Cod crisis

TAIWAN

The Chinese government is likely to scrap a us $5.6 billion nuclear power project of Taiwan. The state-run Taiwan Power Company, Taipower has spent us $1.41 billion on the initial construction of the plant in the northern coastal township of Kungliao. Some government officials have stated that calling off the project - 30 per cent of which is on the verge of being completed -- would cost the company us $2.7 billion.

Notify radiation level

levels of radiation emitted from mobile phones will be notified by cellular phone companies from the year 2001. This move comes in the wake of similar action taken in Europe. Recently worldwide concerns have been raised about the radiation emitted by cellular phones, which according to researchers can cause cancer.

Precision hit

One of the most popular and effective methods of the removing cancerous growth is radiation therapy. In this, gamma rays from a radioactive source -- like cobalt-60 -- are directed towards the tumour. The cancerous cells are destroyed by the energetic radiation. Unfortunately, along with the cancerous cells, healthy tissue close to the tumour also get killed because it is very difficult to control the amount and direction of radiation precisely. Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy is a new technique that could prove to be very useful.

Radiation alert

In Australia, mobile phone radiation levels will be displayed on their packaging in response to growing concerns about the health effects of mobile phone use. The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) has announced this move with the backing of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association. Ian Maclean, ACA's radiation manager says that both the authority and the industry were aware of the public's concerns about radiation from mobile phones.

Dial R for radiation

The UK government has asked school authorities to restrict the use of mobile phones for children below 16 years of age. The move comes after a government-commissioned study concluded that children face potential health risks when they use mobile phones. William Stewart, the former government chief scientist who chaired the report, said that children, whose developing brains are more vulnerable than adults to radiation, should be discouraged from using them. The younger the children, the less should they be allowed to use a mobile phone, he said.

Poisoned frogs?

The spate of amphibian deaths and deformities the world over has confused scientist for some time now. Among the various reasons to which this has been attributed are fungal infection, thinning of the atmosphere's ozone layer, ultraviolet radiation or loss of habitat. Now, researchers from the US Fish and Wildlife Service have launched a study to find out whether pesticides and other pollutants are responsible for the deformities, said a report in the Washington Post . Malformed frogs, toads, salamanders and their eggs from 43 sanctuaries in 31 states will be surveyed.

Quest for speed

for fans of Star Trek and other science fiction stories, travel by spacecraft at speeds exceeding the speed of light is routine. But in the real world, the speed of light in vacuum (300,000 metres per second), sets the upper limit to the speed at which information can be transferred from one point to another.

For stability

Radioisotopes are used for a variety of diagnostic tests in medicine. Now D Murnick of Rutgers University, USA, and colleagues have pioneered the use of stable isotopes -- those that are not radioactive -- as a tracer in medicine. One application is the development of a fast, inexpensive and safe test for ulcer causing bacteria in the stomach. The patient is fed a small amount of urea that is labelled with carbon-13. The bacteria, if present, breaks the urea to ammonia and carbon dioxide, with the carbon dioxide containing carbon-13 together with the more common carbon-12 isotope.

Down with the dump

in march 1997 when the heavy drilling machines ploughed into the barren land of the desert village Sanawada, just a few kilometres from India's nuclear weapons testing site, Pokran, officials of the public sector Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd ( mecl ) told the residents, "There are precious stones beneath the village." (Granite, experts say, is the cheapest stone -- sometimes even cheaper than bricks).