A Caltrans brush clearing project along Highway 20 in Lucerne, Calif., has not just improved the view but made lake monitoring easier. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. LUCERNE, Calif. – The view of Clear Lake along Highway 20 in the Lucerne area has opened up thanks to a Caltrans brush clearing project.
Caltrans District 1 Public Information Officer Cori Reed said the project area included both ends of the town.
“The overall goal is to improve the aesthetics and to make it easier to monitor the lake water level for flooding issues,” Reed said.
She said Caltrans’ Lakeport maintenance crew led the work.
Crews were at work throughout December along the lakeshore, cutting trees and bushes and hauling away the cut vegetation. Work started on the west side of town before moving to the east side.
Reed said the work on both ends of town is now complete.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a mix of big dogs that are ready for adoption this week.
The dogs offered adoption this week include mixes of Akita, German Shepherd, pit bull, shepherd and terrier.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 6, ID No. 9235. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull
This female pit bull terrier has a short white and brown coat.
Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.
She’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 9235.
This female pit bull is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 9230. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull
This female pit bull has a short brown coat.
She’s in kennel No. 20, ID No. 9230.
This female German Shepherd-Akita mix is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 9219. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. German Shepherd-Akita mix
This female German Shepherd-Akita mix has a short black and tan coat.
She’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 9219.
This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 9082. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short gray and white coat.
Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.
She’s in kennel No. 23, ID No. 9082.
This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 9149. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull
This male pit bull terrier has a short tan and white coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 25, ID No. 9149.
This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 31, ID No. 9160. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull
This male pit bull terrier has a short brown and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 31, ID No. 9160.
This male terrier-shepherd mix is in kennel No. 31, ID No. 9222. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Terrier-shepherd mix
This male terrier-shepherd mix has a short brown coat.
Shelter staff said he is good with other dogs.
He’s in kennel No. 31, ID No. 9222.
This male shepherd mix is in kennel No. 32, ID No. 9214. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Shepherd mix
This male shepherd mix has a short tricolor and brindle coat.
Shelter staff said he is good with female dogs.
He’s in kennel No. 32, ID No. 9214.
This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 33, ID No. 9197. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short gray and white coat.
Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.
She’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 9197.
This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 34, ID No. 9198. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.
Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.
She’s in kennel No. 34, ID No. 9198.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The fast radio burst FRB 121102 was detected by a new recording system developed by the Breakthrough Listen project and mounted on the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The burst’s multiple bright peaks may be created by the burst emission process itself or imparted by the intervening plasma near the source. Image design by Danielle Futselaar.
BERKELEY, Calif. – Recent observations of a mysterious and distant object that emits intermittent bursts of radio waves so bright that they're visible across the universe provide new data about the source but fail to clear up the mystery of what causes them.
The observations by the Breakthrough Listen team at UC Berkeley using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia show that the fast radio bursts from this object, called FRB 121102, are nearly 100 percent linearly polarized, an indication that the source of the bursts is embedded in strong magnetic fields like those around a massive black hole.
The measurements confirm observations by another team of astronomers from the Netherlands, which detected the polarized bursts using the William E. Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Both teams will report their findings during a media briefing on Jan. 10 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C. The results are detailed in a combined paper to be published online the same day by the journal Nature.
Fast radio bursts are brief, bright pulses of radio emission from distant but so far unknown sources, and FRB 121102 is the only one known to repeat: more than 200 high-energy bursts have been observed coming from this source, which is located in a dwarf galaxy about 3 billion light years from Earth.
The nearly 100 percent polarization of the radio bursts is unusual, and has only been seen in radio emissions from the extreme magnetic environments around massive black holes, such as those at the centers of galaxies.
The Dutch and Breakthrough Listen teams suggest that the fast radio bursts may come from a highly magnetized rotating neutron star – a magnetar – in the vicinity of a massive black hole that is still growing as gas and dust fall into it.
The short bursts, which range from 30 microseconds to 9 milliseconds in duration, indicate that the source could be as small as 10 kilometers across – the typical size of a neutron star.
Other possible sources are a magnetar interacting with the nebula of material shed when the original star exploded to produce the magnetar; or interactions with the highly magnetized wind from a rotating neutron star, or pulsar.
"At this point, we don't really know the mechanism. There are many questions, such as, how can a rotating neutron star produce the high amount of energy typical of an FRB?" said UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Vishal Gajjar of Breakthrough Listen and the Berkeley SETI Research Center.
Gajjar will participate in the media briefing with three members of the Dutch ASTRON team: Daniele Michilli and Jason Hessels of the University of Amsterdam and Betsey Adams of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute.
"This result is an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of the Breakthrough Listen instrumentation and the synergies between SETI and other types of astronomy," said Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and of the Breakthrough Listen program. "We look forward to working with the international scientific community to learn more about these enigmatic and dynamic sources.”
Are FRBs signals from advanced civilizations?
Another possibility, though remote, is that the FRB is a high-powered signal from an advanced civilization. Hence the interest of Breakthrough Listen, which looks for signs of intelligent life in the universe, funded by $100 million over 10 years from internet investor Yuri Milner.
"Although it's extremely unlikely that pulses we have detected from FRB 121102 were transmitted by ETs, we would like to test various ET hypotheses for the FRB type transient signals in general," Gajjar said.
Breakthrough Listen has to date recorded data from a dozen FRBs, including FRB 121102, and plans eventually to sample all 30-some known sources of fast radio bursts.
"We want a complete sample so that we can conduct our standard SETI analysis in search of modulation patterns or narrow-band signals – any kind of information-bearing signal emitted from their direction that we don't expect from nature," he said.
Breakthrough Listen allotted tens of hours of observational time on the Green Bank Telescope to recording radio emissions from FRB 121102, and last August 26 detected 15 bursts over a relatively short period of five hours. They analyzed the two brightest of these and found that the radio waves were nearly 100 percent linearly polarized.
The team plans a few more observations of FRB 121102 before moving on to other FRB sources. Gajjar said that they want to observe at higher frequencies – up to 12 gigahertz, versus the present Green Bank observations in the 4-8 GHZ range – to see if the energy drops off at higher frequencies. This could help narrow the range of possible sources, he said.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A fire did damage to a room at the Skylark Motel in Lakeport on Friday evening.
The fire was reported at 5:25 p.m. at the motel, located at 1120 N. Main St.
Lakeport Fire Protection District Chief Doug Hutchison said the fire was located in one of the units in the motel’s single-story section.
He said firefighters were able to knock the fire in the unit down in less than five minutes.
Initially, Kelseyville Fire and Northshore Fire were asked to respond but were canceled before their arrival, Hutchison said. A Cal Fire engine in the area also responded but was returned after it was determined it wasn’t needed.
Minimal damage was done to the unit, and no other rooms were damaged, Hutchison said.
Firefighters remained on scene until the incident was terminated at 7 p.m. Hutchison said they were checking to see if the fire had extended into other areas, and made sure it hadn’t gotten into the attic.
There were no injuries, he said.
Exactly what led to the room fire remains under investigation by Lakeport Fire and Lakeport Police, Hutchison said.
“It’s possible that it was intentional but we’re not entirely sure,” he said.
He said he hadn’t interviewed the individual who may have been responsible, noting that would be up to police.
Hutchison said the Skylark Motel remained open and functioning following the incident.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Library’s Know Lake County features Supervisor Moke Simon on Saturday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m.
The free program will be a verbal tour of “Beautiful Lake County through Moke Simon’s Eyes” as he talks about tribal history, Middletown and life in Lake County.
The public is invited to listen and to meet Simon who has completed his first year as supervisor of District 1.
Simon, the first American Indian elected as a county supervisor in Lake County, also serves as tribal chairman of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians.
Simon and the Middletown Rancheria performed extensive fire relief work following 2015’s Valley fire.
Refreshments will be provided by the Friends of the Lake County Library.
The library is located at 1425 N. High St. For more information call 707-263-8817.
The monthly Know Lake County lectures feature speakers from a wide array of organizations and disciplines, each representing some aspect of Lake County.
Lake County PEG TV records each Know Lake County program, broadcasts it on cable Channel 8, posts it on YouTube and creates DVDs that become part of the Lake County Library’s circulation collection.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public’s assistance in locating a runaway juvenile.
Avril Wright, 15, was last seen at Upper Lake High School on Thursday at noon and is believed to have run away.
The sheriff’s office said she was reported to be seen leaving the high school voluntarily with two males wearing baseball caps and driving a four-door silver Hyundai.
Avril is believed to be in the Santa Rosa area. She was was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, blue jeans and boots.
The teen also ran away in December and was later located and returned home.
If you know the whereabouts of Avril Wright please notify the Lake County Sheriff's Office at 707-263-2690.
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