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WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. mercury exports to developing countries will be banned under a measure expected to be signed by President George Bush, backers say. Under the measure, which was passed by the U.S. Congress with bipartisan support, exports from the United States' mercury stockpile would be banned starting in 2013 and users will be required to store the toxic heavy metal permanently rather than shipping unused mercury overseas, The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. The bill's chief was sponsor Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who introduced the bill after the Tribune published a series...

Mercury, the smallest planet, bakes in the heat of the Sun, but it has water in some form. It has volcanoes. It appears to have an active magnetic field generated by a molten iron core. And it has shrunk more than scientists thought. Those are some of the findings gleaned from the flyby of NASA’s Messenger spacecraft in January, the first close-up look since Mariner 10 flew by three times in the 1970s. “After five months of analysis, we’ve got some fascinating new results, and some of them have resolved debates that are more than 30 years old that go...

First surprise from mission to Mercury: signs of water Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:43 PM By Kevin Mayhood THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Mercury facts Diameter: 3,032 miles Magnetic field: only rocky planet other than Earth with an active magnetic field Density: densest planet in solar system; 5.3 times denser than water Distance from sun: average of 36 million miles Distance from Earth: 50 million to 200 million miles Messenger facts Distance Messenger will travel: 4.9 billion miles as the spacecraft circles the sun 14 times before slowing enough to enter Mercury's orbit Size: 56 inches tall, 73 inches wide and 50...

Biblical Text-Writing May Have Poisoned Monks Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Damaged Skull June 27, 2008 -- Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury, which was used to formulate just one of their ink colors: red. The study, which will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also describes a previously undocumented disease, called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions. Additionally, the researchers found that mercury-containing medicine had been administered to 79 percent of the...

Researchers create mercury-absorbent container linings for broken CFLs Brown University engineering students Love Sarin (left) and Brian Lee display a nanoselenium-enriched cloth that can capture mercury vapor from broken compact fluorescent lamps. Brown has applied for federal patents covering the invention and plans soon to begin commercial negotiations. Credit: John Abromowski, Brown University With rising energy prices and greater concern over global warming, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are having a successful run. Sales of the curlicue, energy-sipping bulbs, which previously had languished since they were introduced in the United States in 1979, reached nearly 300 million last year. Experts expect...

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury. Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs. “We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented that compact fluorescent light bulbs are not safe to use in some locations, and cleanup of broken fixtures can involve cutting out sections of carpeting that are contaminated with mercury. Now a property manager that operates facilities in Washington and Idaho is telling tenants under a new program it will replace all bulbs with CFLs, without any warning about their dangers. A spokesman at Rockwood Lodge Apartments in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, told WND that the new program is moving forward, although it is not mandatory. The apartment spokesman referred WND to the company's...

Broken Compact Fluorescent Causes Mercury PoisoningJune 13, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: To Royse City, Texas. Jonathan, glad you called. Nice to have you here. CALLER: Yes, thank you. I admire you a lot, and I really love your program. RUSH: Thank you, sir, very, very, very, very much. CALLER: I just wanted to tell you about a little incident I had at work with these lightbulbs that all the Democrats and liberals are promoting saying they're better for everybody and -- RUSH: You're talking about the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. CALLER: That is correct. RUSH: What happened, were you mandated at...

Mercury in dental amalgams may pose health risks to children, fetuses and pregnant women, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning. The FDA issued a statement, on its website Wednesday, about the potential dangers of dental amalgams. As part of a legal settlement reached Monday, the federal agency has agreed to release a new ruling on the safety of dental amalgams in July 2009, and alert consumers about potential related hazards. Consumer advocacy groups, including Moms Against Mercury, called for a ban on the fillings in the U.S. "Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the...

Medicinal mercury in Medieval bones [June 1, 2008] The Middle Ages, often referred to as Medieval times, spanned a long period in history from the 5th to the 16th Centuries. During this time, European society and culture enjoyed many advances and it could be argued that the quality of life improved beyond recognition. One area which progressed steadily was medicine and the treatment of disease, although these days we would not touch some of the medicinal compounds with a bargepole, let alone administer them to patients. One substance in popular use was mercury, used variously in gilding of jewellery and...

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. -- It's a message being drummed into the heads of homeowners everywhere: Swap out those incandescent lights with longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs and cut your electric use. Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word. Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling -- despite what public officials and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash and end up in landfills and incinerators. For now, much of the nation has no real recycling network for CFLs, despite...

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) - Mercury discharges into the Detroit River are causing cancer, amount to "child abuse" and are damaging the quality of life in this border city, American environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. said Sunday.

The latest political crusade is the crusade to replace ordinary light bulbs with the new CFL light bulb that is supposed to save electricity, reducing the need for fossil fuels and helping the fight against global warming. Since crusaders seldom stop to weigh the cost of what they are advocating, it is especially important that the rest of us do so before we get swept along by rhetoric and emotions. With the CFL light bulb, the initial cost -- several times that of a regular light bulb -- is only the financial cost. A bigger problem is what to do...

Enlarge ImagePoisoned. The ice fields of the north (top) carry surprisingly high concentrations of mercury in their surface crystals (bottom).Credit: University of Michigan Deadly Frost in the Arctic By Phil BerardelliScienceNOW Daily News25 February 2008The shimmering ice crystals spread across the Arctic landscape may look beautiful, but new research reveals that they carry an ugly secret: They contain surprisingly high concentrations of mercury, even when mercury is almost totally absent in the atmosphere. The researchers who made the discovery hope their findings will encourage stricter standards on mercury emissions that drift north. The form of mercury that emanates from...

The speeding freight train carrying toxic waste liability for makers, sellers and purchasers of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, was only faintly audible in the distance last spring when this column first warned of it. Now we’re beginning to see that environmentalist-stoked train speed toward its victims, whom President Bush and Congress just finished tying to the tracks. CFLs and all other fluorescent lightbulbs require special clean-up and disposal procedures because they contain small amounts of mercury, which is neurotoxic at sufficiently high exposures. For example, you’re not supposed to vacuum breakage or toss used bulbs in household trash. Despite...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court today struck down a market-based effort by the Bush administration to regulate emissions of mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, agreeing with critics that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act when it established the rule. A coalition of environmental groups and 17 states, California among them, challenged the policy, which was slated to take effect in 2010. The EPA had planned to establish a mandatory national cap on mercury emissions and then allow power plants that fail to meet their targets to buy credits from less-polluting plants. Environmentalists have...

A whole new side of Mercury has been revealed in pictures taken by NASA's MESSENGER probe, which flew by the tiny planet two weeks ago in the first mission to Mercury in more than three decades. MESSENGER skimmed only 124 miles (200 kilometers) over Mercury's surface on Jan. 14, in the first of three passes it will make before settling into orbit March 18, 2011. The photos, released today, include one of a feature the scientists informally call "the spider," which appears to be an impact crater surrounded by more than 50 cracks in the surface radiating from its center....

The ABC network said on Monday it will go ahead with plans to air an episode of its new legal drama "Eli Stone" despite objections from pediatricians who say the show may discourage parents from having their children immunized. The debut episode features the show's title character and hero, a trial lawyer for big corporations who decides to fight for the little guy, convincing a jury that a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused a child's autism. On the show, a jury awards the boy's mother $5.2 million in damages after it is revealed the CEO of the vaccine maker...

WASHINGTON - The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider. Some of the 1,213 photos taken by NASA's Messenger probe and unveiled Wednesday help support the case that ancient volcanoes dot Mercury and that it is shrinking as it gets older, forming wrinkle-like ridges. But other images are surprising and puzzling. The spidery shape captured in a photo is "unlike anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system," said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of...

Dramatic new pictures have revealed the unseen side of Mercury in detailed images taken from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the planet. Astronomers saw firsthand the clear image of the Skull & Cross Bones of Mercury, a sure sign that Space Pirates have been to the planet closest to the Sun. "It all makes sense," says one astronomer, asking not to be named. "Mercury is poisonous, and the symbol represents poison. Mercury is known as Quicksilver, and Long John Silver was a pirate. Pirates wanted pieces of eight, and there are eight planets." The Space Pirates obviously didn't recognize Pluto as...

Scientists are sifting through their first new views of the planet Mercury in more than three decades thanks to images beamed home by NASA's MESSENGER probe. The car-sized spacecraft zipped past Mercury in a Monday flyby and is relaying more than 1,200 new images and other data back to eager scientists on Earth. "Now it's time for the scientific payoff," MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told SPACE.com after the flyby. "It's just a complete mix of results that we're going to get." In one new image, released today, the planet's stark surface is shown...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's Messenger spacecraft sped within 124 miles of Mercury on Monday, putting it on a course that will have it orbiting the solar system's innermost planet in three more years. It was the first visit by a spacecraft to Mercury in three decades. The closest approach occurred a little after 2 p.m.; it took about 10 minutes for the radio signals to reach flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., who confirmed everything had gone according to plan. "I haven't seen so many smiles around this place for a long...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A NASA probe next week will become the first spacecraft in 33 years to fly by Mercury, a sojourn scientists hope will unlock the secrets of the small sun-baked planet. NASA's car-sized MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to zip about 124 miles above the cratered, rocky surface of the closest planet to the sun on Monday, part of a mission designed to place it into orbit around Mercury in 2011. "I think we're in for some big surprises," Faith Vilas, one of the scientists involved in the mission, told reporters during a conference call on Thursday. "You know...

Researchers at the California Department of Public Health said autism rates in that state have continued to rise despite the removal of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal from most childhood vaccines.The research, which is being published in this month's Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at autism rates of children ages 3 to 12 from 1995 through March 2007 who had active cases with the department, or those who were receiving services from the state for an autism disorder. In 1999 federal health officials recommended the elimination of thimerosal from children's vaccines on concerns about a possible link to rising autism rates...

LOS ANGELES, (AP) -- Autism cases in California continued to climb even after a mercury-based vaccine preservative that some people blame for the neurological disorder was removed from routine childhood shots, a new study found. Researchers from the state Department of Public Health found the autism rate in children rose continuously during the 12-year study period from 1995 to 2007. The preservative thimerosal hasn't been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, but is used in some flu shots. Doctors say the latest study adds to existing evidence refuting a link between thimerosal exposure and autism risk and should reassure parents...

OSLO, Norway, Jan. 3 -- Norway recently announced a ban on the use of mercury, including dental amalgam, that took effect on January 1, 2008. Sweden announced a similar ban and dentists in Denmark will no longer be allowed to use mercury in fillings after April 1, 2008. "These bans clearly indicate that amalgam is no longer needed. There are viable non-mercury filling substitutes that are used everyday in the US," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "By eliminating amalgam use, which is 50% mercury, we can reduce mercury pollution much more efficiently than end-of-the-pipeline solutions." In...

Link only - The story...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The quest for thicker lashes and defined eyes should get safer in Minnesota on Jan. 1, when a state law banning mercury from mascara, eye liners and skin-lightening creams takes effect. Minnesota apparently is the first state in the nation to ban intentionally added mercury in cosmetics, giving it a tougher standard than the federal government. Retailers who knowingly sell mercury-containing cosmetics in Minnesota could face fines of as much as $700. Penalties could reach $10,000 for manufacturers who fail to disclose mercury on product labels, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. "Mercury does cause...

A BP refinery in Indiana will be allowed to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan under a permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great Lakes to 1.3 ounces per year.

"The crux of this issue is the purposeful poisoning of foodstuffs distributed by a military commissary and the only question at this point is whether this represents the first attack on the food supply that deliberately targeted military personnel and their families." Heminger told WND his granddaughter actually noticed the contamination, and if she actually ingested any of the substance that is considered a neurotoxin, she hasn't exhibited any symptoms. "I was concerned because I had never seen drops of mercury in the bottom of a kid's bowl of food," Heminger said. The ground beef had been purchased at a...

Few substances on Earth are stranger. It shines like a mirror, conducts electricity and is as much of a metal as copper or iron. ~~~snip~~~ And now Brussels is banning it. Of course, not even the European Commission has the power to ban a chemical element, but what they have done is forbidden its use in traditionally made scientific instruments on health and safety and environmental grounds. Britain's traditional barometer makers now face closure, effectively bringing to an end more than 350 years of a unique craft. Mercury thermometers - every mother's godsend - are similarly under threat. ~~~snip~~~

DALLAS -- TXU Corporation announced it will add systems designed to reduce emissions of mercury from its coal-fired power plants. The company says it's the country's largest voluntary program to reduce mercury pollution emissions. TXU is scheduled to ask state regulators on Wednesday to approve a new coal-fired plant that's opposed by many environmentalists. TXU was joined in its announcement by private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific Group. The two are trying to close their $32 billion purchase of TXU. Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy says TXU is making a significant commitment to cleaner air ahead of new...

Using a fancy version of a common chef's trick, scientists have discovered that Mercury's core may be partially molten, making it a little more Earth-like than once thought... "That is a surprise in the sense that Mercury is so small that most researchers had expected it to have cooled off and solidified by now. The molten core indicates otherwise," Margot said in a telephone interview. For a long time, scientists had thought Mercury's core was made of solid iron. But NASA's Mariner 10 mission in 1974 discovered that the planet has a weak magnetic field, something that may be associated...

Walter Marty (Wally) Schirra Jr American Pilot Astronaut. Born 12 March 1923. Member of first crew to rendezvous in space. Personal: Male, Married, Two children. Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA. Astronaut Career Astronaut Group: NASA Group 1 - 1959. Inactive Entered space service: 2 April 1959. Left space service: 1969. Number of Flights: 3.00. Total Time: 12.30 days. NAME: Walter M. Schirra BIRTHPLACE AND DATE: Schirra was born in Hackensack, NJ, on March 12, 1923. EDUCATION: Graduated United States Naval Academy in 1945 EXPERIENCE: Schirra received his Naval Flight Training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida, in 1947....

Clean Harbors gave Bridges a low-ball estimate of $2,000, based on what she described, to clean up the room properly. The work entailed removing anything with Mercury levels greater than 300 ng/m3, including the carpeting...... PROSPECT — It was just like any other Tuesday. On March 13, Brandy Bridges was installing some of the two dozen CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs she had purchased in an attempt to save money on her energy bill. One month later, though, Bridges is paying much more than she had ever expected to. On that Tuesday, Bridges was installing one of the spiral-shaped light...

World on alert over toxic mercury in food chain By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 2:12am GMT 09/03/2007 A worldwide alert about rising levels of toxic mercury in the food chain is issued today by scientists. Fish concentrate harmful mercury in their bodies The risks posed by mercury-contaminated fish are now big enough to trigger a warning to the public to be careful about how much and which fish they eat. Children and women of childbearing age should take particular care, they say. Fish and shellfish have a natural tendency to concentrate mercury in their bodies, often in the...

LOS ANGELES - A man who was caught on a subway surveillance video spilling mercury on a downtown station platform was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to stay away from the area’s mass transit facilities. Armando Bustamante Miranda, 27, pleaded no contest Wednesday to releasing an offensive or harmful substance in a public area, said Patty Bilgin, supervisor of the City Attorney’s Environmental Justice and Protection Section. In addition to the nearly three-month jail term, he was ordered to serve three years probation, she said.

Norway -- A German submarine that was sunk off Norway at the end of World War II will be buried in special sand to protect the coastline from its cargo of toxic mercury, the government announced Tuesday. The U-864 submarine, which was found by the Royal Norwegian Navy in March 2003, is believed to have about 70 tons of mercury on board. Despite demands from local villagers to remove the mercury, Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Dag Terje Andersen said the government was following expert recommendations to instead bury the sub in sand and stone.

Who is the young man in the sport coat shown on a grainy MTA videotape pouring mercury on the ground of the Red Line subway station at Pershing Square? When it happened, officials quickly labeled it a harmless accident. But now, the county's joint terrorism task force has launched an investigation and is trying to find the man. While officials say the whole thing could still be an accident, they said after reviewing peculiar behavior on the tape, a closer look is warranted. The man is shown talking to a second person about 10:45 p.m. on Dec. 22 before crouching...

OSLO -- More than 60 years after being torpedoed by the British navy, a Nazi submarine built to threaten allied ships continues to spread fear off the coast of Norway. The rusting wreckage of the U-864, sunk in a desperate mission to supply Japan with advanced weapons technology, now poses a major environmental threat due to its poisonous cargo: 70 tons of mercury. Residents on the tiny island of Fedje, located in the North Sea on roughly the same latitude as Scotland's Shetland Islands, want the sub removed. But authorities fear a salvage operation could result in a catastrophic spill,...

DEARBORN, Mich. - Sometime next week, the assembly line at a Ford plant near Atlanta will come to a halt, signaling the end of a family sedan so revolutionary that its 1985 debut changed forever the way cars look, feel and drive. ADVERTISEMENT Say goodbye to the Taurus. After 21 years and sales of nearly 7 million cars, Ford Motor Co. is giving up on what some call the most influential automobile since Henry Ford's Model T. The Taurus is credited with moving America away from boxy V-8 powered gas-guzzling bedrooms-on-wheels to aerodynamic, more efficient cars with crisper handling. To...

Mercury Computer Systems will help will design a system for soldiers in the battlefield utilizing gaming and artificial intelligence technologies, a Mercury executive said Thursday. The project is the latest to tout alternate uses for the Cell Broadband Engine processor, originally developed by Sony and IBM for use in the PlayStation3 console. Working with visualization experts Barco Federal Systems and the Ft. Huachuca Battle Lab in Arizona, Mercury, based in Chelmsford, Mass., will help create a computer system that will give fighters such as soldiers, pilots, and seamen better ways to sense and interpret data—and to act on it. The...

The phone call came on a sticky afternoon, before 4:30 on July 28, as parents picked up babies and children at Kiddie Kollege and headed home. No one suspected - least of all Becky Baughman, the pregnant owner - that this would be the last day at the once-cheery, cartoon-clad day-care center in Franklinville. No one knew that the sleeping bags and blankies the parents were carting home might be saturated with poisonous mercury vapors. The caller was Tom Cozzi, a state Department of Environmental Protection official, and he urged Baughman to shut the day-care center. Immediately. After weeks of...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials are again examining what's known - and what's still to be learned - about the safety of a mercury mixture that's stirred controversy since dentists began using it to fill cavities in the 1800s. A joint panel of outside experts voted Thursday to reject a draft report that concluded that dental fillings used by millions of people are safe. Yet the panel did not go so far as to declare the mercury-laden amalgam a danger, only that more study is needed because of the risk it poses to some groups. "For the general...

Former President Clinton To Receive The First Ever Presidential Hybrid Car - BELATED BARF ALERT!!! Ford Motor Company just announced today the delivery of a Mercury Mariner Hybrid "Presidential Edition" to former President Bill Clinton. This marks the first hybrid vehilce to be outfitteed for presidential service. The car will be formally accepted by the former President himself at a Global Initiative conference set for September 20-22nd in New York City. It's no secret that President Clinton is a strong advocate of issues such as alternative energy and climate change. Earlier this month he announced the formation of the Clinton...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S. guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday. Mercury can be worn in amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to the EPA's inspector general. Some practitioners believe that the mercury, which forms tiny droplets in liquid form, can attract love, luck or riches, and even ward...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S. guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday. Mercury can be worn in amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to the EPA's inspector general.

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., Aug. 14 — On a recent cloudless afternoon, Croton Point Park seemed to be a fishing paradise. The tide was low; the breeze was soft. Families picnicked and people stood along the shore with fishing rods, casting out into the Hudson in hopes of catching and carrying away one of the river’s coveted bluefish or striped bass. The only problem — though it was invisible — was in the fish themselves. “We’ve been coming here to get our fish for many years, and it’s been great,” said Miguel Tejada, holding a sleek fishing rod in his hands as...

In what is being described as one of its biggest and most strategic acquisitions ever, HP has agreed to pay US$4.5 billion for applications management software vendor Mercury Interactive. HP had previously been in a hotly contested bidding war for the company with storage vendor EMC. The move comes with a few major risks. It is HP's biggest ever move into the software space, where well-established software players, such as IBM, Oracle and Microsoft are already competing. The integration of Mercury into HP's business will be another mammoth project, like Compaq four years earlier. Finally, Mercury is involved in a...