ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AGENCY
14 states sue EPA over chemical safety rule rollback
By Darryl Coote

Remains of a fertilizer plant and other buildings smolder 

after the plant exploded in West, Texas, on April 17, 2013. 

Photo by Larry W. Smith/EPA

Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Attorney generals of 14 states, Washington, D.C., and the city of Philadelphia sued the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for rolling back Obama-era safety regulations adopted to protect against disasters at chemical plants.

Late last year, the Trump administration nixed rules requiring companies to publicly disclose information about the chemicals they store at their facilities and other safeguards, such as outside audits and analyses of safer technology.

Known as the Chemical Disaster Rule, it was put in place to prevent harm caused by accidents after 15 people were killed in an explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant in 2013.

The Trump administration argued the safeguards were a regulatory burden on businesses and were unnecessary as arson was ruled as the cause of the Texas plant explosion.

RELATED Trump administration proposes further rollbacks of school lunch standardsThe lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by New York Attorney General Letitia James with the attorney generals of the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the city of Philadelphia.

"The Trump EPA is gutting critical safeguards against explosions, fires poisonous gas releases and other accidents at these facilities, putting New Yorkers in harm's way," said James said in a statement. "I am taking this fight to the courts because every New Yorker deserves to live in a safe and healthy environment."

She said more than 9 million New Yorkers will be affected by the rollback as they live within the so-called vulnerability zone of facilities covered by the regulations where a worst-case release of chemicals could harm them.

RELATED Appeals court strikes down EPA refinery waivers of biofuel blending requirements

The lawsuit follows one filed in December by a coalition of environmental groups by Earth Justice against the rollback.

"By killing these critical protections, millions of people living near chemical facilities in the United States are put in harm's way," the coalition said in a statement. "We are fighting for the lives and safety of our families and workers. Our lives are more valuable than the bottom line of a few chemical barons."

Oil Sands Investment Set for First Gain Since 2014 Crash
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH KENNEY, HIS TAX CUTS OR UCP AND ITS SERVICE CUTS AUSTERITY FOR ALBERTANS TAX GIVEAWAY TO BIG OIL Kevin Orland Bloomberg January 30, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- Investment in Canada’s oil-sands is forecast to grow for the first time since prices crashed in 2014.

Capital spending in the the world’s third-largest crude reserves is projected to rise 8.4% to C$11.6 billion ($8.8 billion) this year, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the industry’s main lobbying group.

The forecast signals a tentative return of optimism to the oil sands, where pipeline bottlenecks and environmental opposition made expansion difficult even after oil prices rebounded in recent years. CAPP attributes the expected gain to tax cuts implemented by Alberta’s new government, an easing of the province’s output limits and efforts in neighboring Saskatchewan to boost output.

“It has been a tough five years, and Canada has not fared well at a time when global demand continues to rise,” CAPP Chief Executive Officer Tim McMillan said in an interview. “It has taken some hard work, especially at the provincial level, to change the global view and put Canada back in a position where it can start to attract appropriate levels of capital again.”

Expenditures for Canada’s oil and natural gas sector as a whole may increase 5.4% to C$37 billion. Outside the oil sands, spending is projected to rise 4.1% to C$25.4 billion.

The additional C$2 billion in capital spending this year will create or sustain about 11,800 direct and indirect jobs across Canada, the organization projected. About 8,100 of those jobs will be in Alberta, which has struggled with elevated unemployment since the 2014 price crash.

Even with this year’s increase, the industry is still a long way from its headiest days. The projected oil-sands spending for 2020 is about one-third of the peak of C$33.9 billion in 2014, according to CAPP figures.

“In business terms, the spending increase is important enough to recognize,” McMillan said. “But just as important, it’s the changing of the trajectory from consistently losing capital investment to turning that around.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

U.S. economy misses Trump's 3% growth target in 2019
HE PROMISED 4%-6%GROWTH

 January 29, 2020

Shipping containers are pictured at Yusen Terminals at thew Port of Los AngelesMore

U.S. economy grew by 2.3% in 2019 -- the slowest rate of Trump's presidency

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy missed the Trump administration's 3% growth target for a second straight year, posting its slowest annual growth in three years in 2019 as the slump in business investment deepened amid damaging trade tensions.

The lofty growth goal has remained elusive despite the White House and Republicans' $1.5 trillion tax cut package, which President Donald Trump had predicted would lift growth persistently above that threshold. The economy grew 2.3% last year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was the slowest since 2016 and followed the 2.9% growth notched in 2018.

While the department's snapshot of gross domestic product showed the economy maintaining a moderate pace of growth in the fourth quarter, that was in part because of a smaller import bill, which is unsustainable. Consumer spending slowed considerably last quarter and that could persist with wage growth appearing to have stalled.

But the longest expansion in history, now in its 11th year, probably remains on track and a downturn is unlikely as the Federal Reserve's three interest rate cuts in 2019 kick in. The Fed kept rates unchanged on Wednesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters the U.S. central bank expected "moderate economic growth to continue" but also nodded to some risks, including the recent coronavirus outbreak in China.

"The new decade will bring about sub-potential GDP growth around 1.7% as numerous headwinds keep businesses sidelined while households reduce their outlays in line with gently cooling income," said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

The Trump administration's 18-month-long trade war with China last year fueled fears of a recession. Though the economic outlook has improved with this month's signing of a Phase 1 deal with Beijing, economists do not see a boost to the economy as U.S. tariffs remained in effect on $360 billion of Chinese imports, about two-thirds of the total.

Gross domestic product increased at a 2.1% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, matching the third-quarter pace, also as lower borrowing costs encouraged purchases of houses. Growth was also supported by increased government spending on defense.

That helped to offset the drag from a slower pace of inventory accumulation. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 2.1% rate in the fourth quarter.

Excluding trade, inventories and government spending, the economy grew at a 1.4% rate in the fourth quarter, the slowest in four years. This measure of domestic demand rose at a 2.3% pace in the third quarter.

Economists estimate the speed at which the economy can grow over a long period without igniting inflation at around 1.8%.

The White House claimed that slashing the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, as well as shrinking the trade deficit would boost annual GDP growth to 3.0% on an sustainable basis and pay for the tax cuts. Economists have long disagreed, pointing to structural issues like low productivity and population growth.

Some also argued that there was historically not a very strong relationship between corporate tax rates and business investment. Some companies including Apple used their tax windfall for share buybacks.

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday forecast the federal budget deficit will hit $1.02 trillion this year.

The dollar was little changed against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were trading higher. U.S. stock index futures briefly extended losses after the data.

BUSINESS INVESTMENT SLUMPING

Business investment fell at a 1.5% rate in the fourth quarter. It was the third straight quarterly decline and the longest such stretch since 2009. There were decreases last quarter in spending on nonresidential structures such as mining exploration, shafts and well, and industrial business equipment.

Spending on nonresidential structures contracted in 2019 by the most since 2016. Trade tensions have eroded business confidence and weighed on capital expenditure.

With confidence among chief executive officers remaining low in the fourth quarter after dropping to a 10-year low in the prior quarter, a rebound is unlikely soon.

Business investment is also seen pressured by Boeing's suspension this month of the production of its troubled 737 MAX jetliner, which was grounded last March following two fatal crashes. Boeing on Wednesday reported its first annual loss since 1997.

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slowed to a 1.8% pace after rising at a brisk 3.2% rate in the third quarter.

Though a separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing claims for state unemployment benefits fell last week, the tight labor market is not generating a faster pace of wage growth.

In the fourth quarter, personal income at the disposal of households after adjusting for inflation rose at a 1.5% rate, stepping down from a 2.9% pace in the third quarter.

The decrease in imports in the fourth quarter, in part because of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, compressed the trade deficit. That led to trade adding 1.48 percentage points to fourth-quarter GDP growth. Imports have, however, since rebounded.

Last quarter's decline in imports resulted in businesses almost depleting inventories in warehouses. A 40-day strike at General Motors also weighed on motor vehicle inventories.

Inventories rose at a $6.5 billion rate in the fourth quarter, the smallest gain since the second quarter of 2018, after increasing at a $69.4 billion pace in the July-September quarter. Inventory investment chopped 1.09 percentage points from GDP growth last quarter.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

MoviePass Owner Collapses Into Liquidation, Leaders Quit

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM, BUSINESS AS USUAL 

  (Bloomberg) -- The owner of MoviePass, which promised theater-goers unlimited admission for $9.95 a month, collapsed into bankruptcy and said it will liquidate.

The chaos that often surrounded the defunct subscription service followed it into bankruptcy court, with papers filed by parent Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc. in Manhattan giving wildly conflicting figures about what it owns and owes. A separate regulatory filing showed the interim chief executive, interim chief financial officer and its remaining board members have all quit.

On top of that, the company is facing probes by the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, New York’s attorney general and four California district attorneys, the bankruptcy petition shows.

MoviePass was a subscription service that let theater-goers see a different film every day for a monthly fee. But skepticism abounded about how the cash-burning business model could be sustained, and as money ran short, frustrated customers were turned away by theaters.

The New York-based company got a hastily arranged short-term loan to resume operations in July 2018 from Hudson Bay Capital Management. Meanwhile, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, two theater chains, launched their own services to rival MoviePass.

Helios & Matheson formally shut down the service last September, citing a failed money-raising effort. The bankruptcy papers show that one of the largest unsecured non-priority creditors is Hudson Bay Master Fund Ltd. with more than $30 million in claims.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a court-appointed official sells off assets to repay creditors. The initial petition shows publicly traded Helios & Matheson listed liabilities of as much as $50 million and assets of no more than $10 million.

But other pages list substantially different numbers -- one shows debts topping $267 million -- along with a disclaimer that it would be too expensive and burdensome to get current valuations of its assets. One tally, which cites intercompany claims, puts total assets close to half a billion dollars.

Interim Chief Executive Officer Parthasarathy Krishnan and interim Chief Financial Officer Robert Damon resigned, the company said. The shares have been effectively wiped out.

The case is Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., 20-10242, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan)

(Updates with pending investigations in the third paragraph)

--With assistance from Steven Church.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

• MoviePass' owner, Helios and Matheson Analytics, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• The company's interim CEO, Parthasarathy Krishnan, and CFO, Robert Damon, tendered their resignations upon filing.

Helios and Matheson Analytics, the owner of the defunct movie-ticket subscription startup MoviePass, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to a filling with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company's interim CEO, Parthasarathy Krishnan, and CFO, Robert Damon, tendered their resignations upon filing. The remaining members of the board of directors — Prathap Singh, Gavriel Ralbag, Muralikrishna Gadiyaram, and Joseph Fried — did so as well. 

The bankruptcy filing comes four months after the MoviePass service shut down. MoviePass also filed for bankruptcy separately on Wednesday. 

Helios and Matheson had lost hundreds of millions of dollars since August of 2017, when it acquired MoviePass and its then-CEO, Ted Farnsworth, dropped the monthly subscription price to see a movie at any theater once a day from $50 a month to $10.

The price change made MoviePass a must-have for movie fans overnight as the company was bombarded with hundreds of thousands of new subscribers. But the company could not find a stable business model, as it had to repay the movie theaters full ticket price on most of the movies its subscribers saw.

The price drop eventually led to downfall of MoviePass — which could never keep up with the demand and, as Business Insider reported in its definitive at the company's rise and fall, went to extreme lengths to keep the company afloat, which several sources said included blocking some subscribers out of their accounts — and Helios and Matheson along with it. The company's stock plummeted and after months of trading below $1, it was delisted from the Nasdaq in February of 2019.

Farnsworth, the mastermind of the $10-a-month plan, stepped down as the CEO of Helios and Matheson soon after MoviePass shut down and submitted an offer to purchase MoviePass and other assets owned by Helios and Matheson, including MoviePass Films and Moviefone.

Helios and Matheson has yet to sell MoviePass or its other assets.

Read our four-month investigation on the rise and fall of MoviePass on Business Insider Prime.

A four-month investigation by Business Insider chronicles the rise and fall of the movie-ticket-subscription startup MoviePass.

We tell the story of cofounder Stacy Spikes, who sought to shake up the tired movie-theater business by starting a subscription service.

Enter Florida businessman Ted Farnsworth, who injected much-needed cash into the company and introduced the risky idea of lowering the monthly subscription price to an impossibly low $9.95 a month.

The price change helped MoviePass become a sensation, but it also led to the ousting of Spikes — and the use of questionable tactics to keep the company afloat.

This story was published on August 6. Subsequently, MoviePass' parent company announced the service would shut down on September 14.

ARACHNOPHOBIA TRIGGER WARNING

Newly discovered neon-green spider named after the 'Lady Gaga of mathematics'
By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 

The spider is named after Cédric Villani, known as the 'Lady Gaga of mathematics,' who also loves spiders

The newfound Araniella villanii is an orb-weaver spider, a group that uses math to spin their webs.
(Image: © Anatoliy Ozernoy)

A newly discovered neon-green spider that uses math to build its incredibly precise and consistent webs has just been named after the "Lady Gaga of mathematics." The bright-green arachnid is part of the orb-weaver spider family (Araneidae), whose members "tend to build beautiful and architecturally aesthetic webs" that look like they adhere to the golden ratio, study lead researcher Alireza Zamani, a doctoral student in the Biodiversity Unit at the University of Turku in Finland, told Live Science.

In fact, a close relative — the garden orb-weaver spider (Araneus diadematus) — creates about 30 radial threads (the spoke-like lines extending from the web's middle) that form "an astonishingly constant angle of about 15 degrees, which the spider carefully measures using its front legs," Zamani said.

Related: Creepy, crawly & incredible: Photos of spiders

The newfound spider has similarly precise webs, he noted. To highlight the spider's fastidious weaving, Zamani named the newly discovered species Araniella villanii, after French mathematician Cédric Villani — the winner of the 2010 Fields Medal, a prize awarded to mathematicians under the age of 40. Villani is also apparently a huge spider fan.

"Villani’s love for spiders is evident by the constant presence of a spider brooch on his lapel," Zamani said. "Although he has never explained the reason behind his appreciation of these arachnids, we decided to make a connection between them in real life and name a mathematical spider after the spider-man mathematic!"

Image 1 of 3
The black "hairs" on the Araniella villanii spider are innervated, meaning they are sensory organs, much like a cat's whisker. (Image credit: Anatoliy Ozernoy)

2/3
The adult female Araniella villanii can grow to be 0.2 inches (6 millimeters) long. That's larger than the 0.1-inch-long (4.4 mm) males. (Image credit: Anatoliy Ozernoy)


3/3 

A juvenile spider (Araniella villanii) that researchers just recently described. (Image credit: Anatoliy Ozernoy)

Granted, the similarities between Villani and the spider end there. Like other members of the Araniella genus, A. villanii eats small flying insects and builds its webs in woods, bushes and low vegetation, where the spiders' green bodies are camouflaged. (It's no wonder the nickname for Araniella is "green cucumber spiders," Zamani said.)

"Living specimens of Araniella spiders usually have a beautiful, striking green coloration, which is quite rare in spiders," Zamani said. "This is due to certain bile pigments called 'biliverdin,' which makes them very difficult to detect in nature."

A. villanii also has spiky black hairs covering its body. These hairs are innervated, meaning they can sense the outside world, much like a cat's whiskers.

This discovery shows just how many unknown species are likely still out there. A. villanii "is known from southwestern Iran, eastern Kazakhstan and northern India, a distribution range covering at least 10 countries, and yet, the species was unknown to science until now," Zamani said.

The study was published online Jan. 22 in the journal ZooKeys.
Incredible photos of peacock spider
Huntsman spider devours possum in viral (and terrifying) photos
In photos: Fish-eating spiders around the world

Originally published on Live Science.

New coronavirus may have started in bats. But how did it hop to humans?
By Rachael Rettner - Senior Writer 

A new study provides more clues to the virus' origins.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

As a new coronavirus spreads in China and around the world, scientists are scrambling to find out exactly where it came from. Now, a new study provides more clues to the virus' origins, and points to bats as the most likely hosts.

In the study, published today (Jan. 29) in the journal The Lancet, the researchers analyzed 10 genome sequences of the novel coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, obtained from nine patients in China who were sick with the virus.

They found that all 10 of the genome sequences were extremely similar — they shared more than 99.98% of the same genetic sequence, the authors said. This suggests the virus made its "jump" to humans very recently, because if that jump had happened long ago, the virus sequences would have differed more, given the fast rate at which viruses tend to mutate and evolve.

"It is striking that the sequences of 2019-nCoV described here from different patients were almost identical," study co-lead author Weifeng Shi, a professor at the Key Laboratory of Etiology and Epidemiology of Emerging Infectious Diseases in Universities of Shandong Province, affiliated with Shandong First Medical University, said in a statement. "This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV originated from one source within a very short period and was detected relatively rapidly."
Related: 10 deadly diseases that hopped across species

Despite emerging in humans only recently, the virus has already infected about 6,000 people and caused 132 deaths in China, while spreading to 15 other countries, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the initial cases occurred in people who worked at or visited the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, where a variety of wild animals were sold.

To learn more about the virus' origins, the researchers compared the 2019-nCoV genetic sequence with those in a library of viral sequences, and found that the most closely related viruses were two coronaviruses that originated in bats; both of those coronaviruses shared 88% of their genetic sequence with that of 2019-nCoV. (When compared with two other coronaviruses known to infect people — SARS and MERS — 2019-nCoV shared about 79% of its genetic sequence with SARS and 50% with MERS.)

Based on these results, the authors said the 2019-nCoV likely originated in bats. However, no bats were sold at the Huanan seafood market, which suggests that another yet-to-be-identified animal acted as a steppingstone of sorts to transmit the virus to humans.

"It seems likely that another animal host is acting as an intermediate host between bats and humans," said study co-lead author Guizhen Wu, of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, the outbreak of 2019-nCoV "again highlights the hidden virus reservoir in wild animals and their potential to occasionally spill over into human populations," the authors wrote.

A previous study suggested snakes, which were sold at the Huanan seafood market, as a possible source of 2019-nCoV. However, some experts have criticized the study, saying it's unclear if coronaviruses can infect snakes. 

The 9 deadliest viruses on Earth
27 devastating infectious diseases
11 surprising facts about the respiratory system

Originally published on Live Science.

ALSO SEE 
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/01/scientists-now-think-they-know-what.html

 SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BATS
 SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=ZOONOSIS
 SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CORONAVIRUS
 SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=WUHAN

The sun looks like caramel corn in highest-resolution image ever of our star

By Nola Taylor Redd - Live Science 
CLICK HERE TO READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE
WITH VIDEOS AND LINKS

The world's largest solar telescope has revealed its first detailed image of the sun.

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), the world's largest solar telescope, captured its first image of the sun — the highest-resolution image of our star to date — last month.

The image begins what scientists hope will be a nearly 50-year study of the Earth's most important star. The new images reveal small magnetic structures in incredible detail. As construction on the 4-meter telescope winds down on the peak of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui, more of the telescope's instruments will begin to come online, increasing its ability to shed light on the active sun.

Inouye's unique resolution and sensitivity will allow it to probe the sun's magnetic field for the very first time as it studies the activities that drive space weather in Earth's neighborhood. Charged particles shed from the sun can interfere with Earth's mechanical satellites, power grids and communication infrastructure. The new telescope will also delve into one of the most counterintuitive solar mysteries: why the sun's corona, or outer layer, is hotter than its visible surface.

"These are the highest-resolution images and movies of the solar surface ever taken," Inouye director Thomas Rimmele said during a news conference on Friday (Jan. 24). "Up to now, we've just seen the tip of the iceberg."

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope's first published image of the sun is the highest-resolution image of our star to date. (Image credit: NSO/NSF/AURA)

"A Swiss Army Knife" 

Construction began on the Inouye Solar Telescope in 2012. Since then, the telescope has remained on budget and on schedule, according to Dave Boboltz, the program director for the National Science Foundation Astronomy Division.

The telescope captured the newly released image, which is its first engineering image, on Dec. 10, 2019, but the observatory is not yet complete. Only a single instrument, the Visible Broadband Imager (VBI), was operational at that time. The VBI takes extremely high-resolution images of the solar surface and lower atmosphere.

The observatory's second instrument, the Visible Spectro-polarimeter (VISP), began operation on Thursday (Jan. 23). Like a prism, VISP splits light into its component colors to provide precise measurements of its characteristics along multiple wavelengths. The remaining instruments will be turned on as construction continues on the 13-story building, with full operations planned to begin in July 2020.

"We're now in the final sprint of a very long marathon," Rimmele said.

The first light-images captured are a false color image of the sun. Because the building is still under construction, the images were only processed but not analyzed for scientific results. However, Rimmele said that the magnetic structures that previously appeared in solar images as single bright points are now visible as several smaller structures, providing a hint the new solar telescope's capabilities.

The next instrument that will be delivered to the summit will be the Cryogenic Near Infrared Spectra-Polarimeter, which will study the solar atmosphere at infrared wavelengths, in order to probe magnetic fields in the sun's corona over a large field of view. Soon after, the Diffraction Limited Near Infrared Spectrom-Polarimeter will arrive, eventually using optical fibers to collect spectral data at every point in a two-dimensional solar image, allowing it to simultaneously measure spatial and spectral information. The final instrument, the Visible Tunable Filter, will capture very high-resolution images of the sun while performing high speed scans of the light that can identify atoms and molecules.

Inouye is meant to operate for 44 years, which should cover two of the sun's full 22-year solar cycles. Its suite of instruments will likely change over time.

"The real power in the Inouye Solar Telescope is its flexibility, its upgradability," Boboltz said. "It's like having a Swiss Army Knife to study the sun."

A close-up of the solar telescope's first published image. (Image credit: NSO/NSF/AURA)


Solar solver 

The sun constantly sheds material into space in all directions. This ongoing solar wind interacts with the Earth's magnetic field, causing the auroras.

Other outbursts are more dramatic. Occasionally, the sun will spit out large chunks of plasma and particles known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs); if these reach Earth, they can affect satellites and power grids, with the most powerful causing blackouts. One of the best-known modern catastrophes occurred in 1989 when a geomagnetic storm hit Quebec, sparking a nine-hour blackout across the Canadian territory. Studies have set the cost of a widespread blackout from tens of billions to trillions of dollars, depending on the circumstances.

Such effects could become more severe. "Our expanding dependence on technology greatly increases our vulnerability to space weather," Boboltz said.

The effects can be small but devastating. In September 2017, as a trio of hurricanes advanced across the Caribbean, solar flares caused multiple radio blackouts on the sunlit side of Earth. Multiple radio blackouts halted communications during the dangerous time, sometimes for as long as 8 hours.

"A naturally occurring event on Earth and a naturally event on the sun, when combined, represent a much bigger threat to our society," National Science Foundation Director Valentin Pillet said during the news conference.

An infographic shows the scale of the features captured in the newly released image. (Image credit: NSO/NSF/AURA)

The Inouye telescope should allow astronomers to learn more about what drives space weather. This understanding may help speed predictions for the most extreme events, allowing a faster response during dangerous situations.

Inouye will not act alone to accomplish this. "To really understand the drivers and the impact of space weather, we need to use two complementary approaches," Pillet said. Inouye will handle the first, making in-depth observations of the magnetic surface of the sun.

The second approach requires sending spacecraft close to the sun.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018 and will get within 4 million miles (6 million kilometers) at its closest approach to the star. In February, NASA and the European Space Agency will launch the Solar Orbiter, a mission dedicated to studying the sun's heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles blown into space by the solar wind. 

The trio are "very complementary in different ways," Pillet said. While Inouye will provide a detailed look at the sun's magnetic field, the space missions will place its observations in context with solar activity and solar weather.

Together, "they will be at the forefront of discovery for the next half century," Pillet said. "It really is a great time to be a solar astronomer," he said.

"House of the sun" 

Haleakala, Hawaiian for "House of the Sun," seems like the ideal setting for a solar telescope. World famous for its spectacular sunrises, the dormant volcano receives about 15 minutes more daylight than the sea-level portion of the island of Maui.

According to Hawaiian tradition, the volcano took its name from a trick played on the sun by the demi-god Maui. Maui's mother complained that the sun sped across the sky so fast that her cloth could not dry. The trickster climbed to the top of the mountain and lassoed the sun, refusing to release it until the sun agreed to slow down. To secure his release, the sun agreed to travel more slowly for six months of the year.

The spiritual significance of Hawaiian peaks has wreaked havoc for other telescopes. Protests about the growing astronomical presence on Mauna Kea have halted construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope. Inouye didn't escape opposition. In 2015 and 2017, hundreds of protesters gathered to block construction vehicles from traveling to the top of the peak.

Since then, the telescope's officials have met twice a year with a working group of native Hawaiians, whom they intend to bring to see the finished telescope. A new Science Support Center was also built at the base of the mountain to provide off-site support, and the peak remains open to native Hawaiians who wish to practice their religion on its slopes.

The National Solar Observatory has also put together a set of lesson plans for middle school teachers that highlight Hawaii's long history of astronomy that was presented to local teachers in 2019.

"We've been able to smooth over a lot of that contention," Boboltz said.
A million geysers of plasma spout from the sun, and scientists may finally know why 
NASA eyes missions to track space weather threats with small satellites 
See the sun flip out in wild new satellite view 

l

Trove of Jewish artifacts discovered beneath a synagogue destroyed by Nazis during WWII

Restorers discovered numerous objects concealed under the synagogue floor.

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 

Inscriptions on religious artifacts could reveal 

the identities of Jewish people who donated 

the objects to the synagogue.
(Image: © Michał Wojenka)


A historic synagogue near Kraków, Poland, was mostly destroyed by Nazis during World War II, but a secret hoard of precious ritual objects that was hidden there remained undetected and undisturbed — until now.

Recently, restorers at the Old Synagogue, an 18th-century temple in Wieliczka, Poland, unexpectedly found a cache of Jewish artifacts and other silver items in a large, wooden crate that had been concealed under the floor. They uncovered the crate while digging a hole to test the soundness of the building's foundation, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

The box — which measures about 3 feet high, 2 feet wide and 4 feet long (80 by 70 by 130 centimeters) — was crammed with around 350 objects, including a silver goblet with flowery designs, bronze vases inscribed with Hebrew writing and silver-plated candlesticks, according to the Chronicle.

Also among the artifacts were two menorahs (nine-armed candelabras that are lit during Hanukkah), two rimonim (decorative ornaments that crown a Torah scroll) and an ornate silver plaque that hung at the front of a Torah, Polish news outlet Gazeta Wyborcza reported. On the plaque were raised images of lions on pillars holding a crown over the Ten Commandments, and an attached silver chain led to a yad, a ritual pointer used for reading the Torah.

Time had rotted the wooden frame of the hidden box, but the objects inside, packed tightly together, were in good condition. Most of them are thought to date to the 19th century and would have been used in religious rituals, though there were some unusual exceptions: 18 badges from military caps of infantry officers in the Austro-Hungarian army. The badges bore the initials of Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph, who ruled from 1848 until 1916, according to Gazeta Wyborcza.

Ritual objects were packed closely together in a wooden crate.

(Image credit: Michał Wojenka)
One possible explanation is that military caps were used to line the box and protect the ritual objects at the time when they were packed up and buried. But the fabric later rotted away, leaving only the badges behind, Michał Wojenka, a researcher with the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology and leader of the investigation of the artifacts, told Gazeta Wyborcza.

When the box was hidden and who concealed it remain unknown. However, further investigation of the religious artifacts could reveal clues about individuals in Wieliczka's Jewish community, as ritual objects are often inscribed with the names of the people who donated them, according to the Chronicle.

Approximately 1,135 Jews lived in Wieliczka according to records from the 1920s, but most of the community was deported and murdered during World War II, and few who survived returned to the city after the war ended, the Chronicle reported.

AP Explains: How climate change feeds Africa locust invasion

By CARA ANNA January 23, 2020   

     

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Locusts by the millions are nibbling their way across a large part of Africa in the worst outbreak some places have seen in 70 years. Is this another effect of a changing climate? Yes, researchers say. An unprecedented food security crisis may be the result.

The locusts “reproduce rapidly and, if left unchecked, their current numbers could grow 500 times by June,” the United Nations says.

Here’s a look at what’s going on and where the voracious insects might be going next.

A LOCUST OUTBREAK? WHAT’S THAT LIKE?

The swarms of desert locusts hang like shimmering dark clouds on the horizon as they scour the countryside in what are already some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, including Somalia. Roughly the length of a finger, the whirring insects in huge numbers have destroyed hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of vegetation and forced people in some areas to bodily wade through them.

“A typical desert locust swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometer,” the East African regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, has said. “Swarms migrate with the wind and can cover 100 to 150 kilometers (62 to 93 miles) in a day. An average swarm can destroy as much food crops in a day as is sufficient to feed 2,500 people.”

Alarm and exasperation mix with curiosity as people try to shoo the locusts away by shouting, waving pieces of clothing or banging on sheets of corrugated metal. In rural Kenya, men dashed along a path waving leafy branches at the insects and laughing in astonishment.

“These things here, they came to us from Ethiopia and are destroying everything along the way including our farm,” said Esther Ndanu in the Kenyan village of Ngomeni. “We want the government to move very quickly to bring the plane to spray them with the medicine that can kill them, otherwise they will destroy everything.”

“I am seeing a catastrophe,” local official Johnson Mutua Kanandu said.

WHERE IS THIS HAPPENING?

An “extremely dangerous increase” in locust swarm activity has been reported in Kenya, East Africa’s economic hub, regional authorities reported last week. One swarm measured 60 kilometers (37 miles) long by 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide in the country’s northeast, IGAD said.

Kenya hasn’t seen a locust outbreak like this in 70 years, Rosanne Marchesich, emergency response leader with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said Wednesday.

“It’s the worst that we’ve seen in Ethiopia and in Somalia in 25 years,” she added, noting extensive damage to crops. Millions of people in both countries already cope with the constant risk of drought or flooding, as well as deadly unrest in Ethiopia and extremist attacks in Somalia.

Now South Sudan, struggling to emerge from a civil war, and Uganda are bracing for the locusts’ arrival.

“Uganda has not had to deal with a locust infestation since the ’60s so there is concern about the ability for experts on the ground to be able to deal with it without external support,” Marchesich said. “And in a country like South Sudan, already 47% of the population is food insecure.”

This week Uganda’s prime minister told agriculture authorities that “this is an emergency and all agencies must be on the alert,” the government-controlled New Vision newspaper reported.

HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE INVOLVED?

Heavy rains in East Africa made 2019 one of the region’s wettest years on record, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker. He blamed rapidly warming waters in the Indian Ocean off Africa’s eastern coast, which also spawned an unusual number of strong tropical cyclones off Africa last year.

Heavy rainfall and warmer temperatures are favorable conditions for locust breeding and in this case the conditions have become “exceptional,” he said.

Even now rainfall continues in some parts of the vast region. The greenery that springs up keeps the locusts fuelled.

“Countries are trying to prepare but this took them by surprise,” Babiker said.

The further increase in locust swarms could last until June as favorable breeding conditions continue, IGAD has said. But Babiker said it is hard to say for sure when this outbreak will be over.

“This has become psychologically pressurizing,” he said, delicately.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Major locust outbreaks can be devastating. One between 2003 and 2005 cost more than $500 million to control across 20 countries in northern Africa, the FAO has said. It caused more than $2.5 billion in harvest losses.

To help prevent and control outbreaks, authorities analyze satellite images, stockpile pesticides and conduct aerial spraying. In Ethiopia, officials have said they deployed four small planes to help fight the invasion.

The U.N. on Wednesday allocated $10 million for aerial spraying, with humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock saying families across the region “now face the prospect of watching as their crops are destroyed before their eyes.”

___

Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda contributed.

PHOTO ESSAY

Worst Locust Swarms in 

Decades Hit East Africa

• ALAN TAYLOR
   
• JANUARY 28, 2020
  SEE   
• 15 PHOTOS
   
• IN FOCUS

Hundreds of millions of desert locusts are swarming in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—some of the biggest numbers seen in more than 25 years. Unusually wet weather in the area toward the end of 2019 has contributed to the massive outbreak, driving an explosion of locusts that are destroying crops and threatening food security across the region. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is requesting international assistance to combat the swarms, and warning of the potential for massive growth if they are left unchecked.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIBLICAL
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PLAGUE
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=LOCUSTS
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=AFRICA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KENYA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SOMALIA