This diagram of the Sun's internal structure shows the Sun's major parts, including the jet streams believed to be linked with sunspots. The jet streams extend deep into the Sun, to the base of the solar convective zone. Courtesy of AAS.
I was the only journalist who attended a press conference in person today at the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division meeting in Boulder (several others participated by phone). I’m attending just because I happen to live here, as of two weeks ago. What a rare treat!
The meeting is a hotbed of brand new insights into the Sun’s recent odd behavior. As a division meeting, it is mostly a sharing of information between working solar physicists, not necessarily an outreach event.
But the buzz here is running parallel to a very hot topic lately in public spheres: the unexpected and perplexing lull between the end of the Sun’s Solar Cycle 23 and the beginning of Solar Cycle 24. Our Sun should have started stirring again after a predicted minimum between the cycles, last year. But until recently — as in, last month — it was mum.
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I met with Joanna Kakissis this morning, a former Ted Scripps environmental journalism fellow who has been generous with her friendship and with insight about the program. As part of my ongoing orientation to Boulder, she suggested I should check out the farmer’s market as soon as possible. What a tasty idea!
Three blocks of streets were lined with positively bountiful produce, really amazing local coffees, breads and sauces, and a multi-national food court. Yum! I enjoyed picking up a few staples like bread, spinach and organic, free-range eggs, but also mixed it up with something I’ve never tried before: bok choy. I was in the dark about how to prepare it, but between Joanna and the farmer who grew and sold it, I think I’m in good shape now with a couple of steaming and stir-frying leads.
Boulder Farmer's Market musicians
I loved the farmer’s market when I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, too — I know they’re hubs of healthful living and community (which is part of healthful living, right?). But Boulder has gone a step beyond, turning the market into a cultural mecca to boot. Besides camaraderie, the air carried lilting, hippie-ish tunes from what I only know to describe as a xylophone band. These women were into it!
There were families milling around or lounging in the grass, lots of happy kids and plenty of dogs.
General frivolty at the Boulder Farmer's Market
And speaking of dogs, I am becoming aware that my own dog has an active obsession with the squirrel outside the window of my apartment. Seriously, it’s not healthy.
The first couple of days we were here, she hardly ate or slept. She didn’t move from the window. I literally had to close the blinds and drag her to her bed for naps, which she seemed to appreciate.
Cedar's obsession.
I fear for her mental balance if this continues! Boulder’s big enough; perhaps there’s a 12-step program here for obsessive canines.
My first day in town, I went to walk around campus. Climbed a little hill and came to a parking lot with those mountains in the background. They're east (west! Thanks @badastronomer!) of town and visible from everywhere.
Wow, the intervals between posts seem to be getting longer. This time, the lag is at least partly owing to my outdated view of myself as a whippersnapper who can load up a rental truck, drive across the country (camping out along the way with a cat and dog), unload said truck in a strange new city, and be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to write. Evidently, those days are over and I need extra time now for regrouping!
On a travel/adventure note, I’m finding Boulder to be tailor made for outdoorsy, sandals-and-jeans-wearing people like me. In fact, I HAVE found enough energy each day, sometimes more than once each day, to explore the extensive bicycle/pedestrial paths. Really, it’s an amazing network and I hope to learn someday who had the inspired vision to put it in place. I’ve been downtown, to the CU Boulder Campus, to the 29th Street Mall (which contains or borders Target, Whole Foods Market, coffee shops, book stores, super hip clothing shops, an AT&T AND an Apple store), to the Dog Park (with my dog) and numerous schools and parks (also with my dog) all without setting a foot or a bike tire on a dangerous road. In the few places where I actually have to exit the paths to join a road, wide bike lanes and sidewalks are always available. I’m in fitness heaven.
There are lots of dogs around here, and strict rules to keep them all in check. One of the legal off-leash places is this fenced park with a "dog beach," which Cedar really loves.
Oh! And last week I checked out the bus system by riding out to the Celestial Seasonings tea plant, just north of town. What a happy place that is! I bought a bunch of tea at low, low prices and will go back soon for a full tour (and tasting, mmm).
Also in nearly every direction, there’s a new research institution that I can’t wait to visit. I started making the calls today: the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the Space Weather Prediction Center (both at NOAA), plus the Southwest Research Institute, will be among my first stops. May the story gods smile upon me as I interview these accomplished researchers about their projects!
But first things first. It happens that next week, the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division is meeting right here in town. Hopefully some of my outlets will be keen to carry a story or two about the Sun’s crazy recent behavior, solar wind, flares, coronal mass ejections or irradiance. Even if they’re not, I’ll have a ball wrapping my head around these topics (and updating the blog as I do, provided I can stay off my bike long enough!).
Date posted: May 22, 2009
Written by: Anne Minard
Posted in:
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With all my traveling and move preparation, I hadn’t been keeping up with the latest on swine flu (aka the new H1N1 strain) — and truth be told, I figured the threat of a pandemic was water under the bridge. Not necessarily, as I learned by listening in to a press conference earlier today.
In fact, 6,552 cases have now been reported, but an estimated 100,000-plus people are infected – and about 42,000 children remain home from schools that are experiencing high infection rates.
Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she hopes people will still take good care to avoid spreading the flu – avoiding travel over Memorial Day if family members are sick — and warned that the current outbreak could be far from over.
“It could keep circulating through the summer, and it could come back in the fall in the worst way,” she said.
The press conference was held in conjunction with the expedited release of a new paper in the journal Science that uncovers the origin of the latest pandemic threat, found by analyzing 70 samples from infections in Mexico and the United States.
Lead author Rebecca Garter, a scientist affiliated with the World Health Organization and the CDC, and 58 co-authors report that the new H1N1 strain represents a North American triply merged flu strain – a 1990s combination of human, swine and avian varieties – that swapped genes with a Eurasian strain.
The two types had gotten together before, “but in Asia, not in North America, and not with same gene constellation,” said Nancy Cox, a flu researcher at CDC and a study co-author, who also spoke during the press conference.
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I'm pretty sure I can see my new abode down there ...
Alas, another communications lag! I could say it was difficult to find Internet connection in rural West Virginia, and that would be partly true. It’s also true that I was visiting my grandmother, a lady who was still using the riding mower and driving to town for her mail when she was 96 years old. She’s 99 now, and not quite as mobile. But she’s still sharp, witty and fun, and somehow a visit with her seemed more important …
Plus, I might not see her for a while, and not because she’s going anywhere fast. But I am!
I am finally free to announce that I’ve been selected to fill one of five Ted Scripps Fellowships in Environmental Journalism, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It’s a great program, and I’m undeniably excited for a variety of reasons. Some of them are personal — I love the West, for example, and although I’ve enjoyed about a year and a half of living closer to my family, I’m eager to get back out there. Mostly, though, I’m delighted for professional reasons. As a fellow, I’ll spend an academic year in a supportive environment while I audit classes, immerse myself in research about environmental issues, and dig into an environmental research project of my own, an effort which is expected to result in an extensive piece of original work.
I’m also excited to meet researchers in Boulder, home of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Space Science Institute, to name just a few. I’m heading there in two weeks, to get to know the place and hopefully sniff out some science stories for my freelance outlets before the program begins in August.
And speaking of freelancing, my tour of the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia was out of this world! Okay, seriously — the place is incredible, the telescope amazing, and the staff delightful. I uncovered lots of ideas for science stories, some of which I’ll put here just as soon as I go through my notes. Stay tuned!
