A Whole New Way to Learn

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Laura Carr

TED and The Khan Academy Method:

Homework Help or the Future of Learning?

Written by Kimberly Carr

For those who are not familiar, TED is a non-profit organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading.”  The acronym “TED” signifies the meeting of three professional worlds: technology, engineering, and design.  The folks at TED “believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.”  At its two annual conferences in Long Beach/ Palm Springs and Edinburgh, Scotland, TED brings together some of the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give “the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes or less.

One TED presenter was a man named Salman Khan, who founded a remarkable non-profit called “Khan Academy.”  The academy started out simply as a way to tutor his nephews by using his own YouTube videos.  Some surprising things happened when Salman Khan posted his videos to YouTube.  First, his nephews, apparently, preferred video Uncle Salmon to real life Uncle Salman, but more than that, these videos sparked an idea worth spreading.  That idea being that a simple video could help struggling kids to succeed in school.

This instance is the very thing that inspired “Khan Academy”, which aims to change education for the better by providing world-class education to anyone anywhere.  Khan Academy’s website provides cross-curricular resources and videos on a vast number of subjects and learning levels.  The website states, “It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adults returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up on earthly biology.  The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.”

Khan Academy currently has over 2700 videos (and that number continues to grow) and a world of exercises with help along the way.  If you need a hint, every single problem can be broken down, step-by-step, with one click.  The website also instantly generates statistics based on your progress, so that you can see whether or not you’ve been hitting your goals.  Finally, teachers and coaches can access all of their students’ data and get a summary of class performance as a whole (or dive into a particular student’s profile to better tailor lessons in the classroom.  Students working with Khan Academy at their side will be better prepared for classroom learning and can earn badges and points for learning.  The more students challenge themselves, the more “bragging rights” they will get.  “We’ve heard of students spending hour after hour watching physics videos and 5th graders relentlessly tackling college-level math to earn Khan Academy badges.”  Khan also reports that an incredibly impressive number of students were active on the Academy website on Christmas day.

The point is, kids are highly motivated and more successful using Khan Academy’s growing number of web resources.  But out of all of the impressive things Salman Khan had to say about Khan Academy, what really stuck with me was the idea that perhaps this method could be the future of learning—could literally flip education as we know it upside-down.  What I mean is this.  Currently, when students learn about a new topic, let’s say, long division, the teacher lectures about plugging numbers into an algorithm, but at the end of the day, students go home and are expected to apply this new knowledge of long division to their homework.

Instead, teachers could assign “lectures” (or Khan videos) for homework. This strategy embraces diverse learning styles and levels by allowing the students to work at their own pace.  Students would quite literally be in control of their own instruction.  They can watch the video lectures on their own time, rewind if they are confused, pause to try something or catch up, and learn at their own desired pace.  In the classroom, students can work on developing a deeper understanding with the support of the teacher.

As an educator, I think this method is absolutely ingenious and I can’t wait to try it out.  Something that started out as “homework help” really could become so much more.  Technology, mixed with the power of ideas, really could revolutionize education as we know it.

View Salman Khan’s inspiring TED Talk here.

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PCBs: Lost Whales, Low Birth Weights and Bad Sperm

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Jim Okun

Some time ago I set up a Google Alert for articles about PCBs so I could stay up to date on new research findings.  Here’s something I’ve discovered: PCBs get blamed for a lot of negative effects based on some pretty fishy evidence.  It seems that anytime a biological system behaves in a bad way that can not be explained, the cause may be attributed to PCBs.  Here are a few examples from the last few months.

Lost Whales

A number of whale populations have begun to recover because commercial hunting has been significantly curtailed.  For those in the New England area, a (possibly) once in a life time opportunity to see a large number of rare Right Whales occurred off of Cape Cod last year.  Biologists have estimated that more than 50% of the world’s population of Right Whales took up residence in Cape Cod Bay for parts of 2011. Very cool.

However, based on the popular science news stories, whales are now under attack from PCBs (1, 2, and 3).  According to the scientists who have published these papers, PCBs cause neurological and other health problems for whales that result in decreased life spans.  It causes them to get lost at sea and contributes to the inexplicable beaching of whales.  The fact that there is no proof of any adverse health effects from PCBs in marine mammals and that their population numbers are generally increasing does not seem to carry much weight with the authors of these articles.

Low Birth Weights (Human)

Last month this story hit my screen about PCBs, but not DDE, being “linked” to low birth weight babies.  The authors studied the relationship between birth weights and  PCBs in umbilical cord blood from 12 European population groups.  They found that babies from the Faroe Islands showed the strongest correlation between low birth weight and cord PCB concentration.  After some research I learned that the Faroe Islands are located in the North Sea off the coast of Norway, but are legally a part of Denmark.

Another thing I learned about the Faroe Island population is that they have the highest birth rate (2.6 children per couple) and the heaviest babies in Europe.  The PCB study concludes that: “The large-scale analysis shows low-level exposures during development might be harmful. Low birth weight is related to adverse health outcomes, including newborn death, developmental delays and childhood neurological disorders”.  No evidence was offered that these health effects had been found in the babies with more PCBs.

The one third of a pound birth weight difference between the high and low PCB babies meant that the Faroe Island high PCB babies came in at just about the normal European birth weight.  The reason some babies had higher PCB concentrations is because their mothers ate more fish, and fish is the biggest contributor to human PCB body burden.  People who eat more fish tend to be more diet conscious and also have lower body masses.   With less fat intake as a result of a leaner diet, could this explain the lower birth weights?  If so, do the lower birth weights actually indicate an improvement in health status?  Unfortunately, the article does not explore this possibility.

Side note: While looking at other sources for information on PCBs and low birth weights I came across this article.  It was published in the same journal about a month earlier than the one reporting on low birth weights, but this one is about how prenatal exposure to PCBs causes obesity in infants and children.  This must mean that PCBs can cause either low weight or high weight depending on who does the study.  So there you go, no matter the problem, PCBs are a candidate for the cause.

Bad Sperm

This is a sensitive topic for our family oriented blog, but the pursuit of science requires that we cover the issue.   Back in 2003, this article surfaced (abstract) showing a link between the concentration of PCB congener 138 (2, 2′, 3, 4, 4′, 5′ hexachloro-biphenyl) and human sperm quality.  Here’s a link to a more complete summary of the article. Interestingly, there was little if any correlation between sperm quality and the other PCB congeners studied in detail (PCB 118 and 153).  This is odd because these three PCB congeners (118, 138 and 153) always occur together since they are among the dominant congeners in Aroclor 1254, 1260 and 1262 (in other words these three congeners are well correlated with each other).    It is very unlikely that an environmental sample would contain just one of these congeners without the other two also being present.   So how could there be a correlation between sperm quality and just one of these congeners without there also being a correlation with the other two?  I really don’t know, but when in doubt, just blame it on PCBs!

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Extreme Engineering – Ice Hotel

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Laura Carr

What’s your idea of a great vacation destination?  Exploring the Mayan ruins?  Swimming with stingrays in the Cayman Islands?  Or perhaps doing a bit of skiing in Vale, Colorado?  Consider visiting an engineering marvel, a hotel that is built anew each year.  Yes, you read that right.  This hotel is demolished and reconstructed year after year so it’s never the same place twice.  I’m talking about Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden.

Not only is Ice Hotel an engineering marvel it is completely recycled each year.  Blocks of frozen river ice from Lake Torne are cut and stored in an icehouse for the upcoming season.  Each year the hotel is built on the riverbank and in the spring the ice melts, returning to the river.

Construction starts in November and is completed two months later and is completely dependant on the weather temperatures.  Metal forms fitted with skis are re-used each year to create the rooms with in the hotel.  With the aid of snow machines, the forms are covered with a layer of what the engineers call ‘snice’.  Snice is the perfect building consistency of snow and ice.  When the snice layer reaches the proper thickness, it will have the strength of concrete. The forms will be pulled out revealing this season’s rooms.  In 2004 Ice Hotel covered an area the size of two football fields, the lobby was 15’ high by 18’ wide and included a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

Ice artists from around the world decorate the guest rooms and suites making each one unique.  The ice artists have the challenge of calculating exactly how much ice they will need to create all the furniture for each room because once the room is complete no more ice can be added.  Everything – beds, tables, desks, and chairs even artwork, chandeliers, columns and the bar glassware is made of ice.  Fully wired with fiber optic and diode lighting the hotel glows with a cool blue green light.

Upon completion the hotel will have a full lobby, bar, theater, more than 60 guest rooms, several guest suites and at least one luxury suite.  The entire hotel is a work of art and during the day all rooms, including the guest rooms and suits are open for all to tour and enjoy.   Late in the afternoon the hotel closes to the public and guests staying the night have access to their rooms.  Guests will sleep on beds covered in reindeer skins in sleeping bags.  More than 100 guests come to the hotel to be married each year!

Words cannot describe the beauty of this extreme engineering marvel.  Imagine arriving by dog sled, touring an amazing international art exhibit, dinner, drinks and a show and capping off the evening with a peaceful sleep in solitude.

Welcome to 2007 Ice Hotel - Photo courtesy of Mia Huntley

Friendly concierge welcomes guests to the hotel - Photo courtesy of Mia Huntley

Ice crystal chandelier against a fiber optic back lit wall - Photo courtesy of Mia HuntleyFor more information check out these sites:

For more information check out these sites:

http://www.simply-sweden.com/icehotel/

http://lapland.nordicvisitor.com/travel-deals/ice-snow-hotels/?rf=g461-01&gclid=CMuQ5vqMvq0CFUio4AodUFX0-g

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PCBs in Peabody, MA Schools – A Rational Perspective

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Jim Okun

It was refreshing to read this article in The Salem News last week describing how Superintendent Herb Levine and school committee board member Beverley Anne Griffin Dunne were taking a rational approach to evaluating risks from PCBs in schools.  It’s too bad that their approach has been the exception and not the rule.  Levine and Dunne deserve credit for taking a courageous stance at a time when leaders from other communities have fallen prey to bad science, and as a result, have exposed their communities to millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses.

PCBs grip public attention and cause fear well out of proportion with the actual risk posed.  Some of this fear is caused by misunderstandings about PCBs, some is caused by poor guidance from regulatory agencies and some comes from the way people think about the concept of risk.

The most important thing to understand about PCBs is that they became widely used because they are chemically and biologically inert; that is they do not easily undergo chemical reactions.  PCBs are like a liquid form of Teflon (TM); they do not degrade or decompose readily.  Some types of PCBs are more biologically active than others (this group includes the so-called “coplanar PCBs”), but these particular PCBs are rarely ever found in people or the environment.  When you think about PCBs, think of them as an oily form of Teflon (TM).  Also, try thinking about Teflon (TM) as a chemical product that can be found in every home and environmental setting – and it lasts forever.

As to bad guidance from regulatory agencies, consider that in 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) and instructed the USEPA to develop the PCB regulations as a reaction to the Yusho poisoning incident in Japan, originally thought to have been caused by PCBs.  By the time Japanese scientists discovered that the Yusho disease was actually caused by polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) and not by PCBs, it was too late to stop the TSCA regulatory freight train.  To this day there is no evidence that PCBs cause chronic disease in people, but that fact has not stopped or slowed EPA’s PCB enforcement efforts.

Understanding and managing risk is not something most people are taught in school, but it should be. The goal of risk management is to identify those possible hazards that are probable enough that taking countermeasures to avoid them is worthwhile.  Here is a simple example to illustrate the importance of understanding relative health risks: a comparison of the relative risks between radon, automobiles and PCBs.

Radon is an odorless colorless gas that is produced by the natural radioactive decay of uranium.  Radon is itself radioactive, and when it decays it emits a high energy alpha particle and a gamma ray, two forms of “ionizing radiation”.  Exposure to ionizing radiation from radon is known to significantly increase lung cancer risk and is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking.  Radon is found in indoor air because the uranium present in underground minerals and rocks is always undergoing  decay and releasing radon gas.  This radon gas migrates to the ground surface and can accumulate in structures resulting in exposures to building occupants and a greater risk of lung cancer.  The USEPA estimates that between 20,000 and 40,000 lung cancer deaths per year are caused by these radon exposures.  This would represent approximately 1.2% of total US deaths for 2009.

Driving is an activity most of us take for granted, but even though cars are built safer than ever, automobile accidents caused approximately 33,000 fatalities in 2009 (most recent available data).  This fatality rate amounted to approximately 1.4% of total 2009 US deaths.  These figures do not include the number of non-fatal injuries, a number greater than the fatality rate.

What was the US rate of fatalities from PCBs in 2009?  There were no reports of death, disease or injury caused by PCBs in 2009 or any other year since 1980.  Note that when PCBs were in active use prior to 1980, there were reports of disease arising from high level occupational PCB exposures.  Symptoms from these exposures were reported to reverse shortly after the exposures stopped.  Chronic disease symptoms were not observed at the time and have not been found in long-term followup studies.

So putting myself in the role of a school committee member (a role I have been in), I would use any budget available for risk reduction in a way that produced the greatest health benefit.  That might be in the area of more driver’s education – there is a huge potential upside in reducing teen driving accidents.  If I were more concerned about environmental exposures in the schools, going after radon in indoor air would be an obvious target.  If more than one of every 100 students will contract lung cancer from radon, I would want to make sure that I knew what the radon levels were in my schools and I would want to reduce them as much as possible.  Here again, the potential benefit would be large.

Could I justify spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars reducing PCB levels in schools?  No, because there is no documented health benefit that would come from taking this action.  Not until I knew that other more serious risks were addressed, and not until the school’s academic performance could not benefit from additional spending would I consider spending money on removing PCBs.

Final note.  I hear people say that the reason there are no reported deaths, or disease incidents from PCBs is that the correlation between PCBs and disease has not been studied carefully enough; that if scientists only looked harder, they would find a link.  My response is that this is a faulty argument.  Scientists have been conducting rigorous human health studies on PCBs for over 40 years and a link between PCBs and chronic disease remains undetected.  Over this same period links between other far less common toxic materials and disease have been clearly demonstrated.  The absence of a link between PCBs and chronic disease is not due to a lack of looking.  PCBs are a boogeyman in the environmental closet; its time to recognize this and move on to more serious matters.

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For a Stormy Season – Stocking an Emergency Food Pantry

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Laura Carr

Be Prepared.

That’s the motto of the Boy Scouts.

“Be prepared for what?” someone once asked Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting,

“Why, for any old thing.” said Baden-Powell.

Like the Boy Scouts, I believe in being prepared.  2011 tested the survival skills of many New England families with its particularly extreme weather – heavy snowstorms, tornadoes, and a hurricane.  Hurricane Irene left me with out power and water for 7 days.  The emergency food pantry is where I fell short with my emergency preparations.  Although I had non-perishable foods, I did not have what I needed to make balanced meals.  The goal of this blog post is to give you recommendations to start your own emergency food pantry.

With the the winter season here, now is as great time to get stated. Below you’ll find my emergency food pantry list and an emergency shopping list.  I’ve also included a link to “Emergency Kitchen” a website with recipes for one pot meals that can be made with canned and non-perishable food.  Non-perishable foods are “stable” foods that do not spoil and have a shelf life of several months or even years.  They are foods that can be found in many American home pantries.  The emergency list also contains perishable items that do not need refrigeration and have a shelf life of approximately one week.  These include foods like; bread, fresh fruits, and vegetables.

When planning an emergency food pantry, consider the cooking appliances and tools you’ll have accessible in the event of an emergency.  I have a natural gas stove in my kitchen and a propane outdoor grille, they will both work without electricity.  Matches and manual can and bottle openers are important tools to have on hand for emergency situations. Also consider stocking paper products (napkins, plates, bowls and cutlery) as these will make meal clean-up easier.

When shopping for your emergency food pantry, consider purchasing single serving sizes whenever possible to eliminate the need for refrigeration after containers have been opened.  Emergency food pantries should include a variety of foods for balanced nutrition.  It’s also a good idea to periodically check expiration dates on these food items. Peggy Van Laaned’s PDF, “Safe Food Storage” is an informative guide that’s well worth reading.

Fruits and Vegetables Group

  • Canned vegetables (choose low/no sodium to minimize the need to drink water)
  • Vegetable juice
  • Canned tomatoes (juice and sauce)
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Canned fruit and fruit cups (in natural juice rather than syrupy fruits)
  • Dried fruits (bananas, pineapple, apricots are good examples)
  • Applesauce
  • Fruit juice and juice boxes

Protein Group

  • Canned meat (tuna, salmon, or chicken for example)
  • Canned ham sandwich spread
  • Dried and dehydrated meats (jerky for example)
  • Soups, stews, and chili
  • Baked beans
  • Dried and canned beans and peas
  • Chili Beef stew
  • Peanut butter
  • Nuts

Grain Group

  • Oatmeal
  • Whole grain crackers
  • Breakfast Cereals
  • All pasta types
  • Whole grain rice
  • Whole grain crackers (good replacement for bread)
  • Granola bars
  • Cereal bars
  • Quinoa

Other

  • Water
  • Electrolyte drinks
  • Alfredo sauce
  • Gravy
  • Bouillon cubes (great for flavoring rice and pasta)
  • Dry soup mix (also great for flavoring rice and pasta)
  • Mustard, ketchup, and soy sauce
  • Salad dressing (types that do not need to be stored in refrigerator after opening)
  • Pudding cups (a welcome treat!)

Emergency shopping

  • Bread
  • Fresh fruit
  • Mayonnaise packets
  • Fresh vegetables (that do not need refrigeration: Green beans, broccoli, and brussel sprouts )

Helpful websites:

Emergency Kitchen – one pot recipes for canned and non-perishable foods: http://www.y2kkitchen.com/html/recipes.html

Safe Food Storage – PDF food storage guide:  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/store/texas_storage.pdf

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PCBs: Aroclors, Homologs and Congeners

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Jim Okun

With PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) being more in the news, you may hear the terms “Aroclors”, “homologs” and “congeners” used to describe the different ways that PCBs are measured.  Measuring the concentration of PCBs gets complicated because there are actually 209 different chemicals (referred to as congeners) included in the PCB chemical group.  Measuring all 209 congeners separately is research level analytical chemistry and is impractical for most purposes.  However, analytical chemists have developed a number of effective ways to measure PCBs that don’t require looking for all 209 different PCB congeners.

The most common way to measure PCBs is as Aroclors.  Aroclor was the trade name of the commercial PCB mixtures manufactured by the Monsanto Chemical Company and sold in the United States.  An Aroclor PCB mixture might consist of over 100 different individual PCB congeners, although 10-20 might make up over 50% of the mixture.   When analytical chemists test a sample to see if it has an Aroclor PCB mixture in it, they look for a distinctive gas chromatographic pattern (sometimes called a chromatographic “fingerprint”) that is indicative of one of the Aroclors.  There were  nine common PCB Aroclor mixtures (1221, 1232, 1242, 1016, 1248, 1254, 1260, 1262, and 1268), and each of them has a distinctive gas chromatographic pattern.  Measuring PCBs as Aroclors relies on there being a relatively fixed composition of PCB congeners in the mixture.

When a chemist measures the amount of Aroclor in a sample, they will know the total amount of that Aroclor that is present, but will not know the identity or the concentration of the specific PCB congeners in the sample.  Provided the sample has not been subjected to conditions that might degrade or change the composition of the PCBs, knowing the type of Aroclor present and its concentration is usually sufficient for environmental assessment.

However, if an environmental sample has been subjected to conditions that might alter the congener composition of the sample, then it will be more accurate to test the sample by a different method.  Air samples, sediment samples, biota samples and water samples are the ones most likely to have had their congener composition changed by environmental conditions.  This can happen because the PCB congeners with fewer chlorine atoms tend to partition into air and water more readily than those with more chlorine atoms.  For this reason air and water samples are likely to be “enriched” with congeners with fewer chlorine atoms.  Biota samples can also be subject to bio-degradation with some congeners being selectively reduced and others remaining constant.

For samples whose congener makeup has been altered, testing for Aroclors will give erroneous results.  Testing for PCB homologs will give more reliable results for these samples.  Homologs are a way of grouping PCB congeners by the number of chlorine atoms they have; this can vary from one to ten.  All the PCB chemicals that have the same number of chlorine atoms are said to belong to the same homolog group.  There are 11 different di-chloro congeners in the 2-chlorine homolog group and there are 42 different tetra-chloro congeners  in the 4-chlorine homolog group, as examples.  Laboratory results for PCB homologs will list the the amount of PCB present in the sample by the number of chlorine atoms.

In circumstances requiring more congener detail than can be provided by either Aroclor or homolog analyses, it is also possible to analyze samples for a subset of the full 209 congeners.  The NOAA PCB congener method cites 20 congeners to be reported, this is often used for sediment analysis. The USACE PCB congener method cites 22 congeners to be reported. The SW-846 8082 method cites 19 congeners to be reported. The WHO lists cites 12 congeners (those of potentially greatest health concern).  Congener data is particularly useful for forensic purposes, but the guidance available for interpreting the data is fairly limited.

Overall, in most instances assessing PCBs using the Aroclor method will be the best choice.  Where that method is inappropriate, looking at homologs is likely to be a good option, and where even more detailed results are needed, looking for PCB congeners will be necessary.  For homolog and congener testing make sure to select a laboratory with considerable experience with these analyses as they are challenging tests to perform.

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PCBs and Turtles

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Jim Okun

There is a story making the popular on-line science magazine circuit that is as good an example of bad environmental science as you are likely to see.  These articles describe a laboratory study where turtles were dosed with PCBs and then developed adverse health effects, including low bone density.   Well, so what? Isn’t this just another report proving that PCBs are as toxic as the EPA and the environmental groups have been saying?   Not exactly.  As is often the case with bad science, what looks credible on the surface can on closer examination be without real significance.

Before getting into bad science, let’s recap the traits that characterize  good environmental science.   Good science (of any kind) starts when researchers develop a theory about how real world systems behave when subjected to a changed condition.  With their theory in hand, the researchers design an experiment to test the theory; that is, they use the theory to make a prediction about how the system will behave when they change certain conditions.  They then conduct the experiment and see if their prediction was right or wrong.  If the results of the experiment confirm their prediction, this tells the researchers that their theory might be on the right track.  If the experimental results differ from the theory’s prediction, then it’s “back to the drawing board” for the theory and the researchers.

In environmental science, theories and experiments need to mirror what happens in the real world as closely as possible if the results are to have practical significance.  Research that does not closely track real world conditions has very limited relevance or value.  Irrelevant science becomes bad science (BS) when scientists or journalists extrapolate irrelevant study findings to the real world and imply it has real world significance.   This is a recipe for misguiding public opinion and that in turn lays the groundwork for bad public policy.  Now let’s get back to PCBs and turtles.

The title of the study in question is “The effects of the organopollutant PCB 126 on bone density in juvenile diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin)”, see this link for the abstract.  In simple terms, the authors wanted to test the theory that organopollutants in the environment could compromise bone development in wildlife.  For their experiment, they exposed young turtles “to 3,3′,4,4′,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126), a ubiquitous anthropogenic organochlorine” (quote from the abstract) and then watched to see what happened.  So far so good? Right? Well actually no, this is not alright at all.

From the casual tone the authors used to describe PCB 126, you could get the impression it was just the first bottle of “ubiquitous anthropogenic organochlorine” they saw when the walked into their lab one Monday morning.  However, this description of PCB 126 is way off the mark.  PCB 126 is one of the 209 different chemicals (referred to as “congeners”) included in the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) chemical group, but it has two important distinctions that set it apart.  First, PCB 126 is one of the PCB congeners that does not occur as a significant component of the once widely used Aroclor PCB mixtures; it is what is known as a “non-Aroclor PCB”.  PCB 126 was never deliberately manufactured for any purpose other than for research studies.  It is unusual to find PCB 126 in environmental samples and when it is found, the concentrations are always very low.  PCB 126 is not ubiquitous.

So why did the authors decide to study PCB 126 if it was never deliberately manufactured and only rarely shows up in environmental samples?  I don’t know the answer to that question, but my guess is that their decision was driven by the second distinctive characteristic of PCB 126; it is by a wide margin the most toxic member of the PCB group.  So the authors exposed young turtles to the most toxic PCB congener and not surprisingly found it caused adverse developmental effects.  The problem is that this study lacks real world relevance because PCB 126 is virtually absent from the environment and its exceptional toxicity makes it an inappropriate representative of the other less toxic PCB congeners or organochlorine chemicals in general.

There is another interesting aspect to PCB 126 toxicology that makes its choice for this study curious.  PCB 126 is less toxic when it is in the company of other PCBs than it is when it is all by itself.  In other words, the very same dose of PCB 126 that would be toxic when administered alone becomes less toxic or even non-toxic when it is mixed in with other PCBs.   This is because the other PCBs compete for the same biological binding sites that PCB 126 uses, but they do not cause the same toxic effects.  This makes it harder for PCB 126 to exert its toxicity because the binding sites are already in use.  Remember that PCB 126 is never found alone in the environment, it is always in the company of other PCBs.  On the occasions that it has been found, it is less than 1% of the total PCBs present and usually less than 0.05%.  So while a study based on dosing turtles with 100% PCB 126 may be interesting from a theoretical wildlife toxicology standpoint, it has a low degree of relevance to what happens in the world we live in; to claim otherwise is wrong.

So there you have it; the anatomy of science intended to fan the flames of public fear about a group of chemicals that have not been manufactured in over 30 years.

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Mistaken Oil Deliveries – Are You at Risk?

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Laura Carr

Last year, the Farmers’ Almanac predicted that the winter would “exhibit a split personality, with harsh conditions for the eastern half of the U.S., and milder weather to the west.”  That prediction came true as the Northeast and Great Lakes regions were hammered with many heavy snowstorms.

I usually look forward to each new season.  In Autumn I enjoy putting my garden to bed.  I think of it as an opportunity to clean the slate and prepare for spring’s fresh start.  While I do the work, I daydream about the up-coming winter: the savory scents of home made soups, warm, crackling fires, and the distant sounds of my adult children making snow angels in the yard.   I have to admit I’m not feeling it this year.  The summer was not long and hot enough to erase my 2010 winter memories.

I made a promise to myself to be better prepared for the 2012 winter season.  For me that means plenty of Ice melt and snowblower parts on hand.   What’s on your winter to do list?  Perhaps you’re considering converting from oil heat to gas heat.  If you’re like me, you’ve done a lot of research and you know the conversion can cost between $2000 and $7000.

Last year, NewsCenter 5  compared the costs of heating a 2,500-square foot home with oil using current prices for the 6-month heating season.  If a homeowner used 800 gallons, it would cost about $2,800 for oil heat.  Using an average of 166 units of gas a month, at a cost of $255 per month natural gas would cost a total of $1,350 for the season.  Oil dealers pointed out other factors to consider; not every neighborhood has gas available and they claimed their fuel is a better choice over all because it burns hotter and is more efficient.

If you do make the switch from oil heat to gas heat make sure to remove the oil fill pipe on the outside of our home to avoid mistaken deliveries.  Don’t laugh, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it actually happens and the results are heart breaking.  Just ask Charlie Garnar of Bethpage, Long Island.  The mistaken delivery at his house dumped gallons of home heating oil onto his basement floor.  “From the cleanup, repair on the drywall, getting the smell out of the house – it’s gonna be thousands of dollars, “ said Garnar.

Believe it or not several errors need to occur for a mistaken delivery to take place; a delivery driver unfamiliar with the area, multiple poorly marked residences (snow could play in this part of the scenario), and a home with an oil fill pipe that’s not connected to an oil tank.  Mistakes will happen, but an oil fill pipe that is not connected to anything?  I wondered who was responsible for removing this during the conversion.

I contacted the National Grid who directed me to the conversion section of their website.  Although they are not responsible for the removal of the oil fill pipe they had an extensive list of oil tank removal experts who were able to answer my question.  Petroleum Management Services, Inc. in Reading, MA explained “The removal of the oil fill pipe is part of the tank removal process.”  They were all too familiar with the mistaken delivery scenario and pointed out that it happened in 1987 to Boston Celtics assistant coach Chris Ford at his Lynnfield, Massachusetts home.  According to reports, Ford’s oil fill pipe had been disconnected for approximately 12 years.

For the winter of 2012 the Farmers’ Almanac forecasts “clime and punishment, a season of unusually cold and stormy weather.”  For some parts of the country, that means frigid temperatures; while for others, it will mean lots of rain and snow.   I’m good with the “above-normal” temperatures expected in the eastern U.S.  Just to be on the safe side, I’m heading out to the hardware store to get prepared.  For those of you making the switch from oil heat to gas heat this season – remove that oil fill pipe.

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PCBs in School: EPA’s Safe Level 2.0

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Jim Okun

In my first post about the EPA Safe Level for PCBs in school air, I described how the health effects these safe levels protect against include: swollen red eyes, excessive discharge from the oil glands in the eyes, irregular growth of finger and toe nails, and depression of certain antibodies.  The safe levels were derived by taking one three-hundredth of the lowest PCB levels found to have any adverse effect on Rhesus monkeys, a species considered as biologically similar to people as you can get.  This information is all publicly available and taken directly from EPA’s toxicology data base, the Integrated Risk Information System.

So, what does it mean if the air concentration in a school is twice as high as the EPA safe level?  In simple terms it means the “margin of safety” or the “uncertainty factor” has been reduced from 300 times to 150 times.  Another example would be if the concentration in school air were 10 times as high as the EPA safe level; then the uncertainty factor would be reduced to 30 times.  How dangerous is it for people to be exposed to PCBs at a level that is one thirtieth of the lowest observed effect level in Rhesus monkeys?  Based on the data we have about people exposed to PCBs, these are levels well below the concentrations where any adverse health effects would be expected.

Another question you might ask is: “What about cancer? Do the EPA safe levels protect against risk of cancer?”  EPA does not address this question in its presentation of the safe school levels, but a closer look at the critical scientific study the safe levels are based on does shed some light on the question.  The Rhesus monkey study that EPA used was conducted by the Health Protection Branch of Health and Welfare Canada (to get the study you either need to go to a good science library or buy it from this link).    At the end of the seven year PCB feeding study, the remaining monkeys were sacrificed and autopsied to check if there were effects (such as tumors) that could not be observed by external examinations.  The scientists found that the livers of the high dose monkeys were enlarged, but an excess incidence of cancer (above the level that would normally be expected) was not found in the monkeys.  In other words, PCBs did not cause cancer in these monkeys even though they ingested toxic doses of PCBs everyday for seven years.

The finding that there was no increase in cancer incidence is consistent with other studies that have been conducted on primates dosed with PCBs.  It is also consistent with the retrospective epidemiological studies that have been conducted where people had been exposed to PCBs in occupational settings.  PCBs have not been found to cause cancer in humans or other primates.

Based on the available scientific studies, EPA’s PCB safe levels for schools appear to be very conservative, that is they err decidedly on the side of protecting public health from adverse health effects with a very generous margin of safety.  However, achieving these safe levels in the real world can be a challenging proposition as several school systems have learned the hard (and expensive) way.  It appears that no health benefit would be lost if the EPA’s safe levels were set 10 times higher than they are today.  Higher standards might spare school budgets from unnecessary stress in difficult economic times.

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Vapor Intrusion: The Roach Motel of Environmental Regulations

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Jim Okun

At last month’s University of Massachusetts Soils Conference, I attended an early afternoon  panel discussion on vapor intrusion (VI). While this might normally be a sleepy time of day, the conversational banter among the panelists kept the audience awake and alert.  On the panel were state regulators from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Utah.  All the panelists had significant VI experience.

One theme I kept hearing was that once a site had a VI problem, it was going to be stuck with that problem for the foreseeable future; a site can check in to the Vapor Intrusion category, but it can never check out.  This clearly seems to be the regulatory philosophy in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and increasingly Massachusetts.  The Utah representative seemed more creative in trying to assist the regulated community in finding solutions, but their experience was mostly with petroleum sites.  The Connecticut, New Jersey and New York regulators seemed least interested in whether their vapor intrusion standards might actually be workable in the real world.

My overall impression is that the VI discussion of today has a lot in common with the “how clean is clean?” conversation of 25 years ago.  Back then regulators were fearful of signing-off on environmental cleanups because there was so little track record or precedence to rely upon.   This reluctance was eventually overcome in most states as experience with remediation grew.  The new wrinkle is that state and federal regulators are discovering that the simple models used to analyze VI are not always reliable.  This has led to a renewed hesitation to accept closure decisions for VI sites that are not based on a very conservative analysis using an abundance of expensive, hard to acquire data.

In Massachusetts, where I do most of my work, the Department of Environmental Protection has been developing new VI guidance for the past 2+ years.  The process has been slow because of MassDEP’s admirable preference for developing a public/private consensus before pushing ahead with new regulatory initiatives.  In this case consensus has been hard to come by because the regulator’s need for certainty about public safety has collided with the private sector’s need for certainty about regulatory outcome.

As with most other state programs, the Massachusetts cleanup law’s success has piggy-backed on the redevelopment of previously used contaminated land.  As long as the incentive of predictable profit after cleanup costs is present, developers don’t mind being DEP’s handmaiden by doing the cleanup work.   Any sophisticated party that provides funding to developers requires that environmental due diligence be undertaken to identify contamination at the front end of the process.  This is followed by further assessment and cleanup (where needed).  The final step is some form of closure documentation or certification that gives a new owner, lenders and other investors reasonable confidence that investment-eroding environmental liabilities have been satisfactorily addressed.

The problem with VI sites is that they break the virtuous cycle that drives site cleanups by reducing the probability that profit will remain after cleanup costs are paid.  Without the likelihood that redevelopment will be profitable, developers will shy away from VI sites, as will lenders and other investors.  Without developers to drive the process and investors/lenders to pay for it, VI sites are more likely to sit idle.  This is a message that needs to be communicated more clearly to state regulators like the ones I listened to at the UMass conference.

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