ECOLOGY

SURF'S UP; SO IS POLLUTION

HUGO MARTIN, LA TIMES - In Southern California, surfing can be a contact
sport. Paddle out of almost any beach and there's a chance you'll come
in contact with a sewage spill, big-city runoff, a red tide or,
sometimes, floating cattle. The 2-million-gallon sewage spill that
closed an 11-mile stretch of South Bay beaches earlier this month was
the latest blow to the local surfing scene. The seepage came a few
months after the environmental group Heal the Bay reported that L.A.
County beaches last summer had the worst water quality in five years.
The main ingredient of the pollution: fecal bacteria.

But some surfers can't keep their feet on dry land when great waves kick
up. To the more common surfing perils of wipeouts and face plants, they
add the risk of liver damage, diarrhea and eye infections. . .

Public health officials don't keep track of the number of Southern
Californians who become ill from swimming or surfing in the ocean. But
lifeguards suspect that number is on the rise based on the legions of
surfers they see ignoring beach closure signs and venturing into the
waves shortly after a rainstorm.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-surf30jan30,0,6678989.story?
coll=la-home-health

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SEGWAY CREATOR LOOKING TO BRING WATER AND ELECTRICITY TO WORLD'S POOR

BUSINESS 2. 0 - Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is
puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people
in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated
1.6 billion don't have electricity. Those figures add up to a big
problem for the world—and an equally big opportunity for entrepreneurs.
To solve the problem, he's invented two devices, each about the size of
a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in
rural villages.

"Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if
you just gave people clean water," says Kamen. "The water purifier makes
1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it.
And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns." .
. .

The electric generator is powered by an easily-obtained local fuel: cow
dung. Each machine continuously outputs a kilowatt of electricity. That
may not sound like much, but it is enough to light 70 energy-efficient
bulbs. As Kamen puts it, "If you judiciously use a kilowatt, each
villager can have a nighttime."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/16/technology/business2_futureboy0216/index.htm