After Sandy, canceled flights but no airport chaos

People wait to do check in at Madrid Barajas T4 international airport, in Madrid, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, airports hundreds of thousands of travelers across the U.S. and around the world are stranded (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

People wait to do check in at Madrid Barajas T4 international airport, in Madrid, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, airports hundreds of thousands of travelers across the U.S. and around the world are stranded (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

The empty Delta Air Lines check in area at the international airport in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, airports hundreds of thousands of travelers across the U.S. and around the world are stranded. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Travelers on Delta Airlines look at a departure screen Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in Detroit. Dozens of departing flights have been canceled at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport as a looming superstorm locks down flights to the East Coast. Hurricane Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets, sending coastal residents fleeing, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain.?(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Hurricane Sandy has left more than 16,000 flight cancellations in its wake.

Chaos at airports? Hardly.

Not long ago, a powerful storm pounding the Northeast would have brought havoc to some of the nation's busiest airports: families sleeping on the floor amidst mounds of luggage; passengers stuck for hours on planes hoping to take off; and dinners cobbled together from near-empty vending machines.

In the aftermath of Sandy, airports from Washington to Boston are deserted. There are hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded across the U.S. and around the world, but instead of camping out inside airport terminals they are staying with friends and family or in hotels.

After years of storm mismanagement and the bad public relations that followed, U.S. airlines have rewritten their severe weather playbooks. They've learned that it's best to cancel flights early and keep the public away from airports, even if that means they'll have a bigger backlog to deal with once conditions improve.

This allows the airlines to tell gate agents, baggage handlers and flight crews to stay home, too ? keeping them fresh once they're needed again.

And by moving planes to airports outside of the storm's path, airlines can protect their equipment and thereby get flight schedules back to normal quickly after a storm passes and airports reopen.

These precautions make good business sense. They also help the airlines comply with new government regulations that impose steep fines for leaving passengers stuck on planes for three hours or more.

"The last few major storms created such gridlock, and such bad will with their best customers, they just had to shift their behavior," said Kate Hanni, who heads up the passenger advocacy group Flyers Rights and lobbied for the three-hour rule. "The flying public would rather have their flights pre-cancelled than be sleeping in Chicago on a cot."

Departure monitors at airports across the Northeast Monday and Tuesday reflected that new approach.

London: Canceled.

Seattle: Canceled.

Los Angeles: Canceled.

Hong Kong: Canceled.

Houston: Canceled.

And the number of cancellations is likely to rise.

"It will probably take until the weekend for things to return to normal," said Rob Maruster, the chief operating officer of JetBlue Airways, which is based in New York.

Even "normal" won't be perfect. Passengers are reporting multi-hour wait times at most airline call centers and they are likely to experience long lines once airports reopen.

JetBlue is keenly aware of what is at stake when a big storm hits. On Valentine's Day weekend 2007, a massive snowstorm hammered the East Coast. JetBlue was late to cancel flights. Passengers were stranded on planes for hours. When the storm finally cleared, other airlines resumed flights but JetBlue's operations were still in shambles.

Other airlines took note. Severe weather manuals were updated. Reservation systems were programmed to automatically rebook passengers when flights are canceled. And travelers now receive notifications by email, phone or text message.

"In past years, airlines would have soldiered on, trying to get their planes in the air no matter what," said George Hobica, founder of AirfareWatchdog.com. But they've learned that "there's no value in news cameras showing footage of people sleeping on cots in airports."

Enter Sandy.

Airlines spent days before the storm hit running though color-coded checklists to shut down their Northeast operations. Computers were covered in plastic tarps. Hotel rooms near airports were booked for gate agents and ramp workers. Planes, pilots and flight attendants were moved to other airports.

And ? don't worry ? shelter was found for animals traveling as cargo.

"Anything that could move by the wind, we've locked down," said Henry Kuykendall, who oversees operations for Delta Air Lines at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The airlines' in-house meteorologists started tracking this storm more than a week ago as it approached the Caribbean. By Thursday night, it was pretty clear that widespread cancelations would happen in Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

The next day, airlines started to waive fees for passengers who wanted to move to earlier or later flights. American Airlines, for instance, let travelers heading to any of 22 airports ? from Greensboro, N.C. in the south to Buffalo, N.Y. in the north ? change plans. Then teams started to cancel flights heading into or out of airports stretching from Washington to Boston.

That sounds easier than it is. Every plane in its fleet is in near constant motion. In one day, a single plane might fly from Atlanta to New York to Detroit ? and then back to Atlanta and then once more to New York.

If the airline doesn't want that plane to spend the night in New York, it has ripple effects throughout the system. For instance, that plane might have been scheduled the next day to fly passengers to Seattle and then on to San Francisco.

When Sandy hit, almost no planes were left in the Northeast.

JetBlue scattered the majority of its planes to 20 different airports across the country, even though 80 percent of its flights start or end in New York or Boston.

American Airlines moved 80 planes that were supposed to spend Sunday night in the Northeast to other airports.

One Boeing 737 didn't make it out of Boston in time because of a mechanical issue. Left with no other solution, American filled the plane with fuel to make it as heavy as possible, faced it toward the wind, locked the wheels and moved it away from anything else.

"We'll keep our fingers crossed," said Jon Snook, the airline's vice president of operations planning and performance.

Delta got all of its planes out of New York. The last plane took off at 1:01 a.m. Monday ? a Boeing 757 with 157 people on board heading to Georgetown, Guyana. US Airways held all but one of its Transatlantic planes bound for Philadelphia at European airports. And United Airlines removed all but about a dozen planes from its Washington Dulles and Newark, N.J., hubs.

Once the clouds clear, flights won't start up immediately.

JetBlue's Maruster equated starting up the airline again to be like putting together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. It's not about staffing levels, but an overall game plan that makes sense. "At a certain point, putting more hands on the table doesn't help get it solved faster," he said.

The airlines need to ask a lot of questions before bringing in planes.

First, are the runways open? New York's JFK and LaGuardia airports both had water flow onto the runways.

Next, is there public transit to get workers to the airport? If not, does the airline have enough staff staying at nearby hotels that can be bused in?

Finally, the airline has to check on all the other people needed to run an airport: the Transportation Security Administration, customs officials, caters, fuel trucks and even the people who push wheelchairs through the terminal.

"Before we can even move an airplane here, we need to make sure those resources are here," said Delta's Kuykendall. "There's a lot of moving pieces that people don't see. It's a dance to get it all to work."

___

Scott Mayerowitz can be reached at http://twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-10-30-Superstorm-Airlines-Behind%20Scenes/id-5eeb122afe114eb08eac2257e6f51530

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Overweight Pets A Growing Epidemic

A few rolls on a dog or some extra pounds on a cat may make the animal appear cuter to some, but the growing epidemic of pet obesity is concerning to veterinarians.

Senior veterinary surgeon Sean Wensley told CBSNews.com that it's never too late for owners to help their pets lose weight.

Wensley works with PDSA, a U.K. veterinary charity that provides free veterinary care to the sick and injured pets of people in need and promotes responsible pet ownership. In the U.K., they have a network of 50 PetAid associated hospitals and nearly 380 PetAid associated practices, and provided more than 2.4 million PDSA-funded treatments and more than 420,000 preventive treatments in 2011.

Recently PDSA sponsored the Pet Fit Club, a six-month competition to help overweight and obese pets shed pounds and improve their fitness and diet.

An estimated 54 percent of cats and dogs -- about 93 million animals -- in the U.S. are overweight or obese, according to the Association for Pet Obesity and Prevention. Twenty percent of all dogs and 22 percent of all cats in the U.S. are obese. On Oct. 10, the association conducts its National Pet Obesity Awareness Day to let owners know extra pounds can harm a pet's health.

In the U.K., Wensley estimates that one in three dogs and one in four cats have problems with the pounds.

To put it in human terms, a 10-pound Chihuahua is the equivalent a 5'4" woman weighing 242 pounds or a 5'9" man weighing 282 pounds, according to the APOP. A 15-pound domestic short-haired cat would be a 5'4" woman who weighs 218 pounds or a 5'9" man who weighs 254 pounds.

Wensley said many of these animals develop weight-related medical conditions like heart disease, certain types of cancer and osteoporosis. But, the biggest concern is the impact on their general quality of life because this problem is entirely preventable.

"For cats, you'll see they're reluctant to play and they are unable to enjoy life," he explained.

If you don't know what your pet should weigh, you can use a system used by vets called body condition scoring, which relies on the proper healthy shape for a healthy pet. Wensley said that if you look down from above your pet, you should see where the waist naturally tucks in below the rib cage near the pelvis. You should never be able to see the dog or cat's ribs, but you should be able to feel them.

Some problem areas for pets include abdominal fat for cats and fat near the base of the tail for dogs. Typically if these areas get pudgy, it correlates with a large amount of internal fat around the key organs.

The veterinarian believes that many animals are overweight these days because dog and cat food is often formulated to provide a balanced diet in the right amounts, and then owners give treats on top of the daily serving without lessening the food portion.

"We've had good advancements in health because of advancements in nutrition, but we still have a tendency to give treats, human scraps, store-bought treats," he said. "The feeding of treats creates a problem when different family members giving a little bit here and there."

Instead of always rewarding your dog or cat with a snack, try showing him more affection. Most pets respond to contact, so they don't necessarily need food to keep them happy. If you are trying to train a pet, make sure to cut back on their main food portion or feed them healthier treats.

"A little piece of cheese for a cat is like giving a human a hamburger," he said.

He also suggested always follow the packet feeding guidelines; don't rely on filling the bowl. Get a cheap electronic scale to help get the amounts exactly right.

Finally, don't forget to let your animals out and play with them. One misconception that people have is that cats don't play past the kitten stage. Cats especially love toys that mimic prey and move rapidly, so Wensley suggests rod-type toys to get the feline moving.

Source: http://www.wibw.com/home/nationalnews/headlines/Overweight-Pets-A-Growing-Epidemic-176168571.html

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President Calls Romney a 'Bullsh**ter'

President Obama referred to his challenger Mitt Romney as a "bullsh**ter" in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the latest salvo in a campaign that has seen its share of insults hurled from both sides.

Passed on a message from the young daughter of an editor of the magazine, the president remarked that he "does very in that demographic. Ages six to 12? I'm a killer ? You know, kids have good instincts. They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullsh**ter, I can tell.'"

Romney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden responded, saying, "President Obama is rattled and on the defensive. He's running on empty and has nothing left but attacks and insults. It's unfortunate he has to close the final days of the campaign this way."

In truth, both campaigns and their allies have hurled insults and insinuations at one another, with charges ranging from the commission of possible felonies to possibly having a hand in a woman's death to the unconstitutional assumption of the presidency by a noncitizen. A week ago, Romney's son Tagg told a radio interviewer that he felt like running down to the stage and taking a swing at the president during the second presidential debate, a comment he apologized for at the end of the third debate.

When asked about the president's "bulls***er" comment, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said he hadn't yet read the article but argued, "What is true is that trust is very important in this election. The president is someone who says what he means and does what he says." He suggested reporters shouldn't be "distracted by the word" bullsh**ter but should be focused on the larger issue of Romney's trustworthiness.

Pfeiffer cited the myriad shifts in positions Romney has made, including whether or not he would seek a tax cut for the top 1 percent, which he once proclaimed he would do but now says would be offset by the elimination of tax deductions and loopholes for the wealthy.

Questioning Romney's honesty and trustworthiness is indeed is one of the president's main messages on the campaign trail, with the Obama campaign convinced that the president's advantage in whom voters perceive as trustworthy will help sway undecided voters. Knowing of the ambivalence many voters feel about the job the president has done, part of the president's strategy has been to paint Romney as an unacceptable alternative.

In Tampa, Fla., this morning, the president charged that Romney "knows his plan isn't any different than the policies that got us into the mess. So in the final weeks of this election, he's counting on you forgetting that his policies aren't going to work. He's hoping that you won't remember and you'll come down with a case of what we call Romnesia."

After saying that Romney's plan "is likely to create jobs in China, not America," and that "he wants to give millionaires and billionaires a $250,000 tax cut," which will either increase the deficit or force tax increases on middle-class families - charges the Romney camp denies - the president asserted that Romney is "hoping you're going to come down with a severe case of Romnesia just before you cast your ballot."

And lest anyone think Romnesia was merely a fun play on words, the president said, "now, Tampa, we joke about Romnesia, but all of this speaks to something that's really important in this election and that is the issue of trust. When you elect a president, you're counting on somebody you can trust to fight for you, who you can trust to do what they say they're going to do, who can trust - that you can trust to make sure that when something unexpected happens, he or she is going to be thinking about your families, your future. Trust matters."

The pitch comes at the same time the president laments the onslaught of negative TV ads that flooding the airwaves in battleground states. "You've now seen three debates, months of campaign events, and way too many TV commercials," Obama said at a rally today in Richmond, Va.

But lamentations aside, new data from an independent report show that Obama and his allies are responsible for the majority of ads - and the most negative ads - in the final stretch of the campaign. While Republican groups and presidential nominee Mitt Romney have spent $10 million more than Obama on ads this month, it's the president who has actually put more spots on the air - 15,000 more than his rival, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks media buys.

Wesleyan found that President Obama's campaign has been much more negative, despite his rhetoric on the campaign trail decrying the nasty attacks. The study found nearly three-quarters of pro-Obama ads in October - 73.3 percent - were negative attacks on Romney. Twenty percent emphasized contrasts between the candidates, while 6 percent were positive, the study found. By contrast, Romney and his allies have been modestly more positive, with nearly 12 percent of ads refraining from contrasts or attacks. Thirty-six percent of pro-Romney ads this month have been negative attacks

- Jake Tapper, Devin Dwyer and Mary Bruce

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/president-calls-romney-bullsh-ter-225804119--abc-news-politics.html

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Dot Earth Blog: Lessons from Sandy, a brewing superstorm

2:33 p.m. | Updated |
Federal weather forecasters don?t like to overstate things. So even when they say things that are utterly chilling, they say it this way:

?THE DETERMINISTIC GUIDANCE (PARTICULARLY THE 00 UTC ECMWF) SHOW PRESSURE SOLUTIONS WELL BEYOND WHAT HAS EVER BEEN OBSERVED NEAR THE NEW JERSEY/NEW YORK COAST (EVEN EXCEEDING THE 1938 LONG ISLAND EXPRESS HURRICANE)?

That?s an excerpt from the latest extended forecast from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the superstorm that nearly all computer simulations see developing in a few days as the remains of Hurricane Sandy ? which has already killed at least 21 people in the Caribbean ? collide over the East Coast with a cold front sweeping in from the west. (Here?s an interactive map of the storm track.)

I can?t possibly track all the details, given the breadth of my beat (and I will be busy battening down given how other recent flooding storms have affected my part of the Hudson Valley.)

But I can point you to some great guides, if you live in the affected region: There are others, but I find particular value in the analysis offered by Brian McNoldy and Jason Samenow of the Washington Post?s Capital Weather Gang (Samenow led me to that forecast above), as well as?Andrew Freedman at Climate Central and Eric Holthaus of The Wall Street Journal.

This is also a good time to pause and consider the astonishing power of the forecasting tools and intellectual capacity that the United States and Europe have invested in in recent decades ? and the importance of sustaining and expanding the human capacity to observe and understand this turbulent, fast-changing planet.

Given our tendency toward short-termism, it?s always a tough sell, whether in Congress or a town council ? to push for investing in infrastructure ? whether it?s better supercomputers and new satellites or flood-worthy roads. But it?s worth pushing.

While I hope the long lead time in this forecast demonstrates the merits of such unsexy investments, the value is only there if people respond effectively to improving warnings. Given how communities often fail to get out of harm?s way, particularly in how and where they build (see Nicholas Pinter here), that means there?s plenty of work to do on better communication and education, as well.

2:33 p.m. |Update

I hope you?ll read and pass around this article by John Cushman: ?Aging Satellite Fleet May Mean Gaps in Storm Forecasts.?

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/lessons-from-sandy-a-brewing-superstorm/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Ash fungus seen in UK countryside

25 October 2012 Last updated at 08:26 ET

Chalara dieback, caused by a fungus called Chalara fraxinea, has been confirmed in East Anglia

A disease that has the potential to devastate the UK's ash tree population has been recorded for the first time in the UK's natural environment.

Chalara dieback, caused by a fungus called Chalara fraxinea, was confirmed at two sites in East Anglia.

Until now, the disease had only been recorded in a few nursery specimens.

Ash trees suffering with C. fraxinea have been found across mainland Europe, with Denmark reporting the disease has wiped out about 90% of its ash trees.

Experts say that if the disease becomes established, then it could have a similar impact on the landscape as Dutch elm disease had in the 1970s.

This outbreak resulted in the death of most mature English elm by the 1980s. Elms have recovered to some extent, but, in some cases, only through careful husbandry.

The East Anglia outbreak was confirmed by plant scientists from the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) at the Woodland Trust's Pound Farm woodland in Suffolk, and Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Lower Wood reserve, in Ashwellthorpe.

In a statement, the Trust said that the fungal infection had been found in "mature ancient woodland and woodland creation areas on our estate".

It added: "We are currently carrying out further investigations at other sites."

Visible symptoms include leaf loss and crown dieback in affected trees, and it can lead to tree death.

In Europe, affected trees are not just in woodlands but are also being found in urban trees in parks and gardens, and also nursery trees.

Chalara dieback of ash has been listed as a quarantine pathogen under national emergency measure and the Forestry Commission has produced guidance, including help on how people can identify possible signs of infection.

John Milton, Norfolk Wildlife Trust's head of nature reserves said that "it is likely we will now see further cases".

"Tracking the disease is going to be difficult with the imminent autumnal leaf fall, so the true extent of the disease in the UK may be difficult to establish until the spring," he said.

Experts are urging people to report suspected cases of dieback in order to prevent the spread of the disease to the wider environment becoming established.

A government consultation on whether to ban imports of ash trees in the UK is set to close on Friday, and it is widely expected that legislation will be passed in time for a ban to be in force by mid-November.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20079657#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Disco Sun: X-Class Flare Creates Strobe-Light Effect

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

An active region just turning into view on the left side of the Sun has emitted three large flares since Saturday: an M9, an M5 and early today blasted out an X1.8 class flare. This flare occurred around 3:17 am UTC today (or 11:17 pm EDT on Oct. 22). The strobe-light-like effect visible in the video was created by the brightness of the flare and how the instruments on the Solar Dynamics Observatory responded to it. Phil Chamberlin, Deputy Project Scientist SDO told Universe Today that built in algorithms called ?active exposure control? compensate for the extra light coming in from a flare. It doesn?t always result in the strobe or fluttering effect, but the algorithms create shorter exposure time, and thus a dimmer, but still scientifically useful view of the entire Sun. The algorithms go into effect whenever there is an M class or higher flare.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare can?t pass through Earth?s atmosphere and pose a hazard to humans on the ground, but flares like this can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel, and an X-class flare of this intensity can cause problems or even blackouts in radio communications.

A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was not associated with this flare, and the flare was not directed at Earth, so scientists do not expect any additional auroral activity to be a result of this latest blast from the Sun.

An image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory during the X-class flare event on Oct. 23, 2012 (UTC). Credit: NASA/SDO

The SDO Twitter feed said there is a 75% chance of more M-class solar flares from this active region and a 20% chance of additional X-class flares.

This is the 7th X-class flare in 2012 with the largest being an X5.4 flare on March 7.

By observing the sun in a number of different wavelengths, NASA?s telescopes can tease out different aspects of events on the sun. These four images of a solar flare on Oct. 22, 2012, show from the top left, and moving clockwise: light from the sun in the 171 Angstrom wavelength, which shows the structure of loops of solar material in the sun?s atmosphere, the corona; light in 335 Angstroms, which highlights light from active regions in the corona; a magnetogram, which shows magnetically active regions on the sun; light in the 304 Angstrom wavelength, which shows light from the region of the sun?s atmosphere where flares originate. (Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard)

More info: NASA, SpaceWeather.com

Tagged as: Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), sun

Source: http://www.universetoday.com/98149/disco-sun-x-class-flare-creates-strobe-light-effect/

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City Considers Breaking Up Fancy House Parties - Santa Monica ...

Showing off the designer diggs you intend to sale by hosting big parties, even ones for good causes, could soon be illegal in Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica City Council will take up on Tuesday night an emergency ordinance that designed to pull the plug on large fundraisers planned at an historic home on La Mesa Drive, dubbed "The House of Rock." It would apply citywide and affect all gatherings of 150 people or more at single-family homes that operate as "event facilities for the commercial purpose of selling that property."

Because it's classified as an "emergency," the ordinance would take effect immediately. (Typically, ordinances are adopted only after a second vote of the council and take effect 30 days after.)

"It?s just shocking they would go down this path," said Ben Reznick, an attorney representing the La Mesa Drive home's owners, Greg Briles and Elaine Culotti.

Formerly home to Broadway star Kathryn Grayson, the 1926 English Cottage-Tudor Revival sits on a bluff overlooking Santa Monica Canyon and Riviera Country Club.

It was renovated last year by high-end designers commissioned to work independently on rooms but under the same theme of music. The owners also secured sponsorships from name-brand companies whose products were incorporated into the so-called design rooms.

The 10,000 square foot home has since been a stage to some swanky fundraisers featuring concerts and recording sessions by bands such as Shiny Toy Guns.

Three such events have drawn crowds of between 400 and 500 people, and as many as five more are planned through Dec. 6. Afterward, the house will be put up for sale, according to Steve Getzug, who was asked to speak on behalf of the owners.

"Her interest has always been to improve the home, to live in it and enjoy it, and sale it and make a profit in the turning of the home," he said of Culotti.

Reznick, her attorney, said he and his client have offered to work with disgruntled neighbors who say living next to the House of Rock is like living next door to a night club. He claims the ordinance would have a "chilling" effect on Santa Monica.

"Don?t take away the rights of homeowners to host events," he said.

But city staffers contend the parties "differ substantially" from the occasional political or charitable fundraiser "both in frequency, purpose, advertising and intensity of its impact" on the neighborhood, according to their report to the City Council.

The proposed ordinance reads:

It will not preclude marketing single-family residential real estate in Santa Monica through standard means. Nor will it preclude large social gatherings, charitable events or political fundraisers in residential neighborhoods;

It continues:

[It] is merely intended to preclude the operation of one particular and specific type of marketing scheme that creates extreme nuisance conditions and thereby degrades public welfare, safety and quality of life in residential neighborhoods, and is particularly likely to proliferate.

The Santa Monica City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall at 1685 Main St. To view the night's complete agenda, click here.

?

Stay connected with Santa Monica Patch throughout the day on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to our free daily newsletter for email updates.

Source: http://santamonica.patch.com/articles/city-considers-breaking-up-fancy-house-parties

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Opposite behaviors? Arctic sea ice shrinks, Antarctic grows

Public release date: 23-Oct-2012
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Contact: Maria-Jose Vinas,
maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov
301-614-5883
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.

A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.

"There's been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what is happening in the Arctic," said lead author Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic."

The Earth's poles have very different geographies. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia. These large landmasses trap most of the sea ice, which builds up and retreats with each yearly freeze-and-melt cycle. But a large fraction of the older, thicker Arctic sea ice has disappeared over the last three decades. The shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.

On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctica is a continent circled by open waters that let sea ice expand during the winter but also offer less shelter during the melt season. Most of the Southern Ocean's frozen cover grows and retreats every year, leading to little perennial sea ice in Antarctica.

Using passive-microwave data from NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite and several Department of Defense meteorological satellites, Parkinson and colleague Don Cavalieri showed that sea ice changes were not uniform around Antarctica. Most of the growth from 1978 to 2010 occurred in the Ross Sea, which gained a little under 5,300 square miles of sea ice per year, with more modest increases in the Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, the region of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas lost an average of about 3,200 square miles of ice every year.

Parkinson and Cavalieri said that the mixed pattern of ice growth and ice loss around the Southern Ocean could be due to changes in atmospheric circulation. Recent research points at the depleted ozone layer over Antarctica as a possible culprit. Ozone absorbs solar energy, so a lower concentration of this molecule can lead to a cooling of the stratosphere (the layer between six and 30 miles above the Earth's surface) over Antarctica. At the same time, the temperate latitudes have been warming, and the differential in temperatures has strengthened the circumpolar winds flowing over the Ross Ice Shelf.

"Winds off the Ross Ice Shelf are getting stronger and stronger, and that causes the sea ice to be pushed off the coast, which generates areas of open water, polynyas," said Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. "The larger the coastal polynya, the more ice it produces, because in polynyas the water is in direct contact with the very cold winter atmosphere and rapidly freezes." As the wind keeps blowing, the ice expands further to the north.

This year's winter Antarctic sea ice maximum extent, reached two weeks after the Arctic Ocean's ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low, was a record high for the satellite era of 7.49 million square miles, about 193,000 square miles more than its average maximum extent for the last three decades.

The Antarctic minimum extents, which are reached in the midst of the Antarctic summer, in February, have also slightly increased to 1.33 million square miles in 2012, or around 251,000 square miles more than the average minimum extent since 1979.

The numbers for the southernmost ocean, however, pale in comparison with the rates at which the Arctic has been losing sea ice the extent of the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean in September 2012 was 1.32 million square miles below the average September extent from 1979 to 2000. The lost ice area is equivalent to roughly two Alaskas.

Parkinson said that the fact that some areas of the Southern Ocean are cooling and producing more sea ice does not disprove a warming climate.

"Climate does not change uniformly: The Earth is very large and the expectation definitely would be that there would be different changes in different regions of the world," Parkinson said. "That's true even if overall the system is warming." Another recent NASA study showed that Antarctic sea ice slightly thinned from 2003 to 2008, but increases in the extent of the ice balanced the loss in thickness and led to an overall volume gain.

The new research, which used laser altimetry data from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), was the first to estimate sea ice thickness for the entire Southern Ocean from space.

Records of Antarctic sea ice thickness are much patchier than those of the Arctic, due to the logistical challenges of taking regular measurements in the fierce and frigid waters around Antarctica. The field data collection is mostly limited to research icebreakers that generally only travel there during spring and summer so the sole means to get large-scale thickness measurements is from space.

"We have a good handle of the extent of the Antarctic sea ice, but the thickness has been the missing piece to monitor the sea ice mass balance," said Thorsten Markus, one of the authors of the study and Project Scientist for ICESat-2, a satellite mission designed to replace the now defunct ICESat. ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch in 2016. "The extent can be greater, but if the sea ice gets thinner, the volume could stay the same."

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Public release date: 23-Oct-2012
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Contact: Maria-Jose Vinas,
maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov
301-614-5883
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.

A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.

"There's been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what is happening in the Arctic," said lead author Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic."

The Earth's poles have very different geographies. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia. These large landmasses trap most of the sea ice, which builds up and retreats with each yearly freeze-and-melt cycle. But a large fraction of the older, thicker Arctic sea ice has disappeared over the last three decades. The shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.

On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctica is a continent circled by open waters that let sea ice expand during the winter but also offer less shelter during the melt season. Most of the Southern Ocean's frozen cover grows and retreats every year, leading to little perennial sea ice in Antarctica.

Using passive-microwave data from NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite and several Department of Defense meteorological satellites, Parkinson and colleague Don Cavalieri showed that sea ice changes were not uniform around Antarctica. Most of the growth from 1978 to 2010 occurred in the Ross Sea, which gained a little under 5,300 square miles of sea ice per year, with more modest increases in the Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, the region of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas lost an average of about 3,200 square miles of ice every year.

Parkinson and Cavalieri said that the mixed pattern of ice growth and ice loss around the Southern Ocean could be due to changes in atmospheric circulation. Recent research points at the depleted ozone layer over Antarctica as a possible culprit. Ozone absorbs solar energy, so a lower concentration of this molecule can lead to a cooling of the stratosphere (the layer between six and 30 miles above the Earth's surface) over Antarctica. At the same time, the temperate latitudes have been warming, and the differential in temperatures has strengthened the circumpolar winds flowing over the Ross Ice Shelf.

"Winds off the Ross Ice Shelf are getting stronger and stronger, and that causes the sea ice to be pushed off the coast, which generates areas of open water, polynyas," said Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. "The larger the coastal polynya, the more ice it produces, because in polynyas the water is in direct contact with the very cold winter atmosphere and rapidly freezes." As the wind keeps blowing, the ice expands further to the north.

This year's winter Antarctic sea ice maximum extent, reached two weeks after the Arctic Ocean's ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low, was a record high for the satellite era of 7.49 million square miles, about 193,000 square miles more than its average maximum extent for the last three decades.

The Antarctic minimum extents, which are reached in the midst of the Antarctic summer, in February, have also slightly increased to 1.33 million square miles in 2012, or around 251,000 square miles more than the average minimum extent since 1979.

The numbers for the southernmost ocean, however, pale in comparison with the rates at which the Arctic has been losing sea ice the extent of the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean in September 2012 was 1.32 million square miles below the average September extent from 1979 to 2000. The lost ice area is equivalent to roughly two Alaskas.

Parkinson said that the fact that some areas of the Southern Ocean are cooling and producing more sea ice does not disprove a warming climate.

"Climate does not change uniformly: The Earth is very large and the expectation definitely would be that there would be different changes in different regions of the world," Parkinson said. "That's true even if overall the system is warming." Another recent NASA study showed that Antarctic sea ice slightly thinned from 2003 to 2008, but increases in the extent of the ice balanced the loss in thickness and led to an overall volume gain.

The new research, which used laser altimetry data from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), was the first to estimate sea ice thickness for the entire Southern Ocean from space.

Records of Antarctic sea ice thickness are much patchier than those of the Arctic, due to the logistical challenges of taking regular measurements in the fierce and frigid waters around Antarctica. The field data collection is mostly limited to research icebreakers that generally only travel there during spring and summer so the sole means to get large-scale thickness measurements is from space.

"We have a good handle of the extent of the Antarctic sea ice, but the thickness has been the missing piece to monitor the sea ice mass balance," said Thorsten Markus, one of the authors of the study and Project Scientist for ICESat-2, a satellite mission designed to replace the now defunct ICESat. ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch in 2016. "The extent can be greater, but if the sea ice gets thinner, the volume could stay the same."

###

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/nsfc-oba102312.php

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Voice software helps study of rare Yosemite owls

In this July 2012 photo released by the National Park Service, two juvenile Great Gray Owls are shown on a tree branch in Yosemite National Park. The unique Great Gray Owls of Yosemite National Park, left to evolve after glacial ice separated them from their plentiful Canadian brethren 30 millennia ago, are both a mystery and concern to the scientists charged with protecting them. (AP Photo/National Park Service)

In this July 2012 photo released by the National Park Service, two juvenile Great Gray Owls are shown on a tree branch in Yosemite National Park. The unique Great Gray Owls of Yosemite National Park, left to evolve after glacial ice separated them from their plentiful Canadian brethren 30 millennia ago, are both a mystery and concern to the scientists charged with protecting them. (AP Photo/National Park Service)

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) ? In the bird world, they make endangered condors seem almost commonplace.

The unique Great Gray Owls of Yosemite, left to evolve after glacial ice separated them from their plentiful Canadian brethren 30 millennia ago, are both a mystery and concern to the scientists charged with protecting them.

With fewer than 200 in existence in this small pocket of the Sierra Nevada, the slightest disturbances by humans can drive the extremely shy birds from their nests, disrupting sporadic mating cycles that ebb and flow annually depending upon food availability.

So this summer, researchers found a way to abandon their traditional heavy-handed trapping, banding and the blasting of owl calls in favor of the kind of discrete, sophisticated technology used by spies and forensic scientists.

They hope to lessen human influence on this subspecies of owls prized for the potential insights their survival offers into habitat-specific evolution.

"Even if it takes only 15 minutes to trap a bird, it's traumatic for them in the long term," said Joe Medley, a PhD candidate in ecology at UC Davis who perfected computer voice recognition software to track the largest of North America's owls. "With a population this small, we want to err on the side of caution in terms of the methods we use to get data."

Medley placed 40 data-compression digital audio recorders around the mid-elevation meadows typically favored by the owl known as Strix nebulosa Yosemitensis, hoping to identify them by their mating, feeding and territorial calls.

He ended up with 50 terabytes of owl calls mixed with airplanes flying overhead, frogs croaking, coyotes yipping, bears growling and even the occasional crunch of fangs on pricy microphones ? so much data it would have taken seven years to play back.

He then designed algorithms for an existing computer program that would search for the specific frequency and time intervals of the Great Gray Owls' low-pitched hoot "whooo-ooo-ooo-ooo." The program could discern males and females from juveniles, and even identify nesting females calling for food to help determine reproduction success. The results are still being analyzed.

"It's capable of searching a week's worth of data in an hour. What I was left with was owls and a host of other things that fell in the same bandwidth," Medley said.

Most of the world's Great Gray Owls make their homes in northern hemisphere boreal forests, though a few live as far south as Oregon and Idaho. The giants with piercing yellow eyes and 5-foot wingspans have adapted so well to snow that they can dive face-first through up to a foot of it to catch the voles they hear creeping underneath. Their dish-shaped faces work to amplify sound.

During the last ice age 30,000 years ago, a small population in and around what would become the glacially carved landscape of Yosemite was cut off from the others to evolve on their own in a warmer, less snowy climate.

Those owls, now numbering just a couple of hundred, are on California's endangered species list. The giant condors, once nearly extinct, number around 400 in California and the Southwest, and are on the federal endangered list.

"These (owls) exist nowhere else in the world, and where they do occur is a pretty amazing location," said Joshua Hull, a researcher with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis. "These are going in a different evolutionary direction than the others, and we don't know where that is right now."

Scientists from Yosemite, the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife, with funding from the Yosemite Conservancy, are working to gain a greater understanding of what those differences mean. So far, DNA studies have noted distinct genetic variations between the separated groups in addition to the different food sources and nesting patterns the southern birds have adapted. The birds have very subtle differences in color.

"That's important to know because if it's genetically different, we should try to keep it that way," Hull said. "You wouldn't want to bring in individuals from Oregon to supplement a unique population."

The major threats to their continued survival are the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus ? and humans. A female believed to be the cohort's most reliable breeder was struck and killed by a car in the park in August, prompting slower speed limit warnings to protect the low-flying raptors that rarely lift more than 20 feet above ground.

Because of their rarity, they are highly sought out by birdwatchers whose presence in meadows can deter mating and food foraging, the researchers say. That's why no one will reveal exactly where in the park they are.

"They will abandon their nests if disturbed," said Steve Thompson, Yosemite's branch chief of wildlife management. "It's an extremely low population very vulnerable to natural- and human-caused events. They don't have the ability to rebound the way more abundant species do. We're very protective of them."

So protective that the owls will no longer be trapped to draw blood for studies. Instead researchers are collecting molted feathers to extract and amplify DNA to track lineage, mating patterns, population size, survival rates and even genetic mutations that might occur as the climate changes yet again.

"Genetic mutations occur randomly. It's just chance whether those mutations are advantageous or deleterious to the population," Thompson said. "And all of this is happening over tens of thousands of years, so to me as a biologist it's really exciting to have this demonstration of how evolution occurs."

____

Reach Tracie Cone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TConeAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2012-10-21-Yosemite's%20Unique%20Owls/id-70a39461ef534b658401e661630af31c

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Amazon says new $199 Kindle Fire HD is top seller

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Amazon started selling a range of new Kindle Fires on September 6 and the company said the 7-inch HD model has out-sold all other products on Amazon worldwide since then. 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Project Eternity is Most Funded Gaming Project on Kickstarter

Project Eternity's managed to set Kickstarter records.

Project Eternity, Obsidian Entertainment's throwback game to the days of isometric RPGs of olde, closed its fundraising period on Kickstarter just shy of $4 million at $3,986,929. Had backers managed to push the project to the big $4 mil, Obsidian would have included live instrumentation for the score and developer commentary. The last $500K, Obsidian claimed, would be used to "enhance the game."

Unfortunately, Obsidian was a mere $13.1K from that goal.

However, Eternity's managed to push videogame funding on Kickstarter to new heights. It's managed to dethrone Double Fine as the most funded videogame project of all time on Kickstarter (discounting the OUYA, which we'll consider hardware.) The previous record holder, Double Fine Adventure, held the record at $3.3 million.

Project Eternity backers shouldn't expect the game anywhere in the near future. Obsidian's currently got its hands full with other projects, including the THQ-published South Park RPG and inXile's Kickstarter-backed project Wasteland 2. Eternity's Kickstarter page lists its release date as April 2014, but backers shouldn't be too surprised if that release date ends up getting pushed back more than a tad in the future.

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', noButtonBorders:true, containerID: 'shareBarBottom', cid:'TH News', operationMode: "autoDetect", snapToElementID: "btnShare", shortURLs: "never", enabledProviders: 'facebook,twitter,yahoo,messenger,linkedin', scope: 'both', privacy: 'friends', onSendDone: function() { SocialShare.publishUserAction('Project Eternity is Most Funded Gaming Project on Kickstarter', 'http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Project-Eternity-Kickstarter-Record,18473.html#xtor=RSS-993', 'Project Eternity, Obsidian Entertainment\'s throwback game to the days of isometric RPGs of olde, closed its fundraising period on Kickstarter just shy of $4 million at $3,986,929. Had backers managed to push the project to the big $4 mil, Obsidian...'); } } ); BOM.Share.setActions([ ['setLinkBack' , 'http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Project-Eternity-Kickstarter-Record,18473.html#xtor=RSS-993#xtor=RSS-993'], ['setTitle' , 'Project Eternity is Most Funded Gaming Project on Kickstarter'], ['setDescription' , 'Project Eternity, Obsidian Entertainment\'s throwback game to the days of isometric RPGs of olde, closed its fundraising period on Kickstarter just shy of $4 million at $3,986,929. Had backers managed to push the project to the big $4 mil, Obsidian...'], ]); BOM.Share.display();

Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Project-Eternity-Kickstarter-Record,18473.html

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Abortion in Central America: Where women don't have a say or ...

International organizations are stressing the high mortality rates and lack of protection for women and their sexual and reproductive freedom.

Nuria Riutord

A young twenty-year old woman is seven months pregnant and home alone. The house is a rural family property in her native village, Sacacoyo, El Salvador. Suddenly she suffers from a premature delivery. Her family find her in state of shock, hemorrhaging and weak.

They take her immediately to the hospital where the doctor who took care of her accused her to the authorities for having a planned abortion, which is illegal according to the country?s law.

The girl hadn?t informed her employers about her pregnancy and her partner abandoned her just after she gave him the news.

The accusations culminate in the girl?s retention. After that a trial is carried out without a single autopsy and all evidence taken to consideration was the physician testimony.It ends with the woman being given a thirty year sentence. .

This story is just one more example of the totally traumatic experiences many girls have to go through in most of the Central America countries.

In this case the name of the protagonist is Sonia T?bora. After seven years of torment due to the legal process she had to go through, in 2005 her case was revised and this August she was released.

It is without a doubt one the most emblematic recent episodes in ?the fight for ?woman?s sexual health and reproductive rights across Central America. The figures concerning these problems are devastating.

A reality in numbers

According to the association ?Central America Women?s Network (CAWN), 95% of the abortions in Latin America are not done with the necessary medical safety a procedure like it requires.

The health professionals are obliged by law to notify the authorities in any case of abortion. This obviously breaks the confidential doctor ? patient relationship and makes any woman going through this situation for her future, and more likely to find alternative, and sometimes more dangerous methods of abortion.

M?xico has a high mortality rate in pregnant woman, especially in poor rural areas. Even though in Mexico City it is legal to abort within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, nowadays in half of the counties it is considered a crime and it can be punished with even 30 years of prison.

At the ?moment over twenty women, aged between 15 and 33 years old, are serving for this matter.

In Guatemala ?it would seem that everything is being done to protect ?women who are considering abortion. The reality is that they don?t actually have access to contraceptives. In fact, the governmental plans for the sexual health and education and family planning aren?t seeming to be effective.

In spite of the different international treaties signed about this matter the figures show that every day two woman die because of complications before, during or after birth.

The mortality rate is ?120 deaths in ?every 100.000 births. This is ?the second highest in all Latin America. It is estimated that 65.000 abortions take place annually, which means one for every six pregnancies.

If we look at Honduras, we see that the legislation has been changing over the decades and that at this point there are no exceptions to the general abortion prohibition.

On the contrary, during the Nineties ?women were allowed to have an abortion when it was in a case of rape, or when there was a risk for the mother?s life or because of a disability of the foetus. Today it is very different, it being ?illegal even to use the ?morning after pill?, which is different to what most human rights organisations around the world stand for.

No way out

Back to El Salvador, where hormonal contraceptives are included in the national public health system, the admirable efforts to make society aware about this problem and to give a better sexual education are not resulting in as good changes as expected. In fact, over 40% of women get pregnant before being 20 years old. This is happening ?even now when anti-conceptive methods are reaching a usage of 70%.

Since 1999, by law, the foetus is considered a human being from the moment of the conception. It is also established that abortion can punishable with up to 30 years, being ?a crime under any circumstance. The truth ?is that the number of abortions is indeterminate and at this moment there are women in prison because of having an abortion.

In Nicaragua, the country has developed a system to make family planning work and to reduce mortality rate. The thing is that it is only applied in the richest parts of the nation. According to the figures, 100 of every 100.000 births still end with the mother dying.

Another alarming fact is that they have the highest number of teenage pregnancies: representing a quarter of the total number of pregnancies. As there is no provision of a legal abortion in the country?s legislation, girls turn to unorthodox and unsafe ways to solve their situation.

All these figures show that there is no judiciary safety (and not even social support either sometimes) for woman in matters of their sexual and reproductive freedom in Central America.

The only way to change this issue, and the lives of many Latin American women, is to fight for the causes of all the international organisations protecting human?s and women?s rights as well as those of the World Health Organisation.

Source: http://www.theprisma.co.uk/2012/10/21/abortion-in-central-america-where-women-don%E2%80%99t-have-a-say-or-rights/

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Catchings and Fever win first WNBA title

Indiana Fever forward Tamika Catchings, left, tries to make room as she is defended by Minnesota Lynx guard Monica Wright in the third quarter of Game 4 of the WNBA basketball Finals in Indianapolis, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Indiana Fever forward Tamika Catchings, left, tries to make room as she is defended by Minnesota Lynx guard Monica Wright in the third quarter of Game 4 of the WNBA basketball Finals in Indianapolis, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Indiana Fever guard Shavonte Zellous, left, congratulates Erlana Larkins on being fouled in the second half of Game 4 of the WNBA basketball Finals against the Minnesota Lynx, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Minnesota Lynx guard Seimone Augustus, center, shoots between Indiana Fever forward Erlana Larkins, left, and guard Erin Phillips in the third quarter of Game 4 of the WNBA basketball Finals in Indianapolis, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Tamika Catchings finally won her long-awaited WNBA championship.

She scored 25 points to help the Indiana Fever win their first title with an 87-78 victory over the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday night.

Catchings, who was the MVP of the Finals, averaged 24.8 points in the series, which the Fever won 3-1 over the defending WNBA champions.

"It's been an amazing journey," said Catchings tearing up. "We've had ups and downs, ins and outs."

Erin Phillips added 18 points and eight rebounds while Shavonte Zellous and Briann January each had 15 points.

The Fever won even though No. 2 scorer Katie Douglas missed most of the series with a severely sprained left knee. Douglas checked in with 3.2 seconds left to a loud ovation.

"We sure didn't make it easy," Douglas said. "We went three games with Atlanta, three games with Connecticut. This team played amazing in these Finals."

Catchings had won three Olympic gold medals and an NCAA championships at Tennessee in 1998, but never a WNBA one. She had been in a position to clinch at home before. The Fever led Phoenix 2-1 in the best-of-five WNBA Finals in 2009, but the Mercury beat the Fever 90-77, took the series back to Phoenix and won the title at home in Game 5.

This time, Catchings took it home with college coach Pat Summitt looking on in the crowd.

Indiana led 63-58 at the end of the third quarter. Minnesota cut Indiana's lead to 70-67 on a jumper by Maya Moore, but Phillips scored on a drive past Moore, got a defensive rebound, then found Shavonte Zellous for a 3-pointer from the left corner to give the Fever a 75-67 lead with 4:58 remaining.

Indiana led by at least five points the rest of the way. A 3-pointer by January gave Indiana an 80-72 lead with 1:18 to play. Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve was called for a technical with 57.6 seconds remaining, Catchings made the free throw and the Fever took an 81-74 lead. Zellous made two more free throws with 27.2 seconds to play, and Fever fans began celebrating.

Seimone Augustus, Minnesota's leading scorer in the playoffs, was held to eight points on 3-for-21 shooting. Lindsay Whalen scored 22 points and Moore added 16 points for the Lynx, who were vying to become the first team to win consecutive titles since Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002.

Moore picked up her third foul with 6:13 left in the second quarter. Reeve, who was fined for her jacket-tossing tantrum in Game 2, became animated again while disagreeing with the call. As the crowd erupted, Reeve waved hello and made the motion for a technical foul.

This time, Reeve's antics didn't help much as in Game 2, when her team pulled away from a tight contest after her technical foul for a convincing win. Minnesota tied the game three times in the second quarter, but the Fever closed with a 7-2 run, including a 3-pointer by Phillips, to take a 47-42 lead at halftime. Whalen scored 14 points in the first half to keep the Lynx in the game, often scoring on uncontested drives. Minnesota hung tough, despite Augustus shooting 2-for-13 in the first half.

Indiana started the second half on a 9-4 run, including two buckets by Catchings, to take a 56-46 lead.

Minnesota came right back. A driving layup by Moore cut Indiana's lead to 56-54 and forced the Fever to call timeout.

Minnesota tied the game on another drive by Moore, but the Fever responded with a 3-pointer by Catchings and a basket by Jessica Davenport to push the lead back to five by the end of the quarter.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-10-21-BKL-WNBA-Finals/id-3a8596d1544e47e99d5d2a1fce4734a8

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