Carbon

Robin Lambo was asleep when the firefighters pounded on her door about 7:30 a.m. yesterday. Still in her nightclothes, she managed to ask whether she could pull on a pair of shorts before being led from her apartment on the 11th floor of the Virginia Towers in Towson. But the 39-year-old disabled woman didn't have time in those frantic moments to grab her purse and medicine - a common problem during yesterday's evacuation of about 150 disabled and senior residents from the 15-story high-rise at 500 Virginia Ave. after carbon monoxide was detected.

Dr. Andrei Kranz disconnected the carbon monoxide detector in his Long Island, N.Y., home last summer because the device kept going off for no apparent reason and waking the family. In May, Kranz came home to find his parents, his 3-year-old daughter, the nanny and two houseguests dead in their beds, all victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. Police investigators found that someone had turned on the air conditioner without shutting off the furnace. The air conditioner's intake filter was clogged with leaves, so the cooling system drew in furnace fumes instead.

About 100 people attended a meeting here last night to find out whether a carbon fuel the Lehigh Portland Cement Co. wants to burn in itskilns would cause cancer or damage the ozone layer."

County Commissioner President Donald I. Dell seemed to sum up the sentiment of the angry, worried crowd that gathered here Friday."We don't like to be dumped on by big business," he said, as more than 100 people applauded.Residents opposed to a Lehigh Portland Cement Co. plan to burn carbon waste in its kilns turned out in force for the second time last week, as the Maryland Department of the Environment took testimony Friday night at a formal hearing at the Union Bridge Community Center.

It's the season for a blazing fire, for goodies baking in the oven and bubbling on the stove top, for a crackling fire in thewood stove, and for the space heater and the furnace roaring around the clock.It's also the season for carbon monoxide poisoning.The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) attributes 200 deaths to carbon monoxide poisoning from home combustion appliances -- those very ones named above -- in the U.ited States every year. Hundreds more people suffer from milder cases of poisoning from fumes given off by their improperly functioning fuel-burning appliances.

A 2-year-old girl died last night and her mother was gravely ill as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty furnace in their East Baltimore home, authorities said.The child's father, Kenneth Moyd, arrived at the rowhouse in the 1900 block of North Patterson Park Avenue at 6:40 p.m. and found both the toddler and her mother unconscious, said Agent Arlene K. Jenkins, a city police spokeswoman.Police identified the child as Tiera Monet Moyd, who was pronounced dead on arrival at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

GLOUCESTER POINT, Va. - The ability of scientists to predict long-term climate change requires an understanding of Earth's carbon cycle. Research by Virginia Institute of Marine Science scientists suggests that the carbon in river water may be much older - and vary more in age - than previously thought. Their findings may help resolve a fundamental paradox facing those trying to assess Earth's carbon budget. The research, conducted by scientists Peter Raymond and James Bauer at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, was published in a recent issue of the journal Nature.

Carbon monoxide, the toxic gas found in car exhaust and industrial emissions, appears also to be a natural brain chemical that plays a key role in relaying messages from one nerve cell to the next.The discovery by scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine expands by one the list of neurotransmitters -- chemical messengers -- that regulate the way we feel, move, sense the environment and react to stress. These chemicals number about 50, but carbon monoxide is just the second gas found to play this role.

Maryland Occupational Safety and Health officials finished yesterday an investigation of a carbon monoxide incident that displaced 16 people from the apartments above Johansson's restaurant early Sunday in Westminster.It will be a few weeks before official results of the investigation are available, but firefighters and health officials said yesterday that a propane gas heater caused the problem, which sent all 16 residents to Carroll County General Hospital about 1:30 a.m. Sunday.Officials said residents called 911 when they began to feel ill Saturday night.

Five members of a Randallstown family and a friend were taken to the University of Maryland Medical Center yesterday for treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department. The family was using a gas generator for electricity inside the basement of the house, in the 4900 block of Old Court Road, because the power was off, according to the Fire Department. The family returned to their home around midnight, and the parents smelled something unusual, said Elise Armacost, a Fire Department spokeswoman.