New York trip

I'll be leaving the office soon and spending my evening packing for our trip to New York. Our train leaves tomorrow morning and I am not at all prepared.

We're spending four days and three nights in New York at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square.
The purspose of the trip is for us to attend the College Media Advisers spring convention. The convention is held in the hotel and we'll have the opportunity to take short journalism classes on a variety of topics from how to use multimedia to how to get a job. We'll also have time to enjoy the city and do some sightseeing.

MRSA story spreading

On March 3 I published a story about a recent study that found MRSA in swine and their human handlers for the first time in the U.S. a few weeks ago and it looks like the story is catching on. A few days later I wrote a follow-up from the animal agriculture industry's point of view.
The study was done by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist. Iowa produces more pork than any other state. Smith joined two other scientists for a discussion of antibiotic resistance on Capitol Hill in February.

The New York Times published an opinion article about that same study Wednesday.

Jane Goodall on Capitol Hill

I met primatologist Jane Goodall yesterday on Capitol Hill, where she spoke about her conservation work and how geospatial science plays an important role in forest conservation.

She began her research of chimpanzees decades ago and now spends 300 days a year traveling the world. Her 75th birthday will be April 3.

Something odd

I saw this while walking to McPherson Square Metro station yesterday afternoon.

Warm weekend in D.C.

The weather was beautiful this weekend, 70ish both Saturday and Sunday. Scott was here for a few days and he and I spent as much time as we could outside.

Friday night we went to Legal Seafoods in Chinatown for a late dinner. The food was good - a wide variety of seafood and Asian inspired dishes, and the atmosphere was nice, but unfortunately our table was practically in the kitchen, despite our having made a reservation.

Saturday we spent the entire day at the National Museum of Natural History. We saw the special exhibit, "Orchids Through Darwin's Eyes," and ate lunch in the Fossil Cafe.

Sunday we packed a lunch and had a picnic on the National Mall. There were so many people out walking their dogs and playing with their kids, and because it's March, school
groups are everywhere throughout the city.

We walked to the National Archives and on the way we found an outdoor ice skating rink at the National Gallery of Art. It was odd to see people ice skating outside in the 69 degree weather.


We also saw the Navy Memorial and found Michigan on the world map and later had dinner in Georgetown at Papa Razzi.

Maternal health not a political priority

I went to a discussion about why maternal health is not a political priority at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars yesterday and I found some interesting statistics from the World Health Organization.

The Safe Motherhood Initiative, an international effort to raise awareness of maternal health, was launched in 1987 and a goal was set to reduce the world's maternal mortality rate, or MMR, by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015. It's 2009 and progress so far has been very minimal.
Between 1990 and 2005, the MMR saw only about a 1 percent improvement.

Ireland has the lowest maternal mortality ratio, or MMR, in the world: 1 per every 100,000 live births. Niger has the highest: 1,800 per every 100,000 live births, according to WHO.

The U.S. MMR is 11 per every 100,000 live births. I was surprised to find that the following countries have a lower MMR than the U.S.: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslaz Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.

When it snows...

Jody told us the big joke is that when any snow is forecasted for D.C. everyone rushes to the store to stock up on bread, milk and toilet paper. Yesterday Caitlyn and I found Trader Joe's surprisingly busy when we went to get groceries and we later learned that looming snow was the reason.

Seven to 10 inches of snow was predicted for D.C. by the afternoon and because of the "snow emergency" many people did not go to work today. It turns out the forecast was wrong though, becasue it's 4:30 p.m. and the streets are dry and the sun is shining (notice the photo taken from my office window). It did snow for a while but it melted quickly. Unfortunately a talk we were planning to go to at 5 p.m. has been cancelled because of the weather.