Unlocking the mysteries of animal migration through precise, near real-time tracking can solve major conservation challenges and transform wildlife science worldwide. For the past year, […]

The post Partners in the Sky appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Inupiaq artist and teacher Holly Nordlum visited the National Museum of the American Indian to study Arctic objects and archival photographs in the museum’s collections. […]

The post Art to Help Boys Find Their Way appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A team from the Smithsonian is starting a pilot program to aid people in restoring their damaged family heirlooms. Click photo to learn more….

The post Smithsonian starts program to help people restore storm-damaged heirlooms appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Extinct in the wild for more than 35 years, scimitar-horned oryx are back in their native habitat thanks to international collaboration and the power of […]

The post Earth Optimism: Oryx appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Asian elephants are critically endangered and their habitat in the wild is rapidly disappearing, but Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists are working to make sure […]

The post Earth Optimism: Elephants appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Explore a “day in the life” of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art and home to one of the […]

The post A “day in the life” of the Smithsonian American Art Museum appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A Projection Art Installation from the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, “IlluminAsia Festival of Asian Art and Cultures” during the reopening celebration held in Oct. […]

The post Freer Gallery opening projection art installation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

 Inspired by Steampunk design, Richard Wilks talks about his larger than life 3-point mobile contraption. Through the merging of transportation and art, he created […]

The post Artist Richard Wilkes on “Evotrope” appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The partial federal government shutdown is one week old, but economists are still saying that its impact in Southern California and elsewhere will be limited.

Susanne Whatley: Business analyst Mark Lacter, why is that?

Mark Lacter: If you look back on the history of these things, Susanne, you see that the disputes are resolved before too much damage gets done.  As for Southern California, I notice that KPCC's Alice Walton was asking around over the weekend about the shutdown, and most folks gave it a shrug.  The regional economy is just too diversified - and not especially tied to federal employment.  You have about 46,000 federal workers employed in L.A. County in one capacity or another - that's out of a workforce of nearly 5 million.  And, now it appears as if the federal employees who have been furloughed are going to receive their back wages whenever the shutdown finally ends.

Whatley: That still might make things dicey when it comes time to pay the monthly mortgage...

Lacter: ...but at least money will be available before most folks run into serious liquidity issues.  That's what the shutdown really comes down to - inconvenience rather than dislocation.  And, you see this with the various government services affected: the E-Verify website is down - that lets business owners know whether the people they're wanting to hire can work legally in the U.S., which obviously is important.  The Small Business Administration has stopped processing loan applications, and the Federal Housing Administration is reporting delays in its loan processing, which could mean a home buyer might not complete his or her paperwork all that quickly.

Whatley: But, what if this were to go on for months?

Lacter: Well, then it would create problems, but nobody really thinks that's going to happen.  The real issue, not just nationally and regionally - but globally - is the refusal by Congress to raise the debt ceiling.  The deadline is a week from Thursday, and - of course - there's been all sorts of debate about what this would mean for the economy.

Whatley: All right, so what would this mean for the economy?

Lacter: Well, no one knows exactly.  But, then again, no one knows exactly what would happen if you fell out of a airplane without a parachute.  I just wouldn't want to test it out.  And, of course, let's keep in mind that these are manufactured crises - not reflective of anything that's going on with the real economy.  It's certainly not reflective of anything that's going on in L.A., which saw a big jump in payroll jobs for 2012 - actually it was the sharpest increase since 2005, and nearly double the national rate (that's despite an unemployment rate that remains very high in certain parts of Los Angeles).

Whatley: What about some of the big locally based companies?

Lacter: Well, if your company is publicly traded, there's a good chance your shares took a dip these past few days.  Going back to September 18, the Dow has lost almost 700 points, which - percentage-wise - is not very much, but it is reflective of how uneasy Wall Street has become.  Public companies based in the L.A. area are taking it on the chin - Disney, Amgen, Mattel, DirecTV - their stock prices are all down going back to the middle of September.

Whatley: Even so, hasn't this been a good year for the stock market?

Lacter: It has - those local companies are up anywhere from 13 percent 30 percent year to date, and the Dow is up 14 percent year to date.  Of course, the stock price of a company doesn't always match the amount of money it makes, and this year, even before worries about the debt ceiling, the numbers haven't been as good as they should be at this stage of a recovery.  And, that's why there's particular concern about next week.  You do have to wonder whether a default could have ripple effects involving trade, consumer spending, the dollar - who knows what?  Now, it's still a pretty good bet that saner heads will prevail, although there are no guarantees - and again, if worse came to worse, do you really want to be jumping out of that plane?  Guess we'll find out.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

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

Smithsonian scientists and colleagues, however, have recently found evidence that gymnosperm plants shared an intricate pollination relationship with scorpionfly insects 62 million years before flowering plants appear in fossil records.

The post Prehistoric pollination: Scorpionfly mouthparts fit tubular channels of gymnosperm cones appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Encyclopedia of Life is an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered. The Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library joined together to initiate the project, bringing together species and software experts from across the world. Lean more at www.eol.org

The post The Encyclopedia of Life is a global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants and other life forms on Earth appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Invasive European earthworms could prevent roughly half a North American forest’s orchid seeds from even germinating, ecologists from Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and Johns Hopkins […]

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We know some types of fungi turn ants into zombies, but fungi are not always the bad guys. In the case of orchids, fungi are […]

The post The Secret Life of Orchids – Part I: Fungi appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Orchids are beautiful, but their beauty can be deceiving. Most orchids don’t have any nectar, yet they cheat their pollinators into thinking that they do […]

The post The Secret Life of Orchids – Part II: Pollinators appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Orchids account for 10 percent of the world’s plant species, making them the largest plant family. They act as indicators of the health of ecosystems […]

The post The Secret Life of Orchids – Part III: Conservation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History announced today that scientists with the museum’s Global Genome Initiative will attempt to capture the genomic diversity of half the […]

The post Smithsonian and Partners To Preserve Earth’s Genomic Plant Diversity appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Profound ideas don’t need to be complicated. A simple cube made of aluminum tubing, a centerpiece of a new exhibit “Life in One Cubic Foot,” […]

The post From Rochester to Polynesia, a simple cube unveils Earth’s dazzling biological diversity appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

On Earth Day weekend, the Smithsonian will convene the first Earth Optimism Summit, a three-day event featuring more than 150 scientists, thought leaders, philanthropists, conservationists […]

The post Smithsonian To Convene Earth Optimism Summit April 21–23 appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

We can save frogs with science. Release trials in the wild begin this spring. On Earth Day weekend, the Smithsonian is convening the Earth Optimism […]

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The global conservation movement has reached a turning point. We have documented the fast pace of habitat loss, the growing number of endangered and extinct […]

The post Earth Optimism: Change is Possible appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Earth Day is coming up, and this year, the Smithsonian has a different take on it. It has invited more than 150 scientists, thought leaders, […]

The post Earth Optimism Summit to showcase steady, positive gains in conservation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian is celebrating Earth Day this month by hosting the first Earth Optimism Summit from April 21 to 23 in Washington, D.C. Its goal […]

The post The Smithsonian’s history is right in line with Earth Optimism appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This Earth Day weekend in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian is convening the first Earth Optimism Summit. The three-day event, taking place April 21–23, will look […]

The post Earth Optimism: Smithsonian’s “Agua Salud” Project restores degraded land with forest appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This work presents a technique for extracting the detailed shape of peaks with extended, overlapping tails in an X-ray powder diffraction pattern. The application discussed here concerns crystallite size broadening, though the technique can be applied to spectra of any origin and without regard to how the profiles are to be subsequently analyzed. Historically, the extraction of profile shapes has been difficult due to the complexity of determining the background under the peak, resulting in an offset of the low-frequency components of the Fourier transform of the peak known as the `hook' problem. The use of a carefully considered statistical weighting function in a non-linear least-squares fit, followed by summing the residuals from such a fit with the fit itself, allows one to extract the full shape of an isolated peak, without contributions from either the background or adjacent peaks. The extracted shape, consisting of the fit function recombined with the residuals, is not dependent on any specific shape model. The application of this to analysis of microstructure is performed independently of global parametric models, which would reduce the number of refined parameters; therefore the technique requires high-quality data to produce results of interest. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated by extraction of Fourier transforms of peaks from two sets of size-broadened materials with two differing pieces of equipment.

Crystals of the rare earth metal polytelluride LaTe1.82(1), namely, lanthanum telluride (1/1.8), have been grown by molten alkali halide flux reactions and vapour-assisted crystallization with iodine. The two-dimensionally incommensurately modulated crystal structure has been investigated by X-ray diffraction experiments. In contrast to the tetra­gonal average structure with unit-cell dimensions of a = 4.4996 (5) and c = 9.179 (1) Å at 296 (1) K, which was solved and refined in the space group P4/nmm (No. 129), the satellite reflections are not compatible with a tetra­gonal symmetry but enforce a symmetry reduction. Possible space groups have been derived by group–subgroup relationships and by consideration of previous reports on similar rare earth metal polychalcogenide structures. Two structural models in the ortho­rhom­bic superspace group, i.e. Pmmn(α,β,1 over 2)000(−α,β,1 over 2)000 (No. 59.2.51.39) and Pm21n(α,β,1 over 2)000(−α,β,1 over 2)000 (No. 31.2.51.35), with modulation wave vectors q1 = αa* + βb* + 1 over 2c* and q2 = −αa* + βb* + 1 over 2c* [α = 0.272 (1) and β = 0.314 (1)], have been established and evaluated against each other. The modulation describes the distribution of defects in the planar [Te] layer, coupled to a displacive modulation due to the formation of different Te anions. The bonding situation in the planar [Te] layer and the different Te anion species have been investigated by density functional theory (DFT) methods and an electron localizability indicator (ELI-D)-based bonding analysis on three different approximants. The temperature-dependent electrical resistance revealed a semiconducting behaviour with an estimated band gap of 0.17 eV.

Host Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" watches a video while taping "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Restoring Honor & Dignity to the White House" at the McNally Smith College of Music Sept. 5, 2008 in St. Paul, Minnesota.; Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Comedy Central

Host Jon Stewart announced at Tuesday's "The Daily Show" taping that he is leaving the show.

Comedy Central confirmed the news in a statement, saying that Stewart will be leaving later this year:

"For the better part of the last two decades, we have had the incredible honor and privilege of working with Jon Stewart. His comedic brilliance is second to none. Jon has been at the heart of Comedy Central, championing and nurturing the best talent in the industry, in front of and behind the camera. Through his unique voice and vision, ‘The Daily Show’ has become a cultural touchstone for millions of fans and an unparalleled platform for political comedy that will endure for years to come. Jon will remain at the helm of ‘The Daily Show’ until later this year. He is a comic genius, generous with his time and talent, and will always be a part of the Comedy Central family."

The news comes less than two months after Stephen Colbert brought "The Colbert Report" to an end in order to prepare for hosting CBS's "Late Show," replacing David Letterman after he leaves later this year.

"The Daily Show" existed before Jon Stewart, hosted from 1996 until 1998 by Craig Kilborn, but Stewart took the show into a bolder political direction and made it a cultural landmark, becoming the go-to news source for numerous young people. Polls started to show Jon Stewart as being one of the most trusted newsmen in America.

It's just over three weeks after Comedy Central launched "The Nightly Show" with Larry Wilmore and details have yet to be announced about the future of Comedy Central's late night lineup.

The show has created hosts for other networks, with Colbert leaving for CBS after getting his start as a "Daily Show" correspondent and John Oliver, who served as a fill-in host while Stewart shot the film "Rosewater," left for his own weekly rundown of the news "Last Week Tonight" at HBO. The show's starmaking power also includes actors such as Steve Carell, Ed Helms and more, and new "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update anchor Michael Che.

Stewart didn't announce his plans for what comes next. He directed the 2014 film "Rosewater," based on journalist Maziar Bahari's memoir detailing his imprisonment in Iran following an interview with "The Daily Show's" Jason Jones.

Stewart previously talked about "Rosewater" with KPCC's "The Frame," saying at the time that "The Daily Show" isn't all fun.

"As sad as it sounds, people might say, 'Man, working at 'The Daily Show,' that's gotta be a blast. You just sit around and laugh all day,'" Stewart said. "And you're like, 'No, we have a meeting at 9, and the 9 meeting has to be over by 9:30, and the scripts have to be in by 11, because if they're not, then we miss this deadline.'"

He also told the Hollywood Reporter last summer that he didn't know how much longer he would stay with the show.

"I mean, like anything else, you do it long enough, you will take it for granted, or there will be aspects of it that are grinding. I can't say that following the news cycle as closely as we do and trying to convert that into something either joyful or important to us doesn't have its fraught moments," Stewart said.

The show, one of Comedy Central's top franchises, will likely continue. John Oliver and Stephen Colbert would have seemed like the heirs apparent before they left; of the current staff, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones and Aaasif Mandvi are the longest-running correspondents, with Bee starting all the way back in 2003. Jones filled in for Stewart as anchor last fall, assisted by his wife Samantha Bee, when Stewart was out sick.

The show has also pushed for expanded diversity in its own cast, along with launching "The Nightly Show" with a black host and a minority panel, so that could point to a more diverse host in the future. The show has also recently expanded its international perspective, with Trevor Noah covering international news, Hasan Minhaj as the new Indian correspondent and Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef joining as a Middle East correspondent.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to "Rosewater" as a documentary; it is a drama, based on Maziar Bahari's memoir. KPCC regrets the error.

This story has been updated.

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

(The Paypers) AML data and tech company Vital4 has revealed its partnership with UK-based

(The Paypers) Acuant, a global identity verification solutions provider, has teamed up with

File: Los Angeles Unified 6th-grader Jack Spiewak performs as Macbeth at Eagle Rock Elementary School. District schools can now use a major source of federal funds to incorporate the arts into academics.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Los Angeles Unified School District officials have cleared the way for principals to tap into a major source of funding for arts programs targeting low-income students starting this fall.

Although state and federal officials previously said national Title I dollars, allocated to help disadvantaged students improve in academics, could be used for the arts instruction, some district officials had been reluctant to move ahead. The latest decision reverses the district's long-standing practice and opens the door for Title I-funded arts instruction that helps students improve their academic performance. 

"This has been a long time coming and this really is a day of rejoicing, quite frankly, in LAUSD," said Rory Pullens, the district's executive director of arts education. 

RELATED: For Pasadena school, arts plus math is really adding up

A two-page memo issued Thursday from Pullens, Deputy Superintendent Ruth Perez and Karen Ryback, executive director of Federal and State Education Programs, confirms the arts as a core subject and allows schools with high percentages of low-income students to use Title I funds for the arts.

Those schools "may utilize arts as an integration strategy to improve academic achievement," the directive reads. However, Title I funds are not allowed "to fund programs whose primary objective is arts education," according to the memo. As an example, the funds could be tapped to help students learn a character's point of view in a lesson that requires acting out a skit. 

Title I funding, developed in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, has been used historically to increase students success in reading and math. The funds have paid for efforts like reading coaches or math tutors, supplemental software programs and professional development for teachers to improve low-performing students' test scores.

At $14 billion a year, the Title I funds make up the federal government's largest expenditure for grades K-12. The majority of LAUSD schools receive Title I dollars.

Arts advocates have long sought to get the second-largest district in the country to shift its stance on Title I arts funding, arguing that the arts have been shown in research to boost student academic performance. 

LAUSD joins just a handful of districts around the state that have committed to a district-wide Title I plan including the arts. San Diego Unified, Sacramento City Unified and Chula Vista Elementary School District are among them, according to Joe Landon, executive director of the California Alliance for Arts Education. 

Landon says beyond these districts, the decision to use Title I for the arts is largely playing out on a school-by-school basis. Some principals are using Title I funds for the arts, but they're doing so largely under the radar, some fearing that state monitors will say the funds were used incorrectly. 

"At each level, there are people that are afraid," Landon said. The reason: schools are accountable for how Title I dollars are spent and misuse could cause schools to lose a valuable funding source. Despite the state and federal directives on Title I allowing arts instruction in academics, school officials have been hesitant to make changes because Title I spending is monitored so closely. 

Landon explained that a decision to use Title I funds for the arts is momentous for schools.

"When districts begin to move," he said, "that really changes it."

Attention turns to principals, funding gatekeepers

When Los Angeles Unified brought on Pullens, attracting him from a well-known arts school in Washington, D.C., he took on the task of securing Title I funding in his early months on the job. He said budgeting would be a huge challenge in increasing access to the arts for more of the district's students. 

The deed now done, Pullens said: "This was clearly a very high priority of what we wanted to accomplish and we are just so thrilled that this has finally come to pass."

It'll now be up to school principals to decide how much of their Title I funding to allocate for arts instruction. Pullens said plans to train principals on the benefits of arts integration are underway.

While the Title I arts spending is not mandatory, he expects the new directive to free up significant funding for the district's arts efforts. He didn't have exact estimates, but pointed out that schools' Title I funds range anywhere from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per school. 

As KPCC reported in July, only about 70 of the district's more than 500 elementary schools were on track to provide all four art forms (dance, visual arts, music and theater) for the 2014-2015 school year — a legal requirement under the California education code. 

Cheryl Sattler, senior partner with the Florida-based consulting firm Ethica, has worked closely with about 100 school districts nationwide and estimates only two have used Title I funding for the arts.

“The urgency is to try to get kids to read," she said, "and if you have kids, for example, in the 10th grade who are reading at a 3rd or 4th-grade level, it’s really hard to think past that, because that’s the emergency.” The arts are often left out of the conversation, according to Sattler, which means they're left out of funding.

“I think the issue is that largely principals, and school improvement committees, and other folks who are worried about academic performance don’t always look to the arts and they don’t always know the research about how powerful arts can be,” she said. 

The LAUSD directive described examples of arts integration activities that schools might consider:

• Invite community members to demonstrate or share their talents with students as a prompt for a writing assignment.
• Have students create models that display mathematical data pertaining to each planet of the solar system: distance from the sun, length of day and night, length of year, and day and night surface temperatures.
• Ask students to create a small piece of dance/movement that models their understanding of geometric concepts.
• Encourage students to explore the science of sound by utilizing rubber bands, oatmeal containers, coffee cans, balloons, etc. to construct one or more of the four families of musical instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion.
• Have students write and perform a short skit to illustrate a literary character’s point of view.
• Provide a lesson on utilizing a software program to create an animated film that highlights key historical events that occurred during the Civil War (In this instance, the cost of the software program would be an appropriate Title I expenditure). 

Supporting Title I Schoolwide Program 2-19-2015

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

In this file photo, students warm up in a mariachi class at Hamilton High School.; Credit: Susanica Tam for KPCC

Los Angeles Unified's arts education leaders took steps to renew long-dormant community partnerships with arts organizations Wednesday, part of an effort to revitalize arts education in the nation’s second largest school district. 

At the Los Angeles Cathedral in downtown L.A., the district's new arts ed director, Rory Pullens, held his first meeting with community arts organizations. More than 100 people representing several dozen groups attended the event.

Pullens outlined the district's arts plans and how community partners can help boost the arts for students.

“Guess what," Pullens said, getting a round of applause with cheers of support from some of the attendees. "We're back." 

RELATED: LAUSD decision ushers in new source of funding for arts education

Pullens lauded the district's recent announcement clearing the way for arts funding for low-income students, and pointed to new allocations this year that helped some of the district's schools purchase items like art supplies.

He also said the district is working on a school survey to create an arts equity index that will change the way the district allocates arts funds. The index would measure how well schools are providing arts instruction and arts access to students. Originally planned for release last year, the index is now expected next month.

But Pullens also painted a grim picture of the district’s current arts offerings. He said about a third of the district's middle schools currently offer little or no exposure to the arts. Some of the district’s students can go through both elementary and middle school without taking a single arts class, he said. Because of gaps in arts instruction, students who start learning an instrument in elementary school, for example, might not have classes to continue music study in their middle or high schools.

Pullens further talked about widespread budget problems, but took district leaders to task for failing to restore arts funding to the budget as the recession eased.

He said the arts education branch is still facing a deficit. Superintendent Ramon Cortines told reporters recently that the district as a whole is looking at a $160 million shortfall heading into the 2015-2016 school  year.

Despite the mixed funding news, for many in attendance, the meeting marked a positive shift in the district's arts strategy. Some groups currently serve as partners with the district, but the gathering was the first major effort in several years to reach out to organizations with the aim of restoring arts in the schools.

Jay McAdams, the executive director of 24th Street Theatre, said he remembered a few years back when the district emailed a cease-and-desist letter calling for an end to all arts partnership programs. He saw Wednesday's meeting as a major turnaround. 

"This is just a real breath of fresh air. There’s hope, there’s hope for first time in a long time for arts," he said. 

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

The studio arts program at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif., includes courses in painting. ; Credit: Photo courtesy of Cal Lutheran/Brian Stethem

California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks has taken the first steps toward building a new, art center with a commitment of at least $8 million in contributions and matching funds.

Over the weekend, the university's board of regents voted to spend $300,0o0 on design and planning for the new project. The complex will include offices and art studios in about 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of space.

RELATED: Top 10 arts education stories for 2014

The center will be the new home for the school's art department, which is currently spread out across the campus. 

"The facilities that they're in now are really not optimal," said Karin Grennan, the media relations manager for the university. 

The school offers instruction in studio arts, design and commercial art, digital art and art history. 

Grennan said the new project will add to the university's recent art initiatives: in 2012, the faculty members launched an art conference that's attracted international interest. Two conferences have been held so far and the next one will take place in November. The university is also raising funds to build a new performing art center on campus. 

Art collector and real estate developer William Rolland pledged up to $4 million toward the art center project, an amount the university will match. 

Rolland has previously donated money to the university, including contributions for the football stadium and art gallery. Rolland spent several decades as a real estate developer in Ventura County, and once lived in Thousand Oaks. 

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

Los Angeles Unified school board candidates, from left, Andrew Thomas, Ref Rodriguez and Bennett Kayser take a group photo after a debate at Eagle Rock High School on Feb. 5, 2015. ; Credit: Cheryl A. Guerrero for KPCC

Los Angeles Unified school board candidate Ref Rodriguez collected $21,000 in campaign donations from employees of his charter school network, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, in his bid to unseat incumbent Bennett Kayser in East Los Angeles’ District 5.

Most striking, a handful of his workers – a janitor, maintenance worker, tutor — are donating at or near the contribution limit, $1,100.

The contributions are a measure of supporters' high hopes to unseat Kayser in favor of Rodriguez, a candidate friendly to charter schools.

Rodriguez, an charter school administrator at Partnerships to Uplift Communities, received most of his financial support from the California Charter School Association Advocates, which received donations from such wealthy donors as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and philanthropist Eli Broad.

Kayser, a former teacher elected as a board member in 2011, collected his largest donations from labor unions, particularly the United Teachers Los Angeles. 

Most of the money working toward Kayser and Rodriguez's reelection are not funneled into their individual campaigns, but to independent expenditure committees which are not subject to the $1,100 contribution limit.

In her first foray into political giving, Luz Maria Lopez, an office worker, donated $1,000 donation to the Rodriguez campaign, twice the amount of Partnerships to Uplift Communities' CEO, Jacqueline Elliot.

“I really believe in Ref. My kids go to PUC schools,” said Lopez, who has been employed by PUC since it opened 15 years ago.  

The employee contributions weren't coerced and will not be reimbursed, Rodriguez said. Many of them can be traced back to a holiday break fundraiser at Rodriguez’s sister’s home in La Puente.

“I know for many of them this is a tremendous sacrifice,” he said. “It’s just been sort of an outpouring of folks belief in me and what we are trying to do for the city.”

Charter school groups major funders

Direct campaign donations from individual contributors, such as Rodriguez’ employees, make up 18 percent of the money spent in the LAUSD’s District 5 school board race. 

The biggest donor is charter school advocacy groups, such as the California Charter School Association Advocates.

Donations have also come from self-described education reform groups that support charter school expansion and firing teachers deemed ineffective, among other issues.

All told, the advocacy groups contributed more than $700,000 to activities in support of Rodriguez and working against Kayser.

On the other side, UTLA funneled $330,000 of members’ contributions to activities supporting Kayser and working against Rodriguez.

While UTLA has turned up its political spending in the board race to stay competitive, it is routinely outspent, said Oraiu Amoni, the union’s political director.

“We never are going to be able to match [reformers] dollar for dollar,” Amoni said. “So our biggest thing is making sure our members are educated, are engaged, are aware — and vote.”

So far, campaigns and committees have spent more than $2 million on the 13 Los Angeles Unified school board candidates, according to filings with the L.A. City Ethics Commission. The contributions have paid for mailing of glossy ads, phone banks, billboards, robocalls and commercials on Spanish-language radio. 

Total contributions are expected to increase in the few days remaining before the primary and swell again in any May runoff. 

Even in major races, aggressive campaigns fueled by growing contributions from special interest groups make it difficult for candidates not affiliated with interest groups to stay competitive.

Limitless independent expenditures are "playing a major role in smaller and local elections,” said Ryan Brinkerhoff, campaign manager for Andrew Thomas, the unaffiliated candidate in the District 5 race.

Thomas, a professor at Walden University, donated $51,000 to his campaign, making him his own biggest contributor. He’s also attracted sizable local support: about 70 percent of his campaign donations come from residents who live in District 5.

Thomas has received no contributions from political action committees or advocacy groups.

Can he win?

“I think so, but it’s getting harder and harder,” Brinkerhoff said. “The results of this election are going to be very telling.”

Outside contributors, local concerns

When public schools were created in the United States, local communities were given control over their governance. Outside money “undermines the relationship between community members and their local public institutions,” according to John Rogers, an education professor at UCLA. 

“It undermines their sense that they own those institutions, and those institutions are theirs to be shaped,” he said.

Without the funds from Broad, Bloomberg and other large donors, Rodriguez’s employees’ contributions would have made up more than 30 percent of his campaign support. Instead, it’s 4 percent.

Kayser has also received support from outside the district, including donations from the American Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association.

"The voters have an interest in open and transparent elections in which outside dollars don't have too large an influence," Rogers said. 

To read more about the school board election and City Council races, visit the KPCC 2015 voter guide.

Clarification: This article has been updated to make clear that the California Charter Schools Association does not support or advocate for teacher firing policies. Support for incumbent Kayser from outside the district has also been noted.

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

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Earth's magnetic field seems steady and true -- reliable enough to navigate by. Yet, largely hidden from daily life, the field drifts, waxes and wanes. The magnetic North Pole is currently shifting toward Siberia, forcing the Global Positioning System that underlies modern navigation to update its software sooner than expected. Every several hundred thousand years, the magnetic field dramatically shifts and reverses its polarity. Magnetic north flips to the geographic South Pole and, eventually, back again. This reversal has happened countless times over Earth's history, but scientists' understanding of why and how the field reverses is limited. The researchers find that the most recent field reversal 770,000 years ago took at least 22,000 years to complete, several times longer than previously thought. The results call into question controversial findings that some reversals could occur within a human lifetime.

Image credit: Brad Singer

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Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University