Why are so many trees falling?

To contact us Click HERE
During the past few weeks the stories have been incessant.  

 One major highway after another has been closed for extended periods recently as hundreds of snow-encased trees have fallen over the roadways, including  SR-2 across the central Cascades, the Mount Baker Highway, RT 6 and 101, on the Olympics Peninsula.  Large deposits of snow weighted the trees down until they toppled over.

Mount Baker Highway: WSDOT Photo

A number of cars have been hit, nine people injured and tragically two were killed on December 21, just east of Leavenworth.   The Mt. Baker ski area was inaccessible for days and folks had to go the long way around (I90, 97) to get to Leavenworth and vicinity.

Mount Baker Highway:  WSDOT Photo

SR-101 Closed

SR-2 Trees Leaning Over:  WSDOT Photo

Long-time Washington Department of Transportation maintenance personnel say they have never seen a situation like this, with snow causing such extensive and long-lasting tree fall periods over state roadways.  I have been around for a while and can't remember an analogous situation.  The threat was so large that WSDOT began flying over the road with helicopters, in the hope of blowing off snow.

So were the trees falling?  We have had periods of more snow, of more wind, of more rain.  Periods that were colder. What is different this time?

Let's play detective!

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth....S. Holmes

The last month has been a wet one over the region and the mountains have gotten large amounts of snow.   But other years have had as much or more snow in the mountains (e.g., 98-99) without so many trees coming down.  So snowfall alone is not the answer.

What about the locations and altitudes?  The SR-2 tree falls occurred about 10 miles west of Leavenworth at an altitude of roughly 2400 ft (see mapP


The Mount Baker Highway tree falls occurred east of Maple Falls (see map, east of red A).  Elevation about 1400 ft.
 U.S. 101 on the Olympic Peninsula was closed between Shelton and Brinnon with trees downed not far from sea level.   So the elevations varied.

I think there is an answer.   There is something that all these elevations had in common during the period, something that I believe caused massive tree falls.  So let me give you my hypothesis.  Let's consider the facts, my dear Watson.

Fact 1:  We know that the trees fell when they were weighted down with snow.
Fact 2:  Snow is most "sticky" near and just below freezing (say mid-20s to freezing)
Fact 3:  During really cold periods (our Arctic outbreaks) snow tends to be lighter, less sticky, and more easily blown off trees.
Fact 4:  Major warm up periods (e.g., pineapple express atmospheric river periods) have very high freezing levels and rain at most elevations, resulting in  melting and washing off snow from trees.

There WERE some unusual aspects of the past few weeks that allowed large amounts of snow to stick on trees until they fell over.

Thinks about it.  This month we did not have any major Arctic, cold-air, outbreaks.  So no really cold, light snow that doesn't stick well.  We have NOT had any pineapple expresses or warm up periods that would melt the snow at a wide range of elevations.  In fact, recent temperatures in the mountains have been AMAZINGLY steady.   Let me demonstrate this.

Take a look at the temperatures (red daily high, blue daily low) at the Winton weather station run by the WA DOT.  Winton (MTWINT, roughly at 2000 ft MSL)  is several miles north of Leavenworth on RT 2...not far from the tree falls.  Or Nason Creek (a bit farther north at 2000 MSL as well).

Only minor temperature variations.  Temps never got above 40F and only below 20F on the 18th and 19th.  Most of the two weeks (Dec 7-21st) before the major tree falls on RT 2  had highs in the low 30s and lows in the mid 20s.  Perfect temperatures to deposit snow on trees.   And winds were generally light...and thus not blowing snow off the branches.  This is a very unusual situation.

What about the Mt. Baker Highway tree falls?  Lets consider the Maple Falls station (a bit lower--670ft--than the section with the tree falls).  AGAIN, amazingly constant temperatures in mid-December, with highs in the mid to upper 30s and lows around 30F.  Go a little higher, to where the trees were falling, and temperatures were surely cooler..right in the range of maximum stickiness and deposition.

But you ask, what about the trees (less numbers) falling near the Hood Canal?  Surely, it was much warmer there?  The answer is no....that area can be unusually cool for the lowlands, as southeasterly flow banks cool air over that area. Consider Lake Cushman, which is close to sea level, and on the SE side of the Olympics, not far from 101.  A number of day had highs in the lower to mid thirties, starting December 19th. And yes, temperatures were relatively constant.

So my hypothesis is that we had a wet, snowy period with consistently cool, but not super cold, temperatures in a range that promoted sticky snow.  No major wind events to blow off snow.  No pineapple express warming.   It all game together in a very unusual way, causing massive snow loading on trees.    Another contributor might be the mild temperatures that have left the ground unfrozen and thus less able to hold the trees in place.  Perhaps one of you have an alternative theory...if so, I would like to hear it!

Certainly, not "elementary."

Dry, Sun, and Fog

To contact us Click HERE
After one of the most dismal periods of incessant clouds and rain in a long time, we are finally getting a break.

Here is the precipitation forecast for the next 72h.  Although the NW coast will get some precipitation on Monday afternoon, most of western WA and Oregon will be dry.

The Climate Prediction Center prediction for the next 6-10 days is drier than normal for most of the west:
The origin of this boon is a major switch in circulation, with persistent ridging along the West Coast.  Here are some sample upper level charts for Sunday and Tuesday:


What a wonderful opportunity to clean leaves out of your gutters and rake up leaves in your sodden yards....or to enjoy an outdoor walk or bike ride.

But with a wet surface and high pressure over the region (with attendant weak winds and clearing skies at night), expect a lot of fog, particularly in the morning.  And if the temperatures drop below freezing, then roadway icing could be a threat.

It's Snowing!

To contact us Click HERE
Light snow has been observed at Bellingham, Shelton, Olympia, Chehalis, Vancouver (WA), and Portland.   The most snow apparent on regional cams is around Vancouver, WA:



The culprit: a weak disturbance moving southward down the coast and relatively cool air over the interior.

The latest radar shows the precipitation pattern.  On the coast, the precipitation is rain, and the interior stuff is quite light.  Seattle should stay dry, as should eastern Washington.  We do not have super cold air over us, but evaporative cooling is allowing the snow level to drop to the surface in some locations.

 Here is forecast surface chart for 10 AM this morning.  You can see the low (solid lines are pressure) off the southern WA coast, and the temperatures (at around 2500 ft, shown by shading) indicated the cold air over eastern Washington and cool air over the western WA lowlands.

 This is NOT going to be big snow event.  Here is the model forecast from this morning, showing the 24-h total snowfall prediction over the region.  Not more than about 1-2 inches in the most favored zones.  Nothing over the Seattle Metro area (sorry, Jim Forman).  Portland gets some white stuff.

But one piece of good news...after this low moves south of us, expect a lot of sun on Tuesday.   New Year's will start on a bright foot...an excellent omen for the new year.

Darkness and Now Redemption

To contact us Click HERE
Folks have been complaining that last month (December has 2012) was one of the worst in memory.  Dark, wet, and dark again.   But was this our imagination?   Let us cast light on this darkness!

Let's begin by examining a plot of cumulative solar radiation on my department's roof since the beginning of December through the end of the month (the numbers on the bottom are the number of hours into the month).  This is a measure of the total solar radiation you could have soaked up at any point in the month.  The black line is for December 2012  and red is normal (past 13 year average).  For the first few days we were getting normal sun, but then we started falling behind more and more. Yes my friends it was darker much than normal.

But we can go further.   December 2012 is tied for darkest December with December 2007. So December 2012 was as bad as we have seen during this century!  That is enough to give nearly anyone a bad case of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and turn on their interior floodlights.
But there bright, lustrous` news..today January 1 is virtually clear over much of western Washington and Oregon.   Don't believe me?  Look outside or check out the latest image from my department's web cam looking towards Mt. Rainier.

Some of you near the water have some fog right now, but most of that will burn off. Only those in the fog/stratus laden basin of eastern Washington will be denied the sun's face.

The visible satellite picture Tuesday morning shows a cloudy eastern Washington and east-slope valleys.  Clear skies over the crest, western slopes, and most of the lowlands.  Only in the Chehalis and Willamette Valleys and the Strait can you see some shallow fog

 Believe it or not, tomorrow (Wed) will be sunny too.

A good way to start the New Year.  And a happy new year to all of you!

The Coldest Day of the Year

To contact us Click HERE
Today, January 3, is climatologically the COLDEST DAY OF THE YEAR in Seattle (actually the airport).  Here is the proof, based on the period 1948-2012.  The average maximum temperature drops to 43F and the minimum temperature to 33.  Then then warming begins!

Seattle Climatological Data

For Portland, the situation is similar, but not quite as crisp:  the lowest minimum temperatures (33F) are during the next few days, and the lowest maximum temperature (44) occurs through January 11th. 

Portland Airport

Similar story for eastern Washington...check out the Spokane Airport. The average max bottoms out at 32F during the next week or so, and the minimum hits its low on Saturday.

Spokane Airport

So we now at or close to the bottom for temperature, Thus, here in the Northwest our lowest temperatures are approximately two weeks after the winter solstice, (December 21) when the warming radiation from the sun is least and the days are shortest.   Interestingly, in the summer there is a much longer lag between the maximum solar radiation on the summer solstice (June 21) and our warmest temperatures (early August). Clearly, solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere is not the only story for surface temperatures-weather systems and clouds play a role as well.  For example, in summer we have lots of low clouds and onshore flow in June and early July that slows the warming.

Talking of climatological records, December broke one: Seattle had 27 days of measurable precipitation last month, an ALL TIME RECORD for December.  The old record was 26 days.

There is now a large pressure difference across the Cascades, with high pressure entrenched over eastern Washington (see map) and an offshore trough approaching.  The result has been very strong

winds in the Gorge, with some  "favored" spots hitting 70-80 mph.  One of the windiest places is the Vista House at Crown Point, where recent gusts have hit 78 mph, with sustained winds in the 40+ mph range (see graphic).


Finally, lets end with something we have not seen in while...a nice sunset shot.  But this one had an added twist.   Taken from my department, here was a low level contrail from a jet that left a shadow on a higher cloud deck....its above the third tower on the left side of the photo.

Toward Reducing The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of The Internet And Telecommunications

To contact us Click HERE


Amid growing concern over the surprisingly large amount of greenhouse gas produced by the Internet and other telecommunications activities, researchers are reporting new models of emissions and energy consumption that could help reduce their carbon footprint. Their report appears in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) and Bell Labs explain that the information communications and technology (ICT) industry, which delivers Internet, video, voice and other cloud services, produces more than 830 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, annually. That’s about 2 percent of global CO2 emissions — the same proportion as the aviation industry produces. 
A new way to estimate Internet and telecommunications energy use may reduce the industry’s
carbon footprint.Credit:  Ryan McVay/Digital Vision/Thinkstock

Projections suggest that ICT sector’s share is expected to double by 2020. The team notes that controlling those emissions requires more accurate but still feasible models, which take into account the data traffic, energy use and CO2production in networks and other elements of the ICT industry. Existing assessment models are inaccurate, so they set out to develop new approaches that better account for variations in equipment and other factors in the ICT industry.

They describe development and testing of two new models that better estimate the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of Internet and telecommunications services. They tested the models on a simulated network and on a deployed network that serves the majority of schools in California. Both models delivered better estimates than the current “top-down” models. The researchers suggest, based on their models, that more efficient power usage of facilities, more efficient use of energy-efficient equipment and renewable energy sources are three keys to reducing ICT emissions of CO2.

CEET is a partnership between Alcatel-Lucent, the University of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government. It is the world’s first research center exclusively dedicated to energy-efficient telecommunications technologies. Its research efforts cover a broad range of telecommunications network infrastructures and how those elements can increase their energy efficiency.

Contacts and sources:
Michael Bernstein
American Chemical Society

Citation: “Methodologies for Assessing the Use-Phase Power Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Telecommunications Network Services”
Environmental Science & Technology

Research Unearths Terrace Farming At Ancient Desert City Of Petra

To contact us Click HERE


A team of international archaeologists including Christian Cloke of the University of Cincinnati is providing new insights into successful and extensive water management and agricultural production in and around the ancient desert city of Petra, located in present-day Jordan. Ongoing investigations, of which Cloke is a part, are led by Professor Susan Alcock of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP).

Using a variety of tools and techniques, including high-resolution satellite imagery and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of soils, Cloke, a doctoral student in the Department of Classics at UC, and Cecelia Feldman, classics lecturer at UMass-Amherst, have suggested that extensive terrace farming and dam construction in the region north of the city began around the first century, some 2,000 years ago, not during the Iron Age (c. 1200-300 BC) as had been previously hypothesized. This striking development, it seems, was due to the ingenuity and enterprise of the ancient Nabataeans, whose prosperous kingdom had its capital at Petra until the beginning of the second century.
UC doctoral student Christian Cloke in front of the Monastery of Ed Deir at Petra. Credit: University of Cincinnati 
The successful terrace farming of wheat, grapes and possibly olives, resulted in a vast, green, agricultural “suburb” to Petra in an otherwise inhospitable, arid landscape. This terrace farming remained extensive and robust through the third century. Based on surface finds and comparative data collected by other researchers in the area, however, it is clear that this type of farming continued to some extent for many centuries, until the end of the first millennium (between A.D. 800 and 1000). That ancient Petra was under extensive cultivation is a testament to past strategies of land management, and is all the more striking in light of the area’s dry and dusty environment today.

Cloke and Feldman will present their findings Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting in Seattle, in a paper titled “On the Rocks: Landscape Modification and Archaeological Features in Petra’s Hinterland.” Their research efforts are contributing to a growing understanding of the city, its road networks, and life in the surrounding area.

AGRICULTURAL SUCCESS FOLLOWED BY ANNEXATION
Dating the start of extensive terrace farming at Petra to the beginning of the common era has important historical implications, according to Cloke, because this date coincides closely with the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom in A.D. 106.

He explained, “No doubt the explosion of agricultural activity in the first century and the increased wealth that resulted from the wine and oil production made Petra an exceptionally attractive prize for Rome. The region around Petra not only grew enough food to meet its own needs, but also would have been able to provide olives, olive oil, grapes and wine for trade. This robust agricultural production would have made the region a valuable asset for supplying Roman forces on the empire’s eastern frontier.”
A wall supporting a hillside terrace used for farming outside Petra.Credit: University of Cincinnati

In other words, said Feldman, successful terrace farming and water management when Petra was at its zenith as a trading center added not only to the city’s economic importance but to its strategic military value as well, because there were limited options in the region for supplying troops with essential supplies.

TERRACES FOR FARMING AND DAMS FOR WATER MANAGEMENT
On large stretches of land north of Petra, inhabitants built complex and extensive systems to dam wadis (riverbeds) and redirect winter rainwater to hillside terraces used for farming.

Rainfall in the region occurs only between October and March, often in brief, torrential downpours, so it was important for Petra’s inhabitants to capture and store all available water for later use during the dry season. Over the centuries, the Nabataeans of Petra became experts at doing so. The broad watershed of sandstone hills naturally directed water flow to the city center, and a complex system of pipes and channels directed it to underground cisterns where it was stored for later use.

“Perhaps most significantly,” said Cloke, “it’s clear that they had considerable knowledge of their surrounding topography and climate. The Nabataeans differentiated watersheds and the zones of use for water: water collected and stored in the city itself was not cannibalized for agricultural uses. The city’s administrators clearly distinguished water serving the city’s needs from water to be redirected and accumulated for nurturing crops. Thus, extensive farming activity was almost entirely outside the bounds of the city’s natural catchment area and utilized separate watersheds and systems of runoff.”

These initial conclusions from the first three seasons of BUPAP fieldwork promise more exciting discoveries about how the inhabitants of Petra cultivated the outlying landscape and supported the city’s population. The presence of highly developed systems of landscape modification and water management at Petra take on broader significance as they offer insight into geopolitical changes and Roman imperialism.
This canyon dam and water pipe were part of ancient Petra's complex water-management system.Credit: University of Cincinnati

RESEARCH SUPPORT
Financial support for this research was provided by the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, and the Weidenfeld Research Fellowship. Research support in Jordan came from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the American Center of Oriental Research. UC’s Louise Taft Semple Fund provided additional support for Christian Cloke’s research.

This research is one of 10 presentations of UC research at the 2013 Archaeological Institute of America/American Philological Association conference.


Contacts and sources:
M.B. Reilly
University of Cincinnati

Mystery: Magnetism Without Magnetic Materials Existed Before Stars

To contact us Click HERE

Bochum physicist calculates field strengths in the early universe

Magnets have practically become everyday objects. Earlier on, however, the universe consisted only of nonmagnetic elements and particles. Just how the magnetic forces came into existence has been researched by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Schlickeiser at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. In the journal Physical Review Letters, he describes a new mechanism for the magnetisation of the universe even before the emergence of the first stars.

No permanent magnets in the early universe

Credit: iStock

Before the formation of the first stars, the luminous matter consisted only of a fully ionised gas of protons, electrons, helium nuclei and lithium nuclei which were produced during the Big Bang. "All higher metals, for example, magnetic iron could, according to today's conception, only be formed in the inside of stars", says Reinhard Schlickeiser. "In early times therefore, there were no permanent magnets in the Universe." The parameters that describe the state of a gas are, however, not constant. Density and pressure, as well as electric and magnetic fields fluctuate around certain mean values. As a result of this fluctuation, at certain points in the plasma weak magnetic fields formed - so-called random fields. How strong these fields are in a fully ionised plasma of protons and electrons, has now been calculated by Prof. Schlickeiser, specifically for the gas densities and temperatures that occurred in the plasmas of the early universe.

Weak magnetic fields with large volumes

The result: the magnetic fields fluctuate depending on their position in the plasma, however, regardless of time - unlike, for example, electromagnetic waves such as light waves, which fluctuate over time. Everywhere in the luminous gas of the early universe there was a magnetic field with a strength of 10^-20 Tesla, i.e. 10 sextillionth of a Tesla. By comparison, the earth's magnetic field has a strength of 30 millionths of a Tesla. In MRI scanners, field strengths of three Tesla are now usual. The magnetic field in the plasma of the early universe was thus very weak, but it covered almost 100 percent of the plasma volume.

Interaction of thermal shock waves and magnetic fields

Stellar winds or supernova explosions of the first massive stars generated shock waves that compressed the magnetic random fields in certain areas. In this way, the fields were strengthened and aligned on a wide-scale. Ultimately, the magnetic force was so strong that it in turn influenced the shock waves. "This explains the balance often observed between magnetic forces and thermal gas pressure in cosmic objects", says Prof. Schlickeiser. The calculations show that all fully ionised gases in the early universe were weakly magnetised. Magnetic fields therefore existed even before the first stars. Next, the Bochum physicist is set to examine how the weak magnetic fields affect temperature fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation.

Bibliographic record: R. Schlickeiser (2012): Cosmic magnetization: from spontaneously emitted aperiodic turbulent to ordered equipartition fields, Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.261101

Contacts and sources:
Reinhard Schlickeiser
Ruhr-University Bochum

While In Womb, Babies Begin Learning Language From Their Mothers

To contact us Click HERE
Babies only hours old are able to differentiate between sounds from their native language and a foreign language, scientists have discovered. The study indicates that babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb, earlier than previously thought.

Sensory and brain mechanisms for hearing are developed at 30 weeks of gestational age, and the new study shows that unborn babies are listening to their mothers talk during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy and at birth can demonstrate what they’ve heard.
A new study shows that unborn babies are listening to their mothers talk during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy and at birth can demonstrate what they’ve heard.Credit: Pacific Lutheran University

“The mother has first dibs on influencing the child’s brain,” said Patricia Kuhl, co-author and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. “The vowel sounds in her speech are the loudest units and the fetus locks onto them.”

Previously, researchers had shown that newborns are born ready to learn and begin to discriminate between language sounds within the first months of life, but there was no evidence that language learning had occurred in utero.

“This is the first study that shows fetuses learn prenatally about the particular speech sounds of a mother’s language,” said Christine Moon, lead author and a professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. “This study moves the measurable result of experience with speech sounds from six months of age to before birth.”

The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Acta Paediatrica.

Forty infants, about 30 hours old and an even mix of girls and boys, were studied in Tacoma and Stockholm, Sweden. While still in the nursery, the babies listened to vowel sounds in their native tongue and in foreign languages.

Their interest in the sounds was captured by how long they sucked on a pacifier that was wired into a computer measuring the babies’ reaction to the sounds. Longer or shorter sucking for unfamiliar or familiar sounds is evidence for learning, because it indicates that infants can differentiate between the sounds heard in utero.

In both countries, the babies at birth sucked longer for the foreign language than they did for their native tongue.

The researchers say that infants are the best learners, and discovering how they soak up information could give insights on lifelong learning. “We want to know what magic they put to work in early childhood that adults cannot,” Kuhl said. “We can’t waste that early curiosity.”

Hugo Lagercrantz, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, was another co-author. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Pacific Lutheran University’s S. Erving Severtson Forest Foundation Undergraduate Research Program.

Contacts and sources:
Molly McElroy
University of Washington

Monster Geyser At Galactic Center, A Million Times More Powerful Than A Nova

To contact us Click HERE


"Monster" outflows of charged particles from the centre of our Galaxy, stretching more than halfway across the sky, have been detected and mapped with CSIRO's 64-m Parkes radio telescope.
The new-found outflows of particles (pale blue) from the Galactic Centre. The background image is the whole Milky Way at the same scale. The curvature of the outflows is real, not a distortion caused by the imaging process. Credits: Ettore Carretti, CSIRO (radio image); S-PASS survey team (radio data); Axel Mellinger, Central Michigan University (optical image); Eli Bressert, CSIRO (composition).

The outflows were detected by astronomers from Australia, the USA, Italy and The Netherlands. They report their finding in today's issue ofNature.

"These outflows contain an extraordinary amount of energy — about a million times the energy of an exploding star," said the research team's leader, CSIRO's Dr Ettore Carretti.

But the outflows pose no danger to Earth or the Solar System.

The speed of the outflow is supersonic, about 1000 kilometres a second. "That's fast, even for astronomers," Dr Carretti said.

"They are not coming in our direction, but go up and down from the Galactic Plane. We are 30,000 light-years away from the Galactic Centre, in the Plane. They are no danger to us."

From top to bottom the outflows extend 50,000 light-years [five hundred thousand million million kilometres] out of the Galactic Plane.
CSIRO's 64-m Pgarkes radio telescope. Photo: Alex Cherney/terrastro.com

That's equal to half the diameter of our Galaxy (which is 100,000 light-years — a million million million kilometres — across).

Seen from Earth, the outflows stretch about two-thirds across the sky from horizon to horizon.

The outflows correspond to a "haze" of microwave emission previously spotted by the WMAP and Planck space telescopes and regions of gamma-ray emission detected with NASA's Fermi space telescope in 2010, which were dubbed the "Fermi Bubbles".

The WMAP, Planck and Fermi observations did not provide enough evidence to indicate definitively the source of the radiation they detected, but the new Parkes observations do.

"The options were a quasar-like outburst from the black hole at the Galactic Centre, or star-power — the hot winds from young stars, and exploding stars," said team member Dr Gianni Bernardi of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Our observations tell us it's star-power."

In fact, the outflows appear to have been driven by many generations of stars forming and exploding in the Galactic Centre over the last hundred million years.

The key to determining this was to measure the outflows' magnetic fields.

"We did this by measuring a key property of the radio waves from the outflows — their polarisation," said team member Dr Roland Crocker of the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Australian National University.

The new observations also help to answer one of astronomers' big questions about our Galaxy: how it generates and maintains its magnetic field.

"The outflow from the Galactic Centre is carrying off not just gas and high-energy electrons, but also strong magnetic fields," said team member Dr Marijke Haverkorn of Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands.

"We suspect this must play a big part in generating the Galaxy's overall magnetic field."



Publication
Ettore Carretti, Roland M. Crocker, Lister Staveley-Smith, Marijke Haverkorn, Cormac Purcell, B. M. Gaensler, Gianni Bernardi, Michael J. Kesteven & Sergio Poppi. "Giant magnetized outflows from the centre of the Milky Way." Nature, volume 493, issue 7430, pp 66-69. DOI: 10.1038/nature11734

Night Swimming....

To contact us Click HERE
The air outside tonight is briny enough to swim through...


A deep smell that reminds me I'm not where I came from, even if for now, it is where I belong...


No green fields, no frogs calling out to that seasons love, no smell of orchards and cut hay, no stars outside my bedroom window...


The fog rolling in off the ocean is keeping the celestial canvas a mystery of grey instead of the usual black freckled by sparkles and the ever present moon....


And I'm awake feeling a truth I cant see and am now struggling to believe in...


Holding on until its time to let go...


Nights like this I leave my home, my bed and my ever faithful though sometimes nervous dog and make my way to the water...


Bare feet on the pedals in my car, pencil holding my hair off my neck and out of my eyes...


The beach is always empty save for a homeless man who sleeps in his old blue van and thinks I'm crazy... I know because he's told me. He may be right... 


The sand feels colder than the water that washes over my feet to my ankles, questioning my intentions... 


Even the waves seem to quiet themselves at this hour, the usual daytime roar brought down to a hum that allows me to hear my heart beat pounding with the cold and the unknowns of life in dark water...


Before I know it the water is at my hips and I'm always surprised that I make it this far.. The night is so black Id see nothing but the man is reading by the dashboard lights, giving me a way to decipher land from sea...


And in one second I belong there. Quiet and cold, small in a vast watery world.


And in the next I feel my own mortality and know that a shark or a wave or a simple miss step could make me disappear... leaving nothing but my little car in the sand as evidence I was ever here at all...


I breathe the fear from my lungs and allow myself to sink into the questions, into the icy world of salt and seaweed brushing against my legs that are still dressed in the clothes I was supposed to sleep in...


I shiver but don't feel the cold... just weightlessness and emptiness... the knowing that comes from being a stranger in a foreign world, aware of the lawlessness and not knowing the language...


Sometimes I can hear the dolphins breathing, forcing water and air from their lungs into the sky, scaring me back to the beach, but not tonight. Tonight its just me...


I feel myself get heavier as I make my way back to the shore.


The water on my skin and the cold in my bones... My feet numb and fumbling to hold me up in soft sand as the water becomes shallow and the air makes me wish I had planned and brought a towel...


I wrap myself in the blanket that lives in my car, sit on the rocks, teeth chattering and for the briefest of moments I am me in way that doesn't care if I believe anymore...


Because on nights like this I give myself to the ocean, clearing myself of the day and the noise...searching for answers that may not exist in salt water and night air... 


Tonight she reminded me in the wildness of tides, governed by a moon I couldn't see, that while I am small in the vastness of everything and nothing, my broken heart is capable of more than it ever was whole... 


Goodnight...

Seattle and Such....

To contact us Click HERE
Last week was the American Burn Association (ABA) conference in Seattle and I was given the opportunity to go... which was kind of a big deal considering the politics of the burn unit and the  number of people who didn't get to go...


I fell completely in love with the city and having been to many many cities, this is saying a lot. It was clean and green, with a coast lined with snowy mountains... Beautiful. 


I took notebooks full of notes while co-workers went sight seeing, trying to remember everything that was being said during each and every lecture. I relished the chance to learn from other people doing exactly what I am doing since I am the only person in my hospital that does my job and I dont have anyone to really bounce ideas off of...


I walked around the city in the evenings, seeing the sights and meeting my co-workers and bosses for dinner. It was amazing... the perfect combination of all there is to love about Boston with the relaxed, open minded attitude of my current southern California home. I felt like I belonged there in a way that I still don't have for myself in San Diego...


On the flight home I was sad to leave, which is odd for me as I usually leave even the grandest of adventures with a hint of happiness to be headed to home to the familiar. 


Not this day...


I took deep breaths and pictures, counting down the hours and when I boarded the plane I still wasn't ready to go...






I settled myself in my seat by the window and tried to decide if I should post my departure on my long since abandoned Face book page, knowing what the impending onslaught of questions and passive aggressive slights about going to Seattle "instead of visiting home" from people back in Boston would look like...


I decided against it and kept the pictures stored in my phone and in my heart as the flight attendant told us to turn off "all electronic devices" and pay attention to their aisle way production of "How to survive a plane crash." 


We had been airborne for about 15 min, the man sitting next to me sleeping soundly, when the man on the end asked me what book I was reading...


It was a collection of stories written by people who had worked in the sex industry in one form or another and I had been hiding the cover to avoid offending anyone or having to answer this very question.. He laughed when I showed him and we segued into talking about social work, social justice, and literature, which he teaches along with creative writing and rhetoric at a University in Seattle... 


Our conversation lasted the entire flight. 


He was an interesting blend of awkward charm and intellect that seemed to get my sarcasm and quirkiness... It was an fabulously easy dialogue, we never ran out of things to talk about and he was beyond intelligent..


We each shared the highlight real of our lives and somehow I ended up telling him about my fears of flying and aliens which are generally conversations that happen much later, if ever. He was comfortable enough to pick on me and I was comfortable enough to let him...


The turbulence was awful for the last 30 minutes or so of the flight, though I heard him talking Im not entirely sure of anything he said but he reached across the man sleeping in the middle seat to rest his hand on mine and try to reassure me... Normally I have to take something to fly but since this was just about a 3 hour flight and I had to drive myself home from the air port, I didnt.


Trust me when I say that at 15,000 feet or so in the air going hundreds of miles an hour as the ground gets closer and closer... it is simply not possible to reassure me. In fact I find it amazing that I am repeatedly able to be convinced to sit in a metal tube and hurl myself through the skies at all...But I digress...


Once safely on the ground, my wits returning, I turned on my phone and began putting my stuff back into my back pack...I made my way off the plane and found the professor waiting for me at the end of the walkway...


We walked to baggage claim together and on the way he began apologizing for not being of more help to me during the flight. He said he understood how I felt because HE has a debilitating fear of flying and had not been on a plane since 2005! I felt awful... All I could do was hope that the hours of time spent chatting and reassuring me, served to help calm himself some too..


We got on the escalator down to our bags, still talking and he handed me a slip of paper with his name, number and email address on it... He rambled nervously about how he knows it may be odd to give me his information without getting mine and he how he didn't want to make me uncomfortable but that he found me and our conversation interesting and wanted it to continue if I was interested. He then became apologetic and I realized he was still holding the paper and I hadn't actually taken it from him... 


When we got to the bottom of the escalator he was still rambling... I took the paper and quickly explained that it wasn't weird but..... I was also afraid of escalators...


Sigh..


The poor guy. Stuck sitting by a crazy person who only got crazier as the night wore on...


As soon as the words left my mouth I figured he would take back his information and run for the hills...


He didn't.


Instead we walked to pick up our bags where his friends and parents were waiting for him and he introduced me as the girl who helped him get through his first flight in seven years, and they all smiled, thanked me and introduced themselves...


He said he will be back in San Diego in June to see his family and that he would like to keep in touch...


We said good bye as I went to catch a cab...


Now the question:


Do I write to him or simply let it remain a cute story I can use to make small talk and blog entries?

My Grandmother's Birthday...

To contact us Click HERE
This week was my grandmothers birthday...

The woman who created us was born into a family that would, just fifteen years later, in the name of wanting what was best for everyone, betray her in a way that changed the world for all of us...

Last week was my mothers birthday and I imagine that having the two events so close together was and perhaps still is something my grandmother struggled with...

I sent her flowers, being careful not to include lilies as the evoke a terrible memory for her that she hasn't shared with me, and doesn't need to.

So I was a face book spectator of this family celebration, smiling cousins, grandchildren and now a great grand child climbing over her tiny frame in each picture...

They are happy. Whole. 

And I love them from 3000 miles and 25 years away because in the corner of a picture that no one else would notice, sat my flowers and the card on her favorite table by her window that looks out onto the ocean...

Happy Birthday to the women whose suffering and sacrifices made mine less so...

Thank you

To contact us Click HERE
Its amazing when people you connect with, people that you may never know, that come to your aid when you didn't even know you were asking and do their best to ease your pain when those who should, don't, surface and make themselves known exactly when its needed.

For all of you that commented, sent me emails of encouragement and poured compassion from your own healing hearts...

Thank you.

For those of you that questioned my hurt, my sadness and confusion, thank you too.

Because I know now more than before, that there are others. Real people. Not just words on blogs but real people with families and lives, loves and broken hearts. People willing to show me their broken pieces and how they walk through life simply because I was hurting and they, you, are good. That you are doing it. Not just one foot in front of the other, but real and complicated, beautiful and making life happen. 

Creating the stories that make the world better, stronger. That make me a little less small.

Its easy to forget the good. The real and the true. The people who risk reprimand and ridicule for the chance to help someone feel they are not alone.

I have connected with some of you and am only now learning of others and I am wrapping my arms around all of you in gratitude.

The Universe is a curious thing, there is so much I don't understand but I have a page on a blog that allows me to remember that other people know.

Keep working towards better. Towards good. Out of the shadows of the choices that were made for us, whatever they were, and away from the dark... 

Working towards the light.

Thank you

Girl

To contact us Click HERE





There is a quiet desperation in my pulse,
the gentle pushing on wards and up wards
contained only by my skin and the turn of the moon..
in the depths of being female
in the richness of the redness the pours from our hearts and between our thighs
for the years of happily ever after lies
for the giving up and letting in
for the the times when we fought and they came anyway...
for the "hey baby's" and and "fuck you bitch"'s
for the scilences that shouted no
for the yes's granted on the condition of forever
for the potential of youth and wisdom of ages....
There is a quiet desperation in my pulse and I am listening.