The full blaze of the midday sun shone down on Dodger Stadium, and heat waves danced on the infield dirt.
But the Dodgers weren't poised to take the field.
In fact, the only Dodger present was Andre Ethier, and he was sprawled on a yoga mat in pigeon pose. All around him, about 100 fans were similarly contorted -- having paid $100 a pop for the privilege.
In the brave new world of sports marketing, it's not always enough to sell game tickets or offer high-priced trips to spring training. With ticket sales down and corporate sponsorships shrinking, teams throughout professional sports are trading on the celebrity cachet of players, selling well-heeled fans the opportunity to lunch, fish, cruise or even practice yoga with their idols.
Some of the activities, like a recent Cincinnati Reds meet-and-greet, are for charity. But teams are increasingly turning to special events to make money.
Fans can put in a day's work as a groundskeeper with the Detroit Tigers ($1,250) or kick back on a cruise to the Bahamas with the Philadelphia Phillies (up to $1,599).
Football promotions include cruises with the Philadelphia Eagles (up to $6,000) and the San Diego Chargers. The Kings hockey team offered a four-day cruise to Mexico, and the Chicago Cubs are selling spaces on a trip to the Dominican Republic with players.
Last week, for $99, the Angels offered kids a one-day baseball day camp that featured pitching lessons and autographs. Like most Angels promotional events, proceeds went to charity.
"People love having that special access," said Dennis Mannion, the Dodgers' president and chief executive officer.
In addition to the yoga session with Ethier, the team recently offered a fishing trip with pitchers Brent Leach and James McDonald. That brought in about $11,000.
Mannion said events like these could eventually bring in more money than tickets, concessions or parking. The three nights the team offered batting practice -- in which fans could work on their swing under the stadium lights -- brought in about $170,000.
Players typically get paid for their appearances unless the event is for philanthropic purposes, a Dodgers spokeswoman said.
Next year, Mannion plans to seek corporate sponsorships for the events, he said, which he hopes will drive revenues even further.
"It's all about identifying and connecting with your fan demographic," he said. The team is also continuing its regular promotions, such as fireworks on Friday nights. It will hold a second bobblehead night in celebration of colorful left fielder Manny Ramirez, despite recent revelations that he tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003.
David Carter, professor of sports business at the USC Marshall School of Business, said the activities are successful because they allow people to do more than simply watch a game.
"People don't want to spend their money on a baseball game right now," Carter said. "They want to spend their money on a baseball experience."
It's a growing trend throughout professional sports, as teams look for ways to bring fans -- and their pocketbooks -- to the park, said Jon Greenberg, executive editor of Team Marketing Report, a sports marketing research firm.
"It's a good way to engage your fans," Greenberg said. "Fans feel a closer connection with the team when they interact with players."
Take yoga with Ethier. People from throughout the Los Angeles area came to blend their fascination with the Dodgers with a personal activity they enjoy.
"It was such a unique offer," said Melanie DuPre, 35, sweating as she came off the baking field. "I wanted to check it out."
DuPre made the 25-mile trip from Lomita for the event. She's a Dodgers fan, but it was the idea of practicing yoga at Dodger Stadium that lured her, despite the 95-degree heat.
Nearly all of the participants were women, and several said they were there as much to work out near the young, attractive Ethier as they were to practice their downward-facing dog pose.
Being able to do yoga with Andre was really cool," said Julia Angello, 21, of Granada Hills, who was wearing an Ethier T-shirt.
Jamie McCourt, who is married to Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and runs the team's business operations, said the team hit on the idea of a yoga promotion as a way to reach out to women, who historically have spent less on professional sports than men.
"Nobody pays attention to women in the baseball world," said McCourt, who has been trying out different ways to market the team to women. "I thought it was time we start bringing all our fans closer to the team."
The yoga event brought in about $10,000. The team said Ethier was not paid because a portion of the take went to charity, although a spokeswoman would not say how much.
Jerry Lewis, director of the Detroit Tigers' fantasy camp and other promotions, said about half the calls he gets are from women, who are buying promotional events for their husbands, boyfriends or sons.
Along with camp, which costs $3,450 for a week, fans can deliver the ball to the mound for $1,500 or work on the grounds crew.
S. Mark Young, an expert on the economics, sociology and psychology of celebrity at the USC Marshall School of Business, said fans want to attend these events for the same reason they want to be photographed with celebrities or get their autographs.
"They want to feel a part of the excitement and feel special," Young said. "Some feel like they should be in the limelight."
But some people just love the game and its players, Young said.
When the Cincinnati Reds' corporate sponsors began drying up, the team needed to find new means of replenishing its charity fund. The Reds are promoting a post-game event for Aug. 16 at which fans can meet every player and coach, and collect each autograph on a baseball, bat or jersey.
The team expects to bring in more than $100,000.
But though such promotional events can be lucrative, Carter of USC warns teams that they could overdo it.
"If people start thinking that these events are just another way for ownership to pad their wallets, then things will fall flat," Carter said.
Tyler Barnes, vice president of communications for the Milwaukee Brewers, said fans expect teams to be generating new ideas these days.
"You have to be creative to keep the team on everybody's radar," Barnes said. "You want to keep things fresh."
The Brewers began offering drive-in movies at Miller Park this season. The first showing brought in more than $8,000 in tickets alone. Barnes would not confirm exactly what they made, but if you throw in concessions and advertising, it becomes apparent why the Brewers are offering another movie night in August.
At Dodger Stadium last week, the baseball yogis toweled off and sipped water as the session ended.
A team vice president asked whether participants would be willing to pony up $100 to come back and practice yoga again at the stadium -- next time without Ethier.
More than half the hands shot up.
"Are you kidding?" said MalaWilliams, 31, a music teacher from Whittier. "I'd love to come out here again."
Monday, August 3, 2009
Census of Marine Life maps an ocean of species
The first comprehensive effort to identify and catalog every species in the world's oceans, from microbes to blue whales, is a year from completion. But early discoveries have profoundly altered understanding of life beneath the sea, senior scientists say.
New tracking tools, for example, show that some bluefin tuna migrate between Los Angeles and Yokohama, Japan; one tagged tuna crossed the Pacific three times in a year. White sharks forage even farther for food, commuting between Australia and South Africa.
Some turtles circumnavigate the Pacific, paddling from Baja to Borneo. And a gray-headed albatross -- a member of the world's most threatened family of birds -- stunned researchers when it raced around the globe in 46 days flat.
"The extent of movement and migration is way beyond what anyone had . . . even contemplated," said environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel, a co-founder of the Census of Marine Life. "What we're learning is fundamentally different from what we knew before."
Since the $650-million, decade-long project began in May 2000, researchers have used deep-sea robots, laser-based radar and super-sensitive sonar that can track fish 90 miles away.
Census teams also embarked on about 400 shipboard expeditions. They discovered life forms faster than they could verify and name -- more than 5,600 suspected new species so far, many from the hottest, coldest, saltiest and deepest parts of the oceans.
They also found a very old species, a shrimp that textbooks said had been extinct for 50 million years. The five-inch specimen, with big eyes and red spots, was found swimming a mile beneath the ocean off northeast Australia.
"It recalls the time, hundreds of years ago, when science really was about voyages of discovery," said Laurence Madin, director of research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the world's largest private, nonprofit center for marine science.
Nine years of field study -- on tropical reefs and under polar caps, on the sea floor and in the surf -- has led to sharp reappraisals of how the world works and how it is changing. Some scientists compare the search for biodiversity to the successful effort to map the human genome.
"We're taking stock for the first time on what lives in the ocean," said Poul Holm, a marine historian at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. "That is of fundamental importance to life on Earth and to human existence."
Among the findings: The abyssal plains, the inky-black, featureless ocean floor that covers more than half the planet, are not barren, lifeless deserts.
The proof came when scientists used fine-mesh sieves to trawl nearly three miles down. To their surprise, they scooped up tens of thousands of swimming snails, worms and other tiny invertebrates in almost every net. Many had never been seen before.
"Probably the greatest diversity of life is in the deep sea," said Fred Grassle, director emeritus at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "We're just beginning to learn about it."
The census, which will be released in October 2010, is cataloging even the smallest of organisms, such as bacteria and the single-celled microorganisms called archaea. Scientists suspect they play a role in the carbon and nitrogen cycles, which are crucial to sustaining life.
"We have clearly grossly underestimated the microbial diversity in the oceans," said Paul Snelgrove, an oceanographer from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. "And that's enormously important. Those microbes do a lot of the things that keep the Earth humming along."
On the opposite end of the spectrum, researchers found huge scaly worms, manhole-sized starfish and sea spiders as big as dinner plates during expeditions to the frigid, swirling seas of the Antarctic, where the underwater carousel acts as a kind of incubator for new species.
In addition, forensic historians working on the census examined ancient Greek texts, pre-Incan pottery and even 100 years' worth of restaurant menus archived at the New York City Public Library in hopes of documenting man's impact on the world's oceans.
In Europe, they found Renaissance-era paintings of fish markets with seafood that no longer exists in local waters. In North America, customs records and captains' logbooks indicated that fishermen in the Gulf of Maine hooked 20 times more cod in 1860 than commercial fleets do today.
The bottom line: Overfishing has drastically reduced some fish populations. And many species are smaller in size than just a few decades ago.
"What we're seeing is the loss of productivity is almost everywhere, not just in a few places," said Andrew Rosenberg, a professor at the University of New Hampshire. "We've never had this kind of data."
Ausubel and Grassle hatched the idea of surveying every species in the sea while working from a ramshackle office at the Woods Hole institute in July 1996. "Almost everyone said it was crazy," said Ausubel, a senior research associate at Rockefeller University in New York.
Ignoring the skeptics, Ausubel persuaded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to provide funding. Governments and other foundations later chipped in.
The scientists set three goals. First, they would build a global registry of every marine life form, worms to walruses, as a baseline for research and public policy. Second, they would map where each species lives and travels to better understand its habitat. Lastly, they would assess the relative abundance of each organism -- past, present and future.
Most marine biologists are specialists who work alone or in small groups. The census has changed that. About 2,000 scientists in 80 countries have joined forces in the largest collaboration in the history of ocean science.
"This was a field in need of a revolution," said Ann Bucklin, who heads the marine sciences department at the University of Connecticut. "It has opened up global oceanography."
Scientists have embraced the effort to compile a "bar code of life" that uses DNA sequencing to identify each marine species. Until now, eyeballing a crab, coral or cod was the only way to identify it. Tiny zooplankton were even tougher.
"In the past, I have spent hours and hours at the microscope looking at spines or legs or other minutiae to tell species A from species B," said Nancy Copley, a Woods Hole researcher. "Sometimes it was very hard to tell."
By next year, the online database will contain photos, DNA codes and websites for at least 230,000 unique species, including more than 16,000 fish, scientists said.
"It's going to be the Rosetta Stone for the future," said Peter Wiebe, a senior biologist at Woods Hole. "Once we know what's out there, we can build on it."
The list would be longer, but researchers used DNA analysis to cut more than 50,000 "aliases" -- different names for the same creature -- from the species list. The worst case of multiple identity was a breadcrumb sponge, Halichondria panacea, which had 56 names around the world. Now it will have one.
Though the science is crucial, said Ausubel, "in the end the beauty of the ocean is what inspires us."
"Sometimes I think it was a terrible mistake to crawl out onto the land."
New tracking tools, for example, show that some bluefin tuna migrate between Los Angeles and Yokohama, Japan; one tagged tuna crossed the Pacific three times in a year. White sharks forage even farther for food, commuting between Australia and South Africa.
Some turtles circumnavigate the Pacific, paddling from Baja to Borneo. And a gray-headed albatross -- a member of the world's most threatened family of birds -- stunned researchers when it raced around the globe in 46 days flat.
"The extent of movement and migration is way beyond what anyone had . . . even contemplated," said environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel, a co-founder of the Census of Marine Life. "What we're learning is fundamentally different from what we knew before."
Since the $650-million, decade-long project began in May 2000, researchers have used deep-sea robots, laser-based radar and super-sensitive sonar that can track fish 90 miles away.
Census teams also embarked on about 400 shipboard expeditions. They discovered life forms faster than they could verify and name -- more than 5,600 suspected new species so far, many from the hottest, coldest, saltiest and deepest parts of the oceans.
They also found a very old species, a shrimp that textbooks said had been extinct for 50 million years. The five-inch specimen, with big eyes and red spots, was found swimming a mile beneath the ocean off northeast Australia.
"It recalls the time, hundreds of years ago, when science really was about voyages of discovery," said Laurence Madin, director of research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the world's largest private, nonprofit center for marine science.
Nine years of field study -- on tropical reefs and under polar caps, on the sea floor and in the surf -- has led to sharp reappraisals of how the world works and how it is changing. Some scientists compare the search for biodiversity to the successful effort to map the human genome.
"We're taking stock for the first time on what lives in the ocean," said Poul Holm, a marine historian at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. "That is of fundamental importance to life on Earth and to human existence."
Among the findings: The abyssal plains, the inky-black, featureless ocean floor that covers more than half the planet, are not barren, lifeless deserts.
The proof came when scientists used fine-mesh sieves to trawl nearly three miles down. To their surprise, they scooped up tens of thousands of swimming snails, worms and other tiny invertebrates in almost every net. Many had never been seen before.
"Probably the greatest diversity of life is in the deep sea," said Fred Grassle, director emeritus at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "We're just beginning to learn about it."
The census, which will be released in October 2010, is cataloging even the smallest of organisms, such as bacteria and the single-celled microorganisms called archaea. Scientists suspect they play a role in the carbon and nitrogen cycles, which are crucial to sustaining life.
"We have clearly grossly underestimated the microbial diversity in the oceans," said Paul Snelgrove, an oceanographer from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. "And that's enormously important. Those microbes do a lot of the things that keep the Earth humming along."
On the opposite end of the spectrum, researchers found huge scaly worms, manhole-sized starfish and sea spiders as big as dinner plates during expeditions to the frigid, swirling seas of the Antarctic, where the underwater carousel acts as a kind of incubator for new species.
In addition, forensic historians working on the census examined ancient Greek texts, pre-Incan pottery and even 100 years' worth of restaurant menus archived at the New York City Public Library in hopes of documenting man's impact on the world's oceans.
In Europe, they found Renaissance-era paintings of fish markets with seafood that no longer exists in local waters. In North America, customs records and captains' logbooks indicated that fishermen in the Gulf of Maine hooked 20 times more cod in 1860 than commercial fleets do today.
The bottom line: Overfishing has drastically reduced some fish populations. And many species are smaller in size than just a few decades ago.
"What we're seeing is the loss of productivity is almost everywhere, not just in a few places," said Andrew Rosenberg, a professor at the University of New Hampshire. "We've never had this kind of data."
Ausubel and Grassle hatched the idea of surveying every species in the sea while working from a ramshackle office at the Woods Hole institute in July 1996. "Almost everyone said it was crazy," said Ausubel, a senior research associate at Rockefeller University in New York.
Ignoring the skeptics, Ausubel persuaded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to provide funding. Governments and other foundations later chipped in.
The scientists set three goals. First, they would build a global registry of every marine life form, worms to walruses, as a baseline for research and public policy. Second, they would map where each species lives and travels to better understand its habitat. Lastly, they would assess the relative abundance of each organism -- past, present and future.
Most marine biologists are specialists who work alone or in small groups. The census has changed that. About 2,000 scientists in 80 countries have joined forces in the largest collaboration in the history of ocean science.
"This was a field in need of a revolution," said Ann Bucklin, who heads the marine sciences department at the University of Connecticut. "It has opened up global oceanography."
Scientists have embraced the effort to compile a "bar code of life" that uses DNA sequencing to identify each marine species. Until now, eyeballing a crab, coral or cod was the only way to identify it. Tiny zooplankton were even tougher.
"In the past, I have spent hours and hours at the microscope looking at spines or legs or other minutiae to tell species A from species B," said Nancy Copley, a Woods Hole researcher. "Sometimes it was very hard to tell."
By next year, the online database will contain photos, DNA codes and websites for at least 230,000 unique species, including more than 16,000 fish, scientists said.
"It's going to be the Rosetta Stone for the future," said Peter Wiebe, a senior biologist at Woods Hole. "Once we know what's out there, we can build on it."
The list would be longer, but researchers used DNA analysis to cut more than 50,000 "aliases" -- different names for the same creature -- from the species list. The worst case of multiple identity was a breadcrumb sponge, Halichondria panacea, which had 56 names around the world. Now it will have one.
Though the science is crucial, said Ausubel, "in the end the beauty of the ocean is what inspires us."
"Sometimes I think it was a terrible mistake to crawl out onto the land."
GREENSPACE
Environmentalists tend to avoid the topic of population control. Too touchy. But the politically incorrect issue is becoming unavoidable as the global population lurches toward a predicted 9 billion people by mid-century. Will there be enough food? Enough water? Will planet-heating carbon dioxide gas become ever more uncontrollable?
Now comes a study by statisticians at Oregon State University focusing on the elephant in the room.
The findings: If you are concerned about your carbon footprint, think birth control.
The greenhouse gas impact of a child is almost 20 times more significant than the amount any American would save by such practices as driving a fuel-efficient car, recycling or using energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances, according to Paul Murtaugh, an Oregon State professor of statistics. Under current U.S. consumption patterns, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the carbon legacy of an average parent -- about 5.7 times a person's lifetime emissions, he calculates.
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance."
Given the higher per-capita consumption of developed nations, the study found that the impact of a child born in the U.S., along with all his or her descendants, is more than 160 times that of a Bangladeshi child. And the long-term impact of a Chinese child is less than one-fifth the impact of a U.S.-born child. But as China, India and other developing nations hurtle toward prosperity, that is likely to change.
-- Margot Roosevelt
College students compete for best 100% solar home
While some college students are soaking up rays at the beach this summer, students at Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts have found a different use for the sun's energy.
About 200 undergraduates have been designing and building a house that will run entirely on solar energy as part of the Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon. Team California is the only team from the West Coast and one of 20 teams competing from around the world.
The team's Refract House will feature a working dishwasher, television and washer and dryer, in addition to a radiant system that runs water under the floor and through the ceiling to cool and heat the house. Unlike some box-shaped solar houses, which team leader Preet Anand says are "hyper-efficient but boring," Refract House is shaped like a "bent tube." The walls are made of used billboards, which will be covered with salvaged redwood panels.
Santa Clara came in third in the 2007 competition, and Team California hopes to win the competition in Washington, D.C., this year. In order to get there, the team will have to break apart the modular home, load it onto trucks and drive it to the National Mall.
Although travel and marketing expenses have ratcheted the project's cost up to an estimated $1.3 million, some of the features, such as a system that recirculates water from sinks and showers, would cost a buyer less than $1,000.
After the competition, the home will sit on the lawn of San Jose City Hall, where Anand hopes it can motivate passersby.
"It's an inspiration for people," Anand said. "We're students. If we can do this, all those professionals and architects out there can too."
-- Amy Littlefield
Greenpeace paints mocking moniker on roof of HP building
Let this be a lesson to electronics companies everywhere: If you don't fulfill your pledge to remove toxic materials from your products, Greenpeace is going to paint your roof.
Luckily, they'll use nontoxic finger paint. The negative advertising, visible to passing birds and helicopters, won't last longer than the time it takes to power-wash it away.
It took about 10 minutes for a handful of activists to complete the mission, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner Casey Harrell said. Dressed in hazmat suits and armed with motorized paint-sprayers, they scaled the building with industrial-strength ladders and blasted the words "Hazardous Products" on the roof of Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto headquarters. And they didn't even get arrested.
The action followed demands by Greenpeace that the company fulfill a promise to stop using hazardous materials such as PVC plastics and brominated flame retardants, which have been linked to thyroid hormone disruption in animals.
"Greenpeace will not stand idly by while companies that commit to environmentally responsible action backtrack on commitments," Harrell said in a statement Tuesday. "As the No. 1 seller of PCs worldwide, HP has both the responsibility and the ability to make sure the company no longer deserves the moniker 'Hazardous Products.' "
HP said in a statement that the company was committed to eliminating brominated flame retardants and PVC from its PC products by the end of 2011, according to wire reports.
-- Amy Littlefield
Utility pays U.S. a $14.75-million wildfire settlement
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is paying the U.S. Forest Service $14.75 million to settle damage claims stemming from a 1999 forest fire in Northern California.
The payment is the second largest of its kind to the agency, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. Last year the Forest Service won a $102-million settlement from Union Pacific Railroad Co. in a lawsuit involving another Northern California wildfire.
Downed power lines have been blamed for a number of destructive wildfires in the state, including last year's Sesnon fire in the San Fernando Valley, several of the 2007 blazes in San Diego County and the Malibu Canyon fire that same year.
The October 1999 Pendola fire started on private land when a pine tree fell on a transmission line. The line shorted out, igniting the tree. A total of 11,725 acres burned, about a third of which was in the Tahoe and Plumas national forests.
The fire burned for 11 days and cost $4.2 million to fight. More than $10 million of the settlement is compensation for natural resources damage. Most of the payment will go to Plumas and Tahoe.
The settlement was reached through mediation without a lawsuit. "We're happy to have reached a resolution with the Forest Service and we regret the damage caused by this incident," said PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson.
The government said that the pine was rotten and hazardous and that the utility should have inspected and removed the tree to keep it from crashing onto the line.
In the past decade, Swanson said PG&E has stepped up inspections of distribution lines and now spends about $170 million a year on vegetation management. The utility's contractors trim or cut 6,000 trees a day along 132,000 miles of overhead power lines, he added.
In Southern California, San Diego Gas & Electric is proposing to turn off power to customers living in high fire-hazard zones when severe Santa Ana winds pose a risk of toppling power lines.
About 60,000 customers live in the hazard zones in eastern San Diego County, but the utility estimates no more than 10,000 would be affected at any time. The shut-downs would probably be necessary once or twice a year.
Now comes a study by statisticians at Oregon State University focusing on the elephant in the room.
The findings: If you are concerned about your carbon footprint, think birth control.
The greenhouse gas impact of a child is almost 20 times more significant than the amount any American would save by such practices as driving a fuel-efficient car, recycling or using energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances, according to Paul Murtaugh, an Oregon State professor of statistics. Under current U.S. consumption patterns, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the carbon legacy of an average parent -- about 5.7 times a person's lifetime emissions, he calculates.
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance."
Given the higher per-capita consumption of developed nations, the study found that the impact of a child born in the U.S., along with all his or her descendants, is more than 160 times that of a Bangladeshi child. And the long-term impact of a Chinese child is less than one-fifth the impact of a U.S.-born child. But as China, India and other developing nations hurtle toward prosperity, that is likely to change.
-- Margot Roosevelt
College students compete for best 100% solar home
While some college students are soaking up rays at the beach this summer, students at Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts have found a different use for the sun's energy.
About 200 undergraduates have been designing and building a house that will run entirely on solar energy as part of the Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon. Team California is the only team from the West Coast and one of 20 teams competing from around the world.
The team's Refract House will feature a working dishwasher, television and washer and dryer, in addition to a radiant system that runs water under the floor and through the ceiling to cool and heat the house. Unlike some box-shaped solar houses, which team leader Preet Anand says are "hyper-efficient but boring," Refract House is shaped like a "bent tube." The walls are made of used billboards, which will be covered with salvaged redwood panels.
Santa Clara came in third in the 2007 competition, and Team California hopes to win the competition in Washington, D.C., this year. In order to get there, the team will have to break apart the modular home, load it onto trucks and drive it to the National Mall.
Although travel and marketing expenses have ratcheted the project's cost up to an estimated $1.3 million, some of the features, such as a system that recirculates water from sinks and showers, would cost a buyer less than $1,000.
After the competition, the home will sit on the lawn of San Jose City Hall, where Anand hopes it can motivate passersby.
"It's an inspiration for people," Anand said. "We're students. If we can do this, all those professionals and architects out there can too."
-- Amy Littlefield
Greenpeace paints mocking moniker on roof of HP building
Let this be a lesson to electronics companies everywhere: If you don't fulfill your pledge to remove toxic materials from your products, Greenpeace is going to paint your roof.
Luckily, they'll use nontoxic finger paint. The negative advertising, visible to passing birds and helicopters, won't last longer than the time it takes to power-wash it away.
It took about 10 minutes for a handful of activists to complete the mission, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner Casey Harrell said. Dressed in hazmat suits and armed with motorized paint-sprayers, they scaled the building with industrial-strength ladders and blasted the words "Hazardous Products" on the roof of Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto headquarters. And they didn't even get arrested.
The action followed demands by Greenpeace that the company fulfill a promise to stop using hazardous materials such as PVC plastics and brominated flame retardants, which have been linked to thyroid hormone disruption in animals.
"Greenpeace will not stand idly by while companies that commit to environmentally responsible action backtrack on commitments," Harrell said in a statement Tuesday. "As the No. 1 seller of PCs worldwide, HP has both the responsibility and the ability to make sure the company no longer deserves the moniker 'Hazardous Products.' "
HP said in a statement that the company was committed to eliminating brominated flame retardants and PVC from its PC products by the end of 2011, according to wire reports.
-- Amy Littlefield
Utility pays U.S. a $14.75-million wildfire settlement
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is paying the U.S. Forest Service $14.75 million to settle damage claims stemming from a 1999 forest fire in Northern California.
The payment is the second largest of its kind to the agency, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. Last year the Forest Service won a $102-million settlement from Union Pacific Railroad Co. in a lawsuit involving another Northern California wildfire.
Downed power lines have been blamed for a number of destructive wildfires in the state, including last year's Sesnon fire in the San Fernando Valley, several of the 2007 blazes in San Diego County and the Malibu Canyon fire that same year.
The October 1999 Pendola fire started on private land when a pine tree fell on a transmission line. The line shorted out, igniting the tree. A total of 11,725 acres burned, about a third of which was in the Tahoe and Plumas national forests.
The fire burned for 11 days and cost $4.2 million to fight. More than $10 million of the settlement is compensation for natural resources damage. Most of the payment will go to Plumas and Tahoe.
The settlement was reached through mediation without a lawsuit. "We're happy to have reached a resolution with the Forest Service and we regret the damage caused by this incident," said PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson.
The government said that the pine was rotten and hazardous and that the utility should have inspected and removed the tree to keep it from crashing onto the line.
In the past decade, Swanson said PG&E has stepped up inspections of distribution lines and now spends about $170 million a year on vegetation management. The utility's contractors trim or cut 6,000 trees a day along 132,000 miles of overhead power lines, he added.
In Southern California, San Diego Gas & Electric is proposing to turn off power to customers living in high fire-hazard zones when severe Santa Ana winds pose a risk of toppling power lines.
About 60,000 customers live in the hazard zones in eastern San Diego County, but the utility estimates no more than 10,000 would be affected at any time. The shut-downs would probably be necessary once or twice a year.
Tox21: New Dimensions of Toxicity Testing
On the ground floor of the National Institutes of Health Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) in Rockville, Maryland, a $10-million automated laboratory spends all day and night screening chemicals at speeds no team of human researchers could ever match. In a week, depending on the nature of the assay, it can yield up to 2.2 million molecular data points derived from thousands of chemicals tested at 15 concentrations each.
Is this the new face of toxicology? Many experts say the answer could be yes. High-throughput screening tools such as the NCGC’s robotic system—combined with a growing assortment of in vitro assays and computational methods—are revealing how chemicals interact with biologic targets. Scientists increasingly believe these tools could generate more accurate assessments of human toxicity risk than those predicted by animal tests now. What’s more, in vitro analytical approaches are seen as the best hope for evaluating the enormous backlog of untested chemicals in commerce. Estimates vary, but tens of thousands of industrial chemicals are used in consumer products without any knowledge of their potential toxicity. Meanwhile, it takes years and millions of dollars to assess risks for a single chemical using animal testing.
“In almost all aspects, this looks like a paradigm shift in the field,” says John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program (NTP). “It’s a major change to move from using studies in animals, with which we’re comfortable, to relying mainly on results from biochemical or cell-based assays to make health policy decisions. This is a totally different approach that provides a different kind of information.”
The Tox21 Partnership
Enabled by new technology, the NTP, the NCGC, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partnering to advance the state of toxicity testing. Specifically, the partners seek to identify new mechanisms of chemical activity in cells, to prioritize the backlog of untested chemicals for more extensive evaluations, and to develop better predictive models of human response to toxicants. Formalized last year in a Memorandum of Understanding, the partnership, dubbed Tox21, responds to a challenge made by the National Research Council (NRC) in its 2007 report Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy. This report called for transforming toxicology “from a system based on whole-animal testing to one founded primarily on in vitro methods that evaluate changes in biologic processes using cells, cell lines, or cellular components, preferably of human origin.” In March 2009, the EPA published its own Tox21 agenda, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals, which asserts that “the explosion of new scientific tools in computational, informational, and molecular sciences offers great promise to . . . strengthen toxicity testing and risk assessment approaches.”
The concept of adding more mechanistic data to risk assessment isn’t new. Before Tox21, physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models, toxicogenomics, and related approaches were already making risk assessment more mechanistically based. But that research didn’t necessarily translate into changes in regulatory policies that govern human exposure, argues Lorenz Rhomberg, a principal with Gradient Corporation, a risk assessment consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Despite the availability of mechanistic data, health officials at the EPA have been reluctant to use these data in setting exposure standards because in many cases they would justify higher allowable exposures than those suggested by more conservative default assumptions. Instead, the EPA relies more often on conservative default assumptions about how chemicals affect human beings. “EPA goes by precedent and does things as it did in the past so as to not be arbitrary,” Rhomberg explains. “So, there’s a lot of inertia in the system.
Is this the new face of toxicology? Many experts say the answer could be yes. High-throughput screening tools such as the NCGC’s robotic system—combined with a growing assortment of in vitro assays and computational methods—are revealing how chemicals interact with biologic targets. Scientists increasingly believe these tools could generate more accurate assessments of human toxicity risk than those predicted by animal tests now. What’s more, in vitro analytical approaches are seen as the best hope for evaluating the enormous backlog of untested chemicals in commerce. Estimates vary, but tens of thousands of industrial chemicals are used in consumer products without any knowledge of their potential toxicity. Meanwhile, it takes years and millions of dollars to assess risks for a single chemical using animal testing.
“In almost all aspects, this looks like a paradigm shift in the field,” says John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program (NTP). “It’s a major change to move from using studies in animals, with which we’re comfortable, to relying mainly on results from biochemical or cell-based assays to make health policy decisions. This is a totally different approach that provides a different kind of information.”
The Tox21 Partnership
Enabled by new technology, the NTP, the NCGC, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partnering to advance the state of toxicity testing. Specifically, the partners seek to identify new mechanisms of chemical activity in cells, to prioritize the backlog of untested chemicals for more extensive evaluations, and to develop better predictive models of human response to toxicants. Formalized last year in a Memorandum of Understanding, the partnership, dubbed Tox21, responds to a challenge made by the National Research Council (NRC) in its 2007 report Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy. This report called for transforming toxicology “from a system based on whole-animal testing to one founded primarily on in vitro methods that evaluate changes in biologic processes using cells, cell lines, or cellular components, preferably of human origin.” In March 2009, the EPA published its own Tox21 agenda, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals, which asserts that “the explosion of new scientific tools in computational, informational, and molecular sciences offers great promise to . . . strengthen toxicity testing and risk assessment approaches.”
The concept of adding more mechanistic data to risk assessment isn’t new. Before Tox21, physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models, toxicogenomics, and related approaches were already making risk assessment more mechanistically based. But that research didn’t necessarily translate into changes in regulatory policies that govern human exposure, argues Lorenz Rhomberg, a principal with Gradient Corporation, a risk assessment consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Despite the availability of mechanistic data, health officials at the EPA have been reluctant to use these data in setting exposure standards because in many cases they would justify higher allowable exposures than those suggested by more conservative default assumptions. Instead, the EPA relies more often on conservative default assumptions about how chemicals affect human beings. “EPA goes by precedent and does things as it did in the past so as to not be arbitrary,” Rhomberg explains. “So, there’s a lot of inertia in the system.
Chemicals can turn genes on and off; new tests needed, scientists say.
Each of us starts life with a particular set of genes, 20,000 to 25,000 of them. Now scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence that pollutants and chemicals might be altering those genes—not by mutating them, but by sending subtle signals that silence them or switch them on at the wrong times.
Last week, several dozen researchers and experts convened by the National Academies tackled this complicated topic, called epigenetics, at a two-day workshop in Washington, D.C. They discussed new findings that suggest chemicals in our environment and in our food can alter genes, leaving people vulnerable to a variety of diseases and disorders, including diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity. They also considered whether regulatory agencies and industry should start testing the thousands of chemicals in use today for these effects.
“There is little doubt these epigenetic effects are important. The next question is how we test for effects," said William H. Farland, professor of environmental and radiological health sciences at Colorado State University. "We don’t need to abandon current approaches to chemical testing. When testing chemicals in animals, we may just need to add some new endpoints."
Linda S. Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Exposure to gene-altering substances, particularly in the womb and shortly after birth, “can lead to increased susceptibility to disease,” said Linda S. Birnbaum, who was named director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and of the National Toxicology Program in December. “The susceptibility persists long after the exposure is gone, even decades later. Glands, organs, and systems can be permanently altered.”
Animal studies indicate that some environmental chemicals cause epigenetic changes that trigger breast and prostate cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and learning disabilities, she said. And some new human studies are now adding to the evidence.
“There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy,” Birnbaum said. “There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy.” Linda Birnbaum, Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.
Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.
An example is asthmatic children. Wan-Yee Tang, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, found that children in New York City exposed in the womb to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common air pollutants from traffic, were much more likely to have asthma than those who were not exposed. By studying cord blood, she found that a particular gene (ACSL3) was methylated in the asthmatic children and unmethylated in the unexposed children, and concluded that the abnormal methylation patterns probably caused the asthma.
The finding could in part explain why worldwide asthma rates have skyrocketed in much of the world, reaching epidemic proportions among children. In the boroughs of New York City with the worst air pollution, about 25 percent of children are asthmatic.
Epigenetic changes also have been observed in children conceived with assisted reproductive technologies, said Richard Meehan of the Medical Research Council in Scotland.
One of the disorders that occurs at a higher rate in these children is Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by abdominal wall defects and a higher risk of certain childhood cancers. The culture medium where fertilized eggs are grown for several days before implantation probably causes the syndrome, he said. It appears that all the different media used for the eggs might be problematic because they contain chemicals that stimulate the addition of methyl groups to the cells.
The scientists at the workshop said it’s important to understand epigenetics not only to figure out which chemicals might endanger public health, but to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases.
Scientists are just now beginning to figure out normal methylation patterns in the genome so they can learn what is abnormal, said Karl T. Kelsey, professor of community heath and pathology at Brown University in Rhode Island. As a result of this new understanding, epigenetic therapies have been developed for some types of cancers, and some have been successful in clinical trials, he said. Unlike traditional cancer drugs, which kill cells, the new drugs simply change how the cells act.
Research with rats shows that gene-altering chemicals can change animals’ brains—in some cases, in a beneficial way.
Moshe Szyf, a pharmacology and therapeutics professor at McGill University Medical School in Montreal, found that rats that received healthy doses of maternal licking as pups grew up to be calmer than pups who had inattentive mothers. The maternal grooming brought about a chemical change in the part of the pup’s brain that produces stress hormones, he said.
The rats reared by attentive mothers had different levels of corticoid gene expression and lower levels of stress hormones than those reared by inattentive mothers. Szyf found he could cure the stressed rats by injecting a chemical called TSA into their brains, which reversed the inappropriate methylation caused by inattentive mothering.
This understanding of epigenetics may lead to new medications for treating human problems. By using approaches similar to those used in the rat study, Szyf is hoping to find drugs that will help alleviate human psychiatric conditions.
Szyf also studied the preserved brains of suicide victims and of people who died suddenly from causes other than suicide. He found that certain genes in the suicide victims were methylated, or turned off. In contrast, those same genes were not methylated in the victims who died by other means. Abnormal methylation patterns could cause depression in some people, he said.
Some compounds, such as nickel, chromium and arsenic, are well-known carcinogens—not because they are toxic to cells but because of their epigenetic effect, said Max Costa, a New York University professor of environmental medicine and pharmacology. They increase DNA methylation, which results in gene silencing and cell transformation and leads to cancer, he explained.
Researchers at the meeting spent a great deal of time discussing whether and how to test chemicals for their ability to cause epigenetic changes.
Most researchers there agreed that compounds need to be tested for epigenetic effects. But practical testing of the 80,000 or so chemicals in commerce would require rapid screens that would prioritize the compounds into high, medium, and low-risk groups. Those at high risk for epigenetic effects could then be subjected to more definitive and expensive tests.
John M. Greally, associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, pointed out that no single test is ideal for detecting epigenetic effects.
“All of the assays have drawbacks,” he said. For example, one assay requires immediate sample processing so it cannot be used on stored samples.
Nevertheless, many researchers said that testing chemicals for epigenetic changes can begin soon.
“The fact that we don’t know a great deal about this area doesn’t mean it’s daunting,” said George Daston, research fellow at Procter & Gamble. “We just need to build on what we have. Microassays already show how chemical exposures change the gene expression in certain parts of the genome. The fact that we don’t know a lot doesn’t mean we can’t start testing quickly.”
Birnbaum, who formerly was head of experimental toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said regulators and industry don’t have to start from square one.
“We’re already marching down this road,” said Birnbaum. “The National Toxicology Program is already talking about including some epigenetic studies in the program.”
The most important public health issue that arises from epigenetics, Birnbaum told Environmental Health News, is that the current environment may not be the crucial factor to consider when examining what causes diseases.
“Asking heart attack victims what they ate this year or last may be far less important than what they were exposed to in the womb and shortly after birth,” she said.
What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.
Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.
An example is asthmatic children. Wan-Yee Tang, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, found that children in New York City exposed in the womb to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common air pollutants from traffic, were much more likely to have asthma than those who were not exposed. By studying cord blood, she found that a particular gene (ACSL3) was methylated in the asthmatic children and unmethylated in the unexposed children, and concluded that the abnormal methylation patterns probably caused the asthma.
The finding could in part explain why worldwide asthma rates have skyrocketed in much of the world, reaching epidemic proportions among children. In the boroughs of New York City with the worst air pollution, about 25 percent of children are asthmatic.
Epigenetic changes also have been observed in children conceived with assisted reproductive technologies, said Richard Meehan of the Medical Research Council in Scotland.
One of the disorders that occurs at a higher rate in these children is Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by abdominal wall defects and a higher risk of certain childhood cancers. The culture medium where fertilized eggs are grown for several days before implantation probably causes the syndrome, he said. It appears that all the different media used for the eggs might be problematic because they contain chemicals that stimulate the addition of methyl groups to the cells.
The scientists at the workshop said it’s important to understand epigenetics not only to figure out which chemicals might endanger public health, but to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases.
Scientists are just now beginning to figure out normal methylation patterns in the genome so they can learn what is abnormal, said Karl T. Kelsey, professor of community heath and pathology at Brown University in Rhode Island. As a result of this new understanding, epigenetic therapies have been developed for some types of cancers, and some have been successful in clinical trials, he said. Unlike traditional cancer drugs, which kill cells, the new drugs simply change how the cells act.
Research with rats shows that gene-altering chemicals can change animals’ brains—in some cases, in a beneficial way.
Moshe Szyf, a pharmacology and therapeutics professor at McGill University Medical School in Montreal, found that rats that received healthy doses of maternal licking as pups grew up to be calmer than pups who had inattentive mothers. The maternal grooming brought about a chemical change in the part of the pup’s brain that produces stress hormones, he said.
The rats reared by attentive mothers had different levels of corticoid gene expression and lower levels of stress hormones than those reared by inattentive mothers. Szyf found he could cure the stressed rats by injecting a chemical called TSA into their brains, which reversed the inappropriate methylation caused by inattentive mothering.
This understanding of epigenetics may lead to new medications for treating human problems. By using approaches similar to those used in the rat study, Szyf is hoping to find drugs that will help alleviate human psychiatric conditions.
Szyf also studied the preserved brains of suicide victims and of people who died suddenly from causes other than suicide. He found that certain genes in the suicide victims were methylated, or turned off. In contrast, those same genes were not methylated in the victims who died by other means. Abnormal methylation patterns could cause depression in some people, he said.
Some compounds, such as nickel, chromium and arsenic, are well-known carcinogens—not because they are toxic to cells but because of their epigenetic effect, said Max Costa, a New York University professor of environmental medicine and pharmacology. They increase DNA methylation, which results in gene silencing and cell transformation and leads to cancer, he explained.
Researchers at the meeting spent a great deal of time discussing whether and how to test chemicals for their ability to cause epigenetic changes.
Most researchers there agreed that compounds need to be tested for epigenetic effects. But practical testing of the 80,000 or so chemicals in commerce would require rapid screens that would prioritize the compounds into high, medium, and low-risk groups. Those at high risk for epigenetic effects could then be subjected to more definitive and expensive tests.
John M. Greally, associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, pointed out that no single test is ideal for detecting epigenetic effects.
“All of the assays have drawbacks,” he said. For example, one assay requires immediate sample processing so it cannot be used on stored samples.
Nevertheless, many researchers said that testing chemicals for epigenetic changes can begin soon.
“The fact that we don’t know a great deal about this area doesn’t mean it’s daunting,” said George Daston, research fellow at Procter & Gamble. “We just need to build on what we have. Microassays already show how chemical exposures change the gene expression in certain parts of the genome. The fact that we don’t know a lot doesn’t mean we can’t start testing quickly.”
Birnbaum, who formerly was head of experimental toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said regulators and industry don’t have to start from square one.
“We’re already marching down this road,” said Birnbaum. “The National Toxicology Program is already talking about including some epigenetic studies in the program.”
The most important public health issue that arises from epigenetics, Birnbaum told Environmental Health News, is that the current environment may not be the crucial factor to consider when examining what causes diseases.
“Asking heart attack victims what they ate this year or last may be far less important than what they were exposed to in the womb and shortly after birth,” she said.
Last week, several dozen researchers and experts convened by the National Academies tackled this complicated topic, called epigenetics, at a two-day workshop in Washington, D.C. They discussed new findings that suggest chemicals in our environment and in our food can alter genes, leaving people vulnerable to a variety of diseases and disorders, including diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity. They also considered whether regulatory agencies and industry should start testing the thousands of chemicals in use today for these effects.
“There is little doubt these epigenetic effects are important. The next question is how we test for effects," said William H. Farland, professor of environmental and radiological health sciences at Colorado State University. "We don’t need to abandon current approaches to chemical testing. When testing chemicals in animals, we may just need to add some new endpoints."
Linda S. Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Exposure to gene-altering substances, particularly in the womb and shortly after birth, “can lead to increased susceptibility to disease,” said Linda S. Birnbaum, who was named director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and of the National Toxicology Program in December. “The susceptibility persists long after the exposure is gone, even decades later. Glands, organs, and systems can be permanently altered.”
Animal studies indicate that some environmental chemicals cause epigenetic changes that trigger breast and prostate cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and learning disabilities, she said. And some new human studies are now adding to the evidence.
“There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy,” Birnbaum said. “There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy.” Linda Birnbaum, Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.
Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.
An example is asthmatic children. Wan-Yee Tang, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, found that children in New York City exposed in the womb to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common air pollutants from traffic, were much more likely to have asthma than those who were not exposed. By studying cord blood, she found that a particular gene (ACSL3) was methylated in the asthmatic children and unmethylated in the unexposed children, and concluded that the abnormal methylation patterns probably caused the asthma.
The finding could in part explain why worldwide asthma rates have skyrocketed in much of the world, reaching epidemic proportions among children. In the boroughs of New York City with the worst air pollution, about 25 percent of children are asthmatic.
Epigenetic changes also have been observed in children conceived with assisted reproductive technologies, said Richard Meehan of the Medical Research Council in Scotland.
One of the disorders that occurs at a higher rate in these children is Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by abdominal wall defects and a higher risk of certain childhood cancers. The culture medium where fertilized eggs are grown for several days before implantation probably causes the syndrome, he said. It appears that all the different media used for the eggs might be problematic because they contain chemicals that stimulate the addition of methyl groups to the cells.
The scientists at the workshop said it’s important to understand epigenetics not only to figure out which chemicals might endanger public health, but to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases.
Scientists are just now beginning to figure out normal methylation patterns in the genome so they can learn what is abnormal, said Karl T. Kelsey, professor of community heath and pathology at Brown University in Rhode Island. As a result of this new understanding, epigenetic therapies have been developed for some types of cancers, and some have been successful in clinical trials, he said. Unlike traditional cancer drugs, which kill cells, the new drugs simply change how the cells act.
Research with rats shows that gene-altering chemicals can change animals’ brains—in some cases, in a beneficial way.
Moshe Szyf, a pharmacology and therapeutics professor at McGill University Medical School in Montreal, found that rats that received healthy doses of maternal licking as pups grew up to be calmer than pups who had inattentive mothers. The maternal grooming brought about a chemical change in the part of the pup’s brain that produces stress hormones, he said.
The rats reared by attentive mothers had different levels of corticoid gene expression and lower levels of stress hormones than those reared by inattentive mothers. Szyf found he could cure the stressed rats by injecting a chemical called TSA into their brains, which reversed the inappropriate methylation caused by inattentive mothering.
This understanding of epigenetics may lead to new medications for treating human problems. By using approaches similar to those used in the rat study, Szyf is hoping to find drugs that will help alleviate human psychiatric conditions.
Szyf also studied the preserved brains of suicide victims and of people who died suddenly from causes other than suicide. He found that certain genes in the suicide victims were methylated, or turned off. In contrast, those same genes were not methylated in the victims who died by other means. Abnormal methylation patterns could cause depression in some people, he said.
Some compounds, such as nickel, chromium and arsenic, are well-known carcinogens—not because they are toxic to cells but because of their epigenetic effect, said Max Costa, a New York University professor of environmental medicine and pharmacology. They increase DNA methylation, which results in gene silencing and cell transformation and leads to cancer, he explained.
Researchers at the meeting spent a great deal of time discussing whether and how to test chemicals for their ability to cause epigenetic changes.
Most researchers there agreed that compounds need to be tested for epigenetic effects. But practical testing of the 80,000 or so chemicals in commerce would require rapid screens that would prioritize the compounds into high, medium, and low-risk groups. Those at high risk for epigenetic effects could then be subjected to more definitive and expensive tests.
John M. Greally, associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, pointed out that no single test is ideal for detecting epigenetic effects.
“All of the assays have drawbacks,” he said. For example, one assay requires immediate sample processing so it cannot be used on stored samples.
Nevertheless, many researchers said that testing chemicals for epigenetic changes can begin soon.
“The fact that we don’t know a great deal about this area doesn’t mean it’s daunting,” said George Daston, research fellow at Procter & Gamble. “We just need to build on what we have. Microassays already show how chemical exposures change the gene expression in certain parts of the genome. The fact that we don’t know a lot doesn’t mean we can’t start testing quickly.”
Birnbaum, who formerly was head of experimental toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said regulators and industry don’t have to start from square one.
“We’re already marching down this road,” said Birnbaum. “The National Toxicology Program is already talking about including some epigenetic studies in the program.”
The most important public health issue that arises from epigenetics, Birnbaum told Environmental Health News, is that the current environment may not be the crucial factor to consider when examining what causes diseases.
“Asking heart attack victims what they ate this year or last may be far less important than what they were exposed to in the womb and shortly after birth,” she said.
What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.
Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.
An example is asthmatic children. Wan-Yee Tang, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, found that children in New York City exposed in the womb to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common air pollutants from traffic, were much more likely to have asthma than those who were not exposed. By studying cord blood, she found that a particular gene (ACSL3) was methylated in the asthmatic children and unmethylated in the unexposed children, and concluded that the abnormal methylation patterns probably caused the asthma.
The finding could in part explain why worldwide asthma rates have skyrocketed in much of the world, reaching epidemic proportions among children. In the boroughs of New York City with the worst air pollution, about 25 percent of children are asthmatic.
Epigenetic changes also have been observed in children conceived with assisted reproductive technologies, said Richard Meehan of the Medical Research Council in Scotland.
One of the disorders that occurs at a higher rate in these children is Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by abdominal wall defects and a higher risk of certain childhood cancers. The culture medium where fertilized eggs are grown for several days before implantation probably causes the syndrome, he said. It appears that all the different media used for the eggs might be problematic because they contain chemicals that stimulate the addition of methyl groups to the cells.
The scientists at the workshop said it’s important to understand epigenetics not only to figure out which chemicals might endanger public health, but to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases.
Scientists are just now beginning to figure out normal methylation patterns in the genome so they can learn what is abnormal, said Karl T. Kelsey, professor of community heath and pathology at Brown University in Rhode Island. As a result of this new understanding, epigenetic therapies have been developed for some types of cancers, and some have been successful in clinical trials, he said. Unlike traditional cancer drugs, which kill cells, the new drugs simply change how the cells act.
Research with rats shows that gene-altering chemicals can change animals’ brains—in some cases, in a beneficial way.
Moshe Szyf, a pharmacology and therapeutics professor at McGill University Medical School in Montreal, found that rats that received healthy doses of maternal licking as pups grew up to be calmer than pups who had inattentive mothers. The maternal grooming brought about a chemical change in the part of the pup’s brain that produces stress hormones, he said.
The rats reared by attentive mothers had different levels of corticoid gene expression and lower levels of stress hormones than those reared by inattentive mothers. Szyf found he could cure the stressed rats by injecting a chemical called TSA into their brains, which reversed the inappropriate methylation caused by inattentive mothering.
This understanding of epigenetics may lead to new medications for treating human problems. By using approaches similar to those used in the rat study, Szyf is hoping to find drugs that will help alleviate human psychiatric conditions.
Szyf also studied the preserved brains of suicide victims and of people who died suddenly from causes other than suicide. He found that certain genes in the suicide victims were methylated, or turned off. In contrast, those same genes were not methylated in the victims who died by other means. Abnormal methylation patterns could cause depression in some people, he said.
Some compounds, such as nickel, chromium and arsenic, are well-known carcinogens—not because they are toxic to cells but because of their epigenetic effect, said Max Costa, a New York University professor of environmental medicine and pharmacology. They increase DNA methylation, which results in gene silencing and cell transformation and leads to cancer, he explained.
Researchers at the meeting spent a great deal of time discussing whether and how to test chemicals for their ability to cause epigenetic changes.
Most researchers there agreed that compounds need to be tested for epigenetic effects. But practical testing of the 80,000 or so chemicals in commerce would require rapid screens that would prioritize the compounds into high, medium, and low-risk groups. Those at high risk for epigenetic effects could then be subjected to more definitive and expensive tests.
John M. Greally, associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, pointed out that no single test is ideal for detecting epigenetic effects.
“All of the assays have drawbacks,” he said. For example, one assay requires immediate sample processing so it cannot be used on stored samples.
Nevertheless, many researchers said that testing chemicals for epigenetic changes can begin soon.
“The fact that we don’t know a great deal about this area doesn’t mean it’s daunting,” said George Daston, research fellow at Procter & Gamble. “We just need to build on what we have. Microassays already show how chemical exposures change the gene expression in certain parts of the genome. The fact that we don’t know a lot doesn’t mean we can’t start testing quickly.”
Birnbaum, who formerly was head of experimental toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said regulators and industry don’t have to start from square one.
“We’re already marching down this road,” said Birnbaum. “The National Toxicology Program is already talking about including some epigenetic studies in the program.”
The most important public health issue that arises from epigenetics, Birnbaum told Environmental Health News, is that the current environment may not be the crucial factor to consider when examining what causes diseases.
“Asking heart attack victims what they ate this year or last may be far less important than what they were exposed to in the womb and shortly after birth,” she said.
Metal leak at China chemical plant leaves 500 sick
More than 500 villagers in central China have been found to have high concentrations of a dangerous metal in their bodies after a series of leaks from a chemical plant, state media reported Monday.
Of the nearly 3,000 villagers living near the Changsha Xianghe Chemical Plant in Hunan province's Zhentou township, 509 people were found to have high concentrations of cadmium and 33 were hospitalized over the weekend, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Cadmium is used to make batteries.
The chemicals may have been leaking for months before two villagers, since found to have excessive levels of cadmium, died in May and June.
Two senior environmental officials were suspended and the head of the chemical plant was detained Saturday. That followed protests last week by nearly 1,000 residents complaining that deadly pollutants were being discharged from the factory into water that irrigates rice and vegetable fields, according to Xinhua.
Calls to the Liuyang city government office rang unanswered late Monday.
Factory accidents and chemical leaks are common in China, in part because of lax enforcement of proper worker training and safety rules.
Exposure to large amounts of cadmium can cause failure of the central nervous system and lungs, lead to severe brain damage and in some cases, cause death.
China's waterways, especially its major rivers, are dangerously polluted after decades of rapid economic growth and poor enforcement of pollution controls.
Of the nearly 3,000 villagers living near the Changsha Xianghe Chemical Plant in Hunan province's Zhentou township, 509 people were found to have high concentrations of cadmium and 33 were hospitalized over the weekend, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Cadmium is used to make batteries.
The chemicals may have been leaking for months before two villagers, since found to have excessive levels of cadmium, died in May and June.
Two senior environmental officials were suspended and the head of the chemical plant was detained Saturday. That followed protests last week by nearly 1,000 residents complaining that deadly pollutants were being discharged from the factory into water that irrigates rice and vegetable fields, according to Xinhua.
Calls to the Liuyang city government office rang unanswered late Monday.
Factory accidents and chemical leaks are common in China, in part because of lax enforcement of proper worker training and safety rules.
Exposure to large amounts of cadmium can cause failure of the central nervous system and lungs, lead to severe brain damage and in some cases, cause death.
China's waterways, especially its major rivers, are dangerously polluted after decades of rapid economic growth and poor enforcement of pollution controls.
Alaska's biggest tundra fire sparks climate warning
The fire that raged north of Alaska's Brooks mountain range in 2007 left a 1000-square-kilometre scorched patch of earth – an area larger than the sum of all known fires on Alaska's North Slope since 1950.
Now scientists studying the ecological impact of the fire report that the blaze dumped 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – about the amount that Barbados puts out in a year. What's more, at next week's meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two teams will warn that as climate change takes hold tundra fires across the Arctic will become more frequent.
Tundra fires only take off once certain thresholds are reached, says Adrian Rocha of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. "But projected changes in climate over the next century – increased aridity, thunderstorms, and warming in the Arctic – will increase the likelihood that these thresholds will be crossed and thus result in more larger and frequent fires."
Scarred surface
Rocha's team placed carbon dioxide and radiation sensors across the fire-scar and found that in the year after the fire, the most severely burned tundra emitted twice as much carbon as undamaged tundra normally stores away.
Pristine tundra takes up about 30 to 70 grams of carbon per square metre during the summer months, whereas the severely burned site lost about 40 to 120 grams per square metre. The team also found that the most severely burned terrain absorbed 71 per cent more solar radiation than normal, warming faster as a result and losing a layer of permafrost 5 to 10 centimetres deep.
"That may not seem like a lot," says Rocha, "but over the entire fire scar you're talking about 5 to 10 cm of water over a 1000 sq km area." Plus there's the double whammy of positive feedback: as tundra burns and emits carbon, it melts the permafrost – and that releases more carbon into the atmosphere. "Along with the melting ice in the permafrost, you're also exposing more old carbon that was stored in that freezer [as organic material] and is being allowed to decompose and reintroduce itself to the atmosphere."
Another team, led by Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, carbon-dated soil at the most severely burned sites. They found that organic matter accumulated over 50 years had been lost.
Long-term impact
Wetland ecologist William Bowden of the University of Vermont, Burlington, not at the ESA meeting, says that the fire blackened the surface and increased the amount of water in the soil. "Both factors should promote soil warming, permafrost thaw, and possible thermokarst formation," he says.
Thermokasts are areas of collapsed terrain where structurally important permafrost has thawed – a process that can damage the foundations of homes, roads, and pipelines. Permafrost melt will also increase the amount of greenhouse gases such as methane entering the atmosphere.
There are great similarities between plants and soils across the Arctic, adds Bowden, and lessons learned in Alaska are relevant to similar terrains in Canada and Russia.
Now scientists studying the ecological impact of the fire report that the blaze dumped 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – about the amount that Barbados puts out in a year. What's more, at next week's meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two teams will warn that as climate change takes hold tundra fires across the Arctic will become more frequent.
Tundra fires only take off once certain thresholds are reached, says Adrian Rocha of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. "But projected changes in climate over the next century – increased aridity, thunderstorms, and warming in the Arctic – will increase the likelihood that these thresholds will be crossed and thus result in more larger and frequent fires."
Scarred surface
Rocha's team placed carbon dioxide and radiation sensors across the fire-scar and found that in the year after the fire, the most severely burned tundra emitted twice as much carbon as undamaged tundra normally stores away.
Pristine tundra takes up about 30 to 70 grams of carbon per square metre during the summer months, whereas the severely burned site lost about 40 to 120 grams per square metre. The team also found that the most severely burned terrain absorbed 71 per cent more solar radiation than normal, warming faster as a result and losing a layer of permafrost 5 to 10 centimetres deep.
"That may not seem like a lot," says Rocha, "but over the entire fire scar you're talking about 5 to 10 cm of water over a 1000 sq km area." Plus there's the double whammy of positive feedback: as tundra burns and emits carbon, it melts the permafrost – and that releases more carbon into the atmosphere. "Along with the melting ice in the permafrost, you're also exposing more old carbon that was stored in that freezer [as organic material] and is being allowed to decompose and reintroduce itself to the atmosphere."
Another team, led by Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, carbon-dated soil at the most severely burned sites. They found that organic matter accumulated over 50 years had been lost.
Long-term impact
Wetland ecologist William Bowden of the University of Vermont, Burlington, not at the ESA meeting, says that the fire blackened the surface and increased the amount of water in the soil. "Both factors should promote soil warming, permafrost thaw, and possible thermokarst formation," he says.
Thermokasts are areas of collapsed terrain where structurally important permafrost has thawed – a process that can damage the foundations of homes, roads, and pipelines. Permafrost melt will also increase the amount of greenhouse gases such as methane entering the atmosphere.
There are great similarities between plants and soils across the Arctic, adds Bowden, and lessons learned in Alaska are relevant to similar terrains in Canada and Russia.
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