. Cornell told investors Monday morning that pharmacy is “a very complex space in which we’re not positioned to be successful on our own.” In a company blog post published Monday morning, Cornell said that tapping CVS to operate its pharmacy and clinic businesses “gives Target greater bandwidth to focus on our strengths.” Since Cornell took the top job at Target in August, he has been focused on improving the retailer’s baby, kids, style and wellness departments in order to invigorate store traffic and sales. With the pharmacy reins turned over to CVS, Target will turn its own resources to other aspects of the wellness category, such as expanding its natural and organic food selection. The deal needs to be approved by regulators. The companies said the timing of the transaction was “uncertain.” Target and CVS’s existing pharmacy locations together represent about 15 percent of the 60,000 pharmacies in the United States, CVS executives said.


Demanding quotas and quick churn dominate security clearance process, workers say

In the latest in a string of intrusions into U.S. agencies’ high-tech systems, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suffered what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of information ever on government workers (Gary Cameron/Reuters) On the heels of news that the Chinese breach of federal employees’ personal information also compromised a database holding sensitive security clearance information on millions of federal employees and contractors, our colleague Christian Davenport offers some startling revelations about the vetting process for clearances. He writes Monday that a new group of private contractors who are supposed to eliminate the corner-cutting that helped doom the previous company’s contract with the Office of Personnel Management is doing the same thing, cutting corners to meet quotas, according to employees. Davenport writes: For years, investigators charged with vetting the backgrounds of those who handle the nation’s secrets have said they were pressured to churn through cases as quickly as possible. The faster they turned them in, the faster their company got paid — even if the investigations were rushed and incomplete. The company, USIS, lost the contract to conduct background checks used in granting security clearances after an employee blew the whistle in a lawsuit, eventually joined by the Justice Department. In the wake of a scandal so fierce that members of Congress accused USIS of defrauding the government and prioritizing profit over the nation’s security, federal officials vowed to prevent such abuses from ever happening again. But a similar quota system used by USIS to drive its investigators continues at the companies that now perform the bulk of the investigations — and in some cases is even more demanding, according to internal company documents and interviews with current and former investigators. The field workers at KeyPoint Government Solutions and CACI are required to meet pre-determined numbers that dictate how many people they have to interview per day. With their compensation tied to quotas — failure to meet them could lead to a cut in pay — field investigators say the focus on quantity over quality that was so pervasive at USIS persists. And the pressure to meet the goals often doesn’t allow them the freedom to follow important leads to determine who should be granted access to classified material, they say. Read the full story here


CVS’s purchase of Target’s pharmacy business: The good and bad for consumers

Shopping carts sit in front of a Target store on August 18, 2014 in San Rafael, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The announcement Monday by CVS Health Corp. that it would purchase Target's pharmacies and clinics for $1.9 billion represents a major acceleration in the retail clinic revolution. Since the concept of having a small, walk-in doctor's office inside a store made its debut in the American market in 2000, millions of consumers have taken advantage of the convenience of being able to get a flu shot, refills for prescriptions, and treatment for things like ankle sprains or a cough at the same time they are shopping. [CVS to acquire Target’s pharmacy business for $1.9 billion] The deal will give CVS -- already the largest provider of retail medical clinics in the country with nearly 1,000 locations in 31 states and the District of Columbia -- 80 more locations. Over time, CVS is expected to expand the presence of its MinuteClinics at even more of Target's nearly 2,000 locations. CVS will also take over operations of 1,700 Target pharmacies as a store within a store and rebrand them as CVS/pharmacy. “At Target, we’ve talked a lot about the evolving preferences of our guests and this partnership demonstrates that we’re committed to putting them at the forefront of everything we do,” Brian Cornell, Target chairman and CEO said in a news release. “By partnering with CVS Health, we will offer our guests industry leading health care services, and at the same time, sharpen our focus on elevating the way we deliver wellness products and experiences to our guests.” Retail clinics represent a small but fast-growing segment of the primary-care market. According to a report by Manatt Health, they represented 2 percent of primary-care interactions, but their cost was one-third that of traditional outpatient visits. [Walk-in health clinics a fast-growing profit center for retail stores] For consumers, there's both potential good and bad in the Target-CVS deal. Good: - Convenience, convenience, convenience. More locations means more places to get treatment and possibly less waiting times. - Cost. CVS will continue to offer $4 and $10 generic drugs to cash-paying guests which will be extended to CVS clinics at Target stores. - Safety. It will also allow more locations to share information about your health history and prescription drugs which could help minimize the potential for negative drug interactions. Bad: - Cost.


Israeli diplomats release cartoon mocking foreign reporters as clueless

Israel’s Foreign Ministry released an animated short video that mocks foreign journalists who covered last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip. JERUSALEM — Israel’s Foreign Ministry released an animated short video Monday that mocks foreign journalists who covered last summer's war in the Gaza Strip. The hacks are portrayed -- horrors -- as clueless. The short clip, produced in-house by the ministry, was prominently featured Monday on the home page of the diplomatic service. It is in English, with Hebrew subtitles, intended for a foreign audience. It shows a blond TV man in coat and tie doing on-camera reports from Gaza during the conflict, which left more than 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza and 72 Israeli soldiers and civilians dead. The production values are high, its creator appearing to pay homage to a “South Park” sensibility, with a tip of the hat to Trey Parker’s clueless reporter Chris Swollenballs. The clueless reporter in the Israeli Foreign Ministry clip is played with a bit of swish, with hands on hips, dipping into a higher octave, as he reports in American-accented English. “There is no doubt that the Palestinian society here is liberal and pluralistic, and Hamas allows everyone to live in dignity," he declares as an armed goon head-bags a tomato vendor and drags him away. (See the chilling Amnesty International report on torture and extrajudicial killings in Gaza here.) The release of the cartoon by the government comes a day after Israel issued a broad defense of how the country waged the war in the Gaza Strip last summer, making a case that Israel sought to minimize civilian casualties as the Islamist movement Hamas put its people in the line of fire and cynically used the ensuing death and destruction to stoke anti-Israel propaganda. The Israeli report In the Israeli government spoof, the cartoon reporter begins by chirping, "We are here in the center of Gaza, and as you can see, people here are trying to live quiet lives. There are no terrorists here, just ordinary people." Behind him a masked militant carrying a rocket walks past a woman in a burqa with a baby stroller and then fires the rocket. In another bit, the reporter burbles on about a "Hamas subway system," as masked gun behind him burrow into an attack tunnel. There is some backstory here. During and after the Gaza war, Israeli officials said foreign reporters in Gaza


What’s behind Mexico’s military buying binge?

of the intensity of the war against the drug cartels. The Mexican military has aggressive operations ongoing in several states such as Tamaulipas, on the Texas border, and Jalisco, against the ascendant New Generation drug cartel. These operations have driven a rapid increase in defense spending over much of the past decade. Since 2006, spending has tripled, from $2.6 billion to $7.9 billion this year. Despite the growth, Mexico spends less than many other countries in the hemisphere, just .51 percent of gross domestic product, compared to a Latin American average of 1.31 percent, Guevara said. In addition to tactical raids and statewide operations against drug cartels, the Mexican military is involved in all sorts of other missions, from vaccination programs, to reforestation, to securing voting booths in volatile parts of the country, as it did last week. The lavishly funded drug cartels it fights are sometimes better armed and equipped than the security forces. Cartel gunmen recently shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. "The Mexican armed forces, including the Army, is one of the most overtasked military forces in the world," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst. Some have been critical of the U.S. sales, particularly in a climate where Mexican security forces have regularly been accused of human rights violations. Last year, 43 teachers college students disappeared in Guerrero, allegedly captured and killed by local police working with drug gangs. A few months earlier, 22 civilians were killed by the Mexican military in the town of Tlatlaya south of Mexico City. The army first described the incident as a firefight but later admitted that a number of the civilians had been executed after surrendering. Relatives of the 42 men killed last month on a Michoacan ranch have accused the authorities of torturing and executing them, claims the government denies. Researcher John Lindsay-Poland wrote for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) that the “massive militarization” is “bad news for the many Mexicans devastated by the abuses of police and soldiers.” “The United States must develop other capacities besides producing guns and military equipment for finding a healthy balance of trade and addressing our own problems,” he wrote. But others see this as necessary maintenance and modernization for an under-equipped military. "It's mainly a process of correcting the imbalance," Hope said. "Having Humvees will not affect how much respect they have for human rights."


Colorado Supreme Court says companies can fire workers for using medical marijuana in their off-hours

Marijuana plants at RiverRock Organic Cannabis in Denver, Co. (Photo by Marc Piscotty For The Washington Post) Colorado is a state where many residents legally use marijuana. It is also a state where companies can fire employees for using the drug, even if that occurred when the person wasn’t at work. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a business can fire an employee for using medical marijuana even if the employee is off-duty and abiding by state law, a decision that could have far-reaching ramifications in a state that has decriminalized most marijuana use. The justices said that employees can still be fired because marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of the federal government, making this case a high-profile example of the sharp divide between state laws and the federal law. This chasm affects nearly two dozen states that allow legal medical marijuana, as well as a growing effort across the country to legalize recreational marijuana, following in the footsteps of Colorado and other states. While the ruling does not specifically mention Colorado’s highly publicized and thriving recreational marijuana industry, focusing instead on medical marijuana, it could reverberate across a state that allows anyone 21 and older to legally buy and use marijuana. In Colorado, about one in seven residents said they use marijuana, according to data released Monday by the state Department of Public Health and Environment. And about a third of the people who defined themselves as current marijuana users last year said they used it daily. The opinion released Monday dealt with an employee who was fired because he used medical marijuana. Under Colorado state law, it is considered discriminatory “for an employer to terminate the employment of any employee due to that employee’s engaging in any lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours.” In the case, Coats v. Dish Network, Brandon Coats argued that the satellite provider violated this statute by firing him for using medical marijuana after work, because he was acting in accordance with Colorado law. Coats is a quadriplegic who has used a wheelchair since he was a teenager, according to court filings, and he obtained a medical marijuana license in 2009. Brandon Coats, right. (Ed Andrieski/AP) Coats worked for Dish until 2010, when he tested positive for tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC, the active mind-altering ingredient in marijuana) during a random drug test. He was fired for violating the


South Korean begins experimental MERS plasma trial, considers economic stimulus

South Korean elementary school students wear masks as a precaution against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. (Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press) Weeks into a crisis that has killed 16 people, infected more than 150 and left thousands more under strict quarantine, South Korean officials have begun testing an experimental plasma treatment on two patients who have the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. The Korea Times reported that a 35-year-old police officer and a 38-year-old worker at the Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul received blood plasma from a man who had fully recovered from the virus. Both men are in critical condition. The treatment is similar to one that has been used, successfully in some cases, on a limited number of those infected by the Ebola virus. "Blood plasma injection is not a medically proven treatment, but is often carried out in the absence of other treatments available," an official at Hallym University Medical Center told the news organization. "The treatment was carried out in an attempt to improve the dire condition the two are in. Implementing the treatment is an option so long as it is done with the consent of the donor and the receiver." Plasma therapy was used more widely 50 years ago, but it lost popularity because of modern developments in vaccines and more effective treatments. Its advantage is that it's fast and inexpensive, and doesn't require the years and millions of dollars it usually takes to find other ways to fight contagious diseases. The South Korean government went on the offensive on the economic front this week as stocks closed close to an 11-week low on Tuesday. Officials pledged 400 billion won ($360 million) to help businesses and hospitals and an additional 50.5 billion ($45 million) to fund health measures. Korean Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said a supplementary budget is being considered to mitigate downside risks to the economy as a whole. "The government is doing all it can to quickly contain the outbreak," he told lawmakers, according to the Yonhap news agency. "There is a need to guard against excessive anxiety and to limit the economic fallout."


Local breweries embrace the combination of beer and yoga

At Port City Brewing Company, BeerYoga draws those looking to feel laid-back on the yoga mat. (Jason Hornick Photos/For Express) “You can fart in there,” says Tammy Portnoy, heading into BeerYoga at Port City Brewing Company in Alexandria. That’s what happens in breweries, says Portnoy, Port City’s Beer Admiral of marketing and events. “If you consume enough CO2 …” Yoga and passing gas have a twisted relationship. The more the body twists, the more it just may release. And yet, yoga studios often attract a crop of chic, toned ladies to hushed, Zen-like spaces — rarefied atmospheres that can intimidate potential participants, flatulent or not. Beer and, by extension, breweries tend to have a democratizing effect. It’s a drink that defies pretense, often slurped from the bottle and linked to such laid-back leisure activities as watching sports, grilling out and burping the alphabet. Whether it’s the silliness of stretching among belching barrels of brew, or the popularity of craft beer and social culture of microbreweries, or the ubiquitousness of yoga, practicing it in a brewhouse is a thing, drawing yogis and those who have never stepped foot on a yoga mat to let their bodies and drinks flow. Port City’s BeerYoga ($15 for yoga and a pint) has become so popular that its twice-monthly classes sell out within a day. Last month, Detox to Retox, a monthly summer series of yoga, tastings and discounts ($25, eventbrite.com) launched at D.C.’s Hellbender Brewing Company. And Monday, Capitol City Brewing Company hosted its first Asana & Ale in Shirlington. (The $15 event moves to its downtown site next; facebook.com/CapCityBrew.) “I really see D.C. as a place where maybe the two most sought after post-work activities are working out in some form or another and attending happy hours with your friends or co-workers,” says Amy Rizzotto, a yoga instructor/nutrition coach who, in leading Detox to Retox, aims to offer the balance of both. Rizzotto says her “guy’s guy” boyfriend inspired the class. “He was like, ‘Well, if you want to get the likes of people like me involved, this is something that you could try,’ ” she says. While the concept has taken off in many parts of the country, Rizzotto felt D.C.’s beer-yoga market wasn’t fully tapped: “So I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and just thought it would be a lot of fun, and it really was. … People felt free


Morning links: No link between medical pot, teen use

- Huge study finds no link between legal medical marijuana and an increase in use by minors. - In California, a legislative committee approves a modest but important reform — not requiring motorists to pay first before challenging traffic citations. - New police shootings: In Miami, an officer guns down a pipe-wielding homeless man in front of dozens of children. And in Iowa, an officer shot through her car window, killing an unarmed man who had just led her on a low-speed chase. - “How prisons kick inmates off of Facebook.” - An interesting, nonviolent approach to community policing seems to be getting results in Milwaukee. - There’s still no evidence of a “Ferguson effect,” even in and around Ferguson, Mo..


Wegmans Pub in Alexandria: Exclusive beers and, oh yeah, a huge supermarket too

The Pub at the new Wegmans in Alexandria is supermarket chain's first restaurant and bar outside of Pennsylvania. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) In 2015, a grocery store with beer taps and a wine list doesn't warrant a double-take: Establishments as large as Whole Foods and as cozy as Glen's Garden Market offer a place to enjoy a pint of local craft beer and cider for post-shopping drinks. But Wegmans, as usual, is on another level: The new 126,000-square-foot store in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County includes the Pub, which has 80 seats between a bar and dining room, and a pair of snugs with curved banquettes that can be curtained off for privacy. The carpet, soft leather barstools and dome-shaped stained glass chandeliers give off a vibe that's somewhere between upscale chain and restaurant lounge, but you're not coming to Wegmans for the latest in decorating trends. Outside of the main space, there's another dining room and a huge patio with umbrella-shaded tables and a large fireplace that will be worth thinking about two seasons from now. The first Wegmans Pub launched in Pennsylvania in 2009, and there are now five locations in the Keystone State. The Alexandria store, which opened June 14 about nine miles southwest of Old Town, is "the first Virginia opening in a number of years," according to Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale, which made this the right time to introduce the concept to the Washington area. Here's what you need to know if you're looking to grab a beer after picking up the week's groceries. The only supermarket on OpenTable? In most grocery stores, the dining options might involve a deli counter, some prepared sandwiches, sushi or a pizza oven. But Wegmans boasts that all of its Pub locations have on-site chefs to prepare a rotating menu of lobster rolls, fish tacos, burgers, steaks and fish and chips platters. The Alexandria Pub also has a full bar, so martinis and mojitos are served alongside sangria, eight draft beers and a changing selection of 20 wines by the glass. Starting in early July, Wegmans will begin taking OpenTable reservations for the pub. Seriously. Are we ready for appointment grocery shopping? It's the only place to sample beers from an award-winning brewery Draft beers at the Alexandria location include the Sly Fox Tattle Tail Helles Lager, left, which is only sold at Wegmans. (Photo by


Supermarkets spend a lot of time and energy trying to guess what their customers want. Wegmans takes this information and channels it into its restaurant and bar. "We know what people are putting in their shopping carts, which helps define what we do in the restaurants," Natale says. The chefs putting together the menu also have an enormous number of ingredients to play with: "All of the produce comes from our produce section," Haines says. "We're known for our irradiated ground beef, and burgers are made with irradiated ground beef." The Spicy Tuna Martini on the menu, which is essentially fish, vegetables and seaweed salad in a martini glass, contains fish and other ingredients from the Wegmans sushi counter. To compile the list of bottled and canned beers, "we look at what's selling off the shelf in the grocery store," Natale says. She later points out that the featured wines by the glass are featured in boxes prominently displayed in the store, with the idea that customers who enjoy a glass can grab a bottle to take home, or those who pop in after shopping may remember Of course, pub-grocery synergy goes the other way, too: "If you like our fish taco, we'll tell you how to make them at home," Haines says. "There are no secrets here." Additionally, items that prove popular in the pub may be featured in the store, and the recipes may make their way into the seasonal Wegman's Menu magazine. The patio at Wegmans includes a large fireplace, which won't be used for several months. In the meantime, enjoy the shade. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) It might be more than just a place to go after shopping Though Wegmans lets OpenTable users make reservations, Natale and Haines admit that most visitors to the Pub combine it with the weekly grocery run. "We have 'split couples,'" Natale says. "One is shopping, one is watching football and drinking a beer." In Pennsylvania, Haines notices "customers who park their shopping carts outside" the pub and head in for refreshment. Of course, Wegmans wants to customers to stop in when their cupboards aren't necessarily bare. In about two weeks, Natale says, the store will start hosting live music on Friday and Saturday. There's no schedule yet, and Natale says the entertainment will vary from "a guy with an acoustic guitar" to a harpist. In good weather, they'll


Main Street Morning: Colorado court says employees can be fired for pot

April, 7.9% less than in March, and 4.6% less than in 2014. The Elections - An economic blogger is surprised that Hillary Clinton blamed the Bush tax cuts for the financial crisis. - A new poll shows Bernie Sanders surging in New Hampshire. - Donald Trump teases a Presidential announcement. - Jeb Bush promises to “fix” the U.S. if elected President, while Twitter relentlessly mocks his campaign logo. People - Why business owners need disability coverage. - How performance reviews work at Google. Productivity - Eleven ways to get tedious tasks off your plate. Management - Ten things successful people do differently. - A tiny footwear company is trying to give luxury shoemakers a run for the money. Entrepreneurs - A multimillionaire tech entrepreneur sells his home, car, and all of his stuff to find meaning in life. - The unique challenges of being a parent and an entrepreneur. Taxes - Five money-saving tax loopholes that are about to disappear. Retail - CVS announces plans to acquire Target’s pharmacy and clinic business. Restaurants - Can you guess which chain restaurants have the best reputations? Finance - A survey finds that the elderly are vulnerable to financial abuse. - Fitbit is days away from this year’s hottest IPO. Start-ups - Ten start-ups who were accepted to the University of Chicago’s summer accelerator. Technology - Why killing the Mac is today’s worst tech idea. Online - Alibaba plans a subscription video service. - Seventy-five percent of SMBs know that professional-looking websites garner more and better customers (really?). - How to set up Amazon Web Services for your small business. Social Media - Mark Cuban says that downloading Snapchat is a huge mistake if you care about privacy. - A bunch of entrepreneurs and experts weigh in on the future of social media - This infographic explains how to improve your organic reach on Facebook. Opportunities - In case you’re wondering, it would cost around $23 billion to open a real Jurassic Park. - The natural language processing market is projected to be worth $13.4 billion by 2020. Around the Country - A young gay business owner is repeatedly terrorized in Utah. - Colorado’s Supreme Court rules that employees can be fired for pot use. - Small firms in Massachusetts are finding the state’s sick time law to be tough to digest. - A three-alarm fire almost destroys a Fresno business owner’s dream.


A huge new study finds that medical marijuana doesn’t “send the wrong message” to kids

Samples of medicinal cannabis are displayed in Otsego, Minn. (AP Photo,Star Tribune,Glen Stubbe) Since the 1970s, advocates of an aggressive drug war have maintained that any liberalization of drug laws would "send the wrong message" to kids and increase adolescent drug use. This claim has been asserted repeatedly particularly in the debate over medical marijuana laws. But there's an ever-growing body of peer-reviewed research suggesting otherwise, and the latest such study comes from a group of researchers at Columbia University and elsewhere in this week's journal of Lancet Psychiatry. The authors analyzed 24 years of state-level survey data from the Monitoring the Future Survey, a large annual survey of 8th, 10th and 12th-graders in the U.S. The data included interviews with more than 1 million respondents, which the authors crunched in order to determine two things: first, is teen marijuana use higher in states that have medical marijuana laws? And second, did the passage of these laws cause increased teen use in subsequent years? Here's what they found: first, teen use is indeed higher in states with medical marijuana laws than in those without: "States that had ever enacted a medical marijuana law up to 2014 had higher prevalence of adolescent marijuana use than did other states." Overall, teens in states with medical marijuana laws are about 27 percent more likely to use marijuana regularly than those in states without marijuana laws. But crucially, this higher rate of use doesn't seem to be linked to the passage of those medical marijuana laws. Controlling for various individual-level, school-level and state-level risk factors, kids were no more likely to report marijuana use after the enactment of medical marijuana laws than they were before it. "The risk of marijuana use did not significantly change after passage of a medical marijuana law," the authors found. In fact, they even observed a statistically significant decrease in use among eight graders after the passage of medical marijuana bills. So, wait: if medical marijuana laws aren't causing increased teen pot use, then why are use rates higher in medical marijuana states? Probably due to other, unseen factors, like cultural factors, or overall attitudes toward drug use. "State-level risk factors other than medical marijuana laws could contribute to both marijuana use and the passage of medical marijuana laws, and such factors warrant investigation," the authors wrote. The study, compiled with the body of research that's come before it,


Why MERS spread so far, so fast in South Korea

Tourists wearing masks as a precaution against the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus shop in central Seoul on June 11, 2015. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters) The MERS scare in South Korea has alarmed health officials around the world for the speed with which the virus is moving from patient to patient. Some scientists in the infectious-disease field fear that certain populations might be genetically susceptible to the virus or, worse, that it had somehow mutated to a more virulent form. This week, the World Health Organization took its first crack at explaining what it thinks happened in South Korea, and the findings are somewhat comforting. The WHO says that each of the 15 deaths and 150 cases of infections in the country were linked to a man who had been traveling in the Middle East and was diagnosed and isolated on May 20. Most of the others who were infected got MERS from being in the health-care facilities where he was treated, and there is "no known spillover into the general population," the WHO said. The reason for the "superspreading event," as scientists are calling it, may have had more to do with conditions and cultural traditions specific to South Korea than any other reason. The WHO says that the "accessibility and affordability of health care in Korea encourage 'doctor shopping'; patients frequently consult specialists in several facilities before deciding on a first-choice facility." The report added in South Korea, family members and friends tend to be expected to visit their loved ones when they are sick. "It is also customary for family members to provide almost constant bedside care often staying in the hospital room overnight, increasing the risk of close exposures in the health care setting," the report stated. With the MERS death toll climbing higher in South Korea, here's what scientists know about the virus, how it spreads, and whether it poses a global threat. READ MORE: Experimental MERS plasma trial begins with two patients in South Korea Good news chocolate lovers: The more you eat, the lower your risk of heart disease Common heartburn medications linked to greater risk of heart attack 5 things about trans fats and the FDA’s proposed phase out


South Korea to offer tourists free ‘MERS insurance’

Women wearing masks amid fears about the Middle East respiratory syndrome take selfies in a shopping district in Seoul on June 10, 2015. (Ahn Young-joon/AP) South Korea is in the midst of a health-care crisis, with 16 people dead and thousands under quarantine because of an outbreak of the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In recent days, the government has mounted an aggressive response, including undertaking tests on an experimental plasma treatment. However, the issue isn't purely a medical one — it's also a social and, in turn, an economic one. As The Post's Yoonjung Seo has pointed out, the panic about MERS may be just as damaging as the outbreak. People are staying out of public spaces, and that could mean a big loss for South Korea's tourism industry. Thankfully, the government has a plan: MERS insurance. According to the Korea Times, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism is offering all tourists who enter the country free insurance that will cover all their medical and travel expenses should they catch the MERS virus on their trip. The country will also provide hand sanitizers at tourist attractions, as well as a 24-hour toll-free number that concerned tourists can call, the Korea Times reported. The government is also taking the campaign online: The English-language Web site for the official "Visit Korea" tourism campaign contains a large pop-up that seeks to reassure tourists. With the MERS death toll climbing higher in South Korea, here's what scientists know about the virus, how it spreads, and whether it poses a global threat. Will this be enough? The Strait Times reported that tourist arrivals dropped by 24.6 percent in the first 11 days of June, and South Korea could eventually lose about $900 million in tourism revenue if things don't improve. The government also announced Monday that it is planning to offer $64 million in loans to a number of troubled tourism sectors to help offset potential financial difficulties. Some foreigners living in South Korea had complained of a lack of information from the government. "The [South Korean] government hasn't done anything to help foreigners," American Christopher Cashel Cordo told the Strait Times last week. Reports in the South Korean news media suggest that about 20 to 30 expatriates have been quarantined. “We hope the measures will make foreign tourists feel that Korea is still a safe country to visit,” Vice Minister Kim


A new documentary asks: Did the British state collude with Northern Irish terrorists?

Collusion | RTÉ ONE Television | Monday 15th June 9:35pm This week British Prime Minister David Cameron will meet his Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, in London to discuss matters such as the current political deadlock in Ireland and the potential British exit from the European Union. Yet the talk may not only deal with the future or the present: "Legacy issues" are also due to be discussed by the pair. According to the Irish Times, this is currently understood to refer to British government documents about the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan that left 34 dead. The Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group from Northern Ireland, claimed responsibility for that attack in the 1990s, but there have long been suspicions that British security forces had also colluded in the plot. There are many that hope, however, that the discussion of alleged British state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries during the Troubles that raged in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to the late 1990s will go much further than that. And a damning new documentary, aired on Monday evening by semi-state broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE), has only added further to that. RTE's "Collusion," which you can watch in full here, contains a remarkable number of allegations, including that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the police force in Northern Ireland until it was dissolved in 2001), had a unit that worked with various loyalist paramilitary groups to attack Nationalist and Republican leaders, and that sections of the British Army were passing on weapons, expertise, and intelligence on to groups who then used it for attacks. "If ordinary Catholics were shot, nobody was too worried about it," John Weir, a former RUC sergeant, says at the start of the documentary. Weir later says that "security services, army intelligence, special branch" were linked to the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and that many were fearful (or perhaps hopeful) of an all-out civil war breaking out. Remarkably, the accusations of collusion included in the documentary go right up to the 1990s. "Collusion" even reveals how official concerns about the links between the British state and paramilitary groups were raised with British Prime Minister Edward Heath and his successor Margaret Thatcher, but they were dismissed. However, declassified documents "now show the British government was well-aware of collusion," the documentary says. As shocking "Collusion" is, these allegations aren't totally new. Some of Weir's allegations were included in


How a death sentence in Egypt feeds paranoia in Turkey

came from Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of the Sissi government. Erdogan described the Egyptian verdicts as "a massacre of law and basic rights." And he urged the international community "to act to withdraw these death sentences, given under the instructions of the coup regime, and to put an end to this path which could seriously endanger the peace of Egyptian society." Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish abbreviation AKP, have watched with horror what befell Morsi and his political allies. In 2011, Erdogan and other AKP officials had championed their brand of moderate Islamist politics as a template for a democratizing Middle East, caught up in the upheavals of the Arab Spring. The Islamist electoral victories that followed, particularly in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous state, seemed to vindicate their position. Four years later, though, and you won't hear much of the once-vaunted "Turkish" model. That is, first, a consequence of the hideous turmoil that has flared in the region, from Iraq to Libya. Only little Tunisia can boast sustainable, democratic gains. In the case of Egypt, a hopeful revolution foundered during Morsi's divisive spell in power and now seems to be fully in reverse under Sissi. It's also the result of the sheen wearing off Erdogan's long tenure. The AKP has dominated Turkish politics since it came to power in 2002, and is credited with lifting a whole swath of the country into the middle class through sweeping reforms of the economy and health system. Erdogan, a charismatic albeit demagogic leader, served three terms as prime minister and won election as Turkey's president last year. No figure in Turkish politics has had much of an impact on the country since Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, the republic's founder. But earlier this month, Erdogan suffered a blow when the AKP failed to secure a parliamentary majority in national elections. The outcome of the vote likely put to bed Erdogan's plan to scrap the country's existing parliamentary structure for a presidential system where he would have fewer checks and balances and a greater mandate for executive action. Turkey's four main parties are still wrangling over the formation of a new government. Before the election, Erdogan, who as head of state technically was not supposed to participate in the AKP's campaign, brought up Morsi's plight during stump speeches. On May 16, the day Egyptian


This unusually bright ancient galaxy may show signs of the first generation of stars

long theorized that there must have been a third type of star -- Population III -- that didn't have any of these heavy, (relatively) new elements. There must have been a first generation of star that kicked off the process of creating these elements for future galaxies. They'd be huge -- maybe even a thousand times bigger than the sun -- and hot, bursting into supernovae within just 2 million years or so. That, many astronomers believe, is why we have such a hard time finding any. Maybe Pop II stars were massive by default, leading them to early and explosive deaths, and none of them had masses low enough to stick around for us to see them. But in observing a galaxy so distant that we're seeing it as it was just 800 million years after the Big Bang, scientists believe they've found signs of these original stars. [Here’s what the sky might have looked like when the Milky Way was alive with star birth] In an exceptionally bright old galaxy called CR7, the researchers report, there are signs of strong ionized helium emission, but no signs of the heavier elements. That could mean there are stars with no heavy elements in there, churning away and emitting helium. "The discovery challenged our expectations from the start," study author David Sobral of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences said in a statement, "as we didn't expect to find such a bright galaxy. Then, by unveiling the nature of CR7 piece by piece, we understood that not only had we found by far the most luminous distant galaxy, but also started to realize that it had every single characteristic expected of Population III stars. Those stars were the ones that formed the first heavy atoms that ultimately allowed us to be here. It doesn't really get any more exciting than this." If they're right about the presence of Pop III stars in CR7, the authors report, it could mean that the rare stars are actually easier to spot than we thought. They'll be following up with data from the Very Large Telescope and other space monitoring equipment, such as ALMA and the Hubble, to confirm their suspicions. Read More: Rosetta data casts doubt on the origins of Earth’s water One of the youngest, most distant galaxies ever observed is surprisingly mature (and dusty) The water on our planet may be


Black Americans now see race relations as nation’s most important problem

People gather April 28 in Baltimore in the aftermath of rioting following the funeral for Freddie Gray, who died in police custody. (Matt Rourke/AP) After a year that saw national attention on long-simmering tensions between communities of color and police officers, 2014 closed with more Americans — both black and white — ranking race relations as the most pressing problem facing the nation. While only 3 percent of black Americans ranked race relations as the most important problem facing the U.S. when asked at the beginning of 2014, by the end of the calendar year, that number had reached 15 percent and, halfway through 2015, remains at 13 percent, according to pollsters at Gallup. Since early 2014, white Americans’ mentions of race relations as a top problem have increased only slightly, from 1 percent to 4 percent. At 13 percent, race relations is currently tied with unemployment/jobs for the issue of most concern among black Americans polled by Gallup. “Just as blacks and whites differ in their views of race relations as a top U.S. problem, they also stand apart in their views on the fairness of the criminal justice system, confidence in police and the need for new civil rights laws,” Gallup’s Alyssa Brown noted in her analysis. “Gallup found last June that 68 percent of blacks said the American criminal justice system is biased against black people, significantly higher than the 25 percent of whites who said the same. And while 37 percent of blacks said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police, 59 percent of whites said the same.” It’s also worth nothing that the last time this many Americans believed race relations to be the nation’s most pressing problem was the early ’90s, when the country was wrestling with issues of police brutality and urban riots. Over at The Fix, The Post’s Chris Cillizza notes the depressing takeaway from another set of Gallup polling: the most recent polling on Americans’ confidence in major institutions. Across the board, Americans have less confidence in almost every major public institution — from government to schools to churches — than the historical average. For context: Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones writes: Americans’ confidence in all institutions over the last two years has been the lowest since Gallup began systematic updates of a larger set of institutions in 1993. The average confidence rating of the 14


These Maryland farms are brewing their own beer, and it’s delicious

which helps create a flavor profile that’s off the charts.” Commandeer a designated driver for a daytrip to these four bucolic breweries giving hopheads a buzzy taste of the country. Manor Hill Brewing Marriner opened a microbrewery on his 54-acre farm in March. He grows hops as well as herbs and berries, which he intends to incorporate into future brews. For the first test run this year, the team brewed 10 different beers and debuted them at Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia, which Marriner also owns. They sold out in 90 minutes. “It was fricking awesome,” he says. The hoppy startup plans to make 2,000 barrels a year, including Farm Fuzz, a Belgian white with peach notes. What to drink Red Shedman For nearly four decades, the Aellen family’s Linganore Winecellars has been at the forefront of Maryland’s vino scene. Last November, the three brothers in charge got in the beer business, too. A small hopyard growing five types of hops, a tasting room and a suds operation overseen by brewmaster Victor Aellen now complement their sprawling 70-acre vineyard. Currently, only some of their homegrown hops go into each batch of beer. “We’re hoping to produce one with only our own products in the next few years,” partner Eric Aellen says. “That’s our ultimate goal.” What to drink Milkhouse Brewery After decades as a passionate home brewer, Tom Barse went public with his efforts in the summer of 2012 when he opened Milkhouse Brewery. The facility is housed on Stillpoint Farm, his sustainably run property in Frederick County. The boutique brewery usually has half a dozen brews on tap, featuring hops, grains, honey, vegetables and fruit grown just steps away on the farm. “Our beers have grassier, floral and earthier notes,” Barse says. Call it the Free State terroir. What to drink Ruhlman Brewery Growing up on a farm, Henry Ruhlman was in charge of feeding the pigs their daily mash, which once fermented to create a Budweiser-like scent. “After that, I couldn’t get beer past my nose,” he says. Later in life, he discovered craft beer and home-brewing, which helped him get over his aversion. Now he grows seven hops varietals and produces more than half a dozen beers inside a modest brewhouse he hand-built on his 36-acre farm, Creeping Creek. He recently planted a crop of barley, which will ultimately be malted for future beers. What to drink


Hyper Loops 1 & 2

I guess I will write some more about transportation this week, seeing as how I keep running into interesting stories about it. The quality and imagination of transportation thinking in this country, is a lot like the seating on a plane that I mentioned yesterday. Cramped and horrible. While the rest of the non-exceptionalism world glides around on smooth, futuristic super-fast trains, here we are sardined into awful, slow, unpredictable third-rate transportation choices. The best thinking on this topic in the US apparently goes into the development of excuses. Except sometimes [You have my permission to skip this parenthetical paragraph in which I shake my head a little at Musk’s concomitant interest in helping humans colonize space in his Space X spacecraft. You know I don’t consider this remotely logical, Spock. And you also know that I think that if we stopped the escape-fantasizing we’d direct our attention to taking better care of things around here. You may now rejoin the main blog narrative]. Riding around in tubes on a cushion of air would be cool. And fast too. And in all likelihood, energy efficient too. This is remarkable for several reasons. One, because it is simply remarkable in itself. Two, because it is so rare now to have something like this in actual testing. Three, because if the newly hyper-wealthy would invest their money and talents in things like this instead of hoarding, houses and buying politicians, we wouldn’t hate them so much, and we might actually start spreading economic and social benefits around to everybody. THAT would be a hyper-positive-feedback-loop that I would also like to see.


Inside an MIT researcher’s grand plan to create the personal food computer

expects it will ultimately triumph in agriculture too. He’s sought advice from open-source leaders such as the Mozilla Corporation. He says he’s sending between 200 and 300 e-mails a day to lay groundwork for what he hopes will emerge as a thriving community. “I’m finding the people in science and technology, that have had a lifelong commitment to open source and trying to figure out how to do it,” he said. Tomatoes grow at Harper’s lab. (Courtesy Caleb Harper) Harper is an architect by training. He’s designed data centers and surgery rooms in the United States and United Kingdom. His family’s roots are in agriculture and livestock. Now he’s mashing those skills together. Harper is definitely thinking big. Just how bit an impact could this be? He could foresee, 20 years from now, a physician prescribes a treatment for you. The doctor gives you a vial of bacteria that you put in your personal food computer. You add a seed and grow it using a climate recipe that’s tailored to your individual genome and lifestyle. It would be an extremely personalized version of health care. “The new GMO is CMO — climate modified,” Harper said. At the same time, Harper is honest about just how nascent his project is, and how much work lies ahead. “We know the first ones are going to kind of suck, or the first ones aren’t going to be great,” he said of his personal food computer. “It’s going to take some courageous teachers and it’s going to take some people to help me get it done.” Your typical entrepreneur will paint a picture of his or her start-up that is heavily airbrushed. We don’t have any competitors! We’re going to disrupt this industry! Our growth is exponential! (But sorry, we’re not talking about specific numbers) Harper’s open, honest stance and gregarious personality seem likely to help him earn the trust as he works to build a community. His first personal food computers will ship with only a handful of sensors, including air temperature, water temperature, electrical conductivity and maybe pH. Harpers would love to price them around $300-$500, but says the costs might rise to $1,000. He hopes to spark something like the HomeBrew Computer Club, a group of Silicon Valley hobbyists who shared information with each other and helped launch the personal computer revolution more than 30 years ago. Harper is motivated by


A coffee addict’s guide to the universe

the history of coffee in the Western world by looking at how often the word appears in printed English-language books. Interest began to pick up in the 1750s, with the rise of the coffeehouse. Coffeehouses served as community gathering places were residents sat around and discussed the news of the day — like bars, but more sober. In the United States, at least, interest in coffee waned during the post-World War II years, but it picked up in the late 1960s, when it overtook tea for the first time. Interest has been rising ever since. 17. Pretty much all coffee is produced in the tropics As the map above shows, the world's coffee primarily comes from the tropical regions. But the map obscures just how much of the world's coffee production is concentrated in a handful of countries. Check out the chart below, which shows the same data: Brazil is overwhelmingly the world's biggest coffee producer, responsible for about a third of the world's output, according to the International Coffee Organization, an inter-governmental group representing the world's coffee producers. And five countries — Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Ethiopia — produce over 70 percent of the world's coffee. 18. Robusta is coming There are two major coffee varieties: Arabica, which is lighter and more flavorful, and Robusta, which has a higher caffeine content but which most experts say doesn't taste as good. Arabica was the dominant roast for decades, but in recent years Robusta has started to catch up, according to a recent USDA report. Various factors — such as price pressures and production problems — are behind the recent increase. Some roasters now say that a blend of Robusta and Arabica beans produces the ideal brew. 19. J.S. Bach wrote a mini-opera about coffee addiction Bach's handwritten score of his Coffee Cantata. Looks like the work of a well-caffeinated man, yes? (via International Music Score Library Project) Bach's cantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht ("Be Still, Stop Chattering") is essentially an extended musical love-letter to the stimulating brew, written around 1735. Also known as the "Coffee Cantata," it's about a woman who won't stop drinking coffee, and her father who won't let her marry until she does. Unbeknownst to each other, they each have a change of heart in a kind of Gift of the Magi situation, and the piece ends with everyone singing coffee's praises. Musical theater!


America’s drug overdose problem—and what states can do to help fight it—in 4 charts and maps

an expert committee. The rankings were based on everything from seat belt laws to child abuse and neglect protections to drug monitoring policies. The latest data show that drug overdose is not only the leading cause of injury-related death nationwide, but also in more than two thirds of states. Yet, the overdose death rate varies dramatically by state: In West Virginia, the leader in overdose fatalities, the rate is more than 12 times greater than in bottom-ranked North Dakota. West Virginia was followed by Kentucky, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah — the five states with overdose fatality rates of more than 20 per 100,000 people. Drug overdose death rates by state. (TFAH/RWJF) The overdose death rate has surged in recent years, with 28 states and Washington, D.C., seeing rates rise between the three-year periods ending in 2009 and 2013. At the same time, the rates fell in just four states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Maine. Drug overdose death rate change from 2007-2009 to 2011-2013. (TFAH/RWJF) Roughly half of the nearly 44,000 annual drug-related deaths result from prescription drugs, with the death rate related to such drugs rising dramatically over the last 15 years. From 1999 to 2011, sales of prescription painkillers quadrupled, while the number of related fatalities nearly quadrupled as well. The prescription drug death rate has increased dramatically since 2000. (TFAH/RWJF) So, what can states do to help offset the rising drug abuse death rate? The report advisory group issued a number of recommendations aimed at curbing prescription abuse, making it easier to help those who are overdosing, and improving poison control centers. To rein in prescription drug abuse, all states should implement prescription drug monitoring programs — databases that track the prescription and distribution of such drugs, which are in place in only half the states. The authors also argued for improved prevention, education and access to treatment. In order to help those who are overdosing, the report’s authors argue that states should pass more laws easing access to rescue drugs like nalaxone — which counters the effects of prescription painkillers, heroin and other opioids — and pass Good Samaritan laws protecting bystanders who call for medical assistance. Access to nalaxone has been facilitated — in some form — in 34 states and D.C., while 26 states and D.C. have passed Good Samaritan laws. Rescue drug access and good samaritan laws by state. (TFAH/RWJF/Public Health Law Network)


Main Street Morning: Gap to close 175 stores

the food industry three years to eliminate trans fats. The Economy - The impact of small businesses on the U.S. economy in 2 extreme charts. - Here’s a sign that U.S. housing is about to really take off. - U.S. factory output is down in May, hurt by oil refining cuts. - More and more investors are shifting to cash for protection. The Elections - Donald Trump announces his candidacy for President, the Democratic National Committee quips that he “adds some much-needed seriousness…lacking from the GOP field” and Twitter has a field day. Management - How socially responsible small businesses can get big. - The St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated for hacking the Houston Astros’ player database. - What makes FC Barcelona such a successful - When selling your business, your tax strategies may depend on who the buyer is. - Thirteen steps to take before applying for a patent. - Six secrets for success in the craft beer industry. Retail - Starbucks expands its mobile ordering to 3,400 more stores in 21 states. - Gap plans to close 175 stores as Zara and H&M steal its customers. - Amazon is considering paying people to deliver packages as part of a crowd-sourced delivery program. - Dominoes will now take customer orders by text and Emoji. Online - Nine landing page goofs that can make you lose business. Finance - Business and home communications company Ooma files a registration statement for its proposed initial public offering. - UPS Capital is teaming up with Kabbage for small business loans. - Three common mistakes when picking a location for your small business. - A new crowd-funding service is putting Kickstarter to shame. Technology - Mathematicians are hoarding a special type of chalk. - How you can legally profit from cybercrime. Opportunities - The number of all-cloud companies will grow five-fold by 2020, according to a new report. - Instagram could be a $2 billion business next year. Entrepreneurs - An entrepreneurial ex-inmate creates an Instagram for prisoners. Around the Country - The owners of a California nudist resort are charged with water theft. - A local farm owner complains that the growing number of Austin music festivals needs more regulation. - Baltimore’s Mayor wants noncompliant liquor stores out of business. - High water levels on an Oklahoma lake are hurting local businesses. - Protesters outside an Iowa pet shop are raising First


Maps: Where you’re most likely to get killed by animals this summer

be a matter of better supervising small kids when they're around dogs. The regional bee map looks similar to the dog map -- again, population counts are a factor here. But it's worth pointing out that the plains region in the center of the map has a disproportionately low number of bee-related deaths relative to its population. If you're deathly allergic to bees (literally) and are really serious about minimizing your chances of a sting, best pack your bags and head to North Dakota. Here's a fun one: if you don't want to get killed by a venomous snake, consider a move to the Northeast. Kind of makes sense, considering snakes don't like the cold. The regions in the Northeast and plains hold about a third of the nation's population but only account for roughly 1 in 10 snakebite deaths, so your odds there are pretty good. Of course, even in the Northeast you'll still have the occasional Timber Rattlesnake to deal with. Finally, here's a map of all the deaths from the other terrible venomous bugs not included above -- spiders, scorpions, centipedes (!!!) and some others. Once again, stay out of the south and you'll be okay. Frankly I blame Florida. In the end, it bears repeating: you are not going to get killed by an animal. Especially if you don't work on a farm. But I get that the thought of something trying to eat you is terrifying -- they build whole movie franchises around it, after all! If you won't feel safe until you've built yourself a concrete bunker that's impervious to assaults from sharks, bears and bees, these maps should give you a good idea of where to start building. * Nobody actually asked this. Here's the table I promised. State Animal-caused deaths, 1999 to 2013 Texas 356 California 212 Florida 171 North Carolina 122 Tennessee 120 Ohio 112 Pennsylvania 108 Georgia 107 New York 88 Michigan 88 Wisconsin 87 Missouri 86 Illinois 84 Arizona 77 Oklahoma 70 Virginia 66 Washington 63 Arkansas 60 South Carolina 59 Indiana 56 Alabama 56 Kentucky 56 Mississippi 53 Louisiana 52 Minnesota 50 West Virginia 45 New Mexico 40 Colorado 39 Iowa 35 Idaho 34 Oregon 31 Kansas 30 New Jersey 29 Maryland 29 Massachusetts 25 Montana 25 Utah 21 Nebraska 19 Alaska 18 South Dakota 15 Connecticut 14 Maine 13 Nevada 13 Hawaii 12 Wyoming 10 New Hampshire


The moon may have dusty ‘clouds’

dust cloud surrounding it. It's made of the dust on the moon's surface, which is stirred up by the bombardment of particles from space. [New clues on the perplexing origin of the moon] The new observations come from NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, which launched in September 2013 and orbited the moon for about six months, catching over 140,000 of these impacts during that time with a detector designed and built by the University of Colorado Boulder. [This tiny animal can survive basically anything, including the vacuum of space] You may have heard of clouds on the moon before -- on conspiracy Web sites. Several sources -- the Surveyor Probe, and the Apollo 17 mission -- have produced pictures of eerie, glowing cloud-like formations above our moon around sunrise and sunset. To some (especially on the Internet) that seems like a red flag for a faked space program. No atmosphere? No clouds! Ba humbug. But even though the moon's atmosphere is indeed tiny, scientists now think they have evidence -- and a potential explanation -- for the phenomenon seen in those images. [New evidence says the ‘man in the moon’ came from lunar plumbing, not an asteroid impact] According to the study team, there is indeed a dust cloud around the moon -- though it's much less dense than the one observed in the 1960s -- and it's caused by high-speed space collisions. The moon is covered in fine, sharp dust, and just a single particle of dust from a passing comet can hoist thousands of smaller dust particles up into the thin air. That's because space objects that eject particles at the moon are often speeding past our solar system's planets, moving in the opposite direction and creating high-speed (though physically tiny) collisions. Every December during the Geminid meteor shower, the researchers report, the moon cloud gets a boost: The extra cascade of meteor dust particles kicks up extra moon dust, creating a thicker cloud for a few days. It's possible that there are other factors that determine the cloud's visibility, which could explain why it appeared so much more dense several decades ago. Read More: NASA gives us an amazing look at the ‘dark’ side of the moon Jupiter might have wrecked the first version of our solar system QVC hosts can’t decide if the moon is a planet or a star (it’s neither)


JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo among big banks facing mortgage restrictions

was set aside for foreclosure prevention. Millions of borrowers received $300 from the 13 mortgage servicers that immediately signed the amended order. But some of the first checks bounced, while a later batch had the wrong amounts. To date, the government has distributed more than $2.7 billion in compensation to about 3.2 million eligible borrowers. There is still $280 million worth of checks that have not been cashed. That money will be left in the hands of the state of the borrower’s last known address for collection. Web sites such as www.missingmoney.com list unclaimed compensation from government settlements. Of the nine banks that were still under the consent order, Citigroup, Bank of America and PNC Financial are in the clear, according to the OCC, which commended them for complying the terms of the order. Wednesday’s action will have the greatest impact on Wells Fargo and HSBC because of the number of problems regulators found and the severity of those violations. There were 98 items that all of the banks were asked to fix, including timely reporting. Wells Fargo failed to comply with 15 of those items, while HSBC failed to live up to 45. “Wells Fargo has implemented significant changes to our mortgage servicing operations and achieved compliance with major elements of the original order,” said Mike Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, in a statement. HSBC spokesman Rob Sherman said the bank is “actively addressing the remaining issues.” None of the banks affected by the restrictions will be able to appoint senior mortgage servicing officers until they comply with the order. JPMorgan, for its part, expects to have the 10 items left to complete done by the end of the summer, according to company spokeswoman Amy Bonitatibus. Kevin Barker, senior equity analyst at Compass Point, said while the order is unlikely to have material impact on the housing market, it will place more pressure on lenders who are already contending with regulatory scrutiny. “This is one in a long list of issues that the government has put pressure on banks for in the last several years regarding mortgage practices,” he said. “The scrutiny will continually put pressure on credit availability or banks willingness to enter the industry.” Want to learn more about mortgage settlements, check out these stories: What the $8.5B foreclosure deal means for borrowers Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) questions why regulators shut down review of lenders


Pentagon chief defends growing training program in Iraq — but acknowledges problems

as significant as the location,” Carter said. “It’s in the heart of Sunni territory, and I think it will make a big difference in the performance of the train-and-equip program in regards [to] recruiting Sunni fighters. We’re actually seeing that in the days since we established that presence there.” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter waits to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 17, 2015, before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on the U.S. policy and strategy in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) The plan will boost the number of American service members in Iraq to about 3,500. House committee members questioned Carter on whether the U.S. strategy is sound or if Washington must plan differently for an increasingly fractured Iraq. “I’ve said many times before, that cow has left the barn,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). “Iraq is fractured. You can make a pretty powerful argument, in fact, that Iraq is no more. So when do we shift that strategy and start building the capabilities of others who will fight?” Carter countered that the United States already has started to arm the semiautonomous Kurds in northern Iraq and is now arming Sunni tribes as well. “We do it in coordination with the Iraqi government but in a way that doesn’t delay, as it was a few months ago, that assistance to them,” he said. “But we’re still doing it through the government of Iraq because we’re still trying to support the prime minister in maintaining a decentralized but single unitary Iraqi state.” Carter conceded that the Iraqi military’s performance so far has been mixed — a fact widely reported following the militants’ seizure of Ramadi and Mosul, where entire units dissolved under attack by militants. Whether more U.S. troops are needed in Iraq will have to be revisited after new Iraqi units are established and trained, he said. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that he gets “accused of being reluctant often” but believes the United States should be judicious in adding more American troops in Iraq. “My military judgment would be that introduction of those resources should not be done on a habitual basis because we really want them to understand that this is their fight,” Dempsey said. More American troops should be reserved for “moments where it would be strategically significant, potentially — for example, an assault on Mosul.”


Here are 10 of the biggest problems facing Metro, according to FTA

the Metrorail system largely based on their past experience and the information ‘in their heads.'” An official manual with Metro Rail Operations Control Center’s office procedures and interpretations of rules and duties was unavailable. 6. Rail traffic controllers used their personal cellphones in the control center During the week-long federal review employees were observed using their cell phones while on duty. The report found that the cell phone policy is vague and easy to violate, further contributing to distractions in the control center. “WMATA has a strong electronic device policy imposed on all other safety-sensitive personnel but has elected to exclude the ROCC,” the report reads. 7. There are no industry standard rule reviews Officials did not observe traffic controllers working with each other or management to review procedures. Instead, most of the interactions between supervisory personnel and the controllers occurred during activities related to troubleshooting trains or single-tracking. 8. Trouble recruiting new controllers WMATA has unsuccessfully tried to recruit and retain new controllers and dispatchers with military, aviation and transportation experience over the last few years, investigators wrote in the report. In the most recent class of 12 new trainees from external agencies, only four made it through the program and only two of the four traffic control trainees are actually working in the control center. The FTA found that the training program is inadequate, with errors and missing sections in the training materials and PowerPoint presentations used to train the controllers on their responsibilities and how to use the Advanced Information Management system. The report also found that, due to potential losses in overtime, there is a financial disincentive for veteran controllers to support changes that would make hiring practices easier. 9. The accident investigation process is flawed The transit report’s accident investigations do not generally look at the performance of the traffic controllers, but rather focus on the train operators. This means that these controllers have not been able to learn from their errors like other groups within the agency have. 10. WMATA’s radio system is still poor in some areas Although it has improved, “there is still major distortion and feedback in the field, and from the ROCC, and a significant number of radio dead spots still exist.” Many WMATA employees ranked “poor radio performance” as their top safety issue. “I can’t hear you, Central” is a frequent radio transmission from the field,” the report reads.


Pope Francis wants to roll back progress. Is the world ready?

Pope Gregory XVI banned railroads from the papal states, calling them chemins d’enfer, or ways of hell, a play on their French name, chemins de fer, or ways of iron. His fear was that they would spread bourgeois and republican ideas subversive to papal authority and right faith. Gregory’s belief that technology profoundly shapes belief and so must be carefully weighed and, at times, resisted is the central conviction of Francis’s new encyclical. Whatever one thinks of any particular condemnation from Gregory or Francis—be it of planes, trains, or automobiles—this is not a foolish view of technology. [What you need to know about Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical] One of the books Francis cites most frequently is Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World. The dystopian novel imagines a future in which religion has nearly disappeared but the Pope now reigns in Rome, having exchanged all the church’s other properties in Italy for sovereignty of the city. One of his first acts is to ban technology, reasoning that “on the whole the latter-day discoveries of man tended to distract immortal souls from a contemplation of eternal verities.” He admits that the banned technologies are “good in themselves, since after all they gave insight into the wonderful laws of God.” Nonetheless, he judges “that at present they were too exciting to the imagination.” His conclusion, one very close to Francis’ in Laudato Si, leads him to remove “the trams . . . the laboratories, the manufactories.” And so, Benson writes, “the trains ceased to run.” Francis’ encyclical synthesizes the great cultural critiques of his two most recent predecessors—Benedict XVI’s “dictatorship of relativism” and John Paul II’s “culture of death”—in terms of opposition to the locomotive of technological rationality. Francis writes that “We should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm, the rise of a relativism,” which leads to sexual exploitation, abandonment of the elderly, and the taking of innocent life. Francis identifies a “throwaway culture,” what John Paul II called the culture of death. In Laudato Si, Francis reframes the philosophical points of his predecessors in more technological and ecological terms. He is opposing modernism—that old antagonist of the Church—not just as a philosophical proposition but also as a material reality. Of course, neither a one-world authority nor a thriftier use of electricity nor a ban on trains can solve the spiritual crisis Francis foresees. In one


Part of Rock Creek Parkway reopened in upper Northwest Washington

Updated at 8:17 a.m. Authorities said the Rock Creek Parkway’s southbound lanes near Calvert Street NW have reopened after an earlier crash. But delays remain. FINAL UPDATE: Multi-Vehicle Crash w/Injury. Rock Creek Pkwy. SB past Calvert St. NW. Wash., DC. All travel lanes reopened. Delays remain. Updated at 7:55 a.m. Police in the District said the southbound lanes of Rock Creek Parkway in Northwest are blocked. They had been closed off and on for the morning because of an earlier crash. It is not immediately known when they will reopen. Drivers should avoid the area. MPD reports a traffic accident on Southbound Rock Creek Pkwy NW. All southbound lanes of Rock Creek Pkwy are blocked just after Calvert Str… Updated at 7:09 a.m. Part of Rock Creek Parkway’s southbound lanes near Calvert Street has reopened. Original post at 6:55 a.m. Officials said a crash involving several vehicles on Thursday morning has closed part of Rock Creek Parkway. The southbound lanes of the parkway, past Calvert Street NW, are closed. Traffic is being diverted at Calvert Street. Drivers should avoid the area. It was not immediately known what caused the crash or if anyone was injured. Multi-Vehicle Crash w/Injury. Rock Creek Pkwy. SB past Calvert St. NW. Wash., DC. All lanes blkd. Traffic diverted at Calvert St., NW.


Synthetic drugs are very dangerous. Let’s legalize them.

Synthetic drug packets. (Drug Enforcement Administration) Lately, the media has been in a tizzy about synthetic or “designer” drugs. These produce physical and psychological effects similar to traditional, mind-altering substances like marijuana, cocaine and heroin. But they’re different in a crucial way. Not only are they frequently marketed as potpourri, pet food, air freshener and other legal products, but because they are artificial substances, even a slight change in the chemical composition can make the targeted drug no longer covered by existing law. CBS News warns of a “scary new designer drug” hitting the streets of Chicago. The Washington Post identifies a “deadly craze” afflicting cities and towns in Alabama. And regulators are scrambling to criminalize the new chemical variants. Both the federal government and state governments are enacting broad bans that seek to cover all psychoactive synthetic drugs even if traffickers alter the chemical composition. But the prohibitionist approach to drugs is partly to blame for this development and will surely fail to stamp it out. Instead, we should adopt a harm-reduction strategy based on regulating synthetic drugs within a legal framework. For one thing, there isn’t an “epidemic” of these drugs among teenagers, as news outlets sometimes report. Natural marijuana, the mildest and least harmful of illegal drugs, is still, by far, the illicit drug of choice among teenagers. The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study in 2014 found that some 35 percent of high school seniors reported using marijuana during the previous year, and that figure has remained remarkably steady over the past two decades. That same study showed that the use of synthetic marijuana is far less of a factor, and even that modest rate is declining steadily among eighth graders, 10th graders and 12th graders. Between 2010 and 2014, reported use among high school seniors in the 12-month periods dropped from 11.4 percent to less than 6 percent, as the adverse health consequences of designer drugs become more widely known. The trend in the use of bath salts (a psychoactive, artificial drug based on the Khat plant from East Africa) showed a similar pattern. In 2012, less than 2 percent of high school seniors reported using bath salts during the previous 12 months. In the 2014 survey, it was barely 1 percent. Despite these low numbers of use, opponents say we need to tightly regulate or even ban these synthetic drugs because they’re so


These ‘silver’ ants use special hairs to survive the harshest desert heat

of mercury as they scamper across the desert sand, said Nanfang Yu, assistant professor of applied physics at Columbia Engineering. [Scientists discover the amazing self-repairing technique behind jellyfish symmetry] The ants venture out into the midday sun in 10-minute intervals as they forage for dead insects and other creatures. When it comes to visible and near-infrared light, the silver ant's hair coating functions as highly reflective, researchers found. But the hairs don't just help keep those solar waves away; the hair coating also functions as an anti-reflective in the mid-infrared solar spectrum range, which lets the ants disseminate their own, internal body heat into the cooler air around them. "We quickly realized these two effects are actually helping each other," Yu said. "The combination of this tool leads to the optimum cooling effect." Those two processes together help reduce an ant's body temperature by up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the study. [City ants are garbage eating, rat-fighting machines] Researchers only had a few dozen ants for the experiments, and the most challenging aspect of the work was removing the hair from portions of the ants' bodies; a process requiring "hours of patience," Yu said. The hairs themselves have a triangular shape, and instead of standing straight up, they grow straight and then turn at a 90 degree angle, so they are arranged parallel to the ant's skin. A small air gap between the skin and hair facilitates the cooling technique. The hairs grow parallel to the skin and are separated from the skin by a small air gap. The hairs have triangular cross-sections with two corrugated top facets and a flat bottom facet facing the ant's body. (Norman Nan Shi, Nanfang Yu/Columbia Engineering) The researchers also created simulations of the effect produced by the hair shape and structure, and members of the engineering team are now interested in how to use these mechanics to create "metasurfaces" that can withstand high temperatures. "This is very clever engineering on how to deal with high temperatures," Yu said. "In engineering terms, this is the best you can do in terms of cooling down an object without using any electricity." Read more: Watch trap-jaw ants use their mandibles like springboards to jump from danger Say hello to the dementor wasp. It turns cockroaches into zombies. Fungus turns ‘zombie ants’ into booby traps More than 300 kinds of spiders pretend to be ants


Coming soon: D.C.’s first meadery?

Mead is a honey-based alcoholic beverage. Sean Simmons, founder of Mobius Meadery, is hoping to open D.C.’s first meadery. If Sean Simmons had his way, D.C. residents will soon be reaching for a pack of mead at their neighborhood liquor store. The 23-year-old homebrewer is in the process of launching Mobius Meadery, his line of honey-based alcoholic beverages made in D.C. Also known as honey wine, the ancient drink dates back centuries, and is common at Renaissance fairs. Simmons began brewing mead at his home because it was slightly easier to make. Because mead is made from fermented honey rather than grains, producers don’t need to steep grains to extract sugar. “I developed a taste for it,” Simmons says of his decision to keep making it. “And it doesn’t have as strong of a flavor as beer, so it lends itself to experimentation.” In his Atlas District home, Simmons concocts mead in flavors like lemongrass and hibiscus using whole fruits and spices. He also offers a flagship style known as “show mead,” which is made simply from honey, water and yeast. Simmons uses wildflower honey from Bubba’s Sweet Nectar based in Waynesboro, Va. Though mead often tends to be sweet, Simmons models his more closely to a bitter beer profile (with an ABV to match) using different strands of yeast. “It has the body of a cider without the signature apple taste,” Simmons says of Mobius’ mead. “It has a more floral honey taste, and you don’t get as full from it as you do from beer.” Simmons, a full-time bartender at Dacha Beer Garden in Shaw, is looking for property in D.C., preferably in Ivy City, where he can open a production facility and tasting room. In the meantime, he doles out samples at private events and to his friends. You can track his progress and learn of upcoming public tastings on Facebook and Twitter.