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