Newspaper Copy Editing

Summary

The Slow Crawl to Designer Babies Jen Christensen, CNN

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Edited

12/3/2015

Original

The Slow Crawl to Designer Babies Jen Christensen, CNN

(CNN)”A very tall young man with broad shoulders and a trim body... his grey/blue eyes sparkle on his perfectly symmetrical face and give him a touch of mischievousness when he smiles.”

gy, the broader question is, will they use science to create not merely healthier babies, but designer babies who have extraordinary traits?

“You can tell he takes his physique quite seriously... his eyes... seemed bottomless.”

This possibility may sound like the plot of “Gattaca,” a futuristic movie where all babies are designed for perfection, but science has been intervening in pregnancy since the Victorian era. The first doctor-designed baby that we know of was born in 1884.

These are not descriptions from romance novels, nor are they OKCupid profiles. These are actual descriptions you’ll find when sperm-shopping online.

With a few mouse clicks and a credit card, you can order the beginnings of a specific type of baby. And as genetic technology improves, there will be many more ways for us to choose the kind of child we have. The question is, will we?

Thought leaders, scientists and policy makers from both countries are holding a historic summit in Washington this week to debate the question of “when, if ever, we will want to use gene editing to change human inheritance,” as David Baltimore of Caltech, the summit chairman, put it in his opening remarks.

This is the latest conversation among experts to try to determine how much technology is too much.

For generations, reproductive medi-cal technology has advanced, sometimes faster than popular opinion.

But historically, opinions shift to welcome the advances. Now, as millions of parents struggle with fertility challenges and turn to technolo-

A Victorian phenomenon

A Quaker couple with fertility problems didn’t know they’d change re-productive history when they sought their doctor’s help. Using the Victorian technology of the day, the Philadelphia doctor put the woman under anesthesia and inseminated her with sperm donated from a medical student. Using Victorian reasoning, the doctor didn’t tell the woman how she got pregnant.

The baby was healthy, but she never knew the child wasn’t her husband’s. Eventually the doctor confessed to her husband and pub-lished the case 25 years later. The procedure itself (not the fact that he didn’t tell the woman or get her consent) made the doctor a pariah. Other scientists who pioneered re-productive technology lost jobs for “messing with nature.” Nontraditional pregnancies became such a debate in the 1940s that Pope Pius XII denied millions of Catholics the option, condemning it for “tak(ing) the Lord’s work into their own hands.”

How IVF evolved

12/3/2015 Eventually popular opinion accepted this technology as a medically ethical practice. A record number of women have used in vitro fertiliza-tion to get pregnant.

At least 55 million people can thank IVF for their existence.

IVF tech has also evolved, although it’s still intrusive, time-consuming and expensive. Typically, primary-care physicians don’t perform the procedure. Instead, specialized clin-ics freeze, store and test the sperm for diseases.

Using pre-implantation genetic diag-nosis, doctors need only an eight-cell embryo to test for about 100 genetic diseases.

“Genetic screening like this has really taken off and helps improve the odds to eliminate a disease that is life threatening and it can improve the effectiveness of the IVF treatment,” said Dr. Jessica Spencer, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Emory University School of Medicine’s department of gynecology and obstetrics.

Doctors also can tell the embryo’s sex at this early stage. Sex detection is banned in many countries to prevent parents from terminating a pregnancy because they prefer one sex over the other. U.S. law does not restrict sex detection, so American clinics that offer the option are popular with clients from countries that don’t allow it.

(Spencer’s reproductive center at Emory doesn’t offer the service).

A technology currently banned in the United States that got UK approval in February lets scientists combine the genetic material of three people to eliminate a DNA mutation that create conditions like blindness or epilepsy.

Scientists replace mitochondria in an egg that contains a defect with healthy donor mitochondria.

U.S. scientists have tried a similar tech-nique replacing cytoplasm and cre-ated more than a dozen babies without the mutation, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stopped that practice after ques-tions about the long-term conse-quences. More than 40 countries outlaw any practice of human genetic modification that can be inherited. The U.S. does not go that far and the FDA is currently re-examining the banned three-parent procedure.

Some ethicists worry this same technique could open the door to genetic modification procedures that would go beyond improving a child’s health, to select for eye color or hair color or intelligence.

“I am absolutely certain this is com-ing,” said Ronald Green, a Dart-mouth College professor author of “Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice” who has served on the National Institutes of Health’s human embryo research panel. “By the end of this century, I am absolutely confident that we will have the tools for someone with the means to use this information to change the child they can have through this process.”

Are short men endangered?

Polls show most Americans are leery of technology that goes be-

yond disease elimination. That might change if technology gives a child an advantage, Green believes.

“No one (knew they) wanted the iPhone at first, but Steve Jobs made it and everyone has one,” Green said. “This will be no different.”

For instance, he thinks parents may want taller boys.

“It’s a terrible thing for a male to be short, even if this is not a disease, to be short, studies show the child earns less, will be more likely to be bullied, or may not be asked to lead,” Green said. “I can see parents saying, ‘Let’s create a taller child.’”

He said that most of the women he interviewed “tend to want a healthy child, and beyond that they want a child who is like themselves,” Han-son said. “Someone who may look like them and someone who will have the same skill level and intelli-gence.”

Hanson did interview two clients of the so-called “genius sperm bank,” a facility that picks donors based on achievements and intelligence, as opposed to donors picked solely on appearance, race or sperm quality.

One client said she chose that bank because she preferred an highly intelligent child. The other didn’t.

As an ethicist, Green doesn’t believe parents should choose modifications that turn their child into the next Michael Jordan. Nor does he think genetic manipulation should be used for racially discriminatory or homophobic reasons. But he believes some cosmetic applications may become more accepted.

“Often they will select a sperm donor from the kind of guy that she might have married,” Hanson said.

“A lot of essays assume that the minute you can improve the genetic quality of your child you will do this, that this will become a fertility arms race. I don’t find that in the research I’ve done. I don’t see that changing.”

Using DNA from potential sperm donors and recipients, one reproductive technology company, Genepeeks, can create virtual embryos to screen for more than 600 diseases. That’s more than traditional tests. Their patent application covers future tests in development that could screen for traits like a person’s propensity to drink or do drugs, or to see if their grooming behaviors will be tidy or sloppy.

Fertility specialist Spencer agrees.

Allan Hanson, a professor of soci-ocultural anthropology at the Uni-versity of Kansas who’s interviewed hundreds of women who had chil-dren using IVF, doesn’t anticipate a kind of designer baby arms race, even with improved technology.

“We are not there yet, first of all,” Spencer said. “I have no doubt as the genome is better characterized, there will be more ways of detecting things that aren’t necessarily associated with health problems.”

“And there are always going to be rogue practitioners who will take it upon themselves to do things that the rest of the community does not agree with. But I personally feel other clinics will be reliable and will follow our professional guidelines that will not be as permissive.”

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The Slow Crawl to Designer Babies Jen Christensen, CNN

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The Slow Crawl to Designer Babies Jen Christensen, CNN

“A very tall young man with broad shoulders and a trim body... his grey/blue eyes sparkle on his perfectly symmetrical face and give him a touch of mischievousness when he smiles.”

“You can tell he takes his physique quite seriously... his eyes... seemed bottomless.”

These are not descriptions from romance novels, nor are they OKCupid profiles. Rather, they are descriptions of available sperm from online sperm banks.

With a few mouse clicks and a credit card, you can order the beginnings of a customized baby.

These customizations will become more available as genetic technology improves, eventually allowing for the selection a specific kind of child. The question is, do we welcome this opportunity?

Thought leaders, scientists and policy makers are holding a historic summit in Washington this week. They will debate the question of “when, if ever, we will want to use gene editing to change human inheritance,” as David Baltimore of Caltech, the summit chairman, put it in his opening remarks.

Will they use science to create not only healthier babies, but designer babies with extraordinary traits?

How in vitro fertilization (IVF) evolved This possibility may sound like the plot of “Gattaca,” a futuristic movie

12/3/2015

where all babies are designed for perfection. But science has been intervening in pregnancy since the Victorian era. The first known doctor-designed baby of was born in 1884 when a Philadelphia Quaker couple with fertility problems sought their doctor’s help. Using the Victorian technology of the day, the doctor put the woman under anesthesia and inseminated her with sperm donated from a medical student. The doctor didn’t tell the woman how she got pregnant.

about

The baby was healthy, but she never knew the child wasn’t her husband’s. Eventually, the doctor confessed to her husband and published the case 25 years later.

The procedure itself (not the fact that he didn’t tell the woman or get her consent) made the doctor an exile. Other scientists who pioneered reproductive technology lost jobs for “messing with nature.”

The debate over nontraditional pregnancies peaked in the 1940s. Pope Pius XII denied millions of Catholics the option, condemning it for “tak(ing) the Lord’s work into their own hands.”

Three-parent birth technology got UK approval in February (though it is currently banned in the United States). The technology allows scientists to combine the genetic material of three people to eliminate a DNA mutation that creates conditions like blindness or epilepsy. For example, scientists have replaced mitochondria (part of the cell where respiration and energy production occur) in an egg that contains a defect with healthy donor mitochondria.

Eventually, IFV has been accepted as a medically ethical practice.

Many women have used IFV to get pregnant and at least 55 million people can thank IVF for their lives.

IVF technology has evolved, although it’s still intrusive, time-consuming and expensive.

Using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, doctors need only an eight-cell embryo to test for

100

genetic

diseases.

“Genetic screening like this has really taken off and helps improve the odds to eliminate a disease that is life threatening and it can improve the effectiveness of the IVF treatment,” said Dr. Jessica Spencer, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Emory University School of Medicine’s department of gynecology and obstetrics.

Three-parent birth has arrived

Some ethicists worry this same technique could open the door to genetic modification procedures that would go beyond improving a child’s health. Aesthetic selections could be made for things like eye and hair color, as well as internal selections such as intelligence.

“I am absolutely certain this is coming,” said Ronald Green.

Green is a Dartmouth College professor and author of Babies

by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice, who has served on the National Institutes of Health’s

human embryo research panel.

“By the end of this century, we will have the tools for someone with the means to use this information to change the child they can have through this process.”

One client said she chose that bank because she preferred a highly intelligent child. The other didn’t.

“Often they will select a sperm donor from the kind of guy that she might have married,” HanFor instance, he thinks par- son said. “A lot of essays asents may want taller boys. sume that this will become a fertility arms race, but I don’t find “It’s a terrible thing for a male that in the research I’ve done.” to be short, even if this is not a disease, to be short, studies show the child earns less, will be more likely to be bullied, or may not be asked to lead,” Green said. “I can see parents saying, ‘Let’s create a taller child.’”

What’s next?

One reproductive technology company, Genepeeks, has created a method of using virtual embryos to screen for more than 600 diseases. Their patent application covers future tests that could screen for traits like the desire to drink or do drugs, or to see if their grooming behaviors will be tidy or sloppy.

Allan Hanson, a professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of Kansas, doesn’t anticipate a kind of designer baby arms race.

Hanson interviewed hundreds of women who had children using IVF. He said, “(most of the women) want a healthy child, and they want a child who is like themselves, who looks like them and has similar skill level and intelligence.”

Hanson also interviewed two clients of the so-called “genius sperm bank,” a facility that picks donors based on achievements and intelligence.

Summary

Rules of the Road Michael Cochran, World Magazine

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1/6/2016

Original

Rules of the Road Michael Cochran, World Magazine

Developers of driverless cars scrupulously program them to obey all traffic laws. You might think that would be a good thing, but research has found that driverless cars are racking up accidents at a rate twice that of cars with human drivers. The reason? Unlike humans, the autonomous cars obey traffic laws without ex-ception.

According to a recent Bloom-berg report, a University of Michigan Transportation Re-search Institute study of self-driving vehicle accidents found that the driverless vehi-cles were never at fault. They were typically involved in mi-nor fender benders in which an inattentive human motorist rear-ended the autonomous vehicle.

Carnegie Mellon University, told Bloomberg. “We have ba-sically decided to stick to the speed limit. But when you go out and drive the speed limit on the highway, pretty much everybody on the road is just zipping past you.”

Google researchers, at the forefront of autonomous vehi-cle science, have been work-ing to make their driverless vehicles behave more like as-sertive yet law-abiding human drivers, according to Bloom-berg. For example, they have programmed their cars to inch forward at four-way stops to signal they’re the next to go.

Even the safest human drivers sometimes “fudge” the posted speed limit in order to keep up with traffic flow. And who among us always comes to a complete stop at stop signs? Autonomous vehicles that ig-nore these human behaviors might catch other motorists by surprise, perhaps triggering a human-induced accident.

Disruption of the status quo is normal anytime a new tech-nology emerges, and driverless cars will be no exception—particularly when it comes to who’s at fault in an accident. Scott Gant, an antitrust lawyer writing in Forbes, said car companies such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have already announced they will “accept full liability” for accidents caused by their driverless ve-hicles (when they become available).

If driverless vehicles eventual-ly make up a significant por-tion of cars on the road, it raises the question: Should engineers program them to break the traffic laws once in a while in order to adapt to human driving patterns?

Yet California’s long-awaited preliminary rules for autono-mous vehicles, issued last month, “hold motorists re-sponsible for obeying traffic laws, regardless of whether they are at the wheel,” accord-ing to The Wall Street Journal.

“It’s a constant debate inside our group,” Raj Rajkumar, co-director of the General Motors Collaborative Research Lab at

Gant believes the arrival of driverless cars will eventually lead to safer roads, but the need for automobile insurance will likely

1/6/2016 never disappear: Software glitches may replace driver error as the major cause of accidents.

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Rules of the Road Michael Cochran, World Magazine

Developers of driverless cars carefully program them to obey all traffic laws. Initially, this seems like a good thing. But research shows that driverless cars are involved in accidents twice as much as cars with human drivers. Unlike humans, driverless cars obey traffic laws without exception.

Even the safest human drivers sometimes exceed the posted speed limit in order to keep up with traffic flow. Also, not everyone comes to a complete stop at stop signs. When driverless cars ignore these human behaviors, they catch other motorists by surprise.

A recent Bloomberg report shows that driverless vehicles were never at fault. The report included a study conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. It revealed that most of the recorded accidents were minor, such as being rear-ended by a distracted human motorist.

With driverless vehicles becoming more common, the need to resolve this is pressing. Should engineers program them to break the traffic laws once in a while in order to adapt to human driving patterns?

“It’s a constant debate inside our group,” Raj Rajkumar, co-director of the General Motors Collaborative Research Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, told Bloomberg.

“We have basically decided to stick to the speed limit. But when you go out and drive the speed limit on the highway, pretty much everybody on the road is just zipping past you.”

One leader of driverless vehicle science is the Google research team. According to Bloomberg, Google is working to make their driverless vehicles behave more like law-abiding (yet assertive) human drivers. For example, they have programmed their cars to inch forward at four-way stops to signal they’re the next to go.

Disruption of the norm happens anytime a new technology emerges, and driverless cars will be no exception. This is particularly true when it comes to the question of fault in an accident. Scott Gant, an antitrust lawyer writing in Forbes, presented manufacturers response to this ordeal.

He said car companies such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz announced they will “accept full liability” for accidents caused by their future driverless vehicles.

This contradicts California’s recently released rules for driverless vehicles. According to The Wall Street Journal, the rules state, “motorists (are) responsible for obeying traffic laws, regardless of whether they are at the wheel.”

Gant said the arrival of driverless cars will likely lead to safer roads, but not eliminate the need for automobile insurance. The insurance system is subject to change, as software glitches may become the major cause of accidents.

1/6/2016

Summary

How Ted Cruz Outfoxed Donald Trump in Iowa Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, the Washington Post

2/2/2016

Assignment Synopsis: Your editor says, “The Iowa Caucus is the perfect time to finally get the story behind the story on this Re-publican campaign. Pick your own title but run this article over the bylines of the co-authors—just cut it to 1000 words.” Then the boss says, “I’ve known Costa and Rucker since 7/11—fine reporters. Don’t misrepresent them….” Of course, he’s referring to the authors of the article. You’ve worked for this guy for seven years, so you know that what he left unsaid is also important. So here is what you will do: You want to run this article but it is 2,627 words and you have room for only 1,000 words, yet you want to tell the whole story. This means taking out words and phrases here and there, but yet keeping the whole story right down to the final sentence. In other words, you have to decide what to keep, not what to delete.

In still more precise words, you want to keep one out of every 2.6 words….

• This article is 7% passive and you want to reduce that percentage slightly.

• The reading level of this article is at 55.4, and you are ok with keeping it at that level, but any changes should be toward making it easier to read (higher number), not lower.

• The grade level here is 9.9 and you want to target 7 but no more than 8.

Original

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Original

How Ted Cruz Outfoxed Donald Trump in Iowa Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, the Washington Post

DES MOINES — It was on a hot July day in 2013, six months after he joined the Senate, that Ted Cruz began what would become his winning campaign in Iowa.

At a faith gathering at the Des Moines Marriott, the Texan bowed his head as pastors laid their hands on his shoulders to pray. Meanwhile, the senator’s aides collected their names and email addresses, starting a database of evangelical leaders that would swell over the following months and years.

Cruz’s father, Rafael, himself a preacher, looked on, beaming.

Donald Trump began his Iowa campaign with a business trip. He landed here in January 2015 to address a land investment expo, but, unbeknownst to the political world, he also started to build his campaign.

Iowa was a foreign place to the Manhattan mogul, and Trump knew he needed two things: credibility and a fast tutorial. He sought to gain both through Chuck Laudner, a veteran Iowa operative.

Trump invited Laudner and his wife, Stephanie, into his SUV. He poured on the charm. He leaned in to listen as Laudner explained Iowa’s political topography — the 99 counties, the caucus math, the glut of disengaged Iowans who might be persuaded to come out for the right candidate.

Trump later brought the couple aboard his Boeing 757, where they sat in plush leather chairs with

gold-plated seat-belt buckles and sipped soft drinks. Trump tried to make a deal — and Laudner was sold. The Trump candidacy would soon be born, and the businessman would try to win over Iowa just as he had won over Laudner: by the power of his own seduction.

There was yet a third playbook: that of Marco Rubio. The senator from Florida banked on rising late. His supporters grumbled that he showed disdain for the campaign grind; during a five-day Iowa swing in November, he took the third day off to watch football.

But Rubio believed that Iowa could be won with an air war and a late burst of activity. In the final three weeks, his ads were ubiquitous on televisions here. As he crossed the state last weekend sounding an optimistic call for Republican unity, his campaign paid to beam a 30-minute video of him on the stump into homes in each of Iowa’s media markets.

Rubio’s strategy proved highly effective as he surged to a surprisingly strong third place, just one percentage point behind Trump.

But in a state that has long reward-ed conservatives who put religion at the fore, and in a political era dictated by data analytics, Cruz won on the strength of both.

His message was perfectly tuned to Iowa conservatives, he used his web of relationships to try to unite evangelical leaders, and he invested deeply in data and

2/2/2016

turnout organization. By caucus day, Cruz had 11,986 volunteers in Iowa and trained captains at nearly all of the 1,681 precincts.

“We formed the philosophy that our campaign would be waged by neighbors telling their neighbors who to vote for, and we needed to set up every piece and shred of data to allow that to happen,” said Jeff Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager.

That approach was paying off by the beginning of the year. Cruz had a clear lead in the polls. His list of endorsements was growing by the day. Crowds were swelling, even when he stopped by gas stations near midnight.

On a six-day, 28-stop bus tour in early January through far-flung pockets of Iowa, Cruz sounded triumphant. “Father God, please, keep this awakening going,” he said in Mason City.

Still, two threats started to emerge.

Rubio’s “peak late” strategy was ramping up, and he started to directly engage Cruz with a new fervor. He also began talking about his faith everywhere he went.

Rubio had a model in Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has found support from both the right and the center of Iowa’s GOP going back to 2014, when she navigated a crowded primary in spite of her ties to the party establishment. Rubio was guided by Ernst’s strategist, Todd Harris, who recognized that sub-

urban Republicans could compete we going to win this state?” with the state’s conservative wing.

Trump’s on-again, off-again ro“We went fishing where the fishes mance with Iowa had begun. He are,” Harris said. “We knew exact- would spar with the state’s biggest ly who the voters we wanted to talk newspaper, the Des Moines Registo were. A lot of them were subur- ter, and bar its reporters from his ban. It’s no surprise [Rubio] was events. When Ben Carson briefly dubbed the ‘mayor of Ankeny.’ surpassed him in the polls in the fall, People made a lot of fun at that, he took to the stage in Fort Dodge but we knew what we were doing.” and wondered resentfully, “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”

Then there was Trump. Around the beginning of the year, his But Trump always believed he gut was telling him he could be could will himself to victory the winner. He started to at- here. Early on, Laudner, directack hard, hitting Cruz on his tor of Trump’s Iowa campaign, Canadian birth, on pre-viously described the strategy in the undisclosed loans, on his “nas- state as a “parallel campaign.” ty” reputation in Washington.

Rather than focusing on the “I am putting myself a little bit roughly 120,000 Republicans out there,” Trump said in an in- who regularly caucus, he targetterview in the boys’ locker room ed nontraditional voters — “peoat Muscatine High School, where ple who wouldn’t be caught he held a rally late last month. “If dead at a Republican event.”

I come in second, I come in second. I think we’re going to come That included Trump’s lieutenants. in first, frankly. I could say, ‘Oh, Tana Goertz, a political neophyte well, I just want to do well . . .’ ” best known for being a runner-up on Trump’s NBC show “The ApTrump rolled his eyes. “I want pren-tice,” was tapped as Iowa coto win,” he said. “I want to win.” chair. She used her own celebrity as a former spokeswoman for the Hours after Trump’s June 16 Bedazzler, a rhinestone-setting an-nouncement that he was run- machine popular with home-crafts ning, he flew to Des Moines for enthusiasts, to draw in volunteers. his first rally. Attendees at the Hoyt Sherman auditorium were One brisk night last week, Goertz revved up. The reigning Miss was at Trump’s Iowa headquarters Iowa was there. Cub Scouts recit- carrying a carton of beads and ed the Pledge of Allegiance. With shiny plastic gems as she headed Neil Young’s “Keep On Rocking out to a call center. She rewarded in the Free World” blaring, Trump the most dedicated volunteers by was surrounded as he slowly Bedazzling their “Make America made his way down the aisle. Great Again” T-shirts and hats.

more

than

200,000

times.

During the summer, as Trump whipped up throngs of fans from Alabama to Arizona, aides drove a hulking royal-blue bus around Iowa, wowing locals and signing up poten-tial supporters.

By late August, Trump had surged to the lead for the first time in the Register’s Iowa poll.

But he had difficulty sustaining his momentum. Enthusiasm for Carson was growing. Trump’s flippant com-ment at an August gathering of evangelicals that he occasionally had a “little cracker” when he at-tended church and rarely, if ever, asked God for forgiveness sowed doubts about his character.

His operation now had a dozen staffers in Iowa, but his organizing was shrouded in mystery.

Republi-can operatives became dubious and saw little evidence of a Trump ground game.

While other campaigns happily showcased packed phone banks and detailed complex data applica-tions, Trump’s did neither. After years of being a favorite source of quotations for Iowa reporters, Laudner went, in his words, “radio silent.”

From his first trip to Iowa three summers ago, Cruz was plotting his path to the caucuses.

Cruz’s father, Rafael, journeyed to every corner of the state, again and again, huddling with pastors and preaching in churches. He told As he left the rally, Trump Goertz also recorded a cheery the story of his emigration from asked campaign manager Co- YouTube video with instructions Cuba and testified to Ted’s characrey Lewan-dowski, “Why aren’t on how to caucus. It was viewed ter, conviction and conservatism.

To run his Iowa campaign, Cruz in-terviewed several seasoned con-sultants but settled on a former Baptist pastor named Bryan English who had deep ties to the evangelical networks led by Rep. Steve King and Bob Vander Plaats, head of the conservative group the Family Leader. English was an unusual hire, but the move underscored Cruz’s strategy.

“Do you set up your operation with a bunch of khaki-slacks, blue-blazer clowns?” Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager, asked. “Or do you set it up with an activist?”

For the first six months of the cam-paign, he was the lone Cruz staffer in Iowa, and he worked out of the basement of his home. By August, though, there was a headquarters in Urbandale, then more staffers. The team grew to 20, and Cruz rented out a dormitory building in Des Moines — “Camp Cruz” — to house volunteers from Texas and other places who came in the final month to help canvass.

Cruz peeled supporters from former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who together won the past two caucuses with heavy support from evangelicals and home-school parents. Cruz also targeted the libertarian followers of former congressman Ron Paul, whose son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), was proving to be less popular than his father in his presidential bid.

Back at national headquarters in Houston, Roe and his team invested several million dollars in a data analytics operation. There were about 175,000 Republicans in Iowa who had participated in a presidential caucus, and Cruz’s statisticians and behavioral psychologists set out to learn everything they could about them. By January, the Cruz campaign had so much information about The campaign conducted “psy- Iowa Republicans that it believed it cho-logical targeting” of like- could pinpoint exactly which ones ly caucus-goers, building its were certain to caucus for Cruz, own version of a Myers-Briggs which were undecided and which personality test to cat-egorize were leaning toward competitors.

Republicans so it could send them personally tailored phone Ten days before the caucuses, the calls, mail and other messages. internal data (based on a turnout of 150,000 people, which Sitting in his office last week, with would set a new record) showed war-strategy tomes by Sun Tzu and that 19,186 were certain to be Carl von Clausewitz stacked on his with Cruz. About 1,400 had supdesk, English looked out at the ported him at one point but had bustling phone bank, which on this turned to another candidate; they afternoon included Rafael Cruz. got personal phone calls from Ted; his wife, Heidi; or Rafael “If anybody goes to cau- Cruz in a push to win them back. cus and says, ‘I haven’t seen Only 15,626 people were cerTed Cruz,’ I want it to be their tain to caucus for Trump, accordfault, not ours,” English said. ing to the figures. The Cruz campaign believed it was winning.

The decision facing Trump was straightforward: shower attention on Iowa in the final days, only to risk a humbling defeat, or turn to New Hampshire and South Carolina, the next two states to vote, where he enjoyed substantial leads.

The real estate magnate chose to roll the dice, propelled, in part, by his irritation at watching television pundits say that Cruz was likely to win.

So Trump reminded Iowans, again and again, about Cruz’s opposition to federal renewable-fuel standards, an issue critical to the state’s powerful ethanol industry.

In that, Trump had an ally in Gov. Terry Branstad (R), who broke his neutrality to call for Cruz’s defeat.

Trump also raised questions about Cruz’s Canadian birth, first in an interview with The Washington Post and then at almost every rally and on TV. The issue dogged Cruz: A man dressed in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform trailed him, and a super PAC supporting Rubio ran an ad depicting Cruz’s face in-side Canada’s iconic maple leaf. Huckabee’s super PAC aired a pro-vocative ad suggesting that Cruz was “a millionaire that brags about his faith” but does not tithe.

There were signs that the right was not united behind Cruz.

Former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a tea party and evangelical heroine, endorsed Trump at a splashy rally in Ames.

The nightly surveys conducted by the Cruz campaign showed that Palin was a boon for Trump — 67 percent of Iowa Republicans had heard of her endorsement, and

of them, 19 percent were more needs to be stopped here.” likely to support Trump. Only 13 percent were less likely to. Carol replied with a chuckle.

“We’ve never caucused” for someA few days later, Trump won the one with a chance of winning the backing of Jerry Falwell Jr., son of general election. “It’s about time.” the late televangelist and president of Liberty University. The two men In the past two weeks, Rubio campaigned together across Iowa shifted as he saw an opening the weekend before the caucuses. with Cruz and Trump bloodying each other. He kept up his citaRubio also was making an overt tion of Bible passages and chanplay for evangelical support, air- neled voter anger, but began to ing ads about his faith and op- speak more of his ability to bring position to abortion, and talking the party together as others on the stump about God as if he clashed. He was a bridge-buildwere a Sunday school teacher. er with conservative credentials.

Not everyone was sure that Rubio’s embrace of the religious right would work; some thought he was going too far in his attempt to win Iowa. “Rubio’s mistake is that he’s moved too far toward the Christian right when he should be focused on the mainstream,” Doug Gross, an unaffiliated Iowa Republican power broker, said in December.

Attendees at Rubio’s events often would say that they were drawn to him not out of passion but out of a desire to back someone more mod-erate who had a chance to win in the general election.

It worked. Entrance polls of caucus-goers showed that he won over voters in Iowa who waited until the final week to choose a candidate.

On the eve of the caucuses, Cruz returned to Des Moines for a Sunday evening rally at the state fairgrounds.

The crowd was deeply religious, with children wearing church youth-group T-shirts and two elderly couples up front holding hands in prayer. The videos that played on oversize screens before Cruz went on featured soaring guitar chords mixed with testimonials from conservative leaders. Rep. Steve King rallied the crowd with an introduction that assured people Cruz was spoon-fed the Constitution and the Bible as a child.

At a Rubio stop in the late fall in West Des Moines, Carol and Pete Click said they drove through an icy mush and argued politely along the way about the senator from Florida. Pete, 65, a retired business owner, said he wasn’t enthu- Cruz cast himself as the one siastic, but Carol urged her hus- true conservative in the race. band to give Rubio a second look. “Stand with us. Caucus for us. If we stand together, we will win.”

“All right, I’m open to it,” Pete told his wife. “I’m tired of the The crowd roared. A day latestablish-ment, but Trump er, they stood with him. is a problem and maybe he

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How Ted Cruz Outfoxed Donald Trump in Iowa Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, the Washington Post

DES MOINES — On a hot July day in 2013, Ted Cruz began what would become his winning campaign in Iowa.

At a faith gathering at the Des Moines Marriott, the Texan was prayed over by evangelical leaders. These leaders became the beginnings of a contact list that would grow over the years.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump began his Iowa campaign with a business trip in January 2015.

Trump knew he needed two things for his campaign: credibility and a fast tutorial. He sought to gain both through Chuck Laudner, a veteran Iowa operative.

Trump invited Laudner and his wife, Stephanie, aboard his Boeing 757. He tried to sweet talk his way to a deal— and Laudner was sold. The businessman would try to win over Iowa just as he had won over Laudner: by the power of his own seduction.

Then there was the playbook of Marco Rubio. The senator from Florida planned on rising late. In the final three weeks, his ads were all over televisions.

However, Cruz stole the show with his emphasis on religion and data analytics.

“We formed the philosophy that our campaign would be waged by neighbors telling their neighbors who to vote for. We needed to set up every piece and shred of data to allow that to happen,” said Jeff

Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager.

By the beginning of the year.

Cruz had a clear lead in the polls and his list of endorsements was growing by the day.

Still,

two

threats

emerged.

Rubio’s “peak late” strategy gained speed and he talked about his faith everywhere he went.

Then there was Trump. Around the beginning of the year, his gut was telling him he could be the winner. He started to attack hard.

He hit Cruz on his Canadian birth, previously hidden loans, and “nasty” reputation in Washington.

Hours after Trump’s June 16 announcement that he was running, he flew to Des Moines for his first rally.

Early on, Laudner, director of Trump’s Iowa campaign, described the strategy in the state as a “parallel campaign.” He targeted nontraditional voters — “people who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Republican event.”

By late August, the Register’s Iowa poll showed that Trump had taken the lead.

But he had difficulty keeping momentum. Republican operatives saw little evidence of Trump’s ground game. Other campaigns showcased packed phone banks and detailed complex data applications. Trump’s did neither.

Meanwhile, Cruz was plotting his

2/2/2016

path to the caucuses since his first trip to Iowa three summers ago.

To run his Iowa campaign, Cruz settled on a former Baptist pastor named Bryan English. English was an unusual hire, but had deep ties to the evangelical networks. The move underscored Cruz’s strategy.

“Do you set up your operation with a bunch of khaki-slacks, blue-blazer clowns?” Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager, asked. “Or do you set it up with an activist?”

At national headquarters in Houston, Roe and his team invested several million dollars in a data analytics operation. About 175,000 Republicans in Iowa participated in a presidential caucus.

Cruz’s statisticians and behavioral psychologists set out to learn everything they could about them.

“If anybody goes to cus and says, ‘I haven’t Ted Cruz,’ I want it to be fault, not ours,” English

causeen their said.

Cruz gathered supporters from former senator Rick Santorum , former governor Mike Huckabeem, and former congressman Ron Paul.

Ten days before the caucuses, the internal data revealed 150,000 responders. It showed that 19,186 were certain to be with Cruz. About 1,400 had supported him at one point but now supported another candidate. In a push to win them back, Ted and his family gave them personal phone calls.

Only 15,626 people were certain ligious crowd with an introducfor Trump, according to the figures. tion. He assured people that Cruz was spoon-fed the ConstiThe decision facing Trump was tution and the Bible as a child. straightforward. He could shower attention on Iowa in the final Cruz cast himself as the one days, only to risk a humbling de- true conservative in the race. feat. Or, he could turn to New “Stand with us. Caucus for us. If Hampshire and South Caroli- we stand together, we will win.” na, the next two states to vote, where he enjoyed sizable leads. The crowd roared. A day later, they stood with him.

Trump chose to roll the dice.

He regularly brought up Cruz’s opposition to federal renewable-fuel standards raised questions about Cruz’s Canadian birth.

There were signs that the right was not united behind Cruz. Former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin endorsed Trump at a rally in Ames. A few days later, Trump won the backing of Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late televangelist and president of Liberty University.

Meanwhile, Rubio began making a play for evangelical support. He aired ads about his faith and opposition to abortion. Then, an opportunity presented itself with Cruz and Trump bloodying each other.

Rubio continued referencing the Bible and channeling voter anger.

However, he began to speak more of his ability to unify the party as the others clashed — and it worked.

The polls showed that he won over voters in Iowa who waited until the final week to choose a candidate.

On the eve of the caucuses, Cruz returned to Des Moines.

He arrived at a Sunday evening rally at the state fairgrounds.

Rep. Steve King rallied the re-

Summary

The New York Times’ Leaden Analysis Of Gold Steve Forbes , Forbes

Original

Edited

12/28/2015

Original

The New York Times’ Leaden Analysis Of Gold Steve Forbes , Forbes

THE NEW YORK TIMES recently ran an article trashing the idea of a return to a gold standard. A growing number of Republicans, including presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz, advocate fixing the value of the dollar to gold.

If the purpose of the Times story was to discredit such a possibility before it gained any more momentum, it failed. The piece is actually useful in that it encapsulates some of the egregious myths, misunderstandings and just plain ignorance of what a gold standard is all about.

The purpose of a gold standard is to ensure that a currency has a fixed value, just as measures of time, weight and distance are fixed. We don’t “float” the number of minutes in an hour or inches in a foot.

Yet, strangely, economists believe that constantly changing the value of a currency is good for growth.

For a variety of reasons, which are explained in my new book, Reviving America, and in my previous one, Money, gold keeps its intrinsic value better than anything else on Earth. It is to value what Polaris is to direction. The daily dollar price changes in gold reflect changing perceptions in the marketplace about the current and future value of the greenback. Gold’s value is unchanging.

A few of the widespread misconceptions about gold: – Gold restrains economic growth. It does the opposite.

When the value of a currency is stable, investment flourishes–and so does economic activity. For instance, from about two years after WWII to when we cut the dollar’s link to the yellow metal in 1971, the average annual growth in our industrial output was an astonishing 5%. After that it slumped to less than half that amount.

Our overall average rate of growth since going off gold more than 40 years ago is measurably lower than it was before.

Economists claim gold caused a terrible deflation in the late 1800s, pointing to a slide in commodity prices that spelled hard times for many farmers. More nonsense. Prices for corn, wheat and other agricultural products tumbled because of supply and demand. Monetary expert Nathan Lewis, who actually examines what happened in the past, has pointed out that the number of acres “under the plow” in the U.S. soared from 100 million to over 240 million within a few decades.

Combined with growing productivity from better implements and the explosion in output from other countries—vast improvements in transportation and shipping meant wheat grown in Argentina could easily go anywhere in the world—meant the prices of food plummeted. Good news for consumers, but bad for small farmers. Blaming their distress on gold is like blaming obesity on scales.

12/28/2015

Linking a currency to gold doesn’t mean “price stability”–it means that prices will reflect the actual interplay of supply and demand.

– Gold dangerously constricts the flexibility of authorities to respond to crises. No, it doesn’t.

Gold-based money has nothing to do with the ability of a central bank to mitigate a financial crisis by acting as a “lender of last resort.” That concept goes back to the 1860s, when the Bank of England, under the gold standard, showed how to do it. During a panic or time of distress, a sound bank need merely bring collateral to the central bank for a short-term loan to weather a temporary crisis. When things calm down, the loan is paid off.

– Gold artificially constrains the money supply, thereby hurting the economy. This is a variant on the first bullet. Under this myth the money supply is tied to the output of gold mines. If output goes down, so will economic activity.

There are two big things wrong with this. Gold isn’t subject to the supply shocks that affect other commodities. For example, it’s not like wheat, which, once it’s harvested, is mostly consumed.

Every ounce of gold ever brought out of the ground is still with us.

Annual output averages about 1.5% to 2% of the existing supply.

Second, the amount of gold doesn’t restrict the money supply any more than the supply of rulers would restrict the size of a house

you might construct. It merely ensures that money has a fixed, stable value. As Nathan Lewis has pointed out, from 1775 to 1900 the U.S. grew from a small agricultural economy of 2.5 million people to the world’s mightiest industrial nation of 76 million people. During most of that time the dollar was fixed to gold. The global output of gold went up 3.4-fold, yet the U.S.’ money supply burgeoned 163-fold.

caused an economic crisis.

Tying money to gold is simply about setting a stable monetary value.

It’s a measure. What virtually all economists fail to grasp today is that you can have a gold-based currency without owning a single ounce of gold. Gold is a barometer. We could set the dollar/gold ratio at, say, $1,100 an ounce. If the price rose above that level, it would mean there was too much money in the economy, and the Fed would tighten. If it dropped below, the Fed would ease.

The crux of the gold debate is about power: The New York Times and many economists like the idea of government dominating the economy; honest money advocates don’t.

Ignorance of how a gold standard actually functions was exemplified by one particular howler in the Times article. An economist claimed that around 1900 “the Bank of England held extra gold so it could print extra money if necessary….” In fact, what was notable in those days was how little gold the Bank of England held in proportion to its supply of pounds. Its so-called gold coverage was significantly smaller than that of other countries because people had absolute confidence in the bank’s integrity and ability to manage the system.

Here are a couple of truths the article ignores or to which it is oblivious.

–Sound

money

has

never

–Central banks’ attempts to “guide” economic activity are always counterproductive. The question is over the scale of the damage done. For instance, weakening the dollar, starting in the early 2000s, to stimulate the economy and exports led to the housing debacle and the 2008 financial meltdown.

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The New York Times’ Leaden Analysis Of Gold Steve Forbes , Forbes

The New York Times recently trashed the idea of a return to a gold standard. Meanwhile, a growing number of Republicans, including presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, advocate fixing the value of the dollar to gold.

If the purpose of the Times story was to discredit such a possibility before it gained any more momentum, it failed. If anything, the piece usefully summarized some of the myths, misunderstandings and ignorance of what a gold standard is all about.

The purpose of a gold standard is to ensure that a currency has a fixed value. To understand this, consider another fixed value measurement: time. We don’t “float” the number of minutes in an hour or inches in a foot. Yet, strangely, economists believe that constantly changing the value of a currency is good for growth.

Gold keeps its intrinsic value better than anything else on Earth. Gold is to value what the North Star is to direction. The daily price changes in gold reflect changing perceptions in the marketplace about the current and future value of the dollar. Gold’s value is unchanging.

erage annual growth in industrial output was 5%. After 1971 — when the dollar’s link to gold was cut — industrial output slumped to less than half that amount. It has been measurably lower since.

Economists claim gold caused a terrible deflation in the late 1800s. They pointed to a slide in commodity prices that spelled hard times for many farmers.

This is nonsense. Prices for corn, wheat and other agricultural products tumbled because of supply and demand. Monetary expert Nathan Lewis said the number of acres “under the plow” in the U.S. soared from 100 million to over 240 million within a few decades.

This exponential increase was due to growing productivity from better tools and the explosion in output from other countries. For example, vast improvements in transportation and shipping meant wheat grown in Argentina could easily go anywhere in the world. These influences combined to cause the prices of food to plummet. Low prices are good news for consumers, but bad for small farmers.

To blame their distress on gold is like blaming obesity on scales.

A few of the widespread misconceptions about gold:

Linking a currency to gold doesn’t mean “price stability” it means that prices reflect the actual interplay of supply and demand.

– Gold restrains economic growth. It does the opposite.

When the value of a currency is stable, investment and economic activity flourish. From about two years after WWII to 1971, the av-

– Gold dangerously constricts the flexibility of authorities to respond to crises. No, it doesn’t.

Gold-based money has nothing to do with the ability of a central bank to mitigate a financial crisis. During

12/28/2015

a panic or time of temporary crisis, a sound bank can bring more money to the central bank and receive a short-term loan. When things calm down, the loan is paid off.

– Gold artificially constrains the money supply, thereby hurting the economy. Under this myth the money supply is tied to the output of gold mines. If output goes down, economic activity goes with it.

Two things are wrong with this myth. First, gold isn’t subject to the supply shocks that affect other commodities. For example, it’s not like wheat. Harvested wheat is mostly consumed.

Every ounce of gold ever brought out of the ground is still with us.

Annual output averages about 1.5% to 2% of the existing supply.

Second, the amount of gold doesn’t restrict the money supply.

It merely ensures that money has a fixed, stable value. Nathan Lewis said that from 1775 to 1900 the U.S. grew from a small agricultural economy (2.5 million people) to the world’s mightiest industrial nation (76 million people). During most of that time the dollar was fixed to gold. The global output of gold increased 3.4-fold, yet the U.S.’ money supply grew 163-fold.

Tying money to gold is simply about setting a stable monetary value. It’s a measure. What many economists fail to grasp today is that gold-based currency is possible without owning a single ounce of gold. Gold is a barom-

eter. The dollar/gold ratio could be set at, say, $1,100 an ounce.

Prices rising above that level would mean too much money in the economy, and the Fed would tighten. If prices dropped below that level, the Fed would ease.

The Times article said around 1900 “the Bank of England held extra gold so it could print extra money if necessary….” In fact, the Bank of England held very little gold in proportion to its supply of pounds. Its so-called gold coverage was significantly smaller than that of other countries. This was because people had absolute confidence in the bank’s integrity and ability to manage the system.

Other truths the article’s contributors ignored or are oblivious to: –Sound money has never caused an economic crisis.

–Central banks’ attempts to “guide” economic activity are always counterproductive.

For instance, starting in the early 2000s the dollar was weakened to stimulate the economy and exports.

This led to the housing disaster and the 2008 financial meltdown.

The crux of the gold debate is about power. The New York Times and many economists like the idea of government dominating the economy — honest money advocates don’t.

Summary

Storms May Brew, but in N. Korea Pride Over New Satellite

Jon Chol Jin and Eric Talmadge, Associated Press

Original

Edited

2/7/2016

Original

Storms May Brew, but in N. Korea Pride Over New Satellite

Jon Chol Jin and Eric Talmadge, Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- Hours after the rest of the world already knew, North Korea’s state media triumphantly announced in a special news bulletin to the nation Sunday it had successfully launched a satellite into orbit, calling it a major milestone in the nation’s history and the “greatest gift of loyalty” to the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un. In a possible hint of what might lie ahead, however, North Korea’s state media implored the nation on the eve of the launch to be prepared for whatever “violent storm” may be coming.

to international organizations to avoid accidents with commercial shipping or aircraft and had been closely watched by experts around the world for more than a week.

As the news aired, crowds in Pyongyang cheered and applauded as they watched the news of the launch, which was displayed on large screens at different places around the capital.

“As far as I know, there are few countries in the world that launched their own satellites,” said one, Pyongyang resident Ri Hyon Gil. He added that he was proud of both the launch and They may need to: the U.S., South the news of the H-bomb test because Korea and Japan have strongly they demonstrate the North’s scicondemned the launch, and po- entific and technological progress. tential new sanctions over both the launch and the North’s pur- North Korea claims to have sucported hydrogen bomb test just cessfully put four satellites into one month ago are now being dis- orbit. Foreign observers have concussed in the U.N. Security Council. firmed only two - this one and a similar probe launched in 2012.

North Korea’s most famous and They also question whether the venerated TV newscaster, dressed 2012 probe ever transmitted any in a traditional pink gown, proud- signals back to Earth, though the ly announced on the TV bulletin North claims it broadcast patri- reserved for extremely important otic odes to the nation’s leaders. events - that the Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 It may take several days to confirm had been successfully put into whetherSunday’ssatelliteisaliveand orbit early Sunday morning. She transmitting signals to the ground. called it an “epochal” moment.

North Korea’s official news agenThe satellite’s name means Shining cy, KCNA, called the launch a Star. “complete success” and said it marked a major advance in “deThe news Sunday was the first ac- veloping the country’s science, knowledgment of the rocket prepa- technology, economy and defense rations made to the North Korean capability by legitimately exercispublic, even though the launch ing the right to use space for indeplan had been released in advance pendent and peaceful purposes.”

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The inclusion of “defense” in that statement could be problematic in the weeks ahead.

North Korea has resolutely denied claims by Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and the United Nations that its space launches are intended to test ballistic missile technology and thus banned under international resolutions. Instead, it has said its space launches are strictly for peaceful purposes.

It had also been careful not to trumpet this launch until after the satellite was confirmed in orbit.

But in another report just before the launch, which like the “violent storms” report made no direct mention of the rocket or the international condemnation it has received, noted that Monday is the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army in 1948.

That, along with the birthday of former leader Kim Jong Il on Feb. 16, a major holiday called the Day of the Shining Star in North Korea, are likely why the North planned the launch at this time.

As KCNA put it: “The fascinating vapor ... trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star, the greatest national holiday of Kim Il Sung’s Korea, is a gift of most intense loyalty presented by our space scientists and technicians to the great Comrade Kim Jong Un, our dignified party, state and people.”

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Storms May Brew, but in N. Korea Pride Over New Satellite

Jon Chol Jin and Eric Talmadge, Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) – Sunday Feb. 8, the North Korea state media announced the successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 into orbit.

They called it a major national milestone and the “greatest gift of loyalty” to the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un.

“As far as I know, there are few countries in the world that launch their own satellites,” said Pyongyang resident Ri Hyon Gil. Gil said he was proud of both the launch and the news of the H-bomb test because they demonstrate the North’s scientific and technological progress.

On the eve of the launch, North Korea state media advised the nation to prepare for a “violent storm” that may be coming.

The announcement was delayed several hours after launch to ensure the satellite made it into orbit. It could take several days to confirm that the satellite is transmitting signals to the ground.

The U.S., South Korea, and Japan strongly condemn the launch. New sanctions over both the launch and the North Korea’s supposed hydrogen bomb test are being discussed in the U.N. Security Council. North Korea has resolutely denied claims by Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and the United Nations that its space launches are intended to test ballistic missile technology, which is banned under international regulations. They insist that all their space launches have peaceful purposes.North Korea’s most famous TV newscaster, dressed in a traditional pink gown, proudly made the announcement on a special TV bulletin. Crowds in Pyongyang cheered and applauded as they watched on large screens located around the capitol.

The satellite will function as an earth observation satellite. Its name, Kwangmyongsong-4, means Shining Star. North Korea said it has successfully put four satellites into orbit. Foreign observers have confirmed only two — this one and a similar probe launched in 2012.

Several factors may have contributed to the specific launch date.

Monday, Feb. 8 is the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army in 1948, and Feb. 16 is former leader Kim Jong Il’s birthday. Also on this day, North Korea celebrates a major holiday called the Day of the Shining Star.

North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, called the launch a “complete success.” They said it marked a major advance in “developing the country’s science, technology, economic and defense capability by legitimately exercising the right to use space for independent and peaceful purposes.”

The inclusion of “defense” in that statement encapsulates the problematic environment of this launch.

2/7/2016

Summary

Mystery Meat: Was it Really Woolly Mammoth?

Frank Eltman, Associated Press

Original

Edited

2/3/2016

Original

Mystery Meat: Was it Really Woolly Mammoth?

Frank Eltman, Associated Press

When members of the Explorers Club gathered for their lavish an-nual dinner in New York City in 1951, one account said they feasted on meat from a prehistor-ic wooly mammoth that had been preserved in a glacier.

The banquet menu said the long-extinct mystery meat was actually giant sloth.

But Yale researchers using DNA analysis on surviving bits of the meat have now reached what could be the final word on the story: Neither is true.

The meat that was served was nothing more than modern-day sea turtle.

“I’m sure people wanted to believe it. They had no idea that many years later, a Ph.D. student would come along and figure this out with DNA sequencing techniques,” said Jessica Glass, a Yale graduate student and co-lead author of a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. The Explorers Club gala, held in the grand ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel, promised a menu of Pacific spider crabs, green turtle soup, bison steaks and meat

Freshman,” in which high rollers paid $1 million for the privilege of eating meat from endangered species, only to be served Hawaiian tigerfish mixed with smoked turkey.

Some of the folklore about mammoth being on the menu apparently grew out of a Christian Science Monitor story that ran days after the January 1951 event. It reported that the “chief attraction at the smorgasbord was a morsel of 250,000-yearold hairy mammoth meat.”

It apparently had been found at “Woolly Cove” on Akutan Island, in the Aleutians, and was shipped to New York. According to Yale, the banquet’s promoter, Commander Wendell Phillips Dodge sent out press notices saying the annual dinner would feature “prehistoric meat.”

An Explorers Club member, Paul Griswold Howes of the Bruce Mu-seum in Greenwich, Connecticut, was unable to attend the dinner but requested a piece of the meat be sent to him. Although the sample was labeled as “Meg-atherium,” or giant sloth, the myth about the wooly mammoth persisted over the decades.

from an extinct giant ground sloth, according to Adalgisa Cac-cone, a senior research scientist and study co-author.

The specimen remained at the Bruce Museum until 2001, when it became part of the mammal collection at the Yale Peabody

The event appears to have simi-larities to a fictional account in the 1990 Matthew Broderick film, “The

Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut.

2/3/2016

In 2014, Glass and another stu-dent, Matt Davis, were curious about the specimen and com-menced a DNA analysis. The work was funded by a grant from the Explorers Club.

They extracted DNA, and the test results matched the genetic pro-file for green sea turtle.

“We are pleased with the results of Yale’s analysis,” said Will Roseman, executive director of the Explorers Club, an organiza-tion of conservationists, envi-ronmentalists and others devot-ed to protecting the earth.

“The mindset 65 years ago and today has dramatically changed and what was obviously a unique event decades ago, has given way to a determined effort to introduce people to the foods that can sustain mankind well into the future.”

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Mystery Meat: Was it Really Woolly Mammoth?

Frank Eltman, Associated Press

In 1951, members of the Explorers Club gathered in New York City for a lavish annual dinner. One account said they ate meat from a prehistoric wooly mammoth that had been preserved in a glacier.

The banquet menu said the long-extinct mystery meat was actually giant sloth.

However, Yale researchers used DNA analysis on surviving bits of the meat and discovered the meat served that night was actually modern-day sea turtle.

“I’m sure people wanted to believe it. They had no idea that many years later, a Ph.D. student would come along and figure this out with DNA sequencing techniques,” said Jessica Glass. Glass is a Yale graduate student and co-lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. The Explorers Club gala was held in the grand ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel. Adalgisa Caccone, a senior research scientist and study co-author said it featured a diverse menu. Pacific spider crabs, green turtle soup, bison steaks, and meat from an extinct giant ground sloth were all promised options.

The event appears similar to the 1990 Matthew Broderick film, “The Freshman.” In this fictional story, high rollers paid $1 million to eat endangered species meat. Instead, they were served Hawaiian tigerfish mixed with smoked turkey.

After the Explorer Club event,

the Christian Science Monitor reported that the “chief attraction at the smorgasbord was a morsel of 250,000-yearold hairy mammoth meat.”

The meat supposedly was found at “Woolly Cove” on Akutan Island and shipped to New York.

According to Yale, Commander Wendell Phillips Dodge — the banquets promoter — sent out press notices saying the annual dinner would feature “prehistoric meat.”

One Explorers Club member — Paul Griswold Howes — was unable to attend the dinner. Howes requested a piece of the meat be sent to him, and the Explorers Club obliged. The sample arrived but was labeled as “Megatherium” (or giant sloth).

In 2001, the meat became part of the mammal collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut.

Still curious, though, Glass and another student, Matt Davis, began a DNA analysis in 2014.

They extracted DNA, and the test results matched the genetic profile for green sea turtle.

“We are pleased with the results of Yale’s analysis,” said Will Roseman, executive director of the Explorers Club.

“The mindset 65 years ago and today has dramatically changed.

What was obviously a unique event decades ago has given way to a determined effort to introduce

2/3/2016

people to the foods that can sustain mankind well into the future.”

The Explorers Club functions today as an organization of conservationists, environmentalists, and others devoted to protecting the earth.

Summary

Indian Scientists Study Chunk that Fell from Sky, 2/9/2016 Killed Man | Nirmala George, Associated Press

Original

Edited

Original

Indian Scientists Study Chunk that Fell from Sky, Killed Man | Nirmala George, Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Scientists are analyzing a small blue object that plummeted from the sky and killed a man in southern India, after authorities said it was a meteorite.

The object slammed into the ground at an engineering college over the weekend, shattering a water cooler and sending splinters and shards flying. Police say a bus driver standing nearby was hit by the debris and died while being taken to a hospital.

College principal G. Bhaskar said he heard a loud thud from his office, where several window panes shattered when the object hit the ground.

Local officials and scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics on Tuesday examined the 5-foot-wide (2-meter-wide) impact crater at the college near Vellore city, but said they had yet to determine whether the object was from outer space or possibly a passing airplane or man-made satellite.

College officials said window panes of the building shattered with the impact of the loud explosion. Several buses parked nearby were also damaged and bits of glass from broken windows were scattered in the buses.

The hard, jagged object is dark blue and small enough to be held in a closed hand. The scientists used metal detectors to check the crater for the presence of metals and dug up the soil.

“The object that police have recovered from the site would have to undergo chemical analysis� to confirm its origin, said the dean of the institute, Prof. G.C. Anupama. She said that while it was rare for meteors to reach the ground before burning up in the atmosphere, it happens.

In February 2013, a meteor blazed across southern Urals that scientists said was the largest recorded strike in more than a century.

More than 1,600 people were injured by the shock wave and property damage was widespread in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk.

Tamil Nadu’s top elected official J. Jayalalithaa said Sunday that the bus driver had been killed by a meteorite and offered compensation to his family.

2/9/2016

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Indian Scientists Study Chunk that Fell from Sky, Killed Man | Nirmala George, Associated Press

2/9/2016

NEW DELHI (AP) -- J. Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu’s top elected official announced on Sunday that a meteorite killed a bus driver in southern India.

The object struck earth at an engineering college near Vellore city. It shattered a water cooler and sent shards flying. Police said debris hit a nearby bus driver, who died while traveling to a hospital.

College Principal G. Bhaskar said he heard a loud thud from his office. Several windows in the building shattered when the object hit the ground. It damaged nearby buses and bits of broken glass scattered on the floor.

On Tuesday, scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics examined the 5-foot-wide impact crater. They used metal detectors and dug up the soil, checking for the presence of metals.

The hard, jagged object was dark blue and small enough to hold in a closed hand.

Scientists have not determined if the object was from outer space or a passing airplane or satellite.

Professor G.C. Anupama, dean of the institute, said chemical analyzation is required to determine the object’s origin. She said it is rare for meteors to reach the ground before burning up in the atmosphere.

In response to the accident, Jayalalithaa offered compensation to the bus driver’s family.

Summary

Why Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill Will Make Christian History in Cuba Tomorrow | Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today 2/11/2016

Assignment Synopsis: The readership of our newspaper is 35% Catholic, so we will certainly want to run the photo below and information from the article. Treat the article as if it were an interview source, put everything in your own words except information in quotes and credited to Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra writing in Christianity Today magazine. Please do the following: • • • •

Write your own headline Passive = 6%. Keep or reduce that percentage Reading ease = 34. Raise it to at least 50.

Grade level = 14. Reduce it to 8

The 150 word article we publish will carry your byline.

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Why Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill Will Make Christian History in 2/11/2016 Cuba Tomorrow | Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today

ISIS persecution of Christians prompts first meeting between Catholic and Orthodox primates since 1054.

ence in the MENA region, according to the Pew Research Center.

Francis’s ecumenism has previously included the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, as well as multiple overtures to Protestants. To good effect: a LifeWay Research survey found nearly 2 in 5 American Protestant pastors (37%) said Francis had a positive impact on their opinion of the Catholic Church, while more than 3 in 5 said they saw the pope as their brother in Christ (63%).

Edgar Jimenez / Flickr | Larry Koester / Flickr Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill For the first time since the Christian church split into West and East in 1054 over issues of papal authority and the source of the Holy Spirit, a Roman Catholic pope and the heavyweight of the Eastern Orthodox Church will sit down together.

Pope Francis will meet with Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill for several hours tomorrow in a neutral location: Cuba’s Havana airport.

The two will end the meeting by signing a joint declaration, according to the official announcement.

The Russian church contains the majority of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.

“This meeting of the primates of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, after a long preparation, will be the first in history and will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches,” the announcement said. “The Holy See and the Moscow Patriarchate hope that it will also be a sign of

hope for all people of good will.”

While the two historic halves of the church disagree on many matters, such as the Russian handling of Christians in the Ukraine and Catholic attempts to evangelize Orthodox members, the violence against Christians in the Middle East was compelling enough to persuade Kirill to consent to a meeting that Francis has pursued.

“Although many problems in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church remain unresolved, the protection of Christians in the Middle East against the genocide is a challenge that requires urgent united efforts,” said Vladimir Legoida, spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church. “The exodus of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] countries is a catastrophe for the whole world.”

Catholic and Orthodox Christians have a roughly equal pres-

The pope preached the “ecumenism of blood” at an evangelical seminary in the Central African Republic in December.

“God makes no distinctions between those who suffer,” he said.

“I have often called this the ecumenism of blood. All our communities suffer indiscriminately as a result of injustice and the blind hatred unleashed by the devil.”

Recent studies show that Islamist extremism is the church’s greatest threat, with the number of Christian martyrs almost doubling from 4,344 in 2014 to more than 7,000 in 2015.

Preaching unity in the face of martyrdom is not a new a message for Francis. Last July, he cited the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians by Islamic extremists.

“When those who hate Jesus Christ kill a Christian, before killing him, they don’t ask, ‘Are you Lutheran, or Orthodox, or Evangelical or Baptist or Methodist?’” he said. “If the enemy unites us in death, who

are we to divide ourselves in life?”

The Orthodox church has previously reached out to Protestants, and some evangelicals hoped Kirill’s rise to the patriarchy of the ascendant Russian church in 2009 might improve ecumenical relations.

But since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, religious freedom in the region has been curtailed. More than 1,100 religious communities that were recognized under Ukrainian law are no longer allowed under Russian law, and authorities are threatening all religions outside the Russian Orthodox Church, the US State Department reported in October.

Relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Kiev Patriarchate have also frayed.

CT’s past coverage of Eastern Orthodoxy includes how it lost two bridges to evangelicals in 2012, a 2011 interview with Metropolitan Hilarion on Orthodoxy offering evangelicals more than an olive branch, and whether the 21st century will be the Orthodox century.

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Why Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill will make Christian history in Cuba tomorrow Catholic and Orthodox Church to meet for the first time since 1054 over ISIS related concerns Pope Francis will meet with Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill tomorrow. The two will end the meet-ing by signing statement of union, according to the official notice.

“Protecting Christians in the Middle East is a challenge that needs urgent united efforts,” said Vladimir Legoida, spokesperson for the

Edgar Jimenez / Flickr | Larry Koester / Flickr Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill

Russian Orthodox Church. “All our people suffer by the blind hatred let loose by the devil.”

Recent studies show that the number of Christian martyrs has almost doubled from 4,344 in 2014 to more than 7,000 in 2015.

“When those who hate Jesus Christ kill a Christian, before killing him, they don’t ask, ‘What denomination are you?’” Legoida said. “If the enemy unites us in death, we must not divide ourselves in life.”

Summary

Breakthrough: Scientists Detect Einstein’s Gravity Ripples 2/11/2016 Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

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Breakthrough: Scientists Detect Einstein’s Gravity Ripples 2/11/2016 Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an announcement that electrified the world of astronomy, scientists said Thursday that they have finally detected gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago.

perceptible even when enhanced.

Some scientists likened the breakthrough to the moment Galileo took up a telescope to look at the planets.

“It’s really comparable only to Galileo taking up the telescope and looking at the planets,” said Penn State physics theorist Abhay Ashtekar, who wasn’t part of the discovery team. “Our understanding of the heavens changed dramatically.”

The discovery of these waves, created by violent collisions of massive celestial objects, excites astronomers because it opens the door to a new way of observing the cosmos. For them, it’s like turning a silent movie into a talkie because these waves are the soundtrack of the universe.

“Until this moment we had our eyes on the sky and we couldn’t hear the music,” said Columbia University astrophysicist Szabolcs Marka, a member of the discovery team.

“The skies will never be the same.”

An all-star international team of astrophysicists used a newly upgraded and excruciatingly sensitive $1.1 billion set of twin instruments known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, to detect a gravitational wave from the crash of two black holes 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

To make sense of the raw data, the scientists translated the wave into sound. At a news conference, they played what they called a “chirp” - the signal they heard on Sept. 14. It was barely

Some physicists said the finding is as big a deal as the 2012 discovery of the subatomic Higgs boson, sometimes called the “God particle.” Some said this is bigger.

Gravitational waves, first theorized by Albert Einstein in 1916 as part of his theory of general relativity, are extraordinarily faint ripples in space-time, the hardto-fathom fourth dimension that combines time with the familiar up, down, left and right. When massive objects like black holes or neutron stars collide, they send gravity ripples across the universe.

Scientists found indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves in the 1970s - computations that showed they ever so slightly changed the orbits of two colliding stars - and the work was honored as part of the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics. But Thursday’s announcement was a direct detection of a gravitational wave.

And that’s considered a big difference.

“It’s one thing to know soundwaves exist, but it’s another to

actually hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,” said Marc Kamionkowsi, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University who wasn’t part of the discovery team. “In this case we’re actually getting to hear black holes merging.”

Gravitational waves are the “soundtrack of the universe,” said team member Chad Hanna of Pennsylvania State University.

Detecting gravitational waves is so difficult that when Einstein first theorized about them, he figured scientists would never be able to hear them. The greatest scientific mind of the 20th century later doubted himself and questioned in the 1930s whether they really do exist, but by the 1960s scientists had concluded they probably do, Ashtekar said.

In 1979, the National Science Foundation decided to give money to the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to come up with a way to detect the waves.

Twenty years later, they started building two LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, and they were turned on in 2001. But after years with no luck, scientists realized they had to build a more advanced system, which was turned on last September.

“This is truly a scientific moonshot and we did it. We landed on the moon,” said David Re-

itze, LIGO’s executive director.

The new LIGO in some frequencies is three times more sensitive than the old one and is able to detect ripples at lower frequencies that the old one couldn’t.

And more upgrades are planned.

Sensitivity is crucial because the stretching and squeezing of space-time by these gravitational waves is incredibly tiny. Essentially, LIGO detects waves that stretch and squeeze the entire Milky Way galaxy “by the width of your thumb,” Hanna said.

Each LIGO has two giant perpendicular arms more than 2 miles long. A laser beam is split and travels both arms, bouncing off mirrors to return to the arms’ intersection. Gravitational waves stretch the arms to create an incredibly tiny mismatch - smaller than a subatomic particle - in the beams’ locations. That mismatch is what LIGO detects.

“We are fairly certain that we will find more and more signals,” Marka said. “This is just a start.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Scientists have detected gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago.

The discovery excites astronomers, opening the door to a new way of observing the cosmos.

“This is truly a scientific moonshot,” said David Reitze, LIGO’s executive director. “We did it. We landed on the moon.”

An international team of astrophysicists detected the wave using a set of twin instruments known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO. The wave was created when two black holes crashed together 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

To make sense of the raw data, the scientists translated the wave into sound. They played the sound at a news conference and it was barely hearable, even when enhanced.

“Until this moment we had our eyes on the sky and we couldn’t hear the music,” said Columbia University astrophysicist Szabolcs Marka, a member of the discovery team.

“The skies will never be the same.”

Albert Einstein first theorized gravitational waves in 1916 as part of his theory of general relativity. They are faint ripples in space-time — the fourth dimension that combines time with the familiar space. Massive objects like black holes collide and send gravity ripples across the universe.

Abhay Ashtekar, a Penn State physics theorist, said Einstein didn’t think scientists would ever be able to hear gravitational waves.

In the 1930s, he even questioned whether they really did exist.

In the 1970s, two stars collided and computations showed a slight change in their orbits.

This indirectly proved gravitational waves, but Thursday’s announcement was the first direct gravitational wave detection.

“It’s one thing to know soundwaves exist, but it’s another to actually hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,” said Marc Kamionkowsi, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University. “In this case we’re actually getting to hear black holes merging.”

In 1979, the National Science Foundation gave money to the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a way to detect the waves.

Twenty years later, they built the two LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. They activated the detectors in 2001, but yielded no immediate results. Scientists upgraded LIGO and reactivated it in September, 2015. It is three times more sensitive than the old system and can detect ripples at lower frequencies.

Team member Chad Hanna, of Pennsylvania State University, said the increase in sensitivity was crucial. This is because the spacetime disturbance made by grav-

itational waves is incredibly tiny.

A LIGO has two crossing arms spanning more than two miles each. A laser beam splits, travels both arms, bounces off mirrors, and then returns to the arms’ intersection. Gravitational waves stretch the arms to create a tiny mismatch — smaller than a subatomic particle — in each beams location. LIGO functions to detect this tiny variation in arm stretch.

Scientists plan to continue to upgrade LIGO detectors, opening the door to future exploration.

“We are fairly certain that we will find more and more signals,” Marka said. “This is just a start.”

Summary

Spring Arbor native Kirby Runyon applies space 6/29/2015 passion to NASA mission | Omari Sanko, MLive

Assignment Synopsis: Today your Newspaper Boss forwarded to you an email from Spring Arbor native Kirby Daniel Runyon, a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and planetary geologist working at the Applied Physics Laboratory where he does many things including processing images returning from the New Horizons NASA probe that flew by Pluto in 2015. Kirby was the first human to see the 11,000 foot high ice mountains of Pluto. This is local news because Kirby is a 2003 graduate of Western High School and attended Spring Arbor University from 2003-2005.

• Your Newspaper Boss says this is follow-up news to an article she ran last summer.

• Your Newspaper Boss tells you to blend quotes from Kirby’s email with the accompanying article he sent you into a short, 250-word feature reading at the sixth grade level for this Thursday’s section called “Kids Love Science.”

• Be sure to write a title for your story that will grab the interest of junior high kids.

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Spring Arbor native Kirby Runyon applies space passion to NASA mission | Omari Sanko, MLive

Article: As a child, Spring Arbor native Kirby Runyon would spend nights in his backyard examining stars and planets through the lens of his telescope.

Today, Runyon’s passion in space exploration is being fully realized.

He’s a PHD student studying planetary geology at Johns Hopkins University, and his work at the JHU Applied Physics Laboratory could break new ground in our understanding of what was once the ninth planet in the galaxy — Pluto.

“Earth is this tiny little speck floating in the cosmos, and most of the stuff that’s out there is not on Earth,” Runyon said. “It gives me a good feeling when I study it and learn more about it. It’s what I need to do to satisfy my curiosity about the natural world.”

Runyon is working with NASA to interpret data from NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft, which is currently en route to Pluto.

If everything goes as planned, New Horizons will pass by Pluto on July 14, giving researchers roughly a half-hour window to collect images and begin putting together Pluto’s 4.5 billion year history.

For someone who was nicknamed the “NASA Kid” as a child, this mission is a dream come true.

Runyon’s interest in space was first sparked when his mom took him to the Michigan Space

and Science Center on the campus of Jackson Community College at the age of three.

Subsequent visits to the Michigan Space and Science Center helped his passion grow. Everything related to space consumed him, from the fantasy world of Star Wars to the brief weightlessness experienced when jumping on a trampoline.

“Our home revolved around fantasy, space fantasy and real astronomy,” Dan Runyon, Kirby’s father, said. “Our philosophy as parents was to get interested into whatever our kids were interested in. Some kids, that means taking them to a soccer game every few days. For us, it meant anything that had to do with space.”

Kirby Runyon pursued his passion through high school and college, taking astronomy classes at Spring Arbor University while he was in high school and co-teaching a class at the university at the age of 19.

He finished his physics degree at Houghton University before earning his master’s in planetary geology from Temple University in 2011.

The Applied Physics Laboratory, the largest affiliated research center in America, is a research and developmental organization that serves as a resource for organizations such as NASA. Johns Hopkins planetary astronomer Carey Lisse said Applied Physics Laboratory has researchers working on all parts of the solar system.

6/29/2015

“We have senior scientists, such as myself, who propose these missions and become part of these missions teams and project teams,” Lisse said. “And we are what I call data rich. We have huge numbers of images and spectra and we got all kinds of measurements of these bodies.”

Launched in 2006, the New Horizons Spacecraft travels at 31,000 miles an hour. This is too fast for a normal landing, so the spacecraft will merely fly past Pluto on the targeted date of July 14.

“We can tell you already that Pluto, we know, we’ve seen structures and features on it,” Lisse said. “We know that Pluto isn’t a boring ice ball. It’s got lots of structure and it’s looking pretty darn exciting.

“We’re really looking forward to showing you a whole new world.”

After New Horizon Spacecraft flies by, it will take up to up to 18 months for all of the information captured by the spacecraft to be sent back to Earth.

From there, Kirby Runyon will be one of the geologists tasked with assembling a high-resolution photo-mosaic of all the images taken so that they can map out the features they find.

“We’re trying to share as much as we can with the general public,” Runyon said.

Email:

onds may not seem like a long time to you, but imagine it happening while you’re controlling a jet flying at high speeds; sounds a lot more frightening. Now imagine it happening on the launch for your first, and possibly only, suborbital spaceflight. You would miss most of the spectacular views you paid a lot of money for. This act of passing out under increased G-forces is called G-induced loss of consciousness (aka G-LOC).

“You may be interested to learn of my g-force training in the NASTAR Center’s centrifuge. I did it twice today [2/8/16] as a medical test subject to understand the physiological effects of suborbital spaceflight on the general population. It simulated the acceleration ascent and descent profiles of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and the XCOR Lynx. It was fun. The ‘gondola’ is at the end of a 40foot arm that rotates to pin you in G-LOC occurs when G-forces deyour seat. I ‘only’ went up to 6 Gs.” crease the blood pressure above the heart, resulting in a loss of conNASTAR Center Website: sciousness. When an astronaut or pilot experiences G-LOC, he can Have you ever wondered what as- remain unconscious for up to 28 tronauts feel when they’re trav- seconds—an eternity in the aviaeling to space? The PHOENIX tion world. For that length of time, Centrifuge at the NASTAR Center he is not in control of the aircraft. provides that unique sensation. That’s why G-LOC can ultimately Space training involves learning to lead to fatal crashes. The only way survive and operate on a journey to to prevent G-LOC is to experience and from space; namely, handling how G-forces affect your body and the G-forces encountered during learn how to overcome the physical the launch and re-entry phases of effects. Centrifuge training is the flight. Using a centrifuge to expe- only safe way to do this, allowing rience G-forces has long been a astronauts and pilots to familiarize centerpiece of astronaut training. themselves with G-forces in a realistic and controlled environment.

The PHOENIX Centrifuge is the most high-performance flight sim- Check out what G-LOC looked like ulator in the world. It is able to ac- for one Australian weatherman, curately replicate not only visual while reporting the weather live surroundings, but also the realistic from a stunt plane. Shortly after G-force motion physiology of flight. asking the pilot to show him what The result is the most realistic 8 Gs feels like, Grant Benyer is spaceflight experience available, seen passing out. You can hear the ideal for performing research and pilot instructing Benyer to “keep for preparing space travelers for squeezing” to force blood back to flight. It can simulate any flight his brain. This is known as an anphase (launch, staging, aborts and ti-G straining maneuver (AGSM). re-entry) and provides authentic AGSM is the most effective way for G-forces, vibration and real cock- people to increase their G tolerpit console displays and controls. ance. This maneuver is taught to The Importance of Training all trainees at the NASTAR Center Passing out for twenty-eight sec- before they embark on their jour-

ney in the PHOENIX Centrifuge.

It is critical for training to be authentic in order to teach people how to survive and perform in space. Travelers must learn how their bodies will react to unusual sensations as well as what to do if an unplanned situation arises. The NASTAR Center uses the PHOENIX Centrifuge as a way to teach pilots and other participants how to maximize their once-ina-lifetime spaceflight and gives them the most realistic spaceflight experience available on earth.

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If you think roller coasters are a thrill, you should try a space simulator.

“It was fun,” said Kirby Runyon, who grew up in Spring Arbor. “You ride on the end of a spinning 40-foot arm. I went up to 6 Gs.” Runyon said he tried it for the purpose of medical research.

“I did it twice today,” said Runyon.

The simulator, called PHEONIX Centrifuge, is found at the NASTAR Center. Their website said it is the best flight simulator in the world. It provides real G-force power, rumbling, and display controls. The simulator trains space travelers to stay conscious during the powerful process of takeoff.

Last year, Omari Sankofa wrote an article about Runyon in MLive. He said Runyon works with NASA. His job is to review data from NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft (NHS), then on its way to Pluto. NHS maxes out at 31,000 miles an hour.

NHS was launched in 2006 and passed Pluto in July, 2015.

NASA had half an hour to take pictures of the planet. It took another 18 hours for NHS to send the pictures back to earth.

Runyon was on a team of scientists who combined the images and mapped out the planet.

Kirby Runyon poses in front of the NASTAR space simulator

Summary

A Look Back At Taylor Swift’s Grammys Appearances 2/9/2016 Leigh Blickley, The Huffington Post

Assignment Synopsis: The 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony is February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

For the Sunday entertainment feature, our newspaper will run your 250-word abbreviated version of the 700-word article below. Your tasks: • • • • • •

Abridge the article to 250 words Write a better headline Keep the reading level at the current 58 or so Simplify the grade level from the current 10.6 to 8 or 9 The writing at 18% is far too passive—reduce it to around 5% Write a photo caption for the image at the end of the article

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A Look Back At Taylor Swift’s Grammys Appearances 2/9/2016 Leigh Blickley, The Huffington Post

Although it feels like she’s been around forever, 2008 marked Taylor Swift’s first Grammys appearance. She was up for Best New Artist, alongside Feist, Ledisi, Paramore and Amy Winehouse.

Winehouse took home the trophy, but the then 18-year-old Swift’s career was set to skyrocket.

Swift soon soared to the top of the musical charts with her country hits like “Tim McGraw,” “Teardrops on My Guitar,” “Our Song,””Picture to Burn” and “Should’ve Said No” off her debut self-titled album. But it was her second studio effort, “Fearless,” which earned her the most attention. She was praised for writing or co-writing every track on the album, something many popular artists still fail to accomplish.

“I went through a period of time when I really didn’t have friends at school and the one thing that I had to look forward to was going home and writing a song about it,” she said in an interview with iTunes in 2009, “and that was the way I started dealing with my problems.”

“I think it’s going to be really crazy to look back when I’m older and look at these albums as these diary entries from different times in my life,” she added.

Although she wasn’t nominated in 2009, Swift performed her song “Fifteen” with, you won’t believe it, Miley Cyrus.

Eventually, all those diary entries earned Swift eight Grammy nominations in 2010, with “Fearless” winning both Album of the Year and

Country Album of the Year and her single “White Horse” being honored as Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song. (Side note: “Fearless” beat out Beyonce’s “I Am ... Sasha Fierce,” Lady Gaga’s “The Fame,” The Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” and Dave Matthews Band’s “Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King.”)

This was when TSwift’s now infamous “surprised” face was founded.

Swift’s 2011 album “Speak Now” earned her two Grammys in 2012, both for the track “Mean,” which was named Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. But she slowly ended up moving past her twangy vibe, giving her albums since then more of a pop twist.

In between working on her solo projects, Swift won a Grammy in 2013 for her collaboration with The Civil Wars on the “Hunger Games” track “Safe & Sound.” At the time, she said of the win, “I really want to thank Suzanne Collins for writing ‘Hunger Games’ and Jennifer Lawrence for portraying a character that was so fun to write from the perspective of.”

Swift hasn’t won a Grammy since, but her 2013 album “Red” -- and some songs, including “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” “Begin Again” and “Highway Don’t Care” -- was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Country Album. She also attended the 2015 Grammys, as her song “Shake It Off” was up for three awards.

But many say this is Taylor Swift’s big year. The now 26-year-old’s latest album “1989” scored rave re-

views when it was released in 2014 and has been garnering praise ever since. It was a far departure from her past work, as she totally ditched country and experimented with a 1980s pop music feel. (Ryan Adams even covered the entire album.)

“Everyone, in and out of the music business, kept telling me that my opinion and my viewpoint was naive and overly optimistic -- even my own label,” Swift told Billboard following the release of the album. “But when we got those firstday numbers in, all of a sudden, I didn’t look so naive anymore.”

“1989” is up for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.

Her song “Bad Blood” is nominated for Best Music Video and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and “Blank Space” is up for Best Pop Solo Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Plus, she’ll be back on stage performing, just like she did during her head-banging 2014 appearance.

Will this be TSwift’s biggest Grammys night ever? Stay tuned on Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. EST on CBS to find out.

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Since arriving on the music scene in 2008, Taylor Swift has won seven of her 17 Grammy nominations and performed at the event twice.

Her successful array of albums includes “Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” and “1989.” Her first few albums were set apart by her country voice and writing her own songs.

“When I’m older, I think it’s going to be really crazy to look back at these albums as diary entries from different times in my life,” she said in an interview with iTunes in 2009.

In recent years, Swift slowly moved past her country vibe and took on more of a pop twist.

The now 26-year-old’s latest album “1989” scored rave reviews when released in 2014.

Swift has won seven Grammy’s since 2008 “Everyone told me that my viewpoint was naive and overly optimistic,” Swift told Billboard following the release of the album. “But when we got those first-day numbers in, all of a sudden, I didn’t look so naive anymore.”

Many say 2016 is Taylor Swift’s big year for the Grammys.

• “1989” is up for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.

• “Bad Blood” is up for Best Music Video and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

• “Blank Space” is up for Best Pop Solo Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

Plus, she’ll be back on stage performing.

Will this be Swift’s biggest Grammys night ever? Stay tuned on Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. EST on CBS to find out.