Latest news with #LucyJones
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Science
- San Francisco Chronicle
Study says California is overdue for a major earthquake. Does that mean ‘the big one' is coming?
Unlike other earthquake-prone places around the planet, California is overdue for a major quake, according to a recent study. But that doesn't mean a catastrophic event like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is on the verge of striking. 'A fault's 'overdue' is not a loan payment overdue,' said Lucy Jones, founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society and a research associate at the California Institute of Technology, who wasn't part of the work. The new study reported that a large share of California faults have been running 'late,' based on the expected time span between damaging temblors. The researchers compiled a geologic data set of nearly 900 large earthquakes on active faults in Japan, Greece, New Zealand and the western United States, including California. Faults are cracks in the planet's crust, where giant slabs of earth, known as tectonic plates, meet. The Hayward Fault is slowly creeping in the East Bay and moves around 5 millimeters per year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But sometimes plates get stuck and pressure builds. Earthquakes occur when plates suddenly slip, producing a jolt of energy that causes the ground to shake. Scientists study ruptured rock layers deep beneath the surface to estimate when large earthquakes occurred in the past. In the new study, the authors collected data stretching back tens of thousands of years. For a region spanning the Great Basin to northern Mexico, this paleoearthquake record stretched back about 80,000 years. For California, the record extended back about 5,000 years. The scientists used these records to calculate how much time typically passes between large surface-rupturing earthquakes around the planet. The average interval was around 100 years for some sites on the San Andreas Fault; it was 2,100 years on the less famous Compton thrust fault beneath the Los Angeles area. About 45% of the faults analyzed for California are running behind schedule for a major earthquake, meaning that more time has passed since the last large quake on a fault than the historical average. In the other regions studied, this statistic ranged from 9% to 18%. The researchers' analysis only included large surface-rupturing earthquakes. It didn't include the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which was below the magnitude 7 threshold that the study authors used for quakes on the San Andreas Fault. The authors associated seismic punctuality with slip rates, or how fast the two sides of a fault move past each other. 'Our analysis showed that the faster the faults are moving, the more likely it is that they will appear overdue,' said study author Vasiliki Mouslopoulou, a senior scientist at the National Observatory of Athens, in Greece. In tectonically active California, the San Andreas Fault has a particularly high slip rate. The Pacific and North American plates slide past each other an average of more than inch per year in some spots. 'Faults in California are among the fastest-slipping faults in the world,' Mouslopoulou said, adding that other factors are also probably contributing due to the pattern of chronically late large earthquakes. Previous studies had also shown that seismic activity has been unusually subdued in California, compared with paleorecords. A 2019 study reported that there's been a 100-year hiatus in ground-rupturing earthquakes at a number of paleoseismic sites in California, including on the San Andreas and Hayward faults. The authors of the 2019 study treated large earthquakes at these sites as independent events, akin to flipping pennies and counting how many turn up heads. They calculated a 0.3% probability that there'd be a 100-year hiatus in ground-rupturing quakes across all the California sites. Scientists have suggested that there could be earthquake 'supercycles,' with large quakes occurring in clusters, with less active periods in between. 'There are these longer-term, decadal, century-long ups and downs in the rate of earthquakes,' Jones said. Potentially, California is in a quiet time and large earthquakes are currently less likely. Katherine Scharer, a U.S. Geological Survey research geologist who wasn't part of the new research, commended the authors of the study, explaining that compiling the paleoseismic records was a 'tremendous amount of work' and will enable more scientists to investigate earthquakes. California's relatively sparse big earthquake activity could be connected to the geometry of its faults. While the analyzed faults in California were more or less in line with each other, those in other regions resembled 'a plate of spaghetti,' Scharer said. 'From the study, I think you would say that the main California faults are mechanically different somehow than the averages from these other places,' Glenn Biasi, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who wasn't part of the new work. Biasi emphasized that it's impossible to say if California's faults are truly overdue for a big earthquake. 'The faults slip on their own schedule and for their own reasons,' Biasi said. Scientists can't accurately predict large earthquakes in advance but paleoearthquake data could help. The authors of the new study found that, excluding California's recent lack of large earthquakes, faults around the entire planet have generally produced surface-rupturing quakes at intervals expected from paleoearthquake and historic records. Considering such data could improve earthquake forecasts, Mouslopoulou said.
Business Mayor
11-05-2025
- Business Mayor
LAA portal to remain offline following data breach
The fallout from a data breach at the Legal Aid Agency continues as it emerged today that a key portal for solicitors to submit and update applications will remain offline for longer than expected. The Ministry of Justice said it is working with the National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Centre to investigate the data breach. Firms were informed by the LAA about the security incident last week and have now been told in a second letter that the LAA Online Portal, which was taken offline as part of work to protect information, will remain offline until Monday morning. The portal provides access to the LAA's core applications. The letter, signed by Lucy Jones, head of LAA Corporate Services, was posted by the account CrimeLineLaw on social media platform X. The letter states: 'We wrote to you last Wednesday following the identification of a security breach of the LAA systems. This remains a live investigation and a number of actions have been and continue to be taken to bolster the security of our systems, and in doing so protect the information contained within them.' The LAA Online Portal was taken offline 'to enable further work to be undertaken', Jones said. It was due to return online this week but will now remain offline until 10am on Monday 'to allow time for a broader range of actions'. Jones said: 'As the portal is currently unavailable, we are aware that you are currently unable to gain a date stamp for your applications. When the portal becomes available, please complete the application as normal and indicate in the 'Further Information' section of your application you were unable to submit your application and the date that you would have submitted it. Caseworkers will backdate representation orders to this date where applicable.' Those with civil applications and an imminent hearing, who are unable to use delegated functions, are told to contact customer services. Jones said: 'I would like to again apologise for the inconvenience that the current situation, including the portal unavailability, will be causing you. The LAA takes any breach extremely seriously and understands the potential impacts on our providers including the impacts of taking our systems offline.' A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'We take any data breach extremely seriously and have taken the Legal Aid Agency portal temporarily offline while we continue our investigations. We continue to work with the National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Centre and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.'
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Matrescence: The Transformative Time of Motherhood Needs Attention
The great shift that is motherhood doesn't always come easy. Having a child changes everything in us — mentally, physically, and emotionally. We give up and sacrifice, sometimes losing ourselves in the process. It's at once beautiful and destructive, powerful and painful. We can celebrate motherhood while also daring to change the mindset around what some call "matrescence." Laura Guckian is the host of the Momfessions podcast and maternal mental wellbeing expert. Guckian shared the many life-altering things that happen during matrescence, the entry into this shift in our lives called motherhood, with Women's Health. Related: "How does a woman go from perfectly healthy, at the peak of her career with no prior history of mental health problems, to being so unwell that her life falls apart?" she asked, then answered: "Motherhood." Guckian added, "Matrescence is ... when a woman is transitioning into motherhood. Just like when we were navigating adolescence, we are going through massive hormonal changes. We are at our most vulnerable from a psychological perspective that we've ever been. Our identity is shifting, so our values and belief systems." It's not a quick shift — sometimes it's a 10 year transition. Related: Credit needs to be given to Lucy Jones, author of the 2023 book Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood. The buzzy term helped moms feel seen. The next step is to take action. To help mothers through this transitional phase in life, Guckian shared: Ditch self judgement. Know that motherhood doesn't always come easy or naturally for all and give yourself grace. Prioritize your mental health. We tend to put the physical changes at the forefront, but don't neglect to tend to the emotional changes. Build a strong support system. Support should come from your family, your partner, and friends (new and old). Parenting groups may help build an understanding support system. Know perfection isn't real. Guckian suggests to take on less advice, know your own personal limits, and avoid comparing. Moms may give themselves license to ignore what they are being told to do, and instead do what they can. We are born, then traverse through adolescence, sometimes to matrescence, then to menopause. We become maiden, mother, then crone — each phase a beautiful and yet challenging part of life, an unfurling of all that we are. Each are full of hardships, challenges, and difficulties sprinkled with wonderment and beauty, an often hard-earned learning further deepening our wisdom and sense of self. Love yourself every step through. Up Next:
Los Angeles Times
03-05-2025
- Science
- Los Angeles Times
O.C. residents pack Newport Beach hall to talk tectonics and tremors with seismologist Lucy Jones
Dr. Lucy Jones became one of the first Westerners allowed to conduct research in China after it changed policy to welcome foreigners in the late 1970's. She and her colleagues hoped promising data suggesting hundreds of lower-intensity foreshocks might have been a precursor to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that damaged 90% of the buildings in the city of Haicheng would lead to a breakthrough affecting people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. 'I dedicated my life to saying I was going to predict earthquakes and save those of us unfortunate enough to live next to the San Andreas fault,' Jones told about 100 people who filled the Friends Room of the Newport Beach Public Library on Avocado Avenue Wednesday. Yet she and other scientists could find no statistically significant pattern connecting foreshocks to the likelihood of a major earthquake. After decades in the field of seismology, and taking into account current research on the topic, she's grown to accept the likelihood that there simply isn't a reliable way to determine when the next catastrophic tremor hits. 'Magnitude is determined during the earthquake and not before,' Jones said. 'If that's true, prediction is impossible. I'm still saying 'if.' We're still arguing over this stuff.' That's not to say the work of Jones and other seismologists has been fruitless. Her research helped make California's modern earthquake advisory system possible. And thanks to precise mapping of the San Andreas and other faults, scientists and policy makers know where earthquakes are most likely to take place, and what kind of damage they might do to surrounding communities. 'I was seeing it being used as much as it could be,' Jones said of her early work. 'And I shifted towards looking at impacts because I was recognizing that even if I gave you great probabilities, if you don't understand what's happening in the earthquake you're not going to make the right decisions. ... Political and economic systems have as much to do with how you talk about any of this.' She noted that modern building code requires new buildings to have a calculated 90% chance of withstanding a major shakeup; that, conversely, means regulations allow a 10% failure rate. Yet it would only add about 1% to the cost of construction to design structures that should have a 100% chance of staying up, Jones said. 'Recovery is often worse than the disaster itself — the time, the disruption of our communities,' Jones said. 'We live in Pasadena. We just had 6,000 neighbors lose their homes, and it's going to be a long road to recovery. And how much we can work together is a really big part of what happens next.' Jones went over a variety of tips to help people prepare and respond to an emergency. She said the most important steps people can take before, during and after any disaster is to get to know their neighbors so they can plan, coordinate and better ensure each other's survival. As a city consisting of relatively new construction that's located away from the most active portions of the San Andreas fault, Newport Beach is less likely to fall into a catastrophe in the wake of a high magnitude tremor, Jones said. But local residents still had plenty of questions about disaster response and niche topics pertaining to coastal communities like liquefaction and the risk of tsunamis. The latter, thankfully, are not common in the area due the the particulars of tectonics beneath the sea floor of the coast of Southern California. 'I was impressed at how engaged the whole audience was, both the size of the audience and the interesting questions,' Jones said while mingling with attendees after her presentation. 'And you laughed at my jokes!' Jones's presentation capped the library's Spotlight on Science lecture series. It will be the last event hosted in the Friends Room before Witte Hall, a new 300-seat auditorium, opens to welcome even more curious people interested in exploring and better understanding the world around them. 'We had an amazing season, actually,' The Newport Beach Public Library Foundation's director of Programs, Kunga Wangmo-Shaw, said. 'Almost every single program sold out, which kind of told us our community really wants to come into the library and listen and meet these people.' 'What we've learned is that there is a real hunger for science literacy,' the foundations chief executive, Jerold Kappel, added.
New Statesman
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The sounds that shape us
Illustration by Lucy Jones At some point in the unreconstructed noughties, I read an article about the differences in the way men and women listen to music. I recall it very well. It suggested that men listen to melodies and women listen to lyrics; that men had huge record collections and women had fewer albums, which they loved more; that men liked to argue over 'boring things' like time signatures and key changes, while women had a more instinctive connection with the way music made them feel. If I could print that green, puking emoji here, I would. Within these ideas, unmistakable to me then, was the inference that men understood music better, and cared about it more, than women. I was a young rock journalist at the time, in what was still a male-dominated world, and the suggestion that listening was gendered made my cheeks glow in fury. After all, I knew boys who seemed only to feel through music, each millennial whoop their direct line to sentiments apparently unspeakable. What are tribalism and competitiveness, qualities traditionally associated with male music consumers, if not expressions of deep feeling? The first music fan(atic)s were women: the notion that they fell in love with the Beatles because they wanted to be their girlfriends was missing the point: that music was putting them into a state of transcendence. Alice Vincent, once music editor on the arts pages of the Telegraph, spent years of her life 'setting the measure of a pop star's performance in 450 words and a few tiny stars… leaving shows halfway through because I was bored or arrogant'. In the world of music journalism she was 'silently lobbying for access to the boys' club. I still don't know if I ever gained entry'. Vincent was an obsessive music lover who listened to so many records, and went to so many gigs as a teenager, that she damaged her hearing: 'There was a time in my life when sound felt like it was everything to me because it moved my body and it smoothed my brain and elevated my being into higher planes.' In Hark, Vincent has set out to think about listening and gender – but also to answer questions that, like her, haunts so many of us in adulthood. Why do we stop listening in the same way as we get older? Why is our relationship with music, as she puts it, withering? Vincent is viscerally reminded of the intensity of her youthful relationship with sound when, at 35, a sonographer jellies up her belly and plays her baby's heartbeat through an ultrasound. It is the only noise that has properly moved her in a long time. From that point on, in pregnancy, she seeks out experiences of increasing sonic intensity, standing in a sound-bath in the Mojave Desert, and entering an anechoic chamber, a room soundproofed to absorb all echoes in which people are often left hearing nothing more than their own heartbeat – and often freak out. After Vincent's baby is born, she explores other phenomena: phantom crying and the condition misophonia (the acute oversensitivity to sound). The parent's ear is retuned to a child's breathing or distress, usually for a short period but, for an unlucky few, long-term after giving birth: the wail of your own child 'bores' into you from 30 metres away, pumping your blood faster and thicker through your veins, turning your body into a 'kind of emergency'. I recognised Vincent's descriptions of attending gigs as a newish mother and finding it overwhelming on a sensory level. I also recognised her music-loving parents who, when asked what they were listening to in 1985, said, 'Oh, the charts totally passed us by for years because we were busy having you.' The change in our relationship with music as we grow older is about far more, I think, than distraction and the atomisation of your previous listening habits. When adolescents listen to music they are actively seeking an intensity of experience. In adult life there is plenty of that. Ageing parents, encroaching death, the 4am fears for your child's future – these are the big feelings you push away, rather than pull towards you, when you're grown up. After having my daughter five years ago, I couldn't watch TV: even now, I find films 'too much' and sit there reacting as though the people are real, full of outrage when bad things happen ('He wouldn't do that!') and exhausted when the credits roll. The last major musical obsession I had, with the American songwriter Bruce Hornsby, was in 2014. Now, the idea of an intense experience listening to a song in the middle of my average day feels physically daunting, like jumping into a cold lake. These exhilarating moments still happen, but they tend to take place after three pints with the volume turned up too high in the tube carriage, heart racing, then running up the hill towards home when no one is about. It is fascinating to think that feeling this way was the norm, for many of us, for years and years, when we only had ourselves to think about: an adrenalised solitary communion, in many ways incompatible with everyday adult life. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Shortly after the birth of her son, trying to keep her hand in with some music writing, Vincent attends a gig at the Outernet, the modern venue beneath the hellish giant screens on the junction of Charing Cross Road and Oxford Street in Central London, not far from where the Astoria once stood. She watches a singer-songwriter doing a 45-minute set. 'Between him leaving the stage and returning for the encore, two QR codes appear on the full-bleed screens he'd stood in front of. We are urged to scan them; they take us to a website to buy his album. I give him three stars.' I recognise the dystopian, sanitised experience of modern gig-going, but a certain detachment from what's on stage goes hand-in-hand with reviewing gigs for a living. Vincent's changing relationship with sound also stems from post-natal depression: after her baby becomes seriously ill she develops a new internal monologue 'that made sense to me, but was increasingly challenging to keep company with': a 'constant soundtrack' to her day. When we are able to listen – and when we can't – is a mysterious process. Generally when something massive happens to you, like a shock bereavement, music is too much. When you're depressed, it is also very difficult, because depression is essentially a broken connection with oneself. Music is, at best, a direct line to the self, so when it fails to move you, it makes the depression more painful. Having a child is a loss of selfhood too, in a way, as one becomes two – though it is a loss you would never reverse. In the course of this meditative book, Vincent learns that she is craving a more participatory version of music and sound, even if this just means singing to her child. She starts to think big – in terms of landscape, ice-fall and waves: she calls up a Cambridge scientist investigating whether the aurora borealis can be heard. I am not sure that listening is gendered – something about me will always bridle at that. But it certainly changes as we grow. Once we have others to care for, we listen to connect – and we work to clear the channel to ourselves. Hark: How Women Listen Alice Vincent Canongate, 320pp, £18.04 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See more: The second birth of JMW Turner] Related
