LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control is featuring several new dogs this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of American bulldog, border collie, bull terrier, German shepherd, Labrador retriever, pit bull, shar pei, shepherd 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.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
‘Cali’
“Cali” is a female pit bull terrier with a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-3571.
Shar Pei-pit bull mix
This 9-year-old female shar pei-pit bull mix has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-3622.
‘Missy’
“Missy” is a 3-year-old female pit bull terrier with a black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-3524.
Male pit bull terrier mix
This 3-year-old male pit bull terrier mix has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-3627.
Female shepherd mix
This young female shepherd mix has a white coat.
She is in kennel No. 23, ID No. LCAC-A-3472.
Female pit bull
This young female pit bull has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-3630.
Male pit bull terrier
This 2-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short brown coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-3640.
Male German shepherd
This 1-year-old male German shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-3642.
Female shepherd
This 2-year-old female shepherd mix has a short white coat.
She is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-3643.
Pit bull-bull terrier mix
This 1-year-old male pit bull-bull terrier has a short white coat.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-3644.
Male American bulldog mix
This 2-year-old male American bulldog mix has a short tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-3645.
Border collie-Labrador retriever mix
This young male border collie-Labrador retriever mix has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-3646.
Female German shepherd mix
This 2-year-old female German shepherd mix has a short tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-3491.
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. — Lake County will celebrate Independence Day with numerous festivals and fireworks displays through this three-day holiday weekend.
The following is a list of fireworks shows around Lake County this weekend.
Saturday, July 2
Clearlake
The Lakeshore Lions Club is presenting the 64th annual Redbud Parade and Festival on Saturday.
The celebration includes a parade that starts at 11 a.m., and a daylong festival and carnival.
The fireworks display begins at dark offshore of Austin Park and beach.
Lakeport
The Lakeport Speedway will present a fireworks display after the races on Saturday night.
For more information visit the speedway’s Facebook page.
Sunday, July 3
Clearlake Oaks
The Clearlake Oaks Glenhaven Business Association will host a fireworks show at dark at the Clearlake Oaks boat ramp.
Lakeport
Konocti Vista Casino and Resort, Twin Pine Casino & Hotel, Lake County Tribal Health Consortium, Mission Grown Medicinals and BVR Smokeshop will host a fireworks show at 10 p.m.
The barge will be firing north of our marina on Clear Lake.
There also will be music and food trucks.
Monday, July 4
Lakeport
The city of Lakeport will host its festival and street fair from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Park Street and in Library Park.
The fireworks begin at dark offshore of Library Park.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Two longtime Lake County residents who have spent years in public service will be honored as the grand marshals of Saturday’s Redbud Parade.
Jim and Sue Burton of Clearlake Oaks will be the honorees during the event, which is part of Clearlake’s Independence Day celebration, which takes place beginning on Saturday morning.
The parade starts at Redbud Park at 11 a.m. before proceeding down Lakeshore Drive to Austin Park.
The theme of this year’s parade is “Rocking Lake County.”
“It is an honor,” Sue Burton told Lake County News.
Jim Burton was born and raised in Clearlake Oaks.
For 36 years he worked for the Clearlake Oaks Fire District, serving as fire chief for 26 of those years before his retirement. The district has since consolidated with several other fire districts to become Northshore Fire Protection District.
He has served as a member of the Northshore Fire District Board for 19 years, and also is a member of the Clearlake Oaks Water Board, vice president of the East Region Town Hall and president of the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge No. 2284.
Sue Burton has lived in Clearlake Oaks for more than 53 years. For 28 of those years, she owned her own business in the town.
She served on the Konocti Unified School District Board of Trustees for 20 years and also has been a member of the Redbud Health Care District for the past two decades.
Now, she is the first woman administrator for the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge.
More information about the 64th annual Redbud Parade and Festival is available here.
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.
Anyone who has suffered from jet lag or struggled after turning the clock forward or back an hour for daylight saving time knows all about what researchers call your biological clock, or circadian rhythm – the “master pacemaker” that synchronizes how your body responds to the passing of one day to the next.
This “clock” is made up of about 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus, the area near the center of the brain that coordinates your body’s unconscious functions, like breathing and blood pressure. Humans aren’t the only beings that have an internal clock system: All vertebrates – or mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish – have biological clocks, as do plants, fungi and bacteria. Biological clocks are why cats are most active at dawn and dusk, and why flowers bloom at certain times of day.
Circadian rhythms are also essential to health and well-being. They govern your body’s physical, mental and behavioral changes over each 24-hour cycle in response to environmental cues like light and food. They’re why more heart attacks and strokes occur early in the morning. They’re also why mice that are missing their biological clocks age faster and have shorter lifespans, and people with a mutation in their circadian clock genes have abnormal sleep patterns. Chronic misalignment of your circadian rhythm with external cues, as seen in night-shift workers, can lead to a wide range of physical and mental disorders, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
In short, there is ample evidence that your biological clock is critical to your health. And chronobiologists like me are studying how the day-night cycle affects your body to better understand how you can modify your behaviors to use your internal clock to your advantage.
How biological rhythms affect your health
Your biological clock affects your health by regulating your sleep-wake cycles and fluctuations in blood pressure and body temperature. It does this primarily by syncing your endocrine system to environmental light-dark cycles so that certain hormones are released in certain amounts at certain times of day.
The pineal grand in your brain, for example, produces melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep in response to darkness. Doctors advise reducing exposure to artificial blue light from electronic devices before bedtime because it can disrupt melatonin secretion and sleep quality.
Your circadian rhythm also affects your metabolism. Among other things, sleep helps you regulate leptin, a hormone that controls appetite. Your leptin levels fluctuate throughout the day according to a rhythm set by your circadian clock. Insufficient or irregular sleep can disrupt leptin production, which can make us hungrier and lead to weight gain.
In recent years, researchers have discovered even more ways your circadian clock can affect your health. For example, there is now research suggesting that eating at set times of day, or time-restricted feeding, can prevent obesity and metabolic diseases. Depression and other mood disorders may also be linked to dysfunctional circadian control that lead to changes in how your genes are expressed.
The time of day when you take your medicine can also affect how well it works and how severe any side effects might be. Likewise, your biological clock is a potential target for cancer chemotherapies and anti-obesity treatments.
And finally, even your personality might be shaped by whether your internal clock make you a “morning person” or a “night person.”
Getting the most out of exercise
Circadian clocks also provide a potential answer to when is the best time of day to maximize the benefits of physical exercise.
To study this, my colleagues and I collected blood and tissue samples from the brains, hearts, muscles, livers and fat of mice that exercised either before breakfast in the early morning or after dinner in the late evening. We used a tool called a mass spectrometer to detect approximately 600 to 900 molecules each organ produced. These metabolites served as real-time snapshots of how the mice responded to exercise at specific times of day.
We stitched these snapshots together to create a map of how exercise in the morning versus evening affected each of the mice’s different organ systems – what we called an atlas of exercise metabolism.
Using this atlas, we saw that time of day affects how each organ uses energy during exercise. For instance, we found that early morning exercise reduced blood glucose levels more than late evening exercise. Exercise in the late evening, however, allowed the mice to benefit from energy they stored from their meals and increased their endurance.
Of course, mice and humans have many differences along with their similarities. For one, mice are more active at night than during the day. Still, we believe that our findings could help researchers better understand how exercise affects your health and, if timed appropriately, can be optimized based on time of day to meet your personal health goals.
Getting along with your biological clock
I believe that the field of chronobiology is growing, and we will produce even more research providing practical applications and insights into health and well-being in the future.
In my own work, for example, a better understanding of how exercising at different times of day affects your body could help tailor exercise plans to maximize specific benefits for patients with obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diseases.
There is still much to learn about how your circadian clock works. But in the meantime, there are some tried and true ways people can synchronize their internal clocks for better health. These include regular exposure to sunlight to trigger the endocrine system to produce vitamin D, staying active during the day so you fall asleep more easily at night and avoiding caffeine and reducing your exposure to artificial light before bedtime.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Changes to state law that went into effect on Friday will allow some criminal case proceedings in the Lake County Superior Court to continue to be attended virtually.
Court Executive Office Krista LeVier said Friday that amendments and additions to the Penal Code were passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor.
The new legislation allows for remote appearances in many criminal proceedings. LeVier said the legislation applies to Penal Code sections 977 and 977.3.
As a result, LeVier said remote appearances will continue to be allowed on the criminal law and motion calendars when allowed under the law.
Preliminary hearings, felony sentencings, settlement conferences and trials continue to require in-person appearances, LeVier said.
She said counsel is required to appear in-person with any client who intends to appear in-person, as there is no means for private communication between the defendant and counsel prior to and during the proceedings.
Additional information can be found on the Lake County Superior Court website.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services on Thursday announced the first round of awardees for the first-in-the-nation Prepare California Program, with Lake County selected to receive funds to hire a chief climate resilience officer.
In total, Cal OES awarded nearly $4.5 million to six applicants through the “Jumpstart” portion of the Prepare California Program.
Ranging from cities and counties to tribal governments and private nonprofits situated all over the state, this funding will be used to invest in infrastructure improvements designed to protect people and property.
“We are proud of the work being done to ensure the state helps communities prepare before the next emergency,” said Mark Ghilarducci, Cal OES director. “We hope over time that these local investments will safeguard communities and their infrastructure from natural disasters.”
Launched in January, the groundbreaking program leverages funds approved in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2021-22 State Budget aimed at reducing long-term risks of disasters, such as flooding, earthquakes, wildfires, landslides or dam failure, in communities that are considered socially vulnerable and have a high hazard risk.
Lake County will receive $636,545 to hire a chief climate resilience officer to develop and implement a comprehensive local resilience strategy, develop low or no-cost solutions to reduce disaster risks, secure and manage mitigation grant funding, and pursue community resilience education and training.
“Lake County has endured an unparalleled series of nine wildfire disaster events since 2015,” said Lake County District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon. “Two-thirds of our land mass and more than 5.5% of our housing supply have burned. Every Lake County community has faced evacuation. In recent years, we have been working hard to bring people with separate and related roles in disaster preparedness together, and this grant will fund a critically-needed full-time chief climate resilience officer position. We couldn’t be more excited for this award.”
“As a county that has repeatedly come under climate change-informed threat it’s essential we do all we can to become more resilient to future events, and that starts with staff capacity to look ahead, and leverage any and all funding opportunities to make our communities safer,” said Lake County District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska. “We can’t wait to get a chief climate resilience officer in place.”
Designed to unlock federal matching funds for improvement projects that vulnerable communities would otherwise be unable to access, there are two types of grant funding available through Prepare California, with a total of $100 million available.
That includes $15 million in state funding that’s dedicated to helping eligible communities jumpstart their development and implementation of resilience planning.
The remaining $85 million is earmarked for communities applying for the federal Hazard Grant Mitigation Program and is intended to cover the required local cost share.
The state identified these disaster vulnerable communities by prioritizing California census tracts according to their estimated hazard exposures and social vulnerability.
Hazard exposure is based on the State Hazard Mitigation Plan which includes an analysis of several datasets related to wildfire, flood, earthquake, drought and heat wave frequencies. Social vulnerability is based on the CDC Social Vulnerability Index.
Additional information about Prepare California, including the inception of the program and the application process, can be found at www.caloes.ca.gov/preparecalifornia.
The full list of the first round awardees is below.
2022 Prepare California ‘Jumpstart’ awardees:
Hoopa Valley Tribal Government: $999,850. Hire a full-time hazard mitigation officer and a coordinator to determine cost-effective hazard mitigation projects, catalog vulnerable infrastructure, and provide education and outreach to residents and community partners.
“The Hoopa Valley Tribe is humbled and grateful for this funding opportunity from CalOES,” said Serene White, Hoopa Valley Tribe Office of Emergency Services emergency manager. “The Hoopa Valley tribe is the second largest tribe and provides service to their neighboring tribes and communities as well. This grant will greatly affect the need to better serve our community, membership and all the surrounding areas. This funding will help mitigate future events, disasters, and create a more continued resilient response effort on behalf of the Tribe. Tsediyah’ (thank you).”
Mendocino County: $992,000. Hire a part-time resilience-focused grant coordinator and grant consultant to conduct outreach and education campaigns and secure grant funding for projects that directly benefit the most socially vulnerable members of the community.
“The county of Mendocino is appreciative and excited to hear about the award from Cal OES,” said Darcie Antle, Mendocino County interim chief executive officer. “The Prepare California ‘Jumpstart’ grant will allow us to hire staff to help build capacity around hazard mitigation projects. The Board of Supervisors and the Prevention, Recovery, Resiliency, and Mitigation team have been working towards a grant management unit. This funding will build capacity around mitigation projects and expand on the great work being done by the PRRM team since the 2017 Wildfire. The team looks forward to working with Cal OES in the future.”
Happy Camp Community Action (Private nonprofit/Siskiyou County): $920,506. Hire additional staff, including a chief resilience officer, that would be responsible for identifying and implementing various wildfire mitigation projects, getting Happy Camp certified in the Community Emergency Response Team program, and providing fire-safe education and outreach to Happy Camp communities.
“The Slater Fire Long-Term Recovery Group is honored to receive this grant award from the California Office of Emergency Services,” said the group’s co-chair, Abigail Yeager. “Our rural community of Happy Camp, California was devastated by the 2020 Slater Fire; this grant is a huge step forward in our recovery journey and will improve our fire resiliency tremendously. This opportunity would not have been possible without the partnership between Happy Camp Community Action, Inc. and SiskiyouWorks, two non-profit Slater Fire LTRG member organizations who co-wrote the grant.”
City of Barstow, San Bernardino County: $732,000. Hire a part-time chief resilience officer to develop local climate resilience strategies and initiatives aimed at assisting the most socially vulnerable residents.
Lake County: $636,545. Hire a chief climate resilience officer to develop and implement a comprehensive local resilience strategy, develop low or no-cost solutions to reduce disaster risks, secure and manage mitigation grant funding, pursue community resilience education and training.
City of Concord, Contra Costa County: $175,000. Create an equity-minded planning initiative that is based on language access and focuses on emergency preparedness education and outreach within Limited English Proficient communities.
What's up for July? The planets at dawn, the dog days of summer, and the Teapot points to the center of the Milky Way.
The planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn dominate morning skies in July. Venus is there as well, but appears low in the east, so you'll need a clear view toward the horizon to see it.
The planets are spread out across the morning sky, accompanied by bright stars, Capella, Aldebaran, and Fomalhaut. On July 20, look for the half-full, last-quarter moon between Mars and Jupiter. And the following morning, you'll find the Moon sitting right next to Mars.
July is a time for sweltering hot weather in the Northern Hemisphere, and you may have heard this time of year referred to as the "dog days of summer." Well that phrase actually dates back to ancient times and has to do with the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.
At the peak of summer, the Sun lies in the same part of the sky as Sirius, which the ancient Greeks and Romans associated with the dog-shaped constellation Canis major, just as we do today. Sirius is its most prominent star, and it's sometimes called "the dog star."
In Ancient Greek, Sirius means "the scorcher," and both the Greeks and Romans believed the blazing bright star's proximity in the sky added to the Sun's heat during that time of the year making it even more oppressive. And so they called this hot time of year the "dog days."
Of course, today we know the only star close enough to affect our temperatures on Earth is the Sun. And the heat we experience in July is the result of the Northern Hemisphere being tilted toward the Sun. This yields longer days and more direct sunlight, and thus warmer weather. The situation is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, where July is right in the middle of winter.
Facing southward on July nights after sunset, you'll find a sky teeming with bright stars. Looking in that direction this time of year, you're facing the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, all night, and there are quite a number of bright stars in that part of the sky — particularly in the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius.
Now if you find yourself under dark skies you'll be able to fully enjoy the Milky Way core — densely packed with stars and dark clouds of dust and gas. It's dazzling this time of year, and it's visible toward the south as soon as it gets fully dark out.
But even if you're under urban skies too bright to observe the Milky Way core, the group of stars in Sagittarius known as the Teapot will help you pinpoint its location on the sky.
The Teapot is a well-known asterism, or pattern of stars, and like Scorpius the scorpion nearby, once you're familiar with it, it's hard not to see a teapot there in the sky. The galaxy's core lies just right of the stars of the Teapot's "spout."
Over the course of the night, it appears to tilt as if its spout is pouring out a cosmic "cuppa." And under dark skies, the Milky Way appears as a plume of steam rising from the spout. So here's hoping you get a chance to enjoy the Milky Way in July, or at least that you find your way to the galaxy's core thanks to the Teapot.
Preston Dyches works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NORTH COAST, Calif. — The California Transportation Commission allocated more than $3 billion on Thursday to repair and improve transportation infrastructure throughout the state, including $1.3 billion in funding from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support local projects and to protect local roads and bridges from extreme weather and natural disasters.
The allocations approved by the California Transportation Commission, or CTC, include $1.3 million toward roadway, guardrail, drainage and other improvements on Highway 29 near Clear Lake from Spruce Grove Road to Diener Drive in Lake County.
Senate Bill (SB) 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, accounts for more than $930 million of the total funding.
“The CTC’s decision to invest in our state highways while protecting city and county infrastructure will help make California’s roadways safer and more resilient one shovel, one project and one community at a time,” said Caltrans Director Tony Tavares.
In addition to the work in Lake County, projects approved this week include:
• Approximately $8.4 million toward drainage improvements along Route 299 from Blue Lake to Willow Creek in Humboldt County.
• Approximately $1.5 million toward the construction of a retaining wall along Route 36 near Bridgeville in Humboldt County.
• Approximately $4.1 million toward drainage and fish-passage improvements along U.S. 101 near Crescent City in Del Norte County.
• Approximately $1 million toward the construction and repair of buildings at the Ukiah Maintenance Station along U.S. 101 as well as the Boonville Maintenance Station along Route 128 in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $1 million toward the construction of a median barrier along U.S. 101 from Route 20 to south of North State Street near Ukiah in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $3.1 million toward drainage and fish-passage improvements along Route 1 near Philo and Boonville in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $1.1 million toward road and guardrail repairs and ADA curb ramps along Route 1 from south of Iverson Avenue to Philo Greenwood Road near Point Arena in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $1.1 million toward roadway and guardrail repairs along U.S. 101 from north of Robinson Creek Bridge to Pomo Lane Undercrossing near Ukiah in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $5.7 million toward the construction of a retaining wall along U.S. 101 near Hopland in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $588,000 toward roadway and guardrail repairs along U.S. 101 from north of the Humboldt County line to Leggett in Mendocino County.
• Approximately $1.4 million toward pavement and guardrail upgrades along Route 1 from Mill Creek Bridge to Robinson Creek Bridge near Boonville in Mendocino County.
The $1.3 billion federal local assistance allocation in fiscal year 2023 is thanks to programs that were created or expanded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Caltrans oversees funds that are available to more than 600 cities, counties, and regional agencies for the purpose of improving their transportation infrastructure and services.
Funding from new programs that were created by the law includes $45 million to build community resilience in the face of extreme weather and natural disasters and $63 million to help develop carbon reduction strategies that address the climate crisis.
SB 1 provides $5 billion in annual transportation funding annually that is split between the state and local agencies. Road projects progress through construction phases more quickly based on the availability of SB 1 funds, including projects that are partially funded by SB 1.
For more information about transportation projects funded by SB 1, visit www.RebuildingCA.ca.gov.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Firefighters quickly contained a structure fire in Clearlake that threatened numerous other buildings on Thursday evening.
The fire in the 14000 block of Konocti Street was dispatched shortly after 6:30 p.m.
Initial reports said the fire was burning two structures, with multiple additional structures threatened.
The Clearlake Police Department sent out an alert asking people to avoid the area, and officers closed Konocti Road at Lakeshore Drive.
By 7 p.m., incident command reported that the fire had been contained to one property with minimal extension into the wildland. Additional resources were canceled.
At that point, with the fire completely knocked down, mop up was estimated to take a few hours.
Reports from the scene said the property was abandoned.
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.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — A new public art installation in downtown Lakeport that celebrates essential workers was formally dedicated on Friday evening.
The new mural by Loch Lomond artist Emma Wakefield is located on the side of the Meals on Wheels Thrift Store at 120 N. Main St.
It portrays a sleeping boy, holding his stuffed rabbit, and tucked under a quilt, the blocks of which illustrate the many professions that are critical to daily life and whose importance has been amplified by the pandemic: health care workers, police and firefighters, construction and utility workers, teachers, cooks, farmworkers, postal workers and store clerks.
Wakefield started painting the mural on May 16, completing it a week later.
It’s the latest of several murals that now decorate the city’s downtown as part of an effort to create more public art throughout Lake County.
“This was the coolest community effort I’ve ever seen,” said Barbara Clark, executive director of the Lake County Arts Council.
She said many groups quickly came together with the Arts Council to get the project off the ground, including the Lake Family Resource Center, city of Lakeport, Lake County Rural Arts Initiative, the Lakeport Senior Center and Lakeport Main Street Association.
Mayor Pro Tem Mireya Turner noted the speed of the project coming together and being completed.
She said it expresses appreciation for those who work for the community.
Clark told Lake County News that they still have about half of the $8,000 to raise to cover the mural’s cost.
Tax-deductible, charitable donations may be made to the Lake County Arts Council at https://lakearts.org/essential-worker-appreciation-mural-project/.
After Wakefield cut a ceremonial ribbon provided by the Lake County Chamber, Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado read a dedication poem.
Guardado’s poem spoke to the work of the people portrayed in the mural and their contributions.
She said that nature may be saying it’s time to reap what has been sown.
In response, her poem ended with the voice of the people who continued to work as COVID-19 shut down the world: “Not if we can help it.”
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.
Scientists using data from NASA’s Curiosity rover measured the total organic carbon — a key component in the molecules of life — in Martian rocks for the first time.
“Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology,” said Jennifer Stern of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We found at least 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites.”
Organic carbon is carbon bound to a hydrogen atom. It is the basis for organic molecules, which are created and used by all known forms of life.
However, organic carbon on Mars does not prove the existence of life there because it can also come from non-living sources, such as meteorites and volcanoes, or be formed in place by surface reactions.
Organic carbon has been found on Mars before, but prior measurements only produced information on particular compounds, or represented measurements capturing just a portion of the carbon in the rocks. The new measurement gives the total amount of organic carbon in these rocks.
Although the surface of Mars is inhospitable for life now, there is evidence that billions of years ago the climate was more Earth-like, with a thicker atmosphere and liquid water that flowed into rivers and seas.
Since liquid water is necessary for life as we understand it, scientists think Martian life, if it ever evolved, could have been sustained by key ingredients such as organic carbon, if present in sufficient amounts.
Curiosity is advancing the field of astrobiology by investigating Mars’ habitability, studying its climate and geology.
The rover drilled samples from 3.5-billion-year-old mudstone rocks in the Yellowknife Bay formation of Gale crater, the site of an ancient lake on Mars. Mudstone at Gale crater was formed as very fine sediment (from physical and chemical weathering of volcanic rocks) in water settled on the bottom of a lake and was buried. Organic carbon was part of this material and got incorporated into the mudstone.
Besides liquid water and organic carbon, Gale crater had other conditions conducive to life, such as chemical energy sources, low acidity, and other elements essential for biology, such as oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur.
“Basically, this location would have offered a habitable environment for life, if it ever was present,” said Stern, lead author of a paper about this research published June 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To make the measurement, Curiosity delivered the sample to its Sample Analysis at Mars, OR SAM, instrument, where an oven heated the powdered rock to progressively higher temperatures.
This experiment used oxygen and heat to convert the organic carbon to carbon dioxide, or CO2, the amount of which is measured to get the amount of organic carbon in the rocks.
Adding oxygen and heat allows the carbon molecules to break apart and react carbon with oxygen to make CO2. Some carbon is locked up in minerals, so the oven heats the sample to very high temperatures to decompose those minerals and release the carbon to convert it to CO2.
The experiment was performed in 2014 but required years of analysis to understand the data and put the results in context of the mission’s other discoveries at Gale Crater. The resource-intensive experiment was performed only once during Curiosity’s 10 years on Mars.
This process also allowed SAM to measure the carbon isotope ratios, which help to understand the source of the carbon. Isotopes are versions of an element with slightly different weights (masses) due to the presence of one or more extra neutrons in the center (nucleus) of their atoms.
For example, Carbon-12 has six neutrons while the heavier Carbon-13 has seven neutrons. Since heavier isotopes tend to react a bit more slowly than lighter isotopes, the carbon from life is richer in Carbon-12.
“In this case, the isotopic composition can really only tell us what portion of the total carbon is organic carbon and what portion is mineral carbon,” said Stern. “While biology cannot be completely ruled out, isotopes cannot really be used to support a biological origin for this carbon, either, because the range overlaps with igneous (volcanic) carbon and meteoritic organic material, which are most likely to be the source of this organic carbon.”
The research was funded by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. Curiosity’s Mars Science Laboratory mission is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; JPL is managed by Caltech. SAM was built and tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Charles Malespin is SAM's principal investigator.
Bill Steigerwald works for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has more new dogs waiting to be adopted.
The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
The following dogs are available for adoption, with the newcomers at the top.
‘Matata’
“Matata” is male shepherd mix with a tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50176912.
‘Sister’
“Sister” is a female terrier mix with a short tan coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 50262516.
‘Andy’
“Andy” is a male American pit bull mix with a short gray and white coat.
He is dog No. 48995415.
‘Bear’
“Bear” is a male Labrador retriever-American pit bull mix with a short charcoal and fawn coat.
He has been neutered.
‘Big Phil’
“Big Phil” is a 13-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a blue coat.
He is dog No. 49951647.
‘Bro’
“Bro” is a male terrier mix with a short tan coat.
He has been neutered.
Bro is dog No. 50262527.
‘Colt’
“Colt” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback mix with a short rust and black coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49812106.
‘Hondo’
“Hondo” is a male Alaskan husky mix with a buff coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s dog No. 50227693.
‘Kubota’
“Kubota” is a male German shepherd mix with a short tan and black coat.
He has been neutered.
Kubota is dog No. 50184421.
‘Newman’
“Newman” is a 1-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
Newman is dog No. 49057809.
‘Snowball’
“Snowball” is a male American Staffordshire mix terrier with a white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49159168.
‘Terry’
“Terry” is a handsome male shepherd mix with a short brindle coat.
He gets along with other dogs, including small ones, and enjoys toys. He also likes water, playing fetch and keep away.
Staff said he is now getting some training to help him build confidence.
He is dog No. 48443693.
‘Ziggy’
“Ziggy” is a male American pit bull terrier mix with a short gray and white coat.
He has been neutered.
Ziggy is dog No. 50146247
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