Confirming what we've already heard about iOS 7
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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Tim Cook on iOS 7, Jony Ive, Google Glass and Opening Apple Up
Case-Shiller: Home prices up 9.8% | Inside Real Estate News
Highlights:
- Case-Shiller releases March report.
- Denver ranks No. 13, YOY.
- 9.8% gain first MOM drop since fall of 2011
?Home prices in the Denver area in March rose by 9.8 percent from March 2012, according to the closely followed Case Shiller index released today.
The gain was slightly below the 9.9 percent year-over-year increase in February and broke a 16-month streak of a month-over-month percentage gains.
Denver ranked 13 out of the 20 metropolitan statistical areas tracked in the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices.
Denver?s gain, which has worried some Realtors that prices were rising too fast, trailed the 10.9 percent overall year-over-year increase for the 20 cities.
?I have had some discussions with other real estate agents and the general public of concerns we are heading for another bubble,? said Jason Peck, a broker with Keller Williams Realty Downtown Denver.
?All of this has come in the last 30 days from a lot of people,? he said.
Some neighborhoods, such as West Highland and Highland, are starting to cool off, because sellers are asking too much money, he said.
?Homes are ridiculously expensive in those neighborhoods,? Peck said.
He said he knows of one home that has been sitting on the market for more than 30 days, while a nearby home went under contract in 11 days.
?The seller just got too greedy,? in the first example, he said.
He wasn?t concerned about the slight drop from in the Case Shiller report from February, which was almost the equivalent of a rounding error.
?I?ve been kind of expecting this,? Peck said. ?I?ve been wondering if the price increases are sustainable.?
However, For some homeowners, who bought at the peak of the market or borrowed too much agains their homes, prices haven?t risen enough, he said.
?There are still people out there who do not have enough equity to sell their home and purchase their next property,? Peck said.
?A lot of homeowners are holding off selling,? he said. ?They are waiting for prices to increase even more.?
Statistics, he said, have shown that seven out of 10 consumers still must sell their existing home before they can buy another one.? One problem for sellers is that even if they sell their home for a high price, if they buy into the same market, they also will pay a great deal for their next home, he said.
?Also, because our inventory is so low, people worry about finding their next property,? he said.
?I?m advising a lot of sellers to rent for six months after they sell, so they aren?t pressured into buying a house today and maybe overpaying,? Peck said.
?That is what the smart sellers are doing,? he said, but a number of people don?t want the hassle of a ?double-move.?
Peck said that there are still plenty of homes coming on to the market, but homes that are priced right sell quickly.
?We are seeing some buyers getting frustrated,? by being outbid for homes, he said.
Homes price right, do sell quickly, he said, although he noted that mortgage rates have been creeping up lately.
?Obviously, the market is moving at a pretty good pace,? he said.
?Actually, quite a few homes are coming on the market, but it is just the sales volume is up even more,? Peck said. ?We definitely need more inventory.?
Peter Niederman, CEO of Kentwood Real Estate, said the March report represents ?great numbers,? for Denver. The slight drop from February is inconsequential, he said.
It doesn?t bother him at all that other markets outperformed Denver.
?Denver was one of the first markets to experience the downturn and was one of the first to recover,? he said. ?Denver was also the first market to see the downturn in inventory.
?What Case Shiller is showing is the breadth and depth of the recovery nationwide and I am very happy about that.?
On CNBC this morning, housing experts discussing the Case-Shiller report, said across the country one out of four homeowners still have negative equity, that is, their mortgage is worth more than their home.
Many of them are in that situation because they took out home equity lines of credit.
?I think people have learned from that and no longer use their homes as ATM machines,? Niederman said.
The experts said that negative equity is the major reason for a lack of inventory in cities across the country.
Another year of appreciation and many more homes will hit the market in Denver and across the country, he said.
?Rising prices are a double-edged sword,? Niederman said.
?On one hand, it is good that people can finally sell their homes, on the other hand it is not good for housing affordability. Rising prices are good in the short-term, but not sustainable long-term.?
Still, overall, the market is behaving just the way it should be behaving, he said.
?This market is starting to make sense,? Niederman said.
Independent broker Gary Bauer said he didn?t expect Denver to be ranked in the top half of the 20 cities tracked by Case Shiller.
?Other markets that were so adversely impacted are really coming back in a big way, so I knew they were going to show percentage increases higher than in Denver,? Bauer said.
Still, 2013 is shaping up as a year for the record books in Denver, he said.
?All indications are that 2013 is shaping up to be the best year in history that I am aware of,? Bauer said.
Dave Pike, a broker with Coldwell Banker and president of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, said the Case Shiller numbers ?pretty much reflect what is happening out here.?
He said that the luxury market is starting to see the ?frenzy right now,? while in the early years of recovery the activity was mostly for homes priced below $200,000.
?It is good to see activity across a pretty broad spectrum,? he said.
Pike isn?t worried about a bubble in the Denver market.
?I?m still fighting with appraisers,? Pike said. ?I don?t think appraisers are going to let that happen.?
Also, investors and owner-occupants can still buy almost all homes below replacement cost, he said.
?I would start to worry if the price per square foot sales price was more than the cost of building, but it is not,? he said.
For example, he is selling condos to investors in Lakewood for $125,000, which not too long ago could have been purchased for $110,000.
?But six years ago, the same condo sold for $155,000,? he said. ?While the recent appreciation has been very strong, they are still bargains compared with what they sold for at the top of the market.?
Nationally, the market is on a roll.
?Home prices continued to climb,? said David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. ?Home prices in all 20 cities posted annual gains for the third month in a row. Twelve of the 20 saw prices rise at double-digit annual growth.
The National Index and the 10- and 20-City Composites posted their highest annual returns since 2006.
?Phoenix again had the largest annual increase at 22.5 percent followed by San Francisco with 22.2 percent and Las Vegas with 20.6 percent. Miami and Tampa, the eastern end of the Sunbelt, were softer with annual gains of 10.7 percent and 11.8 percent. The weakest annual price gains were seen in New York (+2.6 percent), Cleveland (+4.8 percent) and Boston (+6.7 percent); even these numbers are quite substantial.
?Other housing market data reported in recent weeks confirm these strong trends: housing starts and permits, sales of new home and existing homes continue to trend higher.
?At the same time, the larger than usual share of multifamily housing, a large number of homes still in some stage of foreclosure and buying-to-rent by investors suggest that the housing recovery is not complete.?
Metropolitan Area Change from January 2000 February-March Change 1-Year Chanrge Atlanta -1.71% 1.3% 19.1% Boston 55.71% 1.2% 6.7% Charlotte 17.56% 2.4% 7.3% Chicago 10.73% 0.0% 7.8% Cleveland -0.74% 0.0% 4.8% Dallas 22.30% 1.3% 6.8% DENVER 35.79% 1.4% 9.8% Detroit -19.3% 0.0% 18.5% Las Vegas 8.36% 2.7% 20.5% Los Angeles 86.30% 2.3% 16.6% Miami 55.89% 1.2% 10.7% Minnesota 23.15% -1.1% 12.5% New York 61.54% -0.4% 2.6% Phoenix 30.29% 1.7% 22.5% Portland 45.52% 2.7% 12.8% San Diego 67.84% 2.2% 12.1% San Francisco 53.94% 3.9% 22.2% Seattle 45.20% 3.0% 10.8% Tampa 39.91% 2.6% 11.8% Washington, D.C. 89.70% 1.7% 7.7% Composite-10 61.48% 1.4% 10.3% Composite-20 48.65% 1.4% 10.9%
Month Ranking YOY Change January 2010 6 2.6% February 5 3.6% March 7 4.1% April 8 4.4% May 8 3.6% June 9 1.8% July 11 -0.1% August 11 -1.2% September 9 -3.1% October 7 -1.8% November 6 -2.5% December 7 -2.4% January 2011 6 -2.3% February 5 -2.6% March 7 -3.8% April 6 -4.1% May 5 -3.3% June 3 -2.5% July 4 -2.1% August 3 -1.6% September 5 -1.5% October 4 -0.9% November 3 -0.2% December 2 -0.4% January 2012 3 0.2% February 4 0.5% March 3 2.6% April 4 2.8% May 3 3.7% June 4 4.0% July 4 5.4% August 5 5.5% September 6 6.7% October 7 6.9% November 8 7.8% December 10 8.5% January 2013 10 9.2% February 10 9..9% March 13 9.8%
Have a story idea or real estate tip? Contact John Rebchook at? JRCHOOK@gmail.com. InsideRealEstateNews.com is sponsored by Universal Lending, Land Title Guarantee and 8z Real Estate. To read more articles by John Rebchook, subscribe to the Colorado Real Estate Journal.
Related Posts:>Source: http://insiderealestatenews.com/2013/05/case-shiller-home-prices-up-9-8/
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Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Doc: Face transplant patient making good progress
WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? A surgeon who operated on Poland's first face transplant patient says the man is already practicing swallowing and making sounds.
The 33-year-old man received a skin-and-bone transplant on May 15, three weeks after losing his nose, upper jaw and cheeks in a workplace accident. Doctors say it was the world's fastest time frame for such an operation.
Dr. Maciej Grajek told The Associated Press on Monday the man is practicing to swallow liquids, has gotten out of bed a few times this weekend, communicates through writing and can make sounds when his tracheotomy tube ? which helps him breathe ? is closed for a moment. Grajek called that "very good progress."
The patient remains in isolation to guard against infections.
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San Jose Sharks Beat L.A. Kings 2-1 To Force Game 7 (VIDEO)
SAN JOSE, Calif. ? Buoyed by a loud crowd and another early power-play goal, the San Jose Sharks matched Los Angeles' three home wins with a third straight victory over the Kings at the Shark Tank.
Now this all-California series comes down to a winner-take-all game on Los Angeles' home ice.
Joe Thornton got San Jose off to a fast start with a power-play goal in the first period and TJ Galiardi added a goal in the second to help the Sharks force a decisive seventh game with a 2-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champions Sunday night.
"We wanted this opportunity," said Joe Pavelski, who set up Thornton's goal. "We wanted to go play. We feel like we've played some good games there before. It's been a while since we've won, so we're due."
Antti Niemi made 24 saves as the Sharks earned their third 2-1 home win of the series.
Game 7 is Tuesday night in Los Angeles. While the Kings seemingly have the advantage of home ice that has been so paramount this series, road teams in NHL history are 8-8 in seventh games of series where the home team has won the first six games, according to STATS LLC.
"It's followed the script. Home team wins back and forth," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "It's time for us to get there and try to change the story. We're going to have to play a much better game than we did last time in that building. But they earned the right for home-ice. It's our job to take it away from them."
Dustin Brown scored the lone goal for Los Angeles and Jonathan Quick made 24 saves. The Kings have lost 11 of 12 road games but have been unbeatable at home, winning all six playoff games and 13 straight at Staples Center since the end of the regular season.
"It's come down to one game," forward Mike Richards said. "We're a confident, comfortable team at home. The fans are loud and behind us. It should be an exciting game."
The Kings tried to end it in San Jose, putting pressure on Niemi early in the final period in search of the equalizer. But they couldn't break through against a strong forecheck late to the delight of the loud crowd chanting "Beat LA! Beat LA!" from the start of the night.
Los Angeles managed just one shot on goal in the final 2:50.
"We showed more push than in the past when we kind of sat on the lead a little bit more. I liked it," defenseman Dan Boyle said. "We talked about it. We always talked about it. We had a little push there and had a few looks in the third."
After taking a 1-0 lead early, the Sharks went more than 15 minutes without a shot before regaining their stride early in the second period. Galiardi beat Quick with a wrist shot from the faceoff circle for his first career playoff goal to make it 2-0 and San Jose had a chance to break the game open when Justin Williams was sent to the box for a double-minor high-sticking penalty.
But Quick and the Kings killed off all 4 minutes of power-play time and then got back into the game with just over 6 minutes left in the second when Brown banked a shot from behind the goal line off Niemi and into the net.
"Every game has been close," Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "I'm sure it's not a shock it's come to a Game 7. I'm sure both teams didn't want it to go this far. Right now, it doesn't matter how we win it, just that we win it."
The Sharks started fast thanks to three early power plays and the desperation of an elimination game to continue the trend in this series of the home team scoring first when they converted on a two-man advantage. With Richards already in the box for tripping Brent Burns, Anze Kopitar shot a puck over the glass for a delay-of-game penalty.
San Jose patiently worked the puck around during the 5-on-3 advantage and took the lead when Joe Pavelski slid a pass across the goalmouth to Thornton, who shot it in from the side of the net to end a drought of 102:14 dating to the second period in Game 4.
"The 5-on-3 in the first few minutes was big. We're just trying to slap down the ice but things like that happen," Scuderi said. "We were trying to limit their start in this building but that got the fans into it early and that hurt us."
The Sharks were lucky that lead held up for the period as they were scrambling after that in part because of an injury that knocked defenseman Justin Braun out for the final 16 minutes of the period.
Los Angeles took the last eight shots of the period, with Niemi making two tough saves to rob Trevor Lewis on the power play and also stopping Kyle Clifford on a rebound in close. The Kings also were unlucky, hitting three posts in the period.
NOTES: The Kings haven't allowed more than three goals in 32 straight playoff games, starting with last year's run to the Stanley Cup. ... Braun returned in the second period. ... F Adam Burish returned for the Sharks for the first time since breaking his right hand in Game 4 of the first round against Vancouver. ... Niemi got an assist on Galiardi's goal for his first career playoff point. He joins Mike Vernon and Evgeni Nabokov as Sharks goalies to record a point in the playoffs.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/26/san-jose-sharks-la-kings-game-6_n_3340975.html
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Monday, May 27, 2013
Syrian opposition unity talks hit snags before peace conference
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Talks by Syria's opposition to choose a new leadership before an international peace conference stalled on Sunday over proposals to lessen Qatar's influence on the rebel forces, opposition sources said.
The disarray in the opposition ranks emerged as the Syrian foreign minister said President Bashar al-Assad's government would take part "in principle" in the conference, which could take place in the next few weeks in Geneva.
The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers, who are trying to revive a plan for a political transition in Syria, were due to meet in Paris on Monday to work out the details.
With Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants now openly fighting alongside government troops in Syria, the Saudi monarchy is keen to play a greater role in backing the Sunni-led opposition, the sources said.
Qatar had agreed to let Saudi Arabia play the primary role in opposition politics and the kingdom is expected to lead Gulf efforts to back a new provisional government financially, opposition sources said.
But Mustafa al-Sabbagh, the Qatari-backed secretary general of the Syrian National Coalition who has played a main role in channeling money for aid and military supplies inside Syria, is resisting a Saudi-supported plan to add members to the 60-strong coalition, the sources said.
The coalition is controlled by the Sabbagh faction and a bloc largely influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, which led resistance to the rule of Assad's late father in the 1980s, when many thousands of Brotherhood members and leftists were executed and tortured.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood improved after a senior Brotherhood official met Saudi officials in Riyadh earlier this month.
"Sabbagh has been told by Qatar that the Saudis are brothers and he should compromise. But he is a Syrian first and he will put the interest of the national opposition above everything," an ally of Sabbagh in the coalition said.
For the last three days, the coalition has been debating a plan to add 25 members of a liberal grouping headed by veteran opposition figure Michel Kilo.
Ten other members associated with the rebel Free Syrian Army could be also added.
"The mechanism on how to add the new members has not yet been worked out. The outcome of the meeting is still hanging in the balance," another coalition member said.
If the expansion goes ahead, the coalition will move to discuss the Geneva conference and a new leadership, including the fate of provisional prime minister Ghassan Hitto, who has not been able to form a provisional government since being appointed on March 19.
The coalition has been rudderless since the resignation around of Moaz AlKhatib, a cleric, who had floated two initiatives for Assad to leave power peacefully.
Washington has pressured the coalition to resolve its divisions and to expand to include more liberals to counter Islamists from dominating the coalition.
The Syrian conflict began with peaceful protests against Assad's autocratic rule that were met with military repression, leading to an armed insurgency.
The war has developed into a sectarian conflict pitting members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s, against members of the Sunni majority.
(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-unity-talks-hit-snags-peace-conference-124808820.html
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Saturday, May 25, 2013
Journalist and author Haynes Johnson dies at 81
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Haynes Johnson, a pioneering Washington journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the civil rights movement and migrated from newspapers to television, books and teaching, died Friday. He was 81.
The Washington Post reported he died at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. In a statement to the Post newsroom, Managing Editor Kevin Merida said Johnson died of a heart attack.
Johnson was awarded a Pulitzer in 1966 for national reporting on the civil rights struggle in Selma, Ala., while with the Washington Evening Star. He spent about 12 years at the Star before joining its chief rival, The Washington Post, in 1969. Johnson was a columnist for the Post from 1977 to 1994.
Dan Balz, the Post's senior political reporter, said Johnson was already a legend before they worked together at the newspaper.
"I don't say this lightly. He was a great journalist," Balz said Friday. "He had everything a good reporter should have, which was a love of going to find the story, a commitment to thorough reporting and then kind of an understanding of history and the importance of giving every story kind of the broadest possible sweep and context."
Former Post executive editor Leonard Downie told the newspaper, "Haynes was a pioneer in looking at the mood of the country to understand a political race. Haynes was going around the country talking to people, doing portraits and finding out what was on people's minds. He was a kind of profiler of the country."
The author, co-author or editor of 18 books, Johnson also appeared regularly on the PBS programs "Washington Week in Review" and "The NewsHour." He was a member of the "NewsHour" historians panel from 1994 to 2004.
"I knew I wanted to write about America, our times, both in journalism and I also wanted to do books," he told C-SPAN in 1991. "I wanted to try to see if I could combine what I do as a newspaper person as well as step back a little bit and write about American life, and I was lucky enough to be able to do that."
Johnson had taught at the University of Maryland since 1998.
"Hundreds of our students learned how to cover public affairs from one of the best journalists America has ever known," Merrill College of Journalism Dean Lucy Dalglish said in a written statement released by the university. "It was equally obvious to anyone who looked through the window that Haynes was in his element in the classroom. His entire face lit up when he was in the middle of a classroom discussion."
Johnson had attended graduation ceremonies on Monday for the journalism college.
Kathryn Oberly, Johnson's wife, told the school's Capital News Service that Johnson entered the hospital earlier this week for heart tests and died Friday morning of a heart attack.
Johnson also had teaching stints at George Washington University, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania.
He was born in New York City on July 9, 1931. His mother, Emmie, was a pianist and his father, Malcolm Johnson, a newspaperman. The elder Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Sun in 1949 for his reporting on the city's dockyards, and his series suggested the story told in the Oscar-winning film "On the Waterfront."
Johnson studied journalism and history at the University of Missouri, graduating in 1952. After serving three years in the Army during the Korean War, he earned a master's degree in American history from the University of Wisconsin in 1956.
Johnson resisted working in New York journalism to avoid being compared to his father. He worked for nearly a year at the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal before joining the Star as a reporter.
He received a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on civil rights in Selma, Ala., where hundreds of marchers bound for the state capital of Montgomery were brutally beaten in March 1965 by state and local law officers. Martin Luther King, Jr., came to the city, and after a federal judge found that the demonstrators had a right to march, they completed their journey later that month.
"Haynes had roots in the South," Balz said. "He was raised in New York, but he had Southern roots. He had a special appreciation for the civil rights struggle and what African Americans were going through."
It wasn't long before Ben Bradlee, the newly appointed executive editor of The Washington Post, came calling. As Bradlee was seeking to elevate the newspaper, he recruited both Johnson and The New York Times' David S. Broder to strengthen the paper's political reporting.
"He reached out, held out his hand, and I grabbed it, and that was it," Johnson recalled in Jeff Himmelman's 2012 biography of Bradlee. "There was no contract, nothing. It was just, 'Come, we want you,' and I've never forgotten that."
Johnson's books include "The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election," (2009) with Balz; "The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years" (2001); and "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point" (1996) with Broder, who died two years ago.
Johnson and Broder helped redefine Washington reporting, getting outside the Beltway to talk with voters about candidates and issues, rather than letting politicians dictate coverage. Both then wove that reporting into broader articles that examined the mood of the country and the workings of government.
"Hayes was a giant," journalism professor and author Carl Sessions Stepp commented on the University of Maryland's website. "He had the mind of a scholar and the soul of a regular citizen, and nobody has ever better combined insider digging and outside-the-Beltway pulse-taking."
Gene Roberts, who helped lead The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times and co-authored a book on media coverage of the civil rights movement, said he was amazed with Johnson's work ethic.
"I think he was one of the most important reporters in the country during his journalistic career and later as he got more into books," Roberts said. "I was amazed. Most writers take a breather between books, but when he finished one book he always started immediately on another book."
Johnson and Roberts taught together at the University of Maryland. Roberts said Johnson was an inspirational teacher and a serious historian. In recent years, he said, Johnson had been focused on having his father's "Waterfront" articles printed in book form.
He had also just begun work on a 19th book, looking at the speed with which breaking news was covered in the social media era, according to Capital News Service.
Johnson married Julia Ann Erwin in 1954; they had three daughters and two sons and later divorced. In 2002, Johnson married Kathryn Oberly, an associate judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
___
Zongker contributed from Washington.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE: Barry Schweid reported on foreign policy, the Supreme Court and national politics for The Associated Press in Washington for more than 50 years.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/journalist-author-haynes-johnson-dies-81-220909829.html
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Dot Earth Blog: Terrible Tornadoes in a Changing Climate
As I explained earlier this week, questions related to any impact of human-driven global warming on tornadoes, while important, have almost no bearing on the challenge of reducing human vulnerability to these killer storms. The focus on the ground in Oklahoma, of course, will for years to come be on recovery and rebuilding ? hopefully with more attention across the region to developing policies and practices that cut losses the next time. (With this in mind, please read John Schwartz?s great feature, ?Why No Safe Room to Run To? Cost and Plains Culture.?)
The vulnerability is almost entirely the result of fast-paced, cost-cutting development patterns in tornado hot zones, and even if there were a greenhouse-tornado connection, actions that constrain greenhouse-gas emissions, while wise in the long run, would not have a substantial influence on climate patterns for decades because of inertia in the climate system.
Some climate scientists see compelling arguments for accumulating heat and added water vapor fueling the kinds of turbulent storms that spawn tornadoes. But a half century of observations in the United States show no change in tornado frequency and a declining frequency of strong tornadoes. [Update?| The meteorological conditions that shaped events in recent days are?nicely explored by Henry Fountain of The Times.]
Does any of this mean global warming is not a serious problem? No.
It just means assertions that all weird bad weather is, in essence, our fault are not grounded in science and, as a result, end up empowering those whose prime interest appears to to be sustaining the fossil fuel era as long as possible. I was glad to see the green blog Grist acknowledge as much.
On Tuesday, I sent the following query to a range of climate scientists and other researchers focused on extreme weather and climate change:
The climate community did a great service to the country in 2006 in putting out a joint statement [from some leading researchers] on the enormous human vulnerability in coastal zones to hurricanes ? setting aside questions about the role of greenhouse-driven warming in changing hurricane patterns?.
In this 2011 post I proposed that climate/weather/tornado experts do a similar statement for Tornado Alley.
I?d love to see a similar statement now from meteorologists, climatologists and other specialists studying trends in tornado zones. Any takers?
Before you dive in to the resulting discussion, it?s worth reading Andrew Freedman?s helpful Climate Central piece, ?Making Sense of the Moore Tornado in a Climate Context,? and a Daily Beast post by Josh Dzieza. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has posted a helpful new fact sheet, ?Tornadoes, Climate Variability, and Climate Change.? [Update|?Robert Kunzig of National Geographic has written?an excellent overview of tornadoes and greenhouse warming.]
Read on for the conversation on tornadoes and global warming, with some e-mail shorthand fixed.
First, I?m posting the comments that were focused on policy, then those focused on the details of the science:
Roger Pielke, Jr., professor of environmental studies, the University of Colorado:
People love to debate climate change, but I suspect that the community?s efforts are far better placed focusing attention on warnings and response. That is what will save lives and continue the really excellent job that has been done by NOAA and the National Weather Service. I?d much rather see a community statement highlighting the importance of NOAA/NWS funding!
There will always be fringe voices on all sides of the climate debate. With the basic facts related to tornadoes so widely appreciated (unlike perhaps drought, floods, hurricanes), I think that those who see climate change in every breeze are not particularly problematic or worthy of attention.
Here are some of those basic facts:
1. No long-term increase in tornadoes, especially the strongest ones.
2. A long-term decline in loss of life (the past year saw a record low total for more than a century).
3. No long-term increase in losses, hint of a decrease.
4. To date 2013 has been remarkably inactive.
5. The Moore tornado may have been the strongest one this year, bad luck had it track through a populated area (Bill Hooke brilliantly explained the issue here).
6. That said, climatology shows that Moore sits at the center of a statistical bullseye for tornado strikes for May 20th.
Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a signer of the 2006 statement):
I see the political problem with tornadoes as quite different from the hurricane problem we wrote about some years ago. To my knowledge, there are no massive subsidies to build in tornado regions, nor is insurance premium price fixing a big problem. Also, federal flood insurance is largely irrelevant to this problem. About the only thing in common is federal disaster relief, but it is hard to believe that people only build houses in huge swaths of tornado-susceptible territory because they believe they will be bailed out.
As you mention in your blog, the issues here revolve around such practical measures as safe rooms, and the role of government in mandating or subsidizing them. Perhaps one positive outcome of the latest horror story is that safe rooms in public buildings such as schools and hospitals will be mandated, given that they are apparently not all that expensive.
In my view, the data on tornadoes is so poor that it is difficult to say anything at all about observed trends, and the theoretical understanding of the relationship between severe thunderstorms in general (including hail storms) and climate is virtually non-existent. I regard this as a research failure of my profession and expect there will be a great deal more work on this in the near future. What little exists on the subject (e.g. the Trapp et al. paper from a few years ago) suggests that warming will increase the incidence of environments conducive to severe thunderstorms in the U.S. But this counts on climate models to get these factors right, and it may be premature to put much confidence in that.
Daniel Sutter, a professor of economics (focused on tornadoes), Troy University, offered the following thought after citing the Dot Earth comments of Kevin Simmons, his co-author on a recent book on tornadoes and society:
I would just add that the high cost per life saved through safe rooms which Kevin and I find in our research really indicates that tornado safety is about reducing and not eliminating risk. Safe rooms provide essentially absolute protection, but are expensive enough that many would likely judge them too expensive. We need to focus on ways to reasonably reduce risk. For instance, have engineers inspect schools and make sure the safest areas are indeed being used for shelter, or to see if there are relatively inexpensive designs that could strengthen interior hallways some.
I hate to say anything before I know for sure what the final story is from the Plaza Heights school, but the two schools yesterday appear to have provided pretty decent protection, especially since many homes around Briarwood school looked totally destroyed. Wind engineers have developed safe room designs which are great and engineering marvels, but we probably need designs that provide a good measure of safety at a portion of the price.
Also with regard to your previous post about flimsy homes, consider the contrast between how cars and houses are marketed. Cars are sold under brand names, and we have a dual system of federal regulation of designs for safety and auto makers designing cars that are safer than federal regulations require, with certification by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Houses are mainly sold without brand names (I couldn?t tell you who built the house I own here in Alabama) with safety assurances coming through building codes. Many times we see that homes perform poorly in tornadoes or hurricanes, while during a commercial break on the Weather Channel last night there was a car ad touting the model?s crash test rating from the IIHS. If houses are indeed flimsy, there is probably a systematic reason for this.
Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a signer of the 2006 hurricane statement):
While the debate/discussion about possible climate change impacts (or not) on tornadoes is interesting, I thought that the helpful aspect of Kerry?s approach in 2006 was to set aside the climate change debate aspect and instead focus on something we could all agree on.
For example, in the tornado case, if some group of people who otherwise disagree about the climate change issue, could at least agree that it makes sense to have better physical designs of structures, have available shelters in mobile home parks, etc. in an effort to save live, would this be a useful statement to make? Maybe Bill [Hooke], Harold [Brooks] or others would have a good list of recommendations that make sense regardless of whether the tornado climate is stationary or not.
William H. Hooke, associate executive eirector and senior policy fellow, American Meteorological Society:
This has been a terrific discussion and Tom Knutson is getting us to a good spot.
Two points could be made in any such statement:
1. Nature is essentially playing that kids? game of ?Battleship? with us. Population growth and urban sprawl have transformed much of Tornado Alley from a rural area to a target-rich environment, as I described in a post two years ago.
2. It?s not enough to improve warnings. Those getting the warnings need real options for action. Evacuation is risky. Shelter-in-place in tornado shelters (used once in a blue moon if at all) has the obvious downside that unless maintained, they become a haven for snakes, vermin, insects? generally unpleasant destinations. Some owners of tornado shelters have had to lock them up because they?ve become ?attractive nuisances? in the legal jargon, serving as venues for pot parties, etc. Better option is the ?safe room? interior to the house that is used daily or frequently for other purposes.
Here?s the science-focused part of the discussion:
Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research:
You do everyone a disservice to discount climate change the way you do. Of course tornadoes are very much a weather phenomenon. They come from certain thunderstorms, usually super-cell thunderstorms that are in a wind shear environment that promotes rotation. That environment is most common in spring across the US: when the storm track is just the right distance from the Gulf and other sources of moisture.
The main climate change connection is via the basic instability of the low level air that creates the convection and thunderstorms in the first place. Warmer and moister conditions are the key for unstable air. The oceans are warmer because of climate change.
The climate change effect is probably only a 5 to 10% effect in terms of the instability and subsequent rainfall, but it translates into up to a 33% effect in terms of damage. (It is highly nonlinear, for 10% it is 1.1 to the power of 3 = 1.33). So there is a chain of events and climate change mainly affects the first link: the basic buoyancy of the air is increased. Whether that translates into a super-cell storm and one with a tornado is largely chance weather.
Martin P. Hoerling, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
I am unaware, but interested to learn more, about the scientific evidence that supports the statement in Kevin?s e-mail. The context of the sentence is in regard to tornadoes, but perhaps the comment he makes pertains to something else?.it is unclear and confusing without the source reference:
Here is his statement he offers that I?m especially curious about:
?The climate change effect is probably only a 5 to 10% effect in terms of the instability and subsequent rainfall, but it translates into up to a 33% effect in terms of damage. (It is highly nonlinear, for 10% it is 1.1 to the power of 3 = 1.33).?
There are some additional points that Kevin raises which are interesting, but incomplete. He writes:
?The main climate change connection is via the basic instability of the low level air that creates the convection and thunderstorms in the first place. Warmer and moister conditions are the key for unstable air. The oceans are warmer because of climate change. ?
The environment conducive for severe tornadic storms requires many ingredients, not least of which is the vertical shear of the wind in the storms environment, especially in the region near the base of the cloud (Harold can give the specifics). A further potential climate change connection, which Kevin overlooks, is the impact of a warmer world on the strength of the prevailing winds, and their increase in strength with height. Indications from peer review (e.g., Trapp et la. 2007, PNAS) is that changes in shear will act in opposition to changes in stability, making an overall assessment of possible impacts of climate change on severe convection difficult at this time.
It should be obvious that if stability and moisture were the main connections to severe convection, then summer (rather than spring) would be the season of most severe weather over the U.S. The dynamical ingredients associated with wind shear, and the triggers for releasing the latent and sensible instabilities, are critical to the problem.
Trenberth, replying to Hoerling:
With respect to climate change, one has to ask what are the influences on the atmosphere either from changes in atmospheric composition etc. or the places where memory occurs of the accumulated effects: mainly the oceans. ?Yes wind shear, and weather systems etc. are important but they are largely internal to the atmosphere and dependent on the synoptic situation.
Even models that suggest a change in overall mean winds or wind shear at some point in the future may not be particularly relevant with respect to the weather and the synoptic situations. And those models don?t exactly simulate today?s conditions well anyway. We will still have spring. It may come a bit earlier in general (changing the timing of the tornado season) but I have no doubt it will come.
Tornadoes require thunderstorms and wind shear, which occur in spring, not summer. ?Indeed the location of the storm track relative to the Gulf and sources of moisture is pretty critical. If it is too far north then there is no link (last year), or too far south then the wind shear is lost. ?You should recognize the unique situation in the U.S. where more tornadoes occur than anywhere else in the world, and the geography, Rockies, Gulf etc. plus seasons and weather all come into play. ?It is trite to say ?what about summer!?
?There are many papers detailing changes in water vapor and precipitation (although the literature is confusing).? Here is an example that tries to cut through some confusion.
Trenberth, K. E., 2011: Changes in precipitation with climate change.?Climate Research,?47, 123-138, doi:10.3354/cr00953.?[PDF]
I have then presumed that an increase in intensity and a change in wind speed goes up as wind speed cubed with respect to power dissipation and damage potential.
Martin Hoerling, replying to Trenberth:
To the point of Trapp et al., they discuss more than the effect of changes in thermodynamic stability. To be sure, increased thermodynamic instability, increased moisture content in the atmosphere (2 factors that Kevin called out), and increased vertical wind shear within 5 kilometers above the ground create an environment more favorable for a tornado outbreak. In particular, tornadoes are more likely to occur when both low stability (reflected in high values of ?convective available potential energy? or ?CAPE?), and high shear are present.
Secondarily, the presence of an elevated mixed layer (reflected in moderate values of ?convective inhibition? or ?CIN?) can delay the onset of storms, such that when they occur, they do so more explosively and in the form of more long-lived, isolated supercells, which can spawn tornadoes. Trapp et al. suggest that the number of days during which meteorological conditions are favorable for severe storms may increase during latter decades of the 21st century, primarily due to increased instability, though they indicate that the projected decreases in vertical wind shear may oppose thermodynamic destabilization..
Harold Brooks, National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Okla.:
I?m not sure what we?ll be able to come with, but some basic points.
1. Interannual variability is incredibly large. It will be very difficult to detect long-trend trends. In the last 3 years, we?ve set records for the most F1+ tornadoes (back to 1954) in a 12 consecutive month period and for the fewest F1+ tornadoes. I think there?s evidence to suggest that we have seen an increase in the variability of occurrence in the US.
2. Probability of occurrence is mostly driven by wind shear and intensity is almost completely independent of the thermodynamics. The observations are clear on that. As a result, expected changes in occurrence and intensity would be driven by wind shear changes. NOAA is doing some new work on this, but Brian Soden indicated to me that ~2/3 of the CMIP runs showed an increase in CAPE and a decrease in shear over the US.
3. There are more F1+ tornadoes in warm winter months and fewer in warm summer months. Given that there are more in the mean in the summer than winter, overall, if we take the warmest 10 Januarys, 10 Februarys, etc. back to 1954 and count the tornadoes in them and compare it to the coolest 10 Januarys, 10 Februarys, etc., there are ~20% fewer tornadoes in the collection of warm months.
11:41 a.m. | James B. Elsner, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University studying extreme storms, sent this thought by e-mail:
As with hurricanes, I think frequency needs to be separated from intensity.
Climate change increases the available energy for tornadoes through a warmer and moister atmosphere. Wind shear decreases in the global mean, but this might be irrelevant locally when the jet stream dives southward like it did last weekend across the Plains.
I believe there is evidence that the strongest tornadoes are getting stronger. They are certainly getting longer and wider.
I was out chasing this weekend in the Plains with my graduate students and the interesting thing was the lack of a widespread outbreak in favor of a few mighty ones. Shear was amazing.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Bacterial spare parts filter antibiotic residue from groundwater
May 21, 2013 ? Researchers at University of Cincinnati have developed and tested a solar-powered nano filter that is able to remove harmful carcinogens and antibiotics from water sources -- lakes and rivers -- at a significantly higher rate than the currently used filtering technology made of activated carbon.
They report their results today at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
Vikram Kapoor, environmental engineering doctoral student, and David Wendell, assistant professor of environmental engineering, report on their development and testing of the new filter made of two bacterial proteins that was able to absorb 64 percent of antibiotics in surface waters vs. about 40 percent absorbed by the currently used filtering technology made of activated carbon. One of the more exciting aspects of this filter is the ability to reuse the antibiotics that are captured.
"The presence of antibiotics in surface waters is harmful in that it breeds resistant bacteria and kills helpful microorganisms, which can degrade aquatic environments and food chains. In other words, infectious agents like viruses and illness-causing bacteria become more numerous while the health of streams and lakes degrades," says Kapoor.
The newly developed nano filters, each much smaller in diameter than a human hair, could potentially have a big impact on both human health and on the health of the aquatic environment (since the presence of antibiotics in surface waters can also affect the endocrine systems of fish, birds and other wildlife).
The filter employs one of the very elements that enable drug-resistant bacteria to be so harmful, a protein pump called AcrB.
"These pumps are an amazing product of evolution. They are essentially selective garbage disposals for the bacteria. Our innovation was turning the disposal system around. So, instead of pumping out, we pump the compounds into the proteovesicles," says Kapoor
The operation of the new filtering technology is powered by direct sunlight vs. the energy-intensive needs for the operation of the standard activated carbon filter.
The filtering technology also allows for antibiotic recycling.
"After these new nano filters have absorbed antibiotics from surface waters, the filters could be extracted from the water and processed to release the drugs, allowing them to be reused. On the other hand, carbon filters are regenerated by heating to several hundred degrees, which burns off the antibiotics," says Kapoor.
The new protein filters are highly selective. Currently used activated carbon filters serve as "catch alls," filtering a wide variety of contaminants. That means that they become clogged more quickly with natural organic matter found in rivers and lakes.
"So far, our innovation promises to be an environmentally friendly means for extracting antibiotics from the surface waters that we all rely on. It also has potential to provide for cost-effective antibiotic recovery and reuse," says Kapoor.
The researchers have tested the solar-powered nano filter against activated carbon, the present treatment technology standard outside the lab, in water collected from the Little Miami River. Using only sunlight as the power source, they were able to selectively remove the antibiotics ampicillin and vancomycin, commonly used human and veterinary antibiotics, and the nucleic acid stain, ethidium bromide, which is a potent carcinogen to humans and aquatic animals.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
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'The Wolverine' Trailer: Five Questions It Answered
Second preview for the 'X-Men' spin-off looks at a fan-favorite character.
By Kevin P. Sullivan
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707713/the-wolverine-new-trailer.jhtml
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M23 rebels clash with soldiers in eastern Congo
GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Clashes erupted Monday in eastern Congo between government troops and a rebel group believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, escalating to the use of mortars and rocket launchers in the first fighting between the groups since the M23 rebels overtook and later retreated from the provincial capital of Goma last year.
Fears that the rebels will try to retake Goma have been mounting ever since the United Nations Security Council created an intervention brigade with a mandate to attack the armed group. The M23 called the creation of the brigade a "declaration of war."
Monday's fighting forced thousands of people to flee, leaving behind deserted villages. Hundreds sat with their belongings packed at their feet near one barrier put up by a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Kanyaruchinya. Some were starting fire to cook diner and getting ready to spend the night outside.
Alphonsine Ndahandi, a 63-year-old grandmother carrying her family belongings in a bundle on her back, said the fighting began at 4.am.
"There were gunshots, bombs. It was raining on our village. It was much, much stronger than when they fought in November," she said.
The clashes "escalated to the use of heavy-caliber weapons, mortars and rocket launchers," according to Eduardo del Buey, the deputy spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General.
Lt. Col. Mamadou Ndala, a commander with the Congolese military, said that the rebels opened fire on government troops near the locality of Muja, north of Goma, one of the most important cities in Congo's east.
"They attacked our positions near Muja this morning. We pushed them back and we are now taking measures to avoid an infiltration into Goma. We are bringing in 600 commandos north of Goma to protect the city," he said.
The M23 rebel movement is made up of soldiers from the Tutsi ethnic group, who defected from the Congolese army. Last November, the M23 succeeded in invading Goma, advancing past the hundreds of United Nations peacekeepers stationed there who did not open fire because their mandate does not allow them to engage militarily. It took intense international pressure to halt the rebel's advance. Ten days later, the rebel group retreated north of the city from where they had come.
M23 fighters have since been stationed north of Goma.
The M23 on Monday denied that they had attacked the military and said that Congo's army had opened fire. Bertrand Bisimwa, the president of the rebel group, said M23 troops went to fetch water at a well in Mukawa, off the road to Goma, when they encountered fighters from a different rebel group which is also stationed in eastern Congo and allied with the Congolese military.
"We pushed them back around 6 a.m., but shortly after, the Congolese army started bombarding us from their position near Munigi. So far we have not responded to their attack," Bisimwa told The Associated Press by telephone on Monday. "It's a provocation. If they carry on, we will have to silence their weapons."
His account could not be confirmed and was called into question because there is no well in the volcanic area where the fighting broke out.
The M23 has been engaged in negotiations with the Congolese government since the armed group pulled out of Goma last year, but talks have stalled in recent weeks. The Congolese government instead has been counting on the U.N. intervention brigade, which was due to arrive at the end of April, to help it eradicate the M23 threat.
The Security Council voted to create the brigade in March. The special unit has a mandate to attack armed groups, in contrast to the mandate of the other peacekeepers whose role is to protect civilians. South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania are due to send troops shortly to serve in the brigade. Tanzania has sent 100 troops so far.
The M23 reacted aggressively to the news of the brigade's creation and threatened to kill troops from contributing countries. "The U.N. has declared war," said Bisimwa.
According to multiple reports by the U.N. Group of Experts, the M23 is back by Rwanda, and to a lesser extent by Uganda. Congo's neighbors have a history of supporting proxy armed groups in eastern Congo to further their economic and political interests in the region. The M23 rebels were previously part of another Rwanda-backed rebellion, the CNDP, which was integrated in the army following a 2009 peace deal. The rebellion takes its name from that agreement, signed on March 23, 2009.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/m23-rebels-clash-soldiers-eastern-congo-164325879.html
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Fighting to save an endangered bird -- with vomit
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
An adult marbled murrelet, a rare and endangered type of bird, floats atop the water.
By Becky Oskin
LiveScience
A psychological warfare program centered on vomit could help save the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in California's old-growth redwood forests.
The robin-sized murrelet lives at sea but lays one pointy, blue-green egg each year on the flat, mossy branch of a redwood. While breeding, its back feathers morph from black to mottled brown to better match the forest. For two months, both parents race back and forth to the coast as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers) each day at speeds of up to 98 mph (158 km/h) while evading peregrine falcon and hawk attacks. After the chick hatches, it pecks off its redwood-colored down and, flying solo, launches straight for the ocean. Penguins have nothing on the murrelet.
"They're a seabird like a puffin, and they have this crazy lifestyle that's like a living link between the old-growth redwood?forests and the Pacific Ocean," said Keith Bensen, a biologist at Redwood National Park. "It's strange to have an animal with webbed feet in the forest," he said.
?Despite its amazing skills, the marbled-murrelet population is down by more than 90 percent from its 19th-century numbers in California, thanks to logging, fishing and pollution. Murrelets live as far north as Alaska, but the central California population is most at risk. Yet even though the state's remaining old-growth redwood trees are now protected, the murrelets continue to disappear.
The culprit: the egg-sucking, chick-eating Steller's jay.
USGS
A young marbled murrelet chick.
About 4,000 murrelets remain in California, with about 300 to 600 in central California's Santa Cruz Mountains. Squirrels, ravens and owls also swipe murrelet eggs, but jays are the biggest thieves in California, gobbling up 80 percent of each year's brood. Unless more eggs survive, the central California population will go extinct within a century, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Biological Conservation.
To boost California's murrelet numbers, biologists in California's Redwood National and State Parks are fighting back against Steller's jays and their human enablers.
The art of avian war
With cash earmarked for murrelets from offshore-oil-spill restoration funds, the parks have the rare ability to fund research studies and restore habitat. The two-pronged approach will teach the black-crested jays to avoid murrelet eggs on pain of puking. More importantly, it will shrink the jay population by thwarting access to their primary food source ? human trash and food. [Image Gallery: Saving the Rare Marbled Murrelet]
"Every time folks throw out crumbs to bring out jays and squirrels, it's having a real impact on a very rare bird nesting overhead in an old-growth redwood tree," Bensen told OurAmazingPlanet.
A Western bird, the blue and black Steller's jays like to frequent cleared forest edges ? which are filled with bugs and berry bushes ? and campgrounds littered with tasty trash and crumbs. As humans spend more time in the forest, the jay's numbers are booming. Their density in campgrounds is nine times higher than in other forest areas, said Portia Halbert, an environmental scientist with the California State Parks.
"We see this crazy overlap of jays in campgrounds because of the density of food," Halbert told OurAmazingPlanet. The overpopulation also menaces federally protected species, such as snowy plovers, desert tortoises and California least terns ? the jays eat their eggs too.
Richard Golightly
A Steller's jay inspects a fake egg meant to mimic the egg of a murrelet, another type of bird. The egg contains a vomit-inducing ingredient meant to discourage the jays from eating real murrelet eggs.
Steller's jays don't seek out murrelet eggs. But when the birds circle picnic areas near murrelet nests, some discover the chicken-size eggs make a fine treat. The smart, savvy birds?will return to the same spot over and over, searching for food. Murrelets, to their misfortune, nest in the same tree every year.
Masters of disguise, the first marbled murrelet nest wasn't discovered by scientists until 1974, in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The seabird doesn't actually build a nest, instead choosing a flat branch covered in cozy moss and needles, with cover to hide from airborne predators. At dawn and dusk, parents switch roles, flying offshore to dive for fish and invertebrates. [Watch the mysterious marbled murrelet]
"For an animal that lives for some 20 years, losing an egg is a terrible, terrible loss," Bensen said. "They're investing an enormous amount of energy into that one baby."
Killing Steller's jays won't help the murrelets; even more of the marauding birds will invade campgrounds to compete for vacant territory, biologists have concluded. Plus, jays are part of the natural ecosystem, said Richard Golightly, a biologist at Humboldt State University in California. Instead, researchers think aversion training is the cheapest, most effective way to stop Steller's jays from snacking on murrelets.
"It freaks everybody out to train wild animals to do what you want, but it surprised the heck out of all of us how much more feasible it was than we thought," Bensen said.
World's worst Easter egg hunt
The plan, the brainchild of Humboldt State graduate student Pia Gabriel, centers on carbachol, an odorless, tasteless chemicalthat provokes vomiting with just a small swallow. Researchers fine-tuned the correct dose with lab tests at Humboldt State in 2009. Small chicken eggs, dyed blue-green and speckled with brown paint, were offered as meals to jays, with carbachol hidden inside. Wild Steller's jays in this first treatment group usually tried just one taste of the carbachol-filled fake eggs.
Portia Halbert
A graphic developed by the Redwood National and State Parks to encourage campers to clean up their food crumbs.
"All of a sudden, their wings will droop, and they throw up. That's exactly what you want ? a rapid response ? so within five minutes, they barf up whatever they ate," Bensen said. The quick action helps the jays link the eggs with the illness.
Some jays wouldn't even touch the eggs ? evidence that murrelet egg-nabbing is a learned behavior, Golightly said.
In spring 2010 and spring 2011, a team zip-tied hundreds of the copycat eggs to redwood-tree branches in several parks. Each chicken egg was painstakingly colored (Benjamin Moore Oceanfront 660) and speckled to resemble murrelet eggs. A control batch of red speckled eggs also decorated the forest.
"We've been accused of being the Easter bunny in the woods," Golightly told OurAmazingPlanet.
A second wave of eggs set out a few weeks later measured whether wild jays learned to avoid tossing their lunch. The mimic eggs reduced egg-snatching by anywhere from 37 percent to more than 70 percent, depending on where the eggs were deployed. For instance, one spot lost eggs to bears, so not as many jays got to sample the carbachol. (The bogus eggs were set low on branches, to avoid drawing jays toward real murrelet eggs.)
A retched success
The tests were so successful that Halbert applied for oil-spill restoration funds to start training Steller's jays in the state parks. In spring 2012, during murrelet nesting season, researchers spread hundreds of vomit-inducing eggs throughout Butano State Park and Portola Redwoods Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This year, the project included Memorial Park, a county park with old-growth redwoods. [Nature's Giants: Tallest Trees on Earth]
"It's worked amazingly well," Halbert said."We've found a significant decrease in predations by jays, the number of times eggs get broken," she said. The effects were monitored with camera traps and a second wave of mimic eggs.
Reducing predation on murrelet nests by 40 percent to 70 percent would stabilize the Santa Cruz Mountains murrelet population, according to the 2010 study published in the journal Biological Conservation. That 40 percent minimum would drop the extinction risk from about 96 percent to about 5 percent over 100 years, and result in stable population growth, reported lead study author Zach Peery of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 2012, the smallest cutback in egg attacks by Steller's jays and other predators was 44 percent, and the biggest was as much as 80 percent in the two state parks, researchers reported. The project cost $80 per treated hectare (2.4 acres).
When the enemy is full, starve them
Here's why taste aversion?works so well for Steller's jays. Their fiercely territorial social structure keeps out untrained birds. Long-lived, with excellent memories, the jays will recognize and avoid those rare blue-green eggs that made them retch. Nothing else in the forest looks like a murrelet egg. If taste-aversion training were to spread through the murrelet's range, it would not be the first time a bird would require human babysitters to survive ? think of condors, who need devoted monitoring and care..
But Halbert said all the efforts to stop egg-stealing won't matter if the parks can't shrink the jay population by getting rid of their campground crumb food source. That's where the human psychology comes in. The parks hired an expert in public education and natural resources, Carolyn Ward, to help craft a message as finely tuned as any advertising company's.
"We're coming up with creative ways to change people's behavior," Halbert said.
Ward's research revealed most park visitors only read the first sentence on signs, so starting with the marbled murrelet's history was wasted effort. Now, with everything from stickers on the back of bathroom stalls to new signs at campsites, Redwood Parks visitors are warned to "Keep it crumb clean." This summer marks the new program's first big push, with campfire talks, tchotchkes for kids, brochures and YouTube videos that highlight the murrelet's plight.
At Big Basin Redwood State Park, Halbert has also installed animal-proof food lockers and trash cans. At Redwood National Park, the staff reconfigured the outdoor sinks so jays and squirrels can't steal leftovers from dishes.
While Redwood National Park is going ?crumb clean,? the park will wait on the vomit eggs, Bensen said. "We're basically trying to prevent any food access to even the smallest crumb," he said. "With Steller's jays, just a couple Cheetos is enough. They'll keep coming and coming, and then eat the marbled murrelets. We want to cut that process off at the knees."
Future development
The "crumb clean" push comes as Big Basin gears up for a struggle over its first general plan, which will guide the park's future. The proposed plan, published in 2012, will expand areas of the park to new public use. But some groups, including the California Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, think the park should either close or restrict certain areas during murrelet breeding season, to help the endangered species recover.
A public hearing on the draft plan was?held Friday?in Santa Cruz, Calif., and a copy of the plan?is available online.
"If people are looking for someone to blame for the problem the murrelet is having, I think everybody has some of that blame," Golightly said. "Cutting of the old-growth forests in the past is the primary thing that put us to this point, but presently, if you visit the parks and feed the animals, you're contributing, too. It is coming at the expense of the murrelet."
Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
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