Local news coverage of marching bands in the 2024 Macy's Parade for Thanksgiving

A early happy Thanksgiving to my readers! I begin my celebration of the long holiday weekend, which extends until Giving Tuesday with this year's version of Local news coverage of marching bands in the Macy's Parade for Thanksgiving, one of the most popular posts during the past three years.

Since there are no Michigan or California bands performing tomorrow, I'm presenting the bands in alphabetical order according to Macy's website, beginning with WTHR reporting Avon High School marching band prepares to perform on one of nation's biggest stages.

From Avon to New York City, the Avon High School Marching Band is set to represent Indiana on one of the nation's largest stages.

Since being selected to be featured in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the band has been hard at work to fine-tune every step of their performance set for the morning of Thanksgiving.

Students had one of their final rehearsals Thursday, Nov. 21 before traveling to New York City next week.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade is the second major event Avon has performed at this month. WTHR also reported Avon High School wins Bands of America Grand National Championships

One of the country's biggest marching band competitions returned to the heart of the Circle City.

The Bands of America Grand National Championships brought over 110 bands to Lucas Oil Stadium for three days of performances, an expo and more events.

The preliminary round of the competition kicked off Thursday morning, Nov. 14, at 7 a.m. and ran through 10:45 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17.

This year, Avon High School was crowned the winner! They won by just over a point against Carmel High School.

Congratulations, Avon! It's hard enough for a band to perform at either BOA Grand Nationals or the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in a year and Avon will do both in a couple of weeks!

Follow over the jump for the rest of the marching bands in tomorrow's parades as covered by their local TV stations.

Two drum corps and some of my favorite bands marching in the New Year for 2018

Happy New Year!  To welcome in 2018, I'm doing what I promised to do at the end of Farewell to 2017 from YouTube, Google, and Vox.

One last time, farewell to 2017!  Stay tuned for my favorite marching bands and one corps in the Rose Parade today 2018 edition, featuring Two Rose Parade marching bands playing 'Thriller' for Halloween and 'The Commandant's Own' for a drum corps Veterans Day 2017.

I begin with the drum corps, in this case, the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps known as "The Commandant's Own," which is marching down Colorado Boulevard for the first time and didn't participate in Bandfest, so I don't have any footage of them in previous parades or performing their field show before the parade.  Nor do I have a video of them at this year's Drum Corps International (DCI) Championship.  However, I do have a video of them performing three months later in the same stadium at the Bands of America (BOA) Grand Nationals.


Just for fun, here's the Marine Corps Drums at WGI 2017 putting on a winter drum line show.


Not only was that a great show, it looks like it was good for recruiting, too!

Psychology of campaign ads and other election stories

It's time for the next installment of election news from campuses on the campaign trail.  I begin with an article from The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that I used as the top story of last Saturday's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Psychology of Campaign Ads) on Daily Kos.*

Psychology behind the political ads
What ads say, what ads mean and how the messages stick with us
By Erin Jordan, The Gazette
Published: October 19 2014

CEDAR RAPIDS — Television these days is filled with drama, name-calling and emotional button-pushing.

And those are just the political ads.

The Gazette asked Iowa political scientists, communications experts and psychologists to analyze the tactics used in political ads that have been blistering the Eastern Iowa airwaves. Amid the heartfelt testimonials, mudslinging attacks and goofy spots with national actors are some new strategies for 2014.

“We break down ads looking at verbals, nonverbals and video production style,” explained Dianne Bystrom, director of Iowa State University’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. “Men and women running against each other have adapted styles that are very similar to one another.”

Here are some of the other findings from the article, beginning with my favorite.

Parties prioritize different values

Conservative candidates tend to play up the group mentality more than liberals, said Daryl Cameron, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Iowa. He pointed to Ernst and other Republicans drawing attention to Braley’s gaffe of apparently criticizing veteran U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley for not having a law degree.

“Ernst is trying to push buttons by saying, ‘He (Braley) isn’t one of us, he’s betraying the group,’” Cameron said.

Liberals, on the other hand, tend to emphasize fairness and distribution of resources over other values, he said.

Yes, the major parties really are different.  ideologies and interest groups matter to American political parties, although Duverger's Law mostly limits the choices to two.

What about a factor that transcends party?

When male and female political candidates face off, they talk about a different set of issues than in male-versus-male races, Bystrom said.

Bystrom, who has been studying mixed-gender elections for U.S. Senate that have occurred since 1990, said these races traditionally have focused more on education, Social Security and health care. An all-male race might include more discussion of war and crime.

The economy, she said, has become gender neutral.

The sexes are different, too.

The article includes more findings, such as why negative ads work, how fear and disgust play a part in politics (see the video at the end of Food Fight! Thoughts on liberalism and conservatism inspired by the Preface to Food, Inc. for how these work better on conservatives), and how a dialog of sorts can be achieved with campaign ads.  It also offers this helpful note.

If the negative ads are getting you down, take heart. As we get closer to the Nov. 4 election, Iowans should see the return of the positive ads, experts said.

And after Election Day, we’ll get back to the usual commercials using psychology to sell us cars, prescription drugs and junk food.

To say nothing of getting us to buy Christmas presents.  Ah, the stink of retail desperation!

Follow over the jump for more election stories from campuses on the campaign trail.

Food news for Food Day 2014

A happy Food Day to all of my readers!  To celebrate the day,* I present a linkspam of food news, beginning with Discovery News asking Are Healthy Foods REALLY More Expensive?

Healthy foods: Are they more expensive than foods that are bad for you? Tara takes a look at some recent research that might confirm this theory.

That's a video I should show my class, especially after they've seen 'Food, Inc.'

Now for something a little less serious from Discovery News, The Surprising Benefit Of Reheating Pasta!

There's nothing better than leftover pasta, and now science has a reason to love it even more! Tara reveals some surprising evidence that cold pasta might be good for your diet!

Cool, but I'm not showing this one to my students.

Follow over the jump for food news from the past two months of Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos.

Biofuel crops can be good for the environment and other biofuels research

Normally, I'm skeptical about biofuels, but that's primarily because the main biofuel in the U.S. is corn ethanol, which I have characterized for years as an energy indepence strategy, not a sustainability strategy.  It doesn't help that pretty much all the increased corn production during the past decade has gone into gas tanks.  In one of the first entries on this blog, I described "converting corn into ethanol" as "a big energy loser."  On the other hand, I followed that by writing that it would be "less of a loser if ethanol comes from cellulose in the stalks and leaves instead of the grain, as cellulosic ethanol requires less fertilizer than grain ethanol."

I'd be even more optimistic if the enthanol and other biofuels came from something other than corn.  Fortunately, two stories I included in last week's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Nobel Prizes 2014) on Daily Kos gave me even more reason for optimism, as they show the biofuel crops can be good for the environment even if they aren't burned for fuel.

First, Liz Ahlberg, writing for the University of Illinois, reported Bioenergy crops could store more carbon in soil.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In addition to providing renewable energy, grass crops like switchgrass and miscanthus could store some of the carbon they pull from the atmosphere in the soil, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers.

The study compared soil dynamics – the ratio of carbon to nitrogen and microbial activity – of bioenergy crops with that of a standard corn-corn-soybean rotation. They found that in bioenergy crops, a certain threshold of plant matter left in the field after harvest lets much more carbon accumulate in the soil.

Led by civil and environmental engineering professor Praveen Kumar, the researchers published their findings in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Next, Kelly April Tyrell, writing for the University of Wisconsin passed along the good news about Balancing birds and biofuels: Grasslands support more species than cornfields.

In Wisconsin, bioenergy is for the birds. Really.

In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) scientists examined whether corn and perennial grassland fields in southern Wisconsin could provide both biomass for bioenergy production and bountiful bird habitat.

The research team found that where there are grasslands, there are birds. Grass-and-wildflower-dominated fields supported more than three times as many bird species as cornfields, including 10 imperiled species found only in the grasslands. These grassland fields can also produce ample biomass for renewable fuels.

Monica Turner, UW-Madison professor of zoology, and study lead author Peter Blank, a postdoctoral researcher in her lab, hope the findings help drive decisions that benefit both birds and biofuels, too, by providing information for land managers, farmers, conservationists and policy makers as the bioenergy industry ramps up, particularly in Wisconsin and the central U.S.

Both of those are good news and make me more favorably disposed to (non-corn) biofuels.

Follow over the jump for the biofuel news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Ebola in the U.S.).

Election news from campuses on the campaign trail for October 14

Now that Canadian Thanksgiving is over, it's time to return to the U.S. with the election news from campuses on the campaign trail I included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Nobel Prizes 2014).  I begin with this press release from the University of Illinois at Chicago: First lady makes campaign stop at UIC by Gary Wisby on October 7, 2014.

First lady Michelle Obama made a political campaign stop at UIC Tuesday, receiving a standing ovation from audience members who remained on their feet throughout her 20-minute speech at the UIC Pavilion.

Her appearance was preceded by a lineup of Illinois Democrats, including Gov. Pat Quinn, Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Secretary of State Jesse White, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon and Reps. Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky and Robin Kelly.

Obama urged a robust voter turnout in the Nov. 4 Illinois elections. "Get the vote out. Start today," she said.

The First Lady stopped by Detroit three days later, as WXYZ reported in First Lady Michelle Obama visits Detroit for campaign rally.


I wouldn't be surprised if she said much the same things here as in Chicago.

That's not the only election news from Michigan.  The University of Michigan announced a Date change for the  U-M Board of Regents candidate forum on October 7, 2014.

DATE: 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, 2014

EVENT: The candidates for Regent of the University of Michigan have been invited to participate in a 75-minute forum. Susan Smith, president of the League of Women Voters of Michigan, will moderate the discussion.

The four major-party candidates have confirmed their participation: Mike Behm, Rob Steele, Ronald Weiser and Regent Kathy White.

Candidate questions will be posed by the League and students at the Ford School of Public Policy. The format will allow for questions from the audience; it is not a debate.

If I were really ambitious, I'd drive out to Ann Arbor to cover the event.  Who knows, since I have a new car, I might just do so.

Follow over the jump for news from Colorado and Massachusetts.

Health news from the University of Massachusetts

Not all the health news from the University of Massachusetts has been about the third American doctor infected with Ebola and the the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  There is another minor epidemic sweeping parts of the country that UMass has been reporting on, as the University of Massachusetts Medical Center explains in Pediatrician explains enterovirus D68 illness.

The Centers for Disease Control is warning of a spike in cases of a rare respiratory illness identified as enterovirus D68 that is sickening children in about a dozen states, though none have yet been reported in New England.

More in Expert’s Corner: UMMS pediatrician explains rare respiratory illness outbreak in parts of country By Bryan Goodchild on September 11, 2014.

“Enterovirus D68 is not a new virus,” said pediatrician Christina Hermos, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics. “What is different about this outbreak is that it seems to be larger than previous outbreaks. There are reports out of Denver and Kansas City of several hundred children presenting for care and a good proportion of them needing respiratory support until they are able to fight off the virus.”

This is not as serious a threat as Ebola, but it's much more immediate.  I'll do my best to keep abreast of it.

Follow over the jump for more health news from UMass.

The Ice Bucket Challenge supports ALS research at UMass

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has been a viral phenomenon.  Quite a few of my co-workers have participated, including the president of my campus and the chancellor of my college.  I got to watch both of the latter get doused.  In case my readers are wondering where their contributions are going to, the University of Massachusetts Medical School explains in Video: Scientists at UMMS working toward ALS cure By Bryan Goodchild, UMass Medical School Communications, on August 18, 2014.

The viral video “Ice Bucket Challenge” campaign is making ALS a household word across the country and shining a light on the scientists around the world searching for a cure. At UMass Medical School, Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, one of the world’s foremost authorities on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, heads a multi-disciplinary team of scientists researching treatments and a cure for the disease.

“It’s very exciting to do ALS work here because we have a span of expertise all the way from people who are experts at figuring out the genetics of this disease to those who have built gene therapy centers who know how to get inside the iron curtain around the brain so we can put medications inside and treat a disease like ALS, or maybe also Parkinson’s or Huntington’s or other types of these brain degenerative disorders,” said Dr. Brown, the Leo P. and Theresa M. LaChance Chair in Medical Research and chair and professor of neurology. “The tools for finding out what causes ALS have never been better.”

Melissa Moore, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research, professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, and co-director of the RNA and Neurotherapeutics Institutes, said the teamwork at UMMS is key to advancing the science.

“UMass Medical School is an amazing place for ALS research because we have so many people in different disciplines that are contributing to trying to understand the basis of the disease and also to develop cures for the disease,” said Dr. Moore.

To support the groundbreaking research taking place at UMass Medical School through the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund, visit umassals.com.

That's a worthy cause to support for healing.

Last primary elections today

According to the Green Papers, the last primaries of the year will be held today in Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island.  Here is a story about one of those elections that turns into a pumpkin today from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell: Poll: Coakley leads race for governor.

Survey Also Finds Majority of Voters Do Not Want to Repeal Casino Law

LOWELL, Mass. – With just a week to go before the Democratic primary in Massachusetts, Martha Coakley has a commanding lead over all other candidates in the race for the party’s nomination for governor, according to a new UMass Lowell/7News poll released today.

Coakley, the current Massachusetts attorney general, has a 32 point lead (52 percent to 20 percent) among likely Democratic primary voters over fellow candidate state Treasurer Steve Grossman and an even greater margin over former federal health-care administrator Donald Berwick with 9 percent and 19 percent undecided in the independent, nonpartisan poll. Conducted from Aug. 25 through Aug. 31 for the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion and 7News, the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.55 percent among likely Democratic primary voters.

“Coakley is now a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Her support is still somewhat soft, but Steve Grossman’s campaign has simply not captured the attention of a largely unengaged Democratic primary electorate,” said Prof. Joshua Dyck, co-director of the Center for Public Opinion, who wrote and analyzed the poll, which is the first in a new partnership between UMass Lowell and 7News.

The last time I saw Martha Coakley's name mentioned in connection with an election, she lost to Scott Brown for U.S. Senate.  That turned out O.K., as it led to Elizabeth Warren winning that seat.  I'd much rather have Warren there and Coakley as Governor.   As for pretty boy Brown, he's running for Senate in New Hampshire now.  May that carpetbagger lose to Jeanne Shaheen in November.

Third American doctor infected and other Ebola news

It's Monday, so it's time for more on the Ebola outbreak.  This morning's lead story is Massachusetts doctor infected with Ebola.  Here is the video from CNN.

Dr. Rick Sacra is the third American physician to be diagnosed with Ebola while working in Liberia.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he is a professor, posted Debbie Sacra requests prayers for husband and practical help for Ebola-stricken Liberia by Sandra Gray and Bryan Goodchild on September 04, 2014.

Wife of American doctor infected with Ebola addresses news media at UMass Medical School

In response to the outpouring of concern about her husband, Richard Sacra, MD, who is the third American doctor to be infected with Ebola in Liberia, Debbie Sacra shared a message of gratitude and hope at a press conference held today at UMass Medical School.

Mrs. Sacra’s comments came moments after the announcement from the international Christian mission organization SIM that Dr. Sacra is being transported from Liberia to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which has a biocontainment patient care unit, for treatment.

“He walked onto the plane and he is in good spirits,” said Mrs. Sacra. She fought back tears while expressing her hopes for his recovery, and thanked the media for bringing attention to the plight of Liberians “who needed a hospital to open” whether for malaria treatment, maternity care or other medical care.

UMass Medical School faculty joined Mrs. Sacra in commenting on the situation in UMMS faculty speak on colleague diagnosed with Ebola.

Dr. Warren Ferguson and Dr. Virginia Van Duyne worked with Dr. Richard Sacra and spoke briefly about their relationship with Dr. Sacra, UMMS Assistant Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health, and his work in Worcester and elsewhere.

Dr. Sacra has spent much of his career working overseas, including nearly two decades in Liberia. He has a faculty appointment at UMMS as an assistant professor of family medicine & community health, as a function of teaching in the medical school’s residency program at the Family Health Center of Worcester when he returns to the U.S. for periodic respite visits.

Dr. Sacra left Liberia to be treated in the U.S.  Reuters reported on his progress in U.S. missionary with Ebola showing signs of improvement, wife says.

The third U.S. medical missionary to become infected with the Ebola virus was showing signs of improvement Saturday at a Nebraska hospital but was still very ill, his wife said.

Dr. Rick Sacra, a 51-year-old Boston physician, arrived Friday at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for treatment after being flown there from Liberia, one of five West African countries affected by an outbreak of the virus.

"Rick is very sick and weak, but slightly improved from when he arrived yesterday," Debbie Sacra said Saturday. "He asked for something to eat and had a little chicken soup," she said.

Here's to a successful recovery, just like the other two U.S. physicians who came back to be treated.

Follow over the jump for other news about the epidemic from the past week, including statements from President Obama and the director of the WHO and the scariest silent video about the epidemic one could possibly watch.

Bad news and good news for International Women's Day

As today's Google Doodle is remining everyone who uses the search engine today, it's International Women's Day.  To mark the occasion, I'm presenting stories from my past six months of Overnight News Digests about discrimination against women and the efforts to rectify it in science education.

First, the bad news from SDSU: Gender Inertia in Television and Film.

The Annual Celluloid Ceiling report shows that women’s roles in television and film have not improved in the last 16 years.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The employment of women working in key behind-the-scenes roles in film continues to stagnate, according to the 16th annual Celluloid Ceiling report released today by Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. 

Women accounted for 16 percent of directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2013.  This figure is slightly smaller than the percentage of women working on top grossing films in 1998.

“The film industry is in a state of gender inertia.  There is no evidence to suggest that women’s employment has improved in key behind-the-scenes roles over the last 16 years,” Lauzen said.

Next, CBS reported Gaze-tracking Study Apparently Confirms Everyone Really IS Staring At Your Chest.

LINCOLN, NE (CBS) – A new study has confirmed something women have been complaining about for years.

The research, out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and published in the Springer-published journal Sex Roles, essentially corroborates the belief that people tend to focus more on the breasts and figure of a woman when analyzing her appearance than they do on her face.

That's enough bad news.  Any more, and I'd post Professor Farnsworth saying "I don't want to live on this planet any more."  As I'm still in an "I can't be all DOOM all the time" mood, I'll stop. 

It's time to post some good news about efforts to educate more women in science and health to cheer myself up.  Follow over the jump for it.

Update on ACA and other health care policy stories for the new year

As part of my opening to Unemployment insurance extension and the State of the Union, I mentioned that I was sitting on a backlog of material.

I watched tonight's State of the Union address and marveled that the entire speech was organized around the conflict between austerity and sustainability, with President Obama consistently coming down on the side of sustainability.  It fits what I've been blogging about here for the past three years, as I've written about every major topic Obama mentioned at least once, some of them, such as energy, education, healthcare, and technological innovation many times.  I felt validated.  It also reminded me that I have a long backlog of material from the past two months of Overnight News Digests on Daily Kos about healthcare and energy that I need to post here.

I took care of the energy news in More energy and the State of the Union, but got distracted by the Super Bowl, so I didn't get around to the healthcare items.  So, it's high time to update on the ACA for the first time since More ACA news from KPBS and UAB.  I begin with Maggie Fox of NBC News making her forecast on the topic with Think 2013 was a bad year for health politics? Just wait for 2014.

It was the gift that kept on giving: The disastrous roll-out of the health-insurance exchanges provided daily fodder for Republican opponents of Obamacare. And the dire state of U.S. health care, coupled with a headlong rush by people to get health insurance, gave Democrats ample opportunity to say “we told you so.”

So once it’s January 2014 and people can start having their new insurance and all the deadlines have passed, can we relax and talk about something other than health reform?

Not a chance, say experts. They predict 2014 will be, if anything, worse than 2013.

So far, that's been true, as this week's news about the ACA inducing people to reduce their hours has shown.

Follow over the jump for news from KPBS and other sources about health care policy, including the ACA, that I've included in Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos since New Years.

Asian air pollution and other global pollution stories

Two weeks ago, the Daily Mail reported China starts televising the sunrise on giant TV screens because Beijing is so clouded in smog.

The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city's natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens across the city to observe virtual sunrises.

The futuristic screens installed in the Chinese capital usually advertize tourist destinations, but as the season's first wave of extremely dangerous smog hit - residents donned air masks and left their homes to watch the only place where the sun would hail over the horizon that morning.

The article then goes on to describe the terrible smog and the horrible health problems that result from it.  All of that is true, but the hook is baloney, as Quartz pointed out in Westerners are so convinced China is a dystopian hellscape they’ll share anything that confirms it.

When it comes to China stories, people will believe almost anything. Take, for instance, the reports about pollution being so severe in Beijing that residents now watch radiant sunrises broadcast on a huge screen in Tiananmen Square.

So, that never happened. As Tech in Asia flags, the sunrise is a clip from a tourism ad for Shandong province, in China’s northeast; it’s on screen for maybe 10 seconds or so per loop.

But that didn’t prevent a slew of prominent media outlets—including Time, CBS News and the Huffington Post—from running the story, which originated in the UK-based Daily Mail, each taking their own liberties with the truth. The “glorious sunrise was broadcast as part of a patriotic video loop,” explained Time.

How do stories like this happen? One reason is shabby journalism, something for which the Daily Mail is renowned.

That's why The Daily Mail is called The Daily Fail.  Still, it's a striking image, one that I will use when I next lecture on air pollution.  I already have a photo of air pollution in Beijing.  For balance, I'll also tell my students the full story as a cautionary tale about journalism that appeals to their prejudices.

That written, the air pollution from Asia is real and it's affecting the rest of the planet, as Texas A&M explains in Asian Air Pollution Affecting World’s Weather.

Extreme air pollution in Asia is affecting the world’s weather and climate patterns, according to a study by Texas A&M University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers.

Yuan Wang, a former doctoral student at Texas A&M, along with Texas A&M atmospheric sciences professors Renyi Zhang and R. Saravanan, have had their findings published in the current issue of Nature Communications.
Satellite photo shows huge air pollution clouds at far left. Japan is on the right.

Using climate models and data collected about aerosols and meteorology over the past 30 years, the researchers found that air pollution over Asia – much of it coming from China – is impacting global air circulations.

“The models clearly show that pollution originating from Asia has an impact on the upper atmosphere and it appears to make such storms or cyclones even stronger,” Zhang explains.

“This pollution affects cloud formations, precipitation, storm intensity and other factors and eventually impacts climate.  Most likely, pollution from Asia can have important consequences on the weather pattern here over North America.”

There is much more at the link, including the following image.


Let that be a lesson in "Everything is connected to everything else," "There is no away," and "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

Follow over the jump for more stories that illustrate Commoner's Laws as pollution from one place ends up going somewhere else, as well as other stories about what people are doing about pollution elsewhere on the planet, all of them originally included in Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos.

China lands “Goddess and Rabbit” on Moon and other space news

Now that I'm through grading for the year, it's time to resume "regular programming" here.  I should be remarking on yesterday’s announcement of tapering off Quantitative Easing and Wall Street’s reaction, but I’m not up to it right now.  Instead, I’ll ease back into my routine by posting one of my themed news compilations, beginning with my weekly space news series.

The top story of last Saturday’s Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday was “Jade Rabbit lands on Moon.” Here’s the item I ran from the Christian Science Monitor, which was the most recent I could find at the time but is already out of date.

China moon landing: Beijing puts Jade Rabbit on the moon.
China moon landing: China joined elite company today with the controlled landing of its "Jade Rabbit" rover on the moon. China follows the US and Soviet Union as the third country with a controlled - or "soft" - landing on the moon.
By Peter Ford, Staff writer
December 14, 2013

China became only the third nation to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon, as Chang’e 3 – the first visitor from earth for over 35 years – touched down safely on a flat plain facing the Earth today.

A lunar rover, nicknamed “Jade Rabbit,” is due to start exploring the lunar surface by Sunday, burnishing China’s credentials as a space power and bringing it a step closer to putting a man on the moon.

“This is a very significant step for their space program,” says Gregory Kulacki, who studies China’s efforts in space for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s a prospecting mission, their first real chance to test whether there are mineral resources on the moon.”

As I’ve been documenting for the past two-and-one-half years, the Chinese are catching up to the U.S. in those areas of space with the most propaganda value.  For broad-based space science, I’d put my money on the Japanese and Indians in the Asian Space Race.  Just the same, I’m not going to dismiss the Chinese efforts as signs of the technological capability of their civilization and their willingness to challenge the U.S. in one of our areas of strength.

Follow over the jump for the rest of last week’s space and astronomy news.

Tongue drives for wheelchairs and other health research news

I wrote "this week's news...took six installments to present[;] I don't think next week's will be so time consuming" at the end of Condoms and Florence Nightingale plus other health news.  That prediction has come to pass, as the health news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Comet ISON at perihelion) only required two installments, with the health care policy news in KPBS and others on the ACA for the week of Thanksgiving and the rest here.

Georgia Tech gets the featured position under my policy of "if it moves, it leads."  This is quite literally true in Georgia Tech Tongue Drive System.

Tongue-Controlled Wheelchair Outperforms Sip-and-Puff Wheelchairs

The Rambling Wrecks have more in Clinical Trial Shows Tongue-Controlled Wheelchair Outperforms Popular Wheelchair Navigation System, Posted November 27, 2013 | Atlanta, GA.

After a diving accident left Jason DiSanto paralyzed from the neck down in 2009, he had to learn how to navigate life from a powered wheelchair, which he controls with a sip-and-puff system. Users sip or puff air into a straw mounted on their wheelchair to execute four basic commands that drive the chair. But results from a new clinical study offer hope that sip-and-puff users like DiSanto could gain a higher level of independence than offered by this common assistive technology.

In the study, individuals with paralysis were able to use a tongue-controlled technology to access computers and execute commands for their wheelchairs at speeds that were significantly faster than those recorded in sip-and-puff wheelchairs, but with equal accuracy. This study is the first to show that the wireless and wearable Tongue Drive System outperforms sip-and-puff in controlling wheelchairs. Sip-and-puff is the most popular assistive technology for controlling a wheelchair.

The Tongue Drive System is controlled by the position of the user’s tongue. A magnetic tongue stud lets them use their tongue as a joystick to drive the wheelchair. Sensors in the tongue stud relay the tongue’s position to a headset, which then executes up to six commands based on the tongue position.

Follow over the jump for more health research from UCSD, Texas A&M, University of Georgia, and University of Massachusetts.

KPBS and others on the ACA for the week of Thanksgiving

I reminded my readers at the end of San Diego election news from KPBS that "this is still a Detroit-based blog, even when observing other cities' politics from afar."  Here is another entry in that vein, as I pass along KPBS's reporting on the implimentation of the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare in California.  It makes for a good mirror in which to see the process as it was intended.  That means any issues will be the result of intrinsic factors, not outside interference.

There have been some of the latter going on here in Michigan, for while Medicaid was indeed expanded here, it took a big fight between Governor Snyder and the state legislature, and the expansion didn't have immediate effect.  Also, there is no state insurance exchange; people from Michigan have to rely on the federal site, which has been having its issues.  That means that there are too many confounding variables to use Michigan to judge the merits of the program.

I begin KPBS's coverage with this video, which comes first under my preference that "if it moves, it leads."

Second Opinion: Will Obamacare Help If My Company's Plan Is Too Expensive?

Doug Blackwood and his wife have a great deal on a rental in Ocean Beach. But their rent is going up in January. The couple hopes to qualify for an Obamacare subsidy that might keep their budget in check.

Unlike the video like this I posted in Questions answered about the Affordable Care Act, KPBS does not provide a response.  Too bad.

Follow over the jump from more from KPBS that I first included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Comet ISON at perihelion) plus bonus articles from the University of Massachusetts and Texas A&M.

A Thanksgiving meal from space and other food news

Happy Thanksgiving!  To celebrate the day, I'm posting the food news I've saved up, just as I did last year by posting all the food news I've collected since Food Day.  I begin with Space.com reporting on Thanksgiving in Space: Astronauts Share Their Cosmic Menu | Video.

On the ISS, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins send down their best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving and their crewmates show off the station's galley where they will be preparing and enjoying a Thanksgiving meal.

Follow over the jump for more food news.

Veterans Day on campus

I uncovered a lot of colleges observing Veterans Day while collecting stories for last night's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Super Typhoon Haiyan).  The result was such a great aggregation of videos and articles that I am reposting all of them here.

Rutgers University goes first with Veterans Transition to Civilian Life at Rutgers.

When you've handled life and death in war, an exam in the classroom doesn't seem like such a big deal. But some veterans say succeeding in classes and fitting in were their biggest concerns when they came to Rutgers as nontraditional students. "Everyone has said 'thank you' and that is a huge thing," one veteran said. "It goes miles with us vets."

Here's the article that goes with it.

Rutgers University: Veterans Transition to Civilian Life at Rutgers
Rutgers student Juan Hernandez was one of first U.S. forces to touch down for Benghazi evacuation
Monday, November 11, 2013
By Fredda Sacharow

'The reality check of being in a third-world country was stark. Even the simple task of looking for clean water becomes an ordeal.' – Juan Hernandez

November 28 will mark Juan Hernandez‘s first Thanksgiving home after three years of active military duty with the U.S. Air Force, and he can practically taste his Mexican-born mother’s signature chicken tamales.

During his service abroad, the Rutgers student helped in the mission to bring American Foreign Service workers home from Benghazi after the deadly 2012 attack on their compound. He took part in humanitarian projects in Africa, dropping water bottles in Mali and Ethiopia to ensure residents had safe drinking water at hand. He trained forces in Ghana.

Now Hernandez is anticipating a series of firsts in the coming months: first birthday home after lengthy postings in Spain, Germany and Africa; first Christmas and New Year’s out of the military; and even today, his first Veterans Day as a veteran.

In his first semester at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations, where he’s majoring in both human resource management and labor studies, Hernandez says thoughts of home and family were never far from his mind throughout his years overseas.

Follow over the jump for more from Rutgers and other campuses on the campaign trail I originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Super Typhoon Haiyan) with a bonus video from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (ACA and shutdown on campus) that I've been saving for the right occasion.

Space and astronomy news for early November

I already covered some space news in NASA back from shutdown and Fall back and solar eclipse, but I haven't had a comprehensive space news entry yet.  In fact, I really haven't had one since NASA videos from just before the shutdown more than a month ago.  It's time to resume the series.

I begin with NASA Television's Mars Mission Briefed on This Week @NASA.

During a news briefing at NASA headquarters officials and scientists discussed MAVEN, the agency's next mission to Mars. Scheduled to launch November 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, MAVEN will study the history and change of Mars' atmosphere, climate, and planetary habitability. Also, Bolden visits Langley, Power Up, Solar Flares, A busy time!, Free flight and Ice Flight!

Follow over the jump from more news from NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope, Columbia University, Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Virginia originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (NASA back from shutdown) and Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back) on Daily Kos.

Health news for the week of election day

It's time for the next installment of health news from campuses on the campaign trail.  I'll begin with a health issue that will become a political one, mandating that all employees be eligible for paid sick leave.  Rutgers University has the latest polling in Rutgers Study: Overwhelming Majority of New Jerseyans Support Paid Sick Days
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – As New Jersey’s policymakers consider establishing a minimum standard for paid sick days, the Center for Women and Work (CWW) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey has released an issue brief on the subject that finds an overwhelming majority (83 percent) of state residents of all political affiliations support paid sick day policies.

While there is a great deal of public support, results reported in, It’s Catching: Public Opinion toward Paid Sick Days in New Jersey, document a persistent need: 37 percent of state residents currently lack access to paid sick days, particularly Hispanic and Latino workers, younger workers and those who work part time or earn less than $50,000 per year.  

“Over 37 percent of New Jersey residents work in jobs with no paid sick days,” said Linda Houser, CWW affiliate fellow, assistant professor at Widener University and co-author of the report. “This proportion is significantly higher for some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable citizens – low-income earners, part-time workers and young adults. Additionally, over 50 percent of these workers cited concerns about financial affordability, job loss or bad performance reviews as having an impact on their decision about taking time off from work to recover from illness.”

In related news, the ballot measure to raise the minimum wage in News Jersey I mentioned in Election eve news from campuses on the campaign trail passed.  That's good news, but it's not for everybody, so no Professor Farnsworth.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the health-related news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back) on Daily Kos.