briefs, health ‘ science

WASHINGTON (MCT) – Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen Johnson was told by… WASHINGTON (MCT) – Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen Johnson was told by staffers that California had a compelling case for the federal Clean Air Act waiver that he later denied and that the agency was likely to lose in court if sued, Sen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar didn’t dispute Boxer’s conclusions, based on a Senate committee investigation.

“Her staff has been shown all the information unfiltered,” Shradar said. “What this shows is that the administrator was provided a wide range of opinions upon which to make his decision. He feels he made the right decision.”

Johnson’s denial of the waiver stopped California from moving ahead with its tough laws to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks. Sixteen other states were prepared to follow California’s lead had the waiver been issued.

Boxer, D-Calif., heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which is investigating the EPA’s rejection of the waiver. Under the Clean Air Act, California is the only state that can obtain a waiver allowing it to have tougher emission standards than those imposed by the federal government. But once the waiver is granted, other states can adopt similar rules.

Boxer said in a statement that she’ll closely question Johnson about his decision when her committee holds a hearing Thursday on the waiver denial.

Johnson denied California’s request in December, saying there was nothing unique about its situation that supported issuance of a waiver. A briefing document prepared for Johnson was handed over last week to Boxer’s investigators, but virtually all of the text was redacted. -By David Whitney, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) -The rate of ice loss on the Antarctic continent has increased by 75 percent during the past decade – but not because the continental ice is melting.

Instead, a new study by a University of California at Irvine researcher says warmer ocean temperatures around Antarctica, likely abetted by shifting currents, are causing ice to flow more quickly to the ocean from the continent’s interior.

The study, the product of 14 years of precision radar mapping over a far larger area than any previous effort, reveals the intricate webbing of the continents’ glaciers, rivers of ice that are slowly but relentlessly thrusting themselves into surrounding seas.

It also shows that the effects of global warming aren’t always straightforward.

“Most of Antarctica is still cold,” said glaciologist Eric Rignot, the study’s lead author who recently joined a group of climate researchers at UC Irvine. “It’s not showing any signs of warming. The interior is slightly cooler.”

He said scientists have found no evidence of large-scale melting on the continent itself.

Once the glacial ice leaves the continental land mass and pushes its way into ocean water, however, the tongues of ice begin to melt from the bottom up.

“When the ice enters into contact with the ocean around the periphery of Antarctica, there’s a lot of melt from underneath the ocean,” Rignot said.

That, in turn, causes the glacial ice to move faster.

“The floating sections act as plugs on the upper part of the glacier,” he said. “If you remove the floating sections, the glaciers feel it and speed up.”

While other studies have shown that the ocean warming around Antarctica is likely linked to climate change, Rignot’s study reveals the complex mechanisms behind a significant loss of Antarctic ice – almost a kind of domino effect. -By Pat Brennan, The Orange County Register

SAN JOSE, Calif. (MCT) – Adding to the eternal debate over what pregnant women may safely eat and drink, a new Kaiser Permanente study suggests that high doses of caffeine may double the rate of miscarriage.

Doctors generally urge pregnant women to limit their caffeine consumption to no more than one or two small cups of coffee daily.

Research on the overall effects of caffeine on miscarriage or premature birth remain inconclusive, although studies have shown that high levels of caffeine appear to be harmful, a finding echoed in the Kaiser study.

For the study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kaiser researchers evaluated a group of 1,063 women early in their pregnancies.

The women provided a detailed account of their caffeine consumption and how they may have changed their habits after learning they were pregnant. The women also were asked about other factors that may affect miscarriage risk, such as smoking, alcohol consumption and nausea.

Of the 1,063 women in the study, 172 miscarried. About 12 percent of the women who did not use caffeine at all miscarried, compared to about 25 percent of the women who drank more than 200 milligrams of caffeine daily. (There was no statistically significant difference between the women who drank between zero to 200 milligrams of caffeine daily and those who consumed nothing.)

The researchers focused on women who never changed their caffeine habits after pregnancy. Previous studies have been criticized for failing to account for the fact that women with nausea tend to avoid coffee, while women without nausea – itself a risk factor – do not. Caffeine’s apparently harmful effects persisted even after the researchers controlled for age, smoking and other factors. -By Barbara Feder Ostrov, San Jose Mercury News

(MCT) – Their timing was impeccable. When Andrew Mangino, the student editor of the Yale Daily News, and Alexander Heffner, a high school student at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., met while working on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s re-election campaign in New York, they sowed the seeds of an idea that over time could change the landscape of election coverage in the United States – an online newspaper staffed by students around the country putting a youthful spin on the 2008 presidential race.

Out of the mouths of babes (relatively speaking) would come comprehensive coverage, commentary, analysis and opinion about a ground-breaking election involving the most diverse field of candidates in American history.

Scoop08 (www.scoop08.com) was launched Nov. 4 and has more than 400 high school and university student contributors – editors and reporters – making it one of the biggest news gathering organizations of any kind. And although Mangino and Heffner worked for the Clinton Senate campaign, this is a bipartisan venture in which every political point of view is represented and minor party candidates get the kind of in-depth attention not afforded by traditional print and broadcast media.

In other words, this is not your father’s newspaper.

“It’s an incredible year to be doing this,” says Heffner, 17, who, besides being co-founder of Scoop08, is general manager of the Phillips Academy radio station and a full-time student. “We’ve had waves of enthusiasm that have enabled us to connect to young people. We’re talking new and fresh angles.” -By Pete Alfano, McClatchy Newspapers