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"content": "\u003cp>The term “drone” evokes wildly disparate images. Some people envision menacing weapons of war. To others they’re remote-controlled flying machines that consumers buy for fun, to shoot video or snap aerial selfies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a rapidly emerging middle ground: drones can also be put to work, offering a new high-tech tool for data capture, monitoring, or even transportation. One day there may be a drone doing your job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drones today are doing commercial work, creating 3D models, doing inspections, finding spots needed to be repaired on pipelines,” said Christian Sanz, the CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.skycatch.com/\">Skycatch\u003c/a>, a San Francisco startup that makes and deploys drones at construction and mining sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_492003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-492003 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/1010561-800x449.jpg\" alt=\"A drone built and operated by Skycatch is about to take off on an aerial survey of a rock quarry in San Rafael. \" width=\"800\" height=\"449\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A drone built and operated by Skycatch has made aerial surveys of a rock quarry in San Rafael. \u003ccite>(Sheraz Sadiq / KQED Science)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A five-pound drone made by Skycatch can, for example, be programmed to fly over a rock quarry and generate hundreds of aerial photos during a surveying mission. Computer software then processes those images to turn them into a 3D model of the quarry which can be used to measure volumes of rock inventory or track the movement of bulldozers and other equipment on the job site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sanz said it would take a human “at least a week” to survey stockpiles of rock at a quarry but the same job can be done by a drone in about an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though most drones used in the U.S. are bought for recreational use, interest in the commercial application of drones is growing. More than $300 million was invested in drone startups in the first nine months of 2015, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbinsights.com/\">CB Insights\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think we understand even maybe 10 percent of the potential for drone applications in the United States or around the world,” said Jesse Kallman, Director of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at \u003ca href=\"https://www.airware.com/\">Airware\u003c/a>, a San Francisco startup that makes technology to automate drones for aerial data collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents of drone technology claim that drones are ideally suited to do jobs that are monotonous or dangerous, such as inspecting the roof of a house that was damaged during a hailstorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The claims adjuster is still going to go out to that home,” Kallman said. “But instead of pulling a ladder out and climbing on the roof, they’re going to take the drone…and collect that information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Privacy and security concerns around the recreational use of drones have prompted federal and state legislation as well as local ordinances to \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/09/02/california_to_ban_flying_a_drone_over_someone_s_property_without_permission.html\">limit or ban their use in certain areas\u003c/a> such as airports, near schools, and in national parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.faa.gov/\">Federal Aviation Administration \u003c/a>regards drones as aircraft and an operator must first get permission from the agency before using a drone for commercial purposes. Even if permission is granted, the rules are strict, and they typically limit the drone to daytime use, below 500 feet, and always within view of the operator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAA is expected to release a \u003ca href=\"http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/drone-lobbying-turns-to-captiol-hill/\">broad set of rules\u003c/a> for the commercial operation of drones by mid-2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the regulatory landscape evolves in the US, some drone entrepreneurs are taking to the skies elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://mttr.net/\">Matternet\u003c/a>, a startup in Mountain View, has used drones to deliver payloads weighing up to two pounds, such as medicine and diagnostic samples, to clinics and hospitals in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other places in the developing world where one in seven people lack access to reliable roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw in drones the fundamental invention that will allow us to create a new mode of transportation,” said Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_492005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-492005 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/JDriscoll_Matternet_drone_Swiss_flying_mm15-drohne-bild6-4699-3248-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A drone built by Matternet on a test flight in Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Matternet.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A drone built by Matternet on a test flight in Switzerland. \u003ccite>(Matternet)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In July 2015, Matternet began testing its drones for delivery missions in Switzerland after receiving approval from Swiss aviation officials to use its drones for beyond line-of-sight operations. Mapping software pilots the craft to its destination. A parachute on board the drone can deploy in the event of an emergency to bring the vehicle down safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raptopoulos would like to operate his drones in the United States, if federal regulations change to allow these robotic aircraft to be flown beyond the sight of the operator on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But first, the public’s perception of drones will need to evolve, from flying toys to essential tools for getting difficult or even life-saving jobs done.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The term “drone” evokes wildly disparate images. Some people envision menacing weapons of war. To others they’re remote-controlled flying machines that consumers buy for fun, to shoot video or snap aerial selfies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a rapidly emerging middle ground: drones can also be put to work, offering a new high-tech tool for data capture, monitoring, or even transportation. One day there may be a drone doing your job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drones today are doing commercial work, creating 3D models, doing inspections, finding spots needed to be repaired on pipelines,” said Christian Sanz, the CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.skycatch.com/\">Skycatch\u003c/a>, a San Francisco startup that makes and deploys drones at construction and mining sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_492003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-492003 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/1010561-800x449.jpg\" alt=\"A drone built and operated by Skycatch is about to take off on an aerial survey of a rock quarry in San Rafael. \" width=\"800\" height=\"449\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A drone built and operated by Skycatch has made aerial surveys of a rock quarry in San Rafael. \u003ccite>(Sheraz Sadiq / KQED Science)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A five-pound drone made by Skycatch can, for example, be programmed to fly over a rock quarry and generate hundreds of aerial photos during a surveying mission. Computer software then processes those images to turn them into a 3D model of the quarry which can be used to measure volumes of rock inventory or track the movement of bulldozers and other equipment on the job site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sanz said it would take a human “at least a week” to survey stockpiles of rock at a quarry but the same job can be done by a drone in about an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though most drones used in the U.S. are bought for recreational use, interest in the commercial application of drones is growing. More than $300 million was invested in drone startups in the first nine months of 2015, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbinsights.com/\">CB Insights\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think we understand even maybe 10 percent of the potential for drone applications in the United States or around the world,” said Jesse Kallman, Director of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at \u003ca href=\"https://www.airware.com/\">Airware\u003c/a>, a San Francisco startup that makes technology to automate drones for aerial data collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents of drone technology claim that drones are ideally suited to do jobs that are monotonous or dangerous, such as inspecting the roof of a house that was damaged during a hailstorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The claims adjuster is still going to go out to that home,” Kallman said. “But instead of pulling a ladder out and climbing on the roof, they’re going to take the drone…and collect that information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Privacy and security concerns around the recreational use of drones have prompted federal and state legislation as well as local ordinances to \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/09/02/california_to_ban_flying_a_drone_over_someone_s_property_without_permission.html\">limit or ban their use in certain areas\u003c/a> such as airports, near schools, and in national parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.faa.gov/\">Federal Aviation Administration \u003c/a>regards drones as aircraft and an operator must first get permission from the agency before using a drone for commercial purposes. Even if permission is granted, the rules are strict, and they typically limit the drone to daytime use, below 500 feet, and always within view of the operator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAA is expected to release a \u003ca href=\"http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/drone-lobbying-turns-to-captiol-hill/\">broad set of rules\u003c/a> for the commercial operation of drones by mid-2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the regulatory landscape evolves in the US, some drone entrepreneurs are taking to the skies elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://mttr.net/\">Matternet\u003c/a>, a startup in Mountain View, has used drones to deliver payloads weighing up to two pounds, such as medicine and diagnostic samples, to clinics and hospitals in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other places in the developing world where one in seven people lack access to reliable roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw in drones the fundamental invention that will allow us to create a new mode of transportation,” said Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_492005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-492005 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/JDriscoll_Matternet_drone_Swiss_flying_mm15-drohne-bild6-4699-3248-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A drone built by Matternet on a test flight in Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Matternet.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A drone built by Matternet on a test flight in Switzerland. \u003ccite>(Matternet)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In July 2015, Matternet began testing its drones for delivery missions in Switzerland after receiving approval from Swiss aviation officials to use its drones for beyond line-of-sight operations. Mapping software pilots the craft to its destination. A parachute on board the drone can deploy in the event of an emergency to bring the vehicle down safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raptopoulos would like to operate his drones in the United States, if federal regulations change to allow these robotic aircraft to be flown beyond the sight of the operator on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But first, the public’s perception of drones will need to evolve, from flying toys to essential tools for getting difficult or even life-saving jobs done.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment",
"headTitle": "Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2016/01/Sciencecarboncapturefull.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”gQN8H1y3bLQFyuhusmTVtazUF1miwYuW”]Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, regulators at the California Energy Commission will decide the final fate of the HECA project sometime this spring.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "State officials aren't giving up on the idea of snatching carbon emissions and stashing them underground, but investors and utilities might be.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, regulators at the California Energy Commission will decide the final fate of the HECA project sometime this spring.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker?",
"headTitle": "Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "It takes major muscle to do battle with Antarctic ice fields -- but is the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker losing its mojo?",
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"description": "It takes major muscle to do battle with Antarctic ice fields -- but is the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker losing its mojo?",
"title": "Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Millions of Miles from the Sun, NASA Spacecraft Still Runs on Solar",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/origin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Juno\u003c/a> spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, passed a milestone on January 13 when it reached a distance of 493 million miles from the sun. That’s about five times the distance between the Earth and sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distance by itself is not the milestone, since numerous spacecraft have ventured far beyond this. The news is that Juno is powered by sunlight, a sparse commodity out in Jupiter’s realm–a sort of “twilight zone” for spacecraft that depend on sunshine!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 8,000-pound Juno was launched in 2011 on a mission to explore the planet Jupiter in greater detail than previous spacecraft, including the gas giant’s composition, gravity, global magnetic field, and in particular the magnetic field in Jupiter’s polar regions, even probing the properties of its interior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Juno, the record-holder was the European \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta \u003c/a>spacecraft. Rosetta cruised in hibernation mode through its orbital aphelion (its most distant point from the sun) back in 2012. Later it fell sunward toward its encounter with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close to the Sun, Solar-Powered Spacecraft Are the Rule\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the inner solar system, from the planet Mercury out into the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, robotic exploration is powered almost entirely by \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/solarcells/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photovoltaics\u003c/a>—solar cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482754 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg\" alt=\"Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter. \u003ccite>(Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, solar photovoltaic technology was developed for Earth-orbiting satellites. Notable exceptions include short-lived probes dropped to the surface of Venus, which were powered by chemical batteries, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Curiosity\u003c/a> rover on Mars, which requires the kick of nuclear power to drive its equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Near the sun, sunlight is intense enough to make photovoltaic power practical. At Earth’s distance, sunlight intensity amounts to over a thousand Watts per square meter. A reasonably sized array of solar panels can generate a practical amount of electrical power for a satellite or spacecraft, even though the technology is not 100 percent efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the farther a spacecraft gets from the sun, the weaker the sunlight becomes, by a factor of the square of the distance. Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, so sunlight at that distance is weaker by a factor of five-squared, or 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno’s photovoltaic system consists of three, 30-foot-long panels, which at Earth would generate up to 14,000 Watts of electrical power. At Jupiter where Juno is now approaching, that solar array generates a mere 500 Watts! But, it will be enough to power the efficiently-designed Juno as it probes Jupiter’s interior, atmosphere and magnetic field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2093px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482758 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg\" alt=\"Solar energy across the solar system.\" width=\"2093\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg 2093w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1440x943.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1920x1258.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1180x773.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2093px) 100vw, 2093px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar energy across the solar system. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators Run the Show in the Outer Solar System and Beyond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most missions sent beyond the Main Asteroid Belt are nuclear-powered. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Galileo\u003c/a>, the only other spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, was powered by two \u003ca href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/rps/rtg.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">radioisotope thermoelectric generators\u003c/a> (RTGs) that produced about 570 Watts of electrical power by converting the heat of decaying radioactive material into electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve seen the movie, “The Martian,” you may recall Matt Damon’s character digging up a device to keep the cab of his rover warm—that was an RTG.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the Galileo probe, photovoltaic technology wasn’t advanced enough to be a practical power source. The spacecraft would have needed at least 700 square feet of solar panels to function!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Jupiter, solar-powered spacecraft will likely remain impractical for a long time to come. As sunlight becomes weaker, spacecraft simply need larger collection surfaces to squeeze out energy from sparser photons. At Saturn, where \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has been operating on RTG power for about 12 years now, sunlight is 90 times weaker than at Earth—almost four times weaker than at Jupiter!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pioneers, Voyagers, and New Horizons range even farther, in the cold darkness well beyond Neptune’s orbit, where the sunlight trickles in at one-nine-hundredth the strength of Earth-side sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno will arrive at Jupiter this July, to begin the one-year science phase of its mission, after a five-year voyage to get there. At the conclusion of its mission, the spacecraft will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere, following in the fiery footsteps of its predecessor, the Galileo probe.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/origin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Juno\u003c/a> spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, passed a milestone on January 13 when it reached a distance of 493 million miles from the sun. That’s about five times the distance between the Earth and sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distance by itself is not the milestone, since numerous spacecraft have ventured far beyond this. The news is that Juno is powered by sunlight, a sparse commodity out in Jupiter’s realm–a sort of “twilight zone” for spacecraft that depend on sunshine!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 8,000-pound Juno was launched in 2011 on a mission to explore the planet Jupiter in greater detail than previous spacecraft, including the gas giant’s composition, gravity, global magnetic field, and in particular the magnetic field in Jupiter’s polar regions, even probing the properties of its interior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Juno, the record-holder was the European \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta \u003c/a>spacecraft. Rosetta cruised in hibernation mode through its orbital aphelion (its most distant point from the sun) back in 2012. Later it fell sunward toward its encounter with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close to the Sun, Solar-Powered Spacecraft Are the Rule\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the inner solar system, from the planet Mercury out into the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, robotic exploration is powered almost entirely by \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/solarcells/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photovoltaics\u003c/a>—solar cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482754 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg\" alt=\"Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter. \u003ccite>(Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, solar photovoltaic technology was developed for Earth-orbiting satellites. Notable exceptions include short-lived probes dropped to the surface of Venus, which were powered by chemical batteries, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Curiosity\u003c/a> rover on Mars, which requires the kick of nuclear power to drive its equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Near the sun, sunlight is intense enough to make photovoltaic power practical. At Earth’s distance, sunlight intensity amounts to over a thousand Watts per square meter. A reasonably sized array of solar panels can generate a practical amount of electrical power for a satellite or spacecraft, even though the technology is not 100 percent efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the farther a spacecraft gets from the sun, the weaker the sunlight becomes, by a factor of the square of the distance. Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, so sunlight at that distance is weaker by a factor of five-squared, or 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno’s photovoltaic system consists of three, 30-foot-long panels, which at Earth would generate up to 14,000 Watts of electrical power. At Jupiter where Juno is now approaching, that solar array generates a mere 500 Watts! But, it will be enough to power the efficiently-designed Juno as it probes Jupiter’s interior, atmosphere and magnetic field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2093px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482758 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg\" alt=\"Solar energy across the solar system.\" width=\"2093\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg 2093w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1440x943.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1920x1258.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1180x773.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2093px) 100vw, 2093px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar energy across the solar system. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators Run the Show in the Outer Solar System and Beyond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most missions sent beyond the Main Asteroid Belt are nuclear-powered. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Galileo\u003c/a>, the only other spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, was powered by two \u003ca href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/rps/rtg.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">radioisotope thermoelectric generators\u003c/a> (RTGs) that produced about 570 Watts of electrical power by converting the heat of decaying radioactive material into electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve seen the movie, “The Martian,” you may recall Matt Damon’s character digging up a device to keep the cab of his rover warm—that was an RTG.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the Galileo probe, photovoltaic technology wasn’t advanced enough to be a practical power source. The spacecraft would have needed at least 700 square feet of solar panels to function!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Jupiter, solar-powered spacecraft will likely remain impractical for a long time to come. As sunlight becomes weaker, spacecraft simply need larger collection surfaces to squeeze out energy from sparser photons. At Saturn, where \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has been operating on RTG power for about 12 years now, sunlight is 90 times weaker than at Earth—almost four times weaker than at Jupiter!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pioneers, Voyagers, and New Horizons range even farther, in the cold darkness well beyond Neptune’s orbit, where the sunlight trickles in at one-nine-hundredth the strength of Earth-side sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno will arrive at Jupiter this July, to begin the one-year science phase of its mission, after a five-year voyage to get there. At the conclusion of its mission, the spacecraft will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere, following in the fiery footsteps of its predecessor, the Galileo probe.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Save the Bay Co-Founder Sylvia McLaughlin Dies",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>’s last living founder, Sylvia McLaughlin, died at her home in Berkeley on Tuesday. She was 99. The organization helped kick off the modern, grassroots environmental movement in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1950s, San Francisco Bay was in dire shape. There were plans to fill in most of it for development, leaving just a narrow channel of water. The Bay was regularly filled to provide space for ports, industry, airports, homes, and even garbage dumps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families didn’t stroll along the shoreline because it was rife with trash and industrial development. The wetlands and wildlife were quickly disappearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McLaughlin could not sit by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_483245\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3407px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-483245 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown.jpg\" alt=\"Save the Bay’s founders: Esther Gulick, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Kay Kerr.\" width=\"3407\" height=\"2080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown.jpg 3407w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-400x244.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-800x488.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-768x469.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1440x879.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1920x1172.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1180x720.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-960x586.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3407px) 100vw, 3407px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Save the Bay’s founders: Esther Gulick, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Kay Kerr. \u003ccite>(Save the Bay)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She and friends Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick started a movement to stop Berkeley’s plan to fill in 2,000 acres of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a bold undertaking for a woman married to the head of a major mining company. McLaughlin’s husband was Donald McLaughlin, president of Homestake Mining Co.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was also 1961. The term “environmentalism” had not yet entered the popular lexicon and many didn’t support the women’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2011/10/14/the-amazing-transformation-of-san-franciscos-sludge-puddle/\">KQED’s Amy Standen reported in 2011\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>McLaughlin says it was not always a popular position to take. “I got called all kinds of names, not very complementary,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while developers complained, Save the Bay was growing as an organization, in ways that other groups hadn’t thought to do in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They very wisely turned themselves into a mass organization by charging $1 for membership,” says UC Berkeley professor of geology Richard Walker. “And they very quickly had thousands, even tens of thousands of members within two years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to its vast membership, Save the Bay rallied the media. Pete Seeger even wrote a song about the Bay, calling it a “sludge puddle, sad and gray.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until this point, says Walker, environmentalism had been a small, elite movement. But Save the Bay changed that.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Over the years, McLaughlin won victories to open parks and restore public access to the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a cleaner, healthier and more vibrant Bay because of Sylvia’s efforts,” Save The Bay Executive Director David Lewis said in a statement. “Her drive, determination and spark will remain an inspiration to us all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 4 p.m., at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2008/04/21/earth-day-tv-special-where-weve-been-where-were-headed/\">KQED interview\u003c/a> with McLaughlin about why she started Save the Bay:\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50opyKckcXE?start=216]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>’s last living founder, Sylvia McLaughlin, died at her home in Berkeley on Tuesday. She was 99. The organization helped kick off the modern, grassroots environmental movement in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1950s, San Francisco Bay was in dire shape. There were plans to fill in most of it for development, leaving just a narrow channel of water. The Bay was regularly filled to provide space for ports, industry, airports, homes, and even garbage dumps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families didn’t stroll along the shoreline because it was rife with trash and industrial development. The wetlands and wildlife were quickly disappearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McLaughlin could not sit by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_483245\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3407px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-483245 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown.jpg\" alt=\"Save the Bay’s founders: Esther Gulick, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Kay Kerr.\" width=\"3407\" height=\"2080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown.jpg 3407w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-400x244.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-800x488.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-768x469.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1440x879.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1920x1172.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-1180x720.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Save-The-Bay-Founders-photographer-unknown-960x586.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3407px) 100vw, 3407px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Save the Bay’s founders: Esther Gulick, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Kay Kerr. \u003ccite>(Save the Bay)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She and friends Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick started a movement to stop Berkeley’s plan to fill in 2,000 acres of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a bold undertaking for a woman married to the head of a major mining company. McLaughlin’s husband was Donald McLaughlin, president of Homestake Mining Co.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was also 1961. The term “environmentalism” had not yet entered the popular lexicon and many didn’t support the women’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2011/10/14/the-amazing-transformation-of-san-franciscos-sludge-puddle/\">KQED’s Amy Standen reported in 2011\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>McLaughlin says it was not always a popular position to take. “I got called all kinds of names, not very complementary,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while developers complained, Save the Bay was growing as an organization, in ways that other groups hadn’t thought to do in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They very wisely turned themselves into a mass organization by charging $1 for membership,” says UC Berkeley professor of geology Richard Walker. “And they very quickly had thousands, even tens of thousands of members within two years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to its vast membership, Save the Bay rallied the media. Pete Seeger even wrote a song about the Bay, calling it a “sludge puddle, sad and gray.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until this point, says Walker, environmentalism had been a small, elite movement. But Save the Bay changed that.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Over the years, McLaughlin won victories to open parks and restore public access to the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a cleaner, healthier and more vibrant Bay because of Sylvia’s efforts,” Save The Bay Executive Director David Lewis said in a statement. “Her drive, determination and spark will remain an inspiration to us all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 4 p.m., at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2008/04/21/earth-day-tv-special-where-weve-been-where-were-headed/\">KQED interview\u003c/a> with McLaughlin about why she started Save the Bay:\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\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/50opyKckcXE?start=216'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/50opyKckcXE?start=216'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Find Hints of a Giant, Hidden Planet in Our Solar System",
"headTitle": "Scientists Find Hints of a Giant, Hidden Planet in Our Solar System | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The astronomer whose work helped kick Pluto out of the pantheon of planets says he has good reason to believe there’s an undiscovered planet bigger than Earth lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s quite a claim, because \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/\">Mike Brown\u003c/a> of Caltech is no stranger to this part of our cosmic neighborhood. After all, he discovered \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/eris\">Eris\u003c/a>, an icy world more massive than Pluto that proved our old friend wasn’t special enough to be considered a full-fledged planet. He also introduced the world to \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/\">Sedna\u003c/a>, a first-of-its-kind dwarf planet that’s so far out there, its region of space was long thought to be an empty no man’s land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Brown has teamed up with Caltech colleague \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kbatygin/Home.html\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> to do a new analysis of oddities in the orbits of small, icy bodies out beyond Neptune. In their \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22\">report published Wednesday\u003c/a> in \u003cem>The Astronomical Journal\u003c/em>, the researchers say it looks like the orbits are all being affected by the presence of an unseen planet that’s about 10 times more massive than Earth — the size astronomers refer to as a super-Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m willing to take bets on anyone who’s not a believer,” says Brown. He thinks existing telescopes have a shot at spotting this mystery planet in just a few years, since this new study points to a band of sky where astronomers should look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482752\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg\" alt='Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are \"willing to take bets\" that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune.' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1440x961.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1920x1282.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are “willing to take bets” that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune. \u003ccite>(Lance Hayashida/Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first suggestion that something big might be affecting the orbits of distant, icy bodies came in 2014. An international team of astronomers \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/26/294358647/new-dwarf-planet-found-at-the-solar-systems-outer-limits\">announced\u003c/a> that they’d discovered a new dwarf planet, nicknamed Biden, that stays even farther out than Sedna. They also noted a strange clustering in the orbits of these objects, and in the orbits of about a dozen others. Perhaps, they hypothesized, the gravity of some unseen planet was acting as a shepherd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were pointing out that there was something funny going on in the outer solar system, but nobody could really understand what it was,” says Brown. “Ever since they pointed it out we’ve been scratching our heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of a huge, hidden planet seemed kind of crazy. “No one really took it very seriously,” says Brown. “It was ignored more than you might guess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he walked a few doors down to meet with Batygin and suggested they take this on. As they studied the freaky way that these objects lined up in space, Brown says, they realized that “the only way to get these objects to line up in one direction is to have a massive planet lined up in the other direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, this planet naturally explains why the dwarf planets Sedna and Biden have weird orbits that never let them come in close to the solar system. “This wasn’t something we were setting out to explain,” says Brown. “This is something that just popped out of the theory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one moment that turned Brown into a believer. Their computer simulations predicted that if this hypothetical planet existed, it would twist the orbits of other small bodies in a certain way. So Brown looked through some old data to see if any icy bodies had been discovered with those kinds of orbits — and, lo and behold, he found five of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re objects that nobody has really explained or tried to explain before,” says Brown. “My jaw hit the floor. That just came out of the blue. Being able to make a prediction and having it come true in five minutes is about as fun as it gets in science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their work suggests how big the planet must be, and more or less where it could be found. Brown has already started looking. He hopes other scientists will too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to know what it’s like. I want to see that it’s really there,” says Brown. “It will hurt when somebody finds it and it’s not me — but I assume it’s going to happen, and I’m willing to feel that pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482769\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system. \u003ccite>(Caltech/R. Hurt/IPAC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may be hard to believe that something so big would not have been seen before now. But \u003ca href=\"http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/\">Scott Sheppard\u003c/a> of the Carnegie Institution for Science explains that for us to see it, sunlight has to travel all the way out there, bounce off the object, then travel all the way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Objects get very faint very fast,” says Sheppard. “If you do the math, if you move something twice as far away from the sun, it gets 16 times fainter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheppard is one of the researchers who, after discovering Biden and the strange orbits, suggested a large planet might be the culprit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we published was a very basic analysis of this clustering of objects in the outer solar system,” he says. “We just did some basic stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis, he says, has gone much deeper and has more rigor. “It leaves me thinking that the possibility of there being this super-Earth or mini-Neptune out there is more and more real now,” says Sheppard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he’s not completely convinced. “We really need to find more of these objects — more of these small objects that can lead us to the bigger object,” Sheppard says. “I think it’s still a tossup if it’s really out there or not. I think we just need more data. Hopefully within the next few years we’ll really be able to nail this down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dwarf planets like Sedna and Biden are not exactly household names. But Sheppard says if the solar system indeed has an honest-to-goodness ninth planet — a distant, giant planet that’s bigger than Earth — “that, I think, is something that would blow the mind of anyone here on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scientists+Find+Hints+Of+A+Giant%2C+Hidden+Planet+In+Our+Solar+System&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Something very big, out beyond Neptune, is warping the orbits of small, icy objects circling our sun. Astronomers haven't seen it yet, but say the culprit could be a planet with 10 times Earth's mass.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The astronomer whose work helped kick Pluto out of the pantheon of planets says he has good reason to believe there’s an undiscovered planet bigger than Earth lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s quite a claim, because \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/\">Mike Brown\u003c/a> of Caltech is no stranger to this part of our cosmic neighborhood. After all, he discovered \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/eris\">Eris\u003c/a>, an icy world more massive than Pluto that proved our old friend wasn’t special enough to be considered a full-fledged planet. He also introduced the world to \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/\">Sedna\u003c/a>, a first-of-its-kind dwarf planet that’s so far out there, its region of space was long thought to be an empty no man’s land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Brown has teamed up with Caltech colleague \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kbatygin/Home.html\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> to do a new analysis of oddities in the orbits of small, icy bodies out beyond Neptune. In their \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22\">report published Wednesday\u003c/a> in \u003cem>The Astronomical Journal\u003c/em>, the researchers say it looks like the orbits are all being affected by the presence of an unseen planet that’s about 10 times more massive than Earth — the size astronomers refer to as a super-Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m willing to take bets on anyone who’s not a believer,” says Brown. He thinks existing telescopes have a shot at spotting this mystery planet in just a few years, since this new study points to a band of sky where astronomers should look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482752\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg\" alt='Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are \"willing to take bets\" that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune.' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1440x961.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1920x1282.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are “willing to take bets” that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune. \u003ccite>(Lance Hayashida/Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first suggestion that something big might be affecting the orbits of distant, icy bodies came in 2014. An international team of astronomers \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/26/294358647/new-dwarf-planet-found-at-the-solar-systems-outer-limits\">announced\u003c/a> that they’d discovered a new dwarf planet, nicknamed Biden, that stays even farther out than Sedna. They also noted a strange clustering in the orbits of these objects, and in the orbits of about a dozen others. Perhaps, they hypothesized, the gravity of some unseen planet was acting as a shepherd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were pointing out that there was something funny going on in the outer solar system, but nobody could really understand what it was,” says Brown. “Ever since they pointed it out we’ve been scratching our heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of a huge, hidden planet seemed kind of crazy. “No one really took it very seriously,” says Brown. “It was ignored more than you might guess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he walked a few doors down to meet with Batygin and suggested they take this on. As they studied the freaky way that these objects lined up in space, Brown says, they realized that “the only way to get these objects to line up in one direction is to have a massive planet lined up in the other direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, this planet naturally explains why the dwarf planets Sedna and Biden have weird orbits that never let them come in close to the solar system. “This wasn’t something we were setting out to explain,” says Brown. “This is something that just popped out of the theory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one moment that turned Brown into a believer. Their computer simulations predicted that if this hypothetical planet existed, it would twist the orbits of other small bodies in a certain way. So Brown looked through some old data to see if any icy bodies had been discovered with those kinds of orbits — and, lo and behold, he found five of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re objects that nobody has really explained or tried to explain before,” says Brown. “My jaw hit the floor. That just came out of the blue. Being able to make a prediction and having it come true in five minutes is about as fun as it gets in science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their work suggests how big the planet must be, and more or less where it could be found. Brown has already started looking. He hopes other scientists will too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to know what it’s like. I want to see that it’s really there,” says Brown. “It will hurt when somebody finds it and it’s not me — but I assume it’s going to happen, and I’m willing to feel that pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482769\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system. \u003ccite>(Caltech/R. Hurt/IPAC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may be hard to believe that something so big would not have been seen before now. But \u003ca href=\"http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/\">Scott Sheppard\u003c/a> of the Carnegie Institution for Science explains that for us to see it, sunlight has to travel all the way out there, bounce off the object, then travel all the way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Objects get very faint very fast,” says Sheppard. “If you do the math, if you move something twice as far away from the sun, it gets 16 times fainter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheppard is one of the researchers who, after discovering Biden and the strange orbits, suggested a large planet might be the culprit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we published was a very basic analysis of this clustering of objects in the outer solar system,” he says. “We just did some basic stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis, he says, has gone much deeper and has more rigor. “It leaves me thinking that the possibility of there being this super-Earth or mini-Neptune out there is more and more real now,” says Sheppard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he’s not completely convinced. “We really need to find more of these objects — more of these small objects that can lead us to the bigger object,” Sheppard says. “I think it’s still a tossup if it’s really out there or not. I think we just need more data. Hopefully within the next few years we’ll really be able to nail this down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dwarf planets like Sedna and Biden are not exactly household names. But Sheppard says if the solar system indeed has an honest-to-goodness ninth planet — a distant, giant planet that’s bigger than Earth — “that, I think, is something that would blow the mind of anyone here on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scientists+Find+Hints+Of+A+Giant%2C+Hidden+Planet+In+Our+Solar+System&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>2015 goes into the books as the warmest year the Earth has experienced since 1880, when official records began. And the record was not merely set, but shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combining land and ocean surface temperatures, the global average for the year was 1.62°F (0.9°C) above the 20\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century average, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201512\">data gathered by federal climate scientists\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-482846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg\" alt=\"California_-map_temps copy\" width=\"394\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-400x472.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-768x906.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1440x1698.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1920x2264.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1180x1391.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-960x1132.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy.jpg 1949w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\">The extreme temperatures were evenly distributed worldwide and part of the “long-term trend,” says Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and would have been unprecedented even without the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/el-nino/\">warm El Niño conditions\u003c/a> that have prevailed in the Pacific Ocean for much of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both sea and land temperatures set new highs individually, but land temperatures in particular were way out into record territory, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.45°F (0.25°C).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time since 2000 that the global temperature record has been broken. Only two months — January and April — did not set temperature records globally, the first time that 10 months of any given year have all set high-temperature marks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2015 was also the year that Earth officially reached one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels (about 250 years ago), exactly halfway to the 2-degree international target established for halting global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California did not set a new mark for high temperatures, contrary to some expectations. 2015 clocked in as California’s second-warmest calendar year. Averaged over the state as a whole, 2015 fell about one degree (Fahrenheit) shy of the record set in 2014, and came in\u003cbr>\nabout one degree above the 3rd-warmest year, 1934.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[gallery type=\"slideshow\" columns=\"1\" ids=\"482587\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually surprised that it was as warm as it was,” says Kelly Redmond, climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California might’ve seen a new record were it not for a series of cold storms from the Gulf of Alaska that swept across Northern California in December. Kelly says temperatures for much of the year hovered around the normal range. The first three months of the year were all warmer than normal, setting expectations that 2015 might punch through the record-warm year of 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual years aside, scientists say they expect the general warming trend to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The factors that are causing this long-term trend are continuing to accelerate,” says Schmidt, referring to the worldwide burning of fossil fuels that generates greenhouse gases, and the deforestation that reduces the land’s ability to absorb them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re gonna be betting,” adds Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, “I’d bet that 2016 will be warmer than 2015.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>2015 goes into the books as the warmest year the Earth has experienced since 1880, when official records began. And the record was not merely set, but shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combining land and ocean surface temperatures, the global average for the year was 1.62°F (0.9°C) above the 20\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century average, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201512\">data gathered by federal climate scientists\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-482846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg\" alt=\"California_-map_temps copy\" width=\"394\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-400x472.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-768x906.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1440x1698.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1920x2264.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1180x1391.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-960x1132.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy.jpg 1949w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\">The extreme temperatures were evenly distributed worldwide and part of the “long-term trend,” says Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and would have been unprecedented even without the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/el-nino/\">warm El Niño conditions\u003c/a> that have prevailed in the Pacific Ocean for much of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both sea and land temperatures set new highs individually, but land temperatures in particular were way out into record territory, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.45°F (0.25°C).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time since 2000 that the global temperature record has been broken. Only two months — January and April — did not set temperature records globally, the first time that 10 months of any given year have all set high-temperature marks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually surprised that it was as warm as it was,” says Kelly Redmond, climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California might’ve seen a new record were it not for a series of cold storms from the Gulf of Alaska that swept across Northern California in December. Kelly says temperatures for much of the year hovered around the normal range. The first three months of the year were all warmer than normal, setting expectations that 2015 might punch through the record-warm year of 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual years aside, scientists say they expect the general warming trend to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The factors that are causing this long-term trend are continuing to accelerate,” says Schmidt, referring to the worldwide burning of fossil fuels that generates greenhouse gases, and the deforestation that reduces the land’s ability to absorb them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re gonna be betting,” adds Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, “I’d bet that 2016 will be warmer than 2015.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>No, this isn’t a make-believe place. It’s real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They call it “Ball’s Pyramid.” It’s what’s left of an old volcano that emerged from the sea about 7 million years ago. A British naval officer named Ball was the first European to see it in 1788. It sits off Australia, in the South Pacific. It is extremely narrow, 1,844 feet high, and it sits alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, for years this place had a secret. At 225 feet above sea level, hanging on the rock surface, there is a small, spindly little bush, and under that bush, a few years ago, two climbers, working in the dark, found something totally improbable hiding in the soil below. How it got there, we still don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the story: About 13 miles from this spindle of rock, there’s a bigger island, called Lord Howe Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481268\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 749px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-481268\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters.jpg\" alt=\"Dryococelus australis live on Ball's Pyramid off the east coast of Australia and, as best we know, live nowhere else.\" width=\"749\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters.jpg 749w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters-400x534.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 749px) 100vw, 749px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dryococelus australis live on Ball’s Pyramid off the east coast of Australia and, as best we know, live nowhere else. \u003ccite>(Rod Morris)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Lord Howe, there used to be an insect, famous for being big. It’s a stick insect, a critter that masquerades as a piece of wood, and the Lord Howe Island version was so large — as big as a human hand — that the Europeans labeled it a “tree lobster” because of its size and hard, lobsterlike exoskeleton. It was 12 centimeters long and the heaviest flightless stick insect in the world. Local fishermen used to put them on fishing hooks and use them as bait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then one day in 1918, a supply ship, the S.S. Makambo from Britain, ran aground at Lord Howe Island and had to be evacuated. One passenger drowned. The rest were put ashore. It took nine days to repair the Makambo, and during that time, some black rats managed to get from the ship to the island, where they instantly discovered a delicious new rat food: giant stick insects. Two years later, the rats were everywhere and the tree lobsters were gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Totally gone. After 1920, there wasn’t a single sighting. By 1960, the Lord Howe stick insect, \u003cem>Dryococelus australis\u003c/em>, was presumed extinct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a rumor, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some climbers scaling Ball’s Pyramid in the 1960s said they’d seen a few stick insect corpses lying on the rocks that looked “recently dead.” But the species is nocturnal, and nobody wanted to scale the spire hunting for bugs in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climbing the Pyramid\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fast forward to 2001, when two Australian scientists, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, with two assistants, decided to take a closer look. From the water, they’d seen a few patches of vegetation that just might support walking sticks. So, they boated over. (“Swimming would have been much easier,” Carlile said, “but there are too many sharks.”) They crawled up the vertical rock face to about 500 feet, where they found a few crickets, nothing special. But on their way down, on a precarious, unstable rock surface, they saw a single melaleuca bush peeping out of a crack and, underneath, what looked like fresh droppings of some large insect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481269\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-481269\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-800x600.jpg\" alt='Two of the insects dubbed \"Adam\" and \"Eve,\" were taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed in an invertebrate conservation breeding group.' width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two of the insects dubbed “Adam” and “Eve,” were taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed in an invertebrate conservation breeding group. \u003ccite>(Patrick Honan)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Where, they wondered, did that poop come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only thing to do was to go back up after dark, with flashlights and cameras, to see if the pooper would be out taking a nighttime walk. Nick Carlile and a local ranger, Dean Hiscox, agreed to make the climb. And with flashlights, they scaled the wall till they reached the plant, and there, spread out on the bushy surface, were two enormous, shiny, black-looking bodies. And below those two, slithering into the muck, were more, and more … 24 in all. All gathered near this one plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were alive and, to Nick Carlile’s eye, enormous. Looking at them, he said, “It felt like stepping back into the Jurassic age, when insects ruled the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were \u003cem>Dryococelus australis. \u003c/em>A search the next morning, and two years later, concluded these are the only ones on Ball’s Pyramid, the last ones. They live there, and, as best we know, nowhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481189\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-481189\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Nick Carlile, seen here with the Lord Howe Island stick insect, discovered the thought-to-be extinct phasmid in 2001 on Ball's Pyramid.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae.jpg 885w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Carlile, seen here with the Lord Howe Island stick insect, discovered the thought-to-be extinct phasmid in 2001 on Ball’s Pyramid. \u003ccite>(Patrick Honan/Nick Carlile)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>How they got there is a mystery. Maybe they hitchhiked on birds, or traveled with fishermen, and how they survived for so long on just a single patch of plants, nobody knows either. The important thing, the scientists thought, was to get a few of these insects protected and into a breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wasn’t so easy. The Australian government didn’t know if the animals on Ball’s Pyramid could or should be moved. There were meetings, studies, two years passed, and finally officials agreed to allow four animals to be retrieved. Just four.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team went back to collect them, it turned out there had been a rock slide on the mountain, and at first they feared that the whole population had been wiped out. But when they got back up to the site, on Valentine’s Day 2003, the animals were still there, sitting on and around their bush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was to take one pair and give it to a man who was very familiar with mainland walking stick insects, a private breeder living in Sydney. He got his pair, but within two weeks, they died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adam and Eve and Patrick\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That left the other two. They were named “Adam” and “Eve,” taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed with Patrick Honan, of the zoo’s invertebrate conservation breeding group. At first, everything went well. Eve began laying little pea-shaped eggs, exactly as hoped. But then she got sick. According to biologist Jane Goodall, \u003ca href=\"http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/16-jane-goodall-on-the-lazarus-effect\">writing for Discover Magazine\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Eve became very, very sick. Patrick … worked every night for a month desperately trying to cure her. … Eventually, based on gut instinct, Patrick concocted a mixture that included calcium and nectar and fed it to his patient, drop by drop, as she lay curled up in his hand.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481190\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 505px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-481190\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7.jpg\" alt=\"Male Lord Howe Island Stick Insect K.\" width=\"505\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7.jpg 505w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7-400x301.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Male Lord Howe Island Stick Insect K. \u003ccite>(Matthew Bulbert/The Australian Museum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her recovery was almost instant. Patrick \u003ca href=\"http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2441929.htm\">told the Australian Broadcasting Company\u003c/a>, “She went from being on her back curled up in my hand, almost as good as dead, to being up and walking around within a couple of hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eve’s eggs were harvested, incubated (though it turns out only the first 30 were fertile) and became the foundation of the zoo’s new population of walking sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jane Goodall visited in 2008, Patrick showed her rows and rows of incubating eggs: 11,376 at that time, with about 700 adults in the captive population. Lord Howe Island walking sticks seem to pair off — \u003ca href=\"http://www.aszk.org.au/docs/lhisi.pdf\">an unusual insect behavior\u003c/a> — and Goodall says Patrick “showed me photos of how they sleep at night, in pairs, the male with three of his legs protectively over the female beside him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now comes the question that bedevils all such conservation rescue stories. Once a rare animal is safe at the zoo, when can we release it back to the wild?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://vimeo.com/14413689\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Lord Howe Island, their former habitat, the great-great-great-grandkids of those original black rats are still out and about, presumably hungry and still a problem. Step one, therefore, would be to mount an intensive (and expensive) rat annihilation program. Residents would, no doubt, be happy to go rat-free, but not every Lord Howe islander wants to make the neighborhood safe for gigantic, hard-shell crawling insects. So the Melbourne Museum is mulling over a public relations campaign to make these insects more … well, adorable, or noble, or whatever it takes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They recently made a video, with strumming guitars, featuring a brand new baby emerging from its egg. The newborn is emerald green, squirmy and so long, it just keeps coming and coming from an impossibly small container. Will this soften the hearts of Lord Howe islanders? I dunno. It’s so … so … big.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, hey, why don’t you look for yourself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happens next? The story is simple: A bunch of black rats almost wiped out a bunch of gigantic bugs on a little island far, far away from most of us. A few dedicated scientists, passionate about biological diversity, risked their lives to keep the bugs going. For the bugs to get their homes and their future back doesn’t depend on scientists anymore. They’ve done their job. Now it’s up to the folks on Lord Howe Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will ordinary Janes and Joes, going about their days, agree to spend a little extra effort and money to preserve an animal that isn’t what most of us would call beautiful? Its main attraction is that it has lived on the planet for a long time, and we have the power to keep it around. I don’t know if it will work, but in the end, that’s the walking stick’s best argument:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m still here. Don’t let me go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Six-Legged+Giant+Finds+Secret+Hideaway%2C+Hides+For+80+Years&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The insect is so large — as big as a human hand — it's been dubbed a \"tree lobster.\" Presumed extinct, some enterprising entomologists found them on a barren hunk of rock in the middle of the ocean.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>No, this isn’t a make-believe place. It’s real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They call it “Ball’s Pyramid.” It’s what’s left of an old volcano that emerged from the sea about 7 million years ago. A British naval officer named Ball was the first European to see it in 1788. It sits off Australia, in the South Pacific. It is extremely narrow, 1,844 feet high, and it sits alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, for years this place had a secret. At 225 feet above sea level, hanging on the rock surface, there is a small, spindly little bush, and under that bush, a few years ago, two climbers, working in the dark, found something totally improbable hiding in the soil below. How it got there, we still don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the story: About 13 miles from this spindle of rock, there’s a bigger island, called Lord Howe Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481268\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 749px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-481268\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters.jpg\" alt=\"Dryococelus australis live on Ball's Pyramid off the east coast of Australia and, as best we know, live nowhere else.\" width=\"749\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters.jpg 749w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobsters-400x534.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 749px) 100vw, 749px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dryococelus australis live on Ball’s Pyramid off the east coast of Australia and, as best we know, live nowhere else. \u003ccite>(Rod Morris)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Lord Howe, there used to be an insect, famous for being big. It’s a stick insect, a critter that masquerades as a piece of wood, and the Lord Howe Island version was so large — as big as a human hand — that the Europeans labeled it a “tree lobster” because of its size and hard, lobsterlike exoskeleton. It was 12 centimeters long and the heaviest flightless stick insect in the world. Local fishermen used to put them on fishing hooks and use them as bait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then one day in 1918, a supply ship, the S.S. Makambo from Britain, ran aground at Lord Howe Island and had to be evacuated. One passenger drowned. The rest were put ashore. It took nine days to repair the Makambo, and during that time, some black rats managed to get from the ship to the island, where they instantly discovered a delicious new rat food: giant stick insects. Two years later, the rats were everywhere and the tree lobsters were gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Totally gone. After 1920, there wasn’t a single sighting. By 1960, the Lord Howe stick insect, \u003cem>Dryococelus australis\u003c/em>, was presumed extinct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a rumor, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some climbers scaling Ball’s Pyramid in the 1960s said they’d seen a few stick insect corpses lying on the rocks that looked “recently dead.” But the species is nocturnal, and nobody wanted to scale the spire hunting for bugs in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climbing the Pyramid\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fast forward to 2001, when two Australian scientists, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, with two assistants, decided to take a closer look. From the water, they’d seen a few patches of vegetation that just might support walking sticks. So, they boated over. (“Swimming would have been much easier,” Carlile said, “but there are too many sharks.”) They crawled up the vertical rock face to about 500 feet, where they found a few crickets, nothing special. But on their way down, on a precarious, unstable rock surface, they saw a single melaleuca bush peeping out of a crack and, underneath, what looked like fresh droppings of some large insect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481269\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-481269\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-800x600.jpg\" alt='Two of the insects dubbed \"Adam\" and \"Eve,\" were taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed in an invertebrate conservation breeding group.' width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/tree-lobster-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two of the insects dubbed “Adam” and “Eve,” were taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed in an invertebrate conservation breeding group. \u003ccite>(Patrick Honan)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Where, they wondered, did that poop come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only thing to do was to go back up after dark, with flashlights and cameras, to see if the pooper would be out taking a nighttime walk. Nick Carlile and a local ranger, Dean Hiscox, agreed to make the climb. And with flashlights, they scaled the wall till they reached the plant, and there, spread out on the bushy surface, were two enormous, shiny, black-looking bodies. And below those two, slithering into the muck, were more, and more … 24 in all. All gathered near this one plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were alive and, to Nick Carlile’s eye, enormous. Looking at them, he said, “It felt like stepping back into the Jurassic age, when insects ruled the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were \u003cem>Dryococelus australis. \u003c/em>A search the next morning, and two years later, concluded these are the only ones on Ball’s Pyramid, the last ones. They live there, and, as best we know, nowhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481189\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-481189\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Nick Carlile, seen here with the Lord Howe Island stick insect, discovered the thought-to-be extinct phasmid in 2001 on Ball's Pyramid.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/carlile_nick-1585e09358e9517becd94e66ac7086e50bafddae.jpg 885w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Carlile, seen here with the Lord Howe Island stick insect, discovered the thought-to-be extinct phasmid in 2001 on Ball’s Pyramid. \u003ccite>(Patrick Honan/Nick Carlile)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>How they got there is a mystery. Maybe they hitchhiked on birds, or traveled with fishermen, and how they survived for so long on just a single patch of plants, nobody knows either. The important thing, the scientists thought, was to get a few of these insects protected and into a breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wasn’t so easy. The Australian government didn’t know if the animals on Ball’s Pyramid could or should be moved. There were meetings, studies, two years passed, and finally officials agreed to allow four animals to be retrieved. Just four.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team went back to collect them, it turned out there had been a rock slide on the mountain, and at first they feared that the whole population had been wiped out. But when they got back up to the site, on Valentine’s Day 2003, the animals were still there, sitting on and around their bush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was to take one pair and give it to a man who was very familiar with mainland walking stick insects, a private breeder living in Sydney. He got his pair, but within two weeks, they died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adam and Eve and Patrick\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That left the other two. They were named “Adam” and “Eve,” taken to the Melbourne Zoo and placed with Patrick Honan, of the zoo’s invertebrate conservation breeding group. At first, everything went well. Eve began laying little pea-shaped eggs, exactly as hoped. But then she got sick. According to biologist Jane Goodall, \u003ca href=\"http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/16-jane-goodall-on-the-lazarus-effect\">writing for Discover Magazine\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Eve became very, very sick. Patrick … worked every night for a month desperately trying to cure her. … Eventually, based on gut instinct, Patrick concocted a mixture that included calcium and nectar and fed it to his patient, drop by drop, as she lay curled up in his hand.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_481190\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 505px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-481190\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7.jpg\" alt=\"Male Lord Howe Island Stick Insect K.\" width=\"505\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7.jpg 505w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2012/02/phasmidae_dryococelus-austr-d589e304d45fe69d0a8de24985a3dc1a8cb146b7-400x301.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Male Lord Howe Island Stick Insect K. \u003ccite>(Matthew Bulbert/The Australian Museum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her recovery was almost instant. Patrick \u003ca href=\"http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2441929.htm\">told the Australian Broadcasting Company\u003c/a>, “She went from being on her back curled up in my hand, almost as good as dead, to being up and walking around within a couple of hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eve’s eggs were harvested, incubated (though it turns out only the first 30 were fertile) and became the foundation of the zoo’s new population of walking sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jane Goodall visited in 2008, Patrick showed her rows and rows of incubating eggs: 11,376 at that time, with about 700 adults in the captive population. Lord Howe Island walking sticks seem to pair off — \u003ca href=\"http://www.aszk.org.au/docs/lhisi.pdf\">an unusual insect behavior\u003c/a> — and Goodall says Patrick “showed me photos of how they sleep at night, in pairs, the male with three of his legs protectively over the female beside him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now comes the question that bedevils all such conservation rescue stories. Once a rare animal is safe at the zoo, when can we release it back to the wild?\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On Lord Howe Island, their former habitat, the great-great-great-grandkids of those original black rats are still out and about, presumably hungry and still a problem. Step one, therefore, would be to mount an intensive (and expensive) rat annihilation program. Residents would, no doubt, be happy to go rat-free, but not every Lord Howe islander wants to make the neighborhood safe for gigantic, hard-shell crawling insects. So the Melbourne Museum is mulling over a public relations campaign to make these insects more … well, adorable, or noble, or whatever it takes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They recently made a video, with strumming guitars, featuring a brand new baby emerging from its egg. The newborn is emerald green, squirmy and so long, it just keeps coming and coming from an impossibly small container. Will this soften the hearts of Lord Howe islanders? I dunno. It’s so … so … big.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, hey, why don’t you look for yourself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happens next? The story is simple: A bunch of black rats almost wiped out a bunch of gigantic bugs on a little island far, far away from most of us. A few dedicated scientists, passionate about biological diversity, risked their lives to keep the bugs going. For the bugs to get their homes and their future back doesn’t depend on scientists anymore. They’ve done their job. Now it’s up to the folks on Lord Howe Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will ordinary Janes and Joes, going about their days, agree to spend a little extra effort and money to preserve an animal that isn’t what most of us would call beautiful? Its main attraction is that it has lived on the planet for a long time, and we have the power to keep it around. I don’t know if it will work, but in the end, that’s the walking stick’s best argument:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Would You Pay $12 a Year to Fight Sea Level Rise?",
"headTitle": "Would You Pay $12 a Year to Fight Sea Level Rise? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Billions of dollars of infrastructure around San Francisco Bay are sitting in the path of rising sea levels, including homes, roads and tech company offices. And a coalition of environmental and business groups is hoping Bay Area residents will help pay to protect it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods.”\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>David Lewis, Save the Bay\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In June, residents in nine Bay Area counties will vote on a new $12 a year parcel tax, designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two decades to restore wetlands and build levees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A specially-appointed council, the \u003ca href=\"http://sfbayrestore.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority\u003c/a>, voted Wednesday to have the measure placed on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco counties. Each region of the bay would be guaranteed a certain amount of the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods,” says David Lewis, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>. “They can act like a sponge during times of high tides and floods and soak up extra water, instead of having that water pile up against communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists say sea levels could rise up to two feet by 2050, inundating today’s shoreline. Add to that the flooding from a catastrophic storm, and the damage could cost the Bay Area more than $10 billion, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/storm-flood-protection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much seas will rise by the end of the century depends partly on what we do to mitigate global warming; scientists say \u003ca href=\"http://www.adaptingtorisingtides.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NAS_SLR_brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the range\u003c/a> is from 17 inches to 66 inches. Add to that a storm surge of more than three feet, and we could end up with waves crashing in 8 feet higher than they do today. This map showing what \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/news/searise/2015-07/as-science-gets-better-dramatic-sea-rise-seems-more-certain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">8 feet of sea level rise\u003c/a> would mean in Bay Area counties is from the \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/searise\">San Francisco Public Press’ 2015 summer cover story\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"800\" mozallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen src=\"https://amandabee.cartodb.com/viz/00d63d00-3598-11e5-adac-0e018d66dc29/embed_map\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 90 percent of the wetlands around San Francisco Bay have been lost, with many diked off and filled in as communities around the bay expanded. About 30,000 acres are awaiting restoration, Lewis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the South Bay, some 15,000 acres of former \u003ca href=\"http://www.southbayrestoration.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are being restored\u003c/a>, but the project still needs millions more in funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a crucial time to start this work and raise the money that can restore marshes now,” says Lewis. “The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it is to restore tidal marsh, once sea level starts increasing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to restoring wildlife habitat, wetlands and levees could protect important roads, highways, wastewater treatment plants and even tech companies. The headquarters of Facebook, Google, Cisco and more than a dozen others sit right on the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”Hv6icoIVCCvB24JQKHiyiQlcaMeByR0f”]“This concerns the health and welfare of the entire region,” says Mike Mielke of the\u003ca href=\"http://svlg.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Silicon Valley Leadership Group\u003c/a>. “It’s that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the measure will have to make that case to the entire Bay Area, including residents who don’t live next to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if your daily commute doesn’t take you near the water’s edge, if there’s a significant problem on the roadway because of flooding, that is going to impact you, because people are going to change the way they get to work and commute,” says Mielke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $500 million from the new parcel tax is only about a third of what’s needed to restore more than 30,000 acres around the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good first step,” says Mielke. “We’re going to need money from the state and we’re going to need money from the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parcel tax measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, not within each county, but across all nine counties where residents will vote.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Billions of dollars of infrastructure around San Francisco Bay are sitting in the path of rising sea levels, including homes, roads and tech company offices. And a coalition of environmental and business groups is hoping Bay Area residents will help pay to protect it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods.”\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>David Lewis, Save the Bay\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In June, residents in nine Bay Area counties will vote on a new $12 a year parcel tax, designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two decades to restore wetlands and build levees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A specially-appointed council, the \u003ca href=\"http://sfbayrestore.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority\u003c/a>, voted Wednesday to have the measure placed on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco counties. Each region of the bay would be guaranteed a certain amount of the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods,” says David Lewis, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>. “They can act like a sponge during times of high tides and floods and soak up extra water, instead of having that water pile up against communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists say sea levels could rise up to two feet by 2050, inundating today’s shoreline. Add to that the flooding from a catastrophic storm, and the damage could cost the Bay Area more than $10 billion, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/storm-flood-protection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much seas will rise by the end of the century depends partly on what we do to mitigate global warming; scientists say \u003ca href=\"http://www.adaptingtorisingtides.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NAS_SLR_brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the range\u003c/a> is from 17 inches to 66 inches. Add to that a storm surge of more than three feet, and we could end up with waves crashing in 8 feet higher than they do today. This map showing what \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/news/searise/2015-07/as-science-gets-better-dramatic-sea-rise-seems-more-certain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">8 feet of sea level rise\u003c/a> would mean in Bay Area counties is from the \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/searise\">San Francisco Public Press’ 2015 summer cover story\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"800\" mozallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen src=\"https://amandabee.cartodb.com/viz/00d63d00-3598-11e5-adac-0e018d66dc29/embed_map\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 90 percent of the wetlands around San Francisco Bay have been lost, with many diked off and filled in as communities around the bay expanded. About 30,000 acres are awaiting restoration, Lewis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the South Bay, some 15,000 acres of former \u003ca href=\"http://www.southbayrestoration.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are being restored\u003c/a>, but the project still needs millions more in funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a crucial time to start this work and raise the money that can restore marshes now,” says Lewis. “The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it is to restore tidal marsh, once sea level starts increasing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to restoring wildlife habitat, wetlands and levees could protect important roads, highways, wastewater treatment plants and even tech companies. The headquarters of Facebook, Google, Cisco and more than a dozen others sit right on the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>“This concerns the health and welfare of the entire region,” says Mike Mielke of the\u003ca href=\"http://svlg.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Silicon Valley Leadership Group\u003c/a>. “It’s that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the measure will have to make that case to the entire Bay Area, including residents who don’t live next to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if your daily commute doesn’t take you near the water’s edge, if there’s a significant problem on the roadway because of flooding, that is going to impact you, because people are going to change the way they get to work and commute,” says Mielke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $500 million from the new parcel tax is only about a third of what’s needed to restore more than 30,000 acres around the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good first step,” says Mielke. “We’re going to need money from the state and we’re going to need money from the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parcel tax measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, not within each county, but across all nine counties where residents will vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Farms Using Oilfield Wastewater Under Review for Food Safety",
"headTitle": "Farms Using Oilfield Wastewater Under Review for Food Safety | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>More farmers in drought-stricken California are using oilfield wastewater to irrigate, and a new panel on Tuesday began taking one of the state’s deepest looks yet at the safety of using the chemical-laced water on food crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fourth year of California’s drought, at least five oilfields in the state are now passing along their leftover production fluid to water districts for irrigation, for recharging underground water supplies, and other uses, experts said. (KQED’s Lauren Sommer first \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/04/07/california-farmers-look-to-oil-industry-for-water/\">reported on this\u003c/a> in 2014.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”s9BVDifKBUl02FTobQG0T3YdBTZW91cz”]Chevron and the California offshoot of Occidental Petroleum are among the oil companies supplying oilfield wastewater for irrigating tens of thousands of acres in California. Almond, pistachio and citrus growers are the main farmers already using such water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s aging oilfields require intensive drilling methods and generate lots of wastewater. In Central California’s San Joaquin Valley, a center of the state’s agriculture and oil businesses, oil companies in 2013 produced 150 million barrels of oil — and nearly 2 billion barrels of wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Central California leads the country in food production. It’s also the main oil-producing base in California, the country’s No. 3 oil-and-gas producing state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For farmers in California’s drought, the question is “where’s the water going to come from if you want to maintain agriculture,” said Gabriele Ludwig, a representative of Almond Board of California and one of the members of the new panel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state officials, academic experts and industry representatives on the panel are charged with studying the safety of irrigating food crops with oilfield wastewater that may contain chemicals and other material from hydraulic fracturing, other intensive drilling methods and oilfield maintenance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effect of oilfield chemicals on food is “largely unstudied and unknown,” says the nonprofit Pacific Institute, which studies water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers, for example, don’t know the long-term toxicity of up to 80 percent of the hundreds of materials used in oilfield production, Pacific Institute researcher Matthew Heberger told panel members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Testing so far has found only negligible amounts of chemicals in the recycled oilfield water, said Clay Rodgers, a manager at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, which assembled the panel. At least one local water district also has begun growing test crops with the oilfield water to study how much of the chemicals wind up in the produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of now, with so many unknowns about the hundreds of chemicals involved and their possible impact on crops, “We’re not able to answer the public definitely and say there’s no problem,” said William Stringfellow, a panel member and environmental engineer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regional water board will use the panel’s findings to guide its oversight of the recycling of oilfield wastewater, Rodgers said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>More farmers in drought-stricken California are using oilfield wastewater to irrigate, and a new panel on Tuesday began taking one of the state’s deepest looks yet at the safety of using the chemical-laced water on food crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fourth year of California’s drought, at least five oilfields in the state are now passing along their leftover production fluid to water districts for irrigation, for recharging underground water supplies, and other uses, experts said. (KQED’s Lauren Sommer first \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/04/07/california-farmers-look-to-oil-industry-for-water/\">reported on this\u003c/a> in 2014.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Chevron and the California offshoot of Occidental Petroleum are among the oil companies supplying oilfield wastewater for irrigating tens of thousands of acres in California. Almond, pistachio and citrus growers are the main farmers already using such water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s aging oilfields require intensive drilling methods and generate lots of wastewater. In Central California’s San Joaquin Valley, a center of the state’s agriculture and oil businesses, oil companies in 2013 produced 150 million barrels of oil — and nearly 2 billion barrels of wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Central California leads the country in food production. It’s also the main oil-producing base in California, the country’s No. 3 oil-and-gas producing state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For farmers in California’s drought, the question is “where’s the water going to come from if you want to maintain agriculture,” said Gabriele Ludwig, a representative of Almond Board of California and one of the members of the new panel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state officials, academic experts and industry representatives on the panel are charged with studying the safety of irrigating food crops with oilfield wastewater that may contain chemicals and other material from hydraulic fracturing, other intensive drilling methods and oilfield maintenance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effect of oilfield chemicals on food is “largely unstudied and unknown,” says the nonprofit Pacific Institute, which studies water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers, for example, don’t know the long-term toxicity of up to 80 percent of the hundreds of materials used in oilfield production, Pacific Institute researcher Matthew Heberger told panel members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Testing so far has found only negligible amounts of chemicals in the recycled oilfield water, said Clay Rodgers, a manager at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, which assembled the panel. At least one local water district also has begun growing test crops with the oilfield water to study how much of the chemicals wind up in the produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of now, with so many unknowns about the hundreds of chemicals involved and their possible impact on crops, “We’re not able to answer the public definitely and say there’s no problem,” said William Stringfellow, a panel member and environmental engineer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regional water board will use the panel’s findings to guide its oversight of the recycling of oilfield wastewater, Rodgers said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"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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"soldout": {
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"info": "Tech Nation is a weekly public radio program, hosted by Dr. Moira Gunn. Founded in 1993, it has grown from a simple interview show to a multi-faceted production, featuring conversations with noted technology and science leaders, and a weekly science and technology-related commentary.",
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"info": "The TED Radio Hour is a journey through fascinating ideas, astonishing inventions, fresh approaches to old problems, and new ways to think and create.",
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"tagline": "Local news to keep you rooted",
"info": "Host Devin Katayama walks you through the biggest story of the day with reporters and newsmakers.",
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