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Sh*t's Bad Right Now, So Here's A Short Story About A Rescued Cat
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Shit's kind of heavy for all of us right now, and we have a long road ahead, but I thought maybe, just maybe, you'd like five minutes of light reading about how I saved a cat and she saved me.

Her name is FatFace.

She's been feral for at least five years and she has three teeth and she weighs under five pounds.

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FatFace was part of a feral colony my neighbor took care of, and which I've subsequently taken over after my neighbor moved across town.

I enjoy our cat colony, which totals between 10-12 mostly black or Russian blue cats, but let me tell you something about taking care of cat colonies: Don't publicly share that info at parties. One time I was at a networking event and met a handful of interesting people and had to stop this sentence from coming out of my mouth: "Oh, man. I have to get going! My cat colony is going to be piiiiissed if I don't get home soon for feed time."

(Side note: Our colony is fixed and if any genitalia-sporting cats come into the colony, my former neighbor traps them and gets them fixed through the Austin Humane Society's trap-neuter-release program.)

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FatFace was one of the oldest cats in the colony, and like most of the other ferals, she was terrified of us. Most of her time was spent hiding under the neighbor's house or keeping herself at a distance, squinting, watching our every move. However, we took a shine to the little goober because of her tiny stature and her expressive face. When I acquired the colony and discovered she only had three teeth, I began feeding her soft food.

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Over the course of nine months, FatFace went from eating soft food we left out, to letting us get very close to her, to letting us touch her, to letting us brush her, to letting us pet her. Now I'm happy to say she lives in our house and enjoys sleeping on my butt and sniffing my armpits. She also enjoys curling up like a tiny donut.

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Here are some other fun fact about FatFace:

She's between 5-10 years old.

We called her "he" for five years until I asked my vet to check out her netherparts.

She also likes to sleep on my chest and stare at me from about two-to-three inches from my face.

She does not like to be picked up; she makes this pathetic "muu-annn" sound when you do it.

She doesn't like fancy-ass soft food; she likes good-ol' mystery meat from Friskies.

We've managed to put one pound on her; she now weighs over five pounds.

My bf thinks she is part dwarf cat.

She has mouth herpes.

She loves when you push on her nose really hard. She gets so into it that she might bite your face.

She doesn't mind if you scratch her stomach -- but not the feet.

She's a very affectionate, chill cat. Even when she's ready to party at 3AM or eat at 7AM, she just stares at us or head bunts us.

She's kind of a slob. Because she has mouth herpes and few teeth, she can't eat or groom well. Most of the time we get salmon sneezes all over our faces.

During the day, I'll lay on the bed next to her and instantly fall asleep.

At night time I can no longer get work done because she sleeps on my neck.

She's very much loved by us.

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I've never owned a cat before, and I never thought I could love a cat as much as I do. She has brought great joy to my life, and I hope I bring joy to hers.

If you'd like to follow the #LifeofFatFace, let's hook up on Instagram!

A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

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Obama's Landmark Greenhouse Gas And Fuel Economy Standards Are Working - Now Let's Look to the Future

(Tom Toles, Washington Post, Sept 2, 2012)

This week the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a very positive report regarding the historic federal greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards. In a nutshell, car manufacturers can meet the current 2025 goals to improve efficiency and slash greenhouse gas emissions at a cost similar or less than expected four years ago.

But despite these clear and comprehensive findings, some elements in the auto industry will inevitably push back, arguing that the rules will be too expensive or that gasoline prices are so low that customers don't want fuel-efficient vehicles.

These arguments against long-term standards are myopic. Remember that when these rules were first adopted in 2009, the auto industry was in collapse. The fate of iconic car companies, for decades the pride of the United States, was a huge question mark. Eventually, the federal government decided to throw GM, Chrysler and Ford a multi-billion dollar lifeline. It was in the midst of these economic conditions, with fragile domestic manufacturers and gasoline prices around $2.00 a gallon--actually lower than today--that EPA, NHTSA and CARB first began developing today's greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards.

To its credit, domestic and foreign manufacturers agreed to the groundbreaking standards. American manufacturers realized they had become overly dependent on heavy, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. In 2009, they began to chart a new course that would ensure their long-term competitiveness, both domestically and globally. They bet on building a next generation of vehicles for a cleaner and more efficient future. The environmental upside to this innovation was staggering. Six billion metric tons of CO2 emissions would be avoided and consumers would save $1.7 trillion at the pump.

So how does the auto industry stand seven years later? Have manufacturers crashed and burned? No. From a bankrupt shambles in 2009, US auto industry sales have expanded dramatically. In 2015, they grew by 4.5 million vehicles, numbers on par with historic highs. Profits are also back on solid footing. GM, the largest of the Big Three, has swung from a $30.9 billion loss in 2008 to nearly $10 billion in profits in 2015. In fact, according to one analysis, the "Big Three" stand to fully recover compliance costs and be even more profitable per a range of future scenarios.

What about the variety of vehicles available? It's the largest and most diverse ever. The vast majority of vehicles are still internal combustion, but there are more than 76 alternative powertrain models available. Drivers can choose a large Chevy Suburban with a conventional engine, a hybrid Ford Focus or an all-electric Nissan Leaf. And every single model is more efficient than its 2009 counterpart, making it less polluting and cheaper to operate.

Does the industry have problems meeting the standards? Not at all. In fact, according to the EPA, over a quarter of the 2015 models met the 2018 standards. Fuel economy is at the highest level ever by 5 miles per gallon since 2004. Currently, the 2016 Honda Civic and the Scion iA already meet the 2023 standards. Several Ford-150 models already meet the 2021 standards, as do the Toyota Rav4, Chevy Malibu hybrid and Chevy Cruze.

Just seven years after the auto industry's 2009 nadir, it is in the midst of an innovation renaissance. The costs and the performance of current powertrain technologies are advancing faster than was anticipated. New technologies, such as Li-Ion batteries - the primary driver of cost in an electric vehicle - have come down nearly 70% in the last 6-7 years. So, even with national gasoline prices averaging $2.34 a gallon in early June, an electric vehicle is still about 50 percent cheaper to fuel than a gasoline vehicle.

The drop in battery costs is also translating into greater range. The mid-priced Chevy Bolt EV, which boasts a 200-mile range before being recharged, will be available at the end of the year. Tesla's mid-priced all-electric Model 3, expected in 2018, got over 400,000 advance orders in a matter of weeks. After federal incentives, both are expected to cost around $30,000 - cheaper than the average transaction price of a vehicle last December. What's more, that pricing is based on an electric vehicle market that is less than 1% of all car sales. Over the next decade, increased market penetration combined with technology advances will reduce those prices even further.

Meanwhile, what seemed like science fiction just decades ago is quickly becoming reality. A tech company, Google, continues to make rapid advances in self-driving. Cars with fuel cell powertrains produce only water from the exhaust. The first generation fuel cell production car, the Toyota Mirai is already available for sale in California.

The innovation that has been unleashed over the past seven years is exactly what is needed to take on the biggest threat to our future: climate change. But while it is merely a good start, these rules are not nearly enough for the world to avert the worst impacts of climate change. This past December, nations from around the world agreed that we have to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2º Celsius from 2005 levels by 2050. In order to meet that goal, the International Energy Agency projects that we will need 100 million electric cars on the road by 2030--up from the 1.26 million in 2015. This is a huge task--but it is still doable with companies continuing to invest and the right government policies.

This year, as the regulatory agencies review the 2025 standards, industry voices should not be calling for the standards to be rolled back. This is not the time to again look in the rearview mirror. Instead, industry and government must set ambitious future targets for 2030 and beyond. We need to provide long-term certainty for the innovative companies that have set us on our current trajectory. We must enhance the Nation's energy security. We have to deal head-on with climate change.

To do so, EPA, NHTSA and CARB should consider setting greenhouse gas standards for cars in 2030 that would lead to a significant number of plugged-in electric vehicles to be on the road. Once again, the auto industry should bring its expertise to be an integral part of the process.

Government policies should also consider incorporating electric vehicles that are shared and autonomous into the standards. Shared and autonomous cars have the potential to use much less fuel or electricity. Under the right government policies and incentives, these vehicles could contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants, while reducing congestion and accidents.

These type of commitments will help us avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Setting our standards higher is the only way to shift the balance from an intensely polluting fossil fuel economy to a cleaner and more sustainable future. They will also help the nation's automakers be global leaders in environmental innovation and, as already demonstrated, to profitably secure their futures.

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A PV Panel On Every Roof
In the home stretch of his presidency, Barack Obama still has some ideas up his sleeve. The latest is his crusade to make sure that every American household and business can become a solar power plant.

There has been plenty of good news about solar energy in recent years. It is becoming much more affordable and it's sprouting up on rooftops nearly everywhere in the United States. Yet we have barely begun to capture its potential. Sunlight is free, ubiquitous, domestic, inexhaustible and clean, but it still provides less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity.

Its potential is much greater. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado calculates that if every suitable roof was equipped with solar panels, we could get 40 percent of our electricity from sunlight.

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That's a theoretical number, not a plan. But reality will get much closer to theory if solar energy's virtuous cycle continues. The cycle goes like this: Because of state and federal incentives, improvements in technology and state renewable energy mandates, the price of rooftop solar systems has dropped so that more people can afford them. As more people buy solar panels, more must be manufactured. The more that are manufactured, the less expensive they become because of economies of manufacturing scale. As they get even less expensive, more people buy them, more are manufactured, there are more economies of scale, and so on.

However, the virtuous cycle has not yet brought the price of rooftop solar systems down to the point where low-income families or people with low credit scores can afford them. In a study it issued in January 2015, the George Washington University Solar Institute reported that the 40 percent of American households that earn less than $40,000 each year account for less than 5 percent of the nation's solar installations. In other words, we still have a solar income gap in the United States. The study noted that solar energy has the ability to "alleviate the financial burdens of lower income communities, but targeted policies will be necessary for solar to expand into this underserved market."

President Obama responded six months later with some of those targeted policies. In July 2015, the White House announced a National Community Solar Partnership designed to make solar accessible to all income levels. The objective is 300 megawatts of solar power on federally subsidized housing. In addition, because half of the nation's homes and businesses are not suitable for producing solar power, the Administration budgeted $520 million for the development of community solar systems that serve multiple buildings. Several of these arrangements are in place today around the United States so that several buildings can share the capital costs and the savings of a photovoltaic array, including buildings where rooftop solar would not work because of ownership issues, poor solar access and so on.

Many moderate- and low-income families face two other barriers. They may not have the money to pay the up-front costs of a system, and they may have trouble finding affordable financing. The marketplace has spawned some innovative solutions. Today, a homeowner can lease a solar system rather than buy one. The lessor pays all the up-front costs to install the system, plus the cost of maintaining it. The homeowner uses part of the savings on his energy bills and the income from selling solar power to his utility to make lease payments.

Some utilities offer on-bill financing for homeowners to make energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements. The utility loans the homeowner the money for energy upgrades; the homeowner repays the loan with a special charge on his or her monthly utility bills. When on-bill financing is done correctly, the homeowner's energy savings are more than his or her loan payments.

Yet another low-interest option is Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. Similar to utility financing, the municipality puts up the money for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements. The building owner repays the assessment with a fee on his or her property tax bill. This option has worked well for commercial buildings, but PACE loans for residences have been in limbo for several years because of objections from the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) over who gets paid first when the house is sold -- the municipality or the mortgage holder.

The Obama Administration has worked out a solution. Earlier this week, the White House unveiled another initiative called Clean Energy Savings for All. It clears up the FHA's objections to residential PACE programs so that municipalities can create them by designating energy financing districts and issuing bonds so homeowners can add PACE assessments to their HUD and Veterans Administration mortgages.

In addition, the Administration will make it easier for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance program at HUD to fund renewable energy systems.

The goal for this new package of initiatives is 1 gigawatt of solar for low- and moderate-income families by 2020.

The old rap against rooftop solar was that it is a boutique technology that only upper-income homeowners could afford. But because of falling prices for solar panels and innovative financing options, and because of the Obama Administration's ongoing work to make solar power accessible to everyone, distributed solar systems are rapidly becoming an egalitarian technology that gives all of us some choice in where our energy comes from. It also gives us the opportunity to do our patriotic duty and join America's clean energy revolution.

It's time to make America's energy system great again.

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Brain mapping: Getting it right
This post was written in collaboration with Randy Gollub, Jeanette Mumford, Panthea Heydari, Leonardo Fernandino, and Cyril Pernet, as well as was approved by the entire Communications Committee and the Council of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.

Scientific publications generate a written conversation that evolves over time. Each new publication expands on the conversational foundation established by its predecessors. Despite our positive view that a recent study by Eklund and colleagues makes a valuable contribution to the conversation in our field of brain mapping, many reports have interpreted that findings from this paper cast doubt on all studies conducted with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) over the last two decades. We hope to dispel some of the misconceptions.

You may have read some of these reports, which often repeated convincing figures like "false positive rates up to 70 percent" or "Tens of Thousands of FMRI Brain Studies May Be Flawed" to create doubt and undermine confidence in fMRI. Where did these numbers come from? Well, a major issue that all brain imagers must deal with is determining the reliability of the detected brain activation. Since the detection is made via statistical techniques, there is always a chance that what is determined to be an activation, may in fact be a "false positive". Researchers use methods that control the chance of a false positive within their measurements, capped at a predetermined level (usually 5 percent). Controlling false positives, however, can be a tricky business since it often requires certain assumptions to be made. For those of you interested in a more detailed technical explanation, see the blog we wrote for our community. Assessing the risk of false positives is not a new issue and is central in most scientific fields. Since the field of fMRI research is relatively new - barely above the legal drinking age in the U.S. - we are still determining the best way to control false positives. The work by Eklund and colleagues showed that the false positive rate using some analysis techniques can be as high as 70 percent, which is the origin of that figure in the headlines. 40,000 is an estimate of the total number of studies that have used fMRI, or the size of the pool of studies that this work could possibly impact.

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Three example headlines reporting that the findings by Eklund and colleagues may invalidate all fMRI studies. Images sources: Forbes, Wired, and Science Alert.

Now that we know what those figures represent, what do they mean and how do they affect the field of neuroimaging? The elegant study by Eklund and colleagues showed that only a certain subset of analysis decisions can give rise to the highest false positive rate of up to 70 percent (instead of the conventional 5 percent). However, not every brain mapper analyzes their data in the same way or uses the approaches examined by the authors. As pointed out by Dr. Nichols, one of the co-authors, on his blog, only ~3500 studies (or less than 10 percent of the ~40,000 existing fMRI studies) used the statistical methods that Eklund and colleagues called into question. So, over ~90 percent of previously published fMRI studies implemented other analysis methods that were not questioned. Further, the findings from all of these 3500 studies are not necessarily false either. Likely only a fraction of the 3500 studies - for example, those with marginally significant results or those not subsequently reproduced - might be called into question.

So, while some sensationalists seem to think differently, there is no need to question every result ever published with fMRI. The new paper by Eklund and colleagues simply demonstrates that particular variants of methods for statistical inference that are sometimes used are not valid. It does not invalidate either (a) the method of fMRI or (b) the majority of the field's findings. Finding meaningful patterns in fMRI data is an on-going effort. As a reflection of the importance of this process, the journal in which the Eklund study was published has agreed to release an erratum clarifying the interpretation of these data - consistent with what is highlighted in the present post. What we are witnessing is a healthy process of science self-correcting. Over time, scientists will learn to identify and fix techniques, and eventually converge upon those that prove to be the most reliable.

By chance, as one of us was editing this article, a group of junior colleagues from a cognitive neuroscience lab were discussing the paper by Eklund and colleagues in the next room. They were considering if and how these findings have implications for their own data analysis methods. And that is the true value of this work: To openly question and continually improve our methods because after all, fMRI remains one of the best tools available to reveal the inner workings of the living human brain.

Kevin S. Weiner is a neuroscientist, as well as member of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) and writes for the Communications/Media Team. The OHBM Media Team brings cutting edge information and research on the human brain to your laptops, desktops and mobile devices in a way that is neurobiologically pleasing. For more information about brain mapping, follow www.humanbrainmapping.org/blog or @OHBMSci_News

Further reading:

Eklund et al. (2016).

A technical comment on the Eklund at al. paper from our OHBM blog.

A technical comment on the Eklund et al. paper by Guillaume Flandin and Karl Friston.

A white paper on best practices in analyzing neuroimaging data.

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Why Wasting Water Is Even Worse for the Environment Than You Think
Is wasting water actually bad for the environment? originally appeared on Quora: the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Ava Mohsenin, Communcations Associate at WaterNow Alliance, on Quora:

Yes, wasting water is actually bad for the environment. There are anthropocentric, biocentric, and ecocentric reasons why wasting water is bad.

Anthropocentrically, fresh water is a vital resource for the survival of our population. Seeing as less than 1% of the world's water is freshwater and available for us to consume (not trapped in glaciers), there are limitations that factor into our carrying capacity as a population on Earth including the availability and distribution of freshwater. Different countries are endowed with different stocks of freshwater, and depending on their replenishment rate and usage rate, each has varying degrees of water scarcity that needs to be addressed. Below is a map by World Resources Institute that outlines the water stress by country, with 36 countries displaying an "Extremely High Stress (>80%)," which means that "more than 80 percent of the water available to agricultural, domestic and industrial users is withdrawn annually--leaving businesses, farms and communities vulnerable to scarcity" (World's 36 Most Water-Stressed Countries).

Therefore, wasting water in a country where it may appear water just magically comes out of the tap (i.e. Canada, the U.S., most developed countries), is wasting a precious, vital resource that millions (663 million, according to Water Facts: Facts About the Global Water Shortage) don't even have clean, safe access to.

Furthermore, in places where clean water is scarce, overusing or wasting household water limits the availability of it for other communities to use for drinking, cleaning, cooking or growing--and thus contributes to disease, illness, or agricultural scarcity/starvation.

You could tack on the economic incentive to save water, as it means lower household water utility bills, one of the largest incentives for water-wise individuals or households to conserve water.

Biocentrically, other species rely on freshwater besides humans as a vital component to their survival! Overuse of freshwater in household settings means there is less fresh water for agricultural use (which affects humans on an food scarcity level), but many livestock species rely on freshwater. Also, as we divert more freshwater from aquatic environments to supplement agriculturally, many plant and animal species are threatened or can become endangered. Despite our attempts to separate man from nature, we are indeed part of one ecosystem (the biosphere), and reliant on plants and animals; therefore sharing and properly managing our most precious resource is crucial.

Ecocentrically, wasting water while our demand for water increases (as population and standards of living increase globally), means that we need to supplement for this lack of freshwater by pulling it out of aquifers or groundwater supplies in which their regeneration rate is lower than the extraction rate. This unsustainable practice decreases long term water security and availability.

Furthermore, and almost most importantly, water takes a lot of energy, time, and money to filter and clean so that it's drinkable. Wasting water or overusing household water means you're wasting the energy-intensive process of filtration. The many steps of this process--extraction, transportation, filtration, etc.--require non-renewable fossil fuels and as these resources become depleted, their dangerous by-products such as carbon dioxide build up in the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to your carbon footprint and the Earth's rising temperatures.

This question originally appeared on Quora. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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The Cruel Market: Nuclear Pain And Environmental Loss
Just when it needs it most, the United States is losing its most potent weapon in the fight against climate change, which might better be called global pollution. One nuclear plant is closed in Vermont, two are under threat of closure in Illinois, and the only plant in climate-conscious California is to close.

These four plants represent a substantial withdrawal of clean, carbon-free electricity from the market, mostly to be replaced by natural gas, and some wind and solar. Gas will do the bulk of the generating, and it is a carbon-emitter -- less than coal, but a carbon source nonetheless.

What is more, these plants are up and running, which means none of the pollution associated with construction, steel-making or quarrying will have to be repeated. Some, including Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, have expressed fears that 20 more nuclear plants may yet close.

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Diablo Canyon: No fault of its own

The ostensible reason for these closures is that market forces dictate them. That bald statement implies that electricity is bought and sold as freely as any multi-sourced commodity.

But electricity is not traded in any conventional way. And it is weighted in favor of the short term and political goals.

The trouble started when it was decided to deregulate electricity markets in the 1990s. The goal had nobility: Consumers would have choice. At least that is how it was sold by advocates, such as Enron.

Well, choice did not really work for consumers, but it has worked for some large industrial customers, who have been able to shop for price.

Mostly, deregulation has created two kinds of utilities: those that swallowed the deregulation pill, and those who did not, mostly in the South. The northern tier of utilities, under pressure from their state governments, deregulated, some even selling off their generating assets.

The result has been other than anticipated: Consumers have had little or no choice, and the market has set about exterminating long-lived plant, like nuclear, in favor of today's cheapest fuel -- at this moment, natural gas.

The utilities which have remained strictly regulated by their state utility commissions have been more secure financially and able to raise money more cheaply. The leader in this pack, the giant Southern Company, headquartered in Atlanta, has become a technological innovator as well as a builder of new nuclear plant.

Deregulation of the telephone monopoly -- often cited during the passion to deregulate electricity -- created a profusion of innovations. By contrast, deregulating electricity has just brought about a rush to the cheapest fuel of the day.

Electric utilities operate what are known as natural monopolies. Competing entities cannot install a new set of transmission wires, so the deregulated electric market had to be contrived. It was also subject to political and cultural manipulation, as the solar and wind lobbies insisted that their product get preference. Coal was edged out financially, before environmental concerns.

Deregulated utilities have formed transmission organizations to rationalize the system. These are the independent system operators, such as the Midwest ISO or PJM in the Mid-Atlantic. They auction power and the auction system favors the cheapest kilowatt on offer.

That sounds fair, right? Not quite. Some of the power comes from wind and solar, which has been subsidized by an array of tax preferences and other government supports.

Many states have renewable energy portfolios which decree that a percentage of the power has to come from these renewable resources. This is fine because they produce no carbon. But they do not produce that much reliable electricity either. It takes a lot of solar arrays or wind turbines -- and then only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing -- to produce the same electricity as a nuclear power plant or an old-fashioned, coal-fired power plant. They need reliable backup -- and that is natural gas, a fossil fuel.

Also to replace a nuclear plant with renewables chews up a lot of land, whether solar arrays or wind farms. Imperfect markets produce imperfect results. -- For InsideSources

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The WIMPs theory is still strong though