Chemicals

When it comes to dating and mating, how much more can we learn from what we smell? More than you might think. Lab mice, for example, can't invite each other out for a drink. But new research suggests they can communicate how dry they are through a previously unknown sensory mechanism in their noses. The discovery might help scientists gain new understanding of how other mammals, including humans, share information about their health, genetics and sexual availability by reading chemical signals picked up by the nose.

Thuvan N. Piehler usually spends her days working with explosives at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Yesterday, she helped young students in southeastern Baltimore County understand chemistry -- using balloons, crackers and glue. Piehler was among five chemists from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground who designed hands-on experiments for Colgate Elementary School's fourth-graders to get them excited about chemistry. Sandra Young, a materials engineer, told the children that chemicals are in everything that they can see, smell and touch.

NORFOLK, Va. -- If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women were pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend.We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways. But Mr. Gore is calling for an equally senseless animal-bashing by pushing a scientifically flawed testing program, in which thousands of chemicals that have been on the market for years will be retested on animals.Mr. Gore and some friends in the Environmental Protection Agency started out claiming a "vacuum" of information on these substances.

WASHINGTON -- New orders at U.S. factories fell for a second straight month in October, as a plunge in electronics orders linked to an earthquake in Taiwan offset gains for machinery, chemicals and paper, government figures showed yesterday.Orders fell 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted $360 billion after dropping a revised 1 percent in September, the Commerce Department said.Without a 10.4 percent decline for electronic and other electrical equipment, orders would have risen 1 percent, the figures showed.

Two of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s power plants released more than 14 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air last year, likely making it Maryland's top polluter.The amount dwarfs the figures of the top polluters of 1997, the Westvaco paper products company in Western Maryland and Millennium Inorganics, a Baltimore chemical company.Although the power company's numbers are included in a report to be released next month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its national Toxic Release Inventory, BGE announced them yesterday, as did other utilities throughout the country.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency banned yesterday most uses of a pesticide applied widely for years on fruits and vegetables and tightened restrictions on another, in the first regulations intended specifically to protect children.Starting next year, the pesticide methyl parathion may not be used on a wide variety of crops from apples to turnips. The pesticide, mainly used by farmers, has been heavily regulated for years.Last year, 4.2 million pounds of methyl parathion was applied over 4.9 million acres, but 75 percent of the pounds and acreage produced cotton, corn and wheat, which are not affected by yesterday's ban. No figures were available on use of the second chemical.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- DuPont Co. said yesterday that it will cut 1,300 jobs, or 8.7 percent of the work force, in its coatings unit as it integrates the Herberts paint business it bought for $1.8 billion from Germany's Hoechst AG.DuPont, the biggest U.S. chemical company, said it will shut six Herberts plants in Europe, Mexico and Brazil and shed 500 manufacturing jobs and 800 corporate positions over the next nine months.The moves were anticipated at the time of purchase and won't hurt 1999 earnings, the company said.

WASHINGTON -- It has been 27 years since the United States banned the pesticide DDT, and the payoff is undeniable. The peregrine falcon, once pushed to the brink of extinction, came off the endangered species list this month, and the bald eagle might soon follow. Brown pelicans are flourishing in Florida. On the shores of Long Island, the ospreys are back.The United Nations is drafting a treaty that might lead to a worldwide ban on DDT. But the international negotiations, set to resume in Geneva next month, are drawing opposition from an unlikely quarter: public health professionals, who say DDT is necessary to stop the spread of malaria, a disease that kills as many as 2.7 million people each year, mostly children in poor, undeveloped countries.

THE STORY OF DDT is a tale of two worlds. The miracle pesticide of the 1930s was banned by developed nations decades ago as a health and environmental hazard. Malaria is virtually nonexistent in the West.But it is still the cheapest, most effective weapon against malaria in developing countries, where each yearsome 2.5 million people die from, and 500 million are infected by, the mosquito-transmitted disease.That division is sharply drawn in negotiations on a United Nations treaty that would ban DDT worldwide.

I STARTED smoking in the summer of 1964. I played some mindless game on the boardwalk of Wildwood, N.J., tossing a volleyball onto a collection of muffin tins, and the ball landed on a colored one, and I won a pack of cigarettes.So began a habit that, in the 1960s, was merely a rite of passage into adulthood. I am now in the process of quitting the habit. I say "in the process" because it's turned out to be a rather difficult enterprise, and while I expect to succeed eventually, it's decidedly not much fun. Now I fervently wish that in 1964 on the New Jersey coast I'd played miniature golf that night instead.

The Army plans to test residential and business wells in Odenton after groundwater samples there showed elevated levels of toxic chemicals in an area adjacent to Fort Meade, officials said Monday. Mary Doyle, a spokeswoman for the Army base, said the military hopes to test all wells within one mile of a pair of monitoring wells, near the Odenton MARC station, where contaminants have been found at up to 10 times levels considered safe to drink. The testing is being done under orders from the Environmental Protection Agency, which said in a letter that the chemicals are "an unacceptable risk to human health" if they are being consumed in drinking water.

Paint. It's about the color. It can give a room an entirely new look, from dramatic to soothing. And nothing does more to freshen a house for sale than the clean luster of newly painted walls. But it's also about chemicals, especially the volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that give off that new paint smell and are considered hazardous to breathe and environmentally dangerous. Some VOCs used in paint are suspected or known carcinogens. Some chemicals, released as the paint dries, damage the atmosphere.

The fumes that waft from top-selling air fresheners and laundry products contain dozens of chemicals, including several classified as toxic or hazardous, says a University of Washington study published yesterday. None of the chemicals was listed on product labels, nor does the federal government require companies to disclose ingredients in fragrances, said study author Anne Steinemann. "I was surprised by both the number and the potential toxicity of the chemicals that were found," said Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs.

Researchers have identified seven possibilities for the next generation of mosquito repellent, some of which may work several times longer than the current standard-bearer, DEET. The next step: safety testing to make sure they're not harmful. While the new repellents aren't likely to be available commercially for a few years, early tests on cloth were promising, with some chemicals repelling mosquitoes for as long as 73 days and many working for 40 days to 50 days, compared to an average of 17.5 days with DEET, according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

WASHINGTON - Tankers filled with deadly chemicals are likely to continue to roll through Baltimore and other major cities despite new federal rules initially aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic accidents or terrorist threats by sending much of the cargo through less-populated areas. Beginning next month, railroads must analyze alternative routes for shipping chlorine and other hazardous materials, and pick the path they find to be the safest and most secure, as well as practical and "commercially viable."

Infants whose parents applied baby lotions, powders and shampoos to their young skin had elevated levels of a chemical believed to harm developing endocrine and reproductive systems, according to a study published today. The more products that parents applied, the higher the level of the chemical, according to one of the first studies to examine how babies are exposed to phthalates through their skin, as opposed to ingesting or inhaling the chemicals. Phthalates (pronounced THA-lates)

Thuvan N. Piehler usually spends her days working with explosives at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Yesterday, she helped young students in southeastern Baltimore County understand chemistry -- using balloons, crackers and glue. Piehler was among five chemists from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground who designed hands-on experiments for Colgate Elementary School's fourth-graders to get them excited about chemistry. Sandra Young, a materials engineer, told the children that chemicals are in everything that they can see, smell and touch.

The owner of a dormant Brooklyn Park pharmaceutical plant, which was found to have open chemicals and 50,000 gallons of hazardous waste on its property, has been ordered to clean up the site by year's end or face federal fines of up to $32,500 a day. A directive issued this week by the Environmental Protection Agency requires Consolidated Pharmaceuticals Inc. to remove a tank of flesh-eating hydrochloric acid by the end of the month and a host of other...

CHICAGO -- Lotions and sunscreens have long contained parabens, or synthetic chemicals used as preservatives, but now that products promoted as "paraben-free" have hit store shelves, concerned consumers are asking: "What, exactly, are parabens, and are they dangerous?" Mainstream products made by Burt's Bees, which never has used parabens, are available everywhere from Whole Foods and Target to Borders, CVS, Walgreens and even Hallmark stores. For years, parabens (methyl, ethyl, propyl and benzyl)

Private school in Annapolis is closed after science lab spill A private school in downtown Annapolis was temporarily closed yesterday after a spill in the science lab produced a chemical haze, a city fire official said. A strange odor and smoke greeted firefighters who arrived about 6:30 a.m. at St. Mary's School on Duke of Gloucester Street, said Capt. Ed Hadaway, a city Fire Department spokesman. Hazardous-materials teams from the city and Anne Arundel County that were called in traced the problem to the prep room for the Catholic high school's chemistry lab. They found that chemicals poured there had interacted, producing heat and the smoke.