From time to time we update our readers on situations which have been described in our Newsletter. Clearinghouse Update
Concern about new California Science Standards
Concern has been raised by such science education reform advocates as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Academy of Sciences President Bruce Alberts that recent standards approved by the California State Board of Education are a switch from the Project 2061-based 1990 Science Framework described in our Fall 1994 issue and a return to "too much on detailed knowledge and too little on concepts." This follows on the heels of recently-adopted math standards that were known for their "back to basics" focus, one which earned them an "A" from the Thomas Fordham Foundation -- but the previous Science Framework earned an "A" from the Fordham Foundation, too. Reporting on this development in the science media includes the 16 October 1998 issue of Science and the November 1998 issue of Physics Today.GO Goes on the Internet
In her "Observations" column of our Fall 1997 issue, Irma Jarcho wrote an article about GO, noting that it was better able to withstand a computer opponent than chess. The 24 December 1998 "Circuits" section of The New York Times featured on its front page an article entitled "On-Line Samurai Transform an Ancient Game."For centuries GO was a noble accomplishment for gentlemen and a tool to teach military strategy. Now GO is on the Internet and appears to have changed to a fast and furious contest, in contrast with the stately tempo of the traditional game. The largest and most popular is the Internet GO Server (I.G.S.) at
on the Web. Here hundreds of people play some 4500 games each day. In the U.S. as many as 700 players are logged on at once. Watchers may type in their comments into a separate kibitzing channel. I.G.S. is free for all players outside Japan. Most players in Japan pay $20 a month. The long and informative article details the problems and pleasures of the new GO venue. Cheaters are one problem. Escapers -- those who vanish as soon as they start to lose -- are another. There is even a week-long summer GO camp. But don't worry about computers. There will be no Deep Blue for GO for decades -- if ever.
More on Biofilms
Irma Jarcho's "Observations" column in our Spring 1998 issue mentioned the problems caused by biofilms -- films of bacteria which coat the insides of pipes and cause corrosion of metals. The corrosion is due to the action of sulfate-reducing bacteria where the biofilm meets the metal and result in small pits, which can grow into cracks and ultimately cause a pipe to fail. There is another film of oxygen-loving bacteria which themselves do little damage.Now a report in the December 1998 issue of Scientific American states that researchers are trying to have the oxygen-loving bacteria (which overlie the destructive sulfate-reducing bacteria close to the pipe) secrete a poisonous peptide molecule to destroy the sulfate reducers. Researchers Thomas K. Wood, biochemist at the University of Connecticut, and James C. Earthman, of the University of California at Irvine, would modify whatever harmless strain of bacterium is already living inside a particular industrial facility so that it can kill the harmful sulfate-reducing bacteria.
National Science Policy Report Unveiled
Our past two issues have kept readers abreast of developments in the formulation of a new national science policy under the leadership of Representative Vernon J. Ehlers (R-MI). His report, "Unlocking Our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy," was unveiled on 24 September. The 12 October 1998 issue of Chemical and Engineering News quotes Harvard University Professor Emeritus Lewis Branscomb's description of it as "a conventional defense of basic academic research." Although C&EN reports that "it effectively endorses the kind of policy the Democrats have carefully erected since World War II," Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D-CA), ranking minority member of the House Science Committee, is reported as critical of its "short shrift to the social sicences, women and minorities, and environmental problems." The Ehlers report is available on the Internet at http://www.house.gov/science/science_policy_report.htm.Complications of Phasing Out CFCs
The high cost of recycled auto air conditioner refrigerant CFC-12, which is no longer manufactured in the U.S. as a result of the Montreal Protocol, has led some owners of older cars to take short cuts to maintain their auto air conditioners. One is to add some HFC-134a, the hydrofluorocarbon designed for new auto air conditioners, which is not compatible with CFC-12 and causes system breakdown. Another is to add a hydrocarbon, HC-12a, which has been called into question because of its flammability. In either case, CFC-12 in an auto air conditioner is contaminated, and recycling it is made more difficult.Also under fire, according to the 21 December 1998 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, are two ozone-depleting solvents developed since the Montreal Protocol came into effect: n-propyl bromide and chlorobromomethane. This was one of the issues brought up at the 10th meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer on 23-24 November 1998 in Cairo, Egypt. It was also reported there that though the concentration of chlorine in the troposphere is falling, bromine levels continue to rise, and "chlorine loading" in the stratosphere is still rising. Even with strict implementation of the protocol, full recovery of the ozone layer is not expected until 2050. Ten nations pledged $19 million to help convert Russian chlorofluorocarbon plants by 2000; developing nations have until 2010 to phase out chlorofluorocarbon production.
Just Think on CD-ROM
The award-winning video series, Just Think: Problem Solving Through Inquiry, described in our Fall 1996 issue, is now available through the New York State Systemic Initiative Office, (518)-473-9471, for $9.99.A Quarter Century after the Arab Oil Embargo
Editor John Roeder wrote a twenty-year retrospective on the Arab Oil Embargo in our Fall 1993 issue. The New York Times published its own twenty-year retrospective that year coming to essentially the same conclusion, that there had been gains in terms of using less energy but that most of our energy continued to be supplied by nonrenewable fossil fuels. On 22 October The New York Times published a twenty-five year retrospective, showing that even the gains of using less energy have been wiped out. "Larger homes with fewer people but more things to plug in have pushed home energy consumption back to the levels of the 1970's," it says. "Industrial and commercial energy use fell 18 percent from 1973 to 1983, then jumped 37 percent by 1997." The culprit has been "cheap, abundant energy," to which it attributes "fueling an era of rising standards of living and dormant inflation." Yet it cautions that "an abrupt response to another oil shock or environmetnal crisis could make the earlier discipline of gradual energy savings seem mild.""Nuts" to Peanuts?
Following the concern about in-school exposure of children allergic to peanuts cited in the Infusion Tip of our last issue, National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" reported on 17 October 1998 that an airline passenger registering an allergy to peanuts would be entitled to sit in a peanut-free zone extending from the row in front of the passenger to the row behind. A reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune with the peanut allergy had written how it produces severe effects on the whole body which could be fatal and could be produced by inhalation. Four days later an editorial in The New York Times noted that "fierce lobbying by the peanut industry" had defeated the directive for peanut-free zones on airliners.Radium City Revisited
Our Winter 1988 issue covered the showing of the film, Radium City, at The Calhoun School in New York City. Although the "Radium City" in question was Ottawa, IL, film producer Carole Langer also noted radium contamination remaining in the New York City Borough of Queens. In addition to sparking a Symposium on "Marie Curie and the Centenary of the Discovery of Radioactivity" (see story on page xx, this issue) 1998 also caused Associated Press reporter Martha Irvine to revisit Ottawa, IL. Her story, published in the Trenton Times on 27 September, also notes that cleanup of a "radium-laced landfill in Glen Ridge, NJ -- the last of four towns in that state" was beginning that month. She also stated that "now free of radium . . . is the site of the former Radium Chemical Co. in New York's borough of Queens," according to EPA spokesperson Rich Cahill.MTBE Under Fire
Our Fall 1995 issue contained a report on MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) and other gasoline oxygenates and the reasons for requiring them. According to the 23 November 1998 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&E N), a study commissioned by the University of California, Davis, concludes that "there is no significant difference in the emissions reduction of benzene between oxygenated and nonoxygenated California Phase II reformulated gasoline that meets all other standards" and recommends phasing out MTBE because of water contamination problems. According to the 7 December issue of C&E N, the Environmental Protection Agency is creating a panel of experts to review the use of gasoline oxygenates, which are mandated by the federal Clean Air Act, in view of the Davis study.PCB Cleanup in Hudson
Since our last report on PCBs (PolyChlorinated Biphenyls) in the Hudson River in our Winter 1998 Clearinghouse Update comes further news from the Fall 1998 issue of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) newsletter, Environment, that "The state has proposed excavation and removal of PCB-contaminated soil at a former industrial site on the bank of the Hudson River in the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County."The article continues by reporting that "PCB levels in soils at a depth of 12 to 14 feet were found to be as high as 381,000 parts per million (ppm); well above the state subsurface cleanup goal of 10 ppm. PCB concentrations in the top two inches of soil fill were as high as 4,400 ppm, compared to the 1 ppm surface coil cleanup goal. DEC's Proposed Remedial Action Plan (PRAP) calls for areas with PCB concentrations that exceed 10 ppm to be excavated and disposed of off-site."
"The estimated cost of the proposed on-site cleanup is $40 to $50 million. The Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) is responsible for the site cleanup."
Source of Tritium for Nuclear Weapons Determined
An Infusion Tip in our Winter 1996 issue reported two competing solutions to the problem of providing tritium for thermonuclear warheads, and a follow-up in our Spring 1998 issue added a third alternative. The final decision, announced by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on 22 December 1998, according to the 4 January 1999 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, is none of the above. The tritium will be made, as needed, by inserting lithium rods into the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar reactor in Spring City, TN. Tritium will not be needed until 2005, and not until 2011 if the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II is implemented. This solution was chosen because it required no new facility, but it has been criticized by Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whose amendment blocking the use of civilian reactors for tritium production did not survive the Senate. Richardson's response was that the TVA is government owned and has a national security mission in its charter.DOE to pay watchdogs to review cleanup
In three past issues (Spring and Fall 1994, Fall 1996) we have reported on efforts of the US Department of Energy to clean up sites made radioactive by the US nuclear weapons program. According to the 21 December 1998 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, "$6.25 million will be provided by the government for nonprofit citizens' groups and Native American tribes to hire technical experts to review Department of Energy cleanup plans." The Department will also set up a database on the Intenet containing information on contaminated facilities and wastes.Two More Cases Deal with Scientific Evidence
The broadened basis for admissibility of scientific evidence in the courtroom brought about by the Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. case was discussed extensively in our coverage of Frank Grad's talk to the Scientific Literacy Seminar at Columbia University in our Winter 1998 issue. A footnote to that coverage also cited a subsequent case, reported in the 22 December 1997 issue of Chemical & Engineering News: General Electric Co. v. Joiner, in which the Supreme Court's reversal of an appellate court in effect upheld the Daubert criteria. Almost a year later, in their 14 December 1998 issue, Chemical & Engineering News cites a still more recent case, brought to the US Supreme Court oon 7 December 1998: Kumho Tire Co. Ltd. v. Carmichael. Observers are speculating that the Kumho decision might extend the Daubert guidelines for the admissibility of "hard scientific evidence" to such other technical areas as forensic evidence.
New Skepticism about Radioactive Waste Storage at Yucca Mountain
An editorial in our Winter 1996 cited the fallacy of "publishing" a story in The New York Times about a theory that was subsequently discredited. The theory, that a nuclear explosion could ensue from storing radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, NV, was just one in a series of objections to this single designated radioactive waste storage site. More recently, the 14 December 1998 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) cites a report authored by Siberian geologist Yuri Dublyansky that samples from the site indicate the presence of water and suggest the possibility of future inundation of the Yucca Mountain site. The nonprofit Institute for Energy & Environmental Research paid to test the same samples and, of the five groups they asked to review Dublyansky's report, only a panel of US Geological Survey (USGS) scientists were skeptical about it. The USGS scientists also backed out of a joint study with Dublyansky proposed by Robert Bodnar at the Fluids Research Laboratory at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, in Blacksburg, VA. Meanwhile, according to the 11 January 1999 issue of C&EN, the US Department of Energy released a 1500-page "viability assessment" maintaining that Yucca Mountain remains a promising site for a geologic repository of radioactive waste, while Nevada's congressional delegation and "some 219 national and local environmental groups" continue to oppose it.
New Task for Taxol
This Newsletter has long followed the story of the anticancer drug Taxol from the standpoint of its production, most recently on p. 2 of our Spring 1998 issue. The 11 January 1999 issue of Chemical & Engineering News reports a new discovery about Taxol's therapeutic properties. Already known to bind to the protein tubulin, Taxol has more recently been found to bind to the human protein Bcl-2 by a research team at Florida State University. Binding to tubulin "short-circuits cell division and leads to apoptosis (programmed cell death)." Protein Bcl-2 prevents cells from undergoing apoptosis, so, in the words of Lee Makowsi of the Florida State University research team, "Taxol keeps cells from dividing, which halts cell growth, but then it also binds to . . . the Bcl-2 protein, which causes cell death." Makowski expects that Taxol's dual-target mechanism may lead to "more effective therapies with fewer side effects."
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