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Update as of June 19th, 2006

UCLA Study "On Friendship Among Women "

  By Gale Berkowitz

  A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special.  They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are.

  By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research--most of it on men--upside down.

  Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Bio-behavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

  Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral  repertoire than just fight or flight; in fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.

  This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen; she adds, seems to enhance it.

  The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley  Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.

  The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.  It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.

  There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live longer. In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better.

  The Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight!

  And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate.

  Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press,1998).

  Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience.

Update as of June 2nd, 2006

Rainforests 'still at great risk'

Each year 12m hectares of the forests are cleared for agriculture and other development, the International Tropical Timber Organisation report says.

Forests will continue to be lost unless there is better management, it adds.

But it also points to many improvements and says an area about the size of Germany is now being well managed.

t says in addition to agriculture and development problems, millions more hectares are being degraded through illegal logging and poor land use.

The report, Status of Tropical Forest Management 2005, says there has been a collective failure to understand that forests can generate considerable economic value without being destroyed.

In countries like Nigeria and the Philippines there is now relatively little natural forest left, the report says.

In other countries like Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, progress to protect the rainforests has been disrupted by armed conflicts.

Too often, say the authors, government promises to protect these tropical forests have not been matched by actions on the ground.

On the plus side, the report says in countries like Bolivia, Ghana and Brazil notable improvements have been made to develop sustainable practices such as harvesting timber in a way that does not destroy the forest.

Report co-author Duncan Poore said there was "good news" but it was "very fragile".

"It is a starting point. It shows where things ought to go. But there is no knowing if they will," he said.

Another author, Alastair Sarre, said it was a major improvement that 36m hectares of rainforest were now being properly managed compared to less than one million in 1988.

'Collective failure'

The report surveyed 814 million hectares (two billion acres) of rainforest designated by governments in 33 nations as being under sustainable management.

Update as of June 1st, 2006

Migrating birds suffer huge loss

By Rebecca Morelle - BBC News science reporter

Migratory birds have suffered a dramatic decline in numbers, according to a study.

Species that migrate thousands of miles from Africa to the UK have been the worst hit over the last 30 years.

The researchers say the cause of the decline remains a "mystery", but could be linked to climate change, habitat destruction or pesticide use.

Writing in the journal Biological Conservation, they warn the losses may indicate wider environmental damage.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife International study analysed population trends of European breeding birds, including non-migratory birds and those that migrate both short and long distances.

The data spanned three decades, from 1970 to 2000.

"We found that long distant migrants - the ones that go right across the Sahara, like the swallows, flycatchers and warblers - have shown a fairly consistent pattern of decline," said Dr Paul Donald, an author on the paper from the RSPB.

Those that winter in Africa, he said, seem to be the most affected.

The study also compared the long-distant migratory birds with closely related non-migratory birds, but again found in almost every case that the migratory birds faired worse.

Fifty-four percent of the 121 long-distant migratory birds studied suffered plummeting numbers or had even become extinct since 1970.

The roll-call of declining species is long.

"Some fairly iconic species have declined enormously in Europe. There is a very beautiful blue and purple bird called the roller - the population of that bird is crashing all over Eastern Europe," Dr Donald told the BBC News website.

"In the UK, other species that have declined enormously are spotted flycatchers, pied flycatchers, wheatears, wood warblers and tree pipits."

Changing climate

The exact reason for the birds' decline, according to the authors, is a "mystery". But several theories to explain the losses have been put forward, and will now be investigated.

One explanation is tied to the changing conditions in Africa, where the birds winter.

"We know that agriculture has spread; we know there has been a long-term drought in the Sahel; and we know huge amounts of pesticides are used to control locust outbreaks,"

The swelling size of the Sahara may also be hampering the birds. Migrating birds face longer and longer non-stop flights across the desert.

Climate change has been highlighted as a potential culprit. Warmer springs in Europe are causing some insects to hatch earlier in the year, which means by the time the migratory birds arrive to breed and raise their young they may have missed their much-needed food-source.

"Migrants make up a high proportion of our species of birds, so this is a big conservation issue," said Dr Donald.

"But if you think that these are birds that cover vast areas of the Earth's land-surface - this consistent pattern of decline is indicative that there are some pretty severe environmental changes going on somewhere which might also have an impact on humans."

The authors conclude that urgent action is needed to uncover the cause of the decline.

"There is something about being a migrant that counts against them," said Dr Donald.

"These birds have been slipping away from under our noses for 30 years, and we've never has really noticed it before."

Update as of May 31st, 2006

The order by Sutton and East Surrey Water extends an existing hosepipe ban to add restrictions on sports grounds, parks, car washes and window cleaners.

Other water companies have been given permission to bring in further orders, but do not plan to use them yet.

Forecasters have said despite it having been the wettest May since 1983 it will do little to affect the dry conditions.

BBC meteorologist Jay Wynne said: "It's been wet in May but it's not going to have an impact on the current drought."

Mr Wynne said it would take a prolonged spell of above-average rainfall to make up for the 18 months of dry weather.

Mike Hegarty, director of operations at Sutton and East Surrey Water, said the recent rain would be largely soaked up by plant life that had endured several dry months beforehand.

"It is winter rainfall that matters to us," he said. "Spring, summer rainfall doesn't really affect the situation. It takes months and months to re-fill the aquifers."

The drought order affects both domestic and business properties in the South East.

The use of ornamental fountains and the filling of private swimming pools is banned, although customers can water their gardens with watering cans and wash cars using buckets.

Commercial car washes can continue to operate using recycled water, while window cleaners can use hosepipes not connected to the mains.

Mr Hegarty said the aim of banning non-essential water use was to "... take summer demand out of the equation".

"What we are showing here is that life can go on as normal," he said.

"It may be slightly inconvenient because you can't use a hosepipe, but normal day-to-day living can go on."

The Met Office's forecast raises doubts that enough rain will fall this summer to re-fill aquifers.

On its website, it says: "Prospects for rainfall across the UK through the summer months are also uncertain, but it is unlikely that rainfall will be sufficient to alleviate the water shortages affecting some regions."

Update as of May 30th, 2006

African Woman Dies Of Ebola After Flight To London
 By Stephen Moyes
 The Mirror - UK

        A woman who arrived in London on a flight from Africa yesterday is  reported to have died from the deadly and contagious ebola virus.

        Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old Briton. The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.

        Before boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow she visited a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms. She was allowed to fly, but during Flight VS602 to the UK she suffered a violent fit which left her unconscious. Cabin crew and passengers rushed to her aid but towards the end of the flight she began to vomiting.

        When the Airbus A340-600, carrying 267 passengers and crew, touchdown at Heathrow she was rushed to nearby Hillingdon Hospital, West London. Her symptoms matched those of the viral haemorraghing fever, ebola. The results of a post mortem are awaited.

        Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who came into contact with the woman have been told to monitor their health. One said: "We are now terrified what we may have caught."

        Deadly ebola is often characterised by the sudden onset of fever,
 intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.

Update as of May 29th, 2006

Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress
Rosalind Peterson
May 11, 2006
 
EXPERIMENTAL WEATHER MODIFICATION BILL FAST TRACKING FOR PASSAGE IN U.S. SENATE & HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


            U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track” to be passed in 2006. 


            This bill is designed to implement experimental weather modification. The appointed Board of Directors established by this bill does not include any agricultural, water, EPA, or public representatives, and has no provisions for Congressional, State, County, or public oversight of their actions or expenditures. 
 

            Weather Modification may adversely impact agricultural crops and water supplies.  If the weather is changed in one state, region or county it may have severe consequences in another region, state or county.  And who is going to decide the type of weather modification experimentation and who it will benefit or adversely impact? 
 

This experimental weather modification bill will impact residents across the United States not just in California.  Many current and ongoing weather modification programs (80 listed by NOAA in 2005), including the one in Wyoming that is designed to increase the snowpack, may be diverting rainwater away from Oklahoma and Texas, two states that are currently fighting fires caused by a lack of rainfall.  We have no idea what the unintended consequences of the Wyoming action or other experimental weather modification programs might be now or in the future. 


In addition to the experimental weather modification programs listed by NOAA, there are both private and ongoing government sponsored atmospheric testing and heating programs underway in Alaska and across the United States. Alaska Senator Stevens recently received $50 million in funding for Alaska’s atmospheric heating program.  
 

All of these unregulated, private, government, and public weather modification programs, may also have unintended synergistic effects.  Senate Bill 517 does not address these issues but intends to implement more experimental weather modification programs without a national debate or public oversight.


            Artificial weather modification can impact all of us by reducing water supplies, changing agricultural crop production cycles, reducing crop production, and water availability.  Since most experimental weather modification programs use chemicals released into the atmosphere the public could be subjected increasingly toxic or unknown substances that could adversely impact agricultural crops and trees.  


            Trimethyl Aluminum (TMA) and barium are just two of the toxic chemicals used in recent atmospheric heating and testing programs according to NASA.  The Alaska H.A.A.R.P. atmospheric heating program may have the capability of changing the Jet Stream which could also change our weather.
 

            Many private weather modification companies admit that precipitation effects may be positive or negative.  Fog dispersal programs, using dry ice, liquid nitrogen, liquid propane or silver iodide may improve visibility while adversely impacting Redwood Trees along the California coast by depriving them of needed water they derive from the fog.

 
            The increasing use of varied chemicals like aluminum (coupled with increasing air pollution), can severely impact tree health by depriving trees of water and nutrients normally absorbed through their root systems.  
 

The December 2005 Popular Science Magazine discussed a plan to use an oil slick to stop hurricanes without noting the adverse environmental impacts of the oil used to cover the ocean.

 
            Popular Science also noted that a private company, Dyn-O-Mat, plans to purchase jets to drop thousands of pounds of a water absorbing chemical powder (unknown substance), into hurricanes to absorb moisture that may dissipate hurricanes. There is no agriculture oversight or public hearings to determine the consequences of this and other actions or to monitor or prevent adverse impacts of this chemical once it falls on the surface of the ocean or on land.  

 
            Alaska and other areas across the United States are beginning to feel the impacts of climate change.  Enormous changes are being seen in the declining health of native plant and tree communities in many areas across the United States.
  

            NASA noted in an October 2005 newsletter that increasingly persistent contrails are “…trapping warmth in the atmosphere and exacerbating global warming…” NASA goes on to note that: “…Any increase in global cloud cover will contribute to long-term changes in Earth’s climate.  Likewise, any change in Earth’s climate may have effects on natural resources…”  


            Global dimming and the persistent contrails, that produce man-made clouds, may have serious impacts on crop production.  A recent corn crop study in Illinois shows that cloud cover reduces corn crop production while direct sunlight increases production.  In addition, increasing man-made clouds may reduce the effectiveness of solar panels.
 

Gil Smolin, an Avian Bird Flu expert, noted on the Ron Owens Show on KGO Radio (January 5, 2006), that the flu was spread more quickly in the winter when there was a “lack of sunlight”.  Would man-made clouds be contributing to the lack of sunlight which might cause the Avian Bird flu to spread more quickly at other times of the year?  Experimental weather modification programs could also exacerbate this problem by changing climate patterns, increasing man-made cloud cover, and changing our weather and climate patterns.


            Senate Bill 517 does not address any of these important issues.  Its sole purpose is to establish an experimental weather modification policy without any agriculture or public oversight of private, military, and government programs.  Without oversight or public hearings agriculture, our natural resources, and watersheds may be negatively impacted.  And who will be responsible to determine the synergistic effects of these programs or pay for unintended disasters created by this experimentation.  If these programs change growing seasons and interrupt the pollination process crop losses could be substantial exacerbating economic losses.

            Please contact all of your elected local, state and federal officials to stop this bill in its present form.  This bill needs to have appropriate agriculture and public oversight, with public hearings included, prior to any more experimental projects.  We need a national dialogue on this subject before more experimentation takes place.
 

Update as of May 28th, 2006

A comet is delighting astronomers with a marvellous night-time display as it makes a near pass of the Earth.

The ball of ice, rock and dust has broken up into more than 60 pieces; two of the larger fragments are visible through binoculars or small telescopes.

At its closest approach this weekend, the comet will be some 10 million km (six million miles) from the Earth.

Continued disintegration means this may be the last swing around the Sun for Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. \

Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, said the optimum time to see the comet in the UK was between 0000 and 0100 BST, away from the lights of the city.

He said observers should look East with binoculars and use a sky chart to get the best chance of a sighting.

It's a rare opportunity for members of the public to see what is a pretty dramatic phenomenon," he said.

"Watching a comet break up is not something the public gets to do that often."

Rapid demise

Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 was discovered in 1930 by German astronomers. It orbits the Sun every 5.4 years.

It has an elongated path that swings out towards Jupiter then back towards the Earth and the Sun.

All periodic comets like this one are doomed to disintegrate and die. Astronomers first noticed in 1995 that Comet 73P had split into several chunks.

When it moved back towards the Sun in March this year, seven fragments were observed, of which two - B and C - were particularly bright. The break-up has continued apace.

Fragments B and C are expected to be visible between 11 and 14 May with binoculars and perhaps even the unaided eye.

If they fall apart still further - ejecting light-reflective material from the heart of the comet - they will be a magnificent sight in the night sky.

Update as of May 27th, 2006

Relic of Ancient Asteroid found

By Rebecca Morelle
BBC News science reporter

A large fragment has been found of an asteroid that punched a 160km-wide (100 miles) hole in the Earth's surface.

The beachball-sized fossil meteorite was drilled out of South Africa's 145-million-year-old Morokweng crater.

It is a unique discovery because large objects are widely believed to completely melt or vaporise as they collide with the planet.

Writing in the journal Nature, an international team says the find will further knowledge on asteroid impacts.

The Morokweng crater is one of the largest on Earth, and was formed at the boundary of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Created by an asteroid measuring about 5-10km (3-6 miles) in diameter, the impact bowl lies hidden beneath the sand of the Kalahari Desert.

'Fiery furnace'

Scientists discovered the meteorite fossil by drilling bore holes into the impact melt - the area where the asteroid fused with the Earth - in the centre of the crater.

"At about 770m (2,500ft) down, we came across some dark blocks - one was about the size of a beachball - but we couldn't figure out what it was," said Dr Marco Andreoli, an author on the Nature paper and a geologist at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation and the University of Witwatersrand.

After chemical and mineral tests - which meant the material was cut up into smaller fragments - the scientists were astonished to find that the rock was a meteorite, a surviving relic from the collision.

When a large impactor strikes the Earth, a colossal amount of heat is produced; and the asteroid material is believed to vaporise or fuse with the surrounding rocks. A 10-km-diameter impactor is thought to generate temperatures of between 1,700-14,000C.

Consequently, scientists can only study these large impacts by looking at the chemical composition of material in the crater.

"What is amazing is that here we have these fragments - that may not have been attached to the asteroid, or maybe trailing behind it - that smashed into the Earth and survived the fiery furnace in the crater that formed; and then they got trapped," Dr Andreoli told the BBC News website.

"This is remarkable because this is something that people didn't think could happen."

New models

It meant, he said, that computer models of large impacts might now need to be revised, to take into account conditions where some of the asteroid material endures.

"Anything that helps scientists to model what happens when two bodies collide is good news."

Further investigation into the discovery has also revealed that the chemical composition of the space rock is slightly different to that of other meteorites that have been studied. It is a little more radioactive; there is more uranium, sodium, but less iron and nickel.

"All of our science of meteorites is based on meteorites that fell in the last few thousand years.

"But all of a sudden we can study a meteorite that fell 145 million years ago, and this opens the possibility that the nature of these impacting bodies has changed over the years," Dr Andreoli explained.

People in the UK can see fragments of the meteorite if they visit the Antenna Wing of London's Science Museum from Thursday.

Update as of May 26th, 2006

Venus probe makes science orbit

Since its arrival on 11 April, the Venus Express craft has been using its main engine and thrusters to tighten its loop around Earth's neighbour.

The probe's polar flight path now takes it 250km (160 miles) above the surface at its closest approach and 66,000km (41,300 miles) at its furthest.

Venus Express will begin its science investigations in early June.

"The spacecraft instruments are now being switched on one by one for detailed checking, which we will continue until mid May. Then we will operate them all together or in groups," Don McCoy, Venus Express project manager, said in a statement from the European Space Agency.

"This allows simultaneous observations of phenomena to be tested, to be ready when Venus Express' nominal science phase begins on 4 June 2006."

The spacecraft will orbit the planet for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which is thought to have undergone runaway greenhouse warming.

Venus' dense, largely carbon dioxide, atmosphere acts as a blanket, trapping incoming solar radiation to heat the surface to an average temperature of 467C (872F) - hot enough to melt lead.

Update as of May 25th, 2006

Dolphins 'have their own names'

The mammals are able to recognize themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities, using whistles.

St Andrews University researchers studying in Florida discovered bottlenose dolphins used names rather than sound to identify each other.

The three-year-study was funded by the Royal Society of London.

Dr Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Unit at St Andrews University, said they conducted the research on wild dolphins.

He said: "We captured wild dolphins using nets when they came near the shore. Then in the shallow water we recorded their whistles before synthesising them on a computer so that we had a computer voice of a dolphin. Then we played it back to the dolphins and we found they responded. This showed us that the dolphins know each other's signature whistle instead of just the voice.

"I think it is a very exciting discovery because it means that these animals have evolved the same abilities as humans. Now we know they have labels for each other like we do."

The research was conducted in Sarasota Bay off Florida's west coast. The findings are published in the US journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

from the BBC

Update as of May 24th, 2006

Four Million Infected With Hepatitis C In US

 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Findings from a nationwide study suggest that  4.1 million people in the US have been infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), and most of these individuals have chronic infection. However, the current rate of infection, 1.6 percent, is actually slightly lower than a decade ago when the rate was 1.8 percent.

 HCV, which attacks the liver, is typically spread through contact with contaminated blood products. Injection drug users are at particularly high  risk for picking up the virus. Chronic hepatitis C is the leading reason for liver transplantation and up to 5 percent of people with chronic disease will die.

The new findings are based on analysis of data for 15,079 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2002. In addition to answering detailed questions about their health and lifestyles, the subjects submitted blood samples for HCV testing and liver enzyme analysis.

The new findings build on those from the previous NHANES, conducted between 1988 and 1994, according to the report in the Annals of Internal  Medicine.

As noted, the rate of HCV infection was 1.6 percent, and 1.3 percent of all subjects had chronic HCV infection, lead author Dr. Gregory L. Armstrong, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues report.

 People in their 40s had the highest rate of infection -- 4.3 percent, the researchers point out. The biggest risk factor for HCV infection was injection drug use: nearly half of infected subjects between 20 and 59 years of age reported  injecting drugs. The majority of infection drug users said they had not used drugs for at least 1 year prior to being surveyed.

Blood transfusion before 1992 was also significant risk factors for HCV infection, as was having 20 or more lifetime sexual partners, the report indicates.

In a related commentary, Dr. Jules L. Dienstag, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, comments that "the new data build on those reported previously to paint a vivid portrait of hepatitis C in the US. A self-limited epidemic of injection drug use over several decades amplified the transmission of HCV, and we are now seeing the delayed, bitter harvest of chronic liver disease."

Update as of May 23rd, 2006

Mysteries under Moscow

By Andrei Ilnitsky

What is hidden under Moscow? This question has intrigued Vadim Mikhailov since he was a child in the early 1970s, when his father, who drove a train in the Moscow subway, first gave him a ride in the driver's cabin and showed him the network of Metro tunnels beneath the Russian capital. By the time he was 12, Mikhailov and his friends had begun making increasingly ambitious journeys beneath the city.

Discoveries began with the first expeditions. Through manholes and building basements the boys wriggled into labyrinths under the Russian capital. First, they explored the bomb shelters under Leningradsky Prospekt, then they came across an Academy of Oceanology warehouse. "Imagine walking along endless corridors," recalls Mikhailov, "something dripping from the ceiling, the uneven light of torches. And all of sudden you find yourself in a room full of tanks of formalin, containing various sea monsters."

They soon went deeper underground. According to Mikhailov there are about six levels under Moscow, and in some places as many as 12, including old sewer systems, fountain foundations, and sloping drainage tunnels entangled in the depths.

As they grew up, the explorers took their investigations more seriously, drawing maps of their routes, studying history books, and talking to elderly Muscovites about past uses of the underground. Their explorations of deserted shafts and water mains built during the reign of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century sparked a greater interest and enthusiasm for further expeditions.

"Ten to 15 years later we realized that we had investigated the entire level closest to the surface, comprising municipal public service tunnels. It was time to go down to deeper floors," recounts Mikhailov. In 1990, the underworld travelers formed a group called "Diggers of the Underground Planet," whose aim was to study the historical, ecological, and social aspects of the Moscow underground.

Criminal settlements

Trips under Moscow have grown riskier as people have settled on the levels nearest the surface. The underground shelters gypsies, spongers, political refugees, and professional hermits. These people usually enter the underground through the grates of heating and rubbish collecting systems.

According to the Diggers, the underground is also a refuge for former prisoners. It is against the law for ex-convicts to reside in the Russian capital, so those who do move to the city must find inconspicuous lodgings. Some settle in basements with good air-conditioning systems and two or three exits. Sometimes they gather in groups, living by "prison laws."

The underworld is not all rubbish, rats, and dampness. Some accommodations are well equipped--with radio, television, and heat. People cook food and bring up children. In the morning, breadwinners leave their homes through manholes to make a living.

"I know about 20 places where families who have lost their apartments now live. There are also so-called 'advantageous' closed accommodations, like boiler rooms that are from time to time visited by plumbers to check water mains--and to gather payment from the squatters. Some rather well-off people are among them," notes Mikhailov. Some underground residents seem to enjoy the way of life. The Diggers remember one professor who for some unknown reason lived with tramps and enjoyed a good reputation among them.

But underground communities are also a potential source of disease and a cradle of crime. In summer and winter, the usual seasons of migration into and out of the tunnels, alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes flourish in the "reverse world."

Three or four years ago the Diggers found their first corpse. Now horrible things like dismembered bodies can be found in sewers and drains. "In former times the public works department used to control these facilities," Mikhailov says. "But today the engineers--mainly women--are afraid to come down because there are a lot of strangers in the underground."

Mikhailov recalls that once they found the semi-decayed body of a tramp who had probably been killed in a fight. When the police came they took the body, then asked the Diggers to tell no one. With no name, no address, and no information to go on, the police consider such cases to be hopeless. The news rarely makes it into the press.

More recently, say the Diggers, the city government has begun paying more attention to the underground system. The police have reinforced their control over basements, and they now detain disheveled people--suspected of being tunnel-dwellers--while they check their registration documents. But this has not solved the problem.

Terrorism from below?

The Diggers believe the powerful and inaccessible Russian capital--with all its special security departments--is vulnerable from below. For example, it is easy to go beneath the Metro platforms and get into the "escalator park," where the mechanisms that drive the massive escalators are unprotected. One can cross the tunnels and get from one system into another. The Metro trunkways have already been damaged. And there is even access to the Kremlin from the main Metro lines.

The current city government is aware of the possibility of an undeclared "revolution" from below, and the problem of Metro security stays on the agenda at government meetings. But the Diggers consider the city's measures a drop in the ocean. More serious safety measures would require larger investments and a special staff. Neither is available.

The Diggers' concern has been heightened by sightings of groups of people dressed in camouflage uniforms. In a tunnel under the Centrobank building, the Diggers observed uniformed people in masks equipped with powerful halogen lamps. The Diggers were afraid to follow them lest they should come under fire. So far, security services have not taken the Diggers' reports of these sightings seriously.

Only once have the police responded to a report by Mikhailov. Under the Leningradsky Prospekt the Diggers noticed a detachment of uniformed men at work in a tunnel. The police sent two officers with machine guns to arrest the group, but all of them escaped. Upon investigating the site, the police found evidence of fresh digging. "Who these camouflaged people are," Mikhailov says, "I don't know. Evidently, neither do officials. As far as I know, we are the only researchers working under the city. But if another group or organization is also investigating the underground, who is it? It is neither a military nor a police force. All the state security services say they do not go down."

How serious is the threat of terrorism from below? The Diggers have written a memorandum detailing dozens of entries to closed facilities like bomb shelters and strategic command posts, together with possible combinations of terrorist actions. When the memorandum was submitted to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Moscow--the former KGB--the security bodies agreed to cooperate with the Diggers.

"The Diggers believe," says Mikhailov, "that regardless of barriers one can pass unnoticed under the ground. There should be a monitoring system established that could, to my mind, control such places as the Metro's ventilation shafts."

Mysterious labyrinths

Beneath the city are passageways, chambers of torture, and about 150 underground riverbeds lined with bricks and white stone. Studying the masonry and brickwork, the researchers found marks left by old stonemasons; they could even date, approximately, some of the drains.

Gruesome finds have also been made. While studying an old Moscow river, the Neglinka, the Diggers often came across human skulls. Similar findings were described by the Russian writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky, a pre-revolutionary explorer of Moscow. He wrote that long ago an owner of a criminal den built a tunnel leading to the underground waters. Inside the den was a pipe through which criminals threw out the corpses of those they had robbed and murdered. The Diggers made their way into one such tunnel and found among broken skulls a silver ring and a kisten, an ancient weapon similar to a large metal mace.

Mikhailov thinks there may be evidence of Stalin-era executions in some passages under the city. Under Solyanka Street, for example, there is a large inaccessible network of tunnels that may conceal a mass burial site. "But who would take responsibility for discovering it?" asks Mikhailov. Even in post-Soviet Russia, such a find would become a political issue.

Other Soviet secrets lie under Moscow, including a second ring of Metro lines built by Stalin on the outskirts of the city, but never used by the public. Muscovites speculate that the ring was employed by the military to shuttle bombs around the capital.

Under Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street the Diggers discovered a deserted laboratory with an old telephone, chemical-protection suits hanging on the walls, and old-fashioned respiration masks. The room appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry. In adjacent rooms there were huge flasks, and the floor was covered with crystals.

A 3,000-seat bunker located under the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is another unsolved mystery. (The cathedral was demolished by the Bolsheviks in the 1930s; it is now being rebuilt.) "We were not allowed to go there, although the cathedral dean asked us to take out a sealed container with communist slogans on it," says Mikhailov. The dean called it the "anti-capsule," in the same tone he would use to speak of the anti-Christ. Mikhailov would have liked to explore, but "officers from the Kremlin guard said that nothing under the church threatened the safety of the building, and so they did not allow us to go down."

Under the Skliffasovsky clinic the Diggers encountered people dressed in monk's robes, carrying torches around a strange-looking altar made of stone. They were performing some sort of service and singing. When they saw the Diggers, they hurriedly disappeared.

 The hidden library

Lately the Diggers have decided to search for the underground's greatest prize: the lost medieval library of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

In 1472, Ivan III married Princess Sofia Paleolog, a niece of the last Byzantine emperor. The bride brought a splendid dowry of invaluable books and scrolls from Byzantium.

To preserve her treasures from raids and fire, Sofia employed a famous Italian architect, Aristotle Fiorovanti, to build a library under the Kremlin. Today, the location of the library is covered by a veil of mystery and legend. Sofia's grandson, Ivan the Terrible, was said to have found the treasure. If so, he took the secret of its location to his grave. Napoleon; a Polish king, Sigizmund; and thousands of lesser-known people have since searched for the library.

One Russian academic wrote that the ancient manuscripts might be located somewhere on the second or third level beneath the Kremlin. He claimed that he could clearly see the library on a map shown to him in the 1980s by a former Kremlin commander, General Vedeneev. (These levels have been very poorly investigated.)

The last attempt to find the library was made by Nikita Khrushchev, who established a special search committee headed by a man named Tikhomirov. When Brezhnev came to power the committee was disbanded

According to Galina Lelyanova of the Phenomenon Press Center, a new committee has started to work. The committee's team includes scientists, historians, and archaeologists, but the committee has also recruited "vine walkers" and psychics to take part. The vine walkers claim they can detect gold, silver, and other metals using bioenergetic powers, and the psychics are on hand to insure the researchers' security by combating any "dark forces" that may be guarding the hidden cache. (Those who have searched for the library, the legend goes, have been prone to accidents, disease, or death.)

The Diggers also want to search for the library. "We believe that the library is still beneath Moscow, most likely in a chamber built in Egyptian style, and that it may be possible to find it as well as all the treasures the Terrible took at the Kazan seizure. The tsar hid those underground as well and they are waiting for their time to be discovered."

Tourist attraction

Last year, the Diggers registered the "Center of Underground Research" with the Moscow municipal government. The center has departments of security, ecology, and history; eventually an analytical and archive department will be added. Their activities have also acquired a commercial character. They have signed agreements with the Moscow government, the Vityaz organization, which represents veterans, and with other organizations interested in underground research. For the 850th anniversary of Moscow, to be celebrated this year, the Diggers plan to issue an underground map. City officials want to develop underground sightseeing tours.

The Diggers have organized two exhibitions on the Moscow underground: one in the main city administration building and another in the Ostrovsky house/museum. They plan eventually to exhibit their underground findings in their own building.

But the Diggers have not hurried to tell all they know about the underground world. They are now working on a series of TV shows that they say will deliver sensational news. The programs will air during the 850th anniversary celebration, allowing Muscovites to peer into the mysteries lurking beneath the old Russian capital.

Update as of May 22nd, 2006

CDC wants HIV tests for everyone

Testing for the AIDS virus could become part of routine physical exams for adults and teens if doctors follow new U.S. guidelines expected to be issued by this summer.

Federal health officials say they would like HIV testing to be as common as a cholesterol check.

The guidelines for routine testing would apply to every American ages 13 to 64, according to the proposed plan by the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention.

One-quarter of the 1 million Americans with the AIDS virus don't know they are infected, and that group is most responsible for HIV's spread, CDC officials said.

"We need to expand access to HIV testing dramatically by making it a routine part of medical care," said the agency's Dr. Kevin Fenton.

CDC officials presented the plans at a scientific conference in February. Last week, they said the guidelines should be released in June or July.

The recommendations are not legally binding, but they influence what doctors do and what health insurance programs cover.

Currently, the CDC recommends routine testing for those at high-risk for catching the virus, such as IV drug users and gay men, and for hospitals and certain other institutions serving areas where HIV is common. It also recommends testing for all pregnant women.

Under the new guidelines, patients would be tested for HIV as part of a standard battery of tests they receive when they go for urgent or emergency care, or even during a routine physical.

Patients would not get tested every year: Repeated, annual testing would only be recommended for those at high-risk.

There would be no consent form specifically for the HIV test; it would be covered in a clinic or hospital's standard care consent form. Patients would be allowed to decline the testing.

Standardizing HIV testing should reduce the stigma as well as transmission, CDC officials said. Nearly half of new HIV infections are discovered when doctors are trying to diagnose an illness in a patient who has come for care, they noted.

The American Medical Association supports the proposed recommendations, said Dr. Nancy Nielsen, a Buffalo, New York-based physician who is speaker of the AMA's House of Delegates.

Some doctor's offices will face challenges implementing the recommendations, she added. For example, they should not give a positive HIV test result over the phone and would have to provide or arrange for counseling.

But the benefits of reducing the spread of HIV far outweigh the logistical challenges, said Nielsen, an infectious disease specialist.

"I'm so happy the CDC is recommending this," she said. "HIV is an infectious disease and it should be treated like any other infectious disease. The fact that it has been treated so differently, I think, in some ways has contributed to the stigma."

Some patients' advocates have voiced concern that the recommendations do not include pre-test counseling and sufficient informed consent.

At many HIV testing sites, patients sit through a counseling session to explain the procedure before any blood is drawn. Many centers also require a patient to give "informed consent," indicating they understand the risks and benefits of the test.

The proposed recommendations do not require pre-test counseling in medical settings. They call for post-test counseling to be offered only to patients who test positive.

Pre-test counseling and informed consent ensure that patients are warned of possible mistakes in test results, said Catherine Christeller, executive director of the Chicago Women's AIDS Project.

They also can explain the implications of HIV testing, she added. For example, undocumented workers who test positive for the AIDS virus may be deported and need to understand that, Christeller said.

CDC officials say they understand advocates' concerns and are optimistic physicians will follow the recommendations carefully.

"Doctors should be explicit that 'You're going to be tested,"' said Dr. Tim Mastro, acting director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention.

Update as of May 21st, 2006

Pick Your Poison: Smog or Global Warming?
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

A study of the strange climate changes in the Indian Ocean has uncovered a frightening climatic dilemma: By cleaning up smog, we could accelerate global warming.

Extensive air monitoring with unmanned aircrafts along with satellite and sea surface temperature data are showing that the brown clouds of polluted air from India have been absorbing sunlight before it reaches the northern Indian Ocean surface -- thereby "masking" global warming there and causing the waters to cool. When the cooling effect is strong enough, it repels the Indian Monsoon, causing deadly droughts in the world’s most populated region.

Meanwhile in the equatorial and southern Indian Ocean, beyond the reach of the brown clouds, global warming has continued to heat up waters and strengthen the engine that creates the monsoon. The result is a growing seasonal temperature difference between the southern and northern Indian Ocean and an unpredictable climate situation that tends to shift between extremes. A report on the phenomenon appears in the current issue of the Journal of Climate.

"It’s not just the Indian Ocean," said atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego. "It’s happening globally."

The smokiest air is being pumped into the air mostly by less developed countries, where more people burn wood, dung and other soot-prone, low-temperature combustibles. The smoke particles -- called aerosols -- filter out five to 10 percent of the sunlight and halve the local surface effect of global warming, Ramanathan explained.

Aerosols survive only about a week or two in the air before they are rained out, but in that time they can travel far and have a powerful effect. Somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of global warming is thought to be masked by aerosols, said Ramanathan.

At the same time, industrialized nations have been pumping out more greenhouses gases into the atmosphere. These can survive for centuries and get evenly mixed throughout the atmosphere. The result is that the greenhouses have been steadily heating things up globally, while the aerosols have been cooling things regionally -- creating more potential for weather extremes.

Sun-blocking soot from Amazonia may play a similar regional role, along with smoke from central Africa that is often blown over the Atlantic, explains climate researcher William Collins of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Even in the northern hemisphere, there is still plenty of smog to go around.

"People tend to not understand that smog has a global effect," Collins told Discovery News. "The US is polluting Europe and China is polluting the US," he said, referring to how winds rapidly carry pollutants east around the northern hemisphere. "We’re exchanging aerosols with each other."

The ironic upshot, of course, is that regional efforts to make air less toxic could unleash the full warming effects of all those greenhouse gases. About the only way out of the dilemma is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is what many industrialized countries are trying to do.

"This whole drama is playing out on a miniature scale in the Indian Ocean," said Ramanathan.

Update as of May 20th, 2006

By David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writer

Child-protection workers are getting overwhelmed with paperwork requirements and climbing caseloads while programs that could help abused children have been cut statewide. Social services and police agencies sometimes battle over information about abused children, and victims keep dying with no explanation from a system meant to protect them.

"As I drive around Denver, I can't believe that some money can't be pulled from the road system to care for the kids," said Lois Romaine of Lutheran Family Services.

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