Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

EarthScope: A Seismic Shift in Data Gathering

February 7, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Earthscope: What Lies Beneath

On Feb. 7, 1812, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake pummeled the Mississippi River town of New Madrid. The quake, which was then the largest in U.S. history, was the fourth temblor to hit the region in a three-month span, and newspapers reported that people as far away as New York and Charleston, S.C. felt the vibrations. In one account, the shaking centered in the Louisiana Territory, about 150 miles south of St. Louis, caused bells to toll out of turn in Boston. Even though hundreds of smaller quakes occur annually in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, scientists are at a loss to explain when and how ... Read More

More like this: Science
Tags: , , , ,

Learning to Read When a School System Falters

February 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Dolan and Moustafa

On a hot, sunny September afternoon — the sticky kind so common in New York City that time of year — a tall, dark-haired young man with his shoulders hunched slightly forward padded into Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School’s back entrance and into a small courtyard. Moustafa Elhanafi sought the school’s principal. He needed her help. Not being a student there, he didn’t know what she looked like or where he would find her inside the massive, unfamiliar building. In the courtyard beneath the shade of a wide-leafed tree, looking for crafty students cutting class, stood Principal ... Read More

More like this: Education
Tags: , , ,

Trash Free Seas Alliance Takes Aim at Great Pacific Garbage Patch

October 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Normandy's windswept beaches have been quiet since the Allied invasion in 1944. Now the desolate coastline plays host to a different, more insidious attacker: plastic trash. Nestled in the coarse sand and tangled among pieces of driftwood lie the detritus of the industrialized world, an army of plastic bottles, discarded fishing lines and floats, crushed buckets, flip-flops, broken chairs, and bags. The English Channel is not the world's sole depositor of plastic debris. Lonely beaches all over the world — ones you’d expect to be devoid of human influence — teem with wildlife, but ... Read More

More like this: By The Way ..., Environment
Tags: , , , ,

New Sports Therapy Redefines the Body’s Core

October 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Alexandra Stevenson has been holding a tennis racket ever since she can remember. The decision to go pro at 18 took her from the relative comfort of a scholarship offer at UCLA and thrust her into the pressure cooker of competition. It also exposed her body to the kind of beating that mere mortals can only dream about. Having suffered a number of injury-related setbacks over the ensuing years, Stevenson thought her career was through by 2010. But then, something changed. After being carried off a Sydney court with a foot injury in February of last year, she decided to try a new kind of ... Read More

More like this: Health
Tags: , ,

Military Gender Roles Still Thorny Problem

April 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Gray skies covered the cluster of gray stone buildings and perfectly manicured fields at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. last Friday as a group of about 50 students — cadets and midshipmen from all the U.S. service academies, as well as some students from other universities — gathered inside the brightly lit main library for an earnest discussion on gender issues in the U.S. armed forces. Speakers at the two-day Gender Justice conference — hosted by the West Point Center for the Rule of Law — tackled a tight range of sober topics, and the Friday morning ... Read More

More like this: Culture
Tags: , , , ,

Offline Values in an Online World

November 4, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Offline Values in an Online World

Work must be done, but often, the blinking red light of a BlackBerry or iPhone momentarily steals attention away — again and again. Text messages, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and a host of other new media have to be contended with along with the seemingly more arcane and time-consuming demands of sustained activity. These forms of on-the-fly communication, while keeping us connected with one another like never before, can also be a massive distraction from the task at hand. Many people want to know: As we forge ahead into unheard of levels of multi-tasking likely to make us all experience ... Read More

More like this: Media
Tags: ,

Sussing Out Patterns in American History

July 23, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

American history has witnessed several major upheavals, and it seems in the midst of another contentious period. Tea Partiers claim irreconcilable differences with liberals and cry for smaller government while their opponents say that social programs must be preserved, creating a political echo of the widening cultural rift. The U.S. military languishes in overseas conflicts many see as less than vital to the nation's interests. Hamstrung by economic crises, indecisive on environmental concerns and with unprecedented numbers moving into retirement age, American society's challenges start to ... Read More

More like this: Culture
Tags: , ,

The Risky Business of Slicing the Pie

March 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
El Golfo de Santa Clara, Mexico (John Goodman / ZUMA Press)

In this, the final installment, of the Miller-McCune.com series on the Colorado River, Ben Preston examines the cooperation between American and Mexican entities. The Colorado River conservation community is tight-knit, but there are transnational political considerations to be made when working with a natural resource that isn't confined by political boundaries. Part I: SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE Part II: JUST ADD WATER: COLORADO DELTA RESURRECTS Part III: THE RISKY BUSINESS OF SLICING THE PIE After 10 years of drought in the Colorado River watershed, this year's extremely wet winter ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , ,

Just Add Water: Colorado Delta Resurrects

March 15, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
Because Mexican government agencies can't afford complicated tertiary sewage treatment plants, they rely on nature to remove contaminants from wastewater before returning it to Rio Colorado. The Las Arenitas Wastewater Treatment Plant was installed in 2007, with NGOs and now the federal government working hard to plant filtering wetlands along the edges of its drainage basin. (Ben Preston)

In this installment of our series on the Lower Colorado River, conservation and restoration efforts on the Mexican side of the International Border will be explored. Stay tuned for the final installment, which will examine cooperation between American and Mexican entities. The Colorado River conservation community is tight-knit, but there are transnational political considerations to be made when working with a natural resource that isn't confined by political boundaries. Part I: SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE Part II: JUST ADD WATER: COLORADO DELTA RESURRECTS Part III: THE RISKY BUSINESS OF ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , ,

Something for Everyone

March 8, 2010 • By • 2 Comments

In the next installment of this series, conservation and restoration efforts on the Mexican side of the International Border will be explored. With less money and less water available, several nongovernmental organizations are busily dedicated to preserving key wetlands in the Colorado River's Delta, as well as restoring riparian habitat along its corridor. In the third and final segment, cooperation between American and Mexican entities will be examined. The Colorado River conservation community is tight-knit, but there are transnational political considerations to be made when working with a ... Read More

More like this: CAROUSEL, Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , , ,