Friday, December 26, 2003

1. MARS: COALITION FORCES LAUNCH AN INVASION OF THE RED PLANET.
Oblivious to the frantic efforts of earthlings to make contact, Beagle II, a 63-centimeter saucer-shaped British lander, has so far maintained radio silence. Meanwhile, Beagle II's mother ship, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, successfully entered Mars orbit. It is equipped with a long-wavelength radio probe to search for subsurface water. Mars Express joined two American orbiters, Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Explorer. Two American rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are approaching Mars. They are expected to land in January. Efforts to contact Beagle II will resume later today. The painful vigil is reminiscent of the loss of the Mars Polar Lander in December of 1999 (WN 10 Dec 99). In fact, two-thirds of the missions launched to Mars have failed. This should be put in perspective: no lives have been lost, and robotic missions to Mars cost less than shuttle flights into low-Earth orbit, where they just go in circles. The Mars missions, on the other hand, are searching for extra-terrestrial life, which is perhaps the most exciting quest in science.

2. MAD COW DISEASE: TRUST ME, IT'S NOT JUST COWS THAT ARE MAD.
A British Lab confirms that the sick cow in Washington had the disease. After months of seeking an audience, Stanley Prusiner, the UCSF neurologist who was awarded a nobel prize for discovered prions, infectious proteins that cause Mad Cow disease, warned Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman weeks ago that it was "just a matter of time" before the disease would be found in the U.S. He told her that every sick cow should be tested beginning now, and eventually all cows upon slaughter. It's ironic that discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S. should come just as the demand for beef was soaring as a result of enormously popular high-protein diets, such as the Atkins and South Beach diets. Mad Cow aside, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine issued a 1985 alert warning that long-term high-protein eating is linked to heart disease, colon cancer, osteoporosis and renal failure. It has been common belief among endurance athletes for decades that a high-protein diet can lead to dehydration as the body seeks to protect the kidneys from the toxic effects of amines, a byproduct of protein metabolism. Dehydration, they argue, is the principal factor in temporary weight loss when on a high-protein diet.

3. AIR POLLUTION: ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT CLEAN AIR ACT IS BLOCKED.
When first enacted, the Act grandfathered existing power plants from pollution controls required of new plants, since in time they would be replaced. Wrong. Industry found it cheaper to just rebuild old plants and keep polluting. So Congress rewrote the law to include "upgrades." The Bush administration, however, ruled that upgrades were really just maintenance -- in effect overturning an act of Congress the a federal appeals court ruled.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.