The largest source of uncertainty in today’s climate models are clouds. Clouds can both cool the planet, by acting as a shield against the sun, and warm the planet, by trapping heat. But why do clouds behave the way they do? And how will a warming planet affect the cloud cover? “We don’t understand many basic things about clouds,” Lawrence Berkeley Lab scientist David Romps says.

Calculating medical risk can be an inexact science, especially for older adults, with many factors from the environment to chronic diseases helping determine how long a person lives. A UC San Francisco team has developed a tool that can help determine – and perhaps influence – senior citizens’ 10-year survivability rates.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: You’re happy to hear a flight attendant say that your seat cushion can be used as a “personal flotation device.” That sounds like so much more fun than “life saver” — more like it’s possible that you will be visiting a Disney water park soon instead of splashing down in mid-Atlantic. And isn’t it great that people no longer “lie”! We simply “misspeak,” “fabricate,” “bend the truth” or dispense disinformation.” Talk about a positive spin.

Abortion H.R. 1122----Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)/Education and the Workforce (3/13/13)---A bill to prohibit federal education funding for elementary schools and secondary schools that provide on-campus access to abortion providers. Child Protection…

"The luminance contrast between the eyes and the surrounding skin and the lips and the surrounding skin has been termed ‘facial contrast. Female faces have greater facial contrast than male faces, and facial contrast plays an important role in sex classification and the perception of masculinity and femininity and also attractiveness. Inspection of averaged faces of older and younger adults led us to hypothesize that facial contrast decreases with age and is related to perceived facial age."

The Guastavino family’s soaring tile vaults grace many of the nation’s most iconic structures including Grand Central Terminal, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Boston Public Library, the US Supreme Court, and the Nebraska State Capitol (see below). Yet the name, the accomplishments, and the architectural legacy of this single family of first-generation Spanish immigrants are virtually unknown.

Val Castronovo writes: "I was walking along the road with two of my friends. The sun set — the sky became a bloody red. And I felt a touch of melancholy — I stood still, dead tired — over the blue-black fjord and city hung blood and tongues of fire. My friends walked on — I stayed behind — trembling with fright. I felt the great scream in nature. E.M."

The testimony on Capitol Hill in front of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel regarding the issue of sexual assault in the miltiary encouraged us to pull up some of the articles and references that SeniorWomen.com has, in the past, produced on our site. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand delivered an opening statement. It has to be remembered that the Defense Task Force report also covered thousands of assaults on male military servicemembers.

Among Baby Boomers, only 20 percent of women have a backup plan if retirement happens sooner than expected. “Life’s unforeseen circumstances such as a job loss, health issues, or family obligations can derail the best of intentions. ” said Collinson. “Especially with so many women planning to delay retirement or continue working part-time in retirement, a backup plan is an essential part of a retirement strategy.”

Ferida Wolff writes: I was reading an article in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer about Winnie-the-Pooh. I remember the Pooh books. Many nights were spent with my kids tucked in and cozy as we followed Christopher Robin and the adventures of Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, Kanga and little Roo.  

I confessed, “I hate this. It’s taken all of the pleasure out of eating.” “Think of the alternative,” my daughters said. “Tommy choking, you trying the Heimlich, you panicking. Is that what you want?” “No,” I said. “I’ll talk to his doctors.” Although they discounted the nurse’s report, and said they’d never heard of a patient choking, the doctors concurred a Cookie Swallow Test might be a good idea.

Curious about whether your neighbor is armed? Wondering if local officials are illegally doling out gun permits to convicted felons? It may be impossible to find out, unless you live in one of a small and shrinking group of states. Lawmakers in most states sealed such records in past years. This year, many others are rushing to join those ranks, spurred by a suburban New York newspaper’s publication of names and addresses of handgun permit holders.

Women across the lifespan appear to report elevated levels of dissatisfaction with their bodies, although women in older adulthood (60 years and older) may report less dissatisfaction in some domains such as a perception that weight and shape negatively affected life, in comparison to younger women.

Reviewer Jill Norgren writes that Justice Sotomayor has said that she wrote My Beloved World because being a role model “is the most valuable thing I can do.” It is to her credit that the memoir is, like the justice, unpretentious and welcoming to readers of all ages. Reviewer Julia Sneden declares the depth of the research for Consider the Fork mind-boggling, but Be Wilson's style is simple, direct, and leavened with wry humor; calling her just “a food writer” would be a bit like calling Yo Yo Ma “a guy who plays the cello.”

Diane Girard writes: Unlike the members of a certain famous rock group who think they are young rebels but look like the permanently undead; I don’t believe that seventy-something is the new forty. At age sixty-nine, I know that I’m almost seventy. My body knows it too and it reminds me every morning. When it complains, I know for sure that I’m still in this world. However, I won’t always be here and those dread-filled ads keep reminding me of that. So, how to deal with the facts of death?

Val Castronovo reviews: A collaboration between The Met, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the works collected chronicle the golden years of Impressionist painting from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s when Paris became the style capital of the world ... the avant-garde sought to distinguish themselves ... and paint their subjects in a new, modern light, focusing on au courant costumes and accoutrements at the expense of the individuals’ physical characteristics.

Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin: "Many of the darkest manifestations of the financial crisis have finally begun to diminish: the boarded-up homes with overgrown lawns, the half-built skyscrapers, the 'We Buy Houses Cheap' signs planted at exit ramps, the eviction notices nailed to front doors. But even as the economy comes back to life, our memory of these events is still sharp and the reputational damage suffered by US financial institutions during the crisis endures."

Editor's Note: The audience was surprised to see the First Lady (appropriately dressed in a silvery gown by Naeem Khan) present the Best Picture Oscar to Argo, appearing via satellite from the White House last night. This morning we viewed her on C-Span addressing the nation's governors about a much different and very important subject:

Joan L. Cannon writes: The wakeup call was the realization of how much we were still using that's intended to be disposable and can't be reused. The hundredweight of magazines and catalogs astonished me every time we loaded the trunk of the car. Then there was the prohibition on dry cat food pronounced by our vet. You don’t know what it’s like to collect aluminum cans until you’ve fed a voracious feline for a month on wet food.

Meghan Mott, Ph.D. writes: Our brains naturally deteriorate with age. Sleep quality — specifically the slow-wave activity that occurs during deep sleep — also decreases as we get older. Previous research found that slow waves are generated in a brain region called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which exhibits age-related deterioration.

 In past versions of the News IQ test, Republicans have often outperformed Democrats and independents, but that was not the case with the current quiz. Overall, Republicans on average answered 8.7 items correctly, no different than Democrats (8.6) and independents (8.7). Democrats (47%) were more likely than Republicans (37%) to recognize a photo of Elizabeth Warren, the new senator from Massachusetts. Other partisan differences were very small.

Aside from the Senate passing VAWA, these some congressional bills introduced last week: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), placing limitations on the possession and sale of a firearm by persons convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses against children; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), prohibiting taking minors across state lines in circumvention of laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions; Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), ensuring women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child.

Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Wayne State University in Detroit have launched a new online resource, a comprehensive guide to James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room and its dynamic history. The elaborately painted former dining room and one of the most famous masterpieces in the Freer’s collection, celebrates its 90th anniversary of being on public view in 2013.