The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is now accepting applications for its Early-Career Research Fellowships and Science Policy Fellowships for 2019.

Lauren Alexander Augustine has been appointed executive director of the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Urban flooding is a complex and distinct kind of flooding, compounded by land use and high population density, and it requires a different approach to assess and manage, says Framing the Challenge of Urban Flooding in the United States, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) should focus funding on holistic, evidence-based, population-wide adolescent health programs that consider adolescent risk-taking as normative, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine finds new and innovative approaches to dust control are needed at Owens Lake, California, to improve air quality, reduce water use, and preserve habitats.

Although less invasive and more evidence-based approaches are available for temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) – a set of 30 disorders that cause pain or malfunction in the jaw joint and muscles of the jaw – some dentists continue to rely on aggressive or costly procedures as a first-line treatment, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and CDC Director Robert Redfield will appear before a Senate committee on May 12.; Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will join Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield and other administration representatives in testifying before a Senate committee on May 12.

The announcement comes as members of President Trump's coronavirus task force are being asked to limit their appearances on Capitol Hill despite ongoing calls from lawmakers for more oversight into the administration's coronavirus response. Last week, the Trump administration blocked Fauci from appearing before a House committee on the subject of spending on coronavirus testing.

President Trump told reporters Tuesday that he doesn't want the officials appearing before House Democrats.

"The House is a setup," Trump said. "The House is a bunch of Trump haters."

White House officials gave a less adversarial explanation when justifying the decision to limit task force testimony in a memo to top congressional aides.

"For primary response departments, including HHS, DHS, and State, in order to preserve department-wide resources, no more than one COVID-related hearing should be agreed to with the department's primary House and Senate authorizing committee and appropriations subcommittee in the month of May, for a total of no more than four COVID-related hearings department-wide," the memo stated.

Congressional Democrats are demanding greater oversight over the roughly $3 trillion that has already been approved for the coronavirus response. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has launched a new select committee to conduct the oversight, but Republicans have so far refused to name members to the panel despite the plan to make the panel bipartisan.

The Senate hearing was announced shortly after the administration sent the memo to Capitol Hill banning committee appearances from task force members during May unless approved by the White House chief of staff.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere said the decision to block Fauci from the House committee appearance was intended to allow him to focus on his primary task of overseeing the coronavirus response.

"While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at Congressional hearings," Deere said. "We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time."

Fauci, Redfield, HHS Assistant Secretary Brett Giroir and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn are scheduled to discuss "safely getting back to work and back to school" when they appear before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — or HELP — Committee next Tuesday.

Senate Democrats, including Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the HELP committee, have called for the administration to provide greater transparency and a nationwide plan for testing. So far their demands have not received a response.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Police and lifeguards patrol as people walk on the beach south of Newport Pier on May 3, 2020 in Newport Beach, California. ; Credit: Michael Heiman/Getty Images

After the cities of San Clemente and Laguna Beach were given the OK by state officials on Monday to reopen beaches with limited conditions, the California Natural Resources Agency gave Dana Point, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach the green light on Tuesday after approving the plans they submitted for safe reopening.

The plans vary as far as when the beach can be used, but the common thread through each is that leisure activities like sunbathing or large gatherings of people would not be allowed, and that beachgoers will be required to remain active while on the sand. 

The news comes as Orange County Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to submit a plan to submit to Sacramento that would create a set of uniform rules for reopening beaches countywide. Supervisor Lisa Bartlett spearheaded the proposal, which received pushback from Supervisors Don Wagner and Michelle Steel who argue that after being singled out by Governor Gavin Newsom last week when he ordered a “hard close” on all state and local beaches in Orange County, taking issue with the idea of the county bowing to pressure from the state.

Today on AirTalk, we’ll check back in with Supervisor Bartlett, who joined us Monday on AirTalk, to find out more about the specifics of the county’s plan to reopen its beaches.

Guest:

Lisa Bartlett, Orange County Supervisor representing the Fifth County District, which encompasses South County cities like Aliso Viejo, San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Dana Point and more; she tweets @OCSupBartlett

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Levi Draheim, 11, wears a dust mask as he participates in a demonstration in Miami in July 2019. A lawsuit file by him and other young people urging action against climate change was thrown out by a federal appeals court Friday.; Credit: Wilfredo Lee/AP

A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by nearly two dozen young people aimed at forcing the federal government to take bolder action on climate change, saying the courts were not the appropriate place to address the issue.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday the young plaintiffs had "made a compelling case that action is needed," but they did not have legal standing to bring the case.

The lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, was filed in 2015 on behalf of a group of children and teenagers who said the U.S. government continued to use and promote the use of fossil fuels, knowing that such consumption would destabilize the climate, putting future generations at risk.

By doing so, the plaintiffs argued, the U.S. government had violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.

Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz agreed with some of that assertion, writing in a 32-page opinion that "the federal government has long promoted fossil fuel use despite knowing that it can cause catastrophic climate change."

But, he continued, it was unclear if the court could compel the federal government to phase out fossil fuel emissions and draw down excess greenhouse gas emissions as the plaintiffs requested.

"Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power," Hurwitz wrote, "Rather, the plaintiffs' impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government."

The decision reversed an earlier ruling by a district court judge that would have allowed the case to move forward.

Philip Gregory, who served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs, strongly disagreed with the 2-1 ruling, saying in an interview with NPR that they would seek an "en banc petition," which would put the issue before the full 9th Circuit for review.

Gregory, who spoke to some of the young plaintiffs following the decisions, says they were hopeful that their pending petition will be considered, "because as we all know, this Congress and this President will do nothing to ameliorate the climate crisis."

Both the Trump and Obama administrations opposed the lawsuit. All three of the judges involved in Friday's ruling were appointed under Obama.

Hurwitz and Judge Mary Murguia made up the majority but the third, Judge Josephine L. Staton, wrote a blistering dissent.

"In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response — yet presses ahead toward calamity," she wrote. "It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Two judges appointed by President Trump to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals prevailed Tuesday in a ruling that clears the way for the executions of four inmates.

The only dissenter in the 3-2 ruling was Judge David Tatel, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. The judges were reviewing a lower court's injunction that had blocked the scheduled executions.

The decision was seen as a win for Trump's Justice Department, which issued new guidelines last July that would have allowed the federal government to carry out its first executions in 16 years.

The fates of the four men remain unresolved because their death sentences were sent back to the lower court for further proceedings.

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined the Justice Department's request to vacate the lower court's injunction that scuttled the planned executions.

At issue is the question of whether the condemned men should be put to death by the injection of only one barbiturate — pentobarbital — as called for in the Justice Department's July 2019 memo.

Many of the 28 states where the death penalty is still legal require a lethal injection cocktail containing not one but three barbiturates. Those states include Indiana, where the scheduled executions were to take place.

Pharmaceutical companies have stopped producing at least one of the three drugs used in that lethal mixture, and several botched executions have resulted from some states using untested formulas.

The 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act calls for executions to be carried out "in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed."

Judge Gregory Katsas argues in his majority opinion that the "manner prescribed" simply refers to the method of execution rather than the protocols each state follows in carrying out each kind of execution.

"The government says that 'manner' here means 'method'," Katsas writes, "such that the FDPA regulates only the top-line choice among execution methods such as hanging, electrocution, or lethal injection. In my view, the government is correct."

Judge Neomi Rao, in a concurring opinion, argues that while the word "manner" refers not only to the method of execution, it cannot be interpreted in isolation. "It is a broad, flexible term," she says, "whose specificity depends on context."

In his dissent, Tatel says the best understanding of the 1994 statute is that it "requires federal executions to be carried out using the same procedures that states use to execute their own prisoners.

"Had Congress intended to authorize the Attorney General to adopt a uniform execution protocol," Tatel argues, "it knew exactly how to do so."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller announces the new iPhone 6 during an Apple special event at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts on September 9, 2014 in Cupertino, California. Apple unveiled the two new iPhones the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Apple's latest mobile operating system — iOS 8 — is now available, and with it, a new technical hurdle for law enforcement. The company says it will be technologically impossible to access data on phones and iPads running iOS 8, because it won't allow user passcodes to be bypassed.

Our phones, of course, contain troves of information — contacts, messages, recordings — which can be helpful for investigative or prosecutorial purposes. The Supreme Court earlier this year ruled law enforcement cannot access that kind of data without a warrant. Prosecutors had already feared the warrant hurdle would be too much — Rockland County, N.Y., District Attorney Thomas Zugibe told the Wall Street Journal in June that technology "is making it easier and easier for criminals to do their trade," while the court "is making it harder for law enforcement to do theirs."

Now, even with a warrant, data from Apple devices running iOS 8 will be tough — and, Apple says, impossible — for law enforcement to get its hands on.

As The Washington Post reports, the move "amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary: Rather than comply with binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that prevents the company — or anyone but the device's owner — from gaining access to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet computers."

Not so fast, writes an iOS forensics expert, Jonathan Zdziarski. Just because Apple will no longer help police doesn't mean police can't find ways to use existing commercial forensics tools to extract the data themselves. Wired Magazine describes how Zdziarski proved his own point:

Zdziarski confirmed with his own forensics software that he was still able to pull from a device running iOS 8 practically all of its third-party application data — that means sensitive content from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, web browsers, and more — as well as photos and video. The attack he used impersonates a trusted computer to which a user has previously connected the phone; it takes advantage of the same mechanisms that allow users to siphon data off a device with programs like iTunes and iPhoto without entering the gadget's passcode.

"I can do it. I'm sure the guys in suits in the governments can do it," says Zdziarski.

And, Apple will still be able to turn over user data stored outside its phones, for example, on its iCloud service, The Washington Post notes. Users often back up photos, videos, emails and more to iCloud, as the recent nude photo theft reminded us.

Apple, in creating plausible deniability for itself, is also using its strongly worded new privacy stance as a marketing opportunity. It's reinforcing what it says is a commitment to privacy and transparency when it comes to government data requests. Apple says so far this year, it has received fewer than 250 government requests for data, including requests to unlock encrypted iPhones.

Birth control pills in 1976 in New York. The birth control pill was approved by the FDA 60 years ago this week.; Credit: /Bettmann/Getty Images

Updated at 9:44 a.m. ET

As a young woman growing up in a poor farming community in Virginia in the 1940 and '50s, with little information about sex or contraception, sexuality was a frightening thing for Carole Cato and her female friends.

"We lived in constant fear, I mean all of us," she said. "It was like a tightrope. always wondering, is this going to be the time [I get pregnant]?"

Cato, 78, now lives in Columbia, S.C. She grew up in the years before the birth control pill was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on May 9, 1960. She said teenage girls in her community were told very little about how their bodies worked.

"I was very fortunate; I did not get pregnant, but a lot of my friends did. And of course, they just got married and went into their little farmhouses," she said. "But I just felt I just had to get out."

At 23, Cato married a widower who already had seven children. They decided seven was enough.

By that time, Cato said, the pill allowed the couple to avoid having more babies — and she eventually was able to go on to college.

"It was just like going from night to day, as far as the freedom of it," Cato said. "And to know that I had control, that I had choice, that I controlled my body. It gave me a whole new lease on life."

Loretta Ross, an activist and visiting women's studies professor at Smith College, was among the first generation of young women to have access to the birth control pill throughout their reproductive years.

Ross, now 66, said by the time she came of age around 1970, the pill was giving young women more control over their fertility than previous generations had enjoyed.

"We could talk about having sex – not without consequences, because there were still STDS ... but at the same time, with more freedom than our foremothers had," Ross said. "So it changed the world."

For all it's done for women, Ross said that the pill has a complex and controversial history; it was first tested on low-income women in Puerto Rico. Ross said the pill also has limitations; she'd like to see it made available over the counter, as it is in some countries – not to mention, a pill for men.

When the pill was approved in 1960, women had few relatively few contraceptive options, and the pill offered more reliability and convenience than methods like condoms or diaphragms, said Dr. Eve Espey, chair of the Department of Ob/Gyn and Family Planning at the University of New Mexico.

"There was a huge, pent-up desire for a truly effective form of contraception, which had been lacking up to that point," Espey said.

By 1965, she said, 40% of young married women were on the pill.

For Pat Fishback, now 80 and living in Richmond, Va., the newly-available pill allowed her to delay having children in her early 20s until she'd been married for a couple of years.

"It also made having children a positive experience," Fishback said. "Because we had actually, emotionally and intellectually, gotten to the point where we really desired to have children."

It took a bit longer for unmarried women to gain widespread access to the pill and other forms of contraception: Linda Gordon, 80, a historian at New York University, remembers the stigma around single women and contraception at the time.

"When I was in college, a number of women had a wedding ring – a gold ring –that we would pass around and use when we wanted to go see a doctor to get fitted for a diaphragm," Gordon said. "In other words, there were people finding their way to do that, even then."

The pill also gave rise to a variety of other forms of hormonal contraception, many of which are popular today, Gordon said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 13% of American women of reproductive age use the pill — making it the second most popular form of contraception, after female sterilization.

Gordon said that 60 years after the pill's approval, contraception remains a contentious political issue.

Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving the birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act. A decision on whether some institutions with religious or moral objections can deny contraceptive coverage to their employees is expected in the months to come.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

If we can’t secure the supply chain, eventually everything else will break

The post What happens when the global supply chain breaks? appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

The tool, which comes after a similar effort by Google, looks at how people’s traveling behavior has changed since the start of the pandemic

The post Apple releases mobility data to help combat COVID‑19 appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

Can someone take control of your WhatsApp account by just knowing your phone number? We ran a small test to find out.

The post Hey there! Are you using WhatsApp? Your account may be hackable appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

A pair of vulnerabilities in the default email app on iOS devices is believed to have been exploited against high-profile targets

The post iOS Mail app flaws may have left iPhone users vulnerable for years appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

Scientists involved in a pan-European project to develop better methods of risk assessment say maps that show such cumulative risks geographically are easy to interpret and should be considered as practical tools for conveying risk information to decision makers and the general public.

A new German study suggests that residents??? level of satisfaction with their urban neighbourhood can be predicted from their perceptions of multiple and co-occurring burdens, such as poor air quality, lack of green space, noise and low cleanliness.

The world’s marine ecosystems are at risk of sudden and damaging changes. The authors of a recent study say that co-ordinated management of the many drivers of marine changes, such as overfishing and pollution, is needed across international, national and local scales to help avoid the ‘regime shifts’ that affect ecosystem services and human wellbeing.

As the development of nanomaterials increases, a recent study recommends combining life cycle analysis and risk assessment to improve our understanding of the potential environmental and human health impacts of products containing nanomaterials.

There is a wide range of systems for assessing and communicating the sustainability of buildings, but the variation can be confusing. Recent research has analysed the elements needed for effective assessment and examined the needs of stakeholders to inform the presentation and communication of assessment results.

Hackers have hidden malware in a legitimate two-factor authentication (2FA) app for macOS to distribute Dacls, a remote access trojan associated with the North Korean Lazarus group. [...]

Over 8% of land in Europe could be at moderate-to-high risk of wind-driven soil erosion, a new study has estimated. In the first assessment of its kind, the researchers produced maps which show wind erosion risk across 36 countries. This information could help guide actions to tackle land degradation.

More people are eating gluten-free, although the prevalence of celiac disease appears to have remained stable in recent years, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

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New research has investigated the long-term effects of applying sewage sludge to Spanish soils. The results indicate that sludge enhances soil properties, but recommends a maximum dose of 40 tons per hectare, applied biannually. Above this level, it appears the soil properties will not improve and may even worsen.

A new analysis has indicated that policies to encourage active travel, such as walking and cycling, lead to a large but complex range of health benefits. However, it is not always possible to tell which policy has had which specific impact. The study argues for improved approaches to evaluating travel policy that consider indirect policy impacts.

Scientists involved in a pan-European project to develop better methods of risk assessment say maps that show such cumulative risks geographically are easy to interpret and should be considered as practical tools for conveying risk information to decision makers and the general public.

Adapting to climate change in coastal cities needs further development of the resilience approach as well as identifying how it can be practically used in local actions, according to a new study. The researchers present resilience as a flexible, practical way of dealing with climate change's impacts, such as coastal flooding, which can be easily built into adaptation measures.

According to UK researchers, caution must be taken in the use of shale gas until more is known about its environmental impacts. Using US data, they estimated the additional emissions associated with the extraction of gas from shale compared to that of conventional sources and highlighted concerns from the US that extraction could bring significant risks of ground and surface water contamination.

Adaptation to climate change in urban regions is a major policy concern. Rather than focus specifically on risk reduction, a new report has reframed the adaptation challenge, giving it a broader focus of increasing an area’s resilience and performance and proposing local-level approaches to leveraging finance for adaptation initiatives.

A new study provides an approach for estimating the risk of antibiotic contamination associated with different soils and different antimicrobial products. The researchers estimated and mapped soil contamination risk across Europe and suggest that their methods could be used to inform antibiotic resistance monitoring or policies designed to reduce contamination.