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State Needs More Than Just Cap And Trade
In California, we're up close and personal with the effects of climate change. Between the worst drought in California's history, fires across the state, 26 million dead trees in the Sierra Nevada, massive heat waves, and rising sea levels, there's no doubt that climate change is real -- and California is ground zero.

This week, the California Air Resources Board released new regulations to extend the Cap and Trade program that began in 2006 -- a move that will help bolster the governor's plan to keep California on a path toward clean energy and climate leadership. It's an important step, but the Cap and Trade program alone will not solve our climate problem -- we need to ban on oil drilling and fracking in our state.

It's common knowledge that when the bathtub is overflowing, the first thing to do is turn off the water. Our state is trying to sop up the water on the floor but isn't turning off the tap.

The tap in our case? Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The source of these greenhouse gas emissions? Oil and gas. One key solution is to turn off the tap in California is to radically reduce the amount of gas and oil we are pulling from our ground to both use in our state and sell to the rest of the world.

A recent inventory of greenhouse gases released by the state shows we're making progress on reducing emissions, but we still have a long way to go. In 2014 California had already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by almost 10 percent compared to 2004. However, we are still releasing 441.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year -- placing California in the top 10 when states are ranked by highest emission level. (I did not know this fact -- i assume you have a source? Should we cite it?)

And that number is just what's released in our state. It doesn't account for the dirty oil that is extracted from California and burned in other parts of the world.

Our state is doing great with solar energy and clean cars, but it has to get real about our outsized carbon footprint and commit to a steady decrease in oil drilling and fracking, first targeting drilling near homes and schools, as well as cutting back on drilling for fuels that emit particularly high levels of carbon dioxide. These are urgent first steps needed to protect our children and families. We can also start by retraining our workers for jobs in fields that bolster California's economy without destroying our climate. By 2030, we can phase out all oil drilling and fracking.

It's an ambitious plan, but there isn't an alternative if we want to protect our state. Californians are no strangers to climate leadership, and we can get the job done.

To be clear: a ban on oil drilling and fracking requires action from the governor. But in the meantime, there are steps we can all take. Trucks and cars are responsible for most of California's greenhouse gas emissions. Buying an electric car, choosing public transit, and contacting legislators to demand increased funding for mass transit are ways we can all move this process along. Governor Brown can also release funds collected from the oil industry to fund programs that help low-income Californians get cleaner cars.

Another important piece of this puzzle is solar power, which can heat our water, power our computers, and keep our air conditioners running. Solar power works -- and it works best when we need it the most. We can all urge utility companies to invest in clean energy and offer more options for Californians to invest in solar power.

Already, California stands out as a leader in solar power and clean cars, with over 200,000 electric cars in our state. By limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that businesses are allowed to release or requiring them to pay for credits when they exceed that limit, Governor Brown's efforts to extend cap and trade may help too.

But these steps alone don't get to the root of the problem. The next job for Governor Brown is to find ways to contain carbon and keep it in the ground. If our state is serious about leading the battle for our climate, we need to phase out oil drilling and fracking.

Dan Jacobson is the Legislative Director of Environment California and is on the steering committee of Californians Against Fracking, a coalition working to win a statewide ban on fracking and other dangerous oil and gas extraction activities in California.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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On the 200-year birthday of Frankenstein is it time to worry about the story becoming real?

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It was a dark and stormy night two hundred years ago this June when Frankenstein was first animated in a Swiss chateau by the 18 year old Mary Shelly. She created the legendary monster after a challenge by Lord Byron who had invited a group of young British literary types to spend the summer on the shores of Lake Geneva. Climate change caused by a volcano in Indonesia created endless rainy weather that meant they spent a lot of time indoors pursuing their respective writing efforts.
After some evenings recounting German ghost stories while drinking local wine and consuming opium Byron challenged the assembled writers to each create their own similar tale.
Shelly was feeling pressured, being asked every morning if she had succeeded. Finally several days later during a night where she couldn't sleep she wrote her 'waking dream' around 2am about a doctor in nearby Geneva who animated a creature made of scavenged body parts.
(The mood must have been conducive to scary stories as another member of the group, John Polidori, wrote a short story that eventually became The Vampyre; the first vampire story in English with the theme later being amplified in Bram Stoker's Dracula.)

At that time, Galvanism was the newest scientific research being conducted in Europe where electricity was used to animate dead tissue, giving thought to the possibility of reanimating dead bodies. Shelly had seen demonstrations of scientific experiments at the Royal Institute in London, and knew how electricity could be used to recreate movement in dead muscles. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated", Shelly noted, "galvanism had given token of such things". This is probably why she used electricity as the source of life for the creature built out of body parts from dead people.

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In her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein Shelley said, 'I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.'

Exactly two hundred years later a New York Times headline announced in June: 'Project aims to synthesize entirety of Human DNA. Ethical issues include the possibility of babies with no biological parents'.
So if Boris Karloff scared you in the original 1931 Frankenstein movie (or soon Javier Bardem who is being tipped to be the new monster in an upcoming remake) you should be really afraid now. One of the points in Shelly's book was that the good doctor was trying to play god and it had disastrous results after a potentially promising start. Are we now also at the same crossroads?

In April 2015, researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in China used gene-editing techniques to alter human embryos for the first time in history. And a U.S. federal biosafety and ethics panel recently gave a university the go-ahead to conduct research on genetically modifying humans. While it could mean future generation have inherited diseases like cancers removed from their genes there are more questions than answers

If scientists can create life to their own specifications is it not pure ego to think humans are better able to do this than letting nature find it's own way? And what kind of manipulations and interests will guide such efforts leading to potential misuse of the knowledge. We live in a world that today sadly has very low moral standards and people of immense wealth and power who do as they please. Will countries create super beings to go to war on their behalf or else try to create perfect societies with individuals having Einstein IQ's and movie star looks?

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In Europe, the organizations questioning the safety of genetically modified foods call these staples 'Frankenfoods' as a nod to scientists trying to be superior to nature. I don't know enough details about the young science and the jury is still out on the subject regarding potential long-term health issues and benefits but when it comes to custom made humans perhaps a little more research should be done. And also ethical considerations need to get taken into account before a new monster is unleashed.

Shelly's Frankenstein didn't start out as a bad creature but after being rejected by it's creator and society it turned evil. Perhaps scientists should first focus on solving a few of the worlds existing problems before creating more potential issues. Maybe going forwards is really going backwards in disguise?

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Duplin County: Life Under the Waste Sprayer

Duplin County, North Carolina is the epicenter for industrial swine production in the United States. Housing an estimated 2.2 million hogs, this dot on the map shoulders more than its fair share of the world's swine production load. I showed up last summer to film the stories of those trying to protect the water, land, and air that these hog farms influence so profoundly. "Swine

First, what's the problem? Everyone loves pig right? Vitamin B (bacon) is certainly a staple of my brunch diet. In short, the sheer number of hog farms that have slid into this predominantly minority, low-income community has stressed its environment to the max. A pig produces about ten times as much waste as a human does, yet has almost none of the regulations on how it's disposed.

In North Carolina, contract farmers working under the umbrella of a far away corporation have few choices on how to handle the hog waste from the scores of animals they are forced to grow to stay profitable. This waste typically flushes into “lagoons” then when the that fills up, farmers spray the tepid liquid waste filled with the most unimaginable grossness on to fields as fertilizer. This works in many cases, but all too often overstressed farmers (no one has it easy here) over-apply and allow runoff into local streams, all the while pumping the air full of toxic stench. The standard industry response that “it's not that bad” doesn't cut it for some.

Enter René (family name withheld.) She lives in the same neighborhood she grew up in, a house handed down from her mother. In the late 1990s an industrial swine “farmer” set up a spray field across the street from her house. Several times every week, the “farmer” pumps this grotesque cocktail of pig excrement into the air 20 yards from her front door. René has developed respiratory issues, and can't go outside without quickly becoming hoarse. She no longer can hang clothes to dry or work in her garden, lingering outside just long enough to get to her car to go to and from work.

Despite these hardships René still manages to smile and get along with her life. Although she has much to be afraid of, she carries no fear, no hatred, and says she'll speak out until her last breath. Her story is not unique, but her courage is.

A Dead Truck hoists dead a dead box into the truck bed.

Numerous groups are taking on the science behind what's happening to the air and water around these “farms.” Devon Hall, co-founder of Rural Empowerment Association for Community Health (REACH) is spreading the scientific gospel as a way to empower these communities to speak up about these injustices. The Waterkeeper Alliance also leads countless research efforts to document, in clear black and white, what these polluters are doing. Merely imagining breathing in pig excrement and drinking tainted water supplies doesn't do much to convince an industry-owned government of anything. Duplin County is finding science as savior and rising up to prove, in no uncertain terms, it is that bad

The Water Is for Fighting project documents the challenges facing our nations freshwater resources. Corey Robinson is a filmmaker and Young Explorer Grantee collecting these stories through film, still pictures and words.

Follow along with @coreyrobinson #w4f2015

“Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting.”

"Industrial

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Cyber Security Attacks = Need to get trained.
Every day another hack. Another breach. Someone's data getting exfiltrated, dumped and sold. Is it you today? Your company? Your organization?

How often do you hear about someone you know dealing with either identity theft, compromised banking or social media credentials or their information out on the web being sold? Medical, Identity, Financial, Legal, Political, Business. All for sale. It used to be that this information was dumped out onto the "dark web" and then sold to hackers or crooks.

Now the information is freely being sold on the open, non dark web as well. Money buys access to credentials, to personal information, to embarrassing information, to information you long thought was not ever going to be seen by others.

Has your company provided real life cyber security training? Have you been run through a test or role playing? No? The average company, government agency, non profits and other employers simply have not yet stepped up to the need to fund and execute on cyber security training. True for not just the most senior tech executives, but for everyone from the CEO and Board to the average employee. We should all be able to teach our kids the basics on how to be safe from cyber attacks.

There is a new digital divide. It is about those who have been trained to deal with cyber threats, whether personal or business; and those who have not. The need for State and Local authorities to partner with the private sector to offer real life, and timely cyber security training and role playing is growing every week. Private sector companies and training organizations can only do so much on their own. The initiative has to be larger than that as the problem transcends any one of us by ourselves.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Sexting Might Actually Be A Sign Of A Committed Relationship
By Rob Weisskirch, California State University, Monterey Bay

Why do people sext? Why do they send racy or naked photos or videos and sexually loaded texts?

For a short-term hookup, sexting might seem like a direct way to get what you want - or at least try to. But according to my research, sexting is actually most likely to occur within a committed relationship. Some research suggests that people often engage in sexting after being coerced by romantic partners or to avoid an argument with their romantic partner. So perhaps anxiety and concern about what your romantic partner thinks about you promote behaviors like sexting.

As a human development researcher who studies how technology influences relationships, I wanted to understand if people who are anxious about dating or about what their partner thinks of them are more likely to sext.

So where does this relationship anxiety come from?

One of the major theories regarding relationships is called attachment theory. It suggests that the way you related to your caregiver as an infant (and vice versa) shapes how you come to view relationships later in life.

If your caregiver was attuned to your needs and responsive, you will develop a secure attachment. That means you are comfortable with close relationships because your experience paid off - Mom or Dad was there when you were distressed or hungry or cold. From that experience, you learned that relationships are safe and reciprocal, and your attachment anxiety is low.

But if your caregiver was not so attuned to your needs, was intrusive or inattentive, you might develop what is called an insecure attachment. If something you wanted emotionally or physically (like comfort) went unfulfilled, you might end up anxious about relationships as an adult. You might realize that relationships may not be trustworthy, not invest in close relationships, and avoid intimacy all together.

Do people sext because of relational anxiety?

My colleagues, Michelle Drouin and Rakel Delevi, and I hypothesized that people who were afraid of being single or had dating anxiety and who were, at the same time, anxious or insecure in their attachment style would be more likely to sext. We also thought these singles would be more likely to sext their romantic partners, even when their relationship wasn't very committed.

We gave 459 unmarried, heterosexual, undergraduate students an online questionnaire to learn more about how relational anxiety influences sexting behavior. It covered questions measuring their sexting behaviors, relationship commitment needed to engage in sexting, their fear of being single, their dating anxiety and their attachment style (secure or insecure). Half of the people who took the survey were single, and about 71 percent were female.

Commitment counts.
Man texting via www.shutterstock.com.

We found that people in romantic relationships -- whether of long or short duration - were more likely to have sexted than those who did not have romantic partners. There were no gender differences for engaging in sexting, except that males were more likely than females to have sent a text propositioning sexual activity.

We also found that, generally, dating anxiety from fear of negative evaluation from the romantic partner (basically, worrying about what your partner thinks of you) and having a more secure attachment style (i.e., comfort with intimacy and close relationships) predicted if someone had sent a sexually suggestive photo or video, a picture in underwear or lingerie, a nude photo or a sexually suggestive text.

We expected to find that anxiety would prompt people to sext but were surprised that comfort with intimacy related to sexting behaviors. We also expected to find that sexting would occur in relationships without a lot of commitment, meaning that we thought that sexting would be part of the wooing.

But it turns out that people who are comfortable with close relationships (a secure attachment style) and also worry about what their partner might think of them are more likely to engage in sexting, but only if there some level of commitment in the relationship.

So our hypothesis was only partially confirmed.

What's dating anxiety got to do with it?

What this tells us is that people may be concerned with pleasing their partner's desire -- or perceived desire -- to engage in sexting and that it is the comfort with intimacy in relationships that may allow sexting to occur. And, when there is greater relationship commitment, this continues to be the case.

It appears that there is less stigma and greater comfort with sexting, provided that one perceives that his or her partner wants to sext and if there is a degree of relationship commitment.

So, a little sexting within a relationship might not be too bad.

Rob Weisskirch, Professor of Human Development, California State University, Monterey Bay

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Hidden Monsters Revealed --NASA "Detects Huge Numbers of Buried Supermassive Black Holes" (Today's Most Popular)

The hidden monster at the center of Galaxy NGC 1068 can be seen in close-up in the view above from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. NuSTAR's high-energy X-rays eyes were able to obtain the best view yet into the hidden lair of the galaxy's central, supermassive black hole. This active black hole -- shown as an illustration in the zoomed-in inset -- is one of the most obscured known, surrounded by extremely thick clouds of gas and dust.

"Although we have only detected five of these hidden supermassive black holes, when we extrapolate our results across the whole Universe then the predicted numbers are huge and in agreement with what we would expect to see," said George Lansbury, of the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, at Durham University.

For the first time this past fall, 2015, astronomers were able to clearly see hidden monsters that are predicted to be there, but have previously been elusive because of their 'buried' state. An international team of scientists announced having found initial evidence that poinst to a large population of hidden supermassive black holes in the Universe. Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite observatory, the team detected the high-energy x-rays from five supermassive black holes previously clouded from direct view by dust and gas.

"For a long time we have known about supermassive black holes that are not obscured by dust and gas, but we suspected that many more were hidden from our view," says Lansbury."Thanks to NuSTAR, for the first time we have been able to clearly see these hidden monsters that are predicted to be there, but have previously been elusive because of their 'buried' state."

The Hubble Space Telescope color image above shows one of the nine galaxies targeted by NuSTAR. The high energy X-rays detected by NuSTAR revealed the presence of an extremely active supermassive black hole at the galaxy center, deeply buried under a blanket of gas and dust.

The research, led by astronomers at Durham University, UK, supports the theory that potentially millions more supermassive black holes exist in the Universe, but are hidden from view.

The scientists pointed NuSTAR at nine candidate hidden supermassive black holes that were thought to be extremely active at the center of galaxies, but where the full extent of this activity was potentially obscured from view. High-energy x-rays found for five of the black holes confirmed that they had been hidden by dust and gas. The five were much brighter and more active than previously thought as they rapidly feasted on surrounding material and emitted large amounts of radiation.

Such observations were not possible before NuSTAR, which launched in 2012 and is able to detect much higher energy x-rays than previous satellite observatories. Although we have only detected five of these hidden supermassive black holes, when we extrapolate our results across the whole Universe then the predicted numbers are huge and in agreement with what we would expect to see."

Daniel Stern, the project scientist for NuSTAR at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, added: "High-energy X-rays are more penetrating than low-energy X-rays, so we can see deeper into the gas burying the black holes. NuSTAR allows us to see how big the hidden monsters are and is helping us learn why only some black holes appear obscured."

The research was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

The Daily Galaxy via University of Durham

Image credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA

NASA: "Milky Way Center is a Bizarre Place --It's a Mystery"

Rare X-Ray Corona Observed Collapsing into an Extreme Supermassive Black Hole

ALMA Observatory Spies Monster Black Hole at Center of a Spectacular Spiral Galaxy

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NASA Sending Microbial Survivors of Chernobyl Equal to 400 Atomic Bombs to International Space Station

“The fungi collected at the accident site had more melanin than the fungi collected from outside the exclusion zone,” says Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This means the fungi have adapted to the radiation activity and as many as twenty percent were found to be radiotrophic—meaning they grew towards the radiation; they loved it.”

SpaceX and NASA are preparing the next cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station, which contains over 250 different research investigations that the space station crew will carry out over the next few months, including seven strains of fungi straight from Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster. The microbes will be grown by the crew in microgravity for two weeks before the samples are returned to Earth.

On April 26, 1986, technicians at Chernobyl's infamous reactor #4 were conducting routine systems testing when the reactor was struck by an unexpected power surge that triggered a chain of events that ultimately caused a complete meltdown, which blanketed the area in deadly radiation, turning it into a barren wasteland. During the incident, scientists estimate that the power plant released as much radioactive material into the environment as 400 atomic bombs, similar the one that devastated Hiroshima, Japan.

“Berkeley National Lab has an agreement that allows them to collect samples from the Chernobyl accident site,” explained Venkateswaran (Venkat for short), who is heading the program to send colonies of these fungi up to the space station.
“Following the accident, fungi were the first organisms to pop up in the radiation-soaked environment and scientists wanted to understand how they can thrive in such an environment.”

Venkat and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab are just one part of a multi-institutional partnership that proposed this study, which aims to better understand how the fungi shield themselves from radiation into order to survive. The team thinks that melanin, the same dark pigment humans have in our skin, helps to shield the fungi from harmful radiation and helps convert that radiation into a food source.

Observable molecular changes within the fungi were isolated to the species collected at and around ground zero. This tells researchers that these changes were brought about by cellular stress from the radiation. They want to duplicate this process to see if new drug therapies can be derived from the fungi. Eight different species of fungi (seven from Chernobyl and one previously grown on station) will be exposed to the stresses of microgravity. The fungi colonies will grow on board the ISS for 14 days, before being returned to Earth. After the samples are returned to JPL, Venkat and his team will compare them to identical strains of fungi grown on the ground.

NASA and the world's space agencies have future missions planned for Mars, and as we move towards exploring the Red Planet and other worlds in the Solar System, having radiation-resistant plants will be a key factor in success.
At JPL, Venkat has become a leading expert in identifying microbes and preventing them from catching a ride on spacecraft. He has discovered and named 25 new organisms, including 15 since joining JPL.

The Daily Galaxy via Motherboard and JPL

A Moment of Zen --Titan Beyond Saturn's Rings

ISS-Bound Antares Explosion --Space X's Elon Musk: Rocket's Outdated Technology "A Joke"

astronomy

So where does this relationship anxiety come from?

Do people sext because of relational anxiety?

What's dating anxiety got to do with it?

Cenote Angelita by Tom George

Golden Path by Magnus Svensson

*** by Andrey Brandis