NASA Website Will Not Provide Previous National Climate Reports
Earlier this month, the Trump administration took down the webpage, globalchange.gov, that provided the reports, which have been regularly published since 2000. A spokeswoman for NASA said at the time, 'All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.'
But in a reversal on Monday, the same spokeswoman, Bethany Stevens, said that NASA would not host the archived reports.
'The USGCRP met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress,' she said, referring to the United States Global Change Research Program. 'NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov's data.' She added: 'To clarify, globalchange.gov is not a NASA domain. We never did and will not host the data.'
As of Monday night, the reports remained available on the documents repository of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the National Weather Service.
The latest assessment, the fifth, came out in 2023. The Trump administration cut funding earlier this year to the Global Change program and dismissed scientists who had volunteered to produce the next climate assessment planned for 2028.
Work on the sixth report had already begun when the Global Change Research Program lost funds. Authors had outlined their chapters, some of which were set to have special emphasis on mitigating climate change and adapting to its effects.
State and local policymakers, researchers and private industry use the reports, and the shuttered website had also been one of the main federal sources of information on climate change.
Legislation mandates that the climate assessments be made available to Congress and to federal agencies.
Two scientific associations, the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union, previously announced that they would publish work originally intended for the sixth assessment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
SpaceX fires up Starship spacecraft ahead of 10th test flight (video, photos)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. SpaceX just fired up its newest Starship spacecraft on Thursday (July 31), to help prep the vehicle for an upcoming test flight. The company conducted a "static fire" trial with the 171-foot-tall (52 meters) Starship upper stage at its Starbase site in South Texas on Thursday, briefly igniting one of the vehicle's six Raptor engines. "Starship single-engine static fire demonstrating an in-space burn complete on Pad 1 at Starbase," SpaceX wrote in a Thursday evening X post that shared two photos and a video of the milestone. The test is part of the prep work for Flight 10 of Starship, the huge, fully reusable rocket that SpaceX is developing to help humanity colonize Mars and do a wide variety of other spaceflight work. Starship consists of two elements — the upper-stage spacecraft, called Starship or simply Ship, and a huge booster known as Super Heavy. Both are made of stainless steel and are powered by Raptors (33 of them in Super Heavy's case). This particular Ship is the second that SpaceX has earmarked for Flight 10. The first exploded on a test stand at Starbase on June 18 just before a planned static-fire test. The Super Heavy that will fly on Flight 10 has already passed its static-fire test, igniting all 33 of its engines on June 6. Related Stories: — SpaceX's Starship explodes in Texas during preparations for 10th test flight — SpaceX reached space with Starship Flight 9 launch, then lost control of its giant spaceship (video) — Starship and Super Heavy explained SpaceX has not yet announced a target date for Flight 10, but we may not have to wait long for it: company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said the test mission will launch in August. A fully stacked Starship first flew in April 2023. The huge rocket has launched three times so far this year, in January, March and May. On all three flights, SpaceX lost the upper stage before its planned Indian Ocean splashdown.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 successfully launches to ISS to replace Spokane astronaut Anne McClain and company
Aug. 1—Within a week, Spokane's own astronaut will be back on Earth. NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 is on its way to relieve U.S. Army Colonel Anne McClain and company aboard the International Space Station after successfully launching from Cape Canaveral Friday at 8:43 a.m. Pacific Time. The arrival of the SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying Crew-11, which is composed of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Olege Platonov, is expected to occur around midnight Saturday morning. It will be mission commander Cardman and mission specialist Platonov's first spaceflights, while pilot Fincke and specialist Yui are beginning their fourth and second stint aboard the station. "I have no emotions but joy right now," Cardman said shortly after the Dragon capsule achieved orbit. "That was absolutely transcendent, the ride of a lifetime." McClain and her fellow members of Crew-10 will return after a brief handover period with their staffing replacements aboard the orbiting laboratory. "They'll join the crew that's in orbit, they'll hand over there, they'll learn as much as they can about the station from that crew and then we'll switch our emphasis to bringing home Crew-10 sometime, we hope, next week," said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate. "If weather and hardware cooperate." McClain shared via social media Wednesday that she and fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are hard at work preparing for their successors' arrival. They are currently expected to undock from the space station no sooner than 11 a.m. Wednesday, splashing down off the coast of California just over six hours later, McClain said. On Thursday, McClain took to social media again to share one of the last photos she'll snap aboard the space station: an image of the Northern Lights dancing just above the curve of the Earth as seen from the station's cupola. "As we get close to leaving the International Space Station, I find myself wanting to savor every moment and every view," McClain wrote. "None of us are guaranteed to get to do this again, and every minute spent in space is a special one." Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a Friday news conference that the Crew-11 launch was initially delayed from Thursday due to inopportune weather but went off without issue, shortly before the Florida weather almost necessitated another delay. The flight is the 12th human space flight and 11th space station crew change to come out of NASA's commercial crew program, in which the space agency partners with corporations in order to make the staffing of the space lab safer and more reliable and cost efficient. "We really got very lucky today, I would say," Stich said. "I was just looking at a shot on my phone, a view from Falcon 9 looking down, and you can see the launch pad was kind of in a little, it was almost like a horseshoe of clouds. The launch pad was in the center of that horseshoe." Sarah Walker, director of Dragon Mission Management for SpaceX, added that while it was disappointing to scrub Thursday's launch with less than a minute to take off, safety is always the number one priority. "Today was a better day to fly, although, just barely," Walker said. "I want to say that that horseshoe of clouds closed within a couple of minutes of T-Zero." Once aboard, Crew-11 will continue the research conducted aboard the station for decades. The International Space Station has been staffed by astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000, with visits from more than 280 people hailing from 26 countries. Breakthroughs and findings aboard the laboratory have helped make major advancements in space travel, medicine and natural disaster preparedness, just to name a few. Dana Weigel, manager of NASA's ISS program, said Crew-11 will have the opportunity to partake in some particularly "key" research as the agency prepares for the Artemis program, and possible Mars missions. Those include studies on the astronauts themselves that seek to protect human health during longer missions and simulated lunar lands in a region that mimic the Moon's South Pole. "The goal of this study is to really understand how the disorienting effects of microgravity impact piloting and landing, and then we'll take that feedback and we'll put that into our planning for tools and aids for the crew," Weigel said. The Artemis program seeks to return American astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and early '70s, and McClain was among those in the running for one of the program's missions prior to her naming to Crew-10. The 46-year-old now has two spaceflights under her belt totaling more than 340 days and counting, making her an attractive option for future Artemis missions. Cardman and the rest of Crew-11's mission is months longer than Crew-10's stay, and they will be among a handful of people to be aboard the station in November as NASA and its commercial and international partners celebrate 25 years of continual human occupancy. Weigel thanked all of those who have made reaching the notable milestone possible, and shared that the agency is working through a variety of ideas to commemorate the "amazing accomplishment" in the months to come. "We have no shortage of ideas for what everyone would like to do to celebrate," Weigel said with a smile. Solve the daily Crossword
Medscape
2 hours ago
- Medscape
Weighted Vests: Are They Effective for Weight Loss?
With the ongoing obesity epidemic, researchers are constantly looking for strategies that optimize weight loss while minimizing associated side effects. One strategy currently gaining interest is the use of weighted vests— form-fitting garments into which weights are sewn or carried in pockets, enabling the wearer to add or remove them as needed. In theory, this offers a nonpharmacologic way to induce weight loss without the side effects of medications or weight-loss surgery, but with potential bone-sparing effects. The latter is important because even modest weight loss can reduce bone density and strength, increasing the risk for fracture. Weight loss — particularly when induced by caloric restriction — is associated with bone loss, especially at the hip. This is a consequence of loss of muscle mass and an unloading of bones from the decrease in body weight. Even modest diet-induced weight loss results in small but significant reductions in hip bone mineral density (BMD), with less consistent changes at the spine or whole body. These skeletal losses may increase fracture risk, particularly in older adults, and are more pronounced when weight loss occurs in the absence of exercise. Resistance training or combined aerobic-resistance exercise mitigate but do not fully prevent this bone loss. How Do Weighted Vests Help? Weighted vests can be used to preserve muscle mass during periods of caloric restriction. This is achieved by increasing gravitational loading and placing mechanical stress on weight-bearing tissues. Local fat mass is theoretically reduced by the work required to wear the weighted vest. Preservation of muscle mass has the dual benefit of preserving bone mass and maintaining resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is important because weight loss typically results in a lower RMR, which makes subsequent weight loss more difficult. Although using weighted vests does not lead to the same degree of weight loss reported with GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide, or GLP-1/glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) receptor agonists such as tirzepatide, the data demonstrate benefits of this strategy. For example, 5 weeks of high-load vest use (11% of body weight worn 8 hours per day) vs a low-load vest (1% of body weight) reduced fat mass and waist circumference with no significant change in overall body weight. Loss of fat mass and a reduction in waist circumference are not inconsequential outcomes. Fat distribution (particularly an excess of visceral fat with an increased waist circumference) is a major driver of many metabolic morbidities associated with obesity. In fact, newer definitions of preclinical and clinical obesity emphasize body fat distribution and waist circumference, rather than absolute body weight. The impact of weighted vest use on skeletal health is inconclusive at this time. Snow and colleagues reported preservation of hip BMD over a 5-year period in older, postmenopausal women when weighted vest use was combined with jumping exercises. However, a randomized controlled study from Wake Forest University (INVEST in Obesity) involving 150 older adults with obesity did not find a bone-protective effect of weighted vest use or resistance training following intentional weight loss. Further studies are needed to evaluate the impact on BMD of varying durations of vest use and varying weights of the vest. In conclusion, studies thus far have not demonstrated a significant impact of weighted vests for total weight reduction, although reductions in local fat mass and waist circumference may confer some metabolic benefit. These vests may provide mechanical stimuli that support musculoskeletal integrity; however, further research is necessary to prove this point and data available thus far are conflicting.
