Based upon a study of 94-million-year-old fossils, Earth is headed for a mass extinction of species within the next 50 to 100 years, a researcher suggested at the December meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
“The current rate of loss is 300 species per day with 5 to 10 of these large species,” Erle G. Kauffman, a visiting professor of geology at Pennsylvania State University, told the gathering. “This rate of biodiversity loss equals or exceeds past mass extinctions and, just as in the past, tropical ecosystems are the first to go.
“We can see from the fossil record that we are in an early and highly accelerated stage of a biodiversity crisis and we will shortly reach mass extinction levels. If this extinction behaves like others in the gological record, we won’t experience ecosystem recovery for 1 to 10 million years, especially in the tropics.”
ASHES MAY BE TURNED INTO BUILDING MATERIAL
The heavy metals such as lead and cadmium that are left in the ash after garbage is burned pose a disposal problem that may have been solved by scientists who propose turning it into a sturdy building material.
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have found they can mix the noxious ash with magnesium oxide and phosphoric acid to produce a cement-like paste that can be poured and shaped, much like concrete.
“It dries and becomes hard in about 30 minutes, forming a dense ceramic,” said Arun S. Wagh, an Argonne chemist. “The end product is a very dense material, not at all porous, making it stronger than concrete.”
MALNUTRITION FOUND IN GREENEST ETHIOPIA
To most people, including policymakers, the solution to malnutrition is clear: Get more food. But the reality isn’t nearly so simple, researchers find.
Analysis of conditions in Ethiopia by Cornell University scientists found that chronic malnutrition was just as big a problem in parts of the country where food was plentiful as in regions where food was scarce.
“Policymakers were astounded and skeptical when we reported high malnutrition even in the greenest regions of Ethiopia,” said David Pelletier, an associate professor of nutrition policy at Cornell. “The food bias view of malnutrition is common among policymakers in many countries.”
Children can be malnourished even in the midst of plenty when their mothers don’t take the time to feed them often enough or to prepare nutritious food, Pelletier said. Often, mothers who neglect feeding children do so because they are so busy working in fields tending crops, researchers found.
“At least half of the most `food secure’ households studied suffer from chronic malnutrition,” Pelletier said. “Such findings are not unique to Ethiopia.”
The Cornell research was presented to Ethiopian authorities and will be published in the journal Food Policy in 1995.
BLOOD SUBSTITUTE SHOWS PROMISE IN LAB
Finding an artificial substitute for human blood is the goal of several research groups around the world, because a disease-free, inexpensive product with a long shelf life would find a welcome market.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign bring a novel approach to this task. They fire beams of ultrasound waves at a water solution containing hemoglobin, the protein pigment of red blood cells.
These ultrasound waves create a froth in the solution and generate heat. The end result is tiny bubbles made from hemoglobin molecules. These microbubbles are about half the size of red blood cells and they carry about 50 percent more oxygen than the same volume of whole blood, said Kenneth S. Suslick, a University of Illinois chemist.
Lab tests of the blood substitute are encouraging, Suslick said, but tests in animals are still to be done.
OBESITY IN BLACK WOMEN RAISES HEART TROUBLE RISK
Black women have a much higher rate of heart disease than white women and the main reason appears to be the greater proportion of obese black women, a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine study has found.
A nationwide survey of mothers and daughters showed that 23 percent of 580 black mothers were overweight as were 29 percent of their daughters, epidemiologist John A. Morrison reported in the American Journal of Public Health. Only 9 percent of the white mothers were obese and 21 percent of their daughters were overweight.
Obese women had increased risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels and low levels of HDL, the cholesterol thought to protect against heart disease, he said.
POOR NUTRITION LINKED TO AILMENTS IN ELDERLY
Poor nutrition is common among the elderly and may be contributing to preventable illness, according to a study by Boston University Medical Center public health experts.
Of 1,156 elderly people surveyed in 67 urban and rural New England areas, more than half had bad diets, Barbara Millen Posner reported in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
More than 40 percent were overweight and many had potentially dangerous cholesterol levels, she said. Sixteen percent were underweight and had inadequate calcium intake. Nearly one out of three consumed inadequate levels of three or more important nutrients.
“Proper nutrition may mitigate existing health problems, enhance the management of many chronic conditions, prevent adverse complicatons of acute and chronic illnesses, acclerate wound healing and recovery from trauma, improve functional capacity and extend years of healthy living,” Posner said.
COSTLY HEART DISEASE TEST MAY NOT BE WORTH IT
Treadmill tests, which Medicare reimburses at $89 each, were just as effective in identifying severe heart disease in patients as nuclear thallium 201 imaging, which Medicare pays $700 for, Mayo Clinic researchers report.
In a study of 411 patients, the Mayo scientists found that the more expensive test was only 3 percent better at detecting heart disease, Dr. Timothy Christian reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Based upon 1992 Medicare data, an estimated $30 million could be saved annually by using the treadmill test, he said.
