The Code Word is ‘Green’

The Central Intelligence Agency is going green, making its new campus facilities more energy-efficient, aesthetically-pleasing and carpooler-friendly.

Among other things, the building will have a “green roof,”–literally and figuratively–with about 22,000 square feet of vegetation on it, which helps buildings use less energy for heating and cooling. (Talk about an interesting place for a rooftop garden.)

Other energy-saving features will include occupancy sensors and energy-efficient appliances and equipment.

Don’t Drink the Hot Water

I’ve heard that drinking hot water from the tap is bad for you. Now the NY Times has reported it. So it must be true, right?

Vegan Testing in the Future?

Now that Europe is on the verge of banning cosmetics testing on animals, companies are making greater efforts to come up with alternatives to using lab animals to test products like cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

One thing they’re working on is a chip that mimics human reactions to substances. While they don’t expect the chip to replace test animals, they expect it will save many of them from becoming test subjects.

That’s making progress, anyway.

Hopeful News for Dystonia Sufferers

It about thrilled me to read that there’s a company out there with the mission of finding alternatives to the current treatments for dystonia.

Dr. Ross Hoffman of Grand Junction, Colo. (who left a very nice comment on my previous post concerning some alleged risks of Botox and Myobloc) is a cardiologist who is dissatisfied with the current state of medical treatment for dystonia and unhappy that more people aren’t aware of the disorder.

So he’s started a company, Neuroquest Therapeutics, with the following vision statement: “The vision of Neuroquest Therapeutics is the realization of effective therapies and ultimately a cure for all movement disorders.”

With his business plan already developed, Hoffman just needs one thing: money. Fifteen million dollars, to be exact.

Venture capitalists and private funders, I hope you’re reading this.

From Sewage to Drinking Water

It’s no joke. Water must really be getting scarce out West, to have them looking at solutions like this one.

According to this, Orange County has started up a reclamation plant that will take treated sewage and purify it to the point where it’s “as clean as distilled water and so pure that lime has to be added to it to keep it from leaching minerals out of concrete pipes, thus weakening them.”

Sounds tasty.

Thumbing Your Way to the Bestseller List?

Even if my left hand weren’t totally screwed up, I couldn’t begin to imagine texting an entire novel on a cellphone.

I will leave this pursuit to the young and dexterous.

Not Happy News for Dystonia Sufferers

It’s bad enough getting treated for dystonia with injections of botulinum toxin. It doesn’t help at all to hear news like this.

Someone really needs to be working on other non-invasive ways to treat dystonia, or better yet, a cure. Sixteen deaths from BT are 16 too many.

EPA Admin Rejects Staff Advice; States Not Happy

U.S. EPA staff told Administrator Stephen Johnson that California had “compelling and extraordinary conditions” to justify a federal waiver letting the state impose its own requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. However, Johnson denied the waiver request anyway, essentially saying the state hadn’t met that criterion.

Some state governors and U.S. senators have criticized Johnson’s decision.

Simon Says

Jack Shafer notes for Slate that David Simon has had his say about the newspaper business (vented “fire-ant fury” against the “suits” that have taken it over) in all sorts of major publications and provides links to them in his article. But Shafer begs to differ with Simon on a few points, observing that newspapers began their financial slide long before the Internet and “[n]ot even a newspaper can repeal the laws of economics.”

The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

Just in the last year, wind power usage has grown 45 percent in the U.S. That’s the biggest hike since the 1980s, and it’s due to a federal tax credit, an increase in state renewable energy mandates and global warming concerns, the American Wind Energy Association said Thursday.

Right now, wind generates more than 1% of U.S. electricity (far more than solar or biomass energy resources), according to the AWEA. By 2020, the group believes wind could provide 20% of U.S. power.