The Environmental Protection Agency is studying certain classes of chemicals that until recently were assumed innocent until proven guilty. This change in policy reflects a new era of caution intended to protect the health of children.

Under traditional assessment techniques, low doses of certain chemicals found in everyday household items, such as laundry detergent, were unregulated even though they could potentially disrupt the adult endocrine system.

Concerned that endocrine disruptors were causing foetal development problems and adversely affecting male sperm counts, in 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act and amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. In part, that legislation required EPA to develop new chemical testing techniques.

This October, EPA accepted a report by the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee recommending how to proceed in scrutinising these heretofore unregulated chemicals.

According tocommentary on the recent research on developing the new chemical testing techniques, researchers are having difficulty trying to establish a firm scientific hypothesis and establish a clear-cut cause-and-effect relationship, said toxicologist Gerard LeBlanc.

As an example, LeBlanc points to incidents such as the discovery of demasculinised alligators in Florida's Lake Apopka. The demasculinisation may be caused by accidental spills or improper disposal of chemicals and may not indicate an exposure problem of the general population.

However, LeBlanc said, ``Should we wait for absolute certainty before committing large financial resources to curb the problem, or should we err on the side of caution to protect the health of our children?''

Earth puts the squeeze on Los Angeles

Imagine the city of Los Angeles, California, put into a vise that is slowly squeezed together. The vise slowly moves downtown and west Los Angeles toward the San Gabriel Mountains, while new mountains form south of the SanGabriel range.

This is a good way to picture what is currently happening geologically to Los Angeles, according to researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, using precise satellite surveying techniques. The measurements come from the Southern California Integrated Global Positioning System Network, an array of 60 GPS receivers that continuously measure the constant, tiny movements of earthquake faults throughout Southern California.

``We've known for some time that the area between the coastline and the Mojave Desert is being squeezed together by the constant movement of Earth's crust,'' said Dr Donald Argus, a geophysicist at JPL. ``This new research helps pinpoint the area that's being squeezed. Specifically, downtown and west LA appear to be moving toward the San Gabriel Mountains at about one-fifth of an inch (half a centimetre) per year.''

Winter Olympics will damage Poprad-Tatry in Slovakia

Saying they fear damage to the ``sensitive ecosystems'' of nationalparks, a group of environmental activists wrote an appeal to the International Olympics Committee, opposing plans to hold Winter Olympic Games (WOG) in the Poprad-Tatry region of Slovakia in 2006.

The appeal, which is being circulated to the general public by e-mail, states in part: ``Organising of WOG in national parks and even in the territory of national nature reserves should be in direct contradiction to some Slovak laws.''

The statement also complained of inadequate public participation in the decision to hold the Winter Games in Slovakia: ``The candidacy of Poprad-Tatry was a political act, not being officially discussed with all relevant environmental bodies. The attitude of all influential environmental NGOs in Slovakia is common in refusal of organising WOG in the Tatras.''The appeal lists the Society for Sustainable Living in Slovakia as its return address, but it also contains a list of 50 e-mail ``signatories'', who come from a diverse group of organisations from around the world.

Truckwith ethanol being planned by US varsities

Fourteen university teams from across the United States and Canada are blending their high-tech engineering knowledge with state-of-the-art agricultural research to convert full-size, gasoline-powered, pick-up trucks to run on ethanol fuel. The kick-off for the 1999 Ethanol Vehicle Challenge held in early October featured the 1999 four-wheel drive Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierras that will be used in the competition. Sponsored by the US Department of Energy and General Motors, the challenge gives students real-world engineering experience as they convert their pick-up trucks equipped with a 5.3 litre V-8 engine from gasoline to ethanol.