KPLU

NBC News reports that new evacuations came Thursday as eight-inch chunks of burning bark were reported to have fallen in Mission Ridge. Those chunks were coming from an explosive fire inside the Table Mountain Complex some six miles away, a fire incident spokesman said.

The Table Mountain Complex of wildfires in Chelan and Kittitas counties has tripled in size to more than 47 square miles

KPLU's Community Advisory/Advocacy Board will be meeting on Thursday, September 20, 2012 Pacific Time via a teleconference call. If you are interested in observing or listening to the meeting, please contact the office of the General Manager @ 253-535-8732 for more information.

Because of an apparent hacker attack on GoDaddy, the hosting service that KPLU contracts with, our Jazz24 and Humanosphere websites are experiencing intermittent outages.

More information on the attack on GoDaddy

By Todd Bishop of Geekwire

A group of scientists, including a University of Washington atmospheric physicist, wants to test the theory that pumping sea salt into the sky over the ocean would combat global warming by creating clouds that reflect more sunlight back into space.

CLE ELUM, Wash. – Firefighters are hoping to reach containment Tuesday on a fire that has burned dozens of homes east of the Cascades.

By Lisa Stiffler, Humanosphere correspondent

In wealthy countries, it’s no problem for an organization to provide a single, narrowly defined service. In a poor community, it won’t always work to focus on singular goal, ignoring the existing challenges that can doom even the most well-intentioned projects.

Enter Erin Larsen-Cooper, a recent graduate of the University of Washington. She's hopeful that programs that are more holistic, that work with existing health programs and employ members of the community that they’re aiming to help, will get us closer to solving some of the problems in global health and poverty.

Read more on Humanosphere.

Several of Western Washington’s finest high school jazz bands and jazz professionals are showcased on KPLU School of Jazz-Volume 8, the station’s latest CD release which is the culmination of this year’s mentoring project.

Buy your copy of KPLU School of Jazz now

A study has found that Seattle's SoDo neighborhood can handle the traffic that may come from building a third sports arena in the area.

The study was released Wednesday by the City of Seattle and paid for by Chris Hansen, the developer who wants to build an 18,000-seat facility that could house an NBA and an NHL franchise near where the Mariners and Seahawks play.

By Cyan James, Humanosphere correspondent

A fresh crop of Changemakers has been identified by the Washington Global Health Alliance’s Be the Change student competition. Among the three first place winners was a group of UW students who want to enlist a spider to fight malaria ...

Read more on Humanosphere.

With the spring rains descending upon us, ushering in the "June Gloom" a little early, Crosscut.com's Knute Berger has come up with eight simple rules to preserve your sanity while living in Seattle.

By Lisa Stiffler, special correspondent

When you consider that one in seven people worldwide will go to bed tonight hungry, it does seem fair to ask: Can organic deliver the goods for the developing world?

New research says yes – but not everywhere and not for everything.

Read more on Humanosphere.

Radio Transcript:

GELLERMAN: It's Living on Earth, I'm Bruce Gellerman. Oregon is timber country.
The terrain is steep, dark green, and intensely beautiful. Six million acres of Oregon forest is owned by commercial timber companies. The companies spray the land with herbicide when the trees are young. It’s an efficient way to kill every other plant except for the commercially valuable Douglas fir.

Today, KPLU's weather expert Cliff Mass and science reporter Keith Seinfeld touch on the forecast – cloudy through most of Saturday, then getting better through Monday – and then take up a common thread throughout NW weather history: grousing.

Here's a weather report from 1855 published in the Puget Sound Courier:

"Well, March went out, April came in, and with it, cold, wet, disagreeable weather, and a universal spirit of discontent, and a disposition to 'growl'"

"Throughout the entire month, and even up to this, the last day of May, it has been precisely the same, and some amongst us profess to be so thoroughly disgusted with the weather .... that they threaten to leave the Territory altogether."

One of the northwest’s best kept secrets is a person. He’s Bill Foege, a physician and Northwest native, who recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  

Foege went to Nigeria and figured out how to eradicate smallpox – the only human disease ever wiped off the planet. He also ran the nation’s top public health agency, the CDC. More recently, he helped shape the mission of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Tom Paulson, of KPLU's Humanosphere blog, sat down with Bill Foege at his Vashon home to learn more about why people from Seattle are such a force globally. Click the listen button above to hear the interview.

Read Tom Paulson's first-person take on Bill Foege's life and work on Humanosphere.

By Cyan James, Humanosphere correspondent

Despite the potential annoyances—hours spent being screened , frequent health checks, irritating bites, painful twice-daily blood draws for weeks, not to mention the slamming headaches and vicious chills of malaria itself—people like Rasberry say being a malaria trials volunteer is worth it.

Read more on Humanosphere.