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CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The Clearlake Oaks/Glenhaven Business Association is sponsoring the 29th Annual Catfish Derby, from noon Friday, May 18, through noon Sunday, May 20.
Known by many as “the biggest catfish tournament west of the Mississippi,” the event features an Adult Derby and a Kids Derby for those under 16 years old.
The grand prize winner of the Adult Derby will receive a cash prize of $4,000 – based on minimum of 350 adult entries – and the winner of the Kids Derby will receive a Nintendo Wii System. In addition, each child entrant will receive a commemorative t-shirt.
Derby headquarters will be located at the Clearlake Oaks Fire Station, 12655 East Highway 20, and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Derby headquarters also will be open for preregistration from noon to 11 p.m. on Thursday, May 17. No registrations will be accepted after 11 p.m. on Friday.
Registration for the Adult Derby is $45 – $40 for those who preregister by Thursday. Registration for the Kids Derby is $10.
Proceeds from the event benefit community projects.
For applications, call 888-CL-DERBY, 707-998-1006; for information, 707-998-3795, www.clearlakeoaks.org .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In the next several weeks a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) will be sampling the sediments under Clear Lake to help answer a wide range of questions about prehistoric Lake conditions, ancient plant and insect life and the possible effects of global warming on Clear Lake and its surrounding environment.
The UCB scientists will use a floating sediment core drill rig out in the center of the Upper Arm of the Lake to extract two 3-inch diameter cores about 400 foot long.
These cores should contain sediments as old as 130,000 years, about one-quarter the estimated age of Clear Lake.
This type of sediment sampling has been done in the past and has yielded evidence ranging from the types of prehistoric plant communities to recent human impacts on the Lake.
These new cores will be done in the same locations as previous work but will focus on the older profile of the Lake’s history.
The sediment coring equipment will be assembled in Lakeport on April 25 and coring operations will start April 27. The floating coring rig will be located from one to three miles west southwest of Lucerne and will operate around the clock for seven to 10 days.
Due to safety issues, boaters need to keep clear of the operations and not disturb the work crews.
The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
The authors, led by Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology in the Department of Environmental Health, write that the new research provides "convincing evidence" of the link between imidacloprid and the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which adult bees abandon their hives.
The study, “In Situ Replication of Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder,” will appear in the June issue of the Bulletin of Insectology.
"The significance of bees to agriculture cannot be underestimated," said Lu. "And it apparently doesn't take much of the pesticide to affect the bees. Our experiment included pesticide amounts below what is normally present in the environment."
Pinpointing the cause of the problem is crucial because bees – beyond producing honey – are prime pollinators of roughly one-third of the crop species in the U.S., including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and livestock feed such as alfalfa and clover.
Massive loss of honeybees could result in billions of dollars in agricultural losses, experts estimate.
Lu and his co-authors hypothesized that the uptick in CCD resulted from the presence of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid introduced in the early 1990s.
Bees can be exposed in two ways: through nectar from plants or through high-fructose corn syrup beekeepers use to feed their bees. Since most U.S.-grown corn has been treated with imidacloprid, it's also found in corn syrup.
In the summer of 2010, the researchers conducted an in situ study in Worcester County, Mass. aimed at replicating how imidacloprid may have caused the CCD outbreak.
Over a 23-week period, they monitored bees in four different bee yards; each yard had four hives treated with different levels of imidacloprid and one control hive. After 12 weeks of imidacloprid dosing, all the bees were alive.
But after 23 weeks, 15 out of 16 of the imidacloprid-treated hives – 94 percent – had died. Those exposed to the highest levels of the pesticide died first.
The characteristics of the dead hives were consistent with CCD, said Lu; the hives were empty except for food stores, some pollen, and young bees, with few dead bees nearby.
When other conditions cause hive collapse – such as disease or pests – many dead bees are typically found inside and outside the affected hives.
Strikingly, said Lu, it took only low levels of imidacloprid to cause hive collapse – less than what is typically used in crops or in areas where bees forage.
Scientists, policymakers, farmers and beekeepers, alarmed at the sudden losses of between 30 percent and 90 percent of honeybee colonies since 2006, have posed numerous theories as to the cause of the collapse, such as pests, disease, pesticides, migratory beekeeping or some combination of these factors.
Last month, when the sun unleashed the most intense radiation storm since 2003, peppering satellites with charged particles and igniting strong auroras around both poles, a group of high school students in Bishop, California, knew just what to do.
They launched a rubber chicken.
The students inflated a helium balloon and used it to send the fowl, named "Camilla," to an altitude of 120,000 ft where she was exposed to high-energy solar protons at point blank range.
"We equipped Camilla with sensors to measure the radiation," said Sam Johnson (age 16) of Bishop Union High School's Earth to Sky student group1. "At the apex of our flight, the payload was above 99 percent of Earth's atmosphere."
Launching a rubber chicken into a solar storm might sound strange, but the students had good reason: They're doing an astrobiology project.
"Later this year, we plan to launch a species of microbes to find out if they can live at the edge of space," explains team member Rachel Molina (age 17). "This was a reconnaissance flight."
Many space enthusiasts are already familiar with Camilla. She's the mascot of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
With help from her keeper, Romeo Durscher of Stanford University, Camilla corresponds with more than 20,000 followers on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, filling them in on the latest results from NASA's heliophysics missions.
"Camilla's trip to the stratosphere2 gave us a chance to talk to thousands of people about the radiation storm," said Durscher.
On the outside of her space suit – knitted by Cynthia Coer Butcher from Blue Springs, Missouri) – Camilla wore a pair of radiation badges, the same kind medical technicians and nuclear workers wear to assess their dosages.
Camilla actually flew twice – once on March 3 before the radiation storm and again on March 10 while the storm was in full swing. This would give the students a basis for comparison.
On March 3, during the calm before the storm, the Earth to Sky team assisted by a local class of fifth graders attached Camilla to the payload, inflated the balloon, and released the "stack" (balloon, parachute and payload) into a cloudless blue sky just before local noon.
"It was a beautiful lift-off," said Amelia Koske-Phillips (age 15), the team's payload manager and "launch boss."
During the two and a half hour flight, Camilla spent approximately 90 minutes in the stratosphere where temperatures (-40 to -60 C) and air pressures (1% sea level) are akin to those on the planet Mars. The balloon popped, as planned, at an altitude of about 40 km and Camilla parachuted safely back to Earth. The entire payload was recovered intact from a landing site in the Inyo Mountains.
The payload, a modified department store lunchbox, carried four cameras, a cryogenic thermometer, and two GPS trackers. Seven insects and two dozen sunflower seeds also rode along to test their response to near-space travel. The seeds were a variety known to gardeners as "Sunspot" (Helianthus annuus).
One week later, on March 10, the storm was underway, and the students repeated the experiment.
Camilla flew into one of the strongest proton storms in years. The source of the radiation was sunspot AR1429, which unleashed more than 50 solar flares during the first two weeks of March. At the peak of the storm, March 7-10, charged particles hitting Earth's upper atmosphere deposited enough heat in only three days to power every residence in New York City for two years.
At the moment of Camilla's launch on March 10, Earth-orbiting satellites reported proton counts ~30,000 times normal.
"The profile of the second flight was almost identical to the first--perfect for our experiment," adds Johnson. "We recovered the payload from a landing site near Deep Springs, Calif."
The fifth grade assistants are now planting the sun flower seeds to see if radiated seeds produce flowers any different from seeds that stayed behind on Earth.
They're also pinning the corpses of the insects – none survived – to a black "Foamboard of Death," a rare collection of bugs that have been to the edge of space.
Meanwhile, Camilla's radiation badges have been sent to a commercial laboratory for analysis.
The students say they are looking forward to the data and maybe – just maybe – sending Camilla back for more.
Educators are encouraged to follow Camilla on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Unemployment in California and in Lake County increased slightly in March as employment figures for the rest of the country appeared to show improvement.
The California Employment Development Department’s latest report, released Friday, showed that the state’s unemployment increased slightly to 11 percent in March, rising from 10.9 percent in February. The state’s March 2011 unemployment rate was 11.9 percent.
Lake County’s unemployment rate last month was 16.8 percent, up from the revised February rate of 16.5 percent but down from 18.1 percent in March 2011, according to Dennis Mullins of the Employment Development Department’s North Coast Region Labor Market Information Division in Eureka.
California derives its unemployment rate from a federal survey of 5,500 California households, and uses a survey of 42,000 California businesses to measure job growth in the economy.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s March unemployment rate was 8.2 percent, down from 8.3 percent in February.
The bureau also issued a Friday report that said unemployment was down in 30 states, with the West continuing to show the highest regional unemployment rate in March. At the same time, some Southern and Midwestern states were showing improvements in employment.
Based on the state’s newest unemployment figures, Lake County was ranked 43 out of California’s 58 counties for its March jobless rate.
Lake’s surrounding counties' employment figures were as follows: Colusa, 26.2 percent, No. 57; Glenn, 17.7 percent, No. 48; Mendocino, 11.5 percent, No. 20; Napa, 9 percent, No. 7; Sonoma County, 9.5 percent, No. 9; and Yolo, 14.2 percent, No. 32.
Marin, with 7 percent unemployment, continued to have the lowest unemployment in the state, while Colusa tied with Imperial County for No. 57, both reporting 26.2 percent jobless rates.
Mullins said Lake County wage and salary employment increased 20 jobs between February and March and remained up 540 jobs over the year.
He said there was year-over job growth in the following categories: farm, 420; trade, transportation and utilities, 90; professional and business services, 40; leisure and hospitality, 10; other services, 40; and government, 10.
The financial activities sector had no change over the year, Mullins reported.
Industry sectors that showed year-over declines included mining, logging and construction, 20; manufacturing, 10; information, 10; private educational and health services, 50, Mullins reported.
Statewide, there were 570,089 people receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits during the March survey week, compared with 565,418 last month and 630,829 last year, according to the report.
New claims for unemployment insurance were 55,393 in March 2012, compared with 55,287 in February and 61,076 in March of last year, the report showed.
A separate state report on county residents claiming unemployment – which only had numbers through February – showed that 2,634 Lake County residents claimed unemployment benefits in January and 2,553 in February.
Jobs increase but unemployment rate still rises
Despite California’s slight upward unemployment rate increase, the Friday report showed that nonfarm payroll jobs totaled 14,237,300 in March, an increase of 18,200 during the month for a total gain of 385,900 jobs since the recovery began in September 2009. February had seen a job increase of 38,600.
The year-over-year change – March 2011 to March 2012 – shows an increase of 181,000 jobs, up 1.3 percent, the state reported.
The federal survey of households, done with a smaller sample than the survey of employers, showed an increase in the number of employed people, and estimated the number of Californians holding jobs in March was 16,457,000, an increase of 2,000 from February, and up 278,000 from the employment total in March 2011.
The number of people unemployed in California was 2,031,000 – up by 19,000 over the month, but down by 148,000 compared with March of last year, the report showed.
In March, seven categories – mining and logging; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; professional and business services; educational and health services; leisure and hospitality; and government – added jobs over the month, gaining 37,800 jobs, the state reported. Leisure and hospitality posted the largest increase over the month, adding 13,800 jobs.
The state said four job categories – construction; manufacturing; information; and other services – reported job declines over the month, down 19,600 jobs. Information posted the largest decrease over the month, down 13,400 jobs.
Eight categories – mining and logging; construction; trade, transportation and utilities; information; financial activities; professional and business services; educational and health services; and leisure and hospitality – posted job gains over the year, adding 235,200 jobs, the report showed.
Professional and business services posted the largest gain on a numerical basis, adding 66,300 jobs, a 3.1-percent increase, while information posted the largest gain on a percentage basis, up 3.8 percent, adding 16,300 jobs, the report showed.
Three categories – manufacturing, other services and government – posted job declines over the year, down 54,200 jobs. The monthly report said government posted the largest decline on both a numerical and percentage basis, losing 46,000 jobs, or experiencing a decrease of 1.9 percent.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The trial of two young local men for a June 2011 shooting that killed a child and wounded five others let out early on Friday after a broken elevator prevented them from getting to court on time.
Paul William Braden, 22, and Orlando Joseph Lopez, 24, are each facing 15 counts for the shooting on June 18, 2011, that killed 4-year-old Skyler Rapp and wounded five others, including the child’s mother, Desiree Kirby, and her boyfriend, Ross Sparks.
During the week Josh Gamble, a cousin of Sparks, continued testimony he began last week, with Sparks also taking the stand, according to District Attorney Don Anderson.
On Friday, Curtis Eeds, who lived next door to Sparks and Kirby, was called to take the stand, Anderson said.
Eeds was on the stand in the morning before testimony stopped so Anderson and the defense attorneys – Doug Rhoades representing Braden and Stephen Carter representing Lopez – could work out issues with the case out of the presence of the jurors, Anderson said.
Court was to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., with those issues from the morning still not worked out, but proceedings couldn’t continue because the defendants didn’t show up, Anderson said.
“The elevator broke down and they were stuck in it,” he said.
As a result, visiting Yolo County Superior Court Judge Doris Shockley let jurors go early for the day, Anderson said.
Testimony will resume next week.
Email Elizabeth Larson at