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A.M.
Costa Rica
Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
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Published Monday, May 9, 2016, in Vol. 17, No. 90
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 9, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 90
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By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
The national emergency commission says that some individuals have taken to the social media to spread panic and fear over the Turrialba volcano. Apparently a message that was circulated a year ago has reappeared suggesting that parents have to provide water and other items for their children in school. This comes at time when the emergency commission says that the activity at the Turrialba volcano is lessening. There were a series of eruptions Saturday and more Sunday. Ash carried by the wind went north of the San Jose downtown into Coronado, Guadalupe and Moravia Sunday. Five public schools in the vicinity of the volcano will remain closed today, said the Ministerio de Educación Pública. The same schools were closed much of last week. Teachers will not be off today. The ministry said that the teachers involved would be meeting to discuss ways students can make up the course work once classes resume. The emergency commission and the scientists involved in monitoring the volcano agree that the mountain can be dangerous and Costa Rica has a number of active volcanos, but they also said that being prepared is not being fearful. The idea that the volcano’s activity is lessening comes from monitoring the emission of gas and vapor via cameras at the summit of the mountain. Readers can do that, too, HERE! Police on alert for tonight’s soccer match By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Two leading soccer teams play a championship match tonight, and the Feurza Pública is fielding 204 officers to back up 175 private security guards at the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto in Alajuela. The two teams are Liga Deportiva Alajuelense y Club Sport Herediano. Police have been frisking spectators as they enter the stadiums in an effort to reduce the violence that has taken place at previous games. Both teams have large groups of loyal followers. Spanish clown to discuss humor in war By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
When it comes to discussing humor, the experts are needed. Send in the clowns! That is what the Centro Cultural de España will be doing Wednesday at 7 p.m. Iván Prado, a popular Spanish clown, is to participate in a discussion of humor in time of war. He also will be giving workshops today and through Thursday. Prado has practiced the clown art in some dangerous zones, according to the Centro. He will be in the country for two weeks, and his visit includes a trip to the Hospital de Niños and in Tallamanca. Cachí hydro facility reaches 50 years By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
The state power company is marking the 50th birthday of its Cachí generating facility that went into service May 7, 1966. This is a project by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. Since 1966, the plant, based in the province of Cartago, has seen a major increase in its capacity. When it began, it was designed to produce 32 megawatts. Now the plant has a capacity of 160 megawatts. The hydro facility has a concrete dam 148 meters (about 486 feet) long and 75 meters (nearly 250 feet) high on the Río Reventazón.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 9, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 90
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| Festival
of the spheres returns to the Central Pacific this
weekend |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another annual festival is planned for next weekend at the site of those unexplained stone balls in Palmar Sur and vicinity. The XI Festival de las Esferas Osa 2016 is the 11th annual celebration and comes when the Museo Nacional is trying to promote its new museum and holdings in that area. The festival will be in Parque de Palmar Sur, Finca 6, Sierpe and Grijalba-2, all in the canton of Osa in the south Pacific coast. The stone balls, some more than two meters in diameter, are the country’s leading archaeological mystery. No one knows who made them, how or why, although some scientists have taken their best shot. The festival will feature more than just viewing the stone balls. There will be boat rides on the nearby Río Sierpe, dances, performances by musical groups, sports, exhibitions and the sale of foods and products from the zone. The Municipalidad de Osa and local businesses also are sponsors. The festival kicks off Friday at 10 a.m. in the Parque de Palmar Sur with a food fair, exhibitions of art works and the start of a series of symposiums on painting and sculpture that continues through the three days of the festival. The Asociación Cultural Rey Curré will put on an abbreviated “Juego de los diablitos” Saturday at 10 a.m. and the Boruca group Non Cuan Xá performs at 3 p.m. Both events are in the Palmar Sur park. The Boruca are known for their colorful masks that are sought after by tourists. |
 Museo
Nacional graphic
Festival poster features a man with a Boruca
mask.The group Danza Joven of the
Universidad Nacional will present a dance
performance that has been inspired by the spheres,
said the museum. The performance will be Saturday at
4 p.m. at the Grijalba-2 archaeological site.
Throughout the three days there will be guided tours of the archaeological sites. There is plenty on the Web about the spheres. Some claim they are leavings by space aliens. Others say they are many thousand years old. More conventional archaeologists agree that the only way to date the spheres is by what layers of soil and what artifacts are associated with them. Since many of the spheres have been moved around in modern day as well as in pre-Columbian times, a lot of potential evidence has been lost. The spheres have been recognized as part of the world’s heritage by the U. N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. |
| Proposed
legal change would give spouses equal financial
obligations |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A new bill introduced to the legislative assembly seeks to even the ground for spouses when it comes to family financial duty. The proposal would modify Article 35 of the Código de Familia, which currently states that the husband has the obligation to defray the household expenses. The wife is obliged to collaborate in solidarity and proportionately when she has her own resources, it adds. If the change is approved, it would then read “both spouses are responsible to defray the needs and expenses in the family, and each one will respond in solidarity and proportionately |
according
to their possibilities and income.” The modification was presented by Partido Acción Ciudadana lawmaker Marco Vinicio Redondo, so that the law matches the current gender equality paradigms and recognizes women rights. “The current law does not fit in our society. Event though it is a symbolic change, we want to show that Costa Rica is a different country, and laws should change accordingly.” he said. According to Redondo, another important goal of the change is to show that both men and women share responsibilities in the needs and responsibilities of the family, as well as in domestic chores and child care. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 9, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 90
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| Swiss
study shows the restorative effects of vitamin B3 on older
organs |
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By the Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne
Nicotinamide riboside, a form of vitamin B3, is pretty amazing. It has already been shown in several studies to be effective in boosting metabolism. And now a team of researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's Laboratory has unveiled even more of its secrets. An article written by Hongbo Zhang, a doctoral student on the team, says the vitamin has restorative effects on the functioning of stem cells. As mice, like all mammals, age, the regenerative capacity of certain organs (such as the liver and kidneys) and muscles, including the heart, diminishes. Their ability to repair them following an injury is also affected. This leads to many of the disorders typical of aging. Hongbo Zhang wanted to understand how the regeneration process deteriorated with age. To do so, he teamed up with colleagues from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and universities in Canada and Brazil. Through the use of several markers, he was able to identify the molecular chain that regulates how mitochondria, the "powerhouse" of the cell, function and how they change with age. The role that mitochondria play in metabolism has already been amply demonstrated, "but we were able to show for the first time that their ability to function properly was important for stem cells," said Johan Auwerx, the team leader. Under normal conditions, these stem cells, reacting to signals sent by the body, regenerate damaged organs by producing new specific cells. At least in young bodies. "We demonstrated that fatigue in stem cells was one of the main causes of poor |
regeneration
or even degeneration in certain tissues or organs,"
said Hongbo Zhang. This is why the researchers wanted to revitalize stem cells in the muscles of elderly mice. And they did so by precisely targeting the molecules that help the mitochondria to function properly. "We gave nicotinamide riboside to 2-year-old mice, which is an advanced age for them," said the researcher. "This substance, which is close to vitamin B3, is a precursor of NAD+, a molecule that plays a key role in mitochondrial activity. And our results are extremely promising: muscular regeneration is much better in mice that received NR, and they lived longer than the mice that didn't get it." Parallel studies have revealed a comparable effect on stem cells of the brain and skin. "This work could have very important implications in the field of regenerative medicine," said Auwerx. "We are not talking about introducing foreign substances into the body but rather restoring the body's ability to repair itself with a product that can be taken with food." This work on the aging process also has potential for treating diseases that can affect and be fatal in young people, like muscular dystrophy. So far, no negative side effects have been observed following the use of NR, even at high doses. But caution remains the byword when it comes to this elixir of youth: it appears to boost the functioning of all cells, which could include pathological ones. Further in-depth studies are required. This paper has been published online by the journal Science. |
Here's reasonable
medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 9, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 90
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is smaller than anticipated By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
There finally is some encouraging news about the huge wildfire that has destroyed a large area of Alberta in western Canada. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says the fires are a lot smaller than what authorities believed they were. Ms. Notley said experts anticipated the flames would have doubled in size by Sunday but have instead grown much more slowly. The fires also have not crossed the border into neighboring Saskatchewan, as was feared. Alberta fire official Chad Morrison said the much cooler weather is great for firefighting and can give firefighters the chance to put the flames in what he called a death grip. As of midday Sunday local time, 161,000 hectares, about 398,000 acres, in northern Alberta were still burning, and thousands of people had sought safety in emergency shelters. The fire has wiped out nearly the entire city of Fort McMurray, forcing 88,000 people to grab what few belongings they could carry and flee for their lives. Alberta is home to North America's largest oil sands deposits. The flames so far have not reached any major oil processing facilities. Trump says he is unconcerned with backing from key leaders By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Donald Trump, the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee, is not all that worried that key party leaders say they won't support him in the national election against the likely Democratic nominee, former U.S. secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As the billionaire all but clinched the party's presidential nomination last week, the last two Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, and numerous other party officials declared they have no intention of supporting his maverick candidacy. "Does it have to be unified?" Trump asked about the Republican Party on ABC's This Week news show Sunday. "I'm very different than everybody else, perhaps, that's ever run for office? I actually don't think so. "I think it would be better if it were unified, I think it would be, there would be something good about it," he said. "But I don't think it actually has to be unified in the traditional sense." The party's top current elected official, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, said he is just not ready to endorse Trump and wants to make sure he would uphold the party's traditional conservative principles before agreeing to support him. Ryan has opposed Trump's call to temporarily block Muslims from entering the country and the two disagree on U.S. foreign policy and trade issues. He and Trump have scheduled a meeting Thursday in Washington to air their differences, but the brash Trump, a one-time television reality show host who has never held elective office, said it's possible the two may just go their separate ways. Other conservative leaders have raised the possibility of fielding a third candidate against Trump and Mrs. Clinton, but third-party candidacies have not fared well in U.S. presidential elections, almost always trailing far behind the Democratic and Republican nominees. Some Republican lawmakers said they will support Trump even though they originally preferred other presidential candidates. The 69-year-old Trump surged to the top of the Republicans' one-time field of 17 candidates with calls to build an impenetrable wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to halt the stream of illegal immigrants into the United States and to deport the 11 million already in the country. He has won more than 10 million votes in state-by-state party nominating contests, with his last two challengers dropping out of the race for the party's presidential nomination after Trump scored an impressive win in last week's contest in the Midwestern state of Indiana. Neither Trump nor Mrs. Clinton has officially clinched their parties' presidential nominations yet, but they are trading verbal taunts at each other. At a rally Saturday, Trump, who is married to his third wife and through the years has bragged about sexual exploits, lampooned Mrs. Clinton for the marital infidelities of her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton. "She's married to a man who was the worst abuser of women in the history of politics," Trump said. Mrs.Clinton has disparaged Trump as unfit to be the country's commander in chief. "We can't have a loose cannon in the Oval Office" at the White House, she told cheering supporters at a rally. Numerous polls show Mrs. Clinton ahead of Trump in the election to pick the successor to President Barack Obama, who leaves office next January. Tiny Guam gives Mrs. Clinton four of seven delegate votes By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton inched closer to the party nomination with a caucus win Saturday in Guam. Clinton won 60 percent of the vote, earning four of the seven delegates on the tiny Pacific island nation. Her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont won three delegates. However, Sanders picked up nearly 50 delegates in Washington state. He easily won the state caucus March 26, beating Mrs. Clinton by nearly 50 percentage points, 73 percent to 27 percent. He received 25 of the 34 delegates awarded that day. However, an additional 67 district-level delegates could not be apportioned until the state could produce vote data broken down by congressional districts. Similar to other states, Washington state has a multi-step process for awarding delegates. Election officials had to wait until county conventions were completed May 1 before they could generate more detailed information. District-level data show Sanders will receive 49 delegates, and Mrs. Clinton will receive 18, The Associated Press reported. Despite the Washington results, Mrs. Clinton maintains a lead in the overall delegate count with 2,228 delegates. She has more than 93 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. Sanders has 1,454. Mrs. Clinton is on track to clinch the nomination by early June. Sanders has said he has no plans to quit before the final primary votes have been cast in June. Yet Mrs.Clinton is already looking ahead to a matchup in November with billionaire businessman Donald Trump, the sole Republican presidential candidate. The Democratic convention will be held in Philadelphia July 25 to 28. The Republican convention will be held a week earlier in Cleveland, from July 18 to 21. Meanwhile, Trump repeatedly spoke of Crooked Hillary, his nickname for the Democratic front-runner, during rallies this weekend in Oregon and Washington state. He also continued a tirade against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leader in the progressive movement. Wednesday, soon after Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the race for president leaving Trump as the sole candidate on the Republican side, Sen. Warren took to Twitter to chastise Trump in a flurry of nine tweets in which she accused him of being racist, sexist and xenophobic. Sen. Warren, revered among progressive Democrats for her work in creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, went on to accuse Trump of inciting violence among his supporters and supporting Russia’s strong-man President Vladimir Putin. Friday night Trump responded to Sen. Warren’s criticism with a stream of his own tweets, referring to Sen. Warren as “Hillary Clinton’s flunky,” and saying that her career is based on a lie. Trump was referencing Sen. Warren’s controversial claim that she is part Native American, which first became an issue in 2012 when she was running for the Senate in the state of Massachusetts. During that campaign, it was reported that Mrs. Warren claimed Native American heritage while applying to teach at both the Harvard Law School and the Pennsylvania Law School. Sen. Warren has long defended her Native American ancestry as based on stories told to her as a child by her parents, but has produced no official documentation to make the connection. Warren responded to Trump’s attack Friday night, calling him a bully and saying his statements were hate-filled lies.  Voice of America
photo
The Giant Magellan TelescopeNew giant telescope in Chile has array 368 meters square By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services The mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope that gave the world stunning pictures of deep space is about 4.5 square meters. Compare that with the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be 25 square meters and which is creating big expectations for even higher-quality results when it is deployed in 2018. But both will be dwarfed by the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is under construction in Chile's Atacama Desert. Its mirror array covers about 368 square meters. By looking at different parts of the visible and infrared spectrums, the two new telescopes will complement each other, Magellan Telescope director Patrick McCarthy said. "The two working together, I think, will give us a complete picture, whether we are looking at planets around nearby stars, black holes in the centers of other galaxies, or back to that early universe that we call the First Light, when we see the first stars in the first galaxies," McCarthy said. To isolate it from vibrations, the 1,200-ton telescope will rest on an oil flotation bearing system, completely free of any friction. A range of cameras and spectrographs will record and dissect the received light, looking for signatures of atoms and molecules. And the light coming from billions of kilometers away may be impossibly faint. "The photons come in once every 15 to 20 minutes, so it takes a long time to collect that light,” McCarthy said. “In our case, we think we'll get a few photons a minute, but you need hundreds to get a good signal, so it just takes patience." But with a telescope sensitive enough to detect a birthday candle on the moon, nobody knows what to expect. "The most important is the unexpected,” McCarthy said. “The new discoveries, the unanticipated breakthroughs. That's always been the story of astronomy. When you build a new capability, young people find things that either no one expected, or they prove that their elders were wrong." The $1 billion joint project of the U.S., Australia, Brazil, South Korea and Chile is expected to open for the first observations by 2022 and be fully operational by 2026. Health monitor urging U.S. to spend more on diseases By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The United States remains by far the most important source of funds for medical research and development for scores of diseases well-known to the developing world. According to the latest available data from the independent research group Policy Cures, global donors contributed over $2 billion in public funding for research into what the medical community calls neglected diseases. The U.S. government accounted for over 70 percent of the amount. But a new report from the Global Health Technologies Coalition, a group of nonprofits that promotes creation of vaccines and other tools to improve global health, says that over the past five years, funding has largely been flat. This is in contrast to the first decade of the 21st century, which saw a doubling of financial support. "We have seen a decline or stagnation in funding since 2009, and I think one of the biggest reasons for that is the budget sequestration in the U.S. government in 2013," said Erin Will Morton, Global Health executive director. "It really was detrimental for agency funding across the board and certainly made global health R&D take a hit in terms of funding levels." Usually, U.S. administrations make yearly budgetary requests to Congress for funds for global health programs. In other cases, emergency requests are made. Critics say the amounts granted often fall short of what’s needed to ensure the development of drugs and other health products, especially for fast-breaking pandemics. Recently, the White House announced it might divert funding for controlling ebola to fighting the spread of the zika virus. Ms. Morton said that's a bad idea. “We are not in the clear with ebola," she said. "We still don’t have the tools we need to fight, and so we risk a lot by moving that money to fight the next public health crisis. Zika happened very shortly after ebola, and we weren’t necessarily finished with that, and we don’t know what’s coming next. Moving funds around from one public health crisis to the next is an unsustainable way to address global health issues.” The Global Health report asks the U.S. government to encourage private sector involvement in research and development with prizes, small-business innovation awards, tax credits and other incentives. It also recommends improved cooperation among the seven U.S. agencies involved in global health. Favorite Nyquist wins derby and remains undefeated By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Race favorite Nyquist won the 142nd Kentucky Derby Saturday, becoming the eighth unbeaten horse to win the first jewel in the Triple Crown of American Thoroughbred horse racing. The colt beat out 19 other competitors in the hectic 1¼-mile (2-kilometer) race. Ridden by Mario Gutierrez, who also won the Derby with I’ll Have Another in 2012, held off second-choice Exaggerator to win in a time of 2 minutes, 1.31 seconds. Gun Runner held on for third and Mohaymen came in fourth. Nyquist paid $6.60, $4.80, $3.60 for a $2 bet. A year ago, American Pharoah won the Derby, launching his run to the sport's first Triple Crown in 37 years. Now, Nyquist is the only horse in position to replicate the feat this year. Leicester has fairy tale win in the English Premier League By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Leicester City beat 5,000-to-1 preseason odds to lift the English Premier League championship trophy after a 3-1 win Saturday against Everton at the soccer club's King Power Stadium home. It took Jaime Vardy just five minutes to open the scoring. Leicester stalwart Andy King made it 2-0 in the 33rd minute, and Vardy scored his second and Leicester's third from the penalty spot in the 65th minute. Fireworks erupted and yellow and blue streamers cascaded from the roof as the Foxes locked up their first title in the club's 132-year history. Lifelong Foxes fan Steve Worthy had the honor of handing the trophy to captain Wes Morgan at the end of the game. He won a competition organized by league sponsors Barclays and said he would dedicate the experience to his 97-year-old grandmother, Gladys Knight, who had to forfeit her season ticket this season because of ill health. The 25-kilogram trophy was decorated with ribbons of blue, for Leicester, and yellow, representing the royal house of Thailand, home country of club owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. Leicester's fans, who saw their team narrowly avoid demotion to a lower division last season, burst into a chorus of "Leicester Till I Die!" It was followed by "Barcelona, we're coming for you!" That was a nod to next season's hotly anticipated Champions League campaign. In one of the most improbable turnarounds by a sports team, Leicester embarrassed big-spending clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea by winning the world's richest soccer league with a squad largely made up of bargain buys and players cast off by bigger clubs.  National
Aeronautics and Space Administration graphic
The 2016 Mercury transit depicted conceptually here
will occur between about 5:12 a.m. and 12:42 p.m. Costa
Rican time.Three solar telescopes readied to capture Mercury’s transit Only a little more than once a decade will sky watchers see Mercury pass between Earth and the sun in a rare astronomical event known as a planetary transit. Mercury will appear as a tiny black dot as it glides in front of the sun’s blazing disk over a period of seven and a half hours. Three National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites will be providing images of the transit and one of them will have a near-live feed. Although Mercury zooms around the sun every 88 days, Earth, the sun and Mercury rarely align. And because Mercury orbits in a plane that is tilted from Earth’s orbit, it usually moves above or below the line of sight to the sun. As a result, Mercury transits occur only about 13 times a century. Transits provide a great opportunity to study the way planets and stars move in space, information that has been used throughout the ages to better understand the solar system and which still helps scientists today calibrate their instruments. Three of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's solar telescopes will watch the transit for just that reason. Mercury is too small to see without magnification, but it can be seen with a telescope or binoculars. These must be outfitted with a solar filter so viewers can safely look at the sun directly. “Astronomers get excited when any two things come close to each other in the heavens,” said Louis Mayo, program manager at National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This is a big deal for us.” Mercury transits have been key to helping astronomers throughout history. In 1631, astronomers first observed a Mercury transit. Those observations allowed astronomers to measure the apparent size of Mercury’s disk, as well as help them estimate the distance from Earth to the sun. “Back in 1631, astronomers were only doing visual observations on very small telescopes by today’s standards,” said Mayo. Since then, technological advancements have allowed scientists to study the sun and planetary transits in greater detail. In return, transits allow us to test our spacecraft and instruments. Scientists for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO (jointly operated by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the European Space Agency), and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, will work in tandem to study the transit. The Hinode solar mission will also observe the event. Hinode is a collaboration between the space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. SOHO launched in December 1995 with 12 instruments to study the sun from the deep solar core all the way out to the sun's effects on the rest of the solar system. Two of these instruments, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope and the Michelson Doppler Imager, will be brought back into full operation to take measurements during the transit after five years of quiescence. For one thing, the SOHO will measure the sun’s rotation axis using images captured by the spacecraft. “Instruments on board SDO and SOHO use different spectral lines, different wavelengths and they have slightly different optical properties to study solar oscillations,” said SOHO Project Scientist Joseph Gurman. “Transit measurements will help us better determine the solar rotation axis.” Such data is another piece of a long line of observations, which together help develop understand how the sun changes over hours, days, years and decades. “It used to be hard to observe transits,” Gurman said. “If you were in a place that had bad weather, for example, you missed your chance and had to wait for the next one. These instruments help us make our observations, despite any earthly obstacles.” SDO will be able to use the transit to help with instrument alignment. Because scientists know so precisely where Mercury should be in relationship to the sun, they can use it as a marker to fine tune exactly how their instruments should be pointed. The transit can also be used to help calibrate space instruments. The utter darkness of the planet provides an opportunity to study effects on the observations of stray light within the instrument. The backside of Mercury should appear black as it moves across the face of the sun. But because instruments scatter some light, Mercury will look slightly illuminated. “It’s like getting a cataract — you see stars or halos around bright lights as though you are looking through a misty windshield,” said SDO Project Scientist Dean Pesnell. “We have the same problem with our instruments.” Scientists run software on the images to try and mitigate the effect and check whether it can remove all of the scattered light. Alternatively, a near-live feed of SDO images will be available at www.nasa.gov/transit. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 9, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 90
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A gift guide for the gardener's hubby Well, I asked my husband, Metric Man, where my Mother’s Day bouquet was and he said, “This is a pick-your-own establishment” and handed me
I know it’s too late for this year’s Mother’s Day, but I bet there are birthdays coming up, or you could just print this and save it for next year, so here are gift suggestions for the gardener on Mother’s Day. Dining out. This is always a good one, if a bit ordinary (unless you never eat out, in which case it is long past time). A certificate for a massage. Believe me, we need one. A long one. In a nice quiet place with music playing in the background. Better make it a full hour. Oh, and be sure there is someone to play chauffeur because no one wants to drive after a massage. A day at a hot spring. This is a sneaky gift because you get to indulge too. Still, if you pack a nice lunch and a bottle of wine, she won’t mind. A surprise trip. Somewhere she has wanted to go. Perhaps Rio Celeste or a botanical garden or somewhere that is just peaceful and relaxing. Just make sure to include lunch and that bottle of wine. Chocolate. Personally, chocolate ranks high on my list of things-that-are-giftable but it must be dark chocolate. If you have the misfortune of being married to a no-chocolate woman . . . well, you poor thing. A hand-made volunteer certificate. This is great if you usually avoid working in the yard or garden. Just promise five hours of yard work without complaint. We love the ‘no complaint’ part. And no deep sighs either. Now, things that you should not buy for Mother’s Day include: Garden tools. Just a little too practical when we want to be pampered. That’s it, just don’t buy garden tools. (p.s. - New cars and jewelry are fine.) For next year, Metric Man says he’ll buy me a little cacao tree. Nothing wrong with giving me eternal chocolate.  Plant of the Week
This is the lovely Caesalpinia pulcherrima, the “Pride of Barbados” or dwarf poinciana, originally from the West Indies. This fast grower can be seen as a shrub or small tree (to 4.5 meters or 15 feet) and is often used as a hedge because it is a year-round bloomer. This sun lover tolerates both heat and our rainy season and comes in different colors. Great as a specimen or accent in the garden. If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/ Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845. |
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| From Page 7: Free trade does not seem to have any allies By the A.M. Costa Rica
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton have spoken out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a year when almost no one has defended free trade pacts on the campaign trail. Signed earlier this year, the trade pact aims to lower tariffs and boost trade among 12 Pacific Rim nations. The pact has yet to go into effect and is getting no love on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. “We’re going to get rid of TPP,” Trump told supporters Sunday in Spokane, Washington. “We’ve got to stop it. NAFTA Agreement was a disaster. This is going to be worse.” NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement. Last week, Mrs. Clinton reiterated her opposition to Pacific Partnership, mirroring that of Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders. Responding to a questionnaire by labor, environmental and human rights groups, Mrs. Clinton wrote that Congress should not take up the agreement before or after the November election. The Democratic frontrunner first staked out her position shortly after the pact was announced late last year. “I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I am worried about currency manipulation not being part of the agreement. We have lost American jobs to the manipulations that countries, particularly in Asia, have engaged in.” As secretary of State during President Barack Obama’s first term, Mrs. Clinton praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the gold standard in trade agreements. Her misgivings about the pact as a presidential candidate point to an overall souring of trade as an issue in America’s current election cycle. Of the three Republican finalists, Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, only Kasich consistently spoke in favor of free trade deals in general and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in particular. "I’ve always been a fair trader and a free trader at the same time,” the Ohio governor said in March. “Thirty-eight million Americans have jobs that are connected to trade. So we do want to have free trade." Even before suspending his campaign last week, Kasich’s voice was often drowned out by that of Trump. “When you look at the horrible trade deals where we are losing a fortune to every country we do business with, our jobs are being sucked away,” the New York businessman said. “It is unbelievable what is happening.” At times the discourse can seem confusing. For instance, Trump rails against tariffs placed on U.S. exports, the same tariffs the Trans-Pacific Partnership would eliminate. “When you send your beautiful agriculture, best in the world, when you send your agricultural products in, what happens?” Trump asked supporters in farm-rich Nebraska last week. “Thirty-eight percent tax, right? Thirty-eight percent tax to Japan. Think of it.” Amid all the anti-the Trans-Pacific Partnership rhetoric, the White House is standing firm. “From an economic, strategic and values perspective, we have a very strong argument to make about the wisdom of Congress moving to approve the TPP agreement that the president negotiated,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week. The Republican-led Congress has granted fast-track authority to facilitate the approval of trade pacts, but neither chamber is giving any indication it plans to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the immediate future. |
