LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has a very full kennel with dogs awaiting new homes.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian shepherd, border collie, boxer,
Catahoula leopard dog, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, hound, Labrador retriever, mastiff, Papillon, pit bull, Queensland heeler, Rottweiler, shepherd and terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

Those dogs and the others shown on this page at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.

The shelter is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

 

From the very early days of the pandemic, brain fog emerged as a significant health condition that many experience after COVID-19.

Brain fog is a colloquial term that describes a state of mental sluggishness or lack of clarity and haziness that makes it difficult to concentrate, remember things and think clearly.

Fast-forward four years and there is now abundant evidence that being infected with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can affect brain health in many ways.

In addition to brain fog, COVID-19 can lead to an array of problems, including headaches, seizure disorders, strokes, sleep problems, and tingling and paralysis of the nerves, as well as several mental health disorders.

A large and growing body of evidence amassed throughout the pandemic details the many ways that COVID-19 leaves an indelible mark on the brain. But the specific pathways by which the virus does so are still being elucidated, and curative treatments are nonexistent.

Now, two new studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine shed further light on the profound toll of COVID-19 on cognitive health.

I am a physician scientist, and I have been devoted to studying long COVID since early patient reports about this condition – even before the term “long COVID” was coined. I have testified before the U.S. Senate as an expert witness on long COVID and have published extensively on this topic.

How COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain

Here are some of the most important studies to date documenting how COVID-19 affects brain health:

• Large epidemiological analyses showed that people who had COVID-19 were at an increased risk of cognitive deficits, such as memory problems.

• Imaging studies done in people before and after their COVID-19 infections show shrinkage of brain volume and altered brain structure after infection.

• A study of people with mild to moderate COVID-19 showed significant prolonged inflammation of the brain and changes that are commensurate with seven years of brain aging.

• Severe COVID-19 that requires hospitalization or intensive care may result in cognitive deficits and other brain damage that are equivalent to 20 years of aging.

• Laboratory experiments in human and mouse brain organoids designed to emulate changes in the human brain showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers the fusion of brain cells. This effectively short-circuits brain electrical activity and compromises function.

• Autopsy studies of people who had severe COVID-19 but died months later from other causes showed that the virus was still present in brain tissue. This provides evidence that contrary to its name, SARS-CoV-2 is not only a respiratory virus, but it can also enter the brain in some individuals. But whether the persistence of the virus in brain tissue is driving some of the brain problems seen in people who have had COVID-19 is not yet clear.

• Studies show that even when the virus is mild and exclusively confined to the lungs, it can still provoke inflammation in the brain and impair brain cells’ ability to regenerate.

• COVID-19 can also disrupt the blood brain barrier, the shield that protects the nervous system – which is the control and command center of our bodies – making it “leaky.” Studies using imaging to assess the brains of people hospitalized with COVID-19 showed disrupted or leaky blood brain barriers in those who experienced brain fog.

• A large preliminary analysis pooling together data from 11 studies encompassing almost 1 million people with COVID-19 and more than 6 million uninfected individuals showed that COVID-19 increased the risk of development of new-onset dementia in people older than 60 years of age.

Drops in IQ

Most recently, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed cognitive abilities such as memory, planning and spatial reasoning in nearly 113,000 people who had previously had COVID-19. The researchers found that those who had been infected had significant deficits in memory and executive task performance.

This decline was evident among those infected in the early phase of the pandemic and those infected when the delta and omicron variants were dominant. These findings show that the risk of cognitive decline did not abate as the pandemic virus evolved from the ancestral strain to omicron.

In the same study, those who had mild and resolved COVID-19 showed cognitive decline equivalent to a three-point loss of IQ. In comparison, those with unresolved persistent symptoms, such as people with persistent shortness of breath or fatigue, had a six-point loss in IQ. Those who had been admitted to the intensive care unit for COVID-19 had a nine-point loss in IQ. Reinfection with the virus contributed an additional two-point loss in IQ, as compared with no reinfection.

Generally the average IQ is about 100. An IQ above 130 indicates a highly gifted individual, while an IQ below 70 generally indicates a level of intellectual disability that may require significant societal support.

To put the finding of the New England Journal of Medicine study into perspective, I estimate that a three-point downward shift in IQ would increase the number of U.S. adults with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million – an increase of 2.8 million adults with a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support.

Another study in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine involved more than 100,000 Norwegians between March 2020 and April 2023. It documented worse memory function at several time points up to 36 months following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test.

Parsing the implications

Taken together, these studies show that COVID-19 poses a serious risk to brain health, even in mild cases, and the effects are now being revealed at the population level.

A recent analysis of the U.S. Current Population Survey showed that after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional 1 million working-age Americans reported having “serious difficulty” remembering, concentrating or making decisions than at any time in the preceding 15 years. Most disconcertingly, this was mostly driven by younger adults between the ages of 18 to 44.

Data from the European Union shows a similar trend – in 2022, 15% of people in the EU reported memory and concentration issues.

Looking ahead, it will be critical to identify who is most at risk. A better understanding is also needed of how these trends might affect the educational attainment of children and young adults and the economic productivity of working-age adults. And the extent to which these shifts will influence the epidemiology of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is also not clear.

The growing body of research now confirms that COVID-19 should be considered a virus with a significant impact on the brain. The implications are far-reaching, from individuals experiencing cognitive struggles to the potential impact on populations and the economy.

Lifting the fog on the true causes behind these cognitive impairments, including brain fog, will require years if not decades of concerted efforts by researchers across the globe. And unfortunately, nearly everyone is a test case in this unprecedented global undertaking.

Ziyad Al-Aly, Chief of Research and Development, VA St. Louis Health Care System. Clinical Epidemiologist, Washington University in St. Louis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Researchers have found water vapor in the disc around a young star exactly where planets may be forming.

Water is a key ingredient for life on Earth, and is also thought to play a significant role in planet formation.

Yet, until now, we had never been able to map how water is distributed in a stable, cool disc — the type of disc that offers the most favorable conditions for planets to form around stars.

The new findings were made possible thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, in which the European Southern Observatory is a partner.

“I had never imagined that we could capture an image of oceans of water vapor in the same region where a planet is likely forming,” said Stefano Facchini, an astronomer at the University of Milan, Italy, who led the study published today in Nature Astronomy. The observations reveal at least three times as much water as in all of Earth’s oceans in the inner disc of the young Sun-like star HL Tauri, located 450 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

“It is truly remarkable that we can not only detect but also capture detailed images and spatially resolve water vapor at a distance of 450 light-years from us,” added co-author Leonardo Testi, an astronomer at the University of Bologna, Italy.

The “spatially resolved” observations with ALMA allow astronomers to determine the distribution of water in different regions of the disc.

“Taking part in such an important discovery in the iconic HL Tauri disc was beyond what I had ever expected for my first research experience in astronomy,” said Mathieu Vander Donckt from the University of Liège, Belgium, who was a master’s student when he participated in the research.

A significant amount of water was found in the region where a known gap in the HL Tauri disc exists. Ring-shaped gaps are carved out in gas- and dust-rich discs by orbiting young planet-like bodies as they gather up material and grow.

“Our recent images reveal a substantial quantity of water vapor at a range of distances from the star that include a gap where a planet could potentially be forming at the present time,” said Facchini. This suggests that this water vapor could affect the chemical composition of planets forming in those regions.

Observing water with a ground-based telescope is no mean feat as the abundant water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere degrades the astronomical signals.

ALMA, operated by European Southern Observatory together with its international partners, is an array of telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Desert at about 5,000 meters elevation that was built in a high and dry environment specifically to minimize this degradation, providing exceptional observing conditions.

“To date, ALMA is the only facility able to spatially resolve water in a cool planet-forming disc,” said co-author Wouter Vlemmings, a professor at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

“It is truly exciting to directly witness, in a picture, water molecules being released from icy dust particles,” said Elizabeth Humphreys, an astronomer at European Southern Observatory who also participated in the study.

The dust grains that make up a disc are the seeds of planet formation, colliding and clumping into ever larger bodies orbiting the star. Astronomers believe that where it is cold enough for water to freeze onto dust particles, things stick together more efficiently — an ideal spot for planet formation.

“Our results show how the presence of water may influence the development of a planetary system, just like it did some 4.5 billion years ago in our own Solar System,” Facchini added.

With upgrades happening at ALMA and the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope, or ELT, coming online within the decade, planet formation and the role water plays in it will become clearer than ever.

In particular METIS, the Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph, will give astronomers unrivaled views of the inner regions of planet-forming disks, where planets like Earth form.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service has placed all of Lake County under a winter storm warning ahead of a strong winter storm system’s arrival on Friday.

The warning will remain in effect until 10 a.m. Sunday.

Rain fell across Lake County on Thursday evening and much of the day on Friday.

Rainfall totals in inches for the 48-hour period ending at 2 a.m. Saturday are as follows:

— Indian Valley Reservoir: 0.89.
— Kelseyville: 1.97.
— Knoxville Creek: 1.61.
— Lake Pillsbury: 3.37.
— Lower Lake: 0.87.
— Lyons Valley: 1.81.
— Middletown: 2.01.
— Whispering Pines: 3.36.

The updated forecast expected rain and snow showers overnight along with high winds.

Those conditions are expected to continue throughout the day on Saturday and into Saturday night, with chances of more rain and show early Sunday before giving way mostly to rain and more high winds for the rest of the day and night.

Rain is forecast to continue on Monday and through midweek, when a break in the rain is expected.

The latest storm system is expected to push the level of Clear Lake up again. It peaked last week at nearly 8.5 feet Rumsey, the special measure for the lake, but was down to just above 8 feet Rumsey by early Saturday. The 8 foot Rumsey measure put the lake in “monitor” or “action” stage, at which point the speed limit close to the shore on the lake is temporarily reduced.

In other weather news, millions of Americans just experienced the warmest meteorological winter on record, according to preliminary data collected by AccuWeather meteorologists.

Every state in the continental U.S. had temperatures warmer than the historical average this winter, unlike last winter when the western U.S. was colder than the historical average, AccuWeather reported.

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said our warming climate also contributed to the unusually mild conditions for much of the country this winter.

“This existing trend, resulting from a warming atmosphere driven by climate change, and other factors, was likely amplified this winter as a result of the additional warmth imparted in the atmosphere by the El Nino,” said Porter. “The largest increases in average temperature, as compared to long-term historical averages, have been across the northern part of the United States, especially during the winter months.”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

 

Nearly 1 in 12 newborns in the United States in 2020 – or about 300,000 infants – were exposed to alcohol, opioids, marijuana or cocaine before they were born. Exposure to these substances puts these newborns at a higher risk for premature birth, low birth weight and a variety of physical and mental disabilities.

These substances can have direct and indirect consequences on fetal development. By crossing the placental barrier directly, they can cause abnormal development. And by affecting the mother’s organs, they can reduce blood flow to the placenta and damage the health of the growing fetus.

Considerable sociodemographic and geographic disparities exist in the U.S. regarding the rates of prenatal substance exposure. This includes in West Virginia, where I live, a rural Appalachian state struggling with extraordinary rates of substance use and an opioid crisis.

As an epidemiologist, I study the relationship between substance use during pregnancy and infant health outcomes. I am a member of the Project WATCH team, which is a long-standing, state-mandated surveillance and referral system in West Virginia funded by the West Virginia Department of Health. The surveillance system expanded in 2020 to include substance exposure data from all births in the state.

Staggering numbers

Our research work showed that between 2020 and 2022, prenatal substance exposure in West Virginia was nearly 50% higher, at 124 per 1,000 births, than the national rate of 80 per 1,000 births. This means that nearly 1 in 8 infants born in the state had exposure to substances during pregnancy.

We found that the rate of prenatal cannabis exposure in West Virginia was 80 per 1,000 births, similar to the national rate. However, the rates of opioid exposure, 44 per 1,000 births, and stimulant exposure, 21 per 1,000 births, during pregnancy were nearly 10 times higher than national rates. Additionally, 1 in 5 women in the study smoked, and 64% of the infants exposed to substances were also exposed to smoking during pregnancy.

There are many reasons why the numbers in West Virginia are staggering. Economic challenges, including poverty, low education and limited job opportunities, contribute to chronic stress, a known risk factor for substance use. Moreover, nearly half the population lives in rural areas with a limited number of hospitals and clinics. The geographic isolation limits access to health care and substance use treatment services. Finally, stigma and judgment within close-knit rural communities may discourage these mothers from seeking help.

Substance exposure and infant outcomes

Our earlier work demonstrated that alcohol consumption during pregnancy was associated with preterm birth, which is when a baby is born before the 37th week of pregnancy, and low birth weight, defined as babies born weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces (2,500 grams).

Our more recent study has shown that prenatal opioid exposure is also associated with low birth weight, while stimulant exposure was associated with preterm birth.

Stimulants include cocaine, methamphetamines, ecstasy and prescription stimulants such as those used for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Illicit or misuse of prescription stimulants have increased among pregnant women over the past decade.

While many national and statewide efforts have focused their attention on addressing the opioid crisis, the prevalence of prenatal stimulant use remains a growing and underrecognized epidemic in the U.S.

After alcohol, cannabis is the most common psychoactive substance used during pregnancy and its rate is increasing. This trend in cannabis use may be due to the increasing legality for medicinal or recreational purposes and the social acceptability that comes with it.

In addition, many people wrongly assume that cannabis is relatively safe and helps manage pregnancy-related conditions such as morning sickness, nausea, vomiting, weight gain and sleep difficulty.

However, a growing body of research, including our own, has shown that prenatal cannabis exposure is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, including low birth weight, preterm birth, stillbirth or hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

In addition, using multiple substances during pregnancy poses a higher risk to infants than using a single substance. We found that compared to no substance exposure during pregnancy, the risk of low birth weight was twice with opioids alone, four times with concurrent exposure to opioids and stimulants, and almost six times with concurrent exposure to opioids, stimulants and cannabis.

Another adverse outcome that is associated with prenatal substance exposure, primarily to opioids, is a set of withdrawal symptoms experienced by the newborn known as neonatal abstinence syndrome. Symptoms include irritability, feeding difficulties, tremors and respiratory issues. The syndrome requires specialized care and attention in neonatal units and a prolonged stay in the hospital.

Alongside the rising prevalence of opioid use in pregnancy, a fivefold increase in incidence of infants with this condition has been documented over the past two decades. The highest rate has been observed in West Virginia, at 53 per 1,000 births. Other states with high rates include Maine, Vermont, Delaware and Kentucky, which are between three and four times the national average of 7.3 per 1,000 births.

Substance exposure in the womb and long-term outcomes

Research on long-term outcomes of infants exposed to substances in the womb is still evolving. Limited studies have shown an association between neonatal abstinence syndrome and long-term neurodevelopmental consequences that may develop as early as 6 months old and persist into adolescence. These include delays in learning and language skills, physical growth and motor skills, as well as difficulty in regulating behavior and emotions.

However, research on the long-term effects of prenatal alcohol exposure is well established. A broad range of deficits are referred to as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. These include growth deficiency, developmental delay, craniofacial malformations, intellectual disabilities, behavior issues and emotional well-being. A recent study of first graders in the U.S. estimated that the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders range from 1% to 5%, which means up to 1 in 20 school-age children may have this disorder.

With the changing landscape of substance use in the U.S., more research is needed to understand and establish the association between the various emerging types and forms of substance exposures and their lasting effects. But the findings are difficult to discern because of the influence of other environmental factors, preexisting medical conditions and social determinants of health.

Efforts to reduce harms

As a maternal and child health epidemiologist, I am fortunate to be part of the Project WATCH team that works closely with health care providers and policymakers.

As high-risk infants are identified through this program, its referral system notifies pediatricians of substance exposure and connects these families to early intervention services and home visitation programs.

These services include developmental testing, interventions appropriate to the child’s needs and case management during the first few years of life. The data also informs state-level strategies and initiatives to address the substance use crisis for this vulnerable population.

Amna Umer, Associate Professor of Pediatric Epidemiology, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Education saves lives regardless of age, sex, location, and social and demographic backgrounds. That’s according to the latest and largest study of its kind published today in The Lancet Public Health.

Researchers have known that those who reach higher levels of schooling live longer than others, but they didn’t know to what extent until now.

What they found was that the risk of death drops by two percent with every additional year of education.

That means those who completed six years of primary school had a lower risk of death by an average of 13 percent. After graduating from secondary school, the risk of dying was cut by nearly 25 percent and 18 years of education lowered the risk by 34 percent.

Researchers also compared the effects of education to other risk factors such as eating a healthy diet, smoking, and drinking too much alcohol, and they found the health outcome to be similar.

For example, the benefit of 18 years of education can be compared to that of eating the ideal amount of vegetables, as opposed to not eating vegetables at all.

Not going to school at all is as bad for you as drinking five or more alcoholic drinks per day or smoking ten cigarettes a day for 10 years.

“Education is important in its own right, not just for its benefits on health, but now being able to quantify the magnitude of this benefit is a significant development,” said Dr. Terje Andreas Eikemo, co-author and head of Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, or NTNU.

While the benefits of education are greatest for young people, those older than 50 and even 70 years still benefit from the protective effects of education.

Researchers found no significant difference in the effects of education between countries that have reached different stages of development. This means that more years of education is just as effective in rich countries as in poor countries.

“We need to increase social investments to enable access to better and more education around the globe to stop the persistent inequalities that are costing lives,” said Mirza Balaj, co-lead author and postdoctoral fellow at NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science. “More education leads to better employment and higher income, better access to healthcare, and helps us take care of our own health. Highly educated people also tend to develop a larger set of social and psychological resources that contribute to their health and the length of their lives.”

“Closing the education gap means closing the mortality gap, and we need to interrupt the cycle of poverty and preventable deaths with the help of international commitment,” said Claire Henson, co-lead author and researcher at Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. “In order to reduce inequalities in mortality, it’s important to invest in areas that promote people’s opportunities to get an education. This can have a positive effect on population health in all countries.”

The study identified data from 59 countries and included over 10,000 data points collected from over 600 published articles. Most of the studies reviewed for this study were from high-income settings, highlighting the need for more research in low- and middle-income countries, particularly from sub-Saharan and north Africa where data are scarce.

“Our focus now should be on regions of the world where we know access to schooling is low, and where there is also limited research on education as a determinant of health,” said Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou, co-author and professor at IHME.

California has reached another milestone in its efforts to expand the use of renewable technologies.

The state has surpassed 100,000 public and shared private electric vehicle chargers installed statewide, just weeks after unprecedented funding was approved to build a bigger, better network of charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-emission cars, trucks and buses — reported to be the most extensive network in the nation.

This is on top of more than 500,000 at-home chargers that Californians have installed for personal use.

Sales of zero-emission vehicles, or ZEV, have skyrocketed more than 1,000% in the last decade.

One in every four new cars sold last year in California were zero-emission. Last year, the state also surpassed its goal of selling 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles and its goal to install 10,000 fast chargers for electric vehicles — both ahead of schedule.

“No other state in the nation is doing as much as California to make our tailpipe-free future a reality,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “With more zero-emission vehicles sold last year than ever before and more than 100,000 public chargers installed, California dominates in this space.”

Building a bigger, better network

This milestone follows approval of a $1.9 billion investment plan that accelerates progress on the state’s electric vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling goals.

The plan details how the money will be spent with at least 50% dedicated to benefiting communities disproportionately impacted by pollution.

With this funding, the state expects to reach its goal of 250,000 public chargers in the next few years.

Also on Friday, Caltrans broke ground for a $450,000 Clean California transit project in Blythe that will transform a litter-strewn public space into a transportation hub that features a solar-powered EV charging station, among other things.

And last week, California celebrated the grand opening of a truck charging depot and 50 battery electric trucks, supported by $27 million in state funding.

The funding is part of the $48 billion dollar California Climate Commitment, which includes more than $10 billion for ZEVs and ZEV infrastructure.

The state has also received billions from the Biden-Harris Administration for clean transportation.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to provide a dedicated source of funding for ZEV infrastructure through 2035.

On Thursday, Tesla announced that it opened its Supercharger network to non-Teslas for the first time, beginning with Ford, and will be opening to more in the coming months. This significantly expands public access to fast, reliable chargers in the state.

To improve the EV charging experience, the California Energy Commission (CEC) is developing first-in-the-world state regulations for charger reliability and reporting.

A stringent performance standard will apply to all new publicly funded infrastructure and the chargers will be required to disclose operational data to help drivers make more informed choices.

California’s ZEV record

Since the governor’s executive order in 2020 calling for a rule to require all new car sales to be zero-emission by 2035, ZEV sales have risen dramatically.

• 25% of all new cars sold in California last year were ZEVs, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC).
• 1,846,874 total ZEV sales to date.
• 34% of new ZEVs sold in the U.S. are sold in California, according to the Veloz EV Market Report.
• If California were a country, we’d rank 4th in EV sales behind China, the U.S. and Germany.
• Thousands of dollars in grants and rebates available for low-income Californians; learn more at www.ClimateAction.ca.gov.

After 16 years studying Earth’s highest clouds for the benefit of humanity — polar mesospheric clouds — from its orbit some 350 miles above the ground, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, mission has come to an end.

Initially slated for a two-year mission, AIM was extended numerous times due to its high science return. While AIM has faced hurdles over the years — from software hiccups to hardware issues — an incredibly dedicated team kept the spacecraft running for much longer than anyone could have anticipated.

On March 13, 2023, the spacecraft’s battery failed following several years of declining performance. Multiple attempts to maintain power to the spacecraft were made, but no further data could be collected, so the mission has now ended.

“AIM was dedicated to studying the atmospheric region that borders between our atmosphere and space,” said AIM mission scientist Diego Janches, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “AIM’s help understanding this region has been of critical importance to providing insights on how the lower atmosphere affects space weather.”

Known as night-shining or noctilucent clouds, they are seen at twilight in the summer months, typically at high latitudes near the North and South Poles. Before the mission, scientists knew these types of clouds varied with latitude, season, and solar activity, but didn’t know why.

This mission was launched to understand the variations and study why the clouds form and their links to climate change by measuring the thermal, chemical, and other properties of the environment in which the clouds form.

“NASA’s AIM has been an incredibly successful mission,” said Scott Bailey, AIM principal investigator and professor at Virginia Tech. “It has answered core questions that have helped us understand how noctilucent clouds and atmospheric gravity waves vary over time and location.”

Over the years, AIM made many big discoveries. Data from the mission has thus far led to nearly 400 peer-reviewed publications. This includes findings on how these clouds can be created by meteor smoke and water vapor from rocket exhaust, how events near Earth’s surface can trigger changes in the clouds, and how ice high in the atmosphere can cause mysterious radar echoes, which are created in certain regions of the atmosphere during the summer.

As the mission progressed, scientists realized AIM’s data could also be used to study undulations in the air called atmospheric gravity waves. These waves transfer momentum and energy as they travel through the atmosphere. They link weather events at Earth’s surface with atmospheric disturbances that occur far away from the initial event, including in the uppermost part of the atmosphere where they can disrupt GPS signals.

“We’ve had many difficulties, but we’ve still gotten an incredible amount of data from AIM because of our really excellent, heroic, and hardworking team that comes through every time,” Bailey said.

AIM’s first hurdles started only months after launch in 2007, when the telecommunication receiver started to malfunction intermittently. With a clever use of radio signals, the team was able to reprogram the spacecraft to communicate in Morse code, which allowed it to maintain communications even after the receiver stopped working.

While communication with the spacecraft became thousands of times slower than planned, AIM was still able to make its measurements and send home 99% of the data it collected.

Shortly thereafter, the spacecraft again encountered a mission-threatening issue. The spacecraft repeatedly sent itself into safe mode, which effectively shut down the spacecraft and required a time-consuming series of tasks to reboot.

But again, the engineers were able to upload new software to the spacecraft to circumvent the issue and keep AIM functional. The new software patch has prevented over a thousand such incidents on the spacecraft since.

In 2019, AIM’s battery started to decline, but through great effort and ingenuity, the mission operations team maintained the battery power, enabling the spacecraft to continue returning data. In early 2023, the battery experienced a significant drop-off in performance which meant the spacecraft could not regularly receive commands or collect data.

Unfortunately, this hardware issue was not one that could be repaired remotely, and the satellite finally ceased collecting data in March 2023.

“We’re saddened to see AIM reach the end of its lifetime, but it’s been amazing how long it has lasted,” Bailey said. “It’s given us more data and insight into noctilucent clouds and atmospheric gravity waves than we could ever have hoped for.”

Though the spacecraft has seen its last night-shining clouds, scientists will continue to study AIM’s data for years to come. As for the spacecraft itself, it will slowly lose orbital height and burn up upon atmospheric re-entry in 2026.

“There are still gigabytes upon gigabytes of AIM data to study,” said Cora Randall, AIM deputy principal investigator and senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado. “And as our models and computational capabilities continue to improve, people will make many more discoveries using the AIM datasets.”

For more information about the mission, visit https://go.nasa.gov/3TgIDwD.

Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — In an action that Board Chair Bruno Sabatier called a “milestone,” the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the purchase of a property to be the site of a new park in Cobb.

The vote was 4-0 to purchase the 13-acre property at 16540 State Highway 175 for $300,000, with a second unanimous vote to approve a resolution accepting the grant deed recordation. Supervisor Moke Simon was absent.

Public Services Director Lars Ewing said the Cobb area is one of the few, if not the only, general plan areas in Lake County without a community park.

As an introduction to the brief public hearing for the purchase, Ewing gave an overview of the process that led to the final action at Tuesday’s meeting.

In February 2023, the board granted conceptual approval of the property purchase and appointed a negotiating team, Ewing said.

The Cobb community has had an ongoing desire to have a park of their own, which Ewing said is referenced in their draft area plan along with a draft parks, recreation and trails master plan.

After the board’s conceptual approval of the purchase, Ewing said Public Services staff worked on a variety of things — including a preliminary title report, an appraisal that valued the property at $390,000, septic and building inspections, hazard tree assessments and removal of abandoned vehicles.

Ewing said that, ultimately, the property’s owner, the Robert Vardanega Revocable Trust, accepted the county’s $300,000 purchase offer.

He thanked county staffer Celia Hoberg, — who has a background in real estate work — for her efforts in the process.

Ewing said that in June the Lake County Planning Commission determined the acquisition to be in conformity with the Lake County General Plan and categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

County staff has had tribal consultation with the Middletown Rancheria and the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians at a conceptual level and also have worked with a landscape architecture firm to prepare a preliminary concept plan for potential park development, Ewing reported.

The board approved $1 million for the project. With the purchase, closing costs and appraisals, Ewing said they have $650,000 to $670,000 left over, which won’t cover all of the construction costs. There also are planning, environmental studies and design still to do.

Ewing said the intent is to get it to a point that infrastructure and other necessities are in place so they can open the park to the public. That will be phase one. For phase two, Ewing hopes to secure grant funding.

Following the purchase approval, Ewing said Public Services staff will initiate a public outreach process to develop both an interim and long-term park use plan, continue consultation with both tribal nations, refine the concept design for future park use by the public, and perform appropriate environmental resource surveys/studies, all with the intent to progress to a public opening of the property.

Ewing said the property is in an area where the county doesn’t have a maintenance yard, so there will be an impact with annual costs, which he said he would discuss with county administration.

Supervisor Jessica Pyska, in whose district the park site is located, said there has been a “big push” to complete the process. She recognized Hoberg for her work, with Ewing adding that Hoberg was “the workhorse” of the project.

Supervisor Michael Green said he was excited to support it. Sabatier agreed.

“Parks is economic development and it’s what attracts people to want to live in areas,” Sabatier said, adding that not having one is definitely a disservice to attracting people to want to build and live in a community. He said he’s looking forward to seeing how it develops.

During the discussion, Sabatier noted wanting to try to connect the new park’s trails to Boggs Mountain Demonstration State Forest. Pyska said county staff is working on that.

The only public comment at the meeting came from longtime Cobb resident Robert Stark, who assured the board that the park project is thoroughly supported in the community.

In the 49 years he’s lived there, Stark said it had been a longtime wish. “The community is very enthusiastic about this.”

Pyska moved to approve the purchase agreement, which Green seconded and the board approved 4-0. Pyska then offered the resolution to accept the grant deed recordation, also approved unanimously.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — County officials reported Thursday that Lake County Animal Care and Control is suspending its after-hours on-call services.

The reason: Lake County Animal Care and Control is currently understaffed and so unable to provide those customary services, officials reported.

Effective Friday, March 1, those services will be suspended while new staff is onboarded and trained.

County officials reported that work has already begun to train one newly hired animal control officer and recruit for the remaining vacancy.

After-hours on-call services will resume when staffing levels allow for safe operation, the county reported.

If injured stray dogs and cats are found outside of Animal Care and Control’s business hours, they can still be taken to a local veterinarian to receive care.

“Our contract answering service will still be receiving after-hours calls during this time,” said Lake County’s Animal Care and Control Director Jonathan Armas. “Any calls received will be documented, and an officer will respond the next weekday.”

Any further questions can be directed to Lake County Animal Care and Control during regular business hours, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 707-263-0278.

“We appreciate the community’s understanding and are committed to providing the best possible services within resource and staffing limitations,” said Armas.

As California enters the last month of the traditional snow season, recent storms have raised the snowpack to near average levels in most regions.

The Department of Water Resources conducted the third snow survey of the season at Phillips Station on Thursday.

The manual survey recorded 47.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 18 inches, which is 77 percent of average for this location.

The snow water equivalent measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack and is a key component of DWR’s water supply forecast.

Thursday’s results reflect continued improvement in the snowpack since the slow and dry start to the water year.

DWR’s electronic readings from 130 stations placed throughout the state indicate that the statewide snowpack’s snow water equivalent is 18.7 inches, or 80 percent of average for this date, an improvement from just 28 percent of average on January 1.

The statewide snowpack is currently only 70 percent of the critical April 1 average, when the snowpack is typically at its peak. An incoming storm is expected to bring several feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada this weekend.

“We are now in the last month of the traditional snow season and while conditions have dramatically improved since the beginning of the year, March will be critical in determining if we finish above or below average,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “No matter how the season ends, we are ready to take advantage of the water we do have to benefit communities, agriculture, and the environment, and continue storing stormwater in our groundwater basins for future use.”

While California saw a number of storms in January and February that caused flooding in many areas of the state, the storms were warmer than average, dropping more precipitation as rain rather than snow, especially in Southern California.

Overall statewide precipitation is 103 percent of average for this date, running well ahead of the snowpack.

While surface water storage in California’s major reservoirs is currently 119 percent above average and the state continues to benefit from efforts to capture and store as much water as possible, the latest forecasts from DWR project snow runoff could be below average this spring due to the unusually dry start to the water year.

DWR recently increased projected allocations from the State Water Project, and the forecasted allocation is expected to be revised again next month based on recent storms.

“California has seen several extreme climate events so far this water year, including record rainfall in Southern California,” said Dr. Michael Anderson, state climatologist with DWR. “While this pushed statewide precipitation above average, the snowpack still has not caught up from the dry conditions earlier this winter and local conditions still vary significantly from region to region. The upcoming storm will deliver more snow, but the critical month of March will have to deliver enough snowpack to make up for the dry fall and slow start to the year.”

On average, the Sierra snowpack supplies about 30 percent of California’s water needs. Its natural ability to store water is why the Sierra snowpack is often referred to as California's “frozen reservoir.”

Data from these snow surveys and forecasts produced by DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit are important factors in determining how DWR manages the state’s water resources.

DWR conducts five snow surveys at Phillips Station each winter near the first of each month, January through April and, if necessary, May. The next and possibly final survey is tentatively scheduled for April 2.

For California’s current hydrological conditions, visit https://cww.water.ca.gov.

For more information on finding your flood risk, visit https://myhazards.caloes.ca.gov/.

For information on obtaining flood insurance, visit https://www.floodsmart.gov/.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced millions of Californians will receive an average of $146 in credits on their April gas and electric bills.

The California Climate Credit — automatically applied to Californians’ bills every April and October — is a direct result of the state’s nation-leading cap-and-trade climate program that requires polluters to pay for climate action.

Since 2014, California households have already received an average of $971 in combined automatic April and October climate credits on their utility bills, totaling more than $14 billion statewide.

“Every year, California’s nation-leading climate laws deliver real climate action while giving you money back on your utility bills,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “This relief will support millions of California families.”

See how much your climate credit will be here.

California will provide a total of $2.7 billion in credits — $1.6 billion for electric customers, $1 billion for natural gas customers, and $160 million for small businesses.

The credits range from $32 to $175 for electricity bills — with most set to receive $55 to $86 — and approximately $58 to $86 on natural gas bills for residential customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Company, Bear Valley, Liberty, PacifiCorp and Southwest Gas. Californians can check how much their credit will be here.

Californians do not need to do anything to get the credit. The California Climate Credit comes from the State’s Cap-and-Trade Program managed by the California Air Resources Board. The credit on utility bills represents the consumer’s share of the payments from the State’s program.