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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 2020)
8B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020 COFFEE BREAK Grandparents have no idea why they’re out in the cold DEAR ABBY: My brother “Brian” and his wife, “Laurel,” have an adult son, “Dick,” who dated a girl I’ll call “Crystal” for 10 years before they got married. Everyone got along fine, until Crystal gave birth. After their first child was born, Crystal started withholding visits from my brother and his wife. Crystal and Dick had two more children. The oldest is now 6. The only way Brian and Laurel see their grandchildren is if there’s a family reunion, wedding, etc. Crystal allows her parents to see the kids and spend time with them. Brian and Laurel are flab- bergasted by what has hap- pened. They have no idea why all of a sudden after giving birth, their DIL has not allowed them to visit the grand- kids, babysit or any- DEAR thing. My brother and his wife are ABBY great people. They don’t drink to excess or use drugs and would be wonderful grandpar- ents for these children. Would it be appropriate as a family member (aunt) to write a letter to Crystal and, in a kind, nonaccu- satory way, explain the hurt this has caused and how much their children are missing out from not being around these two great individuals? — MISSING OUT DEAR MISSING OUT: While it isn’t unheard of for the wife’s parents to take precedence over the husband’s, Crystal’s behavior does appear to be extreme. It also appears the way she’s acting is retaliatory, but the people who must get to the bottom of it are your brother and his wife. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by involving yourself in this sad mess, because if you do, Crystal and her husband will resent it. Sympathize, but stay out of it. DEAR ABBY: Five years ago, my daughter, “Angie,” and her two children moved in with me after she and her husband sepa- rated. I hoped she would get her finances and life together and be able to get a place of her own. What I didn’t realize at the DEAR SOURED: No law says you HAVE to meet him, and it is your privilege to avoid him if you wish. I’m not sure what your daughter expects from you. Does she want you to entertain him? Common sense would dic- tate that you do not want anyone who is involved with illegal sub- stances in your home. However, I do think you should agree to meet him once. If Angie’s relationship with you is predicated on the idea that you will welcome this individual into your life with open arms because she has, you will then have to figure out how to navi- gate this. That she would allow someone like him to interact with her children shows very poor judgment. time was that Angie had started a relationship with a man she met online. Her daughter was very upset about it. Angie was in a custody dispute over her youngest child, and we disagreed more than once about issues con- cerning the children. After a couple of years, she moved into her own place. She’s still involved with this man. I hav- en’t met him and have no desire to. She’s upset with me because of it. I don’t want to see him with her because he has been mar- ried several times and is involved with drugs. I realize who Angie is involved with is her business and not mine, but I want nothing to do with him. How can I avoid a rift with her over this? — SOURED News of the Weird Can’t crush this: Beetle armor gives clues to tougher planes cally. It just deforms a little bit. That’s crucial for the beetle.” It could also be useful for engineers who design aircrafts and other vehi- cles and buildings with a variety of materials such as steel, plastic and plaster. Currently, engineers rely on pins, bolts, welding and adhesives to hold every- thing together. But those techniques can be prone to degrading. In the structure of the beetle’s shell, nature offers an “interesting and elegant” alternative, Zavattieri said. Because the beetle-in- spired design fractures in a gradual and predict- able way, cracks could be more reliably inspected for safety, said Po-Yu Chen, an engineer at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua Uni- versity not involved in the research. The beetle study is part of an $8 million project funded by the U.S. Air Force to explore how the biology of creatures such as mantis shrimp and bighorn sheep could help develop impact-resistant materials. “We’re trying to go beyond what nature has done,” said study co-author David Kisailus, a materials scientist and engineer at the University of California, Irvine. The research is the latest effort to borrow from the natural world to solve human prob- lems, said Brown Univer- sity evolutionary biologist Colin Donihue, who was not involved in the study. Velcro, for example, was inspired by the hook-like structure of plant burrs. By Marion Renault Associated Press NEW YORK — It’s a beetle that can withstand bird pecks, animal stomps and even being rolled over by a Toyota Camry. Now scientists are studying what the bug’s crush-resistant shell could teach them about designing stronger planes and buildings. “This beetle is super tough,” said Purdue Uni- versity civil engineer Pablo Zavattieri, who was among a group of researchers that ran over the insect with a car as part of a new study. So, how does the seem- ingly indestructible insect do it? The species — aptly named diabolical ironclad beetle — owes its might to an unusual armor that is lay- ered and pieced together like a jigsaw, according to the study by Zavattieri and his colleagues published in Nature on Wednesday, Oct. 21. And its design, they say, could help inspire more durable structures and vehicles. To understand what gives the inch-long beetle its strength, researchers first tested how much squishing it could take. The spe- cies, which can be found in Southern California’s wood- lands, withstood compres- sion of about 39,000 times its own weight. For a 200-pound man, that would be like surviving a 7.8-million-pound crush. Other local beetle species shattered under one-third as much pressure. Jesus Rivera/Kisailus Biomimetics and Nanostructured Materials Lab, University of California Irvine via AP Above, this 2016 photo shows a diabolical ironclad beetle, which can with- stand being crushed by forces almost 40,000 times its body weight and are native to desert habitats in Southern California. Scien- tists say the armor of the seemingly indestructible beetle could offer clues for designing stronger planes and buildings. At left, a cross-section of the beetle’s carapace shows the configuration that’s among the keys to the insect’s durability. In a study published Wednes- day, Oct. 21, 2020, in the journal Nature, scientists explain why the beetle is so squash-resistant. Researchers then used electron microscopes and CT scans to examine the beetle’s exoskeleton and figure out what made it so strong. Up close, scientists realized this cover also benefited from special, jigsaw-like bindings and a layered architecture. When compressed, they As is often the case for flightless beetles, the spe- cies’ elytra — a protective case that normally sheaths wings — had strengthened and toughened over time. weather found the structure frac- tured slowly instead of snapping all at once. “When you pull them apart,” Zavattieri said, “it doesn’t break catastrophi- AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION Astoria Longview 47/56 Kennewick 44/57 St. Helens 43/56 42/57 TIllamook 45/59 42/62 45/58 39/58 Condon FRI SAT SUN MON Mainly clear A shower in the afternoon Partial sunshine Mostly sunny and pleasant Sunny and delightful 60 28 60 28 63 30 Eugene 10 9 10 41/62 54 28 60 35 61 35 8 9 10 Comfort Index™ 10 La Grande 35 59 33 Comfort Index™ 10 Enterprise 10 6 39 57 30 Comfort Index™ 10 60 36 63 36 9 10 10 4 ALMANAC NATION (for the 48 contiguous states) High Tuesday Low Tuesday High: 92° Low: -28° Wettest: 1.64” 63° 17° 60° 18° 62° 19° 0.00 0.01 0.53 3.00 8.17 0.00 0.49 1.07 13.88 12.65 0.00 2.94 1.38 28.98 17.31 PRECIPITATION (inches) Tuesday Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Normal year to date HAY INFORMATION FRIDAY 35% WNW at 7 to 14 mph 8.2 0.08 RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Wednesday) Phillips Reservoir Unity Reservoir Owyhee Reservoir McKay Reservoir Wallowa Lake Thief Valley Reservoir 8% of capacity 23% of capacity 42% of capacity 31% of capacity 16% of capacity 10% of capacity Brookings Odell Lake Powers 48/67 On Oct. 29, 1991, a storm dumped up to a foot of snow in Utah. Another storm dropped nearly 5 inches of rain on Little Rock, Ark. A third storm sank boats along the Massachusetts coast. SUN & MOON THU. Sunrise Sunset Moonrise Moonset 7:28 a.m. 5:44 p.m. 5:23 p.m. 5:20 a.m. 974 cfs 0 cfs 16 cfs 53 cfs 99 cfs 16 cfs Full Oct 31 Last Nov 8 New Nov 14 42/67 FRI. 7:29 a.m. 5:42 p.m. 5:42 p.m. 6:22 a.m. First Nov 21 Jordan Valley 38/66 Paisley 33/68 29/65 Frenchglen 39/69 43/74 Brookings 41/72 FRI. SAT. Hi/Lo/W 56/39/r 63/33/pc 65/36/s 65/50/c 67/26/s 59/45/pc 60/39/c 59/32/pc 58/36/pc 62/41/c 66/35/pc 59/35/c 62/34/pc 62/34/pc 57/29/r 69/34/pc 68/28/s 68/25/pc Hi/Lo/W 57/40/pc 61/29/pc 59/37/s 65/49/s 60/24/s 60/43/s 60/36/pc 57/30/pc 54/30/pc 60/36/pc 59/33/pc 58/35/pc 58/35/pc 61/36/pc 52/33/pc 58/33/pc 66/28/s 67/26/s Grand View Arock 32/67 30/70 33/74 Klamath Falls 25/68 Lakeview 24/68 McDermitt Shown is Friday’s weather. Temperatures are Thursday night’s lows and Friday’s highs. City Astoria Bend Boise Brookings Burns Coos Bay Corvallis Council Elgin Eugene Hermiston Hood River Imnaha John Day Joseph Kennewick Klamath Falls Lakeview Diamond 41/67 Fields Medford 50/65 Boise 38/65 Silver Lake Chiloquin Grants Pass 32/69 36/66 33/67 RECREATION FORECAST FRIDAY REGIONAL CITIES MOON PHASES STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Tuesday) Grande Ronde at Troy Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder Burnt River near Unity Umatilla River near Gibbon Minam River at Minam Powder River near Richland OREGON WEATHER HISTORY AGRICULTURAL INFO. Lowest relative humidity Afternoon wind Hours of sunshine Evapotranspiration Tampa, Fla. Walden, Colo. Panama City, Fla. High: 78° Low: 12° Wettest: none Beaver Marsh Juntura 23/67 37/61 35/61 Roseburg Ontario 30/61 Burns Brothers 38/59 Coos Bay Huntington 36/60 41/63 Oakridge 33/59 32/60 Seneca Bend Elkton Council 28/65 38/62 39/62 Florence TUESDAY EXTREMES TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin 32/57 John Day 36/66 Sisters 44/59 Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable. 32/63 Baker City Redmond 47/56 47/57 Halfway Granite 41/60 Newport 42/63 52 32 35/60 38/53 42/59 Corvallis Enterprise 39/57 35/59 Monument 40/61 Idanha Salem TONIGHT 28 65 30 Elgin 38/58 La Grande 44/59 Maupin Baker City 46/61 Pendleton The Dalles Portland Newberg 40/60 Hood River 41/63 46/59 Lewiston Walla Walla 37/69 Vancouver Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020 City Lewiston Longview Meacham Medford Newport Olympia Ontario Pasco Pendleton Portland Powers Redmond Roseburg Salem Spokane The Dalles Ukiah Walla Walla FRI. SAT. Hi/Lo/W 60/39/pc 57/35/r 57/32/pc 72/42/s 56/42/r 57/36/sh 61/36/s 69/34/pc 63/37/pc 58/41/sh 67/47/pc 66/31/pc 67/48/c 59/38/c 54/33/c 62/38/pc 57/30/pc 61/40/pc Hi/Lo/W 55/39/pc 57/35/pc 53/29/pc 73/41/s 57/42/c 55/38/pc 60/32/s 59/34/pc 58/34/pc 59/40/pc 70/44/s 63/28/s 66/42/s 59/37/c 49/33/pc 60/37/pc 55/30/pc 56/38/pc Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice ANTHONY LAKES PHILLIPS LAKE Cooler Partly sunny 43 25 58 27 MT. EMILY REC. BROWNLEE RES. Cooler Partly sunny 49 31 62 35 EAGLE CAP WILD. EMIGRANT ST. PARK Partly sunny Cooler 47 21 54 28 WALLOWA LAKE MCKAY RESERVOIR Rain and drizzle Partly sunny 57 29 64 37 THIEF VALLEY RES. RED BRIDGE ST. PARK Partly sunny; mild A p.m. shower 65 30 59 33
