AmbiguousProps

The Mason County sheriff’s office ordered people near Olympic National Park to evacuate as the Bear Gulch fire grows.

The human-caused fire was first reported early this month near the park and has since grown to cover 2 square miles on the northern shores of Lake Cushman. It is less than 10% contained.

Anyone near the Dry Creek Trail, along the lake’s westernmost shores should evacuate immediately, the sheriff’s office said on social media. This is called a Level 3 evacuation order.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/ztkUn

Such a shame. The staircase area is (was) beautiful, and probably my favorite part of Olympic National Park. Tons of old growth rainforest is now gone, and the fire won't be out until it snows, according to officials.

Here's a link to the watchduty listing for the fire, has much more info: https://app.watchduty.org/i/54759

The Mason County sheriff’s office ordered people near Olympic National Park to evacuate as the Bear Gulch fire grows.

The human-caused fire was first reported early this month near the park and has since grown to cover 2 square miles on the northern shores of Lake Cushman. It is less than 10% contained.

Anyone near the Dry Creek Trail, along the lake’s westernmost shores should evacuate immediately, the sheriff’s office said on social media. This is called a Level 3 evacuation order.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/ztkUn

Such a shame. The staircase area is (was) beautiful, and probably my favorite part of Olympic National Park. Tons of old growth rainforest is now gone, and the fire won't be out until it snows, according to officials.

Here's a link to the watchduty listing for the fire, has much more info: https://app.watchduty.org/i/54759

With the recent first light milestone for the Vera Rubin Observatory, it's only a matter of time before one of astronomy's most long-awaited surveys begins. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is set to start on November 5, and will scan the sky of billions of stars for at least ten years.

One of the most important things it aims to find is evidence (or lack thereof) of primordial black holes (PBHs), one of the primary candidates for dark matter. A new paper posted to the arXiv preprint server by researchers at Durham University and the University of New Mexico looks at the difficulties the LSST will have in finding those enigmatic objects, especially the statistical challenges, and how they might be overcome.

Japan on Sunday successfully launched a climate change monitoring satellite on its mainstay H-2A rocket, which made its final flight before it is replaced by a new flagship model designed to be more cost competitive in the global space market.

The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan, carrying the GOSAT-GW satellite as part of Tokyo's effort to mitigate climate change. The satellite was safely separated from the rocket and released into a planned orbit about 16 minutes later.

Scientists and space officials at the control room exchanged hugs and handshakes to celebrate the successful launch, which was delayed by several days due to a malfunctioning of the rocket's electrical systems.

Keiji Suzuki, a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries official in charge of rocket launch operations, said he was more nervous than ever for the final mission of the rocket, which has been his career work. "I've spent my entire life at work not to drop H-2A rocket ... All I can say is I'm so relieved."

For years now, U.S. police departments have employed officers who are trained to be experts in detecting "drugged driving." The problem is, however, that the methods those officers use are not based on science, according to a new editorial in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (JSAD).

With marijuana now legal in many U.S. states, the need for reliable tests for marijuana impairment is more pressing than ever. Police can evaluate alcohol-intoxicated drivers by using an objective measure of breath alcohol results. But there is no "breathalyzer" equivalent for marijuana. The drug is metabolized differently from alcohol, and a person's blood levels of THC (the main intoxicating chemical in marijuana) do not correlate with impairment.

So law enforcement relies on subjective tactics—roadside tests and additional evaluations by police officers specially trained to be so-called drug recognition experts (DREs). These officers follow a standardized protocol that is said to detect drug impairment and is said to even determine the specific drug type, including marijuana.

The process involves numerous steps, including tests of physical coordination; checking the driver's blood pressure and pulse; squeezing the driver's limbs to determine if the muscle tone is "normal" or not; and examining pupil size and eye movements.

But while the protocol has the trappings of a scientific approach, it is not actually based on evidence that it works, said perspective author William J. McNichol, J.D., an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Camden School of Law.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/46641802

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/45858179

Used a 12 inch bit. It's a great workout, but really sucked when we encountered tree roots with it. Tomorrow, I'm going to set some posts in concrete using the holes.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22132981

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22132981

The number and diversity of insects is declining worldwide. Some studies suggest that their biomass has almost halved since the 1970s. Among the main reasons for this are habitat loss—for example through agriculture or urbanization—and climate change.

These threats have long been known. What is less well-known is how these global change drivers interact and how their effects can become even more severe that way. For example, insects that have been deprived of their natural habitat could be even more affected by higher temperatures in a new environment.

Researchers at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) have investigated precisely this serious interaction at 179 locations throughout Bavaria. The study is part of the LandKlif research cluster, coordinated by Professor Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter within the Bavarian Climate Research Network bayklif.

They published their results in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

In 2019, Tesla set out to lower insurance rates for owners of its electric cars. The goal was simple, at least in theory: fix the broken cost of car insurance. Instead, Tesla may have broken its own calculator trying to make sense of repair costs.

See, Musk's vision of Tesla's insurance product was that traditional companies just didn't "get it." Tesla's data claims that its Full Self-Driving software has fewer accidents than a human driver. Plus, its cars are rolling computers that can collect copious amounts of data on its drivers and adjust risk based on their driving. So why wouldn't drivers get a lower rate for putting around with FSD enabled if they also happen to be a safe driver? Tesla quickly found out that despite these assumptions, it's still taking a bath on claim-related losses.

The data comes from S&P Global and shows that the automaker's insurance subsidiary took a loss ratio of 103.3 in 2024. The loss ratio, for those who don't know, is the amount of money that Tesla pays out per claim versus the money it takes in from premiums. The lower the number, the better, and break-even is a flat 100. In 2024, the rest of the industry averaged 66.1.

Archive link: https://archive.is/G4Kvj