How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, despite being hobbled by the loss of critical guidance systems, has discovered a star with three planets only slightly larger than Earth.
The outermost planet orbits in the “Goldilocks” zone, a region where surface temperatures could be moderate enough for liquid water and perhaps life to exist.
The star, EPIC 201367065, is a cool red M-dwarf about half the size and mass of our own sun. At a distance of 150 light years, the star ranks among the top 10 nearest stars known to have transiting planets.
The star’s proximity means it’s bright enough for astronomers to study the planets’ atmospheres to determine whether they are like Earth’s atmosphere and possibly conducive to life.
“A thin atmosphere made of nitrogen and oxygen has allowed life to thrive on Earth. But nature is full of surprises. Many exoplanets discovered by the Kepler mission are enveloped by thick, hydrogen-rich atmospheres that are probably incompatible with life as we know it,” said Ian Crossfield, the University of Arizona astronomer who led the study.
A paper describing the find by astronomers at the University of Arizona, UC Berkeley, University of Hawaii, Manoa, and other institutions has been submitted to Astrophysical Journal and is freely available on the arXiv Web site.
The three planets are 2.1, 1.7 and 1.5 times the size of Earth. The outermost planet, at 1.5 Earth radii, is the smallest of the bunch and orbits far enough from its host star that it receives levels of light from its star similar to those received by Earth from the sun, said UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura, who discovered the planets Jan. 6 while conducting a computer analysis of the Kepler data NASA has made available to astronomers.
He calculated that the three planets receive 10.5, 3.2, and 1.4 times the light intensity of Earth.
“Most planets we have found to date are scorched. This system is the closest star with lukewarm transiting planets,” Petigura said. “There is a very real possibility that the outermost planet is rocky like Earth, which means this planet could have the right temperature to support liquid water oceans.”
University of Hawaii astronomer Andrew Howard noted that extrasolar planets are discovered by the hundreds these days, though many astronomers are left wondering if any of the newfound worlds are really like Earth. The newly discovered planetary system will help resolve this question, he said.
“We’ve learned in the past year that planets the size and temperature of Earth are common in our Milky Way galaxy,” Howard said. “We also discovered some Earth-size planets that appear to be made of the same materials as our Earth, mostly rock and iron.”
Kepler’s K2 mission
After Petigura found the planets in the Kepler light curves, the team quickly employed telescopes in Chile, Hawaii and California to characterize the star’s mass, radius, temperature, and age.
Two of the telescopes involved, the Automated Planet Finder on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, Calif., and the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are University of California facilities.
The next step will be observations with other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, to take the spectroscopic fingerprint of the molecules in the planetary atmospheres.
If these warm, nearly Earth-size planets have puffy, hydrogen-rich atmospheres, Hubble will see the telltale signal, Petigura said.
The discovery is all the more remarkable, he said, because the Kepler telescope lost two reaction wheels that kept it pointing at a fixed spot in space. Kepler was reborn in 2014 as “K2” with a clever strategy of pointing the telescope in the plane of Earth’s orbit, the ecliptic, to stabilize the spacecraft.
Kepler is now back to mining the cosmos for planets by searching for eclipses or “transits,” as planets pass in front of their host stars and periodically block some of the starlight.
“This discovery proves that K2, despite being somewhat compromised, can still find exciting and scientifically compelling planets,” said Petigura. “This ingenious new use of Kepler is a testament to the ingenuity of the scientists and engineers at NASA. This discovery shows that Kepler can still do great science.”
Kepler sees only a small fraction of the planetary systems in its gaze: those with orbital planes aligned edge-on to our view from Earth. Planets with large orbital tilts are missed by Kepler.
A census of Kepler planets that the team conducted in 2013 corrected statistically for these random orbital orientations, and concluded that one in five sun-like stars in the Milky Way Galaxy have Earth-size planets in the habitable zone.
Accounting for other types of stars as well, there may be 40 billion such planets galaxywide.
The original Kepler mission found thousands of small planets, but most of them were too faint and far away to assess their density and composition and thus determine whether they were high-density, rocky planets like Earth or puffy, low-density planets like Uranus and Neptune. Because the star EPIC-201 is nearby, these mass measurements are possible.
The host star, an M-dwarf, is less intrinsically bright than the sun, which means that its planets can reside close to the host-star and still enjoy lukewarm temperatures.
According to Howard, the system most like that of EPIC-201 is Kepler-138, an M-dwarf star with three planets of similar size, though none are in the habitable zone.
Co-authors of the paper include Joshua Schlieder of NASA Ames Research Center and colleagues from Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
December storm runoff and close coordination among federal and state agencies to take advantage of it will allow the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to increase expected water deliveries in 2015 to most customers of the State Water Project (SWP) from 10 percent of their requested amounts to 15 percent.
The new allocation replaces the initial allocation of 10 percent announced on Dec. 1.
With the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, operator of the Central Valley Project (CVP), DWR also submitted to state regulators today a drought contingency plan that highlights potential modifications to water quality rules and water rights permits that project operators may seek, depending on the weather.
The early submittal of the plan to the State Water Resources Control Board reflects an unprecedented level of coordination and planning among the state and federal agencies that either operate water projects based in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or regulate those projects.
Water from Clear Lake flows into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Tight coordination in recent months allowed the projects to store storm runoff without violating statutory and regulatory obligations to protect water quality and wildlife.
A few storms reached California last month, but there have been none since Dec. 21. It will take sustained levels of significant snow and rain to ease the drought, now in its fourth year. Water conservation by residents and businesses across the state remains critically important.
Since the December rains, more than 450,000 acre-feet of water have been moved into San Luis Reservoir, a critical south-of-Delta pool for both the SWP and the federal CVP. Both projects have ready access to this increased storage south of the Delta to meet their contractors’ needs.
The 29 public water agencies that take delivery of SWP supplies have requested 4,172,686 acre-feet. With the new allocation, contractors will receive 626,781 acre-feet.
If the contractors’ health and safety needs cannot be met by that allocation, DWR may increase deliveries to satisfy those needs. An acre-foot is roughly enough water to meet the needs of a family of four for one year.
Increased storage in the state’s major reservoirs gave DWR’s water managers confidence they can deliver the higher allocation.
Lake Oroville, the SWP’s principal reservoir, held 828,220 acre-feet on Nov. 21. The lake’s storage this week was 1,396,535 acre-feet, an increase of nearly 570,000 acre-feet.
Nevertheless, Oroville’s average storage for this date is more than 2,234,000 acre-feet, so the current storage is only 62 percent of average for mid-January.
DWR Director Mark Cowin said although allocations have been increased, the current divergence from average conditions due to the drought makes water conservation as important as ever. “We cannot stress enough,” he said, “that water conservation will be critical in stretching our supplies to the maximum extent possible throughout the coming year.”
Cowin noted that dry conditions have been the norm since the December storms. Northern California has had virtually no rain for the past three weeks, and the near-term weather forecast predicts little if any precipitation.
The Sierra snowpack, normally an important source of water during the summer and fall, today has a statewide water equivalent of only 4.9 inches, just 36 percent of normal for this time of year.
One year ago, DWR reduced its initial allocation to contractors of 5 percent to zero, the first ever such allocation for all SWP contractors. Storms in February and March allowed managers to increase the allocation back up to 5 percent.
The only previous zero allocation in the 54-year history of the SWP was for agriculture in 1991, but cities and others that year received 30 percent of requested amounts.
The final SWP allocation for calendar year 2013 was 35 percent of requested water amounts. In 2012, the final allocation was 65 percent. It was 80 percent in 2011, up dramatically from an initial allocation of 25 percent.
The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2007.
The last 100 percent allocation – difficult to achieve even in wet years because of Delta pumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish species – was in 2006.
California’s Water Year 2014 – overlapping with California’s driest calendar year of 2013 -- was the third driest in 119 years of record, based on statewide precipitation.
When Water Year 2014 ended on Sept. 30, the state’s reservoirs tracked by DWR collectively held only 60 percent of average storage for the date, or 41 percent of capacity.
Cumulative reservoir storage on the same date in the deep drought year of 1977 was five million acre-feet less, but California had 16 million fewer people in 1977.
Lake Oroville in Butte County is at 39 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity. Shasta Lake north of Redding, California’s and the CVP’s largest reservoir, is at 42 percent of its 4.5 million acre-foot capacity (66 percent of its historical average for mid-January). San Luis Reservoir currently holds 47 percent of its 2 million acre-feet capacity (65 percent of average for this time of year).
In January 2014, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. declared a drought state of emergency and issued statewide water conservation goals.
The state recorded 5,620 fires during calendar year 2014 resulting in 90,606 acres burned, about 1,000 fires more than the annual average of the preceding five years. Vast tracts of farmland have been fallowed and some communities have been short on drinking water.
Long-range weather forecasts are uncertain, and it’s not known whether this winter will alleviate or deepen the drought, leaving conservation – the wise, sparing use of water – as California’s most reliable drought management tool.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While state health officials are reporting a statewide increase in flu activity, in Lake County seasonal flu numbers aren't yet showing a spike.
Last week, the California Department of Public Health confirmed the state's first flu death of the 2014-15 season in a person under age 65 – an adult from Southern California.
State Health Officer Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health, said flu activity is beginning to increase statewide, and he encouraged people to get flu vaccinations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week that widespread influenza activity has been reported in 46 states, with 26 pediatric influenza deaths reported so far since September.
Influenza-related deaths in people under 65 years are reportable to state and local health officials. Outpatient flu cases, however, are not reportable.
In the 2013-14 flu season, California had 404 deaths, up from 113 deaths the previous year and the highest number since the 2009-10 flu pandemic year, when 542 people died of flu statewide, according to California Department of Public Health statistics.
Lake County had one flu death in the 2013-14 flu season, compared to no deaths since the 2009-10 pandemic flu season, based on state data.
Last year there also were four Lake County patients admitted to the intensive care unit due to flu, compared to none the previous year. There had been two ICU cases in the 2009-10 season and two in 2011-12.
Dr. Karen Tait, Lake County's health officer, said that so far this year, she's aware of only one reportable flu case – an individual under age 65 who was admitted to the intensive care unit – in Lake County.
She said she considers the case “suspect” because she hasn't yet seen the lab tests.
However, she expects it eventually will be a confirmed flu case.
While outpatient cases of flu are not reportable to public health – meaning local health care facilities aren't required to report such cases – one of the local hospitals shared its flu testing results through the end of calendar year 2014 with Lake County Public Health, “and we were not yet seeing an uptick in positive tests,” Tait said.
Tait said flu vaccination is recommended for everyone 6 months of age or older, but is particularly important for those at higher risk of severe influenza, including pregnant women, children under 5 years of age, the elderly, and persons with certain underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity, asthma and heart disease.
Vaccination of pregnant women also helps to protect infants too young to be vaccinated, Tait said.
Flu symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches and fatigue.
While the CDC reported that this year's flu vaccine isn't working as well as usual against flu viruses from the H3N2 influenza A strain – which has so far been the most common this season and has had the highest seasonal mortality levels of the past decade – health officials at the local, state and federal levels continue to urge people to be vaccinated.
Roughly half of the season’s H3N2 viruses that have been analyzed are “drifted,” with antigenic differences from this season’s vaccine H3N2 virus, Tait reported.
While the vaccine’s ability to prevent infection with drifted H3N2 virus may be diminished, Tait said immunizations given in past seasons against drifted viruses have still proved beneficial.
“Even if the vaccine isn't a perfect or good match, one can still expect some benefits from it in terms of reducing severity of illness,” Tait explained. “The mismatched strain has been the main circulating strain in other parts of the country, so time will tell if that will be the case here.”
Depending on the formulation, flu vaccines protect against three or four different flu viruses, Tait said. Even during a season when the vaccine is only partially protective against one flu virus, it can protect against the other viruses, which may become more common later in the season.
Whenever the county has a reportable flu case there are lab results done, and the typing of the virus – which can take time – will be good information for Lake County Public Health to have, Tait said.
“We will definitely be evaluating the overall impact of vaccination on this flu season compared to other seasons with better vaccine matches,” she said.
Tait said Lake County Public Health has enough of a vaccine supply for people who want to get the flu shot this year.
Officials also urge community members to practice good hand washing and other good health habits to stop the spread of germs.
Those habits include staying home and limiting contact with others when sick; covering your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing; washing hands thoroughly with soap and water, or using an alcohol-based rub; and avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
Lake County Public is offering low-cost immunizations on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 11 a.m., excluding holidays. Call Lake County Public Health at 707-263-1090 or 800-793-9291 for more information.
For more information about influenza, visit www.flu.gov .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Planning Commission is set to hold a workshop next week to review the city's master parks plan.
The meeting will be held beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive .
The commission sits jointly as the Clearlake Parks and Recreation Committee.
The city's adopted 2003-2013 Parks Master Plan was prepared by Roseville-based Foothill Associates.
The 95-page document “establishes the planning framework for the future acquisition, development, and implementation of the City park system. The Goals and Policies in this master plan provide specific guidance on critical master plan implementation issues so that all aspects of the park system development and operation will be consistent with the agreed upon Goals and Policies.”
The master plan covers nearly 40 acres of city parks: Austin Park and Haverty Field, 22.5 acres; Highland Park, 1.5 acres; and Redbud Park and boat launch, 15.7 acres.
In addition, it looks at other park resources around the county, from nearby Anderson Marsh State Historic Park to Clear Lake State Park, the Cache Creek Management Area and the Mendocino National Forest, Cow Mountain, Boggs Mountain Demonstration State Forest, Blue Lakes and more.
The plan also gives guidance on park acquisition, planning and the development process.
The Clearlake Planning Commission and Parks and Recreation Committee's membership is composed of Chairman Carl Webb, Vice Chair Cheryl Hutchinson, and commissioners Bill Perkins, Alvaro Valencia and Mike Vandiver.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Mendocino College Lake Center will host “Welcome Week” events for all Mendocino College students, faculty and staff on Wednesday, Jan. 21.
Community members are invited to attend and participate in the activities, which will be held at 2565 Parallel Drive, Lakeport.
A free hot dog barbecue will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. The Lake County Friends of Mendocino College and members of the Lakeport Kiwanis Club will prepare and host this portion of the welcome event.
The Mendocino College Foundation also will host a scholarship application workshop for all students from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Round Room.
This informative workshop, presented by scholarship coordinator Lana Eberhard, will provide helpful hints for writing a winning scholarship essay as well as tips and requirements for obtaining letters of recommendation.
Mendocino College is offering a variety of courses at the Lake Center this spring and the staff and faculty want to share all that they have to offer.
Come and meet the students who take advantage of these opportunities and sign up for classes or find out more information.
Classes begin on Jan. 20.
For more information, contact Mendocino College’s Lake Center at 707-264-4944 or the Mendocino College Foundation office at 707-467-1018.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department has arrested two juveniles in connection to threatening phone calls made to Clear Lake High School and suspicious packages found at the school Wednesday evening.
Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen said two 17-year-old brothers were arrested in the case, which police began investigating on Wednesday.
Because of their ages, the names of the boys were not released by police.
Rasmussen said the threatening phone calls made locally also appear to be related to bomb threats made this week against other schools inside and outside of California – including the high school in Marysville, Wash., that was the site of a fatal shooting last year.
However, he cautioned the investigation remains under way and information is continuing to be developed.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
At 2 p.m. Wednesday Lakeport Police officers were dispatched to Clear Lake High School to investigate the report of two calls from a person threatening to come to the school with an Uzi machine gun and to drop chemicals and bombs on the school at 5 p.m., Rasmussen said.
Lakeport Police met with the high school administration and began a criminal investigation, according to Rasmussen.
Police determined that the caller’s telephone number was a Skype default phone number used on outbound calls where callers do not have a Skype caller ID in place, Rasmussen said.
The number was assigned to Bakersfield, with no address. Rasmussen said the number also has been associated with a variety of scams and other harassing communications and is frequently used by cyber criminals for malware and other scams.
Rasmussen said the investigation continued throughout Wednesday afternoon and evening. His agency also provided the information on this case to the Northern California Regional Terrorism Threat Assessment Center.
At approximately 8:42 p.m. Wednesday, Lakeport Police officers again were dispatched to Clear Lake High School to investigate the report of a subject acting suspicious around the Marge Alakszay Center, Rasmussen said.
He said the reporting party checked the specific area where they saw the subject and located three boxes that were suspiciously wrapped with plastic and black tape.
Lakeport Police responded and located the packages. At that time, police requested assistance from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Lakeport Fire Department, Lakeport Public Works Department and the Napa County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad, Rasmussen said.
The campus was cleared, sealed and secured, and police officers waited for the arrival of the bomb squad, according to Rasmussen.
Rasmussen said the bomb squad arrived at approximately 11:40 p.m. and immediately began its assessment and investigation of the suspicious packages, which concluded in the packages being rendered safe by controlled explosion at 1:20 a.m. Thursday.
Followup investigation of the packages determined that they were inert, Rasmussen said.
Items of evidence were located in the packages that identified a Lakeport male juvenile and former student of Clear Lake High School as the suspect, Rasmussen said.
Lakeport Police officers immediately began completing an affidavit for search warrant for the suspect’s residence in north Lakeport, Rasmussen said. At approximately 7:43 a.m. a Lake County Superior Court judge authorized the search warrant.
At 8:15 a.m. Thursday, Lakeport Police officers and Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputies served the search warrant at the residence, where the suspect and his two juvenile brothers were detained for investigation, Rasmussen said.
Officers located evidence in the residence and suspect statements that confirmed that the suspicious packages found at the high school were made at the residence and placed on the school campus by one of the brothers, according to Rasmussen.
He said evidence indicated that one of the brothers was not involved with the packages and he later was released.
The original suspect and the second brother were arrested for charges including felony counts of terrorist threats, threatening to place a bomb at the location and placing a false bomb at the location, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a lethal weapon on school grounds, Rasmussen said.
The brothers, both 17, were transported to the Lake County Probation Juvenile Hall where Rasmussen said they were booked shortly before 10 a.m. Thursday.
In addition to the investigation involving Clear Lake High, Rasmussen said police continued to investigate the original phone call threats and have now determined that schools in Oceanside, Calif., and Marysville, Wash. – along with one or more additional locations in the United States – received similar bomb threat calls Wednesday and Thursday from the same Skype telephone number.
“We are in contact with an investigator from the Marysville, Wash., Police Department regarding their investigation and believe that the threatening calls here are related to the ones there and in Oceanside, Calif.,” Rasmussen said.
Media reports said Marysville-Pilchuck High School was evacuated on Wednesday following a bomb scare, with additional threats phoned in Thursday morning. The school was the scene of a fatal shooting in October in which a freshman killed four students and then himself.
Oceanside High School, which received a threat Wednesday afternoon – after students had left – was put under modified lockdown and searched, with police finding no suspicious objects, according to news reports.
Rasmussen said the investigation regarding the phone threats and placement of packages is ongoing and police will provide further updates when available.
“We have items of seized evidence that will need to be examined for fingerprints and electronic evidence including a computer, video camera and cellular telephone that need examined for further leads,” Rasmussen said.
He added, “We want the public to be aware that we take these incidents very seriously as the safety of our schools is of the highest priority.”
Throughout the investigation, Rasmussen said the Lakeport Police Department maintained constant communication with the Lakeport Unified School District administration and city of Lakeport administration to ensure appropriate resources and additional emergency response if necessary.
The Lakeport Unified School District has always been prepared and trained for school lockdowns and evacuations if needed, Rasmussen said.
He said the Lake County Probation Department provided three peace officers to assign to the Lakeport Unified School District on Thursday, along with increased presence by the Lakeport Police Department.
“We sincerely thank our Lakeport Unified School District partners and local and regional law enforcement partners for their assistance in this investigation,” he said.