The reaction of CoBr2, KNCSe and 2-methyl­pyridine N-oxide (C6H7NO) in ethanol leads to the formation of crystals of [Co(NCSe)2(C6H7NO)3] (1) and [Co(NCSe)2(C6H7NO)4] (2) from the same reaction mixture. The asymmetric unit of 1 is built up of one CoII cation, two NCSe− iso­seleno­cyanate anions and three 2-methyl­pyridine N-oxide coligands, with all atoms located on general positions. The asymmetric unit of 2 consists of two cobalt cations, four iso­seleno­canate anions and eight 2-methyl­pyridine N-oxide coligands in general positions, because two crystallographically independent complexes are present. In compound 1, the CoII cations are fivefold coordinated to two terminally N-bonded anionic ligands and three 2-methyl­pyridine N-oxide coligands within a slightly distorted trigonal–bipyramidal coordination, forming discrete complexes with the O atoms occupying the equatorial sites. In compound 2, each of the two complexes is coordinated to two terminally N-bonded iso­seleno­cyanate anions and four 2-methyl­pyridine N-oxide coligands within a slightly distorted cis-CoN2O4 octa­hedral coordination geometry. In the crystal structures of 1 and 2, the complexes are linked by weak C—H⋯Se and C—H⋯O contacts. Powder X-ray diffraction reveals that neither of the two compounds were obtained as a pure crystalline phase.

The title compound, [Ni(NCS)2(C6H7N)2]n, was prepared by the reaction of Ni(NCS)2 with 4-methyl­pyridine in water. Its asymmetric unit consists of two crystallographically independent NiII cations, of which one is located on a twofold rotational axis whereas the second occupies a center of inversion, two independent thio­cyanate anions and two independent 4-methyl­pyridine co­ligands in general positions. Each NiII cation is octa­hedrally coordinated by two 4-methyl­pyridine coligands as well as two N- and two S-bonded thio­cyanate anions. One of the cations shows an all-trans, the other a cis–cis–trans configuration. The metal centers are linked by pairs of μ-1,3-bridging thio­cyanate anions into [101] chains. X-ray powder diffraction shows that a pure crystalline phase has been obtained and thermogravimetry coupled to differential thermoanalysis reveals that the title compound loses half of the 4-methyl­pyridine coligands and transforms into Ni(NCS)2(C6H7N). Nearly pure samples of this compound can be obtained by thermal annealing and a Rietveld refinement demonstrated that it is isotypic to its recently reported Cd analog [Neumann et al., (2020). CrystEngComm. 22, 184–194] In its crystal structure, the metal cations are linked by one μ-1,3(N,S)- and one μ-1,3,3(N,S,S)-bridging thio­cyanate anion into single chains that condense via the μ-1,3,3(N,S,S)-bridging anionic ligands into double chains.

A hard X-ray single-shot spectrometer comprising thin, bent Si crystals has been developed for the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL), for detailed analysis of ultrafast 4.5–17 keV XFEL pulses with a high spectral resolution. This instrument facilitates shot-to-shot spectral structure monitoring and optimization of the operating conditions of the XFEL owing to its ability to provide comprehensive data on the spectral properties and fluctuations of self-amplified spontaneous emission, monochromatic and seeded XFEL modes.

In this work, we showed that the use of ethanol to increase image contrast when imaging cardiac tissue with synchrotron X-ray phase-contrast imaging (X-PCI) leads to heterogeneous tissue shrinkage, which has an impact on the 3D organization of the myocardium.

we introduce a novel approach for a real-time dual-frequency feedback system, which has been firstly used at the hard X-ray nanoprobe beamline of SSRF. The BiBEST can then efficiently stabilize X-ray beam position and stability in parallel, making use of different optical systems in the beamline.

In crystallographic texture analysis, ensuring that sample directions are preserved from experiment to the resulting orientation distribution is crucial to obtain physical meaning from diffraction data. This work details a procedure to ensure instrument and sample coordinates are consistent when analyzing diffraction data with a Rietveld refinement using the texture analysis software MAUD. A quartz crystal is measured on the HIPPO diffractometer at Los Alamos National Laboratory for this purpose. The methods described here can be applied to any diffraction instrument measuring orientation distributions in polycrystalline materials.

This paper introduces a new 2D representation of the orientation distribution function for an arbitrary material texture. The approach is based on the isometric square torus mapping of the Clifford torus, which allows for points on the unit quaternion hypersphere (each corresponding to a 3D orientation) to be represented in a periodic 2D square map. The combination of three such orthogonal mappings into a single RGB (red–green–blue) image provides a compact periodic representation of any set of orientations. Square torus representations of five different orientation sampling methods are compared and analyzed in terms of the Riesz s energies that quantify the uniformity of the samplings. The effect of crystallographic symmetry on the square torus map is analyzed in terms of the Rodrigues fundamental zones for the rotational symmetry groups. The paper concludes with example representations of important texture components in cubic and hexagonal materials. The new RGB representation provides a convenient and compact way of generating training data for the automated analysis of material textures by means of neural networks.

X-ray scattering has become a major tool in the structural characterization of nanoscale materials. Thanks to the widely available experimental and computational atomic models, coordinate-based X-ray scattering simulation has played a crucial role in data interpretation in the past two decades. However, simulation of real-space pair distance distribution functions (PDDFs) from small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering, SAXS/WAXS, has been relatively less exploited. This study presents a comparison of PDDF simulation methods, which are applied to molecular structures that range in size from β-cyclo­dextrin [1 kDa molecular weight (MW), 66 non-hydrogen atoms] to the satellite tobacco mosaic virus capsid (1.1 MDa MW, 81 960 non-hydrogen atoms). The results demonstrate the power of interpretation of experimental SAXS/WAXS from the real-space view, particularly by providing a more intuitive method for understanding of partial structure contributions. Furthermore, the computational efficiency of PDDF simulation algorithms makes them attractive as approaches for the analysis of large nanoscale materials and biological assemblies. The simulation methods demonstrated in this article have been implemented in stand-alone software, SolX 3.0, which is available to download from https://12idb.xray.aps.anl.gov/solx.html.

Small-angle neutron scattering is a widely used technique to study large-scale structures in bulk samples. The largest accessible length scale in conventional Bragg scattering is determined by the combination of the longest available neutron wavelength and smallest resolvable scattering angle. A method is presented that circumvents this limitation and is able to extract larger length scales from the low-q power-law scattering using a modification of the well known Porod law connecting the scattered intensity of randomly distributed objects to their specific surface area. It is shown that in the special case of a highly aligned domain structure the specific surface area extracted from the modified Porod law can be used to determine specific length scales of the domain structure. The analysis method is applied to study the micrometre-sized domain structure found in the intermediate mixed state of the superconductor niobium. The analysis approach allows the range of accessible length scales to be extended from 1 µm to up to 40 µm using a conventional small-angle neutron scattering setup.

This article presents a web-based framework to build a database without in-depth programming knowledge given a set of CIF dictionaries and a collection of CIFs. The framework consists of two main elements: the public site that displays the information contained in the CIFs in an ordered manner, and the restricted administrative site which defines how that information is stored, processed and, eventually, displayed. Thus, the web application allows users to easily explore, filter and access the data, download the original CIFs, and visualize the structures via JSmol. The modulated structures open database B-IncStrDB, the official International Union of Crystallography repository for this type of material and available through the Bilbao Crystallographic Server, has been re-implemented following the proposed framework.

Here, a recently commissioned five-analyzer Johann spectrometer at the Inner Shell Spectroscopy beamline (8-ID) at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) is presented. Designed for hard X-ray photon-in/photon-out spectroscopy, the spectrometer achieves a resolution in the 0.5–2 eV range, depending on the element and/or emission line, providing detailed insights into the local electronic and geometric structure of materials. It serves a diverse user community, including fields such as physical, chemical, biological, environmental and materials sciences. This article details the mechanical design, alignment procedures and data-acquisition scheme of the spectrometer, with a particular focus on the continuous asynchronous data-acquisition approach that significantly enhances experimental efficiency.

We present first hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) results of aqueous salt solutions and dispersions of gold nanoparticles in liquid cells equipped with specially designed microfabricated thin silicon nitride membranes, with thickness in the 15–25 nm range, mounted in a high-vacuum-compatible environment. The experiments have been performed at the HAXPES endstation of the GALAXIES beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron radiation facility. The low-stress membranes are fabricated from 100 mm silicon wafers using standard lithography techniques. Platinum alignment marks are added to the chips hosting the membranes to facilitate the positioning of the X-ray beam on the membrane by detecting the corresponding photoemission lines. Two types of liquid cells have been used, a static one built on an Omicron-type sample holder with the liquid confined in the cell container, and a circulating liquid cell, in which the liquid can flow in order to mitigate the effects due to beam damage. We demonstrate that the membranes are mechanically robust and able to withstand 1 bar pressure difference between the liquid inside the cell and vacuum, and the intense synchrotron radiation beam during data acquisition. This opens up new opportunities for spectroscopic studies of liquids.

Hard X-ray microscopes with 20–30 nm spatial resolution ranges are an advanced tool for the inspection of materials at the nanoscale. However, the limited efficiency of the focusing optics, for example, a Fresnel zone plate (ZP) lens, can significantly reduce the power of a nanoprobe. Despite several reports on ZP lenses that focus hard X-rays with 20 nm resolution – mainly constructed by zone-doubling techniques – a systematic investigation into the limiting factors has not been reported. We report the structural effects on the focusing and imaging efficiency of 20–30 nm-resolution ZPs, employing a modified beam-propagation method. The zone width and the duty cycle (zone width/ring pitch) were optimized to achieve maximum efficiency, and a comparative analysis of the zone materials was conducted. The optimized zone structures were used in the fabrication of Pt-hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) ZPs. The highest focusing efficiency of the Pt-HSQ-ZP with a resolution of 30 nm was 10% at 7 keV and >5% in the range 6–10 keV, whereas the highest efficiency of the Pt-HSQ-ZP with a resolution of 20 nm was realized at 7 keV with an efficiency of 7.6%. Optical characterization conducted at X-ray beamlines demonstrated significant enhancement of the focusing and imaging efficiency in a broader range of hard X-rays from 5 keV to 10 keV, demonstrating the potential application in hard X-ray focusing and imaging.

SPring-8-II is a major upgrade project of SPring-8 that was inaugurated in October 1997 as a third-generation synchrotron radiation light source. This upgrade project aims to achieve three goals simultaneously: achievement of excellent light source performance, refurbishment of aged systems, and significant reduction in power consumption for the entire facility. A small emittance of 50 pm rad will be achieved by (1) replacing the existing double-bend lattice structure with a five-bend achromat one, (2) lowering the stored beam energy from 8 to 6 GeV, (3) increasing the horizontal damping partition number from 1 to 1.3, and (4) enhancing horizontal radiation damping by installing damping wigglers in long straight sections. The use of short-period in-vacuum undulators allows ultrabrilliant X-rays to be provided while keeping a high-energy spectral range even at the reduced electron-beam energy of 6 GeV. To reduce power consumption, the dedicated, aged injector system has been shut down and the high-performance linear accelerator of SACLA, a compact X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facility, is used as the injector of the ring in a time-shared manner. This allows the simultaneous operation of XFEL experiments at SACLA and full/top-up injection of the electron beam into the ring. This paper overviews the concept of the SPring-8-II project, the system design of the light source and the details of the accelerator component design.

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The finale of the 2013 Americana Music Association Honors and Awards show.; Credit: Folk Alley

The 2014 Americana Music Awards are Wednesday at 5 p.m. Pacific/8 p.m. Eastern. You can watch the full show live from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn. below, including performances by Loretta Lynn, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin and more.

Read a full list of the nominees below:

Album of the Year

• Build Me Up From Bones by Sarah Jarosz
• The Lights From The Chemical Plant by Robert Ellis
• The River And The Thread by Rosanne Cash
• Southeastern by Jason Isbell

Artist of the Year

• Rosanne Cash
• Rodney Crowell
• Robert Ellis
• Jason Isbell

Duo/Group of the Year

• The Avett Brothers
• The Devil Makes Three
• Hard Working Americans
• Lake Street Dive
• The Milk Carton Kids

Song of the Year

• "Cover Me Up" by Jason Isbell
• "A Feather's Not A Bird" by Rosanne Cash
• "Ohio" by Patty Griffin
• "Only Lies" by Robert Ellis

Emerging Act of the Year

• Hurray For The Riff Raff
• Parker Millsap
• St. Paul & The Broken Bones

Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires perform onstage at the 13th annual Americana Music Association Honors and Awards Show at the Ryman Auditorium on September 17, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee. ; Credit: Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Americana Music

Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell swept the major awards Wednesday night at the Americana Honors & Awards, creating another special moment with his wife, Amanda Shires.

Isbell won artist, album and song of the year during the 13th annual awards show Wednesday night at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. Though surprisingly ignored by Grammy Awards voters, Isbell's album of the year winner "Southeastern" reverberated through the Americana community and made many of 2013's best-of lists.

He performed song of the year "Cover Me Up" with Shires, a significant figure on the album as muse and collaborator.

"I wrote this song for my wife," Isbell said. "I've had a lot of people ask me to dedicate it to their wives, girlfriends or cousin's wife or something strange like that. This was probably the hardest song I ever had to write because I wrote it for her and then I played it for her. It was very difficult. Do the things that scare you. That's the good stuff."

Isbell was one of this year's top nominees along with Rosanne Cash and Robert Ellis. Each had three nominations and all were up for artist, album and song of the year.

Many of the top nominees and honors recipients performed, including all five emerging artist nominees. Former couple Patty Griffin and Robert Plant made a surprise appearance and sang their collaboration "Ohio."

Sturgill Simpson, something of a modern cosmic cowboy, earned emerging artist of the year and the Milk Carton Kids took group/duo of the year. And Buddy Miller, now executive music producer for the television show "Nashville" and theAmericana's winningest performer, won his fifth instrumentalist of the year award.

The Americana Music Association also honored several pioneering musicians. Loretta Lynn received the lifetime achievement award for songwriting from Kacey Musgraves and Angaleena Presley.

"The truth is we both might cry giving out this award," Musgraves said.

Lynn, writer of some of country music's most important female empowerment songs, accepted the award in a sparkly lavender dress and her usual humble manner.

"When they told me I was going to get this award," she told the crowd, "I said, 'Naw, you got the wrong one.'"

Jackson Browne received the Spirit of Americana-Free Speech in Music award, Flaco Jimenez received the lifetime achievement award for instrumentalist and Taj Mahal earned the lifetime achievement award for performance.

"I was affected deeply by American music, near and far — my mother's interest in Southern music and my dad's interest in jazz and bebop and classical, all that kind of stuff," Mahal said in an interview. "But this music here, if you get this music, you can go anywhere in the world with it. For me, I play for the goddess of music. People ask me what I do and I go, deep Americana."

Hollywood billboard queen, Angelyne was featured on the first Off-Ramp episode producer Chris Greenspon ever heard.; Credit: Creative Commons via Flickr user Thomas Hawk

After a few semesters of college radio at Mt. San Antonio College, I landed my first radio job: Board Operator! At struggling KFWB Newstalk 980. My career in radio began the way it does for so many, working odd hours and weekends.

A few months into my new gig, I was leaving for work and I thought, “You know, if I’m going to work in radio, I should listen to the radio.” I drove over the bridge on Hacienda Boulevard in La Puente, heading towards the 60, and right in front of my on-ramp, there was a big, orange billboard for KPCC. Why not 89.3?

The first thing I heard (and I should clarify that this was also my first time ever hearing public radio) was Janis Joplin getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on Off-Ramp. Clive Davis, the CBS A&R executive who signed Joplin, told the crowd about how Joplin had suggested sealing their new relationship by having sex (though he demurred), and that his heart was broken when she died. Then Kris Kristofferson sang “Me & Bobby McGee,” and I was smiling, until I heard a chorus of hippies singing "Mercedes Benz." Pee-yew!

“Should I stay?” I asked myself. How could I not, when someone named Dylan Brody came on and told a story about letting his dogs poop on the neighbor’s lawn? But then, the real cheese, for a 20-something year old, biracial kid who loved space ships and tough punk girls; "Love and Rockets" cartoonist Jaime Hernandez talking about drawing for Junot Diaz.

All this was to say nothing of the loud, defiant-sounding host, who kept saying. "This is Off-Ramp, I’m John Rabe." I listened to him slide between all of these topics, and even report from the field himself, talking about museums in a way that wasn’t – boring. After a few more pieces and a few more uses of the Off-Ramp theme song, I had a new favorite show. And I suspect a few other people did too.

That was November 2013. Five months later, I was on the show. At the end of the episode, I noticed that they had an intern in the credits, and after many repeated scourings of the KPCC careers page, the position finally opened up. So what’d I do? I went out with my chintzy audio recorder, and recorded a story so if I got an interview, I wouldn’t go in empty-handed. I didn’t get the internship then, but John did buy the piece. Remember the one about the Burmese Café run by an ex-biologist?

I kept freelancing after that, and honestly, I got a lot of my ideas from stuff that Off-Ramp wasn’t doing. John would have Angelyne, and her famous Hollywood billboard, but what about the giant neon sign at Rose Hills Cemetery in Pico Rivera? Kevin Ferguson would hang out with Mike Watt from the Minutemen, but what about punk supergroup, the Flesh Eaters? And could we talk about a domestic violence shelter in a Thanksgiving Special, or the fact that a home-abortion movement started in Los Angeles?

John eventually asked me to intern after turning the Jim Tully mini-documentary in, and even after joining the company, writing these kinds of stories for Off-Ramp was still not easy, but there was room for all of them. I would be beyond thrilled if somebody heard even one of them when they heard Off-Ramp for the first time.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Full Text:

Scientists have recovered the first genetic data from an extinct bird in the Caribbean, thanks to the remarkably preserved bones of a Creighton's caracara in a flooded sinkhole on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Studies of ancient DNA from tropical birds have faced two formidable obstacles. Organic material quickly degrades when exposed to heat, light and oxygen. And birds' lightweight, hollow bones break easily, accelerating the decay of the DNA within. But the dark, oxygen-free depths of a 100-foot blue hole known as Sawmill Sink provided ideal preservation conditions for the bones of Caracara creightoni, a species of large carrion-eating falcon that disappeared soon after humans arrived in the Bahamas about 1,000 years ago. Florida Museum of Natural History researcher Jessica Oswald and her colleagues extracted and sequenced genetic material from the 2,500-year-old C. creightoni femur. Because ancient DNA is often fragmented or missing, the team had modest expectations for what they would find –- maybe one or two genes. But instead, the bone yielded 98.7% of the bird's mitochondrial genome, the DNA most living things inherit from their mothers. The mitochondrial genome showed that C. creightoni is closely related to the two remaining caracara species alive today: the crested caracara and the southern caracara. The three species last shared a common ancestor between 1.2 and 0.4 million years ago. "This project enhanced our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary implications of extinction, forged strong international partnerships, and trained the next generation of researchers," says Jessica Robin, a program director in National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering, which funded the study.

Image credit: Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

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The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has announced the launch of the Bakong Tourists App with Mastercard, with the institution aiming to optimise digital payments for tourists visiting Cambodia. 

A teen gets a dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami on May 18. Nearly 7 million U.S. teens and pre-teens (ages 12 through 17) have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, so far, the CDC says.; Credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It's been a little more than a month since adolescents as young as 12 became eligible in the United States to receive the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19, and nearly all reports have been positive: The vaccine is very effective in this age group, and the vast majority of kids experience mild side effects, if any — the same sore arm or mild flu-like symptoms seen among adults who get the shot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that everyone 12-years-old and older get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the rollout is well underway: According to the CDC, nearly 7 million U.S. teens and pre-teens (ages 12 through 17) have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, so far.

Still, soon after the FDA authorized the use of Pfizer's vaccine in young people, federal agencies began receiving reports of mild chest pain or other signs of possible heart inflammation (known as myocarditis) in a very small percentage of recently vaccinated teens.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Friday that there have been more than 300 cases of heart inflammation reported among more than 20 million teens and young adults who have received one of the vaccines made by Moderna or Pfizer. She said that in the "vast majority" of cases, the inflammation went away.

An expert advisory committee to the health agency is expected to review the cases in more depth at a meeting Friday.

So, in the meantime, should parents of teens hesitate to have their kids vaccinated against COVID-19? Vaccine experts and the American Academy of Pediatrics say no, don't hesitate. It's good for doctors and patients to be aware that there might be a connection between the mRNA vaccines and heart inflammation, and to report to their pediatrician anything they see in that first week after vaccination. But it is also important, the CDC notes, to recognize that even if this does turn out to be an extremely rare side effect of the vaccine, "most patients who received care responded well to medicine and rest and quickly felt better." And the serious risks of COVID -19 — even for young healthy people — outweigh the risks of any possible side effects from the vaccine. Here are some questions you may have, and what's known:

What exactly is myocarditis?

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, also being investigated, is an inflammation of the sac around the heart.

Long before the pandemic, thousands of cases of myocarditis were diagnosed in the U.S. and around the world each year, often triggered by the body's immune response to infections. SARS-CoV-2 can trigger it, and so can cold viruses, and staph and strep and HIV. Other causes include toxins and allergies.

Symptoms include chest pain and shortness of breath. It's often mild enough to go unnoticed, but a full-blown case in adults can cause arrhythmias and heart failure that require careful treatment with multiple medications, and several months of strict rest. In a case study of seven teenagers who got myocarditis following vaccination published last week in the journal Pediatrics, all seven got better after routine treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Stuart Berger of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, says vaccine-related myocarditis in teens is not all that worrisome. "Although they appear with some symptoms of chest pain, and maybe some findings on EKGs, all of the cases we've seen have been on the mild end of the spectrum," he says.

So, what's the concern?

Several hundred reports about the inflammation have been filed with the federal government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); that's a repository of reports sent in by health professionals and patients about any health events they spot in the hours or days after vaccinations. Many of the events reported turn out to be coincidental — not caused by a vaccine. The database is just meant as a starting point for further investigation and not proof of cause and effect. But as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel noted this week, "when millions of people are vaccinated within a short period, the total number of these reported events can look big."

That said, anecdotes reported by doctors in medical journals and reports to VAERS suggest that both of the mRNA vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. — the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — might slightly increase the incidence of myocarditis in young people. In 2003, a report in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated the background incidence of myocarditis to be 1.13 cases in 100,000 children per year.

Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee says there likely is a causal link between the heart inflammation some doctors are seeing in these teens and the second dose of vaccine. "I think it's real," he says, but hastens to add that the effect is exceedingly small – based on the data collected so far, maybe one in 50,000 vaccinees between the ages of 16 and 39. "And the good news is at least so far it looks to be transient and self-resolving."

Still, maybe I should wait to get my teen vaccinated and see how this plays out?

Uhm, no, according to several vaccine experts contacted by NPR. And this is where a little math comes in handy.

"Take a stadium full of 100,000 people between the ages of 16 and 39, which is the subset that appears to be at greater risk," Offit says. "Vaccinate all of them, and two might get myocarditis." But if you don't vaccinate any of the 100,000, he estimates that about 1,300 would eventually get COVID-19. And those numbers are likely to increase this winter.

About one in 1,000 children who get COVID-19 have gone on to develop a condition called MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children), says Offit, and most of those kids have had some level of myocarditis. In addition, the new coronavirus has directly caused myocarditis in some children and adults. Which of the two stadiums in Offit's metaphor would have more cases of myocarditis — the vaccinated children or unvaccinated kids — is not known precisely. But Offit says he suspects it would be the unvaccinated group. And there's no doubt that 1,000 unvaccinated children would suffer more COVID-19-related illnesses. "A choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to avoid myocarditis," he says. "It's a choice to take a different risk — and I would argue a more serious one" — of developing a bad case of COVID-19 or long-COVID or COVID-caused myocarditis.

Are the experts advising their own kids in this age group to get vaccinated?

Yes. "I understand people having concerns," says Dr. Judith Guzman-Cottrill. She's a parent and professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the Oregon Health and Science University, as well as the senior author on a small study that came out this month in the journal Pediatrics. In the report, Guzman-Cottrill and her colleagues analyzed the cases of seven boys around the country who developed myocarditis within four days of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

She and her family recently faced the vaccination decision for her own 13-year-old daughter — and said a whole-hearted yes to the shot.

Guzman-Cottrill suspects there may turn out to be a slightly increased risk of heart inflammation from vaccination in young people, but she and her co-authors note in the Pediatrics report that a direct cause-and-effect connection — even in these seven cases — has yet to be established. And she's impressed that despite the millions of doses that have so far been delivered to teens, no clear and serious post-vaccination problems have shown up. "The emergency departments and urgent care clinics are not filled with teenagers complaining of chest pain," she says.

She's treated unvaccinated teens who developed severe myocarditis from an infection with the COVID-19 virus, and others who developed COVID-19 pneumonia and respiratory failure. Seeing those teens struggle — teens who lacked the powerful immune protection the vaccine provides — was enough for her to suggest vaccination to her daughter, who got her second vaccination earlier this week.

"She saw it as a pathway back to a normal post pandemic life," Guzman-Cottrill says.

And that's where public health comes in. "We really need a highly vaccinated student body when kids return to the classroom this fall," says Guzman-Cottrill, "so we don't see surges in COVID-19 cases."

Joanne Silberner, a former health policy correspondent for NPR, is a freelance journalist living in Seattle.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Sherman Institute, built in the Mission Revival architectural style, enrolled its first students on Sept. 9, 1902.; Credit: SHERMAN INDIAN MUSEUM

Earlier this month, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced an effort to search federal boarding schools for burial sites of Native American kids. 

The effort is similar to the one in Canada, which found the remains of up to 751 people, likely mostly children, at an unmarked grave in a defunct school in the province of Saskatchewan.  

We dive into the history of American Indian Boarding Schools, as well as their evolution and what the schools that still exist, including Sherman Institute High School in California, look like today.

Guests:

Brenda Child, professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota; she is the author of many books, including “Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940” (University of Nebraska Press, 2000)

Amanda Wixon, curator at the Sherman Indian Museum, which is on the campus of Sherman Indian High School; assistant curator at Autry museum of the American West; PhD candidate in history at UC Riverside where her research is in Native American history, especially federal boarding schools and the carceral aspects of the Sherman Institute

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Over the past century, technological advancements have vastly improved volcano monitoring. One key innovation was the introduction of modern borehole tiltmeters, devices that measure very small changes in the inclination of the volcano’s surface.  

The USGS is working with federal land management agencies to develop a series of structured science syntheses (SSS) to support National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses. This new synthesis is the third publication in the SSS series and provides science to support NEPA analyses for agency decisions regarding oil and gas leasing and permitting.

The Pathfinding Partnerships Award from CO-LABS recognizes impactful, collaborative research projects organized by four or more research entities, including federal labs, in Colorado. This year, the Wildfire Research (WiRē) team received this award for their support of evidence-based community wildfire education to help communities live with wildfire. 

American and Mexican families play with a seesaw installation at the border near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in July 2019. London's Design Museum recognized the project with an award for best design of 2020.; Credit: Luis Torres/AFP via Getty Images

An art project that turned the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border into the temporary base for pink seesaws – inviting children on each side to come play together – has won the London's Design Museum award for best design of 2020.

"We are totally surprised by this unexpected honor," said Ronald Rael, who designed the project with fellow architect Virginia San Fratello. They share the award, he said, with the Ciudad Juárez, Mexico-based art collective Colectivo Chopeke.

"That's amazing," San Fratello said in a video feed announcing the prize. The seesaw installation won both the overall prize and in the transportation category.

"Most importantly, it comes at a time when we are hopeful for change and that we start building more bridges instead of walls," Rael added.

"The Beazley Designs of the Year are the Oscars of the design world," said Razia Iqbal, a journalist who chaired the Design Museum's panel of judges. The award, she noted, highlights work that pushes boundaries of creativity and innovation.

The metal wall was meant to be a stark barrier dividing the U.S. and Mexico, the centerpiece of President Trump's aggressive immigration policies. But in one spot, it became a junction point instead – a fulcrum for a series of seesaws that let children in the two countries share a playground toy.

The project, officially named Teeter-Totter Wall, was first installed in July 2019 when workers slid steel beams through the slats of the border near El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez.

"For the first time, children from both El Paso, Texas, and the Anapra community in Mexico were invited to connect with their [neighbors], in an attempt to create unity at the politically divisive border," the museum said.

"Everyone was very happy and excited to engage the seesaws," Rael told NPR at the time. The installation went smoothly, turning an idea that had been growing for 10 years into a reality.

"It was peaceful and fun — a day at a park for the children and mothers of Anapra," Rael said.

"The project resonated with people around the world in a way that we didn't anticipate," San Fratello said when the award was announced. "It speaks to the fact that most people are excited about being together, and about optimism and about possibility and the future. And the divisiveness actually comes from the minority."

Rael is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; San Fratello teaches at San José State University.

The seesaw project was chosen out of more than 70 nominees from dozens of countries, including a customized "stab-proof vest" that the artist Banksy designed for musician Stormzy.

Also considered: the gray and red rendering of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Commissioned by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and designed by Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins, the famous sphere, with its menacing clusters of crowns, won the design award in the graphics category.

The Impossible Burger 2.0 won in the crowded product category, which also included Lego Braille bricks and a self-sanitizing door handle.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

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Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney displays a dead Asian giant hornet, a sample sent from Japan and brought in for research last year in Blaine, Wash.; Credit: Elaine Thompson /AFP via Getty Images

Murder hornets. They're back.

Authorities in Washington state have announced that they've confirmed the first U.S. report this year of an Asian giant hornet, or Vespa mandarinia, in a town north of Seattle.

"Basically the only information we have is that a slightly dried out, dead specimen was collected off of a lawn in Marysville," said Sven Spichiger, managing entomologist with the state agriculture department, during a press conference.

"There really isn't even enough information to speculate on how it got there or how long it had been there," Spichiger added.

Because of its withered condition and the fact that male giant hornets don't typically emerge until July, agriculture officials believe the hornet discovered in early June was likely from a previous season and just recently found.

So-called "murder hornets" are native to Asia but have been spotted in Washington state and Canada over the past two years. The sting of the Vespa mandarinia can be life-threatening to humans, and the killer insects are known to wipe out the colonies of their fellow bugs, particularly honey bees.

According to genetic testing of the specimen discovered in Washington this month, the dead hornet was not the same as the other giant hornets discovered in North America since 2019. The hornet's coloration, which indicates it came from southern Asia, also suggested it arrived in "probably a separate event" than the ones previously known, Spichiger said.

But he emphasized that that was not necessarily cause for alarm.

"I want to very much clarify that a single dead specimen does not indicate a population," Spichiger said.

Washington agriculture officials are now setting murder hornet traps in the area of the discovery and are encouraging "citizen scientists" to do the same.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Bill Cosby gestures outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., on June 30, 2021, after being released from prison when the Pennsylvania's supreme court overturned his sexual assault conviction. Cosby expressed support for former TV co-star Phylicia Rashad's freedom of speech after she defended him in a tweet.; Credit: Matt Rourke/AP

Bill Cosby called on Howard University to support former co-star Phylicia Rashad's freedom of speech after she expressed support for him when his sexual assault conviction was overturned.

In a statement, Cosby also lashed out at the media, comparing journalists to the rioters who stormed the Capitol in January.

"Howard University you must support ones Freedom of Speech (Ms. Rashad), which is taught or suppose to be taught everyday at that renowned law school, which resides on your campus," Cosby said in a statement provided to NPR by his spokesman Andrew Wyatt.

"This mainstream media has become the Insurrectionists, who stormed the Capitol," Cosby continued in his statement. "Those same Media Insurrectionists are trying to demolish the Constitution of these United State of America on this Independence Day."

Cosby concluded by saying, "WE THE PEOPLE STAND IN SUPPORT OF MS. PHYLICIA RASHAD" in all caps.

Cosby's support of Rashad comes after the actress, who played his TV wife in The Cosby Show, defended the comedian in a tweet. Cosby was released from prison last week when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated his sexual assault conviction on the grounds that his due process rights were violated.

"FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!" Rashad said last week.

The tweet has since been removed and Rashad later backpedaled, writing that she "fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward." She also sent a letter of apology to Howard students

Many Howard alumni had expressed disappointment at the remarks. Howard University responded with its own tweet, stating that Dean Rashad's "initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault."

Rashad was recently named Dean of Howard University's Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts.

Rashad, an acclaimed stage and screen artist, graduated from Howard magna cum laude in 1970 with a bachelor's in fine arts. She returned as a guest lecturer and adjunct faculty member.

In a statement announcing her appointment in May, Provost Anthony K. Wutoh said Rashad's "passion for the arts and student success makes her a perfect fit for this role."

One of the students Rashad mentored at Howard was the late actor Chadwick Boseman, for whom the school's College of Fine Arts is named.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates, seen here in 2019, will join the faculty of Howard University.; Credit: Mary Altaffer/AP

Less than a week after trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill belatedly voted to grant tenure to New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, Howard University announced Hannah-Jones will instead be joining its faculty.

Howard, the prestigious historically Black university in Washington, D.C., also announced it is hiring writer and Howard alumnus Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me.

Their positions were funded by nearly $20 million in donations from the Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, as well as an anonymous donor.

The funding establishes the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, a tenured position to be held by Hannah-Jones.

Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1619 Project, will also establish the Center for Journalism and Democracy, which the university says will train aspiring journalists in "the investigative skills and historical and analytical expertise needed to cover the crisis our democracy is facing."

The news is a blow to UNC, which has had its reputation damaged by its handling of Hannah-Jones' appointment to an endowed professorship at its journalism school. For months, trustees declined to consider granting her tenure, a highly unusual move considering her tenure was backed by the relevant academic leaders.

Some of the opposition came from Walter Hussman, an Arkansas newspaper publisher and alumnus whose $25 million donation to the UNC's journalism school led to its being named for him.

As NPR's David Folkenflik reported, Hussman said "he was given pause by some prominent scholars' criticism that Hannah-Jones distorted the historical record in arguing that the protection of slavery was one of the Founding Fathers' primary motivations in seeking independence from the British."

Amid the turmoil, other Black faculty members at UNC said they were considering leaving the university, and students protested on behalf of Hannah-Jones.

The university's student body president Lamar Richard penned an open letter last month to the UNC community, saying the university is unprepared for the reckoning that's required, and "[u]ntil this rebirth occurs, Carolina is not deserving of your talents, aspirations, or successes."

Hannah-Jones had said she would not accept UNC's offer without tenure, which UNC's Trustees finally approved in a 9-4 vote.

But the messy and contentious process spoiled it for her.

"Look what it took to get tenure," Hannah-Jones said, noting that every other chair of the position dating to the 1980s had been granted tenure, and that all were white. Hannah-Jones received unanimous approval from the faculty during the tenure process.

"And so to be denied it, and to only have that vote occur on the last possible day, at the last possible moment, after threat of legal action, after weeks of protest, after it became a national scandal – it's just not something that I want anymore," she told CBS This Morning.

Hannah-Jones said she never wanted her hiring to become a public scandal — she was simply hoping to give back to her beloved alma mater. And instead, she said, it became "embarrassing" to be passed over for tenure. She said she was never told by UNC-Chapel Hill's chancellor, provost or trustees why her tenure was not taken up in November or January.

The veteran journalist reportedly had offers from a number of universities after the botched process at UNC. So how did she pick Howard?

She said one of her few regrets was not going to Howard as an undergraduate. And she traced her choice to join its faculty to her own story, beginning as a second-grader bused to a white school.

"I've spent my entire life proving that I belong in elite white spaces that were not built for Black people," she told CBS. "I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. That Black professionals should feel free, and actually perhaps an obligation, to go to our own institutions and bring our talents and resources to our own institutions and help to build them up as well."

She said she won her battle for fair treatment at UNC, "but it's not my job to heal the University of North Carolina. That's the job of the people in power who created this situation in the first place."

Hannah-Jones said she's trying to raise even more money for Howard, and that she's eager to join the faculty this summer.

"To be able to bring that type of resources to a university that always punches above its weight, I'm so excited," she said. "Something great came out of this."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Chip shortages are rippling through industry after industry, preventing companies from shipping products from cars to game consoles and refrigerators.