Nation

AGU: Pluto’s Icy Heart Makes Winds Blow

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Four images from NASA’s New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this global view of Pluto. Courtesy/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

AGU News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A “beating heart” of frozen nitrogen controls Pluto’s winds and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a new study. 

Pluto’s famous heart-shaped structure, named Tombaugh Regio, quickly became famous after NASA’s New Horizons mission captured footage of the dwarf planet in Read More

Udall: ‘It’s Past Time We Confront The Climate And Nature Crises’

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By TOM UDALL
U.S. Senator

For our survival, we can look to my father’s vision as an alternative to our current path.

In his 1963 book The Quiet Crisis, my father, former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, sounded the alarm about the creeping destruction of nature. “Each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership, we are all brief tenants on this planet,” he wrote. “By choice, or by default, we will carve out a land legacy for our heirs.”

Interior Secretary Stewart Udall

Today would have been Stewart Udall’s 100th birthday. And 57 years after

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Local Groundhog Predicts Chiefs Will Win Super Bowl

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This morning in the eastern part of the country, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow and so an early spring is predicted. However, here in Los Alamos the local groundhog seems more interested in predicting the winner of today’s super bowl, likely because his handlers are originally from Kansas. Courtesy photo

 

Groundhog Day News:

Punxsutawney is a borough in the south of Jefferson County, Penn., 84 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. It was incorporated in 1850.

With a population of 5,962 as of the 2010 census, Punxsutawney is the largest incorporated municipality in Jefferson County.

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Posts From The Road: Prada Marfa

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The Prada Marfa is a permanent art installation about 26 miles north of Marfa, Texas. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

The Prada Marfa displays Prada handbags and shoes. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos

Prada Marfa is a permanent art installation located about 26 miles north of Marfa, Texas. The structure is 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep. 

The freestanding building was built solely for this art project and was completed in 2005.

You could say that the project is located in the middle of nowhere as it sits alongside U.S. Highway 90 and

Read More

Benson: Gus, The Glow-In-The-Dark Gopher

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By JODY BENSON
Chair, Pajarito Group of the Sierra Club

Sunday, Feb. 2, demarcates the point in the calendar halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox.

In simpler times, (prior to anthropogenic green-house gases causing climate change with the resulting predictability of drought, fires, floods, and species extinction, but the rarely predictable weather) on this day—Groundhog Day—it would be up to the groundhog to partner with his shadow to determine the weather for the next six weeks.

Here in New Mexico, as many of you already know, we do not have groundhogs. Rather we have gophers. Read More

Heinrich, Udall Introduce Bill To Designate Cerro De La Olla Wilderness

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Cerro de la Olla (Pot Mountain) on the horizon above the Rio Grande Gorge in Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.  Courtesy photo

U.S. SENATE News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced legislation Friday to establish Cerro de la Olla Wilderness within the Río Grande del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico.

For hundreds of years, people of the Taos area have hunted, gathered herbs, and collected firewood on the flanks of Cerro de la Olla. This proposed wilderness Read More

National Commander Visits American Legion Post 90

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American Legion National Commander, William ‘Bill’ Oxford visits American Legion Post 90 Monday on Trinity Drive in Los Alamos. The Commander and his entourage arrived in the early afternoon and participated in a windshield tour of the technical areas of Los Alamos National Laboratory focusing on the historical aspect of the lab. The tour was followed by dinner at Post 90. Seated at the head table from left, American Legion National Historian James Mariner, New Mexico National Executive Committee Member Paul Espinoza, Commander Oxford at the speaker’s podium, Post 90 Commander Dan Mack, Read More

Q&A: Congressional District Three Candidate John Blair

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Democrat Candidate for CD3 John Blair

By CAROL A. CLARK
Los Alamos Daily Post
caclark@ladailypost.com

Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a series in which the Los Alamos Daily Post presents the same set of questions to each of the candidates running for Congressional District 3, which serves the northern half of New Mexico.

Democratic candidate John Blair provided the following answers:

POST: Why do you believe you are qualified to represent New Mexico in Congress?

BLAIR: I’m a native New Mexican, who grew up in our Congressional District, and I’ve spent the last 25 years fighting for New Mexicans Read More

Citizen Scientists Discover New Aurora Type Named ‘The Dunes’ Helping Understand Mysterious Layer Of Earth’s Atmosphere

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Auroral dunes photographed Oct 7, 2018 near Ruovesi, Finland. Photo by Rami Valonen

AGU News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new type of aurora called “the dunes” discovered by aurora chasers in Finland is helping scientists better understand a mysterious layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

The aurora – nighttime light displays in the atmosphere near Earth’s poles – take on various shapes and forms. They often appear as rippling curtains of green, red, or purple light. But in October 2018, amateur auroral photographers in Finland discovered a new auroral form they dubbed “the dunes”.

The dunes appear as thin Read More

United States Supreme Court Lifts Stay On Public Charge Rule: Implementation Will Impact People With Disabilities

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THE ARC News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Arc is deeply troubled at the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the Administration’s request for a stay of the nationwide injunction on the discriminatory public charge rule, allowing the implementation of the rule to move forward.

The public charge rule will have a dire impact on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) by allowing the federal government to deny admission into the U.S. based on a person’s disability and the use of vital programs like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing Read More