Conference Reports-science for non-scientists
(1)Robert Ayres Begs to Differ and Makes More Sense -
ex: his paper 'Eco-Unfriendly Analogies' at the International Ecological Conference - 12-16 August 2002.
Robert Ayres is an interesting guy - yeay! -
RA has an interest in what he calls Ecological Economics. And he DISAGREES with the guys/gals purveying the 'waste line' of our biosphere being a place where everything is consumed by something else viz --'there are no wastes, everything is recycled'
As he says: one, it aint so; and two, it's impossible
Here's why, but first Robert Ayres. He's Director at the Centre for Management of Environmental Resources at INSEAD, France.
And he writes:- "the discipline of ecological economics was founded 20 yrs ago on the strength of lifecycle analysis". This important development puts the focus on the lifecycle of manufactured products, rather than the products themselves.
For example: a computer chip weighs 1 gram, but in the process (lifecycle) of its manufacture thousands of grammes of unrecyclable waste are thrown away. Which, incidentally, rubbishes claims of miniaturisation being 'environment-friendly
Another bad analogy is metabolism: the processing between ingestion and excretion. Metabolism as 'perfectly efficient', like 'zero emissions' projects. But the world is chocka with biological waste. "From coal and oil, to chalk, limestone, and even iron ore, there are waste products that cannot be metabolised no further."
SO - The aim of projects - often funded by national and international collaboration - is to work toward industry producing no waste at all. [And so say all of us!]

(2) Report: Rising TEMPERATURES - action NOW or mebbe NEVER
The Carbon Cycle enables forests to exchange carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere and so help solve the green-house gases(GHG) causing rising global temperatures.
Enter John Grace, Head of the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management at Edinburgh University. JG's team is part of an international network monitoring Amazonian rainforests, thro Tennessee's oak and hickory to Siberia's pinewoods. With well-positioned automatic infrared gas analysers atmospheric compositions are examined day and night. Rainforest sequesters about 6 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare, Tennesse about 4.5 tons ph and Siberia 1 ton ph.
But - and not to be overlooked - decomposing organic and peaty soils on forest floors for example are OUTPUTTERS of carbon dioxide. As global temperatures rise so then will microbial populations rise and decomposition with gas output along with this.
WITHOUT DRAMATIC REVERSAL of the temperature trend - like NOW - John Grace predicts the loss of forest carbon sink potential within 30-40 years. Felling, forest fires AND microbiological action are the DO something about. The sooner the better.
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GREAT READ ON THE SPACE VOYAGERS
http://tm0.com/IHT/sbct.cgi?s=287715289&i=624355&m=1&d=2993251

Doubtful Tom has been to town
And now he's spreading doubt Around
FEDS FIRST QUERY in Biotech Companies
Biotechnology companies have failed to take proper precautions to prevent genetically modified corn from contaminating other crops growing nearby, federal regulators alleged for the first time. Full story - http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08152002/ap_48150.asp

AND IN New Zealand maize seed bought from Australia but thought to have originated in North America had been planted to express desirable hybrid attributes. At planting this maize seed was deemed GM-free. But the hybid seed was found to be GM after tests. Authorities have ordered its total destruction (30 tonnes) and undertaken further lab tests in New Zealand and South Dakota, USA. Where or how the hybrid contamination occurred is also under investigation.
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Yes, the drug which produced birth defects in humans like seal-like limbs(aka phocomelia) during the 1950s and 60s was talk of show at Pharmacology World July/2002.
BUT, and this is the big and best but around, NOT for reuse in humans.
The interest is in finding out how it works and the work is on animals which can handle it like mice and rats. [for the record humans, monkeys
and rabbits are susceptible]
Discussants at the Conf.incl from UMich, USA, and University of Sydney, Australia.
Thalidomide is known to block
the oxidation of certain genes in the limbs of susceptible animals and may emerge as an immunosuppressive agent.
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For low-level wastes - as opposed to the high-level spent fuel that the department wants to bury at Yucca - the Energy Department is trying a new material, a polymer foam to bind up radioactive materials indefinitely.
But the big challenge is spent reactor fuel, which will remain intensely radioactive for centuries and has many components that policy-makers want to keep out of underground water for millennia.
The Energy Department's early plan was for ordinary steel, but it moved up to alloy22 for better corrosion resistance. But alloy 22 is harder to weld than ordinary carbon steel, and welds, experts say, are where failure most often occurs.
The department's plan is for a "drip shield" of titanium over each container. The containers would be 6 to 7 feet in diameter, and about 16 feet long, to be parked in a line, filling the tunnel like subway cars.
Nucon sees instead giant, elongated watermelons made of ceramic, 18 feet long,
with a wall 3 inches thick and an inner diameter of 5.5 feet. The ovoid shape is a way to reduce the risk of cracking the ceramic if it bangs into something; with rounded ends, the force of impact would be better distributed around the container.
Nucon believes it has made an important advance in being able to cast thick
ceramics. Making it thick is a challenge because cintering requires even heating and cooling, increasingly difficult in thick structures. This solution is a combination of conventional thermal heating, plus microwave energy, which heats evenly.
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NEW IDEAS WITH NUKE WASTE - Part 3:
So far, no one has cast ceramic containers large enough to hold bundles of spent nuclear fuel rods. Engineers at Nucon hope to do this, although its model is about the size of half a large watermelon. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a panel established by Congress, said that early plans for Yucca had included a ceramic covering over the metal, but this subsequently was rerated from a handling perspective. Yet, anti-corrosion attributes cf metal remain attractive.
Some experts say no to ceramics and yes to concrete for this purpose. Yet the Yucca project's technical lead for waste package design and testing, says no finaldecisions had been made and that the design of the containers so far was "conceptual." Currently the Energy Dept is going for metal because of track record rather than for experimental material. Materials performance over time and environment, of manufacture and fabrication are the positives regarded
Ceramics are used to stabilize high-level nuclear waste, but only as a matrix material, not as a wrapper.
ENDS3.Next - New Materials.

VOLCANIC HAZARD AT PROPOSED YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY GREATER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
UK expert report in from American Geophysical Union.link:--
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020801075418.htm