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August
6, 2004
Greenland's glaciers
provide glimpse into past
An International Partnerships
in Ice Core Sciences project is set to start in Greenland during 2007 to 2008,
the International Polar Year.
Greenland's last glacial
drilling project yielded information about the earth's climate 125,000 years
ago. Researchers now hope to find ice cores dating back at least 135,000 years.
Glacial ice-cores function
as a deep frozen record of the earth's climate because air bubbles trapped in
the ice show what gases were present in the atmosphere.
August
6, 2004
Arctic islands to
host "Noah's Ark" of genes
The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization and the Nordic Genebank are establishing an international
gene bank in a closed down coal mine on Norway's Svalbard Islands.
This cold-storage site
is intended to serve as a kind of genetic "Noah's Ark" in the event
of a nuclear disaster.
More than 6,000 samples
of seeds from grains, grass, vegetables and other agricultural plants from the
Nordic countries are already stored in the mine.
August
6, 2004
One helluva halibut
A Danish fisherman last
week landed a 190-kilogram (419 lb) halibut, the largest ever caught using a
rod. The fish, caught off the coast of northern Norway, took an hour and a half
to reel in and three men to get it into the boat, the Norwegian newspaper Nordlys
reported.
"I thought something
was wrong with the scales when it stopped at 190 kilos," said Thomas Buge
Nilsen who hooked the massive fish.
The halibut, which had
to be moved by forklift, was 2.38 meters (7'9") long, 1.26 meters (4'1")
wide and 35 centimeters (13.7 inches) thick.
Nilsen used pollock as
bait and bottom fished, at a depth of about 40 meters.
Royal Greenland angered
over change in energy policy
Greenland's seafood processing
giant, Royal Greenland, is threatening to shut down several shrimp plants if
the country's uniform pricing system for power ends.
The Home Rule Government
wants to look at ending its longstanding policy that sees remote communities
paying the same price for electricity, water and heating as consumers in Nuuk.
"As we see it, this
proposal represents, in effect, an extra tax of DKK 25-30 million (about $5
million) on the fishing industry," Royal Greenland's director Henrik Leth
told Greenland's KNR radio news.
The company's projected
cost increase is far greater than the government's estimate of about $1 million.
Leth told KNR that Royal
Greenland's competitors in Canada, Iceland and Norway all have access to cheap
water and electricity.
August
6, 2004
Cancer and bureaucracy
plague Alaskan workers
When construction workers
who prepared nuclear test sites on Alaska's Amchitka Island in the 1960s and
early 70s first discovered they shared high rates of cancer, U.S. federal authorities
insisted there was no radiation and therefore no link between the cancer and
their illness.
Amchitka is a narrow, 50-kilometer
island at the end of the Aleutian chain of islands between Alaska and Russia.
It was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1974, and Amchitka
workers started dying of cancer within a few years.
About 1,500 people who
worked on the island from 1965 to 1974 have been identified; almost 500 of them
have already died.
Doctors now say one of
three Amchitka workers will develop bladder, colon or one of 20 other radiation-caused
cancers, and in 2000 the U.S. Congress approved a compensation package.
But, according to a recent
article in the Anchorage Daily News, many construction veterans say they're
still fighting for compensation.
Those who have contracted
any of 22 specific cancers or silicosis automatically qualify for $150,000 in
compensation, plus medical benefits that could prove invaluable as the workers
age, such as assisted living costs. To date, nearly $25 million has been paid
to Amchitka workers or their survivors.
Workers with other illnesses,
such as skin or prostate cancer, can apply for compensation also, but must go
through a process that many Amchitka workers or survivors say is frustrating.
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