On June 7 the Sun unleashed an spectacular solar flare with a substantial coronal mass ejection. A large cloud of plasma mushroomed up, and while some parts fell back into the Sun, most rushed off into space. The first two segments of this video are seen through the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The AIA was developed by Smithsonian scientists.

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W. Atlee Burpee & Company Seed Co., 1898 The seed trade catalogs document the history of the seed and agricultural business in the United States; […]

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Nutmeg-loving toucans wearing GPS transmitters recently helped a team of scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama address an age-old problem in plant ecology: accurately estimating seed dispersal.

The post Toucans wearing GPS backpacks help Smithsonian scientists study seed dispersal appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

It is one of the rarest shrubs in the southeastern United States but for scientists trying to save it, the critically endangered Michaux’s sumac (Rhus michauxii) is not cooperating.

The post Super tough seed coat keeps Michaux’s sumac on critically endangered list appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

How specific fungi interact with seeds in tropical forest soils may be the ultimate arbiter in the struggle for survival among tropical trees. “Depending on […]

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No green thumb? You don’t need to water these dazzling orchids to enjoy them. More than 8,000 living specimens in the Smithsonian Gardens Orchid Collection […]

The post See thousands of orchids in incredible detail in the Smithsonian’s newly digitized collection appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Parents of students at Miramonte Elementary School escort children out of school on Feb. 6, 2012.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

A lawyer representing 58 students who settled a lawsuit related to the Miramonte sex abuse scandal two years ago said his clients are owed more money because another group of students who settled their lawsuit last fall for $139 million may be paid more, and that violates the terms of the first group's settlement. 

A total of more than 100 students and parents sued the district after former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt was charged with 23 counts of committing lewd acts, including feeding students cookies laced with semen. Berndt is serving 25 years in prison. 

Attorney Paul Kiesel's clients were among the first group of students who settled in 2013 for $470,000 each, a total of $30 million. In a claim submitted to the district on Feb. 6, Keisel argues that settlement prohibits other students from receiving more than his clients.

The settlement for Kiesel's group states that it is the intent of the parties that any future Miramonte-related settlements pay less per plaintiff than the $470,000 figure.  In the case of the suit that was settled for $139 million, a judge is deciding how much each plaintiff will receive; it is expected that some of the students will receive more than $470,000.

Kiesel's complaint seeks the difference between what his clients were paid and the highest amount awarded to students in the second group.

The $139 million settlement was the largest of its kind in Los Angeles Unified School District history. 

If Kiesel's clients prevail, the district's overall tab for the Miramonte case could significantly increase from the $170 million in settlements awarded so far. 

The school district has yet to respond to the claim and declined to comment for this story. 

Kiesel would not discuss the claim in greater detail, but attorney Raymond Boucher, who also represented students in the initial settlement, characterized its language limiting the size of future settlements as a "fairness clause.

"We are talking about a number of young children and you want to make sure they are all treated fairly and equally," Boucher told KPCC. 

Attorney Vince William Finaldi, who represented some of the students in the group that settled for $139 million last November, argued that the earlier settlement would need to include a "most favored nation clause" to prevail in court. 

"It needs to have two elements," Finaldi said. "The first element is a statement by the settling party that 'we agree not to pay anyone else more than X amount.' It also needs a second clause which states, 'in the event we do pay someone more than X amount, then we'll pay you Y amount," Finaldi said. 

The settlement for Kiesel and Boucher's clients does not include language stipulating what would happen if a future settlement pays out more money per plaintiff.

If L.A. Unified rejects Kiesel's claim, then he could ask a mediator or a court to resolve the dispute.

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

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should expand the requirement in its disability compensation process regarding who can diagnose traumatic brain injury (TBI) to include any health care professional with pertinent and ongoing brain injury training and experience, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Exide begins to remove lead-polluted soil on Monday morning at a house on the 1200 block of La Puerta Street in Boyle Heights.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

All five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have signed a letter imploring California Gov. Jerry Brown to intervene in the state’s handling of contamination around the Exide Technologies plant in Vernon.

The letter criticizing the state’s “piecemeal approach to an urgent environmental hazard” comes as workers paid for by Exide are removing lead-contaminated topsoil from two homes near the intersection of Olympic and Indiana avenues in L.A. 

Signed Tuesday, the letter asks for “guaranteed state funding to immediately begin testing” at 37 more homes also sampled, but to less specific degrees, during November 2013. In the words of the board, “further testing and remediation of the other 37 homes has not been confirmed and may not begin until at least October 2014 because Exide has not yet agreed to comply with DTSC directives issued last March.”

The supervisors also say the state has “reneged” on its commitments to test for lead inside the homes as well as outside.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control says that the two homes workers are at this week will be cleaned inside and out — even without indoor testing.  The DTSC’s Rizgar Ghazi said Monday that crews will use HEPA filters, vacuums and shampooing equipment on “basically any flat surface” inside the two residences.

Read the L.A. Board of Supervisors’ letter to Gov. Brown here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/236655733/LA-County-Supervisors-Letter-to-Gov-Brown-8-12-14

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

File: Western monarch butterfly in Huntington Beach; Credit: Courtesy of Huntington Beach Tree Society

A group of conservation organizations teamed up with a leading monarch butterfly scientist on Tuesday to petition for protection of the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act.

The monarch butterfly is one of the most iconic butterfly species in the country. But according to conservation group the Xerces Society, the monarch butterfly population is in trouble.

“Many scientists estimate that there are about 33 million monarchs. And just for comparison, in the past, researchers have estimated more than 1 billion monarchs,” said Sarina Jepsen, who directs the Endangered Species Program for the Xerces Society.

That’s a decline of about 90 percent in just fewer than 20 years, Jepsen said.

The main culprit in the monarch’s decline is the weed killer Roundup, Jepsen said. Most monarch caterpillars breed in the Midwest, and feed off of milkweed. While Roundup doesn’t kill genetically modified crops like soy and corn, it does kill milkweed.

“So, milkweed growing in a large agricultural landscape has largely disappeared in the last decade-and-a-half to two decades,” said Jepsen.

Other contributing factors include climate change and a general loss of habitat, Jepsen said. California’s drought might also play a role.

“There’s a real strong relationship between drought severity and the number of monarchs that we see in the winter on the California coast,” said Jepsen. “In years when droughts are worse, there are fewer monarchs.”

Thousands of the butterflies gather on California’s coast each winter. Spots locally includeLeo Carrillo Beach in Malibu and Doheny Beach in Dana Point, though the Xerces Society has observed a large decline in the butterflies at these locations in the last several decades.

More on the drought’s effect on the monarch population will be known around Thanksgiving, when a group of so-called "citizen scientists" with the Xerces Society perform an annual count of the monarchs.

Along with the Xerces Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food and Safety and leading monarch butterfly scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed the petition.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has 90 days to decide whether to go forward with a further review to potentially classify the monarch butterfly as threatened or endangered. 

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

State and local leaders break ground at a Louisville, Ky., coal-burning power plant in November 2012.; Credit: Dylan Lovan/AP

California State Senator Kevin de Leon says he’ll introduce legislation next month to get the state’s public employees retirement system off of coal.

Just back from ho-hum international talks in Lima, where he was a member of California's delegation, de Leon spoke at a conference in Oakland. It was sponsored by NextGen Climate, a nonpartisan group founded by billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer to raise the profile of climate change among issues in the U.S. political debate.

“With coal power in retreat, and the value of coal dropping, it’s time for us to lead again in moving our massive state portfolios to lower carbon investments,” De Leon said. “Divestment is about matching your values with your investment strategy — and still seeing positive financial returns… California has prohibited its energy companies from buying or importing coal power, and state funds should match that.”

De Leon proposes to divest the nation’s two largest public pension funds from coal. The California Public Employees Retirement System, or CALPERS, is the nation’s largest, controlling about $295 billion as of the end of September.  The California School Teachers Retirement System is a sister fund for pensions of nearly 850,000 California teachers. CALSTRS controls another $187.1 billion dollars in potential investments.

Burning coal for energy is a major source of greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. The move would lend momentum to a divestment movement already underway, largely targeted at investment funds belonging to colleges and universities nationwide.

Stanford and Pitzer College in Claremont are among a dozen universities that have pulled investments out of the coal industry. But others, including the University of California have refused. 

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

In case you missed the March for Science, last month?  I have the report!  Not that I went, no. Science enthusiasts all, my household was planning on going—  But then my younger teen daughter got felled by "bacteria"—  Possibly brought on by a dubious "pizza day" at her science magnet.

So I spent that Saturday at home, taking care of her— But we streamed the Washington DC and other marches, live on CNN!  So here is my report!

Let's quickly review the main points.  Worldwide, there were 600-plus cities participating, with high levels of enthusiasm.  The March for Science's stated mission was to be a positive, non-partisan march for scientists and scientific principles.  That alone is such a wonderful, counterintuitive idea.  Much humor and wit was seen.

As I did not get to go, and make my own hilarious sign—?  To honor the spirit of the occasion I would like to share two favorite jokes.

First: How do you tell the difference between an introverted and an extroverted mathematician? 
For the whole time the introverted mathematician is talking to you, he looks down at his shoes.  When the extroverted mathematician talks to you, the whole time he looks down at your shoes.  Ba-dum-bum.

I know I used the pronoun "he" in that joke—  As if to imply all left-brained people are male.  But no!  So here's the saying from when I attended Caltech—  Way back in the '80s—  And the male to female ratio was 7 to 1.  "Caltech: where the odds are good, but the good are odd."

Now to some of the funny—and sometimes punny—March for Science signs:

"If you're not the solution, you're the precipitate!"

That was next to: "Protest Cosine, Protest Sine."  Get it?  Protest. . . Sine?  Puns are hard on the radio.  So let's finish with the more "meta": "What do we want?  Evidence based research!  When do we want it?  After peer review!"  

Of course, there were less than non-partisan messages, too.  Just reporting here?  There were signs with the phrases "Black Hole" and "Absolute Zero" ghosted over our president's recognizeable silhouette.  The live feed from San Francisco brought: "Trump believes there's no global warming, as nothing is hotter than Ivanka."

That one made me snort, but I had to quickly tell my daughter, "that is totally inappropriate."
We decided a good sign was: "Mitosis, Not Division."

And a cute one on a dog that everyone can agree on.  "Support Labs."  Labs. 

Next week: Science is Love!

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

 
So, my 15 year old science magnet daughter and I experienced last month's exciting March for Science—!  From home, as she was temporarily felled by some bacteria.  Consuming an unscientific "cure" of chocolate pudding—?  We watched the march on CNN.

Now, the news changes so quickly you may not remember that just one month ago—?  There were shock waves due to proposed massive federal budget cuts—  Not just to climate change research, but to—surely the more non-controversial —National Institutes of Health.  I mean, health?  Who's anti-health?  Even MacDonald's is serving apple slices now, and kale!

The march was a mix of passion and fun. There were lots of great signs, including one with the classic line: If you're not the solution, you're the precipitate! Marchers came dressed as Einstein, dinosaurs, polar bears.

Then again—  And admittedly, at home, we were wearing bathrobes rather than labcoats—? A couple of humble notes.

 Some of the speakers in DC were less scientists than YouTube science explainers.  And pure research scientists—not to mention philosophers—might question some of the applause lines.  And I quote: "Science is inherently political!"  "Science is objective, but it is not neutral!"  What?  Then some of the marchers chanted back, with a decided New Age lilt: "Science is hope!"  "Science is our planet!"  "Peace, love, science!"  

I heard myself grousing to my daughter: "Sure.  It's like 'Nature.'  To some, 'Nature' is a beautiful flower.  But 'Nature' is also Stage 5 hurricanes and poison frogs who eat their own offspring.  And—and pitcher plants!  Have you seen pitcher plants?" 

The chants continued:  "Health is science!  Safety is science!  Clean water is science!  I yell at the TV: "PS: Nuclear missiles from North Korea?  SCIENCE!"

There were also heartfelt pleas from the stage for more "K-12 hands-on STEM-based learning."  I sympathize. I marched for that when my daughters were in elementary school.  Of course we want our children to be turned on to science—  To the classroom volcanos comically exploding with baking soda. To the wonders of milk carton pea plants, sunny farms of ladybugs.

But eventually, inexorably, comes The Ugly.  The multiplication tables, long division, algebra, trig, then calculus, if a career in science is really being pursued.  I just heard about a senior I know, an exceptional—and well-rounded—student.  He has a 4.5 GPA and almost-perfect SAT's, nosebleed-high!  But he has been shut out by all the UC's he applied to, including his third choice, UC San Diego.  Mwah!  SCIENCE!

Still, quibbles aside, science is the future.  We applaud all, and must forge on. Chocolate pudding recommended.

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

; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

This is my Earth Day homage, with the green cotton poplin coat and the nifty closures. Couture and hardware experts! Can I beseech you to tell us what this type of closure is called? The round metal gizmo is a grommet, but what do you call the short bar at the end of a chain that goes through the grommet to secure it?

I hope there’s some fanciful medieval word for it, because in my fevered romantic brain, it has the feel of the kind of clothing closure that might have been used for a coat of mail or doublet or surcoat or cotehardie or any of a number of divinely archaic phrases for wardrobe items.
 
Can a print still be spring-y when it’s on a black background, like this one? I’ve heard that there’s a new vogue for prints in tshirts. I would welcome that, because I’m weary of the myriad dreary fan-girl T-shirts, and the clever or hip ones meant to show that you are unique, along with the other two-million people wearing the identical shirt. I’ve seen enough devil’s horns and skulls and snakes to fill the Book of Revelations, so let’s just move along, shall we?
 
These shoes I wear, but rarely. Otherwise they doze quietly in their red flannel shoe bag: my green patent-leather Louboutins. I’d coveted them since seeing them new in a shop in London, when they cost about as much as my plane ticket. I lay in wait for years for someone to put them up on eBay.

The name of the style is “Iowa.” Did the person in charge of naming styles for M. Louboutin know that Iowa is a flat agricultural state smack dab in the middle of the United States? Or perhaps he or she simply liked the esthetics of a word with three vowels and a consonant. What leads me to suspect the latter is the fact that Paris has a wanna-be TexMex cafe named “Indiana.”

When I went there, it was chockablock with images of Indians, who have nothing to do with TexMex food and are not much associated these days with the state of Indiana.
 
For the life of me, I can’t remember where I got the bracelet, but the blue-green-colored “art glass” cabochons practically glow, like that magnificent iridescence that you find in nature. It goes by the fine name ‘’goniochromism,’’ which you should really start throwing around more in general conversation. It’s the purview of butterfly wings and peacock feathers and  scarabs and abalone shells, of course, and of that changeable taffets which seems to have a recrudescence every few years on the racks of prom gowns, and probably should not.

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

Camera brings unseen world to light

New way to 'see' objects accelerates the future of self-driving cars

Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable discusses the future of DNI Metals with the company's executive chairman.

Money manager Adrian Day discusses a general approach to the market, as well as recent developments at several companies on his list, including some buy recommendations, despite being overall cautious.

In this Jan. 14, 2015, photo, shipping containers are stacked up waiting for truck transport at the Port of Los Angeles.; Credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reopened Monday after ship loading and unloading was suspended this weekend because of a long-running labor dispute, which caused the worst delays the ports have seen in more than a decade.

The stoppage led to a queue of 31 ships, according to Kip Louttit, Executive Director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, the agency that manages ship traffic.

“It’s quite unusual,” said Louttit.

There was a 10-day lockout at the ports in 2002, and an eight-day strike by port clerks in 2012, but even during those standoffs, the queue never exceeded 30 vessels.

The last time that happened was in 2004, because of staffing shortages at the Union Pacific Railroad. Some 65 ships were anchored, "backed up halfway down to San Diego, like 50 miles down the coast," Art Wong, spokesperson for the Port of Long Beach, told JOC.com, a container shipping and international supply chain industry website.

By Monday afternoon, the situation had improved some: 24 vessels were waiting to dock.

Louttit says all those ships waiting at sea means cargo is not getting where it needs to be.

“We had an automaker from the Midwest stop by, trying to get an idea of what the flow would be, because their plants are running out of parts to make cars,” he said.

Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino, who supports the dockworkers union, called on both sides to reach an agreement quickly. To underscore the delays the dispute is having, he travelled a mile and a half out to sea Monday morning to count the number of anchored ships for himself. He posted a video of his trip on Youtube:

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

Camera brings unseen world to light

New way to 'see' objects accelerates the future of self-driving cars

The last two decades have seen a series of new construction waste policies management in Hong Kong. One of the most significant is an offsite construction waste sorting (CWS) programme which, since its implementation in 2006, has separated 5.11 million tonnes of construction waste into different materials. The researchers suggest that the study provides an important reference for other countries working to minimise construction waste.

Scientists have found that retreating glaciers and melting permafrost in Alaska are releasing up to 70% more methane – a potent greenhouse gas – than previously thought. If this estimate is true for the rest of the Arctic, this could have serious implications for global warming, say the scientists.

Increases in global energy requirements could lead to a rise in the energy sector's water footprint of up to 66% in the next 20 years, new research suggests. As part of a sustainable future, any energy mix must enable a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, some renewable sources, such as biofuels and large-scale hydropower, have large water footprints, a factor which must also be considered in energy policies, the researchers say.

As clients turn to vendor consolidation, IT firm may acquire captives global firms may hive off

Several of Federal Bank’s digital initiatives are finally seeing massive adoption as the Kochi-based bank works on automation and self service tools to boost profits.

The insurance company is planning to make more investments in digital selling and workforce management, thus eyeing the covid-19 situation as an opportunity to strengthen the digital posture than a business challenge.

April was a month of heavy-lifting for Anand Natarajan, COO, DBS Bank India, but the company’s investments made towards building a robust tech infrastructure made pandemic substantially easier for him.

In order for Hermine or any other tropical depression, to intensify there must be a pathway for heat energy from the ocean surface to enter the atmosphere. For Hermine, the conduit may have been one of the two "hot towers" that the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite observed on Aug. 31 at 4:09 p.m. EDT (2009 UTC).

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NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites caught Hurricane Newton's two landfalls in Mexico.

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After Tropical Depression 19W moved ashore in central Vietnam NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the system and found some powerful thunderstorms over Thailand, Vietnam and Laos capable of dropping heavy rainfall.

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The majestic auroras have captivated humans for thousands of years, but their nature -- the fact that the lights are electromagnetic and respond to solar activity -- was only realized in the last 150 years. Thanks to coordinated multi-satellite observations and a worldwide network of magnetic sensors and cameras, close study of auroras has become possible over recent decades. Yet, auroras continue to mystify, dancing far above the ground to some, thus far, undetected rhythm.

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NASA's Aqua satellite provided a visible image of Super Typhoon Meranti as it continued to move toward Taiwan and the northern Philippines.

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Several of Federal Bank’s digital initiatives are finally seeing massive adoption as the Kochi-based bank works on automation and self service tools to boost profits.

The insurance company is planning to make more investments in digital selling and workforce management, thus eyeing the covid-19 situation as an opportunity to strengthen the digital posture than a business challenge.

Curefit, which has come under fire from several of its staff that were laid off, is one of the many startups whose business has been directly impacted due to the virus outbreak

April was a month of heavy-lifting for Anand Natarajan, COO, DBS Bank India, but the company’s investments made towards building a robust tech infrastructure made pandemic substantially easier for him.

Hari Menon pointed out that deliveries were largely constrained due to lack of on-ground staff that had left cities in large numbers prior to the lockdown

The Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), in a latest advisory, has said while there is "nothing to worry" about such emails, users should update or change their passwords, used to login any of their social media or other online platforms, if they find them compromised.

The Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), in a latest advisory, has said while there is "nothing to worry" about such emails, users should update or change their passwords, used to login any of their social media or other online platforms, if they find them compromised.

Facebook said advertising revenue was roughly flat in the first three weeks of April compared with the same period last year

The short point is that data protection is not just about Aadhaar.

Various industry associations flagged concerns related to salaries, labour and liquidity, and sought structural reforms to be instituted at the earliest

“We request for your kind direction to the MHA on this very important recommendation from the industry which is duly considered and approved by the crisis management structure set up you – the Empowered Group of Technology and Data Management,” India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo wrote in the letter.

Tech lawyers say enforcement violates SC's 2017 privacy ruling and IT Act, which emphasises consent, proportionality & purpose limitation

The country saw a 22% jump in total number of attacks in the IoT segment during the quarter ended June, the report said.

While the cloud was seen as a good technology to adopt until some time ago, it has now become a must in order to navigate through these challenging times. Companies that are 100 percent on the cloud have been able to transition far more rapidly than others, making them more agile than their peers.