NASA has long been a leader in understanding the science of space weather, including research into the potential for induced electrical currents to disrupt our power systems.

Last year, NASA scientists worked with scientists and engineers from research institutions and industry during a pair of intensive week-long workshops in order to assess the state of science surrounding this type of space weather. This summary was published Jan. 30, 2017, in the journal Space Weather.

Storms from the sun can affect our power grids, railway systems and underground pipelines through a phenomenon called geomagnetically induced currents, or GICs.

The sun regularly releases a constant stream of magnetic solar material called the solar wind, along with occasional huge clouds of solar material called coronal mass ejections. This material interacts with Earth’s magnetic field, causing temporary changes.

That temporary change to the magnetic field can create electric currents just under Earth’s surface. These are GICs.

Long, thin, metal structures near Earth’s surface – such as underground pipelines, railroads and power lines – can act as giant wires for these currents, causing electricity to flow long distances underground.

This electric current can cause problems for all three structures, and it’s especially difficult to manage in power systems, where controlling the amount of electric current is key for keeping the lights on.

Under extreme conditions, GICs can cause temporary blackouts, which means that studying space weather is a crucial component for emergency management.  

“We already had a pretty good grasp of the key moving pieces that can affect power systems,” said Antti Pulkkinen, a space weather researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “But this was the first we had solar experts, heliospheric scientists, magnetospheric physicists, power engineers and emergency management officials all in a room together.”

Though GICs can primarily cause problems for power systems, railroads and pipelines aren’t immune.

“Researchers have found a positive correlation between geomagnetic storms and mis-operation of railway signaling systems,” said Pulkkinen, who is also a member of the space weather research-focused Community Coordinated Modeling Center based at Goddard.

This is because railway signals, which typically control traffic at junctures between tracks or at intersections with roads, operate on an automated closed/open circuit system. If a train’s metal wheels are on the track near the signal, they close the electrical circuit, allowing electrical current to flow to the signal and turn it on.

“Geomagnetically induced currents could close that loop and make the system signal that there’s a train when there isn’t,” said Pulkkinen.

Similarly, current flowing in oil pipelines could create false alarms, prompting operators to inspect pipelines that aren’t damaged or malfunctioning.

In power systems, the GICs from a strong space weather event can cause something called voltage collapse. Voltage collapse is a temporary state in which the voltage of a segment of a power system goes to zero. Because voltage is required for current to flow, voltage collapse can cause blackouts in affected areas.

Though blackouts caused by voltage collapse can have huge effects on transportation, healthcare and commerce, GICs are unlikely to cause permanent damage to large sections of power systems.

“For permanent transformer damage to occur, there needs to be sustained levels of GICs going through the transformer,” said Pulkkinen. “We know that’s not how GICs work. GICs tend to be much more noisy and short-lived, so widespread physical damage of transformers is unlikely even during major storms.”

The scientists who worked on the survey, part of the NASA Living With a Star Institute, also created a list of the key unanswered questions in GIC science, mostly related to computer modeling and prediction.

The group members’ previous work on GIC science and preparedness has already been used to shape new standards for power companies to guard against blackouts.

In September 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, released new standards that require power companies to assess and prepare for potential GIC disruptions.

“We’re really proud that our team members made major contributions to the updated FERC standards,” said Pulkkinen. “It also shows that the U.S. is actively working to address GIC risk.”

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – It’s hard to believe that the pretty little wood ducks (Aix sponsa) were brought to the brink of extinction in the late 1800s.

Deforestation, wetland loss and hunting of the birds for meat production were the main culprits, but like the egrets of the same time, wood duck feathers were also prized for ladies’ hats.

Conservation efforts including the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918) preserved the species. Even though they are still hunted (with a limited take of two birds in California) their numbers are currently on rise thanks to continued protection and the establishment of human-made nesting boxes.

At only about three-quarters of the size of a common mallard, the male wood ducks are distinctly patterned with an iridescent green head (decorated with white lines and curves), a glossy chestnut colored chest and buff sides.

Although the females’ coloring isn’t as striking, they still cut a lovely gray-brown figure with their speckled breasts, and their white rimmed eyes with yellow eyeliner.

Besides their coloring, what makes these ducks unique is that they have no close ancestral relatives other than the brightly colored Mandarin ducks. 

Unlike most other ducks, too, wood ducks have some special adaptations that make them able to climb, perch, nest and freely fly around trees.

Their somewhat stocky body and short broad wings make them very maneuverable in flight, and their feet are equipped with claws that allow the ducks to climb trees and perch on branches.

Even the newly hatched ducklings have use for their claws. When they are just one day old, they leap from the nest onto the ground (which may be up to 50 feet below), using their claws and tail to brace themselves just before the jump.

Unless they land on something especially hard, the long fall doesn’t injure the ducklings. Their tiny bodies are so light that they literally just bounce when they hit ground.

Wood ducks prefer to nest in tree cavities but since they are unable to excavate cavities on their own and have to rely on natural openings in trees, they have also adapted well to using nest boxes. (Northern Flicker nesting cavities are sometimes used, but that is something of a rarity.)

Usually, the nest which is lined with feathers and little else is between 10 and 50 feet off the ground somewhere near a water source, like a lake, wetlands area or even an urban pond.

Females may lay eggs in several different nests before they pick one to brood in, so it’s not unusual for there to be a broad mix of eggs in each nest.

Some nests, called “dump nests,” don’t live up to the females’ instinctive standards and the eggs in them never get incubated at all.

Normally, the females will lay between six and fifteen eggs. But in areas where the nests are close together and the females are all laying in one another’s nests around the same time, there can be up to 30 or 40 eggs in one nest.

Although such broods can be large, most of the ducklings don’t make it to maturity. Their tiny “snack” size make them easy prey to a wide variety of predators including other birds, snakes, and predatory fish like Northern Pike.

About 80 percent of a wood duck’s diet is made up of the seeds of aquatic plants, but the ducks will supplement that diet with insects, snails, berries, acorns and other plant matter like water primrose, duckweed and smartweed.

Ducklings eat the same diet as their parents, and although their mom may stay with them for about six weeks after they hatch to protect them and help them find things to eat, she will generally leave the ducklings to their own devices by the time they fledge.

If you would like to try your hand at building a wood duck box keep in mind that the kind of habitat available around the box is as important as the construction of the box itself.

The ducks need foraging sources and access to water. Building nest boxes, though, allows you to help preserve the species and affords you some insights into their unique behavior.

Mary K. Hanson is a Certified California Naturalist, author and nature photographer. She will be co-teaching a naturalist course for the public through Tuleyome in early 2018. Tuleyome is a501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland, CA. For more information visit www.tuleyome.org .

This week in history features the opening of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the scene of the world’s first Ferris Wheel and our nation’s first serial killer.

May 1, 1893

On this day in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago, the culmination of years of effort by the city to claim the honor of hosting the event.

Although World’s Fairs continue today (the next one is slated for Astana, Kazakhstan later this year), they are not nearly as popular as they once were.

The closest modern equivalent to the World’s Fairs of the 1800s are the Olympic Games. Both world events share the same life cycle: on winning the honor, the selected city builds massive structures to house the games, beatifies the immediate area in which visitors to the games congregate, enjoys the short few weeks of international attention and inevitably abandons the newly built superstructures after the closing of the event.

Just as the Olympics today provide the host country a chance to dazzle the world with displays of its heritage, its present industry and future greatness (think opening and closing ceremonies), so too did the World’s Fairs of the 1800s.

At what is widely considered the first World’s Fair held in Hyde Park in London in 1851, the English constructed a nearly one million square foot building of glass and iron, a marvel of its time in an age when the all-glass skyscraper was still decades off.

They coined this marvel, appropriately, the Crystal Palace. Inside were exhibitions of people, artifacts and animals from all corners of the British Empire, a remarkable display of the reach of England and a potent reminder to the world of the island nation’s power.

America received its first World’s Fair in 1876, the centennial of the birth of the nation. Held in Philadelphia, the fair proved to be a financial disaster.

Following the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889, during which the Eiffel Tower was unveiled, America hoped to have another shot at the honor.

When Chicago won the bid for the fair by beating out New York City, people were understandably surprised. After all, by the early 1890s the only thing Chicago was known for was its massive slaughter house where thousands of cattle were butchered and processed on a daily basis – hardly the nation’s best foot to put forward.

To make matters worse, the city still hadn’t fully recovered from the 1871 Great Chicago Fire that had devastated over three square miles and killed hundreds of people.

Despite these challenges, the leaders of the exposition planning team succeeded in designing and building a remarkable park where visitors could walk through over 200 buildings painted brilliant white and designed by the nation’s leading architects.

These pearlescent structures stood amid a 600 acre park of green fields and neatly sculpted hedgerows. Delicate bridges spanned a series of canals that cut through from Lake Michigan, demarcating sections of the fair and reflecting on their cool surfaces the imposing structures that crowded around.

From the ashes of devastation, a new Chicago had emerged, if only for a few months’ time. In place of the city of coal smoke and animal carcasses arose one of culture, arts and imagination—truly a city deserving of the name “The White City.”

Between May 1 and the end of October, some 26 million people from around the world flocked to Chicago.

Visitors could wander through 14 “great buildings” and marvel at exhibitions highlighting agriculture, mining, arts and sciences, machinery and electricity.

For the first time in World’s Fair history, foreign nations were also given spaces to display their own heritage. Norway sent a recreated Viking long ship, which sailed across the Atlantic and sat docked during the fair alongside the life-sized replicas of Christopher Columbus’ three famous ships (after all the fair was ostensibly in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America).

Separate from these exhibition spaces was an entire area dedicated to entertainment where visitors could watch risqué and exotic dances, clamber aboard carnival rides and compete in games.

Unveiled for the first time at this fair was a remarkable ride that has since become a staple of amusement parks the world over: the Ferris Wheel.

Standing nearly 300 feet tall, the Ferris Wheel (so named for its designer George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.) rotated on a 71 ton axle, turning in a slow roll some 36 passenger cars that could each accommodate up to 60 people.

This remarkable machine proved the centerpiece of the fair and the ticket sales went some ways into making the Chicago World’s Fair more of a financial success than the previous one.

For better or worse, however, the 1893 fair is not remembered today for the whimsical Ferris Wheel or any one of the thousands of wonders on display.

Thanks to Erik Larson’s narrative nonfiction book “The Devil in the White City,” the Chicago fair is instead known for being the hunting ground of America’s first known serial killer, H.H. Holmes.

Holmes confessed to killing 27 people, although authorities could only confirm nine.

For the next century pulp fiction authors would inflate the character of Holmes, at one time pushing the number of his victims to 200 and claiming that he had torture devices in a building he owned three miles from the fair itself.

These rumormongers and our very human love of the bizarre have blown out of proportion an admittedly sordid tale to the exclusion of all else.

In the end, no matter how amazing the spectacle, all World’s Fairs come to an end. By the close of 1893, most of the buildings that had taken years of planning and construction to come to fruition were taken down.

Of the over 200 structures built for the fair, only two remain today in place: the Palace of Fine Arts and the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building.

All of those remarkable structures of stunning white were largely facades of easily dismantled material. An unthinkable amount of human effort and expense had gone into creating a temporary paradise of only six months. In many ways, the superfluity and waste of the whole venture was itself part of the show. In the end, the show must go on.

Antone Pierucci is the former curator of the Lake County Museum and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – April is National Poetry Month.

The Academy of American Poets instigated this celebration in 1996 to create an awareness of the wide variety of poetry that has been written, both past and present.

The Academy of American Poets supports and promotes the creative art of poetry, and has been doing so since the Academy became a nonprofit in New York in 1934.

April is the time of the year for libraries, bookstores, educators and writers to celebrate, encourage and promote poetry internationally, nationally and locally.

The poetry awareness activities have traditionally included readings, writing to a favorite poet and distributing poetry.

Here in Lake County poetry is celebrated via readings and through the Lake County Poet Laureate program.

Although not a Lake County resident, nor poet laureate, Carrie Stevens Walter was a poet who wrote about our fair county in some of her poems.

Here is a portion of one poem.

Through Lake County
by Carrie Stevens Walter
(Excerpted from her book, "Rose Ashes and Other Poems")

A lake, which seems a silver mirror, swung
Up near the clear blue sky,
Around whose loveliness the guardian hills
In circling beauty lie.

Mountains, that hike within their silent breasts
Ashes of fires long spent,
Whose torches lighted, through the night of
Time,
Chaos' black firmament

Cedars and pines, which strike their piercing
roots
In cold volcanoes' hearts,
That throbbed their lives out in some dead
world grief,
As human pain departs.

In Walter's book entitled “Rose Ashes and Other Poems,” she wrote poems about Lake County entitled, “Through Lake County,” “On Monte Piedra – A Mountlet in Lake County,” “At Lakeport” and more.

Carrie Stevens Walter was born in Missouri, depending on the reference, in either 1846 or 1848, and died in 1907.

Carrie Stevens Walter lived in California with her parents and five siblings from the age of 10, and later became an educator and writer.

Her father, Josiah E. Stevens, who was a Mason and California politician, moved the family to the West, where, according to “A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches” edited by Frances Elizabeth Willard etc., “...at an early age was carefully educated in the Oakland Seminary, and at eighteen years of age was the valedictorian of the first graduating class of that institution.”

At that time Walter's verses had been published in various periodicals in California. She enjoyed a long teaching career, married, had four children, one of which died at age 19, and she continued writing on the side.

In 1886 Walter published a book of poetry called “Santa Barbara Idyl.” Walter lived in Santa Clara County where she also wrote prose for magazines and newspapers which described the beauty of California.

Her obituary ran in many prominent newspapers of the day.

The obituary notice in the Sacramento Union, April 27, 1907, read, “Carrie Stevens Walter, a well-known California writer, died this morning from pneumonia. She leaves a son, Roy, who is city clerk of San Jose, and two daughters.”

More of Carrie Stevens Walter's writing may be read online at https://archive.org/details/roseashesandothe00waltiala .

Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Four dogs, two small and two large, are ready for their new homes this week at Lake County Animal Care and Control.

This week’s available dogs include mixes of Chihuahua, husky and terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

Female terrier

This small female terrier has a short white coat and floppy ears.

She’s in kennel No. 6b, ID No. 7334.

Female Chihuahua

This young female Chihuahua has a short white coat and floppy ears.

She’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 7333.

‘Daisy’

“Daisy” is a husky with a medium-length tricolor coat and blue eyes.

She has not yet been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 24, ID No. 7341.

‘Kevin’

“Kevin” is a husky with a medium-length tricolor coat, and one blue eye and one brown eye.

He has not yet been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 7340.

To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Air Quality Management District reported that the county’s annual burn ban will begin on Monday, May 1.

The burn restriction, which is intended to address concerns over both fire hazard and air quality, applies to all areas in Lake County.

All burn permits expire on Sunday, April 30.

An annual burn ban was first implemented in 1986 in response to weather conditions that often create extreme fire danger and poor air quality.

A managed approach incorporating fire and air agency concerns has been implemented and improved upon for many years, the district reported.

The ban allows a quick fire agency response to all fires observed from May 1 onward, as they are all assumed to be uncontrolled fires unless specifically authorized by an exemption permit.

The district said this successful program is one of the primary reasons Lake County has superior and healthful air quality.

The ban also helps prevent smoke impacts to the general public and large planned outdoor events from unrestricted vegetative waste burns.

The burn ban includes all open waste burning, though exceptions are possible for agricultural operations, essential control burns for fire hazard reduction projects, public safety burns and others.

To obtain an exemption permit for a necessary burn after May 1, first contact the Lake County Air Quality Management District at 707-263-7000 to determine need, then your local fire protection agency so that your burn site can be inspected and evaluated for fire safety.

Only after the fire agency has notified the Lake County Air Quality Management District that the proposed burn is fire safe, can you obtain a written exemption permit.

Anyone responsible for open burning during the ban without a valid written exemption permit may be subject to a citation, fines and the cost of the fire agency response to extinguish the fire. Burn restrictions will remain in effect until Cal Fire declares an end to fire season late this year.

The Lake County Air Quality Management District asks that the community help reduce the danger and losses caused by uncontrolled fires, and protect the county’s clean air resources by observing the ban.

The district said public cooperation is greatly appreciated and results in a safer and more healthful environment for everyone.