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"title": "Bay Area Logs Especially Wet May",
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"content": "\u003cp>In recent drought years, some sunny January days felt like summer. But this year, the opposite was true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region was soaked with the most May rain it has received in 21 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The weather pattern literally looked like something straight out of January, but it’s May,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA. “This regression back towards winter like conditions is amazing. There was a significant amount of rain near the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was San Francisco’s 12th wettest May on record, according to the National Weather Service. The agency’s \u003ca href=\"https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=mtr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">records\u003c/a> show 2 inches of rainfall collected at San Francisco International Airport in May, the most since 1998, when 2.37 inches fell there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cause of all the rain is an unusually strong jet stream located farther south than normal, Swain said. The rain is even stranger, Swain added, because the region’s long-term trend is towards drier springs. “This May really stands out as an outlier from that perspective,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a rainier-than-normal winter, there was an abrupt end to the rainfall in March and virtually no rain in April. That’s a major reason why this \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941908/this-years-bay-area-pollen-season-is-really-bad-heres-why\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">year’s pollen season\u003c/a> has been so tough for people with allergies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain said the pollen season will likely last even longer this year after all the rain. June’s forecast shows warmer than average days on the horizon as the beginning of summer approaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allergy sufferers can find KQED’s pollen forecast \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1940604/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The region was soaked with the most May rain in 21 years. 'The weather pattern literally looked like something straight out of January, but it's May,' said Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In recent drought years, some sunny January days felt like summer. But this year, the opposite was true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region was soaked with the most May rain it has received in 21 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The weather pattern literally looked like something straight out of January, but it’s May,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA. “This regression back towards winter like conditions is amazing. There was a significant amount of rain near the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was San Francisco’s 12th wettest May on record, according to the National Weather Service. The agency’s \u003ca href=\"https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=mtr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">records\u003c/a> show 2 inches of rainfall collected at San Francisco International Airport in May, the most since 1998, when 2.37 inches fell there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cause of all the rain is an unusually strong jet stream located farther south than normal, Swain said. The rain is even stranger, Swain added, because the region’s long-term trend is towards drier springs. “This May really stands out as an outlier from that perspective,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a rainier-than-normal winter, there was an abrupt end to the rainfall in March and virtually no rain in April. That’s a major reason why this \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941908/this-years-bay-area-pollen-season-is-really-bad-heres-why\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">year’s pollen season\u003c/a> has been so tough for people with allergies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain said the pollen season will likely last even longer this year after all the rain. June’s forecast shows warmer than average days on the horizon as the beginning of summer approaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allergy sufferers can find KQED’s pollen forecast \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1940604/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Doctor's Crusade Against Sharp Limits on Opioids for 'Legacy Patients'",
"headTitle": "A Doctor’s Crusade Against Sharp Limits on Opioids for ‘Legacy Patients’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>About four years ago, Dr. Stefan Kertesz started hearing that patients who had been taking opioid painkillers for years were being taken off their medications. Sometimes it was an aggressive reduction they weren’t on board with, sometimes it was all at once. Clinicians told patients they no longer felt comfortable treating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [pullquote]‘I think I’m particularly provoked by situations where harm is done in the name of helping. What really gets me is when responsible parties say we will protect you, and then they call upon us to harm people.’[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, a primary care physician who also specializes in addiction medicine, had not spent his career investigating long-term opioid use or chronic pain. But he grew concerned by the medical community’s efforts to regain control over prescribing patterns after years of lax distribution. Limiting prescriptions for new patients had clear benefits, he thought, but he wondered about the results of reductions among “legacy patients.” Their outcomes weren’t being tracked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Kertesz is a leading advocate against policies that call for \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/3/429/5218985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aggressive reductions\u003c/a> in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. He argues that well-intentioned initiatives to avoid the mistakes of the past have introduced new problems. He’s warned that clinicians’ decisions are destabilizing patients’ lives and leaving them in pain — and in some cases could drive patients to obtain opioids illicitly or even take their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I’m particularly provoked by situations where harm is done in the name of helping,” Kertesz said. “What really gets me is when responsible parties say we will protect you, and then they call upon us to harm people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a case that Kertesz, 52, has tried to make with nuance and precision, bounded by an emphasis on the history of overprescribing and the benefits of tapering for patients for whom it works. But against a backdrop of tens of thousands of opioid overdose deaths each year and an ongoing reckoning about the roots of the opioid addiction crisis, it’s the dialectical equivalent of pinning the tail on a bucking bronco. Kertesz’s critics have questioned his motives. He’s heard he’s been called “the candyman.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942580\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 615px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1942580\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"615\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018.png 615w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018-160x148.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Stefan Kertesz a leading advocate against policies that call for aggressive reductions in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. \u003ccite>(University of Alabama at Birmingham)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I am really worried that people like Stefan Kertesz, who is trying to champion ‘patient-centered care,’ in some ways are feeding into the same misleading messaging rolled out by Purdue [Pharma] and others that not to prescribe opioids is tantamount to torturing patients,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/17/chronic-pain-management-opioids/\" rel=\"\">The debate is playing out\u003c/a> as doctors try to move beyond their days of overprescribing while responsibly treating chronic pain. It is also playing out in settings like Kertesz’s office here at a Veterans Affairs clinic, where a patient named Jerry Brown, a 63-year-old former boilermaker and carpenter, recently showed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown had a compressed spinal cord and severe neck pain. For more than a decade, dating back to before he started seeing Kertesz, he had been taking about 300 morphine milligram equivalents (MME) of opioids a day — a dosage equivalent to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/calculating_total_daily_dose-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than three times\u003c/a> the level that clinicians should “avoid or carefully justify,” according to federal officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz and Brown tried a 10% dose reduction a few years ago. But Brown became volatile and less active and complained of revived pain, so Kertesz eased back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, who treats patients who are or have been homeless, told Brown that he had “incurred risk” with his dose. “Do you know that I wish you hadn’t had your doses increased?” he asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” Brown replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They could try again to taper the dose to reduce that risk. But Brown had stable housing and activities to keep him busy — he helped his ex-wife out at her home and cleaned up after her Chihuahuas. He had anxiety and sometimes had trouble getting to the clinic because of transportation problems. But there was no evidence he had misused or sold his drugs, or misused other substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this case, Kertesz’s takeaway was: “Leave well enough alone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/span>pioid prescribing has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/maps/rxrate-maps.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">declining since 2012\u003c/a>, though levels remain higher than they were two decades ago. Today, depending on the estimate, anywhere from \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/4/724/5301726?utm_content=buffer9586d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">8 million\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/3/429/5218985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">18 million\u003c/a> Americans take opioids for chronic pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interest in reducing their dosages is predicated in part on efforts to minimize patients’ risk of overdose and addiction. But there are other considerations. Enduring opioid use makes people more sensitive to pain, many experts believe. Opioid use has also been associated with anxiety, depression, and other health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, as people become dependent, the drugs might just be staving off symptoms of withdrawal that would come without another dose, rather than treating the original source of pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, experts say, long-term opioid use is not good medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, who is also a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, agrees with all of that. But he believes that lowering dosages will hurt some patients who are leading functional lives on opioids, and that top-down strategies won’t protect them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in 2015, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proposed prescribing guidelines for primary care clinicians treating chronic pain, Kertesz grew nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2016/03/15/opioids-painkillers-cdc/\">The guidelines\u003c/a>, a set of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/rr/rr6501e1.htm?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fmmwr%2Fvolumes%2F65%2Frr%2Frr6501e1er.htm#contribAff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">measured recommendations\u003c/a> finalized in March 2016, suggested clinicians try other therapies for pain before moving to opioids and prescribe only the lowest effective dose and duration of the drugs. (The guidelines do not apply to end-of-life or cancer care.) For patients on high doses, the guidelines said, “If benefits do not outweigh harms of continued opioid therapy, clinicians should optimize other therapies and work with patients to taper opioids to lower dosages or to taper and discontinue opioids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our day-to-day practice aligns with nearly all principles laid out in the guideline,” Kertesz wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@StefanKertesz/considering-cdc-s-proposed-2016-guideline-for-prescribing-opioids-for-chronic-pain-a-good-start-e7cf22be40cd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a comment\u003c/a> he submitted on the draft. But he cautioned the voluntary recommendations could be implemented too stringently by others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a guideline like no other … its guidance will affect the immediate well-being of millions of Americans with chronic pain,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the release of the guidelines, Kertesz started seeing ripple effects. In early 2017, federal officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/docs-warn-that-medicare-crackdown-will-hurt-pain-patients-235917\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unveiled a Medicare proposal\u003c/a> that would have blocked prescriptions higher than 90 MME without a special review. Around the same time, the National Committee for Quality Assurance considered docking clinicians’ scores if they had patients on high doses for long periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, other experts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/ama/76256\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some medical societies\u003c/a> protested such proposals, contending they invoked the CDC guidelines while violating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942586\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1942586\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-800x525.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-800x525.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-768x504.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1020x669.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1200x787.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1920x1260.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The prescription medicine OxyContin is displayed. \u003ccite>(Darren McCollester/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Most of us wish to see an evolution toward fewer opioid starts and fewer patients at high doses,” Kertesz and colleagues \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@StefanKertesz/an-opioid-quality-metric-based-on-dose-alone-80-professionals-respond-to-ncqa-6f9fbaa2338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote in response\u003c/a> to the NCQA plan. “The proposed NCQA measure indulges no such subtleties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discussion overall has been hindered by limited research, including evidence for the benefits of forced tapering. But \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/prescribing-policies-states-confront-opioid-overdose-epidemic.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as of October 2018\u003c/a>, 33 states had codified some prescription limits into law. Pharmacies and insurers capped prescriptions at 90 MME. Law enforcement agencies warned high prescribers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some initiatives have focused on avoiding “new starts,” not on tapering legacy patients. But Kertesz and other advocates argued the pressure of all the policies and warnings inculcated an anxiety around prescribing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chronic pain patients were seen as legally risky and medically complicated, so they had trouble finding providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz and his allies raised their concerns in \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/24/opioids-prescribing-limits-pain-patients/\" rel=\"\">the popular\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27858590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">academic presses\u003c/a> and at conferences, building momentum over the years. They collected anecdotes from patients who said they had been harmed in some way by dose reductions or involuntary tapers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is imperative that healthcare professionals and administrators realize that the Guideline does not endorse mandated involuntary dose reduction or discontinuation,” read \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzQDSppUKhjiAsEmhW2WbTXlP5V8vJ4M_vBPQLKhK_8/edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a March letter\u003c/a> co-authored by Kertesz calling on the CDC to reiterate its recommendations were not binding. The letter continued: “Patients have endured not only unnecessary suffering, but some have turned to suicide or illicit substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 300 patient advocates and experts, including three former White House drug czars, signed it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">K\u003c/span>\u003c/span>ertesz sees his advocacy work as an extension of several throughlines in his career. For one, he has patients who have been on opioids for years, and he knows the stress clinicians face when renewing a high-dose prescription. He also has a history of arguing for causes that stretches back to writing op-eds for his high school newspaper in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his willingness to take on what he sees as injustices does not mean he feels self-assured about doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every single bit of it involves ambivalence and driving myself crazy,” he said. “Like, am I making a mistake? Am I going to blow up my career?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kertesz thinks, he leans forward and pulls his hair back. His obsessive streak extends to both his career and his personal life. (He’s become a fencing fanatic, having taken up the sport less than six years ago.) When he talks about medicine, he pauses mid-conversation to point out whether his statements are based on randomized trials or his own inference. He can appear scatterbrained and is working with a coach to become more structured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not like a heroic figure on a horse. He’s more like a neurotic figure on a horse,” said Dr. Saul Weiner of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who became friends with Kertesz while working at a hospital in Gabon during medical school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having tenure has made Kertesz more comfortable being outspoken. And he feels he may have more credibility than other physicians to make this specific case. He is a primary care physician who cares for people who are homeless and, beyond some former stock ownership, has no ties to drug companies, as opposed to a pain specialist who received research funding from them. (Kertesz \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/StefanKertesz/status/1120865642062630912\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">noted\u003c/a> that he recently packed his own PB&J for a conference, the implication being he’ll avoid even a pharma-funded sandwich spread.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1942524 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504-160x105.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kertesz and Saul Weiner working at a hospital in Gabon in the early 1990s. \u003ccite>(Saul Weiner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But other leaders of Health Professionals for Patients in Pain, the group that wrote the March letter calling on the CDC to clarify its guidelines, have projects that are supported by drug companies. They \u003ca href=\"https://healthprofessionalsforpatientsinpain.org/about-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disclose as much\u003c/a> on the group’s site, but it’s left the group exposed to the criticism that it’s not wholly removed from the pharmaceutical industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz “certainly is very close to people who are being paid by opioid manufacturers,” said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown University, who studies the pharma industry’s influence on medicine. “He’s certainly worked with people who have close ties to opioid manufacturers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz said that because of the industry’s history of opioid promotion, such criticisms need to be part of the discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fugh-Berman is among the experts who have challenged Kertesz’s most alarming claim: that pain patients are being driven to suicide. They argue advocates are relying on anecdotes more suited to a political candidate’s barnstorming of Iowa than the kind of scientific evidence needed to substantiate claims of a new epidemic. Establishing cause and effect in suicide is complex, and studies have shown \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1802148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an association between opioid use and suicide\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where is your evidence of documented suicides from people who are tapered?” Fugh-Berman \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4lpvAZ8sY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asked Kertesz\u003c/a> following a presentation at a conference last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz replied that he had \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20180117.832392/full/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reviewed medical records\u003c/a> from people who had died by suicide after an opioid reduction. He added a caveat: “You have three things that are potentially simultaneously associated with harm: Pain itself. Opioid dependence, the dependence itself. And the event, however we wish to interpret it clinically — as resurgent pain or untreated opioid dependence — in patients who are having opioids taken away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz is now trying to secure funding to study such suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fugh-Berman and Kertesz are often cast as representatives of two fundamentally opposed camps. (Indeed, Stanford’s Lembke and Kertesz are slated \u003ca href=\"https://amersa.org/conference/conference-at-a-glance/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to square off in a “spicy debate”\u003c/a> at an upcoming medical conference.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a framing elides what they agree on. Kertesz emphasizes that opioids were massively overprescribed, that the patients he’s worried about should have never been on these doses, and that many patients will be better off after tapering. Lembke stresses that tapers need to go slowly and that patients should be monitored closely during the process — never pushed out of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they disagree on exactly how to go about lowering prescribing and the proportion of patients who can be tapered without compromising quality of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lembke argues that top-down policies are required to counter all the incentives clinicians have to keep patients on opioids. She has called for medical centers to establish teams that can guide patients through the process. She also said that some patients should be switched to \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/30/loosen-restrictions-on-prescribing-buprenorphine-addiction-treatment/\">buprenorphine\u003c/a> — an opioid addiction medication that eases withdrawal symptoms — even if they do not meet the diagnosis of opioid use disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To leave them at those doses because it’s too hard, that’s not OK,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lembke noted that prescription policies typically include exceptions for some patients to remain on high-dose opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are rare instances where I would agree that maybe the most judicious path is ‘leave well enough alone,’” she said. “But that would be where the patient has to commute four hours to get to my clinic, they have no social support, they have no family, they have no psychological or emotional resources to help them do this hard thing which really from a medical perspective they need to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz takes a different view. He supports doctors who encourage tapers, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9F-vAVQvGM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he has spoken\u003c/a> about tapering a patient off her medications against her wishes in one case. But he believes those are choices for clinicians to make, and that overarching policies will lead to mismanaged care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing mandatory limits, he said, “assumes that what’s going to happen at the systems level will reflect the best clinician.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">L\u003c/span>\u003c/span>ast month, the authors of the CDC guidelines \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/24/cdc-opioid-prescribing-guidelines-misapplied/\">published a paper\u003c/a> that said “some policies and practices purportedly derived from the guideline have in fact been inconsistent with, and often go beyond, its recommendations.” They \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1904190?query=featured_home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">called out\u003c/a> “hard limits and abrupt tapering of drug dosages” that their guidance did not endorse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was what Kertesz and his colleagues had been asking for. But now, they face the more difficult task of \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/26/no-shortcuts-prescribing-opioids-chronic-pain/\" rel=\"\">ensuring every group\u003c/a> that overshot the CDC guidelines corrects course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The national attention Kertesz has received for his efforts felt far removed from the room where he was seeing his patients earlier this month. One was in the midst of a taper experiment, from 40 MME to 35 MME a day. But there was also talk of blood pressure medications and cancer screenings — primary care basics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there was Byron, 47. He asked that his last name not be used, but Kertesz and the staff at the clinic called him their Jonah. He had been swallowed up by his addiction and maybe should have died, but here he was, like God had some plan for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Byron was staying at a recovery home, but he felt listless without the rush of drugs or living on the street, he told Kertesz. Kertesz bumped up his buprenorphine dose, but the existential anguish was a harder problem to address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At any given moment, any one of us feels unsure about who to be or what to do or how to do it,” Kertesz told him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have extra burdens, but you’re not alone,” he continued. “Everyone has times when they don’t have clarity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/05/20/googles-ai-improves-accuracy-of-lung-cancer-diagnosis-study-shows/\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A medical doctor becomes a leading advocate against policies that call for aggressive reductions in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. ",
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"title": "A Doctor's Crusade Against Sharp Limits on Opioids for 'Legacy Patients' | KQED",
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"headline": "A Doctor's Crusade Against Sharp Limits on Opioids for 'Legacy Patients'",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>About four years ago, Dr. Stefan Kertesz started hearing that patients who had been taking opioid painkillers for years were being taken off their medications. Sometimes it was an aggressive reduction they weren’t on board with, sometimes it was all at once. Clinicians told patients they no longer felt comfortable treating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I think I’m particularly provoked by situations where harm is done in the name of helping. What really gets me is when responsible parties say we will protect you, and then they call upon us to harm people.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, a primary care physician who also specializes in addiction medicine, had not spent his career investigating long-term opioid use or chronic pain. But he grew concerned by the medical community’s efforts to regain control over prescribing patterns after years of lax distribution. Limiting prescriptions for new patients had clear benefits, he thought, but he wondered about the results of reductions among “legacy patients.” Their outcomes weren’t being tracked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Kertesz is a leading advocate against policies that call for \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/3/429/5218985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aggressive reductions\u003c/a> in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. He argues that well-intentioned initiatives to avoid the mistakes of the past have introduced new problems. He’s warned that clinicians’ decisions are destabilizing patients’ lives and leaving them in pain — and in some cases could drive patients to obtain opioids illicitly or even take their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I’m particularly provoked by situations where harm is done in the name of helping,” Kertesz said. “What really gets me is when responsible parties say we will protect you, and then they call upon us to harm people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a case that Kertesz, 52, has tried to make with nuance and precision, bounded by an emphasis on the history of overprescribing and the benefits of tapering for patients for whom it works. But against a backdrop of tens of thousands of opioid overdose deaths each year and an ongoing reckoning about the roots of the opioid addiction crisis, it’s the dialectical equivalent of pinning the tail on a bucking bronco. Kertesz’s critics have questioned his motives. He’s heard he’s been called “the candyman.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942580\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 615px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1942580\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"615\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018.png 615w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/kertesz2018-160x148.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Stefan Kertesz a leading advocate against policies that call for aggressive reductions in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. \u003ccite>(University of Alabama at Birmingham)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I am really worried that people like Stefan Kertesz, who is trying to champion ‘patient-centered care,’ in some ways are feeding into the same misleading messaging rolled out by Purdue [Pharma] and others that not to prescribe opioids is tantamount to torturing patients,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/17/chronic-pain-management-opioids/\" rel=\"\">The debate is playing out\u003c/a> as doctors try to move beyond their days of overprescribing while responsibly treating chronic pain. It is also playing out in settings like Kertesz’s office here at a Veterans Affairs clinic, where a patient named Jerry Brown, a 63-year-old former boilermaker and carpenter, recently showed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown had a compressed spinal cord and severe neck pain. For more than a decade, dating back to before he started seeing Kertesz, he had been taking about 300 morphine milligram equivalents (MME) of opioids a day — a dosage equivalent to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/calculating_total_daily_dose-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than three times\u003c/a> the level that clinicians should “avoid or carefully justify,” according to federal officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz and Brown tried a 10% dose reduction a few years ago. But Brown became volatile and less active and complained of revived pain, so Kertesz eased back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, who treats patients who are or have been homeless, told Brown that he had “incurred risk” with his dose. “Do you know that I wish you hadn’t had your doses increased?” he asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” Brown replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They could try again to taper the dose to reduce that risk. But Brown had stable housing and activities to keep him busy — he helped his ex-wife out at her home and cleaned up after her Chihuahuas. He had anxiety and sometimes had trouble getting to the clinic because of transportation problems. But there was no evidence he had misused or sold his drugs, or misused other substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this case, Kertesz’s takeaway was: “Leave well enough alone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/span>pioid prescribing has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/maps/rxrate-maps.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">declining since 2012\u003c/a>, though levels remain higher than they were two decades ago. Today, depending on the estimate, anywhere from \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/4/724/5301726?utm_content=buffer9586d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">8 million\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/20/3/429/5218985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">18 million\u003c/a> Americans take opioids for chronic pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interest in reducing their dosages is predicated in part on efforts to minimize patients’ risk of overdose and addiction. But there are other considerations. Enduring opioid use makes people more sensitive to pain, many experts believe. Opioid use has also been associated with anxiety, depression, and other health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, as people become dependent, the drugs might just be staving off symptoms of withdrawal that would come without another dose, rather than treating the original source of pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, experts say, long-term opioid use is not good medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, who is also a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, agrees with all of that. But he believes that lowering dosages will hurt some patients who are leading functional lives on opioids, and that top-down strategies won’t protect them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in 2015, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proposed prescribing guidelines for primary care clinicians treating chronic pain, Kertesz grew nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2016/03/15/opioids-painkillers-cdc/\">The guidelines\u003c/a>, a set of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/rr/rr6501e1.htm?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fmmwr%2Fvolumes%2F65%2Frr%2Frr6501e1er.htm#contribAff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">measured recommendations\u003c/a> finalized in March 2016, suggested clinicians try other therapies for pain before moving to opioids and prescribe only the lowest effective dose and duration of the drugs. (The guidelines do not apply to end-of-life or cancer care.) For patients on high doses, the guidelines said, “If benefits do not outweigh harms of continued opioid therapy, clinicians should optimize other therapies and work with patients to taper opioids to lower dosages or to taper and discontinue opioids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our day-to-day practice aligns with nearly all principles laid out in the guideline,” Kertesz wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@StefanKertesz/considering-cdc-s-proposed-2016-guideline-for-prescribing-opioids-for-chronic-pain-a-good-start-e7cf22be40cd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a comment\u003c/a> he submitted on the draft. But he cautioned the voluntary recommendations could be implemented too stringently by others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a guideline like no other … its guidance will affect the immediate well-being of millions of Americans with chronic pain,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the release of the guidelines, Kertesz started seeing ripple effects. In early 2017, federal officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/docs-warn-that-medicare-crackdown-will-hurt-pain-patients-235917\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unveiled a Medicare proposal\u003c/a> that would have blocked prescriptions higher than 90 MME without a special review. Around the same time, the National Committee for Quality Assurance considered docking clinicians’ scores if they had patients on high doses for long periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz, other experts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/ama/76256\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some medical societies\u003c/a> protested such proposals, contending they invoked the CDC guidelines while violating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942586\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1942586\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-800x525.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-800x525.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-768x504.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1020x669.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1200x787.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211-1920x1260.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/GettyImages-678211.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The prescription medicine OxyContin is displayed. \u003ccite>(Darren McCollester/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Most of us wish to see an evolution toward fewer opioid starts and fewer patients at high doses,” Kertesz and colleagues \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@StefanKertesz/an-opioid-quality-metric-based-on-dose-alone-80-professionals-respond-to-ncqa-6f9fbaa2338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote in response\u003c/a> to the NCQA plan. “The proposed NCQA measure indulges no such subtleties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discussion overall has been hindered by limited research, including evidence for the benefits of forced tapering. But \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/prescribing-policies-states-confront-opioid-overdose-epidemic.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as of October 2018\u003c/a>, 33 states had codified some prescription limits into law. Pharmacies and insurers capped prescriptions at 90 MME. Law enforcement agencies warned high prescribers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some initiatives have focused on avoiding “new starts,” not on tapering legacy patients. But Kertesz and other advocates argued the pressure of all the policies and warnings inculcated an anxiety around prescribing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chronic pain patients were seen as legally risky and medically complicated, so they had trouble finding providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz and his allies raised their concerns in \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/24/opioids-prescribing-limits-pain-patients/\" rel=\"\">the popular\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27858590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">academic presses\u003c/a> and at conferences, building momentum over the years. They collected anecdotes from patients who said they had been harmed in some way by dose reductions or involuntary tapers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is imperative that healthcare professionals and administrators realize that the Guideline does not endorse mandated involuntary dose reduction or discontinuation,” read \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzQDSppUKhjiAsEmhW2WbTXlP5V8vJ4M_vBPQLKhK_8/edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a March letter\u003c/a> co-authored by Kertesz calling on the CDC to reiterate its recommendations were not binding. The letter continued: “Patients have endured not only unnecessary suffering, but some have turned to suicide or illicit substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 300 patient advocates and experts, including three former White House drug czars, signed it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">K\u003c/span>\u003c/span>ertesz sees his advocacy work as an extension of several throughlines in his career. For one, he has patients who have been on opioids for years, and he knows the stress clinicians face when renewing a high-dose prescription. He also has a history of arguing for causes that stretches back to writing op-eds for his high school newspaper in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his willingness to take on what he sees as injustices does not mean he feels self-assured about doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every single bit of it involves ambivalence and driving myself crazy,” he said. “Like, am I making a mistake? Am I going to blow up my career?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kertesz thinks, he leans forward and pulls his hair back. His obsessive streak extends to both his career and his personal life. (He’s become a fencing fanatic, having taken up the sport less than six years ago.) When he talks about medicine, he pauses mid-conversation to point out whether his statements are based on randomized trials or his own inference. He can appear scatterbrained and is working with a coach to become more structured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not like a heroic figure on a horse. He’s more like a neurotic figure on a horse,” said Dr. Saul Weiner of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who became friends with Kertesz while working at a hospital in Gabon during medical school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having tenure has made Kertesz more comfortable being outspoken. And he feels he may have more credibility than other physicians to make this specific case. He is a primary care physician who cares for people who are homeless and, beyond some former stock ownership, has no ties to drug companies, as opposed to a pain specialist who received research funding from them. (Kertesz \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/StefanKertesz/status/1120865642062630912\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">noted\u003c/a> that he recently packed his own PB&J for a conference, the implication being he’ll avoid even a pharma-funded sandwich spread.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1942524 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Saul-and-Stefan-in-Gabon-768x504-160x105.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kertesz and Saul Weiner working at a hospital in Gabon in the early 1990s. \u003ccite>(Saul Weiner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But other leaders of Health Professionals for Patients in Pain, the group that wrote the March letter calling on the CDC to clarify its guidelines, have projects that are supported by drug companies. They \u003ca href=\"https://healthprofessionalsforpatientsinpain.org/about-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disclose as much\u003c/a> on the group’s site, but it’s left the group exposed to the criticism that it’s not wholly removed from the pharmaceutical industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz “certainly is very close to people who are being paid by opioid manufacturers,” said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown University, who studies the pharma industry’s influence on medicine. “He’s certainly worked with people who have close ties to opioid manufacturers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz said that because of the industry’s history of opioid promotion, such criticisms need to be part of the discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fugh-Berman is among the experts who have challenged Kertesz’s most alarming claim: that pain patients are being driven to suicide. They argue advocates are relying on anecdotes more suited to a political candidate’s barnstorming of Iowa than the kind of scientific evidence needed to substantiate claims of a new epidemic. Establishing cause and effect in suicide is complex, and studies have shown \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1802148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an association between opioid use and suicide\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where is your evidence of documented suicides from people who are tapered?” Fugh-Berman \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4lpvAZ8sY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asked Kertesz\u003c/a> following a presentation at a conference last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz replied that he had \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20180117.832392/full/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reviewed medical records\u003c/a> from people who had died by suicide after an opioid reduction. He added a caveat: “You have three things that are potentially simultaneously associated with harm: Pain itself. Opioid dependence, the dependence itself. And the event, however we wish to interpret it clinically — as resurgent pain or untreated opioid dependence — in patients who are having opioids taken away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz is now trying to secure funding to study such suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fugh-Berman and Kertesz are often cast as representatives of two fundamentally opposed camps. (Indeed, Stanford’s Lembke and Kertesz are slated \u003ca href=\"https://amersa.org/conference/conference-at-a-glance/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to square off in a “spicy debate”\u003c/a> at an upcoming medical conference.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a framing elides what they agree on. Kertesz emphasizes that opioids were massively overprescribed, that the patients he’s worried about should have never been on these doses, and that many patients will be better off after tapering. Lembke stresses that tapers need to go slowly and that patients should be monitored closely during the process — never pushed out of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they disagree on exactly how to go about lowering prescribing and the proportion of patients who can be tapered without compromising quality of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lembke argues that top-down policies are required to counter all the incentives clinicians have to keep patients on opioids. She has called for medical centers to establish teams that can guide patients through the process. She also said that some patients should be switched to \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/30/loosen-restrictions-on-prescribing-buprenorphine-addiction-treatment/\">buprenorphine\u003c/a> — an opioid addiction medication that eases withdrawal symptoms — even if they do not meet the diagnosis of opioid use disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To leave them at those doses because it’s too hard, that’s not OK,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lembke noted that prescription policies typically include exceptions for some patients to remain on high-dose opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are rare instances where I would agree that maybe the most judicious path is ‘leave well enough alone,’” she said. “But that would be where the patient has to commute four hours to get to my clinic, they have no social support, they have no family, they have no psychological or emotional resources to help them do this hard thing which really from a medical perspective they need to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kertesz takes a different view. He supports doctors who encourage tapers, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9F-vAVQvGM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he has spoken\u003c/a> about tapering a patient off her medications against her wishes in one case. But he believes those are choices for clinicians to make, and that overarching policies will lead to mismanaged care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing mandatory limits, he said, “assumes that what’s going to happen at the systems level will reflect the best clinician.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">L\u003c/span>\u003c/span>ast month, the authors of the CDC guidelines \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/24/cdc-opioid-prescribing-guidelines-misapplied/\">published a paper\u003c/a> that said “some policies and practices purportedly derived from the guideline have in fact been inconsistent with, and often go beyond, its recommendations.” They \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1904190?query=featured_home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">called out\u003c/a> “hard limits and abrupt tapering of drug dosages” that their guidance did not endorse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was what Kertesz and his colleagues had been asking for. But now, they face the more difficult task of \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/26/no-shortcuts-prescribing-opioids-chronic-pain/\" rel=\"\">ensuring every group\u003c/a> that overshot the CDC guidelines corrects course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The national attention Kertesz has received for his efforts felt far removed from the room where he was seeing his patients earlier this month. One was in the midst of a taper experiment, from 40 MME to 35 MME a day. But there was also talk of blood pressure medications and cancer screenings — primary care basics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there was Byron, 47. He asked that his last name not be used, but Kertesz and the staff at the clinic called him their Jonah. He had been swallowed up by his addiction and maybe should have died, but here he was, like God had some plan for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Byron was staying at a recovery home, but he felt listless without the rush of drugs or living on the street, he told Kertesz. Kertesz bumped up his buprenorphine dose, but the existential anguish was a harder problem to address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At any given moment, any one of us feels unsure about who to be or what to do or how to do it,” Kertesz told him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have extra burdens, but you’re not alone,” he continued. “Everyone has times when they don’t have clarity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/05/20/googles-ai-improves-accuracy-of-lung-cancer-diagnosis-study-shows/\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Lagging Way Behind Southeast in Prescribed Burns to Curb Wildfire",
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"content": "\u003cp>Federal agencies are not performing enough prescribed burns in California and other Western states to curb the risk of wildfire, even as the practice has been adopted more widely by land managers in other regions in the U.S. That’s according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/2019Wildfires_kolden_prescribed_fire_trends_embargoed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">analysis \u003c/a>published Wednesday in the journal \u003cem>Fire\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='science_1927354,science_1134217,science_1917346']Prescribed fires are deliberately ignited by forest managers to burn away brush and vegetation that can act as fuel during an uncontrolled wildfire. These prescribed burns are widely considered to be an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">effective tool\u003c/a> in reducing wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper, published by fire researcher Crystal Kolden, found that between 1998 and 2018, the number of acres subjected to prescribed burns skyrocketed in the Southeast while basically remaining flat in both Northern and Southern California. Less than 3% of all controlled burns in the U.S. occurred in the state, while 70 percent occurred in the Southeast. Kolden used data from the National Interagency Fire Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/N9fC2/5/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya Miller, a reporter who worked on a \u003ca href=\"https://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/May2019_Report_The_Burning_Solution.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research brief\u003c/a> on the study for \u003ca href=\"https://climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Central\u003c/a>, told KQED’s Brian Watt Wednesday that California is lagging in its use of prescribed burns as a wildfire mitigation tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Further analysis state by state shows that California has been burning at one of the lowest rates nationwide,” Miller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, federal agencies continue to spend considerably more on fire suppression than on prescribed burns, according to data analyzed by Climate Central.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lack of Acceptance in the West\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to helping prevent catastrophic wildfires, prescribed burns are good for overall forest health and can restore balance to ecological processes disrupted by years of fire suppression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study notes that prescribed burns produce smoke that can create bad air quality. In rare circumstances, prescribed fires have grown out of control. Kolden, in her paper, suggests that these factors contribute to “social barriers” that have disincentivized fire managers, particularly on the federal level, from utilizing prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke, however, contains three times as much pollution as smoke from prescribed fires, according to a groundbreaking 2017 study \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016JD026315\">published\u003c/a> in the \u003cem>Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller said prescribed fires that burn out of control are rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a risk and a contributing factor as to why some agencies have been more skeptical to embrace the practice,” she said. “Having said that, when agencies do cultivate the skill set to be able to conduct a burn in a safe way, 99 percent of the time it’s a safe and productive tool to use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, Cal Fire published a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fire.ca.gov/downloads/45-Day%20Report-FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report\u003c/a> that found the state’s forests were being poorly managed by state, federal and private landowners. The report recommended California immediately start to reduce its fuel load. On March 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/03/22/governor-newsom-proclaims-state-of-emergency-on-wildfires-to-protect-states-most-vulnerable-communities/\">state of emergency on wildfires\u003c/a> and approved a plan to speed up prescribed burn projects in some locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jon Brooks contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Federal agencies are not performing enough prescribed burns in California and other Western states to curb the risk of wildfire, even as the practice has been adopted more widely by land managers in other regions in the U.S. That’s according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/2019Wildfires_kolden_prescribed_fire_trends_embargoed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">analysis \u003c/a>published Wednesday in the journal \u003cem>Fire\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Prescribed fires are deliberately ignited by forest managers to burn away brush and vegetation that can act as fuel during an uncontrolled wildfire. These prescribed burns are widely considered to be an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">effective tool\u003c/a> in reducing wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper, published by fire researcher Crystal Kolden, found that between 1998 and 2018, the number of acres subjected to prescribed burns skyrocketed in the Southeast while basically remaining flat in both Northern and Southern California. Less than 3% of all controlled burns in the U.S. occurred in the state, while 70 percent occurred in the Southeast. Kolden used data from the National Interagency Fire Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/N9fC2/5/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya Miller, a reporter who worked on a \u003ca href=\"https://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/May2019_Report_The_Burning_Solution.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research brief\u003c/a> on the study for \u003ca href=\"https://climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Central\u003c/a>, told KQED’s Brian Watt Wednesday that California is lagging in its use of prescribed burns as a wildfire mitigation tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Further analysis state by state shows that California has been burning at one of the lowest rates nationwide,” Miller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, federal agencies continue to spend considerably more on fire suppression than on prescribed burns, according to data analyzed by Climate Central.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lack of Acceptance in the West\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to helping prevent catastrophic wildfires, prescribed burns are good for overall forest health and can restore balance to ecological processes disrupted by years of fire suppression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study notes that prescribed burns produce smoke that can create bad air quality. In rare circumstances, prescribed fires have grown out of control. Kolden, in her paper, suggests that these factors contribute to “social barriers” that have disincentivized fire managers, particularly on the federal level, from utilizing prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke, however, contains three times as much pollution as smoke from prescribed fires, according to a groundbreaking 2017 study \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016JD026315\">published\u003c/a> in the \u003cem>Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller said prescribed fires that burn out of control are rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a risk and a contributing factor as to why some agencies have been more skeptical to embrace the practice,” she said. “Having said that, when agencies do cultivate the skill set to be able to conduct a burn in a safe way, 99 percent of the time it’s a safe and productive tool to use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, Cal Fire published a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fire.ca.gov/downloads/45-Day%20Report-FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report\u003c/a> that found the state’s forests were being poorly managed by state, federal and private landowners. The report recommended California immediately start to reduce its fuel load. On March 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/03/22/governor-newsom-proclaims-state-of-emergency-on-wildfires-to-protect-states-most-vulnerable-communities/\">state of emergency on wildfires\u003c/a> and approved a plan to speed up prescribed burn projects in some locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jon Brooks contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "PG&E Wants to Make a Massive Investment in Weather Stations. Here’s Why",
"headTitle": "PG&E Wants to Make a Massive Investment in Weather Stations. Here’s Why | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The fire that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11654027/my-world-was-burning-the-north-bay-fires-and-what-went-wrong\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ripped across the North Bay hills in 2017\u003c/a> was propelled by hurricane-force winds in some places, even as weather stations in the flat lands of Santa Rosa and Napa registered little more than a breeze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same was true in the town of Paradise when it was consumed by the Camp Fire. The winds near Paradise were blowing hard and fast, propelling the fire forward, says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. However just a few miles away in the Sacramento Valley, the winds were nearly calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In many cases, there haven’t been weather stations in close enough proximity to these fires to get a really good handle of what the conditions are actually like on the ground — we are essentially poking around in the dark,” says Swain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following years of deadly wildfires sparked by faulty electrical equipment, the California Legislature \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11689873/california-legislature-passes-major-reforms-to-wildfire-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passed a law\u003c/a> last August requiring power utilities to come up with detailed proposals to reduce the risk of blazes. On May 30, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to approve PG&E’s proposal, which includes the construction of hundreds of new weather stations across its Northern California territory. The company’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750455/what-you-need-to-know-about-pges-state-mandated-wildfire-mitigation-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wildfire plan\u003c/a> could cost billions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s rich landscape of rolling hills and steep canyons has potentially hundreds of thousands of microclimates, which makes fire prediction an incredible challenge. That’s why PG&E plans to build a dense network of weather stations, which they hope will illuminate the humidity, wind speed and temperature of Northern California’s varied landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Power Shutdown\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators also unanimously approved a related plan to shut off power to areas of the electrical grid when wildfire risk is extreme.\u003cb> \u003c/b>Turning off consumer’s electricity has provoked \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Supervisor-Warns-SDGE-Be-Careful-with-Power-Shut-Offs-462920363.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">outcry in the past\u003c/a>, but lawmakers and regulators agree that it is — for now — necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The risk associated with another fire like the North Bay fires or the Camp Fire makes power shut downs a viable alternative, sadly,” says State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. “We cannot have our utilities creating these massive wildfires and have the associated risk of ratepayers having to pay these costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the proceedings, CPUC President Michael Picker said that because of the increasing threat of wildfire, utilities are expanding on their “current strategies for weather tracking, and more precise and local predictive modeling for wildfires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are seeing weather conditions in portions of the state that have never been observed before, are not in the meteorological record, and certainly aren’t as granular as we need to be able to provide very precise and local kinds of situational awareness, which then can help us focus and isolate areas of risk and only cut power in those very specific areas,” Picker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Picker also announced that he will step down from his position as CPUC president later this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s plan is, in part, inspired by changes that another utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, made after its power lines ignited wildfires in 2007 and the company\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-fire-lawsuit-witch-creek-settled-electric-2014dec05-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> shelled out billions in damages\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, SDG&E installed a weather station in every circuit of its territory that had a high risk of fire, and in 2011, they added more. Meteorologists say that information derived from the stations dramatically improved their understanding of local weather patterns and has aided in their predictions of wildfire behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 23\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>wildfire legislation proposed by Sen. Dodd \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750339/fire-weather-stations-could-get-expanded-under-state-bill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cleared the state Senate\u003c/a>; the two bills compel the state to coordinate with PG&E and other utilities on where weather stations are deployed. They also create a state wildfire warning center and a fire threat potential index.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to be more proactive in the state of California and have a wildfire warning center where we’ve got data points all throughout the state of California,” Dodd says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s proposal includes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Installing an estimated 1,300 new weather stations by 2022, one for about every 20 circuit-miles in its highest fire risk areas. Currently, the utility has just over 350 weather stations across its territory, according to its meteorologists. PG&E will power down the grid based on information from predictive weather models, and overtime, the stations will improve the models. Additionally, weather data will be publicly available.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fixing approximately 600 high-definition cameras across its territory. PG&E, Cal Fire, and other agencies will use them to confirm wildfires. You can think of a camera as a \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">fire\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">look\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">out\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">tower\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\"> 2.0\u003c/a>. The cameras can pan, zoom, and stream images right to fire agencies, and they have near infrared capabilities — so they work at night, too. Thirty cameras are working now, and a live stream is available\u003ca href=\"http://www.alertwildfire.org/northbay/index.html\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fire detection capabilities provided by NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936435/new-satellite-can-provide-immediate-wildfire-warning-but-first-the-govt-shutdown-has-to-end\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GOES-R series\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936435/new-satellite-can-provide-immediate-wildfire-warning-but-first-the-govt-shutdown-has-to-end\">satellites\u003c/a>, which rotate in sync with the Earth and scan California once a minute, and from three polar orbiting satellites — NASA’s Aqua, Terra, and VIIRS — that pass over the state each day. The utility’s meteorologists will use the satellites to identify when a wildfire breaks out in near real-time. This is helpful, but not groundbreaking, as the cameras and lookout towers can do the same. But, in filings with the CPUC, PG&E says it will pilot a system that disseminates alerts through a web application and emails to its team. For now, those alerts will stay in-house, but PG&E’s meteorologists hope in the future to notify fire agencies and the public.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Following San Diego \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before SDG&E installed additional weather stations, meteorologists generally understood that the hot, dry Santa Ana winds sped up as they whipped through passes and canyons. They assumed the acceleration stemmed from the Venturi effect — when air or water speeds up as it’s forced through a constricted area, like a thumb on the end of a garden hose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But using information from the weather stations — which now number 177 across San Diego County and parts of Orange County — meteorologists discovered that strong winds reached speeds upward of 100 mph on the hill and mountain slopes, too. That led the utility to replace some wood poles with steel poles and install stronger wires, in places, to better withstand the extreme winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian D’Agostino, director of the fire science and climate adaptation program at SDG&E, says the utility learned a great deal about how the Santa Ana winds behave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We knew they were strong, but we didn’t realize we were having 100 miles-per-hour winds in our backcountry,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern California doesn’t have Santa Ana winds, but the region has strong gusts, sometimes called Diablo or Mono winds, according to Scott Strenfel, supervisor of meteorology operations and analytics for PG&E. He says there’s a lot the utility can learn about these winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hoping that we’re going to start to tease out some similar learnings of where these events are the most impactful,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Power Downs\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the traditional mark of success in the utility business is keeping the lights on, not shutting them off, but the state’s deadly wildfires have reached a crisis point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the power shutdowns while introducing his latest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941438/millions-for-climate-environmental-priorities-in-newsoms-may-budget\">budget\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941438/millions-for-climate-environmental-priorities-in-newsoms-may-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposal\u003c/a>, which includes $75 million to study the shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m worried about it,” he says. “We are all worried about it for [the] elderly. People’s power could be shut off not for a day or two, but potentially a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State leaders say the policy is temporary, but it’s still unknown how long it will be used. Extreme fire conditions happen multiple times a year in California, which means every year communities could be without power for days or even a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCLA’s Swain says officials will need to carefully decide when to power the grid down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s going to be a balancing act between deciding when it will cause more harm than good to shut off the power to thousands of people, or in which cases it will prevent a potential wildfire catastrophe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California's rich landscape of rolling hills and steep canyons has potentially hundreds of thousands of microclimates, which makes fire prediction an incredible challenge. That’s why PG&E wants to build a dense network of weather stations, which they hope will illuminate where the winds blow the hardest in Northern California.",
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"description": "California's rich landscape of rolling hills and steep canyons has potentially hundreds of thousands of microclimates, which makes fire prediction an incredible challenge. That’s why PG&E wants to build a dense network of weather stations, which they hope will illuminate where the winds blow the hardest in Northern California.",
"title": "PG&E Wants to Make a Massive Investment in Weather Stations. Here’s Why | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The fire that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11654027/my-world-was-burning-the-north-bay-fires-and-what-went-wrong\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ripped across the North Bay hills in 2017\u003c/a> was propelled by hurricane-force winds in some places, even as weather stations in the flat lands of Santa Rosa and Napa registered little more than a breeze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same was true in the town of Paradise when it was consumed by the Camp Fire. The winds near Paradise were blowing hard and fast, propelling the fire forward, says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. However just a few miles away in the Sacramento Valley, the winds were nearly calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In many cases, there haven’t been weather stations in close enough proximity to these fires to get a really good handle of what the conditions are actually like on the ground — we are essentially poking around in the dark,” says Swain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following years of deadly wildfires sparked by faulty electrical equipment, the California Legislature \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11689873/california-legislature-passes-major-reforms-to-wildfire-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passed a law\u003c/a> last August requiring power utilities to come up with detailed proposals to reduce the risk of blazes. On May 30, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to approve PG&E’s proposal, which includes the construction of hundreds of new weather stations across its Northern California territory. The company’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750455/what-you-need-to-know-about-pges-state-mandated-wildfire-mitigation-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wildfire plan\u003c/a> could cost billions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s rich landscape of rolling hills and steep canyons has potentially hundreds of thousands of microclimates, which makes fire prediction an incredible challenge. That’s why PG&E plans to build a dense network of weather stations, which they hope will illuminate the humidity, wind speed and temperature of Northern California’s varied landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Power Shutdown\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators also unanimously approved a related plan to shut off power to areas of the electrical grid when wildfire risk is extreme.\u003cb> \u003c/b>Turning off consumer’s electricity has provoked \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Supervisor-Warns-SDGE-Be-Careful-with-Power-Shut-Offs-462920363.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">outcry in the past\u003c/a>, but lawmakers and regulators agree that it is — for now — necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The risk associated with another fire like the North Bay fires or the Camp Fire makes power shut downs a viable alternative, sadly,” says State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. “We cannot have our utilities creating these massive wildfires and have the associated risk of ratepayers having to pay these costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the proceedings, CPUC President Michael Picker said that because of the increasing threat of wildfire, utilities are expanding on their “current strategies for weather tracking, and more precise and local predictive modeling for wildfires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are seeing weather conditions in portions of the state that have never been observed before, are not in the meteorological record, and certainly aren’t as granular as we need to be able to provide very precise and local kinds of situational awareness, which then can help us focus and isolate areas of risk and only cut power in those very specific areas,” Picker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Picker also announced that he will step down from his position as CPUC president later this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s plan is, in part, inspired by changes that another utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, made after its power lines ignited wildfires in 2007 and the company\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-fire-lawsuit-witch-creek-settled-electric-2014dec05-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> shelled out billions in damages\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, SDG&E installed a weather station in every circuit of its territory that had a high risk of fire, and in 2011, they added more. Meteorologists say that information derived from the stations dramatically improved their understanding of local weather patterns and has aided in their predictions of wildfire behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 23\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>wildfire legislation proposed by Sen. Dodd \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750339/fire-weather-stations-could-get-expanded-under-state-bill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cleared the state Senate\u003c/a>; the two bills compel the state to coordinate with PG&E and other utilities on where weather stations are deployed. They also create a state wildfire warning center and a fire threat potential index.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to be more proactive in the state of California and have a wildfire warning center where we’ve got data points all throughout the state of California,” Dodd says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s proposal includes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Installing an estimated 1,300 new weather stations by 2022, one for about every 20 circuit-miles in its highest fire risk areas. Currently, the utility has just over 350 weather stations across its territory, according to its meteorologists. PG&E will power down the grid based on information from predictive weather models, and overtime, the stations will improve the models. Additionally, weather data will be publicly available.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fixing approximately 600 high-definition cameras across its territory. PG&E, Cal Fire, and other agencies will use them to confirm wildfires. You can think of a camera as a \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">fire\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">look\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">out\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\">tower\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/26/rekindling-fire-lookout-towers/\"> 2.0\u003c/a>. The cameras can pan, zoom, and stream images right to fire agencies, and they have near infrared capabilities — so they work at night, too. Thirty cameras are working now, and a live stream is available\u003ca href=\"http://www.alertwildfire.org/northbay/index.html\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Fire detection capabilities provided by NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936435/new-satellite-can-provide-immediate-wildfire-warning-but-first-the-govt-shutdown-has-to-end\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GOES-R series\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936435/new-satellite-can-provide-immediate-wildfire-warning-but-first-the-govt-shutdown-has-to-end\">satellites\u003c/a>, which rotate in sync with the Earth and scan California once a minute, and from three polar orbiting satellites — NASA’s Aqua, Terra, and VIIRS — that pass over the state each day. The utility’s meteorologists will use the satellites to identify when a wildfire breaks out in near real-time. This is helpful, but not groundbreaking, as the cameras and lookout towers can do the same. But, in filings with the CPUC, PG&E says it will pilot a system that disseminates alerts through a web application and emails to its team. For now, those alerts will stay in-house, but PG&E’s meteorologists hope in the future to notify fire agencies and the public.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Following San Diego \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before SDG&E installed additional weather stations, meteorologists generally understood that the hot, dry Santa Ana winds sped up as they whipped through passes and canyons. They assumed the acceleration stemmed from the Venturi effect — when air or water speeds up as it’s forced through a constricted area, like a thumb on the end of a garden hose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But using information from the weather stations — which now number 177 across San Diego County and parts of Orange County — meteorologists discovered that strong winds reached speeds upward of 100 mph on the hill and mountain slopes, too. That led the utility to replace some wood poles with steel poles and install stronger wires, in places, to better withstand the extreme winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian D’Agostino, director of the fire science and climate adaptation program at SDG&E, says the utility learned a great deal about how the Santa Ana winds behave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We knew they were strong, but we didn’t realize we were having 100 miles-per-hour winds in our backcountry,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern California doesn’t have Santa Ana winds, but the region has strong gusts, sometimes called Diablo or Mono winds, according to Scott Strenfel, supervisor of meteorology operations and analytics for PG&E. He says there’s a lot the utility can learn about these winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hoping that we’re going to start to tease out some similar learnings of where these events are the most impactful,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Power Downs\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the traditional mark of success in the utility business is keeping the lights on, not shutting them off, but the state’s deadly wildfires have reached a crisis point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the power shutdowns while introducing his latest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941438/millions-for-climate-environmental-priorities-in-newsoms-may-budget\">budget\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941438/millions-for-climate-environmental-priorities-in-newsoms-may-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposal\u003c/a>, which includes $75 million to study the shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m worried about it,” he says. “We are all worried about it for [the] elderly. People’s power could be shut off not for a day or two, but potentially a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State leaders say the policy is temporary, but it’s still unknown how long it will be used. Extreme fire conditions happen multiple times a year in California, which means every year communities could be without power for days or even a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCLA’s Swain says officials will need to carefully decide when to power the grid down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s going to be a balancing act between deciding when it will cause more harm than good to shut off the power to thousands of people, or in which cases it will prevent a potential wildfire catastrophe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Coyotes in San Francisco's Presidio Are Here to Stay",
"headTitle": "Coyotes in San Francisco’s Presidio Are Here to Stay | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>How many coyotes live in the Presidio?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mike Sun, aka Coyote Mike, posed that question last year to a group of San Francisco preschoolers, he received several blurted replies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"small\" citation=\"Mike Sun, Presidio environmental education specialist\"]‘Managing coyotes is impossible, human management is more possible.’[/pullquote]“Twenty-eight,” said one tot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A million,” guessed another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Close enough. The correct answer was six. Today there are at least four fully grown coyotes and an unknown number of April-born pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sun is an environmental education specialist for the Presidio Trust, and he was talking to his young audience as part of a public outreach program about wildlife in the Presidio of San Francisco national park, about 1,500 acres on the northern edge of the San Francisco Peninsula, near the Golden Gate Bridge. The land, full of wooded areas and historical attractions, housed a U.S. Army post from 1847 to 1994. It’s now managed by the trust, along with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coyotes have sometimes surprised humans, who also like to use the park. Kay Firth-Butterfield, strolling along Arguello Gate on the south end, once ran into a coyote who started toward her, startling her dog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t think it was threatening, it was just walking towards us,” she said, “but the German shepherd was scared stiff and took off running.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conflicts between dogs and coyotes arise when canines get too close to coyote dens during the spring and summer pupping season, or when off-leash dogs give chase, said Presidio Trust Wildlife Ecologist Jonathan Young. In recent years, San Francisco has seen several \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coyote-snatches-dog-off-SF-doorstep-as-horrified-11297814.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">coyote attacks on dogs\u003c/a>, some of them reportedly fatal. Bay Area coyotes have also been known to kill cats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These encounters make public education critical, says Young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fear usually stems from lack of understanding,” he said. “If we can educate the public on what we know, we can ease the fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5EGdo-o6o\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recolonizing San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes in the Presidio were pushed into local extinction by San Francisco’s growing population, and were last seen in the mid-1900s, \u003ca href=\"https://sfenvironment.org/news/update/coyotes-in-the-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according\u003c/a> to San Francisco’s Department of the Environment. But they returned to the park in 2002, following a change in human attitudes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"small\"]If you encounter a Presidio coyote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Keep your distance; do not approach.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Keep your dog on a leash and under your control.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Observe posted signs about coyote activity.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Supervise children when outdoors.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Never attempt to feed a coyote. Do not leave human or pet food outside where coyotes might eat it.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If you encounter a coyote within 50 feet and it doesn’t move away, be as big and loud as possible; shout in a deep, loud and aggressive voice; wave your arms and throw small objects. Maintain eye contact, which makes coyotes uncomfortable and timid.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If still no luck, don’t run or turn your back on the coyote, but exaggerate the above gestures while backing away slowly. Report this type of incident to (415) 561-4148 or coyote@presidiotrust.gov.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If you encounter a coyote during pupping season, spring through fall, and you have a dog with you, the best course of action is to back away slowly and leave the area immediately. Coyotes will attempt to drive away other coyotes and dogs from their pups, and the above steps may not work.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[/pullquote]“Social acceptance and approval of firearms and hunting have declined while animal rights views have increased within urban/suburban areas,” reads a coyote \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidio.gov/presidio-trust/planning-internal/Shared%20Documents/Coyotes%20FAQ.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FAQ\u003c/a> from the Presidio Trust. “These social changes were reflected in the 1974 ending of state/federal sponsored mammalian bounties in California. With the reduction/removal of these urban pressures, these animals began to move back into surrounding urban areas, eventually recolonizing San Francisco in the early 2000s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s view is that coyotes help keep the rodent population down. In 2016, the Presidio Trust started a coyote monitoring program, which involves tagging and collaring the animals with temporary GPS devices. Sixteen coyotes have been tagged to date. Not including the offspring born this year, 15 pups have sprung from three different litters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nine of those 15 pups have since dispersed from the Presidio, and we’ve tracked their journeys as they try to find their own territory elsewhere,” the trust says on its website. “Many of these animals have not survived the harsh realities of urban traffic.” (\u003ca href=\"https://www.presidio.gov/presidio-trust/planning-internal/PublishingImages/Coyotes-in-the-Presidio/gps-collar-data-on-male-coyote.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">See this map\u003c/a> of one young coyote’s journey from the Presidio to San Jose before being fatally hit by a car on Interstate 280.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes, which are highly adaptable, are also regularly spotted in some of the city’s other open spaces, like Golden Gate Park, \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/951934781595201/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buena Vista Park\u003c/a>, and Lands End.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So now, humans are the ones who have to adapt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The current population is not used to coyotes as a part of the urban environment,” said Clay Harrell, a senior communications executive at the Presidio Trust. “Many people see their presence as a threat to public safety and their pets, and want authorities to remove the threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lots of people ask why the Presidio wildlife team hasn’t relocated the park’s coyotes. According to park ecologists, transplanting them would be pointless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a coyote is removed from its local territory, another will quickly take its place,” the trust’s FAQ says. “In other words, there is an endless supply surrounding the greater Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since coyotes are now considered to be a permanent part of the Presidio’s ecosystem, officials are fostering coexistence through workshops, social media, incident hotlines and signage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more the public knows about expected coyote behavior and how human habits can affect coyote behavior, the more we minimize potential conflicts,” said Harrell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sun puts it this way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Managing coyotes is impossible, human management is more possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>How many coyotes live in the Presidio?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mike Sun, aka Coyote Mike, posed that question last year to a group of San Francisco preschoolers, he received several blurted replies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Twenty-eight,” said one tot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A million,” guessed another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Close enough. The correct answer was six. Today there are at least four fully grown coyotes and an unknown number of April-born pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sun is an environmental education specialist for the Presidio Trust, and he was talking to his young audience as part of a public outreach program about wildlife in the Presidio of San Francisco national park, about 1,500 acres on the northern edge of the San Francisco Peninsula, near the Golden Gate Bridge. The land, full of wooded areas and historical attractions, housed a U.S. Army post from 1847 to 1994. It’s now managed by the trust, along with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coyotes have sometimes surprised humans, who also like to use the park. Kay Firth-Butterfield, strolling along Arguello Gate on the south end, once ran into a coyote who started toward her, startling her dog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t think it was threatening, it was just walking towards us,” she said, “but the German shepherd was scared stiff and took off running.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conflicts between dogs and coyotes arise when canines get too close to coyote dens during the spring and summer pupping season, or when off-leash dogs give chase, said Presidio Trust Wildlife Ecologist Jonathan Young. In recent years, San Francisco has seen several \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coyote-snatches-dog-off-SF-doorstep-as-horrified-11297814.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">coyote attacks on dogs\u003c/a>, some of them reportedly fatal. Bay Area coyotes have also been known to kill cats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These encounters make public education critical, says Young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fear usually stems from lack of understanding,” he said. “If we can educate the public on what we know, we can ease the fear.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/kZ5EGdo-o6o'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/kZ5EGdo-o6o'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recolonizing San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes in the Presidio were pushed into local extinction by San Francisco’s growing population, and were last seen in the mid-1900s, \u003ca href=\"https://sfenvironment.org/news/update/coyotes-in-the-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according\u003c/a> to San Francisco’s Department of the Environment. But they returned to the park in 2002, following a change in human attitudes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "If you encounter a Presidio coyote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Keep your distance; do not approach.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Keep your dog on a leash and under your control.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Observe posted signs about coyote activity.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Supervise children when outdoors.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Never attempt to feed a coyote. Do not leave human or pet food outside where coyotes might eat it.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If you encounter a coyote within 50 feet and it doesn’t move away, be as big and loud as possible; shout in a deep, loud and aggressive voice; wave your arms and throw small objects. Maintain eye contact, which makes coyotes uncomfortable and timid.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If still no luck, don’t run or turn your back on the coyote, but exaggerate the above gestures while backing away slowly. Report this type of incident to (415) 561-4148 or coyote@presidiotrust.gov.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If you encounter a coyote during pupping season, spring through fall, and you have a dog with you, the best course of action is to back away slowly and leave the area immediately. Coyotes will attempt to drive away other coyotes and dogs from their pups, and the above steps may not work.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Social acceptance and approval of firearms and hunting have declined while animal rights views have increased within urban/suburban areas,” reads a coyote \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidio.gov/presidio-trust/planning-internal/Shared%20Documents/Coyotes%20FAQ.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FAQ\u003c/a> from the Presidio Trust. “These social changes were reflected in the 1974 ending of state/federal sponsored mammalian bounties in California. With the reduction/removal of these urban pressures, these animals began to move back into surrounding urban areas, eventually recolonizing San Francisco in the early 2000s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s view is that coyotes help keep the rodent population down. In 2016, the Presidio Trust started a coyote monitoring program, which involves tagging and collaring the animals with temporary GPS devices. Sixteen coyotes have been tagged to date. Not including the offspring born this year, 15 pups have sprung from three different litters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nine of those 15 pups have since dispersed from the Presidio, and we’ve tracked their journeys as they try to find their own territory elsewhere,” the trust says on its website. “Many of these animals have not survived the harsh realities of urban traffic.” (\u003ca href=\"https://www.presidio.gov/presidio-trust/planning-internal/PublishingImages/Coyotes-in-the-Presidio/gps-collar-data-on-male-coyote.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">See this map\u003c/a> of one young coyote’s journey from the Presidio to San Jose before being fatally hit by a car on Interstate 280.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes, which are highly adaptable, are also regularly spotted in some of the city’s other open spaces, like Golden Gate Park, \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/951934781595201/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buena Vista Park\u003c/a>, and Lands End.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So now, humans are the ones who have to adapt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The current population is not used to coyotes as a part of the urban environment,” said Clay Harrell, a senior communications executive at the Presidio Trust. “Many people see their presence as a threat to public safety and their pets, and want authorities to remove the threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lots of people ask why the Presidio wildlife team hasn’t relocated the park’s coyotes. According to park ecologists, transplanting them would be pointless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a coyote is removed from its local territory, another will quickly take its place,” the trust’s FAQ says. “In other words, there is an endless supply surrounding the greater Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since coyotes are now considered to be a permanent part of the Presidio’s ecosystem, officials are fostering coexistence through workshops, social media, incident hotlines and signage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more the public knows about expected coyote behavior and how human habits can affect coyote behavior, the more we minimize potential conflicts,” said Harrell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sun puts it this way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Managing coyotes is impossible, human management is more possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Videos: Surreal-Looking Sea Dragons Come to SoCal Aquarium",
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"content": "\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L98vo3uoiAI&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, it looks like a branch of kelp, but then an eye moves among its leafy appendages, and ridges of tiny, translucent fins start to flutter, sending the creature gliding through the water like something from a fairy tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Southern California aquarium has built what is believed to be one of the world’s largest habitats for the surreal sea dragons, whose native populations off Australia are threatened by pollution, warming oceans and the illegal pet and alternative medicine trades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atjKv21RL3Q&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego hopes the exhibit, which opened this month, will lead to the leafy sea dragon, the lesser-known cousin of the seahorse, being bred for the first time in captivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It literally just looked like a piece of kelp,” said Steven Kowal, 25, who was visiting San Diego from Greensboro, North Carolina, and took time to see the exhibit. “It was crazy to me that it was, like, actually living and swimming around, so that’s cool. I’ve never seen anything like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a common reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They look like something out of this world,” said Leslee Matsushige, the aquarium’s associate curator, who noted the sea dragons’ amazing ability to camouflage themselves. “When people see them move, you hear them say, ‘What? That’s alive? Wow! That’s crazy.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists like Matsushige hope the creatures’ magnetic power will prompt people to read signs next to the tanks that outline ways to protect them and what can be done to make oceans healthier, such as picking up trash and stopping pollutants from going down the drain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few aquariums have sea dragons. There are only two types of sea dragons, the leafy and the weedy, each representing its own genus. Both are found only in a small area of temperate waters off the southern and western coasts of Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAArcm32IJw&w=560&h=315]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little is known about them because their populations are so small and in remote areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, only the weedy sea dragon, a bony fish that resembles seaweed when floating, has been bred in captivity, and only a handful of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach was the first in the world to breed the weedy sea dragons in 2001. It also is trying to breed leafy sea dragons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TpQS8uAUE0&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Birch Aquarium’s 18-foot-long (5.5-meter-long) tank has three leafy sea dragons — two males and one female — and 11 weedy sea dragons. The 5,300-gallon (20,062-liter) tank is a vast space, especially for the smaller leafy sea dragon, which grows to only about 14 inches (36 centimeters) in length. The tank has grassy plants, a sandy bottom and rocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists hope the large space will foster breeding. Sea dragons mirror each other in a courtship dance, spiraling upward before the female deposits her eggs onto a patch on the underside of the male’s tail. Like seahorses, the male carries the young and gives birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re already seeing great courtship behaviors, and so we’re hopeful we can get some egg transfers really soon,” said Jenn Nero Moffatt, director of animal care at the Birch Aquarium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit is the latest effort by the aquarium that is a world leader in seahorse propagation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea dragons swim by spinning translucent fins while their tails act as rudders. They have no natural predators, in part because their slender bodies are covered by bony plates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If both types of sea dragons can be bred, scientists believe that could reduce the number being taken illegally from the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/L98vo3uoiAI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/L98vo3uoiAI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, it looks like a branch of kelp, but then an eye moves among its leafy appendages, and ridges of tiny, translucent fins start to flutter, sending the creature gliding through the water like something from a fairy tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Southern California aquarium has built what is believed to be one of the world’s largest habitats for the surreal sea dragons, whose native populations off Australia are threatened by pollution, warming oceans and the illegal pet and alternative medicine trades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/atjKv21RL3Q'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/atjKv21RL3Q'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego hopes the exhibit, which opened this month, will lead to the leafy sea dragon, the lesser-known cousin of the seahorse, being bred for the first time in captivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It literally just looked like a piece of kelp,” said Steven Kowal, 25, who was visiting San Diego from Greensboro, North Carolina, and took time to see the exhibit. “It was crazy to me that it was, like, actually living and swimming around, so that’s cool. I’ve never seen anything like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a common reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They look like something out of this world,” said Leslee Matsushige, the aquarium’s associate curator, who noted the sea dragons’ amazing ability to camouflage themselves. “When people see them move, you hear them say, ‘What? That’s alive? Wow! That’s crazy.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists like Matsushige hope the creatures’ magnetic power will prompt people to read signs next to the tanks that outline ways to protect them and what can be done to make oceans healthier, such as picking up trash and stopping pollutants from going down the drain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few aquariums have sea dragons. There are only two types of sea dragons, the leafy and the weedy, each representing its own genus. Both are found only in a small area of temperate waters off the southern and western coasts of Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/XAArcm32IJw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/XAArcm32IJw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little is known about them because their populations are so small and in remote areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, only the weedy sea dragon, a bony fish that resembles seaweed when floating, has been bred in captivity, and only a handful of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach was the first in the world to breed the weedy sea dragons in 2001. It also is trying to breed leafy sea dragons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/1TpQS8uAUE0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/1TpQS8uAUE0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Birch Aquarium’s 18-foot-long (5.5-meter-long) tank has three leafy sea dragons — two males and one female — and 11 weedy sea dragons. The 5,300-gallon (20,062-liter) tank is a vast space, especially for the smaller leafy sea dragon, which grows to only about 14 inches (36 centimeters) in length. The tank has grassy plants, a sandy bottom and rocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists hope the large space will foster breeding. Sea dragons mirror each other in a courtship dance, spiraling upward before the female deposits her eggs onto a patch on the underside of the male’s tail. Like seahorses, the male carries the young and gives birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re already seeing great courtship behaviors, and so we’re hopeful we can get some egg transfers really soon,” said Jenn Nero Moffatt, director of animal care at the Birch Aquarium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit is the latest effort by the aquarium that is a world leader in seahorse propagation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Scientists can now “see” more accurately what long-extinct species looked like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park and the University of Manchester have created a chemical image of a 3-million year-old mouse, published Tuesday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10087-2?utm_source=Media+List+%28Hand-Curated%29&utm_campaign=d51fa26100-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_20_04_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2da964dfb8-d51fa26100-41843785\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Nature Communications\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mouse doesn’t look too different from those scurrying around today. The major discovery was its coloring: It \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> had red fur and a white stomach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Paleontology has concerned itself with what you can see with your naked eye,” said Nick Edwards, a SLAC researcher and co-author of the paper. “That was all we had as a tool for many years, decades even.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But now, using X-ray fluorescence imaging, researchers can map elements like zinc and sulfur that function as color markers. Elements have a unique amount of energy, or wavelength, they emit when bombarded with light. Based on the location of those elements in fossils, scientists can reconstruct the animal’s coloring in real life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The technique could lead to some new discoveries, Edwards said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually that chemistry that could tell us about another level of ancient life, as opposed to just, ‘Here’s how it looked, here’s how it may have moved.’ It’s really like how it may have functioned at the biological level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experiment marked the first time scientists have been able to detect a chemical signature of pheomelanin — the same red form of melanin present in animals’ red hair today — in an extinct species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942148\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1942148 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1020x490.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1020x490.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-160x77.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-800x384.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-768x369.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1200x576.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1920x922.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SLAC researchers imaged the 3-million-year-old mouse. Using elemental markers like zinc and sulfur, they found it likely had red fur and a white stomach.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The technique has some limitations. Edwards explained it can’t use elements to pick up bright blues, yellows, greens and pinks. Only melanin pigments incorporate trace metals into their structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SLAC and University of Manchester researchers are also using the method to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1921055/hunting-for-historical-buried-treasure-x-rays-mark-the-spot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uncover the original writing\u003c/a> on an ancient medical manuscript. Beyond that, the same approach may be used to investigate how pollution moves deep underground over thousands to millions of years, Edwards says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In small doses, elements like zinc, copper and magnesium are harmless. But in larger doses, these same elements can be harmful to human health. So the team is exploring how they could use 3D imaging and X-ray fluorescence to investigate the paths metals take through layers of soil and rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we go and dump some organic materials and chemicals into the ground, how are those sort of taken up?” Edwards said. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Understanding how this kind of matter degrades and lasts over tens of millions of years is pretty important.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Scientists can now “see” more accurately what long-extinct species looked like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park and the University of Manchester have created a chemical image of a 3-million year-old mouse, published Tuesday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10087-2?utm_source=Media+List+%28Hand-Curated%29&utm_campaign=d51fa26100-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_20_04_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2da964dfb8-d51fa26100-41843785\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Nature Communications\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mouse doesn’t look too different from those scurrying around today. The major discovery was its coloring: It \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> had red fur and a white stomach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Paleontology has concerned itself with what you can see with your naked eye,” said Nick Edwards, a SLAC researcher and co-author of the paper. “That was all we had as a tool for many years, decades even.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But now, using X-ray fluorescence imaging, researchers can map elements like zinc and sulfur that function as color markers. Elements have a unique amount of energy, or wavelength, they emit when bombarded with light. Based on the location of those elements in fossils, scientists can reconstruct the animal’s coloring in real life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The technique could lead to some new discoveries, Edwards said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually that chemistry that could tell us about another level of ancient life, as opposed to just, ‘Here’s how it looked, here’s how it may have moved.’ It’s really like how it may have functioned at the biological level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experiment marked the first time scientists have been able to detect a chemical signature of pheomelanin — the same red form of melanin present in animals’ red hair today — in an extinct species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1942148\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1942148 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1020x490.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1020x490.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-160x77.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-800x384.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-768x369.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1200x576.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final-1920x922.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/mighty_mouse_fossil_leadart_final.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SLAC researchers imaged the 3-million-year-old mouse. Using elemental markers like zinc and sulfur, they found it likely had red fur and a white stomach.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The technique has some limitations. Edwards explained it can’t use elements to pick up bright blues, yellows, greens and pinks. Only melanin pigments incorporate trace metals into their structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SLAC and University of Manchester researchers are also using the method to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1921055/hunting-for-historical-buried-treasure-x-rays-mark-the-spot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uncover the original writing\u003c/a> on an ancient medical manuscript. Beyond that, the same approach may be used to investigate how pollution moves deep underground over thousands to millions of years, Edwards says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In small doses, elements like zinc, copper and magnesium are harmless. But in larger doses, these same elements can be harmful to human health. So the team is exploring how they could use 3D imaging and X-ray fluorescence to investigate the paths metals take through layers of soil and rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we go and dump some organic materials and chemicals into the ground, how are those sort of taken up?” Edwards said. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Understanding how this kind of matter degrades and lasts over tens of millions of years is pretty important.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Four Days in May: Mount Lassen Erupted 104 Years Ago",
"headTitle": "Four Days in May: Mount Lassen Erupted 104 Years Ago | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This post was originally published in 2015.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZD9K4q55jk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One afternoon in the spring of 1914, Mount Lassen awoke with a cough, the sudden burst of steam and ash from its 10,500-foot summit startling residents of the northernmost Central Valley and surrounding mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burt McKenzie, a cattleman in the high meadows nearby, telephoned a Forest Service ranger and told him the mountain was “blowing up.” The ranger checked it out on snowshoes the next day. Soon he and other climbers confirmed that the explosion had left a smoking crater about 100 by 350 feet in size, ringed with fresh volcanic ash and puffing sulfurous fumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similar activity continued for a year: small explosions and mostly harmless clouds of steam and ash. Newspapers entertained the country’s readers with the newest sensation from colorful California. Local photographers staked out the good spots and sold their images to all and sundry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since that time, geologists have learned to discount those historic newspaper stories and prize those historic photographs instead. Michael Clynne, who has studied Lassen for the U.S. Geological Survey since 1975, told an audience last month that about 1,000 different photographs survive showing Lassen in action. With their help and lots of scientific sleuthing, we have made sense of California’s first and only volcanic eruption since statehood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/loomis-oct20-1914.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/loomis-oct20-1914.jpg\" alt=\"Mount Lassen crater, October 1914\" width=\"600\" height=\"469\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mount Lassen’s active crater on October 20, 1914. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mount Lassen was awake for just over three years, from that first blowout in May 1914 until a final burp in June 1917. It climaxed in a proper eruption, with red-hot lava and everything, over the four days of May 19-22, 1915 — 100 years ago this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first year’s explosions were steam blowouts, triggered when rising magma met groundwater and flashed it into vapor. Geologists call these phreatic (“free-AT-ic”) events. From 1914 through the following spring there were almost 200 phreatic explosions, practically guaranteeing visitors the opportunity to see one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-steam-1914-loomis.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30478\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-steam-1914-loomis.png\" alt=\"Steam explosion at Lassen, June 1914\" width=\"600\" height=\"524\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photographer Benjamin Franklin Loomis captured a typical phreatic explosion on June 14, 1914. This photo was taken from Manzanita Lake, northwest of Mount Lassen. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The active crater slowly grew to about 1,000 feet. On May 14, 1915, it was seen to glow as real live lava rose up and congealed into a large dome. On May 19, a new crater opened with an explosion, shattering the dome and showering its glowing guts onto the northeast flank of Mount Lassen, which was 30 feet deep in snow after the El Niño winter of 1914-15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That night and the next day there ensued a triple-whammy of damage. First an avalanche of snow and lava roared 4 miles down the mountainside, snapping off trees at the stump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the lava ended, the snow melted and started a large mudflow, or as geologists call it, a lahar (“la-HAR”). The lahar plowed 11 miles farther down the valley of Lost Creek, tearing out trees by the roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the mudflow stopped, all of that meltwater seeped out in a large, muddy flood that swept over several ranch houses on its way to the Pit River, where it caused a massive fish kill. The ranchers escaped with their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, on the afternoon of May 22, a classic-style eruption opened a new crater near the summit. A high column of ash formed a mushroom cloud, seen as far away as Eureka and Sacramento. Winds carried the high ash eastward in amounts that people noticed all the way across Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30480\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-redbluff-22may-1915.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30480\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-redbluff-22may-1915.png\" alt=\"May 22 eruption cloud seen at Red Bluff\" width=\"600\" height=\"547\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The May 22 eruption sent a mushroom cloud 30,000 feet over Lassen, seen here from downtown Red Bluff, 37 miles away. (R. E. Stinson/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The lower part of the eruption cloud descended upon Lassen’s northeast flank and started another triple-whammy, causing even greater damage to the forests, rivers, and ranches. First this time was a pyroclastic flow – a fiery avalanche of pulverized rock. For all the fearful spectacle, no one died that week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the climax of May 22, Lassen resumed its phreatic explosions, which continued for two more years and then sputtered out. The boiling mudpots and vapor-spewing fumaroles south of the volcano, already a tourist attraction in 1914, continued unchanged. And so it’s been ever since, the forest slowly returning to the Devastated Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount Lassen isn’t like the other Cascade volcanoes. The range is famous for its high, snow-capped peaks, from Shasta to Rainier and on up to Canada, but it includes a wide variety of volcano types.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lassen area is at the very southern end of the chain, where plate tectonic movements are gradually snuffing out the deep source of its vitality. There, magmas that rise into the Earth’s crust are made of stickier stuff than the typical Cascade recipe, and they also tend to burst out in a scattershot pattern rather than in one big vent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Lassen area, short-lived eruptive episodes build lava domes and smaller structures. Lassen itself is a particularly large dome, one of the world’s biggest. It formed 27,000 years ago in a brief spasm of activity, and, to judge from the uniform age of its lava rocks, it had been inactive ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30479\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-hotrock-loomis.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30479\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-hotrock-loomis.jpg\" alt=\"Hot Rock and the Devastated Area, May 22, 1915\" width=\"600\" height=\"442\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On May 22, 1915, Loomis photographed the aftermath of the May 19 eruption. Hours later the peak erupted again, after Loomis had run out of glass plates and gone home. This area was given the name Devastated Area by the National Park Service. “Hot Rock” is part of a nature trail today. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Given that geologic history, the 20th century eruption at Lassen looks like an oddity rather than a pattern — perhaps a mere coincidence. Geologists do not think Lassen is a Shasta in the making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Lassen’s most recent eruption will likely not be its last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Lassen volcanic center is still active,” Clynne says, “and it will erupt again. It’s only a matter of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The magma chamber is still there, but the molten rock is so choked with mineral crystals it can barely flow. Only a pulse of fresh magma from below could melt it a little and enable a new eruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using seismographs, tiltmeters, satellite observations and other techniques, we can now monitor the space beneath the magma chamber and watch for new infusions of material. Lassen’s next eruptive episode may not happen at Mount Lassen, but whenever and wherever it starts, it won’t take us by surprise again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This post was originally published in 2015.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/nZD9K4q55jk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/nZD9K4q55jk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>One afternoon in the spring of 1914, Mount Lassen awoke with a cough, the sudden burst of steam and ash from its 10,500-foot summit startling residents of the northernmost Central Valley and surrounding mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burt McKenzie, a cattleman in the high meadows nearby, telephoned a Forest Service ranger and told him the mountain was “blowing up.” The ranger checked it out on snowshoes the next day. Soon he and other climbers confirmed that the explosion had left a smoking crater about 100 by 350 feet in size, ringed with fresh volcanic ash and puffing sulfurous fumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similar activity continued for a year: small explosions and mostly harmless clouds of steam and ash. Newspapers entertained the country’s readers with the newest sensation from colorful California. Local photographers staked out the good spots and sold their images to all and sundry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since that time, geologists have learned to discount those historic newspaper stories and prize those historic photographs instead. Michael Clynne, who has studied Lassen for the U.S. Geological Survey since 1975, told an audience last month that about 1,000 different photographs survive showing Lassen in action. With their help and lots of scientific sleuthing, we have made sense of California’s first and only volcanic eruption since statehood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/loomis-oct20-1914.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/loomis-oct20-1914.jpg\" alt=\"Mount Lassen crater, October 1914\" width=\"600\" height=\"469\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mount Lassen’s active crater on October 20, 1914. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mount Lassen was awake for just over three years, from that first blowout in May 1914 until a final burp in June 1917. It climaxed in a proper eruption, with red-hot lava and everything, over the four days of May 19-22, 1915 — 100 years ago this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first year’s explosions were steam blowouts, triggered when rising magma met groundwater and flashed it into vapor. Geologists call these phreatic (“free-AT-ic”) events. From 1914 through the following spring there were almost 200 phreatic explosions, practically guaranteeing visitors the opportunity to see one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-steam-1914-loomis.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30478\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-steam-1914-loomis.png\" alt=\"Steam explosion at Lassen, June 1914\" width=\"600\" height=\"524\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photographer Benjamin Franklin Loomis captured a typical phreatic explosion on June 14, 1914. This photo was taken from Manzanita Lake, northwest of Mount Lassen. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The active crater slowly grew to about 1,000 feet. On May 14, 1915, it was seen to glow as real live lava rose up and congealed into a large dome. On May 19, a new crater opened with an explosion, shattering the dome and showering its glowing guts onto the northeast flank of Mount Lassen, which was 30 feet deep in snow after the El Niño winter of 1914-15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That night and the next day there ensued a triple-whammy of damage. First an avalanche of snow and lava roared 4 miles down the mountainside, snapping off trees at the stump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the lava ended, the snow melted and started a large mudflow, or as geologists call it, a lahar (“la-HAR”). The lahar plowed 11 miles farther down the valley of Lost Creek, tearing out trees by the roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the mudflow stopped, all of that meltwater seeped out in a large, muddy flood that swept over several ranch houses on its way to the Pit River, where it caused a massive fish kill. The ranchers escaped with their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, on the afternoon of May 22, a classic-style eruption opened a new crater near the summit. A high column of ash formed a mushroom cloud, seen as far away as Eureka and Sacramento. Winds carried the high ash eastward in amounts that people noticed all the way across Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30480\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-redbluff-22may-1915.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30480\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-redbluff-22may-1915.png\" alt=\"May 22 eruption cloud seen at Red Bluff\" width=\"600\" height=\"547\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The May 22 eruption sent a mushroom cloud 30,000 feet over Lassen, seen here from downtown Red Bluff, 37 miles away. (R. E. Stinson/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The lower part of the eruption cloud descended upon Lassen’s northeast flank and started another triple-whammy, causing even greater damage to the forests, rivers, and ranches. First this time was a pyroclastic flow – a fiery avalanche of pulverized rock. For all the fearful spectacle, no one died that week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the climax of May 22, Lassen resumed its phreatic explosions, which continued for two more years and then sputtered out. The boiling mudpots and vapor-spewing fumaroles south of the volcano, already a tourist attraction in 1914, continued unchanged. And so it’s been ever since, the forest slowly returning to the Devastated Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount Lassen isn’t like the other Cascade volcanoes. The range is famous for its high, snow-capped peaks, from Shasta to Rainier and on up to Canada, but it includes a wide variety of volcano types.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lassen area is at the very southern end of the chain, where plate tectonic movements are gradually snuffing out the deep source of its vitality. There, magmas that rise into the Earth’s crust are made of stickier stuff than the typical Cascade recipe, and they also tend to burst out in a scattershot pattern rather than in one big vent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Lassen area, short-lived eruptive episodes build lava domes and smaller structures. Lassen itself is a particularly large dome, one of the world’s biggest. It formed 27,000 years ago in a brief spasm of activity, and, to judge from the uniform age of its lava rocks, it had been inactive ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30479\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-hotrock-loomis.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30479\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/05/lassen-hotrock-loomis.jpg\" alt=\"Hot Rock and the Devastated Area, May 22, 1915\" width=\"600\" height=\"442\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On May 22, 1915, Loomis photographed the aftermath of the May 19 eruption. Hours later the peak erupted again, after Loomis had run out of glass plates and gone home. This area was given the name Devastated Area by the National Park Service. “Hot Rock” is part of a nature trail today. (Loomis/NPS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Given that geologic history, the 20th century eruption at Lassen looks like an oddity rather than a pattern — perhaps a mere coincidence. Geologists do not think Lassen is a Shasta in the making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Lassen’s most recent eruption will likely not be its last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Lassen volcanic center is still active,” Clynne says, “and it will erupt again. It’s only a matter of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The magma chamber is still there, but the molten rock is so choked with mineral crystals it can barely flow. Only a pulse of fresh magma from below could melt it a little and enable a new eruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using seismographs, tiltmeters, satellite observations and other techniques, we can now monitor the space beneath the magma chamber and watch for new infusions of material. Lassen’s next eruptive episode may not happen at Mount Lassen, but whenever and wherever it starts, it won’t take us by surprise again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "The Half Dome Lottery System Was Supposed to Make the Hike Safer. This Study Says It Hasn’t",
"headTitle": "The Half Dome Lottery System Was Supposed to Make the Hike Safer. This Study Says It Hasn’t | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Anyone attempting to summit Yosemite National Park’s iconic Half Dome rock formation during the 2000s would have likely found a bottleneck of hikers along the breathtaking final push up a steep incline of sheer granite.\u003cbr>\n[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Susanne Spano, UCSF']‘The permits were put in place for the right reasons — to make it safer for the people that are participating. It just so happens that there is no safety benefit.’[/pullquote]On a busy day, more than 1,000 people made the climb, and park officials worried that so many hikers using the cables put in place to assist their ascent made for dangerous conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This restriction is needed to provide for visitor safety,” the park service wrote at the time in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/upload/halfdomemanagement.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">policy paper\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. The number of daily visitors was subsequently lowered even more, to 300.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But an \u003ca href=\"https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(18)30218-7/fulltext\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">analysis\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the park’s injury numbers, out this month in the journal \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">found that the number of accidents involving Half Dome hikers were statistically the same for the five years before and after the park began its permitting policy, despite the fact that up to 66% fewer hikers summited each day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overcrowding does not seem to be the major factor influencing safety,” said Susanne Spano, the study’s lead author and director of the Wilderness Medicine fellowship program at UCSF Fresno. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“The permits were put in place for the right reasons — to make it safer for the people that are participating. It just so happens that there is no safety benefit.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers found that from 2005 to 2009, before the lottery, Yosemite logged 85 search and rescue incidents, 134 accidents, and 38 major incidents. Between 2011 and 2015, the park saw 54 search and rescue incidents, 156 victims, and 35 major incidents. The park saw a decrease of three deaths, however, from seven to four. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Long, Steep\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At between 14 to 16 miles round trip\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>including roughly 5,000 feet of elevation gain, the trek up Half Dome is one of the longest and steepest single-day hikes in the entire national park system, taking about 12 hours.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, the trailhead is easily accessible by car, which makes it a draw for more inexperienced hikers. Other hikes of similar difficulty, like the summit of nearby Mount Whitney (the tallest mountain in the Sierra), are less frequented, requiring more preparation and time in the backcountry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One stated reason for initiating the permitting system was the crowding on the incline up the summit. But the study in \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wilderness & Environmental Medicine \u003c/span>\u003c/i>suggests that hikers are mostly getting hurt on the trail before that final leg, according to John Rose, professor of emergency medicine at the UC Davis Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The research] supports the idea that the problem was probably not related to just having too many people on the cable.” Rose cautioned that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.statsdirect.com/help/basics/prospective.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">retrospective \u003c/a>study’s limitations include a small data set.\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trailhead quotas are often used in national parks to limit the number of visitors and provide opportunities for solitude, but it’s less common for permit policies to be created in order to protect the health of hikers and backpackers. Spano’s research team is unaware of any other program like Yosemite’s.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, if people are getting hurt, it’s important to figure out why, and the park should consider additional safety measures, says Kathryn Van Waes, executive director of the American Hiking Society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It needs to be looked into,” she said, suggesting Yosemite consult safety measures taken by parks with similarly perilous trails. “There are other places with these kinds of dangerous hikes in China, Switzerland and places in South America.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Van Waes suggested that an educational video explaining the dangers of Half Dome , shown as part of the permitting process, could help deter inexperienced hikers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A more extreme measure would be requiring guides to assist with the climb, she said, acknowledging such a measure would be unpopular with visitors and could create liability concerns. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941842\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941842 size-medium\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A warning sign posted on the trek up to Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. (Mike Wexler/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Tough Ticket\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spano said one thing possibly contributing to Half Dome injuries is “summit fever,” predicated on the difficulty that average hikers have acquiring permits. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The park issues them through a preseason lottery in March and daily lotteries during hiking season, normally May to October, when the guide cables are up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that the opportunity to ascend Half Dome has been curtailed, Spano said, hikers may be pressing on even though they feel fatigued. “You might never have a chance to get back,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, the success rate for the preseason lottery was as low as 2% for weekend dates and 32% for weekdays, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Francisco Chronicle columnist Tom Stienstra \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/article/Yosemite-is-changing-Half-Dome-hiking-permits-13722202.php\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reported\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in March. Stienstra said that computer programmers “essentially have rigged the online-permit system.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, the average success rate improved to 47% on weekdays and 24% on weekends, according to the park’s \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">lottery statistics\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>This year, the park tinkered with the system in order to curb the selling and transferring of permits, The Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/13/yosemite-half-dome-permits-available-for-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yosemite officials recommend that Half Dome hikers wear boots with traction, protect themselves from the sun, and drink at least a gallon of water. It’s not common for cell phones to work in the backcountry, even though there is some \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/internet.htm\">cell reception in the park\u003c/a>, mostly in Yosemite Valley. The park also suggests a hard-and-fast turnaround time — if you haven’t reached the top by midafternoon, you should reverse course so you aren’t hiking by headlamp in the dark. But bring a light just in case.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story originally incorrectly cited the study’s injury statistics as parkwide and not limited to the area above Little Yosemite Valley.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In 2010, Yosemite began a permitting lottery for visitors to Half Dome, out of safety concerns due to overcrowding on the trail. But a recent analysis of the park’s injury numbers found that the system did not reduce accidents.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On a busy day, more than 1,000 people made the climb, and park officials worried that so many hikers using the cables put in place to assist their ascent made for dangerous conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This restriction is needed to provide for visitor safety,” the park service wrote at the time in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/upload/halfdomemanagement.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">policy paper\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. The number of daily visitors was subsequently lowered even more, to 300.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But an \u003ca href=\"https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(18)30218-7/fulltext\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">analysis\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the park’s injury numbers, out this month in the journal \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">found that the number of accidents involving Half Dome hikers were statistically the same for the five years before and after the park began its permitting policy, despite the fact that up to 66% fewer hikers summited each day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overcrowding does not seem to be the major factor influencing safety,” said Susanne Spano, the study’s lead author and director of the Wilderness Medicine fellowship program at UCSF Fresno. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“The permits were put in place for the right reasons — to make it safer for the people that are participating. It just so happens that there is no safety benefit.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers found that from 2005 to 2009, before the lottery, Yosemite logged 85 search and rescue incidents, 134 accidents, and 38 major incidents. Between 2011 and 2015, the park saw 54 search and rescue incidents, 156 victims, and 35 major incidents. The park saw a decrease of three deaths, however, from seven to four. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Long, Steep\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At between 14 to 16 miles round trip\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>including roughly 5,000 feet of elevation gain, the trek up Half Dome is one of the longest and steepest single-day hikes in the entire national park system, taking about 12 hours.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, the trailhead is easily accessible by car, which makes it a draw for more inexperienced hikers. Other hikes of similar difficulty, like the summit of nearby Mount Whitney (the tallest mountain in the Sierra), are less frequented, requiring more preparation and time in the backcountry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One stated reason for initiating the permitting system was the crowding on the incline up the summit. But the study in \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wilderness & Environmental Medicine \u003c/span>\u003c/i>suggests that hikers are mostly getting hurt on the trail before that final leg, according to John Rose, professor of emergency medicine at the UC Davis Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The research] supports the idea that the problem was probably not related to just having too many people on the cable.” Rose cautioned that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.statsdirect.com/help/basics/prospective.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">retrospective \u003c/a>study’s limitations include a small data set.\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trailhead quotas are often used in national parks to limit the number of visitors and provide opportunities for solitude, but it’s less common for permit policies to be created in order to protect the health of hikers and backpackers. Spano’s research team is unaware of any other program like Yosemite’s.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, if people are getting hurt, it’s important to figure out why, and the park should consider additional safety measures, says Kathryn Van Waes, executive director of the American Hiking Society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It needs to be looked into,” she said, suggesting Yosemite consult safety measures taken by parks with similarly perilous trails. “There are other places with these kinds of dangerous hikes in China, Switzerland and places in South America.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Van Waes suggested that an educational video explaining the dangers of Half Dome , shown as part of the permitting process, could help deter inexperienced hikers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A more extreme measure would be requiring guides to assist with the climb, she said, acknowledging such a measure would be unpopular with visitors and could create liability concerns. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941842\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941842 size-medium\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/3655503955_b3a3fc9015_o.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A warning sign posted on the trek up to Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. (Mike Wexler/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Tough Ticket\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spano said one thing possibly contributing to Half Dome injuries is “summit fever,” predicated on the difficulty that average hikers have acquiring permits. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The park issues them through a preseason lottery in March and daily lotteries during hiking season, normally May to October, when the guide cables are up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that the opportunity to ascend Half Dome has been curtailed, Spano said, hikers may be pressing on even though they feel fatigued. “You might never have a chance to get back,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, the success rate for the preseason lottery was as low as 2% for weekend dates and 32% for weekdays, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Francisco Chronicle columnist Tom Stienstra \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/article/Yosemite-is-changing-Half-Dome-hiking-permits-13722202.php\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reported\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in March. Stienstra said that computer programmers “essentially have rigged the online-permit system.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, the average success rate improved to 47% on weekdays and 24% on weekends, according to the park’s \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">lottery statistics\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>This year, the park tinkered with the system in order to curb the selling and transferring of permits, The Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/13/yosemite-half-dome-permits-available-for-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yosemite officials recommend that Half Dome hikers wear boots with traction, protect themselves from the sun, and drink at least a gallon of water. It’s not common for cell phones to work in the backcountry, even though there is some \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/internet.htm\">cell reception in the park\u003c/a>, mostly in Yosemite Valley. The park also suggests a hard-and-fast turnaround time — if you haven’t reached the top by midafternoon, you should reverse course so you aren’t hiking by headlamp in the dark. But bring a light just in case.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story originally incorrectly cited the study’s injury statistics as parkwide and not limited to the area above Little Yosemite Valley.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Google AI Outperforms Radiologists in Lung Cancer Diagnoses: Study",
"headTitle": "Google AI Outperforms Radiologists in Lung Cancer Diagnoses: Study | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/span>ne of lung cancer’s most lethal attributes is its ability to trick radiologists. Some nodules appear threatening but turn out to be false positives. Others escape notice entirely, and then spiral without symptoms into metastatic disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"danger-zone\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[aside postID='futureofyou_256816' \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">label=\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">'Has Technology Ruined the Radiology Profession?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">']\u003c/span>On Monday, however, Google unveiled an artificial intelligence system that — in early testing — demonstrated a remarkable talent for seeing through lung cancer’s disguises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"danger-zone\">A \u003ca href=\"http://track.nature.com/track/click/30195101/www.nature.com?p=eyJzIjoicTBxSFlxcFRWaUltRDVsd2FRSGNRRXJNV3JzIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDE5NTEwMSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL3d3dy5uYXR1cmUuY29tXFxcL2FydGljbGVzXFxcL3M0MTU5MS0wMTktMDQ0Ny14XCIsXCJpZFwiOlwiZTU3ZWRiYjZkNzc2NDU3Yjg2OThiMDVkMGM1MzgyYmVcIixcInVybF9pZHNcIjpbXCJkYjkwMzZjZDA4Y2JjNGQ3OTdkODVjYjYyOWE4ZWEyZjE1NTNmMzk3XCJdfSJ9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> published in Nature Medicine reported that the algorithm, trained on 42,000 patient CT scans taken during a National Institutes of Health clinical trial, outperformed six radiologists in determining whether patients had cancer. It detected 5% more cancers and cut false positives — when cancer is suspected though a nodule is harmless — by 11% from reviewing a single scan. It performed on par with the radiologists when prior images of patients were also included in the evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"\">The results underscore AI’s potential to improve lung cancer screening and help radiologists diagnose malignancies earlier and with greater accuracy — though the research did not show whether the Google system would help patients live longer. Lung cancer is by far the most common killer of Americans among cancers, resulting in about 160,000 deaths in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"\">A large \u003ca href=\"https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/research/nlst\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NIH study\u003c/a> — the same one that supplied data for Google’s algorithm — established that screening of high-risk patients such as long-term smokers can reduce the risk of death by about 20%, but it also raised concerns about false positives leading to unnecessary testing that can harm patients. It reported that several deaths resulted from false positives that led patients to undergo invasive biopsies and other procedures. Ongoing concerns about the overall accuracy and benefit of screening have led to low rates of such testing. Meanwhile, about 50 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed after they have already spread, when the disease is harder to effectively treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts who were not involved in the study said Google’s system could make screening much more viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These people have a technology that will improve the precision of screening tremendously,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and formerly executive vice president of the American Cancer Society. He said he is generally a skeptic of lung cancer screening, but emphasized that Google’s performance in reducing false positives was a significant step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to prevent more bad things from happening to people who are being screened,” said Brawley, adding that the system’s strong performance in that regard doesn’t necessarily mean it will save more lives from lung cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s system will require more rigorous testing — probably a randomized controlled trial — before it could be put into medical practice. The study was limited to patients who had already been treated, so it is impossible to tell whether the system, when used on new patients, will result in more effective care and better outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google executives acknowledged that point in the study and an accompanying blog post, adding that they are working with clinical partners to further refine and validate the system. “To do a full assessment of this, you have to work with research organizations and run large-scale trials to understand how this technology will work at scale and on broad populations,” said Daniel Tse, a Google product manager who co-authored the study. He added that the company has had pre-submission discussions with the Food and Drug Administration to discuss approval criteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google engineers who developed the AI system emphasized that it is not designed to replace radiologists, but to improve their ability to detect nodules and determine if they are dangerous. Existing computer-aided systems separate nodule detection and diagnosis into different tasks. Google’s system performs both functions, honing in on regions of interest within a scan and providing a risk score that indicates whether a given patient’s nodules are cancerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system uses \u003ca href=\"https://towardsdatascience.com/simple-introduction-to-convolutional-neural-networks-cdf8d3077bac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">convolutional neural networks\u003c/a>, a type of AI architecture, to learn the features of malignancy and point out the problematic areas by analyzing three-dimensional CT scans. That task is difficult and time-consuming for radiologists because they cannot examine three-dimensional scans the way a computer can; they must review hundreds of individual slices of the scan to hone in on problems. But the computer can review all the dimensions at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were able to train the [AI models] over the whole scan at a very high resolution,” said Shravya Shetty, a Google engineer and technical lead on the study. “Although radiologists can look at the slices, there are clear advantages to the model here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors reported that the system’s performance remained consistent when it was exposed to patients outside of the NIH dataset on which it was trained. The system reviewed scans of 1,700 patients from Northwestern Memorial HealthCare in Chicago, and produced similar results in classifying nodules and making diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts said the Google software may be particularly useful for general radiologists, who often review patient lung scans in community hospitals in the U.S. Most lack the expertise of thoracic radiologists who specialize in lung disorders and are concentrated at large academic medical centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To be able to make screening available to everyone, it can’t just be done by thoracic radiologists. It has to be done by all radiologists,” said Dr. Jorge Gomez, a medical oncologist at Mount Sinai Health System who serves as a national spokesman for the American Lung Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Mount Sinai, he said, thoracic radiologists regularly participate in meetings to discuss patient care and point out the specific aspects of scans that indicate why nodules may or may not be malignant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s an incredible resource to have, and computers might be able to do that well,” he said. “This is a very important study that should prompt somebody with very deep pockets to do a randomized trial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tse, the Google product manager, said the company is actively pursuing that work. “We are pushing things forward both internally within Google and with our partners,” he said, adding that he could not yet identify the time frame for the follow-up study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2019/05/20/googles-ai-improves-accuracy-of-lung-cancer-diagnosis-study-shows/\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>On Monday, however, Google unveiled an artificial intelligence system that — in early testing — demonstrated a remarkable talent for seeing through lung cancer’s disguises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"danger-zone\">A \u003ca href=\"http://track.nature.com/track/click/30195101/www.nature.com?p=eyJzIjoicTBxSFlxcFRWaUltRDVsd2FRSGNRRXJNV3JzIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDE5NTEwMSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL3d3dy5uYXR1cmUuY29tXFxcL2FydGljbGVzXFxcL3M0MTU5MS0wMTktMDQ0Ny14XCIsXCJpZFwiOlwiZTU3ZWRiYjZkNzc2NDU3Yjg2OThiMDVkMGM1MzgyYmVcIixcInVybF9pZHNcIjpbXCJkYjkwMzZjZDA4Y2JjNGQ3OTdkODVjYjYyOWE4ZWEyZjE1NTNmMzk3XCJdfSJ9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> published in Nature Medicine reported that the algorithm, trained on 42,000 patient CT scans taken during a National Institutes of Health clinical trial, outperformed six radiologists in determining whether patients had cancer. It detected 5% more cancers and cut false positives — when cancer is suspected though a nodule is harmless — by 11% from reviewing a single scan. It performed on par with the radiologists when prior images of patients were also included in the evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"\">The results underscore AI’s potential to improve lung cancer screening and help radiologists diagnose malignancies earlier and with greater accuracy — though the research did not show whether the Google system would help patients live longer. Lung cancer is by far the most common killer of Americans among cancers, resulting in about 160,000 deaths in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"\">A large \u003ca href=\"https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/research/nlst\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NIH study\u003c/a> — the same one that supplied data for Google’s algorithm — established that screening of high-risk patients such as long-term smokers can reduce the risk of death by about 20%, but it also raised concerns about false positives leading to unnecessary testing that can harm patients. It reported that several deaths resulted from false positives that led patients to undergo invasive biopsies and other procedures. Ongoing concerns about the overall accuracy and benefit of screening have led to low rates of such testing. Meanwhile, about 50 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed after they have already spread, when the disease is harder to effectively treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts who were not involved in the study said Google’s system could make screening much more viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These people have a technology that will improve the precision of screening tremendously,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and formerly executive vice president of the American Cancer Society. He said he is generally a skeptic of lung cancer screening, but emphasized that Google’s performance in reducing false positives was a significant step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to prevent more bad things from happening to people who are being screened,” said Brawley, adding that the system’s strong performance in that regard doesn’t necessarily mean it will save more lives from lung cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s system will require more rigorous testing — probably a randomized controlled trial — before it could be put into medical practice. The study was limited to patients who had already been treated, so it is impossible to tell whether the system, when used on new patients, will result in more effective care and better outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google executives acknowledged that point in the study and an accompanying blog post, adding that they are working with clinical partners to further refine and validate the system. “To do a full assessment of this, you have to work with research organizations and run large-scale trials to understand how this technology will work at scale and on broad populations,” said Daniel Tse, a Google product manager who co-authored the study. He added that the company has had pre-submission discussions with the Food and Drug Administration to discuss approval criteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google engineers who developed the AI system emphasized that it is not designed to replace radiologists, but to improve their ability to detect nodules and determine if they are dangerous. Existing computer-aided systems separate nodule detection and diagnosis into different tasks. Google’s system performs both functions, honing in on regions of interest within a scan and providing a risk score that indicates whether a given patient’s nodules are cancerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system uses \u003ca href=\"https://towardsdatascience.com/simple-introduction-to-convolutional-neural-networks-cdf8d3077bac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">convolutional neural networks\u003c/a>, a type of AI architecture, to learn the features of malignancy and point out the problematic areas by analyzing three-dimensional CT scans. That task is difficult and time-consuming for radiologists because they cannot examine three-dimensional scans the way a computer can; they must review hundreds of individual slices of the scan to hone in on problems. But the computer can review all the dimensions at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were able to train the [AI models] over the whole scan at a very high resolution,” said Shravya Shetty, a Google engineer and technical lead on the study. “Although radiologists can look at the slices, there are clear advantages to the model here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors reported that the system’s performance remained consistent when it was exposed to patients outside of the NIH dataset on which it was trained. The system reviewed scans of 1,700 patients from Northwestern Memorial HealthCare in Chicago, and produced similar results in classifying nodules and making diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts said the Google software may be particularly useful for general radiologists, who often review patient lung scans in community hospitals in the U.S. Most lack the expertise of thoracic radiologists who specialize in lung disorders and are concentrated at large academic medical centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To be able to make screening available to everyone, it can’t just be done by thoracic radiologists. It has to be done by all radiologists,” said Dr. Jorge Gomez, a medical oncologist at Mount Sinai Health System who serves as a national spokesman for the American Lung Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Mount Sinai, he said, thoracic radiologists regularly participate in meetings to discuss patient care and point out the specific aspects of scans that indicate why nodules may or may not be malignant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s an incredible resource to have, and computers might be able to do that well,” he said. “This is a very important study that should prompt somebody with very deep pockets to do a randomized trial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tse, the Google product manager, said the company is actively pursuing that work. “We are pushing things forward both internally within Google and with our partners,” he said, adding that he could not yet identify the time frame for the follow-up study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Here’s a novel approach to reversing global warming: Let’s put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right']Returning the atmosphere to a preindustrial level of methane by converting it to CO2 is the subject of a new research paper out of Stanford.[/pullquote]Researchers at Stanford University this week proposed a new process that they say could help slow the warming of the planet by converting methane gas floating around in the atmosphere into carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s true that CO2 is the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, methane gas is 84 times more potent in terms of global warming over the first 20 years it is released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process of converting one greenhouse gas into another is “counterintuitive,” says Rob Jackson, the lead author of the study and an earth scientist at Stanford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But molecule for molecule, CO2 traps less heat than methane. If the process is perfected, it could return the atmosphere to preindustrial concentrations of methane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> has major implications for the globe. Last year, methane emissions passed a grim milestone: Atmospheric concentrations reached two-and-a-half times their preindustrial levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first thing we need to do is to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” Jackson explains. “If pollution were a drop of ink, it’s a lot easier to block that drop before it hits the water than it is to remove it after it’s been mixed into the water. The atmosphere is the same way. We need to cut emissions, but they are rising for both carbon dioxide and methane. We need to explore other ways to remove greenhouse gases after they’re in the atmosphere. It’s not preferable, but it may be necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea could be part of a “solutions space, although it is not the solution by itself,” said Richard Alley, a geoscience professor at Penn State University who was not involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many places around the U.S. already make money by capturing “waste” methane from sewage and garbage and then using it as natural gas, which can be burned to generate energy, Alley says. If there are sources of methane that are not concentrated enough to be used commercially but are leaking, then converting those to CO2 would help reduce warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The big issue long-term is still CO2,” Alley cautioned in an email. “Methane is converted to CO2 in a decade or so in the atmosphere, so whenever we get serious about reducing methane, the concentrations will be much lower a decade after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After we raise CO2, on the other hand, it will remain elevated for centuries and longer, with a long tail beyond 10,000 years. If we invest in heading off methane now without also dealing with CO2, we commit to more long-term warming than if we prioritize CO2 now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Conversion Process\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how, exactly, does the process of converting methane to CO2 work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>We’d like to use a class of minerals called zeolite,” says Jackson. “These minerals can be thought of as a honeycomb. They have lots of open pores inside and you can embed metals, copper and iron, and other elements that can act as catalysts to drive the reaction that we’re after.\u003ci>”\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson’s team proposes using fans to push air through cylinders or beds that contain the minerals, Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They have used zeolites to convert methane into methanol, which Jackson described as a kind-of “halfway point,” but they have yet to successfully convert methane into CO2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of work to be done on the chemistry,” Jackson admits. “And work to be done on the industrial infrastructure—the equipment, the scale at which this might be done to restore the atmosphere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The end goal is returning the atmosphere to good health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the Endangered Species Act, and when a species is endangered, we don’t try to save it, we want to restore it to health,” notes Jackson. “I’d like to do the same thing for the atmosphere.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But molecule for molecule, CO2 traps less heat than methane. If the process is perfected, it could return the atmosphere to preindustrial concentrations of methane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> has major implications for the globe. Last year, methane emissions passed a grim milestone: Atmospheric concentrations reached two-and-a-half times their preindustrial levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first thing we need to do is to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” Jackson explains. “If pollution were a drop of ink, it’s a lot easier to block that drop before it hits the water than it is to remove it after it’s been mixed into the water. The atmosphere is the same way. We need to cut emissions, but they are rising for both carbon dioxide and methane. We need to explore other ways to remove greenhouse gases after they’re in the atmosphere. It’s not preferable, but it may be necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea could be part of a “solutions space, although it is not the solution by itself,” said Richard Alley, a geoscience professor at Penn State University who was not involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many places around the U.S. already make money by capturing “waste” methane from sewage and garbage and then using it as natural gas, which can be burned to generate energy, Alley says. If there are sources of methane that are not concentrated enough to be used commercially but are leaking, then converting those to CO2 would help reduce warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The big issue long-term is still CO2,” Alley cautioned in an email. “Methane is converted to CO2 in a decade or so in the atmosphere, so whenever we get serious about reducing methane, the concentrations will be much lower a decade after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After we raise CO2, on the other hand, it will remain elevated for centuries and longer, with a long tail beyond 10,000 years. If we invest in heading off methane now without also dealing with CO2, we commit to more long-term warming than if we prioritize CO2 now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Conversion Process\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how, exactly, does the process of converting methane to CO2 work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>We’d like to use a class of minerals called zeolite,” says Jackson. “These minerals can be thought of as a honeycomb. They have lots of open pores inside and you can embed metals, copper and iron, and other elements that can act as catalysts to drive the reaction that we’re after.\u003ci>”\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson’s team proposes using fans to push air through cylinders or beds that contain the minerals, Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They have used zeolites to convert methane into methanol, which Jackson described as a kind-of “halfway point,” but they have yet to successfully convert methane into CO2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of work to be done on the chemistry,” Jackson admits. “And work to be done on the industrial infrastructure—the equipment, the scale at which this might be done to restore the atmosphere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The end goal is returning the atmosphere to good health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the Endangered Species Act, and when a species is endangered, we don’t try to save it, we want to restore it to health,” notes Jackson. “I’d like to do the same thing for the atmosphere.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB_ky-EAQtU&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are among the millions of die-hard Game of Thrones fans digesting the show’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-20/game-of-thrones-seaon-8-finale-viewers-nervous-about-end/11123026\">finale today\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The striking landscape of Game of Thrones has led some researchers to build \u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/there-is-now-a-climate-model-of-the-world-of-game-of-thrones/\">climate simulations\u003c/a> that explain the erratic seasons depicted in the show, and others to piece together the \u003ca href=\"http://www.geologyin.com/2015/04/the-geology-of-game-of-thrones.html\">geological history\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inspired by \u003ca href=\"http://milestraer.com/the-geology-of-game-of-thrones/\">this work\u003c/a>, we have built the first plate tectonic reconstruction of the Game of Thrones continents. Tectonic plates are moving slabs that make up the outer layer of our planet, and behave like conveyor belts in the way they carry and drag continents around on the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even in this fantasy Game of Thrones world, geological processes like tectonic plate movement, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions would have been responsible for building the mountains, carving the rivers and creating vast oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why Solve Tectonic ‘Jigsaw Puzzles’?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Firstly, because even scientists are allowed a bit of fun now and then. But we also hope this map will help people better understand the science of plate tectonics, which is key to us knowing our past, present and even future world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plate tectonics can help us contextualise climate change and, like in the Game of Thrones world, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-eurasias-tianshan-mountains-set-a-stage-that-changed-the-world-102772\">geological events can influence political and social history\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We built the tectonic maps using free community software, called \u003ca href=\"http://gplates.org/\">GPlates\u003c/a>, that we developed for \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthbyte.org/category/resources/data-models/global-regional-plate-motion-models/\">real-world tectonic modelling\u003c/a> in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The animation first shows our model for Westeros and Essos, but also how we use the same technology to build a detailed representation of Earth’s tectonic evolution. The same technology is also used by \u003ca href=\"https://astrographer.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/using-gplates-for-realistic-worldbuilding/\">hobbyist “planet builders”\u003c/a> who create evolving maps that might be used in computer games, movies and TV shows, or other creative pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Setting the Scene\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is no doubt \u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/with-its-latest-battle-game-of-thrones-solidifies-its-seat-on-tvs-vfx-throne/\">high-budget visual effects\u003c/a>, a gripping storyline and power-plays between characters are key ingredients to the success of Game of Thrones. But so too are the captivating geological settings of the Seven Kingdoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The breathtaking cinematography across sweeping grasslands of the Dothraki steppe to the snow-capped volcanic peaks north of the Wall; each location depicting contrasting topography that has shaped vastly different societies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The geology also informs the storyline. For example, the all-important Dragonglass (volcanic obsidian rock) and Valyrian steel is extracted from the volcanic cliffs around Dragonstone castle.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How We Made Our Map\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In our day-to-day work we use the shapes of continents and the geology they carry to reconstruct how real tectonic plate “puzzle pieces” moved around on Earth over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this project, we worked with “evidence” collected by us and others from the Game of Thrones fictional world. This included evidence of past volcanism and mountain building, which are often the smoking gun for tectonic plate convergence and collision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The easiest part of the tectonic reconstruction takes place by working backwards from seafloor spreading, where continents have been ripped apart by the the churning interior of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of the Games of Thrones world, we’ve assumed the continents of Westeros and Essos broke apart 25 million years ago to open the Narrow Sea. We mapped this occurring much like the unzipping of the African continent along the East African \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/rift-valley/\">Rift Valley\u003c/a> at a similar time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as we go deeper in time, we lose a lot of geological evidence. This happens because of erosion, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-earths-continents-became-twisted-and-contorted-over-millions-of-years-116168\">continental collisions that build mountains\u003c/a> and subduction, where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the real world, although India is now part of the Eurasian continent, an ancient seaway called the Tethys once separated them \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/HB_ky-EAQtU?t=71\">before the continents collided about 45 million years ago\u003c/a>. The continental collision uplifted the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and in the process crushing and destroying geological evidence and obscuring accurate tectonic models of the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our plate tectonic reconstructions back to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html\">Pangea supercontinent\u003c/a> at 250 million years ago are fairly accurate by just undoing seafloor spreading, but the restoration of older supercontinents are much more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Knowing Our Planet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tectonic plate “jigsaw puzzles” models are vital for explaining the evolution and liveability of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plate tectonics controls the arrangement of continents and seaways on geological timescales, rearranging ocean circulation and altering global climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although much of this geological activity is too slow to be perceptible by humans, the geological past is littered with examples where \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/unpacking-the-history-of-how-earth-feeds-life-and-life-changes-earth-103162\">sudden geological “shocks” to the living creatures on Earth\u003c/a> are caused by massive outpourings of volcanic rock and carbon dioxide, sometimes leading to mass extinctions. This may \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-the-dinosaurs-went-extinct-asteroid-collision-triggered-potentially-deadly-volcanic-eruptions-112134\">have been a factor\u003c/a> in the death of nearly all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tectonic reconstructions can inform climate simulations and help us contextualise current and future climate change. They can also lead us to find \u003ca href=\"https://www.auscope.org.au/posts/minerals-challenge\">mineral deposits\u003c/a> that may \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-earths-continents-became-twisted-and-contorted-over-millions-of-years-116168\">help create a low-carbon society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they’re fun to play with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Research assistants Cian Clinton-Gray, Irene Koutsoumbis and Youseph Ibrahim contributed to creating the map and writing this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why Solve Tectonic ‘Jigsaw Puzzles’?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Firstly, because even scientists are allowed a bit of fun now and then. But we also hope this map will help people better understand the science of plate tectonics, which is key to us knowing our past, present and even future world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plate tectonics can help us contextualise climate change and, like in the Game of Thrones world, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-eurasias-tianshan-mountains-set-a-stage-that-changed-the-world-102772\">geological events can influence political and social history\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We built the tectonic maps using free community software, called \u003ca href=\"http://gplates.org/\">GPlates\u003c/a>, that we developed for \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthbyte.org/category/resources/data-models/global-regional-plate-motion-models/\">real-world tectonic modelling\u003c/a> in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The animation first shows our model for Westeros and Essos, but also how we use the same technology to build a detailed representation of Earth’s tectonic evolution. The same technology is also used by \u003ca href=\"https://astrographer.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/using-gplates-for-realistic-worldbuilding/\">hobbyist “planet builders”\u003c/a> who create evolving maps that might be used in computer games, movies and TV shows, or other creative pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Setting the Scene\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is no doubt \u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/with-its-latest-battle-game-of-thrones-solidifies-its-seat-on-tvs-vfx-throne/\">high-budget visual effects\u003c/a>, a gripping storyline and power-plays between characters are key ingredients to the success of Game of Thrones. But so too are the captivating geological settings of the Seven Kingdoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The breathtaking cinematography across sweeping grasslands of the Dothraki steppe to the snow-capped volcanic peaks north of the Wall; each location depicting contrasting topography that has shaped vastly different societies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The geology also informs the storyline. For example, the all-important Dragonglass (volcanic obsidian rock) and Valyrian steel is extracted from the volcanic cliffs around Dragonstone castle.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How We Made Our Map\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In our day-to-day work we use the shapes of continents and the geology they carry to reconstruct how real tectonic plate “puzzle pieces” moved around on Earth over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this project, we worked with “evidence” collected by us and others from the Game of Thrones fictional world. This included evidence of past volcanism and mountain building, which are often the smoking gun for tectonic plate convergence and collision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The easiest part of the tectonic reconstruction takes place by working backwards from seafloor spreading, where continents have been ripped apart by the the churning interior of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of the Games of Thrones world, we’ve assumed the continents of Westeros and Essos broke apart 25 million years ago to open the Narrow Sea. We mapped this occurring much like the unzipping of the African continent along the East African \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/rift-valley/\">Rift Valley\u003c/a> at a similar time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as we go deeper in time, we lose a lot of geological evidence. This happens because of erosion, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-earths-continents-became-twisted-and-contorted-over-millions-of-years-116168\">continental collisions that build mountains\u003c/a> and subduction, where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the real world, although India is now part of the Eurasian continent, an ancient seaway called the Tethys once separated them \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/HB_ky-EAQtU?t=71\">before the continents collided about 45 million years ago\u003c/a>. The continental collision uplifted the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and in the process crushing and destroying geological evidence and obscuring accurate tectonic models of the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our plate tectonic reconstructions back to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html\">Pangea supercontinent\u003c/a> at 250 million years ago are fairly accurate by just undoing seafloor spreading, but the restoration of older supercontinents are much more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Knowing Our Planet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tectonic plate “jigsaw puzzles” models are vital for explaining the evolution and liveability of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plate tectonics controls the arrangement of continents and seaways on geological timescales, rearranging ocean circulation and altering global climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although much of this geological activity is too slow to be perceptible by humans, the geological past is littered with examples where \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/unpacking-the-history-of-how-earth-feeds-life-and-life-changes-earth-103162\">sudden geological “shocks” to the living creatures on Earth\u003c/a> are caused by massive outpourings of volcanic rock and carbon dioxide, sometimes leading to mass extinctions. This may \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-the-dinosaurs-went-extinct-asteroid-collision-triggered-potentially-deadly-volcanic-eruptions-112134\">have been a factor\u003c/a> in the death of nearly all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tectonic reconstructions can inform climate simulations and help us contextualise current and future climate change. They can also lead us to find \u003ca href=\"https://www.auscope.org.au/posts/minerals-challenge\">mineral deposits\u003c/a> that may \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-earths-continents-became-twisted-and-contorted-over-millions-of-years-116168\">help create a low-carbon society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they’re fun to play with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Research assistants Cian Clinton-Gray, Irene Koutsoumbis and Youseph Ibrahim contributed to creating the map and writing this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"radiolab": {
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"reveal": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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