Gas prices return to their lows for the summer

I decided to jump the gun on the promise I made in Local stations return to two month price support.

Despite the repeated bouncing off the floor, gas prices are still lower than at this time last year, when they were at $3.39.  I'd post Professor Farnsworth, except I'm waiting for all four stations to lower prices to $3.32 or below.  After that, it's the limbo kitty's turn.

The three stations down the street have all lowered their prices to $3.32.  The corner station is still at $3.35.  Even so, I'm posting Professor Farnsworth, as I expect that this time it will match the prices of the rest instead of balking or charging into No Man's Land as it has before.  The price resistance will be broken!

Also, the latest price drop means that prices are even lower than they were at this time last year, when they were selling for $3.36.  Prices will have to fall more by Friday, or they'll actually be higher than a year earlier, when the neighborhood outlets were all selling for $3.27.  Follow over the jump for indications that might not happen, at least not this week.

First Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S.

I lot has happened since I wrote Predictions about Ebola coming true, among them that Ebola has arrived in the U.S.  I was greeted at the start of my evening class with that news, which I confirmed once I finished my lecture.  Here's the story from Reuters from last night: Traveler from Liberia is first Ebola patient diagnosed in U.S. By Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley on Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:11pm EDT.

A man who flew from Liberia to Texas has become the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus to be diagnosed in the United States, health officials said on Tuesday, a sign the outbreak ravaging West Africa may spread globally.

The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation's healthcare system. On Tuesday, Frieden and other health authorities said they were taking every step possible to ensure the virus did not spread widely.

"It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks," Frieden told a news conference. "I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States."

I told my students that not only would the patient be isolated, but those he came in contact with would likely be quarantined.  ABC News shows that to be the case, beginning with EMTs and the ambulance in which they all drove in Health Officials on High Alert After First US Ebola Case.

CDC dispatches a team of disease detectives to Dallas after patient is diagnosed with deadly virus.

The CDC is not playing.

This case has prompted a flurry of follow up stories.  Follow over the jump for the videos that have passed through my YouTube feed during the past eight hours.

Nablopomo for October: Crunch

From the website:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?

CRUNCH
Maybe it's because winter snow dampens our sense of smell or the buzz of summer mosquitoes drowns out every other sound in the air, but autumn is a huge sensory experience between those two seasonal bookends.

You have the taste of pumpkin spice... everything. You have the smell of burning leaves. The feeling of fuzzy sweaters or the smoothness of your Halloween mask. The bright sight of a field of orange pumpkins. And, of course, the crunch crunch crunch of autumnal leaves.

Of course, the fall also tends to be crunch time. Between the back-to-school craziness and preparations for the holidays, October is a month that sometimes feels as if it passes in a blur. It's time to take a step back and examine how well you work under pressure. If the answer is "not very well at all," now is the time to come up with a plan to help you sort out your schedule so you don't fall victim to crunch time.

From the email:

I love autumn (despite the abundance of crickets!) because it's the season I associate the most with the five senses. Spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg rule supreme. I love the smell of smores around a campfire. I even like the feeling of hay poking into my jeans as we bounce on a tractor ride across the farm, scouting out fields of bright orange pumpkins. And, of course, there is the theme word for this month: CRUNCH. There is the crunch of leaves, the snap of sticks underfoot, and the pop of the campfire logs.

Love it.

Of course, autumn is a busy time too, a crunch time between school starting and the brief sprint to the holidays. If you don't slow down, you may miss the season. So... slow down. Make yourself a cup of tea. Look out the window at the leaves. No, better yet, go take a walk in them and take some pictures and then come back to your blog and post them. Yes, the perfect way to celebrate fall.

I'm down with this theme.  Fall is my favorite time of year and has been for decades.  My favorite sport to watch is football (I even played it during middle and high school), and I was a member of the marching band in high school and college, so even if I wasn't playing football on the field, I was still there at halftime.  Fall became even more my favorite season once I moved to Michigan, as it turned out to have the most pleasant and predictable weather of the year, at least during September and October (November is another story; that's when winter usually comes in early).  It also leads into holiday season, with Halloween followed by Thanksgiving followed by Christmas and capped with New Years.  If the days are shortening and the weather is getting colder, at least there are plenty of celebrations to keep me distracted.  Since I periodically lapse into "I can't be all DOOM all the time" moods, I suppose that's a good thing.

Sign up for October's NaBloPoMo and start thinking about what you love about fall.

I did several days ago, and I'm 26th on the blogroll.

Final Heal post: MSU on malaria

While I've been busy blogging about Ebola, I've been ignoring malaria.  Except for a brief mention in Third American doctor infected and other Ebola news, I haven't written it about since An interlude about malaria in January.  Michigan State University has given me the opportunity to revisit the disease in MSU doctor solves deadly mystery of malaria; will lead to life-saving treatments.

Cerebral malaria is the deadliest type of malaria and kills more than one-half million children under age five each year. However, knowing how it kills has eluded physicians from finding a treatment for centuries, until now. In groundbreaking research, Michigan State University’s Dr. Terrie Taylor and Dr. Karl Seydel, have found that children who die from cerebral malaria have massively swollen brains.

It's about time I mentioned Terrie Taylor here, although I've linked to four Examiner.com articles I've written about her, the ones that describe malaria as "a disease that infects at least 350 million people each year and kills about one million of them, mostly children in Sub-Saharan Africa" and one about an award she's earned "MSU Physician wins AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine Award."   She deserved it.

Local stations return to two month price support

Here's what I wrote about the state of the neighborhood gas price was in Gas returns to being lower year-over-year.

I was right.  By this evening, all the neighborhood stations had lowered their price to $3.39.  Hey, a dime drop in two days, not next week--I'll take that!

That was Wednesday evening.  As of Friday, the three stations down the block lowered their price to $3.37.  On Saturday morning, the corner station joined them, only to have the other three neighborhood outlets drop their price to $3.35.  As of Sunday, the corner station had joined them.  That means gas prices are where they were two weeks ago, a month ago, eight weeks ago, and two months ago.  When I predicted price resistance at $3.35 near the end of July, I didn't expect it to go on this long!

Despite the repeated bouncing off the floor, gas prices are still lower than at this time last year, when they were at $3.39.  I'd post Professor Farnsworth, except I'm waiting for all four stations to lower prices to $3.32 or below.  After that, it's the limbo kitty's turn.

Speaking of bouncing off the floor, that's the picture GasBuddy paints for national gas prices.  The national average has finally returned to $3.33, where it was on September 22nd.  The Detroit average has finally fallen below $3.38, which it bounced off of twice since July, to $3.37.  The stations down the street could conceivably lower their prices to $3.29 this week, as I predicted a while ago.  In fact, they're getting pressure to do so already, as a station a mile down the road is advertising regular for $3.33 cash.  Stay tuned.

Predictions about Ebola coming true

It's been two weeks since The Archdruid on Ebola and other epidemic news, so it's time for another update.

First, this video from Discovery News: Everything You Need To Know About Ebola In Under 3 Minutes.

The current Ebola outbreak is the worst in history, and there are a lot of myths about this virus floating around. Julian is here to figure out what is fact, and what is fiction.

Now that the general introduction is out of the way, on September 19, 2014, Arizona State University posted Research predicts possible 6,800 new Ebola cases this month.

New research published in the online journal PLoS Outbreaks predicts new Ebola cases could reach 6,800 in West Africa by the end of the month if new control measures are not enacted.

Arizona State University and Harvard University researchers also discovered through modeling analysis that the rate of rise in cases significantly increased in August in Liberia and Guinea, around the time that a mass quarantine was put in place, indicating that the mass quarantine efforts may have made the outbreak worse than it would have been otherwise.

Deteriorating living and hygiene conditions in some of the quarantined areas sparked riots last month. Sierra Leone began a three day country-wide quarantine today, where all citizens have been asked to stay at home, said Sherry Towers, research professor for the ASU Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center (MCMSC) in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Tomorrow is the end of the month, so it's time to see if that prediction is coming true.  In Liberia's top doctor in quarantine after assistant dies of Ebola, Reuters reported the latest.

The latest figures from the World Health Organization show that the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed at least 3,091 people, out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases.

Pretty close, especially since the numbers came out on Saturday.  I'm sure four more days would push the number of cases to and probably past 6,800.

As for the future, another Reuters report passed along these grim projections.

WHO said earlier this week the total number of infections could reach 20,000 by November, months earlier than previously forecast. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned between 550,000 and 1.4 million people might be infected in the region by January if nothing was done.

The Archdruid is right to be concerned about Ebola.  He concluded his response to a comment of mine on Dark Age America: The Senility of the Elites on the topic.

I probably need to do a post here on the likely role of pandemic disease in the transition to the deindustrial dark age. Given that Ebola cases are doubling every twenty days at this point, that may be a more immediately relevant point than most people like to think.

I hope he follows through.  If so, it wouldn't be the first time one of my comments prompted him to explore a topic.  I did it before when I inspired The Archdruid to write about Steampunk.  That's when I wrote the following to him.

On my blog, I've written that interacting with you has been good for my writing.  I'm glad to see that the reverse has been true for you, too.

May that continue to be so.

Driving update for September 2014: Ruby

Yesterday, my wife rolled over Ruby's odometer for 88,000 miles.  That means it's time for an another driving update.

I posted Driving update for May 2014: Ruby on May 15, 2014, the last time the car's odometer rolled over.  That means that it took 104 days to drive the car 1,000 miles for an average of 9.62 miles/day and 293.27 miles/month.  That's a lot more than the 7.14 miles/day and 217.9 miles/month for not only the previous update, but the one before that.  What happened?

I'm driving Ruby more and Yuki less while my wife holds her driving steady.  It's been 80 days since Driving update for July 2014: Yuki and I've only driven my car about 750 miles.  At that rate, it should be another 26 or 27 days before I roll her over to 222,000 miles for 1000 miles in 106.7 days.  That would be a rate of 9.37 miles/day or 285.85 miles/month.  That would be much less than the 11.90 miles/day and 363.10 miles/month during the comparable period last year.

That written, Yuki may not reach that milestone, at least not with me driving her.  My wife and I are shopping for another car, and Yuki will likely be the one traded in.  Sigh.  That will deserve a post of its own when that happens, along with the story of how buying Ruby was the fulfillment of a promise I made to my students.  Later.

In the meantime, I'll connect Ruby to my Sunday entertainment series.  As I wrote in Second driving update for December 2013: Other car, I named the car after a character in "Once Upon A Time."

I gave her that name because of the car's color and because my wife and I are fans of "Once Upon a Time," which had a character named Ruby, who is really Red Riding Hood, for the first two seasons.

Ruby/Red was a guest star in the second half of the third season as well.  As for whether she's in this season, my wife and I will find out tonight, as the season premiere is tonight.

Until then, we can whet our appetites on what io9 wrote about the show in The Ultimate Guide to this Fall's Science Fiction and Fantasy TV!

The fairy tale badasses are back, but how will the latest addition of the Snow Queen (Elsa from Frozen) change the world of Stroybrooke? Will it change anything at all? Specifically, will Hook change his clothes, ever? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

We can hardly wait.

MAVEN at Mars from the University of Colorado

I concluded Mars update for MAVEN's arrival with "stay tuned for more on MAVEN" later.  It's later, so here are the two top stories from tonight's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (MAVEN at Mars) on Daily Kos.  Both of them are follow ups to the lead story from Space news from the University of Colorado.

NASA mission led by CU-Boulder achieves Martian orbit Sept. 21
September 21, 2014

The spacecraft for a NASA mission to probe the climate history of Mars led by the University of Colorado Boulder slid seamlessly into orbit at about 8:24 p.m. MDT on Sunday, Sept. 21, the last major hurdle of the 10-month, 442-million-mile journey.

The orbit insertion included the firing of several thruster engines to shed velocity from the spacecraft, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN mission. The maneuver allowed the gravity of Mars to capture the MAVEN spacecraft into an elongated, 35-hour orbit. In the coming weeks MAVEN’s orbit will be reduced to an elliptical, 4.5-hour orbit in order to collect science data.

MAVEN will now begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes testing the instruments and science-mapping sequences. After that, MAVEN will begin its one-Earth-year primary mission, taking key measurements of Mars’ upper atmosphere.

CU-Boulder instrument onboard MAVEN sends back first images of Mars
September 24, 2014

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding Mars.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21 after a 10-month journey.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36,500 kilometers, or 22,680 miles, in three ultraviolet wavelength bands.  Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface.  Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

Here's to more from MAVEN.

Passenger Pigeons: Extinction on exhibit

Today, I'm taking my geology students on their all-day field trip.  One of my usual stops is the MSU Museum, as I detailed in Field trip notes for April 2013.  Unfortunately, today is a football Saturday in East Lansing, so the museum is closed, just like it was last year as I mentioned in A Day at the museum--not!  Too bad, as it has a really cool exhibit about extinction that my students and I saw this summer.  Here's the write-up from MSU.

'They Passed like a Cloud' traces abundance to extinction
June 9, 2014

Despite such incredible abundance in the past, the Passenger Pigeon is now extinct. 2014 marks the 100th year of their disappearance, and it is perhaps better known today as a cautionary tale prompting a call-to-action for environmental awareness.

The MSU Museum presents “They Passed Like a Cloud: Extinction and the Passenger Pigeon,” open now through Jan. 25. The title comes from Chief Pokagon, last chief of the Michigan Potawatomi people, in 1850 as he observed their massive presence, passing through the skies and tree branches.

Easy to hunt and harvest in large numbers, the birds were pushed to the brink. The last documented mighty colony of Passenger Pigeons was in Northern Michigan.

“This exhibit provides a great opportunity to get people to think about our impact on the environment,” said MSU Museum assistant curator of ornithology and assistant professor in the Department of Zoology Pamela C. Rasmussen. “This cautionary tale about our ancestors eliminating one of the world's most abundant birds in a few decades is more relevant now than ever. We tend to take the natural world for granted, but we really can't. Hopefully this exhibit will help create awareness that translates into positive action.”

Exhibitions like this mark the anniversary, promote the conservation of species and habitat, strengthen the relationship between people and nature and foster the sustainable use of natural resources.

Not to be outdone, the University of Michigan has its own exhibit.

Art exhibit marks 100-year extinction of passenger pigeon, adds to events planned at U-M
September 11, 2014

ANN ARBOR—When artists across the country were invited to be part of a traveling exhibit to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, many had no idea of the story they were about to hear.

"As I began my research about the passenger pigeon, and rapidly began to understand the radical, abrupt and total demise of this beautiful bird, my heart ached," wrote Karen Rand Anderson of Connecticut in her artist statement, upon hearing about how the actions of man had killed off this bird that once roamed the continent freely, in abundant numbers.

"The facts are stunning: a population in the billions eliminated in a few decades. This is an idea I am still processing," said Eileen Hout of New York.

Unfortunately, it's a football Saturday in Ann Arbor, too, so my students won't be going there, either.  I will pass along to my students that they can to go both locations for extra credit.

On that note, I'm going to bed, as I have to get up early to lead the field trip.  Good night!

Nemesis: essay and song

I found out yesterday the topic of this year's student essay contest--Nemesis.  It just so happened that I thought about posting a music video to the song of that name by Shriekback for Throwback Thursday yesterday, but I was running late and had already posted for the day.  On top of that, I was right on schedule for number of posts and page views for the month, so I decided to skip it.  It ended up being my best day for page views so far this month.

Today, I'm going to an event sponsored by the same committee who also came up with the essay idea, so I'm posting both the video and the essay prompt.  First, the video, which is from Shriekback's live show, Shriekback Jungle Of The Senses Part 1.


(Nothing but) Flowers may be the theme song for the blog and as such may be my theme song now, but "Nemesis" was my personal theme song before that.  It mentioned both prehistoric animals and parthenogenesis, which were subjects of my M.S. and Ph.D. research respectively and was a cool song to boot.  That's why I wanted to post it yesterday.

Follow over the jump for the essay prompt.