Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and jlms qkw, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
Between now and the end of the primary/caucus season, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having elections and caucuses during the week (or in the upcoming weeks if there is no primary or caucus that week). Tonight's edition features the science, space, environment, and energy stories from universities in the Super Tuesday states of Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia and the caucus states of Washington and Wyoming. Next week's edition will also feature stories from the states participating in Super Tuesday along with stories from Alabama, Hawaii, Kansas, and Mississippi.
This week's featured stories come from Reuters and the University of Virginia, respectively.
Rescue, cleanups continue in tornado zone, 39 dead
By Susan Guyett and John D. Stoll
HENRYVILLE, Ind./CRITTENDEN, Kentucky | Sat Mar 3, 2012 10:56pm EST
(Reuters) - Rescue teams and residents combed through storm-wracked towns to assess damage on Saturday from a chain of tornadoes that cut a 1,000-mile swath of destruction from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, as the death toll rose to at least 39 people.The fast-moving twisters spawned by massive thunderstorms splintered blocks of homes, damaged schools and a prison, and tossed around vehicles like toys, killing 20 people in Kentucky, 14 in neighboring Indiana, three in Ohio and one in Alabama, officials said. Georgia also reported a storm-related death.
"We're not unfamiliar with Mother Nature's wrath out here in Indiana," Governor Mitch Daniels told CNN during a visit to the stricken southeast corner of the state.
"But this is about as serious as we've seen in the years since I've been in this job," he said, standing against the backdrop of the hard-hit town of Henryville, which declared a night-time curfew to prevent looting.
Friday's storms came on top of severe weather earlier in the week in the Midwest and brought the overall death toll from the unseasonably early storms this week to at least 52 people.
State Supreme Court Throws Out Attorney General's CIDs
March 2, 2012 — The Supreme Court of Virginia today affirmed a circuit court's decision quashing two civil investigative demands – or CIDs – by the Virginia Attorney General that sought extensive information relating to climate research conducted by Michael Mann, an assistant professor of environmental sciences in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences from 1999 to 2005.More stories after the jump.Writing for the court, Justice Leroy F. Millette Jr. stated that the University is first and foremost a state agency and therefore not subject to CID provisions in the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, under which the attorney general had sought information and documents.
The attorney general had argued that the University is a corporation, and therefore falls within the definition of "person" outlined in the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, or FATA. The Supreme Court, however, agreed with the University's position that the CID provisions of the act don't apply because the University is a state agency.
"This is an important decision that will be welcomed here and in the broader higher education community," U.Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan said.