Public fears about nuclear power plants have usually centered on massive radiation releases into the air, but recent leaks of water contaminated with low-level radiation have raised a new concern: Local groundwater supplies could become a source of long-term radiation exposure with potential health risks. Are the leaks just a coincidence or signs of a trend? That’s what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will weigh on Wednesday when it hears from petitioners demanding that the nuclear industry disclose all information it has on any such incidents. ‘We’ve accepted the petition … we agree that they’ve raised a legitimate issue,’ says NRC petition manager Bill Reckley. ‘We will consider what they suggested.’ The federal agency agreed to a meeting after a petition by 22 environmental groups last January cited leaks in the last decade at nuclear power sites in Braidwood and Dresden, Ill.; Lynchburg, Va.; Salem, N.J.; Haddam Neck, Conn.; and Indian Point and Long Island, N.Y. Since the petition was filed: # Two more plants – at Palo Verde, Ariz., and Byron, Ill. – have reported groundwater leaks. # Illinois has sued Exelon over the Braidwood spill, caused by a broken concrete pipe. # A new […]
U.S. doctors have successfully implanted bladders grown in the laboratory into patients with bladder disease. These custom bladders grew from the patients’ own bladder cells on a specially shaped mold. The surgeons hope to use the technique to repair or replace other complex internal organs. Seven youths aged four to 19 are the first beneficiaries of new bladders engineered by Dr. Anthony Atala and colleagues at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. ‘In terms of actually engineering a complex construct that we engineer outside the body and then we implant inside the body, this is really the first time we have been able to do that,’ he said. The youthful patients Dr. Atala treated had congenital bladder disease that caused unnaturally high pressures inside the organ. This problem can damage the kidney, which produces the urine passed by the bladder. Traditional bladder reconstruction usually involves grafts from the small intestine or stomach. But the use of such tissue can cause complications because it is different from bladder tissue. Intestinal or stomach tissue absorbs liquids, while the bladder is designed to excrete them. Atala’s team took an alternative approach. They extracted bladder tissue from the seven young […]
BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the deadliest day for American forces since the beginning of the year, at least nine members of the military were killed in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar Province, including four in a rebel attack and at least five when their truck accidentally flipped over, the American military command said Monday. Three marines and one sailor were killed Sunday in the rebel assault, the military reported, offering no further information. It was the largest number of American deaths in a single attack in more than a month. In another part of Anbar on Sunday, a flash flood toppled a seven-ton truck, killing five marines riding inside it and wounding one, the military said. Two marines and one Navy corpsman in the truck were missing, officials said. Wrapping up a quick visit here, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, pressed Iraqi leaders for a second day on Monday to form a coalition government as quickly as possible, in order to end a power vacuum in which insurgent attacks, sectarian violence and general lawlessness have flourished. Underscoring their concerns, three car bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, […]
MILWAUKEE — Dousing hopes that America’s obesity epidemic might be leveling off or reversing, new data show an alarming increase in the number of obese children and raise questions about how fat America can get. ‘Obviously there has to be some upper limit,’ said lead author Cynthia Ogden, a researcher with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘I just don’t know where it’s going to be.’ The number of obese and overweight men also increased, although an encouraging sign was that obesity in women remained constant at about one-third of the population aged 20 and over. At the other end of the spectrum, a separate group of researchers found that depriving people of about 25 percent of their normal calories, while still eating nutritionally balanced diets, led to physiological changes associated with increased longevity. The six-month month study involving 48 people – the first in non-obese humans – showed that calorie restriction led to improvements in insulin levels, a beneficial decrease of about one degree in body temperature and less DNA damage to cells. Numerous animal studies have showed that calorie restriction, which slows metabolism, can extend life span by as much as […]
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is considering ways to allow many industrial facilities that emit at least one of 188 hazardous air pollutants to avoid having to comply with the most stringent technology controls to limit pollution. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, released the draft proposal Monday, two days before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meets to consider President Bush’s nominee, Bill Wehrum, to serve as head of EPA’s air office. NRDC noted in a statement that the proposal was drafted during Wehrum’s current tenure as acting head of that office. John Walke, NRDC’s clean air director, said the timing was not politically motivated. The agency’s current 1995 policy requires facilities that annually emit 10 tons or more of a single air pollutant or 25 tons or more of a group of pollutants to use the maximum achievable technology controls to lower their pollution, sometimes by up to 95 percent. A draft proposal would let oil refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, chemical plants and dozens of other types of facilities that drop below those annual thresholds to reclassify themselves as minor sources of pollution under the Clean Air Act’s air […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
