Friday Cephalopod: All we’re missing is the spinach [Pharyngula]

I was reading this account of an encounter between three cuttlefish — a consort male escorting a female, who is challenged by an intruder — and the story was weirdly familiar.

The intruder’s pupil dilation and arm extension began the first of three brief bouts over the course of about four minutes, each with escalating levels of aggression. The consort male met the initial insult with his own arm extension and — as only color-changing animals like cuttlefish can do — a darkening of his face. Then both males flashed brightly contrasting zebra-like bands on their skin, heightening the war of displays further.

Bout number one would go to the intruder as the consort became alarmed, darkened his whole body, squirted a cloud of ink in the intruder’s face and jetted away.

For more than a minute, the intruder male tried to guard and cozy up to the female, but the consort male returned to try to reclaim his position with a newly darkened face and zebra banding. He inked and jetted around the pair to find an angle to intervene, but the intruder fended him off with more aggressive gestures including swiping at him with that fourth arm. Bout number two again went to the intruder.

Then the intruder crossed a line.

He grabbed the female and tried to position her body to engage in head-to-head mating, but she didn’t exhibit much interest, Allen said.

The intruder’s act brought the consort male charging back into the fray with the greatest aggression yet. He grabbed the intruder and twisted him around in a barrel roll three times, the most aggressive gesture in the cuttlefish arsenal. He also bit the other male. The female, meanwhile, swam out of the fracas.

The intruder fled, chased off by the victorious consort male. Study co-author Roger Hanlon, Brown University professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., moments later observed and filmed the consort swimming with the female. Allen was affiliated with the Brown-MBL Joint Program in Biological and Environmental Sciences while Akkaynak was studying in a joint Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute graduate program.

“Male 1 wins the whole thing because we saw him with the female later, and that’s really what matters,” Allen said. “It’s who ends up with her in the end.”

OMG, I thought, that is the plot of every Popeye cartoon ever. Popeye is strolling along with his goyl, Olive Oyl, when Brutus comes along and snatches her away, battering Popeye a few times in the process. Then Popeye makes a spinach-fueled comeback and beats up Brutus.

Read it again with that trope in mind. It’s uncanny.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2qLy7gL

I was reading this account of an encounter between three cuttlefish — a consort male escorting a female, who is challenged by an intruder — and the story was weirdly familiar.

The intruder’s pupil dilation and arm extension began the first of three brief bouts over the course of about four minutes, each with escalating levels of aggression. The consort male met the initial insult with his own arm extension and — as only color-changing animals like cuttlefish can do — a darkening of his face. Then both males flashed brightly contrasting zebra-like bands on their skin, heightening the war of displays further.

Bout number one would go to the intruder as the consort became alarmed, darkened his whole body, squirted a cloud of ink in the intruder’s face and jetted away.

For more than a minute, the intruder male tried to guard and cozy up to the female, but the consort male returned to try to reclaim his position with a newly darkened face and zebra banding. He inked and jetted around the pair to find an angle to intervene, but the intruder fended him off with more aggressive gestures including swiping at him with that fourth arm. Bout number two again went to the intruder.

Then the intruder crossed a line.

He grabbed the female and tried to position her body to engage in head-to-head mating, but she didn’t exhibit much interest, Allen said.

The intruder’s act brought the consort male charging back into the fray with the greatest aggression yet. He grabbed the intruder and twisted him around in a barrel roll three times, the most aggressive gesture in the cuttlefish arsenal. He also bit the other male. The female, meanwhile, swam out of the fracas.

The intruder fled, chased off by the victorious consort male. Study co-author Roger Hanlon, Brown University professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., moments later observed and filmed the consort swimming with the female. Allen was affiliated with the Brown-MBL Joint Program in Biological and Environmental Sciences while Akkaynak was studying in a joint Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute graduate program.

“Male 1 wins the whole thing because we saw him with the female later, and that’s really what matters,” Allen said. “It’s who ends up with her in the end.”

OMG, I thought, that is the plot of every Popeye cartoon ever. Popeye is strolling along with his goyl, Olive Oyl, when Brutus comes along and snatches her away, battering Popeye a few times in the process. Then Popeye makes a spinach-fueled comeback and beats up Brutus.

Read it again with that trope in mind. It’s uncanny.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2qLy7gL

X-ray tsunami in Perseus galaxy cluster

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An international team of scientists has discovered a vast wave of hot gas in the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster – a cluster some 11 million light-years across, containing thousands of galaxies – located about 240 million light years away. Like all galaxy clusters, most of the observable matter in the Perseus cluster takes the form of a pervasive gas averaging tens of millions of degrees. This gas is so hot it glows only in X-rays. The newly discovered wave of hot gas is being described as a “tsunami” to indicate its great size and its presence in this pervasive ocean of hot gas. The wave spans about 200,000 light-years, or about twice the diameter of our entire Milky Way galaxy.

To find the X-ray tsunami within the galaxy cluster, the scientists combined data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory with radio observations and computer simulations. A paper describing their findings appears in the June 2017 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The researchers say they believe the wave formed billions of years ago, after another, smaller galaxy cluster grazed the Perseus cluster and caused its vast supply of gas to slosh around an enormous volume of space. Lead scientist Stephen Walker at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said:

Perseus is one of the most massive nearby clusters and the brightest one in X-rays, so Chandra data provide us with unparalleled detail. The wave we’ve identified is associated with the flyby of a smaller cluster, which shows that the merger activity that produced these giant structures is still ongoing.

That is, it’s ongoing as of 200,000 years ago, which is an eye-blink on astronomical timescales.

A statement from the Chandra X-ray Observatory mentioned that Chandra observations have revealed a variety of structures in the gas of the Perseus galaxy cluster. These structures include vast bubbles blown by a supermassive black hole in the cluster’s central galaxy, NGC 1275, aka Perseus A.

And they include an enigmatic concave feature known to X-ray astronomers as the ‘bay.’

This X-ray image of the hot gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster was made from 16 days of Chandra observations. Researchers then filtered the data in a way that brightened the contrast of edges in order to make subtle details more obvious. An oval highlights the location of what these astronomers called the “bay,” an enormous wave found to be rolling through the hot gas. Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Stephen Walker et al.

The bay is what caught astronomers’ attention for this study. They realized its concave shape couldn’t have formed through bubbles launched by the NGC 1275’s central black hole. Radio observations using the Very Large Array in central New Mexico show that the bay structure produces no emission, the opposite of what scientists would expect for features associated with black hole activity. In addition, standard models of sloshing gas typically produced structures that arc in the wrong direction.

So what might have caused the bay structure. The Chandra statement explained how the scientists went about answering that question:

Walker and his colleagues turned to existing Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster to further investigate the bay. They combined a total of 10.4 days of high-resolution data with 5.8 days of wide-field observations at energies between 700 and 7,000 electron volts. For comparison, visible light has energies between about two and three electron volts.

The scientists then filtered the Chandra data to highlight the edges of structures and reveal subtle details.

Next, they compared the edge-enhanced Perseus image to computer simulations of merging galaxy clusters developed by John ZuHone, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The simulations were run on the Pleiades supercomputer operated by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.

Image via John ZuHone/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

One simulation seemed to explain the formation of the bay, these scientists said. This simulation is shown above. In it, gas in a large cluster similar to Perseus has settled into two components: a “cold” central region with temperatures around 54 million degrees Fahrenheit (30 million degrees Celsius) and a surrounding zone where the gas is three times hotter.

Then, in the simulation, a small galaxy cluster containing about 1,000 times the mass of the Milky Way skirts the larger cluster. It misses the cluster’s center by about 650,000 light years.

In the simulation, the flyby creates a gravitational disturbance that churns up the gas like cream stirred into coffee, creating an expanding spiral of cold gas. After about 2.5 billion years, when the gas has risen nearly 500,000 light years from the center, vast waves form and roll at its periphery for hundreds of millions of years before dissipating.

These waves are giant versions of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, which show up whenever there’s a velocity difference across the interface of two fluids, such as wind blowing over water. They can be found in the ocean, in cloud formations on Earth and other planets, in plasma near Earth, and even on the sun. Stephen Walker said:

We think the bay feature we see in Perseus is part of a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave, perhaps the largest one yet identified, that formed in much the same way as the simulation shows. We have also identified similar features in two other galaxy clusters, Centaurus and Abell 1795.

Bottom line: The nearby Perseus galaxy cluster is pervaded by extremely hot gas that glows in X-rays. Astronomers have found a giant wave within this gas, which they believe was caused with another, smaller galaxy cluster grazed the Perseus cluster.

Read more from NASA or Chandra

See photos: Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in earthly clouds

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2p3JB2O

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Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.

An international team of scientists has discovered a vast wave of hot gas in the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster – a cluster some 11 million light-years across, containing thousands of galaxies – located about 240 million light years away. Like all galaxy clusters, most of the observable matter in the Perseus cluster takes the form of a pervasive gas averaging tens of millions of degrees. This gas is so hot it glows only in X-rays. The newly discovered wave of hot gas is being described as a “tsunami” to indicate its great size and its presence in this pervasive ocean of hot gas. The wave spans about 200,000 light-years, or about twice the diameter of our entire Milky Way galaxy.

To find the X-ray tsunami within the galaxy cluster, the scientists combined data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory with radio observations and computer simulations. A paper describing their findings appears in the June 2017 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The researchers say they believe the wave formed billions of years ago, after another, smaller galaxy cluster grazed the Perseus cluster and caused its vast supply of gas to slosh around an enormous volume of space. Lead scientist Stephen Walker at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said:

Perseus is one of the most massive nearby clusters and the brightest one in X-rays, so Chandra data provide us with unparalleled detail. The wave we’ve identified is associated with the flyby of a smaller cluster, which shows that the merger activity that produced these giant structures is still ongoing.

That is, it’s ongoing as of 200,000 years ago, which is an eye-blink on astronomical timescales.

A statement from the Chandra X-ray Observatory mentioned that Chandra observations have revealed a variety of structures in the gas of the Perseus galaxy cluster. These structures include vast bubbles blown by a supermassive black hole in the cluster’s central galaxy, NGC 1275, aka Perseus A.

And they include an enigmatic concave feature known to X-ray astronomers as the ‘bay.’

This X-ray image of the hot gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster was made from 16 days of Chandra observations. Researchers then filtered the data in a way that brightened the contrast of edges in order to make subtle details more obvious. An oval highlights the location of what these astronomers called the “bay,” an enormous wave found to be rolling through the hot gas. Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Stephen Walker et al.

The bay is what caught astronomers’ attention for this study. They realized its concave shape couldn’t have formed through bubbles launched by the NGC 1275’s central black hole. Radio observations using the Very Large Array in central New Mexico show that the bay structure produces no emission, the opposite of what scientists would expect for features associated with black hole activity. In addition, standard models of sloshing gas typically produced structures that arc in the wrong direction.

So what might have caused the bay structure. The Chandra statement explained how the scientists went about answering that question:

Walker and his colleagues turned to existing Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster to further investigate the bay. They combined a total of 10.4 days of high-resolution data with 5.8 days of wide-field observations at energies between 700 and 7,000 electron volts. For comparison, visible light has energies between about two and three electron volts.

The scientists then filtered the Chandra data to highlight the edges of structures and reveal subtle details.

Next, they compared the edge-enhanced Perseus image to computer simulations of merging galaxy clusters developed by John ZuHone, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The simulations were run on the Pleiades supercomputer operated by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.

Image via John ZuHone/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

One simulation seemed to explain the formation of the bay, these scientists said. This simulation is shown above. In it, gas in a large cluster similar to Perseus has settled into two components: a “cold” central region with temperatures around 54 million degrees Fahrenheit (30 million degrees Celsius) and a surrounding zone where the gas is three times hotter.

Then, in the simulation, a small galaxy cluster containing about 1,000 times the mass of the Milky Way skirts the larger cluster. It misses the cluster’s center by about 650,000 light years.

In the simulation, the flyby creates a gravitational disturbance that churns up the gas like cream stirred into coffee, creating an expanding spiral of cold gas. After about 2.5 billion years, when the gas has risen nearly 500,000 light years from the center, vast waves form and roll at its periphery for hundreds of millions of years before dissipating.

These waves are giant versions of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, which show up whenever there’s a velocity difference across the interface of two fluids, such as wind blowing over water. They can be found in the ocean, in cloud formations on Earth and other planets, in plasma near Earth, and even on the sun. Stephen Walker said:

We think the bay feature we see in Perseus is part of a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave, perhaps the largest one yet identified, that formed in much the same way as the simulation shows. We have also identified similar features in two other galaxy clusters, Centaurus and Abell 1795.

Bottom line: The nearby Perseus galaxy cluster is pervaded by extremely hot gas that glows in X-rays. Astronomers have found a giant wave within this gas, which they believe was caused with another, smaller galaxy cluster grazed the Perseus cluster.

Read more from NASA or Chandra

See photos: Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in earthly clouds

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2p3JB2O

Today in science: 1st American in space

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., in his silver pressure suit with the helmet visor closed, prepares for his historic flight into space. Date of photo: April 20, 1961. Image via NASA

May 5, 1961. Just 23 days after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first person in space, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space. His historic flight began from Cape Canaveral in Florida lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds, before a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

During the rocket’s acceleration, Shepard experienced 6.3 g, or 6.3 times his normal weight, just before shut down of the Redstone engine, two minutes and 22 seconds after liftoff. Soon after, America’s first space traveler got his first view of the Earth and became one of the first astronauts to say:

What a beautiful view.

Alan Shepard in his flight suit

His spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic, 302 miles (486 km) from Cape Canaveral, where he and Freedom 7 were recovered by helicopter and transported to the awaiting aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain. After his flight, the astronaut said humorously:

It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

Alan Shepard was one of 110 test flight pilots who had volunteered for NASA’s manned space flight program – Project Mercury – in 1959. NASA selected him and six other pilots to be part of the project. All of the pilots went through a rigorous training regimen before NASA made a final selection. Of these magnificent seven, America’s first astronauts, NASA chose Shepard to become the first American to travel into space.

The first American to orbit Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962.

Click here for an early NASA film showing the type of training undergone by the first astronauts

Trajectory of Alan Shepard’s flight aboard Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961. Image via NASA.

NASA launched Alan Shepard into space against a backdrop of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had launched Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, aboard a spacecraft named Vostok (Russian for East). Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth, landing after a flight of one hour and 29 minutes. He became a hero in the Soviet Union and around the world.

Three weeks later, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard flew aboard a Mercury spacecraft, which he had named Freedom 7. Kurt Debus, who was NASA’s Launch Operations director at the time and who would go on to serve as the first director of the Kennedy Space Center, said years later:

We knew we were in a competitive situation. But, we never permitted the pressure to make us take risks that might endanger Shepard’s life or the success of the mission.

Just weeks after Shepard’s flight, the Space Race began to heat up. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a stirring speech before a joint session of Congress, in which he declared his intention to focus U.S. efforts on landing humans on the moon within a decade. Among other things, he said:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

The first human footsteps on the moon took place on July 20, 1969.

Read more from NASA: Shepard’s Mercury flight was first step on the long journey to Mars

The New Shepard crew capsule – named for Alan Shepard – separates from its propulsion module during an October 5, 2016 in-flight test. New Shepard is a reusable launch system – a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing suborbital manned rocket – being developed by Blue Origin as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. Flights with test passengers are planned for late 2017, with commercial passenger flights to begin in 2018. Image via Blue Origin / SpaceFlightNews.com.

Bottom line: Alan Shepard’s historic first American flight into space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft took place on May 5, 1961.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/21DhX68

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., in his silver pressure suit with the helmet visor closed, prepares for his historic flight into space. Date of photo: April 20, 1961. Image via NASA

May 5, 1961. Just 23 days after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first person in space, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space. His historic flight began from Cape Canaveral in Florida lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds, before a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

During the rocket’s acceleration, Shepard experienced 6.3 g, or 6.3 times his normal weight, just before shut down of the Redstone engine, two minutes and 22 seconds after liftoff. Soon after, America’s first space traveler got his first view of the Earth and became one of the first astronauts to say:

What a beautiful view.

Alan Shepard in his flight suit

His spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic, 302 miles (486 km) from Cape Canaveral, where he and Freedom 7 were recovered by helicopter and transported to the awaiting aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain. After his flight, the astronaut said humorously:

It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

Alan Shepard was one of 110 test flight pilots who had volunteered for NASA’s manned space flight program – Project Mercury – in 1959. NASA selected him and six other pilots to be part of the project. All of the pilots went through a rigorous training regimen before NASA made a final selection. Of these magnificent seven, America’s first astronauts, NASA chose Shepard to become the first American to travel into space.

The first American to orbit Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962.

Click here for an early NASA film showing the type of training undergone by the first astronauts

Trajectory of Alan Shepard’s flight aboard Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961. Image via NASA.

NASA launched Alan Shepard into space against a backdrop of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had launched Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, aboard a spacecraft named Vostok (Russian for East). Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth, landing after a flight of one hour and 29 minutes. He became a hero in the Soviet Union and around the world.

Three weeks later, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard flew aboard a Mercury spacecraft, which he had named Freedom 7. Kurt Debus, who was NASA’s Launch Operations director at the time and who would go on to serve as the first director of the Kennedy Space Center, said years later:

We knew we were in a competitive situation. But, we never permitted the pressure to make us take risks that might endanger Shepard’s life or the success of the mission.

Just weeks after Shepard’s flight, the Space Race began to heat up. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a stirring speech before a joint session of Congress, in which he declared his intention to focus U.S. efforts on landing humans on the moon within a decade. Among other things, he said:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

The first human footsteps on the moon took place on July 20, 1969.

Read more from NASA: Shepard’s Mercury flight was first step on the long journey to Mars

The New Shepard crew capsule – named for Alan Shepard – separates from its propulsion module during an October 5, 2016 in-flight test. New Shepard is a reusable launch system – a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing suborbital manned rocket – being developed by Blue Origin as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. Flights with test passengers are planned for late 2017, with commercial passenger flights to begin in 2018. Image via Blue Origin / SpaceFlightNews.com.

Bottom line: Alan Shepard’s historic first American flight into space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft took place on May 5, 1961.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/21DhX68

hanks for the measles yet again, Andy: Antivaxers swoop in like vultures to spread antivaccine misinformation among the Minnesota Somali immigrant community [Respectful Insolence]

Earlier this week, I took note of an ongoing measles outbreak in Minnesota. This outbreak affects the large Somali immigrant community there, and the reason for the outbreak is simple. Over the last decade, uptake of the MMR vaccine has plunged dramatically in the American-born children of the Somali community, from 92% to 42%, far below the level necessary for herd immunity. The reason for the drop is that antivaccine fear mongering has taken hold in the community, thanks to American antivaxers who targeted the community and Andrew Wakefield himself, who’s visited the community at least twice (once during a previous measles outbreak in 2011) to promote his discredited idea that MMR causes autism. What opened up the community to antivaccine ideas was an unexplained autism cluster in the community that was widely reported on in 2008 but has subsequently been found not to have been real, with American-born Somali children not having a higher prevalence of autism than the American children in the same area.

When last I discussed the outbreak, the number of children stricken with measles had reached 32. Now, four days later, the number is up to 41 and still climbing as it spreads beyond Hennepin County:

State officials reported seven new cases of measles Thursday, bringing the case count to 41 in an outbreak that has now reached its first adult and spread beyond the state’s Somali community.

Health officials also said two of the 41 patients had been vaccinated for the highly-contagious disease.

As the outbreak grows, it has also spread beyond Hennepin County. There are now two cases in Ramsey County and one in Crow Wing County. A case in Stearns County that was announced last week has since been ruled out as measles, health officials said.

State health officials expect there to be more cases and repeated their call for unvaccinated Minnesotans to get shots.

Basically, the measles outbreak appears to be gaining steam, and who knows how far it will spread and when it will finally burn itself out? It’s all because antivaxers saw an opportunity to “help” (in their eyes) parents from a Third World Country with little or no knowledge of autism. Unfortunately, their “help” consisted of taking the discredited pseudoscience of a British fraud named Andrew Wakefield and convincing large swaths of the Somali community that there really was good reason to worry that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The message took hold, along with many of the conspiracy theories that go along with it. The good news is that most Somalis in Minnesota don’t appear to be antivaccine, just anti-MMR. The bad news is that other antivaccine ideas are spreading, with more parents buying into antivaccine tropes, such as “too many too soon” and the idea that children are “overvaccinated.”

And right in the middle of this rapidly growing measles outbreak, who should appear to make things worse, but more antivaccine loons, led by Mark Blaxill? That’s exactly what happened on Sunday:

A national speaker who believes there are links between vaccines and autism told a group of Somali-American parents Sunday night that they should choose whether to vaccinate their children by weighing risks and benefits. He also said the government has lied in its previous vaccine research and that the danger of measles is overstated.

About 90 people met at Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis to hear Mark Blaxill, who is on the executive leadership team of the nonprofit Health Choice, present information on measles outbreaks, autism rates and what he said were the fraudulent results of a 2004 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the link between autism and vaccines, a theory that health officials have debunked.

“It should be the right of every parent and family to make their own decisions,” said Blaxill.

We’ve encountered Mark Blaxill on many occasions before over the years, for instance when he wrote a book with the now-deceased Dan Olmsted in which he laid down an amazing quantity of pseudoscience about polio, pesticides, and the poli vaccine. More recently, he appeared in Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree’s antivaccine propaganda opus VAXXED.

I was somewhat intrigued. No, I wasn’t intrigued by any of the claims and arguments that Blaxill made (although I will briefly touch on them). They’re nothing that I haven’t heard before many, many times. Rather, I was interested why Blaxill’s affiliation was not listed as Safeminds, an antivaccine group he’d been with for a very long time, although he’s still apparently involved with the antivaccine Canary Party. I had never heard of the group he’s with now, Health Choice, but its team includes a rogues’ gallery of antivaccine “luminaries.” It even includes Ginger Taylor! It also looks as though the group has a broader focus than just antivaccine activism:

Health Choice is a non-profit organization focusing on awareness of health choices, education on nutrition, healing, and prevention of chronic illnesses for children and adults. Our group was formed in response to a study published in Academic Pediatrics that represented 43% of children (32 million) in the US suffers from a chronic health condition. It is our belief that these rates will continue to increase if parents are not aware of the unhealthy choices in their lifestyle such as industrial processed foods, side effects of vaccine choices, and other environmental and lifestyle factors. We want to help Americans understand how to have a healthy lifestyle, return to a state of wellness and promote sound choices for their children.

Make no mistake, Health Choice is clearly antivaccine, but it appears to go beyond nust vaccines. It’s also based in Minnetonka, MN, which is outside of St. Paul and right where an antivaccine group would need to be to influence the Somalis, saying things like:

Blaxill — who says that he’s not anti-vaccine — also explained Minnesota law and how parents can opt out of vaccinations, providing forms and access to a notary public for parents. Several nonprofits advocating parental choice in vaccinations were present, including the Minnesota Vaccine Safety Council, Health Choice and National Health Freedom Coalition.

Ah, yes. The old “I’m not antivaccine” gambit, so beloved of, well, antivaccine loons everywhere. Of course Blaxill is antivaccine. He was associated with Safeminds and Age of Autism, two very antivaccine organizations. He spreads misinformation that falsely claims that the MMR causes autism. Basically, he walks the antivaccine walk and talks the antivaccine talk. I’ve already discussed the Minnesota Vaccine Safety Council before, particularly how it’s co-opted words like “freedom” and “rights” to conflate them with the desire of antivaccine parents to refuse vaccinations for their children.

Funny how he uses a favorite antivaccine trope about “bullying”:

“The vaccination schedule for children in this country has exploded since 1986,” Blaxill said. “And we simply do not know all of the possible negative side effects of these vaccines as a collective group of immunizations.”

And Blaxill said every citizen should know they do not have to feel pressure to vaccinate if they do not agree with the government’s immunization programs.

“I have seen bullying by government agencies across the country, especially targeting new immigrants, to make them feel they have no other choice but to go along with an immunization schedule for children that, in my opinion, is too many and too soon for many of these kids,” Blaxill said.

Worse, Blaxill’s message is finding fertile ground among the Somalis:

Attendees Sunday night had varied opinions about vaccines and autism, despite the fact that any link has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community.

Measles can be dangerous, said parent Ikram Mohamed, but the illness only lasts a short time.

In contrast, “Autism is not a curable disease,” said Mohamed, as several Somali-American mothers in the front row cheered her on.

Mohamed, a mother of five who said she had delayed vaccination in four of her children due to fears about autism, said doctors need to inform parents that they can delay or opt out of vaccines.

Here’s a news report on Blaxill’s talk:

Truly, Mark Blaxill, Andrew Wakefield, and the rest of the antivaccine activists preying upon this community are despicable and deluded, promoting pseudoscience that is harming the Somali community. The result has been this:

Since the outbreak was first detected three weeks ago, health investigators have contacted about 2,500 people who were exposed to known cases, including at child care centers, health care settings and household exposures. People who were exposed and were not vaccinated are being asked to stay home from work, school, child care and other public gatherings for three weeks.

The public health control effort has involved 70 state workers at a cost of $207,000, the department said. Some county and private health care organizations have also been involved in exposure follow-up efforts.

Measles is no longer naturally occurring in the United States. State health officials believe, the current outbreak was most likely caused by an infected person who had caught measles in a foreign country.

There’s little doubt that the outbreak will get worse before it gets better, and it’s the fault of American antivaxers, including Andrew Wakefield. Thanks, Andy and Mark. Thanks yet again for the measles. You bastards.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2pfSJO9

Earlier this week, I took note of an ongoing measles outbreak in Minnesota. This outbreak affects the large Somali immigrant community there, and the reason for the outbreak is simple. Over the last decade, uptake of the MMR vaccine has plunged dramatically in the American-born children of the Somali community, from 92% to 42%, far below the level necessary for herd immunity. The reason for the drop is that antivaccine fear mongering has taken hold in the community, thanks to American antivaxers who targeted the community and Andrew Wakefield himself, who’s visited the community at least twice (once during a previous measles outbreak in 2011) to promote his discredited idea that MMR causes autism. What opened up the community to antivaccine ideas was an unexplained autism cluster in the community that was widely reported on in 2008 but has subsequently been found not to have been real, with American-born Somali children not having a higher prevalence of autism than the American children in the same area.

When last I discussed the outbreak, the number of children stricken with measles had reached 32. Now, four days later, the number is up to 41 and still climbing as it spreads beyond Hennepin County:

State officials reported seven new cases of measles Thursday, bringing the case count to 41 in an outbreak that has now reached its first adult and spread beyond the state’s Somali community.

Health officials also said two of the 41 patients had been vaccinated for the highly-contagious disease.

As the outbreak grows, it has also spread beyond Hennepin County. There are now two cases in Ramsey County and one in Crow Wing County. A case in Stearns County that was announced last week has since been ruled out as measles, health officials said.

State health officials expect there to be more cases and repeated their call for unvaccinated Minnesotans to get shots.

Basically, the measles outbreak appears to be gaining steam, and who knows how far it will spread and when it will finally burn itself out? It’s all because antivaxers saw an opportunity to “help” (in their eyes) parents from a Third World Country with little or no knowledge of autism. Unfortunately, their “help” consisted of taking the discredited pseudoscience of a British fraud named Andrew Wakefield and convincing large swaths of the Somali community that there really was good reason to worry that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The message took hold, along with many of the conspiracy theories that go along with it. The good news is that most Somalis in Minnesota don’t appear to be antivaccine, just anti-MMR. The bad news is that other antivaccine ideas are spreading, with more parents buying into antivaccine tropes, such as “too many too soon” and the idea that children are “overvaccinated.”

And right in the middle of this rapidly growing measles outbreak, who should appear to make things worse, but more antivaccine loons, led by Mark Blaxill? That’s exactly what happened on Sunday:

A national speaker who believes there are links between vaccines and autism told a group of Somali-American parents Sunday night that they should choose whether to vaccinate their children by weighing risks and benefits. He also said the government has lied in its previous vaccine research and that the danger of measles is overstated.

About 90 people met at Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis to hear Mark Blaxill, who is on the executive leadership team of the nonprofit Health Choice, present information on measles outbreaks, autism rates and what he said were the fraudulent results of a 2004 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the link between autism and vaccines, a theory that health officials have debunked.

“It should be the right of every parent and family to make their own decisions,” said Blaxill.

We’ve encountered Mark Blaxill on many occasions before over the years, for instance when he wrote a book with the now-deceased Dan Olmsted in which he laid down an amazing quantity of pseudoscience about polio, pesticides, and the poli vaccine. More recently, he appeared in Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree’s antivaccine propaganda opus VAXXED.

I was somewhat intrigued. No, I wasn’t intrigued by any of the claims and arguments that Blaxill made (although I will briefly touch on them). They’re nothing that I haven’t heard before many, many times. Rather, I was interested why Blaxill’s affiliation was not listed as Safeminds, an antivaccine group he’d been with for a very long time, although he’s still apparently involved with the antivaccine Canary Party. I had never heard of the group he’s with now, Health Choice, but its team includes a rogues’ gallery of antivaccine “luminaries.” It even includes Ginger Taylor! It also looks as though the group has a broader focus than just antivaccine activism:

Health Choice is a non-profit organization focusing on awareness of health choices, education on nutrition, healing, and prevention of chronic illnesses for children and adults. Our group was formed in response to a study published in Academic Pediatrics that represented 43% of children (32 million) in the US suffers from a chronic health condition. It is our belief that these rates will continue to increase if parents are not aware of the unhealthy choices in their lifestyle such as industrial processed foods, side effects of vaccine choices, and other environmental and lifestyle factors. We want to help Americans understand how to have a healthy lifestyle, return to a state of wellness and promote sound choices for their children.

Make no mistake, Health Choice is clearly antivaccine, but it appears to go beyond nust vaccines. It’s also based in Minnetonka, MN, which is outside of St. Paul and right where an antivaccine group would need to be to influence the Somalis, saying things like:

Blaxill — who says that he’s not anti-vaccine — also explained Minnesota law and how parents can opt out of vaccinations, providing forms and access to a notary public for parents. Several nonprofits advocating parental choice in vaccinations were present, including the Minnesota Vaccine Safety Council, Health Choice and National Health Freedom Coalition.

Ah, yes. The old “I’m not antivaccine” gambit, so beloved of, well, antivaccine loons everywhere. Of course Blaxill is antivaccine. He was associated with Safeminds and Age of Autism, two very antivaccine organizations. He spreads misinformation that falsely claims that the MMR causes autism. Basically, he walks the antivaccine walk and talks the antivaccine talk. I’ve already discussed the Minnesota Vaccine Safety Council before, particularly how it’s co-opted words like “freedom” and “rights” to conflate them with the desire of antivaccine parents to refuse vaccinations for their children.

Funny how he uses a favorite antivaccine trope about “bullying”:

“The vaccination schedule for children in this country has exploded since 1986,” Blaxill said. “And we simply do not know all of the possible negative side effects of these vaccines as a collective group of immunizations.”

And Blaxill said every citizen should know they do not have to feel pressure to vaccinate if they do not agree with the government’s immunization programs.

“I have seen bullying by government agencies across the country, especially targeting new immigrants, to make them feel they have no other choice but to go along with an immunization schedule for children that, in my opinion, is too many and too soon for many of these kids,” Blaxill said.

Worse, Blaxill’s message is finding fertile ground among the Somalis:

Attendees Sunday night had varied opinions about vaccines and autism, despite the fact that any link has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community.

Measles can be dangerous, said parent Ikram Mohamed, but the illness only lasts a short time.

In contrast, “Autism is not a curable disease,” said Mohamed, as several Somali-American mothers in the front row cheered her on.

Mohamed, a mother of five who said she had delayed vaccination in four of her children due to fears about autism, said doctors need to inform parents that they can delay or opt out of vaccines.

Here’s a news report on Blaxill’s talk:

Truly, Mark Blaxill, Andrew Wakefield, and the rest of the antivaccine activists preying upon this community are despicable and deluded, promoting pseudoscience that is harming the Somali community. The result has been this:

Since the outbreak was first detected three weeks ago, health investigators have contacted about 2,500 people who were exposed to known cases, including at child care centers, health care settings and household exposures. People who were exposed and were not vaccinated are being asked to stay home from work, school, child care and other public gatherings for three weeks.

The public health control effort has involved 70 state workers at a cost of $207,000, the department said. Some county and private health care organizations have also been involved in exposure follow-up efforts.

Measles is no longer naturally occurring in the United States. State health officials believe, the current outbreak was most likely caused by an infected person who had caught measles in a foreign country.

There’s little doubt that the outbreak will get worse before it gets better, and it’s the fault of American antivaxers, including Andrew Wakefield. Thanks, Andy and Mark. Thanks yet again for the measles. You bastards.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2pfSJO9

Keep watching Eta Aquarid meteors

Tomorrow before dawn – May 6, 2017 – keep watching for Eta Aquariid meteors to streak the nighttime from about 3 a.m. until dawn. In a dark sky, especially at latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, the Eta Aquariids can produce up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour, or more. If the moon is out when you’re trying to watch 2017’s shower – assuming you’re watching in the peak post-dawn hours – the moon will likely be low in your western sky. To avoid moon glare, try blocking the moon from your view a hedgerow of trees, or some such thing. Otherwise, you want an open view of sky, to see the most meteors

Want to know when the moon sets in your sky? Click here and remember to check the moonrise and moonset box.

People always want to know about meteor shower radiants. It appears at different heights in the sky depending on your latitude, and the time of night you’re looking. Just be aware … you don’t need to know the whereabouts of the radiant to see the meteors. They’ll appear in any and all parts of the sky.

Still, if you think you’ll enjoy identifying the radiant for the Eta Aquarids, check out the chart below. It shows the sky scene from mid-northern latitudes just before the onset of morning twilight. The Y-shaped “Water Jar” is the most prominent feature in the otherwise inconspicuous constellation Aquarius. This distinctive Y-shaped pattern of stars closely aligns with the radiant point of the Eta Aquariid shower.

Click here for more on the Eta Aquariid radiant and why more Eta Aquarids are visible from more southerly latitudes.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

If you’re familiar with the Square of Pegasus, you can star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. But you don’t have to find a shower’s radiant point to see the meteors.

Eta Aquarid meteor caught by Mike Taylor Photography in 2014.

This meteor shower favors the Southern Hemisphere, and the tropical and subtropical latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Appreciably north of 40 degrees north latitude (the latitude of Denver, Colorado), the meteors are few and far between. The early morning twilight at far northern latitudes washes these Eta Aquariid meteors from the sky. At this time of the year, morning twilight comes at a later hour to southerly latitudes.

Once again, the best viewing time is roughly from about two hours to one hour before sunrise. Unsure of your sunrise time? Or when nautical twilight begins? Check our almamac page.

No matter where you live, the last hour of darkness just before dawn tends to feature the greatest number of meteors.

Data gathered by the International Meteor Organization has suggested a possible connection between Jupiter’s 12-year orbit and the intensity of the Eta Aquariid meteors. Jupiter may cause the Eta Aquariid meteor shower to put out a maximum number of meteors in 12-year periods, but to the best of our knowledge, astronomers aren’t expecting increased numbers of Eta Aquariid meteors in 2017.

Like most meteors in annual showers, the Eta Aquarids are debris left behind by a comet. Every year, as Earth passes through the orbital path of Comet Halley, bit and pieces shed by this comet burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere as Eta Aquariid meteors.

Bottom line: Did you see any Eta Aquarid meteors Friday morning? Saturday morning – May 6, 2017 – is a good time to watch, too. Try around 3 a.m. until dawn. Be sure to get away from city lights.

EarthSky’s meteor guide for 2017

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kq1Dzf

Tomorrow before dawn – May 6, 2017 – keep watching for Eta Aquariid meteors to streak the nighttime from about 3 a.m. until dawn. In a dark sky, especially at latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, the Eta Aquariids can produce up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour, or more. If the moon is out when you’re trying to watch 2017’s shower – assuming you’re watching in the peak post-dawn hours – the moon will likely be low in your western sky. To avoid moon glare, try blocking the moon from your view a hedgerow of trees, or some such thing. Otherwise, you want an open view of sky, to see the most meteors

Want to know when the moon sets in your sky? Click here and remember to check the moonrise and moonset box.

People always want to know about meteor shower radiants. It appears at different heights in the sky depending on your latitude, and the time of night you’re looking. Just be aware … you don’t need to know the whereabouts of the radiant to see the meteors. They’ll appear in any and all parts of the sky.

Still, if you think you’ll enjoy identifying the radiant for the Eta Aquarids, check out the chart below. It shows the sky scene from mid-northern latitudes just before the onset of morning twilight. The Y-shaped “Water Jar” is the most prominent feature in the otherwise inconspicuous constellation Aquarius. This distinctive Y-shaped pattern of stars closely aligns with the radiant point of the Eta Aquariid shower.

Click here for more on the Eta Aquariid radiant and why more Eta Aquarids are visible from more southerly latitudes.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

If you’re familiar with the Square of Pegasus, you can star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. But you don’t have to find a shower’s radiant point to see the meteors.

Eta Aquarid meteor caught by Mike Taylor Photography in 2014.

This meteor shower favors the Southern Hemisphere, and the tropical and subtropical latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Appreciably north of 40 degrees north latitude (the latitude of Denver, Colorado), the meteors are few and far between. The early morning twilight at far northern latitudes washes these Eta Aquariid meteors from the sky. At this time of the year, morning twilight comes at a later hour to southerly latitudes.

Once again, the best viewing time is roughly from about two hours to one hour before sunrise. Unsure of your sunrise time? Or when nautical twilight begins? Check our almamac page.

No matter where you live, the last hour of darkness just before dawn tends to feature the greatest number of meteors.

Data gathered by the International Meteor Organization has suggested a possible connection between Jupiter’s 12-year orbit and the intensity of the Eta Aquariid meteors. Jupiter may cause the Eta Aquariid meteor shower to put out a maximum number of meteors in 12-year periods, but to the best of our knowledge, astronomers aren’t expecting increased numbers of Eta Aquariid meteors in 2017.

Like most meteors in annual showers, the Eta Aquarids are debris left behind by a comet. Every year, as Earth passes through the orbital path of Comet Halley, bit and pieces shed by this comet burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere as Eta Aquariid meteors.

Bottom line: Did you see any Eta Aquarid meteors Friday morning? Saturday morning – May 6, 2017 – is a good time to watch, too. Try around 3 a.m. until dawn. Be sure to get away from city lights.

EarthSky’s meteor guide for 2017

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kq1Dzf

Nation’s largest wireless infrastructure provider linked to two worker deaths in eight days [The Pump Handle]

Cell tower worker Kris Runyon, 39, fell to his death on Tuesday, May 2 in Meridian, MS. Local news station WAPT reports the incident occurred at about 7 pm when Runyon was 228 feet off the ground on a cell tower. A co-worker witnessed the incident and the county coroner reported that Runyon was wearing safety equipment designed to prevent a fatal fall.

The industry news source WirelessEstimator.com reports that Mr. Runyon was employed by D&K Nationwide Communications. D&K is a subcontractor to MasTec, a business that provides engineering, construction, and maintenance services to communication firms. Mr. Runyon was likely involved in an LTE upgrade for AT&T. According to Wireless Estimator, Crown Castle owns the guyed tower on which Runyon was working. Crown Castle describes itself as the “nation’s largest provider of shared wireless infrastructure.”

Just eight days ago, the Dallas Morning News reported on the death of another communication tower worker. Isidro Morales, 49, was fatally injured on April 24 when a boom truck crane toppled onto a cell tower platform where he was working. The incident occurred at about 3 p.m. near Dallas’ Arts District.

WirelessEstimator.com reports that the tower at which Mr. Morales is used by T-Mobile and is also owned by Crown Castle. Mr. Morales was working for RMCI Construction, a firm that provides technical and construction services to the wireless telecommunication industry. (The company’s website has a tab labeled “safety” but it says: “Under construction. Check back soon!”)

The news reports of Mr. Morales’ and Mr. Runyon’s deaths, and the layers of companies involved in each of fatalities, reminded me of the 2012 joint investigation by PBS Frontline and ProPublica on cell tower deaths. The investigation examined the outsourcing model used by the communications industry and its implications for worker safety. AT&T, Verizon, and other wireless providers promise customers uninterrupted service which creates intense pressure on the subcontracted repair and maintenance crews to keep up. OSHA admits the difficulty it faces holding the cell service providers and tower owners responsible when worker injuries and fatalities occur — even when these firms create the hazards that contribute to the harm.

Two or three-person crews are dispatched to both nearby and remote locations. As one tower worker told me, “you just never know what you’re up against,” referring to the conditions of the towers they are expected to climb. There’s pressure to get the job as quickly as possible which can lead little time for all the necessary safety checks: looking for wear and tear on lanyards, the adequacy of anchors, defects on buckles and ladders, and the compatibility and body weight limits of the equipment.

In response to Frontline and ProPublica investigation, as well as its recognition of the significant number of communication tower deaths and injuries, the Labor Department and OSHA took several steps. In 2014, OSHA chief David Michaels sent a letter to employers in the communication tower industry. He noted that inspectors would

“be paying particular attention to contract oversight issues, and will obtain contracts in order to identify not only the company performing work on the tower, but the tower owner, carrier, and other responsible parties in the contracting chain.”

I’m interested in finding out the results of that effort. Was OSHA successful or stymied in holding responsible more than just the company directly performing the work?

Another initiative announced in 2014 is a joint industry-government communication worker apprenticeship program. Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP) includes both technical competencies and safety training.  To-date, five employers have registered for TIRAP and are recruiting apprentices. TIRAP’s executive board includes executives with several cellular carriers, as well as Richard Cullum with Crown Castle. Mr. Cullum’s areas of expertise include:

“operational standards and procedures related tower inspections, construction and maintenance repairs and for assuring internal and vendor compliance with such standards.”

Investigations into the work-related deaths of Kris Runyon and Isidro Morales are ongoing, both by OSHA but likely by the firms involved. I’ll be eager to learn how Crown Castle and the other companies determine what went wrong and how to share responsibility (or not) for the hazards that caused two men to lose their lives.

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2pLHkGA

Cell tower worker Kris Runyon, 39, fell to his death on Tuesday, May 2 in Meridian, MS. Local news station WAPT reports the incident occurred at about 7 pm when Runyon was 228 feet off the ground on a cell tower. A co-worker witnessed the incident and the county coroner reported that Runyon was wearing safety equipment designed to prevent a fatal fall.

The industry news source WirelessEstimator.com reports that Mr. Runyon was employed by D&K Nationwide Communications. D&K is a subcontractor to MasTec, a business that provides engineering, construction, and maintenance services to communication firms. Mr. Runyon was likely involved in an LTE upgrade for AT&T. According to Wireless Estimator, Crown Castle owns the guyed tower on which Runyon was working. Crown Castle describes itself as the “nation’s largest provider of shared wireless infrastructure.”

Just eight days ago, the Dallas Morning News reported on the death of another communication tower worker. Isidro Morales, 49, was fatally injured on April 24 when a boom truck crane toppled onto a cell tower platform where he was working. The incident occurred at about 3 p.m. near Dallas’ Arts District.

WirelessEstimator.com reports that the tower at which Mr. Morales is used by T-Mobile and is also owned by Crown Castle. Mr. Morales was working for RMCI Construction, a firm that provides technical and construction services to the wireless telecommunication industry. (The company’s website has a tab labeled “safety” but it says: “Under construction. Check back soon!”)

The news reports of Mr. Morales’ and Mr. Runyon’s deaths, and the layers of companies involved in each of fatalities, reminded me of the 2012 joint investigation by PBS Frontline and ProPublica on cell tower deaths. The investigation examined the outsourcing model used by the communications industry and its implications for worker safety. AT&T, Verizon, and other wireless providers promise customers uninterrupted service which creates intense pressure on the subcontracted repair and maintenance crews to keep up. OSHA admits the difficulty it faces holding the cell service providers and tower owners responsible when worker injuries and fatalities occur — even when these firms create the hazards that contribute to the harm.

Two or three-person crews are dispatched to both nearby and remote locations. As one tower worker told me, “you just never know what you’re up against,” referring to the conditions of the towers they are expected to climb. There’s pressure to get the job as quickly as possible which can lead little time for all the necessary safety checks: looking for wear and tear on lanyards, the adequacy of anchors, defects on buckles and ladders, and the compatibility and body weight limits of the equipment.

In response to Frontline and ProPublica investigation, as well as its recognition of the significant number of communication tower deaths and injuries, the Labor Department and OSHA took several steps. In 2014, OSHA chief David Michaels sent a letter to employers in the communication tower industry. He noted that inspectors would

“be paying particular attention to contract oversight issues, and will obtain contracts in order to identify not only the company performing work on the tower, but the tower owner, carrier, and other responsible parties in the contracting chain.”

I’m interested in finding out the results of that effort. Was OSHA successful or stymied in holding responsible more than just the company directly performing the work?

Another initiative announced in 2014 is a joint industry-government communication worker apprenticeship program. Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP) includes both technical competencies and safety training.  To-date, five employers have registered for TIRAP and are recruiting apprentices. TIRAP’s executive board includes executives with several cellular carriers, as well as Richard Cullum with Crown Castle. Mr. Cullum’s areas of expertise include:

“operational standards and procedures related tower inspections, construction and maintenance repairs and for assuring internal and vendor compliance with such standards.”

Investigations into the work-related deaths of Kris Runyon and Isidro Morales are ongoing, both by OSHA but likely by the firms involved. I’ll be eager to learn how Crown Castle and the other companies determine what went wrong and how to share responsibility (or not) for the hazards that caused two men to lose their lives.

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2pLHkGA

An early Eta Aquarid meteor

Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona caught this meteor on May 3, 2017. He said: “… Got this meteor this morning, just minutes before the light wiped out the camera.”

Bookmark this page. We’ll update it with photos from the EarthSky community of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, peaking on the mornings of May 5 and 6.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2pKTwHN

Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona caught this meteor on May 3, 2017. He said: “… Got this meteor this morning, just minutes before the light wiped out the camera.”

Bookmark this page. We’ll update it with photos from the EarthSky community of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, peaking on the mornings of May 5 and 6.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2pKTwHN